Misery Loves Company

by Rene Gutteridge

  “Are you going to harm me?”

  “Why would you ask such a thing?”

  Jules glared. Why would I ask such a thing? I don’t know—I’m locked away in a room, with words scrawled across the ceiling—

  “Did you intend to harm me?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “When you wrote those words? Those are your words on the ceiling.”

  She sighed and stared at the steam rising from her bowl. “So this is what it’s all about. I hurt your feelings.” She looked up to gauge his reaction. He seemed calm enough, but there was something raging in those eyes.

  “I’m only doing what you asked,” he said. “You asked me to terrify you, so here we are. Boo.”

  A lump formed in her throat and she picked up her spoon. “I’m hungry. If you don’t mind, I’d like to bless the food and eat.”

  “Do what you must.” He picked up his own spoon and began to eat.

  Jules closed her eyes, too scared to really pray, but it was a habit that Jason had introduced her to when they met, and she couldn’t recall a single meal she’d eaten since that was not blessed in this way.

  Help me, Jason.

  She opened her eyes to find Patrick watching her from across the table. Jules took a bite of the stew—delicious. She gobbled down more. The bread was soft on the inside, chewy on the outside. She tried to focus on it for a little while.

  “So your complaint,” he said between bites, “is that I didn’t scare you enough in the book.”

  Jules looked up, trying to decide if he really wanted an answer. As she engaged his eyes, it seemed to her he was a man acquainted with deep sorrow.

  She stirred her spoon around in her bowl. “How did I get here?”

  “A question for a question.”

  “My husband asked a lot of questions, and he was good at his job, so I guess it rubbed off on me.” She tried to think about the last thing she remembered. “I was at the store, buying things to make dinner, and as I walked to the parking lot . . .” That’s where things got fuzzy for her. Had she bumped into him there? She remembered a conversation but couldn’t pull any of the details.

  “Not just any dinner.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You weren’t buying groceries for just any dinner, were you?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “As you look out of that little window every day, do you wonder where all your words go?”

  “I didn’t say anything about Jason or our . . .” Her words trailed off as she tried to hold back tears.

  He gestured toward her bowl with his spoon. “Eat up.”

  She did, silently, for the rest of the meal. She hated how much he thought he knew about her from her blog or whatever else he was reading. He wasn’t on her Facebook page. She would’ve remembered friending Patrick Reagan.

  “Do you feel a lot of guilt?” he asked suddenly, as he finished his own bowl.

  “About what?”

  “About Jason’s death remaining unavenged.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “They never caught the men who shot him, did they?” He wiped his mouth. “It was in the newspapers for a while. Then it went away. Everyone sort of forgot, didn’t they? Life goes on all around you, but you can’t seem to go on.”

  “You don’t know anything about me.” She threw her napkin on the table and scooted her chair back.

  “I know more than you think.”

  “Good for you.” Tears dripped down her face. “So if you’ve set out to freak me out of my everlasting mind, you . . . well, congratulations.” His face filled with an expression that seemed to indicate not surprise at her tirade, but something else. “What do you want from me?”

  “You’ve got it all wrong, Juliet. It’s what you want from me.” His voice would have been soothing and calming in any other circumstance.

  “What I want is home. To go there. Now.”

  He nodded. “Of course you do. That’s where you believe your life is. Don’t you think I understand that?”

  She noticed the fingers of his right hand twisting the wedding band he wore. His wife had died three years ago, according to the papers.

  “You don’t think people will be looking for me?”

  “People? Who would that be? With whom do you still associate?”

  “My father.” She sniffled away the rest of her emotion. “He will look for me.”

  “Is he the one who drinks so heavily?” He paused, smiled mildly. “I’m good at reading between the lines.”

  Jules sighed a loud exasperation. “So you have me. Now what are you going to do with me?”

  “That is the trouble with this younger generation. No patience.”

  “No. The trouble here is that you’ve kidnapped me. Against my will.”

  “This is what you want. Trust me.”

  “Did you read that between the lines too? Somewhere in the middle of my post about the history of our lighthouses?”

  He regarded her a moment, then stood and carried his bowl to the sink. Normally she would do the same, even as a guest, but she refused and let her bowl just sit there. He rinsed his and washed it thoroughly by hand. As he dried it, he turned to face her. “You can’t be that ignorant, to believe that there are not layers to what you write, what we all write. I remember you wrote on your blog about all the meanings one single scene had for you in . . . Die Gently, I believe.”

  Jules threw her hands up. “Awesome. Maybe later we can gather the two of us and have a book club.”

  “You’re not as well-spoken as I’d imagined.”

  Now more angry than scared, she glared at him. “The fact that you’ve been imagining me at all is creepy.”

  Suddenly he looked wounded. Or confused. Something flickered across his face but she couldn’t capture it fast enough. “I see.”

  She bit her lip. If she was going to get out of here, she needed to think—and speak—more wisely.

  “Sorry,” she offered. “I guess I’m just kind of wound up at the sheer . . . weirdness of it all. I mean, not everyone can say they’ve been kidnapped by their favorite author.”

  “You don’t have to placate me.”

  “I’m not. I’ve read everything you’ve ever written, even your short stories from your early years. I wait all year long for your next book. You’re a terrific writer. One of the best. But you already know how I feel.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I just don’t know what I’m doing here.” Tears stung her eyes again. As normal as she wanted to sound, none of this was normal.

  He blinked slowly, as if he were sleepy or bored or following distant thoughts.

  “Why don’t you pick a book.” He pointed to his collection.

  Jules gazed at the walls. There had to be thousands of books there.

  She didn’t really feel like picking a book, but his mood had shifted and she was starting to feel less bold and more scared again. She pretended to gaze at the selection, though her mind was reeling about how she might alert someone she was here. She had yet to see a phone or a computer. Just a TV.

  She scanned the shelf in front of her. A lot of classics: Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Faulkner, Hemingway. The list went on. She pulled If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino from the shelf.

  Patrick smirked as he noticed and gave her a small “how clever” smile. He then busied himself with cleaning her bowl and didn’t seem to care or notice much more. With his back still turned, he finally said, “Off to your room.”

  “I don’t really want to stay in there. It’s cold and . . . and I’m alone.”

  He set the bowl down and turned to her. “You are right that you are alone.” He paused. “I have never brought a visitor here, so respect the privilege.”

  Clutching the book, Jules walked back to her room and closed the door. After a few moments, she heard the door lock.

  Crawling onto the bed, she pulled the quilt that was neatly folded at
the end over her legs. She curled up into a ball and cried. Then she prayed to Jason, that he would hear her and rescue her like he had so many years before.

  Outside her room, she heard the canned, carnivalish laughter of another sitcom.

  CHRIS STOOD ON THE PORCH, hands deep in his pockets, hoping that 9:30 p.m. was not too late. By the long pause that followed his ringing of the doorbell, it seemed it might be. He’d been to the captain’s house only one other time, for a Christmas party right before Jason died.

  Finally a shadow moved across the small window to the left of the door. Then he heard locks being unlocked.

  The door opened and Captain Perry stood in sweats and a Boston Red Sox T-shirt. “Downey?”

  “Sir, I wanted to see if I could talk with you for a little bit.”

  The captain widened the door and stepped aside. “I’m glad you’re here, actually. I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

  That didn’t sound good, but Chris walked in, following the captain into a small sitting room, with a floral decor that looked like the wife had been 100 percent involved. The captain turned on a couple of lamps, and they took seats opposite one another.

  The captain had aged pretty drastically over the past couple of years, ever since Jason’s death. His hair was almost completely white and deep wrinkles were etching their way into both cheeks.

  “Sir, I’ve been investigating Juliet Belleno’s disappearance.” Chris waited, watching for the captain’s reaction to his insubordination.

  The captain sighed and rubbed his forehead with a thumb and forefinger, like he was trying to pull the wrinkles off. “I know.”

  “You do?” Chris cleared his throat. “It’s just that . . . it’s Jason.”

  “I know,” the captain said again, his expression softening. “The Lt. Colonel giving you fits?”

  “Yeah, a little,” Chris said. “But he’s doing okay. Very worried, as you can imagine.”

  “So what have you turned up?”

  “Well, there’s no sign of forced entry, and everything seems to be in place. I probably would’ve left it at that, except . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “This is going to sound crazy. But I talked to this kid at the grocery store, and he said he was certain Jules had been in on Tuesday morning. He distinctly remembered it because he said that Patrick Reagan was also in that morning.”

  “Patrick Reagan was at the grocery store?”

  “Yes. And the kid said it was significant because Reagan doesn’t stay here in the winter. He apparently has some mountain cabin he goes to.”

  “That’s the rumor. But he’s sure he saw Patrick Reagan?”

  “He was more than sure. I guess he’s a fan. So here’s the weird part. I was going over Jules’s last blog to see if there were any clues about what’s going on. Her last post was a review of Reagan’s latest book, and it wasn’t flattering. I know it’s so far-fetched, but I can’t help wondering if it was a coincidence that Reagan was at the grocery store at the same time as Jules.”

  “How would he know that? You think he followed her?”

  “Maybe. She inadvertently gives a lot of clues to her whereabouts on Facebook, as most people do. But he doesn’t seem to be a friend on her page. I don’t know,” Chris said, running his fingers over the top of his head. “I know this sounds implausible and all that. But I don’t feel like I can just look the other way, let it work itself out. She’s Jason’s wife, you know?”

  “You keep reminding me of that, but that’s no good reason for going behind my back, Downey.” The captain seemed deep in thought. “I know you want to do all you can to help her.”

  Chris stared at the carpet. “That’s the thing. I haven’t, really. I told Jason before he died that I’d take care of her if anything happened, but Jules didn’t want to be around anybody and I didn’t push back. I just let her be.”

  “You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.” Captain Perry leaned back and stared at Chris for a moment. “How are you doing with Jason’s death?”

  Chris shrugged. “You just go on.”

  “I really wish we’d gotten those guys. I wish with everything in me, you know?” The captain traced the armrest of the couch with a thumb. “You’re sleeping okay at night, all of that?”

  “All of that,” Chris said plaintively. After Jason died, he’d been given a piece of paper with a list of things to watch out for, symptoms that he might be sliding into depression. He’d tossed it before he even left the police station. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

  Yeah, he’d had sleepless nights. So what. Shouldn’t he? How could he rest peacefully knowing the guys who murdered his partner were still roaming around out there?

  “Anyway,” Chris said, “I think the Reagan angle is worth checking out. I’d like to get a search warrant and take a look around his home here.”

  “That’s going to get dicey.”

  “I know.”

  “Rumor is, nobody can get ahold of Reagan during his ‘writing season.’”

  “I get it. Probable cause is going to be a factor.”

  The captain looked irritated but focused. He stared hard at Chris. “He was your partner, so I suspect you’re not going to be able to let this go.”

  “No, sir. It seems it’s the least I can do.”

  The captain sighed. “The DA owes me a favor or ten. I’ll see what I can do about getting us a search warrant. It’s going to be a complicated mess. We may move more slowly than you’d like. But I’ll officially open an investigation.”

  “I’ll take what I can get.”

  “Do you think you can keep the Lt. Colonel in line?”

  “If I can show him we’re making some progress, I guess I can.”

  “That guy gets on my nerves. He’s radical and crazy in the head, you know?”

  “If we can show him Jules is okay, I think he’ll be grateful, maybe give us less of a hard time.”

  “We can only hope.”

  Chris smiled and stood to shake the captain’s hand. “Sir, thanks for the time. Sorry to disturb you at this late hour.”

  “No problem. Get some rest, okay?”

  They walked to the door.

  “You know,” the captain said, “I met Patrick Reagan a couple of years ago.”

  “I remember he came to the station a lot for a while, but I was on shift mostly, didn’t run into him.”

  “Yeah. The governor called the DA asking for this special favor. Reagan was researching a book, wanted access to the police department and all that. Interviews. Wanted to look through random evidence and files, just for a feel of how it all worked.”

  “How was he?”

  “Didn’t really see him much. He came in at weird hours, didn’t converse, except I remember he wanted to interview one of the detectives, Walker. Walker agreed. That was about it. He was around for maybe two weeks, then disappeared, except to send like five hundred cookies from France to the department as a thank-you. I hear he’s a brilliant guy, but the man is quirky to say the least.” The captain yawned. “Old men like me have to get to bed early. You take care of yourself, Chris. I’ll keep you updated on the progress we’re making on the search warrant.”

  Chris stepped out into the cold, feeling a little more assured that at least the captain believed there was something to look into. And it was nice not to sneak around anymore. He was afraid his theory that Reagan might be involved was going to get him laughed out of the state. It felt as kooky as it sounded coming off his tongue.

  He took out his phone and called the Lt. Colonel. Calling him at night seemed like the best time. He’d most likely be passed out and Chris could just leave him a message. He didn’t want to give him too much information, especially about Reagan. The last thing he needed was the Lt. Colonel hounding their most famous resident.

  He left a short message about the opening of an official investigation and tried to leave out as much detail as possible.

  Then he drove twelv
e miles to the cemetery where they’d buried Jason. It was over a hundred years old, with tall pines clustered on the five acres. Jason was buried in the northeast corner with the rest of his family, including great-grandparents. With no siblings and his parents dead, Jason had been the last living member of his immediate family.

  Chris shrugged under his heavy leather jacket, trying to stay warm. A brisk wind snapped and jumped through the trees and over the hills, lifting his hair and stinging his skin. Winter had arrived far too early this year.

  Above, the stars twinkled brightly away from the town’s lights, and a gentle light glowed down onto the grave site. Chris walked the unpaved path to the far side of the cemetery and easily found Jason’s headstone, shorter and squarer than the rest.

  He knelt beside it, reading the inscriptions about Jason: a loving husband, loyal friend, faithful officer. The grass was withering against the early cold, but it was thick and had grown in well.

  From his back pocket, Chris pulled a bent and worn picture out of his wallet. It was of Jules and Jason, their engagement photo. Chris had given him a hard time when he was handing them out, teasing that he’d been domesticated in the worst sort of way . . . downsized to a wallet picture.

  Jason took it all in stride. He laughed so much at himself that it was hard to give him a good ribbing because it seemed nothing really insulted him.

  Chris had taken the picture, vowing to do something with it, like a practical joke. But it ended up staying in his wallet, the only picture he carried there.

  He held it up a little to get a good look at it in the dim light. They were so happy; their eyes had an extra, magical sparkle to them. But as far as Chris was concerned, Jules always had that look. The first time Jason brought her to O’Malley’s to meet the guys, Chris had found himself unable to stop staring at her. She was naturally beautiful and Chris wasn’t sure she was wearing any makeup. And her smile was wide but gentle, like she knew everything about you instantly and still liked you.

  She was quiet most of the time but had begun coming out of her shell the more comfortable she became with Jason’s friends, and Chris found she actually had a pretty good sense of humor when she wasn’t too shy to use it.