The Real

by James Cole

  By the time he arrived at the lakeside, Jeremy had managed to work off at least a measure of his frustration. For a good long while he sat in the grass staring at the expanse of Sticks River Lake. When he could no longer bear thinking about June and Lieutenant Sykes, he turned his thoughts to other things. He thought about the significance of this place to him, of Monika and of the hippie queen. Jeremy remembered the three-pronged tree that marked the entrance to the lane that presumably led to Claire’s grave. A trip to see Claire’s final resting place might be the perfect reprieve, but he would have to hurry if he wanted to make it to the cemetery before dark.

  *****

  It had rained a good bit as of late. Jeremy rode slowly, trying to keep from sliding over in the muddy sections. The Hayabusa was not made for off-road riding, but at least he could pick and choose his line through the ruts and mud. With the conditions as they were, only a four-wheel-drive vehicle could have navigated through this mess. Had he brought his car, he would not have gotten far.

  After a solid hour of slow-going, Jeremy finally arrived at the remnants of a sign and a gate. Kudzu vines had spun their way up the sign, mostly obscuring its declaration. Knowing what he thought it was supposed to say made it easier to discern the phrase amidst the vines, Eternal Springs Church. The gate was closed. A narrow, but well-beaten path wound around the gate and up a substantial hill. It was getting late and the light was failing. He would have to hurry to beat nightfall.

  After retrieving his digital camera from one of the small saddle bags that hung from either side of his motorcycle, Jeremy legged his way up the steep path. There was absolutely nothing to indicate that it led anywhere. There was no evidence of a church or a cemetery, only deep woods getting deeper, and it had become noticeably darker. If there were people buried way out here, it was a hell of a place to wind up.

  For a moment Jeremy considered where his body’s final destination might be. He looked down at his legs as they lumbered autonomously toward this evening’s goal, as unrelenting and unstoppable as his own eventual date with death. It was weird, thinking of the time when his soul could no longer lay claim to this body.

  Just when Jeremy thought that the sign was nothing but a ruse, he came to something. If he had not been looking for it, he might have missed the crumbling structure wedged into the biomass. Large trees towered above while thick underbrush snuggled up tight to the peeled-paint walls. The church was fast going the way of the rest of the settlement, dust to dust. Jeremy followed the skinny dirt path that snaked around the back of the church. It led to the base of a knobby hill and split the difference between the two sides of a break in a wrought iron fence. The gate that had once filled that void was long gone. As he topped the hill, he was blinded by the almost horizontal beams of the setting sun. Jeremy shaded his eyes as if saluting.

  The cemetery was utterly deserted, devoid of any living souls, save Jeremy. It was situated on a high point in the landscape although most of the long views were blocked by the scattered cedar trees on the hilltop. Sheets of Spanish moss hung like heavy beards from every limb. So prolific was the moss that tufts and clumps had spilled from the trees and draped itself over the ground, the fence, and every other available surface. Even the tombstones wore coats of the gray-black material.

  Many of the tombstones were broken or lying prone like disjointed segments of a sidewalk. The engravings were reminiscent of kids’ scribbles – names and dates, scratched in the soft palate of freshly poured concrete. Seeing the dilapidated condition of the grounds and the markers pained Jeremy. Was no one left who cared for those buried here? Were their lives so meaningless? These had once been living, breathing people, unique persons who presumably loved and were loved. Were they now nothing?

  Jeremy followed the dirt path to its conclusion and found what he came for: The final resting place of the fabled hippie queen. The headstone read:

  Claire Wales

  1947 - 1969

  Unlike the rather ordinary headstone, the sculpture beside the grave was breathtaking. The monument consisted of two sculpted figures – an angelic creature and a woman of exquisite beauty posed together in a lover’s embrace. Spanish moss wrapped the angel’s shoulders like a tattered shawl. According to local lore, the sculpture appeared mysteriously sometime during the year after Claire was buried, and no one seemed to know how it came to be placed here. How unbefitting it seemed for such an elegant and finely crafted work as this to have been placed here, in the middle of nowhere.

  A multitude of candles decorated the grave site. Many were burned to nubs while others appeared brand new. One was held by an empty whiskey bottle caked with frozen streams of multicolored wax. Others appeared as if they had sprouted of their own accord from the black, humus-rich soil. Tossed coins littered the ground. Layer upon layer of graffiti had been indiscriminately penned, painted, or scratched on the headstone. Most prominent were the words Hippie Queen, which had been painted in white on the headstone. In stark contrast, the sculpture remained pristine, as if invulnerable to any such disfigurement.

  If the rumors were true, who cared enough to go to the trouble and expense to place such a sculpture, yet had declined to step up and accept Claire’s unclaimed body? The monument was not inexpensive and getting it here had been no meager task.

  It did not take long for the sun to fall away, and although Jeremy had his digital camera, he had failed to bring a flashlight. It would be completely dark soon, especially once he got back to the tree-covered trail. Before he left, he captured several images of the gravesite, including the sculpture. Halfway between the church ruins and the missing gate to the graveyard, Jeremy snapped what he thought might be the best photo of the batch, an all-encompassing shot of the cemetery, backlit by the soft, failing light of sunset.

  Jeremy could see, but just barely, as he hustled back down the hill, all the while trying to ignore the anonymous rustles in the woods.

  Guided only by the bouncing beam of his headlight and the single tire track laid down on the way in, the ride out of the woods was more treacherous than the ride in had been. In one particularly slippery section, the rear end of the Hayabusa got away from Jeremy and he and the made-for-pavement bike plopped down in the muck. Though not hurt, he suffered through a few minutes of suspense as he could not immediately get the motor cranked.

  When the engine revived, Jeremy still had to get the heavy bike out of the mire. He walked alongside, riding the clutch and doing the best he could to keep the bike upright. With every step forward, the mud threatened to pull the tennis shoes from his feet with a sucking sound like that from a toilet plunger at work. The spinning rear wheel sent clumps of mud skyward while gravity brought them back to earth with an ongoing series of sodden plops. By the time Jeremy emerged onto drier ground, he and the motorcycle were covered, head to toe and front wheel to back in the sticky red goo. With some sense of relief, he remounted and continued his slow progress out of the woods, but he did not relax fully until he finally arrived, the better part of an hour later, back at the blacktop.

  *****

  Jeremy stopped at the antiquated self-serve car wash located at the intersection of Sticks River Road and the edge of town. The high-pressure sprayer removed the greater part of the caked-on mud, but it would take a good deal more tender loving care to restore the shine to his motorcycle.

  Back at home, after his own fairly high-pressure shower, Jeremy called Jinni at work and gave her the one-minute version of the interrogation he had endured earlier in the day. She insisted on coming by after her shift.

  While he waited for Jinni to arrive, Jeremy conducted an Internet search and was surprised to discover a photo of a sculpture on display in the Louvre that was identical to the one at Claire’s gravesite. Jeremy learned that the sculpture, carved by Antonio Canova in the late sixteenth century, depicted a scene from a particular classical myth. In the story, Eros, the winged being, becomes infatuated with the beautiful human, Psyche, but is forbidden from acting on his
passion. Eros disobeys, and in an attempt to keep his forays to visit Psyche a secret, he comes to her only in the darkness and dead of night.

  Before Jeremy could learn how the story ended, he was roused by an obnoxious but familiar squealing sound. The door to Jeremy’s condo fit too tightly within its frame and protested loudly each time it was opened or shut. Jinni must have used her key to get in. He jumped up and turned the corner to the hallway just in time to collide with a big hug. In Jinni’s hair he caught a whiff of that distinctive hospital smell, a combination of odors derived from disinfectant, rubbing alcohol, and sick people.

  “Are you alright?” she asked.

  Jeremy returned a half-hearted smile and asked in jest, “Will you come and see me after they put me in jail?”

  They walked into the living room and sat together on the couch.

  “You feel like talking about it?” she asked.

  “About what?” he quipped.

  “Don’t be obstinate,” she replied. “I want to know what the police said.”

  Jeremy filled in the details of the unexpected meeting he had with Lieutenant Sykes.

  “So you see,” he said, “whoever killed June had access to my lab. That puts me on a very short list of suspects.”

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Short of figuring out myself who did it and informing the police, I don’t know.”

  In the ensuing quiet, Jeremy became aware of the music leaking from his stereo speakers. “Do you recognize this song?” he asked.

  Jinni cocked her ear and said, “Wait, don’t tell me…it’s that band we heard on Halloween, right? With Tavalin?”

  “That’s right – Singe,” he replied. “Good guess.”

  “It wasn’t a guess,” she contended. “They have a very distinctive sound.”

  What Jinni did not know was that, whenever he heard this song, it triggered a recollection of a very specific time and place and experience, that of his first night out with Monika. She was riding shotgun in his car, just over the threshold of the break in the road when this song and the Unreal kicked in. The music meant far more to him than Jinni could possibly fathom.

  “How do you like this song?” he asked deviously.

  He thought of the chance meeting with Monika in the Square and the words she chose to describe that night and how her eyes sparkled when she asked, “Don’t you remember the majesty?”

  As he listened to the song he loved, Jeremy wondered if he dared dream of experiencing the majesty again. In a strange way, the music of Singe had become tightly entwined with Monika and the Unreal. Monika, Singe, and the Unreal – any one by itself might have been resistible. As a trinity, they were an awesome force to be reckoned with. Yet, for all its significance to him, the music had absolutely no effect on Jinni.

  “It’s okay I guess,” replied Jinni dispassionately. “I really don’t understand why you like it so much.”

  It annoyed Jeremy that Jinni did not understand, and it frustrated him that he could not explain his obsession with the music. He also would not be relaying the comeback line that popped into his mind:

  Monika understands.

  “How about Dr. Sloan or Dr. Cain?” asked Jinni, oblivious to his hidden thoughts. “Can you think of any possible motive either of them might have?”

  Jeremy hesitated before answering. If he planned on telling Jinni about the undercover research and how Dr. Cain confronted June over it the night of the murder, now was the time.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “Jinni, there is something I need to tell you about June and me – what we were doing all those nights…”

  Jinni’s eyes narrowed in a suspicious gesture.

  Before Jinni could jump to any unfounded conclusions, he explained: “June and I were using Dr. Cain’s materials and equipment for an unauthorized research project I dreamed up. That’s why I was spending so much time with June. It’s just as I said all along, we were working, just not always on our official project.”

  “What exactly were you working on?” asked Jinni skeptically.

  “We were trying to figure out the reasons behind my sudden increased endurance.”

  Jeremy told Jinni the whole story, how he had recruited June and how they had discovered the anomalies in Jeremy’s energy output and, finally, how Dr. Cain confronted June on the night she was killed.

  “Does Dr. Cain know of your involvement in the undercover project?” asked Jinni.

  “I don’t know. According to June, my name never came up. Apparently, he didn’t give details as to what he knew; he only said he knew something and that they should discuss it later.”

  “If he does know that you were in cahoots with June, don’t you think it would be better for you to volunteer that information to the police rather than waiting for them to hear it from Dr. Cain?”

  “I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” replied Jeremy. “It seems to me that, if Dr. Cain knew of my involvement, he would have already told the cops. I might as well keep quiet now and hope the subject never comes up.”

  “If Dr. Cain somehow did know all about the project, would that be motive enough to kill June?”

  “I just don’t know,” replied Jeremy.

  “What about Dr. Sloan?” she asked. “Any reason to suspect him?”

  “No, no reason other than the fact that he’s a little weasel,” replied Jeremy. “I did notice that Dr. Cain seemed to be waiting on him to leave that night in the back parking lot of the Facility. That was a little strange, I thought.”

  “What can I do to help?” asked Jinni.

  “Just keep on doing what you’ve been doing,” he replied. “Keep on believing in me and I’ll be fine.”

  “I just wish you weren’t involved.”

  Jeremy dredged up an old saying his mom recited whenever the going got tough: “This too will pass,” he said. “The truth will come out in the end.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  After Jinni left, Jeremy donned his headphones and cued up the music of Singe on his portable music player. Even though it was still early, he crawled into bed. It had been a long day and he needed to digest all that had happened. As he lay on his back, safely tucked under the covers, he tried to review the interrogation in his mind. He needed to come up with a rebuttal to the accusations of Lieutenant Sykes. Jeremy realized he had done a poor job defending himself this afternoon, so shocked was he to learn that he was a suspect. He worried that he might never be able to convince that bull-headed man of his innocence.

  However, as he lost himself in the music, his mind drifted from that chore. Instead, Jeremy thought of his excursion to the cemetery and pondered the enigma of the sculpture placed over Claire’s grave. And, as the song sequence of the Singe album built from one to the next, Jeremy could no longer thwart his thoughts from turning to that night – the night of his life – at the break in the road. A stubborn notion insisted that there was something familiar about the re-occurring melody that permeated the Singe album, but for the life of him, he could not put his finger on it.

  Chapter 30

  Tuesday, December 2

  About nine p.m. the following night Jeremy strolled casually down the fifth-floor hallway of the Facility. His reasons for being there, however, were anything but casual.

  June kept a separate notebook containing all the metabolism results and notes gleaned from their undercover research project. Whenever possible, Jeremy stored the notebook in the relative safety of the desk drawer in his lab, dropping off the notebook on his way out. On those nights that June worked alone or was the last to leave – as she had on the night she died – she usually stowed the notebook in the back of her bottom desk drawer.

  Jeremy could think of at least two reasons why he needed to get his hands on that notebook. First of all, he hoped to avoid having to defend himself, either to the police or to Dr. Cain, on the subject of their secret research. Secondly, not only did he – and June – conduct the
research, he also happened to be the subject of the work. Certainly if anyone could lay claim to the notebook, it was he.

  Over the past couple of days Jeremy had made several passes by June’s lab, waiting for an opportunity to access her desk. On those prior occasions, the door to the lab was either closed or there was simply too much ongoing activity to risk going inside. Tonight, the door was wide open and the hallways quiet.

  Jeremy stuck his head in to find no one immediately visible in the lab, though whoever left the door open must be somewhere nearby. This was, however, as good an opportunity as he would get. Moving quickly, he slipped into the lab and sat on the lip of June’s chair. He bent over and dug around in the deep drawer the best he could, considering the stuffed condition of the space.

  Where is it?

  Like a gopher from a hole, Jeremy raised his head and looked about. Despite his swelling apprehension, the coast remained clear. He ducked back down and began pulling materials from the drawer onto the floor.

  It took a solid minute to confirm that the notebook was not there.

  He began to hurriedly pile the papers and other paraphernalia back into the space but was interrupted by the gruff sound of someone clearing his throat. That someone wore a pair of men’s black dress shoes and was standing right behind him. Jeremy slowly lifted his gaze past the slack cuffs to the imposing figure in the white lab coat. Jeremy did the best he could to hide the guilt he felt as he made eye contact with the last person on earth he wanted to run into.

  “Is there something I can help you with?” Dr. Cain asked accusingly.

  “Hello, Dr. Cain. I was just looking for the watch I misplaced – I thought maybe I left it when I was working up here with June.” It was a feeble excuse.