The Real

by James Cole

  Now that Tavalin had sniffed out Jeremy’s reluctance to reveal it, Jeremy had no choice but hand it over to his overly curious friend.

  Tavalin flipped it over and over in his hand. When he looked up, he asked, “Can I have it?”

  Jeremy, perplexed at the request, asked, “Why would you want it?”

  “I’ve been thinking about getting an ear pierced. If I do, I’ll need some earrings.”

  “I don’t think so.” Jeremy tried to snatch it from Tavalin’s hand but missed. He did, however, manage to grab hold of Tavalin’s pinky finger, which he sadistically bent backward. “Give it back,” insisted Jeremy.

  “Ouch, ouch, ouch!” Tavalin tried to resist but the pain won out. The earring tinkled when it hit the concrete floor.

  “Thanks,” Jeremy chortled victoriously as he scooped it up. “When you get your ear pierced, maybe then I’ll let you have it.”

  Jeremy couldn’t think exactly what all the implications might be but something told him that this finding was of extreme significance. How did it get into the sink drain in the cold room? The door to the cold room could only be opened using the key. If he was correct in his belief that June was wearing the earrings that afternoon in Grover’s Field, then she must have been in the cold room at some point between that afternoon and the time that her body was dropped into the dumpster later that night.

  Jeremy recalled the day that Grady had been working and asked if there might be any trash in the cold room. In the course of the ensuing conversation, Jeremy learned that Grady did not have a key to the cold room.

  But if neither Grady nor June had a key, how did June’s earring end up in there? Did someone besides Grady kill June? Was Grady framed and also murdered? Was Grady one of the good guys after all?

  This was the last thing Jeremy wished to learn. With every fiber of his being, he wanted to be over and done with June’s murder. It had wrapped itself up so neatly. Grady, assumedly because of his guilt over having killed June, had committed suicide. Justice had been served with no loose ends. There would be no trial and Jeremy was off the hook.

  But now, in light of this new information, Jeremy knew he was not done. As much as he might like to toss the earring and move on with his life, he could not. He had to investigate further. He needed to find out who, besides him, had a key to the cold room.

  The Biotech Facility upheld a strict access policy because the labs typically held expensive equipment and dangerous chemicals. Keys were given out sparingly, only to primary users of a particular lab. Everyone had to first fill and sign a special form that assigned responsibility for the lab and all its contents to the holder of the key. Jeremy had been granted one key to the small lab where his desk resided, one key to get into the building and one key to the cold room. When he needed access to any other lab, he had to arrange with someone who had official access. The policy produced complaints among the grad students, but in the post 9/11 world, security concerns at the University had become much more of an issue than before.

  Before Jeremy left the building, he checked Mrs. Reese’s office on the second floor. In her capacity as the department coordinator, she was the one who issued keys to the graduate students and she should know who else had keys to the cold room. Jeremy arrived to find her door locked and the lights out. He could try again to track her down tomorrow after his test.

  Chapter 41

  Friday, December 12

  The exam was brutal. Jeremy could only hope that everyone else did as poorly as he did and that the test would be graded on a curve. Beyond that, there was nothing he could do. After he turned in his test, he went upstairs to see if Mrs. Reese was in. As he cupped his hands to cut the glare to her darkened window, someone addressed him from behind.

  “If you are looking for Mrs. Reese, she’s out of the office today.”

  Jeremy turned to see a big-boned woman with a friendly face. He recognized her as one of the secretaries that worked across the hall.

  “Do you know when she’ll be back?”

  “I expect her back early next week,” replied the secretary. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “I’m trying to find out who might have a key to a certain door in the building. Do you have that information?”

  “No, sorry,” she replied. “The only other person who might be able to help you out is Dr. Cain but only if it is an emergency.”

  “That’s okay.” Jeremy had not had any contact with Dr. Cain since their confrontation that night in June’s lab and he definitely would not be calling the executive director for this or any other reason. “Thanks anyway.”

  Jeremy rode the elevator upstairs to his lab and opened the cold room door. As the rush of icy air slapped him in the face, he stopped to look closely at the key and the lock it fit. The key was not a regular key. Like the keys commonly used to unlock the doors of drink or other vending machines, it was cylindrically shaped. The keyhole in the handle of the silver-steel door was circular, or more precisely, Q-shaped. This was not a key that could be easily duplicated.

  He rummaged through the cabinets in the cold room until he found the owner’s manual. According to the documents, the cold room lock came with only two keys. Jeremy had one, but who had the other? Was it naïve of him to think that whoever had the other key was responsible for murdering both June and Grady?

  Jinni seemed to have a soft spot in her heart for Grady and he thought that she might relish hearing that Grady might not have killed June after all. That was before he remembered that he could no longer lay claim to Jinni’s ear – or her love.

  Never intending to stop, Jeremy took a detour through Jinni’s neighborhood on his way home from the Facility. Even though he knew Jinni was lost to him, it gave him a measure of comfort, however bittersweet, just knowing that she still roamed the world, even if it were down paths that did not cross his own. Rubbernecking as he passed by her house, he was surprised to spy Jinni’s white SUV parked in the open garage. She must have taken the day off. Without forethought, Jeremy backed up and pulled into her driveway.

  What are you trying to prove? he asked himself as he sat in the hush of his car’s interior. What will you say?

  Despite not having an answer to either question, he exited his vehicle and made a beeline for the front door. Nervously he rang the doorbell. Jeremy noticed a slight dimming of the light in the peephole. Someone was on the other side looking out. He waited but the door did not budge. “I know you’re in there, Jinni. Can you open the door, please?”

  Jeremy knew that she could hear him and that she stood mere inches away on the far side of the door. He waited for some sort of acknowledgment. When none seemed forthcoming, he tried again. “All I’m asking for is a couple of minutes of your time.”

  If Jinni would allow him, he would give her a proper apology. That was about all he could hope for at this stage of the game; that, and one last chance to gaze upon the sweetness of her face.

  He waited in vain. He did not want to beg and badger and was about to give up when a different tactic occurred to him, slipping in between the bars of his better judgment. Hoping to appeal to Jinni’s compassion, or at least her curiosity for his dilemma, he announced, “I thought you might be interested to learn that Grady could not have killed June after all. No one knows this, but I found June’s earring, one she wore the night she was killed. Grady could not have killed June because he didn’t have a key to the cold room. I’m trying to figure out who else might have a key. I was hoping you would let me in so I could run a few of my theories by you.”

  Jinni’s voice from the other side: “I don’t care about all that right now. I want to know about you and Monika.”

  “We went through all that already.”

  “Have you seen her again?”

  Jeremy did not have a leg to stand on. “I’m not going to lie to you. I didn’t try to contact her but she showed up at my door a couple of nights ago. But that’s not really important right now. I came over here to apol
ogize for everything and to tell you I’m sorry how it all worked out.”

  “When she showed up at your door, did you let her in?”

  “I couldn’t just tell her to go away.”

  “Go away, Jeremy.”

  Apparently Jinni meant to show him how to get rid of an unwanted guest outside one’s door. He pleaded with her, “Jinni, please-”

  Go away,” insisted Jinni. “I’ve got nothing more to say to you.”

  “Fine,” muttered Jeremy.

  As he drove slowly from Jinni’s neighborhood, Jeremy could not help but feel saddened by the state of his life’s affairs. His graduate school career had taken a turn for the worse, thanks to the failing grade he just assured himself for the organic chemistry course. Secondly, the discovery of June’s earring meant that he was not yet finished with the nightmare of her death and its investigation. And, finally, there was the small matter of his ex-girlfriend, Jinni Malone. For good reason, Jinni hated him and it seemed nothing in this world would ever change that.

  *****

  Lying in bed that night, Jeremy could not sleep for thinking of Jinni. He still could not comprehend how it happened that he lost her mere hours after he purchased her engagement ring. Ironically, he had never been closer to committing the rest of his life to Jinni than that evening, five days removed. It was just a little thing, but had Monika not called or even if she had waited until the subsequent night, Jeremy would have had time to give Jinni the ring.

  He remembered with a rueful smile how he had struck up a conversation with the mermaid of the fountain after Monika drove away, right before he ran into Jinni. If only he had lingered at the fountain a few extra minutes, Monika would have found him there instead of sharing the front stoop with Jinni. Even before Monika returned, Jeremy was in trouble with Jinni, as he could not hide the glow of the Unreal burning within him. However, he would not have lost Jinni over that alone. Jinni vanished from his life at the precise moment that Monika pulled up to the curb and showed herself.

  Two more minutes with the mermaid of the fountain might have changed the entire course of his life.

  It’s the little things that kill, he thought.

  But there was something else. Jeremy recalled how, at the fountain that night, he had noticed something familiar in the mermaid’s expression, some connection to something else somewhere else…

  And now I know what it is.

  Jeremy had not had the inclination to deliberate the matter that night because of the debacle on his front stoop, and for whatever reason, he hadn’t thought of it since.

  Jeremy scrambled from bed to his computer and pulled up the file with the pictures he had taken the day of his trip to the cemetery. He thumbed through the thumbnails until he found one of the close-up shots of the sculpture at the hippie queen’s grave. Although he didn’t have a photo of the mermaid for direct comparison, he knew he had his eureka moment. The expression on the face of Eros’ lover – the lovely Psyche – looked just like that of the mermaid, too much so to be a coincidence.

  (There are no coincidences.)

  The two sculptures must have a common origin.

  The next day Jeremy paid a visit to city hall, and in short order someone looked it up and was able to provide him with the name of the local artist who sculpted the mermaid back in the late sixties. Her name was Veronica Gilmore. Jeremy looked up the name in the phone book, and while there was no listing for that exact name, he dialed the first entry of only four Gilmore listings for Destiny.

  As luck would have it, the woman who answered was the daughter of Veronica Gilmore. The daughter informed Jeremy that her mother had been in the Destiny nursing home for several years and that she would certainly not mind if he paid her mom a visit to discuss her work.

  “One thing you should know,” warned the daughter. “My mom has Alzheimer’s disease.”

  Despite the warning, Jeremy paid a visit to the nursing home that very afternoon. As the attendant walked Jeremy down the hallway, Jeremy asked what he could expect from the ailing patient.

  “Ms Gilmore probably won’t say much of anything and even if she does, don’t expect her to discuss any current events with you,” explained the attendant, “and by current events, I mean anything in the past 30 years or so.”

  As it turned out, this served Jeremy’s purpose well because what he wanted to find out occurred well over 30 years prior.

  When Jeremy first sat in the rickety chair beside Ms Gilmore’s bed, she was withdrawn and downcast. However, once Jeremy breeched the subject of her years as a sculptress, she livened up. Veronica Gilmore loved to talk about her work. Jeremy thought he might mention that to her caregivers on the way out as a way to brighten the last days of a sweet old soul.

  Mrs. Gilmore remembered being commissioned by the city to sculpt the mermaid of the fountain, and when Jeremy brought up the Eros and Psyche replica, her face positively glowed.

  “That one,” she said, “was my greatest creation.”

  Jeremy had finally, it seemed, found the one person in the world who best knew who was responsible for placing the monument at the grave of the hippie queen – if only Ms Gilmore’s riddled brain could recall…

  “Ms Gilmore,” he began, “do you remember who hired you to fashion that particular sculpture?”

  Jeremy took out a pen and paper to write down her reply but as it turned out, he didn’t have to, for he had heard the name before.

  “Why of course,” she replied. “Zachary – Dr. Zachary Taylor.”

  Jeremy recognized the name from the old newspaper articles. Dr. Zachary Taylor was the medical examiner in 1969, the same man who was responsible for identifying the burned bodies from the commune fire and the same man who later committed suicide in Reefers Woods.

  Mrs. Gilmore’s face clouded over with concern as she added, “You won’t tell him I told you, will you? He gave me an extra 75 dollars not to tell.”

  “I won’t tell him, Mrs. Gilmore,” replied Jeremy as reassuringly as he could. “I promise.” Jeremy saw no need to remind the old sculptress that Dr. Taylor had been dead for almost 40 years.

  Chapter 42

  Saturday, December 13

  Late that Saturday night, Monika appeared again at Jeremy’s door.

  “Wanna burn?” she asked.

  As Jeremy weathered the mental maelstrom of the Unreal, he presented the request, not for the first time, but for the first time tonight. “I want to know what that party on the beach was all about. I want to be a part of your circle of friends. I want in.”

  “In due time, my dear Jeremy. You’ll just have to be patient with me on this.”

  “What is the Source you spoke of on the beach that night?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  Jeremy refused to give in so easily. “If you won’t tell me what it is, can you tell me if you have found it yet?”

  “You know just as much as the others. If I told you more, it wouldn’t be fair to everyone else.”

  Monika told him this, that he knew just as much as the others, meaning to make him feel better. Jeremy saw it differently. He was no more privileged than her other friends, none of whom he had yet met. He wanted to know her friends, her plans, and her motivations. He wanted her to open up to him like Jinni used to do, but it just wasn’t happening.

  “I thought since I am your so-called boyfriend, I’d get a little special treatment,” Jeremy said cynically.

  She flashed a shrewd smile. “You’re getting plenty of special treatment.”

  It had been Monika who had first described their new affiliation as boyfriend/girlfriend. However, except for more frequent stopovers, Monika was the same as she ever was – unreadable, distant, and secretive. Still, Jeremy could not envision a time or a circumstance in which he would not open the door if it were she who knocked, precisely because she was the same as she ever was – exotic and strange and irresistible as hell.

  “How about a hint?” Jeremy wasn’t willing to give up j
ust yet, and as they say, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

  “All right then, a hint,” she said. “Let me think.”

  Jeremy waited with bated breath.

  After a long pause, Monika said, “When the time comes, you will become, and time will come.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s a riddle,” she replied. “You figure it out.”

  “One more time?” he asked.

  “When the time comes, you will become, and time will come.”

  He said it over and over again to himself, memorizing it. “Is that it?”

  Monika nodded, looking proud. “That’s it.”

  “Not much of a hint,” Jeremy muttered.

  “Actually, I have to say it’s a damn good hint. You may not understand it now but after the ceremony it will make perfect sense.”

  “Ceremony?” Jeremy asked. “What ceremony?”

  From her expression Jeremy could tell that Monika had let something slip. This might be more of a hint than the actual hint.

  “You’ll see,” she said.

  “When is this ceremony going down?” he asked pointedly.

  “When the time comes.”

  Jeremy looked at her in a way that he hoped communicated his growing frustration.

  “Let’s go to bed,” she said.

  He consented, even though he was not sleepy in the least.

  It wasn’t until the following day that Jeremy remembered the dream he had had the night Jinni caught him, the dream with the wedding ceremony. In it, he had married Monika. In it, she had said, “Listen to the music – it helps you to become.” Tonight, Monika mentioned an upcoming ceremony, and, as part of the riddle, she spoke of his becoming – whatever that meant – just as she had in his dream.

  Coincidence? Jeremy asked himself.

  There are no coincidences.

  Chapter 43

  Sunday, December 14