JACK KNIFED

by Christopher Greyson

  He reached down to grab a pencil and some scrap paper that the library staff left out for people to use.

  Jack’s voice was a low growl. “Leave? No. I’m just getting started.”

  Acta Non Verba

  Replacement and Jack sat side by side as he read through the first article.

  “On May 13, an emergency call came in reporting a stabbing at Buckmaster Pond. Steven Ritter. Seventeen. Beaten. Stabbed. No other information. Police following all leads. Chief Dennis Wilson.”

  Jack stopped and looked at Replacement, who wrote as fast as he spoke.

  “We can come back,” she offered.

  “I’m fine, kid.” He turned to the monitor. “This is better for me. Really.”

  He scanned the article to see whether he’d missed anything. His hand turned the knob forward until he came to the next week’s paper.

  “Next article. May 20. Police are asking anyone with information to come forward. No suspects. No witnesses. Steven. Only child of Mrs. Mary Ritter, a widow…”

  My grandmother. Widow.

  Jack’s fist slammed down on the table as a new wave of pain washed over him. Replacement reached out for him, and he held up his hand.

  “I’m sorry. My head is going to explode. My crazy mother was…she was right. And now I know my father is dead. Murdered. His father was already dead. My grandmother…she was…all alone.”

  “Jack. This is too much for anyone all at once. Let’s go for today, okay? We’ll come back tomorrow. We’ve waited this long. We can wait one more day.”

  Wait another day? I don’t want to give the guy who killed him another breath, let alone another day.

  Jack’s fists shook on the table, and he knew he was close to smashing something. “Let’s get a little more. Can you please drive?” Replacement hesitated, but when Jack stood up, she moved over in front of the microfiche machine.

  “All right. Next article.” Replacement began to read. “May 27. Police say there’s still no progress. Following multiple leads. Cause of death: stabbed multiple times. Police asking for help. Searched the area around the pond.”

  “Does it give any other names? Cops’ names?”

  Replacement scanned the article. “Frank Nelson. Detective.”

  Jack wrote it down.

  “Next week.” Replacement scanned the front page and frowned when she saw no mention of the murder. Page after page went by, but there wasn’t a single reference to the crime. She looked at Jack, but he just stared at the paper. She quickly rose and put another month in the machine. She slowly turned the knob, but that month had nothing on the murder either. It was the same with the next. After three months with no articles, Jack stood up.

  “We’ve gotten everything from the newspaper that we’re going to get.”

  Replacement nodded, and then turned to put the folders back. Jack ran his fingers through his hair and sipped the water. Replacement turned and looked at him. Her eyes were filled with worry.

  “I’m fine, kid. I’m just trying not to go down the ‘what could have been’ road.”

  “Don’t go there.” Replacement’s voice was low. “It will make you crazy; then it will kill you.”

  Her words caused Jack to stop with the water bottle halfway to his mouth. He searched her eyes. Her face was stern and her gaze was steady.

  That’s a road that she’s been on.

  He took another sip and closed the bottle. “One more stop and then we go.”

  Replacement looked puzzled, but she remained quiet.

  The library was absolutely still as they walked back to the main desk. They passed a section of empty wooden desks. For just a flash of a moment, he could picture Steven sitting there, reading. Jack stumbled and stopped.

  My father would have come here. He’d have…

  His whole body tensed. He could see the look of concern on Replacement’s face. He gave a faint smile and a brief nod before he kept walking.

  Damn it. Don’t go there. For all I know, he was as crazy as my mother.

  Jack walked over to the main desk, and Mae looked even more nervous than she had been earlier.

  She must have heard me crying like a baby.

  “Hello. Thank you so much for the use of the microfiche. Can I ask you another favor?” Jack leaned on the counter.

  “Of course, sweetie.” Mae reached out and patted Jack’s hand.

  “Do you have copies of the local high school yearbooks?”

  Mae smiled. “We do. Every single year. Right this way.”

  She awkwardly launched herself off her tall stool and hurried in the opposite direction. They followed her down the corridors of books. Replacement stayed just behind Jack, and he kept feeling her gently touch him on the back or pat his shoulder. Mae stopped in the middle of a corridor and gestured to the section.

  “Please let me know if I can be of any more assistance.” She smiled.

  Jack gave a slight grin. She was so awkward, yet seemed so earnest that, in spite of his pain, he smiled.

  Replacement stepped forward. “Thank you so much, Mae.”

  The librarian’s face lit up, and she flitted off.

  Replacement grabbed a step stool from the corridor and made Jack sit down. She scanned the shelf. Jack could see her counting

  “Go back thirty years and grab the books through twenty-five years ago to be on the safe side,” he mumbled. She handed the stack of books to Jack, and he handed three back to her. “Look for my father’s class first. I don’t know if her class is the same.”

  Replacement nodded and leafed through the pages.

  Jack flipped through the photos until he landed on the Rs. “Got it.”

  He stared at the picture of his father. It was the same picture as the one in the paper, although this one was in color. Replacement leaned over his shoulder.

  “You look so much alike. Look at his cheekbones and chin. But your eyes…they’re the same. Totally.”

  Jack read the text below the photo. STEVEN RITTER. “ACTA NON VERBA” IN MEMORIUM. Puzzled, he looked up at Replacement, but she was typing on her phone.

  “Acta non verba?” she repeated as she continued to type. “It’s Latin. It means deeds, not words.”

  “I wonder if he picked it?” Jack flipped to the Cs. He exhaled when he saw the photo. His mother was smiling from ear to ear. She had long blond hair and was posed leaning against a tree. She wore a simple white dress, and she was beautiful. Jack squeezed the yearbook, and his eyes narrowed.

  The yearbook text read, PATRICIA COLE, but underneath her name, someone had written in pen, CLASS SLUT.

  “They were in the same class.” Replacement took one of the scraps of paper and scribbled that fact down.

  “We need to look for any guy named Terry. She said Terry told her to get Steven to come to the pond. If you find one, flag the page. You start on the previous year.”

  “Do we know if Terry even went to her school?” Replacement held up her hands.

  “No. We don’t. I’m assuming. You know what that means?”

  Replacement smiled. “Assume makes an ‘ass’ out of ‘you’ and ‘me.’”

  “And that would make me a jackass.”

  Replacement laughed hard but tried to stop so quickly that she snorted. Her eyes went wide, and she turned beet red. Jack chuckled.

  “I’m sorry.” She held up a hand.

  “Why? I need to laugh. If I don’t, I’ll start crying like a pansy again.” Jack sighed.

  She looked down and blurted out, “Found one.” She pointed to the page.

  Jack looked at the picture. A young, smug-looking guy. Dark hair and brown eyes. TERRY BRADFORD.

  “He’d have been a year older than my par—than them. Keep looking.”

  Replacement flagged the page and added to her notes. Jack kept scanning.

  All these kids. They knew my father. I wonder…

  He shut his eyes and tried to concentrate. His finger moved across every name before he flipped the
page. At the Ms, he stopped.

  “I’ve got two. Terry Martinez and Terry Martin.”

  “He looks like a jerk.” Replacement poked Terry Martin’s picture.

  He was dressed in a football sweater with an open collar around his thick neck. Jack looked at the kid’s cocky grin and wanted a chance to knock it off his face.

  She pointed to Terry Martinez. “He looks nice. Nerdy, but nice.”

  Dressed in a white shirt and plain blue tie, he looked younger than the other students. He was thin, had a mop of black hair, and wore thick glasses that looked too big for his face.

  The book’s backing made a cracking sound as Jack’s hand tightened around it. He relaxed his grip and continued to flip pages. Replacement quietly started again, too. After ten minutes, Jack got up, grabbed two more years, and handed one to Replacement. Neither of them found any reference to a Terry in the other yearbooks.

  “It’s a two-year window. We’ve got three guys named Terry. It’s a place to start.” Jack stood up and put the other yearbooks back on the shelf but held onto the ones he’d flagged. “We walked by a photocopier. I want to copy the pictures.”

  Replacement followed him back down the corridor to the machine. It wasn’t the best quality, but after a couple minutes, he had his copies. Jack began to close the lid but stopped and sighed.

  “Jack? What’s wrong?” Replacement asked.

  “A world I didn’t know existed two days ago is making me crazy,” is what Jack wanted to say, but instead he replied, “I think I should photocopy the whole book. There might be something in here.”

  “Can you check them out?”

  “No. They’re reference books. Don’t sweat it. I gotta get out of here anyway. I need a break.”

  Replacement nodded and took the two yearbooks from Jack and ran back down the aisle.

  Three names. How can I run checks on them from here? I don’t think I can connect to any of the police systems with Replacement’s phone.

  Jack kept his eyes closed as he pondered what course to take.

  I can call Cindy and have her run a check. I doubt they had computers in the Revolutionary War, so the inn won’t have one. They have one here, but—

  When Replacement touched his arm, he jumped.

  “Sorry,” she muttered.

  “Let’s go. Are you hungry?” Jack asked.

  “Starving.” Replacement hugged her stomach.

  “You just ate that humongous breakfast. How can you be starving?”

  “It’s almost three o’clock.” She held up her hand. “But I don’t have to get something—”

  “No, I didn’t think it was so late. I’m sorry. Come on.”

  As they walked past the main desk, Mae was nowhere in sight. Jack thought of calling out but quickly dismissed the idea. “We’ll be back. We can thank her then,” he whispered.

  Jack walked out into the cool air, stopped, and breathed deeply twice. Replacement grabbed him by the arm in order to drag him back to the car.

  “I’m driving.” She pulled the keys from his pocket and darted around to the driver’s side. “You look like hell.”

  “Thanks,” Jack muttered sarcastically, but he didn’t protest her driving.

  I feel like hell.

  He closed the door and looked at Replacement, who squirmed in the driver’s seat. Perplexed, he stared, thinking she must be trying to take her jacket off as she struggled with something behind her. She leaned forward; then, with a triumphant grin, she pulled two yearbooks from inside the back of her sweater.

  “You stole the yearbooks?” Jack’s mouth fell open.

  “I didn’t exactly steal them. You said there might be something that you need in them.”

  “There might be, but you took them.”

  “I did take them, but I didn’t steal them because I’m going to return them.”

  Jack was about to argue but closed his mouth.

  “Fine.” Jack leaned against the window.

  Replacement broke into a huge smile. “I’m glad you agree. Where do you want to eat?”

  Death Sucks

  They pulled up outside Bartlet’s Family Restaurant. It was a large log cabin with a wide wraparound porch. Jack stretched as he opened the car door. He couldn’t get over how warm the winter had been. A jacket was still needed, but for the beginning of February, it was a heat wave.

  Quite a few cars were parked outside, so Jack hoped the food would be good. Replacement zipped up the wide, short steps and held the door open for him. The entrance to the restaurant was a spacious front room that doubled as a gift shop. Everything was either on a yellow pine shelf or in a yellow pine barrel. They had many plastic toys for kids, crafts, shirts, and caps that lined the walls.

  Jack turned around to look for Replacement, but she was nowhere to be seen. He walked back and found her examining a pink T-shirt with HOPE FALLS written in the middle of a large red heart. He grabbed her by the arm and headed for the hostess in the far corner.

  “Can I look for a minute?” Replacement begged.

  “You can look for an hour after we eat.” Jack smiled. “Table for two,” he said to the young woman who stood behind the wooden podium.

  She smiled, grabbed some menus, and led them to a little corner booth. Replacement clapped her hands after she slid in. Jack looked out the window to see what had made her so happy, and almost clapped his hands, too. Behind the restaurant was a small garden with a little natural waterfall in the back.

  “Isn’t it pretty?” their waitress remarked, stopping beside their table. “I just love it. It’s so romantic.” She gave Replacement a little pat on the shoulder and winked.

  “It’s beautiful.” Replacement kept gazing out the window.

  Jack suddenly stood up. “I’ll be right back.”

  The waitress looked perplexed. “Do you want to order?”

  “A burger and fries,” Jack called over his shoulder as he marched back into the store. “And a Coke.”

  He walked into the gift shop again and scanned the shelves. He looked around a little but didn’t see what he needed.

  “Do you have any notebooks?” he asked the woman who had seated them.

  “Yes, we do. Right here.” She moved over and pointed to a section with two notebooks: a thin one covered in puffy baby farm animals and a thicker one in purple with sparkling confetti and “HOPE FALLS” written in pink.

  Jack rolled his eyes and paid for the thicker notebook, along with a pen.

  “She’ll love them,” the woman confidently assured him.

  “Who will?”

  “Your girlfriend.” She smiled.

  Jack grabbed the bag and hurried back to the table. Replacement looked out the window as he slid back into the booth.

  “Where did you go?”

  “I needed to get a notebook,” he explained as he put it on the table. Her eyes went wide, and she snickered. Jack’s eyes narrowed. “What’re you, four years old?”

  “Me? I’m not the one with the Pretty Pony notebook.” She laughed. Jack stuck his chin out, and she held her hands up. “Sorry.”

  “Anyway,” he pulled all the notes out of his pocket, “I figured we could get started organizing the information we have.” Replacement opened her mouth and closed it quickly. Jack spread the notes out on the table.

  “I’ll write.” She held out her hand, and he gave her the pen.

  They spent the next hour eating while they transcribed the notes. Once they had everything written down, he frowned. “We don’t have much.”

  “It’s a good start.” Replacement slurped down the last of her drink and ended with a loud smack of her lips.

  Jack continued to scowl. “There wasn’t much in the paper.”

  “There was at the beginning.”

  “The story faded out fast.”

  Replacement shrugged, and they settled into an awkward silence. She went back to watching the waterfall as he read over the notes again. After a few minutes, Jack stood up. A
s he went to pay the bill, Replacement slid out of the booth.

  “You said I could look around,” she called as she headed back to the little shop.

  Great. How long can she look at knickknacks?

  Jack groaned at his own question and followed after her. Once again, Replacement was out of sight. He swept the perimeter to look for her, and located her back at the pink shirt she had admired before. She looked at him hopefully, and he narrowed his eyes.

  “I’m just kidding,” he teased. He grabbed a matching pink baseball hat off the shelf. “Get the hat, too.”

  “Really? No. I don’t want to spend—”

  “Get them. They’ll look good on you.”

  Replacement blushed, and took the shirt off the rack.

  “Come on. I want to make one stop before we head back to the inn.” Jack moved to the register.

  “Where?” she asked.

  “There was a little general store in town. I’m hoping they have what I need.”

  “You’re not gonna tell me?” She walked up next to him.

  “It’s none of your business.” Jack took the shirt and hat and handed them over to the cashier. “Just these.”

  “Did your girlfriend like the notebook?” The lady smiled toward Replacement.

  “What? No, she’s not…” Jack winced when Replacement pinched him.

  “He’s such a kidder.” Her arm slid around Jack’s waist, and she gave him a hard hug. “Thanks, sweetie. I loved my notebook.”

  “Sure…buttercup. Let’s go.” Jack pinched her cheek.

  He smirked and headed for the door as Replacement grabbed the bag and hurried to catch up.

  “Buttercup?” she whispered. “Come on. You suck at being undercover.”

  “Don’t start the whole undercover thing again.”

  “What do you mean? I did great undercover.”

  “We’re not undercover.” Jack’s voice got louder as they walked out of the building and toward the car.

  “Are we telling people what we’re doing?” Replacement looked perplexed.

  “No.”

  “Ha!” She pointed a finger in his face. “Then we’re undercover.”

  “No, we’re just not…” Jack pulled open his door and leaned on the roof of the car as Replacement walked to her side. “Fine. But we’re not doing the boyfriend-girlfriend thing.”