Good Morning, Darkness

by Ruth Francisco

  From his hesitation, Reggie could tell Johnson didn’t want to be bothered. Maybe he’d lied and had ripped up the letter. Maybe he’d taken it home and kept it under his pillow.

  “Is she involved in some kind of crime?” Johnson asked.

  “Not as far as I know.”

  “I’ll have to ask the legal department,” said Johnson. “We have to be very careful these days. There might be procedures, like needing a warrant or something. You know how big companies are. I can’t just make a copy of something from an employee’s file and send it on to the police.”

  “Ex-employee.”

  “Same difference.”

  Reggie knew he couldn’t get a warrant. There was no crime. “Could you read me the letter, or at least tell me the date it was written?”

  Johnson hesitated, then said, “I suppose so. If you really need it. It’s the hard copy stuff that they’re paranoid about.”

  “Did she leave any personal things at the office?”

  “A few things, not much. I had one of the girls pack her stuff in a box. Her boyfriend came and picked it up.”

  “Ex-boyfriend.”

  “Same difference.”

  “Don’t you find it odd that an ex-boyfriend would bother to pick up a box of her things from the office?”

  “Nah. I’d do the same for any of my ex-wives.”

  “You have more than one?”

  “Two. Number three coming up.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Marriage is fun for awhile, then it isn’t.”

  By the time Johnson called back that afternoon to read him Laura’s resignation letter, Reggie discovered a sexual harassment suit pending against the man in the Court of Appeals. A similar suit had been settled out of court a year before. Reggie asked him how he got on with his female employees, and Johnson, taking the hint, faxed Reggie the letter.

  The letter was dated April 15. The ‘Date Received’ stamp said April 17. There were notes written in the margins—Reggie assumed by people in human resources—regarding termination date and unused vacation days. It was difficult to tell from the fax, but Reggie thought a dot-matrix printer had been used. The language in the letter was formal, almost legalese: “Due to the declining health of my mother and her long-term health-care needs, I hereby resign my position at Thompson & Thompson.” She went on to say that she had enjoyed her experience working there, found it “challenging and invigorating,” and was grateful for “the nurturing guidance and unflagging encouragement of my supervisors.” Was that sarcasm? Or was it the overblown courtesy of a form-letter book, like Reggie had seen Audrey use in job hunting?

  Reggie tried to remember if Laura had ever been sarcastic. He recalled a conversation they had in which he had reported to her a snide comment Johnson made to him about the restraining order. Johnson couldn’t keep his hands to himself, she’d said, then added, “Guys like Johnson generally get what they deserve. One of these days.” Was that a threat? Or merely wishful thinking? What did she mean?

  Reggie decided she could have written the letter. He wondered if he might have her signature on file at Tae Kwan Do Studio; all the students had to sign a release form limiting liability in case they hurt themselves. He’d drop by later and check.

  Something seemed odd about it all. She hadn’t first called her boss, then followed up with a letter. That would be normal. Maybe she didn’t want to talk to Johnson? She could’ve talked directly with human resources. It occurred to Reggie that Johnson might be worth a visit. Maybe Reggie could talk with some of Laura’s fellow workers and see her desk.

  As he reread the letter, Reggie imagined Johnson fingering Laura’s shoulder, his flabby, lecherous lips breathing down her neck, pretending to review her work but getting ready to drop his hand on her thigh.

  Men pushing themselves on women—it made him sick. Then he was sick; he bolted out of his office, between the rows of desks and busy cops, into the restroom, where he, weak-kneed and shaky, vomited out the Johnsons of the world.

  PART THREE

  Terce

  They call it June gloom even when it’s only May. It happens every year. Fog and wet clouds hang over the shore. Maybe the sun comes out for an hour at noon, maybe it doesn’t. It’s depressing and a little spooky. The fish swim near the surface, so the fishing’s good. But it’s hard to get up early, and when I get down to the marina, all the houses are still dark.

  The guy on TV who gives the weather says it’s caused by a layer of cool air above the water that’s trapped by hot air, but that May it felt like something else to me. It felt like the sun wouldn’t come out because she wasn’t there. When I walked down the jetty, I stopped and looked for her. Her window was closed and dark. The bougainvillea and roses looked wilted. The birds weren’t singing, and all I heard was the fog horn sounding like it was crying.

  So one day I got to thinking about a story on the news about some lady hikers who got raped and murdered up in the Sierras, and I thought about the arms and the girl in the window and I wondered if she was raped too. I got this bad feeling and I thought about all the women I see alone at Home Depot and at the nursery, and worried if the guy who chopped off her arms was out there and was gonna do it again.

  All of a sudden I got panicky—like if I didn’t do something, nothing would ever be the same, like someone else would get hurt, and bad feelings would cling to this place forever.

  You know how I feel about cops. That’s not the way we Mexicans handle things. If something bad happens, we usually let things slide. It’s what fate has brought us, our miserable pinche vida. But there always comes a time when something changes your mind and you end up doing the opposite of what you always say you’re gonna do.

  I found the card the cop gave me under the mat in my truck and put it in my pocket.

  * * *

  After missing confession one morning, Reggie called Father John and asked to see him. The priest met him at the door to the rectory wearing a white shirt and black pants. His breath smelled of red wine.

  “I’m glad to see you taking such interest in the Church,” he said. “You’re making me work for a living.”

  Reggie detected a smirk. No, not a smirk exactly, but a tired smile. Even priests had their cynical days, he supposed. Father John led him back into his office and placed his stole around his neck. He sat in a worn leather chair behind his desk. Behind him, a large lead-paned window looked into a rose garden.

  Reggie was about to kneel beside him when Father John flipped his hand at a chair. “Have a seat, Reggie.” The priest observed him for a long moment, tilted his chin to his chest, and closed his eyes. He sat like that for over a minute, motionless, silent.

  Reggie heard children playing down the street and two male voices from somewhere in the rectory.

  Father John sighed ponderously, rubbed his eyes, then pushed back in his chair. He took off his stole and folded it. “There are all kinds of sin, Reggie,” he said as if answering a question. “The majority aren’t big sins. Most people wouldn’t even think to confess them as sins. But sin, any sin, is nothing more than a thought that keeps you from opening your heart to God. We all live in perpetual sin, even the most devout monk, because it is impossible for us to constantly keep our thought in God. But we try.” He smiled wistfully as he ran his hand over the folded stole. “Now, tell me what you came to tell me today.”

  Reggie was confused. “You aren’t going to hear my confession?”

  “No, not today. Let’s just talk.”

  Reggie felt his face flush and swallowed hard. He opened his lips and the words flowed, the story of Laura: the first time he met her, her vulnerability that attracted him, her disappearance. He said he wasn’t sure if he should continue with his unofficial investigation, but he felt himself irresistibly drawn into it. He referred to Laura by name, describing her in detail, trying to pinpoint why he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

  “A woman of modest reticence and great physical beauty
. A rare combination.” The priest sighed as if after a sip of a particularly good brandy.

  “Yes,” said Reggie, embarrassed, glancing up at the priest. He saw a faraway look in Father John’s eyes and wondered whom he was remembering: his mother, the Virgin Mary, or maybe some woman he knew before he became a priest. Perhaps it was the idea of female perfection that had drawn him away.

  “Do you know what laura means in the Church?” the priest asked.

  “No.”

  “It was a type of early Christian monastery. Each monk lived as a hermit in his laura, then got together from time to time with other brothers. In their laura, the monks dedicated their lives to silence, solitude, and prayer.”

  Reggie wasn’t sure what the priest was getting at. “Is it wrong for me to try to find out what happened to her?”

  “Does the investigation keep you from loving God?”

  “No,” Reggie said, unsure. He searched hard for the right words before he continued. “It’s like I have this feeling I’m supposed to find her . . . like it’s my assignment.”

  Father John nodded. “Does the investigation close you off from your family? Your wife?”

  Again Reggie hesitated. “I think I’m afraid to talk about it with my wife.”

  “Afraid?”

  “It’s like”—Reggie paused, looking down at his hands—“it’s like we’re walking on an ice crust over snow, and if we start talking, the ice will break and someone will fall through.”

  “I’ve never seen snow,” said Father John.

  “What?”

  “I’ve never seen snow. Except in the distance, in the San Gabriel Mountains. I’ve lived in California my whole life, and I’ve never been to the mountains to see the snow.”

  Reggie was confused. Had Father John been listening? Was Reggie supposed to understand something here?

  “Everyone hears God’s call in a different way, Reggie. For some people, it comes in a flash. For others, it unfolds over a lifetime. I was already in seminary before I heard it. At the time I thought I wanted to be a monk, but He called me to be a priest. Once you hear the call, you spend the rest of your life trying to answer it.”

  Reggie felt a pulse of anger that dissolved instantly. He frowned, squinting against the sun. The afternoon light poured through the window and made the priest into a dark blob. “Are you saying Laura is my calling?”

  “What I’m saying is for you to open your heart. God calls you through your desires. Where you find desire, sin, and guilt, you will find God seeking entry into your soul.”

  “You’re telling me to have an affair?” Reggie asked, flabbergasted.

  Father John smiled. “The soul will not stand being neglected, Reggie. Your desire for this woman is your soul demanding attention. If you don’t do work on your soul, it pops up symptomatically, in loss of meaning, obsessions, and adultery. When sex creates a problem, it means something else needs to be addressed. Do your soul work, Reggie. You’ll be fine.”

  “How do I work on my soul?”

  “You do nothing. You open yourself up and observe the world uncritically. You watch your thought. You listen to your dreams. You pray. You wait.”

  “You mean I have to quit my job?”

  “Could be. Nothing needs to change. Or everything can change dramatically. Do you think there’s still snow in the San Gabriel Mountains?”

  “What? No, it’s May.”

  “Well, if there were snow, I would drive to the mountains. I would find a huge pile and bury myself in it. I would eat it and rub it in my face. I would throw snowballs until my arms ached, then let the snow slowly melt on my skin.”

  “For your soul?”

  “Precisely. For my soul.”

  Reggie didn’t understand. Or maybe he did. It just was so hard. But the pain in his shoulders was gone and his head felt better. He thanked Father John and left.

  * * *

  As Connie Philips pulled her canary-yellow kayak onto the white sand of Malibu beach, her legs wobbled; her arms felt heavy and throbbed. She grabbed the bow rope and, with the last of her strength, yanked the kayak beyond the reach of the waves. Then she collapsed.

  She knew it wasn’t merely muscle fatigue that made her limbs shake.

  She lay on the sand, her head spinning from the abrupt change to solid land. Slowly, the world settled in one place. She closed her eyes and relaxed.

  She decided then not to answer Scott’s call immediately. Maybe she’d let a day go by. She didn’t want to sound overly enthusiastic, and she didn’t trust her voice not to reveal too much. Her surprise, her hurt, her anticipation.

  She didn’t know what to make of Scott Goodsell. Last time they were together, they had a great time. Great laughs, great sex. She thought they were falling in love. She hadn’t liked someone that much in years. Maybe never. She was excited about getting to know him. It felt so right. For weeks, she stumbled about in an erotic daze, writhing in a sleepless sweat at night, refusing to relieve the burning coiled tension herself, waiting for him, letting it build, savoring the agony. She couldn’t eat, couldn’t swallow anything but fruit and juice.

  But he didn’t call.

  She would have rung him up, but she waited for him to call her, like the dating books tell you to do, and after three weeks she knew it was too late—he’d hear desperation in her voice. So she waited by her phone on Saturday nights, feeling stupid to be wasting her time but not really wanting to do anything else. After a month, she realized she couldn’t remember exactly what he looked like and made herself go out dancing alone.

  She didn’t get it. How could you experience that kind of emotional intensity with someone, then not call?

  Now six months later, he calls.

  Connie looked out over the water, the gray mist hanging over the glassy surface, the algae blooms rising and falling with the waves. Maybe she shouldn’t call back at all. Why disturb the tranquility of her life? Why accept a date from a man who was too rude to make a follow-up call, too cowardly to tell her he had another girlfriend, too diffident to admit he didn’t want to get involved? Hadn’t she learned anything from those weeks of suffering?

  Apparently not. Disgusted with herself, Connie brushed the sand off her bottom and prepared to drag her kayak up beneath her balcony, where she would rinse it off with a hose. She broke down her paddle and tucked it beneath her seat. As she hoisted the kayak up on her hip, stepping carefully over the sharp rocks, she knew that despite the hurt, despite the voices that told her no, despite an inexplicable yet lingering apprehension, she would call him back.

  * * *

  Thompson & Thompson Accounting covered eight floors of a turquoise glass skyscraper in Century City. Reggie waited behind bulletproof glass in the reception area and marveled as the receptionist ate a doughnut, painted her nails, opened e-mails on her computer, and answered the phone all at the same time.

  Employees arriving to work used electromagnetic swipe cards to let themselves in. They were mostly young; a large number were women and minorities. Dress was casual, although a few of the women were doing the stockings-and-heels routine. After ten minutes, Brian Johnson clicked open the door and led Reggie back to his office.

  Two hundred identical blue-gray desks between identical blue-gray partitions lined up eight across, twenty-five deep. Along the sides, glass-enclosed offices for the executives. Many were already behind their desks, hard at work. Apart from the mountains of paper, stuffed rabbits, Gumby dolls, and toy cars cluttered the desks. Exotic landscapes, Laker pendants, and pictures of movie stars torn from magazines wallpapered the five-foot-high dividers. Two hundred dorm rooms in need of cleaning.

  Johnson wasn’t at all what Reggie expected. He was tall, with a square midwestern-farmer face, thick-brown hair with gray temples, a soft belly, and an easy laugh. He stopped to say hi at each desk, slapping the partitions, making goofy comments: “Hey Phyllis, didn’t you hear. New regulations. No coffee drinking.”—“Hey Tom, off to the gym? Or did you b
ring your laundry to work?”—“Hey Laticia, don’t we let you go home anymore?” He was the kind of guy who needed to touch—things and people—needed to be noticed. Such guys often seemed to get plugged into middle management, Reggie thought, whether they were right for it or not.

  “This is where she sat,” Johnson said, pointing to a gray cubicle. There were a few personal items scattered about—a sweater on the chair, an empty coffee cup, a box of Kleenex. “The desk was reassigned a few days ago.”

  Reggie was appalled. It hurt to think of Laura working there. It was so bleak and anonymous.

  As they passed the conference room, Reggie noticed men dressed in suits. Computers were set up on the conference table beside huge volumes of computer printouts. Walking through the maze, they met other suits carrying mugs of coffee and more printouts. The suits seemed to come in groups of threes.

  “What’s going on?” asked Reggie.

  Johnson shrugged. “Our annual audit.”

  “Accounting companies get audited?”

  “Of course. Every year. Don’t cops police their own?”

  “Sure. Internal Affairs.”

  “Same thing. It’s no big deal, but it always makes the employees a little jumpy.” Johnson swung open the door to his office. “Come on in.”

  Johnson handed over Laura’s original letter of resignation. “While you check those signatures, I’ll hunt down Amy Chow. She was Laura’s closest friend here.”

  Reggie compared Laura’s signature on her letter to her release form from Tae Kwan Do Studio. Although he wasn’t an expert, they looked identical to him.

  “Amy, this is Detective Reggie Brooks.” Johnson gently pushed her forward.

  Amy was petite and bird-like. She looked scared, as if she might cry.

  Speaking softly, Reggie asked her to sit down. “Don’t worry. Laura’s not in any trouble. We simply would like to locate her. We need your help.”

  Amy nodded.

  “When was the last time you saw Laura?”