Six Years

by Harlan Coben

  Dinner with my fellow retreat scribes was not much of a reprieve. They were all precious pseudo-intellectuals writing the next great American novel, and when the subject of my nonfiction dissertation was tossed up, it landed upon the old kitchen table with the thud of a heaping pile of donkey dung. Sometimes these great American novelists did dramatic readings of their own work. The works were pretentious, tedious, self-involved crap written in a prose style one might best describe as "Look at me! Please look at me!" I never said any of this out loud, of course. When they read, I sat with my most studiously enraptured expression frozen to my face, nodding at regular intervals to appear wise and engaged and also to prevent myself from actually nodding off. One guy named Lars was writing a six-hundred-page poem on Hitler's last days in the bunker, written from the viewpoint of Eva Braun's dog. His first reading consisted of ten minutes of barking.

  "It sets the mood," he explained, and he was correct if that mood was to punch him hard in the face.

  Natalie's artist retreat was different. It was called the Creative Recharge Colony and had a decidedly more crunchy-granola, hemp, hippie-esque, "Kumbaya" commune feel to it. They took breaks by working in a garden that grew organic (and I am not just talking about food here). They gathered around a fire at night and sang songs of peace and harmony that would make Joan Baez gag. They were, interestingly enough, wary of strangers (perhaps because of what they "grew organic") and there was a guarded, cultish edge to some of the staff. The property was more than a hundred acres with a main house, true cottages with fireplaces and private decks, a swimming pool designed to look like a pond, a cafeteria with fantastic coffee and a wide variety of sandwiches that all tasted like sprouts covered in wood shavings--and on the border with the actual town of Kraftboro, a white chapel where one could, if they so desired, get married.

  The first thing I noticed was that the entrance was now unmarked. Gone was the brightly painted CREATIVE RECHARGE sign, like something you'd see advertising a kids' summer camp. A thick chain blocked my car from heading up the drive. I pulled over, turned off the ignition, and got out of the car. There were several NO TRESPASSING signs, but those had always been there. With the new chain and without the Creative Recharge welcome, the no trespassing signs took on a more ominous tone.

  I wasn't sure what to do.

  I knew that the main house was about a quarter mile up the drive. I could leave my car here and walk it. See what's what. But what would be the point? I hadn't been up here in six years. The retreat probably sold the land, and the new owner probably craved privacy. That might explain all this.

  Still it didn't feel right.

  What would be the harm, I thought, in going up and knocking on the door of the main house? Then again, the thick chain and no trespassing signs were not exactly welcome mats. I was still trying to decide what to do when a Kraftboro police cruiser pulled up next to me. Two officers got out. One was short and stocky with bloated gym muscles. The other was tall and thin with slicked-back hair and the small mustache of a guy in a silent movie. Both wore aviator sunglasses, so you couldn't see their eyes.

  Short and Stocky hitched up his pants a bit and said, "Can I help you?"

  They both gave me hard stares. Or at least I think they were hard stares. I mean, I couldn't see their eyes.

  "I was interested in visiting the Creative Recharge retreat."

  "The what?" Stocky asked. "What for?"

  "Because I need to creatively recharge."

  "You being a smart mouth with me?"

  His voice had a little too much snap in it. I didn't like the attitude. I didn't understand the attitude either, except for the fact that they were cops in a small town and I was probably the first guy they could hassle for something other than underage drinking.

  "No, Officer," I said.

  Stocky looked at Thin Man. Thin Man remained silent. "You must have the wrong address."

  "I'm pretty sure this is the place," I said.

  "There is no Creative Recharge retreat here. It closed down."

  "So which is it?" I asked.

  "Pardon me?"

  "Is this the wrong address," I said, "or did the Creative Recharge retreat close down?"

  Stocky didn't like that answer. He whipped off his sunglasses and used them to point at me. "Are you being a wiseass with me?"

  "I'm trying to find my retreat."

  "I don't know anything about any retreat. This land has been owned by the Drachman family for, what, Jerry, fifty years?"

  "At least," Thin Man said.

  "I was here six years ago," I said.

  "I don't know nothing about that," Stocky said. "I only know that you're on private property and if you don't get off it, I'm going to bring you in."

  I looked down at my feet. I wasn't on the driveway or any private property. I was on the road.

  Stocky moved closer to me, getting into my personal space. I confess that I was scared, but I had learned something in my years of bouncing at bars. You never show fear. That was something you always heard about when it came to the animal kingdom, and trust me, there are no wilder animals than human beings "unwinding" at late-night bars. So even though I didn't like what was happening, even though I had no leverage and was trying to figure a safe way out of this, I didn't back away when Stocky got all up on me. He didn't like that. I held my ground and looked down at him. Way down. He really didn't like that.

  "Let me see some ID, hotshot."

  "Why?" I asked.

  Stocky looked at Thin Man. "Jerry, go run the license plate through the system."

  Jerry nodded and headed back to the squad car.

  "For what?" I asked. "I don't understand. I'm just here for a retreat."

  "You got two choices," Stocky said to me. "One"--he held up a pudgy finger--"you show me your identification without any more back talk. Two"--yep, another chubby digit--"I arrest you for trespassing."

  None of this felt right. I glanced behind me at a tree and saw what looked like a security camera pointed down at us. I didn't like this. I didn't like this at all, but there was nothing to be gained by antagonizing a cop. I needed to keep my big mouth shut.

  I started to reach into my pocket to get my wallet when Stocky held up a hand and said, "Steady. Slow down."

  "What?"

  "Reach into your pocket, but make no sudden moves."

  "You're kidding, right?"

  So much for keeping my big mouth shut.

  "Do I look like I'm kidding? Use two fingers. Your thumb and your index finger. Move slowly."

  My wallet was deep down in my front pocket. Extracting it with two fingers took longer than it should.

  "I'm waiting," he said.

  "Give me a second."

  I finally got ahold of the wallet and handed it to him. He started to look through it, as though on a scavenger hunt. He stopped at my Lanford College ID, looked at the photograph, looked at me, then he frowned.

  "This you?"

  "Yes."

  "Jacob Fisher."

  "Everyone calls me Jake."

  He frowned down at my photograph.

  "I know," I said. "It is hard to capture my raw animal magnetism in photography."

  "You have a college ID in here."

  I didn't hear a question so I didn't answer one.

  "You look kind of old to be a student."

  "I'm not a student. I'm a professor. See where it says 'staff'?"

  Thin Man came back from the car. He shook his head. I guessed that meant the license plate check came back negative.

  "Why would a big-time professor be coming up to our little town?"

  I remembered something that I saw on television once. "I need to reach into my pocket again. That okay?"

  "What for?"

  "You'll see."

  I pulled out my smartphone.

  "What do you need that for?" Stocky asked.

  I pointed it at him and hit the video record button. "This is on a live feed to my home computer, Officer."
That was a lie. It was only recording on my phone, but what the heck. "Everything you say and do can be seen by my colleagues." More lies, but good ones. "I'd very much like to know why you need to see my identification and are asking so many questions about me."

  Stocky put the sunglasses back on as though that would mask the rage. He closed his lips so tight that they were quaking. He handed me back my wallet and said, "We had a complaint that you were trespassing. Despite finding you on a private property and listening to some story about a retreat that doesn't exist, we decided to let you off with just a warning. Please leave these premises. Have a nice day."

  Stocky and Thin Man headed back to their squad car. They sat in the front and waited until I was back in mine. There was no other play here. I got into my car and drove away.

  Chapter 8

  I didn't go far.

  I drove to the village of Kraftboro. If it had a big, sudden influx of new construction and cash, it might raise itself to the level of small-town America. It looked like something out of an old movie. I half expected to see a barbershop quartet in straw hats. There was a general store (the sign actually said GENERAL STORE), an old "stone mill" with an unmanned "visitor's center," a gas station that also housed a one-chair barbershop, and a bookstore cafe. Natalie and I had spent a lot of time in that bookstore cafe. It was small, so there wasn't much browsing, but there was a corner table and Natalie and I would sit there and read the paper and sip coffee. Cookie, a baker who'd escaped the big city, used to run the place with her partner, Denise. She always played Redemption's Son by Joseph Arthur or Damien Rice's O, and after a while, Natalie and I started thinking of those--gag alert--as "our" albums. I wondered whether Cookie was still there. Cookie baked what Natalie considered the greatest scones in the history of the world. Then again, Natalie loved all scones. I, on the other hand, still have trouble differentiating scones from dry, rock-hard bread.

  See? We had our differences.

  I parked down the road and started journeying up the same path I had stumbled down six years earlier. The wooded trail ran for about a hundred yards. In the clearing I spotted the familiar white chapel on the edge of the property I had just been booted off. Some service or meeting was letting out. I watched the congregants blink their way back into the lowering sun. The chapel was, as far as I knew, nondenominational. It seemed more utilitarian, if you will, than Unitarian, a gathering place more than any sort of house of deeply religious worship.

  I waited, smiling like I belonged, nodding like Mr. Friendly as about a dozen people walked past me and down the path. I checked the faces, but there was no one that I recognized from six years ago. No surprise really.

  A tall woman with a severe hair bun waited by the chapel steps. I made my way over, maintaining the Mr. Friendly smile.

  "May I help you?" she asked.

  Good question. What did I hope to find here? It wasn't as though I had a plan.

  "Are you looking for Reverend Kelly?" she asked. "Because he's not around right now."

  "Do you work here?" I asked.

  "Sort of. I'm Lucy Cutting, the registrar. It's a volunteer position."

  I stood there.

  "Is there something I can help you with?"

  "I don't know how to put this . . . ," I began. And then: "Six years ago I attended a wedding here. I knew the bride, but not the groom."

  Her eyes narrowed a bit, more curious than wary. I pushed ahead.

  "Anyway, I recently saw an obituary for a man named Todd. That was the groom's name. Todd."

  "Todd is a fairly common name," she said.

  "Yes, of course, but there was also a photograph of the deceased. It looked like, I know how this sounds, but it looked like the same man I saw marry my friend. The problem is, I never learned Todd's last name so I don't know if it is him or not. And if it is, well, I'd like to pay my respects."

  Lucy Cutting scratched her cheek. "Can't you just call?"

  "I wish I could, but no." I was going with honesty here. It felt good. "For one thing I don't know where Natalie--that's the bride's name--I don't know where she lives now. She changed her last name to his, I think. So I can't find them. And also, to be completely up-front, I had a past with this woman."

  "I see."

  "So if the man I saw in the obituary wasn't her husband--"

  "Your communication might be unwanted," she finished for me.

  "Exactly."

  She thought about that. "And if it was her husband?"

  I shrugged. She scratched her cheek some more. I tried to look nonthreatening, even demure, which really doesn't play on a guy my size. I almost batted my eyelashes.

  "I wasn't here six years ago," she said.

  "Oh."

  "But we can check the schedule books. They've always kept immaculate records--every wedding, baptism, communion, bris, whatever."

  Bris? "That would be great."

  She led me down the steps. "Do you remember the date of the wedding?"

  I did, of course. I gave her the exact date.

  We reached a small office. Lucy Cutting opened a file cabinet, thumbed through it, and pulled out one of those accounting books. As she flipped through it, I could see that she was right. The records were immaculate. There was a column for the date, type of event, participants, start and end times--all written in handwriting that could double as calligraphy.

  "Let's see what we can find here . . ."

  She made a production of putting on her reading glasses. She licked her index finger schoolmarm-like, flipped a few more pages, and found the one she wanted. The same finger started tracing down the page. When she frowned, I thought to myself, Uh-oh . . .

  "Are you sure about the date?" she asked me.

  "Positive."

  "I don't see any wedding that day. There was one two days earlier. Larry Rosen married Heidi Fleisher."

  "That's not it," I said.

  "Can I help you?"

  The voice startled us both.

  Lucy Cutting said, "Oh, hello, Reverend. I didn't expect you back so soon."

  I turned, saw the man, and nearly hugged him with joy. Pay dirt. It was the same minister with the shaved head who'd presided over Natalie's wedding. He reached out his hand to shake mine, a practiced smile at the ready, but when he saw my face, I saw the smile flicker.

  "Hello," he said to me. "I'm Reverend Kelly."

  "Jake Fisher. We've met before."

  He made a skeptical face and turned back to Lucy Cutting. "What's going on, Lucy?"

  "I was looking up a record for this gentleman," she began to explain. He listened patiently. I studied his face, but I wasn't sure what I was seeing, just that he was trying to control his emotions somehow. When she was done, he turned to me and raised both palms to the sky. "If it isn't in the records . . ."

  "You were there," I said.

  "Excuse me?"

  "You presided over the wedding. That's where we met."

  "I don't recall that. So many events. You understand."

  "After the wedding, you were in front of the chapel with the bride's sister. A woman named Julie Pottham. When I walked by, you said it was a lovely day for a wedding."

  He arched an eyebrow. "How could I have possibly forgotten that?"

  Sarcasm does not normally wear well on men of the cloth, but it fit Reverend Kelly as though hand tailored. I pressed on. "The bride was named Natalie Avery. She was a painter at the Creative Recharge retreat."

  "The what?"

  "Creative Recharge. They own this land, right?"

  "What are you talking about? The town owns this land."

  I didn't want to argue deeds and boundaries right now. I tried another avenue. "The wedding. It was last-minute. Maybe that's why it isn't in the records."

  "I'm sorry. Mr. . . . ?"

  "Fisher. Jake Fisher."

  "Mr. Fisher, first off, even if it was a last-minute wedding, it would certainly be recorded. Second, well, I'm confused what exactly you're looking for."
r />   Lucy Cutting answered for me. "The groom's last name."

  He gave her a quick glare. "We aren't in the information business, Miss Cutting."

  She looked down, properly chastised.

  "You have to remember the wedding," I said.

  "I'm sorry I don't."

  I stepped closer, looking down on him. "You do. I know you do."

  I heard the desperation in my own voice, and didn't like it. Reverend Kelly tried to meet my eye, but he couldn't quite do it. "Are you calling me a liar?"

  "You remember," I said. "Why won't you help me?"

  "I don't remember," he said. "But why are you so anxious to find the wife of another man or, if your story is true, a recent widow?"

  "To pay my respects," I said.

  My hollow words hung in the air like thick humidity. No one moved. No one spoke. Finally Reverend Kelly broke the silence.

  "Whatever your motive for finding this woman, we have no interest in being party to it." He stepped away and showed me the door. "I think it'd be best if you left immediately."

  *

  Once again, dazed by betrayal and heartbreak, I stumbled back down the path toward the village center. I could almost get the reverend's behavior. If he did remember the wedding--and I suspect he did--he wouldn't want to give Natalie's dumped boyfriend any information said boyfriend didn't already have. It seemed an extreme hypothesis on my part, but at least it kind of made sense. What I couldn't make sense of, what I couldn't figure out in any way, shape, or form, was why Lucy Cutting had found nothing in the neat-to-the-point-of-anal records on Natalie and Todd's nuptials. And why the hell had no one heard of the Creative Recharge retreat?

  I couldn't get that to mesh.

  So now what? I had come here in hopes of . . . of what? Of learning Todd's last name for one thing. That could end this pretty quickly. If not, perhaps someone here still kept in touch with Natalie. That could end this all pretty quickly too.