Misery Loves Company (7 page)

CHRIS STOOD ON THE PORCH,
hands deep in his pockets, hoping that 9:30 p.m. was not too late. By the long pause that followed his ringing of the doorbell, it seemed it might be. He’d been to the captain’s house only one other time, for a Christmas party right before Jason died.

Finally a shadow moved across the small window to the left of the door. Then he heard locks being unlocked.

The door opened and Captain Perry stood in sweats and a Boston Red Sox T-shirt. “Downey?”

“Sir, I wanted to see if I could talk with you for a little bit.”

The captain widened the door and stepped aside. “I’m glad you’re here, actually. I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

That didn’t sound good, but Chris walked in, following the captain into a small sitting room, with a floral decor that looked like the wife had been 100 percent involved. The captain turned on a couple of lamps, and they took seats opposite one another.

The captain had aged pretty drastically over the past couple of years, ever since Jason’s death. His hair was almost completely white and deep wrinkles were etching their way into both cheeks.

“Sir, I’ve been investigating Juliet Belleno’s disappearance.” Chris waited, watching for the captain’s reaction to his insubordination.

The captain sighed and rubbed his forehead with a thumb and forefinger, like he was trying to pull the wrinkles off. “I know.”

“You do?” Chris cleared his throat. “It’s just that . . . it’s Jason.”

“I know,” the captain said again, his expression softening. “The Lt. Colonel giving you fits?”

“Yeah, a little,” Chris said. “But he’s doing okay. Very worried, as you can imagine.”

“So what have you turned up?”

“Well, there’s no sign of forced entry, and everything seems to be in place. I probably would’ve left it at that, except . . .”

“Yeah?”

“This is going to sound crazy. But I talked to this kid at the grocery store, and he said he was certain Jules had been
in on Tuesday morning. He distinctly remembered it because he said that Patrick Reagan was also in that morning.”

“Patrick Reagan was at the grocery store?”

“Yes. And the kid said it was significant because Reagan doesn’t stay here in the winter. He apparently has some mountain cabin he goes to.”

“That’s the rumor. But he’s sure he saw Patrick Reagan?”

“He was more than sure. I guess he’s a fan. So here’s the weird part. I was going over Jules’s last blog to see if there were any clues about what’s going on. Her last post was a review of Reagan’s latest book, and it wasn’t flattering. I know it’s so far-fetched, but I can’t help wondering if it was a coincidence that Reagan was at the grocery store at the same time as Jules.”

“How would he know that? You think he followed her?”

“Maybe. She inadvertently gives a lot of clues to her whereabouts on Facebook, as most people do. But he doesn’t seem to be a friend on her page. I don’t know,” Chris said, running his fingers over the top of his head. “I know this sounds implausible and all that. But I don’t feel like I can just look the other way, let it work itself out. She’s Jason’s wife, you know?”

“You keep reminding me of that, but that’s no good reason for going behind my back, Downey.” The captain seemed deep in thought. “I know you want to do all you can to help her.”

Chris stared at the carpet. “That’s the thing. I haven’t, really. I told Jason before he died that I’d take care of her if
anything happened, but Jules didn’t want to be around anybody and I didn’t push back. I just let her be.”

“You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.” Captain Perry leaned back and stared at Chris for a moment. “How are you doing with Jason’s death?”

Chris shrugged. “You just go on.”

“I really wish we’d gotten those guys. I wish with everything in me, you know?” The captain traced the armrest of the couch with a thumb. “You’re sleeping okay at night, all of that?”

“All of that,” Chris said plaintively. After Jason died, he’d been given a piece of paper with a list of things to watch out for, symptoms that he might be sliding into depression. He’d tossed it before he even left the police station. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

Yeah, he’d had sleepless nights. So what. Shouldn’t he? How could he rest peacefully knowing the guys who murdered his partner were still roaming around out there?

“Anyway,” Chris said, “I think the Reagan angle is worth checking out. I’d like to get a search warrant and take a look around his home here.”

“That’s going to get dicey.”

“I know.”

“Rumor is, nobody can get ahold of Reagan during his ‘writing season.’”

“I get it. Probable cause is going to be a factor.”

The captain looked irritated but focused. He stared hard at Chris. “He was your partner, so I suspect you’re not going to be able to let this go.”

“No, sir. It seems it’s the least I can do.”

The captain sighed. “The DA owes me a favor or ten. I’ll see what I can do about getting us a search warrant. It’s going to be a complicated mess. We may move more slowly than you’d like. But I’ll officially open an investigation.”

“I’ll take what I can get.”

“Do you think you can keep the Lt. Colonel in line?”

“If I can show him we’re making some progress, I guess I can.”

“That guy gets on my nerves. He’s radical and crazy in the head, you know?”

“If we can show him Jules is okay, I think he’ll be grateful, maybe give us less of a hard time.”

“We can only hope.”

Chris smiled and stood to shake the captain’s hand. “Sir, thanks for the time. Sorry to disturb you at this late hour.”

“No problem. Get some rest, okay?”

They walked to the door.

“You know,” the captain said, “I met Patrick Reagan a couple of years ago.”

“I remember he came to the station a lot for a while, but I was on shift mostly, didn’t run into him.”

“Yeah. The governor called the DA asking for this special favor. Reagan was researching a book, wanted access to the police department and all that. Interviews. Wanted to look through random evidence and files, just for a feel of how it all worked.”

“How was he?”

“Didn’t really see him much. He came in at weird hours, didn’t converse, except I remember he wanted to interview one of the detectives, Walker. Walker agreed. That was about it. He was around for maybe two weeks, then disappeared, except to send like five hundred cookies from France to the department as a thank-you. I hear he’s a brilliant guy, but the man is quirky to say the least.” The captain yawned. “Old men like me have to get to bed early. You take care of yourself, Chris. I’ll keep you updated on the progress we’re making on the search warrant.”

Chris stepped out into the cold, feeling a little more assured that at least the captain believed there was something to look into. And it was nice not to sneak around anymore. He was afraid his theory that Reagan might be involved was going to get him laughed out of the state. It felt as kooky as it sounded coming off his tongue.

He took out his phone and called the Lt. Colonel. Calling him at night seemed like the best time. He’d most likely be passed out and Chris could just leave him a message. He didn’t want to give him too much information, especially about Reagan. The last thing he needed was the Lt. Colonel hounding their most famous resident.

He left a short message about the opening of an official investigation and tried to leave out as much detail as possible.

Then he drove twelve miles to the cemetery where they’d buried Jason. It was over a hundred years old, with tall pines clustered on the five acres. Jason was buried in the northeast corner with the rest of his family, including great-
grandparents. With no siblings and his parents dead, Jason had been the last living member of his immediate family.

Chris shrugged under his heavy leather jacket, trying to stay warm. A brisk wind snapped and jumped through the trees and over the hills, lifting his hair and stinging his skin. Winter had arrived far too early this year.

Above, the stars twinkled brightly away from the town’s lights, and a gentle light glowed down onto the grave site. Chris walked the unpaved path to the far side of the cemetery and easily found Jason’s headstone, shorter and squarer than the rest.

He knelt beside it, reading the inscriptions about Jason: a loving husband, loyal friend, faithful officer. The grass was withering against the early cold, but it was thick and had grown in well.

From his back pocket, Chris pulled a bent and worn picture out of his wallet. It was of Jules and Jason, their engagement photo. Chris had given him a hard time when he was handing them out, teasing that he’d been domesticated in the worst sort of way . . . downsized to a wallet picture.

Jason took it all in stride. He laughed so much at himself that it was hard to give him a good ribbing because it seemed nothing really insulted him.

Chris had taken the picture, vowing to do something with it, like a practical joke. But it ended up staying in his wallet, the only picture he carried there.

He held it up a little to get a good look at it in the dim light. They were so happy; their eyes had an extra, magical
sparkle to them. But as far as Chris was concerned, Jules always had that look. The first time Jason brought her to O’Malley’s to meet the guys, Chris had found himself unable to stop staring at her. She was naturally beautiful and Chris wasn’t sure she was wearing any makeup. And her smile was wide but gentle, like she knew everything about you instantly and still liked you.

She was quiet most of the time but had begun coming out of her shell the more comfortable she became with Jason’s friends, and Chris found she actually had a pretty good sense of humor when she wasn’t too shy to use it.

He’d guarded himself from liking her too much, out of respect for Jason, but she became the woman that all other women were judged against in Chris’s book. And unfortunately for those women, they had a high standard to reach. None had, so far.

Chris set the photo against the headstone and moved a nearby rock to hold it in place.

“I’m going to bring her back,” Chris said as he stood. “I’m going to bring her home safely. If it’s the last thing I do.”

WHEN JULES AWOKE,
the curtains were wide-open. The light filled the room so dramatically that she held her hand up to her eyes as if she were out at the beach with the sun glaring off the sand.

She sat up. She was certain she’d closed the curtains last night. Then she noticed the door to her bedroom was open. She hurried over and shut it. There was no lock on her side of the door, but she leaned against it, breathing hard. She’d hoped as she wept herself to sleep last night that she’d wake up in the morning and be back home.

Or maybe that she wouldn’t wake up at all.

She walked as quietly as possible to the bathroom and
shut the door. It didn’t have a lock either. She washed her face and brushed her teeth. In the closet, she picked an outfit
 
—a warm sweater and matching slacks. She slid on her shoes. The wrong style for what she was wearing, but that was the least of her concerns.

Her heart pounded wildly as she geared herself up for walking out of the room. She’d thought last night about how she might get herself out of this predicament. She knew Jason would want her to think, to keep her wits, to stay strong and aware and astute. Every time he worked some tragedy, he’d come home with tips. A woman drove her car into the water, so Jason showed Jules how to escape a car if she were underwater. A teenager was kidnapped a few years back, so Jason gave her ideas of how she might handle the situation, pretending to go along until there was a moment she could get away. He’d even cautioned her about her Facebook page and her blog, not to tell everyone she was going out to the store or that they were leaving on vacation. He was such a cautious man, and she loved him for it. But the truth was, he’d always made her feel safe and she never feared anything when he was around. When he was gone, she began to fear everything. Yet even with all the irrational fears she dealt with, she could’ve never seen this coming.

So, Jules, what are you going to do here?

She heard his voice like they were practicing some safety maneuver. First, she decided, she had to understand the man she was dealing with as best as possible. Most of what she knew about him was from his books. And the question was,
could anyone really know a writer from just his books? How much of himself did he put into his writings? Was it all just make-believe, or were there elements of truth hidden behind each passage, clues about what made the writer tick?

She knew the answer to that. And he had actually come out and said it, with his quip about reading between the lines.

It occurred to her that Patrick really liked the female characters he wrote. There was at least one strong female character in each book, witty and discerning, cleverly working her way in or out of a crime, deftly escaping even her wisest foe.

So. Maybe she should be one of those characters. If she didn’t show her hand but wisely worked her way around and through and into him, then maybe she had a chance to, at the very least, talk some sense into him. Even to escape.

Be a character.
She tried to think through some of her favorites. Alise Domingo, the street-savvy detective who barely topped five feet but had a martial arts background. That wasn’t going to work. The most Jules knew to do was get out of a choke hold.
“And if all else fails,”
Jason had told her,
“bite the living daylights out of them.”

There was Sabrina Farmer, the burned-out detective from Queens who’d gotten hooked on meth. When her boyfriend, a firefighter, died on 9/11, she tried to clean up her act. But she’d inadvertently gotten tied to a Mexican drug cartel, and the only way to save herself and her young daughter was to go undercover . . . as a drug addict.

Nancy Montgomery was a fun character. An ATF agent
whose only asset was the fact that she seemed to be able to read people’s minds. Other than that, she was a terrible agent. But when she started reading clues that one of her partners was contemplating murder, she had to get out of her comfort zone and figure out how to stop him without showing her hand.

Yeah, maybe Nancy. She could do Nancy.

A loud sigh escaped. Who was she kidding? She couldn’t even do Juliet well.

“There’s no use stalling anymore,” she said, hooking her thumbs through her belt loops like an old Western showdown was about to take place.

She walked into the living area. Patrick was at the table where they’d eaten the night before, an old-looking typewriter in front of him. He was clacking away at it, briefly observing her before going back to his work.

On the other end of the table were a bowl, a cup of orange juice, and a spoon.

Jules waited for him to say something, but he didn’t, so she sat down and began to eat.

“Ugh . . .” It was just the first response to what looked to be an appetizing breakfast. But it was stone cold.

He looked up at her, one of his eyebrows raised. “Breakfast was served three hours ago.”

“I don’t know what time it is.”

“Any person with a decent amount of self-discipline has an internal clock that awakens her. It’s 11 a.m. Is that when you normally rise?”

She regarded the bowl and continued to eat. “It’s not bad cold.” Trying to sell it, she took a few more bites. “So what should I call you?”

“Brilliant.”

She forced a smile at his joke. “Mr. Reagan? Your Highness? The Grim Reaper? What?”

He lifted an eyebrow at her again. “You may call me Patrick.”

“Fine. You may call me Jules.”

“I think Juliet fits you better.”

“Then you don’t know me very well.”

He went back to typing for a long while. She silently ate her cold oatmeal and drank her warm orange juice, watching as he pecked away with two fingers, fairly fast but not as fast as she typed. His focus was on the keys, not what he was writing, and his eyes were distant as he typed, like he was not really present in the room.

Here she was, in Patrick Reagan’s cabin, watching him write. She was pretty sure she’d imagined this once or twice. She decided to make the most of it, take in all the details. If she got out of this alive, she’d have blog material for years.

The paper rolled as he continued to type. When he reached the bottom, he pulled the sheet out, turned it over, and set it atop what looked to be a thin stack of papers. He looked at her. “You’re eating breakfast and I’m about to fix myself lunch. I guess you won’t be needing lunch.” He stood. “Haven’t you heard, the early bird catches the worm? I work
more before noon than most of your generation works in a week
 
—unless, of course, you consider FarmVille work.”

She laughed. It seemed to surprise him. But it was funny, especially to someone who equally hated all those Facebook games. “You know what they say. Writing is 5 percent work, 95 percent staying off the Internet.”

“You won’t find anything of the sort here.”

“Well then, I don’t have anything to work on. Maybe you have a chore or two I could do around the cabin? And you’ve been rude not to give me the full tour.”

He smirked. “You seem chipper for a woman who was so distraught last night.”

“It’s amazing what a good, long night’s sleep will do.” This was good. Nancy was kind of coming through.

He stood and took the bowl away from her. She was somewhat thankful but had only eaten half. Then he slid the papers toward her, still upside down.

“I’d like your opinion.”

“On?”

“These few pages. Give me your first impression of them.”

Jules swallowed. How was she supposed to be fair and unbiased?

“Maybe that’s not such a good idea,” she said, sliding the papers back his way. “The last time I read one of your books, it ended up . . . messy.”

“Don’t you know who I am? What I can offer you by letting you read these pages?” His voice had a booming quality about it. Maybe it was because he was standing over her. “Do
you know how many writers would kill for a chance to read just three pages of my unedited manuscript?”

She tried to keep her voice steady. “Of course. It’s an easily recognizable honor.”

He snorted. “You’re just saying what you think I want to hear. Your generation, you’re a bunch of self-absorbed snobs, unwilling to be mentored or taught or shown a way other than the easy way.” He pointed toward the pages. “This
 
—what’s on this page
 
—takes decades to master. Do you understand that? Do you understand it’s called a craft because it must be shaped and molded? You cannot read a textbook and understand the nuances and commandments of this process.”

Jules generously nodded. “I respect the process. I know it’s difficult.”

“Do you know because you have
any
idea of what it’s like to pour your blood onto the page?”

Jules took a deep breath, placed her hand on the pages, and slowly pulled them toward her. “I’d be honored to read them.”

He was breathing hard, but then his breathing slowed as he watched her turn the papers over. “This is raw, right out of the typewriter.
Raw
, Juliet. It’s mad and insane. It’s forbidden and foreboding
 
—all those risks that a writer takes to get to the truth. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

Jules nudged out a nod.

“Then read.” He walked to the sink and she felt her body tremble. Nancy slid down the drain of despair. Weak, vulnerable Jules had returned.

But now she had to concentrate. She had to read this and absorb it. Certainly there would be a quiz.

Her eyes focused on the first line and she gasped, her hand covering her mouth.

His body, riddled with bullets, lay in a pool of blood, beside the white sailboat named
Greed
.

She looked up through the tears welling in her eyes. Patrick was at the counter, fixing something for lunch, his back turned.

With the exception of the name of the boat, he’d described exactly how Jason died.