Point Pleasant (63 page)

“Yeah,” Ben said. “So you didn’t see what happened to the other one?”

“I was hoping you did.”

“Raziel said he would ‘vanquish’ him,” Ben said, hesitating over the term. “Whatever the hell that means.”

Tucker seemed to consider Ben’s response, but he said nothing more on the matter. They finished their beers in companionable silence.

Ben startled at the delayed realization that Tucker had been working
outside
. Birdsong tittered in the distance like the suppressed laughter of school children with a playground secret. He peered over to the nearby woods and was surprised he had not done so when he first arrived. There had been no reason to take notice of the tree line, though. Where it had once radiated the eerie impression of watchful eyes, it was now just a forest.

“Some of the parts will be in on Tuesday,” Tucker said, drawing Ben’s attention. “I tend to do all my farm stuff in the morning. You come over after lunch anytime. We’ll get to work then.”

“Thanks, Bill,” Ben said, digesting the other man’s sincerity. “Really.”

“You earned it, I guess,” Tucker said. “There ain’t many folks who’ll ever know what happened the other night, or the part you played in it. I figure it’s the least I can do.”

“You did just as much.”

“Let’s not have a moment,” Tucker replied. He was all gruff and bluster like the spit of rain that never amounted to a full downpour or warranted the use of an umbrella, but his slight smile reminded Ben of Andrew.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Ben said.

“See you next week, son,” Tucker said, and he took Ben’s empty bottle before he headed toward his house and disappeared inside.

Ben cast a final glance at the Camaro and shuffled back to the Malibu. He slid in and cranked the engine. The phone rang at his side. He needed to program his phone book, but he knew whose number was on the screen.

“Hey, Sheriff.”

“Ben,” Nicholas replied, and Ben could hear the grin in the other man’s voice.

“How was your day, dear?” Ben asked, his tone humming with tender mocking as he placed the phone on speaker and let it rest in his lap. He secured his seatbelt, put the Malibu into gear, and reversed out of Tucker’s driveway.

“I think I’m smiling too much,” Nicholas said. “My officers seem unsettled.”

“Sorry about that,” Ben said, chuckling.

“Don’t you dare be. Are you at home?”

“No, I’m just leaving Tucker’s,” Ben said and sighed for dramatic effect. “I saw the Camaro.”

“It’ll be okay. You got a rental, right? I’m heading home soon, I can pick you up if you need.”

“No, I got one. Shiny new phone too. Raz fried my other one.”

“Ah,” Nicholas replied. “And here I thought you were ignoring my calls.”

“Not presently.”

“Hey, now,” Nicholas laughed. “What are you in the mood for, dinner-wise? I know this sounds
real
classy, but how do you feel about a burger at Duvall’s and your choice of movie at the Marquee. Any movie. I’m feeling generous.”

“Gee, Nic. Sounds like high school. Can we make out in the backseat of your car after?”

“God, yes.”

“I’ll meet you at Duvall’s around seven?”

“Seven’s good.”

“Bye, Nic.”

“Bye, Ben.”

When he was back on Cardinal, Ben put the new phone on to charge in the kitchen and shrugged off his coat as he sat down in front of his laptop. He glanced up at the window over the sink and considered the apple tree in the backyard.

A sudden whim took hold, and Ben opened a new Word document. He saved the blank file to his desktop, thought of his earlier email to Elliot, and named the file
Next One
.

By six o’clock, Ben had almost two thousand words of haphazard ideas for a potential story about an angel who had been locked out of Heaven.

Ben thought of Kate, figured she was probably home from work, and grabbed his fully charged phone.

Nicholas’ earlier call was still in Ben’s received log. He tapped the number and saved it to his phone as
‘Nic.’
He added another entry for
‘Katie’
and entered her number as well. The contact list was sparse, but he knew that the two numbers listed were the most important. He clicked Kate’s name and dialed. She answered after a few rings.

“Ben?”

“Hey Katie, I got a new phone.”

“What happened to the other one?”

“Long story,” Ben sighed. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m finally packing. It took me forever to square away my deposition. And with all the planning for Friday, I haven’t even had a chance to pick up my dry cleaning.”

“Isn’t that what Margaret is for?” Ben asked.

“This is New York, not Los Angeles. I give my PA actual work, jackass.”

“Okay, jeez.”

“Sorry,” Kate said, her tone softening. “It’s not you. It’s everything else.”

“Anyway,” Ben said. “What can I do? For Friday, I mean.”

“It’s a bit late to offer, don’t you think?”

Ben furrowed his brow and said nothing.

“I’ve taken care of most everything,” Kate continued. “Pastor John at Saint Luke’s has been very helpful. And Dad had a lot of it arranged anyway.”

“Did he?”

“He was getting older, Benji,” Kate said. “We all are. It’s good to have plans in place.”

“I’ll get right on that, then,” Ben said, slumping in his seat.

“You know what I mean. Anyway, the planning is sorted. But you can dig out his uniform and drop it off at the funeral home tomorrow. It should be in his closet. He wanted to be buried in it. Oh, and sign the death certificate. The director will give you two copies.”

“I can do that.”

“Good. He’ll have a military burial per his wishes, but he opted to be buried with mom rather than the vet cemetery in Grafton,” Kate said, and fabric rustled on the other end of the line. Ben imagined his sister folding the black dress she would wear to the service.

“That’s good, I guess,” Ben said. He hesitated before he spoke again. “You’re taking this well.”

“Hardly,” Kate replied with an empty snicker. “Staying busy only keeps the floodgates closed for so long.”

“I suppose so,” Ben said. “I hate this is why I get to see you, though.”

Kate was silent for a few seconds. Ben could make out the muffled but distinct rumble of traffic in the background. “Me too,” she replied at last. “I’m sorry I missed you the other week.”

“I’m sorry I don’t come up to see you more often.”

“What?”

“New York isn’t that far from Boston. I could try harder. I’m sorry, Katie. I kinda suck as a brother.”

“Benji, are you okay?”

“I will be. But I just wanted to say, you know, I wish we were closer. Like we used to be. And I know it’s my fault we’re not.”

“We all grow up sometime, Ben,” Kate said. “You have a life to live. I have mine. You can’t really apologize for that.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Ben said, frowning to himself. “I just wish I had done some things differently.”

“So do I,” Kate said. Melancholy broke through her tone. “I was supposed to visit Dad three times in the last year. Kept telling him I’d be there this weekend or that weekend, but it never happened. I always got too busy.”

“It happens, Katie,” Ben said. “You saw him way more than I did over the years. He was glad about that. He always talked about you.”

Kate’s cheerless laugh rang hollow in the speaker. “He always talked about you to me. And anyway, it goes both ways. He could have gone up to Boston to see you. Or me in New York. It was like pulling teeth to even try to get him to talk about leaving the fucking state.”

Ben reclined so that only his chair’s back legs touched the floor, and he peered down the hallway that led to Andrew’s office. “Did you know he read my first book?”

“Did he?”

“Yeah, I found it in his desk. Full of notes.
Nice
notes, even.”

“That’s so bizarre,” Kate said with a bewildered scoff.

“No kidding.”

“I guess he just never knew how to talk to either of us.”

“Yeah,” Ben sighed and let the front two chair legs drop back to the tiles. “Guess that was always more Mom’s gig.”

The connection hummed, and Ben was sure Kate would not reply.

“I miss her,” Kate said at last.

The admission was meek, and Ben’s throat pinched to hear the words. He closed his eyes and exhaled through his nose. He felt like he was twenty again, and Kate was twenty-two, and they were waiting together in the hallway of St. Luke’s while Andrew had a few moments alone with Caroline before her funeral service.

“Me too.”

“I should go, I’ve got to finish packing.”

“Yeah, okay. See you tomorrow, Katie.”

“See you tomorrow, Benji.”

“Have a safe flight, okay?”

“I will.”

Ben waited for Kate to hang up first. He stared at his phone for a moment before he slid it into a back pocket and turned to the Word document. He reread the words and let them brew like a pot of coffee left to percolate in his father’s ancient machine.

Upstairs, Ben stood in front of the closed door of his father’s bedroom. Inside, the order was unsurprising. The bed was made with military precision. The surfaces of the furniture were empty save for two framed photographs on the dresser closest to the bed. There was one of Andrew and Caroline with their arms wrapped around one another, and one with Kate, Andrew, and Ben from the same summer as the photograph that Nicholas kept in his bedroom.

Ben regarded his eight-year-old self’s grin, complete with missing teeth, and compared it to the perfectly aligned smiles of his father and sister. He ran the edge of his tongue over his upper gums as if he might find his front incisors absent just as they were in the photograph.

The red glow of the digital clock beside the bed reminded Ben that he needed to leave soon. He turned to the closet. Andrew’s ceremonial uniform was tucked away inside a black garment bag that reminded Ben all too much of the body bag he had watched his mother disappear into after the coroner declared her dead on the Wisehart’s perfectly manicured front lawn.

Ben pulled the hanger from the rail, shut the closet, and left the room. He draped the uniform on the bannister in the hallway and headed to the bathroom for a shower.

Ben parked in an empty space in front of Duvall’s. Nicholas leaned against the side of the building in a pair of jeans and a navy blue henley under his gray coat. Ben was struck with a fleeting impression of James Dean on the poster for
Rebel Without a Cause.

“Don’t say a word,” Ben said as he climbed out of the car.

“It’s a
very
pretty car, Ben,” Nicholas said, smirking.

“Shut up.”

“Hey, we’re in public, Wiseass. And I’m still the sheriff.” His tone was dry but full of playful mocking, and Ben admired the sly glint of amusement in the other man’s eyes.

“Sorry. I’ll work on that. Shall we go inside?”

Duvall’s was as busy as it had been on Ben’s first night in town.
Things really have picked up
, Ben thought as he followed Nicholas to a booth in the back. He slipped into one of the seats. Nicholas waited until Ben was situated before he slid in on the side of the table that had a view of the diner’s entrance.

“Hey, so what’s the story?” Ben asked, leaning closer.

“Story?”

“I assume you lifted the curfew,” Ben said and gestured to the other patrons. “What did you tell everyone?”

“Ah,” Nicholas replied. “That was Silas. Big meeting yesterday afternoon.” He cleared his throat when Keith approached to take their orders. Nicholas waited for Keith to leave before he continued. “Silas told everyone that he accompanied us into the forest and could confirm that the ‘Mothman’ had been shot and killed right in front of him.”

“Us?” Ben asked with a hint of apprehension.

“Yeah, he made sure to mention you were there. Upon my urging.”

“Your urging?”

“I don’t want to have to lose my temper because some fuckshit tries to blame you for the town’s bad luck again,” Nicholas replied coolly.

Ben ran a hand through his hair. “So, what, no more angry mobs with pitchforks?”

“We can only hope,” Nicholas replied with a wry smirk. “But who knows? You’re still the
city boy
, after all. With your fancy phone and car to match.”

Ben knew it was meant to be a joke, but he found little humor in the observation.

“Hey,” Nicholas said and bent forward over the table. “You know I didn’t mean it badly.”

“So everyone just believes Stewart?” Ben asked, subsiding against his seat. “They didn’t ask to see the body?”

“He said we burned the body. For health and safety reasons,” Nicholas explained, his words rushed. “Don’t be mad at me for a bad joke.”

“I just don’t think everyone wanting the
city boy
to go back to where he came from is especially funny.”

“You’re right,” Nicholas said, frowning. “That was insensitive.”

Mae brought their drinks and offered a courteous nod. “Evening, boys.”

Ben noticed how much more reserved she seemed when Nicholas was around. He tried on a timid smile. “Hey, Mae.”

“Hey, honey,” Mae said, returning the smile before she headed back to the kitchen.

Ben glanced to Nicholas and found the other man was watching him with plaintive eyes.

“Arrest anyone today?” Ben asked.

“Yeah,” Nicholas said. “Business as usual.”

Ben hummed in response. He ripped the paper wrapping off his plastic straw.

“Ben,” Nicholas said. “Don’t be like that.”

“Like what? A
city boy?
” Ben chided.

Nicholas groaned and put his head in his hands. “I’m sorry.”

“Let’s just talk about something else.”

“Okay, so the movie. It’s your pick. What do you want to see?”

“What are the options?” Ben asked.

Nicholas pondered for a few seconds before he huffed out an awkward laugh. “I don’t know what’s on, actually. I never go to the Marquee anymore. I should have looked before.”

“We’ll check later,” Ben said.

Nicholas suddenly stood and moved around the table to slide into Ben’s side of the booth.