Every life has a measure of sorrow, and sometimes this is what awakens us – Steven Tyler
Nathan:
January 15th
The thing that annoyed me most was that The Rev's puppet chief, Noah, wouldn't let Audrey and me investigate who had stolen Duke's body. He claimed that we were too close to the case, and that we'd lost our objectivity. It made me want to punch Noah. However, punching your boss wasn't usually a good way to stay employed. Instead for the past few days Audrey and I had found three mental patients from the Freddie, dealt with a domestic violence case involving slapping someone with a haddock, found a lobster poacher, and arrested one streaker in Edith's grocery store.
Audrey was grieving hard for Duke. It hadn't helped finding the cupcakes on Cape Rouge with her name on them. We'd gone over when Brett Mailor, one of the local attorneys, had stopped by to tell her that Duke's will had been rewritten about six weeks ago. She'd inherit the Cape Rouge and his cat once all the dust settled. Duke's truck was to go to Bill McShaw. Margie and Janice would get the establishments that they were currently running for Duke. I'd get a safety deposit key to a box in town. Brett had no idea what was in it. I wasn't sure I wanted to know.
Audrey and I had taken to trying to find out as much as we could about Duke's final days, searching for the reason he was dead. We found the murderous confections on Duke's counter, on another counter and far away from where the left over dishes and cutlery from the night had indicated he'd prepared his dinner on the day of his death. The whoopee pie container had 5 pies in it and had room for 6. I still couldn't figure out why Duke would have even eaten a whoopee pie. I didn't think he'd liked them very much. He would down an entire stand full of apple crisp, eat strawberry shortcake until he was sick, and scarf any other dessert containing fresh fruit, but I can't say that I'd ever seen him do more than nibble on chocolate cake.
At least the cucumber allergy hadn't been serious, I mused. The man sneezed and had watery eyes every time he'd walked by the Gleasons's farm, but he enjoyed eating the cucumbers they grew and pickles they made. The cucumber flowers could make him break out in a rash, which we found out only after he'd undergone fairly extensive allergy testing after the Zucchini And Sesame Seed Bread Incident. Cucumbers themselves didn't bother him overly much if he ate them. Pickles didn't bother him at all. Eleanor used to ask him if he wanted to commit suicide by vegetable, fearing he'd suddenly develop a severe reaction. Not that any of that mattered now.
Audrey and I had scoured Cape Rouge for the past two days looking for another answer but hadn't been able to find any. It looked like Duke just had had a bad run of luck. Still, it didn't seem quite right to me, but I had no say in it courtesy of Noah. I leaned back in my swivel chair and sighed, twisting it back and forth, causing the ceiling tiles to dance.
Audrey had taken a leave after yesterday. She had been forced to do it, having broken her ankle on ice after chasing down someone that had tried to carjack a 60-year-old woman. I admired her for not giving up until she got the guy, but it had damaged her ankle and now she had to stay off of it for the better part of a month. Since she would have gone nuts at the station or driving the rest of us to the Freddy (I wasn't sure which had better odds), I convinced Noah to have her go out on medical leave.
I knew she hadn't slept much since she found out Duke was dead. Last night she'd stayed up all night reading sections of Duke's books, and trying to comfort Morgan, though I suspect he was the one doing the most comforting. I stayed to keep her company. At one point Jess called from Quebec to offer her condolences, and to ask if I wanted her to come down. I told her no. Privately I thought she'd lost that right when she left me. In the very early hours of the morning Audrey finally had succumbed to exhaustion and I'd left her sleeping on Duke's couch, under a worn afghan my mother had made for him.
The sun was just starting to peer at the town over the trees when I came in to the station to push paper. I certainly wasn't able to read it to do anything useful with it. Damn the bastard. He was even capable of pissing me off while dead. I'd spent more time wondering why he died and regretting that he'd had to die alone. I still could remember the awful day when we both thought he was going to die an old man, and how he didn't want to die alone. Mostly I spent my time trying to avoid everyone. There was no reason to take out my anger on Stan or the other officers. The one person I really wanted to yell for being irresponsible and leaving us alone at wouldn't be able to hear me.
Eventually Stan drew the short straw and had to tell me that I was needed to go help another inhabitant of our "little" town. was called out to help with Mr. Rableth's problem. He claimed to have been having a issue with his house repeatedly disappearing. I'd gone over with the intention to inquire if he'd like a free ride to the Freddie when his house disappeared in front of me. I could see the fixtures and the wiring, but the wood and sheet-rock were all missing, leaving the ghost of a skeleton made of pipes. Even the insulation was gone. It reminded me strongly of some of the anatomy models I'd seen of the human circulatory system. I wanted to call Audrey because she would have loved this, but I didn't want to wake her if she was still asleep.
After a few minutes of questions, it became clear that the house only disappeared in the morning, the floors and walls were intact, if just invisible. The old man had been very grateful for that as he had been reading the paper in the bathroom the first time the house disappeared. Probably the best place for him to have been at the time, because I know I'd need new pants if the floor suddenly disappeared. The house usually reappeared around quarter of 4. I realized it mimicked the elementary school schedule and asked if there were any children nearby. Sure enough Mr. Rableth had a six-year-old neighbor named Timmy.
Timmy was out playing on the swing in his yard. I watched him for a few moments, enjoying the wide smile and wind tousled hair as he pumped his legs to try to get higher and higher until he could achieve that most sought after kid trick: swinging over the bar. It wasn't Timmy's day and he slowed down when he noticed me watching him. Slowly I approached him and introduced myself. When I talked to Timmy, he revealed that thought it would be cool to be transparent. He'd not yet turned himself transparent, but he did enjoy seeing Mr. Rableth's house disappear as he got on the school bus.
I privately agreed with him, seeing the house disappear had been neat, but I was an adult and asked him to please stop turning Mr. Rableth's house invisible because it was upsetting Mr. Rableth. Timmy was shocked and sorry. He ran over to the old man, apologizing to Mr. Rableth and promised never to turn his house invisible again. I spontaneous thought that I needed to make sure that Duke and Timmy never met. An icy knife plunged into my heart as soon as I realized that I didn't need to worry about the two ever coming into contact.
When I drove down from Juniper Heights, where Timmy and Mr. Rableth lived, I saw Noah set out to sea on a small boat. He appeared to be heading to one of the deserted islands that formed the harbor barrier. There wasn't much out there, scrub pine and rocks. I can't say why I thought odd he should head out. He could have been fishing but I didn't see any poles in the boat. He should have been on duty. I decided to follow him to find out what would take him out there. After all, he might need backup, or so I tried to convince myself. The truer reason was that I might be able to find out more about the Rev and his plans. If I couldn't do anything for Duke, at least I could help Audrey.
I borrowed Duke's dinghy, still moored out behind the Gray Gull. The outboard coughed and caught on the first pull. Eventually I realized I was following Noah out to Deer Run Island. When I pulled the dinghy up on shore, I noticed there'd been a lot of activity with people going back and forth. There were deep marks on the gravel shore where boats had been hauled up above the tide lines. The way the stones were turned indicated that they'd been disturbed recently, and there was what seemed to be a game trail heading away from the beach. Odd given that despite it's name, there population of the island was normally harbor seals and migratory birds, with the occasional migratory fisherman or smuggler.
I was so busy studying the tracks to figure out what was going on that I didn't notice Noah approach me. It was somewhat startling to be pistol-whipped.