Familiar Lies

by Brian J. Jarrett

  Where to start? Max wondered. He glanced at the letter again for reference and found that he really didn’t need it anymore. All the names had been committed to memory. He opened the address book by clicking on the proper icon and waited for the application to load. When it did, he began searching. Gabe, Caldwell, Vanessa, and Julie; all had been mentioned in the note.

  They all came up with no matches, all except for one.

  Vanessa.

  Max read the name out loud. “Vanessa Simmons.” His voice sounded odd in the empty room.

  Max read on, noting the address. He entered it into his phone and brought up a map with directions. Vanessa Simmons lived four miles away in Camden. A quick trip under any conditions.

  Max put the computer to sleep and closed the lid gently. It felt strange, like closing a coffin lid.

  He walked out of Josh’s bedroom and into the living room, staring at the small red dot flashing on top of the map on his phone screen. He needed to talk to this girl. He needed to figure out who she was and how she knew Josh.

  Vanessa was a mistake, Josh’s letter had said. Had Vanessa been a girlfriend? Max thought hard, trying to remember any girls Josh might have brought home over the year or so before he died. He couldn’t remember any. But he’d been working so much then, a lot of late nights and weekends. Normal for the job. It was entirely possible that Katie might remember this Vanessa girl. Maybe she met her one day after school or had her over for dinner a time or two.

  But to ask Katie would mean that he’d have to call her.

  He could try that later. Better to talk to Vanessa directly and see what she might know before getting Katie involved. His ex-wife would only complicate things.

  He’d need a reason to call on Vanessa; under normal circumstances, a forty-six-year-old man didn’t show up at a high school girl’s door asking questions about her. That kind of thing raised all sorts of red flags, exactly the kind of thing he did not want.

  What about the truth? that voice in his head suggested.

  The truth, or a version of it. Maybe not the whole truth, but suggestions of it.

  It was as good a plan as any. He got dressed, putting on a nice shirt and slacks, something agreeable that would help to not rouse the family’s suspicions. He grabbed his car keys and pulled away, armed with the map and a vague idea of what he might say when he met Vanessa face to face.

  Chapter Five

  It took ten minutes to get to Vanessa Simmons’ house, after making a wrong turn despite the map and having to double back. He found the house easily after that, located in a cul-de-sac and beaming with magazine-grade curb appeal. It seemed Vanessa’s parents had a little money to their name.

  Max sat in his car, a newer model Volkswagen Passat that didn’t look too out of place in this neighborhood, and watched the house for a few minutes. The family appeared to be home; lights burned in the living room, visible through the picture window and two cars sat parked in the driveway. A moment later, Max noticed a man walk through the living room. Vanessa’s father, he assumed.

  The father could be a problem. Likely he’d be suspicious when Max came to the door, but a reasonable man could talk to another reasonable man and explain things. Things like the police missing something in the investigation of his son’s death, something that had been nagging a grieving father and needed to be put to rest. None of that was untrue, despite the omission of any other information contained within Josh’s letter.

  Omission wasn’t exactly lying as much as it was a filtering of the truth.

  Max got out of the car and felt butterflies take flight in his stomach. Initially, he didn’t think he’d be so nervous, but the closer he got to the door the worse it became. No matter; he planned to finish this thing he’d started, for himself and for Josh.

  Max arrived at the door and pushed the doorbell before he lost his nerve. A few excruciatingly long moments passed before Max heard movement from inside. A moment later the door opened and Max found himself staring at a boy, perhaps nineteen years old.

  “Can I help you?” the boy said.

  Max cleared his throat. “Hi, my name is Max. I believe I’m looking for your sister.”

  “Sorry, buddy. I don’t have a sister. I think you got the wrong address.”

  “I’m sorry,” Max said. “So there’s no Vanessa Simmons here then?”

  The boy looked confused. “Well, yeah. But she’s my mom.”

  A shock traveled through Max’s body. He stood there, dumbfounded for a few seconds before recovering. “Oh, my mistake. Is she home? Could I have a word with her?”

  The kid shrugged. “Sure. Wait here and I’ll go get her.”

  The kid disappeared into the house, leaving the door open and Max standing on the front step.

  Max felt his world spin for a moment. Vanessa was a mistake, the letter had said. He could only imagine what that meant.

  A moment later a thin woman in her mid to late forties appeared at the door. She had long, black hair and a narrow face with brown eyes and perfect white teeth from an expensive dentist. A shirt one size too small covered a push-up bra and a dancer’s frame.

  “Hi there,” Vanessa said, smiling. Small crow’s feet appeared around her eyes, not displeasing in the least. “Something I can help you with?”

  Max didn’t know what to say. His story, already thin, dried up and blew away with the wind. He said the first and only thing he could think of. “Josh Williamson.”

  Vanessa’s face changed instantly. The perky and attractive soccer mom disappeared, replaced by an aging, frightened woman. “Who are you?”

  “I’m his father.”

  “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not safe. Not for any of us. You put yourself and my family in danger by coming here. How did you find me?”

  “I found a letter, written by Josh.”

  Vanessa cast furtive glances all around the cul-de-sac. “Were you followed?”

  “Followed?”

  “Never mind. Meet me tonight at the Bayside Diner, eight o’clock sharp. Don’t be late and don’t tell anyone you’re coming. Make sure no one follows you. Do you understand?”

  “I don’t understand any of this. What was Josh mixed up in?”

  “I can’t talk now. Tonight, at the diner. Be there.”

  Max nodded.

  “And don’t come back here ever again.” Vanessa shut the door, locking the deadbolt behind her.

  Max backed away slowly, his mind still reeling as he turned and headed toward his car, more confused now than he’d been when he arrived.

  Chapter Six

  Max pulled into the Bayside Diner’s parking lot at seven-thirty that evening. He didn’t want to be late; something told him that if he was he’d never get the chance to talk to Vanessa again.

  He got out and walked into the diner, ordering a coffee that he couldn’t seem to bring himself to drink. He sat in a booth near the far corner of the restaurant, away from the plate glass windows adorning the front of the building. For some reason, he thought that Vanessa would want that.

  She arrived right at eight o’clock sharp, not a minute early or late. She entered the building wearing large sunglasses, like some kind of informant in a spy movie. It might have been funny had the circumstances been different. Today it just made him more nervous. Vanessa was afraid, truly afraid, and Max had a bad feeling that she had every right to be.

  She found him quickly and came right to the table. She sat down without a greeting, glancing around at the patrons. Four or five tables had diners sitting at them and they all seemed inconspicuous enough, or at least Max thought so.

  “You should take off the glasses,” Max said. “You stand out like a sore thumb.”

  Vanessa paused, considering. She removed the glasses carefully, folding them up and placing them on the table in front of her. Max watched her closely. Her face was pale, the tendons in her neck tight. Her pleasant demeanor had all but vanished
, replaced with the look of a frightened animal. Her hand shook on the table and she placed her other hand on top of it to stop the movement.

  The waitress that had seated Max returned to their table. “What can I get you, ma’am?”

  Vanessa didn’t answer. Instead she looked at the young waitress suspiciously.

  “She’ll have coffee,” Max said. “One cream, two sugars.”

  The waitress looked mildly confused before shrugging and placing her notepad back in her apron pocket. “Right away.”

  As the waitress headed back to the counter to retrieve the coffee, Max leaned in. “I need you to tell me what this is all about.”

  Vanessa took a deep breath. She bit her lip. Max noticed it quiver slightly as she attempted to hold back tears.

  The waitress returned with a white coffee cup, two creams and one sugar. Max did not point out the error. Instead, he said, “Thank you.”

  “Sure thing,” the girl replied. “You need anything else you just let me know.”

  “We sure will,” Max replied, smiling. He felt like an actor playing a part; fake and hollow.

  “You shouldn’t have come to my house,” Vanessa said, her voice low.

  “Why not?”

  “You put everyone at risk.”

  “How did you know my son?”

  Vanessa didn’t reply.

  “How did you know him?”

  Vanessa paused. She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again as she searched for the words.

  Max frowned. “You didn’t.”

  “It was only once. It was a mistake.”

  “He was seventeen!” Max said.

  “Keep your voice down,” Vanessa said. “Don’t draw any attention to yourself.”

  Max felt hot anger flash inside him. “He was just a kid. And you’re married!”

  “I told you it was a mistake. My marriage is doing okay now, but for a while, it wasn’t. Josh was in the wrong place at the wrong time and it just happened.”

  “You’re a grown woman, old enough to be his mother,” Max said, the fire still burning in his belly. “You should have known better.”

  “I did know better. I’ve already admitted that. I said it was a mistake, what more do you want from me? I can’t go back in time and change it. If I could, I swear to God I would.”

  Max paused, eyeing her and watching her reaction. A tear streamed down from her cheek and she wiped it away quickly. This woman, this middle-aged housewife slept with his underage son. The realization of that had only begun to sink in, but Max pushed on with his questioning. He could process the revelations later.

  Max removed the letter from his pocket and handed it to Vanessa. She read it carefully before handing it back to him. “Where did you find this?”

  “In Max’s room, underneath his desk.”

  “Hidden there?”

  “Maybe. Do you know who these other people are? Who is Julie? Who’s Gabe? Caldwell? None of these names mean anything to me.”

  “And they shouldn’t. You don’t want to know.”

  “I’ll decide what I want to know.”

  “Look, Mr. Williamson, you loved your son. That much is obvious. Please, for your sake and the sake of his memory, just leave it alone.”

  “I can’t just leave it alone. This letter says that somebody was watching my son, maybe even following him. That person might have killed him.”

  “Josh was prone to making up stories,” Vanessa said. “That letter is embellished. He probably just needed some attention.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “He told stories, to me and others, that’s all.”

  “If it’s all made up then why are you so afraid?”

  Vanessa sighed. “Just leave it alone, okay?” She implored him now with her eyes. “For everyone’s sake, just leave it alone.”

  “Josh was everything to me,” Max said. “Surely you can understand that, having one of your own.”

  “I can, which is why I’m asking that you let this go. Move on with your life as best as you can. Remember your boy as you knew him and try to rebuild. It’s all you can do.”

  Max took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Anger raged inside him, but he pushed it down. “That’s not possible now. Not after this letter, not after all the possibilities it opens up.”

  Vanessa looked Max in the eye. He saw a mixture of emotions in her face; fear, anger and shame. He also saw sincerity.

  “Please, Mr. Williamson. Your boy is gone and that breaks my heart. What I did was inexcusable; not a day goes by that I don’t think about that. I have a full bottle of valium in my nightstand drawer that could use to make all this go away, but I have my family to consider. I know you can understand that.”

  Max didn’t reply.

  Vanessa reached out and touched Max’s hand. He wanted to recoil, but he didn’t. The touch of this woman, so despicable and yet so sincere, seemed to help just a little bit. “Your son is gone. Honor the memories you have. Please don’t pursue this. Don’t go to the club, don’t try to find Julie. She’s had it hard enough already. None of this will bring your son back.”

  “I need to know.”

  Vanessa nodded. “I know you think you do, but you don’t.” She stood, putting on her sunglasses and leaving the coffee behind, untouched. “For what it’s worth, Mr. Williamson, try to remember that we all have different sides that we show people. Josh showed you the side of himself you were supposed to see. That’s all we can expect of anyone.”

  Vanessa left the table, exiting through the front door. The attached bell rang softly as the door opened and closed. Max watched her get into a silver BMW and back out of the parking space. As she pulled away, Max committed the license plate to memory just as the waitress reappeared.

  “Anything else I can get you?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he replied. “A pen.”

  Chapter Seven

  Max returned home from the diner and by ten o’clock found himself parked in front of his laptop. He started with county public records, searching for the only clue that Vanessa had given him: the club.

  Max didn’t know what kind of club it was, who owned it, or how it played into what happened to Josh. But he had a few names to go on and it was worth a shot to see if any of them shook out.

  Navigating the government website took considerable time and before he knew it an hour had passed. There was no way he’d make any headway before midnight and working the following day would be impossible. He’d never be able to keep his mind on the job. He could take vacation time, maybe even through the following week. He had enough saved up and if they called him on it then he’d tell them the anniversary of his son’s death had taken a toll on him. It certainly wouldn’t be lying, but using Josh’s death that way made Max feel like a heel.

  But he’d promised that he’d find out who did this to his son and that promise needed to be kept, regardless of how it made him feel.

  By one o’clock a.m. Max found himself no closer to matching a name with a club than he had been when he started. He searched all the business licenses granted to nightclubs in the county for the past ten years, but none of the names on the applications matched with the names in Josh’s letter.

  Did you really think it would be that easy? a little voice in his head asked. The same voice that had been speaking to him as of late, something inside that he never knew existed before.

  No, he hadn’t thought it would be that easy, but he’d hoped. He wondered if the voice in his head was simply inner dialogue or a sign that he was under too much mental stress. He didn’t actually hear the voice—not with his ears, at least—and he knew it was his own. That was enough to convince himself that he wasn’t cracking up…at least not just yet.

  If the county records wouldn’t give up the tie then Max knew that he’d have to do it the old fashioned way. He wouldn’t get to the bottom of what happened to Josh by surfing the Internet. No, he’d have to get out there and beat the stree
ts, ask questions, stir up the hornet’s nest.

  It occurred to Max that maybe Vanessa was right. Maybe this situation was a hornet’s nest. Maybe this entire business should be dropped altogether, but to not do anything, to let someone get away with killing his baby boy simply wasn’t an option.

  Max would know what happened that day a year ago. He would know what happened, even if it killed him.

  As Max sat at the dining room table staring at the laptop screen, the sound of a closet door opening came from inside Josh’s room. Max looked up and stared at the closed door, his heart suddenly racing. He sat there, wondering what could have made that sound. Probably just the house making its usual groaning at night; nothing unusual.

  But it did sound unusual. Despite knowing better, Max found his skin turning to gooseflesh as he listened hard to the sound of the house in the wee hours of the morning.

  Then he heard the sound of footsteps from behind Josh’s door. They were faint but perceptible. Like the sound of his son walking across his room, from the closet to his bed.

  “That’s impossible,” Max said out loud into the lonely house. His voice sounded like a bomb going off in the silence. He stood, noticing the stiffness in his legs. How long had he been sitting at that table? Three, maybe four hours? He suddenly had to pee in a bad way.

  He stepped away from the table and took a step toward the hallway leading to the bathroom before stopping. The hallway led past Josh’s room and Max suddenly found himself hesitant to make the trip.

  You’re being silly, the voice in his head told him. Just go.

  But he didn’t want to. Something kept him rooted to the spot.

  Get moving, the voice prompted.

  Max got moving. He walked into the hallway and stood outside Josh’s door, staring at the handle for a few moments before reaching down and grasping it. It was cold to the touch. His heart galloped in his chest as all the spit dried up in his mouth. The urge to pee had gone away, replaced with the cold anticipation of what he’d find when he opened that door.