“Wow! That’s great.” I smiled.
She then leaned forward, holding her wine glass above her knees. “Hewey, I’m really sorry about what happened to your Mom and Dad. I meant to call you, but…”
“It’s okay. Believe me,” I quickly interjected.
“No, it’s not. I didn’t have your phone number at the time, but I could’ve found out what it was. I just thought that maybe I’d be intruding in your life after we hadn’t been in touch for so long.”
“I understand,” I replied, although I really didn’t. I couldn’t fathom what would make her think she’d be intruding in my life.
“It was quite a shock when I did find out,” Rob added. “If I’d known earlier, I would’ve flown down for the funeral.”
“It’s really okay, guys. We’d lost touch, so I didn’t expect any of you to be there. I know if things were different…”
“Yes, if things were different, we would’ve been a real support to you at a time like that and I’m sorry we weren’t here for you,” Sam expressed.
“I know.” I cleared my throat. “Now, if you guys don’t mind, how about we leave all of that in the past?”
She and Rob glanced at each other. They must’ve figured right then that it was a topic I wasn’t really comfortable discussing.
“I have some chardonnay chilling in the freezer. Can I offer you guys a drink? If not, I’m gonna have one anyway.”
“Sure. I’d love one,” Sam replied.
“Need you ask?” Rob looked at me incredulously.
I went to the kitchen, retrieved three wine glasses from the cabinet and poured out the chardonnay. I’d located Mom’s tray in the exact spot she’d always kept it and rested the glasses on top.
“Here you are.” I returned to the living room, allowing Sam and Rob to each grab a glass.
After placing the tray on the center table, I sat down with mine.
“Hmm…this is good.” Sam uttered, after having a sip.
“Came all the way from France right to my front door in New Mexico,” I revealed.
“You ordered it online?” she asked, curiously.
“Yep.”
“Expensive taste.”
“With all that money Hewey makes in that software company of his, he can easily afford it,” Rob commented.
“You’re talking about me, Mr. Bistro owner with multiple locations?” I said.
Sam grinned. “We all did pretty well for ourselves, didn’t we?”
I leaned back comfortably on the couch. “We surely did, despite everything.”
Rob was nodding. “My mom wanted me to be an engineer like you, but you know how much I love food—opening a bistro was the only way to go.”
Sam and I had a good chuckle. Rob had clearly packed on at least an extra thirty pounds since we were kids and considering the industry he was in and how much he liked to eat, the fact that he’d gained so much weight was no surprise to me. He still wore his extra poundage pretty well though.
The guys and I spent the greater part of an hour reminiscing about old times and how much fun we had being mischievous. Jase’s name came up a few times in jest and soon I noticed the atmosphere of our conversing had gradually changed from cheerful to slightly dismal.
“I guess we’d better get to the reason we’re all here today,” I finally said.
“Yeah.” Sam agreed.
“Any of you seen Jeffreys since we left?” Rob asked.
“I haven’t,” Sam replied. “Honestly, I rarely came home for visits, and when I did, I was never here that long.”
“I saw Jeffreys a couple of years before my folks…” I paused, not wanting to bring the accident thing up again. “I went to his house to see how he was doing, but he was so different—merely a shell of the man he’d been before Hugo died.”
“He must’ve taken Hugo’s death so hard,” Rob said.
“Yeah. That dog was his only family and best friend in the world,” I returned.
Sam was quiet; obviously contemplating Jeffreys’ loss.
“We spoke for a while, but just random stuff. I got the sense he didn’t get many visitors and probably wasn’t keen on it anyway.”
“He never was very sociable to begin with,” Sam noted. “So, it made sense that he’d isolate himself even more after losing Hugo. Poor guy.”
I rested my half-empty glass of chardonnay on the center table. “I think speaking with Jeffreys, just for us to put our heads together to get a recap of what happened when everyone else was being held captive, would be a good starting point for us. What do you guys think?”
“I agree,” Sam said. “Then we can check in with some of the other neighbors around here who were confined along with Jase and his mom.”
“Chief Mays too,” I suggested.
“Good idea.” Rob nodded. “It’s been twenty-five years. That’s way too long for us not knowing what happened to our best friend and his mom. Someone has to do something about it and it has to be us.”
“You’re right,” Sam replied. “I’d like to think if the same thing happened to me and one of my peeps that you guys would do whatever you could to find out what happened.”
“That’s what friends are for.” I picked up my wine again.
We decided to use the rest of the day to get settled and to embark on our quest the following day after breakfast.
5
_________________
The next day…
“Why in the world are you staying at a hotel, Rob?” Sam asked as Rob chauffeured us in his rented Camry. “I knew you guys sold your house a long time ago, but you could’ve stayed with me and my peeps.”
“Because I’m a tourist, that’s why,” he answered. “Don’t I look like one with this big straw hat I’m wearing?”
“You look like something, bro,” I remarked. “Not sure what that is yet.”
Sam chuckled.
“Rob knew he could’ve stayed with me too, but he refused.” I told her.
“Like I said…I’m a tourist whenever I come here and I like to feel like one. Staying with either of you guys would be like I’m a native when being a native here’s a thing of the past for me,” Rob explained.
“You’ll always be a native, Rob.” Sam shook her head. “I see you’re still the same old you.”
Watching them from the back seat reminded me of all the times those two got into it when we were teenagers.
“Same old me for sure,” Rob responded, quite happily. “What…?” He glanced her way. “You were hoping adulthood would change me?”
“Not for a second.” She sighed. “I love the annoying little dimwit you’ve always been.
“And I love you too.” He leaned over to her; his shoulder meeting hers.
She shoved him slightly. “Focus on the road, big boy.”
Rob had grown up physically, but he still had a playful side to him. While Sam, Jase and I had a more serious demeanor, he balanced us off perfectly.
“Now that our bellies are full, we can go and check on Jeffreys,” he said.
“Right on!” Sam exclaimed.
“I still think we should’ve paid Jeffreys a visit first, instead of leaving the neighborhood, coming back, then having to go right back again to find Chief Mays,” I said. “Seems pretty backwards to me.”
“I’d have to agree with Rob on this one,” Sam replied. “I, personally, don’t do well trying to start my day without first having a nice breakfast and a huge cup of coffee. And by us going to the diner early this morning, it would’ve given Jeffreys more time to wake up and get himself together too. No sense landing on the man’s doorstep when he might not have had time to at least get his own breakfast and whatever else he needed to get done early. Some folks are crotchety when they wake up in the morning and I have a feeling Jeffreys’ one of ‘em.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “It’s now ten past ten. Good time to show up at anybody’s house.”
“I guess you’re right,” I replied, although I was a
ccustomed to getting up at five-thirty, grabbing a cup of coffee, then diving straight into my work, which had been my daily routine for the past two decades. Breakfast was often taken care of around mid-morning, and lunch, later in the afternoon. Dinner wasn’t a consistent thing for me which means I only ate in the evenings if I was hungry. But I found downing multiple cups of coffee throughout the day significantly decreased my appetite.
As for Jeffreys, I wondered how he was going to react when he saw the three of us again. It was bound to be a real surprise.
“I wanna ask you two a question,” Sam started.
“Shoot!” Rob blurted.
“Why are you guys still single? You’re in your forties now.”
“You go first, Rob,” I said.
He glanced at me through the rearview mirror. “Slickster!’
I just shook my head.
“I almost got married once,” he told Sam.
“What do you mean…almost?” She frowned.
“I’d hired a really sexy Puerto Rican gal to work at one of my bistros. She was perfect in every way you can imagine.”
“So, what happened?” Sam probed.
“Turns out she was really a man.”
I burst out laughing.
“I had no idea,” he continued.
Sam was clearly shocked. “How in the world did you find out?”
Rob suddenly didn’t look so cheery anymore; as a matter of fact, he seemed a little embarrassed. “Well, after we’d gotten engaged, more specifically, a couple of months before our big wedding day was to arrive, I tried convincing her that we ought to test the waters to see if we’re really compatible…if you know what I mean.”
“Uh-huh.” Sam waited, and so did I with tears of laughter in my eyes.
“That’s when she confessed—that she was born a man. Mind you, she had the surgery and all, but I couldn’t deal with it. Just wasn’t my cup of tea.”
He glanced back at me again. “Would you stop laughing, Hewey! It’s not funny.”
“The hell it ain’t!” I laughed even louder.
By that time, Sam was obviously trying her best not to show him she’d found the story just as amusing as I did.
“So, what happened after that?” she asked him, her voice breaking.
He gulped. “I asked her why she didn’t tell me sooner, but she said she was scared and would’ve done so eventually before we actually tied the knot. I was devastated; just devastated. I broke off the engagement; told her I wasn’t gonna fire her because I knew she needed the job, but she ended up leaving the bistro a few days later and deep inside, I was glad she did. It was an awkward few days since she dropped that bomb on me.”
“Good thing you asked her about testing the waters first,” Sam replied with that subtle grin on her face, which quickly turned into a bigger grin, then she burst out laughing too.
“I can’t believe you guys are killing yourself laughing at me!” Rob retorted. “Where’s the compassion? That was a really tough time for me, you know?”
“I’m sorry, Rob.” Sam again tried to control herself, but was failing miserably.
“Yeah, me too.” I managed to blurt the words out.
“You guys are sickening.” He shook his head. “My two best friends in the world are having a field day over my former plight.”
Soon, Sam was able to collect herself. “I’m sorry for laughing, Rob; I really shouldn’t have,” she said. “It just sounded so funny, that’s all.”
“Mind you, if she chose to live her life as a woman after being born a man, that was totally her choice,” Rob noted. “My preference is a woman who was born a woman—and what made it even worse was that she deceived me. We were dating for nearly a year and she never came clean with me until after we were engaged. How could I trust a person like that?”
“I see what you mean.” I was drying my face with the back of my hand. “Anyway, buddy…” I patted his shoulder, “…there are more fish in the sea.”
“You’re right.” He nodded.
“Now, it’s your turn,” Sam told me. “Did you have a similar experience?”
“No! No!” I quickly said. “The truth of the matter is, I just never found Miss Right. She seemed elusive all this time and I wasn’t about to marry just anybody just for marrying sake.”
“Seems wise,” she replied.
A few moments went by, then I reluctantly said, “So, since you’re the only hitched one in the crew, what can we look forward to when it comes to married life?”
She sighed. “Well, it’s certainly different from being single.”
“Obviously…but what do you mean by that?” Rob asked her.
“Suddenly, you’re not the only one anymore; there’s someone else in the equation whose needs you have to meet. You share your time, your money, your life with them and sometimes you give up a part of yourself for the sake of the union.”
I wasn’t sure I understood exactly where she was coming from. Some of it, I did.
“Kind of like what I assume our folks did,” Rob said.
“I guess so,” Sam replied.
* * * *
We pulled up in front of Jeffreys’ house a few minutes later. He still kept it in fairly good condition, considering its age.
“I can’t believe I’m gonna be laying eyes on the old geezer after so many years,” Sam said, loosing her seatbelt and getting out of the car.
“Guess he’ll be glad to see us,” Rob surmised.
We all headed up the walkway toward the porch. The guys let me walk ahead, just like back in the day when we had something of importance to do and none of them wanted to take the lead. It always had to be Jase or me.
I rang the doorbell and we silently waited. Several moments went by before I heard footsteps approaching from the inside.
The door swung open and the guys and I looked from the other side at a stunned Mark Jeffreys.
“Jeffreys, it’s so good to see you again,” Sam exclaimed.
“What…what are you all doing here?” He was clearly surprised, but I couldn’t tell for sure if it was in a good way or not.
Jeffreys was now in his eighties and appeared even frailer than he looked when I’d last seen him. He was very thin and walked with the assistance of a cane. However, he still had all his faculties, perfect hearing and eyesight, and was just as independent as he always had been.
“We’re in town together for the very first time since leaving for college,” I told him. “So, we thought we’d stop by and see how you were doing.”
“Yeah,” Rob said.
A few more moments went by, then Jeffreys stepped aside and said, “Well, come in.”
Right then, I had the feeling he wasn’t too thrilled about us being there, especially since I knew he wasn’t much of a people person.
The living room was dark—not a single curtain had been drawn. We all sat down while Jeffreys took a seat in his old, rocking chair.
“We heard about Hugo, man, and we’re really sorry,” Rob said. “We know how much he meant to you.”
“Yup. Old Faithful’s gone. This September will make twenty years. Buried right there in the yard out back.” He rested his cane on the floor beside the chair.
“How old was he when he passed away?” Sam asked. This time, she and Rob were sitting together and I was alone on the sofa.
“He was fifteen years old. Lived a good life…but not long enough,” Jeffreys answered. I saw the sorrow on his face by the mere mention of his dog. He cleared his throat and glanced at of us. “So, what brings you kids back in town after having been gone for so long?”
Sam and Rob looked at me.
“You remember our friend, Jase, don’t you?” I asked.
Jeffreys rested his hands on his lap and interlaced his fingers. “I do.”
“Well, we never found out what happened to him and his mom the day everyone was released from the compound,” I explained. “After I moved away, I called the police department a number of tim
es to find out if they’d found out anything, but it was useless. I don’t think they were ever investigating the matter. One officer told me it’s likely they both picked up and left town, but I knew that was impossible because they never returned to their house for any of their belongings. When the three of us here went to Jase’s house after the spacecraft had left, their clothes, furniture—everything were still there. Weeks later—the same thing. Months went by and the place was untouched. Eventually, the bank repossessed it, then sold it two years later. I heard the furniture and appliances were offered at auction and the clothes left there were either thrown out or donated to charity. We know, without a shadow of a doubt, that Jase and his mom never left town. Something happened to them and we’re here to find out what that is.”
Jeffreys always had a naturally stoic expression; wasn’t moved by much, other than his love for Hugo, but that day, he seemed concerned.
“I agree, the events are quite strange,” he noted. “I can’t imagine what might’ve transpired. Everyone else was accounted for that day when the nightmare was finally over.”
“We agree,” Sam chimed in. “And that’s what we can’t understand. They were the only captives who didn’t return home. Yet, everyone had been released.”
“Is there anything you can remember that stood out that day when they all got back?” Rob asked him.
Jeffreys thought for moment. “Nothing at all. Spader, Hugo and I went to the compound; had a meeting with the mastiff who promised to release everyone, and after we got back, at the exact time he said everyone would be back at home, they were. That’s what I remember.”
Some moments of silence ensued.
“Did Hugo say anything significant that might’ve been a clue of what happened to Jase and his mom?” I asked.
“You mean…before everyone around was normal again?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Nothing at all. Hugo told me everything when he had the ability to communicate with me the way we’re communicating now. He didn’t hide anything at all from me. So, no—he didn’t say anything that could’ve been helpful because he was totally unaware of their whereabouts.”
The Hewey Spader Mystery Series (The Complete Trilogy * Books 1 -3 ) Page 15