“Right,” Hughes replies. He slides his business card over to Bucky. “If you need anything.”
“And why would I need something?”
“You won’t, not yet. But I’ve learned that it’s good to have a friend in your back pocket. Times can get tough really quickly out here,” he replies.
Hughes rises from his seat.
“Well, I thank you for your hospitality and all the help.”
“Really? That’s it?”
Hughes pauses in mid-stride. Was there more he forgot about?
“You’re just going back to home or work or whatever to tell them what you learned?” Bucky asks. “Like, I guess I’m just a little confused on why we had to make this a big deal.”
“I wanted to know if the police reports were true. If she really was capable of everything you accused her of.”
Bucky smirks, sipping down the last few sips of coffee.
And then it comes, like a wave crashing against the coast. Like an invasion over a guarded wall.
“She’s the devil,” he replies, his eyes narrowed at Hughes. “She does whatever she can to survive. She does whatever she can to make herself better and make herself out to be the victim. I read everything that happened earlier, everything that happened the week. But I just,” he pauses, facing the window. Water swells in his eye. “I just don’t think we should blame the dude so quickly, you know? I’m not his biggest fan, and I don’t think a lot of people are. But man, there’s just something about her that’s just frightening and scary.”
He starts to speak again, but closes his mouth.
“She got what she deserved,” he says.
Hughes listens to his reasons — that she’s vindictive and manipulative, that she gaslit him every day, rewriting history like the facts don’t matter. He details one particular story when they were late to dinner and she spent the entire hour blaming it on him, so much so that he later believed he was at fault for the entire evening. He hasn’t been late since.
Hughes leans back in his chair and listens. It’s going to be a much longer conversation than he thought it would be.
Bucky requests that they get lunch instead of staying inside, and so they do. They head to the corner Galeria Cafe. Hughes orders a coffee and a breakfast sandwich. It’s a little late in the day for breakfast, but he can’t help it. Cafes and breakfast sandwiches go together like peanut butter and toast, or something like that. He waits at an open two-person table amid fogging windows. Tangy, savory and sweet smells puncture the air.
Bucky joins him with his own cup of coffee and a cheese danish. He finishes half of it in one bite and then sips down half of his cup.
“Hungry?” Hughes asks.
“You don’t know how much,” Bucky says. The gears turn inside. “And, yeah, I haven’t been to this cafe in awhile. Not since Mary.”
Hughes almost chokes on the hot sip of coffee he takes. It slides down his gullet, a hint of blueberry sticking around in his mouth. Not bad for a cafe coffee. This place used to be a lot less crowded and a lot worse in general. Lackluster coffee, hard and dry breakfast sandwiches, a place where Lowell’s retirees could hang out in the morning before and after church. Young people fresh off their nights out with blistering hangovers surround him. Mustaches float and beards hang on pale faces like ghosts floating around.
What a world we live in.
“So you and Mary used to spend time here?”
“Only on a couple of occasions.”
“I’m still confused about the timeline,” Hughes says, leaning back, draping on knee over the other, “I didn’t know she lived in Lowell for so long. My son said he met her from somewhere else in the state.”
Bucky waves his hand, mouth full of coffee. Had it been a joke, he surely would have unleashed a whirlwind of swirling coffee on Hughes’ face. Good thing that’s not the case.
“We never lived in Lowell.”
“Oh, well that’s confusing.”
“Not completely. We lived down in Warwick. We’d come up here though because she was taking some online classes at the college. UMass Lowell, you know? So occasionally we’d have to come through.”
“And now you live here?”
“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?”
“Seems a little strange that you’d move to a town where your ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend live. And especially if you didn’t like her. That spells motive to me.”
“Is this an interrogation?”
“No,” Hughes clarifies, taking a sip of coffee. Ease the tension and calm the nerves. The conversation can’t drift too much toward the law enforcement side of things. Any answers will come from a truly friendly conversation. “But I am a detective, remember. I know what the police look for. And I’m not saying your a suspect or anything like that — I’m handling a lot of the leg work with this case and I’m pretty sure I already know who hurt Mary — but you might want to explain yourself so I don’t focus my attention on you.” He says it with a glimmer in his eye, like a friend telling his buddy some romantic advice for his date later in the night, like it’s a joke but completely reasonable. Hopefully it doesn’t come off like he’s fishing for answers. Or like blackmail.
Bucky leans back and sighs heavy. His blue bomber jacket opens up, a graphic mustard t-shirt with red letters expressing discontent with the president almost blinds Hughes.
“I moved to Lowell because I work at the university now,” he says, pulling out a laminated card and passing it to Hughes. It’s the truth. Bucky works as a staff worker for school library. It says so right on his thin laminated card.
“Still fishy though to some of my buddies, though, I’d imagine. This guy Samson, he would be all over you for this,” Hughes lies, another bluff. Samson is nothing, really. “Why move here? Plenty of universities up in New Hampshire.”
“Listen, if you’re going to interrogate me, I’ll get a lawyer and meet you at the station.” He pleaded innocence by raising his arms.
The line disappears immediately. Bucky doesn’t feel like this conversation is between two friends at lunch. He’s under defense, and maybe that’s enough to charge him. People who don’t want to talk about the truth usually have something to hide. Otherwise he would have come clean without accusations of guilt on the table. Bucky clearly hid something beneath his bomber jacket. The question of why a well-to-do young man with every intention of moving on past his ex-girlfriend moving to the same town as his old love hung in the air like the tangy aroma of the cafe.
“Alright, fine, we don’t have to talk about it,” Hughes says, wiping the slate clean. “Let’s move on.”
Bucky relaxes in his chair. “Thank you.”
Hughes sips his coffee and waits a beat. It’s an old trick he picked up from years on the force. People with something to hide will act defensive. And when silence fills the air, they go down one of two paths: confess their sins like they want to apologize or hold onto them even deeper. The latter requires extra attention from the officer on hand. Sometimes they mask the burial with kind words to the cop, or they start talking about the issue at hand, piling on lie on top of lie on top of lie just to avoid the core issue waiting beneath.
Bucky finishes his food. “I’m sorry,” he says, “it’s just that, Mary was special to me and I always felt something for her long after she left me, you know?”
Hughes doesn’t stoke the fire. It’s already flickering wildly.
“And I guess,” he pauses, looking out the window. Hughes recognizes this moment. It’s the moment where the truth steps out into the limelight. Hughes watches the gears tick and tock, rolling together to make the ideas spin. Bucky’s mind flourishes as he considers each scenario that can unfold from telling the truth. “I guess it’s just, well, I dunno, Mary and I never really stopped loving each other.”
“And what’s that mean?”
“What do you think it means?” he spits at Hughes, leaning closer, softening his voice to a whisper. “She grew tired of that kid S
hawn, okay? She wasn’t happy with everything that happened with him, everything that was happening with him. So she found me.”
“An affair.”
“An affair,” Bucky replies. “It only started when she found out I moved here. And I really only moved here for work, I swear. And when she saw me and we talked, one thing led to another. You know how it goes.”
Hughes wouldn’t say he exactly knows how it goes, but he’s heard stories and dealt with cases where he heard all the stories. Hughes never cheated. He isn’t the type. His marriage and his family are too important to him. The bond he shares with his family remains too great to try and breakdown. Affairs never make things better, only worse. Worse case scenarios where affairs are the answers only exacerbates the issue. Affairs are dangers that get piled on the darkness of the relationship. Nothing comes from finding an option to the pain. Affairs are the alcohol of love, intoxicating and mind-altering. But the sober reality that waits behind is much worse than the one you leave.
“Well, Bucky, I’ll be honest with you,” Hughes begins, pulling a few dollars out of his pocket for a tip. “You don’t want to tell many people about that story. I suggest you keep it locked up.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because I have about a day to find my son. And when I do, another officer is going to take over this case. And when that happens, there’s a chance, I’ll give it to you, a small one, that my son won’t be found guilty. If word gets out about you, then, well, you’re in trouble my friend.”
“Are you going to say anything?”
“Nope. I found you so I could find out a little bit more about Mary. That’s all I wanted from you.”
“Good,” Bucky replies, but it’s almost like he wants more, like there’s something he didn’t say.
The two eventually leave the cafe once their coffee cups run empty. Hughes drives back home with the radio full blast to an old rock and roll song about letting go and finding greener pastures. He pulls up at a red light and thinks, finger on his chin, hand on the wheel, eyes straight forward at the car ahead of him. He checks his rearview mirror. No car waits behind him.
He slides out his phone and texts Mathias.
Potential new suspect in case. Can you meet?
Her response is a phone call. Odd. She normally texts in all scenarios. Murder scene briefings, work meetings, case files, all through text messages. It often annoyed Hughes because, well, texting is just not his thing. He hopes to learn, but who knows when he’ll have to the time.
“Hughes.”
“Hughes, it’s Mathias. Where are you?”
“Just leaving a cafe. Why?”
“OK, well, I’ll give you a heads up. But need you to come to the station. Mary’s condition has worsened. She’s in critical. She may not make it through the day.”
“Okay. Do you need me to do anything?”
“Not with that. But there’s something else. And I need you for that. A tip just came in about Shawn. They found out where your son is.”
“Okay, and where is he?”
“California. Just outside of Los Angeles.”
And then it all comes back to him. The anxiety of his son, the pain of worry and guilty and sorrow thrown together. How it was his fault and how he caused his son to trail upon the deep end. But now he knows where he is. Finally a chance at redemption.
A car horn honks behind him. Hughes lifts his hand and stomps on the gas, jerking the car forward. He’s gone down the road. He doesn’t check the car behind him.
The Tip
The office buzzes with excitement and dread. Like all police stations at the midpoint in the day. Car accidents, robberies and gun violence pile up from the previous night, and suddenly it’s time for all the cops to work together to solve every mystery, close the final thread, file the reports and clear out the day before it all starts again tomorrow.
It’s hard to find a parking spot, so he slides his car into a side street opening between a Ford Explorer and Chevy Traverse. The air has chilled since he first found Bucky. That overcast sky spits out drizzles of cool rain. Maybe a storm is coming.
He hurries inside and Mathias is waiting for him. She’s got her cell phone locked to her hand, her fingers hovering above the keyboard. Some ongoing conversation that’s too important to leave behind. Her heels bang against the ground as she finds Hughes at the door.
“That took awhile.”
“Midday traffic. Why’s this place so busy?”
“Middle of the day, lots of weird things going on at once. Our stuff and then there’s all the other crap. Your tip is waiting for you at your desk.”
“And Mary?”
“Still caught between life and death. Something went wrong in the last few hours, we’re not really sure what. But she’s close to death. They said the wounds have been bleeding internally and it may take her before the day is through.”
“Do we have an officer out there?”
“A few officers. You want to stop by?”
“I’d like to, yeah.”
“Well, finish up your case here first. Get the tip and see if it’s worth anything. I’ll have Samson update you on her status.”
They part ways as they reach the bullpen. She storms off to wreck havoc on somebody else’s day. That was a pretty good exchange between the two, considering how much they bicker and argue. But Hughes rather engage with someone else. He’d at least feel less stressed and more himself after the conversation ends.
He makes it to his desk and sees the tip, written on a pink post-it note with scratchy pink handwriting. It’s a phone number for the tip. That’s all he gets. A phone number. More leg work for something that can be solved with a text or a quick jot of the pen.
Oh well, that’s the job.
He dials the number and it rings three times. Part of him believes it’ll go right to voicemail and he’ll be stuck without a hope, caught in the in-between of solving a crime and waiting for a tip — a miserable place to be, mind you. Hughes taps his fingers against the table and holds his breath, expecting the trope of a voicemail message to answer.
“Hello?”
He’s not ready so he sits in stunned silence.
“Hello?”
It wakes him.
“Yes, hi, hi there, yes. My name is Mike Hughes. Detective Mike Hughes from the Lowell police.”
“Yes, Mr. Hughes, thanks for calling me back,” he says. His British accent emerges from the earl gray fog.
“I understand you have a tip about my son’s whereabouts, something about California.”
“Yes, yes, of course. I, um, I manage a bar here in town. It’s called No Vacancy. It’s a bit of a posh place, if I do say so myself,” he says with a bit of cant. “There was a bit of an incident here the other night. A little bit of a tussle between mates.”
“And you believe one was my son? Shawn Hughes.”
“No, sir, I don’t believe. I know. We phoned the police who came and made arrangements. Heard them ask names and take down reports. I recognized the name and thought I’d call. My family hails from Chelsea, both overseas and in Massachusetts. I follow the Globe, so, yeah, I knew his name.”
“Okay, and any idea what happened to them?”
“Nothing at all bad. The cops spoke with them and broke up the fight. Calmed down everything. Of course, he was told to leave the building. Mentioned something about never coming back again.”
It’s not a bad idea to head to a bar for an evening out, though it’s a little disconcerting that a man on the run would rush to grab a beer instead of a hideout. Unless he’s looking to get caught. Or unless he’s not even sure someone’s hunting for him.
“Alright, well, can we send someone out to your bar to take a look around?”
“Yessir.”
“And you didn’t hear anything about where he’s going next?”
“Mr. Hughes, you know that we deal with a lot of customers day in and day out. I’m always trying to help my guests find a go
od meal or a good drink and take a night to escape. And few people leave telling me that they won’t come back. He did, and he was serious. So something tells me that he’s leaving the area, possibly the state.”
An idea clicks for Hughes. Send out a search for Shawn’s description in the LA area. They hadn’t done that yet, because they weren’t sure which state he had escaped to. Send out a picture, a warrant and a reward notice. Make the people suss him out. Organize the community against him.
Enough pressure will send him home.
“Thank you for your time,” Hughes says, “I really appreciate it.”
“Yes sir, Mr. Hughes.”
“Speak again soon.”
“Oh, wait! Mr. Hughes!”
Hughes almost set the phone down. He picks it back up to his ear.
“I forgot to tell you that he was with some girl. I don’t remember her name.”
“Thanks, I’ll note it.”
The conversation ends. Hughes leans back in his chair. His eyes narrow towards the chicken scratch that paints his notebook. Not too many helpful details — the girl will help, as will the location — but in a haystack state like California, you’re searching for needles.
Samson arrives with a stack full of paper about an hour later, just as Hughes finishes reading over the incident reports from Mary’s past moments one more time. Perfect timing, kid. He drops it on Hughes’ desk and offers a courteous smile, one that rookies give when they’re trying to befriend an old vet. The one where they need a mentor and they want you to be their guiding force for the rest of their career. Hughes has seen it countless times. Something’s different about Samson, though. He’s not a talker, not an instigator, not a dramatic. He’s a simpleton with a badge. Probably a bonehead in college who couldn’t figure out what he wanted in life so he joined the force to give him some structure. Put his life at risk because there’s not much else living for.
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