The Castaways

THE CHIEF

H e was tired in the morning and suffering from something of a hangover. He’d considered taking a sick day from work, which he did once a year, but a call had come to the house from Dickson, asking the Chief to get down there as soon as possible.

The Chief did not like the sound of Dickson’s voice. “Why?” he said.

“April Peck is here to see you,” Dickson said.

“Oh, Jesus,” the Chief said. He was glad Andrea was still asleep. He hung up the phone. Kacy was buttering an English muffin at the counter. “What time are the twins due home?”

“Um,” she said. “I’m not sure.” She sounded funny. Or maybe that was because of the ringing in the Chief’s ears. He and Phoebe had danced awfully close to the band’s brass section.

“Okay, I have to go in to work. Please don’t wake your mother. Will you be around when the twins get home?”

“Um,” Kacy said. “I guess?”

April Peck, the Chief thought. Sweet Jesus. “I have to go,” he said.

He was unwashed, unshaven, in his street clothes, and he had to make do with the truly atrocious coffee that Molly made for the station. These were all bad omens. And somehow he had to make room in his mind for Phoebe’s confession of the night before. Greg had not drugged Tess. Phoebe had given her a black market pill. Addison and Tess had been having an affair. So now he knew where the opiates in Tess’s blood had come from, and the phone calls to and from Addison could be explained, but was the picture any clearer?

Dickson was standing at the threshold of the Chief’s office.

“She’s in there?” the Chief said.

Dickson nodded once. “Wants to talk to you and you only.”

“It’s okay.” The Chief opened the door to his office, and Dickson reluctantly returned to work.

She was wearing a gray T-shirt and running shorts. She wore no makeup, and her blond hair was in a ponytail. She was staring into her lap. The Chief set his coffee down and collapsed in his chair. He felt like crap.

“What can I do for you, Miss Peck?”

She raised her face. It was red and splotchy from crying. The Chief tried not to react. He couldn’t do this. Did the girl understand? He was not a therapist. He could not just sit here and “listen” while she talked about Greg.

“Miss Peck—”

“I was with him the night before he died,” she said.

The Chief did not move. Jeffrey had told him this, but was there more?

“What happened?” the Chief asked. “You say you were ‘with him,’ but what does that mean? What happened between the two of you?”

“It’s not what we did or didn’t do that’s important,” April said.

And the Chief thought, The girl is so misguided.

“It’s what he said . It’s what he told me.”

The Chief allowed himself to breathe; then he took a sip of the mouth-puckering coffee. “Okay,” he said. “What did Greg tell you?”

“He told me he loved his wife. He told me he would never in a million years leave her or his kids. He made me repeat it. You love your wife. He said he did not love me. He said he couldn’t be my friend anymore.” She sniffled. “He said he loved his wife.”

The Chief nodded. “Anything else?”

“He said he’d written her a song, for their anniversary. It had a really strange name.”

“What was it?” the Chief asked. His voice was husky.

“Beyond Beyond.”

“Beyond Beyond?”

“Yeah, as in beyond… beyond.”

The Chief wrote the word twice on his desk blotter. “Okay,” he said. “Is there anything else?”

“No,” she said, and stood up. “Does that help?”

“Yes,” he said. “It helps.”

When she got to the door, the Chief said, “Miss Peck? What made you decide to come in?”

April chewed her lower lip. She said, “My mother died yesterday afternoon. At the hospital.”

He was momentarily speechless. Then he said, “I’m sorry.”

April said, “I have to straighten out my act if I’m ever going to amount to anything.”

And with that, she left.