The Reading Hermit

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The timer on the stove woke me up.  These days, I had to set it. I'd been having a hard time sleeping, which meant the only time I slept was when exhaustion took me so completely a coroner might pronounce me dead. I could hear Ginny in the kitchen. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and rolled off of the couch and took a moment to readjust.

When I entered the kitchen, Ginny was pulling the water off the stove for me. "Thanks," I told her. I wrap my arms around her, resting my head in the crook of her shoulder. She smelled like the lavender pine. She smelled nice. "How long was it going off?"

"Oh, only about an hour." She said with a smile. She had told me sarcasm was her love language when we first got together, and now six years later it was still true.

"Sorry. Didn't sleep well last night."

She said nothing, understanding without me needing to say more.

The new security panel by the entryway into the kitchen didn't have the effect I had hoped.

I was slowly settling into a general state of anxiety that had followed me back home after my first two tours; like sand after visiting a beach, you always think you got all of it. Then, a week later you find some while itching your scalp or changing your socks.

Truth be told, I could compartmentalize it while I was awake. I could tell myself what I saw: a very delusional man who killed and painted his victims, all while wearing a mask. Very dramatic, perfect for some thrift store novel.

But when I slept, my mind turned on me. I still saw that grinning face—deep, dark wood, accented by white ivory lines, piercing blue eyes. Worst yet, those mornings when he'd visit my dreams, I'd sometimes see it in the darkness of my room, or the edge of my periphery. It wasn't necessarily traumatic as much as it was unsettling.

I couldn't get him out of my mind.

"Are you going to the hospital today?" Ginny asked me.

"Yeah." I said, grabbing the water pot from the stove.

"You boiled all the water off."

She pulled the kettle from my hand and refilled it, placing it back on the stove.

Ginny pulled the top of the crockpot off, prodded the contents a few times with a fork and replaced the lid.

"How's Reyes doing?" she asked.

"Physically she's as stubborn as an ox. Her hands are healing, doctors say she should have partial use of them in the next four weeks. Her eye is still bothering her. The infection won't go away, apparently it's MRSA so she's looking at a prolonged stay." I pause at the word, "Or rather, more prolonged than anticipated."

"And ... well how's she doing?"

I thought of the police unit she had refused to have stand outside her door, the dogged determination she had shown to not seem broken. And I thought of the look in her eyes when she woke for the first time, and later that day when she asked me for her gun back, when it was just the two of us. What was I supposed to do? I gave her the Model 85, she took it half-heartedly enough, but she was just posturing again. Trying to show that she wasn't fazed.

I ran my hand over my face. My stubble had grown back, it seemed I cared less and less these days.

"I have no idea." I heard myself say, though knowing really that she wasn't OK. She wouldn't be OK until the lunatic was behind bars or dead.

We sat in silence for a moment, Ginny didn't like Reyes. Reyes was too callous for her, and Reyes never did play house well. Early in our partnership I had invited Reyes for dinner, but every time she came over it didn't go well. She swears too much and says thanks too little. There's a hard exterior to Reyes, and I never could get much further than the surface. Even that is better than most. She sent us a Christmas this card last year, if it bothered Ginny that Reyes spelled her name wrong on the envelope, she didn't mention it. They couldn't stand one another, but Ginny at least cared about her enough to ask over her general well-being. I'm not sure if Reyes felt the same about her, and in that sense, Ginny was a much better person.

The kettle started whistling, I pulled it off the stove as Ginny began to pile a healthy portion of the soup into a separate container.

"You know she wont eat that, right?" I said.

"Oh I don't give a shit." Ginny said. "She can throw it against the wall for all I care, I don't want to do nothing. One of these days Sarah is going to look back and appreciate the good cooking she never took advantage of. She'll be begging to get abducted, just so she can have some decent food."

She dropped the spoon. "I'm sorry, that was a terrible thing to say."

I smiled, "I agree. But I wish Reyes was here to hear it from you, she might actually crack a smile."

Ginny shoved the food in my hands and planted a kiss on my forehead.

"In that case, tell her she can go to hell. And tell her that I mean that in the nicest way possible."

"I'll relay the message." I said, and made sure to check the alarm. I went into the living room and hit the release on the drawer and checked to make sure the gun was loaded before placing it back in its holster. Ginny turned her head at the sound slightly, but said nothing.

I shut the door.

#######

I checked in at the front desk, even though they knew who I am. I hate hospitals. I don't know how a place can be diseased and sterile at the same time. I could feel my sinuses filling up every time I walked through the doors. It has to be psychosomatic, that's what Ginny tells me, and she's right, but Reyes got MRSA and last time I checked you don't get MRSA outside of a hospital, unless you go around licking door handles. So in a way I'm right too.

I spotted Tomlins sitting in a chair near the check in. He didn't stand next to the door, and he was in civilian clothing, no doubt a strategic decision on the Chief's part, since Reyes had vehemently refused any sort of "Babysitting duty" sitting outside her door.

Tomlins was reading a book. He shut it immediately when he saw me.

"Hey Coop." He said, somewhat nervously stuffing the book in his bag. "I only was reading for a second, I promise."

"You're fine, Tomlins. What are you reading?" He pulled a book out of his bag, Code and Conduct: Seven Saftey Rules of Enforcement. Very clearly not the one he'd just been reading, but I didn't pry. "Are you hungry?" I asked.

"Sure, I guess."

I gave him the Tupperware container. "Ginny made it."

"Thanks, Coop. She made it for me?"

"No, you nitwit. She made it for Reyes. Is she awake?"

"I think so." Tomlins said, he had already pried off the top of the container and began to take in the smell of what Ginny had cooked. It was probably delicious, Ginny was great at cooking. "You don't have a spoon too, do you?"

"I don't." I said dryly, "but I've got this pint of beer if you want that."

"Really?" his eyes lit up.

"No." I said, and walked away.

Reyes was awake. She was upright in her bed, tubes still attached to her hands, a machine beeping on either side of her. She was looking to the ceiling, the very image of a school child bored between recesses.

"I think you're drooling."

"Oh thank god." She said. "It's so goddamn boring in here I was about to blow my brains out."

"They got TV's and stuff in here, you know."

"Yeah, I've had just about enough Wheel of Fortune to last a lifetime." She looks to the TV mounted on the wall. "I'm confident hell is just daytime TV with a bit of antibiotics thrown in the mix."

"Ginny made you lunch."

"What was it this time?"

"A hearty stew."

Reyes looked to my empty hands. "How was it?"

"You'll have to ask Tomlins. But I bet he likes it. He's got taste."

Reyes scoffed, "He's also got a brain the size of a peanut."

"Come on now," I said, "that's not really fair. It's more like the size of a cashew. And anyway, you wouldn't have eaten the soup."

"Probably not."

"Well, Ginny mentioned that after you get out of this sterile hell-hole, you'll be wishing you'd get abducted again just so you can have some more of that delicious cooking she makes. You'll be missing it."

Reyes barked a quick, loud laugh. A grin spread up her face, in moments like this it was like nothing had happened. It was that bit of my partner still clawing at the walls trying to climb out of the trauma that had been draped over her like a heavy blanket.

My father once told me that depression was the most dangerous illness one could have. It's sneaky. Even the one who's sick doesn't quite fully realize what's happening. And by the time they do, it's already in full force. The cure is to get out, to be social, to find hobbies, to leave the dark confines of one's house and to convince yourself that you're not sad, but of course with depression all of those things are the exact opposite of what you need. That's what makes it so dangerous. I saw what it did to people, first in my mother and then in me after coming home, and only one of us survived its grip. When I told my father I was fine after my first tour, he didn't believe me. I still believe that little seed of doubt is what saved me.

But most dangerous of all, depression seeks to mask itself. And it always looks different. Depression, PTSD, they tell us to carry on, tell us to convince the world that we're not sad, that we don't need help. Mask the symptoms by all means necessary. And the cure is always something different, hidden behind vices: drugs, alcohol, sex, or trashy food. When we went through the vices and figure out they don't work, we have to jump to something else. A hobby, or joining a club. Sometimes they work, sometimes they're just another vice: a distraction instead of a cure.

With Reyes, her depression told her to carry on. To continue being obstinate, sarcastic and biting. She pretended the she hadn't been through what she had been through. Some childish part of me was eternally grateful for this, but even I knew it wasn't healthy.

"Did the psychologist stop by?"

"The shrink? Yeah, she did. And a sponsor as well. Someone who could, quote, 'relate.'"

"And?"

"Same old shit, Coop. She told me her sob story, said she had been through some rough shit."

I took a seat next to the bed and poured a couple of cups of coffee from my thermos.

"Thanks," she said. "I'm convinced the coffee here is just the boiled dirt where coffee plants would grow."

"What'd you think of her story? The sponsor."

"It was sad, sure. So I nodded through all the good parts, I looked sad for her, and at the end I said, 'wow that must have been rough.'" She smirked. "Afterwards the shrink asked if I wanted to talk about anything, so I told her about my mom."

I took a sip of coffee. Whenever Reyes was asked to talk about something personal, it went to her mother. It's what the world wanted to hear, it seemed, when it came to psyche evals. At one point on duty, some druggy knifed her in the hand. She was forced to go to group therapy sessions, a giant waste of tax payers' money, she said, and when it was finally her turn to talk about something traumatic, she went with the mom story. The "Kicked to the streets at 16" story, which was only partially the truth.

"And she gobbled it up." I said.

"Damn right she did. Left the session with a smile on her face and said something like, 'I think we made some real progress.' I feel bad, I mean, I don't want to waste her time but she kind of started it."

"Have you ever thought about talking about it?"

"Not once." She took a sip of her coffee, "Damn this is good."

"Ginny made it." I lied.

She made a face, as if to say 'anything is possible.' "Did you bring it?"

"Yeah." I reached into the bag and pulled out the manila envelope. It was heavy, a few fingers thick. I could see Reyes's face light up when she sees it, her muscles sagged a bit less, her posture perked up, she looked at it like a druggy looks to their fix, because this was her fix.

"It's all here?" She asked, using her two good fingers on her left hand to open the envelope without bothering to wait for an answer.

"All I could get my hands on, yeah."

"It's not everything?"

"I'm not on the case, remember? I can only get so much without Chief noticing. And Biggs keeps most of his notes on his laptop. I can't really get the data off that."

"You'd have to sift through all the bestiality porn, too." She said, not looking up from the photocopies in the envelope.

"I think that's a little insulting to bestiality enthusiasts."

She smiled, "Probably. Where's the witness report?"

She spoke about it as if it wasn't her report. As if it were just another victim part of a domestic violence dispute. This is what worried me about it all, this is where I wasn't sure if I was giving Reyes her cure, or her vice. Were we fleshing out what she'd been through, or were we just smothering what resided beneath the surface?

"Coop." She said, tapping me on the forehead with a cast. "The witness report."

I looked back to her, and decided I didn't really have much of a choice. The psych visits clearly wouldn't help, maybe this would.

"It's in the back, last page. I photocopied to the blood results."

"Fuck." She said, looking at the blood results first. The same response I had had. "Inconclusive. He's not in the system?"

"Well, now he is. But, no, he wasn't."

"That'd be too good to be true, really." She said. "Damnit, call me crazy but this is good news, I think."

"Good news?" I frowned at her. "How hard did you get hit in the head? How is this good news?"

"That's not what I meant." She flipped through more of the case notes. "I meant—well, nevermind what I meant. I guess it'd be pretty damn embarrassing if we had a lunatic running around the way he did and he was on record. I take it fingerprints didn't pull up anything?"

"Not damn thing." I said. "He must have been careful or he must not have prints, forensics couldn't pull anything."

"Not even the house?"

"Nope. Not even on the radio equipment."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Forensic report, page three." I said, pointing to the pile. "The house we found you in had a room filled with radio equipment. The safest assumption is he used it to track police movement, probably yours. But there's some techy stuff in there that I didn't recognize, nor did the forensic team."

"Hm." She said, flipping through the report.

"I'll talk to Colin about it."

"What about that spook you walked through, that devil's playplace , or whatever." She was referring to what the news had called it. "The Maestro's Mansion." The rest the reporters picked it up, even the police-room dubbed it the Maestro's Murderer. Nevermind the fact that Maestro's have nothing to do with art. They're musical conductors.

But, as with anything media related, once something catchy takes hold, nothing will change. Not even facts.

"They couldn't pull anything other than charcoal, once the fire finished. Even the gallery is mostly destroyed. A few of the paintings made it, or pieces of them, but the PD isn't about to spend $10,000 for painting restoration to look at some sick pieces of art."

"I wish you'd taken photos."

"Well, if you wouldn't have called me, I might have had some time."

She said nothing, but I saw her look up, not at me, but through me.

"Sorry." I said. "I'm a prick."

"Yeah, well I am too." She said, her way of accepting an apology. "I can't believe it." She dropped the papers on her lap, in a bit of frustration. "A fire at East Barrington?"

I raised an eyebrow, "You really think it was chance?"

"Fuck no." She said. "Although I kinda wish it was. I'd sleep a bit easier if everything didn't seem so damn connected."

"I hear that. I gave my debrief, but I don't really think they believed me."

"About what?"

"The paintings. Biggs think's I'm exaggerating."

"That's only because he's so used to doing it himself—you would too if yours was this big." She raised her pinky to demonstrate the point. "How many did you say where in the gallery?"

"I told them from ceiling to the floor, all four walls covered. Exactly what I saw, with that fucking god-awful painting of you in the center."

She gave a playful pout, "Well that's just rude. I've been told I make a wonderful muse."

I shifted in my chair uncomfortably.

"Relax, Coop. I'm not about to go into shell shock or anything. How many would you say there were, if you were to guess."

"I dunno." I said, but then added. "At least fifty, maybe as much as a hundred. There loads of them, some small squares, probably four by four inches, others, like yours, were large, almost lifelike in size. They were crammed into one another, it didn't look like there an inch between them." I stifled a shiver.

Every time I thought of the room, the first thing that came to mind was just how cold it was. I'd try to remember the faces, the paintings, the art style, anything that could have pointed me somewhere, but all I could seem to recollect was how cold it was. How still the air was. It was as if I had walked into a graveyard at midnight. I didn't have an image for it, but I now when I think back, I remember those bright blue eyes.

Worst yet, I was reminded of that graveyard in paintings every day. Little advertising billboards that changed a famous work of art, or fliers advertising a local art exhibit would jog my memory and I'd see them all over again. Those epitaphs of blood hanging on the walls, looking down at me — souls longing to be set free.

I couldn't even remember the face of the woman in her chair. My shrink said it was my mind's way of dealing with trauma, but I'd had plenty of that before—those faces still kept me awake at night. I don't know why, I think maybe it was because I was scared. I didn't want to look under the bed because I was afraid of what I'd see.

"What about the woman." She looked to the witness report, the one with my name at the top. "The woman with the earring, or whatever."

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" She said, matching my reaction when I'd heard the same thing last week. I'd wondered why forensics had come back so quickly, their report had answered why.

"The teeth aren't her's, or rather not anyone's." I said. "Dentures. And he burned the prints on her fingers."

"Jesus." She said.

"Jesus indeed. The man is thorough, if nothing else. We pulled samples for DNA testing but, again, no hits so far."

"What about missing persons?"

"That's where we're at now. But there's over 90,000 missing persons cases, well over half of those are women."

"You said she looked young?"

I poured another cup of coffee and offered her the same. She handed me her cup.

"Probably. Though the way he doctored these people up it's hard to say. Though looking at her bone density, we can guess, but even that is subject to genetics. We have a range."

"And?"

"She was definitely between the age of 23 and 35."

"In other words, who the fuck knows."

I raised my coffee cup to agree.

"And what about the houses?"

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