DAY TWO, STATE OF CONTROL

Work in progress, copyright WRBJr. Living Trust

CHAPTER NINE

DAY TWO, Pennsylvania, 6 am Eastern Daylight Time

Hugh Poindexter managed little sleep that night. Given Tory’s work absences, the empty bed was not unusual — but this time she wasn’t working. She was gone. Whatever came next, his life would always be divided by before she went missing, and after.

She had been due home this weekend. An event he would have happily anticipated not long ago. Now they no longer had the smoothest marriage in the world. Sometimes he didn’t think they had a marriage at all. Her homecoming would have reignited smoldering resentments. But she wasn’t coming home. Leaving all their issues unresolved. Too many things unspoken. Too many unshed tears.

Early June dawn forced him out of bed grainy-eyed. He rose listlessly to shave and shower. In the kitchen he stirred a packet of Strawberry Instant Breakfast into a glass of milk and set a kettle to boil for instant coffee. His store opened at ten. Endless empty hours to fill.

He glanced at the clock. Janelle’s graveyard diner shift in Paxtang Township had ended half an hour ago. She probably was transferring buses downtown for her Derry Street row-house. His lip curled in self-mockery: what was the damn difference between her tired old row- house and his new, upscale townhouse? Neither was detached; neither had side yards. Working poor or comfortably off, city row-dwellers existed cheek by jowl.

He had grown up in a suburban house on a spacious lot. Plumb-near Street his father called it — plumb out of the city, nearly in the country. Hugh had dreamed of buying a small farm, maybe with a hill to backstop a home rifle-range. But Tory was a Philadelphia girl for whom the state capital barely qualified as a city. She thought the townhouse enough of a compromise and wasn’t about to move to the sticks to please him. She was very firm about likes and dislikes.

Early in their marriage, still amazed she chose him, Hugh hadn’t had gumption to stand up to her ideas of where to live or much else. Later, when their relationship faltered, he didn’t know how to mend, or end, it. Tory took the initiative as usual, issuing orders to a marriage counselor: something’s wrong with this husband of mine; fix him. Unlike the Swedish mechanic for her cherished Saab however, the mind-mechanic couldn’t find Hugh’s rattle. Sessions had become fewer.

Now there might never be another.

His thoughts turned back to Janelle. Who didn’t treat him like an idiot because he didn’t like living in cities. Raised on an Out Island farm in the Caribbean, she was a country girl at heart. He had begun daydreaming about breaking free to buy a farm, living there with Janelle. Trust Tory to do the melodramatic thing before he worked up his nerve.

He stirred instant coffee into a travel mug, hurried out the kitchen door across the postage-stamp backyard to the garage. His old red-and-white Blazer was squeezed beside Tory’s mustard-yellow Saab convertible. He disliked the Saab intensely; she was embarrassed by his Blazer. Epitome of their relationship, in a way.

He had become adept at self-mockery: I should tough this out alone. What kind of man runs to his lover when his wife goes missing? But fifteen minutes later he was parked down the block from Janelle’s row house when her downtown bus wheezed to a stop, and she appeared. She walked like she was tired. Her diner uniform was soiled and limp but molded her body just the same. A handsome woman, long-legged, high-breasted, and lean. Her cafe-au-lait skin would always be exotic to Hugh.

He knew the instant she noticed his Blazer. Her back straightened and a subtle sway entered her walk. She passed her gate, came to the Blazer, and struck a pose, purse dangling from her wrist.

“Lookin’ for a good time, sailor?” He loved the island lilt in her voice.

“Okay I came by before going to work?”

“Uh oh.” She dropped the pose. “I know that tone. What’s wrong, Hugh?”

He glanced up and down Derry. Bumper-to-bumper traffic, another bus going the opposite way, hurrying pedestrians. She read his nervousness without rancor: fear some passerby worked where Tory did. “Let’s go inside, Baby.”

With the heavy windowless door closed, triple locks secured, an unreasonable calm settled over him. She turned from the locks and moved into his embrace, pulling his head down to her shoulder. “I missed you so bad, baby,” she whispered. “Got spoiled since she been gone. Didn’t know she was comin’ home early.”

“She didn’t come home, Janelle.”

Her body didn’t quite stiffen. “You left a message on my machine something came up. Code for her. Where were you if not with her?”

“Liquor Board headquarters. Then I had to stay home all night, Janelle.”

“Why?”

“Something bad happened to her. Out in Colorado.” It was hard to get it out. “Cops think she’s been kidnapped. Or worse.”

“Sweet Jesus! She’s missing?”

“I had to be home if they called with news.”

“Oh, baby.” Her fingers dug into his taut neck. “No wonder you’re so tight, honey.” She pushed him into a recliner slanted to face her old TV.

He reached for her, but she moved behind him. Strong fingers found the tension in his shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Don’t mean to burden you — “

“S’hhh. Relax. Let your head roll with my hands. That’s right. Like that. Baby, you’re so tense!”

“I don’t know what the hell to do!”

“What can you do but wait, baby?” She manipulated his head in a slow circle, loosening his neck. Drowsiness weighted his eyes. “Sleep, baby,” she crooned. “You need to clear your mind.”

“Got to open the store at ten…”

“I’ll get you up in plenty of time. And you can take that any way you want, sailor.”

He was almost asleep. “I love you, Janelle,” he mumbled.

Her fingers paused. Then resumed ministrations. “I know, baby, I know. Now sleep.”