Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 131, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 799 & 800, March/April 2008

The Blue Plate Special by Brendan DuBois

As we go to press with this issue, Brendan DuBois’s new thriller, Twilight, is also hot off the presses from St. Martin’s. The New Hampshire author writes both series and non-series books, but his stories for us, like his 2006 Barry Award winner “The Right Call,” are usually non-series. The award was bestowed at the 2007 Bouchercon in Alaska, and was sponsored by Mystery News and Deadly Pleasures magazines.

So it has come to this, Elaine Fletcher thought, as she parked her Volvo sedan in the dirt parking lot of the Have a Seat diner in Montcalm, New Hampshire. She left the car in Park and kept the engine running, as the Volvo’s radio struggled to pick up an NPR station from Montpelier. It was six on a Wednesday morning and her head and jaw ached. Already the lot was practically full, with pickup trucks and rusty sedans and a couple of SUVs. On the passenger’s side of her Volvo were a reporter’s notebook, a file folder, and her laptop — a pathetic collection that marked the sudden halt to a very promising career. She would leave the laptop and file folder behind during this first visit.

Once, a lifetime or two ago, she had been a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, living in an upscale section of Brooklyn, writing stories about finance and business and purchasing trends. In her varied career she had reported from London and Dubai, had interviewed the head of the London Stock Exchange and two members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, and had a nice little career ahead of her.

And now?

Well, now she was living in rural New Hampshire, hadn’t seen her name in print in months, and was about to try to interview the owner and head cook of the Have a Seat diner for a possible freelance article. Among other things.

She gathered up her notebook and went out into the cold October morning, suddenly remembering something from her newspaper days. Once, in an editor’s office, she’d seen one of those workplace inspirational posters hanging on the wall. This particular poster had shown a steamship overtaking a sailing ship, and the large caption underneath had said: CHANGE IS GOOD.

At this moment, in this parking lot in Montcalm, New Hampshire, she knew that if the designer of the poster were to walk out of the diner, she would try to strangle him.

From the quiet of the parking lot, she went into the noisy chaos of the diner, and had to stop for a moment to take it all in. Before her was a traditional counter, with round stools stretching out on both sides, and on the other side of the counter were two refrigerators, a grill, coffee machines, and other odds and ends of diner gear. On either side of the small room were rows of booths, and even at this early hour, the booths and the stools were mostly occupied. She worked her way down one row of booths, where the very last one — next to a fire exit — was made for two people. She sat down, shoved her reporter’s notebook into her purse, took a breath, and looked at the customers.

A fair mix of small-town New Hampshire, a people she was learning about, and would no doubt continue to keep on learning about the longer she was exiled here. There were the women in nurse scrubs, ready to go over the river and up to the big Dartmouth-Hitchcock regional hospital. There were the few farmers who ran dairy farms, in their worn jeans and flannel shirts. A fair mix of other men who worked with their hands — contractors, plumbers, mechanics — as well as a few women heading out to who-knew-where. She found herself smiling, looking at the crew before her. Not one who would be tagged as “professional,” as she’d been in her Manhattan work days, though who in hell knew what a professional was anymore?

An older woman in a pink waitress uniform sauntered over, keeping up her end of the conversation with a bearded man sitting at one of the stools “—so I told her, I don’t care how friggin’ old she is, she’s still under my roof, still my rules—” and she slapped a white mug of coffee before Elaine without asking.

Elaine wasn’t much of a coffee drinker and would have preferred tea, but this was the kind of place the Have a Seat diner looked to be. You got what they served you and didn’t make a fuss.

The waitress looked down at her, little order pad in her chubby hands. “Well, hon, what’s it going to be?”

There was a menu at her elbow, but she felt a bit intimidated by the waitress and didn’t want to send her away while she looked at the menu, so she said, “Two scrambled eggs, please. And toast.”

“Wheat, white, or rye?”

“Wheat, please.”

The waitress looked down, quizzical, and then Elaine said, “That’s all, thanks.”

The other woman nodded, turned, and went back to the grill, and then picked up her conversation as she passed the order over, “—and then she had the nerve to tell me, well, what you feed me—”

Sure. Feed. Elaine looked about the noisy diner, the grease smells assaulting her nose, the taste of it in her mouth. What a place. And she remembered how she had ended up here.

At times eating quick, eating fast, but the types of food available at all hours in Manhattan and its neighboring boroughs, well, it was enough to make a food critic surrender and not even bother to keep track anymore. Two-star, three-star, four-star meals, and best of all, of course, was when they were expense-accounted, and you never really saw the bill, except when it was stapled to your monthly report. Every type of ethnic and sub-ethnic grouping, wines from France, Australia, South Africa, Spain, and Chile, and the conversations that went on and on during those meals, solving the problems of the newspaper, solving the problems of New York, and — in one’s spare time — solving the problems of the world.

To be a journalist on your own and with your own career seemed the finest thing possible, and then one night — or early morning, depending on your point of view — it had all changed, with a smile and an offer of a free drink, when Casey Riley had entered her life.

She listened as she waited for her breakfast as voices were raised, points were made, even a few arguments conducted at various places across the room. In a space of a few minutes she had heard about the dating habits of one of the local selectmen, two sons who were about to go to county lock-up for burglaries, a messy divorce, and a contractor from across the river in Vermont who liked to help lonely housewives with more than just leaky roofs.

There were lots of loud voices and laughs, and she felt so out of place. She stirred two spoonfuls of sugar into her coffee, took a sip, and, surprised, took another. Not bad... actually, pretty damn good for diner coffee. She had read once that making good diner coffee meant being a bear in cleaning out the urns and associated plumbing on a daily basis. So someone here was paying attention, and she knew who it was: the large man by the grill, shaved head and black goatee, wearing a tight black T-shirt, white apron tied snug about his jeans-enclosed waist. He looked to be about fifty or sixty, depending on the light, and in the midst of frying up bacon or sausage, or stirring up eggs, or cracking eggs over the grill, he worked hard to get the food out as quickly as possible.

But even with the flurry of motions in his arms and hands, he kept up a constant patter with the rest of the customers, and kept his eyes on the grill.

Sausage patties flipped over.

“That’s what you get from inviting out-of-town talent, I’ll tell ya.”

Two eggs cracked open, the whites and yokes sizzling on the grill.

“I don’t care if he sleeps with his cousin or his wife, so long as the tax rate doesn’t go up next year.”

Large hands, whisking a couple of eggs in a metal bowl.

“Mark my words, you start paying the state reps more, you’ll get more laws and regulations, that’s what you’ll get, and that’s what we don’t need.”

She watched him for a bit. Jason Lovell. Owner and chief cook and dishwasher of the Have a Seat grill.

Her potential interview subject.

And then, as the waitress approached her, plate of scrambled eggs in her hand, she thought of something else.

If she was lucky, very lucky, perhaps her savior.

There are whirlwind romances, and there are romances that move at the speed of hurricanes. And such had been the case with her and Casey Riley. That night — or early morning — he had brought her a drink and had cornered her in a relatively quiet area of the bar, a nice place north of the Financial District, and after the usual give and take of who are you, and what are you doing (she: BU and then Columbia Journalism School, lucky-break internship that led to the Wall Street Journal; he: CCNY and then a variety of jobs at various trading firms on Wall Street), he smiled at her with soft brown eyes that had an adorable crinkle about them in the corner, and he said, “Look. I don’t want to be too forward here, but how about breakfast?”

And though she had thought him pretty good-looking in a rugged kind of way, she thought he was moving way too fast, and he had laughed and said, “Just breakfast, that’s all. I know a nice little place. You’ll love it.”

Elaine had checked her watch. “Where? It’s only one a.m. I’m not really that hungry.”

He grabbed her purse, gently too her forearm. “This place is great. It’s in Victoria.”

Head spinning, not sure why she was letting him lead her on, she had said, “Victoria? Where’s that? In Connecticut?”

“Nope,” he had said, leading her to the door. “British Columbia.”

God, how she had laughed, right through him bundling her into a cab, and then a quick run out to LaGuardia, and in a matter of just a few more minutes she had been put into a private jet, some sort of Gulfstream model, and a few hours later, she had seen the sun rise above the Rocky Mountains and decided she liked very much being with Mr. Casey Riley, and wanted to see much more of him in the future.

The waitress dropped off the plate and scurried off and Elaine sprinkled some salt and pepper and took a bite. Though her jaw ached a bit, she was amazed at the taste and consistency of the eggs. In diner visits past — and not too many, she had to confess — eggs were either cold or overcooked or lumped to one side and so stiff they had to be cut with a knife. But not these; they were light and fluffy, had a wonderful consistency that almost seemed to melt in her mouth, and she ate them so quickly she was disappointed when she had finished.

The noise in the diner seemed to move in cycles, louder and softer, and then louder again, and when the waitress came back and said, “Anything else, hon?” Elaine looked at her and said, “No, just the check. please.”

“ ’Kay,” and with that, a slip of paper was put on the table, but before she went away, Elaine said, “Excuse me, one more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Could... could I see Jason Lovell, the owner? Could I see him for a moment?”

The waitress’s eyes narrowed, like that of a mama bear seeing someone getting too close to one of her cubs. “Is there a problem? You didn’t like your breakfast?”

Elaine said, “No, no, there’s no problem. The eggs were delicious. I... I just need to talk to him.”

The waitress glanced over at the grill. “He’s pretty busy.”

“I know. It’ll take just a minute. That’s all.”

She shrugged and walked away, and Elaine glanced at the check — three dollars and fifty cents, can you believe it! — and when she looked up again, Jason Lovell was striding towards her, wiping his big hands in a towel.

Oh yeah. She had interviewed bankers and senators, congressmen and unindicted co-conspirators in various business shenanigans, but never had she been so nervous, feeling her heart thump away like that, as Jason came closer.

The day of her marriage she had been talking about something to her cousin Tracy when Mother came and gently tugged at her elbow. “Just a minute, that’s all I need,” she had said as Mother brought her to a corner of the function room that was used to store additional chairs. She tried to stifle a sigh as Mother looked her over. Father had left her years ago, and much to the surprise of friends and relatives, Elaine had taken Father’s side in the whole mess. Mother had a sharp eye and sharper tongue, had grown up protesting in the streets during the ‘sixties, and from Elaine’s point of view, Mother saw everything in life as just one more assault against one more barricade, no matter who or what the barricade was.

And then, surprise of surprises, Mother kissed her on the cheek, and when she drew back, there were tears in her eyes.

“Mother... what’s up?” Elaine said.

Dressed in a light-blue gown that was no doubt going to be donated next day to some charitable outfit, Mother said, “I can’t believe this day has come... and that you’re married.”

That had brought a smile to her face. “Can’t believe your little girl has gone out on her own?”

Mother had shaken her head. “No... I can’t believe you chose him, that’s all.”

Something cold formed in her chest. “Mother, please, not now. Not today.”

Another quick shake of the head. “All right. Just remember I said this. I don’t like him, I don’t trust him, and I never will.”

“Why? What has he ever done?”

Mother wiped at her cheeks, drawing away the tears. “Nothing. That’s the problem. It’s what he’s going to do that scares me.”

“How’s that?”

“His eyes.”

Elaine couldn’t believe what she had just heard. “His eyes? That’s it? His eyes?” And thinking at the same time that it was Casey’s eyes that had first attracted her to him.

A firm nod from her mother. “His eyes. They’re lizard eyes. They change color depending on his moods... and I can tell he has very dark moods in him, Elaine. Very dark moods.”

And that had been too much, and Elaine had said something like, oh, did you see that in your crystal readings or something? And with that, she had gone back to the celebration, back to the man of her life, the man with the laughing brown eyes.

Before her, Jason Lovell sat down, face open and friendly, a bit curious. “Help you with something?”

She found her lips were quite dry. “My... my name is Elaine Fletcher.”

A huge hand held out, which she promptly shook. “Nice to meet you, Elaine. What’s up? And do you mind making it quick? Don’t want to let the orders back up.”

From her purse she pulled out a business card, slid it across the tabletop. “I’m a freelance writer. Used to be on staff at the Wall Street Journal—” and how that phrase tasted like cold ashes in her mouth — “and I was wondering if I could interview you.”

He examined the card, then looked at her with a bemused look. “Me? You want to interview me?”

“Yes, I would.”

“What for?”

“A human-interest story. About you and the diner.”

He looked about the diner. “Why? Must be dozens of these kinds of diners in this county alone. Why me, and why this one?”

She raised a hand. “Look at the place. It’s full. It’s always full. And the mix of your customers... I just think it’d be a fascinating look at a small-town diner, its owner, and its customers.”

For a moment Elaine wondered if she had gone too far, had laid it on too thick, for there was something wary about Jason’s expression, and she wondered just how smart he was. Pretty smart, from what she had been able to find out earlier, but still...

Then he leaned back and laughed. “Sure. You got it. Why the hell not? Come back at ten-thirty... it slows down pretty much then... breakfast traffic leaves me alone and it’s a bit early for the lunch traffic.”

“Thanks, that’s very kind of you,” she said, feeling just a bit light-headed. The first step, the very first step, but it was progress.

He stood up and wiped his hands on his apron. “But I can only give you a half-hour or so. Okay? Some people love an early lunch, and I hate to disappoint my customers.”

“I’m sure,” she replied, and when Jason got back to the grill — accompanied by some catcalls and shouts for goofing off on the job — she reached into her purse, took out a five-dollar bill, left it on the counter, and then walked out.

Home.

She paused in the driveway, in her Volvo, still listening to the radio gallantly try to pull in that elusive NPR station. She had nearly four hours to kill before returning to the Have a Seat diner. Up ahead was the house, a small one-story ranch on a nice sloping lawn that had a view of the Connecticut River Valley. It had about an acre of woods in the rear, and a few times, early in the morning, standing by herself in the living room, she had seen deer grazing on the shrubbery down by the mailbox. She had grown up in apartments and condos. It was the first house she had ever lived in, and the first day she had seen it had also been the day she and Casey had moved in.

She got out and walked up to the door.

It was a house.

It wasn’t home.

And the damn thing was, it had seemed so... well, if not logical, then it had some sort of crazy sense to it, and only later did she think that Casey had this all planned out, years and years earlier. After marriage and a honeymoon filled with love, laughs, and lots of fun, they had settled into their lives, a routine that she had loved, he off to his high-powered trading firm, she off to the Journal and occasional assignments out of town. Nights at restaurants or pubs, circles of friends from the business world, weekends at the Hamptons or up the Hudson River Valley, lots of laughs, but... there had been some edgy times. Just little spats here and there, and one day, well, one day, he had come out and said it.

“Look, we’ve got to leave,” Casey had said.

“Leave what?” she had said, grinding coffee beans in a German-made coffee grinder that offered twelve different levels of coarseness. “The apartment? The neighborhood?”

“Nope,” he had said, “Manhattan. The whole package.”

She knew she looked ridiculous, standing there in her Bloomie off-the-rack bathrobe, container of ground coffee in her hand, but still... “I’m sorry, what did you just say?”

His somewhat friendly expression suddenly chilled. “You heard me. I’m not kidding, Elaine. Look, we’re not getting any younger. We’re getting shackled in what we’re doing, me with the firm, you with the newspaper.”

“I don’t think I’m shackled.”

“You don’t?” he shot back. “How many times have you complained about your editors, about your travel, about your assignments? How many times have you told me you’d really like to dump it all and start writing a novel? Am I right? Don’t you want to write that novel you’ve talked about so many times?”

And with each sentence, each phrase, his voice got tighter and sharper, a type of assault she had never experienced before. “Sure, Casey, one of these days, I mean—”

He made a chopping motion with his hand, smacking it into the other hand. “That’s what I mean! One of these days! One of these days, I want to have my own firm, and one of these days, you want to write your novel. And I’m telling you, Elaine, I’m tired of waiting. We’ve got to do it now. Dump everything, cash out, and get out of the city. Go someplace remote where we’ll have an edge. Do it now before we’re stuck.”

So she had stood there, dumbfounded, coffee grounds in her hand, wanting to tell him that she didn’t feel stuck, that despite her complaints, she felt pretty good about herself, but there was something in what he had said, those little worms of worry... Was she ever going to do that, write that novel? Fulfill that college-age dream? Sure, one of these days... and before you know it, the days have all passed by.

But she kept her mouth shut. For she had looked into his eyes, and for the first time — and, alas, not the last — she had been frightened at what she had seen.

Inside her New Hampshire house, she heard her footsteps echo loudly. Casey was gone on yet another business trip, stirring up potential clients, trying to get his business up and running, at least making it self-supporting; for right now, it was sucking away at their combined savings every bloody month, and lately Casey had been making sounds about having to tap into their IRAs, which scared her to death. That was retirement money, money to live a good life when you were older, for if you believed Social Security was going to do it for you, there were many Manhattan bridges that Elaine could name that she would try to sell you.

She went to the doorway of the spare bedroom that she had turned into an office. Quiet. Silent computer. Filing cabinet empty save for some unfilled folders. Notebooks, pens, pencils. Credenza with a little library of books on top of the polished surface. A nice little office in which to write a nice little novel, a nice little novel that she had yet to get beyond Chapter Two. My God, she could write stories about complicated SEC filings and business mergers with a fifteen-minute deadline, but facing that blank screen every morning to try to create something that would grab at people and make them read, to make a fictional universe come alive with characters that seemed to breathe and live and laugh... It got so that she hated her office, hated that mocking computer, could barely function when she sat in her expensive chair and stared at the blank screen.

She looked about the house some more — at how clean and tidy it was, and she felt that sick little ache in her, knowing if Mother was here, oh lord, what Mother would say. She would say, what do you expect, having dumped your dreams and desires in somebody else’s lap? That now everything was merged so that the household budget was examined every other week to make sure she wasn’t spending too much on groceries or newspapers or whatever, so that the funds were there to keep the Riley Financial Advisory Group up and running.

That’s what Mother would say. The usual bull about taking it to the streets, fighting oppression, making sure women had equality in this world, and Mother would look at her daughter and shake her head in disappointment.

Disappointment that she was taking a giant step backwards.

And the damn thing was, Mother would be right.

She went into the living room, looked at the shiny table, and folded her arms.

Remembered some more.

It had been a frustrating day. After the morning and early afternoon, the writing had produced exactly two pages, two pages of crap she was sure she would delete tomorrow. And so she had gone on a run, to clear her head, in sweats and sports bra and T-shirt, and halfway through her route, clouds had rolled in across the valley and had dumped themselves on her. So she had run home in the rain, the water drenching her, passing trucks and cars spraying water on her, and from the mailbox she had retrieved the mail.

Into the house she had gone, sneakers squishy-wet on the floor, dripping everywhere; she dropped the mail on the dining room table and had stripped her clothes and taken a hot, hot shower, embarrassed at the tears that had flowed down her cheeks while the hot water failed to warm her up, and then...

And then...

Well.

Terrycloth around her still-wet hair, she came out and almost shrieked, for Casey had come home early, was standing there, in the hallway, and those eyes.

They weren’t the happy, laughing eyes she had first seen.

He had her wet clothes and sneakers in his hands.

“Mind telling me what the hell is going on here?” he had asked, his voice low and even.

She wiped a drop of water off her nose. “Oh, Christ, I was taking a run and then the skies opened up, drenching me, and you wouldn’t believe those jerk drivers who won’t even make an effort to dodge the puddles and—”

Now she was talking to his back. He was out in the dining room and she had followed him, and he dropped her sneakers and clothes on the floor and went to the table and with a sudden motion that froze her he shot out with an arm and swept the mail off the table and onto the floor.

“Look at that!” he had demanded. “Look at that! I come home from a trip, trying to keep my company afloat, trying to keep us afloat, Elaine, and what the hell do I see? Hunh? Your wet clothes, your wet sneakers, on the carpet and floor that I paid for, and the day’s mail... soaking in a heap on the dining room table!”

Now the eyes were really scaring her, and she felt herself unexpectedly take a step back, and now she could smell the booze on his breath, too early to be drinking, part of her thought, and she had said, “Casey, please, take it easy, it’s not that big a—”

And then he had punched her.

So where had the morning gone? She wasn’t sure. She went into her office and spent some time on the Internet, and then before she knew it, it was a quarter past ten. Time to go back to the Have a Seat diner. She looked at the damn screen. For a while, her inbox for her e-mail had been stuffed with messages from old friends at the Journal and other places, inquiries on how she was doing, how the book was coming along, and after a while, she found it tiring to reply, and had stopped. And then the messages had dribbled away. And of course, she found it so much easier to stay at home, playing with the computer, with the Internet, than to try to make new friends in Montcalm.

She went out to the car, purse over her arm, ready for the rest of the morning.

Time to be a journalist again, and despite herself, she felt a little flicker of hope.

A day after Casey had punched her, she had come out of the bedroom, where she had barricaded herself for the previous twenty-four hours. For the longest time, she had looked at the phone, at the receiver, and wondered why she couldn’t pick it up. Why she was so weak. To pick up the phone, make the phone call...

She had been assaulted.

She was a victim.

Her husband had struck her...

And then... well, then what?

The local cops would come by, and who knew what kind of law-enforcement professionalism they had. Would they take her seriously? Or would they laugh it off, take Casey’s side? And suppose they arrested him, what then? She’d have to move out... and move out where? With a thin bank account, she could take refuge in a motel for a while... and then what?

To somebody’s house in Montcalm? Please. She had a few passing acquaintances, but no one she could call a friend.

Back to New York? To tell her friends what a loser she had become? Not, not likely.

To Mother? Impossible. She couldn’t dream of spending a day with Mother, not to mention having to tell her what had happened with Casey, for she would take great pride and pleasure in saying I told you so, I told you so, I told you so, in so many different ways and styles.

A battered-women’s shelter, or whatever passed as a shelter in this remote part of the world? She, a journalist with a master’s degree from Columbia, trying to explain to the local yokels how it came to be that she needed their help?

So the phone had remained untouched. And she had stayed. And apologies were eventually made, promises as well, to never do that ever again, and that had been fine, for another few months or so, until he had punched her again, when dinner had been late.

Elaine parked the Volvo in the lot of the Have a Seat, pleased to see that the lot was now nearly empty. She grabbed her notebook and the file folder, went out into the still-cool morning air, and then went into the diner.

My, what a difference. Just a handful of people, hardly any noise at all, and Jason Lovell was leaning over the counter talking to a woman mail carrier, taking a coffee break, no doubt, but when he saw her come in, he stood up, grinning.

“Sorry, Stacy,” he said. “I’ve got an appointment.”

He went to one of the coffee machines, drew a mug of coffee for himself, turned, and unlike the waitress earlier that morning, said, “Coffee? Or something else?”

“How about some juice?”

“Sure. Orange, grapefruit, or cranberry?”

“Orange would be nice.”

“You got it.”

He deftly drew a glass of orange juice, and carrying the juice and the coffee mug in his big hands, he took her back to the same booth from the morning, at the very end of the row, and only big enough for two people. She sat down and placed the file folder and her reporter’s notebook on the table, took a breath, felt her legs quivering. Amazing. All the people she had interviewed over the years, and now she felt like an undergrad, reporting for the first time for her college newspaper. She took a breath, and—

He noticed.

Cocked his head a bit. “You okay? Can I get you something else?”

Damn, she thought, he’s good. Very good. Be careful, hon, be very careful of him. This isn’t some investment banker you’re interviewing, or some Silicon Valley geek who’s never seen a naked breast in his entire short life.

“No, I’m fine,” she lied. “And I appreciate you giving me the time this morning.”

He shrugged. “Not a problem. Just don’t take too much time, you know? The lunch crowd starts streaming in in just under an hour.”

Elaine flipped open her reporter’s notebook. “I’ll do my best.”

“So, before we start, mind telling me again how you decided to do a story on me?”

She smiled, and this time, at least, she was telling the truth. “I thought you and the diner would make for an interesting story.”

And maybe it was kismet, karma, or some other ordering of the cosmos that began with the letter k, but one day, cruising through her e-mail account, there was an invite, an honest-to-God invite, from someone she had known at the Journal, an assistant editor named Winslow, and the message was brief and to the point: He had gone off to a regional magazine in New England, needed some human-interest stories, knew she was in the wilds of upstate New Hampshire. Would she be interested in doing an article, five thousand words max, about some local feature, maybe a coffee shop or something, one of those stories about crusty New Englanders that the East and West Coast elites lap up and love so much?

When she had read the note, her very first thought was to turn it down. Damn it, she was trying to work on a novel, do something different, and—

Well. How was it working, then? How much had she accomplished?

So far, well, nothing. The novel was more than just dead in the water, it was sinking with no hope of survival.

But a freelance nonfiction piece... she had been amazed that the thought of doing a story about a diner or something had kindled that little spark of creativity that she thought had been snuffed out and drowned by her new life in Montcalm, and before she changed her mind, she had said yes.

Yes, oh God, yes.

Elaine said, “So, how long have you been here, Mr. Lovell?”

He grinned. “Please, call me Jason. And I’ve been here four years.”

“And what did you do before you came to the diner?”

“Worked in the government for a while, put in my thirty — pretty weird, hunh, spending thirty years in one place? — and then decided to cash out and come back up here. My parents had a summer place nearby and I had some great memories of the place when I was a kid, so I knew I’d retire here. And retire I did. But then I found out after a year that twelve months of fishing, canoeing, and goofing off was hard for the soul. I needed to keep busy... and when the diner came up for sale, I bought it and there you go.”

She scribbled quickly and efficiently, taking it all in. “Don’t you find it a big change, coming from government work, and then running a diner?”

He sipped from his coffee. “Found it an improvement, if you’ve got to know. People in government tend to be stiff-necked, can’t do anything without getting paperwork done in triplicate, or having completed stepladder safety training or diversity training or some other training. Tell you, it was a relief to leave after all those years. And here? Well, the BS level is pretty low. Has to be, at a diner. I mean, either the eggs are cold or they’re not, or the coffee sucks or it doesn’t. If it’s real, it’s real.”

“And your customers?”

Another sip from the coffee cup. “Real people, too. Not thinking about sticking a knife in your back, or tossing you under the bus, so they can get a better performance review or a step increase in their salary. Up here, if a guy says he’s gonna plow your driveway in the winter, he does it. If a guy says he’s gonna vote for you, he does. If a gal says, don’t worry, I can do your books and it’ll cost you this much every week, that’s what happens.”

Elaine said, “So you find most people are good up here, your customers.”

“Well, it can’t be a hundred percent. If it was, it’d be nirvana, and this place sure don’t look like nirvana now, does it?”

He laughed, but his smile quickly went away when Elaine decided to try again, from the beginning. “So, what exactly did you do in the government?”

No more smiles. No more laughter. “Oh, this and that.”

“I see.” Her heart now pounding, now looking to the file folder on the tabletop, next to her orange juice.

Once she had gotten the assignment, she knew that it was a chance to get back into the game and, by God, she was going to do it right. So she had spent more than the usual time getting prepared for the interview, by going to the local newspaper office and looking through clips about the Have a Seat diner, and then doing an Internet search on the diner and its owner, Jason Lovell, and when she had started, well, something wasn’t quite right. There were little faint trails of something more than just a retiree taking possession of a diner. Something a bit more... And she found out one bit of information, which led her to something else.

Something else that she had thought about the time Casey went after her with a leather belt because she wouldn’t iron his shirts.

After another ten minutes or so of interviewing, asking the right questions about the customers and characters in the diner, the challenges of getting to the diner at four a.m. in a blizzard to set up, and the usual and customary questions about running a small place in a small town, she glanced up at a clock. Okay, she thought. Time. Here we go. She took a deep breath, pushed her knees together to stop the shaking, and went to the file folder.

“Actually, Jason, I was wondering if we could talk about what you did before you came up here to Montcalm, a little more background,” she said, opening up the folder.

Hunched over the top of the booth’s table, Jason shrugged again. “Not much to say. Pretty boring stuff. Just government work, and I just put my time in until retirement came knocking.”

“I see. And where exactly did you work while in the government?”

He stared at her. But unlike Casey’s eyes, there was nothing evil or shifting there. Just a calm curiosity as to why she was doing what she was doing. “Here and there. Nothing special.”

She slipped a sheet of paper out, one of several she had collected over the past few days, in doing the research, research that had led her down some very strange paths indeed. And by relying on her Rolodex and other contacts, she had managed to find her way down those paths and eventually find her way here.

“Some people might disagree,” she said. “Working for the Central Intelligence Agency, all those years, sounds something very special indeed.”

And sheet one was an article showing a Congressional hearing from a few years back, concerning some controversy involving the CIA, and sitting behind one of the witness chairs — with a bit more hair and better clothes — was the man in front of her, though in the photo caption he was identified as Robert Jason Lovell.

He looked down, seemed to smile for just a moment, and then looked up. “Now I’ll say something I’m sure you’re familiar with hearing. No comment.”

“What did you do in the CIA, Jason?”

His face was friendly, but the words were not. “Sorry. No comment. Today, tomorrow, next century. No comment.”

Back to the file folder she went, willing her hands not to shake. She slid out two more sheets of paper. He looked down, and for a moment, just a moment, he stared at them with some sort of expression in his face, a passing expression that could be pride. Or something else.

She leaned over. “A newspaper article, and another photo. Of you in Afghanistan. You belonged to an outfit called the Special Activities Division, part of the CIa’s National Clandestine Service. Highly secret, highly covert. They conduct all sorts of classified military-style missions, including guerrilla operations, sabotage, and assassinations, from shooting people in the head to poisoning their hummus. Stories that never get made public, never make it into the newspapers. An elite group of killers. Am I right, Jason?”

He looked to her and she had expected many types of reactions, but not this one. No anger. No fluster. Just calm and collected. “No comment, Elaine. Like before. And I believe this interview is finished.”

She was suddenly thirsty, picked up the glass of orange juice and took a healthy sip. “No, Jason. It’s not. I have one more thing to ask you. And then you can tell me if the interview is finished or not.”

That was when it came clear to her, in doing that additional piece of research, that she had found a local connection to the Have a Seat diner and its spook owner. At first she had thought that she had stumbled onto a story that could even make a national publication — killer spook now makes killer omelettes, that sort of thing — but that damn thread of research led her to another place, and another place, and one early morning, having refused to sleep with Casey because of an earlier incident involving not enough gas in the car, which was followed by an arm twisting that still made her shoulder throb, the idea of the story was overtaken by something else.

She had sat in her office that morning, two a.m., the creature who was called her husband gently slumbering about six yards away, and she allowed a bit of hope to seep into her.

A bit of hope.

Another breath, not worrying now that Jason was seeing how nervous she was, for indeed, she was quite nervous. Four more sheets of paper were brought out, four more sheets that were fanned out in front of her.

Jason looked at them, and then looked to her. Not a word.

Elaine took a breath. “Henry Collins. Jake Winters. Robbie Couture. Paul Dudley. Four local men, four men who’ve died within the last eighteen months. These are their obituaries.”

Jason stared. Silent.

“I found their obituaries because they all appeared in the Montcalm Gazette, and because they all had one thing in common. All four were regular customers, the newspaper said, of the Have a Seat diner.”

Jason kept on staring.

“But I dug a bit further. There were other areas of commonality, as well. They were in their forties or fifties. They weren’t marathon runners, but they didn’t have any history of disease. They just... died. All four died, of apparent heart failure. What are the chances of that occurring, Jason, that four local men, four customers of yours, all died within a span of eighteen months?”

No change from Jason. She took a breath.

“But there was one more common thread. Took a bit of digging, but that’s what we journalists do. Find stuff out. And what I found out is that all four men, all four, had criminal records. For domestic violence. All four were men who abused their wives, abused their children, all four were bullies. And now all four of them are dead.”

He remained silent. She lowered her voice. “How do you choose them, Jason? Do you hear about them, in the morning, when the place is packed? Hear gossip about who’s beating his wife, how he’s getting away with it... Is that it? And you can’t stand it, can you? A man who’s dedicated his life to fighting bad guys, to being a good guy... you decide to do something about it. Something involving your old skills. Old skills that would allow you to get away with a death without any suspicions being raised.”

Jason looked down at the papers and looked up again. “This isn’t an article you’re working on now, is it? It’s something else.”

Elaine nodded. “Yes. It’s something else.”

“Blackmail,” he said. “What do you want? Eggs? Bacon? Money?”

She looked at him, and then reached over to a napkin dispenser and pulled out a white napkin. She moistened one corner of the napkin with her tongue and then started gently rubbing away the makeup about her right cheek and eye. She rubbed for a bit, until she was sure that the bruises were now revealed.

“Your help,” she whispered, tears coming to her. “I want your help.”

The other morning she had stood in the empty living room, watched the taillights of Casey’s SUV descend down the long drive-way, and she had folded her arms and wondered if she could actually do this, actually go through with it, and she touched her eye and her cheek and her jaw, and she had no doubt.

Jason sat silently for a moment, and then he reached over with a large hand. For one thrilling moment Elaine thought that he was going to gently grasp her own hand and say that it would all work out, but instead, he gathered up the sheets of paper and returned them to the file folder.

“I admire your research, Elaine, and what you’ve done.”

A pause. Her heart racing so hard that she thought he could hear it.

This time, Jason took a breath. “But I’m sorry, I can’t do anything.”

He stood up and said, “Write what you want to write. Or not. But I’d suggest a bit more research. We happy few do more than what you think.”

And he walked off, and she was alone, and her jaw and cheek and eye ached terribly.

And so weeks went by, miserable weeks, punctuated by brief moments of peace when Casey went off on yet another business trip to keep his new company afloat, and it got to the point that she didn’t particularly care anymore about anything. Twice he had struck her some more and it was as if she was above it all, gazing at how he was hitting her, as if it was some sort of out-of-body experience. She noodled about on the story about Jason and the diner — leaving out all the juicy stuff about his CIA past — and submitted the story, and Winslow, her former colleague, e-mailed back that the story was nice but the queue to be published was full, and the story probably wouldn’t appear for months.

Fine. Whatever. She kept up with her running, tried her hand at coming up with another nonfiction piece to write about, but she found herself being forgetful, or oblivious. A couple of times she had come home from jogging and found the side door unlocked. Other times laundry had remained in the dryer for a couple of days in a row. Though now a bear about housecleaning, she sometimes found bits of tape and plastic stuck in the corner of a room, and she redoubled her efforts to keep the house neat for Casey. An odd equation, but it worked: a clean house, clean clothes, meals on time meant the hitting would stop. An equation that would have horrified her back in Manhattan, but Manhattan was far away, and her bank account was so very thin, and she was so very scared, for Casey had once said that he would never allow her to leave, not ever, and she had no choice but to believe him. A few times she even had the sense she was being watched, and she suspected that Casey had hired someone to keep an eye on her.

So one November day she came back from a run, feeling the frost in the air, a part of her terrified that winter would soon be here, a type of northern New Hampshire winter where you could be housebound for days on end, roads and driveways blocked by drifts of snow, and she knew it would not last, could not last. If Casey were to live, well, she would do something so that he would live alone. And at least the pain would stop. Even jogging wasn’t fun anymore; she felt like her arms and legs were made of concrete, weighing her down, slowing everything.

She went into the house, breathing hard, and Casey was there, cup of coffee in his hand, looking at her, dressed in clean and pressed black slacks, white dress shirt, and red necktie. Her heart thudded some, looking at his eyes, trying to determine what was going on here, and he looked fairly calm. Not a guarantee — it was amazing how quickly his calm moments could spin into a vicious storm — but she would take whatever positive sign she could.

“Hey,” she said, going to the sink, grabbing a couple of sheets of paper towel, wetting them, wiping down her face and neck.

“Hey yourself,” he said. “Good run?”

“Pretty good.”

“Hunh,” he said, raising his coffee mug. “Saw the mail on the dining room table. Looks like it’s not sorted yet.”

Heart thumped again. “I’ll... I’ll get right to it.”

He stayed silent, but she felt the tension in the air, a faint crackling, like a far-off thunderstorm was heading this way. She strolled out to the living room, saw the pile of mail, berated herself for not having sorted it before the run. Something easy to do, just a minute or two, and then Casey wouldn’t have gotten angry, Casey wouldn’t be in a bad mood, Casey wouldn’t be tempted to raise his fist.

Catalogue, catalogue, PSNH bill, flyer advertising used cars, and another flyer, and—

This one, a light blue.

Something she had never seen before.

From the Have a Seat diner.

BLUE PLATE SPECIAL, it announced on top.

Then it listed its times of operation, some menu items, breakfast and lunch, and on the bottom, in bold: HUSBANDS EAT FOR FREE IF THIS FLYER PRESENTED.

Her heart started thumping hard again. She reread the flyer, to make sure.

Could it be?

But hadn’t he turned her down?

Looked at the flyer again.

Hold on. He had said something else... something else that day.

What had it been?

“Hey, hon!” she called out, hoping her voice wasn’t trembling. “Be there in a sec. Want to check something in my office.”

Casey grumbled something back and now she was in her office, going through the notebook. That last thing he had said. What had it been?

Pages flipping; fingers shaking.

Hoping Casey would stay in the kitchen.

There.

“We happy few do more than what you think.”

That’s what he had said.

What did he mean by that?

Her computer was up and after a few minutes of Internet searching, she sat back in the chair, arms hugging tight against her chest. She had found an obscure article about the CIA and its special field agents, the ones who killed people, and one team member — speaking anonymously, of course — had quoted Shakespeare’s famous lines in Henry V, about “we few, we happy few, we band of brothers.” The CIA operative had said that we happy few do more than what you think. We observe. We learn. We do reconnaissance. We don’t go off half-cocked, and we don’t target someone unless he deserves it.

“We happy few do more than what you think.”

She hugged herself even tighter. The unlocked doors that should have been locked. The odd bits of trash in the corner of the house. The odd feeling that she was being watched. Someone had been in her house while she was out. Someone had set something up here, some sort of surveillance equipment, for Jason—

Was careful. Was cautious. Wasn’t going to do anything based on one meeting with one battered wife. He was going to do reconnaissance. Was going to find out for himself.

Tears formed in her eyes. She wiped them away.

Got up.

Went to the dining room table.

Picked up the flyer.

Waited for just a second before going into the kitchen.

Casey was there. She said, “Mail’s been sorted, Casey. And look.”

She passed over the flyer. He looked at it, grunted, handed it back.

She took a breath. “How about lunch today? Do you have plans?”

He rubbed at his chin. “Client meeting at two. Other than that... you sure? Lunch at some greasy diner?”

She gave her husband her best, most engaging smile. “Why not? It’d be fun. And it’s a free meal.”

Casey looked at her. She looked back at him, suddenly feeling despair at the thought that he might be looking straight through her, reading her, figuring out what she was doing, and—

He shrugged. “Why not. You sure you want to do this?”

She nodded, smiling, suddenly feeling as light as air. “Absolutely.”

© 2008 by Brendan DuBois