Post by StoriesThatNeverWere on Mar 1, 2007 16:01:34 GMT -5
January 14, Two Years Ago
Robert McGinnis, 42, sat at his desk while darkness outside hinted that he needed to go home. But the chief of police was busy, and much too dedicated to his work. He had been shifting through the same file for hours, and his determination was keeping him from his responsibilities. Like his son and daughter.
McGinnis finally looked up at the wall clock. It ticked rhythmically: 7:34. Dang it, he hadn’t wanted the kids to be alone with their mom for so long.
Their mom. How long had it been since he referred to Elaine as his wife? He was more ready for this divorce then he realized. They had been together for 17 years. More than a decade. For longer then he could remember Elaine and he had been head-over-heals in love. At least, until the kids came around. Not that he was blaming Fynn and Brandi for breaking up their marriage; in fact, it brought them closer together. But the responsibilities of parenthood had driven Elaine past sanity. He had first noticed her symptoms at Brandi’s fifth birthday party. Brandi cried that she didn’t want a strawberry cake, but a chocolate one. The mother and daughter bickered to a point where both were in tears. Rob ended up dragging Elaine away in order to calm her down.
The next major sign (several came in between, but not as significant) was when Fynn came home with a black eye. He had gotten in a fight with his friend’s older brother, who was sixteen. It was the horror of his life when Robert received a call saying that his wife was in jail for assaulting a teenage boy.
After that, however, Elaine seemed to calm down. Robert started working less, and the more he was around his wife, the more he remembered why he loved her. She never raised a fight with Brandi again, nor did she have a fit when Fynn would come home bleeding. She had found a way to cool herself down, and Robert felt that no extremes were necessary.
For years, it seemed to stay fine with the couple. Brandi had become a sensational artist. Rob would sometimes wonder how she got such talent, considering he couldn’t draw to save his life, and Elaine couldn’t write “Happy Birthday” on a cake without it being crooked. Brandi insisted that it was natural talent. The one thing she HAD inherited from her father was a big ego.
Fynn, the oldest, was a typical boy, with dreams of becoming a Seahawks football player, owning a black Ferrari with bright green flames on the side, and held no interest what-so-ever in “yucky girls”. Yep, Rob raised his boy proud!
If not for one night, Robert would have guessed that the way of life he had brought onto his family would have lasted forever. If not for one night, he would be at home, watching TV with the kids, his wife tucked under his arm.
The night he met Sarah James, Rob remembered, was unusually chilly for early September. He had been driving home in his red jeep, when he noticed a woman standing on the side of the road. She held her coat tight around her collar, and stood in one place as she looked up and down the streets. The first thing Rob noticed about her was her hair. Most of it had fallen from its ponytail, and the reddish-brown locks captured the beautiful curves of her face. Her bright green eyes were hypnotizing. Without realizing the consequences, Robert had offered her a ride home.
Their relationship built from there. Robert told his wife that he and his deputy would be meeting on Monday and Thursday evenings. (These were the nights when Sarah didn’t have to work. She was a real-estate agent.) They dated a year without Elaine ever suspecting.
Robert’s guilt had risen throughout the months. Every now and then, he would drop hints to his wife, almost hoping that she would uncover what he had done. But never did she take the bait.
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The night before New Years, Sarah had invited Robert over for a special dinner. While drinking champagne and laughing over Sarah’s work, the woman leaned over the table with a more serious tone in her voice. “Rob?”
“Yes?”
“Do you love me?”
“Of course I do.” He meant this with honesty, though as he spoke a picture of his wife flashed into his mind.
“Does that mean… you would like to marry me?”
If someone’s heart could have stopped by shock, it would have been McGinnis’s. Was she crazy? He was already married, with kids! And worse yet… the reputation he had brought up in Seattle; he was considered an honest, trustworthy, understanding man. It had taken him so many slaving years to build that status. His enemies would love nothing more then for him to come out in public and admit that he had been cheating on his wife. The thought of their smirks made Robert clench his fork.
“Sarah…”
“Robert?” She asked him with a shifting tone. “Are you still in love with Elaine?”
“No.” he answered a little too quickly.
“Do you love Fynn and Brandi?”
“…. They’re my kids. Of course, I love them.”
“And they love you! Brandi and Fynn are becoming of age where they can understand if a man and woman aren’t in love anymore, they shouldn’t stay together. I’m not saying they won’t be angry at you, and they’ll probably resent me for awhile, but I have seen the way they look up to you. They want you to be happy. I want you to be happy.”
McGinnis remained silent, so Sarah continued. “I told you how I was offered a job in Chicago? What if we all go there together? We’ll let the kids finish school, and we can move in September. There’s a little town called River Heights that’s looking for a local sheriff. You’ll love it there, I promise you! Small town, everybody-knows-everybody kind of thing. It’s a fresh start!”
After a moment, Sarah’s smile started to fade. Her enthusiasm was clearly running dry. Rob still hadn’t said anything. Maybe this isn’t going to work out after all, she was about to say. But before getting the chance to form the words, she was stopped short. “Okay.”
Sarah stared wide-eyed. Rob broke out into a grin. “You work in real-estate, remember? You should be used to people giving in to your charm.” With that, he leaned over the table and kissed her gently. “I’ll tell Elaine tonight,” he whispered into her lips.
What Robert had forgotten to consider was custody. His good reputation had just been shot down, and no jury could possibly give in to a cheating husband who works 17 hours a day.
McGinnis didn’t tell his wife that night. He didn’t tell her the next night either.
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In fact, he hadn’t told her until only a few hours before. Rob looked at the clock again. 7:49. He had called Elaine at four, finally deciding that he couldn’t procrastinate any longer.
The second she picked up the phone, Robert told her everything: the affair, his plans to move to Chicago, and… “I don’t want to be married to you anymore, Elaine. I… I want a divorce.”
“What?”
Robert was silent.
“…Robby, you can’t possibly mean that! We…”
“Lainee…,” McGinnis cleared his throat to correct the use of her nickname, “Elaine. I’m sorry. I truly am.”
A moment later, a voice came on the line. But it wasn’t his wife’s. “If you would like to make a call, please check the number and dial again. If you are having difficulties…” Elaine had hung up on him.
“I wonder what exaggerated story she’s telling the kids.” Robert finally sat up from his office desk and stretched. “Like, ‘Your father is planning on running off with this valley girl, and wants to take you with him to Chicago.’ Ooh, they are never going to forgive me!” The father began cleaning up his papers just as the phone rang.
“Sheriff’s Office, McGinnis speaking.”
There was a crackle at the end of the line before a soft girl’s voice came. “Daddy?”
“Brandi? Hunny, are you okay?”
There were voices in the background, but what they were saying was mumbled. “Fynn and I are hungry.”
Rob scratched his head. “Tell your mom that she doesn’t have to wait for me. Go ahead and eat…”
“Momma’s not here.”
Momma’s not here. The sentence that sounded innocent from his daughter’s mouth was received as a punch in the stomach. “What do you mean? Wasn’t she there when you got back from school?”
More voices came from other end, but were still unclear. “Brandi, let me talk to your brother.”
There was a shifting of the phone, before: “Dad?”
“Hey. Was Mom there when you got home from school?”
“No. I didn’t see her. My bus came first, so I was alone for awhile. I finished my homework by the time Brandi got home. We watched TV, but then we got hungry. I made us some cereal, but then Brandi started crying that she was scared of the dark. You are such a baby!” he called to his sister.
“Fynn, listen to me. Is Mom’s car there?”
There was a moment of quiet. “No!” Fynn had come back to the phone after leaving to check the garage.
Shoot.
Robert’s mind was racing as quickly as his heart was pounding. “Okay. First, go lock the front door.”
“Already did.”
“Do you see my credit card on the table?”
“Yeah,” the twelve-year-old responded.
“Go ahead and order pizza. Just one, for you and your sister. Half with pepperonis for her, and whatever you want. You can get breadsticks, too.”
“Cool!” The boy was very normal as a pre-teen pizza lover.
“I’ll be home before the delivery guy comes, okay?”
“Alright dad.”
“Do not open the door to anyone!”
“Yes, dad.”
“Do not answer the phone, unless you hear my voice on the message machine.”
“YES dad!”
“And if-“
“OKAY DAD! I KNOW WHAT TO DO!” The boy had been delivered this speech before.
The chief of police sighed. “Alright, I’ll be there shortly. Bye, Fynn.”
“Bye.”
“Good-bye Daddy!” Brandi’s sweet voice screamed from the background.
The sheriff placed down the phone receiver, and rubbed his forehead. Where had Elaine gone? She didn’t allow them to cross the street by themselves let alone spend an afternoon unsupervised. Robert figured that she had taken a drive after he told her the news, and either lost track of time, or she was trying to get through traffic. But why she hadn’t called the house was peculiar.
McGinnis collected up the case files, and made his way through the station. He turned off the light in his office, and locked the door securely. He left on the hallway light for the cleaners, who came by every Monday.
The man kept his head low as he emerged from the police station. A blast of cold air and icy rain caused him to stumble. The night was as most Washington nights: wet and freezing. Too humble of a man to consider using an umbrella, Robert pulled his cowboy hat over his face, and quickly got into the front seat of his red pick-up.
No sooner had the engine rumbled when the beeping ring-tone of his cell phone came from his pant’s pocket. “Since when have I become so popular?”
“McGinnis.” The sheriff answered with a tired voice.
“Sheriff? Sheriff, this is Deputy Farrell.”
“Yes, Farrell, I know it’s you. What’s going on?” Carl Farrell was Rob’s deputy, and though he was a nice kid, dedicated to helping the law, at times he was dumber then a bag of rocks.
“Uh, I need you to come down here.”
“And where would ‘here’ be, exactly? What happened?”
“I’m in Foxden. One of the farmers called a few minutes ago, saying he witnessed two women falling off the dam cliffs by his house.”
Aw, heck. Guess I better call the neighbors and get them to watch over Fynn and Brandi. “Alright, Carl. Sum up for me what went down.”
“Well, according to the farmer, he was fixing his tractor when a car pulled up on the road by his house. It stopped in front of the cliffs. A blond woman came out, and stood by her car. A few minutes later, another woman showed up, this one a red-head. Apparently, the women talked for a few minutes, then the conversation got heated. Soon, they were screaming, and they grabbed each other. Before the farmer could reach them, they knocked one another off the cliff. There is a river below, and judging how far down it is, the women probably died on impact.”
“Do we have IDs on the victims?”
“Well, sheriff, we can’t seem to locate one body: the blond’s. It was probably washed away with the current.”
“What about the license plates on the cars?”
There was a very dead silence on the other end.
“Deputy?” Robert wondered if they had been cut off.
“Uh, sheriff… That’s why we need you down here.”
“What are you talking about?”
There was another endless lull. Robert’s patience was running short. “Deputy, if you don’t tell me what’s going on right now, I promise you, you will stay a deputy for the rest of your life!” When all else fails, make threats that you may or may not have authority to give.
“Th-th-th- One of the cars… is a silver sedan.” He had paused, probably with fear. He seemed to be having a hard time making sentences that made sense. “The license plate number is…. BYFF… 7…. 8, 9… 2.”
“BYFF 7892…” Robert mindlessly repeated. It took a full second for the realization to hit. And it hit hard. McGinnis pressed the brakes out of some strange reflex, nearly having the car behind him crash into his bumper. The driver honked angrily, but the chief of police couldn’t have cared less about anything in the world other then what his deputy had just said.
“A silver sedan?” His ears were perfect, but Rob could’ve heard it a thousand times and it would have still left him unsure. The car with license plate BYFF 7892 was the same car he had driven last night. The same one that drove his kids to school that morning. The same one that Elaine had driven away in after his phone call…
“A blond woman came out, and stood by her car. A few minutes later, another woman showed up, this one a red-head…”
A red-head. “Oh my god.” No, no it couldn’t be! It wasn’t true!
“Deputy,” his partner had stayed on the phone, “the other car: is it a blue Toyota corolla with the license number FTYK-4037?”
“……..I don’t think you want me to……. answer that….. Sheriff,” Farrell spoke very quietly. Carl was the only one who knew about Robert’s relationship with Sarah, since she regular visited his office.
And here it came. The Numb feeling. For as long as he was alive, Chief McGinnis had had this… thing inside him. Whenever a case, or something in his life, became too much to bear, his body would release a numbing that spread throughout his veins. It forced him to be unable to feel anything… at all.
“I will be there in ten minutes, Farrell.” His words all seemed to jumble together, but his deputy got the message. Without anything comforting to say, Carl hung up.
Instead of driving towards Foxden, McGinnis scanned the roads for a place to pull over. He hadn’t driven half a mile when he found a small dirt area. Crossing three lanes quickly, the sheriff parked, and released pressure on all parts of his body. His hands fell to his lap, and his legs came back against the bottom of the seat.
For a second, Rob just sat there, staring at the steering wheel. On a rare occasion, as this, he felt the numbing start to wear off. Even before it had though, McGinnis leaned his head against the window and cried. Not like a puppy, or a young boy. This was the open, broken-hearted bawling of a man. Hysterical tears that were drowned out by the dark night’s storm.
This night had too many affects on Robert McGinnis. He had lost his wife, and his love, as well as his self-respect. The case was left unsolved when the Seattle sheriff packed up and took his kids to the small town of River Heights. Just like Sarah had wanted. There, it was a clean start, a new life. A place where no one would judge him on his past, but strictly on his talent.
Still, the cold nights of Chicago brought back terrible memories. Of how he had failed to love Elaine. Of making the almost impossible promise of divorcing her. And the look in his daughter’s eyes when she found out she was now without a mother. The stabbing glare from Fynn when the boy found out about his father’s affair.
He found himself lost in these nightmares so much, that McGinnis wondered if it was really behind him. But of course it wasn’t. Because it was his fault that Sarah and Elaine had died. Yes, it was completely, and truly… his fault.
