Keeper of the Truth ~ Chapter 1

“Sarah, you can’t seriously expect me to believe you saw an island in the middle of the bay.”

“I swear that I did. It was right out there, surrounded in mist and there was this tree in the middle of it.”

“I thought you said it was surrounded in mist. How could you have seen a tree?”

“Believe me. It was there.” Sarah planted her foot in the grass next to the sidewalk looking at Jonathan. Despite her anger, her defiant stance, John couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she was. Her evening dress and scarf flowing in the light November breeze, her hands on her hips daring him to contradict her again. He loved her, despite all the crazy that came with the package.

“Look, I’ve been here before. I walk by here on my way to work every day. There is no island in the bay and no tree. It was a trick of the moonlight on the fog. That’s it.” John reaches for her arm but she moves closer to the bay.

“I want you to have faith in me John,” she said as she backed away from him slowly.

“And not believe my own eyes? What I’ve seen?”

“That’s what faith is.” She twirled around like a child, letting her arms fly out with centripetal force, her thin scarf waving like a banner celebrating her vision of the world, one John had always wanted to share but never quite could.

“Okay, how about I believe that you believe you saw an island there? Is that good enough for you?” He prodded. This wasn’t their first fight, and he knew how this would end. She would be sullen for the next few days whining about how he never took the time to really look at his surroundings. As if seeing what was in front of him was not enough. But once winter rolled in solid, the fog would stop being so damn prevalent and Sarah would go back to normal. At least until spring rolled around again.

“Don’t you dare condescend to me. Don’t you dare.” She flared up turning her back on him and looking out into the fog rolling over the bay. He could see her shoulders bobbing up and down, this was a bad one. He knew he’d be paying for that comment for the next week or so.

“Come on, don’t cry . . . come on, turn around. I’m sorry.”

“No.”

“What do you mean no? Hun, come on. Turn around. I’m sorry.” John walked up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders, messaging them slightly. He didn’t try to turn her around this time, he knew that would just make things worse.

“Is this what you wanted? To see me crying again?” she shrugged off his hands, “I wish, I just wish, for once you would believe me when I say that I see things. I wish you could believe that there was more here than you can know. But you can’t can you?” She turned to face him, tears flowing freely down her cheeks. “You can’t admit that the great John Reed could possibly miss something.”

“As big as an island? No, I can’t,” John tried to keep his voice level as he spoke. He wasn’t trying to be difficult; he didn’t want her to be upset. He refused to give in to her delusions, he had tried that before and it led wandering around the woods for an hour, looking for a door that kept conveniently moving as they approached it, or at least that’s what Sarah had said. John hadn’t seen any door or the puddle that ruined his good work shoes for that matter, just the blasted mist.

“You’re such a . . . a . . . oh forget it.” Sarah turned back toward the bay and began to walk toward the water.

“Where are you going?” John followed her.

“Someplace else.”

“To your island?”

Sarah stopped and John thought for a moment that he might have gotten through to her this time. He knew that psychotherapists would suggest he play along with her delusions, ask her what she needed to feel safe, but fuck that, this time he got to her, this time she was listening. John’s moment of glory was short-lived though. Sarah turned toward him slowly, deliberately.

“You smug bastard, you self-righteous smug bastard. So what if I am? So what if I go to my island and climb the tree? Would you even follow me? Would you try to find me in the places you don’t think exist?”

“Anywhere.” John took a step toward her, but each step he took forward, she matched him, walking backwards, not looking as she neared the waters edge.

“Right, anywhere,” she continued to back toward the water, her feet inches from the edge, her heals sinking in the softening ground. “It’s easy to say that for you, so easy. Because to you there is no anywhere. To you it’s just the bay, just the woods, just the fog. But there are places in the fog, places you won’t let yourself see. Places you won’t let yourself go because you’re so sure. Because you know so much.”

“Come on Sarah, gimme your hand. Let me dry your tears.” He reached out to her.

“Don’t touch me.” Sarah’s words came out with so little force that they were almost lost in the wind. She sounded like she were already lost in the fog, too far away for him to reach this time. Through it all, the tears leaked from her eyes their drops falling gently to her chest.

“Sarah . . . why are you crying.” John reached out to her, but he stopped advancing, hoping it would keep her from walking into the water.

“Is this what you wanted? Is it, you bastard?” Sarah’s voice was calm despite her words. John felt chills run down his spine as she turned her eyes on him, looking deeply. “You’re so sure of yourself that you couldn’t give a fuck what someone else cares about. The great Jonathan Reed, keeper of all that is true. Are you finally satisfied?” She continued backward toward the water, not even pausing as her broke it’s surface and the cold bay water began to lap at her ankles.

“How am I supposed to answer that?” He watched her with growing concern. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Just come away from the water, you’re shoes are getting wet.”

“Haha.” She twirled again, causing water to splash up on her dress.

“Sarah, come on.” He hurried forward and grabbed her arm. “You’re scaring me.”

“Don’t. Touch. Me.” The venom in her voice surprised him as she wrenched her arm from his, letting the bracelet he’d given her earlier that night wall unheeded into the shallow water that now separated them.

“Sarah . . . Sarah! Sarah, come back here; you’re going to ruin your dress. Sarah?”

“You said anywhere John. Anywhere.” She said as she turned and continued deeper into the water.

“Sarah . . . Sarah?” She was up to her waist now, poised to dive in, but she stopped and turned to look back at him. “Where are you?”

“You said Anywhere.” she said as she turned, dove into the icy water, and began to swim out into the mist.

“Come back! . . . Sarah.” Jonathan Reed stood on the back of the bay and watched as the woman he loved swam into the mist and out of sight.

He waited for a few moments, expecting her to get cold and come back or call out to him again and yell at him for not coming in after her, but he was going to be damned if he ruined his new Calvin Klein suit because she wanted to be stubborn. He listened as the splashing grew fainter and eventually faded from hearing. Assuming she was simply treading water to see if he would come after her, he called after her.

“Sarah, come on! Enough is enough,” he waited for a response or to hear her begin to swim back. When he didn’t hear anything, he began to panic.

Throwing his jacket and suit coat to the ground, Jonathan ran toward the water, kicking off his shoes as he went. His heart skipped a beat as the water bit into his ankle, freezing him to the bone. Undeterred, he plunged forward, his breath coming in short gasps as the water surges up around his waist. For the first time that night, he thinks considers the possibility of hypothermia setting in with water this cold and remembered an article he’d read about the plain that had landed in the Hudson River a few years ago. If people hadn’t been rescued, the could have lasted between 10 and 20 minutes before they started losing strength in their muscles. Sarah still had plenty of time left, but they had already been walking for a while in the cold and her evening dress and think scarf didn’t allow for much insulation. As far as Jonathan could tell, she could be going into the beginning stages of hypothermia already. With the thought of losing Sarah to the cold bay at the top of his mind, John dove into the water with abandon and started calling to her the minute he broke the surface again fighting for air as the ice water seemingly punched him in the gut.

By the time he climbed back on shore, a good 18 minutes after his initial plunge, exhausted and shivering, the bank was swarming with people drawn by his yelling. One or two of them had apparently called the police because the blue lights lit the waters edge and had given Jonathan something to aim for. He heard the hum of an outboard motor as he tried to catch his breath on all fours next to his coat. Two men in dark pants and light blue shirts placed a blanket over his shoulders and with a quiet electrical hum, he could feel the warm air begin to circulate under the blanket. The paramedics reached under John’s arms, raised him to his feet and helped him into the back of the waiting ambulance.

A police officer, his badge reflecting the alternating red and blue of the ambulance’s flashers, walked over and after a quick sidebar with the paramedics, turned his attention to John, pad and pen poised to take notes for his report.

“Sir,” the officer began, “can you tell me your name?”

Jonathan pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders and shivered despite the warm air circulating around him now. He managed to get out his name with only a little bit of stumbling on the initial J.

“Can you tell me why you decided to take a dip in the bay on a day where the high was only 50º?”

“I went in after my girlfriend, Sarah.” John looked down at his sodden socks. “We had gotten into a fight and she decided that going into the water was the best choice.”

The officer scribbled on his pad, frowning. “Is she still out there?”

“Unless she doubled back while I wasn’t looking, she should be.” Jonathan looked over the officer’s shoulder at the search light from the police boat cutting through the fog and reflecting off the water. “I only came in because I know that I wouldn’t be much help if I got hypothermia as well. She’s been in there for a while, so once you get her out, you’re going to need to get her warmed up really quick.”

The officer’s radio squawked, and he cocked his head to one side adjusting the volume to listen better. After it quieted down again, he continued. “What did you and Miss?”

“Sarah Fuller.” John was beginning to feel disoriented and a little dizzy.

“What did you and Miss Fuller fight about?”

“It’s a little silly.” John said. He didn’t want to let the cop know that she was having delusions about worlds in the fog.

“She didn’t think so if it drove her into the water. Do you think she would harm herself because of this ‘silly’ fight of yours?”

“Sarah, God no.” John’s head jerked up quickly causing the world to begin spinning like it used to after his college benders. “She loved life. A little too much some times I think, but she loved life.”

“Do you have any idea why she would go into the water then?”

There was a long silence while John considered his answer. If he told the officer the truth, he probably wouldn’t belief him anyway; if the cop did believe him, they’d probably lock Sarah up in the psych-ward at Brigham and Women’s. John pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders and shivered. The officer’s radio chirped again and he excused himself to check in with his superiors. John took this time to look around.

He sat in the back of an ambulance, facing the water as it lapped the shallow beach. The wind coming off the bay was oppressive and he was pretty sure that there would be frost tonight, and he knew that if they found Sarah now, she would be unconscious in the best case. Her face floated in front of his face, her smile. That glint in her eye just before she did something crazy. It hadn’t been there this last time. Instead all he could see was the pain in her eyes, the tears on her cheeks, and the venom in her voice as she called back Anywhere.

John laid back on the floor of the ambulance and let the warmth of the blanket envelop him. There was no more Sarah, he knew that to be true. She’d be found, he was almost sure of it, but she was already gone. No one, especially not his girlfriend in her evening dress. John felt his tears mixing with the cold water dripping from his hair. If only I was a little quicker, if only I had gotten her help, if only I had tried to see her world a little harder, if only . . . But there were no more if only’s.

“Sir, are you alright?” a man dressed in a suit and tie walked over tapping Johns knee twice.

“Ya, I was just resting my eyes,” John said as he say up. “This cold really zaps your strength.”

“That it does,” the man in the suit replied. It was one of those cheaper J.C. Penny jobs, dark blue with darker pin striped, the tie was hideous. It splayed out at the end, but the worst part was the pattern. Bright yellow and navy blue diagonal stripes. “So Mitch tells me that you were with Miss Fuller when she went into the water.”

“I was, we were having a fight,” John said.

“He said,” the guy in the suit replied as he pulled a pad and pen from his jacket pocket. “About something stupid I think he said. Mind telling me what that stupid thing was?”

“Can I ask who you are?” John didn’t like how the guy in the suit was acting. He knew too much to be a reporter, and he was definitely no paramedic.

“Detective Laith, Sam Laith,” the man in the suit said as he balanced his pen on the pad and reached out to shake.

With a little fumbling to keep the blanket around his shoulders, John reciprocated the gesture “Jonathan Reed.”

“Now Jonathan,” Laith said picking his pen up and scratching it on his pad. “New pen my wife got me for our anniversary, one of those fountain deals,” he said shaking the pen a little. “I just can’t seem to get it to work when I need it. Oh well, do you mind if I record this?”

“No, that’s fine,” Jonathan said with a chuckle. “Those pens never work when it’s cold like this. Finicky things. You’d be better off with a ball point in the winter.”

“Thanks for the advice, I’ll have to keep a couple in the car,” Laith pulled out a digital recorder and tapped a button on its side. “This is Detective Samuel Laith interviewing Mr. Jonathan Reed on the night of November 21st,” he checked his watch, “11:15 PM. Mr. Reed, you’re aware I’m recording and provide your consent?”

“I do detective, and you can call me John.”

“Thank you John, formalities you understand. I just have a few questions for you regarding the disappearance of your friend.”

“Sarah? She’s my girlfriend. Sarah Fuller.”

“Now, I just want to let you know that you do not have to say anything, but should this all go south, it may harm your defense if you don’t mention something now that you later want on record. Of course these questions are to find out what’s happened, so your answers will be going in my report as evidence. The responding officer tells me that he received an anonymous call about a couple fighting by the bay and the caller was quite concerned. Do you mind telling me, for the record, what you and Miss Fuller were fighting about?”

“We were arguing, but I don’t see why someone would have been worried about Sarah,” John said.

“Well, she did run off into the bay to get away from you.”

“No, it wasn’t like that, she . . .” John stopped and looked at the recorder. If he said what really happened on record, no one would believe him. And if they did, he would be dooming Sarah to the psych ward when she was found. “She wasn’t trying to get away from me.”

“Then why would she go into the water?” Laith hitched his thumb toward the bay as the tendrils of fog spun in the spot light in the search boat’s wake. “You seem like you live in town here, she’d know how cold the water was, wouldn’t she?”

“Of course she did,” John stared into the spinning fog as he continued, “we grew up here. Sarah was just a free spirit.”

“If you don’t mind sir,” Laith said, “there’s free spirited and down right crazy. I’m not sure the first one would cause someone to run out into freezing water.”

“She wasn’t crazy. She’d just sort of do these things once in a while.”

“These sorts of things?” Laith asked. “What sort of things are those?”

“What?” John broke from his revery in the fog.

“You said that she does these things once in a while. I was just hoping for something more specific.”

“Ask her when you find her,” John said. “If she wants to tell you, she will. She’d just get mad at me again if I told you.”

“Again? Were the two of you mad at each other tonight? Is that what caused the fight?”

“I guess you could say that,” John shook his head. “She kept telling me that I wasn’t listening and that I wasn’t support her.”

“Interesting. So was there something specific this time, or was this a common argument?”

“Common enough I suppose, but when she was being realistic, I was very supportive. It was just those fanciful moments that I couldn’t get behind.”

“So was this one of those,” Laith searched for the word, but came up blank, “what did you call then?”

“Fanciful moments. Ya, this was one of them.”

“So you weren’t being supportive?”

“I tried,” John looked down again. “Not that hard honestly, but I did try.”

“So when your efforts weren’t acknowledged, that must have been frustrating?”

“What was frustrating was the whole argument,” John shook his head and ran his left hand through his drying hair breaking up some of the ice that started to form.

“Understandable, I mean to seem like a straight up guy,” Laith said placating, “all you want is a little less of those fanciful moments, right? So you chased her in the water after she didn’t accept your support?”

“Not really, no,” John slowed the conversation down a little. He was starting to get suspicious of this officer’s motives. “So have your boys found her yet? Your boat’s on the way back.”

“The fog is getting too think to continue,” Laith followed John’s gaze out to the boat. “I’ll be honest with you here Jonathan, given the temperature of that water, this is moving over to a recovery not a rescue. I’m sorry.”

“Yah,” John said calmly, “I had figured as much.” He looked down, regretting that he had let her go. How could he have known she would swim out there, not turn back. She had never given into her fantasies before, but without a body it is hard to believe she is actually gone. He felt the tears welling in his eyes and fought them back. “Isn’t there any chance?”

“Until we find the body, there is always a chance,” Liath agreed. “Honestly thought, I wouldn’t hold out much hope.” He gaged Jonathan’s reaction. Often it was the the subtle tells that gave away a suspect. This man seemed upset, but he didn’t cry at the pronouncement of Sarah’s death. Laith waited for his reaction to the idea of hope, sometimes that was more telling.

“Given the water temperature,” John began after a long pause, his voice wavering, “and the amount of time she’s been in there, unless she got out of the water . . . no.” He let out a sigh, “No, she’s gone.”

Laith nodded. That was unexpected. Most people refuse to acknowledge the finality of death when they’re faced with the loss of a loved one or someone whose loss they were involved with. “I’ll let you deal with your loss then, unless there is anything else you would like to add.” Jonathan nodded his head in response. “You don’t have any plans to go on vacation anytime soon do you, I may have more questions later?”

“Excuse me?” John looked at Laith.

“Do you have any plans to leave town anytime soon?”

“Am I under arrest?”

“No, nothing like that. You are free to do as you want. I just want to be able to reach you if I have need?”

“So I’m a suspect?”

“You were the last person to see Miss Fuller alive.”

“I see.”

“So is there anything else you’d like to add to the record here? Maybe why you chased her into the water?”

“I suppose it won’t hurt anyone now.”

“I suppose not.”

“Alright, so we did argue, that much you knew already,” John was still unsure how much he was going to reveal, how much would be smart to reveal. He knew more than they needed for their investigation, but the detective had a point, if he left everything as is, there was a lot of circumstantial evidence which pointed to him, the argument, the fact that he was seen coming out of the water himself, and not least of all the fact that he was the last person to see her alive. “What you don’t know is what we argued about.”

“You want to tell me that now?”

“That thing still on?” John nodded at the recorder in Laith’s hand.

Laith nodded in response.

“Alright, I know it sounds unbelievable, but Sarah believes,” John shook his head and sighed, “believed that there were other worlds in the fog.”

“Other worlds?” Laith could see the defense forming now, this guy was laying grounds for the insanity plea.

“Ridiculous, I know, but she was adamant,” John looked at his feat and pulled the blanket closer around his shoulders. “It started at the beginning of this year, she’d talk about seeing children playing in the mists. She said they lived there. At first I thought she meant in the park, you know like homeless kids.”

Laith nodded, not wanting to interrupt the tale. It was one of the better ones he’d heard lately. He figured he’d been wrong in the early assessment, this guy was setting up a defense that she killed herself. As if someone would dive into the bay in the middle of the fall, next thing he’d say she put rocks in her pockets or something.

“Well, I humored her at first. Just let her believe that I saw them too, and she would get so excited. I just let it go. Then things started getting weird with her. She’s say that she saw doorways in the woods or islands here in the bay.”

“Islands?” Laith saw the trajectory of the story now. She saw an island and went out to it. Forget rocks in the pocket, this guy must have rocks in his head if he though this story could float. “Are you saying that she was swimming out to an island?”

“I tried to stop her. That’s the argument that people heard.” John looked up, his eyes rimmed with red, a slight glisten in the street lights, but he still avoided looking Laith in the face. “I told her that there was nothing there. No island in the fog, no tree, but she wouldn’t hear it this time. She pushed and pushed until I couldn’t take it anymore.”

“So that’s when you ran her out into the water?” Laith was sure he had his man now. The guy all but confessed to drowning her.

“What? No.” He met Laith’s eyes with a defiant stare. “You really want to pin this on me don’t you. No I didn’t run her out there, I didn’t drag her out there, I didn’t kill my girlfriend. She went out in an effort to get me to prove my support. I was an idiot and told her that I would follow her anywhere, so she decided to test me.”

“So you were following her out into the water?”

“Yes, she wanted me to.” John looked back down. “I just didn’t move quick enough I guess. I lost sight of her in the fog and that’s when I went in. If I’d gone in earlier, if I had been more forceful or less. If I’d been anything else.”

“That’s a lot of ifs,” Laith let his comment hang in the air. This guy was trying to pull on his heartstrings, trying to get him to feel bad.

“Well, isn't life just the series of if’s that we chose to take?”

“I’m not sure what you mean about that, but I think I’ll leave you alone,” Laith said looking at his watch. He announced the time and day, then flipped the recorder off. “Let us know if you’re planning on leaving town any time soon, just in case we need to talk more when you’re a little less philosophical. You know, if we need to know more about these children of the mist and stuff.”

Jonathan grunted and nodded his head. As he watched Detective Laith walking away, he instantly regretting telling the detective about Sarah’s worlds in the mist. He knew it sounded crazy as he was saying it, but at least he could pawn it off on shock. The EMTs came back over and fussed with him a bit before clearing him, giving him a warm blanket that wasn’t battery operated, and asking if he had someone he could call for a ride. John declined and headed off toward his apartment.

He knew that he should call Sarah’s parents when he got home, but as he locked his apartment door behind him, he couldn’t bring up the courage to make that call. She was an only child, a promising musician, and the apple of her parent’s eyes. The news would kill them. John knew it would be better coming from him as opposed to some stranger, or them staying up all night worrying about her, but the police had her name, they could make the call.

Jonathan went into the bathroom and stripped off his wet cloths. He walked out and sat on the edge of his bed with his cellphone in his hand, Sarah’s home number pulled up ready to hit send and tried to convince himself that not calling was the right thing to do, after all what could be possibly tell them. In the end, Jonathan Reed dropped his phone on the floor of his bedroom, fell back across the bed and wept until sleep overtook him.