Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 19

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

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"It sounds absurd because it is absurd."

— Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Glamorous Ghost

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I'm in the habit of leaving the window curtains open. I woke with the sun, as I always do.

I slept well. I had a good bed, a quiet room. The deep and restful sleep erased every trace of yesterday's bewilderment and uncertainty.

I'm ready to go. Ready for breakfast. Ready for the day.

It's Monday. Today, I've got one simple mission, one easy task: to visit the police station. My plan is to talk with someone who worked on Ross' case. It doesn't need to be the person in charge. I'm good with a foot soldier, a patrol cop. I'm not looking for inside information. I only want to ask a few simple questions: Is the case still open? (I'm assuming it's closed, but I ought to confirm it.) Is Ross being treated as a missing person? Or did they figure that, as a full-grown adult, that Ross had every right to wander off, and didn't need to be found?

I'm no procrastinator, but I had no reason to hurry. I have no deadline; I'm not punching a timecard. Besides, I have a rule about Mondays and Fridays. I try to avoid bothering office people on Monday mornings or Friday afternoons. Those are transition times; bad times for starting something new. People are changing gears: On Monday, still groggy from the weekend. On Friday, ready to rush out the door. No point in getting in the way of that.

My rule probably doesn't apply to the police, since they're 24/7. They don't follow office hours; they work in shifts.

Even so, there was no reason to jump in at the start of the day. So I dithered. I took my time. I walked along the river a bit. I know I talk a lot about the river, but we don't have one up in Amsterholt. Robbins River is simply a treat.

I arrived at the police station precisely at 9:30. There's only so much dithering a person can do. The hour seemed casual enough to me; not too early, not too close to lunch. No pressure.

Considering the fact that Charlotte had been slapped with a restraining order — meaning that she got on the cops' last nerve — the last thing I wanted to do was to put pressure on the Robbins police.

Police headquarters was a serious-looking structure: one-story, red-brick, with small, high windows. It wasn't very wide, but it was certainly deep, and the far end, the final third, was constructed from cinder blocks and concrete. The windows at that end were tall vertical slits: it was probably the local jail.

Overall: very official-looking. Quite intimidating. A heavy, solid building; all right angles and sharp corners.

The front door was tall, made of oak, and it took a good, strong push to open.

The air inside was cool, like an old cathedral. The first room, in fact, had lines of pew-like benches. A waiting room.

The only decoration was a pair of bulletin boards with glass doors. One listed community events. The other held six WANTED posters. I gave the faces a look-over. None of them were familiar.

A door to my left opened to a large, wide hallway with a high ceiling. Brightly lit. On the back wall, to my right, were criss-crossed staircases, one heading up and the other going down. Opposite the stairs, taking up the entire front wall, was an enormous desk. It stood about twelve feet wide, but it was high. The surface of the desk was even with my chin, so I had to tilt my head back to see the face of the desk sergeant.

It made me feel small. Like a supplicant.

The desk sergeant was a wiry older guy. He looked like a brawler. A guy who doesn't take any shit. His uniform fit him like a second skin. He didn't have a strip of fat on him. His right hand twitched, which drew my attention to the scars on his knuckles. He must have punched something or someone recently.

When I entered that hallway, he waited a few beats before he turned his head to look at me. "Can I help you?"

"Yes," I replied. I want to say so far, so good because up to that moment, everything was fine.

It all changed in a flash.

"My name is Mason Rafflyan, and I'm looking—" He cut me off. Immediately. His eyes narrowed. His stare cut into me like a laser.

"Rafflyan," he repeated. He shook his head. "You said Rafflyan. Any relation to—" he paused, as if he didn't want to say it— "Charlotte Rafflyan?"

"Yes, she's my cousin. Now, look, I know she's kind of a handful, but I was hoping I could speak to—"

"A handful," he scoffed. "A handful? She's a fucking neturon bomb!"

I hesitated. "Yes, yes, she is. You're right. And I'm sorry about that. But keep in mind: I'm not her. Now, so, well, I'm hoping to speak with to the person in charge of the Ross Ghulyan investigation."

He held me with his gimlet stare for a few moments, then asked, "What makes you think there's an investigation?"

I took a breath and held it. "Okay." I tried another tack. "If there *was* an investigation—"

"Get out," he said.

I blinked. I gaped. "But— I only— I haven't— Can I just—"

"Get out!" he shouted, his face turning dangerously red. "Get the fuck out of here! GET OUT!" With each shout his voice grew progressively louder. I heard a chair scrape against the floor nearby. Footsteps running toward us.

"I'm not here to cause trouble! I just want—"

"God damn it, boy! Get the hell out of here or I'll kick your ass and lock you up for... for trespassing on police property!"

"But I—"

From the corner of my eye I saw a big policeman approaching on my right. Built like a wrestler. Tall, wide shoulders, big upper body, narrow hips, skinny legs. The desk sergeant spoke to him and gestured at me, saying, "Hugh, will you throw this bum out of here? He's giving me a headache! It's another of those goddamn Rafflyans! See if you can make him bounce when his ass hits the sidewalk!" Shaking his finger at me, he commanded, in a voice full of venom, "Don't ever set foot in this building — ever again! Or you'll live to regret it!"

"Come on, buddy," the burly cop said. His voice was different: firm, but not hostile. "Let's take this outside."

I didn't want to take it outside, but there was no point in resisting. This big cop, Hugh, outsized me in every way. He could have picked me up and carried me out without breaking a sweat. What he did was grab my upper arms and propel me toward the entrance. Not roughly, though. Clearly he didn't carry the same animus as the desk sergeant.

Once we left the hallway, out of sight of the front desk, Hugh whispered, "We'll talk outside, okay? Just be cool. Play along with me for now."

He ushered me out the front door and gently guided me around the corner of the building, out of sight of the entrance.

"Look," he said, turning me to face him, but still holding onto my arm, "You can't say that name inside — Charlotte Rafflyan. It's like waving a red flag at a bull. Understand? You say that name, nobody will hear anything else that comes out of your mouth."

"Yes, I do understand. Charlotte's my cousin, so I know—"

The cop looked genuinely surprised. Taken aback, even. "Charlotte Rafflyan is your cousin?"

"Yes, so I'm well aware—"

"Well, shit. Look, my name's Hugh Fencely, by the way. What's yours?" He reached out and shook my hand.

"Mason Rafflyan. All I want to know—"

"I'll be goddamned! I know this is going to sound stupid, but it never occurred to me that she might have family!"

"Look," I said, "I just want to know the status of the investigation—"

Hugh let out a scoffing laugh and put his meaty hand on my shoulder. "Okay, dude. 'Investigation.' Heh. Listen," he said. "For the rest of this morning I've got work I have to do. There's a pile of paperwork this high that I absolutely have to get through, so I'm going to go back inside. But I'll tell you what: meet me at noon, at... uh... oh! meet me at Pizza Alright. Okay? Noon, at Pizza Alright. I'll do my best to answer your questions, and, uh, maybe you can answer some of mine. What do you say?"

"Noon at Pizza Alright," I repeated.

"Good!" He seemed pleased. He squeezed my shoulder, then patted it three times. "See you then!" He took a few steps away from me. Just before turning the corner to the entrance, he stopped, gave me a serious look and a caution: "Don't go back into the station, okay? It's not a good idea."

I nodded my head.

 

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The first thing I did — after shaking off the experience of being yelled at and thrown out — was to locate Pizza Alright. It was only a couple minutes' walk from the police station, but in a very different neighborhood. After three blocks the general vibe shifted from pleasant suburban structures to dingy warehouses and loading docks. There were fewer pedestrians and far more trucks and vans.

I found Pizza Alright at the bottom of a U-shaped alley, wedged between a disreputable-looking shoe-repair shop and an abandoned gym (all windows, but nothing inside). It was hard to imagine a less inviting, less appetizing location. I didn't have high hopes for the quality or the cleanliness of the food. If the windows were any grimier, you wouldn't be able to see inside.

Unfortunately, there was no way to change our meeting spot — I didn't have Hugh's number, and I couldn't go back to the police station.

Two hours to kill, with nothing to do but walk and wander. I looked around; took in the town. Robbins seemed a nice enough place, once I put some distance between me and Pizza Alright.

As I trudged through the streets, I grumbled and groused to myself about my reception at police headquarters. It was hardly fair. I knew I was walking on scorched earth. I tried to take that into account. I *tried* to explain to the desk sergeant that I wasn't Charlotte — I actually used those words! I wanted to let him know that I wasn't about to be the pest that Charlotte turned herself into, but my good intentions did me little good.

I have to say, though, that for Charlotte to have agitated the Robbins police to that extent — to excite such negativity AND a restraining order (!) — she must have stepped up her game considerably; to a level I've never seen.

I could understand that she'd burned her bridges, but I never expected her to burn the roads that led to the bridges, and the land on both sides of the divide. There was no way I could reach out to the police... except through Hugh Fencely, the only cop willing to talk to me.

I wondered whether Candelario got the same reception. I didn't think so. I recalled that among the papers he collected, he had police reports. Where do you get police reports? As far as I know, you can only get them from the police.

I returned to Pizza Alright at exactly noon and found Hugh waiting for me. I was NOT in a good mood, but I tried to hide it. I needed to remain civil, at the very least. I couldn't afford to burn my one police contact.

Even so, I had to ask him, straight off: "Why did you choose this place?"

"Uh, yeah," he said, nodding, "Not exactly haute cuisine, right? Well, let me explain: You have to understand that *anything* connected with your cousin is just plain radioactive. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes, unfortunately I do."

"If you're anywhere *near* a Robbins cop, do NOT say her name. Unless you're looking for trouble. Right? So... this place... this... dump... there isn't a cop in the city who would ever eat here. Not even on a dare. Which makes this, the perfect place to talk about your cousin Charlotte. We don't have to worry about being overheard. Alright?"

On Hugh's recommendation we got a large pizza to share. I said, "How about a side salad?" but he, with a wide-eyed expression of horror, shook his head no. So, one large pizza, paper plates, a pile of flimsy paper napkins, and two large Cokes.

The pizza was covered in oil. Hugh sopped up much of it with napkins. We let each slice drip for a bit before biting into it.

"Hugh, I have to say: Pizza Alright is definitely NOT alright." It was absolutely the worst pizza I'd ever eaten.

"Agreed," he said, "but if you only eat this stuff once in a blue moon, it won't kill you. It's probably great for your immune system. You know: the immune system loves a challenge, now and again." With a mouth full of pizza he said, "Hey — sorry about the way you were treated down at headquarters. It's too bad you didn't know. I guess you don't live around here, am I right?"

"No, I'm from Amsterholt." To his puzzled face I explained, "It's way up north and west, near the state line." He nodded.

"About my reception," I asked, circling back, "I have to ask: Charlotte's mother hired a PI—"

"Candelario?" Hugh offered.

"Yeah. Do you know him?"

"I know *of* him. He's an ex-cop. Retired. He was on the force here in Robbins. Before my time."

"When *he* was looking into Ross Ghulyan's disappearance, did he catch the same shit at the police station that I did?"

"No, no, of course he didn't. But he didn't walk in shouting Charlotte's name."

"Neither did I!"

"No, no, of course not. What I'm saying is, Candelario would have come in on the QT. You know. He's got friends on the force, contacts, you know. Buddy-buddy with the chief and all that. I can't see him pissing anybody off or stepping on any toes."

Not that I did either of those things, but anyway: "Hmmph. Seems like he's good at what he does."

Hugh shrugged. "He has a good reputation."

"Did you know that Charlotte has filed complaints against him?"

Hugh gave a disgusted scoff and set down his pizza. He used a few napkins to wipe oil from his fingers. "I'm not surprised," he said. "She filed complaints against every single cop she came in contact with. Did you know that?"

"No, I didn't!"

"Did she file one against you?"

He laughed scornfully. "No, I never met her, so I guess that saved me." He picked up a piece of pizza and took a bite. Talking with his mouth full, he added, "She was going to file one against the chief himself! That was the last straw. That's when the hammer came down and she got slapped with a restraining order." He shook his head. "She was turning the whole department upside down. It was insane! She made all sorts of accusations... none of them made a lick of sense, but even so! The DA told her that if she didn't stop pestering the police that she'd be charged with disrupting the public order, making false statements, and being a public nuisance."

I thought about that for a moment. "Isn't there a law against wasting police time?"

"Not in the United States. Not in those exact terms. There ought to be, though."

I changed gears and explained my situation to Hugh. He in turn asked questions about Charlotte. He seemed very curious about her lifetime of spreading disorder and confusion. At one point he observed, "It seems like, up to now, she's been disruptive on a personal level: one person at a time. With this, though — the Ross and Mayda business — she's really stepped up her, uh, her level of influence."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Let's hope she doesn't go into politics." After a bite of pizza, I asked, "You know, given Charlotte's character and behavior, one thing I'm really curious about is how on earth she and Ross were able to stay together. They dated for three or four months! And I've seen photos: they looked really happy together. I mean, the guy was smiling! A genuine smile! In every picture!"

"Yeah," Hugh agreed. He chuckled. "That was a big topic of discussion at the station. But we got to the bottom of it. Our detectives spoke to Ross' friends, classmates, teammates... and especially his ex-girlfriends... pretty much everybody who knew him, and they all agreed: Ross was a dog."

"What do you mean? A dog?"

Hugh's eyes twinkled. "It means, when it came to women, Ross only cared about the sex. He never dated any one girl for very long."

"So, you're saying that Ross and Charlotte had a great sex life?" I couldn't imagine it. I couldn't imagine it at all.

"Apparently! Ross used to boast about it to his teammates, in the locker room. He said she was a wild animal in the sack. That's a quote, by the way."

I groaned. "I don't know if I want to hear this."

"Anyway, the reason they broke up... it's just like it says in the Iodine Story: she started creating situations to make him choose between her and the other people in Ross' life. She became emotional, possessive. Way too possessive. The last straw came when she made him miss football practice. That, for Ross, was a mortal sin."

"Wait, wait!" I said. "Go back a second! Back up! You said 'The Iodine Story'. What is that?"

"You don't know?" Hugh looked surprised. "The Iodine Story," he repeated, as if saying it again somehow clarified it.

"I told you: I don't know what it is. Can you tell me?"

"Yeah, sure. Of course. It's about Ross and Charlotte and Mayda. About what happened. That fateful night." He seemed puzzled and surprised that I didn't already know.

"Where can I find it?"

"It's on the internet. I'll text you a link. What's your number?"

He fiddled with his phone for half a minute, and then my phone plinked. I clicked on the link Hugh sent me and found a page entitled The Night I Escaped From the Zoo.

"What is this?" I asked. "The zoo? Is this right?" I showed him the page.

"Yeah," he acknowledged. "That's the Iodine Story."

Confused, I didn't know what to say for a few moments. "I don't understand. Is this about a zoo, or iodine? How is it connected to Ross and Charlotte? And Mayda?"

"It's very much connected. It's all about them; it's all about the night that Ross disappeared. Or whatever."

"How does Iodine come into it?"

He reached over to my phone and scrolled down slightly to the byline. "See that name?" He made something impossible out of Iolanthe Portmanteaux. "Nobody can pronounce it, whatever it is, so everybody calls it The Iodine Story. It's easier than YO-lanth-ee or EE-OH-lanthy or EYE-OH-whatever."

"Why not just call it by the title? Why not The Zoo Story?"

"Oh," he said, as if that was a new thought. "I dunno. I didn't make it up. Anyway, that's what everybody calls it. That's The Iodine Story." He looked at his watch. "Sorry, but I gotta run. I have to get back. You read that—" he pointed at my phone— "and we can talk about it after. It'll be a whole lot easier to talk after you've read it."

"Wait!" I said, "Wait! Can you quickly tell me: is there still an open investigation?"

He scratched his left eyebrow. "Into Ross' disappearance? Uh... as far as the official police investigation, it was closed soon after he disappeared. And despite Charlotte's allegations, it was never a murder investigation. Our detectives never found proof of wrong-doing, never found a body, never found a motive for anyone to harm Ross, not even Mayda. Also, we never found his pickup truck, which suggests that Ross drove off.

"It was a missing-person case. In the end it was quietly dropped because his disappearance wasn't criminal. I mean, it wasn't fraudulent: he wasn't escaping debt. He wasn't running away from the law. Like I said, no evidence of foul play. Nothing like that. There was no earthly reason that Ross couldn't simply pull up the tent pegs and leave town."

"Nobody found his disappearance strange?" I asked.

"Well, sure. Everybody did. It *was* strange. The guy had everything going for him: scholarship, recognition... you know. You could see the dollar signs in his future. Even so, as I said, there wasn't any indication that any other person made him disappear. And we *did* look for him. Not just here, but across the whole state. We asked neighboring states for help. Talked to his friends, family, all the usual stuff. In the end we drew a great big blank. So..."

"I get it," I said. "What about Mayda Zakaryan?"

Hugh shrugged. "What about her? I know what your cousin thinks, but Charlotte's allegations don't lead anywhere. I mean, okay — Mayda was apparently the last person to see Ross, but that in itself is not a crime. And Mayda had zero motive."

"Okay." I struggled to formulate my next question. "Uh— there's something that Charlotte and her mother said to me about Mayda. Something about her running around naked the night that Ross disappeared. Is that just crazy talk? Or what?"

Hugh placed his hand on his stomach, and let out a loud burp. It made a sharp sound, like a trap snapping shut. He grimaced and shifted uncomfortably. "Okay, uh." He sighed. "Yeah, we can talk about that. But seriously, I need to book. Gotta get back to work. So... listen!" Struck by a sudden thought, he rested his hand on my shoulder. "How about we meet tonight? There's a restaurant called Ebbidles. They have actual food, not like this shit. Eight o'clock. What do you say?"

"It's kind of late for dinner. Why not earlier?"

Hugh chuckled. "You'll see why when you read The Iodine Story. Eight at Ebbidles, okay?"

"Sure," I agreed. "Eight at Ebbidles."

 

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Hugh walked quickly away, one hand on his stomach. He repeatedly glanced at his watch. I stood stock-still on the spot, right in front of Pizza Alright. I put both my hands on my belly and let out a quiet whimper. I hadn't eaten *that* much pizza, but it felt like though a rock had formed in my stomach: a solid mass of rough, heavy stone. I bent over slightly at the waist and breathed gently.

I never suffer from indigestion, so I wasn't sure what I needed. An antacid? A cup of coffee? A walk? I decided I could try all three: walk until I found a pharmacy and/or a coffeeshop. Walking, as it turned out, was none too easy. I had to keep stopping to clutch my stomach. I've never in my life considered making myself vomit, but it began to seem an attractive option. (An option I didn't exercise, don't worry!)

I came upon a coffeeshop first. It was cute, very clean, and the coffee was fresh and tasty. It did seem to help. The barista gave me a small piece of dark chocolate, and that helped as well. I asked her how to get to the river.

"The shortest route is that way," she said, pointing down one street, "but you know, the river bends, and there's a really nice lookout if you go that way." She pointed a different direction. "And it's not much farther."

I followed the "not much farther" road, and pretty quickly came to a large, round platform that stuck out a bit over the river. My stomach had begun to hurt again, so I gratefully sat on a bench, and let out a searing fart. It didn't make me feel any better.

Probably I was in the worst state of mind to be reading anything, let alone The Iodine Story, but Hugh had more or less made it a prerequisite for our next conversation.

I didn't have any problem with the story at first. It was told from Ross' point of view. He and Mayda started off their evening at Ebbidles, at 8 PM — obviously, Hugh's inspiration for our meeting tonight. I guessed that he meant to do some sort of re-enactment of that evening.

I was not in the mood for any such thing, but again, Hugh was my only police contact, my only willing, sane, living source. I needed to stay in his good books.

Pretty quickly the Iodine Story went off the rails. Ross and Mayda find themselves abducted by some brainless space-aliens, and for idiotic reasons I won't go into, their bodies are swapped, so that Mayda is now Ross, and Ross Mayda. Mayda-as-Ross is carried off to an alien zoo, and Ross-as-Mayda is dropped naked, back in the desert. Don't ask why.

The rest of the story is basically about Mayda trying to find something to wear and not succeeding. She runs around naked, and has a series of absurd adventures, including a trip in a flying bathtub — just to give you an idea of how ridiculous it all becomes.

Honestly, it made me angry. It's a good thing the story was short. It almost made me mad enough to throw my phone into the river (but of course I didn't). I couldn't see any reason for Hugh to ask me to read it — unless he was simple-minded enough to believe the story was true. Tonight, I'd have to seriously bite the hell out of my tongue if I didn't want to alienate the one cop willing to talk to me.

 

---

 

After consuming the not-alright pizza at lunchtime, I doubted I'd have any appetite for dinner, and in fact when 8 PM rolled around, I judged my digestive system continued to be in a doubtful state.

During the afternoon I consumed three antacid tablets. I could have eaten more of them (I bought a good-sized bottle), but they did nothing to ease my distress, and left me with a horrible chalky taste in my mouth. I also tried eatings crackers and drinking seltzer water, but that didn't help much, either.

Food was the last thing on my mind when I arrived at Ebbidles.

Hugh showed up ten minutes late, wearing civilian clothes: a untucked Hawaiian shirt (blue background overlaid with gray ferns or fronds), slip-on loafers without socks, and a pair of chinos that ended mid-shin. He ambled up the sidewalk with a distinct, slow-rolling waddle that I hadn't noticed earlier. He also had a huge, ear-to-ear smile that wasn't in evidence at lunch time. He carried a disposable coffee cup in his hand.

He took me by surprise by pulling me into a bearhug. When he let me go, he left his arm resting across my shoulders. I took it as a expression of midwestern friendliness.

"So!" he exclaimed, gesturing with his paper cup toward a building across the street. "Ultimate Steakhouse! Where Ross wanted to eat!" Then, jerking his head back toward his shoulder to indicate the storefront behind us, "Ebbidles! Where Ross and Mayda enjoyed their last meal together."

"Sound ominous," I commented, just for the sake of saying something.

Hugh paused and took a step back, away from me. He looked me in the face for a moment, then said, "Hey, buddy, you don't look so good. Is everything alright?"

"Alright?" I echoed. "Like Pizza Alright?" I put my hand on my stomach as I spoke.

He chuckled, then let out an unexpected burp. He giggled slightly. His breath was rendolent with alcohol, though he didn't seem drunk, exactly. He was... happy.

"Hugh, that pizza is still sitting on my stomach like big, gritty rock. I've been walking all afternoon. I took some antacids, drank coffee, but it's still stuck right here." I touched my stomach.

He looked into his cup, let out a breathy "ah!" and handed the cup to me. "Drink that," he said. "It'll fix you right up. I guarantee it."

I looked into the cup, and was just about to ask what it was, but Hugh pre-emptively nudged my hand up toward my mouth, saying, "Just drink it — all in one go. Throw it down. Trust me, I'm a policeman."

It looked like whiskey, or something along those lines. I couldn't smell it because Hugh's breath covered whatever scent came off the contents of the cup.

"Come on, buddy!" he said in a jocular voice, "Toss it down! It's good for what ails ya!"

It couldn't make things any worse, I told myself, and tossed the drink down my throat.

A warming, wonderful glow slid down my esophagus, and when it landed in my stomach, it felt like the sun had come out in my belly.

I've had drinks before, but it never struck me like this. A warmth spread through my entire body, all the way to my fingertips.

"Good! Good!" Hugh exclaimed, patting my back over and over. He took the cup from me and tossed it into a nearby trash can.

Then, taking me by the shoulders, he turned me to face the restaurant, his big hands heavy on both my shoulders. He exclaimed, "Hay and nettles! Excaliber! Ross and Mayda! And Charlotte, too! Let's head on in and see what all the fuss is about!"