Fiction
The Death Of Henry James Part 2
A Sunny Alexander-Johnson and Roberto De La Cruz Series By P.G. & Sharon Barnett
My name is Sunny Alexander-Johnson. And I’m Roberto De La Cruz, and we’re writers for Dark Sides of the Truth magazine.
The mood at Dark Sides was somber Monday morning, which made things even more challenging than a Monday morning in the bullpen frequently did. No one was talking. Most of the writers were sitting with coffee mugs in hand, staring at the screen of their laptops, idly scrolling their mouse wheels as they stared mindlessly.
If the morgue-like atmosphere wasn’t bad enough, the new seating arrangements Rick chose, seemed somehow to be a slap in the face. Before either of us arrived, Rick had seen to it the things on Henry’s desk had been cleared away. Roberto, without his knowledge, had been moved from where he usually sat with Tim Rice on the other side of the bullpen.
It was a shock, to say the least.
The man had barely been in the ground for a weekend, and it seemed as if Rick had chosen to brush aside the memory of Henry as if it was little more than a necessary custodial responsibility. A point not lost by either of us and something which seemed to drive home the events of late in a crazily uncomfortable way.
“Johnson! De La Cruz! My office!
We eyed each other and steeled ourselves as we headed into Rick McDonnell’s office. Instead of staring at his computer screen as he usually did when he called someone in, he stared at us, tapping his fingertips, in what appeared to be nervous agitation against the top of his desk.
“You’re late, Johnson.”
“I know Rick, sorry. Dante couldn’t find his homework this morning, and we spent almost thirty minutes in meltdown mode before we finally found it.”
“The dog got ahold of it, I suppose?”
“We don’t have a dog, Rick.”
“Then you have no excuse for being late Johnson. We have a magazine to run here. Look, Charlie Alvarez’s got another cold case he needs help on. A guy named Roy Chambers went missing back in twenty-ten, and nobody’s seen him since. I want you and De La Cruz to take a crack at it.”
“What’s so special about the Chambers case?”
“Loretta Chambers, Roy’s wife, believes Charlie is trying to tell her something.”
“As in from the grave?”
“There never was a grave, Roberto because there’s never been a body.”
“Great, let me guess. It’s because Henry and I ran spook central.”
“Exactly. Let’s not forget, you and Roberto need to stay in touch with…”
“Yes, we know Rick. Everywhere we go, you, my husband, and Manny need to know. I got it.”
“You’re life depends on this, Shaundrika.”
“I know Rick. Okay, you, my husband, and Manny just do your thing. In the meantime, Roberto and I are going to chase this story. The quicker things around here get back to normal, the better I’ll feel.”
“I’m with Sunny, Rick.”
Rick nodded and then adjusted his glasses, his grey eyes almost piercing a hole in us, his jawline rigid as he clenched his teeth. Finally, he sighed and reached for a travel mug sitting beside his monitor, took a sip, and turned away choosing to focus on his computer screen.
“Then maybe both of you need to get the hell out of my office and do what you get paid to do.”
We placed a call to Charlie Alvarez, who gave us Loretta Chamber’s address, and after dutifully sending text messages to Manny and Robert, we packed up and stopped by Rick’s office just before leaving. He was on the phone, so we wrote down the address on a note pad beside his phone and walked to the elevators.
It was pretty simple, but then in our line of business, the plan was always pretty simple. Get the facts, start digging around for more facts, then snoop around for more.
“Something bothering you?”
“Aside from having to wear a damn bulletproof vest all the time, and always looking over my shoulder for death to come knocking? Nope, nothing bothering me at all, Roberto.”
“Yeah, but look Sunny. I believe Rick and the rest of the folks know what they’re doing. We just need to concentrate on the story. The rest will play out the way it’s going to play out.”
“Easy for you to say. You don’t have a target on your back.”
“No, I don’t. But then I’m pretty sure you know about collateral damage, right?”
“Point taken. Okay, let’s get over there and see what Loretta Chambers has to say.”
It took us the better part of forty minutes to get across town and locate the subdivision, and then the house and park in the street in front. We rang the doorbell, then stepped back and waited.
Loretta Chambers appeared as if she’d not had a decent night’s sleep since her husband disappeared. Her hair was a tangled, frizzled mess of light brown hair, salted by dense streaks of grey. Deep bags beneath a pair of blue eyes, seemed as if they’d been smudged with charcoal.
“Yes?”
“Ms. Chambers. My name is Sunny Alexander, and this is my partner Roberto De La Cruz. We’re from Dark Sides of the Truth magazine and working with Charlie Alvarez. We understand your husband went missing several years ago, and we’d like to see if we can help discover what happened.”
“Charlie Alvarez? Detective Alvarez?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Come in, please.”
The woman directed us into a small but tastefully decorated living room, and our attention was immediately drawn to the couch, which appeared as if she’d slept there. Hastily, Loretta Chambers picked up the pillows and rolled up the covers and tossed them into a chair nearby.
“Please, sit. Terribly sorry. I haven’t been sleeping well, since, well since Roy disappeared.”
“It might be none of our business Ms. Chambers, but you’ve been sleeping on this couch since Roy disappeared?”
“Sunny, is it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“There’s something in our bedroom.”
“Excuse me, ma’am?”
“Since Roy disappeared, I’ve heard things. At first, it was like someone was walking up and down the hallway upstairs at all hours of the night and day. And it was always frigid in our bedroom, and nowhere in the house. Then things started moving. That’s when I started sleeping on the couch here.”
“Moving?”
“Yes, sir. We have a full-length mirror we keep in our bedroom. Sometimes it will be on the left of our dresser, sometimes I’ll find it on the right of it.”
“Is it possible you may have moved it when you clean that room and perhaps you forgot that’d you done it?”
“No, Mr. De La Cruz, that’s not possible. I don’t even go into our bedroom anymore. I hear things, open the door, see that things have been rearranged and shut the door and come back downstairs. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m thinking about selling this house and moving.”
“Do you mind showing us?”
“Are you certain you two want to go in there?”
“Yes, ma’am. It’s pretty much what we do.”
Read On — The Death Of Henry James Part 3
Let’s keep in touch: P.G. & Sharon Barnett ([email protected]) © P.G. Barnett, 2020. All Rights Reserved.
