Stevan Mena - Transience

“ Where are you? ” Leonard asked. There was a brief silence, the tape player’s motor buzzed and squeaked.

“ Santa Maria, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros pecadores, ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte. Amen. The fruits of our labors … find Jesus on the hill … find Jesus … ”

Jack pressed rewind. He listened to that passage again. The first part sounded like a prayer, but the other part felt more like a warning. It was vexing him. He replayed it over and over.

“Ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte. Amén. The fruits of our labors … find Jesus on the hill … find Jesus.” Rewind. “ Find Jesus … ” Repeat. “ Find Jesus.”

It almost sounded to Jack like she’d reverted to Rebecca. She wasn’t reciting prayer, she was observing something in the moment. To his ears anyway. He was about to press play again when the phone rang. He’d been playing the tape very low — keeping his word to Leonard. The interruption of the quiet made the phone’s ringer seem terribly loud.

“Hello?”

“Detective Ridge?”

“Laura. How are you?”

“Not so good.”

“What is it?”

“You still want to talk?”

“Very much,” Jack said, sitting up straight. He hadn’t noticed that his office door had crept open. Someone stood behind him waiting patiently for his conversation to finish.

“I’m home, can you come here?” Laura asked.

Jack checked his watch. “It’s about 6 o’clock, I can be there in an hour?”

“That’s fine.”

“Okay. Thank you, Laura.” He hung up and leaned back in his chair, chewing his pen as he began to formulate all of his questions in his head; there were so many.

“Heard you were dead.”

Jack spun around in his chair, startled. Robert stood before him. He was neatly dressed, with a long tan coat and a white dress shirt. He resembled Jack, only younger. Jack’s expression turned cold as ice.

“What are you doing here?” Jack said, his jaw clenched.

“You don’t return my calls.”

“We have nothing to talk about.”

“All these years and we have nothing to talk about? At least—”

“Get out,” Jack said with a calm that belied his volcano of emotions underneath.

“I just thought you’d like to know… you’re going to be an uncle. Trish is pretty far along now. We tried for years. I guess God finally decided we were ready.”

Jack stared through him, his gaze like a magnifying glass in the sun, burning a hole into Robert’s being. His hatred was palpable, he had to fight to suppress the urge to leap out of his chair and strangle him.

Robert returned no such malevolence towards his brother. He stood silently, itching at a deep old scar above his left eye.

Jack turned his back and started stacking and shuffling papers for no reason.

“We’re gonna be relocating to Austin,” Robert continued. “Got a good job lined up.” Jack took a deep breath, adjusting his collar, straining to retain his composure. “Trish has family there so it works out great.” Jack balled his fists and bit down. “You know how it is when people move very far away. You say you’re gonna come visit, but…well, I guess with the way things are, you and I might never see each other again.”

Robert leaned forward and tossed a small invitational envelope onto Jack’s desk.

Jack’s eyes found it.

“We’re having a little get together, a little celebration. It would really mean a lot to Trish and me if you could make it.” Robert wiped at his mouth, waiting for Jack’s response. Jack didn’t move. He might not have even breathed during the awful silence.

“Jack… there isn’t a day goes by I don’t feel sorry about what happened.”

Jack spun around, venom behind his eyes. “Are you finished? Are you through?” Jack spoke so harshly it set off one of his coughing fits. He hacked three or four times brutally, his eyes bulging, veins surfacing in his neck and forehead. Robert leaned forward to help, but Jack’s watery eyes screamed hate — maybe even death — if he took another step closer.

Robert instead took a step back in retreat. “Alright.” He turned and opened Jack’s office door. The din of the station spilled in, breaking the silence, letting in air.

“Hope you change your mind, Jack.” Robert exited and closed the door. Jack sat motionless for a few moments. He abruptly turned and slammed his fists down on his desk, scattering neatly stacked papers in all directions.

Jennifer was walking by at precisely that moment and witnessed Jack’s tantrum through the glass windows of his office. Jack reached for his jacket and nearly opened the door into her.

“Sorry, Jen.”

He hurried past, not allowing her time to ask if he was okay.

A few moments later, Harrington entered Jack’s office. “Jack?” He scanned the empty room, gradually making his way over to where Jack hid his pills. A glance over his shoulder, then he moved the book. But the pills were gone.

Harrington turned to leave when he noticed the old tape player on the desk, half buried beneath a mess of paper. Jack had scribbled some notes on a pad next to it.

The Fruits of Our Labors. Find Jesus on the Hill. Church Bells, diary, dresser. Rebecca, Carmen, Santa Maria — Madre de Dios.

Harrington pressed play, Leonard’s voice audible:

“I find the evidence before me incontrovertible. More and more my conclusions not only seem plausible, they seem the only logical explanation. There are so many levels of human consciousness that have yet to be explored. The same must be true of the different levels of existence, quantum theories, allowance for the human soul. My belief system has been challenged on every level, but I find my conclusions becoming more and more supportive for accommodating the theory of transmigration of the soul from one incarnation to the next. Perhaps even time is not how we perceive it. Perhaps we are the observer, and our bodies the vessel. Is it any more delusional than the concept of sending files wirelessly through the air from one electronic device to another would be to a man in 1850? We accept that we can transmit documents and information invisibly through space, why then not our essence too? Because we are organic? I think Rebecca might represent the greatest advancement to human evolution. Spiritual evolution—”

Harrington stopped the tape, a queer look on his face. He checked over his shoulder a second time, then sat down and pressed play again.

Laura stood at the back door, watching Rebecca on the same old rusty swing set she used to play on as a little girl. Its antique frame ached loudly with each movement. Jack stood behind her in the kitchen, small pad and pencil in hand.

“He actually said that?” Laura asked.

“He’s convinced himself.”

“That’s why he wouldn’t leave us alone. He needs his own head examined.”

“I’ve known Leonard a long time; he’s always been a very rational person.”

“He had no right discussing my daughter’s condition with you.”

“He confided in me because he trusts me. He knew I would keep things confidential. He knew about my case and made the connection. He was right.”

“But he never ok’d it with me.”

“He didn’t tell me the whole truth either. Pieced most of it together myself. I had to back him into a corner before he spilled his guts.”

“And what do you think?”

Jack took a moment. It was the first time she’d seen him under bright fluorescent lighting. She noticed how gaunt and pale he looked, how brittle. “…I don’t know. What I do know is whoever murdered Carmen went to great lengths to make sure she was never found. Without Rebecca, she wouldn’t have been. She gave precise details about where the body would be discovered, how Carmen was murdered.”