Point Pleasant (6 page)

Ben followed the cobblestone walkway to the front door, which had been painted red at some point in the last thirteen years. Caroline would have approved of the way the shade of scarlet accented the yellow exterior of the three-story American Craftsman.

He took a moment to adjust his suit jacket. Normally, Ben would wear jeans and a t-shirt for such a lengthy drive, but he had reconsidered that option when he thought of seeing his father for the first time since Kate’s graduation from Harvard Law School in Boston almost eight years prior. Ben adopted the ensemble he wore when he appeared as Preston James at book signings to swathe himself in a security blanket of his own making.

The doorbell let out a muffled chime when Ben pressed the small button mounted on the wall by the mail box. The sound of shuffling feet prepared him for when the door opened, and his father stood on the other side.

“Ben?” Andrew asked, blinking in disbelief.

“Hey, Dad.”

Andrew laughed and pulled Ben into a hug. It was brief, but Ben savored the gesture.

“I didn’t think you were serious last night,” Andrew said as he stepped back. “Come in, come on.”

Ben followed Andrew inside and absorbed the familiar sight of the entry hall. A heavy winter coat and a black rain jacket with a The North Face logo hung on the wall pegs behind the front door. The walnut banister and staircase gleamed with the evidence of a recent polishing, as did the hardwood floors that lined the corridor.

“I thought it was a good idea after all,” Ben said. He faced his father and took the moment to assess his appearance.

Andrew loomed tall in Ben’s memories, and though they had been the same height back when Ben left Point Pleasant, it still felt strange to share the same eye level. Andrew was neatly shaven, and his chestnut hair was flecked with gray. He wore a white button-down shirt with a loosened tie; he had probably just arrived home from the hospital.

“You look good, Benji,” Andrew said, grinning as he clapped a hand on Ben’s shoulder.

“You too, Dad,” Ben replied with a smile of his own.

“You left it too long,” Andrew said. “Much too long.”

“I know,” Ben said. “I’m here now.”

Andrew’s faulty gait was only slightly discernible as he limped on his left leg toward the kitchen. The walls were the same cheerful teal that Ben had helped paint thirteen years prior. The black marble countertops were immaculate and clear of clutter. There was now a dishwasher and a new refrigerator, and a halogen stove top had replaced the former gas fixture. Ben’s gaze fell to the spot on the floor that had haunted his dreams for over a decade, and he forced his eyes to his father.

“Have you eaten? I only just got in a few minutes ago,” Andrew said. “What do you say we have a beer and then head into town for food? There’s a new place, does good burgers.”

“Sounds nice.”

“No, I know, Duvall’s. Mae will go nuts when she sees you.” Andrew offered Ben a cold bottle of Blue Moon from the fridge. The lids were popped, and Ben clinked the neck of his bottle to his father’s.

“Duvall’s would be great.”

Andrew took a long draught of his beer and lounged against a countertop. They stood in easy silence, but Ben soon shifted from foot to foot as his father looked him from head-to-toe again. “You look professional, Benji. Your mom would be impressed. Your hair’s still shaggy, though. You allergic to scissors?”

Ben raised an eyebrow and sipped his own beer. “The house looks nice,” he observed, shifting the conversation away from himself and his father’s barbed compliments.

“Had it painted in the spring. Was starting to look a bit weatherworn after last winter. Lotta snow.”

“Yeah, Boston was a nightmare too.”

Andrew had another swig and continued to eye his son. “So why leave Boston now? You in trouble?”

“No, sir,” Ben said, straightening reflexively. “Just got to thinking about Mom, and you—” he started, but he felt unsure of how to finish. “I had a message on my machine from Katie when I got home last night. She said she had good news.”

Andrew tilted his head with interest. “What kind of good news?”

“She didn’t say. I dunno, maybe David proposed.”

“Wouldn’t that be something?” Andrew asked almost to himself. Ben could see his father was considering the idea of walking his little girl down the aisle.

“Yeah,” Ben agreed. “It would. But it just got me thinking. It’s been a while. And I don’t have anything else going on right now.”

“You’re not working?” Andrew asked, and Ben steeled himself at his father’s tone
.
Andrew might as well have used his index and middle fingers to make a pair of air quotes as he spoke the final word.

“I am,” Ben said. “But a change of scenery can’t hurt. I can write anywhere.”

“You staying long, then?”

Ben scratched at the label on his bottle. “I dunno, I hadn’t really thought that far ahead.”

“Well, you’re welcome to stay as long as you want, Benji,” he said. “I’m not here much, honestly. Your room is just as you left it,” he said, and Ben smiled as his father repeated himself from their conversation the night before.

“Thanks, Dad,” Ben said, and his earlier tension slipped away.

Andrew clapped him on the shoulder again. “Duvall’s?”

Ben nodded.

“Let me grab my coat,” Andrew said as he led them to the front hall. He paused and twisted to face Ben. “But let me ask you something.”

“Yeah, what?” Ben asked.

“Can I drive?”

Ben laughed, pulled the keys to the Camaro out of his pocket, and tossed them to his father. Andrew caught them and beamed.

When they reached Duvall’s, all of Ben’s earlier anxiety had disappeared. Andrew had been impressed with Ben’s upkeep of the Camaro despite his grumbles over the mileage, and he had taken the long way back to Main Street so that he could enjoy the drive.

The diner was relatively busy, but it had always been a favored destination in Point Pleasant. Mae Duvall was an important member of the community and this was reflected in the popularity of her business.

A stout man with ginger hair and a scruffy beard to match greeted them. His name tag read, ‘Keith.’

Ben followed Keith to a corner booth and took a seat opposite his father. Ben gave his order; he had been away for over ten years, but the menu had not changed. Andrew asked for the same. Duvall’s did the best burgers in the state as far as residents of Point Pleasant were concerned.

Keith seemed unprepared for their quick decisions and fumbled for his order pad. He took an awkward moment to jot down their requests before he disappeared to the kitchen.

“He new?” Ben asked, and Andrew shook his head.

“Keith? Nah, he’s been around a while. A nephew on Mitch’s side, I think.”

Mitch, Mae’s husband, had died two years prior. Andrew had mentioned it in a phone call soon after, and Ben had sent flowers to Mae, but it felt like an empty gesture. Ben had liked Mitch Duvall; he had helped Ben patch up his front bike tire one muggy summer afternoon in his youth and had offered a free milkshake afterward.

Ben sat a little straighter in his seat when he realized he and Andrew were under the scrutinous eyes of the other patrons. He felt overdressed for a burger and fries at the local greasy spoon, but Andrew seemed unperturbed.

“Not much else has changed, though,” Andrew said.

“Yeah, the ride in was like hopping into a time machine. The only real difference seemed to be the Sheriff’s Department.”

“They finished construction on the new building a year or two ago. I don’t remember. Cost the county a lot of money, but I guess they can justify it.”

“I saw Sheriff Nolan’s comments in the paper. About the missing livestock,” Ben said, and he kept his tone casual, hoping Andrew would resume their conversation from the night before. “Online, I mean. The
Gazette
has a website.”

“Yeah, Lizzie Collins runs it almost single-handedly,” Andrew said, snorting. “She’s always got her nose in town business.”

“Sounds about right.”

“I read that article the other day, though,” Andrew said. “Nolan’s dealing with it in the right way. These people get up in arms over anything. Best to keep the civilians subdued.”

Ben took in the casual way his father referred to the townspeople as ‘civilians.’ His years in the armed forces tended to shine through at the oddest times. “But it’s weird, isn’t it? The disappearances.”

“Benji, I know you write your little books about the monsters under beds, but there’s not some giant bat carrying cows off into the darkness.”

“I didn’t say there was,” Ben replied, and he hated the defensive edge apparent in his tone. “But I looked into the reports and found at least thirty other instances of livestock theft in the area from the last ten years. It’s odd.”

“Odd, maybe. But not unusual. You can get a fair price for sheep and cattle, you know. What are you doing looking into a decade’s worth of police reports anyway?”

Ben’s lips twitched, and he was unable to find an appropriate response. Keith returned bearing their dinners. Ben was thankful for the momentary distraction.

“I just thought it was interesting,” he said when Keith left.

“Ben,” Andrew said, his tone clipped and serious.

“It
is
interesting,” Ben replied, and he berated himself for sounding so apologetic.

Andrew leaned against his side of the booth and regarded his son for a long, unsettling moment. Ben detested the way his father could still make him feel like an awkward teenage boy.

“So that’s it,” Andrew said finally.

“What’s it?” Ben asked.

“That’s why you’re here.”

Ben shrugged as he pushed at the fries on his plate and did not look up to meet his father’s eyes.

“If you say you’re here to write about it, I can tell you right now you might as well go back to Boston. There’s no story, and I doubt anyone in town would want to know Point Pleasant ends up painted as the home of some imaginary freak show in your next book.”

“They wouldn’t know, would they? Because I write under a pseudonym.
Your
idea, remember,” Ben replied. He sounded bitter even to his own ears.

Andrew regarded Ben in stony silence.

Ben exhaled in defeat. “Look, I don’t know if I will even write anything about it, I just thought it would be something to look into.”

“Yeah, well. I doubt the sheriff will take kindly to you sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong. You’re not from here anymore, Ben.”

“Jesus, Dad.”

“You watch your mouth, Benjamin Andrew Wisehart.”

The use of his full name made Ben bristle like a worn brush. Andrew picked up his burger and started to eat as if the issue had been resolved. Ben’s appetite disappeared, but he took a bite of his own burger. It did not taste of the happy nostalgia he had anticipated; it was greasy and charred. Maybe it was the best burger in Point Pleasant, but he had eaten better burgers elsewhere during his time away. Andrew was right; Ben was not from here anymore. He did not belong in Point Pleasant.

Ben dropped the burger onto his plate and wiped his fingers on a coarse paper napkin he yanked from the dispenser at the end of the table. “I don’t want to fight. I know you wish I had a ‘real’ job. But this is what I do. And people like it. I write because of something I believe in, something that happened to me that I saw with my own eyes. If it’s still here, I want to see it again. I want to see if it makes me write better stories. I can keep up my end of your ruse. I can tell everyone I write for a newspaper like you tell them,” he said, and he noted how his father rolled his eyes at the last part.

Ben had discovered the lie a few years ago from Kate, who had patiently agreed with every word of Ben’s ensuing twenty-minute long ‘Dad’s an asshole’ rant.

“I can go to the Ashby Hotel and stay there for as long as I need to,” Ben continued. “And then I’ll go back to Boston, and you don’t have to see me again. But I am going to look into this because it’s important to me.”

Andrew swallowed a mouthful of food and placed his half-eaten burger on the plate in front of him. He seemed to consider his son before he sighed. “Ben, you can stay at the house. I just don’t want you starting trouble. This town is a powder keg. It’s ready to explode. I don’t want you to be the one who lights the fuse. You’re not the one who has to stay here and live with the mess. You flutter off and pretend nothing happened. As always.”

Ben diminished against his seat and clenched his jaw. “Why do you do that?” he asked. “Why do you just assume I’m going to ruin things?”

Andrew opened his mouth to reply, most likely with a retort, but a familiar voice rose from the other end of the diner. The twang of its West Virginian accent was unmistakable.

“Ben Wisehart!”

Ben looked up and smiled. Mae had emerged from the office in the back and spotted him. He stood and hugged her when she approached. The embrace was warm and teemed with the scent of magnolia.

“Honey, let me look at you!” Mae withdrew to take in his appearance, and Ben took in hers.

Mae was still youthful and spry even though she was nearing her sixties. Her wavy, auburn hair had whiffs of gray, and her wide, hazel eyes were offset by wrinkles, but she was almost identical to the younger version of herself from Ben’s memory. The version who had made Ben a vanilla milkshake after her husband patched up Ben’s bike tire.

“Hey, Mae.”

“You’re all grown up and fancy!” Mae declared with a laugh.

She pushed Ben into the booth and slid into the seat next to Andrew, who had grown quiet and reserved.

“I’ve asked your daddy about you a lot over the years,” Mae said. “You’re a reporter, right?”

Ben smiled again, but he felt a heavy weight in his stomach when his gaze flickered to his father. “That’s right. For a magazine. In Boston.”

“Magazine? I thought it was a newspaper?”

Ben maintained his good-humored countenance as another lie flowed off his tongue. “I was at a newspaper, but I got a job offer. It had better pay.”

“Well, good for you, honey!” Mae said. She brushed Ben’s hand as it rested on the table and added, “Andy’s just so proud of you and Kate both.”