Ghosted: A Mystery in Four Parts Part I
Keri slipped out of the bed as gently as she could. She wanted to be out of Paul’s apartment, preferably out of town before he realized she was gone.
Once she’d put some highway miles and a state line between them, she’d text Paul and ask him to stay away from her. She’d say things between her and Trey were more serious than she’d admitted, and she didn’t want to muddle it up. She’d say she let things go too far; apologize for giving him a one-off. Guys always appreciated the inference that their charm had clouded her judgment. When Keri was done, Paul would believe that her boyfriend Trey wasn’t, as Paul had assumed, missing.
She’d only slept with Paul to change the subject. The real issue, the true matter at hand, was that Trey *had *disappeared and no one would ever see him again. The real issue was that there was something in the Manomet River, some monstrous thing, and it had taken Trey, as it had taken many others before, and there was no getting rid of it, or fighting it, or explaining it.
Keri hadn’t told Paul any of this. She just met him that day, but already knew that Paul was too closed-minded to understand the danger he was in.
She wished she didn’t understand, and envied Paul’s ignorance. Knowing about the monstrous thing that lived in the Manomet River was no more useful than being told about comet headed for the Earth or a late-stage cancer diagnosis. You couldn’t fight it, not really, only try to fit your new understanding to what remained of your life.
At least Paul, and the trouble his curiosity would cause, was something she could run from.
“You’re not from around here,” the fellow said with a small grin. He looked about twenty-five, with a broad chin covered by a reddish goatee. His black-rimmed glasses were fogged and streaked from the rain, but if that bothered him, he didn’t show it.
“Well observed,” Keri replied with a guest’s politeness. She tried to imagine the figure she cut, red hair hanging in straggles from beneath Trey’s City by the Sea film crew baseball cap, her body obscured by an olive-green plastic poncho. Not at her best, but she was still attracting all the randy locals at the early morning river side body search.
His face lit up at her West London accent, and he said, “You’re really not from around here, are you?” and she smiled again.
About thirty volunteers had gathered at the riverbank, all wearing raincoats and boots. They milled around, trying to squeeze into drier spots beneath the pine boughs, waiting for the search for the 14-year-old presumed suicide Maggie Grose to get underway.
Trey had given up trying to stay dry and was on the bank of the river, his back against a car-sized granite block that jutted up out of the mud. It all felt like a terrible waste of time to Keri: they’d get maybe 15 minutes of footage, and the show might use as much as 30 seconds of it. Unless the searchers found the missing girl, of course.
“You don’t know about the missing people?” the stranger asked
“Well the one, obviously.” Keri asked. “You mean there are others?”
“I noticed the camera,” the fellow said, gesturing towards Trey, who was hunched over trying to keep the rain off his camera while getting shots of a dead bird he’d discovered in the brambles. “That’s pretty serious hardware. You’re not local news. Or at least I didn’t see a van.”
“We work with America Mysteries,” Keri said. This was a tremendous exaggeration. Trey had sold crime-related footage to the basic cable program before and hoped to again.
The fellow perked up at this. “They’ve noticed Shayham?” he asked, his excitement ridiculous on someone standing hatless in the rain. “Who’s writing the segment, do you know?”
“I don’t,” Kari answered, still smiling. “What do you mean, they noticed Shayham?”
“You don’t know about the missing people?”
“Well, the one, obviously.” Keri asked. “You mean there are others?”
She sensed more than saw Trey’s head come up at the unexpected course the conversation had taken.
The stranger scoffed. “Dozens if not more,” he said. “I’m writing a book on it.” He paused, pretending an idea he’d had the moment he approached Keri had just form in his mind. “We should talk. I’m trying to interview the father of the missing girl this afternoon, but maybe we could get drinks or dinner later?”
Trey strode up then. Late thirties, of intimidating size and exuding a powerful air of ‘She’s with me,’ most men talking Keri up took one look at Trey and excused themselves, but not this one.
“Maybe I should be talking to you,” he said, extending a dripping hand toward Trey. “I’m Paul Coppard, author of the forthcoming The Shayham Phenomenon.”
“You’ll have to make it quick,” Trey said, taking the man’s hand but not giving his name in return. “Search is starting, and we’re here just to get some shots of that, then it’s back to New York.”
Paul frowned. “I can’t just lay it all out while we walk in the woods,” he said. “It’s dozens of cases, going back years. All connected — well, I’ve connected them.” He frowned more deeply. “And my research, my time has value. I’m not going to just tell American Mysteries everything I’ve discovered without some kind of contract. I need guarantees.”
“You’ve solved the disappearances?” Keri said, a little adrift in the moment. Around them, volunteers were leaving the riverbank. The search had begun.
“Not yet,” he said with an aggressive, and more than a little defensive pride. “But I’ve tied them together. Like I said, a lot of people. Well into double digits. Mostly young. People who are gonna be out in a place like this by themselves.” He gestured to the river and the oppressive bulk of the crumbling mill looming on the far bank. “And nothing is ever found. They don’t leave notes, assuming they are suicides, which I do not, and the searches never turn up any evidence or traces.”
“How do you know what happens to them here then?” Keri asked, beginning already to feel that Paul Coppard might not be entirely rational. “How do you know they even vanish near the river?”
“People‘s habits.” Paul replied, wiping rain from his eyes. “It’s always the loners. right? If the captain of the cheer squad or the guy who owns the big dealership on route nine or even if everybody’s favorite mailman went missing it’d be bigger deal. But it’s always the odds and ends. This girl’s no different.” This last added with a dismissive note of frustration. To Paul, Keri realized, the search was already over, and already a failure.
“Okay,” Trey began. “Keri is a production assistant, and I trust her judgment.” Keri was no such thing. She was a film student at NYU and was here for no reason she could explain other than Trey had invited her on a shoot and she had nothing better to do with her Saturday. “Keri, please accompany Mr. Coppard on the search while I get what we came for. See if he has anything worth following up on.”
Keri looked at Trey like he was a madman for pawning her off on some jackoff they’d just met.
“I’ll be right by with the cam,” Trey said, making strong eye contact with Keri. “Walk with him at least to the bridge.” He pointed to where River Street crossed the Manomet River less than a quarter mile upstream. “If our friend doesn’t have anything worthwhile, I’ll apologize for wasting your time.”
“I won’t waste your time,” Paul said, a hint of ‘how dare you’ in his rebuttal.
Keri wasn’t a shy girl; London wasn’t the kind of place that let shyness survive. Her first instinct was to lash out at Trey and find her own way back to New York, fuck him and his fucking Camry. Something stopped her. A sense that she was seeing Trey at work, now. Not documenting what was happening, which was only part of what he did. Monetizing what had happened was the larger part, the part Try had real talent for. The part she wanted to learn more about.
Keri realized that, if she and Trey worked together, they’d take everything of value this horny idiot might have learned and have it on Youtube and old news before he even knew he’d been taken.
“Yeah, all right,” Keri told Trey, and then turned to Paul.
“Hello, Mr. Coppard, I’m Keri Boyle,” she said with a broad smile but no handshake — she wasn’t about to let Paul Coppard touch her in any way. “Let’s hear about this Shayham Phenomenon of yours.”
“You won’t be disappointed,” Paul said. “It’s a bad town, lots of horrible things to uncover.” Without waiting for a response, he turned and began leading Keri away from the searchers and toward the bridge over the Manomet.
Keri didn’t hesitate. Following a strange man away from a group was a textbook mistake, she knew, but Paul didn’t seem like anyone she couldn’t handle.
She watched his wide and slightly slouching body climb the riverbank towards the sidewalk and smiled at his awkwardness, so natural on a man who had no idea how he appeared to others. It was all she could do not to giggle.
Continued Next Sunday May 30th
Thank You for Reading!