Misery Bay by Steve Hamilton

nothing. No secret journal into which he poured out his thoughts every night. No answers at all.
    When we went back to the living room, the private stash of beer had been tapped into, everybody holding a bottle now and obviously not worrying about the legal drinking age anymore. It had been years since I’d been a cop, of course, and even if I was wearing the uniform that night I wouldn’t have said a word to them. They all sat around drinking in total silence and staring at the floor.
    “I want to ask you something,” Rebecca finally said. “Do you think I can talk to Charlie’s father sometime? Just to say how sorry I am?”
    “I don’t see why not. He’s in Sault Ste. Marie tonight, staying with a friend. I can give you his phone number.”
    “Maybe I should just wait until he goes back home. I don’t want to disturb him right now.”
    I nodded my head and let it go. She didn’t really want to talk to the man. At least not for a while. Maybe a year from now, she’ll actually call him.
    “I really miss him,” Wayne said. “This is the kind of night he loved. The worse the weather was, the happier he got.”
    Everybody smiled at that, and I was sure they were each bringing up their favorite Charlie memories again. Rebecca started to cry about then, and Wayne told her he’d walk her home. They both shook my hand and thanked me for coming all the way out there to talk to them.
    “Tell his father I feel so bad,” Wayne said.
    “Me, too,” Rebecca said, and that was about all she was able to say before they finally wished me a good night and headed out into the wind and the snow.
    I put my beer bottle down on the kitchen table and was expecting to head out myself, but then Bradley started talking again.
    “It wasn’t about her,” he said. “I hope you don’t think that.”
    “How do you mean?”
    “It wasn’t because Charlie and Rebecca broke up. He wasn’t really upset about that at all. In fact, he was kind of relieved when she got involved with Wayne.”
    “Come on, Bradley,” RJ said.
    “Come on, nothing.”
    “I swear to God. Don’t even go there.”
    “It’s all right,” I said. “Go on.”
    “He knew they weren’t gonna work out,” Bradley said. “So I’m just saying. It’s not like he was all broken up about it or anything.”
    RJ just looked at the ceiling and shook his head.
    “You know why he was so upset,” Bradley said to him. “You were here. He talked to you more than anyone else.”
    RJ raised his hands in surrender. “I’m not saying anything.”
    “His father wanted Charlie to be a cop, just like him. When he switched to forestry, his father wasn’t happy. Like at all. Like he’d say, Charlie was giving up a real career doing something important to be a lumberjack or something. He had absolutely no idea what a forestry degree really means.”
    I thought back to what Raz had said about the program. Trees, studying trees, he said. Doing things with trees.
    “It really got to Charlie, is all I’m saying. He knew his father was totally disappointed with him. They had a really big fight about it.”
    “I wouldn’t go that far,” RJ said.
    “There’s no use sugarcoating it,” Bradley said. “That doesn’t do anybody any good now. We might as well tell the truth.”
    “Don’t you understand?” RJ said. “Sometimes you don’t have to say anything at all. You need to learn that.”
    “It’s the truth and you know it. Charlie was miserable because he thought he was letting his father down.”
    RJ closed his eyes and put one hand against his forehead.
    “I’m not saying he should have thought that,” Bradley said, running out of steam. “I’m not saying it was right. I’m just saying…”
    Then he stopped. He had wheeled out the great weight and put it there in front of us. It was invisible yet heavy as cast iron and it would crush any man who would try to carry it.
    Yet that’s what I had to do now. I had to strap that weight to my back and walk