Things Slip Through

The Skylark Diner5:30 PMSomehow I’m not surprised when Gavin walks into The Skylark alone. No one said much as we left my place, but I sensed—through body language, maybe—that this was Gavin’s job, telling me the truth or whatever passes for it in this town.A nice town, dammit, in spite all of this. Picturesque, a postcard-beautiful Adirondack town as charming as Inlet or Eagle Bay but not as touristy as Lake George. And the people here have been nothing but accommodating and pleasant. Word of the new Sheriff in town (also new widower with an only daughter) has paved the way for fruit baskets, pies, homemade bread, frozen venison and casseroles galore, all this past year.But as time has passed and the town’s strangeness has bloomed, it’s dawned upon me that maybe this town is too accommodating, because someoneshould’ve petitioned the Town Board for my immediate resignation a long time ago, especially considering all the odd cases I haven’t been able to s

3.I lean back against the booth’s thin leather cushions and pull my hands away from the journal, staring for a moment at Gavin’s elegant script. The words themselves seem to shiver and twitch across the page.I look up at Gavin, who’s nonchalantly devouring the stack of blueberry pancakes he ordered while I was reading.My mouth opens, but nothing comes out.Fortunately, Gavin speaks for both of us, after swallowing a forkful of syrup-drenched pancakes. “That whole thing was horrible, and I feel awful that it took a tragedy like that to sober me up. But after everything died down, when I finally dried out . . . I knew things had to change. I haven’t had a drink since.”I reach toward the journal but don’t touch its pages. It’s as if I’m afraid of something happening to me if I touch it, which is ridiculous. It’s only a journal. Paper bound by a leather cover.That’s all.“You wrote this. After it happened?”He reaches for his glass of orange juice, compliments of the waitress,

4.Gavin has finished his pancakes and is now sipping from his coffee, watching me with a neutral expression. I again push the book away from me, as if prolonged contact with it could hurt me, somehow.Which is ridiculous.It’s just a journal full of stories, that’s all. So what if Gavin’s story about the Pital girl was eerily accurate? Gavin wrote fiction for a living, he made stuff up. That’s what writers do, right? Make stuff up.Right?I meet Gavin’s calm gaze and speak carefully. “So. This story’s . . . a . . . what do you call it? A metaphor. Symbolic. Of how you realized there was more to life than your writing career.”Gavin raises his eyebrows and says, “Is that what you think it is?”I clasp my hands together on the booth’s tabletop so hard my knuckles ache. “I don’t really know what to think, Gavin. You brought me here with cryptic allusions to a Truth, then have me read these stories . . . ”I wave at the book and I swear Gavin’s flowing script wavers and trembles,

5.Our waitress (whose tag reads Cassie Tillman) refills Gavin’s coffee. She offers me some, I politely decline, and as she walks away a startling realization hits me: our waitress, Cassie Tillman.JennyJenny Tillmanyou know . . . the senior who wears the purple eye shadowand the short skirts all the boys likeThe implication sends ice down my spine.If all these stories are true, or, as Gavin puts it, have Truth in them . . . how many are about folks I know?For example, Jenny Tillman. Cassie Tillman’s younger sister, a high school senior. She disappeared back in March. Got into a big blowout with her mother and stormed out of their trailer in the Commons Trailer Park on the edge of town. She was last seen hitching along Bassler Road, toward the interstate.Will I read a story about her next? Or maybe a twisted tale about how my next door neighbor—a gentle, seventy year-old retired nurse named Maude—is really a dedicated Satan-worshiper who dines on the flesh of cooked bab

6.“So that’s it?”I ask as we descend The Skylark’s front steps into the nearly empty parking lot so Gavin can take a smoke break. “Jesse Kretch is gone?”With a quick snap Gavin lights the cigarette in his mouth with a battered old Zippo, takes a drag and releases a gray-blue plume of smoke into the black sky. He stuffs the lighter into his front pocket, then sucks on his cigarette some more, its tip glowing a bright orange. He blows out more smoke and says, “When’s the last time you saw Jesse? Do you remember?”I close my eyes, thinking quickly. The answer comes sooner than I’d like. “New Year’s Eve. A few weeks after that 911 call. He’d been cutting up rough at The Stumble Inn. Drunk again, ranting and roaring his usual gibberish at the top of his lungs. That time, Deputy Shackleford and I brought him back to the jail so he could sleep it off. Next morning, I got him breakfast—coffee and an egg sandwich from the Quickmart down the road—gave him my usual speech about him sobering