Something Light and Soft
And in which Janelle explains to the officer that her husband never forgets his pain medication and that is why she is here looking worried.
Chapter Ten — Perry
The kayak stayed upright and afloat, but barely. Water sloshed around him like he was in a bathtub. Face cradled in his hands, Perry’s sobs echoed out into the night. When drained, he raised his head to look around, glad no one saw him bawling.
The rescue boat should be here. They were heading for him before he was hit by the ship. He looked around for the flashing red lights. Where the hell were they? He couldn’t get over the shock.
He had just been plowed over by a cargo ship.
Inky darkness surrounded him. City lights twinkled in the distance. He hurt all over but forced himself to scoot to the seat as his fingers checked for broken bones. He found a few cuts and bruises, but nothing appeared broken. The most painful thing was the blisters from the sunburn earlier in the day. It was a miracle he was still in one piece.
In the darkness, he couldn’t find his plasting bailing mug, so he began to bail out the boat with his hands, amazed that he was still afloat. Chilled in his wet clothes, he gave up and groped in the dark for anything that he might use as a blanket. He found nothing large enough to do any good, except for his floppy fishing hat, the cinch cord still around his neck. He put it on his head, thinking it might conserve a little heat.
Curious about which way he was drifting, he jerked at a strange noise to his left. The sound was at water level and growing closer by the second. It sounded like something large, like rocks, being dropped into the water off to his right.
Turtles?
He hoped to God it wasn’t a snake. When he was seven years old, he had fallen into an old dry well in the back corner of the corn field on their Mississippi farm. His older brother laughed and taunted him from above, refusing to help him climb out. When night came, he was still in the hole. No one came to find him, and he shook with terror as he woke the next morning, a big black garden snake wrapped around his skinny leg. He’d screamed so loud and for so long that his father came and dropped a rickety wooden ladder in the hole. His family teased him for months, and it took years before the nightmares stopped.
Perry shrieked as the boat slammed into something hard, something too big to be a snake. A shark? His bellows echoed in the darkness until he forced himself to be quiet. He couldn’t stop his body from trembling and his teeth from clattering. He clamped his jaws and tried not to move. A mosquito landed on his arm and pierced the skin. Without thinking, he slapped at it and then cringed at the noise.
Nothing moved.
He reached for the missing paddle with shaking hands to slap the water and scare whatever was in the marsh. His whispered howl left his mouth in exasperation. Still, nothing moved. The reeds shifted in the wind. Had he run aground and hit something in the dark? Struck land? The gnats and no-see-ums swarmed about his head, crawling into his ear canals and making him frantic. He put his hands over his ears and let out a wail.
A buoy clanged behind him, and he jumped. A flash of light hit his peripheral vision. He waited as light reflected again in the water in front of him. He checked left and right but couldn’t see any boats, and aside from the buzz of mosquitoes, he heard no motors. The light flashed again. His hopes sank. It was a lighthouse, but not the one on Sullivan’s Island. There were no marshes by the lighthouse on Sullivan’s.
Where was he?
Sleep would not come. The constant buzzing kept his nerves raw. He dared not think about snakes. He jumped at every noise. Did the cargo ship not give its coordinates? He hoped someone would find him sooner rather than later, wedged in the marsh. He could walk out of the marsh and get to safety if there was a little more light, but there was no moon. It couldn’t be that deep. Could it?
He needed his medicine and patted his wrist, checking for his watch that lit up in the dark. A jolt of horror hit him. It was gone. She is gonna kill me this time.
The engraved watch Janelle gave him for their twentieth anniversary was missing. A pang of sadness hit him. She had remained loyal to him through his physical problems, bastards at work calling him crazy, the surgeries, and all the damned expensive drugs. She made it through the psychological testing the doctors ordered when they couldn’t diagnose him. And after all that, she surprised him with the watch. She was someone he could count on.
Janelle was fifty-eight but still attractive. Better than his friend’s wives, of that he was certain. They had all gone too fat and were always complaining. As she started to gray, she went to the hairdresser. He knew she couldn’t wait to retire in eight months so they could take off together and travel on their own.
Or that’s what he had thought.
Once, they had talked about buying a Winnebago, their own traveling house. It had been a great idea—a tour of all the best US fishing holes—and he found the motorhome he wanted. His memories went back to that night at dinner. His excitement had turned to confusion from her shocked and angry expression.
“Is this a joke?” she’d asked. “I have zero intention of traveling anywhere, particularly if you plan to fish.” Her eyes bulged as she screamed at him. Spittle hit him along with her words. “I’m sick of traveling. You damn well know I’ve been in the air for twenty-five years.” Her fist slammed the table. “You know what? You can take your Winnebago and shove it.”
She had stomped out of the room, and even now, thinking about it made him livid.
It was his turn, dammit. He had always been the parent on call for their son when she was off flying to all those exotic places. He made sure all the school and sports events were covered. He was the one who suffered through the homework and the science projects. She never had to do anything. She was always off gallivanting around the world while he worked at home to keep things from falling apart.
Who was he kidding?
She wasn’t going anywhere with him or without him. She would stay at home and watch soap operas or whatever she did when she was alone. He slapped at a bug on his knee. She hated to fish. She wouldn’t cook them when he brought them home.
Well, hell.
He’d do what he wanted—fishing, beer, maybe a ball game now and again. Her life was her own as long as she cooked dinner. Perhaps the best thing would be to call it quits. She’d have to pay him a little alimony since he’d supported her and Brandon all these years. He needed a little more each month than his disability check would cover. Well, maybe more than a little, given the fishing gear he’d bought.
But she didn’t know about all that. And he damn sure wasn’t going to tell her.
A soft drone of helicopter rotors interrupted the silence. He scanned the city skyline and saw a moving searchlight cutting through the fog. It was coming toward him, then shifted away. He almost capsized the kayak as he waved his arms and yelled in the darkness. The helicopter turned back to the other island where he had begun. It was a long way. Expecting it to return, it banked to its left, rose higher, and turned off the searchlight. In the dark, the rotor faded away as the buoy clanged.
Were they going to leave him out here all night?
Chapter Eleven—Janelle
Janelle slammed the door to her Honda early the next morning. She would go straight to the police department rather than call 911. She wanted to discuss this with a person, not a voice on the telephone.
Still nursing a slow burn about the money, she wasn’t quite sure why she was doing this. He could hang for all she cared. Still, she needed to at least look concerned to others. Her freedom was at stake.
She drove down the tree-lined main street toward the business district and wished she didn’t have to leave. She liked it here, the peaceful little town, the wide beach perfect for long walks, and the friendly people. But Perry was here. It didn’t matter how wonderful the place was. He had ruined it.
The town was four blocks long, so Janelle had no problem finding the police department. The doorplate showed she was in the right place. She jerked open the door, ready to get this done. A uniformed officer was sitting at a desk behind the short counter. He lifted his head when she came in.
“Can I help you, ma’am?”
“Yes, I’m here to report a missing person—my husband.”
His name tag read ‘Jenkins.’ The officer rose from his rolling desk chair, grabbing a yellow legal pad, a pen, and another form. He appeared to be in his mid-forties, tall but heavy-set, and tired even though it was morning. He looked as if he’d worked the shift the night before.
“Ok, ma’am. I’m Officer Dan Jenkins, but we don’t consider someone missing until it has been at least twenty-four hours.” He had a thick southern drawl, and she had to focus on understanding him.
“You want me to wait, but I don’t think I can in his condition. This is serious. I need your help.” Janelle hoped her voice contained the correct level of concern. “Please.”
Jenkins’s skepticism was written across his face. “Can we start with your name, please?”
“Hoggue.” She spelled it. “H-O-G-G-U-E. My first name is Janelle. Do I need to spell that for you as well?”
“Yes, ma’am, if you wouldn’t mind. I will need your driver’s license if it’s easier for you.”
Janelle spelled her name while she rummaged through her purse and removed her wallet. Handing him her license, she waited as he wrote her old Ohio address and telephone number on the yellow pad and asked for her local address, confirming that both were the same for Perry.
“So Perry Hoggue is your husband?” Unconcerned, the man went through the motions.
“Yes, we’ve been married for over twenty-five years.” His notes in spider-like handwriting sprawled across the page.
“Do you have a recent photo of him?” he asked. “Maybe on your telephone?”
Janelle pulled out her cell phone and showed him a photo she had taken of Perry the week before on a carriage ride in Charleston. The image reflected how much her husband had hated every minute of that day. Jenkins took Perry’s physical description. Janelle guessed at his height and weight as Perry seemed to shrink in size while growing wider every day.
“Now, when did em…Mr. Hoggue go missing, uh, Mrs. Hoggue?” The officer seemed embarrassed to pronounce her last name.
“Please, call me Janelle.” She straightened and smiled at him. Her last name could revert to her maiden name with her upcoming freedom. Thank goodness.
He nodded. “OK, Janelle, give me the details, please.”
“He went fishing this morning after breakfast. It’s now almost midnight, and he isn’t back. I’ve tried calling him every fifteen minutes all day and left several voicemails. This isn’t like him. He would at least return my calls.” Janelle knew that wasn’t true, but she no longer cared. She hoped Perry had drowned, but she needed to play the concerned wife. It might matter down the road.
The officer was far from convinced that this was a problem. “Does he fish often?”
“Yes, he’d fish daily if possible, but he is in poor health. That’s why I’m here. He fishes a lot and often forgets to charge his phone. But he never forgets to take his pain medication. I found it on the kitchen counter this time. He’d have taken the medicine with him if he intended to be gone this long. That’s what worries me.”
“What is his medication for? Are we talking about a diabetic situation? Could he be unconscious?” The officer perked up.
“He’s never been diagnosed properly. It’s either an autoimmune disease or something rare. He’s in pain constantly. After this many hours without his pain medication, he would have difficulty walking.”
Jenkins’s brow scrunched into lines above his nose. “Are we talking about an OxyContin problem here?”
Alarmed, Janelle held up both hands, her palms toward him. “No, absolutely not. I’m not sure what medication he’s on, but I’m sure it’s not that.”
Jenkins shifted back in his seat. “Has he ever done this before?”
“Has he ever not called me? Yes. Has he stayed out late? Yes. But left for a long fishing trip without his medication? No. He knows he can’t fish if he is in that much pain.” Janelle was already tired of the questions. She should have called 911.
Jenkins continued with his list of questions. “Why else might he be out this late? Janelle, I don’t mean to be indelicate, but are you two on good terms?”
Janelle almost snorted with laughter. “If you mean do we fight, absolutely. We’ve been married for twenty-five years. If you ask if he has a girlfriend, no—his vice is fishing. He comes home day after day, sunburned and grouchy, stinking of fish and pluff mud. He can’t drink on his medication, and he can’t do much else.” She leaned forward and placed her hand on his arm. “You need to find him. He can’t swim, and I do not know how long a life vest will hold someone’s head out of the water.”
Jenkins said, “Before I go to the Coast Guard, I will need more detailed information about him, his boat, the exact time he left, and where you think he was headed, maybe what he was fishing for.”
When Janelle finished describing the kayak, Jenkins’s eyes were wide, his mouth open in a gape.
“Mrs. Hoggue—Janelle—you mean to tell me he got into this contraption today? This morning? Does he not check the weather with NOAA? The winds were gusting at thirty-five miles per hour.”
“He has a VHF radio, but whether he keeps the battery charged is another question. He’s not good at all about keeping things charged.”
“Well, if he went out in such a small boat this morning, we have a problem.” Jenkins rubbed the back of his neck as he hesitated. “Those things are made for fishing in calm waters, not ocean surf, not out in the Atlantic. Let me call the Coast Guard. Don’t you worry, Janelle. We’ll find him.”
A shiver ran down her back as Janelle realized Perry might be in serious trouble. He never noticed things like wind, waves, or ocean currents. He only wanted to fish. It was someone else’s job to check all that out. Her concern turned from anger to outright hatred. She hoped he wouldn’t be found. It would make her life so much easier.