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RP Logs! / Closure, Pt 1
« on: March 04, 2025, 11:53:22 am »
# Closure, pt 1
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## John LeTour / 2025-03-04 01:51:00 | 13268
*To the living, we owe respect; to the dead, we owe only the truth* - Voltaire
Home (L.A.)
"I just want some closure, that's all."
The woman sitting across from John at his kitchen table looked like she needed some closure, all right. She had the raccoon-eyed face of someone who only slept thanks to pills, and a voice ripped up with grief. She'd come to John by way of one of the few people in the department who did believe John had been raw-dealed, but wasn't going to stick their necks out too far over it. But they had stuck said neck out just far enough to toss John this bone: *There's a lady who is trying to find out if her husband ran off with someone or if he actually got put in the ground. It's not much but it'll get you working.*
*Yeah, give me her number.*
A couple of phone calls later, and now Denisha Thawne sits in John's apartment. She brought receipts: credit card statements showing her husband's Visa had been used a couple of times after he didn't come home, photos of the man (big guy, arms as big around as legs), some things she'd been texted possibly by mistake that had raised her suspicions.
"I'm going to start with some statistics," John says, "just to give you an idea of what we might be looking at. It's been said that in around one-quarter of all marriages, there's at least one discernible incident of infidelity. By contrast, the number of spouses in a marriage that go missing for no visible reason and are never seen again is ... maybe a fraction of a percent. In other words, it's far likelier he set things up in advance to leave. For all we know the card usage was a red herring. People who *want* to vanish don't use cards. So ... let's open with the assumption he's ghosted you for another woman, since there's already a lot to work with there."
"Yeah," the woman said, swallowing to try and clear her voice (and failing). "Yeah, there sure is."
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## John LeTour / 2025-03-04 02:01:33 | 13269
*To the living, we owe respect; to the dead, we owe only the truth* - Voltaire
Home (L.A.)
"This may be a lot to ask," John says, using his best *can you do something for me real quick?* "cop favor" voice, "but would it be possible to see your house and any of his things? There may be some more details among the stuff he left behind that might -- "
"If you think it'll help. Does it have to be now, though?... The place is a mess, and ... "
"I won't judge. I promise. I had a shovel to push everything into the closet here before you came by." His laugh is, thankfully, echoed by her. "It'll be *really* helpful, honestly. And ... to be super honest about it, if you tidy up, you might end up getting rid of something that matters."
She's still hesitant, but she does say yes, and she does let him follow her back to the house. Judging from the Acura she drives, and from the numbers on the card statements (both the available credit and the revolving balance), they weren't exactly hurting for money. And she made decent enough money on her own that even with him out of the picture she's still able to keep up payments on everything. He had been fired from his job at the custom-kitchen place after not showing up and not returning calls for a week.
Someone has to be either really disenchanted with their life to do this, John thinks, or really dead.
She did say she wanted closure. You give it to her even if she has to wash it down with more tears.
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## John LeTour / 2025-03-04 02:13:04 | 13272
*To the living, we owe respect; to the dead, we owe only the truth* - Voltaire
Home (L.A.)
The house isn't the pesthole John has been led to believe. Everything new; the only real signs of disarray are in the kitchen, where the stove top and surrounding counters show some grease splatter from a recent meal. The husband's man-cave is in a "bonus room" off the living room, with its own big-screen TV and PlayStation 5.
"He'd sit in there," Denisha says, "and I'd sit out here, and we'd hardly say ten words a night to each other. My *birthday* was two months back; he didn't even remember *that*. And then there was the *flowers* -- "
It's like a river's trickle that turns into a lava flow. John just lets her spit it all out -- all the ways he drifted away, all the things he neglected and then got angry with her for being reminded of, all the signs of a marriage with feet of clay (and ankles of straw).
**or at least that's what she says**
That's the worst part about cop life. You want to trust people, because it's easier to help people who can be trusted. When you can't trust them, they're just another *problem*. And one of the ways people deceive you is by larding you up with what *sounds* like the truth, and maybe is, but is just designed to get you to not look somewhere else.
Something behind and around all her words -- as far back as when she first started laying out her case to him -- has been eating at him. And what's weird is that it's eating at him in a way that reminds him of **the desert** -- not what happened there but how it felt. The way all that felt like he was looking into what's just behind everything when you tear it away.
**there's a good chance she's not telling me the whole truth**
No, more than a good chance; there's a big fat chance she's leaving something out of the picture entirely that I'm not supposed to see.
"Can you -- " John fights to sound unruffled by what his own deepest senses are telling him is wrong. " -- tell me what happened the last time you saw him? I know you said it was here in the house, but ... just run through it for me, here, so I can see it. If you know what I mean."
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## John LeTour / 2025-03-04 02:23:26 | 13273
*To the living, we owe respect; to the dead, we owe only the truth* - Voltaire
Home (L.A.)
"So, I came home -- and he was there, in that chair, like he always is, and -- "
Everything beyond that John hears only as a bunch of distant mouth-noises, like that teacher in the Charlie Brown TV cartoons. It's all blotted out by this *certainty* bubbling up from inside him, from the same place as all that desert ****:
**she's lying and you know it**
"She's lying and you know it," Petey Mavreedy says.
He's there and not there at the same time, somehow. John's hearing his words loud and clear, as if the man is standing behind him and speaking at the back of his neck. But there's no sign the woman sees or hears anything; why would she? Everything Petey is and comes from, everything John is drawing on now, is as removed from that woman's world as an ant on this world is from the surface of the moon.
John lets her finish her bullshit story, and gives her a practiced cop nod.
"What d'you think, man?" Petey "says". "You think she knows he bought it somewhere and is just looking to pin something on some chick he was dicking on the side? You think maybe *she* did *him* with some help and is throwing off the trail? You think maybe it gets worse, even?"
*Not now for god's sake--* John manages not to snarl that out loud.
"What I'm going to do next," John does say out loud, "is start with some other people your husband had contact with -- his employers, friends of his, that sort of thing -- and find what I can. Those charges on his card, I'm also going to -- "
"The credit card company already looked into that," she says a little too quickly.
"I can draw on different things than they can." He keeps his tone even.
"They don't even think that was him."
"Why don't they think that was him?"
"Because they said the -- the purchases aren't the kinds of things he normally used on that card. I just want you to know they looked into that, so maybe it's not that useful. That's all."
**bullshit detector goes to eleven**
*"They get stupider every year, don't they, John?"*
(Petey, my god, you *would* be laughing your ass off if you could see this for real.)
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## John LeTour / 2025-03-04 02:28:59 | 13274
*To the living, we owe respect; to the dead, we owe only the truth* - Voltaire
Home (L.A.)
There were more not-so-pleasant pleasantries, more promises from John that seemed to inspire more brushoffs than encouragement. At last John gets back in his Toyota with the weird little squeal that only manifests when backing up and heads home.
The phone rings the second John pulls out of the driveway. Petey. Of course.
*"You picked up on all that, didn't ya? You knew she was full of it. Maybe you didn't know what she really WAS full of, but you knew the odds weren't good that she was leveling. You saw all that, right?"*
"Is that part of this whole Tales From The Darkside journey thing too?"
*"One tiny little piece of it. Just a smidge. Juuuust a fraaaaction. But there's tons more. And it isn't all about guessing if someone's b.s.ing. But that's sure one useful bit of it, yeah?"*
"I'm still seeing where this thread goes, you know. I suspect I'm not getting more than my first payment. But I'm still following up."
I'm still following up, John thinks, because I just realized I'm like her in one respect.
I want closure.
----
## John LeTour / 2025-03-04 01:51:00 | 13268
*To the living, we owe respect; to the dead, we owe only the truth* - Voltaire
Home (L.A.)
"I just want some closure, that's all."
The woman sitting across from John at his kitchen table looked like she needed some closure, all right. She had the raccoon-eyed face of someone who only slept thanks to pills, and a voice ripped up with grief. She'd come to John by way of one of the few people in the department who did believe John had been raw-dealed, but wasn't going to stick their necks out too far over it. But they had stuck said neck out just far enough to toss John this bone: *There's a lady who is trying to find out if her husband ran off with someone or if he actually got put in the ground. It's not much but it'll get you working.*
*Yeah, give me her number.*
A couple of phone calls later, and now Denisha Thawne sits in John's apartment. She brought receipts: credit card statements showing her husband's Visa had been used a couple of times after he didn't come home, photos of the man (big guy, arms as big around as legs), some things she'd been texted possibly by mistake that had raised her suspicions.
"I'm going to start with some statistics," John says, "just to give you an idea of what we might be looking at. It's been said that in around one-quarter of all marriages, there's at least one discernible incident of infidelity. By contrast, the number of spouses in a marriage that go missing for no visible reason and are never seen again is ... maybe a fraction of a percent. In other words, it's far likelier he set things up in advance to leave. For all we know the card usage was a red herring. People who *want* to vanish don't use cards. So ... let's open with the assumption he's ghosted you for another woman, since there's already a lot to work with there."
"Yeah," the woman said, swallowing to try and clear her voice (and failing). "Yeah, there sure is."
----
## John LeTour / 2025-03-04 02:01:33 | 13269
*To the living, we owe respect; to the dead, we owe only the truth* - Voltaire
Home (L.A.)
"This may be a lot to ask," John says, using his best *can you do something for me real quick?* "cop favor" voice, "but would it be possible to see your house and any of his things? There may be some more details among the stuff he left behind that might -- "
"If you think it'll help. Does it have to be now, though?... The place is a mess, and ... "
"I won't judge. I promise. I had a shovel to push everything into the closet here before you came by." His laugh is, thankfully, echoed by her. "It'll be *really* helpful, honestly. And ... to be super honest about it, if you tidy up, you might end up getting rid of something that matters."
She's still hesitant, but she does say yes, and she does let him follow her back to the house. Judging from the Acura she drives, and from the numbers on the card statements (both the available credit and the revolving balance), they weren't exactly hurting for money. And she made decent enough money on her own that even with him out of the picture she's still able to keep up payments on everything. He had been fired from his job at the custom-kitchen place after not showing up and not returning calls for a week.
Someone has to be either really disenchanted with their life to do this, John thinks, or really dead.
She did say she wanted closure. You give it to her even if she has to wash it down with more tears.
----
## John LeTour / 2025-03-04 02:13:04 | 13272
*To the living, we owe respect; to the dead, we owe only the truth* - Voltaire
Home (L.A.)
The house isn't the pesthole John has been led to believe. Everything new; the only real signs of disarray are in the kitchen, where the stove top and surrounding counters show some grease splatter from a recent meal. The husband's man-cave is in a "bonus room" off the living room, with its own big-screen TV and PlayStation 5.
"He'd sit in there," Denisha says, "and I'd sit out here, and we'd hardly say ten words a night to each other. My *birthday* was two months back; he didn't even remember *that*. And then there was the *flowers* -- "
It's like a river's trickle that turns into a lava flow. John just lets her spit it all out -- all the ways he drifted away, all the things he neglected and then got angry with her for being reminded of, all the signs of a marriage with feet of clay (and ankles of straw).
**or at least that's what she says**
That's the worst part about cop life. You want to trust people, because it's easier to help people who can be trusted. When you can't trust them, they're just another *problem*. And one of the ways people deceive you is by larding you up with what *sounds* like the truth, and maybe is, but is just designed to get you to not look somewhere else.
Something behind and around all her words -- as far back as when she first started laying out her case to him -- has been eating at him. And what's weird is that it's eating at him in a way that reminds him of **the desert** -- not what happened there but how it felt. The way all that felt like he was looking into what's just behind everything when you tear it away.
**there's a good chance she's not telling me the whole truth**
No, more than a good chance; there's a big fat chance she's leaving something out of the picture entirely that I'm not supposed to see.
"Can you -- " John fights to sound unruffled by what his own deepest senses are telling him is wrong. " -- tell me what happened the last time you saw him? I know you said it was here in the house, but ... just run through it for me, here, so I can see it. If you know what I mean."
----
## John LeTour / 2025-03-04 02:23:26 | 13273
*To the living, we owe respect; to the dead, we owe only the truth* - Voltaire
Home (L.A.)
"So, I came home -- and he was there, in that chair, like he always is, and -- "
Everything beyond that John hears only as a bunch of distant mouth-noises, like that teacher in the Charlie Brown TV cartoons. It's all blotted out by this *certainty* bubbling up from inside him, from the same place as all that desert ****:
**she's lying and you know it**
"She's lying and you know it," Petey Mavreedy says.
He's there and not there at the same time, somehow. John's hearing his words loud and clear, as if the man is standing behind him and speaking at the back of his neck. But there's no sign the woman sees or hears anything; why would she? Everything Petey is and comes from, everything John is drawing on now, is as removed from that woman's world as an ant on this world is from the surface of the moon.
John lets her finish her bullshit story, and gives her a practiced cop nod.
"What d'you think, man?" Petey "says". "You think she knows he bought it somewhere and is just looking to pin something on some chick he was dicking on the side? You think maybe *she* did *him* with some help and is throwing off the trail? You think maybe it gets worse, even?"
*Not now for god's sake--* John manages not to snarl that out loud.
"What I'm going to do next," John does say out loud, "is start with some other people your husband had contact with -- his employers, friends of his, that sort of thing -- and find what I can. Those charges on his card, I'm also going to -- "
"The credit card company already looked into that," she says a little too quickly.
"I can draw on different things than they can." He keeps his tone even.
"They don't even think that was him."
"Why don't they think that was him?"
"Because they said the -- the purchases aren't the kinds of things he normally used on that card. I just want you to know they looked into that, so maybe it's not that useful. That's all."
**bullshit detector goes to eleven**
*"They get stupider every year, don't they, John?"*
(Petey, my god, you *would* be laughing your ass off if you could see this for real.)
----
## John LeTour / 2025-03-04 02:28:59 | 13274
*To the living, we owe respect; to the dead, we owe only the truth* - Voltaire
Home (L.A.)
There were more not-so-pleasant pleasantries, more promises from John that seemed to inspire more brushoffs than encouragement. At last John gets back in his Toyota with the weird little squeal that only manifests when backing up and heads home.
The phone rings the second John pulls out of the driveway. Petey. Of course.
*"You picked up on all that, didn't ya? You knew she was full of it. Maybe you didn't know what she really WAS full of, but you knew the odds weren't good that she was leveling. You saw all that, right?"*
"Is that part of this whole Tales From The Darkside journey thing too?"
*"One tiny little piece of it. Just a smidge. Juuuust a fraaaaction. But there's tons more. And it isn't all about guessing if someone's b.s.ing. But that's sure one useful bit of it, yeah?"*
"I'm still seeing where this thread goes, you know. I suspect I'm not getting more than my first payment. But I'm still following up."
I'm still following up, John thinks, because I just realized I'm like her in one respect.
I want closure.