Glenbrook Chronicles: I Got No Answers: Christmas 1985

John lounged in the passenger seat of his Mother’s Black Dodge Power Wagon, they were going nowhere, sitting in the lot at Boston Logan International Airport, by the Hertz rental car officer, on a cold New England December morning. Eagerly awaiting the arrival of Grandpa Bob, his Mother’s father and Chuck his older sister. John hadn’t seen Sam, his Mum this happy since they’d gotten to America, well outside of her work at Brown University. Finally taking time to focus on her career made her somewhat happy. It was being at home that was the issue. The fights were often and always the same about the future, and where they going to stay here in America. Sam was on track for tenure with her job, and Jack very rarely spoke about his work, now. He was a changed man since arriving at the Glenbrook Loop he had become, serious, and insular he had quickly begun neglecting his family and spousal commitments. There was no possible way Bob Collins wasn’t going to call his father out about the way he was acting. The fifth of November might be in the past but there were going to be fireworks here this Christmas.

At precisely the required time, for customs, passport control and baggage claim, his Mother fired up the Power wagon, and swung the huge American truck, around to the exit of the busy international terminal, decorated with candy canes, Snowmen, Santas, garlands and Christmas trees.

As they pulled up a somewhat rotund man of average height in his middle sixties appeared with a suitcase and a briefcase in one hand, he wore a brown shearling coat and a black and white football scarf, a cord flat cap upon his head. The ensemble made him look like a football manager. Immediately behind him, dressed pretty much as John was leather on leather, wearing a flying cap that made her look like Amy Johnson or Amelia Airheart, was his sister. She had packed light a heavy rucksack carryon and a small round battered leather carry case intended for drums covered in stickers. Including that of her own band The Tuscaderoes.

Grandpa gave one of his trademark Paddington Bear Stares to the airport security officer on parking duty who was keeping one eye on his wristwatch and the other on his ticket book. With what you might call intent. It was the busy season here at the airport and people overstaying in the red zone would be finned, or towed. Sam ignoring this leapt down from the cab to hug her father.

“Ooh has his nibs not dignified us with his presence? Eeh only ‘az one daughter.”

Bob uttered in a low tone, his heavy Geordie accent incomprehensible to Americans

“Come on Dad,”

Sam rolled her eyes. Her Father had never been capable of keeping his opinions to himself. Couldn’t he just be glad to see her?

“It’s good to see you, love”

They hugged

“Arteet lad, you’ve shot up like weed”

Bob examined his youngest grandchild who seemed to have grown at least a foot in the past few months. He resisted the urge to ruffle the lad's hair, as laden with products as it always was.

“Should have bought him a big stout stick for Christmas, to keep all the girls off him.”

Chuck punched him on one of his broadening shoulders, as he had begun to fill out the Leather jacket that he’s sworn he’d grow into as a beanpole of a kid of thirteen.

“Come on then, let’s see what these bloody Yanks think a luxury motor is.”

Bob had insisted he rent a car and stay in a hotel. The Usher House Resort and Hotel, a few miles beyond the Glenbrook city limits.

They all piled into the Hertz reception decorated in gaudy corporate yellow, with the addition of seasonal decor, they were plied with coffee and festive doughnuts, in the shapes of Christmas trees. The staff immediately recognised the Englishman with the very specific car requirements from the telephone. Before Bob even introduced himself.

“Brand new, straight from the dealership Mister Collins, the Bentley Turbo R. A Rolls Royce for people who want to drive it.”

The agent exuded confidence, with a certain side of smarm. Which had no effect on Grandpa Bob. Like water off a duck's back, he’d say.

Bob nodded, seemingly satisfied.

“You’ve sold it to me, maybe you should work for Bently, not Hertz.”

He commented upon signing the rental agreement, getting his ID and credit card copied, and signing the documents with a flourish. As if to prove to his one and only daughter that he was capable of saying unwarranted nice things.

“Chuck, driving licence.Pet.”

He called over his shoulder, and Charlotte produced her own paper driving licence.
Barley a raised eyebrow from the agent. If this odd English fellow wanted to cover his granddaughter to drive the most expensive car on their lot, that was between him and his chequing account, and their insurers.

A little while later, Chuck dutifully loaded the cases from the truck into the cavernous boot of the understated black Bently. Probably one of the first in the entire country John expected. He hadn’t quite managed to trade his birthday money up into a running car that he could lend to his Grandfather. Not yet. He’d impress him one day with his mechanical skills and business nous. One day. Bob did think his grandchildren were a chip off the old block.

John hopped back into his mother’s truck, and with their family, in the rearview, they slowly headed to the Massachusetts Turnpike away from Boston in a southerly direction towards Providence and eventually, Glenbrook. He wondered what his sister’s honed investigative mind would make of the town.

After the hour's drive, they arrived at the Penobscott property, no sign of his Father's Jaguar XJ-S where it should be under the carport. Of course, he was probably laying low at work for fear that Bob would give him a stern talking too. He was already on thin ice for not making the drive out to the airport. Not for Bob’s benefit but for Chuck's. Apparently, his vow to always be there for her only extended to when she was in a hospital in a critical condition.

Not long after Grandpa Bob had his feet up and had managed to take a brief restorative siesta behind the business section of The Washington Post. His quiet snoring and the ticking of the antique grandfather clock filled the house. It was odd having them here in a home that felt so temporary. It was owned by their father’s work and was primed as a site for expansion.

“So what’s new? I take it the bodies haven’t started piling up yet?”

Chuck asked in a conspiratorial low tone her figures arched below her chin as she reclined in the Eames lounge chair in the corner of his bedroom

“Nothing new, nothing I can confirm, The same low level of weird that always happens here. Real haunted houses, cursed carnivals and basements full of vampires, or secret science labs.”

John leaned against the dresser by the door. Keeping an ear out for his mother's footsteps in the downstairs hall or on the stairs, or any change in their grandfather's snoring.

“Then we take it back to the earliest documented event.”

Chuck continued rationally

“Well in the summer, some friends of mine went to that Carnival that no one else remembers. My buddy Shane, Shane Hughes has lived here all his life, he might know more.”

Then John had one of those Sherlock Holmes Eureka moments

“Last March, Shane’s little sister Lisa, she fell into a coma above the main particle accelerator track.”

John jumped to stand bolt upright. Almost knocking the glass container full of combs and barricade off the dresser.

There was a latent pause, between the two of them, no one had been altered by the noise.

“Well, I’d like to talk to him. Where does he live? Can you call him to meet us somewhere we can talk?”

John shook his head

“He’s been camped out with Lisa over at New Arkham Hospital since the end of the school year.”

The last place in or around Glenbrook he wanted to take Chuck to was a hospital. She’d spent enough of her life in hospitals. Enough for the rest of her life some would say.

“Well, I have to go and see him, come on keys … let's go”

Chuck moved to stand as they see a car’s headlights as a vehicle pulled onto the forecourt down the hill below the house.

“Dad, we need to go and play familial UN Peacekeepers.“

John nodded

“We’ll try and get away another day”

He agreed. Chuck grabbed a fresh comb out of the blue glass container of barcode and checked her hair in the mirror. They might be the UN but at least they didn’t need to wear the lame white helmets.
They headed downstairs to ensure a healthy demilitarised zone was maintained between breakaway state Dadistan and the magnificent military might of the Empire of Bob.

After the cold war of a Collins Numan family dinner. Bob made a fighting retreat and elected to leave for his hotel. Not so early that it seemed like he didn’t want to be there. Leaving an odd sense of a ceasefire around the old house. Chuck and John concocted a plan to take advantage of the mild winter and take a ride out to the Rhode Ireland State Police Headquarters in North Scituate so that Chuck could see what passed for their Black Museum, before it closed for the Christmas Vacation. No one was going to ask too many questions about Chuck's morbid curiosity, at least not over the dinner table. Also New Arkham Hospital’s specialist Pediatric Coma Unit wasn’t very far out of the way.

Sam could be convinced to lend her only daughter her fifties Triumph Thunderbird. Sam openly admitted her bike could do with being ridden more and kept under a cover in one of the auxiliary garages on the property less. Mum admitted to being more of a fair-weather rider these days. Not so much back in the sixties before Chuck was born. Sam would feel more inspired to get back in the saddle if the whole family were here to go on rides with her. That was the dream at least. Sam held back a quiet longing for them to be together in a manner that they never really had been. She had this holiday, and that would probably be as long as that dream survived. If her Father and her Husband didn’t manage to ruin it, with their petty bickering.

It took the rest of the weekend and a few days afterwards to pry Chuck from the family. To take the ride out to New Arkham General Hospital. Sam had a full day of last-minute errands to run. Jack had made excuses to go to the facility, and Bob had volunteered to aid his only daughter. While getting a feel for this quaint small New England hamlet. Bob’s unique personality was bound to make an impression upon the locals. They’d agreed to all meet up for a late lunch, in town, well everyone but Jack had. That was of no surprise.

Chuck and John left the elevator and walked on to the Pediatric Coma Unit, at just before seven forty-five am. Shift change time. A tired-looking nurse ushered them into Lucy Hughes's private room. On the provisor that they were delivering essentials to Shane. The room was cheerily decorated as paediatric hospital rooms tended to be. Murals and all the colours of the rainbow. It still looked to Chuck to be indistinguishable from any of the hospitals she’d spent much of her girlhood in. Apart from the plug sockets, it could have been The University Hospital of Coventry, Great Ormond Street or The Portland. Where Chuck had her final Heart Surgery.

Chuck removed her gloves and took a breath to compose herself, this was only noticeable to John. She paced her helmet down wordlessly, placing her leather document case next to it on one of the small tray tables. Shane saw none of this as he was spark out in a reclining chair at his sister’s bedside. An open book still close to hand.

John put down a grease-stained brown paper bag, stamped with the logo of a local diner, full of styrofoam containers.

“Hey again Lisa, It’s John”

John spoke softly

“This is my sister Chuck, I told you about her, I hope she can work out what happened to you. Work out a way to get you back.”

Chuck said Hi and sounded a little distant. Then shifted into business mode, immediately speed-reading through Lisa’s medical notes as casually as possible. Producing a tiny camera and taking photos of the chart. If Chuck had fully given in to her instincts she would be wearing a white coat and playing the role of a concerned and eager medical student. As the staff had seen her brother on multiple occasions, and might notice the family resemblance this old standard was unfortunately out. She had to be herself for better or worse.

“Wake up champ, visitors.”

Shane awoke with a start

“John … what are you doing here?”

Shane checked his watch and looked puzzled, not used to such an early visit from his new companion. He had found John in here often late in the evening reading to Lisa or talking to her. John would swear that he just stopping in after helping out with the twilight repair shifts down in the Ambulance Garage.

“Slumming it as a breakfast delivery guy, you look like shit”

John offered Shane a cup of coffee from the bag.

“Weapons-grade, far better than hospital slop. Had to get a licence for it at City Hall”

John assured in his typical never serious jovial manner.

Shane opened his eyes winder evacuating the sleep from them, and noticed Chuck on the other side of the room. Being casual. Naturally, on the scant occasions, Chuck had been mentioned John hadn’t described his sister as Joan Jett levels of stunning.

“Oh, you must be Charlotte?”

He asked and she nodded

“People call me Chuck. At home, I’m a Licensed Private Enquiry Agent.”

Chuck was three, almost four years older than John. Shane mused it seemed like quite an achievement.

“Johnny has asked me to look into the curious goings on around town, and how they link to The Loop, LeBail and O’Rouke.”

Shane made a face of disdain when LeBail’s name was mentioned.

“So after you eat, I’d like to ask you a few questions. It’s a technique called a Cognitive Interview. So I might ask some odd questions that they don’t ask on Hill Street Blues. If it’s okay I’ll record it for my own records.”

Chuck removed a Sony Pressman, from her inside jacket pocket. It was like a Walkman's bigger older brother and it could record as well as play on ordinary easily available compact cassette tapes. She then tucked it away until it was required again.

John offered his friend the large styrofoam container with a set of British Military stamped cutlery in a slide that doubled as a can opener on top. The container opened presenting still steaming eggs, bacon, sausages, Boston Baked Beans, Hash browns with a side of toast on top of pancakes thick enough to be used as clay pigeon targets.

Shane ate, leaving the Numans to talk with Lisa, well as much as you could continue a conversation with someone who couldn’t reply. They weren’t like a lot of siblings they seemed to wordlessly agree with each other on a number of subjects and conceded to the other on subjects they had greater experience or expertise in.

Eventually, Shane indicated that he was ready for questions after one of the junior doctors came in on morning rounds to check on Lisa’s vitals. None family members were asked to wait outside. Eventually, they returned and as they would be undisturbed for the foreseeable future Chuck could ask her questions.

“So Shane I want to as you a couple of questions about Glenbrook, and about Lisa’s accident, if you don’t want to talk about any particular subject or event let me know, we can take a break or move on.”

Shane agreed

“If you think it might help at all.”

John stayed strangely quiet. Letting his sister take the lead.

“Human memory is a funny old thing, so there are some new techniques Developed by Elizabeth Loftus to try and shake loose anything traditional lines of questioning might overlook. So if you can tell me everything, and leave out no details. I hope we might find something.”

Shane took it all in, he hadn’t really been that well versed in Criminology or the Psychology of memory they had a tendency to simplify that for the reader's benefit in a lot of the mysteries he read, so this was at the very least interesting.

Chuck asked her questions and Shane took his mind back to those fateful days that were the worst in his young life. The day his Father left and the day of Lisa’s accident. He answered all of Chuck's questions as openly and honestly as he could. She was easy to talk to. He just hoped she could provide some insight as to what she thought was going on here.

Little did Shane know that his friend's sister had been on this case for some five years now. Since the events of her own Surgery in nineteen eighty. But that was her story and this was his and Lisa’s. Chuck turned her razor-sharp intellect to the task at hand listened carefully and she took infrequent specific notes.