The ones that get away

"You're in late."

"Can't sleep."

The Waffle House is empty but for Catherine, John, and the cook at the grill.

"What can I get you?"

"Decaf? And maybe some browns. With ham and tomatoes," he says, refusing to use the Waffle House scattered, splattered, whatever code for hash browns.

"'kay," she says and smiles.

She comes back and pours his coffee after calling his order to the cook. Then she pours herself a cup and sits with him.

"You okay?" she asks.

"More or less," he answers, and sips at the coffee.

"Which one?"

He smiles. "Less, I guess. I can't sleep."

"Girl troubles?"

"No. Brain troubles. Can't stop thinking. That gets my heart racing. That makes me overheat, which means I can't sleep. No sense just laying there sweating."

"Well, whatcha thinkin' about, Johnny?"

"Today. December tenth. Seven years ago today, I was sitting in a courthouse, reading old records on film. Piece of crap case. I had a current case on the guy. He'd tried to kill his wife, then got divorced, and then tried to kill his girlfriend, almost the exact same circumstances. He'd get jealous, stressed, angry, and try to kill whoever was around. But the rest of the time he was Mister Mild. The courts had just slapped him on the wrists."

"Anybody I know?"

"No, I don't think so. I wanted to violate him back, force the judge to make him do some time. He was bound to kill somebody sometime, if he ever ended up dating or marrying somebody small enough."

"Little fella?"

"Yeah. Little, pathetic. Lifetime alcoholic."

"You sure it's nobody I know?"

He laughs. "So I'd dug back on him. Turned out he was referenced in an old missing persons case. He'd been married five times. One of these earlier wives had a son when they married."

He drinks some more coffee. "A five-year-old son. Money's tight. Times are tough. Marriage gets stressful."

He looks her in the eyes like he's asking her for help.

"And then the son disappears. No ransom notes, no witnesses. Just poof-- no more little boy."

She makes a sad face. "That's awful."

"They do newspaper articles, they offer what little reward they can afford, nothing ever comes of it. The kid never shows up again."

"They thought your guy did it?"

"Nope. He was never a suspect. Combination of bad detective work and his sometimes-mild manners."

He holds the hot coffee cup in his hands, warming them.

"But I didn't think he did that one, either. Until I was looking at that old film. There was a copy of a newspaper article in there. Local paper interviewed the mother. They had a picture. She was sitting on the couch for the interview. My guy wasn't beside her. He was behind the couch. A few feet behind the couch, with his back against the wall and his arms folded over his chest.

"Not beside her. Not holding her hand, not right behind the couch with a hand on her shoulder. And the look on his face. That was guilt, not grief."

They both drink some more coffee.

"It fit him like a glove," he says. "New husband, young wife. He gets jealous, just like he'd always do later. But it's not another man. It's the kid. It's the love she has for the kid. He can never compete with that.

"And right when I see him in this picture, right when it crashes in on me that he's the one who got rid of the kid, my cell phone rings. And I answer it, and it's my mother telling me that my brother's first child has just been born. My niece, eventually my goddaughter."

"So now, every year when we celebrate her birthday, I sing the song and cheer when she blows out the candles, and all the while I'm really thinking about that little boy who would be just a few years younger than me if he was still alive. I wonder what he did with him, and if he even remembers doing it."

His browns come up, and Catherine goes to pick them up. She deposits them on the table with a bottle of Tabasco and pats his hand.

"At least you got him, didn't you?"

"No," he says. "No, I did not."