Nothing Really Happened At All, Once You Think About It
Two men are on opposite sides of the bar. One of them appears taller than the other, but only because he is standing while the other sits on a barstool. The one that is seated removes his coat and scarf, draping them over the back of the seat. The rest of the bar is small, comfortable, and only inhabited by a few, heavily inebriated, regulars. There’s music playing, but it’s faded so far into the background that neither of the men take note of it. It’s a Wednesday night, and the clock behind the bar reads 10:30. It’s 10:42, and both of the men know this.
“Doesn’t look like a very busy night... how about a story, Sam?” the one seated asks with a smile, accepting the full glass wordlessly passed to him across the counter, sliding it across the stained wood onto a flimsy paper napkin that is already nearly soaked through with condensation.
“What kind of story are you looking for today? I’ve picked up a few good ones in the last week,” Sam pulls out a notebook from one of his pockets, and quickly flips to the page he’s looking for. “There’s the chiche mistaken identity romance, the barfight over an amatur musician’s… talents, the detective’s missing person case, and—obviously—the washed up wannabe writer’s pleas for someone to tell him a story so he doesn’t have to come up with anything himself. He’s always the most interesting, wants to hear the story told to him so he can let the booze mix with the story and create something that his readers will lap up in the morning.”
“While that last one sounds like tons of fun,” the writer says with a smile, pausing to take a sip, “what was that you mentioned about a missing person?”
The bartender nods, snaps closed the notebook, pours himself a glass of water, and begins to speak. “It was a few days ago, they came in. I figure one of them was a detective, but he might’ve been a police officer or something, I never asked, haven’t seen him here before or since. The other one—I’d seen her here before—was a musician, and we’ve chatted once or twice, and got on pretty well I think. She asked me if we would host her to perform or something. I told her we didn’t generally host events like that but… but I’m getting off topic. You’re supposed to warn me when I do that, Jimmy. Isn’t that the whole point of this?”
“No, the whole point of this is to give me ideas and you some time to vent, so your setting the scene works perfectly. Now carry on.”
The bartender paused for a moment, took a sip of his water, nodded, and continued. “So… so those two came over, settled in, and they were catching up, probably hadn’t seen each other in a while so they were talking about pretty much everything. At one point, I came over and they were talking about this case the detective had worked on, kinda cliche but it was one of those ‘the one that got away’ type things. I’m gonna change the names so you know, I don’t want to accidentally get this man in trouble, he seemed like he meant well, but he had already had a few good drinks and he might not’ve remembered to change the names himself, and I don’t want you recognizing anybody in the morning and offending them with your stories.
“So, this story he was telling was about an unsolved missing person case, where this young woman, I’m gonna call her Jane, disappeared. Her and her younger brother were set to inherit their father’s company, and his company made napkins or fancy plates or whatever—the kind of thing that you wouldn’t think is profitable but it turns out the people in charge of it have boatloads of cash. So the dad was getting on in years, and was prepared and everything to announce who was gonna get the company on the next monday. The rumors were that the sister was gonna get it, but—but now I’m getting some of these things out of order,” he paused, collecting his thoughts, and glanced all around the bar as though to make sure that nobody else needed him for anything, although anyone entering would have been obvious.
“The brother, I’m gonna say his name was… let's say Lukas, had invited his sister over for the weekend at his house, which was way out in the countryside—”
“Oh that’s just perfect! Middle of nowhere… really seems like you might have something good in this setting, Sammy,” Jimmy interrupted, his excitement clearly getting the better of him. Sam paused suddenly, and glared at Jimmy.
“Just Sam, if you don’t mind. I’d like to say we’re friends, but it’s still just Sam, Samuel if you really want to be formal. Anyway, they met up at this countryside house—or, you’re a writer, you would call this a lodge or something instead, right?” Jimmy nodded, and he continued. “So they’re at the lodge, they have dinner prepared by the chef that lives there, or that they had catering for the event, and over dinner they apparently had a nice cordial but not overly familiar conversation. Only thing slightly off that the detectives were able to figure out—I know I’m getting ahead of myself, you don’t know what the crime was, but I want to present the facts clearly—was that apparently Lukas seemed a little on edge throughout the meal, not snippy but… somehow nervous. So Lukas tried to explain this later by saying that they hadn’t seen each other in a while so it would be awkward, and they figured the staff was listening in so they decided not to talk about anything personal, and he said that he was nervous because he had recently quit smoking and his sister still did, and that the smell was putting him a bit on edge. Can’t really disprove that, as the facts that he quit and his sister hadn’t are sound, but she didn’t smoke in the dining room, they were both too well raised for that. But, her room did smell faintly of smoke, so the only place he really would’ve had that difficulty was if he were to go in there.”
“But if he went into her room, the residual smoke might end up being some manner of comfort,” the writer interjected. “If he were to have gone there before dinner, he probably would have been more relaxed.”
“Exactly. But I never said he went there before dinner. Now please shut up and let me finish this, then you can give your theories. The detective never solved this case, but I think I did, so I’m curious to see what you get out of it.”
“Wait if you—”
“Let me tell the story first, I’m sure you’ll get why by the end. So they chatted in the dining room at dinner, then both retired early. The sister said she was gonna read for a bit before going to bed, but her light stayed on until nearly midnight, and there were faint voices heard from her room in the night. Not agitated or loud, but just loud enough you can hear it in a nearly silent house past midnight. The brother didn’t go to bed that early, he says he went to catch up on some of his tv shows, he wasn’t seen for the rest of the night and was able to give details on the episodes that he watched, so he very well might’ve, but also that’s a pretty easy to fake alibi if he just watched the episodes in question a day earlier or later. But what happened that night was that the sister went missing.
“Staff called the cops in the morning, no sign of a struggle, but her window was left wide open and this happened in winter, so there’s no way she’d do that if she’s even remotely sane, and from all the evidence she was a very intelligent young woman. And I say young woman in that she was mid to late 20s, so not really the age that’s gonna decide to run away in the middle of the night, out of the blue. She just vanished and there was no sign of her, no footprints visible outside the window, although the snow wasn’t powder as much as slush, so it wouldn’t have been easy to figure out. So the cops investigated away and the only suspect that the staff could come up with was the brother. He was a fair bit calmer when they interrogated him, or calmer than he was described as being at dinner at least, but there was no real evidence that he had done anything, and he was of the opinion that his sister decided to leave. Cops were pretty suspicious of him, but their last bit of evidence that he might’ve done something wrong in order to get the company pretty much vanished when they managed to get hold of the father.
“It took a bit longer than expected to reach the father, mostly because nobody in the house seemed to want the detectives to talk to him. Pretty much all the staff wrote him off as an ass who didn’t get on well with Jane at all, and as a result the brother didn’t like him much either. But the detective eventually got him to sit down for an interview of sorts.
“So the father was an older man, pretty much senile, but they were able to get out of him that he inteded on giving the buisness to his ‘oldest son’ in the ceremony he had planned for the next week, so that was that. ‘I told my oldest son he was going to get the position’, I think were his exact words. The brother ended up getting the company, the sister was never found, and there was never really any proof that anything terrible had happened to her, so that was that. The detective seemed to feel horribly though, I guess he thought that something terrible must have happened to her.”
“And do you?” the author asked. His glass was empty in front of him, and he was staring at the bartender with rapt attention.
“Think something bad happened to her? No. At least, I don’t think anything bad happened that night. I can’t speak for anything that’s happened since.”
“Just one more detail, you don’t mind me clarifying this? I think it would make a pretty good story,” the bartender gestured for him to continue, so he went on with his final question. “Were there any other siblings?”
“No, just the older sister and the younger brother.”
“Ah, I see why you didn’t tell him then.”
“Yeah. I think she’ll be alright,” they both paused for a moment, the bartender took a sip of his nearly full cup of water, and the author looked down at his empty glass.
“Well, no need to be maudlin about it, you really kited me on with your promise of a missing person’s case, when nothing happened at all. Top off my glass, and I’ll tell you a quick story, I had an idea for a new book actually…”
“Doesn’t look like a very busy night... how about a story, Sam?” the one seated asks with a smile, accepting the full glass wordlessly passed to him across the counter, sliding it across the stained wood onto a flimsy paper napkin that is already nearly soaked through with condensation.
“What kind of story are you looking for today? I’ve picked up a few good ones in the last week,” Sam pulls out a notebook from one of his pockets, and quickly flips to the page he’s looking for. “There’s the chiche mistaken identity romance, the barfight over an amatur musician’s… talents, the detective’s missing person case, and—obviously—the washed up wannabe writer’s pleas for someone to tell him a story so he doesn’t have to come up with anything himself. He’s always the most interesting, wants to hear the story told to him so he can let the booze mix with the story and create something that his readers will lap up in the morning.”
“While that last one sounds like tons of fun,” the writer says with a smile, pausing to take a sip, “what was that you mentioned about a missing person?”
The bartender nods, snaps closed the notebook, pours himself a glass of water, and begins to speak. “It was a few days ago, they came in. I figure one of them was a detective, but he might’ve been a police officer or something, I never asked, haven’t seen him here before or since. The other one—I’d seen her here before—was a musician, and we’ve chatted once or twice, and got on pretty well I think. She asked me if we would host her to perform or something. I told her we didn’t generally host events like that but… but I’m getting off topic. You’re supposed to warn me when I do that, Jimmy. Isn’t that the whole point of this?”
“No, the whole point of this is to give me ideas and you some time to vent, so your setting the scene works perfectly. Now carry on.”
The bartender paused for a moment, took a sip of his water, nodded, and continued. “So… so those two came over, settled in, and they were catching up, probably hadn’t seen each other in a while so they were talking about pretty much everything. At one point, I came over and they were talking about this case the detective had worked on, kinda cliche but it was one of those ‘the one that got away’ type things. I’m gonna change the names so you know, I don’t want to accidentally get this man in trouble, he seemed like he meant well, but he had already had a few good drinks and he might not’ve remembered to change the names himself, and I don’t want you recognizing anybody in the morning and offending them with your stories.
“So, this story he was telling was about an unsolved missing person case, where this young woman, I’m gonna call her Jane, disappeared. Her and her younger brother were set to inherit their father’s company, and his company made napkins or fancy plates or whatever—the kind of thing that you wouldn’t think is profitable but it turns out the people in charge of it have boatloads of cash. So the dad was getting on in years, and was prepared and everything to announce who was gonna get the company on the next monday. The rumors were that the sister was gonna get it, but—but now I’m getting some of these things out of order,” he paused, collecting his thoughts, and glanced all around the bar as though to make sure that nobody else needed him for anything, although anyone entering would have been obvious.
“The brother, I’m gonna say his name was… let's say Lukas, had invited his sister over for the weekend at his house, which was way out in the countryside—”
“Oh that’s just perfect! Middle of nowhere… really seems like you might have something good in this setting, Sammy,” Jimmy interrupted, his excitement clearly getting the better of him. Sam paused suddenly, and glared at Jimmy.
“Just Sam, if you don’t mind. I’d like to say we’re friends, but it’s still just Sam, Samuel if you really want to be formal. Anyway, they met up at this countryside house—or, you’re a writer, you would call this a lodge or something instead, right?” Jimmy nodded, and he continued. “So they’re at the lodge, they have dinner prepared by the chef that lives there, or that they had catering for the event, and over dinner they apparently had a nice cordial but not overly familiar conversation. Only thing slightly off that the detectives were able to figure out—I know I’m getting ahead of myself, you don’t know what the crime was, but I want to present the facts clearly—was that apparently Lukas seemed a little on edge throughout the meal, not snippy but… somehow nervous. So Lukas tried to explain this later by saying that they hadn’t seen each other in a while so it would be awkward, and they figured the staff was listening in so they decided not to talk about anything personal, and he said that he was nervous because he had recently quit smoking and his sister still did, and that the smell was putting him a bit on edge. Can’t really disprove that, as the facts that he quit and his sister hadn’t are sound, but she didn’t smoke in the dining room, they were both too well raised for that. But, her room did smell faintly of smoke, so the only place he really would’ve had that difficulty was if he were to go in there.”
“But if he went into her room, the residual smoke might end up being some manner of comfort,” the writer interjected. “If he were to have gone there before dinner, he probably would have been more relaxed.”
“Exactly. But I never said he went there before dinner. Now please shut up and let me finish this, then you can give your theories. The detective never solved this case, but I think I did, so I’m curious to see what you get out of it.”
“Wait if you—”
“Let me tell the story first, I’m sure you’ll get why by the end. So they chatted in the dining room at dinner, then both retired early. The sister said she was gonna read for a bit before going to bed, but her light stayed on until nearly midnight, and there were faint voices heard from her room in the night. Not agitated or loud, but just loud enough you can hear it in a nearly silent house past midnight. The brother didn’t go to bed that early, he says he went to catch up on some of his tv shows, he wasn’t seen for the rest of the night and was able to give details on the episodes that he watched, so he very well might’ve, but also that’s a pretty easy to fake alibi if he just watched the episodes in question a day earlier or later. But what happened that night was that the sister went missing.
“Staff called the cops in the morning, no sign of a struggle, but her window was left wide open and this happened in winter, so there’s no way she’d do that if she’s even remotely sane, and from all the evidence she was a very intelligent young woman. And I say young woman in that she was mid to late 20s, so not really the age that’s gonna decide to run away in the middle of the night, out of the blue. She just vanished and there was no sign of her, no footprints visible outside the window, although the snow wasn’t powder as much as slush, so it wouldn’t have been easy to figure out. So the cops investigated away and the only suspect that the staff could come up with was the brother. He was a fair bit calmer when they interrogated him, or calmer than he was described as being at dinner at least, but there was no real evidence that he had done anything, and he was of the opinion that his sister decided to leave. Cops were pretty suspicious of him, but their last bit of evidence that he might’ve done something wrong in order to get the company pretty much vanished when they managed to get hold of the father.
“It took a bit longer than expected to reach the father, mostly because nobody in the house seemed to want the detectives to talk to him. Pretty much all the staff wrote him off as an ass who didn’t get on well with Jane at all, and as a result the brother didn’t like him much either. But the detective eventually got him to sit down for an interview of sorts.
“So the father was an older man, pretty much senile, but they were able to get out of him that he inteded on giving the buisness to his ‘oldest son’ in the ceremony he had planned for the next week, so that was that. ‘I told my oldest son he was going to get the position’, I think were his exact words. The brother ended up getting the company, the sister was never found, and there was never really any proof that anything terrible had happened to her, so that was that. The detective seemed to feel horribly though, I guess he thought that something terrible must have happened to her.”
“And do you?” the author asked. His glass was empty in front of him, and he was staring at the bartender with rapt attention.
“Think something bad happened to her? No. At least, I don’t think anything bad happened that night. I can’t speak for anything that’s happened since.”
“Just one more detail, you don’t mind me clarifying this? I think it would make a pretty good story,” the bartender gestured for him to continue, so he went on with his final question. “Were there any other siblings?”
“No, just the older sister and the younger brother.”
“Ah, I see why you didn’t tell him then.”
“Yeah. I think she’ll be alright,” they both paused for a moment, the bartender took a sip of his nearly full cup of water, and the author looked down at his empty glass.
“Well, no need to be maudlin about it, you really kited me on with your promise of a missing person’s case, when nothing happened at all. Top off my glass, and I’ll tell you a quick story, I had an idea for a new book actually…”
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