The Shattered Silence

Chapter One: A Fanatic Fan To describe Jeremy Banner as quiet or shy would be like referring to the Grand Canyon as a small gash in the Arizona desert, Mt. Everest a tiny hill, Death Valley a warm locale for a pleasant summer vacation with the kids. His lifelong silence was renowned worldwide in medical journals, a documented case of unexplainable muteness, genuine yet with no accepted assignable cause. Diagnoses throughout the years changed as regularly as spring fashions in Paris or Milan. When pastels were the popular color scheme, post-traumatic infant stress syndrome explained his unique condition. Hemlines receded scandalously high up the leg, he was now considered to be autistic; shoulders became bared, he was thought to have suffered from embryonic neurological damage; when pilgrim buckled shoes suddenly became all the rage, non-functioning cerebral linguistic processing emerged as the definable cause of his eternal silence. The list goes on and on: trace level heavy metal poisoning as an infant, an undetectable micro-tumor buried deep inside his brain, a genetic birth defect, an unreported traumatic brain injury. Like Dickens’s Marley being dead, Jeremy Banner was mute and that more than anything must be accepted. Perhaps he spoke in a past life, but Jeremy certainly did not speak in this one. Healthy at birth, he goo goo’d and ga ga’d like any normal newbie should. Right on schedule he reached out, crawled, and performed every milestone to his parents’ joy and relief. Somewhere between taking his first step and chomping his first crispy biscotti, something went horribly wrong for Jeremy Banner and was still very, very wrong nearly three decades later. Of no coincidence, generally believed by many of those who studied his case, was his mother walking out on the family two months before his first birthday. Julie Beach was only twenty-two years old when she gave birth to the boy, barely half the age of the father of her child. Her whirlwind erotic romance with the famous Seattle area mystery writer began to shake and rattle at her first missed menstrual cycle, bits of plaster chipped and fell from its ceiling as the former rock and roll groupie’s belly distended, and the whole house of cards caved in mercilessly as Jeremy shot out of her dilated birth canal into a cold, harsh world. The baby’s father, Brian Banner, had been minding his own business, cranking out best selling mystery novels and cruising through his early forties when his path crossed Julie’s. Fate tracked him down like a bounty hunter from Hell with a sack full of day of the week panties that were all labeled Monday. For at least half a decade, the star struck youngster Julie Beach had been in love with Dirk Tremain, the Seattle cop turned private investigator who lived and breathed in the thousands of pages of Brian’s literary work. As many readers had mistakenly assumed, Julie was certain that Dirk and Brian were one and the same. If she was in love with Dirk Tremain, then she was in love with Brian Banner. Her heart pounded when Dirk tracked down and handcuffed the murderer of a famous Puget Sound entrepreneur in the debut novel. She became anxiously aroused when Dirk fell in love and romanced Jessica Sanderson in the follow up story. When the couple married in the third book of the series, tears of joy trickled down a cheek of simmering jealousy. Having stumbled on Brian’s work after he had already produced nine novels, Julie compulsively read his published work in a manic summer of reading. She became deeply angered when Jessica was kidnapped in the fourth book, and devastated when the young bride was killed by her captors at the end of that novel. Yet everything happens for a reason she felt as she looked towards the future. Her heart went out to Dirk as he began his long, solo life in book number five and beyond. In the bed beside her, Julie reached out in the dark every night, lovingly stroking Dirk’s hair, comforting him far more passionately than Jessica ever could. When Dirk threw down his badge on Sergeant Smith’s desk, Julie cheered at the courage it must have required to take a stand on principle and leave the Seattle police force. In unwritten pages residing in her imagination, Julie gave Dirk the support and faith which he needed to make it through the early days of his private investigating business and the love and comfort necessary to heal the deep wounds from the loss of his bride. A secret love affair burned passionately between Julie and Dirk, invisibly hidden from the readers between the lines of text of the Dirk Tremain series. He chased the bad guys and solved the crimes during the day on printed pages and in unwritten fantasy, enjoyed secret love at night in Julie’s bedroom. Julie passed the time awaiting new Dirk Tremain books rereading the entire series over and over again. Newly published works were quickly consumed with relish. She began to pick up the secret messages which she alone was able to decode, conveyed ever so discretely to her by the author. At first it was simple things, Dirk’s deceased bride Jessica, and Julie, names both beginning with the letter J. Then more significant signals were uncovered. Eventually, it became clear to Julie that the author was calling out to her in subtle code buried deep inside his text. How special she was; the author had chosen her, over everyone. How foolish she was to have taken so long to discover this. The month after her twenty-first birthday, Julie cracked the most significant secret message to date. She highlighted every capital letter on the opening paragraph of the newest novel, and by taking some of them, rearranging the letters, and adding a few vowels here and there, she was able to spell out “come see me my darling”. Come see me? But where? How? When? Everything became clear when she was paging through the weekend section of the Friday Seattle Times that evening. Sunday, at the Seattle Convention Center, the Northwest Expo for Mystery Writers would be held. At 2:00 pm, there would be a book signing by none other than bestselling author Brian Banner. It was fate. His smile called out to her in the promo photograph announcing the event; his eyes locked on Julie’s as she gazed lovingly at his printed image. Julie took her place in a small line that had formed in front of the table bearing a promotional poster advertising Brian Banner’s latest novel of the Tremain series, In the Swing Zone. For this most special occasion, she wore a low cut form fitting floral print dress that not only flattered her nubile figure but gave her an appearance much older than her actual age. Carefully applied make up accentuated the inherent beauty of her face creating a cover girl reflection. Her favorite perfume had been liberally applied; the scent surrounding her was enrapturing. Ahead of her in line was a dozen or so women who looked like they could have been the executive committee of the Murder She Wrote fan club, patiently waiting for the famous author’s appearance. At precisely 2:00, Brian Banner entered the room, wearing a tweed sport jacket and displaying a broad smile accompanied by a beaming disposition. He took his place in a seat behind the signing table. Julie’s heart skipped a beat at the anticipation of their long destined meeting. Brian made small talk, signed books, and dispatched the elderly and middle aged fans ahead of Julie one by one. She seethed with jealousy when more than once, Brian fulfilled a request from a fan for a kiss on the cheek. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, her turn with him arrived. “Hello Brian, it’s me,” she said in a rehearsed deep husky voice, staring directly into his eyes. “Hello Julie,” he replied. Her never satiated mental illness was further engorged by the fact that he knew her by name, not realizing that she was wearing a Hello My Name Is sticker with her name filled in. “I want to thank you for everything you’ve given me,” she added, echoing w