Page 79 of The Invisible Roommate

“What is all this?” Sergeant Adye asked.

“I put my findings into a song.” Behind him, Gerard tapped out the rhythm with his foot, counted them in. “Let me sing it, and then I’ll go with you quietly. Fair?”

The sergeant nodded. “Fair.”

Emory cleared his throat, deciding to let these people see behind the curtain. “This one’s called ‘The Invisibility Song.’” He gave the islanders a tepid smile. “I hope you like it.”

StepFive

Analyze Your Data

The results support the hypothesis.

37Emory

Waking up in a dank jail cell on November 1 was nothing to be happy about. Yet Emory smiled as he lay on the flat mattress with the gross-smelling pillow under his head.

Smidges of sunlight broke in through the small barred window above him. His visible hands swam through the golden rays. They were miraculous, these strips of yellow light beamed down from space, especially after the previous night’s storm, when it almost seemed like the wind would eternally howl and the sky would always be coated in clouds.

Each beat of his heart echoed love against the gray cinder block walls. In the distance, the morning calls of the birds mixed with islanders greeting each other. The energy of the previous night continued to buzz through his veins. Unbelievably, he’d sung an original song that he’d helped write with Gerard Wells. The girls in his undergraduate dorm with those loudspeakers and shiny posters on their walls would’ve never believed him. He found that he really didn’t care one way or the other.

He might not have performed a giant I-told-you-so for a room full of his peers, but the song still meant something, especially when one of the children yelled, “Encore!” as soon as they had finished. A bunch of the other children joined in the chant. Sergeant Adye—more concerned about a sugar-fueled child uprising than Emory evading arrest—let it happen. The choir even joined in on the chorus with surprising harmonies that made the song fuller.

Gerard had been right about his formula. The song was an earworm, one you could easily learn in a single listen. His discovery and Gerard’s expertise made something Sergeant Adye hummed from his nearby desk that morning between sips of his coffee, which smelled strong.

“You are up,” said Sergeant Adye when he spun around in his chair. Keys jangled against his wide hip as he stood. “Breakfast should be to you soon, but do you want to make your phone call now?” He pulled an ancient-looking rotary phone off the desk and nearly spilled his coffee cup with the curly, unwieldy cord.

Excited at first, Emory wanted to call Gerard and hear his voice, but then he remembered Gerard didn’t have a phone, and he doubted the sergeant would go all the way to Regina’s to retrieve his walkie-talkie. “No, thank you. I’m okay.”

“I know it’s a fossil, but it’ll call the mainland, too, you know?”

Emory tensed. “Of course, but still, I’m okay.”

“I can get you a phone book if you need…”

Ordinarily, Emory would bark at a stranger’s irksome insistence rather than confess a painful truth, but he decided to be vulnerable. “It’s not the numbers I don’t know. It’s the people. I don’t know anybody that would need to or even care to know where I am.”

The sergeant only gave a pitying look in response.

Emory tried to lighten the mood. “I think everybody here on the island knows where I’m at this morning. No sense waking anyone up after such a late night. I heard there was a madman running around.”

With the barest of smiles and the most half-hearted chuckle, Sergeant Adye said, “That’s awfully kind of you.”

A little while later, Sergeant Adye came by with a tray that he slid through a slat in the barred door. On it was oatmeal, an apple, and a carton of milk. He felt like he was in the elementary school lunch line instead of a jail cell awaiting judgment for theft and joyriding and maybe public indecency. The sergeant was whistling the melody of Emory’s song again, which pleased him. “You got a visitor.”

Expecting Gerard, Emory was surprised by the appearance of a man in his mid-sixties wearing a checkered button-down, a windbreaker, and a wide, charming smile. That smile had a familiarity to it that Emory couldn’t put his finger on.

Sergeant Adye stepped out, presumably to give Emory and the man some privacy.

The man sat on the wobbly chair stationed before his cell. “Hello, Emory. You don’t know me, but my name is Dr. Humphrey Cuss. I believe you met my nephew.”

The floor of the jail cell felt like it tilted under Emory. Dr. Cuss’s arrival could only mean that proper criminal charges were being brought against him for his alleged theft and, worse yet, Anderson had likely succeeded in decoding his research.

“I did,” Emory said, sagging down onto the bed and nearly spilling his breakfast all over himself. Hungry despite his nervous stomach, he bit into the apple and chewed to try and quell himself, but its slightly bitter taste did the opposite.

“Well…” Dr. Cuss took a painful, drawn-out pause as if he were about to deliver a terminal diagnosis. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“What do you mean?” Emory asked, befuddled.