The Four Before Me

by E H Night

  She waved again and Tiffany nodded before returning her attention back to the magazine in her lap. The sun beamed across Alice’s skin, warming it slightly as she walked home. The breeze blew through her hair, and she felt like she was in one of those cheesy shampoo commercials for a moment — the ones where the women always had effortlessly fluffy hair and flawless sun-kissed complexions. She grinned at the thought.

  She walked in through her front door and sat her purse down in the kitchen, as usual. The back door was shut and had a brand new deadbolt lock installed. Detective Darrow must have spent a decent amount of time working on it, making sure that there wouldn’t be anymore issues from then on. A little note had been left taped next to the knob, along with a new key.

  Fixed the lock. Give me a call if you need anything else.

  -- Blake Darrow

  She grabbed the key and added it to the others on her key-ring, but left the note alone. Her eyes wandered around the kitchen and she took notice of how nicely it had been cleaned. It was as if nothing gross had happened at all. Mixed with the scent of lemon cleaning supplies, she picked up on the smell of laundry detergent. She walked down the basement stairs, following her nose. On the laundry table, her clothes from the day before, along with several towels, sat folded and clean.

  “Holy cow. He cleaned everything! Well, almost.”

  Her eyes wandered back over to the box. The photos were still on the floor where they’d fallen the day before. She crept next to them and stacked everything together nicely. The box seemed even more inviting than before, and her curiosity was in full-force. She knelt down beside the box and started rummaging through the various trinkets, knickknacks, and other things. She picked up a yellow bow and twirled it around in her fingers, admiring it.

  At the very bottom of the box, the heaviest item rested. It was a portable tape recorder, and a nice one too! Alice lifted it out and opened the tape deck. A cassette was still inside. She closed it, and pressed the arrows to rewind it to the beginning, anxious and excited to see what was recorded. The batteries were dead, but a cord dangled from the back. Without wasting another moment, she shoved the yellow bow in her pocket, and ran upstairs with the tape recorder.

  She plugged it in one of the kitchen outlets and heard the tape whirring once she’d hit the button to rewind it again. It came to a stop, and she pressed play.

  At first, there was static, and then some shuffling noises, as if someone’s hands had been messing around with the microphone area. A few seconds of complete silence followed, but then it was interrupted by a voice.

  “Sarah Noe, here. The date is November 17th, 1987. I’ll be singing my favorite song for you today.”

  Alice listened while Sarah introduced herself to an imaginary audience. She listened even more intently when the narration turned into song. She could tell that Sarah was just being goofy when she had recorded this, but it still felt nice to hear her happy and singing.

  A loud thud, like a door slamming, came from the speaker, and Sarah’s singing came to an abrupt stop. “What are you doing in here?” Sarah’s voice had said, with anxiety in her tone. “I told you to stay out of my room.”

  A male voice replied to her. “I — I didn’t mean to...”

  Shuffling and footsteps could be heard, and then the sound of a door slamming. Sarah sighed into the microphone, and then the tape went completely silent.

  Alice fast forwarded to try to find more audio, but that was all that had been recorded. While it seemed like nothing, it still felt like something important. She unplugged the tape recorder and took it to her bedroom, figuring that it would be safer to keep it in her closet with her own personal belongings than to leave it alone in the basement.

  “I’ll bring the other things up here, too,” she thought. “They had been important to her at some point. I might as well take care of them in case she comes back.”

  Chapter 11

  “Moonlighting”

  The rest of Alice’s day off work was relaxing — something that was very much needed given all of life’s changes for her as of late. A lot of her time had been spent flipping through the different TV channels, or snacking on things that she probably shouldn’t have been eating in such large quantities, like candies, pastries, and even more takeout. Life had been so exhausting in those recent weeks, despite the transfer to a slower-paced environment. She wondered if her existence had always been so stressful, or if the chaos of the city had just made it all seem like nothing at the time, in comparison.

  But no, that couldn’t have been the case — at least not in entirety. While people went missing in the city too, the circumstances were definitely very different. Cities like Parkington were large and full of many people. People came and went all the time in places like that. Wintersburg, however, was a tiny blister of people who rarely multiplied, and who rarely died from anything other than old age, aside from the occasional car crash. When something was amiss, the problem was usually larger than their entire town.

  Stress like this was new for her. Not only had all of these women been going missing from the narrow streets that she walked along daily — not only did she share a strong resemblance to those women — but she was also living in the house of the most recent possible victim. And, to make matters even worse, no one really had a clue as to why any of it was happening. The cops didn’t have enough tips or evidence to connect any of the women to each other, so everything was at a standstill until something else happened. The whole thing was pretty much paused unless another body turned up, or even worse — until another woman happened to vanish.

  That was more than enough to turn a person into an anxious mess.

  Alice licked the grease from her fingertips and stepped into the kitchen. Detective Darrow had crossed her mind a few times, and she had been thinking of different ways to thank him for all of his help. She was still absolutely riddled with embarrassment, but she owed it to him to at least call and express some kind of gratitude for his assistance. There weren’t many people in the world who’d calmly take care of a person like that. It takes a special kind of heart.

  She reached for the phone and punched in his number. By now, it had become part of her memory, but she still kept it written down, just in case. The phone rang once, and then again.

  Detective Darrow’s voice came over the line.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey Blake. It’s Alice.”

  “Oh hey Alice! How are you feeling? Did you get the key I left?”

  She twirled the phone cord like a middle school girl who was talking nervously with her crush. “Better now, and yep! I got it. Thanks so much for doing all that by the way. You really didn’t need to —”

  “Someone had to fix it properly. I really didn’t mind.”

  “Not the lock — well yeah, that too! I mean, thanks for cleaning everything, and for doing the laundry. You really helped out a lot.”

  “It was no problem. A little puke never hurt anyone. Besides, it was my day off anyway. I get bored sitting at home doing nothing on the weekends.”

  “Well, maybe we could go out next Saturday?” she asked.

  “Oh, really?” he said, with surprise in his voice. “That’d be nice. Where were you thinking of going?”

  “Actually, I’ve been wanting to check out Kirt’s Pub for a while. I’ve been hearing a lot about the place from the ladies at the salon, and it seems like several of the missing girls used to hang out there a lot.”

  “So, you’re trying to investigate, then?” his tone became more serious and inquisitive.

  “I guess you could put it like that. I just figured that we could go in and ask a few questions. You know, to see if anyone can offer any information.”

  “Alice, these girls have been going missing for a few years now. Do you really think we haven’t tried going in there multiple times by now? If anyone knows anything, they’re not talking. Honestly, I think Kirt is getting tired of seeing my badge around the place.”

&n
bsp; “That’s not what I meant. I’m sure you’re all doing as much as you can, but the case has become kind of personal for me all of a sudden. If you don’t want to go there with me, it’s okay. I can go alone. The people might be more open to talking with a single gal anyway.” She ended her statement with a chuckle, knowing that she had him cornered. She knew that if he had cared enough to hold her while she spewed vomit everywhere, then he definitely cared too much to let her go into that shady bar alone to ask people uncomfortable questions.

  “Uh... dammit. Fine. What time should I get you?”

  “Awesome! I’ll be ready by 8. See you on Saturday!”

  Click.

  ◆

  The workweek went by quickly and uneventfully. Alice was very thankful for that. She sat in front of her vanity and did her makeup in the mirror. Detective Darrow was going to arrive in a matter of minutes, and she didn’t have much time left to cake her face. She hurried to apply a light purple eye shadow, paired with a crimson lip. Despite the rush, it turned out very well after she had completed the look with a few passes of jet black mascara.

  She teased a few of the curls that she’d placed in her hair earlier in the day, and then sprayed them generously with hairspray. Small town bars always seemed strangely humid and damp, so she had to make sure that her hair style would last the entire evening. She felt around for Sarah’s small yellow bow and placed it in her bangs. It added a fun vibe without making her look childish.

  “Give me strength tonight.”

  With yellow pumps to match the bow, she threw on a tight black dress. It showed off her legs, but still left enough to the imagination. It had been a while since she had gone out to a bar, and she knew that she was probably overdoing it. She didn’t seem to care much about that though. She just wanted to remember what it was like to get dolled up again for something other than work.

  There was a knock at the door, and she got up to answer it.

  “All ready?” Detective Darrow asked.

  The words slipped out before he had even taken a proper look at her. From head to toe, he stared at her for a moment, but not in a perverted way. He didn’t look as if he was imagining anything. He just looked surprised and impressed, as if he were staring at the most expensive diamond in the world. His black monochrome outfit was much more casual than hers, but they still seemed to look good standing next to each other.

  “M-hmm. Let’s get going.” She locked everything up, and they headed down the road.

  ◆

  Kirt’s Pub was on the very edge of town, near the lake. It was just as humid there as Alice had expected that it would be. She could smell their greasy pizza baking from the kitchen area, and she tried to suppress the sudden hunger pangs. There were more important things to focus on.

  “Back again, Darrow?” a voice piped up from behind the bar top.

  “Nice to see you again, too, Kirt.”

  Kirt stood there, leaning slightly against the counter while he filled several pitchers. Light beer poured from one of the taps, and he tapped his fingers impatiently waiting for each one. He was a good-looking silver-haired man, and didn’t seem to suit the grungy environment that he was surrounded by.

  “And, it’s good to see you again, Alice. Strange company you keep.” He looked at Detective Darrow disapprovingly, and then back to Alice. “Be careful around here though. It’s a lot more wild on Saturdays than it is on the weeknights when you pick up your pizzas from the kitchen. Oh, the things I would give to have your genetics… I’d be as big as a house if I ate the shit that comes out of this place.” He handed the pitchers off to a group of middle-aged couples, and then gave his full attention to Alice and the detective. “Anyway, what do you want? Beer? Whiskey? A search warrant?” He asked, as he looked at Detective Darrow disapprovingly.

  “I guess we’ll just have —”

  “Beer it is,” Kirt said, interrupting him. He thudded two glass cups onto the bar top and sat a frosty can of beer in each one. “This is better than what’s on tap right now. Five bucks.”

  Detective Darrow placed five singles on the counter and reached for the glasses. He slid one next to him in front of Alice, and they both sat down in the ripped bar stools. The building was lit differently on the weekends, and people dance around drunkenly in a corner next to an outdated stereo. There were two waitresses roaming around, handing drinks off, and cleaning up different messes. Mostly, though, they sat on the laps of men, petting their sweaty heads, and pressing their lips against their salty necks. It became pretty obvious that these girls were into other forms of Customer Service.

  “Is this what I think it is?” Alice whispered out of the corner of her mouth.

  Detective Darrow nodded, confirming her suspicions. “I’m supposed to just look the other way. The chief comes here sometimes, so this place gets away with pretty much anything. Well, except for murder, of course.”

  “Well, I’d hope no one could get away with that.”

  “Yeah,” he said while he twirled the base of his glass around on the counter. “Me too.”

  Kirt approached them once more and asked if they’d like another round. Both nodded, so he placed two more cans down.

  “Hey, Kirt?” Alice asked.

  “What is it, princess?” He wiped condensation and spilled liquor off of the waxy wood with a stained rag.

  “What can you tell me about Jessica Roberts?”

  “Well, what do you want to know about her? She was the first to disappear. I know that much.”

  “What was she like? Did she act differently before she went missing?”

  Detective Darrow sipped his beer and listened to the exchange, pretending not to be interested, but he was bad at playing it cool. Kirt was in a good mood, though, so he didn’t want to change that by being a constant reminder of the law.

  “Jess was lush, if I ever saw one. She’d do anything for a drink, and I mean anything.” Kirt paused to wave one of the waitresses over. “Brooke, you’d better put those chips down if you know what’s good for you,” he said, placing a hand on his hip. “You know you gained too much weight in jail from eating those nasty things every day.”

  The waitress laughed and imitated his stance. “That’s fine by me. I’m harder to kidnap this way.”

  They laughed together for a moment, and then Kirt turned his attention back to Alice.

  “Where were we… Oh, yes. Jessica. Jess… She was nice. Now, don’t get me wrong, but she was always sitting on the laps of anyone who’d buy her a drink. She used to work here, but I had to fire her for stealing a few bottles of vodka — and not the cheap well stuff, either.”

  “Did she steal often?”

  He shook his head. “No, she was actually a pretty honest girl for the most part. The craving just got that bad, I guess. Even after I fired her, she never left, at least not until she went missing. It became pretty accepted around here that she probably just ran off with some random passerby who said he could supply her with all the cash and booze she’d want. I guess the whole town probably feels pretty stupid now.”

  “Is that what you thought at first, too? That she had just ran off with someone?”

  Kirt looked down, and shook his head again. He looked back up with a serious expression on his face. “No, I knew better than that. There isn’t a man in the whole world who’s rich enough to keep that girl out of the bar. I knew that something sketchy definitely happened. I just didn’t know what.”

  “When she was here the last time, was she with anyone?”

  “Actually, yeah. She was hanging around with a few different guys. I didn’t recognize any of them though, which isn’t really all that unusual, to be honest. We get a lot of truckers stopping in for drinks. I didn’t get to take a better look at them before they all left together, so I don’t think I’d be even be able to identify them if they were standing right in front of me. It’s been years anyway. My memory isn’t that great to begin with.”

  “I understand. Do you think you
could tell me anything about the others though? Ashley or Tammy? I know Sarah didn’t really come around here —”

  “Actually,” he interrupted. “Sarah stopped in for pizza sometimes, just like you. You’re right though, she didn’t come around late at night or on the weekends. Ashley — she did her fair share of partying, but nothing too crazy. And poor Tammy… She had a bad reputation as a lush, but I always saw her pouring her shots on the floor when no one else was looking. I think she just showed up for the male attention. Daddy issues, that one.” He tapped his fingers on the bar top again, and looked across the room. His serious expression changed into one of excitement and intrigue. “Now, you’ll have to excuse me for a second. There’s a really handsome gentleman by the stereo who needs a refill.”

  He winked and walked away faster than Alice could come up with any sort of reply.