[Darkthorn 01.0] Pond Scum

by Michael Lilly

  Just get a fucking computer! Backspace is your friend. He argued that the typewriter had sentimental value, but Beth contested that the only sentiment to which it had any tie was that of completing the stereotype of pretentiousness.

  I cross to the master bath and find still more nothing. Aside from the presence of a bath and shower combination that shone with a sparkle that would make Mr. Clean proud, it’s no different from the hallway half bath. The shower curtain is drawn, the bathtub empty.

  Then, from behind me: “Freeze.”

  I freeze. Almost. I turn slowly to look at who’s giving me commands, and as I anticipated, Patrick Dodd stands in the bedroom doorway. What I didn’t anticipate, however, is that he’s armed. With a shaking hand and a stance that would make Beth even more relieved to be rid of him, he is not the picture of menace. I unfreeze, standing square to him, my hands slack at my side.

  Still, at this range, the slug doesn’t care what stance its shooter takes while it’s ripping through its target, and the firearm is trained (more or less steadily) on my face. This is a mistake; while still dangerous, the head is relatively easy to move. At that range, you’re better off aiming at the torso, which takes more time and energy to move; so much that, even if your target foresees your shot, it’s difficult to move out of the way, in any direction.

  When you aim for the head, you’re most likely doing one of two things: threatening someone or fucking up. Unless, of course, you have the experience necessary to be confident in a reliable head shot. Either way, I elect to see which it is.

  “Drop the gun. Kick it over here. Slowly.” His voice sounds like he borrowed it from a podcast host with about ten regular listeners, the timid pseudo-confidence of the moment brimming and overflowing. He didn’t sound like this two years ago. This is a naturally tense situation, but I sense that there’s more than that: Beth.

  I drop the gun. Kick it over there. Slowly. All the while, I hold his gaze, his electric-blue eyes wide with intensity, though barely visible beneath his thick-rimmed glasses that I suspect are also part of his ‘aesthetic.’

  “What are you doing here?” he asks.

  “Were you at Beth’s place last night?” I return. I’ll ask the questions.

  “What? No, I—”

  “You’d better not be lying to me.” Although he’s the one holding a gun, the words rattle him to his core.

  “Why would I be there? I haven’t seen her since … she left.”

  “You haven’t seen each other since she left,” I corrected, calling him out on his stalking habit.

  “No, I—okay, yeah, that was bad. But I stopped doing that when you guys wouldn’t get off my ass about it.”

  “Okay, but it’s a small town. When did you see her last?”

  “I don’t know. Last week, maybe? When they found your dad at the park, you know, people were talking, and there was a crowd there, so I thought I’d look around. I saw her there. But I didn’t talk to her or anything!”

  He hasn’t asked whether anything is wrong. He knows that she’s missing. Even if he’s not responsible for it, he had a hand in it, and now he’s trying to conceal it. That isn’t the stance of someone who’s set on killing, kidnapping, or manipulating. He’s in fear, and I’m not the source. My brief idea that Keroth somehow coerced him into kidnapping Beth was flimsy at first, with no more substance than fog, but now begins to condense. I fold my arms and lean against the doorway to the bathroom, taking slight satisfaction in visualizing him scrubbing it down with vigorous intensity later on.

  “Someone made you do it,” I say. “Who?”

  Patrick’s voice drops. “You know who. And you know why. And now my Beth is in trouble and it’s all your fault!” The gun steadies, still aimed at my head, and his eyes become reflective and glossy with tears.

  “She was never your Beth,” I say, daring to unfold my arms and cross to the pristinely made up bed. “Even while you were dating, she wasn’t yours. She is a person who decides for herself what she’ll do, who she’ll do it with, when she’ll do it. You knew from the beginning that she’s a strong, capable person. But that’s beside the point. Where is she?” My delivery was supposed to sound like Christian Bale’s Batman, but came out more like Liam Neeson in Taken, which also works.

  “I don’t know,” he admits, lowering his gun. I almost believe him.

  “No, but you know who took her. You know some generals. Descriptions. There has to be more than one. Just one wouldn’t be enough for Beth. Hell, four or five might make her a little uncomfortable, but… well … you know Beth. She calls the shots and anyone who tries to tell her otherwise be damned, right?”

  While I’m sure he hates my guts at least half as much as I hate his, my way to manipulating this into success is by taking advantage of our common ground: affection for Beth. While mine has always been platonic and bordering on brotherly, it is still powerful.

  “Yeah,” he says. His gaze lowers to the ground, too.

  “So?” I say. “How do I find them? How do I find Beth?”

  “It was dark,” he says. “I didn’t get a good look. But I do know that there were two of them.”

  “Did either of them look like this?” I use my phone to show him a picture of Jeremy Keroth.

  “No,” he says, eyebrows furrowed. “They were both bigger than that. One of them was maybe the same height, but muscle on muscle. I thought he was going to eat me. The other one was taller, and leaner, but still muscular. One of them slipped and called the other one Cross. I pretended not to notice because I thought they might kill me if they knew I knew.” Smart boy. Creepy, stalker, asshole, but not dumb.

  “Good. Did it sound habitual? Like, did he stick it onto the end of a sentence, or was it to get his attention, or…?”

  “Kind of,” he says. “He said, ‘Ready, Cross?’ Right before they left. They looked at me to see if I noticed, but I kept looking at the floor and pretended not to.” Damn it. It’s an alias. I’ll have to run it through known aliases later.

  “Any distinguishing features you could notice in the darkness? Tattoos, piercings—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ve read books. I kept looking out for one, but honestly, it’s harder than I thought. No tattoos, piercings, golden teeth, missing or extra fingers, peg legs, or otherwise telltale features that I could notice.” While he drives me crazy and makes me want to punch a hole in his face, he does well.

  I rest my chin in my hand for a moment, thinking. The name doesn’t sound familiar, despite the smallness of the town. A first and last name would probably bring a face and profile to mind, but the alias is, in this case, effective. I draw a blank.

  “You were there, then, last night?” I ask. If he was there, then they coerced him into kidnapping her. If he wasn’t, they took a bit of his hair to plant there for me to find and chase back here, extending the goose chase they sent me on and making me spend my precious time for nothing.

  I don’t immediately rule out either of these options.

  “Yes, I was.” If he’s lying, he’s a damn good actor. He looks slightly downward, his grip on the gun loosening.

  “What did you do with her dog? I didn’t hear her when I was there. You didn’t … you know? Did you?”

  “No, just sedated her.” He’s a damn good actor. And I’m wasting my time. Beth doesn’t have a dog. But he must have overheard them talking about their tactics on the way, because that’s certainly how they dealt with Odin.

  I walk toward him. His guard is so far gone he doesn’t even register that I’ve moved until I’ve already picked up my gun.

  “You’re lying to me, and if you have any inclination to continue breathing throughout the week, you’ll stay out of my way. I will finish this.”

  “What’s to stop me from turning you in right now?” he says. He seems to be regaining a small measure of the faux confidence that he had at the start of our encounter. “You broke into my apartment and went through my things!”

  I hold up my gloved
hands and smile. “Prove it.” My hands curl until I’m instead presenting one gloved finger per hand, then I walk toward the door, confident that he won’t shoot. “Don’t worry,” I call behind me. “I stayed out of your midget porn.” I can almost feel him turning red behind me.

  He remains silent, doesn’t shoot.

  I descend using the same stairwell as before, but exit on the opposite side, hoping to have a few minutes of alibi if he does call the police. I rush home and make a sandwich, less for the sandwich and more to give me something to do while I make an obscene amount of noise. As I’m slapping the piece of bread with mayonnaise and mustard onto the substantial half, there’s a knock at the door. Odin wags his tail excitedly.

  I open the door and two uniformed officers stand at my apartment entrance. I do a mix of confused and ‘pleased to see you.’ It’s Perkins and Beck. No wonder they got here so fast.

  “Hey, Thorn, sorry to bother you, with everything going down how it is, but some guy just called and said that you broke into his apartment and went through his stuff.” He’s presenting it like a prank that he knows I’m in on, but that I’ll play dumb for to amuse the friend who orchestrated it.

  “Um, no. I was at the station for a few, then went and grabbed coffee. Then I came home. Is he all right? The guy who called?”

  “Seemed pretty shaken up, but I think he’ll do okay,” says Beck. “How you holdin’ up?”

  I sway a little bit, do ‘pained but determined,’ and shake a ‘so-so’ out of my hand.

  They nod, almost in unison. Perkins says, “Sorry to come knockin’ like this, but you know we gotta check this shit out even if it sounds ridiculous.”

  “No, no, I understand. Don’t worry about it. Take care, officers.” I half hope that my nosy neighbor is watching or listening at the door as usual; while I don’t think my alibi needs strength, it wouldn’t hurt if she were to confirm my presence for the past little while. She’s the type who will volunteer the information because she gets off on being useful and tattling on her neighbors.

  If they do look into it further, I anticipate that the times will be close enough and rough enough that they won’t be able to pin me in any place at any certain time. To my dismay, those little floral pattern curtains remain closed, and the officers depart from the premises uninterrupted. Oh well.

  I eat my sandwich quickly, washing it down with a glass of water, double check to make sure that I have all of my usual supplies and tools, and depart once more for the station. Despite my suspicion that everything Patrick gave me is an outright lie, I need to check the database to see if we have anyone with the alias ‘Cross.’ Maybe ‘Kross.’ I dunno. People spell shit weirdly these days.

  I find the bullpen in the exact same hushed-but-busy tone as earlier, and sit down at my barren desk again. The case file is still open when my monitor wakes up, which is helpful; now my sifting through it will still reveal only the one login. Before I sift through that, I open another search for the alias, ‘Cross.’ This yields no results. I try ‘Kross,’ to the same end. I click through the known associates again, scanning for anything that might earn someone the nickname ‘Cross’; maybe a last name or an unholy act of vandalism. Only a couple of them have vandalism charges, and of those, neither was church property. Both are just petty tagging.

  There are four profiles, and each of them, while colorful characters with rich backgrounds that would impress the harshest film critics, shows me no reason why they would go by ‘Cross.’ Maybe this is, in fact, yet another leg on the elaborate goose chase on which I’ve been sent. Assuming I’m still under surveillance, my compliance with this goose chase, while not so much elective, allows for some unpredictability with my actions.

  I’ve been jumping from hoop to hoop, exactly as they’ve planned, so they have no reason to doubt that I’ll continue to do so. Hoping that I put the fear of god into Patrick, and that that fear would paralyze him beyond an ability to notify Keroth, I determine that it must be I, this time, who shakes things up.

  The waters of conflict settle the more time passes. The fierce winds of our game dwindle to a breeze, and I must initiate my next phase before they can.

  The only problem is that I have no idea what my next phase is.

  But that may be fixed: I feel a tap on my shoulder, which makes me jump, purely out of nerve. I look up and see one of the newer floaters, a young thing with shining eyes and an almost cute optimism for the future. He has neat black hair, cut kind of short, but leaving room for the front to swoop up and off to the side. His pale green eyes supplement an already handsome face, his lips neither too big nor too small, and a lively shade of reddish pink.

  Is Abercrombie manufacturing cops now? Sterling, I think his name was? Stewart? Steven?

  He extends a hand. “Todd,” he introduces himself. Close enough. “Todd Love.” I shake his hand and ignore his dramatically James Bond-esque introduction. Without my invitation, he pulls a plastic chair from a nearby plastic table and sets it next to me. He puts a folder on my desk in front of us. “I’m the floater that Sanders put on the case you wanted checked out.”

  Suddenly, he has my full attention. I straighten my back and scoot in, ready to dive into his findings.

  “Was there anything specific you were looking for?” he asks.

  “Mostly profiles. Names, backstories, aliases. I know there weren’t many people involved, but I want to know each of them like my worst enemy.”

  “Understood. Let’s start with Thumper.”

  The Bambi version of Thumper is a lot cuter. Thumper towers at six feet eight inches. His arms are big, but not bulky or lumpy; I’m reminded of tree branches. The candid photos in the profile all show him wearing a loose tee shirt and jeans.

  “Who’s Thumper?” I ask.

  “Frank Lee,” says Love. “One of the guys that was interviewed to get a workup on Patrick. He initially didn’t tell us anything; didn’t want to rat out his friend, whatever. But eventually he mentioned that Pat could be a little rough, and after that he spared not a single detail of how protective he was. Pretty decent witness, especially for a domestic case.”

  I vaguely remember Frank, back from when Beth and Patrick were dating. He intimidated me a little, at first, but seemed like a sweet enough guy after he’d been warmed up for a few minutes, and with the appropriate amount of alcohol. Thumper. I find myself wondering why he needs an alias in the first place, then remember that Patrick is a fan of substances of alternative varieties, so Thumper could well have been involved in the acquisition of such goods. At any rate, he never struck me as a bad guy. I suppose I’ll have to keep an open mind.

  Love slides the photographs and small summary back into the folder, extracting another set.

  “Evan Mullworth,” he says. This guy looks a lot like Patrick, but with a decent haircut. His mustache curls up at either end, and he’s almost smirking at the camera, but in a way that’s more playful than arrogant. His eyes are slightly bigger than Patrick’s, and his jawline slightly more prominent. Honestly, he looks like if God (or whoever) plucked Patrick from the earth and made a few changes so he wasn’t so damn ugly all the time.

  He looks directly at the camera lens, daring us to try to find out all of his secrets.

  “This guy was Patrick’s neighbor at the time, said there was a lot of yelling around then. Ultimately ended up submitting the bit of evidence that would win the case for Detective Connors, and that was an audio recording of the two, audibly clear even through the floor.”

  “Tell me we kept a copy of it.”

  “Naturally,” he says. He flips to a different section of the folder and takes out a plastic bag, then dumps a small USB drive onto the desk.

  Love wasn’t kidding about it being audible and clear. Though Beth’s parts are sometimes quiet enough to avoid total interpretation, it is, for the most part, fairly clear.

  When this case was current, I did my best to stay out of it, because I knew I would end up murdering Patrick oth
erwise. Now, being plunged into its depths, the monster that has since been cultivated in my soul taps its foot, watching, smiling, plotting. Silencing the monster, I listen to the shouting match playing from the computer.

  If you even go NEAR him, I swear— that was Patrick.

  Swear what, Pat? I’m not doing anything. We just talk. Uh-oh. Looks like somebody’s jealous. Beth continues: Besides, even if I were doing more, that would be my choice! I may be dating you, but either of us can change that at any moment.

  Don’t say that, Beth.

  Say what? I’m your girlfriend, not your pet. I’m a thinking, feeling person, and that comes with actions and choices. In April, I chose you. I can un-choose you, too, and that’s my decision to make.

  I remember suddenly what a fierce warrior Beth is, and the urgency of finding her and getting her to safety splits me open anew, the edges of that particular wound searing as though splashed with a flesh-eating acid.

  I inhale, bordering on a panic, and then:

  Look, I’ve never said anything when you’ve gone out with your friends, but as your girlfriend, I feel like I should be allowed some of your time, too. Thumper, Cross, and Rex can wait. It’s lonely having you but not actually having you around at any point.

  Cross is one of Patrick’s friends. The part of Patrick that elected not to shoot me as I walked out of his apartment wants me to find Beth. He must truly not know where she is, or he would have told me, or dropped some sort of hint. Something beyond the vague alias of one of his old friends.

  “Who’s Cross? Do we know?” I ask Love.

  “I’m glad you asked,” he replies, smiling as he stows away the flash drive. “When this evidence was submitted, the guys working the case had him listen to it, verify that it was actually him and Beth, the likes. They asked him who Cross and Thumper were; that’s how we found Thumper and brought him in for an interview. Thumper, as you know, is Frank Lee.”