In Dark Places

by Darryl J Keck

  “I would never do such a thing, not to mention that I’ve never heard of Murphy’s Taproom.”

  “They certainly know you there,” I inform her. “If you’re reading that closely, you’ll see that you’ve been banned indefinitely from that establishment.” I flip the page. “Here is an embarrassing entry from when you were caught shoplifting at the Everything is 99¢ store on Black Friday. That’s a disappointing offense. Most of the stores in Wilkinson Creek consider you a persona non grata, so they prohibit you from entering their establishments. The store owners around here are getting wise to you.”

  “That’s complete bullshit,” she says defensively. “People in Wilkinson Creek are far from fond of me, but I’m not outlawed from walking into a single shop. You know me better than even suggesting something like that.”

  I flip to the next page and point at her snarling mug shot. She gasps upon seeing another set of unappealing images.

  “This one is interesting. You were—”

  “What the hell is going on, Delaney?” Her reaction is that of complete bewilderment. “I assure you that the person in this criminal history is not me. I would never wear a gray sweatshirt and pull my hair back into a bun. God, I can’t be that unkempt in public. My life has its challenges, but I have not slid that far down.”

  Unkempt and equivocating—she is definitely trying to throw me for a loop.

  “Mandi, an imposter would at least try to be someone that they could benefit from impersonating.”

  “What are you insinuating?”

  “Mainly that if some woman took the time and effort to impersonate you, she would do it for reasons other than petty theft and public drunkenness.”

  “Then, someone is playing a very nasty jest on me.”

  “Here’s another dandy,” I say, ignoring her protest. “You were caught—”

  “I get the picture,” she winces. “You don’t need to make me feel lower than whale shit.” She bites her bottom lip and shifts nervously in her chair. “I’ve encountered more than my share of problems—just not the problems you’re showing me in this folder. I know when I’m being baited.”

  “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

  “What else? I guess I’m about to get another unflattering mug shot added to my file. That Prichard guy was quite elusive concerning what would be happening.”

  “Mrs. Hollingsworth has decided not to press charges,” I inform, hoping she’ll relax and end the charade. “But, due to the weight of your violent outburst, we may need to order a psychiatric evaluation.” I’m bluffing, but it may be the only way to get her to open up about what actually happened in that office.

  “A psychiatric evaluation?” she shouts. “Come on, Delaney. I can’t have that on my record. Jeez. The punishment needs to fit the crime.”

  “The results would be protected in your file.”

  “That’s a laugh,” she says, shaking her head in disagreement. “Nothing is private anymore. A mental eval will follow me around at every job. I’d be lucky to get hired to lick the inside of a urinal. Any respectable employer would see me as too much of a liability.”

  “What do you expect, Mandi? This morning’s violent outburst was quite severe.”

  “What about the emotional injuries I sustained? I admit that I screwed up but not enough to ruin any chance of being hired by a reputable company in the future,” she asks, slumping in her chair. “I’d rather have an assault charge tacked to my record. A psychiatric evaluation would be impossible to downplay.”

  “I’ll make you a deal,” I say in an attempt to reduce her anxiety. “If you can make sense of why you reacted in such a violent manner, I’ll make the psychiatric evaluation go away.”

  “Would you do that?”

  “Only if you tell me something that makes sense—and it has to be factual. If you comply, I won’t mention the evaluation again.” The color is returning to her cheeks. “You’ll also need to make a pledge to stay away from Leighton Publishing’s property . . . and I mean permanently.” What I’m requesting would not hold up in court if she trespassed. With a psychiatric evaluation riding on her compliance, I’m hoping she’ll take the demand seriously.

  “How am I supposed to get my car? It’s parked in a visitor’s space in front of their building.”

  “One of us will retrieve it for you,” I promise. “Due to your actions, I had to make assurances to the management that you’ll stay away for good . . . this includes not bothering any of their employees in public.”

  “I have no interest in consorting with any of them. There’s no point anyway. It would be easier to grow a third tit than getting a fair shot over there.”

  “That’s a step in the right direction.” She might be carrying that last assurance a bit far, but she seems onboard about the gravity of her actions. “An assault charge did not match your arrest record, so that is why talk of a psychiatric evaluation was being discussed.” Mentioning it one last time should make her realize that I’m expecting to hear all the facts.

  “I’ll sign whatever you want to avoid that. I never want anyone flashing those damn Rorschach test cards in front of me.”

  There isn’t one person in this department that would have been able to pronounce the name of those cards, yet Mandi just spit it out without the slightest hesitation. I can’t let her see that I’m somewhat confounded.

  “Mandi, can you shed some light as to why you resorted to force?” I shut the folder, returning the useful prop to my bottom desk drawer. “What got you so agitated?”

  She sits up straight, leans slightly forward, and takes a deep, reflective breath. “I was tired of being treated with scorn by supercilious women. You probably don’t know how that even feels.”

  “Don’t assume anything. Whenever I walk into a bar after work hours, most of the customers are suddenly on their best behavior as if I’m about to bust the place for the slightest infraction—even when I’m out of uniform. Almost all of us get snubbed—even on a subtle level.”

  “Well, that rag practically offered me the job, and then quickly rescinded the offer. In the process, Mrs. Self-Righteous was about to have me escorted from the building by two monstrous cretins. I cannot believe they’d put such an egregious woman in charge of that company’s hiring decisions.”

  As I try to keep the facts straight, I’m stunned that Mandi has not stammered once. Usually, her sentences are broken with, “um,” “uh,” or “you know,” as she collects her uncomplicated thoughts. Has she been faking moderate imbecility all along?

  “What led you to believe that you’d be offered the position?” I ask, trying to stick to the case instead of commenting on the vast improvement in her elocution. Mandi is suddenly able to keep up with me in a conversation, so I’m astonished.

  “The interview was going fantastic,” she adds, “and she told me I was the right type of person for the position. I conducted myself professionally throughout the interview. I wasn’t speaking like those girls that deliberately add an extended ‘uh’ at the end of their words to cutesy it up. You know, they’ll say, ‘stop-uh’ and ‘oh my god-uh.’ Anyway, a few minutes later, Carolyn returned with two security guards in tow. At first, her provocation was subtle. Then, she ordered the larger guard to ‘escort this trash from the building.’ There was no justification for such an insult, so the animosity began building up. Then, she made an unmannerly crack about sending up maintenance to scrub down my chair, so I lunged at her. I don’t remember much beyond that.”

  “Is that all of it?”

  “Yeah, pretty much unless you want me to enumerate every detail of the interview before she stepped away. You know, I’m fairly pretty, have straight teeth, and a functioning brain, but that hasn’t been enough to get me through many doors. I woke up feeling cautiously optimistic, now I’m feeling justifiably cautious.”

  I’m waiting for her sullen persona to show up, but that side of her has yet to make an appearance. She’s actually refreshing to be around .
. . I don’t say that about many repeat offenders that land at my desk.

  “Do you have any idea why she returned to her office with a disparity in her attitude?”

  “She was pretentious the entire interview,” she recalls while huffing. “She went from being positive to developing the same apathy she had yesterday before giving me the boot. I assumed it had to do with my Uncle Willie again. So many of his problems have negatively affected my life. I was confident that today would produce a positive result but apparently what I did last night wasn’t enough to change the outcome in the slightest.”

  What in the hell is she babbling on about? I punch in Willie’s criminal record to see if anything out-of-the-ordinary leaps out. “Mandi, your uncle may have spent a few nights in the tank, but he’s far from being labeled a problem.”

  “Excuse me?” Mandi acts dumbfounded. “Willie had to be the reason her nylons got all twisted up. No one can ever forget the wave of shit he caused.”

  Mandi clearly knows that Willie is not the leading struggle in her family. Everyone knows he’s partially responsible for the problem, but no one is stringing him up for his involvement. “If she commented about anyone sharing your last name, it would have been Agnew.”

  “Actually, that witch at Leighton did mention that name, but I thought I didn’t hear her correctly. What kind of twisted soul would name their child Agnew?”

  “Mandi, please,” I state. “Don’t sit there and act to have never heard of Agnew McAllister.”

  “Nope. I’ve never heard of him, sorry,” she says. “Hey, there are lots of people with similar last names. I went to school with Nikki Jones, and she wasn’t related to Norah Jones. Nope, my problems have always been a result of Willie being sent to prison.”

  Does Willie have a sealed file with the FBI that we haven’t been told about? Why is she insisting that he has been locked away?

  “Mandi, have you bumped your head recently or have you been involved in a serious traffic accident—one that may have knocked your head into a windshield?”

  “Why would you ask that?” She reaches up to feel the contours of her forehead. “I hope I’m not bleeding.”

  “No, you’re not bleeding . . . you look just fine. Listen, I’m all for a little game to lighten the mood, but as I mentioned earlier, Carolyn is not filing charges. You might as well drop the act.”

  “What act? Is that your takeaway?”

  “Are you expecting me to believe you’ve never heard of Agnew McAllister?”

  “Why is that so difficult to comprehend? A totally queer name like that would not have slipped my mind. He isn’t related to me . . . seriously!”

  “Mandi, Agnew is your first cousin, so his name should deeply resonate with you.”

  “That’s a good one,” she says, snickering. “You’ve clearly been misinformed. My only first cousin is Ray.”

  “We know all about Ray; he’s a small-time operator with some fraud charges under his belt. Agnew, on the other hand, is in the big leagues. You can be in denial about all the bloodshed, but it does not change the fact that Agnew is Willie’s only son. Is any of this ringing a bell?”

  “Willie does not have a son,” she states without the slightest hint of pretense. “Someone is yanking your chain, Delaney. Willie has never been married. He practically lived like a hermit until they sent him to the big house. His place was not fit to share with a woman.”

  In case she is having an amnesic episode, I inform her that Agnew is the sole child of Willie and Tonya McAllister—not that either of them will take any accountability for bringing the animal into the world. It’s possible she suppressed the memory of Agnew out of shock. From her unwavering body language, she doesn’t look convinced. I reposition the computer screen to make it visible to Mandi. After a few clicks in the search engine, a series of photos fill the screen. In each image, Agnew is shown with his straggly black hair and dark, recessed eyes. He looks like a dastardly mix of Criss Angel and a punk. Never in history has a killer been so revered as well as feared.

  Recently, the “Agnew McAllister” Halloween mask was introduced to novelty stores across the country. Some callous company will always exploit mass tragedy! Although Agnew is ineligible to receive any financial gain from the use of his likeness, he enjoys the legendary status that the true-to-life mask conveys to the world. It’s only a matter of time before some rowdy teenager gets shot by a nervous firearm owner with an itchy trigger finger.

  While looking at various articles about Agnew, Mandi’s smile recedes. After clicking a few more links, she finally breaks her silence. “Holy shit, you were totally serious. I can see an amalgam of Tonya and Willie in his face.” Her eyes continue scanning more headlines. Without looking away from the screen, she says, “He has murdered 97 people . . . jeez.”

  “As of yesterday, the count has climbed to 103. He claims that the death toll is well over 150. Until they discover where he dumped the bodies, we have to go by the confirmed total.”

  “Delaney, I’m having difficulty making sense of all this,” she says, glancing through various articles on Agnew. “How could I be in the dark about him? He’s splattered all over the news. Trudy is incapable of keeping a dark secret like this. Trust me, she would have been talking incessantly about Willie’s marriage. Besides, Tonya could only have conceived during a conjugal visit.”

  She keeps insisting that Willie served time in prison. I have proof to the contrary.

  “Willie is bad enough,” she adds, “but with this creep out there, I’ll never get a reputable job that pays higher than minimum wage.” She pauses for a few seconds. As she stares at the floor, she mumbles, “Agnew wasn’t even alive yesterday. Could I have caused this?”

  “What was that?” What she just said could have been a mere slip of the tongue; I’m not ignoring anything. The universe seems to have flipped upside down upon her stumbling into our small city this morning. “I heard you say that Agnew wasn’t alive yesterday. What did you supposedly cause?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I can barely comprehend it all.”

  “Do you need a few minutes to collect your thoughts?” I ask. “We can step out back so you can light up a cigarette.”

  “I don’t smoke.”

  “Since when?”

  “I haven’t had a drag since my sophomore year in high school,” she states. “It’s just not a habit I need. At any stoplight, you’ll literally see dozens of cigarette filters flicked by careless smokers unwilling to use their ashtray. It’s the equivalent of a tobacco chewer spitting big wads of brown muck all over the sidewalk.”

  Although I shouldn’t be pushing, I still ask, “Mandi, how do you explain the unopened pack of Capri Lights in your purse?”

  “There are no cigarettes inside my purse,” she states forcefully. “Wait. Why did you go through my purse?”

  “It’s protocol. After an assault, we need to be sure you weren’t carrying a concealed weapon.”

  “Well, the cigarettes don’t belong to me.” She looks up and meets my eyes. “I’m serious, jeez.”

  I’m starting to believe that Mandi is not playing a game. Why split hairs over an unopened pack of smokes? However, her slip about Agnew not being alive yesterday is worth querying.

  “Mandi, you strike me as the diametrical opposite of the person I’ve known over the years with your same name,” I point out. I never did ask how intense of a jolt she received and for how long. “Having said that, I happen to know that Agnew was alive yesterday. He put a bullet into my bicep two months ago. So, please consider revising your statement.” As my words trail off, Kevin walks through the door and motions to meet him near the coffee machine. “Would you care for a cup of coffee?”

  “Sure, I’ll take a vanilla latté with a light dusting of cinnamon, but no whipped cream, please. I’m not lactose intolerant, but I still tread lightly with the dairy. It’s a complexion thing.”

  “Sorry, Mandi, but around here the options are black or li
ght brown if I add some cream to it.”

  “I’ll pass. I’m already feeling edgy without mixing caffeine into my bloodstream.”

  “I’ll be back in a few. When I return, I want an answer to my question about Agnew.”

  I walk to the kitchenette and pour myself a cup of black coffee. This isn’t about needing a pick-me-up; I need to find out what Ernie concluded about Mandi’s diverging signatures as well as taking a moment to process everything that was just said. The last ten minutes felt discombobulated. With the threat of a psychiatric evaluation on the line, why would she act so unenlightened about Agnew?

  “Ernie said that not one of the strokes in that signature came from the same hand,” Kevin whispers as he pours a cup of coffee. He realizes that we have to make this meeting look casual because she’s only about 50 feet away. “He stated his reputation on it.”

  “How can that be?”

  “Not a clue,” Kevin says, shrugging his shoulders. “You might want to ask if she will voluntarily let us fingerprint her.”

  “If I suggest that,” I whisper as I put a spoonful of sugar in the cup, “she’ll clam up, causing the interview to be over. I need to keep the dialogue loose. The license in her purse was verification, yet her mannerisms are entirely different than usual.”

  “When the security guard tackled her, maybe something got knocked loose in her brain causing her hand to react differently.”

  “I’d consider that possibility had the application not been clearly signed before the interview. I’m trying to get to the bottom of what happened.”

  After Kevin walks away, I spin around and look in her direction. She’s studying my wooden nameplate as if it contains mystical powers. I’m at such a loss. She is often mischievous but has never acted so stolid concerning a member of her family. Our female friend is hiding something.

  Chapter 9

  Mandi

  While Delaney grabs a cup of caffeine overload, I can’t resist studying his nameplate. Someone took a buttload of time to pull an elaborate gag on me: the foul mug shots, the printed criminal file. Since I was in high school, Delaney has been a cop in Wilkinson Creek—the sheriff for the last five years. Why would he be moonlighting in Bluff Ridge? This feels more and more like a quip. Sadly, no one cares enough to punk me with this much effort.