Dark Harbor

by David K. Wilson

  And then everything went black.

  39

  Carla’s stomach was in knots as she walked back into the house. It was dark, except for a warm golden glow from a light that hung over the kitchen table. Carla went into the kitchen and mindlessly poured herself a glass of water. She was still trying to come to terms with what she had just learned.

  As flighty and free-spirited as her sister could be, Carla had never seen her as a person who would sneak around—for any reason. Granted, it had happened when she and Norm were having one of their “sabbaticals.” Not that she was excusing it, but she understood how it could happen.

  But this wasn’t about the affair. Carla was upset that her sister hadn’t told her about her friendship with Jane, and the animosity that had developed between the two. There was so much that Vanessa hadn’t told her. What else was she hiding?

  Knowing that it would eat at her all night, and knowing that Sam and Jude were off looking for Norm, Carla decided that she couldn’t wait until the morning to confront Vanessa.

  She walked down the hall and knocked gently on Vanessa’s door.

  “Vanessa? Sorry to wake you,” Carla said just loud enough to wake her sister without startling her. “Can I come in?”

  She waited for her sister to respond, and when she didn’t, she knocked a second time, but this time a little louder.

  “Nessie?” she said loudly. “You up?”

  She turned the door handle and cracked the door slightly.

  “Hey, sorry to wake you,” she said as she walked in the room.

  But she froze in shock when she saw that Vanessa’s bed was empty.

  “Nessie?” Carla called out.

  She flipped on the light just to be sure, but Vanessa was definitely not in the room. Carla rushed down the hall, hoping her sister had just gone to the bathroom. But the bathroom door was open, and the room was empty.

  “Vanessa?” Carla yelled out, her heart pumping.

  Where had her sister gone?

  She ran outside to the garage that was set away from the house. Vanessa’s car was gone.

  Carla ran back to the house, pulling out her phone and calling Vanessa. She listened to it ring until finally going to voicemail. She left a quick message asking her sister to call her and then, as soon as she hung up, she noticed the note on the kitchen counter for the first time. Without even reading it, Carla felt a wave of relief wash over her. If there was a note, then at least her sister had left on her own.

  She turned on the kitchen light and grabbed the piece of paper, instantly recognizing Vanessa’s handwriting.

  WHERE ARE YOU?

  I COULDN’T SLEEP SO I WENT TO THE BEACH. BE BACK LATER. DON’T WAIT UP!

  Relieved and feeling slightly silly for her paranoia, Carla put down the note. Still, why hadn’t her sister tried to call her? And why didn’t she answer her phone now?

  Carla realized she was suspicious of her sister.

  Realizing she had the house to herself, Carla decided to look around a bit. They had already torn the house apart looking for clues regarding Norm’s whereabouts, but were there things that Vanessa had been hiding from Carla? She replayed their searches over in her mind and remembered that Vanessa had done most of the looking in her bedroom.

  Carla snooped around in her sister’s bedroom. She rifled through the drawers of the dresser, then checked the shelves in the closet, feeling guilty the entire time. It reminded her of her childhood, when she would check her sister’s room for missing clothes that Vanessa had “borrowed.”

  Prompted by the nostalgia, Carla recalled her sister’s favorite hiding place: between the mattress and box spring of her bed. Dropping to her knees, Carla slid her hands under the mattress and felt around. When her hands touched something metal, she froze.

  Her heart pounded as she realized what she had found. Grabbing it by the handle, she slowly pulled it out.

  A large chef’s knife.

  Her mind spun in a million directions, but she was yanked out of her shock by the approach of car lights in the driveway.

  40

  Carla shoved the knife back under the mattress and raced out of the bedroom, making it to the kitchen just as Vanessa opened the door. She looked startled to see her sister waiting for her.

  “There you are,” Carla stammered.

  Carla couldn’t help but notice that Vanessa seemed disoriented and more than a little disheveled. Vanessa seemed to notice the way her sister was looking at her and attempted to straighten her hair with her hand.

  “I must look like a mess,” she said. “The wind was really strong out on the beach.”

  “I was worried,” Carla said.

  “Didn’t you see my note?” Vanessa asked.

  “I called, but you didn’t answer,” Carla replied.

  Vanessa smiled. “I left my phone in the car,” she said. “By the time I realized, I didn’t want to walk all the way back. I’m sorry. But you know you ran out on me first. Where were you?”

  “Sam asked me to follow up on something for him,” Carla lied. “You were already in bed. Asleep, I thought. I didn’t want to bother you.”

  Vanessa smiled and nodded, but didn’t respond otherwise. Carla couldn’t decide if her sister seemed disoriented and preoccupied or if she was just reading too much into things. But there were too many unanswered questions for her to not say something.

  “We need to talk,” Carla said.

  “Can it possibly wait until morning?” Vanessa asked. “It’s late and I’m bushed.”

  Carla grabbed Vanessa’s arm as she tried to walk past her.

  “No,” Carla said. “We need to talk now.”

  Sensing the urgency in Carla’s tone, Vanessa nodded and motioned for them both to move to the couch.

  “You’re not being honest with me,” Carla said as she sat down. “I know you’re not.”

  At first, Vanessa looked at her sister like she had no idea what she was talking about. But, realizing Carla could see right through the facade, she let out a sigh and nodded, looking down to avoid eye contact.

  “You’re right,” she said.

  She sat in silence, partly to muster up courage to talk, but also hoping that Carla would say something first to start the conversation. But Carla wasn’t saying a word. She wanted to hear her sister’s confession without any assistance.

  “I lied to you,” Vanessa finally said. “And Sam.”

  Carla nodded, expecting her sister to admit to the affair and the animosity between Jane and herself. She was caught off guard when Vanessa finally spoke.

  “I knew about the mobile home,” she said. “I mean, I had forgotten about it. But when Sam showed me the lease, it all came back.”

  It took a second for Carla to bring herself around to Vanessa’s confession.

  “That’s your lie?” she asked. “Why would you lie about that?”

  Vanessa shrugged. “I honestly don’t know,” she said. “Partly out of embarrassment, partly out of feeling protective over Norm.”

  She explained that, as soon as she saw the lease, she knew Norm was probably hiding there. She had hoped if she downplayed it, Sam would just drop it.

  “But then I realized Sam was too good a cop for that,” she said. “He wasn’t going to just let it go. And then I thought, maybe he was Norm’s best bet. If Detective Turner knew about the mobile home, he’d probably go in guns blazing. And, at that point, I figured it didn’t matter if I knew about it.”

  “You didn’t just lie about it,” Carla said. “You put on a whole show. I sat here with you as you pretended to be angry at Norm for having this double life. You lied to me over. And over. And over.”

  Vanessa nodded. “I’m really sorry, Carla. I don’t know what to say.”

  Carla grabbed her sister’s hands and looked her dead in the eyes.

  “Is there anything else you need to tell me?” she asked.

  Vanessa pulled her hands free and took a deep breath before she spoke.
>
  41

  Sam woke up, lying on the floor of the mobile home, a burning pain shooting through his skull from the back of his head. A deafening ring filled his ears and everything was dark and blurry.

  “Hello?” he called out, trying to remember where he was.

  There was no answer.

  He touched the back of his head. Luckily, there was no blood. Still, there was a massive goose egg where someone must have hit him.

  He grimaced in pain as he tried to put the pieces together of what had happened. Where was he? Who had hit him?

  Using the toppled folding table as leverage, he tried to pull himself up but fell back on his hands and knees. He needed a second to pull himself together. He waited for the room to spin more slowly and the ringing in his ears to fade. He began to notice the familiar muffled sounds of a wind chime.

  He looked around the dark room, squinting to bring anything into focus.

  There was something on the other side of the room.

  He squinted harder. There was definitely something there. Or was it someone?

  His memories started to come back. He had been talking to someone. But he couldn’t remember who.

  He looked back at the object on the other side of the room. It was definitely a person.

  “Hey,” he said. “You okay?”

  The words pierced through his head and echoed. His mind began to slowly focus and things started to come back to him. He remembered he had been talking to Norm. He had found Norm at a mobile home and they had been talking when someone hit him over the head.

  The memory of the attack caused a sharp pain to crash through his head.

  “Norm?” he asked. “Is that you?”

  Remembering he had a cell phone, Sam pulled it from the back pocket of his jeans and tapped the screen, sending a faint blue glow over the room.

  Sam turned the screen toward the person lying across from him. From his angle, he couldn’t make out the face.

  All he could see was blood.

  “Norm? You okay?”

  He started to crawl toward the body but, just before he could get there, the door to the mobile home burst open. Sam looked up and tried to focus on the intruder. The man leaned down to check on Sam. It was Jude.

  “What happened?” Jude asked.

  He was out of breath and Sam thought he saw a trickle of blood on Jude’s forehead.

  “Where were you?” Sam asked.

  “Someone clocked me from behind,” Jude muttered, clearly embarrassed.

  “Yeah, same here,” Sam said. “Did you get a look at him?”

  “I heard a shot,” Jude interrupted.

  But before Sam could answer, Jude’s attention had already shifted to the other body in the room.

  “Jude,” Sam said, trying to stop him.

  It was too late.

  Jude stepped slowly toward the body, then fell to his knees, crying out in despair.

  42

  Sam brushed off the paramedic tending to his head wound and went back inside the mobile home, which was swarming with police. Less than five minutes after Sam called 911, patrol cars from Dennis, along with the Massachusetts State Police, had arrived. Sam looked around for the detective he had spoken to earlier to see what they had found, but before he could utter a word, Turner stormed into the mobile home.

  “Damnit, Sam,” he yelled. “What the hell did you do?”

  Sam winced at the loud voice. His head was still throbbing. He held up his hand to motion for Turner to keep it down.

  Turner walked past Sam to look at Norm’s bloodied body lying on the floor. Sam walked up next to him. Turner spun around to face Sam.

  “I should arrest you right now,” he yelled. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “What are you doing here?” Sam asked.

  “Local cops called me after talking to you,” Turner answered. “I know you think we don’t know what we’re doing, but we’ve been looking for Norm for over a week.”

  Sam nodded. It made perfect sense they would call Turner. Now Sam just had to make sure that he didn’t fan the flames and make things worse.

  “I just wanted to check first…” he started to explain.

  “You just wanted to check if Norm was here?” Turner interrupted. “So you and his dad could help him escape?”

  “I was just following up on a theory,” Sam snapped back. “I didn’t think he’d really be here.”

  Turner ignored him, asking for someone to fill him in. A forensics technician who was kneeling near Norm’s body spoke up.

  “The victim was shot three times at point blank range,” he said in a monotone voice, like he was giving a book report. “From the blood splatters, it looks like the first bullet hit him dead between the eyes while he was standing. The other two shots were fired into his chest after he was on the ground. Probably just to make sure he was dead.”

  “When I was attacked, he was sitting across from me over there. In that chair,” Sam said, pointing to a kitchen chair that was lying on its side next to the table.

  “What about a weapon?” Turner asked the technician, still ignoring Sam.

  Sam winced in advance of what was coming.

  “Can’t find the weapon,” the technician said, glancing at Sam. “But we did find some 40 S&W cartridges.”

  “That’s police standard,” Turner said to himself.

  “Probably my gun,” Sam interrupted.

  Turner spun around to Sam.

  “What?” he asked.

  “My gun’s missing,” Sam continued, somewhat sheepishly. “I’m guessing our killer knocked me out and then took my gun.”

  “You’ve got to be shitting me,” Turner said.

  Sam shook his head. “I wish I was.”

  Turner let out a groan and paced around in circles.

  “You realize what this looks like,” Turner said.

  “Oh, please,” Sam said. “You think I clocked Jude then shot Norm then hid a gun that’s easily traceable to me and then knocked myself out?”

  “How does anyone know you were unconscious?” Turner retorted. “There're no witnesses to that. That’s just your story. For all I know, you shot Norm in a fit of anger, then staged the whole assault to cover it up.”

  “That’s a bullshit theory and you know it,” Sam said. “And what about Jude? Whoever did this got to him, too.”

  Turner looked out the open trailer door and saw Jude sitting on a lawn chair, his head in his hands.

  “That poor man had to see his dead son like this, because of you,” Turner said.

  “He insisted on coming,” Sam said. “In fact, he talked me into coming here without calling you. My vote was to call you. For the record.”

  “No man should see their son that way,” Turner said.

  The local detective, an overweight man in his fifties wearing a golf shirt and khakis, trudged over. He was breathing heavy through his nose and Sam worried he would fall over from a heart attack on the spot. The man shook Turner’s hand, and the two walked away from Sam to trade notes. Sam looked out at Jude. He felt he should go say something to comfort the poor guy, but what could he possibly say? Instead, Sam redirected his attention to the investigation and tried to eavesdrop on the conversation between the two detectives.

  “The fact that the perp left Mr. Lawson and Mr. Mayhew alive would indicate that the victim here was the sole target,” the overweight detective said. “Plus, if the weapon was his stolen sidearm as he claims, the perp didn’t arrive with a weapon.”

  “Who shows up to kill someone without a weapon?” Sam asks loudly.

  “Someone who wasn’t planning on killing anyone,” Turner snapped back before pulling the local detective further away from Sam.

  Sam knew that, of course. But he never met a wise crack he couldn’t pass up. In truth, he was actually relieved to know that he wasn’t really a suspect. He knew if he were investigating this case, he would consider himself a person of interest.

  Turner w
alked back over.

  “Two murders in two days and, somehow, you were there alone with both bodies before the cops arrived,” Turner said.

  “Come on, Paul,” Sam said, growing impatient with the harassment. “You know I didn’t do it.”

  “I know that you probably led the killer right to Norm. Hell, you even gave him the murder weapon,” Turner said.

  “What’s your point?” Sam asked.

  “Norm was clearly hiding from someone,” Turner said

  “He was hiding from you,” Sam snapped back, getting in Turner’s face.

  The local detective inserted himself between Sam and Turner.

  “If you two fellas are going to argue, at least take it outside,” he said. “This is a crime scene.”

  Sam nodded. “I should probably get him back,” he said, motioning toward Jude.

  Wanting to help the grieving father was something the two men had in common, and their feud immediately faded.

  “Ferrys aren’t running this late,” Turner said. “I can take you both back on the Coast Guard vessel.”

  Sam nodded. Then sank into himself with a second realization.

  “Shit,” he said.

  “What now?” Turner asked.

  “One of us needs to tell Vanessa her husband’s been murdered.”

  43

  As the Coast Guard boat cut across Vineyard Sound, Turner, Sam and Jude travelled in silence. The sun was beginning to rise and a brilliant band of yellow cut across the ocean’s horizon, fading into blue then purple. Under any other circumstances it would have been breathtaking, but the three men barely noticed. And certainly didn’t care.

  Even as Turner drove Jude and Sam to Vanessa’s house, no one spoke a word. At first, it was out of respect for Jude’s grief. Then, as time passed, and no one knew what to say, they had all fallen into the safety of quietude. For Jude and Turner, silence was easy. Sam was having a tougher time with it. There had been many times that he had wanted to crack a joke or make some sort of sarcastic comment to ease the awkwardness. But every time, he had looked at Jude’s forlorn face and thought better of it.