No Woods So Dark as These

by Randall Silvis

  “What the hell are you people doing down there?” Loughner said. “I thought you were supposed to be some kind of hot-shit investigator. I’m sitting here outside the lab wondering if you even know what you’re doing.” His voice was scratchy and low and created a picture in DeMarco’s mind of Joe sitting hunched over in his car, leaning down to speak into the microphone, the doors and windows closed, the car like a greenhouse, and Joe with a thermos cup of coffee and scotch in his other hand.

  “So you raided Reddick’s house and what did you come up with? Diddly squat, that’s what. If you people had been on the ball you would’ve gotten there before Reddick bolted. You give a man time to do his spring cleaning, that’s what you’re going to get. So what’s your brilliant plan now? If it was me, I’d be turning the place upside down to find that dirtbag. Go on up to Elk County and shake every fucking tree until he falls out of one of them. Have you even questioned his mother yet? Jesus, DeMarco, are you just sitting on your hands down there or what? Go pull my incident logs, why don’t you? I know there’s stuff in there could help you find him. Check out that cabin he hid out in after he got discharged. I don’t remember the dates but you can get them easy enough. Look at the week his old man died; Junior was back for the funeral. What was he doing that week, who was he hanging out with? Man, this thing is not going to solve itself. You keep dillydallying like this, he’s going to be sunning himself in Cancun if he isn’t already. Jesus fucking Christ, man. Do your fucking job.”

  Both Jayme and DeMarco had winced with each f-bomb, had looked at each other with sorrowful eyes. When the call ended, Jayme said, “Apparently he doesn’t know that Boyd’s been in touch with Elk County.”

  “Boyd would have told him that.” DeMarco shook his head and laid the hot dog back into its paper boat. He did not want to be too hard on Loughner. He looked at Jayme and smiled. He’s me if I hadn’t found you, he thought. And told her, “You think I should change my number?”

  She smiled. “I feel kind of sorry for him.”

  “I do too, though we shouldn’t. He’s a grown man.”

  She nodded. Fed a french fry to Hero.

  “Since when are we allowed to feed him at the table?” he asked.

  “It’s a picnic, right? And he’s hungry too.”

  DeMarco looked down at Hero seated behind them, his chin on the wooden seat. “Do you like mustard on your chili dogs?” he asked.

  Hero lifted his chin. And Jayme said, “That’s dog sign language for yes.”

  DeMarco held out the remainder of his chili dog; it disappeared in one gulp. He rubbed Hero’s head, then faced the table again.

  Jayme said, “Now what, Brainiac?”

  A grin twitched at the corner of his mouth. “Do you even know who Brainiac is?”

  “Somebody smart, I take it.”

  He kept smiling. Tapped a fingertip against the table. Eight times he tapped it, then held his fingertip poised in the air. Then a final tap. And said, “What do you think Boyd is doing right now?”

  “Probably writing his daily report.”

  DeMarco reached for his phone and told it, “Call Boyd.”

  When Trooper Boyd answered, DeMarco said, “When were you going to let me know about the lab results?”

  “I was thinking that the morning might be a good time.”

  DeMarco blew out a breath. He understood Boyd’s reaction. The old DeMarco would have gone ballistic.

  Boyd said, “I’m guessing you heard from Joe Loughner?”

  “You could say that.”

  “He gave me an earful too.”

  “Yeah, well,” DeMarco said. “Next time, whatever information comes in, I would appreciate knowing it right away. Like three seconds after you know it. Even if the information is no information.”

  “Yes, sir,” Boyd said.

  “Please don’t call me sir anymore,” DeMarco told him, then tamped down the frustration. “Mason, listen. Technically, I’m working for you. I’m not your boss. I would like to think that we’re partners, though. And partners keep each other apprised.”

  “Copy that, sir—Sergeant. Can I still call you Sergeant?”

  “Of course. You might even throw in a Ryan every now and then. If you think you can pull it off.”

  “Ha,” Boyd said. “That might take some practice.”

  “You’ll get the hang of it. Meantime, you’ve been in contact with Troop C, right? And they’re keeping an eye out for Reddick?”

  “They spoke with his mother and she claimed to have no idea where he is. Hadn’t heard from him in months, she said. Plus no reported sightings of his vehicle in the area.”

  “I figured,” DeMarco said. “So fill us in on what has Joe so ticked off. Jayme’s here too, by the way. Got you on speaker.”

  “Sure. So…nothing more from the crime scene in Otter Creek. We’ll be taking down the tape today. And now that Reddick’s website is down…”

  “No way to backtrack and find a path to his sales and customers?”

  “Not without a fistful of warrants. And even then…”

  “Does the DA know all this?”

  “The lab faxed him, yeah. He has my and Flores’s reports on McNulty’s arrest too.”

  “And let me guess. No search warrant to get back inside the house?”

  “He said McNulty will claim the weed was for her epilepsy. And even if it wasn’t prescribed, no jury will fault her for finding some relief wherever she can. But we got her cold on the prostitution charge.”

  “And now what?”

  “Now we wait, I guess.”

  “I’m still not very good at that,” DeMarco told him, and received a knowing smile from Jayme. “Maybe I need to have a conversation with the DA. See where we stand.”

  “Yeah. I don’t think he’s gotten back to the captain yet.”

  “In other words you’re telling me to sit tight.”

  “I just…don’t think he’s gotten back to the captain yet.”

  DeMarco laughed. “You know, Mason, I never really appreciated your sense of humor before. But you can be a very funny man sometimes.”

  Seventy-Eight

  The DA was a sharp dresser. That was the one thing DeMarco liked about him. He did not like the excessive amount of hair gel. Or the manicured fingernails. Or the pointy-toed leather shoes. He did not like the man’s win-at-all-costs attitude. Or the way an hour in the younger man’s company made him feel as if he had spent that hour standing over a bubbling deep fryer full of old grease. And that was why DeMarco decided to make contact by phone from the comfort of his car. Besides, the view of the quiet street through his windshield, the Mark Twain Manor and, beyond it, the Randall Funeral Home, was somehow soothing. Jayme at his side, Hero standing on the back seat, panting in his ear. He noticed a chili stain on his pant leg.

  To the DA’s secretary, he said, “Tell you what, Jeannie. Please inform Mr. Cooper that if he doesn’t have three minutes for me now, I will be happy to come to his home tonight. In fact I’m headed in that direction right now. Tell him no hurry, I can wait in his driveway.”

  DeMarco was put on hold for twenty seconds. Then the line clicked open again. “Sergeant DeMarco,” the DA said with a discernible lack of enthusiasm, “what can I do for you?”

  “I need to know where we stand on Luthor Reddick.”

  “Well, sir, by all appearances, we don’t stand anywhere on Mr. Reddick.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Has your team gathered some evidence I don’t know about? Something a little more concrete than mere suspicion? Because what I have before me to implicate Mr. Reddick in any way is…let me see here…oh yes, there it is. Absolutely nothing.”

  DeMarco’s left hand clasped shut, stretched open again, fingers rigid. Jayme laid her hand atop it. Into the phone, he said, “I don’t like what I’m hear
ing.”

  “What’s not to like?” the DA said. “We have in custody two witnesses. One has confessed to the murders, and the other has corroborated that confession. As soon as I get McNulty’s testimony under oath, we are prepared to move forward.”

  “She’s going to want something for that testimony.”

  “That’s the game we play—is it not?”

  “We need to go back out to Reddick’s property. He’s too smart to hide anything in the house but he has lots of land to hide it on. Where’s the rebar he used? Where’s the hammer? Where did he burn his bloody clothes, and how about Choo Choo’s clothes, and all the drugs he ships out of that office of his? Every so-called collectible in that house is hollow. What do you think he fills them with, bubble bath?”

  “Mr. Reddick’s property is no longer a crime scene, Sergeant. If you want it searched again, you know what I need.”

  I know exactly what you need, DeMarco thought. But said, “Have you scheduled your press conference yet?”

  “The public has the right to know that the guilty parties are in custody. You wouldn’t deny them that right, would you, Sergeant?”

  Jayme squeezed his hand. He looked at her. She squeezed again. Into the phone he said, “Have a good night,” and ended the call.

  Seventy-Nine

  It was best to say nothing for a while. Let him drive with his hands strangling the steering wheel, his eyes locked like laser sights on the center line. The evening was cooling, streaming in through the vents, but Jayme knew his opinion of the DA and imagined that DeMarco’s body was flush with heat now, so she left the air conditioner vents open and shivered a little and tried to think warming thoughts.

  After a while she retrieved her earbuds from inside the console and plugged them into the car’s stereo. He said, surprising her, “You don’t have to use those.”

  “I didn’t want to disturb your thoughts,” she said.

  He said, “Channel 49 on Sirius is Motown.”

  “You sure you wouldn’t rather have Ozzy’s Boneyard or some nice Liquid Metal?”

  He smiled. “Whatever you want, snarky.”

  She turned on the radio, moved the dial. The Trammps were sixteen bars into “Hold Back the Night.” Twelve bars later, she saw his fingers relax. “One of Ozzy’s greatest hits,” she said.

  He smiled as he drove. They listened to another song in silence. Then he said, “Have you ever seen the elk?”

  “By the elk, you mean…?”

  “The elk in Elk County. October is a great time to see them. The stags are full of vinegar and the hinds are strutting their stuff.”

  “Lots of head bashing and lovemaking, that kind of thing?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Who wouldn’t want to see that?”

  He smiled again. She rocked her shoulders back and forth to the Elgins’ “Heaven Must Have Sent You.”

  Some twenty minutes later he pulled alongside the RV in the backyard, slipped the gearshift in Park but did not shut off the engine. Behind them, the garage light flared on and threw a long shadow of the car toward the house. Everywhere else lay in twilight. “Dusk,” he said aloud, barely a whisper.

  “The gloaming,” she said.

  “I like that word. It’s Scottish, like the love of my life.”

  She felt no need to correct him, say it’s Old English, from the Germanic. A new song had started. She glanced at the digital readout. Jimmy Ruffin. “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted.” “Are you ever going to dance with me again?” she asked. “Like we did on my grandma’s porch?”

  He looked at her for a moment, then shut off the engine but turned the key back to engage the alternator and keep the music playing. Then he popped open his door and climbed out and left the door open as he walked around to her side. Sensors in the yard tripped lights mounted on the porch roof and along the side of the house. Moments later, both of their phones beeped. He silenced his and opened her door and held out his hand. “It’s mating season,” he said.

  She silenced her phone and climbed out and they danced in the grass to the next three songs. The Spinners. Love Unlimited. Martha and the Vandellas. Hero stood on the rear seat and watched out the window, his tail batting rhythmically back and forth like a conductor’s furred baton.

  Eighty

  They headed due east a few minutes before eight in the morning, aiming to reach their destinations in Elk County by ten. The air was clear but the sky Confederate gray, and though no glare of rising sun blazed on the windshield, DeMarco wore his sunglasses to soothe eyes that felt full of sand, despite the eye drops he had applied twice that morning. Thanks to Loughner’s phone message or the one and a half chili dogs or the conversation with the DA the previous evening, his few hours of sleep had failed to refresh him.

  After returning home that night, he had telephoned the Troop C station in Ridgway to let them know that he and Jayme would be visiting Benezette to question Luthor Reddick’s mother, and asked if he, DeMarco, could also have a look at Joe Loughner’s incident logs for the weeks before and after Thomas Reddick Sr.’s death, as per Loughner’s suggestion. The trooper who had taken the call said, “Let me speak to the station commander and I’ll get back to you ASAP.” DeMarco knew that a call was being placed to Joe Loughner and expected to have to wait quite a while for an answer, but was surprised when his phone rang no more than two minutes later. “No problem, Sergeant. We’ll have everything you need when you get here.”

  The plan was to drop DeMarco off in Ridgway at the Troop C station, from which point Jayme would proceed southeast to Benezette and, with luck, surprise Mrs. Reddick with a visit. They expected the interview to take no longer than thirty minutes. Then Jayme would drive back to Ridgway, pick up DeMarco, and both would travel to one of the elk-viewing areas north of Benezette. “Unless Luthor’s mother sets your radar beeping,” DeMarco said, “and you get the feeling she knows where he is. In that case we’d better check out some of the cabins and other possibilities before seeing the elk.”

  “When is the best time to watch all that testosterone in action?” she asked.

  “A couple of hours after sunrise and a couple of hours before sunset.”

  “Just like you,” she teased.

  “I don’t bugle like an elk, though.”

  “Sometimes you do,” she said.

  He appreciated that she was trying to keep the mood light. He did not like the heaviness that sometimes came over him during an investigation and made him feel like he was slogging through deep mud or, this time, was knee-deep in quicksand. It helped to be mobile and to have a solid plan for the day but he worried that his mood might be even darker by afternoon if neither destination provided some momentum to the case.

  He hated his moods. And wondered what his life might be like if he gave up the profession completely. What would he do to keep from going stir-crazy? They both had some retirement money coming in and a moderate savings account, but a life as world travelers was beyond their reach. If the house sold, half of the money would go to Laraine and a big chunk of it to the real estate agent; not enough would be left over to pay off the RV. He would be fifty in a few months. And, if Jayme got her wish, a father. She was no longer taking birth control pills, a fact he reminded himself of every time they made love. A couple of times he had been unable to ejaculate. The erection never failed him but he wondered if the recalcitrant ejaculation was a subconscious form of birth control on his part.

  At her age, prenatal checkups would be frequent and costly; the insurance they paid for as retired troopers would cover only part of the costs. Then there would be a few tons of disposable diapers to buy, then solid food and designer sneakers and electronics and college tuition. Maybe retiring was a big mistake. But did he want to go back to that routine, to having his daily schedule determined by somebody else? A self-directed life had always been his secret dream, but thi
s dream like most came riddled with hidden pitfalls and perils. What had he gotten them into?

  “Looks just like ours,” Jayme said, which shook him out of his reverie. The Troop C station house was fifty yards ahead and nearly identical to the redbrick building in which they had worked. “The setting and everything,” Jayme said. “You should feel right at home.”

  He smiled and flicked down the turn signal. When had he ever felt at home?

  Eighty-One

  Nearly every business in the town of Benezette seemed to have the word elk, buck, stag, or antlers in its name. The air was thick with wood smoke, and despite the last of the colorful leaves in the surrounding woods, every surface appeared weathered and drab. She knew from the research she had done during the drive from home that the population of the entire township was under three hundred people, which meant fewer than two people per square mile. Still, until she read that 7 percent of the population lived under the poverty line, and that the median family income was only $36,000, she had been expecting a small version of Breckenridge or Killington, with expensive chalets and lodges studding the hillsides, and trendy boutiques and bistros lining the streets.

  None of that was visible here. Judging by the number of muddy pickup trucks, Jeeps and SUVs in front of every motel, restaurant, and B&B, either every local citizen was in town that morning or she wasn’t the only tourist come to watch the elk spar and hump and graze.