Violet Darger | Book 8 | Countdown To Midnight

by Vargus, L. T.

  Mrs. Huxley’s expression softened a touch, and she nodded. She lifted a binder from beside her on the sofa, handing it to Loshak.

  “I kept a scrapbook of everything he’s ever done. Every drawing. Every report card.”

  Loshak opened it, revealing the standard preschooler’s drawing of a house with a big yellow circular sun and lines radiating outward. Loshak flipped further in. As Tyler aged, he drew other things: cars, dogs, cartoon characters.

  “He was interested in art, then?” Loshak asked.

  “He was interested in many things.” She gestured at a photo of Tyler dressed in an Air Force pilot costume for Halloween. “For a while it was airplanes. He wanted to be a pilot, but he’s colorblind. So he gave up on that. And then he got into baseball for a while. Knew every fact and stat for all the players. And Tyler just loved movies and special effects. We took him to see one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies when he was ten or eleven, and I think that’s where that started. He asked for a camera for Christmas. We got him a little Flip camera that was popular at the time and not too expensive.”

  Her lips twitched, and Darger realized that this was Mrs. Huxley’s rendition of a smile.

  “He was so serious even then. So devoted to the things he was passionate about. He knew exactly what he wanted, and it always had to be the best. And he was very bright. Scored off the charts on the standardized test all the kids take in the third grade. I believe there was some suggestion that he should go to a special school for gifted and talented children, but it was all the way up in White Plains and Earl said it was too far, so nothing ever came of it.”

  “Earl was Tyler’s father?”

  Mrs. Huxley nodded.

  “I should have insisted he go to that special school. It was where he belonged. Not in that toilet of a public school where nobody could see his potential.”

  “And what was his life like, socially?” Loshak asked.

  “My Tyler was very popular in school. People were just naturally attracted to him. He had such a marvelous imagination. He always had girls fighting over him, wanting him to take them to the school dances, because he was also a great dancer. Of course that made some of the boys jealous. But people were always jealous of Tyler.”

  “Did he have many girlfriends?”

  The woman waved her hand dismissively.

  “He didn’t really date much. The girls around here, they weren’t up to snuff. And he was so much more mature than his classmates.”

  Mrs. Huxley glanced at Darger as she said this, as if judging her suitability for her beloved son and finding her lacking.

  “I saw that movie about Richard Jewell, you know. The man who discovered the bomb at the Atlanta Summer Olympics? He was a hero, but you people accused him of planting the bomb himself. Ruined the life of an innocent man.”

  Darger was confused at the sudden change of subject.

  “I’m not sure I understand…”

  “Well, of course you don’t. It’s obvious the FBI only hires imbeciles.” The woman crossed her arms. “I’m saying Tyler could have been framed. Did you ever think of that?”

  “Mrs. Huxley, he left a note admitting to—”

  “Oh please. As if something like that couldn’t be faked! People were always envious of my son. Of his talent. There are plenty of people who would love to take him down a peg, believe me.”

  “Ma’am—”

  “You really have a lot of nerve to come into my home saying these outrageous things when you didn’t even know him.”

  Mrs. Huxley seemed intent on talking over them now. Each time she interrupted, she got louder, more fervent.

  Well, Darger could be loud, too.

  “Be that as it may, Mrs. Huxley—”

  The woman tried again to interject, but this time Darger ignored it, projecting her voice over the woman.

  “—if you really want to help your son, then the best way to do that is by answering our questions.”

  Mrs. Huxley’s mouth popped open.

  Darger sighed.

  “I’m sorry for raising my voice, but we really just need to ask a few more questions.”

  “It’s the day of my son’s death, and here I am being shouted at in my own home,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

  Darger resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

  “You’re right. And I apologize.” She swallowed her annoyance, deciding that Loshak might have better luck finishing the interview without her. “Does Tyler still have a room here?”

  “Of course. I’ve always kept it just how he left it, in case he ever wanted to come back for a night or two. It gets awful lonely here when I’m here by myself, day in, day out.” Her eyes went to a photo of Tyler hanging on the wall. “I always hoped he’d marry and have children. I so wanted grandchildren. But now…”

  “Perhaps David could show me the room?”

  Mrs. Huxley pressed her lips together.

  “Tyler didn’t like people going through his things.”

  Darger shot a look at Loshak.

  “Ma’am, this will go much more smoothly if it’s just us taking a look around. We can get a warrant if we have to, but they tend to make quite a mess when they tear through a place. I’d hate to have to put you through that.”

  “Fine.” Mrs. Huxley frowned. “Take the lady to see Tyler’s room, David. But you stay in the hallway and don’t touch anything. Tyler would never forgive me if I let you in there to snoop, too.”

  CHAPTER 21

  David Huxley led Darger down a dim hallway lined with old family photos and a few small shelves filled with tchotchkes. He pushed a paneled door open, flipped on the light, and stepped aside.

  “This is it here,” he said.

  Darger entered, letting her eyes wander the room, taking in the details. A blue plaid bedspread. An eclectic mix of movie and band posters coated much of the wall — Queens of the Stone Age, The Doors, the original 1974 version of Death Wish, John Carpenter’s The Thing with the pale blue light exploding from MacReady’s head. A small bookshelf filled with books, DVDs, and video games. The top was littered with a variety of collectible toys and figurines: Funko POP figures, WWE Superstars, Muppet Star Wars.

  She sniffed, noting that the room smelled vaguely minty.

  David hovered just beyond the threshold, having taken the instruction that he not enter the room literally.

  The good thing about splitting up was that maybe now she could hear things from David’s perspective. Mrs. Huxley had a way of co-opting the entire flow of the conversation and had barely let him get a word in.

  “What’s your take on all this?” she asked, still studying the room.

  David rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Honestly? I have no idea. It’s… I feel like this has to be a dream, but I haven’t woken up yet. I mean, I don’t know.”

  Darger turned to face him.

  “So you don’t feel like Tyler was the type that would do something like this?”

  “No. I mean, he had his quirks. But this?” He shook his head. “No.”

  “Is there anything in Tyler’s history you would describe as traumatic?”

  David shrugged and shook his head.

  “No. I’d say his childhood was pretty uneventful. The worst thing that’s ever happened to him would probably be our dad dying, but that was only a few years ago. He would have been 26 at the time, and I wouldn’t say he seemed especially torn up about it.”

  “Can I have you look at something?” Darger asked, getting out her phone. “I’ll warn you ahead of time, you might find it upsetting.”

  “It’s not a picture of him dead, is it?”

  “No. It’s the clues he left. At the crime scenes.”

  She showed him the photographs of the two notes. His eyes crisscrossed back and forth over the screen, scrolling, reading the scrawled words. David’s face blanched.

  “Jesus. He really sounds insane.”

  “Does any of it mean anything
to you? Give you any idea as to who he might target next?”

  “No. I mean… it all seems pretty vague, I guess.”

  “Do you remember him ever talking about anyone? A particular actor or celebrity he might have been infatuated with or have some sort of grievance against… anything like that?”

  The skin creased between his eyebrows.

  “He was really into Charles Bronson when we were kids. But Bronson’s been dead for years, so I don’t suppose that helps.” David winced. “We didn’t really talk all that much these days. I’m sure he mentioned movies and TV shows he was watching when we saw each other for holidays, but… I don’t know. Nothing stands out.”

  “How did the two of you get along with each other?”

  Again, David pondered this.

  “We didn’t really fight, if that’s what you mean. But that was mostly because Tyler was always off in his own world. Doing his own thing. He wasn’t really all that interested in other people, it seemed to me. In forming real relationships, I mean.”

  “Your mother made it sound like he had a lot of friends in high school. Was that an exaggeration?”

  “There were people he’d hang out with, but I don’t know if I’d call them friends, exactly. The thing you have to understand about Tyler is that he was sort of a schemer. A big talker. Good with words, you know? He always had a skill for talking people into stuff.”

  “Like Tom Sawyer getting people to whitewash a fence?”

  “Sort of. I’m trying to think of an example…” He snapped his fingers. “When we were in middle school, there was this school contest. Whoever read the most books in each grade one semester would get a prize. A big jar of candy. Tyler got a bunch of kids in his homeroom to give him their book slips, figuring if they pooled their books, they’d win for sure. And by the end of the contest, he had twenty more books read than anyone else in his grade. So he got the candy. But then he refused to split it up with the kids who’d helped him.”

  “I don’t imagine that went over well.”

  “Hell no. One of them ratted him out. They took away the candy and the win.”

  Darger raised her eyebrows. This wasn’t exactly the image of the perfect son Mrs. Huxley had painted for them.

  “What did your mother think of that?”

  “She took his side, as usual. Praised him for being clever. Said that the rules for the contest as written didn’t explicitly say you couldn’t pool your resources. He had her snowed.” David shoved his hands in his pockets. “He had this whole thing back then about making a movie, but it was just another scheme.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, he got all these people all pumped up about it, other kids at school. He’d tell them he wanted to cast them in the movie or ask them to be part of the crew. Even had me signed on as his gaffer at one point. I didn’t even know what a gaffer was, but it sounded important, so I liked it. Eventually I realized it was all talk. But it was an obsession for him… the script and shooting locations and how big the budget would be. Equipment he’d need. It’s like he was dreaming out loud, and people were sort of taken with it, you know. It was infectious. They wanted to believe. So I don’t think he was popular so much as he’d convinced people that he had something to offer. He manipulated everyone. I mean, even my ma fell for it. You heard her. Of course the movie never happened. None of it.”

  “Did he try?” Darger asked. “Apply to film school? Anything like that?”

  “I don’t think he ever even wrote a single page of script. It was just a fantasy, you know?” David blew out a breath. “He started telling himself this story, and then he started believing it, and pretty soon he’s telling other people, too. Just a weird kid fantasizing out loud. But he could sound so passionate, so convincing, that he got a bunch of other people to join in. And that made it seem more real. Like it wasn’t just a game of make-believe. He even got people to pitch in to buy some equipment. A camera and a tripod. Some lights. But he was just playing at it, all along. So to go back to your question about whether I thought he’d be capable of something like this… I mean, I never would have imagined him doing something violent. Blowing up the guy from that coffee commercial? Why? What’s even the point? But then, in a weird way, maybe I’m not surprised. Because he always had something to prove, I think. Like he wanted the whole world to see that he was special. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes,” Darger said, thinking that it fit with the bomber profile exactly.

  “One time I overheard him in the hallway at school, telling this story about how we went on vacation the summer before, and he started sleepwalking at the hotel and woke up in the middle of the night, pissing in one of the potted plants near the elevator. He had a whole little group around him, listening to him talk. The thing was, that story didn’t happen to him. It happened to our cousin Christopher. He’d told us over Thanksgiving. And maybe that isn’t such a big deal, stealing someone else’s anecdote and making himself the main character, but I just always felt like Tyler wanted to give off the sense that his life was filled with fascinating things happening to him. Maybe he worried that if he didn’t do that, people wouldn’t be so interested in him.” David paused and stared up at the ceiling. “Sometimes I felt like the only person who really saw that in him, saw him for who and what he really was.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Manipulative? Insecure? A phony? Take your pick.” He grimaced. “Shit. That probably sounds pretty harsh, considering… But I guess I’m just being honest.”

  “Oh, he’s probably going to be called much worse. You might want to brace yourself for that.”

  “I’ll be fine.” He gestured back down the hallway. “Not sure about her, though.”

  Darger could feel for them. This family thrust into this tragedy against their will. Dragged into the mud simply because they shared DNA with a homicidal madman.

  “You might get some media buzzing around, wanting a statement,” Darger said. “My advice? Ignore them. Tell them ‘no comment,’ and keep moving. They’ll lose interest eventually.”

  “That won’t be a problem for me. Can’t say the same about my mother. She’s not the type to sit quietly until the storm passes. If they start asking pointed questions about Tyler… I mean, you heard her out there. She’s got a hair-trigger as it is.” David rubbed his eye sockets. “It’s probably a petty thing to say, but I can’t help but wonder if she’d be defending me with the same intensity.”

  “You think she favored your brother?” Darger asked.

  “I have some vague memories, when I was very young, of her not having such a laser focus on him all the time. Seems like maybe it started once he took that test. The one in the third grade… that was it for her, I think. He sort of solidified his position as the golden child. The funny thing is, he never did that well on any of the tests ever again. He had a solid B average. Nothing special. Not that I did any better.” He shrugged. “I think it was something she wanted to believe, though. Him being some kind of boy genius. Something that made her feel like she did right. And I guess it’s always been important to Ma that we be… special somehow.”

  He stared at one of the posters on the wall and was quiet for a few seconds.

  “She’s always had this way of being either hot or cold to people.”

  One side of Darger’s mouth quirked upward.

  “I guess I’d be cold then?”

  David half-smiled.

  “She’s always been colder on women, for some reason. Guess it’s a good thing she didn’t have daughters.” He glanced back in the direction of the living room. “Anyway, I should go check on her. For your partner’s sake.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Alone in the bedroom, Darger took a closer look at Tyler Huxley’s teenage possessions. It was like a time capsule from fifteen or so years earlier. She took photos of the rest of the posters on the wall: The Matrix, The Black Keys, The Avengers. Studied the books on the shelves: a set of the Harry Potter books, Odd Tho
mas, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Fight Club, The Giver. A mix of reading he’d done for school and pleasure, she figured, snapping another photo.

  The number of fiction books, however, was dwarfed by the true crime books that took up most of the shelf. Darger leaned in to look closer, finding books about a menagerie of famous killers: Bundy, Gacy, Dahmer, Manson, Zodiac, Son of Sam, Albert Fish. Lurid covers and titles. Lots of black and red.

  So Huxley was a serial killer buff. Could that be significant? She didn’t know.

  She gazed around the room again. It was strange to think some of this useless junk might end up being important somehow. Then again, there might be nothing here. This could all be a waste of time.

  But it wasn’t good to think that way. They had to go through everything. Cover every base. There was too much riding on it.

  She tried to find some pattern in the items. The DVDs and video games and books. Something that might apply to the clue he’d left in his suicide note. But his collection was so dated to his high school years and earlier, it was hard to see how it would apply now.

  Darger shuffled through the video games. Mass Effect, God of War, Red Dead Redemption.

  She photographed everything. At some point, she’d make a list and try to find if there were any connections. A particular actor or writer or someone else he might target.

  Something flashed against the corner of the wall and ceiling, catching Darger’s eye. Silvery light, almost rainbowed along the edges, streaming in through the window, twirling motes on the wall. She peered outside, spotting a row of planters on a neighboring balcony stuffed with metallic pinwheels that caught the headlights of the passing cars and reflected them all over the inner and outer walls of the apartment. She studied the dancing, spinning orbs of light for a moment before returning her attention to Tyler’s room.

  Her eyes moved to the dresser, strewn with random objects as if Huxley had only yesterday emptied his pockets here. Half-empty bottles of cologne and body spray. A pile of loose change. Several containers of mints and gum, which she realized now was where the minty smell was coming from. There was also a small spray canister of breath freshener. He seemed obsessed with bodily odors, specifically with covering them. So Tyler Huxley had been somewhat insecure. Though what teenager wasn’t?