The Killing Sands

by Rick Murcer

  Aaron looked up and steadied himself.

  “I didn’t think it would be this hard, you know.”

  “Stop,” said Detective Williams. He had one of those about-time looks on his face and, like I said before, when this man spoke, you listened. There was something else there, almost like he wanted to protect Aaron. That if he let him say what he saw, Aaron would blame himself forever.

  “What the hell do you mean, stop? I have to know who did this.”

  “Just hang on, Chase. It’s more complex than giving us a name, okay?”

  “All right. All right.”

  He put his hand on my shoulder and smiled, then the two detectives moved away, speaking in low tones.

  In those maddening moments, I felt everything and then nothing at all. It was like my emotion box was empty, and it’d be awhile before it was filled again. Maybe it never would.

  I turned toward Lake Michigan and felt the morning breeze freshen on my face. I saw a red transport ship heading north, maybe a half mile off the coast, and focused on part of its journey, knowing the next time I saw one of them like this, my world wouldn’t be the same.

  “Chase?”

  I jumped and spun toward the sound of Detective Williams’s voice.

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s go sit by the lighthouse for a few minutes. Detective Green is going to go wait by Aaron and the others.”

  “Anything to get this over with.”

  Then it struck me like an eight-foot wave. Aaron. Aaron had killed Maggie. It made total sense.

  I turned to confront him, and Detective Williams grabbed me. The man was powerful and stopped me in my tracks.

  “Wait. Don’t say anything. We have to do this the right way,” he said, seeming to read my mind.

  “But . . . okay. You’re the boss.”

  A minute later, we were sitting on the sand about thirty feet from where Maggie had died. I couldn’t stop the flashbacks. That scream, her stare, the walk up the lighthouse steps—a walk I’d never make again, ever.

  “Chase. I’m worried about Aaron.”

  “Why? I mean he killed her, right? He must have followed us. You know, I always wondered about him. He’d say how much he loved her as a friend, but he was jealous. I could tell.”

  I caught my breath and wondered why I had just unloaded all of that on the detective. It felt good, though.

  He ran his hand through his hair and smiled. “I think you’re right. But let me tell you why I’m worried about him. People who do this kind of thing, kill someone close to them, can become so distraught that they block it out and have no memory of it.”

  “You mean like amnesia?”

  “Exactly. It’s called dissociative amnesia. Something a person has done, or seen, causes so much psychological stress that the person simply forgets what happened. The mind is powerful and frail at the same time. If we confront him with what’s going on, he may dive deeper into denial and never come out again, got it?”

  “Yes,” I said, not really understanding how that could happen, but sure the man wasn’t lying. “What do we do?”

  “Well, it’ll help if we go over your story so we have all of the details together. I’ve had a couple of these cases, and it works to show the facts. You with me?”

  I said I was.

  “I know this is going to be tough, but let’s start from the beginning. Right after you picked Maggie up from work.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” he said.

  “All right,” I sighed.

  I went through it again. He stopped me once in a while, got a clarification, and told me to continue. Each time he did, I felt more anxiety for Aaron. There was hate too, but I’d known him longer than Maggie, and I suppose I loved him as much. But I just couldn’t get how he could do that to her and me.

  “I think I have what I need, Chase. So let’s go talk with Aaron. It’ll be good to have you there. It might help him stay grounded.”

  I got up and turned to look at the lighthouse and was surrounded with more flashbacks than I could shake a stick at. Gruesome flashbacks.

  Detective Williams stood beside me. “I do have another question.”

  “Shoot.”

  You said Maggie fell backward after she fell on the steps, right?

  “Yes.”

  “So she would have reached behind her to grab your arm, causing the fingernail scratches to start at the bottom of your forearm and work up. Is that right too?”

  “Yeah. I caught her, and we just stood there for a few minutes.”

  He let out a sigh and I felt my head start to spin. What the hell was happening here?

  “The scratch marks, according to the police photos and as I see them now, indicate just the opposite, Chase. Evidence shows that the scratches started at the top of your arm and ended by your wrist. That happens when people are facing each other and maybe struggling.”

  “Well. Maybe I was wrong. It happened so fast.”

  “That could be. I have another question. Remember, we have to get this right.”

  I felt myself growing impatient. “What?”

  “You said you were sitting in the back of the police car on the passenger side, and the in-car video confirms that. We’re about the same height, so, before you got here, I got in the back of the car, cuffed myself, and tried to see out the window where you saw Maggie’s car drive by, and for the life of me, I couldn’t. In fact, it was almost impossible to see out the driver’s side rear window at all.”

  I rubbed my face, my mind wandering back to Maggie. The curve of her face. The shape of her body. The smell of her hair. I never loved or missed her more than I did at that second.

  “Maybe I saw it out the other window, but I saw it,” I answered, my voice faltering.

  “That’s possible,” he said quietly.

  Detective Williams took a step closer and drove those eyes to the very core of my soul.

  “I want you to close your eyes, Chase, and concentrate on the man you saw at the top of the trail leading away from the lighthouse.”

  “I told you a hundred times, I couldn’t see him.”

  “Trust me here. I think you can, but something’s blocking it. I need you to try. Aaron needs you to try. Maggie and her mother need you to try.”

  The man should have been one of those motivational coaches. I didn’t want to let anyone down, especially Maggie, and do less than I could. Furthermore, Detective Williams knew that about me.

  I shut my eyes and concentrated. I relived running around the lighthouse and felt the pain as the tire iron jammed into my sandal and struck my calf, causing me to go down. Then I dug deep. The pale light of the moon grew brighter, and I watched the figure hesitate and then look my way. It occurred to me that Detective Williams wanted me to concentrate on the man I’d seen. I don’t know how he knew that, but he was right. It was a man, wearing a familiar ball cap.

  In my mind’s eye, the moon seemed to get a little brighter, then I saw his face. Good God in heaven, I saw his face.

  Chapter-11

  I stared at Detective Williams, then slowly turned to the group of men waiting with Detective Green. The sun felt a little warmer on my back as it rose higher, but that’s not why I was sweating. I’ve read about those out-of-body feelings people have. They say it happens in situations when someone just can’t escape any other way. You could count me to be in that group.

  I’d read a few things in college I didn’t like. I suppose anyone who’d traveled that route felt the same way sometimes. But there was this book written by Henry David Thoreau, Walden Pond. In it, he’d written about his life near that small lake. I’d researched him after reading the book and found something he’d written that turned my head. That quote came rushing back to me and, for some unknown reason, stabbed my heart.

  Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

  Truth. I didn’t need this truth, but I began up the slope anyway, knowing life would never be the same.<
br />
  Manny Williams didn’t speak but instead followed as I shuffled through the sand, finally reaching the destination my legs seemed to acknowledge without being told.

  Silence is golden, like the saying goes, and if it had been up to me, this silence would have lasted until the end of time or whenever God came back, whichever was first. But I didn’t have the luxury of choices like that. Immortality wasn’t on my resume.

  “It’s time,” said Detective Williams, softly, in that voice that could force a dead man to speak.

  I panned the circle of people that included three of the most important men in my life. The disappointment and pure dread at identifying the killer of my Maggie was going to tear us apart for an eternity.

  I glanced at Detective Green and then over to Detective Williams. His slight nod somehow gave me courage. I wanted to run away and hide, but in the end, Maggie’s killer had to pay. Oh God in Heaven, this was going hurt.

  I let out the last remnants of a breath that I’d held jealously. Pain began to pound at my temples, and my lips trembled. "Detective Williams and I have been talking," I said softly. The throbbing in my head was louder, drowning out my voice. Memories and unwelcome pictures began to flash at me, piercing my heart and threatening my breath. I gasped for air. I had to say the words, somehow. Then I did. Even I couldn't believe it. “It was me. I saw my own face on the man going over the hill,” I blurted.

  I had to say it. Truth was truth, as my dad would say, but this was more than that. It was Hell.

  Aaron moved closer to me, his face full of questions. I turned my eyes away. I never wanted to see him look at me that way again. He reached out, grabbed my arm with a boney grip, and whispered. “Why?”

  Detective Green stood next to my dad, who looked like he’d just been stabbed through the heart. Maybe he had.

  “I think I’d like to know that too, Chase,” Green said.

  I slumped slowly to the sand, and once there, I remembered everything. Not just the face of the man who stood in that silver moon’s light, but—please, God, forgive me—everything that had happened. How I’d killed her.

  The movie in my mind started again; this time, there were no scenes deleted.

  Maggie had climbed to the top of the lighthouse, me in close pursuit, both of us laughing in that out-of-breath way that was funny and hurt at the same time. We held hands, stared at the lake, listened to the waves. I’d bent to kiss her, but she’d moved away and said she had something to tell me. That it would be better to hear it up here, in a place where we’d had great memories. I recalled how my heart started to beat, like when you think you’re in deep trouble. Maggie didn’t keep me waiting. She really was going to go to MIT, that part was true. But she was going to move there, for good, to be with the new love of her life—the professor who had gotten her into the school and who was twenty years older than her. I’d thought she was joking, but she hadn’t been. I’d never felt that kind of betrayal. And betrayal was the right word. We had just talked about having kids, for God’s sake.

  I saw red. I swung the iron I’d brought to pry off the locks. It struck her with a glancing blow as she ducked and grabbed my arm. I pushed her and she almost went over the railing. I swung again and felt the left side of her skull give. She hurtled over the edge.

  I hadn’t meant to kill her. I’d just lost it. I rushed down the steps, took one look at her lying on the rocks, and felt like I had died inside.

  I then ran all the way back to our cars. I hadn’t really picked her up at work; she had met me at the vacant cabin. That’s when I squeezed into the front seat of her car and drove back to the lighthouse. I really can’t explain that, other than to say that’s where her scent was still the strongest. I know it was sick, but until you walk in my shoes . . .

  Ten minutes later, I was back at the beach, calling 9-1-1. You know the rest.

  That movie had only taken seconds to show in my brain, but the reruns would last until the day I died.

  “Chase?” said Detective Williams.

  The hot tears welled up, then disappeared. More crying wasn’t going to bring her back either. I’d made sure that nothing would.

  “I . . . I was angry. I guess I just lost my cool. I’ve never . . .”

  Detective Williams put his hand on my shoulder not saying anything, but it spoke more than you’d think a touch could. In a way, I think he was telling me he understood, at least in part. But there was that other side of his touch. The one that said you’re coming with us.

  I stood. Life is full of curves, and as I heard the waves prance to the shore, I decided I was only going to one place.

  I twisted away from Detective Williams and sprinted toward the beach. He yelled for me to stop, but oddly, only once. I guess he had his reasons. I heard echoes of someone running behind me, but I didn’t look back. I was never going to look back again.

  I reached the lake’s edge and dove into the icy waters of Lake Michigan. I’d swim as far as I could then let nature take its course. It’d be better that way, at least for me. I swam hard. It wouldn’t take long to tire and just sink to the bottom . . . if I didn’t die from hypothermia first.

  A few minutes later, I heard another swimmer and looked a few feet behind me.

  Aaron.

  “Get your skinny ass back to the beach,” I yelled. “This ain’t about you.”

  His glasses were gone, and his teeth were chattering. His appearance reminded me of a cartoon version of a drowned rat, but his look of determination was something special.

  “Hey-y we’re in this t-together. I’ll help-p you through this-s. But like y-o-u always tel-l-l me: truth is truth. So i-f-f you go, I-I go. So do a man-n a solid and let-t me live-live long enough to get lu-lucky.”

  I was still treading water when a wave hit me in the face, but not with anywhere the impact of my friend’s actions. In spite of what I’d done to Maggie, here he was. No condemnation, just a determination to stick with me. I felt my heart change, at least a little.

  I went to him, nodded, and then we swam back toward Little Sable Point Lighthouse.

  About the Author of The Lighthouse

  Rick Murcer is a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author.

  He lives in Michigan and graduated from Michigan State University. He has two grown children, three beautiful grandkids, and a blind black Lab named Max, who serves as his “writing” dog.

  He loves to answer your e-mails, so talk to him.

  Website: www.rickmurcer.com

  E-mail: rickmurcer@gmail.com

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  by Traci Hohenstein

  Prologue—six months earlier

  The champagne chilled on ice, and plump strawberries coated with rich dark chocolate sat atop a sterling silver tray.

  Straightening his tie, the man knocked hard on the door of Room 314, calling out, “Room Service!”

  “Just a second,” came a voice from behind the door.

  The man fingered the glass vial in his pocket. He took a quick glance down the hallway before the hotel guest opened the door.

  “Good evening. I’ve got some champagne for the happy couple, compliments of hotel management,” he said, rolling the cart into the room.

  “You can just put it over there.” The groom pointed next to the bed. He was partially dressed in his tuxedo, with his tie and jacket off, shirt untucked and unbuttoned.

  The man pulled out the champagne and started to open the bottle.

  “Just leave it, dude. I can do that,” the groom said.

  “It’s all part of the five-star service.”

  “Okay. Whatever.” The groom walked toward the bathroom.

  The man waited until the groom was out of sight and then s
lipped the vial out of his pocket. He poured the clear, odorless liquid into the two champagne flutes, then filled them with the chilled bubbly. For the finishing touch, he removed the strawberries and artfully arranged them on a china plate. He heard giggles coming from the bathroom.

  “Have a nice evening!” he called out, closing the door behind him. “Thanks for the tip, asshole,” he mumbled to himself while hanging the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the front of the doorknob. Instead of the elevator, he took the stairwell two steps at a time, humming the “Jeopardy” theme song.

  ***

  Tuesday morning, Maria Gonzalez, head housekeeper of the Tropicana Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, rapped on the door a few times before sliding her key card in the slot. She ripped off the DO NOT DISTURB sign before opening the door. The guests were supposed to have checked out, and sometimes they did so without notifying the front desk. Since all guests had a credit card on file, it was not unusual to just leave when they were ready. Still, Maria sang out, “Housekeeping!” as she peeked inside the room.

  Satisfied the room was empty, Maria engaged the doorstopper and stepped back to grab a load of towels off her cart. She was short-staffed this morning with half her staff coming down with a stomach virus. Thankfully, she only had nine rooms to clean this morning. Maria proceeded to the bathroom when she almost tripped over something. She looked down and saw a nude male body on the floor. The body had a sick, green tinge to it, and the smell of vomit assaulted her nose. Maria screamed and bolted out of the room, feeling like she was going to be sick. “Help me!” she yelled as she ran down the hotel corridor. “Somebody is dead! Help me!”

  Chapter One