Five Days Post Mortem

by L. T. Vargus

  “I’m almost surprised kids still play games like that these days.”

  The boy whirled around and called out, “Ready or not! Here I come!”

  Fowles lifted a hand and waved.

  “Excuse me. Do you know where Shannon Mead lived?”

  The boy looked startled for a moment, caught off-guard by a stranger talking to him. His eyes went from Fowles to Darger, and he seemed to relax a little.

  “Are you more police?”

  “Sort of. We’re working with the police.”

  “It’s sad about Miss Mead,” the boy said, scratching his elbow. “On Halloween, she always gave out the King Size candy bars. Not those little mini ones.”

  Finally, he pointed at a blue bungalow with white trim.

  “It’s that one.”

  They thanked him and then watched him run off in search of his friends.

  As they crossed the neat square of lawn in front of Shannon’s house, Darger couldn’t hold back her latent curiosity any further.

  “Do you play any instruments?”

  His eyebrows furrowed.

  “No. Why?”

  Suppressing a smile, Darger shook her head.

  “No reason.”

  Fowles put his hands in his pockets and turned to her.

  “Do you?”

  “What?”

  “Play an instrument?”

  “Not unless you count a very brief stint with the clarinet in sixth grade,” Darger said, cringing internally at the memory. “Jazz band.”

  They climbed the front steps, and Fowles held the screen door aside while Darger inserted the key Mrs. Mead had given her into the lock.

  “I had grand visions of becoming some kind of clarinet prodigy, I guess. That was before I realized how much practice was involved. Turns out you actually have to play the thing to get any good. And you start out sounding really, really bad.”

  The hinges on the door squeaked as Darger pushed it open and entered the house. She took a few steps into what appeared to be a living room and then stood still for a moment, taking it in.

  It was nearly silent but for the tick-tock of an antique clock on the wall. A row of plants stood along a windowsill with a watering can shaped like an elephant. There was a bookshelf in the corner loaded with books, the spines arranged by color. A cross made of reclaimed wood hung over the sofa. In the center of the cross, there was a hammered metal heart with the word “LOVE” stenciled across it. Shannon’s life seemed to have been filled with it. Her love of family, love of teaching, love of God.

  Darger moved further inside, past a small dining area and into the kitchen. Despite the light let in by a sliding glass door, it felt dark inside now that the sun had slipped behind the trees. She flipped on the kitchen light and studied the items on the counter: spice rack, bread machine, stainless steel canisters labeled Flour and Sugar. Shannon must have liked to bake.

  From behind her, Fowles spoke. “That surprises me.”

  Darger turned to face him.

  “What does?”

  “That you gave up on the clarinet. You seem like a very… determined woman.”

  She’d been joking earlier when she asked if he was flirting with her, after his comment about her possessing the stubborn tenacity of a scientist. But here it was again.

  Then again, he was essentially saying she was thick-headed, wasn’t he? He was just tactful about it, unlike, say, her partner.

  Or was Loshak now her former partner?

  She sighed.

  “That might be true about some things. But I also don’t have a lot of patience for failure. And playing the clarinet for that semester felt like an ongoing failure.”

  “Are you this hard on everyone or just yourself?”

  Darger stared at him, not sure how to answer.

  Finally she said, “Yes.”

  He laughed.

  “I take it that means you’re not going to answer the question.”

  They explored a hallway with a bathroom and a bedroom that had been converted to an office/exercise room. One side of the room housed a desk with a computer and a printer. On the other end, a recumbent exercise bike was shoved in the corner.

  The last door Darger pushed through led into Shannon’s bedroom. The room featured a matching Craftsman-style bedroom set with photographs of family and friends clustered on top of the dresser. Scented candles on the nightstand. A handmade quilt on the bed.

  Darger was still taking it all in when the telltale buzz of a phone set to vibrate interrupted the silence.

  She spun around, patting her pocket even though she knew it wasn’t hers.

  Fowles was peering down at his phone with a look of… Darger wasn’t sure what. Alarm? Excitement?

  “I have to take this,” he said, not looking up. “Please excuse me.”

  Naturally, this aroused her so-called innate curiosity. She watched Fowles move off toward the kitchen where he’d have some privacy for his call, chewing her lip and wondering what was so important.

  Darger’s gaze fell from the photographs on top of Shannon Mead’s dresser to the drawers beneath. She slid one open, rifled through a tangle of tank tops and camisoles. The police had already been through here, would have taken anything they deemed “of interest.” But Darger couldn’t help poking around, searching for something they might have missed.

  Like a diary. That seemed like the kind of thing a bookish extrovert might be into. She closed the first drawer and tugged the next one open, revealing stacks of neatly folded jeans and leggings. No diary.

  After checking the last drawer, she took a brief inventory of the closet. It was clear that Shannon had been a fan of prints — florals and stripes and polka dots and plaids. Darger looked down at her blue Oxford shirt and navy pants. Maybe now that she wasn’t a Fed, she could incorporate some more festive items into her wardrobe. She picked at the hem of a green paisley number on one of the hangers, tried to imagine herself in it. It could pass for business casual. But then she’d have to get shoes to go with it. Boots wouldn’t cut it. And once you were accessorizing your footwear, there was everything else to consider — jewelry, hair, bag, etc.

  Darger took a step back from the closet and pushed the door closed. There was a reason she’d never been into fashion. It was just too much damn work. If she bought everything in navy, black, and gray, then she barely had to think when it came to dressing herself.

  Besides, she still hadn’t decided she was through with the Bureau. Her little stint with Prescott Consulting might be just that — a stint.

  The echo of Fowles’ voice rattled around the hard surfaces of the kitchen. Still on the phone.

  Finished with her search of the bedroom, Darger’s eyes strayed to the window. If she was going to take a look around the outside of the house, she’d better get to it. It would be dark soon.

  Chapter 9

  You wait for her. You don’t know why. It has become a habit. One of the stops you make during the day. Walking by her place. Checking on her.

  Watching her.

  Watching her as much as you can. Every day. Sometimes for hours at a time.

  Watching from across the street during the daylight hours. Creeping closer as night falls. Peering through her windows. Your face pressing right up to the glass. The glow of life just on the other side of that sheet of brittle clear. The shadow of her moving through the light, a darkness bending toward your face as though to touch you.

  But now she is gone. Away. Off at work or some such thing.

  You sit on a bench across the street from her building. Resist the urge to kick at the pigeons pecking around near your feet. It’s not an impulse toward some vicious bird attack. You just want to push them a little with the sole of your shoe. Nudge them. Feel them. You don’t know why.

  Cars rush past on the street. Kick up gusts of wind that feel crisp now that fall is here. And leaves scrape along the sidewalk when the pedestrians pass you by. No one really looking your way.

 
; Often you hide. You’re good at it. Sometimes in the bushes. Sometimes up a tree. You peer out from the shadowed places.

  But other times you hide in the open. Like here on the bench.

  You’re not invisible. The people passing by may see you. Let their eyes fall over you. But they do not notice you. They do not think about you. They just keep moving.

  You are no one. Nowhere. Nothing. You know this. You can see it yourself when you look in the mirror.

  The face drawn long. Narrow. Weak. Cheeks all sucked in and gaunt. And even so the little lumps along your jaw. Adipose tissue. Soft and rounded. The sag of someone older, someone fatter. Eyes that turn down at the corners. Dim. Empty.

  You are not worth remembering. Not worth really seeing at all. And you like that just fine.

  No. That’s not true. You don’t like it. But you accept it. You understand it. Understand that it is the way of things in this place, in this world. It exists the way gravity exists, the way the wind and rain exist, the way the moon waxes and wanes.

  Your eyes dart back to her place, to the walk leading up to her building.

  Empty. Nothing occupying the concrete steps, the sidewalk trailing off into the distance.

  She should be here by now, shouldn’t she? You think about this. Maybe not.

  You can never quite keep track of her schedule. Time won’t hold still in a way that will allow it. The minutes speed up and slow down. Never really make sense to you.

  But you’ve sat here long enough in any case. You rise. Tip forward into a walk. Feet pattering over the concrete.

  You wander.

  You wander through time and space. Not really understanding much of any of it. Not able to grab hold of it, fully grasp it. It all flits around about you, life. An angry, thrashing world. Nonsense, most of it. Meaningless sound and fury.

  So you walk. You keep moving whenever you’re not watching her, whenever you’re not watching her place.

  You walk. Especially in the dark. When the city sleeps.

  You walk.

  You walk the night. Sometimes all night long.

  You walk down railroad tracks and alleyways, and when you hit the outskirts of town, you cut across unkempt fields wet with dew. Feel your socks grow damp up to the ankles. Cotton soaking up the moisture like a sponge until your feet are sopping and clammy.

  And then you turn around and walk back.

  The world looks wholly different at night, in the dark, in the stillness. Unrecognizable. A little scary.

  And you stare into the dirty places, the ripped open places, the shadowy places.

  The secret places.

  All of it painted in shades of black, smudged in gloom.

  It’s not dark now, though. Not still. Not at all. The day still burns bright around you.

  The cars whoosh past in all directions, sheets of wind whipping off of them. The air moves. Alive. Picks up the slack of your shirt and mashes the wrinkles into your chest. The smell of exhaust hangs everywhere here.

  And the pedestrians trickle along the cement. All the little ants busy as ever, looking to get back to their hill.

  You walk among them, but you remain apart. Something separate. An other.

  You like to watch the people. All their energy, all their passion, expressed in facial twitches and hand gestures. Arms windmilling and legs churning for no reason you can figure.

  But it’s not the same, walking during the day. Not like at night. Not when it’s black and lonesome, and you’re the only one alive for miles.

  So you circle back toward her place. Back toward your bench. Sit.

  Your hands are sticky, you realize. You rub them on the thighs of your pants, but it doesn’t help. You ball your fingers into the palms and listen to the tacky sound as they peel apart, almost like cellophane. Jelly. That’s what it feels like. A thin layer of grape jelly over everything from the wrist down. Did you forget to wash them at some point? Have you showered? Changed your clothes? Been home in the last few days?

  You try to think, try to remember, but you can’t. The days and nights blur together when you get like this.

  It seems, sometimes, like time should stop once in a while. Wait for you. Let you catch up and find your place. But it never does. It rushes on and on and on.

  And she appears just then. Her figure taking shape on the sidewalk like a mirage on the horizon, a shimmering thing turning real, turning solid before your eyes. A dark spot in the ether gelling into human flesh.

  And she looks good. She’s a little bigger now. Not quite the scrawny thing she was back in school. Filling out in the hips and thighs. A little belly. But good nonetheless.

  Always that pleasant look on her face, just like when you were kids. The tiniest smile perpetually curls her lip as though she might be thinking about candy and puppies and sheets with absurdly high thread counts at all times.

  And it occurs to you that she is not the one you were thinking of. Close. But she is someone else. You get them confused sometimes, these girls you watch. You start to think of all of them as one — a specific one.

  One that’s a long time gone.

  But this one is here, you suppose. Here and now. It’s just as well.

  And you are moving. Going to her. Not by choice, or at least it doesn’t feel that way. You are drawn to her. Pulled to her. Energy grabbing you by the scruff of the neck and carrying you along. Something that is meant to be. Some hand of fate intervening. Impulses firing in your head like cannons.

  When you get within an arm’s length, she looks at you. Blinks. Blinks again. Three times.

  The smile wilts, shriveling like a time-lapse video of a rotting animal, but then it blooms again.

  She says your name. You tell her you were just passing by. All smiles.

  She invites you in.

  It would be rude not to accept, wouldn’t it?

  She unlocks the door into the hallway of her building and disappears into the opening there.

  You hesitate just shy of the doorway. Look back over your shoulder at the pedestrians streaming past on the sidewalk, and something about it makes you smile.

  You like to watch the people. There are so many. So, so many. You will never run out.

  Chapter 10

  The kids were still playing hide-and-seek when Darger stepped out from the hushed interior of Shannon Mead’s house. She could hear their shrieks and giggles from the doorstep and then caught sight of a streak of red as a girl scampered by in search of a fresh hiding spot.

  Darger moved away from the door, the smile fading from her lips as she remembered her task.

  Something in her gut told her that the killer, an obsessive type, would have stalked his victims. It went back to the manner of killing. The drowning. Close. Personal. Hands-on. It wasn’t the kind of death you’d dole out to a stranger.

  No, the killer would have felt like he’d known these women, even if the relationships were only figments in his imagination.

  And if she was right, if he’d been here, he might have left something behind.

  She strode out to the street first and studied the windows, wanting to know how much of the Mead house one could see from the sidewalk. He might have started out small — driving past or strolling down the sidewalk to get a quick peek at Shannon’s life.

  The living room featured the largest window on the front of the house. And right now, with the drapes only partially closed, it gave quite a clear view inside.

  Turning in a circle, Darger looked for likely hiding spots. Places the killer might have used to watch the house for longer periods of time. Once a quick peek wasn’t enough to satisfy his fantasies. But the front was too open, too visible to the neighbors. There were no alleys or empty lots to hunker down in. He might have parked his car on the street and spied from there, but Darger got the sense this was the kind of neighborhood that would have kept an eye out for that sort of thing.

  She crept closer to the house now, checking the windows and doors for marks. If the
killer had tried to jimmy a lock or use a pry bar to get in somewhere, he might have scratched the paint, dented a screen, broken a lock. But everything looked intact out front. Again, this wasn’t a surprise. If he’d tried to get in, the sides or back of the house would have given him more cover from the prying eyes of nosy neighbors.

  Darger ducked under the low-hanging branches of a Japanese maple as she rounded the side of the house. The leaves tickled against the back of her neck, and she paused to rub the resulting goose bumps from her forearms. A privacy fence ran around the perimeter of the small yard, separating Shannon Mead’s rectangle of lawn from the houses on either side.

  The back was the same as the front. Windows locked, screens unmolested.

  She started back the way she’d come, eyes on the ground now. Looking for footprints, cigarette butts. Anything that might suggest someone had been here, waiting. Watching.

  The yard was grass, a little patchy in spots with a smattering of weeds reaching their spindly arms toward the sky. A row of barberry bushes grew along the foundation of the house. In between the round masses of foliage, the dirt lay mostly bare with the scraggly remnants of spring tulips.

  It was something in one of the stretches of sandy ground that finally caught Darger’s eye. She stepped closer to the house. Frowned at the impression in the dirt. It was a perfect circle, maybe a foot in diameter. She traveled the length of the house again, looking for similar marks, but only found the one.

  She went back to it. Crossed her arms, thinking. There was nothing in sight that she could see that would make that kind of mark. Something the crime scene techs had done? But what? It had to be something else.

  Her eyes roamed higher, up the clapboard siding. There was a window above her. In fact, the circular indentation in the soil was perfectly centered in front of the window. She was near the back corner of the house, which would make this Shannon’s bedroom.

  Darger backed up across the yard, trying to get a better view inside the window. When she reached the fence, she noticed that one of the boards was broken off at the top. She peered through the gap at the bamboo hedge growing on the other side of the fence.