The Dark Heart

by Julie Cave

  When Dinah checked the phone log, she found calls to and from Al and Lola on a semi-regular basis. Al seemed to be in contact with Malia several times a week, while Lola appeared once or twice a week. She wondered the significance of their relationship. Although they had been in regular contact, neither Al nor Lola had visited Malia in jail or tried to bail her out.

  Dinah had a burning desire to follow up the phone numbers and pay a visit to Simon, Al, and Lola; but first, she had to wait for Elise, who had been on the phone the whole time.

  Finally, she hung up and shook her head in frustration. “I got nowhere,” Elise said. “This woman did a good job of cutting off her whole family or she was dropped off here by the stork.”

  Elise drummed her fingers on her desk for a moment. “All right. Let’s go talk to the owner of the building in which Malia lived. I figure she had to fill out a rental application and they usually ask for next of kin details.”

  While Dinah waited, Elise accessed the county records database, which showed that the owner lived on the opposite side of town to his grubby, crumbling apartment block.

  It was late afternoon when they stepped outside, and the sun was relinquishing its job in a seemingly hurried fashion. It was very cold, and a series of scudding gray clouds promised rain before nightfall. The approaching dusk had almost completely leeched what little light was left as Elise and Dinah pulled up in front of an immaculately kept bungalow.

  Owen Karakarides was a short, bald man with a head shaped like an egg and a huge cigar protruding from his mouth, around which was clamped a set of yellow teeth.

  He glowered at them. “You the detective?”

  He looked both women up and down like he didn’t like what he saw. Dinah raised her eyebrows, silently daring the man to make a rude comment. Give me a reason, old man.

  When the silence stretched out, Elise said, “Evening. I’m Detective Elise Jones of the Sheriff’s Department. This is Dinah Harris, former FBI agent and consultant on this case. I need to talk to you about the tenant of one of your buildings.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, looking at Elise and then Dinah, through narrowed, suspicious eyes.

  Dinah felt her patience sap and her ire rise. “Shall we go inside, or do you want your neighbors knowing your business?”

  Grudgingly, he stepped aside, showing a well-furnished living room. “This about that dead lady?”

  Dinah glanced around the room and sat down with some reluctance on an overstuffed armchair. “Yes. Her name was Malia Shaw.”

  He snorted. “I never really knew her name. She, and all the rest of them in that building, they’re all the same.”

  “Same in what way?”

  “Junkies,” Karakarides sniffed. He puffed on his cigar.

  Dinah let out a slow breath, amazed at the man’s ability to completely irritate her to the point of violence in only five minutes.

  Elise jumped in. “Okay. So do you remember Malia Shaw?”

  He waved his hand in a vague gesture. “Sure. Single lady. Obviously a junkie. No job.”

  “Why on earth would you rent to her if she was so clearly a drug addict and had no job?” Elise asked.

  Karakarides thought about that. “As I recall, she paid her rent six months in advance, in cash.”

  Elise and Dinah exchanged a glance. “Six month’s rent in cash? How much would that have been?”

  “Well, the monthly was $300, so you do the math,” Karakarides said, with a smirk.

  Dinah bit her lip viciously to prevent herself from saying what she thought. She very much wanted to knock the man in his yellow teeth at that moment. To hide her irritation, she wrote the figure in her notebook, thinking about the information the owner had just given her.

  Eighteen hundred dollars: not a lot of money by some standards, but to a drug addict, a fortune. Dinah thought about the tiny, sparse apartment, furnished cheaply. How had she come up with $1800 in cash? How had she resisted the temptation to trade it for heroin?

  “When was the lease due for renewal?” she asked.

  “I think March.”

  “So did you ask her if she was going to stay in the apartment?”

  “Not me, personally,” said Karakarides. “But the super — well, he’s only a part time super, on account of the place being a dump — he told me that she told him she wanted to stay. And that she had cash.”

  Curious. Both Dinah and Elise had tossed the apartment and there had been no hidden stash of money. From where would she have gotten the money?

  “Do you have the rental application?” she asked.

  Karakarides sighed. “Well, I guess it’s in my office somewhere.” He didn’t move.

  Dinah almost growled aloud. Even Elise, who seemed more patient, snapped, “Well, I’m gonna need it.”

  Karakarides made it a big production to get up and shuffle off down the dark hallway to another room.

  Dinah thought about the dead woman’s finances while Karakarides was away, wondering if Malia Shaw had been dealing drugs on the side or engaged in some other crime to feed her habit. It would open up a world of possibilities when it came to suspects if that were the case. Finally, the owner returned, waving a thin file at them.

  Elise took it from him. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll return it when I’m done.”

  “Really? Can’t you take a copy?” Karakarides whined.

  Elise smiled. “Sorry,” she said. She sounded suspiciously like she didn’t mean it. Dinah rose and together they saw themselves out of the bungalow, leaving Karakarides standing behind them with his hands on his hips, puffing on his cigar, and filling his home with the acrid smoke.

  In the car, with Elise dangerously behind the wheel, Dinah opened the file and read the application quickly. Some of the information would require further clarification, but it was bare where it counted for now.

  No next-of-kin was listed — in fact, the page was totally void of writing. Dinah supposed the property owner hadn’t cared, since he’d received his rent in advance.

  “Nothing here,” she told Elise, as the car lurched forward, tires squealing. “I suppose since the owner received the rent in advance, he didn’t care too much about the missing spaces on the rental application.”

  Elise managed to avoid a tree and pedestrian with only inches to spare. “So our dead victim is still a ghost.”

  Dinah had to agree. Malia Shaw was turning out to be a shadow, a wraith, a ghost, a woman with no past, no family and no future.

  How did she end up here in Ten Mile Hollow, and why?

  ****

  Darkness had stolen across the sky on the silent feet of a thief by the time Elise turned the car into her driveway. Dinah muttered a brief prayer of thanks that somehow they hadn’t both been killed. Elise had a careless disregard for yellow traffic lights.

  Elise lived in a pretty, two-story A-frame house. Flower boxes adorned every window and the front door and shutters were all painted a cheery yellow. Light spilled from the windows into the cold dark, promising warmth, hearth, and home.

  Elise’s husband, Lewis, was a firefighter and paramedic with the Ten Mile Hollow Fire Department, and worked shift hours. His car was not in the driveway tonight, and Dinah surmised that he was on shift down at the fire station.

  Once inside the house, Dinah sat at the kitchen table to await further instructions regarding dinner, while Elise flipped through her mail.

  “Hello?” Elise called up the stairs. “Chloe? Are you up there?”

  “Hi, Mom!” Chloe shouted back. “I’m doing my homework.”

  “Okay. Dinner in about half an hour, okay?”

  “Sure!”

  Elise returned to the kitchen and began to rummage through the refrigerator for something for dinner. She pulled out some lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, and a carrot and popped them in front of Dinah. “Would you mind slicing these up for a salad?” she asked.

  “Sure,” said Dinah, selecting a knife from the block.

  She began
to chop while Elise prepared to grill some chicken to add to the salad. Using garlic, lemon juice, and continental parsley as a dressing, she also took out of the refrigerator a bottle of white wine.

  Dinah watched with some trepidation as Elise put a wine glass in front of her.

  “Would you like a drink?” Elise opened the bottle and waited.

  “Uh . . . no thanks.” Dinah took a deep breath. “I don’t drink.”

  “Oh, okay. Do you mind if I have a glass?”

  “Not at all.” Dinah concentrated on chopping. There was a momentary silence.

  “So you’ve given up drinking altogether?” Elise asked, putting the chicken on the grill.

  Dinah nodded. “Yes. I can’t drink at all.” She debated whether to tell her friend the truth — it was always hard to talk about. But honesty seemed to lead to conversations about the deeper issues of life. “I had some problems with alcohol after Luke and Sammy died.”

  Elise turned to look at her, her expression one of sympathy. “I’m sorry. I can’t say I blame you, but it must have been a terribly difficult time.”

  The tiny, deadly claws of shame were always looking for an opportunity to sink themselves into Dinah’s brain. Now they pounced, sending twin rivers of electrical pain through her head and right down into her stomach. “I didn’t handle it very well,” she admitted to Elise. “I made some terrible mistakes.” And death followed me and took my family and very nearly took me, too.

  “You seem to be doing much better now,” said Elise, turning the chicken on the grill.

  “Well, thank you. I think so.” Dinah stared hard at the wine bottle. It would always be a struggle to resist the temptation of alcohol, and she had to admit that she thought of it often — especially when shame and guilt took hold of her.

  “How did you overcome it?”

  “Two things. I became a Christian and I went to rehab,” explained Dinah. “But in reality, I owe my life to becoming a Christian.”

  Elise nodded. “I’ve heard faith in a higher power can help with addiction.”

  “Well, it’s more than that to me. It’s not just simple belief in something out there, or blind faith in something I can’t explain. It’s personal. It’s a relationship with God, who made Himself real to me.”

  Elise looked at her quizzically, but there was no more time to talk. Dinner was ready and Chloe was clattering down the stairs with the earnest enthusiasm of youth. Dinah tossed the salad into a bowl and then buttered bread rolls while Elise chopped up the sizzling chicken. When it was ready, they sat down at the kitchen table.

  Elise asked her daughter: “How was your day?”

  Chloe glanced up. “Okay. How was your day?”

  “Long.”

  Dinah suddenly realized she, too, was exhausted. A night of no sleep followed by only a short nap was not enough.

  “Is Dad at work tonight?” Chloe asked.

  “Yes. How’s your homework?”

  “It’s fine.” Chloe waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Can I be excused?”

  Elise frowned. Chloe had already finished dinner and was looking impatiently at her cell phone. “No. Where are your manners? How about you talk to our guest?”

  Dinah hid a smile while Chloe tried to hide a long-suffering eye roll. “How are you enjoying Ten Mile Hollow, Ms. Harris?”

  “Please call me Dinah. I like it very much. It’s a beautiful town.”

  Chloe snorted. It was an identical snort to the one Elise often gave and it made Dinah smile. “It’s pretty boring. I can’t wait to get out of here.”

  “Where would you like to go?”

  “Well, college. I want to go to college someplace fun.”

  “What would you like to do at college?” Dinah asked.

  “I dunno.” Chloe cocked her head to one side. “I like science. I like computers. I’m pretty good at both. Maybe something to do with that.”

  “Sounds great. I’m sure you’ll do well no matter what you choose.”

  Chloe gave a faint smile. “Thanks. Can I be excused now?” she asked of her mother, now that the chore of talking to the dinner guest was over.

  “Sure.” This time it was Elise giving an exaggerated eye roll to Dinah.

  Chloe disappeared in a flash, and Dinah stared after her for a few moments. She would forever miss out on Sammy’s teenage years — she would never see the attempts to find his independence and identity, nor the awkward, gangly teenage limbs, nor the awkwardness of a first date.

  After cleaning up the kitchen and watching a sitcom with unseeing eyes, both she and Elise decided to turn into bed early. Dinah was relieved, in all honesty. The comfort and familiarity of home for Elise, Lewis, and Chloe brought pangs of sadness for Dinah.

  In the guest bedroom, she turned off the lights and slipped between the sheets. Despite her tiredness, her mind was racing.

  Thoughts of her own solitude inevitably led her to think of Malia Shaw, who had been far more isolated than she: the cold, blank apartment; communication with no one other than the supplier of her drugs; nothing of sentimental value around her at all.

  Where are her parents, who once must have loved her? Had she ever loved somebody more than she’d loved drugs? Had everyone who’d known her forsaken her?

  Dinah wrestled her mind back to the case. For one thing, the death of a drug addict seemed that it would be more complex than it first appeared. Why did Malia Shaw have fake passports and social security cards with aliases? How could she have afforded to pay six months’ rent in advance, with cash? By all indications, she was getting ready to do the same when her lease expired in only two months’ time. Where would she have gotten her hands on a further $1800? It was wildly implausible that a hard-core drug addict like Malia Shaw could possibly avoid the temptation to turn the cash into heroin.

  Finally, she had suffered a lonely, violent death at the hands of another. It was such an enormous waste of precious human life. In the harsh light of day, Dinah could be tough, unemotional, jaded. But in the soft darkness of this foreign guest room, she allowed herself to feel the pain of humanity whose mistakes gave her employment.

  Perhaps, she also realized, that she and Malia Shaw were not so different.

  She rolled over. God, she cried out silently. Tonight it hurts. Please send me some of Your great comfort and strength. Thank You that even in the midst of pain, You are name above all names, the great Creator of the universe, the One worthy of all our praise.

  As she slipped away into sleep finally, she was conscious of one last thought that she knew to be irretrievably true: Always remember that you are forgiven, daughter.

  Chapter 3

  Chloe stopped typing her homework on the computer and listened intently. She heard her mother’s soft footsteps slowly walk past her room and she waited for her door to swing open. Any Internet surfing was strictly forbidden during homework time, and her mom often checked in on her before going to bed. But tonight, the door remained firmly closed. She heard her mom’s door close and a faucet turn on in the bathroom.

  Chloe quit her homework, logged onto the Internet, and opened up the Facebook home page. She’d hoped Grace would be online for a chat, but there was no sign of her.

  She rolled her eyes at the usual inanity that her classmates shared. There were a few memes that were actually funny. She was about to go back to her homework when she caught sight of a post that made her breath catch at the back of her throat.

  Jessica Hunter Chloe J looks like a huge fat cow, right?

  Chloe felt her hands go clammy. Should she post something or just leave it alone? If she posted something, she’d probably cop it even worse at school tomorrow. Then she realized there were comments piling up underneath Jessica’s post.

  Jessica Hunter Chloe J looks like a huge fat cow, right?

  Sarah Mallister I was going to say a pig, but you right on

  Shaun Kruger U.G.L.Y. U know it

  Jessica Hunter What’s with her stupid hair? I just want
to slap her

  Alice Greendale LOL! I’d love to see that

  Shaun Kruger She’d totally do it

  Jessica Hunter I would, but stupid school would dog on me and like, suspend me

  Sarah Mallister Whatever. Do it anyways

  Shaun Kruger Yeah, what she said

  Jessica Hunter Maybe I’ll get lucky and she’ll just die

  Alice Greendale We should all wish for that now *wishes Chloe J would die*

  Sarah Mallister *wishes Chloe J would die*

  Shaun Kruger *wishes Chloe J would die*

  Jessica Hunter *wishes Chloe J would DIE*

  Blood roared in Chloe’s ears and she gripped the edge of the desk to keep herself from falling from her chair. Dimly, she heard her mother calling her. She couldn’t seem to get her head together. A cold, sick dread coiled itself in her stomach like a nest of snakes.

  Her door swung open, and her mother stuck her head in. “I was calling to see if you wanted a drink? I’m making hot chocolate. I can’t sleep or read. I have a headache.”

  Chloe’s throat had almost closed, due to the huge lump that had arisen. So, she just nodded her head.

  Mom looked at her closely. “You look pale. Are you okay?”

  Chloe wasn’t sure how to answer that. I’m great, unless you take into account that half the school thinks I should just die. Eventually, she mumbled, “Yeah.”

  She followed her mom downstairs for the hot chocolate. During winter, they’d often chat together over steaming hot mugs. It had become a fun tradition, although it seemed like they hadn’t done it for a while. Tonight, Chloe couldn’t manage more than a monosyllabic reply. In the end, Mom gave up and they drank in silence.

  Chloe’s thoughts swam in her head like vicious piranha fish snapping after each other. Mostly, all her thoughts boiled down to: What am I going to do?

  She calculated that at least 80 percent of her class would see the comments. Tomorrow, those people would look at her with a mixture of pity and contempt and I’m glad it’s not me.

  “Do I have to go to school tomorrow?” she asked.

  Her mother looked at her strangely. “Of course. Why?”