The Darkest Place

by Daniel Judson

  “So he did head back to his dorm,” Foster said. He spoke absently. “That’s where he told his friends he was going.”

  Clay said nothing. He watched Foster, whose eyes were fixed on Vicki and the dog, on everything they did. Foster seemed as much fascinated as he was bewildered. Maybe it was simply the fact that he was following what were most likely the last steps his son had taken. What parent wouldn’t react the same? Clay thought.

  The bloodhound had her snout close to the ground, following a dead-on course along the shoulder of the road. The cold only made the scent stronger, easier to follow.

  “The dog doesn’t ever get . . . confused?” Foster said to Clay.

  Vicki answered, “No. It’s definitely your son’s scent.”

  They covered half the distance between The Still and the campus without the dog’s once wavering from her course. There were no side streets along this part of Montauk Highway, no turns that the Foster boy could have made that would have led him easily down to the edge of the bay. To their left was nothing but scrub oak and pine, a barren, sandy area of rough terrain. Not what a drunk would chose to stumble across, Clay thought.

  The only turnoff was West Road, still a quarter mile up ahead. That road was unlit but did lead through the reservation to the water’s edge. If the cops were right in thinking that the Foster boy had decided to walk to the bay instead of back to the campus, then his trail would certainly veer off there. But if the cops were mistaken, if their theory wasn’t much more than wishful thinking, then the dog would continue past West Road. What would happen after that Clay didn’t have a clue.

  Foster said, “His friends said Larry had had a lot to drink before he decided to walk back alone. Maybe he went for a swim. It was Indian summer here, wasn’t it? That’s what the lady behind the desk at the motel said.”

  “It was,” Clay told him. The air had been unseasonably warm, nights in the seventies, but the water would have been very cold. The Foster boy would’ve had to have been very drunk indeed, Clay thought, to have gone for a swim.

  “So it could have been an accident,” Foster said softly. “He could have gone in or maybe stumbled in or something and drowned.”

  “It’s possible,” Clay told him.

  “You don’t sound all that convinced.”

  Clay was surprised the man had even noticed the questioning tone in his voice. “It’s not that I don’t think that could have been what happened,” Clay said.

  “But?”

  Clay didn’t answer. He didn’t want to say what was on his mind. Not yet, not till he was certain. Foster had come in from out of town, from far upstate. Maybe he didn’t know about the other two boys. It would be in keeping with the cops’ agenda, Clay thought, for them to have elected to keep Foster and his wife in the dark regarding those facts. And, anyway, aside from all that, if Foster’s son had gone for a late night swim and simply drowned, then it would not have taken two days for his body to be discovered. Shinnecock Bay was shallow, and clam diggers worked its shores regularly. Add to that the fact that there had been a phone tip by some anonymous woman. Clay and his boss both wondered why someone who had innocently spotted a body floating in a bay would need to remain anonymous. So Clay had plenty of reasons to have his doubts about this being an accident, or, for that matter, a suicide. He knew, though, that now wasn’t the time to share such thoughts with Foster.

  When Clay didn’t answer his question, Foster said, “I just can’t believe Larry would kill himself. He was a happy kid, had lots of friends. It just doesn’t make any sense to me. None of it does.”

  They walked on in the cold, covering several more yards in thoughtful silence, before Foster finally said what was really on his mind.

  “We’re Catholic, you know that, right?”

  He didn’t say anything more than that. Clay was the son of a Georgian Baptist preacher, but he knew enough about the concept of mortal sin to understand what Foster was getting at.

  “We should know something in just a minute,” Clay told him.

  They were still a hundred feet or so from West Road when the bloodhound suddenly came to a stop. Clay and Foster came to a stop behind her. Clay was holding his breath. The bloodhound sniffed at the ground determinedly, backtracking several times. Then she caught the scent again and guided Vicki across the street. On that shoulder the bloodhound starting making broad sweeping motions, broader than any before. Clay watched this. The bloodhound moved around in circles several times, quickly, almost frantically. Then she barked once, a low, almost mournful bark.

  Clay and Foster had remained on the south side of the road. Vicki was waiting, watching the dog carefully, giving her every chance to pick up the boy’s trail again. Finally, though, after a long moment, she looked up and said across the empty street, “She’s lost the scent, Reggie. It ends cold right here.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s that mean?” Foster said.

  Clay turned and looked back toward the bar. He didn’t say anything at first.

  “What does that mean?” Foster said again.

  Clay saw no reason not to tell him.

  “It means your son didn’t walk to the bay, or back to his dorm, for that matter. The only reason for scent to come to a stop like this is that your son had gotten into a car. His trail crosses to that side of the street, so that means whoever stopped to pick him up had been driving west, driving that way.” He pointed toward the campus.

  “Someone coming from the bar,” Foster said. It both was and wasn’t a question.

  “Yeah, maybe,” Clay said. He stopped short, stopped by a sudden thought.

  “What?” Foster said.

  Clay didn’t answer. He didn’t see the point in saying aloud what was on his mind, what was to him now painfully clear. Two boys dead, and now a third. Lost for a week, then found floating in a bay. This was a pattern, the start of something, something that would prove to be very ugly, that already was. Clay knew this, felt it like a stone in his gut. His mind went then from that thought to yet another one, a thought no less disturbing.

  The cops were wrong, dead wrong—or else lying. Either way, none of this was good news, except for the fact that it gave hope to what Foster was so clearly desperate to hear.

  “What!” Foster said.

  Clay looked at him. It took him a moment more to find the words, then a moment more to find what it took to speak them aloud.

  “Your son didn’t kill himself, Mr. Foster. And his death wasn’t an accident. Nobody goes swimming in December, I don’t care if it is Indian summer or how drunk they are.”

  Foster said nothing at first. He turned his head and stared at the spot where his son’s trail had ended. He stared at it for a while.

  Finally, he muttered, “What are you saying?”

  “I think someone killed Larry.”

  Foster looked back at Clay. “You think he was murdered?” He was clearly completely unprepared for this possibility. He stared at Clay with his mouth hanging open. Clay realized then that Foster hadn’t allowed himself to come anywhere near considering that his son’s death had been anything other than a freak accident. He had been as set on that explanation as the cops had been set on the boy’s death having been suicide.

  “It’s beginning to look that way,” Clay said. “I’m sorry. I know this must be hard to hear.”

  Foster spoke quickly, almost cutting Clay off. “Can you prove that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Foster took a step closer to Clay and spoke softly but firmly. “We can’t have suicide as the cause of death on our son’s death certificate. My wife is devout. She believes everything the church tells her. It’s bad enough that he’s dead. But the idea that he’s condemned to hell will just kill her. It’ll kill her. I’ll pay whatever it takes for you to prove that he was murdered. You find out who, and why, and you can name your price.”

  Clay nodded, but his mind was elsewhere again, on the ug
liness that clearly awaited them all, that was right now hiding somewhere in this dark, maybe even somewhere nearby. Someone was killing young men, killing them and leaving their bodies in bays to be found. Clay had never before dealt with anything like that, faced anything like that. It wasn’t just the killings that left him chilled, that three had already occurred and more were certain to come. It was the confidence the killer displayed, the apparent carelessness with which the bodies were disposed of. He wasn’t trying to hide his crime. He wasn’t concerned with that. That implied arrogance, the kind of confidence that comes with repeated success. It also implied high intelligence, a boldness and fearlessness.

  Clay now understood why the local cops were doing everything they could to keep all this a secret. The idea of such a monster lurking in the dark would certainly send panic through the town. Clay felt it in himself, felt it moving through him, scurrying up his veins and rushing his heart. It wouldn’t be much different for anyone else who knew.

  “We bury our son in three days, Mr. Clay,” Foster said. “Will you be able to get the proof you need by then?”

  Clay looked toward the bar one more time. It was the only place he could think to start. The bloodhound barked again, the sound echoing down the empty road. But then it disappeared suddenly, swallowed up by the winter wind.

  “I need to make a phone call,” Clay said then.

  Kane finished teaching his last class and was back in his office getting ready to leave when his phone rang. It was seven-thirty, the Fine Arts building almost empty. At first he just stood there by his desk, looking down at the ringing phone. He was fairly certain who was on the other end—who else would be calling him here, at this time? He was fairly certain, too, of the reason why she was calling him. It was the only reason she’d have to do so now, and that was reason enough for him to consider not answering at all.

  His mind raced then. He figured he could easily tell her that he must have already been on his way when she called. It was no one’s fault, what would happen next. He was in the mood for a confrontation—after the detectives and Dolan this morning, after his talk with Mercer, after the dozens of students staring all day at his scratches. He was in the mood for everything to be out in the open now, finally, after more than a year of this. Kane had only one thing in his life that he needed to hide—her—and yet he was tired of it, so tired of hiding. To have her all to himself, to never have to leave her, to watch her paint naked all day, keep her naked all night. Quickly enough, though, Kane remembered the promise he’d made to her, and that she’d lose everything if he broke that promise. As much as a part of him wanted to do so, needed to do so, he was bound. And anyway, a confrontation with her husband would not guarantee that Kane would get what he wanted. He couldn’t support Meg, and she was used to being supported. His apartment wasn’t big enough for two people—not big enough for two people madly in love, never mind two people with an act of such betrayal between them.

  But if a confrontation would guarantee that he and Meg would end up together, that she in fact wouldn’t lose everything, would he then force such a confrontation, or allow one to happen, maybe by a happy accident, by fate, by purposely not taking an important phone call? Kane really couldn’t say.

  He picked up the receiver after the fourth ring. He wasn’t in the mood for a scene after all. “Hello.”

  It was, of course, Meg. “I’ve got some bad news.”

  “He’s back, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah.”

  Kane looked out his window, at the pitch-dark night beyond. He could feel the cold coming off the panes of glass. He thought of his tiny apartment, the heat turned down to save money. He thought of walking into it, waiting the hour or so it would take for the place to warm up. “When?” he said. It didn’t matter, but he was curious.

  “This afternoon, just as I was about to take my nap.”

  Close call, Kane thought. Missed chance?

  “Where is he now?” he asked.

  “I sent him out to get some Chinese food, so I could call you.”

  “How long is he back for?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll call you tomorrow, though. I’ll send him out for something in the morning.”

  “If I’m not at my place, I’ll be here.”

  “I know.”

  “Maybe you could find an excuse to get out and come by. Maybe later tonight. We could warm up my apartment together.”

  “Too dangerous. You know that.”

  “I could use to see you, that’s all.”

  “I know. But get a good night’s sleep, Deke. You need that more than anything else right now. You don’t sleep well here, you’ve said it yourself.”

  Kane thought of the view from her window, the expanse of the bay, like a silent, still void night. He saw himself then staring out the window in her front room, his window. He didn’t imagine the view out her window, just himself sitting there on the edge of her bed, in the dark. He’d never thought of himself in the third person before, not that he could remember, anyway. He wondered what, if anything, that meant.

  “You there?” Meg said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I should go. I have to change the sheets in the front room still, and take a shower. Evidence, you know. But I wanted to call you first. It’s a good thing I caught you before you left. That could have been sticky.”

  “I would have seen his car from the road. I would have kept on going.”

  “Promise.”

  “I promise.”

  “I’ll call you as soon as I can tomorrow.”

  “I’ll see you.”

  She hung up. Kane held on to the phone for a minute, then laid it down on its cradle. He stayed where he was for a while, standing still and staring out his window. Eventually he grabbed his coat and locked up his office and stepped outside. There was nothing else for him to do, nowhere to go but his cramped apartment. He’d make something to eat, he thought, maybe be lucky enough to fall asleep quickly, and to sleep through the night and wake in the morning with no memory at all of his dreams.

  He hurried through the cold to his Jeep, starting it, shivering behind the wheel as he gave the engine a moment to warm up. The cold was like a grip clamping around him. The harder it held him, the more he shuddered within it. Finally he shifted into gear and steered out of the parking lot, heading east on Montauk Highway. The road was empty, except for a woman walking a dog, and two men walking shoulder to shoulder behind her, just outside the bar where Kane had gone with a few students one night. Kane followed that road into Southampton Village, to his apartment on Nugent Lane. It was above a secondhand jewelry store, across from the IGA parking lot and around the corner from the Golden Pear, where Kane sometimes had breakfast before class and bought pastries to bring to Meg. Just two rooms, his apartment was narrow, the second half of the top floor. The view from his back room, from his bedroom, was of the large municipal parking lot that stood behind the buildings that lined Main Street and Job’s Lane. Kane parked in that back lot, in the spot designated as his by the landlord, and entered through the door at the front of the store. He started up the thirteen steps to his apartment, walking on his tiptoes. His neighbor was an older woman who seemed to believe that all people should live in total silence. He hated that; it felt too much like more hiding. But if not silence, he at least wanted peace, and his neighbor, Mrs. Wright, was more than willing to make a racket when she heard one, or what to her ears was one, so he moved as quietly as he could.

  Near the top step, though, Kane stopped short and stood frozen. At first what he saw didn’t make any sense to him. His door was open, ajar by several inches. How could that be? He waited a moment, his heart beating fast, staring at the opening. Had he left his door like that? Had it hung open for days? He tried to remember when he had left his apartment. Had he been in a hurry? But he couldn’t remember. He could barely think. He continued to stand there and stare, then realized that along with his confusion was the feeling of fear, real fear. Maybe som
eone was inside.

  It was then, with a rush, that Kane remembered the one thing he possessed that he couldn’t lose, that no one could ever know about. Suddenly he climbed the rest of the steps and paused at his open door, listening. He heard nothing. He pushed the door open with the back of his hand and peered inside. He saw nothing but darkness. After a long moment he stepped through and into his front room. He found the light switch on the wall and flipped it upward.

  Everything looked exactly as he had left it. He was prepared for just the opposite, and not finding that carried as much of a shock as finding it would have caused. He moved through the front room quickly and into the small hallway that separated that room from his back bedroom. The kitchenette was here, to his left. It, too, was undisturbed. Across from that was a tiny bathroom. He looked quickly inside. Nothing. He checked behind the shower curtain. Nothing again. From there he hurried into the back room and switched on the light. He had left his bed unmade, the bedding tossed to one side of the narrow mattress. Beside his bed were several milk crates filled with books. Beside them was a small TV with a built-in VCR. Everything was just as he had left it.

  Kane checked the closet next. It was hardly big enough for someone to hide in, but he had to be sure. There was nothing but his few clothes and some empty hangers. He was alone in his apartment, he was certain of that much. But still he didn’t feel safe. A chill spiraled up his spine and into his shoulder blades. He shuddered violently. Someone had been here. Someone had been here. But who? Why? He couldn’t even begin to answer those questions, couldn’t come anywhere near reasoning through this. He felt unsettled, riled up. Someone had been here. This was the only thought he could focus on. He thought of Meg’s husband, how Kane himself was an intruder in that man’s house. Could Meg’s husband sense when he came home that another man had been there? It was all Kane could feel around him. Someone had been here, stood here, walked through here. Kane pushed those thoughts from his head, as best he could, anyway, and hurried to check on his one valuable possession. He was safe now, no one was going to jump out at him. This was now the next order of business. He kept the item in his bureau and almost didn’t want to open the drawer for fear that the thing wouldn’t be there. What would he do then? His mind was frantic, his heart pounded. But when he reached the bureau he did open the drawer, quickly. He had to know that the item was there, that the videotape he and Meg had made a while back was safe. It was all he cared about now. He stored the tape among the dozen or so copies of Hollywood movies he had bought years ago from a video store that was going out of business. To camouflage it, he kept their tape in the slipcase of a movie he believed no one would ever want to watch, let alone steal. Kane found the tape right off, just where he had left it on top of the others. He stood there, holding it firmly, looking at it. Relief washed through him. After a moment he put the tape back, this time at the bottom of the drawer, beneath all the other tapes. Then he closed the drawer and decided to check his front door.