Miller stopped at the first bar outside the village, a shack on Montauk Highway with ten tables and a five-stool bar called Al’s. No girl fitting her description, no one who’d heard of anyone with that name. After that was the place set at the south end of the canal, where it opened into the Shinnecock Bay. But no one there had heard of her, so Miller left, heading for the last bar in Hampton Bays, a dive called the Water’s Edge.
It was a large three-story wreck of a building set on the Hampton Bays side of the Shinnecock Canal. Every year or so the bar reopened with a new name. Whether each name change meant a new owner or not, Miller wasn’t sure. The building had originally been a hotel, but that was decades ago. Miller had been inside a few times over the years. The bar and dance floor and booths filled the entire first floor. But what the two floors of guest rooms above were used for nowadays, Miller didn’t know. All of the upstairs windows were boarded over.
Miller parked his truck, crossed the gravel lot, and entered the bar. A jukebox was playing a cover of “Take Me to the River.” Heavy blues. He stood just inside the door and surveyed the long room. There was a
scuffed-up dance floor with three dozen tables and booths set like a square horseshoe around it. There wasn’t anyone dancing. Miller would have to cross the dance floor to get to the main bar, set along the wall on the other side of the room. A smaller bar wasn’t far from the door, a coatroom beside it. But both were closed. To be expected for a weekday night. After he looked around for a moment, Miller took a few steps toward the dance floor, to get a better look at the main bar. It ran the length of the room. He paused when he saw that the bar was manned by a male bartender. He was tall, wore a black shirt and jeans. His hair was short and spiked. At the end of the bar Miller saw a woman holding a tray. She had dark hair but was petite with large breasts, large for her size. She was no dancer, at least not a dancer in the sense that Clay had meant it.
Miller was about to cross the dance floor to the bar and ask this girl if Colette Auster worked there when a door to a back storeroom opened and a woman walked through it.
She stepped behind the bar and said something to the male bartender. She stood beside him, put her mouth close to his ear. He laughed. She said something else, and he laughed again. She was laughing now, too. Miller saw that she was holding a bottle of liquor. She twisted off the cap, tossed it under the bar, then stuck in a speed pourer. She walked away from the bartender, the both of them still laughing, and poured the liquor into a waiting glass filled with ice. She moved skillfully, swiftly, Miller noted. Then she handed the glass to one of the customers seated at the bar. She smiled at him, a wild flash of a smile, friendly and confident. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Then she turned away from him, returned to her coworker, stood close to him, put her mouth to his ear again. Whatever she said made him laugh a third time. Then she turned away from him, abruptly, leaving him standing there alone. He called after her as she walked away but she ignored him, smiling with wild delight.
All the men at the bar—it was only men at the bar, Miller noted—were watching her. Some did so discreetly, their faces tilted toward the glasses but their eyes on her. Others didn’t bother hiding it, didn’t care. They wanted her to be aware of their attention. Miller could tell this.
Even from where he stood on the other end of the large room, Miller was positive that this was the woman he had been hired to find. It had to be. Everything that was on the list Clay had faxed him, this woman clearly possessed. The dark hair, the dancer’s build, the height and weight, the black clothes and leather wristbands. But mostly the elegance. It was indefinable but obvious.
Miller watched for a moment more, studying not only her but every man there. Then he approached what was clearly her half of the long bar. It was of course the more crowded half. As always, whenever he was in public, Miller did his best to hide his limp. People didn’t need to know how bad it was, that he had difficulty walking and that he couldn’t really run, not very fast, not very far. He wanted the people around him, the people in that bar, to see his size, see a onetime football player, someone with whom they didn’t necessarily want to mess. He wanted them to focus on that, not on a weakness as ripe for exploiting if needed as a bum knee.
Miller walked to the far end of the bar, where there was an empty stool. He stood beside it, leaning his elbows against the brass rail. All the men in a row to his right looked at him for a moment. Some stared longer than others. But they all turned away eventually, turned away to watch the dark-haired bartender make her way toward her new customer.
“How are you tonight?” she said. Her voice was low, raspy, and yet somehow girlish, too. It was a voice meant for a lucrative career in phone sex. Miller immediately wondered what it was she had whispered with that voice to her coworker. Her eyes were deep brown, soft, her stare intense, unflinching. She didn’t so much look at Miller as get him in her sights and hold him there. Hers was a stare few men would want to end. Hers was a stare most men would swear was the start of something.
Miller ignored all that, or tried to, anyway. He held her stare. It seemed the thing to do. “I’m doing okay,” he answered. “How are you?”
“Tired. But at least we’re busy tonight. What can I get you?”
“Actually, I was wondering if you could help me.”
“I could help you with something to drink, that’s for sure.”
“You weren’t by any chance friends with a guy named Larry Foster?”
“Who?”
“Larry Foster.”
She thought for a moment. “I don’t think so. Never heard of him.”
“Your name is Colette, right? Colette Auster.”
She glanced down the bar, quick, then leaned forward, her face a little closer to Miller.
“I don’t know anyone named Larry Fisher,” she said.
“Foster. He told me you two used to hang out.”
“Larry Foster?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s a kind of fat kid, right? Short, with blond hair?”
“Yeah, that’s him.”
Her brown eyes went cold. “Now that’s a little funny, because the only Larry I know has dark hair and is skinny as a rail.”
Miller said nothing.
“Who are you?” Colette said.
“I’m not a cop or anything like that. A kid was fished out of the Shinnecock Bay last night. His name was Larry Foster. I’m trying to find out what happened to him. I was told you two knew each other, thought you could help me out.”
She leaned back, waited a moment, studying him, then said, “What’s your name?”
“Tommy.”
“Tommy what?”
He paused. He was almost afraid of telling her another lie and getting caught. She had a way about her. “Tommy Miller,” he said finally.
“What do you care?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you didn’t know what Larry looked like, then it’s pretty obvious you didn’t know him. What do you care what happened to him?”
“I’m just trying to help someone out.”
“His parents hired you?”
Miller shrugged.
She waited, watching him again, then said, “You should probably get your story straight before you go around asking questions.”
“I’m just trying to help someone out.” Her stare was more relentless now than ever. Her eyes were a cross between a doe’s and a shark’s. “So you knew him, right?” Miller said.
“If it’s the same Larry Foster, yeah. We took a class together at the college.”
“Yeah, that’s him.”
“He’s dead?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
“I’m not sure.”
“But you said they found him in Shinnecock Bay.”
“Yeah.”
“So he drowned?”
“I guess, yeah. Can you tell me anything about him?”
She shrugged. “He was a weird kid. That’s abou
t all I knew about him.”
“What do you mean ‘weird’?”
“Weird. He was supposedly into some strange shit.”
“What kind of strange shit exactly?”
“I thought he was just trying to show off, you know, just trying to impress me. He used to tell me he was into devil worship or some crap like that. I guess he thought I’d think that was cool or something.”
“What did he tell you specifically?”
“I didn’t really listen to him. He was just a kid. He seemed really lonely to me, really desperate.”
“Can you remember anything about what he told you?”
“He said something about a chapel on the campus, somewhere behind the gym. I guess there’s a skeet shooting range out there. Beyond it is supposed to be this old chapel, from way back. Larry claimed that he and some friends did satanic worship there. He asked me if I wanted to meet him there some night.”
“Did you?”
“No! That shit really creeps me out. Anyway, I didn’t really think he was serious. I just assumed he was trying to make himself out to be more interesting than he was.”
Miller nodded, thinking about what he knew so far, about the two boys that had been found prior to the Foster kid, about what Abby had said that weird German professor had said. It seemed to fit, this possibility that some kind of fucked-up ritual or another was involved here. In the few jobs he’d done for Clay, Miller had already glimpsed his share of shit, enough to tell him that the East End of Long Island, as much as the tourist board would want you to think otherwise, is a place with its share of freaks.
“This chapel he told you about, it’s on the campus?”
“Yeah, at least that’s what he told me. He said it was behind the gym. I told a friend of mine about it, and he went to check it out. He’s curious about that kind of crap. But the campus security chased him out of there, threatened to arrest him for trespassing. I guess they’re a bunch of dicks, the security guys. I can only imagine they’ll be even more so now that one of their students was killed. So if you go to check it out, you might want to be careful.”
“Anything else you can tell me?”
She shrugged. “Not that I can think of. Like I said, I didn’t really know him.”
“Okay. Listen, thanks for your time.”
“No problem.”
“Sorry to be the one to bring you the bad news.”
She shrugged again. “I’ve got to be honest, I’m not surprised. I mean, if he was messing around with that kind of shit, he was kind of asking for it, wasn’t he? I imagine that stuff attracts some pretty fucked-up people.”
“I would imagine, yeah,” Miller said.
“So, do you want anything to drink?”
“No.”
“It’s on me.”
“No. Thanks, though.”
“On the job?”
“I just don’t drink.”
She looked him over, nodding. It seemed to Miller that she was deciding something. “You know, it’s my night to leave early,” she said. “Maybe you and I could meet up later. If I think about it for a little while I might remember more about Larry.”
“I’ve got to be somewhere.”
“You’re on your way to check out that chapel, aren’t you?”
“I wasn’t really planning on it,” Miller lied.
“If you wait for me, I could go with you. The security guards know me. They think I’m a student there. This way you won’t get busted for trespassing if they stop you.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would you want to do that?”
She shrugged. “I’d like to help, if I could. Larry was a weird kid, yeah, but he was never anything but nice to me. And, I don’t know, maybe I’m a little curious after all. It might be something I could write about. Who knows, maybe there’s a Manson family or something like that out here.” Her brown eyes got wide. “You and I could be famous.”
Miller waited a moment, then said, “I’ll think about it.”
“I’m out by midnight. God knows I’ve got nothing else to do.”
Miller nodded. He wondered if his uncertainty showed, if she could read him. Her stare seemed powerful enough to see through him. He said, “Thanks again,” and backed away from the bar. All the men were looking at him. He felt his face flush with blood but wasn’t really sure why.
“Keep warm,” Colette said.
“Yeah, you too.” Miller walked to the other side of the empty dance floor. When he reached the front door, he stopped to zip up his coat. As he did, he glanced once over his shoulder. Colette was talking to the male bartender. This time she wasn’t standing as close as she had been before. The bartender’s eyes were fixed on Miller but shifted away when he realized Miller was looking at him. Whatever Colette was telling him now, the bartender wasn’t laughing. When she was done, she walked away from him and went through the door to the back storeroom.
Miller stepped outside, got into his truck, and took out his cell phone. He dialed Clay’s number. It rang four times, then rolled over to Clay’s voice mail. Clay must have been out of his service area. Miller left a message, telling Clay that he had talked to Colette Auster and was heading to the campus to check something out. He knew Clay would be sore that he had talked to the girl, but he didn’t care about that.
When nothing less than redemption is at stake, you don’t really give a damn who you piss off. The history of the world, for better or for worse, was on his side, Miller thought.
Miller crossed over the canal in his pickup, heading toward Southampton. Ten minutes later he steered from Montauk Highway onto Tuckahoe Road, heading north. A half mile down that road he turned right into the parking lot of the college gym. There were two cars parked out front. He pulled in near them, cut the motor and lights, and was about to climb out into the cold when his cell phone rang.
He answered without even looking at the caller ID. He didn’t need to.
“I thought I told you just to look for her,” Clay said. The phone reception was poor, but Miller could hear well enough to tell that Clay wasn’t very happy. Miller hadn’t expected him to be.
“One thing led to another,” Miller said.
“That’s all you’ve got to say for yourself.”
“You said you were in a hurry.”
“I said some other things, too, but I guess you don’t remember that. Where are you now?”
“Outside the gym, at the college. I just got here.”
“Wait there. I’m on my way. Do you understand?”
“Yeah.”
Clay hung up. Miller started his truck again for the heat. Less than five minutes later Clay’s silver Intrepid pulled into the lot and parked beside Miller’s truck. Miller cut his motor, climbed out. He and Clay met in the cold, standing between their vehicles. Though Clay outweighed him by a good sixty pounds of muscle, Miller was roughly the same height. They stood face-to-face.
“This is the kind of crap I’m talking about, Tommy,” Clay said. He had calmed down some since his phone call. His voice was even now. It was just business at this point, just a matter of making himself clear. He’d had enough, that much he was certain was already known to Miller. It had to be. Miller knew what he’d done. He had to. The kid wasn’t stupid, not by a long shot.
“I told you what I told you for a reason,” Clay said.
“I thought I could save you some time.”
“When we pay you to look, you’re just supposed to look. You know that by now.”
“I had to be sure it was her. Then she started talking. Once she did, I wasn’t about to try to make her stop.”
“You weren’t supposed to talk to her at all, Tommy, that’s the point I’m trying to make here.”
“Look, I found some things out. That’s what matters, right? Finding out what happened to the Foster kid. I’m sorry I didn’t follow your instructions to the letter. But I found some shit out.”
“If you can’t d
o what you’re hired to do, then you’re no good to us, it’s that simple.”
“I know what I’m doing, Reggie. Christ, I could do this in my sleep. I grew up around people who did this for a living. You know that.”
“Did you tell her you worked for a private investigator?”
Miller didn’t say anything.
“Did you show off and tell her you worked for a private investigator?”
Miller shrugged. “Not in so many words.”
“But she probably got the idea, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you stop and think for a moment that maybe we wanted you to find her so we could tail her? And now that she’s been paid a visit by someone who may or may not be working for a private investigator, she just might get a little nervous, maybe not do something she would’ve normally done, something that may have led us somewhere we needed to go. Did you ever consider this?”
Miller shrugged again. “I just thought I could save you some time.”
“I clean up enough messes as it is, Tommy. I don’t need to clean up yours, too. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re sure about this?”
“Yes.”
Clay waited a moment, to make certain that it had all sunk into Miller’s head. The cold stung his face. All he wanted was to be home. Sophia was there now. He hadn’t seen her in, what, four days? Or was it five? She’d be on the day shift for another week. If he were home with her now, they could sit and eat together, they could talk, they could lie down together at the end of the day, like normal humans, like everyone else.
But there was work to do now.
“I need to know exactly what the Auster girl told you,” Clay said.
“She said she didn’t really know Foster, but that he used to brag to her that he was into some kind of devil worship shit, and that he and his friends used to meet at a chapel that’s supposed to be behind the gym.”
“There’s a chapel back there?”
The Darkest Place Page 10