On a Dark Tide

by Valerie Geary

  “You picked up Zach Danforth yesterday, didn’t you?” she asked.

  “Yep,” Eli said. “Found him at the video arcade.”

  “Where is he now?” Brett glanced back at the interview rooms.

  Eli’s brow furrowed. He exchanged a look with Irving, who answered, “We cut him loose early this morning.”

  “What? Why?” Her voice pitched frantic, but she couldn’t help it. She kept thinking of Elizabeth, alone in that dark, haunted mansion, a bass track thumping the floorboards. I was trying to disappear, she’d said. How alone she must have felt, how utterly abandoned.

  “We need to bring him back in.” She spun away from Irving’s desk and marched toward her own, lifting the phone to have dispatch send an officer out to the school.

  “Brett, wait.” Eli chased after her. “What’s going on?”

  “Yes,” she said to dispatch. “Zachary Danforth. If he’s not at the high school, go by his house. And also check in at Lincoln Byrne’s place. Yes, B-Y-R-N-E. It’s urgent. Thank you.”

  She slammed the phone down and turned her attention to Eli. Irving had joined him at her desk. The two of them shoulder to shoulder, an unflinching wall.

  “What is going on?” Irving asked.

  “As of yesterday, Zachary Danforth is a suspect in my rape case,” she explained.

  Eli’s cheeks paled. “What? You think Zach—?”

  “It is a very strong possibility that, yes, Zach was the one who attacked Elizabeth.”

  Eli ran his hand down his face. Irving lowered his gaze to his tie, suddenly becoming very interested in making sure it was straight.

  “And I would have picked him up yesterday as soon as I was done with my interviews—” Her words were barbed, laced with anger that she was struggling to contain. “But since he was a person of interest in your case, I didn’t want to get in your way.”

  “You should have called it in,” Irving scolded her. “We could have held him for you.”

  “I did call it in!” She slammed her hands on the desk.

  The office murmurs died down as everyone turned to look at her.

  “Calm down, Brett,” Eli said.

  “Don’t tell me to calm down. I have every right to be upset. I left a message with the front desk officer, who promised he’d pass it along to you.”

  Irving frowned but said nothing.

  The officers in the squad room watched them. A few spoke behind their hands in whispers. One or two tried to pretend they weren’t listening, but it was obvious by the lean of their bodies that they were as interested as those who were openly staring.

  “Why don’t we get some fresh air.” Eli tried to take her elbow and guide her toward the exit, but she shook him off.

  She lowered her voice, but anger still trembled beneath the surface. “What the hell happened, Eli?”

  He stayed defensive. “I didn’t get your message. That’s what the hell happened. You think if I’d known, I would have let him go? If that punk hurt—” He took a deep breath. “Jesus Christ, Brett, I’m on your side here, okay?”

  She softened toward him. Though her anger still simmered, it was no longer directed at Eli. “What’s done is done.”

  “They’ll pick him up again,” he said, trying to sound reassuring.

  Brett glanced at the phone, willing it to ring and for dispatch to be on the other end, telling her that they were bringing in Zach now.

  “It could be a while,” Irving said, turning to go back to his own desk. “Might as well try and focus on another case.”

  She had a few other investigations that needed attention, but this was the only one that mattered to her. The others were small in comparison, crimes against property, a missing bicycle, a vandalized fence. All of it could wait.

  She walked to the front of the precinct, where the front desk officer worked. Eli tagged along with a guilty look on his face.

  The front desk officer was a heavy-set, middle-aged man with a pinched mouth that, for some reason, made Brett think of a teddy bear. He was looking through a stack of take-out menus when she approached his desk. He blinked up at her, his polite smile falling away when he saw the look on her face.

  “Do you remember when I asked you to give that message to Eli Miller yesterday?” she asked him. “The one about Zachary Danforth?”

  “Zachary…Zachary…” He was obviously stalling for time.

  “Eli was interviewing him,” she said, “and I asked you to pass along a message?”

  “Oh, right!” He snapped his fingers like the memory had just come to him. “A few minutes after you left, Officer Fellowes walked by. She was on her way into the squad room, so I gave her the note to put on his desk.” He looked at her curiously. “Why?”

  “I thought I made it clear that the note was important,” she scolded. “I think I used the word ‘critical?’ I expected you to pass it on to Eli directly.”

  His face folded into a red and furious scowl. “Well, if it was so damn important, then I guess you should have gone in and given it to him yourself. Try to do something nice, and this is the thanks I get.” He turned his back on her, still mumbling to himself.

  Brett returned to the squad room.

  Eli was right on her heels. “I told you I didn’t get it.”

  Nancy wasn’t at her desk. Brett asked if anyone had seen her. Everyone shrugged, acting like they had no damn idea who Nancy Fellowes was.

  The phone on Brett’s desk rang, and she rushed over to it. With Eli breathing down her neck, she spoke to the dispatcher. When she hung up, she let out an exasperated breath and raked her hands through her hair.

  “He wasn’t at the school?” Eli asked.

  “Or at home. They’re sending someone to check at Lincoln and Danny’s place, but knowing my luck, he won’t be there either. ”

  “They’ll find him. There aren’t that many places for him to hide.”

  “Tell me what happened,” she said.

  “What?”

  “In the interview. Zach’s the closest you’ve got to a murder suspect. What did he tell you that made you cut him loose?”

  Eli glanced at Irving, who was deep in conversation with someone on the phone. “Let’s talk outside.”

  She followed him to the parking lot.

  Puffy white clouds raced across the expansive blue, rushing from the ocean to the mountains. A cool breeze nipped her cheeks. She tugged her jacket around her.

  Eli stood with his arms crossed over his chest and stared at the road. “Zach confirmed what Danny already told us, that he was sent to collect on Nathan’s loan, that Nathan only had half of the money, but promised he’d have the rest soon. Zach said he told Danny, and that was that. He didn’t talk to Nathan again. He said he doesn’t know Nathan that well, just that he borrowed money from Danny once and that he worked down at the docks.”

  “If Zach was collecting for Danny, he could have easily been the clean-up crew,” Brett suggested. “Danny doesn’t want to get his hands dirty, so he sends Zach to put a little fear into Nathan. Zach gets excited, goes a little too far with the threats?”

  “Maybe, except Zach has the same alibi as Danny. He says he was out in the woods the night Nathan died, only he says they were doing more than drinking.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Apparently, Danny’s running a fight club.”

  Brett laughed, but it was a hollow sound. “Of course he is.”

  “A bunch of guys meet in the woods every Friday and Saturday night to beat the shit out of each other. They’ve got bets going, obviously.”

  “Jesus,” she breathed out the word.

  “Danny handles the book and takes a large cut. Lincoln fights. Along with a lot of other local guys.”

  “Like Cole,” she said, remembering the bruise around the boat captain’s eye.

  Eli nodded. “And some out-of-towners. Danny doesn’t fight. He runs the thing. Zach helps. He collec
ts money, takes bets, keeps an eye out to make sure no one cheats or makes side bets of their own. Zach’s also one of the bouncers. He meets people at the top of the road and leads them down to the fight spot. It’s a very exclusive club, apparently. They can’t have everybody up there stomping through the trees and throwing punches. Neighbors wouldn’t be too happy about that. So they try to keep it quiet. A couple dozen men at a time. A lottery to determine who gets to go and watch. They rotate fighters. It all sounds very organized.”

  “So Danny alibis Zach,” she said. “And Zach alibis Danny. How convenient. How do we know they’re not lying for each other?”

  “Zach gave us a bunch of names of men who were also at the fight, men who saw both him and Danny. Irving’s calling them up to confirm.”

  “He rolled over pretty fast for you, didn’t he?”

  Eli nodded. “He was definitely in a hurry to get out of here.”

  “Maybe he was afraid you’d start asking about the party.” She sighed and shook her head, then gave Eli’s uniform a once over. “So you’re back out on patrol then?”

  “Yep.” He paused, then said, “I’ll keep an eye out for Zach and grab him if I see him. But in case he’s lying low, and we can’t pick him up today, you should come by my parents’ house tomorrow night.”

  He started acting suddenly shy. He tilted his head, staring at the sky, anywhere but her. His voice was awkward and fumbling. “We have this, like this Halloween party every year? It’s sort of a costume party, but you don’t have to dress up if you don’t want to. Some people do. Anyway, it’s a good time, usually. My mother hires the best caterers. There’s bobbing for apples if you want. And a pumpkin carving contest. But mostly we just get drunk and dance and anyway, you should come? If you want. With me. I’ll be there.” He snuck a sidelong glance at her. “Odds are good Zach will be there, too.”

  She gave him a startled look. “Why would he be there?”

  “I went over to my parents’ house this morning. They were finalizing things, going over the caterer’s list, and his name jumped out at me. He’s going to be working as a server.”

  “You really think he’s going to show up at a party where there are a bunch of cops?”

  “It’s not just cops.” A small scowl tugged his mouth. “It’s really not cops at all. I mean, I’ll be there, and you, if you want to come. But it’s mostly my parents’ friends. He’s a kid who needs the money. He’ll show up.”

  “Yeah, okay, fine,” she relented.

  “You’ll come?”

  She cringed at the eagerness in his voice. “If we can’t track him down between now and then.”

  “Yeah, right, cool.” He hooked his thumbs in his belt and rocked back on his heels.

  The silence stretched between them. Eventually, Eli stepped off the curb. “Okay, see you tomorrow then, if not before.” He gave her a funny little half-wave and walked to his patrol car.

  Brett wasn’t ready to go back to the small squad room crowded with hot breath and the sweaty onion smell of men’s bodies. She stood a few minutes, watching the clouds bunch and fold and drift away.

  A car pulled into the parking lot, and a woman with shoulder-length, dishwater-blond hair that snapped in the breeze got out. The woman walked quickly toward the precinct, her long skirt twisting around her legs. Her eyes locked on to Brett as she came closer. Brett recognized her from a picture sitting on Marshall’s desk at the Trudeau Realty office. Her mouth was set firm, and her brow was pinched, but she was clearly the same woman. Marshall’s wife. Elizabeth’s mother. Brett took a deep breath to prepare herself for what was coming next.

  “You’re Brett, right?” But she didn’t wait for Brett to confirm or deny. She just rushed on, “You’re the one in charge of my daughter’s case?”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. Who are you?”

  The woman’s nose wrinkled in distaste. “Clara Trudeau. I’m Elizabeth’s mother. Eli told me you are the one investigating her assault. Is that true or not?”

  Brett clenched her hands at her side, her jaw tightening. This was why she hadn’t said Elizabeth’s name during the morning briefing. She hadn’t been ready to deal with her parents yet. But now, no thanks to Eli, she was caught unprepared, scrambling to figure out how to calm the woman without violating the trust she’d built with Elizabeth.

  “Yes,” she finally said. “I’m handling your daughter’s case.”

  “Have you found the bastard yet?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Have you found the asshole who hurt my daughter?” Clara spat out the words, her whole body leaning toward Brett, tilting at such an angle, Brett worried she might tip over.

  “The investigation is ongoing—”

  “What exactly are you doing?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “What are you doing to track down this monster who rapes little girls?” Her voice cracked, and she pressed one hand to her chest. Her nails were painted pearl pink. The wedding ring on her finger was a simple gold band with a large center diamond.

  “I can assure you, Mrs. Trudeau, I’m doing everything in my power to bring in the suspect.”

  “You know who did this? She told you?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t give you any details at this time.”

  “Of course you can. I’m her mother.”

  “Yes, and I’m sure this must be very frustrating—”

  “Don’t patronize me.” She pressed her face close to Brett’s. “Tell me who the fuck did this to my baby girl. I want his fucking name.”

  “My primary concern right now is protecting Elizabeth. I’m sure you understand better than anyone how delicate a situation this is. There are several different scenarios I’m looking into, and it might be a few days before I’m able to say for certain what happened.”

  “You know what happened. My daughter was raped. And you’re doing jack-shit to find her rapist.” She backed away, crossing her arms over her chest, her gaze roaming over Brett, taking the measure of her. She sniffed through her nose like she was disappointed by what she saw. “Of course, I shouldn’t be surprised. Weakness runs in the family.”

  “What did you say?” Brett stared at the woman who was clearly and understandably emotional about what had happened to her daughter, who had perhaps gone off the deep end over it all. Eli was going to get an earful from her the next time she saw him. He could have at least told her what he’d done so she could have prepared herself for this.

  The precinct door opened, and the front desk officer popped his head out. “Detective Buchanan? You have a call. It sounds urgent.”

  “One second,” she said.

  At the same time, Clara barked, “Can’t you see she’s busy?”

  The front desk officer cleared his throat. “It’s Officer Miller. Something about your grandmother?”

  When Brett left the house that morning, Amma had been fine. In fact, she’d been downright chipper. She had started drinking two cups of ginkgo tea a day. She’d read somewhere that it could help with memory problems, and she was sure she was already feeling the benefits. Ask me who the president is, Brett. No, wait, I’ll tell you. It’s Ronald Regan. Also, look, I put on the same color socks today. They’d read the paper together over breakfast, something they hadn’t done in weeks. Amma laughed at the comics. Brett scanned the classifieds to see how much other people were selling their sailboats for, in case they needed to sell the Anita Horizon. The way Amma was acting, though, maybe they wouldn’t have to sell the boat after all. I think I’ll have lunch with the girls today, Amma had said, referring to a group of friends from her country club that she’d been avoiding for months. Yes, everything had been fine, more than fine, when Brett had left for work.

  Now she turned to Clara, trying not to sound panicked even though she was because, if nothing was wrong, Eli wouldn’t be calling the station. She smiled calmly and said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Trudeau. I’m afraid we’ll have to continue this
discussion another time.”

  Then she hurried into the precinct, leaving Clara standing open-mouthed and affronted in the parking lot, puffing on her own indignation.

  Brett picked up the front desk phone and turned her back on the lurking officer in an attempt at privacy. “Eli?”

  The first thing he said was, “She’s safe.”

  Brett relaxed, but only for a second as she tried to make sense of what Eli said next. “I found her walking on the side of the highway. Out near the scrap metal yard? She didn’t have a coat on. No shoes on either. She seemed lost. I pulled up next to her and asked her if I could give her a ride somewhere. She told me she was all right and that she was just looking for Margot.”

  He paused, and the silence was filled with the crackling of a bad connection.

  “I managed to talk her into getting inside the car with me, and then I drove her home. She’s safe,” he repeated. “I’m still here with her, but I think you should come as soon as you can. I don’t think she understands what’s happening.”

  “Okay,” Brett said. “Okay, thanks. I’m on my way.”

  She hung up the phone and hurried back into the squad room to grab her jacket and keys. She went out the back entrance, certain Mrs. Trudeau was still in the front parking lot waiting to ambush her again.

  * * *

  Amma sat on the edge of the bathtub as Brett washed her feet with warm water, soap, and a washcloth. The soles of her feet were black from dirt, and there were a few small cuts, but it could have been worse. So much worse.

  “You could have been killed,” Brett said, repeating what Eli had said to her when she’d arrived at the house twenty minutes after he’d called the precinct.

  They’d stood on the front porch as he explained the semi-trucks rocketing past Amma as she teetered and weaved her way down the highway shoulder. A gust of wind from a passing truck almost knocked her into oncoming traffic. She didn’t know who I was, he said, and the concerned expression on his face was the exact reason Brett hadn’t wanted anyone to know what was going on with Amma. The pity and prying questions. Is everything all right? She’d told Eli it was nothing, just a side effect of new allergy medication. She asked him not to say anything to the chief, then sent him on his way, reminding him that he still had a suspect to chase down for her. Brett was in such a hurry to get him out of the house, she forgot to mention her run-in with Clara Trudeau. She’d deal with it later, she thought as she went inside to take care of Amma.