Dark Application: TWO

by Brian Krogstad

  Sabrina touched the phone in her pocket, and realized she knew things they didn’t.

  Doug changed the subject, switching to the Brafferton Attack.

  “So how is work now with the Jeffers fellow gone? Did they find a new intern?” he asked.

  Kevin sighed. “It’s gotten pretty intense. We had to have military briefings about security and everything, and I had to sit through hours of training about confidentiality and then I had to sign more papers,” he sighed.

  Doug and Kevin both looked a bit guilty, considering how much information he had shared with his father.

  “And tell you the truth, I miss Luke. He was an enjoyable trainee, and no one else has applied and been approved for the internship.”

  “Well, maybe you ought to go see him,” Doug suggested, sounding almost half serious.

  “You know, that’s a good idea, Dad. I need to talk to him, look him in the eyes again, you know? It was really hard for me to believe he’d done it.”

  “I want to go,” Sabrina said. All eyes turned on her. Kevin, his eyes round and dark, blinked at her, the hair around his ears swishing forward. Doug’s face blanched, and he stared at her blankly for a long awkward moment. Gabriela was interested, taking in their facial expressions.

  “Why?” asked Kevin.

  She shrugged, looking sincere. “Why not?” she asked.

  Kevin was silent a moment. “Okay,” he said.

  They finished their dinner together talking about Sabrina’s graduation, and her chance at competitive boxing, which she was still reluctant to pursue, although her dad was beyond proud that she’d been asked to compete.

  The phone grew warm against her skin, sandwiched between her hand and thigh.

  ***

  Antonio had a black wide-strapped tank top that outlined his shoulder and chest muscles. Baggy sweat pants slung loosely around his waist piqued her imagination. The tie strings dangling kept catching her eye today. His face was freshly shaven, leaving just a short, sharply groomed goatee. He had a fresh fade and he looked handsome as always.

  Sabrina had begun, for the first time in her life, to wear tank tops as well. All the other female boxers wore them, and she realized that with her arms covered, no one could tell by looking at her what level of a boxer she was until she put on the gloves. But she had grown restless with her humility; as much as she morally detested the idea that a body was a status symbol, she had begun to desire the rank, the pure admiration that was the payoff for her hard work.

  Antonio’s eyes cascaded over her before he could stop himself. He was a single guy, but he never flirted, and he never trifled with relationships in the gym. How he was outside the gym, she was unsure. As far as she knew, he spent twenty four hours a day here.

  She started her workout strong, but a few times her mind began to wander. He pulled her back with a stern command, but again, her concentration was veering away by something inside that he could sense.

  “¿Qué pasa amiga?” he asked.

  She stood panting, still, sweat in her hair and dripping down her arms. She kept in fighting stance with her arms up, but he broke his stance, putting a hand to her arm, indicating her to stop and take a break.

  She sat beside him on a bench and he leaned forward on his elbows to listen without saying anything.

  “You don’t want to know about my dumb high school girl problems,” Sabrina said.

  “I don’t see you as a high school girl anymore, and I don’t think your problems are dumb,” he said softly. “You just need to talk about it with someone. If not me, your madre or your amigas, someone.”

  She looked down at the floor, reluctant to tell Antonio about the incident with Sean.

  “I haven’t looked at you as a high school girl since you came in here and started whooping ass like a champ. You fight better than ninety percent of the guys I train. You work hard, you never quit, all these ladies in here are jealous of you ‘cuz you are more mature than them. Anyone in this gym would do anything to be as hard core as you, Sabrina.”

  Sabrina smirked at the adjective. Hard core.

  “I know it’s an old saying, but strength on the outside starts with strength on the inside.”

  Sitting up straighter, and holding her head a bit higher, she looked around the gym. The lights were dim and usually there were no more than four or five other people including trainers when Sabrina was here in the evenings. The bags hung around the room on chains like carcasses at a butcher shop. The trainees hacked away, the contact slapping and thudding off the white walls.

  He poured her a cold paper cup full of water, and she looked at him. Whenever he talked this way, it occurred to him how young he sounded for his age. He was twenty-eight, ten years older than her. His accent struck her as immensely sexy, and he let her peer into his eyes, looking at her with warmth and regard.

  Suddenly she tried to kiss him. She saw his lips there, and she leaned forward, wanting to smother him with affection.

  He put his hand to her shoulder, not aggressively but firmly, and held her back. “Sabrina? What’re you doing?”

  She opened her eyes wide, looking into his face. He had the slightest hint of a frown. He was inspecting her, like an insect, she thought.

  He was rejecting her. Embarrassed, she pulled back, and the look on her face told him how humiliated she was.

  “This ain’t like you, Sabrina. I know you, girl. Don’t do something on a whim. Pensar en lo que está haciendo en primer lugar.”

  Her voice was a whisper. “I did think about it,” she said.

  Seeing her pain, he held her in his arms, giving her the first real hug he’d ever given her. “You are a good person, Sabrina. Too good for me,” he said.

  Sabrina interpreted what he said with chagrín. He meant that she was too good a fighter for him to risk it. That’s what he meant.

  “And besides, I could fall in love with you, you know.”

  Her heart stopped and she gasped.

  “And I’m leaving for Los Ángeles in a month. I got a job training there. My cousin hooked it up. I was gonna tell you tonight, but it seemed like you had bigger problems already.”

  The gravity of the fact shattered her fragile heart like a brick.

  ***

  Leah didn’t show up for work on Wednesday morning and didn’t answer her cell phone. She lived alone, and no one had seen her all day. When Thursday afternoon rolled around and she wasn’t there for afternoon closing shift, Sean got worried.

  “Sabrina, I need you to act as manager for the weekend if it turns out she quit on me,” he said.

  She looked at him and nodded. Finally his abuse of his position in the work place is kicking him in the ass, she hoped.

  Managing was a lot more difficult than she’d expected. The customers wanted her when they had a complaint, and when anyone needed a break, she had to cover for them. She had to manage all the keys, locking and unlocking the safe, switching drawers for the changing employees. She had a new respect for the entire job.

  The day was hectic but the Bluetooth and Dark Application made her day smooth and left her feeling like a hero afterward. The last hour of the day was the best - cleaning, sweeping and mopping, putting away the clean dishes, tidying and then locking up as she left.

  She left through the employee entrance, and headed between the two tall buildings to her car. The alley was so spooky, with abandoned cardboard houses, and piles of grotesque substances on the ground around the restaurant dumpsters, crawling with rats and maggots. The trash cans and discarded debris made it hard to see all the way to the end. She always felt a creepy feeling in this place. She hurried along, avoiding stepping in puddles, unsure what they could be.

  Something caught her eye as she padded delicately past. It was a glimmer, a shine in the tidbit of alleyway light. She did a double-take and clenched her fist over her mouth.

  A hand, delicate and slender, was budding from the top of a dumpster like a white flower. The shininess was a ring, s
ilver with a precious stone, on the finger. It was the right hand. Not an engagement ring. A friendship ring. Or a promise ring. Sabrina was paralyzed where she stood, unable to move. Not until she knew.

  She stepped closer and tried to peer inside the top of the dumpster without touching anything. A rancid odor pummeled her through the warm stagnant air. She saw a slender white neck, red with blood, a gash gaping open, exposing curls of tendon and fibrous, bloody cords of muscle. The face was turned up, and the face was unmistakably Leah’s.

  Sabrina turned and gagged hard twice, but did not vomit. She raced back to her car and sped home through light downtown traffic, crying. She swept through the entry way and headed straight toward the stairs. She shook her head fiercely trying to rid the image.

  Seated in his stool, swishing side to side, was her dad with his back to her.

  “Hey, Bean,” called Doug.

  “Yeah?” she asked, stopping on the stairs.

  He looked over his shoulder without turning all the way toward her. “Nothing, Sabrina. Just hey. You know, like ‘hi’.”

  “Oh,” she said, and fled to her room before he could see her red puffy eyes.

  She locked the door and sobbed for the rest of the night.

  ***

  Kennedy picked up the phone. Luke was hunched in the chair across from him, but he certainly looked less haggard than last time, and maybe a bit more rested.

  “What up?” Luke said, grumpily.

  “Another girl has been murdered in Fort Christanna,” said Kennedy.

  Luke’s eyes bulged with disbelief.

  Kennedy continued without disturbance. “Her name was Leah Gorski, and she was a single twenty-two year old woman. She was murdered Monday and discovered yesterday in a dumpster downtown between Fourth and Commercial Avenue.”

  Luke shuddered.

  “Yeah, it was a mess. How she went that long without discovery is a mystery, considering the horrific smell. She was discovered by a waste management truck driver.” Kennedy laid out a picture in front of Luke. Luke balked and looked away.

  “So what does this have to do with me?” he asked.

  “A few possibilities. First off, if you’re innocent like you say, this could suggest an actual killer. The knife used to stab the victim was the same size and marks on the bones indicate that the same weapon may have been used, and at approximately the same pound per square inch force.”

  Luke was alert.

  “However, that doesn’t prove it was the same killer or the same weapon - yet anyway. There is one telltale difference between these two murders,” he said.

  “And?”

  “The El Sa’id girl was rich, wealthy parents. Big ransom opportunity there.”

  An image flashed across Luke’s mind of a woman in a black and purple hijab, wrists adorned in glittering gold bracelets, glaring at him across the courtroom with dark heavily made-up, beautiful eyes.

  “Gorski was a pauper, if you will. Raised by a single dad, no fortune, no assets. Not the same motivation to kill her. The prosecution will call it a coincidence or a copy-cat murder,” he said. He let a moment pass while Luke took it all in. “And now, we have some other things to talk about.”

  Luke rubbed his hand on his forehead. “I been trying to talk to you all along,” he complained.

  “The Brafferton Attack, Luke. This time, no recorder, no notes. Just tell me anything I need to know to prevent any more people from getting killed. Tell me about this application you used.”

  Luke swallowed and looked around. He quickly mumbled through the story about the money, then Travis, then they had run out of time.

  “Ten minutes!” the guard called out.

  Luke shook his head angrily. “They never give us the whole half hour,” he said.

  Kennedy gathered his things. “I’ll be back next week,” he said.

  Luke looked at him through the thick glass, trying to read his face. “Why you trying to help me, anyway?” he asked.

  Kennedy shrugged. “Because someday I might need you to help me,” he said.

  Kennedy stood and turned to go, and as he was leaving, he saw a man with chin-length dark hair entering the visiting area with a young Latina-looking girl who he recognized. He stared a moment at her. She stared back as she passed.

  He knew her, she worked at The Drip. He turned back to get another glance, and saw that she, too, had turned to look at him.

  The metal doors slammed behind him with a bang and the officer on duty escorted him out.

  ***

  She recognized that man. His jet-black hair shone when he turned to look back at her. Sabrina’s heart jumped. The look of recognition passed over his face, and she suddenly remembered John calling out his name over the coffee counter, Doug, and immediately she regretted her decision to come here. They had been shaken down and thoroughly raked with a metal detector wand by a guard. She clung to Kevin’s side as they were escorted through the security reception block and into the visiting area. The long hallway was dank and the inmates sat at phone booths in front of huge sheaths of glass. Kevin and Sabrina sat at one of the booths where a young man was seated, watching them walk in.

  Luke Jeffers was there on the other side. Kevin sat down and picked up the phone. There was only one phone, so Sabrina had to listen to Kevin and could only look at Luke while they chatted.

  Luke looked surprised and genuinely happy to see Kevin. Immediately they started talking about school.

  Luke’s face was animated as he talked. He spent a full five minutes talking to Kevin, deep in explanation. Sabrina wanted to hear what his voice sounded like. She couldn’t hear a thing.

  “So, this is all very interesting, Luke, but which computer are you talking about?”

  Again Luke was conversing silently. Kevin nodded once.

  “Did you tell anyone?”

  Silence. Luke’s mouth moving.

  “Where is it, Luke?”

  Luke said a word or two. Kevin’s face fell.

  Very deliberately, Kevin said, “Where is it?”

  I don’t know, Sabrina read his lips this time.

  “So it… talked to you?”

  Luke began another long string of dialogue. Sabrina touched the phone in her pocket, willing it to stay silent.

  They passed another round of conversation before Kevin, his face ashen and his eyes flitting about nervously, said good-bye and returned the phone to the cradle.

  They left with their escort. Kevin was quiet and his mouth was open slightly, like he was deep in thought. He sort of stared blankly out the windshield as they drove back to his apartment. Sabrina stayed for awhile, but soon she could see that Kevin was distraught, and she said she had to go home and do laundry.

  A feeling of remorse crept over her on her drive back to her parents’ house.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: The Punishment

  Sabrina’s alarm wailed at 4:45 in the morning, and she rose and clicked it off. She sat on the edge of her bed, her eyes open, her mind whirring with the day ahead of her.

  Outside, the sky was black and washed with blue, the essence of light barely beginning to illuminate the pre-dawn horizon. She sat for several minutes in the silence, looking around her room, watching the floor boards ever so impalpably materialize. Finally she rose, and went to the bathroom to get ready for the opening shift at The Drip.

  The roads were abandoned and the breeze was cool and clean when she walked out to her car. She slammed the door and turned the key, listening closely to the little old car’s tired engine. As she drove she kept the radio off and watched every car that passed. Each morning she drove past the Denny’s where there were usually two or three cop cars. She pulled onto Third Street and into the rear parking lot of the building.

  When she got out, the sky was still a smoky blue and the sun had yet to dilute the darkness. The rush of the cool air swirling around her smelled like cold pavement. The clack of the door slamming echoed off the high walls of the alleyway, and her steps were mere
patters in the stillness.

  She could see the end of the block ahead, and the door that led into the employee area of The Drip. She immediately regretted parking in the parking lot. There were other options. About a half mile up there was a parking garage. It was impossible to park on the street without getting a ticket, but she could have taken the bus. She glanced nervously around her and listened to the echo of her steps. Just as she began to quicken her paces, the phone vibrated unexpectedly in her pocket.

  She looked into the black screen. The blue light appeared, dim and uncertain.

  Get out of here.

  Her heart jumped. She quickened her steps even more, until she was almost jogging. Her hair blew back from her shoulders, her jean jacket swishing as she strode. She looked at the phone again, but the screen had gone black. The night of the break-in at her house flashed through her mind again, sending her heart surging into a flurry and her stomach clenching. Thinking she heard a noise behind her, she gasped and turned, stopping in her tracks. She listened with senses perked, the air completely still. Then she heard the tapping of footsteps coming out of the gloom.

  Turning to flee, she found herself frozen, paralyzed. She felt the phone in her pocket, rubbing it with her thumb unconsciously, as though it were a rosary bead. Before she had decided whether to bolt or not, a man in a dark coat stepped out from behind the corner of a dumpster behind her, and commanded her to stop. The voice was deep and authoritative.

  She panicked and screamed, “NO!”

  The man appeared to come stalking after. Frantic, she stopped thinking. The warm electricity feeling came over her again, the fierce voltage that made her feel absurdly and infinitely energetic. The muscles of her cheeks twitched, and her fingers fluttered with the firing of nerves. She gripped her hands into fists, the knuckles taught, and huffed. Her shoulders rose up and down. She stood completely still, watching the man coming toward her. Although he appeared to be nonchalant, he wore a black hat, gloves, and a thick coat. She felt vigilant and strained, her heart racing, becoming more distressed as he drew closer.