Dark Truth

by Mariah Stewart

  “There’s another box.” The officer disappeared around the corner again, and returned a minute later carrying one more file box.

  He sat the box on top of the desk and handed her a receipt.

  “You can make the check payable to the Stone River Police Department.”

  Nina took her checkbook from her handbag and wrote out the check and showed him her driver’s license without waiting to be asked. The bill was for way more than she’d expected—but she hadn’t realized how much paper was involved. There was no question what she’d be doing for the rest of the weekend.

  She lifted the first box from the desk and took it out to the rented Taurus, and placed it in the trunk. She turned and found the officer coming down the walk behind her.

  “I thought I’d give you a hand with this,” he told her.

  “Thanks so much.” She stood back while he set the second box next to the first.

  “Don’t mention it.” He slammed the trunk closed for her. “Sorry about the mix-up.”

  “It’s all right. I should have called.” She got behind the wheel, turned on the ignition, and drove off.

  The roads outside of Branigan, the small town where Regan lived, were windy and poorly lit. She slowed down as she approached several driveways before realizing they were the wrong ones. She found Regan’s almost by accident. At night, every drive and every house seemed to look the same.

  She parked next to the deck, and opened the house, turning on all the floodlights at the back. When she’d finished removing her belongings, she locked the car and went back into the house, but she left the bright lights on. The house was very quiet, very isolated, and she felt just a bit edgy.

  Regan had kindly left soup in the refrigerator, along with yogurt, fruit, cheese, diet soda, and white wine. Nina made herself a light supper, poured herself a glass of wine, and settled down with the boxes in the sitting room, after checking to make certain all the doors and windows were locked.

  She’d just finished eating when her phone rang. The sudden intruding noise caused her to startle.

  “Hello?”

  “Ms. Madden. Detective Powell.”

  “I’m so sorry I missed you, Detective. I was delayed on my trip down from New York.”

  “You could have called.”

  “Yes, and I should have. I apologize if you waited beyond whatever time you would normally have left.”

  “There is no normal.”

  “Yes, I have a job like that.”

  “I doubt it,” he muttered, and she could hear the weariness in his voice. “I’m calling to let you know that you’re missing a couple of boxes.”

  “I am?” She frowned. “There are two here.”

  “There should be four. One for each victim.”

  “I’ll drive back to Stone River tomorrow and pick them up. Thank you for telling me.”

  “You’re staying in the area?”

  “I’m in Branigan. At a friend’s.”

  “I’d be happy to drop them off. I’ll be passing through there in the morning.”

  “Really, you don’t have to do that. I’ll make the trip.”

  “I should have waited. I knew you’d be there, after you made such a point to request the files.” He softened slightly. “I’ll be passing through Branigan early in the morning. You an early riser?”

  “Actually, I am, but I really don’t think . . .”

  “Give me the address.”

  “Fifteen Shore Drive.”

  “Easy enough. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  He hung up without waiting for her to say good-bye.

  “Okay, then,” Nina said. “I guess you will . . .”

  * * *

  Nina read until the fire had burned out, but she’d barely noticed. It was after two in the morning when she stopped to stretch her legs, and she was shocked to see how much time had passed. Normally a fast reader, she’d taken her time, making notes of the facts she felt were important. She wondered if Regan would agree.

  She folded over the notebook and, leaving it on the chair, closed the fireplace flue and turned off the lights. Her eyes were begging for a break, and her back and neck were stiff from having remained in the same position for so long. Her body was telling her to wrap it up for the night, and she did. She went up the steps to the loft room she’d stayed in the last time she was there, and kicked off her shoes. She lay across the bed for just a moment, and was asleep before she knew it.

  Early the next morning, the sun woke her as it shone directly in her face. She was surprised to find that she’d slept on top of the comforter, still dressed in her clothes from the night before. Not quite certain just how early was early to Detective Powell, she got up and showered and changed, and was downstairs by seven-thirty.

  She made it with eleven minutes to spare.

  The kitchen clock read seven forty-one when the Jeep pulled up to the deck and parked next to the Taurus. She watched through the window as the detective took the boxes from the backseat of his car, one atop the other. He stood in the driveway as if uncertain which way to go. Nina unlocked the back door and stepped onto the deck.

  “Good morning,” she called.

  “Oh, hey. Good morning. I was just trying to figure out where the front door is.” He walked up the stairs and across the deck.

  “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I know. I’ve only come and gone through this door.” She smiled and held out her hands for the boxes. “Here, I’ll take them.”

  “They’re really heavy. Let me just put them down on something.” He went past her, into the kitchen, and set the boxes on the counter. “Wow. This is really something. I didn’t know granite came in that shade of blue.”

  “I hadn’t seen it before, either. I don’t know where Regan found it.”

  He glanced around the room admiringly, his eyes going back twice to the coffeepot, which was beeping to announce it had finished brewing.

  “I was just making coffee. Would you like a cup?”

  “I’d kill for one.” He visibly cringed as soon as the words were out of his mouth. “Sorry. Bad choice.”

  Ignoring his faux pas, she took mugs from one of the cupboards and poured the coffee, handing his to him with a caution. “It’s really hot.”

  “Thanks.”

  She got out a container of cream.

  “How do you take it?”

  “Just cream is fine. Thanks.”

  Nina passed the cream to him and poured sweetener from a pink paper packet into her own cup.

  “So, you’re staying with Ms. Landry for a few days?”

  “Actually, she’s away this weekend, but she offered to let me stay here.”

  “Good friend.”

  “She is.”

  “And you’re her editor as well.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I read it in the front of her book, that last one. In His Shoes. She dedicated it to her editor, Nina Madden. That would be you.”

  “You had the book?”

  “Actually, I picked it up at the bookstore the other day after you left the station.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” He considered the question. “I wanted to see if she was any good. I’d read a few of her father’s books, and I knew she lived down around the bay someplace. I was curious. I wanted to see if she was legit.”

  “Satisfied?”

  “Very.”

  He took a sip of coffee and leaned back against the counter.

  “This new book you’re working on with her. What’s the deal with that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What brought that about?”

  “Regan thought it would be a good story.”

  “That’s all?”

  “What else should there be?”

  “Just checking.” He took another sip. “I’m just relieved to hear that’s all there is to it. I was hoping it wasn’t going to be one of those situations where someone, years after the fact, g
ot the notion that an innocent man had been railroaded, that the cops had screwed up, that the wrong man was convicted. That sort of thing.”

  He stared at her levelly, then continued.

  “Because I was there that day, you know? I was part of that investigation. I was at the crime scene when they found the body of the last victim.”

  “Maureen Thomas. I just read about her.”

  “Her friends called her Mickey. She was twenty-two years old, one semester away from graduating with honors in English.”

  “I know. I read the file.”

  “She was a beautiful, intelligent . . .”

  “I said, I read the file.” Her voice rose slightly. “Why do you feel it necessary to reiterate what I’ve already read?”

  “Because I want you to understand who the victims were. What was taken from them.”

  “If you’re trying to make me feel like shit, you’re doing a damned fine job of it.” Nina’s eyes began to sting.

  “I just want you to understand—as difficult as it might be to accept—that your father was guilty. There were no mistakes made.” His voice softened. “I just don’t want you to go into this”—he waved one hand at the boxes on the counter—“thinking you’re going to find something we missed that will prove he was innocent. I’m sure this was a terrible ordeal for you back then. I would just hate to see you go through it again for no good reason.”

  Anger welled inside her. “I don’t think it’s your place to oversee the choices I make.”

  He put his mug down on the counter.

  “Hey, I know how these things go. I’ve seen dozens of ’em. Relatives get it into their heads that their loved one was railroaded, that some cop had it in for them. Look, I can understand why it’s hard to accept. I swear, I do. It must have been terrible for you back then. And I’m sure it’s been a big question in your life all these years. Did he, or didn’t he?”

  “You’re wrong. I never questioned whether or not my father was guilty.”

  That clearly surprised him. It took a moment for him to recover.

  “Then why,” he asked, “has this conversation turned defensive on your part?”

  “Let me ask you this, Detective. Suppose there was some evidence that turned up that at least cast doubt on my father’s guilt. What would you do?”

  “There’s no such evidence. I’m telling you, I worked this case. I worked it inside and out. I dotted every i and I crossed every t. There’s nothing to turn up. We had it all.”

  “Let’s put that aside for now.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Just play along with me. Tell me what you’d do, if some piece of evidence was found that indicated someone else was responsible for the deaths of those girls. Would you reopen the case?”

  He stared at her for a very long time.

  “Well, Detective?”

  “You bring me something that shows me that someone other than Stephen Madden was the Stone River Rapist, and yes, I will reopen the case.”

  “Thank you. That’s all I needed to hear you say.”

  “So, am I supposed to guess now what you have? You’re not going to tell me what you’ve found?”

  “Oh, I haven’t really found anything. Yet. If and when I do, trust me, Detective Powell, you will be the first to know.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.” He turned and rinsed out his cup, then placed it upside down on the counter, as he might do if he were home. He glanced at the clock on the wall. “And with that, I’ll be on my way. I have a soccer game in less than an hour.”

  “You play soccer?”

  “Me? Ha. Not with these knees.” He smiled for the first time since he’d stepped into the kitchen. “My son plays.”

  “How old is your son?”

  “Nine. And if I don’t get there on time, his mother will end up taking him to his game and I’ll never hear the end of it. It’s my Saturday.”

  “Then you best get going. Thanks for dropping off the files.” Nina walked him to the door. “And for your insights into the case.”

  “I’m still not sure I understand what exactly you’re looking for, or what your motive might be, and of course, it’s none of my business. But dredging this up without a sound reason is going to cause pain to a lot of people. The victims’ families. Their friends. The college.”

  “I understand that.”

  “I wonder if you do, Ms. Madden.” He turned and walked to his car. “I have to wonder if you really do.”

  Ten

  The task Nina had set for herself turned out to be more difficult than she’d imagined. The closest she’d ever come to reading police reports was in Regan’s books, where all the little shorthand words and phrases that law enforcement personnel used had already been deciphered. Trying to interpret the real thing was something else entirely. The pages she had difficulty reading went into separate piles for each of the four victims. After a time, she realized the “ask Regan” piles contained most of the reports.

  The hardest part, she’d decided, was reading about the victims. By the time she’d finished reading all the witness reports in each of the files, she felt as if she’d known each of the murdered girls personally. Lana Shuman collected comic books from the 1950s, as Nina had done for a time. Sara Maynard took horseback riding lessons as a young girl, much as Nina had when her mother was alive. Barbie Hughes read everything she could find about ancient civilizations, still one of Nina’s favorite subjects. But most shocking to Nina was the fact that the last victim, Maureen—Mickey—Thomas, had been one of several roommates freshman year with Clare Murphy, a sister of one of the girls in Nina’s world history class.

  She closed the file she’d been reading. She simply could not reconcile the man portrayed in those files—the sleazy professor who used his position, his charm, and his good looks to prey upon innocent young students—with the man who, admittedly, hadn’t been much of a fixture in her day-to-day life, but who had always treated her well.

  She tried to conjure up specific memories of things she’d done with her dad as a child, and had to admit there were precious few to choose from. Once, when she was about nine or ten, he’d taken her to the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge on the Delaware Bay, and they’d spent hours walking the trails. He’d pointed out rare birds—Caspian terns and stilt sandpipers and glossy ibis; she still recalled their names though not what they looked like—and they’d stopped on the path to watch a mother fox lead her brood of pups across the road. They hadn’t talked much that day, but it was the first time she’d ever felt any bond with him, and she’d never forgotten it.

  And, of course, there’d been that trip to London, but she never allowed herself to look back on that.

  She tried to call up other such times, but all she could think of was the night before he was arrested. He’d arrived home around eleven—not unusual for him—and she’d heard him moving around in his study below her bedroom. She’d gone downstairs—she’d been a little anxious about finding out the next day if she’d be asked to join the sorority she’d so longed for—and stood outside the study door for a moment, debating whether or not to knock. She could see the light under the closed door, but had hesitated before knocking. From behind the door, she could hear the sound of drawers opening and closing—desk drawers or file cabinets, she couldn’t tell which. Finally, she’d knocked, and walked in. Her father was standing behind the desk looking edgy and distracted, and uncommonly rumpled. He’d listened to her fears of rejection by the sorority of her choice, and had made some vague comment like, “It will all work out for the best, I’m sure.”

  A few minutes after she’d gone back upstairs, she’d heard a door close below. She looked out the window and saw her father going into the garage. At first, she thought he was going out again, which would have been strange, since his habit was, once home, to stay home. She’d leaned on the sill, watching and waiting for at least ten minutes, but her father didn’t come back inside, and the car didn’t leave the garage. Finally, she gave u
p, and got into bed. Later, as she was drifting off to sleep, she thought she’d heard his footfalls on the step and the door at the end of the hall close softly.

  She’d never had the opportunity to ask him what he’d been doing that night.

  Strange, she thought now, that one of most vivid memories of her father was her last one.

  Not quite the last, she reminded herself. She’d been there the next day, in Celestine Hall, when he was arrested.

  She thought again of the unread letter in the box on the closet shelf, and wondered how much longer she could put off reading it.

  Nina slipped the handwritten statements back into the folder—one from Sara Maynard’s sister telling of Sara’s reluctance to discuss her social life in the months before she was murdered, another from Sara’s former roommate—and dropped the file on the floor. It had been a depressing day filled with depressing tasks, and she needed a break. She drove into Branigan and made a stop at the drugstore in the center of town. After twenty minutes of browsing the magazines, she purchased one, and returned directly to the house. She read the magazine straight through, then tossed it onto the floor next to the files. She went through Regan’s selection of DVDs hoping to find a light comedy, and settled on Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. Not exactly what she’d expect to find in Regan Landry’s film library, but it was just what Nina needed. She microwaved some popcorn she found in the pantry, poured herself a diet soda, and settled down for a little mindless entertainment.

  * * *

  “So what do you guys want on your pizza?” Wes turned to his son, Alec, who was busy playing rock-paper-scissors with his best friend, Reed, while they waited in line at the cafeteria-style restaurant.

  “Pepperoni.” Alec laughed as his rock smashed Reed’s scissors and Reed yelped.

  “That okay with you, Reed?”

  “Sure.” Reed grabbed a red plastic tray from the stack behind him and thrust it at Alec, who was still laughing as he lunged for a tray of his own.

  Wes stepped between the two just as the boys began to duel with the lunch trays.

  “Enough,” Wes admonished the boys. “I would have thought you’d have worked off all your energy running up and down the soccer field.”