The Depth of Darkness

by L. T. Ryan

  There was something about the way he looked at me just then. It went beyond surprise. His face held a look of intrigue, or perhaps suspicion.

  “Roy, did you ever wonder if Dusty Anne cheated on you?”

  He placed his hands on the table and pushed back in his chair. I gestured for him to move no further. “Who’ve you been talking to?” he said. “I want to know who.”

  “That’s none of your concern, Roy. At this time, I’m here with you and I’m the one asking the questions. Now, you might not have had anything to do with that fall, but if someone else did, and you have information that you are withholding, that’d be obstruction of justice and you’ll do jail time.”

  The clenched muscles in Roy’s jaw stood out on his shaven face. His breathing had turned heavy and ragged. It seemed he was either going to lash out at me or have a stroke. Finally, he settled down and said, “I have no information other than what I’ve told you, Detective Tanner. Now, I’d appreciate it if you’d leave and let me eat my dinner.”

  I rose from the table and took a few steps back, keeping my gaze fixed on him. “I’ll be in touch with you soon, Roy.”

  He followed me to the front door. “Don’t bother. I’m getting a lawyer.”

  “You certainly can do that, but it’ll just make you look guilty.”

  “I’m not getting one to defend me, Detective. I’m getting him so I can go after you assholes for harassing me.”

  I laughed as I stepped off the porch. Then, something caught my eye. I’d missed it the night before, perhaps because the lighting had been different, or maybe because I was out of touch with the surroundings. On the hedges I spotted a few drops of what appeared to be blood. I stopped and turned around. By the time I swung my head around to say something to Roy, he’d taken off.

  I crossed the porch in two large steps and kicked the door wide open. It hit the wall and bounced back at me. I kicked it again. I heard a door slam from the back of the house. I went to the right around the stairs, which led to a bedroom with no exit. I cursed and turned around and headed to the other side of the house. A mudroom led to the backyard. The door hung open on the hinges. The wind blew it further open for me.

  My feet hit the ground in time to spot Roy hopping the back fence. He went over it quickly and gracefully. I’d underestimated the guy. I gave chase, hopping the fence with almost as much grace. For five minutes, I followed behind him as we passed through a half-dozen of his neighbors’ yards.

  We came to a clearing and Roy broke into a sprint. I did my best to keep up. He hurdled a chain covering the driveway to the old water tower. I did the same. My ankle felt unstable as it hit the ground, but I kept pushing. Roy ran right to the tower, put his shoulder into the door and busted it open. By the time I made it through, he was a quarter of the way up the spiral staircase. What the hell was the guy doing?

  I stopped, took a moment to collect myself, then called Sam. He figured his ETA to be around ten minutes. He also said he’d get help out there. Fine by me. One less call I had to make. I hung up with Sam and made another call to let forensics know about the evidence. We needed them there before the storm hit. I stuffed my cell in my pocket and continued up the staircase. The metal door at the top whipped in the wind, banging into the wall. The sound echoed through the hollow body of the old tower. The higher I climbed, the tighter my stomach felt. When I finally reached the top, I wasted no time stepping through the open doorway.

  Then I froze.

  Chapter 4

  I’d been told to wait for the negotiator. But I knew that guy was playing poker tonight, and he wouldn’t respond until at least the third page. By this point, they’d paged him once, maybe twice. So it was up to me. Now, staring out into the open sky, I realized I should have waited.

  I balanced on a two-foot wide ledge that surrounded the old water tower. I don’t think it had been used since the ‘80s. I was a bit busy, so I didn’t bother to call the town historian to find out. The wind blew in from the south. Fortunately, I was on the north side. Unfortunately, while the circular contraption protected me from the full thirty-mile per hour gust, I found myself being pelted by two razor thin wisps of wind that followed the gracious curve of the tower and met precisely where I stood.

  I had a moment of clarity, during which I questioned my sanity by blurting out, “Fuck me.”

  I suppose I could have tried to say something to Roy, who had climbed over the waist-high railing about thirty seconds ago. There was the temptation to let him jump. The sooner I got off that tower, the better.

  I watched him release one hand, then the other. He leaned back against the railing, sometimes jerking forward and back because of the wind that whipped around and pelted him, the same as it did me.

  I knew I should have said something to the guy. Sanctity of life and all that bullshit. That's the reason I got into homicide to begin with. To give a voice to those who could no longer speak. This guy could still speak though. And it wasn't like someone was taking his life here. He was prepared to do that by himself.

  I could no longer hold my tongue. I was hot and sweaty and starting to have a panic attack, dammit.

  "Well, then jump you bastard," I said.

  He looked over his shoulder. The only light up on that tower came from the moon, and while it was full on this night, wispy clouds raced by and at that moment, they covered the entire white orb.

  I couldn't get a read on the guy. His eyes looked black as coal. I could tell his mouth hung open from the dark hole in the middle of his face.

  "Look, man," I said. "I'm cramping up here. So either you jump, or you get back over that railing and we go downstairs, and then I kick your butt on solid ground."

  Roy turned his head forward and tucked his chin to his chest. He said nothing back to me.

  Pissed me off.

  I reached out for the railing and leaned forward. It was amazing I was up there in the first place. I’d been scared of heights since the age of eight or nine, when I climbed higher in a tree than I ever had. The reason? To save a one eyed tabby cat for the cute thirteen-year-old girl next door. Her name was Victoria. The cat, that is. I don’t remember the name of the girl anymore. Maybe if she had thanked me, I would. It hadn’t been the fact that I was higher up in the tree than I’d ever been before. Hell, that had been kind of cool to my eight or nine year old self. What did me in had been the branch that snapped when I was twenty feet off the ground. I’ve been told that it doesn’t matter whether you weigh eighty pounds or eight hundred, twenty feet passes pretty quickly when you fall out of a tree.

  And that’s why I felt my stomach higher in my throat with every step I took forward. Those boards below my feet were old and splintered. At least, I imagined they’d be if I had a light to shine on them. Not that I’d look. Hell, it could have been plastic wrap under me. No way I was looking down. Not a hundred feet or so up in the air.

  “Don’t come any closer,” Roy said.

  “Oh, now you can talk?” I said, my panic at an all-time high as I realized I stood more than ten feet away from the door that led back to sanity.

  He eased along the outer edge, further from me. I glanced down and saw that only his heels remained on semi-solid above-ground ground. Big mistake. Not him on the ledge. Me looking down.

  A doctor might say it’s impossible for a stomach to turn, but I swear mine did at that moment. My knees went a bit weak. A lot weak, as a matter of fact. Next thing I knew, my armpit collided with the metal railing.

  “I got five bucks you hit the ground first,” Roy said.

  His words jostled me forward. “You don’t know your physics,” I said. I stopped before explaining any further. It would have been lost on him.

  The episode I suffered through a moment ago seemed to cure me, at least temporarily, of my fear of heights. I rose and let go of the railing and walked toward him. This time he grabbed the railing with his left hand and spun, stopping so that his right leg hovered out in the air while the tip of his
left foot balanced on the ledge.

  Crazy SOB, I thought. “Get back over here,” I said.

  Red lights bounced off the trees. I saw the same lights reflected off the water tower. I looked down, twisted stomach and all, and saw a ladder and engine pull up to the tower. A moment later a flood light shone up at us.

  I got a good look at the man who stood in between life and death. I’d just upgraded him to person of interest in his wife’s death. Thus far, we’d labeled Dusty Anne Miller’s death as accidental. But I didn’t believe that now. Roy’s actions on this humid, windy night only served to convince me that he was guilty as sin. Maybe more so.

  “C’mon, Roy. Let’s go downstairs, have a Starbucks, and talk this thing through.”

  I wasn’t a fan of coffee I didn’t make myself, but since I seemed to be in the minority, I thought it a good line to use.

  Then Roy said something I don’t know that I’ll ever forget. He said, “Coffee? It’s almost midnight.”

  Did dead men care about such things?

  Roy looked down for an awfully long time. He eased his butt to the railing again and placed both hands on it. His stare remained focused on one of the fire trucks below. I wanted to look over, too. I’d never been involved in a jumper situation and found myself wondering if they pulled out one of those circular bouncy things like in the old cartoons. Might be fun, for the right person.

  I didn’t look though. With Roy distracted, I reached out and grabbed hold of his collar. He yelled something indecipherable. I pulled back as hard as I could. He toppled over backward, landed on his head. I hovered over his body, leaned forward.

  “Roy?” I said.

  Roy said nothing. His eyes were shut, his mouth open a bit. I felt for a pulse. Found one. I pinched his hand and he winced in pain. A good sign, I thought. If his neck was broken, he wouldn’t have felt that.

  Roy came to somewhat and said, “What the hell, man?”

  I grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him around the water tower until we reached the door. The wind had blown it shut. Luckily, it hadn’t been locked.

  Now, that tower ledge was at least a hundred-fifty feet off the ground. There was no way I was going to carry that guy down the stairs. So I pulled out my radio and called in for back up. Soon, the firefighters’ flashlights lit up the corridor.

  Jerry Haynes appeared first. Jerry and I go way back, before he was a firefighter and I was a cop. Together, with Sam, the three of us raised some hell as kids.

  Jerry said, “You OK, Mitch?”

  “Yeah, just remind me to check my shorts when I get back on solid ground.”

  Chapter 5

  “We’ll take it from here,” Jerry said, pulling Roy from my arms. He laid the guy on the ground and began to assess his condition. “Where’s this blood coming from?”

  “His head,” I said. “He did a reverse endo over the railing and his skull broke his fall.”

  Jerry tossed me a thumbs up. I suppose he was telling me he got the info, but I like to think it was one of those congratulatory thumbs up for a job well done. After all, I hadn’t killed the guy and I didn’t let him take his own life. I deserved a pat on the back for that.

  I relinquished my control of Roy over to Jerry and his firefighter buddies and then started down the spiral staircase that ran along the water tower’s outer wall, inside of course. Overhead light bulbs encased in black metal cages cast a yellowish glow that seeped over the railing. They probably would have provided me with a view to the bottom. I didn’t look to verify that. With every step my adrenaline level dropped. I certainly hadn’t overcome my fear of heights up there on that balcony. Temporary insanity helped me through it.

  Two uniforms passed me at about the halfway point. Fresh faces. I didn’t know either of them. We needed someone on this side of the law to watch over Roy now that he’d been upgraded from person of interest to suspect. I sure as hell wasn’t going to do it. That’s what we paid the young guys for.

  “What’s the scene like down there?” I asked.

  “Sam’s out there,” the baby faced guy said. His red cheeks gave away his Irish ancestry. That or he’d been drinking on the job. Judging by the look on his face, his sack hadn’t dropped enough for that. I glanced at his nameplate. Jennings. Didn’t ring a bell with me.

  “Did he light into that woman from Channel 3?” I asked. Sam couldn’t stand that woman. Attractive, yes. Even more of a pest, though. She was always the first to the scene of a homicide. Everything else, too, I suppose. I wondered how this young guy knew Sam. Didn’t ask.

  “Oh yeah,” Jennings replied. “And that douche bag from Seventeen.”

  “Hey, I like that guy.”

  The smile dropped from Jennings’s face faster than his body would have fallen to the water tower’s ground floor. Or a ton of bricks, for that matter. Eighty or eight hundred. Laws of physics.

  “I’m just messing with you, Jennings,” I said.

  “You’re a douchebag, Tanner.”

  Hey, look at that. The left one dropped. I couldn’t help but shake my head, laugh, turn, and continue on my way down that spiraling staircase. Their footsteps faded as mine echoed off the surrounding walls.

  As I stepped off the metal stairs onto the concrete bottom, I noticed Sam standing right outside the doorway. At six-four and built like a linebacker, he blocked most of the artificial light from outside. He leaned against the frame with his left elbow propped up next to his head. His right leg was straight while his left leg crossed over the other at the shin, all casual and relaxed. Did anything faze the guy? Guess that’s what the Rangers does for someone. He had the door propped open with a red brick. I recalled seeing several of them on my way inside. At the time, I had thought about grabbing one to use on Roy.

  Sam glanced over his shoulder, did a double take. “You look like ten-day-old garbage.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “That your blood?”

  I hadn’t realized that Roy had bled on me. I had the sudden urge to strip down and find the nearest shower. I resisted looking down. “How bad is it?”

  He pointed at my chest. “Just on your shirt. Your hands, too, I guess.”

  “Dammit. Have to get tested again.” AIDS, Hepatitis, and any other blood borne pathogen — these guys out here carry all of them and don’t give two craps about warning you about them. In Roy’s defense, he didn’t have the faculties available at the time.

  Sam laughed and punched my shoulder. “It’s not that bad, man. Come on, let’s go deal with the hyenas.”

  Hyenas, Sam’s pet name for the media, wasn’t that far off in Philadelphia. Or most places, I suppose. Normally, Horace “Huff” Huffman, our Lieutenant and esteemed leader, would handle them for us. Not tonight. He was at the same poker game as the negotiator. Huff would ignore his pager no more than two times. Then he’d take his time getting down here and ream us for a job not well done. So Sam and I were on our own. Two sacrificial lambs wading through a pack of trained, vicious hyenas. There was only one thing to say.

  “No comment,” I said.

  “No comment,” Sam said.

  The leader stepped ahead of the pack. Her dark wavy hair and eyes black as coal gave us reason to pause. Behind the beautiful facade something evil worked, though. “Detectives, do you think—”

  “I think we said, no comment,” Sam said. “Now kindly get out of our way before I charge you with tampering with a crime scene.”

  Sam had a way with words. He could say in two sentences what would have taken me two paragraphs. Or one obscenity laden sentence, which would do me no favors when the evening news ran the clip repeatedly.

  The news crews backed up past the point where the tape should have been strung. They moved slowly, dragging their feet. I thought hyenas were a hyper bunch?

  “Are Jennings and that other doofus the only two uniforms out here?” I asked Sam.

  “Saturday night, that’s all we get this far out. Half the precinct’s on loan
downtown for that festival.”

  “Which festival is it this weekend?”

  “There’s so freaking many, Mitch. I can’t ever remember.”

  “Just another excuse to get loaded.”

  “That’s right. So how’s about we finish up here and get down there?” He threw his thumb over his shoulder for emphasis.

  I looked up at the pale blue tower and shook my head. Had I really stood next to that railing? “We gotta question this guy tonight. Hopefully forensics got a good sample of that blood spot and can tell us something new. If anything, we can BS our way with Roy. Maybe get him to open up.”

  At that time, the firefighters emerged with a still unconscious Roy. Two medics met them at the door and loaded the guy onto a gurney. Jennings and his partner followed the group out. Sam headed toward them.

  “What the hell were you two thinking going up there without cordoning off this area? Every one of them reporters trounced around in front of the entrance. What if that guy had dropped something? Now it’s pounded in the damn mud.”

  I laughed at the tirade. For as smooth as Sam could be with the media, he could light up a rookie cop. He would have made a hell of a drill instructor if he’d stayed in the Army. I left Sam to the discipline and jogged over to Firefighter Jerry.

  “Did a number on him, Mitch,” Jerry said.

  “Kept him from jumping,” I said. “So, when do you think we can get at him?”

  “He’s going to the hospital.”

  “Evaluation, then we can bring him back to the station?”

  Jerry laughed and hiked his thumb in the air toward Roy. “Guy’s been out of it for, what, fifteen minutes now? He’ll be under observation all night.”

  “Dammit,” I said, looking toward the ambulance as they hoisted Roy up and inside.

  “He might not even remember what he was doing up there to begin with.”