Last Words

by Michael Koryta

  Ridley Barnes lived about nine winding miles outside Garrison in a single-story house with faded stone walls and a slouching roof. Undulating fields spread out in every direction, broken stalks of wheat protruding from the snow. Smoke rose from the chimney of the house and blended into the gray sky. By the time Mark was out of the car, the front door was open and a man in jeans and a hooded Carhartt work coat peered out at him.

  “You lost?”

  “You Ridley Barnes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’m not lost.” Mark went up to the porch. Ridley Barnes watched him suspiciously. He had long, unkempt gray hair and a matching beard. His blue eyes seemed bright against it.

  “You know my name, then I ought to hear yours.”

  “Markus Novak.”

  No reaction.

  “I’m with Innocence Incorporated.”

  The bright eyes widened and Barnes said, “No shit! Didn’t figure to hear from you, but I did figure I’d hear by phone, if anything, not have you just show up like this.”

  “It’s not our standard procedure,” Mark acknowledged. He was looking at the heavy canvas jacket. You didn’t encounter them in Florida, but there had been other places in his life where they’d been common. His mother had given him one for Christmas, paid for with money she’d conned off tourists by telling them she was a Native American spirit guide even though she wasn’t even Native American, and told him, It’s rugged and durable, kiddo. Just like you. The first real fight he ever got into was with an older kid who’d tried to steal that coat. You weren’t supposed to win your first fight, but if you did, as Mark happened to, it was awfully easy to get a taste for it.

  “I wasn’t even sure you’d talk to me,” Barnes said. “Seeing as how I’m not on death row.”

  “The good news, Mr. Barnes, is that I am.” Ridley gave him a confused look, and Mark said, “I’m a little out of favor with my boss at the moment. I think he liked the idea of sending me into the snow. You know how it goes.”

  “Sure, sure,” Barnes said, and he offered an uncertain smile. “Come in out of the cold.”

  Mark followed him inside. A fire was going in an old cast-iron woodstove in one corner of the living room, and ropes were draped all around it. Ridley stepped through them nimbly without appearing to even watch his feet.

  “Caught me tying,” Ridley said.

  “Tying what?”

  “I’m going vertical this weekend. Getting everything ready now. Shitty day, why not, right?” He lifted a neat loop of black rope off an old recliner and set it on the floor, then indicated that Mark should take the chair.

  “Going vertical?”

  “In a cave, man.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “People who haven’t been underground, they always think a cave is like a bunch of tunnels. You just walk or crawl or whatever. But they develop in layers, right? Layers of time and stone. That means you’re not just moving horizontally, you’re moving vertically.”

  “Got you.” Mark sat down and looked at all the rope and tried to estimate how many feet were laid out. At least two hundred. Maybe more. Ropes of different sizes, from thick static lines to paracord, hung nearby. Along the far wall was a row of shelves covered with what looked like more climbing gear: Harnesses and carabiners and bolts. Several battered helmets with lamps mounted on them. On a low shelf, there were also face masks and oxygen tanks.

  “You’re a diver,” Mark said.

  “Not a diver. Still a caver.”

  “You use that gear inside of caves?”

  “Sure. Water carves the caves. It’s still carving them. Got to be willing to go through the water to find out what’s there.”

  “I suppose so,” Mark said. “But I’m not here to talk about caving. I’ve got to make a decision about this case. Whether it’s the right fit for us. To know if—”

  “Novak!” Ridley barked the name the way a furious coach might call out a player who’d just screwed up. Mark raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything.

  “You’re the one!” Ridley said. “I read about you. The investigator biographies, I read each of them, and you…with you, I knew. You had to be the one.”

  “Why’s that?” Mark said. He’d gotten his first uneasy chill from Ridley, the first indication that this man’s cylinders didn’t fire in the standard patterns.

  “You noticed the date, didn’t you?” Ridley’s eyes sparkled.

  “What date?”

  “I knew you would. Right there on your website it says that your work is dedicated to the memory of that girl, you know, and—”

  “That girl,” Mark said, “was my wife.”

  “Of course. But did you notice the dates? She was killed the same day that Sarah Martin went missing. Different years, of course, but the same day.”

  Mark had not noticed the dates. He hadn’t had a chance to look at much more than Ridley’s letter, in fact, because he’d been shuffled out of town in such a hurry. Time had been short, and Mark’s information about Sarah Martin was so minimal, it would have been embarrassing if he’d actually cared about the case. He’d done no preliminary research, just proceeded with the one-page abstract and Ridley’s proposal letter. That why-bother approach was based on the knowledge that he was only marking time here until Jeff called him back, but now the lack of preparation was catching up with him.

  “Is that so,” he said, his voice hollow.

  “Absolutely. I noted it in my letter when I requested you, but maybe they didn’t show you that one?”

  Frost spread through Mark’s veins. “You requested me?”

  “Sure did. There were two letters. I guess they only showed you the one? But somebody must have agreed with me when I said that you were the right person for this.”

  Mark felt an old tug, an instinct he’d thought was gone, one he’d tried so, so hard to put away: the urge to punch and keep on punching, swing until he could see the bones of his own hand through torn skin. He wasn’t thinking of punching Ridley Barnes, though; it was Jeff London’s face that he saw.

  There are unsolved cases beyond Lauren’s, London had said. You’re going to need to prove you can continue to work them. Show me that you can still care about another case, Markus. If you can’t, then tell me.

  Mark had insisted that he could and said that he understood Jeff’s point—Lauren’s case belonged to police investigators and not to him and if he didn’t accept that, he’d drown in it. All understood, check, check, check. But still Jeff sent him to Indiana to deal with this lunatic and, what, have some moment of clarity? It was a pathetic ploy, and an infuriating one.

  “The date is irrelevant,” Mark said. “My only interest here is Sarah Martin. I’ve had a preliminary visit with the police, and that’s what I’m hoping to have with you. Explain what it is that I do, and what I don’t do, and—”

  “Do you know what your name means?”

  Mark tilted his head and stared at Ridley. “Excuse me?”

  “The origin of your own name. Are you familiar with it?”

  Mark took a deep breath and decided to indulge him. “My full first name is Markus. Markus means different things in different cultures. ‘Warring’ in one. ‘Hammer’ in another.”

  “Mars was the god of war, you’re correct, but I mean your surname.”

  “No idea. It’s Czech.”

  “Excellent! Then you’re the new man, the stranger.” Ridley smiled. “Novak is the term for a newcomer in town. A stranger arriving.”

  “Then it suits my family well,” Mark said. “But if we could get back to your story, I’d—”

  “You want my notes? Hang on.” Barnes left the room, stepping through the ropes with an athlete’s grace that his weathered appearance didn’t hint at, disappeared down a short hallway, then returned with a stack of overflowing accordion folders. “Just take the files. I know it all inside out. Read it many, many times.” He pushed his shaggy hair back and said, “Trying to remember, you know. Try
ing to remember.”

  “You do understand that if we undertake any investigation, the results could be damaging to you?”

  “Obviously. But somebody needs to undertake it.” If Ridley Barnes was nervous about the idea, he didn’t show it. All that came off him was enthusiasm. There was something alarming about that.

  “There’s a surveillance video in there,” Ridley said. “That one is a head-scratcher. Shows the cave entrance. Shows them go in and him come out. Shows the police going in and police coming out. And then…then me.” He ran a hand through his hair and shook his head violently. “Ah, damn.” A deep breath. “Someone needs to speak for her, you know. That’s why I went looking for people like you guys.”

  “Yes,” Mark said. “Someone does need to speak for her.” He was looking at Barnes and wondering if this was a game to him, as Blankenship had suggested, if he’d killed the girl and gotten bored after the detectives went away and the years passed. If he wanted them back to play some more.

  “Did you retain anyone to investigate on your behalf previously?”

  “No.”

  “Why now?”

  Ridley shook his head, and he looked distressed, a patient who wanted a cure but didn’t want to have to describe his embarrassing symptoms.

  “Ah, man, you know…patience was the thing. I’m struggling with that now. I’ll be honest with you. I’m struggling with it.”

  “Clarify that.”

  “Hard thing to clarify. What she wanted from me was patience. Maybe what she still wants from me. I have the promise, you know? She’ll tell me in time. I’ve tried to accept that, but, brother, it gets hard. The not-knowing? It gets hard.”

  Mark had interviewed countless people with disturbed minds, including four in mental institutions, but he’d never felt as uncomfortable with any of them as he did with Ridley Barnes.

  “By she, you mean Sarah Martin?”

  “And Trapdoor. Either/or.”

  “Either/or? One’s a dead child, Mr. Barnes. The other is a cave.”

  Ridley frowned as if offended. “You’re going to need to start considering that from a different perspective if this is going to work.”

  Mark held up a hand to silence him.

  “I’m not going to get caught up in that before I understand the backstory. One question I have no answer to yet: Was there any reason police would have looked at you before you found her body? Did you have any prior knowledge of her?”

  “Tangentially.”

  Mark raised an eyebrow. “Tangentially?”

  Barnes shrugged. “She worked at Trapdoor. I was mapping Trapdoor that same summer. So I’d encountered her a few times. I mean, you know, I’d watched her. Sure, I’d watched her.”

  Mark felt a spike of distaste. “What do you mean by watched her, exactly?”

  Another shrug. “I paid attention to everyone who was going to be around the cave. She was just a girl, you know, but she caught your eye. Good-looking girl, big smile, big laugh. Lot of joy. She caught your eye.”

  One of the interviewing techniques that Mark brought naturally to the table and that impressed Jeff London was a comfort with silence. You developed that sort of comfort when you grew up listening to drunks and blowhards in places where the weather could lock you down for days at a time, nowhere to go even if you wanted to. It had taken him a while to realize just how effective a tactic silence was. Most people viewed an interviewer’s lack of response as judgment at best and a threat at worst, so when faced with calm silence, they tended to start talking again, to volunteer more than they’d intended. Ridley Barnes was not of that breed. When Mark went silent, Ridley matched it with equal stillness.

  “Anything else you recall of Sarah?” Mark said at last. “Or her family?”

  “Not a bit. And I don’t mean to tell you your business, you’re the expert, but I’d say you ought to talk to people who did know her. Get their viewpoints on it.”

  For a moment it was silent again, and then Ridley smiled. “You’re wondering, aren’t you? Wondering if I’m bat-shit crazy.”

  Mark nodded.

  The smile vanished and those bright eyes darkened. “Me too. You know what you ought to do? You ought to get into the cave. Before you make a decision, you ought to spend some time down there. In the dark. Think about her, think about me.”

  “I don’t believe that will be necessary.”

  Ridley Barnes showed anger for the first time. He wore it well. Like a natural color.

  “Oh, I think it is. I think that anybody who even considers that girl’s story should sit down there in the dark for a time.”

  “Let’s agree to put a pin in that particular idea, how about that?”

  “Are you familiar with the term false necessity, Mr. Novak?”

  “No.”

  “I’m not surprised. You’re going to need to be. I had much higher hopes.”

  “I’m often disappointing.”

  Several seconds passed while the wind moaned around the old house, and then Ridley Barnes nodded as if Mark had said something that pleased him.

  “Got yourself some spark, don’t you?”

  “Pardon?” Mark said.

  “More fuses than you’d like people to know you have. Oh, I understand. Don’t you worry, I’m not judging you. I understand it fine.”

  “I’m not worried about you judging me,” Mark said. “But I’m not interested in wasting time either. If you insist on that, then—”

  “Not insisting on anything. What would you like to discuss? I’m an open book. Just one with missing pages.”

  His laugh was low and delighted. Mark felt a prickle ride along his spine.

  “If you’re so curious about your possible involvement in the crime, then why not talk to the police? They say you shut down on interviews. Yet you’re talking to me.”

  “The police don’t have distance, Mr. Novak. It’s too small of a town. They have pressure from all sides to get a conviction, sure. But not to get the truth. In your line of work, the difference between those things must be clear.”

  “We pursue the truth, yes. But the truth could really hurt you, Ridley.”

  He waved an uninterested hand. “So long as it’s told. Everything is connected. That’s why you’re here. The date does matter. It connects us, you see? You know that. This is what I mean when I say that everything is of consequence. The date connects you and me and Sarah and Lauren and—”

  “Do not say her fucking name.” Mark was on his feet, and for the first time, Barnes looked nonplussed.

  “You’re not understanding me,” he said. “What I mean is—”

  “I don’t give a shit,” Mark said, stepping closer. “You were told, damn it, and you went back for it again, and I will not—”

  He stopped talking when he saw Ridley move back. A subtle shift, but still visible. He was bracing, readying for a fight, or at least considering the possibility of a punch.

  Now it was Mark’s turn to step back. He was holding tight to the file. Too tight. He looked down at it, at his knuckles pressed hard against his skin, and said, “I’ll review the file. I’ll review it and let you know what I think. Good-bye, Mr. Barnes.”

  “Don’t go like that. You came all this way and you’re willing to go like that?”

  “I’ll let you know what I think,” Mark repeated, and then he walked out of the house and back into the cold. It had started to snow again while he was inside, more of a sleet, really, and his windshield was already iced over. He cranked the heat up and turned on the defroster. While he waited for it to work, he opened the first of the folders.

  Sarah Martin’s dead face looked up at him.

  Morgue photos. About twenty of them. He went through them one at a time, handling them gingerly, as if he might disturb her. Lord, what someone had done to her. Dear Lord. Bruises showed around her eyes and throat, and scrapes and abrasions lined her entire body; it looked like someone had dragged her over concrete as if she were as inconsequential as
a bag of garbage.

  Good-looking girl, big smile, big laugh, Ridley had said. Lot of joy. She caught your eye.

  Her eyes looked black in every picture. Dulled to something beyond death. Mark was holding his breath by the time he turned the last picture over, and then he found a sheet of yellow legal paper covered in scrawled notations with a heading: “Photographic Evidence—Ridley’s Notes.”

  The first three notes, labeled with Roman numerals, were questions about the physical evidence, what had been considered and what might have been neglected. Other than some awkward grammar, they could have been an attorney’s notes, or a detective’s. Then the precision vanished, and the rest of the page was filled with scribbled questions.

  Did I do it?

  Did I do it?

  Could I have done it?

  Could I have done it? Could I?

  The ink was darker with each new word, the scrawls becoming frantic by the end.

  Mark looked up at the windshield. The ice had melted and was now dripping water down the glass, and beyond it, leaning on his porch railing, Ridley Barnes lifted one hand and waved at him.

  3

  Don’t scare him off. Ridley, do not scare the man off.

  Those had been his only instructions, and now as Ridley stood alone on his porch, the Ford out of sight, exhaust steam all that remained in the air, he knew that he had failed. He went back inside, gathered the coil of rope, and put it back on the chair where Mark Novak had sat. Then he took the free end of the coil in one hand and began to tie hitches, never looking at the rope, trusting his fingers as they looped and twisted and tightened, looped and twisted and tightened. A man who had to look at his hands to tie a knot was a man who was likely to die in the dark.

  “He’s here,” Ridley muttered. “He came.”

  Somehow, he’d known all along that it would happen. He’d been expecting a call first, but this was better. So much better.

  But now…now it needed to be handled gently, and Ridley hadn’t done that. He’d seen the spark that Novak had wanted to keep hidden, and he’d returned to it, and that was a mistake. At least for so early in the game.