The Darkest Night

by Rick Reed

  She stepped out into the night and ran to her left. She had no idea the direction she was going because the moon was hidden behind thick cloud cover. The gravel bruised and cut her feet as the hue and cry of voices was raised from every direction. Her foot came down in soft dirt and she stumbled into a sugarcane field. Most of the stalks were dried out, dead, and the leaves sliced her skin. She got to her feet and tried to run, but something hard came down on the back of her head and she went face-first into the soft dirt. She lifted her face and spit out dirt as strong hands yanked her to her feet. She couldn’t see their faces, but several men, all armed with handguns or rifles or shotguns, surrounded her. The barrel of a pistol was shoved in her mouth, and something hard jammed into her spine.

  Another man was on a cell phone. “Papa. We foun’ her. She alive.”

  Her heart sank and all of the fight went out of her. She hoped they would kill her here, right now. She didn’t want to go back to that room. Back to that hellhole. She could still see the frightened faces of those poor children. She had promised to save them, and she had let them down.

  The man put the phone in his pocket. “Papa say bring her.”

  Another man came running up. “DeeDee dead. He dead.”

  The one that had been on the phone laughed, pointed a pistol in her face, and said, “Papa say bring her. He no say alive.”

  Chapter Two

  Detective Jack Murphy felt something wet on his mouth. A tongue. And it was working its way inside. Without opening his eyes, he drew his head back and said, “Hold on, Katie. Let me get awake first.” The chuffing sound in his face made him jerk wide awake.

  “Oh Christ!” he said and jumped out of bed, spitting and wiping at his mouth.

  Katie rolled over, saw Cinderella staring at Jack, and laughed.

  “You think that’s funny. She put her tongue down my throat.”

  “She’s just hungry, Jack. She needs to be fed,” Katie scolded him. To Cinderella she said, “Good girl. Want some food? Want some food? Daddy will feed his baby.”

  Katie always sounded like she was talking to a two-year-old and not a mangy mutt.

  “Are you sure your sister won’t keep her?” Jack asked.

  Katie’s sister, Moira Connelly, first in her class in law school, had come home almost a year ago. She became a deputy prosecutor just days before her boss, the Prosecutor, shot himself in the head.

  “Moira’s seeing someone, Jack. And he’s allergic to dogs. You know that.”

  “Well, I’m seeing someone too,” Jack said with a pout. “Or don’t you mind me swapping spit with a dog?” He moved toward Katie, his lips puckered for a kiss. “Come on. Gimme a big wet kiss. It’s just the widdle baby’s spit.”

  Katie crawled over Jack and got out of bed. “I’ll feed her. You need to use some mouthwash. Both of you.”

  Cinderella followed Katie out of the bedroom. Jack sat on the side of the bed. His life had changed in the last six months. He and Katie had been divorced for three years longer than that, but she had always been there for him when he needed her. He’d gotten himself banged up pretty good last year when some asshole tried to rob the Blue Star riverboat casino. Katie had been by his side almost constantly while he was healing. She’d moved into his river cabin, fed him, bathed him, took him to doctor’s appointments and the like. He’d always heard that you don’t appreciate what you’ve got until you lose it. Almost dying was his wake-up call. He knew there would never be another woman for him.

  He’d dated around after the divorce. Came close to getting engaged once. But Katie was the yardstick he measured other women by. When she’d asked him to move from his cabin back into the house, he didn’t have to think about it. He’d said yes. But this was just a house. Katie was his home. They’d had problems—would have more undoubtedly—but he was sure they could weather them, together.

  He got up and went to the bedroom window to see into the backyard. When he was in the third grade, he’d broken Bobby Sanders’s nose right out there. It was like all fights, silly, full of testosterone and “you take that backs.” His mom had insisted that his dad, Jake, punish him for fighting. His dad said he would take care of it, took him out to the garage, hugged him, and called him a chip off the old block. His dad pinched his arm so hard he screamed. “That was for your mother to hear,” his dad explained. “You did the right thing breaking that bully’s nose. Don’t ever take any shit from a bully, son. They never stop if you do.”

  He didn’t know why that particular memory had surfaced, but maybe it was just being back here; being back in the house where he’d grown up. He and Katie had lived here until their divorce. But he tried to put the past away, and make himself be Mr. Positive. He was positive he could smell coffee brewing. He would choke down a cup of coffee and stop at Donut Bank on St. Joseph Avenue to get some real coffee on his way to work. Katie had never seemed to get the knack for brewing a good cup of coffee. She was, however, an excellent cook, which reminded him, he’d have to start watching his weight again and do more exercise.

  He stood and examined his naked form in the mirror on the back of the bathroom door. He was a little over six feet tall, medium build, and solid. But he’d lost count of his scars from knives, from shrapnel, from bullets. The scar that stood out the most ran from his neck just beside his ear, and on downward across his chest. It was an ugly red color and sometimes tingled, sometimes hurt, and sometimes felt dead. But the man who had given it to him was dead. So it all evened out.

  He showered and brushed and rinsed and laid his clothes out on the bed. One of his best suits, dark blue with a muted chalk strike, white button-down shirt straight from the package, red tie, shiny black shoes. He didn’t normally dress this way for work, but he had a meeting scheduled this morning with Deputy Chief of Police Richard Dick, aka Double Dick, or simply the Dick. He wanted to show Dick respect by spiffing up a little. He knew that was the reason because Katie had told him that was why. He wanted to get the ass chewing over with so he could go forth and commit mayhem.

  Katie came into the bedroom and remarked, “That suit looks nice on you. Sexy. Can I watch you dress?”

  He wrapped her in his arms, led her toward the bed, and kissed her passionately. He didn’t want his last kiss to be from that damn dog’s tongue. “I love you,” he said and squeezed her tight.

  When he didn’t let go, she said, “Well. Where is this coming from?”

  “The same place this is coming from,” he said with a wry smile.

  * * *

  Jack changed his mind about the suit. He dressed in khakis and a brownish-gold Ben Hogan knit shirt. Katie came back in the bedroom carrying a mug of coffee for him and sat on the edge of the bed looking at his pants.

  “You looking at my pants?” Jack asked.

  “You shouldn’t wear those,” she said.

  “Damn, girl. Slow down and let me catch my breath.”

  She slapped his rear. “I mean you shouldn’t wear those clothes to the meeting this morning. If you want to get on Richard’s good side, you should wear something a little dressier. I liked the suit you laid out.”

  “It’s just Double Dick,” he said. Seeing her eyebrows raise, he corrected himself. “I mean Deputy Chief Richard Dick. Sorry. I slipped.”

  “I don’t mean to be critical. It’s just that if you were meeting Liddell those would be more-than-appropriate clothes. But when you’ve been asked . . .”

  “I was ordered,” Jack corrected her this time. “The Dick never asks.”

  “Okay. When you’ve been ordered to meet with a deputy chief, you should show respect. If not in your own mind, at least in the way you dress.”

  “I promised to try, and I will,” he said. He was rewarded with a patient-but-knowing smile.

  She took clothes from the closet and laid them across the bed. Dark blue suit, white button-down shirt, red tie with tiny blue boat anchors, lace-up dress shoes.

  “That’s more like it,” she said. “There’s you
r coffee, and if you have time I’ll make some breakfast.” With that she left him to change clothes.

  He took a sip of the light brown liquid and poured the rest down the bathroom sink and ran water. He put the clothes away that she had laid out and snuck out of the house. He felt a little guilty, but with all the fooling around, he didn’t have time to go to Donut Bank. And that made him wonder how his partner was making out in Louisiana. Bigfoot had left at the end of their shift yesterday and was driving straight through. He told Jack it was a twelve-hour drive. Jack knew it would be fourteen hours with food and pee stops.

  Chapter Three

  Plaquemine, Louisiana

  While Jack was being tongue raped by Cinderella, Liddell was coming awake to the smell of frying bacon and freshly brewed coffee. He raised his head from the arm of the couch and squinted at the dim light coming through the front windows. The sun was just a promise on the horizon. He had left Evansville around 3 A.M. yesterday and had driven almost straight through to his hometown of Plaquemine (pronounced plak-a-mun). He’d stopped once for gas and Twinkies and had gotten in a little after two this morning.

  “I got three hours of sleep so I’m rarin’ to go,” Liddell said.

  Landry gave him a hard look. “Get your ass off my couch, baby brother, and come eat,” Landry said. “Breakfast. Just like Mom used to make.”

  “Okay, Mom.” Liddell rose and trudged to the kitchen. He was too tired to even undress and had slept in his clothes. His neck and back were stiff from being folded up on the couch.

  Landry said, “You look like a puppet with a stick shoved up its ass.” He brought two coffee mugs to the table and set them down by ajar of molasses and two spoons.

  “Thanks for leaving me a key last night,” Liddell said and plopped into a chair at the table. “I hope I didn’t wake y’all up.”

  Landry made Creole coffee. That’s made with very strong coffee, two teaspoons of molasses, and a dollop of cream and two shakes of Tabasco. Landry put a spoon in this and shoved it to Liddell. “Drink that. It’ll put some hair on your . . . back.”

  They both laughed. No one said anything improper in front of Mom. Even Big Jim.

  “Aren’t you going to work today?” Liddell asked. As a boy, Landry was up, dressed, newspaper route finished, homework done, and hurrying Liddell to the school-bus stop. He’d inherited the “early to rise” habit from Big Jim, whom he idolized. Landry had followed in their fathers footsteps as his father had done down the family line. Blanchards came from hearty stock, a long line of hard men working the river and the oil rigs. Big Jim had died on the job when a steel cable snapped. The iron rail it suspended plummeted and took Big Jim to the bottom of the Gulf. His body wasn’t found for weeks.

  “Drink your coffee,” Landry said, and broke half a dozen eggs into an iron skillet sizzling with butter, salt, and pepper.

  Liddell said, “I’m glad you took the house after Mom died. She would have liked what you haven’t done with the place.” Landry still had a rotary-dial landline telephone—black of course—attached to an ancient cassette-tape answering machine. The concession he’d made to modern technology was a cheap cell phone that he wore in case Evie, his daughter, needed to reach him in an emergency. He still gave her quarters and dimes for pay phones just in case. Never mind that pay phones had all but disappeared, and the ones that hadn’t were vandalized.

  Landry rubbed at the corner of his eye with his middle finger. “You could have had the house. Mom left it to you in the will,” Landry said. “You could have put all the doodads in you want. You always were a gadget freak.”

  Liddell laughed. “Yeah. We even have a color television that we don’t have to turn a dial to change channels.”

  Landry laughed. He said, “Remember when Mom wanted one of those Clapper things and kept after Big Jim about it?” The Clapper was a product you attached to the lamp cord to make the lights turn on and off by clapping your hands.

  Liddell grinned. “Yeah. Big Jim said he wasn’t going to pay someone to get the clap when he could get it down at the docks for free.”

  “And Mom came unglued and threw his breakfast out the back door.”

  Liddell noticed the empty seat at the table.

  “Where’s Evie?” Liddell asked. “Blanchards don’t miss a chance to eat.”

  Landry served up two plates of bacon and eggs, put out silverware, and added a roll of paper towels for napkins.

  “Evie already gone to school?” Liddell asked.

  Landry didn’t answer. He instead gave Liddell an unreadable look and asked, “Have you called Bitty yet?”

  Bitty was the nickname given to Detective Elizabeth LeBoeuf. She was with the Iberville Parish Sheriff Department and was Liddell’s partner on River Patrol before he married Marcie and moved away. She was called Bitty because, at five foot, six inches, she was itty-bitty compared to Liddell’s six-foot five, two-hundred-eighty-pound frame. But the nickname wasn’t a sign of disrespect. She was a match for any man.

  “I left her a voice mail. She hasn’t called back.” He took his cell from his pocket and dialed her number again. It went directly to voice mail, and he pocketed the phone. “I’m going over there this morning.”

  Landry said, “Oh, crap! I forgot this.” He dug in his back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of lined yellow legal pad paper with Liddell’s name printed on the outside. “I found this stuck under the door when I came down this morning.”

  Liddell unfolded the creased paper. On it, printed in large letters:

  DON’T CALL

  COME OVER

  Landry asked, “Is it from Bitty?”

  Liddell pocketed the note. “Maybe. No one else but you knew I was coming.”

  The note wasn’t signed. The handwriting was carefully authored in large letters. Bitty wrote so small Liddell had to squint to make out the words. But it must have been from Bitty.

  Landry cocked his head. “What are you up to? This is all Secret Squirrel and shit. You working a case? Is that partner of yours going to show up, guns blazing, bodies piling up n’ shit?”

  Liddell gave him a look that said Landry had gone crazy. “Yeah. Bitty called me in on a big case. Someone in Evansville is trafficking human organs and I found out they’re sending the brains here disguised as Red Cross relief packages. I figured it would be safe to hang out here because you obviously haven’t received any.”

  Landry gave him a single-digit salute and asked, “How’s the coffee?”

  Liddell held his cup out for a refill. “You haven’t answered me. Where’s Evie? Doesn’t she know her favorite uncle in the whole world is here?”

  “Her only uncle,” Landry corrected, and his expression turned sober. “She’s not here. I was glad you called yesterday because I was getting ready to call you.”

  Liddell waited while his brother mixed two more coffees and came back. Landry said, “I got some trouble. It’s Evie. I’ve been to the police twice now and they won’t do shit. I don’t know what to do.”

  “What kind of trouble?” Liddell asked. Evie was almost fifteen. He couldn’t imagine sweet, polite Evie doing anything worthy of police attention.

  Landry was struggling with what he was going to say, and a cold feeling crept down Liddell’s spine. He’d given so much bad news to people during his career he knew the signs by heart. “Landry? What is it?”

  Landry poured himself more coffee and sat down across from Liddell and said, “Evie’s missing.”

  * * *

  Liddell thought about Landry’s past, both painful and joyful. His brother had been through some very hard times. Times that would have broken most men. But Landry was Big Jim’s son, and a Blanchard. Blanchards were a hard bunch.

  Landry was finishing his senior year of high school when he found out his girlfriend, Sally, was pregnant. They had been careful, but sometimes life asserts itself and things happen. Landry explained the situation to the parents on both sides. They wanted to get married. Sally’s paren
ts seemed to be glad to be rid of her. Landry’s dad, Big Jim, was angry, and Mom was disappointed but happy to have a grandchild. Liddell hadn’t thought getting married would be such a good idea because he’d come to know Sally, and she was kind of a flake. But, being a good brother, he tried to be happy for Landry.

  Landry and Sally continued to go to school as if nothing was going on, and after graduation, Landry found a job working on the docks. After he made a little money, he rented a studio apartment, and he and Sally moved in together. A week later they got married at the courthouse. He would support his new family. Just like Big Jim had supported his.

  Sally was further along than she’d thought and four months after they married, Evie came along. Sally was a stay-at-home mom, and Landry worked as much overtime as he could get to buy a small house. But life asserted itself once again. Big Jim died. Evie was still a baby. The news hit Landry hard, and he threw himself into his work as a way of dealing with the grief. It was just a few weeks after Big Jim’s death that Landry came home after working a fourteen-hour shift and found Evie alone on the floor in the kitchen. Screaming her head off, and wet, soiled, hungry, and abandoned. She was eleven months old.

  Landry had been beside himself; at first thinking something bad had happened to Sally. Her clothes and personal things were still there as far as he could tell, but Sally was nowhere to be found. He called all the surrounding hospitals, and they had no new patients matching her description. He called the police, and still nothing. He stayed up all night, waiting for her to return, but the next morning it had sunk in that Sally had left them. No note. No good-bye.

  Their mother took care of Evie while Landry worked. When Liddell had gone off to college at LSU in Baton Rouge, Landry was almost too proud to move home. He did because it was the logical thing to do. He had to support Evie, and this was a way to work, spend time with Evie, and keep his mother company.

  Liddell remembered their mother had essentially been Evie’s mother until she was maybe ten years old. Liddell regretted that Mom passed away before she had a chance to meet Marcie. With Mom’s passing, Landry and Evie kept the house. Liddell remembered Evie had baked him two dozen homemade cookies for a going-away present, saying, “I made you a snack, Uncle Liddell.”