The Darkest Night

by Rick Reed

  Landry reached the end of this story and said, “Go ahead and ask your questions.”

  Liddell wondered how best to approach this. As a cop or as a brother and uncle? He tried to take on the tone of both. “I need to take you through all of this again. Bear with me, okay?”

  Landry said he would.

  “Who all did you talk to about this?” he asked.

  Landry had been pacing, but now sat down and turned his attention to his brother. “I talked to a Plaquemine cop and one of their detectives on the telephone the day before yesterday. They said they didn’t come out to take missing-person reports, so I went to the police station. I talked to a cop at the station, and he asked if I had a picture of Evie.”

  Landry stopped pacing. “I forgot to bring my wallet with me, so I didn’t have a picture. I told him I’d bring one back after we took the report, and he got kind of shitty about me driving there without a license. Can you believe that shit?”

  Liddell could see Landry’s fists clench and the muscles in his forearms bunched like steel cables. “Take it easy,” Liddell said. “You can get mad after we find Evie. Okay?”

  “Yeah. Okay. So I give him all the information and I even talked to the Chief of Police. I took a picture of Evie back there, but that’s been two days ago. Two damn days, and I haven’t heard anything. Nada!”

  Liddell thought it was strange that the police department hadn’t made any contact with Landry. Common police practice was a detective or officer would be assigned, come to the house, and do an investigation. The investigators wanted to keep in touch with the family because nine out of ten times the person would come home, or call at least. Every forty seconds a child goes missing in the United States. There are almost a million people, adults and children, reported missing. Indiana and Louisiana have some of the lowest occurrence rates of the United States.

  Liddell also knew that missing-person cases received the least attention by law enforcement because they were busy with homicides, rapes, robberies, and a plethora of other immediate crimes. Homicides have the highest rate of being solved, and missing persons the lowest. Seventy-six percent of abducted children are murdered within three hours of being taken. Even given the statistics, it was very strange that Landry hadn’t been updated.

  “Do you have a copy of the police report?” Liddell asked.

  “They didn’t give me one.”

  Liddell asked, “Did they say they were issuing an Amber Alert?”

  Landry’s jaw clenched. “The policeman didn’t tell me shit. He just said, ‘She ain’t missing. She knows right where she is,’ like it was funny. I grabbed his shirt, and he threatened to arrest me. Battery on a policeman. I told him I didn’t see a policeman. What I saw was a lazy piece of shit.”

  That explained why Landry didn’t have a copy of the police report, and why no one had followed up with him. But it was still poor police work.

  “Sorry I didn’t call you sooner, but the detective I talked to last said I had to wait twenty-four hours before the report would go into the system. I kept bugging them but no one would tell me anything. When you called, I thought you could help.”

  “Of course,” Liddell said. He wanted to tell Landry that he should have called him right away. But recriminations would serve no purpose. “Anything else? Something you didn’t tell the police?”

  “Look. She’s not the same Evie as before,” Landry said. “She’s changed. I can’t believe she’s run off, but . . . just wait a minute.”

  Liddell could hear Landry rushing up the stairs two and three at a time. When he returned, he was holding a blue shoulder bag. It was the kind that his wife Marcie called a beach bag.

  Landry unzipped the bag and poured the contents on the table. There was the blackened stub of a burnt cigar, bits and pieces of bleached-white bird bones, a tiny bird skull, singed feathers, a red flannel pouch about two inches square, roughly sewn around the edges with burlap twine, and attached to a necklace of colored beads. There was a ball of twine with colored sewing pins stuck in it.

  Anyone born and raised in Louisiana knew what this stuff was. The pouch was a gris-gris. A gris-gris is an amulet containing personal articles such as hair, nail clippings, colored sand, and such. Worn around the neck or carried in a pocket, a gris-gris was meant to ward off evil or sickness or bring luck or blessings. The bones and bird skull were used in “readings” to see the future or explain the past. The cigar butt was used to blow the spirit into whatever item was being blessed or used to bring about some wish.

  The burlap twine and the sewing needles were another matter. They were used to do evil. A doll was made out of burlap wrappings to represent the person targeted, and the pins were inserted into the parts of the body to cause illness or pain—or death.

  Liddell had seen all of these types of things in museums or roadside shops that sell to tourists.

  “Where did you find this stuff?” Liddell asked.

  “I don’t snoop in Evie’s stuff. But when she went missing . . . I guess I wondered if there was a boy involved. You know?”

  Liddell assured him he did know. Evie was at the age.

  “Well, I found this hidden in the back of her closet. And I recognize some of this stuff. It was Sally’s.”

  “Sally? Your Sally?” Liddell asked, unable to hide his surprise.

  He saw the look of disbelief on Liddell’s face and said, “You didn’t know Sally was into Voodoo. No one did. Not even Mom. Sally kept it hid pretty good.”

  “Maybe it was just for fun,” Liddell suggested.

  “No. She was into it big-time,” Landry said. “It was a family thing. Her dad was some kind of Voodoo priest. She took me to a ritual in her parents’ house once, but I don’t believe in this shit and I told them so. Her dad tried to tell me there wasn’t a lot of difference between Voodoo and Catholicism. They had saints, and we had saints. They had a kind of Devil and a hell and we had the same thing. I reminded him that our religion didn’t curse people or try to hurt them and he just laughed. It was crazy. So I refused to go to any more of their stuff. But Sally . . . Sally was a true believer.”

  Landry thought before saying, “I was ashamed to say anything to any of you. I’d already screwed up, according to Big Jim. I didn’t want them disappointed in me.”

  Liddell processed what he’d just been told and asked, “You said some of this stuff was Sally’s. How did Evie get it?”

  Landry’s cheeks reddened. “When Sally left, I didn’t know what to do. I loved her. I didn’t have the heart to throw all of Sally’s stuff away. I kept a box—a high school yearbook, pictures, jewelry I bought her—things like that. I was going to give it to Evie when she got older, but I would have thrown all this shit out first. Tell you the truth, I forgot where I put it. She must have found it.”

  “Okay. She found the stuff, and so what? She’s gone to find Sally.”

  “That’s what I think.”

  Chapter Four

  Bitty’s house was on the other side of Plaquemine in an area annexed by the city several years ago because of the Walmart Supercenter that was being built. Liddell had decided he’d do as he had promised his brother, but he would talk to Bitty first. He hoped he could get Bitty’s help. When Liddell had moved to Indiana, Bitty was living with her life partner, another detective, named Dusty Parnell. Last he’d heard they had gone their separate ways. They had seemed to remain friends. Or at least he hoped they were still friends because he might need Dusty’s help with finding Evie. Dusty was the Missing Persons detective for the Sheriff’s Department. He’d have better luck talking to Dusty than going to the Plaquemine PD. Landry had already endeared himself there, and they may not be receptive to another Blanchard.

  Liddell gazed in his rearview mirror at the crimson sunrise and felt his heart melt. He had forgotten how the scenery along the Mississippi River was like no other place on Earth. In high school he’d learned the French called the Mississippi River “Messipi.” The indigenous Algonquin In
dians called it Misi-zibi, or the Great River. It was, or is, the fourth largest river in the world, running from Minnesota, over two thousand miles, through ten states, and draining into the Gulf of Mexico at New Orleans.

  Liddell drove through a neighborhood of Plaquemine known as “Old Town.” He’d played with other kids in the yards of some of these houses. Cops and robbers. He’d been the cop, of course. He drove past a big house where he’d gotten his first kiss from Bonnie Lutz on the front porch. The two-story was vacant with windows and doors boarded up, but there was no graffiti visible or trash in the yard or at the curbs. He felt proud that his hometown still had pride and hadn’t allowed vacant houses to become a beacon for illegal activity.

  The population of Plaquemine hovered around the seven thousand mark. Blacks outnumbered whites, but race had never been an issue here like in some of the bigger towns. Half of the residents commuted to work. The city itself was a mere three square miles of land setting at the junction of Bayou Plaquemine and bordered on the east by a sharp bend of the Mississippi River. To the west was farmland that turned to uninhabited swampland. Bitty’s house was on the far west side of town, a hastily built shotgun-style house in an area where the dwellings were slowly being replaced by newly built antebellum and Queen Anne–style homes.

  This was Bitty’s neighborhood. She and the other residents had refused generous offers from builders who wanted to demolish the entire block and build on the land. She had told Liddell that the houses here had their own history, and preserving that was more rewarding than money. She had no husband, no kids, no plans for either. She had enough to be comfortable, and cherished a simple life. He had been genuinely sorry that she and Dusty had called it quits because she was alone now. She was too vibrant to be alone.

  He remembered talking to Bitty after he married Marcie and was struggling with the decision—take the job in Evansville or stay here. He had a job offer from the Evansville Police Department, but he already had a job here. They were crammed into his tiny apartment here, and he would have to get a bigger place no matter if they stayed here or moved to Evansville, where Marcie could be nearer her family. It was Bitty who convinced him to take the plunge. She told him he had a new life with Marcie, and he didn’t need the old life weighing him down. After all, it wasn’t like Evansville was on the far side of the moon. But it may as well have been. He was ashamed to admit that he’d stayed away almost five years. Not intentionally, but there always seemed to be something else that needed to be done.

  At the corner of Sawmill and Lock Road, Liddell turned right and drove past her house. Her front blinds were closed, and a newspaper lay on the front concrete stoop. He turned down Lock Road and saw a newer cedar privacy fence and at the back of the fence, a garage he didn’t know she’d had built. Knowing Bitty, she’d probably done all the work herself.

  He’d tried to call several times during his trip and again when he’d arrived at Landry’s, but his calls went to her voice mail. He’d left a message saying, “Bitty, it’s me. Call me.”

  He turned into the alley behind Bitty’s house where she’d poured gravel and parked beside her Monopoly-orange vintage seventies Camaro. She’d gone to California on vacation one year and came home driving the Camaro. She’d bought it on a whim and driven it four days cross-country. He was surprised she didn’t have the car in the garage because that was the primary reason she wanted a garage.

  He got out and noticed her car doors were unlocked. He’d have to get on her for being careless. When he opened the gate latch, he touched something sticky and examined his fingers. It was blood. He pushed the gate open and saw drag marks in the pebble path leading to her back door. The door stood open. He instinctively drew his .45 and held it beside him as he cautiously approached the door.

  The dead bolt was missing. In its place was the crenelated pattern of a lug-soled boot. The boot print was too big to be Bitty’s. He would later wonder why he didn’t call 911 at that point, but he was already committed, and his desire to check on Bitty was greater than his sense of self-preservation or doing things by the book. If she was in there and needed medical attention, he couldn’t afford to wait for backup to arrive.

  He pressed his back against the wall on the left side of the door; the .45 in his right hand, barrel pointing up, and was about to push the door farther open when his eye caught motion. His .45 rose toward the movement. There was an old woman standing by the house next door. Her white hair set on top of her head like a cotton ball. She was scowling at him, which made her toothless lips suck into her mouth.

  He took a breath, let it out, and pushed the door the rest of the way open. The smell of death hit him before he saw the body spread-eagled across the kitchen table. It was Bitty. What was left of her. She’d died hard.

  His eyes darted around the kitchen, taking everything in. The flies had found her. Two chairs were turned over. Her naked body was draped across the table, face up, legs spread, arms flung out, face smashed into ground hamburger. Her lips had been cut off and something that resembled a dried corn shuck protruded several inches from where the mouth had been. Dried rivulets of blood ran down the sides of the cheeks but hadn’t pooled under the head. Her stomach cavity was sliced open; intestines pulled out and spilling to the floor.

  Symbols were drawn in blood on the wall nearest the body. Bloody drag marks on the floor ran from the doorway to the kitchen table. She was dragged in here, not carried, and . . . and what? Displayed? The killing, the damage to the body, had taken place somewhere other than here. The lack of blood indicated she was already dead when she was placed on the table. The evisceration and the destruction to the face had taken place after she was brought here. The bits of bone and tissue and teeth bore that out.

  He fought the urge to cover her nakedness, and he felt rage and sorrow and guilt as he stumbled outside and fell to his hands and knees and retched into the grass.

  “Oh, Bitty,” he moaned. “What the . . . ?”

  “Stay where you are!”

  Before Liddell could lift his head, there was a popping sound and electricity arced through his body and every muscle seemed to lock up. He lost consciousness.

  * * *

  Liddell came to, facedown in his own vomit, handcuffed behind his back. He rolled onto his side and squinted into the sun. He couldn’t make out the face of the man in a police uniform, but he could see the Taser in his hand.

  “Don’t move, asshole!” He kicked Liddell in the face.

  Liddell spit blood into the grass. “I’m a cop . . .” he said, and again felt electricity arc through his body. This time it was of shorter duration. This time he didn’t pass out.

  “I told you not to move, didn’t I? If you spit on me again, I’ll tear your head off! Do we understand each other?” the officer asked.

  Chapter Five

  Officer Barbierre tugged down at the notch of his neck where the Kevlar ballistic vest had rubbed a red mark. Rivulets of sweat ran down the man’s face, and beads speckled his arms and stained the armpits of his skintight uniform shirt. He had ordered Liddell inside Bitty’s house at gunpoint and for the last several minutes neither of them had spoken a word.

  “So, tell me this story again. Why are you here?” Barbierre asked.

  Liddell sat on the couch, at the front edge of the cushion, trying to keep the pressure from his wrists handcuffed behind his back. He’d tried to tell Barbierre twice in the backyard, and each time he’d received a jolt from the Taser when he spoke.

  “Officer Barbierre, my hands are starting to hurt. Can you cuff me in front? You have my gun and you have the Taser. I promise not to try anything,” Liddell said. Barbierre had yet to call dispatch to request backup or to tell them he had someone in custody. Maybe Barbierre had already called for assistance before he’d confronted Liddell, but that had been more than fifteen minutes ago and so far, no one had responded.

  Liddell watched Barbierre’s face for a reaction. The expression remained neutral except for a sligh
t tic under one eye. Barbierre had stayed focused on Liddell, like a shark on a treat. Liddell pegged him as a rookie with delusions of grandeur. Barbierre acted like he had just caught a serial killer or Osama bin Laden. Liddell was glad Barbierre hadn’t confused his Taser with his sidearm.

  Barbierre was almost as tall as Liddell, but with the physique of a serious weightlifter. The pitch of his voice was consistent with a steroid abuser, but the facial features weren’t swollen. Maybe he was just high strung. Maybe it was his normal voice. But his aggressiveness, tight clothes, overmuscular frame, and eagerness to use his Taser leaned more toward some type of drug-induced psychosis.

  “How long have you been with Plaquemine PD?” Liddell asked, hoping to begin a conversation.

  Barbierre acted as if he didn’t hear, but the tic under his eye grew worse.

  “So. Who are we waiting for?” Liddell asked. He could feel the Taser burns on his chest and back.

  Barbierre gave Liddell a look that said, “Don’t push me.”

  Liddell tried to engage him again. “While we’re waiting we may as well talk a little. I used to be with Iberville Sheriff Department.”

  Still nothing.

  “Okay. I’m just trying to have a friendly conversation here. I’m kind of upset. I came in and found her butchered on her kitchen table, and . . .” He trailed off. He didn’t want to sound whiney, or like he wanted to file a “use of force” complaint against the officer; which he did. And there was the matter of Barbierre neglecting to read Liddell his Miranda warning and contaminating evidence by forcing Liddell to walk through the murder scene. That was Cop 101: Don’t let anyone in the crime scene. But he couldn’t say any of that or he risked a violent reprisal from this gorilla.