The Darkest Night

by Rick Reed

  “She needed something to do,” Jack said. “And she’s the best in the world at squeezing every drop of information out of every computer system.”

  “I know it’s late,” Landry said, “but what can I do to help you guys?”

  Jack said, “Just be available if Evie calls or tries to get in touch with you. If she comes home, you want to be here.” He didn’t have to suggest Landry take off work. And he knew it must be maddening for him to stay by the phone and do nothing when his child was out there somewhere, maybe needing his help, maybe hurt, maybe worse.

  Landry asked a question that Jack wasn’t prepared for. “Do you think these murders have anything to do with Evie going missing?”

  Jack and Liddell exchanged a look. Jack said, “We aren’t ruling it out.”

  “Excuse me a minute, but I have to get rid of some of this beer and get some more,” Liddell said and went inside.

  “Liddell told me that you and your wife just got back together,” Landry said.

  “Ex-wife,” Jack said, and thought about how that sounded. “Yeah, we maybe got it right this time around.”

  Landry picked up a twig from the ground. He broke off small pieces and threw them into the dark.

  “Liddell told me a little about your ex-wife, too. Sally, right?” Jack said.

  Landry tossed the twig into the yard. “She left me and Evie a long time ago. What kind of woman could do that? I mean I ain’t much to look at, and I’m not ever going to be rich, and this house and land is all I’ve got—besides Evie, that is. But to leave your daughter like that, without a word. And leaving me to wonder if she was kidnapped or killed or . . .” His words trailed off, like his thoughts had dried up.

  Jack didn’t know what to say, so he changed the subject. “What was it like growing up here?”

  Landry seemed relieved to talk about something else. “You mean growing up with a human waste disposal for a brother?”

  Jack smiled. “Yeah. He has a healthy appetite.”

  “And he gossips like an old woman,” Landry said, and they both laughed.

  “Landry, just out of curiosity. Could she have had contact with any of the dead people?” Jack asked.

  “No. Not any of the people you named,” Landry answered.

  Jack pulled up a photo on his cell phone and showed it to Landry. “This symbol was on the wall at Bitty’s house near where the body was found. We were told it was a warning of some kind. Cotton Walters called it the sign of the Divine Messenger. Bitty was killed somewhere else and her body was transported to her house. We’re not sure who this is warning since the symbol was drawn after she was murdered.”

  Landry held Jack’s phone and asked, “Was this at Cotton’s place too?”

  “How’d you know there were symbols drawn at that scene?” Jack asked. He hadn’t told Landry much about Cotton’s murder.

  “You wouldn’t have shown me this picture otherwise, for starters,” Landry said.

  Jack had to remind himself he was talking to a detective’s brother. “Does it mean anything to you?” Jack asked.

  “It does. But from a long time back.”

  “How long back?” Jack asked.

  “I told you Sally, Evie’s mother, was into Voodoo. Well, I’ve seen that symbol before. It’s a sign of death. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse kind of stuff. Indians believe that owls are messengers of death. Well, back in high school, if Sally was mad at someone she’d draw that symbol on their locker. She said it was a curse.”

  Jack continued to study the picture on his phone. “Cotton said it was the symbol of the Divine Messenger.”

  “I’m not into this stuff, Jack. I’d be guessing if I said anything else. Besides, that was a long time ago. At least fifteen years. And I haven’t seen anything like it since high school.”

  “Your guess is the best I have right now, Landry,” Jack said.

  Landry said, “I’m assuming that it’s a warning. Warning you not to mess around with whoever is drawing it. So far it’s gotten a lot of people, wouldn’t you say?”

  Jack had to agree with that assessment, but he didn’t believe in the supernatural. He believed these deaths were related, but the Voodoo was just a red herring. A feint.

  Liddell came out of the house with a fresh beer and set it down on the porch.

  He was sitting down when they heard a gunshot and the glass in the storm door shattered.

  All three men scrambled in different directions. Landry ran and dove behind the Crown Vic. Liddell and Jack ran for Landry’s pickup truck and crouched behind the tires. Another shot rang out, and the front tire of Landry’s truck went flat. Jack took a quick peek around the back of the truck and a bullet buzzed by his ear and buried in the front of Landry’s house. Another shot hit the hood of Landry’s truck.

  Jack had his gun out and was yelling at Landry, pointing out the direction the shots were coming from and asking Landry what was behind there. He didn’t want to shoot up a house on the other side, or hit anyone. The drawback to being a policeman is that you don’t always have the luxury of trading bullets with a bad guy. They don’t have to care where their bullets go.

  Jack peeked again and caught a brief flash of light from the copse of cottonwoods. Jack ducked back again but there was no sound.

  Jack and Liddell held their fire, but Landry produced a semiautomatic pistol and ran toward the woods expending an entire magazine of ammunition. The shooting stopped.

  * * *

  Officer Rahm sat at Landry’s table filling in a report form. His eyes were red, and Jack could smell alcohol on his breath. Rahm said, “So you didn’t see if someone was shooting at you.”

  “They were shooting at us from the tree line, and it’s dark.” Liddell pointed toward the river. “The house lights were on, and we were sitting on the porch. They could see us.”

  “So, I thought you said you were standing when the first shot was fired?” he asked Liddell.

  “I had just come outside. I was bending over to pick up my beer,” Liddell answered.

  “So, you all have been drinking,” Rahm stated. No one answered. “So. You think they were shooting at you?”

  Jack couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. Not only did this idiot start every sentence with “so” but he was accusing them of making a false police report.

  “Whoever it was almost hit Liddell—twice,” Jack said. “They hit the truck, flattened a tire, shot out the door glass, and hit the house. You think that was an accident? You can see the bullet holes.”

  Rahm lifted his eyes from the clipboard, pen poised over the paper, and said, “People hunt along the river at night. Sometimes they’re just shooting at rats. Shooting cans. That kind of stuff. Maybe that’s all this is.”

  “We look like rats to you?” Landry asked.

  Jack put a hand on Landry’s shoulder and could feel the muscles in his arms and back vibrating. Jack asked Rahm, “You moonlighting? I thought you were on day shift.” Rahm was the officer who had found Barbie’s car, and the one who found Barbie’s body to his obvious detriment.

  Rahm pushed the clipboard across the table for Liddell to sign. He said, “I thought so too. And yet, here I am. Why is it every time I see you guys I’m on someone’s shit list?”

  Landry signed the report and Rahm stood. “I’ll let you know if I find anything, but my gut feeling is someone was shooting at rats.”

  When he left, Liddell said, “If we checked Rahm’s car, I wonder if we’d find a recently fired rifle?”

  Jack didn’t think Rahm was the shooter. He did think he was being an asshole, but his attitude seemed to be about being reassigned to night shift. PPD officers had had quite enough of Jack Murphy and the Blanchard brothers.

  Landry pulled a curtain down in the kitchen and flipped off the light.

  Liddell said, “I’m sorry we brought this to your house.”

  Landry made a dismissive wave of his hand. “I hate to give that asshole any credit, but he’s right abo
ut people shooting down there along the river in the last few years. It’s not the first time a bullet has struck this house. But those shots were aimed at Liddell. Not me. Not Jack.” He spoke to Liddell. “So who’d you piss off bad enough to shoot your ass?”

  Jack wondered why Chief Anna Whiteside hadn’t made an appearance, but he didn’t want to make the situation worse by calling her. Their being shot at was a low-priority run, because Rahm had shown up alone and didn’t bother to check the area where the shots had come from. Whiteside would say it was another suicide attempt.

  * * *

  It was a fitful night sleep for Jack. He had a dream about Bobby and Eddie Solazzo. In his dream Bobby and Eddie had assault rifles and had him pinned down in an alley. Jack tried to shoot back, but every time he pulled the trigger on his Glock, the bullets would go about two feet and fall to the ground. Bobby had laughed, and out of the corner of his eye Jack watched a blade slash down and he could feel it cut into the flesh beside his ear, gouging through bone, and continue slicing down across his neck. In the dream, Jack saw Bobby standing over him grinning as he plunged the bowie knife into his chest.

  Jack had jerked awake, covered in sweat and feeling like he’d run ten miles. It wasn’t the first time he’d had the dream. In real life Bobby had cut him from his face to his chest with a bowie knife. But Jack had blown Bobby away, and in real life his gun had fired perfectly. Later he’d killed Eddie, who was on a murder spree trying to avenge his brother. The brothers were both badasses. Both crazy. And both dead.

  The details of the dream didn’t change much each time. Sometimes Jack was the one with the knife. Sometimes he shot Bobby before being cut, but Bobby would never fall down, and they would get in a struggle. Sometimes, when he had this dream, he’d have to get up and change his T-shirt and shorts and lay back down on a damp pillow and mattress. The shrink he’d been ordered to see told him these dreams were called night terrors. He’d told her they always ended well, with him killing the bad guys. She’d come back by saying something chilling. “It’s not the bad guys you’re killing in your sleep, Detective. You’re killing the things about you that you think are bad.” He thought she was full of shit.

  He felt sorry for Landry. First his daughter goes missing and he can’t get any help from the people who are supposed to help. Liddell comes to help and gets arrested for a murder he didn’t commit. To boot, Landry’s house and truck get shot up, and he’s accused of making it up. Real nice.

  Jack came downstairs. He’d been given Evie’s room to sleep in, and it was a nice room, but he felt like he smelled like teenage perfume. Liddell was already up, and Landry was making breakfast.

  “I was beginning to think you’d been hit last night and were dead,” Liddell said.

  “I knew he wasn’t dead,” Landry said. “He sounds like a chainsaw. Just like you.”

  Jack poured some coffee and sat down listening to the two brothers bicker. They were different in a lot of ways, but both had toughness to them. He was getting to like Landry.

  “I was thinking,” Liddell said. “Those shots came close, but no one is that bad with a rifle around here.”

  “He’s right,” Landry said.

  Jack had been thinking the same thing. Liddell was a big target. Like hitting the side of a barn.

  “Regardless, we need to move into a hotel or motel,” Jack said.

  Landry said, “Bullshit! Last night was supposed to scare you off. They won’t come back. They know we’ll shoot back. Big Jim always said, ‘Never run from a bully.’ ”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  They set out before the sun was up. Landry agreed to stay home, while Jack and Liddell walked toward the woods where the shots had come from. It was farther away than it appeared to be last night. The sun was still a glint on the horizon when they got to the trees. Jack stopped and turned back toward the house to judge the distance. Three shots at three hundred yards. The shooter was good.

  “I saw a light somewhere in here,” Jack said. “May have been a penlight, or they were smoking.”

  If crime scene techs were here, this area would be marked off in a grid and every inch searched. It was just the two of them now. They would do the best they could. Jack had just about given up searching after thirty minutes, but his shoe kicked up something small and white. Jack took a little pocketknife out, opened the blade, and stuck it in the filter of a cigarette butt.

  “Hasn’t been there very long,” Liddell said.

  Jack and Liddell got down on hands and knees and ran their hands through the grass. They found five more butts, all the same brand, and an assortment of bullet casings, .22s, .45s, and .223s. The .22s were long-rifle shells and could be used in either a pistol or a rifle. The .45s were from a semiautomatic handgun. The .223s were from a rifle. He’d found exactly three of them. Varmint rifle or an assault rifle.

  Jack took pictures with his iPhone and collected the butts and shell casings, putting them in the pockets of the work shirt he’d borrowed from Landry.

  “Hey look,” Liddell said. “Here’s a business card.” He read from an imaginary card, “Troup’s Exterminators. We Kill Anything.”

  “Very funny, Bigfoot,” Jack said and looked all around. “So how did the shooter get in here and out again without us seeing a vehicle?” And that raised another question. The shooter was standing back in the woods long enough to smoke a bunch of cigarettes. Did the shooter know the police wouldn’t be coming and so didn’t worry about the length of time? Or was the shooter a policeman?

  Liddell pointed farther into the woods. “There’s a dirt road back there a hundred yards or so. It runs parallel to the river. We have a fishing cabin back that direction.”

  “Fishing cabin?” Jack asked.

  Liddell made a sweeping motion with his arm. “This was all crops at one time. Big Jim leased it out. Landry doesn’t do that. He doesn’t like having close neighbors, or people just coming onto the property.”

  “How much property does Landry have here?” Jack asked.

  “Part of this is mine. Landry has the house and twelve acres. He takes care of the day-to-day business.”

  “What day-to-day business?” Jack asked.

  “Blanchard Landing,” Liddell said with a grin. “That’s why there’s a dirt road running behind the trees. It goes along the river about a mile or so and ends at the fishing camp. We have a cabin there.”

  “So you’re a land baron?”

  “It’s no big deal,” Liddell said. “Two or three shanties and a cabin. A little boat ramp. Cleaning station to dress the fish. He rents the spots out by the week.”

  “And that’s why he doesn’t lease out the land to farmers?”

  “Yeah, part of the reason,” Liddell said. “He’s had offers to buy all this, but we won’t sell. It’s been in the Blanchard family for several generations.”

  Jack said, “You never answered my question back there. How much property do you two have here?”

  “We have three sections now. This part along the river and a couple of sections that was cotton. In the old days, Blanchards owned twelve sections.”

  “Pretend I don’t know shit about land and tell me how many acres that is?”

  Liddell laughed. “I finally found something that Jack Murphy isn’t an expert on.”

  “Yeah, well there weren’t many farmers in my ancestry. Mostly horse thieves, murderers, and cops. Sometimes all three at once.”

  “A section is one square mile,” Liddell said.

  “You own three square miles!”

  Liddell said, “Yeah. Someday I hope to have children, you know? I’ll have something to pass on to them.”

  “That would be something, wouldn’t it,” Jack said, and again imagined a baby Bigfoot. A boy. Definitely a boy. Covered in hair. Eating an elk.

  Landry was waiting on the porch when they got back. “Find anything?”

  “Yeah,” Jack said and they went back inside. “I need some sandwich bags if you have any.�
��

  Landry dug in a cabinet drawer and set some on the table. Jack dumped his pocket onto the table and took his knife out again. He put each shell casing in its own bag, knowing that it was probably too late to be cautious. Better late than never.

  Landry picked up one of the bags and examined the shells. “Two-twenty-threes,” he said.

  Liddell said, “It’s still early, so we’re going to see Dusty Parnell. You going to be okay here?”

  Landry tilted his head. “Do I look like I can’t take care of myself?”

  “I was just being polite, you jerk,” Liddell said.

  “Asshole,” Landry jabbed back.

  “Give me the keys,” Jack said and off they went.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  They had decided not to call Dusty before coming out. If she wasn’t home they’d track her down. Sheriff Guidry had told them that Dusty had taken the morning off. Jack pulled into the circle drive in front of the house and he could see movement on the side of the house nearest the carport.

  “C’mon, Bigfoot. Someone’s over there.” Jack said and hurried to the house with Liddell close behind.

  He saw someone wearing all black running from the back of the house. Jack drew his weapon and pushed up against the house, peeking around the corner. No one was there, but he knew he’d seen someone. He called out in a loud voice, “Police. Come out with empty hands,” and remembered he wasn’t the police here. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to be shot either.

  Liddell moved up close to him, also hugging the wall. “What is it?”

  “I’m not sure. Someone darted toward the carport when we pulled up. I don’t think it’s Parnell. They were wearing black.”

  “I’ll go around the other side,” Liddell said and moved off.

  Jack felt uneasy about this. What if she had a gardener? Or a visitor? He yelled, “Detective Parnell. It’s Liddell and Jack Murphy. Say something.” Nothing. He gripped the .45 and eased around the corner. To reach the carport he would have to expose himself, but there was no going back.

  He made it to the carport when he heard an engine roar to life in the woods behind the house. The engine wound up, and Jack ran to the far side of the carport just in time to see someone in black clothes and a black helmet heading away fast.