A Cold Dark Place

by Gregg Olsen

  “Ambulance is coming,” Jason announced, inching his way back toward the corpse.

  Emily nodded. “The others have to be around here somewhere.”

  “Mr. Martin?” Jason said, his voice thick with dread. He ran his light over the debris field. “Are you here? Can you hear me?”

  Emily moved her light methodically over the remains of the house. With each pass from north to south, she covered a bit more ground. And with each swipe of the light, more of what had once been was revealed. A chair. A tabletop. A child’s toy. Her heart nearly stopped when the light passed over the blank-eyed stare of another woman. It was so fleeting that it took a second for it to register.

  A magazine cover.

  “I’ve heard of people surviving in India after an earthquake for up to ten days or more,” Jason said from the other side of the remains of the house.

  “I’ve heard the same thing. Let’s hope that they are that lucky.”

  “Yeah, luckier than Mrs. Martin,” he said.

  “That goes without saying, Jason. You know, sometimes you just don’t have to say the obvious.”

  As soon as she said the words, she regretted it. She was tired. So damned tired from the last couple of days. She had done more than double duty. She was on edge.

  “Sorry, Ms. Kenyon,” he said. His apology was so genuine, so much like the way he was, that Emily felt like she had kicked a puppy or something.

  “No apologies needed. Been a long last few days, hasn’t it?”

  “Yeah. I haven’t slept more than four hours since Sunday.”

  They continued to scour all that remained of the house, but it was useless. There was so much of it and their flashlights were too weak for the task.

  “We need to cordon off the area and look at first light,” Emily said.

  “Okay. Will do.”

  Emily looked down at her watch. First light was in five hours.

  “I hate to do this to you Jason, but after we transport Mrs. Martin to the morgue, I’m out of here. I have to get home to Jenna.”

  Jason didn’t look happy about it, but he couldn’t say anything. Motherhood was more important than hanging around an accident scene. At least he figured his mother would say so—and he still lived with her.

  “Fine by me,” he said. “I’ll manage.”

  Emily stood still in the dark, scanning. Could there be anyone alive? She called out for the Martins once more, but her voice was mocked by the sounds of ambulance sirens—a faint wail in the distance at first, moving closer and closer.

  “Donovan,” she said to herself first, then over to Jason.

  “Huh?”

  She called out louder, irritated that she had to repeat herself. “The little Martin boy’s name is Donovan. Donovan, are you out there, honey? Donny? Mark? Nicholas? Are any of you out there?”

  The ambulance swung down the driveway, moving faster than it had to, of course. Ricky Culver was at the wheel, and Ricky still thought that driving an ambulance was the next best thing to NASCAR—his real dream. He parked next to the cruiser and two paramedics, sisters Anna and Gina Marino, jumped out of the vehicle.

  “Where’s the vic?” Anna asked. She grabbed her bag and swung around looking into the rubble pile that had once been such a pretty house. Something caught her eye. The running horse weathervane had managed to stay put on the cupola, which had been tossed aside like baggage in the underbelly of an airplane.

  “Better question,” her sister, Gina, the older of the pair, a petite young blonde, mused, “is where on God’s green Earth is the house?”

  Her sister, who wore her curly dark hair short, almost a white woman’s ’fro, answered back.

  “It’s this pile of junk, all over the place. God, Gina, use your head.”

  “Twister touched down here,” Emily interrupted. She waved over the darkened terrain. “You can see the path of destruction. It must have landed here, then pulled up and touched down right at the house and plowed across the field like a sonofabitch.”

  “Anna, you can be such a bitch. Nobody said a damn thing about the tornado when they dispatched us. They said the victim was a woman with serious injuries. Life threatening.”

  “It’s all right,” Emily said. She liked the girls, but she was tired and their ceaseless banter grated. “I’ll take you to Mrs. Martin. And she’s not a vic. She’s not a patient. She’s a corpse.”

  Anna Marino bent over the body, while her sister, Emily, and Jason hovered like fireflies, their lights brushing the immediate area. With the increased illumination, Emily could see that Mrs. Martin hadn’t been covered in mud after all. The dark brown coloring over much of her torso was dried blood. As Anna lifted her arm it was apparent that she’d been dead awhile; rigor had come and gone.

  And there was something else.

  “Gina, let’s roll her on the board and get her out of here.”

  “Okay.”

  “Just a second,” Emily said, bending closer, her beam trained on a darkened circle of bloody flesh.

  “What’s that?” Jason asked.

  “She probably got poked by wood splinter or something during the storm,” Anna said. “I’ve heard of nails flying through the air and being embedded into a tree.”

  “I was telling Emily about a chicken that got plucked by a tornado.”

  “Say that five times real fast,” Gina said. The other two laughed, letting off a little tension. No one meant to be disrespectful but it was the middle of the night, cold, creepy.

  Ignoring their banter, Emily was on her knees now, pitched over the dead woman and staring intently. She was so close to Mrs. Martin’s body that a nudge would have pushed her face down into the wound that had captured her interest.

  “I don’t think so.” She looked up at Jason and indicated the circular tear in Mrs. Martin’s chest. “We can’t move her. The tornado didn’t kill her.”

  “Huh?” Jason was confused. He had no idea what she was talking about.

  “Jason, secure the scene. It looks like Mrs. Martin was shot.”

  “Shot?”

  “You need me to repeat it? I’m so tired I don’t think I can, but yes, shot. Close range, too. GSR burns around the wound here.”

  She pointed to the smudged edges of the injury.

  “I see it,” he said.

  Gina looked at her sister. “Shit, we haven’t had a murder in Cherrystone since we were kids.”

  “That was a suicide,” Anna corrected, referring to the case of a local pet shop owner who had been poisoned to death.

  Gina made a face. She’d had this argument before. She spoke a bit louder so Jason and Emily could hear.

  “I never was so sure about that. I mean, he died of arsenic and that’s a slow death. His wife said he had Parkinson’s for years. Sounded a little feeble to me.”

  “Some things are never meant to be known,” Jason said.

  Emily stood up, glad she’d put on a pair of jeans. Her knees were muddy and hurt like hell.

  “That won’t be the case here,” she said. “We will find out what happened to her and her family.”

  Jason went to the radio for backup. Photos would have to be taken. The debris had to be searched, piece by piece. Mrs. Martin was dead, but there were other potential victims, too.

  “Tell the sheriff I’ve gone home. I’ll be back at first light,” Emily said. She looked at the illuminated face on her gold watch. It was after midnight. “See you in a few. Nobody touches anything. Where I come from this is a crime scene.”

  To avoid puncturing a tire, Emily thought it best to back her car out of the long driveway. She looked back at the ambulance and the cruiser as their spinning lights duked it out in the night sky. Red. Blue. Red. Blue. The lights pulsed like a heartbeat. What had happened back there? Who shot Mrs. Martin? Where was the rest of her family? A shiver ran down Emily’s spine and she turned up the heat. Maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe the injury was the result of the tornado and the gunshot residue she thought she had
seen was something else. Dirt. A burn. Anything. She was so tired her eyes blurred; the streetlights passed by like a wand of a light.

  It was almost one in the morning; she’d get a couple of hours’ sleep and get back to the scene. She probably wouldn’t even see Jenna. All she knew was that with the light of day, answers would come. Maybe some hope, too. Hope was so very, very needed.

  Weeks before, exact time unknown

  A cache of letters was tucked into the back of the scrapbook, a kind of secret meeting place where, whenever the need for arousal or remembering was needed, they’d be there. They were flat as if they’d been ironed under steam and pressure. Though they had once been damp from the heat of fingers, even the wetness of tears, they were stiff now. Crisp. Treasured. Charged.

  One missive began:

  If only we had a song, I’d sing it in your ear, my hot breath, moist and gentle. If only we could touch, I’d play my fingers all over your body. Only you know me. Only you know how I feel. Break down the walls. Break down the barriers. Feel me take off your clothes, one button at time . . . lingering as they fall to the floor. Your hunger for my touch, insatiable . . . but I try. I try . . .

  The memories were a torrent and the reader’s breath accelerated to near gasping as the forbidden feelings of desire washed over head to toe.

  . . . Naked we stand, our arms around each other, our mouths searching for the hotness and wetness of our passion. I look you in the eyes. You stare back, longing for us to become one. Your hands slip between my legs . . .

  Chapter Three

  Tuesday, 1:46 A.M., Cherrystone, Washington

  Dead tired. Emily thought that would make the perfect title for a book of her life. So exhausted, but still aware. Frogs that had taken up residence in her neighbor’s Home Center terracotta fountain caused a little commotion there, but everything else on Orchard Avenue was calm and benign. The air barely stirred the scent of the old white lilac bush. Jenna had left the porch light on for her mother and a swarm of gray and white moths swirled around without pausing to land. Emily bent down to keep them from her hair and inserted her key. The dead bolt slid. Inside, she dropped her overstuffed handbag on the console and when the contents spilled for the second time that day, she just left everything where it fell. Once down the hall, she peeked in on her sleeping daughter. Jenna was curled in a ball, pink-cheeked and dreaming—her mother hoped—happy dreams. We could use some happiness wherever we can get it in this life, Emily thought.

  She shifted the Indonesian batik spread and Jenna moved. Her blue eyes were narrow slits. She half-smiled at her mother, but said nothing.

  Good, she’s alive. Emily knew the thought was absurd. But nearly every mother experiences that feeling of deep worry whenever they leave their children alone—six or sixteen—a few minutes to get the mail, or a couple of hours to check a crime scene. When they sleep in too long. When they don’t come down to dinner right away. The worst always seems possible, even plausible, when love is so strong. All mothers know that.

  Emily picked up a small dish and spoon, the apparent remains of a late-night snack. Chocolate ice cream, it seemed. Probably Brownie Batter, Jenna’s favorite. For a second the coagulating ice cream made her mind flash to Peg Martin and the dried blood on her chest, but she swallowed hard and tried to pass it out of her memory. She crept across the room, shut the door with her hip, and walked to the kitchen. The red light on the answering machine atop the antique butcher block beckoned once more and though she could barely stand, she pushed the play button.

  “I don’t like being disregarded, Emily.”

  It was Cary McConnell. The jerk of a lawyer who made other lawyers seem like marriage material.

  “I’ve called you three times since the storm,” he went on. “I want to make sure you and Jenna are all right. I mean, I know you’re okay, because I’ve seen you twice in town, but Jesus, I thought we had something going—”

  She pushed the FAST FORWARD button and the tape whirled, making Cary sound like a helium inhaler.

  “And if you think you can ignore me—”

  You really know how to win back a girl, Emily thought, selecting the ERASE button. The machine clicked and shut off. The red eye blinked one final time.

  “Good night, Cary. And good-bye,” she said, softly to herself.

  In her bedroom at the end of the hall, she adjusted her alarm clock to allow three and a half hours’ sleep. She was glad she didn’t have on any makeup because she’d been raised by a mother who thought going to bed with makeup still applied was akin to a mortal sin. Emily put her head on the pillow and thought of Peg Martin and the one vivid memory she could recall. It was the time she’d seen Peg at a school carnival the October before last. They had worked the bakery booth together for two or three nights. Emily brought chocolate chip cookies from Safeway and rewrapped them in home bakeware. Like a gas thief with petroleum breath caught with a gas can and a rubber hose, she confessed.

  “I guess I’m not fooling anyone.”

  Peg, older than Emily, by ten years, was gracious. “Some people prefer when it’s store-bought anyway.”

  “Yeah, but yours aren’t. They look too good to be from any store.”

  Peg smiled. “I’m not a detective. I’m a homemaker. Ask me to solve a crime and I’ll bring in a DVD of CSI and we can watch it together. That’s about as close as I’d ever get.”

  Peg was a lovely woman, the kind who’d always show up with more than what was requested. She gave time to whatever the cause. She’d made the best macaroons outside of a bakery, tall, fluffy, and dipped in dark chocolate. And she always smiled.

  “Take two,” Peg had said that chilly autumn evening to a boy with a crumpled dollar bill, “They’re kind of small.” Then she winked the kind of exaggerated conspiratorial move kids make when they know they are being bad and want everyone else to know they know it, too.

  But they weren’t small, of course. They were like cocoacovered Mount Rainier, Washington’s tallest, grandest peak. Peg was just that type of woman. Now she was dead, under a pile of tornado trash, a gunshot wound in her chest, and her family strewn somewhere out in the darkness that enveloped her property. Emily willed herself to think of something positive, the carnival, the cookies, but the image of the dead bake-sale lady, probably murdered, kept materializing.

  I’ll find out what happened to you, she thought, drifting off to sleep.

  Tuesday, 3:10 A.M., a rural area near Cherrystone

  The moon was slung low in the sky, dipping to the horizon that drew a hard edge from Horse Heaven Hills, a basalt rock formation about twenty miles outside of Cherrystone. An old lead mine had flourished there decades ago. The remnants of the mine camp had been used by teenage partyers proving their prowess with Budweiser since the 1960s. Maybe even earlier. Cans and bottles scattered along the roadway up the hill. Not everyone could wait to get up to the top.

  But he did. He made it up there the night after the storm. It was dark then, with the lantern moon obscured by a ghostly cloud cover. He could barely see ten feet in any direction, but couldn’t think of anyplace else to go. He’d abandoned the pickup when it ran out of gas, and started walking the rest of the way. The miners’ hiring office was nothing more than the most primitive shelter. Windows were smashed out. Graffiti about who’d give who a blow job—male or female—were spray painted in an agitated script over the boarded-up old pay window. A nylon plaid couch retrieved from the court-ordered ladies’ lounge area was in decent shape, considering how many teens had romped on it over the years.

  None of that mattered. He was so exhausted. It was a bed right then and it was where he’d wait. Animals with tiny claws, mice, maybe squirrels, skittered in the walls. The smell of urine stung his nose. But he curled up. Slept. Waited. Tried to figure out just what he’d do. What had happened before his world literally turned upside down.

  More important, he wondered who he really was.

  Tuesday, 5:40 A.M., Cherrystone, Washington
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br />   Emily was furious. She held her cell phone with a death grip. She ran to the bathroom, phone clamped to her ear, rinsed her mouth with Scope, and skipped the brushing. Certainly no flossing, about which she was nearly obsessive, to the point of working the fiber between her teeth in the car as she waited in traffic back in Seattle. She looked worse than she ever had, but she had a new vigor. She was pissed off. Royally. She listened to Jason and spat out the icy blue liquid and rinsed the sink.

  “Yes, I know I said I was beat. Everyone is. But, Jesus, Jason, why in the hell didn’t you call me?”

  “I did,” the young deputy said. “Sorry, but I did.”

  Emily regarded the same jeans she wore the night before and pulled them from the upholstered chair that functioned more as an open-air closet than a reading place, as she’d intended. They’d do. She was nearly in a frenzy. Things were happening down at the Martin place and that was officially her territory. She didn’t like it one bit that interlopers were there.

  “Peg Martin is my case,” she said. “I should be notified before the lab rats and techies come over from Spokane and work the scene. My scene.”

  “You didn’t answer, Emily.”

  “Detective, call me detective. Why don’t you start calling me detective for a goddamn change?” The operative word of her rant was pounded out with a hammer. Jason couldn’t miss her irritation.

  She looked at her phone and the blue face showed two missed calls. She scrolled the phone numbers and ranted some more. Jason had called twice—at 2:45 and 4:30.

  “Maybe if you acted like I was your superior, which I am in every way, you’d know better. I’m not your cousin. Your sister. Your buddy.”

  “Detective,” he said, correcting himself as a he sunk into the mud of the Martins’ ravaged yard. “We found Mr. Martin’s mangled body about an hour after you left. I called the sheriff, and I guess he called Spokane for backup. They showed up at four-thirty.”