A Dark Mind

by T. R. Ragan

  “Please don’t be there,” she said aloud. But the key was there, just as Hayley said it would be. Damnation.

  Jessica knew she should call the police regardless of Hayley’s instructions, but she also knew she could never do that to Hayley. Obviously, Hayley was worried about what the police might find if they entered the house—some sort of illegal substance, no doubt.

  The door was unlocked now, leaving Jessica no choice but to head inside. As she stepped over the threshold, she pinched her nose because of the horrible stench. She gave the room a quick once-over before she shut the door quietly behind her. The filth and the smell were nearly unbearable as she tiptoed her way through dirty clothes and what looked like rotting garbage. She wanted to cry at the notion that Hayley had once lived here. No wonder Hayley had chosen to live on the streets. Jessica had never in her life seen anything like it. The television screen was cracked. The kitchen didn’t look any better than the living room, the counters covered with junk and the sink overfilled with dirty dishes and God knows what else.

  The dark sheets over the windows made for a poorly lit trip down the narrow hallway.

  Stay calm, she told herself. She would check each room, make sure nobody was there. If, God forbid, she found a dead body, she would call the police immediately.

  The first room to the left wasn’t nearly as unkempt as the rest of the house. The bed looked like somebody had even attempted to make it. Thank God. A sign of life.

  For the first time since she’d arrived, she felt as if she could breathe normally. This had to be the master bedroom since there was a connected bathroom. Judging by the damp towel and the makeup scattered across the tile counter between the two sinks, the bathroom had been used recently…by a woman.

  She had one more room to check and then she could leave, but before she stepped out of the bathroom, she heard the front door open. Her body tensed. Shit.

  It took her only a few seconds to figure out what she needed to do. She needed to walk out there and introduce herself—tell Hayley’s mom the truth about why she was here. She made it past the bed and was about to step out of the bedroom, when she heard a man’s voice.

  “I told you to lock the fucking door.”

  “I did lock it.”

  The door slammed shut.

  “Brian! No!”

  There was a horrible cracking sound right before Hayley’s mom cried out in pain.

  “Look at this place!” he shouted. “All these months away, and the house still looks like shit.”

  Jessica’s heart lodged in her throat. Eyes wide and unblinking, she looked for a place to hide. She quickly headed back to the bathroom. Footsteps sounded, loud footsteps pounding across worn carpet. He passed the master bedroom and went to the room at the end of the hall.

  Jessica moved the shower curtain aside, climbed in and sank down inside the bathtub, and then tried to think. As she pulled out her cell phone from her pant pocket, somebody entered the bathroom. She didn’t dare breathe.

  The water faucet came on.

  And then Jessica’s phone vibrated.

  The shower curtain came open and Jessica found herself staring up into familiar-looking eyes. Beneath the bruises and the bloodied lip, the woman looked exactly like Hayley.

  “My name is Jessica,” she whispered. “I’m Hayley’s friend. She—”

  Hayley’s mom put a finger over her mouth, telling Jessica to remain silent, and then gestured at her phone, letting Jessica know now would be a good time to turn it off. She shut the curtain, but before Hayley’s mom could leave the bathroom, Brian returned.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Just fixing my face.”

  “You’re lucky nothing was stolen. Why are you so fucking stupid?”

  “I’m trying to change.”

  “Yeah, whatever. Come on. I got my shit. Let’s blow.”

  As they headed out of the room and their voices grew quieter, Jessica could hear Brian telling Hayley’s mom what to say if anybody asked about the bruises on her face.

  Jessica shivered.

  She heard the door close. She needed to get the hell out of there, but her body refused to budge.

  Sacramento

  Monday, May 21, 2012

  Lily’s Flower Shop was on the corner of 11th and T Street. Dried yellow leaves covered the ground. There was a tea shop across the street. A biker zipped past her and she could see two women a few blocks down pointing at something in a shop window. Overall the street was quiet. No rain today, but the gusty winds were stirring up pollen and making for itchy and watery eyes. Sacramento tended to be like a giant bowl with a lot of pollen sources.

  Lizzy entered the shop and was greeted by tinkling bells and the sweet scent of daylilies and tuberoses. She’d never seen a flower shop like it before. A small winding walkway lined with every color and size of flower imaginable led her to an antique desk where customers could pay. Behind the desk with the old-fashioned cashbox, there was a refrigerator with a glass door filled with premade bouquets.

  She hit the little bell on the desk and waited.

  A tall woman with wavy blonde hair poked her head out of a back room. She held up a finger and said, “Someone will be right there.”

  “Take your time,” Lizzy called out.

  A young teenage girl appeared a few minutes later, wiping her hands on a well-used apron. Her hair was dark with strips of red and purple on one side.

  Lizzy usually attempted to strike up a casual conversation about the weather or the neighborhood before she began asking questions, but not today. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Lizzy Gardner, private investigator. I was hoping you wouldn’t mind answering a few questions.”

  The moment Lizzy said that she was an investigator, the girl’s demeanor changed. She looked stiff and nervous. “If this is about my DUI, I really don’t think—”

  “My visit has nothing to do with you,” Lizzy assured her. “Not unless you’re the person who signed her name on this business card.” Lizzy handed it to her.

  “Belle Gunness,” the girl said aloud. “I’ve never heard of her. Want me to get Jane?”

  “Is she the owner?”

  The girl nodded. “I’m not allowed to bother her when she’s in her office, but we just received a large shipment of flowers and she’s working in the back. Should I see if she can spare a few minutes?”

  Lizzy nodded. “I would appreciate it.”

  A few minutes later, Jane appeared. It was the same woman she’d seen when she first walked in. She was dressed in a long black skirt and a purple blouse. Her long wavy hair was tucked behind her ears. Black-rimmed eyeglasses hung from a chain around her neck. Lizzy guessed the woman was in her late thirties. Her skin was flawless, her cheekbones high and pronounced. Her coral lipstick accentuated thin lips, but it was the large eyes that captured Lizzy’s full attention.

  “What can I do for you?” the woman asked.

  “I was hoping you could tell me if you ever made any flower arrangements for Jennifer Dalton.”

  The woman’s expression became thoughtful, her nose dutifully scrunched as if she were thinking hard, before she shook her head and said, “Sorry, the name doesn’t sound familiar.”

  Hard to believe, Lizzy thought, considering Jennifer Dalton’s name had been all over the news. She handed Jane the same business card she’d shown the younger girl. “Jennifer Dalton was murdered. She was given this business card before she was killed. Somebody signed it. I need to know if Jennifer came here to order flowers for a party she was planning.”

  Jane took the card and turned it over in her hand. Her nails had a yellow tint to them, brittle looking and cut short. “Ahh, Belle,” she said as she handed the card back to Lizzy. “She’s the one you would need to talk to.”

  “Can you tell me when she’ll be in next?”

  She scrunched her nose again. “Sorry, but that might be a problem,” she said as if she were so not sorry.

  “Why would that be
a problem?” Lizzy asked.

  “Mrs. Gunness is visiting family back East. She won’t return until November, hopefully before Thanksgiving. If you want to leave me your name and number, I can ask her to call you.”

  “Do you think you could give me a number where I could reach her?”

  “No. It wouldn’t be right.”

  Lizzy was tempted to threaten Jane with a warrant, which would force her to produce the number. Instead, she grabbed one of Jane’s business cards from the holder on the cashier’s table in front of her and wrote her name and number on the card and then handed it to the woman. “Thanks for your help.” Lizzy angled her head. “What was your name again?”

  “Jane,” she said. “Jane Toppan.”

  “Who’s Lily?”

  “My dear, dear mother,” Jane said with a smile. “She passed away when I was small.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Uncomfortable silence followed.

  “Did you make that bouquet behind you—the one with the yellow flowers?”

  This question made Jane smile and brought a sparkle to her big blue eyes. “Those are sandersonia,” she told Lizzy. “The flower originated in South Africa. Beautiful, aren’t they?”

  “Yes,” Lizzy agreed, hoping to befriend the woman since Jane Toppan would definitely be going on her watch list. “I’d like to buy that arrangement for my sister. She’s not happy with me at the moment, but those flowers might do the trick and change all of that.”

  CHAPTER 16

  I’ve killed twenty people, man. I love all that blood.

  —Richard Ramirez

  Monday, May 21, 2012

  He fastened his newest piece to the growing collection on his special wall and then stepped away so he could better admire his latest keepsake. For a few seconds, he closed his eyes and relived the moment when he was inside Lizzy Gardner’s home, lying on her bed and smelling and touching her things. The experience had been thrilling. For his wall, he’d torn a page from her journal: a very special page that she’d written years ago when she was sure she was being watched and was afraid of her own shadow.

  As his gaze focused on one piece after another, each item giving him goose bumps, he could feel his lover’s eyes burning a hole through the back of his head. He twirled around and abruptly stopped so he could see what she was up to. “What are you looking at?” he asked.

  With her head angled just so, she sat in her chair and stared at him, unabashedly and unafraid. She knew she had him right where she wanted him. God, he hated that. Without losing eye contact, he took a seat in the chair by his desk. “Not talking again, I see. Up to your old tricks?”

  He scratched his neck as he looked at her, hoping to get a rise out of her. Better that she toss her shoe or yell at him than say nothing at all. Although her actions infuriated him every so often, he couldn’t get angry with her.

  She was all he had—she was his everything.

  Still, after all these years together, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Flawless skin and expressive eyes. Her hair hung past her shoulders and was a beautiful shade of copper blonde. Today she wore red. She looked dazzling in red and she knew it.

  “I love you,” he said, and then he turned his chair until it faced his desk and all of the work he had piling up.

  As he lifted his pen and began to write out a check to pay the electric bill, he heard her whisper the words “I love you, too.”

  Swallowing the knot in his throat, he closed his eyes and tried not to cry.

  Sacramento

  Tuesday, May 22, 2012

  For the past two hours, Lizzy had been sitting in the car, watching the Simpson house from half a block away. A variety of trees shaded the section of the road where she was parked. The rental car she was driving didn’t have navigation, satellite radio, or a new-car smell.

  Her camera was in her lap, ready to go. She had already stopped by her sister’s house early this morning and used the key Cathy had given her years ago to get inside. Glad to see that Cathy’s ex-husband was nowhere in sight, she’d left the flowers with a note on the dining room table.

  She picked up the camera and looked through the lens at Eli Simpson’s front window. She had yet to see any movement at all and she was beginning to wonder if Simpson was even home.

  Michael Dalton was in jail and Jennifer was dead, but Lizzy had already been paid a deposit for the Simpson job. If Michael was innocent, Lizzy liked to believe justice would prevail and he would be released. Either way, there was no reason for Lizzy not to finish the work she’d been paid to do. If Simpson had not been injured on the job, then he shouldn’t be collecting benefits. End of story.

  Lizzy set the camera down and reached for the file on the passenger seat. She skimmed through the contents. Before he worked for J&M Realty, Eli Simpson had worked for Crawford Pools in Roseville. Before that, he had worked for Sunset Realty in Elk Grove. Lizzy picked up her phone and dialed the number for Crawford Pools. They were no longer in business, and the phone had been disconnected. Next, she called Sunset Realty. A woman answered. After Lizzy explained why she was calling, she was put on hold.

  As she waited, Lizzy watched a white Honda pull into the driveway next to Simpson’s house. A young woman climbed out of her car, opened the back door, then herded three little boys from the car to the house, which was no easy feat. They kept tickling one another and laughing.

  By the time the woman came back on the line, Lizzy was smiling.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said, “we’ve never had an Eli Simpson work for us, but a man by that same name did apply for a job here.”

  “So he never worked for Sunset Realty?”

  “No, but Eli Simpson is the sort of man you don’t forget. While being interviewed, the man wouldn’t make eye contact. When my husband called him the next day to tell him the position had been filled, he laughed.”

  “That is strange,” Lizzy said. She watched a large white truck pull into Simpson’s driveway. A man climbed out and disappeared through the gate at the side of the house.

  “Are you thinking of hiring him?” the woman asked.

  “Actually, he applied for workers’ compensation and I was hired by the company to check him out.”

  “I would be careful if I were you.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Well, I probably shouldn’t say too much, but ever since that man stepped into our office, strange things have been happening around here.”

  “For instance?”

  “For instance, our office was broken into within days of our interviewing the man. Strange things were taken: a wedding picture, my husband’s fishing hat, of all things, and a sympathy card from my mother. I had an envelope of cash, five hundred dollars, at least, in my drawer, and it was still there, untouched.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  “Yes. They even paid Eli Simpson a visit, but he denied everything, including ever applying for the job. The police said that he allowed them to search his house and none of my missing things were found. There was nothing else they could do. But it didn’t stop there.”

  Lizzy waited for her to elaborate, which she did.

  “Since then, my husband and I have received strange calls at the office at least once a week. You can hear him breathing, but he won’t talk. Sometimes the caller lets the phone ring once or twice and hangs up. We’ve tried everything, even had our numbers changed, but he still calls.”

  “You think it’s Eli Simpson?”

  “I do.” Another short pause before the woman said, “I should get back to work. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “Could you give me a description of the man?”

  “My husband is six feet tall and he says Eli was a few inches shorter. He also remembers him being thin, with no muscle tone—not a big man. Thin and lanky would be a good description overall.”

  “Hair color?”

  “He wore a hat, so he’s not sure about that. He could have been
bald for all he knows.”

  “Can I get your names in case I need to talk to you again?”

  “Sure. Barbara and Ken Garbes. Call this number and ask for either one of us.”

  “Thank you, Barbara. You’ve been a great help.” Lizzy said goodbye and ended the conversation. As she mulled over what she’d learned, she knew what she needed to do.

  She climbed out of her car and headed for Eli Simpson’s house.

  A breeze rustled the leaves of the trees lining the street. It was chillier than it looked. The only sound was the click of her boots hitting the pavement as she walked.

  The truck parked in the driveway was filled with tools and a ladder. The lawn had been mowed recently. She knocked on the door and waited. Nobody came. She moved to the front window and pressed her face close against the glass.

  “Can I help you?”

  Her heart skipped a few beats. She turned around. The man standing behind her was tall and brawny. He wore a button-up plaid shirt, Levi’s, and a tool belt. “I’m looking for Eli Simpson.”

  “That would be me. What can I do for you?”

  Her eyes narrowed. This was not the same man she’d seen running to his mailbox. And neither was it the same man who had just been described to her over the phone. “My name is Lizzy Gardner. I was hired by Jennifer and Michael Dalton to check on a workers’ compensation claim you filed.”

  “You most definitely have the wrong Eli Simpson.”

  “Are you saying you never heard of Jennifer and Michael Dalton?”

  He nodded. “I guess that’s what I’m saying.”

  “I want to grab the file and show you something. Please stay right where you are.”

  He didn’t answer, but Lizzy headed for her car anyhow and grabbed the file from the passenger seat. When she returned, she found him standing at the rear of his truck.