Under a Dark Sky

by Lori Rader-Day

  A bit of a granny in a solid outdoorsman’s body.

  “She might be dead, Warren,” I said. I had a pain in my stomach and held my sore hand there. An ulcer, just in time for the steakhouse beeper to go off. Or maybe I hadn’t eaten since that morning. Had it only been that morning I’d had toast, Paris sneering at me? Paris—

  It could have been me who fell, but it hadn’t been. I was both horrified by what I’d seen happen and the outcome we were all waiting for and . . . elated to be alive. And, of course, guilty to be alive. If I had to be honest, this was not the first time in the last few years that I had come up against this feeling. My parents, then Bix and—the other people. I couldn’t shut down the thought fast enough. And then Malloy, and now maybe Paris. People died, and here I was, still standing. I was being saved for nothing at all, as far as I could see. I could pass it off as survivor’s guilt, but it was mixed with a selfishness I couldn’t begin to admit to.

  For a moment, I was small and wretched, like I had been standing in the viewing area in the park. The low gray sky seemed to expand out and out until I stood alone on the tilting planet, dizzy from its spin.

  I reached out for something to hang on to—nothing. And then I had the sleeve of Warren’s shirt in my fist.

  “Are you OK?”

  I turned toward the lake again and let the cold wind lash my hair into my eyes. It stung. “I’m not sure . . . I’m not . . . I can’t . . . I wasn’t meant for this,” I said. I couldn’t quite catch my breath.

  “What?”

  “Life. This . . . all of it. Everything. It’s too hard. I think I might be broken.”

  “Don’t say that,” Warren said, his voice thick. He blinked a moment. “You may not know this, but you are made of stars.”

  I forced myself to look at him.

  Something shifted in the air around us. Hall pass. Isn’t that what he’d said? But now I knew he hadn’t meant it generally, toward the group, the day at the jail. He had singled me out. And now again—he hadn’t demanded information about Paris or Dev. He hadn’t come to talk the park out of liability with Martha. He wasn’t giving Sam the ten-cent gesturing tour.

  Warren Hoyt was into me. Oh, jeez indeed.

  Now I knew where we were, how things stood. I found that my mouth was open and closed it. I loosened my grip on his sleeve and let my hand fall. “I’m sorry, I thought you said—”

  “Stardust, to be more accurate, which doesn’t sound as . . . well, romantic might not be the right word for the moment.” Warren Hoyt, red around the collar. He cleared his throat. “But it’s more accurate, you see. The planets, the sun, the many suns around which innumerable planets spin, and us, we are all made from the same star stuff. There are two trillion galaxies in the observable universe—observable with telescopes, obviously, not the naked eye—” He struggled over the word naked.

  “—and countless universes beyond that we may never know. But this third rock from this sun just happens to be the perfect spot, warm and well-lit, and with potable water rushing up on the shore here.” The brochure seemed to run out. When he started again, he sounded less like someone leading a tour group. “And we really have made a quaint little pantry of the place, building up cozy places to rest for the night and keep away from the bears and wolves and things. Before everything else we’ve done and built, we were little specks of the same stuff that lights up the night sky. If only people would step away from all the shiny technology. The phones, the tablets. The beeping mechanisms of daily life that seek to make life so connected yet make them so . . . empty.” He held up the ER beeper with a faint air of disgust.

  I had been trying to say that I didn’t deserve any of it. And now I wanted it all. The beeping mechanism of my daily life had been turned into the sheriff for evidence—I wanted that back, for sure. But more than that. Now I wanted to be star stuff. I wanted to be made of stars. I felt as though I had stepped through a door, only to find that I couldn’t walk back through. I was Alice, having sampled the cake. I was bigger.

  “What?” I said, all other words fled from my brain. Warren Hoyt? Buttoned-up Sir Warden Warren? I finally realized what Warren’s job was. Not a peace officer, not even an officer of the natural law like the conservation officer mentioned by Cooley. Not a ranger and not a functionary, the likes of Erica Ruth. He was a storyteller. A poet. They’d put a poet on the grounds, to make sure that everyone’s sights were raised to the heavens.

  “How did you learn about all this?” I said, not sure yet what all this might entail. The universe had a lot of pieces. How much of it can one person understand? How big was this tour? We’d already covered infinity, after all.

  “School, a bit. Reading, mostly.” He shrugged.

  I liked him, I realized. I didn’t know why, exactly. He was a goody-goody, wasn’t he? Not my type. But then I had decided to stay as far away from my type as I could from now on. If I could see them coming.

  It had been a while since I had met someone new that I liked, that I could imagine talking with, willingly sharing a beer with. Willingly spending time with, and on. Anyone, at all, that I could be bothered with. Dev, maybe, but that was something less noble. He had held my secret in his hands, and he had saved me once. He displayed moments of kindness but I didn’t trust those, not anymore, not since the sleepwalking thing. Sam? No, someday I would forget Sam’s name. Hillary, too, was a figure of something less than acquaintance. She was only waiting for me to ruin her.

  What about the others? Dev clung to Paris, and Paris—well, in the absence of the one she would have chosen, Paris had allied herself with Martha. Sort of. She had no plans to put Martha in that wedding that might never happen. And then Martha, who wouldn’t give Sam the time of day but was pregnant—with Malloy’s baby? The pairings should have been tidy. Two by two by two. Except without Hillary, who had they really been? Who was the fifth man? Who was the one who’d been left out? Not Malloy. Not ever Malloy.

  “If you’re interested, I could suggest a book or two,” Warren said.

  Click. I came back from where I’d gone to find Warren smiling at me in a way that made me nervous. “A book?”

  “Basic astronomy. I could suggest a few titles,” he said. “Of course for most people, it’s enough to visit the stars once in their lifetime, and you’ve done that.”

  “It might not be enough,” I said, turning toward the lake again. I couldn’t look at that soft blue shirt, almost rumpled, creased where I had grasped at the sleeve. I didn’t want to be a person who grasped at others anymore.

  The square of technology in Hoyt’s hand buzzed and flashed violently. “Well,” he said, with a sigh I thought I understood now. I was embarrassed and didn’t know what to say. The poor guy, to try and enter this thin atmosphere. I said nothing. I didn’t let him off the hook.

  “Well,” he said finally, “let’s go get you fixed up.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Out,” Cooley said as she pulled up outside the Hide-a-Way Motel. She hadn’t even entered the parking lot, but had drawn up to the corner and pulled to the side of the street, motor running.

  Sam and I waited. For all her dramatics, Cooley would have to come let us out.

  Back at the hospital, when the pager had gone off, I’d finally gotten a scan of my knuckles. I returned to the waiting room with a splinted but unbroken hand to find Warren Hoyt still waiting for me, offering me a ride. I’d chosen instead to wait for word about Paris and catch a ride back later. It was still only midafternoon. I’d stay all night in the bright lights of the ER waiting room, if necessary. Somehow, checking in on Paris seemed the right thing to do, and I was in no hurry to see the inside of a Hide-a-Way room. It was also far less awkward than the drive into town with what Warren Hoyt wanted the chance to say to me.

  And so I waited with Sam, or near Sam, or in the same room as Sam but not really with him, as other people’s dramas sorted themselves out around us. Eventually, Dev sent down word through the chaplain. Paris was hanging
on in the ICU, critical but stable for the moment. No visitors outside family allowed. The rest of us should go. The rest of us. Sam and I had looked at one another. The rest of us had dwindled considerably. “It’s going to be a long night,” the chaplain said. “You should go have some dinner, get some sleep.”

  Sure. Easy as that.

  While I tried to get the info desk to call us a cab, Sam discovered Cooley parked near the ER bay, keeping an eye on us and angry about the assignment. But she agreed to cart us to the motel, one last time.

  Martha was being kept overnight for observation. Now, standing in the dust of Cooley’s cruiser pulling away from the curb, under the flickering neon of the Hide-a-Way, I didn’t blame her for taking the opportunity to sleep in clean hospital sheets.

  “I need a drink,” Sam said, heading toward the bar.

  “If only all that crime scene wine hadn’t gone missing,” I muttered. It was the longest day in known history—had I only let Sam out of my room this morning?—and it was still only just evening, the sun still far from the horizon. I decided I could use a drink, too, and dragged my suitcase after me.

  Inside the bar, the same dark room. The same mild curiosity from the bar, the same churlish growl from the bartendress.

  “Hillary,” Sam breathed.

  My eyes were slow to adjust. She sat in the back booth again, this time facing the door. She had already identified us and was scowling, proprietary, trying to make her skinny arms take up more room at the table than they needed.

  “Do we sit with her or not?” Sam said.

  “Oh, we’re sitting with her,” I said. “I have some questions.”

  Sam’s face showed surprise. He went to the bar and asked for a wine list, then waited out the laughter and the presentation of the single wine bottle on the premises. Then he asked for a beer list. The bartender waved her slab of an arm at the two taps. “Our beer list.”

  “Shots,” I shouted over Sam’s shoulder on the way past. “Whatever we were drinking yesterday.”

  “None for me,” Hillary said, sliding toward the edge of the booth as I approached.

  “Sit,” I said. I stowed my suitcase and camera bag behind the booth, then slid in next to her, forcing her in. I took a fortifying glance at the high window in the wall. No matter how dark the bar was, the window was still blue, still daylight.

  “Surprised you can even come in here,” Hillary said. “Dark as it is.”

  So there it was. The story had made its path all the way ’round the horn to Hillary, even Hillary, the outsider. I shook my head. I’d had my doubts the rumor mill would include her at all. “How’d you find out?”

  “That cop,” she said, her features sharper than I remembered, older. Almost haggard, but then I knew what mirrors had to say about grief. “I told him about Angel today,” she said, glancing toward Sam’s back.

  “If you know about my darkness phobia,” I said, “it shouldn’t be too long before Sam knows about your kid.”

  “Shh,” she hissed. “Or I’ll talk to this entire bar about what a stand-up guy your husband was. How do you live with yourself?”

  I felt the heat of shame on my neck and cheeks. It was a good question, but not for the reason she thought. “That doesn’t have anything to do with me,” I said.

  Her cool look turned to disgust. “Your husband gets drunk and behind the wheel and kills five people—”

  “Four,” I said. “And himself.” I couldn’t explain why that mattered. It didn’t.

  “A guy cheated on you and then kills four people and himself—whatever the hell difference that makes—and you’re here to celebrate your anniversary?” she said. “Do you know how pathetic you are?”

  “Well, as you’ve seen,” I said, “very little celebrating has been accomplished. Believe me when I say I wish I’d never decided to take this trip.”

  Sam arrived with the shots and plunked them down in front of us. He slid into the other side of the booth. “Man, this place reminds me of Jimmy’s Woodlawn Tap, right, Hillary?”

  “What?”

  “Jimmy’s. Where everybody drank at school. U of C.” He waited for recognition that didn’t come. “University of Chicago?”

  “Oh, right,” she said, glancing my way. “I wasn’t much of a drinker.” She shot back the drink in front of her, wiped her mouth. “Back then.”

  “Huh,” Sam said, turning to me. “Catching her up on Paris?”

  “What about Paris?” she said.

  I waved him on. He obliged with a quick retelling of the facts so I didn’t have to, skipping over the part about Martha’s pregnancy. For Hillary’s sake or his own, I wasn’t sure. Interesting that Hillary had heard about Bix and about my being afraid of the dark—but not about Paris or this supposed heir.

  “Eden?”

  Click. When I focused, they were both staring at me. “Yeah?”

  “I said,” Sam said, “do you want another drink?”

  I hadn’t had my first, but their shots were gone. I threw mine back and slid the glass across to Sam.

  When he went back to the bar, Hillary spoke up. “I’m sorry,” she said, though her voice hadn’t softened. She sounded frustrated, not forgiving. “About calling you names and—what your husband did, you didn’t do.”

  There was something bitter in me that didn’t want to be released entirely from blame, a hard little kernel deep down. I’d have to think about that later. I nodded that I’d heard her.

  “And poor Paris,” she said. “I think. You know, it’s hard to know who to feel sorry for around here.”

  “Cheers to that,” Sam said. He had brought the spirits to the table to fill our drinks. He gestured with his chin to the bar. “I just bought this entire bottle, so let’s toast to whatever you got.”

  Hillary glanced my way. This stuff was potent. “Sure,” I said, clinking my glass to Sam’s. “Whatever you got.”

  THREE ROUNDS LATER, with Hillary’s pours switched to Sam’s side of the table, we started to get somewhere.

  “Heartbroken,” Sam muttered.

  “Who?” I said.

  “Everyone,” he said. He gave Hillary a petulant look, in case she decided to keep too much of the mourning to herself.

  “Not everyone,” I said. The liquor had calmed my eye twitch a bit, but what I knew was a subtle movement felt like a donkey kick from the inside. I remembered the tiny tic as I stood at the mirror. Hadn’t I decided to be the kind of person I wanted to be? But who was that? Maybe I could be the sort of person who got to the bottom of things. Nancy Fucking Drew. The faster we figured things out, the sooner I could go home and get to the bottom of my own problems. “Did either of you use my phone to text Malloy on the day he died?”

  Hillary looked askance at me. “What? Your phone? But why—”

  “It wasn’t me,” I said. “That’s what I’m saying. Sam?”

  “That was Paris,” he said, and downed another. “I heard Dev being a dick about it to her.” He pressed a nasal whine into service to act out Dev’s role. “‘How obvious can you be? What were you thinking?’ She tried to deny it, but I guess Martha saw her, too. Your phone has a bright pink case, right?”

  “When was this?”

  “Well, he was grilling her about it on the way to the observation area, so she must have had it when she went into the house for the wine. Remember, Martha went to change, after she spilled?” He stared out into space for a second. “The last day.”

  “Where was I?”

  “Leading us,” he said. “And then you passed up the opening. Somewhere along there. They shut up when they saw me listening.”

  “Paris used my phone to text Malloy to meet her after Hillary was asleep?” I asked.

  “What?” Hillary said. “That bitch!”

  I waved my hand at her. Wait until she heard about Martha’s news. “So who used my phone to . . . oh, that’s easy. Dev,” I said.

  “Dev what?” Hillary said.

  “Dev used my phone to c
all the police, and he called the park, too. He said he remembered the number, but no one remembers numbers anymore. He must have been looking through my phone. And while he was in there, he also texted a bunch of my friends and family upsetting messages that I’ll probably be explaining away for the next year.”

  “Dev wouldn’t do that,” Sam said. His eyes went distant. “I don’t think. Why would Dev do that?”

  “Because he knew Paris had used my phone to message Malloy. And when Malloy’s body was found and he knew it wasn’t going to look good, he sent a bunch of other texts, trying to bury her messages in sheer volume. And in not a small way, make me look unstable—”

  “Wait, the message to Malloy was from your phone?” Hillary said. “He never said anything about a weird invitation from an unknown number. I would think he’d have been surprised, to say the least. I mean, from a stranger?” She gazed at me for a second, then at Sam. “You were a stranger, right?”

  She was trying to piece together the possible out of the impossible, to form sense from chaos. She’d seen Sam come out of my motel room, early morning, and now this. “Never met any of them before,” I said. “And am not particularly fond of any one of them, by the way.”

  “Not nice,” Sam said.

  I hadn’t given it any thought, but suddenly the answer came to me. I knew why Malloy hadn’t thought the message strange. My number was unknown, but Paris had signed the message. That dumb emoji that Sheriff Barrows had been willing to allow had been a pocket-dial, the one text on my phone he’d been willing to ignore. It was no accident, that little picture. “She used a symbol so that Malloy would know it was her,” I said. “A pear emoji. Pare. Paris.”

  “That stupid pear,” Sam said, his syllables soft. “I’ve seen it. I know what you mean.”

  “The sheriff thought it was an apple.”

  “Why didn’t she just use her own phone?” Hillary said. “She would have had it in her pocket or whatever, right?”

  “Probably, but you said yourself that Malloy ignored calls and messages from her. Maybe she was trying to trick him into paying attention.”