The Gift of the Darkness

by Valentina Giambanco

  “A shot in the back of the head in a dark alley wouldn’t have achieved the same goal.”

  “Does Kamen have a problem with this scenario?” Madison asked.

  “He doesn’t like it when people change their habits, that’s all. It worries him.”

  “Does it worry you?”

  Brown shrugged.

  “Did Kamen have any idea about Thirteen Days?”

  “No.”

  “This morning, when Payne told you the prints on the glass were Cameron’s, you were surprised, like it was bad news for us somehow.”

  “I was surprised,” Brown conceded.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I just didn’t expect him to be able to leave any.”

  Carl Doyle knocked softly on Nathan Quinn’s door and walked in.

  “He’s here,” he said.

  “Show him in.”

  “Do you need anything else?”

  “No, Carl. Thank you for staying. You should go home now.”

  It was too late to discuss the situation with Sinclair’s files or why Bob Greenhut was now the executor of Jimmy’s will. At the best of times, Nathan Quinn was not a man who would encourage questions about himself, and this was far from the best of times. All Doyle could offer was his support and his kindness, and he would do just that.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Doyle didn’t mind staying late—it gave him a chance to catch up on work. He did, however, mind seeing Tod Hollis, the firm’s chief investigator, coming in at that hour in the evening. Nothing good ever started that way.

  As always, Hollis wore a dark suit and tie, more federal agent than the cop he’d once been, close-cropped hair and a mustache that had more gray in it than black. He had been shot after twenty-five years on the job, and the resulting limp, however slight, had put him into the private-investigation business. Quinn, Locke was his main client.

  Hollis gripped Quinn’s hand and shook it hard once.

  “I’m very sorry about James and his family.”

  “Thank you.”

  Hollis had dealt with many victims’ loved ones through the years. He looked at Quinn to see how far along he was on that ugly road.

  “Have a seat. Would you like a drink?” Quinn gestured to a couple of chairs opposite his desk. He had poured himself a shot of bourbon half an hour ago, and it was still untouched.

  “No, thank you.”

  Quinn sat down in the companion chair.

  “How are you doing?” Hollis asked.

  “I’m fine,” Quinn replied. “I’m sorry to have called on you so late—”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I need your help.”

  “Anything I can do.”

  “This is going to be different.”

  “What is it?”

  Hollis saw the line of darkness around Quinn’s eyes and hoped it was mere tiredness.

  “I want to put a reward out for information that will lead to the arrest of the man who murdered James and his family: two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I’d like you to be in charge of that.”

  “It’s a lot of money.”

  “It’s worth it.”

  “I know. What I mean is, an amount like that, every creep from here to Miami is going to crawl out from under a rock and tell on his mama.”

  “What do you think would be appropriate?”

  “One hundred thousand dollars, and we’re still going to have a tough time sifting through all the calls.”

  “The checkbook is open.”

  “I know.”

  “Something else. I’d like you to investigate the murders yourself.”

  The police investigation was hardly two days old, and Hollis knew the department—all good people who would put in the hours “until.”

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “The police say they’ve found evidence that James might have been embezzling funds from one of his tax clients. They say it could be a revenge killing. They were here today going through his files. Of course, they found nothing to support their theory.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t believe it for a second.”

  “What about the evidence they have?” Hollis would always think like a cop.

  “I’ll get to that. There’s more: they’re already looking for someone.”

  “Who?”

  “The wrong man.”

  “Okay.”

  “And I am his attorney.”

  Hollis waited.

  “John Cameron.”

  Hollis sat back in his chair.

  “I think I’ll have that drink now,” he said.

  Quinn poured him a shot. Hollis held the glass without drinking.

  “If I’m taking this on, and I want to, you’re going to have to tell me all you know. I can’t go into this half-cocked.”

  “I’m going to tell you everything the police told me. Everything that’s relevant to the case. After that you make your own moves.”

  Hollis took out a pad. “You do realize they might be right?” he said.

  “I don’t think so,” Quinn replied.

  “Is it like something you have a feeling about or something you know absolutely, without the shadow of a doubt?”

  “I know this absolutely.”

  “Nathan, this is an open case. Mere days old. No one is going to welcome us with open arms while the police are still on it. What happens if whatever I dig up confirms their theory?”

  “It won’t,” Quinn said. “Find out what you can about the detectives. I want to know who I’m dealing with. And I couldn’t care less about their welcome.”

  The patrol car was parked in front of the Sinclairs’ home. During the evening the uniformed officers had regularly walked the perimeter of the property. There had been a problem in the last few years with the sale online of items from crime scenes. For a price, an object from Blue Ridge could be out of the house, the city, and the state before their shift was over.

  Brock and McDowell turned off their flashlights as they reached the car. They were about to run out of coffee, and that thought held McDowell’s attention as much as securing the house. Neither of them knew the neighborhood very well. They had driven around on patrols, sure, but they were not familiar with its secrets. They were not aware of a path three hundred yards past the house. From Blue Ridge, through the trees and between the houses, it led down to the narrow cobble beach and the water. They couldn’t have known about it, but John Cameron did.

  He moved through the pitch-black darkness without hesitation, a shadow deeper than the rest. He made no sound on the dirt path and in seconds reached the water. Puget Sound glimmered for a moment before him; then a cloud passed over the moon, and he stepped onto the beach.

  Tiny lights blinked from Vashon Island. James Sinclair’s house stood empty on the right. Cameron started walking.

  He had observed the patrol officers, seen the beams of their flashlights. He had waited till he was sure they were back in their car and then moved down the path.

  Cameron climbed the wooden steps up to the lawn, crossed it, and reached the patio door. The key was already in his hand, and he let himself in. He closed the glass door behind him, locked it, and pulled the curtains shut.

  He stood still and heard himself breathe the stale air in the living room, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness inside. Then he took out a small flashlight and turned it on, making sure none of the familiar furnishings had been moved since his last visit.

  He raised the beam slightly and noticed the smudges of black powder used by the crime-scene unit to dust for fingerprints. They were everywhere. Someone had toppled a pile of magazines, and scuff marks on the wooden floor spoke of the many police officers and technicians who had trooped in and out. Small intrusions into the life of the house.

  Less than thirty feet away, the two patrolmen were shooting the breeze. He was aware of their presence and unconcerned by it. Whateve
r his thoughts or his memories of what happened in the house, they did not spill over the present and the job in hand. He pointed the flashlight at the floor again and took the stairs to the master bedroom. Halfway up, a heavy scent permeated the air, like a warm day in a butcher’s.

  From his many visits, he remembered which steps would creak, and he quietly made his way to the bedroom. The flashlight beam found the bed and lingered there, then followed the trail of the detectives in every mark circled on the wall and every powder stain around the windows and door. He noticed that the top of the door frame had been removed; he went to the children’s room and saw the bullet holes in the wall.

  In a place where awful violence had been committed, John Cameron walked from room to room, observing without hurry. In the study, he sat back on the leather sofa and turned off the flashlight.

  Madison, tired and restless, drove as fast as the law would allow toward Three Oaks. She dialed Brown’s number.

  “I’m not done with the day yet,” she said. “I’m thinking of going to the crime scene for a walk-around, see if anything overlaps with Cameron’s house.”

  “If you find something—”

  “I know. I’ll get one of the officers to co-sign the slip.”

  “By the way, the keys are here. How are you going to get in?”

  “Well, I’ll have to improvise. I’m counting on a spare key under the mat.”

  “I don’t want to hear someone broke a back window to get in.”

  “Don’t worry. If I don’t find anything in five minutes, I’ll just go home and not sleep.”

  By the time she pulled in alongside the patrol car, Madison was reasonably annoyed with herself. She showed the officers her badge and explained who she was and what she was going to do. Brock and McDowell exchanged a look; there might have been some eye-rolling involved—Madison couldn’t be sure.

  It took her ten minutes to find the sealed plastic bag inside the hollow of a stump a few yards up the driveway, in it a key ring and two keys.

  Five minutes past midnight, Madison crossed the threshold. She turned on the lights in the hall and in the living room. Everything was as she remembered it. She didn’t have a plan exactly; it was more a case of knowing what she was looking for after she had found it.

  The central heating system was just turning itself off for the night, soft clicks emanating from the registers. She headed up the stairs.

  Madison reached the master bedroom. In terms of blood and chaos, it was not the worst crime scene she could imagine, not by a long shot. But her mind envisioned rage played out here, blind and overwhelming yet contained in the neat turnout of the bedcovers. Rage implied more than revealed. If that thing made a sound, Madison considered, it was not something she ever wanted to hear.

  She did not entertain those thoughts for long; it was late, and she was rattling around in an empty house. She knew very well why she had gone upstairs: if she was going to search the Sinclairs’ house and possessions, it was a way of asking their permission. Maybe the house would now be willing to give her what she needed.

  Her steps creaked as she passed the study.

  Standing behind the open door of the Sinclairs’ study, John Cameron could tell from the weight of the footsteps that it was a woman walking by. She had to be a detective. The officers in the car had not set foot in the house since he had been watching them. He resented the intrusion. Still, if she was looking for something in the middle of the night, it might be worth knowing what.

  For less than a second he balanced curiosity against caution, head cocked like a bird’s as he listened to the small sounds from the living room. Then he started moving. See him, not see him—he honestly didn’t care one way or the other. His work had been interrupted, and he was not in a forgiving mood.

  Madison looked around. The Sinclairs had lived well but not extravagantly. There were two cars in the garage and the usual trappings of an affluent lifestyle scattered around the house, the furniture mostly modern with some exquisite antique pieces. It all added up to a comfortable life, and yet it didn’t answer Madison’s question: why would James Sinclair need to steal money from the one person he shouldn’t mess with? How could he be that dumb?

  Gambling debts nobody knew about, blackmail, a woman on the side—it was all possible. Madison knelt in front of a low shelf of DVDs.

  The films were mostly Disney classics for children, with a few Scorseses and Spielbergs. All pretty standard stuff. Then, bingo. Christmas concert and party. The handwriting was neat and clear. Home movies. She reached for the disk, put it in the player, and pressed Play.

  A school auditorium, Christmas decorations hanging from the walls. A stage with empty chairs.

  “Here they are,” a male voice said.

  “I see him,” a female voice behind the camera responded.

  Anne Sinclair pointed the camera at a group of children who trooped out from the wings and took their seats with their instruments.

  “Where is he?” A boy’s voice. A rustle of clothes close to the mike.

  Without seeing it, Madison imagined James Sinclair lifting one of the boys onto his shoulders so that he could see his brother play. The music started. Madison smiled in spite of herself: teachers never changed. It was Pachelbel’s Canon.

  The first bars would have covered Cameron’s steps on the stairs, had he made any sound. He came halfway down and paused; the house was dark except for a table lamp in the living room.

  In the pool of light, a woman sat with her back to him, the television throwing blue shadows onto the walls.

  Cameron saw her profile against the screen as she turned to pick up the remote. A black-and-white photograph taken by a bored reporter was enough for him to recognize Alice Madison as the detective who had marched the fake FedEx man out of the crime scene. Whatever Detective Madison was looking for, she was looking for it in a Christmas recital.

  He’d rather have found her going through the bookshelves and emptying drawers; instead, she sat still watching the DVD. Cameron watched her and the screen in front of her. She didn’t move, and neither did he.

  The music was awkward and frail, John Sinclair’s face half revealed by the recorder. Madison continued to watch.

  The piece came to its end, and another one started; this time it was Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” Sometimes the shot widened to show the whole stage, but mostly it stayed on the Sinclair boy.

  When the audience started clapping, Madison paused the video. She got up and went to the kitchen. It was off the living room to the right.

  Cameron heard cupboards being opened and a tap turned on. Had he been a sensible man, he would have left then, gone out a window, and crossed the back lawn in seconds. But John Cameron didn’t feel sensible at that point of the evening. He leaned back against the banister and crossed his arms: time was all he has. To his immense relief, he felt nothing at all.

  Madison drank a glass of water from the tap, refilled it, and drank another. Those videos were all that there would ever be of the Sinclairs on this earth.

  After she washed and dried the highball glass, she put it back and sat down with the video again. She pressed Play. The film continued into the after-performance party: children ran around, and parents stood in groups and chatted. James Sinclair wore a navy blue shirt and jeans; he had an easy smile and looked nothing like the dead man Madison had seen upstairs. She was glad there wasn’t any more music.

  Madison ignored the boys and concentrated on the parents: when the husband took over the camera, she saw that Anne Sinclair was tall with an angular face and intelligent eyes. She wore no jewelry that Madison could see aside from her wedding band.

  Madison played the video till the end. She puffed her cheeks and exhaled slowly and went on to the next. There were at least a dozen. She ran through a birthday party with the Fast-Forward button pressed and wished that she could make herself a cup of coffee. Strangely enough, that seemed inappropriate.

  She was changing d
isks when her phone rang. It startled her, and she automatically looked at her watch.

  “You’re still there.” It was Brown.

  “I’m going through the home movies.”

  “Anything good?”

  “A lot of regular stuff. Recitals, birthday parties.”

  “No jackpot yet?”

  “No. I’m going to watch another couple of films, and then I’ll clock off.”

  “Half day.”

  “You got that right.” She smiled. “Brown . . .”

  “Yes.”

  It sounded as if he was in his car.

  “Why would he need $25,000? I’m looking around here, and I see nothing that he couldn’t already afford on his salary.”

  “Which, as it happens, was far higher than either yours or mine.”

  “Exactly. So?”

  Cameron wished he could hear the whole conversation and not just Madison’s half. It was certainly a very interesting subject. He would have been able to give them one or two illuminating facts, but this was neither the time nor the place.

  Suddenly, Madison stood up and stretched. Cameron’s eyes followed her every movement.

  “I don’t know,” Brown said.

  “Well, we’d better find out.”

  “We’ll talk to the bank in the morning.”

  “See you tomorrow.”

  Madison slipped a new disk into the video; it was the younger child’s birthday—David. His seventh, his last. She let it run at normal speed, listening to the now-familiar voices and keeping an eye on it while she looked at the pictures on the mantelpiece over the fireplace. It was the normal assortment of formal occasions and candid shots. A nice group wedding picture taken at the reception. Her eyes found Nathan Quinn, paused for a second, and moved on. She scanned all the faces. No John Cameron.

  David Sinclair’s voice screamed in delight from the television. His mother laughed.

  “What do you say, David?” she said.

  “Thank you, Uncle Jack.”

  Madison froze. Cameron exhaled slowly. Madison backed up a few seconds and pressed Play.

  The family was inside the house. A big table was covered in paper plates and decorations and discarded wrapping paper, flashes from other cameras. Madison found the mother, the father, the elder brother, the birthday boy. Quinn was there too, a dozen other children of roughly the same age, and more unidentified adults. Once she had eliminated the women, there were only six unknown men. Two were too old, one was Japanese, three were just plain wrong.