Darkness My Old Friend

by Lisa Unger

  “Well, it’s normally his mom. But I can ask his teacher,” Denise said. “We hardly ever see the dad. I think he works in the city.” He heard her fingers clattering on a keyboard, then a pause.

  “You know,” she said after a second, “I don’t need to ask. It was Paula. She stopped by the office to say Cameron was going to be out the next couple of days. They were going away.”

  “How did she seem?”

  “Oh, busy, rushed, like everyone these days.”

  “Did she say where she was going?”

  “No,” she said. She drew out the syllable, as if she were thinking about it. “No. She didn’t.”

  “Thanks, Denise.”

  “Is everything all right?” She’d lowered her voice to a whisper. He’d always liked her. She was one of the few people in The Hollows who could be counted on to keep her mouth shut.

  “I hope so,” he said. “Not a word about this, okay?”

  “Of course not,” she said. “You know me better than that.”

  When he hung up with Denise, every nerve ending in his body was buzzing. If he were still a cop, he’d know what to do. There was a very clear protocol to follow: have someone file a missing-persons report, access phone and banking and credit-card records, put her license-plate number in the system, hope she got pulled over or that someone found her abandoned car. But he was a civilian now; he couldn’t do any of that. He could report her missing. But he didn’t want to do that. If she had fled for good reason, he’d only be helping her husband track her down.

  He put in a call to the contact at the credit bureau he’d reached out to about Carr’s ex and left a voice mail. Jack Kellerman. They’d been drinking buddies forever, meeting every couple of months in the city or here in The Hollows when Jack was back visiting his parents. Jack was always broke, so Jones always picked up the tab. Jack returned the favor by putting Jones’s requests ahead of everyone else’s or keeping them quiet when they were trying to get around a subpoena.

  “I thought you were out of this game,” Jack had said when they’d spoken yesterday.

  “I guess you’re never really out of it, somehow,” said Jones.

  “It does get a hold on you,” Jack said. “You know you can count on me anytime.”

  On the job Jack had been Jones’s most valuable contact. It was nice to know that the relationship was still there. If Jones did decide to go private (which he had not), it would make a big difference. Once you had access to someone’s credit-card charges, you could easily track that person-hotels, gas stations, tollbooths, ATMs. Everyone used plastic. If someone stopped, he was either dead, off the deep end, or trying to get lost.

  Next he phoned Chuck, ostensibly to tell him about Paula Carr and the odd call from her husband.

  “You think there’s reason to be concerned for her safety?” asked Chuck when he was done.

  “Possibly,” said Jones.

  “You want to report her missing?”

  “I’d stop short of that.”

  “Why?”

  Jones told him about the call to Denise Smith.

  “So what do you want me to do?” Chuck sounded annoyed. Overworked. Underpaid. Hassled by bosses and civilians, probably his wife, too.

  “I guess I was just wondering what you think,” said Jones. This wasn’t strictly true. There was silence on the line; Chuck had stopped typing.

  “If it were me,” Chuck said, “I’d call the parents. Feel them out if you’re concerned.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” said Jones. Jones could tell that Chuck was flattered that Jones had sought out his opinion. He was getting into it. No cop could resist a good mystery, or the idea that someone wanted to know what he thought about it.

  “If she hadn’t picked up the kid,” Chuck said, “I’d be more inclined to tell you to fill out a missing-persons report, get the ball rolling in case we’re looking at foul play. I mean, if she really had assaulted him and taken the kids, why wouldn’t he have called the police and filed a report? If he was a good guy, truly concerned for the safety of his kids, no matter how much he loved his wife, he’d have filed charges last night. He’d be frantically looking-and so would we.”

  “Exactly,” Jones said. “It’s suspicious.”

  “Yeah, I’d call the parents,” Chuck said. “Chances are she went to them.”

  “That’s good advice. In the meantime can I give you her tag number?” he said. This was the real reason he’d called Chuck. There was new license-plate-recognition software. Using security and CCTV cameras that were all over the place, cops could track plates now. It was something that was happening very quietly, under the radar of the media and civil-rights groups. As a civilian, Jones didn’t have access to that anymore, and the technology was so new that he didn’t have a private contact. “Maybe you’ll get a hit on her vehicle somewhere?”

  Another pause. It was a favor he was asking Chuck, something not quite aboveboard. Jones waited.

  “Yeah, sure,” Chuck said finally.

  Jones had taken down the make, model, and plate number of Paula Carr’s SUV when he left her house the other day. Force of habit.

  “Since I have you on the phone…” said Chuck.

  “What’s up?”

  “Want to take a ride up to the dig site? The Grove boys are giving my men a hard time. Things might go easier if you were there to mediate.”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” said Jones.

  Chuck gave a little laugh. “It’s nice to be working with you again, man,” he said.

  Brother, you have no idea.

  chapter twenty-five

  When Eloise glanced in the visor mirror to check her reflection, she saw Marla in the backseat.

  “It has changed so much here,” Marla said. She sounded wistful and far away, a voice broadcasting from another time and place.

  Eloise ignored her. This was new. She was still aware of herself, of Ray, the car interior. She felt the heat of Ray’s thigh pressed against hers. She could smell the stale cigar smoke that had made a home in the upholstery. The car was old; he could afford better. There was a crack in the beige dash, an ash burn on the seat. Outdated pictures of his kids were fastened with rubber bands to the driver’s-side visor. Drive it till it dies, that was Ray’s philosophy about cars-about cases, about relationships, about shoes, too, for that matter. The odometer on the old Caddy (bought used) read ten thousand miles, having turned over last year. She reached out a finger to touch the crack.

  “What?” said Ray. “It’s a piece of shit. I know.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “I’m old-school, El. I’m not buying into the mass-consumer bullshit. Everything doesn’t have to be newer, better, brighter, shinier. What about the good-enough stuff rotting away in landfills? I’m about using as little as possible.”

  “Old-school is new-school,” Eloise said. She held back a smile. “You’re preaching to the choir.” Eloise looked in the mirror again, hoping Marla had gone. But no.

  “Nobody ever loved me like Michael,” she said. “Not even Mack. Even as a baby, Michael never wanted anyone else. I thought he’d outgrow it, but he never did.”

  Eloise remembered how Michael used to cry when his mother left, even when he knew she was just running out for groceries or going for a jog. It wasn’t normal. Little Cara was so easy. She might fuss for her mama, but eventually she settled in after a bit to color or have some animal crackers. Michael sulked, sitting by the window until Marla came home. He was eleven or twelve the last time Eloise had watched him, far too old for that kind of behavior.

  “He was fourteen that night,” Marla said. “Too big, too tall for his age. Taller than Mack already by then. He never made friends easily. He was happy to stay home with me. And I was so lonely in my marriage to Mack that I was happy to have him. Is that wrong?”

  Eloise saw the dark purple necklace of handprints on Marla’s throat then. She brought a hand to her own neck.

  “
What are you staring at?” asked Ray.

  “Nothing,” said Eloise. She glanced down at her knees. Her legs looked like tree branches, thin and knobby, jutting out from her yellow slicker.

  “He can’t let me go,” said Marla.

  When had she started to let it waste her like this? Even her doctor wasn’t sure what was wrong with her. She took something for the pain and weakness in her joints. One doctor had posited that her visions were something like ministrokes or TIAs. So she took something to prevent those episodes-which clearly it didn’t. She wasn’t supposed to drive, and she did only when something was really important, like her visit to Jones Cooper the other day. There was something for her stomach pains, diagnosed as IBS. Then there was the pill to help her sleep through the night. Her cholesterol was through the roof, even though she hardly ate. They gave her more medication for that.

  “Mom? Are you taking all these pills?” Amanda had asked last year. She’d come to visit Eloise-without the kids. Her obligatory visit, which was actually worse than if she didn’t visit at all. Eloise could hardly stand to see herself through Amanda’s eyes. But her daughter was so kind, so vigilant about gifts and cards and flowers on Mother’s Day. The children sent Eloise crayon drawings. And it was unspoken between them that Amanda endured her visits to Eloise the way she did her yearly trip to the dentist, something anticipated with distaste, obligatory, and mercifully brief.

  But yes, she was taking all those pills on her little schedule or as needed. Lately she’d been wondering what would happen to her if she just stopped taking them. Maybe the legion of things wrong with her would march in and sweep her away.

  She looked into the mirror and saw that Marla was gone. She was aware that they were on the access road into the Hollows Wood. It was narrow, barely a road at all, just a rut between trees. Ray brought the car to a stop.

  The road ahead was wet, the dirt turning into thick, gooey mud. The rain was coming down, just a drizzle. But the sky was that kind of gray that looked as if it would never be any other color again.

  “We have to go on foot the rest of the way,” said Ray. He regarded her with a worried squint. “Can you do it?”

  She didn’t bother being indignant. “I think so.”

  “It’s not far. But the old girl isn’t going to make it through that muck.” He patted the steering wheel. “Or if she does, she won’t make it out again.”

  As soon as they exited the car, they heard voices. They followed, Eloise holding on to Ray’s arm over the wet and unstable ground. Her yellow rain boots were ugly against the brown, made a slurping noise in the mud. By the time they reached the clearing, they saw four men in uniform digging into the earth. A few other men in heavy black slickers stood around watching. With the dead trees and the rain, the scene was as grim as a funeral. Eloise shuddered.

  “Cops,” said Ray. He said it like one might say “termites”-with surprise and dismay and a dread of things to come. One could forget that he’d been a cop himself. “What are they looking for?”

  “I bet they’re looking for Marla.”

  “No,” he said. “How would they know about the Chapel?”

  There was a flash of something in the trees across the opening. And then she saw him-too big, too tall, as his mother had described him. Clad in black, his long, dark hair hanging wet and ropy, fists clenched at his sides, he looked ghoulish. When he’d first come to see her, he’d looked sweet and bookish. He’d had his long hair back in a ponytail, wore those cute wire-rimmed glasses, was dressed neatly in jeans and a blue T-shirt. He was much like she’d remembered him as a boy, quiet, soft-spoken. The man she saw through the trees made her heart thud with fear. Eloise was about to point him out to Ray. But she was interrupted.

  “I got something.” The voice rang high-pitched with alarm. It disturbed the air. Some large-winged birds above them flapped away. Then Jones Cooper was coming up behind them, clearing his throat so, Eloise guessed, as to not take them by surprise. Ray turned around to look at the other man.

  “All of a sudden, it’s Grand Central around here,” said Ray. He didn’t even bother to conceal his dislike, which took the form of a sneer. Eloise couldn’t remember what it was with the two of them. And she didn’t much care-two old dogs with a bone between them.

  “It has been a while, Muldune,” said Jones. Eloise noted how he did always try to be polite, even when he was annoyed. She wasn’t sure if this was a good trait or a dishonest one. She looked again across the clearing in time to see Michael slipping away into the dark between the trees. She still didn’t say anything; something held her back.

  The three of them started walking toward the group of men who stood around looking down at the ground. As he approached, Jones asked, “What did you find there, son?”

  The man in uniform was just a boy, with a smooth, unlined face free from stubble. He looked pale and stricken.

  “Detective Cooper,” the boy said. Did everybody in this town know Jones Cooper? “I think I found bones.”

  They all looked at the hole in the earth and saw the shock of white against the dark of the soil.

  “Okay,” said Jones. He put up his hands. “Step away and stop digging. Call Detective Ferrigno and get some crime-scene techs out here.”

  “Don’t tell them, Eloise. Please.” Marla again. Just her voice, loud inside Eloise’s head.

  “It’s too late,” she said. And everyone turned to look at her with grim faces. That was her last awareness of the scene.

  Marla sat up from the dirt and brushed herself off. For someone who’d been buried for more than twenty years, she looked remarkably well coiffed. Except for that throat, which was a mottled black and purple.

  “He was supposed to spend the night with a friend. I should have known he’d come home. Cara was asleep. You remember how she slept like the dead, don’t you? Once that child was asleep, I had a solid twelve hours before she’d open her eyes again. Mack was working late, grading term papers in his office at the university. I had been looking forward to that time to myself all week.”

  She stood up. “That’s what you lose when you’re a mother and a wife. You lose time to yourself. Your time is never yours again, is it? Not really.”

  She sighed. “Anyway, it was nothing, what he saw. I had a friend over. As I confided in him about my life, I cried. My friend moved to comfort me. That’s what Michael saw. That’s all, I swear. But the rage in that boy, like all his life it had just been simmering, waiting for a reason to blow. My God. Why was he so angry at me?”

  But then Marla was running and Eloise was high above her. It was like a satellite image she couldn’t zoom in on. She couldn’t get closer as she watched Marla darting through the woods. Two large forms gave chase, until one of them gained on her and took her to the ground. The other form came up behind, and there was a fight. Marla ran again, disappeared into the Chapel, while the two men engaged in a vicious physical battle that left one of them lifeless on the ground. The one who remained standing went after her again.

  But that was all. Eloise came to on her back in the field with Ray and Jones looming over her.

  “Eloise, are you okay?” asked Jones.

  Ray helped her up, less concerned. “What did you see?” he asked.

  “She said there was someone else there that night. A friend, not a lover,” Eloise said to Ray. She didn’t care about Jones, what he thought of her, whether or not he believed her. She leaned against Ray.

  “He was here, watching the dig, Ray. Just now, in the real world.”

  “Who?”

  “Michael Holt. I saw him run off. Go after him.” She pointed in the direction she’d seen him run, and Ray took off, leaving her alone with Jones.

  “Are you okay?” he asked again.

  “I’m okay.”

  He looked after Ray, seemed to consider giving chase himself. But he stayed rooted. Others had arrived. She saw more men moving into the clearing.

  “It doesn’t seem like this whole t
hing, whatever it is you do, is very good for your health,” said Jones.

  She didn’t know how to answer him. No one who wasn’t another psychic, or her daughter, had made that observation before. This is killing you, Mom. You need to walk away from it. In fact, no one seemed to notice her at all. For most people it was only about what she could do for them.

  “He’s using you,” said Jones. He was still looking off in the direction where Ray had gone. “You shouldn’t let him anymore.”

  She was about to protest. But she found she didn’t have it in her. “He’s my friend.”

  She sensed that he was about to make some kind of comment, but then he moved away from her and toward them, the other men, with a quick glance back. She turned and exited the clearing, heading back toward the car. There was nothing left to do for Marla Holt; she wouldn’t visit Eloise again. Eloise couldn’t help her anymore.

  chapter twenty-six

  Michael ran through the wet woods, branches slapping at his face, roots tugging at his feet. His chest was tight with effort, his heart an engine running too hot, too hard. When he finally came to a stop at the mine head, he was sobbing. Then, in the next moment, everything in his stomach came up in one heaving orange gush. The sound of the splatter against the ground made him dry-heave until he could hardly breathe. Then he sank against the wooden frame of the mine entrance. After a while his breathing slowed, his nausea subsided. The cool air from the mine shaft seemed to wash out and over him, soothing him.

  He’d been coming here his whole life. His father had shown him the way. It was here where he went below the first time, first ventured into that always dark and cool and quiet place. There was no chatter, no traffic, no one else to look on him in judgment, to take stock of him and find him wanting.

  It was Cooper who had led them all to that place, brought the police. And Eloise and Ray had been there, too. If it hadn’t been for that stupid girl, tramping about where she didn’t belong, no one ever would have known about him digging out there. Now the site would be lost, or someone else would take credit for it. But no, that wasn’t it, was it? That wasn’t why he couldn’t stop crying.