Darkness My Old Friend

by Lisa Unger

  “And you’re happy to be engaged in this type of work again? It gratifies you?”

  “It does. I guess I originally came to police work as a kind of penance,” said Jones. “A way to make up for wrongs I’d perpetrated.”

  “And has that changed?” The doctor took a sip from his water bottle.

  “It has.”

  “What does it mean to you now?”

  Jones thought about it a moment. But he didn’t have to think about it much. He had a strange clarity on the subject.

  “You know, I think I’m a little lost unless I’m helping people.”

  Part of Jones expected the doctor to praise him for his selflessness. But Dr. Dahl was quiet a moment, seemed to be turning over Jones’s words.

  Then, “You know, I think that’s fine, Jones. As long as you don’t use the work of helping others to hide from things inside you that need tending. I guess we both know you did that for a long time, first with your mother, then in your profession.”

  What was it with these guys? Was there some kind of manual they were all reading from? Maggie had said almost the same words. Jones didn’t respond, really, just mimicked that affirming noise the doctor often made.

  “But we can talk more about that next time,” said the doctor. “Our time is up.”

  This was the other thing that always irked Jones about therapy. When your time was up, you got booted. It was like you were just getting comfortable, getting used to confiding in someone, and then you were asked to leave.

  Back in his car, he turned on the cell phone; he expected messages. But there was nothing. Nothing from Chuck about the bones they’d found, which were being analyzed, or about Michael Holt, who’d apparently disappeared into the mines and had not yet emerged. Nothing from Paula Carr’s parents; he’d called them twice, only to get voice mail. Nothing from Jack at the credit bureau on Paula Carr, or on Cole’s mother, Robin O’Conner.

  This was the thing about investigative work that people just didn’t get. There were all these dead, waiting spots: waiting for DNA results-or in this case dental records-for contacts to wade through a river of other requests just like yours, for people who didn’t want to talk to you to call you back. That’s why cops drank after hours and overate on the job. How were you supposed to deal with the agitation, the urgency in the spaces where you had no control whatsoever? You went and got some food, scarfed it down in your car.

  While he was still holding the phone, staring at it in frustration, it started to ring as though he’d willed it to do so. Ricky had set Jones’s cell so that it sounded like the ringing of an old rotary phone. The tone was oddly comforting, that solid clanging of a bell, that sound of a real mechanism working-even though it wasn’t that. The world had gone so quiet, all the noises that machines made now were soft and ambient, musical.

  “Okay,” said Kellerman. “Here’s what I’ve got.”

  “Great,” said Jones. He felt the relief that always came with action.

  “Paula Carr hasn’t used her credit cards or made any bank withdrawals in forty-eight hours.” Kellerman paused to issue a hacking cough. The sound of it made Jones cringe.

  “Sorry,” Kellerman said. “One interesting thing. I did a little digging and found an account under her maiden name, husband not listed as an account holder. Last week there was a large withdrawal. Ten thousand.”

  Jones thought about this, and it made sense. She was planning a flight. She wanted to find Cole’s mother before she left with her kids; that’s why she’d called him. Something had happened to force her hand. Or maybe something worse.

  “That’s interesting,” said Jones.

  “Looks to me like she wanted to get lost.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Something else notable. Paula Carr hasn’t made any ATM withdrawals in years. Her paycheck from a small company was direct-deposited into a joint account. But that account only had one ATM card, and that was for the husband. Her credit-card purchases are strictly mom-type charges. I’m talking about grocery and big-box stores, kids’ clothing stores, online book retailers. There’s not a charge on there over a couple hundred dollars.”

  “So her husband had her on a leash,” said Jones. “Controlling her spending.”

  “I wish I could keep my wife on a leash,” said Kellerman. He started laughing, but the laugh turned into that horrible cough again.

  “You all right, man?”

  “Ah, got this cough,” Kellerman said. “I’m seeing a doctor on Friday.”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” said Jones. “Allergies, probably.” The cough sounded bad, rattling and deep.

  Controlling the money was a way of controlling the relationship. Jones thought about how Carr had referred to Paula only as “my wife,” how the house was spotless, no pictures, how nervous and apologetic Paula had been throughout the visit. Jones was starting to get the picture. Kevin Carr was all about control.

  “If I find anything on her, I’ll give you a call. People get sloppy or careless after a while. Think no one is paying attention. Or they run out of cash.”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  “The other woman, Robin O’Conner,” Kellerman went on. “She’s broke. She was recently fired from her job. She’s got five maxed-out cards, about ninety-five dollars and change in her account. She’s been evicted from her apartment, with two months owed in back rent.”

  “When was her last charge?”

  “She tried to use her card yesterday at the Regal Motel in Chester. It was a charge for twenty dollars and twenty-three cents, and it was declined.”

  Chester was about an hour from The Hollows, another small working-class town, but one that hadn’t developed in the same way as The Hollows had. He looked at his watch. He could go out there, try to find Robin O’Conner, as Paula had asked. But why? He didn’t have a client, really. He wasn’t a cop. He wasn’t even a PI. At this point it was costing him money to fulfill his promise to Paula Carr-the drive, the dinner he’d owe Kellerman for these favors-and his buddy could pack it away. Maggie would not approve.

  “Want me to keep tabs on her, too?” Kellerman asked.

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  “I’ll text you if either of them pops.”

  They made arrangements to get together for dinner the following week. Once the call had ended, Jones put the car in drive. He almost didn’t realize he was heading to Chester until he’d pulled onto the highway. Why not? he thought. It was the only real lead he had on any of the three missing women. What was he going to do, go home and reflect on the future course of his life, his marriage, all the “work” he had to do on himself? He wasn’t going to do that. He just wasn’t. The very thought of it was suffocating.

  As he drove, he found himself wondering what he would need to do to get his private investigator’s license. He wondered, too, if he should start carrying a gun again.

  chapter twenty-nine

  The rumor swirling around the school office was that the police had found human bones up by the Chapel, suspected to be the remains of Marla Holt. At first this news landed softly, like a false whisper in Henry Ivy’s ear. Something that could easily be denied and pushed away. But as the day wore on and the rumor spread and five separate people said to him “Did you hear?” he started to feel as if he were being buried alive under concrete blocks. By the late afternoon, the weight was crushing him. Was she up there? Had she been up there all these years? When he and everyone else had thought the worst of her? Had she been lying rotting in a shallow grave not a mile from where he worked every day? Had he stayed with her that night, as she had wanted him to, would she be alive right now?

  All day he went through the motions: morning announcements, going over attendance records, disciplining the usual out-of-control students, chatting with his assistant. And all the while there was this terrible hum in the back of his head. He had plans that night with Bethany Graves. He felt like he was being punished for trying to be happy. There was something co
smic, wasn’t there, that just wouldn’t allow it.

  “I can’t go out,” Bethany had told him. “Not with so much happening with Willow. Not with her being so unhappy.”

  “I understand,” he’d said, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice. He figured it was just a polite blow-off.

  “But you can come here,” she’d said. “For dinner? Tomorrow night?”

  He felt a happy lift in his heart, the lofting of hope. “You don’t think it’s… inappropriate.”

  “No,” she’d said. There was a smile in her voice. “I don’t think it’s inappropriate at all. I think it’s fine.”

  When he woke up in the morning, he’d felt light and happy. He’d blasted through his 6:00 A.M. workout, had a power breakfast of egg whites and a fruit smoothie, gotten to work early to get a jump on some of his teacher evaluations. But by 9:30, after the office started to fill and people were talking about the rumors, he felt a kind of gray veil of grief and sorrow descend.

  What he’d never told them was that he had loved her-in a way. It was not in the way he had loved Maggie Cooper. Once upon a time, he’d had a real hope that Maggie would love him, too. When they were teenagers, he’d imagined that one day their friendship would turn into something more, that one day they’d get married and have children. Of course, that had never happened. But their friendship had endured. And he had taken that as a kind of consolation prize.

  He had loved Marla Holt like you love a movie star, never imagining that there could be anything between you. She was older than he was, seemed wise and worldly. And she was so beautiful that he almost didn’t believe she was real. Even her imperfections-the tiny laugh lines at her eyes, the beauty mark on her lower right cheek (her witch’s mole, she’d called it)-only made her more gorgeous. When she spoke to him, he was transfixed by her… by the way her mouth moved, by the way her hands danced to her throat, by the blinking of her eyes.

  The night she’d disappeared, they were supposed to jog. He’d called her to ask what time, and she’d said she couldn’t go. That Michael was at a sleepover and she had Cara. Mack would be late at work. But he could come by for a bit, couldn’t he? Just to talk. Because that’s what they did on their jogs. They talked and talked about everything.

  At first he’d hesitated, because it seemed inappropriate. But she’d said, Please, Henry. I so look forward to our time together. And he had agreed. He enjoyed their time together, too. He looked forward to being with her, even though he knew he’d never touch her and that she was so far above and beyond him. Every instinct in his body told him not to go, that it was wrong, that it could lead someplace unseemly. But he did go, because she’d asked him to go and she had sounded so sad when she did.

  He’d wanted to tell Jones about it that night in the woods. When they were out there, maybe feet from where they’d found those bones. He’d wanted to say, I was with her that night, Jones. I held her in my arms. She was so unhappy with Mack, with herself, with the life they’d made. She told me that she’d made mistakes, that in certain ways she’d been unfaithful. I held her, and I wanted her so badly. I could have had her. I didn’t care that there was someone else, someone not her husband. She was already opening up to me like a flower.

  Henry had wanted to tell Jones how it had taken every ounce of restraint in his body not to kiss her, not to feel the softness of her lips on his. His whole body had ached with desire as she wept in his arms. What would have happened if Michael hadn’t come home and found them there, holding each other, swaying in the dim light of the living room? Would he have been able to walk away from her? Would he have been able to hold himself back? He knew that nobody thought of him as someone with the same drives and needs as any man. Henry’s so sweet. Henry’s so kind. Henry’s such a good friend. But he did have needs, desires, always ignored and repressed. And he’d been alone so long.

  “Mom?”

  The word had rocketed through both of them, sent them reeling back from each other like an electric shock.

  “Michael,” she said. It sounded more like a breath exhaled, shocked and afraid. “What are you doing here?”

  “Mom,” the boy had said. “What are you doing?”

  There was something strange and electric about the moment.

  “It’s nothing, sweetie,” Marla whispered. “Henry’s just a friend.”

  Henry’s just a friend. The words sliced him, even though he knew in his heart of hearts that it was true. That’s what he was to women. Just a friend. Even though he’d been burning with desire, she’d only been seeking comfort in her misery.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m very sorry.”

  And he’d moved quickly past the boy, who was already taller and thicker than Henry, with his face burning. The kid was panting like an animal. He was only thirteen, or maybe fourteen already. He was still in middle school, not yet at Hollows High.

  “Don’t, Henry.” Her words followed him out the front door. And then he was running. He’d come over in his jogging clothes, because he hadn’t expected to stay long, because he didn’t want anyone to see him going to her house wearing street clothes. He ran and ran, did hard, sweaty miles through the neighborhood and out onto the road that led to the more rural areas of The Hollows, past the grazing fields and dairy farms. Later, when questions were asked, people had seen him running, as he did most nights. They had seen him running alone, not with Marla Holt. When he got back to his house, he saw that the Holt house was dark. And Mack’s car was in the driveway. And that’s when Henry saw Claudia Miller, standing in her upstairs window, a black silhouette against a glowing yellow light, watching, always watching.

  The bell rang, and he snapped back to the moment. He wondered if he should cancel with Bethany Graves. What kind of company would he be with all this on his mind? He’d spent so much time wondering about that night with Marla. What would have happened if he’d stayed, hadn’t run like a coward? Maybe she’d be with him right now, be his wife, instead of running off with whomever she’d finally chosen.

  Honestly, he’d never believed that she had fallen to harm. He believed as everyone else had that she’d tired of her life in The Hollows and moved on without her children. She’d as much as told him that she’d been seeing someone else. Claudia Miller had watched her get into a black sedan, carrying a suitcase.

  Maybe that night was just the last straw. Michael told Mack that another man had been in the house, and they’d fought. Maybe Marla had called her boyfriend and finally left, as she so desperately wanted to. She’d taken her beauty and her charm and left her suburban hell. If Henry had been a different kind of man, he’d have been the one to take her away. If he weren’t Henry Ivy, bully bait-turned-high-school teacher, living in his parents’ house, he’d have been the man to take her to New York City or Hollywood. But he was Henry Ivy, and try as he might, he had never been able to make himself into anything else.

  Now he had to consider the idea that if he hadn’t left her that night, he might have saved her life. He wasn’t sure if he could live with that.

  He forced himself to concentrate on the screen in front of him. He scrolled through the absences listed on the spreadsheet and saw that both Cole Carr and Jolie Marsh had not been in school for two days. Willow Graves had been in class-focused and attentive, if quiet, according to her teachers. He was glad for that. Henry knew that Willow was having a hard time, having problems adjusting to her parents’ divorce, her new school. But he didn’t think she was troubled, or at risk like Jolie Marsh. They could lose Jolie Marsh, as they’d lost her brother, Jeb. He’d make a call to each family. Neither absence had been explained with a phone call or an e-mail.

  Thinking about the three young people made him remember their afternoon in the woods. He and Jones had discussed the legend told to Bethany Graves by Michael Holt. Henry had offered to research it, but he hadn’t done anything more than a cursory Internet search that had, not surprisingly, yielded nothing. He’d even looked up Mack Holt online, won
dering if some of his papers or research had been digitally archived at the university. But he found nothing except the man’s obituary, sad and perfunctory. He’d died alone, estranged from his children. The only reason Michael Holt had returned at all, according to the endless Hollows rumor mill, was that he was still asking questions about his missing mother-questions that might be answered now, by the discovery of human bones in a clearing in the woods.

  Henry reached for the phone to call Maggie. But he couldn’t bring himself to dial her number. Maybe he should talk to Jones, tell him what he hadn’t told them years ago. But how could he say it now? That he was there that night, holding Marla Holt? How could he explain keeping that secret all these years, revealing it only now, when her bones turned up? How could he expose his terrible cowardice? He’d always wondered why Michael Holt had never mentioned that he was there, had never told the police or his father. Then he’d heard that Michael had no memory of the night and what had happened to his mother.

  When the boy started high school, Henry feared that Michael would recognize him, that it would jog his memory. But the boy had never even seemed to notice him. He’d never had Michael in his AP history class. When they passed in the hall, the boy only glanced at him in blank unrecognition, even though they had lived in the same neighborhood for years.

  But this was all so long ago. A lifetime, it seemed. Until that afternoon in the woods with Jones, it had been years since he’d thought about Marla. She was just another woman he’d wanted who remained out of reach.

  His intercom buzzed.

  “Mr. Ivy, Bethany Graves on line one.” He almost told his assistant, Bella, to take a message. But he couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t.

  “Thanks, Bella.”

  He took a deep breath and picked up the phone. “Ms. Graves? What can I do for you?”

  She giggled a little, and he felt a warmth rise inside him.

  “You sound so… like a principal,” she said.

  He glanced over at the door. Bella was on the phone, probably talking to her boyfriend, who was a rookie cop with the Hollows PD. Bella was the one with the inside information about the bones found at the Chapel. And the girl, sweet and efficient as she was, never stopped talking.