Dimly, Through Glass

by Knight, Dirk

  “No, never.”

  “Well, I called him back, to see if he had any idea what happened to the girl. What happened to Evalyn. He’s belligerent, and keeps telling me that a man in a sports car was stalking her and that she was afraid of him, and that we aren’t doing our job because when he called 911 earlier they just dismissed him . . . blah blah. Anyway, all he can tell us for sure is that she got an uneasy feeling about this guy and he swears up and down that a man with a black suit and black Acura has something to do with it.”

  Silence creates a void where Carron is supposed to speak.

  “Anyway, I’m calling you as a friend, and to see if there is anything you might be able to dig up on this. Maybe you wanna give the kid a call and talk to him once he calms down.”

  “You bet your ass I’m gonna call him.”

  “We didn’t find her body, Carron, so chin up and let’s dig deep. We’ll figure out where she is. We got lucky on this one. If it wasn’t for this Jarrod kid, we’d still be standing around holding our dicks.”

  “Thanks for the call, Jeff,”

  “Oh, and one last thing . . . there were three different blood samples taken from the area. I’m pretty sure we are going to match one to the stiff in the car; chances are the second will belong to your niece, and the third was taken from a broken bottle. It had a good-sized dollop of blood in it. I’m willing to bet it’s the guy we’re looking for. Possibly a white male in a black Acura, but that’s not confirmed as of yet.”

  Still silence from Staley.

  “Hey, you still there?” says Jeff.

  “The slug, was it a .38?”

  “Now how the hell would you know that?”

  “Call it a hunch. I have a sample you should cross with the blood you haven’t classed yet, but I need you to keep it quiet until we have something.”

  “For Evalyn?”

  “No, for a creep who just made my shit list.”

  “Why do I always feel like there is something you aren’t telling me? Do you know who ‘Mr. Black Acura’ is, Staley?”

  “Just get me the results from the sample; I have to do some digging; like you said.”

  Part VII:

  “Well-meaning, decent people will condemn the behavior of a Ted Bundy, while they're walking past a magazine rack full of the very kinds of things that send young kids down the road to be Ted Bundys.”

  - Ted Bundy

  “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body . . . for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

  - 1st Corinthians 6:18+20

  A Night to Remember, A Night to Forget

  Libby freezes like a scared shitless possum when she sees Dennis rounding the corner of the house and angrily descending the patio stairs. She stands before her now silent SUV, penitent and waiting.

  Why did I have to fuck with the stereo? she thinks. Her inner lip tears open against her slightly crooked front teeth as his fist collides flatly, but she doesn’t fall, or cower away. She is no stranger to the thump of his knuckles, after all. He holds her up by her loose-fitting sweater and wraps his naked hand around her throat. He is screaming at her with such abandon that spit is flinging from his jaw and onto her forehead and face. His voice is cracking like a pubescent boy.

  “I told you to fucking be quiet!” he shouts with finality.

  She offers a tame nod and looks directly into his stoic eyes. Dennis smiles to her and kisses her bleeding lips, then nods towards the stand-alone, rock-walled apartment.

  “This way,” he says, pointing beyond the cars.

  The guesthouse is no longer a pleasant room for company or out of town visitors, and has since been transmuted into something more juvenile and masculine. Dennis converted the apartment into a man cave, a place to be shed of his mother’s belittling and demeaning diatribe. Its Frank Lloyd Wright-style rock and mortar acted to shield him from her hate, as if it were a lead barrier protecting against an electromagnetic pulse, or the leaden cape the dentist uses to protect your balls from the piercing x-rays. Dennis often wondered why they sought to protect his nut-sack instead of his brain.

  In the small kitchen, a full-sized refrigerator stocked with beer and frozen dinners clicks and hums as they enter. Only the best for you, Libby, he thinks. Dennis will not be having his grapefruit for breakfast tomorrow, but there are some sausage biscuits to squelch his appetite. He retrieves a couple beers, and comes back to the couch to be with Libby.

  After the first beer, and a joint to take the edge off, the two rendezvous in the shower, washing away the blood and sweat from a long day. He’s reluctant to wash away the sweaty, musty stench of Tater-Tot’s pussy, which fills the room and assaults his senses when he pulls down his pants.

  Oh shit, the girl is probably awake by now, he realizes as he rinses the lather from his hair. Libby’s hands are exploring him and rubbing him, he is soaking in every millimeter of her soft, young and beautiful skin, watching the water bead and cascade down her shoulders and pool slightly into the small of her back, before streaming across the substantial mass of her ass.

  He hurriedly finishes his rinse, and shuts the water valve, tossing her a towel on his way out the door. He cannot keep letting his powerful lust for Libby detract from his goals. Wrapped in towels, the couple now sits on the bed, and Dennis confronts her once again.

  “Libby, what the hell are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to surprise you, and I got worried about you when the cops and your lawyer came by. Besides, you texted me and told me to.”

  “I told you to?”

  “Yeah, in the text you sent. It said ‘my lawyer is coming over, take care of him, and I’ll see you tonight.’”

  Dennis shoots a piercing glare over to Jiménez, who is standing in the doorway with a “what, me worry” look on his face.

  “I may have oversold that one,” he says to Dennis.

  “Still, that doesn’t explain why you’re here. I tell you I’ll see you tonight, and you get on a GPS app and come hunt me down in a different city?”

  “I got curious after the cop left; I kept thinking that you were involved in something I didn’t know about, so I read your journal—”

  “You did what?”

  “It’s okay, baby, I read it and I realized that I really wanted to know the real you. I’ve only scratched the surface and it turned me on, in a completely new way. All I could think about was you, and being able to do something like what you talked about in your journals. So, I found you. I had no idea I would be able to see you in action so soon, but—”

  “You realize you are talking crazy, and that I was about to kill you, right?”

  “Dennis, it’s okay baby, I am safe. I would never do anything to hurt you; I want to be like you. The shit I saw tonight was so real and exciting. I felt alive in a way I’ve never felt. I think part of it was because I thought you were going to kill me, but still I couldn’t look away, or run.”

  “So you like what you saw?” he says, for the first time feeling accepted and whole.

  “Oh, baby, yes. I couldn’t believe how strong and fearless you were back there. All I’ve wanted to do since I read your journal was to tear your clothes off and treat you like a king. Then I stumble upon you giving the frat boy and his little fake-ass bitch a lesson; I just got all wet and I couldn’t stop staring, I swear.”

  “I can’t just have you follow me around hoping something like that happens again; that’s not how it works,”

  “Well, how does it work?”

  “I’m not exactly sure yet,” he says casually, to which Jiménez gurgles laughter.

  “You have no idea what you’re doing ese . . . even this bitch has a better idea than you.”

  “Well, maybe I can help with that,” she says.

  The three of them sit there, drinking beer and smoking pot, concocting a plan for the next kill—Jiménez speaking through Dennis, of c
ourse—and one that Libby can be have integral part in. Most of the plan, though, comes from the newest member of the tribe, and she plays upon what she knows of Dennis’s weak constitution for infidelity.

  Jiménez’s reaction to this, to seeing her take the reins so effectively, is to order Dennis to kill her now and bury her behind the garage, under the stack of firewood.

  This much he says only in Dennis’s head, and not directly to her face. Though Libby doesn’t realize she has two men to convince of her sincerity, she manages to win Jiménez’s confidence when she says, “You can either kill me and bury me out in the woods, now, or you can wait till after we do the kill. Either way you get to kill me, but please let’s just do this. It will be great, I promise.”

  And just like that, Libby plays upon Dennis’s need to be submissive and becomes the authoritative presence in the room. And although she is sure that Dennis realizes full well that he is being manipulated—that she will say anything to keep her life—she has piqued his interests by dangling the carrot he longed for. He would never be able to pull off the kill she outlined alone, or even with a different woman. Because she knows him deeply, and they’ve swung with other lascivious couples and she’s fucked whomever he, or she, wanted for the past few months, she knows that she can offer him something that he couldn’t attain on his own.

  She understands his heart’s desires more than maybe even he does and just like she did with her brother, she uses Dennis’s lust against him. Lust is a powerful weapon.

  Dennis never asks why Libby would be willing to do the things she does. He doesn’t need to. Or at least he doesn’t think he needs to. He understands only one thing about her. She wants to be accepted. He doesn’t know it’s because of her brother. He doesn’t know it’s the same type of fractured self-image and low self-worth from which his desires and hunger were forged. The kiln from which Jiménez was conceived. He only knows that she’s taken it further than any other slut he’s banged in all of his thirty-five years, and that, for now, is enough.

  He wonders if this is the right time to tell her about the girl in the basement. He needs to go check on her. He wonders if Libby can be trusted; he is worried to go to sleep with her knowing so much. He is curious about the brother she speaks of so often. And why she speaks of him with fond reverence when everything she has told Dennis to this point has led him to understand that the kid is an asshole and a loser drug addict.

  Libby was the younger of two. Her parents decided that two was enough, after her brother became a toddler and too much to handle. Libby tried to do well in school, but Mark was smarter, good with numbers and a wiz on computers. She lived in his shadow. When he got to middle school, he found ways to make money, and attract popularity. He got involved in a plethora of drug-related activities; first using, then distributing throughout the schools, in his circle of friends and public parks, and recreational hangouts for older kids.

  Libby was always there, tagging along, and unable to make an identity for herself. Her life was always measured through the looking glass of her brother’s accomplishments. She paled in comparison, no matter what, but he loved her in his own way. He brought her along. He tried to include her, but she had no individuality in it. No real identity. It was always, “aren’t you Mark’s sister,” or, “Hey can you give a message to Mark?”

  She came to Mark one night, drunk and confused. She told him she felt anonymous, and wanted to feel more important. Mark was always a manipulator—something she had, no doubt, gleaned from their dealings together—and seized upon an opportunity. He offered her a way to help him grow the business, and to be important to him in a way he truly needed. Libby liked the sound of this, to be able to hold some of the cards, and to feel useful; what he had in mind wasn’t exactly a glamorous position, especially for a junior-highschooler.

  He needed a whore.

  She started blowing her brother’s friends because he told her to, because he needed her to, and because she would do anything for popularity. Even that hadn’t been enough, and she’d had to fuck more than a few of his enemies, for truce, to comp for a shady deal, or just to pave the roads for future business. She became the element in Mark’s high school mafia that had been missing all along.

  The super-sexy call girl.

  It wasn’t until the ball got rolling really well, and had collected an immense amount of snow and momentum, that she realized she was still as anonymous as she was before. She held no power; her brother had collected other molls along the way, who would fuck for a little bit of dope. She begged him to shut them out, to give her another job, to do something to help her preserve her identity.

  He manipulated her again, or so it seemed at the time.

  She sucked his cock, right then and there, because he wanted to see how good she really was. He said that was how to get promoted. Said his friends had claimed she was the best they had ever had and he didn’t want to keep taking them at their word. He said his friends asked for her more than they asked for anyone else. She refused at first, but gently, the kind of “no” that invariably leads to a later yes. The kind of rebuff that said, “I’m saying no because I’m supposed to, but not because I want to.”

  Once she got started, she gobbled him as if he was any other—with enthusiasm and fervor, choking down his cum and licking her lips after. Then she capitalized on his mistake, and held his incest over him as blackmail. Lust is a powerful weapon.

  After that, she got her way, and received more recognition. She started to gain notoriety of her own, leveraging her brother’s misguided drunken proposal as often and as effectively as she could. She held this silver bullet in her bag as a useful tool. She pulled it out, or threatened to, any time she needed something that he seemed reluctant to do.

  She still blames herself for his overdose, though she still cannot call it a suicide.

  Dennis had never dug deep enough to catch the entire nuance and intricacies of Libby’s past. He just knows, for now, that she is enamored with him again and that he is finally able to be completely free from diversion or tactics with her, and when that stops working, he’s going to kill her and bury her beneath the cord of wood in his yard.

  She gives herself to Dennis on the worn leather sofa. He completely forgets about the hostage he has sealed in duct tape and cloistered beneath his cellar doors. He isn’t even rough with Libby; it is the first time he has been gentle with her since they first met. In this moment he is at peace and ease again, just like the first night he slept after killing Jiménez. He is in control and free.

  Afterward, he leaves her asleep on the sofa and gathers his tepid beer and a cigarette. He washes off his boots and gloves before heading outside to smoke.

  The next morning, Libby awakens to an empty bed. Her throat is sore and red and her skin is pocked form barbed wire. The entire house is empty, in fact, but the aroma of coffee fills the nothingness. She knows better than to make a run for it; she is sure Dennis will not spare her life a third time. She is honestly surprised to have woken up at all, after the barbed wire and his crushing hands.

  She steps outside, slowly, to meet the noises of the day, and finds Dennis wrapping his abused Acura with a vinyl car cover. He has loaded the Suburban, her Suburban, with a small cooler of water and snacks.

  “Hey, glad you’re up; we need to get a move on,” he says brusquely, adding, “Her car is gone.” She finds it strange that he is upbeat and happy, but she doesn’t draw attention to the events, instead embracing his forgiveness.

  “Whose car? What car are you talking about?” she asks hoarsely.

  “Never mind, just get ready.”

  Staley Pays a Visit

  Because Carron had decided to swallow the harder pill first, and also because he knew Connie had a right to know sooner than later, he headed to his sister’s house to tell her what he knew. This would also afford him an opportunity to glean additional information before questioning Jarrod.

  She and Leonard are surprised to see his face when th
e door opens. Carron and Connie haven’t been close since middle school. They had tried to rekindle the once powerful sibling bond they’d shared as children, when he’d first returned from Iraq, but Connie had sided with Carron’s first ex-wife after the divorce. It made sense; after all, it was she who’d introduced them. Leonard and he have been at odds with one another for a decade. Just never could manage to find a stable footing to establish their relationship. Needless to say, Carron hasn’t been a regular fixture in his sister’s, or the kids’ lives. In fact, he really only got to know Evie because Leonard kicked her out and Evie had called the only other adult she knew for advice and help finding an apartment.

  Carron was happy to have someone to spoil; money only breeds loneliness when it’s all you have.

  “Carron, what brings you here?” Connie asks.

  “Hey sis, do you mind if I come in?”

  “Come on in,”

  “Is Lenny here? I saw his car out front. I need to speak to both of you if that’s okay.”

  From around the bend leading into the kitchen, Leonard says, “I’m here, Carron. And don’t call me Lenny.”

  “What’s going on Car—?” Connie starts.

  “Is she in trouble?” Leonard, with blasé indifference, interrupts. Carron steams. He snaps for Leonard to shut up, and tells the two of them what he knows of their daughter’s disappearance. They swallow the news like pithy okra and Leonard tells Carron that they haven’t spoken to Evie in months. Connie’s face is contorted with worry.

  “She drove up to go snowboarding a few days ago,” she says. “I bought her a new set of snowboarding boots as an early Christmas present.”

  Leonard’s staged dismay quickly turns into genuine anger upon hearing this.

  “You did what?” he snaps at Connie, his face reddening as he raises his voice.