Dark Matter

by R. D. Cain

  Anthony blinked, not believing how quickly Chavez had taken her down. He forced himself to swivel his head, checking for witnesses. No one had seen anything. Anthony ran over and crouched down next to Chavez. “Get her in your van and get her the hell out of here.”

  Chavez’s dark eyes met Anthony’s. “Others will come.”

  Anthony thought about that. “No. She didn’t know anything until she saw you. She was totally taken by surprise. This wasn’t about me, it was about you. They know about you.”

  Chavez’s lips curled up as he considered that. Anthony noticed for the first time that he looked exhausted, like he hadn’t slept in days. The presence of Hopkins’ car gave Anthony the excuse he’d been looking for to drive up to the other house and find out what was there for himself.

  Anthony opened her purse and saw the cell phone. He was about to crush it when something stopped him. A voice in his head reminded him that he might not want to disable her GPS-equipped cell phone while it was in his driveway. Instead he would toss it out somewhere along the drive.

  He found her keys and sat in her SUV. Something about adjusting her seat position and the angle of the rear-view mirror made him feel that she was essentially dead. It was terrifying to drive her vehicle, even with the knowledge that Chavez would burn it out or otherwise make sure it was never found. Still, god knew what cops could do with DNA.

  Before they started driving to the shack, Chavez took the precaution of duct-taping her wrists and ankles. Anthony noticed he didn’t tape her mouth. He probably wanted someone to taunt on the drive up.

  Anthony tried to think about where they could possibly have gone wrong. He knew he hadn’t made any mistakes, so it had to be Chavez. Hopkins had frozen in terror when she had seen the van. He’d tell Chavez to get rid of it and start driving something else.

  Driving to a crime scene to identify a dead young woman was not enough to make Carscadden forget about Dr. Mills crawling around inside his brain. Mills had been aggressive — a butcher, not a surgeon — and he needed quiet place to be alone, some silence to reorganize his thoughts. The more he considered what had happened, the more he thought Mills had been maddening. He had done nothing more than kick up dust and had left Carscadden to clean it all up.

  Carscadden’s cell phone buzzed. He jerked it out, hoping it would be Hopkins, but the display said Bannerman. He jabbed Nastos’ shoulder with his elbow. “Hey — Mr. Bannerman.”

  Nastos turned off the car’s radio, then Carscadden hit the hands-free button so Bannerman’s voice would play loud enough for both of them to hear. He didn’t sound happy.

  “Yes, Mr. Carscadden, it looks like I have a problem here. That bitch Jessica has started a Facebook page where she has identified me as a rapist and the murderer of my daughter.”

  Carscadden felt like he’d found a suitable outlet for his anger. “That fucking whore.”

  “The media called looking for a statement — Toronto Today magazine. I want you to deal with this as soon as you can. One of the lawyers from work called and offered to do it, but, you know, I just want to keep some form of normalcy in my work life. They’re all supportive — I don’t know. This is getting to be too much.”

  Carscadden glanced over. Nastos had his BlackBerry out and was trying to find the Facebook page Bannerman had mentioned. When he found it, he gave Carscadden a thumbs-up.

  “Okay. It might take twenty-four hours to get Facebook to shut it down. Then I’ll sue her ass off — for free.”

  Bannerman had a scary kind of laugh. “Oh, don’t you worry, Carscadden, I’m a paying customer. You can bill me a hundred grand if you want — just promise me you’ll bomb her into the fucking stone age.”

  Bannerman’s phone call terminated so loudly it sounded like had slammed his phone through the receiver.

  Carscadden took his eyes off the road to check out the Facebook page on Nastos’ phone. “The broad seems like a total freak.”

  Nastos shrugged. “Sue her? You kidding me? She hasn’t earned an honest paycheque in her entire life.”

  Carscadden hesitated a little before asking, “I take it you have a more practical suggestion?”

  “I suggest something illegal, but no more illegal than what she did. You in?”

  He thought about Bannerman being called a child molester and rapist over the internet — tainted with a stink that never goes away. You’re never innocent again after something like that gets out. “Of course. After this Junction call, we’ll go there next.”

  Carscadden drove along Dupont Street until he saw the telltale signs of a death scene. Crime scene tape cordoned off an area between two multi-residential buildings. A forensics truck was pulled up on the sidewalk, next to police vehicles up on curbs and in driveways, their lights flashing. Media trucks were farther back: huge, growling, diesel vehicles with their antennae raised only partway to the sky so they wouldn’t hit the low-hanging phone and cable wires that criss-crossed the street. Carscadden pointed to a group of people by the forensics van.

  “Dennehy,” Nastos said. “Now’s your big chance to tell him to fuck off; you missed out on that last time.”

  Carscadden pulled over to the side of the road and parked, blocking in a few of the residents of one of the buildings. “As much as I’d like to, the only way we’re going to get anything out of him is to play nice. Let’s make this quick.”

  They slammed the car doors shut and started toward Dennehy. It was starting to spit rain and the wind was gusting. Dennehy spotted them when they were a short distance away. He was standing with Byrne and a forensics cop who was wearing an all-white bunny suit, gloves and goggles.

  Dennehy held a hand up for them to stop a minute and they did. After a moment standing in the rain, he came over to them. “Make it good, Nastos.”

  Nastos held out the missing person’s report for Andrea Dobson. Dennehy squinted to read the sheet as if he was half-blind. He scanned both pages, then went back and read the first page again.

  Dennehy said, “Joy.”

  Carscadden’s enthusiasm deflated. “Her name was Joy?”

  Dennehy almost looked human. The bully bravado was tucked away for the time being; his eyes were red with sadness. “Her name was Andrea Dobson. Joy — that’s what was carved on her chest.”

  Carscadden felt his knees go weak. He rubbed his five o’clock shadow, then the back of his neck.

  Dennehy said, “Okay, this is how it’s going to work. Whatever you guys are on to, you’re only going to talk to me about it. The homicide inspector just told me this is my project. They’re going to give me bodies and resources.”

  Nastos said, “If we find who’s doing this, we won’t — hell, we can’t — make a move without you. Your name can be all over it in the papers; we just want to find Lindsay Bannerman before it’s too late.”

  Dennehy asked, “How long does she have?”

  “Joy — Andrea — did she have the number thirty on her?”

  Dennehy glanced at Byrne. “Yeah, she did.”

  Nastos said, “Sorrow was missing exactly thirty days. So was this girl. For Lindsay, thirty days is coming up fast — and who the hell knows who’s next after her.”

  Carscadden said, “She has two days at the most.”

  Dennehy pointed back at the forensics van. A cop with a blue coat with FIU screened on the back in yellow was hanging a tarp so there would be a place to stand out of the rain. Dennehy invited him over with a wave of his hand. “Total radio silence, Nastos, got it?”

  “You’re running the show, Dennehy — you just remember, I’m not a cop. So I can break laws that you can’t. If you need grounds for a search warrant or need something taken care of, I’m getting paid by a third party here and we both want the same thing.”

  Dennehy offered his hand and Nastos shook it. Dennehy held Nastos’ gaze. “Piss me off, you’ll regret it.”
r />   19

  For someone as sensitive to spirits as Anthony, approaching the death house was nerve-wracking. He wished that he had taken one of Dr. Bruce’s pills. Driving Hopkins’ SUV, he followed Chavez onto the property. They took the back way, further east than the abandoned driveway, where a culvert had collapsed and the ditch was too deep to navigate.

  Without compacted gravel for traction, he found himself stuck in the soft field, forced to back up and floor the gas pedal to follow Chavez’s tracks exactly up to the house. Anthony parked beside Chavez, where no one could see the vehicle from the roadway.

  Chavez was already out, the back doors to the van open. He had Hopkins slung over his shoulder, her arms hanging limply down his back. Anthony shuddered at the thought of what was going to happen to her. He had replayed his assessment of her actions during the entire drive up. He was sure she had no suspicions of him, that it had all been Chavez, but seeing her again in the flesh still brought him back to the beginning. Either all he had planned was going to work or it wasn’t. In either case, he’d make sure Chavez died and he’d blame it all on him. All he needed was an opportunity to kill him, and he’d take the first one he got. If he could get him stoned, then slip him something to drink, something like anti-freeze, he could stage everything here and it would be perfect.

  Chavez pointed to the van doors and grunted something. Anthony dutifully closed them, then followed Chavez to the front of the house. As they came around the garage he could hear the music from inside: Judas Priest’s “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming.” Chavez was supposed to use as little electricity as possible, in case Hydro picked up the usage and became suspicious. They didn’t want anyone to get sent around. This was too loud.

  Chavez used a key to open the door. It was dark inside, the only light coming from the red LED on the stereo. After two steps in, Chavez practically threw Hopkins to the floor, then stepped over her into the shadows, disappearing like crow into a forest fit for nightmares.

  Anthony climbed the stairs, crossing the threshold. The cold he felt didn’t come from the temperature; it was from the smell that animals produce when they are scared for their lives. He inched around Hopkins gingerly, not wanting her to stir, not wanting her to look at him — not when he knew that she would die here.

  Chavez turned on a propane camper’s lantern at the far side of the living room. The bluish cast revealed a garbage bag, half-filled with empty peel-top soup and ravioli cans. A stack of full cans lined the wall next to a clear bag filled with small cereal boxes. There was a dollar store bag of plastic spoons and a few cases of orange Gatorade. The captives have been eating like kings.

  Through the half-light, Anthony peered around the room. His eyes fixed on two long candles, welded by their own melted wax in awkward, tilted angles, on a shelf next to the propane lantern. “You shouldn’t leave the candles so close to the propane light; you could burn this place down.”

  Chavez picked up the lantern and came toward him. He didn’t smile. The side lighting cast shadows on his face, distorting his features as if he was wearing a mask. His black eyes had the slightest flicker of blue from the burning propane, like a flame made of ice. “Don’t worry, Anthony. I’ll keep your pets alive long enough.”

  Anthony cringed at Chavez’s use of his name in this place. Judging by his smile, he had done it to push Anthony’s buttons, to make it clear that he was in charge here. Anthony held out a card, and with one hand Chavez grabbed it. It was a picture of Madeleine — her real estate card. She was blond and beautiful. The response in Chavez was immediate. His eyes lit up with hate. He wanted to reach through the card and kill her. “Who is this?”

  Anthony was relieved to see it was going to be an easy sell. “There’s a private detective poking around. I wrote his address on the back of the card. This is just his wife; don’t worry about her, but you need to deal with him.”

  Chavez was still looking at the picture, intrigued. He said, “She looks familiar to me. I can’t place her.” His eyes were still filled with loathing. He tensed up like he was going to get violent.

  Hopkins stirred and began to moan. The interruption was a relief to Anthony, who didn’t feel like distracting Chavez with sex. He still hurt too much from the last time. Besides, Chavez preferred to decide when sex occurred. It could not be offered to him; he had to decide to take it. And there was more to Anthony’s reluctance. The look on his face was terrifying.

  “Let me get her.” Chavez crouched down, his forearms flexing like wires on a tension bridge as he gripped Hopkins and lifted her up. Anthony was startled when she flailed her arms. She sucked in air and jolted awake, her back arching. She mumbled something from under the duct tape, something indecipherable.

  Chavez slammed her against the wall. “Shut up, cunt.” She made a sound that might have been a whimper. He held her with one hand and pointed to the piano with the other. “Push it aside,” he commanded Anthony.

  Her neck twisted. Anthony felt a bolt of fear shoot through him. He ducked back around the corner into the kitchen. If she saw him, she’d have to die right away, and he didn’t think he could be here when that happened. With Dr. Bruce’s sleeping pills in her system, she probably wouldn’t remember leaving for his house, never mind getting there.

  Chavez jabbed his head into the kitchen, scowling in disgust at Anthony’s skittishness. Chavez had no idea that Anthony had changed the plans and now had to keep himself clean.

  Seeing that Hopkins had again gone limp, Anthony stepped out and pushed the piano aside. Over the sound of the music, the scraping wasn’t very loud. He lifted the hatch and when he discerned the ladder leaning against the wall in the shadows, he grabbed it and lowered it to the floor below.

  Hopkins was evidently light for Chavez to carry; getting her down into the basement was smooth and fast. Anthony watched as Chavez confidently reached his foot onto the ladder and descended into the pit. A part of Anthony wanted to follow him down there, drawn by a certain allure into the core of Chavez’s lair. He looked into the opening. Down at ground level he could make out a garbage bag of empty cans, like discarded animal bones, and he smelled the waft of unbathed human flesh rising up from the dark. While Anthony was on a spiritual journey to uplift humanity, at that moment he understood that Chavez had become an animal. Chavez had been descending, devolving into little more than a bone collector.

  Peeking through the opening, Anthony detected rapid movement, like cockroaches scattering. A voice shouted, “Get the fuck away from me. Get the fuck away!”

  Anthony froze. It was the sound of the young man’s voice that stopped him — broken and defeated. Anthony tried to distract himself by examining the living area where Chavez had been spending his time. He saw more candles, scraps of food, couch cushions on a heap in the floor creating a makeshift bed. And there was the oppressively loud music. Loud enough to smother his own thoughts — hypnotically suffocating, the way it drove its way into him, like a dark magic curse.

  Antony shuddered. Chavez was too predatory here. There would be no taking him down in this place, not tonight. He made the decision to leave. Right there and then. He’d have to think of another way to take him down before it was too late. As he turned to depart, he heard Chavez soothing his prey. “Oh, mi vida, it’s not all about you. It’s about me.”

  Once they were back in the car, Nastos made two phone calls. The first was to Bannerman to explain that the girl at the Junction Triangle was not their daughter. The second call was to Jessica Taylor.

  “Hello?”

  Nastos cleared his throat, trying to sound nervous. “Hi — I saw your ad on the internet?”

  “Yeah, baby?”

  “Yeah, I was wondering if you have any time available this evening.”

  “How much time?”

  Nastos waited a moment. “An hour?”

  There were sounds as if she was flipping through a calendar. “Su
re, I’m open for the next two hours. When can you be here?”

  Nastos stammered as he realized that he wasn’t supposed to know where she was. “Wait a sec, what’s the exact address — the ad just says Don Mills and Eglinton?”

  “Text me when you’re close and I’ll send you my unit number.”

  “Well, I can be at Don Mills and Eglinton in half an hour.”

  “Okay, baby, see you then.”

  Carscadden stood back while Nastos knocked on Jessica Taylor’s door. Once it opened a crack, Nastos rushed her. He shouldered the door, sending it flying back full force. By the time Carscadden rounded the corner, Jessica was just getting up from the floor. Nastos grabbed her by an arm and twisted it behind her back. “Quiet, quiet. We don’t want your money; we’re not going to hurt you.”

  “Get the fuck out of here!”

  Nastos wrenched her arm into a position that Carscadden thought would have been impossible. Jessica got the message and shut up. She looked them over with no expression of recognition on her face — either too many drugs or too many men. Carscadden scanned the place; there was no one else there.

  He said, “Jeez, girl, you haven’t spent much time tidying up, despite knowing that you had a paying customer on the way over.” There were ashtrays, plastic shopping bags full of takeout boxes and dishes of raw tuna for cats on the floor. He went into the bedroom and began to rifle through the dresser drawers.

  Jessica shouted, “I thought you said you didn’t want money?”

  Nastos twisted her wrist and she muffled a cry. “My business partner’s the curious type.”