Black Night Falling

by Rod Reynolds

  I cruised by the rental offices and saw there was a different clerk behind the desk – the break I needed – so I drove back into town and parked around the block from a cab stand, then I ran back to it and paid for a ride back out to the airport. I made it to the hire car office just before closing time.

  The clerk was rushing to shut up shop, so he took no care over the paperwork. I paid him with the money I’d stashed for my airfare home, half-gone now, hoping like hell that Acheson was good to his word and had sent more cash. For my part of the bargain, whatever story I could cobble together for the Journal would have to wait.

  When we were done, the clerk handed over the keys and hustled me out the door. I climbed into the new rental, dropped the satchel Hansen had given me on the seat, and set off, taking the highway north-east, into the coming dusk.

  Whoever was watching for me knew I was in Texarkana now. And if they found the old rental, parked two blocks from State Line, they’d take it as a sign I was still in town. A little diversion; let them think they were still closing the net on me.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Driving into Hot Springs for the second time, I experienced almost the same feelings of dread I had going back to Texarkana, the two places almost as one in my mind now; the sense that they were bound together by a common evil.

  I found a fleapit motel on the east of town, its only attraction that cash up front would avoid any need to show identification. It was midnight by the time I got into the room. I hunkered down with Robinson’s papers and photographs that Hansen had given me and pored through them – all of it spread across the floor by necessity, the motel too cheap to provide even a table.

  It took me more than an hour to leaf through everything. The handwriting was no easier to read than in the earlier notes Barrett had stolen, but the contents were less cryptic, and it was as I’d feared – all of it the mundane notes of a working hack. By the end, I was worn out and no closer to the truth.

  I climbed onto the bed with the small set of photographs in hand. I looked through the prints of Ella Borland, my vision double from reading too long, questioning why Robinson was shadowing her. I thought back to my own feeling she was hiding something and wondered what made him suspicious enough of her to go to such lengths. She looked subtly different in each of the shots – not just the outfits she wore, but her whole countenance, like watching the ocean in shifting sunlight, colours and shades changing from one glimpse to the next.

  I set the pictures of Borland down and looked at the older photographs – Winfield Callaway’s house on the night my life changed for ever. When I’d killed a man. I flipped through them, my eyes heavy, feeling like I was eroding the last vestige of remove I’d built up between myself and the events of that night. I passed out, the pictures still between my fingers.

  *

  I woke a little before seven with the photographs scattered around me, the bed sheets torn apart by my thrashing. I gathered everything up to stash in the car, then stood under a cold shower trying to wash the night off me. When I couldn’t take the icy water any longer, I towelled off, shivering, and dressed in the same clothes I’d been wearing the day before. All I had left.

  *

  The veterans’ hospital was imposing enough before I knew of its links to Ginny Kolkhorst. Walking inside now, the place felt as though it was cloaked in gloom, an oppressive silence shrouding its corridors. The men there seemed to move aimlessly, the final reckoning of the war on display. A man with bandages covering his eyes, a nurse guiding him along the hallway; a man with stumps where his hands used to be. One man had burn scars over the entirety of his head – his features lodged in a sea of melted skin that covered all of his face and scalp. My thoughts right away ran to Robinson – the way he’d looked in Gresham’s funeral home. Alice Anderson had told me ‘death ain’t the worst thing can happen to a man’, and it sickened me to think how many times since I’d seen things that called her words to mind again.

  The Personnel office was on the second floor. I knocked and poked my head around the door without waiting for a response, saw a fat man behind a desk in the corner. I looked both ways around me, as though I were disoriented, noting the row of filing cabinets along the wall to my left. The fat man moved to stand up, but I muttered something about it being the wrong room and stepped outside again. I retreated along the hallway and found a place to sit where I could see the office, then hunkered down behind my hat and a discarded newspaper.

  It was only twenty minutes until the fat man opened the door and headed off the other way down the corridor. As soon as I saw him go, I dropped the paper on the seat next to me and fast-walked back to his office, then slipped inside.

  I went along the filing cabinets until I found the one marked H–L. I pulled the drawers in turn until I came to the Ks, rifling through them until I found Ginny Kolkhorst’s employee record. I glanced over my shoulder to check the door – no movement. The file was a slim brown folder, a single sheet of paper inside of it. I took it out and slipped it into my pocket, returning the folder to the cabinet, then went out the door again, glancing down the corridor to check I hadn’t been seen.

  It felt like I didn’t draw breath until I made it back to the car, apprehension a constant companion whenever I moved in daylight now. I’d left it parked under a magnolia tree on the street running along the side of the hospital, shade just creeping over it as I returned. I set myself behind the wheel and took the precaution of starting the engine before I unfolded the file to read it.

  Ginny Kolkhorst was twenty-seven years old according to the birth date shown at the top of the record, and she’d worked at the hospital for one year, from August 1944 through August 1945. Heinrich Kolkhorst was listed as her next of kin, at the same address in Texarkana he still inhabited now. Underneath the personal details, the main body of the record was a list of training rotations she’d completed – burns patients, amputations, facial disfiguration, along with the accompanying dates. Mundane items all.

  The one line that stood out was at the bottom of the sheet. It read:

  Cited for improper conduct. HS PD queried, allegations unsubstantiated. Employee censured, recommend future behaviour be observed keenly.

  It was dated to June 1945, a signature next to it that I couldn’t decipher.

  I turned the sheet over, but the back was blank. I lifted my eyes, checked up and down the street – the movement so familiar now it was like a nervous tick. Ginny Kolkhorst in trouble with the law. Not what I’d expected, but surely relevant. I pulled away from the kerb and went to find a telephone.

  *

  ‘Hot Springs Recorder, Clyde Dinsmore speaking.’

  ‘Dinsmore, it’s Yates.’

  ‘Yates?’ There was a frantic shuffling sound, and when he spoke again, his voice was almost a whisper. ‘Where are you? Your name’s all over the radio.’

  ‘Fame at last.’ I flattened myself against the side of the booth, trying to make it so I couldn’t be seen from outside. The kiosk was one of three out front of the bus station, and the place was mid-morning busy, the air laden with diesel fumes. ‘Listen, I need your help with something.’

  ‘Help? Yates, the cops are looking for you. They’re saying you killed Clay Tucker and his brother—’

  ‘Wise up, I didn’t kill anyone.’

  ‘What I’m hearing, the evidence is pretty damning.’

  ‘Hearing from who?’

  ‘Garland Sheriff’s.’

  ‘Figures. Cole Barrett is up to his neck in this, guess I’m a nice scapegoat.’

  ‘Still singing that song? I’d be real careful who hears you . . .’

  ‘I found my third victim. The one my friend was investigating. She was a nurse by the name of Geneve K-O-L-K-H-O-R-S-T. Ginny to her friends. She worked a year at the veterans’ hospital up there. They pulled her out of Lake Hamilton in April of this year.’

  ‘The photograph you showed me?’

  ‘The same. You write about it at the time?
’

  ‘First I’m hearing. Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘I told you, I need your help.’

  ‘How about you help yourself and turn yourself in?’

  ‘Come on, Dinsmore, there’s no mileage in that for you. You wouldn’t still be talking to me if you weren’t curious to know what I’ve got.’

  He didn’t respond, and I knew I’d got him.

  ‘Garland Sheriff’s wrote her death up as suicide,’ I said. ‘I want to know who took charge of the investigation—’

  ‘This is starting to feel like a witch-hunt against Cole Barrett, Yates.’

  ‘Isn’t it strange that you never heard about this at the time? Why would he keep it from you?’

  He exhaled. ‘That’s a straw man and you know it. They don’t serve stories up on a plate, they make us do the work. An out-of-town suicide wouldn’t play, anyhow.’

  ‘Then try this: Barrett knew about the fire at Duke’s. Before it happened.’

  ‘What? How the hell would you know that?’

  ‘Because I’m a goddamn reporter and I know how to work a story right.’

  He said nothing, the implication in my words settling between us. I butted the back of my head against the kiosk, sore at letting my temper get on top of me.

  ‘Look, Dinsmore, I didn’t mean—’

  ‘No, hold on, you said plenty. You talk like you’re a hotshot, but all I see is a crummy legman flinging mud to see what sticks. You know the only reason I didn’t hang up five minutes ago?’

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘Because you might just have stumbled into something – but if you have, it’s only thanks to me.’ He took a breath, baiting me to ask, his indignation coming across as half-hearted. I held my tongue, and he went on anyway. ‘I got a look at the fire department report into what happened at Duke’s. It’s all there in black-and-white – an accident.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean a thing. They could have written it up any way—’

  ‘Let me finish. I did a little more digging; I found a source at the telephone exchange, tells me an hour before the fire, a call was placed from the mayor’s house to the fire chief’s home line.’

  Coughlin again. Lines connecting and intersecting. ‘No need to change the report if Coughlin told them how to write it up in the first place – right?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be willing to go that far, but the timing is curious, I’d say that much.’

  ‘Can you corroborate it?’

  ‘Corroborate how? I spoke to the dame who placed the call, what more you want?’

  I ran my hand over my mouth, thinking about the implications. ‘So will you look into the Kolkhorst girl?’

  He blew out a breath, sounded like he was emptying his lungs. ‘You got any proof at all that she didn’t kill herself?’

  ‘She lived a hundred miles away from where she was found. Does that sound right to you?’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. If you’re crazy enough to take your own life . . .’

  I had Robinson’s photograph of her in my mind – the hint of happiness in her expression, at ease with the world. ‘I don’t think she was crazy.’ I wanted to say more, bring up the link to Alice Anderson, but it felt too dangerous even to voice it aloud – and despite it all, I still couldn’t gauge how far to trust him. ‘There’s something else. You have any ins with Hot Springs Police Department?’

  ‘I haven’t agreed to the first thing yet.’

  ‘Kolkhorst got into some kind of trouble while she was working at the veterans’ hospital, and Hot Springs PD were brought in. Nothing came of it, but I need the skinny on what happened.’

  There was a slight hesitation before he spoke again, and I could tell he was scribbling down a note. ‘When was this?’

  ‘June of last year.’

  ‘How can I get back to you?’

  ‘I’ll call you.’

  I cut the connection and checked outside, nervous at being in the same place for longer than I was comfortable with. The bus from Little Rock had just pulled up, a mob of passengers emptying onto the tarmac.

  I faced inside again, dialled, and waited for the call to connect. When Lizzie answered, her voice was heavy with sleep.

  ‘Did I wake you?’

  ‘That’s okay, I hoped it would be you. No one else would think to call at this time of the day. I need to get up anyway, I’ll be late.’

  ‘You’re going to the Journal?’

  ‘Sure, why wouldn’t I?’

  ‘Are you up to it? You need to rest.’

  ‘I’m not unwell, Charlie. I won’t shut myself away indoors. Besides, one of us has got to be there to keep the place from crumbling.’ I smiled, for what felt like the first time in forever. ‘By the way, Mr Acheson asked how your story is coming along. Care to tell me what that’s about?’

  I switched ears. ‘I had to find a way to make some money while I’m out here. There’s an angle that might play. Stall him for me – I’ll put something together when I get back.’

  ‘I wish you’d told me. I looked a little foolish when he asked me and I had no idea what he was talking about.’

  ‘I’m sorry. With everything that’s going on . . .’

  ‘What is going on? I meant it when I said I want you to stay there for as long as you think is right, but I’d feel better if I knew what was happening. I can hear the strain in your voice.’

  I started to say something, dissembling, but stopped before I finished a sentence. She deserved better than that, and I knew it; whatever trouble I was in, adding to the lies and omissions I’d placed between us served no benefit. I started over, and once I set the ball rolling, it gathered steam on its own. I told her about Cole Barrett jumping me in my room and stealing Robinson’s files. Him warning Clay Tucker about the fire. Tucker’s murder. Running from the police. Even the parts I wanted to protect her from, like being a suspect in the killings, came pouring out. Lizzie was silent the whole time.

  Before I told her about going to Texarkana, I asked, ‘Do you remember any of the nurses that cared for Alice?’

  The question caught her off guard, and she hesitated getting the words out. ‘I don’t— I mean, perhaps if I saw them there’s a chance, but . . . Why are you asking about this?’

  I told her. I told her about Ginny Kolkhorst being the woman in Robinson’s photograph, and the inscription saying she was murdered. About her body being found in Hot Springs, and how that made a link to the Glover killings more feasible. About being in Texarkana and seeing Hansen. His implication that he’d always suspected the truth had been covered up, but he was too afraid to speak out. I even told her about him giving me the contents of Robinson’s desk, and his photographs of Ella Borland that somehow haunted me. When I was through, I felt as though I’d gone fifteen rounds with Joe Louis.

  ‘I don’t remember the nurse.’ Her voice was hollow and distant. ‘I’m sorry, Charlie, I can’t . . .’

  ‘It’s not important, don’t trouble yourself.’

  ‘Don’t say that. I can’t remember her face. She cared for my sister and now she’s dead because of it and I can’t even remember—’

  ‘Slow down—’

  ‘When is this going to end, Charlie?’ Her voice rose, anger coming now. ‘When the hell is this going to end?’

  ‘It’s going to be all right. I’m going to make it all right.’

  ‘How? Look how much blood there’s been, and still it goes on. You can’t keep fighting this, it’s too big.’

  ‘Don’t let yourself think that way. I can make this right.’

  She drew a slow breath, and I stared at the numbers on the telephone, wondering if I’d done the right thing by coming clean. Eventually she broke the silence. ‘Do you think they murdered that poor nurse because of what she told Jimmy Robinson?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think that’s what he thought, at least.’

  ‘What would make him say she was killed? How would he know that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ My
head drooped against my chest. ‘I keep thinking, if I’d just got to him before he died . . .’

  ‘What about the woman he was with – he must have told her something of what he was thinking?’

  ‘Ella Borland?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She said they weren’t close.’

  ‘I don’t believe that. He was infatuated with her, surely. Why all the photographs otherwise?’

  I hadn’t thought about it that way. I kicked myself for being so blinkered. Robinson had always struck me as a lone wolf, but Ella Borland had the goods to turn any man’s head. ‘I got the feeling she was holding something back when we spoke, now you’re making me think maybe that’s it.’

  ‘Be gentle with her, Charlie. If she does know something, she’s probably afraid. If something happened to him, I mean.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘If she had any feelings for Robinson at all, she’ll tell you what she knows, eventually. I wouldn’t want that on my conscience if I were her.’

  I loved my wife for seeing the things I missed. ‘I should go. I need to keep moving.’

  ‘Charlie, wait a moment.’

  ‘What is it?’

  She was hesitant. ‘I won’t say come home, but please, please, be careful. If the police catch you, you’ll never leave. Do you understand what I mean?’

  I told her I loved her and I’d call again as soon as I could. I understood perfectly what she meant. If Cole Barrett’s men caught up to me, I wouldn’t likely even make it into custody.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  I didn’t dare go inside the Southern Club. I was parked down the block from the entrance, watching for Ella Borland to come out, at the same time ready to bolt if I saw sign of the cops. I’d already stiffed a call to the Southern to check she was there – hanging up before the man on the other end could ask any questions. Now all I could do was wait for her to show.