(2002) Chasing Darkness

by Danielle Girard

  “What about the others?”

  Kirkwood was silent.

  “Hello?”

  “Yeah, I don’t know about them. I’ll have to call Jack and ask.”

  Sam told him to call her later in the day with a status on the other people. Frustrated, she sank her head into her hands, remembering how she used to love solving cases. It was like a life-size jigsaw puzzle, and once you got it all together the killer was right there in the center. It wasn’t always that way, though. In fact, most of the time she was scrounging for the smallest piece to try to fit in the puzzle, but at least she’d had the contacts back then to get things done.

  She couldn’t have gone back to homicide. The middle-of-the-night calls were bad, but mostly it was the death that had started to wear on her. In homicide, it was all death. At least in her job now, once in a while there was life. Although lately it seemed that was becoming less and less true.

  As she thought about the current case again, it seemed she didn’t even have enough pieces to get started, and she itched to find another link.

  The fact that there was pressure from every direction on this one didn’t make it any easier. Corona wanted answers, the D.A., the undersheriff—all of them waiting for her to hand them the killer. Every one of them depending on her.

  Her thoughts shifted to Derek and Rob. She remembered when they were little boys and she had understood them. Now she dreaded dealing with Rob’s outrageous behavior and Derek’s isolation. And tonight she was having dinner with Nick—just the two of them.

  If she still drank, Sam imagined she’d have a drink right now. As it was, the back of her throat felt dry and scratchy, itching for the cold, dry taste of beer. She hadn’t had a drink since the day the boys came to her. And she still missed it every single day.

  She longed to push the feeling away, but it couldn’t be banished. Instead, she leaned back and imagined the bitter taste of beer until it was almost painful to swallow the emptiness in her throat.

  Chapter Nine

  Whitney Allen smoothed her pink ruffled dress and then leaned down to straighten her white socks. The dress had been almost brand-new when her mother bought it for her. “For twenty dollars, this isn’t a school dress, you hear? It’s for church and maybe a party, and that’s it.” But Whitney hardly ever went to parties where she could wear the dress, and wearing it made her feel like a princess. Whitney swore she’d be extra careful in it today. She was just going down the street to see Molly. Molly’s mom had died, so Whitney wanted to look nice.

  She puckered her face like her mom did when she was putting on lipstick, and then smiled into the mirror. “Perfect,” she whispered, just like her mother always did.

  Tiptoeing to the door, she took a deep breath and then opened it a crack and peeked out into the hall. Since her stepbrother left to visit his mother, the house had been like the library at school. Every time she said anything, her mother or stepfather said, “Shh.” She didn’t miss Randy. He was a twit. But it meant there was no one to order around, and Whitney was bored.

  Her mother and stepfather were still in their room, and Whitney knew she needed to be quiet. Her stepfather worked at night and slept all day, so Whitney could never make noise in the house. Only Randy got to make noise. “He’s a boy,” her mother would say. “Plus, Randy doesn’t know he’s making noise.” Randy was deaf. Whitney thought if he couldn’t hear, he should be quieter, but Randy was the loudest kid she knew.

  Whitney hurried down the hall and tore down the stairs, making as much noise as possible before skittering out the front door. The street was quiet, but Whitney knew there’d be someone around somewhere. Halfway down the block a car thundered past her, music blaring. Whitney covered her ears and cringed. She hated those loud cars. She reached down and pulled up the sock on her right foot. It had managed to fall around her ankle again. She wiped at the scuffed patent leather shoes that had belonged to someone else and wished that for once she could have something brand-new. Someday she would. She was going to marry someone very successful so she could have all brand-new dresses. Her mother said it didn’t matter that their clothes were used. “It’s how you wear them that matters,” her mother would say.

  Molly was sitting on her doorstep and without hesitating Whitney approached. “What are you doing?”

  Molly squinted into the sun and shrugged. “Nothing.”

  Whitney twirled around. “Do you like my dress?”

  Molly nodded without really looking at it.

  Whitney smiled. Of course she liked it. It was beautiful. “May I sit down?” she asked, curtsying.

  She shrugged again. “Sure.”

  Whitney frowned at the girl’s response. It wasn’t very polite. “Do you want me to stay?”

  “I don’t care.”

  With her hands on her hips, Whitney let out a long sigh like her mother did when she’d done something wrong. Then, pointing a finger, she said, “You should invite me to sit. It’s only polite, you know.”

  Molly looked up at her and frowned. “Fine. Sit down.”

  She rolled her eyes. What could she do if Molly was rude? Her mother always told her that some people just weren’t raised right. Brushing off the step, Whitney sat down, spreading her dress around her and then crossing her legs and settling her hands in her lap.

  Molly pulled her knees to her chest and rested her arms on her knees.

  “I heard about your mom,” Whitney said, trying to raise the subject nicely.

  Molly didn’t answer.

  “What’s it like?”

  Molly frowned. “What’s what like?”

  “Not having a mom.”

  She shrugged. “I dunno.”

  “Are you sad?”

  Molly nodded, chewing on her lower lip.

  “You can cry if you want to.”

  “I’m not going to cry.”

  Whitney shrugged. If her mother died, she would cry. She would cry and cry and cry. And then where would she go? She couldn’t live with Randy and her stepfather. They wouldn’t want her. She’d probably get shipped back to her father’s house in Michigan. She scrunched her face at the thought of living with her stepmother. No, she would definitely cry if her mother died.

  Whitney straightened her back and smoothed her pink skirt. A small brown stain caught her eye and she picked at it. It was chocolate—from her cousin Teddy’s birthday party.

  “Why are you here?”

  Whitney looked over at Molly, who was watching her. “I came to see how you were doing.”

  The little girl narrowed her gaze. The streaks of dirt on her face made tiny cracks when she did. “Why?”

  “Because I thought you might want someone to talk to.” Whitney paused. “Do you?”

  Molly shook her head. “No.”

  “We can talk about who killed your mom.”

  “No,” Molly said again.

  Every day since Molly’s mom died, Whitney’s mom had warned her to be very careful going outside. Whitney would look out the window at night and watch the cars go by and wonder if the killer was in each one. But once, in the middle of the night, she’d woken up and heard noises and thought the killer was in her house. It was only the wind blowing the screen door open and shut. That was scary.

  Her stepbrother was outside playing when Molly’s mom was last seen. He could have been a hero if he had been paying attention. But Randy never paid attention, especially when he was playing.

  Whitney smoothed her skirt and turned to Molly, watching the other girl frown. Her mother always told her that her face would freeze in that position if she held it too long. Molly’s looked frozen, but Whitney didn’t say that. She stretched out her legs and crossed one over the other. “My mom said it was your dad what did it.”

  Molly sat up straight and scowled. “It was not.”

  Whitney ran her hand over her skirt again without responding to Molly’s outburst. Molly was only a few months younger than Whitney, but Whitney had always been mature for h
er age. “Precoshess,” her uncle always said.

  “Your mom doesn’t know,” Molly said.

  “She knows more than you do.”

  Molly thought about that and then shook her head. “I don’t care what your mom said,” Molly said. “She’s stupid if she said that. My dad would never do that. He loves my mom. Your mom’s a liar.”

  “Is not,” Whitney scolded. “My mother wouldn’t lie.”

  “Well, she did.”

  Whitney crossed her arms and stood up, stomping her patent leather shoe hard on the porch. “Don’t you say that. My stepbrother was riding his bike when your mother came outside—he saw.”

  “He can’t even hear,” Molly snapped back.

  Whitney put her hands on her hips. “He’s deaf, not stupid, and he can see.” It was the first time Whitney had ever stood up for dumb Randy.

  “If he’s so smart, how come he’s older than me and still in the first grade?”

  Whitney scowled. “He’s not as dumb as you if you don’t think your dad did it.”

  “Did not.”

  “Did too.”

  Molly started to cry. “Not,” she said, her voice cracking as the tears made tiny red paths down her dirty cheeks.

  Whitney tilted her nose in the air and gave a light shrug.

  Molly stood up and stomped across the porch to the front door. “Go away,” she screamed, as the door slammed shut.

  Wiping off her dress, Whitney stomped off the porch. Her mother had said that Molly’s dad did it, but she made up the part about Randy seeing something happen. Hewas outside, though. If she had been outside, she would have seen everything. She would be a great detective—like Nancy Drew in the stories her mom used to read to her when it was just the two of them.

  Randy would be a terrible detective. Whitney had wanted to ask him a million questions before he left to see his mom, but he was too busy packing to talk to her. That was a problem with being deaf. You couldn’t talk if your hands were busy doing other things. Plus, she didn’t think he would be much help anyway. Her mother always said men didn’t notice anything important—the same must be true of boys.

  Randy was so stupid he probably saw the whole thing and totally forgot it.

  Chapter Ten

  Rob watched Billy Jenkins slam the car door shut and carry the partly empty case of Old Milwaukee toward the group. They usually met here. It was a turnout behind a fire trail in the Berkeley hills and was rarely patrolled. Tall eucalyptus trees hid their cars from Grizzly Peak, out of view of nosy cops, which made it a convenient spot to hang out and drink. The times he’d been with girls had been here too, on a blanket on the ground. On warm summer nights, girls thought it was romantic to be able to look up and see the stars.

  Billy sat down beside Rob and handed him a beer.

  “Where’d you snag this? Your old man?”

  Billy grunted. “He was too wasted to miss it.”

  Rob watched his face. Billy liked to talk big, but he was afraid of his father. Rob was, too. Billy’s father was a real asshole.

  “Fuck him,” Billy muttered, pulling a can from the box and opening it with the same hand.

  Rob took a long, slow drag on his beer and felt nothing. It always helped to stop feeling. He wondered why Sam didn’t drink. Maybe she didn’t need booze to feel nothing.

  Billy dropped the can in an old pile of rusting empties and opened another.

  Rob stared out at the skyline.

  “Enjoying the view?” Billy asked.

  Rob finished his beer and took another one from Billy. “When you going to start contributing to the flow?”

  “There’s nothing in my house.” Rob opened the beer and took a long drag.

  Billy nodded.

  He wasn’t so bad, Rob thought. They both went to Las Lomas High School but hadn’t known each other until they got summer jobs with the stupid landscaping place. Then that dickhead Mr. Peters had busted them for drinking. Sam was already on his ass about finding another job. “You got a job yet?”

  Billy shook his head and tilted his beer back. “I’m working on it.”

  “Yeah, me too. Your old man still on you about losing that job?” Rob asked, without looking at him.

  “He’s the same. He’s an asshole.”

  Rob didn’t respond.

  “That crap he pulled at the station was nothing. You should see how he is at home.”

  Rob met his eye and took another drink from his beer.

  Billy looked out.

  Rob joined his gaze. From this spot he was sure he could see the lights of San Francisco.

  “I’ll bet Vegas is cool,” Billy said.

  Rob nodded.

  “That’s what we should do. Take off and go to Vegas.”

  Rob looked at him. “Yeah, right.”

  “I mean it. Screw school. Screw our folks. Just take off.”

  Rob finished his beer and tossed the can behind him. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “What the hell, man? What’s here for us? School is bullshit. Parents are bullshit.”

  “I wouldn’t know about parents.”

  Billy stared at Rob and shook his head. “Sorry, man.”

  Rob shrugged.

  “You don’t remember them at all?”

  Rob shrugged again, took another can of beer and opened it. “Parts of it—my dad’s slurring voice. It comes back sometimes.” He shook his head, then raised the beer can and chugged the liquid until it burned his throat. He coughed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “How old were you?”

  “Eight.”

  “That’s pretty old. Don’t you remember them?”

  “Some of it.”

  “What do you remember?”

  Rob thought back. None of it was good. “I don’t know. Mostly I remember my mom crying and my dad screaming.”

  “Sounds like my house,” Billy said, drinking his beer.

  “My mom was really pretty, I remember that. She had long blond hair—really long. And she wore it down all the time. I used to love her hair.”

  “Your aunt seems cool.”

  Rob shrugged. “She’s okay. Everything has to be just right. You think your father gives you a hard time, at least you’re his kid.”

  “You see how she handled my dad that day?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That was cool.”

  Rob thought about it. Sam had always been like that. He never really thought about it as cool or not. “I guess.”

  “I wish my dad would die.”

  Rob glared at him, furious. “No, you don’t. Don’t say that.”

  “The hell I don’t. Son of a bitch doesn’t care about me.”

  Rob waved him off, then ran his hand through his hair, watching the other guys joke around. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Don’t wish your parents dead. Even lousy parents. At least you’ve got them.”

  Another car pulled up, and Billy lowered his beer as he looked back, checking for cop cars. The door opened and three junior girls got out. “Those chicks need to find their own hangout.”

  They watched Derek get out of the car. “Damn,” Billy said.

  Rob ignored him, reaching for another beer.

  “Now I’ve got to give a beer to your gimp brother, too,” he muttered.

  Rob felt the anger rush to his cheeks. He dropped the beer and reached for Billy. “What’d you say?”

  Billy pulled Rob’s hand off his shirt and raised his voice. “I said, I’m probably going to have to give some beer to your gimp brother, too.” He grinned at Rob. It was his don’t-screw-with-me grin.

  Jumping to his feet, Rob took Billy by the shirt and tossed him to the ground, then came down on top of him.

  Billy fought to loosen Rob’s grip but couldn’t. “What the hell are you doing?”

  The buzz of alcohol in his brain, Rob raised his fist and brought it down hard on Billy’s face.

  “Get off me,” Billy yelled, twisting his hips below
Rob in an effort to throw him off balance.

  “You dipshit.” Rob cursed in a low, angry stream as his fists connected with Billy’s body.

  Rob’s right landed in his gut and Billy moaned. “Get him off me,” he screamed, kicking and fighting.

  Rob continued to pound on him. Billy took hits to his chest, arms, and shoulders. His left eye was starting to swell shut.

  Derek had moved to Rob’s side and was screaming. “Let him go, Rob. Let go of him!”

  Two guys grabbed Rob from behind and were trying to pull him off.

  With Rob’s weight finally off him, Billy hurriedly got up. Derek tried to help him, but Billy shoved him away. “Don’t touch me, you freak.”

  Derek gave him a stare and shook his head. “You didn’t have to do that, Rob. It doesn’t matter what he says. He’s an idiot.”

  Rob looked at Billy and straightened his shoulders. Then he lunged at Billy.

  Billy jumped back and tripped, landing on the ground again.

  “Fucking loser—just like your dad,” Rob said. “Let’s go, Derek.”

  Billy got up quickly and wiped himself off. He touched the back of his hand to his lip and felt the warmth of blood.

  Rob walked away.

  “What’d you say to piss him off?” he heard Joe ask Billy.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Billy snapped.

  Rob didn’t look back. His arm over Derek’s shoulder, they headed down the hill toward the car in silence.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sam parked across the street from the theater at Jack London Square and followed Nick’s directions to Yoshi’s restaurant on the next block. Though she hadn’t intended to have dinner with just Nick, it sounded like fun. Carefree, adult fun.

  Something people actually did. Something as foreign to her as the families she saw laughing together over pizza in a restaurant or playing a game of softball in the park.

  She couldn’t remember an evening she would describe that way. Brent had never been fun, certainly not carefree. He thought he was fun, but he was too serious really. Uptight. And now, with no practice, no skills, in the middle of a crazy case and some ridiculous taunting at work, she was supposed to have an evening of adult fun.