The Darkest Corners

by Kara Thomas

Is she missing something that the Monster took from her?

  “This is horrible,” Sabrina whispers, on the other side of Callie. Both of them have their eyes on the Kouchinsky family, who are huddled by the pulpit, greeting mourners. Ari’s siblings are lined up, as if on display—Kyle, her older brother, who is sweating through his short-sleeved shirt; David, the youngest, who stands to the side, running a toy micro skateboard over his knuckles. He was in diapers the last time I saw him, and he’s now taller than the second youngest, Kerry Ann, who must be almost fourteen by now. Katie, now the oldest sister, stands next to Kerry Ann, in a plain black dress that hangs baggily past her knees. It probably belonged to Ari.

  Kyle clutches Mrs. Kouchinsky’s hand, as if he were trying to hold her upright. I can’t look at them.

  “Should we go talk to her?” Callie whispers. I turn my head and realize she’s talking to Sabrina, not me.

  “Can we wait until…” Sabrina doesn’t finish her sentence. She doesn’t have to.

  Mr. Kouchinsky is standing on the other side of his wife. His hand is planted on his daughter Katie’s shoulder. Even from where we’re sitting, it’s obvious the gesture isn’t protective.

  Katie is a statue beneath her father’s grip. I have to blink and remind myself I’m not looking at Ariel. Katie’s the only one of the kids who looks like Ari did. Lanky, tanned, brunette. The other kids are round-faced, with fair skin and dirty blond hair, like their mother.

  Katie and Ari have their father’s coloring. Mr. Kouchinsky is tall, with angular limbs like a praying mantis. His hair is combed to the side the same way it is in photos from twenty years ago. His thick mustache does little to help the fact that it looks as though he were constantly snarling.

  He has always scared the ever-living crap out of us.

  “I heard he went apeshit on her,” Sabrina whispers.

  “Who? Ari?” Callie says.

  “Katie,” Sabrina says. “She covered for Ari when she snuck out. It’s why they didn’t report her missing until the next day.”

  It’s about a thousand degrees in this church, yet Katie is wearing a long-sleeved dress. I picture bruises up and down her arms beneath the fabric.

  The pastor taps the microphone on top of his pulpit. Feedback reverberates throughout the church, and he asks people to find their seats.

  But all I can hear is Mr. Kouchinsky slaughtering that dog and the sound of Ariel’s screams.

  •••

  There are refreshments in the Sunday school room after the service. As we’re following Sabrina down the church hall, Callie’s phone buzzes.

  “My mom,” she mutters. “She says she’ll meet us at the car.”

  Maggie and Rick must have snuck out at the tail end of the service. Unease works its way into my stomach. What if Maggie is going to bring down the hammer on Callie for the vodka by sending me home tonight?

  Callie shields her eyes against the late-morning sun as we step outside the church. I shrug myself out of the cardigan, praying that my shirt is dark enough to obscure the sweat stains on my back and beneath my armpits.

  “Hey.” A guy’s voice sounds behind us. Ryan meets us at the bottom of the church steps. He shaved and put on a tie for the occasion. He’s almost unrecognizable.

  “Didn’t see you guys in there,” he mutters, slipping his hands into his pockets. “You see Nick?”

  Callie glances at me; I shrug. It was so crowded in the church that I wouldn’t have spotted Nick even if I’d been paying attention.

  Callie hesitates. “I don’t think he came.”

  Ryan cracks his knuckles. Glances at the throng of people pouring out of the church. “I hope you’re wrong.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” Callie says. “Plenty of people didn’t show up.”

  “Yeah, but he’s the one the cops want to see.” Ryan lowers his voice. “This looks really bad for him, Cal.”

  “God, you sound like your uncle,” she snaps.

  “Some might consider that a compliment.”

  Jay Elwood is standing behind us, his partner in tow. They’re both in suit jackets, guns at their hips.

  “Nick Snyder been in touch with either of you today?” Detective Elwood’s gaze sweeps over me as if I weren’t even here. Callie and Ryan both shake their heads.

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yes,” Ryan says. “Why? What’s going on?”

  The partner makes a guttural hmm sound and yanks up his pants. Jay massages the cleft in his chin, his eyes on his nephew.

  “We stopped by his stepdad’s house this morning,” Jay says. “Looks like Nick Snyder took off last night.”

  Rick stops at the deli on the way home to get rolls for sandwiches. While he’s inside, Callie and I sit silently in the backseat as Maggie fiddles with the radio, unable to look at us.

  Callie nudges me and shows me her phone. She’s typed a message.

  He didn’t do it.

  I put my hand over my pocket and remember that I left my phone at the Greenwoods’, charging next to the bed. I motion for Callie to give me her phone. I hesitate before I type my response.

  How do you know?

  Callie takes the phone back, her brow furrowing as she reads. I look over her shoulder as she erases the conversation and types out: I know Nick.

  My mind goes to a scene in Unmasking the Monster. The filmmakers interviewed Wyatt Stokes’s mother—not a small feat, because they had to get her sober enough to put her in front of a camera. They filmed the whole thing right in her trailer; she sat on a threadbare couch and insisted through a haze of cigarette smoke that she knew her son. He was no girl-killer.

  I wonder if Callie knows Nick as well as she thinks she does, or if the way the police are treating him reminds her of how they treated Stokes and she’s simply trying to rewrite history. Trying to stop the police from throwing the first creep they can find into jail just so they can say the case is closed.

  Unless Nick Snyder did kill Ariel. I don’t know anything about the guy, except for a general impression that he’s not smart enough to stage his ex-girlfriend’s murder to mimic a serial killer from ten years ago.

  Things were different when Lori was murdered. The Monster killings were everywhere. The media released so many details about the crime scenes that they practically did the copycat’s job for him.

  Or her, I can’t stop myself from adding.

  Rick comes out of the deli, carrying a brown paper bag. I take Callie’s phone and type out: What’s Nick’s story?

  Rick is pulling out of the parking lot by the time Callie is done with her answer.

  He used to live with his dad in North Carolina, but they didn’t get along. He moved in with his mom and her boyfriend freshman year. She died two years ago. Ovarian cancer. Her boyfriend is a dick, but Nick can’t get him out of her house.

  When I finish reading, I respond: What happened with his dad?

  Callie frowns. Does it matter?

  I shrug. What I really want to say, I don’t have the words for. So I tilt back against the headrest and think of my father’s face on the security camera outside the convenience store after he shot Manuel Gonzalo. I think of my sister with that piece of broken glass pointed at my mother like a dagger.

  I think of Bobby Buckteeth, and how slamming his head against the locker uncaged something within me. How I wouldn’t have stopped if a teacher hadn’t pulled me off him.

  We’re all capable of violence, but some of us are born with it in our blood. There were rumors my father beat a man in a bar so badly before I was born that the guy needed twenty stitches.

  Nick could have it in his blood too. Sometimes all you have to do is look at the roots to see if the rest of the tree is poisoned.

  •••

  Callie shuts down as soon as we get back to the house and I tell her we need to find out if Ari is missing a piece of jewelry.

  “No.” She shakes her head. “They didn’t even bury her yet. What am I supposed to do, mes
sage Katie and ask her to go through her dead sister’s shit?”

  We’re outside, sitting at the patio table, cradling Snapple bottles and staying out of Maggie’s way while she vacuums the living room. She’s probably hoping the sound will drown out the thoughts of Ari’s funeral, and Lori’s. Maggie wanted to be alone—I saw it in her face when we tried to clear the table after lunch and she said, “Let me get it.”

  I study Callie’s face as she peels the label from her iced tea bottle. “Someone needs to go through her jewelry,” I say. “If something’s missing, it’s more proof this is the Monster.”

  “Jesus Christ, Tessa. They haven’t even told her parents how she was killed.” Callie glances at the back door, but there’s only the roar of the vacuum. “We’re not going to be able to go through Ari’s stuff, or anywhere near Katie for that matter.”

  I flick away a stray piece of pollen that’s fallen on my knee from the tree overhead.

  “Her funeral was this morning,” Callie adds after a moment. “Can’t we let her have that, at least? There’s got to be something else.”

  I’m quiet, her message received. No bugging Ari’s family or friends. It doesn’t leave us with much, except for a name—Faber & Sons Landscaping, who Danny used to work for.

  Callie and I couldn’t find anything about Faber & Sons Landscaping online after our visit to the pool yesterday, so we plan to ask around town about them. I want to wait out here while Callie asks to take the van, but she makes me come inside with her.

  We hover in the doorway a moment before Callie clears her throat. “Is it okay if Tessa and I go to Emily Raymes’s? She’s having people over.”

  Rick has retreated to the family room with a Coors Light, but he’s within earshot. Maggie’s face pinches.

  “I’d prefer you stay here, Callie,” she says. She may not have told Rick about the vodka, but she’s not going to let Callie forget it, funeral or not.

  Callie’s face falls.

  “She didn’t say me,” I point out when Maggie joins Rick in the family room.

  “Yeah, but what are you going to do without me?” Callie whispers. “You don’t even really know anyone around here anymore.”

  “I know people.” Decker Lucas’s face pops into my mind. His sad garage, and all the old boxes and phone books. His kind, crooked smile.

  Phone books. Decker said his mom has kept crap from more than eleven years ago—one of those phone books is bound to have a listing for Faber & Sons. I pat my back pocket, and remember I left my cell upstairs to charge.

  Callie eyes me. “What are you—”

  “I’ll tell you if I find it,” I say, already on my way upstairs.

  I grab my phone off the nightstand and scroll through the contacts. His number is right toward the top of the list, where he put it. DECKER, YOUR FRIEND^_^

  Hey…weird question, but are any of those phone books in your garage from ten years ago? I text him, since talking on the phone is an indignity. I don’t understand why society still insists on voice calls when everyone hates them so much.

  Everyone except Decker. Within a minute of my sending the message, my phone rings.

  “What do you need ten-year-old phone books for?” he asks.

  “Just looking for someone.” The guest room door is open a crack. I nudge it with my foot to close it.

  “Have you tried Google?”

  Jesus. I press the heel of my hand to my forehead. “Yep, tried that. It’s a company that went out of business years ago….If I can find their address, I might be able to find where the owner’s at now.”

  “Gotcha,” he says. “So this is like a Sherlock Holmes thing.”

  I know he’s joking, but it makes my toes curl. If he even knew. “Would you mind if I came over and looked through the books? It’d be really quick.”

  “Yeah! I mean, not yeah I mind—”

  I’m already headed for the garage to get Callie’s bike.

  •••

  Decker is waiting for me in his driveway, wearing the same unfortunate jean shorts he had on the other day. The fitted sleeves of his Old Navy T-shirt are loose around his arms. They’re branches compared to Ryan Elwood’s tree trunks, suggesting that the only lifting Decker does involves his video game controller.

  I don’t know when I started noticing things like the width of guys’ arms, but it’s not in a sexual way or anything.

  “Howdy,” Decker says.

  “Thanks for this. It won’t take long.”

  At least, I hope it won’t; Decker’s garage smells like mold. He lifts a cardboard box off the top of the phone book stack. I spy a bunch of model cars inside.

  “I keep telling my mom we should have a garage sale.” He sounds sheepish. I remember the other day, when he told me most of this stuff is his father’s.

  “Do you ever see him?” I ask. “Your dad.”

  Decker shrugs. He fishes a mint-green convertible out of the box and runs a finger over its wheels. “Not really. He lives in Jersey now.”

  The phone books aren’t in chronological order. I run my thumb across the spines until I find one from the year Lori was killed.

  “Did you ever see your dad?” Decker asks. “You know, while he was…”

  “In jail?” I finish. I don’t look up from the phone book. “No.”

  I flip past headshots of ambulance-chasing lawyers, and two-for-one offers on car detailing, searching for businesses that start with F. I figure my conversation with Decker is over, until he says, “Why not?”

  I chew the inside of my lower lip. “My mom didn’t want me to.”

  Decker’s brow furrows. “Did you want to?”

  I’m surprised at how the words seem to fall out of me: “Yeah. I really wanted to.” I shrug at Decker’s horrified expression. “My mom didn’t think jail was a place for kids.”

  “Huh,” is all Decker says. I clam up, not sure why I said anything in the first place. No one has ever understood what it’s like to have a parent in jail. Callie never could, so why should Decker be any different?

  I flip through the phone book’s directory for Services: Lawn and pool. There’s a one-inch ad for Faber & Sons Landscaping with the now defunct phone number Callie and I called yesterday, and a name: Joe Faber.

  QUALITY SERVICE AND SATISFACTION GARANTEED

  Too bad no one had guaranteed Joe Faber a quality copyediting service.

  I text the address to myself so I won’t forget it: 312 South Township Road.

  •••

  Decker offered to drive me to 312 South Township Road, but there was so much crap in his backseat and trunk that there was nowhere to put Callie’s bike. And I wanted to do this on my own, anyway, and not have to explain to yet another person how estranged I really am from my family.

  South Township Road is dangerous to ride on. The faded wooden cross memorial for Rob McQueen and Tyrone Williams is a silent reminder to slow down on the curves. It doesn’t help that the South Township Inn, a dive bar, is along the road. People called it the STI when I was younger, and now that I get the joke, I think it’s more accurate than funny.

  Rumor is that Rob and Tyrone had stopped into the STI before their deadly crash, but people always blame the curves. There’s a guardrail along the road now; I stay as close to it as I can, even though there aren’t many cars zipping past me. The most notable point of interest on South Township Road is the high school, closed for the summer.

  312 South Township Road is nestled in the same strip as the STI. The bar caps off a row of three businesses; the one in the middle is a deli, and on the other end is the Lemon Tree Haircutters.

  I ride up to the sidewalk to get a better look at the numbers. The deli, which is now closed, is 312 South Township Road, where Faber & Sons Landscaping used to be located.

  A sign in the window says the deli closes at five p.m. on weekdays. It’s a quarter after. I kick the curb.

  I prop Callie’s bike up against the brick wall outside the Lemon Tree, where
I can keep an eye on it, and head inside. My stomach clenches.

  Joslin hated when my mother brushed her hair. Annette pulled too hard, was too rough with the tangles. She yanked until our scalps were raw and we’d go to bed on the verge of tears. It didn’t help that she never cut our hair; she had always wanted long hair as a child, she said, like her Barbies, but Gram had kept it in a practical bob.

  One night Jos decided she’d had enough, so she ducked into our closet with a pair of scissors and hacked all her hair off. My mother brought Jos to the Lemon Tree, dragging me along, so they could fix her hair.

  “Walk-in?” The voice comes from the sinks, where a redheaded girl in her twenties is shampooing a man’s head. It takes a moment before I realize she’s talking to me.

  “Um. No. I had a question.”

  “Okay. One sec.” She rinses the man and rubs him dry with a towel. After he settles into a chair in front of the mirror, the stylist meets me at the front counter.

  “Do you know of a landscaping company named Faber & Sons?” I ask. “They used to be next door.”

  The stylist props her elbows on the counter. “As long as I’ve been here, it’s been the deli.”

  She hasn’t heard the name Joe Faber either. I thank her and head outside; a sigh leaves my chest. There’s music blasting from the STI’s propped-open front door.

  A sign in the window says THURSDAY NIGHTS: LIVE JAZZ! There’re voices at the curb outside the bar. A guy and a girl come around the side of the building; he leans over and lights her cigarette with his. They talk before he goes back inside, leaving her in full view.

  Emily Raymes, who was worried about Ariel during the bonfire the other night. She takes a pull from her cigarette and leans her back against the brick wall of the building. She doesn’t see me at the other end of the strip. Smoke streams out of her nose as she checks her phone and pockets it before heading back around the side of the bar, disappearing behind a Dumpster.

  I walk Callie’s bike past the front of the bar; a bulky man inside the doorway has his back to me. I follow Emily’s path around the side of the building, past the Dumpster. There’s a back door propped open with a cinder block.