Blackened

by Tim McWhorter

  Morgenstern looked at us both for a few seconds, hesitating before answering. When he finally did, the payoff wasn’t worth the wait.

  “Well, that’s the million dollar question,” Morgenstern said. “We don’t know.”

  Chapter 34

  “Well, that was a waste of time,” Claire said, giving voice to my initial thoughts. Only it wasn’t exactly a complete waste, I guess. We did find out that the bones didn’t belong to Garrett, and at some point while we sat in Morgenstern’s office, I’d determined that was a positive development. The ring was one thing, but imagining that Barnes had not only cut off Garrett’s finger, but had kept it all this time as a souvenir had been like grinding salt into an old, festering wound. I could finally let go of that notion.

  Compared to the poor government lighting inside the station, the harsh sun was an intolerable shock. As soon as we exited through the glass doors, I had to use my hand to shield my eyes. Taking Claire’s hand with my other, we walked down the concrete steps and turned up the sidewalk that would lead us to the parking lot and her waiting Prius.

  Other than ruling out the bones being Garrett’s, I was disappointed in the lack of information the police had uncovered so far. They were working the case, but the information didn’t seem to be coming very quickly. I felt like a baby bird whose mother only feeds it small bites at a time. Part of me was getting really irritated at Morgenstern’s lack of urgency. Did they not understand that not only my life, but the lives of the people around me were in danger?

  But then the part of me that likes to play devil’s advocate questioned if they had enough reason to act more urgently. You hear about it all the time in the news. A frightened woman complains to the police about an ex-boyfriend who won’t leave well enough alone. Only the police tell her they can’t do anything until an actual crime is committed. Usually by then, though, it’s too late. In my case, other than a couple of veiled threats that hadn’t materialized, what reason did the police really have to get all their hands on deck? What reason did they have to take any of it seriously?

  My cell phone rang as we reached the car and I answered it as I waited for Claire to unlock the doors. Just like that, the voice on the other end offered a reason.

  *

  The patrol car was sitting in front of Tipsword’s Automotive with its lights off, but its motor running. On the way there, I’d filled Claire in on what I knew, which wasn’t much. The rest of it we would find out together.

  “Do you have any idea what they might have been looking for?” the officer was asking as we entered the office. Hearing the bells above the door, the officer turned and gave us the once over. He must have decided we weren’t worthy of his time, because he dismissed us just as quickly.

  “Hell if I know,” Dallas said. “But they made one helluva mess, as you can see.”

  The officer stopped writing in his spiral notepad long enough to take a look around. I knew what he was thinking, and he was right. The office was always a mess. Wrinkled magazines, some more than a year old, were scattered about, laying on every flat surface in the room. More than one greasy rag had found its way in between the wobbly chairs sitting in front of the large, plate glass window. Plastic cups from the water fountain had sat on the table for who knows how long. Basically, it was everything you would expect an automotive repair shop’s office to look like. Especially one run by a recent divorcee pushing sixty.

  Adding to the usual mess were the contents of Dallas’ desk. Dingy manila folders with black fingerprint smudges spewed sheets of yellowed paper like vomit. A handful of dull metal keys, their purpose long forgotten, had been dumped onto the grimy linoleum floor. In the middle of it all sat one of the wooden desk drawers, laying on its side, cast aside in haste.

  The entirety of it all brought on a sense of wariness, and I reached over and took Claire’s hand in mine.

  “And where were you at the time, Mr. Tipsword?” asked the officer, his rigid voice more deadpan than stern. From where I stood, his dark blue uniform shirt stretched tightly across his back and shoulders. I wondered if it was the way the shirt was made, or if the guy was intentionally wearing a size too small to show how many hours he spent at the gym.

  “Out in the bay,” Dallas said, with eyes cast downward. “Under a truck.”

  “And you were the only one here?”

  “Yes. My employee here was out to lunch.”

  Something about that statement piqued the officer’s interest because he gave me another once over, this time with eyebrows raised.

  “And where were you?” he asked.

  “Ironically enough, my girlfriend and I were just at the station over on Washington talking to Detective Morgenstern.”

  “Hmm, now that’s interesting,” said the officer, who then turned his eyes on Claire. “I assume you can corroborate that?”

  “Absolutely.”

  After looking us up and down a second time, Claire more than me, we were once again dismissed as the officer returned his attention to Dallas.

  I looked at Claire with what I imagined was an expression of awkward confusion. I could tell that she didn’t know why our being at the police station was interesting either. Maybe we would find out.

  “And what, if anything, was taken, Mr. Tipsword? Money? Important documents?”

  “That’s just it,” Dallas said, plopping down in the worn leather chair behind the desk. “Ain’t nothin’ in there worth takin’. I don’t keep cash or even a checkbook on the premises. Most of the papers in these drawers are old and probably shoulda been pitched years ago. Any information on ’em is outdated. I seriously doubt whoever did this found what they were looking for. Whatever it was.”

  The officer got busy jotting more notes in his notepad, while the three of us fell silent and exchanged anxious looks. Things stayed that way for several minutes while the officer worked the pen. I don’t know whether we were afraid to speak in front of him, or if all our minds were just racing, probably in the same direction. I looked around at the disarray, wondering if we should start picking up. The way Dallas sat in the chair with his hands folded in his lap, he didn’t seem to be in a hurry, so I let the thought pass.

  “Alright,” the officer said in that flighty tone that let us know he was wrapping things up, “let me see if I’ve got everything straight. You’ve had no problems with any of your neighboring business owners or unsatisfied customers, and you haven’t seen anyone suspicious milling around lately. Point of entry is hard to determine since both the front and back doors were unlocked, and no forced entry is evident. And nothing, as far as you can tell, Mr. Tipsword, was taken.”

  Dallas nodded. “The long and short of it,” he said.

  “Okay, then.” The officer closed his notepad and pulled a business card from his breast pocket. “You can come down to the station if you want a copy of the report for insurance purposes, though I’m not sure you have much of a claim if nothing was stolen and no property damaged.”

  The officer let his words hang in the air and looked around the office again like he was giving Dallas a chance to speak up, to claim at least some of this disaster area was the result of the break in. When Dallas didn’t bite, the officer shrugged and told him to have a nice day. He gave me one more once over before excusing himself and exiting to his patrol car out front.

  “Okay,” I said when the glass door had closed again, “are you going to say it or should I? We’re all thinking the same thing.” Maybe I was on to something, maybe I was just being paranoid. But anything out of the ordinary lately I attributed to Corwin Barnes. If the phone rang at the house or here at work, and nobody spoke up when I answered, it was Barnes. If my father couldn’t find the newspaper out on the front porch in the morning, it was obvious that Barnes had taken it and was perusing the classifieds for whatever the hell psychos perused the classifieds for. Like I said, anything out of the ordinary.

  And this had Barnes written all over it.

  “You really think so?”
Dallas asked, looking passed me and out the window to where the officer still sat in his cruiser.

  “Who else?”

  “What would he be looking for?” Claire asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “An address?”

  “Whose? He already knows where you live. Remember the second box?” Dallas asked.

  “Like I could forget?”

  “I don’t know,” he continued, stroking his beard and staring out the front window. “Might’ve been him, but that sure as hell doesn’t sit well with me. Knowing he was right here in the office while I was out there under a Dodge, oblivious. Fuck. Imagine if he had been here looking for payback instead of information.”

  The three of us grew quiet again, all lost in thought. I don’t know about Dallas and Claire, but several scenarios of what might have happened started running through my mind. None of them ended well.

  “Maybe we should start locking the doors when either of us is here alone,” I suggested.

  Dallas looked up at me.

  “Maybe I should start bringing Prudence to work with me.”

  I don’t know if he meant it as a joke or not, but none of us laughed.

  Chapter 35

  To say that what happened at the shop that afternoon was unsettling would be like saying finding out your girlfriend had once been a dude was unsettling. And I wasn’t even sure what the worst part was. The fact that Barnes had the balls to search through Dallas’ office in broad daylight, or the fact that Dallas had been right there and so vulnerably unaware of it. The only thing I was completely sure of was that I was getting sick and tired of dealing with cops. Nothing was coming from it, and yet we kept calling them. “Report takers,” that’s what they should be called.

  But I didn’t have to stress over the break-in for long before something else came along to occupy my mind. Claire had plans for us that evening. It would be good for me, she said. A nice distraction, she said. All this before even telling me what it was. So instantly, I was wary of what these plans were. Turned out, I had every reason to be.

  The guy’s name was Raun, pronounced “Ron”, last name Stiletto. I was pretty sure the last name was a fake, but the jury was still out on the first. He was a Goth metal singer and just happened to be one of Claire’s college roommates’ boyfriend. Raun’s band, Shadows of Misery, was playing that night in a small, unnamed club somewhere downtown. Claire’s friend, Mackenzie would be riding with us, and Raun had all but guaranteed he could get us in. “Lucky for us” is how Claire, the eternal spin-doctor, put it. Admittedly, I viewed it differently. His guarantee only meant that our underage status wasn’t going to get me out of going. Neither was the fact that three didn’t ride comfortably in a pickup truck. Claire had thought of a way around that as well.

  A little after nine o’clock, the silver Prius pulled into the driveway. Personally, I was finding that the more I rode around in the car, the less of a fan I was. It was hard going from the height and sheer size of the Chevy truck down to the tiny Prius. Not to mention the truck was a hell of a lot more manly than riding shotgun in my girlfriend’s shiny economy car. Claire insisted there wasn’t anything emasculating about it, but I still had my doubts. Not to mention the fact that I wouldn’t even be attaining shotgun status on this ride. I would be sitting in the back.

  From the front stoop, I watched the ladies get out of the car before heading down the sidewalk to greet them. Both were dressed up for a night on the town. Claire was wearing dark skinny jeans tucked into her distressed brown leather engineer boots. Her deep rust-colored blouse hung loose with a plunging neckline that showed off a modest amount of cleavage. She looked amazing, and I didn’t even bother trying to conceal the smile it brought to my face. Besides, I needed to save my energy. I figured I was in for a night of fighting off better looking guys.

  Mackenzie wasn’t at all what I expected of a friend of Claire’s. From first impressions, she looked to be all about the Goth scene, much different from Claire, who listened mostly to pop or country. But I guess that’s what having roommates in college does for you. It introduces you to people you wouldn’t ordinarily meet.

  Mackenzie’s long, wavy hair was the unnatural color of black ink and fit perfectly with the type of woman you would expect to date a guy in a Goth band. Her studded leather top, short leather skirt, and heeled boots that rose to her knees told the same story. Apparently, black was on the menu for the evening, and not just in her clothing. Her eyes looked sallow and sunken thanks to the heavy makeup. Nestled within her ample and not so modest cleavage was the biggest silver cross I’d ever seen. The points were pointy, the edges sharp, and I immediately shuddered at the damage it might cause if she wasn’t careful.

  “Hey, Baby,” Claire sang.

  I said “hey” back and pulled her in for an embrace as if we hadn’t just seen each other earlier in the day. As I held her, I could see the unmarked sedan over her shoulder, parked a little way down the street. Officer Stine’s eyes were on us, assumedly brought to attention by Claire’s car pulling into our driveway. It was comforting having him around, though it was a constant reminder of Corwin Barnes and his threats. Heaven forbid I do anything without that son of a bitch hovering in the back of my mind.

  “This is Mackenzie,” Claire said, breaking our embrace.

  Mackenzie and I exchanged pleasantries, which included her drawing me in for a hug. I could feel the silver cross poking into my chest, and I cringed at what it might be doing to hers.

  “You ready for this?” Mackenzie asked as we broke our little huddle.

  “I think so. Not sure if Claire told you or not, but this’ll be my first Goth experience.”

  “Well, I hope you have your fun pants on,” she said with a sly smile. “After tonight, your life will never be the same.”

  As if it wasn’t inconvenient enough spending twenty minutes cooped up in microscopic excuse for a back seat, when Mackenzie texted her boyfriend to let him know we had just pulled into the parking lot, he greeted her with both good and bad news. The good news was that he had kept his promise. Raun had talked to the manager of the club, and the guy was going to let us in as guests of the band. No cover charge, no I.D. check.

  The bad news was that we were going to have to enter through the back door to avoid some of Dayton’s finest providing security at the front. I hadn’t been to a lot of clubs in my life, but I had to think that enlisting the services of actual police officers to work security instead of bouncers was enough to raise a red flag on this place.

  But then, what did I know?

  What was trying to pass itself off as an alley was little more than a narrow corridor behind the deteriorating brick buildings, but with limited lighting. It was barely wide enough for a large car to pull through, much less a garbage truck. Yet that’s where the three of us found ourselves. A couple of the buildings had floodlights mounted above their rear entry doors, but they only illuminated the back steps and not where we had to walk. I counted three street lamps as far as I could see, and the gaps between them were vast and dark as the night could hope to be. In short, the light was only enough to make out the shadowed profiles of crippled grocery carts and large steel dumpsters overflowing with cardboard liquor boxes.

  The creepiness factor of the dystopian scene was elevated by the industrial sized black trash bags scattered about like they’d been dropped from a plane. I didn’t have a guess as to what might be in them. All I knew was that they would have looked ominous even in the daylight.

  Or maybe it was just me. Perhaps I had just seen too much in my life not to be wary of scattered black trash bags that bore more than a slight resemblance to those that dead bodies are put in.

  With the aid of an overwhelming stench of urine, the low, rhythmic thumping of a bass coming from somewhere inside the buildings only tweaked my nerves even more, providing a frenzied score to the opening credits of our night. As much as I tried, I found myself having difficulty preparing for what was to come.

&nb
sp; “Well,” Claire said as we walked warily down the dark passage in a tight bunch, “this is pleasant.”

  “Nothing to be afraid of here.” The amount of sarcasm in Mackenzie’s voice equaled that which had been in Claire’s. Other than that bit of conversation, we remained quiet; I don’t think any of us wanted to draw attention to our presence. There was no telling what, or who might be lurking in the shadows, but I know that I, for one, preferred not to find out.

  After what seemed like a day-long hike but had probably taken only a couple of minutes, we came upon the dirty red door we’d been instructed to look for. Dented and with its paint scuffed in places, it looked exactly the way you would expect the back door of an underground club to look. I took the initiative to glance around for anything that might go bump in the night before climbing the two crumbling concrete steps and pounding on the door with the open palm of my hand. While I waited for a response, I looked back at Claire and Mackenzie. They both stood looking up at me with their arms wrapped around themselves, despite the fact the air was fairly warm on that May evening.

  The initial response to my knocking didn’t take long, nor did it come from inside the building. A sudden crash of empty bottles clattered from the shadow of a dumpster to our right. With an offsetting click-clack sound, a brown beer bottle slowly rolled out into the light cast by one of the three streetlamps.

  As the girls both took an impulsive step in my direction, the dirty red door sprang open, and the thumping bass exploded from the doorway.

  Chapter 36

  A waitress wearing nearly the same outfit as Mackenzie’s, only with a little more fishnet covering her arms, escorted us into a small room behind the stage, and there we found the band. Raun rose up from his metal folding chair when he saw us and came over to indulge in an uncomfortably long make out session with Mackenzie. It was uncomfortable for me, at least, but obviously not for them. Their attire was identical, only on Raun, the skirt had been replaced with black skinny jeans that looked like they would have fit a twelve-year old if not for the rips down the thighs.