The River Is Dark

by Joe Hart

  Her face scrunched up as she half smiled and half frowned. Another of the weightless swells surged in his stomach and he shifted in his seat.

  “It supports what I really like to do, so I guess that makes me happy,” she said. “Sometimes that’s all life is, you know? Doing something different to support what you really want.” Her eyes found his as she sipped her coffee, and he suddenly felt very lucky to be sitting so close to this woman. “How about you? Are you still a police officer?”

  “Umm, not anymore,” he said with as much nonchalance as he could muster.

  “Oh, really? Was it not what you wanted to do?”

  Liam searched for a way to change the subject and found none. “I’m not sure anymore,” he said. Dani studied him, and he felt himself wanting to tell her. Wanting to expose the raw wound that spiked with pain anytime someone mentioned his career. He opened his mouth to say something, to lead into it somehow, but instead he reached out and grasped Suzie’s insurance policy form. “Take a look at this,” he said as he handed her the paper.

  Dani scanned it, and her eyes widened slightly before she looked at him. “Wow. That’s a lot of money.”

  “I know.”

  “Why did she do this?”

  “Because she was kind and my brother wasn’t. I suppose she felt sorry for me, even though she was married to Allen. I don’t think she ever told him she took out the policy. He would’ve been furious.”

  Dani stared at him for what seemed like a full minute before setting the paper down. “Can I ask why Allen and you didn’t get along? He was always so outgoing and friendly to me.”

  Liam sighed and looked down at the floor. “My mother died giving birth to me. Allen never forgave me or my father for it. He once told me I was a mistake that cost more than I would ever be worth.”

  “That’s horrible,” Dani said, her eyebrows furrowing.

  “Yeah, my dad thought so. He and Allen fought quite a bit before Allen went off to school. Dad raised me alone, and Allen just drifted farther and farther away from us. It hurt my father a lot, but he didn’t give up. He always invited Allen and Suzie down for Christmas and Thanksgiving, always sent him a birthday card.” Liam paused, the poignancy of the memories surprising him. “The last thing Allen said to me at Dad’s funeral was, ‘Now that he’s in the ground, I can finally forget about both of you.’ ”

  Dani gave a small gasp and her hand slid into his. He looked into her face and realized it wasn’t merely the weight of the words he spoke that pulled on the strings of his emotions; it was more the act of telling someone who actually cared.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “It’s okay,” Liam said, releasing her hand at the thought of only pity fueling her response. “It was quite a while ago, but now with this . . .” He tapped the policy. “It puts a little different spin on things.”

  “You mean, it implicates you in their murders.”

  “Yes.”

  Dani thought for a moment. “But what motive would there be to kill the Shevlins?”

  “That’s my only saving grace. No self-respecting cop is going to go down that avenue for too long—there’s really nothing to back it up.”

  “Exactly, and besides, they could say the same of me for what Allen and Suzie put in their will.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They gave me their cabin on Long Lake, up north. They knew I loved it there. I don’t know how many weekends my parents and I stayed there with them.”

  Liam nodded. “Yeah, but lake property isn’t the same as half a million in cash.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” she conceded.

  “I’m not too worried about being a suspect—I just don’t want to be slowed down by the agent in charge of the case. He could use something like this to run me out of town, and now that I have this, that’s the last thing I want,” Liam said, picking up the larger stack of papers. He saw Dani look at the documents in his hand and then look away.

  “Dani, you don’t have to do this. To be perfectly honest I’m not supposed to have this stuff, I just wanted to give you the option to be involved.”

  She shook her head and set down her coffee cup. “No, I’m fine, just not looking forward to it.” She breathed out. “So, where should we begin?”

  “With the Shevlins, I think,” Liam said, sorting the papers into piles.

  A few photos of each crime scene lay amidst the descriptions and autopsy reports. Liam hadn’t had the color option on when he copied everything from the folder, and the photos suffered for it. He could only get a general idea of what each picture was with the hazy quality of black and white, not to mention the sheriff’s printer may have been the first of its kind ever produced. The scenes in the pictures were monochrome splotches of black blood, pooling lakes of gore, and mangled remains that were entirely unidentifiable. Dani avoided looking at them, and Liam relegated the pictures to a pile near his elbow. After studying them for a few minutes, he concluded that even with the colored originals he may not have been able to distinguish details about the bodies. The sheriff was right: the Shevlins had been hacked to pieces.

  Liam picked up a page and sat back in his chair. “Here’s some notes that the agent in charge of the case made. ‘Crime was committed sometime between nine ten p.m. and nine thirty-two p.m. Assailant entered through the attached garage door, into kitchen. Door was struck with heavy object, possibly murder weapon.’ ” Liam glanced at Dani, and seeing her face clear and her eyes locked on his, he continued. “ ‘Victims were a male Caucasian, forty-six years old, and a female Caucasian, forty-five years old. Both victims were found in the kitchen area, dismembered and bludgeoned. Wounds indicate a semi-sharp weapon capable of both cutting and blunt trauma. Male’s arms were separated from shoulder joints, as well as knees separated below the patella. Female suffered large wound across abdomen, as well as hands and feet being removed at wrist and ankle joints. Both were decapitated.’ ” Liam paused again, rereading the last line before speaking it out loud. “ ‘All wounds prior to decapitation were inflicted while victims were still alive.’ ”

  “Oh my God,” Dani said. “That’s horrible.”

  Liam scanned the rest of the notes before looking up at her. “This means something,” he said, turning his head and squinting out the window at the darkening afternoon sky. “This wasn’t just a breaking and entering gone wrong, but we already knew that. This was emotional, it meant something to the killer.”

  He turned and rifled through the other pile containing the information about Allen and Suzie’s murders. He read silently for a few minutes, absorbing the information. “It’s almost the same MO—entry through the garage door, same murder weapon. But there’s one difference: Allen was killed in the same way, but Suzie wasn’t.”

  Dani sat forward, looking over the top of the page at the notes. “What do you mean?”

  “It says that Allen was cut to pieces, just like the Shevlins, but Suzie was killed by a blow to the head, that’s all. No other wounds whatsoever.”

  Dani hugged her arms close to her body as if chilled. “What do you think it means?”

  Liam set the paper down. “I think the killer didn’t mean to murder Suzie at all. I think he did it by accident.”

  “So you’re saying whoever did this definitely knew the Shevlins and Allen and Suzie?”

  Liam nodded. “I think so. There’s complete correlation as far as how the Shevlins and Allen were killed, but not Suzie.” His eyes clouded over, his mind running faster than it had in almost a year. When he came back to himself, he noticed Dani staring at him. “What?”

  “How—” She seemed to sort her words. “How do you do this when it’s people you know? How do you go over the facts like you’re reading out of a textbook?”

  Liam studied her face, looking for a hint of disgust but seeing only curiosity and cau
tion. “I don’t know.”

  Dani chewed on the inside of her cheek and then dropped her gaze to the floor. “I wish I was more like that sometimes—able to shut things off when I wanted to.”

  Liam fought for something to say, but each attempt came up sounding wrong or callous, so he waited. After a few moments, Dani sat back up.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

  Liam wanted to say something more, but instead he reached out and grasped the top paper off the Shevlin pile. It was a transcription of Eric Shevlin’s 911 call. Liam scanned it and stopped at the first line. “ ‘A monster’s killing my parents.’ ”

  “What?”

  Liam looked up from the paper. “That’s the first thing Eric Shevlin said to the 911 operator when he called that night. ‘A monster’s killing my parents.’ ”

  “He was terrified. I mean, could you imagine witnessing something like that? He must’ve thought whoever was doing it was a monster. Maybe they were wearing a mask.”

  Liam tapped his forehead with an index finger, an old habit he used to do all the time when on a case. The tics that come back, he marveled. “I want to speak to him if he wakes up.”

  “They won’t let you do that, will they? I’m guessing they have a guard stationed at his door and everything, right?”

  “Most likely, and if they don’t, they should. That kid barely got away with his life. He was going to suffer the same fate his parents did. The killer got interrupted by the police, but there’s no guarantee that he won’t come back to try to finish him off. I do think that Allen being Eric’s godfather and my brother might have some pull.” Liam shrugged. “It’s all we’ve got to go on.”

  Dani finished off the last of her coffee and set the empty cup down. “So what do we do now?”

  Liam stood and paced to the door and back again. “I’d like to go to Allen and Suzie’s, poke around and try to see if there’s anything there. The sheriff gave me the keys back this morning, so we aren’t breaking any laws or anything.” Liam glanced at Dani. “That’s assuming you want to come with. You don’t have to, if this is all too much—”

  Dani stood and gave him a halfhearted smile. “I’ve never started a drawing I didn’t finish.”

  Liam grinned for what felt like the first time in years.

  CHAPTER 6

  The rain began to fall as they turned into Allen and Suzie’s driveway.

  Fat droplets splattered against the windshield, and the sky cleared its throat loud enough to be heard over the hum of the Chevy’s engine. On the short drive over, Liam filled Dani in on Shirley Strafford and the altercation at the front of the hotel. Dani’s reaction surprised and heartened him.

  “Good, I can’t stand it when she’s on.”

  The mood abruptly changed as they pulled down the long drive and the house came into view. Liam parked a few paces from the closed garage door and shut the truck off. Rain washed down the windshield, obscuring the world outside like an oil painting splattered with turpentine. Lightning cut a jagged gash across the sky, which healed with the sound of repeated thunder.

  Liam glanced at Dani and saw that her eyes hadn’t left the home since it came into sight. He reached out and placed his hand on hers. “You don’t have to come in.”

  Finally, she tore her gaze away and looked at him. “No, it’s fine. It’s just strange, you know? I’ve been here dozens of times and it was always a happy place, fun and warm. It always gave me a good feeling to come here and see them. But now, it’s like a place I’ve never been to before. It’s horrible.”

  Liam squeezed her hand. “I’ll be right next to you the whole time, okay?” Dani nodded. “Okay, let’s get inside before the storm gets worse.”

  They left the truck and hurried through the heavy rain to the front door of the house. Liam dug the keys out from his pocket and selected the correct one on the first try. The doorknob turned, and they stepped inside, out of the storm.

  The smell met them in the entryway.

  It was a raw scent, its edge dulled a little by the hours that had passed between what caused it and now, but Liam still recognized it. Blood. Old or new, the scent was always easy for him to detect. It was like breathing the metallic air of a loose-change jar. Dani put a hand beneath her nose and closed her eyes before sidling up next to him.

  The living room stood before them, and Liam noticed that much had changed since his last visit. The entire house looked redecorated, with walls that didn’t match the colors of his memory, along with new floor coverings. The hardwood that used to stretch to the kitchen across the room was now a creamy-white carpet. Leather furniture graced the room’s edges, and a massive flat screen hung from the far wall. Liam reached out and flicked a switch on his left, which turned on two overhead lights. Dani blanched.

  Crusted bloodstains marred the carpet everywhere, with chunks of matted gore thrusting from their centers, like ebony volcanoes oozing rivers of tissue. A wide fan of dried blood lay close to the middle of the room. Pieces of tape marked the outer edges of the stains, no doubt corralling the area for the forensics team to measure and document evidence.

  “My God,” Dani said.

  Liam didn’t move his eyes from the scene before him. “Are you going to be okay?”

  She swallowed loudly. “Yes, I’ll make it.”

  Liam stepped into the room and knelt before the edge of the nearest blood spatter. He began to map the area in his head, relying on the notes he had read earlier and the taped perimeter. In his mind he saw a mangled body on the floor. His imagination tried to coalesce his brother’s face onto the shape, but he shoved it away, effectively making the corpse anonymous. He looked to his left and saw the outline of a severed arm; to his right, entrails spilled like a pile of skinned snakes. Within the largest spray of blood, he saw a severed head pressed on its cheek, the print on the carpet confirming his assumption.

  Liam stood and walked to the doorway that led to the hall and bedrooms beyond. A pool of blood no larger than a dinner plate lay in an equally round shape on the floor. He knelt again. This was where Suzie fell, he was sure of it. The scene began to gain motion and life in his mind as he stood and made his way into the kitchen. The dark tile on the kitchen floor looked clean and tidy. After snapping on another light, he saw no footprints, not even a hint of dirt anywhere. Suzie had been meticulous about keeping the house spotless; he remembered that from his short visit before his brother’s wedding day.

  Liam moved to the door that led to the garage and studied the splintered jamb where the lock had burst through. He opened the door and looked at the jagged tear in the metal exterior near the handle. Leaning nearer to the puncture, he saw that the shining edge looked slightly red. When he placed a finger to the hole, it came back a deep burgundy. Rust.

  Liam walked slowly back through the kitchen until he could see Dani again. “The killer must have followed Allen inside the garage when he got home that night, since the report didn’t say anything about forced entry through the exterior,” Liam said, stopping at the boundary of the living room, his eyes scanning the floor. “He broke the door open with the murder weapon, I’m almost sure of it. There’s a hole in the door where he hit it with something hard and heavy.” Liam stepped back and drew a line on the floor with a pointing finger. “He came in this way, fast. Allen met him here.” Liam motioned to the border between the kitchen and the living room. “He overpowered Allen right away, probably with a blow from the weapon. Then, I’m guessing, Suzie came into the room.” Liam moved to the circular bloodstain. “He hit her once, like I said, meaning more to knock her out than to kill her.”

  Dani took a tentative step into the room but stopped short of the first piece of tape on the carpet. “But why? Why would he do this much damage to Allen and only try to knock out Suzie?”

  “Because he had something again
st Allen that had nothing to do with Suzie.”

  Dani frowned. “But what would that be? What enemy would Allen share with the Shevlins? And what could Eric have done to someone at eleven years old?”

  Liam rubbed the side of his face. “I don’t know, but it’s obvious someone hated them. Hated them enough to do this.” He let his hand fall away, and for a moment the professional detachment he held before him like a shield cracked, and the realization of whose blood coated the floor hit him like a punch.

  His throat tightened at the memory of Allen helping him tie his shoes one afternoon when he was five, before they went to see their father at his shop. How he felt a sense of wonder at seeing his brother’s fingers, the strong fingers of a man already, looping and twisting the laces without effort. He remembered Allen glancing up at him, and for a split second being caught off-guard by the look of admiration on his younger brother’s face. A tenuous string of connection there and then gone, as Allen stood and turned away, telling him to hurry and not make him late.

  Liam clenched and unclenched his hands until the moisture at the corners of his eyes receded. He pivoted away from where Suzie had fallen, knowing that if he looked again he would surely cry.

  “Do you think they were looking for something? I know the reports said that nothing seemed to be missing, but maybe it’s still here, hidden somewhere?” Dani said.

  Liam shrugged. “I don’t think so, just because of how fast it appears to have happened. If they were looking for something, there would have been a drawn-out process, torture, that type of thing.” Even from across the room, he saw Dani shudder. “But let’s check out the other rooms just in case, okay? Look for a safe or a hidden panel in the closet, something like that,” Liam said. Dani nodded and walked well around the stains on the floor to meet him near the hallway.

  They searched the bedrooms and closets for anything significant but found nothing. He kept his eyes averted from the pictures adorning the walls and bedside tables, and took comfort when he saw that Dani appeared to do the same. A file cabinet in Allen’s study looked the most promising, and they spent a half hour flipping through documents that yielded no link to the Shevlins other than a small certificate from the church where Eric had been baptized that held the four adults’ signatures at the bottom.