The Thief of All Light

by Bernard Schaffer

  7

  AT NIGHT IS WHEN IT HITS.

  Police see things beyond normal the human experience, and they function as they are trained. For older, more seasoned officers, it is rarely something new. Brain matter smeared across a basement floor. A charred corpse. A dead child. A man charging forward with a knife, intent on killing anyone that interferes. The older cops deal with it as it happens, years of conditioning kicking in like gears on a machine, carrying them through. Younger cops, who’ve never seen true horror before, are bolstered by social reinforcement. The group makes them strong. Lets them know it’s just part of the job. Nothing to get freaked out about.

  But at night, lying there next to his wife, a gray-haired patrolman of fifteen years will stare at the ceiling, thinking about the marbled flesh of a young drug addict’s body that he’d seen earlier. In his mind, comparisons to his own children will form like spiderwebs, stringing it all together, hurling him into the dark waters of sleep, defenseless.

  A cop with only a few years on the job will dream about being attacked, needing to pull out his gun and shoot, only to watch in horror as the bullets tumble uselessly out of the barrel and fall to the ground. Or the trigger is too heavy to pull, no matter how hard he grabs it with both hands and squeezes, trying desperately to get it to shoot, but it is too late.

  Carrie knew all these things as she rolled from side to side, flipping her pillow so many times that neither side felt cool. The ends of her hair were tipped with sweat. She kicked free of the blankets and draped her bare legs over the pile of them, trying to cool down.

  She was not afraid of bad dreams. She was not afraid of anything at all, really. At least, nothing brought about by seeing the mutilated remains of another human being. She stared at the wall across from her bed, the dark portal of the open bathroom door, the blank wall she’d never bothered to hang anything on, and she only felt empty.

  Dehumanized. That was the thing. She had helped place another human being’s assorted body parts inside a series of bags, labeled and marked, set out in an assembly line, or rather a disassembly line, to be catalogued and photographed.

  That living person inside the van, whatever he had been, whoever he had been, whatever his hopes and dreams and loves and hates, had been made up of nothing more than the contents of those bags. The killer had been a mechanic, breaking his victim’s body down into spare parts. A mad child who comes upon a completed Lego structure and tears it down to individual pieces.

  Carrie felt her heart beating in her chest, pulsating all the way up through the vein in her neck, and knew her own parts were also only working together in unison. That someone could simply come along with a sharp-enough knife and extract them, until whatever she was ceased to exist; this weighed heavily on her too.

  She quit the bed and padded across her bedroom toward the bathroom. The toilet seat was cool and familiar under her bare bottom as she looked back at the empty bed, glad to be away from it. She wandered into the living room, unable to decide what to do. It was too early to get up for work. Too late to call anyone to talk. She didn’t want to eat. Not interested in watching TV.

  She saw her work bag sitting on the kitchen chair and stopped, looking down at her clipboard and legal guide. Underneath them was a brown manila envelope with her name on it and a handwritten note from the chief clipped to the front of it.

  Talking to you earlier made me think of this. I used to say that quote about the abyss all the time, but one day Jacob told me people only use it to sound like they have some deeper understanding of evil. What he said about it always stayed with me. The abyss doesn’t just gaze at you like some passive onlooker, he said. It wants what it sees. Its tentacles snare you and drag you down into its cold, hard darkness, forever. Absolute black. This is the last thing Jacob Rein ever did as a cop. By the time the jury vindicated us, he’d already killed that little girl and then nothing was ever the same.—Bill

  She found a DVD inside the envelope, marked COURT RECORD 4 – CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATION HEARING. She slid it into her player and sat back on the couch, drawing a blanket over her legs as she turned on the television, filling the room with bright blue light. She pressed play on the remote, and the screen went dark.

  The camera panned inside a courtroom—a large federal room, complete with old wooden benches and a carved, ornate judge’s desk. The men and women sitting on the jury were dressed in garish clothes, some of them with thick glasses and bizarre haircuts. A heavyset attorney stood up from the plaintiff’s side. Sweat stained his collar as he folded his arms across his chest and said, “Detective Rein, is it your sworn testimony before this court that the injuries to my client were, as you described, caused by your rubber glove getting caught?”

  Carrie recognized the same man she’d seen in the interrogation video, this time dressed in black suit and perfectly knotted tie. Jacob Rein turned toward the jurors seated across from him and said, “Actually, the injury was caused not so much by the glove but by me pulling my hand away too quickly.”

  Several men on the jury winced. The attorney came around the front of his table. “I’m sorry, Detective, but can you back up for a moment? How exactly did your glove come to be in that specific location of my client’s anatomy again?”

  Someone stood up from the defendant’s table and called out, “Objection, your honor.”

  The camera passed a younger-looking Bill Waylon, gazing up at his attorney, who said, “This question has been asked and answered. Clearly, they are just trying to inflame the jury.”

  “The specifics as to what Detective Rein and Detective Waylon are swearing to are at the heart of the matter, your honor,” Sweat Ring shot back. “I am seeking clarification only.”

  The judge folded his hands on the bench. “You may continue.”

  “So, Detective, how did your hand wind up inside of Mr. Krissing?” the attorney said.

  “Just my finger was,” Rein said calmly. “Not my entire hand.”

  “Fine. Just your finger then?”

  “As I said before,” Rein said, “Detective Waylon fired at the suspect and inadvertently hit him in what was immediately evident as a vital area.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “The suspect clutched his groin, and blood sprayed between his fingers. I determined Mr. Krissing had been shot in the femoral artery.”

  The attorney turned toward Waylon and said, “Your partner shot Mr. Krissing in the genitals, is that not correct, sir?”

  The faces on the jury were twisted in discomfort. Rein turned toward them and said, “Yes, he did.”

  “As vengeance?” the attorney said.

  Rein turned to them again and said, “No.”

  The attorney shot up his hand with the fury of a Baptist minister and shouted, “Walter Krissing molested, mutilated, and killed how many children, Detective Rein?”

  Rein turned to the jury and said, “Krissing was a prolific killer and molester of children. There were ten confirmed homicides that we know of. There were other victims along the way whom he raped or assaulted to varying extents. There are likely others we’ve never heard of.”

  “And just how many of those horrible, god-awful cases did you work personally, Detective?”

  “All of them.”

  “Is it fair to say you wanted to see Mr. Krissing suffer for his crimes?”

  The defense attorney called out, “Objection!”

  “Sustained,” the judge said.

  “Withdrawn. Detective Rein,” the attorney said, “when you realized your partner had shot Mr. Krissing in the privates, what did you do?”

  Rein turned toward the jury and said, “In the interest of effecting an arrest on Krissing and successfully prosecuting him for his crimes, I attempted immediate lifesaving measures.”

  “And how, exactly, did you do that?”

  “I put on a rubber glove and slid my right index finger inside the gaping hole between Mr. Krissing’s legs, sir. I was attempting to stop the flow of blood fr
om the wound.”

  “Inside of his scrotum?” the attorney said.

  “That’s correct.”

  There was visible discomfort from the people seated around the courtroom. The judge wrapped his fingers around his wooden gavel as a warning.

  “And did you stop the bleeding, Detective?” the attorney continued.

  “I was not sure,” Rein said.

  “Why were you not sure?”

  Rein turned to the jury and said, “It was very difficult, because at the time, Mr. Krissing was writhing around.”

  “In pain?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Was he screaming?”

  “Very much so.”

  Several men on the jury smiled then, looking at Rein with visible approval. Rein tilted his head at them in recognition. “Your honor!” the attorney squawked. “Please direct the detective to stop playing to the jury! He is attempting to influence them with his testimony!”

  In the background, just out of focus, Carrie could see Bill Waylon smirk.

  The plaintiff’s attorney collected himself and said, “Can you please tell us what made you remove your hand from Mr. Krissing before the ambulance got there?”

  Rein appeared to struggle to frame his words correctly. “Well,” he said, “the tip of the glove felt stuck. Pinched, I guess, is what you would call it. In all of Krissing’s thrashing around, the elastic somehow got caught. He flopped one way, and I heard something snap, real loud.”

  “Oh Jesus,” the man holding the camera muttered.

  The judge cleared his throat and dabbed a white handkerchief across his forehead. “I believe we get the idea. Are there any more questions for the witness?”

  “Just one, Your Honor. Detective, what did you do when you realized what had happened?”

  “I looked down and saw what was wrapped up in my glove,” Rein said.

  “And then?”

  “I believe the appropriate term is, recoiled in horror.”

  They attorney’s face puffed with outrage. “Do you honestly expect the men and women in this court to believe that you ripped out a human being’s testicles because your rubber glove got caught?”

  Rein turned toward the jury and calmly said, “That’s what happened.”

  Carrie paused the recording and got out of her seat, walking toward the TV where the frozen image of former detective Jacob Rein was staring back at her. There was victory in his eyes, and it was well deserved. The jury would break soon and render a verdict clearing both Rein and Waylon of any wrongdoing. She touched his face and drew her finger across the deep lines around his mouth, along the furrow of his brow.

  She turned off the television and crawled back into bed. The bathroom door was still open, filled with darkness that spread across the blank wall, forming its own abyss. In her mind, the images of human body parts stuffed into bags were still lined up, a road leading to the brink of the precipice. As sleep descended, she felt darkness swirling around her bed, snapping at her hungrily, venomous drool spilling from its many fangs, but it did not matter. She thought of Jacob Rein’s face on the television screen and knew that he was deep inside the void, and that he’d been waiting for her.

  II

  BLACK MILK

  8

  IT WAS STILL EARLY WHEN MOLLY FELT THE COVERS MOVE ASIDE, EXPOSING her body to the cold morning air. She groaned and turned over. “Go back to bed, Nubs. Mommy needs to sleep more.”

  Instead, soft, fleecy pajamas brushed against her sides, her daughter’s cold feet seeking out any part of her body that wasn’t covered. She squirmed and moved away, making room. Nubs leaned back against the pillows, holding her iPad up as she swiped, moving cartoon farm animals around the screen. “Just keep the sound down, okay?” Molly said, rolling away toward the other side of the bed. “Wake me up in a little bit and I’ll make breakfast.”

  “All right,” Nubs said.

  “Did you go potty before you came in here?”

  “No. I didn’t need to.”

  “Are you sure?”

  The little girl ignored her, only interested in the cartoon playing on the screen.

  Molly turned her head and tickled Nubs’s side. “Hey, I’m just making sure you don’t pee on me. You got any pee in there?”

  “Keep poking me and find out.” The little girl giggled.

  “Very funny.” Molly rolled over and closed her eyes.

  By ten she was out of bed and dressed, sliding on sweatpants and a T-shirt, no shower. She pulled her hair into a ponytail and did the same for Nubs, trying to keep the little girl’s long blond curls out of the milk in the cereal bowl. She yawned as the coffee machine vibrated to life, and said, “What do you want to do today, Nubs?”

  Nubs ignored her, too busy spooning heaps of Lucky Charms into her mouth as she stared at the iPad screen. Molly grabbed a handful of curtain and felt the warmth radiating through the glass window in the kitchen. It looked sunny and fine outside. “You want to go to the park?”

  “Sure,” Nubs said, never looking up.

  “Then I guess you’d better turn off your game and finish eating so we can go,” Molly said, watching as Nubs kept swiping. She poured coffee into a large Disney mug and picked up her phone to find Carrie’s number.

  “Hey,” the voice on the other end said.

  “You want to go to the park with me and the brat?” Molly said. “It’s my last week of unemployment, and I can spring for ice cream as long as we split it.”

  “I’m not a brat,” Nubs called out.

  “Plus, we can check out all the hot, sweaty dudes jogging past the playground,” Molly said.

  “I can’t. I’m still working on that murder we had last weekend. I have an appointment at the coroner’s office this afternoon.”

  “Screw that nonsense. The guy’s dead, right?”

  “Uh, yeah. That’s what normally happens in a murder.”

  “Well then, he can wait! What’s the rush? Take the day off and come hang out with us. You’ve been working too much.”

  “Hey, it’s a Thursday. Why isn’t Nubs in school?” Carrie’s voice held a tinge of unstated accusation. “Did you go out last night or something?”

  “It’s an in-service day, thanks, Officer. I couldn’t find a babysitter, so I figured the job hunt could wait a day while I spend some time with my little girl, if that’s all right with you. And I called you to see if you cared enough about her to do the same.”

  “Oh, spare me the drama, bitch. You know I’d love to, but I’m swamped.”

  “All right,” Molly said. “It’s okay, really. I hear children are adaptable. She probably won’t even remember what you look like soon. You’ll just be that weird old lady Mom used to bring around every once in a while.”

  “Har har har. Not funny.”

  Molly smiled and said, “Careful out there.”

  “Always. I will stop by and see you guys over the weekend.”

  Molly hung up the phone, muttering, “Sure you will.” She looked over her shoulder at Nubs and said, “You done yet? Chop chop!”

  * * *

  On the other end of the line, Carrie hung up the phone and tossed it onto her bed, then snapped her dress pants clasp shut. She tore the tags off her new short-sleeved blouse and made quick work of the buttons, then tucked it in. She looped her new brown belt around her waist and stopped at the right side, letting it hang as she picked up her gun and matching brown belt and shining leather holster. The kind that wouldn’t bite into her ribs and stayed flat against her body, out of sight. Also new.

  Not that she’d ever tell anyone, but she’d picked out exactly the kind of outfit that female detectives wore on TV. Much to her surprise, none of the stylish pants she could find had loops big enough to fit a belt strong enough and thick enough to hold her gun. She’d settled for a thinner belt that she hoped would not snap in half, but it looked good, so it was worth risking the embarrassment.

  Once her outfit was assembled, she clipped her b
adge to the left side of her waist and stopped to look in the mirror. “Badass,” she said aloud, liking the way the badge and gun jutted out around the curve of her hips. She turned sideways, admiring how the dress pants hugged the curve of her backside. “Carrie Santero, Detective,” she said, laughing at herself as she headed for the door. She needed to be at the station in half an hour to get to the coroner’s office. It was the first follow-up of her first major investigation, and she didn’t want to be late.

  * * *

  The sliding board was covered in small puddles from overnight rain, but Nubs didn’t care. She scampered up the bars along the jungle gym’s side and swung over the top bar, sliding back down as fast as she could, only to jump up and do it again. Molly yawned as she watched Nubs running past and said, “If I could run around half as much as you, I’d never have to diet.”

  Nubs scampered up the side of a large wobbling duck in the center of the playground. Molly helped her get seated, making sure she didn’t fall off as she rocked back and forth. The duck’s metal spring bent as far back as it could, until Nubs’s long hair swept the rubber mats on the ground. “All right, that’s enough,” Molly said, gripping her daughter under the arm and hoisting her off the duck.

  “Why?” Nubs hollered, kicking in the air.

  “Because Mommy doesn’t want to have a heart attack. Let me see you climb the jungle gym.”

  As Nubs ran past her toward the nearest rope ladder, Molly turned around, looking for the nearest bench. Instead, she saw a man sitting nearby, staring at her.

  The woods behind him were thin with the golden and red leaves that had not fallen, giving her a clear view of the gravel parking lot beyond. She saw her car, and several others, most of them fitted with bike racks by the owners, who came to ride the woodland trails. At the far end of the parking lot was a large white van, backed in. Maybe a township employee here to do maintenance on the restrooms, she reasoned. Or a local contractor enjoying his lunch in peace.