The Deepest Dark

by Joan Hall Hovey

  ~*~

  A feeling of nervousness had grown amongst the community, especially the older folks and more especially those who lived alone. But even if you weren’t alone there was no guarantee that you wouldn’t be next. The Nichols’ had had each other and it hadn’t saved them.

  One of Karen’s older customers who’d come in for a cut and color that morning was more than a little anxious as she said, “It’s getting so you’re afraid to go to bed at night.” She had been looking at Karen in the big mirror at the time, fear in her eyes.

  Later that evening, Pete washed up the supper dishes then joined Karen in the living room. She was watching TV. No one spoke. The brown leather Lazy Boy groaned of old age as Pete settled into it. Karen felt him looking at her but refused to give him the satisfaction of turning her head in his direction. She was curled up on the sofa, a plaid throw covering her.

  “Cold?” Pete ventured.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Still mad at me?”

  “No. Well, maybe a little. But you were right. I’m just worried.”

  “I know you are. It’ll be okay.”

  “So you keep saying.” She heard him sigh.

  “We got an email from the boys earlier.” They always emailed him with a copy to their mom, but Karen hadn’t been on the computer since she got home from Abby’s. “They’re having a blast. Some photos attached.”

  She glanced over at him, knowing he was deliberately changing the subject. She missed her boys, didn’t know what she’d do if anything happened to them. Couldn’t even go there. That fact came home to her hard as she’d stood inside Ellie’s room. How could Abby stand it? Well, she couldn’t. That was the thing. “Yeah? That’s great, Pete. I’ll look at them a little later.”

  The ten o’clock news came on.

  There was a recap of the murders in Three Brooks. “...It is believed one or more intruders broke into the Nichols’ home and brutally killed them and dumped their bodies into the back of their own truck. There is more than speculation that the three escapees from Pennington Prison may have travelled east and could be involved in these heinous crimes. Police are still investigating the possibility, and are presently searching the woods and cabins in and around Three Brooks, including Loon Lake, for the three men. All are considered dangerous, particularly James Ellison, also known as Tattoo. Ellison was incarcerated for the murders of two teenage...”

  Cabin on a Lake, Karen thought, recalling Abby’s description of their secret hideaway. They were showing more clips of the search.

  One video showed a very nervous looking cop kicking in an apparently rotting door of an old shack, since it splintered on impact. He went into cop stance, gun gripped in both hands. No one was inside. In another shot, Karen glimpsed gleaming water through the trees. The next clip showed uniformed policemen going through a fairly large, quite nice cabin, guns drawn. One officer, younger and leaner than his brothers, picked up a pair of sneakers off the floor and dropped them into an evidence bag. Something about those sneakers set off a ring of recognition in Karen. But it wasn’t until the camera zoomed in on the cover of a book lying on a table that she bolted from the chair and flew at the screen; falling to her knees, she peered into it. “Oh, my God.”

  “What? What’s wrong?” Pete was on his feet at once, letting the Lazy Boy thump back into upright mode.

  “That’s the cover of Abby’s last book. The Scarecrow Man.” The book was on Karen’s own shelf — white dust cover, silhouette of a man — a predator. The title and Abby’s name were rendered in red font. She’d recognize it anywhere.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. I’m positive.”

  The newsman had finished with the topic of the double killing and was already on to a horrendous train accident in Paris, resulting in sixteen people dead and many more injured...

  “We need to call the police. Right now,” Karen said, already with phone in hand.

  “Wait, Karen. Don’t go off half-cocked. It doesn’t necessarily mean Abby was staying in that cabin because you saw her book on a table. It could just mean whoever was there is a fan. Someone who liked her books.”

  “So where were they?”

  “I - I don’t know. Could have just been gone out for awhile.” He scraped a hand through his mop of red hair. “Why would she bring a copy of her own book with her?”

  “To remind herself that she actually could write a novel, that she’d done it before. More than once. It was meant to inspire her, don’t you see? She really was trying, Pete.”

  “So why wasn’t she there?” A silence fell as Pete sought an answer to his own question. Karen stood looking at him, still clutching her phone. He shook his head as if to clear it.

  “I don’t know,” Karen said. “But I can guess.”

  “What was the name of that place again?”

  “Loon Lake.”

  Thank God Kevin and Darren were at hockey camp, she thought, away from all this. They’d probably learn about the murders, but there would be no reason to connect them to their Aunt Abby. Would there? Oh, God. They’d worry too. They loved their aunt. It was so hard on them after their Uncle Corey and cousin Ellie died in the accident. Please, no more.

  “Pete,” she said, “I think they were Abby’s running shoes too.”

  “Her shoes?”

  “A cop was putting them into an evidence bag. I was with her when she bought them. Nike’s, white with a blue stripe. No, don’t say it. I know, I know, lots of people wear them. Still...”

  Pete shrugged and put an arm around her shoulders. “Can’t hurt to report what you saw.”

  “Thank you.” She kissed his cheek. “They have to take us seriously now, don’t they. I won’t let them slough me off again, Pete. I won’t. And if they won’t listen, I’ll find another way.”

  The policeman who answered the phone did listen to her. He even took notes. She could hear him scribbling on paper. But Karin wasn’t sure the police would act on anything she had said. Otherwise, wouldn’t he have asked her to come into the station? Pete reminded her that her call was probably one of hundreds this cop was fielding. “Everybody and his brother probably thinks they saw one or all of those escapees somewhere — in the mall, walking down the street...”

  Then maybe I need to make sure they pay attention, Karen thought.

  Chapter 18

  So far on their travels, they’d hit three banks. This would be their fourth. Abby withdrew one thousand dollars from each of them, her maximum. She was acutely aware of Ken Roach standing close behind her, cap drawn low so as to hide his face from the surveillance camera. He had the knife with him that he’d used to cut his way out of prison, well hidden from view. At the first bank they’d hit, he made sure she knew he’d use it.

  “I’ll ram this knife between your pretty shoulder blades and pull it back out before anyone realizes what happened.” He told her this matter-of-factly, his eyes locked onto hers. Neither Tattoo nor Donnie made any comment from the backseat. “You’ll just sink to the floor and I’ll yell that I’m going for a doctor. Then we’ll be long gone, and you’ll be dead. So don’t make any stupid moves.”

  He didn’t need to say it twice. Donnie didn’t mention to her that the Roach was violent, but that meant nothing. He may not know him as well as he thought he did. He stood close behind her, his body blocking the knife from curious eyes. Her flesh shriveled at the thought of the cold steel blade plunging into her back.

  She slid her card into the slot and tapped in her pin number, then the amount of money she was withdrawing. The transaction went without a hitch. On their way out, an elderly man with a military bearing opened the door for her, tipping his tweed cap as she passed through, Ken Roach on her heels. She smiled her thanks at the gentlemanly gesture. Nice reminder that there were good men in the world. Did he notice her cut lip or the bruise on her jaw? Probably not. Roach had made sure she concealed them with makeup. At the light nudge to the small of her back, sh
e moved on toward the car parked in the lot. The motor was running.

  Once they were back on the road, the Roach directed her down a quiet tree-lined street where he proceeded to split the money with the other two. “You guys should be okay now. You both got plenty of cash to get you wherever you want to go. It should do you for a while. There’s a lot less chance of our getting caught if we split up.”

  There was a long silence. Thinking of Tattoo out on the street, preying on other young girls, made Abby feel sick to her stomach, though personally, she would be relieved to see the last of him. Ken Roach, apparently, didn’t give a damn either way. Anyway, she couldn’t imagine Tattoo being on the loose for very long, the way he looked. According to everything she’d read on the subject of serial killer, and watched on TV shows, few serial killers looked like serial killers, but this one screamed psychopath. One look into those eyes, (or at least the one still working) and phones at the police station would be lighting up like the fourth of July.

  But Tattoo had other ideas. “You ain’t getting rid of me that easy, Roach. I’ll let you know when I’m ready to split. And don’t forget missy there. We had a deal.”

  It’s his eye, Abby intuited. He’s in pain. He’s afraid.

  Roach said nothing, just sighed and folded his share of the money and stuck it in his front jacket pocket and buttoned the flap. Donnie was silent but his eyes had widened at the prospect of being sent away. She knew from the way he acted he didn’t care about the money, he just didn’t want to be parted from the man he had thought was his friend. Didn’t want to be abandoned. Abby felt sorry for him. Life just seemed to be taking Donnie along its long-winding path, like so much flotsam in a stormy sea.

  But she felt she had made a connection with him. She didn’t believe Donnie wanted anything bad to happen to her. Not that he could do anything to stop it, but at least he wasn’t her enemy.

  “Okay, let’s go,” Roach ordered, irritation in his voice.

  “Where to?” she asked.

  “Doesn’t matter. I need to think. Just drive.” He began fiddling with the radio dial when suddenly Abby heard a voice that sent her heart into freefall.

  “...considering I got that email from Abby telling me she was going to be away for awhile,” Karen was saying to thousands of people over the airwaves, “I guess they can’t officially consider her missing. At least that’s what the police tell me. They were pretty adamant on that. But I just know something is wrong. She’s my sister. We’ve always known when one or the other of us was in trouble.”

  “Like a sixth sense,” the talk show host prompted.

  “Yeah. Like that. Since we were kids. Abby’s been as much a mother to me as a sister. The police should be out there looking for her.”

  “For those who just tuned in,” said a voice Abby recognized as talk show host Fred Toller’s, “we’ve been talking about the ghastly murders of Ethel and Hartley Nichols, an elderly couple out in Three Brooks.” He gave his listening audience a brief update on the case. “And now we have a possibly missing author.”

  “Hello, you’re on the air.”

  A coarse, loud voice said, “I think those crazy bastards who escaped from Pennington have her. She’s probably dead already. The cops couldn’t find their asses with both hands.”

  “You’re entitled to your opinion, sir. Let’s pray you’re wrong about Ms. Miller. And as far as those three men are considered, it’s all speculation right now. The case is still under investigation.

  “Karen Rawling is my special guest and we’re hoping to make a connection with her sister, local author Abby Miller, during this hour. So you’re pretty sure, Karen, that this is the book you saw on the table in that cabin on last night’s TV news - your sister’s novel The Scarecrow Man?”

  “Ten o’clock news. I’m positive. I’d know it anywhere. That’s why I bought my copy of the book in to the station to show you. I wanted you to see the cover. Like I said, they showed it up close in a video clip. The police were searching the cabin at the time. The book was sitting on a table.”

  Ken Roach turned the volume up on the radio. No one spoke.

  “Great cover,” Fred Toller said. “I didn’t catch the TV news last night, but I have seen this book before. My wife’s a fan.”

  “Yeah? That’s nice. Abby has many fans. She’s a wonderful writer.”

  Abby smiled to herself. For Karen to have gotten herself on the Fred Toller show, she had to be really worried. And she knew how persuasive Karen could be when she wanted something. She was also proving to be a hell of an investigator. She felt a swell of pride for her little sister.

  “Hello, you’re on the Fred Toller show. You have a question for our guest?”

  “I think it’s a damn publicity stunt,” the woman said. “Just a way to sell more books, that’s all. Maybe she just wants them to make a movie of her book.”

  He acknowledged that anything was possible, but made short work of her.

  Karen gave the not-so-subtle accusation little credence. She was in the midst of telling Fred Toller’s audience how her sister had been depressed for months since her husband and daughter were killed in a car accident. “At first I was worried that she might have...” Her voice trailed off.

  “Contemplated suicide,” he said sympathetically.

  “Yeah. But I don’t think that anymore. She was working on a new book. She was trying to move on with her life. Something — or someone — stopped her.”

  “And you’re convinced that this was her cabin even though the police say there’s been no confirmation of that? Just playing devil’s advocate here, Karen.”

  “It’s okay, Fred. Yes, I know it is. I do.”

  Abby stared straight ahead as she drove. Her throat felt tight. Tears swam. She blinked them back. Bless you, little sister.

  “I know the cops can’t go on just feelings, though,” Karen was saying. “They need evidence. I know they’ll find her prints in the cabin. And they won’t be the only ones they find. I’ve tried to get them to put out an APB for her car. I mean, what can it hurt? But they say they can’t. Not without proof that she’s actually in some kind of danger.”

  “Well, good thing we’re not held to the same stringent rules as the police,” Fred Toller said. “Not that I’m advocating irresponsibility in broadcasting, but I see no reason we can’t ask Abby to call in to the station and tell us she’s okay. What kind of car is she driving?”

  “A dark blue Honda.” She gave out the license number. Abby could almost hear the wheels frantically turning in the head of the man beside her. The tension in the car was palpable. Her immediate joy (once the numbness of shock passed) at hearing her sister’s voice escalated to a new kind of fear. Now they could connect Karen to her. She hadn’t wanted that. Hadn’t wanted Karen on their radar. In their heads.

  Roach snapped off the radio. “Turn down this side street coming up.” His voice was deceptively calm and Abby felt her stomach turn over. What next? Karen had upped the game to a whole other level.

  When she applied the brake, beer bottles rolled and clinked together on the floor in the back seat. They parked in front of an alleyway between a Canadian Legion Hall and a Baptist church, the alleyway too narrow for any vehicle, barring a bike, to get through. It was coming onto dusk now. The car reeked of greasy potato chips, beer and unwashed bodies. She craved a shower herself, but it was a craving unlikely to be satisfied any time soon.

  “The bitch put one over on you, Roach,” Tattoo said, and cawed from the back seat.

  “Shut up, Tat. Let me think.”

  “Your thinkin’ is what got the cops on us.”

  “No, you being a crazy fuck is what did that.”

  Tattoo lunged from the back seat, and had the Roach in a choke hold.

  “They know the car, Tattoo,” Roach managed to croak as he tried unsuccessfully to free himself. “We’ve got to ditch it.”

  “We’re low on gas, too,” Abby said, and hoped it got through to the beast
before Ken Roach lost consciousness.

  Tattoo let him go and the Roach slumped forward, grasping his throat, wheezing and sucking in air.

  Tattoo had apparently decided he was better off in the Roach’s company than on his own. Abby again thought that his eye had a lot to do with that. It looked bad.

  She was right. “Freakin eye,” he whined. “It’s killing me. I need to see a doctor.”

  “That ain’t likely to happen, Tat,” the Roach said, trying to sound sympathetic while still massaging his throat. “Unless you want the prison doc to take up your care and feeding. Dog can pick up something for you at a drugstore. Some kind of antibiotic, anti-inflammatory medicine or whatever. Lots of stuff you can get over the counter now that’s as good as what a doctor can prescribe. But we’ve got to get rid of this car first. We’ve got to lose it. Get us another one.”

  Tattoo appeared to be mulling it over. “Yeah,” he answered after a few seconds. “Get me a pack of cigs, too, Dog.”

  “Dog’s got a knack for hotwiring,” the Roach told Abby. He glanced in the back seat. “But it would be better if you could find a car with the keys still in it, Dog. You got that.” He passed him over some bills. Donnie pocketed them.

  “Okay. I’ll try.” He got out of the car. “Donnie,” he said quietly to Ken Roach. “My name’s Donnie.”

  “You bein’ a wise ass there, Dog?” the Roach said, giving off a vibe that said he’d taken just about all he could.

  “No. Just sayin’.”

  “Put on your baseball cap and glasses.”

  Donnie obeyed, tugging the cap out of his back pocket and adjusting it on his head. He stuffed his greasy bangs underneath. When he put on the round, too-big sunglasses, he looked like a bewildered owl.