In the Darkest Hour

by Anna Carlisle

  “Oh, honey, you deserve to relax and have a wonderful time.” Madelyn touched Gin’s cheek, clearly relieved. “I know you’ve been nursing a broken heart, but I promise you that it will heal.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” Gin wasn’t sure that she completely agreed, but she wasn’t going to argue. “I’ll be home early.”

  “See that you are, missy,” Richard said, as if Gin was sixteen again.

  * * *

  She hadn’t been lying about going to the city. When she’d reviewed Logan’s Facebook account with Tuck, she’d seen that he was planning to attend a rally in Pittsburgh at Market Square, a public outdoor space downtown. Loosely organized around what its promotors claimed was “first amendment freedom,” the event page featured stark black and yellow imagery of eagles and closed fists, and slogans like “Down with White Genocide” and “March to Reject Degeneracy.”

  After her encounter with Cindy Ewing, Gin had decided she needed to be at that rally as it presented an opportunity to catch Logan unawares. She felt certain that her attacker had followed her car last night, but she wouldn’t put herself in harm’s way again tonight. Even if someone were to manage to follow her to the city, she would be in a crowd. She dressed in comfortable, dark clothing and carried a cross-body bag that left her hands free. She felt a little silly packing mace, a flashlight, and a small first aid kit, but similar rallies across the nation had resulted in a distressing number of casualties, and she was trained to be prepared.

  Before getting on the road, Gin called Tuck, glad for the privacy of her car. He must have found out the news—from whom, Gin couldn’t be sure—at around lunchtime, because he’d called every half hour since. She’d slept through the first few calls, then ignored the rest since her parents had been hovering.

  “Hey,” she said when he picked up.

  “What the fuck, Gin?”

  “Do not yell at me, Tuck Baxter. It’s not like I was walking down the street asking for someone to knock me out.”

  “Yeah? What were you doing in Greensboro, for God’s sake?”

  Gin hesitated. “Picking up Thai food…?”

  “Don’t lie to me,” Tuck said, his voice a contained roar. Gin could hear a children’s television program in the background and pictured him making dinner with Cherie nearby. “I know that Logan Ewing lives in goddamn Greensboro.”

  She knew he was angry—but she also knew she hadn’t done anything he wouldn’t have done himself. And that his anger was probably masking fear. Fear for her safety.

  Which felt oddly comforting. More than comforting, but she didn’t want to examine the rest too closely.

  “You’re right. He does. With his mom, who thought I was a DFS agent. She was terrified I was there to take her kids.”

  “Really? On what basis? Is she abusing them?” Instantly the anger in his voice was replaced by steely interest. Gin smiled to herself—in some ways, they were two of a kind; neither could walk away from this case.

  “No, I don’t think so—but the stress of raising those kids alone with too little time and too little money is wearing on her. Not to mention that the place she lives is as bad as anything in the worst areas of Trumbull. She’s probably worn out just trying to keep them safe.”

  “You don’t know that, Gin. She wouldn’t be worried about DFS unless she had a reason to be. Did you see Logan?”

  For a moment Gin wavered; now would be the perfect time to tell him where she was going. But given the fact that he was already on the brink of a lecture about what had happened last night, she wasn’t about to give him the chance to interfere with her plans. She could just see him forbidding her to go. Between her parents and Tuck, Gin felt like she was dodging one obstacle after another.

  “No, he wasn’t home. Listen, Tuck … I’m pretty tired. Can we finish this conversation on Monday? I’m going to spend tomorrow with my parents.” Not a lie. More like an omission.

  “Yeah. Okay. Look, call me first thing, okay? And it better not be from the inside of a shipping container.”

  “Ha,” Gin said, hanging up with a smile—his crude humor was growing on her.

  Traffic was light for a rush hour, and Gin arrived in plenty of time to find parking in a well-lit, attended lot and make her way to the plaza. Police had set up barricades along the edge of the public space, but it didn’t look like they’d be needed: about twenty mostly male protesters—far fewer than the hordes predicted on the event page—milled about the square, with no clear direction or leadership, while a group of counter-protesters marched peacefully along the edge of the square, holding signs saying “Unite Against Hate” and “All Are Equal in the USA.”

  Gin took up a post under the awning of the nearby historic Oyster House, and pretended to be looking at her phone while she scanned the protesters. They wore mostly black and camouflage clothing, or T-shirts bearing images of the confederate flag. Many of their signs were crude and homemade, but one long printed banner read “Diversity=White Genocide.” Men in sunglasses and black hoodies held up either end, standing as still as statues, while others marched half-heartedly in circles around the center of the square mostly refusing to look at the counter-protesters.

  She spotted a tall, thin teenager wearing a gray T-shirt with no logo or slogan on it, and a pair of frayed jeans. He had the longish dishwater blond hair in the same ragged cut that Logan had on Facebook, and—at least from a distance—the same narrow, pinched features. He looked not so much angry as uncertain and uncomfortable. He stayed close to two other young men who were pumping their fists and jeering at the counter-protestors, but they seemed indifferent to his presence.

  Was it Logan? Gin couldn’t be sure. She shuddered to see one of the young men unfurl a red flag bearing a swastika in its center. Amid cheers and hooting from the protesters in the square, another chant began—just a lone voice at first, but soon joined by others.

  “Haters go home! Haters go home!”

  The counter-protesters edged closer and increased their pace, moving like a drunken beast, the stragglers at the edges dodging and darting back and forth. A couple of news cameras tracked their movements. A small, peaceful march didn’t make for good news, but Gin knew that if violence were to break out, it would be covered by every outlet around.

  She moved out from under the awning and toward the news crews, skirting the scattered groups of observers. As she stepped over someone’s backpack that was lying on the ground, she heard the sound of broken glass. A second later, shouting began rocketing back and forth.

  “He threw a bottle!”

  “Watch out for glass—”

  “Jesus, they’ve got bats!”

  “Oh my God, they’re going to smash that shop window!”

  Gin rushed forward, straining to see, just as one of the counter-protestors was knocked down by men rushing past. The counter-protestor was an elderly woman, and she dropped the cane she’d been leaning on; her purse spilled its contents on the ground. In the next second Gin’s view was blocked by people rushing toward the plate glass windows in the shops lining the plaza.

  She ran toward the woman, as the crowd swelled and heaved like a living thing. By the time she managed to push her way through, she was confronted by an unexpected sight: the boy she’d been watching—the one she thought might be Logan—was on his hands and knees, picking up the contents of the purse, while several of the counter-protesters helped the old woman to her feet.

  “Stop him!” she yelled, her voice high and cracking. “He’s stealing my purse!”

  One of the counter-protestors, a man with a long gray ponytail, ran forward and grabbed the purse out of the boy’s hands, then gave him a hard shove on the shoulder, sending him crashing to the ground on his side. Gin was close enough to hear him grunt with pain.

  “Get a cop, that fuckin’ Nazi’s going to get away!” someone yelled.

  “Not if I can help it,” came another voice, as a burly, bearded man charged forward. He was about to deliver a kick to the fallen
boy’s back when Gin leapt between them.

  “Stop!” she cried.

  “You stop! That asshole’s a thief.”

  “I wasn’t…” the boy protested uncertainly, as he tried to stand.

  “I’m with the county police,” Gin snapped, an exaggeration if not an outright lie, but she didn’t know how else to stop another senseless act of violence from being committed. “I’ll take care of this. Get up.”

  The boy’s eyes rolled up at her dubiously, but he didn’t argue.

  “Where’s your badge?” the bearded man yelled at her.

  “Just walk with me,” Gin muttered under her breath.

  The boy looked even younger up close. He limped silently alongside Gin as she led him in the direction of where she had parked. He didn’t even look back at the crowd of protesters now engaged in a shouting match with the police who had moved to block them from the shop windows.

  Gin waited until they’d crossed the street, moving in the opposite direction of the protest, to speak again. “Are you Logan Ewing?”

  The boy’s mouth fell open. “How did you know?”

  “Mmm. I’ll explain later. I’ll give you a ride if you’ll agree to answer a few questions.”

  “Are you a reporter?”

  “No.”

  “But you’re not really police.”

  Gin sighed, deciding that the truth was the best option at this point. “No, I’m not. I’m a pathologist. Semi-retired, actually, but I do some work for the county police, so…”

  Logan shrugged, looking neither impressed nor relieved.

  “Does your mom know you’re here?”

  The glare she got in response told her what she wanted to know.

  “Just out of curiosity, where did you tell her you were going?”

  He still didn’t answer, staring straight ahead in stony silence.

  They had arrived at Gin’s car, the old Range Rover that had belonged to her parents. Gin unlocked the door and motioned for him to get in. When he did so, she breathed a sigh of relief; she didn’t have a plan for what to do if he’d bolted.

  She went around the car and got in on the other side. “I’ll make a deal with you, Logan—”

  “You already made a deal. You said I could have a ride if I answered your question. What is it you want to know, anyway?”

  “Okay, I’d like to amend the deal. I’ll buy you a burger, and I won’t tell your mom—or anyone else—that you were here, but I’ve got more than one question.”

  Logan gave a small, desultory nod.

  “I know you live in Greenport, so how about the Applebee’s right off Route 51?”

  This time, all she got was a shrug.

  Gin decided she’d wait until Logan had some food in him, in case that made him more talkative. There was little traffic, and Logan seemed perfectly comfortable with silence, leaning against the passenger door and staring out at the night.

  At the restaurant, he surprised her by holding open the door. The hostess seated them in a booth near the window, with a view onto the highway, the cars going by a blur of taillights. The protest suddenly seemed a thousand miles away.

  “I’ve got one question for you, before we get started. Where were you last night? At around six fifteen?”

  He stared at her, understanding dawning in his eyes. “That was you, wasn’t it. That came to our house? Pretending to be a caseworker?”

  “I never said—”

  “What I was doing last night was getting reamed by my mom,” he said angrily. “After you left she lost her shit. Drove over to my friend Mason’s house and chewed me out in front of his whole family, then made me come home and study for like four hours. What were you trying to do, anyway? She’s already terrified we’re going to get taken away. I mean, not me, because I’m like an adult already, but … DFS keeps checking on Tiffany.”

  Logan’s voice softened when he said his sister’s name. His mother clearly wasn’t the only one trying desperately to maintain some semblance of a normal family. He could be lying, of course … but Gin suspected he wasn’t.

  The waitress approached before she could respond, and Gin decided to change the subject.

  “I’m curious, Logan,” Gin said after the waitress had taken their order—bacon barbecue burger for him, chicken Caesar salad for her—“why are you interested in that protest?”

  He looked at her gloomily. “I’m not a racist,” he said. “I don’t care what you think, but I’m not.”

  “Um, well, I hate to tell you this, but I think most of your friends back there are.”

  “It’s stupid,” Logan said, plucking a packet of soda crackers from the basket on the table and crushing them in their wrapper, between his fingers. “It was supposed to be about jobs. American jobs. About how they’re moving all of our jobs overseas and giving the ones here to illegal immigrants.”

  “I see,” Gin said, though she didn’t, really. The flawed rhetoric coming out of the boy’s mouth couldn’t have been parroting his father, since—according to Keith Walker—the father had been out of the picture for quite some time. And it certainly wasn’t coming from Keith, the boy’s uncle; he’d impressed Gin as thoughtful and moderate. “Are you worried about finding a job when you finish high school?”

  Logan chewed on his thumbnail, looking out the window. Finally he glanced at Gin and said, “You never said how you knew who I was.”

  “We’ll get to that. Just tell me what brought you to that rally first. I know you’re involved with some controversial gaming groups, and that you write fan fiction for Dead Lands 2.”

  “Oh, God,” Logan said. “I’m not involved with anything. I like the game, is all. The fan fic’s a joke, kind of. And I like the art. I used to like to draw … but I suck at it. I suck at pretty much everything I do. I dropped out of wrestling, even. I’m just trying to get through my senior year so I can start trade school and get a halfway decent job and move out of this stupid town.”

  Jobs, again. Gin took a chance, softening her tone. “Logan, are you upset because your mother lost her old job when the distribution center closed?”

  Logan stared at her with his eyes wide. “Wouldn’t you be? She had seniority, she was being paid well there. I mean, now she makes half as much and her new boss is a goddamn Paki, he treats her like shit. She missed a couple days because her back was bothering her and she couldn’t afford to go to the doctor again so she couldn’t get a note, and he threatened to fire her. Everyone knows that those towelheads can’t deal with women. And then they hired some other Indian guy to take her job.”

  His eyes had gone shiny with emotion, and he gripped the packet of crackers so hard that the seam split, raining crumbs down on the table. Logan didn’t appear to notice. He grabbed a paper napkin and rubbed his eyes savagely, cursing under his breath.

  “I’m really sorry to hear that your mother lost her job,” Gin said. And she meant it. So many of the young gang members who ended up on her table in Chicago had been like Logan, disenfranchised by poverty, angry at the world, and yet underneath it all, possessed of an oddly naïve, almost childlike sense of injustice at having been born into a class that couldn’t seem to get ahead. “No wonder you’re so angry at people who you perceive as having taken opportunities from your family.”

  “I’m not a racist,” Logan mumbled. “I told you that. I don’t know why you won’t believe me.”

  “All right. Let’s say, for now, that you aren’t.” Here was Gin’s chance to segue to the matter she’d come here to discuss. “Do you have friends who are from families who are better off than you? Kids with wealthy parents … maybe lawyers, doctors?”

  Logan glanced up at her but didn’t answer.

  “I guess I’m wondering about one friend in particular. Jonah Krischer. How did you and Jonah meet?”

  “I—I don’t know him. I mean I know who he is. We were in an SAT prep class together. But I don’t like know him.”

  “Which SAT class was it?” Gin asked,
wondering how his mother had afforded it.

  “Tri-valley Academy,” Logan said. “My uncle gave the class to me for my birthday. He thought maybe it would help me get a scholarship or something.”

  Gin decided not to ask if the class had helped him improve his score. Since bringing up Jonah’s name, Logan had become agitated, though he was clearly trying to cover it up.

  The waitress brought their food and set the plates in front of them. “Careful, they’re hot,” she advised. Logan mumbled a thank you.

  Gin waited for him to dig in, but after dipping a fry in ketchup and nibbling at it, Logan seemed too nervous to eat more.

  “Speaking of your uncle,” she said, not wanting to spook Logan by forcing him to talk about Jonah, “do you ever get to fish with him at the cabin?”

  This time he couldn’t help himself. He sat up straight her and regarded with what looked an awful lot like fear. “How do you even know about the cabin?” he asked. “Or Jonah or my uncle or—or any of this?”

  Gin kept her expression neutral, but it was time to turn up the heat a little. “I was telling the truth when I said that I do some work for the county police department. I have a specialty in disinterment and decomposition cases. That means bodies that have been buried, often for a long period of time, under a wide variety of conditions. It turns out that science can tell us a great deal about a person’s death, if we know what to look for.”

  She was taking a gamble, playing her ace. Mentioning the body meant that she couldn’t disguise the reason for her interest. Not only was she unsure if it was sound investigative practice, she wasn’t sure it was even legal.

  When acting as a paid consultant for the office of the medical examiner, Gin was bound by the contract she had signed, which included a sweeping non-disclosure agreement. In short, she was not to discuss the details of any autopsy in which she was involved, nor the identity of the body, unless given explicit permission or compelled to do so in court.

  But Gin and Tuck had found the body on their own. The discovery had been made outside the official investigation, even if they had then dutifully reported it to the proper authorities. And more importantly, Gin’s instincts told her that it was key to getting Logan to open up. He struck her as confused, frightened, and lonely … but not dangerous. Even though Gin had trained herself to ignore any preconceived notions about the people she came into contact with through her work, the sum of her experience—encounters with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of criminals and victims over the years—had given her a certain amount of insight into human behavior.