Every Dark Place

by Craig Smith

  ‘I want my lawyer here so you don’t pull any tricks!’

  ‘No lawyer. Just you and me. I can’t use it against you. You know that as well as I do.

  I refused you a lawyer. Anything you tell me now will never get to court, but if you turn me down so help me God I’ll see you get a lawyer, because you’ll need one. I’ll have you indicted for obstruction, conspiracy, and murder-in-the-first before the sun goes down.’

  ‘Look, we knew Will was coming out to the lake. We were going to get high with him.

  He drove up, but he didn’t come down the hill. Ricky and Chuck went up to see what the problem was, and that was when he killed them. Then he came down the hill, like I said. He broke Lisa’s leg when she tried to run, and he took us all to that farm. After that I don’t remember much of it.’

  ‘You’re wasting my time, lady.’ Garrat started for the door.

  ‘Do you want to know what I remember?’ Her hand on the doorknob, Garrat stopped and studied the big woman. Missy Worth took a drag of her cigarette and blew it into her lap quickly. The sound was strangely like laughter. ‘What I remember is Will telling me how pretty I was. How the others didn’t like me because they knew I was going to be prettier than any of them. Stuff like that.’

  Garrat stepped back into the centre of the small room, ‘While he was raping you?’

  Her eyes shifted nervously, ‘I lied about the rape.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘Sheriff Hall came up with all that. I mean… once they knew I wasn’t a virgin they asked me if he had raped me. I lied. I mean at least I didn’t have to explain about all that.’

  ‘He didn’t rape any of you?’

  ‘What he did, he talked to me. He told me stuff. Okay?’

  Garrat shook her head in confusion, ‘It’s not okay. I don’t understand what you’re telling me. What did he talk to you about?’

  ‘He would say things like the others didn’t understand me, they didn’t like me, they only put up with me because of Mary...’

  Missy seemed to draw into herself strangely, to get smaller and more timid as she confide <ဈ;ed this. She did not look at Garrat as she spoke.

  ‘He did the same thing with the others?’

  She shook her head; her eyes had gone off to other times. ‘It was just me. He never talked to anyone but me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know!’

  ‘What was the point? What did he want from you?’

  ‘He wanted me to kill them!’

  Garrat sat down. ‘Wanted you to kill them?’

  Missy Worth stared at the wall, her voice breaking like a child’s as tears poured across her cheeks, ‘He said if I would just kill... just one. If I killed one of them... I could... we could all go free. We wouldn’t all have to die. Just that one...’

  ‘Look at me, Missy.’ The eyes found Garrat. ‘ You killed the others?’

  Missy Worth shook her head, but she wasn’t denying it. ‘I can’t do time. I don’t want to do time. He made me do it!’

  ‘Listen to me. I need to know exactly what is happening with the two girls he has taken.’

  ‘I don’t know!’

  ‘He’s got two girls, Missy. Two sisters. Like you and Mary. Now I want you to tell me what he’s doing with them!’

  Missy had the look of someone reporting a nightmare; the terror of it had faded but that did not mean it would not come again. ‘One of them... he’s talking to her. Telling her she’s got to do it, got to kill her sister...’

  ‘He’s not raping her?’

  ‘Will’s not interested in that. He’s just talking. Telling her things. Trying to… I don’t know. Trying to steal her soul!’

  ‘Threats? Violence?’

  ‘Not against the one he’s talking to! I mean… he just keeps asking her to do it. He says she’s pretty, says things about… what the others have said about her.’

  ‘What others?’

  Missy looked up, not understanding the question. ‘I mean… that’s what he told me.’

  ‘Did he let you live, Missy? Was that the deal?’

  ‘He said he would, but then...’

  ‘He put you in the ground?’

  She nodded, the tears coming in warm gushes. ‘AND THEN HE SHOT ME!’

  ‘Listen to me. I need to know if he hurt you before that. You said he made you do it.

  Did he hurt you when you resisted him, force you somehow?’

  Missy Worth shook her head.

  ‘He didn’t hurt you?’

  ‘HE JUST TALKS! He talks until she can’t... she can’t think straight anymore. She’s so hungry and tired and cold and if she just does what he says she can go home!’

  ‘That’s what he told you. Just kill one of them?’

  Missy nodded.

  ‘And you hit her with the bat?’

  Missy could only nod.

  ‘ You buried her?’

  Nodding.

  ‘And the next one?’

  Missy Worth’s head rocked forward, her tears still falling, ‘He kept telling me the others would live, but when I gave him Lisa he wanted Kathy. And then he made me give him Mary! I DIDN’T KNOW HE WOULD JUST KEEP ASKING!’ Now a whisper, ‘I thought I could save us! Some of us, anyway. .’

  Chapter 61

  Friday 12:30 p.m., March 26.

  IS THIS ALL FOR THE GIRLS?’ I asked, pointing at the cars in the church parking lot. I estimated something over three hundred vehicles on a Friday lunch hour.

  The minister nodded. ‘They tell me there are some folks here who showed up Wednesday night and have been here ever since. I’m just sorry I didn’t come sooner. This is where I belong.’

  I shut off my car engine. ‘Now look,’ I said, ‘I don’t quite get this bit about the wager between God and the devil. Did you ever talk to Will about it?’

  ‘I can’t remember if we did. All I can recall is that Will had some questions about Job’s perfection.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘This winter, maybe. February, I expect it was…’

  ‘Just a few weeks ago?’

  Merriweather hesitated. ‘I think that’s about right.’

  ‘By then he knew he was going to get out?’

  ‘It was looking very good by that point. Look, we talked Bible by the hour, Mr Trueblood; I don’t remember everything we covered. You see, Will was concerned about his legal situation, but it didn’t matter to him as much as knowing the Lord. He always had some kind of question for me. Always wanted to talk Bible!’

  ‘So what was the issue with perfection?’

  ‘Only Christ is without sin, so Will wanted to know why Job was called perfect. It’s mostly a translation problem with the particular Bible Will uses, and that’s about how I dealt with it.’ He heaved a sigh. ‘Then I believe I told him what I tell everyone, that the wager is the same wager God makes with the devil for every soul. The whole thing – all of life – is about us keeping faith in the face of tragedy and heartache and loss.’

  ‘I thought Job was about suffering.’

  ‘That’s Job’s perspective, certainly, but the truth is, what happens to Job will eventually happen to all of us: a time comes when evil things happen to us for no good reason. Not caused by our own sins, but just life! The more faithful we are to our Lord, the more unjust it seems, and, naturally, the more alone we feel because of it. That’s when we keep our faith or we lose it.

  The dark night of the soul, Mr Trueblood. I expect you know about that.’

  ‘So what happens?’

  ‘Oh, in the end Job keeps his faith.’

  ‘I mean with Connie Merriweather. Does he keep his faith?’

  The smile that had crossed his face as he preached his homily now began to quiver, and in the preacher’s dark eyes, I could see something of a debate going on, whether to tell me the truth or pass out the platitudes. As I was a stranger, I think Connie Merriweather elected to go all the way. He pointed at the steeple ove
r us. ‘You see this church, Mr Trueblood?’ I gave it a cursory look to be polite. It was a big showy piece of brick and glass that made me uncomfortable with its vanity. ‘I’ve lost it,’ he told me simply. ‘They’re all with me now. My God, they’re suffering almost as much as Rachel and I. But no matter what, I’ll be gone inside a year. We won’t quibble about whose choice it’s going to be. I’ll just be gone. Now I’m not a pessimist, but I can’t imagine Will letting Tabit and Tammy live. He’ll… he’ll give me just exactly what the devil gave Job. All his children dead. If that happens, Rachel will never forgive me, so I’ll lose her as well. I know that, the same as Will knows it. Truth is I’ve lost her already. She can’t bear the sight of me. I can’t really blame her. The other night, once I understood what had happened and what Will meant to do, I cursed God and all his angels in heaven.’

  I looked away, sorry I had asked. I had wanted to hurt the man with my question about his faith, especially after his dark-night-of-the-soul remark that he had aimed so purposefully at me, but I wanted no man to hurt as this one was.

  ‘And then I woke up and saw the truth.’ I forced myself to look at the preacher now, because I was sure he was going to tell me the truth was that there is no God, but Connie Merriweather was a thousand miles away, ‘God didn’t do this to me. Will Booker and I made this mess. Curse God?’ The preacher almost laughed, ‘The truth is God’s all I have left.’

  Chapter 62

  Friday 12:40 p.m., March 26.

  WITH OVER A HUNDRED PEOPLE milling about in the church commons on a continuous basis, there was food for the asking. At the sight of it I realized how hungry I was. I left Merriweather to his friends and parishioners and found a nice enough woman offering me a plate and no sermon attached.

  While I dished up my lunch, Connie Merriweather moved through the crowd, shaking hands, hugging folks, listening and nodding and laughing and crying. He wasn’t telling anyone anything for the moment, but I knew his breed enough to expect a speech by and by. Before he committed it, I wolfed down some slaw and beans and got my bearings. I had come inside the church chiefly so I could talk with Rachel Merriweather. When I asked about her, one of the ladies pointed her out to me. As it happened, I should have been able to guess which one she was. Rachel Merriweather was the woman who was always physically as far from the preacher as anyone in the room. When Connie Merriweather finally stepped up on a little platform to make his speech, she was the only one in the room who walked out.

  I followed her, hearing at my back the amplified voice of Connie Merriweather, who had cursed God and believed they were still buddies because he hen tad said he was sorry. ‘I’ve preached Christian charity my whole life,’ he announced, ‘but I don’t think I ever understood it until now.’ He was a talker, that one. Good enough to build a church this big and fool enough to keep talking until he had torn it back down again.

  I was in a long narrow hall and gaining on Mrs Merriweather when I called her name. ‘I wonder if I could have a word with you,’ I said when she stopped and turned to face me. I put my badge and ID away after she studied it and let her lead me to a small room where she said we wouldn’t be interrupted. The tag on the door called it a study. It felt more like something you find in the new prisons. It was sterile and full of institutional furniture that will look like junk faster than bread stales.

  Rachel Merriweather was close to her husband’s age, somewhere just under fifty, a trim youthful looking woman all the same. She was tired, angry, frightened... and beautiful. ‘What exactly do you want?’ she asked me.

  ‘Your husband said you were worried about Tammy having a crush on Will Booker.’

  The woman smiled. I had no idea if it was because she had expected something else from me or if the thought of her daughter had triggered the reaction. It was a sad, gentle smile.

  ‘Tammy’s an awfully pretty girl but she has a weight problem, Mr Trueblood. A bit like her father. Big-boned we used to say.’

  Big-boned myself, I answered her quickly, ‘Some of us still call it that.’

  ‘In Tammy’s case, bulimic is probably closer to it. Did Connie tell you that?’

  ‘You think Will played to her vulnerabilities?’

  ‘I don’t think she would exercise much judgement if someone gave her the slightest bit of attention, if that’s what you mean.’ She thought about it quietly. ‘I tried to tell Connie that, but all he could think about was Will.’

  ‘You felt differently about Will’s innocence, I take it?’

  Rachel looked at me without accusation or judgment, ‘Are you a believer, Mr Trueblood?’

  ‘I’m of the opinion we hold the world up and God holds us,’ I said.

  She smiled gently, ‘I’ve never quite heard it put that way. Most people either believe or they don’t, but I think very few believers actually know their Lord. Will had such faith and love of God, I think it moved all of us to trust him more than we should have.’

  ‘You don’t think it was an act?’

  ‘I see acts all the time. For Will, God is as real as you and I. It’s just that...’ Rachel Merriweather closed her eyes, ‘...he is a very sick young man.’

  I hurried her past this, for both of our sakes. ‘What can you tell me about Tabit?’

  ‘Tabit’s more careful than her sister.’ Again the gentle, tender smile. ‘Will fascinated her, but she isn’t so impetuous. I wasn’t worried about her falling under his spell. She’s not really emotional at all. Well, that’s not right. Her emotions aren’t on the surface. She’s deeper than her sister. Deeper than any of us, I think sometimes.’

  ght'h‘Strong faith?’

  ‘Both of our girls walk with the Lord, Mr Trueblood. It’s what’s going to get them through this.’

  Chapter 63

  Friday 1:07 p.m., March 26.

  THE BULK OF MY INTERVIEW with Rachel Merriweather involved pragmatic issues, all of which Rolly Tincher had already covered, but I took her through a series of questions anyway. I knew Rolly would focus on the preacher, thinking because he had such a loud voice he would know a lot more than his pretty wife. My bet was Rachel Merriweather missed nothing, and I kept asking her questions until I had confirmed my theory.

  As we headed back to the commons, a woman came toward us and called out to me, ‘Oh, there you are! I said you had left. You had a call.’

  I PULLED MY PHONE OUT AND TURNED it on. Garrat. She wanted to see me as soon as possible. When I found her she was alone in her office, staring out her window. ‘What have you got?’ I asked.

  ‘Missy Worth did it.’

  I laughed; I really thought she was making a joke. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘After Booker killed the two boys and took the girls off to that farm, he spent the next thirteen days talking Missy into killing her friends.’

  ‘My God.’

  ‘She was locked in a room, Rick. She got next to nothing to drink and eat. She never saw the sun. He pulled her out and bargained with her, pleaded, lied, whatever it took, until murder just finally made sense. The first murder was the girl whose leg he had broken. They were supposed to be set free after that. She killed the next one to save her sister. And then she killed her sister to save herself.’

  I thought about the broken skull of her sister. Missy Worth had crushed it with that blood-splattered club Max Dunn had dug up. ‘What are you going to do – charge her?’ I asked her.

  ‘I’m thinking about what this means for the Merriweather girls.’

  ‘You think one of them is holding a bat on the other one right now?’

  ‘We know Booker can kill people, but that’s not what made him grab these two girls. He wants one of them to turn on the other. He wants to set up a situation that he can control with just his promises. He wants to turn one victim against the other. That’s what this is about.’

  ‘Connie Merriweather tells me he thinks this is about the Book of Job.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Booker was talkin
g to an old man at the hospital about Job the night before he took off.’

  ‘Help me out here, Rick. It’s been a while.’

  ‘According to Merriweather, God and the devil make a wager over Job’s soul. They want to know if Job will curse God if things get bad enough. The first thing the devil does, he kills all of Job’s children.’

  ‘Not what I wanted to hear.’

  I lifted my hands, palm upwards, a weariness I had not of hearevil known for years sapping me suddenly. ‘Religious fanatic acts out a divine vision, then takes his own life. It just has that kind of feel about it.’