Every Dark Place

by Craig Smith

  I shook it off slowly, enjoying a long heavy breakfast at the twenty-four restaurant down the street. But that was the end of my leisure. I was walking back to the house when my cell phone rang. It was Garrat. The taxi and bus drivers had been checked out, she said. No one knew Booker’s face except from TV. The city alleys had been scoured. The public phones at the hospital and library gave us a few leads. Booker had definitely called the Merriweather residence and the pastor’s office at Merriweather’s church. They were doing follow up on the other calls, but she didn’t hold out much hope for a lucky break. If Booker had spent most of his time in the library looking at maps, he could be anywhere in a three or four county area. We commiserated about that for a while, and I finally asked her what she wanted me to do. I was frankly out of ideas.

  ‘What I want from you is an opinion,’ she said.

  ‘Honestly? I think it’s over.’ I looked at the blue sky, the snow-covered rooftops. I breathed the cold air. I was letting go. Saving myself, because that was all I could do. ‘I don’t like saying it, but if Max can’t find him this morning I don’t see what else we can do.’

  ‘You might be right, but I wanted your opinion about something else. Which girl do you think he picks?’ I grunted in confusion, and Garrat explained herself. ‘Which one do you think holds the bat, Tabit or Tammy?’

  ‘I don’t know, Pat,’ I said into the receiver, still walking back to my house. ‘I hadn’t really thought about it. Tell you the truth, I don’t want to think about it; it makes me sick even to imagine it.’

  ‘Is either of them anything at all like Missy?’

  I laughed. ‘Not that I can see. Not on Missy’s best day!’

  ‘That’s what I thought. too. This Tammy... she’s... the weaker of the two? Is that your read on it?"

  ‘Her mother says she’s the more vulnerable of the two,’ I said.

  ‘A little bit like Lisa Chenoweth – the girl Booker used to set up the abduction ten years ago.’

  ‘I guess. Maybe. What’s your point?’

  ‘I’m at the office; I’ve been here for about five hours, actually. I was going through the old case, reading the profiles on our victims, and looking at pictures. Everything about Lisa Chenoweth tells me she was the kind of girl who would have been easy to manipulate. But she wasn’t the one Booker went to once he had them. He went right for Missy – a troubled girl long before Will Booker showed up in her life.’

  ‘So you think Tabit is holding the bat? Is that what you’re saying?’ I recalled what

  Rachel Merriweather had said about the girl. Not anger but depth. Nothing at all like Missy...

  ‘Hear me out on this,’ Garrat answered. ‘I think Will spotted Missy Worth before the attack ten years ago. I think Lisa Chenoweth was his way into the group. A couple of dope deals, a little romance, and then the promise of some cocaine.’

  ‘Tabit Merriweather is a quiet, thoughtful kid, Pat. Her mother said she doesn’t show much emotion at all. Walks with God is how she put it. Not exactly the next Missy Worth.’

  ‘Let’s say, for the sake of argument, Will Booker is playing his old game, sweet talking a girl into a bloodbath of fury. Only this time he tosses the devil’s wager in for good measure—just to see how Connie Merriweather stacks up against Job. How does Booker do it without someone playing Missy Worth?’

  ‘You’re saying he’s found another Missy?’ I had been there already. Garrat might be right, but I couldn’t see how it took us any closer to finding his hideout.

  ‘I think he’s local. I don’t think he intends to move until he’s finished with Merriweather. I think he may even give himself up so he can watch Merriweather afterwards.’

  ‘So he’s taken over a house somewhere...’

  ‘Not just any house, Rick. He knew where he was going. If I’m right, there’s nothing random about anything he’s done.’

  ‘The guy saw a lot of people, Pat. He went to the mall, the library, the hospital, and the church. Now if he doesn’t have to talk to a kid, if he can just spot someone with a problem, which is apparently how he found Missy, then you can toss in a chance sighting on the streets while he’s going between points A and B, maybe catching an address where someone walks into a building, then looking up the name of the person in the city directory. Random or otherwise, I don’t think we’re any closer than before. There are just too many possibilities.’

  ‘You’re overlooking one thing.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The devil went after Job’s flock before he killed the kids.’

  Chapter 76

  Saturday 8:42 a.m., March 27.

  THEY WERE PRAYING LIKE IT mattered when I found the church deacons and Connie Merriweather in a small conference room.

  ‘Dr Merriweather?’ I called. I hadn’t waited for the prayer to stop and the preacher looked up angrily. I think he almost told me to wait until they had finished, but then something clicked behind his eyes. The thought that maybe if he just quit talking to God, God could get a word in edgewise. I don’t know; that’s maybe giving the preacher more credit than he deserved, but it was the thought I had at the time. Of course I was riding a high, believing Job’s flock was Merriweather’s flock.

  After that look had passed, Connie Merriweather came up out of his seat the way a drowning a man will go after his rescuer. ‘Now look,’ I said when I had him alone, ‘I just spent half of last night on what turned out to be nothing. I don’t want you to get your hopes up, but I need the whole congregation’s help on this.’

  ‘You have something?’ he whispered.

  ‘Will met everyone in the church last Sunday?’ I asked.

  ‘Pretty much. I took him around after both services. But everyone’s accounted for.

  Rolly Tincher had us use our prayer line.’

  ‘We’re going to do it again. But a little differently this time.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I want to focus on young people, but I don’t want to limit it to that. Anyone and everyone has to be accounted for with an actual sighting. Do you understand me? Not just a phone call.’

  ‘A lot of people have been here.’

  ‘Good. That will cut down our work considerably. How many teenagers and college age kids do you have in the church?’

  He blew hard, looked at the ceiling, counting. ‘You know about our Outreach?’

  ‘Did Will?’

  ‘I’m sure I told him about it.’

  ‘Did you mention it to Detective Tincher?’

  ‘I don’t think I did.’

  ‘Including the Outreach, how many young people are we looking at?’

  ‘Church membership is close to two thousand, including adolescents who have taken confirmation; not all of them regular, of course. Maybe sixty to eighty college kids have some kind of association, but now the Outreach, we serve three-to-four hundred disadvantaged teenagers with that.’

  ‘You’re talking troubled kids?’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’

  ‘That’s where I want to focus. Can we get a list? Phone numbers and addresses?’

  ‘I think I can patch something together,’ he answered.

  I pulled my phone out and walked away for some privacy. Max Dunn answered with his usual growl. ‘Sheriff!’

  ‘Rick Trueblood, Max.’

  ‘Garrat told me what you’re doing, Rick. I’ve already got two deputies on their way to the church. If you need more, just holler.’

  ‘I’m going to need some undercover people to check out addresses as swe aesswe go, Max.’

  ‘Whatever I can do, buddy!’

  Chapter 77

  Saturday 5:32 p.m., March 27.

  WITHIN A COUPLE OF HOURS we had everything organized, our list dwindling rapidly. I had ten phones going, four men and six women.

  The women were calling adults in the congregation no one had seen since Wednesday.

  The cover was to ask if they could bring food down. Following this round of calls, they moved on to th
ose college kids who had not yet made an appearance at the church. Those who answered were asked to come to a prayer service that afternoon. If they showed up, we scratched them off the list. If they made an excuse, we sent a plain clothes deputy around to have a look.

  The men called those members with teenagers no one had seen, including the all important three hundred-fifteen disadvantaged kids. They claimed to be guidance counsellors who wanted to know why the kids had not been in school for the past three days. As most of them had been to school, they reacted – usually with some genuine anger. Anger was good, but we asked for verification. Had they seen anyone at school? Once we had a name, we followed up with the eyewitness. The kids who had actually been out of sight for the past couple of days we were forced to handle with a great deal more care, and Max’s deputies did a drive by. If that left us in the dark, the deputies checked with the neighbours. If no one had seen the kid outside or at least witnessed someone they knew going in and out of the house or if we just got answering machines, the kids stayed on the list.

  IT WASN’T TOO MANY HOURS BEFORE Connie Merriweather and I were looking at three kids from the outreach, two college students we hadn’t found, one adult couple that had not joined the church but sometimes came, and one family with two teenagers. No sightings, no contact. Nothing on the drive by or neighbours to get them off the list.

  I was ready to read my list to Max Dunn and let his people actually go on the property and take a closer look, but just as I was about to hit the speed dial, one of the deacons came up behind me and snooped the list. ‘The Lyons,’ he said, ‘are out of town. A death in the family.’

  ‘You talked to them?’ I asked.

  ‘I checked at the business when I couldn’t get through for prayers Thursday morning.’

  ‘Who did you talk to?’ I demanded. ‘I need a name.’

  He thought about it. ‘Tony Corrigan. One of Ben’s store managers.’

  ‘Did Corrigan see the guy or just get a call?’

  ‘He saw him!’

  I nodded and scratched the family from the list, then punched up Max on my cell phone.

  I gave him six names and addresses. Then the deputies and I joined everyone in the sanctuary for a prayer that rocked heaven for over an hour. We weren’t quitting until we heard one way or the other. There were nearly a thousand of us by then – standing room only. Connie Merriweather was in the pulpit and there were five extra preachers singing and praying to keep things hot.

  Meanw no dhile, Max’s people had done their follow-up work and had the list cut down to one very curious case: a girl in Merriweather’s outreach programme named Phyllis Hawthorne. She was not answering her phone. She did not go to the door for a special delivery from UPS. The parents were nowhere to be found, and no one we had contacted had seen her at school since Wednesday. What is more, the deputies had a visual through a crack in her curtain. They could be sure of nothing else, only that she was there and not responding to the doorbell. A sure sign something was wrong.

  Now Max was as eager to be a hero as any man, so he and Rolly Tincher huddled. Call

  Rick or go in? Rolly said he didn’t see why Rick Trueblood needed to approve what the sheriff did. That was all Max needed. I expect the worst of it came from the fact that Kathy James had a tip from someone. She was there with a photographer to video the whole thing from inside an unmarked van: a sheriff’s SWAT team led by Joe Roby taking the house, one-two-three, like they always practiced it, and Phyllis Hawthorne looking up from her book at five heavily armoured deputies rushing in to save her. It was the first clue Phyllis had that there might be a problem. The girl, as Connie Merriweather could have told us if we had only asked, was deaf.

  I got a call on my cell phone less than five minutes after the entry team hit. The church went silent as I listened to Max cursing me.

  When I got off the phone, every face in the sanctuary was looking at me. Their eyes were full of dreams and terror. All I could do was shake my head.

  Part VII Treasures of the Snow

  Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow?

  Job 38:22

  Chapter 78

  Darkness.

  THE ROOM STINKS WITH THEIR ODOUR, a cloying filth. Their eyes take him in but they do not speak. They are like animals in their pens before the day of their slaughter.

  Will wants to see Ben. There is a rattle, a wheeze. The blood is still caked on his swollen, naked chest. His beard is thickening, like the scent of him. ‘Ben?’ The eyes open.

  ‘One of the guidance counsellors at school has been calling your answering machine, Ben. He wants to know where Boy and Penny have been. Didn’t you talk to the principal at that school?’

  Ben’s eyes can hardly hold their focus even as Will pulls the Bernardelli and points it into his face. ‘Did you lie to me, Ben?’

  From behind him, Tabit tells Will, ‘Leave him alone. They always call when you miss class.’

  Will twirls around quickly. ‘They had an excuse! The principal knew they were leaving town!’

  ‘They just double-check. They always do.’

  ‘On a Saturday?’

  ‘That’s when they can find the parents at home.’

  Will is dizzy, close to blacking out. His muscles ache with a fire that will not stop. If he could only rest. But he cannot. Not noht= ` p h py. ‘w. ‘I won’t be lied to, and I won’t be tricked,’ he tells her.

  ‘Nobody’s lying to you,’ Tabit answers.

  Will thinks about this. He loses a moment. Finally, he draws a breath and pockets the little pistol. Smiling, the good pastor to his flock, ‘Have you said your prayers, Tabit?’ She does not answer him this time. ‘Benny? Penny? Haveyou prayed?’ Boy is as silent as Penny but for a different reason. He is fading like Ben.

  ‘Where’s Tammy, Will?’ Tabit asks. ‘Is she okay?’

  ‘Tammy’s okay. Ask Penny if you don’t believe me.’

  Chapter 79

  Dawn.

  THE SUN WAS UP, BUT I wasn’t ready for it. I blinked my eyes, and it hurt. I moaned and heard a woman answer in the same tone.

  I opened my eyes and saw Irene Follet beside me. I looked around. Her bedroom, by the look of it. I looked at her again. She was looking back at me. Her green eyes sleepy, amused.

  ‘You don’t remember, do you?’

  I started to lie, but then I shook my head.

  ‘I think I want a church wedding,’ she said.

  ‘I proposed again?’

  ‘Mmmmm.’ She nodded and nuzzled my neck.

  ‘You accepted... again?’

  ‘You were so persistent... and cute. And I love the way you dance; it’s so … old school.

  How could I resist?’

  I rolled off the bed, put my feet to the hardwood, and my back to her. The movement cost me some pain and nausea, and I groaned heavily.

  ‘You don’t sound so good, Rick.’ She was laughing at me.

  ‘I feel great,’ I lied. I looked back at her. ‘I just need a couple of minutes under a hot shower. I’ll be fine.’ I stood and staggered some.

  She laughed quietly. ‘You’re still drunk.’

  ‘It never feels as good in the morning, does it?’

  I pointed at two doors, questioning her. Irene gestured toward the one on the right.

  ‘Your toothbrush is the blue one. Help yourself to a razor.’

  ‘Have you got a towel I can use?’

  ‘Yours should be dry.’

  ‘ Mine?’

  ‘We did things right last night, Rick. Showers and everything.’

  ‘I didn’t sign anything, did I?’

  She giggled. ‘We were too busy to bother with paperwork.’

  I was in the shower, starting to bring it back, when I heard a knock at the door. I said to come in, and a moment later Irene peeked around the curtain. She was as naked as I was. ‘Got room for a friend?’

  ‘My God!’ I said with genuine admiration, ‘No wonder I keep proposing…’
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  Chapter 80