Every Dark Place

by Craig Smith

  Darkness.

  TAMMY HAS STILL NOT returned. Penny goes out and comes back. Never a word about Tammy.’

  ‘Is Tammy okay?’ Tabit asks.

  ‘Fine,’ Penny tells her. ‘She’s okay.’ They are voices in the dark, nothing more.

  ‘Then why doesn’t she come back?’

  ‘He’s not hurting her, Tabit. If that’s what you’re thinking, don’t worry. He just doesn’t want us all together anymore.’

  Penny is lying. Tabit knows that much. She thinks that Will is going to pick her out next. She is afraid of rape, afraid to die. That is what leaving the group means. It is the shadow of death – nothing like what she had imagined it would be in the comfort of her sunny prayers.

  ‘You saw her?’ Tabit asks.

  ‘She’s okay!’

  Lying. ‘Did you talk to her?’

  A silence like death. Finally Penny answers, ‘He won’t let us talk.’

  Chapter 81

  Sunday 8:46 a.m., March 28.

  I LOOKED AT MY WATCH, then at the crowd in the restaurant.

  ‘Got a date?’ Irene asked me. A bit nervous or sad. I couldn’t read her that well.

  ‘Sorry. I was thinking about those two girls. Figuring out how long it had been.’

  ‘You think they’re still alive?’

  ‘They disappeared Wednesday afternoon...’

  She calculated the thing. ‘Fourth morning...’

  ‘Ninety hours,’ I said. ‘Give or take. The woman who survived this guy last time says she never saw the sun. Never knew when it was day or night. Went on like that for almost two weeks. Perpetual night.’

  ‘I can’t imagine something like that.’

  I thought about Missy, how crazy she was after Booker was finished with her, but I couldn’t tell Irene about that. Instead I watched a big tray of heaping plates of food passing and told Irene about the phone calls we had made on Saturday. ‘I was sure we had him.’ The flock.

  ‘So what now?’

  ‘The thing is we’ve gone through everything twice. At this point there’s nothing left to try. I mean the sheriff’s office will keep the pretences up a few more days, we’ll all hope for a break, but yesterday was the last big push. Reasonably, we have to assume he took off.

  Someone in Kansas or Idaho is going to have to make the rescue.’ Or clean up the mess, I thought.

  ‘But you can’t let it go? You’re still counting the hours.’

  ‘When the time comes that I know it’s over, I’ll let it go. But this is the hard part. It’s not really over and yet there’s nothing anyone can do. We just wait... until we know.’ I told her about my daughter, and then the rest, my failure to get past it. ‘There was a point early on...

  Sarah was already gone, we’d had the funeral, and I was chasing after every lead that came

  along; the cops were sympathetic, but they had moved on. I could see it, even if they told me otherwise. Me, I wanted revenge. I thought I had to have it or I’d I die. And then one morning I woke up and I just knew it was over. I wasn’t going to find him. I was out in Kansas on another bum lead, and I thought about calling my wife, telling her I had tried... my God I had tried! But it was over, and I was coming home. When I touched the phone… I just couldn’t call her. I

  couldn’t tell her I’d failed. So I went out and started looking again.’

  ‘Ever call your wife, Rick?’

  ‘We talked on the phone a few times before the divorce. I was into my cups, and I told her I was never going to give up... or some damn thing about as stupid. Just pure ego. My pain is worse than your pain, that kind of thing. When you’re full of rage, you don’t think about other people. Even the people you love. You keep that feeling long enough, rage is all you have.’

  ‘You lost your marriage over it?’

  I thought of Job and that damn Connie Merriweather. ‘Business, money, marriage.

  Everything went when I lost Sarah. The good news is Nicole found someone, a pretty good guy from what I can see. Got some step-kids she loves, took over the business I had been running and she’s doing all right with it.’

  ‘What about you?’ Irene asked, her smile tender, gently curious. ‘Are you doing all right?’

  ‘I’ve had a tough week. This thing has brought some memories back I thought I was past.’

  ‘This thing is tearing you up.’

  ‘I don’t want these girls to die, but I promise you this, I’m going to get past it no matter how it turns out.’

  ‘Because it’s a job and not your life?’

  ‘Because I’ll know I gave it everything I have. That’s all anyone can do. I didn’t know that when Sarah was murdered.’

  ‘So how do you know when something like this is over?’

  I shook my head. ‘That one they don’t put in the manual.’

  Chapter 82

  Palm Sunday 10:10 a.m., March 28.

  ‘I’D ASK YOU IN,’ IRENE TOLD me as we sat on the street in front of her place, ‘but I’ve got three hours before I have to get to the library. I’d like to do some things.’

  ‘Are you going to write a poem?’

  ‘Maybe a line or two.’

  ‘Can I call you tonight? Sober, this time. I promise.’

  She opened the car door. ‘v> I haem?We don’t have to stay that way, do we?’

  I laughed. ‘We can do anything you want, darling.’

  ‘That sounds like fun. But get some rest today, Rick. Huh? No work. You hear me?

  You look tired. You look real tired.’

  ‘If you can believe it,’ I answered, ‘I was thinking about going out to Merriweather’s church this morning.’

  ‘Guilt about what the two of us did last night?’ She was teasing me.

  ‘I want to touch base with the folks out there. Let them know... well, that it’s not just a job. I want those girls back as much as they do.’

  ‘Kind of like going to the funeral afterwards?’

  I looked at the sky, ‘I’ll be there for that, too.’

  THE SIGN SAID THE ASSOCIATE PASTOR would speak about Going Home... to the place you’ve never been. Palm Sunday services at eight-thirty and ten-thirty. Everyone welcome.

  The church was half-empty. Merriweather’s backup was hammering clichés out like burgers on the line. The words were still about hope, but the eyes everywhere told the truth. We came to surrender. We rose and sat, we sang and prayed and listened. I found myself wondering why the innocents seem always to pay for the sins and follies of their elders.

  When the service finished, a line gathered in front of Connie and Rachel Merriweather.

  They had managed it so they weren’t quite standing together but could shake everyone’s hand as they left. I stood for a minute or so for the ritual, but I got weak in the knees and felt sick with the thought of actually facing Rachel Merriweather. The preacher I could handle. You can talk to a man who knows it’s over, but a woman who still believes in miracles...

  It was just too much for me, and I cut for a side door like a thief breaking away with the morning’s offering. A fast exit and no goodbyes. Just not fast enough.

  ‘Mr Trueblood!’

  I had slipped through the commons without incident and was into the hallway, ready to burst into the sunlight and snow. The voice behind me belonged to Rachel Merriweather. How she had gotten there I could not imagine – a secret passageway, most likely. Caught as I was, I turned to face the woman with all the vitality of a pair of worn out shoes.

  ‘Anything?’ she asked.

  I dropped my chin to my chest as I lied to her. ‘The sheriff’s still working on it.’ She got small and frail, and she shuddered after I spoke. It should have made me a man; instead, her look brought out the professional liar in me and I worked up all the confidence I could summon.

  ‘They’ll find your girls, Mrs Merriweather, you have to believe that.’

  ‘Yesterday, I thought...’ Yesterday, we had all thought. ‘You had such hope in your ey
es,’ she said, and suddenly there were huge tears running over her cheeks. Her faith had finally broken, and I realized with a terrible sadness that Rachel Merriweather was only human after all.

  A woman came into the hall behind her, studied the scenhei s er e quietly, then retreated. ‘We had a good idea,’ I said. ‘I thought it might work.’

  The woman came out again. I looked at her so Rachel Merriweather would turn and see her too. I meant to use the interruption as an excuse to get away, but when the woman saw that I was aware of her, she came forward nervously, her eyes on me alone. ‘You’re with the police?’

  ‘The county prosecutor’s office. Is there something I can do for you?’

  She was a tall blonde woman in her late forties, trim, well-heeled, a bit nervous in the soul. ‘It’s my daughter,’ she said timidly. I raised my eyebrows expectantly, ‘She thinks there might be something wrong.’

  ‘Wrong with what?’ I asked.

  ‘Benny Lyons calls her every night and it’s been... well, it’s been several days since she’s heard from him.’

  Rachel Merriweather spoke with tears still flowing over her beautiful face, ‘The Lyons are out of town, Faith. A death in the family.’

  ‘That’s the thing. Benny was supposed to have a date with Cynthia last night. He didn’t call her to say he wasn’t able to make it. I wouldn’t say anything, but that’s just not like Benny.

  Even if they had to go out of town suddenly.’

  Chapter 83

  Darkness.

  THE DOOR OPENS AND WILL STANDS before them. He is wearing a dress, high heels, and long dark hair. Tabit feels a curdling of acid deep in her bowels. It is Mrs Lyons’s hair he is wearing. She rolls to her side, gagging.

  ‘Penny!’ Will whispers, ‘Time to come out and play.’

  Next to Tabit, Penny hisses angrily, ‘No!’

  Will steps into the room, lifting his gun until it is pointing at Benny, who is unconscious.

  ‘You’re dad’s gone, Penny. You killed him with your stubbornness. Are you going to kill Benny now, too?’

  A CANDLE BURNS ON THE FLOOR, illuminating the room. The furnace tape screeches as Will pulls out yet another strip. He cuts it. Holding the tape and a rag in front of Penny’s face, he tells her to open her mouth. Penny knows better than to resist. He will simply go in and execute her brother as he has promised her several times while binding her into this chair. She opens her mouth and takes the rag, then feels the tape covering her lips. Will wraps it into her hair, then smiles as sweetly as he did when he shot Benny in the knee.

  ‘This won’t hurt when they take it off, Penny. The dead feel nothing.’

  Penny rocks in the chair, seized with panic, but there is no give to the bindings, no way to fight now. Will studies her eyes, blood seeping out from under the hair line. Her mother’s hair, her mother’s blood! ‘You should have given me Tammy when I asked you. She’s dead anyway. It’s not like I didn’t warn you, Penny. I begged you! Oh, but you got proud on me.

  Thought you were stronger than me! Well, we’ll see how strong you are now.’

  He goes to Benny’s br, the ryou, Pennyedroom and comes back with a metal folding chair. He goes again for the shotgun. ‘No,’ he says, seeing the fear in her eyes. ‘I’m not going to shoot you. I mean for someone else to do it.’

  He sets the gun on the chair and tapes the gun barrel down so it points toward her. Low.

  At the hips, the womb, she thinks. Now he tapes the chair to the floor with several strips of tape to keep it from scooting. Her chair he has tied off with rope, so it is firmly in place. There is no way to move it or even tip it over.

  Will leaves again, then returns with a piece of string. Penny can see what he means to do now. All the same it is terrible to watch him knotting the string about the trigger. When he has finished, he goes to her and whispers in her ear like a lover.

  ‘I don’t know when they’re going to find you, Penny. Maybe you’re dead already from the wait, but if you’re not, I want you to watch that door open because that’s the last thing you’re ever going to see. And when you see it opening, you remember to think how if you’d only given me Tammy, only killed a woman who’s already dead... why, you could have lived. You and Benny and your dad. It’s your own stubbornness that opens that door, Penny. You remember that!’

  As Will leaves the room, he takes the string. She watches his hand reach back to loop the string over the doorknob. That is the margin she has. About four inches. If the door pulls opens beyond that distance, the string will pull the trigger.

  His fingers wave goodbye, all a good joke, and Penny stares into the bore of her father’s shotgun.

  A gunshot sounds in the next room. She waits for another, hears nothing more. Benny or Tabit? She doesn’t know. Hasn’t the courage to guess which one he kills.

  Her door opens very slowly. She watches the string tightening, certain she is dead. Then she sees Will’s fingers coming round the door again. Waving his fingers at her as a child might do, Will says to her, ‘Don’t worry about Tabit opening the door by accident, Penny.’

  Tabit.

  Chapter 84

  Palm Sunday 12:10 p.m., March 28.

  MY CELL PHONE WAS DEAD. I’d left it on overnight, so I called Max Dunn from the church office. Max sounded a bit irritated when he heard my voice. ‘What is it now, Rick?’

  ‘A family at the church we overlooked.’

  ‘Listen... buddy... we fought the good fight. Let’s put it to bed, what do you say? I can’t keep calling the cavalry out on these wild hunches.’

  ‘Max! We’ve got people nobody has heard from since Booker took off. They’re supposed to be out of town for a death in the family, but the boy had a date with his girlfriend Saturday night and didn’t call to let her know he couldn’t make it.’

  ‘Rick, I had a gal with a pot of a water boiling thirty-five years ago; she had to get home and turn it off or the house would burn down, but the minute she took care of that, why she was going to give me a call! Guess what, buddy.’

  ‘The girl has been by the house several times,’ I responded. ‘Theed Dy live in the same subdivision. There’s a Bronco and the boy’s Toyota parked in front of the garage, Max. The Bronco belongs to the old man. The thing is he’s a fanatic about keeping his vehicle spotless.

  He never leaves it out – and it’s been there since Wednesday.’

  ‘It’s thin, Rick.’

  ‘Men and their cars, Max…’

  ‘People do leave town, you know, and they do forget things, especially if they’re upset.’

  ‘They forgot something else.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘Family has a German shepherd named Pete. When they leave town, Pete stays in the backyard and the neighbour takes care of him. Dog’s a guard dog, never leaves the property.

  Guess who’s not in the backyard, Max.’

  ‘Well... maybe that is once too many for a coincidence.’

  ‘Two kids. Seniors in high school. Twins. Boy and a girl. They were in church last week. Will met the boy and his dad before he shook anyone else’s hand. The boy is gold, Max.

  Star athlete, straight-A student. But the girl... Connie Merriweather tells me she’s got a lot of issues, lot of anger – a little bit like Missy Worth back in the old days.’

  ‘Holding a bat, you think?’

  ‘It can’t hurt to have a look. The family’s name is Lyons; they’re down in King’s Court on Wolverine Lane.’

  ‘ Ben Lyons?’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘I know him real well. Hell of a nice guy, Rick. Big contributor.’

  ‘You know the house?’

  ‘No, but the guy is swimming in money – so I’m guessing it’s one of the big houses down there.’

  ‘I’ll get what I can from the girlfriend on the layout and bring it to your staging area.’

  ‘The university’s got a lodge out that way…’

  ‘I know the place.’
>
  ‘Thirty minutes unless you can get there sooner!’

  Chapter 85

  Sunday 12:19 p.m., March 28.

  THE MINUTE I WAS OFF THE phone with Max, I sat down with Benny Lyons’s girlfriend and got everything I could on the Lyons house. Doors, windows, rooms. She knew the house pretty well, especially the basement. Benny’s bedroom was in the basement.