The Devil Made Me

by Lorena May

  “Can you think of anyone who might have wished her harm? Mel asks.

  He gives them an incredulous stare. “Do you think she was murdered?”

  “We can’t be sure. Have you seen this man?” Mel pulls out the police-sketch of the man Darby has dubbed ‘Scarface’.

  It’s fleeting, but recognition flashes in the manager’s eyes. He looks more closely at the sketch, furrowing his eye-brows. “No, I don’t believe I do,” he says.

  The two police sergeants stand, watching him.

  “I don’t believe I can help you any further. As I say, we are most sorry to hear of Scarlett’s death. But she only worked here this past year. We didn’t know her well. Knew nothing of her personal life.” He gives them a little wave of his hand. “Good day, Sergeants.” Bustling back to shuffle papers on his desk, he turns his back to them.

  Darby and Mel exchange knowing looks, and leave. “Did you see his eyes when we showed him the sketch?” Darby whispers as they walk toward the squad car.

  “I did,” Mel says. “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”

  “Aha! Shakespeare, right?” Darby guffaws. “My learned partner!”

  Darby’s phone buzzes. She pulls it from her pocket. It’s Jim. “Hi, Jim.” She wills her voice to sound casual.

  His is warm and friendly, as usual. “Hi, Darby. Hope I’m not catching you at a bad time. I’m calling to see if we have a date to go riding this week-end with Skye and her friend.”

  Darby breathes deeply. No more games. “I thought you were done with me.” She glances over at Mel, who is trying, unsuccessfully, to look as if he isn’t listening.

  “I’m sorry, Darby,” Jim says. “I was hoping for more, but friends is better than nothing. I’d like it if we took Skye and Ravneet, riding this week-end.”

  Darby can’t help the smile tugging at her lips. “Sure, Jim. I’ll call Skye and see if tomorrow will work for them.”

  When she clicks off Mel is smiling triumphantly, waving his phone. “They’ve nabbed a guy picking up the money at the post office!”

  Chapter 19

  ~ Em~

  Has it been minutes? Hours? Em is lost in grief. Shivering, she looks around the room. Nothing has changed. The chimes clock on the mantle ticks steadily. A stack of books, old pine coffee table, blue leather rocker, ceramic lamp dimly lighting the room . . . Everything looks the same. But nothing will ever be the same again. Pulling an old crocheted afghan around her shoulders, Em stares at a photograph of the three sisters taken long ago. Scarlett, with her blonde curls and sparkling smile, holds Abi who is barely a year old. Abi’s turned-up nose, wide, blue eyes and rosy cheeks still melt her heart. Em sighs. In the photo she is standing off to the side, dark and gloomy-looking, her skinny body hunched and angular. She remembers exactly when that picture was taken. It was right before a big celebration party. Right before their house was trashed. It was the first time, but it certainly wasn’t the last.

  SHE WAS EIGHT. HUDDLED together on the bed they shared under the sloped-roof, she and Scarlett leaned against the head-board while Abi slept in the crib nearby. Loud, raucous laughter soared into their little room. Furniture banging, the crash of breaking glass, shrieks of glee followed by angry yelling, swearing, shouting. A loud popping sound.

  She can still hear Scarlett whispering in her ear. “Play a game with me, Emmie. We’re far, far away. In a beautiful, shiny white house. See? Mom is telling us to come in. She’s made chocolate chip cookies, Em. And milk. Can you taste them?” Holding Emily tightly, she spoke softly into one ear while she pressed her hand against the other. And Em saw it. The beautiful white house. She could taste the cookies and milk. She smiled.

  “Someday, Emmie, we’ll live together in a nice, clean house and we will never fight or have loud parties or screaming. We’ll be so happy.” Scarlett whispered.

  Scarlett, we were finally together in a calm, clean house. What happened?

  She stands and walks across the living room, through the kitchen where she hears the hum of the fridge, a tap dripping. She wanders into the hallway and up the carpeted stairs, creak, creak. The door-handle to Scarlett’s room is cold to the touch. Slowly she turns it, and steps inside. Stillness. She gazes around. Everything looks the same. A pair of jeans slung over a chair, make-up and brushes scattered on the bureau, a pink tee-shirt thrown on the bed, overflowing laundry basket. Em plucks Scarlett’s clothes from it, putting them to her nose, desperate for her sister’s smell. Inhaling deeply, she holds them to her face, one by one. Gingerly pulling open the top drawer of Scarlett’s dresser Em pulls out papers. Scarlett’s handwriting. Blue penned, flowing, loopy letters. For a moment she hesitates, holding the paper away from her face. She is trespassing on Scarlett’s privacy. Then with a gut-wrenching pang she realizes Scarlett is no longer here. Soon enough the police will be combing through her things. She reads.

  You are my ray of sunshine

  Thawing, brightening, life-giving

  As I lay dark and dirty

  In the earth.

  You give me warmth and hope

  Allow me to sprout and grow

  To bud and blossom

  You Nourish me.

  Frowning, Em rustles through the papers in her hands. Pages and pages of what look like poems. Who was she writing them to?

  I clung to my sordid past

  Bending, twisting, writhing like sea-weed.

  Grips a slimy rock.

  As a drowning creature clutches a stick thrown

  Into the murky, tossing waters.

  Then there was you.

  Strong and good and noble

  And you pulled me from the muddy abyss

  To new heights.

  One after another Em scans her sister’s poems; all written to someone who apparently saved her from a wretched life. Who?

  Through the darkness I skulked

  Slinking, scratching my slovenly way through muck and grit

  Wallowing in it, lurching, reeling, staggering through

  Seduced by greed and avarice

  ‘Til I reached home,

  Unsoiled. Untainted.

  Home. You.

  Laying back on Scarlett’s bed, light-headed and hollow, she falls into a fitful sleep.

  CRASH! Em hurls her body out of bed, feet slamming onto the cold, linoleum floor. Sheba is downstairs barking, barking, barking. Em stands at the top of the stairs straining to hear whatever may lurk below. There is no sound. Tip-toeing down the stairs she stops after each step to listen. The wind rustling trees. Sheba growling. Is that the engine of a car she hears? She pulls her sweater tightly around her middle, shivering. Finally, she reaches the landing, and peers around the corner into the kitchen. The moon is bright and full. It casts a silver beam of light through a vast, jagged hole in the window, spilling onto the kitchen floor, glinting off shards of broken glass. She stands and stares, her heart racing, clutching her chest. Her breath lurches in and out, in and out as she stands there. Frozen.

  Sheba is by the window now. Growling. Woofing. Who’s there? She sees no movement, hears no sound but the grrrr from her dog, and the swish of evergreens outside. It’s icy cold, and suddenly Em is aware of her feet, bare and vulnerable on the chilly, glass-covered floor. She’s plunged into numbness. As if an electric bolt has surged through her body.

  Then she sees it. A large rock has smashed through the window and rests against the stove. Kneeling, ignoring the jabs of glass biting into her knees, she reaches for it, grasping the cold, hardness of the rock with her finger-tips. She pulls it toward her. A piece of paper wrapped with duck-tape is stuck to it. Gritting her teeth, baring her senses against whatever might hit next, she scrapes at the tape. Peels it off. With trembling fingers, she unfolds a thick, white page. “NO POLICE” is scrawled at the top of it in black sharpie. “$20 000 in your mailbox by tomorrow midnight. OR ELSE”.

  Chapter 20

  ~Darby~

  Shit! We’re going to get fuck-all from this guy. S
teely-eyed, grim-mouthed, Darby asks one more time. “So all you can tell us is that some guy walked up to you, gave you a hundred bucks to pick up an envelope addressed to John Smith.”

  The kid nods. He’s just a skinny-pimple-faced boy; probably on crystal meth. His eyes dart around the room and he picks absently at the sores on his cheek. His mouth hangs open as he stares vacantly at the detective. “I don’t know nothin’. The guy asked me if I wanted some easy money, handed me the key and told me to bring the envelope to him at the end of the street.” His legs bounce, jerking his upper body.

  “Tell us again. Everything you can think of about this guy. “What did he look like?”

  “I don’t know – your average old guy. Not very much hair. About my height. Hefty. Checkered jacket. Red and black.” He shrugs. ‘I didn’t really pay much attention.”

  Darby slides sketches of Jed and John Smith in front of the boy. “Do you recognize either of these men?”

  He huffs, letting a gust of air escape from his lips. “I don’t know. They look a lot the same to me. Coulda been one of them.”

  Mel stands, clearly fed up. “Maybe we should book you for extortion, stick you in a cell and see if your memory improves with time.”

  The kid shrugs. “It won’t. I barely looked at the guy. All I know is he’s old.”

  “Go home,” Darby sighs.

  STACEY, THEIR FRIEND and co-worker, on the other hand, is perfect. She does a pirouette, arms raised, and Darby laughs gleefully. “Lady, you are a knock-out in that dress!”

  Stacey gives her a little belly-dance chest lift; a cheeky shimmy. “This is why I love undercover.” Her long, blonde hair swishes as she sashays around the reception area. “Think they’ll wanna hire me?”

  “They’ll be begging for you,” Darby grins. She pulls out photos, lining them up on the edge of her desk. “Here’s the scoop”. Jabbing the sketch of John Smith she says, “This guy turned up at the Sims girl’s house telling them that their sister, Scarlett got herself mixed up with the wrong people. He wants twenty-thousand dollars.” She points to photographs of Scarlett. In one her face is suffused with a brilliant smile; lively and unreserved. Beside it lies a picture of her bloated, dead face, hair stringing across it.

  Stacey takes a deep breath, stares at the pictures, saying nothing.

  Darby closes her eyes a moment, and rakes her hands through her hair. “As you know, we tried to catch the guy picking it up, but got the kid instead.” She jerks her thumb toward the hallway where a blank-faced boy has sauntered away, his jeans falling below his underwear, hands shoved in pockets. “He hoped to be one hundred dollars richer. You win some, you lose some. ” She gives Stacey a twisted smile. “So we found out fuck-all.”

  “Just some kid they found on the street.” Stacey bobs her head. “Whoever it was disappeared when they saw you go in, I’m guessing.”

  “Yeah. No one anywhere in sight.”

  Darby picks up the sketch of John Smith. “We don’t know for sure, but some of the patrons at Hunter’s have seen this guy go into the back. We talked to the manager who seems a little sketchy. He says he’s never seen him, but Mel and I both think he’s lying.”

  Stacey nods. “Okay. Assuming they’ll hire me I’ll see what we can find out. I’m guessing the restaurant’s a front for drugs?”

  “If that’s where she got mixed up with the wrong people. The only friends or associates we can find are girls she worked with.” Darby chews her lip. “We think she and her sister witnessed a murder twenty years ago.” She points to Jed’s sketch. “They saw him in the pub that night.”

  Stacey’s eyes flash. “Motive to kill her?”

  Darby frowns. “I don’t know. We went to see him. He’s a first-class asshole, for sure. And I hope we’ll get him on the cold case. But his wife was with him at the bar. I don’t think he’d have done anything with her there. Still, it’s a possibility. Keep your eyes open.”

  “Okay.” Stacey bends to pick up her purse and jacket from a chair. “I’m off to my waitressing job interview. Wish me luck!”

  Darby watches as the undercover policewoman wiggles out the door in her spike heels. “Oh, how I wish it for you, Stace. Knock em dead!”

  Stacey waves as she struts down the hallway, passing Mel who gives her an approving raise of his eye-brow. “Look at you when you’re all fixed up!” he exclaims.

  “Pretty friggin’ oooh la la, eh?” Darby chuckles as he enters her office, watching him flop into a chair.

  “Jed’s rifle’s gone to ballistics, and I asked for a rush, but you know . . .”

  “Pretty backed up. I know the story.” Darby agrees. “Can we talk to Rose?”

  “I’ve called and called and no answer.” Mel frowns.

  “No surprise there, I s’pose,” Darby says, pulling her jacket from the back of her chair. “Shall we pay them a visit?”

  THE SUN IS SETTING; brilliant yellow, orange and pink on the horizon beneath bluish grey clouds. Only the glimmering of snow in its path illuminates their way as they drive up the cluttered driveway. The house stands dark and quiet. Darby and Mel exit the squad car, scrutinizing the property. Snow falls softly around them.

  “His truck’s not here,” Mel says. “No fresh tracks.”

  Darby scuffs her feet through the snow. “So he left before it started to snow this afternoon.”

  They walk around the house, banging on doors, peering in windows.

  “Looks emptier,” Darby calls to Mel. ‘TV’s gone, no sign of life anywhere. Do you think they’ve run?”

  Mel’s face is grave when they meet again in the front yard. “Computer’s gone from the study. I think you’re right. “We’ll put out an APB.”

  “Fu – Damn!” Darby throws her hands in the air. She stands, thinking. ‘They’ll turn up. I just hope to hell it’s not on Em and Abi Sim’s back door.”

  Chapter 21

  -~Em~

  ‘Abi stay safe. Don’t come home.’

  ‘Hi, this is Matthew. Abi’s sleeping. What’s happened?’

  ‘Threats. Stay away’

  ‘I’ll make sure that Abi doesn’t go home. She’s safe here. Call when you can. Are you okay there?’

  ‘yes’

  Every muscle in her body aches. Her fingers are scratched and bleeding, and she’s chilled to the bone, but somehow the need to act has provided relief. Rescued her from the crippling sadness, humiliation and terror that threaten to overtake her. The shattered glass has been swept up. A large piece of plywood that some previous owner left is nailed onto the broken window. All that’s left to do is to gather twenty-thousand dollars by midnight.

  She heats coffee in the microwave, and holds her cup with both hands, luxuriating in the heat of it. The sun is poking up across the yard; ribbons of color with the dark fern-like shapes of evergreens silhouetted against it.

  She lights a fire in the fireplace, and huddles in front of it, Sheba by her side. “It’ll be okay, girl,” she murmurs, petting the dog’s soft fur. “We’ll end all this tonight.” She opens the ring-box she’s collected from Scarlett’s room. It glimmers in the firelight; a thick, solid gold band with inlaid silver and a large square of diamonds – she counts them – twenty-five altogether. Who was it for? The man she wrote poems to? Some guy who uplifted her from her terrible life? Em’s heart hurts.

  Exhausted but unable to relax, she looks at the clock. Seven o’clock. Too early to call Abi. Will Matthew help out with raising money? Can she get anything back for the ring? She’ll go to the jewelry shop in town. Maybe . . . Over and over she weighs the possibilities, calculates the amounts. ‘NO POLICE’. She won’t make that mistake again.

  The fire crackles and soothes. She holds Sheba’s head on her lap, softly petting it. The dog senses something wrong.

  She texts Abi again. ‘r u up? need to c u.’

  The answer comes right away. ‘Abi is still in her room, but I’m up. I assume she’s still sleeping. I’ll get her up if you like. You can c
ome over any time.’

  ‘Thx’ Em holds Sheba close, letting the embers die down.

  THE GOODALL HOUSE IS a brick bungalow with a large driveway, shoveled right to the cement. Two junipers are symmetrically placed on either side, now strung with blue Christmas lights twinkling in the morning darkness. A large crèche, lit by a floodlight, even this early in the morning, depicts Jesus’s birth.

  Before she has even rung the bell Matthew opens the front door. He looks fresh and robust, sporting a pleasant smile. “Come in. I rapped on Abi’s door. She’ll be up right away.”

  Em follows him into the living room, just off the main entrance. It’s a formal-looking space with a thick, plush beige carpet, dark, shining wooden tables and ornate, curvy furniture. Satin cushions have been carefully placed here and there.

  “This is my mother, Ada Goodall,” Matthew says, indicating a small, bird-like woman who has just entered the room.

  “How do you do?” she says, approaching Em with an extended hand. Em shakes, but says nothing. What does one say?

  “Please. Sit down,” Mrs. Goodall says. “I’m sure Abigail will be down soon.” Em sits, straight-backed, feeling grubby and out of place.

  It seems ages, but finally Abi appears in black leggings and a long, blue sweater. She looks sweet and flustered, her eyes still heavy-lidded. Abi moves gracefully and quietly, but she, too, seems restrained in this very proper environment. “Em, what’s wrong?” she asks.

  Em doesn’t know where to start. What to say in front of the stern, intimidating woman sitting across from her, so she just blurts it out. “Abi, we need to come up with some money. By tonight.”

  Abi’s face turns ashen, her eyes like two deep holes in the snow. “What happened?”

  Em can feel Mrs. Goodall stiffen, and she glances at her. Matthew comes to the rescue. He steps behind his mother, his big, comforting hand on her shoulder. “Mom, Abi’s older sister was in some trouble. We don’t know what it was, but a man came to their house the other day saying that she’d messed with the wrong people and we had to come up with twenty-thousand dollars or they would hurt Abi.”