Hello Darkness Page 13

  The morgue always gave her the creeps when she went alone. She always felt like one of the cadavers was going to sit up and grab her wrist whenever she walked past the metal tables in the cold storage room.

  “You doin’ alright over there?” asked Foster.

  “Yeah,” said Karen. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Don’t you go haywire on me, rookie. I gotta have someone to trust in this crazy town.”

  “I got a question for you. How long until I’m not a rookie anymore? I’ve been here ten months already.”

  Foster grinned. “Just as soon as we hire somebody else. After that, you get your promotion. Then the new guy will be the rookie until we hire somebody else. See how that works?”

  “Yeah, I see how that works.”

  The body was right where they left it, intact and undisturbed. It was a chore to get it into the bag and haul it back to the cars, but they managed it with a fair amount of stumbling and cursing. Karen stopped once and gagged into the bushes when the sheriff’s head bounced over a fallen branch and fell back down against the inside of the body bag with a loud splat.

  Walt helped Karen lay the body across the back seat before he snapped off his gloves and threw them in her car. Karen shook her head and shut the door.

  Walt looked down at his watch. “Five hours,” he said. “Two a.m. You call me if anything happens before then. Especially if you see St. Croix.”

  “Yeah,” said Karen. “Get some sleep, Foster. I’ll see you later.”

  “You could come spend the first hour with me,” he said, smiling at her. “I won’t tell Benji. Do us both some good.”

  “Get the hell out of here, Walt.” She wanted to yell at him for being so insensitive given the circumstances, but an image of Blake Halsey under the covers of her bed popped into her mind and stirred her in an unexpected way.

  “Your loss,” said Walt. “One of these days it’s gonna happen, Karen.” He got into his car and started the engine. “A man can dream, right?” He stared at her a moment longer as if he expected her to change her mind, then put his police cruiser into gear and drove off.

  Karen looked over at the remaining cars in the school parking lot. At least half a dozen remained from the earlier search party. She hadn’t heard anyone shouting or crashing through the woods while she and Walt were bringing back the sheriff’s body. Did they all ride home together? That wouldn’t make any sense; she knew three of the cars by sight and the owners of two of them lived on opposite sides of the town. If they were still out looking for Amy in the dark, then Karen would have to remember to do something special for them when she got the chance.

  She didn’t bake or sew, but she could grill a damn good brisket and pound beer with the best of them. Since both of those activities were—with rare exception—universally loved in Falling Rock, Karen was sure her appreciation would be well-received.

  The drive to the Sheriff’s Office was a quick one. The streets were completely empty and no one was out for a walk. Marcus’s gas station at the end of Main Street was lit up like a Christmas tree and the front windows of the Sheriff’s Office glowed with a dim yellow light. The rest of the street was dark and silent. Even Hank Buckley’s store was closed. Karen suddenly realized she hadn’t seen him in the search party. Perhaps he had arrived late after trying to find others who were willing to help.

  Karen parked in front of the Sheriff’s Office and looked inside. Janet sat behind her desk and took a sip from her oversized cup of coffee, then shuffled papers from one stack to another. Her hands shook the whole time. Karen took a deep breath and went into the building.

  Janet was up on her feet the moment the front door opened. She stubbed out the cigarette that had been smoldering in her ashtray and blinked at Karen.

  “Did you find the girl?” she asked. “Or…or…”

  “Sit down, Janet.” Karen walked around the desk and placed her hands gently on the older woman’s shoulders. She guided her down into her seat and leaned against the desk. “We found Roy. He’s gone.”

  Janet looked back and forth between Karen’s eyes. It seemed to take her a moment to process what she had just heard. She covered her mouth with her hands and let out a soft cry. Tears squeezed out from between her closed eyelids and ran freely down her face. She sobbed quietly into her hands as Karen knelt down on one knee and hugged her.

  “I’m so sorry, Janet. So very sorry.” Karen gently patted Janet’s hair and let her cry against her shoulder.

  Janet started to sob. “I didn’t…get to…say goodbye.”

  Karen rubbed her back and tried to calm her down. “I know. None of us did.”

  Janet sniffed and leaned back from Karen. She plucked a tissue from a box on her desk and wiped her face. “He was a good man,” she said. “A good man.” She smiled and cried at the same time.

  “Will you be okay?” asked Karen.

  “Oh, eventually. Don’t let me keep you. I know you have…things to take care of.” She started sobbing again. Karen stood and went to the back of the room.

  A wooden board lined with a row of keys on hooks hung next to the gun rack and Karen plucked off the one for the morgue before dropping it into her pocket. She walked through the open door which led to the small holding cells. A short hallway opened onto a small room. On one side was a small wooden bench and on the other were two wall-to-ceiling cages with thick iron bars welded to a support frame every four inches.

  There were only two jail cells in all of Falling Rock, and only twice in the city’s history had they been occupied simultaneously—both times during the Town Festival. The one farthest from the door served as overflow storage for the station: old files, supplies, and other odd ends. On the rare occasion that someone had to be “hauled downtown”, as she and Foster jokingly referred to it, they were placed in the cell nearest the door.

  Mike Laubin sat inside that particular cell, staring down at his hands. When he heard Karen walk in, he sprang to his feet and walked to the cell door.

  “Hey!” he said. “I didn’t do nothin’, Ms. Raines. I didn’t start no fire, I swear!”

  “It’s Deputy Raines, Mike. How many times do I have to tell you?”

  “Sorry, sorry. Yeah, Deputy Raines. I didn’t do nothin’!” He was anxious; bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet and speaking quickly. His clothes were too baggy for his tall, skinny frame and the wispy puff of a soul patch clung pathetically to the skin under his bottom lip.

  “I heard Deputy Foster hauled you in here for pitching a fit.”

  “Huh? Oh, at the gas station. I was just trying to buy a beer and he starts harassing me! I got a right to drink, you know?”

  “Oh, I know. We clean up your messes all the time down in the valley. You and the rest of your friends.”

  “Pssh. That ain’t nothin’, Ms. Rain—Deputy Raines. Just some kids tryin’ to have some fun, you know? This town’s boring enough as it is.”

  Not recently, thought Karen.

  “So, about that fire by the church,” she said.

  “We ain’t been out in them woods in two weeks! And even when we go it ain’t that close to the church. Ask anyone, they’ll tell you. Besides, you know that fire ain’t me.”

  Mike wasn’t lying about that. He would steal a car stereo in a heartbeat, and the car as well, but he had no reason to burn down one of his favorite party spots.

  “Deputy Raines,” he said. “I tried callin’ Kyle but he didn’t answer.”

  Mike’s little brother was a miniature version of his idolized older sibling. Their parents had died in a car crash three years ago, leaving Mike as the head of the household. Karen wept for the future.

  “He’s probably asleep,” she said.

  “No way. Kyle don’t go to sleep until midnight. You gotta tell him I’m here.”

  “I do?”

  “Come on, Raines, don’t be like that! I won’t steal nothin’ no more, I promise.”

  “Yeah, right,” she said. “Just promise me
you didn’t start that fire.”

  He looked right into her eyes. “I didn’t start it, I swear.”

  “Fine. I’ll call Kyle and let him know you’ll be here until tomorrow morning.”

  “What?! Aw, gimme a break!” Mike threw up his hands and turned away from the cell door.

  “Next time one of us wants to ask you a few questions, don’t make it harder than it has to be.”

  “Aw, man…”

  Karen turned and walked out of the room. She heard Mike plop down onto the small cot in his cell with a loud huff and she smiled to herself. She had been wanting to see that kid behind bars since her first day in Falling Rock. Hopefully one night in a cell would drill some sense into his thick skull.

  “Janet,” said Karen as she walked out into the main office. Janet was dabbing her eyes with a tissue and had mostly calmed down. “You have Laubin’s phone number?” Janet nodded. “When you get a chance, would you mind trying to get a hold of Kyle?” Karen thought a distraction might be just what Janet needed. She nodded toward the back. “And maybe see about getting him something to eat?”

  Janet smiled. “Sure thing, Karen.”

  “I’ll be back a bit later. Call me if anything comes up.” She lightly squeezed Janet’s shoulder before leaving the station.

  * * *

  The morgue just off Main Street was tucked back behind the hardware store and up a small incline which led to the top of Mt. Hodges. It overlooked the city and sat adjacent to Falling Rock Cemetery. Karen’s headlights flashed over headstones as she pulled into the morgue’s parking lot.

  She looked up at the sky as she got out of her car and saw a distant twinkling of stars. The moon would be coming up over the horizon at any moment; she saw the bright glow lighting up the dark sky behind the peak of the mountain.

  One of the headstones caught her eye as she looked down and Karen wondered if she was destined to end up in one of the cemetery lots. She hardly ever thought about death, but with the sheriff gone the idea was being forced to the front of her mind every other minute.

  The morgue was a fitfully solemn building. Subdued architecture kept it low to the ground and it was painted an awful dull yellow which served no other purpose than to inform visitors that it was a sad place.

  Karen unlocked the front door and propped it open. She flicked on the nearest light switch and waited for the long row of fluorescent ceiling lights to flicker on. They lined a hallway which stretched to the back of the building. Several smaller doors were on either side and a pair of large double-doors awaited her at the end.

  A collapsible metal gurney sat just inside the front door. Karen wheeled it out to her cruiser and opened the back driver-side door. The gurney could be lowered to match the height of a car seat, so it wasn’t too hard for her to slide the sheriff’s body out of the cruiser; the bag slid easily across the seat and the smooth surface of the gurney. She pressed one of the small levers on the side and pulled the gurney up to waist-height before rolling it into the morgue.

  The wheels rattled slightly as she rolled the gurney down the hallway. Karen looked through the small, square windows set into the doors on either side of the hall but the rooms beyond were dark. She reached the end of the hallway and gently nudged open the swinging double-doors with the front of the gurney.

  After flipping another light switch, Karen saw six identical metal tables in the room that were arranged in two rows of three tables each. Four of the tables were empty, but atop two were unzipped, empty body bags. Karen walked over and looked at the small tags hanging from the zippers of each one. Both bodies had arrived several days earlier. A faint aroma of rot wafted up from the second bag as Karen pulled on the tag. She rubbed her nose with her wrist to try and force out the foul odor.

  Set into the wall opposite the entrance were two rows of three metal doors, one row on top of the other. Behind each door was a cold chamber—a refrigerated holding space for bodies prior to interment. Three of the heavy doors were ajar. Karen approached the first hesitantly, as if one of the blackened hands she always feared was going to shoot out from the opening and latch on to her arm.

  She swung the door open quickly and stepped back. Icy fog cleared to reveal an empty chamber. The other two chambers with open doors were empty as well. Each had a label with the name of the supposed occupant—corpses that had arrived at the morgue within the past two weeks.

  “Oh my God,” she said.

  Someone was stealing the bodies. A wave of nausea started in the pit of her stomach and swelled to the bottom of her throat. She slammed the three doors closed and flung the empty body bags off the tables. As quickly as she could, she rolled the gurney over to one of the previously unoccupied cold chambers and opened the door. She slid the sheriff’s body bag into the chamber and pushed the door closed after him.

  Karen ran out of the room, not bothering to return the gurney nor turn off any lights. When she reached the end of the hallway, she stopped and leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. Her head cleared and her throat began to loosen.

  She ran a shaky hand through her hair and tried to calm herself down. She felt more disgusted than she ever had in her life, yet she could also feel adrenaline coursing through her veins. If she had to run to the top of Mt. Hodges and back, Karen knew she would break Walt’s old record. Should she call him and tell him about the bodies? He was probably already asleep. What good would it do to wake him up? He would find out in a few hours anyway.

  It was a sick crime but Karen didn’t feel right pinning it on the preacher. Murder and mutilation—maybe, but still a long shot in her book. Kidnapping a little girl—unlikely, but who else did she have as a suspect? That left the issue of the stolen bodies from the morgue. What was the point in taking dead bodies? No one would do that. No one could do that.

  She walked into the nearest room and found a phone. After a quick punch of numbers, it started ringing. A man’s tired voice answered.

  “Hullo?” he said.

  “Blake, it’s Karen. I’m coming over.”

  “Karen? Okay, but—”

  She hung up before he could finish. She was shaking with fear and excitement, and she needed to be with someone. Karen left the morgue without bothering to lock the doors behind her and kept her eyes off the cemetery as she got into her police cruiser and peeled out of the parking lot.

  16

  Martin Bridges was a light sleeper, so when a loud thump knocked against the outside wall of his house just after nine p.m., his eyes opened and he sat up, fully awake. His wife, Sharon, lay next to him, wrapped up in most of the blanket. She moaned softly and turned away, pulling the last edge of his covers over her shoulder. Martin looked at the thin curtain over the window above their bed. The moon was almost full and its light glowed through the white cloth. He had never been overly paranoid, but the last few days had been unusually stressful at work and around the house. The more uptight he became, the more certain he was that someone was out to get him.

  He had been making plans for the family to visit his wife’s parents in Nevada for two weeks. Tommy would be out of school soon and Sharon didn’t work. It was just a matter of Martin closing out one stubborn insurance claim before the three of them could get on the road.

  He held his breath and watched the curtain. His imagination saw the shadows of evil men dart past the window, their bulky silhouettes limned by moonlight.

  Another loud thump against the wall of the house, that one a lot closer to his bedroom. Martin reached under the bed and patted the soft carpet until his fingers touched the rough wooden handle of a solid ash baseball bat. The handle was gritty from years of use, both by Martin as a boy and then by Tommy, his son. He stood up next to the bed and gripped the handle of the bat with both hands, holding it over his shoulder, ready to swing.

  The entire top floor of the house was thickly carpeted so Martin’s feet made no sound as he stepped lightly to the stairs which led down to the first floor. He leaned over the dark wooden rail
ing and looked down into the family room.

  The curtains over the large window next to the front door were open. Moonlight poured into the family room. Long, grim shadows cast by the furniture stretched across the floor and climbed up the walls.

  A soft whisper came from his right. “Dad?”

  Martin turned toward Tommy’s room. The door was open a couple of inches and his son was sitting up in his bed, covers drawn to his chin. Martin raised his index finger to his lips and made a shushing motion. Tommy gulped and drew his covers higher up his face.

  Thump.

  The noise came from outside, along the wall that bordered the kitchen at the back of the house. A door next to the kitchen counter led to the sorry excuse for a backyard: a narrow pathway between the house and the thick woods which ran down into the valley. The lot was near the end of the row of houses on their street and the yards got smaller as they neared the mountain’s peak. The only reason to ever go behind the house was to haul the garbage cans around to the road on Mondays and Thursdays.

  Martin couldn’t remember if he locked the door earlier when he took out the kitchen garbage. He walked down the stairs quickly, the soft whoosh whoosh of his loose pajama pants the only sound. The front door was locked. He saw no movement in his front yard as he looked outside through the large window next to the door. The dim street light at the bend in the road next to their house fought against the night, aided only slightly by the moon.

  Martin tightened his grip on the bat and headed for the kitchen. As he walked to the back door he passed a drawer he knew was full of long, sharp kitchen knives. He briefly considered changing out the bat for one of the menacing blades, but decided to rely on brute aggression rather than precision—even though he hoped neither was necessary. Deep down he wished he had a shotgun.