No Woods So Dark as These

by Randall Silvis

  The Reddick home was a rambling two-story clapboard on a large weedy lot two streets north of Main, the exterior’s blue paint gone chalky and algae-stained. At least three exterior stairways led to second-floor decks, their weathered boards long ago stained the color of redwood. The roof shingles were buckled and all of the windows but one were black in front of heavy, closed curtains. Only the bay window on the first floor showed any sign of habitation inside: the flickering light of a television screen.

  Jayme knocked twice before Mrs. Reddick appeared in the corner of the bay window. No matter how she twisted she could not get a look at Jayme, and so she knocked on the glass. Jayme stepped back from the door, showing herself, and waved. A minute later the door squeaked open partway, letting the loudness of the television burst out.

  “Mrs. Reddick?” Jayme asked.

  The woman looked well past eighty, was stout but feeble and wary. Her thick lenses on black rims were filmy with dust. She had thin gray hair, parted in the middle and hanging in limp strands over her ears, and she was wearing at least two bulky sweaters, the top one olive green, over a long wool skirt, black, atop gray sweatpants and heavy woolen socks. The scent coming off her body or clothes or wafting from inside the house was strong: old smoke, old sweat, old food, old woman.

  “Who wants to know?” she said.

  “My name is Jayme Matson, Mrs. Reddick. I’m working with the Pennsylvania State Police on a—”

  At the words state police, the old woman’s eyes narrowed. “I got no time for the police. They never done a damn thing for me. Besides, I already talked to them. What do you want with me now?”

  “We’re trying to locate your son Thomas—”

  “He goes by Luthor now. Has for a long time.”

  “Yes. Okay. We would like to ask him some questions—”

  “I already told them I don’t know where he is. If I did I would’ve said so.”

  “Okay. That’s good,” Jayme said. “Would you mind if I come in for a couple of minutes? It’s been a long drive up here.”

  “Where you coming from? Back there where he lives?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Back in Mercer County.”

  “Well, you drove all the way up here for nothing, I hope you know that.”

  “It’s a beautiful drive, though. All those hills and forests and valleys. It’s much flatter back home.”

  “So what do you want to ask him?” she said. “Those other police wouldn’t tell me what’s going on.”

  “Well, his housemate, Cheryl McNulty—”

  “I know Cheryl. She used to come up here with him. Invited me to come visit them sometime. Though how she expects me to get there without a car, I have no idea.”

  Jayme smiled. Nodded. Said, “Anyway, Cheryl hasn’t seen Luthor for several days, and she’s worried about him. I promised her I would try to track him down.”

  “If she’s so worried, why wouldn’t she just call me then? It makes no sense sending you up here instead.”

  “We were coming up anyway. To look at the elk. So we just figured we’d stop in here on the way.”

  “Well, you’re wasting your time and mine too. If Luthor don’t want found, nobody’s going to find him.”

  “I was hoping you could help me with that.”

  The old woman snorted and looked like she might spit. But then she swallowed and turned away. “Come on in then if you have to. And close that door tight behind you. You’re letting all the heat out.”

  Eighty-Two

  Twenty minutes passed from the time DeMarco walked into the station house until he was able to sequester himself in a small room with a cup of coffee and Joe Loughner’s daily reports. He first had to shake eight hands and answer numerous questions, not only about the current investigation but also about the Huston, Aberdeen, and Youngstown cases too. One trooper joked, “We figured you must be at least nine feet tall,” which made DeMarco so uncomfortable that he lied about having another appointment in an hour. He was shown to the windowless room and told, “This is the quietest room in the building. Joe said to give you any and everything you need. He sure thinks highly of you.”

  And again he felt guilty and confused. And sat down to smother those emotions with work.

  Two rectangular wooden tables, each approximately two feet by three feet, their surfaces scarred and scratched and stained, had been pushed together to make one table, with a single wooden chair placed against the edge. Atop the table and centered beneath a hanging light in a rectangular metal shade was an accordion file containing a short stack of individual sheets, a single white legal pad, a blue gel pen, and an ashtray. DeMarco pulled out the chair and sat, set the ashtray on the floor and gave it a shove with his foot.

  The daily reports were dated consecutively for two weeks in the summer of 1989, loose unless a day’s log ran to two pages, in which case those pages were stapled in the upper left-hand corner. Seeing those dates, DeMarco realized for the first time that Reddick Jr. and he had been in the army at the same time. He didn’t know why that realization should startle and upset him, but it did.

  Joe’s typing was uniform from page to page and showed no signs of misspellings or typos. And it had been typed on a typewriter, not printed from a computer screen, which meant that Joe had been a very careful and possibly slow typist. He cared about the appearance of his work. Took pride in it, no doubt. Even his cursive initials at the end of each report were clear and precise.

  He would have been close to forty back then. Probably clean and sober and ambitious. Fully invested in his vow to serve and protect. What was different now? Maybe only the clean and sober part. When and why had things changed?

  DeMarco pulled the legal pad in front of his right hand and picked up the pen. Slid the incident logs directly in front of his chest, the oldest one on top. And read.

  Then the next. The next. The next. Taking each by the bottom corner and turning it upside down onto the table, gradually stacking them up again. They read much as he remembered his own former reports. Domestic disturbances, vehicular accidents, driving violations, drunk and disorderlies, providing assistance to citizens with car troubles, reprimanding noisy, disruptive, or truant children and teens, investigating thefts, assaults, shoplifting, and other generally stupid behavior. A few drug busts or arrests for possession, most of them involving cannabis. A typical day in the life of a trooper. The nearest municipalities of St. Marys and Emporium had their own police departments but tiny Benezette did not, so many 9-1-1 calls from local citizens were dispatched to the nearest state police vehicle.

  DeMarco read seven daily reports without making a notation on the legal pad. Then came the eighth report. 4:29 p.m. A Thursday afternoon. Troopers Loughner and Stottlemeyer had responded to a 9-1-1 call placed by a distraught woman who returned home from work to find her husband bloodied and dead in the living room, wearing only a white T-shirt and white crew socks. Victim, Thomas Reddick Sr. Wife, Elsie Campbell Reddick, employed as cashier at Shaffer’s Market on Main Street. Manager confirmed that Mrs. Reddick was in the store from a few minutes before 8:00 a.m. until 4:10 p.m. Mr. Reddick’s body was found in a state of advanced rigor when the troopers arrived. Multiple traumas to the face and head. Couple has one son, Thomas Reddick Jr., active army, currently stationed at Fort Leonard Wood in the Ozarks.

  The remaining reports all included information pertinent to the ongoing investigation into Reddick Sr.’s death. Coroner confirmed death by multiple blunt trauma to the head and face. Evidence suggested a motive of robbery; traces of white powder later identified as cocaine were found on the coffee table and between floorboards. All known associates were questioned. No arrests made.

  According to the logs, Luthor Reddick had returned home to Benezette the evening before his father’s funeral. When questioned by Loughner and Stottlemeyer, the younger Reddick stated that he “didn’t know anybody who wouldn’t
want to kill the old man. He was a piece of shit to everybody he met. Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

  And that was it. One single piece of information about Reddick Jr., and it was of absolutely no value in helping DeMarco locate Reddick. Why had Joe insisted he come here and read reports that would be of no value? Bad memory? Or was DeMarco missing something?

  Eighty-Three

  Jayme stepped inside the house and immediately understood why the old woman was dressed in several layers of clothing. The air was stale and odorous and chilly, several degrees cooler than the outside air. She said, “I bet these old houses are hard to heat, aren’t they?”

  “I wish somebody would burn it to the ground. With me in it.” Mrs. Reddick settled herself in the center of an old sofa facing the blaring TV, a fifty-inch flat-screen on a black plastic stand. She lifted up the quilt hanging to the floor and pulled it over her legs and up to her chest.

  Jayme nodded at the remote control on the arm of the sofa. “Any chance we could turn the volume down a bit? I have an inner ear thing, makes it hard for me to hear a conversation sometimes.”

  “You seen a doctor about it?” The old lady picked up the remote and held it out to Jayme, who lowered the volume by half.

  “A couple of times,” Jayme said. “Might as well have flushed my money down the toilet.”

  “Tell me about it,” Mrs. Reddick said. “You can set down if you want.”

  Jayme’s choice was sit in the corner of the sofa, close to the old woman’s feet, or in the darkly stained wing chair with its back to the drafty window. She chose the chair.

  “I’m going to need that remote back when Wheel of Fortune comes on.”

  “Oh, I love that show!” Jayme said. “What time does it come on here?”

  “Eleven. I never miss it.”

  Jayme glanced at her phone. 10:32. “So about Luthor,” she said. “When was the last time you heard from him?”

  “Heard from him or seen him?”

  “Both.”

  “He calls me every week on Sunday morning. Usually around this time.”

  “And did he call you this past Sunday?”

  “You didn’t let me finish. It’s been a while since I heard from him. At least a month, I’d say.”

  “And how long since you have seen him?”

  “For a while there he was coming by every month or so and taking me into St. Marys for dinner. They got a Bob Evans there I like. Sometimes he’d stay the night and make breakfast for us the next day.”

  Jayme held on to the remote, smiled and nodded. With each deep breath, she wanted to wince. The air smelled as stale as old crackers, as sad as…as an old woman alone in a cold, empty house.

  “They make this pot roast hash, I think it’s called. At the Bob Evans there. With an egg on top of it however you want it done. Luthor always got his scrambled but I like my yolk runny. Over easy, I’d tell them, or else I’m sending it back.”

  “Luthor sounds like a very considerate son.”

  “He’s always been good to me. He’s a good boy. Always has been.”

  “But you haven’t seen him for a while? Is that correct?”

  “Anything I want, he gets it for me. Has my groceries delivered every week, has those Meals on Wheels coming every Tuesday and Thursday. My Visiting Angel comes on Saturday to do the laundry and help me in and out of the tub. That last one, though, she was no angel, I’ll tell you that. Boozer, I think. She’d get here and the next minute be snoring in the chair. Luthor got her fired is what he did. They shouldn’t have a person working if they hate their job so much they have to get drunk to do it.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more,” Jayme said. “Luthor’s business must be doing well.”

  The old woman shrugged. “It’s not like I ask for a helluva lot. I wasn’t brought up that way.”

  “Is it true that Luthor had a little problem with the army when he was younger?”

  “He was just a boy! Damn government has no right taking boys away from their home like that.”

  The old woman looked as if she were about to say more, so Jayme remained silent.

  “They have this pot roast hash, I think it’s called. That’s what I always get. Last time it was a little dry, though. Not enough gravy. And I told them so. I don’t believe in paying for bad food.”

  “Nor should you,” Jayme said. “So how were things at home when Luthor was a boy? Between you and Mr. Reddick, I mean.”

  “Huh,” she said, and yanked at a thread of yarn on the quilt.

  “Not good?”

  “You ever made a mistake with a man? A bad mistake?”

  Jayme smiled. “Isn’t every man a bad mistake?”

  The old woman laughed, showed her yellowed teeth. “You got that right, don’t you?” She looked around the room. “You seen my cigarettes anywhere?”

  Jayme scanned the room. “I’m sorry, I don’t see them.”

  “Maybe I’m setting on them.” She leaned to the side, slipped a hand under her body, down between the cushions. Then leaned to the other side, felt around with her other hand. “I’m always losing the damn things.”

  “I can get up and look around for them,” Jayme said.

  “Look out in the kitchen on the table. That’s where I usually leave them.”

  Jayme was happy to stand and move. Her hands were cold, her nose was cold. The chilly air coming off the window had made the hair at the back of her neck stiff.

  On the kitchen table, a pack of Marlboro Lights lay beside a butane lighter and a saucer already half-full of butts and ashes. Dirty dishes in both sides of the double-basin sink. Foil pans with baked, dried-on food sticking out the top of the trash container. A Campbell’s soup can on the stove, a layer of white, congealed bacon fat two inches from the top.

  “They out there?” Mrs. Reddick called.

  On the door of the refrigerator, along with a three-by-five-inch magnetic sign listing the county’s emergency numbers, plus five restaurant flyers with the phone numbers circled in blue ink, were two photographs of Luthor Reddick. The image in the first photo had yellowed from age and showed a young Luthor in his army camo fatigues, pointing a rifle and snarling at the camera. In the second photo, a middle-aged Luthor and a woman were standing in front of a waterfall, both in shorts and T-shirts, Luthor grinning while the woman smiled sleepily, her head against Luthor’s shoulder.

  “Still looking!” Jayme said, and lifted the second photo by its untaped bottom edge; nothing was written on the back. That woman posing with Luthor—who was she? Jayme took out her phone and captured three shots, the last one zeroing in on the woman’s face.

  “What the hell you doing out there?”

  “Sorry!” Jayme called. “I got distracted admiring the view from your kitchen window.”

  “I don’t know what you think is worth looking at out there.”

  “I found your cigarettes!”

  “Get ’em in here, then. I always have a smoke when Wheel of Fortune comes on.”

  Jayme pocketed her phone and returned to the living room, where she handed the pack of cigarettes and lighter to Mrs. Reddick, then set the saucer ashtray on the sofa’s armrest and took her seat again.

  The old lady asked, “Where did you find them? On the table?”

  “Actually they were on top of the refrigerator.”

  Mrs. Reddick wrinkled up her face as she lit the cigarette and sucked in a lungful of smoke. She blew it out again. “That’s odd. I never leave them there. I don’t even know why I would.”

  “I do things like that all the time. Sometimes I’ll walk into a room and then forget why I even went there in the first place.”

  “Ha,” the old lady said. “Happens to me a dozen times a day.”

  “Those are nice photos of Luthor on your refrigerator,” Jayme said. “That water
fall in the second one is beautiful. Do you know where it was taken?”

  “Umm, it was down in West Virginia somewhere. Down past Morgantown, as I recall. Black Falls or something like that.”

  “Blackwater Falls?”

  “That’s it. Him and Cheryl brought me back a jar of maple syrup and a ball cap from an Indian trading post there. I asked them what’s a ball cap have to do with Indians? Insulted her, I think, though I didn’t mean to. She’s not been back to see me since.”

  “That’s Cheryl in the photo?”

  “Who else would it be?”

  “How long ago was the photo taken?”

  “Years ago. Luthor always says it’s because of her epilepsy getting worse, why she never comes with him here no more. I think he just don’t want me to feel bad is all. Me and her always got along good before that. I didn’t mean nothing by it. Just couldn’t see no connection between a ball cap and them Indians. People are too sensitive sometimes.”

  Jayme smiled. Said nothing. Pretended to watch the TV for a minute. Then slapped a hand over her pocket. “Whoops, there goes my phone.” She pulled the phone out, looked at it, and said, “It’s my partner calling. I’ll just step out into the kitchen for a second so I don’t bother you. Be right back.”

  In the kitchen, facing the refrigerator, she whispered into her phone, “Call Ryan.”

  Eleven seconds later, he said “Hey,” and she said, “Hey, babe. I’m going to head your way in a few minutes. Any chance you could call Boyd and get him to send you a photo of McNulty?” Her voice was hushed, a hand cupped around her mouth.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “We have a kind of development here. It would be great if Boyd could get that photo to you before I arrive. A close-up of her face.”

  “Are you whispering because Reddick is nearby?”

  “No, nothing like that. You know what? I should’ve just waited a couple of minutes. I’ll call you from the car.” She ended the call, took a couple of quick breaths. Suddenly her heart was racing. She took one measured breath after another, a little deeper each time, and gradually felt the thumping of her heart lessen.