Darker Than Any Shadow

by Tina Whittle

  I stepped toward the door to the parking lot. “I think it’s time we left.”

  Trey nodded. “Of course.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  We left quickly. I closed the door behind me, but I could still hear Cricket’s sobbing and Jackson’s boom box voice, tamped down but audible.

  I patted Trey’s arm. “Thank you for not beating Jackson into pulpburger.”

  “I wasn’t going to do that.”

  “In that case, thank you for not doing whatever it was you were going to do.”

  Trey examined the door frame. I saw more fingerprint powder residue, especially around the deadbolt, but Trey ran his eyes over it, not his fingers.

  “You’re welcome,” he said.

  The parking lot was three thousand square feet of heat and humidity and thick afternoon light. I tried to remember it dark and crowded with wet bodies, but that memory seemed more like imagination than reality.

  Trey stepped back and took in the view of the building. Two stories, but no windows, no other way in or out except the fire exits on the side and the front doors in the main room. He turned around and took in the other perspective—the two dozen empty parking spaces, the cracks where the grass had pushed its way up through the pavement.

  I stood next to him. “What did you make of Cricket’s version of events? Was she lying?”

  “Not lying so much as not ever telling the entire story. Only once did she slip into generative narrative.”

  Generative narrative. Trey talk for making up a story.

  “When was that?”

  “When you asked if she’d talked to Lex Friday night.”

  “I knew it! But what about the rest of it?”

  “She told the truth.”

  “So she didn’t kill him?”

  Trey squinted against the sun, shielding his eyes with his hand. “She didn’t say she didn’t kill him—she said she didn’t want him dead. And that’s a different thing entirely.”

  He kept his eyes focused on the ground in front of us. As we cleared the parking lot, he stopped and knelt at the edge of the concrete, examining the pavement bordering the sparse dry grass.

  I bent down to look. “What?”

  “I think it’s blood.”

  He stood and walked forward, very slowly. I followed the line of his finger. Sure enough, a thin brown dribble led from a dark stain on the concrete into the grass.

  “The cops didn’t ask me about that.”

  “Me either. But it would have been very hard to see at night, over here, away from the main crime scene, especially with so many people milling about.”

  I remembered Rico’s story—the threat, the punch, the bloody shoes. I’d filled Trey in on the details, so I knew he was thinking the same thing I was.

  I looked over at him. “So what do we do now?”

  “We call Cummings.”

  I watched him do just that, and for a second, he was a cop again. The routines seemed so imbedded in his programming, like deep code. He appeared utterly comfortable in that role, and not for the first time, I wondered how it must have felt to give up the only piece of his life that made any sense at the time.

  I knelt at the edge of the parking lot. Heat shimmered the asphalt into a mirage, a flat pool of illusion. The stain had the illusion of being liquid too, warm, freshly dripped. I knew people could read the lines and whorls of it and make a story—force, trajectory, flow—but I couldn’t. The stains matched Rico’s story, but I could think of other scenarios where the splotches weren’t proof of his innocence. Where they were evidence of his guilt.

  I stood as Trey approached. He saw me staring and cocked his head quizzically. I shook my head and turned my back. Whatever emotion was written on my face, I didn’t want to share it.

  ***

  Back at the apartment, I opened a bottle of wine and sat drinking and pondering while Trey fixed dinner. It had been a revelation the first time I’d seen him in the kitchen, the startling domesticity of whisks and measuring cups and cutting boards. And he was an excellent cook, even if his knife skills came from Krav Maga training instead of culinary school.

  I topped off my wine. “So what did Cummings say about the blood?”

  “He said he’d send a team.” He pulled down a copper-bottomed skillet and put it on the stove eye. “But the sample is certainly compromised.”

  “Like the one on Rico’s shoes?”

  “Probably worse.”

  He got a knife from the block, a big one, and sliced open a red bell pepper in a single deliberate stroke. He had a stack of vegetables that he’d washed—green onions, bok choy, tiny beige mushrooms—and as I watched, he chopped them into matchstick-sized pieces.

  He indicated a bottle of olive oil. “Would you put some oil in the pan, please? A tablespoon.”

  I did as he asked, stealing a piece of pepper in the process. “So I was right about Cricket and Lex communicating last night?”

  “Based on Cricket’s words, yes. But remember—”

  “You’re not infallible, I know. But my gut and your frontal lobe agree—Cricket’s hiding something.”

  He kept his eyes on his work, on the rhythmic chop-chop-chop. “My overall impression was evasion. Most of the time she told the truth, but not the whole truth.”

  “Technically true but deliberately evasive.”

  “Yes.”

  Boy, did I know something about that. I was the queen of Technically True But Deliberately Evasive. Choose the words carefully enough and you could spin facts into a cover-up that would hide all manner of unsavoriness. Trey pegged it every time, but that didn’t mean he could penetrate it. That really would have required psychic abilities and not just a heightened sensitivity to micro-emotive expressions.

  I turned the pan on high. “So what about the blood? Chances are good it’s Lex’s, from where Rico punched him. Wouldn’t that support his story?”

  Trey turned the heat to medium. “It depends. It provides an explanation for the blood on his shoes, but it could be used to prove that Rico had motive. That if he were angry enough to punch Lex—”

  “But Cricket had motive too! We know she talked to him, probably went out back to meet him—you caught that lie. That would make her a prime suspect, wouldn’t it?”

  “It’s circumstantial.”

  “Oh, come on!”

  He tossed the vegetables into the pan, and they hissed in the hot oil. “It’s a valid theory. But you can’t decide it’s fact yet.”

  I hated it when he was right. “So we’re back to figuring out who else might have had a motive for killing Lex.”

  Trey moved to the refrigerator. “As information comes to your attention, open up new lines of connection. But focus first on what you can factually prove.”

  I started to argue, but realized it was pointless. And also—grudgingly—that he was right. Again. Score one for linear thinking. Still, as good as he was at the straight line, I was equally as adept at the periphery.

  I got the salt and pepper from the cabinet and lined them up next to the rice wine vinegar and sesame oil. Trey returned to the counter with a piece of salmon, pink and glistening underneath plastic wrap.

  “So the APD is collecting the evidence,” I said. “What’s the next thing that happens?”

  “Analysis of the blood.” Trey put the pepper back and got down a bottle of red chili oil. “If both samples are indeed blood.”

  “Then they do the genetic profile, right? See if it matches any victims or suspects?”

  “Correct. But that requires more advanced testing.”

  “How long does it take to get those kind of results?”

  “Usually five to seven days minimum, although I’ve seen it go longer for compromised samples.”

  So Rico had about a week before the damning truth of the blood turned against him. Trey’s knife flashed deftly, slicing the fish into translucent slivers. Knives were elegant tools, singular in their purpose, and yet killing with one requ
ired brutality and force. The human body resisted, with bone and muscle and sinew. It did not admit the blade willingly. It fought it every inch.

  “Have you ever stabbed anybody?”

  Trey shook his head and reached for the diced ginger. “No. But I’ve been stabbed.”

  “Really? Where?”

  “Right thigh, just below the hip.”

  I knew the scar. I’d assumed it was from the accident, like the delicate silver scars on his chin and at his temple, or the four titanium screws in his spine, or the pin in his knee.

  “What happened?”

  “A nine-year-old boy attacked me with a paring knife.” He stirred the ginger into the vegetables. “I was arresting his mother. Child endangerment plus possession with intent to sell.”

  He tapped the spoon on the edge of the pan. The pungent steam curled upwards, and he adjusted the heat, then covered it with the lid.

  “Tell me again why you’re…I’m looking for a word.”

  “Investigating?”

  He nodded.

  “Because of Rico.”

  “Rico asked you to do this?”

  “No.”

  He waited. I swirled the wine in my glass. I knew what my brother’s psychologist explanation would be. Eric would look at me seriously through his gold-rims and say, you meddle in other people’s live as a way of exerting order in a chaotic universe, assuming power that you don’t have but that nonetheless provides an illusion of control.

  This was the reason I hadn’t called him yet. I could get away with keeping him in the dark longer than usual because he was in Australia for two weeks, at an Industrial and Organizational Psychology Conference. He’d find out eventually, of course, but I planned on putting it off for as long as possible.

  “Rico’s my best friend,” I said. “I’ve lost count of the number of times he’s dragged me out of what I wanted into what I needed. I intend to return the favor.”

  Trey waited some more.

  I sighed. “But I’m involved too. Maybe not as a suspect, but that could change any second now, you know that as well as I do. And I can’t sit quietly and wait for that tide to turn.”

  Trey didn’t ask any more questions. If there was one thing on the planet he understood, it was the need to do something that perhaps made no sense to anyone else. He drove a Ferrari and wore Armani and exercised two hours a day. I tampered. We tolerated this about each other.

  I watched him slide the fish into the pan, the fragrance of ginger mingling now with the sizzling vegetables. It felt unreal, like a bubble that might burst if I poked it. Who was I, this woman drinking 2010 Syrah from real crystal, watching this man with multiple scars fix her dinner? I thought again of Lex, of the carefully engineered persona that was his entirety. And I thought again of the GQ magazine in Trey’s desk. And I thought of the red silk bra underneath my tee-shirt. And I thought of Rico, who was keeping a secret. And I thought of knives.

  And then I poured more wine and decided not to think for the rest of the evening.

  ***

  Three-fourths into the bottle, I fell asleep on the sofa. Trey left me there and went to bed. I eventually woke up and stumbled in with him, tripping over my tote bag in the process. And maybe it was that tumble, combined with the lingering buzz, that jarred the memory loose.

  What were CDs doing in the hallway Friday night?

  Adam had been complaining that there weren’t any at the merch table. But when I’d been running to the bathroom in all the smoke and water, I’d tripped over a box of the things, a box that hadn’t been there when I’d made my first trip to the bathroom.

  Somebody not on my bubble map had come in the back that night. Somebody who came, dropped CDs, and left. Without being seen, without being reported, without being interviewed by the cops at all.

  I curled up next to Trey, my brain buzzing. Come morning, he had a trip to the gym scheduled. I had a different plan, one that included a visit to the man most likely to know who might have been coming and going so secretly. And luckily for me, he’d invited me over himself.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Apparently, Padre roamed like a wildebeest on Sunday mornings. One neighbor said he’d gone to get a haircut, the other said he’d gone to get milk. I spent forty-five minutes walking Euclid Avenue, smelling the mingled Cuban food and motorcycle exhaust until I finally spotted him walking my way.

  He took me up two flights of stairs to a cramped antique apartment, where he turned a box fan on full blast. And then he made tea. Unlike Trey’s tea, however, which came in pale white bags as pristine as linen pillows, Padre dumped spoonfuls of loose leaves from a Mason jar into a silver tea ball, then dunked it into hot water.

  His apartment overlooked the street, a single shotgun room, dusty and filled with books. Photographs dominated the space—framed on the walls, propped against the floorboards, lying in stacks. Displayed sideways on the kitchen counter was a candid shot of a young Padre, his long hair ebony and wildly curled, a large mustache creeping across his upper lip.

  I tilted my head to examine it. “How old were you then?”

  “Barely out of diapers.”

  A sewing table had been set up as a make-shift video editing station. Dozens of DVDs lay half-stacked next to a computer, surrounded by scribbled notes, lists, wires tangled like rats’ nests.

  “What’s all this?”

  “My latest project.” He pulled out the tea ball, added honey, then poured the whole concoction over ice. “It’s a video compilation of the team over the past few years, from their first pieces to their current work.”

  He handed me my glass. It smelled like licorice and lawn clippings. A tentative sip revealed that it tasted the same way, only sweeter.

  “That sounds fascinating.”

  “It is. You can really see them come into their own.” He sat in an ancient cane rocker, sipping his tea. “Except for Lex. The only material I can find on him is from the last four months.”

  “That’s because Lex was a phantom.”

  “I’m inclined to agree. But the rest of them are all real.”

  He leaned over and pressed a button on the player, and the screen flared to life. It was Rico. He looked impossibly nervous, sweating under the harsh light. “You begin in the softest of ways,” he said, and I knew I was hearing the very first time an audience had heard those words.

  “Have you talked to him at all?” Padre said.

  “A little.”

  “Does he have family here?”

  I shook my head. Ever since Rico had decided to live as an openly gay man, he and his parents had been on icy terms. Not that they’d officially disapproved, both of them being good liberals. But he was their only son, and they’d had different ideas about what his life, and theirs, would be like. I couldn’t imagine what would propel him back into their frigid enclosure, but I knew it wouldn’t be this particular trouble.

  Padre returned his attention to the video. “I’m trying to show their range, but it’s been challenging. Vigil’s pretty good, but his poems are about money or sex or power. Good rhythms, but no heart. And Frankie doesn’t do sentimental worth beans. She’s only got one sweet poem that I know of, and it sets her teeth on edge every time she has to trot it out.” He fast-forwarded the video. “See? She looks like she’s chewing grit.”

  I laughed. Frankie’s expression was strained, unlike her usual thunder and brimstone performances.

  But I understood why she was trying. Rico had explained to me that being a performance poet requires a varied repertoire—something smart, something sexy, something political, something intensely personal. Winning a slam was more than delivering the poem perfectly. You had to deliver the right poem at the right time.

  “Rico says choosing the poem to deliver is as much an art as the poem itself.”

  “Ah, Rico.” Padre beamed. “A true servant of the word. Boy’s got heart and backbone. And he works hard.”

  I’d noticed. Rico read, studied other poets,
practiced for hours in front of the mirror. He always had a pen stuck somewhere, and usually an index card or two for scribbling. But if he didn’t have paper, he’d scrawl on his skin, the backs of his hand, his forearm, the dark ink almost illegible against his ebony skin.

  “What about Cricket?”

  Padre smiled and fast-forwarded yet again. There was Cricket, her eyes wide, her prettiness set on fire by the spotlight.

  “That girl’s gonna go places once she gets some experience. She conceals too much on stage right now, like the real Cricket is tucked up safe inside. It all feels like an act.”

  “And what about you, Padre? What kind of poet are you?”

  His mouth twisted ruefully. “Me? I’m a relic. Haven’t you heard?”

  He turned off the video, then bent and picked up the camera beside his chair, a clunky, multi-strapped contraption. He examined it, clicking through f-stops and film speeds, then he put one eye to the viewfinder and pointed it at me. I kept my face toward the window as he snapped shot after shot.

  “Don’t say stuff like that. You’re a legend.”

  “Which is a famous relic.”

  “Stop being modest.” I took another sip of the tea. It was beginning to grow on me. “Why’d you stop leading the team?”

  “It was time. I missed photography, plus Frankie’s good at being in charge. And making money.”

  “I heard she runs an art gallery.”

  “Owns an art gallery, a successful one too. Poetry doesn’t pay the bills, babe—all of us are something else from nine to five. But that’s not why she’s the leader. She’s a damn fine poet despite her lack of a sentimental streak.” He grinned at me from behind the camera. “Come on, give me a smile.”

  I smiled, but kept my face averted, relieved when a knock at the door interrupted the impromptu photo shoot. Padre rose and peered through the peephole, then opened the door to reveal a young woman in a waitress’ apron, her ponytail swinging, face sweaty.