The Darkest Place

by Daniel Judson

  “What makes you think she was up to something?”

  “She was staying in one of the rooms above the bar, for her protection. She had told me some tale about a customer who had threatened her. Like a fool, I believed her. What I didn’t know till recently was that the man she was hiding from was a friend of hers, from the life she fled before she came to this one; a friend, it seems, she was getting ready to betray.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “We have a somewhat elaborate security system in place.”

  “You mean you have video cameras monitoring the rooms.”

  “We like to think of it as insurance. Also, there’s a market in South America for that kind of thing, tapes like that.”

  Gregor wondered if the men who went there, who kept this place a secret, men of obvious discretion and influence, knew that tapes of them fucking hookers were available for purchase below the equator. He made a mental note of that, certain that any of these tapes might just come in handy if it ever came to blows between himself and the Castellos.

  “Do you know what she was up to?” Gregor said.

  “She put this friend of hers, some guy named Dean, together with some professor she knew. She was, it seems, playing them both against each other.”

  “What was this professor’s name?”

  “She never said it. He was always Professor. ‘Yes, Professor. Hello, Professor. I can’t wait to see you, Professor.’ The way she said it, you get the sense that her not saying anything more was deliberate. Whether they were being careful about hiding his identity because they were on cell phones or this was some game they played, some role they acted out, it’s hard to tell. Some guy had stayed with her the night before she was killed, a guy named Kane. He taught at the college, but he wasn’t the Professor.”

  “You know this for sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “The day before she was killed she talked to her beloved professor on the phone, talked to him about Kane. She was to keep Kane occupied for a night, tell him whatever she needed to tell him to keep him near her for twenty-four hours.”

  “Why?”

  “Something about leaving him with another chunk of time for which he couldn’t account.”

  “You have this conversation on videotape?” Gregor said. “You have her saying this about Kane to the man she called Professor?”

  “Yes.”

  Gregor took a breath, let it out, looked toward the empty clubhouse, then back at Castello.

  “It’s safe to say,” Castello said, “that Colette and her professor friend were working Dean, playing him, there’s no mistake about that. But it’s clear from her conversations that Colette was working this professor, too, or trying to anyway—working him against Dean, and Dean against him. I watched the tape of her conversation with that Kane guy the night he stayed with her. I heard everything they said, saw everything they did. She started working on him, too, told him some crap about me getting drunk one night and telling her about my family business. It was quite a performance.”

  “She knew all about what went on upstairs at your bar.”

  “Of course. She didn’t just mix drinks.”

  “She turned tricks.”

  Castello nodded. “She came highly recommended to us by someone we trust. She was intrigued, said she wanted to give it a try. That was the thing with her, she’d do anything for the experience, I think so she could write about it. But also, she was a bit of a freak. You could see it in her eyes. She told me she wanted to work for us, did for a while, then said she’d had enough. But she wanted to stay on as a bartender, so I let her. She was good for the bar business, too. Men came in just for her.”

  “And she told you that she’d never had sex for money before, ever?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  Gregor ignored the question. “So you emptied out her apartment in case there was something that might lead the police back to you.”

  “My father’s the kind of man who doesn’t tolerate failure.”

  “But you risked a lot just to indulge her, to indulge her artistic curiosity.”

  Castello shrugged. “What can I say? She had a way with men. You should see how she wrapped that Kane guy around her finger. I even had a hard time believing that what she was saying about me wasn’t true. That was her gift. She could convince anyone of anything.”

  Gregor nodded. His face was beginning to hurt from the cold. “I’m still not sure what it is you want from me,” he said.

  “It’s what I don’t want, actually. I don’t want to have to worry about you or any of your people coming after me or my family, coming after our business. In exchange for that courtesy, I’m prepared to give you something you might be in need of.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “I understand you’ve been hired by the family of one of the dead boys to find his killer.”

  Gregor didn’t bother to correct the mistake. It was a small point of fact, and he was looking for the killer, so it didn’t really matter.

  “And you want to help me do that?” Gregor said.

  Castello pulled his right hand from his coat pocket. In it was a slip of paper, shivering in the wind.

  “Before we disposed of her body, we emptied out her pockets. She had her cell phone on her. We made a list of all the numbers in her address book and call history. My people tracked down each number, got the names and addresses of every person that the numbers belonged to. Most of her calls in and out were to and from cell phones, probably stolen ones, if they knew what they were doing, which I think they did. But there was one number, a landline, that she called several times. It’s a Riverhead number. On this slip of paper is the name and address of the person to whom that number belongs.”

  “The guy she called Dean,” Gregor said.

  Castello shrugged. “Maybe. It’s listed to a woman named Eva Kosakowski. She’s been dead for about three years. Maybe it’s this Dean guy’s mother, maybe her house went to him and he never bothered to change the name on the phone bill. Anyway, Colette made several calls to this number the day before she died. We have her side of every one of those conversations on tape as well, and she’s talking to him in some of them.”

  He paused, thought for a moment, then said, “I don’t know, maybe she did all this so she could put it into that book she was working on. Maybe she did it just for the experience. I don’t know what she thought she was doing, but it is clear by the phone calls we’ve heard that this Dean guy, with her help, captured those boys, brought them back to his place, and killed them there after a day or two, then got rid of their bodies. He was the muscle, the one doing all the work. The Professor, whoever he is, was contracting it, and Colette was the broker, brought him and Dean together. But this Dean guy’s the one you need to find, the one you need to stop. Maybe he’ll be more than happy to lead you to the Professor, make you the hero, get your name back in the newspapers.”

  Gregor looked at the slip of paper fluttering in Castello’s hand. The last thing he wanted was his name in the papers. He had constructed his whole life, before he had come into money and then after it, with the sole purpose of avoiding exactly that. He was out of that game, had never wanted to be in it to begin with.

  But this, how could he not grab at this, despite what it meant, despite what it could do, what it would do, what it would signify.

  “So I give you immunity,” Gregor said, “promise that I won’t come after your family or your business, and you give me that slip of paper.”

  Castello nodded. “Turn a blind eye and maybe save a life. Don’t, and you and I end up having to look over our shoulders—me looking for you, you looking for me. I’d rather not have to do that, if possible. We’re both men of resources, resources best spent elsewhere. It’s my hope that you see this, too.”

  Gregor looked at him for a long time. “Why should I believe any of what you’re telling me?”

  Castello reached into the left-hand pocket
of his coat and removed a videocassette, held it up.

  “It’s a copy, of course,” he said. “And edited. It’s all their conversations. For whatever reason, it seems they intended on killing five boys in total. That’s what Colette says in her last conversation with the Professor. Five boys, and then they were done. Four have been found already, correct? So that leaves one more. Would you really want to take the risk of not checking out the address on this paper, only to discover tomorrow that a fifth was killed there tonight?”

  Gregor said nothing, waited a moment more, felt the cold on his face, felt it cutting through his skin and into his bones. He could end this pain, with or without taking possession of the note, simply by turning around and returning to the warmth of his waiting car, driving to his home, climbing into bed next to his wife. He could separate himself from this cold, protect himself from it, sleep through it, safe and warm in his bed. But what about the fifth boy, what about his pain, pain he could even be feeling right now—as Gregor stands there indulging his conscience—pain this unknown boy was helpless to end?

  He reached out then, took the slip of paper from Castello’s hand. There wasn’t time to debate this, no time to care about what this would do to him. Castello handed over the videocassette. Gregor took it.

  Just like that, it was done.

  Castello looked at Gregor, said nothing for a moment. Did he know what this meant? Gregor wondered. Finally, Castello spoke.

  “There’s something I don’t understand, though. Why would they dump the bodies into the bay like that? There are better ways to dispose of someone, a lot of better ways. It’s almost like they wanted the bodies to be found. But that doesn’t really make sense, does it, considering how careful they have been with everything else.”

  Gregor didn’t say anything. It was time to go. He turned, headed toward his car. Then Castello spoke again, and Gregor stopped. He listened without turning back. The clock was ticking.

  “By the way, you might want to tell that teacher, that Kane guy, to keep what he knows about my business to himself. I’m sure he’d rather that the police didn’t find a copy of a videotape that shows him fucking a hooker the night before she was killed. We can always direct them to her body, if it ever comes to that. The chief has some loyalty to my family. My father, you see, was able to do a favor for him once.”

  “I’ll be sure to let him know.”

  “As long as we keep each other’s secrets, we should all come out of this okay. Big thing, don’t you think? Trusting another to keep your secrets. But what choice do we have in the matter? What other option is there? After all, we are civilized men, each of us with families and businesses we must protect.”

  Gregor started to turn his head to look back but stopped himself. There was nothing to say to that, no reason to look at Castello again. He continued forward, crossed the distance to his Grand Prix, calmly climbed in and hit the headlights, and got out of there.

  A half mile down the road he stopped and pulled over, looked at his reflection in the rearview mirror, at his eyes lit by dashboard lights. Then he took out his cell phone, flipped it open, and dialed Clay’s number. It was only then that he looked at what was written, in distinct handwriting, on the slip of paper he held in his shaking hand.

  Clay found the house, the last one on the end of a dark dirt road in a part of Riverhead called Flanders, a working-class community on the edge of Peconic Bay. He passed the driveway, the last one on the right, made a U-turn at the dead end, the bay just feet away, and coasted a hundred feet back up the road before he stopped. He adjusted his side-view mirror with the buttons on his door console and looked at the house. It sat alone about fifty feet from the edge of the bay, a dirt driveway running from the road past the house to the backyard. All the windows were dark, the driveway empty. Gregor had called from East Hampton, said he was on his way. Clay looked at his watch now. It would be a good twenty minutes before Gregor could get here. Too long to just sit and wait. Gregor had also told Clay that there was, if Castello was telling him the truth, one more boy. The boy could be in there now, Clay thought. He couldn’t just sit there, watching the place like some security guard.

  Clay grabbed his Maglite from under the seat—two-foot-long, hard metal casing, as much club as flashlight—and turned off the motor and got out. In the trunk of his Intrepid was a small safe that held his Ruger 9mm. He opened the trunk, then the safe, took the gun out, checked the clip, the safety, grabbed the slip-on holster from inside the safe, slid the Ruger into the holster, clipped the holster to his belt, then opened a canvas shoulder bag resting beside the spare wheel. In the bag were several pairs of hard rubber galoshes. He took a pair out of the bag, slid them over his dress shoes, then closed the trunk.

  He walked along the edge of the road, walked on the dirt so the rubber wouldn’t squeak on the pavement. No streetlights here, unbelievably dark, but that was a Long Island night when all the lights went out. But he could see well enough and kept the Maglite off so no one would see him. He reached the driveway, paused, looked around, then chose the cover offered by the line of trees that ran along the length of the yard. He followed that past the house and stopped when he could see the back door.

  No vehicle parked behind the house, the windows there dark, too. He waited a moment, then approached the back of the house, crossing the dirt driveway, stood not far from the back door. Something in the yard, a shape in the darkness. It took a moment for Clay to see that it was an old washing machine, resting on its side. He looked back at the screen door, clicked on the Maglite. A summer screen, one hinge broken. He thought about pulling back the screen door and trying the knob, but what if it was unlocked, what then? He couldn’t enter like he had at Colette’s. Wouldn’t be legal. Walk the line. He stood there, looked up at the second-floor windows. Nothing, no curtains, not even a shade. He looked back at the door. After a moment he stepped away, spotted the hatch to a coal chute nearby, went to it. Padlocked, not that it mattered. Maybe the house was shut down for the winter. Maybe nobody was here. Another dead end, another diversion. But why would Castello do that? Clay shined the light along the back wall, spotted the electric meter. He went to it, heard faint humming from inside. Behind the glass, very faint motion from one of the dials. The house was getting electricity. But he heard something else, too, a muffled but steady droning, high-pitched. Clay recognized it at once.

  The sound of water moving through pipes, somewhere within this wall, or beyond it.

  Clay listened for a good minute. The sound didn’t diminish. So the house wasn’t shut down for the season. Electric service was still on, water was running. So someone lived here. But the lights were off, every window dark. Why then was the water running? And full blast, at that.

  The only explanation Clay could think of made him not care at all about walking the line.

  He hurried to the back door, tried the knob with his gloved hand. Locked. There was no curtain on the window, so he shined his light inside. A small kitchen table, a counter, takeout containers piled in the sink. Nothing on the walls. He didn’t bother to knock, didn’t care who might be in there, tapped one of the panes of window, the one closest to the lock, with the butt of the Maglite. The glass broke, some pieces falling. He pulled out what shards remained in the frame, tossing them onto the dead grass. When the hole was big enough, he stuck his thick arm through, felt around, found the lock.

  It was a deadbolt, not the kind with a latch but the kind that required a key to be opened from the inside. No key was in it. Fuck. Clay’s heart was pounding, his blood cut with adrenaline. Carried by his certainty of what was going on inside, he stood back, lifted his right leg, kicked the door in.

  He moved inside, left the door wide open, stood in the middle of the kitchen with the light aimed at his feet, his coat open so he could reach the Ruger if need be. At the other end of the kitchen were two side-by-side doorways. One opened into the living room, the other most likely led to the basement. Clay went to the open doorway, a
imed the light through the living room. No one there. The only things in the room were a couch and a TV on a milk crate. He paused and listened. The sound of the water rushing through a pipe was muffled here, like it had been outside. He strained to locate the source. It wasn’t coming from upstairs. The house was small; he’d hear water falling into a tub if it was the shower. The sound was too high-pitched to be a running toilet. The downstairs was just the kitchen and the front room. That left only one place.

  He reached for the handle of the basement door, turned it, pulled the door open a few inches, enough to hear.

  The sound was coming from down there.

  He pulled the door all the way open, stepped onto the top step, shined the light down. The stairs looked safe, but still he moved carefully, stepping as lightly as he could, testing each plank before committing his weight to it. He heard the sound loudly here, but he heard, too, the sound of water falling into water, splashing. When he reached the bottom step, he swept the basement with the beam of light, saw the furnace, a bench press and set of weights, not much else. He swept the light into the farthest corner, caught something, stopped the light dead.

  A bathtub, an antique, the kind with feet. Larger than modern bathtubs, and badly stained. Hanging above it was a garden hose, water falling from it into the tub. Clay moved toward it, could see that something was stretched over the top of the tub. Rubber cargo netting, like the kind in the back bed of some pickup trucks. It was connected to four eyebolts that had been screwed into the cement floor. The netting was stretched tight. Clay got close enough to it to see over the edge and into the tub. It was filled to the top, water spilling over the sides and running into a drain in the floor a few feet away. Clay shined his light on the tub, saw that something was inside it, under the netting. His heart skipped. He saw then what could only be a mouth, pressing against the rubber mesh, gaping.