A Visible Darkness

by Jonathon King

  “Black beans, sir?” the waiter asked.

  “Yes, please.”

  McCane had not looked at the menu.

  “I’ll have the same,” he said. “Nix the beans, heh?”

  The waiter nodded politely and left. When he was gone McCane shifted into business mode.

  The connection between two ex-cops was settled at arm’s length. I now knew why Billy called me in to work with a man with whom he could not.

  “My company owns three of the policies written on these women more than forty years,” he started. “Some go-getter salesman comes down here in the ’50s. Figures Florida is boomin’ what with all the young WWII vets makin’ a new start.

  “But he gets down here and the GIs and flyboys have already been scooped up by insurance companies with government connections. But this ol’ boy ain’t gonna waste a trip. He sniffs out another market and works the other side of the tracks, sellin’ to the blacks who have a few bucks because the whole place is flush.”

  Again he seemed to stop a moment for effect.

  “Got to give the boy some credit. He targeted the women. The housekeepers who had regular work in white homes. Shop owners who were runnin’ little businesses. He sweet talks them with the old promise of security for the kids. Something for their future. A better life for them when you’re gone. He signs up dozens of them, gets a few bucks up front, figures what the hell, they get a few premiums in before they quit paying, it’s easy money.”

  I ate while McCane talked. I was listening, but watching other customers come and go, marking cars in traffic that held more than one male, and noting that each time I took a drink from my beer, McCane would look away. I was also thinking of Billy’s history lesson.

  “But some of these women kept up with their payments,” I finally said.

  “Yeah. And some even bought additional policies over the years. Especially this last one. Two hundred thousand worth when she sold to the viatical investors.”

  I finally cut to it: “You think someone killed them?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. The cops don’t think so. The M.E. don’t. But your boy Manchester does and he’s got some kinda clout, cause here I am.”

  Billy’s famous connections, I thought. But back in his office he’d admitted that without the cooperation and inside knowledge of the insurance carrier his abilities were limited. McCane picked at the fish, washing nearly every bite down with his tea.

  “You know why Manchester’s bringing you in on this? Cause unless you got some kinda inside track I don’t know about, I’m not sure how it’s gonna help,” McCane said.

  I didn’t answer because I didn’t know myself.

  “Maybe you know people we can use for an inside look, cause I’m tellin’ you, the incident reports are damn thin and I ain’t gonna get shit from the relatives,” McCane said. “To be honest, this is lookin’ like a bad fishin’ trip to me.”

  I drained my beer and came close to agreeing with him out loud. But I kept it to myself.

  “I’ll get with Billy,” I said as the waiter cleared the table, presented the check and offered Cuban coffee as a parting gift from Arturo. I took the shot of sweet caffeine. McCane took the check and pulled out a silver clip of folded cash and refused my offer to split the cost.

  “Expense money,” he said with a slight grin. “They do take American, right?”

  When I got back to Billy’s office, he was still out. I left word with Allie that I’d call him as soon as I could and update him on my lunch with McCane. She raised her eyebrows at the mention of the insurance investigator’s name.

  “Will you be taking over for Mr. McCane?” she asked, an optimism in her voice.

  The question caught me off guard. Billy knew how deep my vow had been to leave police work behind. He wouldn’t have spoken openly about bringing me back in, even if that were his intention.

  “I mean, it’s just, you can see that he doesn’t have much respect for Mr. Manchester,” she said.

  “He’s Old South, Allie,” I said. “Some people never leave it behind.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s not my business,” she said.

  “No apology necessary.”

  As I turned to leave she said, “Have a nice day, Mr. Freeman.”

  I got my truck out of the garage, gave a short wave to the alert attendant, and headed back west. The heat of the day was rising off asphalt and concrete, parking lots and the tarred flat roofs of the myriad strip malls leading out through suburbia. The palms and sand pines did not lose their color in fall. The traffic would slowly increase with the number of winter migrants from the north. And like every place in America, the Christmas decorations would be up by Thanksgiving. My first winter holiday here I watched as a man pulled up next to me at a light with a Christmas tree from some tented lot stuffed in the open back seat of his convertible. I knew he was smiling because it was 30 degrees and snowing back in New York. But it still didn’t seem right.

  I kicked the A.C. up and the outside temperature on my dash readout said 79. Farther west I pulled into a plaza grocery and loaded up with supplies: coffee and canned fruit, a few vegetables and thick loaves of dark bread. Sometimes I stayed out at the shack for a month at a time without coming in. But I had the feeling I’d be back to the city soon enough. When Billy got onto something, he was relentless. If he wanted me in on this, whether to prove or disprove his suspicion, he’d have a plan.

  By the time I reached the boat ramp the sun was on its downward slide. A ragged ceiling of high cloud was drifting over the Glades, its edges already glowing with streaks of pink and purple. I flipped my canoe and started loading. I was lacing a small waterproof tarp over the groceries in the bow when I heard the crunch of footsteps on the shell growing louder behind me.

  “Mr. Freeman?”

  I turned to face the new ranger, a man in his thirties with thick blonde hair and creases at the corners of his eyes from hours of squinting into hard sunlight. He was about six feet tall, lean and tanned and dressed in uniform. His hand came up with an envelope as he stepped up and stopped.

  “The Park Service wants a copy of this to go to you, sir.”

  “And what might this be?” I asked, taking the white business- sized letter, but not looking down from the ranger’s eyes.

  “You’ll have to read it, sir. A copy has also gone to your attorney. My understanding is that the state is attempting to break your lease on the research station, sir.”

  “And why would the state be interested in doing that, Mr., uh, Griggs?” I said, reading from the nameplate mounted above the ranger’s pocket.

  “I don’t know, sir,” he replied. “I was only asked to deliver the mail, sir.”

  Still I did not move my eyes off his. Everyone knew of the incident surrounding the death of the former ranger and his apprentice. They were killed with my gun. The shooter, who had been dubbed “the midnight murderer” by the press, had been after me and had later been stabbed to death on the river. The violence put a stain on this pristine place that I could not deny.

  I held the new ranger’s gaze for a moment longer before folding the letter and stuffing it into my back pocket.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Griggs turned without a response and walked unhurried back to his office. I locked my truck, scraped the canoe down the ramp and pushed off onto the dark water. Twenty minutes out I stopped stroking and drifted, my paddle dripping a trail of water on the flat surface like beads slipping off a string.

  The air was damp and still. I had stopped just at the point in the river where the tidal change pushed and pulled at the fresh water flowing from the Glades. The smell was unique, like moist, fresh- turned soil, and I breathed deep and closed my eyes, trying to wash away the feel of the city. But the mental grinding that was my constant companion was back at work. I couldn’t pull an image of Billy’s dead women into my head. I’d seen too many bodies in my ten years as a cop on the Philadelphia streets: gunshot wounds and beating victims, suicide
jumpers and elderly people who simply died from heat stroke in their choking tenement buildings. I’d had enough. But if he was right, could I turn him down?

  Billy had a way of picking up all the linear facts while the emotional parts sometimes slipped by him. Maybe I could just talk with Billy’s client, the one who’d lost her mother. Hear her out, get my own feel before dismissing my friend’s theory. McCane sure as hell wasn’t going to gain anything from the relatives. People with a past in it can smell racism on a man. He would get no further than the fake politician, the shop foreman or the field boss. The stink was on him in ways he probably didn’t know. I might not be anymore successful talking with the grieving daughter, but I was sure I couldn’t do worse.

  I shifted in the canoe, the movement sending out a ripple off the gunwales as I reached into my back pocket for the envelope. Tearing it open made an odd and unnatural sound out here, and a Florida red-belly turtle reacted, sliding off his spot on a downed tree trunk into the water.

  I unfolded a legal notice of a filing by the State of Florida against the lessee of property lot #6132907 in sec. 411. The petitioner was filing to break the ninety-nine-year lease of said property and all special conditions set within, claiming an intrusion on said, property contained within the boundary of a designated state park and possible deterrents of such included property and riparian areas contiguous to said property.

  The suit was copied to Billy. He’d know the legalese. But I could translate well enough. They were trying to kick me off my river.

  5

  That night I dreamed of sleeping in the old brass bed with a down comforter pulled up against the cold. The baseboard heater was ticking as its metal expanded and then contracted in its nightlong work against leaky windows and weather stripping. But the shrill ringing was a different, jarring sound. I fumbled with the phone and muttered into the receiver and my father’s graveled, booze-laced voice was on the other end.

  “Get the fuck up, patrolman. There’s an officer down three blocks from your damned town house at Camac and Locust.”

  In my dream I am up on the side of the bed pulling on a pair of jeans, my father’s command like a whip crack that has snapped me into motion since early childhood. I yank my boots over bare feet and clomp down the narrow staircase, pulling on a sweatshirt and banging a knee on the wrought-iron railing at the bottom. What the hell is he talking about? Camac and Locust. Christ, what time is it? Officer down?

  I fumble with my keys, unlock the bottom kitchen drawer and pull my holster and 9mm out and strap the leather on. I grab my police department jacket off the hook and when I open the back door to the courtyard the winter air stings my face and I am running and still shaking the sleep out of my head when I hit the curb on Alder.

  It’s dark and I can tell by the empty street that it is well after 2:00 A.M. Doc Watson’s on Eleventh is closed. Bar stragglers are gone. The street lamps on the corners near the Jefferson Hospital Library are glowing a soft orange and the block is silent but for the one urgent yelp of a siren growing louder in the distance.

  I manage the corner of Locust and look to the west toward Broad and four blocks down is a patrol car, light bar spinning, sitting across the one-way street, its headlights painting two bright globes on the wall of the one-hour dry cleaning place. I start running along the edge of the parked cars when the ambulance from Jefferson comes wailing around the corner and the second, no, third, patrol car screeches up on the scene and I see two officers jump out with weapons drawn and I reflexively reach down for my own.

  Another block closer and I see the other patrol car, dark against the corner, a knot of guys on their knees at the trunk, their hands busy with something on the ground, their faces bobbing up into the light, their voices sounding too anxious for cops. One gets up and starts directing the ambulance and his wet hands are glistening in the headlights and now I’m thirty feet away.

  “Christ, hurry up, man, hurry,” one is snapping. “Get the goddamn stretcher.”

  “Keep pressure on the chest, pressure,” says another.

  “You’re cool, Danny. You’re cool, man. We got you, man. You’re cool,” says another.

  The paramedics are out with their bags. When I get twenty feet away the backup cops standing at the other side of the group pick up my movement and their guns come up and I am in three sight-irons.

  “Cop. I’m a cop,” I yell, palms going up and wide so they can see my empty hands and my jacket. The other officers and paramedics look up only for a second and then are back to their focus. On the ground behind his squad car I see Danny Riley. He’s on his back, his eyes shut, skin gone white in the lamplight. Another officer has ripped open his jacket and is pushing a reddening towel into his chest and the medics are trying to take vitals and one is saying, “Fuck it. Let’s get him to Jeff. We’re only four blocks away—let’s go.”

  And now all of us but the two backup officers are lifting Riley onto the stretcher and he feels so light with all the hands working that I think to myself, He’s too light, he must be dead.

  In seconds we have him in and the ambulance pulls away and we’re all just staring after it when two more units come swinging in from the north and south. In the crosshatching headlights the intersection is glowing and I am looking around for a familiar face when the mood and attention of the gathering shifts.

  For the first time I see what the backup guys are focused on. Their guns are still loosely pointed at a black man sitting on the curb. His legs are stretched out into the street. His head is bent to his chest and long ropes of braided hair are dangling into his lap. His hands are cuffed behind him and one shoulder is oddly twisted. The material of his coat sleeve is soaked and dark. Eight feet away a chrome-plated handgun lies on the sidewalk.

  The uniformed guys are standing back. Not one of us from the group that lifted Riley takes a step closer. I turn to the cop holding the blood-soaked towel and ask what the hell happened.

  “Fuckin’ homeboy shot Danny Riley in a traffic stop’s what happened. Danny got a round off and wounded him but the motherfucker put a kill shot into Danny while he was down.”

  The newly arrived cops are getting the same story. I watch their faces change from an intent listening to an anger that tightens their jaw muscles and narrows their eyes, and when they cut their looks at the wounded man on the curb I know I am looking at my own face in an angry mirror.

  A second ambulance pulls up. A police step van right behind it. A sergeant has appeared from somewhere and some of us gather around him as the cop with the towel fills him in. The paramedics climb out of the second unit and approach, watching us, watching the wounded suspect, watching the guns still unholstered.

  “Got a guy needs attention here, Sarge,” the first medic says, and it is not a question. The sergeant raises one finger to silence him.

  “We’re securing the scene, doc,” he says.

  We all watch as the sergeant looks around at the high windows of the darkened buildings around us. He walks slowly over to the sidewalk, scans the area and then walks back to his squad car. He is the ranking officer on the scene. Everyone else is silent as we watch him reach into his car and come out with a plastic evidence bag. He is in no hurry, and even the paramedics seem to be unable to speak. We all watch him walk back toward the suspect and past him to the chrome handgun. He stares at it a full minute and then bends to pick it up and place it carefully in the bag.

  He stands and seals it.

  “OK. Secure,” he says, pointing at the group of officers, “Put him in the van.”

  All four of us walk over to the black man and grab a piece. I’m left with the bloodied shoulder but I don’t care. When we pull him off the curb a low keening of pain rises in his throat and he is heavy and nearly limp. Someone grabs his belt and we drag him across the street to the open van doors and the keening becomes a wail. A cop up inside reaches out and takes a fistful of dreadlocks and yanks as we all boost him into the truck and someone gives him a final shove with
a boot to his haunch. The doors slam shut and when I bang my palm on the side panel I turn and see that both the paramedics and the sergeant have turned their backs to the scene. The van pulls away in the direction of the hospital. Towel man catches my eye and then tracks down my arm. I look down to see the blood smear on my hand from the black man’s wound and the cop carefully folds the towel with Danny Riley’s blood and walks away.

  When I wake up the shack is still and the cool night air has drifted in and pushed out the heat but I am still sweating and I know there will be no more sleep this night.

  I pull on a pair of jeans. In the swamp outside it’s the dead-zone time, a strange biological warp that shrouds this place long after midnight but far from dawn. It’s a time when the insects stop their chirping. The night predators have given up. And the early hunters and daytime foragers are still asleep. The quiet is like a pressure on the ears. I interrupt it with the hiss of propane and light the portable stove to heat my coffee.

  That night in Philadelphia, Danny Riley would die and the shooter would find ignominious celebrity in the years to follow. He would claim innocence and racism. The courts would end up on trial. The wounded man, the one who knew the truth, would never speak it.

  I poured a cup of coffee and stepped out onto the landing to sip it. I stared into the canopy and remembered the scene in the emergency room waiting area that had filled with cops and wives and reporters and camera crews. When the police chief came out surrounded by his captains he made a terse and tearful statement, announcing that Riley had succumbed to his wounds. There was an almost group exhalation, a beat of mutual pain that was interrupted by the blonde radio news reporter who asked the first question:

  “Chief, what do you say to the reports that your officers took an inordinate amount of time to transport the wounded suspect and that they beat him before tossing him bodily into the paddy wagon?”