Scared of the Dark: A Crime Novel

by Easton Vaughn

  “Hmm.”

  “That perspective you were talking about,” Lemon whispered. “It makes things tricky. Sometimes a thing is what it is and we can’t change it.”

  Silence sat heavy between them for a long stretch.

  After a while, Lemon asked, “You’ve heard the word infanticide, Miss Amelia?”

  “I done gave you enough of my ear now, chile.”

  “It means a baby killer,” Lemon said.

  “Shepherd, have mercy on us,” the older woman softly chanted. “Have mercy on us, Shepherd.”

  “Do you have children, Miss Amelia?”

  “I’m axin’ you not to do this, chile.”

  “I named my daughter Elena,” Lemon said. “Means ‘bright one’ in Spanish. Alberto was Dominican, you see. Maybe I was trying to convince myself that Elena was conceived in love. I don’t know.”

  “Shepherd, have mercy on us.”

  “I noticed some problems early on. They call it joint attention. Elena had trouble with it. She was unmoved by her environment. Sounds, objects, people…none of it had any effect on her. I didn’t know what to do. I made the mistake of trying to talk to Albert. He was still angry that I’d said he raped me. Even angrier that I was telling him I’d conceived during that. Nothing else I said or did registered. He couldn’t even say Elena’s name. Everything was ‘little one’. Little one. I started to think of her as the little one, too. The little one that I would have to raise alone. The little one that was born from a moment that made me cry when I thought about it too deeply. The little one that was ruining my life. The little one that was damaged herself.”

  Now Miss Amelia was rocking. “Shepherd, oh, Shepherd. Touch us. Heal us. Wrap us in your bosom, Shepherd.”

  “I used a pillow,” Lemon said matter-of-factly. Slow tears dribbled down her cheeks. “She didn’t struggle even a little bit. That’s what I tell myself, at least.”

  “Too much talkin’. Too much talkin’,” Miss Amelia said, closing her eyes, her old wooden rocking chair squealing in sorrow as she continued to rock. “Quiet us, Shepherd.”

  “Then today I tried to take advantage of Sheldon,” Lemon said. “And right after that I bumped into little Noah. And it all reminded me of my Elena.”

  “The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked,” Miss Amelia sang. “Deceitful and desperately wicked.”

  Lemon looked to the corner. “Will I find those words in your pile of crumpled papers, Miss Amelia?”

  “Touch us,” the older woman said. “Heal us, Shepherd.”

  “Do you believe in second chances, Miss Amelia?”

  “Wrap us in your bosom, Shepherd.”

  “I don’t,” Lemon said. “Shepherd can’t have children. He had himself fixed years ago. After his wife and daughter... He can’t father a child anymore, Miss Amelia. There won’t be another opportunity at motherhood for me. I buried my only chance underneath a pillow.

  Miss Amelia’s eyes remained closed.

  “So much for second chances,” Lemon said, then rose and walked away without a further word.

  Not surprisingly, she didn’t feel as if she was carrying any less of the weight that Miss Amelia had first noticed on her shoulders.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “Do you hear that?”

  Aiden nodded. Birds twittering and cawing somewhere off in the distance. The sky above them a black tarp etched with sparkly white constellations that he didn’t know the names of. For some reason, he felt near depressed that he didn’t.

  “Are you attracted to my mother?”

  Aiden turned to look into Saina’s eyes. She lay naked next to him in a double sleeping bag on the warm hood of his BMW, slick with sweat and breathing as if she’d just completed the last leg of the Boston Marathon or a hike up a mountain during FEAT. “Now why would you ask me that?” he wondered.

  “You’ve stolen my locket,” she said.

  He had no answer to that.

  “Who could blame you? My mother’s a very attractive woman.”

  “You look just like her,” he said. “A mirror-image of her, in fact.”

  “That why you took the locket?”

  He nodded. “I wanted you with me, forever.”

  “And we could’ve been, you know.”

  Saina eased from her side of the sleeping bag without a further word, dropped down off the hood of Jacob’s BMW and slid on a pair of silk panties, strapped a matching bra around the swell of her breasts. Aiden watched wordlessly, feeling all the while as if he was outside of his own body. Saina dressed in blue hospital scrubs and covered them with a white surgical gown.

  “Let me help you with that,” Aiden said, leaping from his side of the sleeping bag.

  “I have it,” Saina protested.

  “Nonsense,” he said, moving to her, cinching a black strip of belt around her waist, not the least bit put off by the fact that the surgical gown had morphed into a Karate gi right before his eyes.

  “You insist on making me the frail little flower,” Saina said.

  “I can take care of you, Saina.”

  She smiled and reached for Aiden’s face. He closed his eyes for a kiss that must’ve been smothered in the sudden wind, for instead of Saina’s lips Aiden felt a strong breeze and then the sharp edges of a surgical mask bite into his skin as Saina positioned it over his nose and mouth.

  “Open your eyes, Dr. Dunleavy,” she said, her voice soft and sensuous.

  Aiden did, in time to see Saina dissolve like an Alka-Seltzer in water. In time to hear a loud page blare through the ER’s speakers. “Traumatic arrest! Traumatic arrest!”

  Aiden scanned to his left and right, Saina forgotten as he searched for Dr. Hildebrand, the lead physician Aiden had been shadowing. He found Dr. Hildebrand sitting atop a black file cabinet. The rich black of the file cabinet bothered Aiden; it wasn’t an appropriate color, Hildebrand should know better.

  “Traumatic arrest,” the doctor called down to Aiden. “That would be the code for a cardiac arrest in addition to some initial trauma of a different sort.”

  “Most likely a vehicular accident,” Aiden said.

  Dr. Hildebrand smiled. “So right, you are. Limber up your fingers, Dr. Dunleavy. We’ll probably have to open him up and work our magic to get his heart pumping again.”

  Only it wasn’t a “him.”

  EMTs flooded the room, more than was necessary, a swarm of pressed navy blue pants and crisp white shirts hidden under bulky dark sweaters.

  The woman they brought in on a gurney was youngish, black. Skin only a shade or two darker than Saina’s. Most of her face was pulped. One watery eye was open, jittering about, communicating both her confusion and deep hurt. Her lower limbs were twisted unnaturally in jeans shredded to hell and further marred by stripes of blacktop and raw earth. Her halter top was damp with blood. A sound rattled around in her chest and then died like a flame in a windstorm. Like Saina’s would-be kiss.

  Aiden hooked her to an EKG, and then cut off her top and her blue jeans. “You’re going to be okay,” he told her.

  “Look both ways before crossing the road,” she whispered. “Watch out for BMWs.”

  “Designer jeans,” a nurse the color of condensed milk commented, clucking her tongue and shaking her head as she collected the woman’s ruined blue jeans from Aiden.

  “What brand?” Aiden asked. Even he didn’t understand why he cared. He asked because…well, because he had to.

  “Persona Non Grata,” a different nurse answered. She was the color of hot chocolate mix.

  “You lose me once you move beyond Levi’s or Calvin Klein’s,” Aiden admitted.

  Surprise glowed in the black nurse’s eyes. “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of Persona Non Grata jeans? Beyonce wears ‘em. Mary J. Blige. Alicia Keys.”

  Aiden shook his head apologetically. “Am I supposed to know who those people are?”

  The nurse responded with a tight smile.

  They administered a high-dose
of epinephrine to the broken woman on the gurney, and followed that with three milligrams of atropine. Aiden and another intern from Harvard took turns giving the woman chest compressions.

  “My arms tire more quickly than I’d like to admit,” Aiden apologized.

  “No worries,” the other intern replied. “You’re not some big, black Paul Bunyan. It’s to be expected that you would eventually tire.”

  “Pulse?” Dr. Hildebrand called from atop the black file cabinet.

  Aiden shook his head. “No.”

  “Resume CPR.”

  The black nurse handed Aiden a pair of scissors and told him, “Make an incision in her right foot so we can access the vein. The one in her arm is not worth the effort. It collapsed because of the lack of circulation.”

  “You know your stuff,” he said to her.

  “Surprised?” she asked, the tight smile in place again.

  Aiden didn’t answer, simply moved to make the incision, coloring as he realized he’d misplaced the scissors. Instead, Saina’s locket was cool in his fingers. Cool, but certainly not sharp enough for a surgical cut. He dropped it in his pocket, felt the locket fall through a wide hole in the bottom. He frowned as he crouched to pick it up off the floor. Nothing there but dust mites.

  “Doesn’t belong to you,” the black nurse chastised.

  “I need it,” Aiden replied.

  “And why is that, Dr. Dunleavy? You don’t love that woman.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong.”

  “I’m not,” she insisted. “You want to possess her. You have no real interest in loving her. Your kind is like that.”

  “My kind?”

  She nodded. “Doctors.”

  “She’s in V fib,” someone called out, breaking Aiden’s conversation with the black nurse. “We better shock.”

  “Two hundred joules,” Aiden shouted, “clear.”

  The defibrillator paddle left a mark on the woman’s chest. A mark shaped like the logo on her Persona Non Grata jeans.

  “It’s done,” Dr. Hildebrand said as he finally dropped down from atop the black file cabinet, already slipping off his white gown, tossing his latex gloves in the disposal bin. “Call it. Four twenty-nine.”

  “Beyonce,” Aiden said, turning to face the black nurse. “Mary J. Blige. Alicia Keys. They’re all singers aren’t they?”

  She nodded. “You had to think on that awfully hard.”

  “I’m a Carrie Underwood guy,” Aiden said, shrugging.

  “The American Idol girl?”

  “She’s much bigger than that,” he said. “But I won’t judge you, if you don’t judge me. Deal?”

  “Been making deals I haven’t been happy with my whole life, Dr. Dunleavy.”

  “We can just let it stand then.”

  “That’s awfully nice of you. You a democrat or something?”

  Aiden smiled. “Never talk politics at work.”

  “All right, Doc,” she said, giving him a playful push.

  He playfully pushed her back.

  She pushed Aiden once more.

  He returned the favor.

  A tango of sorts.

  Aiden’s eyes slowly opened from his dream.

  A canoe poked his busted ribs. Wait, not a canoe, a large sneaker. Aiden’s eyes watered from the pain. He blinked and looked up through a film of tears. After a moment, he was able to focus and see the man James Merritt had called Sheldon peering down at him, the giant’s black face slack and dense. The vantage strained Aiden’s neck though, so he relaxed his head. Spotted a brown fist wrapped around a…Christ…a knife.

  “Please, don’t,” Aiden yelled.

  The knife inched toward him despite the plea.

  Aiden squeezed his eyes closed and felt a tug and pull as the serrated edge of the knife ate through the binds at his wrist. He opened his eyes again, reflexively began working the circulation back into his hands as the rope fell away.

  “Better?” the black giant asked.

  “Much,” Aiden replied. “For a moment there, I thought you were going to cut me.”

  “I wouldn’t,” the man named Sheldon said, vigorously shaking his head. “I wouldn’t. You shouldn’t cut people. You shouldn’t.”

  The feeling was working its way back into Aiden’s hands, but he couldn’t seem to move. He watched Sheldon with curiosity.

  “Here,” Sheldon said, handing Aiden a scuffed wooden bowl crowded with vegetables. Carrot wheels, cucumber chunks, slivers of radish. Leaves of spinach. Crumbled flakes of dry cilantro and thyme sprinkled in the mix. Chunks of cooked fish mixed in as well.

  “I’m fine,” Aiden said, shaking his head.

  “You’re hungry,” the black giant insisted, thrusting the bowl forward again.

  Aiden was indeed. But still, a greater part of him wanted to be defiant, wanted to let these people know that he could sustain himself without them.

  “Here,” Sheldon said, thrusting the bowl forward a third time.

  Aiden sat up and took it. He didn’t hesitate even a second before shoveling a handful of the food into his mouth. He shoveled in a second palm of carrots and cucumbers and radishes and fish before he started to chew the first helping. The food punched a hole in his stomach after the initial swallow. Too much, too fast. He slowed, chewed more carefully.

  Still, within a matter of minutes, the bottom of the bowl winked at him.

  “See?” Sheldon said. “You were hungry. You were real hungry.”

  “I was. Thanks for bringing that to me.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “You put it together?”

  Sheldon shook his head. “I grow the vegetables. The women prepare them. They cook the fish too.”

  “The women?”

  “Yes. Shepherd’s wife. Miss Amelia. Deborah. Candace…”

  “There are really women here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where am I exactly?” Aiden asked.

  “In a shed.”

  “I mean this place?” Aiden said. “Where is it?”

  Sheldon’s gaze fell on his feet. “Maybe I shouldn’t say.”

  Aiden reached forward and touched Sheldon’s arm. “You’re not like the rest of them. I can clearly see that you aren’t. Please. Let me go.”

  Sheldon shook his head.

  “This isn’t right,” Aiden said. “What they’re doing to me isn’t right. Surely you know that? You want to be a part of this?”

  “I have to tie you back up now,” Sheldon said. “Alpine butterfly knot. My daddy taught me the Alpine butterfly knot.”

  “Please don’t, Sheldon.”

  The giant stopped cold. “You know my name?”

  “I do. And my name’s Aiden.”

  “Aiden?”

  “Yes,” Aiden said, smiling. “I just got the feeling back in my hands, Sheldon. Please. Give me some time. A few minutes, and then you can tie me back up again, if you must.”

  “I might get in trouble.”

  “Watch me closely,” Aiden said. “You’ll see that I won’t try anything. I’d just like to sit and relax for a bit.”

  Sheldon smiled. “I have a newspaper,” he said. “You can read it, if you’d like.”

  “Yes.” Aiden nearly giggled with happiness. A newspaper. Maybe he could discern something about his whereabouts from the paper. Hopefully it was local. The New York Times would likely bring him to a fit of tears. The key to getting away from here was to know as much as possible about exactly where he was. “I’d like that, Sheldon. I wouldn’t mind finding out how the Sox fared against the Damn Yankees last night. They played, I believe. You think your paper has national scores?” He had very little use for the Boston Red Sox, it was simply small talk to disarm the gentle black giant.

  Sheldon smiled—a wide fool’s smile. He passed forward a rubber-banded spiral that Aiden hadn’t seen in his hands.

  The Washington Post.

  Aiden groaned.

  “Something wrong?” Sheldon aske
d. There was confusion and near-sorrow in his voice.

  “This is perfect,” Aiden assured him. At the very least, he could read the paper for pleasure, keep some kind of connection with the outside world. Maybe he would look up the Sox scores after all, keep himself strong by rooting for them for the first time in his life. Whatever it took to keep himself from falling into a deep depression. Whatever it took to convince himself that he could survive this. Whatever it took to give him the strength to see another day, no matter how painful that day ended up being. Yeah—Go, Sox!

  Sheldon handed Aiden the paper, watching closely as Aiden scanned the front page headline, turned the page and scanned several articles. After a few more pages Aiden turned back to the front of the newspaper, frowning as he did so. It was not today’s paper. It was not even this year’s paper. “This is from 2008,” Aiden said.

  Sheldon flashed white teeth. “Did the Sox win?”

  “It’s old,” Aiden said, tossing it aside. “Useless to me.”

  Hope, he realized, was a fleeting thing. Who was he kidding? It was over for him. Whoever these people were, they didn’t have good intentions. That much was clear. Aiden couldn’t fool himself into believing that he was going to make it out of this alive.

  “Mr. Merritt says that’s a good paper,” Sheldon said. “He says the Washington Post’s a good newspaper.”

  Aiden’s eyes burned with hate as he turned to the black giant. “You’re a fool. A dumb idiot. Tie me back up!”

  Sheldon frowned and didn’t speak. He stared after Aiden for a while. Then he pulled a foot of rope from somewhere—the man was practically David Copperfield with pointless shit seeming to materialize from thin air and right into his hands—and bound Aiden’s wrists again.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Out of reverence, and more than a healthy touch of fear, no one on the island went near Shepherd’s house. Rumor had it that at night it bathed in a soft wash of ethereal light that could erase wrinkles and return gray hair to its natural color. It was a simple, one-room structure, utilitarian and boxy, assembled out of cinderblocks, the interior insulated and covered with drywall that Shepherd himself painted a pale red. Two hundred and twenty-five cozy square feet. The floor covered with beige carpet that had been laid without the proper strips and padding placed beneath it. A bare cot rested against one wall, two rolling clothes racks against another, one of the racks hung full with light-colored summer dresses, the other with sturdy pants and short-sleeved Polo shirts. A small dresser spit out undergarments from the corner closest to the clothes racks. A second dresser held a dusty Bible and a 3-Watt lamp powered by AAA batteries on its scratched surface. The air was seasoned with a cloying mix of something floral and something fruity.