Scared of the Dark: A Crime Novel

by Easton Vaughn

  Behind the house, a slight backyard had been fashioned inside of an eight foot bamboo fence. A large cistern collected rainwater and fed the outdoor shower that took up most of the space. At the moment, the showerhead was very much alive with a powerful spray.

  Through the lone window inside the house, Merritt could see the fullness of Lemon’s peanut-colored breasts and their blackberry nipples as she lifted her thick hair and soaked it under the shower. His sweat had dried and cooled in the few minutes since he’d shouldered his way through the front door, the discomfort of the cruel sun now forgiven. He’d always wondered about adrenaline, the testimony of athletes who extoled its magical powers. For someone who’d never picked up a ball of any sort, it seemed too good to be anything but fiction. Now, he wasn’t so sure. Not only did he feel charged with power but it seemed as if he had suddenly been blessed with heightened senses as well. His ears perked at the soft swoosh of the shower water and the steady hum of the electric generator set plumb against the exterior of the building. His skin was marked by a deep horripilation. And the taste of the tomato stew he’d eaten earlier had returned—a tang he would forever associate with both triumph and power.

  He tensed his jaws as Lemon eased the spray between her legs and worked the area with delicate fingers. Her vagina was hidden beneath a bushel of tough, coarse-looking hairs. Merritt shook his head and clucked his tongue. He couldn’t tolerate an overgrown garden. He preferred his women with a pubis shaved clean.

  Lemon ran the spray over her breasts, then brought the shower to an abrupt stop. Quickly swung her head from side to side, wild black tangles flinging a rooster tail of water that seemed to float in the air. The yard, much like the interior of the house, was quietly appointed, just a simple lawn chair with two towels draped across its back. She moved to the chair, dried and turbaned her hair with one of the towels. Wrapped her dripping curves in the other.

  Merritt flattened himself against the wall, positioned next to the door that led out to the backyard. He remained there, silent and still, as she made her way back inside. The back door was one of the two doors in the small room. The other, the front entry, hung somewhat lopsided now, splintered near the lock. Lemon stepped inside, not cognizant of Merritt’s presence or the damaged front door.

  She moved to her clothes rack, quickly settled on a dress, and dropped the wet towel into a puddle at her feet. Merritt bit down on a gulp. And yet Lemon picked up something—his rugged scent if not the stifled gulp. The hackles on the back of her neck stood up and she wheeled around. Eyes widening, she let out a piercing yelp, recovering quickly enough, dropping the dress and bending for the towel, wrapping herself in it, frowning and yelling, “Get out!” seemingly all in one smooth motion.

  Merritt felt his heartbeat begin to crawl. He smiled like Steven Spielberg or Clint Eastwood or Jonathan Demme. This was his production. His movie. He was the Director.

  “Are you crazy?” she screamed.

  “More than a little,” he calmly replied.

  “Get out,” she repeated. “It’s over for you now. You’ve finally gone off the deep end.”

  “I enjoyed the show outside,” he told her. “Put me in mind of Josephine Baker. Lynn Whitfield played her in the movie. I’m telling you, her version of Baker’s banana dance was something to behold. Some might call it pornography, dancing around naked. But to me it was art. The way you work that showerhead?” He smiled. “Also art.”

  “Get out!”

  “You’re upset I’ve seen you naked? How about I just call us even?”

  “I’ll scream for someone.”

  “I’ll wait to see who comes.” He chuckled and moved to her cot, sat down heavily upon it, its joints squeaking in strain. “It would take nothing short of a fire to get someone over here. You and Shepherd are very well separated from the peasants in your luxurious love shack.”

  “Why are you here?” she asked softly.

  Her tone, not to mention the fact that she’d asked a question, that she was engaging him in talk, widened the smile on Merritt’s face. “You’re no doubt going to hear some things today,” he said. “I wanted you to hear them from me first.”

  “There had to have been a better way for you to deliver your message,” she said, nodding at the front door, finally noticing his means of intrusion. “That’ll have to be fixed.”

  “I’ll see to it.”

  “You miss the point.”

  “I could say the same for you, Mrs. Potter.”

  “Tell me what you came to tell and get out.”

  Merritt sighed. “Candace is dead.”

  “Candace is…” The words caught in her throat. Her eyes watered, and she began to tremble. Tremble and teeter. Merritt watched calmly as she groped around for purchase like a blind woman. Watched as she found a wall and fell against it, used it to support her slide to the ground.

  “I think you probably knew in your heart that she was dead,” he said. “But just the same, this is tough news, I know.”

  “Dead,” she wailed.

  “This one of those JFK moments people talk about?” he asked. “You’ll forever remember where you were when you first heard the news?”

  Lemon didn’t respond with words. Her face twisted in a horrid grimace, both of her fists pounded the floor, and an abundant growl rose hot from her chest and leaped from her throat like Jonah from the whale.

  “No?” Merritt said. “You’re too young for JFK? I feel you. Me too. How about Tupac then?”

  Lemon looked at him, her eyes narrowed, her nostrils flaring, her teeth gritted. “You killed her?”

  Merritt shook his head. “You’ve no doubt figured out that I have a man locked up in the shed. He’s the one that killed your Candace. We tried to get her to come back to the island, but as you know, she ran all the way to the mainland. We nearly caught her there, but again she slipped through our fingers. The white boy in the shed was driving when Candace stepped out into the road. Unfortunately, he hit her. He was going to leave her in the ditch like trash. But I intercepted and brought him here until we could figure out what the next proper course should be. I also made sure Candace was buried with dignity and in a manner that wouldn’t jeopardize any of us should anyone ever find her. That’s all I did.”

  Lemon silently appraised him.

  “There it is,” he said. “All laid out for you.”

  “I hate you,” she said in a rough whisper.

  He sighed and nodded. “The curse of being a leader, I’m afraid.”

  “You’re no leader.”

  “I have support for now,” Merritt said. “I met earlier today with Mosley, Haywood, and Pleasant. They don’t share my concern regarding the white boy just yet, but they understand the situation we were in after he killed Candace. They recognize how cool I was during a crisis that could have easily ended worse. Someone could’ve discovered Candace and somehow traced her back to here. The white boy could’ve developed a conscience and talked about the black woman he killed on the side of a not-very-well traveled country road in North Carolina. That might’ve led to questions about where this woman came from, out there in no man’s land. Believe me, this could have been a mess for us.”

  “The others bought your bullshit?”

  Merritt frowned. “They recognize everything I’ve done, for all of us. I’m hoping in time you’ll see it too.”

  “Never.”

  “We have no idea when Shepherd will return,” he said. “You might as well kick in with me.”

  “Never,” she repeated.

  “I’ve seen it too many times to count,” he said, shaking his head mournfully. “And no matter how many times I witnessed it, I never could understand how a woman as beautiful as you could find herself tethered to a man that doesn’t appreciate her enough to even be faithful.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing,” he said, smiling. “Just talking out loud. Ignore me.”

  “I’d like to be alone now,” she said softly. �
�Would you leave?”

  Merritt rose, but instead of moving toward the ruined entry door, he moved to Lemon and dropped down to his haunches, crowding her. She didn’t flinch or back away; she did begin to tremble and cry again. “I’ll go, Mrs. Potter,” he said. “But I really want you to think long and hard about you and me working this thing together. We’d make some beautiful music, I’m guessing.”

  “Never.”

  “Never?” Merritt said. “There’s no more Candace. And like I said, who knows how long Shepherd will be gone. I’d be a good friend to you right now. And you’re gonna need one. You sure about that never?”

  “Two-zero-two,” she whispered, spitting each number like spoiled food. “Two-one-five. Four-two-two-four.”

  Merritt leaned back as if punched.

  At a loss for words.

  Lemon smiled at him, a wild, crazed smile.

  He rose to his full height and stumbled toward the door. This time Lemon’s laughter nipped at his heels. He made it outside into a full slap of sunshine, disbelieving what had just transpired, his face stinging as much from Lemon’s words as the blast of sun imprinted upon the sky. It would take a while for him to believe it.

  How could she possibly know that number? What else did she know? There was no doubt in Merritt’s mind now that Lemon Potter was extremely dangerous to both him and his interests. He would have to tread very carefully with her. He would have to keep a very close eye on her. A very close eye.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Something clawed at the shed and a beat later the door began to yawn open. Aiden squinted his eyes in advance of the harsh light. But instead of the sun, he was greeted by a sky gone gray and headed toward black. Dusk. The purgatory between day and night. Soon it would be full dark. He was angered by that; they’d even stolen his sense of time.

  The shed was a circus of odors: feces, urine, and now vomit as well. Aiden’s stomach had folded in on him, rejecting the vegetables and fish from earlier. It all contributed to him being in a pretty foul mood.

  He craned his neck and looked up as a shadow fell on him.

  “What gifts do you have for me this time?” Aiden asked bitterly, remembering the anachronistic newspaper and the tainted food. “An eight-track tape? Rotary telephone? Rock Em’ Sock Em’ Robot? Salmonella chicken patties? Moldy cheese?”

  Sheldon’s eyebrows knitted. There was no humor in his voice when he replied, “Water. And clothes. And sneakers. Brought you water, and clothes, and sneakers.”

  The clothes and sneakers were draped over his shoulder. He held what had to be a heavy black cauldron in both hands as if it were made flimsily and weighed very little.

  “You stink good and bad,” Sheldon said. “They told me to wash you.”

  “Good and bad,” Aiden echoed. “Wonderful display of English usage.”

  Sheldon smiled. “Thanks.”

  Aiden studied him for a long time, then sighed. “I apologize for snapping at you,” he said. “You’re just doing what they tell you to do.”

  Sheldon nodded.

  “Who are these people with you, Sheldon? What do they want with me?”

  “I’m’a…I’m’a wash you now. Mr. Merritt says I shouldn’t talk to you.”

  “Is Merritt your leader? The man who has come to see me a couple times?”

  “For now,” Sheldon said.

  “For now?”

  “Shepherd is our leader.”

  “I’ve heard him mentioned. Who exactly is this Shepherd?”

  “He’s a great man,” Sheldon told him.

  “A great man, huh? Well where is he? I’d like to speak with this great man. Maybe he’ll be more reasonable than Merritt.”

  “I can’t talk to you about Shepherd or about us,” Sheldon said. He set the black cauldron down, laid the clothes and sneakers carefully next to it, and pulled a rag from tucked in the waist of his shorts. Then he reached forward and gripped Aiden’s tattered shirt, ripping it to shreds instead of easing it over Aiden’s head. Then he did the same with Aiden’s pants—ripped them off, too. Tossed the soiled rag of clothes aside, and positioned Aiden on his side.

  Aiden was naked, and shivered from cold. This was the height of humiliation. For both him and Sheldon. For some reason he thought of one of Saina’s favorite poems, written by Alexander Pope, working the tumblers of his mind until a line clicked into place. Thus let me die, unseen, unknown…

  Wait, not “die.”

  Be? Live?

  Whatever the words might be, he felt a sudden stupid comfort. Peace, even. This would end badly, and yet he was suddenly okay with that. There wasn’t much he could be otherwise. Accept his fate and—

  “Christ,” he screamed, the momentum of the scream rolling him over to his back so that he was now looking up at the dense giant. “That’s too hot, Sheldon. You burned me.”

  “I’m…I’m…sorry.” Sheldon had dipped the rag into the cauldron and pulled it out sopping wet and wiped it across Aiden’s back.

  “Please untie me,” Aiden said. “I’ll wash myself.”

  Sheldon shook his head. “Can’t do that. Mr. Merritt warned me not to let you go free.”

  “You’d rather burn me?”

  “Didn’t mean to.”

  “This is something I should do for myself. I know how hot I can handle the water.”

  “Mr. Merritt said—“

  “He doesn’t have to know,” Aiden said, cutting him off. “I’ll be quick. It’ll be our little secret.”

  “Can’t do that. Mr. Merritt warned me not to let you go free.”

  “You know the word dignity, Sheldon?”

  Sheldon shook his head, looked down at his feet.

  “I crapped my pants,” Aiden said, thinking that Jacob would be proud of him for using the word “crapped.” “I pissed on myself. Several times. You have me tied up like an animal. And no one will explain to me why I’m even here. Or where here is, for that matter. Does any of that sound good, Sheldon?”

  “No,” Sheldon admitted.

  “The people with you have taken my dignity,” Aiden said. “Do you understand the word now?”

  “I think so.”

  “They’ve taken yours, as well,” Aiden told him. “You shouldn’t be the one to wash crap and piss off me.”

  “Daddy wanted me to have dignity,” Sheldon said. “I have to carry his name.”

  “I bet it would break your daddy’s heart to see you like this,” Aiden said.

  “I have to carry his name.”

  “Please cut me loose,” Aiden said. “We both deserve a little dignity. I’ll wash quickly, and then you can tie me up again.”

  “Alpine butterfly knot. My daddy taught me the alpine butterfly knot.”

  “Quickly,” Aiden said.

  Sheldon frowned and looked over his shoulder. When he turned back Aiden could see that his words had struck a chord with the dense giant.

  “I cut you loose,” Sheldon said.

  “Thank you, Sheldon.”

  A moment later Aiden sat up and stretched his muscles. Sheldon moved to the shed door and eased it closed, leaving what looked to be about two inches of gap, probably so he could see if anyone approached. Then he came back over to where Aiden sat and positioned himself with his back to Aiden. “I give you privacy. Wash fast,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut even though he wasn’t looking in Aiden’s direction.

  Aiden tested the water. It was still steaming hot. He gripped the cauldron, ignoring the burn to his palms, and edged it closer. It wasn’t nearly as heavy as he’d suspected. “I’ll wash as fast as I can. And then get dressed. Okay?”

  Sheldon, his back still turned and his eyes still closed, nodded.

  Aiden worked quickly, a rictus of pain forming on his face each time he dipped the rag in the hot water and touched it to his battered body. “I’m feeling better already,” he told Sheldon. “You came just in time. I was mentally preparing myself to give up. Timing is everything. Everything.”

&nbs
p; Sheldon stood placidly as Aiden slid on the pants and eased his feet in the sneakers. He didn’t bother with the shirt. His hands were trembling too much to even try.

  “Okay,” he said, making his voice breezy. “I’m finished.”

  Sheldon turned around.

  Timing is everything.

  Aiden lifted the cauldron and showered the dense giant with the steaming hot water.

  Sheldon screamed and fell to the ground, reaching around blindly as Aiden rushed past, barely escaping the dense giant’s grasp on his ankle.

  Out into the dusk.

  And sweet freedom.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  The sun had plunged from view, the sky it had abandoned slowly moving from duct tape-gray toward electrical tape-black. And with the changeover Lemon found that she was finally able to control the tremors and stop staring at her busted front door. Two minor victories, because Merritt’s hateful voice continued to echo in her ears. Even though her skin tended to collect much of the island’s dirt and grime, she couldn’t conceive of stepping under the spray of her backyard shower any time soon. Merritt’s voice would follow her there. Comfort was lost, perhaps forever.

  She moved toward the front door, disgust mounting with each step, Merritt’s left-behind mannish scent overwhelming the usual sweet fragrance that hung in the air. She’d stand outside, wait to feel a breeze like a traveler waiting for a bus. When it came—if it came—she would close her eyes and lose herself as it fingered through her hair and kissed her face.

  The wrecked door hissed as she opened it. A snake with venom and splintered wooden fangs, evidence of yet another violation Lemon was left to endure. She shuddered, recalling the hackles suddenly raising on the back of her neck earlier, the certain awareness in that unnerving moment that she wasn’t alone, turning to find Merritt smiling crookedly at her.