by Tom Becker
The uncomfortable silence was broken by Darla’s contemptuous laugh.
“Of course not,” she said. “You ain’t nothin’ more than cowards, the lot of you.”
It was as though she had been branded. Everywhere she went, people saw a Killer Bitch. Boys barged past her in the hall, so hard they nearly knocked her to the floor. Girls whispered to each other, abruptly falling silent when she looked over. Secret notes flew around her classes in a paper blizzard. Even the teachers seemed to treat her coldly. It looked like everyone in Saffron Hills had made up their mind that Hopper was the Angel Taker, and in their eyes that made her guilty, too.
During recess Darla went searching for Sasha. Eventually she found her in the gymnasium, sitting alone on the top bleacher. As Darla crossed the floor and climbed up the steps towards her, she saw Sasha take a sip from her hip flask.
“You’re going to get into trouble if anyone sees you doing that, you know,” she said softly.
Sasha ignored her. She had been crying, Darla could see now, her eyes red-rimmed and glistening.
“Is it true what they’re saying?” said Sasha. “The cops arrested Hopper?”
Darla nodded.
“They think he’s the Angel Taker? They think he killed Frank?” Sasha snorted humourlessly, and took another swig from her hip flask. “I’ll say one thing for this town – it is just full of surprises. Do you know the cops found out what Frank was doing here? He was writing his latest blog post, about the Angel Taker.”
“It was Frank who had been writing all that stuff – about me?” Darla said, bewildered. “Why?”
Sasha shrugged. “I don’t know. Turns out that even after ten years of friendship I didn’t know Franklin K Matthew as well as I thought I did. You can ask him yourself if you want. Oh that’s right, you can’t. He’s dead.”
A heavy silence hung in the air. Recognizing Sasha’s tone from the time they had argued at Tall Pines, Darla stayed quiet. The last thing she wanted to do now was fight.
“These visions of yours, these broadcasts from Psycho Radio,” Sasha said. “You ever think to yourself, why me?”
“All the time,” said Darla. “I never asked for this.”
“No, of course not,” Sasha said quickly. She took another swig. “But there’s gotta be something wrong with you, right? I mean, it’s not normal.”
“I guess,” said Darla.
“It’s kinda funny, when you think about it,” Sasha continued bitterly. “You see everything the killer sees, apart from who they really are. Not so much as a glimpse. Couldn’t you get them to look in the mirror, or something? Five people have been killed, Darla.”
“It’s not my fault Frank died, you know,” Darla told her. “You’re not the only who’s upset.”
Sasha slipped her hip flask back into her jacket. “Ignore me,” she said, getting to her feet. “Frank always said I was a mean drunk.”
She put on a pair of sunglasses and began to walk unsteadily down through the bleachers.
“Where are you going?” Darla called out.
“Anywhere that isn’t here,” Sasha called back, without turning around.
The rest of the day couldn’t go quickly enough for Darla. She was relieved when the final bell went, and she could walk past the policemen guarding the school entrance and see Annie’s car waiting for her outside. They drove back to Annie’s house, where she went straight into the kitchen and put the kettle on. Darla sat at the table, staring out of the window at the house of mirrors in the backyard.
“I would ask you how you’re doing,” Annie said sympathetically. “But I’m thinking that’d be a dumb question.”
As they shared an awkward silence, Darla heard a car pull up outside the house. There was a rap on the front door. She followed Annie through into the corridor and peered at the familiar silhouette outlined in the screen door, her heart leaping with relief.
“Daddy!” cried Darla. When Annie opened the door she ran over and flung her arms around him, squeezing him tightly.
“Hey there, darlin’,” Hopper said back. “I’m sorry I gave you such a fright.”
His eyes were tired and his cheeks covered in stubble – he looked like he’d been on a three-day drinking spree. But Darla didn’t care.
“I’m so happy you’re back!” she exclaimed.
“Not half as happy as I am, believe me,” Hopper replied wearily. “They were riding me pretty hard down at the station. Killing a bunch of kids – how could they think I could do that?”
“But they released you, so they know you’re innocent, right?” Darla said eagerly. “They’re going to leave us alone now?”
“I can’t promise that, but they’ve let me out for now.” Hopper paused awkwardly. “See, the reason they let me out was because something happened while they were questioning me. It’s the new Miss Saffron, some girl called Gabrielle? She’s gone missing.”
After all that had happened, maybe Darla shouldn’t have been surprised. But it didn’t tally with the vision she had seen in the broken mirror in Annie’s gallery. The girl in the chair had had blond hair, and she hadn’t looked anything like Gabrielle. Every other vision had come true – could it really be that this one had been wrong?
“Another girl?” Annie shook her head. “I’m not sure how much more this town can take.”
“I don’t know about you, I’m not sure how much I can take,” Hopper replied ruefully. “We’re going to head on home now. Thank you for taking care of Darla, you’re a real friend.”
“It was nothing,” she smiled. “The least I could do.”
“Just let me get my bag,” Darla said.
She ran upstairs and into the jumbled guest room. In her haste to grab her bag, she swung it round and knocked a pile of books to the floor. Muttering under her breath, Darla went to pick them up. She stopped. At the bottom of the heap was an old West Academy Yearbook, 1995. The year that Walter West had killed Miss Saffron. Darla picked up the book and stared at the front cover.
“Did you get lost up there?” Hopper called out from the bottom of the stairs. “C’mon, girl!”
Maybe it was Hopper’s impatience that did it, or maybe some deeper curiosity. But Darla didn’t even think about it – slipping the yearbook into her bag, she hurried downstairs.
Chapter Twenty-Six
As things turned out, Darla didn’t get the chance to look at the yearbook that night. She was so pleased to have Hopper home that she stayed up with him watching TV before her exhaustion caught up with her, and she passed out on the sofa. The next day Darla went to school to find that the halls of the West Academy were deserted. With the news of Gabrielle’s disappearance, only a handful of students had shown up. Looking around, Darla wasn’t surprised to see that Sasha wasn’t one of them. The students sat together in a single classroom, reading and talking to each other. They were let out of school early, and Darla returned home to find Hopper still sitting in a dressing gown, morosely picking at an acoustic guitar in the living room. He grunted at Darla when she came in.
“No work today, Daddy?” she asked.
“Boss gave me the week off,” Hopper replied. “Doesn’t want a murder suspect trying to sell his guitars. Can’t say I blame him, neither.”
“They’ll find the real killer soon,” Darla told him. “Then things will go back to normal.”
“And what is normal, when it’s at home?” Hopper said, scratching his stubbled cheek. “Me and you having to leave town again? Me going back to grafting?”
Darla folded her arms. “So you’re just going to give up now?”
“What do you want me to do?”
“You could take a shower, for a start. Day’s nearly over.”
Hopper stared at her coldly. Putting down his guitar, he trudged upstairs into the bathroom. Darla waited until she heard the shower running before going to her bedroom and closing the door. Diving on to her bed, she took the yearbook out from her bag. It was filled with the usual kind of school pho
tographs: the teaching faculty, the gym team in their spangly uniforms, the rangy basketball squad. A full spread was devoted to the Saffron Tigers football team, who had made it to the state semi-finals that year. Over the page, Darla was greeted by a photo of a pretty girl with tight blond curls sitting on a carnival float, waving to a crowd. It was Miss Saffron, 1995. Her full name was printed neatly below the photograph: Crystal Mills. Darla sat up. No wonder Leeroy had so many photos of Crystal scattered throughout his trailer – he wasn’t a stalker, he was family.
She flicked on through the yearbook with rising excitement, searching for Walter West. But when she ran her finger down the page of Walter’s class, Darla saw that his photograph had covered in white-out fluid, obliterating him completely. Had Annie done that? As Darla searched through the rest of the yearbook, she realized that Walter wasn’t the only missing face. It might have been her yearbook, but there was no sign of Annie Taylor anywhere.
The front door slammed – startled, Darla slipped the yearbook under her mattress. She rushed out of her room and ran downstairs. Hopper was striding moodily down the path towards the Buick, muttering to himself under his breath.
“Hey, wait!” cried Darla. “Where are you going?”
“Out,” Hopper said tersely.
“Weren’t you going to say goodbye?”
“Wasn’t planning on it, no.”
“Didn’t you think I’d worry?”
“I don’t want to hear it, Darla,” he told her, climbing into the front seat of the Buick. “Not now.”
“Are you coming back?”
“I guess.”
“When?”
“Later.” He slammed the car door shut and turned the engine on, drowning out Darla’s protests. She banged on the window, only for the Buick to leap away from the curb and fly off down the lane.
“Damn it!” swore Darla, kicking a stone after the disappearing car. She ran back inside the house, took Hopper’s leather jacket from the back of his kitchen chair and put it on, taking comfort from its reassuring weight and familiar smell. Slipping her keys into a pocket, she went back outside.
Darla knew what she was doing was dangerous, maybe even downright crazy. But she was running out of time and options. The Angel Taker was doing more than taking lives – he was tearing people and relationships apart. As Darla headed out she briefly thought about calling Sasha, then decided against it. The person she was going to see wouldn’t want to see Sasha. They wouldn’t want to see Darla either, but she didn’t have any choice. She had to speak with them.
Night was falling by the time Darla had located the dirt track leading down towards Leeroy Mills’ trailer, trees rustling forlornly in the lengthening shadows. With every step that brought her closer to her destination, she felt a growing unease at her decision to come alone. The lights were on in Leeroy’s trailer, his pick-up parked out front. As Darla headed across the waste ground the trailer door banged open, spilling a rectangle of dirty light on to the earth. Leeroy’s silhouette filled the doorway. He had a rifle locked and loaded, and was training it out over the waste ground.
“Who’s there?” he spat. “Don’t think Leeroy can’t hear you creeping about. He’s got a big ol’ rifle here, and he knows how to use it.”
Darla took a deep breath and stepped out from behind the pick-up, holding her hands in the air. As Leeroy peered out into the darkness towards her, she gasped. His face was puffy with purple bruises, his left leg in a plaster cast.
“You!” he snarled. “I oughta put a bullet in your skull! Thanks to you, I got the living hell beaten out of me.”
“I know,” said Darla. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have let it happen. I was scared. You scared me.”
“Sorry don’t help Leeroy’s bones knit back together,” he said ominously. “Sorry don’t make the pain go away. Why are you here?”
“I wanted to talk to you,” Darla called out. “About Crystal.”
Leeroy flinched, like he had been slapped. “You don’t know nuthin’ about her,” he said gruffly. “No one does.”
“I know about people dying,” Darla told him. “I know how it feels when someone you love dies and don’t ever come back. Nothing can make that pain go away neither. I’d rather have broken bones.”
Leeroy glanced around the surrounding trees and lowered his rifle. “Come in if you want.”
Darla hesitated. Reluctantly she stepped up into the trailer, re-immersing herself in the stale smell of tobacco and body odour. Leeroy had put down his rifle and was staring at the small shrine of photographs of Crystal Mills.
“That’s your sister, isn’t it?” Darla said gently.
Leeroy nodded.
“She’s very pretty.”
“Most beautiful girl in the county,” he replied. “Like a flower growing in the weeds. We came from a bad home – pappy drank, and our momma was too busy trying to avoid gittin’ hit to look out for us. But Crystal was pure sunshine. I remember the day she won Miss Saffron, the smile on her face when they put that sash over her. Seeing her so happy, it was the best day of my life. Then one day she went up into the hills, and she never came back.”
“To Tall Pines,” Darla said.
“Crystal told me it weren’t nothin’ to worry about, Walter West just wanted to take some pretty photos of her. Said she was gonna need pretty photos if she was gonna become a model like she wanted.” Leeroy’s voice was hoarse. “When she went missing I told the cops that something bad had happened to her up at Tall Pines but they didn’t want to know, kept telling me that she’d prob’ly just run away. It weren’t till they pulled Crystal’s body from the creek that they dared ring Allan West’s doorbell. No wonder Walter went round killin’ people – he thought he could do anything and get away with it. And he was right, too. I tried to tell people. I went to Walter’s funeral and hollered that it was all a lie. But his family had damned near built the whole town! You think anyone was going to listen to Leeroy? I got hustled away and the next night a couple of guys jumped me in a bar, and when the dust settled it was good ol’ Leeroy who ended up doing time over it. The Wests did everything they could to shut me up. By the time I got outta jail, no one cared about the truth.”
“What truth, Leeroy?” Darla said urgently. “What were the Wests lying about?”
He stood by the window and looked out into the night, running a hand through his thinning hair.
“Walter didn’t hang hisself,” he said quietly. “He didn’t regret what he’d done, he didn’t care. But Allan West couldn’t have his son in jail, so he made up a story about a suicide and smuggled the boy outta town. You listen to Leeroy, l’il girl – Walter West is still alive. He’s been away for a while, but he’s home now.”
“That’s why you were outside Natalie’s house,” breathed Darla. “And Ryan’s party. You were trying to stop him!”
“I’ve been hunting in these woods twenty years now,” Leeroy said, gazing out into the darkness. “I could feel it when he came back, like an alligator slipping into the creek. I swore that he wasn’t going to hurt any more kids. But Walter’s real smart. He outfoxed me, twice. Then people started talking about ol’ Leeroy, as though it was my fault these kids were dying.” He eyed Darla. “Guess I’ve got you to thank for that.”
“Don’t blame me!” she shot back. “Maybe if you hadn’t taken Natalie’s photographs people wouldn’t have suspected you.”
“That a fact?” Leeroy said slyly. “So why did they take your pappy in, then? Whose photographs did he take, l’il girl?”
Darla shook her head. “Maybe I should go,” she said.
“Maybe you should,” he replied. “Leeroy’s done talking. Go on now, git.”
Leeroy flung open his trailer door and pushed her out, slamming it behind her. As relieved as she was to have escaped the trailer, Darla couldn’t shake the nagging suspicion that something was wrong here. Leeroy had seen her coming too quickly, his gun had been too readily to hand. He was on edge about something. Maybe
it was the beating he had received outside Shooters, or the fear that his suspicions about Walter West were true, and the killer might come to try to silence him. Or maybe it was something else making him watch the trees so carefully. Darla thought back to the previous time she had come here – breaking inside the trailer, Leeroy’s unexpected return, the headlong flight through the trees, the half-dug hole in the clearing…
The breath caught in Darla’s throat. When she reached the trail leading back towards the road she headed in the opposite direction, plunging deeper into the darkness. She slipped into the trees, skirting around the back of the trailer. Through the windows she could see Leeroy pacing angrily up and down, taking swigs from a whiskey bottle. Darla ducked down as he strode to the kitchen window and stared out into the night.
Finally Leeroy turned away. Darla crept deeper into the wood, wincing at the leaves crunching and twigs snapping underfoot. Last time she had been running blind, terrified that Leeroy might catch up with her. It was hard, in the darkness, to try to retrace her steps. As threatening shadows crowded in around her. Darla found herself wishing that she had brought a flashlight, or swallowed her pride and called Sasha. This was no time to be alone.
And then, suddenly, she came out into a small clearing. As she peered around, Darla recognized the giant fern she had cowered behind as Leeroy had called out to her. But there was no sign of a hole any more, only a thick carpet of bracken covering the ground. Darla knelt down and brushed a handful to one side, revealing a layer of wooden boards beneath. Moving quickly now, she scraped the rest of the bracken away and began lifting up the wooden boards, her f ingernails digging into the cool dirt. Piece by piece, she uncovered a hole in the heart of the clearing. She had been right after all – Leeroy had been up to something. But as she moved the boards to one side, Darla’s eyes couldn’t penetrate the inky well below her. Had Leeroy gone to all this trouble over an empty hole? Or had he just not had chance to f ill it yet?
At that moment the moon came out from behind a cloud, casting its milky eye over the clearing. With a start, Darla realized that the pit wasn’t empty after all. Someone was sitting at the bottom of it.
