Something in the Dark

by Pamela Cowan

  Within a week he had a job. A month later they were sharing a much nicer apartment than the one she’d been able to afford as a student. She never asked if part of his decision to leave Debbie was so that he could follow her to Oregon and keep an eye on her, his slightly damaged sister. She didn’t really want to know.

  After graduation, Muncie had helped her move to Blue Spruce, the town that her best friend from college called home. Since one town was as good as another to Austin, it hadn’t taken much for Janice to talk her into moving there. The plan had been that she and Janice would find teaching jobs, maybe even at the same school.

  Once she was hired as a substitute, however, it quickly became apparent to Austin that she hated working inside all day. The rooms seemed stifling, and though she liked children in ones and twos, she didn’t really enjoy them in large groups.

  She found a part-time job, helping out at a plant nursery and then quit substituting altogether and took a job working for a landscaper she met at the nursery. After deciding she could do a better job, and sick of the married owner hitting on her, she decided to start a lawn care company of her own.

  By the end of her second summer she knew she was going to do all right. She had more customers than she could handle, and had found work she really enjoyed. Then Muncie appeared, again with a couple duffel bags and his tools. This time he got his own apartment and she eventually rented a house. She didn’t want to live with her brother anymore. She wanted to feel like an adult.

  However, when their parents died within months of each other, she had been grateful that he was so close. She didn’t know how she could have managed dealing with everything without him. She hated to lean on him, didn’t expect his help with the myriad problems the nursery, the landscaping business, and her own fixer upper home entailed. Still, she knew that she had needed him, at least in the beginning, but that was over now. She’d taken all the help she’d cared to. It was time to let Muncie get on with his own life.

  Austin finally got the key into the lock and slid the door open. The scent of pine, cedar, soil and herbicide met her like old friends. She inhaled deeply and sighed, reaching for the light switch. The double bank of fluorescent lights drove away the shadows. It was all so mundane, so anticlimactically quiet.

  She spent the rest of the morning going through a stack of invoices. At lunchtime she closed up and drove to town for a sandwich and a soda. She knew it was an expensive habit, not fixing her own lunch, but thought she’d earned a reward for dealing with the paperwork.

  When she got back she decided to check the greenhouses. The trees, bulbs and tubers that were being stored there had to be kept at the right humidity and temperature levels. With a glance at the dismal sky, she opened the back door of the store.

  Yellow tape still dangled from one corner of the potting shed. The wind picked it up and wound it, like a thin scarf, around a stack of ceramic pots. Austin, hunched inside her coat, hurried past.

  She found the humidity and temperature of the greenhouses within tolerable levels, so she continued past them to the rows of trees and shrubs.

  The past owners had put in forsythia, lilac, flowering crab apples, and other ornamentals. There were also several rows of arborvitae, dwarf junipers, and badly shaped three-year-old pines and firs.

  Austin planned to expand the ornamentals, wait and see what the demand was for the rest. She’d also been considering another greenhouse she could devote to growing houseplants. The jade she supplied to local stores was selling pretty well.

  The first big flakes began to fall while she was at the northeast edge of the property. She’d been staring down at the muddy trickle of water at the bottom of the irrigation canal that bordered it. She was thinking about whether she should buy a new pump now or wait for the old wheezing one to die completely.

  When she felt the first flake fall on her eyelash, she blinked and looked up. The sky was filled with pivoting flakes of snow. Delighted, Austin threw back her head and watched it come down. So what if the roads got slippery and they couldn’t work. So what if three months from now she was cursing this stuff. Right here and right now she was as thrilled and as filled with wonder as a child.

  Unobserved, she felt free to hold her arms away from her sides and spin slowly, the motion making the flakes look even more frenzied as they danced in answer to the wind.

  Soon her hair and face were damp and dotted with melting snowflakes. Finally, she lowered her arms and, with a wide smile on her face, turned her back to the rising wind and walked back to the store.

  As she caught sight of the edge of the potting shed she thought of Bunny and felt a rush of guilt at the joy she had been feeling. Poor Bunny would never feel snow on her face again.

  The heat shimmering in the air in front of the wall heater was welcome. Austin hung up her parka and held her hands out to warm them. The snow quickly melted and her face soon felt too hot and tight. She moved away from the heater and resumed the tedious chore of paperwork.

  She put together a pile of receipts to copy and filled out her quarterly tax statement. She was pleased with how much easier it seemed than last time. Maybe she could learn not to totally hate the accounting stuff. She was just finishing up when a noise outside startled her.

  She jerked upright, and swiveled around on the stool she’d been using. What was that? This time she recognized the sound. Footsteps. Someone was walking across the parking lot, footsteps crunching through the gravel. She’d closed the stock gate behind her when she drove in. She knew the big “Closed” sign they’d hung on the gate was still there, so who would be walking up to the store and how did they get in?

  A sharp memory of Bunny flashed through Austin’s mind: Bunny arched across sacks of peat moss, her eyes sunken holes in her pale face, the disturbing line of the trowel buried in her throat.

  Austin swallowed hard and looked around for a weapon. Lying on the counter near the register was one of the utility knives they used to open boxes. Her fingers trembled as she fumbled to pick it up. It was small, with a slim plastic handle and a narrow, razor-sharp blade that retracted into the handle. It didn’t look like much of a weapon, but she knew from experience it could cut deeply and painfully. Of course, cutting herself by mistake was one thing; cutting another human being was something entirely different.

  A dark, wide-shouldered form loomed into sight just outside the sliding glass doors. Abruptly, the door slid aside.

  “Austin.”

  “Will?” Austin recognized the voice but not the body. Then he stepped into the light and she realized he was wearing a heavy parka, his thin frame disguised by its bulk.

  “I saw the lights. I was hoping it was you.”

  Her heart beating wildly, Austin swallowed and tightened her grip on the knife she was holding just below the level of the counter. Slowly, soundlessly she slid the blade out.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Where have you been?” she managed to croak.

  “Hiding.”

  “Why? Do you know what everyone thinks?”

  “That I killed Bunny, I suppose. But you know I didn’t.”

  “I want to believe you didn’t. But why did you run?”

  “The police. Look, there’s a warrant out for my arrest. I couldn’t let the police ID me. The warrant would pop up and that would be it. I’d go to jail.”

  “A warrant? For what?”

  “It wasn’t any big deal. I didn’t rob a bank or anything. It’s just– sort of complicated – hard to explain.”

  “Try,” Austin insisted, her palm sweating where it gripped the knife.

  “I stole a car. This was in California about two years ago. I figured Oregon wouldn’t go to the expense of tracking down someone with a California warrant for something as lame as that, so I hitched up here, you were hiring, and that was it. See? No big deal. I’ve been careful not to get busted for anything else, but I knew if the cops ran my name through their database that warrant would pop up, and they’d have
me.”

  “Wouldn’t that be better than having them think you’re a killer?”

  “I guess I thought they’d find the killer right away and after a while I could show back up and everything would be fine.”

  “That was smart,” she said sarcastically.

  “I know. I know.” Will agreed. “I’ve decided to turn myself in. I just – I’m sort of freaked out about it. I guess I should call a lawyer or something.”

  “Well at least you are starting to think. I have a customer who's become a friend. Her son is a criminal lawyer. I suppose I could try to contact him,” offered Austin.

  “Really? That would be great. It would be a lot easier than just walking into the police station.”

  “We’ll go to my house and I’ll look her number. You can call her from there.”

  “That would be great.

  “Where have you been hiding?”

  “Around.”

  He had moved across the room to a table covered with plants. His fingers moved across the rows of poinsettias, deftly removing dead leaves, probing the soil for moisture. She remembered the day the clippings had arrived from Los Angeles, the care with which he had planted each one.

  “Will.”

  “Don’t tell anyone, okay? I have a friend who works at the U-Haul place. He left the back of one of the trucks open and I’ve been sleeping in there.”

  “You must have been freezing.”

  “No, it’s an old broke down truck where they store the blankets they rent for padding furniture. I just sort of made a nest in there and it was fine. I just made sure I woke up early enough to be gone before people started showing up.”

  “Well, that explains where you slept, but how did you stay out of sight during the day?”

  “Well I still have keys to everything. The greenhouses are nice and warm”

  “You were here?” Austin shook her head in disbelief. “Well, I suppose if you were going to kill me you could have done it by now.”

  “Yeah, ‘specially when you were spinning around like a top with your tongue stuck out catching snow flakes.”

  “Yeah, well maybe I shouldn’t call my friend after all. Maybe you should just march your butt down to the police station.”

  “Ah, Austin, come on. You shouldn’t be like that.”

  Austin laughed. Suddenly she knew that Will was innocent. She was convinced that his story, despite how dumb it sounded, no, because of how dumb it sounded, was true. Under cover of the counter, she slid the blade back into the box knife’s handle and slipped it into the back pocket of her jeans.

  With an overwhelming sense of relief she said, “Let’s lock up and go get you some dinner. I know you’re probably scared but I don’t think it’ll be as bad as you think. At least you’ll be turning yourself in. That has to count for something.”

  “It does in the movies. Only, this ain’t no movie.”

  “No, it sure isn’t. We’ll just have to hope for the best.”

  Chapter 15

  As soon as they were safely inside Austin’s house, Will hurried to shut the living room drapes, while Austin went around the room turning on lights.

  Will was nervous, pacing from window to window, peering out at the street. Austin turned on the oven to preheat it and pulled a pizza out of the freezer. She also took a couple of beers out of the fridge and handed him one, hoping it might help calm him.

  “You need to settle down.” she said. “You haven’t changed your mind have you? You still want me to call my friend, right?”

  “Yes. I’m just messed up about all this. People thinking I killed Bunny. My dad will. . . well he won’t be surprised. He was probably expecting something like this.”

  “Your dad?”

  Will took a deep breath. “Nine years ago, when I was seventeen, I lived with my father. The Honorable William Williams.”

  “Williams? Senator William Williams?” Austin asked

  “You know three people named William Williams?”

  “Don’t be a smart ass.”

  “Admit it. It’s a pretty unusual name. I always thought you’d put two and two together.”

  “And get five. Which must be what happened here, because I certainly never put Will Williams and Senator William Williams together,” Austin admitted.

  “Yeah, I can see that. Why would you. I don’t much take after the old man.” He paused to take a long drink. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he said, “When I was seventeen I borrowed my father’s Mercedes and had an accident. It wasn’t a big deal. I misjudged the distance and smacked into a lamp pole in a parking lot. I wasn’t traveling fast, so it didn’t do a hell of a lot of damage. I bumped my head on this thing clipped to the visor, an insurance cardholder or whatever. It had a sharp corner and I bled like crazy. The police put me in an ambulance and made me go to the hospital, although I knew I was fine.

  “I was sitting there, blood still all over me, holding a big gauze thing on my head when my father walks in. He sees me and guess what he says?”

  “Are you all right?” Austin guessed.

  “Hell no. He said, ‘Do you know how much that car cost?’ Will took another drink and then, with a thin smile pulling at his lips he said, “That’s right. No, ‘How you doing?’ No, ‘You gonna live?’ Nope. Just, ‘Do you know how much that car cost?’ And then some crap about insurance rates and what will the newspapers make of it. I was already shutting him out by then.”

  “Maybe you misunderstood. People handle things different ways. I mean, maybe they had already told him you were okay.”

  Will shrugged. “Maybe, and maybe I would have let it go, but he made such a big thing out of me messing up his car. He wouldn’t let it drop. He made me get drug tested. He made them screen for alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, speed, and heroine. I remember because the screening place would only do three substances for some base rate, so he had to pay extra. He was pissed off about that too. Like it was my idea.”

  “Maybe he was just worried about you.”

  “He was worried I’d screw up his political career. You should have seen what it was like to live with him. You couldn’t fart in your own house. He didn’t give a damn about anything but how things looked. It was all about image. You’ve read about how shallow actors and politicians are. Do you think that’s all some kind of urban myth? It’s not.” He took another sip of beer before continuing.

  “My mom died when I was thirteen,” he said, “I hardly remember her. Sometimes I don’t think she died so much as just faded out of sight. I think maybe he just ignored her to death.”

  “That is such a sad, kind of creepy, thing to say,” said Austin.

  “I guess. But that’s how it seemed. We never talked about her. It was like she never existed at all. We got along fine until the school thing. I wanted to major in botany and he wanted me to go to law school. Law school! How the hell was I supposed to do that? But I said I would. He made me promise I would. I tore up the catalogs from the school I was planning to apply to. I applied to that hell-hole he wanted me to go to. I mean, couldn’t he see I was just handing him my whole future? That was like a week before the accident so it wasn’t like I was being a hard-ass or anything. I was giving him just what he wanted. So did I deserve the drug tests? It was awful. I had to stand there and pee while some perverted bastard stared at my. . .well, you know.” He finished off his beer and set it on the coffee table.

  Austin couldn’t think of what to say.

  “I was mad,” Will continued. “First chance I got I stole his keys, took the Mercedes to the top of this road up in the hills, started it up, put it in gear, jumped out and let it roll right over the side of a cliff. I figured it would blow up like on TV. Only it didn’t happen like that. It just rolled down the hill, sort of slow, got hung up on a bush and almost stopped. Then it got going a little, hit a tree and turned over on its roof and then it slid sort of slowly the rest of the way. It just laid there at the bottom, wheels still turning, engine still
going for a while. It was pretty much a let-down. I mean, I was expecting fireworks and the thing was like a big, fat turtle stuck on its back.” Will smiled but there was no humor in it.

  After a while I climbed down the hill and shut it off. I took the keys and kept them. I’m not really sure why.” He reached into the neck of his T-shirt and pulled out a key suspended from a leather cord.

  “I went back home but the head housekeeper, she and I were friends, we’d sneak in the garage with the gardener and smoke a little weed now and then. Anyway, she warned me Dad had called the police and that they’d issued a warrant for my arrest for grand theft auto. I guess it’s a felony if the car is worth over a certain amount. Doesn’t pay to have good taste. I borrowed some money and took off. I hitchhiked north and wound up here and I’ve been here ever since. I didn’t think California would waste money trying to get me to come back for such a minor charge, and I knew Oregon wouldn’t do California any favors, so I decided I was pretty safe.”

  “Well, that’s an interesting way to look at it. But you’re probably right. Plus, your father probably wouldn’t have followed through with it. You said he didn’t want to mess up his career. How would having your son be a convicted felon look?”

  “I know. I realized that later, but so what. I don’t want or need the old man’s money. I don’t need his lifestyle or the crap that comes with it. I just want to be left alone.”

  “I can see that, but with Bunny’s murder and . . . what is it?”

  Will had come to his feet in one fluid motion and slipped across the room until he was poised near the kitchen door, as if ready to bolt out the back.

  Then Austin heard it too. “It’s just a car pulling in,” she said. “Let me see who it is.”

  “You called the police.”

  “That’s right. All the time I was talking to you I was secretly dialing the police with my toes, or maybe sending Morse code telepathically.”

  “Yeah, well, okay. But who could it be?”