A Particular Darkness

by Robert E. Dunn

  “Is there anything you want to point me to or anything you need to tell me?” I asked Damon.

  He didn’t answer. I didn’t expect him to. I knew a million guys like him, coming out of the military not quite broken but not quite right either. Squeezed just a little out of shape by the use they endured. You go in thinking it’s about your country, the flag and apple pie, and all that stuff. But they actually train all that out of you and replace it with routines and muscle memory, with ideas about the unit or the squad, the corps or the wing or any other—greater good. In the end, you learn for yourself that it’s just the guy next to you, your friends who live and die for you and you for them. In the end they put you out, out of the unit, out of the friendships, out of the system and expect you to find your own way back to mom and apple pie and sanity.

  It was something I understood even though the entire system had been turned against me. Maybe that was why I could still see the government as something more banal than evil. It’s a blind giant and a child at the same time, playing with blocks then kicking them over but not evil. That’s a label reserved for the people who direct the giant. But like the saying goes, guns don’t kill people . . . neither do governments. People kill people.

  “Damon.”

  “I got nothing to say,” he answered.

  “I’m going to open your tackle box.” I told him to give him a last chance. If I were keeping a gun here on the boat that would be where I’d put it.

  He said nothing.

  The two-part lid of the plastic box opened up and spread out with trays of hooks, and jigs, lures and artificial worms. Below that was a panel holding lead weights, line, and tools. I lifted the panel and there it was.

  The revolver was old but in good condition. It was a J. C. Higgins nine-shot .22. My father had one almost exactly like it but his had the long barrel. Damon’s was short barreled. Stuffed in alongside the gun, was a cheap cell phone in a zipper bag with a couple of prepaid cards. Under everything was a bundle that looked to be old letters and photos. They were wrapped in rubber bands.

  I lifted the revolver out by the trigger guard and held it up so light showed through the cylinder. It wasn’t loaded. It smelled of oil too. Either he had shot the guy in the water and sat down to clean his gun or the pistol had not been fired recently.

  “You should have said something,” I told Damon. “It would have helped.”

  “I should have kept my mouth shut and left this place. That was the only thing would have helped me.”

  * * *

  I had Damon in my truck, cuffed and quiet, while I waited for the rest of officialdom to arrive. Billy remained with the body and boat.

  The first to show up in the darkness were the on-duty deputies. They drove fast with lights and sirens more to liven up a boring shift than for any need to clear a path. The cars looked like UFOs in the distance, hugging the earth and bringing the thrill of action. It always seems a bit of a letdown when the cars park and the men with guns amble over pulling their belts from under their guts.

  Deputies secured the scene, staking out a perimeter and taping it off as our evidence technician arrived. He’d been dragged out of bed and from the looks of it by the hair. At least he’d had the sense to be carrying a thermos of coffee along with his camera and gear box.

  There was one surprise. Before anyone else arrived the sheriff showed up. Charles Benson—Chuck to his friends and everyone in the county seemed to be his friend—had been the sheriff for a long time. He’d lost his wife, Emily, not long before Nelson died and the years were looking pretty heavy on him since then. He didn’t sleep much lately so any late night call more interesting than a traffic accident got his attention.

  His SUV arrived without the lights or sounds of emergency. After he parked though, strobes from the deputy’s cars hit the reflective decals of the star and SHERIFF TANEY COUNTY logo. They shimmered and pulsed in the darkness making the crime scene appear more like an election rally. It made me wonder if he would run again and what that could mean for my job.

  When the sheriff passed through the tape, he ambled as well. It’s a thing with men in this part of the country, I decided.

  “Whaddya got?” he asked as he approached. Canting his head the brim of his hat gestured toward the lake. “Floater?”

  “Not exactly,” I answered. “How are you doing?”

  “I’ll tell you, Hurricane. I’m just too tired and too old for this shit.”

  Sheriff Benson was the kindest man around and a good politician but he was at the same time a poster boy for the rural, white sheriff cliché. When he was worked up he spoke like the good ol’ boy he was at heart. That wasn’t a problem with most of his constituency. Lately though, since Emily had been buried, I noticed that he controlled it a little less. Or maybe more things simply twisted his nerves.

  “Thinking about retiring?” I asked gingerly.

  “Thinkin’ I’m tired of people asking about it.”

  “Things have changed since Emily passed.”

  “Don’t I know it—”

  “You’ve changed, Chuck.”

  “Oh hell, girl.” He tilted his hat and looked around the way some men will scan the area for a good place to spit their tobacco juice. The sheriff was looking to see who might be close enough to hear. “I haven’t changed. I’m just a little . . . raw. You been there. You’re the one should be retirin’. You have something waiting. Why you haven’t told me to kiss your ass and gone is beyond me.”

  We’d had this conversation before. Several times as a matter of fact. But it was like interrogation, as much about what wasn’t said as was.

  “I’m afraid you would pucker up.”

  He laughed, a good hard sound that brayed over the field and died in the border of trees. “Well we are who we are, are we not?” That pretty much said everything not said.

  “Yes sir,” I answered. “But no one says you have to be it in the middle of the night. You have a soft bed at home.”

  “You saw the casket I picked out for Emily.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It was padded thick with satin and draped with her favorite comforter. I figure a bed won’t be more comfortable than that. And I’ll goddamned tell you, my bed is no less cold or lonely than a grave. I don’t want to be in it anymore.”

  “I know.”

  “You do?” He looked at me. He looked hard, without challenge or rancor but deep in thought. “I know you do,” he finally admitted. “Do you know I think about being buried with her? I had the plot dug deep so we’ll share the same space, not lie side by side.”

  “I do.”

  “Which?”

  “Both. But mostly I know you think about being close to her. You think about how life isn’t life and you imagine a rest.”

  “Imagine?”

  “That’s not how I meant—”

  He waved a dismissive hand and pulled the brim of his gray, felt Stetson down. “Tell me about the floater.”

  I smiled. Gently, but I still pointed the expression out into the darkness. He’d lost his mood for sympathy.

  “Well . . .” I took a cleansing breath. “Like I said, it’s not exactly a floater. The body was wrapped in a net and put in the water.”

  “COD?”

  “We won’t have cause of death until the coroner’s report. There’s nothing obvious but it is dark and he is waterlogged and tied up in a net. We just can’t see that much. I’m afraid it might be drowning.”

  “Afraid?”

  “Have you ever experienced trying to breathe liquid?” I asked, thinking of my lungs filling with my own blood, drowning in the desert. “I wouldn’t wish that on most anyone.”

  “ ‘Most anyone,’” he echoed and emphasized. The sheriff knew a lot about me.

  “He was a soldier. Airborne by the tattoo on his upper-right arm.”

  “Who called it in?”

  “That’s a story in itself.” I didn’t really want to go into it. The sheriff did. So aft
er giving him a short version I told him, “Damon Tarique, the guy who found the body was Airborne too. And a Ranger. And he had a gun. But I don’t think it had been fired. He’s cuffed and in my truck.”

  “Connected?”

  “Damon and the dead guy?” I shrugged. The sheriff nodded. It would bear looking into.

  “Back up and tell me about the fish.”

  Headlights appeared on the horizon. After a moment a set of emergency lights joined them. It was the coroner’s van coming to collect the body.

  “You want to see things before we get the body in a bag?”

  He shook his head and I excused myself long enough to guide the van to where we needed it and to ask two deputies to assist in recovery.

  When I returned to the sheriff he asked, “Shouldn’t you be down there supervising?”

  “You think they need me?”

  “No. But you never know.”

  “That’s a mouthful.”

  He quirked a brow. “Okay. Tell me about the fish.”

  I did. I showed him the notes and sketches I’d made. He held my pad so headlights illuminated it and flipped through the pages.

  When he handed the pad back he asked, “The boys wanted you to call the game warden?”

  “I’m friendly with Mike Resnick. We went to high school together. They thought I could talk to him and keep Damon from getting a ticket.”

  “You think that was the real reason?”

  “No. I think Damon was simply afraid of getting pulled into the system. He called his friend the Deputy Sheriff without thinking things through. There were a couple of times he mentioned the real cops.”

  “Is he stupid?”

  “I think maybe confused about some things. He’s been living on the boat and in campsites. But I genuinely think he was more afraid of the conservation agent than of the Taney County Sheriff’s Department.”

  “Which means you don’t think he’s our killer.”

  I shook my head.

  “Then what do you think?”

  “At this point”—I put up my hands and gestured around at the vehicles pointing their lights into the woods—“I think we investigate.”

  More headlights appeared on the road. I recognized the vehicle that pulled up, well behind the official units.

  Sheriff Benson knew the car as well. “Riley Yates,” he said. “I bet his wife was pissed he got up for this.”

  “Are you going to talk to him?”

  “What else for an old sheriff but to talk to the press? You’re here to work. I’m just . . . here.” He waved as Riley got out of his car.

  Riley waved back and waited politely beside his fender for the sheriff to come over. There’s a lot to be said about how things are done in smaller communities.

  “One thing though,” the sheriff said to me. “I think you should call that friend of yours.”

  “Resnick?”

  “A game warden will be a lot of help on this.”

  “I was going to call in the morning. See what they wanted to do about the fish if anything.”

  “Call him or someone on duty tonight. They’ll want to see this and we’ll need them.”

  “Why?”

  “I think”—he let the thought dissolve into a smile without any joy in it—“I think I’m an old man who may not know as much as he thinks he does. Bring in the Conservation Department. If I’m right, it’ll help. If I’m completely wrong, at least they’ll take care of the fish.”

  He turned and began his amble, waving as he went, “Riley Yates,” he hollered across the space. “What brings you out of your bed on this chilly evening? You know someone might be back home trying to slip in and keep Junie warm.”

  “That’s why I’m here making sure you’re at work,” the reporter called back.

  They laughed and fell into talking more quietly. I pulled out my phone.

  Before dialing I took a moment for myself. I don’t care who you are, nights like this one have an effect on you. There was no place to look except up that wasn’t streaked with blue and red comets from the emergency vehicles. The sky directly overhead though, was clear. So clear it showed itself to be the absence that it was. Not black. Just nothing. Into nothing had been cast a spray of shattered light. I reached up with my empty hand, stretching to touch the shine or the void. The beauty of it made me think of Bob Dylan and I wanted to dance beneath the diamond sky. It was a sad longing, just like the song. And a feeling you can’t imagine ever experiencing again but you can’t imagine living without either.

  I lowered my arm and my hand was so empty I knew I had touched the nothing, but fallen far short of the diamonds. If I thought any more about it I was going to cry or laugh. So I dialed the phone.

  It took Mike a few rings to pick up and when he did he wasn’t too happy to hear about a pile of fish that was just barely in his state. When I asked him what was so special about paddlefish though he perked up.

  “Paddlefish?” he asked. “You’re sure?”

  “Look like catfish with long bills instead of whiskers.”

  “Close enough.” He actually sounded a bit excited and he must have been because he was there in twenty minutes.

  Mike arrived in a truck pulling a boat and trailer just as the body was coming out of the woods. I noticed his boat had just been pulled from the water—the bilge drain was still dripping and it was dragging a tie-down strap. Sticking over the bow of the boat was a gaff and a long gigging pole. When he got out of the truck he went back to the boat and trailer to tuck away the loose bits and shift some boxes and poles around.

  He stopped the busy work when the body reached the asphalt. It was in a black bag and strapped to a lift board carried by the coroner’s assistant and two deputies. He watched the procession for a moment leaning on the gunnel of his boat to make some notes in a pad before he came over to me. Mike didn’t amble. He was the kind of guy who looked exactly like what he was—half cop and half biologist who spent most of his life outside. When he came toward me his stride was long and determined like he had someplace to be and something to do once he got there. If my Uncle Orson had been there he would have said the man was there to kick ass and take names. It was the kind of description Mike would have liked.

  “Did we drag you out of the water?” I asked.

  “It’s where I live,” he answered then pointed back to the boat. “Home’s a bit crowded right now, illegal trot lines, jug fishing, gigging. Seems like all the evidence I collect has hooks and barbs.”

  “Better you than me,” I told him sincerely.

  “Is that the poacher?” Mike asked canting his head in the direction of the body bag being transferred to a gurney.

  “Poacher?” That was a surprise and I guess I let it show in my voice. “They poach paddlefish?”

  “Well, technically, any harvesting of wildlife out of season or without the proper license is poaching. But this is something else entirely. You didn’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  “About paddlefish and caviar.”

  “Is it anything like ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “It’s a—”

  His brows came together in bewilderment. “I don’t even see how those things can go together.”

  “It’s nothing.” I tried to dismiss the confusion and my attempt at whimsy. “It’s a poem. It’s nothing.”

  “A poem?” Mike stared at me. There was no mistaking the appraisal in his eyes.

  “From Through the Looking-Glass,” I explained. “Alice in Wonderland?”

  “People are talking, Hurricane.”

  “What? What’s that mean?”

  “Some are saying you’re off your game. That you’re not the Hurricane you used to be.”

  “Yeah? Well maybe that’s a good thing.”

  Mike looked away then kind of shrug-nodded before letting his gaze fall to the dark asphalt. “It’s just what some people are saying.”

  “Beca
use I mention a poem?” I waited for an answer but when nothing came I said, “What’s next? Jokes about how women cops can only do their jobs three weeks a month?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Then what are you saying?” I was mad and he could hear it. The sheriff and Riley could hear it too. They stopped their friendly banter to look at us. At me that is. I didn’t care.

  “I’m just—”

  “What?”

  “Some people are—”

  “I notice that none of those people are coming and saying it to my face.”

  Even in the darkness I could see his face darken with a flush of shame. “There’s no reason to try to pick a fight.” It was a weak and defensive refutation.

  “Tell it to your mirror. I was in a pretty good mood for a woman standing in the middle of a murder scene. I was thinking about Bob Dylan and ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ and just trying not to be weighed down by death and all the other shit in my life. You get me?” I stepped closer, deliberately invading his personal space. “One little comment about a poem and you warn me about—what? That I’m a different person after my husband died? Or maybe it’s because of the money? The guys think I should be back at the art gallery and hosting tea parties and acting like a good woman?”

  “Forget it,” he said sounding almost desperate. “Can you just take me to the fish and show me what’s going on?”

  I didn’t say anything then. I spun around and started walking toward the opening in the trees so fast that Mike had to catch up. I was practically stomping through the woods. At one point I pushed past a low branch, holding it back then releasing it to whip back into Mike’s chest and face.

  Once we arrived at the scene we ducked under the tape posted by the deputies.

  Billy was still there talking to the evidence tech. “I thought there was a bear coming down the trail,” he called out once he saw us.

  I ignored him and pointed over to the pile of fish. “There it is,” I told Mike. “Check it out.”