A Particular Darkness

by Robert E. Dunn

  “Of course,” I said still a bit confused. “But while I’m here . . .”

  We talked for another several minutes about the death of Daniel Boone and the status of the investigation. There was a time I gave him notes on yellow legal paper instead of e-mail because I was sure he would read the actual pages sitting on his desk. More recently I’ve taken to talking things through with him face to face, then following up with e-mail so I could copy it to the case file. I’d actually thought I was doing it because it worked better for both of us. Talking to him that day, I wondered if I might have lied to myself. He was hearing. I didn’t know how deeply he was listening. When he turned back to the picture on the sill, I saw all the yesterdays come into his eyes.

  Once I returned to my desk, I wrote careful notes and added them to the case file with a copy to the sheriff. I printed them out as well and dropped the copy into the box on his closed door.

  People watch TV and read books that make a cop’s life look like either nonstop shootouts or miracles of modern science that require only a few keystrokes. The truth is much more boring and way slower. I had no autopsy results because we’re not a large department with those kind of resources in town. Daniel Boone’s body had been taken to a private forensics and pathology lab in another county. They wouldn’t even get to it until tomorrow.

  Since I couldn’t work the evidence I needed to work the people. I started with Silas Boone.

  He left big footprints. Silas had been involved with county and state systems almost since he could walk. Family services. Juvenile courts. Just like his cousin Daniel, he had a lot of history with the Conservation Department too. No criminal prosecutions. A lot of fines. Then he disappeared into the military system. Ordinarily that would be easy too, but there was something wrong. Nothing was coming up except his basic record. Induction date, ratings, and rankings—no service locations or Criminal Investigation Division records. There was one bit of interesting information. Silas had been wounded. The location had been redacted, but there were some gruesome details. Aside from that, his documentation was sterile. I found it impossible to believe that he’d been a model soldier, and the absence of documentation was all the confirmation I needed. A cleaned record was worse than anything that could have been logged.

  My next call was to my father. He picked up on the first ring like he’d been waiting for my call, but when he spoke it was clear he’d been waiting for someone else.

  “The hearing is out until nine tomorrow morning. How about dinner and something—”

  “Dad?” I had to cut him off afraid of where that question was going.

  “Katrina?”

  “You know most people look at the display on their phone before answering. It’s not like the old days.”

  “What do you know about the old days? And I was expecting a call.”

  “Yes. I picked up on that. Who is she?” My father and Uncle Orson both delighted in trying to get me married off before I met Nelson. I never missed a chance for a little payback. And they took it good-naturedly. When I asked who she was, I expected the usual response, some made-up name, sexy in a cartoonish sort of way, Babette or Trixie LaRue. Once when I made a joke about him finding a date on one of his trips to DC, he said he was meeting someone named Hillary. Then he told me it had to be a secret and that if I said anything a Secret Service man would be knocking on my door.

  He simply asked, “Is everything okay?”

  “You’re not going to tell me?”

  “There’s nothing to tell. I’m on the Hill and working.”

  His evasion was about as subtle as a bullhorn at a funeral. I couldn’t wait to tell Uncle Orson all about it, but it wasn’t the time to rake Dad over the coals. “I need help with a case.”

  It took just a couple of minutes to explain everything and what I needed to know. He said he’d get right back to me with the information.

  He would too. There was no doubt about that. When Dad said he was on the Hill that meant hearings and testifying. Not for him. He’d served in Army Intelligence during Vietnam, in something called the Phoenix program. After the war, he continued working intel with a different kind of thrust. He was one of the guys that senators or CEOs of military contractors could call to talk to generals and vice versa. It’s a peculiar aspect of our military industrial combine that the different parts kept secrets from each other. Dad was basically a spy and liaison for all sides with business cards that say consultant. So if he’s on the Hill he’s helping someone say the right thing. And if he says he can get me information tucked into military databases, he can.

  Again, life is not like a TV show. Dad didn’t call back with all the right answers in the next two minutes. I did paperwork and caught up on some of the many other cases I had. I found a stolen boat with a series of eight phone calls and asking a deputy to check the last lead. While that was going on, I took a call from a pawnshop owner in Branson who was worried some of what he’d purchased might be stolen. I sent a deputy to check it out. There was a report of a stolen car that turned out to be a lover’s revenge. She trashed the car, spray painted some choice words on it, then parked it in front of the other woman’s home.

  After all of that action I was ready for lunch.

  Most of the actual storm front had past. We were on the trailing edge and the clouds were thinner with the glow of sun showing through them. The dread and darkness I’d woken with had lifted also. I decided I was probably safe around normal people. Not that there are many of those I care to be around. I went to Uncle Orson’s dock to see what he had on the grill.

  * * *

  When I arrived, Damon was moving chicken halves, brats, and Kielbasa sausages around the grate. Standing beside him with a squirt bottle to douse flare-ups in his game warden’s uniform was Mike Resnick. I watched the pair working through the screened windows as Uncle Orson finished up with a customer buying salmon eggs and Velveeta, trout bait.

  “What’s going on out there?” I nodded in the direction of the grill as the customer went out the other door.

  “He showed up here about twenty minutes ago. Scared off three customers. When I asked what he wanted he just mumbled something about hoping to catch you and talk. I tried to send him to the station but he wanted to wait.”

  “That sounds a little odd.”

  “It sounds a little personal.” Uncle Orson made sure he got all the meaning he could into the last word.

  Some things I’m just a little slow to pick up on. Personal things for instance. So I stared at him longer than most people would trying to understand.

  He helped me out by nodding at me then in the direction of Mike and saying again, “Personal.”

  “Oh.” I got it. “Oh no,” I said again. “It’s not like that.”

  “Why not, something wrong with him?”

  “No. I mean—that’s not the issue. That’s not anything. It’s not like that. He’s helping with the investigation.”

  “Is that what the kids are calling it now?”

  I laughed. “What?” Then I really laughed. “You are such an old man, you know that?”

  “Maybe so,” he responded. “But at least I know when someone’s interested in this fine, droopy, white behind.” Uncle Orson shimmied his hips and stuck his butt out to try and pretend he had moves.

  “Yeah? When was the last time that happened?”

  “That’s not really fair since all the women around here know you’re the only girl for me.”

  “Sweet, sweet lies, but I appreciate every one, Uncle Orson. And later, remind me to tell you about Daddy and some woman in DC.”

  At first I thought he was rolling his eyes at me but instead, Uncle Orson looked away. He turned so I couldn’t see his face and pointed toward Mike. “You better get to him quick. I think the sausages are done and the chicken will be there soon.”

  “I see how it is,” I told him. “I’m always the last to know.”

  Forget helping me with the investigation; I needed to have a
long talk with my father.

  I pushed my way through the screen door to the dock side of the shop. The long, rusted spring twanged then slapped the door closed behind me rattling the frame.

  “Hey, Hurricane,” Damon called cheerfully.

  Mike stepped back looking a bit embarrassed. He waved with the squirt bottle in his hand and said, “Katrina.”

  Suddenly I was afraid that my uncle was right. Mike had something personal on his mind. The tough thing was I didn’t know exactly how I felt about that. I’d never thought of Mike in any kind of romantic context. I’d actually stopped thinking of my entire life in any kind of romantic context. What does that say?

  “Were you looking for me?” The question sounded careful as I asked it but as soon as it was out there, seemed a dangerous invitation.

  “Yeah. Kind of, I guess.” He set the bottle down and looked at Damon.

  Damon looked down and studied the chicken carefully.

  I reached up and touched the scar at the end of my left eyebrow.

  “I just wanted to follow up on the Daniel Boone thing. See if the information helped at all.”

  “And cook sausages?” I asked him.

  “And cook sausages,” Mike tried to joke. It came out a little flat and unnatural sounding.

  There was obviously something else on his mind and I was not making it easier on him. He had a little boyish charm fumbling with his words and looking hopeful but I really wasn’t in the mood.

  Would I ever be in the mood again, I had to ask myself. Then, I had to wonder, exactly what mood I was thinking of? Romance or—

  “Have you had any action on the poaching angle?” Mike interrupted my self-interrogation.

  “No.” My answer came slow.

  Mike watched me. Damon looked up from the chicken. He smiled slightly. It was the kind of expression that said he knew something I wanted to know, but was having fun keeping it to himself.

  I massaged the hard ribbon of flesh at my eye. I could feel the water under the dock, liquid earth, like the dust that had flowed over a mud wall in Iraq trying to bury me. It was too much and suddenly I wanted to hit someone. Anger lives in me, a parasite waiting for the weaker moments to spit acid and fire into my guts. It’s a drunk’s feeling, and a survivor’s burden. When it happens, the blood of the creature that burns my insides pumps into my veins, a mainline of whiskey. A beautiful excuse.

  If it came when I needed it, or rose up on command—

  But it doesn’t. It comes unbidden and unexpected, Tourette’s of the soul.

  I wanted to drink. I wanted to rage and fight. But I had enough sense left in me to really want to hide in shame and cry.

  When I opened my clenched eyes I realized that I had left off touching the minor scar at my eye and had reached my hand under the collar of my shirt. There I had been tracing the top of a long track that wound from my clavicle, around and through my left breast.

  Both of the men were staring now. In the grill, flames were surging unchecked over the chicken, blackening the skin.

  I don’t recall if I said anything. I know I left, because the next thing I knew I was pulling into the parking lot of the Taney County Sheriff. When I did, it was with relief that I wasn’t waking drunk someplace. It was also with the sure knowledge that I was not ready for romance.

  But it’s an adage in my life, a secret tattooed in my heart by experience that nothing is ever easy, and things never work the way I need them to.

  Silas Boone was standing beside a big black SUV smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and letting the new sun bloom on him. When I’d seen him before I took him in as big. I saw then that there was more to it than that. He was big in an awkward, gangling sort of way. He was tall. What I had first assumed to be muscle looked through the tight, threadbare, and black T-shirt to be all sinew. If anything, he looked like a scarecrow on steroids and he was staring at me.

  The parasite in my gut surged with joy.

  I fought the rush of adrenaline and wicked happiness. I didn’t want to want the conflict, but still I hoped—

  “Look who it is,” Silas said as soon as I stepped out of the truck. He pulled the wet and wrinkled cigarette from his lips and tossed it aside.

  “You don’t want to do this,” I told him carefully. Clearly.

  “Do what? Talk? I’m just standing here, in the parking lot, minding my own business.” He pulled at the tattered neck of his shirt like he was popping the collar. “Just doin’ my own thing.”

  Silas was putting on a show. I was trying to figure out who it was for when he glanced back at the SUV. It was backed into the parking space and his jacket was bundled on the hood. In the center, nestled in the folds and covered by a leather sleeve, was the shine of glass. There was a lens. Behind it, of course, would be a camera.

  He was looking for an incident. Probably an excuse to get me to lay off or justification for keeping me at arm’s length.

  I couldn’t help it. I was hoping for a little justification of my own.

  After he made sure he was lined up for the camera Silas came forward.

  I opened my jacket letting my badge show again. Not because I thought it would make him think about things, but because I hoped it would piss him off just a little more. And it covered the fact that I was resting my hand on the telescoping baton at my hip.

  “Mr. Boone, you need to return to your vehicle.” I spoke up both for effect and to be heard on the recording.

  He stepped closer and held up his hands showing them empty. At that point we were both playing to the camera.

  “What are you going to do if I don’t?”

  He was so close I could smell him, sweat and old tobacco. He was dirty and seemed to take pride in it. That was something I’d encountered before. A lot of bikers will wear a cut that’s been urinated and spat upon by every member of the club for twenty years and never once wash it. Some guys just seem to think there is something special in their personal ape funk.

  “The way I see it, I don’t have to comply if there is no matter of threat or safety.” He still projected his words. “Or are you threatening me?” At that point Silas, with his back to the camera grinned at me. Subtlety wasn’t his strength he was telegraphing his coming slur. Still it surprised me. He looked down the front of my shirt then whispered, “Gonna show me them big ol’ titties if I don’t?”

  Even if my skin wasn’t so pale, it would have flushed. The heat crawled up from where he stared to burn across my neck and face. Within my belly, the parasite danced in anticipation.

  I held back.

  Not because I was a cop. Not because I had come to the realization that the impending violence was mine to avoid. Honest to God, I was savoring it. I held back to let the feeling build, to let Silas dig his hole a little deeper.

  And he did.

  He held up his hands. At the same time he eased forward. From behind, on camera I could imagine that it looked like surrender or supplication. From in front it was an aggressive pressing in on my space accompanied by a renewed leer down my body.

  Men like Silas Boone always seem to be born knowing how to shame and degrade women. They know the effect of their words and the grinning appraisal of bodies. Making themselves seem greater by diminishing what they desire. Control and loathing.

  When his eyes returned to mine he licked his lips and glanced back down my collar.

  “Your skin’s not as perfect as you act, is it?” He waggled his fingers—suggestively to me—to the camera, in demonstration of empty hands. Then he leaned to the side a little and peeked deeper under my collar. “In fact, there’s a little pink line that goes someplace . . .” He looked at my eyes again. “Someplace special?”

  His grin bloomed, tobacco stained and stinking.

  “In fact,” he went on, “I like a woman with scars. Like that little one by your eye.”

  His right hand eased forward almost pointing. Almost touching my hair. Instead he gestured with a finger. A flip that suggested flicking the hai
r aside to fully reveal the ragged line at my eye.

  The thing in my body surged. It pumped itself into my chest and arm it charged the muscles in my legs and hands. I kept it from my face though.

  Silas Boone, all testosterone and hate, could cut through the good graces of better women than I with a wink. Since I had not responded yet. That is, since I had not been sucked into initiating an act of violence against him, he tried a little harder.

  “You’re quiet now ain’t you? Not so loud mouth? Or maybe you know that’s how I like it with a bitch like you?” He made a sound in the back of his throat that was a growl and an obscenity at the same time. “You just lay there and let me see all the scars. And you open up that big one between your legs for me.” Without moving any closer he lifted his face and twitched his nose. He wasn’t any closer at all but my experience was of his nose, tracking over my body, an inch from my skin, smelling me.

  “Yeaaah,” he moaned the word out in a long exhalation. “And that little one on your eye—” His tongue flicked out as he mocked licking my scar. “And you just lay there as I fu—”

  “Can you?” I asked the question hard and cut him off just as he was getting to the high point of his act.

  “What?”

  “Can you?” That time I asked the question simply and let it hang. There could be no doubt of my meaning or the challenge in it. Men who know how to leer at women and make them feel small, have their own weaknesses. Even the best men seem to have the same weaknesses dangling between their legs.

  The thing about intimidation, it’s really a war of information. You need to know what makes someone fight or falter. Silas had been guessing and nearly hitting the mark with me. He seemed to have a lot of experience cowing women. But I don’t push as easy as I might have once. Women who fight through, then against their own military, to serve despite all the men who say you are something less—something worse than nothing—those women don’t push easy at all.

  There was something else I had going for me. I had more information than he did. His file didn’t say a lot but it did contain records of his injury.