A Particular Darkness

by Robert E. Dunn

  “What’s changed?”

  I considered the question before drinking more of the root beer. As I drank, I considered some more. There wasn’t an answer. I didn’t even try. “This is amazing,” I said once I lowered the bottle. That was when I noticed there was no label. It was in a plain, amber bottle.

  “Clare sent it over,” Uncle Orson explained. “Homemade.”

  “No more moonshine?”

  “No point. He’s got the biggest still in the state at the restaurant and a license to cook. I think some of the thrill has gone out of it for him.”

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have other less than thrilling news for him.”

  “What’s that?”

  I almost shared my concerns about the Reverend’s church. Then I held back. There is no one who helps me think things through better than Uncle Orson, but he’d known Roscoe all his life too. I wasn’t sure I was ready to open up that bag of snakes yet.

  “How’s Damon working out for you?”

  Two changes of subject. I could see Uncle Orson keeping count.

  “He’s a worker.”

  “But?”

  “Not a complaint in the world.”

  “Buuut?” I dragged the sound out as I raised the bottle again.

  “His sidekick has been here a couple of hours. What are you going to do about that?”

  “Who says I have to do anything?”

  “Fish or cut bait. There’s no tourists in life.”

  “Yeah, well . . .” I took a drink from the bottle and finished it. “I don’t know what to do about Mike either. He’s a nice guy . . .”

  “The most damning of faint praises.” Orson took the bottle from me and set it under the counter.

  “Are there more?” I asked.

  “There are, but not for now.”

  “Think I can’t handle my root beer?”

  “I think I don’t want to hear you belching like a sailor on a bender when you go out and talk to that guy.”

  Right on cue I burped and let it come out loud. “Like that?” I laughed.

  “Nice.” He pointed out the door to the slip side. “They’re out on the houseboat.”

  I was still laughing to myself and feeling good when I went through the door. The largest slip on the dock was devoted to a houseboat belonging to Uncle Orson—my home away from home and when I’d been drinking, the hole I was most likely to hide in. It was set away from the shop by a broad walkway and the tanks for the gas pump.

  I wasn’t sneaking. I didn’t even think I was walking quietly. But I don’t guess anyone heard me coming.

  When I stepped around the stern of the houseboat, Mike and Damon were on the deck locked in an embrace. Their kiss was furious and hungry.

  They didn’t hear me leave either.

  * * *

  My phone began ringing almost as soon as I got back into my truck. It was my father calling back. I didn’t answer.

  When he called the second time, I was over by the Powersite Dam. The third time he called, I had no idea where I was.

  I suppose I should have been grateful for having missed the embarrassment of whatever I would have said to Mike. I wasn’t in a grateful mood anymore. I wasn’t in any kind of mood. Everything was numb. There were simply too many emotions and thoughts for me to keep anything straight. So I kept driving.

  How could I have been so foolish?

  How could I have been so needy?

  After an hour on the road and three more calls ignored, I began laughing. Life is kind of a bitch, but sometimes she has a sense of humor. It’s just me who’s a little slow on getting the joke. What I’m not, is slow to learn. She doesn’t have to hit me with a hammer.

  Finding my way home at close to midnight I made a decision. No more thoughts of romance. No more men, period.

  Once I made it to the house, exhaustion set in. I’d barely slept the night before and it had been a very long day. I didn’t even make it to bed. Not that I tried. The big leather couch and the afghan that always laid over it were calling my name.

  The phone kept ringing every hour and I kept ignoring it until my sleep was deep enough that the sound couldn’t make it through. I was still sleeping at ten a.m. because I was still, technically, on administrative leave. That was a call I couldn’t ignore.

  The dispatch number is the only contact in my phone programed with a special ring tone. It sounds like an old-fashioned phone, a shrill trilling that has never failed to wake me. As soon as I heard it that morning, I thought of the BOLO for Dewey and the girl, Sartaña.

  “Doreen?” I answered using the name of our daytime dispatcher.

  “You need to get your ass in here,” the sheriff responded. “And I mean light it on fire.”

  * * *

  I walked into the Taney County Sheriff’s office wearing the same clothes I had the day before. I’d managed to wrangle my hair into a ponytail and brush my teeth, but it wasn’t until I was walking in that I noticed the dried blood on the knee of my jeans. There was no chance the call-in wasn’t related to Silas Boone.

  Billy was in the office sucking soda from one of his favorite thermal cups. It was the size of a coffee pot. He smiled when he saw me. It struck me that he always did and I always looked forward to it. That brought to mind the promise I’d made to myself the night before, which brought on a whole other slew of memories and I was suddenly, absolutely sure that he knew how close I’d come to suggesting a date with a gay man.

  Those thoughts tangled my already cluttered mind. I wished I had Billy’s huge mug filled with steaming, black coffee. Then I was at the sheriff’s door.

  With a quick look back at Billy and a deep breath I went in.

  Even though the call had been abrupt and gruff, even though I had come running I hadn’t been worried about the meeting. The sheriff, no matter how angry he might get at me, had shown many times and ways, he had my back. I expected a lawyer, maybe a few accusations and harsh words. The reality of my expectations were of a typical pain in the butt.

  Reality and expectations rarely share the same bed.

  When I opened the door two men stood from the chairs in front of the sheriff’s desk. One was wearing his class-A Army uniform, the other, a good, but worn suit. Both men were large and black, cut from the same military mold. The suit had to be FBI and it took no leap for me to recognize Army CID.

  Reality just killed my expectations and buried the body in a shallow grave.

  The next thing I noticed, there was not a third seat. It was going to be a stand-up conversation. That’s the wrong word. They would speak and I was expected to listen. Short, not-so-sweet.

  “Come in Hurricane,” Sheriff Benson said. He remained seated. “This is Timothy Givens.” With an open hand he indicated the man in the suit. “And this gentleman”—he added the emphasis because he was well aware of my difficult relationship with the Army Criminal Investigations Division—“is Captain Alastair Keene, Criminal Investigations Division.”

  I nodded. They didn’t.

  “This is Detective Katrina Williams.”

  “We know Detective Williams,” Keene, the CID man said.

  For the first time I noticed he was holding a manila folder. Once he spoke he dropped it on the sheriff’s desk. It was thick and ragged-looking as though it had gotten a lot of attention over the years. There was no doubt I was the subject of that file.

  “Silas Boone?” I asked ignoring the file and the attitude that went with it.

  “The subject of a cooperative, and ongoing investigation,” Givens chimed in. He had an attitude too.

  That was when I finally realized there was an elephant in the room. And it there’s one thing I have problems with, one of many things I have to admit, it is being able to keep my mouth shut about pachyderms in the corner.

  “You said ‘cooperative.’” I said it to Givens, not quite an accusation.

  “Yes.” His response was, in the same sense, not quite encouragement to dig deeper. Not that I nee
ded encouragement.

  “Who’s cooperating?” I asked.

  This time Keene jumped in. “We expect full cooperation from your department—”

  I jumped too. “That’s not what he said.” I stared hard at Timothy Givens. “You said it was a cooperative investigation, and you weren’t talking about cooperation with us.”

  I let it sit there a moment hoping he would say something. He didn’t.

  “This is an Army investigation,” Keene said.

  “But you’re not Army are you?” I asked of Givens. “So who are you? FBI? ATF?”

  He didn’t react at all.

  “Homeland?”

  There was the smallest twitch on his face.

  “Let’s call it Homeland then,” I said and I probably sounded smug.

  “Look.” Captain Keene had a glare to go along with the hostility in his voice. He’d definitely read my file. “Let’s make this easy.”

  Between dealing with secrets and the Army again, I was already getting my back up. “Is that the official motto of the CID?” I asked him before he could say exactly what easy was. “Make it easy. Screw the hard work of investigating. To hell with the victim. Just bury the problem.”

  “We’re not here about your past issues—” he tried to cut in but I wasn’t finished with my dance yet.

  “Bullshit.” These guys always set me off. I was angry, enraged as a matter of fact. But the words came out cold, as flat and challenging as Kansas by wagon.

  Their reaction was almost as absurdly level, just a few steps higher. These guys, all the feds I’d ever met, were used to the locals treating them with a kind of reverence. It was something I didn’t have in me to give.

  Givens deigned to speak first and tried to remaster the exchange. “This isn’t about you.”

  “Fuck you.” I said it right to his face and looking straight into his eyes. One thing you learn as a woman in the military is that you have to talk to the boys like a boy. Girls may enlist in the Army, but it’s the bitch that survives the experience.

  I looked from him to Keene, then said, “And your little buckaroo. If it wasn’t about me, you wouldn’t have brought that file. If it wasn’t about me, this would have been a phone call. You’re here because you’ve decided I don’t play well with others and you want me out of the game.”

  “Fair enough.” It was the captain. He said it calmly and as a matter of fact. The glare he kept pointed at me didn’t come out in his voice. I hadn’t really rattled his cage at all. Givens looked a little set back on his heels like I’d spit in his face. In a sense I did.

  I guess we knew who the lead horse was. “You’re out,” Keene continued. “Boone needs to be cut loose and you’re not going to go near him. We’re here to make it clear because you have a bad history with the CID.”

  “The way I put it is the CID has a bad history with me. Did you even read the file or are all you guys so into the party line that you always toe up to protect the Army ahead of the soldier?”

  He leaned in to speak, making his voice a mimicry of his eyes. It was intimidation 101. “What happened to you then, has nothing to do with now.”

  “That’s why you’ll never be a real cop,” I said without backing away. Then I eased in, not showy and forceful like him. I made it slow, without urgency. I didn’t want him to back away. I wanted him to feel me when I spoke again. “It’s why you’ll be a rubber stamp your whole life.”

  “The hell are you talking about?” he asked, his voice backed down even if he didn’t.

  “You just can’t understand that what happened to me then will always have everything to do with now. For the rest of my life.”

  “Maybe you should—”

  “Get over it?” I cut him off, both his words and the smug curl that was just creeping into his lips. “Deal with it?” I eased closer until my breasts were brushing the lapels of his uniform. I like to think of it as an intimate encroachment. It makes men uneasy in a nonsexual context. “Live with it?” I asked letting my voice drop in volume, not tone. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

  Captain Keene stepped back. There was no curl on his lips, smug or otherwise.

  As he did, Givens moved forward with a hand out like he was going to put it on my shoulder. He didn’t. He had the sense to keep it up just above my shirt, gesturing rather than pushing. I decided that he was the smart one of the pair.

  “Can we take it down a notch? Maybe two?” Givens imposed himself in front of the captain and forced him back rather than trying to get me moving.

  Definitely smarter.

  He looked at the sheriff for help but my boss was sitting back in his chair watching the show. If I knew Chuck Benson, and I was pretty sure I did, he called me at their insistence and took a little joy in knowing what would happen. The only thing that really bothered me about that was knowing I was completely predictable.

  Givens got his Army counterpart moved and slightly settled, then he gave his attention to me. “You mind letting me in on what the issue is?”

  “You didn’t read my file?”

  “I didn’t read anything about you. I just came to let everyone know that there was an ongoing federal investigation dealing with your boy, Silas Boone. You tossing him in jail has complicated things and we need it fixed.”

  The way he said federal investigation made me wonder if I’d been wrong about thinking he was with Homeland. Maybe Justice was his niche. Just for a moment I wondered about the tic in his face when I’d mentioned Homeland Security. What was that? My imagination? Or was he sharp enough to throw me off with a twitch?

  Maybe I could do a little throwing of my own.

  I looked over at the sheriff and asked him, “Anyone happen to mention that ongoing investigation also includes our homicide, Daniel Boone, and Damon Tarique?”

  “Tarique’s the fellow . . .” No one ever said Sheriff Chuck Benson wasn’t good at his job or a man slow to put things together. He was about to say, over at your uncle’s place, I was sure of that. He caught the look in my eyes and his words at the same time.

  “Yeah, he was there at the lake.” I picked up for him. “He was the one who found the body.”

  “Wait.” It was Givens’ turn to get bent. It made me feel good. “You’re saying Daniel Boone is dead and Tarique is involved?”

  “He picks up quick, don’t he?” the sheriff asked. “College I’d guess.”

  “This isn’t a joke.” Givens’s words came out like the bark of an angry dog. He fired them full force at the sheriff even leaning over the desk to get his wrath a little closer. “Why is this the first time we’re hearing this?” He’d finished barking and settled into a growl.

  Sheriff Benson let the smile freeze on his face then he stood. He was an old dog who wouldn’t bark. He’d just bite without telling anyone it was coming. “Boy—”

  “Boy?” The echo came instantly from Givens and it came with heat.

  “Kid, then,” the sheriff shot back. Then he kept firing. “Child. Little, snotty-nosed, pissant—son of a bitch, if you like that better.”

  Givens opened his mouth to say something but my boss kept going and it was my turn to stand back and watch the show. “The first thing is—don’t you dare imagine I’m some Jim Crow country sheriff. Getting’ all pissy about assumptions is how you get your ass kicked. No matter what color a man is. And second, you’re running your big federal investigation in my county without telling me. Just how the holy, dancing hell are we supposed to know to let you in on our investigation? And third”—he included both men in his gaze—“if you can’t answer the questions or state your case with a civil tongue, I will hold the lady’s purse while she makes you question why your mama brought you into this world.”

  Sheriff Benson was a colorful and genuine man who I fell in love with a little more just then.

  Still, you could almost smell the testosterone in the room.

  “What’s it going to be?” I asked. “A cooperative investigation, including
the Sheriff’s Department—or do we all do our own thing?”

  “This is the way it’s going to be,” Captain Keene said as he stepped up to stand side by side with Givens. Both of them kept their gaze on the sheriff, ignoring me. It didn’t hurt my feelings. “There’s only going to be one investigation. Ours. Anything you know, anything you learn, anything that happens—you will bring to us. Everything you have going on that affects our investigation, you stop. As of now.” Keene turned to look at me finally and asked, “What do you think of that?”

  I didn’t have to say anything. The sheriff said it all. “I think you boys know how to work a door, don’t you?”

  The stunned look on their faces had nothing to do with racial sensitivity this time.

  “You can’t do that,” Givens said.

  “Seems like he just did,” I told him.

  “This is federal jurisdiction,” Givens said it like it was as heavy as gold and twice as precious.

  “No one is disputing that,” the sheriff said as he came around his desk pointing at the door. “And your respective agencies”—he looked at Givens very specifically—“whatever they are, will get all the cooperation they deserve.”

  Both Givens and Captain Keene stood their ground. Sheriff Benson stopped once he’d rounded his desk, then looked at the tattered file still sitting where it had been laid in evidence of my . . . what exactly? Failures? Disloyalty? As far as the Army seemed to be concerned, the worst thing I ever did was to ask to be treated as a human being.

  The sheriff picked the file up and, for a moment, seemed to be taking the weight of it, then he handed it to me. I knew the weight of it. I passed it on to Captain Keene who looked at it, then at me like we were symptom and disease together.

  “Cooperation,” the sheriff said it again. “It’s a two-way street. And like I said, you will get everything this side has to give.”

  I was still watching Keene. His mouth began twisting and the small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes bunched.

  “As soon as I get a call from your supervisors,” the sheriff added.

  Keene’s smile hung from his face not even half-birthed and dead. Mine spread lively and free.

  “We’ll discuss the nature of cooperation and your particular skills at bringing it about with local law enforcement,” the sheriff finished up.