A Particular Darkness

by Robert E. Dunn

  It was all a confusing mess and seemed designed to make me angry. I didn’t have a good history with anger. Aside from that, there was one thing I was afraid of. If I pulled both ends of the chain around would I find a termination? Or would I find my father and the congresswoman hooking things together? Did I even want to know?

  Since when did anyone care about what I wanted?

  I took the easy way. Once I had cleared the scene to my satisfaction—that’s to say I found nothing and left it at that—I went in search of the Russian.

  * * *

  His name was Aton Gagarin and he claimed relation to the first man in space. He told me that over a happy smile and a countertop stacked with tubs of night crawlers.

  “You are the Hurricane,” he said, like it was news to me. “I know your uncle.” Of course he did. It seemed like everyone knew everyone in this case, and everyone always knows my uncle.

  I have to admit, and I’m ashamed to say, but I expected something closer to Boris Badenov or Yakhov Smirnoff. Aton’s English was slightly accented but not the thick Russian bad-guy talk you get from a Rambo movie. I decided I needed to improve my movie choices.

  “Mr. Gagarin—”

  “Please, call me Aton,” he interrupted jovially.

  “Can you tell me anything about caviar?”

  “Caviar?” He held up his hands in a cartoonish double shrug and gestured around the warehouse. “Bait, I know. Caviar—that is something else. And it is one of those foolish, cultural stereotypes to think all Russians eat caviar.” Aton smiled with the dig. He was a hard man not to like.

  “What about vodka?” I asked.

  His face took a serious cast before he leaned in then pointed a thick finger right at my heart. “Vodka.” He pronounced the V not the W like an American raised with TV would expect. But he did elongate the middle and add an upswing so it came out Vooad-ka. “All stereotypes start someplace.” Aton laughed easily and broadly.

  I found myself enjoying the joke.

  “What do you know about fish poaching?” I asked still smiling.

  “Ah. Now I understand it. You want to know about something more than caviar.”

  “Is there anything you can tell me?”

  “This is a tough thing. This is a very tough thing.” He stared for a moment at me then turned to look at something in his own head.

  I didn’t press or ask another question. People think that cops ask a lot of questions. Mostly we ask a few and wait for answers. It’s the waiting, the allowing someone to get to the point, that’s the toughest trick to learn.

  “I know,” he hesitated, and seemed to be talking himself into something. “I know that it happens. I know that the people involved in such things . . . are not good people.”

  “Are these people who you are afraid of?”

  “They are people you should be afraid of.” There was no trace of smile left on his face.

  “I have a job to do, Aton. And no one is going to keep me from it.”

  “Please,” he implored. “I like you, Hurricane. Leave this one alone.”

  “Have you been threatened? I can get you protection.”

  “There is no protection from these people. You should let it go. There is crime. There is always crime and always people looking to make a living. Things can be tolerated.”

  “Not murder, Mr. Gagarin.”

  “Murder?” Aton looked suddenly more interested than frightened. “Who is murdered?”

  I pulled the intake photo of Daniel Boone from my jacket and laid it on the counter. “Do you know this man?”

  He looked closely. Carefully. I couldn’t read what he was thinking when he pushed the picture back. “No.” He shook his head. “I don’t. He killed someone?”

  “He’s been murdered.”

  That had an effect. Aton’s loss of composure was microscopic. His face tightened drawing together two, thick eyebrows that were barely separated to begin with. Then he relaxed and gave me a relieved semi-smile. “Then I won’t keep an eye out for him.”

  All of a sudden I didn’t quite like him so well.

  “This is a big warehouse.” I pointed over his shoulder at the racks and boxes filling them. I noticed in the back was a wall and door. The space was subdivided. “Is all of it yours?”

  “No. Some of it I sublease.”

  “To who?”

  “I thought you wanted to know about caviar.”

  I noted his non-answer and decided to see where other things might go. “Maybe you know the dead man’s brother,” I pulled a booking photo of Silas Boone and set it on the counter.

  This time the examination was not so careful, but Aton was just as certain that he’d never seen Silas.

  “You should go,” he said. “There is much work to do.”

  I noticed the change in his syntax. If he wasn’t as careful he sounded more Russian. It made me wonder why he needed to be so careful and what was causing him to slip.

  “Something else,” I said, as I put the photo of Silas away. “Another man. Do you know Mike Resnick?”

  “No.”

  His response was quick. Automatic?

  “Are you sure?” I pressed.

  “I am sure.”

  “I saw you speaking to him.”

  “I don’t know anyone by this name.”

  “Mike Resnick. He’s a Missouri Conservation Agent.” I waited but Gagarin would neither look at me nor speak. “I saw you talking to him last night,” I finally said.

  “No.”

  “At Shadow Rock Park, I saw him come to the window of your RV and talk to you.”

  “No,” he shook his head, seeming more sad than worried. “You are mistaken. I don’t know anyone named Resnick.” Once again, Aton’s demeanor shifted. He turned his head up to meet my gaze, then resolutely said, “You have to go. Any other questions, I will meet you at the sheriff’s office with my lawyer.” There was no trace of any accent other than good old American stonewalling.

  I left.

  Chapter 11

  My encounter with Aton Gagarin left me feeling as much confused as suspicious. His peculiar bipolar personality was a huge red flag begging for attention. Unfortunately I didn’t have evidence to give him the hard look he deserved. Judges don’t issue warrants for bad feelings. At least not for mine.

  So I headed to the one place I knew that held some answers—Uncle Orson’s dock.

  When I arrived there was a good fire going in the split barrels that served as grills. Dad was helping out, turning burgers and chicken halves. Whilomina was right beside him slathering sauce on the birds. Damon was out pumping gas for a couple of fishermen and Uncle Orson was wearing a groove in the boards shuttling between the register and everything else.

  “Busy day,” I said as the screen door slapped behind me.

  “Take a look around you,” Orson said without slowing down. “What do you see?”

  “Nothing different.”

  “The sky,” he prodded. “The air, the heat, the weather. You’re telling me you don’t see the difference in that. It’s gorgeous.”

  I hadn’t noticed. He was right, though. It was a beautiful day and the first really nice one of the spring. That had brought the retirees and the leisure class out to the water.

  “You have a congresswoman cooking your chicken dinners.”

  “Yeah, can you believe it?” He asked.

  I couldn’t.

  “I need to talk with Damon,” I told him.

  “Now? What ever happened with your—”

  I’d walked out before he could finish the sentence.

  “Hey, kid.” Dad greeted.

  “Do you want a plate?” Whilomina offered.

  Their vision of domestic bliss had my head spinning. I wasn’t sure yet if I liked the congresswoman, but I was pretty sure she was here to stay. Dad looked happy and I hated that I still didn’t know how I felt about that either. I should have said something nice or at least smiled. Instead I said, “We need to ta
lk. I’ll be right back.” Then I went right on to Damon.

  The boat was fueled and Damon pushed it away from the dock with his foot. The fisherman started the motor and idled away.

  “Is Mike involved?” I’d decided to lead with the cop before the friend. Not that I’m much of a friend they keep telling me.

  “I don’t know what you mean—”

  “Yes you do. Maybe not everything. But you know my meaning clearly enough.” I let that stand there between us for a moment then asked again. “Is Mike involved?”

  “I don’t—”

  “The federal investigation into you and your friends—what’s that about?”

  “What investigation?”

  “What’s your connection to Silas Boone? Who killed Daniel Boone?”

  “Daniel’s dead?”

  “What?” His question put me back on my heels. The shock in his face and voice looked like it might sink into the pit of his gut and drag him to the floor. Still I pushed. “How can you act like you didn’t know?”

  “I didn’t.” It wasn’t a protest. It wasn’t a plea. His words were fact with baggage, a statement of loss. “I didn’t . . . How?”

  “What are you talking about?” My question was still an accusation. I believed his body language but not his words. “You saw him.”

  “I haven’t seen Daniel since the Army. I was his spotter. We were a . . . team.”

  Again his body and his words conspired to make so much more, and so much more confusion, out of something simple. The way he said the word, team made me think of that kiss I caught him sharing with Mike.

  We stood there, the two of us, working through meanings and words looking for understanding. My father and Whilomina had stepped from the grill and were watching us closely. Past them, Orson had his face pressed to the screen, watching and listening.

  Maybe it was time to be the friend.

  “Damon,” I said, and I spoke his name as gently as I could. A preparation for both of us. “The man you found in the lake . . .”

  “No.”

  “The man in the net, was Daniel Boone.”

  “They killed him.” His words were tears. “They murdered him because he was a faggot.”

  The word, the hate and the bile in it filled the air around me. It was a broken word, something cracked and spilling the stench of dreams that had died in hiding. Just speaking it seemed to take a little more of the life out of Damon Tarique.

  Suddenly, Whilomina was brushing past me. She put a supporting arm around Damon’s shoulders and led him to one of the built-in benches that kids fished from. I felt a little better about her.

  “I’m sorry, Damon.” I meant it. “But I have to ask you about it. About everything.”

  He nodded and I understood then there would have been no keeping him from talking at that point.

  “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” Damon said quietly as if it explained everything. “I enlisted. I wanted to serve. I wanted to be better and get an education. I always knew I was gay. I had parents who let me grow and understand and never judged. The first thing they ever fought me on was going into the military. They knew.”

  Whilomina, sitting beside him, looked up to meet my gaze. I knew then she’d heard these kinds of stories before. I knew also that was why she’d helped after my rape, had protected me from the full weight of the Army, not simply because of my father.

  “Daniel—how can you not be drawn to a man named, Daniel Boone?” Damon rambled. “He didn’t know. He had been taught, all his life, queers were freaks to be hated. Imagine how he felt every day, hating every desire that rose in his heart.”

  “I can’t,” I admitted.

  “Sniper teams spend a lot of time together, isolated from everything and everyone who judges. There is a lot of time to talk. To grow.”

  “You were involved?” I asked, feeling like an intruder in my own investigation.

  “Not like you mean it. It would have been unprofessional. We never crossed that line. When we got back into contact I had hopes, though.”

  “How did he get into contact? You were living on your boat.”

  “I wasn’t living on the boat then. Not until after.”

  “After what?” I prodded. “You’re not really making sense, Damon.”

  “Nothing makes sense, does it? Daniel said we needed to be off the grid when things happened.”

  “What happened?” I had to work hard to keep the frustration out of my voice. Not that it was entirely effective.

  “That’s obvious now, isn’t it?”

  Damon wasn’t really thinking about what I was asking. You could see the faraway and yesterdays in his eyes. Pushing him wasn’t going to make him more responsive either. I tried an easier question. “Okay, once you got off the grid, how did you keep in touch?”

  “Prepaid cell. Mostly you don’t get reception on the lake, but I could come in and check messages. When I had bars, we would text.”

  I recalled the phone that had been in his tackle box and reminded myself to pull the records for the number. I should have done that the same night. I didn’t because I never really believed Damon had killed Daniel Boone.

  “What did you text about?” I asked.

  “Usual things, and . . . you know . . . stuff.”

  I noted the evasion. The look that went with it got my attention as well. It was embarrassment more than guilt. I wasn’t sure I wanted to read those texts.

  “When he first told me about working with that evangelical show, I asked if he had found the Lord and lost himself again. He said it wasn’t like that. It was just a job.”

  “What kind of job?”

  “That was the strange thing,” he said, mulling the thought over behind his eyes. “He was working with his brother and some other guys doing contract work. Private military stuff for oil companies and the government.”

  “That fits with how those guys look at the tent show.” I said. “And I’m sure saving souls isn’t in their job description. What’s their connection to Bolin?”

  Damon shook his head and watched sunfish swimming in the shadow of the dock.

  “Reverend Roscoe Bolin,” I repeated. “He’s the one running the show.”

  “You don’t think Roscoe is part of it do you?” It was my father asking.

  I turned to see him back beside the grill moving food away from the fire. Uncle Orson was behind him watching me. I read the same question in his eyes.

  “He’s the man in charge,” I said.

  “That doesn’t sound like the man I know,” Orson answered.

  “Maybe not, but something is going on with that operation and Jesus is not a part.”

  Whilomina stood from the bench leaving Damon to watch the fish alone. “You were asking about a federal investigation. What was that about?”

  I told her about the FBI and Army involvement with Silas Boone. I couldn’t call it an investigation but I stopped short of calling it collusion. Just barely. When I mentioned the names, Keen and Givens my father went over and whispered something in the congresswoman’s ear. She nodded knowingly.

  “We can’t tell you everything,” she said. “We can’t even tell you enough, I dare say. But we can tell you that Givens is not FBI.”

  “What?” I asked. “An imposter?”

  My father took over saying, “He had all the proper credentials I’m sure. And he does belong to a three-letter branch of the government.”

  “He’s a spook?” I blurted incredulous.

  My father’s answer was giving no answer.

  “That’s not possible. They can’t operate domestically.”

  Whilomina nodded, “That’s a pretty fiction. And like the best fiction, it is somewhat true. The Central Intelligence Agency, and I’m not saying Givens is CIA—but as an example—the CIA can operate within US borders as part of a joint operation with any federal agency who takes reporting responsibility.”

  “Army CID,” I added.

  “For example,” the cong
resswoman clarified.

  I turned to my father. “You said on the phone it was about guns.”

  “I’d been assisting Whilomina’s committee work, along with the FBI, ATF, and Homeland in a joint investigation into the disappearance of military weapons when we discovered the possibility that they were being diverted to a Peruvian revolutionary force called El Camino Ardiente, The Blazing Road.”

  “What committee?” I asked. I think they were both disappointed I didn’t get it.

  “The House Armed Services,” Dad explained.

  “You know all this and it hasn’t been shut down?”

  “It’s complicated.” My father looked guiltier in that moment than I’d ever seen before.

  “Un-complicate it.”

  “We’re trying,” he said.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Money.” He looked at Whilomina for confirmation and I began to realize just how deeply their partnership went. “The secrets are in the cash. Direct government funds can be traced and shut down. But the profits from secret trades are on no one’s books. If anything about this involved a finance operation, we need to know about it, what laws are being broken, and who is authorizing it.”

  “Finance operation?”

  “Think of the 1980s,” Dad explained. “Iran-Contra. The agency sold arms to Iran and used the profits to fund the Contra rebels.”

  “Silas Boone is not nearly smart enough to put something like that together,” I objected.

  “Timothy Givens is. And I imagine, so are the people he’s working for.” Dad turned back to the grill.

  * * *

  I called Billy. After the discussion with my father and the congresswoman I wanted to talk to someone smart and not directly involved. Ordinarily, that call would have gone to the sheriff. For some reason, I really wanted to talk things over with Billy Blevins.

  Not only did he sound glad to hear from me, he told me to change into old clothes and he was on his way. I dug into the small closet I kept stocked on Orson’s houseboat and dressed in patched jeans and a flannel shirt. By the time I got a pair of work boots laced up and tied Billy was waiting at the end of the dock ramp in his truck.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as soon as I opened the door.