That Darkness

by Lisa Black

  And at the bar, the third girl accepted the leather folder with her check in it from the bartender.

  “He could have eaten the raisins separately,” Jack said.

  Maggie agreed, as if trying to calm the waters. “And there’s no sweet potato fries.”

  “Yes, there are,” the waitress said.

  “I didn’t see them on the menu.”

  “But the kitchen will make them if you ask. They’re just not on the menu because, well, they’re kind of so last decade. Everyone has sweet potato fries now.”

  Maggie thanked her and with one last sharp look at Jack, the waitress departed.

  “Maybe you should show his picture around here, see if anyone remembers seeing him the night he disappeared.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said, watching the girl at the bar hand the bartender her credit card.

  After a moment Maggie added, “I’m sorry. You don’t need me telling you how to do your job.”

  “No, it’s a good idea. This just doesn’t strike me as Brian Johnson’s type of eatery.”

  She looked around at the cream upholstery, the red walls, the intricate wooden squares forming the ceiling. “That’s true. But who knows? People can surprise you.”

  “They certainly can.” The girl at the bar signed a paper slip, left it in the vinyl folder, and stowed her credit card in her wallet. “What about the guy from the bridge? Viktor or whatever his name was?”

  “He ate Mexican, but there’s not a tortilla chip to be found in this place. And”—Maggie patted the upholstery—“no blue polyester.”

  Jack nodded absently, watching the girl at the bar gather up her coat. Dillon Shaw removed a few bills from his wallet and placed them on the bar next to his empty glass.

  Damn again.

  Stay or go? Go or stay? If Dillon intended to follow this girl out of the bar, then she was in grave, grave danger. But what if the guy simply didn’t want to pay for another overpriced beer?

  And Maggie would notice Jack’s sudden departure. The woman noticed everything; a cop bolting like a greyhound from its starting box would definitely not escape her attention. Looking at her lips, the curve of her cheek—a man had probably never bailed on dinner with Maggie Gardiner in her entire life. It would get tucked away in her mental inventory of suspicious items, to be taken out and brushed off if and when the body of a suspected rapist washed up along the banks of the Cuyahoga.

  This had been a bad series of choices. Jack felt betrayed by his own instincts. Too many details outside of his control.

  Dillon was climbing awkwardly off the high stool, eyes on the woman walking out the door.

  Jack had no choice. Fumbling with his wallet, he pulled out several twenties while stammering out apologies. He had to go, sorry, this would cover his meal and tip, would she take care of it, so sorry. He walked away from the table before she even had time to formulate a question, which was just as well. But she had enough time to look both stunned and hurt, and it caused him a pang he didn’t want to think about.

  Maggie Gardiner would be a problem.

  Jack followed Dillon out the door.

  True to Cleveland form, the temperature had dipped in just the time he’d eaten dinner—most of his dinner—and now it patted his face with a gentle slap. He looked both right and left, fully aware that Maggie might be watching him from inside the restaurant. He didn’t see Dillon Shaw anywhere, but caught a glimpse of Bar Girl’s trench coat, bobbing past the valet parking toward Prospect.

  Jack moved in her direction, following the brick pavers to the south, keeping his pace casual but letting his gaze roam over the few people present. The skinny valet parking attendant in a Windbreaker two sizes too large. A Ken and Barbie couple, both blond and fresh-faced and straight from the office where they would be enthusiastically working their way to the top. And yes, there was Dillon Shaw, slinking along the edge of Flannery’s Pub, so accustomed to the shadows that he practically melted into them.

  Bar Girl reached Prospect, turned to the right.

  Seven steps later, Dillon reached Prospect, turned to the right.

  Jack broke into a trot, hoping like hell he wouldn’t look behind him to see Maggie right on his heels. He feared to turn his head. But she would have to pay the bill; people like Maggie Gardiner didn’t walk out on restaurant checks. She’d—

  He reached the end of East 4th, slowed as he took the corner.

  Dillon stood in the middle of the sidewalk, watching Bar Girl get into a black Mercedes. Jack halted as the man glanced in through the window at the patrons of Flannery’s—no one sat at the outside table tonight, but there were at least two dozen people inside—and across the street, where a driver was getting out of their vehicle in the tiny self-pay lot. Too many witnesses, Dillon had to be thinking. Too risky.

  His shoulders fell like a kid who didn’t get what he wanted for Christmas.

  And that would make him dangerous.

  The girl shut her door, started up the Mercedes, and began the very cautious process of pulling out from a row of tightly parallel-parked vehicles.

  Jack needed to get to his car, needed to keep a close eye on Dillon Shaw tonight. He had parked farther up the street, and without another glance at his quarry he set off to the east to retrieve it. He would keep tabs on the man until Dillon tucked himself back up in the firetrap pit of an apartment he lived in, and tomorrow Jack would make sure that no one ever need to worry about Dillon Shaw’s whereabouts, ever again. Jack had made the mistake of overextending himself, trying to do too much at once. That always proved to be a grievous error. But how could he tell himself that he didn’t care what happened to the young woman at the bar, or the one who had walked home in that ratty sweater last night? Knowing Dillon Shaw’s propensities, how could Jack leave those girls on their own? If someday Maggie Gardiner asked him how he could kill people, Jack’s answer would have to be: How could I not?

  He took one last glance up East 4th as he passed. Maggie stood on the pavers in front of Lola, head turning right and left as she tried to figure out where he had gone, and why. One moment he’d been holding her hand, the next he’d dashed into the gloom. She would not forget that. It would become a mystery to be solved, just like the fibers and cat hair.

  His body of work, clear and clean, seemed to be going straight to hell.

  Like Dillon, Jack stuck to the shadows as he slunk away.

  Chapter 20

  Friday, 9:35 a.m.

  The next morning Maggie checked on her soaking, disarticulated fingers, which were plumping up nicely as the ridges of the skin absorbed the water and other chemicals. Odd how that could work. She had tried to do the same to a slightly dried-out orange one time, dumping it into a glass of water for a day or two, and that hadn’t worked at all. Apparently humans, even dead, were more adaptable.

  She resolutely kept her mind from Detective Renner and his odd behavior the night before—or at least tried. It wasn’t easy. She hadn’t had dinner with a man in a long, long time but had never had one bail mid-entrée before. Women always said dating got tough after thirty but she didn’t expect it to be that bad. And it wasn’t even a date. It certainly wasn’t a date. It was a fact-finding mission focused on scallops with almonds and the frequency of murders using a .22 caliber. And the possibility that the murders might be connected.

  And at least he hadn’t stuck her with the check. The money he left had more than covered his share. After curiosity drove her out onto East 4th Street she had returned to the table and treated herself to a dessert featuring chocolate-covered pretzels and malted milk ice cream. The sympathetic waitress had treated her so gently that it made her feel even worse.

  But beyond the embarrassment sat the nagging feeling that perhaps she had said too much . . . though at least she hadn’t even suggested the suspicion that such a killer might be working out of their own police department. No, she’d definitely keep that wild hair to herself. Unless something changed.

  Now she put it out of
her mind for perhaps two minutes, distracting herself by poking at the loose fingertips, swishing them around as if the agitation might help the ridges to swell up from their epidermal base.

  Then she made another phone call on behalf of Marty’s wife, finally reaching a nurse who still retained sufficient compassion to fax her the forms that would have to be completed before anyone could approach the other doctor’s office for their forms to be completed. She wondered again why this had to be so difficult, how it would turn out for someone with less stamina. It seemed that despite the best efforts of human beings to look out for each other, one needed to stay aware of the truth that, civilized society or no, you were largely on your own.

  Then Denny came in and said that his wife had begun having pains and Carol listed symptoms of false labor and Maggie made her escape over to City Hall before she had to start hearing about water breaking, contractions, episiotomies, and the likelihood of children living up to their namesakes.

  She didn’t have far to walk, only a block and a half, to the Beaux-Arts edifice rapidly closing on its one-hundredth birthday. The original 1895 plans called for a city hall to span two quadrants of Public Square with a radical (for the time) walkway over Ontario, but the people would not stand to lose two of the grassy areas in the center of the city and a single building—a colossal rectangle of windows and columns—went up next to the lake instead. She still felt a thrill to enter the central chamber with its cream-colored marble tile and soaring ceiling of arched skylights. And, of course, more columns. It was the type of place that made people want to whisper as if in a church, or museum. Some people. The ones who worked there every day had gotten used to the opulence and discussed their business in normal tones, and a few children shrieked as they delighted to find a vast indoor space so perfect for a game of tag.

  Maggie took the wide stone steps to the fifth floor and found Vivian Goldberg in her usual spot, seated behind a massive desk nearly collapsing under the stacks of papers that covered its surface from end to end. Only a space in the center remained for Viv’s blotter, monitor, and keyboard. The office couldn’t have been more than nine feet from side to side but had a long window behind the desk, through which Maggie could see a few waves turning to whitecaps before they splashed up from the breakwall.

  Seated, as always, remained a relative term when applied to Viv. She bounced, jiggled, fidgeted, and kept trying to prop her feet on the stack of folders precariously occupying the closest corner of the desktop while simultaneously talking on the phone and sending the occasional e-mail. Maggie arrived sans M&Ms, coffee, or doughnuts for Viv. Having someone to chat with had always been the only bribe needed.

  “Yeah. By tomorrow. Yeah. I get that, but that’s how it is, likeitornot, I’msureyoucantake careofit, bye.” She hung up and beamed. “Maggie! What are you doing here? How are you? Your hair’s longer. Are you dating anyone? Pull up a chair.”

  Maggie considered this last comment—Viv had two desk chairs and both had folders piled on the seats, so she picked the one with the smallest amount and sat on the buff files. She asked after Viv’s husband and toddler before getting around to her goal.

  “We couldn’t figure out why it was clogged for two days—a couple hundred dollars later a plumber found the bottle. Never let a three-year-old near your toiletries. So what brings you by? Lunch? Do you want to have lunch?”

  “No, sorry. It’s work.”

  “Let me guess, you want a floor plan?” Maggie often pulled the floor plan of homes and buildings in order to make her crime scene sketch. It was a sort-of-cheating way to get the layout and dimensions without having to actually measure every single room while processing a scene.

  “I’m trying to track down a building—”

  Viv’s hands went to her keyboard. “Sure, what’s the address?”

  “That’s what I don’t know.”

  “Commercial or residential?”

  “I don’t know that either.”

  “City or county?”

  “I’m guessing city.”

  Viv actually stopped moving for a split second, her expression making it clear how she felt about Maggie’s lack of information.

  “Geographical analysis would indicate the city. The victims lived downtown and their bodies were found downtown. I can’t see why the killer would take them out of city limits to kill them only to bring them back again. Most people function where they’re comfortable.”

  Viv’s eyebrows disappeared underneath her clipped bangs and all lacks of information were forgiven. “Did you say bodies, plural?”

  “Plural.”

  “Seriously? Tell me about it. Really, I won’t tell. You can swear me to secrecy.”

  “There’s nothing to tell or not tell, yet. It’s just a theory of mine.”

  “You think there’s a serial killer? Who’s he killing? Let me guess—beautiful young women, right? Am I right? You have to tell me. I’m still kinda young, I mean, so you’d tell me if I was in danger, wouldn’t you?”

  “No. No beautiful young women. Not even beautiful old women.” Except for the blonde in the cemetery, Maggie corrected herself, but she didn’t fit the possible location profile.

  “But he grabs his victims and takes them to his lair, and you need to find the lair?”

  “Um—sorta.”

  “How does he kill them? Is it really sick? Don’t tell me if it’s really sick.”

  “I wouldn’t call it sick, no. I have no idea if the victims or their murders are connected. I’m just trying to retrace their last steps.”

  “Okay, okay. Okay.” The woman sat back again, frowned, pulled a stapler out from behind her hip, and tossed it onto the desktop. “Tell me what you’re looking for.”

  Maggie explained her theory that the apartment or room or whatever might be undergoing renovation. The granite dust made her think they might be getting marble countertops.

  “How nice for them,” Viv said. “Love those things. But you don’t need to pull a permit for that, routine home repair and improvement.”

  “I find plaster dust, too, like drywall.”

  “So someone’s remodeling their kitchen. It still wouldn’t necessarily come to our attention. Unless they’re remodeling every kitchen in an apartment building, but you—”

  Maggie shook her head. “No. I have no way of knowing if this is a single room or a whole building or, for that matter, new construction.”

  Viv snorted. “Good luck finding new construction in this city.”

  “What about a project that was started but not finished?”

  “Plenty of those,” Viv admitted.

  “Oh wait. There’s asbestos, too. That wouldn’t be found in new construction.”

  Viv dropped the one foot that had migrated back to the edge of the desk and sat forward in a classic reaction shot, already typing as she spoke. “Okay! Now that’s something I can work with! Companies have to be licensed to remove asbestos and definitely have to get a permit. That’s a bigger job, too, so most places would do a total renovation at the same time—which would explain your granite and drywall dust.”

  “Cool,” Maggie said. “Can you get me a list?”

  “Working, working . . . so, you dating anybody?”

  “No.”

  “That’s it? Just ‘no’? Not even a ‘not really’ or something?”

  “Sorry. Just no.”

  “What happened to that patrol sergeant?”

  With anyone else this might be annoying, but with Viv it was simply normal conversation. “He wanted to get married.”

  “Really?”

  “On the second date.”

  “Freaked you out, huh?”

  “Majorly.”

  “What about the one before him? The construction manager—you’re smiling. See? You still like him. Give him a call.”

  “I did like him. I just didn’t want to live with him. How’s that list coming?”

  “Outstanding permits . . . I’ve got nine. Not many. In
the nineties I’d have at least twenty running at any one moment. This one place in the Flats—anyway, right now we have nine. . . huh.”

  “What’s ‘huh’?”

  “Three of them have expired . . . but I don’t see that they were closed out.”

  “What does that mean? That they started the jobs but didn’t finish?”

  “Either that or someone never got around to closing out the permit, which is also entirely possible. Sometimes people, and I’m not naming any names—like, say, Jenny—get really, really behind in their filing . . . nope, no notes. Just not closed out . . . that’s odd.”

  “That they’re not closed out?”

  “That two of the three are the same company. Asbestos Removal and Renovation, LLC. Located in Euclid.”

  “Where are the buildings?”

  “Hold on, hold on . . . one is off St. Clair, one’s on Lakeshore. I’ll print the addresses for you.”

  “So they might have started removing the asbestos, ran out of money, and stopped?”

  “Better not have. That’s not a job you can leave half done, all that stuff exposed to the air, and then lock the door and walk away. A carcinogenic time bomb, that’s what that would be, and the next city inspector who decides to check on the progress would wander into a disability pension. Sucks.”

  “Is there any way to tell what stage these jobs are in?”

  “Yeah,” she said, drawing out the word. “It depends on what exactly they did, whether it was a really big job like completely remodeling an apartment building or a small one like a church basement. Larger jobs have more inspection points, like first the electricity, then the plumbing, cosmetic stuff like drywall is last, so that could tell us something about their progress. But I can at least tell you what they started out to do. What are you doing here, anyway? Usually I just get an e-mail. Isn’t this the detective’s job?”

  “They’re busy. And it’s all about the trace evidence, which is me.”

  She gave Maggie a sharp peer. “If you say so.”

  The printer hummed. “You’re the best, Viv.”