The Dark of Day

by Barbara Parker

  Rick stood up, put a foot on Murphy’s chest, and shifted his weight toward the downhill end of the plywood. It went under, and the water swirled up, reaching Murphy’s head, then his shoulders. “Did Noreen Finch send you after me?”

  Murphy took a lung full of air and screamed, “Help!” Rick leaned forward and Murphy went under. Bubbles came up. He counted to ten. When Murphy’s head reappeared, his spiked red hair was flattened to his skull. He spat out water.

  “Talk to me, Dennis. Maybe you’d rather go swimming. Nobody would notice. You’d drift out to the bay, probably be cut up by boat propellers, turned into fish food.” Rick sat on his heels beside him. “Did Noreen tell you to follow me?”

  “No!”

  Rick slapped him across the face. Then again. When he thought he had his attention, he leaned closer. “Did she tell you to kill Alana Martin? Or did Shelby do it?”

  “You’re crazy. Let me go.”

  “See if this makes sense to you, Dennis. Paul Shelby killed her, and Noreen Finch drove over and helped him get the body off the island. Did you help them? Is that what happened?”

  “No! Jesus Fucking Christ, no.”

  He tried to roll away, but Rick dragged him toward the water. His shoes lost some traction on the algae-slick wood, and he slipped to his knees. Water rushed over his legs. He put both hands on Dennis Murphy’s chest and counted slowly to ten, then hooked his belt and hauled him out. “Who murdered Alana? Was it Paul Shelby?”

  A spray of water came from Murphy’s mouth. He dragged in some air and coughed on it. “No! Fuck! Let me go. I don’t know anything about it!” A scrap of sodden plastic bag stuck to his cheek, and Rick lifted it off.

  “Did you help them put Alana’s body in Noreen’s boat that night? Maybe the next morning? What did you tie the body to so it would sink? You didn’t do a very good job. She floated up again.”

  Murphy wheezed. “I didn’t kill her. I swear.”

  “If it wasn’t you, was it Shelby? or Noreen? Had to be one or the other, Dennis. Which one?”

  “I don’t know, man. I don’t know anything.”

  “Let’s see how long you can hold your breath.” Rick stepped on the end of the board and Murphy went under. When he came up again, Rick said, “Showtime, Dennis. No more bullshit. I’m ready to push you in. Was it Shelby? Yes or no?”

  “I don’t know!”

  A blow across his cheekbone sent his head whiplashing to one side. The next blow split his lip. “What happened to Alana Martin? I’ll fucking put you in the river.”

  “Don’t! I didn’t kill her. Don’t put me in there. It was Billy. He did it.”

  “Medina?” Rick sat there a minute thinking, then gave Murphy a shove. “Were you there? Did he cut her up?”

  Murphy shook his head. “Nobody cut her up. She came to the party. They went upstairs to talk. It was an accident. I helped him get rid of her body. That’s all I did. Tied her to a metal statue. Took it out on his boat.”

  “Jesus.” Rick had to take a breath. “Why did he do it? Why did Billy kill her?”

  “She was threatening him.” Murphy coughed. “She acted in some porno movie. A friend of Billy’s had the tapes. She thought Billy could get them back.”

  “This friend of Billy’s. Is his name Harold Vincent?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She threatened Billy. How?”

  “Alana said if he didn’t get her the tapes, she’d go to the newspaper, the TV, shit like that. I don’t know. They were upstairs during the party. She went after him, and he pushed her. She hit her head. It was an accident.”

  “You believe that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Rain ticked on the wood and dotted the slow-moving surface of the river. Rick could feel it on his shoulders and back. “Did Billy send you after me?”

  “Yeah. Didn’t trust you. Too many questions about Alana.”

  “What did Billy tell you to do to me?”

  “Fuck you up.” Dennis Murphy laughed through bloody teeth. “I was supposed to fuck you up.”

  “That’s nice. Fuck me up, huh? Maybe send me to the Everglades in pieces? Is that what he had in mind?”

  “I wouldn’t have.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Murphy spat out some blood. “I told you everything. Untie me. How about it?”

  “Can’t let you go, Dennis.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Rick grabbed him by the ankles and dragged him into the weeds. His shirt came up, and he moaned when his back scraped the rocks. Holding him under the arms, Rick hauled him over to a twisted tree trunk near the fence and propped him against it. He found the roll of duct tape where he’d left it, picked at the free end, and spun it out. He wrapped the tape around the tree trunk and Murphy’s torso, pinning his arms. He tore off another piece and got it over Murphy’s mouth and twice around his head.

  The rain was coming down, and the wind bent the tall grasses. In the dim light Rick could see a pair of small, pale blue eyes glittering with rage. Rick patted Murphy on the shoulder. “The cops will be coming by later on to pick you up.”

  Breathing hard, more from nerves than exertion, Rick trotted back through the vacant lot behind the gas station, went around, and left Dennis Murphy’s keys on the seat of the truck. It might be there later, it might not. Fuck him. Rick got into his car. He wiped the rain off his face and put his pistol back into the glove compartment. He didn’t lock it. He wanted to be able to get to the gun easily when he arrived at Billy Medina’s house. C.J. would be there. He thought about the bruises on her arm. If Billy had touched her, Rick would break both his knees and then shoot him.

  His hands were shaking as he jammed the key into the ignition.

  chapter THIRTY-SEVEN

  as Billy stood there with a glass in each hand, waiting for her to explain, C.J. folded the page.

  “It’s just a picture of a piece of metal they found with Alana Martin’s body. They don’t know what it is. I thought of the flowers that used to be here, but it’s not the same.”

  “Let me see it.”

  “It’s nothing. I had that statue on my mind. You didn’t like it. That’s all right.” She walked past him.

  His bare feet were silent on the smooth floor, but in the windows she could see him behind her. The buildings downtown were gone, swallowed up in rain. Lightning flickered. “There’s a storm. It’s coming this way. You know, I really ought to get home before it breaks.” The car keys were in her purse, which seemed impossibly distant, a white dot on the black leather sofa.

  Two slight thuds, Billy setting the drinks on the coffee table. “If you leave now, you’ll drive right into it.” He reached for her hand. “Stay and have a drink with me, a real drink.”

  “I really can’t.”

  “Why is your hand so cold?”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes, very cold.” He squeezed her fingers.

  “It’s your house. And the rain—I was chilled coming in.”

  “Show me the picture. Come on, C.J. Let’s see what you have in your pocket.” He caught her around the waist and had the paper in his hand before she could swivel away. He shook the page open. “Yes. I saw this too. You’re wrong. There’s no way in hell this piece of metal, whatever it is, came off my statue.”

  “I just said that, Billy.” The muscles in her legs were quivering. She wondered if they would carry her outside. “The flowers, I mean that part of the flowers, was much curlier. And different metal. Not at all the same.”

  “But you’re wondering about it.” He tossed the page to the sofa. “Aren’t you? I’ve been wondering about it too. I had the statue in the garage and then it was gone. I asked Dennis, and he said he had taken it to his house. He asked me if that was okay, and I said sure. I didn’t want it anymore.”

  “Dennis took it?”

  “I think . . . this sounds crazy, but I think he may have had something to do with Alana’s disappearance.”

&nb
sp; “You do?” C.J.’s purse was out of reach on the middle of the three sofas, formed into a square, with a large coffee table in the middle, blocking her way.

  Billy said, “I think Dennis used that statue to sink her body.”

  C.J. nodded. “It was heavy enough. Why did he do it?”

  “Dennis knows Harold Vincent. Did some handyman jobs for his travel agency. I recommended him.”

  “Did you?” C.J. walked casually, slowly across the floor. “So Harold Vincent was in it too?”

  Billy was behind her. “I think you were right about Harold. The pornography. Alana was involved with him. He knows dangerous people. Desperate people. You asked me to talk to him, and I did. Remember you asked me? I talked to Harold, and he said that Alana was causing major, major problems for him, wanting her audition tapes. I tried to get some answers, but he wouldn’t elaborate. I didn’t call you about it because, well, I didn’t think you wanted to see me anymore.”

  “The tapes,” she said. “That must be it.” Her heart was beating so fast and hard she was afraid he could hear it. She took a breath to calm herself. It didn’t work. Her purse was straight ahead. The car keys inside it. She kept moving. “I never liked Dennis. Something about him. If, as you say, he worked for Harold Vincent, and Alana was causing Vincent major problems, then he had a reason to get rid of her, so he sent Dennis, and . . . and Dennis kidnapped and murdered her.”

  “But we can’t prove anything, can we?” Billy took C.J.’s elbow and turned her around.

  She didn’t want to look in his face, afraid he would see too much, but she lifted her chin and said, “No, we can’t prove it. We have no evidence. Even the statue is gone. We can’t do anything.”

  “Oh, C.J.” Billy’s black brows came together as though he’d felt a sudden pain.

  “We can’t tell anyone,” she said again. “I think all we can do . . . is let it go. We can’t accuse Harold Vincent or Dennis either, without proof. They would sue us for slander.”

  “You know, don’t you? You know.”

  “About lawsuits, you mean. Oh, yes. My advice is, do nothing for the moment. We’ll talk when you come back from Antigua.” C.J. was walking backward now, Billy holding on to her fingertips. “Call me when you get there. I should leave and let you finish packing. Billy, let go.”

  “I’m so sorry.” And then he turned her around, and his arm was across her throat. “Sorrier than you can imagine, C.J.”

  Her scream stopped as her breathing was cut off.

  He kissed the side of her face, letting his lips linger there. “Alana wanted the audition tapes. She wanted me to tell Harold to give them to her. She thought he was my friend, and he’d do it for me. He told me to go to hell. When I told her that, she didn’t believe it. She thought I had some influence over him. I’m not in the porn business, but she was threatening me, and I knew it would get out. She would have told someone. I’d have lost The Aquarius. I’d have lost everything. Do you see? I couldn’t let it go on.”

  C.J. dragged in a breath. “Billy, please.”

  “That damned statue. The base was plaster. It fell apart in the ocean. I didn’t think about that, but you would have. You’d have used marble.”

  “Billy, there’s no evidence. There’s nothing. The statue is gone. Whatever you did, nobody can prove it.”

  “Can I trust you not to say anything? Can I, chica? Would you do that for me?”

  “Of course I would. Yes, Billy. I won’t say anything. How could I? We mean too much to each other.”

  “My sweet, sweet liar.” His lips were at her ear. “You just broke up with me. Goodbye, Billy. It’s over. You wanted Rick Slater. Yes, you did. When I saw you and him together, I could smell the sex between you. What a slut you are. But I liked that about you.”

  Her shoes slid across the floor as he dragged her across the room.

  “I promise you one thing. It will be quick. No pain.”

  When she tried to speak again, his arm tightened, choking off her words.

  Billy said, “Yes, Detective, when she came over tonight I could see she was depressed. She’d been offered a job on CNN, and she gave it up. She said she couldn’t handle it. I went to the kitchen to make us some drinks, and when I came back, she was in the pool. I never heard her calling for help. I think she didn’t want any help. I think she just wanted to end it.”

  C.J. grabbed for the back of a chair as they passed it, but she couldn’t hold on. They had reached the last of the sliding doors leading out to the terrace. The pool glowed blue through the glass.

  He would drag her outside, put her head under, and wait for her to drown.

  “It’s so sad. I loved her.”

  The edges of her vision softened, and she started to drift. Was this what it was like, dying? This easy surrender, this letting go? She wouldn’t feel the water, wouldn’t feel anything. No pain. It was what Paul had said. This won’t hurt. You’ll like it.

  How strange. She could see Paul’s face over her, and his hands were on her throat, squeezing gently, then harder, harder, and his knee was pushing her legs apart. But she didn’t want it. She didn’t want this.

  C.J. twisted her head and was rewarded with a small gasp of air. The will to live surged through her like a jolt of pure oxygen. She would not die, not like this, not a quiet victim, not letting it happen without a fight.

  C.J. dug her fingers into Billy’s arm, but the sleeve prevented her nails from getting through. She tried to reach up and claw his eyes, but he jerked his face out of the way and tightened his grip.

  She bucked and twisted and kicked her feet. They came off the floor as she hung onto his arm.

  Billy stopped at the panel of light switches and reached around to turn off the pool lights. She knew what he wanted, to drown her in darkness where no one could see, and to turn the lights on again before he called the police.

  “No!” C.J. lifted a knee and with all her strength brought her heel down on his instep.

  He screamed and bent over, and in that brief moment she wrenched herself away from him. She sped through the living room, calculating that it wouldn’t do any good to reach her keys because he could drag her out of her car before she started the engine. She grabbed a brass bowl off the coffee table and threw it at him. As it clanged on the floor, she abruptly turned left into a long hallway, past the media center, past a bathroom, past the downstairs guest suite. Another turn, she would be at the side door.

  It was locked. Billy was moving toward her; reaching. She felt his hand slide off her shoulder, felt some of her hair rip from her scalp. She could hear her own ragged breathing.

  The hall led left again. Stairs going up. Another door to the garage, a dead end. The kitchen with the gleaming stainless steel and long, black granite counters. A knife block near the stove.

  C.J. reached for the handle of the chef’s knife and turned to face him. Billy stopped, one hand on the refrigerator for balance. The knife bobbled out of her hand. “Oh!”

  He came for her. She grabbed the knife block and threw it. Then blindly reached toward the island in the center of the kitchen and grabbed a bottle—his Dutch gin—and threw that. The bottle smashed on the tile floor. Billy was running, couldn’t stop in time, and stepped into the broken glass.

  “Ahhhh!” One of the shards had gone into his foot. He bent to pull it out, then his eyes were on her again. “Bitch. You can’t get away.” But she was already gone, moving past the dining room and into the living room, where the white floor was a vast expanse of winter tundra, a rectangle of bright red at the other side, the front door. She skidded into the door and pulled on the handle, looking over her shoulder.

  Billy was limping badly, and his teeth were bared. He had left a trail of blood behind him.

  She couldn’t get the door open. She swerved away from him. He caught her by the stairs, tripped, and they both went down. She couldn’t scream. Billy’s hands were on her throat.

  chapter THIRTY- EIGHT

  rick
Slater stood on the front porch staring at the red entrance doors of Billy Medina’s house. He pressed the button again and heard the chimes. Edgar Dunn’s old Buick was in the driveway. C.J. had to be here. Rain bounced off the black slate in the circular driveway and slanted through the landscaping lights.

  He put his ear to the door. Nothing. Had they gone out? Were they upstairs in bed? That thought gave him pause. He stood there, undecided, then walked into the rain and went around the side of the house. Before he reached the back terrace, his shirt was soaked and clinging to the pistol he’d stuck into his waistband. The surface of the pool seemed to vibrate in the rain. He stepped under the patio roof. The back wall of the house was mostly glass. The inside lights were on. Billy Medina had a lot of square furniture, low black sofas and chairs, and most of it was turned to face the windows. Lamps arched over the sofas on curved silver poles. Rick saw a marble statue shaped like a woman. He didn’t remember it from the last, and only, time he’d been here. He saw the stairs, which floated on metal supports. A balcony above the stairs. Nobody up there.

  It might have been the color that caught his attention, a smear of red showing through two of the sofas where they’d been angled into a square. He walked farther to his left, saw more blood. Followed it with his eyes and saw two people on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. Billy Medina and C.J., and she was struggling to get away.

  Stepping back, Rick put two bullets into the window. They made two neat holes. The heavy, hurricane-proof glass wouldn’t shatter. He aimed at one of the sliding doors and took out the lock. The bullet sparked on the metal. He shoved on the frame.

  As he sped across the room, he focused on Billy Medina. Time expanded. He reached them, raised his right arm, and smashed the butt of the pistol against Medina’s head, down low where the bone curved into the spine. As Medina collapsed, Rick dropped the gun, grabbed Medina’s shoulders, and threw him off C.J. He drew back his fist. Medina wasn’t moving.

  Rick left him there and shouted, “C.J.!”

  She was coughing, wheezing, taking huge gasps of air. He sat her up and propped her against his knee. He pushed her hair off her face, felt her back, her neck. Red marks flamed on the delicate white skin.