Darkscope

by J. Carson Black

  They crossed the ranch road. Close up, the building didn’t look so bad. The porch was enclosed by a screen separated by wooden strips. Rotten gray leaves drifted up to the porch.

  Chelsea looked out at the still, hazy fields and the road beyond, then waded through the leaves and stepped over rotten planks to gain the porch. As her foot touched the porch step, she shivered involuntarily. This chill meant that something bad had happened here. Chelsea felt the weight of the photographs in her pocket. Kathy might have been killed in this house. Now standing on the porous gray wood, Chelsea suddenly knew it was true. It screamed out of every corner of the porch. A malevolent breath, redolent of chalky sheetrock, rust, rotten leaves, dust, and, underneath it all, the smell of death.

  Ben stood beside her. She could tell from his posture that he was listening to something, and she followed his gaze through the broken door to the stripped walls beyond.

  “Do you hear it?” Ben asked.

  It was faint, hardly perceptible. It could have been laughter—a woman’s laugh—or it could have been the wind in the eaves.

  But there was no wind. Everything was still.

  Chelsea remembered the sound. It brought back the night her car had broken down. She remembered the voices, the young man’s and the other voice: high, musical laughter. She thought of the old car, dredged up from the ages, and the woman who looked like an old Kathy . . . and Uncle Bob in the driver’s seat.

  The sound disappeared.

  “Let’s go in,” Ben said. “Watch your step.”

  Chelsea hesitated as Ben walked ahead, looking back impatiently. “Are you coming?”

  Chelsea followed. Dread radiated from her core. The house was many-windowed and full of light; each room had been painted a different color. Ben was right: Someone had lived here until recently.

  Chelsea considered the implications. If the house had been occupied, then Bob couldn’t very well have murdered Kathy there. But did anyone live here back then?

  With a gasp, Chelsea recognized the wall where Kathy had stood, her hands out as if to ward off a blow, her face a mask of terror.

  Stains blotted the wall.

  They were about as high as Chelsea’s chin, a faded yellow-brown. Like a map of strange countries—or a Rorschach test gone mad.

  Underneath the stains someone had spray-painted “Bang Bang, you’re dead!” in blue. Not your usual graffiti.

  “They could be water stains,” Chelsea said.

  “Stains?”

  “Don’t you see them?”

  Ben shook his head. “All I see is graffiti.”

  Laughter: high, faint.

  As Chelsea watched, the stains faded until the wall was smooth yellow except for the spray paint. “They’re gone now,” she told Ben.

  “Easy come, easy go. Like I said, you’re psychic.” Ben looked around. “She’s here. I can feel her. Let me see the photographs again.” He hunkered down on the floor, spreading them out before him.

  Chelsea stooped over him and looked at the photograph closer.

  Kathy’s eyes were wide with terror; her gaze was fixed on something just beyond the camera. Bang bang you’re dead.

  Just a coincidence. Just graffiti.

  No, it was not. Graffiti was: “Bill was here, 1970” or “Pink Floyd: The Wall.”

  Memories paraded through her mind: her first grown-up lunch with Uncle Bob at Chasen’s; the time he brought her the stuffed panda after her parents died, even though Sydney had said that at thirteen Chelsea was certainly too old to want a stuffed toy. “Whenever you’re lonely, I want you to hold Freddie,” Uncle Bob had whispered in her ear. “He’ll watch over you. And wherever I am, when you hug Freddie, I’ll be thinking of you.”

  That man, a killer? The one person who had made the loss of her parents more bearable-a killer?

  All her life Chelsea had known that if she was ever in trouble, Uncle Bob was only a phone call away. He had never deserted her. Hadn’t he invited her here to Arizona, knowing that she needed to get away from Jason? Hadn’t he helped her find this job?

  Somebody else might have a ring like his. Or the photographs might be fakes, or he could have discovered Kathy’s body . . . there were all sorts of explanations.

  “You’re thinking about your uncle, aren’t you?” Ben asked.

  “It’s so hard to believe,” she replied. “If you met Uncle Bob, you’d know why.”

  Ben picked up the last photograph. The white shirt cuff, the hand reaching out to Kathy. The ring.

  “Maybe he just found her.”

  What could she do? She loved Uncle Bob, and until now she would have considered it ludicrous that he was capable of such a crime. It would never have entered her mind. But the small doubt had already done its damage. It wormed into her soul, infecting her feelings for him. She already saw him in a different light.

  Hollow, bell-like laughter rang in the air.

  Ben glanced around. “This place is beginning to get to me.”

  Chelsea didn’t hear him. Her mind was elsewhere. She walked through the house, pausing in the front room to run a hand over the enamel-coated wall and glance out the window. From this vantage point, Chelsea could see the field stretching to the river.

  What she saw made her gasp.

  A figure stood in the field: the figure of a woman, dark against the white haze, but unmistakable. “What is it?” Ben asked, following Chelsea’s gaze. “Kathy,” Chelsea said, turning to face him. “Don’t you see her?” Ben shook his head.

  When she looked back, the figure was gone.

  On the way back to town, Chelsea was silent. What was she going to do now? Call Bob? Call the police?

  He was running for governor, for Christ’s sake. She could ruin him. What were the ramifications if she was wrong? What if he was arrested, convicted, put in prison?

  She tried to blot out the pictures in her mind. The newscaster explaining that the front-runner in the governor’s race had been arrested for murder. The newspaper headlines. The trial. Prison. It would kill him.

  And just what would Chelsea say to the authorities? She had two batches of old photographs. She had talked to a woman who was six years dead in a shop that didn’t exist. Uncle Bob smelled like death—but only to her. Now there was some real, solid evidence to help convict a man for a fifty-year-old murder. A murder that didn’t even have a body.

  She looked over at Ben. “I don’t know what I should do. If I go to the authorities, they’ll put me in a rubber room.”

  “Don’t be so quick to condemn the police. They might believe you.”

  Chelsea laughed shortly.

  I believe you.”

  “Of course you do. You’ve got a ringside seat.”

  “If you wanted to,” Ben said, turning off into Tombstone Canyon, “you could dig some more until you have something concrete, then tell them.”

  “You mean actively try to find something on my uncle. Go out of my way to destroy a man who—”

  “It was just a suggestion.”

  “You want Uncle Bob to be guilty, don’t you?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Chelsea realized how childish she sounded. But she couldn’t contain her anger. “You’re so damn clinical. It makes it neat, makes it come out right, like a Rubik’s cube. It’s all a game to you.”

  Ben’s mouth thinned into an angry line. “If you think that, you don’t know me very well.”

  “No, I don’t! I don’t know you at all!” Why was she acting like this? Ben wasn’t her enemy.

  And then she knew.

  Kathy was there, her presence like a knife between them. Cruel, smug. Putting words in Chelsea’s mouth.

  Pulling all the strings.

  Chelsea heard the laughter inside her brain. Kathy was enjoying this. She enjoyed toying with Chelsea’s mind, making her doubt Ben and doubt herself. But overriding everything, Chelsea could feel the desire, the need of the creature. She could feel it coming through herself, the rushing darkness channeled th
rough her mind. Need. She wants something so badly that she’ll defy death to get it, Chelsea thought.

  She wants Uncle Bob.

  She wants.

  Ben dropped Chelsea off in the main part of town. She had some shopping to do and would walk home. Neither of them saw Sunshine across the street watching them, her face a mask of hatred.

  When she got home, Chelsea called and apologized to Ben. He sounded as if he were expecting her call. But if he knew that Kathy was influencing the way Chelsea acted, he didn’t say.

  She put down the phone and sat at her work table. Midterms were coming up, and she had a lot of artwork to grade. She pulled a stack out of the portfolio and spread them out on the table. When she looked up again, it was dark.

  Ninety miles to the north, Bob McCord had just been served his boeuf bourgignon and wild rice.

  Forty-six

  The Tombstone Rose Mine opened on schedule. None of the major environmental organizations considered the mine an important issue. The only real resistance to the project came, surprisingly, from gubernatorial candidate Bob McCord. But his push to keep C.M. Tunney out of the area came too late.

  Jesse Lopez, one of three men making a preliminary survey of the area, was eating his lunch by the company truck when he saw the car.

  “Look at that,” he said to his partner. He pointed to a gray Mercedes-Benz parked on the ridge above. A distinguished-looking older man dressed in a business suit stood beside the car, his binoculars trained on the site.

  “Maybe he’s a stockholder,” Vincent Castro said.

  “I don’t think so.” Lopez shrugged. “Think we should call Security?”

  “No. He looks harmless.”

  The old guy showed up every day and observed them from his vantage point on the hill. Lopez and Castro didn’t report him; he was probably a tourist bored with the golf course.

  Bob McCord stood on the ridge, asking himself for the hundredth time why he was there. What good would it do? If they found the body, what could he do? And if they spotted him . . .

  What am I worried about? No one can tie me to the body. They won’t have a clue who she is.

  But he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t help dressing up in this ridiculous get-up, dark glasses, golf cap—unable to forgo wearing his regular business suits—and renting the car every day to come out here, just because he had to find out, to know what was happening.

  Even the rental car was ridiculous, he realized. He couldn’t quite bring himself to drive any car other than a Mercedes, so what had he done? Instead of driving his own blue 560 SEL, he’d rented a silver one from Classic Cars Ltd., same year and make. As if he wanted to be caught. Kathy had been right all those years ago. He was the fool, not his brother.

  But the scene—and morbid curiosity—drew him. What would she look like after all this time? Would she be a skeleton? Would her clothes have decomposed as well? In his dreams, she was still beautiful. In his dreams.

  Every morning Bob expected the worst. His binoculars fixed on the shaft, he expected at any minute to see a flurry of action signaling a shocking discovery. First the police cars would show up, then the ME, the ambulance—and they’d be all over that mine like ants on an anthill.

  But it hadn’t happened.

  As the days crawled by and Bob saw no sign that anything was amiss, he relaxed his vigil. Toward the end of the week, he began to wonder if they would ever find Kathy.

  Sunshine steadied herself against the frame of Chelsea’s porch with one hand. Her lovely features were distorted with anger. “I want to talk to you.”

  “Sure. I was just . . . Come in.” Surprised, Chelsea opened the door wide. She hadn’t seen Sunshine in a while.

  The waitress pushed past her and led the way down the short hall to the living room. Chelsea grimaced. Sunshine smelled like a campfire. “What’s wrong?” Chelsea asked.

  Sunshine laughed bitterly. “What’s wrong? Nothing—at least not for you.” She waved a hand at the furnishings. “You really think you have it all, don’t you? You’re rich, married, and now you’ve got Ben . . .” She sank to the couch like a crumpled bird.

  Ben? Chelsea stared at Sunshine.

  “You sneaky bitch. You stole him from me. We were going to get married!”

  Chelsea felt as if she’d been slapped. “Married?”

  “Until you came along with your money and your high-priced education and your—”

  “You and Ben were going to get married?” Chelsea’s stomach sank like a stone. Ben and Sunshine. Abruptly, she remembered that Sunshine had met her new man at a horse show. Yes. How had she missed the connection?

  And why didn’t he tell me?

  “You’re not going to get away with it. He’s going to be Dawn’s father. He’s going to be my husband. And you’re not going to stop us!”

  How could I have been so stupid?

  “You ruined everything!” Sunshine caved into herself, breaking into deep, shuddering sobs. Her anguish got through to Chelsea. Chelsea crossed the room and put a hand on her arm. “Maybe we could talk—”

  The waitress reacted violently. “Get away from me!” she shouted, her voice rising in hysteria. She stood up, nearly fell, and spun to face Chelsea. “I could kill you,” she cried, her pinched, white face a few inches from Chelsea’s own. “We were going to be so happy. Dawn never really had a father. Ben was perfect! He would have married me, too, if it wasn’t for you. You and your money and your fancy college degree!”

  Chelsea stood back, her heart thumping. She’s stoned. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. Chelsea felt embarrassed—embarrassed for Sunshine and for herself. Ben had used both of them.

  “I wish you were dead!” Sunshine spat. “If you were, Ben would marry me.”

  “You can’t mean—”

  “I do!” Her eyes took on a cunning shine. “You’d better go back where you belong or you’ll regret it. I know people—”

  “Sunshine—”

  “I’m warning you. You better go home! Back to San Diego or LA or wherever it is you live. You’re not spoiling things for Dawn. You’re not doing that to a little girl. You’re not taking Ben away from me! I warn you, Chelsea. You’re not going to do it. I won’t let you!”

  Sunshine blundered past Chelsea and ran from the house. She stopped on the porch and focused on Chelsea with difficulty. “I mean it. You’re gonna wish you were never born if you don’t leave Ben alone. I swear to God!”

  And then she was gone, the tires on her old, green Rambler squealing as she pulled away from the curb.

  I wish you were dead. Sunshine had sounded as if she meant it.

  Ridiculous. It’s just a figure of speech.

  I know people . . .

  Mr. Chips sauntered up and rubbed against Chelsea’s legs. Absently, she reached down and scratched his head. She was remembering her first day in Bisbee, the day she met Sunshine at the Sacred Cow. What had Dean said? She’s nuts.

  Chelsea thought of the few times she had gone places with Sunshine. People had seemed to keep their distance, sensing that Sunshine was . . .

  Needy. That’s the word. People were uncomfortable around Sunshine for a long period of time because she needed so much from them.

  And now she needed Ben.

  Shaken, Chelsea stood on the porch, unable to move. A cold nest of fear grew in her heart. Sunshine might be dangerous.

  I have to talk to Ben. Now.

  Without bothering to call first, Chelsea grabbed her car keys and headed for the car.

  Forty-seven

  As Chelsea drove, she tried to come to grips with what she had learned. Ben and Sunshine were lovers. You don’t know that, her calmer, more rational voice told her. At least hear what he has to say.

  The sign over the ranch road loomed up on the left. At the sight of it, Chelsea nearly turned the car around. She didn’t have the slightest idea what she would say.

  Ben was driving out. He pulled the Chevrolet to the side of the dirt road, a
few yards from Highway 80. “Hi,” he said, jumping out of his truck.

  “I have to talk to you.”

  “Can’t it wait? I have to be somewhere—”

  “No.”

  “—in half an hour.”

  “It can’t wait. Sunshine . . .” The words sounded ridiculous to her own ears. “Sunshine threatened me.”

  Brow furrowed, Ben opened her car door. “In that case, we’d better talk.”

  Chelsea emerged from the car. She tried not to notice how the lines around his blue eyes crinkled against the sun. Tried not to notice the lean, muscular arms folded against his chest, brown from days of outdoor work.

  “You were threatened,” he prompted her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were seeing Sunshine?”

  “Was I?”

  “You know damn well you were!”

  “And what if I was?”

  Chelsea loathed him at that moment. He looked so smug, so cocksure. “I’ll tell you why! What you do with your life is your business. But now your business is affecting me!” Chelsea’s voice shook. “She threatened me!”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said . . .” Chelsea paused. The threat didn’t sound serious now. “She said she wished I were dead.”

  Ben’s eyes glittered with amusement.

  “She also said you were going to marry her.”

  “She said what?” Ben looked genuinely puzzled. He stared at Chelsea, his gaze thoughtful. “And you believed her.”

  “Well, you were going to marry her, weren’t you?”

  Ben ran a hand along the dusty surface of Chelsea’s car. He didn’t answer.

  Chelsea was aware that she sounded strident. “Well?”

  He looked up. “No.”

  “Then you led her on?”

  “No.”

  “Are you telling me she made it all up?” Chelsea’s voice rose a pitch. Why am I acting like this? I sound like a harpy.

  Ben didn’t answer. He only stared at her.

  “I want to know what’s going on! What you do is your own business—”

  “So you said.”