The Darkest Night

by Rick Reed

  “You’re very confident in our detecting abilities, Bigfoot,” Jack said.

  “I am. We now know that dirt and debris from a sugarcane field was left on the floor in a condemned house where a policeman was found hanged. How much more do we need, pod’na?”

  Jack smiled. “You’re right. Let’s shoot someone and head home.”

  “Maybe even several someones,” Liddell suggested, and handed the phone back to Jack.

  “Should I call Sheriff Guidry and tell him we have this case wrapped up?”

  Liddell said, “Not until we find Evie, pod’na. I promised Landry. And if she is with some boy I’m going to turn him into a eunuch.”

  “Cotton was crazy, but he was a good cop,” Liddell said pensively. “He’d talked to Bitty about missing girls even before Evie disappeared.”

  “And don’t forget Reyes, the chef,” Jack said. “Reyes said Parnell and Bitty had been in several times after they broke up. Parnell outright lied to us.”

  “I wonder what they fought about?” Liddell said. “Do you think it was about something personal, or about a case Bitty was working on?”

  “Would Bitty have told Parnell you were coming?” Jack asked.

  “Yeah. I wish Bitty had told me what was going on.”

  “You said she didn’t want to say anything on the telephone. Was it because she was just trying to make you curious enough to drive twelve hours to find out? Or did she believe that she was close enough to something that she was being watched?”

  “I think she would have told me,” Liddell said. “Who knows what Troup found at the scene that we don’t know about? He was so busy trying to screw me I don’t know what he might do to any evidence. His boy, Barbie, stole my gun. I’ll bet ballistics comes back proving my backup gun killed Cotton. Barbie’s fingerprints were on the gun, but why was he stupid enough to leave it there with his fingerprints on it?”

  “Good question.”

  They sat quiet for a few miles before turning onto the lane that led to Parnell’s house.

  “Stop,” Jack said, and the car stopped. “Do you think we can get in Bitty’s house?”

  “Maybe,” Liddell said.

  “Well, let’s go see what we can see,” Jack said.

  Liddell made a three-point turn to avoid driving over sugarcane.

  “I’ll go in by myself,” Jack said. Liddell maybe didn’t want to see where his friend was butchered again.

  “I’m okay,” Liddell said. “I know where her hidey-holes are. Maybe we’ll find something that Troup or CSU didn’t.”

  Jack thought about Kurtis Dempsey. Kurtis was thorough. Nothing else would be found. But maybe just walking through it would help before they interviewed anyone else.

  “Bitty’s house is about five miles from here. But we might have a little problem when we get there.”

  “Problem?” Jack asked.

  “Old Lady Martin. She’s about a hundred and eleventy years old but she still has eyes and ears like a hawk. She has to be the one that called the police on me if we’re wrong about Barbie watching the house.”

  “You can charm her, Bigfoot. Besides, we’re still working for the Sheriff and have every right to be in there.”

  Liddell snorted. “Charm, yeah right.”

  “Well, if that doesn’t work you can eat her.”

  “Not even a snack, pod’na. Too bony and tough.”

  “If Troup shows up, we can shoot him and blame it on the old lady,” Jack said and this got a laugh out of his partner.

  * * *

  When they parked in front of Bitty’s house, there were no police cars, no crime scene tape, and no neighbors outside.

  Jack said, “In Evansville a murder like this would have brought out street vendors, news crews, admission booths, kiddie rides, and a few ambulance-chasing lawyers and political hacks to work the crowd.”

  Liddell grinned for the first time. “It’s good to have you here, pod’na. I missed your sarcasm and positive take on human nature.”

  “Let’s talk to the old woman,” Jack said and popped his door open.

  Liddell sat still. “I know we kind of talked about this, but what are we going to say to her? We don’t have any authority to be asking questions, and I’m almost sure she’s the one that called the cops on me.”

  “We don’t tell her anything, Bigfoot,” Jack said confidently. “We look like cops.” He leaned back and studied Liddell, and said, “Well, at least I look like a cop. I’ll tell her you’re a yeti ride-along. If cops come, it sure as hell won’t be Barbie again. You say you think you left your gun around here somewhere and you need it back.”

  Liddell scoffed and got out on his side.

  Jack said over the top of the car, “You can say your mother gave that gun to you, and it’s all you have left to remember her by. Work up some tears.”

  “Bite me,” Liddell said.

  Jack’s gaze was fixed somewhere over Liddell’s shoulder, and he said, “I think I saw the curtains by the door move.” He reached back inside the car and took several pairs of latex gloves from the console and stuck them in a pocket. “I’d say we’ve lost the element of surprise.”

  They walked up on the porch of Bitty’s next-door neighbor and Liddell knocked.

  “Mrs. Martin. It’s Detectives Blanchard and Murphy, ma’am.”

  Jack added, “Sheriff Guidry sent us.” It wasn’t a big lie.

  A voice said from behind the door. “I saw the big one get arrested yesterday.”

  Liddell said, “The officer didn’t know me, that’s all. It all got worked out. We just need to ask you a few questions, ma’am.”

  She didn’t unlatch the door, and Jack whispered in Liddell’s ear. “She’s probably calling the Sheriff or the police.”

  The door opened and an elderly woman stood in the doorway and said, “I am not calling the police. I just needed to get decent.” She was wearing a well-worn nightgown that reached to her ankles. Under it her breasts sagged almost to her waist and her stomach pooched out. A fluff of white hair floated atop her head like a cloud.

  She showed them into what was a parlor in the old days. The room was pristine, with clear plastic covers on the couch and love seat, but none on the easy chair.

  “I’ll make coffee,” she said and moved away with a swiftness Jack didn’t attribute to someone her age. She had to be ninety years old at least.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Jack said in a low voice after she left the room, but she didn’t respond.

  She came back wearing a housedress that was as worn-out as the nightgown but thankfully not showing as much. She carried a tray with a coffeepot, sugar bowl, a tiny pitcher of cream, and a plastic jar of honey molded into the shape of a bear. Next to all of this was a plate of homemade beignets.

  Jack waited for her to sit and everyone to make their coffee. He did the majority of talking since Liddell’s mouth stayed busy with the beignets. Within ten minutes he learned the life history of Mrs. Jean Martin. He’d interviewed elderly people and found they needed more time to warm up than kids. Kids wanted you to get right to the point, anxious to get back to their texting or Tweeting or whatever the hell they did instead of interacting socially.

  She must have found Jack’s interest appropriate because she changed to the subject of Bitty. Jack had asked about Dusty Parnell. She said she hadn’t seen Parnell at Bitty’s for several months now. She had some other unflattering remarks, all having to do with “living in sin.” She told them that no one from the police had talked to her yet, and she made a few derisive remarks about the way this was handled because those guys on CSI: Miami were better.

  Liddell had finished off the beignets and Jack had run out of questions, so they excused themselves and Mrs. Martin showed them out.

  Jack waited until he thought they were out of bionic earshot and said, “She’s a very competent witness, Bigfoot. They should have talked to her. She even remembered you and Bitty were partners. I believe her that she didn’t c
all the police or that they didn’t even try to talk to her.”

  Jack took the gloves from his pocket and they both pulled a pair on before approaching Bitty’s house. Any crime scene tape or a coroner’s seal had been removed. Jack tried the door and it opened. He pulled it shut without entering. “Let’s go to the back. You can show me what you did when you got here.”

  They walked down the west side of Bitty’s. It was on a corner lot with a farm field of sugarcane across the way. Hydrangea plants with blue and white blooms grew thick along the side of the house. A wood privacy fence stretched from the back of the house to the alley. They went to the back, and Jack saw Bitty’s orange Camaro.

  “Did she have a department-issued car?” Jack asked.

  “Everyone in the Sheriff’s Department does. Or did. Whiteside didn’t say anything about her department car being missing, or she may not have known. It doesn’t appear the PD and Sheriff’s Department are on speaking terms.”

  Jack tried the driver’s door and it was unlocked. “Was she in the habit of leaving everything open like this?”

  “Would you?”

  They searched everything in the car but didn’t see a release button for the trunk.

  “I wonder where the keys are?” Jack said.

  Liddell used a small folding knife on his key ring and pushed it in the lock. He twisted it and the trunk popped open. “Bitty never got that fixed, I guess.”

  They opened the trunk lid and found the usual assortment of trunk junk: road flares, a blanket, and so on, but it was in total disarray. Jack stooped and felt around the lip of the inside opening. He pulled his hand back and had a strand of dark hair with a piece of skin attached.

  Jack held it up to the light and Liddell said, “It could be Bitty’s. We’ll give it to Sheriff Guidry. I wonder why PPD didn’t find it? Maybe they didn’t even search her car.”

  “We need to ask our new crime scene friend. He should know or be able to find out what they searched. The Coroner should have samples. Maybe we can get a comparison done.”

  “Do you trust Kurtis?” Liddell asked.

  “As much as I do anyone, so far.”

  The liner and carpeting in the trunk was a dark fiber. There were roundish stains from motor oil or some type of greasy equipment. It would have been nearly impossible to check for blood without proper test equipment. They closed the doors and trunk.

  “Okay,” Jack said. “Walk me through what you remember.”

  Liddell said, “I parked right here beside the Camaro. She was supposed to be here. I mean I had the note. I assumed she was here.”

  Liddell recreated his movements, including finding the smear of blood on the back gate latch, seeing the drag marks, and finding the back door kicked in.

  They walked toward the back door and Liddell pointed out a couple of paper dots in the grass. The dots were about the size of the head of a nail. A Taser can be used two ways. As a shock device by placing the two probes in contact with the person’s skin. Or by discharging barbed probes—darts—from a cartridge that is powered by CO2. When a Taser cartridge fires darts, the CO2 gas expels dozens of tiny paper dots that are packed around the darts.

  “From Barbie’s Taser?” Jack asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Jack saw the boot print on the back door and the splintered wood and missing dead bolt. He used his iPhone to take pictures of the damage and boot print. “Troup left the door unsecured.” The last officer or detective to leave the scene should make sure the scene is secured so no one would enter and contaminate it. “What the hell? With this kind of case you’d think they would still have someone guarding the crime scene.”

  Jack saw Mrs. Martin peering out of the window on the other side of the fence. He waved. The face disappeared, and the curtains shut.

  Liddell pushed the back door open. “This is the kitchen. The table is on the right. That’s where I saw her.”

  “Just to be clear, you said you came inside?”

  “Yes.” Liddell walked into the room and stopped. “I was about right here when I saw her body on the table. At first I didn’t want to believe it was Bitty. I probably should have come in and checked the rest of the house to be sure the killer wasn’t still here. I was so shook I went outside to call the police. I was fishing my phone out when I got sick. I was throwing up when Barbie lit me up with a Taser.”

  “And then he handcuffed you and took you back inside?” Jack asked, shaking his head in disbelief.

  “Yeah. He walked me through the kitchen to the front room—over there—and set me down on the sofa,” Liddell said.

  The doorway between the kitchen and front room was wide. Jack could see the sofa. Liddell wouldn’t be able to see the kitchen table from the sofa. A small blessing.

  “Barbie had me sitting there less than five minutes before Troup showed up. I’m telling you, pod’na, they got here too quick. Then I was hustled off to the police station. The whole thing took about ten to fifteen minutes.”

  Jack mulled this over. It was very efficient work for Barbie and Troup considering how badly they handled the scene after they arrived. He looked around the kitchen and could immediately see that there was too little blood for the murder Liddell had described. The removal of the body had left smears and streaks of blood on the tabletop. On the floor were bloody boot prints but only a small amount of blood, droplets except for what had been tracked around the kitchen. On the kitchen wall behind the table a bloody symbol was drawn on the wall. The Divine Messenger. It was a simple drawing that any child could have made depicting a three-pointed trident with two bars crossing the staff. Except this one was finger painted in blood that had dried to a muddy brown.

  “Were there that many boot tracks there?” Jack asked.

  “I don’t know,” Liddell answered. “I’m sure they were some, but who knows what Troup and his people messed up in here.” He pointed to a cigarette butt crushed out on the floor in the doorway to the front room. “Troup’s idea of not contaminating a crime scene.”

  Liddell pointed to the finger painting on the wall. “That’s the same symbol that Cotton showed us. The Divine Messenger.”

  The ceiling above the table showed “cast-off” blood spatters. These were called “cast-off” patterns because they were the result of blood being slung off the blade when it was drawn upward or backward from the blow. Jack wasn’t a crime scene technician, and he wasn’t an expert in blood-spatter analysis, but he’d seen his share of blood at crime scenes. The size, shape, and distribution of the blood on the ceiling suggested a long-bladed knife, like a machete. He didn’t see anything to suggest a struggle had taken place in here.

  “She didn’t fight her killer. She was unconscious or already dead when this stuff was done,” Jack said flatly.

  “Staged,” Liddell said.

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” Jack said and took his phone out of his pocket. “I wish we had some pictures to . . .” He broke off and looked at Liddell. “Sorry to be insensitive, Bigfoot.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Liddell said.

  Jack zoomed in on the blood on the ceiling and took close-up pictures. He repeated this with the symbol on the wall and the bloody boot prints.

  “I wish we had our own crime scene unit here,” Liddell said.

  “That’s a great idea, Bigfoot,” Jack said, and punched in a number on his cell phone.

  “You’re serious? You think the Chief will let them come here?”

  “Are you crazy?” Jack said. The phone was answered.

  Liddell listened to Jack’s side of the call, which was mostly uh-huh’s, and yeah’s before he got down to why he’d called.

  “Listen, Tony. I’m sending you some pictures from my phone. Can you look at them and give me an opinion? I don’t have a ruler or anything I can use for a scale. Can you just give me your impression and get back with me pretty quick?”

  Jack listened some more and said, “Yeah. I’ll send them now.” He handed the
phone to Liddell and said, “Can you figure out how to put him on hold and send the pictures I just took?”

  Liddell took the phone and said, “Tony, can you call me back on FaceTime? Okay.” He hung up and said to Jack, “I sent the pictures, but we can show him the scene live.” The phone trilled in his hand and Liddell touched the screen. Sergeant Walker’s face filled the phone screen.

  “Show me what you’ve got,” Walker said.

  Liddell handed the phone to Jack and said, “I’m going back outside, pod’na.”

  Jack watched him go. He turned back to the phone. “I’ll start at the back door, Tony. Remember this has already been stepped on by their Crime Scene guys.”

  “Gotcha,” Walker said.

  Jack showed Walker the boot print on the outside of the door first, and the splintered wood and missing dead bolt. He was glad he started there because Walker’s keen eye picked up something both Jack and Liddell had missed.

  “Can you give me a close-up of the steps?” Walker asked. “And then I’ll want to see the door again.”

  Jack put the phone on speaker and did as asked, holding the phone inches away from a place on the concrete step where Walker directed him. He did the same thing for the door, but not of the boot print. He trained the phone’s camera on the area around the brass kick plate on the bottom of the door.

  “You’ve got some drops of blood on the steps,” Walker said. “And there is a smudge of blood on the kick plate. It looks like someone used the toe of a shoe or boot to push the door.”

  Not positive proof that Liddell’s friend was carried inside. Not even positive proof that she was alive or dead when that happened.

  Jack then took Walker slowly over the ground he and Liddell had just covered in the kitchen, the boot prints in blood on the floor, the smudges and streaks on top of the table, the symbol on the wall, ending with the cast-off blood patterns on the ceiling.

  “I could be more of a help if I was there, but I think you’re right about the murder not happening in the kitchen. For one thing there’s not enough blood. For another, if they tested the outside walk and steps for blood they would find more drops of it.”