Running in the Dark

by Sam Reaves

  Her husband had a massive hipster beard. He said, “It’s nice to be in a place where there’s no crime to speak of.”

  Except for the people incinerated in cars, Abby thought.

  Graham said, “There was a murder today.”

  Everyone looked at him, startled. “What, here? In Lewisburg?” Tina said.

  “Out southwest of town.”

  “Was that what all the sirens were about this morning?” said Linseth.

  “I heard those,” said Tina. “I thought it was a fire or something.”

  “It was,” said Graham. “They found a body in a burning car. But it wasn’t an accident. The guy was murdered.”

  Tina gasped. “No.”

  Graham nodded. “One of the maintenance guys told me. He has a brother who’s a cop or something.”

  “Oh God, that’s awful.”

  Abby sat, looking at her plate, thinking: keep your mouth shut.

  “Who got killed?” said Linseth.

  “I have no idea. I don’t know if the cops know. Apparently the body was pretty badly burned.”

  “How do they know it wasn’t an accident?” said Linseth.

  “Because the car was torched on purpose. With the guy inside.”

  “Oh, dear God.” Tina put a hand to her mouth. For a moment there was silence.

  “Ow,” said Linseth. “That’s gotta hurt.”

  “The police think he was already dead,” said Abby.

  Four people stared at her, startled. Here we go, Abby thought. She was conflicted: she wanted desperately to tell them all about it but she didn’t really want the attention. “I was there,” she said. “I saw it. I ran and got somebody to call the police.”

  She looked at them all in turn and almost laughed at the blank astonishment on their faces. Tina broke first. “Oh, Abby.”

  Graham frowned. “What were you doing there?”

  She told them about it. “I thought it was the safest time to run. Who’s out at five in the morning?”

  After a couple of murmurs of sympathy and a soft but distinct obscenity from Adam Linseth, Graham said, “But wait a minute. If you came along right as it happened, heard the explosion and all, that means whoever did it was still around, right? Like, right there.”

  Abby nodded. She could see the man smiling at her in the flickering orange light. Careful, she thought. “Yeah. I got the hell out of there. Best workout of my life, going up that hill.”

  They all digested that in silence for a moment. Nobody seemed interested in the pizza anymore. Tina leaned toward her. “Are you all right?”

  Grateful for the concern but determined not to crack in front of people she barely knew, Abby made herself laugh. “I’m OK. I spent the morning with the cops. That will drain the drama out of any situation.”

  Another few seconds went by in silence. Linseth said, “So who got killed?”

  Graham said, “I believe the Herald Gazette has a website. Or it will be on one of the Indianapolis TV stations.”

  Linseth pulled out his phone. He swiped at it for a few seconds while the others watched. “Here we go. ‘Top story. Local man found slain. The body of a Lewisburg man was discovered in his vehicle on County Road 200 South on Saturday, apparently the victim of foul play. The victim was identified as Rex Lyman, fifty-two.’”

  “Who?” said Graham.

  “Oh, my God,” said Abby.

  Everyone was looking at her again. “I met him,” she said. “Last night. At the Azteca, with Lisa Beth Quinton and her husband.”

  “You are making this up,” said Graham.

  “I wish I was.”

  “You are definitely my number-one suspect,” said Linseth.

  “Who is he?” said Steven Stanley.

  “A lawyer. Lisa Beth told me he was a lawyer. I don’t think she liked him much. But it’s still horrible.”

  Tina said, “Of course it is. My God, Abby. What a thing to go through.”

  “The cops told me he was dead or unconscious when the car was set on fire. That makes it a little easier. It wasn’t a nice thing to see.”

  That thought was finally starting to sink in with her audience, Abby could see. The silence became awkward and Tina reached out and laid her hand on Abby’s. “What do you need tonight?”

  Bless you, thought Abby. “This,” she said. “Just this. Just talk to me.”

  “We can do that,” said Tina.

  “And maybe some more adult beverages.”

  Linseth picked up the pitcher of beer. “I think we can probably supply those, too.”

  Graham Gill pulled into the driveway of 6 Hickory Lane and stopped. “Thank you so much,” said Abby, undoing her seat belt. “This really helped.”

  “You going to be all right?” Concern showed in the handsome face.

  “I’ll be fine. Thanks. I really needed the company tonight.” She got out of the car.

  “See you at the office, then. Let me know if you need anything.”

  “I will.” Abby shut the door, walked to the steps, waved as Graham backed the car out onto the street. She crossed the porch.

  And here she stopped, looking down the slope into the night. All she had to do was walk down those steps into the darkness. Just walk down the steps and go around the corner and go into her dark house.

  Abby stood rooted on the porch and told herself she was being childish. But the steps still descended into the black. She pulled her phone out of her purse and poked at it to bring up the flashlight app.

  She was startled by a floodlight going on, on the corner of the roof above the steps. She squinted against the sudden brilliance. The steps were now brightly lit, along with an expanse of lawn behind the house. The door to the house opened and Ned McLaren appeared in the doorway, backlit from inside. “Is that better?”

  Abby blinked at him. “Um, yeah, thanks.”

  McLaren stepped out onto the porch. He was in a T-shirt and jeans again, barefoot. “The switch is inside the door here. I try to remember to turn it on at night, but I never do. What I can do is install a switch out here on the porch so you can control it. Or I could make it motion sensitive. I’ll try to get to that tomorrow.”

  Abby put her phone away. “Thank you, that would be good.”

  “Everything working OK down there?” The floodlight was enough to show McLaren’s expression. Abby thought he looked tired.

  “Yeah, so far everything’s fine, thanks.”

  “Cool. Let me know if you need anything. I’ll get that switch installed as soon as I can. G’night.”

  “Good night, thanks.” Abby went down the steps. She halted at the bottom and looked back up at the porch for a moment. Come and talk to me, she thought, please. I can see where I’m going now, but behind that door there is still a dark, empty apartment.

  When Abby awoke the sun was shining; she was alive and unharmed but there was still no food in the house. The brand-new refrigerator and the freshly installed cabinets were still absolutely empty. Coffee, Abby thought. Coffee and granola, some berries and yogurt. Where can I get some?

  She had no car and no idea where the closest supermarket was. The gas station with the minimart was not going to be a long-term solution but surely they would have some emergency basics, if only a bag of trail mix. She put on jeans and a tank top and set out. The morning was fresh and cool, the darkness lifted, the horror more distant by twenty-four hours. She felt a little light-headed; the world did not seem entirely real this morning.

  She headed north on Jackson, crossed the stream in its little belt of woodland, went one block uphill, and here was something she had failed to notice before: a little corner store at the back of a small parking lot. The sign over the door was in Spanish: POZA RICA. There were hand-lettered signs in the window: TOMATILLOS, CHILES GUAJILLOS, JARRITOS. And here was one she knew: LECHE.

  Why not? Milk was milk; they probably had coffee and would surely be happy to take her money. Abby crossed the street. She hesitated as she approached the do
or, daunted by the sound of rapid Spanish being spoken inside. What the hell, thought Abby. We’re all foreigners here. She went in.

  The conversation stopped dead as three people froze, looking at her. A short, squat woman and a grizzled old man in a straw hat stood before a counter behind which a young woman sat at a cash register. Abby blinked at them and said, “Um, hi. I was hoping I could get some milk.”

  She was prepared to turn tail and run at the first sign of hostility, but the young woman smiled at her and said, “Sure. Back there in the cooler.”

  Abby went down the aisle, scanning. There were racks of magazines with covers shouting Quién, OK!, ¡HOLA!, bins of vegetables she didn’t recognize, shelves full of cans labeled in Spanish. What was all this? Pozole, picadillo, sofrito. Here was the cooler, with plastic jugs of milk. Abby grabbed a half gallon and made her way back up toward the front. Here was coffee; here was a package of some kind of pastry, labeled pan dulce. Abby grabbed them. There wasn’t going to be any yogurt or granola, she guessed.

  She put her choices on the counter. “Did you find what you need?” the young woman said. She had dark eyes in a round, pleasant face, black hair pinned up loosely in back to keep it off her neck. She wore an Indianapolis Colts T-shirt but her face showed unmistakably the Iberian and Mesoamerican strains intertwined in her genome.

  “Yeah, I think so, enough for breakfast anyway.” Abby smiled at the elderly couple, who were staring at her wide-eyed. “I just moved in, up the street, and the cupboard is bare.”

  “Well, take your time, get what you need. There are baskets there by the door.”

  “Well . . . OK.” Abby took a basket and made another pass, more slowly, gathering salad and sandwich makings, a loaf of bread improbably labeled Bimbo, butter, a few other staples.

  Ringing them up, the girl asked, “You with the college?”

  “That’s right. How can you tell?”

  “You don’t sound like a Hoosier. And people from the town don’t come in here much. Where did you move from?”

  “New York City.”

  The girl’s eyes lit up. “Oh, I always wanted to go to New York. Times Square, the Empire State Building.” She laughed, and then in a burst of Spanish she addressed the couple. Abby caught the words “Nueva York.” The man and woman smiled and nodded. Bagging Abby’s purchases, the girl said, “What’s your name? I’m Natalia.”

  “I’m Abby. Nice to meet you. What does ‘Poza Rica’ mean?”

  “That’s the name of the town we come from. It’s in Veracruz state. Most of us here come from Veracruz. We came when I was eight.”

  “So you grew up here.”

  “Oh, yeah. Go Red Raiders, Lewisburg High, woo! I wanted to go to Tippecanoe, too, but it’s too expensive. Plus, I didn’t do too good on the SAT. I really blew the math part. So maybe community college in Lafayette next year, if I can save the money.”

  “What do you want to study?”

  “I don’t know. My daddy just wants me to do something girly, like cosmetology. Me, I always liked science. I thought maybe I could go into nursing. But I gotta improve my math for that.”

  Natalia’s eyes flicked past Abby toward the door, and Abby turned to see a young Mexican man coming in. He was under six feet tall but athletic, barrel-chested and a little bowlegged in billowy oversized basketball shorts and a blue soccer jersey. His hair was cut in a fade with the shaved sides; he was handsome enough but his face wore a scowl. He had a blue tattoo on the side of his neck. He nodded a greeting to the elderly couple and then muttered something at Natalia in Spanish as he stepped behind the counter. She replied and they carried on a brief conversation as he moved past her to the register, jabbed at a key to open the drawer and took out a few bills. Natalia caught Abby’s eye. “This is my brother,” she said. “He thinks he’s my boss. Luis, this is Abby. She just moved here, from New York.”

  The look Luis gave Abby was just a shade off the scowl. “Hi,” he said. “There’s a Kroger’s at the mall out on South Jackson. That’s probably where you want to get your groceries.”

  Natalia smacked her brother on the shoulder with the back of her hand. “That’s not very friendly.”

  “I’m just trying to help the lady,” he said, folding the bills into a wallet. “We mostly just have Mexican stuff here.” He pulled a smartphone out of his pocket and started jabbing at it with his thumb.

  Natalia rolled her eyes and shoved Abby’s bags across the counter to her. “Come buy all the Mexican stuff you want, Abby. I’ll teach you to cook Mexican. I’ll teach you how to make tamales huastecos.”

  “I’d like that,” Abby said. “You know, math is my field. I could tutor you if you want.”

  “Really? That would be awesome.”

  Oh, God, Abby thought, instantly regretting the impulse. “Right now I’m pretty busy, starting a new job and all. But maybe in a few weeks we could work something out. I’ll be around.”

  “I would love that. I’m so glad to meet you.” Natalia wiggled her fingers and went back to Spanish, addressing the old couple.

  Abby grabbed her purchases and fled. Outside, she stood for a moment taking stock: It was good to make friends, but what had possessed her to offer to commit valuable time to somebody she didn’t even know? You’re desperate, she thought.

  The next moment she thought: desperate or not, you need all the friends you can get.

  Philip Herzler’s wife Ruth was zaftig and matronly, with a reassuring smile. “This place terrified me when we first moved here,” she said, nudging lumps of pickled herring into line on a plate with a knife. “I had the feeling when I walked along Courthouse Square that all the old men in overalls on the benches were pointing and saying, “Look, there goes a Jew.”

  Abby laughed, uncomfortably. Terrified? I can top that one, she thought. But here in the Herzlers’ kitchen she felt safe, with a glass of wine in hand, olives, cheeses, salamis and half-sliced baguettes scattered on the butcher-block tabletop in front of her and the murmur of conversation wafting back from the living room. “I’m afraid I’m a really bad Jew. As in, I got presents on Hanukkah and Christmas both.”

  “Well, goodness. Phil and I are hardly models of orthodoxy. Let me just say that bacon has been known to pass our lips.”

  Jerry Collins came into the kitchen with an empty beer bottle in his hand. “Oho! So here’s where the real party is.” He set the bottle on the counter and beamed at Abby. “So, are they putting you in the Witness Protection Program?”

  There was a stunned silence, Ruth blinking at Jerry and then at Abby. Abby said, “I guess they’ll have to, pretty soon. Is it all over town?”

  “I don’t know about that. Lisa Beth saw you in a squad car at the scene. But nobody would tell her why you were there.”

  “And I am consumed with curiosity,” said Lisa Beth Quinton, who had appeared in the doorway. “But I wasn’t going to be indiscreet enough to ask you about it.” She shot her husband a scathing look.

  Abby remembered the crowd at the top of the hill; she had been oblivious. She said, “I was out for a jog and I saw the car burning. I reported it. That’s all.” She met Ruth Herzler’s baffled look and said, “I happened to come across that murder yesterday.”

  Ruth gasped. “Oh, how awful.”

  “It’s drawing a lot of attention,” said Lisa Beth. “Lawyers don’t get themselves killed too often around here.” She made her way past the wine bottles arrayed on the counter to where the harder stuff stood and picked up a bottle of vodka.

  Abby set her glass down on the butcher block. She had been gripping it so tightly she was afraid she was going to snap the stem. “They’re sure about the identification, are they?”

  “Apparently. I think they got the dental records yesterday. Today they got the autopsy results from Terre Haute, and guess what? He had two deep knife wounds. One in his thigh and one right through the heart. So he didn’t feel a thing, probably, when the car went up in smoke. Whoever did it drove him there and
set him up behind the wheel, then torched the car.”

  “That’s appalling,” said Ruth. “Do the police have any ideas?”

  “They do,” said Lisa Beth. She poured vodka over ice and took a healthy swig. “They’re looking very hard at Lyman’s client list. He had a lot of what you could call unsavory associates.”

  Ruth Herzler heaved a sigh. “Well. It’s horrible.” Her look lingered on Abby for a moment. “How awful for you.”

  “I’ll be all right. Nothing to do with me.”

  “You’re very brave.” Ruth’s look lingered on Abby and then she reached out and patted her hand. She picked up plates and took them out to the living room, leaving Lisa Beth and Abby in the kitchen.

  Lisa Beth took a sip of her drink. “You didn’t just find the car, did you? You saw something else, I’m thinking. That’s why nobody at the police station will talk about you.”

  Abby felt the blood drain from her face. She opened her mouth but nothing came out.

  Lisa Beth raised a hand. “Don’t tell me anything you don’t want to. Forget I said anything.”

  “It’s all right.” Abby looked into her wineglass and said, “I saw a guy, that’s all. I don’t know if he had anything to do with it.”

  “OK. Don’t worry. I’m not going to write about you, I promise you.”

  “Thanks, that’s good to know.”

  A moment passed and Lisa Beth said, “And the cops are not talking. Do what they tell you and you’ll be fine.”

  “I plan to,” said Abby. “Believe me.”

  “All right, then. First problem set due on Wednesday, first quiz one week from today. Be ready. See you Wednesday.” Abby gave the class what she hoped was a confident, authoritative smile and closed the folder on the lectern in front of her to signal the end of the session. She busied herself with gathering papers, markers and books while the room erupted in a hum of voices and shifting chairs.

  “Uh, Dr. Markstein?” The girl was blonde and pretty, hair in a topknot, track shorts and tank top showing a lot of healthy tanned limb. “I just wanted to say, that was awesome.”