Land of Shadows

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  Heart racing, I forced myself to take controlled breaths.

  He smiled at me, his teeth bright white against all that red. “I’m…,” he said as he stepped toward me, his shirt now drenched in the blood of the people who had loved him. “Think … remember.”

  I stood there—was I awake or was this a dream?

  The thirteen-year-old Elouise knew that this was very real and she lay there, in that apartment back in the Jungle, crying so hard that she couldn’t breathe. The Now-Lou, though, the one standing in this big house with two dead at my feet and a madman with a shotgun just a few steps away, with the blood of two people soaking the soles of my boots, felt that decades-old knot loosening in her belly, felt that rope burning away. No more anxiety. No more fear.

  Blood everywhere.

  Max stood an arm’s length away from me now, and his breath—smelled like ripe barley, copper, and dying tissue—was hot on my face. “I’m … me,” he wheezed, “me and you … like me and your sister.” He smiled, then pushed out words that slammed against each other: “ShelikeitroughdirtyyououlikeitroughdirtyLu?” No breaths, no pauses.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I like it rough and—” My left hand shot out and the heel of my palm struck his nose. And then, I struck his nose again. Bone broke beneath my strikes. Warm blood gushed over my hand and wrist.

  He cried out in pain.

  I grabbed his right wrist and twisted.

  Another crunch.

  He shrieked again and the shotgun fell to the floor.

  I wrapped my arm around his trachea and clasped my slick hands together and pressed.

  Max Crase weakened in my guillotine choke.

  And I kept pressing.

  And he weakened even more.

  Pressing … Pressing …

  And I didn’t let go even as big men in black burst through the door and windows.

  59

  Despite the beating he had received at my hands, Max Yates did not die that night.

  An ambulance had rushed Colin down the hill and to the closest hospital emergency room. “Bullet hit his left arm,” Lieutenant Rodriguez told me. “That didn’t knock him out—yeah, the slug’s impact decked him, but he fell and hit his head on one of the steps. That knocked him out. A couple of stitches, a couple of pills, and some ice, and the cowboy will be okay. He was more worried about leaving you.”

  Fog swept over Don Tomaso Drive like ghosts, blurring red lights, blue lights, and klieg lights. My windbreaker did nothing against the chill that had set deep into my bones. I sat on the hood of a patrol car, arms clutching my shoulders, unable to stop shivering.

  “Shock,” an EMT told me as he wrapped a wool blanket around my shoulders.

  My iPhone vibrated in my pocket but I didn’t move to answer it.

  A few yards away, lieutenants and sergeants talked. I had stopped listening. Couldn’t hear anyway over the chatter of my teeth. So cold. But I thought about Colin, remembered how he had cried out like that, but I had been unable to do anything to help him. I wanted him to be sitting beside me now, crunching on his damned Tic Tacs …

  The phone vibrated again and the muscles in my arm creaked as I pulled the device from my pocket.

  Cyrus Darson had sent me a text message with an embedded video.

  One of us would have to notify him, tell him that his surviving daughter had been killed by the same man as his youngest daughter, that Macie had, unwittingly, lured her own sister to her death …

  I tapped the Play icon.

  Cyrus Darson was sitting in a truck, his face wet from the tears still falling down his cheeks. “Detective Norton … Elouise … Lulu.”

  The world around me dimmed.

  “When you came to the house that morning to tell us about Monie, and you said your name was Elouise, I knew then … I had memorized Tori’s face and I saw her in you, and I knew you were her sister. And I knew that it was just a matter of time until the truth…”

  My hands shook and I gripped the phone tighter to keep it from dropping to the asphalt.

  “I don’t even know how to start,” Cyrus Darson said. “There’s just so … much.” He tried to chuckle as he wiped his nose. “Maybe I should say that I’m not the best father in the world. Not the strongest or the smartest. One of my girls is gone and the other … She’s ruining her life and that’s not her fault. Not Angie’s fault. I should’ve…”

  A sob burst from his chest and he clamped his hand over his mouth. “Vince … I was there when he … We … Tori was standing by Nappy’s car and we grabbed her and forced her down to the storage room and Vince made me hold her arms down and I thought we were just going to … to…” He sniffled and frowned. “She either ignored me or she used me. She always treated me like I was beneath her but I loved her, and I hated her because I loved her and I just wanted, for once, wanted her to feel the pain I felt.

  “He made me hold her down, hold Tori down, but she kept fighting and there was broken glass there and she grabbed a piece and…” He touched his scar and let his finger drift along its bumpy path until it stopped in his dreads. “She hurt me again and so I hurt her. After, I thought we were gonna let her go. She promised that she wouldn’t tell, that she wouldn’t go to the police but Vince … She wouldn’t stop crying, so he wrapped his hands around her neck and…”

  Cyrus Darson whimpered as he remembered, then whispered, “And she stopped crying. She stopped.” His shoulders shuddered as he swiped his hands over his wet face. “It was happening too quickly, all of it, and I couldn’t … it felt like … I wasn’t me. It was like, like I was watching me from some other place and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”

  He looked into the camera. “She was so beautiful, even then, even as she lay there. And while all of it was happening, I thought maybe now, maybe now she would love me.

  “Nappy was like my father and I would do anything for him and that meant cleaning up after Vince and … I didn’t say anything back then because he took care of my family. Made sure we had everything. He bailed me out every single time I…” He shook his head, then dried his face on his T-shirt, then moaned. “Vince has never let me forget. And I can’t prove it, but I know he killed my baby. And because of him, Macie is headed in the wrong direction.

  “Angie … she thought that I was a good man. She knew that I hated Nappy. She thought it was because of the redevelopment shit, because he was a vulture who hurt his own people. She had no clue that we, that I … And I didn’t want her to know about my past or about the money he gave me each month, so I let her think that my hate came from that place. Nappy knew Angie was strong, that if she found out about everything, we would all go down.”

  Cyrus Darson let out a breath, then let his head hit the headrest. “An uneasy alliance. Everybody had something on everybody else. But Angie is good. Better than what I deserve. She fills the spaces in me. There are so many spaces in me. And I don’t expect her to forgive me. I won’t ask. I just know I can’t live with this. I won’t live with this.”

  He stared into the phone’s camera for hours, it seemed, then said, “I saw you today, Lulu, at the old store. And that’s where you will find me after this. Your sister is there, too, in the storage room. I know this is true because I helped bury her there.” Then, he lifted a revolver and stuck the barrel in his mouth.

  60

  By the time we left Napoleon Crase’s blood-soaked home and drove down the hill to the Santa Barbara Plaza, Colin had been stitched up—forehead and arm—and had forced a uniform to drive him to the plaza. I pulled him into a hug, careful not to smash his taped-up arm or his bag of Vicodin. “Next time,” I whispered, “get the hell out of the way.”

  He laughed, then said, “Next time, take the fucker’s shotgun from him.”

  We found Cyrus Darson’s Toyota 4Runner in the former parking lot of Crase Liquor Emporium. After he had sent me his video message, the man who had raped and helped murder my sister pulled the trigger of his revolver and blew off most of
his head.

  I said nothing as I stood there, looking at the mess he had made.

  Lieutenant Rodriguez assigned Luke and Pepe to work the scene and to tell Angie Darson that she had lost her only living daughter and her husband in one bloody night.

  I didn’t want to go home, and Colin couldn’t drive and shouldn’t have been alone anyway with a head injury. I told Pepe that I’d stay overnight with Colin at his place, and then drove my partner to Glendale.

  We didn’t talk much as the world passed by in a blur. He winced each time I hit a large pothole. He napped when he wasn’t wincing.

  As soon as I crossed the threshold of his apartment, I smelled spilled beer and tennis shoes. He didn’t own a lot of furniture, just a sixty-inch television and a futon in the living room, and in the bedroom, a mattress on a box spring. Suitcases lined the bedroom wall, and clothes spilled out of them like intestines.

  “Mind if I shower?” I asked, letting my “away” bag slip off my sore shoulder.

  Colin guided me down the short hallway to the bathroom. He twisted the shower knobs and stood with me as steam filled the tiny space. He brushed my cheek with his thumb.

  I flinched, then caught my reflection in the fogging mirror. There I was. No eyes, no mouth. Just my darkness, a shadow of me. Disappearing.

  “I’ll be outside,” he whispered.

  I said nothing and didn’t move until he had closed the door. I stared at my hands: blood crusted beneath my fingernails and stained the lifelines crisscrossing my palms. I kicked off my boots and slowly peeled out of my bloody sweater and leggings. I stepped into the shower, grinded my teeth as hot water stung my skin. And I stayed there until the world around me turned white.

  * * *

  Colin was seated on the futon, drinking a bottle of Sam Adams and staring at the dark television. His pill vial sat open on the coffee table.

  “Beer and pills?” I asked, sitting next to him.

  He rested his head on my shoulder. “Is there another way?”

  I scoffed. “Yeah. The old-fashioned way: vodka.”

  My body hurt and my mind … numb. Too much had happened and so my brain had triggered the safety switch, and I was too tired to find the reset button. The emotions would be there the next day, along with a new set of matching baggage—fa-la-la-la-la, Christmas gifts for cops.

  “LT called,” Colin said. “Angie Darson ain’t doing so good.”

  I sighed, then closed my eyes. “Where is she?”

  “In the psych ward at USC.”

  “Poor lady.”

  “And…”

  “And what?”

  He took another swig of beer. “They cracked opened Max Yates’s skull. Surgeon found a tumor the size of a walnut.”

  I pushed my damp hair away from my forehead. “The Charles Whitman defense then?”

  The shooter on the tower at the University of Texas had killed thirteen people and wounded thirty-two others. A brain tumor had been pressing against the part of the brain that controlled rage, fear, and anxiety. That’s why he killed—that’s what some doctors and attorneys said.

  “He gonna live?” I asked.

  Colin lifted the bottle to his lips. “Probably not.”

  Neither of us spoke for a long time.

  “What do you think?” Colin asked.

  I paused, before saying, “I’m a cop, not a neurologist.”

  He grunted, not satisfied. “And Napoleon Crase?”

  I took a deep breath, held it, then slowly released. “He could’ve ended all of this a long time ago. And that would’ve…”

  Would’ve what? Saved Monie? Saved Macie? Cyrus? Yes. But Victoria Starr, my sister, would have still been lost.

  I sat up. “Max Crase was in control when he lured Monique Darson to that condo.” I ran my hands through my hair, then let my head fall back onto the couch. “I can’t say that was true for Tori … or the others. But for Monique, for Monie, he deserves…” I shook my head. “Shit.”

  “Yup.” Colin offered me the beer bottle.

  I took it and guzzled the rest.

  “Thought you hated beer,” he said.

  “Well, you offered.”

  He looked up at me, his eyes searching mine, looking for a sign that I was as okay as I sounded. “You okay?”

  “Are you okay?” I asked him. “Since you were the one who got shot today.”

  He smiled. “It’s all good. Chicks dig scars.”

  “Indeed.”

  Then, we closed our eyes and fell asleep.

  Monday, June 24

  61

  On Monday morning, I awakened with my head in Colin’s lap. He was watching the highlights of a baseball game on mute. Once he realized that I was awake, he turned the channel to a home gardening show. “Cuz you ladies like those kind of shows, right?”

  I checked voice mail: Greg had left more messages than I could count, each one seeped in a different mental state. Fear: of losing me. Anger: from being ignored. In love with me all over again. Jealousy. Sadness. And on and on. With the blood of others still trapped beneath my fingernails, I no longer knew if Greg Norton fit into my life. I was not the same Lou he had left almost twenty days ago. A better Lou? A worse Lou? I did not know. Guess we would both find out.

  The doorbell rang and Colin groaned as he shuffled to the door.

  Pepe stood there holding a brown paper bag from Noah’s. “I brought breakfast.” And as he laid out bagels, lox, and cream cheese on the kitchen counter, he said, “Luke and I went to see Angie Darson this morning.”

  “Medicated?” I asked as I fixed a pot of coffee.

  “Heavily.”

  I fixed a plate for Colin, then joined him and Pepe in the living room. We ate slowly, eyes on the television and on a couple house hunting in Costa Rica.

  After the episode ended, Pepe said, “We should head back.”

  Colin aimed the remote at the television and the screen went black.

  I frowned. “Where the hell you going? You’re on the injured list.”

  He stood and readjusted his arm sling. “I won’t be runnin’ after no crackheads today, but I’m good. Let’s roll, partner.”

  Outside, at our cars, Pepe hugged me, then said, “Damn, Lou. I saw Max Yates’s face last night as they were loading him into the rig.” He tousled my hair. “You fight like a girl.”

  I smiled, then climbed behind the wheel of my Crown Vic.

  We drove back over the hill and to Santa Barbara Plaza. The sun shone bright and made these urban ruins more beautiful than what they deserved. For an hour, we waited until our entire team had assembled: Joey, Pepe, Luke, Lieutenant Rodriguez, Zucca and his team, and forensic anthropologists from Cal State Los Angeles.

  While I waited, I pictured myself emerging from the store’s basement four hours later, dusty and exhausted. I imagined lifting my face to the sun as warm tears sluiced down my dirty cheeks. Imagined taking several deep breaths before pulling out my phone and calling my mother, saying to her that I had kept my promise, that I was bringing Tori home.

  After so many years, I wanted to live that moment more than I wanted to see God.

  Minutes before eleven o’clock, we all clambered into the store, then trudged down the steps and into the basement’s storage area. We wore masks with aerators to filter out the smell and to protect us from kicked-up dirt and fecal matter.

  Portable light stands set up and burning bright, Zucca handed me a whisk broom. “Shall we?” he asked.

  I chose a patch of ground near that rectangular window. I dropped to my knees and started to sweep away dirt and garbage. The others found their own parcels and did the same. After much sweeping, I found a small, metal trapdoor.

  Work stopped. The room fell into uncertain silence.

  I tried to yank open the door.

  No give.

  Colin tried.

  Still no give.

  Zucca used a crowbar and the hinges loosened.

  I grabbed the door and pull
ed the handle.

  The videographer turned her camera toward the hole.

  I pulled again and the door creaked opened.

  The cops stepped back—I did, too—and kept flashlights trained on the darkness. The anthropologists took the best positions, kneeling around the door. One scientist, a woman named Olga, motioned for me to come back. “Look,” she said, pointing into the darkness.

  I glimpsed a round brown object half-buried in a pile of dirt.

  Olga used a hand spade to gently dig around that object. Then, she gradually pulled it free.

  It was a shoe. A Nike Huarache.

  About the Author

  Rachel Howzell Hall is a writer/assistant development director at City of Hope, a national leader in cancer research and treatment. Her first novel, A Quiet Storm, was a featured selection of the Borders Original Voices program, as well as an alternate selection of the Black Expressions book club. She lives in Los Angeles.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  LAND OF SHADOWS

  Copyright © 2014 by Rachel Howzell Hall

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art by Getty Images

  Cover design by Jamie S. Warren

  A Forge Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

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  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Hall, Rachel Howzell.

  Land of shadows / Rachel Howzell Hall.—First edition.