The Deep Dark Descending

by Eskens,Allen

  We’re in a small clearing no more than twenty feet in from the shore of a large, frozen lake. The clearing gave the deceptive appearance of a portage, which must have drawn him like a man stumbling toward a mirage. But only a few feet into the clearing, the man became tangled in a patch of pin-cherry scrub. Our chase had come to an end. He had no choice but to face me and turn his flight into a fight.

  By the time I’d caught up to him, I was so exhausted I could barely stay on my feet. I lumbered up the embankment, my shaky legs driven forward by a rage that had been on a slow burn for years and was now erupting—my ax handle raised and ready. I didn’t see the knife in his hand as he turned to make his stand. It wouldn’t have mattered if I had seen it. I lunged at him with the ax handle arcing down from above my head. He raised his left arm to block my attack and took the full force of the blow. I swear I heard the sound of the bone breaking.

  He started to go down onto one knee, a half-assed genuflection, but caught himself and struggled to get back to his feet. I swung again. This time, just as the ax handle reached the top of its arc, I saw the glint of the blade in his hand. He fell toward me, the knife aimed at my stomach. I juked to the right, my feet tangling in the scrub and snow as I drove the ax handle into his head. The jolt reverberated through my palm, and the man went down hard. I raised the ax handle for a third blow, the one that would end his life, but there would be no third blow.

  He’s gaining strength as he resists my effort to tie him up. I grab his broken arm, and the stab of pain wakes him. He speaks with clarity, almost yelling at me, “What the fuck are you doing?”

  He tries to pull his arm free, but I use my knees to push his wrists together. He bellows and curses as my leg presses against what I suspect is a broken ulna. That’s got to hurt something fierce. I bind the cord around his left wrist, then double it back again to his right wrist and tie it tight. I turn around to sit on his knees so I can untie the laces of his boots. He kicks, but under my weight, his legs barely move. I pull the laces tight, knotting them so that the collar of each boot pinches into his calves. Then I tie the loose ends of the boot laces to one another, binding his feet together.

  I stand up to inspect what I’ve done. Behind his back, the belt has his arms trussed at the elbows and his wrists are tethered in front of his stomach with my drawstring, his hands far enough apart that his fingers can’t touch. I pick up his fillet knife and slide it into my boot. He is at my mercy.

  Mercy, I repeat the word in my head. The irony. A wisp of a chuckle escapes my lips and dissolves into the breeze as my thoughts retreat back into darker corners.

  “What’s going on?” he asks. “Who are you?”

  I stand, brush the snow off my pants, and I look around, thinking maybe I can get a fix on where I’m at. Although I had done my best to commit this part of the Superior National Forest to memory, I lost track during the two-mile chase, and I’m not sure if I’m still in Minnesota or if crossing that frozen lake brought me into Canada. My mind begins calculating arguments of jurisdiction and law, and I drop my head to laugh. Still thinking like a cop. I’ll have to get over that.

  I zip my coat shut, now that the cold morning air has found its bite again. The lake looks to be about half a mile across and wide enough from east to west that I cannot see those shores through the haze. A jaundiced sun seeps through low clouds, and the thin veil of falling snow obscures the southern shore where I can barely make out the smudges of green pine mixed with streaks of white aspen and birch.

  “I think you broke my arm,” he says. “It hurts.” There’s a salesman’s sincerity to his words, which fall barren upon my ears. “Why are you doing this? I don’t understand. Who are you?”

  I walk down to the edge of the lake to clear my head, my gaze lost in the murky distance. We are alone. The closest semblance of civilization is the cabin where the chase began, some two miles away. He started on a snowmobile and I ran on foot. Had he not been in such a hurry, he’d have gotten a better head start. Instead, he wiped out early on a hairpin turn.

  Even if he hadn’t wrecked it, his machine could only take him so far. The snowmobile trail turns into a foot portage where Superior National Forest butts up against the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, well before the Canadian border. From there, he had to run on foot. I would have followed him to the end of the earth, if I had to. He had fear to feed his effort. I had revenge. I was willing to bet that my fuel would burn hotter and longer than anything he could muster.

  But what to do now? If I was back in Minneapolis, there would be procedures to follow—a step by step blueprint of how to treat a suspect. Suspect. That’s the wrong word. This isn’t an investigation. I’m not looking for the truth; I know the truth. I need to hear him say what he did. I want him on his knees, blubbering his confession through tears of remorse so sincere that I have no choice but to believe him. I want an act of absolute contrition from this man, and even that might not be enough.

  I’m thirsty. I don’t have water so I take off my gloves and scoop some snow into my mouth. It melts quickly on my tongue, but it does not quench my thirst. I lift another small handful of snow and for a moment allow myself to take in the beauty of the forest around me.

  There is very little wind and the man has stopped his yapping, which allows a sense of tranquility to descend on our little corner of the world. In the quiet of the woods, my thoughts turn to what I have lost—what he has taken from me. Jenni would have loved it here, sitting in the middle of nowhere listening to the snow feather its way through the trees. She loved the woods, and she loved winter.

  I close my eyes and the smell of pine takes me back to our little house in Logan Park and the Christmas trees we put up every year. Jenni always insisted on the real thing, its scent filling the house, its branches decorated with a hodgepodge of ornaments that we had collected over the years, ornaments that held a special meaning for us: our first Christmas together, souvenirs from trips, and art fairs. She had ornaments from her childhood that she’d made from as far back as preschool.

  Our last Christmas together, we spent the whole day bedecking the house and baking cookies. That night she poured pour wine and lead me to a blanket that she’d spread out in front of the fireplace. There, we made love, her soft skin warmed by the fire, her eyes sparkling with the gentle twinkle of Christmas lights. I looked at her in that moment and wondered how a man like me had ever gotten so lucky? How had I come to be with a woman so beautiful? So loving?

  “Are you still here?” The man’s words pull me from my memory and I hate him for it. “Hey, are you out there?”

  He is lying on his back with a jack pine between us, so he doesn’t know if I’ve left him or not. It occurs to me that leaving him is an option. This forest is teeming with wolves. I’m no expert, but I would think that a pack of wolves would delight in such meal. I smile at the thought even though I know that I won’t be leaving him for chance to decide his fate. There is no penitence in that. No, this man will not die until he understands the gravity of what he’s done.

  But there’s something else that scratches at the back of my mind, something faint and mercurial, a wisp of disquiet that dances just beyond my grasp. I try to understand why I hesitated, why that ax handle froze above my head, and the only flicker that makes it through the murk is that I need something from this man, something more than just his death—something more, even, than his confession. But what? Vindication? I don’t think so. Such a sentiment seems petty to me, unworthy of her memory. No, I think this has to be about more than common revenge. This can’t just be about me. This man’s death must set right a universe beyond my own personal desires. That’s what he has to understand. That’s what I need to see in his eyes.

  I contemplate what to do with the man and keep coming back to the notions of time and pressure—forces that can build mountains and tear them down. In my experience, repentance comes neither quickly nor easily. I let my mind wander through a field of ideas, looking for the one that suits
my needs. I try to keep the darker thoughts at bay, thoughts of torture and pain, thoughts so delicious to me that I can almost taste them on my tongue. But I set those impulses aside.

  What I need is a countdown, a cadence that would let him see the end coming. His time on this earth is dwindling, his fate marching to a drum beat that he cannot alter. His only choice will be in how he meets that fate.

  I like that idea. And if I’m being honest with myself, then I have to admit that I need that countdown for me as much as I do for him. I need it in the way a child on the high dive uses the fall of numbers to summon his resolve to jump. I know what I came here to do, yet, when I raised that ax handle for the death blow, I froze, my will to act caught in the crossfire between lesser gods of virtue and vice. I don’t want to think about that because I don’t want to believe I can’t go through with it. But that’s the case, if the truth be told—and in the end, truth is what this is all about, right?

  I sit on the bank of the lake to come up with a plan, my feet resting on a shelf of ice below me, a crag sticking up through the snow having been pushed there by expansion in the middle. I tap the edge of that ice with my toe just to hear it crack. That’s when a thought pops into my head. I remember of a case I once had where a man tried to hide a body by cutting holes in a frozen river and slipping the body through. The ice on this lake has to be at least three feet thick—maybe four. But back at the cabin, before the chase began, I had peeked into a shed to make sure the man wasn’t hiding in it. At the time, nothing piqued my interest, but now I remember the ice auger hanging on the wall. A plan begins to form in my mind, details falling into place. Time and pressure.

  “Help!” the man yells. “Somebody help me!”

  I stand up and walk back to where the man lies.

  “Oh thank God. I thought you were going to leave me. I knew you wouldn’t—”

  I plop down on the man’s thighs and begin to undo his snow pants.

  “What the hell?”

  Beneath his snow pants, as I expect, he’s wearing blue jeans, held up with a belt. I undo the belt.

  “Get off me!” the man yells. “What are you doing?”

  Did he really think I chased him for two miles in knee-deep snow just to molest him? I suppose, had I been in his position, I would have been questioning this conduct as well. Or maybe he thinks I’m going to relieve him of his man parts. I pause for a second when that idea flashes across my mind. But then I go back to my task.

  I pull his belt from around his waist and toss it to the side. Then I stand and lift his torso until he is in a sitting position, his legs straight, his feet bound together by his boot laces. I pull him down the hill until his back is resting against the pine tree.

  “Thanks,” he says. “My arm really hurts. Could you—”

  I pick up his belt and wrap it around his neck.

  “What are you—?”

  I pull the belt tight, cutting off his words, but not his breath. The belt is just long enough to close around both his throat and the tree. I buckle it on the last hole.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” His voice is raspy against this new binding. “Why are you doing this?”

  I take a moment to inspect my work, to make sure that, after I leave him, he won’t be able to escape. His eyes are large with fear—or is it rage? I can’t really tell. Either is fine by me. Satisfied with my handiwork, I put my gloves back on and pull my coat hood over my head, cinching it for the walk. As I step out onto the frozen lake I can hear him yelling, or at least trying to yell past the belt around his neck.

  “Where’re you going? You can’t leave me here. There’re wolves out here. Come back here. You can’t leave me like this.”

  As his voice trails off behind me, I find satisfaction in his fear, in his belief that I’m leaving him to be eaten by the wolves. But I will return. And when I do, he’ll regret that he wanted me to come back.

  Chapter 5: Minneapolis—Two Days Ago

  Chapter 5

  Minneapolis—Two Days Ago

  My first case of the year came a mere seven hours after the New Year began, at least that’s when I got the call. Niki and I were next up on the rotation and, quite frankly, I kind of expected to spend my New Year’s Day on the job. It’s a curious thing how early-morning homicides are so often born of late night partying—back-slapping and high-fives mutating into punches and blood as the alcohol digs its way down to those darker passions. And with all the alcohol dispersed on New Year’s Eve, the odds go way up.

  I arrived up at the scene of a burned-out minivan parked on a turn-around at the end of First Street North, a lonely stub of blacktop that lay between a line of railroad tracks and the Mississippi River. Smoke still rose from the tires, and the exterior of the vehicle looked like the peeled skin of a bad sunburn. Three squads and a fire truck had arrived before me. A display on my dashboard warned me that the air temperature was negative 21 degrees Fahrenheit, which explained why no one was outside of a vehicle. I put on a stocking cap and got out of my car. When I did, a car door opened on one of the squads and Sergeant Richard Martinez stepped out. Rick and I started as patrol officers the same year. Unlike me, however, he loved the streets and bucked any attempt to move him off patrol.

  “Rick,” I said as I reached out a hand.

  “Hey Max,” he said returning the handshake. “You’re going to love this one.”

  “It’s twenty fucking degrees below zero. What’s not to love?”

  “You gettin’ soft behind that desk?” Martinez puffed out his ribcage and slapped his vest with both palms. “This is why we live in this fucking state, ain’t it?”

  “It’s days like today that make me root for global warming.”

  “Haven’t you heard? That’s all a hoax. Besides, I hear we’re in for a warm up—above zero in two days.”

  “I’ll break out my sunblock.”

  As we approached the vehicle, the smell of the burned rubber was overwhelming in the light breeze, and behind that I could smell gasoline.

  Rick walked me around to the side door of the minivan and pointed to a lump of charred flesh and muscle lying on the back seat. I leaned in and took a whiff, slow and deliberate, like a wine expert looking for the oak in a glass of chardonnay. The smell of burned flesh reminded me of a hog roast I attended in college. And again, the gasoline was heavy behind the punch of the burned car.

  The body appeared to be a woman, lying in a fetal position, her arms and wrists twisted and curled into a pugilist’s pose, a condition caused by the shrinking of the tendons as they bake. There may have been pieces of clothing still covering her, but I couldn’t tell which patches were cloth and which were skin. She had the remnants of boots on her feet; the souls had melted away. I lifted up enough leather around the ankle to see light skin. Caucasian.

  With the sun not yet cresting the horizon, the van was primarily lit with the headlights from the squad cars, where the rest of the patrol personnel waited in warmth for instructions. The air, when it gets that cold, is something sharp that you can almost hold in your hand. It can be inhaled, but breathe it in too deeply, and it will feel like a blade in your chest.

  Another car pulled up to the edge of the circle and parked beside my car. I could see my partner, Niki Vang, putting ear muffs and gloves on before stepping out into the frigid morning air.

  “Did someone call the ME?” I asked Martinez.

  “Yeah, they’ve been notified. They’re probably drawing straws to see who has to come out here.”

  Niki carried a hot coffee in her hand as she made her way to the minivan.

  “Did you bring enough for everyone?” I asked.

  “I thought Boy Scouts always came prepared,” she said, handing me the paper cup. I took a sip, the hot, dark-roast warming my throat and chest as it made its way down.

  Niki wore more layers than Martinez and me combined, and she had just left the comfort of a heated car, yet it was Niki who marched in place to keep warm. Martinez and I, o
n the other hand, had that stupid man code to live up to. It would have been unsightly to have us hopping around with other cops and firefighters watching. I could already feel my toes starting to grow numb inside of my dress shoes.

  “One victim,” I said to Niki. “Female, likely Caucasian.”

  “Do you think the firemen would mind if I lit one of these tires back on fire?” Niki said. “This cold is ridiculous.” Niki edged past me, leaned into the van, and inhaled. “Definitely gas, or some accelerant.”

  “A killer wanting to hide their tracks,” I said.

  “Either that or they just needed to get warm,” Niki said.

  Martinez said, “911 got a call from some guy who was screaming his bloody head off. Said he was on fire. Wanted someone to put him out. We found ol’ Fireball over there.” Martinez pointed to a scuff of ash in the snow where the caller had been rolling around to put out the flames. “And take a look at this.” Martinez walked us around to the other side of the van and pointed to a small Bic cigarette lighter on the ground, directly beneath a partially opened window.

  Niki looked at the open window and back at the lighter. “So Fireball reached his hand through the window, flicks the lighter and . . . kaboom!”

  “I’m not a detective, like you guys,” Martinez said with a grin, “but if I was in Vegas, that’d be my bet.”

  “That’s about as stupid as they come,” I said.

  “I know, right?” Niki said. “If he’d used a Zippo instead of a Bic, he could have just tossed the lighter through the window instead of sticking his arm inside.”

  Martinez said, “He was still smoldering when we got here.”

  “Where’s he now?” I asked.

  “Ambulance took him to HCMC. One of my guys is there watching over him to make sure he doesn’t leave.”

  “Do we have a name?” Niki asked. I could tell she was trying to hide her shiver as she spoke.