Saltar's Point

by Ott, Christopher Alan

  Randall watched from behind as the van came to a gentle stop. This was too easy; he expected trouble from Darrow, not mild mannered compliance. It was out of character for him and the thought made Randall uneasy. He aimed the spotlight directly inside the van, but the small rear windows and the lengthy interior made it difficult to view what Darrow was doing. He used the loud speaker, something he rarely did during routine traffic stops, but the again, this one was anything but routine.

  “TURN OFF THE IGNITION. PUT YOUR HANDS WERE I CAN SEE THEM, AND SLOWLY DROP YOUR KEYS OUTSIDE THE WINDOW.”

  The loudspeaker shredded the silence like cabbage in a blender, causing Darrow to flinch in his seat.

  I’d like to take that bullhorn and shove it right down your fucking piggy throat.

  Instead he dropped the keys the keys outside the window, listening to them clink together as they struck the soggy ground.

  “KEEP YOUR HANDS UP.”

  Randall exited the Cherokee and cautiously proceeded around the left side of the van. He unsnapped the holster on his pistol. Just in case he thought. Darrow sat hands in the air, unmoving except for the rise and fall of his shoulders as he drew ragged breaths. Randall shined the powerful beam of his Maglight directly into Darrow’s eyes, they were glassed over and dim, but that didn’t disrupt the hateful stare resonating behind them.

  “Do you know how fast you were going?”

  The voice was familiar. “Spare the small talk Jackson, what the fuck do you want?”

  “You’re not going to sweet talk your way out of this with that potty mouth Jack.”

  “We both know that ain’t gonna happen now don’t we? “

  “How much have you had to drink tonight?”

  “Enough to shit-face an elephant, so let’s get on with this.”

  “Alright then, step out of the vehicle, get on your knees, and put your hands behind your head. Do it slow.”

  The door creaked as he opened it. Darrow stumbled out of the van, nearly slipping in the soft mud. When he was on his knees Randall moved up behind him and snapped the cuffs on behind his back. They made a satisfying click click sound. He pulled him to his feet and walked him over to the Cherokee. Once he had him safely inside Randall breathed a sigh of relief. That went a lot smoother than he had anticipated.

  He drove off, heading back to Saltar’s Point towards the station. Denny should already be there, waiting to book him. He could feel Darrow’s eyes behind him, boring into his skull. Rage and hatred radiated from Darrow and filled the truck with its ominous presence. An unnerving thought occurred to Randall. If Darrow could have killed him right there he wouldn’t hesitate to do it, no doubt about it. He was a bad seed embedded in the core of a rotten apple.

  When they arrived at the station Denny was waiting for them. He had lined up the booking station in anticipation of their arrival. Darrow was complacent, resigning himself to his fate. When they had fingerprinted him, Randall escorted him to the single occupancy holding cell and slammed shut the iron gate. Denny started the paperwork.

  Randall strode over to his desk and placed a phone call to Peterson. He picked up on the second ring.

  “We got him.”

  The voice on the other line tried without success to hide his excitement. “Where’s the vehicle?”

  “Highway four, mile twelve.”

  “I’ll send a tow immediately.”

  “We’ll only be able to hold him for twenty-four hours, so work quickly.”

  “I know the law Jackson.”

  The voice on the other end went dead, Randall’s ear was filled with the ringing of a dial tone. He placed the receiver on the cradle.

  God damn prick.

  Denny peered over a stack of papers. “Peterson on your nerves again?”

  “That obvious huh?”

  “Why don’t you go home, get some sleep? I’ll stay here with Darrow.”

  Randall wiped the sleep from his eyes. He suddenly felt very old, like a prizefighter well passed his prime, searching his soul for one last bout.

  “You know, I think I’ll take you up on that offer.”

  He stood up and headed for the door. Denny watched him go, not saying a word. When the door slammed shut behind him Denny put his head back down and resumed his paperwork.

  NINETEEN

  Abby walked down the hallway with a purpose behind each stride. Her footfalls were soft but they kicked up clouds of dust, signposts of her passing. Her gaze shifted behind her, peering at the tracks left in the residue of the unkept floor. She bent down, trying desperately to erase the evidence of her travels. Her hands swept over the hardwood, try as she may she couldn’t erase her footprints. With each passing stroke they embedded themselves further into the floor, as if she were burning them into the cedar with a branding iron.

  The manor was cold, lifeless. She did her best to ignore the haunting feeling deep within her chest and pressed onward. At the top of the staircase she gazed at the foyer below. It was still, she had moved undetected. She gripped the handrail and began her descent. The cedar boards voiced their displeasure with creaks and groans, the air about her felt heavy, like pea soup, hanging at the edge of her peripheral vision in drapes of white mist. At the base of the stairs she turned right, heading for the elevator, it awaited her with ominous silence. Inside she found the brass lever and pulled it. It released without resistance and the elevator jumped to life. She felt the motion in the pit of her stomach, her bile and acid lurching upward before settling back down into the belly of her small intestine. Her body jarred as the elevator came to rest on the basement floor. She pulled open the brass gate and entered the cellar for the first time.

  The air was cold, much colder than the chill air above. Her breath swirled about her, making her shudder. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, trying to stimulate the blood flow and subdue the goose pimples that were forming in rapid succession on her skin. The corridor spread out before her, left and right, leaving her unsure of which direction she must head.

  “Abby, over here Abby.”

  Brenda stood down the West corridor, motioning at her with skeletal hands. The hallway was dark, the lights overhead having burned out long ago and not replaced. At the end of the corridor she took a sharp left and entered the embalming room. She flipped on the light and it filled the chamber. Porter’s instruments of the trade gleamed at her, resting silently in their stationary positions. To the west a door lay beckoning. She followed her own footsteps in a trancelike state and entered the boiler room.

  Leaning against the south wall was a well-used pickaxe. She clasped her hands around it, feeling the oak handle bite into her flesh. A soft glow emulated from the boiler, behind it her destination awaited. Abby strode over to the brick wall and stood before it. The mortar in between the bricks was crumbling, yielding to time and the humid conditions aloft in the basement air. She swung the pickaxe with all her might. Bits of brick and mortar stung her skin as they sprayed in all directions. She struck the wall again, sending a reverberating ping throughout the basement. Another blow followed and the bricks gave way, forming a softball-sized hole. She peered through, but the space beyond was dark, obstructing her vision.

  Abby turned the axe over and placed the claw over the ridge of the foremost brick. She leaned back and pulled, dislodging a couple of bricks, sending them crashing to the floor. She struck the wall again, closing her eyes to shield them from the flying particles. She recalled the fear she had felt upon seeing the manor for the first time. It danced about her head with a taunting ferocity. Undaunted she struck the wall again and again until the bricks became loose within their own moldings. She pulled them free one by one, listening to the satisfying clang as they bounced off the cement floor, emitting small mushroom clouds of chalky red dust.

  The dust cloud settled. She stood before a gaping hole within the mortar. The demon behind the wall grinned menacingly out at her. She was clothed in a tattered white nightgown. Strips of satin billowed about her, float
ing impossibly in the still dead air. Her skin lay dry and parched, pulled tight across her bones like paper mache spread too thin over piñata bailing wire. Her eyes glowed red with the fires of hell, and just below them a sneer on her lips curled back in a devilish grin. Clutched within her hands sat a well-worn pickaxe with an oaken handle. It was then that Abby realized that she gazed not upon a demon, but a mirror, reflecting back at her nothing more than her own image.

  The scream curdled her lips as she awoke to the tranquility of her own bedroom. Her heart threatened to explode within her chest. The sheets about her clung to her body like a second skin, permeated with sweat and reeking of fear. Abby pulled her pillow out from behind her head and covered her face, as though she could shield herself from the living nightmare that was now her life. Into her pillow and deep into the night she wept like she had never wept before.

  About the time Abby was awakening from her nightmare, Jack Darrow lay consumed by his own devilish thoughts. The cell was small and dark, much like the cellar where he had spent most of his youth. It seemed that neither death nor the passage of time could exorcise the specter of his mother.

  “Jacky boy. Wake up Jack. Time for school you wretched little shit.”

  He lay on the straw filled mattress, covering his ears with his hands and praying that his mother would let him lie. The belt buckle stung his back repeatedly, raising thick red welts that burned as though she had seared him with a hot poker.

  “Mama, please. I’m awake! I’m awake!”

  She struck him once more for good measure and then she unlocked the handcuffs that held him fast to the radiator with the small key she kept suspended around her neck.

  “Up and at ‘em Jacky boy. You don’t want to become a wretched useless fuck like your father do you?”

  “No mama.”

  “Good fer nothing drunk, never did anything that mattered in his whole damn life. You don’t want to become like that do you?”

  “No mama.”

  “Well then get up and get going.”

  Jacky rose from his mattress, trying to keep the tears from streaming down his face. A few renegade drops escaped his tear ducts and rolled down his cheeks. He hoped his mother would not notice, but she had.

  “And quit your fuckin’ cryin’.’”

  Her backhanded slap caught him on the underside of his jaw creating stars that danced around the sides of his head. He headed up the stairs, to the light above, happy to be free of his mother, at least for a little while. As if to torment him further her voice echoed up the stairs behind him, biting into his nerves.

  “And don’t forget to brush your teeth!”

  His fingernails bit into the flesh of his palms, drawing small semi-circular arcs that bled from his skin in slow tribute to the hatred that flowed through his veins.

  You’ll get yours someday bitch, and I’ll be there to see it happen.

  TWENTY

  The crime lab was impressive. Randall eyed it up and down in awe of the resources that were available to Seattle detectives. He wondered if it rivaled Quantico, the Virginia birthplace of profiling and forensic silence. Probably not, he figured, but it was impressive nonetheless. Autopsy labs, DNA testing facilities, fingerprint analysis, firearms test firing ranges, and an auto shop, it was all here. It was Randall’s birthday, the big four-O, and he wanted nothing more than to put that son of a bitch Darrow behind bars for good.

  The technicians had spent the morning examining Darrow’s van down to the last minute detail. The interior was lined with gold shag carpeting; very distinctive nylon fibers had a unique appearance under the microscope. Unfortunately no fibers were recovered from the dismembered body of Virginia Shore. They collected them anyway, storing them away in a file that could be used for later reference. The interior of the van yielded no other fingerprints than those of Darrow himself. If anyone else had been inside the vehicle recently, Darrow had wiped it clean.

  The tire treads were rolled in ink and then traced upon examination paper for analysis. Just as Randall expected they did not match the casts taken from the Bremerton waterfront. The Econoline did have an alignment problem, pulling to the left, interestingly enough. This fact did nothing but further aggravate the detectives, who assumed that they were on the right track, but could not find conclusive evidence to sustain a warrant for Darrow’s arrest. Millions of vehicles would undoubtedly have the same alignment problem.

  You could have cut the silence with a knife. Peterson sat fuming on the countertop just a few yards from Darrow’s van. The damn vehicle was clean as a whistle and he knew it. Jackson was right; the tires had been replaced with imposters that held no evidence for their stymied investigation.

  Alan Brenner, the young technician with an already receding hairline, finished his interior investigation of the vehicle. The look on his face let Peterson know that it wasn’t good news.

  “It’s clean detective. No trace evidence at all.”

  Peterson’s gaze was cold. “You got any information I give a rip about?”

  “Just this, there are traces of plastic lodged behind the upholstery screws.”

  “Start making sense.”

  “The upholstery is fastened to the sides of the van interior by two dozen eighth of an inch screws. We found bits of plastic sheeting behind twenty-two of them.”

  “Are you telling me he lined the van with plastic?”

  “It appears so. Looks like he took time to line the van, securing the plastic sheeting with the upholstery screws and then tore it down carelessly. That’s probably why we can’t find any trace evidence.”

  “He panicked.” Randall said. The detectives waited for him to continue.

  “He took the time to line the van with plastic, making sure that any evidence would be collected within it, and not left behind in the van itself. So why the hell did he carelessly tear down the plastic afterwards?” There was a moment of silence. “Because he panicked. Once the crime was completed, he was no longer a smooth operator, he rushed to hide the evidence. He made a mistake.”

  “Yeah well nearly doesn’t cut it in court. So what good is it?” Peterson said with contempt on his breath.

  “Well it means we’re probably barking up the right tree.”

  “Yeah well, that and a buck fifty will get you a cup of coffee. Still doesn’t mean shit to me.” More silence followed. “All right then, I want surveillance on Darrow twenty-four-seven. If he goes to pinch a loaf, I want an agent there to wipe his ass. Understood?”

  The anxiety came back stronger than ever. Ellie wrestled with the Valium container. The lid popped free and she swallowed four pills in one long gulp, which was her habit whenever things got stronger than she could handle. Aiden sat on the floor of the living room, playing with the Tonka dump truck Randall had bought him, blissfully unaware of his mother’s dilemma. He filled the back end with Lego’s and then proceeded to make dump truck noises. Beep. Beep. Beep. He lifted up the truck bed and the Lego’s cascaded to the carpet floor, clicking together.

  “Damn it Aiden! Can’t you play quietly? I told you mommy has a headache.”

  The look on his face betrayed the hurt he felt. “Sorry mommy.”

  She immediately felt remorse. “Just try to keep it down okay?”

  “Okay mommy.”

  The bolt on the front door unlatched. She hadn’t expected Randall home for several more hours. Her mind flashed to the bedroom where her pill bottles lay strewn about the bed. She bolted from the couch and headed into the bedroom. Ellie dropped to the floor and reached underneath the bed, grabbing her duffle bag and yanking it free in one smooth motion. She heard Randall open the front door.

  “Hiya champ.”

  “Daddy!” The words she had so longed Aiden to utter now filled her with terror. The pill bottles clanked together as she tossed them into the large pocket.

  “Hey buddy, where’s your mommy?”

  “In the bedroom.”

  “Okay buddy, I’ll be right back.”
>
  His footfalls echoed through her mind, she tossed the last bottle into the bag just as Randall was entering the bedroom. She tried desperately to hide her chagrin but she looked like the cat that had just swallowed the canary. Randall picked up on it immediately.

  “Hey babe what are you doing?”

  She dropped the bag on the floor and kicked it under the bed with her right foot. The pills inside crinkled together, sounding like a rock concert in her head.

  “Nothing honey, just waiting for you to get home.”

  “Doesn’t sound like nothing. You hiding something from me?” He smiled a big toothy grin. It did not relieve Ellie’s anxiety.

  “No of course not honey. Why would you think that?”

  “Oh I don’t know, maybe because it’s my birthday, and a special lady may have gotten me something.”

  Surprise honey, your wife to be is a drug addict, how’s that for a birthday present? Now make a wish and blow out the candles like a good boy. The thoughts flew through her head, how was she going to talk her way out of this one?

  “Well, sorry to disappoint you, but all I did was bake a cake. Guess you’ll have to be satisfied with that.” He wasn’t.

  “I don’t think so, I think you’re hiding something from me, and I want to know what it is.” Randall was enjoying the game, Ellie was beginning to panic. He strode over to the edge of the bed and bent down, peering underneath with wide eyes.

  “No! Randall don’t!” The urgency of her voice gave him pause.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing, I just haven’t wrapped it yet, that’s all.” She tried her best to smile.

  “Awe come on honey, you know I don’t care about that. Let’s have a look.” Randall reached under the bed and pulled the duffle bag out from under it. Ellie placed her hands on his forearm.

  “Randall don’t!”

  It was the first time she had ever used a commanding tone on him, and it raised a nagging feeling on the back of his neck.