Into the Dark

by Peter Abrahams

  “Exactly,” said Mr. Tulkinghorn. “So I’ll ask once more: Have you ever seen, or has your grandfather ever referred to, a gun like this?”

  “No,” said Ingrid, her voice suddenly sounding very loud in the dining room. This guy was supposed to be on their side. That thought was followed by another: What will the other side be like?

  “If there is such a weapon,” said Mr. Tulkinghorn, “the police will find it. They’re out there now, turning the place upside down.”

  “Can’t you stop them?” Ingrid said.

  “They’ve got legal warrants, signed by a judge,” said Mr. Tulkinghorn. “Think they’re going to find anything?”

  “Never.”

  “Never because such a weapon doesn’t exist, or never because it will be so well hidden?”

  “The first one,” said Ingrid, barely aware that her chin was tilting up in a defiant sort of way.

  Mr. Tulkinghorn put everything back in his briefcase. “If we go to trial,” he said, “it’s your parents’ wish that I do all I can to keep you off the stand.”

  “But why?” said Ingrid. “I want to help.”

  “It’s not the defense that would be calling you,” said Mr. Tulkinghorn. “Unless I can work some kind of deal, you’ll be a witness for the prosecution.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “They’ll want the court to hear all about the argument between your grandfather and the victim.” He rose, adjusted his tie. “And there’s no law that says a grandchild can’t be called to testify against a grandparent.”

  The argument: Ingrid remembered, practically word for word, including Grampy’s reply when Mr. Thatcher said he’d be back, with a warrant if necessary. I wouldn’t do that if I were you. She tried to imagine how that would sound, coming from her on the stand. Oh, God.

  Ingrid rose too. “What are we going to do, Mr. Tulkinghorn?”

  “Get him out of jail, first,” said Mr. Tulkinghorn. “Then go at him one more time about an alibi.”

  “An alibi—meaning he was somewhere else at the time, couldn’t have done it?”

  Mr. Tulkinghorn nodded. “The medical examiner has established the time of death—something I could possibly attack at trial, but it would be pointless without more cooperation from your grandfather.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Death occurred between the hours of noon and three P.M. on Tuesday. I asked your grandfather where he was at that time.”

  “And?”

  “And he said, ‘None of your business.’” Mr. Tulkinghorn started from the room. “Only he put it more strongly than that.”

  Mom and Dad were in the hall. “Here’s your retainer,” Dad said, handing Mr. Tulkinghorn a check. Mr. Tulkinghorn looked at it carefully and slipped it into his pocket.

  eleven

  FROM THE ECHO—EXCLUSIVE:

  Aylmer Hill of Echo Falls, charged in the murder of conservation agent Harris H. “Harry” Thatcher, was released on $500,000 bail last night. Asked for comment outside the Echo Falls police station, Mr. Hill shook his head and got into a car driven by his lawyer, Rex Tulkinghorn of Heep and Tulkinghorn in Hartford. Mr. Tulkinghorn was quoted as saying, “My client will be vindicated.”

  According to sources close to the Echo Falls police, Mr. Thatcher, acting several weeks earlier on an anonymous tip concerning unauthorized use of explosives on Mr. Hill’s farm off Route 392, made an attempt to interview Mr. Hill. A furious conversation ensued, and Mr. Thatcher was threatened with armed violence. Sources say Mr. Hill has offered no explanation as to his whereabouts at the time of the murder, established by the medical examiner as last Tuesday, February 11, between noon and 3:00 P.M. The murder weapon has not yet been found. Mr. Hill was a noted marksman in World War II.

  Ingrid read the article twice. “How come there’s nothing about the Medal of Honor?” she said. No one answered. She was alone in the house except for Nigel, relaxing by his bowl. “How come, Nigel?” she said. “It would help if people knew he was a hero.” Nigel found the energy to raise his tail an inch or two off the floor. Gravity took over from there, and it flopped down with a soft thump.

  Ingrid read the article once more, forcing herself to go really slow this time. She found a pencil and paper, made some notes.

  1. anonymous tip?

  2. where was Grampy?

  3. murder weapon?

  Now she had a list, but what did it mean? Her mind refused to make those three questions add up to anything. What did Sherlock Holmes do in baffling situations? Sometimes he took cocaine; that was out. Or he played his violin; Ingrid, although she liked belting out songs in the shower, had no musical ability whatsoever. But sometimes Holmes went for a walk, maybe taking Dr. Watson along.

  “Nigel? Let’s go.”

  Nigel started to roll over, like he was getting up on command, big surprise. But he stopped halfway, remaining on his back, paws comfortably folded in.

  “Nigel!”

  She ended up dragging him outside on his leash, stubbornly supine all the way to the end of the driveway. After that he got up and trotted along beside her in his waddling way. “Let’s start with the anonymous tip,” Ingrid said.

  Memory was tricky. There seemed to be two kinds. First: the kind that popped up all on its own, usually very clear—like Joey’s face, just before he’d moved in for that snowshoe kiss that hadn’t happened. Second: the kind you had to go rooting around in your brain for, which usually ended up being pretty blurry—like facts about the Whiskey Rebellion. The anonymous tip problem involved both kinds of memories.

  The dynamiting down at the sinkhole—that was the first kind of memory, sharp and unbidden. At the time, last fall, Grampy had been worried that the Ferrands and maybe other rich developers were trying to get hold of his land for building condos. He’d come up with this plan to make the sinkhole deeper, turning it into a permanent pond. That was the dynamiting part. Four sticks! After that—a huge boom and then a rising mud cloud that came splattering back down—Ingrid had waded in and planted eastern spadefoot toad eggs. The endangered eastern spadefoot toad: that was the whole point. In the spring, when they hatched and endangered toads started hopping around, any development plans would be…how had Grampy put it? Something about fish? Dead as a mackerel—that was it.

  But the anonymous tip part: that was the other kind of memory, the kind you had to hunt for. Ingrid didn’t know who the tipster was; she just had a vague sense of some tiny fact buried way down deep in her…All of a sudden she pictured a phone. Not just any phone, but that old-fashioned black one with the rotary dial in Grampy’s kitchen. And she fished up the memory, maybe not word for word, but close enough.

  Ring.

  “Aylmer?”

  “This is his granddaughter.”

  “Bob Borum here, over on Robinson Road. You people hear a boom? Thought it was a transformer, but we’ve got electricity.”

  “So do we.”

  “Not to worry then.”

  “’Bye, Mr. Borum.”

  “Bob Borum,” Ingrid said. Nigel paid no attention. In fact, he was chewing on a—“Nigel!” And what was this? They were practically at the end of Avondale, almost at the strange cul-de-sac part where three new houses had been standing for months on bare, unlandscaped lots, waiting for buyers. Ingrid pulled Nigel around. A car was coming toward them, not fast, a beige car, small and boxy. As it went by, it slowed even more, and the driver looked out, a fat-faced guy with greasy blond hair and a cigarette in his mouth.

  “Come on, Nigel.” Ingrid headed for home, picking up the pace. She heard the car rounding the cul-de-dfsac, returning. Then she felt it moving up alongside her, now at a walking pace. She looked sideways. The window rolled down. Then a weird thing happened. The driver leaned out, his face partly obscured by a camera. His finger pressed the button, once, twice, three times. Ingrid actually flinched, and Nigel, not much of a barker, barked real loud. The car sped up, zoomed away. Fast, but not so fast that Ingrid, with h
er sharp eyes, wasn’t going to read that license plate. Except she couldn’t: It was smeared with mud. The car turned the corner and disappeared, leaving a cigarette end spinning in the air.

  The cigarette was lying on the road, still smoking slightly, when Ingrid got there. She bent over it, read the label: Virginia Off-Label Generics. Ingrid didn’t want to touch it, not even with her mittens on.

  She and Nigel walked back home. “What a creep!” she said. Nigel barked. “Good boy.” One little thing: From the way the camera was pointing, kind of down, Ingrid got the idea that either the creepy guy was a bad photographer or he’d been deliberately taking pictures of Nigel.

  No one home. A note from Ty on the fridge: Greg’s. The phone was ringing. She picked it up.

  “It’s me,” Joey said. “Joey.”

  “I know.”

  “You sound a bit, um. Like you’re mad or something.”

  “Yeah,” said Ingrid. “I’m mad.”

  “At me?”

  “Yeah, at you.”

  “Oh,” he said, almost inaudible.

  “Not just you,” Ingrid said. “Everybody.”

  “Huh?”

  “Figure it out.”

  “Well,” said Joey, “me because I haven’t been—you know…”

  “Talking to me?”

  “That’s it. The thing is…”

  Silence. It went on and on.

  “The thing is what?” Ingrid said.

  Joey got even quieter. “My dad…”

  More silence.

  “Your dad told you not to talk to me?” Ingrid said.

  “Yeah. But not like to be rude or anything. ‘Don’t be a jerk about it.’ That’s what he said.”

  “Why?” Ingrid said.

  “I guess because he didn’t want me to be not polite,” Joey said. “He has this thing about not—”

  “Not that,” Ingrid said.

  “Why not to talk to you, you mean?”

  “What else?”

  “Oh,” he said. “The main point, right?”

  “Right.” Hard to stay angry at Joey, but she still felt lots of anger inside her, burning away—a feeling she wasn’t that accustomed to, and didn’t like.

  “Because of the case,” Joey said.

  “The case,” said Ingrid, “is about my grandfather.”

  “A man died too,” said Joey. “Mr. Thatcher.”

  “I know,” Ingrid said. The truth was she hadn’t had one single thought about Mr. Thatcher, or his wife, quoted in The Echo as being so worried when he was still missing, or any family or friends he might have had. But Grampy didn’t do it. “Why didn’t he say you could talk, just not about the case?” Ingrid said.

  “’Cause,” said Joey, with a little laugh. “Here we are talking about the case.”

  Ingrid laughed too—not much, but she couldn’t help it. If only—

  “Gotta go,” Joey said suddenly.

  “He’s there?”

  Click.

  Call him back? Out of the question. Besides, she could hear the front door opening, people coming in.

  “Hi,” Mom called. “Anyone home?”

  “Me,” said Ingrid.

  “Come see Grampy,” Mom said.

  Ingrid ran to the front hall. There were Mom, Dad, and Grampy; Grampy with a suitcase, that same suitcase she’d seen in his kitchen, looking around like he didn’t know quite where he was.

  “Grampy.” She just kept going, into his arms.

  Grampy patted her back. “Hiya, kid,” he said. He was trembling, very slightly, but she could feel it. And his voice sounded thinner than usual, as though not all the vocal cords were working. “Hey,” he said. “No crying in battle.”

  She stopped.

  Mom took Grampy upstairs. Dad stood by the sink, rubbing his eyes. “Grampy’s staying here?” Ingrid said.

  “One of the conditions of his bail,” Dad said.

  “Was it really five hundred thousand dollars?”

  “Not actual cash,” Dad said. “We don’t have five hundred thousand dollars in actual cash, in case you’re under any illusions about that.” Dad’s look softened. “Sorry, Ingrid. This is a stressful time.”

  She nodded.

  “We just had to sign a note, backed by the farm.”

  “Grampy could lose the farm?”

  “Only by jumping bail—and that won’t happen.”

  “Mr. Tulkinghorn’s going to get him off, right, Dad?”

  “It may not even come to trial,” Dad said.

  “You mean they’ll drop the charges?”

  “Snowball’s chance,” Dad said. “But Tulkinghorn, and don’t breathe a word of this, wants—” Dad stopped himself. “You haven’t been talking to Joey, have you?”

  “Hardly at all.”

  “I don’t want you talking to him.”

  “But what if we just don’t discuss—”

  “You heard me,” Dad said.

  Ingrid nodded. “What am I supposed to not breathe a word about?”

  Dad lowered his voice. “Tulkinghorn’s thinking of making a deal.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  “Having Grampy plead guilty to a lesser charge,” Dad said. “Avoiding a trial.”

  “What lesser charge?”

  “Manslaughter,” Dad said.

  Ingrid had heard that word lots of times, but besides the fact that it sounded horrible, like a kind of butchery, what did it really mean? “That’s less than murder?” she said.

  “Because of lack of intent or premeditation,” Dad said. “Something that happens in the heat of the moment.”

  Lack of intent? Mr. Thatcher got shot from behind and from a long distance. But maybe none of that mattered if—“Dad? Would a deal mean Grampy goes free?”

  “No way,” Dad said. “Just that the sentence wouldn’t be as long.”

  “But Dad. He’s almost seventy-nine.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “And he didn’t do it.”

  Dad gazed down at her.

  “You know that, Dad, don’t you? Grampy couldn’t do a thing like—”

  “Doesn’t matter what I think,” Dad said. “The problem’s going to be getting Grampy to agree to a deal if Tulkinghorn can work one out.”

  “But why should he plead guilty to something he didn’t do?”

  “Even if that’s true—”

  “If?” said Ingrid. “If?”

  “Let me finish,” Dad said. “Try to imagine what Grampy would look like to a jury.”

  “Like a—” She was about to say hero, but Dad interrupted.

  “Especially if the prosecutor pressed one of his buttons,” Dad said. “One of his many buttons.”

  Ingrid said nothing. She could picture that scenario, way too clearly.

  Dad checked his watch, frowned. “Got to go to the office for a few minutes,” he said. “Be back soon.”

  Mom came downstairs. “Grampy might like some tea.”

  “I’ll make it,” Ingrid said. “Want some?”

  “Thanks,” Mom said. “Where’s Dad?”

  “Had to go in to the office.”

  “The office?”

  “He said he’d be back soon.”

  “That’s funny,” Mom said. She stood there for a moment, an empty cup in her hand.

  Ingrid took tea upstairs to Grampy. He was staying in the old spare bedroom, now Dad and Mom’s home office. She found him sitting on the cot jammed between Dad’s desk and the wall, staring at nothing. Light from the streetlamp came through the window, shading his skin and hair a sickly kind of yellow.

  “Here’s some tea, Grampy.”

  He took a sip. “Ah,” he said. “That’s more like it.”

  Ingrid went to the window, started closing the curtains. A car went by, passed under the streetlight: green hatchback. Ingrid recognized Mrs. McGreevy, hunched over the wheel. She closed the curtains. Grampy looked normal again, or almost. Ingrid had a sudden thought.

  �
��What about Piggy?” she said.

  “All set,” Grampy said.

  “Someone’s taking care of him?”

  “Yup,” said Grampy. “And anyway, I intend to be back there soon.”

  “Really, Grampy? Are they going to let—”

  “One way or another,” he said.

  “Oh,” said Ingrid, trying to think how to steer him away from that idea. She sat beside him. “Who’s taking care of Piggy?”

  “Someone.”

  “Bob Borum?”

  “Bob Borum?” said Grampy. “How do you know about him?”

  “Isn’t he a neighbor?”

  “Yup.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “Got nothing against Bob Borum,” said Grampy. “Used to run a dairy farm, second-last farm in Echo Falls.”

  “What does he do now?”

  “Bob Borum? Owns that ice cream place.”

  “Not Moo Cow?” Moo Cow had the best ice cream in Echo Falls, possibly in the whole state.

  “Yup,” said Grampy.

  Ingrid thought of her three-item list. She could try asking him where he was at the time of the murder. Or about what had happened to his Springfield .30-06 with the sniper scope. She glanced at Grampy’s face. Bob Borum and the anonymous tip seemed a safer place to start. “How about we go there?” she said.

  “Where?”

  “Moo Cow.”

  “Ice cream in winter?” Grampy said. “I’ll wait till spring.”

  That last sentence—I’ll wait till spring—sparked a bad thought in Ingrid’s mind: What if Grampy was locked up in the spring, living in some horrible cell, dangerous inmates all around? Unbearable. The most important item on the list, by far, was the second one, because the answer could make this all go away in a flash. She had to ask, no matter what. Ingrid took a deep breath, looked him in the eye.

  “Grampy?” she said.

  “Yeah?” he said, maybe sensing something because his eyes started to narrow.

  Ingrid plunged on. “Where were you when Mr. Thatcher got killed?”

  Now Grampy’s eyes were slits. He gazed at her in a way he never had, a way she never wanted to see again. “You too?” he said.

  “Oh, no,” said Ingrid. “I know you could never do a thing like that. But why won’t you just say? Then all this will—”