Violet Darger (Novella): Image In A Cracked Mirror

by Vargus, L. T.

  A strange sequence of facial expressions contorted Cameron’s features.

  “What? Oh.”

  Again a pregnant pause reigned over the room. Cameron took a few deep breaths before he went on, the air hissing out of his nostrils changing pitch each time.

  “You’re talking about the fight?”

  “That’s right,” Loshak said, without missing a beat.

  “That was just family stuff, you know. It probably looked worse than it really was. Just family stuff.”

  “Look, I understand how it is. I’ve got family, too. So why don’t you just talk me through it, for the record, so we’re all on the same page?”

  Darger looked at Loshak, almost expecting him to give her a wry look out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t.

  “I loved Ed. Everyone did. But he had a temper, ya know? One time I was with him out to the convenience store by the ferry landing. We were picking up a few things. Party supplies, I guess, for a little family reunion thing we do every 4th of July.”

  “And this would be the Cameron family reunion?”

  “That’s right. About twenty of us, I guess. Anyway, I grabbed the wrong paper plates. Ed wanted the segmented kind, you know? Like a school lunch tray or whatever. Styrofoam or whatever. But I just got the round paper kind.”

  “And that caused a fight?”

  “Yeah. Well, I mean, I may have gotten mouthy with him, too. It wasn’t just him that started it.”

  “Did it get physical?”

  “No. Well, he shoved me a little, and I kind of went after him, lunged or whatever, but he kept me away long enough for me to think better of it. Nothing serious. Nobody landed a punch or anything.”

  “And this was right in the convenience store? Where people could see you?”

  “Right. We were at the checkout counter. The clerk was there. A few other customers, maybe. I remember that my elbow knocked into a display of beef jerky or something. Slim Jims, I think. The real long ones. The little cardboard box holding them toppled over, and they spilled onto the counter. It was pretty embarrassing. For both of us, I mean. Ed got all quiet after that. I could tell he felt dumb about it.”

  “Did he apologize?”

  “No. He didn’t say much of anything for a long time. I don’t think he was real big on apologies.”

  “Did you have any other encounters like that?”

  Cameron took another deep breath, the wind inflating his chest and seeping out of him slowly.

  “I mean… I guess so. We never got in a real fight, but he’d lose his temper, and I don’t know. I guess it’s not my nature to back down. But I mean, we were family, you know? It was never… I never even hit him. It wasn’t…”

  Darger saw this moment of vulnerability as her opportunity.

  “On the form, you mentioned that you’re on a prescription medication,” Darger said, looking down at a sheet of paper to check the name. “Risperdal? How long have you been taking that?”

  Cameron’s eyes flicked toward the ceiling as he thought about it.

  “A little under a year, I guess.”

  “That’s an antipsychotic. Mind if I ask why it was prescribed to you?”

  “I have OCD. Obsessive compulsive disorder, you know? The doctors have tried all kinds of treatments. So far this pill has worked the best.”

  Darger scrawled notes on the legal pad.

  “I see. Thanks, Jarold.”

  Loshak leaned in, resting his forearms on the table.

  “How did things seem at the house that day?”

  “What do you mean?” the kid asked.

  “You know, the vibe. They were your family. You know what they were like. Anything seem off?”

  Cameron scratched his right nostril.

  “Not really,” he said. “Actually, I guess my uncle was a little worked up, now that I think about it.”

  “Worked up, how?”

  Cameron’s finger stopped scratching abruptly.

  “He was yelling.”

  Loshak looked up, intrigued.

  “At you?”

  “No. Someone came to the front door when I was there. Didn’t see who it was. But I heard my uncle tellin’ someone to get their ass off his property or he’d be callin’ the cops. Called whoever it was a lowlife.”

  “What time was this?” Darger asked.

  “I dunno. A few minutes after I got there. 2:05, 2:10?”

  “And you didn’t see anyone else when you left?”

  Cameron shook his head, blinking rapidly.

  “I’m not tryin’ to be rude or anything, but will I get to go soon? I don’t know anything that will help ya, or I’d tell it.”

  “I’ll tell you what, just hang tight for a little longer,” Loshak said, glancing at Darger, who nodded. “We might have a few more questions for you before we’re done.”

  Everyone stood then, and Darger’s legs felt stiff and strange. She had a sense of waking from a deep sleep, of vast amounts of time passing, though she knew it had only been a few minutes.

  Cameron left the room first, escorted by one of the deputies. The FBI agents lagged behind.

  Loshak stopped a few paces into the hallway, and after looking around to ensure he was out of earshot of anyone else, he spoke to Darger in a low, even voice.

  “What did you think?”

  “He fit the profile in some ways, but I’m not sure. The medication fits, but OCD wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

  “Yeah,” Loshak said, fingers pawing at his jaw. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I thought, too.”

  Loshak led the way through the doorway into the little observation area on the other side of the two-way mirror. The Sheriff sat at a small table there with a menagerie of deputies milling around, filling the small space almost entirely.

  The body heat was oppressive, Darger thought, moist and disgusting. It was like walking into a sauna of mustached man-sweat.

  The Sheriff’s eyes lit up when he saw the FBI agents enter the room, a toothy grin stretching out beneath his mustache.

  “Any thoughts, Agent Loshak?” Sheriff Humphrey said.

  “Yeah,” Loshak said, some sardonic trace in his voice. “I think I’d like to talk to the next subject.”

  The Sheriff’s smile faded a notch.

  “You know, one of the guys we sent away had a, uh, domestic violence conviction a couple years back. Beat up his girlfriend pretty good. He was a family friend who had visited with the Camerons the morning of. I can’t help but wonder what he might say if you were to get him talking.”

  Humphrey trailed off there, and Loshak just stared at him, his face expressionless, his eyes dead. The silence in the room stretched out into something awkward, everyone holding still. Darger could see the muscles in her partner’s jaw tense and release over and over again. Finally, the Sheriff spoke.

  “But that’s neither here nor there, I guess. We’re happy to follow your lead and see this thing out, like I said.”

  “Yes,” Loshak said. “Let’s get on with it.”

  He turned his gaze from the Sheriff to look at the second subject, now sitting on the other side of the glass.

  “What can you tell me about this guy, Walker? The lawn guy, is that right?”

  “Yes, sir. And there’s not much I can tell, I’m afraid. We’ve had a bit of trouble getting a hold of his parents, and he’s… Well, he talks, but he doesn’t say much, if you catch my meaning. I guess you’ll see that for yourself.”

  Chapter 8

  According to his file, Raymond Walker was 27, but he seemed like a kid in most every way Darger could see. The cut of his t-shirt seemed to make the sleeves ride up on his shoulders, revealing nearly the full length of his stick-like arms. His dirty blond bowl cut fell somewhere between Luke Skywalker and early Justin Bieber. And his lips hung open perpetually, revealing his bottom teeth, a chapped mess of white flakes hanging from the slack pink flesh like hangnails.

  He certainly seemed to fit the profile
physically, Darger thought. Disheveled. Underweight. Aloof. She looked into his face in that instant as they entered the interrogation room, though, and she couldn’t get much of a read on him.

  Walker didn’t rise to shake hands as Jarold Cameron had. In fact, he barely reacted to Darger and Loshak’s entrance apart from swiveling his eyes to glance at them for a moment before returning his gaze to the shiny tabletop in front of him. This was strange behavior, of course, but his energy was more meek than hostile, Darger thought.

  The FBI agents sat across from the withdrawn man, and once more Darger had to remind herself to not think of him as a boy. He was only a few years younger than her, after all.

  “How ya doin’, Raymond?” Loshak said, sounding much more casual than he had in the earlier interview.

  Walker didn’t look up from the table as he answered, his voice coming out pinched and tiny.

  “Good.”

  “That’s what I like to hear. Do you know why you’re here today?”

  The slender man blinked a few times, his eyelids sticking a little each time they slid over his wet eyes. Something about it reminded Darger of wonky windshield wipers on a car. Walker didn’t answer the question.

  “Well, someone hurt your neighbors, the Camerons, and we’re trying to figure out what happened. We just need to ask you a few questions, and you can go. I understand you were at the Cameron residence two days ago?”

  More blinking, more thinking. Walker nodded.

  “What were you doing there that day?”

  “I cut the grass.”

  “And they pay you to do that for them, correct?”

  He nodded.

  “So you’re over there, what, every week? Every other week?”

  “Every Friday. After Dr. Phil.”

  The lightest puff of laughter exited Darger’s nostrils, and then she fell into a sniffle to try to cover it up, fingers splaying around her nose to itch it.

  Loshak smirked at her before he went back to asking questions.

  “Who set that up? Did they ask you to mow their lawn? Did you offer them your services?”

  “My dad told me to. He talked to them, I guess.”

  “I see. And how did you receive payment? From Mr. or Mrs. Cameron directly?”

  Walker dabbed a finger under his eyelid as he answered, gaze still fixed on the tabletop.

  “Mrs. Cameron gave me $20 whenever I finished mowing. I knocked on the door, and she gave it to me.”

  Darger scrawled a note, blue ink carving tiny grooves in the yellow legal pad before her: “Check TV listings for time of Dr. Phil.” Something about writing the words “Dr. Phil” unleashed a strange giddy feeling in her belly, almost made her chuckle again, but she held it in.

  “So Mrs. Cameron paid you on Friday afternoon?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Did you see anything out of the ordinary, perchance?”

  Walker thought about it, blinking away once more.

  “No.”

  “Did Mrs. Cameron seem upset, maybe? Scared? Distracted?”

  Walker swallowed, his throat clicking a little.

  “No. I don’t remember.”

  Loshak shifted in his seat, butt swiveling to reset the position of his legs.

  “How long do you think it takes you to mow the Cameron lawn?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is it a big yard?”

  “No. It’s just normal.”

  Loshak nodded in slow motion.

  “Have you ever been in trouble, Raymond?”

  Walker’s pause was his longest yet. When he spoke, his voice got even tinier.

  “Yeah.”

  Loshak and Darger both inched forward in their chairs.

  “What happened?” Loshak said, his voice falling into a hushed place to match Walker’s.

  “I threw away… I hid all of my broccoli in my napkin and threw it away. My stepmom. She saw me, and… But it wasn’t like… It was because…”

  Walker’s demeanor seemed to shift before their eyes as he spoke, his forehead and nose wrinkling up like some snarling beast’s.

  “Raymond,” Loshak said. “I was talking about legal trouble. Have you ever been-”

  “Wait,” Darger said, holding up a hand. “Why didn’t you eat your broccoli?”

  Walker looked up at her, their eyes connecting for the first time. His head twitched then like he was remembering something important, and all of the wrinkles in his face smoothed out.

  “I just don’t like broccoli. It’s gross.”

  Darger looked at Loshak, whose brows crinkled into a puzzled look. She shrugged.

  “You’ve never been in trouble with the police?”

  He shook his head.

  “So what’d you do after you finished mowing? Go home?”

  “Yeah. I went home.”

  This was Walker’s quickest answer yet, and he even looked at Loshak, though he didn’t maintain eye contact. Darger wasn’t sure what to make of that.

  “Did you stop and get paid first?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Knocked on the door?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who answered?”

  “Cindy.”

  “Mrs. Cameron?”

  Walker nodded.

  “Did you see anyone else? Mr. Cameron? The kids?”

  Walker thought again, just for a tick. He shook his head back and forth.

  “And everything seemed normal?”

  He nodded.

  “So you finished mowing the lawn, got paid. What did you do with the lawnmower? Do you bring your own or use the Camerons’?”

  The blinking seemed to intensify.

  “I use theirs.”

  “Did you put it away when you finished?”

  “Yeah. In the garage.”

  “Was the door unlocked or did someone have to let you in to get the mower?”

  “I have… Cindy gave me a key.”

  “To the garage?”

  “Yeah.”

  Loshak nodded, letting up for a moment. A quiet settled over the room, and Walker seemed to grow uncomfortable. Fidgeting in his seat. His eyes locking onto the tabletop again.

  Darger piped in.

  “Raymond, can I ask if you have any history of mental health issues?”

  He blinked again. Shook his head.

  “No trips to psychiatrists or anything like that?”

  He shook his head again, and Loshak and Darger locked eyes for a moment. Darger wasn’t sure what to make of the weary look in the folds about Loshak’s eyes. Was it related to the case? Or was he just wearing down after the flight and all of this extra police work they hadn’t been anticipating? He really should be taking it easier. A little pang of anger shot through her when she thought of Loshak being ordered back to work.

  She took a breath and fixed her attention back on their subject.

  “Do you have many friends, Raymond?”

  “Not really. I had friends before we moved, but…”

  “So you grew up somewhere else?”

  “Bellingham,” he muttered.

  “And you moved here with your parents?”

  He closed his eyes as he nodded.

  “Ten years ago,” he said.

  She waited, in case Loshak had more to add

  “I think that’s all for now,” Loshak said. “Thanks for your time, Raymond.”

  Once again, they found a quiet corner where they could analyze what they’d learned.

  “He fits the profile in some ways,” Darger said. “Not in others.”

  “No history of mental illness.”

  She glanced down at the notes scribbled on the yellow paper.

  “He could be undiagnosed. The social withdrawal and flat affect could be signs of something on the schizophrenia spectrum or maybe a mood disorder.”

  “Maybe,” Loshak said, stroking his chin. “That’s a big maybe.”

  Darger tapped her pen against her legal pad.


  “I know.”

  They heard the sound of a door opening and the squeak of shoes on tile, and then the Sheriff rounded the corner.

  “There you are,” he said. “It was like I said, wasn’t it?”

  “What’s that?” Loshak asked.

  “The Walker kid. Kind of a closed book, am I right?”

  “I suppose so.”

  Sheriff Humphrey’s tongue snaked out of his mouth and slithered over the big white teeth.

  “I was wondering if you had any insight you might like to share? So far, I mean.”

  He cleared his throat and continued.

  “We’re just all a bit anxious to find who did this, of course.”

  Loshak sighed.

  “I understand that, Sheriff. But it doesn’t behoove the process to start floating theories before all of the evidence is gathered. Now if you don’t mind, we’re nearly done.”

  The Sheriff opened his mouth to speak but seemed to think better of it. Instead, he nodded once and headed back to the observation room.

  Darger’s eyes followed the man as he disappeared through the threshold. She wondered if Loshak’s shortness was in part because he wasn’t feeling well. He answered that when he popped two ibuprofen in his mouth and swallowed the pills without water.

  Turning to her, he said, “Let’s finish this, shall we?”

  Chapter 9

  Pete Malaby was more heavily muscled than both of the other subjects put together. He wasn’t toned, Darger noted, his thick arms and neck somehow lacking any definition. He was just big and broad. The flesh itself was shapeless to the point that his wrists almost looked like a baby’s.

  He smiled when the agents entered the room. His skull was just as broad as the rest of him — the big round face swaddled with well-tanned flesh. It wasn’t a chubby face. Not exactly. The skin just seemed plumped and darkened all over, like a hot dog that swells when you cook it.

  They shook hands, his massive baby arm pumping Loshak’s and then hers, the smile shifting a little on his face but never quite fading.

  “How ya doin’?” he said, nodding at each of them.

  “Doin’ well,” Loshak said, matching Malaby’s enthusiasm.

  “Same here,” Darger said. “You?”

  “Could be worse. I’ve been sitting down here at the cop shop for about three hours now, but, you know, it could be worse. Probably.”