Even In Darkness--An American Murder Mystery Thriller

by Lynn Hightower

  I have brought in my overnight case, the leather one. Leo has chewed a hole in the top. He is running free in the fenced backyard, finding trails to follow, sniffing at the trees for squirrel. I take my bag upstairs, avoiding the crusts of mud. The Dark Man has left them there like graffiti, marking his territory like a dog.

  I pause in the hallway, looking into my granddaughter’s room, feeling my breathing quicken and my chest go tight. The bed is unmade. She was sleeping right there, not six feet away, when the Dark Man took her away. I walk in on tiptoe, and sit on the unmade bed. I pick up her pillow, and I can smell the faint scent of her strawberry shampoo and the lingering smell of little girl. My knees begin to tremble; it is good I am sitting down.

  Andee’s bedspread is lavender with white unicorns. There are books on simple white shelves, the highest no more than three feet tall. The shelves hold the entire collection of Beatrix Potter books I have sent her, and a mishmash of stuffed animals, Barbie dolls, and stacks and stacks of puzzles. A blue plastic writing desk and matching chair are tucked in the corner, and on the inexpensive painted pine dresser is the rabbit lamp I bought when Andee was born. Next to the lamp is a set of Tinkerbell bubble bath, little girl makeup and perfume.

  I want it to be her mother who woke her that night.

  I stand abruptly, and shut the door. I hesitate in the hallway, then move to the edge of Caro’s bedroom.

  It’s a large room, with a fireplace that for now is merely decorative, the chimney bricks crumbling beneath a thick coat of paint. Caro is saving for a gas insert.

  The carpet is off-white Berber, streaked with mud like the stairs. Her bed is unmade. There is a crumpled duvet of white eyelet, sheets white with silvery stripes. There are four oversized pillows at the head of the bed, and at least six small ones, lace, velvet, like a collection. I walk carefully, watching where I step, pausing in front of the nightstand. There is a picture in a silver frame of Caro and Andee, by a lake. I imagine my son in the photograph, his arms around them both.

  A wine glass sits by the telephone, the dregs coating the bottom of the glass, dark and crusty, like dried blood. There is a book splayed on the floor, pages bent, jacket askew. I wonder what she was reading. I do not touch.

  How long, I wonder? How long after she and I talked on the phone, till the Dark Man came to take her away? Was she asleep? Did she hear him come in? Did she get out of bed to check a noise, and find him waiting outside in the hall?

  ‘Retribution is coming for you.’ That was what the note had said and that was what had come true.

  Caroline told me that she used to dream of footsteps – how she could read the whole of Joey’s day and, more importantly, the night to come, in the sound of his feet on the stairs. Had she heard the Dark Man’s footsteps that night?

  I take my overnight bag and put it back in the car.

  THIRTEEN

  The Moran Memorial Pet Cemetery runs adjacent to the Sebastian County Humane Society in Fort Smith. It is less than four miles from Caro’s house, but I spent over forty minutes finding it, even with the MapQuest directions.

  I left Leo closed up in the hall bathroom because I did not trust him not to find something interesting to chew. I could not leave him out in the yard. There is not a gate latch on the market that he can’t open.

  I have his leash in hand, and I lock up the Jeep. Animal shelters upset me. My ministry contributes heavily to no-kill shelters.

  From the outside, this one doesn’t look too bad – a modern, boxy building, white with a dark roof. The strips of grass out front are neatly mowed. There is a statue of St Francis in the cemetery, and when I walk inside it is clean and open, with blond maple partitions, the counter tops covered in white Formica. You can hear dogs barking. You can see the animals because the walls are glass. Dogs on the left. Cats on the right. Just inside the corridor is the Donor Wall, honoring adoptions.

  The girl behind the desk is bent over a computer and she wears the kind of scrubs you see in a vet’s office, a sky blue background with pictures of kittens tumbling through the air. A poster lets me know that I can have my pet buried in the cemetery next door for two hundred and fifty dollars, which includes a funeral service, pet casket and small grey headstone. Cremation costs extra.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I say.

  The young woman holds one finger up, absorbed in whatever it is she is doing with the computer. Her fingernails are trimmed short, and she has small, white hands. Her hair is pulled up high and tight in a ponytail, and no doubt the stack of textbooks near the computer are hers. Her nametag says ‘Sharon’. She is much too young to be the woman I talked to on the phone.

  ‘Is Melissa Hunter here? My name is Joy Miller, and I talked to her about picking up my daughter-in-law’s dog.’

  The girl turns away from the computer screen, eyes cloudy with other matters. She takes a moment to gather her thoughts. ‘Mrs Hunter had a board meeting this afternoon, and she won’t be back until tomorrow. Can I help you?’

  ‘Yes. You have a dog here named Ruby who belongs to Caroline Miller, and there are instructions in the file for you to hold the dog for me to pick up.’

  ‘Are you adopting the dog?’ Sharon chewed on the edge of her thumb. She’d either been eating a cherry popsicle or was wearing lip gloss. Otherwise her face was sadly free of makeup.

  ‘No, I’m family, I’m picking her up.’

  Sharon returned to the computer, tapped on the keyboard, frowned, and tapped some more. ‘I don’t have any record of this. What kind of dog is it again?’

  ‘Golden retriever, Irish setter mix. Elderly. She’s big, probably over ninety pounds.’

  More tapping, then a shake of the head. ‘Sorry.’

  My palms were sweating. ‘Look. Mrs Hunter called me the day before yesterday. She said the dog was here. I’ve driven over fourteen hours to pick her up.’

  Sharon squinted her eyes at me. ‘You drove fourteen hours to get here? Where in the heck in Arkansas do you live?’

  ‘I don’t live in Arkansas.’

  ‘You don’t live in Arkansas?’

  ‘My daughter-in-law lives in Arkansas. She lives here, in Fort Smith. Her name is Caroline Miller, the dog’s name is Ruby, and Melissa Hunter said she was here.’

  ‘Your daughter?’

  ‘The dog.’

  Sharon went back to chewing her thumb.

  I took a slow breath. ‘I’m absolutely positive the dog is here, and I’d be so very grateful if you’d find her.’

  Sharon wrinkles her brow but goes gamely back to the computer, and her questions are brisk. ‘How long has the dog been in the shelter? If it’s over—’

  ‘Three days, that’s all.’

  ‘And animal control picked her up?’

  ‘No. There was a family emergency. The police dropped her off.’

  ‘Oh. Oh oh oh. Now I get it. Hold on a sec.’ Sharon went back to the computer keyboard, and I moved to the glassed-in wall to scan the dog cages.

  ‘She won’t be in there.’ Sharon gave me a quick glance over her shoulder. ‘Those are up for adoption. We keep the other ones in another room. Ah, OK. Here we go. It says I am to release the dog to Joy Miller. That must be you, am I right?’

  I nod my head, but realize she’s looking at the computer and not me. ‘Yes, I’m Joy Miller.’

  ‘I’ll have to see some ID.’ She gives me a quick look, sounding defensive. ‘There’s a fee.’

  I sign forms and haul out my debit card. Sharon is surprisingly brisk with the paperwork, and comes out from behind the counter. I follow her, scraping one fingernail nervously along the tooth marks Leo has made in the leash. We go down a hallway that smells of antiseptic and enter a room with concrete floors and cages. This room smells of dog and desperation. Three slots down and I see Ruby, curled in the back of her cage. I focus on Ruby entirely and make no eye contact with any other dog.

  ‘Ruby.’

  She is ignoring the schnauzer in the next cage who is trying to get my a
ttention. There is fresh water and a food bowl which is full of dried kibble. Ruby is technically awake but her eyes have an otherworldly look, as if she has gone away in her head.

  ‘Ruby?’ I say again, softly.

  Sharon bites the tip of one finger. ‘Are you sure you have the right dog? She doesn’t seem to know you. Usually they get real excited when their owners come.’

  I crouch down in front of the cage. ‘Hey girl, hey Ruby. Remember me? It’s Joy.’

  Ruby inches forward and sniffs the finger I poke into the cage. Her tail begins to wag, and she rises painfully to her feet. She noses me through the wire mesh of the cage and whimpers. Her eyes brighten and the aura of depression disappears.

  ‘Oh, hey,’ Sharon says. ‘There you go.’

  She unlocks the cage, and I kneel down and hug Ruby, who licks my neck, my ears, my face. I try not to look at the dogs we leave behind, but they call to me, barking, whining. Ruby walks easily by my side, and I don’t bother to attach the leash. She sticks to my left leg like Velcro, and when I stop at the front desk she leans against me and I stroke her head. Sharon is once more at the computer.

  ‘Is this everything?’ I ask.

  ‘We only give the Welcome Kits to the adoptions.’

  ‘No, no, I just was wondering if there was some kind of file or paperwork …’

  I trail off. Sharon is busy, and Ruby is yearning for the door.

  Ruby trots happily into the parking lot, but has trouble jumping into the back of the Jeep. She whines and circles the open hatch at the back, and the front of the car. I try lifting her, but she is monstrous heavy, and I finally open the passenger door up front. She props her paws on the seat. I lift her hind end, and she scrambles into the car. Teamwork.

  I brush dog hair off my shirt and Ruby covers me with dog kisses while I reassure her that she’s safe and will be going home with me. Caro’s mother has irritable cats, and Ruby stays with me when Caroline and Andee are in town, so we’re tight, me and Ruby. I open Leo’s bag of pig ears, and hand one to Ruby who takes it gently in her mouth. Ruby has very nice manners. It took me a week to train Leo not to take my hand with the treat.

  Ruby stretches out across the transmission and puts her head in my lap. She holds the pig ear in her mouth. We are on our way.

  I watch for the nearest McDonald’s. It is part of a secret tradition, during those visits to Kentucky, that the three of us, Andee and Ruby and I, have lunch at Mickey D’s. Caroline has never asked me not to take Andee to McDonald’s and I am not foolish enough to ask.

  I feel better immediately, with Ruby by my side. She connects me to Andee and Caroline, and knowing she is safe and secure was worth the drive of seven hundred some odd miles.

  Still, I am a little flat with the disappointment. Evidently I misunderstood the significance of the humane society call. I was so sure there would be some sort of message from the Dark Man, something to set things in motion so I could bring Caro and Andee home safe. I must be getting paranoid – seeing portents and messages in the turn of a breeze.

  I am two miles down the road, absently stroking Ruby’s neck, when I notice the loose stitching on her collar, a circular tube of leather like the one Leo wears. But I remember from last summer’s visit that Ruby’s collar was worn and soft and very loose, the same belt-like style that is the norm. This collar is brand new and the seam along the side is coming apart.

  There is a McDonald’s on the right two lights down the road. I pass through the drivethrough window and park, then wrestle Ruby for the collar while she noses the bag of food. I break the cheeseburgers into smallish pieces, and Ruby inhales everything except two pickles. Once all of the food is gone, each crumb of bun nosed out, and the wrapping sufficiently licked, Ruby moves to the other side of the car, making snout marks on the window.

  There is a pair of nail scissors in my purse and I use them to snip the heavy threading that holds the collar together. As I work to unravel the stitching I see signs – nicks in the leather, a difference in thread from one section to the next. It’s enough to start my heart pounding. I was right all along. The Dark Man is reaching out.

  I have peeled two inches of leather apart when I see the edge of yellow paper rolled up in the leather tube. I use the scissors to tease it out. There are two sheets that have been torn from a yellow legal pad, probably the same pad as the original note that arrived with the pictures of murdered evangelists. And the writing is in green Sharpie.

  I wonder if all of the notes were written on the same day. One for my package of pictures, one for Caro’s newspaper articles and this one to lie in wait for me. Did the Dark Man switch Ruby’s collar the night he took Caro and Andee away? Are there other notes out there, carefully placed, to guide me through his malevolent maze?

  Can anything good come from doing exactly as he says? I don’t know what else to do. The Dark Man will tell me what I want to believe – that if I obey, Caro and Andee will come home safe. It is hard to overestimate the power of hearing what you want to hear.

  I unroll the paper. Like the other notes, the writing is in neat block letters.

  THEY ARE ALIVE AND WELL. FOR NOW.

  FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS BELOW.

  YOU WILL SEE THEM IN PERSON VIA WEB CAM.

  DO NOT BRING IN THE FBI OR THERE WILL BE REPERCUSSIONS.

  There are three paragraphs of instructions that follow, informing me that a laptop computer has been hidden in a box next to the chimney in Caro’s attic. It is programmed and ready to go.

  The second page has an e-mail address, a user name and a password. It is time, at last, for the Dark Man and me to talk.

  FOURTEEN

  The long-suffering Ruby snoozes in the Jeep, pig ear tucked beneath one paw, while I stop at the public library. The library is no more than a block from Caroline’s bungalow – a large brick building, fairly new, across the street from a park that is shaded by old trees. A small train runs on a track that circles the park perimeter, with rows of seats for children who want to ride. Caro once told me that fifty cents buys two trips – undoubtedly the best deal in town.

  The public computers are on the second floor, and I mount a sweeping split staircase. There are a handful of terminals available, only one in use, and I go to the work station that is the greatest distance from everyone else. I log on in what I hope is sufficient anonymity, and take the note pages out of my pocket, unfolding the second page that has the e-mail address. My user name is Sanctuary and my password is Inspired.

  I am nervous. Whatever it is the Dark Man wants will not be in my power to give.

  The library computers have a wireless connection, but the wait is an agony of slow. I chew my bottom lip. Two seats over a man settles in and begins habitually clearing his throat. Two women are whispering in the book stacks a few feet away. My account comes up, and I enter the password. It does not go through – my fingers are shaky. I enter the password again, slowly this time, making sure to get it right.

  I have six messages. I am entreated to take medication so that I can satisfy any woman, enlarge my penis, buy cheap diet pills and consolidate my debt.

  At last, though, is the message I look for and dread.

  DEAR JOY MILLER,

  IT HAS COME TO THIS – THAT IN ALL OF MY TRAVELS AND STUDIES SINCE LAST WE MET, I HAVE FOUND NO ANSWERS THAT STIR MY SOUL – IF I CAN BE SAID TO HAVE ONE, AS YOU ASSURED ME I DID, FOURTEEN YEARS AGO.

  I WANT YOU TO UNDERSTAND HOW HARD I HAVE TRIED. I HAVE READ MANY BOOKS, TALKED TO PEOPLE I HOPED COULD HELP.

  THE DANGER, OF COURSE, IS HONESTY. ONCE THEY KNOW ME, THEY MUST BE ABLE TO HELP ME. YET NO ONE HAS HELPED ME. SO ALL OF THEM DIED.

  AND NOW I WONDER. COULD THEIR FEAR – AND THEY WERE SO AFRAID – COULD THEIR FEAR HAVE CLOUDED THEIR MINDS? PERHAPS THEY NEEDED TIME TO STUDY AND REFLECT. BUT OF COURSE, UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, THAT COULD NOT BE ARRANGED.

  AND I DO NOT FEEL, UPON REFLECTION, THAT OTHERS TAKE MY SOUL’S AWAKENING WITH ANY DEGREE OF SERIOUS CONTEMPLATION. THEY
CANNOT BE BLAMED. IT IS YOU, AND ONLY YOU, WHO KNOW THE VALIDITY OF MY REQUEST. YOU WHO WITNESSED MY FIRST ATTEMPT. YOUR LIFE THAT I SAVED.

  IS THERE GRACE FOR THE DARK ENTITIES LIKE MYSELF? CAN THERE BE REDEMPTION FOR THIS STAINED AND ANCIENT SOUL?

  I HAVE TRIED ALONE, AND FAILED, TIME AND TIME AGAIN. AND IN MY FAILURES TO BE GOOD, I DO EVEN MORE HARM.

  I THOUGHT, UNTIL I MET YOU, THAT DARKNESS WAS MY DESTINY. I LOOK TO YOU TO SHOW ME THE WAY.

  I HOLD YOUR HEART IN MY HANDS. THEY WILL BE SAFE WITH THE PART OF ME THAT WANTS TO DO GOOD. FOR THE SAKE OF ALL OF US, YOU MUST SHOW ME THE WAY. THINK. REFLECT. AND WE’LL TALK.

  JUST YOU AND ME, JOY. DON’T COMPLICATE THINGS BY BRINGING IN THE LAW. THINGS WILL GO BADLY FOR ALL OF US IF YOU DO.

  And my reply:

  Dear Seeker,

  Your situation is complicated. I will return answers after research and contemplation.

  Keep my girls safe.

  Joy Miller

  FIFTEEN

  Special Agent Harris of the Arkansas FBI doesn’t look anything at all like Russell Woods, so that’s one prevalent theory shot to hell. All Feds don’t look alike. But think alike? That may be what started the rumors. Because Special Agent Harris, a thin man with a brownish buzz cut, is looking at me with an unfriendly face.

  I am sitting opposite his crapped-over desk, which looks like someone tossed forms, files and paper into the air and let them drift randomly back on the top. Nevertheless, being in an actual office is a step up from an interrogation room.

  ‘Why didn’t you inform Agent Woods of the dog situation before you came out here?’ Harris leans forward, elbows on the desk. His head seems small for his body.

  I lean back in my chair and cross my legs. Up until now it has not crossed my mind to call my attorney, Smitty Madison.

  ‘Can we get past the stupid questions and move on to the ones that make sense? I’m not trying to antagonize you, Agent Harris, but we’re kind of on the clock.’

  He glares at me. I look over at the pictures on the walls. Harris is clearly ex-navy. He wears a wedding band, but there are no photographs of his family. Just a framed picture of the Destroyer he served on during his years in military service, no doubt near and dear to his heart.