“I don’t want to.”
Ronald sat on the bed to do up his shoes.
“I don’t—”
“It’s work, Vin,” he said. “We all go to work, right?”
“I know, but I don’t like it.”
“It’s going to be all right—you’ll see.”
Vincent leaned against the door frame; at twenty-three he looked barely fourteen. He could certainly sulk like a fourteen, Ronald thought.
“I don’t like him,” Vincent whispered finally.
Ronald looked up. He wished he could say something to make him feel better. Vincent had always been afraid of this thing or that thing, ever since he had known him. He seemed to have a direct connection with terror every God-given day, and, with the benefit of experience, Ronald knew there was precious little he could do to help him. Some things always worked, though.
“Why don’t we go for an ice cream tonight? Would you like that?”
Vincent shrugged, but there was a faint smile there.
Chapter 24
John Cameron had measured his cell in KCJC in every way it could be measured: how many steps it allowed him to take in any direction, how many of the sounds around him would reach him if he wanted to block them out, how much of himself would stay within those walls if, from time to time, he wanted to leave. The answer was not much: if he wanted to leave, he could, anytime he so wished. Ostensibly asleep, he lay utterly still on the bunk, and yet in his mind he was sitting in a deep leather chair, watching the pinpoints of light that were cars in the far distance, driving along the Alaskan Way Viaduct. It was the view from his home, and he had done some of his best thinking there—mostly at night, always alone.
The burn on his right shoulder was an inconvenience, nothing more. The pain had been sharp; the painkillers had taken care of it quickly, and what remained was a sense that the nature of his time there would be determined neither by the Washington State justice system, nor his own. As much as Nathan was doing all he could to get him out, there was much that was not in his hands. Cameron had followed the rules of the house so far; what would happen if anybody came at him with another one of those tiny little vials, he couldn’t say. He would defend himself, and that would be the swift and final end to any bail appeal and plea-bargaining conferences.
While he was in his cell, he was safe, and so were the other inmates.
Under his pale eyelids, he tracked the pinpoints of light and the ferries all lit up as they crossed Elliott Bay. Ever since Detective Madison had told him about David’s body, he had spent more time in 1985 than in the present. He had been so young when he had run into Timothy Gilman; he wondered what Gilman would have told him if he met him today. Everything, Cameron thought. He would have told him everything about the kidnapping, who paid him to take them, and why. It was, maybe, his one regret, that he had been too young and too inexperienced to do what needed to be done, and he had let Gilman die without getting each and every bit of truth out of him.
That one day, July 4, 1985, was the last time they had all been together at the same time and in the same place. It was, oddly, a comfort to go back to it; it was practically etched on his skin.
John Cameron, twelve, ran the length of the diving board and leapt, grabbing his knees close to his chest and yelling his delight for all the world to hear. He swam to the bottom—his ears let him feel the pressure—and looked up: the stone edges of the pool were distorted, and so were the people standing nearby. He tried to lie on the bottom: it was difficult, but he managed it, and for just an instant above him all was sky.
After a few moments his lungs begun to burn, and he followed the air bubbles back up; the surface of the water was full of light as he flicked the hair out of his eyes. He loved the Locke estate: acres and acres of woods it was safe to explore, and the parents let them roam as they pleased. Conrad Locke had started from nothing and married money, his father had said, which John hadn’t quite understood at the time, and he knew everyone from the local sheriff to the governor. But what mattered to John was that, once they were dry, the boys would go for a wander. And, please, God, let Bobby Locke stay by the pool, because it would be impolite for the three of them to tell him to get lost in his own backyard.
John got out of the pool and lay on the recliner and closed his eyes. Nearby he heard Nathan’s voice calling out to David.
They sneaked away from the pool area as soon as they could: John’s hair was drying in short little spikes, and Jimmy’s shorts were still damp over his trunks. They gave him a couple of “Wet pants!” jeers, though more out of preteen duty than serious ribbing, and they proceeded toward the dense woods behind the house.
“It’s not a house,” Bobby Locke had said in the tone that explained why nobody could stand him. “It’s a ranch.”
To which John, David, and Jimmy had rolled their eyes as far back as they would go. Now Bobby was inside with his cousins, busy with a video game.
“He’s in the ranch,” David had said, and they’d all laughed like hyenas without quite knowing why.
“What are you three little thugs laughing about?” Nathan had asked, and David had told him.
John thought Nathan was all right as older guys go—dorky but all right. One day he had been in high school; the next he was a grown-up with a starter beard and a summer job across the country. Still, David was the only one of them with a sibling, and that made Nathan okay—better than okay, in fact. The way John saw it, seven years was a good age difference: distant enough that the brothers wouldn’t compete for the same toys but close enough to tag along if Nathan was doing anything interesting. There had been Sonics games in the past, and fishing trips; in the last year, though, they had barely seen Nathan, and, anyway, they were old enough to go fishing at Jackson Pond by themselves.
The ground under their feet was hard and almost dusty in the July heat. The spruces gave some shade, and the boys meandered for a while without too much thought. Jimmy had a penknife, and he was using it to sharpen a stick, David pointed his new camera and snapped everything that moved, and John picked pebbles off the path and threw them into the bracken. They didn’t need to talk, and when Jimmy broke the silence, the others stopped and turned.
“I heard something the other day,” he said. “I don’t think my dad wanted me to hear it.”
That got their attention faster than any other opening line might have.
“He was on the phone, and I don’t know who he was talking to—could have been your dad”—he pointed at John—“or yours.” He pointed at David.
“What did he say?” David asked.
Jimmy looked around and lowered his voice: “He said, ‘I will pick up my bat and personally put a dent in their future if they ever come back to The Rock.’”
David and John looked at each other; those were serious words for Jimmy’s dad, who was the kindest, mildest guy you would ever have a chance to meet.
“Who was he talking about?” John said.
“I don’t know; he must have heard me outside the door and changed the subject.”
“His baseball bat?” David asked.
Jimmy nodded.
“And he wasn’t kidding? He wasn’t, you know . . .”
“No way. He was dead serious.”
The Rock, the restaurant owned by their fathers, had been in their lives for as long as the boys could remember.
“Has anything happened at the restaurant?” David looked at John, who just shrugged.
“Don’t think so,” he said. “I haven’t heard anything.”
“And you’re sure he meant business?” David asked Jimmy.
“No doubt about it. He sounded really mad.” What Jimmy didn’t want to say was that his dad had also sounded a little scared, and that had frightened him more than anything, though he couldn’t say that to the others, either.
They mulled it over for a moment—three boys with their T-shirts stuck to their backs trying to work out if some real, grown-up, honest-to-goodness violence
was going to happen. Jimmy drew shapes in the dirt with his stick. What they all knew without saying was that anything to do with The Rock involved them all.
They walked on, because moving was better than standing still, the heat suddenly more oppressive than before. The ground rose and fell, and normally it would be one of the day’s joys to scramble up and down the ditches and gullies and pretend they were alone in a wild and unexplored land. Today, though, the mood had turned to muted worry: they were familiar enough with the usual middle-school disputes—mostly resolved by trash talk and the occasional lunch-break standoff. This—one of their own fathers talking about hurting somebody with a baseball bat—this was a foreign land.
“I say we just keep our eyes and ears open and see what happens.” Only David could manage to make the only possible course of action sound like a smart plan. Yet once there was a plan in place, everybody felt better.
The inmates in the D Wing of KCJC were hollering a call-and-response chant, the guard telling them to cool it and shut it. In his cell, John Cameron breathed in warm July air and felt the heat of the sun on his cheeks.
Chapter 25
Dr. Eli Peterson had slept badly, and the drive to the Institute did little to improve his mood. The previous day’s rain had morphed into drizzle so pervasive that it was like mist; it took the edge off all the colors, especially the greens. Through the driver’s-side window, the grass was washed out to a dull gray, and for a moment he wondered if that dullness wasn’t exactly the outcome of most of the meds his patients were given. Was he seeing what they saw every day?
He parked and walked to the main entrance without bothering with an umbrella. The receptionist gave him his mail, his messages, and a smile that would have sent a diabetic into shock. He didn’t notice—he never did—but it didn’t stop her.
He was about to swipe his card, when he picked up and unfolded the small yellow square of paper with his deputy’s scratchy handwriting. He read it once, then read it again. Somehow he managed to use the swipe card and push through the door and run to his office without dropping anything. He dumped all he carried into the armchair in front of his desk, dug into his pockets, and found what he was looking for: a key ring with three small silver keys.
One of those fit the lock in the bottom drawer, and he opened it. He grabbed a single key, which rested on a plastic folder, and locked the drawer again.
At the end of the corridor was a windowless room with a tall dresser that had been outfitted with thirty-nine drawers, one for every patient. The yellow scrap of paper had told Eli Peterson that the last time Ronald Gray visited Vincent Foley—the previous Thursday—he had placed something in Vincent’s box. The box had been empty for over twenty years. Peterson fumbled with his master key and finally managed to get it open.
Madison’s day off had started with Carl Doyle’s call as per their routine. She sat at the table in her living room gazing out at the water. The view was blurry, and she felt a little blurry herself—maybe another bad dream; she couldn’t be sure.
“How is he?” she asked Doyle as she took a sip of nuclear-strength coffee. “He” was Nathan Quinn—no need to explain.
“Quiet,” he replied. “He’s been really quiet since last Wednesday.”
The night of the televised appeal, Madison thought.
“Not that he’s particularly expansive at the best of times . . .” he continued.
And this was definitely not the best of times, Madison thought.
“Everything’s progressing: the blood work looks good; whatever spleen he has left is working to compensate for the part that’s gone. He’s getting restless. Will you be going to visit Cameron today?”
Madison had been asking herself that very same question since she’d woken up. She hadn’t seen him since the attack on him: half of her wanted to check on him, and the other wanted to ignore him after his no-show at her last visit to KCJC. The choice was between being anxious and petulant.
“I don’t know, Carl.”
“Fair enough. Is there any news on David Quinn?”
“We still haven’t managed to get a forensic anthropologist to have a look. Do you know how many of those there are in the States? I mean, how many certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropologists?”
“A few hundred, I’d guess.”
“Ninety-two. I checked.”
“Ninety-two?”
“Yes, and David Quinn is a low priority right now.” Madison thought of the small pit in the woods and the men who had put the body of a child inside it.
Six days had passed since Quinn’s televised appeal, and still they had not spoken.
“Let me know if you decide to go,” Doyle said.
“Will do. Nothing says day off like correctional-institute coffee and a chat with Deputy Warden Thomas.”
“Glad you’re living the dream, Detective.”
After they hung up, Madison, still in her pajamas and bunny slippers, padded to the French doors, leaned her brow against the cool glass, and closed her eyes. She might as well admit it: she was both anxious and petulant. So be it. Who cares, ultimately? The man had been attacked with undiluted bleach; she had to see him. She was turning to call KCJC and book her visit when her cell started beeping.
“Madison.”
“Detective, it’s Eli Peterson from the Walters Institute.”
From the end of the conversation with Dr. Peterson, it took Madison nineteen minutes to leave the house—including a shower, another gulp of coffee, and getting her off-duty piece out of the safe. She didn’t want to call Fynn until she knew exactly what they had in their hands.
The drive felt excruciatingly slow, and it wasn’t until she pulled in at the gates that she realized it hadn’t even occurred to her to call Kelly.
Her message to the doctor had been brief and clear: Whatever it is, do not touch it until I get there.
Once again Eli Peterson was waiting for her by the reception desk.
“It’s in my office,” he said.
He didn’t attempt any small talk on the way there, and she was grateful for that.
“Can you tell me about the boxes?” she asked him.
He spoke as they strode down the corridor. “Every patient has one. If someone has a few objects that are dear to them but cannot be kept in their room for their own safety . . .”
“A necklace, a chain, a brooch—that kind of thing?”
“Exactly. They go into their box, and they can have them when they want them. It’s a comfort for them to know their things are here—”
“And knowing they won’t use those things to self-harm makes it easier for you.”
“It’s a balance between a person’s emotional well-being and their physical welfare.”
“What about Vincent’s box?”
“It’s always been empty. Until last Thursday, that is. Ronald asked my deputy to put something in it for safekeeping because it was something that belonged to their foster mother and had special meaning for Vincent.”
“Those were his exact words?”
Peterson gave her the note; the door to his office was open, and Madison saw the bundle wrapped in blue fabric on Peterson’s desk.
“Look,” he said, “maybe I asked you to come for nothing. Maybe it’s just . . .”
But Madison had already crossed the room, almost forgetting he was there, to stand behind his desk. She turned on his Anglepoise lamp and directed its cone of light straight onto the oblong swaddled in what looked like an inexpensive scarf. From her jeans she took out a pair of latex gloves and snapped them on.
It looked like a smallish box. Madison picked it up to feel its weight and contours.
“It’s a book,” she said as she started to loosen the fabric around it.
It turned out to be a volume three inches thick with yellowing pages. Madison stared at it. “It’s a Bible.”
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Peterson replied. “I thought it might have been something to do with the case.”
>
Madison picked up the yellow scrap she had dropped on the table.
“Your deputy wrote that Ronald gave him this to keep for Vincent,” she said, “because it had belonged to their foster mother.”
“Yes.”
Madison opened the book to the front page. “It’s a King James Bible.” She started turning pages carefully, looking down one side first and then the other.
She was halfway through Genesis when Peterson spoke. “Detective . . . ?”
Madison looked up. “Mark and Vivienne Bell were Jewish; Ronald Gray and Vincent Foley’s foster-parents were Jewish. This”—she held up the book—“is a Bible. Whatever Gray intended to be done with it, I doubt it was a family heirloom. I’d like to speak with your deputy, please.”
She went back to Genesis.
The pages were printed on thin paper—almost translucent—and so far, deep into Exodus, Gray had not underlined any passages or made any notes in the margins.
“He’s just gone off shift. I’m sorry,” Peterson said, coming back into the office. “I’ll write down his number. He’s done the night—and it was a heavy one—so he might be a little punchy. Did you find anything?”
“Not yet.”
A part of Madison, the dark, tinny voice that whispered to her of mistakes and uncertainty and, occasionally, wickedness, spoke now and said that the book in front of her was nothing but a book; it might be a good book—even the best of books—and yet it was nothing but a book and, thus, worthless to the investigation. I don’t think so, she thought. Ronald Gray knew what he was doing. She would go through it word for word if necessary. Madison flipped through the thousand-plus pages, and the tips of her fingers felt the irregularity before she saw it. She didn’t even have time to think: the book fell open, and it was clear that a number of pages had been glued together. Something had been purposefully trapped between them as if inside an envelope. It was invisible if you looked at it from the side, but once you reached that point . . . there it was. Madison gave the smallest of smiles.
The Dark Page 15
