The Dark Corner

by Easton Livingston

  That opinion changed on the other side of the blue curtain. In the department, he had respect. More so because he was older — or older looking — and had more experience. But also because he kept his head about himself and was excellent at his job. Others recognized it as his calling and though he didn't see things in that light, it was clear Providence chose him to be a detective. Better than the average.

  However, it was difficult not to bring his work home with him. His wife, Anita, could vouch for that. It's not that he sat down and talked about what was going on at work. It was rare he ever did that since signing on to homicide. He cared about his wife too much to burden her with that. The things he’d seen ... you couldn't unsee that stuff. But there was no fooling Anita. She saw his mind was somewhere else many times, and she knew it was because of the job. It was surprising she was still around. Took a strong woman to be a cop's wife, and the fortitude needed increased for a homicide detective. But she hung in there with him for the last decade and he was looking forward to the next ten years if God would bless them with that many.

  He threw his coat on the back of his office chair as he approached his desk. Piled on top were manila folders he hadn’t put there. More cases.

  “Hey Sam.”

  “What's going on Steve?”

  Steve Allison, one of the few detectives Samuel believed was competent in the department. There were so many that just rode the political wave of the blue shield and didn't have the chops to be detectives worth anything. You could spot them from a mile away. Steve wasn't one of them and Neff was thankful for that which gave him some relief since they were partners.

  “Hey. There is a lady that's been waiting for you for about fifteen minutes. She says called a few times and you haven't returned her phone calls even though she left messages.”

  Neff sighed. He knew who it was. He didn't ignore her on purpose but had forgotten to call her back. Things got so busy around the office, then another case would crop up. Phone call memos would get buried under case files and her messages got lost in the bedlam of the job.

  “Let me guess. Debbie Johansen.”

  “Give that man a cigar! You are the man!” Steve said, nodding.

  “Yeah, well, that's what they tell me,” Neff said. “That's why I get paid the big bucks.”

  The humorous jab covered up the fact he didn't know what he would say to Mrs. Johansen. There wasn't much left to say. What happened was plain: she and her husband were having marital problems for a long time. It came to a head where she filed for divorce. That took the husband over the edge who came home and took his own life. It was an open and shut case so he wasn't sure what she was expecting. She may have come to thank him for all the work he had done, but a voice told him that was wishful thinking. You wouldn't place an incessant string of calls trying to contact someone to stop by the office just to say thank you.

  There was no use speculating. He had to face her and see what she wanted.

  He stepped out into the waiting area and saw her sitting in the old wooden bench they should have replaced eons ago. It was not the bastion of comfort. He didn't know if they kept it there for nostalgia or to make people feel uncomfortable so they wouldn't want to sit there too long. Either way, the thing needed to go.

  “Mrs. Johansen?”

  “Detective Neff.”

  He sat down next to her on the bench which protested in small creaks under the pressure of his two-hundred and sixty-five pound frame.

  “What can I do for you today?”

  The anxiety on Debbie Johansen's face was evident. There was a pensiveness mingled with apprehension. She looked worn as if she hadn't slept in days, agitating the edges of her nerves.

  "I wanted to talk to you about my husband's death."

  Neff nodded. He didn't want to blow her off but couldn't spend too much time on it. There were other cases he needed to get to. Those cases were still open.

  “What did you want to talk about?”

  “My husband did not kill himself.”

  Well, there it was. He was hoping she wouldn't be one of those, the grieving widow who couldn't let go, couldn't accept her new situation. He had gone through this more than once. It was always sad, sadder than people who grieved because those people were at least dealing with reality. People who denied the truth ... it brought despondency to a disturbing new level.

  “And why would you think that?”

  He wasn't trying to patronize her. He was trying to see where her head was so he could address it with sensitivity. To deal with the loss of a loved one, especially someone so close like a husband, was always fragile.

  “I know what you're thinking,” she said, looking him square in the face. “You think I'm just a wife who can't deal with the loss of her husband. I know what all of this looks like but I'm telling you right now what I know more than anything is that my husband did not kill himself. Not in his right mind.”

  Neff gave her a slow nod. It would be more difficult than expected.

  She was a hardcore believer. No matter what you told them, they believed what they wanted to believe and no amount of evidence or facts would convince them. Dealing with them required more patience than the average cop had. You had to listen to what they were saying and find the flaw in their reasoning. If you couldn’t find it, you attempted to come to a compromise where they would leave with a modicum of satisfaction. The goal was to let them see that someone cared and would be on their side even though they couldn’t reopen the case. It was a narrow line to walk and tricky to maneuver.

  “So, you believe there’s something wrong with the evidence? That we somehow made a mistake? I’m not trying to question your motives here or insinuate that we are flawless in what we do. We make mistakes every day because we’re human. That includes the police. You don’t have to be on the crime scene unit to understand that. So, did you see something we missed that you think will affect the outcome of the results and conclusions we came to?”

  The was a flash of doubt on Debbie's face. Her certainty was rock solid, but she possessed no new direct evidence to bring to light. She didn’t expect them to to give her serious consideration, but this was the only shot she had at making this right. She prayed someone would listen to her and the best person to share her information with was the person who worked the case. At least that’s what she thought. Now, she wasn’t so sure as diffidence seeped into her mind. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe she should let it go, move on with her life. She was making things more difficult, dragging it on when there were other people she had to think of. Annabelle and Caleb. Her children. They were her world now.

  Then it hit her. If what she suspected had any possibility of being true, she had to pursue it. This was not for herself as much as it was for her kids and in-laws. This was something that needed addressing for the sake of the family.

  “Detective Neff. You married?”

  Neff knew where she was going with this. He had heard it many times before. Most of the time, it was a wild, fanciful argument or conclusion which made no sense. Rarely did anyone ever have something concrete to consider. But he let her continue because it's what families of the victims needed. Someone willing to listen to them even if it was for five minutes. Even if what they said sounded crazy. It was enough to know somebody heard them so Neff nodded and answered the question.

  “Yes, I am married. We've been married for over ten years and it is a wonderful marriage. I'm a lucky guy.”

  “And would you say you know your wife better than anybody else on this planet?”

  “Yes,” Neff nodded slowly. “I would say I am a top person in her life and I know more about her than anybody else. But I can think of one person who knows more about her than I do.”

  He waited for that to sink in, for her to consider what he was about to tell her.

  “It's my wife. She knows herself better than I do and as long as we've been together, she is still the person that knows more about herself than I do. We really don't know
everything about our loved ones. There are things they keep hidden they may never share with us but only keep to themselves. We have to be willing to accept that.”

  “I know what you're saying but hear me out. Outside of herself you know her better than anybody else. Would you say that you know the things she would and wouldn't do?”

  She held up her hand.

  “Before you answer, please don't patronize me with some nonsense about do we really know what somebody will and will not do. She's your wife and you have a good marriage which is better than most, especially in my case. So when I come to you and I say my husband did not kill himself, it's not just grief talking. We had a gulf between us a mile wide. But we were close enough because we were husband and wife. I know him and I am telling you he would not commit suicide. He loved himself too much. Plus, he was trying to get better. He was seeing a therapist.”

  Neff's expression transfigured into puzzlement. She piqued his interest.

  “Did you say your husband wouldn't kill himself because he loved himself too much?”

  “Exactly. It was like a friend of mine said recently: Dana loved him some Dana. That's part of the reason we were having problems over the years. So I know he would not commit suicide. I may have been stupid and maybe naïve about his indiscretions, but this I know; he wouldn't commit suicide.”

  Neff looked at Mrs. Johansen. She wore a visage of certitude. It reached out to him with invisible tendrils, waiting to infiltrate his thoughts and bring him to the place she was. He resisted it. This is where police officers had to be careful. They couldn't be too empathetic. It led down a rabbit hole that colored their perspective and weakened their objectivity. But he listened because the conviction was so strong, it manifested as something that was more possible than not.

  “You don't believe me do you?”

  "No, it's not that at all. I believe you are sincere in what you're telling me. I believe you believe this with all your heart and I don't want to minimize that in any way. But you have to understand my position. I have to go off a little more than your relationship with your husband. Any grieving spouse can come in here and give that as an argument. You see where I'm coming from?"

  Debbie Johansen looked down at the ground for a few moments before looking back up at Neff.

  “Yes. I understand. I just wanted you to know where the root of all of this was coming from. And I have more.”

  She pulled out an envelope that was 8.5 by 11. She held it in her lap as if teasing Neff with the contents.

  “Are you familiar with the suicide rates here in Toledo, Ohio?”

  “A little. Not off the top of my head.”

  Debbie Johansen nodded.

  “The national average for suicide is about thirteen per one hundred thousand people per year.” She waited for that information sink into Neff's brain before continuing. “In Toledo we've had that many in the last three months. If we keep going at this rate, we will have quadruple the national average. Now, don't you think there's something odd about that?”

  Neff sat speechless, and a little surprised. He didn't have a reason to look that deep into it. She had done her homework. It was out of the ordinary for a grieving spouse to have factual data to back up whatever conjecture they were espousing. He had to admit; it intrigued him. If it was just double the suicide rate, it would've been interesting. But to be on track to quadruple the suicide rate ... that was a whole different monster. He didn't know what to make of the information or how it connected to her husband's death.

  “Well that is very interesting but I'm not sure what you want me to do about that.”

  “What I would like you to do is look into it because this is not just something that happened to my husband. This is something happening to the city. I don’t think this is a coincidence and I think my husband may have been the victim of something bigger.” She paused before continuing. “There’s one more thing. I'm petitioning to have my husband’s body exhumed and autopsied.”

  * * * * *

  Neff walked down the hallway towards his desk, the manila envelope in his hand, thinking. He was more than thinking. He was on one of his binges of being lost in his own mind.

  What Debbie Johansen had posited bothered him. That many suicides in such a short period was alarming. He did not know how to account for the cause if there was one. There might be something in the water or something in a place where there was a large distribution system to a network of people that was making them commit suicide. Drugs perhaps.

  The details attempted to connect inside his mind. Mrs. Johansen’s request wasn’t far fetched if it could lend credence there were mitigating circumstances contributing to the death of her husband. There was a copy of an affidavit in the envelope that called for his exhumation. It was a potential legal nightmare but if there was any merit to it at all, he had to look into it. He couldn’t ignore it.

  “Did you let her down easy?”

  Neff sat down as his desk and took out the contents of the envelope. Along with the affidavit, it contained research on local suicide rates, detailing where they all had happened and what method. He had to give it to her. She was thorough.

  “Did you hear me?”

  Neff looked up.

  “What?”

  “I asked you if you let her down easy.”

  Neff’s eyes wandered back to the report in front of him.

  “Not exactly. Have you seen the latest suicide statistics?”

  “Sure. I take it to bed with me every night for some light reading.”

  Neff ignored Steve’s attempt at humor.

  “Did you know we’ve had as many suicides in the last month as most states have had in a whole year?”

  Steve leaned back in his chair, attentive.

  “I’ll bite. Why is that?”

  Neff rested his chin in the crook of his left hand.

  “I don’t know but it tells me that something is going on in this city we didn't catch. I'm not sure if we can do anything about it at the moment.”

  He sat the material on the desk, staring, his hands folded on top of it. His eye wandered to the large paned window to his right, looking out over the city. He didn't where to begin but he knew he had to.

  What Debbie Johansen said crept into the depths of his mind. Her theory became more compelling as he pondered and it led to the same conclusion.

  Something was wrong with the city.

  Part II - Our New Home

  Brian sat in the chapel, recalling what happened earlier that night in his house. After the incident, he had serious intentions on changing his definition weird.

  The strangers who had invaded his home more than unnerved him. They had forced their way into his house, however polite, and the tall, older one had disappeared downstairs to do God knows what. The two sitting with him in the living room weren’t giving him a lot of comfort either but they were tolerable. To calm his nerves, he struck up a conversation to make himself feel better since he didn't know what was going on.

  “So,” Brian said. “What is it exactly do you guys do?”

  Tyler looked at Amanda. She gave a modest smile. She knew Brian was uncomfortable, and she didn't blame him. He'd found himself in the middle of an unorthodox dilemma which not only violated his home but his view of reality.

  “We are a special kind of investigative team. That's probably the best description, wouldn't you say Tyler?”

  Tyler nodded, his attention focused on a device he had in his hand.

  “Yeah. Probably.”

  Brian nodded. “So what do you investigate? You have to forgive me because… well… there have been some very strange things going on here pretty much since I moved in. To have you guys come out of nowhere and do ... whatever it is you do ... it's beyond freaky.”

  “That's understandable.” Sebastian’s response startled everyone. Brian hadn't heard him enter the room nor sensed it which only magnified his uneasiness.

  “There are some questions we have to ask if you d
on't mind,” Sebastian said. “Please forgive me for my abrupt approach earlier but the situation warranted we… deal with your particular problem right away.”

  Brian sighed. It was clear he was along for the ride. His guests were in control and he was clueless. Though he didn't know what was going on, he felt a caress of relief at the realization that someone did and knew how to deal with it, whatever it was. He wasn't sure how to tell Ashley in terms of what happened. The fewer details, the better. As long as the problem was solved. She'd be happy, would come back home, and they could put everything behind them.

  Sebastian walked over, sitting down in the lounge chair perpendicular to his position.

  “You say you haven't been in this house long.”

  Brian shook his head. “We've only been here for a couple weeks. Got it for a steal. Couldn't pass it up. But with everything that's been going on, I’m having some serious second thoughts.”

  “When did you notice that there were some strange things happening in the house?”

  “Well,” Brian said, “I didn't notice anything weird until today when I arrived at the hospital. My wife said there were a million spiders in our basement. Normally when someone says that, you take it to mean that there were a lot of spiders in the basement, not that there were literally a million spiders. But that's what my wife meant. They took her to the hospital because she had an allergic reaction. Or symptoms. She scratched herself trying to get the spiders off of her body.”

  Brian took inventory of everyone's reaction to what he was saying. Tyler was the only one who had any kind of visible response. Spiders weren't the favorite subject of most people and it looked like Tyler was in that camp.

  “When I went downstairs to check on her story, I didn't see any spiders. That made me concerned. That's when ...”