Blackened

by Tim McWhorter

  “just loving you” was the text I received back, and just like that, the stress of the last twenty-four hours’ events was washed away, all but forgotten. I can’t lie, the photo started the process, but seeing those words finished it off. The job at Tipsword’s was going well, and my family was healthy, but there were still times when I felt like Claire was the one really good thing I had going for me. No matter what, as long as she was there for me, nothing else seemed to matter.

  Even though the tasteful image was still fresh in my mind, I found myself dying to see it again. Exiting the screen that showed the trail of our texts, I flipped first to the cell phone’s main screen. Tapping the icon for the photo gallery where I’d downloaded the red lace, the menu popped up displaying all of my photos arranged by date.

  And that’s when I first noticed something might be wrong.

  There were six tiny thumbnail photos grouped together for that day, and therein laid the confusion. I'd only downloaded the one photo that Claire had sent me, and I hadn’t taken any photos myself. I couldn’t even remember the last time I did. Photography wasn’t really my thing.

  My phone buzzed and that tiny envelope appeared at the top of the screen, letting me know I had a new text. Claire. But I ignored it for the time being, choosing instead to further investigate the five mystery photos.

  The interior of room 3227 popped up on the screen. The photo showed both the nightstand beside the bed and the bed itself, taken from near the foot of it. The bed looked rumpled, the comforter tossed aside and all four white pillows scrunched up against the dark wooden headboard. I couldn’t swear to it, but the bed looked pretty much how I’d left it that morning.

  The second and third photos were more of the same: the vanity and sink area where my deodorant and toothbrush sat, the cabinet that hid the mini fridge with the flat screen perched on top. They were simple photos taken inside the room. The only problem was that I didn’t remember taking them.

  The phone buzzed again, but this time the notification got run over by my racing thoughts. My heart started beating a little faster. Possibilities started to form.

  The fourth photo was difficult to make out, and it took me a few seconds to realize what it was. The picture of my parent’s bed in the adjoining hotel room was taken with the light off. The adjoining door appeared to be open, casting just enough light into the room to catch the wrinkles in the comforter. I could make out the back of my father’s head, and it looked like he may have had his back to the photographer and his arm over my mother’s hip. The photo was too dark to tell for sure.

  It was when I scrolled to the fifth and last photo that I finally started to figure it out.

  The photo was of a single object. The shot was zoomed in, framing only my small, dark green suitcase sitting on the floor in the hotel room. From my bed, I looked over to where the suitcase leaned against my closet door, still waiting to be unpacked. Dropping the phone onto the bed beside me, I swung my legs off the side and stood up.

  The suitcase bounced when I tossed it onto the foot of my bed, bouncing the phone up in the air with it. I yanked the shiny gold zipper around the full circumference of the case and threw the lid over. Nothing but clothes stared back at me, mocking the increased rate of my pulse. Everything was just as I packed it before leaving for work that morning. Folded jeans and t-shirts took up most of the space. Sitting on top were several pairs of socks and underwear, some clean, some not so much.

  I began pulling everything out of the suitcase one at a time, dumping it in a pile on the floor at my feet until the suitcase was empty of all of it. The hollow cavity stared back at me, questioning not only my intentions, but what I thought I was even looking for. I had no idea. I just knew there had to be some significance to the photo. I could be wrong, but I doubted it.

  Maybe I was looking in the wrong place. I grabbed ahold of the suitcase lid and flipped it back. Starting at the top, I began checking the zippered pockets.

  It was in the third pocket, the largest of the three, that my hand brushed against something out of the ordinary.

  “Shit.”

  I pulled out the folded piece of paper. I didn’t even have to open it to know instantly who it was from. Like a love note passed around the classroom, the paper was folded into quarters. The hotel’s logo taunted me from the bottom of the sheet. My heart knocked against my chest with purpose as I unfolded the note.

  SORRY I MISSED YOU. WILL TRY AGAIN SOON

  That’s the moment I knew that I wasn’t losing it; someone truly had been in my hotel room the night before. I wasn’t crazy, I was being stalked. And strangely, I didn’t know which was worse.

  Chapter 32

  When Friday finally arrived, it meant that I’d made it through a week since receiving the first package with the bones and Garrett’s class ring. Since then, so much had happened. And when I say ‘so much,’ I mean ‘too much.’ But at least after we checked out of the hotel and returned home, the days had come and gone without any excitement. And if I didn’t know any better, I would say that Dallas was a little disappointed about that fact. I don’t know if our little adventure at the church had reawakened the soldier in him or what, but he always seemed alert and ready to go if anything were to happen, like Corwin Barnes deciding to show his face.

  I, on the other hand, wasn’t quite as eager. I was enjoying the break from the terror very much, thank you, though I wasn’t naive enough to think it was over. Barnes hadn’t just gotten bored, said “screw it” and left town. His lingering shadow was never far from my mind. It had been burned there forever. The threat was real.

  When I asked Dallas his thoughts on why Barnes was taking a break, he did something I didn’t know he could. He quoted a book. The Art of War by Sun Tzu to be exact.

  “Rouse him, and learn the principle of his activity or inactivity,” Dallas said. “Force him to reveal himself, so as to find out his vulnerable spots.”

  “Great,” I’d said. “And here I was hoping he’d just gotten bored with me.”

  Claire’s parents were home from their trip, so that was why I hadn’t seen her at all that week. It didn’t help that my mother had called hers and spent forty-five minutes on the phone that first night they were back, going over the entire situation. She felt it was the right thing to do, and I couldn’t muster up much of an argument. I was just worried about the blowback. After their conversation, my only contact with Claire was by cell. Perhaps her parents were urging her to keep her distance for awhile. Perhaps they were right.

  But today she was stopping by to have lunch with me, and by “having lunch,” I meant we were going to the police station to see Detective Morgenstern. We hadn’t heard a word since that Monday night in the hotel parking lot, and I found it strange that he wouldn’t have kept in touch better. But then, my only knowledge about how situations like this are handled stems from police shows on television, and who knows how accurately these things are portrayed on prime time.

  I was under the hood of an import sedan when I heard the car horn out front. A flicker of excitement lit me up, and I immediately stopped what I was doing. I was eager to see Claire, wearing red lace or not.

  Grabbing a faded orange rag, I began to wipe my blackened hands as I walked over to the nearest overhead door. When I came in to work that Tuesday, I found long sheets of white paper stretched across the windows of the overhead doors, which was pretty much the entire door. Dallas had stayed late Monday night, taping them up to prevent anyone from seeing in. The only downside was that it also prevented us from seeing out. I pulled one of the sheets to the side about an inch, just enough to look out onto the parking lot. Claire’s silver Prius was out front, pulled directly in front of the door like always. I tossed the rag onto a nearby toolbox, trying to keep my smile under control. I never did possess much of a poker face, and today was no exception.

  By the time I had washed my greasy hands and changed my shirt, Claire was leaning up against the driver’s side door and soaking up the
midday sun. She had her cell phone out and her thumbs were flying over the screen. I assumed she was probably texting me, wondering where the hell I was. For all her good points, she could be impatient.

  “About time,” she said when she noticed me walking toward her. “Didn’t your father ever teach you not to keep a lady waiting?”

  “Sorry,” I said as I walked up to her. I put my hands on her hips and leaned in. The kiss was a short one, and I was left wanting more. But like I said, she could be impatient. Especially when there was somewhere she wanted to be. Still, she couldn’t completely conceal her thin smile, so I knew she was just as happy to see me as I was her. It seemed like it had been weeks, not just days.

  As I was letting her go, the NAPA delivery truck pulled in next to Claire’s car. Arashk climbed out of the driver’s seat and made his way to the back of the truck. A moment later, he came around to the side carrying a box. In the box, I assumed, was the alternator I’d be installing in the import when I returned.

  “Hey, Luke,” he said, tossing me a smile and indicating the box. “Got your alternator.”

  “Thanks, Arashk,” I said, tilting my head toward the office. “Dallas is in there. He’ll sign for it.”

  “Alright, man. Thanks,” Arashk said, then he flashed a smile in Claire’s direction. “Have a good lunch!”

  Once we were in the car, I leaned over and nuzzled my nose on Claire’s bare shoulder. Her skin was soft and warm from its time in the sun. I couldn’t be more thrilled that spring was finally here. That meant I’d be seeing more of it. And seeing more of Claire period was a good thing.

  “That’s an interesting accent,” she said, starting up the car.

  “What? Arashk?” I asked, pulling away from her and fastening my seatbelt. “I think he said he’s from Romania, or somewhere like that. Why, do you like it? Do I need to be worried?”

  She knew I was joking, but slapped my leg anyway. As we pulled out of the parking lot, I glanced back. Arashk hadn’t given me the Reds tickets and I’d been too consumed with Claire to ask.

  Chapter 33

  A bored officer at the front desk issued us visitor passes and told us to have a seat. She said Detective Morgenstern would be with us shortly. Twenty minutes later, I was more than a little antsy. Unlike a dentist’s or doctor’s office, the only available reading materials were the two public service posters hanging on the wall in front of us. If the officer behind the glass window was leaving us to sit in the lobby just to make sure the information on the posters was sinking in, she was wasting her time. I was not going to be joining the police force anytime soon, nor was I involved in gang activity. The irony that one poster was urging us not to join a gang, while the other was basically recruiting us for one, was not lost on either of us.

  “I could take a nap,” Claire said after one of her many drawn out yawns.

  I nodded and agreed that I could do the same. For me at least, it wasn’t so much that I was tired, just bored.

  About the time I stood up to stretch my legs and make sure the front desk officer hadn’t forgotten us, a buzzing sound interrupted the quiet. A door beside the glass window opened a second later, and the desk jockey called us back.

  Claire and I were shown to a makeshift office where Morgenstern sat behind a metal desk situated in the middle of the room. He was talking on his cell phone and doodling in an open notebook as we entered. When he looked up and saw the two of us, he used the ink pen to point us in the direction of two uncomfortable chairs across the desk from him. I knew they were uncomfortable because they were the same as the ones in the lobby.

  “I don’t give a God damn who he is,” Morgenstern said, slamming his pen onto the desk. There was an edge to his voice that I hadn’t heard before, an authority I’d never seen. “I want that address! I don’t care if you have to bend the son of a bitch over, reach your hand all the way up his ass and grab him by the throat to make him understand just how bad I want it!”

  I looked at Claire and she looked at me. The raising of her eyebrows told me she shared my sentiment. We were both happy we weren’t on the other end of that phone conversation, and I decidedly tried not to appear as impatient as I was. I looked around the room, examining everything like it was a work of art in a museum despite the fact that the tiny space looked more like a storage room than an office. It was about as drab as any room you would ever find. I wondered if it was a temporary workspace for Morgenstern or if he was just that boring. The walls were bare, and with the exception of a disorganized stack of manila folders and a single picture frame, the desk was empty, too.

  The framed photo was of a young African-American woman kneeling beside a little girl wearing a Cincinnati Reds baseball cap. Each had on a colorful bathing suit with streaks of cream-colored sunscreen glossing their caramel skin. A large, red bucket of sand sat in front of them with two yellow shovels sticking up.

  “I guess you’re here to see if I’ve found out anything.”

  It took a few seconds to realize that Morgenstern was talking to me. I hadn’t heard him say goodbye and didn’t even know he’d ended his phone call.

  “Uh, yeah,” I said, trying to catch up with the conversation. “It’s been a few days, and we haven’t heard anything, so I thought I’d touch base.”

  With an audible huff, the detective started sorting through the stack of folders on his desk, and I looked again at Claire. I was wondering if we’d picked a bad time to drop in on the guy. The last thing I wanted to do was irritate him further. But the nod Claire gave me told me to stand my ground. So I did. Besides, it was too late to reverse course anyway.

  “Alright,” he said, opening up a folder. “Let’s start from the beginning. The bones. First of all, a person’s identity can’t be determined from bones alone. What they can pinpoint, however, is an approximate determination of age and gender. Now, you say you think these particular bones are from your friend’s finger?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, unless he had unusually small, dainty hands, I would say that they aren’t. Forensics tells me that the bones are most likely those of a young female. Roughly the same age, but definitely not the right gender.”

  I exchanged another look with Claire. I wasn’t sure if I was happy it wasn’t Garrett’s finger or not, and was looking for some indication from her as to how I should feel. For the first time I can remember, she wasn’t any help. The look on her face told me she was trying to sort out her own feelings.

  “The ring, however, is your friend’s, which points to at least some credibility that this Corwin Barnes fellow is involved. We reached out to your friend’s parents and they affirmed that his class ring had been missing when they identified the body. I then sent them photos of the ring, and they confirmed that it was his.”

  “Okay.”

  At the moment, that was all I could get out and even that was a struggle. All of the information so far had me at a momentary loss for words. But it was the mention of Garrett’s parents that completely sideswiped my train of thought. I immediately wondered how they were coping and felt bad that Morgenstern had potentially dredged up painful memories.

  “Moving on,” the detective said, pulling out all the folded pieces of paper I’d given him over the past week. No break in the action, no giving me time to further process the information. “The notes. All the sheets of paper were the same size, the same weight and most likely pulled from the same package. The block lettering on the notes is consistent across the board. Knowing that, it’s relatively safe to say they were done by the same hand. However, since the large block letters were drawn as opposed to handwritten, that’s about all we can determine from those.”

  “Okay,” I said, holding up my hand like I was back in school. “Can we back up a second? You said the ring that was in the box is Garrett’s, but you’re pretty sure the bones are not.”

  “That’s correct,” Morgenstern said, and I was a little surprised there wasn’t more attitude in his voice since I’d interrupt
ed his flow.

  “And you’re saying that this lends some credibility to Barnes being involved?” Claire chimed in. As usual, she knew exactly where I was heading. “Sounds to me like that’s what you guys call a smoking gun.”

  “It’s possible,” the detective said, leaning back in his chair. He looked at Claire for a moment, then back to me. I could see it in his eyes that he was processing something, I just didn’t know what. “But we don’t know that Barnes was in possession of the ring to begin with. Could have gotten misplaced at the morgue. Maybe some flunky janitor at the coroner’s office lifted it. Honestly, Luke, we just don’t know.”

  Morgenstern’s demeanor seemed to soften just a little.

  “That brings me to what we do know,” he continued, his voice slightly less abrupt. “The fingerprints.”

  “Are they Barnes’?” Claire asked, and I was glad she had. The anticipation was killing me.

  “No,” he said, pausing to gauge my reaction. When I didn’t offer one, he continued. “But they’re all the same, and they’re all over everything. The notes, the boxes, even the Spanish Tickler. Like whoever they belonged to could have cared less if we lifted them.”

  I kept my focus forward, ignoring the look Claire gave me. I never told her about the instrument of torture I found on my truck seat, and I was sure I’d be catching hell for it when we were done here.

  “And you’re sure they’re not Barnes’,” I reiterated.

  “Not according to the Department of Corrections. The fingerprints all over these things don’t match the ones we have in the system for Barnes.”

  “So whose are they?” Claire asked.