The River Is Dark

by Joe Hart

  They climbed to higher ground, where the tangled nettles of wild raspberries dissipated and the trees grew taller, blocking out the sun with a canopy of intertwining leaves and branches. Liam stopped and surveyed the surroundings. He could still see the river on the left. Birds flitted between trees overhead and called to one another in snippets of song.

  “It’s beautiful out here,” Dani said beside him.

  He glanced at her as she popped a wild raspberry into her mouth. “Yes, it is.” Liam picked a long piece of grass and began to split it into sections. “So did you ever get back together with him?”

  “With who?”

  “The boyfriend you broke up with right before the wedding.”

  Dani looked down and smoothed a bit of hair behind one ear. “Yeah, we did. Didn’t work out, again, and we broke up a few months later. I should’ve known better, trusted my instincts the first time.”

  “It’s tough when you’re young, and in love.”

  Dani shook her head, her eyes far away. “How about you?”

  “I didn’t get back together with my boyfriend. I totally deserved better.”

  Dani laughed and tossed a twig at him as they continued walking. “Seriously.”

  “Oh, you know, cop works all the time, married to the job, can’t commit, that old story.”

  “That old chestnut.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s funny, I thought you would’ve been happily married with a family by now.”

  “Ditto.”

  “Guess we’re both losers.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  Dani smiled and they walked in silence for a while before she asked, “What do you think we’ll find at the foundry?”

  “Probably nothing, but I want to walk the land myself, see if anything sticks out.”

  They moved southeast, keeping the river in sight while winding between tall stands of birch and the occasional towering oak. After a half hour, Liam saw a flat slant of gray emerge through the trees ahead. Gradually the rest of the building came into view, and when they finally stepped free from the forest into the clearing, Liam paused to observe the structure.

  It was two stories tall, just as he’d estimated the first time he spied it from across the river. It was rectangular, divided into what he assumed were two different eras of building. The front, the most recent construction, was sheet metal with a base made of cinder block. It ran for two hundred yards or more until it met the edge of the river, where a large overhead door stood on its end, a system of decrepit rails extending from the loading dock to the edge of the river. Some sort of trolley system for exporting its product onto ships, he assumed. A bank of dirty windows, some broken and with yawning teeth of glass, sat twenty feet above the ground at the front of the building, but other than that the walls were smooth and unbroken.

  The rear of the foundry looked to be the original building, much older than the newer construction. It was made of brick, stained a deep brown with time and moisture. It stretched back into the trees, which grew uncontained against its sides, reclaiming the ground man once cleared, the creep of nature slow but inevitable.

  “Wow, it’s huge,” Dani said after a few seconds of silence.

  Liam nodded. “Wonder if we can get inside.”

  He stalked forward, heading for a door cut into the otherwise unblemished side of the building. When he touched the rusting doorknob, he knew it wouldn’t turn. He tried anyway, the rough steel flaking off beneath his twisting hand as it held firm. “Locked,” he said, stepping back. Liam rubbed the rust away from his palm, his eyes watching the way it stained the skin red.

  “Let’s try the older part,” Dani suggested.

  They walked through the tall weeds, which only grew higher the closer they got to the brick portion of the building. Liam felt a few nettles scrape through his jeans, and he batted away a flurry of mosquitoes.

  “I’m totally getting Lyme disease out of this,” he said. He heard Dani giggle behind him. “I think I’ll let you cut the path from here on out,” Liam said, half smiling over his shoulder.

  “Sorry, it just seems like you’re not much for the outdoors.”

  “I went hunting all the time with my dad when I was a kid, thank you. I just happen to have feet that are attracted to puddles. I’d be the guy you’d want with you in the desert. No water? Here, let me walk around, I’ll fall in some.”

  Dani laughed again, and Liam smiled. Her laugh was warm and unique in a way that he was sure she would call “annoying,” but he could have listened to it all day.

  As they moved beneath the ceiling of trees leaning against the building, the weeds became sparser and the walking easier. A few windows with rusted latches lined the brick ten feet above their heads, and Liam saw an archway farther down, its recesses filled with darkness and waving cobwebs. They headed toward it.

  The doors set within the arch were solid steel. An iron crossbar secured with a padlock the size of a baseball stretched across their centers, and Liam didn’t bother yanking on the handles, knowing it was futile.

  “Let’s try the other side, and maybe poke around along the perimeter of the woods,” he said, motioning to the closest corner of the building. He took a step in that direction and stopped, smelling something rank in the air.

  “God, what is that?” Dani asked behind him.

  It took only a moment of scanning the area to see what caused the stench. Several piles of human feces grew up from the ground, forming small pyramids. A fresh splatter of waste coated the top of the closest pile. Liam wrinkled his nose.

  “We found a regular hot spot,” Liam said. “But where’s the newspapers and Charmin?”

  “Wow, that’s a lot of shit,” Dani said. “This must be a homeless hangout.”

  Liam nodded and began to inspect the foundry again. Suddenly, an earsplitting shriek pierced the serenity of the forest, and adrenaline dumped into his veins. One hand whipped to his back and drew the Sig, his other arm reaching for and finding Dani’s fingers without taking his eyes off the corner of the building.

  “What was that?” Dani asked, her voice so low he almost couldn’t hear it over the pounding of his heart.

  “I don’t know,” he whispered. “Sounded like steel rubbing on steel.”

  Letting go of Dani, he motioned for her to follow and stepped around the end of the brick, leading with the barrel of the gun. The back wall was flat, made of unremarkable brick. Liam swept the edge of the woods with the pistol and continued on, trying to keep his eyes everywhere at once. The screech came again, and now he knew it was the grating of metal, unused and unoiled, against something equally rusty. Checking to make sure Dani was close behind, he sped up and neared the next corner of the building, stopping before swinging clear of it.

  The last unexplored side of the structure was almost the same as its counterparts, save for a long row of bushes extending into heavy vines that snaked into and through the cracks in the brick. Two more overhead doors sat at the far end, both featureless and caked with the grime of disuse.

  Liam waited, letting his breathing slow while keeping the firearm outstretched. After nearly a minute, he lowered the gun and turned to Dani, who leaned closer to him.

  “Do you think it was something on the roof? Maybe the wind—”

  The snapping of twigs in the woods cut her words off.

  Liam spun toward the sound, raising the Sig, and saw a growth of small trees rattle with the passage of something near the ground.

  “Come on,” Liam said as he began to run.

  They entered the shade of the forest, and Liam spotted a small trail leading away from the foundry. The sounds of breaking sticks came sporadically, and he took a moment to determine their direction before setting off. Branches and leaves slid over his arms and face as he moved. Dappled sunlight coursed through the canopy of tree
s in patches, but most of the woods sat in green shade, all the birds silent or departed from their perches.

  Liam saw movement ahead—a swinging branch whipping back into place with the recent passage of something. He ran toward it, drawing a bead on the spot in case someone waited for them. He heard Dani close behind him and waved her to slow as they reached the place where he’d seen the movement.

  They stood in a shallow ditch that dropped a few feet and then climbed a miniature bluff on its other side. He waited, breathing as quietly as he could, straining his ears for a sound. One came from his right, and then another from the left. He looked both ways, seeing a trail of grass recently trampled to the left and a crow take flight from a treetop on the right.

  “There’s two of them,” Dani said.

  “Fuck,” Liam said, and made a decision. “This way.” He ran to the right.

  They followed the bluff until it receded into the ground and they could climb out of the little gorge. The sound of footsteps rasped ahead, and Liam pelted onward, praying that Dani would keep up with him. He saw something through the thick brush growing fifty yards from where he ran—an odd shape and the flash of white skin. It was there and gone before he could see more.

  He poured on the speed, fighting through the tangles of grass and gripping thorns of wild cucumbers. When they met the solid wall of brush, Liam stopped, searching for a way through. The sounds of retreat were subtler, and he wasn’t sure if the person they pursued was farther away or if the architecture of the forest distorted the acoustics.

  There was a break in the brambles to his left, and he fought his way through to the other side, where a more formidable trail began. Its surface looked beaten and well used, almost like a hiking path or a popular animal run. He paused, listening for telltale sounds. The woods were silent, still. He looked into and through the cascade of greenery, trying to spot a shifting branch or swaying fern. Nothing moved.

  “Where’d he go?” Dani said behind him.

  Liam shook his head, looking for a signal of their quarry’s location. He walked forward, his senses over-heightened, the colors of the woods too bright, the scratching of a beetle crawling across a dead leaf too loud. A pressing sensation filtered through his skin and sunk into the lowest part of his guts. He stopped and waited, knowing exactly what the feeling was.

  “We’re being watched,” Liam whispered. He was about to step over a rotting log blocking the path when Dani grabbed his arm.

  “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to a bend in the trail.

  Liam studied the spot, at first dismissing it as a leaning tree. But then he saw the flutter of yellow in the light breeze that chilled the sweat on his skin. They moved toward the bend in the trail, and soon he realized it was not a tree at all.

  The cabin listed to one side, its Lincoln Log corners parting to reveal blackened mouths between their joints. The roof was mostly gone, perhaps collapsing beneath a past snowfall or surrendering to the rot of the furry moss that covered the majority of the cabin’s surface. It was small, no more than two rooms, a single open window beside the canted front door, like a canvas painted in motor oil. A circle of yellow material hung from a bent nail beside the door, the bright color tainted by a speckling of dark stains.

  They approached the shack, and Liam left Dani at the front while he circumvented the structure to make sure there wasn’t anyone behind or inside it. When he looked through another glassless window on the back side, he saw that the interior was one room with several sticks of decayed furniture rotting into indistinguishable combinations of wood and stuffing. The floor was dirt, and he saw the decapitated head of a doll sporting bedraggled hair—which once might have been blond—in a corner, its eyes covered with mud.

  When he rounded the last side, he saw Dani standing with her hand over her mouth, her eyes full of tears.

  “What is it?” he asked, looking to where she gazed.

  She raised a hand and pointed at the circle of yellow material. “That’s Suzie’s headband.”

  Liam pushed the Sig into its holster and moved closer to the cabin. The headband swung in the breeze, giving him a better look at both its blood-splotched sides. A small blue flower stitched into the band stood out amidst the burgundy drops. A shiver tried to course through his spine and he shut it off, turning in place to examine the woods around them. He could still feel eyes pressing, prodding from somewhere nearby, a force that changed as he pivoted. He needed to get Dani out of here, now.

  “Let’s go,” he said, taking her by the arm.

  She bit her lower lip and nodded as they made their way back down the path, away from the collapsing shack and its yellow flag.

  CHAPTER 11

  “I think you should leave town.”

  Liam didn’t look at her when he said the words, instead favoring the wall of the bait store through the Chevy’s windshield. He knew she was staring at the side of his face, and could imagine her incredulous expression.

  “What? Why?”

  “Because this is getting too dangerous.”

  “And it wasn’t the other night at the Shevlins’?”

  Liam squeezed his eyes shut. “They saw our faces today.” He finally turned to her. “They know what you look like.” He watched the anger in her eyes recede, but then her lips formed a solid line.

  “No. If you’re staying, I am too.”

  He sighed. “Dani, please—”

  “No. You asked me for help and now you want me to leave? No. End of story.”

  “I’m kicking myself right now harder than you know for bringing you into this, but you can still go away.” He stared straight into her eyes, begging for her to see the reason in his argument.

  “Sorry, bud, not gonna happen.” Dani tilted her head and gave a look that asked him to challenge her.

  He turned back to stare out of the windshield. “Dammit.”

  “Yep. So what’s next?”

  He rubbed his forehead and pressed his fingers into his eye sockets, trying to crush the weariness that coated them. “Coffee.”

  Dani laughed. “And then what?”

  Liam dropped his hands from his face. “We go to the sheriff, tell him what we saw. Maybe he can get a search warrant for the foundry property.” He was about to make another, more tactful attempt at urging her to leave town when his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He fished the phone out. A blocked number came up, and he answered without hesitation.

  “Sheriff?”

  A pause. “No, this is Agent Phelps. Mr. Dempsey, we need you to stop by the station in town to ask you some questions.”

  Liam’s heart missed a beat, then fluttered into action again. “You have me on the line now—go ahead.”

  “I’m afraid I’ll need to see you in person.”

  “Do I need my lawyer present?”

  Another pause. “That’s for you to decide, Mr. Dempsey. As soon as you can make it, we’ll be here.”

  The line went dead, and Liam pulled the phone away from his ear and set it in the center console, his hand barely shaking.

  “Something went wrong,” Dani said.

  “Yes. I think it was a mistake to go to the park last night.”

  After dropping Dani off at her hotel amidst her protests, Liam parked in front of the sheriff’s station and went inside, feeling like his steps were those of a man walking death row, last rites only minutes away. Someone must have seen him and Nut. Identified his truck pulling away from the area? Pulled a shoe print from the walkway? He tried to calm himself as he made his way to the partition and smiled at the female deputy behind the glass. Before he could say a word, the door to his left opened and Phelps’s face appeared.

  “Mr. Dempsey, thanks for coming down right away. Come in.”

  Liam walked through the door, which Phelps held open for him without a word. The door to a room directly to the
right stood open. A man younger than Phelps, with a neatly trimmed goatee, sat behind a small table. He wore a black dress shirt and tan slacks. He stood as Liam entered the room, and held out a hand.

  “Mr. Dempsey, I’m Special Agent Lee Richardson.”

  Liam shook hands with the agent and noticed a white stripe of scar running down the left side of his head and disappearing behind his ear. Phelps shut the door behind Liam, and he felt his insides go cold. This was it. They’d tell him they had him dead to rights at the Haines murder scene, and what could he say? He had been there, but they would never believe it was after the man had been killed.

  “Have a seat, Liam,” Phelps said, rounding the desk to sit beside Richardson.

  Liam sat in a chair at the table and glanced at the corners of the room. No cameras, but that didn’t mean anything.

  Phelps set a digital recorder on the table amidst a few papers and hit a button. “Do you have a problem with us recording our conversation?”

  Liam licked his lips as a strange calmness came over him. If this was it, why panic? “That’s fine.”

  “State your name, please,” Phelps said.

  “Liam Patrick Dempsey.”

  “Mr. Dempsey, these questions are concerning the recent murders of your brother, Dr. Allen Dempsey, and his wife, Suzanne Dempsey. Now, can you tell me where you were on the night of the murders?”

  Right to it, then. “I was at my home in Nexton.”

  “Was anyone with you?”

  “No, I live alone.”

  “When was the last time you saw your brother and sister-in-law alive?”

  “Two years ago, at my father’s funeral.”

  Phelps flipped through a stack of papers while Richardson watched him, nodding with each answer. “Mr. Dempsey, are you aware that Suzanne left you a considerable amount of money in the form of a life-insurance plan?”