The Thief of All Light

by Bernard Schaffer

  “We will turn over every rock in this place for any sign of the little girl,” Waylon had said. “Listen to me, kiddo. I need you fresh and I need you rested so you can both get back into this fight as soon as possible. You stay awake too long, you will start hallucinating. You want to find Nubs and get the bastard who did this? Go home, get some rest, and be ready to work tomorrow morning.”

  “I have to go tell Penny. Someone has to go tell her that her daughter is dead.”

  “Someone will. But it won’t be you, kiddo. Go home.”

  “Jacob?” Carrie called out from the bedroom, her voice soft in the darkness.

  “Coming,” he said, struggling to get up from the cushions. He stumbled around the side of the couch in the dark, feeling his way down her hallway toward the bedroom’s open door.

  “You were talking,” she said. “Did Bill call? Did they find something?”

  “No, I’m sorry,” he said. “I was talking to myself. Go back to sleep.”

  “It sounded like you were upset. Were you dreaming?”

  “No. It was nothing.”

  “It woke me up.”

  “I won’t do it again.”

  He could see the lights of her eyes staring at him through the darkness. Her voice was hollowed out, like the dry husk of cicada after it abandons itself. Something inside of her had left, and neither of them were sure it would ever return. “If I asked you to sleep in here, would you do it?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “It wouldn’t be right.”

  “Rein?”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t want to be by myself right now. Come on.”

  Her fingers brushed against his hand and wrapped around it, pulling him toward her. He resisted as long as he could, but she would not release him, dragging him toward the bed and then down on top of it. She slid sideways to make room, pulling the covers back. “When’s the last time you slept in a real bed?”

  “The night before I went to prison.”

  “How does it feel?”

  He stretched out under the covers and maneuvered the pillow under his head, feeling it curve ever so perfectly. “You know how a domesticated animal sometimes gets loose and goes out into the wild? You have to find it in time or else it can never come back home. Once it’s been away from its family and home for too long, it turns. It changes. It doesn’t belong around people anymore.”

  She turned away from him, pressing her back to him and settling in. She grabbed his hand and pulled it across her chest, then cupped it around her left breast and held it there. Rein tried to pull away when he realized what she’d done, but she would not let him. “Keep your hand there. I want to feel it over my heart,” she said. “I need to thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “In all this time, you never lied to me. You never said we’d find them. You never said this would all be okay. Even when I was stupidly telling myself it would all be. I get it now. It was all a big lie, and I told it to myself. Molly was dead the whole time, and you knew not to get my hopes up. I guess tomorrow we’ll keep looking, and the day after that, and do the best we can. That’s all we can do.” Rein listened to her breathing slow and settle, her legs twitching gently as she descended into sleep.

  He’d learned early on that there was no use in faith. If prayers worked, he often thought, no child would ever die of cancer.

  There was no such thing as good luck or bad luck. No such thing as destiny, no such thing as karma. There was only chaos. Complete random chance, born of a universe that was devoid of any interest in the tiny, tiny people of a lowly planet inhabiting one of its endless supply of solar systems. Here we are, stuffed in the back pocket of a meaningless galaxy, surrounded by the endless expanse of infinite, cold space. Humanity is less significant to the cosmos than ants are to us, he thought. Less significant than a single amoeba. The only reliable thing in all of existence is entropy. Everything, no matter how beautiful or unique or well loved, is constantly dying, always decaying, and eventually reduces to dust.

  He’d learned it all a long time ago, accepted it as fact, and moved on. That understanding had guided him throughout his entire career. Shielded him from emotional injury. It had also numbed him inside and cut him off from any true feelings. It had cost him his wife and an adult relationship with his son.

  Rein looked down at Carrie. She’d found him in the wasteland. He’d been wandering the barren desert of his own life for years until she’d convinced Bill Waylon to come for him. In return, he’d escorted her to the brink of the void, watching as she accepted it and let it crawl within her. Soon, it would begin to dissolve her own light.

  Unless you find the child, he thought. Maybe if the little girl could be found, it might yank Carrie back hard enough to free her.

  And if the child could be saved, if Nubs could be wrenched from the gnashing teeth of the void before it snuffed out her light, he thought, what then? Was it possible it might lead him away from the nightmares as well? After all this time, was it even possible to be set free?

  Memories of the little girl he’d killed washed over him. The way her father screamed flowed through his being like toxic bilge water. He could still smell the scent of her blood in the cool night air. It was mixed with the sweet stench of radiator fluid and stinking burnt rubber. He thought of Emily Cross and knew that the answer was, and always would be, no. Of course not. Redemption is an impossibility, he thought. There is no such thing.

  Images from the farm flickered like old film reels across his mind, showing him Molly’s body again and again. Where had the little girl been when her mother was killed? The Omnikiller had likely sent her away. He’d told her to go play and Mommy would be fine. Then he’d told Molly to put on the dress and pose for the picture and everything would be fine. Then he’d told her to do all of his filthy little acts and the child would be fine, and if she didn’t the child would do them instead.

  Rein wondered what the man had told Nubs when she asked where her mother had gone. “She left you with me,” he’d probably said. “She didn’t want you anymore.” Then he’d held out his hand and led her into the void.

  He closed his eyes and lowered his head next to Carrie’s, breathing her in, feeling her heart beating inside her breast. He fell asleep searching for a place of solace, knowing it could not be found, and went down toward the dead and the dark that awaited.

  24

  MORNING FOUND THEM ENTANGLED. LEGS WRAPPED TOGETHER, bound up in sheets, arms numb from being buried under each other’s bodies. Rein’s eyes opened at the soft vibration of the phone on the nightstand. “Carrie?”

  She pushed him away, rolling into a tight ball, and clenching the blankets up to her face.

  “Your phone,” he said. He slid his arm out from beneath her and propped himself up, seeing Chief Waylon appear on the screen. “It’s Bill,” he said, prodding her. He reached over her for the phone. “You need to take this. It could be important.”

  “Hello?” Waylon’s voice on the other end said, the phone answering on its own.

  Rein looked at the phone in confusion, unsure of what he’d touched to turn it on or how to turn it back off. “Carrie?” Waylon said. “It’s the chief. Are you there?”

  “It’s Bill,” Rein whispered urgently. “Take the phone!”

  “Who the hell is this?” Waylon said. He inhaled sharply, and his voice dropped to a menacing grumble. “Son of a bitch. Is that you, Jacob?”

  “Uh,” Rein said, pressing the phone to his ear. “This isn’t what it sounds like, Bill.”

  “What the hell is wrong with you? I sent you back with her to make sure she got some damn rest.”

  “That’s what I did.”

  “You listen to me and you listen good, Jacob. I’ve overlooked a lot of shit over the years with you, and I stayed your friend when a whole lot of other people threw you to the wolves.”

  “I know you did.”

  “That girl is like a daughte
r to me. You got it?”

  He looked down and saw her staring up at him, wide-eyed. “I got it,” he said. “Nothing happened. I promise.”

  “It better not have. Put her on the phone.”

  Carrie took the phone, glaring at Rein, silently mouthing, Why the hell did you pick up? “Hi, chief,” she said. “Any word on Nubs?”

  “No, but I’ve got good news and bad news. Good news is, once word got out we had a dead body, I was up to my behind in people willing to help. Bad news is what kind of help we found. I need you both at the district attorney’s office in one hour.”

  Carrie’s eyes slid sideways toward Rein, to see if he’d overheard. “Are you sure about that, sir?”

  “Hell, no, I’m not sure. He’s not going to like it one bit, either. But I need you both here so we can explain to these idiots what’s going on. One hour,” he said, and the line went dead.

  She put the phone down and drew up her knees to her chin, resting her face in the thick blanket. “He said—” she began.

  Rein cut her off. “I heard.”

  He pushed up from her bed, groaning as he stood. His body ached from sleeping in such unfamiliar comfort. His joints cracked as he stretched out his arms and twisted his back. “This appointment’s been penciled in since the day you found me.”

  * * *

  Vieira County Courthouse was the same as he remembered. Ugly brown panels stretching up and down the length of it, an idea someone thought looked current when it was built in the seventies. A long line formed on the right of lawyers and witnesses and jury officials waiting to pass through the metal detector. A large sign hanging on the wall near the entrance read ALL VISITORS SUBJECT TO SEARCH.

  Two bored-looking women in cheaply made blazers worked the metal detector, with a court security officer sitting at his desk far behind them, arms folded over his bulging stomach, eyeing the people being allowed through. Rein could not see the front of the man’s gun belt beneath his stomach’s overhang. People dropped watches and keys and wallets into a plastic bin held by one of the women and were waved through the metal detector by the other.

  Carrie left him in that line and went to the other side of the security desk, greeting the fat guard. “Officer Santero,” she said. “I’m armed.”

  “Do you have your ID?” he asked.

  She held her wallet open for the guard, who had to bend forward in his seat to see it. “I’ll need you to sign in,” he said. He opened up one of the lockboxes behind his desk and wrote down the number next to her name. “I’ll need all your weapons. Taser. Knife. Bazooka. Rocket launcher,” he said, laughing at his own joke.

  Carrie came around the side of the desk, drew her gun from its holster, and slid it inside the lockbox, waiting for the guard to seal it and hand her the key. “Don’t lose this now,” he said.

  “I won’t.”

  Rein’s turn came. He drew out the folded metal blade with the curved handle and dropped it into the bin. “What is that thing?” one of the women asked. “Some kind of box cutter?”

  “It’s for work,” Rein said.

  “Well, you can’t bring that in here.”

  “I know. That’s why I put it in the bin.”

  “But you can’t bring that in here.”

  “So how about you hold on to it here for me?”

  The fat guard was coming forward then, wheezing as his gut swung with each movement. “What’s the problem here?” he said.

  “No problem,” Rein said, holding up his hands. “I just want to know if you can keep this for me.”

  The guard looked down. “What the hell is that?”

  “Some kind of box cutter,” the woman said.

  The guard picked up the blade and snapped it out, staring at its deadly curve. “Be careful with that,” Rein said. “It’s extremely sharp.”

  “He’s with me, sir,” Carrie called out, coming around the guard’s side. “Can you just lock it up with my gun? We have to get to the DA’s office.”

  The guard fumbled with the blade, trying to get it shut. Rein closed his eyes, waiting to hear the man shriek in pain as he severed his finger. Instead he gave up and handed it to Carrie, blade extended, and said, “Get that thing away from me.”

  “Here, let me close it,” Rein said, trying to take it from her, but she worked the lock and snapped it back into place in one easy motion.

  He passed through the metal detector silently and headed for the elevator, scowling as he pushed the up button, waiting for her to catch up to him. “What’s the matter with you?” Carrie said.

  “Since when do they make cops surrender their weapons to come in the courthouse?”

  “Since before I started,” Carrie said. “It’s something the judges decided as part of a new safety program. Courthouse security and sheriffs are the only ones who get to carry guns.”

  “That’s just perfect. So when a maniac comes through here with a machine gun, the real cops will be defenseless, but that’s okay because the security guards will handle it,” Rein said. “I can’t wait to hear how that turns out.”

  The elevator door opened, crowded with people, and they both stepped in. “Fourth floor, please,” Carrie said to the man nearest the button.

  “This place is a joke. Always has been, always will be,” Rein muttered. “A group of clueless pencil-pushers choosing the illusion of safety over cold reality.”

  “There you go. That’s the right attitude to have before our meeting,” she said. “Do you mind not dumping your personal issues on me right now? I had kind of a rough day yesterday.”

  He looked up at the numbers, shifting aside as the doors opened and people maneuvered around him to get on and off. At the fourth floor, the bell rang and the doors began to slide open. “I guess I’m a little uncomfortable being here, is all,” he said.

  They started for the DA’s office and she said, “It’s not like I’m really looking forward to talking about my dead friend.”

  The office had not changed in the years since he’d been there. Heavy carts stacked high with papers and case folders were parked outside of the small offices housing two assistant district attorneys each. They sat back to back, so cramped that one had to tell the other when they were getting out of their seats to let the other one through. Interns and secretaries hurried through the narrow corridors and in between the rows of cubicle dividers, and unattended phones rang on every desk. Rein did not recognize anyone, and no one looked at him.

  “I guess we’re in the conference room,” Carrie said, looking around.

  She turned, and he followed her down the next hallway. They passed no offices until the end, where a single door opened into a large, windowless meeting room. Carrie entered first, seeing Bill Waylon seated at one end of the table and Harv Bender at the other. Waylon had her case file open, with the crime scene photographs and reports assembled in front of him. The first photograph on top was Molly, packaged inside the crate, still dressed in the shoes and dress the killer had forced her into. Waylon immediately tried covering the photograph with his arm, but it was too late. Carrie forced herself to look away and focus instead on the men sitting around the table, seeing who she recognized.

  A half-dozen men in shabby-looking suits filled in the seats along the table between them. County detectives and deputy district attorneys, playing with their phones or reading the newspaper. They looked up at her as she entered, and Bender leered at her. “There she is. I’m sorry to hear about your friend, hon. That really sucks.” His voice fell away as Rein came in behind her.

  Waylon rapped his knuckles against the table and said, “All right, everyone. This is Carrie Santero. She’s my lead investigator on the homicides.” He looked down at his file, adding, “And I’m sure you all remember Jacob.”

  A few murmurs came from the others. Rein greeted them silently, trying to remain out of the way, but Bender called out, “The work release program at the prison has sure made progress, hasn’t it?” He waved his hand and laughed. “I’m
kidding. It’s good to see you, Rein.”

  “Thanks, Harv,” Rein said.

  “So Bill was just telling us about this new serial killer theory,” Bender said, pointing at Waylon. “I guess we’re all starting to see where he got that idea.”

  “I asked Jacob to be here so he could explain it to you all,” Waylon said. “I want you to listen to him.”

  “Sure,” Bender said, smiling. “We’d love to hear all about it. Please, tell us how the homosexual victim at the nightclub and the young woman in the barn were both killed by the same person. I’m dying to know.” A few stunted laughs and hushed comments came from around the table. Bender said, “I’m serious. Please tell us how this is not just two separate events, with two totally unrelated victim types.”

  All of the faces were turned toward him. Rein swallowed. “We’re dealing with something called an omnikiller.” He waited, looking around at them to see if the word meant anything to any of them. It didn’t. Carrie stared at him, willing him to go on. “A killer who has no victim type,” Rein said. “He’s reenacting famous events from the past. Using their methodology, their fetishes. He’s probably been doing it for a while, but no one caught on.”

  “Because the Great Detective wasn’t here to show us all the way,” Bender said.

  “Because the victims are so completely different,” Rein replied. “Look, this isn’t about me. There is a missing child, and if we don’t act fast she’s going to suffer in ways none of us can fathom.”

  “A little girl, you say?” Bender said, eyes digging into Rein.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say that none of us can stand anyone who’d hurt a little girl. In fact, I’m pretty sure I speak for every single person in this office when I say that any piece of shit who kills, or even harms, a defenseless little girl is the worst piece of shit on the planet. Actually, I’d consider it a disgrace if such a piece of shit ever came into this office and tried to pass himself off as something he isn’t.”