Garden of Darkness

by Anne Frasier

Graham’s room was empty, his bed made.

  It seemed strange that a kid would leave so early in the morning. Kids liked to sleep. But maybe he was meeting friends at Peaches before school.

  A stench hit him. He pivoted. He put his hand to his face to cover his nose. Death. That’s what he smelled.

  And heard.

  Because he knew that sound. The low buzz of flies.

  With his hammering heart sick with dread, he forced himself to move forward, in the direction of Evan’s room.

  There was his son.

  In bed.

  Quiet and still.

  The thing he’d spent years fearing had finally happened. Evan was dead. But just as the agonizing thought filled his head, Evan made a small sound and rolled to his side, asleep, one bare white arm above the covers.

  The flies . . . Alastair could still hear the flies. . . .

  The room was black, slivers of light cutting through cracks in the walls and separations between warped boards.

  Alastair stepped closer, the floor creaking beneath him. He tracked the buzzing to the opposite side of the bed. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he was finally able to make out bloat flies circling a pile of clothing.

  Alastair stepped closer.

  He pressed a fist to his mouth.

  Not clothes.

  On the floor in front of him was a skin. A rancid, rotten human skin.

  Chapter Eleven

  Dr. Ted Jacobs ran the ultrasound transducer across Rachel’s stomach while they both watched the monitor.

  “Looks fine,” he said.

  Rachel relaxed.

  “There’s the heart.” He pointed. “See all four chambers? Here’s the brain and spine. See the eye? It’s open.”

  “Oh, my God. And there’s a hand.”

  “Can’t make out the sex. Legs are crossed.” Dr. Jacobs turned off the ultrasound machine.

  “I’ve had strange cravings and strange dreams.”

  “Not unusual. Maggie was the same way.” He wiped the gel from her stomach, hit the foot pedal on the metal trash can, and tossed the paper towel. “I thought you were leaving town.”

  She pulled down her top and pushed herself higher on her elbows. “I tried. You know how it is.”

  “All roads lead back to Tuonela?” He laughed. “Tell me about it.” He’d tried to leave too. He’d spent a couple of years at a practice in Milwaukee before coming back. “We need new blood; otherwise we’ll soon have people running around with two heads and webbed feet.”

  “Nobody wants to move here.”

  “I’m hoping the increase in tourism will bring some new residents and new life into the town.”

  A nurse peeked into the room, handed him a sheet of paper, and left, closing the door behind her. “Looks like your iron level is way down,” Ted said. “Everything else looks good. Have you been taking your supplements?”

  “I may have missed one or two. I’ve been craving meat.” She couldn’t bring herself to admit that she’d been craving raw meat.

  “That’s understandable when your body is suffering from an iron depletion. Have you been tired?”

  “Yes, but I’ve been busy. Moving—or trying to move—and then with the body that was found outside of town.” She put a hand to her stomach. “I worry about the baby.”

  “Are you talking about your job? I wouldn’t worry about it unless dealing with death is suddenly bothering you in ways it didn’t bother you before. A lot of mothers work right up until delivery day.”

  “No, I’m fine with autopsies. It’s just . . . everything. I’m stressed out. I worry about the stress.”

  “It’s none of my business. I’m speaking as a friend rather than as your doctor, but have you told the father?”

  “No.” She sat up all the way.

  “Are you going to? Not that I don’t think you’re perfectly capable of raising a child on your own, but I just thought this secrecy might be the source of some of your stress. And I know that if a woman were pregnant with my baby, I’d want to know.”

  “I plan to tell him.”

  “You’re in your third trimester.” A gentle reminder.

  “It’s not that easy. I’ve made a couple of attempts, but he hasn’t returned my calls.” It wasn’t as if she and the father had a relationship. It wasn’t a love affair that had soured. It had just been Tuonela doing what it always did—screwing with people’s heads. “I agree he has a right to know, but I have the feeling he won’t even care.”

  “You know what I always remember about you from school?” He smiled. “How fearless you were.” His smile changed. It became concerned. He could see she was hiding something. “But I see fear in your eyes now.”

  Yes, she was afraid. Of more than he could guess. “Pregnancy changes a person. I worry about everything now.”

  Protect the baby. She had to protect the baby. And the last thing she wanted was people saying her child was a vampire.

  Chapter Twelve

  Now he knew how a killer felt.

  The blind panic. The need to immediately dispose of the body, get rid of the evidence. Now. The illogical thinking that seemed logical.

  Hide it. Get rid of it. Pretend it never happened.

  Alastair drove out of town and kept driving. He drove fifty miles while the stench seeped from the trunk and filled his car. It soaked into his clothes and made his throat burn.

  At the fifty-mile mark, he started looking for some isolated area off a back road. His plan was to dump the skin somewhere remote. Maybe in a river or a lake. Water was a good way to get rid of evidence. But now that he’d been on the road over an hour, he started to calm down and think more clearly. Dumping the skin was too risky. He needed time.

  So he turned around and headed home.

  Think.

  He had to think.

  The criminals who’d been able to hide their crimes for the longest times were the ones who didn’t panic, who didn’t get in a hurry to get rid of the evidence. They were the ones who kept the body close.

  He returned home and parked his car in the unattached garage. The house may have been in town, but it was surrounded by timber Evan had called his buffer zone.

  Alastair went into the house and returned to the garage with several large black garbage bags. He stuffed the skin into a plastic bag, then followed up with two more layers of plastic. When he was finished, he wrapped tape around the whole package, then labeled it DEER. He took the package inside, went to the basement, and tucked it into the bottom of the chest freezer, stacking deer meat on top of it.

  A father did what he had to do to protect his son.

  Alastair took a shower and threw his clothes in the washing machine. But he could still smell the skin. The stench was embedded in his sinuses.

  His phone rang.

  A body had been found in the river.

  Had Evan struck again?

  Alastair’s car reeked of death. He drove to the river with all of the windows down. He could have driven to the police station and picked up his patrol car, but he didn’t want to leave his stinking vehicle in the parking lot.

  When he reached the crime scene, he parked a block away from everybody else.

  A cluster of people stood near the dock. The coroner van was there. Two patrol cars, and way too many gawkers. He found Rachel Burton in the crowd.

  “Gloria Raymond,” Rachel said.

  “Any obvious cause of death?”

  “Looks like a straightforward drowning, but I’ll be able to tell more after the autopsy.”

  A police officer spotted him and stepped forward. “Neighbors say she’s been a little goofy since her husband died.”

  “Suicidal?” Please let the woman be suicidal.

  “Not overtly, but she was suffering from depression.”

  Alastair rubbed his chin. “You say it happened last night? That might explain the reports we got of someone wandering through town. It was probably poor Mrs. Raymond.”

  A poli
ce car pulled to a stop and another officer jumped out. “We checked her house. The front door was wide open. No sign of a break-in. Nothing appeared disturbed. Looks like she just walked out the front door and headed for the river.”

  “Where did she live?” Alastair asked.

  “Corner of Fairmont and Adams.”

  “That’s a long way for somebody her age to walk.”

  “It fits,” Rachel said. “Her feet are pretty badly cut up. She probably walked all the way here, poor woman.”

  “Sad,” Alastair said. At the same time he was humming inside. It wasn’t Evan. Evan didn’t do it.

  “I don’t get it,” a young officer said. “If you’re going to kill yourself, why not do it at home? Why walk so far? Why not at least drive?”

  “We don’t know that it was suicide,” Rachel reminded him. “Maybe she was sleepwalking. Or suffering from dementia.”

  “Let me have a look at the body before you load her up,” Alastair said.

  He and Rachel walked to the gurney, where her assistant and two officers stood. Rachel unzipped the black bag. A tangled, torn, twisted nightgown was wrapped around the woman’s body.

  “Part of her gown was found on the fence,” Rachel said. “Over there.”

  “She climbed a fence?” Alastair shook his head. “Amazing.”

  Gloria Raymond’s eyes were open and covered with a white film. But her mouth was smiling sweetly. It gave Alastair the creeps. “Why does her face look like that? Rigor mortis?”

  “No, she’s not in rigor.” Rachel stared at the woman. “I think she’s just happy.”

  Skin in the freezer.

  A human skin in the freezer.

  What had he been thinking? What was he doing?

  “Are you okay?”

  He blinked.

  Rachel was staring at him. Could she smell him? Could she smell death on him?

  He was wearing his horrible crime like clothing, a flag, and anybody who glanced his way would know what he’d done. It radiated from him.

  He was overwhelmed by his own shame. He was a cop, for chrissake. Chief of police.

  Suicide didn’t seem like such a bad idea. He just wanted all of this to stop. But he couldn’t leave his son. He couldn’t leave Graham.

  “Alastair? Are you okay?”

  He still hadn’t answered her. “I got up early. Had a little problem at the museum. Now that I think about it, I haven’t eaten today.”

  She was watching him with concern.

  There had been a time when he was fairly certain Rachel would end up his daughter-in-law. Things changed. Disease came knocking. Among other things. Yet he thought of her as a daughter. Her father had been his close friend. His best friend. What would Seymour think about what he was doing? He wouldn’t approve. Rachel wouldn’t approve either.

  “I haven’t eaten either. How about some breakfast?” Rachel smiled at him. “My treat.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Things had gotten out of hand last night.

  I didn’t need anybody to tell me that. I drank too much. Now it was morning, I had an awful hangover, and we were getting ready to head out for the day.

  You know how it is. Those first few minutes when you get up and think you might be able to make it, that maybe you don’t feel so bad. But then fifteen minutes later you realize you had no business getting out of bed.

  Everybody else had already left the inn and was outside waiting for me. I took it easy on the stairs. My skin felt too small for my body, and when a wave of heat rolled over me I stopped halfway down, a hand on the banister. I took a few deep breaths and continued.

  Outside, the cool morning air hit my face, and for a second I thought I might live.

  The van was parked and waiting at a curb.

  I thought Graham had left.

  No.

  He stood on the sidewalk as if waiting for an invitation to come along, hands deep in the front pockets of his jeans, shoulders hunched against the morning wind, his curly hair blowing over his eyes.

  My heart softened.

  What a cutie. Too cute. And too young. But he did seem older than seventeen. The way he looked people in the eye. The way he didn’t glance down or away. He had a girlfriend who was out of the country. Why did that make him even more appealing? But it did. The challenge of the attached. The challenge of the celibate.

  Sometimes I really hate myself.

  “I could help,” he offered when nobody acknowledged his presence. “Take you around town.”

  From the passenger seat of the van, Claire held up a piece of paper. “We have a map.”

  “Yeah, but do you know people? I know people.”

  “Don’t you have school?” I asked.

  Cruel to remind him that he was a kid, but it had to be done. We hadn’t had sex last night, but I still felt weird about his staying the night. And the rest of them were acting as if they knew something. They knew nothing.

  But he was a kid. Not that much younger than me, but still a kid. I didn’t want to deal with this. Right now I just wanted to find something greasy to eat.

  I sent brain waves in his direction. Please leave.

  His black car was parked where he’d left it. He should get in and drive away. Better for him. Better for me.

  Just drive.

  Graham shrugged. “I don’t always go to school. And I’d learn more spending the day with you.”

  Stewart sighed and drummed his fingers against the steering wheel.

  “I know this old guy,” Graham pitched. “He usually hangs out at a café by the river. He’s always telling stories about Old Tuonela.”

  “I didn’t think people talked about Old Tuonela.” I tossed my pack in the backseat and slid in after it.

  “Nobody talks about Old Tuonela. Some say the ancestors were sworn to secrecy or something. But this guy’s mom was pretty crazy, and she used to tell him stuff. Stuff nobody else talks about.”

  We let him come.

  He took us to a café by the river on a narrow, broken street filled with potholes. A locals’ hangout. The kind of place where everybody stared at you when you stepped in the door.

  It smelled like strong, bad coffee, scrambled eggs, and maple syrup. The tables dated back to the sixties or seventies. A lot of happy red and white. A plate-glass window faced the river. Big red letters said BETTY’S BREAKFAST. Next to the text was a poorly drawn coffee cup and a platter of pancakes.

  The old guy wasn’t there. That figured. Was the whole thing a ruse so we’d let Graham come with us? Annoying.

  We sat down and ordered breakfast, hoping the old guy would show up. When we were done eating, I felt a little less awful, but there was still no sign of our man of secrets.

  I got out my camera and took a few interior shots of the café before we left.

  Outside Graham nudged me with his elbow. “There he is.” I followed his pointing finger.

  An old homeless man sat on a bench in the shade, watching sunlight dance on the river. It was the sign-carrying protester from the museum opening.

  Claire introduced herself and told him about the documentary.

  He was really old. Over eighty, I’d guess. He wore a heavy denim jacket. His liver-spotted hands rested on the handle of his wooden cane. He’d lost several teeth, and one of his eyes was cloudy. Perched on top of his head at a crooked angle was a filthy red cap advertising a local hardware store. The man’s name was Harold.

  I don’t want to get old. I have a horrible fear of getting old.

  It took less than a minute for him to agree to the videotaping. I worried that he didn’t understand.

  The man directed his gaze toward Claire. “Are you the one?” When she didn’t answer, he moved to me. I wished he hadn’t done that. “Are you the one?” Then to Graham: “You? Is it you?”

  Graham uncrossed his arms and came closer to join in the conversation, picking up the slack, since nobody else seemed to know what to do with the old guy. “What are you talk
ing about?”

  A memory from last night came rushing into my brain. I killed a man.

  “‘He changed his shape and promptly became something else,’” Harold said. “‘Went as something black to sea as an otter to the sedge; he crawled as an iron worm.’”

  “He quotes the Kalevala,” Graham explained. “It’s kinda his thing.”

  Claire shot Graham an annoyed look and pulled me aside. Keeping her hand on my arm, she said, “Okay, this isn’t going anywhere. The guy is obviously nuts. I don’t want to hurt his feelings or set him off. Just pretend to videotape him for a minute or two; then catch up with us. I’ll take Stewart and Ian and head down to the river. I want you to get some introductory shots and some presentation footage when you’re done here.” She jogged off across the grass, motioning for Stewart and Ian to follow, leaving Graham and me with the old guy.

  I removed the lens cap and turned on the camera. “Guess we’re on our own.” Might as well actually record the interview. I could always tape over it if it wasn’t anything I wanted to save.

  Graham picked up a chair and placed it opposite the bench. He sat down, his body language relaxed, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. “What about the stories your mom used to tell you?” Graham asked. “About Old Tuonela?” Apparently he was used to dealing with people who were a little slanted.

  “Tell us about the day before everybody left,” Graham coaxed.

  Harold seemed perplexed. “You want to know about that?” He put a couple of fingers to his bottom lip. “They weren’t supposed to talk about that day, you know.”

  “That was a long time ago. You told me all about it. We were sitting right here.”

  “Did I? I don’t remember.”

  “I could repeat what you said, but I’d rather hear it from you. You tell it better.”

  “They locked her up. The place on the outskirts of town. You know the one?”

  “Tuonela Mental Hospital?”

  “That’s it. We used to go see her. Me and my sister when we were little. Our mother would be sitting in the garden, sun shining in her golden hair, looking so pretty, smelling like flowers. . . . But I think we reminded her of the past. Whenever me and my sister went there, our mother would get sad and mixed up and start talking about Old Tuonela. Like she couldn’t stop herself. Like she just had to get it out.”