The Night Is Deep (A Liam Dempsey Thriller Book 2)

by Joe Hart

  Liam sat in the front seat of her sedan, the rain having tapered off to a steady drizzle. He watched Perring stand beside the crime scene team on the end of the dock, all of them in yellow rain slickers. After nearly a half hour she trudged up the hill and across the lawn to where he waited. When she climbed in the car a draft of cool air buffeted the interior and she stripped away the slicker, tossing it in the back seat. She stared at him.

  He waited.

  “You’re a complete asshole, you know that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You directly disobeyed a police order.”

  “I did.”

  “You broke . . . I don’t know how many laws in the last two days.”

  “Um hmm.”

  “And nearly got yourself killed in the process.”

  He nodded.

  “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

  “Can I have my gun and knife back?”

  “No. Forensics needs them to make sure you weren’t in on this whole cluster fuck.”

  “You know I wasn’t.”

  Perring gave him a long look. “Yeah, I know you weren’t.”

  “And you know I didn’t leak anything to the press.”

  “Yeah. I just got word on the way here that one of the uniforms was seen talking with a reporter earlier today.” She put the car in reverse and backed out to the driveway before pulling away from the house. “You better start talking and don’t stop until all this makes sense.”

  “I figured Rowe would know something about Erickson since they were friends in high school and he was involved in Jenner’s assault. All I wanted to do was ask him some questions. I never expected to find him like that.”

  “And when you pulled up, he was . . . where he was?”

  “Yeah. One of the damnedest things I’ve ever seen.”

  “Tell me about it. What about the guy in the boat? Any ID at all? You didn’t see his face?”

  “Nothing. Like I said, we traded shots. I hit him at least twice. It just staggered him, then he bounced right back and took off. You hear anything from the coast guard yet?”

  “They sent three boats out and took a plane up, but with the weather it was rough going. They didn’t find anything.”

  “Shit.” He touched the side of his neck that was still tacky with sap. They rode in silence for a time, the hiss of the wheels on the slick highway the only sound. He finally glanced at Perring. Her profile was haggard, eyes holding deep bags beneath them. “I’m sorry about Rex.”

  Perring seemed to consider something, then nodded. “Thanks. He’s got his family with him now. He’ll pull through.”

  Liam gave her a moment. “What happened?”

  “SWAT was in place. We were going up the front stairs, Rex was in front of me. There was a dog going nuts on the deck, barking and snapping like he was going to rip us to shreds. Then we heard a shout, I think it was Dickson’s mother. I think she yelled ‘no.’. I heard glass break and then the shot. Rex stumbled but stayed standing in front of me. By then SWAT was moving in and Jenner was standing in the living room window with a gun. I remember our eyes locking and his were so fierce, like he was absolutely crazy. He aimed at me but just then one of the team ran around the side of the house and drew his attention. Someone fired and Dickson jerked but got another round off in our direction. There were a few more shots, I don’t know how many. Everything went so fast. I was holding Rex on the stairs, trying to drag him back and there was so much blood.”

  Perring paused and pulled out a deflated pack of gum. She considered it for a second, then exchanged it for a pack of cigarettes in the center console. She pulled one out, lit it, and inhaled deeply.

  “Damn that’s good,” she said. She squinted at the cigarette before staring straight ahead. “Jenner and his mother were dead when we got inside. She must’ve been trying to pull him away from the window.”

  “He must have been drunk.”

  “I think it was kind of a constant state for him.”

  “He told me he was at the breaking point when I went to visit him. He said he was tired of cops coming around. Maybe if I would’ve said something . . .”

  “Maybe you damn well should have!” He could see the pain outlined in her features. “Maybe it would’ve made a difference!” Perring drew hard on the cigarette and some of the anger seemed to drain from her. “And maybe it wouldn’t have. We were careful; we had the team in place before we ever went up those stairs. It might’ve been unavoidable.”

  “You read my file.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you know my partner was wounded too.” She nodded once, not looking at him. “I know how it feels, how you wish it were you instead.”

  Perring swallowed loudly. “It’s like a nightmare that won’t stop even though I know I’m awake.”

  “I’m sorry. I do feel responsible.”

  “You shouldn’t have gone to speak to him, but this was how it was going to play out, one way or another. Jenner wasn’t ever going to get over what happened. He was always going to have the suspicion and anger hanging over him. I’m sorry that he and his mother are dead. If he hadn’t shot at us it would’ve ended fine. I don’t see any other route we could’ve taken.”

  “This is the only part of the job that I couldn’t stand. The doubt and regret.” Liam brushed his neck again then let his hands fall to his lap.

  “I owe you an apology, Liam,” Perring said, surprising him. “You were right about the connection between the cases. I’d be a fool to deny it now after seeing that three carved into Rowe’s face.”

  “The countdown has begun.”

  She blinked and took another long drag. “This guy’s a fucking psychopath.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  She shot him a look. “What do you mean? Did you see the same things I did today? Two murders in less than twenty-four hours?”

  “But look at the synchronicity of it all,” Liam said. “Valerie is abducted two nights ago. We get a ransom the next day. That night Erickson’s killed. We find him in the morning. This afternoon Rowe gets a visit. Did I hear the trooper correctly saying that Rowe’s family was out of town for the past few days?”

  “Yeah.”

  “See. Planning. Whatever this guy is, he’s not sporadic and impulsive. This whole thing’s like a clock, each piece working with the next, everything meshing. But what truly worries me is what happens when the clock winds down.”

  “The countdown has begun,” Perring said quietly.

  Liam’s cell phone rang in his pocket, startling them both. He drew it out, surprised to see the display working again. Dani’s number filled the screen.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey.”

  “Hi. How are you?”

  “I’m okay.” There was something in her voice, something that set all his senses alert.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, it’s nothing. I just . . . had an encounter at the park.”

  “What do you mean ‘encounter’?”

  She was quiet for so long he was about to ask the question again when she spoke. “I took Eric to the park today, the one down from the market?”

  “Yeah?”

  “And there was this guy there. He was sitting on a bench near the street. He watched us come into the park and he just stared for the longest time, but I didn’t think much of it. He didn’t look dangerous or anything. He was just an average guy about our age. He was wearing a red sweatshirt with a yellow circle on the chest, and I remember it looking really small on him, like he was trying to show off how in shape he was. Maybe he noticed me looking. I don’t know. Anyway, after a little while the park started emptying out, but Eric was still playing so I kept reading my book and all of a sudden the guy is sitting next to me on my bench.”

  Liam’s insides squirmed. “What happened?”

  “He . . . he was nice at first, just making small talk but then he started saying suggestive things, like he didn’t live to
o far away and I could come to his house for coffee if I wanted and that he had a big TV that Eric could watch while we talked.”

  Liam gripped the phone, hearing the plastic squeak under the pressure. “Then what?”

  “Then he touched me.”

  “What? Where?”

  “On the arm. He kind of let his fingers trail up my arm.” Now Dani was beginning to cry. He could hear the tears tightening her voice. “When he did that I stood up to walk away and he ran his hand up my leg and grabbed my ass.”

  “Sonofabitch,” Liam breathed. Every muscle in his body trembled. “What did you do?”

  “I turned and backed away and the whole time he just sat there smiling and watching me. I went right over and got Eric and we left. I’m sorry, God I’m being so weak,” she said, the tears fully there now. He could hear her wiping at her face. “Thank God Eric didn’t see. He could tell I was shook up but all he asked was if I was all right.”

  “I’m coming home right now.”

  “No, Liam, I’m fine. It’s not like that’s the first time some guy’s grabbed me.”

  “It doesn’t matter if it’s not the first. It’s going to be the last.”

  “It’s okay. He was just some creep. We’ll steer clear of that park from now on. We can go to the one down from Eric’s school.”

  “Damn it, it’s not okay, Dani,” Liam said with more vehemence than he meant to. He saw Perring glance at him out of the corner of his eye but he ignored her. “And for God’s sake, it wasn’t your fault because you looked at him.”

  Dani sniffled but when she spoke again her voice was stronger. “I know. But I’m fine, Eric’s fine. It shook me up, that’s all.”

  “I’m still coming home.”

  “Don’t. As much as I’d love to have you here, stay there where there’s a real problem. I just needed to talk to you, to hear your voice.”

  He closed his eyes. Sometimes he forgot how much she’d gone through in Tallston the year before. How much she’d endured and how truly strong and resilient she was. But the scars on her legs weren’t the only wounds she carried. There had been nights when she’d woken him with her own nightmares. She hadn’t deserved any of it. And now this. His hands trembled with anger. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”

  “If you had been, you’d be in jail right now.”

  “But more importantly he’d be in the hospital.”

  She laughed a little and the sound broke the tension holding him rigid in his seat. “I’m fine,” she repeated. “Eric and I are going to make dinner soon; chicken fettuccine Alfredo.”

  “I still think—”

  “I just want to forget about it. There’s a million jackasses out there like him but what you’re dealing with there is much worse. Valerie needs you more than I do tonight.”

  “You make me feel so wanted.”

  She laughed again. “I love you.”

  “I love you. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help.”

  “You did help. A lot. I’d better go, I’ve got a hungry boy here.”

  “Give him a hug for me.”

  “I will.”

  “Call me later tonight.”

  “I will.”

  He hung up and stared at the phone for a while, the urge to call her back almost too great to resist, but one thing kept him from doing so. Guilt. Where had he been when she really needed him? Gone. Away. Running off on another case, telling himself that he wasn’t doing real police work, while he made every attempt to. He should go home right now, be with the people that truly needed him, simply shut off the inner pull toward any more cases that came across his doorstep. But how would he feel if he left and tomorrow they found Valerie’s body? How could he ever look Owen in the eyes again? Or himself?

  Valerie needs you more than I do tonight.

  He wished he knew if that was true.

  “Trouble on the home front?” Perring had cracked her window and lit another cigarette. Liam looked at his phone for a long moment, then tucked it away.

  “No.”

  “I’m having one of the forensic assistants drive your truck back tonight. Your possessions should be cleared by then. You can get going after that.”

  “I want to stay.” The edge in his voice made her glance at him.

  “We went through this.”

  “Perring, who do you have to work this with you? You said yourself that you’re understaffed.”

  “That’s not the point. You aren’t a cop anymore.”

  “Exactly. I can do things that you aren’t allowed to. I can get information. I can help you.”

  She made an exasperated sound. “I must be nuts.” She dragged deeply on the last of her cigarette. “What are you thinking? Even though I’m by no means agreeing to anything at all.”

  “I think we should try to locate Marshall Davis because I have a feeling his name is the next on the list. We may even be too late but I don’t think so.”

  Perring nodded. “I’ll have Charlie check around the office, see what the word is on Davis.”

  “There’s something else that’s really irking me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The bartender’s new story. It’s off. I didn’t like it from the beginning. There’s no way to prove he’s telling the truth.”

  “He was drunk, that much was apparent even to the officer that interviewed him the morning after Valerie’s disappearance.”

  “I’m not disputing that,” Liam said. “But there’s something wrong with how he came back and amended his version of what happened. Is he still in custody?”

  “No. As far as I know he went back to his bar.”

  Liam glanced out the side window at the rain-swept trees. “Then let’s go have a drink.”

  CHAPTER 15

  The Cornerstone Bar wasn’t on a corner and it wasn’t made of stone.

  Liam traced the roof’s steel peak, taking in the dirty sidewalls that may have once been a rich red but were now stained a dull brown. Water coursed out of a broken gutter on the closest end of the building, pooling and running in a miniature river past a scuffed and discolored security door shut to the weather. A neon Open sign hung at an angle in a murky window. There was one vehicle in the muddy parking lot, a rusted Chevy with a bed that canted to the left like a busted jaw.

  “The proprietor’s chariot?” Liam asked as Perring coasted to a stop before the building.

  “Yeah, that’s his. Liam, what are you planning on doing here?”

  “I’m going to ask him some questions.” He opened his door and stepped into the rain. There was still a black manic energy coursing through his veins from Dani’s phone call. It was like some intravenous drug that wouldn’t leave his system no matter how much he disregarded it. He had felt hints of it before: whenever he thought of Abford, when he’d seen the pictures of the mangled bodies of his brother and sister-in-law, whenever he looked at a cold-case photograph, the victim’s eyes beseeching him for justice.

  But it was stronger now. So much stronger.

  He walked beneath the building’s awning, holding the door for Perring, as she hurried from the car, inside.

  The bar reeked of stale popcorn and fried food along with smoke. A long, pitted bar stretched away from them and turned at the rear of the building, ending next to a set of double doors. The windows let in pale swaths of light through their filmy panes, illuminating high-top tables that hadn’t been cleaned in some time. A digital jukebox waited silently in one corner and what appeared to be a brand new pool table sat in the center of the floor. As Liam shut the door behind them, a broad man with a gray ponytail stepped through the double doors, holding an open beer can and smoking a cigarette. His eyes found them and narrowed as he stepped out from behind the bar.

  “What can I do for you, detective?” He said the last word like a slur. Perring walked toward him while Liam moved to the pool table, glancing at the bar’s owner as he went. Houston was in his late forties or early fifties, his hangdog face covered in
a growth of whiskers that resembled a wire brush. He wore a white leather vest over a long-sleeve button up, and a gaudy gold ring on his left index finger. Liam stopped beside the pool table, running his hand across the flawless, green felt. He fished in his pocket for a moment before drawing out several coins.

  “Mr. Houston, we’re here to ask you a few questions.”

  “Already answered all of your questions when I was in at the station house. I ain’t got nothin’ more to say to you.”

  Houston and Perring both looked Liam’s way as he shoved in the coin bed and the pool balls dropped from inside the table, the clatter echoing throughout the bar.

  “Sorry,” he said, flashing them a sheepish look. Perring frowned at him and turned back to Houston.

  “Sir, we need to go over what you’ve told us so far. Honestly we’re concerned about the change in your story.”

  “Listen, I told you already, I was drinkin’ since there wasn’t any customers in that night ’cept for Dickson. We had some shots and I didn’t remember until later that he took off and came back. That’s it.” Liam watched the bartender spin the gold ring around and around his finger as he racked up the pool balls.

  “Do you have credit card receipts from Jenner that night?” Liam asked, racking the pool balls. “Maybe something to give us a solid timeline about when he was here and when he left?”

  “He paid cash,” Houston said, his upper lip curling in a sneer.

  “Can you tell me again why the epiphany came to you about Dickson leaving?” Perring asked.

  “The what?”

  “Epiphany. Why did you suddenly remember he hadn’t been here the whole time when you plainly told the officer the day before that he had?”

  “Because I was drunk. Ever been drunk before, detective, or you too good for that?”

  Liam broke the formation of pool balls with a stroke of the cue. Several dropped into pockets and Houston glanced his way before returning his gaze to Perring.

  “Mr. Houston I don’t appreciate your tone and if you’re unwilling to cooperate with us we’ll have to continue this conversation at the station.”

  “You got no right coming in here and orderin’ me around. I told you everything I know. Now I got business to attend to so if you’re done, I’d appreciate you gettin’ the hell out of my bar.”