Darkhouse jl-1

by Alex Barclay

  When he was finished, he got up and walked to the truck, pulling two shovels from under the tarpaulin, throwing one to Donnie. He went back to where Alexis lay, face down in the dirt. He kicked her bloodied ribs and smiled.

  He walked over to a tree nearby and struck the hard earth with his shovel. ‘Damn this! Donnie, get the hell over here.’

  They dug until sweat soaked their shirts and a shallow grave opened up before them. Duke grabbed Alexis’ wrists and slid her across the ground into the hole, pebbles hopping up around her. They covered her with earth, then branches and leaves. Donnie sat in the truck. Duke stood solemnly over the grave and clasped his hands.

  ‘Goodbye, Alexis,’ he said and walked away smiling, humming the theme tune to Dynasty. ‘Goodbye, JR. G’night Mary Ellen…isn’t that it?’

  Donnie was sitting at the bar in the Amazon, his hands wrapped around his fifth bottle of Busch.

  ‘Look at your eyes, boy, one playin’ pool, the other keepin’ the score,’ said Jake, the barman.

  ‘How can I look at my own eyes?’ said Donnie.

  ‘Such a shame your daddy didn’t whip that smart mouth offa you,’ said Jake, shaking his head.

  ‘Nothin’ wrong with my eyes, anyways,’ said Donnie, nodding towards the girls twisted high and low around poles on the low platform in front of them.

  One of the dancers strode across the floor, her eyes blazing.

  ‘You wanna raise that goddamn stage, Jake,’ she said, stabbing the air with her spiky finger. ‘I can’t work with those truckers pawin’ me all night. I’m about three inches higher than ’em. How in the hell’s that gonna stop their roamin’ hands?’

  ‘Wouldn’t mind roamin’ all over those titties of yours,’ said Donnie, sitting up on the stool. His foot slipped off the metal bar and he swayed backwards, grabbing out at her to keep his balance. She batted his hand away.

  ‘Go fuck yourself, Donnie Riggs, like I said before. She turned to Jake. ‘Two things always to say to Donnie. Fuck and you.’

  Jake laughed.

  ‘They real?’ asked Donnie, pointing at her breasts.

  ‘When I’m naked,’ she said slowly. ‘And I’m looking in the mirror, touching them, they’re very, very real. Soft, the way they should be. One hundred per cent all-American. But for you, honey, they’ll never be real, they’ll only ever be in your fucking dreams.’ She tapped her nails on the bar to get Jake’s attention.

  ‘You can’t make a man’s dick hard like that, then leave him hangin’,’ said Donnie, throwing his hands up.

  Jake ignored him and spoke to the girl. ‘Stage stays the way it is, sugar. Maybe you should look into gettin’ yourself some higher heels.’

  She glared at him and walked away.

  ‘You’re hot for me,’ Donnie yelled after her.

  Without turning her head and with her dancer’s grace, she raised her elbow into the air, followed by her middle finger.

  ‘Man, she even makes that look sexy,’ whined Donnie.

  Jake started to sing, ‘I learnt the truth at seventeen…’

  Donnie threw a beer mat at him. ‘I’m nearly eighteen,’ he said.

  ‘And whatcha gonna do then, boy?’ laughed Jake, ‘vote her up the ass?’

  The door to the bar opened and Duke walked in, taking a seat beside Donnie.

  ‘Two Buschs, Jake,’ he said.

  ‘Hey, Duke,’ said Donnie. ‘Jake here’s been givin’ me a hard time.’

  ‘No surprises there.’

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ said Duke.

  ‘’Bout what?’ said Donnie.

  ‘Stuff,’ said Duke. ‘Drink that back and let’s go.’ He glanced over at the dancers and saw someone wave. He squinted into the spotlight and realised it was one of his mother’s old friends. He slammed down his bottle and left.

  Duke drove along the road to Donnie’s house.

  ‘’Member what I was saying before?’ said Duke. ‘Donnie? Donnie?’ he said, shaking him. ‘You awake?’

  ‘Let me sleep,’ slurred Donnie. Duke punched him in the face.

  Donnie sprang up.

  ‘Jesus Christ, what the hell was that for?’ he asked, his anger calmed only by the menace in Duke’s eyes.

  ‘I was talkin’ to you,’ growled Duke.

  ‘Alright, alright. What?’ said Donnie.

  ‘I think that was too easy. Our plan. Today. You know? She was like a willin’ accomplice, a girl like that.’

  ‘She didn’t look too willin’ to me,’ said Donnie.

  ‘You don’t think she was willin’ back at her apartment when she knew there was fifty dollars waitin’ for her at the other end?’ spat Duke. ‘You don’t think a girl like that is willing? Let me tell you, she’d do worse things than what we done to her to get some money in her pocket, Donnie boy. Nothing comes between a whore and her money. And her drugs. Nothing. You flushed her out, didn’t you? And was that hard? Or did she just walk out that door with a total stranger who had just left fifty dollars on her nightstand?’

  ‘Yeah, well—,’ said Donnie.

  ‘Quit your whinin’.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  Joe sat at the kitchen window staring out to sea, following a white trail from a small fishing boat that furrowed the water halfway to the horizon. Anna’s footsteps were light on the tiled floors.

  Without saying a word, she handed Joe the email.

  ‘What? Who’s this from?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Anna. ‘It came to Shaun’s school address. The “from” box is empty and when you click on it, it’s just symbols and numbers. It’s of the lighthouse, the night of Katie’s funeral, when the shoot was happening. But it wasn’t taken by Brendan. It’s like it was taken by someone from across the road.’

  She caught the tiniest flicker on Joe’s face.

  ‘What?’ she said. ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Joe.

  ‘If there is something you’re not telling me—’

  ‘There’s nothing,’ he said. ‘Calmez vous.’ His accent was bad. He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. And Anna exploded.

  ‘You are a liar! You are lying! You think I’m stupid? Do you?’ She grabbed his face in her hands and shook him. ‘Do you think I’m stupid?’

  ‘I can’t do this right now,’ said Joe.

  ‘I don’t give a damn!’ she said. ‘I’m sick of it. You’re hiding stuff from me, sneaking around in the den, on the phone…’

  ‘Oh, and you can talk about hiding things.’

  ‘No, no, no,’ she said, holding up her hand. ‘We’re not doing this all the time. You forgive me or you don’t. Simple. You don’t use things again to punish me.’

  He shrugged. She hit him on the shoulder. ‘Connard!’

  ‘Whoa, Betty.’ She was Betty Blue when her temper flared and she slipped back into French to call him a bastard.

  She smiled, but let it fade.

  ‘There are lots of things I know about you, Joe. But they’re mostly the things that everyone else knows about you. You’re smart, funny, in control—’ She stopped. ‘You know, I’m not in the mood for complimenting you.’

  Joe laughed. She ignored him and continued, ‘Then there are a few extra things that I know about because I am your wife: your honesty, your love. You know, you’re actually a sensitive guy. And then there’s all the horrible stuff you hide, things I never get to see. But, you know? I still feel the effect of what’s hiding there. I have no idea what’s going on in your head right now.’

  ‘Jesus, why do you want to know everything?’

  ‘I don’t want to know everything, but I don’t want to be lied to. Everyone’s lying to me.’

  ‘No, they’re not.’

  ‘Oh, come on. My two boys are lying to me. I’m like a fool.’

  ‘Well, you’re a sexy fool,’ he said, pulling her towards him. ‘Very sexy when you’re angry.’

  ‘It’s not funny.’

  ‘Yes it is,’ he said. But his expressio
n told a different story as he held her to his chest and stroked her hair.

  What Shaun and Anna hadn’t seen was the doctored confidentiality note at the end of the email:

  This email is intended for the person responsible for Katie’s murder and may contain the truth that you strangled her to death.

  The contents of this message represent the expressed view of the sender and everyone else. Storage, disclosure or copying of this information is not prohibited.

  The phone made Anna jump, but she beat Joe to answer it. She listened, then narrowed her eyes at him.

  ‘There’s an officer Henson on the line for you.’ She covered the mouthpiece. ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘Work,’ whispered Joe.

  ‘T’as raison,’ said Anna, handing him the receiver. Joe thought she had simply said, ‘Right’, but what she was saying was, ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘I’m taking Shaun into the village,’ she whispered, then left.

  ‘Officer, hi,’ said Joe.

  ‘I got the file here you’re looking for,’ said Henson, ‘but I think you’ll find that someone’s yanking your chain, buddy. Duke Rawlins is dead.’

  Nora smoothed open the newspaper on the counter in the station. The headline ran across two pages. Gone, But Not Forgotten. On the right-hand side was a montage of photographs of smiling young girls and women who had disappeared or been murdered in Ireland over the previous ten years. The main shot was a beautiful, smiling, brown-haired girl. The caption underneath read Katie Lawson (16), Mountcannon, Co. Waterford, murdered. Frank got up from his desk and walked over.

  ‘My God, there’s another recent one,’ she said, pointing to a pretty blonde. Frank leaned across as she read, ‘Mary Casey (19) from Doon in Limerick, brutally raped and murdered outside her home.’

  ‘Apparently,’ said Nora, ‘she had left one of the gates in the field open and the father made her go out to close it. They’re in bits over it. The parents had gone to bed. They didn’t find her ’til the next morning.’

  ‘God love them,’ said Frank.

  ‘That town is tiny. And they haven’t got anyone for it. Awful. And there’s the Tipperary girl from your poster.’ She pointed to the bulletin board.

  Frank shook his head. ‘I can’t read upside down. What are they saying about the investigation into Katie?’

  ‘No leads, basically. And that “a young man has been brought in a second time to help with enquiries”, as if no-one’s going to know who that is. And, they’re implying that you could be doing more.’

  ‘Implying or saying straight out?’ said Frank.

  ‘Well, saying straight out.’

  ‘It’s always the same,’ said Frank.

  ‘I’ll take this home,’ she said, folding the paper. ‘I don’t want you having a stroke on me.’ Frank smiled and went into his office. Nora walked into the hallway and was almost knocked over by Myles O’Connor. He barged into Frank’s office, closing the door behind him, slamming a newspaper on the desk.

  ‘What is this?’

  Frank looked down. ‘What?’ he said, putting on his glasses.

  ‘This interview.’ He hammered his finger on the same spread Nora had started to read. ‘You shouldn’t have been talking to this guy. He should have been referred to Waterford. Especially if you’re not used to speaking to journalists. Jesus Christ.’

  Frank stared at the page. ‘Oh. They were sniffing around. They must have been watching the station when the Lucchesis came in. I couldn’t risk…I don’t know, I—’

  ‘Ah yes, the I-don’t-knows,’ said O’Connor. He grabbed a highlighter from the desk and in light strokes went through the text. There were eight sentences highlighted when he was finished. All of them said, ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘It’s a turn of phrase,’ said Frank, taking off his glasses and looking up at O’Connor.

  ‘Well, it’s a stupid one when you’re being interviewed on a murder case,’ said O’Connor. ‘We look like gobshites. “I don’t know”. What were you thinking?’

  ‘I don’t know. He seemed like a nice enough chap, I thought it wouldn’t do any harm. He said he’d tidy up what I said.’

  ‘We’re doing a good job here, we don’t need this shit,’ said O’Connor. ‘We’re getting a bollocking for our perceived lack of progress in the investigation—’

  ‘Well, where is the progress? We don’t know a thing,’ said Frank. ‘We’ve got a couple of suspects and not a shred of evidence to tie them to anything. All we have is a few people helping us with our enquiries. Or not helping us…’

  ‘Look, journalists have been ringing here and getting no answer or being diverted to Waterford and they’re saying it’s no wonder people are getting murdered if there are no guards in the village.’

  ‘But it’s the same—’

  ‘Ah for God’s sake, I know – it’s the usual rubbish they come out with to sell papers.’

  He fumed silently for a few seconds then snapped, ‘Someone did this.’ He hammered on the photo of Katie. ‘And I’ll be fucked if I’m letting them away with it.’

  Anna was parking the Jeep outside the supermarket when Shaun tapped her on the arm.

  ‘Mom, it’s Mrs Shanley, I’m just going to ask her about work.’

  ‘Follow me into Tynan’s,’ she said.

  Betty Shanley stood by her car outside the bakery, struggling to balance cake boxes and shopping bags. Shaun was at the other side of the street when he saw her. He jogged over to help.

  ‘Hi, Mrs Shanley,’ he said. ‘Let me take that.’ He reached out for the box. She held it tight.

  ‘It’s all right. I can manage it,’ she said. He looked at her. Something shifted in her eyes. He blushed.

  ‘Uh, I was wondering when you need me to come in…or is it quiet?’

  ‘It’s busy enough,’ she said, looking past him. ‘But I’m sorry. I won’t be needing you any more. My sister’s young lad is saving for a new car, a little Renault he’s getting. So I said I’d give him the work. Barry.’

  Black Hawk Down Barry with his shaved head. ‘Oh, OK. He’s in my year in school.’ He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  Joe’s stomach was churning, waiting through the painful silence as Henson thumbed through pages of documents at the other end of the phone. Joe heard him swallow a mouthful of something before he spoke.

  ‘Yeah, I got it here. Rawlins, William. Died in prison. Your dates were wrong too – he died in 1992, so he couldn’t have gone to prison in ’97. He was in for the murder of a Rachel Wade, 1988. Around the time of the Crosscut Killer, but they couldn’t pin any of the rest of them on him. It was vicious what happened to all those women. In broad daylight.’

  ‘It’s Duke I was asking about. Duke Rawlins.’

  ‘Duke’s this guy’s middle name.’

  ‘How old was he when he died?’

  ‘He would have been, let me see, fifty-four years old.’

  ‘That’s the wrong guy. This guy would be younger. Do you have any other Rawlins on file?’

  ‘Don’t think so. Let me go check. Can you hold the line?’

  Joe thought his chest would explode waiting for Henson to organise himself.

  ‘Oh, here we are,’ he said, coming back. ‘Rawlins, Duke, DOB 12/2/1970, knifed a trucker in a parking lot, 1997, sent to Ely, Nevada. You were right. My apologies. It’s my filing system.’

  ‘Is that it?’ said Joe. ‘Nothing else? No kidnap, nothing more violent?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Henson. ‘What d’you think the guy’s done?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Joe. ‘But thanks for your help. Hey, could you fax me through his mug shot?’

  ‘Sure thing.’

  John Miller was stooped in the corner of Tynan’s flicking through a car magazine.

  ‘Not that I’ve got a licence or anything,’ he said to Anna as she tried to slip past him. He leered at her and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Make up your mind, John. One minute you apologise, th
e next minute you’re behaving like this…and what have you been saying to Joe?’

  He looked like he was trying to remember.

  Anna glared at him. ‘I don’t want to talk to you,’ she said, jabbing a finger towards him.

  ‘Ah, come on,’ he said, reaching his arms out to her. His breath was ethanol. She jerked her hands away.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ she said.

  ‘That’s not what you used to say.’

  ‘Jesus, John. Can you not get over it?’ She was furious. ‘I don’t get it. What went wrong? I can’t understand how you changed from a nice, normal guy into a drunken wife-beater!’ She stopped as the full weight of what she had said hit them both. It was too late. She lowered her voice.

  ‘Your mother,’ she said. ‘She told someone.’

  A glimpse of clarity flashed across his eyes. He struggled to find a sober voice and steady his gaze. ‘I never beat my wife,’ he said, sadly. ‘My mother was talking about herself. My father. She slips back and forth into the past. She’s not well. Alzheimer’s. It’s not common knowledge.’ Then, ‘He used to kick the shit out of her.’

  Joe went to the kitchen and made the call he’d put off the day before. Danny picked up straightaway.

  ‘…whole tip went green and fell off. Hello?’

  ‘One of these days, your mother’s gonna call and you’ll do that.’

  ‘She already has. Told her it was a nasty case I was working on.’

  ‘Danny, the police called Shaun in for an informal chat the other day that’s got me worried. They say he was cautioned, he says he wasn’t. Turns out he’d been lying to us anyway, so what’s another lie? But I think I believe him about this. He’s also admitted to having a fight with Katie the night she went missing. They know everything now, even that he and Katie were having sex before she disappeared and that they had an argument about it.’

  ‘Poor kid. Jesus.’

  ‘You know, I agree with you, but I really wanted to punch his lights out. It was the worst day of my life, watching him get grilled like that. You know, there I am, trying to help with the investigation—’