The Woman in Darkness

by Charlie Donlea

  He was there now, euphoric as his body shook with The Rush. He slivered his eyes open to take in the sight of the woman floating in front of him. He witnessed her magically hanging in the air. It was magnificent and perfect. Until it wasn’t. Until a flash of something appeared in his peripheral vision. It startled him. He opened his eyes fully, grasping for the noose around his neck and searching with his foot for the stool.

  CHAPTER 44

  Starved Rock, Illinois, November 5, 2019

  RORY WATCHED FROM THE PANTRY AS THOMAS PULLED A STOOL TO the center of the porch. He fidgeted with the noose overhead. Finally he mounted the stool, hooked the nylon around his neck, and slowly lowered himself off the stool while Catherine simultaneously rose into the air across from him, like a magician levitating his subject. The sight stole what little breath Rory had left.

  Through the crack in the pantry door, Rory witnessed the strange scene play out before her. She had reconstructed cases that dealt with the despicable practice of autoerotic asphyxiation, and had read articles about the perverted individuals who reached sexual gratification from its practice. But the scene unfolding in front of her was something entirely different. It was not sexual in nature, but perverted in another, more disturbing way. The high Thomas Mitchell was reaching came not from any perverse use of sex, but rather from the pleasure of watching another die.

  Rory saw Catherine’s legs dangle limply as she rose, the weight of Thomas’s body on the other side of the pulley system dragging her upward. Rory remembered the dual pulley system Angela had drawn in her notes chronicling what she had discovered in Thomas’s warehouse. He had re-created that system here in his cabin, and across from him now was his wife’s only friend. Someone who he surely believed had helped Angela disappear forty years earlier. How terribly wrong he had it, Rory thought.

  As he lowered himself in a slow, guided movement, he kept one foot on the stool as a fail-safe, placing his weight back onto its surface when the tension became too great and he neared unconsciousness. When he put his weight back on the stool, he rose higher and allowed Catherine to sink back to the ground. Rory watched the eerie seesawing while the classical music blared through the cabin.

  When she saw Thomas take his weight off the stool again and sink downward, coming to a rest twelve inches from the cabin floor, with the noose tight around his neck and his face boiling to a deep crimson, Rory felt the pull in her chest. It was as powerful as when she was a child at Greta’s farmhouse. She quickly pushed open the pantry door, the sounds of her movements camouflaged by Mozart. She reached into the pocket of her coat and retrieved the Dark Lord Swiss Army knife. Unfolding the device, the blade caught the light from the porch. Her movements as she charged through the porch door startled Thomas, who worked frantically to gain leverage on the stool under him. His bloodred face took on another shade, deeper now. Purple.

  He worked to gain footing on the stool, his legs flailing until his right foot touched the top surface. If given another few seconds, he would have had the stool underneath him and the pressure relieved from his neck. Rory made sure to take those seconds from him. She walked slowly over to him, their eyes meeting—hers calm and calculating, his bulging and panicked. For once Rory had no inclination to avoid eye contact. She thought of Aunt Greta alone in her room the night Thomas had found her. She thought of the women buried beneath the ground behind the cabin. She thought of Catherine. She thought of Angela.

  Rory folded the Swiss Army knife closed. She wouldn’t need it after all. Just as Thomas placed his foot on the stool, Rory kicked it out from under him. His body dropped down a few inches, recoiling with the jolt. She watched as he reached for his neck, trying unsuccessfully to pry his fingers between the noose and his skin. As he thrashed about, Rory took a good, long moment to stare at him before whispering in his ear. His bulging eyes appeared to widen; then she turned to tend to Catherine.

  She couldn’t leave her strung up like cattle. It took a few minutes before Rory had her body lying peacefully on the ground of the porch. Then, with Thomas still meekly thrashing, she walked into the kitchen and lifted the phone from the cradle. The card had been stuck into the crevice between the phone jack and the wall. Rory dialed the number, waited for a voice to answer, and then laid the phone on the kitchen table.

  When Rory finally walked from the cabin, she left the front door open. She could still faintly hear Mozart’s Requiem when she reached her car.

  CHAPTER 45

  Chicago, November 5, 2019

  IT WAS SIX IN THE MORNING WHEN RORY PULLED TO THE CURB OUTSIDE her house. She hurried barefoot up the steps and fumbled with the lock. Inside, she went straight to the front room, gathered newspapers from the bin next to the hearth, and placed them under the logs in the fireplace. She lit a match and touched the flame to the paper, then carefully kindled the fire until it was blazing. More logs went on top, stacked in a precise teepee to allow maximum heat.

  Then she undressed and threw her clothes into the fire. First her jeans and T-shirt; next her coat and beanie hat. She waited a moment for the flames to take the fabric. The fire grew strong as it absorbed the clothing. When they were gone, floating up the chimney in small remnants of ash, Rory grabbed her Madden Girl Eloisee combat boots. They were covered in the red clay from her trek through the forest and to the Starved Rock cabin. She placed them in the fire.

  Standing in her underwear, she watched the boots begin to melt before she walked upstairs and climbed into bed.

  Lane Phillips keyed the front door and walked into Rory’s house. It was just before noon and she hadn’t answered her phone. He’d called several times. He noticed the glowing logs of a dying fire in the front room.

  “Rory?” he called.

  No answer.

  He checked the study. Empty. The den next. Also empty—besides the dolls that lined the shelves. He walked upstairs and found her asleep. Rory Moore would never be considered a morning person, but sleeping until noon was not common, either. Lane walked over to the bed to check on her. The covers rose and fell with her rhythmic breathing, and Lane couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Rory sleep so soundly.

  He noticed the corner of papers poking from under the blanket. He pulled the comforter to the side to find a tattered copy of his thesis. The corners were turned up from frequent readings, the pages crumpled. Lane flipped through the document and saw Rory’s notes in the margin of many pages. Toward the end, he found a dog-eared page in the section analyzing why killers kill, and the psychological mechanisms that bring an individual to the precipice of deciding to take another’s life. In the middle of the page, a passage was highlighted. He read the yellow glowing sentence: Some choose darkness, others are chosen by it.

  The page was damp, with circular stains, as if someone had dribbled water onto the paper. Water, Lane thought, or tears? The doorbell rang and Lane looked up from his thesis. Rory didn’t stir. The bell rang again. He placed the document on the nightstand and headed down the stairs. He opened the front door to find Ron Davidson standing on the front porch.

  CHAPTER 46

  Chicago, November 5, 2019

  “RORY?”

  Her eyelids fluttered. She heard her name again.

  “Rory.”

  When she opened her eyes, she saw Lane standing over the bed. He touched her cheek.

  “Hey, you feeling okay?”

  “Yeah,” Rory said, sitting up. “I’m fine.”

  Her mind ignited with quick snippets of her time at the Starved Rock cabin. Of Catherine Blackwell hovering off the ground. Of Thomas Mitchell in his bizarre state of ecstasy. Of her hiding spot in the pantry and the thin slice of light between the door and the frame. Of the classical music. It still rang in her ears.

  “What time is it?”

  “Noon,” Lane said. “Did you hear me about Ron?”

  “No, what about him?”

  “He’s here, downstairs. Said he needs to talk with you. Something urgent.”

  Ror
y blinked a few times. She saw her copy of Lane’s thesis resting on the nightstand. She had been reading it earlier, before sleep took her to a deep, dreamless rest.

  Rory ran a hand through her hair as she nodded. “Tell him I need a minute.”

  The three of them sat in the front room fifteen minutes later.

  “I got a call early this morning from the LaSalle County Sheriff’s Office,” Ron said. He was sitting on the couch across from the fireplace, Rory and Lane on adjacent chairs next to him. The fireplace was to Rory’s left, Lane’s right, and directly in front of the head of Chicago Homicide. If Rory could have chosen, she’d have ushered Ron into the kitchen for this meeting. Instead, when she finally walked down the stairs, he and Lane were sitting in the front room.

  “LaSalle County?” Rory asked.

  “Starved Rock,” Ron said. “We’re still piecing together the details, but it looks like Thomas Mitchell killed himself.”

  Rory kept her face stoic. It was how she would typically react to this news, and she wanted to look typical today.

  “How?” she asked.

  “Looks like he hanged himself. But details are still coming in. I only talked for a few minutes with the detective in charge. There was another body at the cabin, a woman. It sounded like he tortured her in some way. The county guys are still putting the scene together.”

  “How’d they find him?”

  “He called his parole officer early this morning, about three o’clock. Left the phone on the table while he hanged himself. Least that’s what they think. The forensics crew is still putting the scene together. Because he was your client, I thought I’d stop by to let you know. I’m getting ready to head out there now.”

  Rory nodded. “Thanks.” She looked at Lane, then back to the detective. “Sorry I seem off, I’m trying to process everything.”

  Mostly, Rory was worried that she’d left her fingerprints on the phone or somewhere else in the cabin. Or that she hadn’t managed to sweep away the red imprints of her combat boots on the way out.

  “Well, there’s more to process,” Ron said.

  “Yeah? What else could there be?”

  “The state guys found a plat of survey at the cabin that looks like a map of the burial grounds for several women who went missing in 1979. All the women who were suspected to have been abducted by Thomas Mitchell.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” Lane said.

  “Sounds like he abducted them from Chicago, killed them, and then buried them behind his uncle’s cabin. When the uncle died, he willed the place to his nephew. Son of a bitch probably knew what Thomas was doing all along.”

  Rory shook her head. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “My guys will be part of the investigation, since the victims were from Chicago. Cook County Sheriff’s Office as well.”

  “Makes sense,” Rory said.

  “Say, Gray, when were you last out at Starved Rock?”

  Rory looked at Ron. “Uh, you know, the other morning. When Lane and I dropped him off.”

  “Doc?” Ron asked. “That the last time you were there?”

  “Yeah,” Lane said. “Why? What’s up?”

  “Just crossing my t’s. The LaSalle County guys are bound to ask. Just giving you two a heads-up. Since you were at the cabin, they’ll probably ask to talk with you.”

  “Sure,” Lane said.

  Rory nodded. “Of course.”

  A glowing log popped in the fireplace—a loud crack that caught everyone’s attention. Rory looked for the first time at the spot where she had burned her clothing a few hours earlier. A muscle in her neck twitched when she saw the remnants of one of her combat boots sitting on top of the ashes. It was the front half—toe and sole, about four inches of leather and rubber that the fire had failed to swallow. The boot stuck out from a glowing log as obvious as dead fish floating in an aquarium. It was covered in the red dust from the clay terrain of the Starved Rock cabin. She looked at the area in front of the hearth and noticed a faint patch of bloodred dust from where she had placed her boots while she waited for her clothes to burn.

  In the split second after the log crackled, and during the time it took Rory to recognize her errors, she saw Lane stand from his chair and grab the poker.

  “Whatever you need from us,” Lane said, standing in front of the fireplace and blocking Ron’s view of the logs. “We’ll do whatever helps your guys.”

  He threw a few slivers of wood on top of the glowing logs, causing a stream of embers to puff from the orange glow. The logs caught immediately and rejuvenated the flames. Rory had a clear view into the fireplace, and watched as Lane put the tip of the poker to the remnant of her cherry-red boot and pushed it into the flames. It caught and melted away to nothing.

  Lane threw another log on the fire and hung the poker with the other fireplace tools. Rory watched as Lane slid the throw rug, which lay on the hardwood in front of the hearth, to his left until it covered the smear of crimson.

  “Needless to say,” Ron continued, “we’ve got a goddamn mess on our hands. The media are going to have a field day with this. Being that he was your client, the state guys are going to want to talk with you, too, Rory. I’m heading there now, if you want to tag along.”

  Rory suddenly wanted Ron Davidson out of her house. And the last place on earth she wanted to go was back to that cabin.

  “Yeah,” she said, nodding her head. “Probably be a good idea.”

  Lane had sat back down in the chair across from her. He, too, was nodding. They made eye contact, staring at each other with volumes of wordless conversation happening between them.

  “Probably a good idea,” Lane repeated.

  “Give me a minute?” Rory asked.

  “Of course,” Ron said. He stood from the couch. “I’ll call and let my guys know we’re on the way.”

  Ron walked to the front door, his phone already to his ear. Rory continued to look at Lane after Ron was gone. She wanted to talk with him, to tell him everything.

  “You better get dressed,” Lane said.

  Ten minutes later, Rory found Ron on the front porch. He held up a finger as he finished his call. When he slipped his phone into his breast pocket a minute later, he did so with a quizzical look.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Rory said, adjusting her glasses. “What’s the matter?”

  Ron looked down at her feet. “I’ve never seen you without your boots on.”

  Rory pulled her beanie cap down on her head. She’d found a spare in her closet. She had a replacement for her coat, too, which was now buttoned up to her neck. But she had owned only one pair of boots. Ten years old, perfectly formed to her feet, and now melted to a pile of ash.

  “Well,” she said. “It’s a mess out there. I don’t want to ruin them.”

  She walked past her boss and climbed into the front seat of his unmarked cruiser.

  CHAPTER 47

  Peoria, Illinois, December 5, 2019

  TWO ITEMS RESTED ON THE PASSENGER SEAT WAITING FOR DELIVERY. Rory pulled to a stop in the parking lot of the Harold Washington Library Center. She picked up one of the items—Camille Byrd’s Kestner doll—and carried it into the lobby. She spotted Walter Byrd standing in nearly the exact spot where she had met him weeks before. When she approached, his stare was set firmly on the box in her hands. Rory adjusted her glasses.

  ”Sorry it took me so long to get this back to you.”

  “Is it finished?” Mr. Byrd asked.

  Rory pointed to the doors of the library. “I’ll show you how it turned out. I think you’re going to be pleased with it.”

  They walked into the library and found an empty table in the back corner. Rory placed the box on the surface and opened the top. She carefully removed Camille’s doll and handed it to him. Walter Byrd took the doll in his hands, swallowed hard, and ran his hand over the surface of its face. Rory saw the man’s eyes glaze over with tears. He looked up at her.

  “Thank you,�
�� he said. “It’s truly remarkable.”

  Rory averted her eyes and nodded. “I wanted to let you know,” she said, “that Camille’s case is all I will be working on now. I’ve got one more thing to take care of, and then all my attention will be on your daughter.”

  Mr. Byrd looked up from the doll. “Thank you,” he said again.

  Rory wanted to tell the man that his daughter had helped her in ways that were unimaginable. They were unexplainable as well, and no one would understand how the soul of a dead girl who waited for Rory’s help had pushed her to the precipice of her epiphany. So, instead, she said, “I feel a connection to Camille, and a need to help her. I promise I will.”

  She turned and walked out of the library, leaving Camille Byrd’s father holding the now-flawless restoration of his child’s doll. Outside, she headed to her car to deliver the second item that waited on her front seat.

  She drove the long, straight country road as the barren cornfields blurred past in her peripheral vision. It was late afternoon and the sun was approaching the horizon, sitting out in front of her on the flat landscape. The sky was cloudless, melting from cotton blue to a deep shade of salmon as the day fell away.

  The body of every woman who went missing in 1979 had been located behind the cabin in Starved Rock. The identities had been made via dental records, and the victims’ families had finally found closure. Sadly, many of the women’s family members had passed before the discovery. Most of the parents had died without knowing for certain the fate of their daughters. But their siblings were living and many were present at the press conference when Detective Davidson explained the discovery to the world. The news media covered the story at a frantic pace. Thomas Mitchell, the events of the summer of 1979, and the tragic discovery at the cabin in Starved Rock forty years later would forever be folklore for true-crime junkies. It was sure to be revisited at some point when a filmmaker decided to create a documentary about the case. When that happened, Rory wanted no one knocking on her door and asking questions. She wanted only to be a small footnote in the Thomas Mitchell saga, the attorney who briefly represented him during his parole. She didn’t even want that mentioned, but she knew there was no way around it. What she desperately sought was to hide the truth. The truth about Angela Mitchell, her escape to Greta’s farmhouse, and the child she bore before she died. A child whose blood ran thick with Thomas Mitchell’s DNA.