Doctors of Darkness Boxed Set

by Ellery A Kane

  ****

  Butch takes his pie—and half of mine—to go. “Lost my appetite,” he says, holding the door for me. I catch Brenda watching us through the window. She jerks her head away and wipes the table down. Again.

  “I’m sorry for dredging it up. The past, I mean.”

  “It’s not that.” I cock my head at him, disbelieving. “Okay, so it is. You’re the first person I’ve told out here. And I know it sounds strange, but I feel like I let you down.”

  “Why would you say that? We were just kids. Both of us.”

  He shakes his head, closes his eyes. He’s got a haunted look about him. Like something’s sunk its claws in him, took hold, and refused to let go. “I’d like to tell you more…about Gwen…about everything. If you’re up for it.”

  “I’d like that. It’s nice to talk to somebody who knew me back then. Somebody who doesn’t expect me to be Dr. Maddox.” Or a Maddox at all, I’d add, thinking of Maggie. “Coffee with an ex-con?” she’d ask, incredulous. No, Maggie. Pie with a murderer. And what would she say if she knew Butch Calder was my first…crush? That word seemed appropriate for what I’d felt. The way it had come on—sudden, fierce—threatening to squash my heart like a grape.

  “It’s a date then. Let’s do it.” His brown eyes crinkle with mischief, and he laughs at himself. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  Date. That word kicks up the two years’ worth of dust that covers my heart. And I realize today was the first time I’d shared a meal with a man—even if it was just half a slice of pie—since Jared. It doesn’t feel as unnatural as I’d thought it would.

  “Careful, Calder, Brenda’s already out to get me. Next time, she’ll sprinkle arsenic in my cup. And the way that coffee tastes, I’ll hardly know the difference.”

  He’s still smiling as I drive away. A melancholy smile, but it suits him. It reassures me somehow, and I stop to wave at him in the rearview. He stays there, waving back at me, until I turn the corner.

  Butch’s lopsided grin almost makes me forget about the ring on Trey’s finger. The one my mother swore he’d never touch. “Over my dead body,” she’d told him. And then she’d wound up exactly that—dead—leaving it to me. All these years, I’d failed her without even knowing. The devil prancing around with my father’s ring like he’d earned it.

  But Butch’s smile, it nearly makes me turn around and ask him to come along. I don’t though. Willow Court 9 p.m. is a pilgrimage I have to make alone.

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  Butch

  January 16, 2017

  Monday

  On the walk home, I pass Murphy’s Tavern, a hole-in-the-wall bar I’d barely noticed before. But, tonight, the door is propped, and I catch a whiff of molasses and vanilla. The unmistakable scent of gin. And just like that, I’m back there. Kissing Hennessy off Gwen’s lips. Her perfect, pale-pink lips. Twelve days before I’d killed her.

  I killed someone. A girl. Gwen. My own voice haunts me—the inadequacy of those words—but so do Evie’s eyes. Clear and bright, she’d looked at me without a hint of judgment. But, I’d held back. Because killing Gwen was only half of it. The half I’d been locked up for. The half I’d learned to stomach somehow. The rest I’d never spoken to a living soul. You had your chance tonight, Butchy. And you blew it. You keep something inside for so long, it becomes a part of you. An unnatural appendage. Like those objects—I’d seen a bicycle once in a magazine—that grow into trees. To cut it out would be fatal.

  I pause outside Murphy’s and peer in the window, tempted. The parole board always gave me hell about my relapse prevention plan—a fancy way to say you’ve gotta stop drinking forever, moron—and I fought them tooth and nail. After all, twenty-plus-years sober has to count for something, right? Even in prison where the pruno is about as tasty as dog pee. Turns out, those damn commissioners were spot on. Tonight, all I really want is a stiff drink. Or five.

  But I keep walking. Take a breath. Remind myself of what’s at stake. Of what I’ve lost already. Damn if I don’t recite the Serenity Prayer under my breath the rest of the way back to the halfway house. Relapse prevention, Mr. Calder. You can’t white-knuckle it out there.

  I book it straight to the common area and grab a seat just in time for the weekly house meeting. It’s mandatory for the new guys, like Sebastian. I spot him hovering at the back of the room, reading his usual. Or pretending to.

  “Hey, Butch. Glad to see you here.” Mr. Richert nods at me. “We’ve got some new faces with us this evening. Do you want to start us off?”

  My dumb luck, he’d call me out tonight. Of all nights. “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

  I give a halfhearted wave to the group. “I’m Butch, but you can call me Calder. If you don’t know me, I’ve been out for about five months now. And I got a job today. On my thirteenth interview…” I wait for the applause to quiet down, feeling like a total pretender. “Which is great, but…I also had to tell somebody about my crime. Somebody I care about. It was harder than I thought it would be.”

  The guys are all watching me, wary—especially the newbies. Hard-won freedom, like mine, is a bitch. You hold your breath. You bide your time. You wait for the other shoe to fall. I’ve been there.

  “Honestly, for the first time since I’ve been out, I wanted to drink tonight. But I came back here instead to talk to all of you. That’s what I want to say. You can’t do it alone. And you don’t have to.”

  Jesus. I’m turning into goddamned Oprah, but at least Richert’s happy. He’s got a satisfied grin on his face like he just cracked a code. The Code of Butch Calder. But really it’s Evie who did the cracking. She makes me want to be better. To do better. Next time I see her, I’ll give her the license. I’ll tell her the whole truth. And nothing but.

  “Thanks, Mr. Calder. I’m proud of you for using your support system. That’s what this group is for. We can all help each other succeed. And Butch is right—we speak from experience—you can’t do it alone.” He gives me a wink before his smile flattens. “I know you’re all probably aware of the crime that took place a few blocks from here this weekend. I don’t want to worry anybody, but it’s best to be prepared. The police may be stopping by to question some of you. Make sure you give them your full cooperation. Now, where were we?”

  We go round the circle until there’s one man left. The one I’ve been waiting for. He runs a hand through his jet-black hair, adjusts his glasses, and grips his book like a life preserver.

  “Hello, everyone. I’m not really good at this sort of thing.” Richert nods at him, encouraging. “My name is Sebastian Delacourt. I’ve been out on parole for about a week. It’s going okay, I guess. I started group therapy last Friday, but I’m not sure if I like it. In prison, you get so used to hiding what you did and why you did it that it feels unnatural to talk about it even when you’re supposed to. Even when you have to.” He puts his eyes dead center on me, and my mouth goes dry. “I’d like to ask you, Butch, how…how…did you do it? Any words of wisdom?”

  I can’t tell if he’s messing with me. But the stutter in his voice makes me doubt it, and I feel a little sorry for him. The answer rolls off my tongue like I’ve practiced. Which I have. But nobody has to know that.

  “Best to be up-front from the get-go. After all, honesty is the best policy. That’s what they say, isn’t it? Whoever they are, I can tell you this—they have never done ten to life in Folsom and come out on the other side. So shoot’em straight. They’ll respect you for it. And if all else fails, just pretend like you’re talking to the damn parole board.”

  ****

  I’m showered and in bed by 8:30. Like I said, I’m old. And after today, I’m whipped. Drained. Like my confession came with a bloodletting. I still can’t believe I’d said it out loud. To her. And the world didn’t collapse after all. But it shifted. Words like that, spoken, change things. Irrevocably.
/>
  You’re not good enough for me, Butch. You’ll never be good enough. It’s Gwen again, and she’s in my head. You’re not good enough for Evie either. She married a Maddox. And she’s a doctor. So don’t go getting your hopes up. Loser.

  I stifle a groan. Roll onto one side, then the other. It’s Princess Butch and the goddamn pea tonight. And the pea is that driver’s license. Tomorrow, I remind myself. But it’s more of a promise to the universe.

  “Mind if I shut the lights?” I ask.

  The only answer is a soft hum. Sebastian’s staring blankly at the cover of Lord of the Flies on his lap, headphones in. It’s the stare of somebody looking but not seeing. Not hearing either, apparently. So, I try again, louder this time. “Hey, man. Can I shut the lights?”

  He blinks twice. And the corner of his mouth turns up like he’s thinking about something good. Like chocolate cake. Or cool grass under his bare feet. Or the touch of a woman.

  “Sebastian?” I tap the edge of his bed, and he jumps to attention so fast I expect him to salute.

  “Sorry. Didn’t hear you.”

  I point to the light switch, and he nods. “Sure, lights out. I’ve got my reading lamp if I need it.” I quash the urge to laugh. Because, by now, he could probably recite that entire book from memory.

  “Whatcha listenin’ to?”

  “Oh, you probably wouldn’t like it.”

  “Try me.”

  He shrugs as he passes the headphones across the slim space between our beds. This is gonna be good. I’ve got him pegged for a Yanni diehard, and I smirk a little as the music starts. One of my cellies had a thing for electronic rock, so I recognize the song right away. With the heavy breathing at the start, it’s unforgettable and creepy as hell. Seriously. Like stalker-level shit.

  I want you now, tomorrow won’t do. There’s a yearning inside and it’s showing through.

  “Depeche Mode, huh? Cool, man. Wouldn’t have figured it.”

  Reach out your hands and accept my love. We’ve waited for too long. Enough is enough. Like I said, stalker-level.

  His laugh is jittery, quick as the cockroaches in Folsom. “It’s my favorite song. Reminds me of being seventeen again. You know, when sex was all you could think about.”

  I pretend I’m not totally skeeved out when I return his headphones and shut the lights. In the joint, nighttime was a luxury, a little slice of heaven when I got to count my blessings I’d made it another day. Eight whole hours not looking over my shoulder. Not waiting for a shank to the back. Or some crazy cowboy CO to mess with me just to get his rocks off. Eight whole hours when I didn’t have to be a goddamn number. Or a man with a stone face. I could just be Butch. In my T-shirt and boxers like any ordinary free fella.

  But now, here, the darkness is different. This may sound certifiable, but I felt safer in that six-by-eight box. Tonight, I’m on edge, so I listen to Sebastian’s breathing and follow the shadows beneath the door until my eyes get heavy.

  “So how’d she take it?”

  I flinch awake, stunned. Wonder, for a moment, if I’m still dreaming. But Sebastian’s eyes glow like an owl’s in the faint light from the window, and he’s looking right at me.

  “Who?” I ask. “Take what?” As the words leave my mouth, I know. And that stuns me even more.

  “Dr. Maddox. Evie. She’s the one you told, right? I saw you on my way home, sitting together at that restaurant.”

  Is he fucking following me? Young Butch (he’s still in here) goes from zero to sixty in 5.8, same as the ’Cuda. But I quiet him down—easy, boy—and keep him in his cage. “Uh, yeah. We knew each other as kids. I guess she took it alright. But, she’s a shrink so it’s hard to tell.”

  “Poker face?”

  “Something like that.” Say as little as possible. Then, feign sleep. That’s my plan, until—

  “Have you told her you’ve got a thing for her?” Until Sebastian punches me in the gut. Or at least that’s what it feels like. “You were talking in your sleep just now. Evie. Oh Evie.”

  I sit up, half ready to clock this punk. But I don’t. Because the other half knows where that leads. Bars and fences and prison blues. Been there. Done that. Bought the flippin’ T-shirt. “What? Man, you’ve got the wrong idea. We’re just friends. Like I said, I knew her when she was—”

  “Alright, alright. I’m just messing with you. You do snore though. Like a freight train.”

  I settle back on the mattress in self-imposed silence. I can’t get a handle on Sebastian, and I don’t like it. One minute he’s got ice in his veins, the next he’s a goddamn comedian. But twenty years in the pen will teach you patience. Among other things. Like how to needle a guy where it hurts him the most.

  “Hey, where were you the other night?” I ask, casual as a heart attack. “I woke up and you were gone. For a while.”

  He doesn’t show it. He doesn’t bleed. Still, I know I stuck him. Especially with Richert’s warning about the police sniffing around here. “Bathroom probably. Weak stomach. ’Night, Butch.”

  I wait for a beat—let him suffer—before I answer. “Goodnight, Sebastian.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY

  Evie

  January 16, 2017

  Monday

  The last time I’d come here, to Willow Court, I was eighteen and fresh off the bus from LA. I’d hitched a ride from the station with a family headed up north to Tahoe. “Are you sure you want to get out here?” the mother—so different from my own—had asked me, grimacing out the window at my preferred destination.

  “I’m sure,” I’d told her. But I wasn’t. I wasn’t sure about anything then. Except that the girl I had been—twelve days from my thirteenth birthday—left something behind here and I owed it to her to look for it at least once. Besides that, I could’ve used the cash. My scholarship to Berkeley didn’t cover living expenses. And living in Berkeley was not cheap.

  The last time I’d come here, to Willow Court, the place was still standing. If you could call it that. And I’d lingered by the pool half-expecting Cassie to turn up with her crooked smile and smart mouth. Like no time had passed. Like I’d skipped across five years as fast as a pebble skimming the water’s surface.

  The last time I’d come here, to Willow Court, I’d left empty-handed. 201 had been covered in graffiti, the floor ankle-deep with trash and God knows what else. To stomach the stench, I’d had to cover my mouth with my T-shirt long enough to hoist myself onto the counter and crack the vent. A light shower of grime had dusted my face like snow. And I’d reached a tentative finger inside the space, sure it would be bitten off by some creature—all teeth and fur and claws—that lives off the flesh of stupid girls. But nothing had happened. And the thing I’d left, it was gone. With no evidence it had ever existed at all. Not unlike Cassie herself.

  And now, so is Willow Court. Gone without a trace. I park my car across the street and gape for a moment at the empty lot. The field of tall, weedy grass that waves to me as the wind picks up. The toppled LAND FOR SALE sign, its upended post sharp and threatening. I’m not sure what I’d expected—it’s been nearly seventeen years after all—but it wasn’t this. The sheer emptiness of it, the way an entire part of your life can just disappear, scares me. Like the ground opened right up and swallowed it whole. All of it. The dilapidated buildings, the mice skeletons, the old pool, Cassie, my memory.

  I sit in the car until it’s nearly 9, letting the heater blast my feet. Until it’s so warm my eyes get heavy and I feel weighted to the seat, unable to move even if I wanted. Sleep threatens to pull me under, and I jolt awake a few times, my head falling sideways then snapping to attention like I’m sort of a string puppet, subject to someone else’s whims. In the fuzzy space between, I keep thinking of Butch, what he’d said. “I wish I’d picked you up that night. Then everything would be different.” He’s right. I would be dif
ferent. A whole Evie. Not this one, the girl with a dead friend and a missing piece.

  Finally, I can’t take it. I crack the door and let the cold rush in. It’s 9:03—the minutes slog like hours—and the lot is just as empty. Whoever it is, isn’t coming. They’ve been swallowed too, straight down to the belly of the earth with all the other lost things.

  But then, I spot her. She’s on foot at least a hundred yards down the road, a small figure hunched against the chilly January wind. A truck speeds by, blaring its horn at her, but she doesn’t change course. As she comes closer, my stomach starts to knot. I fight the urge to get back in my car and drive away.

  She’s not dressed for winter. Even the mild Bay Area winters that are more wet than cold. Her thin legs are bare and white as bones. They look strangely disconnected from the rest of her body, which is mostly hidden in an oversized sweater that hangs down to the knobs of her knees. And she’s young. How young it’s hard to say, because her hair—dyed fire red—is whipping across her face.

  She doesn’t approach, but I see her watching me from where she’s sitting. On the curb, just in front of the field that swallowed Willow Court. She takes off her shoes—tall black stilettos—and rubs her feet. Then she tucks her knees toward her and stretches her sweater over them.

  The light from the street casts strange shadows on her face. I know it’s a trick, but her eyes look hollow. Two holes, empty and bored straight through. Her cheeks are sunken, and her mouth is set in a hard line like she hasn’t smiled in years. There’s something wild about her, something dangerous. Something sad too. And it hits me like a wave. She reminds me of my mother.

  “Doesn’t your mama look purdy?” That’s what Trey used to say when she’d strut around for him, bones sticking out of a secondhand dress and makeup, caked on her sallow skin. Once I’d corrected him—pretty, not purdy—and he’d told me he ought to slap my face for back talking him. He didn’t though. Because my mom had already done it, my face stinging with the kind of shame that festers like an angry blister. “He would’ve hit you ten times harder,” she’d explained after he left. And I hated her, because I knew she was right.