Gathering Dark

by Candice Fox

  ‘Police! Let me see your hands!’

  ‘I can’t.’ Jessica cradled her breasts with one arm, her face turned away from the men at the door. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Let me see your hands right now!’

  ‘Turn your body cams off!’

  ‘Ma’am, I won’t ask you again!’

  ‘I’m a cop, you assholes! Turn your body cams off!’

  She heard the sound of a taser being pulled from its holster. The distinctive snap and flick of the safety. Devastatingly clear images whirled through her mind, of her body twitching and writhing under the electric pulse of the taser, all of it recorded on the patrol officer’s body camera. Being naked on video was better than being tasered and naked. She let go of the floor, released the cradle she’d made for her naked chest and rose up slowly. She wasn’t going to put her arms up. That would be an indignity she couldn’t bear. She stood there, strapped in place, finally turning her face to meet the men she didn’t recognise standing in the doorway with their tasers out.

  ‘I’m a cop, you complete – fucking – assholes,’ she said.

  One of them was staring at her crotch. The other, her breasts. They both looked at her eyes at once. Jessica could see the two little red lights of their body cams still blazing in the glowing mood lighting of the room. Somewhere downstairs, other officers were dealing with Goren. Doors were slamming open and drawers were being pulled out. She could hear him yelling in protest.

  ‘If you’re a cop, what the hell are you doing here?’ one of the men in the doorway asked, a tall, young patrolman with a thick black beard.

  ‘It’s none of your business what I’m doing here,’ Jessica said.

  ‘We have reason to believe there are drugs and activities involving prostitution occurring on these premises,’ the officer said. He paused, looked at his partner, and the faintest hint of a smile played at the corner of his mouth. ‘You’ll be placed under arrest pending further investigations. Ma’am, would you please, uh . . . free yourself from . . .’ He pointed at the straps. ‘Or maybe you need help—’

  ‘I don’t need any goddamn help,’ Jessica said. She bent to undo the buckles at her ankles. Her whole body was submitting to trembling waves of humiliation, the stinging sensation of the cameras, their eyes, recording her every move. When she rose again she caught them smiling, laughing silently, the smaller one turning away. More officers were arriving in the hallway. She cupped a hand over her crotch and covered her breasts with the other arm.

  ‘Can I retrieve my clothes from the other room?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course.’ The tall officer finally had a hold of himself, his face barely straight. ‘Guys, let her through.’

  The officers in the hall parted. She couldn’t look at their faces. She dressed alone in the bedroom, listening to their laughter.

  BLAIR

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi. I’m so, so sorry to call you at this late hour. I just . . . I need . . . I’m really, really sorry, but—’

  ‘Well, for god’s sake, tell me who it is.’

  ‘My name is Blair. You don’t know me.’

  ‘Are you calling from a payphone?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m sorry, sir. I just need someone to talk to. I feel so bad for waking you up.’

  ‘Hell, you didn’t wake me up, darlin’. I don’t never sleep these days. My house is full of gremlins every second week. Are you okay? You sound all puffed out.’

  ‘I’m fine. I’m okay. I’m . . . Did you say gremlins?’

  ‘My sister’s kids. She got a second job workin’ night shift at a sawmill. Place runs all day and all night. That’s why I’m talkin’ quiet. I only just got them little bastards to sleep. Kids don’t know what’s good in the world. They don’t like sleep. They don’t like food. They don’t know what great skin and hair they got. I went bald at fifteen. Smooth as an egg. Took me two weeks. Like somethin’ scared it right out of me.’

  ‘How old are the kids?’

  ‘John’s seven and Maggie’s three and a half. So what is this? Is this like one of them survey calls where you win a prize?’

  ‘No, no. I’m sorry. I don’t have anything—’

  ‘My aunt got a call in the night like this once. Said she won a four-day cruise. She told everybody. Turned out it was a whole lot of bullshit. They just wanted her credit card numbers. Oh, Lord. Oh, shit. Go back to bed, Johnny.’

  ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘It’s nothin’. Nothin’. Just one of them survey calls. Go back to bed or . . . Ah, shit. You woke the baby. Now it’s a party.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It’s all right. Don’t worry about it. Hell, it’s always a party at Uncle Shane’s place. Ain’t that right, Mags, huh? Who wants milk?’

  JESSICA

  Diggy was signing forms at the front desk of the Wilshire Community Police Station when Jessica was brought out from the cells. This morning’s Fibonacci golden spiral shirt was a vibrant blue and covered in pictures of tiny men in top hats curling their villainous moustaches. The female officer behind the counter was examining it closely. Jessica imagined that having to stand at the counter enduring Diggy’s ultimate encounter with true love might be more than she could bear, so she caught his arm and turned him away from the woman’s gaze.

  ‘I have a question,’ he said, his finger raised.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Where do you get three gallons of human piss at short notice?’

  ‘Was it really three gallons?’

  ‘According to the bottles that remained at the scene, assuming each was full or close to.’

  ‘Hobos,’ Jessica said.

  ‘Ah.’ Diggy nodded. ‘That was my guess. A colleague at the lab said they must have been yours, but I did not concur. You seem sensible about hydration, and it smelled like whoever provided those samples was distinctly otherwise.’

  ‘You smelled the car?’

  ‘Everybody did. It stank up both floors of the parking lot. Some people went down to look when Wallert came into the office shouting and making a commotion about what had happened, but I deemed a viewing unnecessary.’

  Jessica smiled. Her face felt stiff from the dread of the past few hours sitting in a holding cell.

  ‘He’ll have to dispose of the whole vehicle,’ Diggy said as they walked to the doors of the station.

  ‘I know you’re just trying to make me feel better about the footage of my arrest.’ The day was stingingly bright. Two officers were already unloading a van full of gang members scooped up from the streets into the side entrance. ‘Is it across the department yet?’

  ‘I was forwarded it by email.’ He had his head down, watching the road pass beneath his feet. ‘So was my colleague. So you can assume if it’s reached the forensics office . . .’

  She nodded.

  ‘Jessica,’ Diggy said as they slid into his immaculate car together. ‘Erotic practices that involve BDSM are surprisingly common, and in the current socio-sexual climate—’

  ‘Don’t.’ She held a hand up.

  ‘Okay.’

  They drove for a while in silence. Jessica smelled her armpit, grimaced. The jailhouse had stunk of the bodies of sweating, sobering women, herself included.

  ‘Tell me where you are on the Harbour investigation,’ she said.

  Diggy straightened in his seat. A pair of young actors was crossing the street before them at the traffic lights, their noses buried in scripts, gesticulating wildly to each other. Jessica looked at her phone and saw that there were five missed calls from Captain Whitton and eight from female colleagues she had known across her career. One of the women, she knew, worked out in Glendora. The video was spreading like a wildfire from cop to cop, embers carried across the country, heading east.

  ‘The bush in question outside the Orlov house is a Baby Bear manzanita, or a species of Arctostaphylos, for the connoisseur. That much I worked out for myself. Then I consulted a botanist. Not just any botanist – the botanist. Dr Ramona Bu
lle. President of the Botanical Society of America. She’s taken the inquiry seriously. Extremely seriously. It appears to me as though she’s spent every waking moment on the case study since I presented it to her. I’m receiving reports on the hour.’ As if on cue, Jessica heard Diggy’s phone ping. ‘She’s currently analysing vehicle smog patterns in the area at the time to try to determine their effect on the growth of our particular species.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Jessica said.

  ‘Yeah.’ Diggy glanced at her. ‘There are scientists and then there are obsessives. Frankenstein types who fall down into deep investigative wells and go mad.’

  ‘Can you tell anything from what she’s provided so far?’

  Diggy paused. ‘I hate to draw conclusions based on incomplete—’

  ‘Diggy.’

  ‘It could have grown that high.’ He looked at her. ‘Yes. I’m calling it. The bush could indeed have grown high enough in three weeks to cover up the view of the first-floor laundry window.’

  Jessica remained quiet.

  ‘So it’s possible you were wrong about the bush. And you were indeed wrong about the cheese sandwich,’ Diggy said. ‘My mentor got back to me. It’s definitely a male bite mark. But Jessica, these things are—’

  ‘I get it. They’re just pieces of a puzzle.’

  ‘Should we get breakfast?’

  ‘No, I’m going to freshen up, get changed and start looking for Kristi Zea. I want to hear the story again from her mouth.’ Jessica sighed. ‘But first, just drop me at the Bluestone house. I want to make sure Wallert calling the Wilshire cops on me wasn’t act one in a longer, grander performance.’

  They drove through Brentwood, silent, watching teams of gardeners unloading equipment from their trucks onto immaculate lawns, dog walkers in bright vans carrying precious furry bundles. Jessica sat up in her seat when she spied the private security car two driveways down from the Beauvoir house. There was a man in the front seat using his radio, watching the porch with binoculars. Three ladies were there, waiting. Jessica recognised Ada Maverick leaning against the front window, tapping cigarette ash into a pot plant. Blair Harbour was sitting on the steps, nursing a battered and bloodied face. Jessica didn’t know the third woman, who was pacing the porch, talking to herself.

  ‘What the . . .’ Diggy let the car roll to a stop outside the house. ‘Who are . . . Is that . . .?’

  ‘Thanks for the ride, Diggs,’ Jessica said as she opened the door.

  ‘Is that Harbour?’

  Jessica shut the car door on Diggy and walked towards the house.

  BLAIR

  Jessica Sanchez walked past me as I rose unsteadily on the porch. She unlocked the front door of the house and went inside before I could offer an explanation. Sneak followed her without even looking at me. We gathered in the kitchen, Ada taking her time, wandering over to the huge windows, one taped with paper where the glass had been blown out and swept into a pile on the porch. When I had called Sneak at daybreak, I knew it was a mistake instantly. She was still high now, rolling her tongue across her front teeth beneath her dry lips, her eyes restless, strings of muttered words escaping her that I barely caught in the huge room.

  ‘Really, really nice house. Expensive. Too expensive for . . . I’m talking millions. Millions and millions. But who knows? Who . . . Who knows something like that? It could be—’

  ‘What the hell happened to you?’ Jessica asked. She looked exhausted. Her long black hair was out and tangled. I’d expected another snarl of abuse about turning up unannounced on her doorstep only hours after I’d done it the first time, this time with the backup of two other criminals. I looked at Ada and Sneak, and wondered how to begin defending myself.

  ‘I was attacked in my apartment,’ I said. ‘I escaped and didn’t know where else to go. I called the others just to tell them where I was headed, that I was alive. I didn’t tell them to come here, but—’

  ‘Blair says you can help find Dayly,’ Ada said. ‘I’m here to find out how.’

  There was a blistering silence, broken only by Sneak’s pacing footsteps. Jessica watched Sneak for a while, squinting at her missing earlobe.

  ‘Jessica,’ I said hesitantly, gesturing to Ada. ‘This is—’

  ‘I know who Ada Maverick is,’ Jessica snapped.

  ‘Everybody knows.’ Ada gave an icy smile.

  ‘Have you guys . . .’ I began.

  ‘Last time I saw Detective Sanchez, she was part of a squad trying to pin me with possession of some guns,’ Ada said.

  ‘A shipping container full of guns,’ Jessica corrected.

  ‘One of my many hobbies is importing and trading rare antiques and domestic fineries,’ Ada explained to me, shrugging innocently. ‘A simple shipping manifest mix-up has left Sanchez here with the unfortunate misapprehension that I’m some kind of international arms dealer.’

  ‘“Terrorist” might be another word,’ Jessica said.

  ‘How dramatic.’ Ada rolled her eyes.

  ‘I guess that’s Dayly’s mom.’ Jessica jutted her chin at Sneak, who was staring out at the pool.

  ‘Millions and millions,’ Sneak said.

  ‘She’s not handling things very well right now,’ I said.

  ‘I can’t help you women.’ Jessica put her hands up. ‘I’m in enough shit right now as it is.’

  ‘Your cinematic debut not sitting well with the captain?’ Ada asked.

  Jessica’s neck flushed with red. ‘Where did you see it?’

  ‘YouTube.’

  ‘Wonderful.’

  ‘What are you guys talking about?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing.’ Jessica scratched her neck. ‘Blair, if you’ve been the victim of a home invasion, you should go directly to the police. Your apartment is a crime scene. They’ll send a team out.’

  ‘I’ve told you why we can’t do that,’ I said, covering my nose and mouth. I was infuriatingly weepy. For fifteen minutes after I’d bolted from my apartment, leaving my attacker inside, I’d hidden in an alleyway crying and hyperventilating in turn, trying and failing to shake myself out of it. When I had gone back to my apartment after a few hours waiting in the dark, I had found the door open, the place empty, and Hugh Jackman’s container on its side in the kitchen, lid off, the creature long gone. The sight of it had thrown me into more tears. I drew a deep breath now and clenched my fists. ‘Look. When I left here yesterday, you hadn’t said no to me. You said you didn’t know what you’d do. I hope that’s because you wouldn’t turn away from the case of a missing girl just because it was brought to you by someone like me.’

  Jessica gave a tired sigh, and I saw my opening.

  ‘Ada and Sneak and I are ex-cons,’ I said. ‘We’re bad people. But we’re trying to do something good here. Dayly needs us.’

  The clang of the locking mechanism on the pool fence outside drew all of our attention. We looked out the unbroken kitchen windows and watched Sneak stripping off slowly at the water’s edge. She had more tattoos than I’d imagined, prancing pixies and butterflies around her hips, a set of paw prints on her white, round butt. She walked into the water and pushed off as if she was about to do laps in a public pool, heading for the deep end, her chin above water. She was still muttering to herself. Jessica bumped my shoulder with hers.

  ‘I want to talk to you alone,’ she said.

  I followed her out onto the deck, past the pool, towards the back garden gate. I could see Sasha’s house through the foliage, and gripped the gate that surely gave my son access to Jessica for their little visits. So close to the world I desired, yet impossibly separated from it, the way I had been when there were bars and walls between Jamie and me instead of leaves and lattice. Jessica lit a cigarette and exhaled hard.

  ‘You didn’t tell me Ada Maverick was involved in this,’ she said.

  ‘I left that part out,’ I confirmed.

  ‘Let me make something absolutely clear,’ Jessica said. ‘You need to expend every effort you can from the moment
you leave here today detaching Ada from yourself and this case.’

  ‘What? Why? She’s been very helpful to us.’

  ‘She can smell money,’ Jessica said. ‘That’s why she’s here.’

  ‘She gave us five thousand dollars to help our cause,’ I scoffed. Ada was standing on the pool deck, out of earshot, smoking and watching Sneak cutting laps across the smooth surface of the water like a cat watching a fish in a tank.

  ‘That cash was an investment,’ Jessica said. ‘Trust me. I know that woman. She doesn’t do things out of the goodness of her heart. If she’s helping you it’s because she thinks it’ll be worth it to her in the long run. You can see where she’s coming from, can’t you? If Dayly’s got herself mixed up with gangs and drugs, that’s money. If there are corrupt cops somehow involved in this, that’s money. If she’s been kidnapped by someone for ransom, that’s money.’

  ‘You’ve got it wrong,’ I said. ‘She’s helping us because she owes me. I saved a member of her family. A baby. She couldn’t get even with me in prison and she doesn’t like the idea of people knowing that.’

  Jessica laughed humourlessly.

  ‘Yes, okay, she’s a violent lunatic,’ I pressed. ‘But she knows when she needs to pay her dues.’

  ‘It’s your funeral.’ Jessica shrugged.

  ‘Are you going to help us or not?’ I asked.

  Jessica looked at me. Really searched my eyes. I stood there, not knowing why, not knowing what she could possibly see in me but a killer who had returned to her world only to wreak more havoc, to bring yet more darkness than I had last time. I didn’t want her looking at me, trying to decide if I was worth helping. It was Dayly she needed to think about. Sneak, sitting on the edge of the pool, was staring at the wispy marine layer slowly creeping over the suburb towards the base of the mountains. Jessica threw her cigarette into the lush garden and folded her arms, seeming to have made a decision.