In the Dark (17 page)

 

Peter shrugged. “He was big. Like a bear. I think he had dreadlocks.”

 

“Have you ever seen him before?”

 

“No.”

 

Ray nodded. “Jon saw a black man matching this description in the woods that night, too.”

 

“Ah,” Randall said. “Well, that’s good. Another witness. Do you think you’ll be able to find him?”

 

“Jon says he’s a vagrant who lives down by the tracks,” Ray said.

 

“Oh, so you’ve seen him before?” Randall asked Stride.

 

Stride nodded.

 

“Isn’t that lucky,” Randall said. “Detective, I hope you can apprehend him. Of course, I know that these people are often desperate itinerants. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s long gone by now. He must know that the police will be on his trail.”

 

“No doubt,” Ray said.

 

“Do you need anything else from Peter right now?”

 

Ray shook his head. “Not for the moment.”

 

“That’s good. Do you have another minute, Detective? I’d like to share something with you privately.”

 

Ray rubbed his mustache and nodded at Stride. He tossed him the keys to the Camaro, which Stride caught in midair. “Wait outside for me, okay, Jon? I won’t be long. Play the radio, if you like.”

 

Stride and Peter left the room together. The waning sunlight gathered through the high windows in the vault of the foyer, but where the two boys were, the room was filled with dusty shadows. Stride heard a clock ticking. A gamey smell of venison rose from the downstairs kitchen. Peter escorted him silently to the front door, and Stride felt a frozen tension between them.

 

“You weren’t dating Laura,” Stride said.

 

“What are you, a cop? Leave it alone.”

 

“Did you kill her?”

 

“No, I didn’t, you asshole. Get the hell out of here.”

 

Peter yanked the heavy door open. Stride shoved past him and heard the door slam as soon as he had cleared the threshold. He kicked at the loose gravel, then bent down and picked up a loose rock and hurled it into an oval duck pond. He walked past Ray’s Camaro and found a black wrought-iron bench in the gardens, where he sat down, his long legs stretched out. He waited. Silhouettes of birds flitted among the fir trees. The air outside was humid, and he began to sweat. Twenty minutes later, the front door opened again, and Ray came out alone. Ray lit a cigarette and strolled over to the bench.

 

“Hey, Jon, sorry that took so long.”

 

“No problem.”

 

Ray exhaled a cloud of white smoke. “So what do you think?”

 

“I think Peter is lying.”

 

“Maybe,” Ray said, “but his story about this guy Dada tracks with what you saw. You didn’t spot this guy until after the storm hit and you left the softball game, right?”

 

“Right.”

 

“Any chance Peter saw him hanging around before the game?”

 

“Not likely,” Stride said. “I was already in the field when Peter arrived, and I didn’t see Dada anywhere around there.”

 

“So Peter must have seen him after you did. After the storm. When Laura was coming back to the softball field.”

 

“I guess so,” Stride said.

 

“Do you think Laura could have been hiding her affair with Peter?”

 

Stride frowned. “I think Cindy would have known.”

 

“Sisters don’t always tell sisters everything.”

 

“Well, yeah, that’s true. Cindy and Laura weren’t best pals or anything. But Peter didn’t make it sound like he was dating Laura when he talked to me during the game.”

 

“That could be him keeping it secret.”

 

“Maybe.” Stride wasn’t convinced.

 

“Anyway, can you stay with me a while longer? I could use your help again.”

 

“Sure,” Stride said.

 

Ray reached inside his sport coat and withdrew a long-barreled revolver. He opened the chamber and checked it. Stride could see the silver jackets of bullets loaded inside. Ray spun and locked it with a solid click and shoved it back in his shoulder holster.

 

“Okay then,” Ray said. “Let’s go get Dada.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

15
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Donna Biggs pulled off Highway 23 near the river overlook at Perch Lake Park. She shut off the car and sat silently by the water, which was drenched in the orange glow of the dying sunlight. The river here was broken up by narrow swirls of land, like chocolate ribbons dropped into vanilla cake batter. From the bank at Fond du Lac, it was a cool hundred-foot swim with the stars overhead to the beaches and birch trees of the nearest island. She remembered midnight skinny-dipping here as a teenager, when a dozen or more kids would steal off from the fishing pier to drink, smoke weed, and have awkward sex in the sand. She and Clark had hooked up for the first time on one of those nights.

 

Mary tugged at her sleeve, demanding attention. “Mama?”

 

Donna knew what her daughter wanted. They had made a ritual of these stops on Friday nights. A few final peaceful moments together before the lonely weekend. “Would you like to sit by the river for a while?” she asked.

 

Mary’s head bobbed vigorously.

 

“Come on then.”

 

They were only a few miles from Clark’s home in Gary. She was late
dropping Mary off, and Clark had already called twice, wondering where she was. Usually, Donna had Mary at his house in time for the two of them to go to dinner, but tonight, she had had to work late, and she stopped at McDonald’s to get Mary some chicken nuggets and French fries because she was hungry. Donna herself didn’t eat at all; she felt tired and nauseous. By the time she had packed Mary’s bag and got on the road, it was after eight o’clock.

 

Mary clambered out of the car and ran in her gangly way toward the water.

 

“Careful, honey, not too close,” Donna called.

 

She stretched her legs and took a seat on an old wooden bench. When she looked through the maze of trees to her right, she squinted into the sinking sun. On her left, a narrow dirt trail climbed away from the river. Thin green vines and white flowers dangled over the path, blowing off pollen dust in the warm breeze. Honeybees buzzed near her face, and she shooed them away with a flip of her hand.

 

Mary chased a monarch butterfly with orange-and-black wings. The fluttering insect dotted up and down, and Mary held out a finger, hoping it would land there. She ran back and forth, following the butterfly until it disappeared over the water.

 

“Come sit by me, sweetheart,” Donna told her.

 

Mary plopped down heavily on the bench. Donna wrapped an arm around her big girl’s shoulder and pulled Mary’s head into the crook of her neck. She kissed the girl’s blond curls and poked a finger into her cheek. Mary giggled. They were an odd mismatch of mother and daughter. Mary got all her tall, heavy genes from Clark. Donna was small, at least six inches shorter than Mary and fifty pounds lighter. She knew it looked strange, this oversized teenager clinging to the tiny hand of her mother. Mary was still a child. Donna was the one who had gotten older and more conscious of the burden of being a parent. It was one thing to care for a child when you were twenty-five and something else altogether when you were almost forty.

 

Donna was still dressed for the office. She worked as a legal secretary in a small Wisconsin law firm, where they insisted she wear business suits and keep her sandy hair fashionably styled. The salary and benefits were good, though, and the firm gave her flexibility when Mary needed special
care. She had worked there for five years, ever since she and Clark split up. Security was a trade-off for the long hours and loneliness in her life.

 

“Did you see that?” Donna asked, pointing at a splash in the water and the widening ripples. “That was a fish.”

 

“Fish!” Mary said.

 

“Would you like to be a fish?” Donna asked. “You could swim underwater and make friends with turtles. Maybe you could even be a mermaid with a big fish tail. Wouldn’t that be funny?”

 

“Fish!” Mary said again.

 

Donna smiled. She held Mary’s hand, and they sat watching the hawks circle above them and the boats come and go lazily on the river. They counted birds in the trees. Donna picked a wildflower and let Mary pluck the petals. Half an hour passed as easily as the water at their feet, and the sun eased below the trees. Golden sparkles on the water became shadows.

 

It was time to go. Clark was waiting, and it wasn’t fair to be so late. He missed Mary.

 

Donna missed Clark, too. She kept waiting for her love for him to die out completely, but instead, it was the bitterness of their breakup that had begun to seem distant and unimportant. They had both been desperate, unable to cope with Mary together. When she saw him now, she found herself drawn all over again to his courage and his solemn manner. She had even allowed herself to stay over a few weeks ago, to climb back into their bed. They hadn’t talked about it. She had slipped away in the morning before Clark awoke, not because it felt like a mistake, but because she was scared that Clark didn’t feel the same way.

 

“Hey! Mary!”

 

Someone shouted a faraway greeting from the highway behind her. Donna looked back and saw a teenage boy about Mary’s age, hurtling down the sharp hill on a bicycle. He waved madly at them, his face cracked into a grin, his black hair twisting in the currents of air. She recognized him, a neighbor boy from her years in Gary, who lived two blocks away from their old house. He was an adopted Korean child, squat and strong. He loved Mary and had played with her growing up. As they got older, he was one of the few boys who didn’t make fun of her retardation.

 

Mary saw him, too. “Charlie! Charlie!”

 

Charlie veered across the highway. His wide backside hung over the
bike’s banana seat. He yanked back on the handlebars, hiking the front wheel off the road, showing off the way boys do. Mary squealed with delight. Donna heard the skid of rubber as Charlie braked hard. The bike slowed, and tread burned off onto the highway in a black streak.

 

Through the screech of the tire, she also heard rocks scraping on the ground. Loose gravel.

 

Her breath caught in her chest before she could shout a warning. The bike’s front tire rose higher, like a whale breaching, and the back tire spilled out underneath it. In the next instant, it was airborne. Charlie flew, too. The bike bounced, clanged, and made circles as it crashed on the pavement, its spokes spinning like tops. Charlie’s hands and legs stretched out in an X in midair. He soared and snapped down headfirst, bone on asphalt, and even fifty yards away, the sound popped through the brittle air like a firecracker.

 

He lay still in the middle of the highway.

 

“Charlie!” Mary wailed.

 

Donna bolted upright. She stood, paralyzed, her face swinging back and forth between Charlie and Mary. Her instinct was to run and help, but her instinct was also never to leave her daughter alone. She bent down and grabbed Mary’s face between her hands and spoke softly but firmly. “Mary, you sit right here. Do not move, okay? Do not move. Sit right here. Please, baby, I need you to understand. Show me you understand.”

 

Mary’s eyes were filled with confusion and glassy tears. She didn’t move.

 

“That’s good, baby, you sit right there, you don’t move.”

 

Donna sprinted for the highway, fumbling with her cell phone and punching the numbers 911 as she ran. Her work clothes felt clumsy. Her blouse came untucked from her skirt. She lost her balance as her high heels tripped her up, and she swore and kicked them off. Rocks chewed at her nylons and cut her feet. When she reached Charlie, she murmured a prayer as she watched the bloodstain spreading like a cancer under the boy’s head. She craned her neck to stare up and down the highway, which was dark now in the deepening twilight. There were no cars approaching from either direction. She spotted a silver RAV4 parked on the shoulder a quarter mile to the north, but she didn’t see anyone inside. She was alone.

 

Donna saw Mary. Still on the bench. Her thumb in her mouth.

 

She heard the 911 operator in her ear and was relieved to hear another person’s voice. She took a breath and swallowed down her panic. She tried to remember exactly where she was, but the names of the streets and towns didn’t come. For an instant, she could have been anywhere on earth. Then the location burbled out of her brain, and she stuttered, trying to relay it. The operator was annoyingly calm, asking her the same questions over and over, making Donna repeat herself.

 

“I need help!” she insisted. “Get me some help!”

 

The operator finally told her what she wanted to hear. The police were on their way. An ambulance was on its way. Everyone was coming. Stay with him.

 

Donna heard moaning at her feet. Charlie was waking up, trying to move his limbs.

 

“No, no, stay still,” she murmured. She didn’t know if he heard her. She got on her knees on the highway and took his hand. It was limp. He didn’t squeeze back. “Stay still.”

 

His eyes were closed. He tried to turn his head, and she put her lips next to his ear. Her hand was in his blood. “Don’t move. Stay right there, Charlie. Help’s coming.”

 

She listened for the sirens. Where were they? She took another glance up and down the highway, looking for headlights, afraid that the cars wouldn’t see her and Charlie in the gloom until it was too late to steer around them.

 

Her cell phone rang. She answered it with sticky fingers and heard Clark’s voice.