The Depth of Darkness (Mitch Tanner #1)

http://LTRyan.com

 Stay up to date with L.T. Ryan:

http://LTRyan.com/newsletter

 Feedback on this book can be sent to
[email protected]

PUBLISHED BY:

L.T. Ryan at Smashwords

Copyright © 2013

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be copied,
reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise,
without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of
this book.

This is a work of fiction. All characters,
names, places and events are the product of the author's
imagination or used fictitiously.

Start Reading

Other Books by L.T. Ryan

Full Table of Contents

Visit
http://ltryan.com/newsletter/
and sign up to
be notified of new releases.

Special thanks to Amy, Gail, Helen, Keith,
Nikki, Marianne, Melanie, and Steve.

"The depth of darkness to which you can descend
and still live is an exact measure of the height to which you can
aspire to reach."
- Pliny the Elder

I closed the grill lid over three plump
hamburger patties and leaned back against the sliding glass door.
The fire hissed every time fatty juice dripped between the grill
grates. Wispy smoke escaped through the slots on the side and
wrapped around my head. The heat from the grill felt comforting,
despite the lingering eighty degree temperature.

I watched as Ella Kate leaned forward and
brushed the first fallen leaves off of the round patio table. She
rested her elbows on the blue and orange mosaic glass tiles. Her
gaze drifted from the trees behind our house to the dull pink sky.
For a six year old, Ella didn’t talk much. Of course, all I really
had to compare it with was my son Robbie. I knew that the reason
she didn’t speak much was because of Robbie and her mother, my
estranged wife, Marissa. When Marissa left in the middle of the day
twelve months ago, she took Robbie with her, leaving Ella and me
behind. Which really meant that Ella was without both of her
parents most of the time. Being a homicide detective in
Philadelphia didn’t leave much time for family, I’m afraid.

People died at the oddest hours.

But I did the best I could and made every
moment count. And so did my mother, who always seemed to be
around.

I rapped on the glass door to get Momma’s
attention. She set her cell phone down on the kitchen island and
slid off the barstool she had been perched upon. The sliding glass
door screeched open and she stuck her head out.

“What?”

“Could you tear yourself away from that
conversation long enough to bring some plates, buns and the ketchup
out here?”

“I’m going to tear you away from something if
you talk to me like that again, boy.”

“Don’t forget pickles, Grandma,” Ella
said.

“Sure thing, sweetie,” my mother said.

I held out my hands and acted offended.
“What’s with the preferential treatment?”

Momma scowled at me like she was a pit bull,
then she winked at Ella and went back inside, closing the door
behind her. I looked over at Ella, who now had a sizable smile on
her face. It was enough to make my heart skip a beat. Although she
smiled more frequently now than she did a year ago, the moments
were still too far in between.

It took my mother five minutes to return with
the plates. I lifted the grill lid as she stepped outside. A rush
of smoke greeted me. Using a stainless steel spatula, I flipped the
burgers over. A fresh stream of fat juice coated the fire below.
Flames rose up a good eighteen inches. I reacted a second too late
and wound up with a couple of knuckles full of singed hair. The
smell of burned hair momentarily overpowered that of the
burgers.

Closing the lid I said, “Momma, would you
mind grabbing me a beer?”

“Get it yourself,” she said while placing her
feet on an empty chair and crossing her legs at the ankles.

“I’ll get it for you, Daddy,” Ella said.

“Thank you, honey.” I turned toward my
mother. “At least someone around here appreciates me.”

She waved me off and went back to playing a
game on her cell phone.

“You just stay seated, Ella,” I said. “I’ll
grab it myself.” I reopened the grill lid and turned the burners
down to low. The burgers were about ready, and if I got caught up
in the garage a minute too long, they’d burn. I went inside,
through the living room and the kitchen, and into the garage.
That’s where I kept my beer fridge. I flipped on the light. My 1969
Boss 429 Mustang was parked in the middle and took up most of the
usable space in the two-car garage. I’d resurrected it from the
dead eight years ago. Lately I’d had little time to tinker with it,
so it remained alone in the garage. I traced a finger along the
fender. It turned dark with dirt and dust. Time to give the Boss a
bath.

I grabbed a beer out of the fridge and closed
the door. I stood there for a moment admiring Robbie’s artwork,
held there by magnets. I pulled out my phone and flipped through my
contacts list, stopping when I came to Cassie’s number. Cassie was
a woman who had helped me out in the past. You could say she had a
knack for finding information in places others couldn’t. I pressed
the little phone icon next to her name and brought the phone up to
my ear.

“Mitch?”

“Cassie, sorry to bother you. Hadn’t heard
from you in a while and I was wondering if you’d uncovered anything
on Marissa and Robbie?”

“Mitch, as I’ve told you, when it happens, if
it happens, I’ll let you know. You can’t press this. I’m doing what
I can.”

“I know you are. Just keep me posted.” I hung
up and slipped the phone into my pocket and returned my attention
to the beer in my other hand. I had managed to twist the cap off
when my phone rang. My heart leapt at the possibility that my call
to Cassie had jarred some new piece of evidence loose. I glanced at
the caller ID. Sam Foster, my partner, was calling.

Sam and I had been friends as little kids,
then enemies from fourth through most of ninth grade, and then best
friends as we formed an All-State duo on the right side of the
defensive line on Bonner’s state championship team. He played
defensive tackle. I was lined up as defensive end next to him. We
still hold the record for most combined sacks in a season, I think.
Neither of us headed off to college after high school. He enlisted
in the Army and I became a cop. We remained friends through it all.
He joined up after his second stint, and now we’re partners.

“What do you say, Sam?”

“We got one, Mitch.”

“Ah, you’re kidding me. I’m about to sit down
to dinner with Ella and my mother.”

“Good,” Sam said. “At least you already have
a babysitter in place.”

I stood five feet from the sliding glass door
that separated my living room from the back deck. Momma must’ve
said something pretty funny. Ella was in stitches. I could hear her
laughter through the door.

“You at home?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen.”

I stepped outside, avoiding eye contact, and
turned off the burners and cut the gas. I plated the burgers and
set them down on the table. Ella looked up and smiled at me. I
placed a hand on her shoulder. “Sweetheart, Daddy’s gotta go to
work.”

The uniformed officers did a good job of
securing a perimeter around the house.
Woman Found Dead by
Husband
didn’t get the media off, so tonight we were lucky on
that front. The less I had to deal with them, the better. One of
the guys suspected foul play. They said that the husband, a man
named Roy Miller, acted a little like a weasel. Why a weasel? The
officer couldn’t say. Just said that’s what Miller reminded him
of.

Inside we met our victim, one Dusty Anne
Miller. She was thirty-eight, blond, and attractive if you could
overlook the gash and dent in her forehead. Her silk bathrobe was
cinched at the waist, but had fallen open during her supposed
accelerated descent down the stairs. In addition to the possibly
fatal wound on her head, she had a fractured arm and femur. The
broken bone in her leg nearly penetrated the skin, which had become
discolored. Both appendages were bent at odd angles. Shards of
glass littered the back of her body. Whiskey had mixed with the
blood that pooled around her body, creating a brownish tint. The
bottom step had bits of hair and skull and brain stuck to it. I
wondered which injury occurred first, and had the head injury done
her in, or in addition to the fractures, had she broken her neck as
well.

Roy Miller seated himself at the kitchen
table. He wasn’t a big guy, but not little either. Average
described him best. His brown hair looked disheveled. It matched
the scruff on his face. Not quite a beard, but a bit more than
stubble. He was too distraught to talk to us, but the responding
officer told us that he’d said he came home and found his wife at
the bottom of the stairs. The shower had been running. He figured
she’d got into the shower, realized she’d forgotten to bring her
new shampoo upstairs, then slipped at the top of the stairs due to
a combination of wet feet and hardwood floors.

Her matted hair suggested that she had indeed
been in the shower, and there was a paper bag from one of the local
stores on the table. Inside the bag was a receipt time stamped from
earlier that day. On the receipt were several personal items,
including the shampoo that Dusty Anne never reached.

“Looks pretty cut and dry,” Sam said in a low
voice.

I glanced up at him, arching an eyebrow. “You
know what they say about looks.”

“Yeah, they get better with beer.”

I started to smile but managed to catch
myself before it spread too far. Last thing we needed was for
either of us to be seen laughing while hovering over a dead woman’s
body. Most people wouldn’t understand, and when you said things
like coping mechanism, they rolled their eyes.

Sam motioned for one of the officers to come
over. I walked away as he told the young cop to bring Roy Miller
down to the station and set him up in one of the interview rooms.
Meanwhile, I walked the perimeter of the downstairs. Nothing stood
out to me. Sometimes you get a sense about a scene that tells you
something happened. I didn’t get that here. Like Sam said, cut and
dry.

By the time we went back outside, the sun had
set. We got inside my city-issued Chevy and headed toward the
station. Neither of us spoke. We were like an old married couple in
that sense. After knowing one another for going on thirty-five
years, we didn’t have to fill the void with useless banter. That
didn’t mean we didn’t at times. It just wasn’t required.

It didn’t take us long to reach the station
bordering 61st, Thompson and Haverford in Carroll Park. I stood in
front of the mirrored glass outside of the interview room where Roy
Miller waited. Sam had set off in search of fresh coffee. Most of
the time you wouldn’t find it at nine-thirty at night. But this was
Friday. And Fridays in Philly were crazy.

As I waited, I saw Roy go through a myriad of
emotions. He slammed his fist against the table in anger. He paced
the room in frustration, tearing at his tangled hair. Tears and
sobs expressed his sadness. I tried to imagine being in his shoes
and wondered whether it was harder to come home and realize your
wife had left you or that she’d taken a nasty spill down the stairs
and died.

I smelled the coffee before I heard Sam. For
the first time, I glanced down and saw he was wearing tennis shoes.
He handed me a lidded cup. A tiny wisp of steam slipped through the
lid. Station house coffee. Nothing beat it. Maybe I could retire
and franchise it one day.

“Ready?” Sam asked.

“After you, my man,” I said.

Sam opened the door and stepped inside. He
walked to the far corner of the room, crossed his arms and leaned
back against the wall. I stepped in, closing the door behind me,
and took a seat opposite Roy.

“Mr. Miller, if you recall I’m Detective
Tanner, and that’s Detective Foster. We don’t want to take too much
of your time, but we do have some questions we’d like to ask
you.”

He made eye contact with me for the first
time and nodded. He cleared his throat. “Anything you need.”

Turned out anything we needed was a rehashing
of what the officer back at the Miller’s house had told us.

“I walked home from work, stopping off to
have a few beers. When I got home, the door was unlocked. I opened
it, stepped inside, and saw her at the bottom of the stairs. I ran
up to her. She wasn’t breathing. I called nine-one-one and tried to
do CPR, but her body was at such a weird angle and I remember
reading that you should never move a body that was injured, so I
waited. But, like I said, she wasn’t breathing and I couldn’t find
a pulse. So I…”