The River Is Dark (11 page)

“Do you think they’ll catch whoever did this?”

Liam eyed her for a moment before squeezing her hand. “Yes, but keep him close,” he said, motioning to the Dane. “Because I think someone else is going to die before they do.”

CHAPTER 13

When he climbed into the Chevy, a text message waited on his cell phone’s screen with only the words
Call soon
,
sent by a number he didn’t recognize.

He dialed it, apprehension building within him as the other end of the line rang.

“Liam.” The sheriff’s voice, low and conspiring. “What in the fuck did you do?”

Liam waited, weighing his options. “Nut was keeping me informed.”

“Yeah?” Barnes prompted.

“He found Haines early last night on his way to the boardwalk. He called me right away.”

“And you went down there first.” It wasn’t a question. “God Almighty, boy. Where was your fucking head at?”

“Listen,” Liam said, his voice beginning to rise with anger. “You called me into your office and handed me information along with the go-ahead to help, not the other way around, so don’t criticize my tactics when you asked for them.” The line went silent, but he could still hear the older man’s breathing. “How did they pin this on Nut, by the way?”

The sheriff grunted. “They found a shoe print in a muddy spot outside the rocks, as well as an empty rum bottle with Nut’s fingerprints on it a hundred feet away in some weeds. When they hauled him in, he had a gold necklace on him that belonged to Haines.”

Liam closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the seat. “Dammit.”

“Yeah,” Barnes continued, his voice growing closer to a whisper. “And you better hope to hell that bum doesn’t breathe a word to those agents about talking to you. If that happens, I know nothing about those documents you have, and I’ll hang your ass out to dry if it comes to that.”

“Gee, thanks, Barnes, so glad I could help out your little bumblefuck community.”

Barnes’s voice rose an octave. “Listen—”

“No, you fucking listen!” Liam said, his voice taking on an edge that silenced the sheriff. “They have the wrong man, and you know it. I chased two people through the woods this morning outside of the foundry. Suzie’s headband was hanging on a little shack out in the forest. Now, you need to get a search warrant and go over there with a full team of forensics to see what you can find—not tomorrow, today.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because I got a call from both the mayor and a man named Ian Black with Colton this morning. This project is going through. Both of them said it in no uncertain terms, and with the BCA arresting Nut, what can I say? That you went trespassing and someone ran from you in the woods? They’ll fucking lock you up.”

Liam seethed, wanting to pummel something. He raised a fist but resisted smashing it into his dashboard, opting instead for his thigh, which burned with the impact.

“Someone’s trying to stop this thing from happening, Sheriff, and they don’t care how they do it. You can’t just wash your hands of it, retiring or not.” He heard the other man swallow and waited, hoping his words were enough.

“I’m sorry, Liam, I am, but there’s nothing I can do.”

Liam rubbed his forehead, his exhaustion chased away by the rage that burned inside him. “Then let me talk to Nut.”

Again, a pause. “Okay, but just for a few minutes. He’s not supposed to see anyone. I’ll let you in the back.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes.”

Liam hit the end button without waiting for a reply, and spun the Chevy around, casting dirt and pebbles across the street as he sped toward the station.

When the back door of the sheriff’s station clicked open after Liam knocked minutes later, he didn’t even try to meet Barnes’s gaze; his anger was still too much to contain. Barnes didn’t say a word and turned away, retreating to his office as soon as Liam stepped inside the building. Liam moved down the row of bars until he came even with the only occupied cell. Nut sat slumped like a half-empty sack of potatoes on the edge of a cot, his stringy hair hanging over his face as he stared at the floor. He didn’t look up when Liam stepped close to the bars and gripped one in each hand.

“I’m sorry, Nut.”

The vagrant shifted just enough to look at him through a tangle of gray hair, his face rutted with new wrinkles, his eyes beyond bloodshot. “Ain’t your fault.”

Liam glanced up and down the hallway. “What the hell were you doing with that man’s necklace?”

Nut glowered further, and he began to resemble an aging hound dog. “I took it from around his neck. Looked like something I could hock at the local pawn. Didn’t think about it.”

Liam opened his mouth to cuss at the man but realized there was no point. The vagrant was lower than a well digger’s shoes. Why should he make him feel worse? The question that came out of his mouth next surprised him. “What’s your real name?”

Nut looked up at him, the sallow skin around his eyes pulling tighter. He blinked, as if trying to remember. “Perry. Perry Collins.”

Liam nodded. “Why do they call you Nut?”

“’Cause I love Skippy.”

Liam smiled wanly at the joke. Nut sighed and hoisted himself off the cot. He turned and looked out of the window in his cell, which was no more than six inches square.

“Had a family when I was very young. Wife, boy, and girl. Had a little place out on a county road not too far from town. It wasn’t much, but we were happy.” Nut swayed as if he was still intoxicated, but Liam wondered if it wasn’t the power of the memory throwing him off balance. “Used to smoke, couple packs a day. Jeanie tried to get me to quit so many times I lost track. Loved her, but I guess the old nicotine was a little too much for me to give up. I fell asleep in my chair one night, smoking in front of the TV. Woke up in the hospital with my lungs on fire. My hair was gone, and they had to take one of my toes on my left foot since it was so badly burned.”

Nut turned to Liam, and he saw the desolation on the older man’s face. This was where Nut lived most of his days, in his mind, waiting for the booze to file the edges off the pain.

“They burned away in the fire, my sweet babies and my beautiful wife. They died because of me. And the firemen told me that they died of smoke inhalation, never felt the flames that turned them to ash. But I know they were lying—I could see it in their faces.” Nut lowered his eyes to the floor and shuffled back to the cot and sat. “I know because I heard them screaming. Can still hear them.”

Liam closed his eyes. “My God. I’m so sorry.”

Nut nodded. “So they call me crazy, and for a while I was, till I learned to self-medicate when the memories and guilt get too strong.” He p
ressed the heel of one hand to each eye, squashing the tears out of existence. “I didn’t mention your name, if that’s what you came here for. I threw the phone I used to call you in a pile of trash when I saw they were coming to get me.”

“Thank you. I’m going to get you out of here, Perry. They will not hang this on you.”

Nut raised his freshly reddened eyes to meet Liam’s. “They got me, son. I have no alibi, even if I mentioned I was helpin’ you.”

Liam knelt at the edge of the cell, crossing his arms on the inside of the bars. “If I said the word
monster
to you, would that mean anything?”

Nut squinted, working his jaw up and down for a few seconds, as if chewing on something. “What do you mean?”

“The Shevlin kid, in his phone call to 911, he said, ‘A monster is killing my parents.’ ” Liam pulled himself closer to the bars and lowered his voice further. “This morning I went to the foundry and chased two people into the woods. I caught a glimpse of one of them through the trees, and he looked . . . strange.”

“Strange how?” Nut asked.

Liam ferreted in his memory for the image.
The forest’s undergrowth concealed the figure except for the general shape, its head oblong, its back twisted and humped.

“He looked deformed.” Liam watched Nut and saw him weigh something out in his mind. “What is it?”

“People see things from time to time,” Nut said in a voice so quiet Liam could barely hear it. “Just talk mostly, of something in the woods. A few hunters have mentioned that they feel like they’re being watched, some see something moving through the forest, but no one’s ever gotten a clear look.” Nut paused, brushing away the coarse hair from his face, and stared at Liam.

“Go on, I believe you,” Liam urged.

“In the toughest winters, more pets go missing than usual. Cats, dogs, and whatnot. About five years ago, an acquaintance of mine from the shelter disappeared one night. We went looking for him at a little lean-to that he’d built down on the river’s edge. It was empty, but there was a set of footprints leading away from it across the river. The guys I was with said he musta got drunk and walked the wrong direction, got lost, and either broke through the ice and drowned or wandered off into the woods and froze.” Nut slid to the closest end of the bench. Liam smelled the reek of old booze and sweat coming from the man. “But I saw those footprints leading away through the snow. They were too big for the man we were looking for, and too deep, like whoever made them was carrying something heavy.”

Barnes’s door opened with a creak, and Liam jerked away from the bars in spite of himself. The sheriff leaned into the hallway.

“You need to get going.”

Liam raised his chin once in acknowledgment before looking again at Nut. “I promise, I’ll get you out of here.”

Without waiting for a reply, Liam stood and made his way down the corridor, leaving Nut to stare after him from the confines of the cell.

“This isn’t good,” Dani said, setting down her fork. Her Greek salad sat before her partially eaten, along with an almost-empty glass of red wine.

Liam nodded from across the small table they shared, which overlooked the flowing river. He turned his beer bottle in slow circles as he looked across the water toward the deepening shadows that hung within the trees on the far shore. His attempt at eating a cheeseburger lay on his plate with only a few bites missing.

“What are we going to do?” Dani asked.

Liam glanced at her and then returned his gaze to the trees. “I still want you to leave town.”

“We went over this already, I’m not going anywhere.”

“I don’t want you implicated in this thing, and I’m a hair from being pulled into the meat grinder myself. I’ll be lucky if I get out of this unscathed.”

“God, you’re stubborn.”

“Really? I could say the same thing about you.”

“I mean it.”

“Me too.”

“You’re impossible.”

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “My dad used to say the same thing.”

“Well, he was right. Anyway, don’t you think something at Haines’s house will exonerate Nut? Some kind of forensic evidence?”

Liam considered it. “If the killers were sloppy enough to leave a trace, yes. But I doubt they did. My guess is they came inside, hacked his hand off, and then tortured him. Then they dragged him outside and carried him the half mile or so to the spot where he was found.”

Dani shivered. “That’s bold.”

“Bold with balls on it,” Liam said, then glanced at Dani. Her expression looked caught between dismay and laughter. “Sorry,” he said. “Old saying of my dad’s—it just slips out sometimes.”

“He was really special to you, wasn’t he?”

Liam nodded. “He was the kindest, smartest man I ever knew. There’s a weird hole left when one of your parents dies. I think it’s the fact that you’re always trying to live up to their expectations, whether good or bad, and when they’re gone, you realize you’re truly on your own. There’s no one else to answer to.”

They were quiet for a long time before Dani broke the silence. “I’m sorry that the three of you weren’t closer.”

“Me too.” Liam sipped his beer and stared at a formation of geese paddling soundlessly in the current. “I always hoped that the rift would close. I didn’t know how to fix it since I couldn’t bring my mom back, and I think that’s the only thing that might’ve made a difference. Allen was an adult by the time I realized he hated me, and what could I do? Everything was set in stone already. He was my big brother, and I was his worst enemy.”

“That’s not fair.”

Liam laughed without humor. “With family, it never is.”

Dani made as if to say something further, but stopped and pushed a piece of lamb around her plate instead. The sun glittered once more across the water before making its exit for the evening behind the serrated horizon of treetops. They paid for dinner and left the little restaurant, riding in silence to Dani’s hotel. When Liam parked beneath the awning and turned to say good night, she surprised him by touching his hand, her eyes searching his face in the twilight.