Even In Darkness--An American Murder Mystery Thriller (27 page)

‘Yes, that's true.'

‘Mommy says one day Daddy scared her so bad they had a big fight and Daddy got dead.'

I wait for her to ask me the details of
how
her father got dead, but she doesn't. Perhaps she's not ready to know.

‘She says she feels sad about what happened, and sometimes she thinks it's all her fault. Do you think it was Mommy's fault, Nina? Are you mad at her because Daddy died?'

I pick Andee up and settle her on my hip. She'll be too big for me to lift by this time next year, but for now she is even lighter than she was last summer. Those were long days in the cave.

‘No, Andee, I was never mad at your mother. Your Daddy had troubles in his heart, but he was in charge of how he acted. Do you understand what I mean?'

‘You mean it was Daddy's fault.'

I have to smile. Nuances and seven-year-olds never mix.

‘Mommy's boyfriend is coming to pick us up.' She looks at me intently. ‘His name is Sanderson. Do you mind, Nina?'

‘Not if he's a good driver.'

‘Do you think Daddy minds?'

‘I think he wants you and your mom to be happy.'

‘How do you know?'

‘Because I'm a wise old lady.'

Andee nuzzles her head in my shoulder, combining affection and practicality by wiping her nose on my sweater. ‘You're not
old
, Nina. Not creepy old. You'll be fine if you stay out of caves.'

‘From your mouth to God's ear, little darlin'.'

T
he rain is falling in fat-bellied drops and brings in a whinge of chill. There are lights on inside my home, and I know exactly which ones – the faux twenties floor lamp beside the corner book case, and the Tiffany ceiling fixture in the hall. I manage the lights in sequence, changing the pattern every four days. Yesterday was the last day for the kitchen.

It is not the casual intruder that has me worried, of course. It is Reginald Harvey, who never came out of the cave, not to the knowledge of the FBI. Certain eager members of the SWAT team shed their padding and made their way through the labyrinth, thinking Harvey went back out of the chamber the way he came in. They found a place where the passage forked, but of Harvey himself, there was no sign.

The light behind the shutters of my windows beckons. Hearth, home and safety. I will turn on the fireplace and sit with Leo in my Beatrix Potter bungalow, which I own outright with the money from the insurance settlement on my house. My new home is long on charm and short on maintenance and needs a lot of work, but was amazingly inexpensive. Real estate prices are a bargain in this small Kentucky town where I live now.

There is a good regional university nearby, and I teach classes in comparative religion, part time. My students are bright and curious, some of them hard-working, and it's a pleasure to watch them find their way.

As is usual in old houses, there is a particular knack to getting the key to turn the lock. I have to twist, then pull the knob toward me and hold my mouth just so. Leo is in his bed by the fireplace, ears back, and waits for me to call him to my side.

My phone rings. Calls from numbers I don't recognize make me nervous, but a lot of things make me nervous these days. And this is a number I know by heart.

‘Home safe?' Hal asks me.

‘Yes. Let me set my stuff down. Hold on.'

I leave my purse and the book I've been reading on a drop-leaf table just like the one that Caroline has. I found it two weeks ago while out antiquing and I've tucked it beneath the windows. It is usually covered in stacks of mail, but is handy for those rare occasions when Hal and I sit indoors instead of out on the porch.

‘Listen, Joy, my rotation's been changed. I go off at midnight tomorrow. How about Sunday morning breakfast? I'll pick you up at nine, unless you want to sleep late, in which case we'll make it ten. Do you mind if I pack a bag? I've got a few days off. Save me the long drive back.'

‘I'll clear out a drawer.'

‘Let's bump it up a little. I'm ready for a two drawer commitment.'

I ring off, smiling, and Leo follows me into the kitchen. I fill his water bowl, which is bone dry. Leo brings me a tennis ball and I toss it absently, wondering if my favorite black sweater is clean, making grocery lists in my head. Leo dashes back into the kitchen with the tennis ball and drops it into the bowl of fresh water before he takes a drink.

I fill the tea kettle and light the gas stovetop, and it isn't till I'm rummaging for tea bags that I see a puddle of dried yellow liquid on the floor. There are snout marks on the window and I see that Leo's toenails have made new inroads into the freshly painted kitchen door.

I peer out through the shutters, which are mounted slightly crookedly, discount ones I've installed myself. There is something taped to the window of my kitchen door.

The FBI is no longer looking over my shoulder, so I don't have to worry about fingerprints and forensics. Leo butts my leg with his head, trying to get out on the little porch, while I peel a familiar brown envelope off the glass.

Moths circle the base of the porch light and I look up and down my quiet street. People are home from work now, many of them eating dinner. There is light in my neighbors' windows, a glow from the living rooms and kitchens. Their cars are tucked into driveways and little detached one car garages. Little orange carts crammed with paper and plastic are out on the curb. My neighborhood is prone to recycling, and most of us are environmentally correct.

Nothing looks out of place. I see no signs of the predator.

I close the shutters and lock the door. Prop myself against the wall. I have no way of knowing if Reginald Harvey is watching, but I feel his eyes at my back. Even as I pull the flap open on the envelope, tearing it as I go, I can feel the stiffness of a photograph.

I don't want to do this. I don't want to look at this picture and go back to the bad places inside my head.

I put the envelope on the counter top. I give Leo his nightly ration. I tell him what a good guard dog he is and pat him on the head.

The publicity from the kidnapping has only just blown over. There is still an avalanche of photographs on the Internet and in the newspapers, showing the outside of the cave and the RV. The articles themselves have died down, news stories obsessed with details. The mattresses with pillow top cushioning and memory foam where Caro and Andee slept. The shower stall with a wide angle water head that gave the illusion of standing in a rainstorm, though that was due more to a lack of water pressure than particular design intent. There were estimates of the initial price of the RV, though these were only guesses. The owner of the RV has been blessedly reclusive and uncooperative. But even with imprecise figures, it is clear it was more expensive than my little house.

A newspaper in England offered a large sum of money for an RV tour and unlimited photographs, and Caro and I were relieved when the request was refused. Some details are too personal for the world to chew over. The thought of strangers pawing through our private moments once again is almost too much to bear.

The next wave of attention was predictable. An onslaught of congratulatory editorials and opinion blogs that sang the praises of everyone involved for standing up to the appetite of the media, thwarting the kidnappers' hunger for attention. In truth, neither Harvey nor Purcell seemed to crave the limelight, preferring to go about their twists and turns in the shadows and the dark. I believe that if anything could turn Harvey worse, it would be a breaking story of his search for redemption and inner peace.

I turn off the tea kettle, and reach instead for the wine. I give Leo a rawhide bone, turn the gas logs in the fireplace to low flame. I take the envelope and a file from my office and Leo and I settle companionably, me tucked up on the couch, Leo at my feet.

The file arrived via e-mail, sent at three in the morning the day after Cletus Purcell was killed and Reginald Harvey disappeared in the cave. According to the e-mail address it came from the
real
Dr Goodwin.

I take a sip of wine and set my glass aside.

Dr Goodwin wrote in something of a hurry. I get the impression of a man of intelligence, masculine sensitivity and a careful integrity that compelled him to send me information, though his mind was on other things.

There are two pictures in the file, saved to JPEG format as promised, which I have no problem downloading or opening. The first is from a police file and shows Harvey's mother curled sideways, her head half on and half off a braided wool rug. Her facial features are a blur of caked blood and displaced flesh. She wears a dress of French blue, belted, with large covered buttons down the front. The third button has been ripped away, and the dress is a color wheel of blue and the red brown of dried blood. A heart-shaped locket hangs sideways from her neck. One long narrow foot is bare, the other half in and half out of a black, embroidered shoe. Her hands look delicate, fingers slim. The ring finger of her left hand, encircled by a thin gold band, has been bent backward and broken. Though it is hard to tell from just a photograph, there is no clear sign of swelling. My guess is she died within moments of the break.

It is the second picture, a happy moment with baby Harvey, that makes me gasp out loud.

Harvey's mother is wearing the same blue dress she died in, though here it is crisp and freshly ironed. She is smiling and shielding her eyes from the sun. She balances Harvey on her left hip. He is just round enough to be cuddly. He has been tucked into a long-sleeved white tee shirt that snaps at the shoulder, and matching little overalls made of the same blue material as his mother's dress. He squints in the sunlight, smiling like he has just been tickled, a wide open, pink-gummed grin.

It is his mother who draws my gaze. His mother, who looks enough like me that she could have been my twin.

A second e-mail from Goodwin says he believes the uncanny resemblance between myself and Harvey's mother at the time of her death is what triggered Harvey's obsession, and made sense of his need to come to me for absolution.

I have e-mailed Goodwin with my questions. I'd like more detail on this line of thought. Goodwin has yet to respond. I wonder if Harvey is privy to our communication. I wonder if he lurks over our shoulders, aware of every message we send.

In the end, it is not Goodwin's insight that connects the dots.

There is one picture in the envelope Harvey left taped to the window of my kitchen door. Along with a slip of yellow notepaper, torn from a legal pad, written in the familiar green ink.

The note is taped to the picture, and I peel it away.

My fingers tremble. I take slow, deliberate breaths. Leo materializes at my elbow and nudges me with his bucket-sized head.

A minute ago the idea of meeting Harvey would have been ludicrous, as inevitable as it suddenly seems. It is the picture that convinces me. We will have to meet.

And what, exactly, will I tell him? That we live in a dark and wounded world? That the nature of sin is tied to the nature of life, and I'll have to get back to him later when I figure out how?

I press the picture to my heart. Leo snuffles the tears on my face.

‘Look, Leo. See this? The pregnant lady is Reginald Harvey's mother. And that sturdy little three-year-old with the big smile? That's Harvey before his life went bad. And that pretty lady? The one holding Harvey's hand and smiling so radiantly? That's my mother. Look how young she is. How happy.'

Leo tries to lick the picture and I pull it away. ‘We should go to bed,' I tell him. ‘Tomorrow's going to be a long day.'

I fill my glass full of the wine, hoping it will help me sleep.

T
here is little light left in these late afternoons, before the darkness falls. The sun goes down early in November, and December is a mere two days away. So much is in my mind as I climb the familiar steep path up to Natural Bridge. I was raised in Kentucky, and like most who grew up here, I've walked this trail before – with my parents, with Marsha, Aunt Cee and Uncle Don, with my first love from high school, with Joey, my son.