Dark Corners READY FOR PRC (13 page)

“Hello,” I said, my voice cracking.

I was met with silence.

“Hello,” I said again.

The person on the other end still said nothing, though I could hear breathing.  A creaking noise from upstairs cracked the silence like a thunder.

All my original fear came rushing back. I tore the front door open to find a person standing in the frame. My body seized, my legs stopped moving. I couldn’t even scream. I tumbled backwards, but even once sprawled on the floor I continued to push away from the door in full survival mode.

“What’re you doin,’ girlie?”

Mr. Sexton stood shadowed in the doorway. Sexton! I had no idea what to say to him. He looked like hadn’t showered in weeks and smelled worse. I struggled to calm my breathing.  He stared at me, but did not come any closer or say anything further. I scrambled to my feet in case he decided to rush at me.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Heard something.” He craned his neck to look around the door frame.

“Well, you’re trespassing and it’s late, I mean, early. You should go home.”

Mr. Sexton walked away mumbling. The only thing that I made out clearly was his favorite insult, “Bitch.” I shut the door, no longer wanting to go outside. I looked up the stairs and knew I didn’t want to be inside either. I was running out of options and had no idea what to do. I picked up my cell phone from the floor and dialed Gabriel.

His voice was raspy and muted when he answered. The full realization of the time struck me; it wasn't even 5am. Immediately, I regretted calling him. I started with an apology then briefly ran through what happened. I tried not to exaggerate or underplay it. I just told him the facts. I wasn't sure what I exactly expected from him, but he was suddenly alert and taking charge, which made me feel the tiniest bit safer.

“Lock yourself in your bedroom.  I’ll be there in moments.”

I did as he said without argument.

The next few minutes seemed liked years. Every sound, no matter how familiar it should have been, seemed terrible and foreign. My skin crawled with anxiety and my stomach churned. When my bedroom’s doorknob jiggled, I yelped, almost keeling over from sheer nerves. Then I heard Gabriel’s voice come softly through.

“Which room?”

“I’ll show you,” I said opening the door.

“Just point.”

“There’s no way I’m staying here any longer.” I stepped out of my room and pointed down the hallway. We quietly walked toward the master bedroom. Gabriel listened for a moment then did something I couldn’t do. . . . He turned the handle. My disappointment showed, despite my best efforts. There was nothing there. The room looked just as it had the morning Danny died, except it was very cold.

I couldn’t remember whether the window was partially open that morning and had therefore been open for a year, or if this was something new. Gabriel found small scratches on the door and the wall near the window. He studied the window for a few minutes. He searched the room for a bandit animal that could have made its way into the house. I couldn’t get past the bed.  I wondered if it still smelled like him. The memory of his smell was fading; I wanted to collapse on the bed and inhale deeply.

Gabriel didn’t find the animal, but, with effort, he was able to shut the window. He said something, but whatever it was didn’t register through the fog I was falling into. Eventually, he took my arm and led me out of the room, securely closing the door behind him. He searched the rest of the house, while I sunk to the floor in the hallway, my head resting on my knees. What had I expected to find?  The killer?  The ghost? Stupid, stupid me. I should have known better
.

In the midst of wallowing in my new surge of pain and guilt, Gabriel came back.

“I didn’t find anything.”

“I’m sorry.” I felt miserable. I wanted to scream, shout, cry. Maybe Susan was right.  Maybe I should consider the hospital.

“Did you see someone walk past the door?”

“I think so.” I now doubted everything. I just didn't know anymore.

“I believe you.”

The words I’d been waiting to hear for so long almost brought tears to my eyes. “Don’t humor me. I don’t even believe me.”

“Ella, I have looked through this house more times than I can count, including just a few hours ago.  That window wasn’t open. So unless you went in there . . .”

I shook my head.

“I think you need to get out of the house. Why don’t you leave? You could live anywhere, why stay?”

“I can’t leave until it’s over. I
need
to know what happened.”

He looked empathetic. “You could leave for a couple days at least. Get some sleep, come back with a new perspective.”

“But I’m afraid,” I wasn't sure how to express myself so he would understand, “afraid if I leave I may never come back.”

“Okay then.”  He nodded. “Well, at the very least I think you owe me breakfast for getting me out of bed this damn early.”

I tried to smile. “I suppose I do.”

“Let’s go. Do you want me to speak to your neighbor before we leave?”

“No. It won't do any good. Honestly it will probably make him hate me more. He's a misogynist and I doubt he has any respect for authority, I think the best thing to do is to ignore him. Give me a minute to get ready.” Gabriel went downstairs while I dressed. We left the house as the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon.

Being out of my routine was refreshing. I felt different, less like a prisoner in my life and more like I had some control. We went to a small café on the outskirts of town. The pressure I normally felt in public was mysteriously missing. Detective Troy twirled a straw in his fingers across the table from me and I found myself studying him.

I’d seen him a thousand times, but never truly looked at him.  It was impossible to place how old he was. He looked as tired as I felt, but he was still handsome, a bit worn looking with his unshaven face and dark hair slightly graying along his temples. His face was lean with intense brown eyes that somehow managed to be both kind and probing. A tattoo on his wrist peeked out from underneath his shirtsleeve, which made me think he was a bit wild at one time too.

“Force of habit,” he said sitting the straw back on the table.

“What?” I asked.

“Fidgeting. It clears my head.”

“Oh.”

“That's not why you were staring at me is it?”

“Sorry, I was thinking.”

“Don't hurt yourself,” he said with a hint of a smile.

“Why was the window open?”

“Excuse me?”

“In Danny’s room? Why was the window open?”

“I don’t know.”

“You said there was no sign of forced entry. Could someone have come through the window? Was the window open that night?”

“The window is on the second floor.  There’d be no way to get there without a ladder. Someone surely would’ve seen it.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“There were no prints on the window except Danny’s and yours. There was no sign of forced entry on the screen. I don’t think it’s very likely.”

“So the window was open that night?”

“Yes.” A frown creased his forehead.

I nodded, no longer wanting to talk about Danny. “So, detective, do you have a family I’m dragging you away from?” 

“No, I was married once, but it isn’t a good fit with the job.”

“What happened?” I asked before it occurred to me just how personal that was. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“Not at all. My job took over a lot of my life. I hadn’t learned how to make room for her and the job, so she took the back burner. The more I saw the worse it got until we were two strangers who once knew each other.”

“I find it hard to believe you saw a lot happening in
Montgomery
.”

“I was in Chicago. I transferred up here around year ago. Your husband was my first case.”

I hadn't realized Gabriel wasn't from Montgomery either. No wonder it was easier to be around him. “Rough start.”

“I had more experience than the other detective with homicides,” he said with a shrug, but he didn’t really seem comfortable talking about this aspect of his job.

“And why did you choose Montgomery?”

“My grandparents live here. They’re getting older and someone should be nearby. I also needed a change. The job was eating away at me and it was time to take a step back. I was in vice and just finished a lengthy undercover op.  It was as good a time as any to leave. A now or never sort of deal.”

“Is that where you got the tattoo?”

Gabriel tugged on his sleeve self-consciously so the tattoo was no longer visible “Ah, yes, this . . . a souvenir from another life. Maybe you should've been a detective.”

“Right, ‘cause that would suit me so well. It’s much better to write about murders and detectives than it is to live it. Besides, I’m crazy. I’d never pass the psych profile.”

He laughed, took a mouthful of coffee.  “I’ve met some seriously disturbed people in my life. If you’re insane, you’re the most lucid ‘crazy’ person I’ve met.”

“Well, we come in all shapes and sizes. Straightjackets don't discriminate.”

“Do you really think that way about yourself?” Detective Troy asked.

His question threw me off slightly. “Sometimes, maybe not . . . I really don’t know anymore.”

“Sometimes we all feel like that.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve had my fair share of those moments.”

“You have,” he said.  “It will get better, you know.”

“Detective Troy, I would've never pegged you as an optimist.”

Gabriel smiled as if no one had ever accused him of such a thing, and looked down at his hands uncomfortably. Awkward silence filled the space between us until I broke it.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Do whatever gets you by, and hope for a good outcome.”

“I think I lost my faith along with everything else.”

This new revelation hit me like a sledgehammer, just one more setback to add to the list. Gabriel reached over and touched my hand, jolting me back into reality.  I pulled my hands off the table before I even looked up.

“I’m sorry.” I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye as I pretended to inspect the cafe. “It’s a reflex. I know I brought it up, but can we stop talking about me?”

Detective Troy looked at me steadily with the kind eyes I was beginning to become accustomed to seeing.  “Of course.”

“How long were you married?”

“Eleven years.”

I raised my eyebrow hoping to encourage him to dig deeper.

“We were young, met while I was a beat cop. Got married too quickly.  Rebecca constantly worried about me when I was at work, which was all the time. My career moved along almost too well; I was promoted to detective quickly. I couldn’t see how unhappy she was being alone so much. I was gone for a long periods at time and didn’t know how to deal with what I seeing day in and day out. I shut myself off to protect her. It shouldn’t have been shocking when she left me.”