Even In Darkness--An American Murder Mystery Thriller (28 page)

Leo is swept away by the kaleidoscope of smells and the feel of sandy soil and dry leaves on the pads of his feet. He is torn between guard duty, the need to keep me in sight, and the puppy inside who wants to run.

Leo carries a saddlebag style dog pack strapped to his belly. I have tucked two flashlights, my cell phone, dog treats and water bottles in the pockets of the pack. It only occurs to me now, as he bounces ahead on the trail, to worry about what might happen if he wanders into a creek.

I am no longer shivering inside my hooded pullover as the climb warms me up. Leo, a cold weather dog, is tireless on the path ahead of me and wanders on the trailside, following his nose.

I do not want to think. I focus on the crumble and crunch of dead, dry leaves, the reddish soil, the trees. My stomach pulses with nervous flutters. I long for this night to be over, and to return to the comforts of my new home. I picture myself curled up on the couch with Hal, fire logs glowing, Leo and Hal's dog Cindy Lou stretched out beneath our feet.

Leo and I arrive, at last, at the base of the arch, and pass through a narrow section between two sheer walls before we make the final ascent. The bridge is a natural sandstone arch, seventy-five feet long and sixty-five feet high, and there is always a wind blowing when you stand at the top. As claustrophobic as I am, I dread high places more. I watch Leo anxiously, relieved but not surprised to find him surefooted and unafraid.

I hesitate before I step out on the bridge, feeling the wind that blows the hair gently from my face. I am early, but Harvey is waiting.

He stands on the opposite side and lifts a hand to acknowledge my presence. I can see from here that he is leaner by a handful of pounds, comfortable in worn blue jeans and hiking boots. He wears a thin, high-necked black sweater beneath a powder blue denim shirt that hangs tails out, unbuttoned down the front.

I walk out with little stops and starts of hesitation, and he meets me halfway across. His eyes light up as soon as he sees me up close, and for just a moment I know him as Goodwin, the man who understands everything I've been going through, who will help to keep my granddaughter safe. I gut the feeling the minute it comes, reminding myself it is camouflage. I look for the tell-tale nictitating membrane, the predator who lurks in his eyes.

‘Hello, Joy.'

‘Mr Harvey.' My throat is quite dry.

‘Thank you for trusting me enough to come up here tonight.' He holds a hand out to Leo, who studies him with eerie shepherd focus and no inclination to make friends.

‘I'd like to know about the picture you left.'

Harvey nods. ‘It's the kind of thing you have to talk about face to face. And I wanted to make sure we could talk without interruptions from people like Russell Woods.' He tilts his head, smiling. ‘And, to be completely honest, I just wanted to see you. I feel better when I'm around you, Joy. Like I'm homesick, and you're the home.'

I wonder if this is part of the manipulation, another layer in the role he plays. And yet, haven't I wanted the exact same thing? To be like I was before Carl died? To be free of the things I have done?

‘Home for a killer is nothing less than who you used to be and can never be again. We both know that, I'm afraid.'

‘I wouldn't put
you
in that category, Joy.'

I sit carefully in the center of the bridge. ‘Do you mind if we sit? I feel nervous standing out here in the dark.'

Harvey smiles from the side of his mouth and settles about two feet away. Leo stays on his feet watching Harvey, no more than an inch from my back.

‘So tell me, Mr Harvey. What magic wisdom is it you expect me to have?'

Harvey gives me a puzzled look, as if I haven't quite caught on. I turn away and watch the final flare of the sun, the way the sky goes purple, then pink. It is almost like a fountain of fireworks, sunset at the top of the mountain. It flares intensely for a handful of moments, then drains like lightning into clouds. An instant ago the sky was washed in color; now it is full-on dark.

‘Tell me, Joy. The truth, please.'

It is mesmerizing the way Harvey looks at me, how casually he sits, how utterly relaxed. And the thing I look for passes over his eyes, giving me a glimpse into the lion, the serial killer, the predator at my side. I feel my fingers trembling, the beginnings of sweat.

‘You kept it up, after Carl died. The ministry, your faith. But then when Joey died, you stopped. Did everything turn upside down when your husband died? Did the murder of your son just finish the job?'

‘Are you really looking for redemption, Mr Harvey, or are you wanting validation instead?'

The tiniest frown shows in two groove-like wrinkles over the bridge of Harvey's nose. He runs a thumb along the edge of his teeth. ‘Would you say it's true that God is responsible for evil, if God is responsible for me? Isn't it possible that Dr Goodwin's theory is correct and I'm nothing more than an apex predator, fulfilling the necessary destiny of the bad?'

I rub my forehead. ‘The laws of balance hold that your capacity for bad is matched by your capacity for good, and it's simply a choice you make.'

He laughs explosively. ‘Are you saying I've got the makings of a saint?' After a while his smile fades and he tilts his head. ‘Expert opinion holds that my brain is abnormal. Which means I
don't
have a choice.'

‘Scientists and priests are dangerous, Mr Harvey. I have a book for you to read. Written by someone who's not only trained in psychology, but someone who's been in the mess.'

I unzip the left saddlebag of Leo's pack and hand the book to Harvey.

He holds it close in the dark. ‘
Man's Search for Meaning
.'

‘Written by Viktor Frankl,' I say. ‘Like I said, he was a psychiatrist. He also survived the Nazi death camps. There's a section in there I've marked. The story of a certain Dr J., also known as the mass murderer of Steinhof.'

‘My kind of guy?'

‘Just listen. He was on staff then, in the largest mental hospital in Vienna. His job was to carry out the Nazi euthanasia program, the
final solution
, as they used to say. And he was a fanatic. No mercy. He personally made sure that every single psychotic patient was gassed. After the war, he was snatched up by the Russians. They put him in the Lubyanka – a notorious prison in Moscow.'

Harvey is watching me as if he is memorizing every word I say.

‘And there,' I continue, ‘he was a model prisoner. Moral, kind, caring toward all the other prisoners, a good man from that time forward until the day that he died.'

‘And the moral of this story?' Harvey says.

‘He changed. He had practiced evil. He then chose good. It's proof for you, Mr Harvey. Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant. You are not the victim of your genetics. You have a choice.'

His eyes narrow. He is considering.

‘One more question, Joy. I know that when you talked to Cletus that day in Wal-Mart, he told you he and your husband were supposed to meet up here on the bridge. That's where he'd arranged to get the final payoff. Scheduled for the night after you were supposed to be killed. I know your husband supposedly committed suicide that same night, jumping off this bridge. But what I want to know is what happened that night. I understand how personal my question is. But I'm curious to find out how much you might be like me after all.'

I wonder what I should tell him. I decide upon the truth.

‘T
he night I was supposed to be killed, as you say, I didn't go home. I took Joey to a friend's house, made sure she understood he was to stay there till I got in touch and that he was not under any circumstances to go to school or to call his dad. And me? I headed straight up here, to the bridge.'

‘To kill your husband,' Harvey says.

I shake my head. ‘To find out if it was really true. That he'd hired a hit man to kill me. That's what things were like in my world back then, Mr Harvey. I had trouble believing, no matter how much evidence there was, that my husband would pay for my death.'

He studies me. ‘So you laid low that first night, so he would think that Cletus did the job, and you were dead.'

‘Exactly. I was here, at the lodge, the night I was supposed to be killed. I drove up while Carl was busy establishing his alibi, moving boxes with his good friend, George. It took me almost four hours to get here. It was a dark drive, once I got off the Interstate, and there was nowhere it looked safe to stop and ask for directions. I'd been here before, but it had been years, and I couldn't remember all the turnoffs. By the time I made it to the lodge that night, it was already after midnight.

‘There was no one behind the desk when I walked in the lobby. It was the middle of the week, the off-season, fall heading into winter. There were only three other cars in the lot. I remember thinking about the last time Carl and I had been up here. Joey was only eighteen months old, and we took a long weekend in early June.

‘When the desk clerk finally showed up, he apologized for keeping me waiting and said if I wanted to pay a little extra he could get me a room with a view. I gave him cash and registered under the name Cindy Farmer – a girl in my kindergarten class, my best friend. Her name just popped into my head. Because I was afraid that if the story Cletus told me really was true, and Carl was coming, he might ask for a room. I didn't want the clerk asking him if he was with the other Miller who had registered the night before, or noticing that we were using the same credit card account.

‘The next morning I hid my car in a parking lot at the bottom of the mountain. My plan was to hide somewhere up near the bridge, where I could watch and see if Carl actually came. I wasn't going to say anything or try and confront him. I just wanted to know if Purcell's story was true.

‘Carl was never a punctual person, but I figured if he was meeting someone like a hit man, he might actually be on time. I left the lodge at five p.m. and started up the trail. I'd forgotten how steep it was. I hadn't been hiking in years, and my knees were aching halfway through the climb. And I didn't have any socks. I meant to bring some, but I was a mess that night I left the house. I didn't even have a jacket. Just my good blazer, the one that went with the skirt I'd worn the night before.

‘When I got to the top of the bridge, I hid behind that boulder where you were standing tonight, on the other side. It's a perfect place to wait, as I'm sure you already know. By the time I got settled, it was already starting to get dark. I looked out over the mountain watching the sun go down, just like I did tonight.

‘I heard him before I saw him, the slide of stones on the path, footsteps on the rocks. I was huddled down low, looking out from behind the boulder, and the first thing I saw was Carl's boots. I recognized them. And that's when I knew for sure it was true. He'd really wanted to have me killed. He was carrying a backpack. He'd brought the money.

‘He kept looking over his shoulder, and from side to side, sometimes even in my direction. A couple of times I thought he'd seen me, then I realized he was just scared. He looked down over the trail behind him a couple of times, then started to come across the bridge.'

I exhale a long slow breath. It is so dark I can barely make out the edges of Harvey's face. Leo is sitting now, but I can feel his tension and his warmth at my back.

‘All day, alone in my room, I thought that if I actually saw Carl up here, and knew without a shred of doubt that he'd hired someone to kill me, I would fall completely apart.'

‘It wasn't like that, though, was it?' Harvey says.

‘Just the opposite. Not knowing for sure was the worst of it. Once there was no doubt at all that Carl had actually done it, that he'd set me and our son up to die, that life as I knew it was over – it was powerful, in a weird kind of way.

‘So I watched him. Wondering how long it would take him to realize that Purcell wasn't coming. I had this overwhelming urge to talk to him. I just wanted to know if he'd ever really loved me. To know how it could come to this. To know why.'

‘You talked to him?' Harvey says. ‘That was a mistake.'

‘A big one. I should have waited until he left. I should never have let him know I was there. He was a few feet away from my hiding place, still out on the bridge, when I stood up. He sees me immediately, of course, and freezes.

‘“No, Carl,” I said. “I'm not a ghost.”

‘It was so mundane. I'm dusting off the seat of my jeans, and he's just standing there, with his mouth open. So I walk toward him, out on to the bridge.

‘“Joy?” He calls my name out, sounding incredulous. His voice drops off at the end. Just for one quick second I wonder if I hear relief. Maybe once Carl thought that I was really dead he had regrets. But no, I tell myself. That's called denial. Time for me to be smart. I had Joey to look out for. I couldn't forget about Joey. Carl would have let him die.

‘“Aren't you going to say hello?” I ask him.

‘“What are you doing up here? Where have you been? I've been worried sick about you.”

‘“Really, Carl? Did you call the police? Report me missing?”

‘“I called … friends.”

‘“What did you tell them?”

‘“Just that we'd had a fight, and I was worried about you.”

‘“But we didn't have a fight, Carl. Did we?” He seemed afraid of me. I liked the way that felt.

‘“What are you doing here, Joy?”

‘“The question is what are
you
doing here, Carl?”

‘He shrugged the backpack off his shoulders and let it rest at his feet.

‘“Eleven thousand three hundred dollars in cash is heavy, isn't it?” I said.

‘After that we were both quiet. There wasn't any sound up there but the wind.