Walk in Darkness - A Thriller (Jon Stanton Mysteries) (18 page)

Calvin flipped on the safelight and saw the twenty or so photos that were hanging by small clips from the shower curtain rod. They were of a young blond girl, spanning from photos of her outside to ones of her sitting in her classroom taken with a zoom lens across the street, to photos of her sleeping in her bed, the leaves from the tree in their yard visible on the periphery of the photo.

The darkroom was something from the 1980’s and Calvin had been debating whether to go digital. But there was something about it, about the alcohol-like smell, the heat, and the solitude, that he didn’t want to give up just yet.

At the end of the line of photos was his favorite.
One taken from inside her house when her parents had forgotten to set the alarm.

He had almost brought her here that night, but decided against it. Impulsiveness was detrimental in his work and he tried his best never to give in to it.

He took down one of the photos and stared at it a long time before replacing it. Soon, he wouldn’t need these photos anymore because she would be here with him and they would finally be together, as he knew they were meant to be.

37

It had been two days since Jonathan Stanton had left the force and he had to admit to himself that he’d never felt better. His lawyer called several times about prepping him for the deposition, but that had been rescheduled to three weeks from now because Gary Coop had a family emergency, so the prepping could wait.

Stanton walked to the beach from his apartment and lay in the sand for a while before going out on the waves. They were decent but not large and he rode them for a little over an hour before going back
to the beach and waiting for a better set.

He saw a young man struggling on his board off in the distance. He would paddle out too far and come back too slow. Several times he fell off his board and then sat in the water hugging it, trying to catch his breath. He finally got to shore and then collapsed on the sand near Stanton.

“You’re going out too far,” Stanton said.

“I am?” he said, out of breath.

“See where those guys are? That’s about as far as you wanna go. And look how slowly they’re paddling. You wanna save your strength. This isn’t a race.”

“Sure feels like it with how crazy you locals are.” The boy got up and Stanton noticed how muscular he appeared. “This is way harder than I thought it would be.”

“How long have you been out here?”

“Today’s my first day.”

“Well you’re gonna drown you keep surfing like that. You need some lessons.”

“Do you teach?”

“No. There’s a rental shop over there that does daily lessons for cheap. The instructor’s good, used to be a pro surfer in Hawaii.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I should quit. This doesn’t seem like my thing.”

“What you should ask yourself is why you want to do it in the first place. Then you can answer whether you should continue to do it.”

“I’m new out here and thought I’d try
it.” He held out his hand. “Kyle James.”

“Jon Stanton. Nice to meet you.”

“You too. So how long you been surfing?”

“Almost twenty years.”

“No shit? That’s crazy. I can’t think of anything I’ve been doing for twenty years except sleeping.”

“The ocean’s not
like other things. You can fall in love with it. You’ll start dreaming about it and thinking about it all day. Pretty soon you won’t be able to do anything else. You’ll want to spend all your time out here.”

“That sounds nice. Just the
part about having something give your life meaning like that.”

“I don’t know about that, but, the ocean’s going to draw you in if you give it a chance. But first you have to not die. You need lessons, Kyle.”

“I don’t really have any extra money for that, you know?”

“First lesson’s free,” Stanton said as he stood up
; “at least take them up on that.”

He turned toward his apartment and Kyle jumped up and followed him. He was awkward at carrying the board and Stanton showed him how to tuck it under his arm so that it would keep both ends balanced. They walked to the parking lot and Kyle got to his car.

“Hey, Jon, I really appreciate you takin’ the time. Most of the guys out here won’t even talk to me.”

“You’re an outsider right now. But they’ll grow to you if you keep coming around.”

“You gonna be here tomorrow, man?”

“Probably. Why?”

“Just thought maybe we could catch some waves together.”

“I usually come in the early mornings.”

“All right, man. I’ll see you then.”

“
Alright.”

Stanton watched as he stuffed the board on top of the car and tied it there with a stretchy cord. Kyle waved as he drove away and Stanton thought he had seen his Volkswagen Beetle somewhere before.

38

The next morning Stanton woke up and sat on his balcony and read
Psychology Today
before opening a copy of
Fear and Trembling
. He read for hours and then went inside and napped before waking up around noon.

He hadn’t felt this free since college. He realized that he could go anywhere or do anything and nothing would stop him. He dreamed about flying off to Australia and living on the beach, surfing and eating crab and oysters by moonlight. He could go to Hawaii and live in a flat in the jungle and hike all day and spend the nights surfing.

But he never would do any of those things because the thought of leaving his kids for even a short period filled him with anxiety and dread. The world was a dangerous place and they needed him to look after them. When there was a bump in the night Melissa called him, not 911. He was needed here in a way he wouldn’t be anywhere else on earth. There was something in that that people craved and he was no different.

He picked up his cell phone from the nightstand and saw he had three messages.
All from Slim Jim. He called him back.

“Where the hell have you been?” Slim Jim said.

“Sleeping.”

“
Pss, you trying to make me jealous?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it worked. Where are you?”

“Home.”

“I’ll be over in fifteen minutes.”

“No, Jim I—”

He hung up and Stanton sat on the end of the receiver a second before placing the phone back down and rising from bed. He showered and changed into jeans and a University of Utah t-shirt before sitting down on the couch and flipping through the channels on the television. A tennis match was on and he watched it until he heard Slim Jim call from the lobby downstairs and tell him to come down.

As he stepped off the elevator he saw Slim Jim hitting on a woman in the lobby. Stanton leaned against the wall and waited until he was done. Toward the end of the conversation the woman told him she had a boyfriend but said she
’d enjoyed their talk together. When she had walked away, Stanton came over with a grin on his face.

“Was that as painful to watch as it was to do?” Slim Jim said.

“Probably more so.”

“She was hot.
Kind of. I had to take a shot.” He looked him over. “No suit for Mr. GQ? This retirement thing is messing with your head.”

“I’ve never felt better.”

“Well, come have some of that good-feels rub off on me while we grab a pork burrito. You feel like a pork burrito?”

“Sure.”

They got into Slim Jim’s corvette and drove to Senor Juan’s Tacos. The inside wasn’t bigger than an apartment and only had two tables and chairs but the patio was large and packed with the lunch crowd. Slim Jim ordered two pork burritos and
horchatas
and brought them out to the table where Stanton was sitting.

“Love these damn things,” Slim Jim said as he coated his burrito in ketchup. He took a large bite and bits of brown pork dribbled out of his mouth. “How you liking no job?”

“Honestly? I’ve never felt better. I don’t know what it is but I feel like a teenager again.”

“Yeah,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin, “yeah that’s the no-responsibilities-bug. That’s what my mom used to call it. She said it was a bug that would make you feel good for a minute and then screw you in the long run.”

“Not sure that’s true.”

“I didn’t believe it either, but it is. You go without responsibilities or stress long enough and you forget how to handle ‘
em. You get soft.”

“I think I’ll be all right, Jim.”

“Maybe. But I won’t be. They assigned the Sandman cases to me.”

“I thought they closed the investigation?”

“Officially, yes. Unofficially, no. Could you imagine if there was another Sandman kidnapping? How much shit would the chief eat over that? They believed you; they didn’t think Putnam was the right guy either. They just wanted it handled right. If you would’a kept your mouth shut about it and just worked the cases, they wouldn’t have said anything.”

“I don’t work that way.”

“Nobody does, but you do it cause you have to. That’s just the way the world works, young Padawan.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m not a part of that anymore.”

“Why, cause you been on vacation for a week? You’re a cop, Jon. You always will be. The only question is whether you’re gonna wear the badge. Which brings me to the point of this little gathering: I need your help.”

“With the Sandman cases?”

“With the Sandman cases.”

“Jim, I’m—”

“Now wait a sec and hear me out. You’re the guy on this case, Jon. You know it inside out. It would take me weeks if not months to get up to speed. I need your help on this.”

“I already quit.”

“Pure consulting. Hell, I’ll even pay you. But I need you on this. I can’t work this case without your help.”

Stanton watched him take another bite of the burrito and ketchup dripped down his tie onto his shirt. He swore and dabbed at it with a napkin. Slim Jim was a pig, but he was sincere. If there was one thing cops didn’t lack it was ego and for him to come with hat in hand begging for help was impressive.

“Let’s say,” Stanton said, “just for the sake of argument, that I agree to help. What would you want me to do?”

“Look at the evidence. There’s no one better with evidence and we both know it. Don’t interview witnesses or anything. If you need to talk to a witness you’ll write your questions down and I’ll ask ‘
em.”

He looked out over the intersection. A car with four men w
as blaring heavily-bassed music out of a beige Cadillac. Their arms were dangling out the windows and they were covered with prison tattoos. They had a menacing look about them, one that said they were actively looking for trouble. Many ex-cons couldn’t adjust to life outside of prison and would commit crimes even when they didn’t want to, just to get back inside.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Come on, Come on, Jon, don’t do that to me. Yes or no, man. Come on. Don’t leave me like that.”

“Fine, yes, but only in a limited capacity. I’ll look over some things and give you my opinion. I’m not invested in this though.”

“Of course. Just lookin’ at the evidence.”

“I can tell I’m going to regret this.”

“This is who you are, man. Nothing to regret.”

39

Stanton sat across from Kyle at the restaurant and ate coconut shrimp tacos with mango sauce. He’d been with Kyle for five days straight now.
Not even intentionally; Kyle had stuck around each day until after Stanton was done surfing and then asked him for a few minutes of lessons. Eventually, Stanton relented and took him out and showed him the type of equipment to get, how to get through the waves, how to stand . . . and before long Kyle was surfing well and would stay out for hours.

“It’s a weird sport,” Kyle said with a mouthful of food.

“Why?”

“You don’t really do that much. The ocean does all the work.”

“I guess that’s true. But it’s as much a sport as anything else. You have to train to get good at it and then people compete.”

“But I mean, doesn’t who looks good out there depend on the waves? I don’t think any surfer could look good with bad waves.”

“It’s true. But it’s still a sport. Not everyone can do it.”

There was a pause in the conversation that lasted long enough that Stanton noticed and knew Kyle had something ask.

“Can I ask you something personal, Jon?”

“Yeah.”

“Why’d your wife leave you?”

There was a slight sting in the question but it didn’t last long. Stanton took a drink of
Diet Coke and let the question hang a moment before answering.

“It was mostly my job. She
couldn’t stand that I’d leave in the morning and she wasn’t sure if I’d come home. On top of that, when I did come home, I could be moody and depressed.”

“How come?”

“I see things I’m not sure people were meant to see day in and day out.”

“Like what?”

“Mutilations, rapes, homicides . . . there’s an ugly side to humanity that we all know about. But when you experience it every day it begins to affect you. You don’t look at people the same ‘cause you know they have a dark side that they don’t share with anybody. You’ll never know what it is ‘cause some of the time they don’t even know what it is. But it’s there, and it’s bigger than what we’d call their ‘personality.’ It controls them in a way they can’t identify.”

“So, you’d have that dark side too then, wouldn’t you?”

Before Stanton could answer his phone rang.

“It’s my lawyer, I
gotta take this.”

“No
prob, I actually gotta get home. I’ll see ya, Jon.”

“Yeah.” Stanton answered the phone as Kyle walked away. “This is Jon.”

“Jon, it’s Taylor Rowe.”

“How’s it going?”

“Not bad. How have you been holding up?”

“Okay.”

“Well, I got some news. Coop’s ready for the depo and we got a date set. It’s in two weeks. When can you come by for some prep time?”

“What works with your schedule?”

“Today and tomorrow I’m open actually.”

“Tomorrow works for me. I’ve got some things to catch up on today.”

“Okay. Be by the office around ten. Shouldn’t last more than a few hours.”

“I might be a little late but not by too much.”

“That’s fine. Just ask for me.”

Stanton finished his meal and got into his car. On the passenger seat were copies of the files for the Sandman cases that Slim Jim had gotten him. The photos were grainy and black and white, but all the same information was there. He picked up the file marked
‘Bethany Szleky’ and flipped through the reports until he came to the information sheet. Her address was on the top right of the form and Stanton read it until he had it memorized, and then started his car.