No Woods So Dark as These Read online

  “Or mine,” Flores said. “Except yesterday, I mean. But nobody involved would have seen it.”

  “Okay,” Bowen told them. “So you check to see if Shaner is home. If he is, you ask if it’s okay to park two vehicles behind his house. You enter his house through the back door, review the footage so that we know what we’re sending this kid into. Or if we even do.”

  DeMarco smiled at Bowen’s use of the word kid, and Bowen caught the smile. To DeMarco, he said, “Don’t even think about it.”

  DeMarco pinched his smile closed but could feel the muscles twitching. “Never crossed my mind, Captain, sir.”

  Bowen turned to Boyd. “Keep someone inside Shaner’s house on the camera. That way you know if anybody else comes or goes from Reddick’s place. You launch the drone from behind Shaner’s house and let the team inside know if there’s any kind of activity at Reddick’s, or if there are additional vehicles parked there. We know what Reddick drives, right?”

  “Black Ford Explorer,” Boyd told him. “That’s the only vehicle registered to him.”

  “Okay, then,” Bowen said. “If things look good, you send Miller across the road.”

  “Walking?” Miller asked. “Or would it be better if I drive my own car there?”

  “Too many vehicles,” DeMarco said. “It’s an isolated place, but still… If anybody sees three vehicles pulling into Shaner’s place and driving around back…”

  “You can take my car,” Jayme said to Miller.

  “Nothing personal,” Flores said, “but mine looks more like something a college kid would drive. If that’s your cover.”

  “What do you drive?” Miller asked.

  “Subaru Crosstrek. Red.”

  “Perfect,” he said.

  DeMarco thought he caught a glimmer of something between them, something in the way they smiled at one another. It troubled him, but he wasn’t sure why.

  Captain Bowen interrupted his thoughts. “If anything you see on the camera or with the drone seems amiss, strange, out of place, worrisome, whatever—and I mean anything—you abort.” He looked around the table from face to face. “Is that understood?”

  He was answered by a mumbled chorus of affirmations.

  To DeMarco, he said, “Why is it that every time I approve one of your plans, I feel like I need to get my head examined?”

  DeMarco shrugged. “I don’t know, boss. Maybe you should get your head examined and find out why that is.”

  Sixty-Six

  The footage on the IR camera showed Reddick’s Ford Explorer leaving the driveway at 10:47 Sunday night. As of 12:19 Tuesday morning, it had not yet returned. Sunday night had been clear and cool, with a third quarter moon hanging white in the sky. The Explorer could be seen exiting the driveway and turning left without stopping at the top. There Flores paused the tape for a closer look. No one but Luthor Reddick could be seen inside the vehicle.

  “So what that means,” DeMarco said to Flores and Miller, and inadvertently to Fred Shaner, who was listening from the threshold, “depends on what the drone sees. According to Sonny, Micki is Reddick’s live-in. And apparently she didn’t leave with him on Sunday night.”

  “Unless she left horizontal,” Flores said.

  DeMarco nodded. “Always a possibility.”

  They all leaned back from the screen and waited. Fred Shaner said, “I have some coffee and orange juice if anybody is interested.”

  “Not right now, thank you,” DeMarco said.

  Minutes later, a shrill sound like a spinning drill bit could be heard, muted by the building’s walls. The sound rose in volume for a moment, then began to fade. They waited.

  DeMarco’s phone vibrated. He tapped the phone icon. “Yeah,” he said.

  Jayme, in the backyard with Trooper Boyd, told him, “Nothing. No vehicles in sight. No activity outside the house. There’s a light on downstairs but we don’t know what room it is. My guess is the kitchen, judging from the window size and placement.”

  “Copy that,” DeMarco said. He put the phone on speaker so that Flores and Miller could hear too. “So it looks like Micki is the only one home. Or else Reddick left a light on.”

  “That’s our guess,” Jayme told him. “You want Boyd to get lower? He said he can peek in the window if you—”

  “No,” DeMarco said. “Tell him to back off and assume a position above the house. I’m sending Miller over. Keep your phone on.”

  “Ten-four,” Jayme said.

  “Okay,” DeMarco told Miller. “You will probably be dealing with Cheryl McNulty. Late forties, platinum-blond hair. Supposed to be bossy and not very pleasant. You still want to do this?”

  “Absolutely,” Miller said.

  DeMarco heard the answer from Miller’s mouth and simultaneously in the wireless earbud in his other ear. “You have the money?”

  Miller patted the bulge in his side pocket.

  DeMarco nodded at Flores, who handed her car keys to Miller. “Bring it back in one piece,” she told him.

  He grinned. “Do you care which piece?”

  DeMarco told him, “You had better be taking this seriously.”

  “Chillax, man,” Miller said. “I got this.” He turned and headed for the back door.

  “He’s on his way out,” DeMarco said into the phone.

  “Copy that,” Jayme said.

  Sixty-Seven

  Miller barely had time to get used to the feel of Flores’s car or to the cinnamony scent emanating from the fragrance sticks in her air vents before he was parked in front of Luthor Reddick’s door. He wished he could sit there for a few minutes longer and talk his heart into not tapping against his chest at such a pace that he felt short of breath even while sitting motionless behind the wheel. He had been brash and confident in front of DeMarco and the others but now all certainty was gone. He was always doing things like this, going all the way up to the very edge of danger before asking himself what have you gotten yourself into this time, yet he always moved forward even further because the thing he feared most was being a failure and a coward. So now there was nothing to do but to climb out of the car and knock on the door. “Getting out,” he said, as much to urge himself forward as for the microphone under his shirt.

  He climbed out and looked up and saw Trooper Boyd’s drone thirty or so feet above the house. There was a slight hum in the air, so as he turned to close the door he tilted his chin down and mumbled, “I can hear the drone.” The drone rose higher.

  Fourteen strides to the porch. Four long inhalations and exhalations. Two more deep breaths while standing at the door.

  He pressed the doorbell. Heard no echoing chime from within. Raised a hand and knocked, rapped his knuckles three times on the heavy wooden door.

  Nothing. No sound.

  He knocked again.

  Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed a movement at a window. Forced himself to keep his head still. Smiled a little. Not too much, he told himself. And knocked again.

  A part of him hoped that the knock would not be answered, that he would knock one more time, louder so that everybody back at Fred Shaner’s house would hear, and then could return to Flores’s car and drive away. But a larger part of him did not want that to happen. If it did he would later castigate himself for being a coward. All talk, no action. It would be worse than—

  A lock clicked open and his heart jumped, his breath caught. He stood a little straighter, moved back half a step.

  The door opened by eight inches. A woman’s face, pale and fleshy, only slightly darker than the brittle nest of hair. Her eyes were more gray than blue, as soft and friendly as bullets. “What do you want?” she said.

  “Oh, hi,” Miller answered. “Is, uh…is Luthor at home?”

  “Who are you?” she said.

  “My name’s Kenny, ma’am. Kenny Martz? I live down
in Clark? I mean, that’s where I grew up, I actually live on campus now. I go to Thiel. I’m a senior there. I graduate in May.”

  “What do you want with Luthor?” she asked.

  Suddenly his mind went blank. What was he supposed to say? “Oh, well, I, uh…I was told that he might be able to help me out with a couple of things I need.”

  “What things?”

  “Well, uh, you know…I’d rather talk to him about that?”

  “You’ll talk to me or you’ll get your ass off my porch.”

  “Okay. Uh…it’s stuff for a party tonight. On campus? I was told Luthor was the man to see. Something to, you know, make the party a party?”

  She stared at him for a full five seconds. He tried to keep his smile from quivering. Then she said, “How do you know Luthor?”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know him personally. But a friend of mine told me this was the place to, you know, take care of my needs? He said Luthor was the man.”

  “What’s your friend’s name?”

  “Mundy?” he said. “People call him Redball?”

  “How do you know Redball?”

  “We hang out together from time to time.”

  “You don’t look like somebody who’d know Redball.”

  “Oh, he gets around. Anywhere there’s a party, he’ll find it. You know what he’s like.”

  She looked at him awhile longer. Then lifted her gaze and considered the Subaru. Then beyond it, up the empty gravel lane. Then she yanked open the door, grabbed him by the wrist and said, “Get inside here.”

  Sixty-Eight

  “Damn,” Jayme said, and DeMarco, inside Shaner’s house, barked in Miller’s ear, “Get out of there, Chase. Now!”

  In the foyer, McNulty swung the door shut behind Miller, then stood to the side to give him a long, unblinking once-over, which made him feel small and vulnerable. With her beehive hair she stood nearly as tall as him, but wider. In her pink velour jogging suit, baggy in some places and tight in others, she looked to go at least two hundred pounds and probably considerably more; her bare feet, nails painted red, appeared tiny for a woman her size. And her fingers, seven of them adorned with gaudy rings, were, he noticed, as slender as Flores’s though not as tanned, the fingernails long and squared at the tip, painted red with white polka dots. One fingernail on each hand had a tiny white plastic bow glued to it.

  She said, “You have money?”

  He patted the bulge in his side pocket.

  “Let me see.”

  He reached into his pocket and brought out a small roll of hundred-dollar bills, then closed his fist around them.

  She said, “How much of that are you here to spend?”

  He smiled. “As much as necessary.”

  Behind Shaner’s house, Jayme said, “Are we going in?”

  “Hold on a minute,” DeMarco answered.

  McNulty said, “You said you have some needs. What are they specifically?”

  “I was thinking maybe some mollies to start? Maybe a bag of good weed?”

  She nodded. Moved a step closer to him. “Anything else?”

  “Uh…no. That ought to do it.”

  She touched a fingertip to his cheek. “Boys like you are always looking for something else.”

  He looked around. “Is Luthor home?”

  “Wouldn’t matter if he was,” she said. “What else did Redball tell you about me?”

  “About you? Gee, I, uh…”

  “I know he told you. He tells everybody. It’s okay. I want to hear you say it.”

  “I’m not sure I, uh…”

  “You want me to trust you or not? There’s only one reason Redball comes to me. What is it?”

  “Well, uh…”

  “I’m waiting.”

  “He said you give one hell of a blow job.”

  “Ha,” she said, and ran a hand down over his arm. “I knew the moment I saw you what you were really here for.”

  “Actually, I’m just sort of the party supply man, if you know what I mean.”

  “Unh uh,” she said. Her hand trailed over his fingers and onto his crotch, then cupped his genitals. “You don’t get any party supplies until you pass the test.”

  “I, uh…” he said, and had no idea what to do next. How far was he expected to go?

  As far as necessary, he told himself. And said to her, “How much would that cost?”

  “How much did Redball tell you?”

  “He said a hundred.”

  “Redball’s full of shit. It’s three hundred and always has been.”

  “Well, I, uh…I’m not sure I have enough money for that and the mollies.”

  “Feels to me like you do,” she said, her hand moving. “Feels to me like you have plenty.”

  “Uh…whew,” he said.

  “Take it out,” she told him.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Take it out and show me you’re not a cop.”

  “Seriously?” he said. “Me a cop?”

  She pulled down his zipper. Reached inside. Worked her hand inside his boxers. She chuckled. “A little nervous, are you?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I am.”

  “You’ll get over it fast. Just let Mama do what she does best.”

  She fondled him until he grew hard. It took a while. But she knew what she was doing. And then she released him and held out an open palm. “Three hundred,” she told him.

  He opened up the roll, peeled off three bills, and handed them to her. “There you go,” he told her, “three smiling Ben Franklins,” and prayed that the microphone was still working.

  With her free hand she took the bills and shoved them into a pocket. With her other hand she pulled Miller toward the adjacent room. “Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.”

  “Go, go, go!” DeMarco said into the phone.

  By the time he and Flores were outside, Boyd had landed the drone behind the house and Jayme was waiting at the wheel of DeMarco’s car, the engine running. Then the other three jumped inside, and Fred Shaner, standing at his front window, watched the sedan disappear down Reddick’s driveway behind a cloud of gravel dust.

  Sixty-Nine

  Micki pulled away from Miller at the sound of a vehicle sliding to a halt outside. As she hurried toward the front door, Miller zippered up.

  The front door sprang open as she was reaching for the lock, so that her hand was rammed by the metal and wood, bending back her fingers and breaking two nails. A tiny plastic bow clicked as it skittered across the floor.

  On the other side of the door, Trooper Boyd felt the contact and shoved harder; she stumbled backward and managed to scream “Who the fuck do you—” before a uniformed state policeman came inside with his weapon drawn, followed closely by Flores, DeMarco, and Jayme.

  Within seconds Boyd had her braced against the wall, both arms behind her back as he secured the restraints. “You are under arrest for solicitation of prostitution,” Flores told her, even as McNulty’s right ankle was kicking harmlessly against the trooper’s leg.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” McNulty screamed. “You fucking broke into my house!”

  “I will let your face out of the wall when you calm down,” Boyd told her. She kept cursing, writhing and kicking, but Trooper Boyd held her in place with his shoulder as he patted her down. She had a face like Ronald Reagan’s death mask, fleshy and soft but contorted now as she struggled against him, her body with more undulating folds of flesh than a walrus. The image flitted through his mind of her and Reddick having sex. He envisioned her lying there utterly still and quiescent, feeling nothing through all that flesh, her eyes on the wall. Meantime Reddick sweated and grunted atop her, loving her the way a guy on death row loves his mattress—bitterly and hard. They did not talk as they went at it, her as
silent as swamp gas, Reddick as quiet as a night crawler defecating by the light of the moon. It gave Boyd the shivers.

  DeMarco and Jayme walked past them and into the living room, where Miller stood waiting. He seemed unsure of whether or not to smile, whether or not to hold his hands in front of his crotch. “Nice work,” DeMarco told him, then looked around the room. Other than the worn leather sofa, the room was filled with small tables and a hundred or more vases, lamps, and figurines, none of any apparent value. He said, “It looks like a bunch of yard sale stuff.”

  Jayme glanced at Miller’s red cheeks and asked, “You doing okay?”

  “Doing great,” he said.

  “Good. You’d better wait outside now, okay?”

  “No problem,” he said. Turned and headed for the door.

  DeMarco was moving slowly about the room, peering into every vase, down into every lamp shade. Flores walked up beside him and spoke very softly. “Sir. We have no warrant. No drugs were purchased.”

  “Just looking,” he said. “I haven’t touched a thing.”

  “Sir,” she said. “Please. We need to leave now.”

  “If there’s something out in the open…”

  “Please, sir,” she said. “Please stop. We have her on solicitation. Please exit the house with me, sir. Please.”

  The soft plaintiveness of her voice pulled him up short. He looked at her. Smiled. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Let’s go.”

  Micki McNulty’s voice echoed throughout the house as she carpet-bombed Trooper Boyd with f-bombs.

  Seventy

  Cheryl McNulty, when questioned by troopers Boyd and Flores, remained obdurate and rancorous, refusing to account for Reddick’s current whereabouts or for his and hers during the time of the triple murders. A Mercer County sheriff’s department vehicle was dispatched to the home for McNulty’s transport to the county jail. The three one-hundred-dollar bills taken from her jogging suit pocket were bagged as evidence, along with the recording of her conversation with Chase Miller.

  Because of McNulty’s condition as an epileptic, as reported by Sonny Jakiella, Trooper Flores, prior to securing the home on Linn Tyro Road, inquired of McNulty, as she sat cuffed in the rear of the sheriff deputy’s SUV, where to find her medication. This, too, McNulty refused to reveal, leaving the troopers no choice but to search the master bedroom and bath. Recovered from the master bathroom were a prescription bottle containing Tegretol XR antiseizure capsules, and another plastic phial containing eighteen four-milligram tabs of Suboxone, both labeled with an active prescription for Cheryl McNulty.