A Long Way Down Read online

  “First,” she said, “who says I want to go back to my real job? As for the RV, we’ll sell it or stick it in a garage. As for the lack of sunshine, I’ll buy you a sunlamp and a bottle of vitamin D.”

  “You would really consider it?”

  “Twenty dollars for the lamp, five for the vitamins. Big deal.”

  “Seriously,” he said.

  “You’re not bored doing nothing?”

  “Not at the moment. Are you?”

  “I can’t sit on your lap forever, Ryan. You have bony knees.” She wiggled her butt atop his thighs. “Are you telling me that a case like this doesn’t get you even a little bit excited? And what about going back to where you came from? Back to where you sowed all your wild oats.”

  “Thomas Wolfe says I can’t go back. He wrote a whole book about it. You Can’t Go Home Again.”

  “Writers lie,” she said. “Besides, the sheriff asked for your help, didn’t he?”

  “Our help. Apparently he heard one of the newscasts about how you took down the Kentucky Toad Man.”

  She grinned. “Sweet. So we’re big news in Youngstown?”

  “You are. I’m just the gimpy sidekick.”

  “I like that,” she said. “Unfortunately, your limp is barely detectable now.”

  “We’d get a per diem. A thousand a week max. Plus we’d split the quarter-million-dollar reward if we bring in the killer.”

  “I’d get the same as you? I like that too.”

  “You’re the brains of the outfit,” he told her.

  “So we’re an outfit now?”

  “We’re a team.”

  She smiled. Laid a hand on the back of his neck. Rubbed a finger across his hairline. She said, “Want to hear about this weird dream I had last night?”

  “Love to,” he said.

  “So I was in this big house…mine, I guess.”

  “Not ours?”

  “Mmm, I’d like to say yes. But honestly I don’t remember you being in the dream.”

  “Bummer.”

  “But you must have been because I had a baby. He was just a toddler. In another room, sleeping.”

  DeMarco rolled his upper lip under his front teeth. Bit down briefly. “Okay,” he said.

  “And I was in the upstairs hall and came to a door I hadn’t noticed before, so I opened it and went inside, and the entire room was painted in a glossy pink. Very glossy. Like a smooth, shiny shell of pink on all the walls.”

  “Remind me not to ask you to pick the color next time I paint a room.”

  “Shut up,” she said. “It was a huge room, and it sort of folded around itself, and kept opening up to other spaces. And in one of them there was an antique baby grand piano, and a harpsichord without any legs, and just trunks and trunks full of old stuff. And I remember thinking that I had forgotten all about this room, and how happy I was to discover it again.”

  “Sounds like a pleasant dream.”

  “Until I heard the dog. It was a huge, deep, vicious growl, like out of a horror movie. The sound the monster makes when it bites into one of the characters. So I went to the window and looked out and there it was, as big as a bear almost, and it was ripping a smaller dog to shreds. And I thought about the baby and went flying out of the pink room and down to the nursery, and the crib was empty. So now I’m running around crazy all through the house, can’t find the baby, can’t find my handgun, and what if the back door is open… And then thump!”

  “Thump?” he said.

  “I’m thinking it was you shutting the door on the shower stall.”

  “I woke you up?”

  “I’m glad you did. It had turned into a horrible dream.”

  “Happy to be of service,” he said.

  She kissed the side of his head then, and remained in that position for half a minute, holding him close. “What I can’t forget is how terrified I was that the dog was going to get my baby. And the love I felt for my baby. It was huge. So powerful. I don’t even know how to describe it.”

  “You don’t have to,” he said.

  Again she touched her lips to the side of his head. “Before you had your son,” she asked, “before you knew you were going to be a father, did you even realize how empty a part of you was?”

  “I did. Just didn’t know which part. I sure knew afterward, though.”

  “Then you know what I mean.”

  “I do,” he said.

  Neither of them spoke for a while. He thought he could predict where the conversation was going, and hoped he was wrong.

  She said, “Before I came downstairs this morning, I googled the meaning of pink in a dream.”

  “I bet it means you ate too much pizza before bed.”

  “It symbolizes the love of God. Also sensuality and moral purity.”

  “So it was a good horrible dream.”

  “Except for the dog. A vicious dog in a dream symbolizes inner conflict.”

  “There must be a lot of people dreaming about dogs.”

  She smiled. Stroked the back of his neck. Said, “What would you say if I said I would love to have a baby with you?”

  Beneath her hand, the muscles of his neck tensed. “Where did that come from?”

  “You don’t know where babies come from?”

  “When did you start thinking about having a baby?”

  “Since our first night in the RV. And then that dream, it was so powerful. The clock’s ticking, you know. For both of us.”

  He shifted in his seat. Tilted his head just slightly away from hers. “Still,” he said.

  “Are you saying it’s out of the question?”

  “I’m saying let’s slow down a little.”

  “Until I change my mind.”

  “Until we’re sure. I mean…we were talking about a serial killer here. And now suddenly you want to have a baby? It’s jarring, to say the least.”

  She sat there motionless for a few moments, then abruptly slid off his lap and stood. She gathered up the breakfast plates and carried them to the sink, set them down noisily, so hard he was certain something was going to break.

  “Jayme,” he said, “I’m almost fifty years old.”

  “You’re a child,” she said, and turned the hot water on full blast. He could feel the angry little droplets bouncing out of the sink to spit against his neck.

  Five

  After silently drying the few dishes Jayme had vehemently scrubbed clean before stalking upstairs, he pulled the plug to drain the water, then rinsed out the sink, wiped the counters and table, and stood looking out the kitchen window for ten minutes. The day was bright, every color vivid. He could feel the heat coming through the glass.

  He asked himself, What are you so afraid of?

  That was an easy one. He was afraid of another wound that would never heal. Sometimes he could actually see the one he carried now. Would wake in the middle of the night after a troubling dream and see his soul standing there before him, gray smoke in the form of a man, a wide gaping slash across the chest, precisely where his chest ached each time he thought of his son.

  He asked himself, What if you lose her over this?

  Not as easy to answer. Would it be better for her to be free of him than to remain caught in the updraft of his darkness? She would find another man, younger and full of light. But what if she did not? What if she were ruined too?

  He asked himself, Who says this is your decision anyway?

  When he closed his eyes he could see himself on the Amish rocker he and Laraine had bought at a yard sale, the perfect chair, she had said, for breastfeeding Baby Ryan. She used it during the day, but it was his and his son’s at night. At five weeks old Ryan developed colic, and would start crying every night around 1:00 a.m. DeMarco would slip out of bed at the first cry, pick up his son and carry him
to the rocker. The only way to console the infant was to hold him aloft, tiny feet dangling, his armpits cupped between his father’s thumbs and index fingers, DeMarco’s elbows braced on his knees. Within a minute or two the boy would be asleep, and DeMarco would slip easily into a mood unique to those moments, a contentment so warm and complete that it was closer to bliss than any he had ever imagined.

  DeMarco had never before and never since felt such contentment, though moments with Jayme came close—lying together while sunlight streamed through the window, for example, or falling asleep with her hand in his, her breath warm and regular against his chest.

  What were the chances he could feel true bliss again, with a woman he adored, a child he cherished?

  And what made him think he had the right to deny Jayme that bliss?

  After a while he went upstairs and into the bedroom. Jayme was at the bathroom mirror, flossing. She gave him a glance, no smile, then turned away. He started making the bed.

  “I’ve had a couple of thoughts,” he told her.

  “Two?” she said. “This is a big day for you.” And she spit into the sink.

  He smiled. Tucked the sheet and light comforter under the mattress on Jayme’s side of the bed, because she liked to feel swaddled and properly nested. He didn’t like the confinement, preferred his blankets free so he could stick his feet out at night. “How do you feel about me calling Hoyle? I figure it couldn’t hurt to pick a medical examiner’s brain a bit.”

  When she offered no reply, he said, “If we can stand the mental whiplash, that is. Brilliant man, but his brain moves like a gerbil on a…a…”

  She looked at him, her face expressionless, and swished mouthwash from cheek to cheek.

  He said, “I was trying to think of something that would have a gerbil jumping from place to place, but I’m drawing a blank.”

  She leaned toward the sink and spit out the mouthwash. Turned on the faucet for a few seconds. Turned it off, wiped her lips, and looked at herself in the mirror.

  “Maybe meet him for lunch?” DeMarco said. “What do you think?”

  She turned away from the mirror and came to the threshold. Leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, her body a long, graceful diagonal, hands clasped and hanging below her waist, ankles crossed. Gave her head a little toss. “People have to eat,” she said.

  He stood with a pillow in hand, smiling. Many times he had remarked that Jayme reminded him of a thoroughbred, though she never seemed to understand the analogy, his allusion to stature and grace and elegance all tuned to perfection. There was something indelibly summery about her. Whereas he was a rock in the shade, cold and inflexible, buried up to his neck in the dirt of memory, she remained as frisky as a foal in a sun-drenched meadow. “Maybe it’s that mane of hair,” he said, thinking out loud.

  “Just graduate from non sequitur school?” she asked.

  God, she was something. He loved the way she stood up to him. Hit back and never flinched. “My second thought is…having a baby is a very big decision. A huge decision. It’s not to be rushed. So I suggest that we first decide whether or not we’re going to take the case in Youngstown—”

  “There it is,” she said.

  “And if we do, we give it our full attention.”

  “You are so predictable,” she said, and turned back to the sink and mirror.

  “But afterward…”

  Her head slowly pivoted his way.

  “Afterward,” he said, “if you want, you could maybe stop taking the pill, and we could maybe leave the big decision up to…you know.”

  “Up to who?”

  “Fate,” he said. “If there is such a thing. Destiny. Whoever or whatever makes the decisions about making babies.”

  “God?” she said.

  “Something along those lines. A higher power.”

  “You mean, like, our station commander?”

  He chuckled at the thought. “I just want us to be sure it’s the right decision.”

  “I am sure. But okay, fine, I can wait a couple weeks. Because it’s always going to be two to one against you. Me and Big Mama, we’ve already made our decision.”

  “That’s what you call God? Big Mama?”

  “I do now,” she said. “So put the pillow down, please.”

  “Why?”

  “Do you always have to be so disobedient? Lay it down.”

  He placed the pillow against the headboard, heard the first footstep, turned just as she leapt into the air but too late to brace himself. She flew against him and knocked both of them onto the bed.

  Six

  They arrived at the diner twenty minutes late, Hoyle’s pick for a meeting and early lunch. At 11:20 a.m., the gravel parking lot was nearly full. The building was monochromatic on the outside, dull chrome panels and filmy glass, but its crowded, noisy interior was a chaos of bright red. Red counter stools, red vinyl booths, red Formica tabletops, red shirts on the servers, and a tube of red neon light encircling the ceiling. The black-and-white checkerboard floor exacerbated rather than softened the assault of red. A Hank Williams tune playing from ceiling speakers was intermittently discernible above the babble.

  Hoyle, in his usual black suit, had commandeered the expansive booth that ran across the full rear of the narrow building. He sat in the center of the bench seat, leaning over an iPad, a smorgasbord of plates covering the rest of his half of the table.

  “Looks like he ordered for us,” Jayme said as they made their way down the aisle.

  DeMarco scanned the plates. A large omelet, creamed chipped beef over grits, two sausage patties, four strips of bacon, hash browns, a bowl of cubed fresh fruit, a smaller bowl filled with pink yogurt, a chicken-fried steak, a wedge of quiche, a sliced avocado covered with salsa, a large mug of coffee, and a glass of water with a wedge of lemon floating inside. Every serving had already been sampled.

  Across from these plates, in front of two empty chairs, were two menus, two coffee cups turned upside down on the table, and two red napkins rolled around silverware. “That’s all his,” DeMarco whispered.

  But Jayme, now just a step from the table, had noticed something else. Hoyle had not yet looked up from the iPad to see them approaching because he was scrolling slowly through the profiles on a dating site.

  They stood behind the empty chairs for a few moments. Then DeMarco said, “How’s the creamed chipped beef, Doctor? I haven’t had that since I was a kid.”

  Hoyle slipped the iPad off the table and laid it screen down beside him. “Superb,” he answered, and offered them his version of a smile. “Just as both of you appear to be. Please, have a seat.” He waved to the nearest server carrying a coffee carafe. In a moment she was at DeMarco’s side.

  “Coffee for you two?” she asked.

  Both turned their cups upright.

  “Like his or regular?”

  DeMarco glanced at Hoyle’s mug.

  “Bulletproof,” Hoyle told them.

  Jayme said, “Excuse me?”

  “It’s called bulletproof coffee. Coffee, butter, coconut oil, and cream, blended to a velvety consistency.”

  “Sounds disgusting,” DeMarco said.

  “A staple of the keto diet,” Hoyle told them. “And surprisingly tasty. The lingering film of oil on the palate is the only drawback I can detect.”

  Simultaneously Jayme and DeMarco looked up at the server and said, “Regular, please.”

  She filled their cups. “I’ll give you a minute to look at the menus,” she said before hurrying away.

  Jayme nodded toward Hoyle’s array of dishes. “You’re on the keto diet?” she asked. “Watching your carbs?”

  “In my mind, I am. Still striving to convince my stomach to play along. I have, however, lost one full kilo since I last had the pleasure of your company.”

  “That’s impressiv
e,” Jayme said.

  “An abundance of water taken with lemon, several times a day, including with every meal, is the key to effective peristalsis and an expeditious removal of carbohydrates from the system.”

  “Seriously?” Jayme said. “That’s how you rationalize grits and creamed chipped beef?”

  A blush rose in his ample cheeks. His meager smile widened. “You are indeed a pistol, my dear.”

  “Fully loaded,” DeMarco added.

  When the server returned, DeMarco told her, “I’ll have the creamed chipped beef, please. On whole wheat toast. Plus,” and he pointed at Hoyle’s slice of quiche. “Is that spinach?”

  “Spinach and bacon,” the server said.

  “Delightful,” Hoyle added.

  “And that,” DeMarco told her, ignoring the heat of Jayme’s gaze on the side of his face. “With some hot sauce, please. And a glass of water. With lemon.”

  Hoyle smiled approvingly. Jayme did not. DeMarco was supposed to be watching his calories before they went into his mouth, not after. Just to drive that point home a little harder, she ordered an egg white omelet and a small bowl of fresh fruit.

  For the next several minutes, Jayme and DeMarco watched Hoyle eating. His movements were, as Jayme had noted at earlier meetings, decorous and precise. He took small bites and chewed slowly, sometimes with eyes closed. After every third or fourth bite, he took a sip of water.

  After their orders arrived, Hoyle asked the server to clear his plates, even though half of every dish remained uneaten. “So you are considering another case already? The last one nearly crippled you,” he said to DeMarco, then turned his gaze to Jayme. “And nearly got you shot, my dear. Which of you is the glutton for punishment?”

  DeMarco smiled at the word glutton. Jayme, with her hand beneath the table, squeezed his knee. Then said, “That would be both of us, I guess. Just can’t resist the challenge.”

  “Understandable,” Hoyle said, and dabbed at his mouth with the napkin. “It is a fascinating case. No fewer than three suspects identified for the original Cleveland murders, but none charged. Each now likely deceased or too feeble to continue the carnage. Which leaves us in Youngstown, Ohio, with an emulator. Perhaps an admirer of the original miscreant. He kills two men in 1988. Two men and a young woman more recently. Obviously someone with a familiarity with the more distasteful elements of the Cleveland crimes.”