John Lutz - Darker Than Night

“So he needs time to heal body and soul, Milford. Please show him some compassion.”

Milford snorted and jammed his arms into his suit coat almost hard enough to split the seams. “He can heal his soul while he’s working with his body.”

Milford Sand was fifty-three, almost twenty years older than his wife, but he looked as if he could be in his late sixties. His narrow back was bent from sitting hunched over at his desk at the Hiram Lead Mine, where he kept the company books, and his face was pale and pinched. His cheap drugstore spectacles, which were too small, gave him a slightly cross-eyed appearance. Milford monitored the household money the way he tracked expenses at the mine, and there was no point in spending for prescription glasses when the ones on the revolving rack at Drexel’s Pharmacy would do just as well.

He studied his thinning brown hair, strained blue eyes, and puckered mouth as he adjusted his tie knot in the dresser mirror. He’d once overheard somebody at the mine say his natural expression was that of a man about to spit. Milford wasn’t insulted; the comment hadn’t been far off the mark. “The agency said this boy-Luther-has had some experience as a housepainter. I’ll talk to Tom Wilde about taking him on as an apprentice.”

“I don’t know-”

“That’s true,” Milford interrupted in a weary, tolerant tone. “You don’t know, and there’s no need for you to worry about that part of it. You just try and make the lad feel at home; I’ll take care of his employment this summer so he can earn his keep.”

“Maybe he should go to summer school. He’s already two grades behind.”

“Maybe he’s simply unable to do the work and needs to learn a trade.”

“Milford-”

“I have to get to the office.” He snatched up his heavy brown leather briefcase from the floor alongside the dresser, an adroit and powerful motion for such a frail-looking man, and headed for the door. Then he paused. “What time’s the agency bringing the boy?”

“One this afternoon. Try and get home if it’s at all possible.”

“I’ll speak to them at the mine.” He forced a lemony smile and hurried from the room.

A few seconds later Cara heard the screen door slam downstairs, the hollow thumping of his footfalls on the wooden porch, then after a minute or so the grinding of his car starting in the garage and the crunch of tires on the gravel driveway. Morning sounds. It was how Cara started each long day, listening to Milford leave for the mine.

The mine. All he thought about was the mine, his job, numbers, and lead. Profit and loss, this column or that. Cara thought the lead in the air was probably poisoning the whole town.

It was certainly poisoning their marriage.

Luther was surprised by the house that Saturday afternoon. He’d expected something smaller. This was a cream-colored frame monster with gray trim, a gallery porch, and a steep, tiled roof with lots of dormers. It looked like the house Luther had seen in Hansel and Gretel drawings-only much, much larger. There were a few other houses something like it on the wide, tree-lined street, but this one was the biggest and in the best condition even though it was old like the rest of them. The yard around it was wide and level, with a low stone wall in front and with lots of trees and shrubs. There was a long gravel drive that ran to a garage in back that looked newer than the house.

It was warm when he and the woman from the state agency got out of the air-conditioned car. There was plenty of shade in the yard, and twenty or thirty industrious sparrows pecking away busily on the green lawn. The sparrows all took flight when Luther slammed the car door. He hefted his lumpy duffel bag and walked around the car toward the wide wooden porch steps.

The porch was shady and had viney potted plants and a glider and rocking chair on it. “Looks like Norman fuckin’ Rockwell lives here,” Luther heard the agency woman mutter under her breath. She was slender, with lustrous blond hair, and was better-looking than most of the state employees. Luther knew she would have been pissed off if she was aware of how he’d been studying her.

Their footsteps made noise on the plank floor, and the front door opened before the agency woman pushed the doorbell button.

Inside, the woman introduced herself to Mr. and Mrs. Sand as Helen Simpson, which was a good thing because Luther had forgotten her name somewhere on Interstate 40. He watched and listened as she went through the routine that was so familiar to her, complete with smiles and pats on Luther’s shoulder at proper intervals; then she left the house and walked down the drive to her dusty white agency car. Business finished.

And there sat sixteen-year-old Luther Lunt with his new foster parents. The three of them listened to gravel crunch as Helen Simpson backed her car out of the drive. Then it was quiet in the big three-story Victorian house that Milford Sand and his wife had restored.

Luther would be the only charge here, which he liked. And he liked the wife, Cara, right away. She was kinda old-maybe even in her thirties-but still pretty, with her curly dark hair and brown eyes. She had an oval face that looked like it belonged in one of those heart-shaped lockets you opened up to see the photograph. And she smiled at Luther as if she meant it.

On the other hand, the husband, Luther’s new temporary father, acted like he had a stick up his ass. While working the streets as a male prostitute in Kansas City, Luther had seen his kind of little weasel before. He thought he might need the wife to protect him from Mr. Sand. He was sure, just by looking, that she wasn’t like Mrs. Black.

Cara-Mrs. Sand-was smiling at him. “Would you care for a glass of lemonade, Luther?”

Time for the act. “I sure would, Mrs. Sand.”

She stood up from the sofa, where she’d been seated next to her husband. For a moment she looked as if she might cry. “I wouldn’t expect you to call me mother, Luther, but Cara would do fine.”

Milford stood up also. He bent over and brushed imaginary lint or dust from his pants. “I’d like to stay, but I need to get to the mine.”

“Mine?” Luther asked.

“The Hiram Lead Mine, where I’m head of accounting.”

“Sounds neat,” Luther said.

Milford nodded solemnly. “It is neat.” He pecked Cara on the cheek. “I’ll be back in time for dinner, dear. Bye, Luther.”

“Bye,” Luther said to his retreating back.

Cara went into the kitchen, then returned with two glasses of lemonade. She handed one to Luther, then sat down again on the sofa across from the wing chair where he sat.

“He works so hard,” she said of her husband. “Even sometimes on weekends. When they’re behind at the mine.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Luther sipped lemonade and glanced around. “You sure got a beautiful house, all the room and nice furniture.”

“Why, thank you, Luther. Mr. Sand and I spent months restoring it. The first two floors are done, and we’ll get around to the third-floor bedrooms someday.” She took a sip from her tall, frosted glass and crossed her legs, tugging down her flowered skirt demurely to cover her knees. “We sanded the floors, brought the kitchen up to date… It’s such a job, keeping up with an old house. It never stops.”

“Maybe I can help,” Luther said.

“Why, thank you.” She smiled. “Maybe you can.”

“I know you and Mr. Sand are putting yourselves out for me.”

“Not at all. We volunteered because we like to help children-young men-like yourself. And if it’ll make you feel any better, Mr. Sand’s going to speak to someone about helping you learn a trade. A housepainter. You’ve done some of that, haven’t you, where you came from?”