Chris Whitaker - We Begin at the End

Walk pulled up, headed over and took the keys from his pocket. He checked the number on the tag and found one of the smaller units. He unlocked it and stepped into dark, found the switch, light flickered, strips cast dull yellow.

On one side he found a couple of plastic storage containers. He worked slow, saw everything from an old, happier life. Wedding album, Darke looked young, tall but not so imposing, his wife was beautiful. And there were photos of Madeline, brown hair and light eyes, wide smile in every shot. She looked like her mother. A christening gown, an old wedding dress, the kind of things passed down generations.

Walk would keep hold of it, pay the rental, let the people at the hospital know where it was in case miracles did happen.

He was about to turn, to kill the lights and lock up when he saw a pile of boxes and garbage bags in the far corner. He checked them, old files, nothing of note, and then he saw a stack of junk mail. And he saw the name and address. Dee Lane.

He trained his mind back a year before it came to him. Darke’s offer to store her things while she found someplace else to live. Before they made that deal she’d carry with her.

He tossed the mail back onto the pile then cursed when the whole thing toppled. As he bent down it came to view. Out of place.

A single videotape.

He drove back toward the Cape, breached the town limit, saw a new sign, hard metal and towering scaffold, light fell on the promise of new homes, new stores. The motion had passed silently, Walk distracted, just another change in a changing world.

The station was dark. He left the lights off, sat in his office and loaded the tape, then frowned when he saw The Eight, Darke’s club. And then he noted the date in the top corner, and his pulse began to quicken as he realized what he was watching.

It covered a day, he rolled it forward till he saw her, Star, working the bar. He watched her like the ghost she was, the way she smiled and flirted as the tips rained down. He skipped a little, stopped at a scuffle, bodies everywhere. Star fell back, clutched her eye and appeared to curse. She was stumbling, moving like the liquor had finally taken effect.

Walk couldn’t see who the guy was, back to the camera.

But then the man walked out.

He recognized the limp, the pain it took to try and correct it.

Brandon Rock.

He searched again, rolled it forward till he saw her, clear as day. Small, blonde hair, face tortured with hate as she worked. He watched Duchess start the fire that would burn for a year.

When he was done he stood. He took off his badge and placed it on the desk, then took the tape from the machine and stepped out into the night air. He walked a little up Main, snapped the tape from the case and pulled out the reel, then he dropped it into the trash.

* * *

The King house was empty.

Duchess stood out front, an old Taurus parked up at the curb. She’d taken the keys from a lady playing the slots in a bar in Camarillo. She’d leave it there, keys inside, too tired to feel sorry now.

She’d circled it and knocked on the door. There was doubt that lingered, that she could go through with it, despite the journey she had been on to get close to this moment.

As she’d driven down Main she had stared at streets like she expected something to have changed in the year she’d been away, nothing major, just something that told her Cape Haven was not the same without her and her small family. Instead she saw the town at rest, nothing different, not even a yard left overgrown. Just gloss, like her mother’s blood had been painted over so thoroughly, like she had never been.

She went round to the back again, found a rock and broke a window, crashing waves stole the sound.

Inside the King house she walked through the rooms, gun in hand. Photos on the wall, Vincent and Walk, their backs to the water, the kind of carefree smiles she herself had never known.

She climbed the stairs and checked each bedroom. Only moonlight to guide her. She saw a closet, Vincent’s clothes, so few. Three shirts, a pair of jeans, heavy boots. She thought of the making of a murderer, if it began long before birth, cursing the parents’ genes, the fatal bloodline. Or maybe it slowly crept, too many knocks, too many scars. Vincent King might have once been good, but a child’s blood did not wash from your hands. And thirty years amongst the most flawed of men, it would take the strongest to survive intact.

There was no bed, just a mattress on the floor. No furniture in the room, no paintings or television or books.

Just a single photo, taped to the wall.

A photo that took her breath, for the girl looked just like her. Blonde hair and blue eyes. Sissy Radley.

She left the house and walked the mile, climbed the trails that rose high above the town lights. She stopped halfway, every muscle ached, air pained her chest like her body did not want her to go on amongst the living.

As she crested the final hill she saw the light, the late service. She had been once before, sat with the half dozen for no other reason than she could not sleep.

Little Brook Episcopal.

She walked up the road, alongside the picket fence, came to the door and listened to the heavenly music. She dropped her bag for a moment, leaned against the wood, the long day almost over. With nowhere left to go she made her way to the small grave where her mother lay, beside Sissy, in the part of the cemetery reserved for the most innocent. Duchess had asked they be together again.

She stopped dead.

He stood there, tall against the precious night. Behind him the land fell away, the sheer cliffs and endless sea.

* * *

At Ivy Ranch Road Walk headed up the path and knocked.

Brandon looked like shit, said nothing, just stepped aside as Walk went into the house. It smelled bad, takeout cartons everywhere, beer cans, thick dust on every surface. A stack of fitness DVDs, Rock Hard , Brandon sucking in his stomach on the cover.

Brandon’s eyes looked glazed as he sat down at the kitchen counter. Walk thought of Star, how she’d knocked him back one too many times, and maybe that was why Brandon had let his fist go that night.

“I know what you did,” Walk began.

And that was all it took.

Brandon cried, the dam burst, he cried till his shoulders shook. Walk watched him, the confusion building.

“I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry. You have to believe it, Walk.”

Walk said nothing, just listened as the story broke between sobs.

“I reached out, like you said. I offered to take him out on the boat. Fishing or something, whatever. I wanted an end to it. But then I thought about it, how he scratched the Mustang. I knew it was him. Who else would do that? At first I was going to report it, but then everything with Star happened. It was supposed to be a joke. To get him back. We weren’t even far from shore.”

Walk breathed, the confusion passing, just sadness left. “You pushed him in. Milton.”

Brandon cried more, coughed like he was retching up the memory. “I waited for him back at the dock. I just wanted to show him. Make him swim back. Just a joke. And then he didn’t show, so I went back. But he was gone, Walk. He was gone.”

Walk sat with him, called Boyd and waited, told Brandon what to say. Be honest. You’ll sleep better at night.

He watched them take him, Brandon doing the walk with his head bowed low, only breaking once more when he glanced up and saw Milton’s old house across the street. It might’ve been karma, the cosmic forces Star used to talk about. Walk didn’t have long to think it over, because Dee Lane called his cell, and she told him she’d seen someone break into the King house.

“Did you get a look at them?” Walk said, breaking into a run.