Michael Koryta: Last Words

One of the interviewing techniques that Mark brought naturally to the table and that impressed Jeff London was a comfort with silence. You developed that sort of comfort when you grew up listening to drunks and blowhards in places where the weather could lock you down for days at a time, nowhere to go even if you wanted to. It had taken him a while to realize just how effective a tactic silence was. Most people viewed an interviewer’s lack of response as judgment at best and a threat at worst, so when faced with calm silence, they tended to start talking again, to volunteer more than they’d intended. Ridley Barnes was not of that breed. When Mark went silent, Ridley matched it with equal stillness.

“Anything else you recall of Sarah?” Mark said at last. “Or her family?”

“Not a bit. And I don’t mean to tell you your business, you’re the expert, but I’d say you ought to talk to people who did know her. Get their viewpoints on it.”

For a moment it was silent again, and then Ridley smiled. “You’re wondering, aren’t you? Wondering if I’m bat-shit crazy.”

Mark nodded.

The smile vanished and those bright eyes darkened. “Me too. You know what you ought to do? You ought to get into the cave. Before you make a decision, you ought to spend some time down there. In the dark. Think about her, think about me.”

“I don’t believe that will be necessary.”

Ridley Barnes showed anger for the first time. He wore it well. Like a natural color.

“Oh, I think it is. I think that anybody who even considers that girl’s story should sit down there in the dark for a time.”

“Let’s agree to put a pin in that particular idea, how about that?”

“Are you familiar with the term false necessity, Mr. Novak?”

“No.”

“I’m not surprised. You’re going to need to be. I had much higher hopes.”

“I’m often disappointing.”

Several seconds passed while the wind moaned around the old house, and then Ridley Barnes nodded as if Mark had said something that pleased him.

“Got yourself some spark, don’t you?”

“Pardon?” Mark said.

“More fuses than you’d like people to know you have. Oh, I understand. Don’t you worry, I’m not judging you. I understand it fine.”

“I’m not worried about you judging me,” Mark said. “But I’m not interested in wasting time either. If you insist on that, then—”

“Not insisting on anything. What would you like to discuss? I’m an open book. Just one with missing pages.”

His laugh was low and delighted. Mark felt a prickle ride along his spine.

“If you’re so curious about your possible involvement in the crime, then why not talk to the police? They say you shut down on interviews. Yet you’re talking to me.”

“The police don’t have distance, Mr. Novak. It’s too small of a town. They have pressure from all sides to get a conviction, sure. But not to get the truth. In your line of work, the difference between those things must be clear.”

“We pursue the truth, yes. But the truth could really hurt you, Ridley.”

He waved an uninterested hand. “So long as it’s told. Everything is connected. That’s why you’re here. The date does matter. It connects us, you see? You know that. This is what I mean when I say that everything is of consequence. The date connects you and me and Sarah and Lauren and—”

“Do not say her fucking name.” Mark was on his feet, and for the first time, Barnes looked nonplussed.

“You’re not understanding me,” he said. “What I mean is—”

“I don’t give a shit,” Mark said, stepping closer. “You were told, damn it, and you went back for it again, and I will not—”

He stopped talking when he saw Ridley move back. A subtle shift, but still visible. He was bracing, readying for a fight, or at least considering the possibility of a punch.

Now it was Mark’s turn to step back. He was holding tight to the file. Too tight. He looked down at it, at his knuckles pressed hard against his skin, and said, “I’ll review the file. I’ll review it and let you know what I think. Good-bye, Mr. Barnes.”

“Don’t go like that. You came all this way and you’re willing to go like that?”

“I’ll let you know what I think,” Mark repeated, and then he walked out of the house and back into the cold. It had started to snow again while he was inside, more of a sleet, really, and his windshield was already iced over. He cranked the heat up and turned on the defroster. While he waited for it to work, he opened the first of the folders.

Sarah Martin’s dead face looked up at him.

Morgue photos. About twenty of them. He went through them one at a time, handling them gingerly, as if he might disturb her. Lord, what someone had done to her. Dear Lord. Bruises showed around her eyes and throat, and scrapes and abrasions lined her entire body; it looked like someone had dragged her over concrete as if she were as inconsequential as a bag of garbage.

Good-looking girl, big smile, big laugh, Ridley had said. Lot of joy. She caught your eye.

Her eyes looked black in every picture. Dulled to something beyond death. Mark was holding his breath by the time he turned the last picture over, and then he found a sheet of yellow legal paper covered in scrawled notations with a heading: “Photographic Evidence — Ridley’s Notes.”

The first three notes, labeled with Roman numerals, were questions about the physical evidence, what had been considered and what might have been neglected. Other than some awkward grammar, they could have been an attorney’s notes, or a detective’s. Then the precision vanished, and the rest of the page was filled with scribbled questions.

Did I do it?

Did I do it?

Could I have done it?

Could I have done it? Could I?

The ink was darker with each new word, the scrawls becoming frantic by the end.

Mark looked up at the windshield. The ice had melted and was now dripping water down the glass, and beyond it, leaning on his porch railing, Ridley Barnes lifted one hand and waved at him.

Don’t scare him off. Ridley, do not scare the man off.

Those had been his only instructions, and now as Ridley stood alone on his porch, the Ford out of sight, exhaust steam all that remained in the air, he knew that he had failed. He went back inside, gathered the coil of rope, and put it back on the chair where Mark Novak had sat. Then he took the free end of the coil in one hand and began to tie hitches, never looking at the rope, trusting his fingers as they looped and twisted and tightened, looped and twisted and tightened. A man who had to look at his hands to tie a knot was a man who was likely to die in the dark.

“He’s here,” Ridley muttered. “He came.”

Somehow, he’d known all along that it would happen. He’d been expecting a call first, but this was better. So much better.

But now... now it needed to be handled gently, and Ridley hadn’t done that. He’d seen the spark that Novak had wanted to keep hidden, and he’d returned to it, and that was a mistake. At least for so early in the game.

“Have to keep you in town, Mark Novak,” Ridley whispered. “Can’t let you get back on a plane. Can’t have that.” His hands were moving faster and faster, and he closed his eyes. He could feel sweat on his forehead, dripping down his cheeks, but his breathing was steady. Ascender hitch, taut-line hitch, clove, Munter. A Prusik with two wraps, then one with three. He began to work backward now, the sweat flowing freely — too much wood in the woodstove; it had to be sixty-five degrees in the house, too warm, Ridley liked it cool, cooler, cold. His hands moved even faster, always you could be faster, reverse order on the hitches, three-wrap, two-wrap, done, on to the Munter, done, then the clove, the taut-line, the ascender, done!