J. Black - Laura Cardinal - 01 - Darkness on the Edge of Town

The motels also reflected the peripatetic quality to her job—always starting over, working with someone new. She was invariably seen as an outsider, but Laura didn’t mind that. She liked working her way into the warp and woof of a town, picking up its easy rhythm, slowing down for the odd yellow dog crossing the street.

Every small town had its own personality.

She got into bed without bothering to change out of her clothes and lay there thinking about Jessica’s killer. When she wasn’t thinking about the killer, she thought about Tom and the idea of living together, her mind going around like a carousel.

TRAFFIC STOP ON 92

Rain tapped on the roof of Officer Duffy’s patrol car as she sat in the Safeway parking lot, keeping her eye on the blue BMW Z4 through the streaming windshield. She’d already run the plate; it came back to a Darrell Lee James, 2452 E. Silver Strand Drive, Gulfport, Mississippi. No wants, no warrants.

Great car.

Duffy glanced down at the laser-printed photograph on the seat beside her. In the orange light from the sodium arcs, raindrop reflections from the windshield crawled across the picture like ants. The photo showed a good-looking man leaning against a blue BMW Z4. Hard to believe he could be a child-raper, a great-looking guy like that. Still, when she’d spotted the Z4 on her way out to Tacho’s Tacos for a late dinner, she’d had no choice but to check it out. If it was him, and she was the one who caught him—oh, man. That would show them all up.

Her thoughts turned to that stuck-up detective the chief had saddled them with. Imagine being kept out of the crime scene, like she was a first-year rookie. She smiled at the picture on the seat and said, “You stupid bitch. You don’t know everything.”

If this was the guy, she’d be a hero. She pictured how impressed Randall would be if she and Buddy ended up on Today .

This daydream kept her occupied until she spotted a man carrying a grocery bag in each hand splashing through the parking lot toward the Z4. She couldn’t see much of him; he wore a hooded raincoat. When he drove out of the parking lot, she pulled out right behind him.

He made it easy for her by speeding. Couldn’t blame someone with a car like that for putting on the afterburners. She stopped him on 92 just south of Tintown.

The rain was coming down hard now. Mud sucked at Duffy’s shoes as she walked up to the driver’s side, careful to approach him from an angle. Safety first. Darrell Lee James buzzed his window down.

She flashed her light on his face. It wasn’t him. This guy was fifty if he was a day.

Duffy kept her face impassive, but her disappointment was deep. She knew she should feel more than disappointed. There was a monster on the loose. The problem was she didn’t feel things deeply the way other people did, with one exception. Love was the most important emotion on earth, and that she felt in spades. Everything else paled in comparison to what was going on between her and Randall—even catching a killer. Love could be sweet torture, or a burning agony, and she couldn’t live without it.

“Sir, put both hands on the wheel where I can see them.”

“Officer, I know I was speeding—“

“Reach down with one hand and remove your wallet. No quick moves.”

Carefully, Darrell Lee James reached into his coat and produced his wallet, holding it high and away from his body. The move was automatic; he’d been caught speeding before.

“Slide the license out of your wallet, sir.”

He did so, and handed it to her, then put both his hands back on the wheel.

“Do not remove your hands from the wheel, sir. I’ll be watching.”

She took her time walking back to her unit. Since she had already run his license, she sat there for a couple minutes, looking at the photo on the seat.

Now that was a good-looking man. A total fucking creep, but good-looking.

When she felt she’d waited long enough, she got out and trudged through the mud, handed him back his license, and opened her ticket book. “I’m going to give you a warning this time. But keep to the speed limit from now on, okay?”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Eyes like a Pekingese, shiny and moist in his fat pink face.

Duffy watched him pull back onto the road, driving like a little old lady.

A shame to see a Z4 being driven like that.

7

At two a.m., the clock radio came on. Laura got out of bed, pulled together what she needed, and walked through the rain-slick streets to City Park.

Ducking under the crime scene tape, she stopped on the sidewalk below the park and looked around.

The light from a sodium arc lamp tinted the street and buildings apricot. This had a flattening effect, making it harder to see. Most of Bisbee was sleeping, but she saw a few rectangles of light in the old buildings up and down the hills.

She looked up the tall flight of steps to the street above.

Laura had always thought it was most likely the bad guy had parked down here on the street and carried the girl up the stairs. She pictured him driving up around the park once to make sure no one was around. On the second pass, he parked right in front of the steps, the passenger door only a few inches from the curb and five feet from the bottom of the steps.

Were his lights on? Would he leave the engine running?

Yes to the lights, no to leaving the engine running. The best way to hide what you were doing was to act normally. Drive down the street with your lights on, park, turn off the lights along with the engine. If anyone happened to be awake and looking out the window, they would see nothing suspicious in someone parking a car. People worked night shifts.

It was doubtful that he had been seen at all. At the briefing, it came out that there were very few houses from which you could actually see the band shell. This had surprised her. There were a couple of houses right on the road facing the park, maybe one or two across the way up high on OK Street, although the trees blocked the band shell from view.

Laura stood in the street where the driver’s door would be, pantomimed walking around to the passenger side, leaning down and picking up the girl. He could be up the steps in less than five seconds.

One step into the park. Three more steps to the band shell stairs. Four steps up. Set her against the wall, clasp her hands together, stand back to look at what you’ve done. Admire your still life.

Water from rain earlier tonight dripped from the band shell arch.

Just the act of carrying Jessica up here and placing her against the wall would cause him to shed fibers, hair, skin, and some of that would stick. How would he deal with that?

Would he sweep up?

Or could he have used one of those sticky rollers, the one people used to pick up pet hair? Lab techs now preferred the sticky rollers to vacuum cleaners when they looked for trace evidence.

Water dripping from the band shell roof: tap tap tap .

Where are you tonight? Holed up in a motel or have you moved on already?

The wind rose, whipping the treetops. Their restive shadows danced on the band shell wall beside her. Rain started up, speckling the concrete.

Where are you tonight ?

As if in answer, notes from an alto sax trickled down from a window somewhere up the street. Pure and sweet; a soulful, lonely sound.

All the buildings in that direction were dark. The music stopped almost as soon as it had started.

The rain came down harder, a curtain of clear beads in a doorway. Laura stood under the arch, feeling the chill draft as rain blew inward. With the rain came the stench of death.

Suddenly, she could feel him, his essence leaking out of the wet cement, the air around her. Controlled rage. A predator. For a moment, she knew what it was like to be a rabbit in the shadow of the hawk.