Journey Into Darkness Page 5

  A steel and glass office complex fronted the plant. Behind the offices, steam rose from stacks and clinking and whooshing sounds pulsated through the night. Unless the plant was on autopilot, workers were somewhere back there. I thought about sneaking around the office complex to take a look, but a six foot electric gate topped with barbed wire guarded passage.

  I put my car in neutral, pulled back the parking brake, left the engine running and walked to the gate. A red button the size of a jelly jar lid was mounted to one of the gate posts, and below the button a sign read SOUND BUZZER. The driveway behind the gate led to a second parking area where I saw a pickup truck and a black Cadillac. The entire area reeked, had that GIANT-PUP smell. I couldn’t have really been a Kessler’s employee for all the titanium dioxide in China. I jotted down the license plate numbers from the truck and the Caddy, walked back to my car and took Palmetto back to Main.

  I passed Kelly’s Pool Hall, thought about it, but kept going. Time to call it a night. I went back to The Parkside Motel, clicked on the eleven o’clock news and collapsed on the bed.

  8

  As I’d expected, the rattling of diesel engines woke me before daybreak and I couldn’t fall back to sleep. I gave my eyes a Visine bath and went to see Patrick about my new room. He gave me the key to 232, still on the second floor but in front and away from the big rig ruckus.

  I carried my suitcases up to my new room. I unpacked, took a few minutes to look through the yellowed J.C. Penney shoe box Jenny had once claimed as her treasure chest. I held the lock of silky golden hair Mom had saved from Jenny’s first haircut. It was tightly wrapped with a pink ribbon. I brushed it against my cheek. An assortment of little toys--McDonald’s Happy Meal giveaways, bubble gum machine jewelry, a plastic Slinky, a fake cell phone, a fashion Barbie--lay on top of the kitty cat Mom fashioned from towel fabric when Jenny was three. Jenny loved that cat. She named it Sha-Shu and, for some reason, wanted the name kept secret. When she told me the cat’s name, she made me cross my heart and hope to die never to utter it, not even to Mom and Dad, as if saying it out loud might evoke some ancient curse. I’ve kept my promise. Only Jenny and I know Sha-Shu’s name.

  The cat’s pink body is shaped like that of a teddy bear, but the round face, with blue fishing line whiskers and faux emerald eyes, is unmistakably feline.

  Despite Mom’s persistent efforts, Jenny had not yet broken the habit of holding the cat by one ear and sucking her thumb while she slept. The cat’s right ear is frayed to a nub and Jenny had started on the left. I found Sha-Shu on the edge of our driveway the day Jenny was kidnapped.

  I put her things back in the shoe box and placed the box in the bottom dresser drawer along with my socks and underwear.

  I plugged in my laptop and Googled Darla Bose. I found her address in Jacksonville, went to Mapquest and saw that she lived in the Springfield neighborhood, not far from Shands Hospital where I’d worked back in the winter. Springfield isn’t exactly a great neighborhood. Some of it has been restored, but much is still in decay. Lots of whores and druggies. It’s not a place where you’d want to get lost at night.

  I called Darla’s house and a robot voice informed me that the number was no longer in service.

  I went down to the parking lot, started my Mustang and headed that way. I found a Walgreen’s, dropped off the CD Phil Lyon had given me, ordered a dozen prints. The photo tech said she’d have them ready in less than an hour.

  ***

  Weeds had invaded the edges of Darla Bose’s short, narrow driveway. They brushed the bottom of my car door when I opened it, and I stepped over several Sunday editions of The Florida Times-Union as I mounted the porch and approached the front door. I knocked, peeked through the brass mail slot, saw only darkness.

  I walked around the side of the house and then through a rusty, creaky, chain-link gate. Tall Crape Myrtles, full in bloom, lined the back yard’s perimeter and provided privacy from close neighbors. The back yard matched the front with a bountiful weed crop. The air was hot and still, and some sort of insects were singing the blues in the knee-high grass.

  I cupped my hands against the back door’s window, saw a red and gray tiled floor and a vintage chrome and vinyl dinette. I turned the knob, pushed, and the door swung open.

  I didn’t see any harm in taking a look inside. Since the door was open, I wasn’t actually breaking and entering, only entering.

  I crossed the threshold.

  A sharp, raspy hiss sent a chill from the base of my spine to my scalp, crashing there like a spent tidal wave. I turned and met the glowing pink eyes of an albino cat, his back arched and needle teeth bared. He stood in a corner guarding a rat’s disemboweled carcass. He darted past my feet and exited through the back door.

  The atmosphere inside Darla’s house was viscous with mildew and neglected litter box. I opened some windows and uncorked the place, allowing some of the acrid vapors to escape.

  I tried a light switch but all circuits were dead. I followed a rhythmic ping to the bathroom, where the faucet over a clawfoot tub dripped and puddled around the drain. I supposed the cat had survived on that puddle and the occasional unfortunate vermin that happened to venture in.

  Back in the kitchen, on the stained Formica tabletop, I found an empty Virginia Slims pack, a book of matches and a Fresca can modified for use as a crack pipe. I’ve seen it all as a flight nurse, rescued a lot of druggies with self-induced chest pain. Darla’s house was a mansion compared to most of the crack dens I’ve been in.

  An ancient Fridgidaire with a hard-closing latch (a potential death cocoon for unwary hide-and-seekers of decades past) surprisingly smelled no worse than the rest of the house. Darla’s staples--a few quarts of malt liquor, a gallon of milk and a carton of eggs--rotted in self-containment.

  I walked to the living room, sat on the dusty maple floor and rooted through a copious mail pile under the delivery slot. A credit card offer from April 4 was the earliest postmark. Among the sale papers, special one-time-only limited offers and final notices from creditors and utility companies, I found a birthday card postmarked June 13 from Irving, Texas. I gently unsealed the flap and extracted the card. A letter, written on paper torn from a spiral notebook, fell in my lap.

  Dear Darla,

  I tried to call but a recording said

  Your phone was no longer in service.

  It’s been so long since I’ve heard from you.

  I hope everything’s okay.

  I know we’ve had our squabbles but

  I want you to be my little girl again.

  I love you so.

  Please call me when you get this card.

  Let’s not fight anymore.

  Happy 21st birthday.

  Love, Mama.

  It appeared that, for some reason, Darla had become estranged from her family.

  I found three envelopes from the Social Security Administration. I didn’t open them, but through the envelopes’ windows saw that each held a check. Darla was collecting disability, meaning she probably was not employed. If she wasn’t employed, there would be no coworkers or company officials investigating her whereabouts. If she was a drug addict, as her residence suggested, then her acquaintances were probably also addicts and might avoid any contact with the police, even to report a friend missing. Her mail had been piling up for almost three months.

  I knew what Darla’s family would go through. First comes panic, then a sense of helplessness. As the days pass, the initial shock turns to guilt, rage, sorrow. I went through a bargaining phase, pleading with God to take me and bring Jenny back.

  I never thought of Jenny’s abductor as a him or a her, but as an It. If I ever discover It’s identity, I won’t think twice about taking It down, taking It’s life. I am capable of killing another human being, but maybe only one. It. My family deserves closure. So did Darla’s.

  I put Darla’s birthday card back in the envelope and dropped it on top of the mail pile. The police would eventually come to
investigate the residence, and I wanted to leave everything as it was.

  Through the hallway, past the bathroom, were two doors that led to the bedrooms. Stacks of boxes sealed with packaging tape, their contents labeled with black magic marker, cluttered the first bedroom. The other one had a bed, a dresser, and an antique steamer trunk that served as a nightstand. On the dresser top I found a hairbrush, a 2010 EXOTIC CATS calendar opened to April, and a bottle of Eternity perfume. Some of the dates on the calendar had notes scribbled in. On the box for April second, scrawled in red ink, was TWIN FLAMES, 6PM. I made a mental note of it.

  I went back to the kitchen, found a zip-lock bag in the pantry and sealed up a few hairs from the hairbrush. I planned to take the hairs to a lab and have the DNA compared to the purple flecks I’d gathered in Louisville, willing to gamble on the results with money from my own pocket. If the DNA matched, I would know for certain that the finger in the can of GIANT-PUP was Darla’s, and I could deliver the evidence to the proper authorities. Then Darla’s family could be notified. I had come this far and wasn’t going to let a few hundred dollars stand between me and the truth. If the DNA didn’t match, I’d be out the money and back to square one, but at least I would have tried. I put the zip-lock bag in my pocket.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  I thought about running through the back door, getting in my Mustang and taking off. But, if the police were outside, they would have already seen my car and license number. I walked to the front door and, through the peephole, saw a slim black man, late forties or early fifties, puffing on a long brown cigarette. His neck muscles strained with every drag.

  I closed the back door on my way out and walked around to the front porch where the man was standing.

  “Hey, you ain’t Darla,” he said. “I thought Darla done bought her a new car. She home?”

  “Nobody’s home,” I said. “I knocked on both doors.” I didn’t want him to know I’d been inside the house.

  “That your pimp ride, baby?”

  “I was just leaving. Are you a friend of Darla’s?”

  “We do business from time to time. Ain’t seen her around lately.”

  I was pretty sure of what kind of business they did. “Have you ever heard of The Twin Flames?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Oh, yeah. The Twin Flames. It’s a little beer joint over by the Naval Air Station. You looking for somewhere to have a good time?”

  “Not really. Just wondering.”

  On the man’s left arm, I saw a bulge I recognized as an AV fistula used for hemodialysis. He was in end stage renal disease.

  “I see you’re a dialysis patient,” I said.

  “Yeah, the high blood pressure and the diabetes got me. I only have to go twice a week, though. Tuesdays and Saturdays. You a doctor or something? Darla ain’t sick is she?”

  Hypertension, diabetes, drug and alcohol abuse, cigarettes. A kidney’s worst nightmare.

  “I’m a nurse,” I said. “I have to go. Can I give you a lift somewhere?”

  “Naw. If you see Darla, tell her Rodney’s looking for her.”

  I nodded. I waved goodbye as I backed out of the driveway.

  ***

  I picked up my prints from Walgreens and then drove north on state road 17, toward Naval Air Station Jacksonville.

  The Twin Flames, a steel-roofed, concrete block structure situated a half mile north of the main gate, was so close to one of the runways that I actually ducked when a pair of jets flew over. The airplanes weren’t that close to the ground, of course, but pretty damn close.

  The place was not air conditioned and the stench of stale beer, tequila, sweat, urine, smoke--those wonderful smells of men enjoying themselves--lingered despite open windows and ventilation fans.

  A plump, pink-faced bartender with the unlit stub of a fat cigar permanently implanted in the right side of his jaw asked me what I was having toots. I ordered a Dos Equis.

  “Amber or lager?”

  He uncapped the bottle of amber, set it on the bar. I handed him a twenty and a picture of Darla Bose.

  “What’d you say her name is?” he asked.

  “Darla. Darla Bose.”

  “She ain’t never been in this bar, that I know of. But her truck was parked outside. That’s the broad that was reported missing a few days ago. They found her old orange Datsun pick-up truck out there in the parking lot. Been out there for weeks. I figured one of the enlisted guys had abandoned it when he went on deployment or got stationed overseas or something. I was going to claim it if it stayed there much longer. I’ve acquired three vehicles that way. Sold ‘em, made a little money.”

  “Where’s the truck now?” I asked.

  “Cops towed it. They traced the Texas plates to the missing girl.” He looked at the photograph again. “Darla Bose.”

  “Did you happen to look inside the truck before it was towed?”

  “She left one of the windows half open. Dumb broad. I rolled it up so rain wouldn’t get in. All I saw was a Mickey D’s bag and an ashtray full of butts.”

  A couple of pilots strutted in, projecting the same arrogance as some of the surgeons I’ve met. Guys like that never heard of a book called I’m Okay, You’re Okay. The book on their shelves is entitled I’m Great, You’re Dirt. The bartender went over to chat with them. He served them a pitcher of draft.

  I sat there thinking and peeling the label from my beer. The beer and I were sweating profusely, and the label came off easily and in one piece. Darla’s family must have finally reported her missing. I knew how much effort the police would put into finding her. Approximately zero. Especially when they went into her house and found the drug paraphernalia. People like Darla don’t count for much in our society. She was into drugs, prostitution maybe. People like that move around a lot. They die alone, from overdoses or at the hands of angry pimps or Johns. They’re forgotten. But Darla had people in Texas who loved her. A mother who loved her, at least. I was determined to find the truth behind Darla’s disappearance. For Jenny’s sake, and for all the other lost little girls in this world. My guilt about losing Jenny propelled me forward, along with the fact that, if I lost my nursing license, I would never again be happy. Not in a million years.

  My cell phone rang, causing all the heads in the bar to turn my way. It was Blake Wales, and the news wasn’t good.

  9

  “Greta’s gotten worse,” Blake said. “I had to take her to the hospital last night. One of the doctors talked to me about what I wanted done if her heart stops.”

  “And?”

  “It’s hard to make a decision like that. What do you think?”

  “What kind of cancer does she have?” I asked.

  “It started in her colon. God, if she’d gone to the doctor sooner...who knows? Anyway, it’s spread to her pancreas and liver, and now they say it’s in her lymph system. She’s been through all the chemotherapy, lost her hair, all that shit. They say it’s only a matter of time. She’s in a lot of pain.”

  “Have you asked Greta what she wants?”

  “She’s not really, how should I say, with it anymore. When she’s conscious, she’s confused about what year it is and sometimes doesn’t even recognize me. When she was in her right mind, she gave me power of attorney for her medical care. So I guess I have to decide.”

  I swallowed back the urge to cry. I pulled a tissue from my purse, just in case the flood came. Blake had helped me a lot recently and, back when Jenny was kidnapped, he became practically a member of my family. We shared many evening meals with Blake and his wife Greta. My answer to him was to not let another day pass without checking into Hospice. They would make her comfortable in her last days and, obviously, her last days were what she was facing. When death is imminent, I think it’s unethical to force a patient to linger. Then again, I know how hard it is to let go of someone you love.

  Considering the circumstances, I hesitated to bring up the reason I’d come to Hallows Cove, but he brought it up so we talk
ed about it for awhile. Maybe, I rationalized, engaging his PI brain would take his mind off Greta, if only briefly. I told him about finding Darla’s plaque on the “hall of foam,” about Phil Lyon giving me her photo on disk, about visiting her abandoned house, about finding out, just now, that her truck had been parked for weeks at The Twin Flames.

  “Have you been able to go by Kessler’s Meats yet?” Blake asked.

  “I drove by there for a minute last night, just to see where it was. I jotted down a couple of license plate numbers, the night crew I guess. I’m still waiting to hear from Marcus Marshall about the lab job I inquired about.”

  “You want me to run those plates for you? It wouldn’t hurt to talk to a couple of the employees, just to get a feel for what goes on at the place.”

  “That would be great,” I said. I dug the paper out of my purse and told him the license plate numbers.

  “Okay, I’ll get back with you on the names those cars are registered to. And I’m going to call about Hospice right now.”

  “Thanks, Blake.”

  A man wearing a VP-94 ball cap had been sitting a couple of stools away, and now scooted to the one nearest mine. He brought his drink and an envelope he’d been addressing.

  “You okay, sweetheart?” he asked. I must have looked upset while talking to Blake about Greta.

  “Friend of the family has cancer,” I said. “She’s dying.”

  “That sucks. Death sucks. But, you know, sometimes life sucks even more.” He stared at his drink and then lifted the envelope he’d been writing on. “I send this lady, Betty Morrow, a little money every month. It’s not much. I get an E-7 pension from the Navy, and I pretty much live check to check. But, no matter what, I send Betty Morrow a little. You see, I was driving the truck that hit her son sixteen years ago. I was stationed right here at NAS Jacksonville. I was working the night check on the P-3 line, launching and recovering the birds. I’d worked all night and was on my way home to a little house I rented down in Hallows Cove. It was still dark and the streets were a little wet from drizzle, but I’d drunk a gallon or two of coffee and wasn’t sleepy at all. Then it happened. It happened in a heartbeat. I saw the kid stumble out onto the highway. I slammed on the brakes, and the truck did a one-eighty. The mirror on the passenger side hit his head and flipped him like a coin. I thought for sure I’d killed him. I got out of the truck and saw him lying there on his back, surprisingly still in one piece and still conscious. I know it sounds stupid now, but I asked him if he was all right. ‘I don’t think so.’ He said. Those were his last words before he blacked out. I’d learned a little first-aid in the Navy, and it looked to me like he was in shock. Face is red, raise the head. Face is pale, raise the tail. I got a blanket out of my truck and propped his head up. Nobody had cell phones back then, but I had a CB and got an ambulance there pretty quick. They called in a helicopter and flew him to Jacksonville. I drove to the hospital, and the cops came in and interviewed me in the trauma unit waiting room. The kid’s mom and dad and brother came in, and then the Shafer girl--the kid I hit’s girlfriend--and her mom came in and...”