The Darkest Night Page 3

Chapter Two

  Tom Dwyer closed the door to his office without bothering to lock it; there was nothing in there that anyone would want to steal. Inside the black canvas bag he carried were the tools of his trade: a yellow legal pad and a black ballpoint pen for taking notes, and the same small tape recorder he had been using to tape his interviews for the past twelve years. He bought the recorder used from Rick Hedlund for forty bucks when Rick retired from the paper. Tom had been the new guy at the Cedar Falls Review at the time, and Rick the seasoned newsman.

  Times had been good for the paper then, with circulation rising at a steady annual rate. In the years since technology had dealt a blow to the Review. The free access to up-to-date information at the tap of a button or the click of a mouse had made getting yesterday’s news printed on pulped paper seem downright antiquated. Last summer there had been a bloodbath, with a third of the staff being let go. There would be no more Home & Gardening Tips from Marissa Greenauer, and no more Neighborhood on the Move pieces from Jeff Schuler. Tom had been one of the fortunate ones, surviving the slaughter with a ten percent pay cut. Part of him wondered if Morty had kept him around because he felt sorry for Tom after Michelle’s death. On the day he had come to think of as Black Friday he had shook hands and said his goodbyes with those people who would be leaving the Review offices for the last time. Tears were shed and promises made to keep in touch. Some of the promises were kept, and some just slipped away as promises sometimes do.

  Tom’s beat wasn’t clearly or easily defined. In his time at the Review he had covered general crime stories, city corruption, Town Hall meetings, car accidents, and what some people liked to call “human interest stories”, although Tom preferred the term “people stories”. Some of the stories he covered were stories that he sought out, and some of them sought him out. Not a week went by when at least one person didn’t call his extension at the Review, or send an e-mail to his public address, telling him that they had just the story for him; some people even sent in hot tips through snail mail. He followed up on the ones that looked interesting and discarded the rest.

  When he first heard the message on his machine left by the father of the missing girl, he considered handing the job off to someone else, maybe Jim Grady or Cathy Meyers; he had been feeling better lately--maybe not happy but something close to it. Doing a story on a missing eight-year old girl seemed like a sure way to bring back the black cloud that had hung over him for months, oppressive in its weight, after his wife died. When you were just starting to climb out of the valley of depression you didn’t want to deal with dead girls, and considering the odds, which he knew only too well as a reporter, the girl was most likely dead. The Review had run a story on her a week before--YOUNG GIRL GOES MISSING - BROTHER THE ONLY WITNESS. One week was at least five days too many when it came to missing kids. If a kid didn’t turn up after forty-eight hours, you knew that the ending was probably not going to be a happy one.

  Jim Grady had written that story, which was why he was the first one Tom thought of handing the story off to, but the girl’s father--Mr. Hank Gardener--had called him, not Jim Grady. He had asked Tom to come out to their house on Oakview Lane. Mr. Gardener had sounded desperate, like a man on the edge of a cliff, on the verge off falling into some unknowable abyss, and after some hesitation Tom knew that he had to go. Mr. Gardener hadn’t made clear in the recording just what he expected from Tom, but he asked for Tom to come out to their home as soon as he could. Tom had called the man back and set a time.

  That time was in twenty-five minutes. Tom felt no need to hurry. Oakview wasn’t very far, and he was sure he wouldn’t be tardy. He waved to Cathy on his way out of the building. As he stepped outside he had to squint against the harsh light reflected off a dozen or more windshields parked in the lot. It was a warm day, but not too warm, and the sky was a piece of spotless blue glass above him. He walked to his car, unlocked the door and got in, tossing the canvas bag on the passenger seat. He started the engine and pulled out of his space, then drove out of the lot and joined the traffic on Rosemont.

  Traffic on the roads wasn’t bad, and he arrived at the Gardener house on Oakwood Lane with five minutes to spare. He parked at the curb, cut the engine and climbed out of the car. He leaned back into the car to grab the canvas bag, and shut the door lightly, an old habit from his years with Michelle, who always scolded him whenever he slammed his car door. He walked up the stone path to the front door of a nice-looking house and rang the bell. The woman who answered the door looked tired and worn. Even in middle-age she was pretty, but there was a dour look in her face that made Tom want to look away. He held her gaze, however.

  “Hi, ma’am. I’m Tom Dwyer from the Cedar Falls Review. Your husband called me and asked me to--”

  She didn’t wait for him to finish, walking away from the door, leaving it open. Tom stood his ground for a moment, unsure if the open door was an invitation to come in or not. Before he could decide a man popped into the doorway.

  “Hello, Mr. Dwyer,” the man said. “I’m Hank Gardener.”

  Hank stuck out his hand and Tom shook it.

  “Come in.”

  Hank stepped out of the doorway and Tom followed him inside. Hank shut the door as Tom looked around the living room. I was small but nice, with a plush brown couch that looked comfortable, and a white La-Z-Boy recliner. Mrs. Gardener was nowhere to be seen.

  “You’ll have to excuse my wife,” Hank said. “She’s…”

  He trailed off, leaving words unspoken.

  “It’s all right,” Tom assured him. “I know this is a difficult time.”

  “Yeah, well, um…would you like something to drink? A glass of water?”

  “No thanks; I’m fine.”

  “Please, have a seat.”

  Hank directed Tom to the couch. Tom sat down, setting his bag down on the couch beside him, and Hank took a seat on the recliner, where he sat hunched forward, his hands rubbing together nervously.

  “So, how can I help you, Mr. Gardener?” Tom asked

  “What I was thinking was that maybe you could do a story about our daughter. Jessica, that’s her name. She’s been gone a week now, and the police…I mean, I know they’re doing their best, but I don’t think they have a clue. We call the detective--Samuelson, his name is--every day, but he never has anything new to tell us. I thought--we thought, Mary and I--that if Jessica’s name was kept out there, if people didn’t forget about her like they do sometimes, that maybe some new leads would turn up. Or something like that, I don’t know.”

  Hank stood up and paced around the living room, running his hands through his hair and looking over at some framed family photos hanging on the wall. Tom looked them over. A sweet family stared out from them, smiling. The father and the son both had dark hair, the father’s touched with a bit of gray at the temples. They both had brown eyes. The mother and daughter looked like they could be before and after snapshots of the same person, as a child and as an adult. They shared dark blond hair and bright, blue eyes. In the pictures they were all happy, with no idea that somewhere a clock was ticking, that damned clock that ticks for all of us, counting down the hours and the minutes until the next disaster, counting the seconds until the next worst day of our lives.

  Hank sat down on the recliner again, folding his hands in his lap.

  “I asked my colleague Jim Grady for copies of his notes from the story he wrote last week,” Tom said.

  He reached beside him and unzipped the bag, taking out a few papers that were folded together. He considered taking out the tape recorder, but decided against it. He riffled through the pages before finding what he was looking for.

  “Friday, June twenty-first,” Tom read aloud. “Your son Franklin and your daughter Jessica were--”

  “We call him Frankie,” Hank interrupted.

  “What’s that?”

  “We call him Frankie. He hates to be called Franklin. Never mind, I don’t know what I’m saying; it’s not important. Sorry.�
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  “It’s okay. Frankie and Jessica were walking home together. At approximately quarter-past-nine at night, and shorty after parting company with Jennifer Friedman, nine years old, Frankie and Jessica took a short cut through the grounds of the old orphanage on Pinegrove Road.”

  Tom looked up at Hank to see if he had everything right so far.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Hank confirmed. “They call that old orphanage the Home. I think that was part of its proper name way back when--the Orphan Home, the Home for Orphans…something like that.”

  Tom looked back down at his papers.

  “While walking across the parking lot Frankie noticed that Jessica was no longer beside him.”

  “She said she heard someone calling to them from inside the building,” Hank said, taking over the story. “Frankie says he didn’t hear anything, but she did, apparently. She went over and boosted herself through a broken window. Frankie followed her inside, but it was too dark to see anything. He tried, but he couldn’t find her.”

  Hank’s voice started to crack a little. He cleared his throat and continued.

  “He came home scared out of his mind. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. When we finally got him to talk he told us what had happened. I decided that I was going to run over and look for her myself, but Frankie…he sort of went a little bit nuts. He hung on to me, and he wouldn’t let go. He started babbling about something he saw when he was inside that building. He was talking so fast it was all sort of hard to make out. All I could do to calm him down was to tell him that we would call the cops and let them look for her.”

  “You don’t know what he saw?” Tom asked.

  “No. Later, after Mary called the cops and they were asking him questions, he said he couldn’t remember what he saw. We took him to the hospital so he could be checked out. The doctor said there was no physical reason why he couldn’t remember everything that happened that night. He said it must be some kind of psychological block.”

  Tom looked down at the notes.

  “There’s something here about a bruised eye. Did that happen when he was inside the Home?”

  “No. Frankie got in a fight with some kid earlier in the day. At first he didn’t want to tell anyone how he got the banged-up eye, but eventually he told us. The cops talked with the other kid and his parents, and the kid confirmed it.”

  “And Frankie hasn’t, I don’t know, had any sudden recollections since that night?”

  “Nope, nothing.”

  The sound of breaking glass came from somewhere in the house. It startled both Tom and Hank.

  “Excuse me for a moment,” Hank said.

  He stood up and disappeared down the hallway that opened off of the living room. A moment later he stuck his head out from the hallway.

  “I’ll be back with you in a few minutes. Mary is…I need to take care of something.”

  “Take your time.”

  Hank disappeared again. Tom stood up and walked over to the wall with the pictures on it to take a closer look. He moved from the pictures to the TV cabinet. There were a few more pictures propped up on top, as well as a birthday card. On the card a cat lay coiled on a cushion, and the caption read:

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO A PURRFECT MOM!

  Tom went back to the couch and took a seat. His throat felt dry, and he was starting to wish he had taken the glass of water Hank had offered earlier. He heard a noise from the hallway, but when he looked that way he didn’t see anybody. Then a face appeared, peeking out at him. It was a boy.

  “Hello,” Tom said.

  Frankie emerged from the hallway, coming into the living room and standing there, looking at Tom.

  “Are you the guy from the newspaper?” Frankie asked.

  “Yes, I am. My name is Tom Dwyer.”

  Tom stood and offered his hand, withdrew it, then offered it again; he felt terribly awkward.

  Frankie ignored the proffered hand and took a seat on the recliner that his father had recently vacated. Tom withdrew his hand a second time and sat down on the couch.

  “So you must be Frankie,” Tom said.

  The boy nodded is head.

  “I’m sorry about your sister. I’m sure she’ll be back soon,” Tom lied.

  “I heard you and my dad talking. He doesn’t know, but I was listening. I had to duck into my room when he came toward the hallway. My mom must’ve knocked something over or whatever.”

  Tom didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.

  “Can I tell you something?” Frankie asked.

  “Of course you can. You can tell me anything.”

  “I didn’t really forget what happened that night.”

  Tom looked toward the hallway, then back at the boy.

  “You didn’t?”

  Frankie shook his head.

  “Why did you lie to your parents and the police?” Tom asked.

  “Because I knew that they would never believe me. They would’ve thought I was crazy.”

  Tom shifted uncomfortable on the couch.

  “Do you want to tell me what you saw?” he asked.

  Now it was Frankie who looked toward the hall for a moment, checking to make sure that his father hadn’t returned. Satisfied that they were alone, Frankie turned back to Tom.

  “The shadows took her.”

  Tom waited for the boy to elaborate. Seeing that he didn’t intend to, Tom prodded him.

  “What do you mean? What shadows?”

  “She heard them calling to her. I didn’t hear it, but she did. She climbed inside and I climbed in after her. The room was dark, and I couldn’t really see anything. I kept trying to see into the darkness, and then…”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I saw the shadows. They were alive. Living shadows. I saw them form from the darkness. They took her. I should have stayed, I shouldn’t have run, but I was scared. They came toward me, and I ran. I left her there.”

  Tom wondered whether the kid was playing with him. His next thought was that maybe the boy believed what he was saying. Maybe he saw something so terrible in that place that the only way he could cope with it was to make up this story about living shadows. These thoughts must have played out on his face, because Frankie winced and looked away.

  “You don’t believe me,” Frankie said.

  “Well, that’s quite a story.”

  Then he noticed that Frankie was crying quietly.

  “Hey, I’m sorry,” Tom said.

  “I’m not lying. I know what I saw.”

  Hank came back into the living room, and Frankie surreptitiously wiped away his tears, hiding them from his father, as he got up from the recliner. Frankie left the living room, heading down the hallway.

  “I see you met Frankie,” Hank said.

  “Yeah.”

  Tom put the notes back in the bag and stood up as he zipped the bag shut.

  “Wait; you’re not leaving, are you?”

  “I really have to get going. I’m sorry about your daughter. I hope she’s back home soon. I’ll write up a story about her, letting people know that if they have any information to report that can help that they should report it to the police.”

  “Does that ever work?”

  Tom could see that the man was barely holding himself together; he was trying to be a rock for his wife and his son, but even rocks could crack under enough pressure.

  “Sometimes,” Tom said. “Sometimes it can make all the difference.”

  Tom headed for the door, opened it and stepped out onto the stoop.

  “Here’s my card,” Tom said, taking the card out of his pocket and handing it to Hank. “You already know my number at the paper, but this card also has my cell number on it. Call me if there are any new developments you want to share, or if I can help you in some way.”

  Hank looked at the card for a moment before slipping into his own pocket.

  “Thank you Mr. Dwyer,” he said. “This means a lot to us. I’m sorry that you couldn’t talk wi
th Mary, but she’s very upset.”

  “It’s perfectly understandable. Please give her my regards.”

  “I will.”

  Tom turned and walked to his car. When he reached it he turned back, but Hank had already closed the door. Tom got in the guy, placed the canvas bag on the passenger seat and headed back to the office. On the way he turned over what the boy had told him. Living shadows had taken his sister; the kid really believed that. Tom hoped that Frankie’s parents would get the boy some professional help, and soon. Whatever had really happened to his sister, it had caused something to go really wrong in the boy’s head.