Accustomed to the Dark (22 page)

I was tired and hot, and everything seemed slightly unreal. The sidewalks were buckled and crumbling, as though they'd gone through an earthquake. The air was thick and it smelled of car exhaust.

I passed a large painted mural that displayed the huge faces of women peering out from beyond banana fronds. The faces were stylized and impossibly beautiful, the faces of what a friend once called “feral women”—abandoned at birth and raised by fashion photographers.

I wondered if I were dreaming. Wondered if I had fallen asleep at the wheel somewhere in Texas, and if all this—the heat, the humidity, that strange mural—were the products of exhaustion and greasy food.

There had been no seats on the flights from Dallas to New Orleans this morning, and none from Houston. So I had driven here, six hundred and something miles from Clayton. Down Highway 287 to Dallas, where the interchanges surrounding the city made me feel as though I'd wandered into a giant pinball machine, then down I-45 to Houston. From there, I'd picked up I-10 East, heading into the morning, passing the exits for places with evocative names like Beaumont, Mermentau, Lafayette, Plaquemine.

I'd left Clayton at midnight. It was now two o'clock in the afternoon. I'd stopped only for food and gas.

And even now I wasn't sure why I'd come. There was no real point in my being here. I should've turned the car around at Clayton and headed back to New Mexico.

In the car, somewhere between Dallas and Huntsville, I'd discussed it with Rita. We had been out on the patio again, in that bright clear unchanging sunlight.

“
It's over, Joshua,” she said patiently. “They're dead. Come home
.”

“
It's over when I see them dead
.”

“
This really doesn't have anything to do with them, does it?
”

I frowned at her. “What do you mean?
”

“
You don't think that I'm going to make it, do you? You think I'm going to die. And you don't want to be there when it happens. You're using this trip as a way to avoid that
.”

“
You're not going to die,” I said
.

She smiled. “I think you believe that I am. Joshua, I'll be just as dead if you're in New Orleans when it happens
.”

“
You're not going to die,” I told her
.

“Mr. Croft?”

“Yes. Mr. Carter?”

He held out his hand. “Very pleased to meet you, sir,” he said sadly. The hand was white and puffy, as if it had been underwater for a very long time.

He was in his fifties. His gray hair was combed from the left over his white scalp and held stiffly in place with pomade. His face was round and dewlapped, and there were deep dark bags under his shiny brown eyes. His lower lip was pink and pendulous, with a small white fleck of something trapped at its right corner. He wore black brogues, white socks, baggy gray pants, and a zippered black jacket that hugged his bulging stomach. Beneath the jacket he wore a white permanent-press shirt. The right collar of the shirt was poking out over the jacket like the sail of a tiny boat.

We were in a hallway in the courthouse building, beside the door at which he had told me to meet him when we'd spoken on the phone. He was carrying a videocassette in his left hand.

“You do understand,” he said sadly, “that these bodies are in a dreadful condition, Mr. Croft? The two men, I mean. They were very badly burned in the accident. Very badly burned indeed. The woman, Miss Miller, she was hardly burned at all.”

“I understand. But I won't be seeing the actual bodies, you said.”

“No, sir, you will not. As I told you, we use videotape now.” He held up the cassette briefly and looked at me with a sad earnestness. “It's ever so much more humane, don't you think? For the friends and relatives?”

“Much more.”

“I believe so, Mr. Croft, I honestly believe so. Used to be, they'd view the bodies close-up, downstairs, in the morgue?” Wincing slightly, he shook his head. “And that was a horror for 'em sometimes, a pure horror.”

“I'm sure.”

He nodded sadly. “I only reiterate that, Mr. Croft, about the condition of the bodies, because in cases like this, serious burn cases, many people are often very badly shocked by the appearance of the victim.”

“I understand.”

“It's nothing to be ashamed of, not at all. Being shocked, I mean. Any decent human being would be.”

“Sure.”

“Very well then, sir. I only wanted to assure myself, for my own sake, that you were prepared.”

He opened the door and I followed him into a small, comfortable room. On the back of his jacket was the word
CORONER.

Gray walls, upholstered furniture, a table that held a nineteen-inch television, and, below that, a VCR. To the left was another table, smaller, that held a coffeemaker and a stack of white plastic foam cups.

Carter walked over to the TV, then turned back to me. “Why don't you make yourself comfortable, Mr. Croft?”

I sat down in one of the chairs.

Carter punched a button on the television and the screen flickered to life. It was a scene from a soap opera, a well-dressed man and a well-dressed woman leaning toward each other over a table at an expensive restaurant. Well-dressed extras were chatting happily in the background. “
I don't care what Evan told you
,” the man said, his mouth grim, his eyes steely. “
Genevieve was never in Hope City that night
.”

Carter slid the cassette partway into the mouth of the VCR and then turned to me.

“Would you care for a cup of coffee, sir? I made it up fresh, so you could enjoy some when you arrived.”

“Thank you, Mr. Carter. I would.”

“
Why would Evan lie to me?
”

The man smiled with a kind of knowing bitterness. “
Where was Evan that night?
”

“Sugar, Mr. Croft? Cream?”

“Sugar, please.”

“
He was here in Blaisedale, of course
.”

“
Can he prove that?
”

“Your coffee,” said Mr. Carter. “Careful now, it's hot.”

“
Why on earth should Evan need to prove anything?
”

“Here we go,” said Mr. Carter sadly, and pushed the cassette firmly into the machine.

Multicolored snow replaced the restaurant scene, static replaced the dialogue, and then suddenly the tape came on. Mr. Carter lifted a remote control from the top of the TV.

Despite what I'd said to Mr. Carter, I wasn't prepared for what I saw. For a second or two I didn't understand what it was. And then I did.

“Jesus Christ,” I said, and my body went cold.

It was lying on a table of stainless steel, brittle and curled, looking like the charred fetus of a monkey. It was black and its skull was deformed, flattened from front to back. Its hands were clawed in front of it. Where the flesh had seared away from the body, black sections of bone were showing, like scorched twigs.

“That's Mr. Lucero,” said Carter sadly. “I'll just fast-forward here, Mr. Croft.”

My chest was constricted. I swallowed some coffee. It was hot and bitter, laced with chicory.

The screen flickered, then blinked, and then it showed the same object from the other side. Someone had turned it over.

The screen blinked again. Another scorched monkey, curled the same way, lying on an identical metal table. Like the first, the creature's skull was smashed.

“That would be Mr. Martinez,” said Carter. “It's the terrible heat that twists them up like that, ya see. And, of course, they were seated when the accident occurred. But even with their seat belts, you can see how their skulls were very badly damaged in the crash.”

I glanced away. Partly out of horror—and partly, I think, out of guilt. I had wanted Martinez dead, and now he was. But I wouldn't have wished that death on anyone, not even him.

“And this, of course, is Miss Miller,” said Carter. “You knew the woman, Mr. Croft?”

I looked back at the screen. “No,” I said. “I've seen photographs.”

It was Sylvia Miller. She lay on another metal table, covered by a blanket, only her head and bare shoulders visible. Except for a dark indentation on her forehead, she seemed untouched.

Her eyes were open and she was staring up at the ceiling.

I remembered that unsettling house in Las Vegas, remembered that filthy room dense with the choking stench of rot. Remembered the yellow parakeet lying stiffly on the grass. Remembered the photograph in the living room—the young girl in her best Sunday dress, out on the lawn with her family, her expression unreadable.

She had been permanently wounded by her childhood, Mrs. Rudolph had said. She had grown, Mrs. Rudolph had said, accustomed to the Dark. Staring at the image on the television screen, I wondered whether Sylvia had sought out Luiz Lucero because he offered an escape from that darkness, or because he promised its continuation.

If I'd investigated the childhoods of Luiz Lucero and Ernie Martinez, probably I'd have found something in each that had caused both men to grow accustomed to the Dark, in their lives and in themselves. Something that had caused the violence they shared, or something that had prepared the way for it. But Lucero and Martinez had directed their violence outward. Sylvia had directed hers only at herself.

Back in Las Vegas, I had told Mrs. Rudolph that I felt sorry for the woman. I still did.

Sylvia had found another Dark now, and she had all of forever to grow accustomed to its secrets.

“Will that be all, Mr. Croft?” said Mr. Carter. “Shall I turn it off?”

“What? Oh. Yes. Thank you. Would you mind if I asked you some questions, Mr. Carter?”

“Not at all, sir.” He clicked the remote. “Let me just rewind this.” He said to me, confidentially, “Sometimes people don't, you see, and that causes all kinds of problems.”

He leaned forward and turned off the television. The VCR whirred for a moment, then clicked. Carter pressed the eject button and the tape sighed out of the machine.

Holding the cassette, he sat down opposite me in another arm-chair. “Now, sir, how can I help you?”

“Just how did the accident occur, Mr. Carter?”

He frowned judiciously. “Have you talked to the police, Mr. Croft? I mean, I'm only the coroner's investigator. The police, now, they're sure to know more.”

“I'll talk to them. But maybe, in the meantime, you could tell me what you know.”

His dewlaps quivered as he nodded. “Happy to oblige, Mr. Croft. Well, sir, the way I understand it, the tanker truck got itself stalled in the middle of the road. Mr. Harper—that's the driver of the truck—he was proceeding for help, and he only just turned the corner when he saw the car coming. The convertible, the one that was carrying the victims. They were moving at a prodigious rate of speed, and Mr. Harper, he tried to wave them down, but they paid him no mind at all. Mr. Harper, he says he knew what was about to transpire, and he hollered just as loud as he could. But they never heard him, poor devils.” He shook his head sadly. “And it must have been purely awful for him. Mr. Harper, I mean.”

“The car hit the truck,” I said.

“It surely did, sir. Tore it right open, and then the gas ignited. That Miss Miller, she was sitting in the backseat, sir, and she got herself thrown from the car when it hit the truck. That's how come she escaped the burning. But she died instantly, poor thing. Broke her neck.”

“What time of day was this, Mr. Carter?”

“Round about five o'clock, yesterday evening.”

While I was heading for Thomas Thorogood's house, in Clayton, Texas.

“The victims,” Mr. Carter said sadly, “they didn't arrive here until about seven.” He shook his head. “I never saw so much excitement in all my life. We had government people—the FBI—and we had people from the sheriff's department. We had the city police. Just about everyone in the whole entire law enforcement community. They all wanted to make sure, you see, that the victims were the fugitives everyone was lookin' for.”

“How were the men's bodies identified?” I asked him. “Dental records would've been useless.”

“Yes, sir, they surely would. You saw the damage to the skulls. Well, first of all, you see, they had the testimony from Mr. Harper. He saw them, clear as day, just a few seconds before the accident. And about ten minutes before that, Mr. Martinez had stopped to fill up the gas tank. So they had the testimony of the fella at the gas station. And then, of course, they had the finger.”

“The finger?”

“Yes, sir. What happened was, Mr. Lucero, he was sitting in the passenger seat, you see, and he must've had his hand outside the car. His right hand? You know how people sometimes do, they put their hand outside the window, along the top of the door?” He showed me.

I nodded.

“And what must've happened, a piece of the tanker came at it like a piece of shrapnel, and it just sliced off his pinkie finger. Sliced it right off and sent it flying. The police found it at the scene. I don't know as you noticed, Mr. Croft, but Mr. Lucero's body is missing that finger.”

“I hadn't noticed.” And I didn't feel like checking. “The print on the finger matched Lucero's?”

“Yes, sir, it surely did.”

“They had some money with them.”

“Yes, sir, they did. In some metal boxes, in the trunk. Two of them. One of them blew open upon impact, you see, and the money was consumed in the flames. The other one held, and the police recovered most of what was in there. It was pretty badly burned, as you can imagine, Mr. Croft. Useless, most of it. But all told, they say, it was something like twenty thousand dollars.”

I nodded. “Okay, Mr. Carter. Thank you very much.”

“I'm very pleased to oblige, Mr. Croft.”

I was punchy with exhaustion and with a curious kind of deflation. Martinez and Lucero were dead, and I told myself that I should feel relieved. Instead, I felt cheated, for not being able to confront Martinez—and ashamed, for feeling cheated.