Fear the Darkness: A Thriller Read online

  I thought again how she seemed more interested when I was obviously sick. The oblivion might have left, but the paranoia had not. I looked at both of them with some suspicion.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “I found you on the floor in the living room, unconscious,” Carlo said. “I shouted to Gemma-Kate and she rushed out of her room. I was going to call nine-one-one but then you started to convulse. She said there wasn’t time. She felt your forehead and said you had a high temperature and calling the paramedics was fine but we should cool you down. So we brought you in here and turned on the water.”

  Some of the memories of the past—I couldn’t guess how long ago—were coming back. I remembered the chills, and the rigidity of my body when I tried to move. And I remembered hearing the sound of the television swelling and dying in my ears.

  Carlo kept talking, seeming a little nervous because of me not responding. “I called an ambulance. It’s coming from the Golder Ranch fire station, so it should be here any second. We could get you into some dry clothes.”

  I hate when people say “we.” “How are we today, Mrs. DiForenza?” they would ask in the nursing home. In that moment I didn’t want Carlo to know I was sick. One of those nearly undefined fears was slithering up from that spot in my mind where the door was usually kept safely closed and double-locked. Carlo should not know I was sick, and if they started running tests, God only knew what they would find and tell him. One of these days I had to do a little investigating, google “fever” and “Parkinson’s” and find out if that was one of the symptoms as well as the difficulty walking.

  But for now, Carlo should not know I was sick.

  “No hospital,” I finally said.

  “But,” he said. Did he pause a little too soon? Was he glad he didn’t have to follow through on that, discover I was another sick wife? That “but” didn’t sound very forceful. Okay, so maybe I know at this point it was mostly the paranoia talking, and I’ve just finished describing all this cozy newfound trust for Carlo, but I’m still trying to recall everything the way it happened and how I felt at the time. I know he glanced at Gemma-Kate before he said, “What if it’s a delayed reaction from the coffee at the church? You said you sipped a little.”

  “That couldn’t happen. Maybe that flu I was feeling the other day,” I said. “I’m feeling much better.”

  The doorbell rang.

  “You’re going to the hospital,” he said.

  “I’m not,” I said.

  “You most definitely are.”

  While we argued, Gemma-Kate went to answer the door. There was a clatter of what I expected was a collapsible gurney in the front hall, and two paramedics crowded into the small guest bathroom behind Carlo. Gemma-Kate peeked around one of them. The four looked at me like they were wondering how to move my body. I stood up from the tub, holding on to the towel bar because I was still a little woozy.

  “I don’t need to go to the hospital,” I said. “If you want to wait a minute while I get some dry clothes on I’ll go out to the ambulance and you can check my vitals.”

  One of the paramedics shrugged. “Up to you.”

  “You won’t insist on taking her to the hospital?” Carlo asked.

  “It’s up to her,” the same paramedic said. “This happens all the time.”

  I was pronounced stable on-site and promised Carlo I would make an appointment with the doctor.

  Thirty–seven

  The next morning there was a message on my phone from Jacquie, asking again about what progress I was making. I had started taking aspirin on top of everything else to keep my temperature down and actually was feeling better. That tendency to freeze had stopped for the time being.

  I had more pressing issues to contend with, but I couldn’t just drop Jacquie. Plus the messages I’d been receiving told me Jacquie was not your back-burner kind of client. When she answered her phone with a “Yes?” I said, “It’s Brigid. Can I come over?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Is Tim there?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Can you meet me?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Beyond Bread, the one on Ina, fifteen minutes.” We were beginning to sound a little secret agenty, and it irritated me.

  Then she whispered, “Do you have something?”

  “Yes,” I said. Hey, I can do cryptic, too.

  I cut her some slack, though, guessing that was what happened when you spent too much time trying to keep the peace between your son and your husband, covering up for both of them, trying to preserve the denial. I drove to Beyond Bread to find her there waiting for me. I got a coffee and a lemon bar to settle my stomach, and sat down at the table she had chosen.

  In answer to her urgent “What have you found?” I reviewed my conversations with Detective Humphries, Dr. Manriquez, and all the Manwarings. I explained that a toxicology test had been found and there was nothing that suggested Joe had been poisoned. I told her very gently about the Choking Game video that was still on YouTube, and how she could watch it. But I recommended she not do so alone. Basically, I treated her like a strong woman.

  “Oh oh oh oh oh,” she whispered, her lips trembling. Then she dissolved into tears.

  I reached into my tote bag and pulled out a couple of tissues, which I handed to her, then waited for her to calm down, which she did quickly. I had chosen to meet her in a restaurant because people don’t generally get hysterical in restaurants. That’s why they fire you in public.

  “Maybe that’s why you’ve been suspicious of Joe’s death, why it felt there was something strange about his falling into the swimming pool. Had you noticed anything different about him?”

  “Like what?”

  I went over part of what I had learned from googling the Choking Game. “Had Joe started to seem disoriented?”

  Jacquie tilted her head in a question.

  “What about something more specific? Did you ever notice he had bloodshot eyes? Or did he complain of headaches?”

  That she could understand, and shook her head no, but she started jumping to more conclusions than a depressed lemming. “Do you think that game hurt his brain? It was those boys, wasn’t it? It was Lulu Manwaring. She let them go off alone. I knew it.”

  I held up a hand to slow down her runaway mind. “Hold on, I’m not done yet. I found a couple of other things about your son’s death that are just slightly irregular.” For the time being I didn’t mention that the kid who choked Joe was the son of the boss of the detective who investigated the death scene. Or how he might be connected to a second death. Seeing how she had reacted to what I’d already said, that was just a trifle too irregular for comment until I could go further into it. But I did ask about Lari Paunchese. “Do you know him?”

  Jacquie nodded. “Lari. He’s in Tim’s practice. They play racquetball. We have Christmas parties and things together.”

  “Did you notice he signed Joe’s death certificate?”

  “No. How could that have happened?”

  “I don’t know. Was he the one out with Tim the night that Joe passed away?”

  “He was. I think they might have gone to a sports bar to watch basketball or football or something. Tim once made a comment that it would have been nice if Joe liked football but he figured that would be a no.” It hurt her. It still hurt her and probably always would. “Is that legal, for someone Tim knows to sign the death certificate?”

  “I’m not sure about ethical, but I know it’s legal.”

  We walked out of the restaurant together, and I helped her into her car. She still seemed a little shaken, and I hesitated asking one last question, but I did anyway.

  “Jacquie, were you aware of Joseph … drinking?”

  She looked shocked. “He was only fourteen years old,” she said, then buckled her seat belt and pressed the ignition button to end the conversation. I put my hand out to stop her from closing the car door.

  “That toxicology te
st I told you about? Joey had alcohol in his system the night he drowned.”

  Without looking at me she shut the door and backed out. Just as well I didn’t ask the question that had been on my mind during our whole conversation: Do you want me to find out that Tim hurt your son?

  Thirty–eight

  From Beyond Bread, I was okay driving over to the Tucson Police Department. Only when I got out of the car and started across the parking lot did I have one of what I’d come to call, delicately, my episodes. A police car had pulled in and, seeing me, stopped to let me cross in front of him. I started, and within a couple of paces, I froze. Putting out my right foot to take a step should be easy enough, I thought. My brain was sending messages down to my leg. I was mobile. But nothing anywhere close to forward motion was happening.

  I stood, terrified, wondering if the fever was returning and I was going to drop to the pavement at any moment.

  The officer got out of the car. He walked around the front and up to me, looking sympathetic. “Can I help you?” he asked.

  Damn you, Brigid Quinn, I shrieked inside my head. “I’m sure I’ll be all right in a minute,” I said. But I still didn’t move and, feeling as if he needed to get me out of the middle of the parking lot, he took my arm. “There’s a bench right over there by the sidewalk,” he said. “Let me just help you to that.”

  Oh God, he was helping a little old lady across the street. I was not only terrified, I was pissed. But one thing I wasn’t was giving up my opportunity to see Salazar. I let him lead me across, somehow more mobile with my arm in the crook of his. I handed him my car keys, pointed out my Camry, and asked him to please get my walking stick out of the trunk. Maybe that would replace the arm when he left me alone.

  He did, and whether it was the comfort of the stick or not, I found myself back in motion, the freeze ended, at least for the time being.

  They wouldn’t let me take my stick past the receptionist, the blade on the bottom making it look a little like a weapon. I was able to leave it up front and trail my fingers along the wall in the hallway leading to Salazar’s office, just for added stability.

  When I was shown into Anthony Salazar’s office, Sam Humphries was already there, appearing more subordinate-like than the last time I saw him. Salazar was behind an official-looking desk, facing me, and Humphries turned around to look at me from one of the two chairs in front of the desk. His boss looked even more like a bulldog than he had in the church directory photo. I sat down in the other without being invited. I tried to put my hands in my pockets so the trembling wouldn’t show, and realized these pants didn’t have pockets, so I sat on the tips of my fingers instead.

  They let me sit there a minute to show that they were in control. I looked at Humphries, who was the lesser opponent in the room. He could have been part of some cover-up to protect Salazar’s reputation, but I doubted I would get a chance to find out on this go-round. Humphries was careful to project the same attitude as his boss. Both their mouths were fixed in thin lines as if they had been glued shut.

  They started talking, but at first it was over me as if I wasn’t in the room. Just a little sign of disrespect.

  “Assault,” Humphries said. “Accidental homicide.”

  Like they hadn’t already gone over all this immediately after finding the body.

  “Attempted mass homicide is what the DA will go for,” Salazar countered. “With the fatality counting as murder one.”

  Good opportunity to screw with them a little and deflect suspicion away from Gemma-Kate. “Dead guy could have been the target,” I said, though I didn’t believe it. “What happened in the parish hall just a smoke screen for the main act.”

  Salazar finally acknowledged me, but not to address my comment. “I’ve heard a lot about you from over to the Tucson Bureau office. You don’t play well with others. Why is it everyone on our side of the law dislikes you?”

  Maybe it was because I’d spent so much time among criminals I was sometimes mistaken for one? Because nobody could be sure anymore whose side I was really on, not entirely excluding myself? I knew he wasn’t talking about that, though, but was just piqued about getting that YouTube video from me. He was going to make me pay.

  “You wanted to see me,” I said, refusing to automatically act like a suspect, the way a civilian might. “Want to take another spin at starting this conversation?”

  “One of the paramedics the other day said a woman was helpful. Father Manwaring said that must be you.”

  “I did tell one of the guys the symptoms I saw, pointed out an elderly woman who needed immediate help, and told him I thought there was something in the coffee. That’s about all.”

  Humphries passed a notepad over to Salazar when the big guy waved his hand. “And just to check people off the list, you were there with your husband…”

  “Carlo DiForenza.”

  “I thought he was your husband.”

  “He is.”

  “Different name.”

  “Sometimes I go by that name and sometimes I don’t.”

  “And your daughter…”

  “My niece. Gemma-Kate Quinn.”

  He pretended to consult his notes again. “And none of you were affected by the coffee.”

  I could have offered a lot more, the way liars do when they’re nervous, but even though I was a tad nervous, I knew how to hide it. “That’s correct.”

  “And you left the scene before I got there.”

  “That would be correct, too.”

  “Who was in and out of the kitchen?”

  “People coming and going. Church ladies bustling all over the place like quail. Then there’s that back door into the kitchen. Anyone could have come in, dumped a bottle of antifreeze into the pot, and left.”

  “Did you see who was serving the coffee?”

  “It’s self-serve. You must know that.”

  “My wife is the one who goes to church.”

  “Maybe she was the one who spiked the coffee.” Salazar bloated up good on that one. I said, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist. But she didn’t go to the hospital either.”

  “Then you found Frank Ganim the very next day, in the columbarium. What a coincidence. What were you doing there?”

  “Who’s Frank Ganim?”

  “That’s right. His name wasn’t Adrian Franklin. There is no Adrian Franklin that matches this guy’s description.”

  That sweet guy. Assumed name. Why? I couldn’t believe it. “So how did you find out his real name? I thought you said there was no ID on him.”

  “Dr. Manriquez did an autopsy this morning to confirm the ethylene glycol poisoning. But he found out the guy had a pacemaker.”

  “Is that the reason he died? The antifreeze didn’t go well with his heart condition?”

  “Manriquez doesn’t think so. But the important thing about the pacemaker is that it has a serial number traceable to a Francis Ganim, and it was implanted in Cleveland.”

  I could tell he was enjoying himself a bit now, watching me seize on the information.

  This is Tony Salazar giving Brigid Quinn a little information to make her think he sees her as a colleague, that he trusts her. Watch out.

  “What about the dog?” I asked.

  “What dog?”

  “A black Lab. He adopted a black Lab.”

  Salazar turned to Humphries. “Any sign of a dog at the motel?”

  “No sign. Motel doesn’t allow pets,” Humphries said.

  “He was staying at a motel?” I asked.

  “That cheap motel down by the airport. We found a receipt in his rental car in the parking lot next to the church’s,” Salazar continued. “So we’re following up on the Cleveland connection. Maybe he has something he didn’t want strangers to know about. But it could also be that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. If that’s the case, can you think of anyone who might have something against the church as a whole?”

  I thought of Jacquie and Tim Neilsen, but didn
’t say. It wouldn’t be fair, even if it did blow a bit of smoke that might be useful if Gemma-Kate was innocent. And Gemma-Kate did not know Frank Ganim. Could not have known him. Could she? I still thought it was accidental, a prank, a nasty prank though it might be, gone horribly bad. I was mightily pissed at the fraud that had been Adrian Franklin, and the dog he used as a distraction, but right now all I wanted to do was get out of this office before I unintentionally incriminated my niece.

  Salazar wasn’t finished with me, or thought I wasn’t finished with him. “Now let’s talk about that video you sent me. I had a talk with my son last night. He says Joe Neilsen was a bad kid. Used alcohol. Played around in his parents’ medicine cabinet. And I reviewed the case file. I’m not bringing my son into this foolishness, and I stand by Detective Humphries’s finding. Accidental death. Go ahead. Now you go. Have you got any questions about my son?”

  His barrel chest got bigger and bigger until I felt a little claustrophobic in the small office. I said no, though not because he intimidated me. In light of the dead guy we found, and the possibility that Gemma-Kate made him that way, I wasn’t in the mood to follow this tiny lead into the cause of Joey’s drowning. But I did see that my intuition was right, and that this guy would defend his son to the death.

  Salazar said, “Good, that you don’t have any questions, because we’re usually the ones who ask them.”

  Sam offered to show me out, but I said never mind, I knew the way. That way I could step outside the office and stand for a bit to clear my head and listen for anything that might be said.

  Sam, with sympathy: “I don’t think she’s a problem, boss.”

  Salazar: “Shh.” Small pause, then, “What I’ve heard, put you both in the ring and it’s even money.”

  Thirty–nine

  Come cheer me up. Bring Carlo, Mallory had e-mailed. I was still feeling shitty but had discovered this was the price of friendship. When someone needs you, you go. So we left Gemma-Kate in the house, loaded the Pug in the Camry, and drove over there for brunch.