Fear the Dark

‘Early. Around eight.’

‘Where did you sleep last night? What street?’

‘This one. I slept right here. I sleep here because I use the library computers. They have free internet. I use them for job hunting. Go ahead and check if you don’t believe me. They open in another hour.’

‘Then why did I see this exact same van parked this morning in front of the Wagon Wheel Saloon? Can you explain that to me?’

The woman visibly stiffened, the rolls of fat jiggling underneath her clothes. She didn’t answer.

‘And you showered this morning,’ Darby said.

‘Being clean and looking presentable, that’s a crime now?’ No attitude, just a mild bewilderment.

Then Darby remembered the anxious way Laurie Richards had stared at the van, and she said, ‘I think you parked outside the bar because you and Laurie Richards have some sort of arrangement whereby she lets you use the hotel shower. Only you didn’t go there right away because you saw cops standing out front and didn’t want her to get into any trouble. Am I right?’

Elisa Pike’s gaze had retreated inwards. Her mouth was a tight seam, her lips quivering, as if to cage the riot of words that were trying to escape.

‘Here’s the thing I want you to understand, Ms Pike. I don’t care about whatever … arrangement you’ve got with Laurie Richards. The only thing I care about is this phone you supposedly found magically sitting on your front window.’

‘I did find it. It was sitting on my front window, right under the windshield wiper. I swear on the Holy Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.’

‘What time was this?’

‘Is Laurie go

‘Tell me what time you found the phone.’

‘Noon, I think. Maybe a few minutes after. After the sheriff left, I went into the hotel and used the shower. When I came back, the phone was sitting on my windshield, just like I said.’

Darby pulled a pair of latex gloves from her back pocket. ‘Where is it?’

‘In the box with my résumés and Bible. Look up to your left, the box next to my socks.’ The woman nodded with her chin. ‘Can you please take these handcuffs off me? They hurt like the dickens.’

‘I will when Detective Williams comes back.’

‘Why? I didn’t do anything wrong.’

That’s probably true, Darby thought as she snapped on the latex. Elisa Pike seemed harmless enough: a woman in unfortunate circumstances struggling to get by with grace and dignity. But that didn’t mean Darby could afford to be careless.

‘May I at least sit up?’ Pike asked.

‘No, please stay right where you are. This will only take a minute.’ Darby pinched the small ante

‘I thought a Good Samaritan had left it there for me,’ Pike said. ‘They sometimes do that, you know. Leave a box of things on my car, right near the windshield, things like baby wipes and toothpaste, cans of soup. They’re not looking for anything in return, they’re just kind, good Christian people.’

The phone was a disposable model, a high-end burner that allowed you to send text messages and pictures. It also came equipped with a camera.

‘I thought someone had left it there to help me with my job search, or so I could call my ex and say hello to my kids.’ The woman swallowed, pained, and blinked back tears. ‘I can’t always use the phone at the hotel or the library.’

Darby worked an evidence bag from her back pocket. ‘Laurie Richards takes your messages?’

‘Yes. It wasn’t charged. The phone.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning when I turned it on it didn’t work. I didn’t think someone would deliberately leave a broken phone on my windshield, so I opened the compartment there in the back, the one where you put the battery, and found that it wasn’t plugged in. So I plugged it in and it worked fine. It’s got fifty-six minutes of talk-time left.’

Williams’s head popped up over the cruiser’s roof. Darby signalled for him to wait.

‘Ms Pike, did you see who left the phone?’

‘No.’

‘Did you see anyone on the street, someone you recognized maybe, loitering near your van?’

‘No. The only thing on my mind at that moment was … getting out of the hotel without being spotted. Laurie has done me a huge favour, allowing me to clean up there and sometimes sleep, and I don’t need anyone spreading gossip and having it get back to that awful excuse for a human being, Mr Charles Baker!’

Darby stepped outside with the phone wrapped up in the evidence bag.

‘She’s one of our town vagrants,’ Williams said. ‘She’s got a sheet of complaints –’

‘What did you call me?’ Pike shrieked.

Darby turned around and saw that the woman had rolled herself on to her side. Then Elisa A. Pike suddenly hoisted her enormous bulk into a sitting position, a deep level of injustice burning in her damp, bright eyes.

‘I’m not some panhandler! I haven’t taken one gosh-darn nickel from the state or the federal government or from anyone else after I lost my job or after the greedy banks took my home away!’

Darby said, ‘Miss Pike, we’re going to need to take you to the station and get you fingerprinted. We need your prints for comparison purposes. It’s just a formality.’

But the woman was no longer listening. Her eyes were fixed on Williams, who now stood in the van’s doorway, his hands held in the air, by his shoulders. ‘I meant no disrespect, ma’am,’ he said. ‘I apologize if –’

‘I don’t want one of your rinky-dink apologies. I bought this van legally, with my own hard-earned money – go ahead and check the registration if you want to!’

‘Yes, Ms Pike, I understand, but –’

‘YOUR DAY IS COMING, SIR!’ The woman’s face had turned scarlet, and when she trembled it made Darby think of a volcano seconds away from erupting, its flames and lava about to burn everyone and reduce them to ash. ‘THE WHOLE GOSH-DARN BUNCH OF YOU ARE GONNA SEE WHAT IT’S LIKE TO SCRAPE BY LIKE THE REST OF US HARD-WORKING AND GOD-FEARING FOLKS! NO MORE SUCKING OFF THE GOVERNMENT TIT, YOU’RE GONNA BE FORCED TO SEE HOW REAL PEOPLE LIVE, HOW WE –’

The woman cut herself off. Beads of sweat ran down her forehead and her lips trembled and then her eyes widened in fear at an image only she could see.

‘My heart,’ she said. ‘Oh God, no.’

Then Elisa A. Pike, formerly of 123 Alabaster Lane in Red Hill, Colorado, fell back against the van’s wall, clawing at her chest.

35

Darby darted inside the van. The second she removed the handcuffs from the woman’s wrists, Elisa Pike flopped down on the mattress, her enormous bulk momentarily shaking the vehicle. Darby tried to perform CPR – chest compressions following by mouth-to-mouth – but the woman wasn’t interested. Pike pushed Darby’s hands away; she kicked and thrashed. At one point Pike slapped her face.

When the ambulance arrived three minutes later, along with three patrol cars, Elisa Pike had a sudden change of heart, so to speak. The moment she sighted the male EMT with the sandy blond hair and button-shaped nose, she stopped fighting. Her eyes rolled back into her skull and once more she started to thrash against the mattress, as if she were experiencing an epileptic seizure, maybe even a stroke. She clawed at her chest again, bellowing, ‘My heart, oh dear Lord, my heart.’

Darby stood outside the van, the sun warm against her scalp, as the EMTs worked on the woman. Williams had watched the whole thing as though it were an impromptu circus performance.

‘Don’t feel bad,’ he said. ‘She’s does this every time.’

‘She’s done this before?’

‘That’s what they told me over the radio.’ He scratched the corner of his mouth. ‘Seems every time she’s caught loitering, she fakes a heart attack or some other major trauma and wins a free trip to the ER. She gets a soft bed and three squares and free cable TV for forty-eight hours. And she’s not the only one doing it either.’ Then, with a long sigh, he added, ‘She’ll probably turn around and try to sue the town for harassment or negligence, probably both, whatever the phonebook lawyer recommends. Not that it’ll amount to anything. What’s that saying, you can’t get blood from a stone?’