Laura Cardinal - 01 - Darkness on the Edge of Town

She regretted not pushing Chief Redbone to request a SWAT response from the sheriff’s office. She knew the chief was smart, and there was no question he knew his town. But he might be out of his depth here. If it weren’t for the fact that the house was boarded up, she would call this off now.

She let Redbone outline the problem, only interjecting to say that she wanted Descartes to take the back and Oliver to remain in front with them. She wanted Jerry Oliver where she could keep an eye on him.

As Redbone parroted her earlier instructions, Laura looked the house over. Like its neighbor, it was clapboard —modest compared to some of the houses on this street. The original color was Wedgewood blue trimmed with white, but the wood had weathered to gray. Plywood had been hammered across the windows, the front door barred by several planks. As they crossed the leaf-littered yard, an enormous magnolia tree swallowed them in dark shade. Some kind of hedge Laura didn’t recognize grew around the house, something with thorns. It had gone wild, obscuring several of the windows. The porch was festooned with Virginia creeper that in some places had died but remained, snarled and gray like a spider web.

Gun ready, Laura crept up to the house at an angle, even though no one could see out the windows. She stood to the left of the door, which would open inward. But first, it would have to be stripped of the planks that had been hammered across it.

Redbone nodded to Oliver, who pried up the boards with the sharp end of a crowbar. When he was done, Oliver threw the crowbar on the grass with a hollow bang.

Laura crouched down, looking over to see that both Redbone and Oliver were in position. She caught Oliver’s eye and nodded toward the gun on his hip. He sighed heavily and drew his weapon. Redbone checked the radio to make sure Descartes was stationed at the back door.

The radio crackled. He was in position.

Redbone tested the knob on the door. Locked. He nodded to Oliver, who re-holstered his weapon, retrieved the crowbar, and bashed the lock with repeated blows. The door creaked open a couple of inches.

This time when Oliver threw the crowbar, it nearly took out Laura’s foot. He caught her look and had the grace to look sheepish. He again withdrew his weapon, but held it loosely at his side, pointed down and dangling a little behind his leg.

She thought: I hope his complacency doesn’t catch up with him someday.

She dropped into a crouch. Looked at Oliver again. He assumed a crouching position and raised his gun. Redbone remained standing, aiming his weapon toward the left. Laura shouted, “Police! Search Warrant!” and shoved the door the rest of the way open, swinging back and forth into the dark, her weapon leveled on empty air.

37

The word that came to her was “surreal”. As if she were in the middle of a snow globe, but the snow was the dust motes that floated in the golden light from the open doorway. Glittering snowflakes falling across the jumping beam of her MagLite.

It floated out of the darkness at her, this strange, cluttered room. Too much to assimilate right now. She didn’t have time.

“Clear!” she called as she ducked into the doorway to her left. Another light—Redbone’s—jumped into the darkness, a weak ray. She was in the kitchen. Counter, sink, refrigerator—

“Kitchen is clear!”

Her flashlight swung in the other direction as Laura heard Oliver scrambling toward the doorway on the other side.

“Bedroom is clear!” Oliver shouted.

They went through the house, systematically clearing every room. Laura saw things that she did not expect to see, but it was so dark she would reserve judgment until they could get light on the situation. They returned to the first room, the living room.

Despite her wariness, respiration was beginning to return to normal. They’d checked every closet, every alcove. No one home.

The place smelled stale.

Oliver holstered his weapon and stretched his neck as Andrew Descartes entered through the front door. Jerry Oliver would not be punished for his inattention today.

 “Let’s get some light in here,” Laura said. “Get the rest of that plywood off.”

38

Once the plywood was off, there was enough light to search some of the rooms, but not all. Redbone got on the horn and made arrangements for a gas-powered generator and a pair of 500-watt quartz lamps from the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department.

There was enough light, though, for Laura to think she had stepped inside an old photograph of a Victorian house—something you’d see in a history book.

The front room—the parlor—seemed to press in on her. A stamped tin ceiling, an old-fashioned chandelier, dark furniture, burgundy velvet drapes swagged to reveal immaculate white lace. Everything fringed, shirred, swagged, or flocked. The wallpaper was dark, the floor dominated by a large oriental carpet. Oval portraits on the walls in old, convex glass. Bric-a-brac everywhere: china cabinet, ottoman, settee, footstools—

So much of it.

Ottoman, settee … Words people didn’t use anymore: A room out of the nineteenth century. The operative word here was fussy.

“Good Lord Jesus,” muttered Redbone. “It looks like a museum.”