The Darkest Place Read online

  The

  Darkest

  Place

  ALSO BY DANIEL JUDSON

  The Bone Orchard

  The Poisoned Rose

  St. Martin’s Minotaur

  New York

  THE DARKEST PLACE. Copyright © 2006 by Daniel Judson. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Judson, D. Daniel.

  The darkest place / D. Daniel Judson.—1st St. Martin’s Minotaur ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-312-35253-0

  ISBN-10: 0-312-35253-0

  1. College teachers—Fiction. 2. Hamptons, (N.Y.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3610.U532D37 2006

  813'.6—dc22

  2006040532

  First Edition: June 2006

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Sara Bassett and

  in memory of Doris Barton

  The

  Darkest

  Place

  One

  HE DIDN’T MIND THE COLD. HE WAS WEARING HIS HEAVY CAR-hartt jacket and leather gloves and wool hat, the hat he had once seen in that movie about corruption among longshoremen, the one with Marlon Brando, the one from the fifties. What was that movie called? He couldn’t remember. But he had liked the look of those hats, the look of the men who wore them. Tough, self-reliant, beat-but-still-standing. He liked that, wanted those who looked at him to see that, see a man still standing. As he drove his van through the dark he remembered that he had also liked the woman in the movie, the blonde in the white slip, the one with the sad eyes. He liked the way she looked, he liked her voice. There was something about it, something about her. He had been born in Brooklyn, lived in sight of those very docks, surrounded, he was certain, by women who talked like she had talked. He hadn’t ever known his father, didn’t know what the man had done for a living back then, if the man had in fact been one of those men who worked the waterfront or had done something else to earn his money. But what that something could have been he didn’t know.

  His father had left before he was born, and his mother had found a house farther out on the island, in the town of Riverhead. This was when he was four. He could barely remember that day, his first in the new house. Men came and went. He remembered that. His mother never spoke of his old man, but there wasn’t a day when he didn’t think about his father, about the things this unknown man might have done to survive, the places he might have lived in and the women he might have been with and maybe even loved in the years that followed his leaving them. He thought about that, gnawed on that, a hundred times a day—at work, at home, at night, down in his basement, and then later on in bed. He was thinking of all that now, as he steered his van through this cold night, looking calmly for a place to deposit the body.

  He had lifted weights before he left his house, the rusted bench press set up in the basement, beside the large furnace. The furnace worked continuously against the cold, against a wintry wind that pressed like a shoulder again and again against the windows, bending and rattling the panes. He could see through the small glass window in the hatch of the furnace the fire that raged inside. It was the only source of light, and he stared at it as he briefly rested between sets. He had made a point of doing slow, forced repetitions with heavy weight, filling his thick muscles with blood and raising his heart rate to one-twenty. This had warmed his core up plenty, and the engorged muscles in his torso, quivering beneath his jacket now, were like an added layer of living insulation packed around him. Even after the half hour it took him to reach Hampton Bays, the van’s engine had yet to heat the radiator fluid enough to affect the heater coil. It was that cold outside, that raw. Arctic. The air rushing through the vents under the dashboard was still cold, but he didn’t mind that. He liked the feel of it on his face. It was something for him to stand against, something to prove his resilience. And anyway, his heart and lungs and gut, the deepest parts of himself, only seemed warmer by contrast to what was touching his large, unshaven face like a dead hand.

  No, this cold was fine with him.

  He was a big man—six-five, two-ninety. He wasn’t yet thirty. Beneath the heavy jacket he wore dirty coveralls, rarely wore anything else, even on his days off. This cold snap dropping into the double-digits-below when the sun went down, was only two days old. Before that the weather had been mild—a long Indian summer in October followed by a mild November. The first day of winter was just a week away, but until two days ago, it hadn’t seemed really possible to him. Despite this sudden cold, he wasn’t worried that the bay would be frozen over. Even the lakes around town had yet to freeze. Only the small ponds on the back roads of Bridgehampton had a thin sheet over them. No, there was nothing for him to worry about, nothing to stand in his way. This was easy money. Easy money.

  He entered Hampton Bays from the north and headed his van east along Main Street. He drove slowly, the way he had driven in from Riverhead, through the desolation of the pine barrens. No need to attract the cops, though he was ready for what he’d have to do if one dared to stop him. A few blocks east, in the heart of town, he turned the van south and headed through a working-class neighborhood called Ponquogue. It wasn’t late, not much past nine o’clock now. He didn’t feel that he needed the protection that a later hour would afford him. He’d done this before, was getting good at it, better and better each time. Besides, there was elegance in this, in what he was doing. There was elegance in his being daring, being efficient and confident. Elegance was a sad-eyed blonde in a slip, elegance was Brando in his checkered jacket, standing up, his face bloodied. This mattered to him, elegance. As he rode past the houses he knew that those hidden inside were watching television, just killing time till sleep called. Without straining he could see through the front windows, see from the corner of his eye the flickering blue light cast against the walls, the ever-moving shadows, action without motion. The people occupying these houses were getting fatter, he knew this, growing weaker by the day, wasting away as they waited on soft couches for their precious hours of unconsciousness. What was the point in living, he thought, if living was only this?

  As he steered down the dark street he found himself looking at the upstairs windows, splitting his attention between them and the familiar road ahead. Some windows were dark, others lit. He watched them all as closely as he could, concentrating. One night not too long ago he had seen a woman crossing a well-lit bedroom, saw her turn and face the window just as he rode past. She was undressed. Lean and strong, from what he could see in the second or two that he had. She had aroused him, not only sexually but deep in his heart. He imagined her lonely, like he was. He imagined her seeking perfection in everything she did, defining herself with every gesture she made, the way he was trying to define himself by what he did. He thought of her working out every day, unashamed of her body, tending to it. Neat and clean. He thought of her with him, naked in his basement, on his bench, the heat from the furnace touching them, the orange glow from its flames reflecting off the sweat that covered their skin . . .

  He was more than what he seemed, much more, and the woman he would love would know that. He would know that about her, too. He would have her when he wanted, she would undress for him, without him having to ask. She would walk before him freely, never doubt him. She would have him, too, whenever she wanted, and he would walk before her for her to see.

  A few miles later he was pulling over to the side of
the road. There weren’t any houses here, just a wooded lot to the right and the shimmering edge of the bay on his left. He was focused now. Sharp. He killed the lights but left the motor running. He wouldn’t be long. He got out and stepped around to the back, opening the rear doors and leaning in. The body wrapped up in the sheet of clear plastic had begun to stiffen. It was heavy now, in that way dead things are heavy. But he curled more than that weight every other day, so his muscles didn’t strain a bit as he pulled the body out and carried it to the water’s edge.

  He knelt, letting the body down onto the bank. With both hands he held the jagged edge of the plastic so the body unrolled down the bank and into the water. At this time of night Shinnecock Canal was closed, so the current would be a lazy one. Still, the body, facedown, immediately started to drift away from the bank. Fully dressed, per his orders. An air pocket was probably caught inside the nylon jacket, enough to give it buoyancy, or close to it. He had thought he might have to give the body a shove, and there was a broom handle in the back of the van for that reason. But he could see he wouldn’t need to do that. The body was twenty feet from shore and still moving by the time he was back at the van. He tossed the clear plastic through the rear doors, then looked at the bay for a moment longer. He watched till he couldn’t distinguish the body from the surface chop that was stirred up by a steady wind that all but cut his exposed skin.

  He closed the doors, walked around to the front, and got in. Heat was coming finally from the vents, but he didn’t want it, nor did he need it. He felt good just as he was and switched the heater off. It was to him a sign of his greatness, his strength. Then he pulled the column shifter down, made a U-turn, and drove back as slowly as he had come.

  He watched the houses as he went past them again, watching windows for a glimpse of a woman who might think as he thought, know what he knew. Maybe a blonde, maybe with a quaver in her voice and sad eyes and the willingness to do what needed to be done. He thought then of driving past the house where he had seen the naked woman nights ago. But that was in a town farther east from here, on Peconic Bay, and anyway, there was a phone call to make and money to collect.

  He left Hampton Bays and started north through the darkness of the pine barrens, heading back to Riverhead. For the longest time his van was the only vehicle on the road.

  In Southampton, thirst woke Tommy Miller. He got out of bed, the floorboards cold beneath his bare feet, and walked lightly toward his bathroom. The windows were frosted, the small room lit tonight with a ghostly blue wash. He found that he was out of the little paper cups he used when he brushed his teeth, so he drank from the tap, filling the palm of his hand and bringing it to his mouth. Then he dried his hand on a towel and went back to his bed and to the woman he barely knew lying still and quiet beneath his blankets.

  It occurred to him, though, as he eased in beside her, that she was awake, that maybe she had been even before he got up for some water. Her breathing wasn’t low and regular, and he knew enough about a sleeping woman to know that what he was hearing wasn’t the sound of someone comfortably at rest. By the clock on the nearby table he saw that it was just past midnight. They had fallen into bed together around ten, after too many drinks at Barrister’s and a quick ride to his house on Moses Lane, and made love as best they could, then lay side by side in awkward silence for a while. He must have dozed off soon after because the next thing he knew he was awake and in desperate need of some water.

  He moved carefully as he settled back into his bed, saying nothing to her. If he was wrong about the meaning of her breathing pattern and she was in fact asleep, he didn’t want to disturb her. He was awake now, though—the beer he’d drunk had worn off in his nap. He was awake and thinking, not a good thing in this dark hour. He wondered if she had enjoyed herself, if he had acted properly. He wasn’t very experienced with this kind of encounter. He hadn’t been with a woman in a while, well over a year. He’d needed time, needed to put distance between himself and a relationship that had ended quite badly. Before that, before the previous relationship, his only experience with women had been violent encounters. It was this, his past, when finally it was revealed, that had ended that relationship a year ago. As he lay beside this woman, he wondered how he would tell her, if it ever came to that, if this wasn’t just a one-night thing. What words, if any, would keep her from hating him, from leaving him, too. He was inclined now, with these thoughts in his head, these concerns and questions, to remain silent beside her even if she was awake. He’d spent a year in such silence, was safe there. Her presence beside him wasn’t enough yet to veer him from this habit.

  His house was old and drafty, his bedroom cold. He had lived there with his mother and father before they died, lived there for all of his twenty-two years. The only source of heat in the whole place was a large square grate in the floor of the living room downstairs, the only access to the rooms above the narrow stairwell at the far end of the hallway. Miller had left his bedroom door half-open, but very little warmth had found its way up to them. Outside was a solemn winter night. He could sense the killing cold beyond his windows even from his bed. He and Abby had talked about the cold as they drank at Barrister’s. It was all anyone talked about. They had raced through it to his car when they left, laughing, just a bit tipsy. She had teased him about his cold feet when they first got into his bed. Her hands had felt almost like those of a dead person’s in his. But their bodies had warmed up fast enough, for the most part anyway, and had remained warm for as long as they both stayed under the protection of his heavy blankets.

  He heard her sniffle now, once, and then again, and knew for certain that she was awake. He waited awhile, but the silence, broken only by their shallow breathing, rang. Eventually he said the only thing that he could think to say, a rehearsal for the day he, or someone else, would tell her his secret. Southampton was a small town, and notorious pasts weren’t quickly forgotten.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “What for?” She spoke in a whisper.

  “I woke you.”

  “No.” Her voice, soft, deep for someone so young, was anything but groggy. He wondered how long it was he had slept beside her as she stared up at his ceiling. An hour? More? Their lovemaking had hardly been epic. They were little more than strangers to each other, and with so much at stake, he had been nervous.

  “You okay?”

  She answered with a quick nod. Then, after a moment of more silence, “Is there a TV or something on downstairs? I hear something.”

  He tuned into it then. On a bureau he kept in the hallway, just outside his half-open door, was a police scanner. It had belonged to his father. Miller kept it turned on with the volume set close to zero. The voices, unless you really listened, were little more than murmurs. He had adapted the ability to tune out the low voices and the occasional squawking, only listening closely when something important came through. Somehow he knew the difference; it was something in the tone of the dispatcher’s voice that told him when to listen. It was a skill he had spent a lifetime developing, one that had also belonged to his father. But while this noise was little more to Miller than the sound of street traffic to a city person, to Abby it was something she could not easily ignore.

  Miller told her what it was and that he’d turn it off.

  “You’ll only bring more cold back to bed if you get out again,” she said. “It’s okay for now.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. Maybe you can talk to me for a while.”

  “What about?”

  “I don’t know. You can tell me why you have a police scanner. Why do you leave it on?”

  “For work.”

  “You run a magazine store,” she said. It was how they met. His small shop, magazines and prepackaged bags of gourmet coffee, was next door to the gourmet deli where she worked. They had been on friendly terms since she started working there three months before, but in that time hadn’t exchanged anything more than small talk and pleasantries. She h
ad mentioned in passing that she was about to turn twenty-one, and somehow he got the nerve to suggest that they go for drinks some night after work to celebrate. It all happened so quickly, really. He had always assumed, up till the point tonight when she told him otherwise, that she had a boyfriend. Attractive women were rarely single. He didn’t ask her why she happened to be unattached, and she didn’t offer. He was careful not to ask questions about a person’s past. They often led to questions about his own.

  But she wasn’t asking about his past now, just his present. Why did he listen to a scanner? The question was unsafe territory for a number of reasons, the chief among them being that, whether she knew it or not, it was connected to his past, and could lead them places he didn’t yet want to go.

  “Sometimes I do some work for a guy,” he answered. She was looking at him now. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling above.

  “What guy?”

  “It’s nothing major.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

  She smiled, glad that they were at least talking. She wasn’t used to men staying around after sex. Being there in that strange bed, awake while he had slept, she had started to give in to feelings of loneliness. But now that was gone. “You brought it up,” she said, teasing him.

  “I’m just not supposed to talk about it. It’s nothing to worry about.”

  “I wasn’t worried.”

  “I’m not a criminal or anything.”

  “I didn’t think you were.” She wanted to keep the conversation going. “So you live here all alone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You own it?”

  “My parents left it to me.”

  “Oh. Lots of space for just you.”

  He nodded. His attention had drifted. She sensed it.

  “What?” she said.