Darkness on the Edge of Town by J. Carson Black Read Free Book Online

in a doorway.  Laura stood under the arch, feeling the chill draft as rain blew inward. With the rain came the stench of death.
    Suddenly, she could feel him: His essence leaking out of the wet cement, the air around her: Controlled rage.  A predator.  For a moment she knew what it was like to be a rabbit in the shadow of the hawk.
    Was he watching her now?  She looked around but saw nothing.  Imagined she heard footsteps, but it was only the rain. 
    The wind blew harder.  The tree shadows lashed back and forth on the wall of the bandshell in tortured shapes, as if they were being strangled.
    She stared out at the park. 
    Something caught her eye in the gleam of the streetlight, wet and shiny at the edge of the stage.  A matchbook. 
    Laura had been over every inch of this stage earlier today, and she knew the matchbook had not been there when they removed the body.  The crime scene had been clean.  The matchbook could belong to anyone; kids, tourists, curiosity seekers.  The morbid. 
    Donning latex gloves, she hunkered down beside the matchbook.  The words “The Copper Queen Hotel” were stamped on the front. Holding the edges with her fingertips to avoid smearing any prints, she pried it open.   
    On the inside cover, someone had written a message in block letters with a rollerball pen. The cardboard was so soggy it threatened to come apart in her hands, the letters starting to blur where the raindrops hit them. 
    Laura scooted back under the overhang.  Holding the matchbook open against the concrete, she aimed her flashlight at the block letters.
    CRZYGRL12. 
    The rain hissed, chortled, murmured.
    Crzygrl.  Short for crazy girl?  The twelfth in a line of crazy girls?
    She caught a movement in the corner of her eye.  Suddenly, a bright light shone in her face and a voice demanded, “What are you doing?”

8

    Laura squinted into the glare of a MagLite.
    “What are you doing?” Detective Holland repeated. The MagLite steady on her face. 
    She wondered if he was keeping it on her purposely.  Letting her know she was the trespasser here rather than the lead on this case?  It made her angry, but it also goosed her heart up a notch. What did he think—she was planting evidence? 
    “What’s that?” he said, motioning at her hand with the light.
    She stood up and brushed off her slacks.  “What are you doing here?”
    “Checking on the crime scene, same as you.”
    “Earlier today, did you see anything like this?”  She held the copper-colored matchbook up to the light.
    “Nope.”
    “Take a look.” 
    “I don’t have gloves.”
    “I’ll hold it for you.”  She opened the matchbook as carefully as she could.  “CRZYGRL 12.  What do you think that means?”
    He stared at the letters on the matchbook, his gaze stony.  But she could tell that something was going on behind his eyes, the cogs turning. 
    Laura said “I need a paper bag for this.”
    He just watched her.
    “I have plastic evidence bags but no paper.  This thing’s falling apart and it’s wet.  If we’re going to put this into evidence, I’ve got to have a paper bag.  I’ve got some in the 4Runner. Would you mind running down and getting me one?”
    She tossed him the keys and he caught them. But he made no move to go.
    “I’m parked outside the Jonquil.” 
    “Is that an order?”
    “It’s a request.”  She added, “Don’t you want to catch this guy?”
    He stood there for a moment.  Drawing it out—that she needed a favor from him. Then he shambled down the steps, in no hurry.
    Way down the block she heard the big engine of his Chevy Caprice start up.

    * * *

    Laura wondered how long Buddy Holland had been up here.  She would have heard him if he’d just driven up. If she could have planted the matchbook, so could he. 
    The rain kept coming down.  After awhile, her back started to hurt and she needed to sit down.  She sat against the bandshell wall, as far away as she could get from