Book of Night(98)

Her gaze went back to the walls. Over and over. The same word in finger-painted letters: RED. RED. RED. RED.



* * *



Charlie was still in that doorway when the police arrived. She wasn’t sure she remembered calling them. She didn’t remember how long she’d been standing there.

“You,” one of them said, hand on his gun. “Drop what you’re holding. Hands in the air.”

She discovered she was still gripping the pan from the kitchen. She let go. Distantly, she heard it clang as it hit the floor, but that felt very far away. Outside, the strobe of blue and red lights added another layer to the surrealness of the moment. She raised her hands.

It wasn’t that Charlie hadn’t seen a corpse before. She’d seen two in the last week. But this belonged to someone she knew. Someone who’d been murdered in her living room. His blood soaking her secondhand couch, which they were going to have to throw out. The rug would have to go too. Maybe she should just burn the whole place to the ground and let her landlord get the insurance money.

Another cop—a woman—crossed to Charlie and patted her down. The buzz of radios in the background and muttered conversation made it hard to focus.

“This is your place?” the cop demanded, obviously having asked the question twice. “Are you the one that called this in?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Charlie said. “Yes.”

“Did you kill him?” one of the others asked her.

Charlie laughed, which wasn’t a great look. “You think I could do all this?”

They exchanged glances.

“Did you?” the woman asked.

“No. I just got off work. My sister and I were at our mom’s place all yesterday.” She kept her hands up and open.

A photographer from forensics came in. At least Charlie thought they were from forensics. She wondered if someone would have to climb up the walls and get those invisible hairs. She wondered if the police would recommend someone from Vince’s company to clean this all up once the body was gone.

“Did you know the deceased?”

She nodded. “Adam Lokken.”

“He live here? Your neighbor said a man shared the place with two young women.”

Charlie considered what she could say. No matter what name she gave, his prints were all over the house. The minute they ran them, they’d discover Edmund Carver wasn’t dead. And they would believe he was the killer. “That was my boyfriend, Vincent. But he moved out.”

“Last name?”

“Damiano,” she told them, wondering if such a person even existed.

“What’s with the message?” one of them asked. “Do you know what it means?”

RED.

The color of blood. The name a boy gave his shadow.

Never name it. Raven’s words echoed in her head. But children named everything. They named teddy bears and goldfish in duck ponds and pieces of gum on the sidewalk. Of course Vince was going to name his shadow.

Perhaps it had come looking for him, like the shadow in the fairy tale. Perhaps it had mistaken Adam for Vince and then became enraged when it realized it had the wrong person. Or it killed Adam for Vince since he had a grievance. Or it had come looking for her, and saw an opportunity for some fresh blood.

And then it signed its work.

“I don’t know,” Charlie told them.

One of them walked behind her, jerking one of her hands behind her back. She felt the cold metal of cuffs. “I think you better come with us. We’ll go down to the station and you can make your statement.”

“Am I under arrest?” Charlie asked.

“I’m giving you a ride.” He was a short guy with broad shoulders and dark, curly hair. His badge was shiny. He told her his name was Officer Lupo as he led her out to the car and pushed her head down as he got her into the back seat. Neighbors had come out of their houses in bathrobes to check out the drama. Charlie wanted to wave, but she was cuffed.

The big brick building housing both the police station and the fire department was only a few blocks away. It wasn’t long before she was being led into the station and put in a back room with a big table. They asked her for her fingerprints for “elimination purposes” and she let them press each finger into a pad and then onto a paper. They asked for her license and she handed it over. They wanted her to unlock her cell phone, and she did that too. Mostly, they left her alone in the room, coming in once or twice to check on her.

After about forty-five minutes, Detective Juarez rolled in, looking as though he’d just been roused from bed, and not happy about it.

“You again?” he said when he saw her.

She didn’t say anything. What was there to say?

“Does this have something to do with what happened in Rapture?” he asked.

Charlie shrugged. “If it doesn’t, I guess I’ve got the devil’s own luck.”

“What was this Adam guy doing in your house?” He looked at his notes. “You knew him, right?”

If you want a lie to pass the sniff test, it helps to put your worst foot forward. “He was cheating on his girlfriend with me. After he broke it off, I told her. Day before yesterday, he came after me in a hospital parking lot and beat me up pretty bad.”

“Did you make a police report?” he asked, studying her face.