Violet Darger (Novella): Image In A Cracked Mirror Read online

  Contents

  Title & Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  The Violet Darger Series

  IMAGE IN A CRACKED MIRROR

  A Violet Darger Story

  L.T. Vargus & Tim McBain

  Copyright © 2017 L.T. Vargus & Tim McBain

  Smarmy Press

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Unfortunately, this story is based on a real case. While we took liberties with certain aspects, many of the details remain true to life, including everything from the grisly stuff to the mac and cheese.

  Chapter 1

  It was six minutes after 11 PM when Darger’s phone chirped on the coffee table. She checked it, a tad surprised to find Victor Loshak’s name on the display screen, especially at this hour. Weird. But then she remembered. He’d offered to get her the Leonard Stump file. He must be following through on that, a prospect that excited her more than she wanted to admit to herself. In the weeks since she’d returned from Ohio, she’d spent many hours imagining what horrors and secrets those pages must contain.

  She slid the tip of her tongue over her lips in one last tick of hesitation, and then she thumbed the green button and brought the phone to her ear.

  “Special Agent Loshak… Isn’t it past your bed time?”

  There was a pause on the other end, and then she realized she could hear Loshak’s wheezy laugh. It was like an endless stream of inhales. More like labored breathing than real laughter.

  “Smart ass,” he said, finally. “Look, I’ve got something I think you’ll be interested in. I’m about to fly out on a case — a real ghastly one — and it’s a bit of an emergency.”

  Darger’s mind raced, still trying to figure out how this thread of conversation would lead to him offering to send over the file she’d been building up in her head over these past few weeks.

  “A family of four got murdered on Lopez Island — a little, rural community off the coast of Washington state,” Loshak continued. “We’re talking four brutal stabbings, including two children — a 6-year-old and an infant.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah. All the mirrors in the house had been shattered, and bizarre mutilations were performed postmortem. Mostly on the adults, although… Maybe I ought to wait to get into the, uh, details of the thing.”

  They were quiet for a beat before Loshak resumed talking. Darger found herself oddly conscious of her breathing. Worried that she may be exhaling into the phone’s microphone like some creepy crank caller.

  “The locals are pretty spooked, naturally, and the San Juan County Sheriff’s department isn’t quite sure how to proceed. It’s a pretty unique situation. They were able to tie a few suspects — five, I believe — to the scene on the evening of the crime, but they don’t necessarily have enough to get a warrant on any of them. They’ve asked me to fly in, go over the crime scenes and come up with a profile that they can use to convince a judge to allow a search.”

  “I see,” she said, still wondering how this related to the Leonard Stump file.

  “All of the suspects are in custody now, but I’ve only got about 18 hours to sort it all out before they’ll be cut loose. Anyhow, I reserved a ticket for you, if you want to come. I kind of figured you could look over the case files on the flight, and we’d go from there. Two heads are better than one and all of that.”

  Again, Darger focused on her breathing, feeling the sharp tendril of cold enter her throat and chest as she gasped a little. It took her a second to wrangle her vocal cords into answering the man.

  “But… I thought…”

  “You’re worried about the bureaucratic BS?”

  “Yeah. A little,” she admitted. It was the other thing that had been occupying her mind lately: when — not if — she’d be penalized by those she’d disobeyed. She had, after all, committed blatant insubordination with the Athens case. She couldn’t deny it.

  “Well, don’t. This is way above Ryskamp and his cronies. I got the OK from someone farther up the chain.”

  For a second, Darger regretted that she wouldn’t get the Stump file. But this opportunity was something much better. Wasn’t it?

  “Sure. Yeah. What time’s the flight?”

  Chapter 2

  With a population of just under 2,200 souls strewn over 29.8 square miles, Lopez Island looked more like a slice of forest set a few miles off the coast than it did a likely site for a violent crime. It was rural. Scenic. Peaceful.

  Darger and Loshak arrived by ferry, driving their rental car — a Nissan Altima — off the boat at the landing and immediately finding trees lining both sides of the road. Thick woods and farmland occupied the landscape for most of their drive with residences only periodically breaking up the foliage.

  “Seems like a nice enough place,” Loshak said.

  He ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair which drew back from his forehead in that receding horseshoe-shape male pattern baldness sometimes enforced. Aviator sunglasses covered his eyes, so Darger couldn’t read him very well for the moment.

  “You know, retirement isn’t so far off for me now,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind living someplace like this, maybe. When the time comes.”

  The Bureau’s bylaws included a mandatory retirement at 57 years old, strictly enforced, Darger knew, so Loshak was already in his final years as an agent. That seemed hard for her to believe. Pancreatitis hadn’t stopped him. It didn’t seem like age could. Not anytime soon.

  He must have noticed her smirking to herself, because he turned and aimed the reflective lenses of his sunglasses at her.

  “Is that funny?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “I’m just having a hard time picturing you relaxing in a hammock all day. Enjoying sunsets. Golfing?”

  He adjusted his grip on the steering wheel, shrugging.

  “Just a passing thought, really. Lots of coastline and woods to explore is all. I could figure out how to fish or something.”

  The houses they passed were mostly large and modern builds. Angular lines in metal and natural wood. Plenty of windows to take advantage of the views. The Douglas firs and Oregon oaks towered over the more normal-looking houses, while the mansions seemed to have more manicured lawns, exotic grasses and shrubs running just along the borders of things, trimmed to perfection in a way that reminded her of fussy facial hair.

  The Altima rounded a corner, and suddenly the ocean came back into view, waves lapping at the back doors of the beach front homes on this side of the island. The sand and sea seemed to be in odd proximity to the houses nestled back into the woods. And if there were any downtown type area on this little piece of land, she hadn’t seen it, nor could she picture how it’d fit in. There must be a convenience store and a gas station, at least, though. Right?

  When Loshak steered the car onto a winding blacktop driveway, she knew they must be at the location. Pines taller and thicker than anything she’d ever seen back east stood along the asphalt strip, and the dried out needles formed a brown carpet beneath them.

  The house came into view at the end of the bend, looking like nothing special at first — a s
ingle story home with beige vinyl siding that sat at the bottom of a hill, nestled among the trees. But then she looked past the home and saw that the land fell away just there. It was practically hanging over the ocean. She’d never seen a house quite like it — woods on one side, ocean on the other.

  Loshak parked the car at the end of the driveway, the engine’s growl cutting out to silence, and they both craned their necks for a moment to survey the landscape.

  “Sure doesn’t look like a murder scene,” she said.

  “No. But then, most of them don’t. ‘Til you get inside, anyway.”

  They were quiet for a beat, and tension gripped Darger’s chest, clenching the muscles around her sternum. For some reason, she was reluctant to get out of the car, and Loshak seemed to be hesitating as well.

  “I take it you got a look at the files on the plane?” he said. “Any initial thoughts?”

  He’d slept the whole flight, his eyes blindfolded, his chin resting on one of those foam neck pillows. She’d read the file to the sound of his breath scraping in and out of him, thick and raspy, somehow falling below a snore if just barely.

  She had sat in the window seat on the plane, which offered her some small sense of privacy. It felt strange, still, looking through grisly photos among all of those passengers, flight attendants walking up and down the aisle handing out ginger ale and pretzels. Even though she knew no one could see the photographs, she flipped through them quickly, holding her breath all the while and barely taking them in apart from the red and wet bits. Something about that made the process feel incomplete. Half digested, she thought, for lack of a more appropriate term.

  “Yeah,” she said. “But I think I’d rather take a look around the house first before we discuss it. If you don’t mind, that is.”

  A mysterious half-smile curved the corners of Loshak’s mouth, and once more she found herself wishing he weren’t wearing the aviators like some kind of poker pro.

  “Just as well,” he said after a pause. “I don’t mind at all.”

  She took what she sensed was a rare opportunity to study him as they walked toward the house. Victor Loshak in his natural habitat.

  He was thinner than when they’d first met, that was for sure. He’d lost weight during his time in the hospital. But his skin had a healthy pinkness to it that had been entirely absent in their time in Ohio. A rosy glow. That was something, at least.

  Police tape fluttered in the breeze just beyond the car’s hood, smacking against the tree trunk it had been wrapped around. The yellow tape formed a rectangular perimeter around the house and most of the yard. Loshak pinched it carefully between his thumb and fingers and pulled it up into a little peak to make it easier for Darger to duck under.

  As they walked through the yard, the light was bright around them despite a lack of sunshine — a gray gleam that came from nowhere and somehow shined everywhere. Even the lodgepole pines that towered over everything in the vicinity seemed to cast no shadows.

  A sweet, woody smell surrounded them. It made her think of pine sap, though she wasn’t sure that’s what it was.

  Standing at the back corner of the home, her eyes finished the journey for her, skimming down the slope to the place where the water met the land. The way the dense woods severed all at once into that open air over the ocean was even more striking up close, and the air swirled off of the water just then, picking up strands of her hair.

  Despite the wind, the sea was calm. It lay flat from here to the neighboring island on the horizon — San Juan Island, she thought. The faintest ripples stirred on the surface. It looked more tranquil than any oceanfront view she’d ever seen, in fact — in real life or on TV.

  “Weird how still it is, eh?” Loshak said behind her, his shoulders squared at the same view. “The water between the islands is more like bathwater than any kind of raging sea.”

  She thought on it a moment and nodded.

  The wind picked up again, a bigger gust this time, tousling Loshak’s hair and whipping hers into her eyes. They faced it down, and when it died out, Loshak spoke.

  “Should we go inside?”

  Finally, she turned away from the water, tearing her gaze from the mirror-like surface of the bay.

  “Yeah. Better take a look.”

  Chapter 3

  Loshak peeled down the criss-crossing police tape that formed an X over the front door and let it fall to the ground. It lay on the linoleum, partially coiled there like a dead snake. They milled around in the foyer a moment — surrounded by shoes and jackets and a purse. Darger noted the sheer tininess of a pair of white Keds on the floor and felt the need to change the subject.

  “Whoever it was, they didn’t take the purse,” she said.

  “Right,” Loshak said. “No evidence that robbery was a motivating factor.”

  A musty odor greeted them as they moved off of that square of linoleum and stepped into the house proper. Even though it had only been three days and nights since the murders took place, the air in the house smelled stale as though it had been closed up for much longer. It reminded her of the mildew stench of the bathrooms in her college dorm, freshman year. The janitors had tried their best to combat the issue, but it seemed that no amount of scrubbing and bleaching could clear that earthy yet acrid scent.

  Cherry wood floors gleamed everywhere, reflecting the gray light that slanted in all of the windows. This flooring ran through the kitchen to their immediate left and a hallway to the right, presumably leading to the bedrooms. And the nursery.

  At the end of the hall, a large decorative mirror hung on the wall. It had been shattered into a thousand pieces, cracks emanating from a clear point of impact in the center. She raised her arm, phone in hand, and took a picture of it. Darger was gazing at her fractured reflection when Loshak spoke up from the kitchen.

  “Mrs. Cameron was found here,” he said, pointing to a throw rug in front of the kitchen sink. “Stabbed numerous times, mostly in the chest. She died before bleeding out, probably from loss of organ function, or possibly from shock.”

  Looking closer, Darger could see the discoloration tinting the hue of the dark rug, if only a touch.

  “Postmortem, her abdomen was cut open from the belly button to the sternum,” Loshak said. “And many of her internal organs — liver, spleen, pancreas, lungs — were stabbed numerous times as well.”

  His words conjured memories of the gory images she’d flipped through on the plane, the slit opening the woman’s belly with a bulge of large intestine left hanging out, weirdly brown and purple. She’d never seen anything like that before.

  Loshak hesitated a moment, seemingly waiting for her to chime in. Darger didn’t know what to say, though, so she said nothing. She only lifted her phone and snapped a few photos.

  “So that’s pretty, uh, unusual,” Loshak said, finally.

  He turned and moved a few paces into the dining area. Darger followed.

  “Mr. Cameron was found here. Under the dining table,” Loshak said. “He, too, was stabbed multiple times. Too numerous to count. Based on the spatter evidence, it’s thought that — wounded and in shock — he crawled under the table, where he eventually died of blood loss.”

  The off-white carpet sported a rust colored splotch about the size of one of those bearskin rugs Darger remembered from the old Westerns she’d watched with her dad growing up. And she could see the trail of spatter leading off into the living room, arterial spray most likely, all of it brown with a ruddy hue. The sound of her camera’s shutter punctuated the silence.

  “I’m not judging any murder victim,” Loshak said. “But I hope it was already over when he came here and hid. I hope he didn’t leave them…”

  They both stared at the brown spot on the floor for a long silent moment before Loshak led the way into the bathroom.

  The room was dark for a moment as Loshak fumbled for the light switch, and the mildew smell was stronger here. It filled Darger’s nostrils with a stink strong enough to make he
r eyes water a little.

  The fluorescent bulbs flickered and came on, buzzing a little. The broken mirror over the sink distorted her reflection. It was an eerie image, her face splintered and cracked and stretched out of proportion. When she tore her eyes away and looked down, it was a second before she made sense of what she was seeing.

  Gummy blood pooled on the linoleum floor. Thick. Opaque. A mottled skin had formed along the top of it, and its shade was much redder than the stain on the carpet. A deep, cloudy red, like wine going almost milky from sitting out for too long. This patch of blood alongside the bathtub wasn’t nearly as big as that splotch under the dining table. It was, she supposed, about the height of a child.

  “And this is where Ellie, the six-year-old…” Loshak said, trailing off and leaving that sentence unfinished. “Multiple stab wounds, again. Too numerous to count, again. These lacerations were focused not on the abdomen such as in both parents’ cases, however, but on the face and eyes. Police recovered the tip of the murder weapon — a standard, mass-produced kitchen knife — in this room, where it broke against the victim’s cheekbone.”

  She couldn’t help but imagine the sound that might make. Metal breaking against bone.

  This time they didn’t linger in the vicinity of the blood mark. Darger shuffled out of the bathroom as soon as Loshak finished speaking, and he sniffled a little as he followed her, flicking the lights off as he passed through the door.

  For the first time since they’d entered the house, Darger led the way. She moved down that cherry floored hallway, the white bedroom doors closed before her. The nursery would be last, she realized. The most gruesome of the murders would be their final bit of work here. Perhaps that was for the best.

  They glanced into the other two rooms, the six-year-old’s bedroom and the master. Both neat to an uptight degree apart from the child’s unmade bed.