Gathering Dark

edge of the deck beside the detective, smoothing her skirt over her knees, a woman lowering herself beneath her usual standards. “It came in just under seven million.”
“I don’t need to know things like that.”
“I’ve got to tell you, Detective Sanchez, I’m a little surprised by your reaction to all this. You’re LAPD. What have you been making the past two decades of your career? Eighty grand? That ridiculous car out front makes me think a windfall like this is beyond anything you’d ever have imagined.”
A windfall like this will turn the entire Los Angeles Police Department against me, Jessica thought. It will destroy my relationship with my family in blue.
“How long have you been riding around in that beat-up old car? It’s embarrassing,” Rachel sighed.
“Leave my car alone. It’s got a hundred and seventy thousand miles on it and it runs like a dream.”
“I’m just saying, this could change your life.”
“It’s already changed my life.” Jessica pointed to the bandaged bite mark on her shoulder. “You see this? This happened because of this house.”
“I don’t understand.”
“My partner didn’t back me up last night because he was so pissed about the inheritance. He was assigned to the case too. He thinks he deserves half.”
“I notice you say assigned to the case, rather than worked on the case.” Rachel gave a wry smile. “If he didn’t back you up when you needed him, he doesn’t sound like a man who particularly likes doing his job.”
“You weren’t there. You don’t know.”
“I only ever heard Stan talking about you.” Rachel shrugged. “Jessica is coming over to show me some footage. Jessica called again. Jessica might have a new theory.”
Jessica said nothing.
“Stanley wanted this.” Rachel turned to her. “It’s all he wanted, in the end.”
Jessica watched the morning light flickering on the surface of the pool.
“When the Silver Lake Killer…” Rachel trailed off, then cleared her throat. Swallowed hard. “I refuse to say his name. I just call him the killer. When he took my niece, Stan told me that his time thinking of himself as a man ended. He was a father who could not protect his daughter. Bernice was gone and he—well, he was impotent. There was no revenge, there was no closure. He was helpless. Then you came into our lives and you worked and you worked until Stanley almost felt like you were haunting him.”
Jessica smirked.
“You were showing up here in the dead of the night trying to track down an item of her clothing. Pulling up the floorboards. Clambering around in the attic. Searching her room for the eighteenth time. He told me all about it. You sounded obsessed.”
“That’s what it takes,” Jessica said.
“Not everyone would agree with you, it seems,” Rachel said. “Not the officers who were on the case before you. It had been thirteen years, for Christ’s sake.”
“I was just doing my job.”
“Stanley didn’t believe that,” Rachel said. “He believed you went beyond the call of duty. And though he couldn’t do anything for Bernie, he felt as if he was doing something when he decided to pay you back.”
Jessica didn’t reply.
“If you refuse to take this house,” Rachel said, “you’ll be denying my brother his—”
“Stop.” Jessica held up a hand. “I don’t want to hear that shit.”
Rachel pursed her lips, wounded. She took a set of keys from the pocket of her skirt, and held them in the air before them, counting off the keys one by one.
“Front, back, deck, pool gate, side gate, pool house.” She pointed. “Garage.”
Jessica felt a stab of pain in her chest. She didn’t want to enter another garage, maybe ever again. Just the thought of one was unsettling.
“You’ve got my number,” Rachel said. She left the keys on the deck between them and stood, walking out without another word. Jessica looked at the keys for a long time, but didn’t touch them.
There was a kid watching her.
Jessica became aware of him in the yard behind the Bluestone Lane house as she lit her cigarette, wondering if smoking was even allowed in Brentwood, if a private security guard would turn up and hose her if the smoke carried too far on the wind. She noticed a shape moving behind a lattice gate in the back wall, covered with vines. She ignored him. When the cigarette was gone but the boy was still there Jessica went to the gate, skirting the huge, humming pool behind the glass fence.
“Are you our new neighbor?” the kid said before she could offer a greeting. Jessica stopped in her tracks.
“No.”
“Oh.” Disappointment.
“I’m just sort of … taking care of the place. For now.” She felt a strange obligation to comfort the child she could barely see through the leaves. She caught a glimpse of sandy blond hair and a wide blue eye.
“Mr. Beauvoir was a really nice guy,” the boy said, gripping the gate so that his fingers wiggled through on Jessica’s side, curious worms. “I’m kind of sad he’s gone. He died, you know.”
“I know.”
“He used to let me help him with the garden sometimes. See those purple flowers over there? The big ones? They’ve got thorns. Don’t go near them. You’ve got to wear gloves and long sleeves or they’ll get you.”
“Okay.” Jessica lit another cigarette, nodded. “Good advice.”
“If you want someone to help you with the garden, I can do it.”
“I don’t think it’ll come to that.”
“Mr. Beauvoir used to give me five bucks every time.”
“I can see why you miss him.”
“You were sitting there for a long time. Were you thinking about something?”
Detective Sanchez looked back toward the house, the sweeping windows and the deck. “People are usually thinking about something, kid,” she said. “You make it your mission to spy on people?”
“Sometimes.”
“And what about asking a million questions to people you just met. You do that a lot?”
“Yep.”
The woman and the boy stared at each other through the leaves. A squirrel scaled a tree nearby, scuttling upward fast.
“Did Mr. Beauvoir’s daughter get killed?” The boy gripped the wood tighter. Jessica laughed