A Cold Dark Place (14 page)

But something was awry on Foster Avenue. Newspapers
had piled up on the steps that set the stage for an imposing
double front door. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. The
Salt Lake City Tribune was literally loitering on the ideal
tableau of a good Mormon home.

The paperboy-a girl named Tracy Ross-told her mother
that she was worried about the Chapmans at 4242 Foster
Ave., an especially nice street of upscale homes with swim ming pools and built-in barbecue pits. The girl, fourteen,
had an excellent relationship with everyone on her route.

"They usually tell me when they go out of town," she said
over a family dinner of roast chicken and mashed potatoes.

"Maybe it slipped Mrs. Chapman's mind." Tracy's mom,
Annette, offered.

"That's right," Rod Ross said. "This is a busy time of
year." He smiled broadly at his brood of six children, Tracy
being the oldest of four girls and two boys. Dinner conversation was always pleasant. They didn't allow TV in the house.
"Think about it. Think about how busy we are. Try not to
worry, Sweet Pea. All's well in Ogden."

"All right, Father," Tracy said. She finished her meal, still
worried about the Chapmans. There were only three of them.
Mr. and Mrs. and their daughter, nineteen, a bookworm
named Misty. How busy could they be?

"I'm here. I'm not leaving. But you have to tell me everything." Jenna Kenyon had been patient enough. Up to that
point, she had been too scared and confused to ask the really
hard questions, but the article on the grease-marred pages of
the newspaper begged for answers that only Nick could provide. She'd held him at night. She'd dried his tears. She'd
even suffered the indignity of using an old Folger's coffee
can for a toilet while he turned his back. It would be wrong
to say she was a prisoner. She didn't think Nick would hurt
her if she bolted for the door. But she had to know. She had
to ask.

"What happened?"

His dark hair hanging like loose fringe over his hooded
blue eyes, Nick sat on the dingy plaid sofa staring into the
darkness of the old Horse Heaven Hills Mine hiring office.
He pulled his legs up tight to his chest, his chin resting between his bony knees. Nick owed Jenna the truth. But he
stayed silent.

"Tell me," she prodded once more. She put her arm gently around his shoulder. The smell of sweat and gasoline was
pungent in her nose.

"All right," he began, slowly. "I'll tell you"

It was just after lunch on the previous Thursday when
Nick got a call from the school office that there was some
kind of a family emergency and that he was needed at home.

`[just spoke with your mother," the dour secretary said,
wire-rimmed readers on a chain from her slender neck. A
worried look on the teen's face brought much-needed reassurance. She smiled and said, "She's fine. Your dad and
brother are okay, too. I asked."

"What's happened?"

"I don't know Go home. Call us if you need anything
from here. Okay?"

"I guess so."

Nick signed out for the afternoon, slung his backpack
over his shoulder; and hurried to the Ford pickup his dad
had given him for his seventeenth birthday. He checked his
pocket for cash, but came up short. He should have filled up
earlier in the day. He revved the engine; a cloud of exhaust
poured from the tailpipe. The gas gauge indicated he had an
eighth of a tank Good. Enough to get home. He figured the
`family emergency" probably involved grandpa or grandma.
His dad's parents were already gone, and both Nick and
Donny were close to their maternal grandparents. They lived
on a farm just south of Billings, Montana. Some of Nick's
happiest memories were of visits to their farm, a place of
long summer afternoons and quiet, star filled nights.

Pulling into their long wagon wheel driveway, Nick spotted his parent's vehicles parked in front of the house. There was also a black Buick, a Skylark It was unfamiliar. The
plates were framed in a rental car company's holder.

Wonder who's here?

The front door was ajar.

"Mom!" he called once inside.

There was no response. Natasha rubbed against his leg,
and Nick bent down to pick up the cat. She immediately
turned on her motor and started purring.

"Where is everyone? " he asked, petting the cat and moving deliberately through the house. The living room with its
pair of antique love seats set off by an oval braided rug was
empty. So was the kitchen. A drawer was open. Almost absentmindedly, Nick shut it with a push of his hip. The cat stopped
purring and wanted down, but Nick held her. Next he made
his way down the hall, but everything was quiet. Really
quiet. On his way backfrom his dad's vacant office at the opposite end of the hall, he noticed Donovan 's fifteen pound,
shoulder-bruising backpack by the front door. He was already home?

The Seth Thomas grandfather clock in the foyer ticked
like a bomb.

"Donny? Dad? Mom?"

Natasha jumped from Nick's arms and scampered toward
the door. Maybe they were in the backyard? The afternoon
sun was blinding and a breeze wafted the scent of lilacs and
mint through the air. Swallows that had set up housekeeping
under the eaves swooped low over the grassy field that zoomed
up the hill from the driveway to the highway. He noticed that
laundry had been hung that morning. It fluttered soaking in
the smells of the country that his mother loved so much. The
serenity of the scene was utterly at odds with the supposedly
urgent request to get home. Somethings really wrong. Nick
could feel panic rising.

He went back inside and stood at the bottom of the honey
fir planked stairway.

"Mom?"

There was no reason to be upstairs. There were only bedrooms on the second floor. With a visitor here, why would
they be up there?

Up he went, into a nightmare.

Jenna found an old cotton painter's drop cloth, and put it
around Nick's shoulders. Each word of his story sent a shiver
from her neck to the base of her spine. Like shards of glass
stabbing. Like ice. Nick was looking at her then, measuring
the impact of his words, not sure if he was losing her or winning her over. What he had to say was nothing, however,
compared with what he'd seen in his parents' bedroom.

"It was bad," he whispered. "It wasn't some movie set or
anything like that, but I wanted it to be fake. To be like some
big joke. But I knew that my mom and dad would never play
a joke like that."

Jenna held him closer. Her heart ached for what he was
about to disclose.

"You're going to be all right, Nick. You're going to be
fine. I'm here"

He shot her a look that stopped her cold. He didn't even
have to say the words. She felt stupid. Of course, he wasn't
all right. How could he be?

"I want to smoke," he said.

"Later. I can't help you if I don't know what happened"

He drew in a deep breath and held it. He wished he didn't
have to breathe at all. Breathing meant living. He'd wished
to God that he'd been dead, that he never seen what was in
his parent's bedroom.

"Mom? Dad?"

The room was dark and absolutely still. The blinds glowed
orange from the daylight outside, but the light was out and
Nick couldn't see anything. He reached for the switch. The
flash from an overhead bisque and brass fixture filled the room
with creamy light ... and red.

The red, he knew with the visceral response that comes
with complete fear was blood.

Not this. No. No. Please.

His mother was nude on the bed. Shed been bound with
something on her legs and feet. His father; dressed, was beside her. A spray of blood spatter arced behind the bed. There
was so much blood! He took each piece of the scene in like a
Polaroid, not waiting to really see what he was viewing.
Later the images would emerge from the fog of what he d
seen. His father's curly silver hair was caked in shiny whorls
of blood. His mother's skin was tissue white. Everything had
been touched by the dark red color of blood.

"Mom! Dad!" Nick lunged for the bed and tried to shake
them into waking, though he knew they were dead. His father's dark eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. His mother had
doll eyes, too. Open, but seeing nothing at all. He was crying
then. His hands were wet with blood and he spun around, as
the reality of what he d seen sucked him deeper into terror.
"Momma! Daddy!"

On the floor, he saw afoot, a leg, and then the rest of his
brother. Still. Lifeless like his parents. Nick started circling
the front of the bed. He was a caged animal. The door was
open, he could leave, of course, but he just kept circling. He
needed to call 911. Call the police. But he was paralyzed by
fear He called out, a wail of emotion, for his brother and his
parents. Had Dad killed Mom, then Donny? Why? Nick felt his pocket for his cell phone, but it was gone. Must be in my
backpack. Or the truck.

Family pictures looked on from the dresser. Among them
was a shot ofNick and Donny grinning in cutoffs and Grand
Canyon T-shirts standing against the celebrated red rocks of
Sedona, Arizona. His mom and dad's wedding photo, his dad
having to forever live down the white and powder blue tux
that he d put on because he loved Peg so much. Mom with
her medallion for winning the Tri-State Cat Fanciers show

Blood spatter mottled the mirror. Nick caught a glimpse
of his own horror, a face he almost didn't recognize, so
twisted in fear He turned away to go for the phone when a
guttural sound called out from the bed. It was a plaintive
cry, not quite human sounding. He wondered if Natasha had
followed him upstairs.

The noise was a gurgling sound, but it wasn't the cat. It
came from his father. Nick bent close. He could feel the
warmth of his dad's breath.

Mark Martin was alive.

`Dad! What happened? What? I'm getting help now"

Mark Martin's eyes weren't tracking his son, but his lips
were moving Blood pooled from his mouth.

"Nick? "

Fighting back his tears, Nick wanted to tell his father how
sorry he was for everything he d done to disappoint him. He
put his hand under his father's head, cradling him like a
baby. He could feel the wetness under his dad's back that he
thought at once had to be blood.

"I'm getting help. Going right now," Nick said.

Mark Martin tried to lift his head, he gurgled out another
cry. He wheezed. "Closer ... thought Donny was you." His
words disappeared into the agony of his ebbing life.

Nick was near hysterics by then. He couldn't hear what his dad was saying. It just didn't make sense. Donny wasn't
him. Of course, he wasn't.

"What, Dad? "

"Get out ... son ... go. Not safe. Angel here. Hide. Won't
stop until you're dead."

And with that, Mark Martin's seemingly dead eyes rolled
back into his head. He had taken his last breath to issue his
son some kind of a warning. Hide. Not safe. Get out. Nick
was in such a state of anguish and fear that he thought he
might have dreamt the whole thing.

How he wished that could be true.

Nick was crying so hard by then that Jenna knew her
words couldn't console him. Nobody's words could. He hadn't
done anything wrong. He hadn't shot his mother and father
and brother. She believed everything Nick said, not because
she was some gullible young girl, but because the Nick Martin she knew, the one that she had fallen a little in love with,
was the gentlest of boys. He would never hurt anyone. He
never had.

It was as if all the emotion had sputtered out of him. Nick
Martin was immobile. He'd relived the images of what he'd
seen in his parents' bedroom. He wasn't even crying anymore. The lack of emotion was nearly as disturbing as what
Jenna had heard him describe. She kept her arms around
him, not sure what to say. He was like some kind of bird who
had smacked into a window and slumped down to the ground.
Stunned. Motionless.

"I'm all right," Nick finally said. "My dad saved me. He
told me to get out. The killer might have been there. I don't
know. I just got in my truck and drove. I didn't know where
to go. I was so messed up. I came here"

"I'm so sorry," Jenna said. "We need to get help. My
mom can help. You didn't do this."

He looked more hurt than distraught just then. "Did you
think that I did?"

"No. I didn't. But Nick, I don't understand any of this.
Who would have killed your family?"

Nick stood. "Do you think I know? Do you think that I
would be sitting in this crap hole if I knew who did this? I
want to make them pay! I'll kill them myself." His voice was
rising with anger and it scared Jenna.

"Calm down, Nick. I'm here for you. I believe in you."
She didn't let go, though her heart was pounding. Fear was
filling the room. She wasn't really sure what had happened
back at the Martin house, but she could accept that Nick
hadn't played a role in it. "We have to think. We have to figure out what happened."