All the Colors of the Dark — Chapter 25

25

They held the vigil in the town of Darby Falls, sixty miles from Monta Clare.

On the banks of the Hunter Bayou, where the cop’s daughter, Callie Montrose, used to wade out with her friends and watch them fish bass with topwater bait before she was stolen from her life.

Norma had driven them on a cold afternoon in November.

Saint knew the story, like everyone within a hundred miles, how Callie had been walking home from school with her friends, said goodbye to them, and cut down a track of loose rock and tall trees and never showed up anywhere again.

Norma wore her husband’s old deerstalker and thick mittens. It was nightfall, and beneath a smoky moon they stood on the edge of a hundred as a pastor led them in prayer.

Box lanterns were ignited and set to float on water so still the lanterns did not rush anywhere, just glowed there in a haphazard line.

The pastor spoke words Saint could not hear before the outline of lives touched so acutely by loss. Music played and a small choir of high school kids in winter coats misted the air with their song, and when it was done Saint left Norma on the outer edge and found Callie’s father who stood there not crying like the others. Maybe a dozen cops stood around him in a

guard of respect.

“I’m sorry,” Saint said.

He wore a long beard and a ball cap and did not wear his uniform.

“You knew Callie?” he said quiet.

“I’m from Monta Clare.”

“The boy.”

She nodded. “I don’t know why I came…I just…will you tell me something about Callie? Like, my friend, Patch. They never said what he was really like in the newspapers. They just made him sound…regular.”

He paused a moment, and then took his ball cap off and smoothed greasy hair. “She is…she’s full of spirit. To read the newspapers you’d think she was an angel.”

Saint looked toward Norma, who stood there watching the lanterns burn.

“I caught her stealing smokes from my truck. And sneaking booze at Thanksgiving. It’s the spirit, right. That’s what we miss. It’s the rough edges. The parts you know she’ll grow out of.”

He pressed his hat to his chest for a moment, like the true pain started

and ended there.

“Mr. Montrose,” she said.

He met the flash of her eyes against flamelight.

“Will they come back?”

For a long time he stood there, but he did not answer.

She turned back to the water, and then she noticed him, standing off to the side, through clusters of the departing. He knelt down and lit his candle and set it down in the lantern and pushed it.

Dr. Tooms looked over at Saint. She saw his tears. She saw so much in

his face.

“Creep.”

Saint turned to see the girl beside her, maybe a couple of years older, a head taller with an oval face and bobbed hair.

“He’s a creep.”

“Why?” Saint said.

“More than once I saw him sitting in his car outside our high school.”

Saint stared at Tooms. “Doing what?”

“Watching the girls go by.”

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