Of Lights and Shadows (Book 4)

27) Ghosts in the Closet

By noon the sky had cleared up and a bright sun was shining warmly down on its people. Everything was still wet and would take some time to dry but the sun didn't wait, it got right in and started. Dastardious felt the warmth as he stepped out of the restaurant to go for a walk around the lake. The park was always busiest at noon because the population at work took their lunch breaks. The park was a wonderful place during the day, when it was dry, but also when it was wet. There were many paths swirling around the grounds with gardens, and benches for sitting on, a great place to stop for lunch, a picnic, a concert or a day out. There was always some sort of activity going on and Dastardious watched most of it as he walked. It was a peaceful day and to most people, if they thought about it, it would be strange to think that something terrible was going to happen. But then all sorts of bad things have been known to happen in the park, especially at night, so why should knowing a child was going to show up dead be any different?

 It was as he walked that he thought about the impossible job ahead of them, a thought that never stopped running through his mind and he couldn't help it. The Lake was large, and with only three men it was impossible to keep an eye on all areas. They needed something a bit more –a larger team for one thing. No. There is no way I'm getting a larger team. We make do with what we've got. But it wouldn't be too hard to get one of those surveillance vans, would it? The only problem that Dastardious saw with that would be the filling out of the form to use it. While pondering this new idea, Dastardious found that he had circled half the lake without even realising it. It was amazing how your legs just kept walking even when you weren't thinking about them.

He turned back and headed the way he had come. He had walked the path countless times in his life, which was one of the reasons why his feet had just kept walking. He used to walk the paths through the trees often, not that he ever cared for the trees. The constant beauty around him reminded him of Jasmine. She would point it out every time he walked with her; he only went along to be with her.

How long ago was that then? He couldn't even remember when, before she died, surely? He had dreams about her, at times when the doses were higher than usual. There were big holes of time in his mind where he couldn't even remember what he had done or where he had gone. She was always there, though, he always remembered her being there. The only thing he would ever remember when he woke from his dreams, but whether he walked with her before she died or while she was dead he had no recollection.

By the time he arrived back at the lawn he had his plan all worked out, if it could be called a plan. They came in small bursts, and sometimes he went days pretending to do something which was part of a plan he didn't have. He was trying to think out of the box, which he had been trying to do ever since he started back at work, and part of that was not conforming to the old ways of detecting. Certain elements of it had been included in his investigations, it had been hard not to. Staking out the Lake was part of normal detective work. The case didn't allow room for much thinking out of the box because to think out of the box to catch a killer you have to know something of the killer. Normal ones were dependable; you knew where you stood with them. You knew how to catch them because they left clues. But with the Shadow? Well, everyone knew she was impossible by now. There was just no point in reminding himself.

Dutch was waiting with Silence as Dastardious walked up the slope to the park bench. The report he was given was short, and not worth mentioning or thinking about. The blood belonged to Jackson, but there were no prints. It didn't help them and so Dastardious pushed it into a corner of his mind to leave room for more important things. They talked briefly about who was to go where next, in the end they decided they would continue revolving so Silence got the forest, Dutch the boathouse, and Dastardious would return to sitting on the park bench.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully with none of them seeing anyone, or thing, suspicious. According to staff in the boathouse and men manning the grounds and lake, none of them had seen anyone suspicious hanging about the Lake. It was as Dastardious had thought. The Shadow just looked like a normal person and if she had been there already to scout out an area to place Jackson then she would have covered her tracks, or had no need to because she blended in with everyone else. It was probably that one, the Lake and park received visitors' every day. No one would have any reason to notice her.