Violet Darger (Novella): Image In A Cracked Mirror by L.T. Vargus & Tim McBain

Author:L.T. Vargus & Tim McBain [Vargus, L.T.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Crime | Thriller | Mystery | Suspense
Publisher: Smarmy Press
Published: 2017-06-08T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

According to his file, Raymond Walker was 27, but he seemed like a kid in most every way Darger could see. The cut of his t-shirt seemed to make the sleeves ride up on his shoulders, revealing nearly the full length of his stick-like arms. His dirty blond bowl cut fell somewhere between Luke Skywalker and early Justin Bieber. And his lips hung open perpetually, revealing his bottom teeth, a chapped mess of white flakes hanging from the slack pink flesh like hangnails.

He certainly seemed to fit the profile physically, Darger thought. Disheveled. Underweight. Aloof. She looked into his face in that instant as they entered the interrogation room, though, and she couldn’t get much of a read on him.

Walker didn’t rise to shake hands as Jarold Cameron had. In fact, he barely reacted to Darger and Loshak’s entrance apart from swiveling his eyes to glance at them for a moment before returning his gaze to the shiny tabletop in front of him. This was strange behavior, of course, but his energy was more meek than hostile, Darger thought.

The FBI agents sat across from the withdrawn man, and once more Darger had to remind herself to not think of him as a boy. He was only a few years younger than her, after all.

“How ya doin’, Raymond?” Loshak said, sounding much more casual than he had in the earlier interview.

Walker didn’t look up from the table as he answered, his voice coming out pinched and tiny.

“Good.”

“That’s what I like to hear. Do you know why you’re here today?”

The slender man blinked a few times, his eyelids sticking a little each time they slid over his wet eyes. Something about it reminded Darger of wonky windshield wipers on a car. Walker didn’t answer the question.

“Well, someone hurt your neighbors, the Camerons, and we’re trying to figure out what happened. We just need to ask you a few questions, and you can go. I understand you were at the Cameron residence two days ago?”

More blinking, more thinking. Walker nodded.

“What were you doing there that day?”

“I cut the grass.”

“And they pay you to do that for them, correct?”

He nodded.

“So you’re over there, what, every week? Every other week?”

“Every Friday. After Dr. Phil.”

The lightest puff of laughter exited Darger’s nostrils, and then she fell into a sniffle to try to cover it up, fingers splaying around her nose to itch it.

Loshak smirked at her before he went back to asking questions.

“Who set that up? Did they ask you to mow their lawn? Did you offer them your services?”

“My dad told me to. He talked to them, I guess.”

“I see. And how did you receive payment? From Mr. or Mrs. Cameron directly?”

Walker dabbed a finger under his eyelid as he answered, gaze still fixed on the tabletop.

“Mrs. Cameron gave me $20 whenever I finished mowing. I knocked on the door, and she gave it to me.”

Darger scrawled a note, blue ink carving tiny grooves in the yellow legal pad before her: “Check TV listings for time of Dr.

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