The Evil That Men Do Read online

  Susan didn’t say anything.

  “You need to say you’re sorry. And not just for her.”

  “The nurses,” Susan said. “Did they say anything to you?”

  “They haven’t.”

  Donne turned the car off and opened the door. His leg still ached whenever he put pressure on his foot. The heat warmed his skin. By this afternoon, they’d have a thunderstorm.

  Donne stepped around the car and opened his sister’s door. Susan stared at him, not moving.

  He put out his hand. “Come on, sis,” he said.

  Susan got out of the car on her own, putting on her sunglasses. He wasn’t sure if it was the glare or if she was covering up tears, but he didn’t say anything. They stood there for a long time, the summer sun beating down on them.

  She took his hand and together they went to see their mother.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank:

  My editor, Julian Pavia, and my agent, Allan Guthrie. Both took the drafts of this book and helped shape it into something much better than it originally was.

  My parents, Carol and Martin, and my brother, Tom, for their love and support.

  My friends who lent their names for the book, and my friends who didn’t. I owe drinks all around.

  The faculty, staff, and administration of Christopher Columbus Middle School for their continuing support.

  The people who picked up When One Man Dies. I hope you came back to check this one out as well.

  And all the writers out there who’ve been there for me. You know who you are and you know you’re completely awesome.

  Thanks, everybody.

  About the Author

  Dave White is a Derringer Award-winning mystery author and educator. White, an eighth grade teacher for the Clifton, NJ Public School district, attended Rutgers University and received his MAT from Montclair State University. His 2002 short story, “Closure,” won the Derringer Award for Best Short Mystery Story the following year. Publishers Weekly gave the first two novels in his Jackson Donne series, When One Man Dies and The Evil That Men Do, starred reviews, calling When One Man Dies an “engrossing, evocative debut novel” and writing that his second novel “fulfills the promise of his debut.” He received praise from crime fiction luminaries such as bestselling, Edgar Award-winning Laura Lippman and the legendary James Crumley.

  Both When One Man Dies and The Evil That Men Do were nominated for the prestigious Shamus Award, and When One Man Dies was nominated for the Strand Critics Award for “Best First Novel”. His standalone thriller, Witness To Death, was an ebook bestseller upon release and named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

  The third book in his acclaimed Jackson Donne series, Not Even Past, will be published in February 2014 by Polis Books.

  Follow Dave White on Twitter at @dave_white.

  Read on for an excerpt of Not Even Past, the third installment in Dave White’s Jackson Donne series, coming in 2014 from Polis Books:

  “The past is not dead. It’s not even past.”

  --William Faulkner

  PART I

  Jersey Comeback

  Chapter 1

  When Jackson Donne saw the eight year old picture of himself, he thought the email was the weirdest form of spam he’d ever gotten.

  It was taken on graduation day at the Academy, and Donne was in his dress blues smiling in front of an American flag. His hat was tilted down, leaving two fingers of room between the brim and his nose, exactly as they’d been taught. Jeanne had taken it. They’d only been dating three months, and he remembered how happy she was that he’d completed training. Now, they’d have some extra time to spend together. Donne was smiling more about that than actually graduating from the Academy.

  He hadn’t seen the picture in years. It was boxed up somewhere, with the rest of Jeanne’s things. Had her parents taken that stuff after she died? He didn’t remember Donne scrolled down some more and saw the text. The muscles in his shoulders tightened as if someone had grabbed him. Written in bolded italics was “Click and Watch. Her life depends on it.” Next to that a link, but not to a website Donne recognized.

  Don’t click on it, he thought. Probably some virus, something that would eat up all the files on his computer. He couldn’t afford that, not now, with exams looming. Of course, the only reason he logged on in the first place was to procrastinate.

  But this email tickled his brain. The picture, who had found and sent him that picture. He looked at the email address again, a string of numbers and a domain that just said “di.com.” Nothing familiar jumped out at him.

  Donne quickly forwarded the email to his personal email address. Then he closed the school email, but didn’t delete the original message. Scrolled through the rest. Nothing from his professors. No study guides, no cheat sheets, no rubrics. No help at all. His time at college had been tedious, full of syllabi, Moodles, message boards, readings and essays. But, this was his life now.

  No gunfire. No one dies.

  Life was what it should be. Boring. Work on what you have to, have pizza and a beer on Friday night. Watch some movies. Tweet.

  And now that he was so close to the end, closing out his degree, he wanted it to be even easier. Kate said he had senioritis. He didn’t disagree.

  Which was why this email bothered him. Donne clicked on it again and looked at the time stamp. It’d been sent at six this morning. Now, according to his iPhone, it was ten am. Four hours that email had sat there waiting for him. The Microsoft Outlook email system Rutgers used didn’t jibe with his phone, otherwise he might have gotten it earlier.

  But no, that picture had sat there while Donne had gotten up and gone for coffee and a bagel. Surfed through some NJ websites looking at the news and overall procrastinating instead of studying.

  The mouse arrow hovered over the link, turning from arrow to finger. His own finger hovered over the button.

  A bead of sweat formed at his hairline.

  He clicked the link. And his gut gurgled when he got the pinwheel cursor. His computer had frozen and for an instant he worried about every one of his files disappearing into some abyss of zeros and ones. About spending the next twelves hours waiting in line at the Genius Bar at the Menlo Park Mall.

  The pinwheel stopped and his browser opened up. Donne stared at the screen. A black square, then a Quicktime Play Button in the middle. He clicked on the triangle and waiting as the screen buffered. It must be buffering, he though, because nothing else was happening.

  There was a loud swoosh from his speakers and the screen went bright white, like sun reflecting off snow. Donne flinched and squinted as the camera adjusted to the light. The picture came into focus. A nearly empty room. Gray walls, gray floor. The camera was positioned behind two spotlights. Donne could see the tri-pods and big round head fixed on top of them. Beyond that was a chair. In the chair was a woman.

  Donne leaned closer to the screen. He couldn’t tell who it was.

  The camera zoomed in slowly. The spotlights were out of view. The woman wore blue sweatpants and a white tank top. She was slumped over. Her wrists were tied to the arms of the chair. Her brown hair had fallen in front of her face.

  The camera pulled in tight on the torso of the woman. She was shaking and her arms appeared bruised. The bruises had occurred some time ago, however, because they had yellowed on the outside. The woman lifted her head and the hair fell away from her face. Her mouth was covered in duct tape. Her nose was runny. And her eyes looked directly into the camera.

  Donne’s throat closed.

  Jeanne Baker stared back at him, eyes wide at the camera, a tear trickling down the left side of her face. He could hear muffled screaming through the duct tape.

  He said her name. He said it twice.

  The screen went blank.

  “No!” Donne shouted and grabbed the monitor. He shook it, as if that was going to help. Nothing happened.

  He clicked on the mouse, hop
ing the triangle play button would appear. It didn’t. Donne didn’t know long he sat there clicking. It felt like only seconds. He didn’t stop until he heard the door open behind him.

  He turned and saw Kate, two boxes in her hands.

  “Hey,” she said. “I thought you might want to take a break from studying and help me with the invitations.”

  Chapter 2

  “What’s wrong?” Kate put the box of invitations on the coffee table.

  Donne blinked. “I didn’t expect to see you this morning.”

  She smiled. It was the smile she gave the first time he opened a car door for her. The time he brought her roses at work. Each time she’d smile the smile she was giving now and call him “the gentleman.” And then remind him it was the 21st Century.

  “Well.” She tilted her head. “I’m here. Let’s get stuffing.”

  Kate waited for him just for a moment, as if she expected him to take the initiative. He didn’t move. It felt like he was stuck to his computer chair, as if the seat had iced over and caught his body with it. When he didn’t move, she pulled the first envelope.

  “Got to do my mother first, right? She’d probably be offended otherwise.” She took an invitation, glanced over it and then slid it into the pink envelope.

  If this had been a normal moment, Donne would have laughed and asked why her mother even needed an invite. She was paying for most of the damn thing. They would have laughed and Kate would have reminded him about tradition.

  Not today.

  “Kate, I—” He turned and looked at his computer. The web browser was still open to the blank video page. He clicked it closed. “I have to study. I haven’t even started yet.”

  She licked the glue of the envelope and sealed it. Put it on the coffee table next to the box. Donne leaned back in his chair and watched her stand up and walk toward him. Slowly, like the first night they made love. The smile changed now. No longer confused. Confident.

  She put both hands on the arms of his chair and leaned in close. Her hair smelled like blueberry shampoo.

  “You said you were going to get up early and work.”

  “When did I say that?”

  “When don’t you say that?”

  She leaned in closer and her lips parted slightly. “You work too hard.”

  “If I don’t, I won’t be finished with this.”

  “I’m sure you’ll do fine.” She leaned in closer.

  Before their lips could meet, Donne flashed on to Jeanne. Tied up in that chair. Her eyes wide. Screaming behind duct tape.

  He tilted his head out of the way of Kate and stood up. She stepped back and brushed hair in front of her face, as if she was trying to hide it.

  “What is wrong with you?” Her voice was the edge of glass.

  “I told you, I have to study.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not it.”

  He stood up, feeling ice form in his chest. Someone must have turned the thermostat down when Donne wasn’t looking.

  Jeanne, no Kate, had her arms folded in front of her. Donne stepped in close to her, put his hands on her elbows. Squeezed gently.

  “I’m—I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m stressed. There’s a lot to be done. Finals. The wedding. We have a lotto do. You surprised me.”

  “But you . . .” Kate shook her head. “You’ve been doing this a lot lately.”

  Donne closed his eyes and took in a long breath. He kissed her on the cheek. “I don’t mean to.”

  He wanted to explain, tell her about Jeanne. Tell her about the video. Tell her about the blood on his hands. All the blood. He should have done that a year ago. But it never felt like the right time. It still didn’t.

  “Then why do you do it?”

  “Did you take today off?” he asked.

  “I have a meeting later this afternoon. Last minute preparation for court. Took the morning off, thought we could stuff some envelopes and then get lunch.”

  That sounded good. It sounded exactly like what he needed. But the walls felt like they were closing in on him. His mouth was dry and his throat was tight. He needed to go do something, anything, and try and find out what that video was about.

  “I really need to study. Get this over with. What time is your meeting over?”

  Kate pursed her lips. “I’m done at four.”

  “In that case, I’ll be done at four,” he said. “I’ll pick you up and we can go to Silvio’s and get a real meal. Then I’m good for some beer and all the envelope stuffing you want to do.”

  The glint returned to her eyes. She didn’t smile. Didn’t unfold her arms.

  “Okay.”

  Donne dropped his hands to his sides. “I really need to study. Why don’t you stay here? I’ll go down to the library and get some work done. Hard to procrastinate there.”

  “If you end up at the Olde Towne—”

  Donne laughed. “That’s the last place I’ll be.”

  “I was just going to say ‘call me.’ ”

  They didn’t say anything for a moment. The silence hung in the air like gnats on a summer night. They stared at each other, Donne waiting for her to move first. Either toward the couch or the door.

  She didn’t.

  He gave in. After kissing her on the cheek again, he went toward the door. Pulled it open and stepped out into the hall. The door swing shut behind him. The hall smelt of wet pizza boxes. He took two steps, but stopped when Kate opened his door again.

  “Jackson,” she said.

  He turned and waited. The ice in his chest got colder.

  “You forgot your books.”

  The knot in his stomach eased and he went back to gather his things. There wasn’t much. Two text books, a binder and a pen. He shoved them into his bag, zipped it closed and headed back toward the door.

  “I love you,” he heard Kate say.

  He pulled the door shut and kept going.

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