Things We Do in the Dark

Drew decides to devote several podcast episodes to the Ruby Reyes case. He had been friends with Joey—really more than that—and feels like this parole is an injustice. He begins by returning to the strip club where Joey worked when she returned to Toronto. He is directed to Dr. Deborah Jackson, a social worker who helped Joey after her mother was sentenced. Dr. Jackson reminds Drew of how much Joey liked him. Drew asks Dr. Jackson whether he could see Joey’s old file, which contains diaries that Joey kept.

Drew recalls the trial and particularly the details of Charles Baxter’s death. Public sentiment was against Ruby—she was a home-wrecker and she was Asian, seen as an evil seductress and cold-hearted killer. When Joey finished high school and returned to Toronto, she had answered an ad for a room to rent in the apartment that Drew shared with his fiancée. Drew was immediately taken by Joey’s looks and her quiet nature. He admired a beautiful necklace that she wore—a birthday gift, she told him, but provided no details.

It was Joey’s 12th birthday. She was having an awkward dinner with her mother and her mother’s current lover, Charles Baxter. Charles gifted the girl unexpectedly with an expensive diamond-and-ruby pendant necklace. Joey was astounded, but her mother was furious. The next morning at breakfast, Ruby accosted her daughter and warned her to leave Charles alone, not to “flirt” with her boyfriend (88). To drive home the point, Ruby extinguished her cigarette against Joey’s exposed neck, spat in her face, and then hit her repeatedly until Joey fainted. When Joey finally came to, Ruby gently offered to make her dinner.

Drew understands that to figure out exactly how Joey died in the apartment fire, which had been ruled an accident, he needs to retrace her steps during those last few months back in 1998 when she worked at the Golden Cherry, the strip club. He goes to the club. The woman who greets him at the club not only remembers Joey but remembers how close Joey was to another Filipina girl, whose stage name was Betty Savage. They were “more like twin sisters than friends” (96).

Drew recalls the circumstances of his last meeting with Joey. On New Year’s Eve he was attending his bachelor party. He was to marry the next day. He was not looking forward to it—his girlfriend was pregnant, hence the rush to marry. At the time he did not know that Joey was stripping. Suddenly, in the club, there she was “wearing high heels and her necklace and nothing else” (95). Shocked, he left his own party early.

Determined to find out why Joey was stripping, he returned to the club and confronted her. He offered her a ride home. The conversation was tense. Neither one wanted to admit the feelings that they had for each other. He dropped her off. “Had he known how the night would turn out, he would have said and done everything different” (100).

The proprietor of the Golden Cherry tells Drew about how, back in 1998, Joey and Betty were inseparable friends. They looked so much alike. Betty had a boyfriend who led a notorious Vietnamese street gang known for trafficking cocaine.

The woman tells Drew that she remembers how, when Joey died in the fire, Betty also went missing. The police figured that her disappearance was connected to her boyfriend’s criminal enterprise and did little investigating.

That New Year’s Eve, on the drive from the club, Drew and Joey parted on bad terms. She berated him for marrying someone whom he did not love, and Drew chastised for her resorting to stripping. Angered, Joey slapped him. She stormed out of the car and never looked back.

Drew regretted their words, but when he headed back to Joey’s apartment the next morning to smooth things over, he found it ringed by fire engines. Apparently there had been a malfunction in the chimney due to poor cleaning. When Drew told a firefighter that his girlfriend lived in the apartment, the firefighter asked whether he might be able to identify the body that they recovered, burned badly. Drew agreed. He glanced under the tarp, saw Joey’s butterfly tattoo and her expensive necklace, and identified the otherwise charred body as Joey Reyes.

Twenty years later, Drew is still haunted by how he might have saved Joey. Now, as he looks at an old photo of Joey and Betty Savage, he sees how the two girls could be twins. Drew wonders whether Joey’s death was accidental. Why would anyone want to kill Joey? He needs to find Betty Savage.

The investigative journalist instincts kick in, and Drew wonders whether Joey’s death might be related to the disappearance of Betty Savage given her connections to the cocaine-trafficking underworld. Drew figures that it is time to find out why Joey turned to stripping and what happened to her when she was sent to Maple Sound. It is time to read her diaries.

After Joey’s mother went to prison, Dr. Jackson helped Joey to pack for the move to Maple Sound. When Joey arrived at the home, she quickly realized that her aunt and uncle were uncaring, only interested in the monthly government kinship payments that they got for taking her in. The pretty house with a view of Lake Huron was isolated and immediately gave Joey chills. Joey was given a mattress on the floor. Her uncle, Micky, leered at her salaciously.

Drew digs into his old investigative records for anything about the Blood Brothers, the Vietnamese drug gang. He finds the address of Tony Tranh, now the reputed leader of the gang. He drives out to Oakville. Tony lives in a spacious home. Drew thinks that “if he were the head of a violent gang that killed people and got kids hooked on drugs, he’d be rich, too” (130). Drew asks Tony point blank whether Tony had any knowledge about Betty Savage’s whereabouts. Tony tells Drew that Betty’s real name was Mae Ocampo and then tells him that her boyfriend was none other than his own brother, Vinh, now dead after being shot during a drug deal. Tony denies knowing anything about Betty’s whereabouts. “Mae,” he tells Drew, “was bad news” (136). His brother had suspected that Mae was ripping him off in her work as a drug courier and go-between although Tony does not say exactly what Mae might have stolen. What if Mae killed Joey in the fire to cover her own flight with stolen drugs or money?

Drew recalls the night that Ruby was arrested for killing Charles Baxter and how the police were alarmed by all the bruises that they found on Joey. The files that Drew now reads reveal a history of Joey being treated in the emergency room for bruises, broken ribs, and, most disturbingly, burn wounds. Ruby Reyes, it is clear, was “a monster” (144). At the trial, the viciousness of the attack that killed Charles Baxter—the knifing and the decapitation with the edge of an ice skate—is key to the state’s case.

One night during the trial, Drew and Joey shared dinner and Drew impulsively tried to kiss Joey. She pulled back, saying, “You only want me because you think you can fix me […] I’m broken […] I’m no good to you. I’m no good to anyone” (142).

As her mother’s trial approached, Joey’s life in Maple Sound grew more unpleasant. She was blamed for accidents and beaten. Every night she feared visits from her leering uncle, who kept brushing his hands against her rear.

When it was time to head to Toronto to testify, Joey was overjoyed to be reunited with her case worker, Dr. Jackson. To Joey, she was her only friend. Joey envied Dr. Jackson’s real daughter: “If Joey could have killed that girl and traded places with her, she would have strongly weighed her options on the best way to do it” (155).

Drew heads to the correctional center to talk with Ruby Reyes before she is released. Ruby is candid about her affair with Charles Baxter and the revelations since her trial that he was a sexual predator. Ruby is certain that those revelations were key to getting her paroled—she was no longer seen as a home-wrecker but rather as a mother protecting her daughter. Drew responds angrily that Ruby should never be released from prison, that she had abused Joey and then allowed her pedophile boyfriend access to her then 12-year-old daughter. “You pimped your daughter out and now she’s dead” (162). Ruby hints that when she gets out, she will be living a better life and that she is being paid to keep a secret. She refuses to tell him anything more but makes a mysterious reference to the recent murder of Jimmy Peralta.

Drew visits his mother in a care facility. As they discuss Ruby’s release, the television is on. Drew pages through the latest People magazine and sees an article on the suspicious death of comedian Jimmy Peralta. His mother has been following the case and tells him disdainfully that Jimmy’s wife is going to inherit $46 million. A news feature on Jimmy’s death comes on the screen with a picture of Jimmy’s young wife in a bloodstained tank top being led away by police. Drew is stunned. He recognizes immediately the woman in the picture. It is almost certainly Betty Savage, Joey’s friend from Toronto.

Then Drew gets an incoming call. It is the detective back in Seattle whom Drew contacted who has found out that when Betty Savage, or Mae Ocampo, was arrested on a drug charge long ago in Toronto, her file noted a butterfly tattoo on her thigh. The description is identical to the tattoo Joey had on her thigh.

He then sees a wedding photo of Jimmy and Paris in the People article. He recognizes Paris Peralta as none other than Joey Aquino. “What. The. Actual. Fuck” (171).