Buried (Detective Ellie MacIntosh) (4 page)

No. This one was in control, and yet with a specific goal in mind.

He was getting lost in the case again and Lindsey was still right there, gazing expectantly at him as if he was supposed to say something else. He gave it a shot. “But pretty girls going to a party don’t want to talk about murder.”

Except
one pretty woman, who wanted very much to talk about murder.

MacIntosh tended to be aloof, and to be truthful, he didn’t mind that at all. He knew he had a reputation for being distant himself.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, if this case was solved quickly and it even partially involved him, he could be back on homicide for good. He probably needed to get going.

“It was nice to meet you, Lindsey.” Carl turned away toward the check stands.

She stopped him with a hand on his sleeve. “Hey … this is kind of impulsive, I know, and maybe you’re busy, but the party is tomorrow night. Any chance you’re free?”

“I doubt it.” He thought about two dead cops. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, here’s my number, just in case.” She reached into the backpack and tore off a slip of paper, and then rummaged for a pen with a playful smile. “For the record, I like older men. Give me a call.”

If she could be impulsive, apparently so could he, for he took one of his cards from his pocket and handed to her in exchange for the slip of paper. “Maybe we can get together for a drink sometime.”

*   *   *

The house smelled
fantastic, like oregano and garlic and rich tomato sauce, but Ellie knew her appetite was going to be sketchy at best.

Bryce Grantham was intuitive, and that was good, but it could be a problem too. He took one look at her face as she walked into the kitchen and faintly raised his brows. “Wine?”

“I’d kill for a glass.”

“No such extreme measures necessary. I opened a bottle about ten minutes ago when I got your message. So,” he said in his calm way, “you came back early. Your text said something about a second homicide.”

Or a third if the skeleton on the hill counted
. Not connected, but all in her proverbial lap.

Hell yes to that glass of wine. Thoughtfully he’d set out two glasses, but they would need a third, though she hadn’t informed him of that yet. She poured a Pinot Noir generously, and took a sip as he watched her with a slightly puzzled expression.

“Mind clueing me in?”

He had positively the sexiest eyes she’d ever seen. Dark, intense, and at the moment openly inquiring.

Ellie set her wineglass on the table and adjusted it with a careless rotation of her fingers. “We had a special meeting called. Metzger wanted me there.”

“About?”

“The shooting of a patrol officer yesterday evening.”

“I don’t think I realized that had happened.”

She shouldn’t be surprised. He spent a great deal of time designing computer software, which was his job, and the rest of almost every waking moment working on a novel that he admitted was his real dream.

Right. She understood. When she moved to Milwaukee in the spring she’d made one of her dreams of becoming a homicide detective come true as well, but it was about as different as night from day. Bryce Grantham—Dr. Bryce Grantham—had a Ph.D. in literature, and she often wondered if two people could be more different. Her dream involved tracking down killers. His involved a literary novel about a family in the mountains of West Virginia.

Not quite the same thing.

And he was the only male she knew who did not watch much television. No ESPN or any of the usual suspects.

“We are wondering if it might be connected to another homicide involving a police officer that happened just a short time ago, but not sure. I hope you don’t mind, but Lieutenant Grasso might join us for dinner so we can talk it over.”

“Might, or is?”

She had to smile reluctantly. “Okay, fine, I invited him. Sorry. I should have called first but he wanted to go out so we could discuss the case, and I am really not in the mood for a crowded restaurant. I knew you already were fixing dinner.
Do
you mind?”

He moved easily between the oven and the polished counter, lifting his shoulders in a negligent shrug. “Since you and I couldn’t possibly eat an entire pan of lasagna it’s fine with me. Besides,” he added with absolutely no inflection, “I wouldn’t mind meeting the competition.”

Ellie had to admit to a certain sense of consternation. She stopped, arrested with her glass halfway to her mouth. “What? I hardly know him.”

His smile was rueful. “I’m starting to get the give and take of our relationship and no matter how I look at it, there are going to be other men in your life who play a pretty powerful role. It is an interesting dichotomy. I want them there, and yet I don’t. Explain to me who is more important than the person who might just save your life? We all don’t play on the same field. I wouldn’t mind taking a look and seeing if Metzger made a good choice. I hope Grasso is trustworthy.”

Ellie quirked a brow, amused and a little touched. “You think you’ll be able to judge that better than the chief of police in a major city?”

Bryce flipped on the oven light and peered through the window in the door. “I think I’ll be able to judge it better when it comes to
you
. As a citizen I certainly can’t say I don’t care about his abilities as a police officer—I want him to be out there doing his thing, hands down—but I am more interested in discerning if I trust him with your well-being.”

“Maybe. But he isn’t ‘the competition.’”

He straightened, picked up a head of garlic from a small bowl on the counter, peeled away the paper, and set two cloves onto the cutting board. Taking the broad side of his knife, he smashed them. “Really? He’ll be spending more time with you than I will.”

Their love affair was a little one-sided if she counted the hours she spent at work, but then again, not everyone had the advantage of being able to work from home like he did. Neither did they officially live together yet, but she had the feeling that was the next, cautious step. Bryce, once divorced, wasn’t pushing, and that was fine with her, because she still was adjusting to her move down south to an entirely different environment.

In the end, they’d both made concessions, but neither one was used to it. Ellie got out the plates and rummaged in the drawer where he kept the cloth napkins. “This isn’t a job interview.”

“Let’s face it, it’s a pretty intimate relationship. I wasn’t all that excited about Jason Santiago either. Remember?”

Her former partner had been shot in the line of duty during their last case, which involved a series of murders and arson. Grasso was his replacement until Santiago returned from medical leave.

“I remember.” Rain touched the window with a muted sound as Ellie unrolled the place mats and then set out the plates, trying to figure out how to respond. “
You
have an ex-wife.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“I suppose I’ll always be a little bit jealous of her.”

Understatement
. It cost to admit it too. Suzanne Colgan-Grantham was not her favorite person.

“I can’t see why, since we can hardly speak two civil sentences to each other.”

She carefully placed a fork on a napkin. “You
chose
her. I didn’t choose either Santiago or Grasso.”

“I still maintain your relationship with both of them is very close and requires an inordinate amount of trust.”

“And I maintain that this particular discussion has no purpose.”

He laughed at that. “Point taken. Fine.” Then he sobered. “I’ll be very polite to Lt. Grasso. Something else is bothering you anyway. Care to share?”

How the hell does he know
 …

“A lot is bothering me. What makes you think it isn’t him and that crazy person out there killing police officers?” She was curious and disconcerted.

“Ellie.” His tone held reproof.

Okay, fine, he
knew
her. It wasn’t fair to have an argument just because she was worried.

“My grandfather called while I was at Jody’s house. He insisted that I come to his lake property at once. There was something in his voice … I went.”

“Is everything okay?”

“I have no idea. He found a grave and I assume he spent a great deal of the day knee-deep in sheriff’s deputies.”

For dramatic effect, she could win an award. Bryce stopped and stared, his expression reflecting shock. “What? Did you just say a grave?”

Ellie took a little pity and explained. “There were some bones on the hillside. It didn’t take much to see it was a grave of some sort, but without forensic input it’s very difficult to tell if they were five months old or had been there for a hundred years. Understandably, he was shaken and I helped him by calling the local sheriff’s department. At this time we have no idea who it could be.”

“I think I can see why you’ve been so remote since you came home.”

“This isn’t my home.”

The words just came out and she didn’t mean to say them so frankly, she just was having one hell of a day.

Bryce took a second to process after that comment. He said mildly after a moment, “If you ever want it to
be
your home, we can discuss that, but in the meantime, when is our guest arriving?”

“Eight.”

“Let me put in the garlic bread.”

Bryce never fought. He didn’t operate that way, which, in her opinion, was why his marriage to an attorney failed so miserably.

She was worried that a cop wouldn’t work out all that much for him either. That was also as close to an official invitation that had ever been offered for her to move in. Maybe they
would
discuss it later, but meanwhile she had three dead bodies to help find justice for, which might be too little too late, but was
something
or else her job was pointless.

He slid a foil-wrapped loaf of bread from the refrigerator and put it into the oven, then looked at her. “This is bizarre. Any idea who it could be?”

“No, I sure don’t.”

“Hasn’t your family owned that property for a long time?”

“Yes. Over half a century.”

“Surely there is a frame of reference then. It obviously happened before the property was sold to your grandfather.”

Grasso would be there in ten minutes, tops, and she didn’t want to discuss this in front of him. “Without a clear time of death how can you speculate on that? Before or after, I don’t know. That spot is kind of remote.”

“I suppose you can’t, but you’ve been to more than a few crime scenes and if the grave isn’t fresh, that means it is old.”

He was right. Nothing wholesome about the location. There was too much of a hint of homicide about—the skeleton and the water-soaked hole that had washed clean except for those bleached bones …

“Pretty old, I’m guessing,” she conceded, “though I’m hardly a medical examiner and I didn’t dig it up or anything. Maybe they’ll find something to identify the victim. Scraps of clothing or buttons to indicate the time period.”

As usual, Bryce could sense her discomfort. He said in an infuriatingly calm voice, “Ellie, people die. It happens now, and when it happened way back years and years ago, sometimes they were just buried. This could be nothing.”

“No gravestone. They didn’t do that often.”

“Gravestones were a luxury at one time. Yes, they did it now and then.”

True, but … She should never say this to another human being, yet Ellie took in a breath and then blurted out, “I think
he
knows who it is.”

“Your grandfather?”

“Yes, Bryce, who the hell else? Robert Lawrence MacIntosh.”

“Why? I thought you just said he had no idea.”

“That is what he told me.”

“You think he wasn’t being truthful?”

The lasagna smelled really fantastic, perfuming the whole room. She controlled the impulse to be short, which Bryce didn’t deserve just because she was distraught over a family issue. “I just feel something is off. And yes, people die and are buried, but usually not without a coffin on a hillside in an unmarked, shallow grave.”

“That’s a valid point.”

“Thank you.”

“Sarcasm is a must?”

“You act as if—” she stopped and reminded herself that this was her problem, not his. Taking another controlling breath, she said much more calmly, “I am going to recant my former statement and say that I didn’t like how he acted when he showed me the grave. Can we at least concede I make my living by reading not just facts but people?” She swiped her hand through her hair. “Look, he didn’t act right. Bad English, I know, but accurate. Can you cut me some slack here?”

“I will always cut you slack. You need look no further.” He said it matter-of-factly, as if he hadn’t just offered her a promise very few human beings gave each other. The hell of it was she thought he meant it. “So what felt so off-key?”

She looked toward the window, her voice hollow. “He always told me I should tell the truth even if I didn’t like the consequences. I don’t think he was following that particular rule. I have absolutely no reason on the face of his green earth to believe he would ever, ever lie to me, but I think he did.”

Casting back, she recalled grandfather’s inability to look her in the eye. Were he less honest, there would be no problem.

Some people were not cut out to be criminals.

Others were.

The doorbell chimed.

Chapter 4

Killing wasn’t the hardest part.

The shovel had been at the back of the shed and difficult to find, as she’d been trying to do it all in the wisp of a dawn that threaded the sky with ruby and pale white as the sun struggled to overcome the night.

The body was much heavier than expected, and even wrapped in a bed sheet, there was still a sickening trail of blood on the stairs. Literally a dead weight, it had to be taken out and buried. Planning for that hadn’t been done well.

Sweating and breathing hard, finally she’d decided on the wheelbarrow, tipping it forward and righting it after two tries before pushing it down the lane.