Dying Echo: A Grim Reaper Mystery (Grim Reaper Series) (17 page)

“Thanks a lot,” Casey said to the ladies.

“Whoa, Nellie,” Rings said, clutching Casey’s wrist again. “You owe us.”

Casey raised her eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

“We gave you information, now it’s your turn.”

“But I don’t have anything.”

“I think you do.”

The other women were all nodding.

Eric nudged her and whispered, “Your relationship to Ricky.”

“Oh.” Casey pulled her wrist from Ring Woman’s grip. “So you know how I knew the name of Alicia’s boyfriend before you mentioned it?”

They nodded and leaned forward, as if one body. Eyes sparkling, mouths slightly open.

“I know his name because he’s my brother, and he’s been arrested for her murder. I’m going to prove he’s innocent.”

Ka-ching.

Her debt was paid.

Chapter Eighteen

Casey and Eric followed Bailey into a dark room with some hooks on the wall, and a few plastic bins. A tiny bathroom was tucked into the corner.

“This is where we change, if we need to.” Bailey pointed at a small Rubbermaid tub. “We generally just hang stuff up, but I was looking for something in the pantry this morning and found this. It must have been Alicia’s, because nobody else recognizes any of it. I guess I’m supposed to show it to the cops, but I thought you might want to see it first. Not that there’s anything much in there.”

Casey squatted beside the box and took off the lid. Bailey was right—there wasn’t much. A brush, some tampons, a paperback novel…and a photo of a man. He was in his thirties or forties, probably, and was putting something into the back of an old station wagon. His face was turned toward the camera in a candid shot—like the picture was a surprise. His face was unshaven in a scraggly way, but his expression was pleasant, and he wore dirty work clothes, as if he’d just finished a day on the job, working construction or mowing the lawn.

“Anything?” Eric eased down beside her, not setting his knees on the dirty floor.

She showed him the photo, and said to Bailey, “Any idea who this is?”

“Nah. Never saw it before. Never saw him, either. Only guy Alicia was ever with was Ricky.” She snapped her fingers. “Unless this was the dude she had a picture of in her purse. Guess it could be him.”

“You have a copier?”

“In the office. I’ll make a copy when you go. I can just tell Karl I want one before we give this stuff to the police. Now, let’s get to the guys before Karl oozes out of his lair.”

They followed her into the steamy kitchen. Casey tried not to gag at the mixing smells of bacon and burnt eggs, and purposely kept her eyes forward, not even glancing into the actual cooking area, where she could detect someone in her peripheral vision, moving around.

Death drifted in as the saloon-style door flapped shut, swishing through the cracks and materializing again in mid-air. “I am not touching anything in here. Who knows what I might contract? In fact…ugh. You have back-up. You two are on your own. But take notes—I want to hear every detail.” And Death was gone, blowing through the doors, making them flap back and forth. Bailey jerked around, then put her hand on her chest when no one appeared. “I thought it was Karl. He’d have my head.”

“You mean he’ll fire you if he sees us?”

She gave one of those sarcastic head moves young women are so good at. “Hardly. You think he’s going to leave himself with no waitresses? He can’t find one to replace the one he already lost. So nah, he’d just make my life hell for a few days. As if working here could be any worse. Now, come on.”

The dishwasher—Sammy or Samuel, depending on which of the old ladies you wanted to listen to—was along the far wall, spraying off a rack of plates to put through an industrial-sized, stainless steel machine. Water misted everywhere, making the floor a slippery, dangerous mess, despite the rubber mats. Sammy was small, as the group of women had implied, but he wasn’t puny. Just…short. He was probably eighteen or nineteen, and very obviously still living through those days of acne and sparse facial hair. Casey supposed it hardly seemed worth the effort to shave when all you had were scraggly little patches at random spots. He wore a rubber apron, elbow-length yellow rubber gloves, and a burnt-orange bandanna over his hair. He looked like a human-sized rubber duckie.

“Sammy.” He didn’t hear Bailey calling him, so she spoke again, raising her voice over the sound of the sprayer. He jerked his head around, and she motioned for him to come over.

He shoved the rack into the washer, locked the sliding steel door, and squelched over in his soggy tennis shoes, the one part of him that wasn’t encased in waterproof gear. “What?”

Bailey hooked a thumb toward Casey and Eric. “These folks want to know about Alicia.”

His expression remained impassive. “What about her?”

“Anything you could tell us.” Casey tried to ignore the steamy, smelly atmosphere and look pleasant. She doubted she was succeeding. “I’m Casey. This is Eric.”

Eric and Sammy gave each other one of those nods that seem to come naturally to guys. Sammy gave Casey only a cursory glance, which wasn’t surprising. Casey knew she wasn’t the most charismatic person in the world, plus teenage boys generally didn’t know how to talk to women and look at them at the same time.

“Casey is Ricky’s sister,” Alicia said. “You know, the guy who was Alicia’s boyfriend.”

“Sure, I remember him,” the kid said. “Sounds like he wasn’t such a good choice, after all.”

Casey bristled. “He didn’t do it.”

“Whatever.”

“Are you saying she had other choices? You? Are you even out of high school?”

He looked at the ground and poked his toe at something that wasn’t there, making Casey think of a puppy who’d just been told he wouldn’t be getting any more treats. She should have felt bad, she supposed, for embarrassing him, but if he was going to talk that way about Ricky, her heart wouldn’t be bleeding for him. She waited for him to stop sulking.

“
Anyway
,” Bailey said, “Casey wants to know if Alicia ever told you anything…personal.”

“Personal?” Sammy looked up. “Like what? About…
him
?”

Casey refrained from kicking him in the knee. “I know about
him
. Did she tell you anything about
herself
? Where she was before she came here, why she showed up here in the first place, who might have wanted her dead?”

He shrugged that way teenagers do when they think adults are asking stupid questions. “Why should I tell you?”

“Look, kid—”

Eric swiveled so he stood in front of Casey, hiding the dishwasher from her view and looking down into her face.

She made a move to get around him, but he held up his hands. “Casey, you’ve got to cool it.”

She gave a little laugh. “Excuse me?”

“Casey…” His earnest expression and kind eyes were enough to make her pause, and she allowed him to lead her back almost to the dining room door, where he spoke quietly just for her ears. “Look, I know you want answers, but this isn’t the way to go about it. You’ve got the kid half scared and half pissed off. Not the way to encourage confidences.”

She took a deep breath and looked straight ahead at his throat, where his Adam’s Apple bobbed up and down once as he waited. The tendons stood out, like he was clenching his jaw, and there was a tiny patch of stubble he’d missed that morning when he’d shaved. She wondered if it would feel scratchy if she kissed it.

“Okay,” she said. “You do it.”

“I didn’t mean you couldn’t—”

“Please, Eric.”

He swallowed again, and the tendons relaxed. “Okay.” He stood there for a moment more before making his way back across the room. He crossed his arms and leaned against the counter. “So, Sam…may I call you Sam? We understand this must be hard for you, especially if Alicia was your friend. I know it’s hard for Bailey, here—”

Casey must have made a sound, because Eric paused, and he and the other two looked at her. Casey cleared her throat. “Sorry. Must have been a frog.”

Eric frowned, then turned back to Sam. “Sam, we all want to know who did this to Alicia. What happened to her was terrible, and devastating to everyone who knew her. Including Ricky. Casey doesn’t believe her brother would have done such awful things, and Bailey agrees. Do you really think Ricky seems like the type to hurt her?”

Sam shifted on his feet, not looking Eric in the eye.

Bailey stomped her foot. “Sammy, come on—”

Eric shook his head at her, and she clamped her mouth into a thin line.

Sam mumbled something.

“Sorry?” Eric said.

“I guess he’s not. I just…why would he even like her? I mean, she was kinda cool, sure. Not friendly or anything, just pretty, I guess, for her age, I mean, she was kind of old, and she seemed smart. But she worked
here
. How did he even meet her? She never went out in the evenings, and he worked for some fancy place.”

Really? Casey was surprised at that. She’d never considered Ricky’s catering job fancy, but then, she supposed it was when compared to The Slope.

“How do you know she didn’t go out?” Eric asked. “Did she talk about what she did on her off hours?”

Sam went pink. “Well, I asked her if she wanted to catch a movie one time—this was before I knew about
him
—and she said she just wanted to go back to her place. By herself. Not with me. I mean, it wasn’t an invitation. She wasn’t like that. Not even with the customers. Not like some people.” He glanced at Bailey, who didn’t seem to catch what he was implying.

Eric nodded. “So she kept to herself. Did she ever say anything that seemed strange or out of character? Or anything that could have meant she was scared?”

“She never seemed scared. She always walked home by herself, even when it was dark out. I offered her rides different times, but she always said she was fine on her own. I wish…” He shook his head and looked at something above Eric’s head. Maybe one of the cobwebs in the corner.

“And you don’t know where Alicia was before she moved here?”

“Nah. She never talked about it. I never asked.” He went to shove his hands in his pockets, remembered he was wearing big rubber gloves, and stuck his hands under his arms instead. “Have you asked Karl? He’s the one who would know.”

“The manager,” Bailey said, in case Casey and Eric had already forgotten.

“We’ll ask him next.” Eric pushed himself off the counter. “Thanks a lot, man. Appreciate it.”

Sam shrugged. “Whatever. I hope you find whoever did it.” He gave Casey one last glance and trudged back to his soggy corner.

Eric indicated the cook, who was busy scraping something around on the grill. “Think we can talk to him now?”

Bailey rolled her eyes. “You can try, but he is in a mood this morning.”

“You can tell by the burned eggs,” Casey said.

Bailey laughed. “Like that’s any different from usual.”

A man’s voice came from outside the door, and Bailey jumped. “Okay, you guys go talk to Doofus over there. I’ll try to keep Karl out.” She swung through the doors, and was gone.

“After you.” Eric swept his hand toward the kitchen.

Casey wrinkled her nose, but stepped forward, her shoe making a terrible ripping sound as she pulled it off the sticky floor.

Doofus—or whatever his real name was—had moved away from the grill and was slapping butter on some toast. He glanced up as they approached, but didn’t speak.

“Spare a minute?” Casey said.

He threw the toast on a plate with a glob of egg and slid it onto the warming shelf beside a bowl of what looked like it might be oatmeal. “Order up!” he yelled.

Bailey’s face appeared in the opening as she grabbed the plates. “New order.” She shoved a slip through the slot, then disappeared.

The cook grabbed the paper, glared at it, then stalked back to the double-doored refrigerator. He pulled it open, yanked out some more eggs and a carton of milk, and slammed the door. “Don’t know nothing ’bout Alicia.”

“What’s your name?”

“What’s yours?” He cracked two eggs into an already eggy bowl, dumped some milk on them, and went at them with a fork. Once he’d poured them onto the grill, he took the milk back to the fridge and shoved two pieces of white bread into the banged-up toaster.

Bailey was right. He
was
in a mood. “I’m Casey. That’s Eric.”

No manly nods this time. Just a scowl to prove he
didn’t want to talk
. He flipped the eggs, transferring some of the blackened eggs from earlier onto the fresh yellow ones, and grabbed a handful of shredded cheese from a bowl beside the grill. He tossed it on top of the disgusting mess and set a saucepan lid over it all.

Casey glanced at Eric. He was obviously trying not to laugh. Casey was trying not to whack the guy over the head with his own spatula. “And you are?”