Fifth Grave Past the Light (7 page)

Cookie stopped. She looked around, suddenly wary. “Like, right now?”

“As we speak.”

“How many are we talking?”

“Let me count.”

I strolled into my bedroom, made a detour to count the one in the shower, then came back out and pointed my finger in every direction imaginable. Watching Cookie’s expression go from slightly worried to horrified was also a lot like that place where the sun comes up over the horizon and lights the heavens. Only, you know, funnier.

I walked back into the kitchen and went through the cabinets. “Nine,” I said, matter-of-fact. “Oh, wait.” I went to the fridge and checked it, too. “Nope, just nine. All blond but not all natural. Caucasian, Hispanic, African American, and one Asian. Ages anywhere from around seven-ish to thirty, thirty-five.”

She put her cup down, so I knew what she was about to relay was serious. “Charley, I need to stay home and help. This is serious.”

Nailed it. “I know it is, but they aren’t going anywhere and I am almost certain they didn’t die recently. But why are they showing up now? And in droves?”

“Do you think this was the work of a serial killer?”

“Most likely. I can’t imagine these deaths the result of more than one person’s efforts. Two at the most. I tried to get them to chillax, but I don’t think they know what that means.”

“Okay, call me if you need anything.” She started for the door, then stopped. “No, I can’t go to this class. I need to help you with research and stuff. These poor women.”

“No, you need to go learn how not to kill people unless you really, really, really want to. Like on purpose. And if I have to, I can get Garrett on this as well.”

“Garrett,” Cookie said, her voice low and sultry as she purred his name. I could have sworn her eyes rolled back into her head.

“Hmm, that’s surprising.”

She bounced back to me. “What?”

“It’s just that last night you couldn’t get enough of checking out Uncle Bob’s ass. I thought maybe you had a thing for him.”

“What? I was not checking out your uncle’s ass.” When I did that deadpan thing I was so fond of, she fessed up. “Okay, maybe a little. Is it just me or is he getting in shape?”

I had noticed. Uncle Bob was much more fit. And quite comely. I knew why, too. He had such a thing for Cookie, it was unreal. He was getting fit for her. It was sweet. And slightly disturbing. What if they dated? What if they dated, then broke up? Where would I be? I nudged her toward the door.

“Okay, I’m leaving Amber alone today. She’s promised to stay in and do her homework.”

“On a Saturday? All day?” I snorted. “I used to tell my parents the same thing.”

“That’s it. I’m taking her to her grandma’s.”

“That’s too far. You’ll be late for class. You don’t want to sit in the back of the room, do you? Besides, I’m just kidding, she’ll be fine. She’s nothing like me. Now, off you go.”

“Wait. What the heck is that?” I looked where she was pointing.

My newest painting sat propped against a bookcase. “I figured I would express my feelings through art. You know, for the new shrink.” My sister, Gemma, had set me up with a psychologist to work on my PTSD. That painting should help move that right along.

“And you were feeling homicidal?”

“I felt macabre with a hint of beheading would do the trick. This stuff freaks the shit out of them.”

“You know, Charley, they really are trying to help you.”

“I know, I know. Now, off you go.” I hated to do it, but I had to force Cookie out the door, then lock it behind her. She was being very uncooperative.

I turned toward the bathroom to shower and get dressed, but came face-to-face with another departed woman. Only this one was not at all like the others. She had long black hair and wore scrubs with an ID attached to a lanyard.

“Hi,” I said, checking out her neck. She hadn’t been strangled like the others either.

She blinked, surprised to be there. “Hi,” she said back. “Can you see me?”

“Sure can.” I stepped around her and headed that way. That way being the bathroom. “Are you here to cross?”

“Cross?” she asked, trying to gain her bearings. “I don’t think so.”

“Okay, well, there’s coffee in the pot.” When she frowned in confusion, I said, “Sorry, bad joke. How can I help you?” She followed me into the bathroom. I hated to turn on the shower with one of the departed women in there, but it had to be done.

“No one can find my body.”

“Do you know where it is?”

“Yes, yes!” She grabbed my arm. “I do. It’s under that old bridge on 57, like the ones they make for trains. Metal and rusting.”

I patted her hand. “Okay, an old bridge on Highway 57. Got it. Can you give me more?”

“My family can’t find it. They have been searching and searching, and they can’t find my body. My sister is – She’s so upset.”

“I’m sorry, hon. What’s your na —?”

Before I could ask for her name, she disappeared. Darn it. All I got off her ID was Nic. Perhaps she was a Nicole or a Nicky. If she’d have crossed through me, I would have gleaned more info about her, but apparently this was going to be a game of cat and mouse. I could only pray I’d be the cat this time. I hated being the mouse.

After dressing in a cream-colored sweater, jeans, and my favorite boots, I started for my handy dandy office, which sat about fifty feet from my handy dandy apartment. I took another look at Reyes’s door and felt an odd urge to use my key again. God, that man was talented. Still, honing my skills in self-control was good practice for later in life when dementia set in and I would try to take everyone’s meds off the cart at the home.

I called Uncle Bob and got only a garbled hello for my efforts.

“Hey, mister. I need you to check something for me.”

He cleared his throat and said, “It’s Saturday.”

“And?”

“I’m off.”

He did sound a bit groggy. “Did I wake you?”

If I didn’t know better, I’d have said he growled at me.

“So, has there been a rash of murders lately? Perhaps something in a blonde? Petite? Strangled?”

“What? Did you get something?”

Uncle Bob, always asking if I got something, like I got messages from the great beyond. “No, but I do have an apartment full of women who were strangled to death.”

I heard a rustling sound as though he were fighting sheets to get out of bed. I understood. Sheets were tricky. Losing the fight, he cursed. And dropped his phone. Twice. Ubie had never been a morning person. “Okay,” he said at last, “give me the details.”

I broke it down as I had for Cookie. “Okay, I have no less than nine women in my apartment ranging in age anywhere from seven to thirty-five, all blond but not all natural blondes. Caucasian, Hispanic, African American, and at least one Asian. Ring any bells?”

“Not offhand.”

“I don’t think these women died recently. And I think their deaths were spread out over an extended period of time, possibly with long gaps in between.”

“Could be the killer did a stint in jail. Any names?”

“No, but they’re scared, Uncle Bob. Terrified. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I’ll check around. How are you?”

“Okay, I just have no idea why they would show up now. Something had to trigger their appearance.”

“I don’t know either, pumpkin. But how are
you
?”

Uncle Bob. Always worried about me. Or, well, his ticket to solving case after case, thus his immaculate rep.

“I’m okay. A little weirded out, actually, and the departed never do that to me. They are just so terrified, Uncle Bob. It’s like they’re reliving their deaths. I need to solve this fast.”

“We will, hon. I’ll get on it today. Let me know if any new missing women show up or if you get any more information from them. Maybe another death is what triggered their appearance.”

“Maybe.”

“Oh, and I wanted you to know that our arsonist struck again.”

I stopped halfway up the stairs to my office. “What? When?”

“Last night around midnight.”

My free hand flew to my mouth. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t Reyes. He was with me at midnight. Unless… “Was it on a timer like the others?”

“Yes, but we have a witness.”

Suddenly strangled with worry again, I asked, “Can the witness identify the arsonist?”

“No, but we did get a pretty good description. An odd one, actually. If I didn’t know better, I’d say… Never mind. I’ll tell you when I see you.”

“No, what?” If he didn’t know better, he’d say it was Reyes Farrow? Was that what he was going to say?

“Well, it’s kind of crazy, but if I didn’t know better, I’d say the arsonist was a woman.”

I paused a moment, then asked, “A woman? That’s kind of rare, right?”

“It happens, but yes, it’s extremely rare.”

Slowly, and with infinite precision, awareness crept over me. It couldn’t be. “Can you describe her?” I asked, almost not wanting to hear.

“Tall, willowy, painfully thin. The witness said he, or she, was shaking, like she was scared.”

I closed my eyes in regret. If anything would come between Reyes and me, it’s the fact that I was about to put his only relative, his nonbiological sister, Kim Millar, in jail. Earl Walker had obtained Reyes through nefarious means. I didn’t know the details, but I did know that Reyes had been kidnapped as a baby and later traded to Earl. Kim had been dropped on Earl’s doorstep. Her mother, a habitual drug user and prostitute, was dying, so she left Kim with her biological father. The fact that her father was Earl Walker was a cruel twist of fate for Kim and a way to control Reyes for Earl.

I sat on a step and fought back the wave of sorrow I felt. Who else could it be? She’d grown up in the same houses as Reyes. She’d been subjected to the same horrors. Her abuse was different from Reyes’s. Earl never touched her the way he did her brother, but he did other things. For one, he starved her to get what he wanted out of Reyes. Earl used them against each other their entire lives. What would that do to siblings? Reyes had stayed away from her when he was accused of killing Earl and made her promise not to go see him. He didn’t want her hurt any more because of him and she didn’t want anyone using her as a means to get what they wanted out of Reyes ever again, so they hadn’t seen each other in years. Yet they had a fierce love for each other and would do just about anything to protect that love. Did that include arson?

“You there, pumpkin?”

I tried to snap out of the sadness that had overtaken me. “I’m here.”

He must have sensed it anyway. “Who is it, hon?”

“What makes you think I know?”

“Have you ever heard the caveat about trying to con a con man? You know exactly who it is. You’ve suspected for a while, ever since that fire the other night.”

He was talking about the night the condemned apartment building burned. “I might know,” I admitted, my heart sinking. “I might not. I need to be certain, to check on a few things.”

“Then tell me who you suspect.”

“I can’t.”

“I thought we had an open line of communication.”

“Come on, Uncle Bob. Don’t pull the relative card on me. I’ll do the right thing. You know I will.”

“I know, hon, but —”

“Please give me some time.”

After a long pause, he caved. “You have twenty-four hours. After that, I drag your ass in for aiding and abetting.”

“Uncle Bob!” I yelped, completely appalled. “After everything we’ve been through?”

“Lives are at stake here, Charley. The next fire could kill someone. Could kill lots of someones, and I know how big that heart of yours is.”

He was wrong. My heart wasn’t big. It was just taken. “I’ll do the right thing. I promise.”

I hung up before he could make me feel worse. Damn it. Now what? Turn in Reyes’s sister? He would never forgive me. And Uncle Bob would never forgive me if another building burned and I knew who the arsonist was. What if someone did get hurt next time? That would be on my shoulders as surely as my head was.

There had to be options. I knew people who knew people. I had connections. I nibbled on a hangnail as a fail-proof plan formed. Surely my plan would work. True, my plans tended to head south from the get-go, but sometimes they made a left turn just in the nick of time and veered onto an alternate course until they almost, if one squinted hard enough, ended up in the right place. Maybe a few feet off-kilter, but close enough to call them a win in my book. No matter that my book was titled
How to Call Even Your Most Dismal Failures a Win and Not Feel Guilty About It.

No. I had to think positive. This could work. This could work. I chanted that mantra over and over while unlocking the customer entrance to Davidson Investigations. Not that I wanted a customer to enter, but business was business, no matter what day it arrived. I walked through Cookie’s reception area, into my office, and straight toward the Bunn. Coffee would take the edge off. Or put in on. Either way.

After starting a pot to get me through the morning, I powered up my computer and prepared to print out the pictures I’d taken of Tidwell fondling Cookie’s right hand. They didn’t really prove anything other than the fact that Tidwell had a fondling issue and a horrendous temper, but he was definitely there for nefarious reasons. Hopefully my shots would prove that at least, and hopefully Mrs. Tidwell would not be one of those women who made excuses for her husband. Of course, she’d hired a PI for a reason. People don’t hire a PI to find out if their spouse is cheating. They hire a PI to prove it. They already know the truth, deep down inside.

I plugged in the USB cable to my phone and pulled up the shots. They weren’t pretty. They could have been, however, had I used a wide lens with a softer focus and some strategically placed lighting. Sadly, as the evening progressed, they got a little worse until all I had was a shot of Cookie’s eye and right nostril. In the upper left corner, one of Tidwell’s fists was coming at me. He tried to hit me. How did I miss that?

My phone pinged. It was a text from Cookie.