First Grave on the Right (26 page)

Elizabeth had left everything she had to her nieces and nephew, and a few years ago, Barber had taken out an enormous life insurance policy. His mother was going to be a very rich woman. Though I was certain she would rather have had her son, I hoped it would offer her a little comfort. He’d ended up writing his mother a letter after all, like Elizabeth and Sussman, and while his was a little less … poignant, I felt certain his mother would appreciate it.

I turned to Sussman. “What about you?”

He’d been staring out my window. He lowered his head. “I can’t leave.”

“Patrick, they’ll be fine.”

“I know. I’ll go, just not yet.”

He disappeared before I could say anything else.

“Hey, pumpkin head.”

Turning to Aunt Lillian, I almost screamed aloud when I saw who she was with. Instead, I forced a smile and said, “Hey, Aunt Lil, Mr. Habersham.” Mr. Habersham was the dead guy from 2B for whom I’d invented the transcendental pest repellent.

They were all googly and giggly, and I threw up a little in my mouth.

But Aunt Lillian had the sweetest look on her soft, wrinkly face. “We’re going down to the Margarita Grill to smell the lobster, then we’re going to watch the sunrise, and in between we’ll probably have hot, unsafe animal sex.”

Wh-what? Even my internal dialogue stuttered. I couldn’t believe what she’d just said. Does the Margarita Grill even serve lobster? “ ’Kay, Aunt Lil, have fun!”

All right, I’ll admit it, the thought of those two having hot, unsafe animal sex was a bit creepy, especially since my aunt didn’t have any teeth, but honestly, their body temperatures were just below freezing. How hot could it get?

I hobbled back into the living room, wondering if I should tell Ubie what his great-aunt was up to, then decided against it.

“I still can’t believe you did this,” he said, shaking his head as he unwrapped my ankle. “You make it through a drunken bully hell-bent on rearranging your face, a ten-foot fall through a skylight, and not one, but two attempted murders, only to be brought down by a stiletto. I knew those things were dangerous.”

“A genetic tendency toward mental illness is dangerous, too, but you don’t see me complaining.”

He chuckled and tossed the bandage onto my thrift-store sofa. “The swelling has gone down. A lot. That’s amazing.”

The swelling had gone down. I guess Reyes was right. I did tend to heal PDQ compared to those around me. And it took a lot to bring me down. Obviously. “You can just leave off the wrap. It feels tons better now.”

“Okay, guess I’ll go, then. But I had something to tell you,” he said as he rose and headed for the door. “Oh, I got ahold of my judge friend. She’s checking into your injunction.”

Relief flooded every cell in my body. Now to figure it out from there, how to stop the state permanently, in case Reyes didn’t come out of it.

“And dispatch called. Father Federico is resting well at the hospital and sends over a huge thanks. Teddy’s with him now. The father would like to see you when you can stop by.” He turned and headed for the door again, then stopped and scratched his head. “And the DA will start the paperwork for Mark Weir’s release first thing in the morning.” He started for the door again and stopped … again. I tried not to laugh. He was never going to make it home at this rate.

“Oh,” he said. Taking out his notepad, he thumbed through it. “And it seems that assailant who tried to put you in the ground yesterday, that Zeke Herschel, was well on his way to becoming a mass murderer. You weren’t the first person he went after. Thank God you put a stop to it.”

My breaths stilled in my chest, my lungs seized, suddenly paralyzed, and a prickly sensation cut down my spine. “What … what are you talking about?”

“PD got called to his house this afternoon. We found his wife in their bedroom, marinating in a pool of her own blood.”

The room dimmed and the world fell out from beneath me.

“One of the worst domestic cases I’ve ever seen.”

I fought gravity and shock and a pathetic, panicky kind of denial. But reality swept in and kicked my ass, hands down. “That’s impossible.”

“What?” Uncle Bob looked up, took a step toward me.

“Herschel’s wife. It couldn’t have been her.”

“Did you know her?”

“I … sort of.” She couldn’t be dead. I dropped her off at the airport myself. I met Herschel at the bar immediately afterwards. There was just no way it was her.

“Charley.” The sternness in Uncle Bob’s voice jerked me to attention. “Did you know her? Is there something else I need to know about this case?”

“You’re wrong. It wasn’t his wife. It must be someone else.”

Uncle Bob sighed. Recognizing and dealing with denial was a daily part of his job. “It’s Mrs. Herschel, hon. Worried because she hadn’t heard from her, Mrs. Herschel’s aunt flew in from Mexico. She ID’d the body this afternoon.”

I sank onto my sofa then into myself and let oblivion take hold. I wasn’t sure when Uncle Bob left. I wasn’t sure if I was awake or asleep. I wasn’t sure when I crawled onto the floor and curled into a blanket I had stashed in the corner. And I wasn’t sure when—not the precise moment, anyway—I became the monumental fuckup I was infamous for today.

Chapter Twenty

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,

for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

—BUMPER STICKER

No, that was a lie. I did know the precise moment I began my long and illustrious career as an utter and complete fuckup who should never have been allowed to walk and chew gum at the same time, much less be set loose on the streets of Albuquerque. I’d been in the habit of leaving death and destruction in my wake since the day I was born. Even my own mother wasn’t immune to my poison. I was the very reason she died. Every life I touched, I tainted in some irreversible way.

My stepmother knew. She tried to warn me. I just didn’t listen.

We were at the park—my stepmom, Denise, Gemma, and I. Mrs. Johnson was there, like she’d been every day for two months, staring into the tree line, hoping for a glimpse of her missing daughter. She wore her signature gray sweater, kept it wrapped tightly about her shoulders, as though afraid if it opened, her soul would fly out and she’d never be able to catch it. Her dingy brown hair was pulled back in a messy bun with strays flying out of her head in every direction. Denise, in one of her more unselfish moments, sat beside her, tried to strike up a conversation, to little accord.

Denise had warned me not to talk about the departed in public. She said my
imagination
upset people, and on several occasions, she’d tried to talk Dad into putting me in therapy. But by that time, Dad was beginning to believe in my abilities.

So, it wasn’t like I didn’t know not to talk about it. But Mrs. Johnson was so sad. Her eyes were glazed over with it, and she was turning almost as gray as her sweater. I just thought she’d want to know, was all.

I ran up to her with a wide smile on my face. After all, I was about to give her the best news she’d had in a long time. After a quick tug on her sweater, I pointed to the field where her daughter was playing, and said, “There she is, Mrs. Johnson. Bianca’s right there. She’s waving at you. Hey, Bianca!”

As I waved back, Mrs. Johnson gasped and jumped to her feet. Her hands shot to her throat as she searched frantically for her daughter.

“Bianca!” she screamed, running forward and stumbling through the park. I was going to lead her to where Bianca was playing, but Denise grabbed me, her face frozen in mortification as she watched Mrs. Johnson run through the field, howling her daughter’s name. She screamed to a little boy to call the police and rushed into the forest.

Denise was in a state of shock when the police arrived. My dad had answered the call as well. They found Mrs. Johnson and brought her back to see what was going on. But my dad already knew. His head was bowed in something disturbingly similar to shame. And then everyone was yelling at me. All I could see were legs and fingers and teeth screaming my name. How could I? What was I thinking? Didn’t I understand what Mrs. Johnson was going through?

And Denise stood on the front line, crying and shaking and cursing the day she became my stepmother. Her fingernails dug into my arms as she shook me to attention, the disappointment on her face palpable.

I was so confused, so hurt and betrayed, that I withdrew into myself. “But, Mom,” I whispered through my pathetic tears that meant nothing to anyone there, least of all my stepmother, “she’s right there.”

She slapped me before my eyes even registered movement. There was no sting at first, just a baffling force and then a moment of blackness when my mind processed the sharp crack as my stepmother’s hand clapping against my face. Then I was back, nose to nose with Denise, her mouth moving in an exaggerated, angry fashion. I could barely focus on her through the flood of tears distorting my vision. I glanced through the blur at the faces of fury, the outraged expressions on each and every person surrounding me.

Then Bad was there, Reyes, his anger even more distinct than those around me. But he wasn’t angry at me. If I had let him, he would have sliced my stepmother in two. I knew this like I knew the sun would continue to rise. I begged him underneath my breath not to hurt her. I tried to make him understand that what was happening was my fault. That I deserved the wrath of the people around me. Denise had warned me not to talk about the others. But I hadn’t listened. He hesitated. Then, with an earth-shattering roar, he disappeared, leaving in his wake his essence, his earthy smell and rich, exotic taste.

My dad stepped forward then and took Denise by the shoulders. She shook with sobs as he led her away to his squad car. The cops questioned me for what seemed like hours, but I refused to speak about it any longer. Not really understanding what I’d done wrong, I closed my mouth and said no more. And I never called Denise Mom again.

It was a hard lesson, but one I’d never forgotten.

Two weeks later, I’d sneaked off to the park alone. I sat on the bench, watching Bianca play. She motioned for me to join her, but I was still too sad.

“Please, tell me,” Mrs. Johnson said from behind me, “is Bianca still there?”

She’d scared me, and I jumped off the bench, watching her with wary concern. She looked over to where Bianca was playing in her homemade sandbox near the tree line.

“No, Mrs. Johnson,” I said, edging back. “I didn’t see anything.”

“Please,” she begged. “Please tell me.” Tears streamed down her face.

“I can’t.” My voice was nothing more than a frightened whisper. “I’ll get in trouble.”

“Charlotte, sweetheart, I just want to know if she’s happy.” She stepped forward and knelt beside me, her breath catching in her throat.

I whirled and ran away, hiding behind a trash bin as Mrs. Johnson crawled onto the park bench and cried. Bianca appeared beside her and ran a tiny hand over her hair.

I knew better. I knew not to say anything, knew the consequences, but I did it anyway. I sneaked up and hid in the bushes behind the bench. “She’s happy, Mrs. Johnson.”

The woman turned to me, bobbed and weaved her head, trying to see me through the leaves. “Charley?”

“Um, no. My name is Captain Kirk.” I wasn’t the most imaginative being on the worldly plane. “Bianca asked me to tell you not to forget to feed Rodney and that she is sorry for breaking your grandmother’s china cup. She had assumed Rodney would have had better table manners.”

Mrs. Johnson’s hands flew to her mouth. She stood and circled the bench, but I was not about to be slapped again. I tore out of there and headed for home, swearing never again to talk about the departed. But she chased me! She ran me down and jerked me off the ground like an eagle snatching his dinner from a lake.

I’d thought about screaming, but Mrs. Johnson hugged me to her. For, like, a really long time. Uncontrollable sobs racked her body as we sank to the ground. Bianca stood beside us, smiling and petting her mother’s hair again before she drifted into me. I figured she’d told her mom what she needed her to know—apparently it had been a really important cup—and she felt she could leave. She smelled like grape Kool-Aid and corn chips as she passed.

Mrs. Johnson continued to rock me for some time before my father came in his patrol car. She stopped and looked at me. “Where is she, darling? Did she tell you?”

I lowered my head. I didn’t want to say, but she seemed to need to know. “She’s by the windmill past the trees. The search party was looking in the wrong place.”

She cried some more, then discussed what’d happened with my dad as I watched Bad in the distance, his black robe undulating like a sail in the wind, spanning the width of three massive trees. He was magnificent, and he was the only thing I’d ever truly been afraid of my whole life. He dissipated before my eyes when Mrs. Johnson came to give me another hug, and Bianca’s body was found that afternoon. The next day, I received a huge bouquet of balloons and a new bike, which Denise wouldn’t let me keep. But every year on Bianca’s birthday, I got a bright bouquet of balloons with a card that simply read,
Thank you.

I learned two things from that experience: that most people would never believe in my abilities, even those closest to me. And that most people would never understand the devastating need of those left behind, the need to know the truth.

Regardless of how things had turned out, I’d caused a lot of pain that day. And a lot since. I should have made sure Rosie Herschel boarded that plane. I should have escorted her to the security checkpoint and then slipped one of the personnel a twenty to make sure she stayed put. Zeke couldn’t have found her before the plane boarded. He was with me. Had she changed her mind? Surely not. She was like a kid in a candy shop, ridiculously excited about the new life awaiting her. The enormous burden of living under the constant threat of violence had already been lifted from her shoulders. No, she hadn’t changed her mind. And instead of protecting my client, I was playing dodge-the-right-hook with her scum-of-the-underworld husband.

But therein lay the rub: She’d trusted me. With her life. And once again, I had let someone down in the most severe way possible.

I felt Angel standing across the room and glanced up through my lashes. His head was down, his eyes darting occasionally to my right, where Reyes sat. In the dark, I realized he was there as well, sitting patiently beside me. Not touching or demanding. Heat drifted off him like sand off a dune.

Angel wouldn’t come closer. Not with Reyes so near. He was afraid of him. I was beginning to understand that Reyes wasn’t the average everyday entity. He even freaked out the dead people.

I curled back into my blanket, buried my face. “You could have told me,” I said to Angel, my voice muffled through the thick material.

“I knew it would upset you.”

“That’s why you took off for two days.”

I could almost feel him shrug. “I just figured you’d keep thinking she got away. You know, that nobody would ever find her.”

“On the bedroom floor in a pool of her own blood?”

“Yeah, I hadn’t figured that part out yet.”

“I wanted her to be happy,” I said by way of explanation. “I had it all planned. She was going to open a hotel, get to know her aunt all over again, and be happier than she’s ever been in her whole life.”

“She is happier than she’s ever been in her whole life. Just not in the way you wanted. If you could know what it’s like here, really like, you wouldn’t be so sad.”

I sighed. For some reason, that knowledge didn’t really help. “What happened?”

“She did everything right, just like you told her,” he said. “She left dinner simmering on the stove. She left her purse with her wallet in it on her nightstand. She left her shoes and coat in the entryway. He would never have suspected she’d just run away. He would have thought something had happened to her.”

“Then what? What went wrong?”

“Her baby’s blanket.”

My head whipped up. Angel was peeling paint off the side of the snack bar, doing his best not to look in Reyes’s direction.

“She went back for her baby’s blanket,” he explained.

“She didn’t have a baby,” I said, confused.

“She would have, if he hadn’t sucker punched her in the gut.”

I buried my head again, fought the sting of tears.

“She’d knitted it. Yellow because she didn’t know if it would be a boy or a girl yet. She lost the baby the night she mustered the courage to tell him she was pregnant.”

My lids squeezed shut, forcing the most useless tears I’d ever cried past my lashes. The blanket absorbed them, and I wished with all my heart it would absorb me as well. Just swallow me whole then spit out the bitter bones. Why was I even on Earth? To make a fool of myself and my family? To hurt people I’d never met?

“But Zeke Herschel was in jail,” I said, unable to fully accept what had happened.

“He made bail almost the minute they booked him; his cousin is a bail bondsman.”

I knew that, but I never expected her to go back.

“Herschel caught her as she was leaving the house a second time. And he knew from the look in her eyes what she was doing.” Angel chewed on his bottom lip a moment before continuing. “After he … did what he did, he found your card in her pocket and put two and two together.”

A long silence ensued as I tried desperately to figure out my role on this Earth. Clearly, I was going about the whole grim reaper thing wrong. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe there was no going about it. Maybe I was just supposed to live my life without trying to help people, without trying to fix their problems, living or otherwise.

“It wasn’t your fault, you know,” Angel said after a while.

“Yeah,” I said, my voice spent as fatigue and depression set in, “right. It was probably Rosie’s fault. We can blame her.”

“That’s not what I meant. I just know how you are. You take everything onto your shoulders like that guy who holds up the world, and you shouldn’t. You’re not nearly as muscular.”

“Why do you suppose I’m here?” I asked him. Angel. A thirteen-year-old departed gangbanger.

“Just ’cause you’re supposed to be, I guess.”

“Oh, right, I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“Why do you think you’re here?”

“To wreak havoc and misery upon the masses,” I answered. “Duh.”

“Well, if you knew…” A glimmer of a smile lifted the corners of his mouth.