Wicked Game (25 page)

Mitch’s eyes watered as the tears he’d been fighting got the better of him and spilled down his cheeks. “Not a damn thing,” he said wearily. “That’s the problem, man. Nothing happened to her. She just left, but now she’s back even more than she was in high school. Sending notes. Burning down the restaurant. Killing Glenn. If she isn’t alive, then she’s making it happen from the grave. I don’t know how, but she’s behind all of this. She is. Back then some people thought she was weird, y’know. Like she had ESP or somethin’. I thought it was all just crap, but now…who the hell knows?” He reached a hand toward an upper, nonexistent shirt pocket, then dropped it. “I need a smoke,” he said and headed toward the office where he grabbed a pack of cigarettes from a jacket hung on a peg. He shook one out, then pushed through a back door to the rear of the building. Mac followed. The greyhound, long snout grizzled with age, didn’t move.

“What notes?” Mac asked quietly as Mitch cupped his hand over the lighted end of the cigarette and sucked hard on the other. Both of his hands were shaking, and as if noticing Mac’s stare, he clenched one and pulled out the cigarette from his mouth with the other, moving it to hide his tremor.

“‘What are little boys made of? Frogs and snails and puppy dogs’ tails.’
” He puffed harder on the cigarette, as if the carcinogenic smoke were giving life, not taking it. Mitch made a half-choked sound. “She used to say it, now she’s writing it down.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s the same damned nursery rhyme she used to taunt us with. She’d say it and she had a way of making it sound dirty. Sexy. And now she’s goddamned sending them to us!”

“You got a nursery rhyme note?” Mac asked carefully.

“
That
fuckin’ nursery rhyme. The one she used to sing. Yes. I got it. From her.” He was nodding rapidly and took another drag.

“From Jessie.”

“That’s what I said, man.” He was coming visibly undone.

“It came in the mail? Had a return address?”

“Fuck, yeah…I mean, it came in the mail. No return address.” Abruptly he went back inside and yanked a card from another pocket of the same jacket that had held his cigarettes. He handed it to Mac and took a step back, staring at it as if it were poisonous. “You take it. Maybe it’ll help you find her, but when you do, make sure she stays the hell away from me!”

The offices of Salchow, Wendt, and Delacroix were in Portland’s Pearl District in the Grassle Building, a gray granite and glass monolith that knifed upward thirty stories. Today, a black and gray sky hovered outside and Christopher Delacroix III gazed at it with a grim expression as he dropped the receiver to his office phone into its cradle.

Detective Samuel “Mac” McNally had called. He’d wanted to know if The Third had received a nursery rhyme note in the mail.

Now The Third opened a desk drawer and pulled out the blue envelope. Initially, he’d been more perplexed than alarmed. It was childish. The work of some amateur who was trying to goad them. He’d talked to Jarrett and learned he’d received one, too, so he’d assumed the rest of the guys had gotten one.

But he’d kind of hoped the notes would escape McNally’s notice. They would just add fuel to the Jessie fire, and he was getting really sick and tired of even thinking about her. She’d been a high school tease, for crying out loud. None of them had gotten lucky with her. Jarrett sure as hell hadn’t and neither of those losers, Mitch and Glenn, ever got close.

He closed his eyes, feeling a jolt of regret. The fire and discovery of a body at Blue Note was all over the news. It was clear that the body was Glenn’s, though that piece of information hadn’t been officially released as yet. Glenn. Dull, unhappy Glenn. He and Jarrett had used both Glenn and Mitch as their personal whipping boys over the years. He knew it. Usually didn’t care all that much. But today…

“Damn you, Jezebel,” The Third said quietly to the boiling dark gray clouds beyond his windows.

His intercom beeped gently, a soft tone that befitted the moneyed appearance of his office. “Yes,” he said, depressing the switch.

“A Mr. Walker and Ms. Sutcliff would like to see you. They don’t have an appointment.”

The notes…and Glenn’s death…

“Send ’em up,” The Third said.

Becca and Hudson rode in the Grassle Building’s glass elevator in one of two cubicles that shot upward and offered a dizzying view of downtown Portland and the Willamette River. It gave Becca a disembodied feeling that she could have done without, and she was glad to step onto the dark gray carpeting of the twenty-fourth floor.

The Third had a corner office, and his desk faced away from windows that gazed toward another building farther west whose windows stared back like a row of unblinking eyes. The whole room was made of glass and chrome and black leather, a far cry from the wood-paneled offices of the firm Becca worked for. It wasn’t a surprise that The Third’s law firm was as slick as he was.

The Third himself was dressed in a navy blue suit and crimson tie, and as they entered he waved them toward a set of black and chrome director’s chairs on the other side of his desk. Neither Becca nor Hudson took a seat, preferring to stand.

“I’m guessing you want to see the note,” The Third said. He slid open a drawer, pulled out a card, and handed it to Hudson, who held it for Becca to see.
Christopher
was written in an uneven hand on one side of the white card and the same nursery rhyme was on the other.

“Just like mine,” Hudson said.

Becca felt a chill slide down her spine. “Did Jessie call you Christopher instead of The Third?”

“Beats me.” He shrugged. “I can’t remember.”

“I got one. You got one. And you said Jarrett got one?” Hudson turned the card over and examined Christopher’s name more closely.

“Yep. And Glenn. And Mitch.”

“You sound certain,” Hudson said.

“Well, that’s what McNally told me.”

“McNally? You talked to him?”

“Just got off the phone with him.” He pointed to both of them. “Expect calls. He’ll probably want to talk to everyone. He said Mitch got a note, and Scott told him Glenn got one.”

Hudson took a moment to absorb that news. “How about Scott?”

“I didn’t ask. I just assumed.”

“Zeke hasn’t gotten one yet,” Hudson said.

“Maybe today.” The Third sounded almost bored, but then they realized it was more grief than apathy when he said softly, “Damn, I just can’t believe Stafford’s gone.” He drew a long breath and eased himself farther into his desk chair, which made protesting noises. “God, what a weird world.”

“Got any idea who would send these notes?” Hudson asked him.

“God knows. Not Jessie, though.” When neither Hudson nor Becca responded, he skewered them with a look. “You can’t think she’s still alive.”

“No.” Hudson was positive.

“She was a tease, though,” The Third said. “She loved this kind of stuff.”

“Maybe someone knows that.”

The Third gave him a hard look. “And is pulling this shit for their own reasons.”

“Maybe.”

“Why?” Becca asked. “Who?”

“To make us think she’s alive?” The Third proposed. “To send the hounds in another direction?”

Hudson nodded thoughtfully.

“Yeah, well. Jessie’s a ghost and now Glenn’s a corpse.” He grabbed the arms of his chair and levered himself to his feet. “What’s with you two? Are you together now?” He waved a hand to encompass Becca and Hudson. “Your own little team?”

“Something like that,” Hudson said.

“Great. Amateur investigators. Just let this damn thing blow over so we can all get back to real life instead of looking for dead girls who don’t exist.” He opened and slammed shut one drawer, then another, yanking out his keys and a wallet. “What time is it, eleven? I’ve got a lunch meeting at twelve, and I want to get there early so I can have a few drinks first. Sorry to rush you out, but there’s nothing much more to talk about. Anything else, take it up with McNally.”

With that he shoved his chair back, then strode out of the room, leaving Hudson and Becca to look at each other and follow suit.

On Saturday Becca drove herself to the site of Glenn’s memorial service, a small nondenominational white clapboard church with a steeple cutting upward to a sky thick with gunmetal gray clouds. As she pulled into the gravel parking lot, she saw Hudson standing outside with Renee, Zeke, and Evangeline, the wind blowing the women’s skirts around their knees and playing havoc with their hair. Evangeline wore a wide-brimmed black hat that she anchored firmly to her head with one hand. Renee seemed oblivious to the weather, her face turned away from the church, her short dark hair whipping around her cheekbones, her eyes fastened on some remote point that Becca was pretty sure she wasn’t even seeing.

Zeke’s hands were in his pockets, his head bent, his expression stony though Becca got the impression he was desperately holding his emotions inside. “Why didn’t I get a note?” she heard him ask Hudson as she approached.

“You haven’t got one
yet
,” Hudson pointed out.

“Oh, who cares?” Evangeline’s nose and eyes were red and she was sniffling. “Be glad Jessie didn’t send one to you.”

“Jessie didn’t send the notes,” Renee said woodenly, as if she’d repeated the same words a thousand times. Her cheeks were as hollow as someone dedicated to a starvation diet. “She’s dead. Remember?”

Hudson frowned at his sister. “You okay?”

“I’m more than okay,” she snapped right back. “I keep telling you.”

“Think we should go in?” Evangeline asked, looking around. People were climbing the steps and entering the front doors.

“You just seem like you’ve got something you’re dealing with,” Hudson said to Renee. “Is it the Jessie story?”

“Among other things. I am going through a divorce, you know.” She frowned, her features pinching into a knot. “You don’t see Tim anywhere, do you?”

“I thought that’s the way you wanted it.”

“Who knows what I want.”

“Come on,” Evangeline said, grabbing Zeke’s hand and dragging him toward the church steps.

Renee pressed her lips together, looked at her brother as if she had something to say, then threw a glance at Becca and clammed up. After a taut moment, she said, “Sometimes a story’s just a story, and sometimes it’s a hell of a lot more. Jessie was running from something, and I don’t know what. I’ve got some answers, but I’ve got a lot more questions, too.” She glanced over her shoulder as if expecting to be overheard.

Becca observed, “You still feel like you’re being followed.”

She shrugged.

Hudson said, “Who’s following you?”

“No one. Someone. The bogeyman. A damned ghost. I don’t know.”

“What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Maybe you should come and stay with me,” he said as they walked up the steps to the front doors.

“I don’t think so. I can take care of myself.”

“Can you?”

“Been doing it for years,” she said as they walked through the open doors and into the vestibule. Absently Becca picked up a small program with Glenn’s picture on the front page, then slid into one of the rear pews. Organ music swelled and Gia began crying softly somewhere in the front row. Becca turned her eyes to the ceiling of the church with its curved wooden beams and wished she felt comforted. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard, but when she opened them again she found herself looking at Detective Sam McNally, who had unobtrusively entered and taken a seat in the pew across the aisle, opposite theirs.

She felt Hudson stiffen, though he stared straight ahead. It seemed weird to have the cop at the service, a man who had been dogging Glenn as well as his friends since high school.

As a preacher began to talk about Glenn’s life, Becca spotted the other members of their group. So far Mitch, seated three rows in front of McNally, was still unaware the detective had joined them. She could see the way he was jiggling his leg, as if he were made of nerves. The tension in his shoulders was obvious as well. Jarrett, two rows almost directly in front of Becca and Hudson, turned his head at that moment, gazing coldly toward McNally, his heavy eyebrows and grim mouth menacing. Somewhere toward the front The Third was seated next to Tamara.

After the reverend had said a little about Glenn, Scott Pascal rose from a front pew and moved stiffly toward the podium. He made a short speech about his friend, describing how they’d decided to become partners in the restaurant. It was clear Scott felt the emotion of the moment, for he stumbled over his words and had to hesitate several times before continuing.

Then Mitch jerked to his feet and took a turn at the podium. He glanced over their numbers, his round cheeks red and glistening with sweat under the lights. He looked hot and uncomfortable in his dark suit, and Becca wondered briefly if he was going to have a heart attack or something. He didn’t look well.

“Glenn and I were friends a long time. He was a good guy.” Mitch looked to Gia, whose gaze was riveted on him. She held herself stiffly, as if her connection to Mitch were held by a tight, invisible rope. “We shared stuff. Good and bad. Now that he’s gone I don’t know who I’ll talk to.” As if of their own volition, his eyes searched through the crowd, fastening on McNally. He blinked several times, then said on a rasp, “We’re gonna miss you, buddy.” His hands were clenched as he walked back to his seat.

A young woman approached the podium next, and she filled the small church with a beautiful alto version of “Amazing Grace.” By the time the back doors were opened, Becca felt heavy with unshed tears and sorrow and practically gulped air as she headed down the front steps to the graveled lot.

Hudson was right behind her. One hand dropped lightly on one shoulder. “Hey,” he said softly.

“I know. I’m okay, really. No vision to worry about this time.” She shot him a smile meant to lighten the mood, but his blue eyes were sober.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

His hand clasped hers and she squeezed hard, feeling emotion sweep over her. As if they’d choreographed the event, they headed to their cars and Becca followed him to his farm.

Once inside the old clapboard farmhouse, they didn’t waste any time. She was in his arms in an instant and he was taking off her clothes, peeling off her blouse as she kicked off her shoes and worked at the buttons of his shirt. Hudson’s cell rang and he ignored it, turning the damned thing off and leaving it in the kitchen as they hurried upstairs, dropping clothing on the floor, kissing and touching and not getting enough of each other. They made love hungrily, as if in the act of joining they could redefine living, could push away the taint of death, the fear of the unknown.

Several hours later Hudson lazily reached for his cell phone and reluctantly switched it back on. He kissed Becca’s bare shoulder and she curled toward him as he listened to the messages. Her eyes swept over the trail of clothing their urgent coupling had left in their wake: his pants in a heap by the bedroom door; her bra clinging to the corner of the bed; one of his socks sitting atop the TV at the end of the bed.

She gazed at him through slitted eyes, afraid if she opened them wide he’d see her love reflected in their depths. She couldn’t be that transparent. Not yet, and she was certain she would be. She’d never stopped caring. All these years. Pathetic. Yes. But true, and if he knew—

Suddenly every muscle in Hudson’s body stiffened. He lifted half up, the cell phone pressed to his ear.

“What?” Becca asked, alarmed.

He clicked off the phone and made himself lie down beside her once more, staring at the ceiling.

“Who was it?”

“The Third. McNally talked to the group after the memorial service and told everyone he wants us all to give him DNA samples. All of us. Guys and girls.”

“What?” she said, sitting up. “Why?”

“He’s working on Jessie’s case, and he wants to rule out some things. Said the strangest things pop up from DNA testing sometimes. The Third asked him if the bones are really Jessie’s, but he said they still don’t know for sure.”

“Now wait a minute…why would they ask for that? I’m not a CSI authority, but the only reason they would take DNA is if they had something to compare it to.”

“Maybe they found more than they’re saying. A weapon, blood or skin samples under her fingernails. They want female DNA as well, so that must mean that there was something buried with Jessie, a clue. Maybe she fought off her attacker and blood or flesh was left. I don’t know. The Third didn’t say.”