Wicked Game

by Lisa Jackson

  Gia’s mom gave her daughter a hard hug, and Gia’s already red eyes puddled up all over again.

  Hudson said gently, “I’m sorry to bother you right now.”

  “It’s not a bother. You were friends. Glenn talked about you…all of you.” She swept a hand toward Becca. “I know you were all worried about the dead girl, Jessie.”

  “Glenn believed Jessie was dead?” Hudson asked.

  “No…I don’t know. I guess I just assumed.” She swallowed once, seemed to think about it some more, then her eyes flooded again. “And now Glenn’s dead, too. Oh, God, oh, God. I’m…sorry…this is all so new…so unexpected. He was my soul mate. We were going to be married forever.” Her voice cracked, but she huddled into the safety of her mother’s arms.

  “We hate to bother you, but we wondered if you could answer a question for us.”

  “Not now.” Gia’s mother bristled but Gia gazed up at him blankly.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Did Glenn receive any note recently?”

  “What kind of note?” Gia asked emotionlessly.

  “A nursery rhyme,” Becca said.

  Gia turned to her. “Is that a joke, because it’s not funny.” She slowly released her grip on her mother.

  “I think this has gone on long enough,” Mama said.

  “I received one,” Hudson said, “so we wondered if Glenn had, too.”

  “A nursery rhyme. Let me see it.” Gia stuck out her hand and Hudson, after a brief hesitation, reached into his pocket and handed over the note and the blue envelope.

  “It came through the mail.”

  Gia shook her head. “Who sent it?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “You think it was the dead girl,” she said with sudden understanding, and her mother drew in a hiss of breath and looked around as if evil spirits were about to materialize. “Glenn said something about nursery rhymes and that girl. She was a tease.”

  “We don’t even know if Glenn’s note exists,” Hudson said. “Another friend, Christopher Delacroix, received one.”

  “The Third. I know him. The same as this?” She glanced at the card, her nose wrinkling.

  “That’s what I understand. I haven’t seen it yet.”

  “And you think Glenn may have got one. Why?”

  “It’s a mystery,” Becca said. “We’re trying to figure out who received them, who sent them, and why.”

  “Well, if he got one, I never saw it.” After a moment, she said, “Have you told the police? Like maybe that’s why Glenn’s dead…something to do with that Jessie?”

  “We haven’t talked to anyone but you,” Hudson said.

  “It’s like she killed him,” Gia said suddenly, and her mother shook her head. “That’s what she did, that bitch! She reached right out of the grave and burned him up!” Gia started crying in earnest again, and after a few awkward moments where Becca and Hudson could only stand by while Gia’s mother rocked her daughter in her arms, they expressed their condolences again and took their leave.

  “Are we going to see The Third?” Becca asked.

  “Next on the list.”

  Mitch Bellotti was in overalls that tightened around his bulging middle. He was wiping his hands on a gray rag as Mac slammed the door of his Jeep and crossed the asphalt apron that led to Mike’s Garage, a surprisingly clean establishment where tools hung on the wall in precise rows. An older-model blue Triumph was on a lift and Mitch was conversing with a skinny, sixtyish man whose craggy face practically fell in on itself, it was so lined.

  Hearing Mac’s door slam, Mitch looked his way. There was a moment or two of blankness, then recognition dawned. He didn’t offer to shake hands, just kept wiping his own on the rag as his expression grew grimmer. Mac introduced himself but it wasn’t necessary as Mitch responded with, “I knew you’d come. You’ve talked to everybody else. But God, man, on this day? You know about Glenn, don’t you?”

  “I went to the scene last night.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you. Especially now.” The smell of oil and grease permeated the air and an old greyhound was lying on a rug near the back door.

  Mac realized Mitch was fighting back tears and felt a twinge of pity. He’d never really thought Mitch had anything to do with Jessie’s disappearance, then or now, but he felt he might know something—maybe something he didn’t know he knew. “I’m sorry about Glenn,” Mac said, meaning it.

  “You think it has something to do with—Jessie? Is that why you’re here, man?”

  “Do you?” Mac asked curiously.

  “I guess it could just be a coincidence.” He sounded as doubtful as Mac felt.

  “We’ll know more after the fire investigator’s report.”

  “Has to be arson, doesn’t it?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Mitch gazed at him guilelessly. “Well, things like that don’t just happen. The restaurant just goes up. How? A gas leak? Or a burner on the stove left on near something flammable? Grease fire? Doesn’t sound like it from what I’ve heard.”

  “What have you heard? Who called you?”

  “Scott. He was freaking, man. Glenn and I were friends, but Scott was his best friend. They were kind of mad at each other, but it was like they were brothers.”

  “Scott thinks it’s arson?”

  “I don’t know for sure. He just said Glenn was inside and it shouldn’t have happened. He said she cursed us.”

  “Jessie?”

  “Yeah, Jessie.” His face flushed as if he heard the idiocy of his statement. “Who else?”

  “What happened all those years ago, Mitch?” Mac asked quietly. He felt his pulse rush a bit, wondering if this was the moment someone finally opened up to him.

  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 i
t 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!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  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.”
r />   “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.