First Grave on the Right

by Darynda Jones

  “I haven’t heard either.” She hedged closer to him. “So, are you going to yours?”

  Barber shrugged. “I don’t know. Are you going to yours?”

  “I figured I might.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  Elizabeth smiled and scooted closer. “I’ll make a deal with you.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “If you’ll go with me to my funeral, I’ll go with you to yours.”

  Barber thought about that for a moment, then gave a reluctant shrug. I tried not to crack up. They were like junior high kids trying to convince themselves they didn’t really want to go to the school dance.

  “I guess we could do that,” Barber said. “You in, Patrick?”

  “What?” Sussman seemed a thousand solar systems away. He forced his attention back to his colleagues. “I don’t know. Seems kind of morbid.”

  “Come on,” Elizabeth said. “We can listen to all the wonderful comments about us from the relatives who hated us most.”

  Sussman sighed. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Of course we are.” Elizabeth patted his hand, then glanced at me. “Don’t you think he should go to his funeral, Charlotte?”

  “His funeral?” I asked, caught off guard. “Oh, well, sure. Who wouldn’t kill to go to their own funeral?”

  “See,” she said, patting his hand again.

  “I hope we’re not buried in the same cemetery,” Barber said. “I don’t know if I could handle an eternity with you two as my neighbors.”

  Sussman snorted and Elizabeth socked him on the arm.

  “I’m just saying,” he said, a wide grin spreading across his face as Elizabeth glowered playfully at him. He turned to me then. “So, Reaper, what’s next?”

  I had to think about that one. “First of all,” I said, poking him with an index finger, “that’s Ms. Reaper to you, bub.”

  He chuckled.

  “And second, I should probably take a look-see at your files on this case.”

  “Sure,” Elizabeth said. “We have an emergency key hidden at the offices.”

  “Oh!” I said, raising my hand and squirming in my seat like a third grader with a UTI. “Is it in one of those fake rocks that looks like a real rock but it isn’t because it’s fake?”

  “No,” they said simultaneously.

  “Oh, sorry. Go ahead,” I said to Elizabeth, since I’d interrupted her.

  “And we’ll have to give you the security code in case Nora isn’t there. If she is, you might have a difficult time getting anything without a warrant.”

  “Right. I didn’t think of that. I’m sure Uncle Bob could get me one.”

  “If not,” Sussman said, “you might want to consider breaking in tonight and getting the files then.”

  We all turned to him. He didn’t seem like a B and E kind of guy.

  “What? It’s not illegal if we give her permission.”

  True enough. “Though I’m not sure the authorities would agree with you, I like it.”

  Sussman grinned. “I had a feeling you might.”

  “Can I ask you guys a couple of questions,” I said, realizing it might be a good time to bring up Reyes, “about this morning?”

  “Of course,” Barber said. Elizabeth dropped her gaze, seemed to withdraw. Not overtly, but I read people well enough to know when the atmosphere changed. I was curious to know what happened, and what could make her so reluctant to speak with me about it.

  Shifting back to Reyes, I decided to get the embarrassing part out of the way. “I’ve decided to get the embarrassing part out of the way,” I said. Best to get these things out in the open. “I’m hoping, since you guys could see him, I didn’t look ridiculous like I probably did to Cookie and Swopes. I mean, you saw him, right? It didn’t look like I was fondling air?”

  When they glanced at each other, seemingly confused, I asked, “You did see him?”

  “Sure we did,” Elizabeth said. “But you weren’t fondling anything. You didn’t move, if that’s what you think. Not much anyway.”

  I leaned forward. “What do you mean?”

  “You just stood there,” Sussman said, sliding his glasses up with an index finger, “with your back against the wall and your palms plastered to it at your sides. Your head was thrown back, and you were panting like you’d just run the Duke City Marathon, but you didn’t move.”

  His description sidetracked me for a moment. My arms were at my sides? My head was thrown back? “But he was there. You saw him. We were…”

  “On each other like green on guacamole?” Barber asked.

  “Well, yeah, I guess.”

  “I’m not complaining,” he said with a negating wave of his hands. “Far from it. That shit was hot.”

  Somehow, trying not to blush makes me blush brighter. I felt heat travel over my face and could only hope it wasn’t clashing with the blues and purples already there.

  “But you didn’t move,” Elizabeth said. “Not physically.”

  “I’m sorry, I still don’t understand.”

  “Your soul, your spirit, whatever you want to call it. That moved. You looked like us only with better coloring.”

  “Yeah,” Barber said, “you separated from your body to … be with him. It was amazing.”

  I sat stunned. No wonder it’d felt like a dream. Did I do some kind of astral projection thing? I hoped not. I didn’t believe in astral projection. But maybe, just maybe, astral projection believed in me.

  “How on Earth did I manage to leave my body?” I asked, dazed and confused, though not from anything illegal.

  “You’re the grim reaper,” Barber said with a shrug. “You tell us.”

  “I don’t know.” I looked at my palms as if they held the answers. “I didn’t know such a thing was possible.”

  “Don’t feel bad. I had no idea any of this was possible.”

  “I’m so floored,” I said. I was supposed to be the knowledgeable one. How was being a grim reaper advantageous if all the good stuff was on a need-to-know basis? I was a portal, dammit. I needed to know.

  “But he was superhot.”

  That brought me rocketing back. I looked at Elizabeth. “Seriously? Did you guys get a good look at him? I mean, I have to be totally honest here: I’m not sure what he is.”

  “You mean besides superhot?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Actually, that part I got.”

  She laughed softly. We stopped talking while Dad brought over my sandwich, offered me ten thousand dollars to off Uncle Bob, then left with my butter knife tucked into his pants, apparently planning to shank the man himself. I thought about warning Uncle Bob, but where was the fun in that?

  “Elizabeth, I have to ask you something,” I said, pushing my sandwich aside for a moment.

  “Sure, what’s up?”

  “I just feel like … well, ever since this morning, you’ve seemed a little distant.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, accepting responsibility without offering an explanation. In other words, trying to get out of one.

  “Oh, don’t apologize,” I added quickly. “I was just worried. Did something happen?”

  She sucked in a long, deep breath—another physiological superfluity—and said, “It’s just, that guy who was able to materialize out of thin air, your guy, he was … he was so beautiful.”

  “Tell me about it,” I said, nodding my head in agreement.

  “And amazing.”

  “Still with you.”

  “And sexy.”

  I leaned in. “I like where this is headed.”

  “But…”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “I just thought it odd.”

  “Odd?”

  “Yes.” She leaned in as well. “Charlotte, he was wearing … a prison uniform.”

  Chapter Seven

  Genius has its limitations.

  Insanity … not so much.

  —BUMPER STICKER

  A prison uniform? What did that mean? Had he gone to pr
ison? Then died there?

  The muscles around my heart clenched at the thought. He’d had such a hard life; that much had been painfully clear from the moment I first saw him. Then for him to end up in prison. I couldn’t imagine the horrors he’d had to endure.

  While I wanted nothing more than to rush off to the prison, I had no idea which prison he’d been in. He could have been in Sing Sing, for all I knew. I needed to cool my jets and focus on the case. Uncle Bob went to work on the warrant and court transcripts, and the lawyers went to check on their families, so I drove to the Metropolitan Detention Center to talk to Mark Weir, the man Carlos Rivera said was innocent.

  The female corrections officer at the sign-in desk studied my APD laminate. “Charlotte Davidson?” she asked, her brows furrowing as if I’d done something wrong.

  “That’s me,” I said with an inane giggle.

  She didn’t smile back. Not even a little. I totally needed to read that book on how to win friends and influence people. But that would involve an innate desire to win friends and influence people. My desires were a tad more visceral at the moment.

  The officer directed me to a waiting area while she called back for Mr. Weir. As I sat pondering my visceral desires, specifically the ones earmarked for Reyes, I heard someone sit down beside me.

  “Hey, Grim, what are you doing in my neck of the correctional system?”

  I looked over and smiled before fetching my partially charged cell phone. Flipping it open, I made sure it was on silent before I spoke. “Dang, Billy,” I said into the phone, “you’re looking good. Are you losing weight?”

  Billy was a Native American inmate who’d committed suicide in the detention center about seven years prior. I tried to convince him to cross, but he insisted on staying behind to help dissuade others from following his asinine example. His words. I often wondered how he might manage such a thing.

  A bashful grin spread over his face at my compliment. Despite the fact that the departed couldn’t lose weight, he did look a little slimmer. Maybe there was something I didn’t know. Either way, he was a good-looking man.

  He elbowed me playfully. “You and your phones.”

  “I gotta do this or they’ll lock me up for talking to myself, Mr. Invisible.”

  A deep chuckle rose from his chest. “You here to get in my pants?”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Figures,” he said, disappointed. “I always attract the crazy ones.”

  Sucking in a sharp breath, I was smack-dab in the middle of an Oscar-worthy performance—feigning offense with such emotion, such realism—when my name was called.

  “Oops, that’s me, big guy. When you coming to see me?”

  “See you?” he asked as I jumped up to follow the officer toward the visitors’ room. “How can I not see you? You’re as bright as the damned searchlights outside.”

  When I turned back, he was gone. I really liked that man.

  I sat down at booth seven as a gangly man in his forties sat across from me. He had sandy blond hair and kind blue eyes and looked like a cross between a beach bum and a college professor. A plate glass window separated us, one with thin wire latticed throughout to make it even more inescapable. Sure, I wondered how they got that wire in there, the rows so evenly spaced, but now was not the time for such musings. I had a job to do, dammit. I would not be sidetracked by latticework.

  Mr. Weir studied me from the other side—not the other side, but the other side of the glass—his expression curious. I picked up the speaker phone and wondered how many people had used that same phone and how sanitary those people had been.

  “Hello, Mr. Weir. My name is Charlotte Davidson.” His face remained blank. Clearly my name did not impress him.

  Another inmate strolled in to sit at the next booth, and he cast a wary glance over his shoulder, already eyeing others as if they were the enemy, already on constant guard, ready to defend himself at a moment’s notice. This man didn’t deserve to be in jail. He hadn’t killed anyone. I could sense his clear conscience as easily as I could sense the guilty one of the guy next to him.

  “I’m here with some pretty bad news.” I waited as he turned his attention back to me. “Your lawyers were killed last night.”

  “My lawyers?” he asked, speaking at last. Then he realized what I was saying, and his eyes widened in surprise. “What, all three of them?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m terribly sorry.”

  He stared at me as if I’d reached through the glass and bitch-slapped him. Clearly he hadn’t noticed the impossibility of such a feat, considering the latticework and all. After a long moment, he asked, “What happened?”

  “They were shot. We believe their deaths are somehow related to your case.”

  That stunned him even more. “They were killed because of me?”

  I shook my head. “This is not your fault, Mr. Weir. You know that, right?” When he didn’t answer, I continued. “Have you received any threats?”

  He gave a dubious snort and gestured around him, indicating his current environment. “You mean, other than the ones I get daily?”

  He had a good point. Jail was nothing if not stressful. “To be totally honest,” I said honestly, “I don’t think these people would waste their time making threats. Based on the last twenty-four hours, they seem more proactive than that.”

  “No kidding. Who kills three lawyers?”

  “Just keep a weather eye, Mr. Weir. We’re working it from this end.”

  “I’ll try. I’m real sorry to hear about those lawyers,” he said, scraping his fingers over scraggly stubble then up over his eyes.

  He was tired, exhausted from the stress of being convicted for something he didn’t do. My heart ached for him more than I’d wanted it to.

  “I really liked them,” he said. “Especially that Ellery girl.” He put his hand down and tried to shake off his emotions. “She was sure something to look at.”

  “Yes, she was very beautiful.”

  “You were friends?”

  “No, no, but I’ve seen pictures.” I never quite knew how to explain my connection to the departed. One slip could haunt me for years to come. Literally.

  “And you came here to tell me to watch my back?”

  “I’m a private investigator working with APD on this case.” He seemed to bristle at the mention of APD. I could hardly blame him. Though I couldn’t blame APD either. All the evidence did point straight toward him. “Did you know about the informant? The one who’d asked to speak with Barber the same day they were all killed?”

  “Informant?” he asked, shaking his head. “What did he want?”

  I breathed in and watched Mr. Weir closely before answering, trying to discern how much I should tell him. This was his case. If anyone deserved to know the truth, it was him. Still, a sign that read PROCEED WITH CAUTION kept flashing in my head. Either I needed to proceed with caution or that fifth cup of coffee was just now kicking in.

  “Mr. Weir, the last thing I want to do is to give you unfounded hope. Odds are this is nothing. And even if it is something, odds are we can’t prove it. Do you understand?”

  He nodded, but just barely.

  “In a nutshell, this man told Barber you were innocent.”

  His lids widened a fraction of an inch before he caught himself.

  “He said the courts had put the wrong man behind bars and that he had proof.”

  Despite my warning, a spark of hope shimmered in Mr. Weir’s eyes. I could see it. I could also tell he didn’t want it to be there any more than I did. He’d probably been disappointed countless times. I couldn’t imagine the heartbreak of going to prison for something I hadn’t done. He had every right to be disillusioned with the system.

  “Then what are you waiting for? Bring him in.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “He’s dead, too. They killed him yesterday as well.”

  After a full minute of tense silence, he let out a long hiss of air and slumped back in his sea
t, stretching the phone cord to its limit. I could see the disappointment wash over him. “So what does this mean?” he asked, his tone embittered.

  “I don’t know exactly. We’re just finding all this out ourselves. But I’ll do everything I can to help you. How beneficial my efforts will be is the question. It’s damned hard to get a conviction overturned, no matter the evidence.”

  He seemed to slip away, to lose himself in his thoughts.

  “Mr. Weir? Can you tell me about the case?”

  It took him a while to find his way back to me. When he did, he asked, “What do you want to know?”

  “Well, I’ve got the court transcripts on the way, but I wanted to ask you about this woman, your neighbor who testified that she saw you hide the kid’s body.”

  “I’d never seen that kid in my life. And the only time I’d ever seen that woman was when she was in her backyard yelling at her sunflowers. Crazy as a june bug on crack. But they listened to her. The jury listened to her. They lapped up everything she said like it was being served to them on a silver platter.”

  “Sometimes people hear what they want to hear.”

  “Sometimes?” he asked as if I’d grossly understated the fact. I had, but I was trying hard to stay positive.

  “Any idea how the kid’s blood got on your shoes?” This one stumped me. The man was clearly innocent, yet forensics confirmed he had the kid’s blood on his shoes. That one piece of evidence alone was enough to turn a jury of twelve against him.

  “It had to have been planted. I mean, how else would it get there?” he asked, just as stumped as I was.

  “Okay, can you give me a quick rundown of what happened?”

  Luckily, I’d stopped at Staples along the way. I pulled out my new notepad, the exact same kind Garrett and Uncle Bob used. Plain. Nondescript. Unassuming. I jotted down anything I thought could be pertinent.

  “Wait a minute,” I said, stopping him at one point. “The lady testified that the kid had been staying with you?”

  “Yes, but she’d seen my nephew. He stayed with me for about a month before all of this happened. Now the cops think I killed him, too.”

  I blinked in surprise. “He’s dead?”

  “Not that I know of. But he is missing. And the cops have convinced my sister I had something to do with his disappearance.”