First Grave on the Right

by Darynda Jones

  I sometimes wondered if he really did know more and was just following some cosmic set of rules I was unaware of. But his vocabulary, I had a feeling, stemmed from years of institutionalization. Nobody liked rules more than institutionalizationers.

  I pulled out my notepad and thumbed through it. “Okay, Rocket Man, what about a Theodore Bradley Thomas?” If nothing else, I’d leave here today knowing if Mark Weir’s missing nephew was dead or alive.

  Rocket bent his head in thought for a moment. “No, no, no,” he said at last. “Not his time yet.”

  Relief flooded every cell in my body. Now I just had to find him. I wondered how much danger the kid was in. “Do you know when his time will be?” I asked, already knowing the answer. Again.

  “Not when. Only is,” he repeated as he turned and started carving another name into the plaster.

  I’d lost him. Keeping Rocket’s attention was like serving spaghetti with a spoon. But I had another name to give him. An important one. I inched closer, almost afraid to say it aloud, then whispered, “Reyes Farrow.”

  Rocket stopped. He recognized the name; I could tell. That meant Reyes was dead after all. My heart dropped into my stomach. I’d hoped so hard he wouldn’t be.

  “Where is his name?” I asked, ignoring the sting in my eyes. I scanned the walls as if I could actually find his name among the mass of scribbled chaos that looked like an M. C. Escher on acid. But I wanted to see it. To touch it. I wanted to run my fingers along the rough grooves and lines that made up the letters of Reyes’s name.

  Then I realized Rocket was gazing at me, a wary expression on his boyish face.

  I lifted a hand to his shoulder. “Rocket, what’s wrong?”

  “No,” he said, stepping out of my reach. “He shouldn’t be here. No, ma’am.”

  My eyes slammed shut, trying hard not to see the truth. “Where is his name, Rocket?”

  “No, ma’am. He should never have been born.”

  They flew open again. I’d never heard such a thing from Rocket. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

  “He should never have been a boy named Reyes. He should have stayed where he belonged. Martians can’t become human just because they want to drink our water.” His eyes locked on to mine, but he stared past me a long moment before refocusing on my face. “You stay away from him, Miss Charlotte,” he said, taking a warning step toward me. “You just stay away.”

  I held my ground. “Rocket, you’re not being very nice.”

  He leaned down to me then, his voice a raspy whisper as he said, “But, Miss Charlotte, he’s not very nice either.”

  Something beyond my senses caught his attention. He turned, listened, then rushed toward me and clenched his meaty hands around my arms. I winced, but I wasn’t scared. Rocket would never hurt me. Then his grip tightened, and I almost cried out, realizing I might have spoken too soon.

  “Rocket,” I said in a soothing voice, “sweetheart, you’re hurting me.”

  He jerked back his hands and retreated in disbelief, as if astonished at what he’d done.

  “It’s okay,” I said, refusing to rub my throbbing arms. It would only make him feel worse. “It’s okay, Rocket. You didn’t mean to.”

  A horrified expression flashed across his face as he disappeared. I heard three words as he left. “He won’t care.”

  Chapter Eight

  Guys have feelings, too. But like … who cares?

  —INSPIRATIONAL POSTER

  The sun nested on Nine Mile Hill for several heartbeats before losing interest and slipping down the other side. I sat in Misery—the Jeep, not the emotion—and waited for the skyline to swallow it completely so I could get on with my breaking-and-entering gig. But the more I waited, the more I thought about Reyes. And the more I thought about Reyes, the more confused I became.

  Rocket knew Reyes’s name, but did that necessarily mean he’d passed? Could it mean anything else? I’d never seen Rocket scared before, and that scared me. He seemed to be hiding something as well, but trying to differentiate between Rocket’s lucid and less-than-lucid moments was nearly impossible.

  On the plus side, I did learn that Martians should never try to become human just to drink our water. Since Martians didn’t exist, I figured they were part of some bizarre Rocket Man analogy. So what on Earth could be comparable to alien beings? Besides circus performers? It had to be someone living contrary to the norm. I could think of a couple of groups, but I felt strangely secure in the knowledge that Reyes was neither an IRS auditor nor a member of the Manson family. Thank goodness, because swastikas aren’t as easily accessorized as one might think.

  Perhaps the bigger piece to the puzzle was the water. What did it represent? What would a person living outside the boundaries of society want for badly enough to conform? Money? Acceptance? Power? Green chili enchiladas? I was clueless. It happened. In my own defense, Rocket used a bad analogy. We lived way too close to Roswell to think logically about alien invasions.

  But I could think logically about the case. Mark Weir’s nephew was alive, and I had a very strong suspicion he’d known James Barilla, the deceased kid in Weir’s backyard. There had to be a connection. Mostly because I wanted one. Whatever that connection might be, Teddy was in trouble because of it.

  Where the heck was Angel when I needed him? He rarely stayed away this long. How could I do supernatural recon without a supernatural reconnaissance team? Namely, Team Angel, which was pretty much a team of one. But by calling it a team, I could say things like, “There’s no i in team, mister!” I friggin’ loved saying crap like that. As it stood, I was having to do way more legwork than I’d planned when I decided on these boots.

  On the way over from the asylum, I’d called the lead detective on Weir’s case. He was a friend of Uncle Bob’s, but not a big fan of mine. I think I irked him. I could be irksome when I put my left ventricle into it. I figured he was either jealous of Uncle Bob’s success—and my part in it—or he didn’t like hot chicks with attitude. Probably a smidgen of both.

  Our conversation didn’t last long. Detective Anaya’s answers were short and to the razor-sharp point. According to him, APD had tried to find Teddy in connection to the case as well, but they were looking for another body, another death to pin on Mark Weir. Such an investigation would lead them continually in the wrong direction. Since I knew Teddy was alive, I would have a slight advantage over APD, emphasis on the word slight. Advantage might be a bit overstated as well.

  When they’d interviewed Teddy’s mom, she told the police her son never moved back home from her brother’s house. And yet she’d waited until Mark was arrested for murder to report him missing? That left two weeks of Teddy’s whereabouts unaccounted for. I may not have been the state academic decathlon champ, but even I could tell the facts weren’t adding up.

  As I waited for the lingering light to stop lingering and let darkness blanket the area, I flipped open my phone to study Reyes’s picture for the hundredth time that day. And just like each time before, my breath caught at the first glimpse of him. I couldn’t get over it. After more than ten years, I’d found him. True, I’d found him in prison, but for the moment—as I was fairly adept at living in denial—I was ignoring that part. The one ray of hope I clung to lay in the fact that Reyes was pissed when they took his mug shot. Not just upset, not just angry, but wildly, ragingly furious. Guilty people aren’t pissed. They’re either relieved at having been caught or worried. Reyes was neither.

  I closed my phone, resisting the inane urge to make out with the screen, and made my way up the walk to the front entrance of the Sussman, Ellery & Barber Law Offices. A wide oak door sat conveniently hidden by evergreens and Spanish daggers, making my breaking and entering all the more uncomplicated—though, really, it wasn’t so much breaking as entering, since I had a key and all.

  Barber’s office was only slightly less organized than a postapocalyptic war zone. I thumbed through stacks of papers and found Weir’s case files in
a cardboard box marked WEIR, MARK L. Which was a totally logical place to find them. But the mysterious flash drive was another matter. Barber said it would be on top of his desk. It wasn’t, and his pencil drawer had seven flash drives without so much as a label in sight. I couldn’t loiter all evening. I had a stakeout to attend, which sadly involved neither steaks nor vampires.

  I weighed the pros and cons of taking all the flash drives with me and checking them out later. The pros won. Mentally scheduling another B & E for tomorrow night to return them, I started stuffing flash drives into my pockets. That led to the realization that mocha lattes and cheeseburgers weren’t doing me any favors. Which, in turn, led to an angry growl echoing against the walls of my empty stomach. I was starving.

  As I hopped up and down, trying to cram the last two flash drives into my pockets, I ran a mental list of all the fast food joints I could hit between here and the warehouse we were staking out.

  “You’re about as inconspicuous as a monster truck at an exotic car show.”

  I started and whirled around to see Garrett standing in the doorway. “Holy crap, Swopes,” I said, placing a hand over my heart. “What are you doing here?”

  He strolled in, eyeing the moonlit surroundings before returning his attention to yours truly. “Your uncle sent me,” he said, his voice flat. “Any evidence you obtain without that warrant will be useless in court.”

  Ah, we were back to being mortal enemies. Coolness wafted off him. I’d have to be on guard in his presence, ever wary of his traitorous tendencies. I’d have to eat, sleep, and potty with one eye open.

  “Do the words chain of custody mean anything to you?” he asked.

  “They would if I gave a crap.” I picked up the box and headed for the door. “I just need to know what I’m up against, Swopes.”

  “Besides mental illness?”

  Dang, we were even back to the volatile insults. It felt good to be home.

  “I’m not out to prove my investigative prowess, Swopes, or how ginormous my dick is by making a name for myself. I’m helping my clients. It’s what I do,” I said as I edged past him. “It’s what I’ve been doing for years now, long before you came along.”

  Garrett followed me out the front door. “What’s the code?” he asked to reset the alarm.

  I yelled the numbers over my shoulder—apparently so everyone in the neighborhood could hear—then put the box in the back of my Jeep. He walked up behind me.

  “I have to stop for sustenance along the way. I’ll meet you at the warehouse,” I said.

  After closing the back door for me and making sure it was locked, he said, “We’re not far from your place. Why don’t we drop off your car, and you can ride over with me.”

  I put the key in to unlock my door. “I’m hungry.”

  “You can eat on the way.”

  An annoyed sigh slipped through my lips as my hand hovered over the door handle. “Is Uncle Bob paying you to babysit me now?”

  “We have four dead bodies, Davidson. He’s … concerned.”

  “Ubie?” I asked with a snort.

  “I’ll follow you to your place.”

  “Whatever makes your balloon red, Swopes,” I said, climbing into Misery and slamming the door. He didn’t seem any happier about Charley-sitting than Charley did herself. Somewhere deep inside, she felt bad about that. Not.

  * * *

  “Mmm. Tacos are good.” I looked over at Swopes as we pulled in beside Uncle Bob’s unmarked police car, a bland, dark blue sedan. “I just hope I don’t spill any more salsa on your nice vinyl seats.”

  Garrett’s jaw flexed as he gritted his teeth. It was funny. “They’re leather,” he said, his voice tightly controlled.

  “Oops. Well, they’re real nice.”

  He threw the truck into park, and I hopped out before the tension could escalate into random acts of violence, ducked back in for my monster cup of diet soda, then dashed over to Uncle Bob’s car. Aka the Safety Zone.

  We were parked a fair distance away from the warehouse; a wide field of ragweed and mesquite lay between us and the rusting metal building. It looked like a cross between an airplane hangar and a mechanic’s shop and sat perched smack-dab in the middle of nowhere. Not a single neighbor for miles. A fact I found most interesting.

  Uncle Bob sat in his car, staring out of a nifty pair of binoculars from behind his steering wheel. I leaned over his windshield, peered into the binocular lenses, and smiled. He pulled the specs away from his eyes and frowned at me.

  “What?” I mouthed before bouncing around to the passenger’s side and climbing inside the warm interior. Death by starvation had been staved off another day, thanks to Macho Taco. Life was good.

  “Who’s that?” I asked, pointing to a second unmarked police car strategically parked a few yards away. Totally camouflaged by darkness. Except for one small, teensy-tiny, minuscule blunder. His parking lights were on. I took a shot and guessed the guy hadn’t graduated at the top of his class.

  “That’s Officer Taft,” Uncle Bob said.

  “No,” I breathed.

  “He volunteered.”

  “No.”

  “He’s a good egg, that one.”

  I rolled my eyes and eased lower into the seat as Garrett opened the back door to get in, shining the minisearchlight directly on me.

  “Close the door,” I whispered with a furtive urgency.

  Uncle Bob frowned. Again. I didn’t know why. It wasn’t like he needed the practice.

  “Taft has a fan,” I explained. “An adorable little girl has been stalking him. I think her name is Hell Spawn of Satan.”

  Uncle Bob chuckled. “What the Hell Spawn of Satan are you wearing?”

  What Ubie was so indelicately referring to was the outfit I’d changed into, carefully picking out my most comfortable black-on-black attire and meticulously applying black greasepaint to my face to complement a desert-at-midnight look. Naturally, I had to struggle through several costume changes as Garrett sat out in his leather-seated truck waiting for me. I sure hoped my time-consuming endeavor didn’t annoy him.

  “I’m blending,” I said.

  “With what? Evil?”

  “Laugh it up, Uncle Bob,” I said before pausing to take a noisy slurp of my soda. “Just wait until someone has to go traipsing through the desert for a closer look. You’ll appreciate my forethought.”

  Garrett chose that moment to join the conversation. “I appreciate your forethought,” he said, his tone distant, as if his mind were elsewhere. “Not as much as your fore-parts, but still…”

  I twisted around in my seat to face him. “My fore-parts, as you so ineloquently put it, have names.” I pointed to my right breast. “This is Danger.” Then my left. “And this is Will Robinson. I would appreciate it if you addressed them accordingly.”

  After a long pause in which he took the time to blink several times, he asked, “You named your breasts?”

  I turned my back to him with a shrug. “I named my ovaries, too, but they don’t get out as much. Did you ever think that this whole operation was blown when they tortured Carlos Rivera?” I asked Uncle Bob. “If these guys are anywhere near intelligent, they would have cleared out any incriminating evidence the moment they figured out what Rivera did.”

  “True,” Uncle Bob said. “But there’s only one way to be certain.”

  “Why don’t you just get a warrant, gather a small army, and storm the place?”

  “Based on what probable cause? Anonymous tips aren’t enough to obtain a search warrant, pumpkin. We need that flash drive.”

  He had a point. Not a particularly pointy one, but a point nonetheless. And he called me pumpkin. I slurped as loud as kinesthetically possible in response. It would help if we knew what we were looking for. I sighed to emphasize my impatience-slash-boredom. Stakeouts were nothing if not boring. I felt it my civic duty as a certified connoisseur of sarcasm to liven it up a bit, so I slurped some more.

  “Why don’t y
ou go keep Taft company?” Uncle Bob suggested from behind his binoculars.

  “Can’t.”

  He lowered them. “Why not?”

  “Don’t like him.”

  “Perfect. I don’t think he likes you either.”

  “Also,” I said, ignoring my unappreciative uncle for the moment, “he has the Hell Spawn of Satan following his every move. Remember?” Then I realized what Uncle Bob had said. “He doesn’t like me?”

  Ubie shrugged with his brows.

  “What have I ever done to him?” I glared at Taft’s stupid car. “Little punk. See if I help him when demon child starts making her presence known.”

  An electric hum sounded behind me as Garrett rolled down his window. “Movement.”

  We all looked toward the warehouse, where a vertical shaft of light appeared. The massive doors slid open, spilling light over a waiting van. It rolled inside before the doors closed again.

  “At this rate, we’ll never solve the case and Mark Weir will grow old in prison. This stakeout sucks,” I said, whining into my calorie-free beverage. “We can’t see a thing. We need to get closer.”

  “Send in your people,” Uncle Bob said.

  “I don’t have any people with me.”

  “What?” he asked, suddenly panicked. “What about Angel?”

  I shrugged. “Haven’t seen that little shit in days. Why do you think I’m dressed like this? Greasepaint wreaks havoc on my complexion.”

  “I am not sending you over there, Charlotte Jean Davidson.”

  Uh-oh. Ubie seemed überserious. I gave it two minutes. Sixty-seven seconds and three long slurps later, he changed his mind.

  “Fine,” he said with a heavy sigh.

  Finally.

  “Go do your thing.”

  I knew he’d cave.

  “But for God’s sake, be careful. Your dad’ll shank me if anything happens to you.”

  He handed me a radio, and I traded him my soda. “No backwash,” I warned.

  “No getting caught.” He turned to Garrett. “Watch her close.”