First Grave on the Right

by Darynda Jones

  Sounded like a plan. After we finished giving our statements, which were remarkably similarly worded, we all grabbed a bite; then Uncle Bob and I dropped off Garrett and headed to Yucca High. Like a kid being left at home on a Saturday night, Garrett begged to go. Even whined a little.

  “Please,” he’d said.

  “No means no.” He had to learn that sometime.

  Yucca High sat deep in the southern heart of Albuquerque, an old school with a sordid past and an excellent reputation. We drove up during a late-afternoon class change. Kids were taking advantage of the five minutes they had by talking and flirting and roughhousing the freshmen. Before we arrived, I hadn’t particularly missed high school. When we got there, I still didn’t particularly miss it.

  The aftereffects of the morning still weighted down my limbs. Things weren’t moving at a normal speed. Everything felt slow, lethargic as I swam through the reality that the world did not come to a screeching halt after a near-death experience. It remained in motion, a never-ending cycle of those episodic adventures called life. The minutes pressed forward. The sun slid across the sky. The heel of my boot had a tack in it.

  We walked into the Yucca High School office and found a frazzled administrative assistant. There were no fewer than seven people vying for her attention. Two wanted tardy passes. One had a note from his dad saying that if the school didn’t let his child take his medicine to school, he was going to sue the fancy new uniforms off their athletes’ backs. Another was a teacher who’d had her keys stolen off her desk during lunch. Two were office aides waiting for instructions. And the last was a beautiful young girl with a dark ponytail, cat-eye glasses, and bobby socks, who looked to have passed away in the fifties.

  She sat in a corner with her books clutched to her breast and her ankles crossed. I sat down beside her and waited for the chaos to filter down. Uncle Bob took the opportunity to step out and make a call. As always. Bobby Socks kept staring at me, so I did my cell phone trick and looked directly at her as I talked.

  “Hi,” I said.

  Her eyes widened before she batted her lashes in surprise, wondering if I was talking to her.

  “Come here often?” I asked, chuckling at my astounding sense of humor.

  “Me?” she asked at last.

  “You,” I said.

  “You can see me?”

  I never figured out why they always asked me that when I was looking directly at them. “Sure can.” Her mouth slid open a notch, so I explained. “I’m a grim reaper, but in a good, nongrouchy kind of way. You can cross through me if you’d like.”

  “You’re beautiful,” she said, gazing at me in awe. I did that to people. “You’re like a swimming pool on a sunny day.”

  Wow, that was different. A quick glance told me the crowd was thinning. “How long have you been here?”

  “About two years, I think.” When my brows creased in doubt, she said, “Oh, my clothes. Homecoming week. Fifties Day.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well you certainly look the part.”

  She bowed her head bashfully. “Thanks.”

  Only one tardy kid to go. Apparently the principal was dealing with the lawsuit threat, and maintenance was dealing with the stolen keys.

  “Why haven’t you crossed?” I asked.

  Another kid walking down the hall called out to his friend. “Hey, Westfield, you gonna get spanked again?”

  The boy waiting for the tardy pass, clearly a jock, flipped him off behind his back, incognito style. I tried really hard not to giggle.

  The girl next to me shrugged, then indicated the administrative assistant with a nod of her head. “That’s my grandma. She got really upset when I died.”

  I looked up at the woman. He name tag read MS. TARPLEY. She had stylishly messy hair, dark with red highlights, and a killer pair of green eyes. “Wow, she looks great for a grandma.”

  Bobby Socks giggled. “I just have to tell her something.”

  Was it not mere moments ago I went on a stark-raving rant in front of Garrett about this very thing? How’d I put it? Tired of tying up loose ends? I could be such a bitch.

  “Would you like me to help?”

  The girl’s face brightened. “You can do that?”

  “Sure can.”

  After chewing on her bottom lip a moment, she said, “Can you tell her that I didn’t use all her mousse?”

  “Seriously?” I asked with a smile. “That’s why you’re still here?”

  “Well, I mean, I did use all her mousse, but I don’t want her to think badly of me.”

  A Vise-Grip clamped around my heart at her confession. The thoughts that ran through people’s heads before they died never ceased to amaze me. “Honey, I doubt your grandmother thinks anything but wonderful things about you right now. In fact, I’d bet my soul the mousse thing has never even crossed her mind.”

  With her chin lowered and her feet swinging under the chair, she said, “I guess I can go, then.”

  “If you’d like me to tell her something, even the mousse thing, I can make sure she gets the message.”

  A grin slowly spread across her face. “Can you tell her my lily pad is bigger than hers?”

  I chuckled and shook my head. As much as I’d have loved to hear the story behind that one, the office was now empty of kids and teachers. “I promise.”

  And Bobby Socks was gone. She smelled like grapefruit and baby lotion and had a pink elephant named Chubs when she was little.

  “Can I help you?” Grandma asked.

  Uncle Bob, aka knight in shining armor, strode in and flashed his badge in true five-oh fashion. Man, he was good. We couldn’t get the records without some kind of warrant. There were apparently laws against their giving out student information to just any Joe off the street. I was hoping Ubie’s badge would be enough and we wouldn’t need an actual warrant, ’cause I had no idea on what grounds we would get one.

  “We need all the transcripts and class rosters on a student who went here about…”

  Uncle Bob turned to me. I closed my phone and jumped up. “Oh, right, about twelve years ago.”

  The woman eyed Ubie a moment before grabbing a pen and writing down the dates I had. Ubie eyed her back. Sparks flew.

  “And the name?” she asked.

  Right. The name. Hopefully Uncle Bob wouldn’t remember the man he put away for twenty-five to life. “Um,” I leaned closer, trying to exclude him from the conversation, “Farrow. Reyes Farrow.”

  I didn’t have to look at Uncle Bob to know that he stilled beside me. I could feel the tension thicken the air to a tangible mass. Well, crap.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Life isn’t about finding yourself.

  It’s mostly about chocolate.

  —T-SHIRT

  “Uncle Bob,” I said, “would you just give me a chance to explain?”

  We were standing in the hall outside Ms. Tarpley’s office, where Uncle Bob had dragged me by the arm.

  “Reyes Farrow?” he asked, his teeth clamped together. “Do you know who Reyes Farrow is?”

  “Do you?” I countered, trying to control the worry in my voice.

  “I do.”

  “So you two are tight?” I asked hopefully.

  He cast me a dubious scowl. “I don’t usually hang with murderers.”

  Snob. “I just need to get some information on him.”

  “He beat his father to death with a baseball bat then threw him in the trunk of his Chevy and set it on fire. What more do you need to know about a person, Charley?”

  I let out a huff of air, stalling for time to come up with a good argument. Where the heck were my lawyers when I needed them? Nobody was better at arguing than a lawyer. When nothing jumped out at me, I decided to let Ubie in a little further. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

  “He wouldn’t have done that,” I said in a hushed whisper.

  “You weren’t there. You didn’t see—”

  “He wouldn’t have had t
o.” Leaning closer, I said, “He’s … different.”

  “Most murderers are.” Ubie wasn’t budging without some earth-shattering bit of evidence.

  After taking a deep, deep breath, I said, “It was him. Today. The spinal cord thing? He did it.”

  “What?”

  Uncle Bob didn’t want to hear me, to listen, but he couldn’t help it. His curiosity always got the better of him. And I knew one surefire way of getting his complete and undivided attention.

  I curled my fingers into his blazer and said, “You have to promise not to tell Dad.”

  Uncle Bob was suddenly salivating to know more. I explained as quickly as possible how Reyes was more than human. How he looked and moved. How he had been there on the day I was born—at which point, I was sure Ubie went into some bizarre kind of trance brought on by the stress of it all.

  I left out the other two spinal taps and, well, the whole nightly seduction thing. He didn’t need to know how deep my feelings for Reyes ran.

  “What is he?” he asked at last.

  With a shake of my head, I said, “I wish I knew. But he’s going to die in two days if we don’t stop it. And the only way to do that for sure is to find his sister.”

  “But, if he’s this … powerful being—”

  “In human form,” I corrected. “I don’t know what will happen to him if his body dies.” I knew what would happen to me, though. I didn’t want to live without him. I didn’t know if I could. Not at this point.

  Fifteen minutes later, we had printouts of Reyes’s class schedule along with a roster for each course.

  “Do you remember him?” I asked Ms. Tarpley.

  She ripped her gaze off Uncle Bob to settle it on me. “I’ve only been here ten years,” she said.

  “And there are no other Farrows in the system?”

  “No. I’m sorry. Perhaps his sister wasn’t in high school yet.”

  “That could be. And he only came here three months.” I looked back at the file I had on Reyes. “But this says he graduated from here.”

  “Not from this high school,” she said. “Wait.” Her fingernails clicked on the computer keys. “We do have a record of him receiving a diploma, but that’s impossible.”

  I leaned over to Uncle Bob. “Not for an expert hacker.” I was beginning to piece together how Reyes put his intelligence and computer skills to work.

  “Thank you so much for this, Ms. Tarpley,” Ubie said, taking her hand in his.

  She made googly eyes. He made googly eyes. It was all quite romantic, but I had a missing person to find. I elbowed Uncle Bob. “Shall we hit the road?”

  After a soft protest, he turned back to her and said his good-byes. Just as we started out the door, I skidded to a halt. “Oh,” I said, bringing forward a note, “I found this in the corner over there. It looked … important.”

  “Thank you,” she said, opening it.

  As we passed by the front of the building, I looked in her window. She was clutching the note to her breast and crying. It must have been the lily pad thing.

  * * *

  We swung by my office to give the class rosters to Cookie. She’d cross-reference the students Reyes’d had classes with and try to contact a few of them, fishing for a hit on the mysterious sister. Now that I could get into my office again, I grabbed my Glock out of the safe, slid into a shoulder holster, and snapped it in. With my leather jacket, it was hardly noticeable. I’d never actually had to pull it on anyone. I just wanted the feel of it against my body, to know it was there, if only for a little while.

  On the drive back to the station, two of my lawyers popped into Uncle Bob’s SUV. I’d been driving earlier, but after a little mishap, Ubie insisted on taking over.

  The blond-haired, ruby-lipped Elizabeth Ellery sat behind him. “Hey, Charlotte.”

  “Hey, there.” I turned to them. “How are you two doing?”

  Jason Barber shrugged his brows. “My mom’s upset.”

  “Are you surprised?” I asked, watching Uncle Bob shift uncomfortably in his seat. He never really got used to having them around. It was a situation in which he had zero control. He didn’t like zero control. He didn’t even like zero-calorie soft drinks.

  “Well, yeah, kind of.”

  “Is your uncle okay?” Elizabeth asked, concern in her blue eyes.

  With a dubious grin, I said, “He’s mad at me.”

  Uncle Bob straightened. “Are you talking about me?”

  “Elizabeth and Barber are here with us. She just asked if you were okay.”

  His knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel just a tad tighter than was probably necessary. “You are never driving this vehicle again.”

  I did my signature rolling of the eyes. “Puh-lease. That sign was totally superfluous. Honestly, Uncle Bob, how many times do we need to be reminded of the speed limit? No one’s gonna miss it.”

  He pulled in a deep, soothing breath. “I’m getting too old for this crap.”

  “Ah, yes. Impotence, decrepitude. Still, you’ll always have Werther’s Originals.” I watched as Uncle Bob’s face went from a pale, post-fender-bender white to a flushed shade of rosy pink. I had to laugh. On the inside, because he really was mad at me. “Where’s Sussman?” I asked the lawyers.

  Elizabeth lowered her eyes. “He’s still with his wife. She’s having a very difficult time.”

  “I’m sorry.” I didn’t just hate the people-left-behind part. I hated talking about the people-left-behind part. Unfortunately, it was often necessary. “How is your family?”

  “My sister is doing remarkably well. I think she’s on drugs. My parents … not so much.”

  “Your sister isn’t sharing?”

  Elizabeth shook her head.

  “I can’t imagine how hard this must be for them.”

  “They’ll need closure, Charlotte.”

  “I agree.”

  “We have to find who did this. I just think it will help.”

  She was right. Knowing the whys and hows of any crime often helped the victims cope with what was done to them. And putting those responsible behind bars was like the icing on the cake. Justice may be blind, but she was an awesome elixir.

  I looked back at Barber. “Oh, I took seven flash drives out of your office, but they were all yours. Do you remember what you did with the one Carlos Rivera gave you?”

  He patted his jacket. “Damn, what did I do with that thing?”

  “Maybe they took it? Maybe they knew he gave it to you?”

  “I guess that’s possible.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry, I just can’t remember.”

  That happened often. Especially when the subject had two bullets in his head. Since we couldn’t rely on the flash drive, we’d have to rely on our mad skill.

  “Well, our former suspect and current informant, Julio Ontiveros, stated that he’d given a friend a box of ammunition after he sold his own nine millimeter. That’s the only way he could see his fingerprints showing up on casings at a crime scene.”

  “Who was the friend?”

  “Chaco Lin. And guess who Chaco Lin works for?”

  “Satan?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Close. Benny Price.”

  Elizabeth and Barber glanced at each other knowingly.

  “Normally we couldn’t mention this,” Barber said, “but since we’re not really here, I think the rules no longer apply. Benny Price has been accused of human trafficking.”

  “Tell them about the human trafficking investigation,” Uncle Bob said.

  “Apparently they already know.” I looked back at Barber. “And we have one murdered teen and one missing one. Did you get anything on Mark Weir’s missing nephew?” He was supposed to check out Weir’s sister, see if she’d had any contact with her son.

  “Not exactly, but I have to admit, it seemed like something was going on with the boy’s mother.”

  “Going on?” My insides were suddenly tingling. “Could you be mor
e specific?”

  Uncle Bob perked up as well.

  “She got a call a few days ago from a Father Federico. Sure put her in a tizzy.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath at the mention of the man who owned the warehouse.

  “What?” Uncle Bob asked.

  Barber continued. “From what I got out of a one-sided phone conversation, she was supposed to meet him, but he never showed up.”

  Ubie flashed me a look of desperation.

  “Janie Weir was supposed to meet Father Federico, but he never showed,” I explained.

  We pulled up to the station. “Seems like no one has seen him lately.”

  “Are you thinking foul play?”

  “It’s possible. Has he, you know, shown up see-through style?”

  “Nope. But that doesn’t necessarily mean—”

  “Right,” he said, opening his phone and speed-dialing one of his detectives. That man spent more time on the phone than most thirteen-year-olds.

  I turned back to the lawyers. “Do either of you know how much a bumper for a Dodge Durango costs?”

  Barber shook his head. Elizabeth chuckled.

  * * *

  As we strolled into the station to go over operation Bring Benny Price to His Knees, Garrett stood in the hall, checking over his notes for the day.

  “You know what’s disturbing?” Garrett asked, closing his notebook as we walked up.

  “Your addiction to little people porn?”

  “Nobody has seen Father Federico in days,” he said without missing a beat. Apparently, it was a rhetorical question. I wished he’d stated that before I wasted one of my best lines on an answer. I hated being wrong.

  “Mark Weir’s sister was supposed to meet him a few days ago, and he never showed up,” Uncle Bob said.

  Things were starting to come together. If Benny Price was trafficking children out of the country, maybe he’d gotten ahold of Mark Weir’s nephew Teddy. And maybe he’d gotten ahold of James Barilla, the kid found murdered in Weir’s backyard. Maybe James put up a struggle, tried to escape, and they killed him. But why on former planet Pluto would they put the body in Weir’s backyard and frame him for the murder? Did he pose a threat somehow? I needed caffeine.