Third Grave Dead Ahead

by Darynda Jones

  “I don’t have anything else to say.”

  “’Cause you’re a big fat liar?” I asked. It was a fair question. That scum-of-the-universe Earl Walker was alive.

  A wave of anger washed over him. He probably didn’t like to be called fat. I giggled, but because I wasn’t stupid, I did it on the inside. On the outside, I raised my brows, waiting for an answer.

  “No, because Earl Walker is dead.”

  I nodded in understanding. “Possibly. Or it could be you’re just a big fat liar.”

  His free hand curled into a white-knuckled fist, but his face remained neutral. All things considered, he was pretty good. Probably played a lot of poker. “I have a meeting.”

  He forced his way past me even though I was blocking the door, his shoulder hitting mine in a desperate act of machismo.

  I called out to him as he stalked to his truck. “Is it the weekly Big Fat Liars Anonymous meeting?” Nothing. He climbed in and slammed the door, but his window was down, so I took another pot shot. Mostly because I could. “Big Fat Liars bridge club?”

  He glared as his engine roared to life.

  “A Big Fat Liars Tea and Recognition Ceremony?” When he pulled the gearshift into drive, I shouted, “Don’t forget to stick out your pinkie!” Teas were so tedious.

  After he drove off, I glanced over at Garrett. He’d exited his vehicle and was leaning against it, his legs crossed at the ankles. For once, I was glad he was there, but I refused to let him know that. I climbed into Misery and called Cook.

  “Are you still alive?” she asked.

  “Barely. This one liked big knives.”

  Her startled gasp sounded in the phone. “Like Rambo’s?”

  “Exactly.” Either she was getting better at this, or we really did have ESPN. “And even though he wouldn’t give me the time of day if my life depended on it, he knew one thing for certain.”

  “Big knives are scary?”

  “Earl Walker is alive.”

  The phone was silent for a moment; then she said, “Wow, I’m not sure what to say. I mean, Reyes said he was, but—”

  “I know. I don’t know what to think either.”

  “So, Earl’s girlfriend, the dental assistant, switches dental records so the cops think it’s really him,” she said, thinking out loud.

  “Yes, and Earl picks someone with the same general facial structure and build, murders him, puts him in the trunk of his car and burns it.”

  “And he makes sure Reyes is arrested for his murder,” she said.

  “Then kills his girlfriend one week after Reyes is convicted.”

  “So, was this Farley Scanlon with the big knife an accessory?”

  “That part’s not quite as clear,” I said, sliding my key into the ignition, “but he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt Earl Walker is still alive.”

  “Well, we have to find him. We have to get Reyes out of jail. Well, really out of jail. Not just escaped out of jail.”

  “I agree. I’m going to grab something to eat at this little café—”

  “Oh, you love small-town cafés.”

  “I do. I’ll be back in a couple.”

  “You know, I had a thought about that,” she said, her voice hesitant.

  “Yeah?” I pulled out of Farley’s dirt drive. Circling back around, I missed dismembering Garrett by a hairsbreadth as he jumped back into his truck, then offered me a questioning glare in my rearview. It made me smile.

  “Yeah. Why don’t you ride with Garrett and we can pick up Misery tomorrow?”

  “Why would I do that?” I asked, appalled.

  “Because you haven’t slept in fourteen days.”

  “I’m good, Cook. I just need a little coffee.”

  “Just make sure he stays close. And make sure Rambo doesn’t come after you. They always come after you.”

  I tried to be offended, but just couldn’t muster the energy. “Okay.”

  “How was your visit with Kim?”

  After a long, labored sigh, I said, “She was really happy when I got there. I’m pretty sure she was suicidal when I left.”

  “You do have that effect on people.”

  * * *

  I pulled into the lot of a small café with about two customers to its name. Garrett pulled into the other side of the lot, turned out his lights, and waited. He had to be hungry, but no way was I inviting him in. He could bite my sexy tailed ass.

  “Sit wherever, honey,” a round waitress in jeans and a country blouse said when I walked in.

  A bell overhead sounded as I closed the door. The café had all the country charm I loved with none of the commercialism. Antique kitchen items together with farming equipment hung on the walls and sat perched on barn wood shelves. Vintage tins punctuated the décor, everything from saltine crackers to sewing oil, and the nostalgia brought back memories from my childhood. Or it would have, had I been born in the thirties.

  It did bring back the memories I’d gleaned off a man who’d crossed through me when I was a child. He’d raised sheep in Scotland, and castrating sheep is a big part of that occupation. Unfortunately, once something is seen, it cannot be unseen.

  After a few minutes, the bell sounded again and a tall bond enforcement agent with a fetish for midget porn strolled in like he owned the place.

  “Hello, handsome,” the woman said, making me grin. “Sit wherever you’d like.”

  Garrett nodded, strolled to a corner table at the opposite side of the diner, and sat facing me.

  “What can I get you, hon?” the waitress asked, holding pen and pad at the ready.

  “I would kill for a green chile cheeseburger and an iced tea.”

  “Green burger and tea it is. With fries?”

  “And extra ketchup.”

  “I’ll have the same but with chips,” Garrett called out. He probably didn’t want me getting my order first and finishing before he did.

  The waitress looked over at him and chuckled. “He must be hungry.”

  “I can’t take him anywhere,” I said, shaking my head.

  When she walked away to get our teas, I asked him, “Why didn’t you come to my rescue when trailer park guy pulled a knife on me?”

  His grin flashed bright in the low light. “I’m just tailing you. I can’t let you know I’m here. If I had interfered, you would know.”

  The waitress paused a moment before heading toward me with my tea. “He has a point,” I said to her. She offered a hesitant smile, obviously unsure of what to think. “Hey, can you make sure I get my burger first?”

  “Your voice carries really well,” he said, his voice carrying really well.

  With narrowed eyes, I said, “Shush, you tailgater, you. This is between—” I glanced at the server’s name tag. “—Peggy and me.”

  He shrugged defensively. “I would’ve come to your rescue eventually.”

  “Oh, yeah? When? After I’d been gutted and lay bleeding to death in a ditch somewhere?”

  “Absolutely,” he said, clasping his hands behind his head. “I mean, I wouldn’t jump in the ditch and try to suppress the bleeding or anything, but, sure. I’d call for help or something.”

  Offering my best smile ever, I said, “You’re a real saint, Swopes.”

  “My mom says the same thing.”

  The realization that Garrett actually had a mother kind of disturbed me. But only for about twelve seconds. I rarely held thoughts in my head any longer than twelve seconds. Damn my ADD.

  We sat in silence awhile as I jotted down some notes. I glanced up from underneath my lashes a few times to check on Garrett. He obviously took his tailing duties seriously, considering he had yet to take his eyes off me. The smell of the burgers and green chile on the grill had my mouth watering. By the time Peggy brought our burgers, I was moments away from drooling uncontrollably. Either from the smell or the lack of sleep. I couldn’t be sure which.

  “So, why are we here?” Garrett asked between bites. The asshole slipped Peggy a
five-spot to bring him his burger first. Never trust a man with a penis.

  “The man Reyes went to prison for killing isn’t dead,” I said, salting my burger before I’d even tried it.

  “Are you serious?”

  That got Peggy’s attention, too. She glanced over at me as she wiped down the next table.

  “Can I get a coffee to go?” I asked her.

  “Sure can.” She headed to the pot as I took a bite of one of the best burgers I’d ever had. Or I was just really hungry. It was hard to tell.

  “And you’re going to find him?” Garrett asked after she strolled off, an annoying mixture of humor and doubt in his voice.

  “Thanks for the vote,” I said, swallowing hard and washing the bite down with an iced tea chaser.

  He shook his head. “Instilling confidence isn’t really my thing.”

  “No!” I said, shocked.

  “You ’bout done?”

  “Holy cow, are you finished?” Having barely taken two bites, I blinked in surprise.

  “Yep. It’s a man thing.”

  “That can’t be good for the digestion.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, a grin brightening his features that may have been attractive, had I found nice-looking men with amazing skill appealing. Good thing I didn’t.

  Ten minutes later, we paid simultaneously and walked out the same way.

  That’s when I saw it. My heart leapt into my throat. My hands covered my mouth in shock. I ran, stumbling forward. “Misery!” I yelled in my best melodramatic tone.

  “Holy shit,” Garrett said, walking up to us, Misery and me, as I wrapped my arms around her fender. At least I think that’s what the thing on the side was called. “You get very Shakespearean sometimes.”

  Misery’s tires had been slashed. All four of them, and probably the spare on the back as well. Brutally. Heartlessly. And quite annoyingly.

  “How much you want to bet,” Garrett said, kneeling to analyze the vandalism, “these slashes were made by a big-ass hunting knife.”

  “I’m fairly certain they were. Farley Scanlon is a big fat liar!” I yelled into the dark atmosphere. I opened my phone to call the police.

  On the bright side, two hours later, Misery had some brand-spanking-new radials. She looked good. I filed a report with the police, explaining who I was and my encounter with Farley Scanlon. The big fat liar. Maybe he didn’t like being called fat, but since he wasn’t, I really didn’t see the harm.

  “Are you good to drive?”

  I frowned at Garrett. “Why do people keep asking me that?”

  “Because you haven’t slept in two weeks?”

  “I guess. I’m fine. Just, I don’t know, stay close.”

  “Roger that.” He walked to his truck and started it up, waiting while I paid for Misery’s new rubber. She was so worth it.

  16

  There comes a moment when you know you just aren’t going to do anything else productive for the rest of the day.

  —T-SHIRT

  When I finally got home to my slightly-bigger-than-a-bread-box apartment, I realized how untidy I’d been keeping it. Garrett’s replacement had been outside the apartment building, waiting for us when we pulled up, and Garrett took off to catch some Z’s. Wuss.

  But I was thankful he’d left when I stepped inside my humble abode. Either Mardi Gras had been celebrated really early and in my apartment, or my apartment had been ransacked. Big time. Apparently, the slashing of the tires was more than just a gut reaction to the big fat liar comment. It was meant to keep me busy while someone hightailed it to Albuquerque to check out my digs. And tear them apart. So uncalled for, in my opinion.

  “Mr. Wong, what did I say about letting strangers in?” I glared at his bony shoulders, then glanced at the girl with the knife behind me and shook my head. “That man never listens.”

  I scanned my living room. Papers and books cluttered the floor. Drawers sat open in different states of undress. Cabinet doors stood ajar, as though they’d been trying to fly.

  Armed and ready with coffee carafe in hand, I crept to each closet—I only had two in the whole place—and peeked in. I would’ve had my gun, but it was in one of the closets, making the point moot. They’d been hit as well, their belongings strewn across the floor to mingle with underwear and shoes and hair scrunchies. People magazine mixed with The New Yorker. A crystal chess set mixed with my SpongeBob SquarePants edition of Monopoly. Utter chaos.

  Still, it wasn’t vandalism for the sake of vandalism. It was more deliberate than it looked at first glance. Cabinets and drawers had been scoured for information, while anything inconsequential had been tossed aside, including my emergency stash of chocolate. Clearly my intruder had no taste.

  My computer had been turned on as well, so unless Mr. Wong had discovered Internet porn, someone was trying to figure out what I’d been researching. And that someone seemed a tad nervous.

  In a moment of horror, I realized my mouse was gone. Just … gone. Who would take a poor, defenseless mouse? I looked back at his wireless USB connector—he loved that connector—and let myself grieve the loss of the mouse I’d taken for granted far too often. Then I picked up my phone and called a semi-friend, a cop named Taft, to file a quick report. The cops can do nothing without reports, so I wanted them to have one on file.

  “I can stop by if you need me to,” he said.

  “No, whoever did this—and I have a good idea who it was—is long gone.” I gave Taft my statement over the phone.

  “So, have you seen my sister?” Taft’s sister had died when they were kids and had been following him around his whole life.

  “I think she’s playing with Rocket’s little sister at the asylum.”

  I’d recently introduced the two girls, in a roundabout way, and they’d been inseparable ever since. A good thing, ’cause it got her out of my hair. But I suspected Taft missed her, even though he couldn’t see her and didn’t even know she’d existed until I told him a few weeks ago.

  “Good,” he said, putting up a brave front. “I’m glad she has a friend.”

  “Me, too. I’m going over to the office real quick to check on things there, just in case. I’ll call you back if anything’s askew.”

  “Alone?”

  “I can dial a phone all by myself, Taft.”

  “No, are you going over alone? Maybe you should just call your dad and have him check it out.”

  I glanced toward the girl at my side. “I won’t be alone. Not exactly. There’s a tiny dead girl with a knife following me at the moment.”

  “TMI.”

  “And the bar’s open. I doubt an intruder would go there with a dozen off-duty cops right below him.”

  “Okay. Can I call your uncle to let him know?”

  “No, he already knows it’s a cop hangout. And he’s probably already snoring like a buzz saw. I’ll call him tomorrow.”

  Avoiding another lecture from Dad, I trudged over to the office and took the outside stairs to the front entrance instead of cutting through the bar. After a quick scan of the area to make sure Big Fat Liar was nowhere about, I unlocked the door and peeked inside. Everything looked fine and dandy. Which meant I had nothing left to do but clean my apartment. The only thing I hated worse than cleaning my apartment was torture, though the two were a hairsbreadth away from neck-and-neck.

  I walked along the sidewalk back to the Causeway, regret eating at me at not having bought the golf cart, when I realized I had company. I could feel someone to my left in the shadows, but before I could get a good look, a car slowed in the street behind me. It kept pace without passing. I slowed my stride as the car followed. Garrett’s guy was parked across the street, but I couldn’t tell if he was awake or not. Awake would have been nice. As I rounded the building and cut across the parking lot, the car eased to a stop next to me.

  The streetlight cast a soft reflection on the tinted glass as I took in the blue Nissan hatchback. The window slid down, so I figured
I’d give the driver a moment of my time. It was probably too much to hope he just wanted directions.

  “Charley?” a woman said from the inside. “Charley Davidson?” A head with curly brown hair leaned into the light, a supermodel smile on her face.

  “Yolanda?” I asked. I hadn’t seen her since high school, and we’d never really been friends. I took a microstep closer as she nodded. She hadn’t changed a bit. In high school, she was more the cheerleader type, hung out with my sister’s crowd. I was more the annoying type that made fun of my sister’s crowd from a safe distance and hung out with losers, being a loser myself. Proud to say.

  “I got the message your assistant left and tried your office, but you were already gone. And then I saw you walk up the stairs and figured I’d just catch you here.”

  Two things struck me instantly: First, it was late to be visiting my office. Or any office, for that matter. Second, why not just call? Why drive all the way over at this hour? Her smile faltered for the barest instant, and a nuance of concern filtered its way toward me.

  I plastered a smile on my face. “Thank you for coming. How have you been?” When her arms reached out the window toward me, I leaned in for a hug, awkward considering the limited space we had. “I’d invite you up to my place, but it’s kind of a mess right now.” I gestured over my shoulder with a nod.

  “No problem. And I’ve been great. Three kids, two dogs, and one husband.” She laughed and I joined her. She seemed happy enough.

  “Sounds busy. I just wanted to ask you some questions about a case I’m working on.”

  “Your assistant told me.” The concern spiked again as her gaze did a quick perimeter check. “Do you want to just hop in? We can talk in the car.”

  “Absolutely.” I cast a quick glance over my shoulder. Whoever was in the shadows looked on with interest. I could feel it. Maybe it was Garrett’s man. No one seemed to be in the car parked across the way. I headed around Yolanda’s Nissan as she unlocked the doors and raised her window. After I let myself in, I asked, “So everything’s been okay?”

  “Wonderful,” she said, lowering the radio. She had yet to turn off the car. The heater was nice. “You’re working on a case that involves Nathan Yost?”