A Grave End

by Wendy Roberts

  He tilted his head and looked at me like I’d grown a third eye.

  “Of course not. How many times do I have to tell you I’m not a killer?” He glared at me. “Roscoe killed her. Duh! But...but...” He shook a finger in my direction. “But that was the catalyst. I went to offer Kim my help and gave her a reading. She said her stepdad only wanted you to be the one to help find the body.” His hands fisted at his sides. “I’ve been trying to get people to take me seriously in this town, but all they could talk about was you. I knew the only way people would see that my brain was great and my psychic skills are real, was if I was partnered with Julie Hall the magnificent.”

  His face was alive with deranged insanity. My gut told me he murdered Alice. It didn’t matter that he denied it. He’d already admitted to helping kill Rachel Wu and using that so we could meet. In his current state, he could very well believe he had nothing to do with killing Alice. I also knew that as soon as we started to really talk about his business idea, reality could break through his psychosis when he realized it wouldn’t work in a million years.

  When that happened, I had no doubt he’d kill me.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ray strode from one end of the living room to the other as he ranted about his great plan. One minute he was talking about our joint website and the next he was railing about national coverage and our own television show. As his voice grew more animated, he seemed to lose track of the fact that I was even there. Eventually he’d have to leave the room. He’d get tired, or hungry, or need to use the bathroom, and when he did, I’d force off my shoes and hopefully slip at least one foot from the ties so I could make a break for it.

  A low moan rose from a back room, and Ray stopped pacing mid step. He tilted his head and frowned as the sound came again. It chilled me to realize the sound was Barb coming awake.

  Ray spoke to me over his shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”

  He jogged down the hall and I frantically went to work. Using the friction of the carpet, I rubbed the heels of my shoes back and forth to try and pry my shoes loose. I was sweating as I inwardly cursed the fact that my laces were so tight. Finally I was able to get one shoe pried off my foot and then the other. Unfortunately, the left plastic strap was still much too tight around my ankle but the looser one on the right offered a little give. I was wriggling and twisting my foot, but just as I thought I might work my heel through the opening loop of the zip ties, Ray returned. Quickly, I tucked my shoes and my feet under the sofa, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

  “She’ll sleep a bit longer now.” Ray pointed down the hall with his thumb. “After years as a waitress she could probably use twenty-four hours of straight sleep.” He laughed at that and mumbled something under his breath that caused him to gleefully giggle. “Mom’s gonna be so proud of me once we get this business going. There’ll be no more of her constant bitching...” He added in a singsong voice, “Raymond, you need to take your pills or I’m sending you back to the hospital.” He sighed and smiled. “She’s been telling me to take my pills my whole life and what’s it gotten me? Nothing. Boring jobs working at convenience stores and pumping gas.”

  “I worked at a gas station,” I offered meekly. Anything to keep him talking.

  “Yes, I know exactly the one too!” His eyes hardened. “Whenever I’d come in you were never very friendly.”

  “Well, I, um...”

  “Doesn’t matter...” He waved it away with a flick of his wrist. “You didn’t know me like you do now.” He walked over to a desk in the corner of the room, opened the top drawer and pulled out a legal pad and a pen.

  “Before we settle our business plan we really need to be writing out our exact plan for finding Alice,” he told me, his eyes freakishly bright. “Finding her body is the key to everything. Once we find her remains together, everyone will see what a great team we are, and the publicity will be amazing. We need to have a big case solved by both of us because it’ll be the perfect time to launch our business.”

  He flopped into an overstuffed chair next to me, leaned back in his chair and waved the pen over the pad of paper. “Okay, go.”

  “Go?” I parroted.

  He pointed the pen at me. “Yes, let’s brainstorm. First list everyone you’ve talked to about Alice and all the key points or hints you got from them.”

  “Oka-a-ay.” I worried my lower lip with my teeth. We’d already done this and it hadn’t revealed anything. At this point all I wanted was to keep Ray from wanting to kill me, so I started talking about all the conversations I had with Kim, Dana, Blossom and even his mom.

  All of a sudden he exclaimed, “Oh my God, Tracey!” He hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. “We’ve got a date tonight. I don’t want her getting suspicious. She might even call Garrett, and I don’t want him launching any kind of investigation to find you before we can get all this settled.” He dug out his phone and dialed the number, pointing the pen at the gun. “You make so much as a peep or a yawn while I’m on the phone, and I’ll blow a hole through your head.”

  I could only nod. Although muffled at his ear, I could hear the sound of Tracey’s voice mail message in the background and then the telltale beep.

  “Hey, sweetie, I hate to do this, but I’m going to have to cancel our plans for tonight. Something’s come up on this case and it’s really an emergency I need to deal with. I’ll make it up to you by taking you somewhere special on the weekend. I promise.” He made a kissy noise into the phone before ending the call.

  “Now.” He licked the tip of the pen and jotted down a note before looking back at me. “Keep talking.”

  I drew a blank and he sighed.

  “Fine. We’ll come back to you.”

  What should have been a fifteen-minute process of listing those we talked to turned into a couple of hours. Ray would latch on to one ridiculous scenario after another and run it into the ground before moving on to the next.

  “Blossom could’ve definitely stuffed Alice’s body into one of the rooms at the motel where she works.”

  “B-but wouldn’t somebody have found it by now?” I countered.

  He lifted the gun from his lap and seemed to take pleasure in aiming it at my face. “Julie, dear, this brainstorming process will never work if you knock down every idea in the progression. We need to think outside the box.”

  “All right.” I swallowed. “Sorry.”

  A number of times he returned to Kim’s name to add something else that she’d said. He talked in circles around all the details she’d given him.

  “One time she said Roscoe and Alice took a drive out to Mount Baker for a weekend at some cottage. Do you think it’s worth checking out that area?”

  I certainly didn’t want Ray stuffing me back in that van and taking me to some secluded mountain cabin. “Um. I think it would’ve been hard for Roscoe to drive there drunk and then get home all in the same night.”

  “You’re absolutely right.” He wrote something down on the notepad. “This is why it’s good to compare thoughts.”

  I wondered briefly why Kim hadn’t mentioned the weekend trip to me? Obviously, like me, she knew it wasn’t a plausible area for Roscoe to dump Alice or maybe she never said it to Ray at all. His mind was obviously barely held together and he was drifting in and out of psychosis.

  “You seemed to spend a lot of time talking to Kim and Blossom,” I said. “Did you know them well before all this started?”

  “Sure.” He shrugged. “We all worked at a care home in Bellingham together for a few weeks. Blossom got fired for showing up late too many times and Kim couldn’t work the kitchen after her car accident, so I guess I was there the longest. It was a shitty job.” He sighed. “I’m glad I won’t have to do grunt work like that anymore! But I guess the three of us got to somewhat know each other during the few weeks we were all together. Not that we were best friends or
anything, but we’d see each other in the lunchroom, you know?”

  “What work did you do at the senior home?” Why was this the first I was hearing about them all working there?

  “I did janitorial. Emptied the trash.” He shrugged. “See what I mean? This...” He stabbed the notepad in front of him with the pen. “This is my real calling. Using my psychic brain...” He tapped the side of his head.

  I didn’t reply because he was already on to another person on the list. Eventually we exhausted the names and scenarios of every person we interviewed. Ray read the list out loud and demanded that I approve the list and assure him we hadn’t missed anyone.

  “That’s all,” I confirmed.

  “Okay. Now.” He’d been frantically scribbling on the paper in his lap and now he thumbed through the pages of the legal pad until he found a blank page. “Hit me with your ideas of where her body might be.”

  Seriously?

  “Ray, if I knew where her body was, I would’ve found it by now.”

  “You know this town even better than me. You grew up here. Your maniac grandpa was dumping women all over this state.” He offered me a smirk. “If anyone on this planet knows where a body could be hidden in this area, it will be you.”

  “Maybe it’s like everyone has said. Could be that Roscoe borrowed a boat, cut Alice up and dumped her body in the Pacific. If he did that, we’re probably not going to find her.”

  Let’s face it. You did it, Ray. The motive would’ve been to get me working a big case so he could chime in and show everyone what great partners we were. I wanted desperately to speak that opinion out loud but there was no way his crazy mind would accept this truth.

  “Oh, come on.” Ray let out a childish exasperated raspberry noise. “We both know that Roscoe was too drunk and too stupid to make that kind of effort. He stabbed her with the fancy sword he kept hanging on the wall of his trailer.”

  Ray got up and made slashing motions in the air as if wielding a sword himself. “And then he pushed her off the bed of his truck and into a gully somewhere.”

  It sounded a lot like Ray was talking from firsthand knowledge. Had he lost complete contact with reality? Was it possible he murdered Alice, dumped her body and then his mind twisted it that he was not the murderer?

  I opened my mouth to speak but he held up a hand to stop me.

  “I think we need fuel to keep us going. How about a ham sandwich?”

  “No. I’m good.” I was thinking about how easily he drugged me at Wayland and shook my head, but my stomach grumbled loudly.

  “You have to keep your strength up.” He got to his feet, dropping the pen and paper on the coffee table and placing the gun in the waistband of his jeans.

  This was my chance. While he was busy making food, I could make a run for it.

  “Could I get something hot?” I asked, offering him a small smile. “Could you heat up some canned soup or something?” My hope was that the sound of pots and pans could cover my movement and also buy me more time.

  “Of course.” He gave me a pleasant, neighborly grin. “Chicken noodle okay?”

  “Perfect.”

  The kitchen was through a door only a few steps away, while the closest exit, the front door of the house, was across the room. If I waited for just the moment, I could make it. As soon as Ray was out of view, I worked and wiggled my right foot back and forth. I could hear the whir of an electric can opener as the straps dug into the flesh of my foot, but need obliterated any pain. I looked down and saw my foot was slick with blood and that allowed it the lubricant it needed and I was able to yank it free. I jammed both feet back under the sofa just as Ray walked back into the living room.

  “Want some crackers to go with your soup?”

  “That would be great.” I nodded.

  He turned and walked back into the kitchen. I took a deep breath and the second I heard the sound of pots rattling in a cupboard, I bolted to my feet and ran for the door. My hands were still tightly bound, making it difficult to fumble with the dead bolt. Just as I finally gripped and then turned the knob in my hands and could almost taste my own freedom, I heard a bang and then felt fiery pain rip into my thigh.

  Ray was on me then, tackling me to the ground. My head cracked against the hardwood. I saw stars from the blow to my head, but it was nothing compared to the excruciating agony radiating from my thigh.

  “I tried to do this the easy way and treat you like a respected partner.” Ray grunted as he grabbed me under my arms and dragged me across the hardwood floor. “Mom is going to be so pissed when she sees the mess you’ve made.”

  The blood from my leg left a smeared path of red as he dragged me through the living room and down the hall. He took me into a back room, which appeared to be used as a sewing room. There was a small upholstered love seat with a wooden spindle back against one wall that was draped with fabrics. I tried to get to my feet but he pushed me back to the floor, grabbed both feet and raised them in the air, then snatched a belt off a nearby table. He bound my feet together and then let them drop to the floor. A white poker of pain exploded in my thigh.

  Ray stormed out of the room and I tried to wriggle back to my feet but he returned in less than a minute with duct tape and more zip ties.

  “I guess we’ll have to continue our brainstorming session tomorrow,” he hissed as he strapped three sets of ties tightly around my ankles.

  “My leg.” I moaned. “There’ll be no brainstorming time tomorrow if I don’t see a doctor because I’m going to bleed to death!”

  Ray flipped me onto my side to look at the wound and then gave it a playful slap. “It’s not that bad. Only a flesh wound.” He giggled. “I’ll put your feet up and bandage it to stop the bleeding.”

  He left the room again, returning with a first aid box, which he dropped by my head. I could hear him moving stuff around on the top of the sewing desk.

  “Where does that woman keep her damn scissors?” He opened and closed drawers until finally exclaiming, “Ah-ha!”

  He knelt next to me with scissors in his hand. For a second I thought for certain he was going to use the scissors to finish me off. Instead, he jabbed the point of the scissors into the fabric of my jeans and efficiently cut them off me just above my wound. Then he went to work stuffing thick bandages in the bleeding, ripped flesh as I cried out in agony. He thoroughly wrapped the leg tightly in gauze.

  Then he hoisted both my bound feet into the air and dragged me across the floor so I was closer to the love seat. Using another set of zip ties, he attached my ankles to the spindle back of the love seat so that my head and shoulders were on the ground but my hips were a few inches up and my feet were far high above my head. The position was excruciating but it should definitely prevent me from bleeding out—and also stop me from escaping.

  “I’m sorry, Ray. Please don’t leave me like this,” I began to beg. “I promise I won’t try to leave again, and we can keep on talking about the case and our business.”

  “You blew that chance,” he spat.

  “How about a reading then?” I scrambled for ideas. To give me a reading he’d have to release my hands and hold them. “You promised you’d give me a reading.”

  He hesitated. “You don’t really want one. You think you’re better than me.”

  “No.” I softened my tone. “I really do want a reading.”

  He lowered himself to the floor next to me and I raised my wrists that were bound together, hoping he’d take the opportunity to undo the ties.

  “I don’t need your hands,” he said.

  Disappointment filled my gut. I was hoping to get my hands free, but instead he placed the palm of his hand on my shoulder and began to talk.

  “You’re going to help find more bodies. A hiker and, um, someone drowned in a lake so...” He cleared his throat. “And also you’re going to come back and
live here. In Blaine. And we’re going to have a very successful business together.”

  It was so obvious in his delirium he was making it all up. Like I’d ever move back to this town that held more nightmares for me than good memories. This only confirmed Ray had zero talent as a psychic. He was a sham. A shyster. He’d foraged for information to feed people with just enough truth to make them believe him. That’s how he got me to think he was the real deal. Because he knew about Wayland.

  “You don’t believe me.” His tone was taut. “I can see it in your eyes. You think I’m making everything up, just like Mom always said.” Before I could reply, he snatched up the roll of duct tape and used the scissors to snip off a strip then firmly taped my mouth shut. He leaned forward and snarled into my face, “Maybe by tomorrow you’ll mean those words.”

  As soon as he left the room, I felt a sob fill my throat but I fought against the panic, needing to focus on making my breathing even through my nose since my mouth was covered in tape. I closed my eyes and practiced some of the meditation techniques Dr. Chen had shown me over the years. Not surprising, none of them specialized on how to relax when you were bleeding from a gunshot and tied up by a maniac, waiting for death. Still, I drew in deep breaths and forced myself to relax as much as possible.

  Was there any hope that between Tracey and Garrett they’d figure out I was missing yet? It had only been a few hours since Tracey dropped me at my car at the grocery store lot. She would’ve gone back to her apartment without giving me any more thought until maybe tomorrow. Garrett would just be leaving his Seattle office for home. Instead of walking into my preparations for a barbecue, he’d see Wookie anxious for a chance to go out. I’d been excited to tell him all about how I hadn’t fallen off my wagon and share with him something bigger that I’d been sitting on, but now that talk was gone and maybe gone forever.

  If I wasn’t home when he arrived, Garrett would first assume I’d be home soon. He’d try my cell phone after a couple hours, and when it only rang and went to voice mail, that’s when he’d start to get concerned. I could feel tears burn my eyes as I thought of him worrying that I might be on another bender. Maybe he’d even drive by Wayland’s to see if the rental car was there. Hopefully, he’d call Tracey to see if I was with her, and then I prayed she’d fill him in on what really happened at the bar that night. Then his FBI investigative nature would really kick in. But how much time did I have?