A Grave Search (Bodies of Evidence)

by Wendy Roberts

  “I gotta get Wookie out of the car.” I nodded to the dog. “So you might want to—”

  “Say no more.” Tracey held up a hand. “I’m outta here.” She walked to her car. “Thanks for sharing your cake!”

  “Thanks for delivering it,” I replied and I actually meant it.

  Once the little green Hyundai was out of the driveway, I turned off my vehicle and Wookie bounded toward the house, more than a little excited to see Garrett.

  “So nobody was inside obviously,” I said as I climbed the steps carrying the pink box and what was left of the cake. “Sorry to make you come all this way for nothing. I just don’t know how Wookie got loose, and it freaked me out but maybe I just didn’t close the door all the way and—”

  “The back patio door was smashed.”

  “What?!”

  My eyes got huge. I looked past him to see that there were only jagged shards from the frame where the glass door used to be. I put the cake box down on the table and grabbed Wookie by the collar so he wouldn’t wander over to the broken glass, even though that was probably how he got out in the first place.

  Garrett took charge because he was good at that. He pulled my sofa and a couple chairs to block access to the area so I didn’t have to hang on to Wookie. Then he swept up the glass while I checked to see what was missing from the house. Then he called a glass company one town over to make an emergency trip out. There was a large rock the size of my head that had obviously been tossed through the window. Even though Garrett had swept the glass, I pulled out the vacuum to make sure I got it all. I didn’t want Wookie getting a sliver in his paw.

  At first I didn’t notice anything amiss or missing. Then I realized my laptop was gone.

  My emotions were all over the map. I felt angry and violated and wanted desperately to punch a hole in the wall and drown my sorrows in wine. Not necessarily in that order.

  While waiting for the glass company to come and replace my door, we took a seat at the kitchen table. We nibbled crackers and cheese and drank iced tea while I kept shaking my head and mumbling, “Jesus, why would someone—”

  “Not exactly the best way to spend your birthday,” Garrett said, then held up his hand to stop me. “I know you don’t like to celebrate but still it’s a crappy way to end any day and, from what I saw on the news, looking for Ava Johansson wasn’t exactly a resounding success either.”

  I cringed when I thought of all the reporters. “It was just a starting point. I wanted to see where she was killed. Unfortunately, every news truck in a hundred-mile radius loved a chance to catch Ebba in tears with the water witch girl carrying her sticks.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “She called them, you know? Said she wanted to make sure Ava’s face got back on the news.”

  He nodded. “I’m not surprised. Families of victims often try to keep their loved ones on the news, hoping it’ll solve the case. Sometimes it works and witnesses come forward.”

  “If Ron was murdered it looks like maybe he didn’t act alone to kidnap and kill Ava,” I reasoned.

  “I’m sure the investigators are looking into a possible partner there.”

  “And Ebba had no reason to kill her daughter, right?”

  “Do you think she killed Ava?” His eyebrows went up in surprise.

  “No, I just know you always look at family first.”

  “They had life insurance policies taken out on each other years ago through Ebba’s Bliss, and I guess that could be a motive because Ebba is leveraged to the hilt with her business, but the woman is a workaholic and I don’t think she ever took a day off until this happened with Ava. Every second of her days before and after were accounted for. She reported her daughter missing before there was sign of a kidnapping and then took a lot of cash out of her business, so it feels unlikely she’s involved. Joon Kim was looked at strongly but it’s hard to kidnap and kill someone when you’re across the world. Although he could’ve been working with someone too, right? The whole case is a disaster.” He reached for my hand and my fingers entwined with his. “That’s why I’d prefer you stay away from it.”

  “I get that.” I nodded. “But I feel like I need to solve this thing because of Ronald Low. We weren’t close or anything but we went to the same high school and, well, he stuck up for me a couple times. Even if it turns out he killed Ava, I need to find out.”

  “That’s what investigators are for.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I ran my hand through my hair. “Look, don’t lose your mind here, but I should probably tell you I had an issue at the mall today too.”

  “What kind of issue?” His fingers tightened on mine and I pulled my hand away.

  “I met up with Joon Kim to ask about Ava and Ron. While I was chatting in the food court with him, someone may have slashed one of my tires.”

  “What!”

  “And broken into my trunk.”

  He was on his feet pacing. “You should’ve called me right away.” He pointed at me angrily from across the kitchen. “Why are you just telling me this now?”

  “When it happened I figured it was a one-off, you know? Maybe I parked too close to some guy and he took it out on my car.” I got up and walked toward him. “Anyway, I had a tire place come out and fix it and it’s all good.”

  “It’s not all good.” His face was red with anger. “Your car and your house get broken into at the same time so I’d say that’s as far from good as it gets.”

  I went to him, wrapped my arms around his waist and pressed my cheek to his chest. His body was rigid with anger.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” I breathed against him. “Someone hurt my stuff but they didn’t hurt me. They could have done these things while I was around but they didn’t, so they’re probably just bad luck in one day.”

  I felt him soften as he returned the hug.

  “I’m going to look into it.”

  “Of course you are.” I smiled and lifted my face to his. Then he kissed me tenderly and hugged me tightly.

  “By the way, thanks again for the groceries and also thanks for the cake.” I left his embrace and nodded to the pink box. “There’s still a lot left. You want some?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  He tussled my hair as he walked over to get plate, knife and fork. And just like that we were okay again. He wasn’t the FBI agent needing to save the girl and I wasn’t the victim needing constant protection.

  While he was carving a slice for himself, he said, “You and grocery girl managed to put a pretty big dent in this cake.”

  “My teeth still hurt from the all that sugar.” I laughed. “I’m no longer a birthday cake virgin.”

  “That was your first birthday cake?” His eyes darkened with that same sad look he always got when discussing my less-than-stellar upbringing. “Your first cake and you made a new friend all in one day.” He tapped the tip of my nose. “Next thing you know you’ll be throwing dinner parties filled with the local green-haired girls and taking selfies together.”

  “Hah! Calling her a friend might be a bit of a stretch.”

  But I had to admit I wasn’t totally averse to the idea of a friend. At one time Katie’d been my best friend but then she’d hurt and betrayed me. I no longer wanted to run her over with my Jeep, but there wasn’t going to be any girl time in our future.

  “You know I have to ask...” I let my voice trail off and Garrett looked up from his cake and shook his head.

  “No sign of your mother.”

  I sighed and pushed the hurt aside.

  A few minutes later some crime scene tech guys showed up to do fingerprinting and I had to snap a leash on Wookie to stop him from making a meal out of them. Garrett greeted them outside and took them around the back of the house to show them what he wanted them to do.

  Afterward I told Garrett, “I really believe it was probably just teens wanting a laptop. Throwing a big rock through the glass doors and then snatching it off the table isn’t exactly the work of mastermind c
riminals.”

  “To us, Wookie is a gentle giant.” He put his hands on my shoulders and looked down at me. “But there is no way somebody broke that door and sauntered in here without your dog tearing a hunk of flesh from their bodies.”

  “Oka-a-ay.” I’d anchored Wookie’s leash to the leg of the kitchen table and now I looked at him. “Maybe he did though.” I shrugged. “There’s a good chance some reckless teen is at the ER right now getting a couple dozen stitches in his ass.”

  “And your tire being slashed?”

  “A coincidence.”

  Garrett took me by the hand and led me to the bathroom off the hall and pointed to a window that was open about four inches. “You always leave that open when you shower.”

  “Well, yeah, because I don’t like it getting steamed up, and the fan isn’t strong enough to totally clear it out. I don’t want mold growing in here like what happened in my trailer. Besides, I always put the lock on it so it can’t open beyond that amount.” I pointed to the small lock in the track of the window. “And it’s not like anybody could fit through there.”

  Garrett stepped closer to the window. “There are some sesame seeds in the track and a bit of bread.” He nodded toward the floor. “And a greasy smear down the wall.”

  I saw what he meant and realization dawned.

  “They pushed a burger through the window and drugged Wookie so they could break in.”

  Tears burned my eyes as I turned and slammed my fist onto the bathroom counter. I hurried back to the kitchen where Wookie was sprawled out on the floor next to the table. I dropped to my knees and hugged him hard. He was all I had from my life before and all I wanted.

  “I should bring him to the vet right away.”

  “He’s fine. If it was something more lasting he wouldn’t have been romping around the yard when you got home.”

  I buried my face in Wookie’s thick neck and choked back the tears because he was the only family I had left.

  Unless your mom is alive, a voice whispered in the back of my head but I choked and tamped down that small whisper.

  Over the next few hours the guy came to replace the glass door and Garrett made sure he installed some better locks on all the windows. Even though Garrett took out his credit card I insisted on paying the absurd overtime rate. Still, I knew that if someone wanted to get inside my house and drug my dog, there wasn’t a lot I could do about it.

  Garrett made a bunch of phone calls dealing with whatever I’d dragged him away from to come and rescue me. He used his hushed FBI businesslike voice that carried over from another room. While he did that, I sat on the sofa and checked my emails on my phone. I was grateful my laptop could be replaced and I wasn’t going to lose much on it since I stored things online anyway. Most of my laptop work involved email, invoicing, Googling locations and playing card games. When I opened my email inbox there were a few requests through my Divine Reunions website asking for help finding loved ones. When I was already working one search, I tried not to muddy my thoughts with others. I wanted to find Ava, or at least give it a good effort before thinking about finding someone else.

  There would always be others. The dead don’t care but those left behind need something to bury and a graveyard to visit in an elusive search for closure.

  I read three emails from Ebba Johansson making suggestions about where I should look next for Ava’s remains. Her first message was a mere suggestion and her second was a tad bossy. Also, she’d failed to send me the e-transfer of my deposit. I wasn’t desperate for the money but I found it very odd. You want me to work for you immediately but you don’t want to pay me? Ebba dressed well, drove an expensive car and had a chain of massage studios in various casinos around the state. But Garrett said her business was leveraged to the hilt, and I’m sure taking the hit of losing a hundred grand didn’t help. I had a feeling she was holding off paying me anything until I found Ava’s remains even though I’d pointed out firmly that there was a chance I would not find her. I considered dropping the case altogether but, admittedly, I was curious now and wanted to see it through.

  I sent a reply to that third email saying I was going to take some time to plan out my next thoughts. I informed her I’d get back to her once I had a firm direction in mind and once I’d received her deposit.

  It wasn’t about the money. I’d done pro bono jobs before. Poverty-stricken families deeply grieving for closure had hired me by scraping together whatever cash they could and, at the end of the day, I’d declined their payments. It felt like a good karma thing to do. I put the phone down on the side table and looked around my house. Mine. When Gramps died I wanted no part of the inheritance but Gramps and my doc encouraged me to sell off the farm, donate some to charity and take the rest and turn it into something good.

  “Everyone grieves in their own way. He was your grandfather and he raised you—”

  “I don’t want his house. His money. His fucked-up legacy.”

  “You could take it and make something good out of it. Turn it into a positive.”

  This house and trading in my old Jeep for a newer model had been part of the good. At least that was what I told myself every time my dark thoughts told me it was blood money. And today it didn’t feel like good. Both the house and the vehicle had been tainted. My inheritance was cursing me.

  “Here’s a small birthday gift.”

  Garrett interrupted my thoughts and I stared at him as he held out his phone. I didn’t reach for it.

  “You got me a cake, which, actually, might be the start of a new tradition.”

  “Really?” He sat down next to me on the couch and placed the phone screen down on my lap.

  “Yeah, not just for birthdays though. I think I’ll start eating birthday cake on any day of the week randomly. It occurs to me that I could’ve been eating cake for breakfast on a daily basis. I’m an adult and there’s literally nobody policing this kind of stuff, is there?”

  “That’s true. You could eat cake morning, noon and night and when your teeth start to fall out from the sugar, you can get dentures and I’ll love you anyway.”

  I choked out a laugh at that but could only stare nervously at his phone on my lap. “Whatever is on your phone...is it going to make me happy? Is it a present?”

  “Not really a present. I don’t know how you’ll feel about it.”

  I leaned my head against his shoulder and counted to ten. Then I picked up his phone and turned it over. It was a grainy picture of a woman who looked in her mid-forties. She had waist-length dark hair, high cheekbones, a bow mouth and a slim nose that reminded me of my own.

  Bringing the phone to my face I stared hard at the picture, memorizing everything from worn Keds on her feet to the crease between her thin eyebrows and the long, bony hands that emerged from a flannel shirt.

  “My mother?” My heart pounded so hard in my chest and ears that I was worried I wouldn’t hear the answer.

  “Yes.”

  Chapter Seven

  My mom dropped me at my grandparents’ farm when I was six years old saying she’d be back in a week but that turned into never. I had no memories of being with her. The earliest recollection was the back of her head driving away down the dirt road as she left me on the farm. I had one worn photo of her taken when she was in her late teens, probably around the time she had me. I’d long ago fixed in my mind every minuscule particle in that four-by-six photo and now looking at this aged version of her I knew I’d recognize that mouth and those eyes anywhere.

  “Send me that picture, please.” I reluctantly handed him back his phone. “So she’s alive? For sure?”

  He hesitated and my stomach clenched.

  “As far as we know, but...” He put a hand on my thigh and squeezed. “All we know about her is that she’s a known associate of those in the local meth trade. I don’t know if she’s using but, even if she’s not, it’s a hard life. Often a short one.”

  I nodded.

  He tapped his phone and a
second later my own cell chimed with the incoming picture.

  “Thank you.”

  He put an arm around my shoulders and I curled my feet up on the couch and leaned into the crook of his arm where all felt right with the world.

  Even though questions about my mother swam in my head, I wasn’t going to give them a voice tonight. I needed to chew on it for a while.

  Garrett stayed the night. We started off lovingly but then as I lay in his arms he tried unsuccessfully to convince me to pack up and come stay with him so I could be safe. I angrily refused and we fell asleep with our backs to each other. I slept like the dead and woke up to the sound of distant banging and the occasional whirring of a drill.

  I reached over and felt the lump that was Wookie in the place where Garrett had been. The dog stirred and yawned loudly, sending unpleasant dog breath my way.

  A fresh round of hammering started outside and I pulled my pillow over my head.

  “What the hell is that man doing?” After a yawn and stretch I reached for my phone and saw it was nearing noon and I nearly jumped out of bed. I’d slept eleven hours. The only other times that happened was when I was drugged in the psych ward or because I’d had help from a couple bottles of chardonnay.

  I followed the welcoming aroma of coffee into the kitchen and poured myself a mug. Wookie’s food and water bowls had already been replenished. The new patio door was open and I carried my coffee out to the concrete patio. Garrett was on a ladder against the house wearing a tool belt and Wookie was looking up at him. I wanted to yell and ask what the hell he was doing but I didn’t want to startle him and cause him to fall. After some more thumping, whirring and few curse words Garrett glanced over and saw me standing there. He offered me a sheepish smile before climbing down the ladder and walking over.

  “Good morning.” He leaned in to hug me and I took a step back.

  “You are a sweaty mess.” I laughed. “How about you hug me from afar?”

  He bent and gave me a quick kiss. “Glad you slept late. You obviously needed it.”

  “And you obviously had some demented need to trade in your FBI badge and become Mr. Fix-it? What exactly is going on?” I stepped closer to the ladder and looked up to see a security camera. “Seriously?” I crossed my arms.