Play Dead

by Anne Frasier

  "Find anything that could be TTX?" Elise asked.

  "Nothing obvious."

  "Any sign of LaRue?"

  "Nope. But how are you? Would you like me to come by? Do you need company?"

  "My partner's here," she said.

  "Gould?" Chilton sounded puzzled. "Keep an eye on him. I've heard things."

  She couldn't believe he was joining the conspiracy. "What kind of things?"

  "That he's unstable as hell, for one."

  She glanced over at Gould. He was gathering up the empty carryout containers, stuffing them in a bag. At the moment, he looked as stable and domestic as a fifties sitcom dad.

  Chapter 26

  The edges of Elise's dream were dark and blurry, like looking through a camera lens with no depth of field. She was walking down an alley with a brick, graffiti-covered wall. Water ran across the ground. She stepped in a hole and was submerged to her knees.

  The streetlights were off, and the scene had a dark, apocalyptic feel.

  She felt something brush against her leg and looked to see a floating body gently bump against her.

  The corpse attached itself, wrapping its arms around her ankle. Elise shook herself loose and began moving through the dark street.

  Now she noticed that the silhouettes she thought were unlit streetlights were really people.

  Like something choreographed, they fell into step beside her as she drew even with them—until the street was full of dark forms, moving toward the river.

  What did it mean? She felt the answer was there somewhere in the dream. If only she could reach the river...

  She woke up, suddenly aware of her bedroom, her bed, the open doorway. The pillow beneath her head.

  *

  David lay in the dark of Elise's house, listening.

  Had he been asleep? He didn't think so, but wasn't sure.

  Somewhere a clock ticked and a small motor ran.

  Her place was dusty halls and broken plaster exposing a wooden skeleton. Very little furniture. A few rugs here and there, but not enough to keep the echo down.

  A work in progress.

  He strained his ears for sounds of her breathing.

  Silence.

  "Elise?" he whispered.

  No answer.

  He tossed back the light blanket and rolled off the inflatable mattress they'd set up in the corner of her room. In the murky darkness, he reached across her bed.

  Nobody.

  In the haze of a blue night-light, he made his way down the hall, then the stairway, with its curving banister, to the first floor.

  He stood there a moment. Light from the street fell through tall, curtainless windows.

  He smelled cigarette smoke.

  He followed the smell to a small sitting room at the front of the house.

  "Come on in," Elise said from the depths.

  He heard a rumble from beneath his feet; then a cool breeze hit him in the face as the central air kicked on.

  The room was dark, with light filtering through lace curtains, falling on a patterned throw rug. The tip of a cigarette glowed red. As she inhaled, her face appeared, then fell back into shadow.

  "I didn't know you smoked," he said.

  "I don't."

  She flicked an ash in a nearby tray. "Not very well, anyway. It's something I do occasionally."

  "For enjoyment?"

  "Not enjoyment exactly. More as a way of thumbing my nose at the grim reaper."

  "I'd say it's more like inviting him in. Mind if I turn on a light?"

  "I'd rather you didn't."

  There was enough illumination to see that she was sitting in an overstuffed chair, bare legs dangling over the arm, and she wore some kind of bulky robe. The furniture was dark and shapeless, littering the room like large, indistinct rock formations.

  He felt around until he came in contact with the couch across from her. She seemed a mile away, sitting there quietly smoking.

  "I've owned this house five years," she said. "This sitting room and my daughter's bedroom are the only things I've managed to finish."

  "Restoration is a helluva job."

  "I guess I lost my initiative once I realized Audrey didn't want to come here whether her room was done or not."

  The air conditioner shut off, and the house grew quiet.

  She picked up the ashtray, bringing it close, flicking the cigarette, taking a drag, flicking it again. "Life is full of surprises," she said. Her voice sounded a little on the husky side. "Wouldn't you agree?"

  "Things happen we can't be prepared for."

  "Some people would say that's what makes it worth living."

  "I've had some surprises I'd rather not have had," he admitted reluctantly.

  "Such as?"

  "Nothing I want to talk about."

  "Oh, really? I've found that darkness allows me to say things I can't admit in the light."

  "I'm the same person, day or night."

  "That's not very mysterious."

  She stubbed out the cigarette. He could see the tip break into several smaller chunks of red, then go out.

  He shrugged, even though it was too dark for her to see his response. "I'm a boring guy."

  She laughed. "That's what you want people to think."

  She was acting strange. And why not, after what she'd just been through? And with what she still had in her system.

  "You feel okay?" he asked.

  "Couldn't sleep. Here's a tip: Never take a four-hour nap. It really screws you up."

  Tell me about it. Sleep didn't come knocking on his door very often.

  "I belong to a dream analysis group," she said. "We meet a couple of times a month, and we analyze our dreams."

  "That sounds a little too New Age for me."

  "Some people think you can see the future through dreams. I don't believe that, but I think you might be able to unlock your subconscious mind. I'd like to be able to use dreams to help solve problems. Maybe even crimes."

  "How would you do that?"

  "Before you go to sleep, you ask yourself a question, or focus on a puzzle, and sometimes the answer will come to you while you're sleeping. But the answer comes from within."

  He nodded. "That makes sense. Harnessing the power of the untapped mind."

  She paused, struck a match, and lit another cigarette, then shook out the match.

  He really wished she wouldn't smoke.

  He watched the tip of her cigarette. He couldn't take his eyes off it. "You shouldn't smoke. It's bad for you."

  She took a drag, the glow briefly illuminating her face. "You're one to talk. Somebody bent on self-destruction. What's your story, Gould? Why'd you quit the FBI?"

  David realized he'd been hiding. Taking comfort in his new life, the life of Savannah and the police department and Elise. Because the new life had nothing to do with the old.

  But it did. That's what he hadn't understood. It was all connected. Everything was connected.

  Suddenly he wanted to tell her. Not because it was dark and darkness made things easier. He wanted her to know.

  I might cry. Cry like a baby.

  What would his partner think of that?

  His heart pounded in his chest so hard his shirt moved.

  In the end, he just said it. Because that was the only way to handle such things.

  He told Elise about his ex-wife. And then he spoke words he'd often thought but never vocalized. "I found my son dead. In the bathtub. Drowned. She did it. My wife. She deliberately murdered him."

  For a long time, Elise didn't respond. And what could a person say? Really? Silence was better than telling lies or speaking words that meant nothing.

  Outside, a street cleaner passed. Savannah had to have the cleanest damn streets—and the dirtiest closets. Ha-ha. Who said he'd lost his sense of humor?

  "Why haven't I heard about this?" she finally asked, her voice sounding normal.

  Thank God. Because if she'd been choked up, if she'd told him how
sorry she was, and what an awful tragedy it was, he would have fallen apart. And he didn't want to do that.

  "You know the FBI." He struggled for nonchalance. "They didn't want anything to reflect poorly on them, so they covered it up. Beth had been using her maiden name. My name was never released to the press. Easy. Didn't happen, at least not to me."

  And as far as everybody was concerned, he'd never had a son.

  "Thanks for telling me," she said quietly.

  "I don't want your sympathy." Please, God. Not that.

  "I know."

  Did her voice crack? Just a little?

  Don't do that. I can cry like hell when I get going. I can cry like hell and never stop. "Business as usual?" he suggested hopefully.

  "Business as usual."

  *

  Elise listened as the street sweeper turned the corner, the sound comforting, like hearing the city quietly breathing, quietly watching over residents while they slept.

  Such a public denial of what had happened couldn't have been healthy. David had never been allowed to adequately grieve. His self-destruction finally made sense. The antisocial behavior. The drinking. The way he'd been acting at Strata Luna's. Strata Luna, who'd also come upon the body of her drowned child.

  Elise could now even understand his calling a prostitute. It actually seemed a bit noble in a twisted way. He'd craved human contact but knew he couldn't give of himself—so he'd called someone who would expect nothing of him. Except that his plan had backfired. Except that Flora Martinez had responded to the sadness and desperation in him. Women, even prostitutes, were looking for a man to nurture and heal.

  "You keep trying to put it someplace," he said, his voice tight. "You keep trying to find a place that makes even a little bit of sense, but that place doesn't exist."

  Elise thought of what Strata Luna had said the afternoon in the cemetery. About evil not needing a reason to exist. It was true. "The murder of children can never, ever make sense," Elise told him.

  He must have detected sympathy in her voice. "Don't feel sorry for me," he said quietly out of the darkness. "I don't want you to feel sorry for me."

  "I won't," she lied. She wondered what he'd been like before.

  "I used to be different," he told her. "I used to be funny."

  "You're still funny."

  "I don't mean funny strange."

  "Neither do I."

  "This thing with Flora. I'm going to tell her I can't see her anymore."

  Maybe this marked a turning point for him.

  "I haven't been a very good partner," he said sadly.

  "You've been all right." She had to be truthful.

  "Like your going to LaRue's by yourself. That shouldn't have happened."

  "It's over. I'm alive. And it was my decision."

  "I'll do better," he promised. "From now on. I swear." He paused, thinking. "We'll be a good team," he said, suddenly sounding enthused. "We'll kick some Starsky-and-Hutch ass."

  Chapter 27

  "How are you feeling?" David asked.

  He was sitting at the kitchen table, where he and Elise had spent the predawn hours brainstorming, his laptop open in front of him.

  With her back to the porcelain sink, Elise put her coffee mug down on the blue-tiled countertop and gave him a determined smile he suspected was to head off any protests he might be inclined to make. Because honestly, she looked like hell. Not hell in a bad way. More of a Virginia Woolf way.

  He'd always had a thing for women with dark circles under their eyes.

  Before Elise could answer, David's cell phone rang.

  "I just heard," Major Hoffman said, concern in her voice. "How's Detective Sandburg?"

  "Here, I'll let you talk to her yourself." David passed the phone to Elise.

  David eavesdropped while Elise assured the major she was fine and that she didn't need any time off. After a lengthy silence followed by a rolling of eyes, she hung up.

  "Problem?"

  "It seems the Savannah Morning News wants to do an interview this a.m. with the detective in charge of the TTX case."

  "Why can't the press liaison handle that? It's her job."

  She handed the phone back. "I don't mind. Plus this way I can be in control of the information we need to get out to the public."

  David closed his computer. "Nothing like an encounter with the press to start the day."

  Elise went upstairs to change while David made a feeble attempt to tidy himself in the first-floor bathroom.

  Water splashed on his face. Washcloth to the armpits.

  He needed a shower. He needed to shave.

  He longingly and suspiciously eyed the two toothbrushes in the cup on the sink. One was red. The other had a plastic alligator for a handle. After a moment's consideration, he opened the bathroom door. He was filling his lungs to shout a toothbrush question at Elise when she appeared in front of him.

  "You have a spare toothbrush?" he asked within normal voice level.

  She squeezed past him, opened a drawer, and presented him with a new toothbrush, package and all.

  "I'm eternally in your debt."

  "Absolutely."

  Two minutes later they were heading out, planning to swing by David's apartment so he could grab some fresh clothes and Elise could pick up her car.

  Or at least they appeared to be heading out until Elise pulled open the front door. If she'd made any tracks, she would have frozen in them.

  David bumped into her, halted, and peered over the top of her head.

  Standing on the step was a tidy man in khaki pants and a white polo shirt. Next to him was a girl of about thirteen, headphones around her neck, a panda backpack, a stuffed elephant tucked under one arm, and a portable CD player in her hand.

  Audrey. Elise's daughter. David had met her once. No, twice. The biggest resemblance between mother and daughter was a certain air of suspicion.

  In direct contrast to David's wrinkled T-shirt, old jeans, and unshaved face, the people before them looked as if they'd stepped out of a department store ad. Their clothes were fresh and crisp and new. Audrey's strategically scuffed jeans were expensive, and her sparkling white jogging shoes had never been jogging.

  Elise let out a little gasp, sounding like someone who'd just remembered she'd left a burner going after the plane had taken off.

  "Audrey!" She inhaled. "Thomas."

  The man's gaze shifted from Elise to David. And locked there. "Did you forget Audrey was coming today?" he asked, his voice vague and perplexed, his brows drawn together in puzzlement as, with reluctance, he forced himself to break away from David to focus on Elise.

  David was fascinated. So this was Elise's ex-husband. God. No wonder she'd left him. Which brought up the question, what had she ever seen in him in the first place?

  David couldn't quit staring.

  The guy was almost pretty, but Elise didn't seem the type to be taken in by a pretty face.

  And then there was Audrey....

  Thirteen. David did some quick mental math. Elise would have had her when she was about seventeen or eighteen. A vulnerable age. A foolish age. He knew about such things.

  "I didn't forget," Elise said quickly. "Of course I didn't forget."

  As she talked, Thomas' gaze kept drifting back to David.

  He thinks Elise and I are having sex, David realized.

  That was funny as hell. If Elise's daughter hadn't been standing there, David would have played it up a little. Instead, he laid everything out, plain and concisely. "This—" David pointed a finger at himself, then at Elise, then back again. "Strictly business."

  Elise had been so flustered over forgetting her daughter's visit that she hadn't caught Thomas' reaction to David. Now she jumped in to add her own version, introducing her partner.

  "But it's not even seven o'clock," Thomas pointed out, clearly still suspicious. "And where's your car? I didn't see your car when we pulled up. It hasn't been stolen, has it? I told you this neighborhood was roug
h. Every time I see the crime map in the Savannah Morning News, the Historic District is loaded with burglaries and assaults."

  "My car is fine."

  Would she tell them what had happened? David wondered. Would she explain why he was there and why her car was at his place?

  "We've been working on this case ...," Elise said.

  Thomas frowned, studying her face. "You look exhausted. I thought you were going to slow down."

  "I know, I know. It's just that we have this ... situation—"

  "There's always a case. Always a situation."

  The disapproval was gone. The suspicion was gone. The only thing left was concern.

  Why, the guy still loves her, David realized. He doesn't get her, but he loves her. David's opinion of Thomas did an about-face.

  "What happened to your hand?" Thomas asked.

  "I cut it." Elise tucked the hand behind her. "It's nothing."

  "Is the case the voodoo, zombie thing?" Audrey asked. Her eyes were huge.

  "It's not voodoo," Elise said. "And there are no zombies."

  "Kids at school said somebody is turning people into zombies."

  "That's not true."

  David jumped in, hoping to back her up. "Absolutely not true," he said, shaking his head.

  "Yesterday, a girl fainted in PE class, and everybody freaked out. They said she was a zombie. And now boys are going around putting fingers to their wrists, screaming, 'I have no pulse! I have no pulse!'"

  "That's enough, Audrey," Thomas broke in. "You know what I told you earlier."

  Audrey's brief moment of animation ended. "Sorry, Dad," she said, her shoulders slumping.

  "Where are you off to now?" Thomas asked Elise.

  "Headquarters."

  Audrey let out a low, I'm-already-bored groan.

  "You can come too," Elise told her daughter with that kind of mock enthusiasm mothers used when they knew the kid wanted nothing to do with what was being offered. "We'll pick up some Krispy Kremes on the way. You love those. We'll have a breakfast picnic in the cemetery."

  As they stood on the porch, the vile stench of the pulp mill wafted in their direction, the stink permeating David's sinuses. He'd heard that years ago the fumes had actually eaten paint off cars. Just another one of those lovely Savannah rumors nobody could seem to substantiate.