Dying Echo: A Grim Reaper Mystery (Grim Reaper Series)

by Clemens, Judy

  She didn’t break down into a sobbing mass.

  She didn’t pass out.

  “He’s not here,” she said.

  Death smiled sadly. “Of course he isn’t.”

  Casey turned on the light and spun in a slow circle, taking in the details of the room. Most of the personal effects were gone. No dobaks were draped over the footboard. No dress shoes sat in a perfect line under Reuben’s side of the bed. No messy pile of books and magazines lay on the nightstands next to the matching lamps. But the quilt was still the same, since it went with the walls and the curtains. The blown-up photo from their trip to the Grand Canyon still hung over the headboard. And the antique toy ferris wheel, the one that had belonged to Casey’s grandmother, sat on top of the dresser, the clown on the axle smiling insanely.

  Casey ran her hand over the bed, feeling the handmade stitches, so lovingly sewn there by her mother, before…well, before everything.

  “Go on,” Death said. “You’re exhausted.”

  “But—”

  “Sleep, child.”

  Casey pulled down the corner of the quilt on her side of the bed. And she crawled in. And she went to sleep.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Someone was pounding on the front door. Casey dragged herself from sleep and looked at the clock. Eight o’clock. Crap. Again, where was Death when she could actually use some help?

  She stumbled down the stairs and flung open the door. Eric stared at her, apparently not sure whether to smile or run screaming.

  Casey looked at him for several seconds before backing up and gesturing for him to come in. “Weren’t you supposed to come later?”

  “Couldn’t sleep. Thought maybe you couldn’t, either.”

  Should she tell him just how little sleep she’d gotten? No. “Fine,” she said instead. “Give me a minute. Or ten.”

  He held up a bag and some coffee from one of the local coffee shops. “Got breakfast.”

  “Awesome. Make yourself at home in the kitchen. Not that there’s much there.”

  She left him standing in the foyer and went upstairs to take a shower. Fifteen minutes later she was back down, unfortunately still wearing the same clothes as the day before. She threw the rest of her clothes in the washer and joined Eric in the kitchen.

  He set some coffee in front of her, along with creamer and sugar packs. “So you got some sleep, then?”

  “I guess. Some. You?”

  “Few hours. Your brother’s place is nice. I used the guest room. Found some sheets in one of the closets.”

  She sipped the coffee black and pointed at the bag. “What’s in there?”

  He pulled out a couple of scones, two hot egg and sausage biscuits, and some cherry Danishes. “Take your pick.”

  Casey picked one of each and ate them all. The burrito hadn’t exactly been satisfying the night before.

  “So tell me where we’re going,” Eric said.

  “A crappy restaurant, where Alicia worked.”

  “She’s the woman who was murdered?”

  “Raped, tortured, and murdered. Yes. And she was my brother’s girlfriend.”

  Eric had paled at her description, but asked, “What do we know so far?”

  “That my brother didn’t do it.”

  “Assume I’m not an idiot, okay?”

  “Sorry. We don’t know a lot. Alicia McManus wasn’t her real name, and we don’t know where she came from when she showed up this summer.”

  “How do we know about the name?”

  Whoops. Back-pedaling time. “Law enforcement can’t find her anywhere in the system, so it makes sense that she didn’t exist under it.” Not a lie. Just not the whole truth.

  “Any ideas on that?”

  “They’re looking into it. Trying some new combinations.”

  He looked at her over his Danish. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

  “There’s a lot I’m not telling you. I haven’t had time.”

  “Fair enough. So keep going.”

  She took him through the basics—that Alicia was running from a dangerous past, she carried almost nothing with her as she ran, and she supposedly loved Ricky. She told him about Ricky’s neighbor Geraldine and what she’d seen, and about the stash of sayings, candy, and books that Ricky had hidden away.

  “Carol Burnett?” Eric said. “Is he a fan?”

  “Not that I ever knew of. Maybe Alicia was.”

  “Weird.”

  “Tell me about it. And other than those bizarre offerings, we’ve got nothing.”

  “What about this restaurant? What are we looking for there?”

  “I want to talk to the other employees, in case Alicia told them anything. I doubt she did, since she barely even talked to Ricky, but she might have let something slip. What?”

  “People can find things out, even if you don’t tell them.”

  “You mean like how you figured out who I was?”

  He shrugged.

  “But you had my ID. I’d left it in my bag. It’s not like it was hard.”

  “I knew before that.”

  “I don’t believe you. How?”

  “Remember? I told you. Your first name. Some Internet searches.”

  “But we don’t know her real fir—” But she did. In fact, she knew Alicia’s entire name. She just hadn’t considered a computer, which was dumb, seeing how Death had been parading around with every technology known to humankind. “You have something we can use to look online?”

  “Sure. I have an iPad in the car. I’ll get it.”

  Soon he was back, and Casey had a dilemma. How was she supposed to look this up with Eric watching? She couldn’t possibly explain to him how she knew Alicia’s real name.

  “So I think we’ve gotten to whatever it is you’re not telling me.” Eric’s mouth twitched into a smile.

  “I don’t know how to tell you.” Again, Death was nowhere to be found when she needed advice. Not that she ever really wanted the advice Death had to offer.

  Eric sat quietly and waited.

  “I know her real name.”

  “And you haven’t told law enforcement because…”

  “They would lock me up.”

  “What did you do to get it?”

  “It’s not what I’ve done. It’s how I know. And they wouldn’t lock me up for being a criminal. It would be because they’d think I’m nuts.”

  “Whereas you’re telling me because I already know you are?”

  “You have to wonder, don’t you?”

  “I’ve seen nuttier.” A shadow crossed his face, and Casey knew he was thinking of three weeks earlier, when a woman crazy with greed and a man with grief ended up a bloody mess. He shook himself, and the shadow left his face. “So what’s her name?”

  “That’s what you want to know? Not how I found out?”

  “For now. You’ll tell me more when you want to.”

  She hesitated.

  “Come on.” He nudged her knee with his own. “What is it?”

  “It’s just, I don’t think you’ll believe me.”

  “No, I mean, what’s her name?”

  “Elizabeth Mann. Two ‘n’s.”

  He typed the name into his iPad and seventeen thousand hits came up. The daughter of Thomas Mann, a research physicist, a holocaust survivor, a lawyer, and a flutist. Plus scores and scores of other people, none of them the late Alicia McManus. There were a few women who looked a little like her, but on close examination were far from the person they sought.

  “Any other suggestions?” Eric said.

  Casey leaned back in her chair and stretched out her feet, accidentally bumping Eric. She pulled away. “It’s time to head to the restaurant. You up for driving?”

  “Sure. You up for riding?” Three weeks ago Casey had been right on the edge about being in moving vehicles. She just hadn’t done it much since the accident, preferring instead to walk or ride a bike, or even hop a train. But there came a time when there was
nothing else to be done. Once over the first hurdle—kind of like that first step upstairs—she was able to ride in, and even drive, cars and trucks. She didn’t love it, but she knew it was the way things had to be.

  “I’ll manage. Thanks for breakfast.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She looked across the table at his open, friendly, handsome face, and felt a sudden pang. What was she doing in her house—Reuben’s house—alone with another man? She stood up, making the chair screech. “Let’s go.”

  She followed Eric out to the car. Death leaned against the rear door, jabbing at something on a Kindle Fire. “Die, you stupid pig! Die!”

  Casey peered at the screen, which was filled with colorful exploding birds and crashing wooden structures.

  “Something wrong?” Eric asked.

  “Nothing I can explain.”

  They drove to The Slope, Casey hyper-aware of Eric’s hand on his knee. Really. What was wrong with her? She’d shared a passionate kiss with a different man in Florida only days before, simply because he reminded her of Reuben. Now, here she was, feeling all tingly over a guy who was nothing like him, who she happened to almost sleep with a few weeks earlier. She had to get her hormones under control.

  Death groaned and threw the Kindle at the window, where it exploded in a cloud of mist before it could shatter the glass. “Those pigs. I hate them!”

  They pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant and Eric wrinkled his nose. “Definitely glad we ate at your place.”

  They went in, Death following, still grumbling about the game. Casey caught Bailey’s eye, where she was waiting on a table of two elderly couples. When she’d gotten the order she came over. “Well, who’s this?” She eyed Eric up and down.

  Casey stiffened. “A friend.”

  “Eric.” He held out his hand.

  Bailey took it, cocking her hips and shoving her chest a little more forward, as if that were possible. She leaned toward him, keeping a hold on his hand. “I’m Bailey. And I didn’t know Casey had any friends. Especially ones I’d like.”

  Eric slid his hand from hers. “Nice to meet you.”

  Bailey giggled, and flung her hair over her shoulder, pulling her shirt collar farther open.

  Death laughed. “Whew! She’s something, isn’t she?

  “So, Bailey,” Casey said, “can we talk to the guys?”

  Bailey smirked, as if she knew exactly what she was doing to Casey and to Eric. “Let me make sure Karl’s busy in his office. He’d say you couldn’t be back there because of regulations. Yeah, I know. As if this place is big on that. Give me a minute. I’ll be right back. Eric.” She smiled and flung her hair again as she spun in a slow half-circle and meandered away, hips swinging.

  “Well,” Eric said when she was gone. “At least one woman around here likes me.” He gave Casey a half-smile.

  “That’s your opening to say you like him, too,” Death said.

  “Well,” Casey said, “I never would have expected Bailey to have good taste in men.”

  Eric’s smile grew, but he ducked his head, like he was embarrassed.

  Casey looked around at the tables in the dining room. Mostly they were empty, with dirty dishes and cups of melting ice, surrounded by greasy, ketchup-ridden plates. But there were still a few tables with customers—mostly older couples, not exactly the blue-collar crowd Alicia had avoided and Bailey depended on. Maybe they would be willing to talk about Alicia.

  Casey stopped by the first table, but the couple there hadn’t known any of the waitresses other than Bailey. The next group, the two couples Bailey had been serving when Casey and Eric had arrived, remembered Alicia, but didn’t have anything to say other than that she was polite and efficient and always kept their coffee hot.

  “Um, I think someone over there is trying to get your attention.” Eric gestured to a group of five women, none under the age of eighty. They waved her over from across the room, eyes glistening, red lipstick smudged from breakfast.

  “I don’t know,” Eric said. “It looks a bit dangerous.”

  “We’re living on the edge.”

  They made their way to the women, who sat around three two-person tables that had been pushed together. Death had taken the sixth chair, and was trying to avoid the dirty plates and crumpled napkins piled in the empty spot.

  “Honey.” The woman in the nearest chair clutched Casey’s wrist with a bony, bejeweled hand.

  Casey’s first instinct was to twist the woman’s arm behind her back and shove her face onto the table, but she had enough control to realize that would have been over-reacting. And she probably would have snapped that frail old radius right in half. Instead, she swallowed her defensive response and forced a smile.

  “What are you going around talking to everyone about?” Ring Lady said. “There’s nothing boring old Pearl and Ethan over there know that we couldn’t tell you ten times more about. It’s a group effort here, you know, with centuries represented. Sort of like those groups of really smart people who all try to figure out how to make the world a better place, or stop it from ending, or whatever—what are they called?” She flapped her hand at the others.

  “A brain trust!” one hollered.

  “Mensa!”

  “A consortium!”

  A tiny woman with tortoise-shell glasses winked at Casey. “Librarians.”

  The first one let go and patted her arm. “So what was it you wanted to know about, sweetie-pie?”

  Death poked a finger at some congealing eggs. “Other than why they’re here eating in this dive when it’s obvious they could afford higher class cuisine?”

  “There was another waitress here before,” Casey said. “Alicia McManus. Early thirties, brown hair, pretty.”

  Several tongues clicked, and there was general shuffling around the table.

  “You mean that poor girl who got…killed?” Ring woman leaned in like it was a secret.

  “Yes. Did you know her?”

  “Of course we did, dear.” This was a woman across the table. She wore a bright red hat, and the hair Casey could see was pure white. “She was our waitress whenever the other girl wasn’t here, ever since early summer.”

  They looked at each other, their eyes shifting back and forth between their friends and the back counter.

  “She was very different from the other girl, you know,” Ring woman confided.

  “Not so…how might I say it?” said Red Hat, tapping her mouth with her fingers. “Forward.”

  “Bailey is forward with you?”

  The smallest, oldest woman cackled from her seat beside Death. “Hardly, honey. But with those working men…she doesn’t leave much to the imagination, if you know what I mean. But then, she’s got to use what she’s got, doesn’t she? I find her entertaining. I thought at first she was all hat and no cattle, but I was wrong. She’s got spunk.”

  “I like this one,” Death said with a hoot. “Bet she was just like Bailey in her day. I mean, look at that hair.” The shellacked hairstyle was dyed black, as in midnight, darkest of dark. It made the woman’s wrinkled face seem ghostly white—except for the red spots she’d rouged onto her cheeks—as white as the huge, pearl clip-ons hanging from her stretched out lobes.

  Blackie wasn’t finished. “I’m sure your young man here would agree. Bailey certainly has something that keeps the men interested.”

  They all swung to look at Eric, who went beet red.

  “Well?” Blackie said.

  He cleared his throat. “She’s very…” He stopped and looked to Casey for help because he obviously didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t exactly say “busty” or “sex-riddled” to a group of female octogenarians.

  “Anyway,” Ring Woman said, saving him, “we liked Alicia. She was very sweet.”

  They chorused agreements, except for one woman who hadn’t yet said anything. She huddled in the seat by the wall, her thin hair pulled back in a tight bun, causing her cheekbones to poke out in an almos
t skeletal manner. Despite the hair and skull-like appearance, she was probably the youngest of the clan, a mere eighty or so, and her teeth—or dentures—were bright white. Casey could see them, because the woman was wrinkling her nose so hard her upper lip left them exposed.

  “Oh, don’t mind her,” the librarian said. “Eleanor never likes anyone. Even us.”

  Eleanor pinched her lips shut. “That is unfair, Rita. I have been a part of this group as long as the rest of you, haven’t I? If I hated you all so much I certainly wouldn’t have kept coming to breakfast.”

  Rita patted her hand. “Of course, dear.”

  Eleanor yanked her hand away. “Don’t patronize me. We all know that woman was hiding something.”

  “You do?” Casey said.

  “Well, of course. Why else would she change the subject every time we asked her a question other than the name of the daily special?”

  “As if any of the food here could be special,” Death muttered.

  “Not like that Bailey girl,” Eleanor continued. “I know more about her and her goings-on than I want to know about anybody. Why the rest of them encourage her, I’ll never know.”

  There was collective eye-rolling around the table, but no one actually responded.

  “So did you get any information from Alicia?” Casey asked. “Besides the food stuff?”

  Ring woman sighed. “Not anything we could use.”

  “Use?”

  “To make up our scenarios. Not with any detail, anyway.”

  Casey glanced at Eric, who shrugged.

  “You see,” Ring Woman continued, “we love to come up with stories. Like after you leave we’ll talk all about you two and why it is you stand five feet away from each other, even though you’re together, and why you, honey, are wearing clothes that obviously haven’t been washed in some time, while he looks neat and clean. Even shaven. And you didn’t eat breakfast here, which makes us think you probably ate it elsewhere, and probably together, but that doesn’t add up with the awkward way you behave around each other. If you’d spent the night together, you would be much more comfortable.”

  Casey was feeling anything but comfortable under the scrutiny—and imagination—of such a crew. Eric had gone from his reddish blush to almost as white as Blackie.