“It really does sound like an execution,” Eric said. “Shot in the head. Nasty. Think Elizabeth was watching?”
“God, I hope not.” It was horrible enough seeing your family die in a flaming car wreck, but at least that wasn’t done with evil intent. “If she was, she had to be hiding. They wouldn’t have let her live if she’d seen their faces, and they knew it.” She stopped.
“What?”
“The Three.” Casey shuffled quickly through the remaining papers and photos, looking for anything that might relate.
“Three what?”
“Men. When she was dying she talked about three of them.” She pulled out a birthday card, to Betsy, signed by Lizzie, a Marshland High T-shirt, a bank book, and, finally, a stack of photos. Casey was so busy going through them she didn’t realize that Eric had gone still.
“How do you know that?” he said.
“Know what?”
“What she talked about when she was dying?”
“A fair question.”
Casey blinked and looked up, surprised to see Death sitting across the table.
“Yes,” Death said. “Exactly how do you know that? Oh. Right. I told you.”
“I thought there weren’t any witnesses,” Eric said. “That they didn’t find her until she was dead. Completely dead. Not almost dead. How would you know what she said when she was dying?”
A sharp pain began behind Casey’s eye. Or, actually, it was already there. Now it worsened. “Did I say that?”
“You did.”
She and Eric stared at each other, neither one willing to say any more.
“You’re going to have to tell him sometime,” Death said. “Oh, look, this guy had a mullet.”
Casey snatched up the photo Death was indicating. “Who are these guys?”
“Casey.” Eric grabbed the photo from her hand. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing. I mean, it’s nothing. Really. It’s all…in my head.”
“Excuse me.” Death’s voice rose. “In your head? Seriously?”
Eric’s jawed worked. “What, exactly, is in your head? How you imagined her death to have happened?”
“Yes. That’s it.”
“And not how she died after Ricky attacked her and you showed up to clean up his mess?”
“Eric!”
“Well, what am I supposed to think? I came along here—and to Colorado in the first place—because I believed in you. I trusted your judgment about your brother, and I really thought you’d killed that guy in self-defense, so I didn’t want you to go to jail for it. But you know Alicia’s real name, even though the cops don’t. You don’t go to the police with information. And you claim to know what she said as she was dying. How am I supposed to believe anything you say anymore?”
Casey grabbed the photo back. “Whether you do or not isn’t what’s important right now.”
“It’s not?”
“It’s not?” Death echoed.
“I mean, of course it’s important. You know it is. I’m very glad you’re along and helping me and everything. But look at this.” She shoved the photo in his face. “Who are these men?”
Eric’s nostrils flared, and he stared through the doorway to the kitchen.
“Oh, you’ve done it this time,” Death said. “He may not come back from this one.”
“Eric.” Casey gritted her teeth. “Eric, I’m sorry. I’m an ass, I know I am. It does matter what you think, and I appreciate that you came with me, and…”
Death leaned forward. “And?”
“And please forgive me, all right? I really will try to be nicer, just like I said.”
Eric’s mouth twitched, which Casey chose to take as a good sign. Finally, he let out his breath, rubbed his forehead, and looked at the photo. Cyrus Mann stood with two men outside a restaurant. They stood close together, their expressions serious. Actually, Casey could only see the faces of the other men, one of whom looked at Cyrus, while the other gave a profile shot, looking up the street. Cyrus’ back was toward the camera. The photo must have been taken with a telephoto lens, because if the photographer had been close enough to take it life-sized, they would have seen her. The way they stood, sort of tense and secretive, they had no idea their photo was being taken. Plus, the image was a bit grainy, like photos get when magnification is used.
“There are only two of them,” Eric said.
“Right.”
“You were talking about three.”
“So this could be two of the three, couldn’t it?”
“I guess. Anything that might identify them?”
Death studied the men with no sign of recognition. “Complete strangers to me, which is odd, if these guys go around killing men and their daughters. You’d think I would have seen at least one of them before. But I guess there’s a first time for everything, unless they’re always sure to leave their victims alive.”
“Dark clothes, dark shoes, dark hair,” Casey said. “Pretty nondescript. Could be anybody.”
Eric shrugged. “Put it aside. We’ll ask Betsy if she knows.”
Casey pawed through the rest of the photos, but there were no more of the men. Just shots of Elizabeth with Betsy, with Cyrus, with her mom. A few of school friends, which often included the two teenage guys from the earlier photo Betsy had shown them. Betsy’s boyfriend, and Wayne, the kid with Elizabeth.
“Wayne,” Casey said suddenly.
“What about him?”
“That’s the name she called the dishwasher kid at The Slope. Something about Sammy reminded her of this old boyfriend.”
“He’s a teenager,” Eric said. “And I guess their coloring is sort of the same.”
“She slipped. Must have been thinking about him for some reason. But it proves he was someone who mattered to her.”
Casey pulled a Marshland High yearbook from the box. “I wonder why Betsy kept this in the box?”
“Why do any of us keep them at all? It’s not like high school is the time I want to remember.”
“Because life since then has been so grand?”
He gave a little laugh. “You said it. Do you have yours?”
“Probably. Somewhere in the attic.”
“Mine was called, ‘Building for the Future,’ or something close to that. Had nothing to do with our mascot or anything. But the sponsor was a sap.”
Casey laughed. “Ours was something like, ‘A Year to Remember.’ It’s hard to be creative when you’re a high school senior—you just want something sentimental, because you think those are the best days of your life.”
“Pretty sad.”
“I never had a yearbook,” Death said. “It’s fun to think about, though, even though it would have been a small class. I wonder what Pestilence looked like as a child. Or Famine. Jesus wouldn’t be in it, because he actually was a child at one point, and would have had his own class. As would Mohammed and Sidhartha—Buddha, I mean. War would be there, I suppose. And I guess…” Death winced and pointed up. “ I guess You Know Who would be the principal.”
Eric opened the yearbook’s cover and looked inside. “This is Elizabeth’s book, not Betsy’s.” He looked up. “Have you noticed that?”
“I see it now. Everything is written to Lizzie.”
“No, I mean, do you think Betsy’s name is also Elizabeth?”
“I guess it could be.”
“I’m guessing it probably is.”
“So?”
“So I wonder why.”
“Family name, probably. Nicknames would be a way to keep them separate. Lizzie, Betsy.”
“Still seems like it would be confusing.”
Death groaned. “Don’t even talk about nicknames. I am the victim of a million nicknames, and none of them are nice.”
Casey scanned the page. “What year is this? It has to be before high school, if Elizabeth disappeared when she was fourteen.”
Eric turned the yearbook over. “1995. The year she went missing.
Look, if you read these you can see that all of the notes were people saying they hoped she was all right and she’d be back. It was signed after she was gone.”
Casey shuddered. “Creepy.”
“Or nice. Betsy’s way of keeping hope alive.”
“Think that’s what this was about, too?” She held up some dried flowers and a statue of Saint Anthony.
“Except if she put him in the box it must mean she thought he wasn’t doing his job. And now…Elizabeth is finally found, but not really.”
She set the statue aside, and Death took a good look at it. “Nope. Not a good likeness. Nose is too small. I tell you, Tony has got quite the honker. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I always marvel that he can find anything, because I can’t believe he can look past his nose.” Death chortled.
Casey pulled out the last thing in the box, which was a canvas bag, zipped shut. It was filled with things you might expect a teenage girl to have—lip gloss, a brush, a well-worn teenage romance novel—plus some simple necessities, like deodorant, maxi-pads, toothbrush and toothpaste, and even a Walkman, with a Cars CD in it.
“I bet this is Elizabeth’s stuff,” Casey said. “Think Betsy cleaned out the car afterward?”
“Someone did. But where are all their other things? Clothes, shoes, you know. And when they lost their house, did they lose everything?”
“What in the world is this, though?” A cardboard cylinder, like the kind you mail posters in, was stuffed in with the toiletries. Casey pulled out the papers, which turned out to be blueprints.
“Looks like cabinet designs.”
“Why would Elizabeth have them?”
“Don’t know. Maybe she was just holding them for him, since they lived in a car? Or it could be they just got stuck in here afterward, when everything was chaos.”
“Someone’s coming,” Death said.
The front door opened, and Betsy rejoined them. “I told Dad.” She sat heavily in a chair. “He didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Shocked that she was still alive?”
“Stunned. He never said, but I always thought he believed she was dead way back then. That she’d died the same night as Uncle Cyrus.”
“Did he say why he thought that?”
“No, but I guess because it was too painful to think otherwise.”
“You mean that she’d killed him herself?”
Betsy blinked. “We never thought that.”
“Never?”
“No!” She brushed something from her pant leg. “There were always some people who did, but not us. Not her family.”
“So what didn’t your father want to face?”
Her head snapped up. “What do you think? That she’d been kidnapped, raped, murdered.” Her eyes filled again. “Which is what did finally happen, didn’t it? Not the kidnapped part, but the other. Why would anyone—” She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against her mouth, like she had before.
Casey tipped the canvas bag so the opening was toward Betsy. “Elizabeth’s belongings?”
Betsy sniffed and opened her eyes. “It’s all they would let me have. They took all her clothes, I don’t know what they did with them. The car, her schoolbooks, whatever there was in the station wagon, that was all gone, too. Evidence, they said. This was in her gym locker at school, so I guess they sort of forgot about it. Once the teacher found it at the end of the year, the cops had basically given up, so she just gave it to me.” She fingered the material. “It’s really all I have left of her.”
“Know what these are?” Casey showed her the blueprints.
“Uncle Cyrus was working for a houseboat manufacturer when he got laid off, so I guess those are some of his designs. Lizzie was probably keeping them safe in her locker since the car wasn’t exactly secure. Not like a house. They’d be for his portfolio, I imagine.”
“Speaking of houses, what happened to everything else when they lost theirs? Did they store it somewhere, one of those storage units, or something?”
“Nope. All gone. What wasn’t sold in the auction to pay off debts went to Goodwill, if it was worth anything. Or else Uncle Cyrus just got rid of it.”
“No pictures? Toys? Nothing?”
“He said it was too painful to see things from their old life.”
Eric waved a hand at the photos. “But living in a car was better?”
“It could have been.” Casey understood. She’d spent the past few years living as far from her old life in ways much deeper than simple geography. She’d spent nights in train cars, run-down farm sheds, even cornfields. Sometimes that was easier than even the thought of sleeping in the same bed she had shared with Reuben. “Can you tell us who these people are?”
She slid the photo of the two men across the table, and Betsy frowned at it. “Never saw them before.” She looked at the date stamped on the back. “Lizzie must have taken this when she had the camera.”
“Is there anyone who might know who they are? What about your dad?”
She frowned. “I told you. Uncle Cyrus would never tell him anything. Dad was always complaining about it. So if Cyrus knew these guys I think you’d be better off talking to somebody else. Maybe Wayne.”
“The guy from the photo of you four?”
“Yeah. Wayne never let the whole living in a car thing change how much he saw Lizzie, so he knew more about her life than I did after a while. Plus he was a guy, so maybe Uncle Cyrus told him something. Or Lizzie did.”
“Think you could get us in touch with him?” It would be good to talk with the one person they knew Elizabeth remembered.
“I can try.” She went in the other room, and they could hear her talking. She came back, looking amused. “He says he was already planning on meeting with you.”
“What?” Casey looked at Eric. “Did you set something up?”
He was shaking his head at the same time Betsy said, “No, it was his kid, Robbie. He works at the motel. Says you talked to him last night.”
Robert. The nonsleeping high schooler. “Right. His dad went to school with Elizabeth. Wait—Wayne is Robbie’s dad? The guy in the picture with the four of you just so happens to be the motel kid’s father?”
“I told you it was a small town.” Her eyes went distant. “It about crushed Wayne when Lizzie disappeared. He held out for her a long time, but then…” She shrugged. “We all had to go on, didn’t we? I mean, that’s life. I really thought he’d give up sooner than he did, but I guess some guys can surprise you. I don’t think he ever really did let her go. Not all the way.”
“Ahem,” Death said, and pointed at Eric. “Think you’ve got one of those here, Casey. He’s put up with your BS for the entire time he’s known you—which, granted, is only a few weeks—and is still here. That’s saying something.”
“So when are we meeting him?” Casey asked Betsy.
“How does right now strike you?”
Chapter Twenty-eight
“It’s been a long time since I’ve thought about her,” Wayne Greer said. He was a good-looking thirty-something man wearing jeans and an Astros T-shirt. Casey could see Robbie in his face, and in the wavy brown hair. He gripped his glass of Coke so hard Casey was afraid it was going to break, and he swiped his other hand across his head, so some of the hair stood up, making him look younger, more like the boy Elizabeth had been falling in love with back in the nineties. Betsy sat next to him in the booth, looming over him in protective woman mode, like this news was going to make him crack.
The photo of Elizabeth—Alicia—and Ricky lay on the table, and Wayne apparently couldn’t decide whether to look at it or pretend it didn’t exist. “I can’t believe she’s dead.”
“Didn’t you already think she was? After all this time?”
“I don’t know, I guess I’d always thought she’d made it out somehow. It just didn’t feel right that she could be so alive one day and then…it sounds stupid, I know. But they never found her body, and I just didn’t feel like
she was dead. Does that make any sense?”
“Not really,” Death said from the next booth over. “But then, I don’t make sense to most people, especially when they’re in love, or think they are. Did you see these cool miniature juke boxes? Right on the tables? Do you have a quarter?”
“You never heard from her?” Casey asked Wayne.
“No.” He ran his finger through the condensation that rimmed his glass.
“What about these guys? Do you recognize them?” Casey put the photo of the strange men on the table.
Wayne glanced at it like he couldn’t really care any less. “Sure. What about them?”
Eric’s knee knocked Casey’s, but when she looked at him it seemed he hadn’t done it on purpose.
She returned her attention to Wayne. “Who are they?”
Wayne shrugged. “Some guys Cyrus knew. He worked with them, maybe. Liz didn’t like them, said they were bossy, and pretty rude to her dad. And she said they always came sort of secret and quiet, like they didn’t want anyone else to see them. They got all hinky when I was there once.”
“Was there another man who hung out with them?”
“Yeah.” He made a face. “Pretty creepy. Never said anything, but was always around when they showed up. Liz couldn’t stand him. Actually, if she saw him coming she took off. Said he scared her.”
“So were these guys Cyrus’ employers?”
“I guess. Not sure, though. Never even heard their names. Or what they did.”
“Robbie was telling me about ‘bad guys’ Cyrus hung out with,” Casey said, “but that no one knows for sure what they were doing that was bad. Would he be talking about these three?”
“Robbie?” He gave a half-laugh. “That boy sees criminals everywhere he looks. He’d have half the town in jail if we believed everything he suspected. And that’s just the stuff happening now. The town’s history is apparently an open booking session.”
Dying Echo: A Grim Reaper Mystery (Grim Reaper Series) Page 18