Truly Dead

by Anne Frasier

  The exhumation was an affair heavily attended. No surprise, because news had hit online networks in ample time to draw a crowd big enough to require traffic police. Earlier a pile of tamales had floated past, the tray held aloft by a woman in a brightly colored skirt as she proclaimed the meal to be 100 percent pork and the best in Savannah. Food aside, the event had also brought the mayor and his entourage, not to mention the swarming media. The residents of Savannah loved local stories, the darker the better.

  Elise wouldn’t have contacted the media, but Lamont seemed to be working on building a public résumé. He’d often made it clear he hated Savannah, so he’d probably cause all the strife he could, then move on to what he would consider greener pastures while leaving a mess for everybody else to clean up. “Shitting his nest,” as David put it.

  The morning was already smotheringly hot, with June clouds racing across the sky. Near the grave stood John Casper. He wore a shirt that said “Coroner” in large letters across the back. Not far away were Avery and Lamont. And damn if Elise’s father wasn’t there too. At whose request, she didn’t know. Maybe the mayor’s. Maybe Lamont’s. So much for Sweet’s threat to leave town.

  Elise tried to contain the irritation that would always be present whenever her father walked down the red carpet that seemed to unfurl before him wherever he went. And yet she knew he couldn’t help it. He was larger than life. People ate that up.

  She caught a whiff of boiled peanuts. “You’d think this was the state fair or Saint Patrick’s Day,” she said with annoyance. A cemetery wasn’t a place for celebration.

  With what seemed ridiculously like sleight of hand, David produced a small, grease-soaked paper bag and offered it to her. Boiled peanuts. “Caviar of the South.” At her questioning expression, he nodded in the direction they’d come. “Kid was selling them at the gate while you were scoping out a place for us to hide. Thought I might as well embrace the party mood.”

  She gave up. “Cajun spice?” Like half the people in the low country, Elise was addicted to boiled peanuts.

  “Yup.” David tossed a shelled peanut in his mouth while she dug into the bag.

  “We just need hot dogs and beer,” she said.

  “And vomit.” He bounced a few peanuts in his palm, chewed, and watched the events unfolding in the distance. “Doesn’t it seem like Lamont is going out of his way to rub this in our faces? Turn it into a spectacle to make sure we don’t miss his super sleuthing skills? Show us and the mayor and the city that he’s really on the ball?”

  David was sensitive when it came to Lamont, but making the exhumation so public just when she and David were back from a case that had garnered them national and international attention did smack of face-rubbing. And Lamont was an ass. Nobody would argue with that.

  It felt weird to be watching everything unfold from the sidelines. She didn’t like it. “Let’s leave,” she said, tossing peanut shells aside. “I don’t think we should be involved in this.” What she really meant was she didn’t like being a bystander in something that would normally have been her case.

  “Wait.” David rolled down the top of the bag. “I think we’re about to see some action.”

  Clichés became clichés not because they were bad descriptions, but because they were good enough to be overused. “A hush fell over the crowd” would aptly describe the immediate dialing down of voices, like someone hit the mute switch and the mob stopped breathing all at the same time.

  The waiting truck’s engine turned over with a deep rumble, the sound disturbingly loud in the newly formed silence. The scent of diesel drifted across a carpet of live-oak leaves and the dirt road that separated David and Elise from the crowd. The men inside the hole climbed out, tossing shovels aside and pulling up ladders. A leather work glove was raised—a signal to the winch operator. A second motor kicked in, and the chain that had vanished inside the pit went tight. A pause, a check to make sure everything was as it should be, and then the cranking resumed. Moments later the cement container that held and protected the casket appeared, the crowd letting out a collective gasp of approval.

  As the audience watched, transfixed, the vault continued to rise in the air until it was free of the ground, dirt and roots clinging to rough edges, the container bobbing as the winch operator slowly pivoted away from the hole, lining up with a second truck, this one with dual wheels and a red flatbed. The vault swung precariously in the air for a moment as the operator positioned it above the waiting vehicle. Then, with another hand signal, the vault dropped, the truck bouncing from the weight, dirt and dust flying. A cheer went up.

  Three men climbed onto the bed. With a rattle of metal against metal, chains were unhooked and removed, tossed aside, the corpse now ready to be given a ride to the coroner’s office on the outskirts of town.

  Maybe it was because Elise was tired after the Chicago case. Maybe it was preoccupation with her father and worry over Audrey. Or maybe she’d lazily allowed herself to fall into observer mode. Whatever the reason, she’d failed to take note of anybody suspicious.

  Without warning, the air exploded.

  Bullets chewed up the ground, mowing through the crowd of press and cops alike. Screams of pain and terror followed. Bystanders dove behind tombstones or stood numbly in place, too shocked to move, while fire was returned from the area where Avery and Lamont had stood.

  Seconds after the eruption, two masked men waving semiautomatic rifles jumped into the cab of the truck, vault on the back. Tires spinning, engine laboring from the weight, they sped away.

  CHAPTER 7

  Weapon pulled, Elise ran after the truck, hesitating long enough to brace her arm on a tombstone, concerned with accuracy in such a populated area. Holding her breath, she managed to fire three rounds before the truck turned a corner. She straightened as David appeared beside her. Breathing hard, they stared at the cloud of dust where the truck had been.

  “Did not see that coming,” David said, echoing her earlier thoughts.

  She holstered her gun, truck forgotten as cries for help reached them. David turned and ran toward the victims while Elise pulled out her phone, moving at a fast walk.

  With no access to the internal emergency line any longer, she called 911.

  “Gunshot victims. Several people down. We need ambulances. We need patrol units. Perps heading toward Victory Drive at a high rate of speed. Armed and dangerous. Escape vehicle is city owned, white with a red flatbed.”

  “Who am I talking to?” The operator sounded bored and suspicious, possibly suspecting a prank call.

  Elise prided herself in believing everybody was equal. Even during her brief stint as head of Homicide, she’d rarely pulled rank. Today? Now? “Who are you talking to?” Different day, different story. “Elise Fucking Sandburg.”

  A gasp from the other end of the line, followed by the frantic clicking of keys. “I’m dispatching now!”

  Elise ended the call, pocketed her phone, and raced to the grave site, where the injured and uninjured littered the ground. Like a jerky camera, her gaze jumped from one victim to the next, searching for John Casper, searching for Detective Avery, searching for her father. She spotted John and Avery, but there was no sign of Sweet even though she rapidly combed the area.

  Pushing thoughts of her father aside, she caught up with John, finding him bent over the body of a man. Elise dropped to her knees, close enough to see a gaping chest wound and John’s blood-covered hands. She knew he hated working on living people. He hated being responsible for a life.

  She quietly spoke her friend’s name.

  Without looking up, he said, “Dead.”

  Heart pounding, she looked from the chest to the face.

  Victor Lamont. Jesus.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  John nodded. “Blood’s all his.”

  She got to her feet as emergency vehicles sped down the dirt road, pulling to hard stops, dust drifting over the scene. EMTs bailed out, running toward the wounded with
gurneys and med kits.

  Avery spotted Elise and shouted.

  She hurried to his side, freshly shocked to see Mayor Chesterfield on the ground.

  “I don’t think the bullet hit anything vital,” Avery said. A jacket was bunched under the mayor’s head. Avery’s face was flushed, his freckles bright red.

  “What the hell happened here?” Elise asked.

  “Don’t know. There was no warning. Nothing out of the ordinary.” Avery told her how he’d heard the first shots, pulled his gun, and pushed the mayor to the ground. He flinched at the memory. “I might have been a little rough.”

  The mayor groaned, his eyes squeezed tightly shut.

  Does he know? she mouthed to Avery.

  About Lamont? Avery mouthed back.

  She nodded.

  “Not yet.”

  The last time she’d seen the mayor had been in his office, when he’d fired her.

  Five minutes later she found David on the ground next to a female reporter who’d come for a story but instead had ended up part of the bloodbath. A familiar face on the evening news, the young woman was one of those dark-haired pageant beauties who never had anything out of place. Even now her lipstick was perfect as she rested against a tombstone, a sheen of perspiration on her face, her breathing shallow, a hand pressing a T-shirt to her bare thigh. Nearby a young man stood shirtless, watching with big eyes.

  “How many injured?” David asked.

  “Five? Six? I’m not sure.” Elise paused, lowered her voice. “Lamont’s dead.”

  In a smooth motion, David stood and faced her, disbelief in his eyes. “Avery?”

  “Rattled, but okay. The mayor was hit. Avery managed to push him to the ground, probably saved his life.”

  “Your dad?”

  The big question. Sweet was the one person on the scene who’d had a connection to the deceased. “Gone.” With her forearm, she pushed a strand of hair from her face. “I couldn’t find him anywhere.”

  “Okay, I can see where you’re going with this, but stop.”

  Two female EMTs appeared, crouched over the reporter, and started an IV. With a nod, Elise motioned for David to follow so nobody could overhear what she was about to share. Once they were out of earshot, she said, “Sweet warned me to leave this case alone.”

  “Sweet’s not involved in this, Elise.”

  “Are you sure? Everybody acts like they know him, but nobody knows him. Nobody. Not even Strata Luna. We all just opened our arms and our homes to him, welcoming him back like a hero.”

  “He is a hero. He saved Audrey’s life.”

  “I know, and I owe him everything for that. Everything. But a bad man can still love. A bad man can still do the right thing sometimes. And I gotta tell you, sometimes when he and I are alone together he gets this expression on his face that makes my hair stand on end. Suddenly he looks like a different person. That’s the person who saved Audrey. I know it is, because I’ve seen that man and know that man is capable of things someone his age in his condition shouldn’t be able to do.”

  “I hope you aren’t talking about rootwork or spells or crap.”

  She remembered the goofer dust on her doorstep. At the time she’d thought it had been left for her, but what if it had been left for her father? “I’m talking about something that lives inside him. Something frightening and powerful. Call it soul, call it essence, call it intellect, call it vital force. Whatever you want. He’s a helluva lot more than the old fart sitting on the couch eating popcorn and watching Clueless with my daughter.”

  “Are you saying that’s an act?”

  “All I know is that he was here when all hell broke loose, and now he’s gone.”

  Someone shouted at them, and a second later Avery sidestepped through the controlled chaos of cops and EMTs, out of breath, sweating, face still red. “The truck’s been found, abandoned,” he told Elise. “Sounds like you might have hit the fuel tank.”

  She pulled out her keys and pointed. “My car’s over there.”

  The three of them moved quickly toward the cemetery gates. Then David said what they were all thinking: “Just like old times.”

  CHAPTER 8

  The detectives piled into the car. Doors slammed, seat belts were latched, tires spun. Elise drove while David entered the location of the ditched truck in his phone’s GPS. Time had gotten weird the way it always did in an adrenaline-driven situation, but Elise figured the vehicle was at least ten minutes away.

  “Turn on the AC,” Avery whined from the backseat. Elise lowered windows, and David fiddled with the dashboard knobs.

  “Can’t believe Lamont’s dead.” Avery had to shout to be heard over the roar of the car engine, the wind, and the hot air blasting from the vents. “Feels weird ’cause I don’t know how many times I wished he’d never shown up in Savannah. Know what I mean? But I didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. And asshats never die, never go away. Take my ex-mother-in-law, for instance.”

  Elise risked a glance in the mirror. Avery had blood on his face.

  Following the directions of the woman’s voice on the GPS, Elise took a sharp corner, then blindly reached into her bag, groped, pulled out a package of premoistened disposable cloths, and held the packet over her shoulder until Avery grabbed it with a blood-encrusted hand.

  Behind her, the container popped open.

  “I’ve been working out.” Avery’s voice was muffled as he cleaned the blood from his face. “Either of you notice?”

  “Good for you,” David said. “Hand me one of those.” Avery tugged a cloth free and passed it over the seat. “I thought you’d dropped a few pounds.”

  Elise heard Avery’s seat belt release. Then the detective leaned forward, head between the front seats so they could hear him. “This sounds crazy, but I met a girl I really like, and she’s into fitness.”

  Avery was wired. Wired about the murder of Lamont, wired about still being alive, wired about saving the mayor’s life, maybe even wired about the three of them being together again. It had probably been lonely for him downtown.

  “Somebody who’s into fitness?” Elise couldn’t imagine Avery exercising or eating healthy. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

  “I know, right?”

  They weren’t in an unmarked car with a siren. Elise was forced to stop at a red light. Behind her Avery shifted nervously. He couldn’t hold still.

  “She meditates,” he told them, elaborating on his new friend. “Jogs. The works. I was looking for somebody who was a cop. Hell, I would have been okay with a mall cop, maybe even a meter maid, someone who at least had a small understanding of what we go through, but Lucille invited me to take this yoga class, so I did. At the time, I didn’t realize she was really asking me on a date.”

  Elise spared half a glance over her shoulder. Avery did look better. Healthier. Happier. She was glad to hear he’d met somebody, even if she did feel a little wary about the news, considering the difference in lifestyles.

  The temperature roaring from the vents was tolerable now. She hit the switches on the door, raising the windows, cutting the interior noise in half. “Lucille. That’s a name you don’t hear every day.”

  Light turned green. Elise’s ears picked up the faint sound of sirens. She took off, took another turn too fast. They all leaned into the curve.

  “We went for coffee a few times. Then she invited me to jog with her. Jog. Me. Can you imagine? I’ll admit at first I just did it so she’d like me. Hell, you should’ve seen me puffing and panting like some idiot. But now I’m finding it’s good for my head. And I’m up to five miles. Not only that—I’m going to run in a half marathon pretty soon.” He nudged David with the side of his hand, an action meant to support his next words. “You should do it. Bet you’d be good the way you love to run.”

  “I don’t really run for the challenge,” David said. “Not my thing. Running just happens to work better than drugs.”

  “I get that, but think about it.
The event’s called Run for the Animals. Lucille and I are a team. Hey, you and Elise should both do it. You could be a team too.”

  Elise shot David a look of horror. In that fraction of a second before she looked back at the road, she saw a glimmer of interest in David’s eye. Not in a Good idea kind of way, but more like something designed to drive her nuts. “I can’t run a mile,” she said, “let alone twelve miles or whatever a half marathon is.”

  “A little over thirteen.” Avery shifted his weight and leaned closer in an attempt to transfer some of his enthusiasm to the one person in the car who wasn’t on board with his idea. “You don’t have to do the whole thing. And you can even walk.”

  David slapped his hands against his legs. “I’m in.”

  “Just a moment ago you said it wasn’t your thing,” Elise reminded him.

  “Changed my mind.” After seeing the horror in Elise’s face, it was obvious he’d decided to make it his thing. Their thing. “What should we call our team? Gould and Sandburg? Sandburg and Gould?”

  “There’s no team.” Had he forgotten about her old injuries? Her wrecked body? “I was still using a cane not that long ago.”

  “I could pull you in a wagon. You could just sit there drinking beer from a to-go cup.”

  He was baiting her. Even though she knew it, she couldn’t ignore him. Maybe this was what passed for sex between them, pathetic as that sounded. “Nobody’s pulling me in a wagon. Look, why don’t we all just go somewhere to eat?” She shot the next words over her shoulder at Avery. “Better yet, you and Lucille can come to my place, and we’ll cook out.” Problem solved.

  “That’d be great,” Avery said. “You’ll really like her once you get to know her. But I still think you should do the marathon.”

  The phrase “once you get to know her” made Elise uncomfortable. She was ready to ask what Lucille did other than yoga and running, when the sirens grew much louder. David shut down the squawking GPS as Elise tracked the sirens, taking a right turn quickly followed by a left, pulling to a hockey stop behind a cluster of police vehicles. Lights flashed, radios squelched, cars were parked haphazardly in a way that looked chaotic but served a specific purpose—to block traffic and contain the scene.