Truly Dead

by Anne Frasier

  “But then again, we’re talking as if he was thinking clearly.”

  “He referenced The Wizard of Oz,” Elise said, trying to convince herself that John would be okay, eventually. “And he knew he was Dorothy in that scenario. He was cognizant enough to make a joke you’d get. I’d say that’s pretty remarkable.”

  “Yeah.” But she saw the flicker of doubt in David’s eyes before he turned to push the down button on the elevator.

  Once the elevator door closed and they were alone, Elise said, “We need to follow the TTX lead.” She realized she’d been holding out too much hope of John’s being able to tell them who’d broken into the morgue. That had been foolish of her, but maybe part of that foolishness was simply the desire for her friend to recover. But they had to move forward now, without any help from him. He was on the mend. That was the main thing. And while he was getting better, she and David had a job to do.

  “The obvious place to start is with James LaRue, our favorite TTX pusher,” David said. “I’ll see if he still lives on Tybee.”

  Officers had canvassed Elise’s immediate neighborhood, and Meg Cook had followed up on the gift basket, both dead ends. “I don’t understand the motive,” she said. “The report stated that the entire apple most likely didn’t contain enough TTX to kill me.”

  “I’ve wondered about that too.”

  “It doesn’t seem to be Remy’s MO, unless his goal was to immobilize me for capture and torture.”

  “I’m beginning to wonder if it’s related to Remy at all. It could have been meant for your dad.”

  “The card said ‘Welcome back.’ It was for me.”

  “Then it almost seems like the goal was to publicly humiliate you.”

  “If so, it worked for about five minutes. Now I don’t even care.”

  The elevator shuddered to a stop, and they both fell silent, waiting for the doors to open while Elise grimly wondered how long it would be before the next kill took place.

  CHAPTER 29

  That evening, after turning down Strata Luna’s offer of hospitality and checking herself into a hotel on River Street, Elise met with John’s parents in the ICU waiting room. They were a conservative-looking pair. Not a surprise. Elise could see where John got his curly hair, which was almost identical to his mother’s. If she recalled correctly, Mr. Casper was a chemist.

  She filled them in on the assault as best she could, but, given her awareness of the strained parent-and-son relationship, she was also deliberately discreet. She had no idea how much information John would want them to have. “An investigation is under way” were her lame wrap-up words.

  She was getting ready to leave when Mara’s parents joined them, their eyes red-rimmed. “We came to make arrangements to collect her body and take her home to Texas,” Mara’s mother said. “But we can’t get permission to have her released. I don’t understand. Maybe you can help us. I was told the autopsy was finished, so why can’t we take her home?”

  “The decision on what to do with Mara’s body rests with her husband,” Elise said gently.

  “But he’s not able to make that decision.” The poor woman was heartbreakingly upset. “We have a family plot. We have space for her. We want to bring her home for a funeral. We can’t wait around for Mark or Mike or whatever his name is to wake up long enough to make a decision.”

  Elise straightened. “John.” The woman was in pain, she understood that, but John deserved recognition. And John’s mother was standing right there. Right there. It was no secret that Mara’s parents hadn’t been happy with her chosen field, and Mara had alluded to a rift because of it, but Elise hadn’t realized they’d never met John.

  Mara’s mother pulled out a tissue and wiped her nose. “If she hadn’t gone into forensics, if she hadn’t met a medical examiner who deals with homicide cases, this never would have happened. We wanted her to go into a medical field, but not forensics, not something that deals with death.”

  Her husband was a little more forgiving. “Even as a kid she was fascinated by dead things, always bringing them into the house.”

  Mara’s mother added to the memory, but she wasn’t as generous. “Pretty girl like that, hanging around dead animals, then dead people. I don’t know where she got that. There’s nothing in our family. Nobody in the funeral business or whatnot. And meeting that boy. It was his fault. He’s alive and she’s dead. Why didn’t he protect her? What kind of man doesn’t protect his wife?”

  John’s mother began to cry softly. Her husband blustered forward in a protest that appeared to be more for the sake of his wife than in defense of John. All of them were dealing with various degrees of shock. “You’re talking about our son.”

  “Yes, I am. Your son who’s alive.”

  Elise excused herself and stepped away from the toxic situation. With exhaustion washing over her, she left the hospital and made a quick stop at a downtown clothing store to stock up on everything she might need for the next several days. Done shopping, she grabbed some takeout before heading to the hotel. In her room she ate, then showered.

  Back to living in a hotel. After the month in Chicago she’d begun to understand why people in bands lost creativity after too long on the road. On the surface, hotels seemed harmless enough. Everything clean, with nothing in the space that needed attending to. No laundry to wash or floors to vacuum. No repairs to feel guilty about not doing.

  But hotels sucked something out of you, and they did it while you were unaware, relaxing on clean sheets or showering under water that hit your back like a gentle rain. In a hotel you became less. If you were in a band, you might start writing about watching TV. If you were a detective, you might start flicking through channels, looking for one of those reality shows about crime instead of thinking about your own case. Because the room became the real world.

  She pulled herself away from reality TV to click over to the local news in time to catch a rundown of the day’s events. She also caught Avery’s girlfriend or ex-girlfriend, whatever the case might be, standing in front of the monastery, a mic in her hand. Apparently Avery had released the victim’s name. Best to get it over with. And of course Lucille Bancroft hadn’t missed the opportunity to attach it to Elise, ending the piece with a censored clip of the YouTube video, certain body parts pixelated for the evening news.

  Elise surprised herself by laughing, shut off the TV, tossed the remote aside, and grabbed her phone. It was three hours earlier on the West Coast, so she sent a FaceTime request to Audrey. Now that the news about the cemetery and Loralie was out, she needed to talk to her daughter.

  Elise downplayed the cemetery situation. Audrey was upset about Loralie even though they’d never met. Odd to think the woman both of them hardly knew was Audrey’s grandmother. Shortly after telling Audrey good night, Elise received a text from David, asking where she was staying and if she’d seen the news.

  Yes. She gave him the name of the hotel and her room number.

  See you in the morning.

  She expected to be awake all night, but she fell into a deep sleep and didn’t know another thing until her phone rang early the next morning.

  It was David, asking her if she wanted to go for a jog.

  “You’re kidding, right? I know we talked about maintaining our own lives from now on, but that was before Mara was killed and John was brutally attacked. That’s an attack on family. That is my life right now.”

  “I feel the same way, but I have to run more than ever now. To keep my head in the game. So I’m going, regardless. I’ll be in front of the hotel in fifteen minutes. Come if you want.”

  Outside, the riverfront was deserted except for a few delivery trucks, but the early morning already held the promise of oppressive heat. As they alternated between jogging and walking, David said nothing about her improper footwear. They didn’t talk about the cemetery or the YouTube video. And by some unspoken agreement, they didn’t talk about last night’s news or John Casper. They talked about the case, they
discussed theories, they made plans for the day.

  Once their exercise was over, Elise didn’t feel better physically, but David had been right. The exercise had reset her brain and lifted some of the fog brought on by the hotel room. And they’d actually gotten a surprising amount sorted out.

  At the lobby door, David told her good-bye and took off, running in the direction of his apartment, moving faster now that she was no longer slowing him down. Back in her room, Elise showered, dressed, and ate the leftovers from the previous evening. She was heading for her car when her phone buzzed. It was David. Moving to a spot of shade, she answered.

  “Just got to the office. Forensics has a print result from the monastery.”

  She heard the rustle of paper as he read the faxed report. “Remy?” she asked.

  “Yep. No real surprise.” David elaborated on his reaction. “I think the prints were left for us to find. In obvious places. On doorknobs, doorframes, countertops, refrigerator, even a full handprint lifted from the window glass.”

  “I agree.” She moved toward her car, unlocked the door, and slipped behind the wheel, dropping the windows as she started the engine. “I think we need to call a meeting.”

  “We just had a meeting.”

  “Now that we have solid confirmation, we need to have a private meeting of potential targets. You, me, Avery, Strata Luna. I’d really like to get Sweet in on this too.”

  “He’s around, but he’s lying low. He might come if you have the meeting at Strata Luna’s or Black Tupelo.”

  “Tupelo’s an idea. It’s neutral, they have food, and nobody will bug us.” And she wasn’t sure how Strata Luna would feel about Avery coming to her home.

  “So, have we gotten past the cemetery thing?” he asked.

  “I’ve got more important issues to deal with than worrying about the world seeing me naked.”

  “And it was dark.”

  “Not that dark.”

  “But dark enough. It’s not like you were strolling down the middle of the street in broad daylight. Not like you were having sex on a tombstone.” She could almost hear the shrug in his voice. “In some circles the video would have been considered performance art. The way you were posing on that cement slab. This could even lead to a new calling. Forget the coffee shop. I’m imagining a coffee-table book and tours of the grave where you were left as a baby. But if I remember correctly, the tours already exist. Scratch that.”

  “David?”

  “Huh?”

  “Shut up.” She disconnected.

  At the police department, they further organized the game plan for the day. First on their list was a visit to the Remy house site, where the crime scene status had been lifted, prematurely in Elise’s opinion. She and David wanted to talk with the crew preparing the teardown of the building. The second was a visit to James LaRue’s confirmed location on Tybee Island.

  At the construction site, they passed out flyers of the composite drawing to men in hard hats. The real reason behind the visit was to warn them that Remy might show up, since perpetrators were known to return to the scene of the crime and Remy had already made that return once. “Keep your eyes open.” She pulled out business cards and passed them to dusty hands. “Call if you see anything suspicious.”

  After that they headed to Tybee, David behind the wheel of the unmarked car.

  “He might not even be home,” Elise said. “Middle of the day.”

  “I can’t imagine a mess like LaRue having a nine-to-five job.”

  Elise looked out the window at the marshland rolling past. “I feel sorry for him.”

  “That seems undeserving, all things considered.”

  LaRue did seem undeserving of sympathy, especially since he’d drugged her shortly after David had moved to Savannah. One day she’d dropped in to question him and he’d given her a glass of water tinged with TTX. Even so, Elise felt bad about the turn LaRue’s life had taken. He wasn’t an evil man. He was weak and had allowed himself to become misguided by disappointment and failure. She suspected he was a genius, and the motives behind his initial studies of tetrodotoxin had been altruistic, at least on the surface. But she suspected he’d also been driven by a desire for fame and fortune.

  LaRue had hoped to come up with a formula that would allow TTX to slow the disease process. He’d even imagined the drug being used to induce a state of suspended animation that would aid in deep-space travel. Instead, after funding was pulled, he began using the drug to get high and succeeded in slowing his own body down enough to nearly kill himself more than once.

  They found him where Elise had found him years ago. In a shack at the end of a dirt lane lined with cabbage palmetto and Spanish bayonet, the lane itself so dark that a few fireflies could be seen in some of the dense areas.

  LaRue was home, and even though it was afternoon it looked as if they might have woken him. He didn’t appear much different. He was still mesmerizing with his golden skin and brilliant blue eyes. But he seemed to be doing better in the hygiene department. Instead of the tangled mass of hair, his head was covered in tight braids. He wore gray jogging shorts and a red plaid shirt, unbuttoned, with ragged edging where the sleeves had been cut off many washes ago. She did some mental calculations and figured he had to be in his mid to late thirties, but he already gave off an air of despair. She missed the old cockiness.

  He stared at them and scratched his head, the movement displaying wet armpit hair. Behind and above him, fan blades slowly stirred the oppressive air. He invited them inside.

  “Can I get you a drink?” he offered.

  Loud and in unison, Elise and David said, “No!”

  He dropped down in a chair and smirked, most likely recalling what had happened to Elise in that very room.

  The detectives sat on a couch, both of them sinking deep. Elise scrambled to position herself on the frame, away from broken springs. David just let himself go.

  The heat was unbearable, and she got straight to the point. “TTX has shown up in Savannah.”

  That got his attention. Like someone with a gun pointed at him, LaRue put both hands in the air and shook his head. “That’s nothing to do with me.”

  “You sure?” David asked.

  LaRue unconsciously licked his lips. “I haven’t touched that stuff since I got out of prison.”

  He still craved it, though. Elise could see that. “Do you have any idea where it might be coming from?” she asked.

  “Anybody can get it. Anybody can make it. Of course a lot of those people end up testing the product and killing themselves.” Probably why he hadn’t been able to get any backing for his studies. Pure TTX could be lethal in even the smallest doses. She’d survived, but that was probably due to LaRue’s superior knowledge of the drug.

  “We know that,” David said, “but we’re looking for someone who might be selling it for recreational use.”

  “And you naturally thought of me.”

  “Yep.”

  LaRue pointed to Elise. “So that’s what was going on with you in the cemetery.” He put a fist to his mouth, trying to hide a smile.

  Elise rolled her eyes. David showed him the drawing of the aged Remy, but he didn’t seem to know anything. She pulled out another card and handed it to him. “If something comes to you,” she said, “give us a call.”

  Easy to see LaRue was thinking they were the last people he’d ever call. She decided to appeal to the decency she suspected was in him. “We’re not looking to bust anybody. We’re looking for leads. This might or might not be tied to the child who was murdered recently.”

  LaRue nodded and stuck the card in the breast pocket of his plaid shirt, giving it a pat. “I’ll even snoop around,” he said, serious now. “No obvious stuff,” he added, seeing her and David exchange a look of alarm. “I can be subtle. And who better to look for TTX than the guy who used to be addicted to it?”

  Outside, after the shack door closed behind them, David slipped on his sunglasses and said, �
��Strange guy.”

  “He’s an attractive and fascinating man.”

  “He drugged you.”

  “I’ve forgiven him.”

  “Oh my God. Listen to yourself. That from somebody who can’t forgive her own father? Or me.”

  “This is different.”

  “How?”

  “He’s not family. He’s not my partner, someone I should be able to trust.”

  “So you can forgive someone you hardly know, but you have a hard time when it comes to someone close to you?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “That makes no fucking sense.”

  CHAPTER 30

  A block from the Savannah River, in an area surrounded by brick warehouses, Elise pulled to the curb and turned off the engine. On foot she traversed a cobblestone alley to reach a narrow metal door that gave off the appearance of a back service entrance. In the center was a discreet Black Tupelo logo. There was no handle on the door, only a keyhole, a doorbell, and a tiny window covered with a heavy screen. Elise rang the doorbell.

  Like a confessional, an inner window slid open. “Yeah?” came a male voice. Elise introduced herself. The confessional closed, and the actual door swung open. Inside, the darkness was a welcome escape from the heat. She paused and blinked, waiting for her pupils to adjust. The place smelled like fermented beer, cigarette smoke, and incense. A sound system played some kind of electronic dance music.

  The young man who’d answered the doorbell glided closer. “Strata Luna is expecting you. She’s set up a room for a private party.”

  Like all the people who worked for the Gullah woman, the young man was attractive and exotic looking. He might or might not have been Strata Luna’s new toy. Yes, she was “with” Sweet, but Elise wasn’t sure how much weight that carried, or if their relationship was exclusive. Strata Luna seemed to have a strong sexual appetite, an appetite a man recovering from cancer might not be able to satisfy.

  Elise followed the young man deeper into the building, down a narrow hall, past restrooms. He leaned against a red door, knocked, and pushed it open. Strata Luna, Sweet, and David were already inside the private room.