Deeper Than the Grave

by Tina Whittle

I slipped the phone in my pocket. “Aren’t you going to ask what I was doing at the High?”

  “Gabriella explained. It was the reason she was concerned enough to go there herself to look for you. A valid concern, I might add.”

  He had a point. To my astonishment, however, he wasn’t annoyed, or angry, or even lecture-y. He was calm and cool, almost mellow.

  “You’re taking this very non-hypervigilantly,” I said.

  He cocked his head, thinking. “That is true, yes. It was not true ninety minutes ago, however, but Gabriella gave me something for that.” He pulled a tiny bottle from his pocket and squinted at the handwritten label. “Kava, chamomile, avena sativa, and vanilla.”

  I stared at him. “She drugged you.”

  “Not drugs. Herbs. Like in tea.”

  I examined him more closely. No, not drugged, just…smoothed. Calm, clear-eyed, maybe blinking a teensy bit slower than usual, but as sharp as the wind off the mountain. He returned the pills to his pocket, pulling out a pair of surveillance binoculars instead. He seemed to be settling in for the afternoon.

  “Don’t you have to get back to work now?” I said.

  “Marisa sent me home. Personal leave. She told me to track you down, yell at you, and then get myself together before I set foot in her building again. Her exact words.” He moved closer to the scant shelter of the tree and put the binoculars to his eyes. “So that’s why I’m here. I would like to know, however, why you’re here.”

  I sighed. Time to out with it. So I told him about my visit with Chelsea, and how like Cat, she’d implicated Fishbone as having a conflict with Lucius, probably drug-related. I left out the pregnancy part. I’d given my word, after all.

  “And so, since all roads were leading to Fishbone, and thus, to Stone Mountain, I decided to check it out. Not that I’ve spotted him.”

  “Would he be six-four with a tattoo of a fish skeleton on the right forearm?”

  I held out my hand. “Give me those binoculars.”

  Trey handed them over. Sure enough, a new guy had joined the action down below. Even in the freezing weather, he wore a tank shirt over loose stovepipe jeans. His black hair fell almost to his waist, a thick ill-maintained tangle held back with a red and navy bandanna, but it was the ink on his right forearm that caught my eye—a tattoo of a leaping fishy skeleton. I watched as he took a flying leap off the steps, grabbing the edge of his board and flipping it under him in a one-eighty, his wheels crushing dead leaves as he crisscrossed the pavement.

  I lowered the binoculars. “I wonder how fast he is on that thing.”

  Trey shook his head. “You have no authority to pursue him.”

  “I don’t want to pursue him, I want to talk to him.”

  “And how do you plan on doing that?

  “I’m going to walk over there and open my mouth.”

  “That’s not the best plan.”

  “You have a better one?”

  He shook his head again, keeping his eyes on Fishbone. The breeze now carried the unmistakable pong of marijuana, although I was more inclined to blame the young couple giggling furtively on the park bench than the guy doing kickflips in the parking lot.

  “What exactly are you trying to accomplish here?” Trey said.

  “I want to ask him about Lucius.”

  “Why do you think he’ll tell us anything?”

  “Not us, boyfriend. Me.”

  Trey folded his arms. “I don’t think—”

  “It’s non-negotiable. You reek of cop. I know you can’t help it, but you do.”

  “Nonetheless—”

  “You can be backup. You’re always yammering about backup.”

  He made a noise of annoyance. “I don’t yammer.”

  I handed him his binoculars and then quickly, before he could protest, I scurried down the wet leaves and gravel to the parking lot. Fishbone had propped his board against the restroom door and was grabbing a swig from a can of Red Bull. He saw me coming, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  I pointed at his arm. “Nice tattoo. You get that around here?”

  “Nah. Back in Jersey.”

  He took another pull on the Red Bull. Down the road to our left, I saw a flash of silver and blue easing around the curve—the Stone Mountain police, coming to roust him and his crew.

  I cursed under my breath. “Listen—”

  But it was too late. Fishbone had already seen the cruiser, and before I could stop him, he snatched up his skateboard and took off at a dead run.

  Up the freaking mountain.

  I bolted after him, elbows pumping, Trey’s voice ringing in my ears. Fishbone had gotten the jump on me, and he was fast—really damn fast—but he had a skateboard he wasn’t willing to give up, which slowed him down considerably.

  “I only want to talk!” I yelled.

  Fishbone fled the rock face and ducked into the line of trees. He ignored me. I heard Trey behind me, yelling my name. I ignored him. I wished I had my sneakers instead of the damn clogs, wished I was wearing jeans instead of pants, wished Fishbone would trip or something, anything to give me a chance to explain.

  “I’m not the police!” I yelled.

  But it didn’t do any good. Fishbone had his sprint on. He jumped a fallen log, dodged a boulder, then pounded off down the side trail into the woods. I followed. My lungs burned, my heart thrashed. All I could hear was the huff-puff of my ragged breathing, and all I could see was the collapsing tunnel of my vision.

  And then he was gone. Poof. Suddenly, I was chasing nothing. I listened hard and heard fugitive noises up ahead—underbrush crashing, branches snapping—but I saw no sign of Fishbone. I bent over, dizzy, cursing myself and Fishbone and the inopportune Stone Mountain police.

  In a minute or so, I heard more footsteps, coming from behind me, a runner’s rhythm. Trey. He slowed to an easy jog and stopped right in front of me, hands on hips. He wasn’t even breathing hard.

  “I told you that was a bad idea,” he said.

  I sank to the ground and leaned back on my elbows. “Shut up.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “Nothing! So don’t…crap crap crap!”

  I closed my eyes against a wave of dizziness. My breath was still coming hard and fast, making puffs of fog in front of my mouth. I could feel Trey’s eyes on me with their laser scrutiny.

  “Lie back,” he said.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Do it.”

  Suddenly that seemed like a really good idea. I flopped backwards onto the pine needles, the muscles in my arms and legs quivering. I stared up at the sky, let the cool gray press against my face like a wet washcloth. I could see Trey’s black leather lace-ups in my peripheral vision.

  “You watched the whole thing?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “And you didn’t think of—oh, I don’t know—helping me catch him?”

  “No.”

  Of course he hadn’t. I’d gotten that speech before—civilians and detainment rights and blah blah blah—so I didn’t argue because I didn’t feel like listening to it again.

  “So you stood around doing nothing just so you could lecture me about it?”

  “No. I did it so that I could find out where he was going, because fleeing up the mountain made no sense.” Trey jabbed his chin toward the street. “According to the GPS map, this trail leads to a cut-through which leads out of the park and into town.”

  I blew out a frustrated breath. “So you let him get away.”

  “Of course not. I simply re-adjusted my post to the edge of the parking lot where I could monitor the cut-through with the binoculars. From there, I saw him go into a store near the park’s perimeter.”

  “What store?”

  Trey pulled up a different map on his phone, this one of the Ston
e Mountain downtown area, and held it so that I could see. Sure enough, there was a tiny square highlighted just outside the park’s boundary. I checked the legend—Grindshop. And then I remembered what Cat said, that Fishbone lived with a brother who owned a store in Stone Mountain.

  I struggled to my elbows. “Think hard, boyfriend. Is there any law that says I can’t go into that shop and ask whoever I find in it a bunch of questions?”

  Trey put his hands on his hips. It was fascinating to watch the tug of war going on in his head—the control freak versus the street cop. In the end, the adrenalin boost from his sprint up the mountain tipped the scales.

  “I can’t think of one,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Grindshop had once been a single-family dwelling—now it was an oddball black sheep among the tidy mom-and-pop stores on the edge of town. Neon graffiti bubbled along the brick walls, and the front window was a patchwork of sun-faded leaflets, stickers, and peeling yellow tape. The railing along the sidewalk bore the dings and scratches of a thousand slides, and cigarette butts littered the ground.

  I pulled open the front door, Trey at my heels. And then he stopped, suddenly, like someone had smashed his brake pedal.

  I stopped too. “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t go in there.”

  “Why not?”

  He turned away from the door and put his back to the bricks. “Olfactory association.”

  I took a deep breath and caught it then, the cloying odor of marijuana disguised with patchouli incense. And something else, something pungent and chemical. Trey folded his arms and kept his eyes straight ahead, his index finger tap-tap-tapping against his forearm. I put my hand on his shoulder and he flinched, his breathing erratic.

  Uh oh. One of those associations.

  “How bad?” I said.

  “Very bad.” He licked his lips, tilted his head back. “Major drug bust, the Sinaloa Cartel. They had a dog fighting ring. And a third story balcony.”

  “You got dog bit?”

  “No.”

  “Somebody threw you off a balcony?”

  He shook his head, then flexed his fingers, deliberately uncurling the fists he’d made. And then I got it.

  “Oh crap.”

  “Indeed.” He shook his hands out, took another deep breath. “Go in without me.”

  “But I need you to tell me if he’s lying or not!”

  “I can’t. You go ahead. I’ll stay here. If he tries to leave, I’ll…” He closed his eyes. “No, I won’t. I’m just going to watch. From right here.”

  “But—”

  “Go.”

  I went, suppressing a twinge of panic as the door shut behind me. The interior was small and cramped, with stained concrete floors. Shelf after shelf of skateboards lined the walls, along with tee-shirts and bandannas and wheel kits, all of it—every bit of it—covered in skulls. Some scary, some surreal, some flame-eyed, others with eye sockets as empty as the grave. The scent of marijuana permeated the air, layered with…I frowned, took a long sniff. Despite the place’s overall grunginess, it smelled like the cleaning aisle at the supermarket, soapy and chemical and fake-lemony.

  I heard a noise behind the counter, and an older version of Fishbone—same long black hair, same slouchy clothes, wearing a fedora instead of a bandanna—approached warily. “Yeah?”

  “I need to talk to your brother.”

  “He’s not here.”

  “Yes, he is.” I pointed. “He’s behind that curtain. I can see his shoes.”

  The scuffed Nikes under the beaded curtain jerked from view. The soap smell was stronger near the counter, and I had to concentrate to avoid sneezing.

  The brother looked me up and down. “Who are you?”

  “Not a cop. Not a detective. Just someone who needs information. So we can do this easy—which means you shove your brother up here and I talk to him for a little minute—or we can do this hard—which means my partner and I call the real cops and they come down and let the dogs have a sniff around. And let me tell you, the dogs ain’t gonna be fooled by whatever that smell is. They’re gonna find whatever you’ve got hidden in here. So which is it gonna be?”

  The man jerked his head toward the curtain. “Marcus! Get your ass out here and talk to the lady.”

  I heard a sigh, and Fishbone AKA Marcus came from behind the curtain. He held his board against his skinny chest, glaring annoyance from behind a hank of black hair. “What do you want?”

  I slapped a photo of Lucius on the table. “You know this guy?”

  He looked at his brother, who nodded. The brother was keeping far too close an eye under the counter. I knew what I kept under the counter in my shop, and I was betting Fishbone’s brother had the same thing, locked and loaded. I chanced a quick look over my shoulder at the front door, relieved to see Trey pacing in front of the threshold.

  Fishbone chewed at his thumbnail and shrugged. “Yeah. So what?”

  “So he’s dead. Been dead a while. And every time I ask who might have wanted him dead, your name comes up.”

  “I didn’t kill him! I didn’t even know he was dead! I thought he left town!” Fishbone shook his head violently, hair flailing with the motion. “He owed me money, why would I kill him?”

  I stared at him. If he was pretending ignorance, he deserved an Oscar, because it was a very convincing performance.

  “I’m also hearing that you were his connection. Is that true?”

  He looked at his brother again. Now the brother looked nervous too. Fishbone shook his head again. “I don’t know what—”

  “Of course you know, but I don’t care. I care that somebody caved in Lucius’ skull and shoved him in a coffin where he stewed for almost two years.”

  “It wasn’t me!”

  “Glad to hear it. Do you have an idea who it might have been?”

  “Lucius hooked up with a new connection, somebody in a chat room online, one of those Tea Party freedom forums. Guy would take just about anything in trade.”

  “Even bones?”

  Fishbone shook his head. “Don’t know anything about bones. Lucius mostly traded credit card numbers. And there was stuff he stole from that redneck group he hung out with and that old guy he worked for.”

  “Dexter at the Confederate shop?”

  “Yeah, him. Guns and knives, some ammo. It all went to trade.”

  “Was Dexter involved with any of this?”

  Fishbone laughed. “Him? Nah. He didn’t even know he’d been robbed until Lucius skipped town.”

  “Did he steal anything from you?”

  The brothers looked at each other and said nothing. I sighed.

  “So he stole your stash, which you of course didn’t report to the police. Anything else?”

  “Two autographed trick boards and everything in the cash register. Probably traded them online too. I told him not to be messing around those sites, terrorists and mafia and shit.” He looked suddenly animated. “You wanna know who killed him, that’s who did it. Fucking mafia.”

  That made three people I’d talked to—Cat and Chelsea and Fishbone—saying the same thing, that Lucius was involved in some shady dealings with an unknown person he traded with online. And while the Goodfellas theory sounded a little far-fetched to me, the fact that I was hearing it again had my ears pricked.

  “Did you trade with this connection?”

  “Hell no, I’m straight-up face-to-face. Old school all the way.” He scratched his thigh. “Look, I didn’t kill Lucius and I don’t know who did. Can I go now?”

  I thought hard. I may not have figured out who Lucius’ shadowy web connection was, but I knew one thing—Dexter hadn’t been involved. My uncle had been a lot of things, but computer literate was not one of them. He’d have sooner been caught at the ballet than in a chat roo
m.

  I pulled one of my business cards out of my back pocket and scribbled Garrity’s new work number on it. “Yeah, I’m done. But here’s my number in case you think of anything else. And here’s the FBI’s number if you get in trouble with the mafia.” I rapped the counter with my knuckles. “Don’t play around with this, dude. There’s one body on the ground so far. You don’t want to be number two.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  When we got back to the shop, Trey insisted I shower and put on clean clothes since I, to use his exact word, “reeked.” Which I did, a peculiar blend of sweat, old pot smoke, and the chemical wallop of the shop’s air freshener. So I washed my hair twice with his shampoo, then put on freshly washed jeans and one of his ancient Atlanta PD sweatshirts, items I’d liberated during my most recent plunder. When I got back downstairs, he was lying on his back under the counter, wiring the new monitor into the security system video feed.

  I scrubbed my hair with a towel. “Do you need some help?”

  “No.” The sound of rummaging intensified. “Did I leave the screwdriver up there?”

  “It’s behind your head.”

  “Oh.”

  He retrieved the screwdriver and returned his attention to the installation. The effects of whatever Gabriella had given him were wearing off—I could see the first spit and flare of exasperation coming back—but on the whole, he was remarkably calm, especially considering the afternoon he’d had.

  “Trey? I know how olfactory triggering works—neural connectivity, hippocampal activation, all that.”

  He stopped messing with the screwdriver and looked at me. “You took my book.”

  “Borrowed it. On Eric’s recommendation. So I get why you pegged at the skate shop, but why not earlier, in the park? I could smell marijuana there as well, pretty strong, so I know you could smell it too.”

  “I could, yes.” He pushed himself to standing and went to the computer. “I don’t know why it happened in one place and not the other.”

  He double-checked the four-plex video feed, making sure that he had access through his cell phone, through my cell phone, through the laptop. He wouldn’t be satisfied until all the deadbolts were deadbolted and the locks locked, until he’d made certain no villains lurked in any nook or cranny.