The Remains of the Dead

by Wendy Roberts

  “Did I hear my name?”

  Sadie was relieved to see Kent approaching the table.

  “I am so sorry for being late. I never should’ve agreed to take those clients out so late in the afternoon. You know what traffic’s like. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He nodded to Christian, who was already on his feet. “I hope my brother was polite.”

  “A perfect gentleman,” Sadie said.

  “I’m off to work. Thanks for not taking off.” Christian smiled at Sadie.

  “Any plans after your shift?” Kent asked his brother, with a tightness in his voice beyond curiosity. “We still need to talk about a few things.”

  “I’ll be around. See you later.” Christian waved to Sadie on his way out the door.

  Kent slipped into his brother’s chair. He looked terribly yummy in a taupe knit sweater and dark slacks. He eyed Christian’s drink, then picked it up and downed it.

  “I inherited him after my parents kicked him out. He’s got a job now, but I don’t think I’m cut out for the big-brother routine.”

  “Christian seems nice, but I have to admit that if I lived with my sister, somebody would probably die.”

  “I try to see Christian’s good points. Like he did make me go jogging recently, trying to get me into shape.”

  “Jogging, huh? I used to love a good run. How did it feel?”

  “Sore. Definitely. Very. Sore. And I spent far too much money on exercise wear. Christian took me to this megastore in the mall, and I dropped a wad of cash on clothes that I’ll probably never wear again.”

  They laughed, and then the waiter appeared. They ordered and continued to chat amiably until the food arrived. After Sadie took a few bites of her chicken with lemon risotto, she confirmed that it was as good as it looked.

  They were quiet while enjoying the food. Eventually Kent folded his napkin and put it beside his plate.

  “Okay. Confession time,” he said.

  Her heartbeat sped up. Part of her wouldn’t be satisfied until she knew more about his relationship with Trudy. The phone records still bugged her. Still, it had been a long time since she’d been on a date.

  “What do you have to confess?”

  “I said I’d cook for you, but you made a good decision about eating out. I’m not a great cook. I’d already spent hours sweating over a recipe I found on the Internet yesterday, so I was glad you vetoed that.”

  “Seriously?”

  “My usual is either Kraft Dinner or hot dogs, though I have been known to creatively scramble an egg once or twice.”

  She let out a burst of laughter and didn’t stop grinning like a fool until they got to dessert. Around a bite of cheesecake Kent mentioned that he’d gone to Portland for a sales seminar recently. Her smile faltered, and the wheels in her head began turning with thoughts of what she’d been dying to ask him all evening.

  “Sylvia said Grant and Trudy lived in Portland for only a few months before they moved back here,” she said carefully, watching him to gauge his reaction.

  “That’s right.” Grant nodded. He kept his eyes down and ate another bite of his own dessert before he continued. “I sold them the place here when they came back—but I guess Sylvia probably already told you that as well.”

  “No.” That was interesting. It meant he would easily have had access to keys to the house. “I have to admit I’m surprised you’d sell them a place so close to your own home.”

  “Whenever he came over to my place, Grant would say how much he liked the area. It was his idea to check out older homes. He was good with his hands, and he knew he and Trudy could really fix a place up.”

  He reached across the table and linked his fingers with hers. Sadie cleared her throat nervously.

  “But that must’ve made things really awkward for you—living so close, I mean.” Her lips trembled slightly as she sipped some coffee. “Especially since you and Trudy had broken up so recently.”

  “It wasn’t recent that things ended between us.” He looked at her intently and tightened his grip on her fingers slightly until her gaze met his. “It was over a year ago that we broke things off. Before they left for Oregon. I kept in touch with Grant because we were still friends. Even though I felt guilty as hell—but I didn’t want him to become suspicious. He called me when they were relocating back to Seattle and asked for my help finding a house. I know I betrayed him. But he was still my friend.”

  Sadie swallowed and could only nod in agreement as her gaze sank into his baby blues.

  “You think I’m a jerk for screwing my friend’s wife.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “You’re right. It was a stupid mistake.” His jaw tightened. “I wish I’d never done it.”

  Well, anybody could make a mistake, right? Sadie thought. And the calls to Portland could’ve been Grant talking real estate with his friend.

  After dinner Kent retrieved her coat from the closet, clumsily hooking his own sweater on her zippered pocket as he helped with the coat. They comically untangled themselves and then he walked her to her car. She knew he was going to kiss her, and her heart was drumming wildly.

  “Well, this is me,” she said at her car.

  He reached for her, then leaned in to kiss her tenderly and sweetly. When he slowly pulled back, Sadie had to stop herself from climbing all over him.

  “That was nice,” she said, swallowing a lump in her throat.

  “Nice?” The corners of his mouth quirked in amusement. “Obviously I’ll have to try harder.”

  He wrapped his arms around her, and this time the kiss was neither tender nor sweet. It was demanding, ravenous and passionate, and bordering on pornographic. As their tongues did the tango, his hands slipped inside her jacket to cup her breast and Sadie could barely refrain from bursting into the Hallelujah Chorus.

  It was with great disappointment that she heard Pam’s warning ringing in her ears and broke away.

  “That was amazing,” she breathed.

  “Well, amazing is much better than nice.” He smiled and bent to nibble her lower lip. “How about we try next for sensational?” He kissed her. “Then magnificent.” Another kiss. “Stupendous.”

  She put her hands on his chest and gently pushed him away.

  “It starting to rain. We should go.”

  “Right.” He offered her sad-puppy eyes. “And you won’t come back to my place, even if I promise that I’ll still respect you in the morning?”

  She laughed.

  He sighed dramatically but helped her into her car after just one more tonsil-inspecting kiss. She pulled out of the parking lot with a warm fuzzy feeling around her that totally belied the freezing drizzle that enveloped her car.

  When Sadie woke the next day, the cruel light of day had her overthinking and-analyzing the night before. By the time she’d finished her first cup of coffee, the lingering tender feeling had been replaced with uncertainty.

  She called Mrs. Toth to offer her an update on the progress she’d made at the house. Sylvia was pleased but simultaneously saddened by the idea that she would have to sort through her dead son’s belongings.

  “Do you have anyone who could help you with that?” Sadie asked.

  Mrs. Toth thought about it for a moment.

  “Maybe I should call my sister and ask her to come back to town for a few days.”

  “That would be a good idea,” Sadie said soothingly. “It’s an awfully big job for one person.” Then she found herself guiltily wondering if Sylvia Toth would eventually call Kent to sell the house. “The cleanup is done and only the restorative work needs to be completed. I’ll call you once the carpeting and flooring have been replaced, but in the meantime you can enter the home if you like.”

  When she disconnected from Sylvia, Sadie dialed the restoration company’s carpet installer and rescheduled for that afternoon. However, it was something else that caused her to drive to the Toth house and walk inside Trudy’s den late in the morning.

  S
he sat down in the steno chair at the dead woman’s desk and went over the phone records again. Her forehead creased in concentration and she scowled as she confirmed what she’d noticed before. While Trudy and Grant were in Portland, someone had made frequent calls to Kent’s home—and those calls were in the middle of the day, when Grant would’ve been at his new store. It wasn’t behavior you’d expect from a woman who’d broken up with her lover and was determined to keep her marriage together.

  Sadie sighed and drummed her fingers on the desk.

  “I didn’t expect to find you here this morning,” Zack said from behind her.

  Sadie jumped and her hand flew to her heart.

  “Sheesh! Do you have to move so quietly?” she snapped.

  “It’s the ex-cop in me. I don’t know any other way,” he replied and moved to look over her shoulder. “The phone records again, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  She told him about her date with Kent, leaving out the part about sexual tension and fiery kisses. Still, as soon as she mentioned the dinner with Kent she saw Zack’s dark eyes go hard and angry. She told him about Kent’s comments about keeping in touch with Grant, not Trudy, since the breakup.

  “You don’t believe him.”

  “These calls were made during the day. All of them. Grant would’ve been overseeing operations at the new store during that time. Maybe if one or two calls were made we could say that he’d chatted with his buddy on a day off, but there are dozens of calls here, all during store hours.”

  “You’d make a great cop,” Zack said. “If you’re interested in a career change, I could make a few calls.”

  She ignored his sarcasm.

  “Look, I know none of this means he killed Trudy,” Sadie said.

  “I think it means that a man who’s hot to get into your pants doesn’t want to share details of an old affair with you.”

  “Be serious.”

  “I am. The evidence at the scene doesn’t point to anyone else being inside that house. This case was closed as a murder-suicide. You talked to Petrovich and you agreed he did his job. From what I remember about when I used to work at that precinct, Petrovich may have been a sloppy dresser and a pig with food, but his work was pristine.”

  “Nothing’s changed. Petrovich is still all those things.”

  “And Kent could be lying to you just because he feels guilty as sin.”

  “Because of the affair.”

  “Sure. He screws around with his best friend’s wife, and then maybe he tries to end it, but she still wants him and eventually moves into his neighborhood. Besides, who cares if he’s telling the truth about ending it a while ago? The damage was already done. The cold hard truth is that Grant found out about the affair. Maybe he found these phone bills.”

  “Trudy had them locked in her personal filing cabinet. She kept them hidden. Probably she was the one to take care of the household bills, since he was at the store such long hours. Besides, even if he saw the bills, she could easily have said she was talking about future houses with his good friend and Realtor, Kent.”

  “If it wasn’t the phone bills, maybe she just came right out and told him about the affair. Confessed. He freaked out and killed her in a jealous rage before taking his own life.”

  “Sounds cliché,” Sadie said, wincing. “But it also fits. I’m sure you’re right.”

  “It doesn’t matter if I’m right, or even if Petrovich is right, Sadie. The fact is, that’s the scenario that fits the evidence. Evidence doesn’t lie.”

  “Even when the victim herself says it’s wrong?”

  “Just try and leave the dead out of the equation,” Zack said, raking his fingers through his dark hair.

  “Lord knows, I’ve tried,” Sadie said, throwing her hands up in the air dramatically. “The dead won’t leave me alone.”

  “Okay, for argument’s sake let’s say that Trudy really has reason to believe it was someone else. Maybe that’s because Kent surprised her. She was deaf, right? A deaf woman could easily be surprised by someone sneaking up on her wielding a knife. I bet Petrovich would tell you that Trudy had few defensive wounds—I’m betting the cut that killed her was made from behind.”

  Sadie pulled her mouth into a tight line as she recalled that Trudy’s arms and hands were in fact unmarred. Damn! She hated that Zack’s logic was winning out.

  “No defensive wounds. You’re right. But we’ve got a husband who’s totally devoted to his wife. He loves her more than anything in the world and he just up and slits her throat?”

  “Loved her so much he’d rather die than see her with another man,” Zack said. “Women are more likely to be killed by their husbands than by a stranger. You know that.”

  “Yes,” she said grimly.

  “He snuck up on her, grabbed her from behind, and slit her throat,” he said.

  She shuddered.

  “It would’ve been quick and she wouldn’t have heard him coming.”

  “I guess…”

  Sadie’s voice trailed off and her fingers absently played with a stack of business cards on the desk. Then she really took notice of them. They weren’t business cards, although they were the same size. They were actually cards showing the finger positions for the American Sign Language alphabet. Trudy probably used the cards in her work at the school for the deaf.

  Sadie held a card up to her face and concentrated as she put her fingers into the position of one of the letters. She held her hand up to Zack.

  “What does this look like to you?”

  He shrugged. “Like you’re saying ‘peace.’ Why?”

  “It’s also the American Sign Language symbol for the letter K.” She frowned. “K, as in Kent. It was the last sign that Trudy gave me before fading away permanently, after I asked her who did this to her. What if she was trying to tell me the name of her murderer?”

  “Ah, hell, Sadie, didn’t we just agree that the evidence points to the husband?” Zack’s jaw tightened in irritation.

  “I know, but—”

  “Okay, then let’s talk about Grant’s death. Many people try to stage murders as if they’re suicides, but that’s not as easy as it sounds. When a scene is processed, they take GSR samples from the guy’s hands and his clothing. They examine blood spatter patterns. Then there’s examination and processing of both the gun and the ammo for fingerprints.” As he talked, he ticked the points off on his fingers.

  “Okay, okay, you’re right.” Sadie got to her feet and dusted off her hands. “I don’t know why this job has such a hold on me.”

  She also didn’t know why she was in such a hurry to believe that Kent Lasko, a man she would’ve slept with in a heartbeat, was capable of murder.

  “By the way, Jackie’s references checked out. I hired her, but I still want you to meet her.” Sadie handed him a slip of paper with the woman’s number. “She’s expecting your call. Maybe you two can grab a bite to eat before she goes and packs up her belongings in Texas and joins our team.”

  “If you’ve already hired her, why do I need to meet her before she starts?”

  “You’ve got better instincts than me. Let me know what you think.”

  The ring of the doorbell announced the arrival of the restoration company’s carpet installer. Sadie greeted him and showed him the master bedroom. She was tired of thinking about Trudy and Grant and Kent, and was grateful for the amusing distraction of having the stout installer exposing his butt crack while measuring for wall-to-wall.

  He showed Sadie samples, and together they decided on a neutral shade of Berber that was very close to what was already in most of the upstairs rooms. Even better, he told her the carpeting was in stock and since he’d had another job cancel he could have it installed the next day.

  “That’s great,” Sadie said, walking him out. “The sooner this job gets done, the better.”

  She was suddenly anxious to rid herself of this house. Whether or not that included ridding herself of Kent as well was yet to be dec
ided.

  Just as she was pulling out of the Toths’ driveway, Sadie got a call from a somber-sounding man who introduced himself as George Yenkow. She picked up on the grief in his voice at his “Hello.”

  “The medical examiner gave me your number. He said that you do this—this special cleanup that I need,” he said softly. “My house…where my wife died…”

  He seemed unable to finish.

  “Yes, Mr. Yenkow, I specialize in the type of cleaning you need.”

  “I don’t know how much your services cost. I’m not a rich man.”

  “Do you have home insurance?”

  “Yes, but the policy is in my house and I can’t—I mean, I will if I have to, but…”

  “The insurance company will pay for my services, and if you’d like, I can search the home for the policy. There’s no reason for you to go back inside the house unless you want to, Mr. Yenkow.”

  He thanked her profusely and gave his mother’s address, where he was staying.

  “That’s not too far from where I am right now, Mr. Yenkow. If it’s convenient, I could come over now to go over my contract with you and get the keys before going to your house, if it’s nearby.”

  “The house is in Tacoma. I hope that won’t be a problem.”

  Sadie cringed.

  “Normally I work strictly in the Seattle area, Mr. Yenkow.”

  “Oh. Perhaps you can give me the name of someone who works in Tacoma, then?” he asked.

  But there was no one else so Sadie agreed to the job and steered her car toward the address of Mr. Yenkow’s mother.

  An hour later she was leaving the Yenkow residence with a signed contract and house keys. She’d suffered through two cups of strong tea while Mr. Yenkow quietly unveiled the horrible truth of his wife’s demise. He’d taken his mother on a trip to Los Angeles to visit her sister. They were gone for two weeks. Mr. Yenkow tried to call home a couple times but figured his wife must’ve landed the overtime hours she’d been hoping for at her night clerk job at the Holiday Inn. Turned out Mrs. Yenkow died of a stroke in their living room, probably the day after he left town.