“I’ve got one more thing I have to do,” Sadie remarked as she yawned and stretched in the storage room. “You wouldn’t happen to have your handheld tape recorder on you?”
“I think it’s in the truck. You want to borrow it?” Zack asked.
“Just for a minute.”
She put the recorder in her purse and walked across the street to a twenty-four-hour food mart. A bored-looking Chinese teenager slouched behind the counter, flipping through a porn magazine.
Sadie purchased a couple chocolate bars and went to the counter to pay for them.
“You wouldn’t happen to speak Mandarin, would you?” she asked the clerk.
“Me and most of the neighborhood.”
“Would you mind doing me a favor?” She dug a pen and paper from her purse and wrote out a couple lines, then took out the handheld tape recorder. “I’m taking a course at the university, and I need to be able to say this paragraph in Mandarin. Could you translate it into my tape recorder for me?”
He read the piece of paper, then looked up at her like she was insane.
“I’m not going to say that.”
She pulled a five dollar bill from her wallet and slid it across the counter.
“For ten I’ll teach you the top Mandarin curse words.”
“What I wrote down on that paper will be fine.”
A minute later she walked back across the street. She let herself into the storage area, tossed Zack a Hershey bar, and told him she’d be right back.
Inside the store she walked up to Mr. Woo Sr. and motioned for him to stop pacing the aisles. Once he realized she could see him, he approached her, frantically speaking Chinese.
Sadie rewound the tape recorder, turned up the volume, and pressed PLAY. The clerk’s voice sounded, reading the Mandarin version of the lecture Sadie usually gave to the spirits to help them realize that they were dead and they no longer held claim to this life.
Sadie watched as the old man began to nod. With a saddened expression he put his hands together prayerfully and offered her a bow before his essence slowly shimmered and faded away.
“Everything okay?” Zack asked Sadie as she stepped back into the storage room.
“Great,” she replied, a big smile on her face. Her head buzzed with the charge of energy she got after helping a spirit. “Let’s go tell our client the job’s done.”
“It’s two o’clock in the morning. We could just leave him a note.”
“Nah, I want to deliver the good news in person.”
Zack smiled. Sadie wasn’t the only one who enjoyed banging on Bart Woo’s door and waking him to give him the news.
“Even though the cleaning part is done, nobody is available to do the drywall repairs and painting for a week,” Sadie said.
“No matter. When a man comes in looking for a blow-up girlfriend he doesn’t notice if there are a few holes in the walls,” he replied sleepily.
“Riiiight,” Sadie said.
She whistled happily as they finished loading up the van. Zack offered to drive, and she tossed him the keys, then surprised herself by dozing off for a few minutes. When she awoke, she thought they were at her house, but instead they were pulling into Kent Lasko’s driveway and Zack had turned the truck’s lights off.
“What are you doing?” she asked, bolting upright.
“Thought we’d pay Kent’s brother a little visit and find out what he knows.”
“Christian works nights as a janitor,” she said. “He won’t be home.”
The words were hardly out of her mouth when she noticed the flicker of the television behind the drapes covering the picture window.
“Good news,” Zack replied. “He’s off tonight.” He opened his door, then focused a serious gaze on Sadie. “Don’t suppose I could convince you to wait here.”
“Fat chance,” she replied and was out of the vehicle and bounding up the sidewalk ahead of him.
He caught up and grabbed her arm.
“Let me do the talking,” he said in a whisper as they reached the front door.
Sadie nodded her agreement. She realized Zack was the only one present with previous experience in interrogation techniques.
Sadie rang the bell, and immediately the sounds from the television were silenced.
When the curtains parted slightly, Sadie knew they were out of luck.
“He knows who it is,” she said. “He’s not going to answer the door.”
Zack listened with his ear pressed to the door.
“C’mon,” he said.
He yanked her by the hand and they quick-stepped around to the back of the house. He stopped behind the back deck, where they were partially hidden from view by a tall cedar. He pressed his finger to Sadie’s lips in a shushing motion.
“Stay hidden,” he whispered harshly in her ear. “Promise me.”
Before Sadie could say anything, Christian Lasko appeared, slipping out of his back kitchen door and quietly locking up. He turned and tiptoed down the back porch.
“Going somewhere?” Zack asked, stepping out from the shadows.
Christian jumped.
“Who are you? Get—get out of my backyard before I call the cops,” he stammered.
“I am the cops,” Zack said evenly, and everything in his posture and tone acknowledged it as fact. “Where are you sneaking off to, Christian?”
The young man straightened his spine defensively. “I was just putting out the trash.”
“Except you forgot to bring it out.”
“Okay.” He threw up his hands. “You caught me. I’m going for a run first and then put out the trash. Big deal.”
“It’s only a big deal if you’re a liar.”
“Look, I’ve already told the other cops everything and there’s nothing else to tell. My brother’s skiing in Tahoe, so he couldn’t’ve tried to kill that old lady.”
“What about Trudy and Grant?”
“What about them? Grant and Kent go way back. They were pals. Grant would never do anything to hurt him or Trudy.” He shook his head. “It’s too bad Grant went all nutso, but it has nothing to do with us. This is harassment. You guys need to leave us alone.”
“If your brother wouldn’t do anything to hurt them, why did he steal a diamond brooch from their house and plant it on the cleanup girl?”
“Is that what she said? My brother would never steal a thing. He’s Mr. Clean,” Christian scoffed. “You’ve got the wrong guy. You should be looking at that crazy broad who did the cleaning, not at Kent.”
“Watch who you’re calling a crazy broad!” Sadie spat, stepping out from behind the tree.
“I’m so done with this, man,” Christian said, balling his hands into fists and taking off as fast as his expensive Nikes would carry him.
Zack glared at Sadie and tossed her the keys to the company truck, then angrily stalked back to the front drive, where he climbed into the passenger side.
“I guess you’re ticked that I didn’t keep quiet,” Sadie said after a few silent minutes of driving.
“You guess right.”
“I’m sorry. I should’ve let you handle it.”
“You promised.”
“Well, technically I didn’t promise. I didn’t get a chance to promise.”
He looked at her with an icy scowl.
“But it was like a promise,” Sadie added quickly.
They drove on in silence. Before long they pulled up to her drive and she parked the van in the garage. Before she could close the garage door, Zack was headed for his car, parked on the street where he’d left it the night before. Obviously he wasn’t interested in spending another night on her killer couch.
Sadie followed him to explain.
“Sorry, but I just don’t like being called a broad or crazy,” she called to his back.
He turned and planted his hands on his hips.
“Is it better to be called a thief?” he demanded. “Because you and I both know your reputation and your referra
ls from detectives and the ME’s office are going down the toilet unless you can clean this up.”
She jammed her hands into her pockets and nodded. “You’re right, but what can I do?”
He blew out a long breath and shook his head slowly.
“I haven’t a clue.”
Sadie slept restlessly that night. Even after she’d checked and double-checked her doors and windows, she just didn’t feel safe. She felt like she had two choices—an alarm system or an attack dog. Since there was little likelihood that Hairy and a dog would get along, she thumbed through the Yellow Pages first thing in the morning.
Pam showed up early, wanting to assist Sadie in her search for an alarm company.
“Don’t use the one with the biggest ad and don’t use the one with the smallest,” Pam advised as Sadie scanned the advertisements.
“And make sure that you get one that does monitoring and not just one that has a loud, annoying siren,” she added seriously.
“For a woman who’s never had an alarm system, you sure have a lot of opinions on the matter,” Sadie commented dryly.
“You sure are cranky.”
“I’m not cranky. I’m just tired.”
“And sex-deprived.”
Sadie glowered at her friend while she gulped her third mug of coffee.
“Don’t get your back up, I’m only pointing out the obvious,” Pam said. “And I’ve been thinking that you should consider sleeping with Zack.”
Sadie put her mug down.
“I thought we agreed that would be the worst possible thing I could do and that getting involved with him would lead to certain disaster for me and my company.”
“Yes, but now it doesn’t matter because you’ve got multiple disasters happening all around you. Besides, if he quit you have another employee starting in a few days.”
“You think I should have sex with my employee only because I’ve got another employee all lined up?”
“And also because he’s got one helluva ass.”
Any other day, Sadie would’ve laughed, but she was quickly losing her sense of humor. She ignored Pam and dialed the third alarm company advertised on the page. She asked questions and took notes about prices and services, and then she called two more. She found one that was recommended by the Better Business Bureau and could even send a techie over that very day for the installation.
“He’ll be here in a couple hours,” Sadie told Pam. “You’re welcome to stay and see if he also has a great ass.”
“No thanks,” Pam said. “I think I’ll go by Logan’s office and check to see what he’s up to.”
“You should stay away from Logan. Let him move on.”
“Move on? Why the hell should I let him move on?” Pam bit back.
“You guys haven’t been dating for a long time. Give it up,” Sadie grumbled.
It was just as well that Pam didn’t stick around to admire the technician’s ass, since it turned out he was a she. Within an hour every window and door in Sadie’s home was fitted with little sensors that would announce a break-in. She was shown how to program in her own code, and then the service woman handed her a thick manual to study at her leisure.
Regardless of the fact that it cost more than she expected, Sadie felt a whole lot better just having the system in place.
She needed to send invoices to three insurance companies and to pay her medical waste bill. She also needed to put lime on the moss patches on her lawn and do some laundry. Instead of doing any of these tasks, she drove into a Seattle area with numerous hospitals, known as Pill Hill, and rode a hospital elevator to the third floor of one of them.
As she walked down the hall, an old man passed her, wearing a hospital gown that was open in the back, exposing his wrinkled butt to the world. Unfortunately, since the man was obviously deceased, she was the only person who got to cringe at the sight.
She dodged the spirit and walked into Sylvia Toth’s room, where she found the woman sitting up and playing cards with another lady. The woman had bottle-blond hair with a couple inches of pure white at the roots and was at least ten years older than Sylvia. Both women looked up at Sadie with surprise when she walked through the door.
“I wanted to see how you’re doing,” Sadie said, “but you’ve got company, so I’ll just go.”
Mrs. Toth blinked at Sadie, but she didn’t seem to know what to say. Finally proper upbringing won out, and she was forced to make an introduction.
“This is my sister, Janet,” Sylvia explained. “She’s from Portland and will stay with me until I’ve recovered.”
“Hello, I’m Sadie.”
“Nice to meet you,” Janet said, breaking into the hacking cough of a longtime smoker. She got to her feet and they shook hands. Then she took the flowers from Sadie’s arms. “Aren’t these lovely.”
“How are you feeling?” Sadie asked, tentatively approaching the bedside.
“Kind of tired, actually,” Sylvia answered, turning her head away.
“I’ve probably been keeping you awake by beating your ass at hearts. Why don’t you rest and I’ll swing by and check on you later,” Janet said. She gave Sylvia a peck on the cheek, then nodded for Sadie to follow her.
“I’m glad your prognosis is good, Mrs. Toth,” Sadie said. “And, well, I’m sorry…for everything.”
Outside the room Janet said, “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”
“That would be nice,” Sadie said, not knowing if it really would be nice or if she was agreeing to a caffeinated verbal abuse session.
They grabbed bad coffee from a vending machine and took it to the end of the hall and out to a terrace where other smokers were huddled against the cold, puffing away.
“I’m sorry to interrupt your visit with your sister. I guess I shouldn’t have come,” Sadie said, standing to the side a little as the wind whipped across the patio.
Janet lit up and her smoke plumed in Sadie’s face.
“Sylvia wasn’t exactly thrilled to see me,” Sadie went on.
“She’s had a lot to handle,” Janet said. “She just buried her son and daughter-in-law, and now she’s been shot.”
Sadie nodded. “I feel awful.”
“You didn’t shoot her.”
“Yes, but it happened at my house.”
“Life’s too short to blame yourself for things you can’t control,” Janet said. She sipped her coffee, then took another drag from her smoke and added thoughtfully, “Sylvia told me that you don’t believe that Grant killed Trudy.” Her gray eyes were unwavering steel as her gaze met Sadie’s. “I’d like to know if that comes from evidence or if you’re just playing with my sister’s emotions.”
Sadie had no idea if Sylvia would’ve told her sister about the ghost thing or not, so she felt her way carefully.
“I thought I owed it to her to explain how I feel and—”
“I worked as a nurse for three decades. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen well-meaning people tell folks on their deathbed that they look great and that everything is going to be hunky-dory. Optimism has its time and place, I guess, but Sylvia doesn’t need to get her hopes up.”
“I understand your concern, but Sylvia knows I was just expressing my opinion about—”
“She also doesn’t need to take up a cause that doesn’t exist.”
“Yes.” Sadie figured if she wanted to complete a sentence around Janet, she’d better make it short.
“Sylvia told me that you don’t believe that it was a murder-suicide. That means that either you have proof that you’re not sharing with the Seattle police or you’re just playing into Sylvia’s delusions that Grant was perfect and could do no wrong.”
“I’ve heard nothing but good about Grant. Could he do wrong?” Sadie asked.
“Grant and Trudy lived with me during the months they were in Portland.” Janet drew in another drag of smoke. “My husband and I are retired, and the house is really too big for just the two of us, so it wasn’t inconveni
ent. Mostly Trudy and Grant did their own thing, of course, but you get to know people when they’re living under your roof. During that time I never once saw Grant treat Trudy with anything but love and respect. He worshiped that girl. Plain and simple. It was very hard on him to transplant her to Portland, even though it was only temporary. He knew she wasn’t happy there.”
“Sounds like he loved her very much.”
“He sure did. Maybe too much.”
A gust of wind howled across the patio, and they moved into a corner for the protection offered by a jutting of the brick building.
“Is it really possible to love someone too much?” Sadie asked.
Janet appeared to debate her answer before replying.
“Don’t get me wrong—Trudy wasn’t a bad person, but she was unhappy. She was restless in Portland and hated taking a leave of absence from her job at the school for the deaf. She was able to tutor some deaf children in Portland a couple days a week, but it wasn’t enough. You know what they say about idle hands….”
Sadie winced at the foul-tasting coffee and dumped her cup into a nearby trash bin. Janet followed her lead and tossed hers as well.
“So if Grant was at the new store all day, Trudy must’ve been bored. Plus, she probably missed all her friends in Seattle.”
“Hmmph.” Janet grunted and flicked the ash off her cigarette. It blew around her feet. “They had their own phone line installed in our house. Trudy had a phone she typed into and would get on it practically the second Grant would leave for the day. In this day and age of computers and gadgets I think it’s pretty damn hard to really miss anyone. When she wasn’t on that phone, she was on the computer chatting online. One day she left herself logged in on the computer while she went to run some errands. I went into their room just to dust. I wasn’t snooping, you understand.”
“Of course,” Sadie said, but she got the feeling that was exactly what Janet had been doing. “Go on.”
“Anyway, messages kept popping up on the screen and I couldn’t help but read them. They were from an anonymous person but the messages were private. Very private.”
“From a lover.” Sadie stated it as a fact, not a question.
Janet nodded.
“I confronted her when she got home. She denied it at first, but I didn’t let her off the hook. This was my nephew’s wife we’re talking about. Every time she’d walk away, I was in her face.” She shook her head slowly. “It’s not easy arguing with a deaf person. She could lip-read fairly well, but when I said stuff she didn’t want to hear, she would just turn away or close her eyes.” Janet laughed then, a chuckle that turned into a hacking cough. Once she’d recovered, she continued, “Finally, she admitted that she’d been sleeping with someone else when they lived in Seattle. She even confessed that some of her all-day tutoring sessions were actually day trips to Seattle to visit him.”
The Remains of the Dead Page 18