by J. C. Long
“That’s what I said, but I said it nicer.”
Grace’s eyes grew cold, and she stepped out of the circle of my arms as she leveled that icy look on Benet. “Carrie and I got along just fine, if you must know. Our business relationship was exactly what we both wanted—she handled business decisions, overhead and such, which gave me the free time I wanted. I just invested the money and got to put my name on the card, but she really ran the place. I was happy with the arrangement.”
“Was she?”
Grace shrugged. “I imagine so, since it let her be the boss, which she liked.”
“And did—”
“Listen,” I interrupted, having had enough. “As I’m sure you can imagine, we’ve been through a lot, and we’d both like to get away from here. If you have any more questions I’m sure you can call us to ask them, right?”
Benet started to say something—a protest, I didn’t doubt—but Maka spoke first. “That’s fine, Mr. Maxfield.” Benet’s facial expression made it clear that it certainly wasn’t fine as far as he was concerned. Something passed between them for a moment, a conversation that went unspoken. I wondered how long they’d been working together, to have a connection like that. They struck me as more like the odd couple, opposites who tolerated each other’s presence but didn’t really get along. Then again, I wasn’t the greatest judge of people, so who knew.
“Write down your phone numbers and addresses in here,” Benet grunted, shoving his notebook toward me. “And don’t plan on running out, either. You should stick to the island until this investigation is concluded.”
I rolled my eyes but said nothing, instead jotting my phone number down in the book beneath one of Benet’s messily scrawled notes. His handwriting was terrible; I couldn’t make out more than a few words on the page. When it came time to write my address I paused. I couldn’t remember it off the top of my head yet.
“Don’t worry about the address,” Maka said, correctly interpreting my hesitation. “I know it. Since we’re neighbors, I mean.”
I chuckled at him despite everything, handing the notebook to Grace.
She took it with shaking hands, but her handwriting was clear and steady. When she finished, she shoved it back into Benet’s hands as if she couldn’t wait to get rid of it.
“Are we done here?”
“Yeah, we’re done,” Benet said dismissively. He looked toward the door as several people came in wearing dark blue jumpsuits marked CORONER’S OFFICE in yellow block letters. “Maka, the ME’s here.”
With a last lingering look in our direction, Maka joined Benet in conversation with the team from the coroner’s office.
I grabbed Grace’s arm and maneuvered her through the crowd of police officers until we were safely back at her Jeep. “Give me your keys.”
“What?”
“Give me your keys. I’m not letting you drive home right now. I’ll drive you to your place. Just tell me how to get there.”
The evening passed in a strange flux, seeming at times incredibly rushed and other times creepingly slow. It felt as if right after we reached Grace’s apartment, the pizza we ordered for dinner arrived, and then it felt like we spent hours eating it. As we ate, we opened a cheap boxed wine and drank deeply from it.
Grace lived in a single-story duplex on a street filled with other duplexes. The living room was a narrow rectangle lined with a brown carpet. Her furniture fell onto the same autumnal color palette, from a darker green armchair to the burgundy sofa. The room had no overhead lights, instead several floor lamps cast their yellow glow about the room.
“I keep seeing her lying there,” Grace said at one point. She clutched her wineglass in both hands as if it were a lifeline, the only thing keeping her from sinking beneath the waves of despair. Maybe it was. Her eyes stared off at nothing. We sat on her couch, the box of pizza half-eaten on the coffee table in front of us. “No matter what I do, I can’t stop that image from flashing in my mind. It’s like it was burned there. I don’t think it will ever fade.”
“It will,” I comforted, though I honestly didn’t know if I believed that myself. I knew what she meant; any time I closed my eyes the dead body of Grace’s business partner flashed before my eyes as well.
“I’ve been trying to figure out why anyone would do something like that to her, and I might have something,” she said uncertainly.
My ears perked up at that, but unfortunately so did my suspicions. At the office she’d said she couldn’t think of anything. “Go on,” I encouraged when I felt like she might not say anything.
“About two weeks ago, Carrie started going out of the office a lot. Much more than usual. I asked her about it, but all she told me was that she was working on a case—no details about it, just that she had one. Kept it real secretive.”
“Is that strange?”
Grace took a deep drink from her wineglass before shaking her head. “Not really, I guess. We didn’t always tell each other what we were working on, unless it was a two-man job. If either of us really wanted to know, we could just ask Peter or look at the files or invoices.”
“Peter knew what was going on all the time?”
“Yeah. He handled the clients, usually, aside from our initial and final meetings. Also took care of billing, appointments, and filing, so he knew what was going on most of the time.”
I started to take a drink and saw that my glass was empty. I considered refilling it—it would make for glass six? Seven? I couldn’t remember—but I thought better of it. I already felt the blurry embrace of the wine clutching at me, and I didn’t want to get any drunker—and I certainly didn’t want a hangover the next day. For some reason, wine hit me harder than anything else when I had a hangover, the headache more persistent than you could imagine.
“I’m guessing you never said anything to Peter or checked out any of the files?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t see a reason to. She works her cases; I work mine. That’s how it works. Now, though…” She hesitated, brow furrowing. “Maybe if I’d known what she was working on I could have helped her in some way, and this wouldn’t have happened.”
I scooted forward on the couch, resting my hand on her shoulder. “It’s useless to think like that, Grace. No one can say if it’s true. It does you no good to beat yourself up about it.” I cringed inwardly. The words didn’t sound anywhere near as comforting as I’d hoped they would.
Grace took a deep breath—and another deep drink—and nodded. “You’re right. God, there’s so much I have to start thinking about. I have to make sure the business end of things stays in order.” She laughed bitterly. “God knows I’m in over my head there.”
“You’ll figure it all out. I’ll help you any way I can.”
Grace threw her arms around me in a hug made awkward thanks to the angle we sat at on the couch and the wineglass in her hand. I hugged her back tightly, trying to say with that what I hadn’t managed to properly say in words: I’m right here with you, and I’m not going to let you go through this alone.
“Okay,” she said after a moment, pulling free of the hug. “I’m a little drunk, and there’s a lot to do tomorrow. I should try to get some sleep.” She rose to her feet, placing the wineglass on the table. She started to pick up the remnants of our dinner, but I brushed her hands away.
“I’ll take care of that, it’s okay. You just go get some rest.”
For a moment it looked like Grace would cry, but she held herself together. “Thanks, Gabe.” She hugged me once more and trudged off to her bedroom in the back. I tidied up the living room and put the wineglasses in the sink and the remaining pizza all into one box and that box into the refrigerator.
It wasn’t until I finished that I realized my car was still parked in front of the restaurant we went to earlier. I couldn’t go home, not until Grace drove me back to my car. It looked like I would be spending the night there.
I hoped the couch was comfortable.
I turned the lights off
and padded over to the couch, lying down and finding a position to make myself comfortable. The couch wasn’t making it easy, though. It was firm in places I wished were soft, and soft in places that were better firm.
I was in for a rough night.
When I did finally get to sleep, I had strange, shadowy dreams, full of prone figures whose faces I couldn’t see, and loud, banging noises.
I jerked awake, blinking in the pale gray light that flooded into the room from the windows behind the sofa. That light placed it not long after dawn—the sky was still half-asleep, like me, but the sun’s glow was slowly illuminating the world.
It took my sleep-dazed brain a moment to realize the banging from my dreams was real, coming from the front door. I lay there for a moment, perfectly still, hoping that whoever it was would go away eventually. They persisted, though, and I realized that anyone who was knocking on someone’s door at the ass crack of dawn was probably not going to just leave.
I stood up, left hand clutching my neck and shoulder, where a crick had developed, and made my way to the door.
“Who the hell is that?” Grace said behind me. I glanced and saw her standing in the doorway to her bedroom, dressed in a tank top and boxer shorts. “Whoever they are, I hope they’ve made peace with their lives, because I’m going to kill—”
Grace stopped short when I opened the door to reveal Maka and Benet standing there, Benet’s fist raised to knock again.
“Detectives,” I said, not bothering to hide the annoyance in my voice. “Not that it’s not nice to see you, but what the hell are you doing here?”
Maka looked regretful as he held up a folded piece of paper. “Sorry, Ms. Park, but I need you to step over here.”
The blood drained from Grace’s face as she did. Once she reached the door, Benet held up a pair of handcuffs. “Put your arms behind your back.”
“What’s going on?” I demanded as Grace complied. “Detective, what’s going on?”
Maka didn’t say anything, and Benet ignored me, addressing Grace. “Grace Park, you are under arrest for the murder of Carrie Lange.”
Chapter Four
I stood there in complete shock as Benet read Grace her rights and started to pull her out of the apartment, stopping only when Maka suggested letting her put on some more appropriate clothes first.
My brain didn’t seem to want to process what was happening in front of me; words were spoken, things were said—Maka attempted to speak to me, but I shook him off. The only thing I cemented in my mind was the number of Grace’s attorney and her instructions to call him immediately and tell him what had happened.
I did that as soon as the police departed. God, it hurt to see Grace in the backseat of the car, being carted off to jail for murder, of all things. I don’t know how the man on the phone understood a word that came out of my mouth; I had to be babbling, but somehow the message got through, and the lawyer assured me he would head right there.
I felt for a moment like I was going to shatter into a thousand tiny pieces. Everything seemed to be falling apart around me. I sat down on the couch, head in my hands, my nervous foot tapping, out of my control. I wanted to help Grace—she was my oldest friend in the world, and the only real connection I had in Hawaii. I couldn’t imagine what she must be feeling. Was she scared? Was she angry? Did she feel alone wherever they took her? Were they questioning her right then? I wondered if interrogation tactics in reality are similar to what they show on television, the whole good cop, bad cop routine. Who was the good cop?
I thought of the regretful look on Maka’s face. He didn’t want to be there, that much had been clear. He was definitely the good cop. He’d even convinced Benet to undo the cuffs and let Grace put on clothes before they took her downtown, or whatever direction the police station was.
There must be something I could do to help, some way I could work to prove Grace innocent. I paced the floor of the small living room of her apartment, racking my brain to figure something out.
Of course! I stopped in my tracks, feeling as if a light bulb had just turned on above my head. Grace mentioned the case that Carrie was working on, the secretive one she knew nothing about. Grace was just grabbing at straws, sharing the first thoughts that came to mind, but couldn’t she be right? Weren’t the chances high that her death was connected to that case? If so, the files would hold the key to proving that Grace was innocent.
But how could I get access to those files? Grace’s workplace would be surrounded by cops, a crime scene. No way I was getting in there. Even if I could somehow gain access, I had no idea what I was looking for, no way of knowing which of Carrie’s cases Grace knew about and which she didn’t, so no way of identifying the case that had put her life in danger.
The only viable choice, then, was the other person who would know the information. That would be that Peter guy who Grace mentioned, the secretary. She said he had access to all the files, so he would know something, if anyone did.
The kicker to all of that was that I had no way of getting in contact with this guy. All I knew was his first name, and I didn’t imagine that would be the most helpful information. Part of me wanted to just sink into despair at that, let the obstacles overwhelm me, but I forced myself to stay calm. There was always an answer, if you thought about it, wasn’t there? I mean, in the noir films the sleuth always came up with something when he kept his cool.
I wasn’t expecting any revelations, but one actually came to me: I didn’t know this guy, but Grace did.
When it came to being organized, Grace made it an art. She kept very careful, very organized notes from every single class we took together in university and filed them away, keeping them after the classes completed at the end of the semester. At the end of our four years of university, she still had the notes from our very first class. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had notes from her high school classes stored away somewhere. I usually mocked Grace for this, calling her a packrat, but if I was right, I could use that organization to my advantage.
Somewhere in her apartment she had contact information for her coworkers, including this Peter guy. I just needed to find where she hid it. Given her organizational skills, I didn’t think that would be a problem.
I started in the obvious place: Grace’s bedroom. The majority of the space was actually devoted to work, as I expected. The full-size bed was pushed into a corner against the wall, a big desk occupying the majority of the room’s space. The surface of the desk was neatly organized, the laptop in the center, a legal pad and pens for taking notes, and a Rolodex.
I snorted as I sat down at the desk and drew the Rolodex to me. This would be easier than I expected. Predictability was a wonderfully useful thing. I spun the Rolodex to the P cards and after a quick perusal found no Peter. Makes sense, I told myself. Peter was hardly going to be his last name, right?
That just meant I needed to flip through every card in the Rolodex until I came to Peter’s and hope there was only one of him in here. Was it that common of a name in Hawaii?
The amount of names in Grace’s Rolodex surprised me. She’d really been making contacts in her time in Hawaii. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. Whatever Grace put her mind to she did well. Success was just part of Grace’s makeup. I envied her that; I seemed to be the opposite, failing at every endeavor I attempted.
But this wasn’t the time to get morose. There was a lot at stake here, and I needed to get moving quickly in order to find something that would prove Grace innocent of murder. Can’t say I ever anticipated needing to do that.
I came to a Peter and pulled the card from the Rolodex. Just to make sure, I continued until I’d seen every card. This was the only Peter.
Taking a deep, hopeful breath, I called the number on the card.
It rang a few times before a groggy male voice answered. “Hello?”
“Hello, I’m sorry to call you so early. Is this Peter…” I glanced at the card to get his last name. “Peter Michaels?”
“My name is Gabe Maxfield—I’m a friend of Grace Park.”
“I just heard about what happened to Carrie,” Peter said, caution gone from his voice. “How is Grace doing?”
“Not good,” I answered. “She needs your help.”
After a quick explanation of what had gone down, Peter gave me his address and told me to meet him there so we could talk. I hung up and left Grace’s house immediately. I had no choice but to take her Jeep, but I didn’t feel comfortable driving it all over Honolulu—and it didn’t have a GPS system, which was a must for me and my level of familiarity with the area—so I drove back to the restaurant where my car still waited and left Grace’s car there after calling a tow truck to take it back to Grace’s place.
At a few minutes after nine, I brought my car to a stop in front of the house my GPS system told me belonged to Peter Michaels. It was small and cozy, with a beat-up green Mazda parked in the driveway. Looking up at the cozy place, I saw the curtains move and then flutter closed. Peter must have been standing in the window watching for me.
Before I even reached the door, Peter opened it, welcoming me inside. Peter looked to be fresh out of college, maybe twenty-four or twenty-five. He had large wire-rimmed glasses, a gangly body, all knees and elbows, and messy, dull-toned brown hair. He looked almost nervous to be talking to me, I noted, watching as he glanced either way out the door before closing it behind him.
“Right this way,” he said, scurrying past me and leading me into a small living room off to the right. Spartanly decorated, the room felt larger than it was because of the lack of personal touches. A couch, a rug, a coffee table, a television, and a bookcase were the only things there. The walls were bare of pictures or art or anything that might give me some idea about Peter as a person. That in and of itself told me plenty.