by Anne McAneny
He was right. All I needed was the connection. Who better than a reporter to uncover it? I told him I had to go and he walked me to the door, his robe hanging carelessly at his sides, revealing black gym shorts topped by ripped muscles that looked more defined than ever. A primal part of me wanted to run my fingers over the hard mounds of his stomach and chest, but I resisted.
Damn, I’d been looking too long. I jerked my eyes up. Too late. He was grinning, and then he slowly, teasingly, tied his robe shut.
“All that from yoga?” I said.
“All that from discipline, along with an unstoppable, obsessive desire.”
“To do what?”
He smiled. “Absolutely anything.”
“You scare me.”
“I doubt that. But thanks.”
“I have one more question,” I said. “Why the pseudonym? Why Clive Haverhill?”
“I keep personal and professional separate, and Clive Haverhill reeks of blue blood and polo. The funny thing is, clients must rarely read what I send them because I usually sign things using my full, legal name.”
“Which is?”
He spoke as if revealing a royal secret. “Rafe Ogden Borose.”
“Couldn’t slip a simple John or Sam in there somewhere?”
“Definitely not. Far too square.”
I smiled at his choice of words and wanted to ask him the origin of Ogden, but my phone rang. It was Sherilyn, so we parted company at the door with a wave and a promise yet to be fulfilled.
“Hi, Sherilyn,” I said into the phone as I headed to my car.
“Girl, you are so gonna owe me a cocktail. Get your skinny butt to the lab pronto. Need to turn this evidence over to the sheriff, but he can’t get here for an hour. Hurry!”
Chapter 34
I barged into Sherilyn’s lab in loud, unsterile fashion.
“People with sharp instruments here!” she shouted while lifting her scalpel. “Could you keep the startling noises to a minimum?”
Her eyes—the only feature visible behind her surgical mask—rolled when she saw me, but in a friendly way.
“Aw, Jesus!” I yelled when I saw what was on her table. I spun away as fast as I could. “Is that him?”
Lying in front of Sherilyn was a body with a rough semblance of a head, the face scraped off, and a multi-punctured, banged-up, beat-to-hell-and-back torso with only one leg and one arm attached: Boyd.
“Looks like Old Bastard was in the mood for bones,” she said. “Maybe he needed to clean his teeth because he left the meatier parts for me.”
“Can’t believe they recovered the body so quickly.”
“Old Bastard took off with what he wanted, left the rest behind.”
“Do you really need an autopsy?” I said. “I can tell you the cause of death.”
“Drowning?”
“No, being a degenerate idiot who stepped into a swamp backwards.”
Sherilyn laughed. “That’s the God’s-honest truth, but I don’t think we have a code for that. I’m eager to write this one up, though. Death by alligator is pretty rare around here. This’ll be a great teaching case.” As she whipped a white sheet over what was left of Boyd, I turned around to see her peel off her gloves, lower her mask, and reveal a glowing grin. “Chad’s been keeping me up to date on everything,” she said, “but I wasn’t sure how much he was keeping you in the loop. That’s why I called.”
“Why would Chad not keep me in the loop?”
She gave me a playful sneer. “Lingering jealousy, of course.”
“Over what?”
“Honey, you think that boy ever got over you? Get real.”
“He broke up with me.”
“Because you shut him out like you do all men.”
“What are you? Chad’s counselor now?”
“We talk. But admit it, he’s only now learning what he was up against. Or should I say who?”
“Yeah? Then why do I have a sudden and abiding interest in someone else?”
Sherilyn’s eyes went bigger than their usual round discs. “The hottie from the glass house, right? Mm, wouldn’t mind throwing a few stones at him myself.”
“Stay clear, Cougar.”
Sherilyn clawed the air before adding, “Just remember to go easy on Chad.”
I shook my head. “You’re wrong on this one, Sherilyn, but thanks.”
“Let’s go.” She clapped her hands together. “You won’t believe what I’ve got. And I sure shouldn’t be showing you, but since you found Mrs. Elbee’s body and all.” She gestured for me to follow as she banged through two swinging doors and looped around to the other side of the building. “I’m telling you, Chloe, un-freakin’-believable.”
I knew Sherilyn well enough not to push for more. She was all about dramatic revelation. She kept a huge collection of horror movies at her 1800’s Southern Antebellum house, and she preferred to watch them alone—with all the lights turned out.
We finally entered a small, dim room loaded to the gills with audio-visual equipment, computers, monitors, and a tangle of wires. But the main attraction was Sherilyn’s irreplaceable asset: Charlie West. Sitting on a blue exercise ball and perched in front of a computer screen, he watched as numbers and symbols flashed before his eyes in rapid succession. Upon our entrance, he slammed a finger down on the keyboard, stopped the progression, and twirled to face us. I had to repress my surprise at the thickness and distortion of his glasses. Without them, Charlie was a remarkably handsome, light-skinned black guy with jutting facial bones and a body that could launch a hipster clothing line, but with his intense, almost frightening eyes—now magnified fivefold—and his nervous tics, he would hardly be a photographer’s dream.
“Chloe, long time, no interface,” he said in his usual clipped speech. With no artifice, he looked me up and down twice, his mouth twitching to the left while his bug eyes lingered longer than social norms allowed. After rocking his head back and forth a few times, he said, “You look defeated, and in desperate need of a good night’s sleep. You should try this new tea I created. All-natural, even if the FDA says otherwise. Brings on the alpha waves and knocks you out. You won’t even stir if an intruder breaks in.”
It would never occur to Charlie, whose brainwaves were undoubtedly off the charts, that oblivion to intruders might be a problem for a swamp-dwelling, single female.
“Remind me to give you a pouch of it before you leave,” he said.
“Will it make me look less defeated?” I said.
He shrugged. “Might get rid of those bags under your eyes.”
“You dating a lot these days, Charlie?” I said with sarcasm that he missed.
“Believe it or not, no.”
“Hm, who’d a thunk it?”
Sherilyn put an end to our banter. “Did you eliminate the distortion in the video, Charlie?”
He whipped his head around to her and they shared a manic grin. “Looks like we caught ourselves a couple murderers, Sherilyn. Pretty as a picture and scary as heck.”
Sherilyn gestured to a huge monitor in the corner of the cramped room. “Let’s cue it up over there.”
Charlie rolled his seat to the corner and brought the screen to life.
“What are we about to see?” I asked. “Do I need any set-up?”
“Remember that amulet Mrs. Elbee was wearing when you found her?” Sherilyn said.
“Of course.”
“Turns out it had a built-in video camera.”
Charlie spun his head around. “Serpent’s view!” he shouted. “The amulet had two tiny snakes on it, and the camera was in the left snake’s bejeweled eyes. How cool is that? Remotely activated. Previous content was uploaded to somewhere, but this final scene, and I do mean final”—Sherilyn cackled at that—“was inaccessible because the camera was underwater.”
“Don’t tell me we’re about to see—”
“Yep!” Charlie said.
The video began and I heard the familiar, loud voice of Mrs. Elbee. The scene show
ed an unsteady view of her bedroom, as if someone were pacing with a low-quality, hand-held camera. First it would show Mr. Elbee’s bureau—the one that contained the family pictures—and then it spun dizzyingly to show the door to her master bathroom. The top inch of a slim red candle hovered in the forefront of the shot. Mrs. Elbee must have been pacing while wearing her amulet. She was talking to herself, as usual, and most likely holding that stupid brass candlestick.
“Look, Macy,” Mrs. Elbee said on the video, “the afterlife is not so scary. I’ve been reading about it, and my husband loves it there—we chatted in a dream just last night. Did you know they have boats there that run without water? Imagine, Macy! Imagine that. A dry-land boat.”
“It’s called a car,” Charlie interjected.
“Good one,” Sherilyn said. “Now hush.”
Grace Elbee continued speaking. “Mr. Elbee will show you around, Macy. You just need to go to him, y’hear? It’s time.” Her voice grew more frantic, and the candle began to tremble. “You’ve got to go! You hear me? Just go! You know how I feel. I won’t go over it again. Now git!”
The camera closed in on the bathroom door, which opened, and suddenly, we were looking at the interior of Mrs. Elbee’s bathroom. She hummed a bit to herself, and in the next shot, her face filled the screen, blurry at first, but then the snake eye camera must have focused in on her reflection.
I gasped. Wow. Talk about looking defeated. Life had clearly trounced Mrs. Elbee in her final week. Looked like she could use all the tea in Charlie’s stash.
“She’s in front of the mirror,” I said, mostly to myself, somewhat in awe as I tried to understand what was happening.
Charlie hit pause. “It gets a little disturbing from here on. You sure you want to go on?”
“Of course she does!” Sherilyn said, smacking Charlie on the shoulder.
I nodded, the gesture conveying a weak and unconvincing yes.
Charlie pressed Play again.
Mrs. Elbee leaned to the left, mumbling while rummaging through a drawer.
I could pick up snatches of phrases: read about this; power of reflection; universe; your destiny.
When she fully faced the mirror again, she was holding a thick tube of toothpaste. She reached high up on the mirror and started to write Macy’s name, saying quite clearly, “Power of reflection, shine out into the universe. Go, Macy. Find your destiny.” When she finished, she gazed at her work, looking both proud and unburdened.
“There,” she said. “That ought to help. Ought to help, indeed.” Then, as if writing dead girls’ names on mirrors was just another daily task completed, she reached over, grabbed her toothbrush, and started to brush her teeth. Oh sure, perfectly normal to send a frustrated spirit out into the netherworld, and then stare through the spirit’s name while cleaning your gums and evaluating your skin and wrinkles.
A series of small noises rang out in the background. Mrs. Elbee’s face reacted in subtle ways but not with fear. At the fourth noise, she turned her head, cocking an ear in the direction of the sounds. Hearing nothing else, she gave a half-shrug and returned her attention to her foaming mouth.
She turned on the faucet and let the water run while hitting her back molars. Finally, she leaned over to spit, and when she rose back up—
“Holy moly!” Sherilyn shouted. “Great quality, Charlie!”
“Oh my God!” I screamed as the camera fully refocused. “That’s—”
“So much clearer now,” Sherilyn was saying. She gave Charlie a friendly smack on the arm.
Charlie had frozen the video on Mrs. Elbee’s shocked face, framed by the minty G of LeGrange. Behind her and to the right, near the final lower-case e, stood a tall, scraggly, divot-faced dude who looked like he’d already seen the inside of a casket—or at least the inside of an emergency room on occasion. Worst of all, I knew him. Zeke Carver.
To Zeke’s left, over Mrs. Elbee’s other shoulder, stood a woman. Fewer divots, greasy blond hair, and in desperate need of a burger—preferably super-sized to match her dilated pupils. Her sunken cheeks made the skin on her face look like poorly-hung sheers, and any spark of life in her had long taken shelter in the crazed azure of her irises.
“That’s Zeke Carver,” I said. “I had a scary encounter with him, and he and his brother were at my house to fix my foundation.”
“I hope he’s better at foundations than at pulling off crimes,” Sherilyn said.
“I wouldn’t know. I booted him and his brother out under threat of testicle removal.” They both glanced at me, so I explained. “I don’t like smokers.”
“My guess is he smokes more than Marlboros,” Charlie said. “I’ve seen him hanging around Boyd’s. Always loitering outside, looking shifty. Never met him, but it’s hard to forget someone this gangly.” He poised with his hand over the computer mouse. “Here goes nothing.”
He clicked Play and I felt my body stiffen from stem to stern. I’d never watched a snuff film and I sure didn’t want to start now. Sherilyn, on the other hand, gripped my arm and leaned forward, eager and excited.
Onscreen, Mrs. Elbee didn’t scream or show the alarm that would have overtaken normal people. Instead, she slowly turned around until her amulet brought the bony woman into focus. Then Mrs. Elbee’s age-spotted hand reached out and stroked the woman’s hair, pushing a few stringy strands behind her ear. “You’re so much older now, Macy. Still pretty, though.”
The woman snorted and grinned, revealing zombie-like teeth. “Yeah, sure,” she said in a voice that held traces of youthful sweetness, before harsh chemicals had stripped her vocal cords dry. “Why not?” She guffawed and twirled around the bathroom, waving her hands in the air. “Look at me, I’m Macy! I’m Macy! I’m a fucking Thanksgiving Day Parade.” She nearly doubled over laughing and the gesture couldn’t be described as anything but graceless.
“You need to go, Macy,” Mrs. Elbee said calmly. “I’m glad you came, but you need to move on, okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll go,” the woman said. “Fact is, I think you’re going with us, right, Zeke? Won’t she be coming with us?”
“That’s right, baby,” Zeke said. “That’s right.”
A wet, choking sound filled the next audio portion of our entertainment. The focus of the camera jerked back to the mirror, revealing Zeke’s grimy arm around Mrs. Elbee’s throat in a choke-hold position.
“Oh my God!” I shouted. “He’s killing her! He’s killing her!”
“Nah,” Sherilyn said, casually plucking a fuzz from her jacket. “She really did drown.”
Mrs. Elbee’s face, fully visible in the mirror, turned red and seemed to swell. Her small hands tried to pry away the arm locked tight around her neck. Though I couldn’t see the lower half of her body, I could only imagine that Zeke was lifting her into the air while her feet kicked futilely below.
Drool dripped down Zeke’s chin as ten seconds turned to twenty. It landed on the side of Mrs. Elbee’s neck. He no doubt smelled vile and deathly. Perhaps it was a silver lining that Mrs. Elbee couldn’t inhale whatever horrid odors were wafting off him.
Zeke’s own breathing soon grew ragged, his eyes turning spastic, as his arm squeezed the struggling Mrs. Elbee.
While his prey suffered, he gestured with his head toward the message on the mirror. “Ha! That’ll work as a suicide note, don’t you think, Etta Lee?”
“I don’t see why not,” Etta Lee responded.
She entered the shot immediately after as she swiped the L of LeGrange, cutting a finger-wide slice through it. A moment later, she could be heard smacking her lips together and laughing. “Fucking spearmint suicide note.”
In the interim, Mrs. Elbee went totally limp against Zeke, who had finally loosened his grip. In what had to be an undignified exit from the bathroom, we heard only scratchy sounds and grunting while getting an eyeful of blue cotton blend. The amulet must have gotten tucked behind Mrs. Elbee’s blouse.
The next shot showed a ceiling. The assailant
s had presumably placed Mrs. Elbee on her bed. An elegant light fixture, purchased with lottery winnings and the promise of a bright future, filled most of the screen—until Zeke stuck his face in. Gravity took a grotesque toll on his skin as he looked down at Mrs. Elbee from above. His unkempt, overlong hair fell forward like a menacing hood.
“Charlie, turn it off!” I shouted. “I can’t watch if he rapes her.”
“No, nothing like that,” Charlie said, his composure off-putting as he waved away my concerns.
Zeke’s face jiggled in the unsteady frame as Mrs. Elbee began to cough. She was coming around. Zeke held up a tiny pill, no bigger than the tip of a pinky nail. “Now yer gonna have yerself a nice sleep, y’hear?”
“She don’t look tired, Zeke,” Etta Lee said.
“Etta Lee, sometimes, I swear, you’re dumber than a bag of rocks.”
“What is that?” I said to Charlie. “Can you zoom in?”
“Already confirmed,” Charlie said. “Ambien pill. Ten milligrams. He gives her forty.”
“Forty pills?”
“Forty milligrams. Definitely enough to knock out someone as small as Mrs. Elbee, especially if she’s not used to them.”
As promised, the video showed—or provided the sound effects of—the despicable Zeke forcing pills down Mrs. Elbee’s throat. She tried to fight it, but it looked like he clamped her mouth shut. At one point, a cup of water flashed into view, handed from Etta Lee to Zeke, and it was empty by the end of the sequence.
Five unbearable minutes passed, most of which Charlie fast-forwarded through. Zeke and Etta Lee were either unnaturally quiet during the interval, or they’d left the room and done God-knows-what God-knows-where in the house, probably having secured Mrs. Elbee to the bed. I thought back to the dirt Chad and I had found near Mrs. Elbee’s staircase and bed. At least now we knew its source.
When Charlie stopped fast-forwarding, Mrs. Elbee was still alone—and still awake. She was mumbling to herself in a barely audible whisper, no doubt pondering her fate, when Etta Lee returned alone and peeked down at her. The picture bounced a bit as Etta Lee must have seated herself on the edge of the bed. “Hey, Lady,” she said, “you mind if I have these?” She dangled two diamond earrings above Mrs. Elbee.