Brooke frowns. “I feel like we’re having two different conversations here.”
“I did not invite his attentions,” Avery continues.
“You usually don’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like,” Brooke says. “You never invite a man’s attention. Usually the guy has to harass you into paying attention to him.”
“That doesn’t sound very good.”
“It’s not!”
“It doesn’t sound very good for the men,” Avery corrects herself. “You’re not painting them in a very good light.”
“That’s because you push men to a bad place, Avery,” Brooke says, leaning across the table. “You drive them to horrible extremes just to get your attention.”
“And you think just sitting in their lap is a better method?”
“A thousand times better,” Brooke says, sitting back. “Men like a woman who’s not aloof.”
“Well, the problem with that argument is you seem to think that I’m aloof,” Avery says. “But it’s my aloofness that’s attracting men.”
Brooke stares at her for a second. “I’m confused. How did you turn my words around on me like that?”
“This is not my fault,” Avery says. “This thing with Thane. I tell him not to do it.”
“With your mouth,” Brooke responds. “Your body language is saying something completely different.”
“It is not.”
“It’s saying, ‘Take me, Thane, take me!’” Brooke purred. “That’s what your body is saying every time you’re around him. And frankly, I think you should listen to your body. Give into it. Get it out of your system. Take one ride on the Thane train and then go back to your boring boyfriend. You’ll be better for it.”
Avery frowns. “This is why I don’t take relationship advice from you.”
“Look, if you’re not gonna get yourself some of that, I will.”
Avery points at her sister and says, very seriously, “Do not do that.”
“Hey, it’s not fair to let a man that good looking go untouched,” Brooke argues.
“You have Steven the bartender.”
“For now,” Brooke says. “I told you I’m thinking about moving on and I like the idea of moving onto Thane Grym. I mean, if you’re not going to.”
Avery pokes at her salad. “I have a boyfriend.”
“Which makes me wonder why you’re stressing out over Thane,” Brooke says.
“I have a wonderful boyfriend,” Avery says. “Thane’s like a piece of candy. He might be tasty at first, after eating all that candy all the time; you’re going to get sick.”
“Is candy a euphemism for his penis?” Brooke asks. “Because I don’t think blowjobs can make you sick.”
Avery throws her fork down. “Shut up.”
“What?” Brooke asks. “It’s true. I mean, I suppose you could get lockjaw. I’ve heard of women who have that problem. Not me, though. I don’t have that problem.”
“Yes, everybody in town knows you have the largest mouth,” Avery says dryly.
Brooke looks at her. “Av, it’s just not fair. The man is here to satisfy women and if you’re not going to let him satisfy you, I think I should be allowed to step into the ring.”
“You stay away from him,” Avery says. “That’s for your own good. You don’t know what kind of diseases he caught from Shirley Martinez.”
“So you’re using your sisterly concern as a cover for your intense jealousy?” Brooke clarifies.
“Yes,” Avery says. “Now, let’s focus on work. We need to figure out where Brian and Cindy Mason ran off to. Suicides don’t run. They want to die. That’s why they’re suicides.”
“They get lost,” Brooke points out.
“They do get lost,” Avery agrees.
“But you don’t think that’s what happened.”
“Why was the house a mess?”
Brooke shrugs. “Because they weren’t very organized?”
“We need to start somewhere,” Avery says.
“Probably we should start with dumping Danny the Dead Guy.”
Avery ignores her sister’s suggestion. “No family in the area.”
“Are we sure it’s not a paperwork mix up?” Brooke asks. “I mean, its possible Russell’s still a little pissed off at me.”
“Pissed off enough to send us on a wild goose chase?”
“I did deflower his nephew,” Brooke reminds her.
“Good point,” Avery agrees. “But Russell’s too by-the-book. He wouldn’t mess around like this just to get even.”
Brooke runs a hand through her hair. “I dunno. He’s always seemed kind of weasely to me.”
Avery thinks about it for a minute. “Cindy Mason was a teacher.”
“You think they’re haunting her school?” Brook responded dubiously.
“Well, her husband was an unemployed writer,” Avery says. “We’ve got to start somewhere.”
“Yeah, but at her school?” Brooke scrunches her face up. “I mean, what are the odds of a school teacher haunting her own school?”
“What are the odds of suicides running?” Avery replies.
A skinny man with a buzz cut and a sharp angular face approaches the sister’s table, grabbing an empty chair from a neighboring table. He dresses a bit like a preppy nerd: pressed jeans, a buttoned up white shirtsleeve and a grey sweater vest. His name is Adam Harris.
“Sorry I’m late,” he says, sitting down. In some circles, despite lacking any official authorization from the Council of Reapers, Adam’s considered a grim reaper historian. It’s his own personal crusade to bring the grim reaping community into the 21st Century, transcribing the whole of the Reaper Chronicles to a digital format. “Victor Price had some old, and I mean old, Karloff volumes. And they were in mint condition; they also had the missing Carthax pages. I got a history boner just looking at them. And by looking at them, I mean that he opened the trunk he kept them in and let me look at them from a distance of five feet. He was holding on to a piece of reaper history and he kept it in a trunk. A trunk. An old trunk. Covered in dust. You know who’s read the complete Karloff volumes? No one. Only about one in seven reapers gets to read volumes five and six, which are the only complete volumes still around. That’s horrible. This was gold and that old badger just refused to part with them. I offered him twenty thousand dollars and he turned me down.”
Brooke frowns. “You don’t have twenty thousand dollars.”
“He didn’t know that,” Adam replies pointedly.
“Adam,” Avery says patiently.
He scratches his ear. “You don’t actually care about this.”
“Not a bit,” Avery says.
“You would both benefit greatly from having the entire Karloff collection digitized and available at your fingertips,” Adam says.
Avery holds up her cellphone. “My phone doesn’t even get picture texts, Adam.”
“You should upgrade.” He pulls out his smartphone. “If you get one of these you can download my new Reaper App.”
“You just said two words I know nothing about,” Avery replies. “Download and app.”
Adam sighs. “You know, I’m doing this for the betterment of your community.”
Brooke reaches over and pinches his cheek. “And we love you for it.”
Adam pulls up his notes on his smartphone. “You guys wanted to know about Messor & Decessus.”
“They offered us both staff positions,” Avery says.
“Yeah, you and everybody else,” Adam says. “The grim reaping firm of Messor & Decessus was founded by James Decessus and Mark Messor in the late seventies as part of the big corporatizing of grim reaping. None of us would actually remember that because we hadn’t been born yet, but it was apparently a very big thing. Only a handful of reaper corporations survived the boom and bust in the nineties and Messor and Decessus was one of them. Originally out of LA, they now have satellite offices in Ne
w York City, Dallas and, of course, our little neck of the woods, Century City. And they love to assimilate. In each expansion, the independent reapers in that particular city dropped by almost forty percent. In the case of Dallas, it was fifty percent.”
“What happened to them?” Brooke asks.
“They were either given staff positions,” Adam says. “Or they were run out of town.”
Avery looks at Adam dubiously. “Run out of town?”
“I found three reapers formerly of New York City who told me that they were strongly advised by representatives of Messor & Decessus to find another city for their base of operations, because there wasn’t going to be enough death to go around.”
“That’s illegal,” Avery says.
“Yes it is,” Adam agrees. “But when the Council investigated they found no indication of any wrong doing.”
“They didn’t talk to the same reapers you talked to?”
“As a matter of fact, no they didn’t,” Adam says.
“Well, that sounds kind of suspicious,” Brooke says.
“You would think,” Adam agrees. “But no one on the Council felt that way, mostly because none of the wronged reapers came forward and there was no official record of them, you know, being wronged.”
“How did you find them?” Avery asks him.
“This is what I’m talking about when I say that the reaper community needs to get an upgrade,” Adam says. “I’ve got thirty gigabits of data sitting on my servers. That’s not even a tenth of the Reaper Chronicles. Between that data and the fact that the reapers in New York are a little more pro-email then they are around here,” Adam pulls out a slip of paper. “These are the three guys. One of them actually even moved her.”
Avery takes the paper. “One of those reapers is here in Century City?”
“Yep.”
“Small world,” Brooke murmurs.
“And getting smaller every day,” Avery agrees.
“Near as I can tell,” Adam continues. “Messor & Decessus like to push the envelope. They go right up to the edge, without ever actually crossing the Council. Or at least, you know, they don’t leave any evidence behind that they did. They have a grand total of zero infraction fines and maintain a perfect score of one hundred with the Council. Plus, they offer a killer benefits package.”
“That part we know about.”
“Did you know they offer retirement?” Adam asks.
“No.”
“Then you also didn’t know that in the last thirty years not a single grim reaper in the employ of Messor and Decessus has actually collected retirement.”
“No one’s retiring?”
Adam shrugs. “It certainly looks that way. Although, I have less than ten percent of the Reaper Chronicles available to me and the human resources department at M&D weren’t very forthcoming.”
Brooke looks at her sister. “Must be a pretty awesome company to work for if no one’s retiring.”
“Must be,” Avery agrees.
Adam gets to his feet. “I have to get going. I’m determined to find a way to get those Karloff volumes.”
“Thanks, Adam,” Avery says. “We’ll mail you a check.”
“No problem,” Adam replies. “One more thing, though. We have about thirty reapers operating here in Century City. Near as I can tell, M&D offered jobs to about fifteen of them. So, you know, be careful.”
nine
Principal Sharon Wards is in her forties with skin covered in freckles and heavy laugh lines etched into her face. Her hair is tied up in a tight bun on the top of her head and she’s dressed in a conservative business suit. She regards the Graves sisters with a wary eye.
“I’m not sure I feel comfortable discussing this with two complete strangers,” Principal Wards says. “I’ve had some negative experiences with private investigators in the past.”
“I can assure you, Ms. Wards,” Avery says, “we’re not looking to sully Cindy Mason’s name. We just want to help the family.”
Principal Wards frowns. “Mrs. Mason didn’t have much family.”
Avery nods. “Yes, we understand she only had her sister up in Connecticut.”
“Her parents died a few years back,” Wards offers.
“Cindy’s uncle was very upset to learn that his niece had committed suicide,” Avery says. “He just needs to understand what happened so that he can have some closure.”
Principal Wards hesitates, her gaze flicking back and forth between the sisters. “It’s an odd thing to hire private detectives for,” she says.
“Honestly?” Brooke speaks up for the first time. “Her uncle has some serious concerns regarding whether or not Cindy actually committed suicide.”
Principal Wards nods her head. “Well, I can certainly understand that,” she takes a deep breath. “Her death came as quite a shock to us all.”
“She didn’t seem like that kind of a person?” Avery prompts.
“Not at all,” Principal Wards says. “Cindy was a bright, cheerful, young lady with a sunny disposition. Her students loved her. Her coworkers loved her. Her husband loved her.”
“And yet she and her husband killed themselves.”
“So soon after they were married, too,” she adds sadly.
“I beg your pardon?” Avery asks.
“You weren’t aware? Cindy and Brian were married two months ago,” she says. “That’s one of the reasons it was such a shock.”
“One of the reasons?” Avery prompts, pushing the issue of the marriage to the side for the moment.
“Well,” Principal Wards starts, “you know how these things go. It’s always the last person you’d suspect who ends up doing something like this,” she pauses, searching for the right words. “There were no warning signs. Cindy worked here for six years. She never had any problems with depression or anger. She was, by all accounts, a very well-adjusted woman.”
“Obviously not well-adjusted enough,” Brooke says.
Principal Wards glares at her. “Cindy was a hopeless romantic. She fancied herself a princess in search of her prince. She thought that she had finally found her prince in Brian.” She looks at Avery. “Cindy requested time off for next month. She and Brian were going to Hawaii for her birthday. Ms. Graves, I ask you: who gets married, makes plans to visit one of the most romantic getaways in the world and then kills themselves?”
Avery waits for a calculated minute. “Ms. Ward, my partner and I are inclined to agree with you. It does seem very suspicious.” Avery pulls out a notepad and pretends to check it. She looks at the Principal. “How well did you know her husband?”
“Brian?” she asks. “I hardly knew him. In fact, no one really knew him, including Cindy.”
“I’m sorry?” Avery asks.
“Brian and Cindy’s love affair was very sudden,” Principal Wards explains. “Up until about two months ago she had been dating a young man named Philip,” she pauses. “What was his last name? I think it was Brown. Yes, that’s it. Philip Brown.”
“What happened?”
Wards shrugs. “Cindy broke it off quite suddenly and just as suddenly she was engaged and married to Brian Mason.”
Avery makes a note. “Did you know this Philip Brown?”
“We all knew Philip.” Wards smiles. “Philip and Cindy were high school sweethearts. He was here all the time. He was a delightful young man. We were all a little sad when she broke it off with him.”
“And what about Brian?”
The Principal shrugs. “Cindy brought him around once or twice to show him off. He was a handsome young man, but beyond that, I had no interaction with him.”
“We understand that he was some kind of writer?” Avery asks.
She nods. “That’s what Cindy said. He wrote children’s books. I don’t believe that he had published anything yet, though.”
“Do you know if Brian worked from home?”
“That’s something of an odd question,” she says.
“That’s w
hat I keep telling her,” Brooke agrees.
“We’re just trying to get a better feel for who he was,” Avery says. “Do you know if he had any family in the area?”
Principal Wards thinks it over for a minute. “According to Cindy, Brian had two brothers that lived in town. She didn’t say much else about them. In fact, she almost seemed, I don’t know, embarrassed by them.”
Principal Wards hems and haws for a few minutes, mostly for appearances sake, before finally letting the sisters see Cindy’s classroom.
It’s like any other elementary school classroom. Tiny chairs, small desks, and finger paintings all over the walls.
“Mrs. Harris has her class at recess for the next fifteen minutes,” Principal Wards says.
“We’ll only be a few minutes,” Avery assures her.
She steps back out into the hallway.
Brooke turns to her sister immediately. “Something doesn’t smell right.”
“I know.” Avery walks around the classroom.
“They were just married?”
“You were sitting next to me when Wards told us,” Avery pokes around the desk.
“And who the hell is this Philip guy?” Brooke asks.
“I know,” Avery says.
“This is juicy,” Brooke says. “Very juicy.”
“That’s not the word I would use...”
“You know what I’m thinking?” Brooke asks. Her arms are folded and her face is twisted up a bit. “I’m thinking we’ve got another Raymond Stevens on our hands.”
Avery looks back at her sister.
“You know, the guy that stole those souls,” Brooke explains.
“I know exactly what you’re talking about,” Avery says. “I was there.”
“Well, you had a look on your face.”
Avery shakes her head and turns back to the desk. “It’s not another Raymond Stevens.”
“I think it’s this Philip Brown character,” Brooke continues.
“Just so you know,” Avery says. “I’m not really paying attention to you.”
“I think Philip was so distraught with jealousy that he killed Cindy and kidnapped her soul,” Brooke says. “That’s what I think.”
“Then where did Brian go? I don’t see any reason for a jealous ex to take Cindy’s husband.”
One Stiletto in the Grave Page 5