The Abbey (a full-length suspense thriller)

by Chris Culver

  “What can you tell us about her death?” asked Olivia. I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees.

  “Rachel came over at four this afternoon while my Mom and Dad played golf. She’s not very good at math, so I was tutoring her. We did that for a while and then we played a video game.”

  That at least sounded like my niece. She played with my family's Nintendo Wii more than my daughter did.

  “Okay,” said Olivia, nodding. “What happened after you guys played a game?”

  Robbie looked down again.

  “Rachel got sick in the bathroom. I don’t know what happened. Then she died.”

  Olivia nodded, her eyes boring into the top of Robbie’s skull. He never looked up.

  “So she puked and then she died. And you have no idea why.”

  Robbie didn't answer, so Olivia opened the file folder in front of her and began to pull out pictures. They were probably the originals of which I had copies. She laid them in an array in front of Robbie. His lower lip quivered, and his lawyer put a hand on his shoulder.

  “I think we’re done here,” said Meyers. “If you have any need to question my client further, I expect you to call me at my office.”

  Meyers stood, but Robbie didn’t move.

  Olivia pressed one picture under Robbie’s gaze. It was a headshot of my niece. Her eyes were closed, and rigor had contracted her face into a grimace.

  “I bet she was a pretty girl,” said Olivia. “At one time.”

  “She is pretty,” said Robbie, a tear streaming down his cheek. “I loved her.”

  “This interview is over,” said Meyers, his voice strained. “Get these cuffs off my client. Unless Robbie is under arrest, we’re leaving.”

  Robbie didn’t move. Meyers said the interview was over, but it wasn’t his call. If his client didn’t want to take advice, there was no reason for Olivia to stop.

  “Look at her, Robbie,” said Olivia, tapping the picture she had slid toward Robbie. “If you don’t tell us what happened, we’re going to cut her open, we’re going to photograph her, and then we’re going to put her on display. Is that how you want to remember her?”

  Robbie didn’t say anything, but a tear slid down his cheek. Olivia continued.

  “We haven’t found the girl’s underwear, and I know you redressed her. If you don’t tell us what happened, this girl you supposedly loved will be forever known as the bimbo who died with her pants down in your bedroom. Is that what you want?”

  I winced. I’m not a prude and nor am I naive. Rachel was seventeen and had apparently been dating the same boy for two years. Of course they were having sex. Rana wouldn’t see it like that, though. Hopefully we’d be able to keep that detail out of the papers.

  “Don’t say anything, Robbie,” said Meyers. “Let me handle this.”

  For a moment, I thought Robbie was going to take his lawyer's advice, but then his lips started moving. No sound came out for a few seconds.

  “She wasn’t supposed to die,” he said. His voice was so soft I almost didn’t hear it above the ambient room noise.

  “No, I’m sure she wasn’t,” said Olivia, matching Robbie’s voice. Meyers rubbed his brow, his eyes closed. Olivia ignored him. “What happened? Did you have some kind of accident?”

  Robbie closed his eyes, his lips moving before he spoke.

  “Rachel was a Sanguinarian.”

  “I’m sorry?” asked Olivia.

  “She drank blood. She drank part of a vial of blood. That’s when she started puking. Then she died.”

  Robbie didn’t say anything after that. I took a deep breath. As a detective, I’d been to more death scenes than I cared to remember, thirty–four of which had turned into criminal homicide investigations. Even with all that experience, this was my first vampire. I doubted Hallmark made cards to commemorate the occasion.

  “Okay,” said Olivia. “Let’s start at the beginning and go from there.”

  Chapter 2

  Olivia and Robbie went back and forth for the next two hours. Robbie admitted redressing and dragging Rachel from the bathroom after she died, but he claimed he wasn’t trying to cover anything up. He just didn’t want his father to see her naked. Bottom line, he denied killing my niece or supplying her drugs, and I believed him. When a suspect lies, he usually pauses every few seconds or asks his interviewer to repeat questions, giving him time to think. Robbie never did. He was smooth, and he never stumbled. That left me unsure what to think. Teenage girls don’t die without cause.

  Even though I was confused, Robbie hadn’t wasted our time. He claimed he and Rachel had purchased the blood from a club in Plainfield, a suburb west of town. The blood was supposed to have some sort of anticoagulant in it that kept it from spoiling. I wasn’t a blood expert, so I didn’t know what to think about that. My guess was that it had something else in it, too. Our lab would find out for sure, though.

  I was still in the watch room when Olivia dismissed Robbie. She joined me a few minutes later, carrying a cup of coffee in each hand and yawning. She handed me a cup.

  “You should head home,” she said. “It’s late.”

  I nodded, taking a sip of the coffee and wishing I hadn’t as soon as it touched my tongue. It tasted like it had been sitting around for a while.

  “Coffee hasn’t changed since I was last here,” I said, glancing at the cup. “I think I might have made this a couple of years ago.”

  “Probably close,” said Olivia, sipping hers. “I’ve got an autopsy scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. We’ll know more then.”

  I put my cup on a table.

  “Rachel needs to be buried as soon as possible afterwards, preferably right afterwards. It’s our custom.”

  Olivia nodded.

  “I’ll tell Dr. Rodriguez. We’ll do what we can.”

  I thanked her before heading to the parking garage. I was in my car at ten after one in the morning and in my driveway fifteen minutes after that. The lights were off in the house, but I saw the flicker of a television in the front room, which meant my wife had probably fallen asleep on the couch waiting for me.

  I didn’t go inside immediately. Instead, I closed my eyes and allowed myself to sink into my cruiser’s seat. It had been a long day. I reached to my glove box and pulled out a pint of bourbon. I took two long pulls. The liquid burned down my throat and into my stomach. I closed my eyes and stayed like that for a few minutes, watching the colors and shapes swirl behind my eyelids, waiting for the liquor to hit me. I took another long drink before capping the bottle and sticking it back in my glove box.

  A Realtor would say my house had charm; that meant it had plumbing and electric systems that predated Roosevelt’s tenure as president. It had nice woodwork, though, and it was big enough for my family. More than that, I was a part–time law student, so the house was all my wife and I could afford until I graduated.

  I slipped through the side door that led to our kitchen and immediately went by the hall bathroom. I rinsed with a generic, green mouthwash to cover the smell of liquor on my breath before going to the living room. My wife, Hannah, was asleep on the couch. I muted the already low sound on the television and put my hand on her shoulder, gently waking her up.

  “Hey,” she said, blinking several times. “You back for the night?”

  I nodded.

  “Is the munchkin asleep?” I asked.

  Hannah yawned and nodded. Neither of us said anything for a moment.

  “You smell like mouth wash,” she said.

  I looked away from her.

  “It’s been a long night,” I said. “You ready for bed?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “What was the emergency?”

  I kept my eyes on the floor.

  “We’ll talk tomorrow morning,” I said. “I’m going to say goodnight to Megan, so I’ll meet you in bed in a moment.”

  I followed my wife halfway down the hall but stopped outside my little girl’s room. She was so small that her legs barely made
it halfway down her bed, and her brown hair was spread out on her pillow like a halo. A plastic night–light by the door created stuffed–animal–shaped shadows along the wall. She looked like her cousin. I swallowed the lump in my throat, staying in the doorway so I wouldn’t wake her up.

  The floor creaked as I turned to leave, and Megan’s eyes fluttered open.

  “Baba,” she said, rubbing her eyes. She put her arms out towards me. She was so sleep addled she probably wouldn’t remember it in the morning, but I tiptoed in and kissed her forehead as she gave me a hug.

  “Hi, pumpkin,” I said, laying her back on the bed. “Try to go back to sleep.”

  “Ummi says you were catching bad guys tonight,” she said.

  “I was, but I’m home now.”

  She yawned.

  “I want to catch bad guys, too,” she said.

  “Some day, honey,” I said. I pulled her blanket up so it would cover her chest. She folded her arms on top. “Try to get back to sleep now.”

  “If I helped you catch bad guys, would I see you every day?”

  I kissed her forehead again.

  “I’ll try to be home more often, honey.”

  “Good,” she said, squirming. “Can you stay here for a while? I think there are monsters out there.”

  “Sure,” I said, sitting beside her bed and knowing full well that there were monsters out there. “I’ll be right here.”

  ***

  I intended to sit with Megan until she fell asleep, but I must have fallen asleep myself because Hannah woke me up at around seven the next morning. Megan was still out, so we let her sleep and went to the kitchen. Hannah poured me a cup of coffee and sat across from me at the breakfast table. Since we had a moment, I told her about Rachel. Hannah took it stoically; it was her way. While we were talking about what to tell Megan, she walked in the room. We did our best to explain what had happened. She didn’t understand, but she would eventually.

  Hannah called my sister at shortly before eight and started making arrangements. When a Muslim dies, a couple of things have to happen. The deceased has to be ritually washed at least three times. Rana, Hannah, and some of the older women in our community would do that. They’d also comb her hair and put perfume on her. After that, they'd cover Rachel with three white sheets, and we'd bury her on her side facing Mecca. Since we don’t embalm our dead, everything had to happen as soon as possible.

  Once Hannah got off the phone, I called my boss and said I wouldn’t be in that day. She knew the situation, so she didn’t question it.

  Hannah, Megan, and I had morning prayers as a family, but I wasn’t really into it. I rarely was. I called Olivia an hour later on the phone in my home office. I heard a low murmur in the background when she picked up, and I could make out the occasional clink of glass against glass as dishes banged together.

  “Olivia, it’s Ash,” I said. “Sounds like you’re in a soup kitchen.”

  “The Acropolis,” she said. That explained the noise. The Acropolis was a Greek diner near the County Courthouse downtown. It served pancakes as big as hubcaps and was a popular spot for lawyers and cops alike. “You had breakfast yet?”

  “No, but I can’t eat there anyway,” I said. “They fry their pancakes and bacon on the same griddle. How’d things go after I left?”

  Olivia grunted, or made an approximate feminine version of a grunt.

  “Not as well as I had hoped,” she said. I leaned back in my heavy, oak chair. It creaked in that satisfying way only antiques can. “We took a drug dog through Robbie Cutting’s house, but we couldn’t find a damn thing.”

  That was disheartening. Our drug dogs were pretty good. A guy I know on the K9 unit took one to a local high school a couple of weeks back. His dog was able to find marijuana seeds wedged in the back seat of a kid’s car. The kid had smoked the pot weeks earlier, but he still got caught. If there had been drugs at Robbie’s house, the dog would have found them.

  “What are you up to now?” I asked.

  “I plan to finish my hash browns if you let me,” she said. “After that, I’m going home to take a nap because I’ve been up all night. I got Rachel’s autopsy bumped to noon, so she’ll be released to your family by two or three.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “My sister will appreciate that. You think this case will go anywhere?”

  Olivia grunted again.

  “I don’t know if it’s even a criminal homicide,” she said. “I’ll find out more and let you know.”

  “Please do,” I said. “Kids don’t just die. I want to find out what happened.”

  “Me, too,” said Olivia. Before hanging up, she told me to tell Rana and Nassir that she would do her best for their daughter. I told her I would.

  Hannah, Megan, and I spent the rest of the day with my sister and her husband. Nearly every family from our mosque came by. It was a long day, but true to Olivia’s word, the Coroner’s office released Rachel to us by two. She was prepped and ready to be buried by four. By five, the ceremony was over and my wife and I were driving home, too shell–shocked by the whole experience to talk.

  ***

  The next day was Sunday, and I was back at work. Since I was with the Prosecutor’s Office, most of my assignments were about as entertaining as watching CSPAN. That day was no exception. My boss asked me to babysit a pair of crack heads who were scheduled to testify against their dealer on Monday morning. My job was to keep them sober and out of jail. Unfortunately, that meant I had to watch cartoons with them for eight hours straight in a low–budget hotel by the airport. By the time my shift ended, my mind was jellified.

  On my way home, I went by a sports bar and had a beer with a bourbon chaser. I probably would have had a few more if my wife wasn’t expecting me. Olivia called as I finished my drinks.

  “Ash,” she said. She paused. “Are you in a bar?”

  Somebody saddled up to the counter beside me and bellowed for a Budweiser.

  “Yeah,” I said, clearing my throat. “I’m in a bar.”

  Olivia paused again.

  “I didn’t think Muslims could drink.”

  “If God didn’t want me to drink, he wouldn’t let children die,” I said, laying a ten on the bar and motioning at it to the bartender. He nodded, and I stepped through the crowd. Technically, Olivia was right. Alcohol is forbidden for non–medicinal purposes. I figured that since I was self–medicating, though, my use was justified. Two men were smoking outside the bar's front entrance, so I went to my car and shut the door. “What’s going on?”

  “I thought I’d call to give you a heads up about a few things,” she said. “I haven’t got autopsy results from your niece yet, but we’re operating under the assumption that her death is a criminal homicide. I’m going to talk to some of her friends at school tomorrow, and I want you to be there. I think they’d be more willing to talk to you than to me.”

  “Cause I’m a man?” I asked, unsure what she was getting at.

  “Because you’re a Muslim,” she said. “And I figure most of her friends are, too.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that too much. Rachel was about as pious as I am, and I’m at a bar,” I said. “I doubt she has many Islamic friends, but if you still want a second body there, I can get the morning off.”

  Olivia paused for a moment, presumably rethinking her invitation.

  “No, I’ll still take you,” she said, finally. “How about if I swing by your place at nine?”

  “That’s fine. I’ve got class at one, but that should give us time.”

  Olivia agreed that we’d be done by one and hung up. I drove home. Hannah usually kisses me as soon as I walk through the door, so I told her that I had onions with lunch so she wouldn’t. I rinsed with mouthwash in the bathroom and then called Rana and Nassir from my office.

  It was one day after their daughter was buried, but they were holding up well. Indianapolis doesn’t have a large Islamic community, but we’re close. Two families from the mosque had b
rought over dinner, and I suspected Rana and Nassir already had a freezer full of casseroles. I asked if they wanted me to come over, but they said they were fine.

  My family had dusk prayers and then we ate dinner. After that, we watched Animal Planet until Megan went to bed. Since I had a class the next day, I studied for about an hour. Realistically, I needed another two hours to be fully prepared, but after my past few days, I was dead to the world. I’d have to wing it. Hannah and I went to bed at about ten.

  The next morning came early when a pair of sticky hands shook me awake. I don’t know how my daughter always had sticky hands, but she somehow managed it.

  “Baba, Baba!”

  My eyes fluttered open to see Megan’s straight, brown hair and brown eyes. The blinds were still drawn, but it was dark enough outside that I knew it was before sunrise. I glanced at the alarm clock. A little after six. My daughter beamed at me, as if proud to wake her father up before any sane man should ever rise.

  “Ummi made breakfast.”

  “Did she?” I asked. I reached over and tickled her shoulders through her Winnie–the–Pooh pajamas. She squealed in delight and ran back to the kitchen screaming, “Baba’s up. Baba’s up.”

  I swung my legs off the bed and shook my head, hoping to clear it of any residual sleep–induced fog. The house was still cool, so I threw a robe over my pajamas before making my way to the kitchen. Hannah was standing in front of the stove, a spatula in one hand and the handle of a skillet in the other. Like me, she wore a bathrobe, but unlike me, she had already showered. Her hair was matted and wet against her neck.

  “Morning, dear,” I said, yawning and pouring myself a mug of coffee. Hannah had a gift with coffee, but not in a good way. The liquid I poured into my cup was so black it could probably bend spacetime like a black hole. I smelled it, trying to hide my wince and hoping it hadn’t singed my nose hair. Hannah’s black death six AM roast. If it doesn’t wake you up, you’re probably already dead.

  I poured a generous serving of half–and–half into mine and sipped. I don’t know how, but my wife drank her cup straight.