Well, besides the fact that I still had three, possibly four murders to solve and the fact that I still had a missing body and the fact that I was getting terribly worried about my dad. As I sat at my computer in the wee hours of morn, listening to Artemis breathe as she slept at my feet, I did search after search on every database we had access to, both legally and illegally, looking for a connection among the suicide-note victims. It was all I could do at the moment until the sun came up.
Reyes walked up and rubbed my shoulders for a few.
I lifted my coffee cup. “Your father’s blood?” I asked, offering him a sip of my decaf, but he just kissed my head and went back to bed. Osh lay on the sofa, but I got the feeling he couldn’t sleep either. Finally, after the longest sunrise in the history of the world, I picked up my phone and called Denise – my stepmother, for all intents and purposes. I knew she wouldn’t be up yet, but she’d once told me never to call her unless the sun was up. It was up!
“Hey, you!” I said as cheerfully as I could. I woke up Artemis, who groaned in protest and went to sleep with Reyes.
“Charley?” she asked, her voice sandy from sleep.
“The one and only. Have you heard from Dad?”
“No,” she said, perking up. “Have you?”
“Not a word. I need to know where he was staying when he moved out.”
“How would I know?”
“Denise, I will send an army of dead people to haunt you for all eternity.”
And that was when our usual dance, also known as the Tyrannical Two-Step, went downhill. She berated me for five solid minutes, telling me Dad’s leaving was all my fault. If only I’d done this or that or hung the moon or some shit, they would have made it. Instead I made my father’s life a living hell.
Because she had nothing to do with that.
After we hit the five-minute mile marker, I interrupted her. “Are you off your soapbox yet, because I need to do laundry.”
“Your father is missing, and all you can do is sass.”
“Well, it is my specialty.”
“Do you even have a conscience?”
Getting more annoyed by the second, I said, “I used to until it was picked clean by a vulture in polyester clothing.”
After a very long standoff, she finally flinched. “He was staying at the La Quinta. The one closest to you, by the airport.”
Having nothing more to say to her, I hung up. An hour later I found myself, along with a comely man with a newfound respect for my badassness – or possibly just my ass – at the La Quinta on Gibson.
“But I’m a private investigator,” I said to the desk clerk, who clearly hated his job.
“And I’m an ordained minister,” he said in a thick Indian accent. “Doesn’t mean I can get into any hotel room I want to just because I have a little piece of paper.”
“Little piece of paper?” I took out my license and waved it in his face. “This is laminated, I’ll have you know.”
Thankfully Cookie called, because I was about to go Val-Eeth on his ass. I filled my lungs, vowing to use my powers only for good, then said, “Charley’s House of Edible Paint.”
“His boat is still at the docks in South Texas,” she said, her voice panicked. “It took forever for the harbor patrol officer to confirm. I’m calling Robert.”
“Don’t bother. I have to call him anyway to get a warrant to Dad’s hotel room because someone —” I glared at the desk clerk. “— woke up on the wrong side of the Albuquerque, apparently.”
An hour after that little dispute, Ubie showed up with a warrant. He’d also filed a missing persons report and put out a BOLO on Dad’s vehicle. God love ’im. When he showed the warrant to the desk clerk, I smirked. The guy raised his chin and led us to Dad’s room.
“Maybe you should laminate your little piece of paper, too,” I said as he left us. I was such a child. But the moment I walked into Dad’s room, all thoughts of childhood left me. I took a few steps farther in and did a 360, my jaw open, my gaze transfixed.
The air had been sucked from the room and I started to feel light-headed. Page after page, picture after picture, article after article lined the walls in an explosive collage of… me. It was all about me. It started on the south wall in my childhood. Hundreds of pictures, most I’d never seen, were taped up. There were articles, letters, schoolwork, interviews, all about me. He even had pictures I’d never seen from my time in Uganda in the Peace Corps.
I looked at Uncle Bob, questioned him with a gesture.
“I don’t know, pumpkin. I mean, he was asking a lot of questions about you, but not in the way that you think.”
“What does that even mean, Uncle Bob? Look at this place.”
“He was asking if I’d ever seen anybody following you. Keeping tabs.” A quick glance toward Reyes told me he thought Dad had been talking about him.
“He was asking about Reyes? Why? I mean, he met him. Reyes bought the bar from him.”
“It’s not me,” Reyes said, studying the paraphernalia. “He asked me a few questions when we first met. His intentions had been honorable. He cares for you very much. But this is something else. Look at them.”
He pointed to one picture in particular, and both Ubie and I stepped closer. “He’s in this one, and it looks like —”
“A surveillance shot,” Ubie finished for him.
“And this one.”
We followed him to another area.
“See these? They aren’t of you, but of a man. Do you recognize him?”
He was average height, average weight, but it was hard to make out anything else. “I’ve never seen him,” I said as Ubie shook his head. “But that’s —” I leaned closer. Squinted. “— that’s my apartment building. He’s right outside my apartment building.” I pointed to another. “And he’s on my fire escape in this one!” I shrieked. “He’s looking in my window. The camera was on night vision when someone took this shot.”
Reyes slipped a hand into mine when my anger slipped and the ground shook, just barely, beneath us. Uncle Bob stepped back and grabbed hold of a lamp. Not sure why.
“Was that an earthquake?” he asked, astonished.
“Must’ve been,” Reyes said, lifting my chin until our eyes met. “We good?”
I filled my lungs. “We’re good. Sorry.”
“Anger is something I’m very familiar with.”
After offering him a pensive smile, I turned to Uncle Bob. “So, what? Dad is following this guy? Do you think that’s why he’s not picking up?”
“That would be my guess. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. He did tell me he was investigating something and that he would be unreachable for a while.”
“Uncle Bob, why didn’t you tell me that?”
He lifted a sheepish shoulder. “He told me not to. Now I know why.”
“But why is this guy following me?”
“And from the looks of it,” Reyes added, “he’s been doing it a long, long time.” A dimple appeared at one corner of his sensuous mouth. “Not that I can blame him.”
I grinned. “Yeah, but you followed me for a reason.”
“This guy looks like he has a reason.”
“Or he thinks he does,” Uncle Bob said. He was on the phone with the captain. “I’m not really sure what to do here, pumpkin. It’s your dad’s investigation. Maybe we should leave it for now, wait for him to clue us in to what he’s up to.”
“I agree. But for now, I want to know everything he does about this guy.” I sat at the desk and tried calling once again, but Dad’s phone was turned off this time. His battery may have died, and now we had no way of tracking his whereabouts.
“We can triangulate from your earlier calls, pumpkin. If nothing else, we’ll figure out where he’s been.”
I nodded and started sifting through papers.
“Okay,” Ubie said, hanging up, “just don’t remove anything. I have to get downtown.”
“Go,” I said. “We’re good. And thanks so much, Uncle
Bob.”
He walked forward and kissed my temple. “Anytime. And don’t give that desk clerk too much crap. He was just doing his job.”
“I know. But that’s what makes it fun. Wait,” I said, spotting a familiar picture. “I’ve seen this picture.”
Ubie and Reyes took a look. It was of me in Uganda. We were helping a group of refugees to a safe camp we’d set up with fresh water. I was carrying a little girl, her head resting on my shoulder. The memory was one of my more powerful, and I knew why it was of interest to the Vatican. A lion had been attacking villagers, but word soon spread that the lion was afraid of me. That it wouldn’t come near an encampment where I was. I had no idea how that rumor got started. There was zero truth to it, but we began getting new refugees every day.
What I hadn’t known at the time, and what the photographer had captured beautifully, was that the lion stood crouched in the brush to the right of us. I couldn’t see it in the smaller black-and-white Father Glenn had brought, but I could see it now in full color, its amber eyes almost glowing in the setting sun as it watched us.
The shot was spine-tingling and heart-stopping at once. The lion was close enough to reach out and sever my jugular before I even knew it was there. The Ugandans would have taken that as a sign of a miracle. No wonder they thought I was protected.
“Where did you see this?” Reyes asked.
“In the file the Vatican has on me.”
Ubie ogled us both. “The Vatican has a file on you?”
“Didn’t I mention that?”
“As in the actual Vatican in Italy?”
“No, Uncle Bob, the fake one in Poughkeepsie. Yes, the real one in Italy.”
He scrubbed his face with his fingers. “What does that mean?”
“It means someone in Italy has a little too much time on their hands. Go, we got this.”
He nodded absently, then closed the door behind him.
Reyes and I studied Dad’s investigation for a couple of hours. One thing we didn’t find that I was hoping for was a name. An address. Anything. Just weird documents, receipts, pages torn out of an accounting journal.
Finally, Reyes found a card from a storage company buried under a pile of fast food receipts. “Safety Storage, Unit 17-A.”
“We need to check it out, don’t you think?”
“Normally, considering the circumstances, I would say it could wait. But it’s not like your father to decline calls and not check in with someone.”
“Exactly. But, once again, we’ll need a warrant. No way will they let us in there. Unless,” I said, scheming.
Reyes pulled me onto his lap. “How about we grab some lunch and call your uncle. If he can’t get a warrant, we’ll try it your way. Whatever that way may be.”
“Deal. Ubie’s like my own personal warrant man. Some judge must really owe him. Sadly, he couldn’t get a warrant to dig up that grave, but I have a plan.”
We stood and started out the door. “Do you know how terrifying those words are coming out of your mouth?”
“I do. I really do.” Before I could elaborate, a high-pitched shriek hit me from my left.
“Charley!”
I jumped at least a mile. Jessica ran up to me, her arms flailing. “My nephew. Hurry!” She grabbed my wrist and tried to pull me along with her.
“Jessica, stop,” I said as Reyes crossed his arms and leaned against a post outside Dad’s room. “Stop, seriously.” I jerked out of her grip and rubbed my wrists. Her nails were lethal. “What’s going on?”
“My nephew got hit by a car last night. I didn’t know. I didn’t know until now. Please, help him.”
“Help him?” I asked, shaking my head. “Jessica, I can’t save people. Unless he needs help with his homework, and he’s still young enough that I’d understand it, I can’t help him.”
“Please, Charley,” she said, pleading with tears streaming down her face. “He’s in critical condition. They don’t expect him to live. He’s – he’s everything my sister has left.”
“I didn’t know Willa even had kids.”
“She only has the one son. They’ve been trying, but – Please, just try to help him.”
I gave Reyes my best sheepish slash apologetic brows. “Do you mind?”
“It’s your world, Dutch.”
Since we had no idea how long we’d be, we grabbed tacos and sodas from Macho Taco on the way to the hospital. I was a little concerned with his compliance, his willingness to come on this mission. He seemed curious, and I realized he wondered if I could do anything to help the kid. He’d been testing me for days. This was just another test of my abilities.
Sadly, everyone was about to be very disappointed. Just like I could not save my father from cancer, I could not save this boy from his injuries. But Jessica was certain I could. After all the years of her snide remarks and derision, I wondered why I was helping her at all, but this wasn’t for her. Willa was nice when she wanted to be. We’d gotten along for the most part, besides that one fight to the death I had to break up between the two of them.
“Jessica, if he’s in ICU, they won’t let me in. You have to be family.”
“Then tell them you’re family!” she screeched, panicking. “Tell them you’re my cousin Kristi from Louisville.”
“And if they want an ID?”
“You lie all the time. You can’t make something up?”
The elevator doors opened, and Jessica pushed me to the end of a corridor, where a very intimidating door stood between us and the patients. Reyes followed along at a slower pace. I pushed the buzzer.
“Yes?” a woman said.
“I’m Kristi. I’m here to see —”
“Dustin!” she shouted.
“Dustin.”
“He’s in number three,” she said as the giant metal doors opened. “You should hurry, hon.”
Jessica’s face fell. She ran forward and I lost sight of her. “Be right back,” I said to Reyes as I stepped across the threshold.
“I saw a Good Housekeeping back there that’s calling my name.”
I nodded and headed for ICU room 3.
I walked around the nurses’ station until I saw a glass room with a big 3 on it. I stopped short. It was full of people. At least a dozen people lined the room. That meant only one thing: Dustin didn’t have long. They allowed only two people in a room at a time in ICU. This could not be good.
“Come on,” Jessica said, urging me forward.
“Jessica, I can’t go in there. Your family is in there.”
“But you have to. You have to touch him or something, right?”
“Jessica, honey, this is not what I do. I don’t heal people. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come.”
As I stood talking to her, I noticed a little boy sitting in a chair outside the room. He looked scared and lost, and I knew that had to be Dustin. Jessica had disappeared back into the room, so I walked up and sat beside him.
“Hi,” I said.
He didn’t look up.
“I’m Charley. You must be Dustin.”
I wasn’t too worried about what people thought. Everyone in the area was pretty busy. Nurses worked at their stations, and visitors visited with either a patient or each other. So I didn’t feel the need to take out my phone. Plus they weren’t allowed, so it would have done me little good.
“Your aunt Jessica is really worried about you,” I said, looking over my shoulder inside the room. “Everyone is.”
“Am I dead?” he asked.
I craned my neck and looked at his monitor. “It doesn’t look like it. Your heart’s still beating, so that’s a good sign.”
He finally looked up at me. “But I’m going to die, right?”
Damn it. I didn’t know what to tell him. I’d never been in this situation, talking to someone just before they actually passed. “I’m not sure, hon. I hope not.”
“I hope not, too. My mom is so sad.”
“I’m so sorry this happened to you.�
��
He lifted a small shoulder. “It’s okay. It was my fault. I was riding my bike and fell off right into the street. Stan Foyer says I’m a klutz. I guess he’s right.”
“Stan Foyer’s a doody-head.”
Dustin looked up and me and laughed. “He is, huh?”
“You know it.”
We high-fived before he grew serious again.
“Why are you so bright?” he asked.
“It’s part of my job. I help people like you.”
The blue in his irises glittered in delight. “Like an angel?”
“Well, kind of, but not really. I’m more at the other end of the spectrum.”
“Can you help my mom?” he asked. “She’s going to be really upset when I die.”
My heart constricted painfully in my chest. I felt Reyes near. He must have come in incorporeally to keep watch. I glanced around until I found him. He nodded, urging me to go inside. To see what I could do, if anything. And for this brave kid, I would.
“I’m going to step inside real quick,” I said, grabbing a nurse’s stethoscope off a workstation nearby. I wasn’t dressed for the part, but hopefully the stethoscope would serve as an all-access pass.
“Are you going to touch her? That’s what you do, right? I don’t want her to be sad. I’ll be fine.”
The backs of my eyes stung and I had to turn away. After a moment, I knelt in front of him. “I’m going to touch her. She’ll be okay.”
“So, I can go now?”
I looked at the monitor, growing worried. “Can you hang on just one minute more? Just to make sure this is going to work?”
“Okay.”
I stood and slipped inside the room, going straight for the monitor. Dustin’s loved ones stepped aside as I passed. They were sniffing, touching him, waiting for the inevitable. I fought past their grief, the weight of their sorrow like a boulder on my chest. My lungs stopped working. I tried to block their emotions, but they were too strong.
Struggling for air, I pretended to press a few buttons on the monitor, not daring to actually touch anything. Then I turned to the pale boy, so tiny and frail in the huge bed. His head had a bandage around it and his face was scratched and swollen, almost unrecognizable from the boy I talked to outside.
Seventh Grave and No Body Page 23