The Trouble With Twelfth Grave

by Darynda Jones

  A horn sounded beside me, and I jerked the wheel to the right, snapping out of the dreamlike state Reyes had held me in. Dreaming again. Damn it. I pulled over to the side of the road. To calm my nerves. To catch my breath. Then something hit me. Artemis really was in my lap. She’d seen him. I hadn’t been dreaming.

  Losing the feeling in my legs, I started to scoot her off my lap when Angel popped in, sitting right where Reyes had been.

  “Did you see him?” I asked.

  Angel frowned at me, then laughed when Artemis jumped into his lap. “Who?” he asked between chuckles.

  “Reyes. He was just here.”

  “No, loca, he wasn’t.”

  “It was a dream?”

  He shrugged. “I have no idea. Either way, Reyes wasn’t here. Rey’azikeen may have been, but not Reyes.”

  “Ah, right. You guys love pointing that out.”

  Spotting a lull in the traffic, I pulled back onto the interstate just as my phone rang.

  I answered it. Or I tried to.

  “Where are you?” Cookie asked before I even got a Charley’s House of Butterfly Genitalia out. “Are you okay? Why did you leave?” Cookie bombarded me with questions, not actually giving me time to answer any of them. “Have you read the third book yet? I’ve been calling for hours. Where did you go?”

  I finally had to interrupt her. “I’m fine, Cook. I’m on my way back.”

  “Did you get any sleep at all?”

  “Not this week, but as soon as I wrangle me an ornery husband, I’m hibernating. For, like, a year. Maybe two.”

  She began to calm. “Are you okay, hon?”

  “I should be asking you that. Did you get any sleep?”

  “No. Well, I dozed a little. In your apartment. Robert woke up, found me gone, and put out an APB, but he called it off when I went home. That’s not why I’m calling. You really need to read this book. The last one? It’s about the two stars, you know, you and Reyes. But why does the author call you stars? Why not just come right out with it and call you gods? Does he know what you are? And how did he see all of this?”

  As Cookie prattled on, clearly having had one too many last night—coffees that is—I let a loud yawn overtake me.

  She stopped. “I’m sorry, hon.”

  “It’s okay. I’m listening. Keep going. How did he see all of that. Got it.”

  “Charley, you’re pulled in so many different directions, I don’t know how you do it.”

  “Right? I put in my bid for the Elastigirl serum, so the minute the scientific community gets its act together and creates something more useful than Viagra, I’m set.”

  “Then sign me up, too.”

  “Wait,” I said as the perfect solution hit me like a hurricane. “I’ve got it. Ari and Lola! Get it? For the girls?”

  “No. Okay, that’s funny, but no.”

  “Ah, man.”

  “I like it,” Angel said, contemplating my choices.

  “Thank you. Also, I talked to God.”

  A long silence ensued in which I debated a mocha latte with whipped cream or a mocha latte without, before Cookie asked, “God? As in the God?”

  “The One and Only. He’s very cryptic.”

  “Aren’t they all?” she asked.

  She had a point. Gods tended to be a secretive and mysterious lot. Except for me. I was an open book. Literally now that there was an unauthorized biography floating around.

  “You’re still alive, so the meet and greet must’ve gone well.”

  “Super. I’m no closer to solving our fugitive-husband dilemma, but I now have an eternity to do it. Or a few hours. It’s a toss-up.”

  “Well, okay, then.”

  After assuring Cookie everything was copacetic and I was on my way back safe and sound, we hung up and I gave my full attention to the bloody departed teenager with a Rottweiler in his lap. “What’s up, mijo?”

  “Hector’s gone,” he said, grunting under Artemis’s weight while fending off a thorough face-washing.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Who’s Hector?”

  “Hector Felix? The dead dude you wanted me to investigate?”

  “Oh, right.”

  “Also, I need a raise.”

  “Okay, but only because you asked nicely. Hector’s gone?”

  “Yeah, you know, not on this plane, and I don’t think he went to a good place.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t figure he would. Did you find out anything that will help Pari?”

  “I like her. Does that count?”

  “No, but I like her, too.”

  “So, I think these football players may have killed Hector, but I don’t know for sure.”

  “Really?” I asked, surprised. I took the Central exit and narrowly missed a woman in a yellow Audi who couldn’t decide which lane she wanted to be in. “Oh, my God. Just pick one.”

  “After Hector left Pari’s place, he went to a bar and started shit with these Lobo football players. I don’t think he was the smartest guy.”

  “No, he was not.”

  “All I got from Domino—”

  “Domino?” I asked.

  “Yeah, you know? Domino? The dude who’s always at that bar on San Mateo.”

  “Oh, that one,” I said, infusing my voice with my second favorite-asm: sarc.

  “You met him once. He hit on you, almost blew your cover.”

  “If I had a nickel for every time a departed—”

  “He was a PI, remember? He wears that Hawaiian shirt?”

  “Oh!” I said, pulling into a Java Juice drive-through. “Magnum.”

  “No, Domino.”

  “No. Yes. I mean, he was going through a Magnum PI stage when he passed. I didn’t know he’d been a real PI.”

  “Okay, whatever, he was there that night. Said your guy Hector came in drunk off his ass. The barkeep asked him to leave. He got rowdy. Threatened to kill him and his whole family. So these football players step in, right?”

  “Mm-hmm,” I said, half listening. It was go time. I had to make a decision. I was so bad at decisions.

  “They tell the guy to go home and sleep it off, so he pulls a gun.”

  “Got it. A gun.” My turn was coming fast. It was now or never. I pulled up to the speaker and said with all the confidence I could muster, “Yes, I’d like a mocha grande with … no, without whipped cream. No, with. No. Yes. With. Definitely with.”

  The clerk laughed softly, her voice sweet for so early in the freaking morning. “Can I get you any breakfast?”

  She did not just ask me that. “No. Yes, okay, I’ll take one of those … no, how about a … no, not that, either. Never mind, that’s okay. Wait, yes. Yes, I would like one of those English muffin things with egg and ham and cheese? Or a chocolate croissant. Whichever is easiest for you.”

  She laughed again. “How about both? Then you can decide later.”

  Oh, she was good. “Sold.”

  I pulled around to the window before she could ask me anything else as Angel gaped at me. “What the fuck, Chuck?”

  “What? I’m having a difficult time making decisions lately. It’s called decision fatigue.”

  He continued to gape.

  “It’s a real thing.”

  “You need medication.”

  “I read it on the Internet.”

  “My mom has anxiety. You need to talk to her.”

  I paid the clerk, then turned to him. “Your mom has anxiety?” I asked, suddenly worried. “Why? What’s going on?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Just life. That’s why I need a raise.”

  I made a mental note to check up on her. I paid Angel by putting money in his mother’s bank account. It used to be anonymous, but she found me out a few months back and refused to take my money. Sadly, cash deposits made at night are almost impossible to trace. Especially when the depositor wears a ski mask and rockin’ pair of thigh-highs.

  “Here’s your change,” the clerk said, completely unmoved by the chat I was h
aving with my passenger’s seat.

  “Thanks, hon.”

  We pulled out and drove toward my humble abode-ment just as I got a text from Amber. Her message sent a shiver of worry down my spine. It read, What does it mean when someone you’re investigating threatens to kick you in the face and sell your teeth on eBay?

  I texted her back, using Siri so I could text and drive without killing someone. I’d say it means you may have found your man. “May” being the salient word. Now just figure out his motivation.

  Hers, she texted back. She’s an assistant volleyball coach.

  “What?” I shouted into Siri. I gave up and called the little stinker.

  “Hey, Aunt Charley,” she said, cheery as ever.

  “What the hell? Why is an assistant coach threatening you?”

  “Not me. Petaluma.”

  “Who’s Petaluma?”

  “She’s our special investigator in charge of acquisitions.”

  I blinked in surprise, then asked, “Expanding already?”

  “We have three cases now. How do you keep up?”

  “Sweet pea, do you even know what acquisitions means?”

  “No, but we heard it on a TV show last night. It sounds cool, right?”

  “Totally. I want you to tell your mother everything you just told me. Maybe not the acquisitions part. And tell her to figure out who this assistant coach is.”

  “Oh, I know who she is.”

  “No, tell your mom you want dirt. Greasy, sticky dirt.”

  “Um, dirt. Okay. Is that a technical term I should be aware of?”

  “Most definitely. Ask your mother.”

  We hung up, and I refocused on Angel. “What happened next?”

  “Where were we?”

  “Hector. The bar. The football players. The gun.”

  “Oh, yeah, so Hector pulls a gun, and one of the guys knocks it out of his hands all stealthy like. Then there is this huge fight, and they knock him out. They freak. The owner of the bar tells them to go home. He’ll take care of it. They are all buddies, I guess. He doesn’t want them to lose their careers over some piece of shit like Hector Felix.”

  That guy was seriously disliked.

  “They leave, and the barkeep calls this other guy. Some friend of his, but before he even shows up, Hector wakes up. He tells the barkeep he’s coming back to kill him and that he wants the names of the guys so he can kill them, too.”

  “Dude’s got issues.”

  “But Hector leaves all beat up and covered in blood and shit. Then he ends up dead a few hours later. Interesting, don’t you think?”

  “Very,” I said. “Which bar was that?”

  “They aren’t open. It’s too early.”

  “But they serve food. They’ll have deliveries.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said with a shrug. “Trickster’s on San Mateo.”

  I made a U-turn first chance I got and headed to Trickster’s.

  14

  Some days I amaze myself. Other days I put my keys in the fridge.

  —MEME

  “Where are you?” Cookie asked when she picked up. I was sitting outside the bar, waiting for a delivery truck to show up.

  “I’m at Trickster’s. I need to talk to the owner. Can you get me a number?”

  “Sure. Amber told me what’s going on. What the hell?”

  “Right? Some people, people I like to affectionately refer to as idiots, think they can talk to Deaf kids any way they want without consequences. I don’t know what this chick’s problem is, but I need dirt, Cook. Something with grease that will stick hard enough to get her ass fired.”

  “On it. Now, why are you at a bar at seven in the morning?”

  I explained about the football players and had her scour the Internet for something, anything, that may have mentioned the fight that night. She promised to get back to me if she got a hit.

  In the meantime, Angel left to check on his mother, and Artemis tore out of the car to chase some strange noise she heard in the distance, so it was just me and Misery. Left to our own devices. Would people never learn?

  I grabbed my phone, checked messages, then bought a digital copy of the third book, Stardust, since I’d left the paperback copy at the apartment. I’d barely opened the app to read it when a delivery truck pulled up.

  If Angel had been there, I could’ve asked him if the guy taking the delivery was the bar owner. Perhaps the departed man in the Hawaiian shirt waving at me from on top of the delivery truck would know.

  I motioned him down with a wave of my own, at which point he took Angel’s place in the passenger’s seat.

  He really did look like Magnum PI, if Tom Selleck had been a chubby, balding man in his early sixties. Otherwise, he’d nailed the look. The mustache helped.

  “Charley Davidson, I presume.” He held out a hand.

  I took it. “Domino, I presume back?”

  “That I am, ma’am. That I am. So, you’re really bright. I remember you.”

  “Yeah, Angel told me you hit on me once.”

  “Only once? Must be losing my touch.” He gave me a flirtatious wink and chuckled.

  I laughed with him. It felt good. Not as good as the sip of mocha latte I took, but good nonetheless. “Is that the bar owner from the other night with Hector?”

  “Sure is. Why are you so bright again?”

  Taken aback, I stared at him until he became uncomfortable.

  “So, yeah,” he said, changing the subject, “that’s your guy.”

  “Wait, you really don’t know who I am?”

  “Not a clue, sweet cakes, but we can change that real quick like.” He wriggled his brows, and I laughed softly, trying not to encourage him.

  “Well, that’s refreshing. As far as you know, Hector Felix walked out of the bar alive and well.”

  “Well is a subjective term, but alive.”

  “And the guy the barkeep called? I’m presuming he was called in to clean up a sticky situation.”

  “That was the gist I got, but I had to leave right after Hector did. Had a date.” He blew on his nails and polished them on his bright red tropical shirt.

  “Okay. The barkeep, what’s his name?”

  “Parish. He’s a pretty stand-up guy. Takes good care of the boys, if you know what I mean.”

  “I’m sure he does.” If he was that involved with the football players, he could be providing something more than just pizza and beer.

  I stepped out of Misery and walked up to Parish just as the deliveryman was finishing up.

  “Mr. Parish?” I asked.

  “Just Parish.” He eyed me suspiciously. “Parish McCoy.”

  I held out my hand. He took it after a bit of hesitation.

  “I’m Charley Davidson. I’m a private investigator looking into the homicide of Hector Felix.”

  The man paled several shades, but his emotions didn’t scream guilt. They screamed, That man was crazy and threatened to kill me and my family! I could understand his misgivings.

  “I’m not looking into the incident here. Not closely, anyway. I know you’re friends with the football players. Do you believe any of them would have cause to come back and kill Mr. Felix?”

  “Besides the fact that he threatened their families? Their careers? No. Not at all.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes, but I’m more interested in the man you called after.”

  The stunned expression on his face told me he could not imagine where I was getting my information from.

  “Someone else was there that night, Mr. McCoy. Someone you didn’t see.”

  He ran a hand down his face in frustration and stepped back to sit on a cinder block ledge that lined the bottom of his establishment.

  “I have no intention of telling the police what happened if the events of that night didn’t play into Mr. Felix’s death, but I need to know for certain. Do you still have the recording?”

  “No.” He coughed into a hand, and I could see his whole life
flashing before his eyes. Not literally. He just had that kind of stress humming underneath his surface. “No, I erased it.”

  Now he was lying. Finally, a bargaining chip. “I’ll tell you what, Mr. McCoy. You let me see the recording, and I won’t involve the police even though my uncle is a detective for APD.”

  He paled even further. With shoulders slumping and hands sweating, he led me into his bar, a clean if not outdated watering hole. Then again, maybe disco was coming back.

  “Dude, you have to ditch the mirrored jukebox from the ’70s. Otherwise, nice place.”

  “Thanks.” He didn’t mean it. I could tell.

  We walked to a back room, where he showed me the footage from seven nights ago. Sure enough, Hector Felix was making a grand nuisance of himself. At one point, he got in the barkeep’s face, waving a broken bottle at him, threatening to cut a bitch. Either that or he was telling the barkeep he had a cup itch. Since he didn’t look like he wore athletic gear, ever, I leaned toward the former.

  My lipreading kind of rocked.

  Then came the gun and the football players, and, sure enough, one of them disarmed Hector with a move that one learned in the military.

  “That guy,” I said, pointing at the tall African American with the most incredible biceps I’d ever seen. “What’s his story?”

  He shrugged. “Military brat. His father taught him that move, if you’re wondering. He ended up with a full ride because he’s a badass tight end.”

  “No shit.” Man, he had an ass. “You sure seem to know a lot about these guys.”

  “I don’t have a family. They’re all I got. I treat ’em well. If that’s a crime—”

  “Not at all, Mr. McCoy.”

  He wasn’t lying, and he truly didn’t believe any of his boys would have gone after Hector after the fight.

  “I’ll need their names and any contact information you have on them, just in case. And I’ll need a copy of this recording.” Before he could argue, I brought up another touchy subject. “What about the guy you called to take care of the situation?”

  He bit down, not wanting to drag him into it.

  “Mr. McCoy, I will keep you out of this if I can, but I do need the whole story.”