The good news is that, apparently, even feeling like a victim has its upside. It made me think like a victim, and thinking like a victim, I just naturally thought about Vera Blaine.
What if Vera’s death didn’t have anything to do with Jefferson Lamar?
I wrote this at the top of a new page.
What if Lamar was just the unlucky sucker who got blamed? What if no one wanted to frame him? What if . . .
I chewed on the end of my pen, thinking about the right way to word my question so that it would stay clear in my head.
What if someone really just wanted Vera Blaine to die?
This was not a new thought. It had first occurred to me during the long, restless night. When I finally gave up even trying to fall asleep, I went into my kitchen, grabbed a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia (it was Quinn’s favorite, but since it didn’t look like he was
going to be around to eat it any time soon, I figured I might as well), and went through the police file about Vera’s death one more time.
This time, I read her obituary carefully and found out she was the daughter of George and Natalie Blaine, that she didn’t have any siblings, that she had once been a Girl Scout, and—most important—that she was buried right there at Garden View.
Which explains why I was at the cemetery a full hour and a half before I was supposed to meet with Ella.
I flicked on my computer and looked up Vera’s burial information, found the section and grave number, printed it out so I wouldn’t forget, and headed outside. That early on a Friday morning, there weren’t any visitors around, but I heard the hum of the motors as the grounds crew cut the grass.
They were working in the oldest sections of the cemetery. I headed in the other direction and found Vera’s grave tucked between a row of evergreens and a bank of rhododendrons long past blooming. It was marked by a simple blush-colored slab of granite with the inscription: OUR DAUGHTER, VERA BLAINE. 1962-1984
.
There was no mention of murder.
As ready as I’d ever be, I rubbed my hands together, drew in a breath, closed my eyes, and whispered, “Vera?” Yeah, I’ll admit it, I felt goofy standing there trying to communicate with the dead. Until I reminded myself that if anyone has the right, it’s me. I carry the burden of this stupid Gift. The dead bug me all the time. The least they can do is show up when I need them.
Only Vera didn’t.
I swallowed down my irritation and tried again. “Vera, it’s me, Pepper Martin. You might have heard about me over on the Other Side. I need to talk to you.”
No answer.
Before I could even stop to think about what I was doing, I found myself wishing Dan Callahan was around.
Right before I told myself to get a grip.
What? I’ve never mentioned Dan? Well, that’s hardly surprising. Dan’s basically the reason I got shot back in Chicago, so I’m justified having issues when it comes to him. Dan’s also . . .
Honestly, I can’t say what Dan is. He’s a friend. He was almost a lover. He’s been a pain ever since I met him because he lied to me about who—and what—he really is.
Try as I might to think logically, when I thought about Dan, logic flew out the window.
At one time, I thought he liked me, then I figured he was just following me around because he suspected I could commune with the dear ol’ not-so-departed, then I found out he really did like me, a whole lot. Only by that time it wasn’t really me he really liked, it was someone he thought was me, and—
Anyway, the whole thing is pretty complicated. What mattered at this point, though, was that Dan knew a lot about the way the woo-woo world works. If he were there with me, he might have been able to help me scare up Vera. But he wasn’t. That’s because after all that ugly stuff went down in Chicago and I finally confessed about my Gift, I thought Dan would be all over me, ready to tap into it and use my special talents.
Only he didn’t.
In fact, he told me he understood that I needed some space, and some time to recover from everything I’d been through—right before he left the country.
And I’m supposed to stay mad at a guy as sensitive as that?
Warm and fuzzy feelings aside, Dan would know
how to get in touch with Vera, and that’s what I needed, someone who could give me firsthand information about why she’d really died.
I’d already given up hope of that ever happening when a car pulled up the road and parked behind mine. Two people got out, a man and a woman. The man was tall and balding. He was wearing plaid pants and a golf shirt. The woman was dressed in a summery printed skirt and a T-shirt as white as her hair. She was small and so frail-looking, I worried that the next brisk wind might blow her right away. They headed in my direction.
What were the chances I’d just gotten the answer to my prayers? Slim and none, I suspected, but I waited anyway. It must have been my lucky day. The woman carried a bunch of daisies and a bottle of water, and she filled the flower holder next to Vera’s grave and set the bouquet in it.
I stepped forward. “Are you Vera’s parents?”
The woman nodded. “I’m Natalie.” She looked at the man at her side. “This is George. And you . . .” Natalie studied me through filmy eyes. “You’re not one of Vera’s friends. You can’t be. You’re too young.”
“Actually, I work here at Garden View. I’ve been doing some research about Vera. About her murder.”
The word was enough to cause George to wince and make Natalie suddenly look older and as fragile as the flowers in the vase at our feet. George’s expression was rigid. Natalie blinked away a tear. “She was a beautiful girl,” she said. “Everybody loved her.”
“Not everybody.” George didn’t like my comment. I could tell from the way his jaw tightened. Natalie brushed her hand over her cheeks. I couldn’t let that stop me. “The fact that she was murdered pretty much means somebody didn’t like her,” I said.
Natalie shook herself away from the memories, and
with George’s help, she got down on her knees and pulled a couple clumps of shaggy grass away from Vera’s headstone. “Someone went to jail for it.”
“You said
someone
. You didn’t say
the killer
.”
Her head snapped up. “He was tried and convicted.”
“But you don’t think he did it.”
It wasn’t a question, but I hoped they’d answer it, anyway.
“We told the police about Steve,” George said, his gaze fixed to the horizon. “I guess they didn’t listen.”
“Steve. Steve Ganley.” I’d seen the name listed in the file of people who’d been interviewed after Vera’s murder. “He was—”
“She called him her boyfriend.” Natalie rumbled a little
harrumph
, and I knew exactly what that meant. I’d heard my mother use that same tone when she didn’t approve of whatever boy I’d been dating at the time.
“You didn’t like him.” I didn’t care which of them answered, so I looked from Natalie to George.
“Had a temper.” George jingled the change in his pocket. “We told the police that, too. We thought once she moved away from Cleveland and took that job down there at Central State—”
“We thought they’d stop seeing each other. But Vera . . .” As if she still couldn’t understand it, Natalie shook her head. “There’s no accounting for taste. That’s what I always told George. I told him that maybe there was something about Steve we just didn’t understand, some good qualities Vera had discovered.”
“But you never saw any of them.”
The jingling from George’s pocket grew louder. “Never saw much of anything from him,” he said. “He wouldn’t show his face around our place, not after the first time we saw bruises on our Vera’s arm.”
“He hit her?”
Natalie chewed her lower lip. It was up to George to tell the rest of the story. “Vera said it was an accident. She said he didn’t mean it. But I think—”
“We told her she should stop coming back and forth to Cleveland to see him.” Natalie struggled to haul herself to her feet, and I gave her a hand. “We begged her to stop letting him go down to her apartment near Central State to visit. I don’t think she ever listened.”
“So you think he was the one she was meeting at the Lake View Motel that night?” It was a sensitive question, but I couldn’t afford to shy away from it. “Did you tell the cops that?”
“We told the police everything. They said . . .” George shrugged. “They said it wasn’t him.” He swigged his nose. “Doesn’t matter anymore. None of it. Not anymore.”
I didn’t argue with him, even though I knew he was wrong. What really mattered was that he’d given me another piece of the puzzle that was Vera Blaine’s murder, and another name I could check in the file I’d left at home.
Until then, I went back to the office and got back on the Internet. I didn’t know if the Steve Ganley I found in the Cleveland phone book listing was the same man who’d once bruised Vera Blaine’s arm, but I intended to find out. I wrote down the business address listed, tucked the paper in my purse, and met Ella in the conference room to go over the details of the art show.
She was predictably ecstatic about the idea, and when she volunteered to do all she could to help promote the event, I wasn’t about to argue.
I had other things to take care of.
I left Garden View and stopped at Monroe Street long enough to let my team know I had someplace to go and I’d be back in an hour or so. All would have gone as planned if they hadn’t just planted a couple shrubs. The
dirt was newly turned, the sprinklers were on, and my feet went out from under me. My purse flew in one direction, and I went down in the other. In a heap, right in the mud.
Absalom was standing close by. He grabbed my arm, and with one hand, lifted me out of the muck.
I looked down and groaned. Mud covered my khakis and caked the once-pristine emerald green shirt I’d worn with them that day.
“You say you had somewhere to go this morning?” Sammi cringed when she looked at the filth that covered me. “I might have something in the car you could put on.”
I knew better than to say yes, but what’s that saying about desperate times and desperate measures?
Within ten minutes, I was wearing a denim skirt that would have been short on Sammi. On me, it was minuscule. On Sammi’s small frame, the purple T-shirt with St. James emblazoned on it would have been snug. On me, it was just about obscene.
I squirmed. “I can’t go out in public like this!”
“I dunno.” This from Reggie, along with an appreciative look that made my skin crawl. “You’re looking pretty awesome!”
“Pretty something. But not awesome.” I tugged at the skirt.
“You’ll be fine.” Absalom had rescued my purse from the mud, and he wiped it down with a wet paper towel. When he did, it opened, and the paper I’d tucked inside it at Garden View fluttered out. He picked it up, looked it over. “Steve Ganley?”
“Steve the Strip Man?” Reggie darted forward and plucked the paper out of Absalom’s hand. “You’re going to see Steve the Strip Man?”
I wasn’t liking the sound of this, but I wasn’t about to back down, either. Not even when Reggie looked me
over one more time, whistled below his breath, and said, “You’re dressed just right!”
I
was hoping Steve the Strip Man refinished furniture. Or painted cars. Those hopes were dashed when I pulled up to the address on my computer printout and saw a hot pink neon sign that said: THE THUNDERING STALLION, A GENTLEMAN’S CLUB
.
I laid my head on my steering wheel and groaned.
It was early, but according to the sign up front, the Stallion thundered twenty-four, seven. When I walked in, there were a couple men sitting at the bar and a girl on stage in a G-string, sequined pasties, and stilettos so high even I wouldn’t wear them. She looked bored, and hardly old enough to be there. The dozen or so guys in the audience didn’t seem to care.
The beefy bouncer at the door pointed me in the right direction, and I found Steve Ganley in a corner pouring over a pile of papers. He was a middle-aged guy with a paunch and a comb-over. There was an open bottle of scotch on the table in front of him.
He looked up briefly when I approached. “Auditions only on Tuesdays,” he grumbled.
I tugged at my skirt. “I’m not here to audition.”
I guess he didn’t believe me. I guess I couldn’t blame him. He sipped his drink and looked me over. This time he paid more attention. To the skirt. To the top. To the way every inch of Sammi’s outfit hugged every inch of my body in ways nobody’s body should be hugged. Unless the body in question belongs to a body who’s selling her body. “You sure?”
At least if I sat down, there’d be less of me to ogle. I slipped into the chair across from his. “I’m here to talk to you about Vera Blaine.”
His eyebrows were bushy and met in the middle of his forehead. They dipped. “She ever dance here?”
“You used to date her.”
In spite of the sign in living color right above his head that said it was illegal to light up in a public establishment in the state of Ohio, Steve pulled out a cigarette and a silver lighter. He fired up, took a drag, and blew a stream of smoke. “She’s dead.”
“I know that. That’s why I’m here. I’m trying to figure out who killed her.”
Anybody else would have mentioned that Jefferson Lamar was convicted of the crime and asked why the hell it was any of my business, anyway. Not Ganley. All he said was, “It wasn’t me.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“Why else would you be here?” He poured another inch of scotch into his glass, downed it, and plunked the empty glass on the table. “I had an ironclad alibi.”
“Because . . .”
“Because Vera and me, we hadn’t seen each other in months. She was pissed at me, see. She said I was irresponsible, that I’d never amount to anything.” He looked around and chuckled. “If she could see me now, huh?”