Deeper Than the Grave (9 page)

Suddenly I figured out why I'd rated a personal one-on-one tour. Score one for Marisa.

“His name is Trey Seaver,” I said, pulling out one of my own cards and scribbling his contact information on the back. “And he's a premises security genius. You'll see.”

Evie smiled at me. Transaction completed.

“Thank you,” she said, gesturing firmly toward the exit. “This door will take you out.”

Chapter Seventeen

I returned to Kennesaw to find my shop engulfed in a noisy stew of grinding engines and shouting construction workers. A bulldozer worked the square, scraping dirt and brush into a pile, the whole block bordered with yellow tape. I saw Brenda in front of her office putting out a sign—CAUTION! REVITALIZATION IN PROGRESS! She threw me a smug wave. I slammed the door and pulled the blinds, making sure the CLOSED sign was showing.

Then I dumped my tote bag on the counter and got down to business.

After talking with Evie, I'd gone straight to the gift shop and bought everything that had the word “Amberdecker” on it, including the book with Violet's sketches. Her drawings of Braxton captured the softness of his youth, while the ones of the older Nate caught the practical, relentless gaze of a man trying to keep a crumbling world intact. Evangeline's wan beauty was rendered in blurry lines and smudged shadowing. Violet's self-portraits were equally expert, but they felt unfinished, as if she'd cut the process short. Unwilling to look at herself whole.

I paged through the program. I'd seen most of it during my tour with Evie, but the most fascinating part was the photography spread from the Amberdecker dig site, including shots of the bones still tangled in the tree roots. They were mud-smeared and covered with debris, but clearly mottled red, just like Richard had warned me. From the earth to the tomb to the earth again.

Three knocks at the door jolted me back to reality. I frowned as I stood. Trey didn't knock anymore. Neither did my customers. I came around the counter and peeked through the window. Detective Perez stood on my doorstep.

I opened the door. “Good morning.”

Perez trooped inside. “Morning yourself.”

She had file folders under her arm and a harried expression on her face. No daisy-adorned galoshes this time, only sensible heels and slacks. She'd tamed the hair with a headband, but still wore no makeup.

I closed the door on the surging noise of the square. “Can I get you some coffee?”

“No thanks. I have to make this quick.” She reached into a folder and sent a photograph along the counter. “Do you recognize this person?”

The photo showed a twenty-ish man, straw-colored hair in spikes above a lean tanned face. A goatee flourished along high cheekbones and down to a pointed chin, and pale lashes rimmed quartz-chip eyes. He wasn't smiling—the image had the odd posed look and washed-out lighting of a mug shot or a driver's license photo.

I sent the photo back. “I don't know him.”

“Are you sure? Because he used to work here, in this shop.”

“I've only been here eleven months. Maybe if you could tell me more about him, I could help.”

She pulled another piece of paper from the folder. “His name is Lucius Dufrene. He worked for your uncle until he skipped town a year and a half ago, right around the time of Braxton Amberdecker's reburial. Lucius was a thief. Two hits for pickpocketing in Albany, plea-bargained to time served. This is a copy of the police report filed by your uncle after Lucius disappeared.”

I followed her pointing finger. It was a terse write-up, Dexter's statement that he was missing two swords, a shotgun, three revolvers, and a whole bunch of ammunition, all of which was recovered at Dufrene's apartment during the subsequent investigation. The report concluded with an active warrant for his arrest.

“Great. So what's this Lucius person done now?”

“He got himself killed.”

“Can't say I'm surprised. He strikes me as a wrong-place-wrong-time kind of guy.”

“Funny you should mention that.” Her eyes were suddenly sharp, with a whetted, polished gleam like the arrowheads I used to find. “Because it's likely that the skull you stumbled across yesterday belongs to him.”

I closed my eyes. Lord have mercy, I did not need this again. It was bad enough that I'd found yet another corpse—even though that shouldn't have counted against me seeing as how I'd been asked to actively look for said corpse. Or some other said corpse. Suddenly there were too many corpses to keep track of.

“What happened to him?”

“Somebody caved in his skull with that pry bar you found in the woods. And then somebody also—maybe the same somebody—went to his apartment afterward, stirred the place up but good. Looking for something. Which is why I'm here talking to you, since as best we can tell…” Perez consulted her notes. “Your Uncle Dexter was one of the last people to see Lucius alive.”

“No, whoever killed Lucius was the last person to see Lucius alive. The person who went looking through his apartment later. That person. Not my uncle.”

Perez gave me that look, the one that was designed to make me feel like she was on my side. But I'd learned that cops didn't have a side. Their job was to suture the societal fabric that ripped open whenever one human being violated another. All of us—criminals, witnesses, even victims—were dangling loose threads in their efficient hands.

“Ms. Randolph—”

“It's Tai. Short for Teresa Ann. Long story.”

She flashed a smile. “Tai. We found a key ring matching yours on the body. We have reason to believe it belonged to your uncle since we found his initials on it.” She pulled a set of keys with plastic ID tags zip-tied to them. “These are copies the lab made for me. I'd like to try them out in your shop, if you don't mind.”

“Be my guest.” I gestured toward the ash-blond door now protecting my storage room. “That's the only new lock. The rest were here when I inherited the place, so the keys should fit.”

But they didn't fit. Perez slipped the keys one by one into every lock in the place, but none of them worked. As she double-checked, I noticed one looked very different from the others—shorter, more jagged.

“That's not a door key.”

Perez shook her head. “Nope. Not a display-case key either.”

“Padlock maybe?”

“You have one?”

“No. Everything around here is combination lock.”

She returned the keys to their plastic bag. “Your uncle change the locks regularly?”

“My uncle was cheap. If he changed the locks, he had a reason. Which I'm guessing might be because his keys got stolen.” I tapped Lucius' photo. “By this guy.”

She put her hands on her hips. “That guy you conveniently remember very little about.”

“Like I told you, I wasn't here then.” I put my hands on my hips too. “How
do
you know he worked here? I haven't seen Lucius' name on any of Uncle Dexter's payroll statements.”

“Your uncle's report said that he helped out around the store, and I'm guessing it wasn't out of the goodness of his heart.” She cocked her head. “Did your uncle wear his costume when he was at work?”

“It's not a costume, it's a uniform. And no, he didn't.”

“Any idea why Lucius would have been wearing a Confederate uniform when he died? Was he a reenactor like your uncle?”

“A
replica
uniform, I'm sure, and I don't know. But he was also—correct me if I'm wrong—wearing a NASCAR belt buckle, and Dexter wouldn't have tolerated that on the field. He wasn't a farby by any means—”

“A what?”

“A farby. A seriously hard-core reenactor.”

Perez frowned. “Spell that.”

I did. “Farbys constantly nitpick. They're called that because they're always saying ‘Far be it from me to criticize” before they tell you everything you're doing wrong.” I held up both hands. “Don't get me wrong, I love farbys. They're the guys who buy my hand-stitched 1865-style long underwear. But they can be a pain in the ass.”

“Your uncle wasn't a farby?”

I snorted. “Dexter wore Fruit of the Loom under his uniform. But he did believe in presenting as authentic an impression as possible. He would never have allowed Lucius on the field or in this shop dressed sloppy and half-assed.”

Detective Perez didn't lose the pleasant curiosity in her face. “So there were conflicts between them?”

Damn it. There I went again.

I took a deep breath. “Except for Lucius apparently stealing him blind? None that I know of.”

“Did your uncle have any other employees who might remember more?”

“I can check the records for you, tell you if I find anything.”

“That would be very helpful. Thank you.” She headed for the door. “And if you do find something, call me. I'll be happy to return and pick it up.”

She said “happy” with an odd inflection. Of course she'd be happy. She'd be utterly thrilled to come poking around my shop, downright delighted to knit what she found into a story that would hold water, with a solution she could sell to her supervisors and file under “case solved.”

She opened the door to leave, the door bells a cheery jingle in her wake. “Oh, one more thing—I found this on your front door.”

She handed me a piece of paper. The message was folded so that the watermarked KRC showed. The Kennesaw Revitalization Commission. I opened it, skimmed it, felt my ears grow hot.

Without even waiting for Perez to get in her car, I stomped next door. Brenda looked up as I entered, but remained seated behind a two-acre conference table. The walls glistened a saccharine moss green, and spa music flitted from corner to corner, zither and pan flute and harp.

I slapped the paper down in front of her. “What the hell?”

“I see you found your revitalization plan.”

“Paved parking. New sidewalks. I can't afford any of that right now!”

She folded her hands demurely. “You're taking this personally.”

“Damn straight.”

“I don't think we can have a productive discussion until—”

“Admit it. You're trying to run me out of business. That's why you won't let me put a camera on your property, because you
want
me to be robbed and pillaged and burgled!”

Her eyes sparkled, and her pink mouth curved. “Why, yes. I do. You attract the wrong element—you are the wrong element—and whatever happens to you serves you right.” She pushed herself to standing, elbows braced on the table. “I am trying as hard as I can to get rid of you. So why won't you just go?”

I waited for a few seconds. “Are you done?”

“No. I'm just getting started. You have no idea the kind of enemy I can be. Leave. Find somewhere else to peddle your retro wares. The rest of us are marching forward without you and your kind. It's the New South. Wake up and smell the progress.”

I realized I'd clenched my hands into fists, so I took a moment to open them, shake them out. Take a deep breath or two. So we were moving into open warfare. Good. It suited my skill set better than skulking and backstabbing.

I smiled at her. “You'd better watch it, Brenda Lovejoy-Burlington. My kind doesn't like being told what to do, so I suggest you cut this shit out—”

“Or what?”

She said it sweetly, with sugar on top. I smiled wider, without a bit of sweetness in it.

“Or things will get ugly.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Yep. Clear threat. Directed at you. From me. Stay out of my business. Or else.”

I headed for the door, leaving behind the pretentious slab of a table, the pastel-scented air, the unscuffed floor. Brenda scurried after me, her voice pitched high against the bulldozer's drone.

“The next time you park out back, I'll have you towed! You, your friends, even that damn Ferrari!”

I threw a middle finger over my shoulder and didn't look back.

Chapter Eighteen

“And then that bitch Brenda had the nerve to…hang on.” I thumped the computer screen. “Rico? Are you there?”

Rico's voice came through the speakers, but his on-screen image didn't move. “I'm here.”

“You're frozen.”

“That happens with Skype. Just wait.”

I sat cross-legged on the floor of the shop, my laptop in front of me, and dribbled another finger of bourbon into my glass. I was an island in a sea of Dum Dum wrappers and dusty paper boxes, a ham and cheese sandwich balanced on one knee. Rico kept his baseball cap pulled low over his forehead, shadowing his café au lait features, but I didn't need to see his eyes to realize he was a walking hangover. His neon-splattered black hoodie was the brightest thing about him, and it was as wrinkled as a shar-pei.

His screen image unfroze, and he blurred into motion again. He was sitting on the edge of his unmade bed, Fourth Ward Park showing through the window behind him. Martin Luther King, Jr. had walked those streets, preached at New Ebenezer, and usually the area was a colorful tapestry of locals and tourists. It was empty now, for even though the sky was a brilliant blue, the temps hovered in the upper thirties.

I'd been griping. He'd been patiently listening, or seemed to be anyway.

“This isn't the same as face-to-face,” I said.

“So drag your ass down to the East Side for a change.”

“I will, I swear, once this damn audit is done. And this mess with the skull.”

Rico considered. He'd been my best friend since high school, and we'd developed a strong tolerance for each other's idiosyncrasies. We counted on each other for both brutal honesty and unconditional support, and as he'd listened to my story, he'd managed to serve up helpings of both. His final word on the matter was clear, however.

“Skull mess ain't your mess.”

“The cops seem to think it's my mess.”

“That makes it a mess to run away from as fast as possible. You do not want to be hanging around when The Man decides it's time to put the handcuffs on somebody.”

I started to argue as I heard the Ferrari pull up. “Speaking of The Man, mine just arrived.”

“Trey will agree with me. Leave it be, baby girl.” A pause. “Miss you.”

“Miss you too.”

Rico logged off just as Trey came through my front door. He assessed the situation—noting the Jack Daniels bottle and candy wrappers—then paused in the threshold.

“I thought we were going to dinner,” he said.

“We were. But that was before Detective Perez informed me that Uncle Dexter is a person of interest in the case of the grotty skull. Before I went next door and yelled at Brenda, who swears she's going to put me out of business. Before I decided to go through all eleven of these boxes I dragged out of the storage room.”

He stayed in the doorway, briefcase in hand, my new monitor under his arm. “What's in the boxes?”

I swept my arms out. “You are looking at the fossil record for Dexter's Guns and More. You name it, Dexter saved it. Old A&D books. Newspaper clippings. Photographs. Grocery lists.”

Trey put his things down and came over. “Why is everything…”

“Dumped on the floor?”

“Correct.”

“Because Detective Perez asked for all of Dexter's records involving Lucius Dufrene.”

“Who?”

“The guy whose skull I found in the field. Apparently, he used to work for Dexter.”

“So you're…”

“Doing what I'm told, boyfriend.” I reached for the bourbon again, then changed my mind. Maybe I'd had enough bourbon. “Me following orders. Brave new world.”

I waited for Trey to ask another question, make another declaration, voice a complaint. Instead, he took off his jacket and draped it neatly on the back of the chair behind the counter. The holster went next, the dark leather shoulder rig with his H&K and the extra mags, right into my private gun safe. Then he stood and faced me, loosening his tie.

“Would you like some help?” he said.

I patted the linoleum. “Pull up a square of floor.”

***

Trey started by rolling up his sleeves and sitting next to me, thigh to thigh. Paperwork mesmerized him, absorbing him in a zone of almost sensual concentration. I remembered what it was like to be the center of that sustained, unwavering focus, and I almost reached for him. Almost. But then I remembered our agreement.

“This had better be part of your strategy,” I muttered.

He looked up. “What?”

“Never mind. Continue.” I propped my chin in my hand. “I'll watch.”

He eventually created two large stacks—the professional and the personal—breaking those down into smaller piles. Some of Dexter's things fit both categories; these Trey handed to me to make heads or tails of, and I did the best I could. There was an arcane logic to the materials in the box, but it wasn't logic like Trey was accustomed to.

He shook his head in bewilderment. “Why didn't your uncle collate his payroll? Or keep electronic records? Or—”

“I think I just found out why.” I handed him a blue-ruled notebook with rings at the top. “Look at this.”

He opened it and frowned. “What is it?”

“Keep reading and you'll see.”

Trey ran a finger down the columns of names, dates, and transactions, all of it rendered in Dexter's tight, cramped scrawl. “It's an off-the-books payroll.”

“Look at page nineteen.”

He flipped through the pages until he found the list. The month before the Amberdecker burial, my uncle had paid Lucius seventy-five dollars to unload a delivery truck, install new shelving in the storage room, and clean the ductwork. I squinted at the last phrase—which involved a word that looked suspiciously like “bats”—and shook my head. Didn't want to know.

“Dexter kept everything under the table,” I said. “Nothing official.”

“But it demonstrates that Lucius did work here, in some capacity.”

“So make a Lucius pile and stick it in there.”

Trey did. We finished up the remaining materials in the cardboard box and moved to the most daunting task—the photographs. Two paper boxes overflowing with black-and-white shots, candids, studio portraits with Kmart scenery in the background. Uncle Dexter never got rid of a photograph, it seemed, and never spent a penny on albums.

I took a deep breath. “Have mercy, this is going to take forever. There must be fifty years of photos here.”

Trey didn't reply. When I looked his way, I saw him staring at a five-by-seven, his expression puzzled. He cocked his head. “Tai? Is this you?”

He handed me the photograph, and I felt a blush of embarrassment rising. “Aw, hell.”

In the photo, I was sixteen, wearing a white froth of a dress. I was also deep in a curtsy. It's a hard thing to pull off, a proper curtsy. It takes grace, poise, and well-muscled thighs. I'd had none of those things except the thighs. Thanks to all the waterskiing Rico and I had done that summer, I had the quads of a Russian gymnast.

“Is it your prom?” Trey said.

“No. It's the winter cotillion, this pseudo-debutante thing at my parents' country club.”

Trey listened politely, waiting for me to share the story. It was a painful one, however, one I'd always glossed over. But I remembered all the deep things he'd shared with me, and knew I had to try.

“Dad and I had been very close when I was little, but right after I turned thirteen, he started drinking. A lot. Mom said it was because he'd gotten the promotion to department chair, that he was stressed, but…” I hesitated, feeling my voice shake. “Some drunks get loud and mean. My dad got quiet and cold. This ridiculous dress was a last-ditch effort to get his attention. It didn't work. Two months later I got banned from the club for driving a golf cart into the lake, and I never had to mess with that crap again.”

Trey's voice was soft. “I'm sorry.”

“Yeah. It sucked.” I stared at the person I'd been, the forced smile like a mask. “Your dad abandoned you when you were two, mine when I was thirteen. Different methods, but equally effective.”

Trey examined the photograph more closely. “Are you wearing boots?”

“Yep. Black snakeskin. Nobody noticed them until the curtsy.” I managed a half-smile. “Rico bought them for me. They're the thing that got me thorough.”

Trey nodded. Far more than most people, he understood how physical things could be talismans.

We sat that way for a full minute—knees touching, silent. And then he stretched, unknitting the knots in his lats and traps and deltoids, working the tight tendons supple again. He took his time with it. I let him. I knew digging through the dusty avalanche of photographs was going to be sloggy work, tedious and hard on the lower back. But if my uncle's life was about to become an open book for the Cobb County Police Department, I had to know what they'd find there.

Trey pulled the box toward him. “Do you want to sort these? Or would you rather watch me some more?”

I swatted him on the knee. “Don't be getting all cocky. You haven't even come close to seducing me yet.”