Dying Echo: A Grim Reaper Mystery (Grim Reaper Series) (12 page)

“No, that will be fine. I—we—have an appointment at nine.”

“Okay. Should I eat breakfast first? Or will we be eating there?”

The poor boy. He had no idea what he was asking. “Eat first. You won’t want even one bite at the place we’re going.”

He nodded, looking at his car, his keys, the sidewalk. “You sure I can’t—”

“
Goodnight
, Eric.”

He stopped speaking and studied the car key like it held the answers to the universe. “Goodnight, Casey.” He got in the car and pulled slowly away. From the shape of his silhouette as he drove, Casey could tell he was watching her in his rear view mirror.

And then he turned the corner and was out of sight.

Chapter Fourteen

The house didn’t smell like tamales.

It smelled like cleaning solution. Not the same combination as at her mother’s house. More like how she’d left Ricky’s. Clean and fresh, and sterile. No actual life. Not even a fern.

Casey had dreaded that first step into the kitchen, the room she entered from the back door. She’d used the key from the garage, the one hidden under the tee ball stand Omar had never had the chance to break. The key slid in easily, and the doorknob turned like it had been used daily over the past two years.

The kitchen felt strange. Not strange as if something were wrong. Just…alien. No familiar odors. No well-worn articles of clothing strewn across the backs of chairs. No food crumbs or dishes on the counter. It was a show home, which was what she’d wanted Ricky to make it into. Something that could be bought and sold, as if it meant nothing more than a piece of paper declaring it real estate.

She wandered into the living room. Again, nothing personal. No pictures of her family. No
Taste of Home
or
Hapkido Times
magazines on the coffee table. No shoes left in the middle of the room. There was an afghan on the back of the couch, one her grandmother had made. But that held only memories of her childhood. None from the years with her own family. Omar had been too tiny for the heavy blanket, which had been crocheted for Casey’s father, a large man who favored black and hunter green. A memory did float up of a child-made fort, made with Ricky, the afghan serving as the roof. It had been too heavy to stay up, and she and Ricky had fought about how best to use it in their construction. For some reason she’d inherited it when her dad died. Nobody had ever really used it since.

She went through the front hallway and stared up the hardwood steps. The upstairs. That was where the real test would be. The answer to whether or not ghosts did exist. She took a deep breath and started up, running her hand along the smooth railing. As she climbed, her heart raced—a sure sign of anxiety, as it would take hundreds of stairs to make her body react to mere physical activity. She paused halfway up, taking in the smooth white wall, where there used to be family photos displayed. Now it was a testament to Ricky’s hard work and care for her home.

She continued up until she hit the landing. Straight ahead was the bathroom, where she’d given Omar countless baths. More than once she’d gotten as wet as he had, when he had splashed and played. He’d always loved those times in the warm water, with Casey or Reuben blowing bubbles to entertain him. The little bath cushion was gone now, and the baby shampoo and wash had been replaced with Bath and Body Works bottles. The mirror was free of spots, and the only thing on the counter was a ceramic liquid soap dispenser. The towel even looked unused, as if it were there just for looks. Which it was.

Casey stood in the hallway. Which should be first? The bedroom she had shared with Reuben, where they’d spent countless hours talking, sleeping beside each other, and, of course, those other things Geraldine had been going on about with her Arthur? Or Omar’s bedroom, where she’d spent those late nights and early mornings when he’d woken up hungry or over-tired or teething? Come to think of it, why should she go in either?

Because if she was going to spend the night, she would be sleeping in one of those rooms, unless she wanted to spend the night on the couch.

She’d slept worse places.

She went back downstairs and sat on the sofa. Her stomach rumbled. She went to the kitchen and looked through the cupboards. Completely empty, like she was Old Mother Hubbard. The refrigerator was unplugged, so of course it was empty. There was nothing—not even a can of beans—to eat. She went back to the living room.

She could order out for pizza. Or Chinese. Or walk down to the 24/7 convenience store and get one of those crappy burritos and an Icee.

Or she could just tough it out till morning.

She drank some water from the spigot, lay on her back, and pulled her father’s afghan over her. She should be tired. It had been a late night, and an emotional day. She was in her own home after being on the road for two years. That in itself should be exhausting. She closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing. In and out, even, deep, slow. Counting sheep. Counting stars. Going through the alphabet, naming different kinds of food for each letter.

She opened her eyes.

The refrigerator was clean. Just warm. She plugged it in. And then she put her shoes back on, grabbed her wallet, and walked out the front door.

“Midnight snack?” Death sat on the front step, holding an electronic tablet and watching an episode of
Everybody Loves Raymond
. “This family drives me crazy. If I were a part of it I’d shoot myself.”

“Go right ahead.”

Death pushed a button and the show disappeared. “Wow. You’re not any nicer in the middle of the night than you are during the day.”

“It’s not like you shooting yourself would do any harm.”

“True.” Death stood and stretched. “So where are we going?”

“
I
am going to the convenience store.”

“Burrito?”

“I was thinking frozen pizza. Or maybe some rotisserie chicken, if they have some this time of night.”

Death made a face. “Sounds wonderful. I think I’ll stay here where I won’t die of food poisoning.” Death turned the tablet back on, resuming the
Raymond
episode where it had left off. “Maybe you’ll find someone of your type there.”

“What type would that be?”

“Honestly?”

“No.”

Casey left Death and walked toward the store, which sat at the end of the street several blocks down. The night was quiet, and hardly any lights glowed behind curtains of the neighboring houses. She and Reuben really had picked the family part of town. No late-night partiers or guys hanging out on the street with their hot rods and beers. The few lights she saw were probably for parents up with babies. She turned her mind away from that thought and broke into a jog. She hadn’t gotten a run for a couple of days and she was feeling it.

When she reached the store she kept going. It was the middle of the night, but she was still wearing the blue warm-up suit, after all. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well exercise. She headed down the hill toward the lower side of town. Alicia’s side. She remembered Alicia’s address from the information on the job application—assuming
that
at least wasn’t a lie—and glanced at the street names. Alicia lived on a president street. The same names that popped up in every town across the country—Washington, Lincoln, Jackson,
Jefferson
. There it was. Casey found the number on the nearest house and used that to make her way toward Alicia’s place. When she reached it she stood in the middle of the dark street and studied the place.

It looked like a regular house. There was no indication that there was an apartment in the basement. Nothing to say a woman lived there alone, or, as Ricky had stated, that there was anything in the vicinity worth stealing. It was a nice enough house, in a decent location, but not a place Casey would imagine thieves would frequent—it was neither a feast of riches nor a harbor for drug dealers and gangs. Just a dark, quiet neighborhood with lower-middle-class status. The mountains loomed like black sentinels over the roofs, close enough to be seen, and almost felt. Far enough away they weren’t a direct moneymaker. The landlord wouldn’t be able to charge top dollar to a renter, because getting anywhere touristy would mean using public transportation, or taking a long walk, like Alicia used to do every night after work.

A siren sounded in the night, but it was in the distance, and moving away. A car accident, maybe, or a break-in at a house that would be more profitable than these modest dwellings. Still, Casey moved out of the middle of the street, into the shadows. Her light-colored warm-up suit glowed like a beacon under the streetlights, and the last thing she needed was some nosy neighbor calling the cops.

There was no sign in the house that the landlord was awake. No movement. No lights. And no dogs paced the lawn inside the small fence. Casey walked around the house and found what she assumed was Alicia’s door, at the base of a narrow cement staircase. The entryway was free of police tape, and through the small window in the door Casey could see that the interior was pitch black. The door was locked.

Casey ran her fingers over the top of the doorjamb, but there weren’t any keys. She moved several rocks, the small planter on the steps, and one of those ceramic frogs meant for hiding things, and looked underneath. Nothing. She wasn’t surprised—if Alicia was lying about her life and afraid of her past creeping up on her, she wasn’t going to make it easy for anyone to get in. Even if she thought she couldn’t be found, her innate sense of self-preservation would keep her from using any security shortcuts.

Casey turned to walk back up the steps.

A man stood at the top of the stairwell with a baseball bat.

Chapter Fifteen

“Who’s there?” He raised the bat to shoulder level.

Casey put up her hands. In the darkness she couldn’t see much about the man—young or old, strong or weak. But a baseball bat could do damage no matter who was wielding it, especially when she was trapped in a brick stairwell, with no room to maneuver.

“I’m unarmed,” she said. If you didn’t count her feet and hands. Or elbows.

The man held his ground. “What do you want? I called the cops.”

“I’m Ricky’s sister. Ricky Kaufmann. I came to look at Alicia’s apartment.”

The bat lowered a few inches. “You mean Ricky, Alicia’s boyfriend?”

“Yes. The guy you turned in.”

He slumped and the bat tip went all the way to the ground. He leaned on it, like it was a cane, and rubbed his forehead with his other hand. “I didn’t turn him in. The cops wanted to know if I saw anything. I had to tell them. He was here.”

“But you didn’t tell them about the other men.”

“I didn’t
see
any other men. If there
were
any.”

“You really think Ricky did this?”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I can’t believe he would. That’s why it took so long…I didn’t even think about his visit until hours later. He came over to see her often. She introduced him to me, and he treated her really nice. He was a…a good kid.”

“He still is. Can I come up?”

He stepped aside, still holding the bat, but not as a weapon. “I can’t imagine who would…” He shook his head, apparently unable to speak.

“Do you have a copy of your rental agreement?”

“Alicia’s? Sure. In the house.”

“May I see it?”

He considered. “You have ID?”

She pulled out her wallet and showed him. He tilted it toward the light that came from the street. It still had her maiden name, since she hadn’t had to renew her license during the few years she’d been with Reuben, so it matched with what she’d told the landlord.

He handed it back. “So, Casey Kaufmann, why do you want to see the papers?”

“Like you, I don’t believe Ricky killed her. I’m trying to find out who did.”

“You think she wrote it on the lease?” He obviously thought she was bonkers.

“I just want to figure out who she was. The cops can’t find her anywhere, and I think her past caught up with her.”

“You think someone from some other place killed her?”

“It makes more sense than my little brother doing it.”

He spun the baseball bat in his hand and looked up at the mountains. “All right. I’ll show you.”

“What about the cops?”

“What? Oh, I didn’t really call them. I’ve had enough police during the past week to last me a lifetime. They’ve been helpful, I suppose, and I haven’t had any problems with them, but still…” He led her to the side of the house and opened the door.

“You’re not afraid of me?”

“You look pretty harmless.”

A sharp laugh startled Casey, and she jumped. Death, standing in the open doorway, pushed a button on a digital recording device and played back the landlord’s words.
You look pretty harmless.
“Talk about words that shouldn’t go together. ‘You’ and ‘harmless.’ I guess ‘pretty’ is all right, when you get cleaned up. Not now, necessarily. But once in a great while.”