Grave Delight (A Maddie Graves Mystery Book 3) (10 page)

John ignored him, easily holding Kingston down on the ground as he tried to buck up and dislodge him. “I won.”

“You did,” Nick agreed. “Don’t you dare hurt Christy.”

“Why do you care?”

“She’s been wonderful with Maddie,” Nick replied. “She won’t let her feel sorry for herself and she’s been great with her self-esteem. She’s a very good woman.”

“I like her.”

“You’re not ready to settle down,” Nick said. “You’re a good man, but Christy deserves someone who is willing to settle down.”

John sighed. “Fine. I want you to know that I’m giving up something really good here to keep your girlfriend happy, though.”

“I know,” Nick said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” John glanced down at Kingston, whose face was just about as red as it could get. “Are you ready to answer some questions?”

“I’m not talking to you,” Kingston spat. “You’re the man. I don’t talk to the man.”

“Great,” John said. “He’s paranoid.”

“I think he just doesn’t like you.”

“I have that effect on some people,” John lamented. “I can’t explain it.”

“Let me try,” Nick said, hunkering down so he could meet Kingston’s fervent gaze. “Will you talk to me?”

“You look like the jackhole that tackled me.”

“Is that a no?”

“That’s a no,” Kingston said. “I’m not talking to anyone.”

Maddie picked that moment to reappear. “What’s going on?”

Nick smiled at her, loving the way the sun glinted off her flaxen hair. “Hello, my Maddie. What have you been doing?”

“Talking to Mildred.”

“She’s fun,” Nick said.

“She is,” Maddie agreed, glancing at John’s captive. “What’s going on?”

“I let my brother catch him in exchange for not breaking Christy’s heart,” Nick said. “I want points.”

“You can have all the points in the world.”

Nick wrinkled his nose, fighting the urge to kiss her. “I love you.”

“I love you.”

“I’m going to puke,” John said, grappling with Kingston to keep him contained. “You two are sickening.”

Kingston finally focused his attention on Maddie. “Hello, beautiful.”

“Hi,” Maddie said, smiling. “Are you in pain?”

“Honey, I hurt the second you fell from Heaven and landed on me.”

Maddie faltered. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“He’s saying you look like an angel, Mad,” Nick supplied.

“Oh, well, thank you.”

Kingston grinned. “You’re really pretty.”

“She’s also really taken,” Nick said. “Don’t even think of saying anything lewd to her. I hear you’re a pervert, and she’s already spoken for.”

“I’m not a pervert.”

“You look like a pervert,” John said.

“I’m not the one rubbing his junk against another man,” Kingston said.

John balked. “I … don’t be gross. Are you ready to answer some questions?”

Kingston tilted his head to the side, considering. “I’m not answering any questions you ask.”

“Great.”

“I will let the blonde question me, though.”

Nick and John exchanged a look.

“No way,” Nick said.

“We’ll be right here.”

“I … .”

“I’ll ask him some questions,” Maddie said, brightening. “I’ll be the good cop.”

Nick’s face softened. “You’re the good everything, love.”

“Yup, I’m definitely going to puke,” John said.

“Can I get you something to make you more comfortable?” Maddie asked, sitting down at one of the metal bistro tables in front of the food truck and shooting Kingston a small smile.

John and Nick positioned themselves on either side of the man – just in case he tried to run or go after Maddie – but were otherwise silent.

“I want a hamburger and a Coke,” Kingston said. “I need fuel after this … ogre … tackled me and hurt my knee.”

“You shouldn’t have run,” John said.

“You shouldn’t have chased me.”

“I wouldn’t have chased you if you hadn’t run,” John said.

“I wouldn’t have run if you hadn’t chased me.”

This was getting them nowhere. “Raymond, hey, can you look at me?” Maddie tapped the tabletop for emphasis, studying Kingston’s heavily lined face. His complexion was sallow, his eyes furtive as he cast occasional glances in John’s direction. If Maddie had to guess, she was fairly sure Kingston was getting most of his nutrients out of a bottle these days.

“I like looking at you,” Kingston said, shooting her a grin that had a few gaps in it. “You’re pretty.”

“Thank you,” Maddie said.

“You’re really hot.”

“Thank you.”

“Would you like me to help you bait your hook?”

Nick growled. “She can bait her own hook.”

John snickered at the double entendre while Maddie’s cheeks burned. “Nice, bro.”

Nick glared at him. “Shut up.”

Maddie fought to retain her calm demeanor. “Raymond, no one wants to accuse you of anything you didn’t do,” she said. “We’re just looking for some information. If you answer our questions truthfully, I’m sure you’ll be on your way relatively quickly.”

Kingston didn’t look convinced. “What makes you say that?”

“I have faith,” Maddie said. “Now, Nick here is going to get your hamburger and Coke, and we’re just going to talk.”

“Wait a second … .”

Maddie held up her hand to quiet Nick. “Please?”

He sighed. There was no way he could deny her, especially when she was going out of her way to make all of their lives easier. “I’m only going to be three feet over there,” Nick said, pointing. “Don’t say anything … untoward … to my girlfriend. I’m not going to like it.”

“Hey, she’s an adult,” Kingston said, his eyes twinkling. “She can choose a man for herself. I might be more her speed.”

Maddie made a face while Kingston was focused elsewhere, and Nick fought the mad urge to laugh because she was so adorable. “You’re right, Raymond,” Nick said. “If you can steal my Maddie from me, I guess you deserve her.” He winked at Maddie. “Try to contain yourself, love. You’re going to break my heart.”

Maddie grinned. “I’ll do my best.”

Nick got up from the table and wandered over to the food truck to order Kingston’s food. He kept his ears on the conversation while he leaned against the truck to wait for the order.

“Tell me about Hayley Walker, Raymond,” Maddie prodded. “I heard you talked to her a few times.”

“I’m not sure which girl that is,” Kingston said.

“She was young. She had blonde hair, although it was darker than mine … and shorter. She had big green eyes, and she often wore hoodies and blue jeans. Mildred says she sat on that bench right over there and worked on her homework a lot of the time.”

Nick frowned. Mildred hadn’t told him that. Of course, Maddie had a way with people. She could get them to open up without even trying sometimes.

“Was she the one who always had real books?” Kingston asked.

Maddie nodded. “Mildred says she was different from the other teenagers down here because she didn’t spend all of her time on her cell phone.”

“I remember her,” Kingston said. “She was quiet and kept to herself … except for some of the teenage boys. I would see her talking to them sometimes.”

“That’s what Mildred said,” Maddie said. “Do you remember which boys you saw her talking to?”

Kingston shrugged. “All of the boys look the same to me.”

“That’s because you only like the girls, isn’t it?” John asked.

“It would be unnatural for me to like the boys,” Raymond replied, nonplussed. “I’m not one of
those
guys.”

“Who are
those
guys?” Maddie asked.

“You know the ones,” Kingston said. “They’re the ones who shave their chests and wax their eyebrows and smell like they’re wearing perfume … like these two.”

Maddie pressed her lips together to keep from laughing out loud. “Like these two?”

“They’re clearly
that
way.” Kingston waggled his eyebrows.

“They’re brothers,” Maddie said.

“That makes it grosser.”

“Okay,” Nick said, nodding at the woman behind the counter as she handed him the hamburger and Coke. “That will be enough of that.” He slid the food items in front of Kingston.

Kingston dug into the hamburger enthusiastically. “If you want to hide who you are, I encourage it,” he said. “I would hide it, too.”

“Thank you,” Nick said, moving to the spot behind Maddie and resting his hand on her shoulder. “Answer the rest of Maddie’s questions.”

Kingston nodded happily. “I said I would.”

“When was the last time you saw Hayley?” Maddie asked, hoping to get the conversation back on track.

“I have no idea,” Kingston replied. “The days kind of meld together for me. That’s what happens when you retire.”

“Do you remember the last time you saw her?”

“Yeah,” Kingston said, wiping the corner of his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt. “She was sitting on that bench and she was having an argument with the boy who works at the food truck.”

“Michael Jarvis?”

Kingston nodded. “He’s like these two.”

“Is he saying he’s gay?” John asked.

Maddie nodded.

“Is he really gay, or is he gay like we are?” Nick asked.

“I have no idea,” Maddie said. “Mildred said he was a … poof. I’m not sure it matters.”

“It opens up the suspect pool if she was down here visiting Michael all of the time,” Nick said. “If he really is gay, that shifts his motivations.”

“Meaning they wouldn’t be sexual,” Maddie mused, rubbing the back of her neck.

Nick pushed her hand away and dug in with his own fingers, massaging her absentmindedly. “Raymond, you didn’t hurt Hayley, did you?”

“Of course not,” Kingston said. “I keep to myself. I would never hurt someone.”

“Then why did you run?” John asked.

“When the cops come after you it’s hard to calm yourself down long enough to think,” Kingston said. “It just seemed like the right thing to do.”

John shifted his attention to Nick. “What do you think?”

Nick tilted his head to the side, considering. “I … .”

Instinctively Maddie reached across the table and clamped her hand around Kingston’s wrist, closing her eyes briefly. After about ten seconds, she released her grip. “I believe you, Raymond,” she said. “You need to lay off the drinking, though, and a shower wouldn’t hurt you.”

Kingston smirked. “Thanks for the tip.”

“I’M NOT
sure we should’ve just let him go,” John said.

After another two hours of questions and people watching, and no forward momentum, Maddie, Nick and John decided to call it an afternoon. The three of them were at one of the local restaurants, Maddie snuggled in at Nick’s side on one side of the booth, and John spread out on the other.

“He’s not guilty,” Maddie said.

“You don’t know that,” John said. “Just because he says he’s not guilty, that doesn’t mean he’s telling the truth.”

“We don’t have any evidence to haul him in,” Nick said. “We have no reason to suspect him. Just because everyone thinks he’s a pervert, that doesn’t mean he did anything perverted to Hayley. The coroner couldn’t say with any certainty whether she was sexually assaulted. The water made it impossible to ascertain whether or not she had sexual contact before her death.”

“We could’ve taken him in because he fled from law enforcement,” John said. “That would get him off the streets until we find out the truth.”

“He’s harmless,” Maddie said. “He likes to talk big. That doesn’t make him a bad guy.”

“And you figured that all out just by touching him?” John asked, arching an eyebrow.

Maddie stilled. “I … I just feel it.”

“No, you put your hand on him and then decided he was innocent,” John said. “Is this part of that whole psychic thing you do?”

Maddie’s face drained of color, her heart pounding. “What?”

“What are you talking about?” Nick asked, edgy.

“I know you’re psychic, Maddie,” John said. “I want to know what you saw when you touched him. Did you see his future? His past?”

Maddie’s face was awash with fear and betrayal when she shifted her gaze to Nick. “Y-y-you told him?”

“No,” Nick said, immediately shaking his head. “I would never … .”

Maddie started to slide out of the booth, evading Nick’s hand as he extended it and tried to grab her wrist. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Mad … .”

“It’s fine. I just … have to go to the bathroom.” Maddie averted her eyes from John as she tried to collect herself. “Everything is … fine. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Nick watched her go, worried. Once he was sure she was out of earshot he turned on his brother. “Who told you that?”

John placed his tongue in his cheek, unsure how to proceed. Maddie’s reaction wasn’t what he expected. “I just figured it out on my own.”

“How?”

“There were always rumors about Olivia,” John said. “There were a lot of rumors about Maddie when you guys were kids, too. I ignored most of them. I just … it kind of made sense. She was a skittish kid. When she came back she was in the middle of two murder investigations. Then there’s you.”

“Me?”

“You’re very protective of her,” John said.

“I love her.”

“It’s more than that,” John said. “You didn’t want her wandering off on her own. You were perfectly fine with her questioning Kingston. You believed her without a second thought when she said Kingston was innocent after touching him.”

Nick shook his head, pushing the heel of his hand against his forehead as he thought. “Why would you possibly just blurt it out like that? Why did you do that?”

“I didn’t think it was a big deal,” John said. “You obviously know. You wouldn’t tell me why she left when you were teenagers. Everything just kind of came together this afternoon. I honestly didn’t think she would react like that.”

“She’s scared,” Nick hissed. “Olivia told her people would turn on her if they knew what she could do.”

“What can she do?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Nick said. “Don’t ever talk to her about it again, and don’t you dare tell anyone.”

John held his hands up, surprised at his brother’s vehemence. “I didn’t mean to upset her. I get it.”

“You don’t get anything,” Nick said. “You have no idea what she’s been through. I don’t even know everything she’s been through.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“None of your business,” Nick said, furrowing his brow. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It obviously matters to you.”

“Maddie didn’t want to tell me what was going on when she came back,” Nick said. “She was terrified I would turn on her. She thought … she thought I would walk away out of shame or disgust.”

“I get that,” John said. “You obviously didn’t, though.”

“Nothing will drive me away from her,” Nick said. “I don’t care what she can do. I love who she is.”

“Ah, we’re back to the poetry.”

Nick made a face. “When I was trying to figure out why she would be at a murder scene in the middle of the night I ran her name through the system and came up with multiple hits in police files down by Detroit.”

John waited, curious.

“I called the detective in all of the files,” Nick said. “He wouldn’t say a lot. What he did say is Maddie helped him find several missing people, including children.”

“That’s good,” John said. “She’s obviously good at what she does.”

“He also said that whatever her last case was, it went bad,” Nick said. “She didn’t help him again, and whatever it was … scarred her. She doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“Maybe you should make her talk about it,” John suggested.

“When she’s ready, she’ll talk,” Nick said. “You can’t push her.”

“I wasn’t trying to push her,” John protested. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was going to be such a big deal.”

Nick pinched the bridge of his nose and then started to climb out of the booth. “I need to talk to her.”

“Do you want me to wait here?” John asked.

“That would be great,” Nick sneered. When he started moving toward the back of the restaurant the waitress who had taken their orders stopped him. “Are you leaving, too?”