Grave Echoes: A Kate Waters Mystery (6 page)

The three of them followed Jack up the cracked sidewalk and the three steps to the chocolate-brown front door. Kate retrieved Jev’s key ring from the purse and searched for the familiar shape of her house key. She tried the lock with the one she thought was it, but the key didn’t fit the lock.

“Try that one,” David said, pointing to a shiny silver one. She tried it too, but it didn’t fit either.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked.

“Her house key…I don’t think it’s on her key ring.”

“Are you sure?” said Louise. “That doesn’t seem right.”

“Here,” Jack stuck his palm out. He tried a few keys before handing them to David.

“Why wouldn’t her house key be on the ring?” David said, as if to himself.

“I don’t know, but I do know where she keeps a spare.” Kate lifted the ceramic toad next to the front door and retrieved the spare key. Déjà vu crept in as she thought about her incident in the jeep with Terry. It dawned on her that Terry might have been the last one to see Jev, the last one to see what she was doing, where she was going. Kate turned to see if Terry’s car was parked in the driveway, but it wasn’t. She needed to tell her about Jev. She didn’t know how well Terry knew Jev, but she gathered even if she didn’t know her well, it wouldn’t make telling her any easier.

Kate turned the lock and opened the door. The four of them filed inside the house, one at a time. She decided to put Jev’s house key on the key chain until they could find the missing one; maybe it was on the counter inside or possibly she’d given it to a friend. The pungent, rancid smell of excrement polluted the air; Kate had forgotten about Jev’s cat, Lucy. She guessed she was a cat owner now.

Thick pine green curtains covered the two living-room windows, casting an unpleasant darkness in the room. Kate noticed a lamp lit up the corner that hadn’t been on the other day when she was over. Apart from that, everything looked in order. The coffee cup and plate of crumbs she’d seen were gone too and the end table was wiped clean. Even the bright red pillow she’d seen on the floor had been positioned artfully on the couch. Jev had been home since her visit and had to have seen her note. She headed into the kitchen to see if her note was still on the counter. It wasn’t. So why hadn’t she called? Kate wondered, feeling a cold hurt from Jev’s avoidance of her.

She searched for Lucy’s litter box and set it outside to clean later, then walked back into the living room where her dad, Louise, and David stood, sharing light conversation. It seemed awkward to Kate given what had happened.

Unexpectedly, a soft meow came from the corner and everyone turned their heads to find Jev’s cat, Lucy, creeping out from under the futon.

“Hey girl,” David said, bending down to entice the cat with a jiggle of his fingers. Lucy’s tail quivered high in the air and she stretched her back paws out exaggeratedly before slinking toward him.

“I didn’t peg you as the cat type,” Kate said to him.

“I don’t have a type,” he replied, looking back up at her. “I like all animals.”

“Good answer,” Jack interjected. He came up behind David and set his hand on his shoulder. “I’ve found that preferences get us in a lot of trouble…know what I mean?”

David raised a brow at Jack who smirked at Louise. She shook her finger at him. Kate was relieved to know her dad hadn’t totally lost his sense of humor, but she could tell his protective wall was still up…but then, so was hers.

Kate walked up to the other side of David. “Her name’s Lucy. She’ll be sleeping on your side of the bed. Know what I mean?”

With mocking winks and nods, Jack and David seemed to express a mutual agreement regarding the male rules of triumphant courting. Louise shooed them with her hand and then fell into her comfort zone as a home decorator, turning on lights, pulling back curtains, and straightening the remotes on the coffee table.

“Stop, don’t touch anything,” Kate said curtly. Louise froze, feigning insult with an exaggerated frozen pose. “I just want to leave things as they are for now, how Jev had left them.”

Louise’s pursed lips faded into a forced smile. “I just can’t help myself sometimes. It comes natural, you know.” She held her hands up as if she wasn’t going to touch anything else. Kate detected irritation, but didn’t care. Today, she wasn’t up to playing niceties or good etiquette.

“I’m going to get something to drink,” Louise said, heading toward the kitchen. “Is that okay?”

“Help yourself,” Kate replied.

“Would anyone else like anything?” Louise asked.

“No thanks,” David replied.

“Some water would be great dear,” Jack told her before she left the room. He turned to Kate. “You could try to be a little softer.”

“And she could try to be more understanding,” Kate whispered back. She thought she caught a slight nod of agreement before he spoke.

“Do you want me to grow old alone? Isn’t that what this is really all about? My punishment for having not told you about your mother’s cancer?”

Gifted at spinning an argument, her dad made her feel like the stubborn one all over again. “You didn’t even give Mom a year before you married another woman,” Kate pointed out.

“We were good friends and in the same position. It’s actually what your mother would have wanted.”

Kate felt her anger surge.

David picked up Lucy and turned to Kate. “Do you know where the cat food is?”

“It’s in the laundry room,” she said, pointing towards the garage. He was clearly giving her and her dad some time alone, but Kate didn’t see any point in it; their differences were too great.

She headed to a desk in the opposite corner of the living room. A light blinked on Jev’s answering machine. It didn’t seem like it was her business to listen to the messages, but then Jev’s life, intimate and estranged, had become her business. She pressed play.

“Jev, the herbs you’re looking for are probably Burdock Root and Skull Cap. What are you doing? Some kind of protection spell? All right, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” The line clicked.

Louise heard the unfamiliar voice in the living room and came in to see what was going on. The next message came on, and David joined them, as they all stood around waiting to hear who it was, as if Jev would come on the line, laughing, saying this was all just a big joke and that she was alive and well, waiting for a ride home from a bar downtown. The phone beeped and Sean’s voice came on the line.

“Hey, Jev, it’s me. I don’t feel right about tonight. I think you are taking this all out of context. I need to talk to you. Call me when you get in. Thanks.”

“Oh, that poor guy,” Louise said.

The last two messages were hang-ups. Kate noticed her messages weren’t there. Another sting.

“That’s strange,” Louise said. “Why would someone call twice and hang up both times?”

“Probably a wrong number,” Kate replied, still reflecting on the messages they heard and why hers were erased. But it was Sean’s message that didn’t settle well with her. He had told her about the fight, but hearing it now after everything that had happened, knotted her stomach in a stitch.

“It might not even be the same person,” David said. “Check the caller I.D.”

Kate hit the menu button. Both said restricted. It made her think of a cell phone number and then she remembered Jev’s cell phone was still missing. Kate picked up the phone and dialed Jev’s cell number.

“Who are you calling?” Jack asked.

“Jev’s cell phone.” The phone rang, but no sound emanated from the house anywhere. She flipped her receiver down.

“I’m sure it will turn up somewhere,” David said.

“Probably has a dead battery,” Jack commented.

“Well, what does it really matter now?” Kate said. “Whatever we need, I’m sure we can get from the phone company if we have to.”

“We should start a list of things we need to do,” Louise said, “otherwise we’ll forget.” She reached for a tablet and a pen in her Coach purse.

“That’s a good idea, Louise,” Kate said, looking to her dad. He nodded with a faint smile.

The four of them spent the following hour discussing what they needed to do next: notify other family members, Aunt Mimi in Seattle, her dad’s brother Steve in Colorado, and her friends, then making the funeral arrangements, and deciding what to do with her house and how to disperse her belongings. David suggested they have a wake on Sunday and give some of her things away then to family and friends. Kate agreed, hoping she would be back from Mt. Hood in time.

For a little while, she and her dad had managed to put their differences aside, despite the occasional ill-chosen word. When they finished discussing everything they could think of, Jack said they had to check in to their hotel.

“I’ll be at the Marriott if you need anything.” He moved closer to Kate, his eye keen on her. “We do need to talk, just the two of us.”

Though she didn’t feel like talking anymore, she knew they’d have to…eventually. It was just the two of them now. “I’m going to be pretty busy with Mt. Hood over the next few days, but I’ll call you.”

“You still have my number?”

Kate nodded. He gathered Louise’s coat for her, and then they headed out the door.

David turned to Kate. “Hey, why don’t I give you some time to yourself and get us a couple of sandwiches up the road.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Then eat it later,” he said. “You still need to eat, especially to keep up your strength for the climb up Mt. Hood.”

Kate had forgotten about planning for her trip. David was right. She needed to stay strong, especially with her worsening narcolepsy.

“Okay. Whatever you’re having is fine with me.” Kate gave him a kiss and then watched him leave on foot. She sat down on the couch and sobbed. There was nothing like mourning in private, when one could let the heart bleed aloud, and she did, until her throat felt raw and her mind went numb again.

Afterwards, she felt lighter, awake… alive. She wiped her swollen face and collected herself off the couch, staring up at the wolf painting above the fireplace. Jev’s wild spirit had finally caught up with her, she thought. Now she truly was wild.

With grief shifting to curiosity as she remembered the key she had found in Jev’s purse, Kate headed to the kitchen where she’d set it down on the table. She fumbled through the items at the bottom until she found it, turning it around in her fingers and marveling over its uniqueness, how it was nearly identical to the one she’d seen in her hallucination.

“What do you open?” she whispered.

She went down the hall to where a spare room and Jev’s bedroom were located. Kate imagined the key opened a chest, drawer, or a large diary book. She went to Jev’s bedroom first. Her bed took up the center of the room, quilted in a deep purple and taupe satin. Fancy beads and ribbons decorated the pillows on the bed and above it on the wall were three flowered pictures painted in similar hues. Kate touched Jev’s pillow, where she dreamt at night. It was soft and plush.

In the far corner of the room was a window and a nightstand, furnished with nothing but a clock and lamp. Heaped on the dresser on the other wall were jewelry boxes, glass jars, rocks, candles, and a small Fica plant. Even with all of Jev’s pleasantries, the room still felt cold and abandoned. Kate sat on the bed, looking around, soaking in the unique space Jev had occupied in the world, and searching for something the key might open. There didn’t seem to be anything on the dresser. She checked the doorknobs and a book with a clasp on the front, but nothing seemed to belong to the key, so she left the room and went into the spare room across the hall.

The dark cherry floors and periwinkle walls with dark blue curtains gave the area a mystic, peaceful feel. Jev had turned it into a craft room, equipped with a big table, sewing machine, rock tumbler, shelves full of books, plants, candles, and more rocks. As a geologist, Kate appreciated Jev’s rock collection for their composition and age, but Jev believed healing energy could be tapped from the stones. Kate smiled at the thought. She picked up one of Jev’s favorite opals. She couldn’t feel any magical energy—it just felt cold and hard in her hand.

To her left were two large bi-fold doors. She pulled them open. Inside, more shelves were stacked with jars full of seeds and herbs, ceramic containers, dried flowers, essential oils, and a large wooden box at the bottom. The corners on the lid were scuffed and cracked. It looked old. It had a lock and Kate felt a small rush of excitement as she tried the key. The key slipped into the hole, but the spacious fit came as a disappointment. Then she remembered Jev’s key ring on the kitchen table. She went back down the hall, retrieved the rest of her keys, and came back into the room, feeling both apprehensive and curious. She tried a few keys until one fit. The lock clicked and Kate lifted the lid. Expecting to find magazines and old clothes, she gasped, completely unprepared for the nature of its contents.

Resting in the middle of a black cloth with a deck of tarot cards was a black book, titled Witchcraft. In the center of the book was a red pentagram. The smell of something dank and rancid provoked a sense of dread in Kate as she gaped at the chest full of occult possessions.

The once peaceful and mystic craft room suddenly felt shrouded with evil. Kate sat on the floor in front of the bi-fold doors, stunned by Jev’s chest of occult supplies. Afraid to touch anything, she prodded through the items with her fingertips, shocked to discover a wealth of ominous objects: red and black candles, shriveled organics, horned statues, sticks tied into gruesome human figures, wisps of hair, tarot cards, a dirty copper plate dusted with burnt material, and several books related to the occult. Toward the back, a rectangular box stood on end. She held her breath as she opened it. Tucked in black velvet was a large double-edged knife, gleaming brightly like a miniature sword with a black handle.

Kate’s throat tightened and she let out a small cry. She slammed the lid to the chest shut and backed away from it in horror to the other side of the room, away from the shadows, where a view of the garden, green grass, and golden maples contrasted with the sinister items in the trunk.

It couldn’t be Jev’s things, she tried to convince herself. They had been close sisters, best friends, who’d told each other everything. How could she be unaware…no, oblivious to her sister’s devil-worshipping activities? There had to be a reason why Jev kept these items. Maybe she was storing the chest for a friend and was unaware of its contents, Kate reasoned, or someone gave Jev the trunk and she hadn’t opened it yet?

Kate shook her head. She realized Jev must have known about the trunk’s contents, probably intimately, since Kate had found the key for it on her key chain.

Since this morning, Kate felt as if her life had exploded into an awful, distorted reality—everything shifted to wrong, everyone seemed different, and the blows were multiplying. Her worst nightmare had emerged from hell and become hers—Jev was dead. Now, she’d discovered that Jev had kept a dark secret from her.

Just then, the front door clicked open and Kate quickly wiped at her eyes. “I’m in the back room,” she called out to David, shutting the bi-fold doors. She didn’t want him to know about the occult supplies, not yet.

It was quiet in the front room. Kate stood, pausing in the doorway of the craft room, and looked down the hall. There wasn’t any sound of movement. Certain she had heard the front door open, she headed into the living room. Rays of daylight spilled through the front door onto the living-room carpet. Kate stopped.

“David?”

A crash in the kitchen startled her. She froze in mid-step, heart pounding. It wasn’t the kind of crash when something accidentally fell on the floor. It had energy behind it.

Kate called again. “David?”

The house buzzed with silence. She crept over to the door where a large, wooden beach stick lay against the wall, waiting just for the purpose Kate hoped she didn’t have to use it for. Trying her best to look like a dangerous woman holding a weapon instead of a scared girl clutching a stick, she inched towards the kitchen. She questioned whether she’d mistaken the wind for an intruder, overreacting after seeing the chest of dark belongings she’d just found in Jev’s closet. Maybe the stress of the day was breaking her down. Still, she continued creeping toward the kitchen where the crash had sounded.

She rounded the corner. On the floor, shards from a broken ceramic bowl scattered across the beige linoleum floor and the sliding glass door in the dining room leading out to the backyard was open. The light green curtain blew gently out the window, as if pointing to the direction of somebody’s escape.

Kate stepped over the ceramic pieces on the floor and looked out the door. A fence surrounded the perimeter of the backyard. It was empty. She didn’t think someone could jump the tall fence, and even if they’d tried, she thought she would have at least glimpsed the last of a leg springing over the top or a fleeting shadow through the slats of the fence.

How could that be? The wind might have blown the front door open, she concluded…but not the sliding glass door, and she hadn’t seen anyone open the door earlier.

Suddenly, Kate remembered the conversation she’d had with David this morning, just before her dad called, about the open window upstairs. David had suggested ghosts were opening it. Kate didn’t believe in ghosts, or witchcraft, but she knew certain people enjoyed playing games.

Closing the door, she stepped back into the kitchen. A shadow drifted across the wall in front of her. Panic shot through her and Kate wheeled around, swinging the stick up high and almost batting David in the face. He flinched, throwing his arms up in defense, and dropped the bag of lunch on the floor.

“What’s wrong?” His eyes widened at the weapon Kate gripped in her hands.

Kate halted and let the stick drop to her side. “I think somebody was just in the house.” She pointed to the door. David stepped over the lunch bag on the floor and rushed over to the sliding glass door.

“I heard a crash on the floor when I was in the bedroom, and when I came out, I found both the front and sliding doors open and a broken bowl on the floor.”

“Did you see anybody?”

“No.”

David stepped through the door into Jev’s backyard. He scanned the small space and shook his head. “I don’t see anybody.” He came back inside and locked the door. “I’m going to check the rest of the house—stay here.”

Kate picked up the stick and waited anxiously in the kitchen until he came back.

“Everything looks all right,” he said.

“Maybe Louise left the door open?”

“Maybe?” David reached for the beach stick in her hands. “Are you doing okay?”

A memory of Kate’s last moments with Jev suddenly came to her—they were at a coffee shop getting breakfast and Jev had said something to her about Sean.

Kate shook her head. “No.” Tears breached her eyes again, and she leaned into David’s open arms, burying her face in the crisp, mint smell of his jacket.

“It’s alright. I’m here.”

She finally remembered what Jev had tried to tell her the last time she saw her.

“What is it?”

“I remember now.” She looked up at him. “Jev told me Sean had a temper. I didn’t think anything of it because I’d never seen Sean lose his temper at work. Not even with Stewart.” She moved away from David and leaned against the counter. “I neglected her feelings.”

“I’m not following you.”

Kate dried her face with some nearby tissue. “Yesterday, Sean confronted me about a fight he and Jev had. He hadn’t seen her and wondered if I’d talked to her.”

“Every couple fights.”

She shook her head. “No, I think this was different. I think Jev was afraid of Sean.” As soon as the words escaped, the magnitude of her realization brought chills to her skin. Why else would Jev resort to witchcraft? She thought. Jev must have been desperate.

“What good does all this do now? I don’t understand why it matters anymore?”

Another tear spilled down Kate’s cheek and disappeared into the cleft of her lip. “It does matter. Jev’s state of mind may be the reason why she crashed her car. I need to know what happened to her.” Kate needed to know where Jev spent the last few days of her life, what she was doing, who she was with, and why she hadn’t returned her phone calls. Something was wrong. Moreover, Kate had a burgeoning suspicion Sean was somehow involved.

***

Normally, he would phone the coroner regarding the reports on his victims, but Wells caught word from Ted that the Waters’ autopsy was almost completed. Since he couldn’t remember the last time he’d attended one, he saw it as an opportunity to examine a case from a different perspective. He knew that sometimes, when in the heart of a crime scene, the smallest details went unnoticed, but the stillness of the autopsy room offered a new light on a case. Even though Jev’s death was an unfortunate accident, inspection of her body, lying neatly on a metal gurney with all the surgical tools there ready for an examination, gave an entirely different perspective of a case.

Wells supposed he was also there because he felt a connection with the Waters’ girl, being so close in age and looks to his daughter, Julie. He’d called her up this morning to tell her to drive safely on her way to college. She’d laughed, accusing him of being the same old worrywart and that he should go on a date. He figured she was probably right.

Equipped with a piece of peppermint gum in his mouth, Wells descended to the first sub floor of Emanuel Hospital’s north wing. He knocked on the door. John Collins, senior coroner at the hospital, answered the door wearing a white coat, turtle green pants, and black Converse shoes. Tufts of brownish gray hair stuck out of his blue cap.

“Wells! Come on in,” he said, opening the door.

“Thought I might sit in on this one.”

“Ah, great, might be a little boring though—her death was just a high-impact head trauma.”

Three tall metal tables aligned across the middle of the drab, gray room, cold as a winter morning. Two of them held deceased bodies, one cased in the black plastic bag and the other beneath a white sheet. Both of them were women, with stone faces, pale as granite marble. John placed the instruments that were in his hands into a bucket inside the sink.

“Is that Jevanna Waters?” Wells asked, pointing to the girl under the white sheet on the left.

John glanced back. “Yup, I’m just finishing up with her. I heard it was quite a wreck.”

“Speed kills, especially when you flip your car into a tree.” Wells stuffed his hands into his pockets, ignoring the tightening of his stomach as he caught sight of staples in the side of the girl’s head. They looked to him like metal teeth.

John shook his head and wiped his hands on a white towel. “Kids and fast cars…they’ll never learn.” He moved over to Wells and picked up a black object on the counter that looked like a wand. “We just got in a new toy.” He held it up to Wells. “You want to see how it works?” He moved to the girl in the black bag.

“Who doesn’t like new toys?” Wells commented. He walked over to the table, carefully stepping around a tray of instruments. John unzipped the bag, exposing a half-naked girl. Her undergarments were ripped, as if she had been in a struggle.

Even though Wells had observed over a hundred bodies in his lifetime, the two dead girls in the room today, close in age to his own daughter Julie, evoked a fear so deep inside him, he struggled to stay focused. “What are we looking at?”

“This poor gal was strangled; we’re trying to lift fingerprints from the epidermis. Normally we start with a casting medium, such as black magnetic powder and dust over the entire body to locate prints. When we find a set, we lift them using silicones, or sometimes even photography.” He turned on the tool and blue light shone along the length of it. “But with this UV light, differences can be detected between the oils of someone’s fingerprint and those naturally found on the skin, and in about a quarter of the time.” He waved the light over the girl’s neck. “See there.” Large green marks smeared across her slender neckline. A section of the marks stood out from the rest, resembling the shape of a thumb.

“Well, look at that,” Wells said, leaning over to get a closer look.

“Unfortunately it doesn’t differentiate between the victim’s prints and someone else’s prints,” John said, “but at least it gives us a starting point to investigate. Most people don’t leave prints on their own body because they are either scratching or rubbing their skin, but in the case of strangulation or other physical assault, sometimes we get lucky.”

Wells looked over at the Waters’ girl on the table. “Hey, mind if I take a look?” he asked, motioning to the wand.

“No. Probably won’t find anything on her though. Prints usually only show if there was deliberate pressure.”

Wells assumed the same, but wanted to see what the epidermis looked like on a non-assaulted victim. He moved over to the table where Jevanna Waters laid, pulled the sheet down to her mid-chest bone, and moved the light over her face. A blue glow reflected off the skin, but lacked the green marks seen on the other girl. “Looks clean.”

John stood beside him. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“Does it work on other surfaces?” Wells scanned the wand down her neck towards her shoulders.

“Not as well…whoa.” John stopped. “Go back toward her ear.”

Wells moved the light to the nape of her neck. Next to the ear, two very pale green marks glowed in the shape of fingerprints. Wells shot John a look. “Those shouldn’t be there should they?”

“They’re right over her ceratoid artery…could be from the paramedic who checked her pulse,” John replied.

Wells switched the light to the other side of her neck. Nothing showed. “I thought paramedics wore gloves?”

“They do,” John replied. “And now that I think of it, they also take the pulse at the wrist.” His eyebrows arched as he lifted the sheet and reached for her other arm.

Both men passed each other a questioning look. Wells gave the wand back to John, watching him wave the light over the girl’s right wrist. Only the pale blue glow of the light illuminated against cold skin. “Maybe they were wearing gloves,” John said. He scanned across the other arm.

“Do you think you could pull prints from her neck?” Wells asked. “There are a few things about this case that seem a little odd to me.”

“Yeah, like what?”

“Two cigarette filters were found at the scene, same brand, one put out, and the other one burned out. It rained heavily last night and we found both filters almost completely dry, suggesting someone visited the scene before county sheriffs arrived. I wouldn’t be surprised if these prints on her neck matched those on the filters.”