Picture Them Dead (14 page)

“My dress,” I said, then reconsidered. “No, I guess not, it's black, that would be like bad luck or something, right?”

“Your dress, as in singular?” Dee said. “Sophreena, even I have more than one dress.”

I shrugged. “Rarely have the need.”

“Okay, you do now. We're going to find you a dress. What's our budget?”

I mentally checked my bank account. We'd done pretty well for the past couple of months and we had two more big jobs coming up. I gave her a figure I felt comfortable with. She sighed. “Maybe we can find a good sale.”

I ended up buying a linen sheath with a matching jacket in a mustardy color. I hadn't wanted to try it on because someone once told me nobody looks good in that color, but Dee insisted. “It's perfect for your eyes and coloring,” she'd said. And once it was on, it did look different, more earth-toney and less hot-doggy. I bought not only the dress but also a pair of shoes with an extremely high heel, by which I mean nearly two inches. I gulped a little as the clerk rang up the transaction, but I figured I could get at least a twofer out of the outfit this week alone. I'd wear it on the date with Jack and then again to the wedding next weekend.

As we were leaving the store we ran into Bryan Mason—literally, in Dee's case. He came around a corner and nearly knocked her over as he was checking something on his phone.

“Dee!” he said, looking her up and down. “I haven't seen you in forever. When did you get into town?”

Dee greeted Bryan with a bright smile and there followed the usual “how ya doing,” “whatcha up to now,” and scuttlebutt about mutual acquaintances. Then Bryan turned serious.

“Sophreena, I understand Sherry's little brother's in town. Does that mean there might be a memorial or something for Sherry?”

“He hasn't mentioned anything to me,” I said.

Technically that was true. Luke hadn't told me anything, but actually, I knew exactly what Luke planned. River had told me he'd made arrangements to have Sherry's body cremated and was planning to drive back to Florida at the end of the summer and get a few of her friends together for a small remembrance ceremony. Understandably, he wasn't eager to make the trip right away, not until somebody discovered why she was killed and by whom. He wasn't even keen on people knowing he was here, but apparently the word was out.

“How'd you hear he was in town?” I asked Bryan.

He frowned. “I forget who told me. Heard it somewhere. Listen, Sophreena,” he said, cocking his head to the side, “I'm kinda worried about Gavin. Being questioned by the cops about Sherry has got him all squirrely. After that whole stunt with taking the car, he's cop-shy, you know? And when he gets rattled he does stupid things. You know him, how he is. Me and him have been friends for a long time and I want to help him. Do you think he needs a lawyer or anything? I'd pay for it.”

“I don't have any reason to think he needs one, Bryan,” I said, a little surprised at this outpouring of concern.

“I hope you're right,” Bryan said. “But would you keep an eye on him and let me know if you think he's in trouble?”

“Sure,” I said, “but I don't think you need to worry.” As I saw Bryan's shoulders relax, I thought I might have to reform my opinion of him.

“Well, it was good to see you two, and don't rat me out, okay?” He lifted the shopping bags he was carrying, all from the sporting goods store. He smiled sheepishly. “I can't afford to buy everything from the pro shop, not even with my discount.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” Dee said, giving him another dazzling smile.

We said our good-byes and once we were out of earshot, I turned to Dee. “Were you flirting with him?”

“Maybe a little,” Dee said with a shrug. “Just for old times' sake, and because now I can. I had such a secret crush on him in high school.”

“You never told me,” I said.

“What part of ‘secret crush' don't you understand, Sophreena? Anyhow, he was so cute and popular back then, I knew he was way out of my league. He's still a handsome guy and I feel I've risen a league or two since high school, so I can flirt with him now without getting all tongue-tied. And anyhow, it's sweet that he's trying to look out for Gavin.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Unfortunately, Gavin seems to need a lot of looking out for these days.”

As we headed for the exit, a chain of rolling thunder seemed to be traversing the entire county. The rain was coming down in sheets and my car was at the far end of the parking lot. We decided a hot cup of coffee and a cinnamon bun in the nice dry food court was a much more attractive alternative.

“Do you think they'll ever find who killed Sherry?” Dee asked once we'd scored a tiny table among all the other shoppers waiting out the storm.

“I hope so, and I hope it turns out to be something to do with her life in Miami. I know that sounds terrible, but I'd rather it be about drugs or some bad choice she made there than something personal here.”

Dee nodded. “Doesn't make her any less dead, but I see what you mean. You don't think Bryan or Gavin could have had anything to do with it, do you?”

I frowned. “I can't imagine what would be their motive, but then again, I don't know much about their relationship with Sherry. Laney makes it all sound pretty innocent, but I think there may have been a little more to it than she lets on.”

“Yeah, I think so, too,” Dee said. “But they were kids and that was a long time ago.”

I nodded. “So, who else did Sherry know here? She knew Claire. I think we can rule her out. And she knew Lottie. Ditto.”

“Luke?” Dee offered. “An inheritance thing, maybe? He didn't want to share?”

“I understand there's not much left to inherit when Lottie goes.”

“Yeah, but did Luke know that?” Dee asked.

“Good question,” I said. “Very good question.”

fourteen

The rainstorm refused to abate and we didn't leave the mall until closing time, making a mad dash for the car along with lots of other folks caught umbrella-less. The air was filled with shrieks and squeals as people were pelted with rain and frightened by the strobes of lightning and loud thunderclaps.

My hair was soaked and dripping down the back of my neck and my jeans were cold and plastered to me by the time I slid behind the wheel, but my new dress and shoes had stayed dry where I'd tucked them underneath my T-shirt.

I drove slowly to Marydale's house, resisting the impulse to swerve every time lightning lit the sky. I pulled up as close to the back door as I could get, and Dee splashed through a rivulet of water surging toward the street's storm drain.

It seemed to take forever to drive the few blocks to my house. The rain was still coming down hard and I had to creep along, my neck craned toward the windshield, my hands clenched on the wheel. When I finally pulled into the driveway, I debated going on into the garage, but the car would leave puddles on the floor. I'd cleaned the place a few weekends ago and given the floor a new coat of paint. I didn't like the idea of that pristine expanse being sullied so soon, and I was already wet anyhow.

Once on the porch, I shook like a dog, then let myself in. I headed for the family room to leave my packages before going upstairs to shower and get into dry clothes. I couldn't wait to show Esme my new dress and shoes when she got home from her dinner date with Denny. She was going to flip out. She thinks I have no fashion sense at all, which is sadly true.

Just as I went through the doorway, a lightning strike hit very close by with a loud crack. I jumped as I fumbled for the light switch. Just as I found it and flipped it on, my eye registered a person sitting in the chair in the corner, then the lights blinked and went out, plunging the room into total darkness.

I stood frozen, my hand still on the switch plate. A thousand things went through my mind, all of them jostling for first place and setting off trembling in every muscle in my body. If I made a noise I'd give away my position, and the man—I was pretty sure it was a man—might lunge for me. Had I really seen a person or was it just the throw blankets piled in the chair? After all, I'd noted the room was messy just hours earlier. Did I hear breathing? Yes, but was it mine or someone else's? Every tiny movement set the shopping bags crackling and I was struggling to stand stock-still. My leg was starting to cramp.

I was supposed to be the coolheaded one, I reminded myself. A plan. A plan was what I needed right about now. How fast could I spin around and which route should I take out of the house? I could go for the kitchen and out the back door, but then there was the issue of the garden gate with the hinky hasp. Sometimes it took some jiggling to get the thing open, and that was in dry daylight. The front door would probably be better, but then I had to turn a corner very sharply and there was tile on the entryway floor. I'd have to be careful not to slip. If I went down he could be on me in a flash. I had visions of every nature show I'd ever watched where the hapless gazelle was brought down and devoured by a lion.

Another flash of lightning answered my question. Not blankets.

“Who's there?” I blurted before I could stop myself.

“It's me,” a voice said. “Only me.”

I didn't recognize the voice, and whoever it was had on a hoodie and was hunched over so I couldn't see hair or a face. Then the figure started to rise from the chair.

“Who's me?” I asked, inching backward into the doorway, one tiny shuffling step after another. I'd decided to go for the front hallway, and as the figure moved toward me, I turned and ran for it.

I dropped the packages and tripped on the shoe box and, as if my own thoughts had doomed me, I slipped on the tiles in the front hall and went down with a bang, landing unceremoniously on my backside. I slid into the wall, my head striking the baseboard with a thud.

I saw stars, then a bright light. Was I dying? I wondered idly if I'd be able to communicate with Esme once I went over. We should have prearranged some sort of signal. I seemed to be moving toward the light. But no, that wasn't quite right; the light was moving toward me. I struggled to focus and realized the man was kneeling beside me, a Bic lighter held in front of his face. He was staring at me wide-eyed, concern wrinkling his baby face.

“Are you okay?” Gavin Taylor asked. “Oh man,” he half whispered, misery packed into his words. “I didn't think . . .” He slapped his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Why don't I ever think? I didn't mean to scare you. I was waiting and it started raining and your back door was open so I came in to wait. I was gonna call out when I heard you come in so I wouldn't scare you, but I fell asleep. I'm sorry, I'm really sorry.”

“Gavin?” I said. Which was stupid, since that had already been established. “What are you doing here?”

Just then there was a pounding on the front door. I struggled to understand this sound. We had a doorbell, why was there pounding? Then I remembered we had no power to operate the bell. Gavin half stood, ready for flight, but I reached out and grabbed the pocket of his hoodie and yanked him back.

“Oh, no, you don't,” I said, feeling my head to make sure it was still attached as I clung doggedly to his pocket.

“Who is it?” I called out, which sent new pain skipping merrily through my head.

“Sophreena?” a muffled voice answered. “Soph­reena, it's Joe Porter. Sorry about the hour, but I need to talk to you a minute. It's important.”

“Get the door,” I told Gavin as I moved, slowly, into a sitting position.

“I can't,” Gavin protested. “He'll kill me. Or at least fire me.”

“Get the door!” I said through clenched teeth. “Or I'll kill you myself and save him the trouble.”

I heard a conversation from near the front door, but the words were warbled as if we were all underwater. I stretched my jaw to make my ears pop and by the time Joe Porter was kneeling in front of me, his mackintosh dripping on the tiles, things were becoming clear, at least as far as my hearing went. But I was still in the dark, literally and figuratively, about what was going on.

After a little back-and-forth about the state of my head, whether he should call the cops, and did Gavin have a lick of sense, Joe helped me to my feet. We made our way back to the family room, Gavin leading, his lighter held high like a torch.

I asked Joe to make a fire in the fireplace while I grabbed a blanket and curled up in the chair Gavin had vacated, shivering from cold and released adrenaline. The chair was still warm, which I found both creepy and comforting. I told Gavin where to find the basket of utility candles on the bookshelf, and he set them out and lit them. It didn't exactly flood the room with light, but by the time Joe had the fire going, we could at least see one another plainly.

Joe and Gavin continued to bicker, but I still had no clue what was going on. Finally Joe took off his mackintosh and laid it on the hearth, then pulled up a chair in front of me, examining me closely and asking again how I was feeling.

“I'm fine,” I assured him, and was beginning to believe it myself. I'd probably have a knot on the back of my head tomorrow and my tush was gonna be a bit tender, but my brain was tracking again.

“You told me to talk to her about it,” Gavin said, a whine in his voice.

Joe nodded. “That I did,” he said, “but I didn't say break into her house in the dead of night to do it, now, did I? Have you completely left the planet, Gavin?”

I held up a hand and raised my voice, which is small, but can be fierce. “Enough already. Will someone please tell me what is going on?”

Joe sighed. “Gavin's got something he wanted to ask your advice about. Just to go on record here, I believe him. He's a knucklehead and his own worst enemy, but I don't believe he's wrapped up in this murder.”

This got my full attention and I looked to Gavin expectantly.

“Her clothes and stuff,” he said. “They were in the trunk of my car. I didn't put them there. She didn't put them there, not as far as I know. Like I told you, I haven't seen the girl in years. But I opened my trunk to put groceries in last night and there it all was. I didn't know it was hers at first. I was thinking maybe somebody put their stuff in the wrong car, but then who could open my trunk? The car was locked. I had my keys. There was a purse, so I looked through it and found a wallet and her ID. That's when I freaked out. I was up all night, just pacing and thinking.”

“Or not thinking,” Joe muttered.

Gavin ignored the comment and started to reenact his night of pacing on the rug in front of the fireplace. “I swear,” he said, “I have no idea how that stuff got in my car. Honestly, I had to read the name before I knew it was her. I didn't recognize her from the picture on her license. We were kids when I knew her and I didn't even know her all that well then.”

I couldn't help but contrast Gavin's dismissal of his time with Sherry with Laney's nostalgic recounting of their nights spent in the forest primeval.

“Who else has keys to your car?” I asked.

“Nobody,” Gavin said. “I only have one set. I bought the car used and it only came with one set of keys.”

“Did it look like someone had broken into the trunk?” I asked. “Were there scratch marks or anything?”

“No,” Gavin said. “It looked fine.”

“Okay, just so I understand this,” I said. “You had not seen Sherry Burton since she got into town. You haven't talked to her recently. You don't know how her things got into the trunk of your car. And you had nothing whatsoever to do with Sherry Burton's death. And I enter into all this how, exactly?”

“That's on me,” Joe Porter said, shaking his head. “Gavin came to me with this first thing this morning. I know you and Esme are close to Denton Carlson. I thought you might advise the boy about how to approach this.”

“Yeah, yeah, I definitely want to talk to the big man. Jennifer's the one who busted me for boosting the car. She knows me, for God's sake, but she was harsh. And with Sherry getting killed on her old man's property, I hear she's really got her knickers in a twist. She'd have me strung up by sunset tomorrow, Old West style.”

I felt a ridiculous urge to defend Jennifer, which was definitely a new phenomenon. “She's a good cop,” I said, leaving it at that.

“Yeah, okay, maybe,” Gavin said. “But I'd rather take my chances with the big guy. Joe said so, too.”

“ 'Course, I didn't think about him coming over here and breaking into your house and scaring you half to death,” Joe said with a sigh. “Not till time to lock up when I realized he'd gone AWOL.”

“I didn't break in,” Gavin protested. “I told you, the kitchen door was open. I used to come over here all the time when we were in high school, remember?” Gavin said. “Your folks were really cool about having us hang out here.”

“Yeah, I remember,” I said absently. I could have corrected him. It was middle school he was thinking of. By the time I got to high school, my mother was ill and our house had grown quiet and insular. But there were more pressing matters than his misremembered old times. “Where do you keep your keys?” I asked.

“In my pocket,” he said, pulling them out of his jeans and holding them down to the candle's guttering flame to prove his point.

“Where do you keep them in your apartment?” I asked.

“On a hook by the door,” he said.

“And you haven't lost them, or misplaced them recently?” I asked.

“Nope, I've got sort of a tic about it. I hang them up every time. Listen, Sophreena, I just want you to help me figure out how to talk to the guy about this and make him believe me.”

“Well, if I'm gonna do that, we'd better get figuring. Because any minute now, Esme and Detective Denton Carlson are going to come in that door from their dinner date”—I waved vaguely toward the front of the house—“and I imagine they'll have some questions about what's going on here.”

All three of us scanned the room, taking in the line of candles, my bedraggled appearance, Gavin's stark black hoodie, and the rubbery aroma of Joe's mackintosh drying as the fire crackled. It looked like some mis­begotten séance.

“I am so screwed,” Gavin whispered hoarsely.

*   *   *

Luckily for all of us, by the time Esme and Denny got home, the lights were back on and I'd had a chance to get a quick shower and pull on dry clothes. Joe, Gavin, and I had talked through a concise recounting of how and when Gavin had discovered the things in his trunk, and I'd made a list of talking points for him to keep himself on track, since he had a habit of coming off the rails when agitated.

The assessment of his prison shrink kept coming into my mind: “poor impulse control.” Just how poor? And how good an actor was he? Or how good a strategist? He could have simply thrown the stuff away and who would have been the wiser? Of course, he could also be thinking, Who in their right mind would voluntarily come forward and link themselves to a crime if they had something to hide? Maybe a lunkhead or maybe a very, very shrewd fellow.

However, we agreed to skip over all that had transpired in the previous hour, and were ready for Denny, sitting in the family room like civilized people, sipping hot cocoa and conversing in normal tones.

As always, I admired Denny's meticulous questioning. He was firm and thorough without trying to trip Gavin up. He listened intently, asking follow-up questions I wouldn't have thought to ask. After an hour, he closed his notebook and made his usual show of clicking his ballpoint pen and stowing it in his pocket. It was a purposeful gesture. I wondered how many people he'd interviewed had assumed the questioning was over when he did that and inadvertently blurted something to their detriment.