Third Grave Dead Ahead (18 page)

Everything he did was a form of manipulation. Simply put, he was an extreme control freak, a very unhealthy habit. Still, I needed to get Monica alone. Clearly there were things she couldn’t say in front of her brother. I freshened their coffees, mentally calculating how much java his bladder could hold. He was a big guy, but hopefully he’d need a potty break soon.

“Nathan never was the sharpest scalpel on the instrument tray,” he said. “He passed medical school with a C average. Would you want a surgeon who scraped by medical school with a C average?”

“Not hardly.” Though I doubted the legitimacy of such a claim, the thought was admittedly terrifying. I turned to Monica. “Can I ask why you were here yesterday morning? I hadn’t even talked to Nathan yet.”

She lowered her head, embarrassed. “I didn’t realize you saw me.” She drew in a ragged breath. “I’ve been following him. He was in front of the bar, talking on the phone when you walked past.”

“So you didn’t know who I was?”

“No, not at first. When he told me he’d hired a private detective, I looked you up.”

Luther tapped an index finger on the table. “And he hired you to make himself look good, I’m telling you.”

The guy was clearly smarter than he appeared. “He told me you two don’t really get along with Teresa.”

Monica’s jaw fell open. “He said that?” She was appalled.

“See,” Luther said. “See what he’s doing?”

I watched as tears shimmered in Monica’s eyes again, but now she was angry. She leaned into me, the spitfire in her surfacing. “He’s tried to keep us apart for the last two years. He’s so jealous of us, it’s unreal. We’re sisters, for God’s sake.”

Luther nodded. “Chalk that up to one of those strange things Monica told you about. He says things, makes up shit, does everything in his power to keep us away from Teresa.”

“He’s so controlling,” Monica agreed. “That fact alone raised a red flag when they began dating, but Teresa just wouldn’t listen.”

“The more we talked, the less she listened.”

“I can imagine,” I said. “I have a sister, too.”

“And then,” Monica said, her head tilting to the side in befuddlement, “he’ll be so sweet to her. He buys her gifts all the time, brings her flowers, makes sure her favorite sparkling water is on hand at all times. Citrus flavored.”

“In other words, he smothers her,” I said, coming back around to Monica’s original assessment.

“Exactly.” She nodded. “I think it all really bothers Teresa. She doesn’t even drink the water anymore. Hasn’t for months. But she doesn’t tell him, because I drink it.” She grinned then, her smile soft and sincere. “He gets so jealous of our time together, so we meet secretly every weekday and walk through the mountains, supposedly exercising. But really we just talk.” She chuckled to herself then. “And drink his stupid flavored water.”

“So, she doesn’t work?” I asked.

“Oh, no,” she answered as though what I’d asked was ludicrous. “He wouldn’t have it.”

“See?” Luther’s hands curled into fists. “Nuts. I promise, if he did anything to her, he’s a dead man.”

Between the insurance and the bizarre behavior, I was surprised the good doctor was still alive with a brother-in-law like Luther. And Yost knew that. He would know better than to implicate himself in any way. He would’ve known he’d never make it to trial if there was any suspicion of his guilt, so whatever he did, he did it well. He’d have to make it look like an accident, but Teresa’s car was still at the house. And a kidnapping was only as good as the ransom it demanded. With no demand, an abduction would be only slightly less suspicious than a knife in her chest and blood on his hands.

But right now, I needed both Luther and Monica off his back. If he knew they were watching, he would never revisit the crime scene. “Give me a dollar,” I said to him.

He wrinkled his brows. “Why?”

I rethought my demand. “That’s a good question. You’re loaded. Give me a twenty.”

He exhaled, then fished a twenty out of his wallet.

“Now I’m working for you.”

“You’re cheap.”

“This is a retainer,” I said, showing him the twenty he just handed me. “Add a few zeros, and you have my daily rate. You’ll get a bill. It will be large.” I had to pay for my wrestling career somehow.

“I already have a guy on Yost. He won’t leave his side, and I promise you, Yost won’t know.” I wasn’t about to tell them he was a departed teenage gangbanger. “If the doctor does anything suspicious, my guy will let me know. And I have my assistant looking into his background as we speak. If there’s anything that doesn’t fit, we’ll find it.”

“So, you were already investigating him?” Luther asked, surprised.

“I told you, I’m out to find your sister, and since spouses are almost always the main suspects in disappearances, then yes, I’m already investigating him.” I leaned in and added, “Like I would be you if you were a suspect.”

Monica asked, “Are the cops looking in the same direction you are? Does the FBI consider him a suspect?”

“Hon, the FBI considers everyone a suspect,” I said, answering her question without actually giving her any information. I had to admit, with a brother-in-law like Luther Dean, I was a little surprised the doctor would pull something like this. Maybe, for some reason, he was desperate. And again, desperate men did desperate things. Which did not bode well for Teresa Yost.

The spark of hope that ignited inside Monica humbled me. She seemed to have a lot of faith in my abilities.

“There a restroom in this place?” Luther asked at last, glancing around the bar.

“Right through there.” I pointed to the men’s room and watched as he strolled in that direction. A little because I wanted to make sure he was out of hearing range when I asked Monica my next question, but mostly because he had a nice ass.

When he pushed past the door, I turned to her. “Okay, we only have a few seconds. What are you not telling me?”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “I don’t understand.”

“Tick-tock,” I said, glancing back at the men’s room. With any luck, Luther practiced basic hygiene, but one just never knew with guys. Offering Monica a sympathetic gaze, I said, “I can see the burden of guilt you carry.” When she blinked and lowered her head, I added, “I won’t say a word, Monica. Whatever it is. I just need to know all the angles of this case.”

Her mouth thinned into a sad line, and she said reluctantly, “Luther doesn’t know this, but I’m sick.”

I thought she might be. Her skin had a yellowish, unhealthy tint as did her nails with the exception of the white lines spanning them in horizontal rows. But I wasn’t sure why that would conjure the guilt I’d been picking up on. “I’m sorry, but—”

She shook her head. “No, Luther doesn’t know for a reason. When our mother died…” She stopped to touch a tissue to her eyes before planting her gaze back on me. “He took it very hard, Charley. She was sick for a long time, and when she passed…”

After a moment, I placed a hand over hers, encouraging her to continue.

She turned it over and laced her fingers into mine gratefully, then leaned into me and whispered, “He tried to kill himself.”

To say I was shocked would be an understatement of the highest form. My jaw dropped before I could catch it, and Monica saw.

“I know. We were all surprised. He just took her death so hard.”

I glanced once again toward the bathroom. With the coast clear, I asked, “Is he getting help?”

“Yes. Well, he was. He’s doing so much better.”

“I’m so glad. May I ask what you have?”

“You can ask all you want,” she said, a sad smile sliding across her face. “The doctors don’t know. I’ve been diagnosed with everything from chronic fatigue syndrome to Hutchinson’s disease, and nothing ever pans out. I just keep getting sicker and nobody knows why.”

Luther was headed back toward us when I asked one more question, “Monica, why would your being sick make you feel guilty about Teresa’s disappearance?”

She pressed her mouth together as guilt washed over her again. “The insurance. There was a clinic in Sweden Teresa was looking into, lots of breakthroughs. I think she took out the insurance for me, so I could go to Sweden.” As Luther neared, she leaned into me and said quickly, “He can’t know that I’m sick.”

I gave her hand a quick squeeze before we broke apart. As Luther sat back down, my dad strolled in through the front door, and I had to hustle to put my sunglasses back on.

“Hey, Dad,” I said with a big smile. “These are my clients, Monica and Luther.”

“Nice to meet you.” His voice and posture were nice enough, but his innards were not the happy camper type. They were more like a disgruntled bear who tried to eat the happy camper only to find the happy camper was a champion sprinter. He bent down to kiss my cheek. “Have you given any thought to what we talked about earlier?”

“Do elephants glow in the dark?”

“You can take off your glasses,” he said, a look of disappointment lining his weathered face. “Your uncle Bob already told me.”

I gasped. “Uncle Bob ratted me out?”

“I’d like to talk to you later, if you have a minute.”

“I’m pretty booked today,” I said, sunglasses still on my smiling face, “but I can try to come down in a bit.”

“I’d appreciate that. I’ll leave you to your business.” He nodded to Luther and Monica, then strode away to his office.

After questioning the Deans a little while longer, I said good-bye and took the stairs up to the office two at a time, excited to share the latest with Cookie. Was this an insurance scam? Surely Dr. Yost found out about the policy his wife took out. Maybe he saw it as an opportunity. I needed his financial records. But for that I needed a subpoena. No, I needed Agent Carson.

I started across the balcony that looked down into the bar. My office was just past the elaborate iron elevator, but the little girl with the knife stood blocking the way. I stepped around her and inside my office.

“Oh, I’ll get you some coffee,” Cookie said really loudly. She rushed into my office where the coffeepot was and waved at me, her eyes wide.

I smiled and waved back.

She rolled her eyes, hurried to the coffeepot, and gestured toward her office with a nod. “Do either of you U.S. Marshals take cream?”

Oh. Close call. I backed out the way I came in and inched the door closed. Whew. The little slasher girl was gone. Our encounters were fleeting yet meaningful. I was certain of it.

Not really in the mood to talk to Dad either, I snuck past his office and out the back door. Uncle Bob called my cell phone as I booked it to Misery.

“You ratted me out,” I said, skipping the pleasantries.

“I did no such thing.” He seemed really offended, then said, “Well, okay, I probably did. To whom did I rat you out?”

“Dad. Duh.”

“What? The Reyes thing?”

“Did you know he wants me to quit?” I dug my keys out of my bag because Misery lacked the technology to sense my DNA and open the door when I approached.

“Quit what? Your gym membership?” He laughed out loud.

I slid the key into the lock. “That was so amazingly offensive.”

“What?” He sobered. “Don’t tell me you actually have a gym membership.”

“Of course I don’t have a gym membership. He wants me to quit work. My job. The investigations business.”

“Get outta here.”

“No, I’m telling you.” I threw my bag in the passenger’s side floorboard and climbed in one-handed. “He’s lost it. He really wants me to quit. So I’m thinking either professional wrestling or belly dancing.” Nor did Misery say things like,
Hello, Charley. Shall I arm the missiles for you?

“I’ll talk to him. In the meantime, I got a flag on the doctor.”

“Like, an American flag?”

“In the database. Nothing ever came of it, but his name was mentioned in some kind of a forgery investigation. I can give you the detective’s name who was in charge. He retired last year. I know him. Plays a lot of golf now.”

“Cool. He probably deserves it. I’ve got two U.S. Marshals in my office,” I said as Misery purred to life. No voice recognition software or retinal scanning required.

“What do they want?”

“No idea. I already talked to a marshal last night, so I snuck out the back way.”

“In true Davidson style.”

“Hey, can you check on Dr. Yost’s financial situation? I’ve already got Cookie on it, but I need official stuff that I can’t get without a warrant.” I steered Misery onto Central. Steered her. Like with my two hands.

“Don’t have to. He’s rich. Have you seen his house? His monthly water bill would feed a small country for a month.”

“Well, how do you know he’s rich if you haven’t checked his bank accounts?”

“You really want me to check into his finances?”

“Is the pope Catholic?”

“Did I mention how behind I am on my paperwork?”

“Did I mention how much you owe me?”

“Finances, it is.”

12

Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.

—T-SHIRT

I’d parked Misery on a side street half a block away from the abandoned mental asylum and did a crouch run to the nearest Dumpster, where I dived for cover behind a group of evergreen bushes. Then I waved my arms about wildly and spit a few times when I realized the bushes were covered in spiderwebs. After a shiver of revulsion, I gathered myself, summoned my
Mission: Impossible
chi, and scaled a chain-link fence to the top of a dilapidated shed. Once there, I curled into an embryonic ball and whimpered. Chi or no chi, scaling fences sucked, mostly ’cause it hurt.

I pried open my throbbing fingers and scanned the area. Nary a Rottweiler in sight, so I jumped down and booked it to the basement window I used to sneak into the place. I turned the latch I’d rigged to unlock the window and pulled. Normally, the window opened out and I could do a drop-and-roll kind of thing into the basement, which was kind of like a duck-and-cover thing with less concern over radiation poisoning resulting in permanent hair loss, but the window was stuck. I pulled harder and it gave. For about half a second before it slammed shut again. What in the name of Zeus’s testicles?