Whispers from the Dead (19 page)

I looked down on the list. Height … weight … color of eyes … blue!

“Do you have a pencil?” I asked Sergeant Hardison. “I’d like to darken the hair on this picture.”

He reached into the drawer of his desk and pulled out a carton of colored pencils. “How about these?”

“Great,” I said. I took a dark brown pencil and lightly shaded in the cheeks and chin, making the face look thinner. Then I pressed down to color the hair a dark brown and added a mustache.

“He looks like … like …” I made the eyes in the
photo blue, and I was positive. As all my questions about Adam suddenly came up with answers, shock blurred my vision, and I could hardly see. “Could I please have a drink of water?” I whispered.

“Right away.” As the detective left to get the water Dee Dee pulled the sheet of paper from under my hand and continued to read it. “This description covers everything—even the purple birthmark on Adam’s wrist.”

“Tony,” I murmured.

“No, Adam.” Her voice was puzzled.

“Tony
is
Adam.”

Sergeant Hardison came back with the water, and I gulped it gratefully. “Are you all right?” he asked, sounding concerned.

“Yes, thanks,” I said, but my attention was on Dee Dee. “Did you tell Eric that we were going to see some pictures of Adam?”

“Me?” she squeaked. As I stared at her she slumped. “I didn’t plan on telling him,” she said. “It just kind of came out. I mean, it wasn’t much of a secret. I didn’t tell him where we were going, or anything like that, because I didn’t know.”

I jumped from my chair. “Sergeant Hardison,” I said, “Adam Holt is in disguise as Anthony Harris. He looks like this.” I shoved the ID sheet at him. “I realize now that yesterday Tony—Adam—tried to kill me. He would have succeeded, but someone—I’m pretty sure it was Eric—interfered.”

Tears came to my eyes, and I had to gulp hard before I could continue. “We have to find out from Eric where Tony is now. If Eric’s told him I’m looking for Adam’s
photographs, then he’ll probably try to leave Houston and hide.”

“Just because you could break his new identity?” Sergeant Hardison asked. “That’s not sufficient reason.”

“No. Because I know about the second murder, and I know”—I could see the clearing next to the lake in my mind, remembering the horror, and I shuddered, aware for the first time of what it meant—“I know where he buried Rosa’s body.”

Sergeant Hardison gave me an odd look. “You said a few minutes ago that Adam Holt tried to kill you.”

“Yes.”

He frowned. “We have to accept the possibility that he might try again.”

It hit me like a sock in the stomach. “If he came to my house, I wouldn’t be there, but Mom would! I don’t want him to hurt my mother!”

“I’ll call her,” he said.

“Tell her, if Tony hasn’t arrived yet, to go next door to the Pritchards’ house and stay there.”

I followed him into the homicide room, Dee Dee right on my heels. It was obvious that she was bursting with questions, but for now she kept her mouth shut.

Sergeant Hardison’s explanation to Mom was brief but covered the important points. Mom told him that Tony wasn’t there, and she promised to get out of the house immediately.

“She’s worried about you,” he told me. “She doesn’t understand all that’s happening, and she’s frightened. I did my best to reassure her that you were perfectly safe.”

Dee Dee gave him Eric’s phone number, and he made the call, but there was no answer.

In Sergeant Hardison’s car, on the way to our house, I filled him in. I told him everything. Dee Dee, in the backseat, made little squeaking, gasping noises as I related the entire story. She’d tell the neighborhood. She’d tell the whole world, but that no longer worried me.

“You talked to me about the DNA testing,” I said to Sergeant Hardison. “If you could match Rosa’s with the type A blood sample taken from the entry hall, wouldn’t that be enough proof?”

“It should be strong proof, but we’re still missing the murder weapon and the eyewitness.”

“I think we can come up with an eyewitness,” I answered. “Someone besides the Holts knew that Rosa was living there—Lupita, who lives next door in the Pritchard house.”

“Lupita?” Dee Dee shrieked. “But she wouldn’t know what happened to Rosa. Lupita said something about Rosa being deported, about Immigration.”

I twisted around in the front seat to look at Dee Dee. “You told me she was so frightened, she was talking too fast for you to understand her. I think she was frightened for herself. She wants to be anonymous so that
she
won’t be deported. Let’s talk to Lupita and find out.”

As we turned the corner into our street there was no sign of Tony’s car. But, as Sergeant Hardison parked on the Pritchard driveway in the shade of the house, he called in for a unit to stake out our house.

Dee Dee rested her arms on the back of the front
seat and watched. “I’ve never been in a police car before,” she said. “How do you make your calls?”

“It’s a simple matter of pressing this switch.” He demonstrated for Dee Dee’s benefit, then said, “Come on. We’d better let Mrs. Darnell know that you’re both all right.”

Dee Dee was the first one out of the car, and she led us into her house.

Mom, who had Dinky in one arm, threw herself at me and held me so tightly, I could hardly breathe. Dinky protested loudly. “Sarah! Tell me what’s going on!” Mom demanded.

“Tony is really Adam Holt,” I explained, pulling away so I could talk. “Getting us together was a joke to Eric. That’s all I think it was supposed to be—an ‘in’ joke I wouldn’t understand but that he could secretly laugh about. Only it went much farther than I’m sure Eric had imagined.”

“A joke!” Furious tears filled Mom’s eyes.

Dee Dee walked in, leading Lupita by the hand. Lupita’s eyes were huge, and she was trembling. “Immigration?” she whispered to Sergeant Hardison. Her knees wobbled, and she looked as though she were going to faint.

“No,” he said. He took her arm, guided her to a chair in the Pritchard living room, and sat facing her. “Do you speak English?” he asked.

“
Un poco
—a little bit,” she said, correcting herself.

“I am not going to have you deported,” he said. “Understand?”

She nodded but continued to look wary.

Sergeant Hardison continued. “In fact, the district attorney’s office will even keep you from being deported if you’re needed as a witness.”

Lupita was obviously a little confused with that sentence, so Dee Dee tried to translate. She finished by saying, “Sergeant Hardison is a police detective.”

Lupita clutched the arms of the chair, her eyes wide with terror. “¡
Policía!
No!” she cried.

“Please, Lupita,” Dee Dee said. “If you saw anything that happened at the Holts’ house, tell us.”

“Is all over,” Lupita said, and pressed her lips together into a tight, thin line.

“She’s still afraid,” Mom murmured.

I knelt in front of Lupita and took her hands. “Rosa came to me,” I told her. “She showed me herself. Then she showed me how she was stabbed to death. She even let me know where her body is hidden.”

Lupita understood this. She gasped. “H-how could she do this?”

“In visions, in dreams,” I told her.

Lupita jerked her hands from mine and shrank from me.

“I’m not evil,” I said. “Rosa chose me so that I could help her. And she needs your help, too, so that she can rest.”

Lupita began to cry and asked, “What does Rosa want me to do?”

“She only wants you to tell the truth. Please. Tell the detective what you know about Rosa and what you saw the day Rosa was killed.”

Lupita pulled a tissue from her pocket and wiped her eyes. In a whispery, shuddery voice, fluctuating between English and Spanish, she told us that she knew Rosa. Sometimes, during the day, when the Pritchards and the Holts were at work and school, Lupita and Rosa would meet for a cup of tea or hot chocolate.

Adam Holt had frightened Rosa. Sometimes he’d acted very strange and had talked about evil things to her. Lupita ducked her head and said she couldn’t repeat them. Rosa had wanted to leave the Holts, but she had no family, no one who knew or cared where she was; so there was nowhere for her to go.

“Do you know what happened to Rosa?” Sergeant Hardison asked.

“
En la tarde
—uh … afternoon, I go outside. I uh—sweep—” She got lost in a tangle of words, so Dee Dee helped. “To sweep the front porch?”

“Yes. But I did not sweep. I saw Adam Holt. I hid.”

“What was Adam doing?” Sergeant Hardison asked.

“He drove pizza automobile away. I go in house. Later I looked out window and saw him walk back.”

“Had you heard any sounds from the Holts’ house?”

“No.
La
radio—” She stopped and fumbled for the next word.

Dee Dee interceded. “Lupita likes to play radio music while she’s working. She likes it loud too.”

“All right,” Sergeant Hardison said to Lupita. “You were playing the radio and didn’t hear anything.” As she nodded vigorously he said, “Did you see Adam Holt go back into his own house?”

“
Sí
But he came outside.
Con dos
—he bring two big bags from his house.”

“Big bags? Trash bags?” Dee Dee asked.

Lupita nodded. “
Muy
heavy bags, hard for him to carry. One at a time.” She made motions with her hands and said, “He put them in his automobile, in—uh—very back.”

“She means the trunk,” Dee Dee said.

“
Sí
—yes. Adam drive—” She finished the sentence with her hands, showing the direction.

“What time was this?” Sergeant Hardison asked.

“Dos o dos y quarto.”

“Did you know what was taking place?”

Dee Dee helped, translate, and Lupita shook her head.

“But you knew later. What did you do when Adam Holt drove away?”

Lupita could barely speak. “I go to house. Look in window. I pound on door and ring doorbell, but Rosa
no es
—Rosa not come. I know Rosa was not there.”

I couldn’t help interrupting. “Lupita! When you learned about Darlene Garland’s murder, you remembered the two bags. You knew that Rosa had been murdered, too, didn’t you?”

Lupita fell back in the chair in an explosion of wails and tears. I caught the words
la policía
, but it was Dee Dee who finally was able to understand.

“She thinks she’ll be in terrible trouble with the police because she didn’t come forward with what she had seen. She thinks she’ll be put in prison.”

Sergeant Hardison reached forward and patted
Lupita’s arm, smiling at her. “No one will harm you,” he said. “You’re a valuable witness. You’re going to make our case solid by placing Adam Holt at the scene of the crime.”

He made some calls and told us that an officer was already on the way to talk to Martin Holt, that every effort would be expended to pick up both Eric and Adam, and that the surveillance car was already in place on our block. Our house was being watched, and there had been no sign of Adam Holt in the vicinity.

“Could I ride back with you to get Mom’s car?” I asked Sergeant Hardison. I didn’t want to be there if Tony—Adam—came. I didn’t want to see him arrested.

“Sure,” Sergeant Hardison said. “I’ll want to take an official statement from you, anyway.”

“I’m going with you,” Mom said. “I’m not going to let Sarah out of my sight!”

“You can’t take Dinky,” I told her, and took the cat from her arms. “I’ll put her outside. She’ll be all right.”

“I’ll need to take Lupita downtown for a statement too,” Sergeant Hardison said, but Lupita burst into frightened tears again, and Mom and Dee Dee tried to calm her.

“I’ll be with you!” Dee Dee shouted at Lupita, but Lupita was making so much noise, she couldn’t hear her.

I couldn’t stand it. “I’ll wait for you in the car,” I told them, but no one could hear me, either.

The moment I stepped outside, Dinky squirmed from my arms and was off like a streak, heading for our house. I didn’t worry about her. She’d be all right. I walked over to the driveway and climbed into the
passenger side of Sergeant Hardison’s car, scrunching down so that I could lean my head back against the seat and try to relax.

Suddenly a hand gripped my shoulder, and a voice whispered from behind me, “Don’t move, Sarah. Don’t make a sound. I have a knife.”

T
ony!” I gasped for breath, and my heart began to hammer so loudly, I was sure he could hear it.

“I’m not going to kill you,” he said. “I’m going to use you to help me get away from here.”

I could tell from the direction of his voice that he was ducking low, behind the seat, so I knew he wouldn’t be able to see what I was doing. With my fingertips I fumbled for the microphone and I felt for the switch. There! I flipped it on.

“Adam!” I said loudly. “There’s nowhere we can go. Sergeant Hardison took the keys to his car with him.”

“I know that,” Adam said, and warned me by gripping my shoulder so hard that it hurt. “Keep your voice down!”

I wasn’t sure how much of what we were saying could be picked up by the microphone. I wasn’t even sure that what I said was being transmitted. I could only hope. “You told me you have a knife,” I said. “What good
is it going to do? As soon as the sergeant comes out to his car, he’ll find you here, and he has a gun.”