Seventh Grave and No Body Read online

  She hung up before I could say any more. I turned to Osh, his image blurry through the wetness gathered between my lashes. “This can’t happen to him again, Osh.”

  He nodded in understanding. “He got a call this morning before he left,” he said, putting Misery in drive and making a U-turn. “It… upset him. I think it was your uncle asking him to go down to the station to answer a few questions.”

  “No,” I said, anger welling up inside me. Uncle Bob didn’t even have the guts to tell me. “That’s why he sent you with me.”

  “That’s my guess.”

  “Where are you going?” I asked, looking around.

  “To the station. Where else?”

  We pulled up to the APD station where Uncle Bob worked fifteen minutes later – to a media frenzy. Cameramen and reporters lined the front of the glass building. A podium had been set up. Someone was about to make a statement.

  I jumped out of Misery before Osh had turned off her engine and hurried up the steps, until an officer held me back.

  Uncle Bob rushed out to let me through.

  “You knew, didn’t you?” I asked, growing more volatile by the second. We pushed through the front doors. “You knew this was about Reyes’s trial.”

  “We just found out, pumpkin,” he said, leading me back to his office.

  “Just?”

  “Yesterday afternoon. One of the guys ran the names in a court-system database and got a hit.”

  “And when were you going to tell me?”

  “It was my idea to wait.”

  I turned around. Captain Eckert was trailing behind us. “Well, then you’re an asshole.”

  He frowned. “You can’t call me an asshole.”

  “If the sphincter fits.”

  “And you wonder why we didn’t tell you straightaway,” he said, urging me into Ubie’s office. “Can you get her some water?” he asked Ubie.

  “I don’t need water. I need to see my fiancé.”

  “We’re holding him for the time being,” he said.

  I gaped at Uncle Bob. He, of all people, should know how very thin the ice was on which they walked. “You cannot be serious. You know he didn’t do this, Uncle Bob.”

  “I know, Charley, but we can’t just ignore the evidence.”

  “What about the one in California. She disappeared two months ago.”

  “Weeks after Reyes was released.”

  I scoffed and walked to Uncle Bob’s window. It overlooked… another window. “You know what this will do to him,” I said without turning around. But when I did turn around, I pinned all my anger on him. “You know how incredibly unfair this is.”

  “I do.” He raked a hand through his hair, not about to argue with me on that point.

  I turned away, unable to look at either of them. “What about Anna’s phone records from work? What about the woman who called her out of the blue, wanting to meet?”

  “We’re still going over the records,” the captain said. “We don’t even know when she received the call. So far, nothing out of the ordinary has popped up.”

  “Anything unusual about this new case? Did the guy mention anything to anyone?”

  When I turned back, Ubie had lowered his head. “He told his mother he wanted to talk to Reyes. He told her he found out he’d bought a bar and was going to go by there and talk to him. That was last week.”

  “So, what? He goes down there and Reyes convinces him to write a suicide note so he can abduct him? I’ve never heard Reyes use the word glorious once, by the way. You know, in case you’re keeping track.”

  I swept past them. They clearly weren’t going to let me see Reyes, and I needed to be on the phone with a lawyer instead of wasting my time here. Uncle Bob followed me out to a surge of questions from the reporter.

  “Detective! Detective! Are you once again trying to accuse Reyes Farrow of a crime he didn’t commit?”

  I stopped and spotted Sylvia Starr in the crowd of reporters. Wonderful.

  “Is this about the lawsuit?” she asked.

  I rolled my eyes. Though I would not have condoned a lawsuit, Reyes had every right to pursue one, and I was beginning to think it might not be a bad idea. Maybe if the city lost a few million to him, they’d think twice about dragging him in here on a whim.

  Ubie followed me all the way to Misery, where he grabbed my arm and turned me toward him. “I don’t think he’s guilty,” he said under his breath. “But, pumpkin, you cannot expect me to ignore the evidence when it’s staring me in the face.”

  “Of course not,” I said, pulling free. “But the last time you knew he wasn’t guilty, he spent ten years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.”

  I climbed back into Misery and slammed the door.

  “If it makes you feel better,” Ubie said through my window, “you were right about that corpse stolen out of the cemetery. We went right to the head groundskeeper’s house and found the body of a young woman who’d died recently in the closet of the guest room.”

  “It really doesn’t,” I said as Osh backed away.

  I called Cookie. “I need to know exactly who was on that jury.”

  By the time I got back to the office, Cookie not only had a list of jurors, but she’d pulled up recent DMV photos of almost all of them as well.

  “I’m so sorry, honey,” she said, pulling me into a hug the minute I walked in.

  “Thanks, Cook. Anything?”

  “I’m still working on the current photos, but I did find this.”

  She pulled up an article about the trial we’d never seen before. It was dated over a year after Reyes was convicted.

  She pointed to a passage. “See here? One of the jurors said she was bullied by the other jurors, coerced into changing her vote to guilty, even though she believed him to be innocent. She goes on to say… here.” She pointed to another passage. “She said they badgered her, and one juror called her a lovesick fool. She also received threatening letters during deliberation, and another one told her to just let them all go home. Said even his idiot kid could see Reyes was guilty. She changed her verdict and sealed the fate of Reyes Farrow despite her gut instincts.” Cookie stood back to let me peruse. “She sounds more than a little miffed. Apparently, there was an investigation at her insistence, but I can’t imagine anything ever came of it.”

  “And who was this again?”

  Cookie looked through her list. “Sandra Rhammar. But you haven’t seen the best part.”

  I turned to her, almost afraid to hope she’d found anything that would convince the cops Reyes was innocent. She slid a picture over of Sandra Rhammar from the trial. “Look familiar?”

  I snapped it off the desk. “Oh, my god, Cookie. You are amazing.”

  “I am. I really am.”

  I jumped up and hugged her neck, realizing I’d forgotten about Osh. He stood over me, looking at what Cookie had found. “Isn’t that chick on TV?”

  I grinned. “Yes, she is.”

  “She changed her name,” I said into the phone, trying to convince the captain to listen to me. “She was a juror.” I’d tried Ubie about a hundred times – to no avail. I guess he was done with me for the day. Or he was giving a press conference. Either way.

  “And who is this again?” the captain asked. The background noise was deafening, and he was having a hard time hearing me.

  “It was Sandra Rhammar.”

  “Sandra Rhammar,” he said to someone else. Hopefully that person was doing a background now.

  “She changed her name to Sylvia Starr. She’s right there in front of the station.”

  “Right. The newswoman.”

  “Yes. It’s her. I really think it’s her, Captain, but I don’t have time to look into it. The last guy was still alive for a while, so I’m guessing maybe she was keeping him alive for some reason or maybe he was in a confined space and it took him a while to suffocate. Or I don’t know. Why else would it take him so long to pass?”

  “She may have
hesitated,” he said. “Or she could have poisoned him and it took a while for it to kick in.”

  “True. I’m going to her house.”

  “Davidson, don’t do anything you’ll regret when you’re sitting in a courtroom.”

  “Look, just tell my uncle, okay? Tell him to meet me at 2525 Venice Avenue, Northeast. It’s right off Wyoming.”

  “You can’t go in without a warrant.”

  “I know,” I said, completely offended. “I’m all about the warrants. But if this guy is alive, we need to get to him now.”

  “Where is your uncle, by the way?” he asked me. “I thought he left with you?”

  “No,” I said, driving slowly down Venice, looking for the house number.

  “There,” Osh said, pointing ahead.

  “Why would he leave with me? Isn’t he doing the news conference?”

  “That’s where I am. I’m about to give a statement now.”

  “Captain,” I said pulling over, “don’t say anything about Reyes.”

  “I wouldn’t either way, Davidson. Especially without a formal arrest.”

  “It won’t come to that. Thank you.”

  “Let me know what you find. And don’t break in. I don’t need your uncle on my ass any more than he is.”

  “He’s on your ass?” I asked, surprised.

  “He about flipped when I told him to bring Farrow in for questioning.”

  That alleviated some of the sting I’d felt earlier. “I’m glad. He knows Reyes. My affianced had nothing to do with this, Captain.”

  “Prove it,” he said before hanging up.

  If ever there were a challenge. “After the zombie apocalypse, I’m raiding these houses for sustenance,” I said to Osh. The homes were gorgeous – huge territorials with Spanish-tiled roofs – and the views incredible.

  We pulled into the drive, and knowing Sylvia was at the station, we walked around back.

  “Oh, look,” Osh said after scaling a cinder block wall and then opening the gate to let me in, “this door has a broken windowpane.”

  I nodded, studying the pristine glass. “It looks broken to me.”

  He hooked his elbow in his shirt and smashed in a single pane.

  “You realize we’re most likely going to set off an alarm.”

  “I’m counting on it,” he said with a wink. He reached in and unlocked the door. Sure enough, an alarm blared to life.

  “Neighborhood like this, that’ll get them here in no time,” he said.

  “Okay, when the cops get here, let me do the talking.”

  “Why? I’m the one who saw a burglar in a ski mask and a semiautomatic go inside this house.”

  “See, that’s what I’m talking about. He clearly had an Uzi. Just try to keep your sentences short and to the point.” We’d just let the cops search the place for us.

  “But just in case they ask, why are we in this neighborhood in the first place?”

  “I told you.” People never listened to me. “We’re scoping houses in preparation for the zombie apocalypse.”

  “Right. Preppers. Okay.”

  We hurried back to Misery and waited for the cops. It was amazing how quickly they got to these posh neighborhoods.

  Twenty minutes later, the four patrol officers came out of Sylvia Starr’s house empty-handed. “We didn’t see anything,” Taft said to me. He was Strawberry Shortcake’s older brother, and we’d almost been friends since I told him she was still here on this plane. Our relationship was a little on the cool side, but he was okay, for the most part. He knew better than to believe I had nothing to do with that broken pane, but he didn’t let on to the other cops. Though they probably knew, too. I was rather infamous around these parts.

  “Really?” I asked, disjointed. “There was nobody tied up and drugged in there?”

  “No.”

  “Damn it.”

  “I gotta admit, Davidson, you’re fucking weird.”

  “Yeah?” I said as he turned with a grin and walked away. “Well, right back atcha, buddy. Your sister said you used to paint your toenails tea rose pink.”

  He laughed but kept walking.

  “Damn it,” I said again, trying Ubie for the umpteenth time. He was picking up my dad’s bad habits. Just as I was about to call Cook, my phone rang. It was the captain.

  “We got a hit on the phone call,” he said to me. “You were right. It was Sylvia Starr.”

  Exhilaration laced up my spine. “Is that enough to let Reyes go?” Technically, they could hold him for twenty-four hours unless I got a lawyer involved, which was what I should have done immediately. I just got so excited once we’d figured out Sandra/Sylvia was involved, I kind of spaced that part.

  “I’ve already released him. We had a patrolman take him out the back way.”

  “Thanks, Captain.”

  “Don’t thank me. It was your uncle who kept insisting we had the wrong guy.”

  “Can I talk to him?”

  “He’s AWOL.”

  “Still?” I asked, growing concerned until my utter stupidity hit me like a ton of masonry. “If Sylvia is behind this and it has to do with the fact that the jury bullied her and put an innocent man in prison, a man with whom she fell in love, what do you think she would do to the arresting officer?” I asked him.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said. “She wasn’t at the news conference.”

  “She was when I was there.”

  “And so was your uncle.” He hung up before I could comment further, but I knew he would put every available resource on it.

  Before I could put Misery into drive and peel out, Cookie called. I hesitated, unsure of what to tell her.

  “Cook,” I said when I answered.

  “Anything?” she asked.

  “At Sylvia’s house? No. The cops searched the entire place.”

  “Well, her parents have passed away, but I did find some property that belonged to them in Tijeras.”

  “That’s just thirty minutes from here.”

  “Yep. They owned a cabin.”

  “And what a perfect place to take someone you’d just forced to write a suicide note and abducted.”

  “That’s where I’d take someone I’d forced to write a suicide note, then abducted.” When I hesitated even longer, she said, “I’ll text you the address. It’ll take you a little over half an hour to get there from your current location.”

  “Cook,” I said, biting my lip, “have you heard from Uncle Bob?”

  “Not in a few. Why? What did you say to him?”

  “I wasn’t very nice, but that’s not the problem. He was the lead officer in Reyes’s case.”

  “I know, hon. I don’t underst —” My meaning sank in. I waited for her to absorb the reality of the situation. “Where is he?” she asked, growing wary.

  “We can’t find him. He’s not answering his cell and he hasn’t been at the station in over an hour. Sylvia was there, and she’s gone, too.”

  “Charley,” she said, her voice a whisper.

  “She forces them to write suicide notes,” I rushed to assure her. “And even after that, she doesn’t kill them right away. There’s still time, Cook. We’ll find him.”

  “Oh, my god, Charley.”

  “Reyes is headed your way. Explain what’s going on, and tell him to get his fine ass in that muscle car of his and meet us out there. And call the captain. Tell him what you found.”

  “Okay. Okay, I’ll do that now. Charley, please,” she said, pleading with me.

  “We got this, Cook. We’re the best team ever. You solved this one. You. Let me do the rest.”

  17

  I already know I’m going to hell.

  At this point, it’s really go big or go home.

  — T-SHIRT

  The sun set just as we pulled onto a long drive that, according to the GPS, was the road to Sylvia’s parents’ cabin. Tijeras had trees galore, but this area was out of the way and pretty barren. If she was out there, she’d likely
see us coming.

  I turned off Misery’s lights just in case and drove slowly. There was still enough of a pink afterglow on the horizon to lead the way. We crept over a small hill and were engulfed in trees once again. I had no choice but to turn on the headlights, but hopefully the trees would cover our approach.

  After about a mile, we came to another clearing. A cabin sat in the middle, its windows illuminated.

  “Stop here,” Osh said, jumping out of Misery before I’d managed a full stop.

  He closed the door quietly and sprinted through the trees as I killed the lights again and tried to call the captain. No signal. Just in case, I sent a text to Cookie explaining that someone was at the cabin and telling her to call the captain to let him know. I hit send, then jumped out and followed Osh into the surrounding woods. He was going for the back of the house. Less likely to be seen that way, as the front was lined with massive plate-glass windows.

  Scattered about the grounds were several departed. They were strategically placed to watch every opening, every nook and cranny. Reyes’s spies? I definitely saw the woman in white, the woman Reyes had been talking to who’d drowned in her flowing evening gown. That was definitely the way I wanted to go: in style.

  She turned around, spotted me, and disappeared. “Hello,” she said, reappearing by my side, causing me to jump.

  I looked up from my crouching position. “Hey. Did Reyes send you?”

  “He did. We haven’t spotted any yet.”

  “Any?”

  “The Twelve. As far as I can tell, they aren’t aware of your presence. Here all alone. At night. Completely vulnerable.” She scolded me with a gathering of her delicate brows. If I were anyone else, being scolded by a dead woman in an evening gown with makeup smeared down her face would have freaked me out. Thankfully, I was me.

  I scolded her right back. “My uncle might be in there. Can you see anyone in the house?”

  “I’m not worried about in the house. Reyes sent me to guard you, not your uncle.”

  I straightened to my full height. She still had two inches on me. In my own defense, she was in heels. “Can’t you just do a quick look-see? Pop in and out and just tell me if she’s in there and who she’s with?”