Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet Read online

  “Look, we’ve gotten a couple of calls from her, but we’ve never found any evidence of foul play on site. No signs of a break-in. No footprints or cars parked near her house. And she never could describe the intruder. If there was an intruder.”

  “So, you think she was lying?”

  “No,” he said with a noncommittal shrug. And now it was his turn to lie. “Not so much lying as … mistaken.”

  “You mean paranoid.”

  He thought a moment. “Overzealous.”

  “Ah. Okay. Well, you don’t mind if I check it out, do you? Ms. Lowell gave me the key and the security code.”

  “Knock yourself out. I’ll just need to record your license-plate number.”

  “Do you record the information of every nonresident who comes through?”

  “Sure do.”

  I offered him my best smile. “Is there any way I can get a copy of the most recent pages?”

  He shook his head. “Not without a warrant.”

  Darn. I made a mental note to set Cookie on that. She had a knack for getting protected documents without a warrant. I was pretty sure that was her superpower.

  After he took down my information, I drove through the estates until I came to Harper’s house. Tanoan was one of the nicer parts of Albuquerque. At least Harper’s parents did that much for her.

  And Harper was doing everything right: Gated community with uniformed security guards. Active security system. Triple locks on all the doors. I went from room to room, checking for any signs of foul play before I hit the kitchen. It’d been something like an hour since I last had a cup of coffee. Surely she wouldn’t mind.

  To my utter delight, she had one of those machines that used those individual cups and made one serving of coffee at a time. I may have ordered one of those. I’d have to go through the boxes when I got home.

  I searched her cabinets, wondering where I’d be if I were a K-Cup before coming to the conclusion that I’d be in heaven, that’s where. Filled to the brim with grinds of shimmering black gold. I opened the last cabinet door and jumped back in surprise. A stuffed white rabbit sat against a can of beets. Normally white rabbits, especially stuffed ones, didn’t bother me, but there was something creepy about having one in a kitchen cabinet.

  Staring.

  Judging.

  I started to reach up and take it down, then stopped myself. This was evidence. True, it wasn’t particularly incriminating or overtly threatening, but it was evidence nonetheless.

  And it was scary. Its eyes weren’t on right, and its neck looked like the stuffing had been pulled out so that it sat lopsided on its little shoulders.

  I left it there and exited Harper’s house unnerved and un-caffeinated.

  * * *

  After informing the security guard of what I found, leaving him unimpressed again, I gave him my card and made him promise to keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary. Then I started for home with my tail tucked between my legs. According to Angel, Reyes was going to be at that warehouse tonight, so I had some time to kill. I could do that on my sofa just as easily as I could running around Albuquerque like a chicken with my head cut off.

  Wait. Somehow the word chicken struck a chord. I played with it in my mind. Rolled it over my tongue. Then came to a conclusion: It was me. I was a chicken butt. I was suddenly scared of everything.

  I pulled off Academy and into a shopping center to stew in my own astonishment. I was a chicken of the most cowardly kind. Like a roosting hen. How can the grim reaper do her job if she’s a roosting hen? Suddenly every sound, every movement, caused an adrenaline dump the size of Australia to flood my system. This would so not do. I had to get my act together.

  I looked at Misery’s dash. Being with her was comforting on some level, but not as comforting as my sofa. Then it hit me. An atrocity I’d overlooked for years. I’d never named my sofa. How could I do that to her? How could I be so callous? So cold and selfish?

  But what would I name her? This was big. Important. She couldn’t go through life with a name that didn’t fit her unique personality.

  Filled with an odd sense of relief at the new goal in life, I put Misery into drive. I could worry about being a roosting hen later. I had a sofa to name.

  With renewed energy, I pulled back onto Academy—after hitting a drive-through for a mocha latte—and had just started for home when my phone rang.

  “Yes?” I said, illegally talking on the phone while driving within the city limits. Scoping for cops, I waited for Uncle Bob to stop talking to whomever he was talking to and get back to me.

  My uncle Bob, or Ubie as I most often referred to him, was a detective for APD, and I helped him on cases from time to time. He knew I could see the departed and used that to his advantage. Not that I could blame him.

  “Get that to her, then call the ME ay-sap.”

  “Okay,” I said, “but I’m not sure what calling the medical examiner ay-sap is going to accomplish. I’m pretty sure his name is George.”

  “Oh, hey, Charley.”

  “Hey, Uncle Bob. What’s up?”

  “Are you driving?”

  “No.”

  “Have you heard anything?”

  Our conversations often went like this. Uncle Bob with his random questions. Me with my trying to come up with answers just as random. Not that I had to try very hard. “I heard that Tiffany Gorham, a girl I knew in grade school, still stuffs her bra. But that’s just a rumor.”

  “About the case,” he said through clenched teeth. I could tell his teeth were clenched because his words were suddenly forced. That meant he was frustrated. Too bad I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “I wasn’t aware that we had a case.”

  “Oh, didn’t Cookie call you?”

  “She called me a doody-head once.”

  “About the case.” His teeth were totally clenched again.

  “We have a case?”

  But I’d lost him. He was talking to another officer. Or a detective. Or a hooker, depending on his location and accessibility to cash. Though I doubted he would tell a hooker to check the status of the DOA’s autopsy report. Unless he was way kinkier than I’d ever given him credit for.

  I found his calling me only to talk to other people very challenging.

  “I’ll call you right back,” he said. No idea to whom.

  The call disconnected as I sat at a light, wondering what guacamole would look like if avocados were orange.

  I finally shifted my attention to the kid in my backseat. He had shoulder-length blond hair and bright blue eyes and looked somewhere between fifteen and seventeen.

  “You come here often?” I asked him, but my phone rang before he could say anything. That was okay. He had a vacant stare, so I doubted he would have answered me anyway.

  “Sorry about that,” Uncle Bob said. “Do you want to discuss the case?”

  “We have a case?” I said again, perking up.

  “How are you?”

  He asked me that every time he called now. “Peachy. Am I the case? If so, I can solve this puppy in about three seconds. I’m heading down San Mateo toward Central in a cherry red Jeep Wrangler with a questionable exhaust system.”

  “Charley.”

  “Hurry, before I get away!”

  He gave up. “So, the arsonist just got serious.”

  Sadly, I had no idea what he was talking about. Uncle Bob was a homicide detective and rarely worked anything but murders and the like. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why are you trying to find an arsonist? And why is he just now getting serious? Was he only kidding before?”

  “Three questions, one answer.” He mumbled something to another officer, then came back to me. “And that answer is because our arsonist is now a murderer. The building he torched last night had a homeless woman in it. She died.”

  “Crap. That would explain why you’re on an arson case.”

  “Yeah. Have you heard anything?”

  “Besides the Tiffany
Gorham thing, no.”

  “Can you put out some feelers? This guy is getting sloppy.”

  “Wait. Is this the one who makes sure the buildings are empty before starting the fires?”

  “The one and only. We’ve linked him to four fires so far. Same MO, right down to the timing device and accelerant. Only this time he didn’t get everyone out. This homeless woman didn’t happen to visit you, did she?”

  “No, but I’ll see what I can dig up.”

  “Thanks. I’ll bring the folder on this guy over tonight.”

  “Sounds good.” He was only coming over for Cookie. He had such a crush.

  “So, have you talked to your dad?”

  “Oh, no, you’re breaking up. I can hardly—” I hung up before he could question me further. Dad was not open for discussion, and he knew it.

  The minute we hung up, my phone rang for a third time. I answered. “Charley’s house of Cheerios.”

  “Your uncle called,” Cookie said. “He has a case he wants you to look at.”

  “I know,” I replied, faking disappointment. “I just got off the phone with him. He told me all about how he needed you to contact me immediately, and you refused. Told him you had better things to do. Like funnel money into offshore accounts.”

  “Did you know you ordered a neck massager? This thing is great.”

  “Are you getting any actual work done?”

  “Oh, yes! I got the addresses you needed, but there’s not much on the brother. He’s never received a single utility bill.”

  “Maybe his parents are paying his utilities, too.”

  “That makes sense. I’ll check into their accounts, see what all they’re paying for. But I do have a work address on him and an address for Harper’s parents.”

  “Perfect. Text them to me.”

  “Now? Because this feels amazing.”

  “Only if you don’t want me to file embezzlement charges against you.”

  “Now it is.”

  4

  You can’t fix stupid,

  but you can numb it with a 2 by 4.

  —T-SHIRT

  Having already driven across town, I’d gone from being fairly close to Harper’s parents’ house to way out in the boondocks. I pulled a uey amidst a blaring horn—mine—and headed back that way only to be blocked by another gate when I got there. One made of intricate iron surrounded by a high brick wall. I pushed a button on the speaker box.

  An arrogant male voice crackled out of the speaker. “Yes?”

  I must’ve been in the midst of old money. The massive expanse of mansion that loomed before me was a testament to two things: The Lowells were rich, and the Lowells liked people to know it.

  When I glanced back at the speaker box, I said, “Yes, I’d like a taco with extra salsa.” When he didn’t ask if I’d like something to drink with that, I tried again. “I’m here to see Mr. and Mrs. Lowell.” I smiled into the video camera mounted above the box, then took out my PI license and held it up. “I’ve been hired by their daughter, Harper.”

  When I received no answer, I decided to change my tack. “I just need to ask them a few questions.”

  After a long moment in which I kept smiling at the dead kid in my backseat, trying not to contemplate how awkward the moment was becoming, the arrogant guy came back on.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Lowell are not receiving.”

  What the hell did that mean? “I’m not throwing a forty-yard pass. I just have a few questions. I think their daughter is in danger.”

  “They are not accepting visitors.”

  What a caring bunch. “In that case, I’ll have the police over in a few. I apologize beforehand if they come with lights flashing and sirens blaring.”

  Rich people hated nothing more than scandal. I loved scandals. Especially the kinky kind with illicit affairs and CEOs photographed in heels and feather boas. But I did live in my own little world.

  “You will have five minutes,” he said. He did the clenched-teeth thing much better than Ubie. I’d have to mention that next time I saw my surly uncle. Maybe he could take lessons.

  After rolling up a long driveway that turned into a cobblestone entrance, I lifted Misery’s emergency brake and glanced in my rearview. “Don’t even think about going for a joy ride, buddy.”

  His blank gaze didn’t flinch. He was fun.

  A self-assured man who was dressed much more casually than I’d expected met me at the massive white door. The house looked more East Coast than most houses in New Mexico. Without saying a word, the man led me to what I could only assume was a drawing room, though there were no art supplies anywhere. Since I couldn’t draw, I decided to snoop. Pictures lined the walls and shelves, but there was not a single candid shot among them. Every photograph was a professional portrait, and each one had a color theme. Black. Brown. Navy blue. Four in the family: the parents, one boy, and one girl—Harper. They all had dark hair except the boy, and he didn’t particularly look like the others. I wondered if the rooster had gotten out of the henhouse. A blond rooster. The parade of portraits mapped out the development of the Lowell children, from around four or five until the kids were in their early twenties. Clearly the parents had a firm grip on their children. In one portrait, they got almost crazy and wore white.

  These people were scary.

  “How may I help you?”

  I turned to a woman, the matriarch of this here hoity-toity club, if the pictures were any indication. By the upturn of her nose, she held herself in high regard. Either that, or she found my fascination with her drawing room distasteful.

  I didn’t offer my hand. “My name is Charlotte Davidson, Mrs. Lowell. I’m here about Harper.”

  “I’ve been told you are a private investigator?”

  “Yes. Your daughter hired me. She believes someone is trying to kill her.”

  A lengthy exhalation told me she probably didn’t care. “Stepdaughter,” she clarified, and my hackles rose instantly.

  I wondered if my stepmother did the same with me. Corrected people when they called me her daughter. Cringed at the usage. The very thought.

  “Has Harper mentioned the fact that she’s being stalked?”

  “Fact?” she said, her expression full of a peevish kind of doubt. “Yes, Ms. Davidson. We’ve been through this with her ad nauseam. I can’t imagine you could bring anything new to the table.”

  The woman’s indifference floored me. It was one thing not to believe Harper, but another altogether to be so blatantly unaffected by her stepdaughter’s distress. Then I got a clue that might shed some light.

  “May I ask, is Harper’s brother your stepson as well?”

  Pride swelled her chest. “Arthur is mine. I married Harper’s father when Art was seven. Harper was five. She didn’t approve, and these antics of hers began soon after.”

  “Antics?” I asked.

  “Yes.” She waved a dismissive hand. “The drama. The theatrics. Someone is always after her, trying to scare her or hurt her or kill her. You can imagine how hard it is to take this seriously when it has been happening for over twenty-five years.”

  That was interesting. Harper hadn’t mentioned that part. “So this started when she was young?”

  “Five.”

  “I see.” I took out my notepad and pretended to take notes. Partly to look official, but mostly to give myself a minute to get a well-rounded read off her. From what I could tell, she wasn’t lying. She didn’t believe Harper’s accusations were real. She didn’t believe Harper’s life was in danger.

  Then again, my stepmother had never believed a word I’d said growing up either. Mrs. Lowell’s indifference meant nothing in the grand scheme of things besides the fact that she was petty and vain.

  “According to her therapists,” she continued, her tone waspish to the extreme, “seven therapists, to be exact—it’s not unusual for a daughter to feel neglected and crave attention when her father remarries. Her biological mother died when she was an infant. Jaso
n was all she had.”

  “Is your husband home? May I talk to him?”

  She chafed under my forwardness. “No, you may not. Mr. Lowell is very ill. He can hardly entertain Harper’s delusions of doom, much less those of a hired private investigator.”

  Mrs. Lowell’s expression would suggest she thought I was nothing more than a charlatan, out to take Harper’s—aka her—money. Since I was quite used to people believing me a charlatan, the snub didn’t irritate. But the slight to Harper did. She clearly harbored no genuine affection for her stepdaughter. She saw her as a nuisance. A burden. Much like my own stepmother thought of me.

  “And,” Mrs. Lowell continued, a thought having occurred to her, “she disappeared for three years. Three! Off the face of the Earth, as far as we knew. Did she tell you that?”

  While I wanted to say, I would have, too, with a stepmother like you, what I said was, “No, ma’am, she didn’t.”

  “See. She is completely unstable. When she finally deigned us with her presence, she said she had been on the run for her life. Of all the ludicrous…” Mrs. Lowell shifted in irritation. “And now she hires a private investigator? She has gone over the edge.”

  I wrote the word psycho in my notebook, then scribbled it out before she saw. I was letting my own biases guide me on this case, and that would get me nowhere. Taking a mental step back, I took a deep breath and tried to see this from Mrs. Lowell’s perspective, as difficult as that might be. I didn’t often identify with rich bitches, but they were people, too. Weren’t they?

  So Mrs. Lowell marries a man, a rich man, only to find out the man’s daughter hates her with a passion and despises the relationship her new mother has with her father, so much so that she makes up wild stories about someone trying to kill her. To get back at her new mother? Her father for abandoning her?

  Nope. I didn’t buy it. Mrs. Lowell was a cold bitch. She most likely married for the money, not that I could blame her entirely for that—a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do—but to dismiss Harper’s fears outright and so callously bordered on neglect, in my opinion. Jason Lowell was her meal ticket, and his daughter was part of the deal. I couldn’t help but feel a little ambivalent toward Harper’s father. Where was he in all this? Why was he not here supporting his daughter? Taking up for her?