Already dead, p.11
Already Dead, page 11
It was Chase’s turn to grow uncomfortable.
“No, just this case. I just… I needed something new, you know? Stuck in a house with a pre-teen… compared to that, this case is baby games.”
Floyd laughed.
“I can’t even imagine. But you sure know how to pick your cases, don’t you?”
Chase glared over the top of her beer at Floyd.
“What do you mean?”
Floyd looked down.
“Nothing, sorry. It’s the beer, I guess.”
Chase wasn’t buying it. The man hadn’t had more than five sips.
“After all we’ve been through, you still can’t speak frankly to me?”
Floyd looked up, the expression on his face reading ‘challenge accepted’. This might not be speaking to a victim’s parents, but it was a step in the right direction.
“I was just saying, the last case was about those girls who committed suicide. This one is about a murderer who kills herself afterward. And then there’s your father’s history and your own…”
Floyd was wrong. Chase hadn’t selected this case based on anything—it was simply the case that Floyd was on when she needed to get away from Tennessee.
It was nothing more than a coincidence.
I wonder what Stitts would say about that?
“Chase?”
“I guess, I know how to pick them,” Chase said absently. She shook her head. They had come full circle, back to the reason why she was here. “Speaking of this case, have you or Tate looked into any other cases like these two?”
Floyd raised an eyebrow.
“Vagrants who murder and then take their own lives.” Chase considered this for a moment. “Murder weapon is probably a knife.”
“Nothing in Charleston or Columbus.”
“What about surrounding states?”
“To be honest, Chase, the only reason we’re here is that Dr. Wayne Griffith III had some important friends. You should have seen it. We go to Columbus to investigate his death, and they send a lieutenant to chaperone us. Here? For Roger Evans who owns a little electronics store and lives in a trailer? They send us Mr. Bean in a uniform. Probably left us because he had to rush off to AA or something.”
“It’s not how you’re killed, it’s who you know.” Chase finished her beer. “Floyd, when you call your FBI buddy back in Quantico to see if they can find out who the girl in the photo is, ask them to look into other cases like these ones in adjacent states.”
“Do you think that these cases are related? Wayne and Roger?”
“Could be a coincidence.”
And there it was again. Coincidence.
“Stitts—”
They both said the man’s name at exactly the same time, which made them laugh. Then they thought about the four dead bodies and the laughter stopped.
Chapter 23
Tate Abernathy answered his cell phone.
“Yes, daddy?” he said. “How's it going with mommy?”
There was an uncomfortable pause, followed by the sound of Floyd clearing his throat.
“Oh, I get it—Chase is with you. Okay, well, then, what can I do for you, Agent Montgomery?”
As he waited for Floyd to reply, he stared out the windshield. Meredith Griffith was unloading groceries from the back of her trunk and bringing them into her house.
“Think you can do me a favor? I tried calling Quantico, but they’re giving me the runaround, saying they’re busy with other cases. I thought maybe they’d listen to you.”
“I live to serve,” Tate said. “What do you need?”
Meredith was behaving incredibly normal for someone whose husband was just brutally murdered.
“I need you to do a deep dive into Henry and Roger, see if they had a child. A girl.”
“They?”
“They.”
Tate shrugged. That was something he hadn’t expected.
“Will do. Anything else?”
“Yeah, Chase suggested that we look into similar crimes—women who kill and then commit suicide immediately afterward, especially with a knife—in surrounding states over the past three to four years.”
“Oh, so now I’m taking orders from Chase, is that right?”
“Tate…”
“Kidding, kidding. I’ll send in the request. Did you guys find something in beautiful West Virginia?”
Tate heard a muffled conversation between what he suspected was Floyd and Chase, and then his partner came back on the phone. Tate didn’t mind sharing Floyd. It might be good for the man. He just wished that Floyd would take some initiative and he feared that he was just doing Chase’s bidding. He’d seen flashes of Floyd’s independence, something that was critical in this business. He’d seen it at Junkie Row, and he thought he’d seen it right here when Floyd had ‘accidentally’ called Meredith, Julia. But it wasn’t enough.
“No concrete links. Just crossing our ‘T’s and dotting our ‘I’s.”
“Uh-huh. And spending a couple of nights on the government’s dime in West Virginia. Am I right?”
“Chase paid cash. Anyways, see if you can get either Patricks or Tompsen back in Quantico to run that for me, please.”
Me, not us.
Interesting. Maybe Floyd is spreading his wings after all.
“No need,” Tate said. He reached over and grabbed his laptop from the passenger seat. “I’ve got remote access right here. The perks of being in the business for longer than you’ve been alive.”
“I’m only in my twenties, Tate.”
“Funny guy. Aren’t you going to ask me how my day is going? I feel like in this relationship all I do is give and all you do is take.”
Floyd sighed and Tate wondered if he was laying it on too thick.
Probably not.
Floyd was wound tighter than a dreidel during Hanukkah.
“Ok, I’ll bite, what are you up to?”
Meredith slammed the trunk and headed inside.
“I'm on a top-secret stakeout,” Tate said. “Very secret.”
“What?”
Tate picked up on something in Floyd’s voice. Stress, perhaps. He dropped the act.
A little.
“I'm just sitting in this car that smells like Cheetos farts and keeping an eye on Meredith Griffith. I’m pretty sure she’s due to receive a hefty insurance policy. She doesn’t seem to do much other than yoga classes, which just happen to be run by a stallion named Juan. Between you and I, I think she should focus more on the exercises than Juan’s abs.”
“Anything out of the ordinary?”
“Now, that's the thing. Meredith is being completely and utterly normal. Painfully normal. But you know the stats. Anyway, Wayne’s funeral is tomorrow. I hope something interesting happens, otherwise, I’m just wasting my time.”
“Why don’t you have a beer with Lieutenant Lehner and shoot the shit?” Floyd asked.
A smile crept onto Tate’s face.
“I think I’ll pass on that one. I’m not sure I want to spend my afternoon talking about the dangers of 5G towers or how the earth is flat.”
“I doubt our friend Lieutenant Lehner would be discussing both those things,” Floyd suggested.
“I wouldn’t put it past the man.”
“No, think about it. If the earth was flat, why would we need so many towers? Couldn’t you just put one on either end?”
Tate nodded to himself.
“You’re not just a pretty face, are you, Floyd? Oh, before I forget, I did some digging on our vagrant girl before starting to tail Meredith. Checked out two homeless shelters and another one of those Junkie Row places. Even used your time-honored technique of offering cash for tips—although, I was smart and doled out ones instead of fives. Nobody remembers seeing or smelling her. Either she laid low before she killed Wayne or—”
“Maybe she's from out of town?”
Tate licked his lips.
He was about to say maybe she laid low before she killed Wayne, or her condition worsened recently.
For some reason, he hadn’t thought about what Floyd had just suggested, even though now that it was out there, it was painfully obvious.
“Tate?”
“Yeah, shit, that’s a good idea. Did Chase suggest it?”
Silence.
“I'm kidding, Floyd. There’s no way she drove, and flying would be impossible looking the way she did,” Tate mused. “Bus. It had to be bus.”
“That’s what I would think.”
“And if she took the bus, then someone would remember her. Impossible to forget that stench.”
There was more of that muffled conversation.
“Gotta go, Tate. Please look into the girl and other similar crimes.”
“Aye, aye, Tonto.”
Tate hung up and unzipped his laptop bag. He was just opening it up when he spotted movement in the upstairs of the Griffith house.
Meredith was sweaty after her yoga workout. And what do you do to get rid of the sweat?
You shower, of course.
“Sorry, Floyd, but your little computer investigation is going to have to wait.”
Chapter 24
“Yeah, I'm fine. Listen, after the debacle at County, I forgot to get the list of Brian Jalston’s visitors,” Chase said into her phone. “Think you could do me a favor and pick that up for me?”
Terrence didn't reply right away so Chase continued.
“I just want to know the names of his visitors, that's all.”
Terrence sighed.
“Yeah, I can swing by and pick that up for you tomorrow—it’s late and I’m beat.”
Terrence didn’t just sound beat, he sounded defeated. It was tough being Chase’s colleague, even tougher being her friend.
If that’s what they were.
“Thanks, Terrence, I really appreciate it.”
Without waiting for a reply, she hung up just as Floyd emerged from the diner, holding his own cell phone.
“Tate’s going to look at it for us. Was that Georgina?”
Chase tucked her phone away.
“Yeah.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Good. No, great,” Chase lied. “She loves spending time with Louisa and the boys. It’s getting late, Floyd. I think I’m going to wrap it up for the night. Maybe tomorrow we pay Henry another visit?”
Floyd looked at his watch.
“Yeah, okay.”
They walked together to the hotel and then said good night at their adjacent rooms. Once inside, Chase pulled her cellphone out and stared at it. It wasn’t that she felt guilty about lying to Floyd—correction, it wasn’t only because she felt guilty to him—but also for not calling Georgina at all.
She started to dial Louisa’s number then stopped.
“Damn it.”
All she could think about was that bastard Brian. Leering, sneering, laughing.
Instead of calling her niece, Chase went to the mini bar. She grabbed a bottle of Johnny Walker and downed it. She debated having another, but instead just sat on the bed for ten minutes.
When she heard the shower come on next door, Chase silently left her room and made her way downstairs to the hotel bar.
Just one more drink. Something to help me sleep, that’s all.
She took a seat by herself and ordered a scotch.
Most of the TVs were showing sports, but one was displaying a twenty-four-hour news channel. The news du jour was of a man in New York City. A business owner by the name of Kevin Park. He’d been accused and had confessed to murdering his partner. Police said they found the man sleeping on his work couch, covered in his partner’s blood.
Authorities had yet to find the body.
“Yep,” a voice said from her left, “and that's why I hate New York.”
The man was young, maybe in his late twenties, and attractive. His blond hair was short on the sides, and longer and messy on top. He had a groomed beard and was wearing jeans and a T-shirt.
“It's not just New York,” Chase remarked, her mind on her own case.
“True, true.” The man drank some of his beer and then held out his hand. “My name’s Casey,” he said with a slight grin.
Chase just looked at the hand.
He pulled it back and held it up, his smile growing.
“Okay, stranger danger, I get it.”
Chase chuckled. It wasn’t that she found the joke amusing—in fact, if this Casey knew her profession, she doubted he would find it funny, either—but the implications were hilarious.
If one of them posed a danger to the other, it wasn’t the cute frat boy.
“Chase,” she said. “My name’s Chase.”
“Nice to meet you, Chase. I noticed you don’t have an accent. What brings you to Charleston? Work?”
“You don’t have an accent, either,” Chase remarked. “In town for your next lay?”
The man full out laughed at that one.
“Spicy—I like it.”
Chase was trying to put up a front, but it wasn’t working. Whether it was the booze, or the stress she was under, it simply wasn’t working.
It didn’t help that the man before was attractive. And kind, at least on the surface. She could imagine them settling up the bill and heading next door to her room.
Shit, Chase wanted that. Needed it, even. It had been so long…
Her thoughts turned to Floyd next door to her, to Georgina, to Brian.
Chase finished her scotch.
“It’s nice to meet you, Casey. I hope you find what you’re looking for tonight.”
The man nodded.
“I hope you find what you're searching for, too, Chase,” he replied.
The kindness that this stranger expressed was so refreshing that when Chase rose, she nearly leaned in and kissed him. Not in a sexual way, but in a motherly way. But that would have led to something else, something more, and ended in regret.
“Take care.”
Chase left the bar less than ten minutes after entering, which wasn’t enough to cure her wandering mind. But instead of heading upstairs to her room, she went outside. Tucking her hands into her pockets, Chase started to walk.
In one pocket was her cell phone, in the other a set of keys she didn’t recognize. Chase pulled them out.
They were Roger Evans’ keys.
Chase glanced up. Everything looked the same here, but she thought she recognized the strip mall across the street.
E-Tronics.
With nothing better to do, Chase hurried across the street. It was E-Tronics, and she cupped her hands and peered through the glass. It was the same as earlier in the day.
Chase went to the door next and started the laborious task of selecting the correct key.
“Why couldn’t someone label these things?”
Unlike at Roger’s house, she found it earlier than the last key.
It was the second to last one.
God only knew what the others were for.
She entered and grimaced. It smelled like Roger’s house.
Shaking her head, she spotted another one of those cat house things near the back and an unemptied litter box.
“What is with these people?”
E-Tronics’ shelves were about half full. One section contained various connectors and cables, which were likely to be obsolete in a year or two. In another section, behind several locked cases, were the higher-priced items. There was even less stock of these, but it explained the keys.
Chase walked around the store, not sure what she was looking for. She kept tilting her head at odd angles, her eyes trained downward.
The cat. Your super-powered subconscious is making you look for a cat, Chase.
She rolled with it.
“Here, kitty.”
If it was there, it was quiet. Or dead.
How long since you’ve been fed?
There were two bowls dangerously close to the full box of kitty litter, but both were empty.
Chase went to the counter in search of a bag of cat food, thinking that if the cat were just hiding, she had better feed it.
She couldn’t find any.
Maybe in the back?
Chase did, however, notice that the garbage was half-full, and this reminded her of what Henry had said about Roger taking the garbage out front and then down the alley.
In the small office, she found two garbage bins. One was empty, while the other contained a banana peel, which wasn’t helping the smell situation.
Okay, so he didn't take the garbage out—at least not all of it.
Curious now, she put herself in Roger’s shoes, imagining the man’s steps if he had taken the garbage out. In addition to the two in the office and one under the front cash, she found a third in the storage room in the back. This one was empty, and it was located right next to the rear exit. It was locked, and she turned the deadbolt and opened it.
Chase stared into the back alley. There was a dumpster right there, three feet to the left of the exit.
She massaged the back of her neck and was in the process of closing the door when a thought occurred to her.
Why would Roger take the garbage out front and down the side alley, a good, thirty to forty feet away when there was a bin right here? He would have to come back here anyway to lock this door, wouldn’t he?
And yet, she was fairly certain that Henry had said, or at least agreed with her when she’d suggested that Roger would have taken the garbage out front.
For the second time, Chase started to close the door again only to stop.
She spotted a brief flash of white by the dumpster.
Chase’s hand moved to her holster, and she stepped into the alley.
“Hey,” she shouted. “Hey, who’s there?”
Craning her neck, she looked around the front of the dumpster.
Her rational mind was telling her that it was just a piece of garbage floating in the breeze. But the irrational part wanted it to be a white dress.
Chase took another step around the dumpster when she heard a click from behind her. She looked over her shoulder and saw that the door had closed.
Then she heard a growl. Not behind her, but in front of her, tucked in the shadow of the dumpster. And then the creature lunged, driving something hard and sharp into her neck just above her collarbone.
