A Grave Issue Page 5

  “Did you see anyone?” I asked. It would help if someone could confirm what he was saying.

  He shook his head. “No, no one. It’s pretty quiet out there at that time of day. It’s part of why I like to walk then.”

  “Who knows that’s your routine?” Janet asked.

  He tried to throw his hands in the air, but he couldn’t because of the chains. He winced as he pulled against them. “How would I know that? I suppose if you watched, you’d figure out pretty quickly, but who pays attention to stuff like that?”

  I hated to tell him that lots of people pay attention to things like that. People are nosy. People are curious. “Do you lock the house when you leave?”

  He shook his head. “Not usually. Nobody really comes out that way.”

  “And you still keep a key outside?” I asked. They always had when I was a kid.

  “Sure. It’s in that ceramic frog you made for me and Lola in art class.” He smiled.

  I blushed. It wasn’t a frog. It was a horse. Art was never my thing. “How many people know that?”

  Kyle rested his head on his folded hands. “How should I know that? Honestly, I don’t spend a lot of my life looking around to see who’s watching me.”

  It was one of the things my dad had loved about Kyle. He really didn’t care who was watching. He led his life so that he could be an open book, just like Dad had. There was a reason they were best friends. “Did you hear anything when you were out on your walk? Did you hear the gunshot?”

  “The police have asked me that over and over. I wish I could remember, but you know what it’s like out there. It’s not that uncommon of a sound. It’s not like in town, where you would register that noise and think about it.” He leaned down so he could rub his forehead.

  “So you don’t remember hearing it?” Janet asked, making some notes.

  He sighed. “No, I don’t.”

  “Do you remember hearing anything else? Seeing anything else?” I asked.

  “Saw a deer.” He smiled.

  Again, so Kyle. “I mean anything that might pertain to Alan’s murder,” Janet said.

  He shook his head. “Sorry, no.”

  “We should go, then. If you think of anything, make sure to tell one of us. Don’t tell anybody else, though. Nobody else here in the cells with you. None of the cops,” she warned.

  He shook his head. “Oh, come on, Janet. I’ve known most of these kids in here since they were in Lola’s classes at the high school. None of them is in for anything more serious than drunk and disorderly or vandalism.”

  “I know that. That’s why I’m warning you. They’re not on your side this time.”

  She was right. I’d seen too many people get ratted out by someone making a side deal. “Anything you tell them, they can tell someone else, and someone else can twist those words to benefit their side.”

  He sighed. “I wish there weren’t sides to take.”

  That was again so Kyle. I risked breaking the no-touching rule to put my hand over his. “We’ll get this straightened out.”

  He put his free hand over mine and gave a rueful laugh. “You sound just like your dad.”

  Gosh darn it. I swore something got in my eye right then.

  Chapter Seven

  I screwed up my courage, called Nate, and convinced him to meet me for a cup of coffee at the Cold Clutch Canyon Café.

  I slipped into a booth there and Monique, the same perky honey-blonde waitress that had brought me my rosé the night before, poured me a cup of coffee in one of those thick china mugs that you seem to only find at diners. A few minutes later, Nate slid into the booth across from me.

  “Hi, Desiree.”

  Nate had never called me Death Ray. Not once. Nate Johar didn’t care that there were dead people in my basement or that my mom was dead. Nate Johar cared that I made him laugh. He cared that I liked action movies. And on at least one memorable night before we both left for college, he cared that I didn’t always wear a bra.

  That night was a long time ago, though. Now he ran his hands through his hair. It looked nicely rumpled, like he’d just got out of bed. Monique poured him a cup of coffee.

  “So you’re back here for good?” he asked, adding cream and taking a sip.

  “I don’t know.” I looked down at the table. “I’m still trying to figure that out.”

  “It’s a nice place, you know.” He wrapped his hands around the mug. His fingers were incredibly long, like practically E.T. long.

  Verbena was nice. It was also small. And gossipy. And full of obligations. “I’m pretty aware of what it’s like here.” I sighed. “How are your parents?”

  He shrugged. “Good. Dad made vice president at NatureTech and plays a lot of golf. Mom took up quilting.”

  “That’s nice.” His parents had never been thrilled about me. It was nothing personal. They would have preferred for Nate to date a nice Indian girl or possibly not to date at all and focus on studying.

  He took another sip of coffee. “It’s good to see you again. Even better when it’s not over a dead body.”

  “About that: I don’t suppose you found anything interesting when you did the autopsy?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral.

  His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by interesting?”

  I shrugged, going for nonchalance. “I don’t know. Something that might indicate who had actually done it?”

  “You mean like something out of a television show where they can determine the exact height of the shooter based on bullet trajectory?” he asked. “Or the presence of a certain kind of dust on the victim’s shoes that would point to the killer?”

  I sat up straighter. Terrific! Nate had found something that would exonerate Kyle. “Yes, exactly like that. That would be really helpful.”

  He leaned toward me. “No, there was nothing like that. Alan died from the bullet wound to his forehead by his own chicken coop on his own land.”

  I slumped down again. “Anything in his stomach contents or something that might point to a particular person?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I don’t believe this. You get me down here on the pretense of wanting to catch up when all you want to do is pick my brains about Alan Brewer’s autopsy?”

  I blushed. The bait and switch had been entirely intentional. I had a good reason, though. “Kyle didn’t do it, Nate. I need to find a way to prove it.”

  “Since when did solving murders fall under the purview of assistant funeral directors?” he asked.

  “It doesn’t, but when the local police have arrested the wrong person and refuse to investigate any further, someone has to do something.” I started to feel indignant.

  “I know how you feel about Kyle, Desiree. I know how close he was to your father. Luke wouldn’t have made the arrest lightly, though. If he felt he had enough evidence for an arrest, he probably has a pretty sound case.”

  I signaled to Monique to refill my mug. “It’s all circumstantial. Kyle did not kill Alan.” I leapt back as Monique overfilled my mug and coffee spilled across the table.

  “Sorry!” she gasped. “Sorry.” She grabbed a towel that had been stuck in the waistband of her apron and mopped up the coffee. She looked like she might cry. The girl must really need the tips.

  “It’s okay,” I said, patting her hand. No one should feel that bad over a spilled cup of coffee.

  “Yes,” said Nate. “We were done anyway.”

  After she walked away, I asked, “We were done?”

  “Yes, we were done. I have nothing to tell you except that the postmortem is done and I’m releasing his body for burial. There was nothing in the autopsy that pointed to anyone in particular, and if there was, I’m not sure I’d tell you. It’s not your job.” He folded his arms over his chest. “This is because Luke Butler is the one who arrested Kyle, isn’t it?”

  “No.” I picked at a seam on the seat of the upholstered booth.

  “Desiree, this is not a student council el
ection. This is a murder investigation. There’s no room in it for petty childhood squabbles.” He stood. “I’m leaving now.”

  I sat at the booth, finishing my coffee and thinking about what Nate had just said. What I was doing was about Kyle. I was sure of that. I wasn’t sure that the idea of showing Luke Butler he was wrong about something didn’t add a little bit of luster to the project. We’d been rivals throughout high school. Always competing for the same spots, jockeying for position. The worst was the campaign for senior class president. I’d run a carefully thought-through campaign focused on getting more organic food into the cafeteria and lengthening library hours. Luke had whipped everyone up into a frenzy with cheers and chants and had beaten me. I still didn’t understand it. It had been my first and last dalliance with politics beyond covering local elections.

  My reverie was interrupted by my cell phone ringing. I looked at the caller ID. It was Donna. “What’s up, buttercup?”

  “Desiree, I’m bleeding.”

  * * *

  Waiting rooms are such weird interstitial spaces. Everyone there is in some kind of limbo, in between one state and the next. The one at Verbena Memorial was actually nicer than most. I’d been in some down in Los Angeles covering car accidents and fires that were downright nasty. Plastic molded chairs. Dirty cracked linoleum floors. Corners full of the kind of weird dust and debris that made you worry about tetanus and hepatitis. Harsh fluorescent lights, always with one blinking on and off at random intervals. People huddled, holding blood-soaked rags to injuries.

  The lighting in this one was soft, and the magazines were no more than three months old. The chairs were cushioned. The floor was carpeted. I could see vacuum marks on the carpet, and it smelled like lemon wood polish. It was practically a luxury suite.

  I didn’t care.

  I’d been prowling from wall to wall for twenty-five minutes when Greg showed up.

  “Where is she?” he asked, looking wild-eyed.

  It wasn’t his normal look. His normal look was placid, calm, unruffled, handsome in that kind of bland way of symmetrical features and hair that seemed to fall the right way. Of course, the situation wasn’t normal. There was something wrong with Donna or the baby. Not normal at all.

  “I’m not totally sure where she is. They took her back to a room and shuffled me into here once they decided to admit her. The nurse at the desk said they’d come get me when I could go in.” It was all I knew, and it was clearly cold comfort.

  He sank into one of the chairs. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. She wasn’t feeling well, so she stayed in bed, but then she called me . . .” And I’d run back home and taken the stairs two at a time to get back to her. I barely remembered the drive to the hospital.

  He rubbed his hands across his face. “I knew something wasn’t right. She won’t tell me when she doesn’t feel good. She doesn’t want to worry me. I should have listened to my gut. I should have stayed home.”

  Before I could comment, Dr. Chao came into the waiting room. She was a short woman with black hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. Her steel-frame glasses were slightly askew as if she’d fallen asleep on them. Her eyes looked puffy. She sat down on the coffee table across from Greg. “First of all, she’s fine and the baby is fine.”

  He blew out a breath and collapsed back in the chair. “Thank goodness.”

  “For now,” she continued.

  Next to me, Greg stiffened. “What does that mean?”

  “That means we need to be cautious.” She put her hand on Greg’s knee. “I’d rather err on the side of caution than take unnecessary chances. I think we should put Donna on limited bed rest for a while.” She turned to me. “You’re the sister?”

  “Yep, that’s me.” The sister. It was like a title.

  “So you can take over for her at work, right?” she asked.

  “Absolutely.” There wasn’t anything I could think of that would be more important.

  She turned back to Greg. “And, Greg, you can be around more?”

  He nodded. “I can take some time off work, stay home with her.”

  “With her sister and uncle around, I don’t think that it will be necessary yet.” Dr. Chao shut her eyes for a second.

  I didn’t like the sound of yet. “So this could get worse?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to avoid. Do you want to go back to see her now?” she asked.

  Both Greg and I nodded like bobblehead dolls.

  There’s something about hospital beds that make people look small. I’m not sure why. It’s not like those miserable things are huge, yet everyone looks tiny and frail once they’re in one. Donna was no exception. A number of machines beeped and booped around her bed. I knew most of them. Blood pressure. Oxygenation. Heart rate. There was another one measuring the baby’s heart rate.

  I swallowed hard. It never failed to take me back to visiting my mother in the hospital. I knew if I was the one hooked up to the machines, my pulse would be racing and my blood pressure would be spiking up. I didn’t have full-blown panic attacks in hospitals anymore. That was years behind me. It didn’t mean I liked being there, though. I didn’t know if Donna had the same associations or not. Did being here make her scared that she might not be around to raise the little munchkin inside her? Did she worry about our genes? Or some weird fate?

  “I’m sorry,” Donna said as Greg slid into the chair by her bed. “I didn’t want to make a fuss. I didn’t want to be a bother.”

  He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. “Never a bother, and I want to fuss over you all the time forever.”

  She lowered her eyelashes. “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do,” he said. A tear leaked out of the corner of Greg’s eye. He brushed it away, looking at his hand as if he was as surprised it was there as anyone else.

  Donna’s eyes glistened too.

  I backed out of the room. Nobody needed their kid sister around at a moment like that. I walked back out of the hospital to where I’d parked the Element after dropping Donna at the emergency department door. The parking lot surface felt soft and sticky beneath my feet. I stepped up my pace, eager to get inside the car and start the air conditioning.

  I got back to the house and went up to my room, falling on the bed with arms outstretched like I was going to make a snow angel. I stared up at the ceiling and then at the now blank walls. I pulled myself into a sitting position and looked around. The bare walls and the white furniture were like a clean slate. I didn’t have to leave it like this. I could make it my own. I could start over.

  I grabbed my laptop, and after consulting a few design websites, I decided on what I wanted. I then spent more money than I probably should have on new drapes, new sheets, and a new comforter for the bed. No more pink and gingham for me.

  Chapter Eight

  With Donna on bed rest, there was no choice but to have me deal with Rosemarie when she came in to make the arrangements for Alan’s funeral. I’d been a little surprised that she wanted to have us as her funeral home. I’d thought she might have bad feelings about us after the whole Miss Delia debacle, but we’re pretty much the only funeral game in town, and that hadn’t really been our fault.

  When she walked in, I saw what Luke meant about her looking like a zombie. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. Her hair hung limply around her face. Her hands shook a tiny bit. I may not have liked the position she’d put Kyle and Lola in, but I couldn’t help but have some sympathy for what she was going through. The fact that she was going through it alone made it worse.

  Sudden death took its toll. Sheena had been exhausted after years of taking care of her father. She’d been wrung out. She’d been ridden hard and put away wet. She’d also been prepared. She’d known what was coming and even how it was likely to come. She was sad but not shocked. Rosemarie hadn’t have time to prepare. The double whammy of shock and grief looked like it was knocking her off her feet.

  “How are you doing?”
I asked after getting her a glass of water.

  “Oh,” she said, waving her hand limply in the air. “Okay, I guess. Or as okay as I can be. Can we get this over with?”

  It wasn’t an uncommon question. A lot of people wanted to get through these decisions as quickly as possible, but there were so many options to choose from. I showed her the various packages we offered to make it easier.

  “I’d like to have the viewing here right before the burial,” she said, looking at her calendar.

  I hesitated. “Do you want an open casket?” That bullet hole in his skull was going to be hard for even an artist like Uncle Joey to work around. “Maybe a visitation would be a better choice.”

  Her hand went to her mouth and shook a bit. Then she said, “No, I want a viewing. I understand what you’re saying. I saw what that evil man did to my Alan. Everyone else should see too. We have nothing to be ashamed about. It’s them. They should be ashamed.”

  I bit my tongue even harder trying not to immediately come to Kyle’s defense. I had to compartmentalize. “Friend of Kyle and Lola” Desiree had to stay separate from “assistant funeral director” Desiree. I needed to erect the equivalent of the kind of Chinese wall law firms use to prevent conflicts of interest. “Of course, it’s up to you, but maybe you’ll want to think a little about that before you make a final decision. We can schedule the time, and you can decide whether to have an open or closed casket later.”

  She nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”

  “Did you bring some clothes for him?” I asked.

  She picked up the bag she’d been carrying and shoved it at me. I peeked inside and pulled some of the items out.

  “He loved that suit. It was his favorite. He always wore it with that shirt and that tie.” She pointed to the items.

  I looked a little deeper and saw shoes. I folded the items carefully and put them back in the bag. I’d have the suit dry-cleaned and the shirt laundered before we put them on Alan. We covered music and food choices. Next we moved on to the funeral itself.