Fifth Grave Past the Light

  I slowed down. He slowed down. I thought about waving him past me, but if he’d wanted to pass, he would have. The interior of his vehicle was so dark, I couldn’t see enough to get a description. All I could make out were dark glasses and a black baseball cap.

  “Lost, you are. Make a U-turn, you will.”

  Shit. Did I miss a turn? I was losing my bond with Yoda. He was mocking me, I could tell. I scanned the area. I couldn’t have missed a turn. There wasn’t one to miss.

  SUV Guy slowed down until he was about twenty feet back. Just when I started to breathe easier, he gunned his engine and darted forward.

  Damn. “Hold on,” I said to Dead Naked Man, “he’s going to hit us.” If I veered off the road to evade him, he could broadside me, so I stayed the course, dialing Uncle Bob while trying to keep Misery on the road.

  “In two hundred feet, bear right, you will.”

  Bear right? There was no bearing right. There was no bearing at all. Clearly Yoda was going to get someone killed.

  Just as the SUV was about to crash into me, he slammed on his brakes, losing just enough traction to swerve into the other lane. But he regained control quickly and started the game all over again.

  “Where are you?” Uncle Bob asked.

  “In five hundred feet, find your destination you will.”

  Oh, awesome. I’d made it. “I’m close, I think. But someone —” I squeaked when the SUV pulled the same maneuver, rocketing forward, a microsecond away from driving up my ass before slamming on his brakes.

  I let go of the breath I was holding. “Black SUV, GMC with chrome grille and moldings, tinted windows, male driver under the age of fifty, dark glasses and black baseball cap.”

  “Got it. What’s going on?”

  “He just tried to give me an GMC enema. Twice.”

  “I’m on my way,” he said. It sounded like he was running to his own SUV.

  I cursed New Mexico’s lack of requirement for front license plates. The guy backed way off before turning around and heading the other direction, too far for me to get his numbers. And no way was I turning around to try to get them.

  “That’s okay. He backed off.”

  I’m not sure why I didn’t just have Ubie swing by to get me. It would have been much less traumatic. Not to mention the fact that it just isn’t as easy not to look at genitals as one might think. Uncle Bob was standing by the open door of his gray SUV, hands on hips, looking very worried.

  The bridge was one of those old railroad bridges, all rusted metal bracings and rivets. I had no idea it was even out here. It was gorgeous against the stark landscape of New Mexico.

  “Did you get anything else?” he asked when I climbed out, trying not to crumple to the ground.

  “Besides lost? Freaking Yoda.” Blaming Yoda seemed like the right thing to do. “That guy could’ve killed me. And there’s a naked man in my car. He’s elderly.”

  I tried to play it cool, but Ubie saw right through my bravado. I decided to name my bravado Saran Wrap. Then again, my uncontrollable shaking could’ve given me away. He pulled me into his arms.

  “No one has driven by here since the faded red Pinto with a chicken coop strapped to the top.”

  “What is my stepmother doing out here? Her and her chickens.”

  Uncle Bob tried not to grin. He failed.

  “No, the guy turned around and headed back to town.”

  “Nothing,” a voice from beyond said.

  I peeked over an incline into the dry ravine. Ubie had brought Taft, the cop who gave Reyes such a hard time the night before.

  “Hey,” I said to him when he looked up. He’d climbed down and was scouting the area.

  He nodded in greeting. “I haven’t found anything.”

  Taft was kind of good to have around. Because of his little sister who died when he was a kid, he knew about my ability to see the departed. Thankfully he didn’t ask questions beyond that. It took him a while to swallow the small amount of what he did know. I couldn’t imagine what he’d do if he were to find out the whole truth. I didn’t figure him for a grim reaper advocate.

  “Any tracks or disturbances in the area down there?” Ubie asked.

  “Nope, not a single one that I can find.”

  “I don’t know, hon, are you sure this is the place?”

  “It’s the place she told me about. She was Hispanic, dressed in nurse’s scrubs.”

  “And she said her body was here?”

  “Yes, did you find any missing women matching her description?”

  “There was one from a couple of years ago, but that’s about it. You said she came to you this morning?”

  “The very one.”

  He went back to his SUV and took out a file. “Is this her?”

  I took a quick look. “No, this girl is much more Asian than my visitor. Who was Hispanic,” I reminded him. He never listened.

  “Okay, look through these and let me know. I’m going to call in the SUV. We might get lucky and find another officer on this road.”

  “Sounds good.”

  He called the station while I perused. After a few minutes, he strolled back to me. “Anything?”

  “No. And no missing Nicoles or Nickys today?” I asked him as I thumbed through the pictures of missing women. I had also hoped to recognize one of the women in my apartment, but nothing popped out at me. Of course, it was hard to make out their faces from beneath the tangled masses of hair and mud.

  “Not that I found, but she may not be from here.”

  “Can you widen the search?”

  “I can try now that I have a description.”

  Taft climbed back to the top, his breathing only slightly labored from the effort. “Not a thing, boss.”

  “I love it when you call me boss,” I said.

  He frowned.

  “I was really hoping to find her,” I said. “She was so worried about her family.”

  “Did you get anything else that might lead us to her identity?” Taft asked.

  “She was wearing scrubs and a name tag on a lanyard. I saw the letters N-i-c. I’m really just guessing on the name Nicole.”

  He dusted off his uniform and squinted as he surveyed the area again. “What hospital?”

  “Presbyterian, I think. I’ll go there and see what I can dig up later today.”

  When Uncle Bob went to answer a call, Taft stepped closer to me. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked out over the desert. “Have you seen my sister?”

  I closed the file folder. “Not in a few days. She’s still hanging at the old asylum.”

  “But she has friends now?” he asked.

  “Yeah, she has friends.” Taft was an okay guy. He almost died trying to save his sister and still looked out for her. But he needed to know the truth about her. “And she’s still as psychotic as ever, in case you’re wondering. Did she have a fondness for scissors when she was little?”

  He chuckled. “She cut the hair off all her dolls, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I knew it. I would have left that place completely bald if she’d gotten a hold of me. I’ll have to remember that in the future.”

  “Okay, I guess I’m heading back.”

  “Follow Charley back into town,” Ubie said.

  “Uncle Bob!” I said, my voice a nasally whine, the kind I knew he hated. “Wait, that’s a great idea. SUV Guy could come back.” I looked at Taft. “Just shoot any black SUV you see coming our way.”

  “I’ll do that,” he said. But he was lying. I could tell.

  “I’m sorry I dragged you out here,” I said to Ubie. “She has to show up eventually. She said her family couldn’t find her body. That she had been there for days. Someone had to report her missing.”

  “We’ll look into it,” Ubie said. “In the meantime, I have a date with a golf club and a little ball.”

  “You and your little balls.” I shook my head in disappointment. How could I get any work done without slaves? Spea
king of slaves, I called Garrett on the way back to town.

  “A guy in an SUV tried to kill me.”

  “That’s strange.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the guy I hired doesn’t drive an SUV.”

  “That is strange.” Swopes. Always the kidder. “Wait. If someone else kills me, do you still have to pay him?”

  “I think I should at least get a discount.”

  “Right? There’s also a naked elderly man in my passenger seat.”

  “TMI, Charles.”

  Poor dead naked man. No one wanted to know about him. “Well? Does Marv have any priors?”

  “Nothing. His record’s spotless, but how old did you say he was?”

  “I don’t know, around thirty-five?”

  “Then I have the wrong Marvin Tidwell. This guy is fifty-four. And dead.”

  “Really, yeah, this one didn’t look that dead.”

  “Probably not, but it could be you’re dealing with a case of identity theft.”

  “Seriously?” I asked, straightening. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Again, it’s doubtful, but I can look into it if you want.”

  “I want. Thanks a gazillion.”

  I knew I tolerated him for a reason. I hung up and contemplated what he’d said. Identity theft. Now, that would be incriminating. I knew the odds were against it, as my dead naked man was well beyond fifty-four, but just in case, I looked over and asked him, “Your name doesn’t happen to be Marv, does it?”

  7

  I am currently unsupervised. It freaks me out, too, but the possibilities are endless.

  —T-SHIRT

  Unfortunately, I had an appointment with a psychologist. I’d remembered my paintings, the ones that involved several counts of death and dismemberment. I wanted to impress her, to start our relationship off on the right foot. Albeit a severed one. On the way over to her office, I brought up another voice. There was one guy I could listen to all day and still not understand a word coming out of his mouth. Ozzy. Who could resist a Brit with slurry accent?

  “Um, okay, yeah, so in aboot three hundred feet, beah right.” Poor guy always sounded drunk. This app had to be pirated and altered in some way. Surely the real app would make Ozzy sound a little more coherent.

  “All right, then in two hundred feet, tahn left.”

  The funny thing about GPS was it didn’t always send you in the right direction.

  I knew that if I took a right and took Twelfth instead, I’d get there faster, so I turned right. Ozzy did not approve.

  “Wut the foock?”

  Did he just say the F-word?

  “Ya not even foocking listening.”

  “Ha! This is great,” I said to the dead naked guy. He ignored me. Ozzy was so entertaining, though, I had a hard time cutting him off. He got really mad when I missed the right on Central, so I started missing turns on purpose just to listen to him rail at me. I was almost late for my head shrinking.

  But I finally found the office of one Dr. Romero, the shrink my sister, Gemma, set me up with, despite Ozzy’s nagging. Gemma was so determined for me to deal with my PTSD, but I thought I was doing pretty well with it. We were friends now. I had my incontinence under control and Chihuahuas rarely frightened me anymore. Besides, I was certain the one that did was rabid. He had foam around his mouth and a crazy eye that looked off into the distance. The fact that he gave me nightmares was hardly my fault.

  I stepped inside a nice office with the usual Southwestern decor of so many professional offices in Alb. Sadly, this was the cheesy Southwestern decor. The kind that was popular in the nineties, complete with plaster cactus plants and a howling coyote. Okay, I had a thing for the howling coyotes, especially the kind with bandannas around their necks, but I wasn’t going to let Dr. Romero know that.

  “You must be Charley,” she said, and I could smell the New Age coming off her in waves. She was going to be one of those. This shouldn’t take long.

  “I am,” I said, and forced a smile.

  “Come on in.”

  She led me into another room with two chairs and a small sofa. “I’m feeling much better,” I said to her before sitting on the sofa. It was the farthest I could get from her without being rude.

  “I hope it’s okay, your sister filled me in on what happened to you.”

  “Isn’t that breaking some code of confidentiality?”

  “Not technically, but does it bother you that she told me?”

  “Not at all. I was just wondering.”

  “Well, I’m sorry we had to meet on a Saturday. Your sister’s a good friend and I’m going out of town next week. She wanted me to get you in before —” She noticed the portfolio I was carrying. “What is this?”

  “Art therapy. I thought I’d impress you with my rehabilitation. I painted this one last week.” I lifted the painting of dead birds with a brown-haired girl eating them. “And I painted this one last night.” I showed her the one of the birds flying past a bright sun with a rainbow and unicorn in the background. If this didn’t prove my sanity, I didn’t know what would.

  She smiled. “Your sister has filled me in. I know all your little tricks.”

  “Really? Did she tell you the one about the one where I say, ‘Pick a card. Any card.’ And then I say, ‘Now put it anywhere in the deck. Don’t show me!’ And then —”

  “This is called deflecting.”

  “That’s weird. I was just told yesterday that I reflect. Like the sun off a chrome bumper.” When a sly smile spread across her face, I knew I would not win this round. “So, she told you about all of my little tricks, huh?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “Did she mention the big ones? Because I have some doozies.”

  “Why don’t you tell me about them,” she said, her expression one of absolute understanding and infinite patience.

  I leaned forward, regarded her from underneath my lashes, and added an evil tilt to my smirk. “I can make the earth quake beneath your feet.”

  “Really?” she asked, as though fascinated.

  What was I doing? Begging for a bed in a psych ward? She was just so smug, I felt I needed to put her in her place. But she was also Gemma’s friend. If I screwed her up, I’d never hear the end of it.

  She leaned onto her elbows as well. “Why don’t you show me.”

  It wasn’t so much a question as a challenge. That did it. I let the power inside me gather near my heart, let it swirl and coil together until it collided in my center. I let it slide out of me, let it grab hold of the earth beneath us and the air around us. I let it take charge and build energy, and then I nudged it.

  The world quaked beneath our feet. The objects on her desk shook and a lamp fell over before I reined in the energy I’d let out.

  She paled, but fought her fear. “Like I said, your sister told me about you.”

  Well, crap. I reached for my phone. “Can you excuse me for just a minute?”

  She sat back and waited as I rang Gemma.

  “Hel —”

  “Gemma, what the hell?”

  “What? What’d I do now?” She seemed winded.

  “What were you doing?” I asked suspiciously. She’d been very secretive the last few days. She was totally doing someone.

  “Nothing. Why are you cursing at me?”

  “Who’s there?”

  “No one. Did you miss your appointment?”

  “Oh, you mean the one where you told a complete stranger all about me? That one?”

  “Yes.”

  “Gemma! What the hell?”

  “Couldn’t scare her off, could you?” she asked, satisfaction sparkling in her voice.

  “No. What did you say?”

  “Ask her. I’m busy.”

  “Who’s there?”

  “No one. Stop asking me that. And it’s none of your business.”

  “Fine.” I hung up and went back into Dr. Romero’s office, preparing myself for an hour of hell on Ea
rth.

  While Dr. Romero wasn’t as bad as I’d originally suspected – she had courage, stepping up to the plate after the curve ball I’d thrown her – I really didn’t see our relationship going anywhere. After my session, I headed straight toward Presbyterian Hospital to see if I could get any information on a missing woman named Nic-something-or-other. I walked into the hospital and went straight to the information desk. Since it was information I needed.

  “Hi,” I said to the lady sitting behind it. “I was just wondering if you could help me. I had an amazing nurse named Nicole the other day, and I hoped you could tell me what ward she worked in.”

  The woman stared at me, then asked, “Well, what ward were you admitted into?”

  She had a good point. “Oh, well, that’s the thing. I don’t remember, exactly. I was, um, inebriated.”

  “What’s your name, and I’ll look it up.”

  “Well, I didn’t check in under my real name.”

  After a long sigh, she said, “I can’t just give out information on a whim.” Her mouth did that schoolmarm grim line thing. I was being chastised and chastised good.

  “Look, all I need to know is if you have a nurse or anyone else who would wear scrubs named Nicole. Or possibly Nicki. Or, well, anything that starts with an N-i-c.” I flashed my PI card. It made me look official. “I’m working on a case for APD. We would really appreciate your help.”

  “And what case would that be?”

  I jumped at the sound of a male voice behind me and turned to see the captain there. Was he following me? “Captain Eckert, what are you doing here?”

  “Wondering the same thing about you. I just checked your status this morning and I don’t recall you being on a case for us presently.”

  “Oh, well, I’m working with my uncle on something.”

  “And what would that be?”

  Holy cow, this man was going to get annoying. Why was he so determined to figure any of this out? “It’s a missing persons case.”

  “I don’t recall Bob being on any missing persons case at the moment.”