The Curse of Tenth Grave

“I just know,” Mr. Adams said, his voice hoarse and hollow. “He—he couldn’t have.” His glassy, red-rimmed eyes met mine. They were filled with absolute conviction. He wasn’t guessing. He knew the guy was innocent.

  Had he killed his own daughter? It was hard to miss the guilt wafting off him. But there was no mistaking the grief, either. If he did kill her, he felt really bad about it.

  Or he and the boyfriend had been very close. They would have to have been for him to be so certain. And I couldn’t imagine a father, especially one so loving, could do what they did to Emery Adams. The inside of her car had literally been painted with her blood. Whatever happened, Emery’s death had been a very violent affair.

  “We went to college together,” Parker said. “I knew him well. He could never have done this. Never.”

  He knew him in college? That was the best he had? He was a prosecutor. Surely he knew how little weight that held.

  “I thought the police had yet to find her body,” I said. “Why are they so sure she was murdered?”

  “The amount of blood found in the car,” Parker said. “There’s simply no way she could’ve survived the attack.”

  “And all of it was hers?”

  “Every drop,” Mr. Adams said, his voice cracking. “Every precious drop.” The pain that welled up inside him stole my breath. It was so apparent that even the Asian woman stopped trying to hit my lamp and looked at him. He sobbed into a handkerchief, and I couldn’t stop the welling of tears if I’d superglued my tear ducts shut.

  I took a deep breath as Parker placed a hand on Mr. Adams’s shoulder. I had no idea the man had a tender bone in his body.

  “There was nobody better,” Mr. Adams said. “Not in this whole world. She was everything to me. But I—I wasn’t the best father. She deserved so much better.”

  He broke down again, his shoulders shaking so hard I thought he’d shatter. We gave him a moment, but when he couldn’t stop, he stood and strode out of my office, not stopping until he was outside on the front balcony.

  It would give me a chance to grill Parker in a less delicate manner.

  I leaned forward. “Why are you here, Parker?” I said, my tone accusing.

  He let out a long, resigned sigh. “Because you get the job done, Davidson. No matter what I think about you or your methods or your … habits—”

  What the hell?

  “—you do what you set out to do. You prove people innocent when they are destined for the needle. You see evidence where no one else does. You see the good when others only see the bad. I need you on Lyle’s team. He didn’t do it, but the evidence against him would strongly suggest otherwise.”

  He handed me the case file, and even though I didn’t trust him as far as I could drive him down a golf course with my dad’s nine iron, he presented a good argument. Then again, he was a prosecutor vying for the DA’s corner office. And he was just young and ambitious enough to get it. Someday.

  “Where’s Lyle now?”

  He relaxed, though just a tad. “They’re holding him for questioning.”

  I perused the folder he gave me. “They must have something good. They wouldn’t have arrested him without a body unless they were convinced there was a murder and that he did it.”

  “I know. It’s unprecedented. But, just between you and me, they’re hoping for a plea bargain. A confession is just what this case needs.”

  “Will they get one?”

  He glared up at me. “No, Davidson, they won’t.”

  Fair enough. “Did you know Emery Adams?”

  He shook his head. “No. I’d never met her, but from what I understand, she was a very good person.” He dropped his gaze, his expression hard. “She didn’t deserve this.” When I said nothing, he refocused on me and continued, “Look, I know we don’t exactly get along, but everyone is right about you.”

  “Everyone?” I asked, knowing precisely what he was going to say.

  “You solve crimes. You close cases.”

  “That I do,” I agreed, putting the pen down and bracing myself. The woman finally gave up on the lamp and noticed me. She gazed longingly. Lovingly. Wanting to go home. Wanting to see her family again. I wanted that for her, too. I really did. Just not at that precise moment. But she was going to cross, and she was going to cross now, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  I stood and walked around my desk to buy myself a few seconds. “Who’s prosecuting?”

  He cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably. “I am.”

  “Come again? I thought Fiske was your friend.”

  “He was. Still is.”

  What game was he playing? “Then you need to step down. You’ll be fired. Hell, you could be disbarred if they find out, not to mention the fact that it will cause a mistrial and cost the state tens of thousands.”

  “You let me worry about that.”

  “Parker—”

  “Look, no matter what I think of you or what the rumors say about you—”

  “Rumors?”

  “—Lyle didn’t do it.”

  “What rumors?”

  “You have an uncanny ability to get the guiltiest person who walked the face of the earth off when they have everything stacked against them. Prove to me it’s not just blind luck.”

  “That could be a bit difficult. Luck plays a big part in my daily life. And I don’t get guilty people off, Parker.”

  He stood, too, and rounded the desk until we stood toe-to-toe.

  Ballsy.

  “I need this case solved,” he said.

  “I’m getting that.”

  “Quickly and quietly.”

  “I’m not really the quiet type. But you still need to step down.”

  “No,” he said, a sly grin curving his mouth. “I’m the contingency plan.”

  “The what?”

  “The contingency plan. You fuck this up, I’ll make sure things go our way from my end.”

  Even saying something like that out loud was so damning—in the legal sense—I got light-headed. I whispered my next words, worried someone would overhear. “You’re going to throw the case?”

  He lifted a shoulder. “I’m going to make sure Lyle Fiske is acquitted.”

  “On purpose?”

  Without responding, he waited for my reaction, his expression calculated.

  “Isn’t that against your code of conduct or something?”

  “Very.”

  “And what makes you think I’ll go along with it?”

  Again, his only response was the barest hint of a smile.

  Son of a bitch. He had something on me. He was way too confident and way too smart to just drop something like that in my lap, something that could end his career and possibly send him to prison, without having some kind of insurance. A backup plan to make certain I’d play nice.

  The woman stepped closer, my desk no hindrance to her whatsoever. I stepped back, and Parker thought I was shying away from him. He took another step closer. Other than his spatial boundary issues, he was daring me to threaten to go to the DA.

  This required finesse. Unfortunately, I didn’t have an overabundance of the stuff, but I knew who did. I’d keep quiet for now. Let him think I’d joined the team. But I would get to the bottom of whatever he had on me. Hopefully it wasn’t actually my bottom in, say, a compromising position. It’d been ages since I’d compromised my ass.

  “And what if he really is guilty?” I asked. “If I find evidence contrary to your opinion, how far are you going to take this?”

  “I’m not worried in the least.”

  “But what if I do. How far?”

  “You won’t, so all the way.”

  “What makes you so certain, so convinced, that you’re willing to risk your entire career for this guy?”

  And there it was again. That niggling of guilt that I’d felt the second he walked in. I’d felt guilt from both of them. Had they conspired on something and it backfired?

  Before he could answer
, I held up an index finger, pulled a tissue out of the box on my desk, and coughed softly into it. Then I braced my palm on my desk. Took a sip of coffee. Coughed again. All the while, the woman’s life flashed before my eyes.

  She had worked the rice paddies of Jamuna, Nepal, her entire life, surviving floods and earthquakes to gather food for her family. After Amita married a man she didn’t love, her girlfriends at the fields became her salvation. They laughed together. Raised their children together. And talked about their husbands from behind cupped hands and hushed giggles.

  But her feelings for her husband grew. Sijan was mysterious to her. Rahasyamaya. With silvery eyes and a guarded smile. He was raised in a village to the west, and when he felt her distrust of him, he left to become a Sherpa guide. It was a skill his father had passed down to him. Treacherous and foolhardy, Amita thought. But it would bring in money. And she began to look forward to his return.

  When he did come home, he would not tell her about his adventures, and all the girls would try to guess. It must have been glamorous, they would say, getting to know the rich Westerners, but Amita knew better. Sijan’s body was battered when he returned. The elements on the mountain were the most unforgiving kind. He’d slimmed to unhealthy proportions, and it took her a month to fatten him up again. Yet he grew stronger every year. More beautiful every time he came home.

  And then she asked him. It was all she had to do. He would tell her whatever she wanted to know. Were the Westerners nice to him? Did they respect him? Were the white women pretty? Sijan told her everything and gave her every rupee he made. He brought their children presents and gave her exquisite gifts she didn’t need but cherished.

  He and Amita became something of celebrities, though she still worked the paddies every year. As did her children. For years and years she carried on the tradition, because one year Sijan didn’t come back.

  With a broken heart, she worked until she died, still waiting for Sijan to come off the mountain. She could not cross, knowing he was up there alone. But the moment she crossed through me, I felt her joy at seeing him and two of their children again. Hardships forgotten, she fell into his arms and crushed her children to her, and I swallowed a lump in my throat.

  I collapsed in my chair while Parker grew more and more agitated.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Sorry. Dizzy spell.”

  “Yeah, I heard you’ve been having some … balance problems.”

  He sat across from me again and gave me a moment. I took the opportunity to bask in the fierce love Amita had for her husband. I knew how she felt. Those dark mysterious types did it every time.

  After taking a deep lungful of air, I opened the file and perused it while Parker gave me the rundown of the case they had against Lyle Fiske. It didn’t look good. I could see why he was just desperate enough to come to me.

  On paper, the guy was as guilty as they came. He’d been found at the crime scene with Emery’s blood all over him. His fingerprints were inside the car, and he had her phone in his hands. Not only that, according to the first officer on scene, he’d been so belligerent, they’d had to subdue him. If Fiske was really innocent, he was probably more distraught than belligerent.

  But if he had done it and was at the crime scene, where was the body? His prints hadn’t been found on Emery’s steering wheel, and they’d taken his pickup apart. Beyond the usual contaminants one would expect a girlfriend to leave in her boyfriend’s vehicle, there was no trace evidence to suggest he’d used it to move her body.

  Their case, purely circumstantial, definitely had holes. I would just have to find a way to punch a few more. To cast enough doubt for a jury to acquit him, if he really was innocent.

  4

  I tried to start a gang once.

  It turned into a book club.

  —MEME

  When I walked back into Cookie’s office, she was just hanging up the phone. I instantly felt something awry. A depression weighing on her, perhaps. The same depression I’d been feeling for days.

  “How’d it go?” she asked me, watching as Parker shot me one last warning glance before closing the door behind him.

  I flipped him off—because I was twelve—then turned to Cook. “Peachy. But what’s up with you? What’s wrong?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve been moping since we got back.”

  “I’m just worried about you. You know me. The perpetual worrier.” She fluttered her fingers around her head. No idea why.

  “I get that. I do. But I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me. I’m kind of intuitive that way.”

  “Nope. Not me.”

  “You know you can tell me anything.”

  “Charley, you’ve had so much on your plate. My problems are stupid in comparison.”

  “What?” I asked, shocked. “What problems? What’s going on?”

  Cookie sat back in her chair, a sadness weighing down her movements. “Amber has decided she wants to finish out the semester at NMSD.”

  “The NMSD? The School for the Deaf in Santa Fe?”

  Amber’s squeeze, Quentin, went to NMSD, which made sense since he was, in fact, Deaf, but Amber was far from it.

  “That’s great,” I said, trying to sound positive. “I think. But isn’t she missing something? Or maybe not missing something?” When Cookie questioned me with a raised brow, I added, “She hears really well. You know, to go to a school for Deaf children.”

  “Oh, right. They actually allow some hearing children to go. Mostly siblings of their Deaf students or children of teachers there.”

  “So, they’re letting girlfriends go now? That’s very forward thinking of them.”

  “Not exactly. Because Amber has become so active at the school, they’ve agreed to make a special exception. Apparently she’s made quite an impression. Everyone loves her. The teachers. The students. The staff. That man in the cafeteria has fallen head over heels. He keeps sending homemade salsa home with her.”

  “Oh yeah,” I said dreamily. “He’s kind of fantastic.”

  “Right?”

  “But, as awesome as that sounds, you don’t want her to go?”

  “It’s not that I wouldn’t love for her to go. I mean, what an experience, right? To be immersed in the culture so fully? But she wants to get everything out of it she can. The full Monty.”

  “I don’t think that’s what that means.”

  “She wants to live in the cottages with the other students. During the week like they do.”

  “Oh.” I could see where Cookie would be distressed over something like that. “She would stay in one of the girls’ dorms during the week? A dorm that would be right next to the boys’ dorm?”

  Cookie only nodded, her expression the epitome of worry.

  “Yeah. I think I’m with you.”

  “They would practically be living together,” she said. “Amber really wants to go, and this is a great opportunity. But I’m just not sure I’m ready. She’s so young. They both are.”

  “I gotta agree with you on this one. I know they are in love,” I said, adding air quotes, “but this is huge, Cook. This is bigger than her boobs, even.”

  “She doesn’t have big boobs,” Cook said. “They’re actually kind of—”

  “No, I mean, when she got boobs. It was kind of a big deal. That whole bra thing traumatized her. And now this? Maybe I can talk to her.”

  “Would you?” she asked, her face filled with hope.

  “Of course. I mean, she could take the Rail Runner and go to day school there. She doesn’t have to live in the dorms, right?”

  “Right. Maybe, if she really likes it, we can talk about it again this summer.”

  I patted her back. “Sounds like a plan.”

  “So,” Cookie said, satisfied I would be able to convince Amber to take her foot off the gas pedal, just for now, and rev it down a notch, “since we’re baring our souls, what’s up with you?”

&nb
sp; “What?” I scoffed. “Nothing.”

  “Charley, I know something’s bothering you. You can’t hide anything from me either, remember?”

  “Seriously. I’m good. Everything is good. The sun is semi-out. The skies are almost blue with only a strong hint of gray, which, as you know, is my favorite. What could be wrong?”

  “You can tell me anything. Surely you know that by now.”

  “Yeah. I kind of forget how awesome you are sometimes. There’s just been so much going on lately. A lot happened in New York.”

  “I know. I was there, remember?”

  I laughed softly. “I know, but there’s a lot I didn’t tell you.”

  She leaned forward. “Yeah? Like what?”

  “It just seems like, ever since we got back, Reyes has been pulling away from me.”

  “What? Oh, honey, you are wrong.”

  “No, it’s true. He hasn’t touched me in a week. I knew I should have taken up vaginal weight lifting when that homeless guy gave me a fifteen percent off coupon.” I did the face-palm thing and crumpled onto Cookie’s desk.

  “Charley, I don’t think vaginal weight lifting is the answer to … well, anything.”

  “But there’s more.” I peeled my face off her desk. “Remember that night that Kuur tried to kill me?”

  Kuur had been an emissary sent from Lucifer to kill me. Or, more accurately, trap me in the god glass. Thanks to his arrogance and my father’s sacrifice, I’d trapped him instead.

  “Oh yes, you told me that part,” she said with a negating wave of her hand. She wasn’t keen on hearing the story again.

  “Right, but what I didn’t tell you was that my father crossed that night. That’s how I was able to remember everything again.”

  “Wait, he crossed in the hopes that it would give you your memory back?”

  I nodded.

  “And it worked?”

  ’Nother nod. “And when he crossed, I saw the loveliest things, Cook. Things I never knew he felt. He loved me. Despite his poor spousal choices, he really loved me.”

  “Of course he did, Charley. Did you really doubt that?”

  “I don’t know. I guess not. But it was nice to see, anyway.”

  “But he crossed,” Cookie said, her voice soft. Knowing. “He’s really gone now.”