Grave Reservations by Cherie Priest

15.

Leda Foley hadn’t called shotgun this time, but by playing up her vision difficulties, she’d slipped into the preferred position without Niki even noticing—or at least, without Niki saying anything until they were back on the interstate.

“I let you have the front seat, you know,” she informed Leda. “Just because I felt sorry for you and your garbage gimp-vision headaches.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel bad? Because I’ll take your pity shotgun and smile about it all afternoon.”

Grady smirked. “You seem to be feeling better.”

She rubbed at her left eye and closed them both, trying to ignore the last rings of light that spun around her vision. “Indeed I am. And that Keyes guy, he’s pretty weird, right?”

He asked, “Is that your psychic sense talking, or your sense of drama?”

She shrugged. “I don’t even know, anymore. He’s weird, and I got a flash of light, and that’s it.”

“Plenty of people are weird as hell, but they never murder anybody. Besides, he wasn’t that weird. At worst, he was kind of… I don’t know. Pathetic. Leave the guy alone for now and save your psychic senses for the widow. We’re talking to her on Thursday.”

“We are?” Niki chirped.

“We… okay, fine. We all are, sure. She didn’t care when I told her I’d have a consultant with me, so what’s yet another consultant, right?”

Niki sat back in the seat and looked very smug. Leda could see it from the rearview mirror.

“Goddamn right,” Niki said.

“But you have to swear to me, on your own graves, that you’ll be quiet. That was way too much interrupting back there—way too much audience participation. That’s not what we need—not what we want—and there’s a chance you could screw up the case. Keep your thoughts to yourselves, please? Can you do that for me?”

“Yes, sir,” they both said.

“Because if you don’t, then we can’t keep doing this. If you guys botch a case, we’re all finished here, got it?”

Synchronized again, they said, “Got it.”

After Grady dropped them off at the travel agency office, Leda and Niki went inside for the rest of the afternoon. Niki didn’t have to be at work, and Leda was in a productive mood.

“Why waste it, right?” Leda dropped herself into the office chair, only indulged a single round of spinning with her feet up off the floor, and then checked her email. As soon as it loaded, she started to squeal.

“Oh my God, are you dying?”

“No, I’m succeeding!” She swiveled the monitor around. “Look, two new queries about travel arrangements! Just like that!”

“All it took was money and advertising.”

“That’s all anything takes, as far as I can tell.” Leda reclaimed the monitor and whipped up a couple of crisp, professional emails in response, with rates and details as requested.

Niki reclined, bringing her booted foot up to the love seat’s arm and letting it rest there. “Before long, you’re going to need a bigger office.”

“Your lips to God’s ears.”

“Who says that? And where?”

Leda was only half paying attention when she replied, “Somebody, someplace.” She was looking at her stats for the Facebook ad, and deciding whether to spend more money to boost the signal even further. Then she pulled up her bank account and decided to try again later. Money was running too low for risky measures.

“I know that look,” Niki said.

“What look?”

“The look of worry. What’s wrong?”

She hemmed. She hawed. “Nothing’s wrong. Usual stuff. Costs of doing business. Growing pains, budgeting concerns, et cetera.”

“You’re broke.”

“No, not yet,” she insisted. “My overhead is low, my equipment is all tax-deductible, and I don’t have any employees to pay. Also, I am very fond of ramen noodles. I live cheap, Nik. I can do business cheap, too. I don’t actually need that many clients to stay afloat.”

“If you say so, girl. How close are you to meeting rent on this place, this month?”

“Super close. If either one of these two new emails pans out, then I’ll have it covered,” she said with confidence.

“You say that like you don’t suck at math.”

“I don’t suck as much as you do. I’ve been careful. Just trust me.”

Niki smiled and stared at the ceiling. “I always trust you. But I always worry about you, too.” Then she shifted gears. “Hey, did you mean what you told Grady? That you were just having a perfectly normal migraine?”

“Sure, I meant it. I wish I had more for him. Maybe I should’ve touched Keyes. Or even his coffee cup, or… I don’t know. I don’t have a lot of control over this. I never have.”

“Didn’t you shake his hand?” Niki asked.

“No, I forgot.”

“But still, you’re getting better! I know you are. I’ve seen it in action myself.”

Ordinarily, Leda agreed with almost anything that came out of Niki’s mouth, but this time, she balked. “Am I, though? Serious question. I know we were talking about all the practice I’m getting at Castaways, but what if it’s just a fluke? Keeping Grady off that plane, flashing on those objects in the hotel room… those were pretty high-powered events for me. What if I’m still just an inconsequential psychic, and I’m merely lucky enough to have the occasional breakthrough that’s useful to somebody?”

Niki sat up again—leaving her bum leg elevated but putting her other one on the floor so she sprawled obscenely. “Okay, first of all, I don’t think that’s true. I’ve known you almost forever, and I’ve watched you learn and grow with this. If you ask me, your skills are definitely on an upward trajectory. And second, even if it were true—so what? It’s still a gift that practically nobody on earth has, in real life. Who cares if it’s a little janky?”

“Um, the people who rely on it, that’s who.”

“News flash, babe: Detective Merritt is not relying on you. He’s bringing you along just in case you have some supernatural flash of insight. He’s not actually counting on you doing so. He’s a cop. A real cop. He’s gotten this far in his career without a psychic sidekick, and he’ll be fine without one in the future, too.”

Leda groaned and kicked her spinny chair away from the desk. “Oh God, you’re right. I’m useless.”

“Nobody said that! Jesus, woman. I’m only saying you’re not the lynchpin in these proceedings. If you fail to produce any psychic insights, or if you screw up wildly… it doesn’t actually matter very much. This guy’s using you as a Hail Mary, on the off chance you can help him solve a tricky old case. Don’t give yourself too much credit; but also, don’t underestimate yourself.”

“That’s, I mean, I guess it’s decent advice.”

“It’s excellent advice, because I’m brilliant. And you trust me, I know you do. So listen to me. Believe the Nik. The Nik has your best interest at heart, and she believes in you.”

“The Nik? That’s what you’re calling yourself now?”

She nodded. “I kind of enjoy having an article before my name.”

“I’m not going to call you ‘the Nik.’ ”

“No, of course not. You’ll refer to me as the Nik when discussing me with others. You’ll still call me whatever you want.”

Leda dragged her chair by her tippy-toes, pulling it back up to the desk. “I always have, and I always will.” She took hold of her mouse and called up a web browser.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing psychic, don’t worry. I’m googling.”

“Who?”

“Everybody,” Leda informed her, fingers clicking away on the keyboard.

One of the only skills Leda ever crowed about was her superlative typing speed. She could also type one thing while reading another. Niki always said it was spooky, but Leda shrugged it off. It was an ordinary talent, that’s what she’d say.

“Starting with…?”

“Beckmeyer. The silver fox.”

Leda learned virtually nothing about him, except that he was a semiretired dilettante with money who liked to hop between gigs for giggles. Then she tried Janette Gilman and learned only that she’d recently gone to Italy to see her grandmother—if her Instagram could be believed—so to hell with her. “I don’t like her,” she declared.

“Why? Because she went out of town and didn’t consult you first?”

“Yes. No. Because when it comes to murder, it’s almost always the spouse, that’s why.”

“You haven’t even met this woman yet.”

“We’re gonna meet her soon, and I want to be prepared,” said Leda. “Ooh, she was married once before.”

“So?”

“So…” Leda typed rapidly, scanning a couple of links before settling in to read. It took only half a minute. “So… never mind. Her first husband died of natural causes, a couple of years after they divorced. Looks like she’s not a black widow.”

“If she’s any good at being a black widow, you won’t find any evidence of it on the internet.”

“All knowledge is contained within the internet!” Leda protested. “Even if it’s found in rumors on Reddit, or wherever.”

“Okay, are you finding any rumors about either one of them on Reddit?”

“No,” she sulked. “Nothing I didn’t already know or couldn’t guess. Janette and her first husband were pretty rich, they traveled together a lot, and they sold the house when they split up. Looks like she married Christopher Gilman fairly soon thereafter; they were probably carrying on behind her husband’s back. Ooh… slutty. I like it. Rich people have the most interesting lives.”

“You don’t actually know that, you conclusion-jumping maniac. Google somebody else. Try the Victorian orphan. That Abbot Keyes guy.”

Leda nodded at the screen. “Good call.”

She clicked around for a couple of minutes without saying anything.

Niki asked, “Well?”

“He’s got a Facebook page, all locked down, so I can’t see anything but his picture—but that’s him. I can’t tell if he ever posts to it, but a single grainy profile photo suggests that it’s not much of a priority. He had a Twitter account, but it was deleted a few months ago, if the Google cache can be believed. Maybe he’s just not into social media much. Oh well, that was a bust.” Leda leaned back in her chair and lifted her feet so it would do a slow, thoughtful spin. After a few rotations, she concluded, “Hey, you know what? I don’t want to do Castaways tonight.”

Niki gasped. “Are you… are you feeling okay? Do I need to hobble over there and take your temperature?”

“I’m fine, I promise. I’m just… weirdly tired. It’s probably because of the migraine. If you want to go see Matt, then go for it. I’ll be fine by myself with Brutus for the evening. I think I’m going to go home and watch TV and drink the last of the pink wine that’s still sitting in the fridge from the other day.”

“You haven’t finished it by now? Okay, now I know you’re ill.”

Leda shook her head. “Nah. Don’t worry about me. I need a night to myself, that’s all. I’ve been so sociable lately. Go on. Get outta here. Go snog Matt and tell everybody at the bar that I love them, would you?”

Eventually Leda talked Niki into leaving. It wasn’t easy, and she didn’t leave without a whole host of suspicions, but she left.

After she was gone, Leda did not go home.

When she was certain that Niki wasn’t watching the door, she collected her purse. She locked the office and took too long to remember where she’d parked Jason. She wiped the chalk off his tire with her foot; it was after-hours in Columbia City, but the parking enforcement officers had been on the prowl earlier in the day—tootling around in their miniature popemobiles, doling out tickets. They wandered the blocks with a long stick that had a piece of chalk on it, swiping tires and keeping track of who parked where, and for how long.

“Screw ’em,” she muttered. She threw her purse on the passenger seat and pulled out onto the main drag. She should have left the car at home that morning, really. She lived within walking distance of her little office, but sometimes she just didn’t feel like making the hike.

Her true destination lay farther north, only a few feet from the interstate.

She parked underneath an on-ramp, where it was safe to do so in two-hour stints—as long as she dodged the puddles of urine and the rats who were the first on-site. The rats had seniority, unless the crows and seagulls did.

Overhead, cars zoomed. All around, vehicles idled.

It wasn’t so far past rush hour that everybody wasn’t trying to leave downtown, so the small roads that crisscrossed under I-5 were packed and people were honking, swearing, and demanding that Siri give them alternate routes—for all the good that would do.

Leda let herself inside the former Tully’s roasting facility, a giant nineteenth-century building that the interstate bowed around. Drivers overhead zipped past so closely that they could look in the windows and see office space, hallways, and doors. Nobody roasted any coffee there anymore, but some of the old space had been set aside for lofts, in case anybody wanted to try to sleep eight yards from eight lanes of traffic.

But a large portion of the facility had been converted to self-storage units, and that’s where Leda was headed.

Up too many stairs and around a few corners, she found the orange door she was looking for. She unlocked it and went inside, turning on the light and shutting the door.

“Forgot about that,” she said to herself, regarding the opened can of soda she’d left sitting on a small end table beside a vintage rocking chair. She sat down in that chair and used her tippy-toes to lean the rocker back and forth. At least it was diet.

And thank God for that, or there would have been ants.

Beside the flat, warm soda was an old radio that still worked. Leda tuned it to KEXP in case there was any good indie rock left in the world. She shoved a few boxes of her own stored items aside and picked up the nearest box of Tod’s personal effects. She tried not to notice how they didn’t smell like him anymore. Not when she sniffed them deeply, not when she held them up to her face, and not when she used them to dry a few tears.

Not at all.