Grave Reservations by Cherie Priest
17.
The sun was starting to set, so it was getting dark inside Castaways in the shadow of Capitol Hill. Grady Merritt followed Leda and Niki inside, past Tiffany (who was doling out drinks to the happy-hour regulars), past Matt (who blew Niki a kiss), and past Ben’s office. Ben wasn’t in, and Leda seemed relieved about it.
“Ben’s a sweetheart,” she told him as she hustled past the cracked door. “But he has opinions about branding, and I just don’t want to deal with it right now.”
“Branding?” Grady asked, wholly confident that he was in for something ridiculous.
Niki snickered. “Psychic psongstress.”
Oh boy. He’d been right on the money.
Leda said, “Stop it, Nik. It’s bad, but he likes it, and it’s his venue. He can call it whatever he wants.” She stopped at an office door with a sign that read MATTHEW CLINE. The sign was written in marker on a Post-it note with its nonsticky end secured with a piece of tape. “Klairvoyant karaoke is a mouthful, and… and something about the letters fitting neatly onto flyers. I don’t know.”
Her best friend shook her head. “Yeah, but klairvoyant karaoke doesn’t come with a lisp. You should push back.”
“I don’t care enough to.”
“Yes, you do. It’s eating you up.”
“It isn’t.”
Grady followed them inside the small, cramped office. It was about the size of a good walk-in closet, with barely enough room for a desk, two chairs, and a big whiteboard. The board was turned around, facing the wall—until Leda shimmied around the desk and spent a minute and a half trying to flip it over without knocking anything off the walls.
When she’d finally accomplished her task, she announced with great gravitas: “This… is my murder board.”
Her murder board was a hodgepodge of brightly colored index cards and novelty magnets. It needed only a few lines of string to make for a grand conspiracy theory.
Grady tried not to smile, because it seemed important to her. “That’s quite a murder board you’ve got there.”
Niki put her hands on her hips and cocked her head at it. “Every bit as good as something you’d find downtown at the station, eh?”
“Every bit,” he agreed. Mostly they did use whiteboards, but with vivid dry-erase markers instead of index cards. “Looks like you’ve done some good work here. What have we got?” he asked, turning sideways to pass the desk and get a little closer. “Okay, I see how you’re… how you’re getting at that, yeah. You’ve got the two columns of…” He scanned them quickly. “Gilman details and details about your fiancé, each in their own distinct group. What’s all this stuff over here?”
Leda followed his pointing finger. “Oh, those are just…” She swallowed. “Some things I found the other day. I didn’t know where to put them, so I stuck them here.”
Held up by one large round magnet with a picture of a hammer that read THIS IS NOT A DRILL, Grady saw a snipped-out bit of newsprint with an engagement announcement. On either side of it were stashed more bits and pieces of their life together. A receipt from a restaurant. A birthday card. A bookmark. “It’s a lovely memorial. Except for all the stuff about murder.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s kind of morbid.” She shrugged and hugged herself. “Anyway.”
“Yes, anyway,” he said. “The only thing you’re missing, from where I’m sitting… is anything much that… well, that connects the two cases.”
Niki snorted. “I told you, you need cop string.”
Leda sagged. “I don’t have any cop string, and even if I did, he means figuratively. Nothing connects the cases except for my ridiculous inconsequential psychic vibes.”
“So far,” he added. “We’re making progress, though. And you said on the way here, something about a more concrete connection to Tod’s murder? I’d like to hear more about that.” He backed away from the board and settled into the nearest chair. He folded one leg up and rested it atop his other thigh.
Leda half leaned, half sat on top of the desk. She balanced on one butt cheek. “Okay, I had a flash when we were out at the bar, and I saw the Gilman killer pushing Tod’s car into the water.”
“You’re sure it was—”
But she was not having any interruptions. “I’m not sure of anything. Here’s what I think is true, but I can’t prove: I think Christopher Gilman was using the person who murdered Tod and Amanda to do his dirty work. Hell, for all I know, he might’ve been blackmailing him.”
“Because he knew about the murders?” Grady asked, perplexed.
She picked up a pen from a mug shaped like a Star Wars porg, and she pointed it at him. “No, just the theft. At least at first. Christopher discovered some skimming, and he looked a little closer at the skimmer. Figured he might be useful to him.”
“You should write that on an index card and add it to your murder board,” Grady suggested. “There’s plenty of room over there on the right. Start a new column. No, start two columns—one for unknown details, and one for things you know but can’t prove.”
“Good idea.” She opened a drawer underneath her rear end and pulled out a pack of cards. “I’m running low on magnets, though.”
Niki said, “There are more in Ben’s office. He has a stash, but they’re boring. Just round dots and stuff.”
Leda frowned. “Why does he have round dot magnets?”
“They came with this whiteboard. It belongs to him, you know.”
“Oh yeah. I forgot.”
Niki squeezed past Grady. “I’ll go get them, hang on.” She returned a few seconds later with a handful of plain black dots.
“Aw, these are boring.”
It was true, but Grady gave her some encouraging spin. “They’re dignified and tasteful.”
“What are you trying to say?” Leda asked, her frown unmoved. “My magnets aren’t dignified or tasteful?”
Oops. He’d played that wrong. “No, no—nothing at all. These look stuffy and dull, compared to your previous efforts, but they’ll have to suffice for now.”
“That’s better,” she said, lightening the frown. “Yes, they’ll do for now. Give ’em here.”
Niki handed them over, and onto the board they went—along with new index cards with new information.
“Can I have a card?” Grady asked, hand outstretched and fingers wiggling. When one was provided, he pulled another pen out of the mug and started writing. “We suspect that Christopher was blackmailing an employee. We have a list of all murder-contemporary employees at the precinct, and they’ve all been checked out. That means we need to check again, because we missed someone.”
Niki spoke up. “We know it was someone young enough that Gilman called him or her ‘kid.’ ”
“Right,” said Grady.
Leda said, “Somebody newer, maybe? Perhaps an underling or an intern, or—as his wife suspected—his assistant. Wait. I don’t actually know how old she was.”
“Midtwenties, if I recall,” said Grady. “Now, Abbot Keyes said he suspected the wife, and Beckmeyer didn’t suspect anybody,” Grady said as he scribbled. “Suspicions don’t add up to much if we can’t find facts to support them.”
“Fair enough,” Leda said. “But we’re narrowing the pool, and that’s good.”
Grady paused. “Only if Janette wasn’t lying to protect herself. She’s still in the suspect queue, herself. If she honestly thought that Kim was sleeping with her husband, it might’ve stung her pride—even if she hated the guy.”
Niki asked, “Did she have an alibi?”
He shook his head. “Nope. She was home alone the evening of the murders.” He tapped the pen on the card as he considered the possibilities. “And the cheap hotel where her husband died, in a distant part of town… that’s the kind of place you’d take a lover, if you wanted to keep it quiet.”
Leda interjected, “You said the room was paid for in cash, using his son’s ID. It does sound like a sexy rendezvous—the kind you don’t want your richly divorced wife to find out about. She’d already sued one ex for everything she could get.”
“Over infidelity,” Niki pointed out.
“Right—so she’d be especially sensitive to it. Maybe.”
Grady very much wanted to join the enthusiasm, but he instinctively held back. “You’re right, obviously. But something about the whole thing bugs me. A lovers’ clandestine meeting in a mediocre hotel? If his wife found out, I don’t think she would’ve believed it was Kevin’s doing. She’s too smart for that. Then again, it’s always possible that Christopher was dumber than he seemed and thought he could get away with it exactly that easily.”
Niki slumped into the other chair and scooted it back against the wall. “This is hard,” she griped.
“Sure it’s hard. If it wasn’t hard, every idiot with a podcast would do it,” Grady replied.
Leda let out a single syllable grunt that sounded like it was meant to be a laugh. “Every idiot with a podcast does do it. That’s the problem, isn’t it? Too many people who think they’re experts, not enough actual experts?”
Grady went back to looking at his index card, and the chicken-scratch handwriting upon it. “That’s one of the problems. But there are bigger ones. People lie. People forget. People have their own weird motives and suspicions that have nothing to do with reality—they imagine grudges and motives that don’t exist. The difference between an amateur and a professional…” He heard footsteps banging down the short hall outside the office. “Is that the pros try hard not to do those things.”
A series of fast knocks rapped upon the open door. “Hello there, darlings—oh!” A middle-aged Asian man stepped inside without waiting for an invitation. He wore a killer black suit and the brightest white sideburns that Grady had ever personally set eyes on. “Darlings, and… some random gent I’ve never seen before. Welcome to my bar, stranger. I hope these girls haven’t looped you into their murder-board shenanigans.”
“Grady Merritt, Seattle PD.” He held out his hand for a shake. “And if you want the truth, I’m afraid I’ve been enabling these shenanigans.”
The newcomer accepted the handshake. “Ben Kane,” he said. “Owner and general manager of Castaways. It’s a pleasure.” He clapped his hands together, as if to signal a change in conversation. “Well! Matt told me you were back here, and I’ve got all the flyers up for tonight. You’ve got half an hour until showtime, darling. Brush your hair, touch up your lipstick, do some vocal warm-ups… whatever makes you happy. You’ve already got a crowd.”
Leda looked a little green around the gills. “A crowd?”
“Ten or twelve people? But they’re definitely here to see you, my psongstress. A couple of them were actually holding the handbills I printed up.”
Grady could almost hear the silent p that Leda hated so much. “Maybe I’ll stick around for the show.”
She shrugged awkwardly. “Oh, don’t feel like you have to. I do these all the time. If you’ve got somewhere to be…”
“I do not!” Grady fibbed. “Half an hour, you say?”
Ben bobbed his head. “The flyers say six thirty, so you should definitely be onstage by seven. Hell, honey—I’ll even buy the first round. Except for Leda. She always drinks for free. The rest of you plebs only get one drink apiece.”
“Sounds more than fair to me. Excuse me for a second? I just need to make a phone call, and I’ll go grab a spot at a table. Before they’re all taken.” Then Grady ducked out of the office into the hall and pulled out his phone to call Molly.
Her cell phone rang twice before she picked up. “Hey, Dad. Are you on your way home? Should I put a pizza in the oven?”
“Throw one in for yourself, would you? I’m going to be here another hour or two at least. But I’ll be home before too late, don’t worry.”
“You’re not out binge drinking are you? You gave me a very firm talk about binge drinking.”
He chuckled. “Well, I am at a bar—but no. No binge drinking. One drink, because the first one’s free.”
“Why’s the first one free?”
“Because I’m a guest of the entertainment, apparently.”
“What?” she asked.
He leaned against the wall, grinning to himself. “The psychic travel agent does a karaoke show at this bar on Capitol Hill. I’ll tell you about it when I get home. Wait.” He shifted his phone to the other ear. “Aren’t you still supposed to be at work? I don’t hear any work sounds.” When she didn’t answer, he sighed. “You aren’t at work, are you.”
“I am… not at work.” Before he could ask why, she said, “A pipe broke and flooded the seating area. It’ll be a day or two before it’s all cleaned up, so I won’t be at work tomorrow, either. Get used to it, dude.”
“Aw, man. Now I feel bad for leaving you alone tonight. I should come back.”
Molly wasn’t having it. “No, you should stay right there and have a little fun with your friends. I’m practically an adult—an adult with a PlayStation and Netflix, and absolutely no plans to have anybody over or do anything exciting in your absence.”
He leaned his forehead against the wall. “If you swear to God.”
“I swear to God that I have no plans to bring anybody over to the house, or order excessive amounts of delivery food, or anything like that. I also swear to God that I think you should totally stay there and enjoy yourself. When’s the last time you left the house for something fun?”
“Not since…” He started to say “since you were a little kid,” but in truth the answer was even worse. “Not since before you were born.”
She laughed. “Okay, that can’t literally be true. But it’s pretty close. Stay there, Dad. Have fun.”
“Okay. I’ll see you when I get home.”
They each hung up, and Grady put his phone in his pocket. Then he headed back into the main bar area, where he grabbed a little two-seater table by the wall and threw his jacket over one of the chairs before venturing over to the bar. There, a pretty green-haired black girl greeted him with, “Hey there, handsome. What are you having?”
“Uh…” He wasn’t a big drinker, and she’d caught him off guard. “Whiskey sour?”
“Coming right up! You sitting at the table over there?” She cocked her head at his jacket, slung across the chair.
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“I saw you come in with Leda and Nik. I’ll bring it over when it’s made, or have Matt do it for me. Sit tight and enjoy the show.”
“You’ve seen it before, I assume?”
“Oh yeah.” She leaned forward on the bar, signaling to another patron that she’d be with him in a moment. “It’s really cool; I’m not gonna lie. I don’t know how she does it.”
“She’s psychic.”
“Okay, I know that. I just find it kind of hard to imagine. How weird, right? Knowing things that nobody else knows, and most of the time, nobody believes you.”
“I believe her. She saved my life.”
“For real?” She cocked her head at him. “What’d she do?”
“She kept me off a plane that crashed.” It occurred to Grady that the bartender was only the second person he’d told, after his daughter.
“Wow… that’s… that’s heavy. I love it, though. I’m glad you’re still here, man.” She stuck out her hand, and he shook it. “I’m really glad you’re here.”
Grady went and took his seat, and before long a good forty or fifty curious patrons had taken every stool at the bar and most of the tables.
A tall, thin man with fluffy dark hair and tattoos peeking out of his sleeves came onstage. The stage itself wasn’t much bigger than a good-size dining room table, and the single microphone looked rickety and lonesome until he took it in his hands.
“Good evening, everyone!” he announced. “I’m Matt Cline, manager of this bar—and I want to welcome you here tonight.” He paused for a smattering of applause. “I know you’re all here to witness some klairvoyant karaoke, and”—a woman tapped his shoulder and handed him a flyer—“or… the psychic psongstress? Oh yeah, that’s right. Goddammit, Ben. Anyway, tonight we have, for your listening pleasure… Leda Foley, a woman with many talents, not least of all her voice. She’ll be up here in just a few minutes. Thanks for your patience.” He set the mic back into the stand before he hopped down off the stage and disappeared behind it.
Grady settled into his seat and nursed his drink, pleased with himself for being out of the house, participating in an adult activity. The evening wasn’t a work event, filled with cops doing cop socializing; it wasn’t a family thing, with his former in-laws or stray members from his own relations passing through town. It wasn’t about his daughter, or any high school event. He was free to be a grown-up, with a grown-up drink, in a grown-up establishment, after work with no obligations to haunt or distract him.
Then someone grabbed the empty chair across the table from him—and his daughter sat down. She smiled the smile of a teenager who has figured something out, made something happen, and now had surprised her father so thoroughly that he did not know what to say.
“You? What? Here?” He looked back at the door. “In a bar?”
“I told the guy at the door that I was with you. He asked who you were, and I told him you’d come here with the psychic singer, and you were working on a case together. I told him you were a cop, and you could arrest me if you had a problem with my presence.”
“Oh God.”
“The bouncer said it was okay for me to come inside, as long as I didn’t try to sneak any drinks or smokes, and so long as I don’t make any trouble. I will not try to sneak any drinks or smokes, okay? And I definitely won’t make any trouble.”
“How?”
Molly rolled her eyes. “I googled. It took about five seconds, Dad. Honestly. There are only so many psychic singers and dive bars on Capitol Hill. Your new friend is hot on Twitter.”
“Did I tell you… did I even give you enough information for you to…”
“Yes,” she told him firmly. A cop’s daughter, through and through. He was proud, even. “Yes, you did. Now be quiet, would you? The show’s about to start.” She turned her chair to face the stage, crossed her legs, and pulled out her phone like she fully intended to live-tweet this whole damn thing.
He didn’t know what to say, given that she was already inside a bar, and yes—the show was about to start. So he sighed, finished half his drink in a swallow, and settled in to watch.