Grave Reservations by Cherie Priest
21.
Three days later, Leda’s phone went off at an ungodly hour.
The first text message read: Leda, get up. She didn’t hear the buzz that announced it. She heard the second one, though. That time the text read: Leda, NOW. It came from Grady. Grady was texting her. In the middle of the night. He’d called her, but the volume was turned down on her ringer. It wasn’t really a ringing tone, anyway. It was still the chorus of chipmunks singing “Chandelier,” and who the hell could sleep through that but not a couple of text messages?
It was 4:51 in the morning. Still dark outside. Not even a hint of pink on the horizon.
She sat up in bed, wiped her eyes, and jumped when a third text landed. I’m coming to get you. Be dressed.
“Dressed in what? Get me for what?” she asked the phone.
The phone didn’t answer. She unlocked it and composed a new text. All she could manage was: What?
Twenty minutes. Have pants on.
And that was the full extent of the information she was working with.
Bleary-eyed, she rolled out of bed.
Five minutes later she was wearing jeans, socks, and a unicorn sweater that read MAJESTIC AF. Or should she choose something more professional? Was this a professional call? For professional business?
“It sure as hell isn’t a personal visit. Not at this hour,” she grumbled to herself. She went to the bathroom to slap her contacts into her eyes. She brushed her teeth and hair, wondering all the way what was going on.
By 5:00 a.m. Leda had thrown her hair into a ponytail, swabbed some cherry ChapStick onto her lips, and was about as presentable as she was going to get. She wasn’t as awake as she would like to be, but she was out of coffee and she couldn’t think of any place where she might get some at that hour.
Grady’s car pulled up to the little bungalow just as Leda was washing down a granola bar with a swig of milk directly from the carton. His headlights were bright through the front window, and she could hear the car idling on the street. He tapped the horn twice.
Leda cringed. Most of her neighbors weren’t up at that hour, except for that one weirdo who was probably jogging already.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she said, as if he could hear her. He honked again, right as she was finding her purse and checking it for her keys.
The keys weren’t there.
Where were her keys?
On the coffee table, in a bowl. Got ’em.
She threw her feet into the boots she’d left beside the door the night before, and—still hopping to get her right foot settled—she left the house and locked the door.
Grady was parked with his right two wheels on the sidewalk, in accordance with local custom. He’d almost hit a fire hydrant.
Leda opened the passenger door and threw her purse inside. She followed it, grousing all the way. “Somebody ought to give you a ticket for that.”
“For what?”
“For the… you’re real close to… there’s a…” She couldn’t rally the words she needed, so she flapped her hand toward the hydrant, even though he probably couldn’t see it from where he was sitting behind the wheel.
He said flatly, “Janette Gilman is dead.”
“Oh my God,” she blurted. Her seat belt wasn’t even buckled when he threw the car back into gear. It jumped off the curb and pulled back into the street, narrowly avoiding a tree, a mailbox, and one of those rent-a-bikes that people routinely left all over the damn place.
A squealing, scraping noise suggested that maybe he hadn’t missed the bike after all, but whatever was snagged in the bumper, Grady shook it. “She was working late,” he continued. “The building was locked, but somebody climbed a fire escape and broke a window to get in.”
Murder was better than caffeine. “Another broken window! We have another murder!” Leda nearly leaped out of her seat.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. She fell down some stairs and broke her neck. There’s always the possibility that this was an accident.”
“It’s also possible that her death has nothing to do with our cases. I mean, technically it’s possible. But if you thought that’s what happened, you wouldn’t be here, and I wouldn’t be out of bed before the sun comes up.”
“Correct.” He squeezed the steering wheel, his knuckles tight and pale.
“Can we stop for coffee?”
“Not yet. We can grab some when we’re done. For now, you’re on your way to an active criminal investigation again, and you’ll stay there by the grace of whoever’s working the scene. I know this sounds weird and strange and probably awful, too, but I want you to see this woman’s body. I want you to touch it, if you can.”
“Oh my God,” Leda said again.
Grady shot her a fast look, then looked at the road again. A stoplight ahead was turning yellow. He drew up to a halt, even though he probably could’ve gunned the engine and made it through. He dropped his head down onto the steering wheel and let his forehead rest there. “Oh God, our first conversation… it’s the only thing you made me promise, that I wouldn’t show you any dead bodies.”
“I mean… yeah. We’ve had this talk.”
“I’m so sorry, I just got caught up in the whole thing, and when my partner, Sam, called me an hour ago and said this was going down, I didn’t even think. I just ran with it. I had this wild hare up my ass, this crazy thought… like, if I could get you there. If I could get you to see, and touch, and… and flash, or whatever it is you do. With a fresh body? If anything’s ever going to give you a hit, surely…” He trailed off. “Surely this would be it, right?”
They sat there, silent in the dark car, parked at the now-red light. There were no other cars at that moment, though a flicker of headlights behind them suggested a few were coming. Morning rush hour wouldn’t start for another hour.
Leda said, “I’ve never actually seen a dead body, except at a funeral. I guess… I guess it’s fine. I think I told you, I didn’t see Tod’s. His mother identified him, and they closed the casket. And it’s not like I knew Janette. I only met her the once, so, no big deal. Yeah, I can do this,” she concluded. “Let’s go. Come on, the light’s green.”
He looked up and saw that she was right, and he was about to get honked at by the cars that were coming up behind him. “Only if you’re sure.”
She was not sure. “I’m sure. I can do this.”
As if to soothe himself, Grady said, “There’s always a chance that you won’t get close enough to the body to make anything happen, anyway. This isn’t exactly standard procedure, and odds are better than fair that we won’t get away with it. Either way, when we get there, stick close to me. Err on the side of too quiet, instead of too friendly. If anyone asks, you’re a consultant I’ve been working with, on a case related to Ms. Copeland’s dead husband. Do not volunteer which dead husband. Don’t do it.”
“Got it.”
“If you ever change your mind, at any time, all you have to do is say so—and I’ll have you out of there so fast, it’ll make your head spin. I realize now that I am a terrible person for asking you to do this. I am truly the worst man who ever lived, and just say the word—I’ll run you home and we’ll pretend like this never happened.”
But things were happening anyway. Tod’s murderer was within her grasp, she could feel it. Even if that feeling was more “strong desire” than “intellectual certainty.” If she turned back now, she might never get another chance.
“No,” she told him. “I don’t want to go back home. I want to go catch this creep.” In fact, she desperately wanted to go home. But she more desperately wanted the person who killed Tod.
“You mean it?” he asked nervously.
“I mean it. Let’s go.”
Before long, they were on the interstate, and from there it only took another thirty minutes to reach Janette Copeland’s office building. It was crawling with cops and cop-affiliated personnel. An ambulance sat at the ready with its rear doors opened, its interior empty.
Leda saw it at the same time Grady did. She said, “They haven’t removed her body yet.”
“No, but it looks like they’re about to.” He discreetly crooked his index finger at two guys in uniforms with an empty gurney between them. The gurney’s wheels weren’t cooperating, or else the steep, damp, busted-up Seattle sidewalk wasn’t cooperating. Either way, their progress was reassuringly slow. “Let’s head inside,” he added. “Hurry, before they pick her up.”
The Murtree, Hanglesworth, and Smith Financial Services offices occupied the bottom three floors of a smallish high-rise at the edge of the downtown core. Leda noted that she was within walking distance of Castaways, if she felt truly motivated and didn’t mind hoofing it directly, steeply uphill for a few blocks.
Not that she had any intention of doing so. It was early, she was confused, and she was trying to orient herself in the downtown tangle.
Obediently, she followed Grady, sticking to his shadow almost closely enough to be inconvenient—but he didn’t fuss at her, and nobody stopped her. Several cops gave Grady a head bob of recognition, and Leda a scrunched face of confusion; but together they made it into the lobby without any trouble.
Inside, the building looked exactly like Leda had expected. It matched the mirrored-glass-and-steel exterior, with lots of shiny surfaces and hard, flat right angles that gave the place a modern, expensive feel—if a rather unfriendly one. Not so much as a foyer rug or a fluffy potted fern softened the place.
The sun was still only just thinking about coming up, so the lights within the building were blinding. Leda wouldn’t have said no to a pair of sunglasses, but maybe she was only tired. And a smidge hungover.
But only a smidge—which was admirable, considering Ben’s “free drinks for singers” policy. A mild case of morning cottonmouth was evidence that she was a responsible adult.
She squinted around and saw crime tape, some of it still in rolls, lying on counters. A puffy-faced night guard in a polyester uniform gave earnest details to two official-looking women with serious faces. All the elevators in a bank along the wall were open, paused that way, and Leda didn’t know why; but there was no one to ask except for Grady, and he was on a mission—leading her through the scene with a swift, formal pace that said he totally had permission to be there.
And so did anybody who was with him.
Two sets of escalators were stopped, same as the elevators. One was marked out of order, which was silly, since that only meant stairs, but Leda kept that thought to herself. Contrary to her personal nature, she kept all her thoughts to herself, all the while resisting the urge to take the back of Grady’s jacket by the hem—purely to make sure she didn’t lose him like a kid in a busy mall.
They were most of the way through the lobby when someone stopped Grady with a quizzical “Merritt? What are you doing here?” She was a tall, slender woman with yellow hair that was long enough to put up in a clip. She looked tired and hastily dressed in street clothes—Leda thought she must be another detective—but she was carrying a cup of coffee that was big enough to drown a cat.
He muttered something under his breath. Leda thought it probably had four letters and wouldn’t be welcome on a Tuesday-evening procedural on CBS. But he turned around with a too-early-in-the-morning version of a bright, happy-to-see-you smile. “Hey, Carter. Sam called about an hour ago. His wife was awake with the baby, and she heard about this on the police scanner.”
“That’s the weirdest ‘up with a baby’ background noise I ever heard of.”
“Tell me about it. But it’s not my kid, so I don’t care if they traumatize him before he learns to walk.”
Carter asked, “Does this have something to do with a case of yours?”
“Yeah, the Gilmans. This guy and his son got shot at a hotel on the other end of town. Janette Copeland was the ex-wife and stepmother of the pair, respectively. I only just talked to her the other day, and Sam knew about it. I know this isn’t my scene, and I hope you don’t mind.” Then he said quickly, “But if you do, I can skedaddle. Won’t hurt my feelings if you send us packing.”
The other officer looked him up and down, then she looked at Leda. She opened her mouth like she was about to ask who exactly this random woman was, then she shut it again like she’d changed her mind. “I trust you to stay out from underfoot. Is this the consultant I heard you’ve been running around with?”
As if he’d only just noticed Leda standing there, halfway hidden behind him and trying very hard to look like she was casually lingering and not at all hiding, Grady said, “Her? Oh, yes. This is Leda Foley. Leda, this is Lieutenant Allison Carter.”
“It’s a pleasure,” said Leda, doing a little bow. She hoped it read polite and professional, if a tad distant and not too afraid to extend a hand for a shake.
“Likewise, I’m sure. Anyway, stay close to this guy,” Carter told her. “He knows how to behave.”
“I absolutely plan to do so, yes. Don’t worry. You won’t hear a peep out of me, and I won’t touch a thing!”
Before Leda could go on, Grady stepped in. “So the body’s… where? Upstairs?” he asked.
“Up the escalator and around the corner. There’s a secondary mezzanine up there. It opens to the floors above. She went down the escalator headfirst, over the glass rail along the side. You know, the one that’s designed to prevent that sort of thing.”
“Did it break?” Grady asked.
“No, and although she might have simply been way off-balance and fallen, it’s more likely that either she hauled herself over it in an attempt to escape—or else someone picked her up and threw her.”
“Not an accident, then.”
Carter shook her head. “Nobody thinks it was. The guard over there—” She cocked her head at the guy; he was dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief. “He heard people fighting upstairs, and then there was a strange tumbling noise like something rolling or falling, and then a crash. He’s pretty shaken up. Called it in right away.”
“Did he chase whoever else was in the building?”
“He says he never saw anyone else, but he did hear footsteps when he found Janette. The fall wasn’t really that far, you’ll see it yourself when you get up there. She landed wrong. Humans are so damn fragile; that’s all it took.” Carter mimed a yank of her head, and a cracking noise. “But if this is tied to some old case of yours, I’d really like to hear about it,” she told Grady, giving him a look that was sharp enough to blow a tire.
“Absolutely. Yes, ma’am. We can sit down in your office later today.”
“Later today is good for me, thanks. And be quick about this. Whatever you’re doing here, do it and get out before anybody else asks questions.”
“Will do.” Grady gave her a floppy salute and turned away. He put one hand on the small of Leda’s back to guide her, and he used the gesture to say softly into her ear, “Carter’s all right, and she’ll look the other way, but she’s careful. If we overstay our welcome, she’ll toss us out.”
“Gotcha.”
He ushered her toward the escalator and then took the lead climbing position. Leda was hot on his tail, sticking close and staying quiet. Up the escalator to the next level they went, and on that next level, the building opened up. A wide, oval-shaped mezzanine overlooked the further descent of the escalators below—as well as several grouped seating areas for informal meetings or hasty lunches, a number of tastefully potted plants and small trees, a customer service/information desk with room for three employees behind it (though no one was there at the time), three sets of elevator doors, two sleek metal trash cans, several officers, two forensics investigators… and the body of Janette Copeland, lying beneath a sheet beside the escalator landing.
Leda said, “Oh, wow.”
The sheet did not cover everything. A few fingers poked out from one end, flawless manicure intact. One foot also protruded, exposing stocking-covered toes. Where was the shoe? Then Leda saw it a few feet away, an evidence marker placed beside it.
Grady whispered, “Are you ready to do this?”
She stared at the sheet and whatever was underneath it. There wasn’t any blood, or Leda didn’t see any. Was that normal? Shouldn’t there have been blood? Janette hadn’t fallen more than twenty or thirty feet, but that was far enough, wasn’t it? Was it better or worse that there wasn’t any blood—that this only looked like a lady napping beneath a sheet in a large office building?
Better, Leda decided. Or not worse. Worse would have been seeing the face of a woman who’d bought her a pitcher of sangria earlier that week.
“It’s okay, I’ve got this. I’m ready.”