Fortunes of the Dead (5 page)

“Which shoe was it? Right or left?” Miranda had inched closer and was staring down into the front seat of the car. Her hands were still stuffed in her pockets.

I took a quick look at Chris McFee, who was so still and quiet he seemed not to draw breath. Then he sighed and shifted his weight, hipbones cracking.

“Right shoe,” I said, pointing. “The heel print on the windshield matches up. I don't know if you can see it, but there's a hairline crack in the glass that emanates from the shoe print. It looks like Cheryl kicked the windshield, hard, while she struggled with her attacker. The theory is that she was strangled, but that conclusion comes from a lack of other kinds of physical evidence, and it may well be wrong. Three hairs in the trunk of the car are a positive match to Cheryl.” I took a quick breath. “The police think that Cheryl was meeting a man. She was pretty dressed-up just for work, but not overly so, so that's another thing that's not definite. But the silk, the heels, the fresh lipstick … all indicate a lover.

“Cheryl meets with the man, he's someone she knows, and she lets him into the car. Short strands of dark hair were found on the floor mats up front, as well as the seat of the car, and the police think it's likely they belong to Cheryl's attacker. The gas tank was on empty, so unless the guy filled the gas tank after killing Cheryl, which is certainly possible, wherever they went was in a range, there and back, of roughly two hundred fifty miles. We do know that Cheryl filled the tank late that afternoon at five-forty-five at the Pilot station just before the I-75 interchange off Richmond Road. Again, nothing definitive, and there are too many variables, but the mileage is something to look at.

“The police are holding to the theory that your sister met a lover, the man drove the two of them to an undisclosed location, and something went wrong between them. The man strangles Cheryl, puts her body in the trunk of the car, drives somewhere and disposes of her remains, then returns the car to the apartment parking lot.”

“But why take the car back? Why not keep it?”

“He doesn't want to be found with the car. He doesn't want to leave the car where he's disposed of the body. A car is hard to hide and if he leaves it, then it's a connection that leads right to Cheryl's remains. Making a case is a whole lot easier with a … with the victim on hand. And there would be a wealth of forensic evidence from Cheryl herself.”

McFee leaned toward Miranda. “Anywhere the car is found, other than your sister's apartment, is a trail that leads right back to her attacker.”

Miranda looked from me to McFee and back again. I wasn't sure she got it.

“Unless somebody saw the killer in the car, having it back in Cheryl's parking lot leads us nowhere. And there's a bus line that stops right down the road from Cheryl's apartment, so the guy could drop the car and get home pretty easily.”

“Okay,” Miranda said, “but
did
anybody see him? Did they check with the bus driver? What if something came up there?”

“The problem is, they're not sure what night the car came back. It might have been the night Cheryl was killed, it might have been later. It took two days for her to be missed and another to get the investigation rolling.”

“That's my fault,” Miranda said. “I should have known something was wrong.”

I gave her a minute to mull it over. I did not try to talk her out of her guilt. In her heart, she knew better, and arguing tended to make victims emotional. I didn't want Miranda any more emotional than she already was, not in the evidence warehouse, and not with McFee pushing his luck.

“So how come the police haven't told me any of this stuff? Why hasn't it been on the news?”

“Most of what I've told you isn't common knowledge. You and your father would have been informed eventually, particularly if your dad has been keeping in touch and pushing.”

It occurred to me that Joel hadn't said much about Paul Brady. I wondered if it was reticence, disinterest, or if Brady hadn't been as aggressive as I'd have thought. That could be why he hired me, because he felt he wasn't doing enough. I wanted to meet this man face-to-face.

“At this point, Miranda, the police are working closely with the Commonwealth Attorney's office. They'll be the ones making the case, if there is one, and taking it to trial. They'll go for the indictment before a grand jury. You might want to tell your father to start making contact with their office, if he hasn't already.”

McFee glanced at his watch and I took the hint.

“Miranda, it's time to go.”

But Miranda did not move. She stared at the Mustang as if it was her last connection with Cheryl, and she seemed not to know how to leave. I was at a loss.

But Chris McFee wasn't. He put his arms around Miranda and she relaxed into his giant hug. He held her for a long moment, and she sighed deeply. Arm around her shoulders, and shielding her with his jacket, he led her out into the rain to my car.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

I was alone in the house, sitting in front of the empty fireplace, listening to the rain. I didn't feel like painting any walls. Miranda had stumbled home hours ago; dinnertime had come and gone. A single lamp sitting in the center of the living-room floor cast a bronze glow that did not quite reach the corners of the room; otherwise the house was dark. I was cleaning out a favorite purse—red, made of soft Italian leather, with a shoulder strap and a brass latch, and two interior zip compartments sized perfectly for makeup, Advil, a cell phone. I turned the purse inside out, scattering the dusty contents. When I get tired of a purse, I toss it to the top shelf of my closet, vowing to go back the next day and clean it out. At least this time I didn't leave an apple inside. Six months of dead apple does terrible things to silk lining and leather.

Rick bought me the purse on our honeymoon. Neither one of us were big on beaches and piña coladas, so we took a week in London in a small hotel in Soho that had a separate name for each musty suite.

I shut my eyes and tilted my head up toward the ceiling. I could remember everything about the place but the name—that it was built in the 1700s, that the ceilings were impossibly low, the floors uneven, and the furniture of an age that puts the American concept of antique to shame. Each suite had a private bathroom (pricey in London), and competent plumbing (also pricey in London). The price of a room included a tea tray at the door each morning and afternoon. The hotel would have been ideal if there had not been scaffolding attached to the front façade and jack-hammers to greet us early each day.

We stayed in a tiny suite on the second floor, solely accessible by a twisting and narrow back staircase. A four-poster bed took up most of the floor space and sat opposite a fireplace that had been sealed since 1910. Actually touching the foot of the bed were two worn but well-padded chairs divided by a small marble table that sat on the hearth. A mahogany bureau occupied the whole of the opposite wall.

The bathroom was oddly spacious. A claw-foot tub squatted dead center on the yellowing tile floor. Rick and I, thinking ourselves wise, brought an electrical conversion kit so he could use his electric razor and I could use my hair dryer. The dryer lasted three minutes, then blew a fuse and shot flames. I can still see Rick's stunned look as he turned from the mirror where he was shaving; I can hear him shout,
“Bathtub, Lena. Throw it!”
Which is what I did, chipping a piece of glaze off the cast-iron tub. With typical grace and panache, Rick spun like a dancer, ripping the dryer's cord from the outlet before he bent over the bathtub faucet and turned the water on full blast, laughing so hard he stumbled against the tub.

Rick and I are comfortable now, the after-marriage friendship no longer so edgy. I have Joel and Rick has Judith, and Rick is so far distanced from the feelings of our past that he recently asked me if I thought we would have stayed together if Whitney's murder had not changed us—me, really—so that we became strangers to our life.

An image of Miranda Brady came to mind; how she stared at her sister's death car while I sketched out the final minutes of Cheryl's life.

I wished Joel would come home.

I turned to the crumpled detritus on the floor, starting the trash pile with a business card for Bright Side Storage, where I bought boxes to move from my apartment with Rick to Whitney's house. I unfolded a crumpled receipt from the American Express gold card I had when my credit was steady and I worked a regular job. Along with the fine etch of numbers and my signature on the sliver-thin scrap of wrinkled paper, I could see that it was from the Atomic Café for thirty-two dollars and sixty-eight cents. How strange to remember the occasion—me, Whitney, my nephew Kevin, all sitting on the back patio under a string of colored lights, listening to reggae, eating jerk chicken, my sister and I drinking Red Stripe beer. Kevin had been too young for the revelry on that patio, but even then, Whitney had been uneasy about leaving him alone with Jeff.

The receipt joined the trash pile, along with a petrified stick of red cinnamon gum. I tossed an old hosiery club card from Lazarus department store; a folded loan application for the financing I took out on the crappy Cutlass Supreme I used to drive; a flyer for Armstrong Flooring I got for Whitney when she was redoing her kitchen.

I unfolded a dingy business card, with Joel's name and rank, the address of the Lexington-Fayette County Police Department, and Joel's home phone number written in my sister's handwriting. Joel had been kind to Whitney on that first visit she and I made to discuss Jeff with the police. He had listened patiently, taken copious notes; he'd understood immediately what we were up against. He'd made two things clear—the limitations on what he could do for us, and the recognition that our fears and worries were well founded. It is one thing to know your sister's husband is dangerous; it is another to protect your sister. Talking to Joel was too little too late, but all of us tried.

It was Joel I called when I found the bodies of my sister and her child; it was Joel who worked the case.

I tucked the card back into the purse.

A FedEx air bill went straight to the trash pile (divorce papers sent to Rick) followed by a folded piece of yellow legal paper with directions to Joel's north-side loft—a list of twists and turns notated in purple ink, and in my handwriting. Next in the heap went a parking receipt from the downtown garage I used when I went, time after time, to talk to someone in the Commonwealth Attorney's office about Jeff's trial and subsequent conviction for manslaughter—a desolating step down from the multiple murder convictions I had counted on. Two paper clips went next, along with one tarnished silver hoop earring. The last item, a to-do list:

2:00—Commonwealth Atty. Office

dinner, 7, meet Rick at Portabella's

cat to vet for shots

Xanex prescription refilled

Need paper towels

Figure out WHY check bounced at Kroger's

How strange to feel nostalgia for those months of hell. Strange to look back and see good things; Joel for one, the crazy things Rick did to pull me out of lethargic depression. Outrageous he might be, full of a thwarted actor's ego and pissy envies, but for sheer set-your-hair-on-fire fun, Rick is hard to beat.

Back in what I think of as the Age of Innocence, my sister, Rick and I went out together every Friday night—Saturdays were couples only. Jeff had been run off early in the game, unable to withstand the onslaught of Rick's wit and energy, and uncomfortable, as always, with the unity between my sister and me, the female kinship forged by quarrels, shared childhood, and goddess power. When Whitney got pregnant with her second child, we moved out of the bars and into restaurants—Shoney's midnight breakfast, Applebee's half-price appetizers.

In the last months of my sister's life, our Fridays were devoted to strategy sessions for getting Whitney a divorce, full custody of Kevin and UB (unborn baby), and keeping everyone safe. We had no idea what we were up against. We made a lot of jokes. Whitney was seven months pregnant when she died.

Afterward, when reality shifted and nothing was ever the same, I spent every waking moment in the grip of Joel's investigation. I enjoyed the hunt; the smallest thing I could do to fuel the chase constituted the sole pleasure of my life. And when, at last, Joel's swift but meticulous investigation ended in Jeff's arrest, I lived for the moment when I could sit in a courtroom answering question after question, tireless, and careful to make sure the jury understood Jeff Hayes.

Whitney, Kevin, the unborn child—they have been peaceful now for over eight years.

A car door slammed. I looked out the window, but it was too bright inside and too dark outside for me to see. Staring from the darkness into the light brought an image—that last night Rick and I spent in London, walking out of a bookstore onto the narrow sidewalk, stepping off the lip of the curb. The pubs were lit and filling up with Londoners stopping off on their way home from work in search of lager and daily specials; in the working-man's pubs one could find karaoke and a meat raffle for a pound a throw. It is a wistful feeling, standing in the dark and looking in at people drinking, talking, eating.

I did not need to see out the window to know whose footsteps those were on the walk. I heard Joel's key turn the lock, feeling that mix of thrill, relief, and safety I get whenever he walks in the door. I looked forward to taking Joel for granted someday, and though I was nowhere close, I had progressed to being comfortable around him in my most horrible shredded sweatshirt and no makeup.

Joel peered around the archway, smiling gently, tired but relaxed, tie loose, not a hair out of place. It was only because I knew him that I could detect the relief that clung to him like a scent. Home is Joel's sanctuary, the one place he is allowed to relax. At home he actually takes off the tie.