Deeper Than the Grave (13 page)

Chapter Twenty-five

The High Museum of Art, a stark white and gracefully impractical series of interconnected buildings, proved a challenging place to infiltrate. Designed like an enormous cylinder plopped into an even more enormous cube, with narrow white stairways looping around the periphery and white columns looming like pale tree trunks, its Stent wing was a place of dizzying confusion. Especially for someone clomping about in unfamiliar clogs with two dozen white roses blocking her view.

I came in the lobby as instructed, through the glass crossover and up the coiling staircase, winding higher and higher as I passed the cold-eyed marble statues, the blown-glass Tiffany bowls. On the fourth floor, two employees in black sweaters chatted next to the fire extinguisher, their attention locked on a group of teenagers rollicking dangerously close to a ten-foot-tall stainless steel dish that fractured and reflected the room back upon itself in shards of light and color.

The Anish Kapoor. I patted my back pocket for Gabriella's note. Then I ducked into the service elevator and took it straight down to the ground floor where it opened—as promised—into the piazza's back entrance. The service portal. I held my roses high and stepped into the scurry and bustle.

Getting into the white tent was a snap—all I had to do was keep up with the streaming tide of waitstaff. Inside, the tent buzzed with conversation so effervescent it practically bubbled, and I knew that Chelsea was somewhere in that froth of color and laughter. I also knew that she was protected by a boundary of velvet ropes and discerning eyes. The guests knew it too. They realized they were on display, and they expected to be—like all precious art—defended from the sticky fingers of the riffraff.

I kept a brisk pace, using the flowers as cover. Memories flooded my brain, and I tried hard to ignore them. The spring dance. The winter formal. The inevitable lectures that resulted when I violated some protocol of daintiness and womanhood. The main area smelled like hair spray and perfume, but close to the buffet table, I caught the scent of fresh bread, the salty tang of prosciutto. My stomach growled, and I pressed a hand to it.

Across the room, in the VIP corner, the Amberdecker sisters held court. Evie wore a lady-like suit—navy, with white piping—but as I watched, she discreetly turned her wrist and checked her watch. Eager to get back to work. I put down the flowers, picked up a tray of sparkling wine, and made for Chelsea, who stood as far away from her sister as she could get and still be in the VIP area.

She was impossible to miss, dazzling in a cobalt halter dress, her shoulders glowing with an Aspen tan. Her honey-colored bob rippled with expert highlights, showcasing brilliant blue eyes and softening her assertive jawline. She was an Amberdecker, all right, to the manor—and the manner—born.

I stepped behind her. “Excuse me, Ms. Amberdecker?”

She looked my way, her smile polite. “Yes?”

“We need to talk.”

The wariness solidified into annoyance. “Who are you?”

“A friend of the family. And unless you want me to start blabbing the name Lucius Dufrene over the place, you need to head to the ladies' room—by yourself—where we can talk without being disturbed.”

She glared, hard, the softness evaporating. “What do you want?”

“I want to do this discreetly.”

She put two and two together, made her decision. “I'll be there in five minutes.”

“Make it two. And if anybody besides you comes for me, I start talking, and don't think for a second—”

“I heard you!!” she hissed, then turned away.

I'd been dismissed. I waited ten seconds to make sure I wasn't being beset by bodyguards, then I collected my roses, straightened my shoulders, and went into the restroom to wait for her.

***

I'd been perched on the edge of the marble vanity for barely sixty seconds when Chelsea blew in like a petite hurricane. “Who the hell are you?”

“Tai Randolph.”

She made a face. “Evie put you up to this, didn't she? Well, you tell her to go back and dig in the dirt some more, I am not asking Jeremy for any more money! She's on her own with that damn exhibit!”

“Evie? No. This isn't about her at all.”

Chelsea put her hands on her hips. “You've got five seconds to explain before I call—”

“Your fiancé, I know the drill. And he'll have some nicely dressed men with hardware on their belts come and escort me out. Then he'll threaten to take every penny I own. He'll ruin me.” I sighed. “Been there, done that, got the restraining order. But see, here's the thing. I can't call fancy lawyers. The only real weapon I have is my mouth. And I am not afraid to use it.”

“I don't have to talk to you.”

“You don't. But you will have to talk to the police. Who will be calling once they learn your little secret, which they will. Lucius Dufrene's life is about to be an open book, and your part in it is bound to come out. The part before he got skeletonized on your family's property, I mean.”

Her lip twitched, and the color drained from her face. “I had nothing to do with that.”

“Regardless, without an explanation, you're looking like Grade A Prime suspect material. So you can explain to me, and I can explain to them, or you can—”

She put a hand to her mouth, pressing hard, shaking suddenly. “I didn't…I never…”

I snatched a stool from the vanity and shoved it behind her. She collapsed on it, her complexion greenish. I'd suffered enough hangovers to recognize the signs of imminent upchuckery, so I reached behind me and grabbed the wastebasket. She snatched it away from me and heaved her brunch into it.

“Goddammit,” she hissed, then shoved her face inside and retched some more. I let her get it out. Finally she stopped heaving and put the wastebasket on the floor. I snatched up a handful of paper towels, wet them, and handed them to her without a word.

She accepted them just as silently, then turned on the stool and faced the vanity mirror. She wiped her mouth, then pulled a travel toothbrush and a mini tube of toothpaste from her purse. I noticed the bracelet—turquoise and silver beads with one large bead pressed tight against the pulse point of her wrist—and realized this was no hangover she was battling.

“That bracelet not working?” I said.

She leaned forward, patting her cheeks with the wet paper. Didn't reply.

I gestured to her wrists. “I used to work on a dive boat, so I recognize a motion sickness bracelet when I see one. The terrycloth bands work the best, but I guess those would clash with your outfit.”

She swished a mouthful of water in her mouth, then spat it in the sink. Kept her eyes on her reflection.

“How far along?” I said.

She kept ignoring me. I understood. I also knew that she'd completely misunderstood my threat about her “little secret” and I felt a pang of guilt.

“Look,” I said, “I don't care if you got knocked up or not, and neither do the police. None of my, or their, business. Frankly, I can't imagine anyone caring in this day and age, but whatever. Like I said, your business. I do need to know about Lucius, though. So tell me what I need to know, I'll leave, and you'll never see me again.”

“We were screwing,” she said, pulling a tiny pot of foundation from her purse. “He worked on Richard's crew one summer. I was bored. He was hot. What else do you need to know?”

“Any idea who might have wanted to kill him?”

“No.”

“Did you?”

She glared at me. “Why would I kill him?”

“Did he hurt you?”

“What? Hell no!” She returned her attention to the mirror. “You want to find out who killed him, you gotta find somebody who cared. And I didn't.” She turned in the seat and looked at me. “Didn't care when we were doing it, didn't care when he left. Found a replacement in two seconds flat.”

“Rich, good-looking girls always can.”

“Damn straight.”

“Your mama and sister and fiancé cool with this?”

She glared again.

“Ah. They don't know.”

She blinked at me, and for a second I thought I saw tears. Or maybe a flash of real emotion. And then I understood. She was, after all, throwing up in a trash can, her purse tricked out like a morning sickness field kit. There was a wedding coming up, a hastily assembled one, and there didn't have to be. If there was one thing a rich woman could get in Atlanta, it was a discreet way out of her particular difficulty.

I lowered my voice. “You either really do love him, or you really love his money. I can't tell which.”

She ignored me. She had the mascara wand out, her eyes dry now. “I had no reason to kill Lucius. No one in my family did. He didn't matter that way.”

“So you and his girlfriend didn't have a fight?”

“Cat? And me?” She made a noise of disgust, pulled out her lipstick. “That chick is batshit. She texted me once, called me a whore. I told her that if she tried to contact me again, I'd have put her away, like straightjacket put away. I was not interested in her redneck drama. If you're looking for somebody who hated Lucius, talk to that dumbass with the skateboard and the stupid tattoo.”

“You mean Fishbone?”

Chelsea applied an expert layer of berry-colored lipstick, her eyes on the mirror. “Yeah, him. He and Lucius were always fighting, drugs and money, money and drugs.”

“Fighting arguing or fighting fighting?”

“Both.”

“About what?”

“Mostly that Lucius had ditched him for a smarter, better partner. Some guy he met online.”

“Do you think Fishbone could have killed him over that?”

She shrugged, pursed her lips in the mirror. “Don't know, don't—”

“Don't care, right. Got it.”

She popped the cap back on the lipstick and slipped it in her purse. She stood, then stepped around me and headed for the door, dismissing me as easily as she had Lucius and Cat and Fishbone. We were all the same to her—redneck trash. He'd been good for a quick roll or two, but I was merely an inconvenient obstacle.

She paused at the door. “If you breathe a word of this to anyone, you will pay. I will hurt you where you live. I promise you.”

And in that second, as the words hit me right between the eyes, Chelsea Amberdecker looked exactly like her mother.

Chapter Twenty-six

A misty fog shrouded Stone Mountain's summit, almost obscuring the Confederate generals carved into its side. During the summer, the park filled up with stroller-pushing mommies in running gear, buff guys taking the stepped trail up to the top. But this day, with a cloudy sky and temps barely above freezing, I had the giant hunk of quartz and granite mostly to myself.

I huddled under a pine at the base of the rock, the perfect vantage point for scoping out the parking lot and the handful of skateboarders gathered in its far corner. The pavement attracted only the hardcore this winter afternoon, but not one of them was Fishbone. I shoved my hands in my pockets and tried to avoid impaling myself on a yucca plant. I wished I'd brought coffee. I wished I had warmer gloves. I wished—

“Have you found what you're looking for?”

I whirled around. Trey stood behind me, his trench coat buttoned tight against the bladed air.

I glared at him. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you.”

Across the park, one of the teens popped his board at the top of the stairs and rode the handrail down like a surfer taking a wave. The wheels guttered and rumbled, a monotone growl.

I crossed my arms. “So you're stalking me now?”

“This isn't stalking. I'm standing right beside you.”

“You're supposed to be working.”

“I
was
working, but then I went by your shop at one—”

I smacked my forehead. “Oh shit! I forgot.”

“—and you weren't there. Which was not in itself alarming, so I went ahead with the new monitor installation, but then I received a call from Gabriella—”

“Damn it! She ratted me out, didn't she?”

Trey shot me a sharp look. “No. She was calling because the Lost and Found department at the High Museum called her because someone found your cell phone in the restroom, and since hers was the last number you'd dialed—”

“Oh hell!” I patted down my pockets. “My phone's gone!”

Trey pulled it from his pocket. “Gabriella called Jean Luc, who said that he had not seen you. So I told Gabriella I would pick up your phone—which I did—and activate the tracking on your car—which I did—which is why I am standing here right beside you, which is not stalking.”

He handed me my phone. Sure enough, the screen showed a GPS map of Stone Mountain, my Camaro a blinking red light. I'd wondered how effective the system was back when Trey had had it installed around Christmastime. Now I knew.

I slipped the phone in my pocket. “Aren't you going to ask what I was doing at the High?”

“Gabriella explained. It was the reason she was concerned enough to go there herself to look for you. A valid concern, I might add.”

He had a point. To my astonishment, however, he wasn't annoyed, or angry, or even lecture-y. He was calm and cool, almost mellow.

“You're taking this very non-hypervigilantly,” I said.

He cocked his head, thinking. “That is true, yes. It was not true ninety minutes ago, however, but Gabriella gave me something for that.” He pulled a tiny bottle from his pocket and squinted at the handwritten label. “Kava, chamomile, avena sativa, and vanilla.”

I stared at him. “She drugged you.”

“Not drugs. Herbs. Like in tea.”

I examined him more closely. No, not drugged, just…smoothed. Calm, clear-eyed, maybe blinking a teensy bit slower than usual, but as sharp as the wind off the mountain. He returned the pills to his pocket, pulling out a pair of surveillance binoculars instead. He seemed to be settling in for the afternoon.

“Don't you have to get back to work now?” I said.

“Marisa sent me home. Personal leave. She told me to track you down, yell at you, and then get myself together before I set foot in her building again. Her exact words.” He moved closer to the scant shelter of the tree and put the binoculars to his eyes. “So that's why I'm here. I would like to know, however, why
you're
here.”

I sighed. Time to out with it. So I told him about my visit with Chelsea, and how like Cat, she'd implicated Fishbone as having a conflict with Lucius, probably drug-related. I left out the pregnancy part. I'd given my word, after all.

“And so, since all roads were leading to Fishbone, and thus, to Stone Mountain, I decided to check it out. Not that I've spotted him.”

“Would he be six-four with a tattoo of a fish skeleton on the right forearm?”

I held out my hand. “Give me those binoculars.”

Trey handed them over. Sure enough, a new guy had joined the action down below. Even in the freezing weather, he wore a tank shirt over loose stovepipe jeans. His black hair fell almost to his waist, a thick ill-maintained tangle held back with a red and navy bandanna, but it was the ink on his right forearm that caught my eye—a tattoo of a leaping fishy skeleton. I watched as he took a flying leap off the steps, grabbing the edge of his board and flipping it under him in a one-eighty, his wheels crushing dead leaves as he crisscrossed the pavement.

I lowered the binoculars. “I wonder how fast he is on that thing.”

Trey shook his head. “You have no authority to pursue him.”

“I don't want to pursue him, I want to talk to him.”

“And how do you plan on doing that?

“I'm going to walk over there and open my mouth.”

“That's not the best plan.”

“You have a better one?”

He shook his head again, keeping his eyes on Fishbone. The breeze now carried the unmistakable pong of marijuana, although I was more inclined to blame the young couple giggling furtively on the park bench than the guy doing kickflips in the parking lot.

“What exactly are you trying to accomplish here?” Trey said.

“I want to ask him about Lucius.”

“Why do you think he'll tell us anything?”

“Not us, boyfriend. Me.”

Trey folded his arms. “I don't think—”

“It's non-negotiable. You reek of cop. I know you can't help it, but you do.”

“Nonetheless—”

“You can be backup. You're always yammering about backup.”

He made a noise of annoyance. “I don't yammer.”

I handed him his binoculars and then quickly, before he could protest, I scurried down the wet leaves and gravel to the parking lot. Fishbone had propped his board against the restroom door and was grabbing a swig from a can of Red Bull. He saw me coming, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

I pointed at his arm. “Nice tattoo. You get that around here?”

“Nah. Back in Jersey.”

He took another pull on the Red Bull. Down the road to our left, I saw a flash of silver and blue easing around the curve—the Stone Mountain police, coming to roust him and his crew.

I cursed under my breath. “Listen—”

But it was too late. Fishbone had already seen the cruiser, and before I could stop him, he snatched up his skateboard and took off at a dead run.

Up the freaking mountain.

I bolted after him, elbows pumping, Trey's voice ringing in my ears. Fishbone had gotten the jump on me, and he was fast—really damn fast—but he had a skateboard he wasn't willing to give up, which slowed him down considerably.

“I only want to talk!” I yelled.

Fishbone fled the rock face and ducked into the line of trees. He ignored me. I heard Trey behind me, yelling my name. I ignored him. I wished I had my sneakers instead of the damn clogs, wished I was wearing jeans instead of pants, wished Fishbone would trip or something, anything to give me a chance to explain.

“I'm not the police!” I yelled.

But it didn't do any good. Fishbone had his sprint on. He jumped a fallen log, dodged a boulder, then pounded off down the side trail into the woods. I followed. My lungs burned, my heart thrashed. All I could hear was the huff-puff of my ragged breathing, and all I could see was the collapsing tunnel of my vision.

And then he was gone. Poof. Suddenly, I was chasing nothing. I listened hard and heard fugitive noises up ahead—underbrush crashing, branches snapping—but I saw no sign of Fishbone. I bent over, dizzy, cursing myself and Fishbone and the inopportune Stone Mountain police.

In a minute or so, I heard more footsteps, coming from behind me, a runner's rhythm. Trey. He slowed to an easy jog and stopped right in front of me, hands on hips. He wasn't even breathing hard.

“I told you that was a bad idea,” he said.

I sank to the ground and leaned back on my elbows. “Shut up.”

“What did you say to him?”

“Nothing! So don't…crap crap crap!”

I closed my eyes against a wave of dizziness. My breath was still coming hard and fast, making puffs of fog in front of my mouth. I could feel Trey's eyes on me with their laser scrutiny.

“Lie back,” he said.

“I'm fine.”

“Do it.”

Suddenly that seemed like a really good idea. I flopped backwards onto the pine needles, the muscles in my arms and legs quivering. I stared up at the sky, let the cool gray press against my face like a wet washcloth. I could see Trey's black leather lace-ups in my peripheral vision.

“You watched the whole thing?” I said.

“Yes.”

“And you didn't think of—oh, I don't know—helping me catch him?”

“No.”

Of course he hadn't. I'd gotten that speech before—civilians and detainment rights and blah blah blah—so I didn't argue because I didn't feel like listening to it again.

“So you stood around doing nothing just so you could lecture me about it?”

“No. I did it so that I could find out where he was going, because fleeing up the mountain made no sense.” Trey jabbed his chin toward the street. “According to the GPS map, this trail leads to a cut-through which leads out of the park and into town.”

I blew out a frustrated breath. “So you let him get away.”

“Of course not. I simply re-adjusted my post to the edge of the parking lot where I could monitor the cut-through with the binoculars. From there, I saw him go into a store near the park's perimeter.”

“What store?”

Trey pulled up a different map on his phone, this one of the Stone Mountain downtown area, and held it so that I could see. Sure enough, there was a tiny square highlighted just outside the park's boundary. I checked the legend—Grindshop. And then I remembered what Cat said, that Fishbone lived with a brother who owned a store in Stone Mountain.

I struggled to my elbows. “Think hard, boyfriend. Is there any law that says I can't go into that shop and ask whoever I find in it a bunch of questions?”

Trey put his hands on his hips. It was fascinating to watch the tug of war going on in his head—the control freak versus the street cop. In the end, the adrenalin boost from his sprint up the mountain tipped the scales.

“I can't think of one,” he said.