Fifth Grave Past the Light (10 page)

“What is my stepmother doing out here? Her and her chickens.”

Uncle Bob tried not to grin. He failed.

“No, the guy turned around and headed back to town.”

“Nothing,” a voice from beyond said.

I peeked over an incline into the dry ravine. Ubie had brought Taft, the cop who gave Reyes such a hard time the night before.

“Hey,” I said to him when he looked up. He’d climbed down and was scouting the area.

He nodded in greeting. “I haven’t found anything.”

Taft was kind of good to have around. Because of his little sister who died when he was a kid, he knew about my ability to see the departed. Thankfully he didn’t ask questions beyond that. It took him a while to swallow the small amount of what he did know. I couldn’t imagine what he’d do if he were to find out the whole truth. I didn’t figure him for a grim reaper advocate.

“Any tracks or disturbances in the area down there?” Ubie asked.

“Nope, not a single one that I can find.”

“I don’t know, hon, are you sure this is the place?”

“It’s the place she told me about. She was Hispanic, dressed in nurse’s scrubs.”

“And she said her body was here?”

“Yes, did you find any missing women matching her description?”

“There was one from a couple of years ago, but that’s about it. You said she came to you this morning?”

“The very one.”

He went back to his SUV and took out a file. “Is this her?”

I took a quick look. “No, this girl is much more Asian than my visitor. Who was Hispanic,” I reminded him. He never listened.

“Okay, look through these and let me know. I’m going to call in the SUV. We might get lucky and find another officer on this road.”

“Sounds good.”

He called the station while I perused. After a few minutes, he strolled back to me. “Anything?”

“No. And no missing Nicoles or Nickys today?” I asked him as I thumbed through the pictures of missing women. I had also hoped to recognize one of the women in my apartment, but nothing popped out at me. Of course, it was hard to make out their faces from beneath the tangled masses of hair and mud.

“Not that I found, but she may not be from here.”

“Can you widen the search?”

“I can try now that I have a description.”

Taft climbed back to the top, his breathing only slightly labored from the effort. “Not a thing, boss.”

“I love it when you call me boss,” I said.

He frowned.

“I was really hoping to find her,” I said. “She was so worried about her family.”

“Did you get anything else that might lead us to her identity?” Taft asked.

“She was wearing scrubs and a name tag on a lanyard. I saw the letters
N-i-c.
I’m really just guessing on the name Nicole.”

He dusted off his uniform and squinted as he surveyed the area again. “What hospital?”

“Presbyterian, I think. I’ll go there and see what I can dig up later today.”

When Uncle Bob went to answer a call, Taft stepped closer to me. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked out over the desert. “Have you seen my sister?”

I closed the file folder. “Not in a few days. She’s still hanging at the old asylum.”

“But she has friends now?” he asked.

“Yeah, she has friends.” Taft was an okay guy. He almost died trying to save his sister and still looked out for her. But he needed to know the truth about her. “And she’s still as psychotic as ever, in case you’re wondering. Did she have a fondness for scissors when she was little?”

He chuckled. “She cut the hair off all her dolls, if that’s what you mean.”

“I knew it. I would have left that place completely bald if she’d gotten a hold of me. I’ll have to remember that in the future.”

“Okay, I guess I’m heading back.”

“Follow Charley back into town,” Ubie said.

“Uncle Bob!” I said, my voice a nasally whine, the kind I knew he hated. “Wait, that’s a great idea. SUV Guy could come back.” I looked at Taft. “Just shoot any black SUV you see coming our way.”

“I’ll do that,” he said. But he was lying. I could tell.

“I’m sorry I dragged you out here,” I said to Ubie. “She has to show up eventually. She said her family couldn’t find her body. That she had been there for days. Someone had to report her missing.”

“We’ll look into it,” Ubie said. “In the meantime, I have a date with a golf club and a little ball.”

“You and your little balls.” I shook my head in disappointment. How could I get any work done without slaves? Speaking of slaves, I called Garrett on the way back to town.

“A guy in an SUV tried to kill me.”

“That’s strange.”

“Why?”

“Because the guy I hired doesn’t drive an SUV.”

“That is strange.” Swopes. Always the kidder. “Wait. If someone else kills me, do you still have to pay him?”

“I think I should at least get a discount.”

“Right? There’s also a naked elderly man in my passenger seat.”

“TMI, Charles.”

Poor dead naked man. No one wanted to know about him. “Well? Does Marv have any priors?”

“Nothing. His record’s spotless, but how old did you say he was?”

“I don’t know, around thirty-five?”

“Then I have the wrong Marvin Tidwell. This guy is fifty-four. And dead.”

“Really, yeah, this one didn’t look that dead.”

“Probably not, but it could be you’re dealing with a case of identity theft.”

“Seriously?” I asked, straightening. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Again, it’s doubtful, but I can look into it if you want.”

“I want. Thanks a gazillion.”

I knew I tolerated him for a reason. I hung up and contemplated what he’d said. Identity theft. Now, that would be incriminating. I knew the odds were against it, as my dead naked man was well beyond fifty-four, but just in case, I looked over and asked him, “Your name doesn’t happen to be Marv, does it?”

Unfortunately, I had an appointment with a psychologist. I’d remembered my paintings, the ones that involved several counts of death and dismemberment. I wanted to impress her, to start our relationship off on the right foot. Albeit a severed one. On the way over to her office, I brought up another voice. There was one guy I could listen to all day and still not understand a word coming out of his mouth. Ozzy. Who could resist a Brit with slurry accent?

“Um, okay, yeah, so in aboot three hundred feet, beah right.” Poor guy always sounded drunk. This app had to be pirated and altered in some way. Surely the real app would make Ozzy sound a little more coherent.

“All right, then in two hundred feet, tahn left.”

The funny thing about GPS was it didn’t always send you in the right direction.

I knew that if I took a right and took Twelfth instead, I’d get there faster, so I turned right. Ozzy did not approve.

“Wut the foock?”

Did he just say the F-word?

“Ya not even foocking listening.”

“Ha! This is great,” I said to the dead naked guy. He ignored me. Ozzy was so entertaining, though, I had a hard time cutting him off. He got really mad when I missed the right on Central, so I started missing turns on purpose just to listen to him rail at me. I was almost late for my head shrinking.

But I finally found the office of one Dr. Romero, the shrink my sister, Gemma, set me up with, despite Ozzy’s nagging. Gemma was so determined for me to deal with my PTSD, but I thought I was doing pretty well with it. We were friends now. I had my incontinence under control and Chihuahuas rarely frightened me anymore. Besides, I was certain the one that did was rabid. He had foam around his mouth and a crazy eye that looked off into the distance. The fact that he gave me nightmares was hardly my fault.

I stepped inside a nice office with the usual Southwestern decor of so many professional offices in Alb. Sadly, this was the cheesy Southwestern decor. The kind that was popular in the nineties, complete with plaster cactus plants and a howling coyote. Okay, I had a thing for the howling coyotes, especially the kind with bandannas around their necks, but I wasn’t going to let Dr. Romero know that.

“You must be Charley,” she said, and I could smell the New Age coming off her in waves. She was going to be one of those. This shouldn’t take long.

“I am,” I said, and forced a smile.

“Come on in.”

She led me into another room with two chairs and a small sofa. “I’m feeling much better,” I said to her before sitting on the sofa. It was the farthest I could get from her without being rude.

“I hope it’s okay, your sister filled me in on what happened to you.”

“Isn’t that breaking some code of confidentiality?”

“Not technically, but does it bother you that she told me?”

“Not at all. I was just wondering.”

“Well, I’m sorry we had to meet on a Saturday. Your sister’s a good friend and I’m going out of town next week. She wanted me to get you in before —” She noticed the portfolio I was carrying. “What is this?”

“Art therapy. I thought I’d impress you with my rehabilitation. I painted this one last week.” I lifted the painting of dead birds with a brown-haired girl eating them. “And I painted this one last night.” I showed her the one of the birds flying past a bright sun with a rainbow and unicorn in the background. If this didn’t prove my sanity, I didn’t know what would.

She smiled. “Your sister has filled me in. I know all your little tricks.”

“Really? Did she tell you the one about the one where I say, ‘Pick a card. Any card.’ And then I say, ‘Now put it anywhere in the deck. Don’t show me!’ And then —”

“This is called deflecting.”

“That’s weird. I was just told yesterday that I
re
flect. Like the sun off a chrome bumper.” When a sly smile spread across her face, I knew I would not win this round. “So, she told you about all of my little tricks, huh?”

“Yes, she did.”

“Did she mention the big ones? Because I have some doozies.”

“Why don’t you tell me about them,” she said, her expression one of absolute understanding and infinite patience.

I leaned forward, regarded her from underneath my lashes, and added an evil tilt to my smirk. “I can make the earth quake beneath your feet.”

“Really?” she asked, as though fascinated.

What was I doing? Begging for a bed in a psych ward? She was just so smug, I felt I needed to put her in her place. But she was also Gemma’s friend. If I screwed her up, I’d never hear the end of it.

She leaned onto her elbows as well. “Why don’t you show me.”

It wasn’t so much a question as a challenge. That did it. I let the power inside me gather near my heart, let it swirl and coil together until it collided in my center. I let it slide out of me, let it grab hold of the earth beneath us and the air around us. I let it take charge and build energy, and then I nudged it.

The world quaked beneath our feet. The objects on her desk shook and a lamp fell over before I reined in the energy I’d let out.

She paled, but fought her fear. “Like I said, your sister told me about you.”

Well, crap. I reached for my phone. “Can you excuse me for just a minute?”

She sat back and waited as I rang Gemma.

“Hel —”

“Gemma, what the hell?”

“What? What’d I do now?” She seemed winded.

“What were you doing?” I asked suspiciously. She’d been very secretive the last few days. She was totally doing someone.

“Nothing. Why are you cursing at me?”

“Who’s there?”

“No one. Did you miss your appointment?”

“Oh, you mean the one where you told a complete stranger all about me? That one?”

“Yes.”

“Gemma! What the hell?”

“Couldn’t scare her off, could you?” she asked, satisfaction sparkling in her voice.

“No. What did you say?”

“Ask her. I’m busy.”

“Who’s there?”

“No one. Stop asking me that. And it’s none of your business.”

“Fine.” I hung up and went back into Dr. Romero’s office, preparing myself for an hour of hell on Earth.

While Dr. Romero wasn’t as bad as I’d originally suspected – she had courage, stepping up to the plate after the curve ball I’d thrown her – I really didn’t see our relationship going anywhere. After my session, I headed straight toward Presbyterian Hospital to see if I could get any information on a missing woman named Nic-something-or-other. I walked into the hospital and went straight to the information desk. Since it was information I needed.

“Hi,” I said to the lady sitting behind it. “I was just wondering if you could help me. I had an amazing nurse named Nicole the other day, and I hoped you could tell me what ward she worked in.”

The woman stared at me, then asked, “Well, what ward were you admitted into?”

She had a good point. “Oh, well, that’s the thing. I don’t remember, exactly. I was, um, inebriated.”

“What’s your name, and I’ll look it up.”

“Well, I didn’t check in under my real name.”

After a long sigh, she said, “I can’t just give out information on a whim.” Her mouth did that schoolmarm grim line thing. I was being chastised and chastised good.

“Look, all I need to know is if you have a nurse or anyone else who would wear scrubs named Nicole. Or possibly Nicki. Or, well, anything that starts with an
N-i-c.
” I flashed my PI card. It made me look official. “I’m working on a case for APD. We would really appreciate your help.”

“And what case would that be?”

I jumped at the sound of a male voice behind me and turned to see the captain there. Was he following me? “Captain Eckert, what are you doing here?”

“Wondering the same thing about you. I just checked your status this morning and I don’t recall you being on a case for us presently.”

“Oh, well, I’m working with my uncle on something.”

“And what would that be?”

Holy cow, this man was going to get annoying. Why was he so determined to figure any of this out? “It’s a missing persons case.”

“I don’t recall Bob being on any missing persons case at the moment.”

“It’s more like a potential missing persons.”

“Fine, I’ll do anything I can to help.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t bother you.”

He ignored me, flashed his badge to the receptionist, and said, “Employees named Nicole, if you don’t mind.”

“All right.” She clicked a few keys and gave me the names of two Nicoles. One worked in diagnostics and one was a charge nurse in the neonatal unit.

As bad as I hated to do it – I didn’t want to give him any more clues than I had to – I asked, “Does your screen bring up pictures?”

“Yes, it does.” She swung the screen around to me. “This is Nicole Foster.”

Nicole Foster was a tall redhead with a lot of miles on her. “No, that’s not her.”

“Okay.” She tapped a few more keys. “This is Nicole Schwab.”

This one was younger, but she was a blonde with freckles and glasses. “Darn. That’s not her, either.”

“You know, we do have a Nicolette.” She turned the screen back toward her and tapped again. “What about her?”

When she turned it around again, I nodded. “That’s her.”

“Okay, well, Nicolette Lemay works in post-op. Third floor.” She flashed a smile at the captain. “I’m glad I could be of help.”

“Thank you,” I said, and looked over my shoulder at the captain. I had never realized it, but he was an alarmingly handsome man. Okay, I’d buy her interest as genuine. Many women were attracted to the uniform and little else.

I took off toward the elevators. Captain Eckert followed. “I can take it from here,” I said to him, then gestured toward the receptionist. “You know, if you want to get her number.”

He raised his brows in surprise. “I’m good, thanks.”

The captain was a widower. His wife had died of cancer a couple of years earlier, and I felt like that was one reason my approval for a consultant position with APD went through so seamlessly. He was mourning his wife. I doubt he would have noticed if Uncle Bob asked for an elephant in the break room. I stayed as far away from the man as I possibly could back then. His grief was suffocating. It enveloped me and pushed the oxygen from my lungs and I could hardly look at him without feeling an overwhelming sense of loss. Even now I associated him with that feeling of extreme discomfort. It made him genuine and honorable, but my knee-jerk reaction to him was to run the other direction.

Still, I’d had a soft spot for him ever since I met him. A soft spot that was full of wary reverence. The guy was sharp, and now that he was on my trail, I’d have to be careful. He’d just never paid much attention to the goings-on of Ubie and me. We solved cases and that was good enough for him. But after my last fiasco, which involved me solving four cases in one day, including one of a serial killer… well, okay, I could understand his sudden interest.

We walked to the elevator and I pressed the third floor. Nothing screamed awkward like being in an elevator with someone who sucked the oxygen from the room.

“So, how’s crime been treating you?” I asked to get my mind off the lack of ventilation. My red blood cells were screaming for air.

He only looked at me.

Okay. I rocked back onto my heels and found a fascinating panel of buttons to look at. After a thousand years of agony, the doors opened. I tried not to gasp for air aloud.

We stepped out onto the third floor and I walked to the nurses’ station, pretending like the cap’n wasn’t stalking me. I flashed my PI license. “Hi, I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about Nicole Lemay.”

Of the three nurses who sat behind it, only one didn’t look up right away, clearly too busy to answer any questions.

“Nicole?” one asked me. She had wiry brown hair and gold-rimmed glasses.

“Yes, I was wondering when you last saw her.”

The nurse stared at me, her expression blank. She checked her watch. “I guess about five minutes ago.”

“No,” I said, shifting on my feet. “Nicole Lemay. I’m sorry, Nicolette?”

The other nurse spoke up then, a pretty blonde with an affinity for carbs. “You’re right,” she said, checking the clock on the wall. “We haven’t seen Nicolette in about twenty minutes.”

The first nurse laughed. “Right. Time flies when you’re having fun.”

“I told you not to get near Mrs. Watson. She likes her bubble.”

“I had to get her vitals.”

“Oh, there she is.” One of them pointed.

“I’m Nicolette.”

I turned around and came face-to-face with my departed woman. Only she wasn’t departed anymore. She was alive. And, well, breathing. It was a miracle!

“Um, Nicolette Lemay?”

“My whole life.” She was busy cleaning out her pockets, relieving them of syringe wrappers and stray wads of tape. “Sadly,” she added. “If I don’t get a marriage proposal soon, my mother is going to take out an ad.”

“Oh, well, I was just —”

“You look familiar,” she said. She paused and looked me over, then focused on my sidekick.

“Right, sorry. I’m Charley and this is Captain Eckert of the Albuquerque Police Department.”

She straightened, growing alarmed. “Did something happen?”

“No, no, not at all,” I jumped to assure her. “It’s just that – Um —” I stood there completely tongue-tied. I’d never had a departed woman show up, tell me where to find her body, then show up later completely alive. She was just so corporeal. Not a hair out of place. No wonder we couldn’t find her body. She’d moved it.

“Have you ever been to the old railroad bridge on 57?”

“I have no idea where that is.”

“Oh. Do you, by chance, have an identical twin?” I asked her, realizing how inane I probably sounded.

“Nnnnno. What’s this about?”

“Nothing. Never mind. My mistake. I think I have the wrong Nicolette.”