Underdead (7 page)

“Amazing what these new materials can do,” murmured Mary Mudget.

Roger frowned and tossed the estimates on the table. “Too expensive,” he said dismissively.

“Actually,” Carol said with smile that was just this side of a smirk, “they’re not. We have money in Jo’s budget for half, and Maxine will pitch in the balance from the Middle School President’s discretionary fund.”

“It’s about time someone could teach Astronomy properly in that room,” said Mary Mudget approvingly. “It’s always been too light in there to do constellations and eclipses properly.”

And with that, before Roger or I knew what had happened, we had fixed my problem.

An hour later, after the meeting had adjourned, Becky and Carol followed me into my room, “to measure the windows”.

I began rifling through my junk drawer for a tape measure, but Carol stopped me with a gentle hand on my wrist. “Don’t bother. They’ve already been measured and I sent in the order as soon as I got Maxine’s okay.” Her eyes twinkled a little wickedly, but it may just have been the light reflecting off her glasses. “We even sprang for rush delivery, since you start eclipses this week. They should arrive in two days.”

I pushed my junk drawer shut and threw my arms around Carol.

“It wasn’t just me,” Carol said grinning happily. “Mary helped box in Roger with that little dog and pony show.”

“I helped too,” Becky said, “by shutting up. And I want you to know how much a sacrifice it was to let Mary say the part about your teaching high school bio.”

I was so elated by the news that not even wearing the face mask could bring me down. Instead of waiting until dark like I had planned, I put on the awful mask and followed Becky and Carol out. Between the flu and my sun allergies, I hadn’t been outside much during the day and just seeing the sun yellowing near the horizon, casting gold highlights onto the silvery blue water, cheered me enormously. For the first time since Dr. Nakata had delivered the bad news, I felt that things were going to work out okay.

The drive home was short and pretty. Bayshore Academy occupies the tip of a flat finger of land that runs along the ocean, beach on one side, bay on the other. The school had been built for pennies back when Long Beach was an unfashionable, flood-prone backwater. Its simple stucco buildings had probably been considered cheap and declasse at the time, but I found the contrast of their near blinding whiteness against their red tiled roofs rather elegant and I adore the flowers everyone seems to plant against stucco—big, bright spills of magenta bougainvillea, tall, reaching columns of purple-blue morning glories, and fat hedges of yellow daisies and fragrant mock orange.

I live three miles down the beach in a cute little neighborhood of sweet little cottage-style beach homes that, thanks to the recent real estate boom, now go for a cool million. I didn’t live in one of those. I lived in a tiny apartment on one of the crowded apartment-row streets tacked on the outskirts of the sweet little neighborhood.

I had to fight for a parking spot four blocks away, and by the time I made it up to my apartment I was giddy with hunger. I dumped my book bag at the foot of my desk and made a beeline for the fridge. After a quick inventory, I discarded plans for a healthy salad and made myself a giant, rare roast beef and horseradish sandwich that I inhaled standing over the sink.

I flopped on my old tweedy loveseat in a post-prandial stupor and snuggled down under an afghan knit by my grandmother to watch the second half of an old Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie. It was a rare night that I didn’t have papers to grade and I planned to enjoy it. When the movie was over, I flipped lazily through the channels and settled on the local news.

The networks had gotten hold of a picture of the missing woman. When they showed it, I got up in surprise and moved closer to the screen. They had called her a brunette in the Internet article I’d read at lunch, but she wasn’t, not really. Her hair was auburn, a very dark red. She was tall, about my height, about my weight. Had another reporter covered the story, he or she might have described her differently. They might have described me.

A chill ran through my limbs, taking my happy mood with it. I grabbed my heavy flashlight from the bookshelf and did a quick intruder-check of the apartment, turning on all the lights as I went.

There was no one there but me. Of course. I settled back down on the couch for about a second before I jumped back up and turned off all the lights.

I huddled in the dark for a half hour wondering anxiously if the flickering of the TV was too obvious a sign I was home before sanity was restored. I gave myself a good tongue lashing for being so ridiculous. My fear wasn’t born of anything more dangerous than self-pity. I had been spending too much time hiding indoors lately and it was taking its toll. So I couldn’t go outside in the daylight. So I had to drive to work instead of biking, or running along the beach. So did most people! Sitting inside fretting and feeling sorry for myself wouldn’t change anything. I needed to get out of my apartment and exercise something other than my imagination. It wasn’t even seven o’clock. It was perfectly safe, certainly no worse than sitting alone and scared in a dark apartment.

Full of bravado, and calmed by the number of dog-walking families out and about, I ran full-out for two miles before I turned around and jogged back at a more sane pace, taking a different route for variety’s sake. As I turned down a side street to approach my apartment from the other direction, I saw a small, four-door car that looked terrifyingly familiar. I crossed the street to get a closer look. It was, as I had suspected, a blue Jetta. It had a bike rack on top.

But this time I wasn’t scared. I was furious.

I took some deep breaths and told myself to calm down, to approach this rationally, to think it through before I plunged a foot into his door and caused damage I couldn’t afford. I didn’t even know if this car belonged to Gavin Raines. But if it did—and I thought it did—what in blue blazes was he doing here?

As if in answer, the description of the purported Long Beach Abductor popped into my head—about six feet tall, dark hair, brown eyes. Gavin, I remembered, had grey eyes, not brown, but that was an easy mistake to make in a dimly lit restaurant, on par with dark red hair being recalled as brown. I leaned down and quickly read the license plate, made just visible by a distant street light, and committed it to memory. Just in case. Then I ran the short distance back to my apartment and locked myself in.

The evening news (which I watched with all the lights on, even the one in my closet) had an update on the missing girl. The good news was the police had found her. The bad news was she was dead.

The footsteps I thought I’d heard on my walk the other night and the person I thought I’d seen in the alley took on sinister new meaning. So did Gavin’s repeated appearances in my life. I thought back to his story and reconsidered all the gaping holes and absurd rationales that I had cowardly ignored. What had I been thinking, not calling the police after a complete stranger had spent the night uninvited in my apartment? Even if I had initially believed his story about being an overly conscientious taxi driver, it hadn’t been more than a half hour before the real taxi service had debunked it. Having the flu was no excuse for stupidity.

I spent the night sleeping with one eye open, one hand wrapped around an old baseball bat. By morning, my fear had been replaced with resolve. No more huddling inside, no more freaking out over “what if”. I was going to check Gavin’s story. Today.

I didn’t have a convenient friend who could run plates for me. I had to do it the good old-fashioned way. As soon as school was out, I was going to the police.

I handed the completed forms to the uniformed desk sergeant. He accepted them absently, his focus clearly on other things.

“Look,” I began, and then stopped. I forced myself to switch to a more respectful salutation. “Excuse me, Officer, ah, Brady?”

“Yes, miss?”

It was a start. “Officer, I’m very concerned about this man. I believe he is stalking me.”

His response was cut short by another officer who came by to ask him a question. The station was busy, but this was ridiculous. I stared intently at his head, willing him to pay attention to me. Eventually, he turned back. “Yes, miss?”

“The stalker?” I said to jog his memory.

“I have the papers you filled out right here, miss. I assure an officer will get right on it, the moment one is free. But I must tell you, miss, we’re very busy. Since a crime hasn’t been committed, I’m afraid I have to inform you your alleged stalker is low on our priority list.”

“Can’t you at least run his plates? Make sure he isn’t a psycho? He drives a blue Jetta. It has a bike rack on it. Yakima.”

The officer’s pale blue eyes focused on me for the first time. I must have looked as desperate as I felt for he took pity on me. “You say you wrote down the license plate number?”

“1CJI110,” I said, reciting from memory. “I wrote it on the form.”

“Hold on please, miss. Just one moment.”

He left and had a quick talk with another officer, who came forward and looked at me curiously. “Hi, Miss…”

“Gartner. Jo Gartner.”

“Miss Gartner. Follow me, please.” He took me to a small, windowless office and gestured at the utilitarian chair in front of a messy desk. “Someone will be right with you,” he said. He disappeared back into the bowels of the Police Department.

I gave myself points for having had the initiative to get the license plate number. It just goes to show what a little ingenuity and persistence can do for you—it had gotten me from the bottom of the waiting list to the top.

Ten minutes passed. Then fifteen. As the clock ticked past the twenty minute mark, I began to wonder if they’d stowed me there just to get me out of the way. Just as I’d drummed up the courage to go find the officer who’d put me there, the door opened to admit the back half of a plain-clothed officer. It was a rather nice back half, as things go, but that didn’t keep me from becoming impatient as his conversation with whomever was in the hallway lagged on.

No sooner had the last words fallen from his mouth than he was moving again. He had gotten half the distance to his desk in two great strides before he realized he wasn’t alone.

He stopped dead and stared at me. His face blanched slightly under his tan, bringing his bent nose into stark relief.

I stared back. “You!” I sputtered. I stood, collected my purse and headed for the door.

This roused him back into motion. “Jo? What the hell are you doing— Hold
on
.” He grabbed my arm and escorted me back to the hard little chair. Then he shut the door and stood squarely in front of it.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

I glared at him, outraged.
He
was taking that tone with
me
?

“Well, Officer, er…” Drat it, I couldn’t remember his last name. “Gavin, if that
is
your occupation and your name—”

“Detective Gavin Raines,” he supplied politely. An unsaid
At your service, ma’am
hung in the air. My temper ratcheted up a couple notches.

“
Detective
—” I corrected waspishly. “I am here to report that a man pretending to be a taxi driver is stalking me. He broke into my house and spent the night uninvited on my couch. He drives a blue Jetta with a bike rack and I have seen it parked near my house the past few nights. The good news is I am now able to positively identify him for the desk sergeant and will take no more of your time.” I stood up again but didn’t get very far with my grand exit because Gavin was still blocking the door like a sentry.

I planted myself two feet in front of him, and if a glare could have burned a path through him, mine would have. “I’ll probably get a medal, since it appears he’s also masquerading as a police officer and a graduate student. You might even pick him up on false ID charges. A minor infraction, I know, but you know how the police are these days, honesty above all, and—”

His composure finally broke. “Sit down!”

He closed his eyes and leaned back against the door. “Sit, Jo, please.”

I sat.

“Ah, hell,” he said, rubbing his temples. “How did you— Brady’s got desk duty, doesn’t he? Probably recognized the plates right off. The next time his wife kicks him out, he can stay in a hotel.” He fixed me with those unusual grey eyes. “Let me explain.”

I crossed my arms and leaned back defiantly in my chair. “It better be good.”

He spoke quickly, all trace of the bashful graduate student gone. “Four people, two women and two men, have been abducted and murdered in the past two months, all of them last seen in downtown restaurants. We believe the abductions are related, part of a,” he hesitated slightly, “gang initiation. We had a tip some members of this gang might be at the club the night you were there. When I saw you come in from the porch, visibly upset, clearly having been in some sort of skirmish, I wondered if you had narrowly escaped becoming the next victim. I checked the porch area to see who you’d been with, but it was empty, and I was concerned he might be waiting for you out front, intending to follow you home.

“When I went back inside, you had left the dance area. Fortunately, I found you back with your colleagues, overheard you telling them you were going to take a taxi. I had my car pulled around and took you home instead. You know the rest.” He shrugged.

I mulled this over quietly. “How did you get the UCLA card?” It wasn’t the question I thought I’d ask.

“My alma mater. I banked on your not noticing the date sticker was missing, and you didn’t. I saw all the science textbooks on your shelves and figured you’d relax if I told you I was a grad student. I chose something far enough outside your field that you wouldn’t ask questions.” He gave a quick smile. “The ‘dissertation’ was based on an article I read in a magazine at the doctor’s office.”

I didn’t return the smile. “How very clever of you.” I got to my feet. “Now, if you’re quite through mocking me, I have papers to grade.”