Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet (Charley Davidson)

16

Don’t judge me because I’m quiet. No one plans a murder out loud.

—T-SHIRT

After Reyes got me out of the restraints then did his usual disappearing act, citing an extreme need to be elsewhere, I exited the asylum and walked past a couple of bikers hanging out at Donovan’s. I wondered if they knew about the robberies. Or that he wouldn’t be back for a while. Mustering as much nonchalance as possible—and hoping that whatever was in my hair wasn’t too noticeable—I started down the street toward a convenience store nearby. This wasn’t the safest neighborhood to be walking through, even in the early afternoon.

I scraped my hair back into the hair tie, then dug my phone out of my pocket and texted Donovan, letting him know that I’d barely escaped with my life and my virtue intact. Then I called Garrett.

“Swopes,” he said, all business. He had caller ID, for heaven’s sake.

“I need a ride.”

“You need a therapist.”

“True, but I need a ride first.”

“Why? Where’s your Jeep?” He sounded winded, like he was running. Or having sex. Surely my timing didn’t suck that bad.

“Misery’s at the scene of a bank robbery.”

“I’m not even going to ask.” He was learning.

“I’ll be at the Jug-N-Chug off Broadway.”

“That strip club?”

“No, and ew. The convenience store.”

“Oh. I was hoping you’d changed professions.”

“Dude, you do not want to see what I look like dancing with a pole. I did it once at a bridal shower, and let’s just say it did not end well.”

“You pole-danced at a bridal shower?”

“It’s a long story. Are you going to come get me or not?”

“I guess. It’ll take me a few to get there.”

“Well, hurry. I have shit to do. And I could be arrested as an accessory, so I need to get on this.” I still had to check on Harper and do some more investigating on her behalf. My imminent arrest as an accessory to bank robbery would cut into my crime-solving time.

“Are you using that handbag that has the word fuck written all over it again? I warned you about taking that out in public.”

“Not for an accessory. As an accessory. Just come get me.”

“Okay.”

I hung up and called my friendish-type contact at the local FBI office. We’d met on a case a couple of months ago, and I liked her. She made me smile, and she hardly ever threatened to arrest me. We got along great. And I knew she’d be a good ally if I happened to show up in the aftermath of a bank robbery as a suspect.

Since I didn’t have a candy wrapper to help me with the bad connection I was about to have, I resorted to using vocal sound effects. When Agent Carson picked up, I started my performance. “Agent … Agent Carson,” I said, panting into the phone.

“Yes, Charley.” She seemed unimpressed, but I wasn’t about to stop now.

“I—I know who the kshshshshshsh are.”

“I’m a little busy right now, Davidson. What is a Ksh, and why do I care?”

“I’m sorry. My kshshsh … is kshshsh … ing.”

“I repeat. What is a Ksh? And why do I care if it is ksh-ing?”

She was a tough one. I knew I should have waited and bought a Butterfinger at the Jug-N-Chug. Those wrappers crackled like Rice Krispies on a Saturday morning. “You aren’t listeni—kshshsh.”

“You’re really bad at this.”

“Bank ro-ksh-ers. I know who they kshshsh.”

“Charley, if you don’t cut this crap out.”

I hung up and turned off my phone before she could figure out what I was trying not to tell her and call back. The whole thing would have been more convincing if she’d found me tied up on the floor of an asylum. Luckily, that rarely happened.

I made it to the store in record time, but all I could afford was a banana. They were on sale, and the mocha lattes were ungodly. I totally forgot to ask Reyes for my million dollars. This being too poor to buy coffee was for the birds.

Cookie called just as Garrett pulled up. I’d turned my phone back on as a precaution when a man in an old Cadillac kept asking me if I wanted to sample his antifreeze.

Still trying to blend with the locals, I answered the phone saying, “’Sup, girlfriend?”

“Are you in a bad part of town again?”

“You know it.” I climbed into Garrett’s truck and completely ignored him. It was fun. “But I did learn something today.”

“Yeah?”

“If you must eat a banana in public, never make eye contact.”

“Good to know. So, I looked into the activity around the time all this started, when Harper’s parents were married. It’s mostly small stuff, except for a murder in the Monzano Mountains, but that was solved. There was also a missing persons case that was never solved, a little boy, but that was in Peralta. As far as I can tell, neither had anything to do with the Lowells.”

“Well, okay. Thanks for looking.”

“Oh, and that shrink will see you, but only if you skedaddle over there. He’s has a couple more appointments today, then he’s headed out of town.”

“Oh, perfect timing. If you come across anything else.”

“I know where to find you.”

I hung up and offered Garrett my full-ish attention. Actually, a guy arguing with a newspaper dispenser captured most of it, but what was left, I handed over to Swopes freely.

“Hola.”

“So, where are we going, or are we just going to sit here until I run out of gas?”

I was just about to answer when Agent Carson called back. Darn it. I should have turned off my phone again.

I pointed east, ordering Swopes that way, then answered the phone. When I started to do the ksh thing, she said, “Don’t even think about it. Why is your Jeep at the scene of a bank robbery?”

“Oh,” I said, panting again, “thank God you got ahold of me.” I swallowed hard. Garrett shook his head and focused on his driving. I was totally behind him on that decision. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. I was taken hostage.”

“Yes, I’ve seen the surveillance footage.”

“Right, so you know—”

“Do you realize how many years you’ll get for this?”

Well, crap. “I really was taken hostage. Kind of. And I can tell you who the bank robbers are.”

After a long pause in which I was certain she was recovering from the shock of her good fortune, she said, “I’m listening.”

“But you have to let Uncle Bob in on it.”

“Okay.”

“Are you there now? At the bank? I can be there in a few.”

“Davidson, who robbed this bank?”

I let out a long stream of air, stalling as long as I could, letting Donovan get a few feet closer to Mexico, then said, “A handful of men from a local biker club called the Bandits, but I need to talk to you about them before you go off half-cocked.”

“I never do anything half-cocked.”

I didn’t doubt that for a New York minute. “The guys were being blackmailed and whoever set up that gig knew that money would be there, but he doesn’t work at the bank. So, who else would know about it? Like maybe an armored car driver? Or the spouse of someone who works there?”

I could hear shoes clapping on the sidewalk as she searched for someplace more private. She whispered into the phone. “Are you saying this was an inside job?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. These guys did it, absolutely, but they had no choice.”

“Well, you’re always entertaining, that’s for sure.”

“Oh, thank you.” She was so nice. “I’ll meet you at my Jeep.”

“I’ll be here.”

I hung up, then asked Garrett, “Can I hire you for the rest of the day?”

“Sure,” he said with a shrug. “I just got off a big case. I can take an afternoon away from the office.”

He didn’t actually have an office so much as a truck. I took in the vast array of papers and file folders and take-out containers that lined his backseat. “I thought this was your office.”

“It is, more or less. I meant that metaphorically.”

“While I’m impressed you know what that word means, I have to be honest. I don’t have any money to pay you.”

“Figures. So where’s your Jeep?”

I was a little surprised he didn’t know. He must not have been listening to the radio. Surely, the robbery was all over the news. “Well, my Jeep is at the Bernalillo Community Bank, but I need to run a couple of errands first, and I don’t have much gas.”

“Didn’t you just tell that agent you’d be right there?”

“I said I’d be there. I didn’t say when. And you’re the one who keeps telling me I need therapy.” I beamed at him. “Let’s go see a psychotherapist.”

He shrugged and followed my directions to Harper’s current psychotherapist’s place of business. It was a small building right out of the seventies, complete with a lava rock exterior and metal beams protruding over the walkway.

I went in as Garrett sat outside in the getaway truck, wondering if he could get arrested for his part in my evading a federal officer. I assured him that was not the case. And he believed me. I’d hate to be in his shoes if I were wrong, and if push came to shove, I was so throwing that man under the bus. I could claim he forced me into his vehicle at a convenience store and held me captive for two hours.

He made a great scapegoat.

I took off my shades and announced myself to a very stoic receptionist before sitting in the waiting area. After a solid twenty minutes, I was finally shown in to the doctor’s office. Harper’s psychotherapist was a dwarfish man with gray hair and tan, prunelike skin. He sat with his hands folded in his lap and his face set to no comment.

“Thank you for seeing me, Dr. Roland.” I sat across from him at a ginormous mahogany desk, trying not to read anything into it. “I just have a few questions about Harper Lowell.”

“Ms. Davidson, as my receptionist has already told you, there is absolutely nothing about Harper or her treatment that I can share with you. As a private investigator, you should already know that.”

I did know that, but he didn’t have to actually say anything. He could just sit there while I asked the questions. His own emotions would help me more than he could possibly imagine. “I understand, but Harper hired me, Dr. Roland, and asked me to look into her case.”

“Have you seen her?” he asked. “She missed her last appointment.”

“She came to see me a couple of days ago when she hired me. When was the last time you saw her?”

“She left in the middle of our last appointment. Very abruptly and very apprehensively. I haven’t seen or heard from her since.”

I nodded in an open and nonjudgmental way. “Do you know what sparked her sudden departure?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me?”

“You know I can’t.”

“But she got a phone call or a text, right?” What else would it be?

He smiled. “Perhaps.”

He was lying, so now I had to actually figure out what else it would be. Was it something he said to her? Or maybe something came out during their session. Could something he said have triggered a memory?

Knowing he wouldn’t tell me straight out, I asked, “And when did this happen?”

“She missed her last appointment, so a week ago Tuesday.”

“Did you call her?”

He seemed to be growing agitated. “I called and left a message, but she didn’t return my call.”

“What happened to her when she was five?”

With a sigh of annoyance, he uncrossed his legs, adjusted his position, then recrossed them yet still managed to look about as comfortable as a mouse in a boa tank. “Ms. Davidson, I have a client coming in—”

“I believe her,” I said, leaning forward and waiting for his reaction to hit me. “I think she has been terrorized methodically and systematically for a very long time. And I truly believe her life is in danger.” Judging by the emotion pouring off him, he did, too.

He averted his attention by picking lint off his jacket and said, “I cannot disagree.”

“Thank you,” I said, glad for an ally. “Without breaking your code of conduct or giving anything away, do you have any idea, based upon what you’ve learned so far, who is behind these attacks?”

Regret washed over him. “No, Ms. Davidson, I’m painfully sorry to say that I don’t.”

Crap. Another dead end.

“But I can say that—” He cleared his throat and examined a fruit tree outside his window. “—sometimes our pasts come back to haunt us.”

I knew it. Whatever happened when she was five started it all, and Dr. Roland knew it. With a smile of gratitude, I said, “It most certainly does. Thank you so much for seeing me.”

He stood to shake my hand. “Can you please have her call me?”

“I’ll do my best.”

When I left the doctor’s office, I had a text from Cookie ordering me to call her.

“I think I got something,” she said.

“It better not be the flu, because we have a case to solve, and you’re not nearly as good at your job on flu medicine.”

“Well, I’m not sure if this will matter, but the Lowells had Harper institutionalized when she was twelve.”

A cold bitterness washed over me at the thought of Harper being institutionalized. Then again, I could use that information against Mrs. Lowell. “And I’ll bet that’s not something they want printed in the society pages. If Albuquerque has society pages. Rich people are weird that way.”

“I’ve heard that. Not that I’d know from personal experience.”

“Hey, I’m trying to get us a million dollars. Just hang in there a little while longer.”

“You asked Reyes for a million dollars?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, well, tell him to hurry. I need a pedicure.”

“Cook, how can you think of your toes at a time like this?”

“Do you remember the time we were running for our lives from that guy with that weird eye thing and you were upset because you’d left your mocha latte at his house?”

“I’m not sure I understand your point.”

I talked Garrett into taking me all the way across town back to Harper’s parents’ house in the hopes of catching Mr. Lowell out gardening. Since he was supposedly on his deathbed, the odds were not in my favor, but I could grill his testy wife again for good measure. Mrs. Lowell knew something, and she was damned well going to tell me. And now, thanks to Cookie’s prowess with search engines, I knew something, too.

I couldn’t have had much more time before everything came out in the open. I had to take advantage of the ace up my sleeve while I could.

Oddly enough, Garrett got through the gate easier than I had the first time I came through. It probably helped that he didn’t try to order a taco. We were shown into the drawing room again. I loved being able to say that.

I nudged Garrett with my elbow. “This is the drawing room.” An inane giggle bubbled out of my chest.

“You scare me sometimes.”

“That happens to me, too. It’s weird.” I looked at the signature on one of the paintings on the wall. It read Norman Rockwell. “Holy cow,” I said, impressed.

“Ms. Davidson, really,” Mrs. Lowell said, shushing me with a hiss and a glare, and she hurried inside the room and shut the door.

“Sorry. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Norman Rockwell in real life.”

Her chest swelled with pride. “Jason acquired that at an auction in the early aughts.”

Did she just say aughts?

After Garrett introduced himself, we sat down and I decided to get right to the point. “Can you tell me about the period in which Harper was institutionalized?”

Her face stretched into a mask of humiliation. No idea why.

“As you know, nothing we did was helping, so yes, we had to have her institutionalized when she was twelve.”

Twelve? My heart broke for her.

“We tried several forms of therapy there until we found one that worked.”

She meant until they found one that shut Harper up.

“Unfortunately, Harper’s short-term memory was affected by some of the treatments, but her behavior improved immensely.”

Without any further explanation, I knew exactly what kind of treatments she was talking about. Electroshock therapy. She was talking about ECT. My disdain of Mrs. Lowell sank to an all-time low.

“We were able to bring her home, and everything went back to normal for a couple of years. Years, mind you. But slowly her erratic behaviors resurfaced until we had no choice but to ask her to leave.” When my brows shot up, she qualified her actions with, “She was eighteen at the time, and we bought her a house. It’s not as though we threw her out on the street. Then she married that hooligan just to spite us. That lasted all of five minutes.”

“Mrs. Lowell, can you remember anything out of the ordinary happening to Harper around the time you and Mr. Lowell married? Was she threatened or bullied?”

“I’ve been over this a thousand times with her therapists and the police. The only thing that changed, that would have brought on such extreme behavioral changes, was our marriage. Nothing else happened.”

“You’re certain?”

When she hedged, glanced at her nails, then began perusing the carpet, I felt it. That quake of doubt. That grain of skepticism rippling through her.

“Mrs. Lowell, anything you can remember would help. Did Harper have any cuts? Did she come home one day especially dirty or frightened? Anything that would have had you believing she had been abused in any way?”

“No.” Then she bowed her head. “Not anything that I noticed, but I didn’t really know her before Jason and I married. She seemed like a sweet girl. She was cordial and had decent enough manners. But after we came home, she was a very different child.”

So one person before their marriage and another after. “And she stayed with her biological grandparents during that time?”

“Yes. They’ve since died, sadly, but even they were at a complete loss as to why Harper would change so drastically.”

“Okay, well, maybe something happened on the trip home. I mean, was there any kind of an accident?”

“None was ever mentioned. Really, Ms. Davidson, this could go on all day.”

Crap. I was simply getting nowhere with this case. Not a single clue to go on.

We stood and her young housekeeper showed us to the door again, but this time Mrs. Lowell followed. The housekeeper seemed quite smitten with Garrett.

“I tried to call her,” Mrs. Lowell said. “She won’t accept my calls. Would you please have her call her father?”

“I’ll do my best.”

I called Cookie the minute we got in Garrett’s truck.

“Are all stepmothers bitches?” I asked her, knowing how awful that sounded. I cringed at the words myself. One of my good friends was a stepmother, and she was the best thing that ever happened to those kids.

“I was raised by my stepmother,” Cookie said. And I knew that. That’s why I’d called her.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

“Sure you did, and you have every right to wonder such a thing, hon, after what you’ve been through with yours. But mine was amazing. If not for her, my childhood would have been drastically different, and not in a good way.”

“Then I’m grateful for her, too.”

“Thank you. I’ll let her know. Did you need something?”

“Affirmation.”

She chuckled. “What kind?”

“The kind you just gave me.”

I told Garrett to head to the bank. I couldn’t imagine Agent Carson would wait for me much longer. My phone rang as we were headed over to the scene. Of course, everything would be back to normal now, but Agent Carson might be a bit miffed at me for not showing immediately.

“Where the hell are you?” she said in answer to my “Charley’s House of Edible Thongs.”

“Sorry,” I said, cringing at her tone, “I was making a delivery. Edible thongs are very popular right now.”

“So are prison uniforms.”

“Are they edible? That seems to be my best selling point.”

“If you are not here in two minutes—”

“Here!” I shouted into the phone as we pulled into the parking lot across from the bank in question. “I’m here.” I put one hand over the phone and whispered to Garrett, “She’s so sensitive.”

“Where here?”

“Turn around.”

Her short, dark bob swiveled to her left.

“Other way.”

She did a 180 and spotted us parking.

“Here I am.” I waved through the windshield. “And just in the nick of time. Whew.”

Before I got out, I turned to Garrett. He kept his gaze front and center, waiting for me to vacate the premises. He’d been quieter than usual. Well, okay, he was always quiet, but not deathly quiet. Not I’ve-been-to-hell-and-I’ll-never-be-the-same quiet.

I crinkled my chin and said, “Do you want to talk about it? What it was like to be in hell?”

He turned on me so fast, his movements reminded me of Reyes’s. His silvery eyes locked on to mine, his gaze hard, his jaw locked. When he spoke, he did so with eerie purpose, each syllable precise. “Do you want to talk about what it was like to have razor-sharp metal slice through your flesh until it scored across bone?”

Goodness. He was in a mood all of a sudden. “So, that’s a no?”

He quirked one corner of his mouth, but the gesture held no humor whatsoever.

“Okay, well, good talk,” I said, feeling blindly for the door handle.

He went back to staring out his windshield.

When I got out, Agent Carson stood tapping her toes on the pavement. I had no idea people really did that.

“So, what makes you think this was an inside job?” she asked. No hello. No how’s the wife and kids. Just business as usual. I liked her.

“I was told so by the robbers.”

“And their names are?”

“I told you, the Bandits.”

“The Bandits are a motorcycle club two-hundred strong. I need the names of the men who entered the premises at gunpoint, held a group of patrons hostage, and took currency that did not belong to them out of that bank.” She pointed across the street for reference.

“They didn’t actually pull their guns,” I said, correcting her. “They don’t unless they have to. I’ve seen the stories on the news.”

“Charley,” she said, a sharp edge of warning in her voice.

“Okay.” I filled my lungs and released the air slowly, sorry for what I was about to do. “I don’t know all of their names,” I said, lying. For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her about Sabrina. She was a girl. No one would suspect her. Who’s to say if I saw the driver’s face or not? She was in it to help my biker guys, and for some reason, I felt I owed her for that. “The three I do know, the three who are being blackmailed, are Michael, Eric, and Donovan. There are two more, but I don’t know their names. Oh, wait,” I said, rethinking that. Donovan had mentioned blondie’s name. “There was a blond guy named Edwards. He wants to take me out.”

She wrote down everything I told her. Without looking up, she asked, “Really? Is he cute?”

“No, I mean, like to keep me from testifying, he wants my head on a platter.”

“You just make friends wherever you go, don’t you?”

“It’s weird, right?” Then I leaned into her. “They’re not bad guys, Agent Carson. They were being blackmailed, for real.”

“You’ve said that, but no one held a gun to their heads in there.”

I knew she’d see it that way. She had to, and I couldn’t blame her, but I had to at least try to get the other guy convicted as well. He had just as much to do with this as my biker guys, if not more. No one except me blackmailed my friends and got away with it.