Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet (Charley Davidson)

3

Welcome back.

I see the assassins have failed.

—T-SHIRT

After a battle of epic proportions, where my legs wanted to go one way while my head told them to go another, I strode with Harper past my dad’s bar and down the alley toward our makeshift safe house. I couldn’t help but scan the terrain like a soldier in hostile territory. Oddly enough, Harper did the same thing. We looked like tweakers as we passed businesses, college students, and the occasional homeless person.

I decided to try to lighten the mood. “So, what did you always want to be when you grew up?” I asked Harper.

She walked beside me, arms crossed at chest, head down, and fought to smile.

“It’s just up here,” I said, saving her from having to respond. “Pari’s a saint. Only with full sleeves and a bad attitude. Other than that, you can totally count on her. Mostly for questionable advice, but we all have to be good at something, right?”

“Do you think you’ll catch him?” She couldn’t quite wrap her head around anything other than her immediate danger. Clearly she did not suffer from ADD.

“I’m going to do my best, hon. Cross my heart.”

“I’m so tired of feeling helpless. Guess I should’ve taken karate or something, huh?”

I liked her thought pro cess, but even martial arts didn’t guarantee a long and prosperous life. “Don’t beat yourself up over this, Harper. There are crazy people out there. People you can’t reason with or even begin to understand without being a licensed psychotherapist. There’s no telling what set this guy off.”

She nodded, acceding to my expertise on crazy people. I grew up with one in the form of Denise Davidson, the stepmother from hell. She could teach the son of Satan a thing or two.

“Here it is,” I said, pointing to a screen door. Remnants of red paint framed the wood around the back entrance.

Harper stopped and looked around the alley. We were at the back entrance of a seedy tattoo parlor. Her confidence in me seemed to wane a bit.

“It’s totally safe. I promise.”

After a hesitant nod, she said, “Okay. I trust you.”

Maybe she really was crazy. “And Pari has a really cute apprentice.”

A shy grin spread across her face. She seemed so innocent and unworldly, yet she was simply beautiful. I wondered what her life had been like. Hopefully, I’d find out as the case went on.

“A teacher.”

I was just about to open the door when she’d spoken. “I’m sorry?”

“A teacher. You asked me what I’d always wanted to be. A teacher.”

I gave her my full attention. “Why didn’t you become one?”

She shrugged and looked elsewhere. “My mother didn’t approve. She wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer.”

While I couldn’t imagine her as a lawyer, I could definitely see her as a doctor. She seemed the nurturing type. Then again, doctors weren’t all that nurturing. Maybe a nurse. Still, I could definitely see her as a teacher. She would’ve made a great one. “I hope all your dreams come true, Harper.”

“Thank you,” she said in surprise. “I hope yours do, too.”

I offered an appreciative smile. “Most of mine involve a man who is more trouble than he’s worth, but it’s a nice thought.”

She laughed softly, covering her mouth with a hand. Her mouth was too pretty to be covered.

We stepped inside Pari’s shop. She had a desk up front, but her office sat in the back, past the studio, a corner space the size of a moth’s testicles with a nice view of the Dumpster across the alley. I heard a few huffing sounds coming from underneath the desk, so I strolled in, half hoping to catch her doing something illicit. Her apprentice was hot.

She had computer guts scattered over her desk. Wires and gadgets of all shapes and sizes littered every available inch of counter space.

It seemed like every time I walked into her parlor, she was busy with something technical, which seemed to go against the grain of her artistic nature. Then again, she always was a little grainy.

A thumping sound wafted toward me, eliciting an evil grin. I was such a perv. “Hey, Par,” I said, hitching a hip onto her desk to peer over it nonchalantly.

After a mighty struggle that involved a sharp crack and a few gurgling sounds, she popped her head up. Her hair, a thick black mop that some would call a mess while others—namely me—would call a work of art, seemed to have grown attached to the wires she was working on. She spit out a microscopic piece of plastic while fishing the wires out of her do with one hand and shielding her eyes with the other.

“Fucking hell, Charley.” She closed her eyes and felt around her desk blindly for her sunglasses. Pari had been able to see what normal folk referred to as ghosts since she’d had a near-death experience when she was twelve. She couldn’t make out the shapes or communicate with the departed. She just saw them as a gray mist, so she always knew when one was near.

But me she could see from a mile away. My brightness seemed to grate on her. It was funny.

After inching her sunglasses away from her reach a third time, she opened her eyes and glared at me. It must have been painful. I could only hope she didn’t have a hangover.

She sighed and ducked back under the desk.

“Is your guy down there with you?” I asked.

“My guy?” She grunted, apparently trying to reach something. “I don’t have a guy.”

“I thought you had a guy.”

“I don’t have a guy.”

“You have an apprentice.”

“That’s not a guy. That’s Tre.”

“Who is a guy.”

“But not that kind of guy. How did you get in here? My office door was locked.”

“No it wasn’t.”

She popped her head back out and glanced around. “Really? It should have been locked.”

After she ducked back down, I asked, “Why? What are you doing?”

“… Nothing.”

She’d hesitated far too long. She was totally up to something. I leaned over to inspect her work. “Looks to me like you’re rewiring your phone line.”

“No, I’m not,” she said defensively. “Why would I do that?”

If liars were the main course at a Shriners convention, she’d be a pork chop.

“Okay, fine, don’t tell me. I need to leave a client with you a few days. Can we use your spare room?”

“There’s only a couch, but it’s comfortable.”

“That’ll work. This is Harper. Harper, this is Pari.”

“Hey, Harper,” she said, but before Harper could respond, a shower of sparks lit the area. A rustling sounded from under the desk and was followed by a solid thud as Pari slammed into the underside of it for the umpteenth time.

Doubtful that phone lines sparked like that, I leaned over again. “Seriously, what are you doing?”

“Did you see a spark?”

“I’m going to show Harper to her room. Try not to kill yourself before I get back.”

“Okay, lock the door on the way out.”

“O—”

“Wait!” She popped up again, an idea lighting her face. Her heavy liner narrowed as she patted the desk, searching for her sunglasses again. I let her get them that time. She slid them onto her face, then said, “I’m doing you a favor.”

I hitched my hip back onto her desk. “Yes.”

“And favors need to be repaid, right?”

Wondering where she was going with this, I said, “Yes.”

“Go on a date with me.”

“You’re not really my type.”

“Come on, Chuck. One date and I’ll never ask again.”

“No, really, you’re not my type.”

“You know how you have this incredible gift for being able to tell when someone is lying?”

I glanced at Harper. She seemed very interested all of a sudden. I shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Well, I’m thinking about dating this guy, but I can’t quite get a read on him. You know, I can’t tell if he’s being truthful with me or not.”

“Do you suspect him of anything in particular?”

“Not really. I just thought you could show up—” She added air quotes to emphasize the deception “—then just sit with us a minute. You know, just long enough to get a read on him.”

“I don’t really read people.”

“Feel him, then.”

“Fun, yet awkward.”

“You know what I mean. Tit for tat, lady. Take it or leave it.” She looked past me. “No offense, Harper.”

“Oh, none tak—”

“So?” Pari said, interrupting poor Harper, who was finally getting a word in. “My couch for your mad skill.”

“Well, since you put it that way.”

“Sweet. I’ll text you the place and time.”

“Wonderful. I’m going to show Harper the couch.”

“Okay.”

I figured our conversation was over, but no sooner had she ducked behind the desk than she popped right back up again. She reminded me of a toaster pastry minus the icing.

“Wait a minute. Where have you been?”

“Around. Just kind of hanging out in my apartment.”

“For two months?”

“Pretty much.”

“Hmm. Okay, well, lock the door!” she yelled. She was so pushy.

“She’s interesting.”

“Yes, she is.” I led Harper around a tight corner, made tighter by the boxes of supplies, and into a small back room. “It’s not much, but no one will think to look for you here, I’m certain of it.”

She took it all in with a gracious nod. I could tell she wanted to scrunch her nose in distaste, but refrained out of kindness. “This is perfect,” she said instead. What a great sport.

“Okay, I’m off to do investigative stuff. I’ll come back later tonight. You gonna be okay here?”

“Sure, I’ll be fine.”

I put a hand on her arm to draw her attention away from her new surroundings. “I’ll do everything in my power to find whoever is doing this to you. I promise.”

A tiny smile lit her face, and if I wasn’t mistaken, she was a little relieved. “Thank you.”

After leaving Harper standing in the middle of the tiny room, I spotted Pari’s apprentice, Tre. He was working on a girl’s tat who looked torn between anguish and desire. I could hardly blame her. Tre was like a Long Island iced tea: tall, unassuming, delicious enough to wet your whistle as well as other places, and packed a lethal punch when you least expected it.

“Hey, Chuck,” he said, nodding at me between buzzes of the needle. The fact that deep down inside, tattoo artists must enjoy the infliction of pain on others was not lost on me. I wondered if that trait spilled over into his personal life. I could handle pain if that’s what he was into. Not a lot, but …

“Hey, you,” I said, only a little worried I’d make him mess up. Mistakes were so permanent. Like nine-months-after-prom permanent.

He paused his efforts to ask, “Do you just call me you because you can’t remember my name?”

My shoulders wilted. “Darn. You caught me. No, wait, it’s here somewhere.” I tapped my temple in thought as he went back to his task. “Oh, right, is it Serving Tray?”

He shook his head, his brows drawn in concentration.

“Is it Lunch Tray?”

“No,” he said with a soft chuckle.

“Is it Ashtray?”

He paused again, and the girl shot daggers at me with her huge dark eyes. She was either jealous or in so much pain, she just wanted it over with, and I kept interrupting.

“Forget I asked,” he said, a boyish smile lighting his features.

What a heartbreaker. No wonder Pari’s female client base had tripled since he started working with her.

“See ya round, handsome.”

He winked and went back to work with a grin sparkling in his eyes. I felt sorry for the girl.

On the way back, I cut through the parking lot and made a beeline for Misery, my cherry red Jeep Wrangler. In the semi-open space of downtown Albuquerque, I felt naked. I’d been naked in public once, so while this definitely synthesized that level of discomfort, this was different. More raw. More acute. More feral.

“He misses you, you know.”

I spun around to see a statuesque African American woman walking past me toward the back of Dad’s bar. I’d seen her a few times in the last few weeks and figured she was the new bartender Dad had been planning to hire when I refused the job. He’d wanted me to give up my PI business and work for him. Silly rabbit. She stopped and offered me a friendly, I-come-in-peace smile. To say that she was stunning would have been an understatement. She was like a shimmering skyscraper, jutting proudly into the sky and daring the world to try to knock her down.

“Your father,” she said, elaborating. Her exotic eyes held me captive for a full minute before she turned back to the bar. “You’re all he talks about.”

Clearly she knew about our falling out, but I had no use for anything she’d just told me. Even if it were true, my father did not deserve my forgiveness at that moment. Nor my attention.

I climbed into Misery and sank into her faux leather seats. She fit like a big red glove and felt just as warm. Well, not literally. The weather was chilly and her plastic windows were frosted over. I turned the key to let her warm up. She roared to life, then settled into a purr. It’d been a while since the two of us had had any alone time together. We’d have to talk later, but for now, we had places to be and suspects to see.

Harper had given me her address, and I wanted to check out her dwelling before diving in too deep. If the person stalking her had left another threat, I wanted to see it for myself. One could judge a lot about a person by how they left threatening evidence. Was the culprit violent or just menacing? Would he really harm her or did he just want to get that rise out of her? That control?

She lived in the gated Tanoan Estates, and I didn’t know if entrance would require Harper’s express permission or not. I dragged out my PI license just in case. It might help. It might not.

After pulling up to the gate, I offered the uniformed security guard a placating smile.

He stared, unimpressed.

“Hi,” I said.

He offered a brisk nod. Still unimpressed. I’d have to up my game.

“My name is Charley Davidson. I’m investigating a situation with one of your residents. Have you had any break-ins recently? Any alarms going off?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Alarms go off every now and then, mostly by the residents themselves. And we have the occasional break-in, but they’re pretty rare here. Can I ask who hired you?”

“Harper Lowell. She lives on—”

“I know where she lives.”

When I raised my brows, he tipped his hat back to scratch his head.

“Look, we’ve gotten a couple of calls from her, but we’ve never found any evidence of foul play on site. No signs of a break-in. No footprints or cars parked near her house. And she never could describe the intruder. If there was an intruder.”

“So, you think she was lying?”

“No,” he said with a noncommittal shrug. And now it was his turn to lie. “Not so much lying as … mistaken.”

“You mean paranoid.”

He thought a moment. “Overzealous.”

“Ah. Okay. Well, you don’t mind if I check it out, do you? Ms. Lowell gave me the key and the security code.”

“Knock yourself out. I’ll just need to record your license-plate number.”

“Do you record the information of every nonresident who comes through?”

“Sure do.”

I offered him my best smile. “Is there any way I can get a copy of the most recent pages?”

He shook his head. “Not without a warrant.”

Darn. I made a mental note to set Cookie on that. She had a knack for getting protected documents without a warrant. I was pretty sure that was her superpower.

After he took down my information, I drove through the estates until I came to Harper’s house. Tanoan was one of the nicer parts of Albuquerque. At least Harper’s parents did that much for her.

And Harper was doing everything right: Gated community with uniformed security guards. Active security system. Triple locks on all the doors. I went from room to room, checking for any signs of foul play before I hit the kitchen. It’d been something like an hour since I last had a cup of coffee. Surely she wouldn’t mind.

To my utter delight, she had one of those machines that used those individual cups and made one serving of coffee at a time. I may have ordered one of those. I’d have to go through the boxes when I got home.

I searched her cabinets, wondering where I’d be if I were a K-Cup before coming to the conclusion that I’d be in heaven, that’s where. Filled to the brim with grinds of shimmering black gold. I opened the last cabinet door and jumped back in surprise. A stuffed white rabbit sat against a can of beets. Normally white rabbits, especially stuffed ones, didn’t bother me, but there was something creepy about having one in a kitchen cabinet.

Staring.

Judging.

I started to reach up and take it down, then stopped myself. This was evidence. True, it wasn’t particularly incriminating or overtly threatening, but it was evidence nonetheless.

And it was scary. Its eyes weren’t on right, and its neck looked like the stuffing had been pulled out so that it sat lopsided on its little shoulders.

I left it there and exited Harper’s house unnerved and un-caffeinated.

After informing the security guard of what I found, leaving him unimpressed again, I gave him my card and made him promise to keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary. Then I started for home with my tail tucked between my legs. According to Angel, Reyes was going to be at that warehouse tonight, so I had some time to kill. I could do that on my sofa just as easily as I could running around Albuquerque like a chicken with my head cut off.

Wait. Somehow the word chicken struck a chord. I played with it in my mind. Rolled it over my tongue. Then came to a conclusion: It was me. I was a chicken butt. I was suddenly scared of everything.

I pulled off Academy and into a shopping center to stew in my own astonishment. I was a chicken of the most cowardly kind. Like a roosting hen. How can the grim reaper do her job if she’s a roosting hen? Suddenly every sound, every movement, caused an adrenaline dump the size of Australia to flood my system. This would so not do. I had to get my act together.

I looked at Misery’s dash. Being with her was comforting on some level, but not as comforting as my sofa. Then it hit me. An atrocity I’d overlooked for years. I’d never named my sofa. How could I do that to her? How could I be so callous? So cold and selfish?

But what would I name her? This was big. Important. She couldn’t go through life with a name that didn’t fit her unique personality.

Filled with an odd sense of relief at the new goal in life, I put Misery into drive. I could worry about being a roosting hen later. I had a sofa to name.

With renewed energy, I pulled back onto Academy—after hitting a drive-through for a mocha latte—and had just started for home when my phone rang.

“Yes?” I said, illegally talking on the phone while driving within the city limits. Scoping for cops, I waited for Uncle Bob to stop talking to whomever he was talking to and get back to me.

My uncle Bob, or Ubie as I most often referred to him, was a detective for APD, and I helped him on cases from time to time. He knew I could see the departed and used that to his advantage. Not that I could blame him.

“Get that to her, then call the ME ay-sap.”

“Okay,” I said, “but I’m not sure what calling the medical examiner ay-sap is going to accomplish. I’m pretty sure his name is George.”

“Oh, hey, Charley.”

“Hey, Uncle Bob. What’s up?”

“Are you driving?”

“No.”

“Have you heard anything?”

Our conversations often went like this. Uncle Bob with his random questions. Me with my trying to come up with answers just as random. Not that I had to try very hard. “I heard that Tiffany Gorham, a girl I knew in grade school, still stuffs her bra. But that’s just a rumor.”

“About the case,” he said through clenched teeth. I could tell his teeth were clenched because his words were suddenly forced. That meant he was frustrated. Too bad I had no idea what he was talking about.

“I wasn’t aware that we had a case.”

“Oh, didn’t Cookie call you?”

“She called me a doody-head once.”

“About the case.” His teeth were totally clenched again.

“We have a case?”

But I’d lost him. He was talking to another officer. Or a detective. Or a hooker, depending on his location and accessibility to cash. Though I doubted he would tell a hooker to check the status of the DOA’s autopsy report. Unless he was way kinkier than I’d ever given him credit for.

I found his calling me only to talk to other people very challenging.

“I’ll call you right back,” he said. No idea to whom.

The call disconnected as I sat at a light, wondering what guacamole would look like if avocados were orange.

I finally shifted my attention to the kid in my backseat. He had shoulder-length blond hair and bright blue eyes and looked somewhere between fifteen and seventeen.

“You come here often?” I asked him, but my phone rang before he could say anything. That was okay. He had a vacant stare, so I doubted he would have answered me anyway.

“Sorry about that,” Uncle Bob said. “Do you want to discuss the case?”

“We have a case?” I said again, perking up.

“How are you?”

He asked me that every time he called now. “Peachy. Am I the case? If so, I can solve this puppy in about three seconds. I’m heading down San Mateo toward Central in a cherry red Jeep Wrangler with a questionable exhaust system.”

“Charley.”

“Hurry, before I get away!”

He gave up. “So, the arsonist just got serious.”

Sadly, I had no idea what he was talking about. Uncle Bob was a homicide detective and rarely worked anything but murders and the like. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why are you trying to find an arsonist? And why is he just now getting serious? Was he only kidding before?”

“Three questions, one answer.” He mumbled something to another officer, then came back to me. “And that answer is because our arsonist is now a murderer. The building he torched last night had a homeless woman in it. She died.”

“Crap. That would explain why you’re on an arson case.”

“Yeah. Have you heard anything?”

“Besides the Tiffany Gorham thing, no.”

“Can you put out some feelers? This guy is getting sloppy.”

“Wait. Is this the one who makes sure the buildings are empty before starting the fires?”

“The one and only. We’ve linked him to four fires so far. Same MO, right down to the timing device and accelerant. Only this time he didn’t get everyone out. This homeless woman didn’t happen to visit you, did she?”

“No, but I’ll see what I can dig up.”

“Thanks. I’ll bring the folder on this guy over tonight.”

“Sounds good.” He was only coming over for Cookie. He had such a crush.

“So, have you talked to your dad?”

“Oh, no, you’re breaking up. I can hardly—” I hung up before he could question me further. Dad was not open for discussion, and he knew it.

The minute we hung up, my phone rang for a third time. I answered. “Charley’s house of Cheerios.”

“Your uncle called,” Cookie said. “He has a case he wants you to look at.”

“I know,” I replied, faking disappointment. “I just got off the phone with him. He told me all about how he needed you to contact me immediately, and you refused. Told him you had better things to do. Like funnel money into off shore accounts.”

“Did you know you ordered a neck massager? This thing is great.”

“Are you getting any actual work done?”

“Oh, yes! I got the addresses you needed, but there’s not much on the brother. He’s never received a single utility bill.”

“Maybe his parents are paying his utilities, too.”

“That makes sense. I’ll check into their accounts, see what all they’re paying for. But I do have a work address on him and an address for Harper’s parents.”

“Perfect. Text them to me.”

“Now? Because this feels amazing.”

“Only if you don’t want me to file embezzlement charges against you.”

“Now it is.”