Third Grave Dead Ahead

Chapter 20

Cookie had left the info on Yost’s property in Pecos by the coffeepot in my apartment. I gave a shout out to Mr. Wong, then put on a pot of java before looking it over. According to the county tax assessor’s report, Yost had a hunting cabin deep in a wooded area of the Santa Fe Mountains a short distance from the Pecos River. Shouldn’t be too hard to find during the day. Since it was already dark, I’d have to wait and head out at first light.

In the meantime, I rummaged through my bag — a cross between a clutch and a suitcase — and fished out the mail I’d stolen from the crime scene of Farley Scanlon’s mobile home. The girl with the knife looked on, slightly interested. I’d managed to abscond with two envelopes addressed to a Harold Reynolds and one addressed to Harold Zane Reynolds. Unfortunately, two were credit card offers, and one was a flyer inviting Harold to invest in gold.

After making a mega-sized cup of coffee, I sat at my computer to see what dirt I could dig up on the guy. The girl stood beside me, mesmerized by the computer screen, her knife clutched solidly in her hand.

It didn’t take me long to find out Harold Zane Reynolds was fairly nonexistent. “Well, this sucks,” I said to the girl. She ignored me.

I searched a bit more and found a previous address for a Harold Z. Reynolds, that looked promising. If nothing else, maybe a neighbor knew Harold and could tell me where he’d gone. If he hadn’t killed them all.

I repacked my belongings, poured my coffee into a to-go cup, then headed out the door, leaving the girl in the incapable hands of Mr. Wong. She was too busy studying my screen saver to notice my absence anyway.

Garrett must have called it a day. Neither he nor his colleague was out front, which made me happy until I hopped in Misery and started toward the address. Something about it seemed familiar. And the closer I got, weaving my way through Albuquerque’s south side, the colder the realization prickling my spine became.

I pulled to a stop in front of a condemned apartment building, the reality of where I was washing over me in stupefying waves. The last time I’d been at this particular building, I stood in the street with my sister Gemma and watched as a man beat a teenage boy unconscious. If I hadn’t been sure Harold Reynolds was one of Earl’s aliases before, I was now.

I looked up at the boarded window, the same window I’d thrown a brick through to get the man to stop. I looked to the side between the buildings where Gemma and I had run when the man came after us. I looked at the steps I’d taken the next day when I went back and found out from an angry landlady that the family in 2C had moved out during the night, stiffing her for two months’ rent and a broken window.

Stepping out of Misery, I closed the door and stared for a very long time as memory after memory flooded my senses, tightened my chest. The crisp night kept me alert as several sets of eyes locked on to me. Most were homeless, hidden in the shadows of the apartment building and the abandoned school behind me. A couple others most likely belonged to gang members curious about my reason for being there. I offered none of them my attention. I just stared at the window. It had been so bright that night, illuminated with a sickly yellow as Earl Walker pummeled a boy named Reyes. Counting back, Reyes had to have been about eighteen at the time. I was fifteen. Young. Impressionable. Ready to save the world with my super reaper powers. Yet the only thing I could do to save him was throw a brick from the abandoned school through the window.

It worked. Earl stopped hitting him and came after us.

If I had called the police that night, if Reyes had let me, I doubt I would’ve been standing here at this moment. I doubt Reyes would have gone to prison for killing Earl. Surely Children, Youth, and Family would’ve taken Reyes and Kim out of that situation. Surely they would have been safe.

With nothing to lose and hours before dawn, I grabbed a flashlight and a tire iron — partly for breaking and entering and partly for protection — and headed up the steps. The metal door had definitely seen better days, and it didn’t take me long to gain access. I was certain the homeless people in the area had been entering the building the same way for months, possibly years. The entrance opened up to the second floor. The floor beneath sat half underground. And 2C was directly on my left. I stepped over trash, debris, and a couple sets of legs, careful not to shine the light directly in the faces of the people lining the walls, until I came to a door with half a 2 nailed to it and the unpainted remnants of a C.

“I wouldn’t go in there, missy.”

I turned to a voice echoing down the hall and raised the light. A woman sat wrapped in several layers of clothes, a shopping cart turned over beside her to protect her meager belongings. Or she needed driving lessons. She raised her hand to shield the light, and I immediately lowered it. I didn’t need it anyway. Not for her.

“Sorry about that,” I said, indicating the light as I aimed it to the side.

“Don’t be sorry to me,” she said, “it’s just that’s Miss Faye’s place, and she don’t take kindly to no visitors.”

“Should I knock?” I asked, only half serious. The acrid smell that hit me when I’d entered snaked around me like a poisonous gas, and I couldn’t decide which would be worse — breathing through my mouth or nose.

The woman chuckled. “Sure. Knock. Ain’t gonna help, but you go right ahead.”

“Have you ever heard of a Harold Reynolds?” I asked, again only half serious.

“Nope. Why you asking?”

“’Cause I’m looking for him. He used to live here.” I lifted the lapel of my leather jacket and covered the lower half of my face, hoping it would help. It didn’t.

“Oh, then you need to ask Miss Faye for sure. She used to run the place. Still thinks she does.”

In a flash, I realized who Miss Faye had to be. The landlady’s name all those years ago had been Faye. “I think I remember her.”

“Yeah?”

“Bleached blond hair? Resembles death warmed over?”

She chuckled again. “That’s her. You go on about your knocking, now. I could use me a good laugh.”

That didn’t sound promising, but the thought of actually talking to that landlady again had my pulse racing in anticipation. Maybe she knew where Earl Walker had moved off to after he left here. She hadn’t been much help when I was fifteen, but the possibility was worth a shot. I raised my hand to the door, and the woman started cackling in excitement, apparently readying herself to be entertained. How bad could Miss Faye be? She’d had one foot in the grave the first time I’d spoken to her, and that was over ten years ago. Surely, with a little luck, I could take her.

About half a second after my knuckles made first contact, something crashed against the door, loud enough to startle the bejesus out of me. I ducked and stumbled back before raising the light first to the door, then back to the woman.

“What the hell was that?”

She laughed some more, holding on to her sides, then managed to say, “Soup, sounded like.”

I frowned and glanced back at the door. “That didn’t sound like soup to me, unless it was a few weeks old.”

“In the can. You know, ’fore it’s made.”

“Oh, right, a can of soup. Wonderful,” I said, complaining. “This place is like crazy on crackers.”

The woman rolled onto her side with laughter. Normally, I liked making people laugh, but all I could seem to muster was a look of concern as I stepped back to the door and tried the knob.

“You still going in there?” she asked, her astonishment cutting the cackle-fest short.

“That’s the plan.” I turned back to her. “What do you think my chances are?”

She waved a hand. “She just likes to throw things. Her aim’s wretched. Likely, she won’t hit you if you run fast enough.”

“Her aim sounded pretty good from here.”

“Yeah, well, she gets lucky sometimes.”

“Great.”

Surprisingly, the door was unlocked. I raised one arm to cover my face, then cracked the door open. “Miss Faye?” I said through the opening.

Another can crashed against the door, slamming it shut, and the cackling started again. I’d have to make a run for it, possibly do a zigzag sprint until I found cover inside. I turned back to the woman and offered a sympathetic smile.

“What’s your name?” I asked her.

“Tennessee,” she said, pride brightening her aura.

“Okay.” That was an odd name for a woman if ever I heard one. “Well, Tennessee, you can cross through me if you’d like.”

A toothless grin flashed across her face. “I think I’ll stay a bit. I’m waiting on Miss Faye. I reckon she won’t be much longer.”

“I understand. Wish me luck,” I said.

She chortled. “You’ll need it. I was lying about her aim.”

“Thanks,” I said with a final wave before bursting through the door. Something flew past my head. I stumbled over piles of junk and dived behind a decrepit couch just as another can was launched across the room. It crashed through the drywall and into the next room. “Miss Faye, damn it,” I called out from behind the arms covering my head as I cowered behind the couch. “Don’t make me call the police. I’m a friend. We met a few years ago.”

The aerial assault stopped, and I peeked over my elbows. Then I heard a creaking sound along the floor as she drew closer and I suddenly felt like I’d landed in a horror movie, waiting to be pummeled to death by soup cans.

“I don’t know you.”

I jumped and raised both the flashlight and the tire iron to defend myself. Considering she only had a flyswatter, I figured my chances were pretty freaking good.

“How do you know my name?” Her voice was a cross between a bulldog and a cement mixer. She’d clearly led a rough life.

“Tennessee told me.”

She frowned and studied me. I kept the light just close enough to her face to see her without blinding her. Since Miss Faye was still alive, I needed some kind of illumination to make out her features, unlike Tennessee.

“What’s your name?” she asked, turning toward a kerosene lamp and lighting it.

I switched off my flashlight when a soft glow filled a room that smelled like dirty ashtrays and mold. “Charley,” I said, glancing around at the piles and piles of magazines, old newspapers, books, and other nonessential paraphernalia. The place defined use extreme caution when lighting a cigarette.

“She never mentioned you,” Faye said. She stepped to an aging recliner and crouched into it.

“I remember your hair.” I searched for a place to sit and decided on a stable-looking stack of newspapers — thank god I didn’t wear white — before turning back to her in all her bleached-blond glory. “I met you a few years ago.”

“You don’t look familiar,” she said, lighting a cigarette.

I cringed. It was a wonder the place still stood at all. “I was here about ten years ago, looking for a family that had moved out during the night. They’d stiffed you for two months’ rent and a broken window.” I turned toward it. Its replacement now stood cracked, taped, and boarded.

“That was you?” she asked.

In shock, I refocused on her. “You remember me?”

“I remember the family. You, not so much, but I do remember a kid coming the next day. I had a migraine, and you wouldn’t leave me alone.”

Oops. “I’m sorry. I thought you had a hangover.”

“I did have a hangover. Hence the migraine.” Her tone softened as she thought back. “Did you ever find them?”

“No. Not back then.”

She nodded, then turned her attention to the window. “I was hoping you would. I was hoping anyone would.”

I sat my weapons on another stack of papers and asked, “Do you know what happened to them? Where they went?” When she took another draw off her cigarette and shook her head, I added, “I need to find the man, Earl Walker. It’s terribly important.”

The pleading tone of my voice must have convinced her to at least try to offer more. “I don’t know where they went, but I remember those kids. Like it was yesterday. The girl so thin, I worried she’d break in a soft breeze. The boy so beaten, so hardened and fierce.”

My chest tightened, and I shut my eyes a moment to get the image her words had instilled in my mind.

When I opened them again, she turned a passionate gaze to me. “That wasn’t no man. That was a monster through and through.”

I inched closer, sat on a stack of magazines a few feet from her. The low light cast hard shadows over her features, but the wetness shimmering in her eyes was unmistakable. Her empathy surprised me more than I would’ve liked to admit. I expected a stereotype. I did not get one.

“Miss Faye—”

“Nobody calls me Miss Faye but Tennessee,” she said, interrupting, “so she must’ve sent you. That’s the only reason you ain’t bleeding to death from a head wound right now.”

“Fair enough.” I wiped my palms on my pants, wondering if she knew Tennessee had passed, and wondering how far to push her. “Ma’am, do you have anything at all that might help me find Earl Walker? I know this is asking a lot, but did they leave anything behind? A suitcase or possibly—”

“He left stuff in the walls.”

I blinked in surprise. “Earl Walker?”

After an almost imperceptible nod, she said, “Harold, Earl, John … take your pick.”

Earl had assumed several identities. She obviously knew a few. “What did he leave in the walls?”

She pressed her mouth together hard. Her breath caught in her chest. “Pictures.”

I stilled. Kim had said that very thing, that Earl had left pictures in the walls. “Pictures of what?”

She shook her head, refusing to answer.

“Were they of Reyes? Were they of his boy?”

Her chin rose visibly, and I knew I’d nailed it. Why would Earl do that? What would he have to gain? The idea was utterly foreign to me, and I quickly scanned through the massive amounts of information I’d gleaned in college for an answer. Or at least, as much as I could recall offhand. Oftentimes criminals liked to keep trophies. Did the pictures represent trophies to Earl? And if they did, wouldn’t he have kept them?

He was all about control. Maybe they were a way to control Reyes, to keep him under his thumb. Still, I just couldn’t grasp why Earl would leave them. Kim had said there were pictures in the walls all over. Did she mean all the places they’d lived? They’d moved from place to place all over New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma, or so the police reports had said.

As bad as I hated to ask, I asked. “Faye, do you still have them?”

She wiped her eyes with the fingertips of one hand.

“They could have a clue. Something. Anything. I must find him.” My mind conjured scenes from a murder mystery where something seemingly mundane in the background of a picture offered the clue that solved the case. Like I could get so lucky.

I felt heartbreak rush through Faye as she considered my request, and I realized she must still have them. After drawing in a deep breath, she stood and shuffled to a sideboard, barely recognizable under the weight of clutter.

“I only kept one,” she said, her voice saturated with sadness. “I burned the others and kept the only one I could stomach to look at.” She pulled a Polaroid out of a crippled drawer but kept her gaze averted. “Not that I look at it. It’s just, the others were so much worse, I couldn’t fathom having them in my house. I figured this way, if the police ever needed evidence as to what that man did to that boy, I’d have it.”

Her words caused my heart to contract in dread and apprehension. She held out the picture, and I took it with a shaking hand, turned toward the light, braced myself, and glanced down.

Maybe it was my diet of coffee and more coffee. Maybe it was the fifteen days without sleep. Maybe it was the odor that hung like a heavy fog around me, making it difficult to breathe. Whatever it was, I took one look at that picture and the world slipped out from under me and disappeared.