A Grave Search (Bodies of Evidence)

by Wendy Roberts

  “Okay. Show me what you’ve got.”

  Half an hour later I left the store with a computer that was probably far more than what I needed for my small business. I was promised that I got the best deal around and that I’d love it. I stuck the boxed laptop on the floor of my back seat and looked up Joon Kim’s address.

  Joon lived ten minutes away on a street around the corner from an elementary school and a block from a Fred Meyer grocery store. The house was small and tidy from the street with a fair-sized yard and not where you’d expect a couple of single guys to be living. I parked out front not sure what to do next until I saw Joon Kim sitting with a beer in hand on the front porch watching me. I grabbed the bag of muffins and climbed out of the car. He looked surprised but then got to his feet and waved me over.

  “Sorry to stop by uninvited,” I began. “But—”

  “But you wanted to see where Ron lived, right? Part of your investigation.”

  “Yeah, but if you’re too sick—”

  “Needed a personal day with my friend, Bud.” He lifted his Bud Light. “Want one? Or wine?”

  More than anything in this goddamn world.

  “No.” I licked my lips. “I’m good. Thanks.” I handed him the bag. “I brought you a couple of muffins. They’re awesome.”

  “Thanks. So you want the grand tour then?”

  “If it’s okay with you?”

  He shrugged and headed inside. The house was hot and stuffy, making me wonder why he didn’t have every window open to create some kind of a breeze. There wasn’t a lot to see in this twelve-hundred-square-foot home. The living room had a leather sectional, a large flat screen TV and a coffee table littered with game controllers. Down the hall were the three bedrooms. His own and that of his roommate were pretty much what you’d expect from young guys. Clothes piled in the corner, unmade beds, the stink of sweat from sheets past their prime. The third room was done up as an office. A large desk and long tables were littered with computer parts, towers and laptops all in various states of repair.

  “I dabble in computer repairs,” he told me. “As a side. Makes me enough bucks to pay for a trip back to Korea once a year.”

  He told me the office used to be Ron’s bedroom and I stepped inside to take a better look around.

  “You never thought of moving out of this place after everything that happened?”

  “Nah. What difference would it make? The cops would still come round to ask me questions periodically no matter where I live. Besides, I’m getting a smoking deal for this house because it belongs to my cousin. Took me a while to get a roommate to replace Ron because nobody wanted to sleep where an ex-killer might’ve screwed the girl he killed, yanno?”

  “I could see that being a problem.”

  “So I turned Ron’s room into my office and that took care of that. The new guy is fine with the sleeping arrangements.” He’d taken one of the muffins from the bag and took a large bite. “Damn. That’s a fine muffin. You bake these?”

  I laughed at the question and shook my head. “What happened to all Ron’s stuff?”

  “He didn’t have a helluva lot.” Joon took a swig from his beer. “The police took any electronics like his laptop and GoPro. His mom came by yesterday and took his clothes and shit. She didn’t want his bedroom furniture so I donated it to a charity.”

  “So all his belongings are gone?”

  “She left one box of stuff.”

  Joon walked to the corner of the room and grabbed a banker’s box from a shelf. After pushing some computer boards aside he dropped it on the table and popped the lid. I looked inside. Books on hiking trails. A map of Washington. More books. A yearbook from my old high school. A couple of bright blue foil packages with small white print on them. A well-used bong and a lot of bottles of vitamins and minerals with names I hadn’t heard of.

  “You want that stuff you can have it.”

  “Thanks.” I picked up one of the bottles. “Milk thistle. Did he take all of these?”

  “He was always taking something.” Joon rolled his eyes. “He had some kind of blood condition and had a nurse come here sometimes but he was all about beating it using healthy alternatives.”

  “Was he really sick?”

  “Nah. Struck me more like this was something he just had to manage and that it was no big deal.”

  “Did he smoke a lot of weed too?”

  “Define a lot.”

  I couldn’t and it really didn’t matter. I replaced the lid on the box and noticed a wall calendar tacked up over his desk. The picture for the month was of a woman receiving a back massage surrounded by candles. The ad in the center of the calendar was for the Ebba’s Bliss spa.

  “You keep in touch with her?” I hooked my thumb in the direction of the calendar.

  “Not really.” He turned around and headed back toward the living room and I followed. “I heard from her a lot in the beginning when Ava was first missing but she got tired of asking me the same questions and hearing the same answers. She always had a dozen reporters following her too so it was hella annoying. I mean, I was out of the country, right? I didn’t know anything about where Ava could be or why Ron went nutso.”

  “Which do you think is more unlike Ron, that he would kill his old girlfriend or that he’d kidnap her and demand a hundred grand?”

  He seemed taken aback by the question. “What difference does it make?”

  “None,” I admitted, putting the box down at my feet. “Both seem pretty far away from the kind of guy I thought he was in high school but how about now? Did he seem like the kind of guy who’d kill someone in a rage, or do something crazy like kidnap his girlfriend to make a buck?”

  “No, of course not,” Joon said. “Obviously I never thought the guy was capable of any of that kind of shit or I wouldn’t’ve asked him to be a roommate, right? He was an easygoing guy. Nothing fazed him. He went to work. Hiked. Screwed girls. Then hit Repeat.”

  “But you definitely think he did it. He kidnapped Ava for a hundred grand and then killed her and took off with the money and then...”

  “And then couldn’t live with it and killed himself in those Bat Caves,” Joon finished firmly. “Absolutely. Hey, the cops found the ransom note sent to Ebba on Ron’s laptop, right? And nobody had access to that laptop but him.”

  “How do you know?” I asked. “I mean, people were coming here all the time, right? His friends and lovers. You and your friends.”

  “I guess...but I’m sure he had a good password on his computer.” He stuffed the last of the muffin in his mouth and dropped the bag containing the other one on the table. “Sure the cops hacked it but the average person wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “You would though.”

  That suggestion made his face go dark. “I was in Korea at the time.”

  “Yeah, I don’t mean you personally,” I quickly added with a smile. “I just mean that you probably get people who lock themselves out of their computers all the time and so you’d know how to help them with stuff like that, and so would other computer pros.”

  “Well, yeah. Happens all the time.” He finished off his beer and I followed him into the kitchen as he opened the fridge and got another. “Sure I can’t interest you in a drink?”

  I stared a little harder than necessary at the can as he popped the tab and put it to his lips.

  “I should go. Thanks for your help and also thanks for setting me up with the new laptop.” I picked up the box of Ron’s things and headed for the door.

  “Anytime” was what his mouth said but his eyes were cold and I got the impression he wouldn’t be sending me an invite anytime soon.

  “By the way, do you have the contact information for Ron’s family? Maybe I could give them a call.”

  He dug his phone out of his pocket, tapped a few keys and then my own cell phone chimed. “Done.”

  “Thanks.” I started down the steps and he called out to me.

  “You got your new l
aptop in the car?”

  I nodded.

  “Don’t be doing that in this heat. It’ll mess it up. Let it get to room temperature before you start it up for the first time.”

  I thanked him for the advice and was almost at my Jeep when an idea occurred to me and I walked back. “What about his car?”

  “Whose?”

  “Ron’s. He supposedly drove all the way to the state park with Ava in order to meet Ebba and get the money. I’m assuming he did that in his vehicle, right? So he kills her there but her body is never found at the scene so he must’ve stuffed it in his car and taken her somewhere.”

  “Cops found his car parked in our drive out back. If there was any sign he put Ava in that car all bloody and stuff, the cops didn’t share that with me. Not that they would anyway. Maybe he rented a car.”

  “Maybe. So the police impounded his car as evidence and still have it?”

  “Far as I know.”

  I put the box of Ron’s stuff on the passenger seat then walked around and started it up. It was fiery hot inside the car and I hoped I hadn’t already damaged the laptop. I rolled down the windows to let out the heat while the air-conditioning started up. While I waited for the vehicle to cool a bit, I thought about where I should go now.

  I opened Ron’s box again and looked through it. I pulled out the high school yearbook from beneath the stack of hiking books. I hesitated. Those years weren’t good to me and I didn’t really want to dive into the painful memories of that horrible time. Still, I couldn’t resist opening it.

  Of course, a lot of people had signed the inside covers of his book. Lots of Best wishes! and Don’t forget me Rock’n Ron! He was a popular guy.

  In the upper right of the page someone had taken up a large amount of space with a heart done in red felt pen. Inside the heart was a sappy message in a loopy, flowery script with hearted Is and lots of Xs and Os.

  And suddenly I knew exactly who I needed to talk to about Rock’n Ron.

  Chapter Eight

  Katie wasn’t at the fast-food place when I walked in a few minutes later looking for her. A guy at the counter told me she was on her lunch break and had walked to the coffee shop next door so I headed that way. I found her hunched over her phone in a far corner with a large backpack at her feet.

  “Can I get you a refill?” I pointed to her empty cup.

  She looked up, startled to see me, and smiled.

  “If you’re buying then I’m drinking,” she replied. “Although that means a whole lot more if we’re talking real drinks and not stupid coffee.” She glanced at her phone. “I’ve only got about ten minutes left on my break.”

  I grabbed us each a coffee and also got her a lemon scone because I remembered how much she liked them.

  “So-o-o...” She sipped her coffee. “Rock’n Ron, huh? Is that just a fucked-up situation, or what?”

  “Totally,” I agreed. “So you heard that...”

  “That you found his body when all of Washington has been looking for him for weeks?” She smirked. “Yeah. I heard.” She nibbled the scone. “You find that Ava girl yet, though? She’s the one everyone’s really looking for.”

  I shook my head.

  “But you’re looking, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Then I guess you and your rod thingies will find her, right? That’s like your full-time gig these days, huh?”

  “Yeah. It is.”

  I waited for the smirk or for her to tease me for it but all she said was, “You make good money at that?”

  “Enough, I guess,” I replied, hoping she wasn’t going to ask how much I made.

  “Guess you don’t need much on account of you sold Gramps’s farm and bought your own place, right?”

  I picked up my coffee and became eager to change the subject. “You and Ron dated in eleventh grade, right?” I sipped tentatively at the hot coffee.

  “I doubt anyone could call what we did dating.” She took a large bite of the scone and then washed it down with her drink. “Gotta say he had a way to rock a girl’s world, you know? I mean a lot of guys know how to sweet-talk their way into a girl’s pants but Rock’n Ron knew what to do once he got those pants off.” She sighed. “The things that man could do with his tongue.”

  I shifted a little in my chair.

  “What’s wrong? Too early in the day to discuss cunnilingus?” She laughed, then tilted her head and regarded me. “You always had a thing for him, didn’t you?”

  I felt a hot blush creep up my neck. “I think everyone did.”

  “That’s a fact. I remember he stood up for you a couple times when the jocks were giving you a hard time.”

  I planned on repaying him by finding his killer.

  The rest of the scone disappeared into Katie’s mouth. “That’s why you’re here? To talk about Ron.”

  “Ava’s mom hired me to try and find Ava’s body. I never met her but I was thinking maybe you had.”

  “Ava Johansson...” Katie drew the name out long between her lips, which were parted in a strange smile. “Now that girl was a piece of work.”

  “So you knew her?”

  “Sure. I’d see her out clubbing. At the casinos. At the local bars saddling up to whoever looked like they’d buy her a few drinks.”

  Sounded like she was describing herself. “How do you mean she was a piece of work?”

  “How?” Katie sipped her coffee. “In every way, that’s how. Always jumping from guy to guy depending on what she could get out of them.” She held up her hand. “Not that I’m slut shaming here, right? I’ve been known to have my share of boyfriends myself.”

  “That’s the truth.” It slipped out before I could stop it but Katie only giggled at my honesty. “There was a time I could hardly keep track.”

  “And I kept trying to toss some your way but you were never interested.”

  “In your snaggle-toothed or limp-dicked castoffs?” I chuckled. “No, thanks.”

  “Getting back to Ava, I got the impression Ron was the one cheating. Maybe they both were. Guess they were cut from the same cloth, right?”

  “Nope. Totally different. Ava didn’t seem the type that could really get attached. She was always in it for Ava and looking for something better. Ron, he loved women. Sure he slept around but when you were with him, he only had eyes for you and he really cared, you know? He made a girl feel special but he never made promises and then broke them. He wasn’t cruel.”

  “The fact that he kidnapped and killed Ava kind of makes that inaccurate,” I pointed out.

  “Huh. Yeah, that’s true, isn’t it?” Katie drummed her fingers on the table. “The whole situation is messed up.”

  “Since you guys were together a bit I was wondering if you knew any more of Ron’s secret spots.”

  “Secret spots?” She wiggled her eyebrows.

  “You know what I mean.” I laughed. “His make-out locations. Other than the Bat Caves because, obviously, that one’s been covered.”

  She leaned forward on her elbows. “You think he killed Ava and dumped her body at one of those spots?”

  “I have no-o-o idea. I’m grasping at straws here,” I told her honestly. “Just need something to go on.”

  She sat back and thought a minute. “So you need my help, huh? Tell you what. I’ll think about it and send you all the places that come to mind if you’ll buy me dinner next week. Somewhere decent.” She tucked a wayward strand of hair back into her ponytail. “If I have to eat another burger I’m going to start mooing.”

  “Sure. I could do that. When will you send me the list?”

  “When I get around to it.”

  With Katie everything had a price and she liked things on her own terms. It was amazing how being away from someone for a while allowed you to see them more clearly. Still, for all her faults, perhaps part of me had missed her and maybe it would be good to do dinner and put the tragedy of the past behind us.

  We walked out into the hot parking lot an
d I pressed the key fob to unlock my Jeep.

  “So that’s the only reason why you came to find me? To ask about Ron?” Katie fell into step beside me. “I figured you were back to ask me about that FBI guy talking about your mom. Is he trying to find her?”

  “He’s working on it,” I told her, opening my car door. “Looks like she’s alive but involved in drugs so...” I shrugged to make it seem like I was okay with however it played out.

  “Yeah, the guy he was lunching with that time looked a little sketchy.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Old. Like maybe fifties. Skinny as all hell. Bald and had a long goatee that was braided.”

  My head started spinning because Katie had just described Ted. Mom’s ex-boyfriend and the last place I’d gone looking for her myself.

  “Nice ride,” Kate commented as she looked beyond me into my Jeep. “Helluva a lot better than the old one you had when we hung out. Did I mention I had to sell my Mustang after Mom died? I’m rocking that old piece of crap these days. When it runs. Other days I take the bus.”

  She pointed to an old brown four-door sedan with rust holes in the fenders.

  Katie loved her metallic blue 1972 Mustang. I couldn’t imagine her taking a bus.

  She sighed as she walked away and then called over her shoulder, “Good to see you got something good when everything went to shit.”

  I didn’t reply. I didn’t like to think of the Jeep as the profits from that horrid end to my old life. If I thought about it like that, I couldn’t drive it.

  I started up the vehicle and spent a minute checking my phone. I received a notification from the security app that there was movement on one of the cameras at my house. My heart pounded as I opened the app and clicked on the camera. A wild brown rabbit was nibbling grass in my backyard. I exhaled on a loud laugh.

  “Bring on attack of the bunnies!” I was so relieved I almost cried. Almost immediately I received a text from Garrett saying not to worry, it was only a rabbit. Obviously he was keeping tabs on the security system too.