“Sure. You’d been going out for a few months. It would be normal for you to talk about your childhoods. You would see things around here that you remember, so you’d tell her, and that would trigger her memories. You know. You share stuff when you’re dating.”
“She didn’t talk about her childhood.”
“Not even—”
“At all.”
“Casey,” Don said, “perhaps we should just let him tell us what he wants to tell us.”
Casey looked at her brother, who suddenly resembled a sullen teenager. Too bad he was actually ten years past that.
Ricky closed his eyes. When he opened them, the despair was back. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m just…” This time the tears overflowed onto his cheeks, and he swiped at them with his sleeves.
Casey leaned forward. “It’s okay. Just remember I want to help you. The more I know about her, the better chance I have of figuring out who did this to her.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“Of course it wasn’t. I never thought so for an instant.”
Death swooshed around, then hovered up by the ceiling, checking out the jail’s video camera. “This isn’t on. Just wanted to make sure.”
Casey ignored the interruption. “Did Alicia have any other friends?”
Ricky frowned. “Not really. There was one other waitress at the restaurant who was about her age, but she kind of drove Alicia crazy. Ali said she never shut up.”
“Would this be Bailey?”
“You know her?”
“I stopped by The Slope before coming here. She was working. And very eager to talk.”
“You can’t believe anything she says.”
“Then I guess you are guilty.”
“What?”
“She’s one of the few people in this whole town, apparently, who thinks you’re innocent. She’s going to help me. So I wouldn’t go bad-mouthing her right now if I were you.”
“She’s going to help you? But she always hated—” He stopped.
“Hated Alicia?”
“Look, I don’t think she killed her, okay? She just never thought…She always said…”
“That you should be with her instead of Alicia? I know. She told me the same thing. It’s not exactly a secret.”
“So if she wants to help it’s not because she wants to help Alicia.”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters! She doesn’t care that Ali got killed. She just wants to use this to prove she was right. Or something.”
“It doesn’t matter why she wants to help. We’ll take whatever help we can get.”
“I don’t want her making Alicia look bad.”
“Ricky.” Casey grabbed his hand. “You said it before. Alicia doesn’t care anymore. She’s gone. But I care. And you should. You don’t want to be in here the rest of your life for a murder you didn’t commit. Accused of killing the woman you loved. I mean, you did, right?”
“Did what?”
“Love her.”
“Of course I did.”
“And you didn’t kill her?”
He yanked his hand away and stumbled from his chair, hanging onto the back. “I already told you—”
“Then we’ll take Bailey’s help. Won’t we?”
He thrust out his chin, but then his shoulders drooped again, and he sank back into the chair. “You’ll be careful what you believe?”
“About Alicia? Or about you?”
“About any of it.”
She studied him. “So, what should I believe?”
“The only thing that really matters is that she was a good person. She really was.”
A good person who had lied to him about such a basic thing as her name, and hadn’t shared the slightest detail about her past except a list of multiple, gigantic states. Never a good sign.
“So tell me why someone would kill her.”
“It wasn’t her. I mean, it wasn’t because it was her. It was a random break-in. It had to be.”
Don cleared his throat. “I really don’t think it was random, not from the way they—”
Casey glared at him, and Don stopped talking before he said anything too upsetting.
Ricky didn’t seem to have heard, anyway. “She didn’t have anything worth stealing. There was no secret stash of money—”
“And you know this how?”
“Because she wasn’t the kind of person to hoard cash, or even care about it. She wore hand-me-down clothes. She never ate out on her own, even at The Slope. She didn’t even have a computer, for God’s sake.”
“Why would God want her to have a computer?” Death said.
“She never bought things,” Ricky continued. “If I did take her out to eat, she might pay her part—because she’d insist, not because I didn’t want to—but she didn’t go shopping, or skiing, or anything. There was nothing in her apartment people would plan to take. It had to be totally by chance.”
“Okay.” Casey drummed her fingers on the table. “So let’s say it was random. How did they find her? She lived in a basement apartment, underneath a nosey landlord, in a residential neighborhood that wasn’t exactly fancy, but wasn’t a slum. You said yourself there was nothing obvious worth stealing. So why her?”
“I don’t know. They followed her, maybe. She always walked home from work, and she was always alone. It would have been close to dark if it was after work. They could have been waiting for someone like her. Someone they could overpower and—”
“Stop.” Casey held up her hand. “You’re saying ‘they.’ What makes you think it was more than one person?”
Ricky went even paler, and his mouth dropped open. “What?”
“You know what. There’s something you’re not telling me.”
His mouth clamped shut, and he shook his head. “There’s not.”
She looked over at Don, and he raised his eyebrows. He saw it, too.
“Look, Ricky, this is just like the Bailey thing. If you want me to help, you’ve got to tell me what you know.”
He closed his eyes and breathed out through his nose, obviously struggling with something. Casey waited him out.
“She didn’t tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“I mean, she didn’t tell me on purpose. She was asleep.”
“So you feel like you’re betraying her if you tell us.”
He shrugged, obviously embarrassed. “I guess. Kind of.”
“I understand, Ricky. Really, I do. But the way I see it, you’re betraying her if you don’t tell. If it’s something that could help us find her killers. And you know there was more than one.”
He took a shuddering breath. “Have you seen the pictures?”
“Of Alicia? Yes. You have, too?”
His jaw trembled. “I wish I hadn’t. What they did to her…”
“Tell me, Ricky.”
He glanced at Don, and lowered his voice, as if he didn’t want Don to hear. Don pulled a paper out of his briefcase and pretended to be reading it. Casey could tell he was faking, because his eyes weren’t moving.
“We were sleeping,” Ricky said. “One of the few nights she let me stay.” He flushed. “Not because she didn’t want me to, but because we were both so tired, and we had to get up early. You know how my shifts are, and if she had to work breakfast she’d be there at five. Usually I’d be at her place for a while in the evening, and then go home. It worked well for us. Or okay, anyway. Sometimes I’d ask if I could stay when it was late after we—” He stopped, and his flush grew deeper.
“It’s all right, Ricky. You don’t have to explain that part. I do remember what men and women do when they’re in love.”
He gave a brief smile, which looked more like a cringe. “Anyway, we were sleeping, and she started thrashing around. I woke up when she yanked the covers off of me. I tried to wake her up, too, because she was mumbling weird stuff, but she grabbed me. Both arms, like she was trying to get me to listen to her. Her eyes were wide open, and s
he was scared, really scared…”
Casey held his hand. “It’s okay, Ricky.”
“She kept saying, ‘They found me. Oh, my God, they found me.’ I asked her who, but she just said ‘they.’ It was freaky. She finally went back to sleep when I…I held her tight enough. When she woke up in the morning she didn’t say anything about it, so I didn’t, either. I figured if she wanted to tell me, she would.” His face crumpled and he dropped it into his hands. “I should have asked her about it. If I had, she might still be alive. This wouldn’t have happened.”
“Ricky, you don’t know—”
“I could have protected her! She wouldn’t have been alone! She wouldn’t have been walking alone.” He fell onto Casey’s shoulder and sobbed. She rubbed his back and looked up at Death, who was filming the whole exchange.
“I know,” Death said. “I’m exploiting your brother’s emotions. But you have to admit, his sense of grief is so raw it makes even me feel like weeping. It’s so astounding I needed to record it.”
She didn’t stop glaring.
Don caught her expression. “Um, Casey? You okay?”
She shook her head and closed her eyes, leaning against Ricky’s hair.
“The other question,” Death said, coming in for a close-up, “is this. Does he really think he could have prevented what happened? Or is he simply angry that she didn’t let him help? Does he know there were big things she wasn’t telling him?”
Good questions, Casey thought. But ones that really didn’t need to be answered. Either way, her brother was screwed up for life.
“Ricky,” she said. “One more thing.”
He sat up, his face red from crying.
“You know your Colorado U T-shirt, the one with the stain from where I busted your lip?”
“Yeah. Haven’t thought about that shirt for ages.”
“Do you know where it is?”
“Not for sure. It’s probably in my dresser somewhere, buried under all the other shirts. Why?”
“The police found it in your house. It had Alicia’s blood on it.”
He stared at her, as if he couldn’t comprehend what she was saying. “But…how? I never wore that around her. I never—” He looked at Don. “They think I was wearing it when she died. They think I wore it when I killed her.”
Don nodded. “I didn’t know about it until this morning. They hadn’t told me.”
“I don’t know how it got blood on it, I don’t know how—”
“Of course you don’t.” Casey patted his knee. “But don’t you worry, Ricky. I’m going to find out.”
How she was going to find out was a mystery.
But she didn’t say that part out loud.
Chapter Ten
Getting out of the prison was a lot quicker than getting in. Death still chose to go elsewhere as they waited, saying the inmates were much more interesting than security checks could ever be. Casey believed that.
It was wrenching leaving Ricky in that awful place. The smells, the sounds, the angry people. Not anywhere she ever imagined her little brother would end up. But she assured him—and herself, in the process—that she would get him out quickly. She wasn’t sure she actually believed herself, but she talked a good talk.
“So,” Don said once they were back on the road. “I’m not sure we got anything good from him.”
“Of course we did.”
“Really? Enlighten me, please.”
“Alicia obviously didn’t share about her past. And when she spoke in her sleep she was worried about somebody finding her. The woman was in hiding. That proves it.”
“You think?”
“Have they found out anything more about her, or are we still going with the lies she told on her job application and rental agreement?”
“I haven’t heard anything new.”
“We don’t even know that Alicia McManus was her real name.”
“Nice,” Death said, giving a thumbs up. “Way to sneak that information into the conversation.”
“Right,” Don said. “You mentioned that back at the police station when Watts was telling you everything we don’t know about her. It would make sense if it wasn’t her name, since they can’t find a record of her anywhere. But how would we go about finding her real one? Ricky obviously doesn’t know it.”
“Hmm,” Death said. “This could be tricky.”
Casey had no idea how to get Don to discover Alicia’s real name of ‘Elizabeth Mann’ without actually saying it.
Death jumped in. “What if you suggest something close to Alicia?”
“Could it be a name sort of like Alicia?” she said to Don. “That might have the same nickname?”
“Could be. I’ve heard that people will do that, or use the same initials. So that could be Alice, I suppose, although there aren’t a whole lot of women her age named that these days. Or Allison, maybe? Or some other form of Alicia, even. Lisa. Or just Ali.”
Casey felt like thudding her head with her hand.
“And that doesn’t help with the last name,” Don said. “There are thousands of surnames that start with M.”
“Could we go with the same idea as the first name? That it would be something close?”
“McMillan? McCarthy? McArthur? I’ll suggest the idea to Watts. Maybe he can get someone on it. I’ll tell them to start with the initials being the same.”
Casey groaned. This was impossible.
“So where to?” Don said. “I don’t suppose you’ll come to my house for supper?”
“I’d like to, but I kind of promised Mom I’d come back after seeing Ricky.”
“Of course. I’ll drop you off there.”
Death’s tongue clicked. “Did you just lie to your lawyer?”
Ignoring Death, Casey convinced Don to drive to his office, where she grabbed her duffel bag, which she had left there that morning, told him she’d be in touch the next day, and walked toward her mother’s. Once out of sight, she stopped at the next intersection. Death kept going across the street, listening to an iPod, walking in rhythm, until realizing that Casey was gone.
Death yanked out the earbuds and walked back to her, being run through twice by passing cars whose drivers suddenly reached for their heater controls. “What?”
“I have to.”
“Have to what? Oh. That’s the way to your house, isn’t it? Think your mother will mind?”
“I didn’t actually say I’d be back today, as you know. Just that I’d see her again before I left town.”
“Then let’s go.”
Casey hesitated.
“Do we have to go over this again, Casey? No ghosts. No demons. No lingering spirits. It’s just an empty house.”
“But that’s the thing. It’s not. It’s full of all kinds of things.”
“I know. Furniture. Mementos. Stuff. But Casey, those material things don’t really mean anything, do they? The important things are up here.” Death touched her temple, and the coolness actually felt good, for once. “Your memories don’t need tangible symbols. All they need is for your brain to function, and once that stops working, well, you’ll be with Reuben and Omar in person. Or, not in person, exactly.” Death swooped toward her and peered deep into her eyes. “Right?”
Casey averted her face and looked down the street, imagining she could see her rooftop through the trees and the other houses. Wood, metal, concrete, fabric. That’s all a house was made of. Perhaps it would even be comforting to be within its walls. “All right. Let’s go.”
She soon began to see houses that looked familiar. Some of them had memories attached, as well. The house where she learned her first swear word—definitely not from her mother; the yard where she avenged a slight to Ricky by tying the offending boy to a post and telling him she was sending the neighborhood’s stray dog over—which of course she didn’t, and even if she had it wouldn’t have mattered because the dog was a big, slobbery sweetie; the playground where she’d gone with Omar, and had swung him
in the baby swing, surrounded by other moms and their babies. Babies who would now be toddlers, walking around, talking in broken sentences and giving their parents hugs throughout the day.
“Oh.” She’d forgotten that Ricky’s house sat on that road, only blocks from her own place, making a sort of triangle from their childhood home. He had bought it a few weeks before Casey’s accident, so she never got used to visiting. Its existence had slipped her mind entirely. She stood on the sidewalk, looking it over. No one had been there for quite some time, it seemed. The week he’d been in jail had shown its colors.
She swung up the front walk and checked the door. Don had been wrong. It wasn’t being held as a crime scene anymore. But it was locked. The police would have bolted it behind them when they were done investigating. She walked into the garage and checked for the kind of place she and Ricky had always hidden their key when they were kids. She found it in the third possibility, under a tub of ice cream in the deep freeze.
“I don’t know why you humans even bother to lock your doors,” Death muttered.
Casey used the key and stepped into the front foyer. There was no doubt the police had been there. Black fingerprint dust coated the surfaces, drawers had been emptied and not refilled, and the coat closet door was open, with empty hangers cluttering the rail.
She walked through to the kitchen. There again was the search disaster, with the fingerprint dust, all sorts of little household items piled on the counters and table, and photographs stuck back onto the refrigerator in a jumbled mess. Pots and pans lay scattered on the floor, and there was a conspicuous spot on the wall where Ricky had obviously hung a calendar. The nail was still there, along with a few sticky notes of dates and times, and a mug of pens sat close by on the counter.
Casey opened what looked like a pantry and found the cleaning supplies. Ricky had taken care of her place for almost two years while she’d been on the road. It was her turn, now.
“Music while you work?” Death said, and propped an iPad on an iHome with the playlist on shuffle.
Casey listened to the very eclectic mix of blues, hip-hop, rock, and opera while sweeping, scrubbing, refilling drawers, and organizing photos. She spent almost an hour in the kitchen before moving on to the rest of the first floor, and finally upstairs. Those rooms were just as bad, except for what looked like the guest room. There had only been minimal tossing and dusting there. Probably because there wasn’t much furniture in the first place. She had finished that bedroom and moved on to Ricky’s and the master bath when she sat heavily on the stripped bed. Even the mattress pad was gone.
Dying Echo: A Grim Reaper Mystery (Grim Reaper Series) Page 6
