Revised Bury the Lead Ebook Formatting Embedded Cover

by Bury the Lead (retail) (epub)

  * * *

  By the time I looked up again, the place was emptying out. Lorna was across the room, wiping down tables. At this rate, I was going to be up all night. Too bad I wasn’t a drug user. I had the feeling this project would be much easier to complete with the assistance of some cocaine or even some meth. I’ve just never been tempted by the downside of those substances. The downside of alcohol, on the other hand, is its own reward for self-loathing bastards like me.

  I threw down a $20 and nodded to Lorna as I exited.

  “Be safe out there, Jeff,” she called after me.

  Safety was exactly what I was trying to escape.

  Lindsay Lohan Models Burkhini

  I’d read somewhere that alcohol and energy drinks together mimics the effects of cocaine on the brain, so I gave it a try in hopes of maintaining functionality through the night without having to embrace sobriety. I wouldn’t say it was a huge success, but here I was walking upright through the door of the newspaper office after having satisfactorily completed my writing project of the night before.

  On the other hand, death seemed a reasonable alternative just now to facing down my computer screen.

  Especially when Dayla’s voice pierced my skull like a spear with its shrill good-morning greeting.

  I did my best not to kill my poor assistant with my eyes as I staggered to the coffee pot and sloshed some black swill into my mug. I didn’t actually think it would help. Still, I needed to put on the appearance of trying. Maybe eventually my brain would catch up with the antics of my body. Hopefully sometime before lunch, but I wasn’t optimistic.

  I tried to imagine a steel rod running down my backbone to keep me upright in my chair as I lowered myself carefully into position. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dayla pulling herself up and braced myself for human interaction.

  She clucked sympathetically and slid four aspirin across my desk toward me. Beautiful, blessed Dayla. I could almost forgive her for having a voice. Almost.

  “You poor thing,” she said. I concentrated on swallowing the aspirin. “This has just been an awful time for you. One thing after another. But don’t you worry. We’ll get through this just fine. Everybody trusts somebody they oughtn’t sometime. It’s part of the human condition.”

  Gradually it was borne in on me that she was talking about the Sunday paper and the cadaver story. I have to say this, incontrovertibly: everybody should have a grandma who believes in them. If you are lucky enough to have one, don’t take her for granted. And if you ever have the opportunity to hijack one, like I did, take it. They really are priceless creatures. Blind as bats, but … priceless.

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  “You’re very wise, Dayla,” I managed to force the words out in something resembling American English. “I knew I hired you for a good reason.”

  She chuckled in a self-deprecating manner. “It’s simple, Jeff … I know you. You’ve worked your hiney off for this paper, as pitiful as it may be. You wouldn’t throw all that away for no reason. If you printed that story, you believed it. So you were wrong. We’re all wrong sometimes. It’s not the end of the world. And hey,”―here was the woman I hired―“our sales are up, aren’t they? You give me my assignments, I’m ready to go. We’re gonna sell ads like crazy this week.”

  I wondered if Dayla’s husband loved her. If he knew her at all, after all this time and all those loads of laundry and those afternoons scrubbing the toilet.

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  “You’re a rock, Dayla. Oh, I left a list of possible advertisers on your desk.”

  “I found it, no worries. Now, can I get you anything besides coffee and aspirin? Maybe a burrito from Lolita’s?”

  Oh. That sounded beyond wonderful. I scrambled for my wallet.

  “Actually, that sounds amazing. Green chili? Beef?”

  Dayla waved away my efforts. “Consider it a return for all the apple fritters you buy me. I’ll be right back. Some grease in your belly will make you feel better.”

  See what I mean? Grandmas are the best.

  All I wanted to do after she left was bury my head in my arms and pretend the rest of the world had poofed into an apocalyptic nightmare, but that was not on my to-do list for the day. With Jack’s desertion, I was going to have to step up my game. I was suddenly impressed with the likely brevity of the hours remaining to me after my antics of the night before. Speeding up events was all good and well, but odds were good that I had accelerated them more than I realized at the time. Still, I reassured myself, I worked best under pressure.

  I’d just put the finishing touches on the Sunday front page when Chief Joe came strolling in. I used to find it frustrating, the way time raced and then stopped and pooled in the newspaper world. Today I reveled in it.

  Chief Joe had the same expression on his face as he’d had when he faced me down on the curb in front of my house just a couple of days ago. I wondered if he’d gone to some special training to adopt that expression for particularly difficult suspects.

  “Good morning, Jeff,” he began. Unthreatening. Hands comfortably at his waist. Of course, that meant all his fun cop toys, like a gun or a taser or a stick, were easily within reach.

  “Morning, Chief.” I raised my hands in mock-surrender. “You’ll have to forgive me skipping the ‘good’ part. I’m suffering from a vicious hangover.”

  He nodded sympathetically, lowered himself into the chair opposite mine in what looked like a conscious effort to minimize the threat he posed. “You know why I’m here?”

  “I hope so. Did Raul Grigori call you?”

  “Yeah. Ada’s dad.”

  “Step-dad,” I corrected automatically. Details are important.

  “Ada’s step-dad. He says she’s missing. Says you called him last night to see if he knew where she might be. Jeff, I got to ask you … is she missing?”

  I shrugged. “Chief, I don’t know. She wasn’t missing. Not at first. She just left. She had things she needed to understand. You know how she was, don’t you? Did you know her? She was an artist. She said she needed to figure some things out. But when I couldn’t reach her, I called Grigori. And he hadn’t heard from her either.”

  “She was an artist.” Chief Joe repeated the words heavily.

  “Yes.”

  “You know it worries us in law enforcement when anyone refers to a missing person in the past tense, don’t you?”

  I tilted my head. Regretted it, as nausea and lights spun in my vision like a disco ball.

  “Look, Chief, I’m the one looking for her, okay? If I hadn’t called Grigori, no one would even know she was missing. If she is missing. I don’t want to intrude on her if she is just figuring shit out on her own in a canyon somewhere. I refer to her in the past tense, because unfucking-fortunately, in my life, she is past tense. That’s what she wanted.”

  Chief Joe nodded slowly, that carefully non-confrontational expression still firmly glued to his face. “I understand that, Jeff. There’s no good way to break up, even temporarily. But you must want us to look into this, right?”

  “Well, yeah. In case, you know? She’s a beautiful young woman. Maybe she only meant to disappear for a minute, but there are bad people out there. Things happen. I’d hate to think that no one was looking for her.”

  Unregarded loneliness. God, those words will haunt me until I’m dead.

  Chief Joe steepled his fingers. “I think I understand that, Jeff. What can you tell me? Her dad says she didn’t have a car. Step-dad.”

  “That’s right. She was going to take a bus. I don’t know where. It would have been rude to ask.”

  He looked at me.

  “You’d have had to be there,” I told him. “She was an artist.”

  He nodded. “Yes,” he agreed.
“She was.”

  I tossed him my keys.

  “Here,” I said. For some reason, it was important to me not to be asked. “Search our place. She lived with me, you know. These last months. Her studio is there. She was going to send for her things, but … I never heard from her. Everything is still there.”

  Chief Joe caught the keys. “Everything?”

  “Well, not everything. She packed a bag that night. But I don’t think she put much in it. Just the essentials.”

  “I have to admit, after your determined stance on protecting your source, I’m surprised you aren’t standing on the Fourth Amendment right now.”

  I leaned across the desk, pulled my scattered pupils together, and directed a sincere gaze at the chief.

  “I loved Ada. With my whole self. Without contradiction. If she needs help, then I am right here. Search everything. All I want is Ada safe. Happy and whole.”

  “‘I loved Ada’,” muttered the chief to himself as he stood up. He extended his hand. Handshakes are one of my few odd talents. Firm and warm and not too long. Sincerity and strength and fearlessness. “All right, Jeff. Thanks for the access. We’ll let you know if we take anything out of the house. If you think of anything she might have said to indicate her direction, anything at all, give me a call.”

  “Will do.”

  Dayla walked in as the chief walked out. She set the sack of burritos on my desk and gave me a firm look.

  “Was that about the dog?”

  I looked confused. “The dog? What? No. Ada’s step-father has filed a missing-person report. I gave the chief my keys so he can search my house.”

  Dayla gasped. “Oh, Jeff. I had no idea. I thought you two were taking a break.”

  I shrugged, trying for nonchalance as I chugged one of the burritos. “Maybe we are. It’s a matter of better safe than sorry. No one has heard from her since she left. We just want to make sure she’s okay.”

  “Oh, Jeff.”

  Without warning, I found myself engulfed in billowy and baby powder-scented breasts and arms. I have to admit, it was oddly comforting. I had to force myself to push her away.

  “Try not to fret, Dayla. It’s probably nothing. A precaution. The world these days …”

  I knew those words alone would be enough to fuel endless suppositions from Dayla.

  “Of course, of course.” Dayla straightened up, pressed her palms down the front of her blouse and skirt. I could actually see her becoming General Eisenhower on the European Theater. “Smart, that’s what it is. A precaution. Ada will be home before you know it. This is what we have to do.”

  I wondered if she knew that all her platitudes didn’t exactly hang together. No matter. The effort was good.

  Dictionary.com: shibboleth: noun, a common saying or belief with little meaning or truth

  Her arms flapped in their loose sleeves. I could see that she wanted to hug me again. I decided I had better ward off that comfort. She’d regret it later.

  “We’d better get to work, Dayla,” I told her. “Work while the sun shines, right?”

  She smiled brightly at me, though I could clearly see the tears standing in her eyes. Tears for what?

  “Absolutely,” she rejoined with vigor.

  My voice caught her just before she reached her desk.

  “What were you saying about a dog, Dayla?”

  “Oh. I almost forgot.” Her face was pale when she turned to face me. “They found another dead dog. Disemboweled again. Two nights ago. I assumed that’s why the chief was here.”

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  When the phone finally rang, it was more relief than surprise. It was Chief Joe, of course.

  “Jeff, it’s Chief Joe,” he said unnecessarily. “I said I’d let you know if we had to take anything out of the house.”

  “Of course,” I said helpfully. “Did you take one of her hairbrushes? For DNA or whatever.”

  “That will probably happen, too. But we found a couple of other things we thought we’d better take in. A journal … yours, it looks like. And the canvases in Ada’s studio.”

  “Her canvases?” I strove for concerned. “Ada will be pretty upset if she shows back up and you have her paintings. Why do you need the canvases?”

  “Jeff, you have to know … it looks like there’s blood on these paintings.”

  “Oh, that.” I blew out the words on a laugh. “There is, actually. Of course there is. I guess you really didn’t know Ada, did you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, that was one of the more distinctive qualities of Ada’s work. She used blood in all her paintings. Her own blood, in fact. So I imagine that every single canvas in that room has her blood somewhere on it.”

  A long silence, and then, incredulous, “She painted with her own blood?”

  “Hey, Chief, did you honestly think a guy like me would end up with a beautiful young artist who wasn’t a little on the weird side? But don’t take my word for it. Ask her friends. She’d been doing this long before she met me.”

  “All righty then. Good to know.” The chief sounded thoroughly discombobulated. “Still, we’ll need to take them. I’m sure Ada will understand if she reappears in the middle of the investigation.”

  “As long as you and not me gets to explain that to her,” I acceded cheerfully.

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  “There’s more to it than that,” the chief went on. “Given the blood, we really need to shut down the scene and have a full forensic run-through here. Even if it takes a little while to get the warrant, you can’t come home.”

  “Oh, Chief, a warrant isn’t necessary. I’ll sign a waiver or whatever. The faster your team runs through the formalities, the faster they can find out what really happened. I’m not interested in slowing the process down any.”

  “Are you sure, Jeff? You know anything lawfully obtained is going to be admissible in court.”

  “I’m not worried about that,” I assured him. “Do what you need to do. I wasn’t worried at first, but the anxiety is beginning to pull at me now. I need to know where Ada is. Know she’s safe.”

  A hotel tonight. That would be all right. Maybe it would be better. Sometimes at night I would wake up to find myself synching my breathing to an exhalation that warmed my chest and then disappeared into the darkness as if it never were. I would roll over, place my hand into the hollow of the blankets still warm from her body, and listen for the creak of the bathroom door and the promise that she was about to slip into bed beside me. But then absence would swallow me, suffocate me, and I knew there was no other breath but mine in that cold place.

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  It turned out to be better than all right.

  I went by the drive-in place that night and got my customary footlong and cheese fries, with a chocolate malt. At least I won’t be giving it away tonight, I thought with grim amusement.

  I carried the paper sack into the hotel room. Our only establishment, the Holiday Inn Express, didn’t question my arrival or the dinner I brought with me. Maybe, I thought as I walked down the garishly-carpeted corridor to my room, I’ll even go down and percolate in the hot tub for a while after I eat.

  Settling into the cool, firm chair standing by the draped window, I flipped on the TV. Why did television always seem better in a hotel than at home? I kicked off my shoes and rested my feet on the bed, laying down a blanket of napkins across my torso before I tore into my hot dog.

  Dammit. No swimsuit. I didn’t think the establishment would smile on broiling in the hot tub sans clothing. My boxer briefs wouldn’t fool anyone. Would they? I mean, guys wear banana hammocks on beaches these days. If that wasn’t public indecency, I didn’t know what was.
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  Well, that settled that. It was hotel TV and bad food for me tonight. And by bad food, I mean very, very good food.

  The movie selection was disconcerting to say the least: Suicide Squad and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. By the time I reached the end of the evening and the bottom of my fries, I’d been horrified, entertained, and horrified again. I figured achieving that emotional range was a good thing. I cranked up the air conditioning and pulled the extra blanket out of the drawer before turning off the light and burying myself in the covers.

  I fully expected to lie awake half the night, listening to the odd rhythms of the hotel reverberate through the thin walls and reviewing my plans for the next few days. If I made it that long. I wasn’t clear on where the threshold lay for evidence when it came to charging someone. My extensive television viewing was no help for me here. Sometimes guys seemed to remain persons of interest for years, and other times they scooped their man up within hours. It would have helped if my criminal justice background included more than Blue Bloods and Lieutenant Joe Kenda, but Brisby hadn’t offered me much in the way of real-life knowledge.

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  But instead, I fell into a deep, drunken sleep almost immediately. Dreams passed before my eyes like delirium. I couldn’t remember any of them when I woke to the jarring screech of the alarm clock, but I could feel Ada so near me that the effort to leave her behind and rise from the bed was gargantuan. I kept the lights off and my eyes squinted against the dawnlight in an effort to stay in that place with her.

  You must know what I mean. That twilight between waking and sleeping, where the things we see and hear are more than dreamt: they are vital, shimmering with possibility, a single, trembling step away from the daylight, the emergence of the imagined into the real. And when reality at last puffs up its chest and drags us into its hour, we are haunted by the certainty that it had so nearly gone the other way―that this soul had so nearly been drawn entirely into the hour of dream instead. A certainty the more terrible for its impossibility. Still, who am I to say which of the hours in which I walk matter and which do not?