Grave Matters

by Max Allan Collins

  The hostess didn’t receive this news warmly, but Shawna paid no heed to the woman’s glare, and led Sara out into the darkening evening.

  The temperature was still over ninety, but at least a breeze had wound its way down out of the mountains. Withdrawing a pack of cigarettes from an apron pocket, the waitress lighted up, then offered the pack toward Sara, who declined.

  “So,” Sara said, “you did know Kathy Dean?”

  They were standing next to Sara’s Tahoe and the waitress leaned against it and drew on her cigarette. She released a wraith of smoke as she answered: “All the kids do…did.”

  “Really?”

  “Everybody knows she’s gone.” She swallowed, and was having to work at maintaining her hardness, now. “Hell, it was on TV.”

  The media had only reported the discovery of the Dean girl’s body in the cemetery; the circumstances of the coffin body-switch remained under wraps.

  “So I could have asked anybody,” Sara said, “and they’d’ve said they knew Kathy?”

  “Yeah. And?”

  “And…why do I think I still picked out the right one to talk to, Abeja?”

  The waitress laughed. “You don’t miss much, do you? Yeah, we were tight, Kathy and me. What can I say? Lots of bitches around these days—maybe you noticed that, too? But, Kathy? She was really sweet.”

  “Maybe you can help me, then,” Sara said. “I’m looking for someone who knew Kathy, a friend.”

  “I told you! We were friends.”

  “I’m looking for a specific friend.” Sara took her photocopy of the note from a pocket and held it out to the young woman. “Did you write this note, with your pink pen, Abeja?”

  The young woman took one last hit off the cigarette, stubbed it out under the toe of her shoe, then took the note from Sara and looked at it. A tear made a glistening trail down the waitress’s cheek, the note trembling in her grasp.

  Hanging her head and crying for real now, Abeja covered her face with a hand and wept.

  Sara gave the girl a tissue.

  Abeja dried her face, smearing her eye makeup, and got control of herself. “I wrote it, okay? I wrote it.”

  “ ‘A’ for ‘Abeja.’ Isn’t that Spanish for bee?”

  “It’s just a stupid nickname. Everybody here calls me Abeja. Owner of the place, Pablo, gave it to me. I do things at my own pace, I mean things get done, but you don’t rush me—so it was a jokey nickname, ‘busy bee’; plus I don’t take no crap, so I can sting you, ya know…when you get on my bad side?”

  “Nicknames common around Habinero’s?”

  “Oh, yeah, everybody’s got ’em. Kathy was Azucar, sugar, you know? Because she was always so damn sweet to everyone….” Abeja broke down again. “Sorry…sorry. I just heard about Kathy on the TV, before I came to work today. Sorry…”

  Sara contributed another tissue, waited for the girl to get herself together, then asked the key question: “Shawna…Abeja…who is ‘FB’?”

  The young woman shook her head and shrugged. “Who?

  “FB.”

  “Got no idea. Don’t mean crap to me, honest.”

  “But you wrote the note….”

  Abeja gestured with two open hands. “I did, but I still don’t know.”

  Sara frowned. “You better start explaining.”

  Lighting another cigarette, the waitress took a deep drag, then sighed smoke. “Kathy’s social life was…uh…complicated.”

  “Complicated in what way?”

  “Well, mostly…. You ever meet her parents?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then maybe you get it. They’re like…way beyond not cool. They’re not mean or anything, they just…I dunno, they’re like parents out of a TV commercial. Commercial from hell.”

  “They struck me as strict,” Sara said with a nod. “Little old-fashioned.”

  “Oh, did they? You are a detective! Man, her parents were mad strict with her. I mean, God, she was nineteen.…They didn’t let her start school till she was six, y’know, she was one sheltered chica. Even at nineteen, they still didn’t want her to have a boyfriend…and they wanted to know where she was every second. They practically stalked her!”

  “Why did she put up with it?”

  “I wouldn’t have! But sometimes, when you’re raised a weird way like that, particularly when you ain’t shook loose of the parental handcuffs, and got your own place and all? Well, you get used to, like, a lifestyle.”

  “What kind of lifestyle?”

  “Well, having to sort of sneak around to have a social life. She…uh…liked guys.”

  “Don’t we all?” Sara said with a grin.

  “Yeah, but you weren’t thirteen, doin’ your history teacher, was you?”

  “Uh…no.”

  “I told her, she needs more respect for herself. She says…you’ll love this…she was two-thirds a virgin till not too long ago.”

  Sara frowned. “What did that mean?”

  “Well, I think it meant, she went down, and she let guys in the back door, but she was saving her virginity for Mr. Right.”

  “…I don’t think she found him.”

  The waitress smirked. “Why, lady—you think he’s out there to be found?”

  “If he is,” Sara said, with a weary little smile, “he doesn’t want to be.”

  “Didn’t stop Kathy from looking. I mean, she was always dating more than one guy at a time. But it wasn’t about sex.”

  “It was about attention.”

  The waitress laughed, once. “Hey, you aren’t dumb, are you?”

  Sara laughed herself. “Not very.”

  “I mean, it ain’t like Kathy was Queen Slut or anything…. It’s just, when you got parent issues like that, when you’re not under their thumb, away from the house? You kinda tend to cut loose. And did Kathy ever cut loose….”

  “Funny. To hear her parents tell it, she spent all her time at her job, the blood bank, and school.”

  “They don’t know shit, do they? She was a good student—and at track? She was amazing. But she only volunteered at the blood bank about, oh…two hours a week? But she had her parents thinking she was there three or four hours, three nights a week.”

  “Did she exaggerate her Habinero’s hours to her folks?”

  The waitress shook her head. “No, she probably would’ve, but she couldn’t, really. Mommy and Daddy, they came in here at least once a week—but always different days. They said they liked the food, but what they were doing was, they were checking up on her. You know, I haven’t seen them once at this place, since she disappeared. So much for the food.”

  “Tell me more about her ‘complicated’ social life, Abeja.”

  “Well…sometimes her friends had to help her set up dates. Her folks really were freaks about her using the phone or meeting guys. She didn’t even bother having a phone in her room—used a cell, but even there they limited her hours. And Kathy told me they monitored her e-mail.”

  “Her friends helped her how?”

  The young woman shrugged. “They would talk to the guys for Kathy, set up times and places, then get the info to Kathy in a sort of code…and she would find a way to meet them.”

  “A lot of guys?”

  “Well, like I said, she would see two or three at the same time. Always some older dude for sure—daddy issues. You know, before she turned eighteen? The list of guys who coulda got in a statutory jam over Kathy…you don’t even wanna think about it.”

  “You know the name of the latest older dude?”

  “No—but she had this new guy she was really having fun with.”

  “Old or young?”

  “I don’t think she ever said.”

  “You know his name?”

  “Just FB—like in the note.”

  Sara frowned in frustration. “Anybody you can think of, guy here at the restaurant maybe, with initials like that?”

  “Wouldn’t matter, ’cause she never used their real names. You d
on’t know the James Bond life she led, ’cause of those sick parents of hers…. Kathy and whatever friend set up the date always had a secret name for whoever the guy was.”

  Sara sighed. “Abeja, I don’t mean to give you a hard time…but I can’t understand how you could come to write a note about a person you don’t even know.”

  The young woman shrugged elaborately, and gestured with the photocopy of the note. “Hey, this was from the day she disappeared! Well, technically, I guess, day before. But I wrote this on Saturday and she wasn’t, like, really missing until Sunday.”

  “Got it,” Sara said. “So what happened Saturday?”

  “Janie…she’s a friend of Kathy’s? And I kind of know her and stuff, well, she came in and was looking for Kathy, only Kathy was just working the lunch rush, ’cause she had a babysitting gig that night. Anyway, Janie came in early, like right after we opened at eleven. She had set up a date for Kathy after babysitting—that’s the 0100 in the note, one A.M.? The reference to ‘your place’ wasn’t Kathy’s house, but where they picked out they were going to meet.”

  “Was that always the same?”

  “No, Kathy liked to move it around, you know, just in case her parents were on to her somehow—they’d never be able to stake out just one place.”

  Sara asked, “But did she have a favorite spot?”

  Abeja nodded. “There was this convenience store out in Pahrump she liked? And I know she met the dudes there, sometimes. She could park her car there, and know it would be safe if they went somewhere in the guy’s car.”

  Sara was nodding. “All right. So this Janie came in Saturday, early. Does she have a last name?”

  “Glover. Janie Glover. Doesn’t work here at Habinero’s, just knew she could find Kathy here.”

  “I see.”

  “Yeah, anyway, Janie stops by and Kathy isn’t here yet. Janie has to go, I don’t remember why, and she just gives me the message and I write it down on my order pad to give to Kathy when she comes in.”

  “Which you did?”

  “Which I did.”

  A tall, well-built Hispanic man strode out into the parking lot, looking around, then spotted Sara and the waitress.

  “Oh, hell,” the young woman said, stubbing out the second cigarette. “That’s Pablo—my boss! He’s probably coming to tear me a new one.” She stuffed the note back into Sara’s hand.

  Pablo—in a white open-neck shirt and black slacks with black sports jacket, to distinguish himself from the waiters—looked displeased. His straight black hair was swept back and he had a full, black mustache; he was maybe forty.

  “Shawna,” he said, noticeably not using the affectionate nickname, “this is an unscheduled break, and Sherry says it’s already longer than any scheduled break! If you and your friend—”

  Sara stepped up and displayed her ID. “Las Vegas Crime Lab. Talking to Shawna about the disappearance of your employee, Kathy Dean.”

  Pablo stopped cold and his surly expression dissolved into a somber one. He crossed himself. “Kathy—such a nice girl. If there’s anything we can do to help….”

  “I’m just curious,” Sara said. “What kind of employee was Kathy?”

  Taking this opportunity to make a different kind of break, Shawna scurried back inside the restaurant.

  Pablo seemed on the verge of tears himself. “The best employee. Smart, hardworking, pleasant…”

  Sara immediately wondered if she might be talking to one of the succession of “older dudes” with whom Kathy had worked out her “daddy issues”….

  “Kathy and that one,” Pablo was saying, pointing toward where Shawna/Abeja had disappeared, “they’re my two best girls. Detective Sidle…?”

  “CSI Sidle. Yes?”

  “Will you find the animal that did this thing?”

  Sara nodded. “We’ll find him. And cage him.”

  “Good,” Pablo said, his voice icy. “So many bad people live long lives. For Azucar to die so young? There’s no justice.”

  “Actually, sometimes there is,” Sara said, and asked the manager if they could talk in his office.

  Brass waited while the young greeter, Jimmy Doyle, knocked at his boss’s closed office door.

  “Yes?” came a voice from within.

  “Mr. Black,” the assistant said, edging the door open, “that detective is here to see you again—”

  Brass pushed past Doyle, saying, “Thanks son,” and then closed the door on the boy’s wide-eyed expression.

  The mortician rose behind the big uncluttered desk. His face was dark red with rage. “Captain Brass—this is outright harassment!”

  Helping himself to a client chair, a mildly smiling Brass crossed a leg and said, “Might be considered harassment…if you’d ever bothered to tell us the truth at any point during this investigation.”

  The mortician leaned his hands on the desk. His angry expression remained, but his shaky voice conveyed fear. “What could I possibly have to lie to you people about?”

  “Apparently…everything.”

  “I have done my level best to cooperate with you, every step of the way. Give me one example where I did otherwise, and—”

  “Well for instance,” Brass said pleasantly, “the two hours it took you to drive Kathy Dean home the night she disappeared?”

  Black slumped back into his chair, the red draining from his face. “What makes you think I lied?”

  “Your wife.”

  Alarm flared in his eyes. “Cassie? What did she tell you?”

  “That you and she got home from the movie just after ten and you immediately left to take Kathy home.”

  Black grunted dismissively. “Cassie wasn’t feeling well that night—she probably got the time wrong. It was more like midnight.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Shrugging, Black said, “What you think doesn’t matter. I’m sure Cassie will tell you herself that she was so sick that she may have been confused about the time, when she first spoke to you.”

  “Must be nice to have such a devoted wife.”

  A touch of smugness came into the mortician’s expression; his voice, too. “Actually it is.”

  Brass beamed at the man. “You think she’ll still be that devoted to you, Mr. Black, when she finds out it was your habit to take your teenage babysitter home the really long way?”

  “What you’re implying is—”

  “What would you say fibers from your Escalade on the knees of Kathy’s jeans imply?”

  The mortician’s face lost its redness; in fact, it became very white.

  Brass continued: “Now of course there may be some innocent way in which that transfer of fibers from your car’s carpet to her knees occured. But we’re looking right now at her clothing from that evening—other evidence may have been transferred. Remember Bill and Monica? We have the girl’s underwear as well. And then there’s a sad piece of evidence—the unborn fetus Kathy Dean was carrying. Three little letters, Mr. Black—DNA.”

  The mortician’s gaze fell to his lap.

  Which made sense to Brass, because that’s where the man’s guilt began.

  Brass said, “DNA evidence will likely show that not only were you having an affair with Kathy, but you got her pregnant…and that gives you a motive, Mr. Black. To go with opportunity.”

  Black looked up, shaking his head, his eyes pleading. “I didn’t do this—you have to believe me.”

  “Actually, I don’t…especially since you’ve done nothing from the start but lie to us.”

  A knock on the door made Black jump; but Brass had been expecting it.

  “Come in,” the detective said.

  Nick entered, crime scene kit in hand.

  “This is Nick Stokes from the crime lab, Mr. Black,” Brass said, gesturing for Nick to join them. “Nick, meet Dustin Black.”

  Eyeing the silver case suspiciously, Black asked Brass, “What’s he doing here?”

  “Nick is going to take a DNA sample from y
ou.”

  The mortician swallowed and straightened in his chair. “What if I refuse to cooperate? What if I say I want to talk to my attorney?”

  Brass shrugged again. “You certainly have that right. I’d suggest there are two ways for you to play this—one, you become indignant, call your lawyer, who will tell you to demand a court order, which we’ll obtain, and then we’ll take the DNA sample anyway, and while you gain yourself a tiny bit of time—for what purpose I can’t imagine—you get on our bad side, and we’ll think you’re avoiding cooperation because you’ve got something to hide.”

  Black swallowed thickly, as if Brass’s words had been a big brackish spoonful of medicine. “This DNA evidence—if it proves this affair you allege, even including a…a baby—that doesn’t mean I killed the poor girl.”

  “It doesn’t, you’re right. And if you really didn’t, if you’d like to demonstrate your innocence, that brings us to your other option: Accept the inevitable and voluntarily submit to the buccal swab.”

  Nick withdrew from his kit the plastic tube that protected the actual swab, and said, “Mr. Black, it won’t hurt at all.”

  His glance going from Brass to Nick, then back to Brass, Black considered these options for only a few seconds before saying, “What do I need to do?”

  Nick smiled, in a not unfriendly manner. “Just open your mouth, sir. You don’t even need to say ‘ah.’ ”

  The CSI took only a second to wipe the swab on the inside of the mortician’s mouth.

  “Thanks,” Nick said to the mortician, his smile so easygoing even Brass couldn’t detect any sarcasm.

  And the CSI was gone.

  Running a trembling hand over his bald head, Black asked, “Does Cassie have to know about this, Captain Brass?”

  “Unless you lie to her,” Brass said, “she’s going to know tonight, most probably.”

  Alarm flared in the eyes again. “Why? Are you going to tell her?”

  “Unless you’re a stupid man, Mr. Black, and I don’t take you for one…you’re going to tell her yourself.”

  “I am?”

  Brass nodded. “When she comes here to pick you up—unless, of course, you want to ride a hearse home.”