The Remains Of The Dead Part 20

Sadie looked up hopefully.

"You found him? That's great! Was he holed up at a friend's house somewhere? Did you test his hands for gunshot residue? That guy's as guilty as sin. I'll bet he'll even confess if you lean on him. h.e.l.l, I certainly won't complain if you want to bring him in and rough him up-"

"We didn't talk to him because he was up the mountain at the time." Detective Petrovich shouted above her ramblings. "His friend was in the condo, and he verified that Kent is with him and they're skiing! I'm sure once we dig, there'll be a dozen people who'll vouch for seeing him there. We both know that there's no way he could get from Tahoe in time to shoot Sylvia Toth."

"d.a.m.n! Double d.a.m.n!" Sadie muttered. "You're sure?"

"We'll check, like I said, but we have no reason to believe his friend would lie. The guy seemed genuinely surprised to hear why we were calling, and he was ready to vouch for his friend in a heartbeat. Kent Lasko has never had so much as a parking ticket."

Petrovich drummed his fingers on the table and watched her intently.

"You know, there's another possibility you should think about." He paused and Sadie looked at him expectantly. "It's possible the shooter wasn't gunning for Mrs. Toth. You already had your tires slashed and were given a warning."

Sadie's eyes grew big for a moment before her body just sank into itself. She felt deflated and suddenly very tired. Her instinct was to shake her head in adamant denial, but she needed to face the truth.

"Somebody thinks I should mind my own business in the Toth case," Sadie said. "And I guess there's a chance that somebody isn't Kent Lasko."

"The graveyards are full of people who were murdered for sticking their noses where they shouldn't have, Sadie. Please tell me you're walking away from this thing and you'll leave me to find the shooter."

"I'm done." She blinked back tears. "And on that positive note, I think I'll go," she said and got to her feet. "I got a window to fix. You know how to reach me, if you find out anything."

"And you know that you're expected to stay in town until this matter is cleared up."

With a harrumph and as much dignity as she could muster, Sadie stormed out and took off for home. When she got there the gla.s.s company was replacing the window. Still, the broken bits of gla.s.s and the blood had to be cleaned. Sadie eyes blurred with tears as she swept up the remnants of her window and wiped up Sylvia Toth's blood. Then she buried herself in the rest of her housework and paperwork for the remainder of the day and well into the evening, not wanting to pause for even a moment to think.

It was dark when she finally sat down. Icy rain pinged off her windows, and she started up the gas fireplace in the living room. Every time the wind gusted or the house creaked, her stomach clenched in fear.

Hairy was no help whatsoever in offering comfort to his stressed owner. Instead, the bunny hunkered down with a faded stuffed toy bunny (Mini-Hairy) in his basket and couldn't be bribed or coaxed into her lap-not even with the promise of the yogurt rabbit treats that were his favorites.

"You should know that I'm seriously considering trading you in for a Doberman pinscher," Sadie grumbled, but Hairy only twitched his nose without fear.

Sadie was tempted to go out somewhere, anywhere, just so she wouldn't have to stay in her home feeling like a sitting duck. But she was afraid to open her d.a.m.n front door. Her b.u.t.t felt frozen to her couch. She was so spooked that even Pam's intrusive nature would've been welcome, but her friend wasn't around to offer her usual plat.i.tudes. This was the first time Sadie had felt inclined to agree with her mother-maybe she needed to find a man.

Even TV couldn't distract her. Her gaze kept drifting occasionally over to the door frame, where a substantial hole announced where they'd dug out the bullet. Every time she glanced in that direction she felt sick.

Finally she couldn't stand it any longer and she called Zack.

"I hate to bother you," she began, "but I didn't get a chance to check on the ionizer at the Yenkow house today."

"Been there, done that."

"Oh." Of course he had. "Thanks."

"No problem."

When she was quiet he sounded worried.

"Sadie?" he asked. "Are you there?"

"Yeah." The wind howled, her old house creaked, and the bullet hole seemed to mock her like a bad horror flick. "Don't suppose, if you're not busy, you'd be willing to come over?"

"Now? Tonight?" he asked, surprised.

"Yes."

"I'll be there in ten minutes."

It was closer to twenty before he showed up. When there was a pounding at the door, Sadie cursed and hated that she felt skittish about answering. She would've checked the peephole, but she didn't have one. She desperately wanted to turn the fear in her belly into anger, which was too bad for Zack.

"So what's up? What the h.e.l.l happened?" he asked before he even slipped his arms out of his jacket.

"For once, Zack, could you not be such a man?" she snapped.

His eyebrows rose in amus.e.m.e.nt.

"You'd rather I be a woman? Because I don't think I'm that much in touch with my inner drag queen."

"How about you come in and make small talk and polite conversation?" Sadie realized she was shouting, so she took a calming breath, then added in a small voice, "Can I get you a beer?"

He nodded. "Sure."

She brought them each a can and they took a seat, she on the sofa and he on a chair. His look was deceptively casual. Only the tightening of his jaw and the deepening lines around his eyes hinted that he was either worried or p.i.s.sed.

They chatted amiably about the weather that was howling outside her door and about various jobs in the past. Finally there was a pause, and Zack slammed his empty beer can down on the coffee table and faced Sadie.

"Dammit, Sadie. When are you going to tell me why there's a bullet hole in your doorjamb?"

"I was getting to that," Sadie sighed. She downed the rest of her beer, then spilled out everything, from her meeting with Maeva last night to her statement at the station a few hours earlier.

When she'd finished, Zack's legs were eating up her floor like a caged animal. He muttered a lot to himself, and his hands were balled into fists. So far he wasn't exactly being the picture of comfort that Sadie had hoped.

"I've let this slide long enough," he stated flatly when he finally stopped pacing. "Hand me your phone. I'm calling in some favors."

She shook her head vehemently.

"No. Absolutely not." She was on her feet just inches away from him. "I can't let you get involved in this, Zack. This is my problem."

"Now I need you to stop acting like a woman," he snarled. "You can't dump this c.r.a.p on me and expect that I won't do a d.a.m.n thing to try and fix it."

"I only told you because we work together and this involves a client." At his skeptical look she continued, "And because you're a friend."

"A friend. Right," he said, tight-lipped. "That's just great."

He dragged his fingers and mussed his hair further, then moved closer and put his hands on her shoulders. The warmth of his touch gave Sadie a feeling of uneasiness.

"I remember when you first told me about your..."-he searched for the words and dropped his hands to his sides-"your conversations with people who aren't there."

"You caught me chatting with that young mom in Renton." She chuckled at the memory. "You thought I was crazy. You probably still do."

"To tell you the truth, I don't know what to think about all that." He was pacing again, his hands flying in the air with emotion. "The only thing I do know for sure, Sadie Novak, is that you aren't a liar. Not by a long shot. I've seen you go above and beyond the call of duty to help hurting families. When we were cleaning that old house in Bellevue, you knew the family was hard up for cash and you slipped a couple hundred bucks of your own into a drawer where you knew they'd find it."

"You weren't supposed to see that."

"You also took a chance on an ex-cop when n.o.body else would. So if you say that you get feelings and see things that I don't, then I'm willing to step up and say that's just f.u.c.king A-okay with me." He shook his head slowly from side to side. "But this isn't about you telling dead people to walk toward the light because they got lost along the way, and this isn't about some deaf woman who got her throat slit. This is about you being a target."

"I never said that."

"You didn't have to. You'll have to fire me to stop me from making an effort to look into this, and even then I couldn't make any guarantees."

She nodded slowly.

"Okay."

She knew then that if she was honest she would admit that this was exactly why she'd asked him to come over in the first place. Deep down she knew Zack wouldn't be able to just stand aside if someone took a shot at her. She got him the phone and listened while he made small talk with some guys in the police department whom he used to work with. He mingled greetings with inquiries as smooth and casual as could be.

While she listened, she forced Hairy onto her lap and stroked the length of his silky fur, bribing him with a fistful of yogurt yummies to hold him still.

"I'll take another beer now," Zack said when he was done.

Placing the phone on the coffee table, he settled back into the chair, deep in thought.

She nudged Hairy to the floor and got them each another can.

"So?" she asked as she popped the tab.

"Not a whole lot," he said. "Nothing sets off any alarms in this case. Grant went jogging, probably to cool off after arguing with his wife. When he came home he was still p.i.s.sed, so he went upstairs and slit his wife's throat. Afterward he panicked at first, stuffed his b.l.o.o.d.y clothes in the hamper, and had a shower. He either realized he'd never get away with it or else he was filled with remorse, because he went down to the living room and ate his gun."

"Just like that? A guy goes for a jog and then nearly decapitates his wife but takes off his b.l.o.o.d.y clothes and has a shower before blowing his brains out? Does that sound right to you?"

"Sure." He took a long pull on his beer. "Many times if a guy kills his wife in a spur-of-the-moment crime of pa.s.sion, afterward he'll take a while to compose himself. Sometimes he'll even start to clean up the scene."

"You saw Trudy's scene. n.o.body tried to clean that up before we got there."

"Right, but let's say he's freaked out after killing her. He takes a shower to figure out what to do and the clothes go in the hamper out of habit. Then he realizes there's just no way to cover it up, so he doesn't try to clean up. He's overcome with guilt and can't take it. He goes downstairs and puts the gun to his head."

"And the weapons were found in the house?"

Zack nodded. "They found the knife back in a butcher block on the kitchen counter. He'd washed it, but not good enough."

"And prints?"

"If there were any, he washed them off the knife, but, yup, prints on the gun were his."

She shook her head slowly from side to side. "I don't know...it still feels wrong to me. If this was a murder-suicide and I'm to buy what you're saying, why would Trudy insist it wasn't Grant and why would Grant put in so much effort to deny it?"

Zack shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "I can't speak on behalf of ghosts. It flies in the face of all the training I've ever had. If I had to give you an answer based on what you've told me, I'd say Trudy was either in denial or feeling guilty because of the affair. Most likely, Grant found out she was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his best friend. As for that whole spooky scene with the cold room and the books being thrown, well, maybe Grant's message is that you should b.u.t.t out and get lost. Not every person likes someone poking around in their private business. Could be that ghosts feel the same way about that kind of stuff."

A weary smile broke her lips.

"Are you actually talking about ghosts with me and sounding rational?"

"Yeah. Guess it's official." He chuckled. "You've caught me in your vortex of weirdness."

It was nearly eleven, so when her cell phone rang, Sadie frowned and was going to let the call go to voice mail, but Zack picked the phone up from the table and handed it to her.

The call was short but not sweet. She made notes as she talked.

"We've got a job to take on at a convenience store in Chinatown," she said to Zack when she was finished. "A sawed-off-shotgun job. It's bound to be real messy."

He nodded. "I heard about that one." And his mouth quirked at the corners like he was containing laughter.

"What?"

"Nothing. It was sad, really. And brutal." But he kept on smiling. "The owner was chased around his store and finally shot by some crackhead."

"You look like you're all broken up about it," Sadie said dryly.

"Who called it in?" Zack asked, clearing his throat and wiping away his grin.

"The son. It's a family business and they need the place cleaned as soon as possible. The store's their only income. We'll need to get in there tomorrow and see if we can finish up in a day."

"That's quick." He quirked an eyebrow. "Are the vultures circling?"

It sure wasn't unusual for family members to be more concerned about what the deceased left behind than about the person who had pa.s.sed. That was an even uglier side to her business than the gore they cleaned.

"Mom-and-pop business, and it just sounds like they're hard up for the cash the store brings in. They've already called the claim in to their insurance company, and the son is going to fax the paperwork over tonight."

"Mighty efficient of him." Zack finished off the rest of his beer. "I haven't worked a store location with you before. Should be interesting."

"Watch, they'll want us to try and salvage all the shelved goods."

"That'll be fun."

Sadie noticed the smirk playing on his lips again.

"There's something you're not telling me."

"Oh, you'll find out soon enough." Zack got to his feet, yawned, and stretched. "Fetch me a blanket and a pillow. I'm crashing on your couch tonight."

When she frowned, he pointed a finger in the direction of the busted door frame.

"Someone shot up your house today in broad daylight. Do you really want to be home alone tonight with only your rabbit for protection?"

When Sadie woke up to the smell of freshly brewed coffee, she briefly thought that it would be nice to have a man around again, or a roommate. It was amazing how easily she could be lulled into a false sense of comfort just by the promise of instant caffeine.

"We need to get moving," Zack barked at her when she walked into the kitchen. All her romantic notions were pretty much washed away immediately.

"It's just after seven." Sadie yawned as she poured coffee into her I Seattle mug. "We're not meeting Bart Woo until nine. Why the rush?"