Dying Echo: A Grim Reaper Mystery (Grim Reaper Series) Read online

  Don got out of his car and swept his eyes over the back of the building. “Casey?”

  “I’m here.” She stepped out of the darkness and waited for him to spot her.

  When he did, he held still for a few moments. “It’s good to see you.”

  “Don—”

  He moved toward the door. “Come on.”

  She followed him inside, waiting while he reset the alarm and locks behind them. Then he turned to her, his eyes traveling from her hair to her feet. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. What’s happened to Ricky?”

  “I can make coffee. And we have some cake in the break room.”

  “I don’t want cake!”

  He inhaled, filling his cheeks with air, then gestured her toward the interior of the office, which was lit only by the security lamp on the ceiling. She walked behind him, thinking how very same the office was toward when she was last there. She’d spent a lot of time in those rooms, dealing with the law, with Pegasus—the car manufacturer who had basically killed her family—and with her own personal hell.

  The place was pretty much like any independent lawyer’s office. Neutral colors in the waiting room, a reception desk, a small conference room, Don’s office space. The only difference from a normal visit, of which she’d had too many, was that they were there at night this time. His secretary was long gone, and the computers had been shut down. There was no comforting hum of the copier, no phones ringing, no fingers tapping on keyboards.

  Don settled behind his desk and opened a fat file, with some photos face down.

  Casey eyed the folder, her skin crawling. Face-down pictures weren’t a good sign. “What are those?”

  “As you probably realize from my phone call, Ricky got involved in something bad, Casey. A murder. It happened last Thursday night. I know I talked to you Friday, but Ricky hadn’t gotten involved yet, and by the time I knew, I didn’t know where to find you. ”

  “Tell me now. Or show me.”

  “It’s not pretty. I don’t think you should look at the pictures.”

  Casey held out her hand. “I’m not a little girl.”

  “I never said you were. I just…she didn’t go easily.” Don turned the top photo right-side up and held it just out of her reach.

  Death sucked in a breath, peering over Don’s shoulder. “I can vouch for that. Her killers didn’t hold back. And don’t yell at me for not telling you before. I didn’t know who we were dealing with until I saw the picture just now.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Her name was Alicia McManus,” Don said. “Don’t know her middle name. Cops got what we know from the landlord.”

  Death leaned further over Don’s shoulder, and Don shuddered.

  “That’s not right,” Death said. “Her name wasn’t Alicia. It was Elizabeth. Elizabeth Paige Mann.”

  Casey swiveled the file toward her. Don gave only token resistance before letting her have it. She scanned the top paper. “You sure about her name?”

  “Dead sure,” Death said.

  “It’s the name everyone gave the police. Her landlord, her coworkers.” Don cleared his throat and played with his pencil. “Ricky.”

  Casey turned over one of the photos, since Don was still holding on to his. It showed a woman lying on a carpet. Her face was beaten, so much so that Casey couldn’t tell tell if she was young or old, pretty or plain, dark or light. Her body lay on its side, her neck at an impossible angle, her clothes barely covering her.

  “She was dead when the police arrived,” Don said. “It was lucky they even found her when they did. She could have lain there for days.”

  Casey glanced at Death, who shrugged. In and out at the death scene to take the woman’s soul, and that was all the information Death had gotten from the earthly authorities. Everything else had to come from a woman newly dead, who wasn’t exactly at peace with how she’d gone.

  “Any clue who did this to her?”

  Don shifted in his seat.

  “Other than Ricky.”

  Death squinted onto the dark street between the blind and the window trim. “Don’t know any names. But she called them the Three.”

  “There were three of them?”

  Don blinked. “Three of who?”

  Casey sat there, mouth open, unsure what to say. So she flipped over another photo, this one showing some burn marks on the woman’s stomach, probably from a cigarette, or maybe a lighter, or a match, if the shape of the wound meant anything. Nasty. “So how did they find her?”

  Don leaned his elbows on his desk and rubbed his forehead. “She didn’t go in to work on Friday morning, and her manager called her. When he didn’t get an answer, he got in touch with her landlord.”

  “Why? Did her landlord keep tabs on her?”

  “No, not really. It was just…she didn’t have many friends. Sort of kept to herself. They didn’t know who else to call.”

  “No emergency contact in her employee file?”

  Don looked out at her under his brows. “Let’s say her employer doesn’t keep the best records.”

  Not all that unusual. “So the landlord went looking for her?”

  “He said he was worried. That maybe she was sick. It was unlike her to miss work, and I guess he felt sort of fatherly toward her.”

  Casey snorted. “Which means she was pretty?”

  “No. I mean, sure, I guess she was, from what people say, and from seeing photos from before, but that’s not what his deal is. He seems like a decent guy.”

  “Don’t they all?”

  “I do have some sense of people, Casey.”

  “I know, I know.” She waved. “Go on.”

  “So he went looking. Her door was locked and there was no response to his knock, so he let himself in and…found her.”

  “I assume he did the normal thing and called the cops?”

  “After running to the bathroom to throw up.”

  She nodded, understanding. “Anything unusual about the scene?”

  “Other than a woman who’d been beaten and tortured to death?”

  She looked up from the third photo, which showed a close up of ligature marks on the woman’s neck. “Was this what actually killed her? She was strangled?”

  “I believe so,” Death said.

  Don nodded. “Medical Examiner says it was the fatal injury, but, as you can see, it was only one of many things that was done to her.”

  “Other torture?”

  “You can’t even see her back in those photos. Or her feet.”

  “Raped?”

  Don’s lips pinched together, which she took as a yes.

  “So could they find DNA from her killer?”

  He shook his head. “No. they just found residue from condoms—the same kind as on the ones in her trash.”

  Casey digested this bad news as she turned over several more grotesque crime scene shots until all that remained was a photo of two people, smiling, sitting behind a table, their heads close together. They were at a restaurant, where a waitress or someone at a close table had been called over to take the picture. The remains of a meal could be seen on the mostly empty plates in front of them.

  “That’s her, I take it?” She tilted the photo toward Don.

  “It is.”

  She looked pleasant enough. And pretty. She was smiling, but Casey recognized something in her eyes—a haunted shadow, telling a deeper story of the woman’s life. Casey was surprised to see that Alicia looked older than Ricky by several years. But again, maybe that was her experience showing through. Some past hurt or brokenness that colored her, even when she thought she could be happy.

  The other person in the photo needed no explanation, except for what he was doing there. He looked happy. Relaxed. Familiar. And yet a stranger.

  Casey sat back. “So. Tell me what my little brother has got to do with all this.”

  Chapter Three

  Don took the photograph from Casey’s hand and looked at it for a l
ong moment before setting it on top of the pile. He scooted all of the pictures together and rapped them gently on the desktop to even them out. Finally, he pulled the folder across the desk, laid the photos on top of the papers, and closed it. “She was his girlfriend. They’d been dating a few months.”

  “That hardly makes her his girlfriend.”

  Death laughed. “So what does it make her? A friend with benefits?”

  “Casey.” Don’s voice was gentle. “They were an item. He really liked her.”

  She closed her eyes and let the idea sink in. “Okay. So they were going out. The cops can’t possibly think he did this to her.”

  Don stayed quiet for so long Casey had to open her eyes to see what was happening. He looked gray in the office light, and the bags under his eyes seemed to have darkened in the past minute.

  “No,” Casey said. “No way would Ricky do this.”

  “I know that. And you know that. But the cops have leads, and evidence, and…” He shrugged. “They think they have their man. They’re not checking out anyone else.”

  Casey looked at Death, who now hovered behind Don, eyes on Don’s cell phone, which lay alongside his briefcase on the edge of the desk. “What exactly did she say?”

  “She didn’t say anything, Casey,” Don said. “She was dead.”

  The phone in Death’s hand changed to imitate Don’s. Death poked at it uncertainly. “She said nothing about Ricky. Except to tell him good-bye. Everything else was about the Three.”

  “The Three…”

  Don’s brow furrowed. “What is this with the number three? Are you talking about the evidence? The three main things they’re banking on? But how did you even know about those?”

  “I didn’t. I…What’s the evidence?”

  “First, the final number called from her phone. According to the phone company, who had to check her records since her phone is missing, the last number dialed was Ricky’s, at about nine o’clock. The call lasted almost thirty seconds. Enough time for a brief conversation.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. Anybody could have dialed that number using her phone. And if she was his girlfriend it shouldn’t have been unusual for them to talk on the phone.”

  “Second, there were…” He cleared his throat. “Used condoms in the trash. They’re guessing Ricky’s DNA. They’ll know for sure soon.”

  “Again, meaningless. You said she was his girlfriend, right?”

  “Third.” His eyes met hers. “Ricky was seen leaving her apartment Thursday night around eleven. The landlord was going to bed. He noticed movement on the street and saw Ricky’s car. Ricky got in it and drove away.”

  “And the landlord felt the need to call the cops?”

  “Only after he found Alicia’s body the next day. In fact, he didn’t remember about seeing Ricky at all until several hours later, long after he found her. He was in shock, I think, from seeing her that way.”

  “So he offered up my brother as a sacrifice?”

  “He was doing his duty, Casey.”

  She shook her head, knowing he was right, but still angry. “He didn’t see anyone else after Ricky that night? Nobody else came to her apartment?”

  “Like I said, the guy was going to bed. Ricky being at Alicia’s apartment wasn’t exactly unusual. The landlord didn’t think anything of it. He turned out the lights and went to sleep.”

  And let the real bad guys arrive unseen. “Great.” Her mind spun. “Okay, those three pieces of evidence are all circumstantial. Phone calls, DNA they haven’t matched, visiting his girlfriend’s place. I suppose they raided Ricky’s house, too?”

  “They searched it, yes, the next night. With a warrant.”

  “And found…?”

  He lifted his hands. “Nothing I’ve heard about. Well, except normal boyfriend kinds of things. This picture—” he tapped the folder, indicating the photo of the two of them at the restaurant “—notes in Alicia’s handwriting, a take-out menu from the restaurant where she worked. Clothes, make-up, that sort of thing, you know, that she probably left at his place over the past few months.”

  “Everything that would show she actually was his girlfriend.”

  “And nothing to show he didn’t kill her.”

  “But nothing to show he did.” She stood up and paced in the small area in front of the desk. “Did they actually interview him after they found her, or only after the landlord called?”

  “They didn’t know to talk to him. Like I said, Alicia’s phone was missing, and she had nothing else of his in her apartment. Not an address book with his information, or any kind of computer, or anything. The only reason the cops knew her name was because of the landlord.”

  “Didn’t Ricky show up at her place, wondering where she was when he couldn’t reach her by phone?”

  “Yes, actually. That’s the first the police talked to him. He went to her apartment on Friday, the night after she died. The landlord had remembered seeing him the night before, and the cops were getting ready to pay him a visit. They questioned him quite extensively right there at her place.”

  “Were you there?”

  “Not that time. He wasn’t a suspect yet—at least not officially.”

  “And he told them stuff?”

  “Of course he did. After all, they hit him with the news, right there where she died, and he was devastated. He wanted to help.”

  “And incriminated himself.”

  Don held up his hands, and dropped them. “He didn’t put up an argument about the night before. He confirmed he’d been there, and that he’d left her—alive—close to eleven. They arrested him the next morning, once they’d gotten her phone number so they could retrieve a list of calls.”

  “So what can I do? I have to help him.”

  “You can’t help yet.”

  “Of course I can. It’s why I came. Why you told me to come.”

  “Casey, the cops have other priorities where you’re concerned. You know you’re wanted for questioning about what happened in Ohio three weeks ago. If they see you, that’s all they’re going to care about, and you and Ricky will be headlined as homicidal siblings.”

  Casey didn’t want to think about Ohio, about how she’d killed a man. About how she was on the run. Especially now that Ricky needed her.

  “But you said Eric vouched for me. He told them it was self-defense.” This would be Eric VanDiepenbos, a sweet, good-hearted, handsome young man who had befriended Casey three weeks earlier and then watched in horror as she’d killed the Louisville thug. She hadn’t meant for him to see it. She hadn’t meant for it to happen. “Besides, the cops know the guy was a mobster.

  “You know it was self-defense,” Don said. “And Eric knows that. But until the cops hear it directly from you, they’re obligated to hunt you down. You can’t just waltz into the police station—or the jail to visit Ricky—until your own issues are cleared up.”

  “Then let’s go. Right now.”

  “We can’t. The people we need are all asleep. And you’re not going to get on their good side by pulling them out of bed on a Sunday night for something that could just as easily be done in the morning.”

  She glanced at Death, who was typing frantically on the smart phone. Death nodded, and said without looking up, “He’s right. Everything’s closed, and folks are finishing up the weekend. It’s best to put it on the back burner till morning.”

  “Okay,” Casey said, throwing up her hands. “Fine. You win.”

  “It’s not a competition.” Don put Alicia’s folder in his briefcase and stood up. “You have somewhere to spend the night?”

  “Ricky’s is off-limits, I guess?”

  “Still sealed off. How about your house? Or maybe,” he added quickly, “your mother’s?”

  “She doesn’t even know I’m in town.”

  “Right.” He heaved a heavy sigh. “So I guess that means you’ll be coming home with me.”

  “I can’t. The cops will look there.”
>
  “They don’t know you’re in town, either.”

  “But don’t they suspect I’ll be coming around, with Ricky in trouble?”

  “I don’t know what they suspect. They’re cops. They suspect everything.”

  “So here’s what we’ll do. I’ll find a place to sleep—”

  “Come home with me.”

  “—and I’ll meet you here in the morning, at…what time does your office open?”

  “Eight.”

  “Seven-thirty. And then we’ll do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “We’ll go to the police station, and I’ll turn myself in.”

  Chapter Four

  Casey found a cheap motel on the edge of town, far from her old haunts, far from anything familiar, and in the morning she showed up at Don’s office, showered and wearing her last set of clean clothes, which, unfortunately, was a pale blue warm-up suit with white tennis shoes. Not exactly what one would choose to wear to confront the cops, but at least it was comfy, and she could move freely, should she need to.

  Don was already at his office, and the front door was unlocked. He met her in the reception area, briefcase in hand, wearing a dark suit. At least one of them would look professional.

  Death sat in Don’s waiting room, nose in a book, or, more accurately, in one of those new electronic tablets you can use to download things to read. Instead of a suit fit for court, Death wore footie pajamas with dancing bears on them.

  “You ready?” Don said.

  Casey stared at Death. “Seriously?”

  Death blinked up at her. “What?”

  “Um, yes,” Don said. “Look, I understand you’re nervous. But I believe it will be all right. Really.” He opened the door. “Shall we go?”

  Only after they were in Don’s car with the doors shut did Death appear in the backseat, wearing a slightly more appropriate tan leisure suit and waggling the little computer beside Casey’s head. “This is amazing. Have you seen these things? It’s like a whole book in this skinny little pad.”

  Casey looked out her window.

  “Or, actually, it’s like hundreds of books. I’m never sure how to choose which one to read. This morning it’s that one about the girl, what’s her name, Scout? Her dad’s a lawyer, and there’s this guy they all think is guilty, and a weird neighbor who never comes outside and—”