Mary Jane's Grave (4 page)

When I walked into my office, Naomi was waiting for me.

“Take a deep breath, CeeCee. We’ve been totally bombarded with calls since this article came out this morning.” She was holding the paper out to me. “Every quack in the entire county has been calling about
their
experiences at the grave, thinking it’ll help the investigation.”

“Fantastic,” I muttered, throwing my bag on my desk and sitting down. Just as I had predicted—damn, I hated being right.

“We’ve had two psychics call and say that Mary Jane contacted them this morning and told them who the killer was.”

“Great, that’ll save us a lot of work. Did you keep their numbers?” I asked, only half kidding, picking up my phone to check my messages.

She stood there patiently while I listened to my messages. There were twenty- three of them. Twenty were from the people Naomi was talking about, and I started to delete them, then changed my mind. They might be entertaining sometime if I was bored.

The other three were important. One was from Michael, another from the crime lab letting me know the preliminary test results were back, and the third was from Kyle Latham. He said he wanted to talk to me again. There was something he hadn’t told me the first time.

“Gotcha now, you little bastards,” I muttered while saving Kyle’s message.

“Come again?” Naomi asked, perplexed.

“Kyle Latham just left me a message. He wants to talk again and said he didn’t tell me everything. I just know those kids had something to do with the murder, and I think Kyle’s going to be the first to break.”

“Let me know what you find out,” she said. “I’m outta here.”

My first call was to Michael, to tell him I anticipated being home late. We now had both the girls and Sean, so I told him to order a pizza; I’d grab something to eat on my own.

My next call was to the lab. I was anxious to hear the results. Bob, who was out at the murder scene, answered on the first ring.

“Bob, it’s CeeCee. Lay it on me.”

“Wait a sec. I need to grab the file,” he said. I waited impatiently till he came back with the information. “Okay, here it is. The victim died from manual strangulation with burn marks over her upper torso. They appear to have been inflicted postmortem, most likely from a fireplace poker. None of the soil at the grave site matches any on the shoes of the teens at the scene, except for Nathan O’Malley, and there’s no match for any dirt inside the car. We couldn’t find any blood traces inside the car or on any of the kids’ clothing, and there was no sexual assault. So far, the DNA swab of the victim’s neck turned up nothing.”

To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. “So, to sum it up, you’re telling me we don’t have shit,” I bit out.

“Sí, senora.”

I was deflated and majorly pissed off. These kids couldn’t be so smart that they wouldn’t leave any evidence. Either that, or Bob was an idiot and did a terrible job of processing the crime scene, which I knew wasn’t true.

“You’re telling me you don’t think any of those kids got out of the car?”

“Nope, only the Irish kid. Keep in mind, CeeCee, these are just the prelims.”

I sighed, knowing I’d just hit a brick wall. It would be a miracle if the final results differed from the preliminaries. Now it was a matter of waiting for a break, from Kyle Latham I hoped. I thanked Bob and hung up. Then I had another thought and called Michael back.

“Michael, I forgot to ask if you came up with anything profile-wise on a suspect. There was no evidence left at the scene.”

“Honestly, Cee, I haven’t had much time to work on it. I’ve come up with a little bit if that helps.”

“Just tell me this,” I urged. “Is it possible that the four teenagers are responsible?”

“I highly,
highly
doubt it,” he said firmly. “This was organized, sophisticated and well planned. Even if those kids watched every crime show on television, they’re not sophisticated enough to stage that kind of scene. They wouldn’t know that by just putting bare hands around a neck, more DNA than needed can transfer in a split second.”

“But you still can’t rule them out, right?”

“No, but I’d be looking for other suspects.”

I thought about this for a moment. If there was a way for these teens to commit this murder and get away with it, I was going to find out. I was putting a lot of hope into Kyle Latham.

“Cee, you still there?” Michael asked.

“I’m here. I’m just extremely frustrated. I need to get going, honey. Are the kids okay?”

“They’re fine. Isabelle is driving Sean around the yard in her Barbie jeep, and Selina is on the trampoline. We’re waiting for the pizza. Get back here as soon as you can, okay? Even police officers need to eat.”

“I’m practically on my way. See you soon,” I promised.

Next, I called Kyle Latham’s house and got the answering machine. I waited half an hour before trying again. This time, Kyle answered. We agreed that I would come to his house to talk to him since coming to the station made him nervous. I could understand that, and there was nowhere I wouldn’t meet this kid, my only hope for vital information.

When I arrived at Kyle’s house, I found him—and his parents—waiting for me. The three were seated around their dining-room table, an unmistakable look of anxiety on their faces. I felt a surge of hope, knowing their nervous ness meant they were ready to reveal something that Kyle hadn’t yet told us.

Kyle’s father directed me to another room, his home office, and told me I could talk to Kyle in there. Evidently, Kyle wanted to talk to me alone. As he walked in, his father gave him a piece of sound advice. “Tell her
exactly
what you told us, Kyle. Don’t sugarcoat any of it!”

I was now dying to hear what Kyle was going to tell me, but he wasn’t exactly dying to tell me. When he closed the door and sat down, he began rubbing his palms across his jeans. I looked closer at him than I had the night of the murder. He was nice looking, his baby face starting to thin out with his age, and he seemed quite thoughtful.

I had done a brief check into the kids and found that none had a criminal record or been involved in any trouble at school. In fact, his files had revealed that Kyle was a straight- A student and a star soccer player.

“Kyle, you wanted to tell me something, so I’m waiting to hear it,” I said for openers, trying to suppress my impatience.

“You’re gonna think I’m crazy,” he protested, clearly stalling for time.

“Tell me anyway,” I said. “I’m a good listener.”

“I didn’t tell you this before because it’s nuts.” He took a deep breath. “That night at the grave, I did see someone else.”

“Who?” My heart quickened.

“I saw a woman.”

“You saw a
woman
at the grave?” This was hardly what I’d expected him to say.

“Yeah. When Nate and I got out of the car to switch seats, I ran around the back of the car, and something caught my eye. I looked at it. There was a woman standing by the edge of the woods.”

“Why didn’t you say anything about this before? What did she look like?”

“I didn’t say anything because, um, she was a little different looking.”

“Kyle, get to your point already.” I was close to losing my patience.

“She, um, she had a white dress on, and she looked like, um, a ghost.” He looked at the floor as if in shame.

I couldn’t believe it. The ghost lady again? Frankly, I’d had enough of the woman- in- the- white- dress theory. Kyle Latham had answers for me, and I wasn’t going to listen to another supernatural close encounter. I slammed my notebook on the floor and stood.

“You mean to tell me
this
is why you wanted to talk? Bullshit, Kyle, and nice try! Trying to pawn off a murder on a ghost won’t work. You kids were the only ones at the grave that night, and someone better start talking before I start issuing warrants.”

Kyle’s jaw dropped, and he looked at me with real surprise. I couldn’t believe his arrogance! To think that he thought someone in law enforcement would believe such a story! I opened the door and called his father back to the office. He looked bewildered as he glanced from me to Kyle.

“Mr. Latham, did Kyle tell you what he was going to tell me?”

“Yes, ma’am, he did.”

“Please tell me you don’t believe that crap.”

“Sergeant, if you don’t mind my saying so, I know my son and if he said that’s what he saw, then he saw it. Kyle is not a liar. It took quite a bit of courage for him to tell you this.” He was clearly struggling to maintain his composure, his hand resting on Kyle’s shoulder protectively.

“I’m sure it did. Now, let me explain something. Your son and his friends are the only ones at the scene of a murder. There is no evidence to indicate that anyone else was there, human or ghost. If Kyle is worried about the trouble he’s in, it’ll be far worse if he doesn’t start talking. The first one to cooperate usually gets the lightest sentence. If there’s the slightest chance these kids had nothing to do with it, I’ll apologize to each and every one of them, but I don’t think that’s the case.” I looked at Kyle. “You can help me by telling me the truth, Kyle.”

But his father had had enough, too. Enough of me. “Sergeant, I think you’d better leave. If you want to talk to my son again, it’ll be in the presence of an attorney.”

“That’ll be fine. Just let me know if you change your mind.”

I was angry when I left Kyle’s house. My hopes were not only dashed, they’d been stomped on. I had been sure that Kyle was the break I needed, not another haunted grave story.

But before I’d reached the end of Kyle’s road, I turned my car around and headed back to his house. I knew I’d be unwelcome, so I prepared myself for a verbal confrontation as I knocked on the door. Mr. Latham answered.

I tried a smile. “Mr. Latham, I know you don’t want me talking to Kyle again, but if you wouldn’t mind asking him a question for me I’d appreciate it. It’s about the woman he saw.”

At first, I thought he was going to refuse, but his face relaxed and he called Kyle to the door. Kyle didn’t look at all happy to see me again.

“Kyle, about the woman you saw, can you tell me what color hair she had and about how old she was?”

He looked at his father and waited for the approving nod. “She was old, very old. Her hair was white and her face was old, wrinkly and scary. Is that good enough?”

“Yes, it is. Thank you.”

At least now I had something. I had a lie. Kyle’s description of the woman didn’t match Gary’s. Unless ghosts aged, both Gary and Kyle had merely fleshed out a description around the woman in the white dress, adding their own finishing touches. Kyle’s description was so cliché it was downright corny: old, wrinkly, with white hair. He’d just described every witch mask from here to China.

After I went back to my office and typed up my interview with Kyle, I saw that it was late, close to eleven. I assumed everyone was asleep when I got home because the house looked dark when I pulled into my driveway. Seeing the light on in the study proved me wrong. Michael was in there, working on his own case files.

“You’re up late,” I greeted him, affectionately planting a kiss on his cheek.

“I have a trial next week and I haven’t done a thing to prepare for it. Did you eat?” He continued to inspect the file in front of him as he spoke.

“No.”

“There’s plenty of pizza left in the fridge, but prepare yourself—the kids picked off most of the pepperoni.”

“Actually, Michael, I’m not hungry at all. Can we talk for a minute? I want to tell you what happened.”

He put his file down and gave me his full attention. I curled up on our comfy sofa and told Michael about my interview with Kyle and the story Gary Fenner had told me, explaining how I felt both of their stories were ridiculous.

“Why would they make up stories about the woman, Michael? It has no bearing on anything that happened to either one of them—well, maybe Kyle. Between Nathan’s crying baby and Kyle’s ghost woman, I think they’re trying to steer us in the direction of the super-natural, and the only reason I can think they would do that is they were involved somehow.”

“Did you ever think that maybe they’re not lying?” Michael never ceased to surprise me, one of the reasons I was so attracted to him. I could see he was serious by the look in his hazel eyes.

“Michael, don’t tell me you believe in this ghost nonsense,” I scoffed. “C’mon, you’re an FBI man!”

He laughed, exposing his perfect smile. “That’s not what I’m saying, Cee. But don’t discount these reports out of hand. Maybe Kyle did see a woman standing by the woods.”

“Okay, then, who was she?”

“First, let’s start with Gary and his story,” Michael said in a professional tone.

“I’m all ears,” I said, my curiosity getting the better of me.

“It’s entirely possible that there was a woman in the road,” Michael continued. “I know you said that the descriptions didn’t match, but did you find out whether there were any domestic calls the night of the crash in that area? Maybe a woman grabbed her baby and ran out of her house,” he theorized. “Maybe she was trying to flag down Gary’s car for whatever reason. Look, all I’m saying is that these kids may actually have seen women at the scene.”

I mulled over his words for a minute. “Why would a woman be at the grave, then?”

“How do you know she wasn’t with your suspects, Cee? Maybe she was a lookout who got away before the cops arrived, and they’re protecting her, concocting the ghost story. Did they check for prints where Kyle said he saw her?”

“I don’t think so. Their car was parked by the entrance, and I don’t think Bob scoured the entire woods for prints. Plus, Kyle said she was extremely old, with white hair. Doesn’t sound much like a bad guy to me. Not to mention, they’re going to a hell of an extreme ‘protecting’ a friend. I don’t buy it.”

“I can’t explain it right now. I’m just saying maybe it’s something you should look into.” He paused briefly. “Cee, getting off the subject a minute, I wondered if you’ve talked to Eric or your attorney yet?” He raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms, knowing I hadn’t. In a way, it seemed he intentionally wanted to see me squirm.

I flushed. In fact, I had completely forgotten. I’d been so consumed by this case, everything else had been put on hold. I didn’t need to answer Michael’s question; he saw my face.

“I’ll take that as no.” His voice was low and strong, and he looked annoyed, with a touch of smugness. The man knew me very well.

I looked at him with pleading eyes. “Michael, I’m sorry! I promise I’ll take care of it first thing tomorrow. I’ve been caught up in this case and I didn’t—”

Michael put his hand up and interrupted me. “It’s okay, Cee. When you get to it, you get to it. I know you have a job to do, but I’d like to see you follow through on your commitments. You’d expect the same of me, wouldn’t you?”

I went over and laid my head against his chest and held him tightly. I knew I’d hurt his feelings by not making our life a priority, and I vowed to take care of the matter tomorrow.

After Michael and I had gone to bed, I couldn’t sleep. What he had said earlier about the women kept going through my head. Since patience was not part of my vocabulary, I couldn’t wait until morning to find out, so I got out of bed, slowly, so as not to wake Michael.

After throwing on a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, and an old pair of sneakers, I grabbed a heavy-duty flashlight out of the garage and headed down to Tucker Road. I had already checked in the back of my SUV to confirm that my camera and tape recorder were in there. Figuring I’d be back within two hours if I floored it, I hopped in, popped in a tape, and took off. Michael would never even know I’d gone.