Broken Grace (10 page)

Of course that was a stretch, but Bishop was obviously looking for a reaction, and he got one. “You’re crazy. This is a huge apartment building. I’m not the only person who lives here. And who says you even have to live here to use the dumpsters?”

“Can you tell us where you were on Saturday, December seventh?” Hackett asked.

“You can’t be serious.” She plopped down on the couch again. “I take it that’s the day he died?”

“Yeah,” Hackett said.

“I was sleeping. I got up about eleven in the morning, then I went to work. I had a three o’clock shift.”

“And is there anyone who could verify where you were in the morning?”

She leaned back and crossed her arms. “In fact, there is. I was with Dave Jacks. My manager.”

The men looked at each other.

“We’d hooked up, okay? No big deal. A bunch of us were partying on Friday night.”

“And he was with you all night?”

“Yes.”

“At your place or his?”

“His.”

“I don’t suppose you know where we could find Dave now?”

“I’m guessing at his apartment. We both got off a little while ago, but he’s going back in this afternoon. He lives downstairs in 104.”

ELEVEN

W
HEN
H
ACKETT AND
B
ISHOP KNOCKED
on Dave Jacks’s door, they found a man half-dressed and visibly stoned. He stood in the doorway in boxers, a white tee, and an unbuttoned blue dress shirt. They smiled, held out their badges, and introduced themselves.

“Hello, Officers, what can I do for you?” His voice cracked mid-sentence, betraying any attempt to be casual, while his face remained sandwiched between the door and the frame, preventing them from seeing inside his apartment.

“Can we come in?” Bishop asked.

Jacks didn’t move. “I’m not really ready for company, guys. How can I help you?”

Bishop stepped closer. “Mr. Jacks, do you remember us? We came to the restaurant last Thursday in regard to the Michael Cahill murder?”

“Sure, sure, I do. Yeah, what’s up?”

Bishop put away the badge and rubbed his hands together. “It’s freezing out here, Mr. Jacks. Could we please come in and speak with you?”

“Oh, sorry guys, it’s just—” Jacks glanced back into his living room. “Maybe I could come down to the station to meet you? I’m not dressed and I really need to get in the shower for work.”

Bishop put his foot in the doorway and stepped closer. “I don’t smell marijuana, do I?”

Jacks shook his head, but his shit-eating grin carried far more influence than his denial.

Bishop’s hand was on the door, pressing against it. “I think you’d better let us in, Mr. Jacks.”

Jacks let go of the door in defeat and walked into his bathroom as they entered the apartment. A two-foot-tall bong sat on the coffee table. Jacks returned from the bathroom wearing a robe. “It’s recreational, guys. You’re not gonna make a big deal of it, are you? Hell, I’m sitting in my own apartment, not hurting anyone.”

“Where do you get your stuff?” Hackett asked. Bishop lifted the lid of a cigar box on the coffee table and pulled out a sandwich bag of weed, a small pipe, and a little bag of pink-and-white capsules.

Jacks said nothing about Bishop’s discovery. He took a seat on the arm of the couch. “Come on, guys, what’s this about?”

“We’re here to talk to you about Michael Cahill,” Bishop said. “But maybe you’d better tell us where you get your drugs, Dave.”

“I don’t know. Weed’s not exactly hard to get. It’s not even that much.”

Bishop held up the bag of pills. “What’s this?”

“Vitamins,” Jacks said, looking anywhere but at the officers.

“Really?” Bishop said. “In a sandwich bag in a box on the coffee table?”

Jacks crossed his arms. “Yep.”

Hackett stepped forward to look at the bag. “What kind?”

“Multivitamins.”

“Great,” Bishop said. “You won’t mind, then, if we take these with us? I could use a multivitamin.”

Hackett grinned. “Me too.”

Jacks rubbed his face, like a dry wash would awaken him to this new reality of police in his smoke-filled living room, planning to take his stash. “I thought this was about Cahill.”

“It is,” Bishop said, as he sat on one of the matching leather couches in the living room, getting comfortable. “Did you know him?”

“Not really.”

“He wasn’t your dealer?” Hackett asked.

“What? No! Why would you ask that?”

Bishop continued. “We found a lot of pot at Michael’s place. We’re trying to piece together his life and contacts. Can you tell us where you were on Saturday, December seventh?”

“Are you accusing me of something?”

“We’re simply asking questions.”

“I was here.”

“Were you alone?”

“Is this about Grace? She didn’t kill Michael.”

“No one said anything about Grace,” Hackett said as he perused the room, picking up several framed photos. He walked into the kitchen, examining the photos posted on the fridge. Most were printouts of partying twenty-somethings—close-ups, toasting with beers, card games, smoke-filled rooms. A few were taken of the staff at the restaurant. He recognized Sheri Preston and Grace Abbott in several shots.

When he moved toward the bedroom, Jacks got up and followed. “Can I help you find something?”

Hackett peered into his bedroom. A picture of Grace sat perched by the bed.

Jacks followed his gaze. “Hey, guys, I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t recall inviting you in. I’m starting to feel a little uncomfortable here. And I’ve got to get ready for work.”

Hackett looked back at Jacks and rejoined Bishop in the living room. “Can you answer the question, Dave?”

“What question?”

“Were you alone here, last Saturday?”

“No, I wasn’t alone. I was with Sheri Preston until about eleven in the morning. I threw a little party here on Friday night after our shift. It went pretty late—”

“How late?” Bishop interrupted.

“Like six or seven in the morning. Sheri spent the night. After she left, I watched TV until about two o’clock, and then I went to work.”

“Did Grace and Michael come to your party?”

“Of course not.”

“Why ‘of course not’?” Hackett asked. “I thought Grace often went out with the work crew.”

“That’s true, but her boyfriend never did.”

He could hear the disdain in Jacks’s voice. This guy seemed more and more suspect. “Well, then, did
Grace
come to your party that night?”

“No.”

“But she worked that night.”

“Yeah, but she didn’t go out with us afterward.”

“Was that normal?” Bishop asked.

“I’d say it was normal for that day. I mean, she’d just gotten engaged.”

“Engaged?” The word caught in Hackett’s throat and he repeated it.

“Yeah. She told us on Friday at work. I guess he proposed on Thursday night.”

“So she looked happy to you?” Bishop asked.

“People are usually pretty happy about getting married,” Jacks said.

“You didn’t know about any breakup?” Hackett asked.

Jacks backpedaled. “Well, if she said they did, I guess they did.”

“You sound like you know something you’re not telling us.”

He retied his robe. “I don’t know anything, man.”

Hackett looked at Bishop. “You see that? I think there was some sort of spark when I said Grace and Michael might have broken up.” Bishop smirked.

“I have no opinion about that,” Jacks said. “Why? Did she say something about me?”

“Why would she do that?” Hackett asked.

“No reason. Listen, if that’s all, I really need to get in the shower.”

Bishop stood and they both followed Jacks to the door. “Just a few more questions,” Hackett said. “How long has Grace worked at your restaurant?”

“Two years.”

“And you’ve been manager all that time?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’ve regularly gone out together after work—you’ve socialized?”

“So?”

“So you know her pretty well.”

“I know her really well. I care about her a lot.”

“Maybe too much?”

“What does that mean?”

“I see a lot of pictures of Grace in here. You take all these pictures?”

Jacks looked around. “It’s not a big deal. I just take them with my phone.”

“And then print them out and frame them.”

“What’s your point?”

Hackett raised his eyebrows at Bishop. “There’s a picture of Grace by your bed,” he said to Jacks. “That doesn’t seem like a normal boss/employee relationship, don’t you agree?”

Bishop smiled. “You’re right about that.”

“It’s no big deal, guys. It was actually of several people, but their eyes were closed so I just cropped it. It’s a good picture of her. We’re friends, that’s all.”

“Sure,” Hackett said. “I’d say you seem to have some strong feelings for Grace.”

“I’d do anything for Grace, and yeah, I’m worried about her. Her boyfriend’s been murdered, she doesn’t seem to remember anything or anyone, and she must be scared. But I can’t help you, fellas. I don’t know anything. And I need to get to work.”

They wouldn’t get anything more from the guy right now. “No problem, Jacks,” Bishop said. “We’ll be in touch.”

Grace made her way back to the kitchen for some pills and a little coffee before it would be too difficult to stand. Her headaches were becoming predictable, as if every attempt at prolonged concentration set off the ice pick behind her eyes. But after twenty minutes, she had a new wind.

Now an almost frantic energy was aching to break through the closed doors of her mind. She paced the room, mumbling, reviewing the day. There was a gap. She remembered the restaurant, Dave, Cherry Beach, but what about before that? She couldn’t remember driving there. What was before that? “What the hell?” she shouted. Her mind began to speed up, as if she couldn’t process thoughts fast enough. Was this what it was like to be crazy?

What was wrong with her? She’d remembered something today, she knew it, but now she couldn’t remember what it was. She paced the house, looking around, pointing at items on the wall, listing what she knew and what she didn’t. The walls were closing in; the ceiling was coming down. After ten or so laps, she collapsed on the kitchen floor, barely conscious, focusing only on the light fixture above her.

When Lisa walked in the back door an hour later, Grace felt her presence, but it took considerable effort to open her eyes. Lisa dropped her bag and keys and fell to the floor beside her. “Grace,” she shouted, slapping her in the face, “are you okay?”

Grace looked up at Lisa. “What’s going on?”

“What happened?”

She sat up with Lisa’s help. “I feel crazy.”

“Did you remember something?”

“I don’t know. I thought I did. But now I’m not so sure. Just the roads.”

“The roads?”

She instantly regretted saying it. “I mean this place. I remember you bringing me here. The roads to get here.”

Lisa looked at the counter where she’d laid out the pills. “Did you take all your medication today?”

“I skipped the dose at lunch. They make me feel awful. But then I felt worse later, so I took them.”

“Don’t you remember what the doctor said? You can’t skip them.”

“But I can’t sleep! How am I going to get rest if I can’t rest? I feel like I could crawl out of my skin.” She squirmed to get up.

Lisa stood too. “The doctor warned us that your brain injury can mess with your sleep patterns. And maybe you’ve always had insomnia—maybe that’s why you had the Xanax. He gave you Ambien. Here,” she said. “Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

Grace sat at the table and rested her head in her hands. “Something in this house scares me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I keep hearing things. Yesterday I heard a little girl crying. I saw a girl, maybe it was me, in the yard.”

Lisa joined her at the table. “In the yard?”

“I was walking around outside. I needed some fresh air. I saw the wheelbarrow in the shed, and then I saw this girl being pushed around the yard in it. She was little. It was fall. There was a man pushing her. They looked happy.”

“That was probably you and Dad.”

Grace smiled. “So that was a real memory.”

“Probably.”

“But then I felt scared. I heard a scream and I swear I heard a gunshot.”

“Well, I don’t know about the scream, but you might have heard a gunshot. It’s always hunting season for something around here. I think it’s pheasant season and maybe still deer season too. Till around Christmas.”

She sat up, staring at Lisa. “Tell me about our parents. Why don’t I remember them?”

Lisa went to the fridge and stood at the counter, opening a beer before she responded. “I don’t know if we should do this right now.”

“Why? I’m a black hole over here. Please. I need to piece my life together. Someone’s dead. Someone who I was apparently living with. And it looks like . . .” She didn’t want to say it.

“You’re supposed to rest. I don’t want to upset you.”

“What do you mean?”

Lisa took a swig before answering. “Our parents weren’t exactly good people.”

“What does that mean?”

Lisa took another sip and opened the fridge, staring at the half-empty shelves. “Have you eaten yet?” she said.

Grace stood. “I’m not hungry.” Suddenly, she felt very tired. She collapsed back into the chair. “Could I have killed Michael? I don’t know who I was. I don’t know if I could have done something like that.”

Lisa put down the drink and came over. “I don’t know. Come on.”

With her help, Grace stood. She took another pill for sleep and let Lisa support her up the stairs. She crawled into bed without changing clothes, as weak as if she had the flu, unable to raise her head, suddenly so drowsy she felt as though she were melting into the sheets.

Lisa pulled the covers up and stood to leave.

“Wait,” Grace said, in not much more than a whisper. “Tell me what you know about me. About Michael and me. Did we seem happy?”

Lisa sat next to her on the bed and brushed hair from her forehead. “I told you, we weren’t always close. So I didn’t see the day-to-day. I just saw when things happened. Like when you came here upset on Friday.”

Grace nodded.

“And when you slashed his tires.”

“What?”

Lisa chuckled. “I thought it was kind of funny, actually. I mean, I figured he deserved it, but you never said why you did it.”