Broken Grace (9 page)

“Shit. Well, it’s probably better if you don’t mention our relationship to the police if you’re a suspect. If they think you were cheating on Michael, I’m guessing that wouldn’t look good for either of us.”

Cheating, and with this guy? She couldn’t believe it. Grace looked back out at the lake. “You and I were here together?”

“Right here. This is where I first kissed you.” He reached out to her hands then, as if they could savor this memory together.

The thought turned her stomach. She didn’t know anything about herself, but she instinctively wanted nothing from this man. His proximity was unnerving, his clear attraction almost scary. She shoved her hands into her pockets.

“Do the doctors think this memory issue is temporary?” he asked.

“They’re optimistic. They said that usually memory loss from head trauma is less global, but it’s like someone’s taken an eraser to my mind. They say it will improve in time. I’ve been getting flashes. I knew where to turn for the restaurant and how to find this place, so maybe it’s starting to come back.”

“Jesus, Grace. Are you able to get home okay? I could lead you if you like.”

“No, no. I’ve got it. And my phone has a map, so I should be fine.”

“Well, if you need anything,” he said, lifting her hands from her pockets in an awkward move for both of them, “call me.”

He seemed to know too much about her history. It felt creepy. His body was too close to hers. She pulled her hands from his grasp.

“I’d better go.” She started toward the truck.

“Okay. You have my number. Call anytime. And don’t worry, they’ll figure it out.”

She stopped and pulled out the phone to check the contacts—Dave. She stepped back and showed him the screen. “Is this you?”

Dave looked at the number and nodded. “That’s me. I mean it. I’m here for you, okay?”

She stepped back from the man, suddenly unable to get away fast enough. “Okay, thanks. I should go.” She walked to the truck and got in. He raised his hand in a weak good-bye.

TEN

G
RACE WOKE IN A DARKENED LIVING
ROOM.
Clouds had rolled in and the sun was gone. She sat up, turned on the table light, and checked the clock on the kitchen wall. She’d been out for a couple of hours. Her headache had only dulled, though her body no longer ached. She’d found her way back to the house by memory after leaving Dave at the beach, which felt like a great improvement, though her head had pounded from the effort, and maybe from skipping her meds. She had put the truck back where it had been parked so Lisa wouldn’t know—she didn’t want to hear the scolding—but struggled to get out of the cab. Every move had felt like swimming in molasses. She knew that staying in the truck was a sure way to freeze or, worse, upset Lisa, so she’d held her head in her hands and tried to breathe, disregarding the pain brought on by each inhale. She’d made it to the kitchen, grabbed the pile of pills from the counter, and found her way to those couch cushions.

Now she almost felt like a new woman. She raised her arms all the way over her head: incredible. She stood, breathed again, surprised that her ribs expanded with ease. She felt a wave of energy. There was so much to think about.

She opened the giant pocket doors to the onetime library, now filled with boxes. The chaos mirrored her mind. Everything was here; it had to be: her history, memories, family—but they were packed away, trapped beneath masses of tape. She pushed her way into the room and found an old desk practically buried under boxes. Using a knife, she cut open the nearest box. It held hanging files labeled
Credit cards
,
Utilities
,
Mortgage
,
Insurance
. Nothing that would mean much, but she studied the bills, reading charges, expecting a spark that didn’t come. Buried among insurance documents were several bills for psychiatrists, psychologists, and counselors. Years and years of bills. Did she really want to remember? Maybe there was a reason she’d forgotten. One of the files was marked
New Haven Fertility
and inside the file were statements for treatments dating back to the early eighties. Perhaps that explained the age gap between Lisa and her.

The next box was more promising. A file labeled
Grace
contained her history—at least her school history. Report cards, school projects, even a few photos from elementary school. She scanned one picture, a kindergarten class posing in front of a playground swing set. The sun was shining into their eyes; the grass behind them was green. It took a minute, but she found herself in the group. It was that dress, a yellow sundress with gigantic daisies. Her favorite. All the children beamed at the camera except her. She looked distracted, maybe sad.

Grace skimmed through the report cards and teacher comments from year to year.
“Grace is a lovely girl,” “I hope that she will get more comfortable with the group and begin to join in the discussions,” “
She’s so quiet, sometimes so distracted, but when I see that smile come out, I know she’s in there,” “Keep working on her math.”
She reread one several times. It was written by her kindergarten teacher:
“In light of all she’s been through, I think she’s doing fine.”
What had she been through? Sitting among the open boxes and files, she felt overwhelmed by the history of a life she didn’t recognize.

She went back to the basement and opened the boxes of clothes marked
Girls’ Dresses
. She wanted to find that daisy dress, to tap in to her younger self. She sorted through a dozen neatly folded dresses of assorted sizes and colors without feeling a real connection, but then she saw it: a simple, bright-yellow cotton sundress with big daisies. She pulled it out of the box and held it to her nose, inhaling deeply, as if smelling it would take her back. But it didn’t.

She looked down into the box and saw another one. The exact same dress, but instead of yellow, the primary color was orange. She pulled it out and checked the labels. Both were size 4T. The two dresses seemed a hint of something, maybe her own pleading, her love of that dress. She envisioned a little girl in a store, begging her mother for both. But it was wishful thinking. She was crafting a history, trying to fill the void with meaning. Her momentary nostalgia for something she assumed was a symbol of happiness began to dim. She laid the dresses side by side. Was it just the emptiness of staring at her past without remembering it, or was it something else?

“I think we found our murder weapon,” Bishop said, hanging up the phone. “That was the crime lab. Turns out some officers in the New Buffalo station submitted evidence last week after getting a call from the recycling company that sorts trash bins behind Bellaire Apartments. They found a shotgun and a bloody shirt.”

Hackett dropped his half-eaten sandwich on the desk and wiped his mouth. “When was this?”

“Monday, before we’d found the body. They turned over the items to the crime lab. A faded yellow T-shirt with a smiley face on the front, a ‘Be Happy’ logo on the back, covered in blood that’s a match for our vic. The gun was registered to Michael Cahill. They’re sending us scans of the evidence photos.”

“Anything else?”

“The gun was wiped clean. No prints. But maybe we can link that shirt to Grace.”

Hackett stopped himself from responding, but he shook his head and looked away.

Bishop threw down his pen. “What is it?”

“Cahill won a lot of money that we can’t find. He was a gambler and drug user. We’ve got pictures of him having sex with another woman. But I’m getting the sense that you just want to pin this on Grace.”

“I learned a long time ago not to overlook the obvious. You do and it’ll bite you in the ass.”

Hackett blew out a breath. “What are you talking about?”

Bishop rocked back on the hind legs of his chair, like a professor ready to school his charge. “We had a suspect for a murder years ago. Had motive, opportunity. No one else. But we kept trying to find the smoking gun. Just to be sure. In the meantime, this person killed again. Sometimes, rookie, you don’t get to be a hundred percent. You just have to go with your gut. Grace lived with him, had every reason to want him dead from what I can see, and she has no alibi. That car accident may very well have happened after she ran from the scene.”

“Well, my gut says she didn’t do it.”

“We’ll see.”

Heat rose to his face. Hackett took a sip of soda and let his focus shift back to his desk. He let a minute pass until the tension faded from the air. “Maybe we should see who lives at those apartments, right? I mean, what if the perp lived there and was just dumb enough to dump the murder weapon? And we’re still looking for some blonde who was with Cahill at The Rack. Those naked photos are dated the same day he was seen leaving with the mystery woman.”

“You’re right. But as soon as we get those scans of that shirt, I want you to go through Cahill’s Facebook page. Grace didn’t have an account, but he had tons of pictures in his profile. I remember that she was in some. If we see that shirt on Grace . . .”

Hackett dropped his pen. “Wait, even if the shirt is Grace’s, what does that prove? She lived there. The perp could have mopped up some blood with a T-shirt he or she found at the scene and disposed of it.”

Bishop nodded halfheartedly.

Thank God. “Of course, if we can prove the shirt is definitely not Grace’s, well, then it could be our perp’s, right?”

“Maybe so,” Bishop said.

An hour later, they pulled into the Bellaire Apartments parking lot. “The New Buffalo police question anyone here?” Hackett asked.

“They didn’t have a known crime in the system at the time. But now we need to find out if anyone saw anything odd on Friday night or Saturday morning.”

An older woman, maybe sixty, with strikingly silver hair and flanked by two Labradors, answered the door at the management office. She turned off the television, closed her
People
magazine, and moved a pile of older issues from the sofa, offering them seats. She seemed glad for the company, and when they told her their purpose, she pulled a list of tenants from a desk drawer.

Hackett scanned the list while Bishop asked a few questions. “Do you have any security cameras in your parking lot?”

“’Fraid not. A couple of officers came by after those things were reported being found here, but I wasn’t much help. As far as I knew, no one had seen anything. I certainly didn’t. My unit is in the front of the building. The bins are out back. You can go see. They’re a bit removed from the main parking area. And when it’s dark, they aren’t lit.”

“Okay, thanks,” Bishop said.

Hackett looked up from his list. “Ma’am, by chance do you know if any of these female tenants are blonde?”

“Well, sure,” she said as she stood up and went over to the list. “There.” She pointed at unit 306. “She’s my only blonde.”

The men thanked her and headed outside. “So let’s start with 306,” Bishop said.

When they knocked on the door, a petite woman with long platinum-blonde hair answered. Hackett’s radar perked up. She was definitely a looker, just like the bartender at The Rack had described.

Bishop handled the introductions. “Hello, ma’am, I’m Detective Bishop and this is Officer Hackett. May we come in for a moment?”

“What’s this about?” She wore a little black miniskirt and scoop-neck top pinned with a name tag. Her bare feet shuffled back and forth as the cold air seeped into the apartment.

Bishop pointed at the name tag. “Miss Preston, may I call you Sheri?”

“Okay.”

“Did you know Michael Cahill?”

“Yeah, he was that guy who was killed, right?”

“That’s right.”

“He was Grace’s boyfriend. You came into the restaurant last week. I was there.”

Hackett’s heartbeat thumped. “So you work with Grace?”

“Yeah.” She relaxed a bit against the open door.

“May we?” Bishop asked. “It’s pretty cold.”

“Sure.” She let them in and closed the door. Hackett scanned the room while Bishop continued asking the questions.

“Are you a friend of Grace’s?”

Preston went to the couch and sat. “Sure, kinda. We know each other.”

Hackett sat on the arm of a chair, but Bishop continued standing. “Did you socialize with Grace outside of work?”

“Yeah—when we were working the same shifts. We usually all go out for drinks after our shift. We’re pretty wired after running around for hours. She’s nice enough. I mean, we didn’t confide in each other or go to the movies, but we hung out. She’s pretty quiet, that’s all.”

Unlike this one, Hackett thought. It was the way she walked—she was an attention grabber, just like Olivia. “And were you friendly with her boyfriend as well?”

“I knew who he was—I knew the name, but I didn’t know him.”

Hackett slid out his pad and noted Preston’s connection to Grace, her physical match to the woman at The Rack, and her denial about knowing Cahill.

Bishop walked around the room, casually scanning pictures and knickknacks. “So, Sheri, it seems that some items were found in the trash bins behind your apartment recently that can be traced back to Cahill’s death.”

Preston crossed her legs. “Like what?”

“Like the murder weapon and a shirt covered in his blood.”

“Oh shit.” Neither Hackett nor Bishop spoke right away. Preston looked at them, then around the room. She didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands, so she slid a cigarette from a pack on the coffee table and tapped it against her knee. “So what does this have to do with me?”

Bishop cleared his throat. “Well, we’ve been trying to figure out what Cahill was up to in the days before his death, and it seems he was seen leaving a bar with a blonde—a blonde who sounds a lot like you.”

“What? Well, you’re wrong. I didn’t even know the guy.”

“You ever been to The Rack in Berrien Springs?”

“The Rack?” She scowled. “What kind of name is that? Sounds like a strip club or something. No. I never heard of it.”

Bishop made another circuit around the room. “So if we show your picture to the men who were in the bar that night, no one will recognize you?”

She sat back, blowing smoke toward the ceiling, and shook her head. Not even a hint of fluster. “I’ve never been to Berrien Springs. I don’t even know where that is.”

“Really?” Bishop said, incredulous.

She smiled. “Really. I’m from Chicago. I just moved to New Buffalo last summer. Thought it would be a summer job, hang at the beach. But I decided to stay. College sucks. So yeah, I don’t know every town around here.”

Hackett didn’t buy it. “Can you tell us where you were on Sunday, December first?”

“Jeez, I don’t know.” She stood and walked into the kitchen to look at the calendar posted on the fridge. “Well, I wasn’t working. But that was more than two weeks ago. I don’t remember. I’ll have to think about it.”

Bishop said what Hackett was thinking: “It seems a bit of a coincidence to find evidence from a crime scene right here, just steps from your place, and to hear about Cahill leaving a bar with a woman matching your description a few days before his death. And I must say, the clothes look to be about your size.”