Broken Grace (7 page)

“But remember that broken picture of Cahill and Grace?”

“Yeah.”

“It was here, on the floor,” Hackett said, pointing to the spot by his feet. “And here”—he pointed at the gash in the wall—“looks like the kind of mark that could happen if you threw the picture across the room.”

“Doesn’t mean much. Grace could have done that. Or Cahill.”

“Or maybe it was a moment of jealousy of seeing the happy couple. We know he was with another woman. What if we don’t see the money because he paid someone off?”

“The photos were in the bedside table,” Bishop said. “Grace’s side, from the look of things. And if they came in that envelope, they were addressed to Grace. If I wanted to blackmail Cahill, I’d send them to Cahill, not Grace.”

EIGHT

G
RACE WOKE ON
T
UESDAY WEARING
only a robe. The wet towel had come loose from around her hair and dampened her pillow. She sat up slowly. It had been another restless night. She’d dreamed of the swing out front, maybe because of that photo she’d found. But she wasn’t the girl on the swing. She was behind the girl, pushing her higher and higher as they laughed. Then the little girl fell, crying as she hit the ground, holding her ankle. Grace’s own ankle throbbed in that moment, her tears and pain jolting her awake.

By three a.m., she’d gotten out of bed and considered wandering the house again, searching for clues to her former life. But the dull headache that seemed to have permanently installed itself behind her eyes and the weakness she felt when moving dissuaded her. Instead, she filled the tub with some bubbles and grabbed a washcloth. At least she’d finally feel clean. She shaved her legs and washed. But then it happened again—that feeling—the churning in her stomach, the uneasiness.

She lay back against the porcelain and closed her eyes, covered her face with the damp washcloth, and tried to focus only on her breath. But then a vision came like a rush. Splashing water, struggling for air, arms flailing. She screamed, “Stop! No!” And then she was sobbing. The cries were real. And loud. She sat up, wincing from the pain of her sudden movement and shocked by her own outburst.

Lisa barreled into the room. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know,” Grace cried. “I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

Lisa came over to the tub. “Come on, let’s get you back to bed.”

“I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“It was probably a bad dream,” Lisa said, gently positioning her hands under Grace’s arms to help her stand.

“But I wasn’t asleep.”

Her sister helped wrap her in a towel and grabbed another for her hair. “When did you come in here?”

Grace put on the nearby robe and wrapped her head in the towel. “I don’t know. Three?”

“It’s five o’clock. You probably fell asleep in the tub. Maybe you had a nightmare.”

It
was
a nightmare: every moment since she’d woken in the hospital.

Now the house was empty and Lisa was gone. A note on the kitchen counter reminded Grace that she was at work. Other notes on the counter reminded her to take her pills, which had already been separated into little piles marked
morning
,
midday
,
bedtime
. Lisa had made coffee and left chili in a Crock-Pot, and there were more notes reminding her to eat, along with a cell phone number if Grace needed anything.

She took the first pile of pills with her coffee and went to the bathroom. Another note was taped to the mirror: “Take your medicine!” Despite the shakiness in her step and the vague sensation that she might faint, she was relieved to be alone.

Hackett’s alarm began buzzing at seven, but he smacked the snooze button and put a pillow over his head to block out the light pouring in from the uncovered windows. He really needed to get some shades. He’d tossed those purple curtains Olivia had picked out into the trash as soon as he moved in five months ago. He’d taken everything from their house, even the stuff he hated—which was most of it, since she’d decorated without his input and ignored his opinions. But taking the stuff was punishment. This bed was the only thing he’d really liked. It was king-sized, and the mattress had that memory-foam stuff that oozed around him when he fell into it. But even the mattress sometimes failed to comfort him when he began thinking of it as an actual bed of lies.

The alarm sounded again and he grudgingly got up and headed for the shower. Bishop wanted him in by eight thirty. The phone rang while he was in the bathroom, but he let it go to voice mail. It was his mom, of course, given that it was a Tuesday, her day to check in with all the kids. She probably didn’t even expect him to answer at this point. He’d ignored her calls for months, though he had to make a decision soon. He’d never missed Christmas, but the thought of it still made him sick.

What did people do who didn’t have a family? Go to the pub? He didn’t know which option would depress him more. His whole life had centered around family—his parents, brothers, cousins, grandparents, in-laws, brothers of in-laws—for as long as he could remember: massive fifty-person gatherings for every holiday, birthday, engagement, baby, or even Little League game. But he couldn’t imagine sharing a meal, asking
her
to pass the potatoes, having a beer with
him
, or, worst of all, watching Donny playing with his brothers or running over to wrap his arms around his dad.

He shaved, dressed, and was out the door in twenty minutes. After grabbing a muffin and coffee at his daily pit stop, he drove to the station where Bishop was at his desk, ending a phone call.

“Sorry I had to get out of here early yesterday,” Bishop said. “Crisis at base camp.”

“Kids okay?”

“For now. No one’s burned down the house yet, if that’s what you mean. You find anything good yesterday?”

“I called the prison and talked to the person in the visitor’s center,” he said. “Cahill isn’t registered on their logs. No incoming mail from that name either.” He didn’t add that he’d then left the station and gone to Lisa Abbott’s house. He’d wanted to see Grace, and the more he knew he shouldn’t, the more tempted he was. He’d pulled up to the foot of her driveway and looked down the gravel path to that old house, silently praying that Grace would be okay. But when a curtain moved, revealing a figure backlit at the window, he’d driven off.

Bishop didn’t respond, his eyes rooted on a family photo. “You okay?” Hackett asked.

“Huh? Oh, sure.” He smiled. “Just tired. Sandy got home from the hospital at midnight, had a mini meltdown. It’s not easy, kid, losing a parent. I don’t care how old you are. And I hate seeing her so sad and there’s nothing I can do.”

Hackett withered inside; those words stung more than Bishop could know.

“Come on,” Bishop said, grabbing his coat.

They drove in silence to Cahill’s former work site while Hackett focused on the crumbling and abandoned barns along the way, neglected to the point of no return. The foreman they’d met with last week pointed them toward the management trailer. When they entered, a woman bent over some drawings at the table hollered at them to shut the door. The wind was whipping, making the twenty-degree air feel more like five. Hackett shut the door while Bishop asked for her boss, Joe McKenzie.

The woman, perhaps late thirties, looked up from her work, dropped her pen, and stood. She was disarmingly attractive and seemed to have mastered a sexy look for a construction site: tight jeans, “work” boots—like Timberland imitations with a little heel—and a long-sleeve thermal T-shirt that hugged her body, with a flannel shirt tied around her waist. She looked like she might model in carpentry catalogs as a side gig. She walked over to the officers and offered her hand. “That’s me, fellas.”

“Oh, excuse me,” Bishop said, flustered. “We assumed you were a man.”

The woman smiled, pointed toward the chairs facing her desk, and took a seat. “Yeah, I get that a lot. It’s Jo, as in JoAnne.”

Hackett grinned and watched Bishop fumble a bit as he sat.

“Sorry I couldn’t get to you earlier, fellas,” Jo said. “It’s a busy time here. We had a crisis at the site and it was all hands on deck. And I had to get the new guy up to speed on what Mike had been working on. You have any suspects yet?”

Bishop did all the talking, as usual. “There are some strong possibilities, but we’re trying to get the full picture of Mr. Cahill’s life. We want to be sure we’re not missing anything before we move forward.”

“Sure. What can I do to help?”

“Tell us what you know about him. Was he a good employee?”

“Oh, hell yeah. He worked for me on my last build too—a strip mall up in St. Joe that we did about two years ago—and this project is pretty big, as you can see.” She pointed at the posters lining the trailer wall—the current mass of steel beams and concrete pilings would one day become a twenty-story building. “So yeah, all in all, I’d say Mike’s worked hard for me for several years. He was a good man.”

“We found some drugs in his apartment.”

“Drugs? I don’t believe it. He’d have fallen off one of those risers and killed himself. What are we talking about?”

“Marijuana.”

The woman laughed. “Oh, I thought you meant
drugs
drugs. I don’t worry too much about a little pot smoking—no different than having a few drinks in my book, as long as you do it on your own time. No offense.”

“Sure. We don’t make the laws. Do you know if he had money trouble or was big into gambling? He didn’t seem to have very good credit and didn’t have any credit cards. Seemed to live exclusively on cash.”

“Well, that isn’t the norm, is it? I can’t imagine life without my Visa. But then again, that bill is the death of me every month. Maybe he was onto something.”

“So you don’t know about any money trouble?”

She leaned back then, lit a cigarette, and blew the smoke off to the side. “Nah.” On her desk sat an ashtray full of lipstick-covered butts. “He never asked for an advance or talked about payday loans, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Hackett asked the next question. “So, as far as you know, he was reliable, no money problems, nothing else?”

“Well, of course, he wasn’t a friend. He was an employee. I wasn’t his confidante, but yeah, he was reliable. He almost never missed a shift, and when he did, he even brought me a note from the doctor.”

“Did that happen recently?”

“Yeah, actually. It was just a couple of weeks ago.” She turned to a small cabinet and searched through her files. “It was a Monday. I know because we needed a big crew that day, and so I had to scramble a bit when Mike called in.”

“So he called in sick last Monday? December second. The Monday before he died. And he brought you a note the next day?”

“Yeah. He said he was sick, and maybe he could tell that I didn’t believe it. I mean, it’s not that he’d faked it before, but I knew a bunch of guys had stopped at The Rack on Sunday night, and I think I even wondered out loud if he’d simply hit it a little too hard. But when he came in on Tuesday, he brought a receipt for services from the urgent care. Must have been a bug or something.” She showed the officers the receipt.

“Could we take this with us?”

“Sure.”

Bishop stood and shook the woman’s hand. “Well, thanks again for your time, ma’am, and I apologize for the confusion. Thinking you were a man, I mean.”

She stood too. “Happens all the time. Construction isn’t exactly known as ‘women’s work.’”

“Right.” Bishop turned away, blushing.

Hackett stood too. “Ms. McKenzie, do you ever go over to The Rack? Seems like the crew all goes there pretty regularly.”

“Sure, I need a drink every now and then. But I tend not to hang out with my men. Conflict of interest, you know.”

Hackett nodded. “Sure. Thanks.”

Back in the squad car, Hackett turned to Bishop. “I take it you think she’s hot.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Are you kidding? You were like a twelve-year-old boy standing before the captain of the cheerleading squad.”

Bishop chuckled. “Well, shit, she was a knockout, right? Not exactly what I expected. I felt like I was Tim ‘the Tool Man’ Taylor.”

“Hey, I know that one—
Home Improvement
.”

“Thank God. You had to be alive for that show. I think it’s still on in syndication,” Bishop said as he grabbed some chew from the glove box.

“Yeah. Got a thing for blondes, eh?”

“Maybe just that one.” He turned the key in the ignition.

“Remember what you told me,” Hackett teased. “Don’t go clouding your judgment.”

“What are you saying, she’d be mixed up with Cahill? She’d be the woman in those naked photos?”

“It’s possible, right? Or at least the woman at the bar. She’s got the hair. And she’s a smoker.”

“Fuck,” Bishop said before spitting into his cup. “You’re ruining my buzz here, kid.”

They went from the site straight to the urgent care facility in Bridgman. The receptionist took them to the break room, to the doctor, a gangly middle-aged man with thin wire-framed glasses, who’d been on duty when Cahill had come in. They exchanged pleasantries and offered an apology for interrupting his lunch. “We’re here about a patient who was here a couple of weeks back. Hoping you could share the nature of his visit.”

“Got a warrant?” the doctor asked, chewing a mouthful of sandwich.

Bishop smiled. “Not in hand, but we can get one if necessary. I thought you might help us out—since there’s no expectation of privacy in this case.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because the patient is dead.”

“Oh,” the doctor said. “Do you think it’s related to his visit here?”

“Not unless you all prescribed a shotgun to the chest.” Bishop smirked.

“Oh Lord,” the doctor said.

“We’re piecing together his last days,” Hackett said.

The doctor stopped at the laptop station in the hall, pulled up the record, and read through it briefly.