The Love-Haight Case Files (11 page)

She thought there would be a sizeable crew, but it was only two, one a retired police officer who owned the company, and the other a zombie that had retained enough of its intellect to follow instructions and who had only a little odor about him. Both wore caps and coveralls. Though Evelyn considered herself nonjudgmental, she was thankful for their attire, as the zombie was a particularly old one, and from looking at his face and hands, he appeared to be more bones than flesh.

“Don’t need the air-conditioner on tonight,” the retired cop had said as he started to work. “You like to keep it cold in here for some reason?”

Wrapped in a sweater, she sat at Gretchen’s desk, occasionally working a crossword puzzle while listening to them scrub. It was chilly, Thomas was somewhere watching; maybe Val was with him, adding to the drop in temperature.

The cleansers they used had a surprisingly pleasant smell. She didn’t have to watch to know what the men were doing. She heard the sloshing sound of a mop and the scritch-scratching of a scrub brush. One of them had plugged something in, not a vacuum; it didn’t have that sound. She was curious, but not enough to turn around and look. The zombie starting humming or whistling, it wasn’t terribly distinct with the sound of the appliance in the background, and it took her a moment to realize the tune was “Poker Face,” the pop version by Lady Gaga, not the piano one.

An hour into the cleaning work, Crystal Gaye arrived, knocking repeatedly to be heard over everything to get Evelyn’s attention.

She was pretty, Evelyn thought. No, gorgeous, she corrected herself. Gaye could have passed for Cindy Crawford in her model days of twenty years past. Gaye even had a beauty mark. Evelyn remembered Thomas had referred to Crystal as having a “sparkling” personality in a conversation several months back. It was when he told Evelyn about his designated attorney paperwork.

“Thomas spoke well of you,” Evelyn said, thinking she should say something. Would Thomas show himself? The air was so chilly she could faintly see her breath.

“We went out most of our second year at Stanford.” Gaye smiled, revealing gloss white teeth, too even to have been born with them like that, Evelyn thought. Her lips were a dark red, her face lightly tanned, and her eyes large, brown, and expressive. “Tom and I … ah, we were quite the item.”

Evelyn waited, wanting to know why they’d stopped seeing each other, or to pick up any juicy romance gossip for that matter. She figured it had to be Crystal that broke it off. What man would quit on such a beautiful woman? And a woman with brains too, to make it through Stanford. Crystal Gaye was what some folks would call the complete package.

Gaye looked behind her to the sidewalk and waved. A young man trotted in and propped open the front door. “I figure Anton here … Anton, meet Miss Evelyn Love, Evelyn, meet Anton … can put the filing cabinet drawers in the back of my Isuzu. You don’t mind, do you? Those file cabinets look so Goodwill. I forgot to bring boxes.”

“No.” Evelyn’s voice was flat. “I don’t need the file cabinets. Take the drawers. Take the cabinets.” She was more than certain Thomas’s brother and sister wouldn’t want them either.

“Well, then, Anton, if you would be so good?”

He paused, looking to the back of the office.

“Just work around them,” Evelyn said, still refusing to turn around. “Just work around them.” She could still see the blood pool in her mind. The area by the file cabinets hadn’t been touched by Thomas’s splatter. Anton could easily get to the files.

Evelyn returned to Gretchen’s desk, and Gaye stood in front of it, steepling her manicured nails against the oak. Gaye’s smiling demeanor had vanished, and Evelyn thought she looked honestly sad.

“I really cared about him, Miss Love. I always thought we’d end up together, Tom and I, having our own firm.”

Evelyn filled a word in the crossword puzzle and put down the pen, looked up at her.

“The law got in the way, I guess,” Gaye said. “Got in both our ways.”

They watched Anton carry out two file drawers at the same time. “I’m just going to load the drawers,” he said. “The cabinets will fall apart if I move them.”

“Strong,” Gaye said. “Strong, sweet, and could give a wit about the law.” He returned and headed back for another load. “I heard the dark fey that killed Thomas got knifed in jail.”

“Before his preliminary hearing was even scheduled.” Evelyn had wanted to attend that, wanted to hear what the defense would say.

“Some satisfaction in that, I suppose,” Gaye said. Anton walked past with another two drawers, nearly tripping on the step at the sidewalk.

“There’s more paper than you thought there’d be, Crystal,” Anton hollered. “We might have to make two trips with your car.”

“You can squeeze it all in there. Get creative,” she called back.

Evelyn was on the verge of tears again. Thomas physically gone, now the files … some of it, a lot of it, her work—going out the door because she didn’t have a law license. She should have taken more courses, worked less, and earned the degree by the end of last May so she could have taken the bar in August. Thomas could have designated her; the paper would be staying, the cases would be staying. Her work wouldn’t be going out the door in the arms of a strong young man named Anton who worked for a gorgeous woman who used to “be quite the item” with Thomas.

“We’ll start calling the clients on Monday, see who wants to stay with us, who wants to seek other representation,” Gaye said.

“There’s only a dozen open cases,” Evelyn said. “Most of them minor. There’s just a lot of paper. Past cases, some cases that never materialized, stuff like that. I think Thomas loved paper. I put the Holder stuff in the red folders so they’d stand out. Judge Vaughan was supposed to hear more of the arguments Monday, the rest of Thomas’s arguments. But I sent over a note asking it to be continued to the following week.”

Evelyn gave Gaye a quick run-down of the child-custody issue involving the ghoul. “Thomas was sure he was going to win it. I was sure, too. Holder deserves to see the kids. You should probably call him right away. I told him about you this morning, that you were Thomas’s designated attorney.”

“In fact, Holder called me, just a little while ago. We set up a meeting for late tomorrow afternoon. Interesting case. I’ll start reading his files right away. I’ve nothing else planned for the weekend,” Gaye said. “And I’m familiar with Vaughan; he might want to keep the Monday date, so I’ll make sure I’m ready.”

Evelyn felt a good dose of relief. The total package: beautiful, smart, and eager to step in and help. Thomas had made an excellent choice designating her. Maybe Evelyn could look to that law firm when she passed the bar, see if they might hire her.

The zombie started whistling-humming another tune: “Jesus Frankenstein,” from Rob Zombie’s
Hellbilly Deluxe.

“Appropriate music,” Evelyn mused.

Gaye laughed, the sound was like crystal wind chimes. It carried through the office, and the zombie stopped humming. A minute more of shuffling and scritch-scratching and the appliance was turned off. It sounded like they were packing up their equipment and buckets. “And you’re right, Miss Love, Thomas always did love paper. I hardly keep any around. Save trees and all that. I prefer everything digital. Keeps my office clean.”

“The office is clean!” the retired cop announced, tromping to the front, the zombie shuffling behind him. “Good as new. Give us a little bit and we’ll have all our stuff out of here.”

O O O

Thomas appeared above Gretchen’s desk after Gaye and the cleaners were gone.

“I don’t know why I’m here, Evelyn.” His voice was clearer than when he’d talked to her before. Evelyn thought maybe it took some getting used to, being a ghost. Maybe he’d practiced his diction when he’d hovered in the walls, and so could talk louder and could enunciate better now. “I don’t know why I didn’t go—” He let the thought hang.

“—wherever it is spirits go?” Evelyn finished. “I prefer to call that heaven.” Despite everything life had thrown at her … from childhood on, Evelyn believed in God. She’d picked the Catholic faith just because when she was a child there was a big Catholic church across from where she and her mother were staying, and she found a measure of peace inside it. And though they moved around, there always seemed to be a big, beautiful Catholic church nearby. “I believe in heaven, Thomas.”

The ghost wavered for a moment. “I don’t know what I believe, Evelyn.”

Was Thomas’s soul not ready to move on?
Soul, it had been number forty-three down in the crossword puzzle. And what about Holder’s soul? And the souls of the other dead-but-not-dead OTs?

Evelyn was reserving all of Sunday for church, planning on attending both morning services at Saint Agnes. She wanted to pray for all of their souls. Maybe she’d even go back in the evening.

“I don’t know what I
can
believe, Evelyn.”

“I believe I’m exhausted, Thomas.” And she was. Even though her thoughts were filled with angst and her heart was so unsettled, she knew sleep would come easy tonight. And she knew she’d have to practically set the alarm right next to her ear or she wouldn’t ever wake up. “Good night, Thomas.”

“Good night, Evelyn.”

She left and locked up; the glow from the streetlight spilling in through the office windows showed that he still floated above Gretchen’s desk.

Chapter 1.16

Evelyn spent the day at the law school library, returning to her apartment long after dark. She’d ridden the bus for a while after the library closed, and then went out for dinner before riding it again. She briefly entertained the notion of calling for Thomas, to ask how the day with his sister went. Instead, she headed straight upstairs, flicked on the lights, and dropped her backpack, startled that a man sat at her tiny kitchen table.

“I like what you’ve done to the place,” Dagger said. “A little more furnishings than your previous digs. I can see that you’ve gone all-out.”

Evelyn’s apartment was barely furnished. The kitchen had a table that doubled as a desk, and two chairs. The living room was a little better, with a recliner next to a pole lamp, a futon that passed for a couch, and a 14” television perched on an upended milk crate. There were no pictures on the wall, no knickknacks, nothing to give it a homey feel or to give it the look that someone lived here.

“Didn’t know they still made TV sets that small.”

Evelyn didn’t bother to ask how he got in. Dagger didn’t need keys. In fact, he’d taught her the art of picking a lock. He’d been here a while. She noticed her teakettle on the front burner—she always kept it on the back, and an overturned coffee mug on the drainer next to the sink.

The purple mass of bruise on his cheek had gone down somewhat, more than it should have since yesterday. But there were other scratches and scrapes that hadn’t been there when they’d met at the Vietnamese restaurant. Two of the fingers on his left hand were taped together.

“I could use a drink,” she said. “How about you?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Tough day?”

“Crystal Gaye.”

“I take it that’s not a pastry.”

“I wish. Yesterday she was with Boyd, Cranston & Gaye. She was hired this morning by Brock, Davis & Davis.”

Dagger watched her.

Evelyn pulled out the chair across from Dagger. “Crystal Gaye is Thomas’s attorney of record, and so she got all of his case files, including the custody case. Holder’s ex-wife is represented by Brock, Davis & Davis. Want to bet they hired Gaye so they could get the files? Mr. Holder could have asked for another attorney or gone to another firm, but dear Crystal Gaye got him to accept a settlement of joint custody that is only a hair better than the previous arrangement. I think Thomas could have got him full custody.”

Dagger didn’t say anything.

“So I’ve been at the law library all day. I’m going to file the paperwork to get some of our other cases back. Somehow I’m going to try cases myself.” She leaned against the back of the chair. “But you don’t know anything about the Holder case and could give a rat’s ass about the Holder case, or about any of our cases. And I could use a drink.”

“I noticed you have a bottle of Shiraz.”

She got up and took the bottle from the cabinet and brought down two glasses. She didn’t have wine glasses, just small tumblers more fitting for orange juice. Evelyn opened the bottle with a pocketknife. One of these days she’d buy a regular corkscrew, but she didn’t have wine all that often. She brought the glasses and the bottle to the table.

Dagger took the bottle and poured. Evelyn realized her hands were shaking.

She sat. “So enough of my day. You worked today, right?”

“Some. Mostly last night.”

“I thought you weren’t going to—”

His narrow eyes ended her sentence.

She wanted to ask Dagger a lot of things, but she knew better, and so kept the questions to herself.

He rubbed at a spot on the kitchen table, a discolored piece of Formica that no amount of scrubbing would erase. “Last night I found some people, the man who held the fey’s leash, and the man who in turn held his.”

Evelyn splayed her fingers on the table, her thumbs traveling along the Formica like it was a worry stone. This building was so quiet. No creaks from Thomas walking upstairs, nothing from the office below … no sounds of working that she once found comfortable. There was faint music; she had to focus to hear it, coming from one of the bars. Wynton Marsalis’s recording of “Deep in the South.” One of the bars played that particular tune a lot.

“And—”

It seemed that Dagger wasn’t going to give up his information without prompting. “And—” she prompted again.

Dagger took a swallow and nodded. “Good wine,” he said. A few moments later: “His name was Emilio Hernandez.”

Evelyn caught the “was.”

“He wasn’t much of a talker, but with a little persuasion he admitted he juiced up the fey. He didn’t know what it was, the mix. He was just given a bottle and syringe and was told it would make the fey ‘go all ape shit.’ And Emilio didn’t get any money out of the deal; he was just doing a favor for his brother.”