Tiger's Eye (10 page)

“Gus has been working on it, but so far no luck.”

“So what brings you by?”

Leo held up a plastic bag with a tooth-marked cell phone sealed inside.

I asked, “Do you know who he is—I mean was?”

“Not yet, but I do know he hasn’t been down there that long. I also know who he was looking for.”

I perched forward. “Who?” If I could get an answer, perhaps I could return the watch to whoever it was meant for and put his soul to rest.

“You.”

I could feel the blood drain from my face as my body went cold. Friday’s phone call replayed in my mind.

“Stacy Justice?”

“Speaking.”

“Stacy Justice the second, right?”

“Yes.”

“I just thought you should know that I have the tapes.”

“What tapes?” I asked.

The man on the phone swore softly. “You haven’t gone through his files yet, have you?”

“Whose files? What you are talking about?”

“It wasn’t an accident,” the man said.

“Who is this?”

“Your father was murdered.”

Leo’s voice burst through my thoughts. “Stacy. Stace? Are you okay?”

I wanted to pass out, collapse into a chair, scream—anything but stand here and pretend as if my world had not just spun out of control. But I couldn’t. Leo couldn’t know until I knew the whole truth.

I took a deep breath, told myself to get a grip, that it still might have been a prank. Leo was watching, waiting for a response, and I had to give him one.

“Sorry. It’s just the heat. Let’s go inside.”

Leo followed me to the kitchen and I grabbed us each a bottled water. Thor came in too and heaved himself in front of the air-conditioner.

“So, he tried to call me?” I asked after taking a huge gulp.

“Not your private line, your work line. It’s a burner phone, can’t be traced. Your work number was the only number he dialed. Did you get any phone calls on Friday that were out of the ordinary?”

“Nope,” I lied, averting my eyes.

Leo studied me for a moment. “Are you sure? Nothing that might seem even remotely related to the body we fished out of the lake? Around noon?”

I gave my best performance of trying to search my mind for information.

“Nothing rings a bell.”

“Interesting.” He uncapped his water and sipped it slowly. “The body that you reported, the one that”—he used air quotes here—“Thor drudged up, nothing connects you to it at all?”

“What’s with the air quotes? You don’t believe me?” I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Cut the bull, Stacy. The guy had a cement block attached to his ankle and that lake is about forty feet deep. There was no boat floating on the water, which means he didn’t tie it to his own foot.”

No boat. Of course it wasn’t suicide. “A cement block? Is that on the record? Can I print that?”

Leo sighed, drank the rest of his water, and grabbed his sunglasses. I could feel frustration rolling off him in waves as he approached the door, but there was no way I could tell him how I had actually discovered the body.
You see, Leo, it was like this. The dude dragged me down into the depths of the lake à la
Friday the Thirteenth Part One
, and now I’m bound by a soggy oath to put his soul to rest.

Yeah, that would not go over well.

And perhaps telling him about the phone call would have been the right move, but there was something I had to do first.

Leo paused at the door and said, “Please call me if you remember anything. Even if you suspect something or get
a feeling about something or…whatever, please just let me know.” He turned back to me. “The information this guy was going to relay to you may have gotten him killed. If that’s the case, then you might be in someone’s crosshairs. Be careful.”

Then he left.

I stared through the screen, watching him walk down the pathway toward his vehicle.

He was right, I knew. And as soon as I took care of one thing, I would tell him everything. The phone call, the watch, Dad—everything.

Leo’s car motored away, the white tiger sprawled across the roof.

Yep, he would hear all about it since I might need his help anyway.

And someone else might need it too.

Because if I found out my father was murdered, Heaven wouldn’t be able to save the son of a bitch responsible.

Chapter 12

“I was a dog in a past life. Really. I’ll be walking down the street and dogs will do a sort of double take. Like, Hey, I know him.”

—William H. Macy

So much for my relaxing weekend. I had a collie who needed to find her way home, a dead guy who needed peace, a musician who may or may not know something about said dead guy, a groom missing for half a century, and oh yeah—the little matter of lost tapes and my father’s possible homicide.

Lazy days of summer these were not.

I changed into jeans and sneakers and tucked my hair into a Cubs hat. Next I called Cinnamon, hoping she could accompany me on what I was about to do.

Tony answered the phone. “That game really wore her out and she’s expecting a big crowd tonight so she’s catching a nap before work. You want me to leave her a message?”

“No, that’s fine. I’ll catch up with her later.”

I was about to hang up when I decided Tony might be able to save me some legwork. “Hey, Tony, is your auto body shop the only one that tows in this area?”

“For seventy years. Why?”

“Just following a lead. And all the cars that are abandoned go to the Junkyard Graveyard off White Hope Road, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

I texted Derek.
Road trip?

He texted back.
Heard about the body on my scanner. Pick me up?

Wear grubby.

Always do when I’m with you.

Thor was snoring like a hibernating bear. I decided to let him sleep. I went into the bedroom and grabbed my workbag from the closet. I always kept a pad of paper, pens, and a recorder in there and I figured I might need ’em on this trip.

My eyes traipsed over the Blessed Book and I hesitated.

Could there be some prediction in there about Lolly’s Jack? Surely Birdie and Fiona would have scoured it from cover to cover by now, but was there something they missed? A message of warning that he was in danger, perhaps? Or a clue that hinted he wasn’t the man for Lolly?

I set the bag aside and scooted across the carpet, reaching for the book. When I touched it, an electric shock jolted my finger.

“Ouch.” I shook my hand out and left the book where it was.

There was no time for looking into that right now, I decided. Lolly had waited forty-nine years; surely she could wait a little while longer.

I closed the closet door, hoisted the bag over my shoulder, grabbed my keys, and walked outside.

The newscaster on the car radio said it would be a high of eighty-two degrees today, but it felt more like a hundred and two when I pulled up to Derek’s apartment.

He hopped inside and said, “Damn, it’s cooking out there.” He pointed the passenger vent at his face, soaking up the cool air.

“Where’s your camera?”

He grinned and reached inside his shirt pocket. He pulled out a pair of sunglasses and put them on, looking straight ahead.

“Thanks for the fashion show, Derek, but I need your camera. The camera on my phone sucks.”

He turned his head to face me, his movements robotic, and tapped a finger to the edge of his sunglasses. He pulled them down, slowly, and flashed his brown eyes at me, wiggling his eyebrows.

“You’re beginning to annoy me,” I said.

“I just took your picture.”

“What do you mean, you just took my picture?”

He tipped his head so that his right eye was angled at my ear. “Now I’m recording your cleavage.”

I smacked his shoulder.

“Yo, easy, woman!”

“Quit messing around, will you?”

“I’m not.” Derek removed his sunglasses and said, “The latest addition to my collection.” He tilted them
toward me as he spoke, pointing to the right arm of the sunglasses. “This is the video/audio camera and this”—he shifted the shades and pointed to the left arm—“is the still camera.”

He slipped the sunglasses back on and grinned at me. “Admit it, you think it’s badass.”

I have to say, I was impressed. “Totally badass, dude.”

He faced forward again, crossed his arms over his Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt, and said, “Fo’ shizzle.”

I paused, put the car in reverse, and said, “This better be a phase, Snoop Dogg.”

The Junkyard Graveyard, about ten miles outside of town, was where automobiles, motorcycles, boats, RVs, and even large appliances went to die. It was one of those places that takes on a life of its own in a small community. That is to say, it became an urban legend of sorts so teenagers often dared each other to hike through the grounds at midnight, or camp out in the adjacent woods, or—the greatest challenge of all—knock on the trailer of its owner, Mr. Scoog.

I had never succumbed to the legend myself. Growing up in the Geraghty house was kind of a living myth in its own right, but the rumors were that Mr. Scoog was a beastly man with a hook for a hand, a glass eye he liked to hurl at people, and a pet falcon that would rip your ears off if you got too close to the property.

I believed all that as much as I believed in the Easter bunny.

It felt like I had driven too far, but then I saw the sign for the street leading to the Graveyard.

“Finally,” I said, slowing the car.

Derek leaned forward and took his sunglasses off. “You’re messing with me, right?”

I glanced at him quickly, not daring to take my eyes off this unfamiliar road for too long. “What do you mean?”

“Devil’s Ladder Road? Where the hell are we going?” He squirmed a little in his seat. “No pun intended.”

“We’re checking out an accident vehicle.”

“Why? I thought the stiff was a floater. I didn’t hear anything about a car accident.”

“Give me a minute.” I leaned closer to the windshield, looking for some indication that I was where I needed to be.

We passed a sign that read:
NO TRESPASSERS
! Just after that, the paved road broke up, and we found ourselves meandering along a rocky dirt path flanked by overgrown weeds and low-hanging tree branches that scraped the car. It was an eerie sound. Like an unidentifiable animal sharpening its claws for a kill. The tree canopy grew thicker the farther along the path we moved until it eventually blocked the sun. I slowed the car down to a near crawl. There were no signs yet that we were heading in the right direction and I thought that perhaps my memory had failed me. I had never come here myself, but I could have sworn this was the way. The name of the road had been etched in my mind since I’d heard the adults whisper it around me in the aftermath of the crash that killed my father.

A crow swooped in front of the windshield, screeching and flapping its wings as if reprimanding us. It glided over to a smashed-in school bus and parked on the exposed engine, glaring at us. I sucked in my breath.

Derek let out a low whistle, turning his head for a last look at the yellow-and-black wreckage as we rolled by. “Did you see that? Looked like it was cut in half.”

“It was,” I told him.

“No way.”

I nodded. “Happened in the seventies. A train.”

He didn’t ask any more questions and I didn’t offer any answers.

Some stories were better left untold.

We saw a
KEEP OUT!
sign on the left, an old Roper stove and a tire-less Chevy pickup on the right, and just beyond that, another creature cackled.

And something thumped the hood.

I wondered briefly if it was the white tiger, but I had a feeling this was more of a flesh-and-blood animal than a spirit guide.

“Why do I have the urge to piss my pants?” Derek asked just as the scratches sounded on the roof. “Seriously, Justice, what is the freaking plan here?” He was white-knuckling the dashboard, trying to see around the visor. “Because I’m starting to get the feeling like I’m about to become the first victim of a serial killer who’s been writing his manifesto for years.”

“Don’t be so dramatic. Besides, why you? He could kill me first.”

“Bitch, please. You know the young, good-looking black dude always gets it first.”

I rolled my eyes. More wrecks appeared as we traveled down the road. We were getting close.

Then an enormous bird landed on the passenger-side windshield wiper, and Derek screamed like a little girl in a spook house.

He scrambled to lock his door and I stopped the car. “What is that—a pterodactyl? Jesus, lord!”

The aluminum motor home was about ten feet away from us looking like a traveling beer can. I couldn’t help but feel a little nervous at the bullet holes in the side, but the plastic begonias out front seemed to give the impression that Mr. Scoog had at least tried to soften up the place.

Derek saw the sign before I did.
THE JUNKYARD GRAVEYARD
. He looked at me, face deadpan. “I am not getting out of this car. You’re on your own.”