Chris Redding - Corpse Whisperer

“A month. One hellish thirty days. Who are you anyway?”

“Grace Harmony.”

“You friends with her?” He shook his head. “No she’d consider you competition. Whatever you are to her, stay away.”

“Why?”

He leaned closer to her, his coffee breath wafting across her face. “Because she’s a vampire.”

Grace didn’t know how to take his advice. “Can you at least tell me some of her recent boyfriends? Any she had trouble with?”

“Trouble getting rid of?”

“Yeah.”

Stalkers ended up killing their target. This was the only place Grace could figure to begin. If Dolores had a lot of ex-lovers, she must have pissed off at least one.

Kent wiped his hands on an already filthy, red rag. “Lance Antonio.”

“You have an address?”

“Nope, but he hangs out at the Robber Baron. I’m sure he’ll be there tonight. She had to get a restraining order on him.”

Grace left her faith in police officers not any stronger.

Dolores dialed the number she knew in her sleep. She’d been calling it a lot lately. She had hoped he would be her rock. That he’d be happy about her baby. Their baby.

“What now?” he said.

“Hello to you to. I’m fine, thanks.”

“Dolores, stop.”

“Stop what?”

She sighed. “Stop this. You need to come take your responsibility.”

“I think my responsibility ended with your blackmail.”

“Look, I’m desperate. I don’t have as much money as I’d like to raise this kid. Either come here and marry me or keep those checks coming.”

“I will find a way out of this,” he said.

She flipped her hair over her shoulder and snorted. “What? Burn me down.”

“Shit. Don’t say it out loud.”

“And blow your cover? You don’t think someone will figure you out. How about that best friend of yours? She might want to know. Bet she already does.”

“Leave her out of this,” he hissed.

She’d touched a nerve. Good. Maybe his checks would be on time. “Fine. Just remember. I have an envelope with her name on it. Anything happens to me.”

“Dolores, you are not that clever.”

“You want to find out for sure? Try me.”

“Okay, I get it. I’ll write another check. Make sure it doesn’t go up your nose.”

“I’m clean. Can’t be anything else with a kid inside of me.”

“Whose fault is that?”

“Yours and you’ll keep paying for it.”

“No, I won’t Dolores. I’ll find a way out.”

She cackled as she hung up the phone. No he wouldn’t.

“It was set and we think for hire,” Ed Bauer told Zach.

He sat on the only other chair in the office besides Zach’s.

“For hire?”

“Owner had financial trouble. Gambling debts. He won’t tell us who he hired. Said the guy is long gone.”

“You believe him?”

Zach sipped his coffee. Part of him missed being on the front line of these things. Arson had been his specialty.

“We’ll keep looking, but the usual arson guys have all been accounted for. We’re going through the owner’s phone records and e-mail to see if we can track down anyone. He must have contacted him some way. Not telepathy.”

Zach laughed. “Cell phone?”

“Got that, too, though he insisted it belonged to his business.”

“You can get around that.”

Ed nodded. He stood. “I have to say I really miss not having you on this case.”

Zach shook his friend’s hand. “Part of me misses, it too. On the other hand, I make my own hours.”

“Something to be said for that. Gotta go.”

Zach watched him leave, but didn’t feel the regret he expected.

Grace’s shift started with a potential suicide victim who moved the gun at the last second and only managed to shoot off his ear.

Cleanly.

While her partner stemmed the bleeding, she and a cop searched for the missing body part.

“What are the chances that this guy’s ear would blow out the window?” Officer Henry said.

“If he’d had screens we wouldn’t be doing this.”

“Dumpster diving on a Spring day.”

Grace didn’t chuckle, her mind ruminating on Jared’s attitude “You know a Lance Antonio?”

“Yeah. Used to be my partner. Why? He giving you trouble?”

“Why would you think that?”

“He does that. Latches onto a woman and doesn’t let go. He has at least one restraining order out against him.”

“So I’d heard. You know Zach Holten?”

The officer moved around some rotting garbage. To Grace’s relief her nose stopped working. She couldn’t smell anymore.

“By reputation.”

“Which is?” she asked.

“He’s a cop at all times and would ticket his grandmother for jaywalking. Even if he isn’t a cop anymore.”

“Why’d he quit?”

Officer Henry stopped and looked over his mirrored sunglasses at her. “He believed a psychic and she was wrong. They arrested the wrong guy.”

Grace digested that information. Her abilities would not be welcome in Zach’s eyes. “No temper?”

The officer stopped and studied her. “Why do you want to know about all of these people?”

“I think a friend of mine is in trouble and I’m just trying to get to know the cast of characters in her life.”

“Anyone I know?”

“Dolores Holten?”

He snorted. “She brings trouble on herself.”

“You know her?”

“We dated several years ago before I met my wife. She lives life on the wild side.”

His picture of her didn’t fit with the Dolores Holten Grace knew. Maybe the pregnancy slowed her down. Who knew? Grace’s job wasn’t to judge, but to save her from being killed.

Just because the victim made it hard to narrow down subjects didn’t mean it couldn’t be done. “You think you could show me around the Robber Baron tonight?”

“Hey, I’m a married man.”

She punched his arm lightly. “This isn’t a date. I just need you to introduce me to Lance Antonio. Then you can leave. It’ll take five minutes.”

“Sure. Wait I found something.”

Officer Henry’s grin creased his face as he held up an ear.

“There’s been another one,” Ed Bauer said while sitting in Zach’s office.

“Beer? It’s quitting time.”

“I’m off. Please don’t tell me it’s an import.”

Zach reaching into a small refrigerator behind his desk. “I stocked some beer for you.”

“Good.” His friend looked around his new office and Zach realized just how shabby it appeared. He hadn’t had time or even the inclination to decorate. Maybe some part of him had hoped this was temporary.

Opening the bottle he said, “I know I haven’t done much with the place.”

“Martha Stewart, you are not.”

The clinked bottles. Zach took a sip, savoring the amber brew. Nothing like a cold beer at the end of the day. “So tell me about this new case.”

“Set. Arson for hire. I’d bet my balls it is the same person as last time.”

“That sure?”

“The worst is that is looks like the guy we sent away.”

“Mm.”

That case would haunt Zach forever. On a psychic’s tip and some circumstantial evidence he arrested someone. The wrong person and that ended Zach’s career because the person had good lawyers.

“But that guy is in jail. Or twelve jurors thought he was the right guy.”

The Prosecutor’s office had nabbed someone else and he’d been convicted. “I’m cringing as I say this. Celia said the first fire was a copycat. Could the same person have done it again? A second time?”

“But who could this be? They’d have to know about the first one or be the true person who set those other fires.”

Zach frowned. “Are you suggesting the wrong man was convicted?”