Mayes, Casey - A Deadly Row

While he was gone, my husband said, “I know he’s probably fine, but we can’t take any chances.”

“I’m as worried about Grady as you are.” I shivered slightly as I said it.

“He’s at home,” Davis said when he rejoined us. “At least his phone is.”

“Well, that’s good news, isn’t it?”

Zach answered for him. “Maybe, maybe not. One thing’s for sure; I’m not going to stand around here waiting to hear one way or the other. I’m going to Grady’s. Are you coming, Savannah?”

“Just try to leave me behind,” I said. There was no use arguing with me, and he knew it.

“We can take my car,” Davis said.

“Who invited you?” Zach asked, an edge in his voice. It was clear that he held Davis responsible for Grady’s disappearance, whether it made any sense or not.

“I’ve got a siren, flashing lights, and a badge. What have you got?” Davis wasn’t holding back, either. He obviously wasn’t in the mood to be anybody’s whipping boy, not even for his former boss.

I asked, “What are we standing around here for, then?”

I wasn’t sure Davis was all that thrilled about me coming along, but it was a good bet that he wasn’t about to make an issue of it, not after butting heads with my husband. We raced out of the precinct parking lot, and I knew if we hadn’t been with the chief of police, we would have surely gotten a ticket for speeding.

Davis’s car radio went off as we neared Grady’s house. “His truck’s here, but he’s not answering the door. Should I break in?” It was clear in the patrolman’s voice even over the radio that he was reluctant to bust in on the mayor of Charlotte, and a man who was—several rungs up the ladder—his boss.

Davis snapped, “Don’t do anything. I’ll be there in two minutes.”

There was no more conversation as we raced to Grady’s house. The last time I’d been there had been during our going-away party that he’d hosted for us. Long ago, Zach and I had become friends with Grady separately, and without his introduction, it’s quite possible I never would have met my husband, the man who quickly became the love of my life. When Zach had been a local attorney just starting out, Grady had taken him under his wing, helping him find his way around Charlotte, both within the legal system, and outside of it. I’d tried to return the favor by fixing him up with some of my younger friends, but Grady hadn’t been in the mood to settle down then any more than he was now. If anything had happened to him, I didn’t know how I was going to deal with it.

When we pulled up in front of his place in Myers Park, it didn’t look like a house that might belong to the mayor. There were McMansions on his street, homes overbuilt for the lots they sat on, but Grady had chosen a rather modest Cape for his home, painted moss green with beige shutters and trim. It was neatly kept, but I knew Grady used a lawn service for that. He considered himself no better than his lowliest constituent, but he had never had any interest in lawn care, let alone gardening, no matter how much I tried to convince him otherwise.

Davis, Zach, and I got out of the car and met the patrol officer at the front door.

“No signs of life, sir,” he said.

I wasn’t sure if he was directing his comment to Zach or Davis, and it was all I could do not to laugh when the two men answered, “Okay,” at the same time.

“Let’s break it down,” Davis said.

“Hang on a second,” I said before they could muscle the door down. “Grady has a spare key hidden, if it’s still there.”

“I doubt the mayor has a hide-a-key,” Davis said.

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Grady had told me about the key years ago when I’d come by to drop off one of my homemade apple-crisp pies. I’d teased him about it at the time, but I was glad I knew about it now.

There was a rock garden near the trees by the porch, and I knew Grady had hidden one of those fake rocks there, but the problem was that they all looked a little too artificial to me. After all, it wasn’t all that common to find a streambed in Myers Park, but there the stones were.

“We don’t have much time,” Zach said.

“Hang on a second.” I studied the rocks, searching for one that didn’t fit the pattern, much like what I did when I was designing one of my puzzles. I couldn’t see it when I looked directly at the stones, but when I turned my head, the fake one made itself obvious by the way the light reflected off it.

I picked it up with more confidence than I felt, and was relieved to find that the weight of the stone was less than it should have been.

As I handed the key to Zach, Davis said, “We still don’t know the alarm code.”

“It’s 0607,” I said.

“Why would he choose that?”

“It’s his birthday,” I said.

Davis shook his head as we approached the front door. The key slid in quickly, and I moved to the alarm pad. Zach raised an eyebrow as I did this.

“Hey, I’m the one who found the key,” I said.

“Go ahead before it goes off,” he said.

I punched in the numbers, and was relieved to see that Grady hadn’t changed the code since he’d told it to me years before.

The house was neat and tidy, thanks more to the mayor’s housekeeper than his personal habits. Grady liked things neat, but he wasn’t all that consistent in keeping the things around him that way. If I had to bet, I’d say that his bedroom was a mess.

“You need to wait outside now,” Davis said to me.

“I’m the one who got you in, remember?” I said.

“He’s right,” Zach said in a voice that didn’t allow argument. I had one of those myself, but neither one of us used it unless the situation was dire.

I walked outside, and saw the look of incredulity on Davis’s face as I accepted the situation. Little did he know that I wasn’t finished snooping, though it might appear that I was.

The patrol officer was gone, so I walked over to Grady’s vehicle, a nice-looking pickup that to my knowledge had never been used for its intended purpose. Grady liked to say that he had the common touch, and driving the truck was just one way he showed it. I tried the driver’s side door, but it was locked. As I peeked in through the windows, I noticed that the rear pass-through window was unlatched.

There was only one thing I could do. I hopped up into the truck bed, not with a great deal of finesse, I’ll grant you, but I managed it. After I slid the window open, I tried to imagine how I was going to get in far enough to open the door. There was no way I was going to fit, and seeing me stuck there was not an image I ever wanted in my husband’s mind.

I might not be able to fit in all of the way, but I could still reach inside. The truck interior was as neat as Grady’s living room had been, but there might be something under the seats, not that I could reach them from where I was squatting.

I was trying to extend my reach when I heard my husband’s distinctive cough behind me.

“Have you taken up breaking and entering, Savannah?”

“No breaking, and not much entering,” I said. “I noticed that the back sliding window was unlatched, so I thought I’d check it out. Did you have any luck inside?”

“We found this,” he said as he held up a bagged cell phone. “There are about forty messages on it, but no sign of Grady.”

“That’s a relief,” I said. “It must have slipped out of his pocket.”

“And he didn’t notice instantly that it was missing? I’m not happy about this,” he said.

As Zach helped me out of the back of Grady’s truck, I noticed a man on foot approaching us. He had on a cap with the Carolina Panthers logo on it, and he wore running shoes, shorts, and a knit shirt. I didn’t even recognize him until he was twenty paces away from us.