Darker Than Any Shadow

Chapter Thirteen

Cricket let us in at the front door wearing jean shorts and a dirty tank top. She’d pulled her hair into a pert ponytail, but weariness sagged her eyes and mouth. Jackson was gone, she explained, trying to get things straightened out with the insurance. When she led us inside, her flip-flops thwacked the wet floor.

It was a mess. The last time I’d seen Lupa, it had been a seething clot of soaking, inebriated humanity. Now it was empty and smelled stale and soggy, like a sofa left out in the rain. Fans circulated the air, ice-cold from the AC, which was turned on full blast to suck up the moisture. Towels, dozens of them, covered every flat surface.

“Anything we can do to help?”

I included Trey in this “we,” as if he were there to offer assistance, not function as a secret weapon. Not that Cricket knew about the lie detector in his skull. He and I didn’t share this particular part of his skill set with most people, just like we didn’t share the many ways he could kill people with his bare hands. People knew he was different. They knew it was because of some right frontal lobe damage. They tolerated these oddities and asked zero questions.

She waved a hand around. “It’s mostly getting up the water from the sprinklers. The bathroom is still a crime scene, so you can’t get in there, but it really doesn’t matter because it’s a total loss.”

I picked up a broom and handed it to Trey. Despite my warnings, he’d ditched the casual wear and gone full Armani for the occasion. Nonetheless, he accepted the broom without complaint.

“Where should we start?” he said.

“Pick anywhere. Jackson’s bringing more fans when he comes—that should help. Although with this humidity…”

She shook her head. She was right—it was going to be a hell of a clean-up, and the worst of it wasn’t the damage, it was the time out of commission for a new restaurant.

“Is it all right if I look around?” Trey said.

“Sure. But be careful, this floor is like glass when it’s wet.”

He shouldered his broom as if it were an assault rifle and headed for the front door. I wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but I knew his process—start at the beginning. My process was different. I started by finding something with a lid on it. Then I pulled the lid off.

I pointed toward the back. “Can I see the crime scene?”

She shrugged. Together, we headed for the back hallway, brooms in tow. Inside, the area was T-shaped, and standing in the crux of it, facing the double doors leading to the main room, I could see almost all of the restaurant. To my left were the office and the bathroom, that entire hall blocked by yellow crime scene tape. To my right were the storage closet and the swinging double doors marking the entrance to the kitchen.

Cricket stopped at the boundary of the police tape. I noted the particulars—here was where I’d last seen Lex alive, here the CDs I’d tripped over, here the spot where I’d dragged Lex’s body.

Then it had been all flames and smoke and screeching alarms. Now it was the hum of the fans, the brushing of the broom, the drip drip drip of water.

Cricket fingered the tape. “My own restaurant, off limits by decree of the APD.”

“It’s only tape. We could step right over that.”

She looked shocked. “You’re not serious.”

“It’ll take one second. Nobody will know.”

We both looked Trey’s way. He was out front, moving the broom in a slow trajectory at the baseboards. With a finger to my lips, I took one quick step over the tape and pulled out my cell phone. I snapped a shot of the floor, another of the wall. The bathroom door hung ajar, so I tip-toed over and peeked inside.

Point of origin, no doubt. The infamous V stained the wall beside the toilet. Everything lay sodden and ashy and smelling of decay, punctuated with incessant dripping. I could still see Lex there, sprawled in front of the sink—the bloody wound, the bruising.

“The kitchen was spared entirely,” Cricket said. “It runs on a separate sprinkler system that didn’t trigger. That’s the only good news.”

She stood outside the tape, her expression solid loss right to the middle. I took one final photo and joined her back in good citizen land.

I tucked the phone in my bag. “Don’t tell Trey.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” She stepped closer. “So I hear you’re good at this?”

“Good at what?”

“Figuring stuff out. You know, unofficially, like you did last time.”

I hesitated. “Is there something you need me to figure out?”

“How about the whole freaking mess?”

I was dying to ask her about Lex, about her mysterious text, about why she had to abandon me at the bar. But I needed Trey with me when I did it, to sniff out the lies from the truth.

“Any part of the mess in particular?”

“How about that cop, what’s his name?”

“Cummings.”

“Yeah him. He seemed all right, but I got the feeling he was throwing stuff at me to see what would stick. Like he was waiting for me to say the wrong thing and then…” She drew a slash mark over her throat. “He thinks one of us killed Lex, I know he does.”

“Do you think he might be right?”

She stared at her broom. I was betting she had a secret, and I was betting it concerned Lex. But was it the secret I thought it was? Was it the secret Rico was protecting?

I suddenly realized he wasn’t there. “Rico said he and Adam were coming?”

“They had to cancel. Rico didn’t say why.”

I started to quiz her further, but stopped when I saw the red in her eyes, either from crying or lack of sleep or both. My conscience twinged yet again.

I held out my hand for the broom. “Here, let me do that for a while. You rest.”

***

I spent the next half-hour sweeping while Cricket ate lunch. Trey swept too, but eventually he propped the broom in the corner and started casing the place. Being a premises liability expert meant that he had a keen eye for physical space. Occasionally he would bend and pick up a piece of trash or run his finger along a seam in the wall. At certain points he disappeared entirely—into the parking lot, out front, poking into closets.

The storage closet in particular held his interest. Tiny and stacked with shelves, it was located next to the kitchen. I came up behind him as he examined it. Cricket put down her sandwich and came over too.

He turned to her. “Was this closet locked last night?”

She shook her head. “No. Why?”

“What kind of chemicals did you keep in here?”

“Cleaning supplies mostly. Oil for the lamps on the tables. Why?”

He turned to me. “Did you notice the smell of accelerants in the bathroom last night?”

“What’s an accelerant smell like?”

He reached into the closet and pulled out a brand new bottle of lamp oil, unscrewed the lid, and held it under my nose. “Like this.”

I took a sniff, and it punched me right in the memory banks. “Yep. That’s it. What is that stuff?”

“Kerosene. Only the unopened containers are left.”

“What happened to the others?”

“Taken as evidence.” He dropped into a crouch and pointed. “See? Fingerprint powder.”

He was right. I joined him at floor level and saw the black smudges. He didn’t touch any part of the door, however. Curious and careful in equal measures.

I stood. “I thought that smell was burning plastic.”

Trey stood too and put the lamp oil back. “It might have been. That’s for the arson team to decide.”

“Arson!” Cricket interrupted. Her voice rang with panic. “Insurance doesn’t pay for arson!”

“It does. Unless the arson was committed by the property owner, of course.”

“Oh god, what if they think we did this?” Tears sparked at the corners of her eyes. “We put everything we had into the restaurant. Right now, my job is the only thing keeping us afloat, and the school’s hitting us with three furlough days and a pay freeze. Our savings are gone.”

Her words tumbled on top of each other. I started to reassure her that nobody in their right mind would suspect a pre-school teacher of burning down her family business, but Trey spoke first, his voice serious.

“Those circumstances could look suspicious.”

I put a hand to his elbow. “What Trey means is, that kind of investigation is way down the road, not something you should worry about now.” I squeezed. “Right?”

He spoke carefully, his eyes on me. “Right.”

Cricket’s panic subsided, so I let go of Trey and stuck my head inside the closet. It reeked of damp wood and ash. I craned my neck to examine the ceiling.

“Could someone have hidden in here?”

He shook his head. “No, the shelves aren’t removable. But someone could have hidden the murder weapon and then disposed of it afterwards.”

“That would mean someone came here last night with the intention and the means to murder Lex Anderson.”

“Which would mean premeditation.”

“Right. But using the lamp oil seems like making do with what you find lying around. Which is the opposite of pre-meditation.”

Cricket leaned against the wall. Near the scene of the crime, the air smelled even more musty and sour, and the incessant drip-drip-drip of water mingled with the monotone hum of the fans. She scrubbed at her eyes.

“I wish Lex had never showed his face around here.”

I tried to keep my voice neutral. “Were there problems?”

“Oh, huge problems. He started off fine. I was happy to have him on the team. But he’d been erratic lately, really unfocused. Jackson said he was using. I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Is that why you two threw him out?”

“The main reason, yeah. Also why Frankie decided to throw him off the team and put Vigil back on. Nobody trusted him, and now that I know he stole the team’s money, I know we were right not to.”

So Jackson had finally come clean about the missing funds. I was relieved—one less secret I had to tiptoe around.

“Did you know where Lex was staying?”

“No. I didn’t care as long as he was out of my house.”

“Did you talk to him Saturday night?”

Another shake of the head.

“Are you sure?”

She hesitated. I waited. I knew from experience that the silent pause was the cop’s best friend—people couldn’t stand the pressure of the nothing, so they started spilling words left and right. The technique was getting to Cricket, that was for sure. Trey noticed too. He examined her with his scalpel-like curiosity.

Cricket didn’t meet his eyes. “I may have spoken to him a couple of times. Why?”

I ignored the question. “Is that who you went to see in back? After you got the text?”

She paled. “I don’t remember. I got lots of texts.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Why do you keep asking?”

“I’m not—”

“You think I killed him?”

I looked at Trey. He looked at me. Neither of us said anything. Cricket glared.

“I had lots of reasons to hate Lex, but that doesn’t mean I wanted him dead!”

The back door opened and a shaft of sunlight spilled down the hall. Jackson stood framed in the doorway, a bag of groceries in one arm, a box fan in the other. Cricket turned her red-eyed face his way, and he put both on the floor fast, slammed the door, and marched right in Trey’s face.

“What’s going on? Why is my wife crying? What did you do to her?”

Trey looked puzzled. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Then why is she crying?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yeah? Really? You weren’t asking a bunch of sneaky cop questions, were you?”

The assault in his manner was potent. He was standing too close to Trey, and while Trey’s expression remained as bland as vanilla pudding, I saw him shift into neutral stance and drop his shoulders. Jackson was two seconds away from getting his ass shaken and stirred, and I did not feel like making any more visits to the police station.

I put one hand on Trey’s stomach. “This is not happening. Separate corners. Now.”

Neither of them budged, but then the sound of Cricket’s sobs punctured the alpha male standoff. Jackson spun around and lurched at Cricket, catching her in his arms. He pulled her against his massive chest, one hand stroking her hair, murmuring in her ear. She threw me a look over his shoulder—angry, almost calculating—then buried her face in his neck, sobbing even harder. Trey watched impassively.

I stepped toward the door to the parking lot. “I think it’s time we left.”

Trey nodded. “Of course.”