chapter Ten
Getting out of the prison was a lot quicker than getting in. Death still chose to go elsewhere as they waited, saying the inmates were much more interesting than security checks could ever be. Casey believed that.
It was wrenching leaving Ricky in that awful place. The smells, the sounds, the angry people. Not anywhere she ever imagined her little brother would end up. But she assured him—and herself, in the process—that she would get him out quickly. She wasn’t sure she actually believed herself, but she talked a good talk.
“So,” Don said once they were back on the road. “I’m not sure we got anything good from him.”
“Of course we did.”
“Really? Enlighten me, please.”
“Alicia obviously didn’t share about her past. And when she spoke in her sleep she was worried about somebody finding her. The woman was in hiding. That proves it.”
“You think?”
“Have they found out anything more about her, or are we still going with the lies she told on her job application and rental agreement?”
“I haven’t heard anything new.”
“We don’t even know that Alicia McManus was her real name.”
“Nice,” Death said, giving a thumbs up. “Way to sneak that information into the conversation.”
“Right,” Don said. “You mentioned that back at the police station when Watts was telling you everything we don’t know about her. It would make sense if it wasn’t her name, since they can’t find a record of her anywhere. But how would we go about finding her real one? Ricky obviously doesn’t know it.”
“Hmm,” Death said. “This could be tricky.”
Casey had no idea how to get Don to discover Alicia’s real name of ‘Elizabeth Mann’ without actually saying it.
Death jumped in. “What if you suggest something close to Alicia?”
“Could it be a name sort of like Alicia?” she said to Don. “That might have the same nickname?”
“Could be. I’ve heard that people will do that, or use the same initials. So that could be Alice, I suppose, although there aren’t a whole lot of women her age named that these days. Or Allison, maybe? Or some other form of Alicia, even. Lisa. Or just Ali.”
Casey felt like thudding her head with her hand.
“And that doesn’t help with the last name,” Don said. “There are thousands of surnames that start with M.”
“Could we go with the same idea as the first name? That it would be something close?”
“McMillan? McCarthy? McArthur? I’ll suggest the idea to Watts. Maybe he can get someone on it. I’ll tell them to start with the initials being the same.”
Casey groaned. This was impossible.
“So where to?” Don said. “I don’t suppose you’ll come to my house for supper?”
“I’d like to, but I kind of promised Mom I’d come back after seeing Ricky.”
“Of course. I’ll drop you off there.”
Death’s tongue clicked. “Did you just lie to your lawyer?”
Ignoring Death, Casey convinced Don to drive to his office, where she grabbed her duffel bag, which she had left there that morning, told him she’d be in touch the next day, and walked toward her mother’s. Once out of sight, she stopped at the next intersection. Death kept going across the street, listening to an iPod, walking in rhythm, until realizing that Casey was gone.
Death yanked out the earbuds and walked back to her, being run through twice by passing cars whose drivers suddenly reached for their heater controls. “What?”
“I have to.”
“Have to what? Oh. That’s the way to your house, isn’t it? Think your mother will mind?”
“I didn’t actually say I’d be back today, as you know. Just that I’d see her again before I left town.”
“Then let’s go.”
Casey hesitated.
“Do we have to go over this again, Casey? No ghosts. No demons. No lingering spirits. It’s just an empty house.”
“But that’s the thing. It’s not. It’s full of all kinds of things.”
“I know. Furniture. Mementos. Stuff. But Casey, those material things don’t really mean anything, do they? The important things are up here.” Death touched her temple, and the coolness actually felt good, for once. “Your memories don’t need tangible symbols. All they need is for your brain to function, and once that stops working, well, you’ll be with Reuben and Omar in person. Or, not in person, exactly.” Death swooped toward her and peered deep into her eyes. “Right?”
Casey averted her face and looked down the street, imagining she could see her rooftop through the trees and the other houses. Wood, metal, concrete, fabric. That’s all a house was made of. Perhaps it would even be comforting to be within its walls. “All right. Let’s go.”
She soon began to see houses that looked familiar. Some of them had memories attached, as well. The house where she learned her first swear word—definitely not from her mother; the yard where she avenged a slight to Ricky by tying the offending boy to a post and telling him she was sending the neighborhood’s stray dog over—which of course she didn’t, and even if she had it wouldn’t have mattered because the dog was a big, slobbery sweetie; the playground where she’d gone with Omar, and had swung him in the baby swing, surrounded by other moms and their babies. Babies who would now be toddlers, walking around, talking in broken sentences and giving their parents hugs throughout the day.
“Oh.” She’d forgotten that Ricky’s house sat on that road, only blocks from her own place, making a sort of triangle from their childhood home. He had bought it a few weeks before Casey’s accident, so she never got used to visiting. Its existence had slipped her mind entirely. She stood on the sidewalk, looking it over. No one had been there for quite some time, it seemed. The week he’d been in jail had shown its colors.
She swung up the front walk and checked the door. Don had been wrong. It wasn’t being held as a crime scene anymore. But it was locked. The police would have bolted it behind them when they were done investigating. She walked into the garage and checked for the kind of place she and Ricky had always hidden their key when they were kids. She found it in the third possibility, under a tub of ice cream in the deep freeze.
“I don’t know why you humans even bother to lock your doors,” Death muttered.
Casey used the key and stepped into the front foyer. There was no doubt the police had been there. Black fingerprint dust coated the surfaces, drawers had been emptied and not refilled, and the coat closet door was open, with empty hangers cluttering the rail.
She walked through to the kitchen. There again was the search disaster, with the fingerprint dust, all sorts of little household items piled on the counters and table, and photographs stuck back onto the refrigerator in a jumbled mess. Pots and pans lay scattered on the floor, and there was a conspicuous spot on the wall where Ricky had obviously hung a calendar. The nail was still there, along with a few sticky notes of dates and times, and a mug of pens sat close by on the counter.
Casey opened what looked like a pantry and found the cleaning supplies. Ricky had taken care of her place for almost two years while she’d been on the road. It was her turn, now.
“Music while you work?” Death said, and propped an iPad on an iHome with the playlist on shuffle.
Casey listened to the very eclectic mix of blues, hip-hop, rock, and opera while sweeping, scrubbing, refilling drawers, and organizing photos. She spent almost an hour in the kitchen before moving on to the rest of the first floor, and finally upstairs. Those rooms were just as bad, except for what looked like the guest room. There had only been minimal tossing and dusting there. Probably because there wasn’t much furniture in the first place. She had finished that bedroom and moved on to Ricky’s and the master bath when she sat heavily on the stripped bed. Even the mattress pad was gone.
“Tired?” Death said.
“Exhausted.”
“Why don’t you take a nap? You could put sheets on the guest room bed.”
“I want to finish cleaning. Then I’ll take a nap.”
Death eyed the bedside stand and the dresser in the corner. “Think the cops took everything?”
“You mean, Ricky might have hidden something they didn’t find?”
“What if he did have questions about Alicia? What if he wasn’t telling you—or her—the complete truth? You saw how he hesitated when you asked him about her past.”
Casey looked around the room. Where might Ricky have hidden something? She looked under the mattress, but that was a clichéd hiding place, and the police had certainly checked there. She looked for false drawers in the bedside table, extra walls in the closet, and behind the toilet in the master bath. She went through what shoe boxes were left in the closet—which actually held shoes—and each one of his dresser drawers. She found nothing but clothing, toilet articles, and condoms, which made her squirm. She threw them back in the bedside table.
“Casey,” Death said. “I’m disappointed in you.”
“Because seeing my brother’s birth control makes me queasy?”
“No.”
“Because I couldn’t find something trained law enforcement missed?”
“No. Because you’re not using your noggin.”
“My noggin.”
Death knocked her head with a cold knuckle that didn’t knock so much as hiss.
“What? Am I missing something?”
“I think so. You remember how you knew exactly where to look for the house key when we got here?”
“Yeah, because it’s the same place we hid it when we were—Oh. Duh.”
“So where did Ricky hide his private things when he was a kid?”
“You mean stuff he didn’t want me to find?”
Death smiled. “That’s what private means. Don’t tell me you never found his stash.”
“Of course I did. But he doesn’t know that, so don’t tell him.”
Death made a zipping motion. “My lips are sealed.”
Casey took off downstairs.
“Not in his room?” Death slid past her, down the bannister.
“First place I would have looked. He knew better.”
“But you found it.”
“Eventually. It took me a while, and then I had to be careful when and how often I’d check it, or he’d know.”
She walked into the office, where Ricky had a desk—empty now of a computer or anything else useful—a reading chair, and—ta da—shelves lined with books.
“He hid stuff in the library?” Death said, then giggled. “He did it in the library with the reading lamp.”
Casey scanned the books, and found it on the second shelf. The Chronicles of Narnia. The boxed set that was released when she and Ricky were kids. She pulled the whole set down and sat in the chair.
“I love those books,” Death said, and held out the ereader, which displayed the cover of Prince Caspian. “Which one was your favorite?”
Casey didn’t answer. She was too busy sliding the books out of the box.
“How could he fit anything in there?”
“Doesn’t have to be much.”
Casey set the books gently to the side and picked at the back with her fingernail. The cardboard stuck for a moment before coming free. When it did, a paper fluttered out.
Death swooped in. “What does it mean?”
“I have no idea.”
It was a scrap of paper, obviously torn from a larger one. Two lines were written on it, each in a different color pen, like they’d been put there two separate times.
Fine as cream gravy.
Sharp as mashed potatoes.
Death’s forehead furrowed. “He’s keeping track of clichés?”
Casey didn’t answer, but dug in the back of the book box to peel one more thing from the hiding place. Another copy of that photo. The one of Ricky and Alicia at the restaurant.
“Must be the only shot they had,” Death said. “Seems everybody’s got a copy.”
Casey slid the photo into her pocket and left the dismantled book series to go to the kitchen. Death followed.
Casey opened the pantry where the cleaning supplies were kept and dug around until she found a box for dustrags. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this when I was in here earlier.”
“You’re going to dust now?”
She opened the box and dumped out the rags to discover a Ziploc bag underneath. There were two things inside. One was a wrapped candy bar called a Chick-o-Sticks. The description under the name said it was a “Crunchy Peanut Butter and Toasted Coconut Candy.”
“Ricky is a secret candy stasher?” Death said. “Was this a favorite or something?”
Casey shook her head. “Never heard of it.”
The second item was even more curious. It was a biography of Carol Burnett.
Casey squatted and slumped against the wall. “I don’t get it.”
“You will.”
“You do already? Tell me!”
“I have no idea. But I have faith in your power of deduction.”
Casey was ready to give a smart reply when the doorbell rang.