The Curse of Tenth Grave

This required finesse. Unfortunately, I didn’t have an overabundance of the stuff, but I knew who did. I’d keep quiet for now. Let him think I’d joined the team. But I would get to the bottom of whatever he had on me. Hopefully it wasn’t actually my bottom in, say, a compromising position. It’d been ages since I’d compromised my ass.

“And what if he really is guilty?” I asked. “If I find evidence contrary to your opinion, how far are you going to take this?”

“I’m not worried in the least.”

“But what if I do. How far?”

“You won’t, so all the way.”

“What makes you so certain, so convinced, that you’re willing to risk your entire career for this guy?”

And there it was again. That niggling of guilt that I’d felt the second he walked in. I’d felt guilt from both of them. Had they conspired on something and it backfired?

Before he could answer, I held up an index finger, pulled a tissue out of the box on my desk, and coughed softly into it. Then I braced my palm on my desk. Took a sip of coffee. Coughed again. All the while, the woman’s life flashed before my eyes.

She had worked the rice paddies of Jamuna, Nepal, her entire life, surviving floods and earthquakes to gather food for her family. After Amita married a man she didn’t love, her girlfriends at the fields became her salvation. They laughed together. Raised their children together. And talked about their husbands from behind cupped hands and hushed giggles.

But her feelings for her husband grew. Sijan was mysterious to her. Rahasyamaya. With silvery eyes and a guarded smile. He was raised in a village to the west, and when he felt her distrust of him, he left to become a Sherpa guide. It was a skill his father had passed down to him. Treacherous and foolhardy, Amita thought. But it would bring in money. And she began to look forward to his return.

When he did come home, he would not tell her about his adventures, and all the girls would try to guess. It must have been glamorous, they would say, getting to know the rich Westerners, but Amita knew better. Sijan’s body was battered when he returned. The elements on the mountain were the most unforgiving kind. He’d slimmed to unhealthy proportions, and it took her a month to fatten him up again. Yet he grew stronger every year. More beautiful every time he came home.

And then she asked him. It was all she had to do. He would tell her whatever she wanted to know. Were the Westerners nice to him? Did they respect him? Were the white women pretty? Sijan told her everything and gave her every rupee he made. He brought their children presents and gave her exquisite gifts she didn’t need but cherished.

He and Amita became something of celebrities, though she still worked the paddies every year. As did her children. For years and years she carried on the tradition, because one year Sijan didn’t come back.

With a broken heart, she worked until she died, still waiting for Sijan to come off the mountain. She could not cross, knowing he was up there alone. But the moment she crossed through me, I felt her joy at seeing him and two of their children again. Hardships forgotten, she fell into his arms and crushed her children to her, and I swallowed a lump in my throat.

I collapsed in my chair while Parker grew more and more agitated.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Sorry. Dizzy spell.”

“Yeah, I heard you’ve been having some … balance problems.”

He sat across from me again and gave me a moment. I took the opportunity to bask in the fierce love Amita had for her husband. I knew how she felt. Those dark mysterious types did it every time.

After taking a deep lungful of air, I opened the file and perused it while Parker gave me the rundown of the case they had against Lyle Fiske. It didn’t look good. I could see why he was just desperate enough to come to me.

On paper, the guy was as guilty as they came. He’d been found at the crime scene with Emery’s blood all over him. His fingerprints were inside the car, and he had her phone in his hands. Not only that, according to the first officer on scene, he’d been so belligerent, they’d had to subdue him. If Fiske was really innocent, he was probably more distraught than belligerent.

But if he had done it and was at the crime scene, where was the body? His prints hadn’t been found on Emery’s steering wheel, and they’d taken his pickup apart. Beyond the usual contaminants one would expect a girlfriend to leave in her boyfriend’s vehicle, there was no trace evidence to suggest he’d used it to move her body.

Their case, purely circumstantial, definitely had holes. I would just have to find a way to punch a few more. To cast enough doubt for a jury to acquit him, if he really was innocent.

4

I tried to start a gang once.

It turned into a book club.

—MEME

When I walked back into Cookie’s office, she was just hanging up the phone. I instantly felt something awry. A depression weighing on her, perhaps. The same depression I’d been feeling for days.

“How’d it go?” she asked me, watching as Parker shot me one last warning glance before closing the door behind him.

I flipped him off—because I was twelve—then turned to Cook. “Peachy. But what’s up with you? What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been moping since we got back.”

“I’m just worried about you. You know me. The perpetual worrier.” She fluttered her fingers around her head. No idea why.

“I get that. I do. But I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me. I’m kind of intuitive that way.”

“Nope. Not me.”

“You know you can tell me anything.”

“Charley, you’ve had so much on your plate. My problems are stupid in comparison.”

“What?” I asked, shocked. “What problems? What’s going on?”

Cookie sat back in her chair, a sadness weighing down her movements. “Amber has decided she wants to finish out the semester at NMSD.”

“The NMSD? The School for the Deaf in Santa Fe?”

Amber’s squeeze, Quentin, went to NMSD, which made sense since he was, in fact, Deaf, but Amber was far from it.

“That’s great,” I said, trying to sound positive. “I think. But isn’t she missing something? Or maybe not missing something?” When Cookie questioned me with a raised brow, I added, “She hears really well. You know, to go to a school for Deaf children.”