The Curse of Tenth Grave

I knew I’d detected an accent.

“He’s, like, the worst investigator. I’ve been trying to tell him who killed me for two effing years.” And she was off. “Two mother-effing years. I tried to defend myself.” She waved the knife at me.

I encouraged her to continue with a nod.

“But it’s hard to fight off batshit crazy, ya know? Woman is effing batshit.”

So, shit was okay, but fuck was not. She had to be Southern Baptist.

“Batshit. With a capital B. And then she moves in with him to help him take care of the house. Moves right the fuck in.”

Or maybe Catholic.

“Like she owns the place. And there I am, pushin’ up daisies. And I know what you’re thinking.” She leaned her face toward mine. “But I mean that literally. I am literally pushin’ up daisies.”

I decided to relay the current bits of information while she got it out of her system. “Your sister did it,” I said.

To say that he had his doubts about my ability would have been an understatement. The sneer on his face could’ve scoured the rust off metal.

“She planted them over my dead body.”

“And she buried your wife in your backyard.”

“It was her way of having the last laugh even though she already had. I mean, hello. I’m dead, aren’t I? But no. That’s not enough. She just can’t let things alone. She has to throw in that final ‘fuck you.’”

“Your sister didn’t happen to put in a daisy garden when she moved in with you, did she?”

I knew I’d get the agent’s attention eventually, but his expression when I mentioned the garden didn’t quite go as planned. Instead of a dawning of understanding lighting his features, he turned a lovely shade of purple. I’d never seen that particular hue on a person before and wondered if I could get a picture without him noticing. For research purposes.

“This is beyond unacceptable,” he said.

“See!” she screamed, pointing the knife at him. “He. Will. Not. Listen.”

“Agent Guzman,” I began.

“Oh, don’t even bother,” she interrupted. “He won’t listen. He is the most bullheaded, stubborn at-shass I’ve ever met.”

I scanned my extensive repertoire of verbiage and got nothing. “What’s an at-shass?” I asked her.

She let out a lengthy sigh. “It was something we said. Louie swore I called him that on our first date. I wouldn’t know. I got shitfaced and was apparently trying to call him an asshat. It came out at-shass and stuck.”

As she explained that she used it as an inside joke when they were around friends to signal to her husband that his bullheadedness was rearing its ugly bull head, I couldn’t help but notice the one-eighty Guzman did.

His face paled when I said that word aloud. Alas. The lovely purple was gone. But Agent Guzman was coming around.

I glanced at Kit. “Can you give us a moment?”

“Oh, hell, no.” She put her mocha latte aside like she was ready to get down to business. “This is my favorite part.”

“You have a favorite part?” I hadn’t realized we’d done this often enough for her to have a favorite part.

“Yep. You talk to yourself for a few minutes, try to negotiate with the air around us, beg and plead sometimes, and then come up with these mind-boggling revelations. Then you send us in directions we never would have thought to go, and suddenly the case, whatever that case may be, is solved. Like magic. Oh no, honey. I wouldn’t miss this for early retirement.”

“And now,” Mandy continued, her rant only just beginning, “he’s going to sit there and pretend he doesn’t know I’m here. Just like before. Just like always. Everything and everyone else comes first. Trying to get his attention is like trying to pull teeth from a lion’s mouth. I’ve even stabbed him in the face.”

I snapped back to her. “You’ve tried to stab him in the face?”

“Not tried.” She waved a negating index at me. Girl had spunk. “Did. Many times.” She looked at the knife she carried around. “This thing is as useless as it was the day I picked it up. I tried to stab Cin in the face, too. Didn’t even come close, but I did get her in the shoulder.”

“Well, in your defense, you’d been drugged.”

“True.”

“If you’d been in your right mind, I’m sure you would have stabbed her in the face. Many times.”

“You think so?” she said, sniffing.

I patted her back to console her. “Her face could’ve doubled as a colander.”

“Aw, thanks.”

“Are you getting anywhere?” Kit asked, but that was when I noticed Guzman’s reaction.

“Mandy always said she would stab me in the face if I ever ignored her. It became a joke.”

I thought about mentioning the fact that the joking days were long gone, but he didn’t need to know she’d stabbed him in the face. Several times. Thankfully, her knife was as incorporeal as she was.

“Look,” Guzman said, calming even more as his mind raced, “my sister was out of town.”

“The perfect alibi,” Mandy said. “No one even checked. Like, seriously. She was never even a suspect.”

I looked back at Guzman. “Did you check to make sure?”

“What? No. Why would I check my own sister’s alibi?”

“That’s it,” Mandy said, right before she dive-bombed him. She flew right through him, but she came back kicking. And screaming. And stabbing.

If she tried that with me, it was going to hurt.

“Mrs. Guzman!” I said, trying to get her attention. “You have to give him some time. This is not going to be easy.”

She looked up from her last efforts to puncture his esophagus, blew her bangs out of her face, and said, “Two years. Two effing years.”

We were back to the effing thing. “I know, hon. But—”

“I’m out of here,” Guzman said, rising from his chair.

I rose, too. “Just check it out. Check out your sister’s alibi. And check her credit card records. She drugged your wife first, then hit her with her Miss Kentucky trophy, which, by the way”—I looked at Mandy—“congrats on that.”

“Thank you,” she said, her face one solid, Southern smile. All sparkly eyes and beautiful teeth. “It was so long ago, really.” She took one hand from her husband’s throat to smooth down her hair.