The Trouble with Twelfth Grave

“Pari, even people in your situation can leave town with permission.”

“Not me. My probation officer’s a dick. I’m thinking about asking him out, though. He has an incredibly sexy sneer.”

I laughed softly. “Do you have a number where I can reach him? I have some questions.”

“For the love of God, Chuck, you’re a married woman. Why do you need to talk to my probation officer?”

“Tre,” I said, coughing on a half-sipped, half-inhaled sip of coffee. “I need to talk to Tre.”

“Oh. Okay.”

I handed her my phone, and she typed it in. “So, which detective came to see you?”

“Is godlike one or two words?” she asked, concentrating on my phone.

“Tre’s that good in bed?”

“Yes. Yes, he is.” She finished and handed it back. “Oh, and it was a Detective Joplin.”

I groaned aloud. Could this day get any worse? “Joplin hates me.”

“He didn’t seem the most pleasant sort of guy. He seemed … dogged.”

Pari was still terrified. It trembled just beneath her colorful yet steely surface. I could hardly blame her. Joplin terrified me, too. She needed answers. And closure. And I needed to pray that Hector’s death was not the result of the fight. Knowing she’d killed someone, even in self-defense, would devastate her.

“Okay, if Joplin comes back, don’t give him anything. He’ll take the slightest crumb and run with it, so don’t say a word. Lawyer up and call it a day.”

“But won’t that be admitting something happened?”

“If he comes back a second time, hon, he’ll already know. But don’t worry. I’ll find out if Hector died as a result of the altercation. In the meantime”—I scanned the walls of her cluttered office—“how much do you like this building?”

7

I’ll tell you what’s wrong with society.

No one drinks from the skulls of their enemies anymore.

—T-SHIRT

Pari refused to let me burn down her place of business-slash-apartment to get rid of the evidence. Blood splatter was impossible to scrub away. So, instead of solving a crime, I was going to have to cover one up. But I had an inkling how to do exactly that. I just needed a little help from a friend.

Thus, I tried repeatedly to call said friend, a clairvoyant named Nicolette Lemay who could see people’s deaths through their eyes via a series of hellacious dreams. Thank God for psychotherapy.

Since she didn’t pick up, I could only assume she’d either blocked my number—understandable—or she was at work. Hoping for the latter, I hightailed it back to the office, hopped in Misery, then drove to Pres, where she worked in post-op.

Ten minutes later, I was standing in front of a nurses’ station, waiting for her to pop out of a door. Any door would do. When she did, choosing to emerge from one appropriately marked Gastroenterology: Exit Only, she took one look at me, then slowed her step in surprise.

She only knew the bare minimum where I was concerned, but it was enough to set her on edge. She recovered after a moment and picked up her pace again, but it was a long hall.

A natural beauty, Nicolette had cinnamon-colored skin and hip-length black hair currently pulled back and stuffed under a cap. Her crowning achievement, however, were her eyes. Large. Dark. Seductive. The kind people paid a fortune for in liners and false lashes to try to duplicate.

“Charley,” she said, stopping in front of me. “What are you doing here?”

This may have been a bad idea. She was nervous to see me. It radiated out of her rather like the perspiration covering her brow and upper lip.

“I just came by to say hi.” This was going to be awkward to get out of.

“No, you didn’t.” Her lids narrowed. Then she leaned closer and whispered. “Did something happen?”

“Well, yes, but not in that way. Speaking of which, you seem really nervous. Is everything okay?”

“No, I just thought I might’ve been dreaming there for a minute.”

“Hopefully not,” I said, leaning in for a hug. “Every time you dream of someone, they die a few days later.”

“Not always.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, sometimes they die that very day.”

I laughed softly at her teasing. “So, how’s that going?”

“Okay,” she said, lifting a slim shoulder. “No murders lately or I would’ve called. I’ve only had three incidents since we met, and they were all natural causes.”

“Well, cool. Cool.” I studied the wallpaper. A stapler on the desk. A basket of pens with a yellow ribbon around it.

Nicolette giggled. “Are you going to tell me why you’re really here?”

I bit my bottom lip, realizing what I was about to ask might sound bad. But it was now or never.

“Can we go over here?” I motioned for her to follow me until we were a few feet from the nurses’ station and hovering near the entrance of a waiting room with a nervous looking couple inside. “I have a favor to ask. A big one.”

“I’m intrigued.”

“I’m glad, because this might sound bad, so I want you to keep an open mind.”

“Charley, I may not have known you for very long, but you did me a huge favor once. I figure the least I can do is repay the gesture.”

“Nicolette, you don’t owe me anything. You know that, right?”

“Of course. Still, good karma is good karma.”

“True.” Gosh, I liked her. “So, can you steal a few pints of blood for me?”

The surprise on her face glowed. Clearly, she hadn’t expected me to ask her to commit a crime. Strange.

“Can I ask why you need them?”

“You probably don’t want to know.”

“Hmmm.” She pursed her lips, pondering her answer, trying to decide how to word it, how to put it as delicately as possible. “No.”

Oh, well, that was easy. “’Kay. Thanks for your time.”

She laughed softly and pulled me back when I tried to walk away.

She leaned close and said, “It’s not that I won’t. It’s that I can’t. Every pouch of blood has to be signed for.”

“Really? Do they get stolen often?”

Nicolette shrugged. “It is what it is. The only way to get blood without getting caught on Candid Camera would be to knock off a blood bank or a mobile collection van or something.”

“That’s it,” I said, my mind racing.

“I was kidding. You know that, right?”

I started backing away. “No, yeah, totally.” I had a heist to plan. “Thanks so much.” I waved as I headed toward the door. “Oh, hey.” I turned back. “Did your mother ever marry you off? Last time we spoke, she was going to take out an ad.”

“Yeah, that didn’t really go well. She’s worried my eggs are going to dry up and I won’t be able to give her grandchildren.”

I snorted. “Aren’t you a little young?”

“That’s what I said. She told me we have a genetic disorder called early onset egg dysplasia.”

That time I laughed out loud. Then I stopped abruptly. “Wait, is that a real thing?”

She folded her arms at her chest and grinned. “No, it is not.”

“Well, good luck with that.”

“Thank you.”

* * *

I called Cook on my way back to the office. “Hey, Cook. I need you to see if there are going to be any mobile blood collection vans out tonight.”

“You mean like a Red Cross kind of thing?”

“Exactly. I need to knock one over ay-sap.”

“As in rob? You’re going to rob a mobile blood collection unit?”

“Affirmative.”

“May I ask why?”

“Because I figure robbing a mobile will be easier than robbing an established blood collection business. A building would have better security.”

“I’m sure they have wonderful security. But I meant, what has possessed you to steal blood?”

“It’s for a project.”

“What kind of project?”

“A … bloody one.”

“Charley.”

“Look, just trust me. I need blood from lots of different people.”

“Did you ever think that the blood you are planning on stealing was meant for a purpose? What if someone dies because the hospitals run out of their blood type?”

“You did not just put that on me.”

“Damn sure did. Where are you?”

“In Misery, both literally and figuratively, behind Calamity’s.”

Cookie’s head appeared at a window above me. “Why are you just sitting there?”

“Because I don’t want to get out yet.”

“Why don’t you want to get out yet?”

“Because I’m waiting for the angry archangel looking in my driver’s-side window to go away!” I yelled the last two words, hoping beyond hope Michael would get the message. He was a messenger, after all.