chapter Nine
“Did you get some lunch?” Don was eating in his conference room, with papers spread out on the table all around him.
“Wasn’t hungry,” Casey said. “Although now I see that…”
Don waved at the second half of a gigantic turkey sandwich. “Please. Take some. Mel has been killing me with healthy food. What she tends to forget is that healthy food becomes unhealthy when it’s doubled in size.”
Casey took a seat, moving a few papers out of harm’s way, and devoured the sandwich, an apple, and a slice of the cake Don had mentioned the night before.
“Better?” Don looked at her over his glasses.
“Much. Are we ready to go?”
He glanced at his watch. “Fifteen minutes. We’ll give ourselves plenty of time for getting through security, and for the inevitable wait.”
“Not looking forward to all that.”
“No one ever does.”
Forty-five minutes later they were in the parking lot of the jail. It was a huge block of a building about twenty miles out of town, and just looking at it gave Casey a greater understanding of her mother’s state. To think her little brother was behind those walls was enough to make her want to curl up into a ball and cry. But that wouldn’t help Ricky. And it wouldn’t make her feel better for long.
“This,” Death said, “is totally cool.” Red and green images cavorted on the screen of an iPad. “I hacked into the security system. This is showing all the heat signatures behind the walls.”
“Doesn’t look very full,” Casey said.
“Don’t know how you can tell that,” Don said. “But you’re wrong, anyway. Place is packed to the gills. They’ve been paroling people faster than ever, just to make room for the new criminals.”
“Like Ricky,” Death said. “Anyway, this thing just reads through the first layer of these walls. Too much iron and concrete and God knows what else.”
Casey shuddered. “How far in have you gotten in person?”
“All the way,” Death said. “Folks die in there all the time. Some naturally, some…not.”
“I’ve been in pretty deep,” Don said. “Literally and figuratively. Gives me the creeps, getting closed up in there, but I don’t always choose who my clients are, you know. Some of them are buried about as far in as they go.”
“And where’s Ricky?”
“I’ve been assured he’s safe. Although what exactly they mean by that, I’m not sure. The two times I’ve been able to get in to see him, he insisted he’d been treated all right. He’s got a clean record up till now, and the blowback, should he be innocent and something happened to him in there, would be terrible for the facility.”
“Glad to hear they’re so concerned about him as a person.”
“You’ve got to take what you can get, and as long as he’s safe, I don’t care why they’re doing it. We know what he’s like. We’ll just have to be content with that for now. There’s no way the system can know people like their families do.”
“He’s got a point,” Death said. “You can’t expect law enforcement to actually care about the prisoners. It’s not like they’re regular people. Drug dealers, child molesters, murderers…oh. Sorry.”
“I’m not a murderer.”
Don stopped halfway out of the car. “Look, Casey, I understand how you must feel coming here. But you’ve got to put the past few weeks behind you. No one is looking at you for the death of that man anymore. It’s over. Completely forgotten.”
Casey got out of the car.
The process to see Ricky was as involved and time-consuming as she’d feared. Every moment, from when they first stepped into the building until they were left alone in a room, she expected someone to realize who she was, and to have old paperwork saying she was a wanted criminal. But they got through without incident, and within the hour she and Don were waiting for her little brother in a cold, off-white box of a room, with a bolted-down table and three chairs, much like the room where she’d met with Detective Watts that morning. Only this one smelled a lot worse.
Death had taken off during the screening process—“Waaay too boring, and the technology is so yesterday”—but was now back, holding up the iPad and checking out heat signatures again. “Someone’s coming.”
When the door opened, Casey jumped up. Don grabbed her wrist. “Stay behind the table until the guards tell you it’s okay.”
She shook him off, but stayed where she was, even when Ricky appeared.
The first sight of him took her breath away. Pale, blotchy skin, sunken, dull eyes, and a buzz cut. His prison-issued clothes hung loosely on him, and the slump of his shoulders turned him into an old man. But what really got her were the handcuffs. They held his arms stiffly behind him, in a posture Casey had never seen, or even imagined, on her little brother.
Two guards followed him in, one staying by the door, the other with a hand on Ricky’s elbow. “Okay,” the one touching Ricky said. “Hold still.”
Ricky waited, his eyes averted from Casey’s, as the guard unlocked the cuffs. When he was free he shrugged, then pulled his arms forward to rub his wrists.
“Call if you need anything,” the guard said, “or bang on the door. We’ll be waiting outside.” The guard gave a little salute and let himself out.
Casey walked around the table. “Ricky—”
He ducked, hands up, as if expecting to get hit.
Casey froze. “Ricky, it’s me. Casey. Your sister.” She felt almost like she had at her mother’s, except her mother hadn’t acted afraid of her. Casey walked slowly toward him, hands out, as if she were approaching a nervous dog. “I’m sorry I haven’t been here for you. But I’m here now. I’ll get you out of here, I promise.”
He lowered his hands and peered up at her with wide eyes.
She couldn’t manage a smile, but she tried to look confident and loving. “It will be okay.”
His eyes filled. “It will never be okay.”
“Look, whatever has happened to you in here, we’ll deal with it together. I’ll get you any help you need. I’ll stay with you.”
His eyes flashed. “I don’t care about what’s happened to me. I’m fine. It’s what they did to her. What they did. They…” He closed his eyes and swayed on his feet.
Casey grabbed him, and Don hopped up from behind the table. Together they lowered Ricky onto a chair. When they were sure he wasn’t going to fall over, Don went back to his seat.
“He means it, you know,” Death said. “What they did to her is far worse in his mind than what’s been done to him in here.”
Casey knelt beside her brother. “I know what they did to her. I’m sorry about that, too. It was terrible.”
“Terrible?” He gave a manic laugh. “It was…more than that.”
Casey dragged another chair around the table so she could sit next to him. “I want to help find out who did this, Ricky. You don’t deserve to be in here. And she deserves the truth.”
He looked away. “She doesn’t care about the truth anymore.”
“No, but you do, don’t you?”
“The truth won’t bring her back.”
Casey had way more experience with going after “truth” than she ever wanted. Courtrooms, test drives, payoffs. All of them were designed to “bring closure,” but in reality brought nothing other than wasted time and money. She was more alone after all the legal crap than she’d ever been. Which was why she’d given up on the “truth” of her family’s accident long ago. But this situation was different. No innocent person had ever been charged with killing her family, not like Ricky was being blamed now. Not even Pegasus, the guilty car company, had paid very many consequences for the accident. No matter what sort of “closure” there was supposed to have been, Casey—and her husband and son—had paid all there was to pay.
“Listen, Ricky, I didn’t know this girl—”
“Alicia.”
Casey hesitated.
“He thinks it’s her real name,” Death said. “You going to tell him, or should I?”
Casey let it go. “I didn’t know Alicia, but it sounds like you knew her pretty well. What can you tell me about her?”
His eyes went soft. “She was sweet. And quiet. And kind of…mysterious.”
“Secretive?”
“No! Just…” He sat for a few moments. “She wasn’t the kind to go blabbing about herself everywhere. She was…private.”
“But she talked to you?”
“Of course. We talked all the time.”
“About what?”
“What do you think? Normal stuff. Work. Food. I don’t know.”
“Where was she from?”
“All over, I guess. She moved around a lot. Oregon. California. Lots of places. But I told her this should be her final stop. I’d convinced her, I’m sure of it. She liked it here better than anywhere else.” A little color stole into his cheeks, indicating his hope that he was the reason for her contentment.
“What about her past?”
“What about it?”
“Did she talk about it, other than just where she’d lived? Houses, friends, jobs? You know. Actual details?”
His eyes slid away.
“Ricky? What is it?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
“But—”
“Forget it, all right, Casey? Please?”
Casey watched as his face went through a change from sad and depressed to stubborn, his mouth a thin line.
“Okay,” she said. “Fine. What about her childhood?”
“Her childhood?”
“Sure. You’d been going out for a few months. It would be normal for you to talk about your childhoods. You would see things around here that you remember, so you’d tell her, and that would trigger her memories. You know. You share stuff when you’re dating.”
“She didn’t talk about her childhood.”
“Not even—”
“At all.”
“Casey,” Don said, “perhaps we should just let him tell us what he wants to tell us.”
Casey looked at her brother, who suddenly resembled a sullen teenager. Too bad he was actually ten years past that.
Ricky closed his eyes. When he opened them, the despair was back. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m just…” This time the tears overflowed onto his cheeks, and he swiped at them with his sleeves.
Casey leaned forward. “It’s okay. Just remember I want to help you. The more I know about her, the better chance I have of figuring out who did this to her.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“Of course it wasn’t. I never thought so for an instant.”
Death swooshed around, then hovered up by the ceiling, checking out the jail’s video camera. “This isn’t on. Just wanted to make sure.”
Casey ignored the interruption. “Did Alicia have any other friends?”
Ricky frowned. “Not really. There was one other waitress at the restaurant who was about her age, but she kind of drove Alicia crazy. Ali said she never shut up.”
“Would this be Bailey?”
“You know her?”
“I stopped by The Slope before coming here. She was working. And very eager to talk.”
“You can’t believe anything she says.”
“Then I guess you are guilty.”
“What?”
“She’s one of the few people in this whole town, apparently, who thinks you’re innocent. She’s going to help me. So I wouldn’t go bad-mouthing her right now if I were you.”
“She’s going to help you? But she always hated—” He stopped.
“Hated Alicia?”
“Look, I don’t think she killed her, okay? She just never thought…She always said…”
“That you should be with her instead of Alicia? I know. She told me the same thing. It’s not exactly a secret.”
“So if she wants to help it’s not because she wants to help Alicia.”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters! She doesn’t care that Ali got killed. She just wants to use this to prove she was right. Or something.”
“It doesn’t matter why she wants to help. We’ll take whatever help we can get.”
“I don’t want her making Alicia look bad.”
“Ricky.” Casey grabbed his hand. “You said it before. Alicia doesn’t care anymore. She’s gone. But I care. And you should. You don’t want to be in here the rest of your life for a murder you didn’t commit. Accused of killing the woman you loved. I mean, you did, right?”
“Did what?”
“Love her.”
“Of course I did.”
“And you didn’t kill her?”
He yanked his hand away and stumbled from his chair, hanging onto the back. “I already told you—”
“Then we’ll take Bailey’s help. Won’t we?”
He thrust out his chin, but then his shoulders drooped again, and he sank back into the chair. “You’ll be careful what you believe?”
“About Alicia? Or about you?”
“About any of it.”
She studied him. “So, what should I believe?”
“The only thing that really matters is that she was a good person. She really was.”
A good person who had lied to him about such a basic thing as her name, and hadn’t shared the slightest detail about her past except a list of multiple, gigantic states. Never a good sign.
“So tell me why someone would kill her.”
“It wasn’t her. I mean, it wasn’t because it was her. It was a random break-in. It had to be.”
Don cleared his throat. “I really don’t think it was random, not from the way they—”
Casey glared at him, and Don stopped talking before he said anything too upsetting.
Ricky didn’t seem to have heard, anyway. “She didn’t have anything worth stealing. There was no secret stash of money—”
“And you know this how?”
“Because she wasn’t the kind of person to hoard cash, or even care about it. She wore hand-me-down clothes. She never ate out on her own, even at The Slope. She didn’t even have a computer, for God’s sake.”
“Why would God want her to have a computer?” Death said.
“She never bought things,” Ricky continued. “If I did take her out to eat, she might pay her part—because she’d insist, not because I didn’t want to—but she didn’t go shopping, or skiing, or anything. There was nothing in her apartment people would plan to take. It had to be totally by chance.”
“Okay.” Casey drummed her fingers on the table. “So let’s say it was random. How did they find her? She lived in a basement apartment, underneath a nosey landlord, in a residential neighborhood that wasn’t exactly fancy, but wasn’t a slum. You said yourself there was nothing obvious worth stealing. So why her?”
“I don’t know. They followed her, maybe. She always walked home from work, and she was always alone. It would have been close to dark if it was after work. They could have been waiting for someone like her. Someone they could overpower and—”
“Stop.” Casey held up her hand. “You’re saying ‘they.’ What makes you think it was more than one person?”
Ricky went even paler, and his mouth dropped open. “What?”
“You know what. There’s something you’re not telling me.”
His mouth clamped shut, and he shook his head. “There’s not.”
She looked over at Don, and he raised his eyebrows. He saw it, too.
“Look, Ricky, this is just like the Bailey thing. If you want me to help, you’ve got to tell me what you know.”
He closed his eyes and breathed out through his nose, obviously struggling with something. Casey waited him out.
“She didn’t tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“I mean, she didn’t tell me on purpose. She was asleep.”
“So you feel like you’re betraying her if you tell us.”
He shrugged, obviously embarrassed. “I guess. Kind of.”
“I understand, Ricky. Really, I do. But the way I see it, you’re betraying her if you don’t tell. If it’s something that could help us find her killers. And you know there was more than one.”
He took a shuddering breath. “Have you seen the pictures?”
“Of Alicia? Yes. You have, too?”
His jaw trembled. “I wish I hadn’t. What they did to her…”
“Tell me, Ricky.”
He glanced at Don, and lowered his voice, as if he didn’t want Don to hear. Don pulled a paper out of his briefcase and pretended to be reading it. Casey could tell he was faking, because his eyes weren’t moving.
“We were sleeping,” Ricky said. “One of the few nights she let me stay.” He flushed. “Not because she didn’t want me to, but because we were both so tired, and we had to get up early. You know how my shifts are, and if she had to work breakfast she’d be there at five. Usually I’d be at her place for a while in the evening, and then go home. It worked well for us. Or okay, anyway. Sometimes I’d ask if I could stay when it was late after we—” He stopped, and his flush grew deeper.
“It’s all right, Ricky. You don’t have to explain that part. I do remember what men and women do when they’re in love.”
He gave a brief smile, which looked more like a cringe. “Anyway, we were sleeping, and she started thrashing around. I woke up when she yanked the covers off of me. I tried to wake her up, too, because she was mumbling weird stuff, but she grabbed me. Both arms, like she was trying to get me to listen to her. Her eyes were wide open, and she was scared, really scared…”
Casey held his hand. “It’s okay, Ricky.”
“She kept saying, ‘They found me. Oh, my God, they found me.’ I asked her who, but she just said ‘they.’ It was freaky. She finally went back to sleep when I…I held her tight enough. When she woke up in the morning she didn’t say anything about it, so I didn’t, either. I figured if she wanted to tell me, she would.” His face crumpled and he dropped it into his hands. “I should have asked her about it. If I had, she might still be alive. This wouldn’t have happened.”
“Ricky, you don’t know—”
“I could have protected her! She wouldn’t have been alone! She wouldn’t have been walking alone.” He fell onto Casey’s shoulder and sobbed. She rubbed his back and looked up at Death, who was filming the whole exchange.
“I know,” Death said. “I’m exploiting your brother’s emotions. But you have to admit, his sense of grief is so raw it makes even me feel like weeping. It’s so astounding I needed to record it.”
She didn’t stop glaring.
Don caught her expression. “Um, Casey? You okay?”
She shook her head and closed her eyes, leaning against Ricky’s hair.
“The other question,” Death said, coming in for a close-up, “is this. Does he really think he could have prevented what happened? Or is he simply angry that she didn’t let him help? Does he know there were big things she wasn’t telling him?”
Good questions, Casey thought. But ones that really didn’t need to be answered. Either way, her brother was screwed up for life.
“Ricky,” she said. “One more thing.”
He sat up, his face red from crying.
“You know your Colorado U T-shirt, the one with the stain from where I busted your lip?”
“Yeah. Haven’t thought about that shirt for ages.”
“Do you know where it is?”
“Not for sure. It’s probably in my dresser somewhere, buried under all the other shirts. Why?”
“The police found it in your house. It had Alicia’s blood on it.”
He stared at her, as if he couldn’t comprehend what she was saying. “But…how? I never wore that around her. I never—” He looked at Don. “They think I was wearing it when she died. They think I wore it when I killed her.”
Don nodded. “I didn’t know about it until this morning. They hadn’t told me.”
“I don’t know how it got blood on it, I don’t know how—”
“Of course you don’t.” Casey patted his knee. “But don’t you worry, Ricky. I’m going to find out.”
How she was going to find out was a mystery.
But she didn’t say that part out loud.