Resurrection Blues Read online

  Levi laughed as if it was the perfect attitude he looked for in an investigator he was thinking of employing.

  ‘I can see you’ve got a good relationship with Kate.’

  Evan looked around the diner to make sure he was in the right place. He smelled bacon cooking, heard the hiss of eggs frying through the serving hatch. He saw a waitress he recognized, a middle-aged woman dressed in a tight black skirt and white blouse, parts of her spilling out of every item of clothing she wore. He took in the other diners digging into their breakfasts, some of them regulars, reading the paper and drinking coffee. It looked and smelled like a diner to him, but it didn’t change the feeling that he’d accidentally wandered into a psychiatrist’s office instead. He’d met Levi less than a half-hour ago and already they’d touched on Sarah’s disappearance and his undefined and ever-shifting relationship with Kate Guillory.

  ‘It’s not what you think,’ he said, feeling like he was letting her down as the words came out of his mouth.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.’

  Evan waved it off as the guy behind the counter poured them some coffee and took their orders.

  ‘Why don’t you tell me what happened five years ago?’

  Levi swallowed thickly and took a sip of coffee, wincing as the hot liquid touched his cut and swollen lip. Evan gave him time. Levi picked up a paper napkin, pulling it to pieces as he talked. He kept his eyes down, staring at the photographs on the counter, looking through them, not at them. His voice was a flat monotone, all emotion suppressed.

  ‘There isn’t a lot to tell. It was a car accident. She lost control on a curve. The car went off the road, down a ravine. It turned over a number of times, then hit a tree and exploded.’ He paused to take another sip of coffee, not noticing or caring about the pain in his lips this time. ‘The car caught on fire. She—’

  The moment was interrupted by the arrival of their food. Levi jumped as the plate was set down in front of him, right on top of the photographs. He stared at it as if he didn’t know what it was, didn’t know what he was supposed to do with it. Evan looked longingly at his own breakfast, the smell of bacon taunting him. He didn’t feel as if he should start while Levi was in the middle of his story.

  He looked again at the bacon, felt his heart drop. It was over-cooked. He closed his eyes as his mind filled with thoughts of Levi’s wife burning to a crisp in her car. He hoped Levi wasn’t thinking the same thing. He needn’t have worried. From the look on his face, it could’ve been a dead dog on the plate in front of him for all he knew.

  Still, best to get the reminders out of sight. He speared a piece of bacon with his fork.

  ‘Go ahead,’ Levi said, pushing his plate away. ‘I’m not hungry.’ He drew in a massive breath and let it out slowly, his chest shuddering. ‘She was trapped in the car. The police said she was knocked unconscious when the car landed upside down. She wouldn’t have known anything about it, wouldn’t have . . .’

  Evan knew exactly what everyone had said. She wouldn’t have suffered. What else would they say? Sorry, she suffered horribly. It took a very long time for her to die. He knew from personal experience how inadequate well-intentioned comments like that were in the small hours of the morning as you tossed and turned, praying for sleep to claim you.

  He knew what went through Levi’s mind at those times, knew how your mind liked to torment you. How did they know if she suffered or not? They’re only saying it to make me feel better.

  Better?

  Levi turned to face him, his eyes red-rimmed, mouth turned down. He leaned in closer. Evan recoiled as he breathed in the rotten smell of Levi’s nervous bad breath. His appetite gone, he put his fork down quietly, prepared himself for the onslaught of anguish that was on its way.

  ‘How can they know that?’

  Evan shook his head.

  They can’t.

  ‘Contusions to the head probably.’

  Levi let out a sharp bark of laughter, loud enough to make the man sitting next to him look up. Evan caught the man’s eye, held it. The guy turned away, embarrassed.

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  Levi picked up his fork and stabbed at a piece of bacon on Evan’s plate, chasing it around the plate until he got hold of it. He held it up between them. Evan groaned silently, his heart sinking. He knew what was coming next.

  ‘You think they’d be able to tell me if this had a contusion?’ Five years of pain and bitterness went into that one word. ‘Because this is what she looked like when they cut her out of the car.’

  His voice had risen, edged with hysteria, as he waved his fork in front of Evan’s face. Despite that, nobody was looking at them. But Evan felt every ear in the room straining to hear, anxious not to miss the juicy gossip that would make them the talk of the coffee station when they got to work. He’d have put his hand on Levi’s arm to quieten him if he’d wanted the fork stabbed in the back of it.

  ‘They can tell. The amount of smoke in the lungs for one thing.’

  Levi wasn’t listening. He’d had five years to get his mind set on this track. Evan wasn’t about to change it with a few platitudes. Evan let the silence stretch out, to give Levi space, to collect his own thoughts. He wished the server would take Levi’s plate away to remove the constant reminder of incineration. He called the counterman over.

  ‘I think we’re done here.’

  The guy cleared the plates away and topped up their coffees.

  Evan cleared his throat.

  ‘How—’

  ‘—did they know it was her if she was so badly burned? Is that what you were going to ask? It was her car, for one.’ He held up a hand. ‘I know, that doesn’t prove anything. They matched her dental records.’ He stuck his hand in his coat pocket and pulled something out. ‘And she was wearing this.’

  He placed a gold bracelet on the counter between them. The shape had distorted in the fire, but it had survived intact.

  ‘I bought it for her on our first wedding anniversary. You can see the inscription on the inside. We loved with a love that was more than love. It’s from a poem by Edgar Allan Poe.’

  Evan picked it up, the words of the inscription blurring before his eyes. Two things were competing for his attention in his mind. Just as the car belonging to Levi’s wife didn’t prove anything, neither did the fact that the body was wearing her bracelet.

  But it was the other thought that made Levi lean away and give him a strange look.

  He was immediately aware of the Zippo lighter he carried around in his own pocket, the one he believed belonged to Sarah and might hold the key to her disappearance. He placed the bracelet carefully back on the counter, then put his hand in his pocket, felt the reassuring smoothness of the lighter, his fingertips brushing the inscription that had become every bit as personal for him as Levi’s engraved words to his wife.

  ‘What?’ Levi said, his face twisted in confusion.

  Evan looked at him, equally confused.

  ‘It doesn’t say that at all,’ Levi snapped.

  ‘What doesn’t say what?’

  ‘I watched you read the inscription on Lauren’s bracelet. Then you said we the unwilling.’

  Evan wasn’t aware he said anything. But he knew the words Levi was accusing him of saying. They were the first line of the inscription on the Zippo lighter.

  ‘What did you mean?’ Levi said, his face reddening, irritation in his voice. ‘Are you saying you’re unwilling to take this on?’

  Evan closed his eyes. Should he take the escape route Levi was unwittingly offering him? He wasn’t sure he’d give Levi value for money if he kept being ambushed by his own past.

  ‘It’s nothing like that. The inscription made me think of my wife again, that’s all. There are more parallels than you thought when you looked me up.’

  ‘Is it going to be a problem?’

  Evan shook his head.

  ‘No. Not at all.’

  Levi didn’t look convinced. He picked the bracele
t and the photographs up off the counter, then slid off his stool.

  ‘I’m not sure this was a good idea. If you don’t mind me saying’—Evan laughed to himself as Levi’s eyes narrowed in preparation for the spiteful personal comment that was sure to follow—‘it looks to me like you’ve got more than enough problems of your own to make time for anyone else’s. Thanks for breakfast.’

  Then he was gone, striding across the diner, the door slamming after him. Evan called the counterman over for a refill, trying to decide if he was pleased to see the back of him or not. The counterman started to move away, then stopped. He bent and picked something off the floor.

  ‘This yours?’

  He held out one of Levi’s photographs. It must have been knocked to the floor when he cleared the plates away and neither of them noticed. In his hissy fit, Levi hadn’t noticed that he only picked up one photograph. Evan took it.

  ‘Thanks.’

  He looked around automatically even though Levi was long gone. He wasn’t going to run down the street after him now. He realized he didn’t know anything about him except for his name. He couldn’t even mail it back to him. If Levi was that bothered, he’d come back. Besides, he still had the other one if he wanted to hire somebody else.

  Evan studied it again, more leisurely this time, without Levi’s anxious face hanging over him, waiting for him to produce instant answers like a rabbit out of a hat. The photograph was the one of Lauren and the man embracing, the one with her face visible. Her arms were wrapped around the man’s body. The guy wasn’t tall which is why you could see her face over his shoulder, but he was solidly built. It was a stretch for her arms to go around his shoulders. Both wrists poked out of the sleeves of her coat, showing the black blouse underneath. Despite the poor quality of the image, the bracelet was clearly visible on her left arm. It had slipped up her arm, over the cuff of her blouse, clearly highlighted against the black sleeves.

  That meant it was an old photograph. How could she be wearing the bracelet Levi had in his pocket if it was a recent photo? It might be a different bracelet but Evan didn’t think so. Add to that the fact that people don’t come back from the dead. It was an old photograph.

  It was also somebody else’s problem now. Or so he thought.

  Chapter 4

  ‘MISSING ME ALREADY,’ Kate Guillory said brightly when she picked up.

  Evan caught the words that idiot Buckley in the background and knew she was still with Ryder.

  ‘Can you give Donut a message from me?’ Evan said.

  ‘No. What do you want?’

  Her abrupt tone of voice obviously went down well with Ryder. Another derisive remark came from the background.

  ‘I thought you said you were expecting my call.’

  ‘I know, but ordinarily you do a little bit of work yourself before you call in the grown-ups to take over and clear up after you. It’s only an hour since I saw you.’

  He laughed, enjoying the easy repartee between them, even though it was usually him getting the rough end of it.

  ‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong. I’m not calling about work.’

  ‘What about your new client, Lewis? He looked nice, by the way.’

  ‘Levi. I think he fired me.’

  ‘What do you mean you think he fired you?’

  He wished he’d told her he’d call her back when Ryder wasn’t eavesdropping in the background. Raucous laughter echoed unpleasantly in his ear when Ryder heard the word fired.

  ‘Okay, he fired me. He just didn’t come out and say it.’

  ‘That’s got to be some kind of record. Even for you.’

  ‘You know, Kate, if I didn’t recognize your voice, I’d say you’d passed the phone to Donut.’

  She laughed, the deep, throaty sound telling him more about what she really felt than the playful ribbing would suggest. Despite having to suffer Ryder’s obvious enjoyment at his expense, he was glad he’d called her. He gave Ryder a mental poke in the eye. One day he’d do it for real.

  ‘Why’d he fire you?’

  There was no way Evan was going to tell her what Levi had said with Ryder listening in. The fat bastard would start clapping and whooping in the background.

  ‘I’ll tell you later.’

  ‘Later?’

  ‘Yes. Later. It means not now. At some future unspecified time.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  He didn’t know what had gotten in to her. Usually she’d have said, okay, see you in the Jerusalem Tavern at six. He didn’t know why she was playing games. Then it came to him, an unpleasant little worm of worry—or was it guilt?—starting up in his gut.

  She was pissed at him because he didn’t take her on the weekend to New York. He’d thought long and hard about it and decided to ask Gina Morgan instead. There were less complications that way. And look how that had turned out. But that was easy to say with hindsight. Now it was payback time.

  ‘Okay, doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘I’ve gotta go. Bye.’

  ‘Evan!’

  Don’t be an ass all your life, Buckley came from somewhere behind her agitated bark.

  ‘What?’ Evan said, bringing forward in his mind the day when Ryder would get the real poke in the eye.

  ‘Don’t make me agree with him.’

  ‘Can’t we at least do this without Donut giving us the benefit of his advice every two seconds?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  The sound of her breath exiting noisily through her nose filled his ear. Then the sounds coming down the line suddenly muted as she put her hand over the microphone. Despite that, he heard her hiss something at Ryder. He didn’t need to hear the words, the meaning was clear enough. She took her hand away again.

  ‘I’ll see you in the Jerusalem at six, okay?’

  ‘Okay. But you shouldn’t have put your hand over the mic. I wanted to hear that.’

  The phone went dead in his ear. He didn’t get the chance to tell her to make sure she wore some lipstick. On balance, it was a lucky break.

  Chapter 5

  ‘SO, WHY’D HE FIRE YOU?’ Guillory said as she joined him at the bar in the Jerusalem Tavern, sliding in beside him and rocking from side to side to claim her space. A sweaty fat guy on the other side of her shifted along, making a big point of moving his drink six inches.

  Don’t get into it, Tubs, Evan thought to himself.

  He was on his second beer already seeing as she was deliberately twenty minutes late. He didn’t mention it. He didn’t say anything about the fact that she wasn’t wearing any lipstick either. Like the fat guy, he was learning.

  She’d asked the question so quickly, almost before her butt hit the seat, that he reckoned she was trying to keep the conversation away from his recent trip. At least until they’d both had a couple beers and let the alcohol take the rough edges off the tension between them.

  Unfortunately, he’d already put the cutting from the Lake Placid News onto the bar in front of him. She saw it before he had a chance to put it away, couldn’t miss it against the dark wood of the bar.

  ‘What’s that?’

  He folded it and put it in his pocket.

  ‘I’ll show you later.’

  She shook her head but didn’t push it. The bartender put a bottle of beer in front of her. She took a long swallow.

  ‘So? You gonna tell me? Ryder’s dying to know.’

  He looked at her deadpan face and knew there was a massive grin trying to break out from under it. She was determined it wasn’t going to happen.

  ‘You can tell him it’s because I’m not fat or rude enough. He should apply.’

  ‘Idiot.’

  It was a start. They were on the road to being able to discuss the elephant in the room that was Gina, but they weren’t there yet. The idiot had lacked most of its normal depth of feeling. And the accompanying slap around the back of his head was absent.

  She was still waiting for him to tell her why he’d been fired.
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  ‘He said, you’ve got more than enough problems of your own to make time for anyone else’s.’

  She looked at him as if he’d just told her the sky was blue.

  ‘Well everybody knows that in the first five minutes of meeting you. Anything in particular he was talking about?’

  He spent too long thinking about his answer. Her eyes narrowed.

  ‘Don’t tell me he wanted you to find his missing wife.’

  ‘Not quite.’

  ‘And so you ended up giving him chapter and verse about Sarah—’

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘—until he lost the will to live.’

  They both stopped talking over each other. Then both took a swallow of beer, avoiding each other’s eyes in the mirror behind the bar.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’

  He took another mouthful of beer, finishing it. He shrugged.

  ‘I can’t blame you if that’s how you feel.’

  ‘I didn’t say that’s how I feel.’

  ‘Freudian slip.’

  She called the bartender over to give herself something to do other than smack his head. They both waited until the beers had been delivered and the bartender had moved away.

  ‘I’m glad he fired me,’ Evan said with more feeling than he realized was building inside him. ‘I wasn’t looking forward to taking on a case where I’d be reminded all day long of myself.’ He shook his head. ‘The guy picks me because he thinks I’ve experienced the same problems as him, then fires me because everything he says reminds me of myself.’

  ‘Yeah, go figure,’ she said.

  She picked up her bottle to take a drink. It stalled halfway to her lips.

  ‘What do you mean he thinks you’ve experienced the same problems as him?’

  He grinned at her. She smiled back, a hint of life creeping back into the denim blue of her eyes. He’d gotten her interested.

  ‘Sorry. Didn’t I say? His situation is a bit different from mine.’

  She raised her eyebrows.

  ‘His wife died five years ago.’