“That’s good,” he said finally. “We need intel on what we’re dealing with.”
Grant struggled onto his feet, went to the stove.
“Coffee?” he said.
“Please.”
He pulled two mugs down from their hooks underneath the cabinets and slid a coffee filter over the top of each one. Lifting the pot, he poured over the paper, careful to avoid a scalding splash as the grounds collected and the holy, black liquid passed through the paper.
“Smells like coffee,” Paige said.
He carried the warm mugs over to the island.
“This is how the cowboys rolled,” he said, placing one of the cups in front of his sister.
“We even have a whorehouse.”
“Can’t stop yourself, can you?” he asked.
“From what?”
“Pressing every last button you see.”
“You do have a lot of them.”
They drank, not minding the bitter grinds that had escaped the filter.
“Not bad,” Paige said.
“It’ll do in a pinch.”
“We’re in one.”
For just a moment, the simple act of holding the steaming mug made things feel slightly better. A small, familiar thing in the midst of an alien chaos. Their world may have been upended, but he could still make a cup of coffee.
He said, “It might not work, you know. Video might show us nothing.”
“Pessimistic much?”
“I’m not saying we don’t do it. We just can’t hang our hat on one thing. We need to do more.”
“Like what?”
“There was this woman we brought in on a murder case several years ago.”
“You mean like a psychic?”
“No, she got really upset if you called her that. She billed herself as a trance medium, whatever the hell that means. And yes, she’s even weirder than it sounds.”
“Did she help?”
“I don’t know. She seemed to think so, although the case was never solved. I might call her.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re desperate.” He slugged back a big swallow of coffee. “You know, if this were a haunted house movie—”
“It’s not.”
“But if it were, our job would be to find out what happened in this house.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know how some tragic event always precipitates a haunting? Like a murder?”
“I can’t quite believe we’re having this conversation. Those are film tropes, Grant. What’s happening to us is real.”
“Then what do you want to do?”
She stared at him, frustrated. Shook her head finally, said, “I don’t know.”
“Then let’s at least do something. Maybe it works. Maybe it doesn’t. At least we’ll be trying. Isn’t that the whole point of your video?”
“Fine.”
“So what do you know about this house?”
“Nothing. I moved in two months ago.”
“Well, we need to find out everything we can.”
“You mean like if the prior resident was an insane caretaker who murdered his entire family?”
“Yes, that kind of thing. We’re sort of stranded here, but I have a friend I can call.”
“Who?”
“He’s a private investigator.”
“Grant, I know we need a little outside help, but this isn’t going to come back to bite me in the ass, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t have people digging into my private life.”
“Paige, this guy’s a friend.”
“Still.”
“And more importantly, the last guy in the world to cast a stone.”
“Okay. I trust you.”
“Then let’s make some calls.”
Grant picked up the battery to his phone, reassembled everything, and powered it up.
“I thought they could track you with that.”
“I just need to get those numbers for the PI and the freakshow.”
As he scrolled through contacts, the phone began to vibrate in his hand.
“Damn,” he said.
“Who is it?”
He set the phone on the tile, Sophie’s name burning across the screen.
Paige said, “You got the numbers. Turn it off.”
He shook his head.
“I’m thinking that’s not the right play. Sophie isn’t going to stop. It’s not in her programming.”
“So what are you going to do?”
He picked up the phone.
“I’m going to talk to her.”
Chapter 19
Sophie walked through the entrance gate and up the paved walkway into the garden. She’d made it a habit last summer of coming here on pretty Sundays, but despite the patches of blue sky above, in its present state, the garden felt a far cry from the lushness of July. Winter had muted its color to shades of grey and evergreen, and something inside of her hated seeing it this way—like staring down at her mother in the casket—there but not.
A groundskeeper stood under a leafless Japanese maple, a bulging trash bag at his feet. Sophie opened her wallet as she approached, but the man didn’t bother to examine her credentials.
“Detective Sophie Benington,” she said. “I understand you discovered Mr. Seymour this morning?”
The groundskeeper leaned against the handle of his rake, sweat stains reaching from his armpits down the sides of his uniform.
A tall, skinny kid with ropey dreads and gentle eyes.
“He was sitting on the bench by the pond when I got here.”
“And you’ve never seen him in the garden before?”
“No, we keep this part of the arboretum closed in the winter. We occasionally have to chase out a few homeless and freegans, but mostly this place stays dead.”
Sophie moved on past the groundskeeper toward Officer Silver. He stood fifty yards up the path in his dark blue uniform, and as the sound of Sophie’s Frye boots clicking against the pavement pulled within range, he turned and watched her approach.
The man was tall but he looked about eighteen years old, with the creamy complexion and boring good looks of a high school jock.
“Hey, new guy,” she said.
Silver smirked. He’d actually been with SPD longer than Sophie, but as bad nicknames are wont to do, his had stuck.
“Seymour’s right out there?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
Just beyond where they stood, the trees opened up. There was the pond—brown and still—with a little bridge going across the middle. Sophie could just see the back of a head poking up from behind a cluster of bushes.
“What are you gonna do?” Silver asked.
“I’m not sure yet.”
“Something’s off with this guy. Want me to come with?”
“Not yet.”
“He could be dangerous, Sophie.”
“Jeez, he really creeped you out, huh?”
“Yeah, actually.”
“Hang back, but stay close.”
Sophie followed the meandering path along the north bank of the pond. The garden was steeped in solitude, and except for the distant murmur of traffic, Sophie’s footfalls were the only noise that violated the serenity of the place.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that it was wrong to be here with the trees skeletal and devoid of color. Even worse to be here on the job.
She stopped.
Ten yards ahead, past a grove of rhododendron, she spotted a pair of benches.
One was empty.
Benjamin Seymour sat motionless on the other.
He could have been a garden feature, his stillness matched by the Zen landscape. After three days of staring at photographs of him taken in better times, it was strange to see him sitting there in the actual like a statue.
She reached into her jacket and unsnapped her holster, let her palm rest on the stock of her G22. After coming on board with CID, she’d had belt loops sewn into all of her pants since the hip rig dragged them down. Much preferred the way this belted holster rode on her hips.