The Wrong Side of Dead

When he came back onto the line, he said, “Nope. I got nothing on that. Sorry, lady.”

“Yeah, thanks.” She hung up, striking out again.

Jess took a break from her morning phone calls and dumped her stale coffee in favor of fresh brewed. With coffee percolating, she thought about last night, an odd cluster of events, especially more surreal in the light of day.

Her trip to Dirty Monty’s had started it all—setting her on a course with a major pack of scumbags—a collision course that earned Seth’s blue whale a few more scrapes. But at the crack of dawn—after coming up empty on finding Harper’s ’65 Mustang at the motel parking lot last night—she throttled her mind into overdrive, running various scenarios through her plausibility meter. And her brain hadn’t stopped since.

According to that sleazoid bartender, Harper had made it to Dirty Monty’s, but Jess wondered how he had gotten there. Sometimes even the small details might be significant in the right context.

She hadn’t found his Mustang parked near the bar or at the crime scene. If the real killer had taken it, that would have been a bonehead maneuver. The cops would be looking for it so crime scene techs could search for more damning evidence to lock Harper away for good. With a viable suspect in hand, CPD might not search too hard for the car. But if trace evidence of the murdered woman could be found in the vehicle, anyone caught with it could be hauled in for questioning as an accomplice.

With Harper remaining tight-lipped about where he lived, the police might not find his car anytime soon. Stalling the cops on the case didn’t bother her. But with Harper having major gaps in his memory about what had happened, he couldn’t even help himself—or her. The whereabouts of his car was a loose thread she couldn’t let go, but maybe she didn’t have to. She had another option to explore.

What if Harper hadn’t used his car at all?

Already on her second pot of coffee, she’d hit the yellow pages since dawn, calling cab companies operating in South Chicago, playing a hunch. If her boy genius had used a taxi, it would satisfy her curiosity on Harper’s Mustang. But even better, she’d have a shot at finding out where the boy lived. Cab companies kept record of the location where fares originated.

“And me outsmarting you, my stubborn brainy friend, would be priceless,” she muttered, pouring a fresh cup of coffee. But the ring of her cell phone intruded upon the solitude of her morning. She recognized the number.

“Hey, Sammie. How goes the war against crime?”

“We could use reinforcements. That’s why you’re on the front line.” She heard the smile in her friend’s voice. “I was calling to let you know that the medical examiner got an ID on the dead woman off her fingerprints, and we got lucky. She had an arrest record.” Sam went into the woman’s list of offenses, but when she was done, her friend added, “She doesn’t sound like anyone Seth would hang with, but what do you think?”

After hearing about the victim, Jess had a bad feeling.

“You know, Sam, the kid’s got baggage. And he’s not real chatty about it, but from what I’ve seen, you’re right. Someone like that doesn’t fit. What’s her name?”

Jess heard the rustle of paper in the background before Sam got back on the line. With every second it took, her gut twisted and tightened into a knot.

“Her name was Amanda Vincent, street name Desiree,” Sam said.

Hearing that name jolted Jess wide-awake, confirming her fear. Harper had claimed not to know the dead woman. Had he lied to her? Why had he given Mandy’s name and description—sending her on a wild-goose chase to find a dead woman?

Her hinky barometer crossed into the red zone—none of this made sense. Gut instinct forced her to keep her suspicions to herself. She didn’t have enough to tell Sam, at least not yet. But with the evidence stacked against her boy, Jess didn’t like the odds. Harper needed someone on his side. And tag, she was it.

She hoped Harper had kept his mouth shut when the cops questioned him again. By now, the detective in charge would have done that. With CPD having the woman’s identity, they would have started a push for a confession. Any connection Harper had with the woman would be fair game and used against him. And if her boy genius had flinched when he heard the woman’s name, the police would have seen it. His reaction would have been like blood in the water with great white sharks circling. A feeding frenzy.

“Can you arrange for me to see Harper again, Sam?”

This time Seth had to talk to her.

CHAPTER 8

Cook County Jail

Chicago

“I didn’t lie to you, I swear,” Seth insisted, sitting behind the Plexiglas of CPD’s lockup. “I can’t believe she’s…dead.” He looked washed-out, and the dark circles under his eyes looked stark.

“But you had me chasing a blonde. And Sam just told me Desiree was a brunette. What gives?” Jess asked, putting her elbows on the table.

“Last I’d seen Mandy, she was a blonde.” He shut his eyes, looking tired. His lower lip trembled, but he covered that up by running both hands over his face. “And she was breathing.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t get a good look at the body. It was dark and…I just couldn’t. Too much blood, and her face was…messed up.”

Jess sat in silence, watching her friend. He didn’t act or talk like a stone-cold killer. Mandy’s death had taken a toll on him. Overnight, he looked older than his years, his innocence gone. But maybe Jess didn’t know him as well as she thought.

“I had gotten through to her…finally. At least I thought I had.” A tear trailed down his cheek, but he couldn’t look her in the eye. Under the fluorescent light of the jail, the wetness was robbed of its sheen. “When she let her guard down, you could see…”

When she realized he wasn’t going to finish—that he was mainly coming to terms with what had happened to Mandy in his own mind—she pushed him for an answer.

“See what, Harper?”

“She had the eyes of a little girl under all that makeup.” A sad smile came and went. “She let me see her scrub faced one day. She was really pretty, you know? The kind of pretty that comes from inside.” He swept a finger toward his face. “And she had freckles across her nose. She covered them with makeup, but she let me see them…once.”

Mandy Vincent had only been twenty-two years old when she died. The reality of a life cut short hit Jess hard. Considering her own twisted childhood, the same could have happened to her.

“You don’t have to tell me this, but did you have feelings for the girl, Seth?”

Jess thought she knew the answer. Harper had secrets, sure. And he certainly was complicated. But when it came to his heart—and the people who mattered most in his life—he appeared to be an open book.

“I just felt…sorry for her. And besides, she had a boyfriend. Jason somebody.” He shrugged. “The first time he saw us together, he misread it and got all bent. That was why we arranged places to meet, away from him.”

“Do you think he could’ve found out about you and Des…” She corrected herself. Out of respect for Seth’s feelings, she wouldn’t call the girl Desiree anymore, at least not in his presence. “—I mean, you and Mandy? Killing someone with a knife is an act of passion. Maybe he did it.”

Jess wondered if Harper had said anything to the cops about the boyfriend. Anyone hearing his story would assume Harper had gotten involved in a love triangle gone bad. It wouldn’t exonerate him, not hardly. Checking out the boyfriend could turn up something usable in his defense or give a motive to the DA. She’d talk to Sam about it, to see what the cops knew on the guy.

“I don’t know, Jess. We never really talked about him. I was trying to get her clean. The crank was eating her alive, from the inside out. She already had hep C from sharing dirty needles. Her liver was a fuckin’ time bomb.”

“Oh man, Harper. I had no idea.” Hearing him talk about Mandy raised questions in her mind. Not about the girl, but about the reason Harper had chosen her for his personal project. “How did you meet her? When did all this start?”