First Grave on the Right

something to do with his disappearance.”

This could be the connection I’d been looking for. I had no idea what that connection might be, but I’d worked with less.

“When did he disappear?”

He glanced down and to the right, which meant he was remembering instead of inventing. Another sign of his innocence, not that I needed it. “Teddy stayed with me about a month. His mom had kicked him out. They didn’t get along.”

“She’s your sister?”

“Yes. Then she’d talked him into moving back home with her despite their constant bickering. That was the last time I saw him. I was arrested about two weeks later. No one told me he was missing until after the arrest.”

“What did the prosecution say was your motive?” I asked.

His expression morphed into one of disgust. “Drugs.”

“Ah,” I said in understanding. “The one-size-fits-all motive.”

“Ask him more about his sister.”

I turned to see Barber standing behind me, arms crossed and head bowed in thought.

“I had to have missed something.”

“Can you tell me more about your sister?” I asked Mr. Weir, who was busy looking past me to check out what I was looking at.

After a moment, he said, “She’s not the best mom, but not the worst. She’s been in trouble here and there. Drugs, and not just pot. Some shoplifting. You know, the usual.”

The usual. Interesting defense.

“What about recently?” Barber asked. I passed the question along.

“I haven’t seen her in a year. I have no idea how she’s doing.”

I wondered if she’d ever been questioned about the deceased kid. “What about—?”

“Could she have gotten involved in anything more serious?”

I slid an annoyed glance to Barber for interrupting me — lawyers — then relayed his question to Mr. Weir. Barber didn’t notice my glare. Mr. Weir did.

“With Janie,” he said, becoming more leery of me, “anything is possible.”

“Would you say—?”

“I mean, could she have become indebted to someone? Someone with enough malevolence to kidnap—”

“That’s it,” I whispered through my teeth. “No one asks questions but me.” I was doing my best ventriloquist impersonation, as though Mr. Weir couldn’t hear me because of my lack of facial movement. Or see me pretending not to talk to anyone.

Barber looked at me, bemused. “I’m sorry,” he said, sobering. “I just keep thinking I missed something. Something that was right there in front of me the whole time.”

Great, now I felt guilty. “No, I’m sorry,” I said, feeling bad but having to keep the stupid grin on my face so I wouldn’t move my lips. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

“No, no, you’re right. My fault entirely.”

I turned back to Mr. Weir. “Sorry about that. It’s a voices-in-my-head thing.”

His expression changed, but not as I would’ve expected. He suddenly looked … hopeful again. “Can you really do what they say you can?”

Since I wasn’t sure what he was talking about — who they were and what they said I could do — my brows raised in question. “And they would be…”

He leaned in, as if that would help me hear him better through the glass. “I heard the guards talking. They were surprised you’d come to see me.”

“Why?” I asked, surprised myself.

“They said you solve crimes nobody else can solve. That you even solved a decades-old cold case.”

I rolled my eyes. “That was one time, for heaven’s sake. I got lucky.”

A woman who’d been murdered in the fifties had come to me. I’d convinced Uncle Bob to help, and we closed her case together. I couldn’t have done it without him. Or all the new technology law enforcement had on their side. Of course, it helped that she knew exactly who murdered her and exactly where to find the murder weapon. That poor woman’d had one mean stepson.

“That’s not what they said,” Mr. Weir continued. “They said you knew things, things that no one could know.”

Oh. “Um, who said that?”

“One of our guards is married to a cop.”

“Well, then, that explains it. Cops don’t really think—”

“I don’t care what cops think, Ms. Davidson. I just want to know if you can do what they say.”

A dismal sigh slipped through my lips. “I don’t want to get your hopes up.”

“Ms. Davidson, your mere presence is giving me hope. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is.”

“I’m sorry, too, Mr. Weir. The odds that this will lead to anything—”

“Are better odds than I had this morning.”

“If you want to see it that way,” I said, giving up, “I can’t stop you.”

“But you can do what they say.”

Reluctant to offer any more hope than I already had, I felt tension crawl up my spine, hunch my shoulders. It was easy to believe in my abilities when it would benefit a cause. I just didn’t know how advantageous my talents would be in this particular case. Maybe hope itself would benefit Mr. Weir. It was the least I could offer him.

“Yes, Mr. Weir, I can do what they say.” I waited for that little jewel to sink in, for his mildly shocked expression to return to normal, then said, “They’ll be taking you to the Reception and Diagnostic Center in Los Lunas for evaluation before sending you to prison. I can brave the hordes of Los Lunatics and visit you there if you’d like. Keep you up to date.”

A reluctant smile appeared at last. “I’d like that.”

I spoke to Barber through the side of my mouth. “You got any more questions?”

He was still buried in thought and simply shook his head.

“Okay,” I said to Weir, “see ya soon.”

After hanging up, I started to put my notepad and pen away when I had an epiphany. Of sorts. I turned and tapped on the window to get Mr. Weir’s attention.

The guard allowed him to walk back and pick up his phone again.

“How old is he?” I asked as I balanced the phone on my shoulder and tore through my notepad, clicking my pen to the ready.

“Excuse me?”

“Your nephew. How old is your nephew?”

“Oh, he’s fifteen. Or he was. I guess he’d be sixteen now.”

“And they still haven’t found him?”

“Not that I know of. What—?”

“How old was the kid? The one in your backyard?”

“I see where you’re going with this,” Barber said.

“He was fifteen. Do you think there’s a connection?”

I winked at Barber, then leaned toward Mr. Weir with a touch more promise in my eyes. “There has to be, and I’ll do my damnedest to find out what it is.”

* * *

The last thing I wanted to do was jump to conclusions, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that those two boys ran in the same circles. Two boys with similar backgrounds, one missing and one dead? My mind screamed predator.

Though I needed Barber’s files, I didn’t want to deal with Nora, the lawyers’ administrative assistant. If she was anything like other administrative assistants I knew, she had only slightly less power than God at her fingertips, and she wouldn’t take kindly to any nosing about. Breaking and entering was much safer. But breaking and entering