The Little Grave (Detective Amanda Steele)

“Hey-lo.” Rideout’s greeting came out in two parts, with the latter in a baritone. He waved one hand toward Palmer; the other held his case. “You do know who that is?” He looked directly at Amanda.

“Uh-huh.” She drew up tall, ready to defend herself.

He held eye contact with her and eventually said, “All righty, then,” and got to work.

She went straight to Palmer’s wallet, more than ready to return to what she’d been doing when Trent and the CSIs had shown up. So, he had a couple of expired credit cards, a healthcare insurance card, and a ten-dollar bill. She rattled that inventory off for Trent, then pulled out two photos from another partition. One was of Palmer with a woman, both smiling, probably taken around the time of the accident given Palmer’s appearance. They were standing rather close, which indicated a romantic relationship, though they weren’t touching. If she was a girlfriend, Amanda didn’t remember her face from the trial. The other picture was of a teenage Palmer next to two other boys about the same age, each of them holding bicycles at their sides. She flipped each picture hoping there’d be names, but no such luck.

She passed the photos to Trent. “We’ll want to find out who they are.” She wasn’t hinging much hope on their identities having much, if any, bearing on the case, but it was still a matter that needed to be explored. If Palmer had been targeted, the more they found out about his life before prison the better.

“Possible one of them is Palm

er’s next of kin,” Trent said.

“Could be,” she replied.

Rideout lifted his gaze from Palmer’s body to her. His frown said it all: she shouldn’t be working this case. But damn it to hell, she could compartmentalize the personal from the professional. She’d had years of practice as a cop stuffing her feelings down deep, keeping the recommended emotional distance from the cases she worked and the families she had to deal with.

“Whoever they are, we’ll find his next of kin.” Her words circled back to her ears with far more confidence than she felt. After the accident, she and her father had pried into Palmer’s life. The intention had been to build a case for the prosecution, to establish a pattern of behavior—Palmer had always been a drunk—but during the process they’d found out his parents were both dead and he didn’t have any siblings.

Trent handed the photos back to her, and she looked at the one of Palmer with the woman again. If she had been his girlfriend, they could have broken things off before the case went to trial. She returned the photos to the wallet and in exchange fished out a business card. She angled it for Trent to see.

“King of Pawnshops,” Trent read out.

“It was located in Woodbridge,” Amanda said. “Place is out of business now, but Palmer was part owner there before he went to prison.”

“We should reach out to his partner then,” Trent said, not questioning for a second that Palmer had been to prison. He’d definitely been read in and knew Palmer’s history.

“You said King of Pawnshops?” CSI Blair stopped whatever it was she was doing near the closet.

“Yeah?” Amanda angled her head, not sure where Blair was headed.

“Oh.”

“Not following,” Amanda said.

“The owner of that pawnshop was murdered. Brutally. It was one of the nastiest crime scenes I’ve worked in my career.”

Amanda tried to recall the name of Palmer’s partner. It was Jackson something, but his last name wasn’t coming. “You remember his name?” she asked the CSI, curious about her change in attitude. She’d been so hostile up until now.

“Jackson Webb. I’ll never forget. He’d been tortured. His fingernails were removed, and he had cigarette burns all over his body.” Blair consulted Rideout. “Do you remember that?”

“Lots of bodies visit my table,” Rideout said, “but I’m guessing someone else was assigned that autopsy.”

“Signs of torture…” Amanda’s gaze went to Palmer. Could it be that whoever had killed Webb was responsible for Palmer’s death? But there were no signs of torture present here—at least not visible ones. After the sentencing, she’d let her obsession with Palmer go, choosing instead to wallow alone in her grief and anger. “When was this?”

“Easily five years ago or so. As I said, it was a memorable crime scene.”

The skin tightened at the back of her neck. The accident was five and a half years ago; six this coming July eighteenth. Turnaround time from trial to sentencing was five months, twenty-six days, six months. But no wonder she didn’t know about Jackson Webb’s fate; she’d been out of touch for a couple of months after the accident. Hospitalized and monitored. An internal bleed had made an operation necessary, and that surgery had repercussions of its own. Long-lasting, life-altering ones. She did her best not to dwell on them. She had enough to deal with when it came to losing Kevin and Lindsey as it was. Only she and her doctors knew the full cost of that fateful day.

They needed to dig up the Webb investigation. Could it be that the same person who had killed Webb had come for Palmer? But then what motive could have bridged the stretch of time? Could the only thing that had kept Palmer alive been the fact he was behind bars?

“Did they ever solve the case?” she asked.

“I dunno.” Blair hitched her shoulders. “I probably should have followed through, but then the next case comes up, and the next…”

She was dying to know if there’d been any leads, namely suspects, but she could dig into that back at the station. “What else do you remember?”

“The place—the vic’s house—was an absolute disaster, and not just because of the blood. It had been tossed, no doubt of it.”