The Little Grave (Detective Amanda Steele)

“For God’s sake put your hands down.”

He lowered them incrementally.

“I’m here about an open investigation,” she said, which wasn’t entirely a lie but a complete diversion to the clerk’s question.

“You have the paperwork? The go-ahead from my boss?”

“Nope.”

“Then I’m sorry but I can’t help you.”

Amanda stood there staring at the clerk, tapping her foot, wishing she could exert some sort of power to make him comply. But she was in this mess all because of her stupid rule: no names.

“If you want to come back with a warr—”

She barreled out into the night air. She wasn’t going to get anywhere with Bobby, but now what was she supposed to do? All she knew about Motel Guy was what he drove. That was hardly enough to narrow down a search with the Department of Motor Vehicles. And if she couldn’t track down her alibi, she was screwed. Malone would pull her from the case. Then again, if Palmer hadn’t been murdered, she wouldn’t need one.

She drove home for a long, overdue shower. Trent would just have to wait for her; she’d get to the station when she got there.

She pulled into the driveway of the gray brick bungalow she’d shared with Kevin and Lindsey. They’d made a life and a slew of memories here. For the longest time, she’d look at the house and just sit in her car and cry before going inside. Then she’d gone through a phase where she’d stopped looking and crossed over to a numb indifference, doing her best to set aside the happy times because they didn’t possess the power to rise above the pain.

Today, she was feeling different yet again. The man who had killed them had left this world—either assisted or due to his own dumb addiction.

There was a single garage, but Kevin had been a bit of a pack rat and it was piled high with stuff. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to touch any of it, let alone clear it out.

She unlocked the front door and dropped her keys in the bowl on the hall table in the entry. The house was thirty-five years old, but she and Kevin had renovated and made it open concept. There was a tiled patch of flooring to distinguish the square-shaped entry. It butted against the wood laminate flooring of the living room to the left. The kitchen was beyond that, and to the right was a hallway that went to two bedrooms and a bathroom. The basement wasn’t fully finished and was mostly neglected except for the laundry room that shared its space with the furnace and water heater.

She went right for the bathroom, craving a hot shower to wash off the sex, and stayed under the spray until the water ran cold.

She slipped behind the wheel twenty minutes after going inside and set out for PWCPD Central District police station in Woodbridge. But on her way out of Dumfries she found herself driving past the cemetery where she’d laid Kevin and Lindsey to rest. She was turning in before she could talk herself out of it.

It had been a while since she’d visited. Months maybe, but she’d started feeling so foolish talking to them as if they still existed on some plane. It hurt too much to think they were “out there” while she was stuck here.

She drove through the twisty roads in the cemetery, her memory recalling well where the family plot was that she’d bought so they could all be laid to rest together. At some point she’d join them, and often it didn’t feel like that reunion could happen soon enough.

She got out of the car and suddenly felt unprepared to be here. She should at least be armed with flowers or something, but her family would hopefully understand—if they had any way of knowing.

She pulled her phone and used the flashlight to illuminate the shadows that the pale moonlight failed to penetrate. She walked through the forested graveyard, the trees’ branches acting like arms and fingertips reaching out to the night sky. She crested a knoll marked by a magnificent oak tree. Kevin’s and Lindsey’s graves were just on the other side, on a slight downslope.

She hunched next to the graves, positioned between the two of them. Stacked in front of the headstones were a couple of snow-dusted bouquets of flowers and an unlit candle in a glass dish. Two cards rested against each stone. Amanda picked up the ones for her daughter. They were wet from snow, but she gently opened the envelopes.

The first was addressed to Lindsey in her mother’s handwriting.

The card read, To my sweet, sweet granddaughter, You brought so much light into this world, and I can only be saddened by what the world has lost. But I will always carry you in my heart and soul, my beautiful girl. Keep shining, angel. Merry Christmas and love, Grandma Steele.

Tears stung Amanda’s eyes and she sniffled. Her mother had been here—recently. Amanda felt a rush of guilt for her negligence in visiting the graves.

She didn’t readily identify the handwriting on the second card marked Lindsey. She scanned to the bottom of the card and saw it had been signed by Kevin’s mother and father, Maria and Solomon, her in-laws. Though were they still? Kevin was dead, and they had shied away from her after the trial, just as she’d backed off from her own family. Kevin’s mother had written a poem by the looks of it, but she respected the woman’s privacy in her words to her only grandchild and returned it to the sleeve.

Amanda palmed her cheeks and set the cards back on the ground. The words weren’t for her.

She closed her eyes. What the hell had she been thinking to step forward for the Palmer case? What did she care that the man who killed her family was dead? Good. On. Him. He deserved it, and if he’d met his death at the hands of a cruel killer who made his leaving this world painful—well, he only had himself to blame.

“Why?” she cried out into the night.

She pictured the tiny coffin holding her precious daughter being lowered into the little grave, her love, her heart going into the ground. She had to force herself to remember her daughter as she’d been—a light, as Amanda’s mother had described her, with a smile that lit up a room. As time passed though, the images of Kevin’s and Lindsey’s faces faded, graying around the edges with indistinct features, leaving behind more a whisper of a memory than a clear picture. She had photographs, but it was still hard to fully recall their appearance. She feared that as their faces obscured, she’d somehow forget them. But how was that possible when not a day passed that they weren’t in her thoughts?

Amanda sobbed, her chest heaving, and her eyes blurred from tears. She blinked them away and, as her vision came into focus, her gaze was upon Lindsey’s gravestone.