Afterlife

By EB

©2004

Chapter Four

Nearly a week went by before he did anything with the key. It stayed in the pottery dish by the door, along with his extra set of keys and what had been a third set, then Nick's set, and now his third set again, and a heaped pile of assorted change, after-dinner mints, and old gas receipts.

It wasn't that he forgot it, as such, but shortly after his careful fence-mending with Jim Brass, a case came up that yanked him out of his post-funeral stasis, a puzzling, interesting case, and after six days of overtime and far too much coffee, he re-emerged feeling pleasantly exhausted, fulfilled in a way he belatedly recognized as perfectly familiar. He loved his work. Had perhaps lost sight of that lately, but now he remembered. It was fun. With all its quirks and its glimpses into the worst the human psyche could offer, it was nevertheless the professional equivalent of the roller coasters he so loved, and now he was admittedly tired, but rejuvenated at the same time.

He came home late on a Monday morning, fresh off nearly 48 hours of nonstop fact-chasing, and saw the key. The pain was there -- needle-thin icicle sliding easily into his heart -- but for the moment, at least, he could handle it.

He tossed the contents of his pockets into the dish, and took out the key. Time to find out what Nick felt was so important it should be hidden away.

A call to the bank he and Nick had both patronized turned up nothing much. Their area branch had no safety-deposit boxes at all. For that, the clerk told him, he'd have to go to the main branch downtown. But the subsequent conversation with that bank was equally fruitless.

"We do have safety-deposit boxes, of course," the woman said in a distracted-sounding voice. "But none of our keys are numbered."

"I see."

"Sorry I couldn't help, sir."

He replaced the receiver, and pondered it. In the midst of calling around, his curiosity had been more than piqued; the urge to know what this key opened had become more of a distinct need. It was Nick's, and no matter what it was, he wanted it, wanted to have everything that had belonged to Nick, had been important to him.

After a few minutes he opened his hanging-file drawer and flipped through the few files he'd retained from Nick's desk. Hadn't Jamie said she'd found bank books for several other accounts? The key could easily be from one of those banks instead.

The file obediently revealed three accounts: one savings, one checking, and one money-market. He automatically dismissed the money market account; Nick was hardly likely to keep anything at a brokerage firm. But the other two were worth a shot.

And like the old saying, third time was the charm. Nick's key, it appeared, opened a safety-deposit box at the main branch of Cooverton Bank and Trust, an old-school bank where Gil had had his first account, back in the salad days of his tenure in Las Vegas. He'd quickly grown tired of inflated fees, and moved to First National, where he remained to date, but he remembered the marble Cooverton edifice.

An hour later, showered and shaved and no longer tired at all, he parked his vehicle in the massive parking lot and went inside. It took half an hour, obedient showing of the will and Nick's death certificate, and two separate discussions with bank officers before he was grudgingly told that yes, as executor of Nick's estate he did have custody of whatever lay inside that box. Feeling guilty as a thief caught red-handed, he followed the stiff-backed woman to the vault, and held the box until she finally left him in peace.

In a curtained alcove he opened Nick's safety-deposit box.

At first he thought it was nothing much. Money, banded stacks of tens and twenties. More than he'd have expected Nick to keep handy: several thousand, at least. A battered address book; what meaning did that have?

Underneath was a heavy 8 ½ by 11" envelope. His hands trembled slightly when he picked it up.

No. If he was going to go through all this, it would be at home, in private, and not in this austere little cubicle. If Nick had secrets – and he was growing more certain by the minute that Nick did in fact have those – this wasn't the place to uncover them.

Besides the letter-sized envelope, there was a sheaf of papers inside a manila folder. The title for Nick's SUV lay on the bottom, startling in its very ordinariness. Gil left the money and the title, took the papers, book, and envelope, and returned the closed box to the unsmiling bank officer.

At the house, he poured a hefty jigger of brandy and sipped it for courage. He was tired now, feeling the stress of nearly two solid days of investigative work, but more than that, raw tension. If Nick had wanted him to know about the contents of that box – of the box's existence at all – he would have told him. He hadn't, and Gil had no idea what that meant. Was this something he even wanted to know? A million possibilities had come and gone in his mind during the drive home. Nick was not a secretive man, not by nature. It was out of character, wildly so.

A sharp spasm of grief curled in his belly. He wanted to ask Nick. Why the secrecy, why could you not trust me with whatever this is?

But there was no one to ask. He drank off the rest of the brandy and sat down, pulling the envelope over.

When he upended it, a lot of things fell out. And for a very long moment he just sat and stared, because to say that it was unexpected was to not even come close to the level of surprise he felt.

Nick's envelope was like something out of a Robert Ludlum novel. Gil felt an absurd giggle rising in his throat, and squelched it with difficulty. Three passports, none of them American. Two Canadian, one Swiss. Driver's licenses, two, one international, the other Texas. Credit cards, half a dozen. And folded neatly in half, a birth certificate.

The Swiss passport, and one of the Canadian, had Nick's photographs in them. But the names weren't Nick Stokes. It was harder not to laugh now, and yet his belly felt flash-frozen with shock, bordering on horror. What in the everlasting FUCK?

He opened the third passport and saw his own picture, and recoiled sharply.

His name was changed, as well. Samuel Williston. Tongue in cheek: Williston had been a noted 19th-century dipterist. Nick's inside joke, maybe? Gil wasn't laughing now. The urge to giggle had become something else entirely.

What was this? The work itself was variable; he recognized the Swiss passport as fake, although not entirely shoddy stuff. Cheap, though. And old; the expiration date was only six years from now. Nick must have gotten it not long after his arrival in Las Vegas. The Canadian passports were far better, and the one for Gil – or Dr. Williston – was even higher quality than Nick's. Or should he say, Brian's, since Nick's name was nowhere to be found.

Nick had a full alternate identity for himself, and most of a second, along with a partial for Gil. Expensive, completely illegal, and utterly unfathomable.

Just having the items piled on his desk made him feel obscurely nervous. He put everything back in the envelope and then sat motionless, his mind reeling. A hundred scenarios came and went, each more lurid than the last. Nick had been in trouble. Nick had been unaccountably paranoid. Nick had done something illegal, and felt the need to cover his tracks. Prepare for outlandish contingencies. Read too many Tom Clancy novels.

But one fact remained without question: Nick had died, violently, less than two months ago. Could his death have been connected with whatever reason he'd had for accumulating thousands of dollars' worth of false identification? How so? The shooting had been random, the perpetrator a nineteen-year-old boy so messed up on methamphetamines that he might have thought he was shooting Saddam Hussein instead of a nice clean-cut Texan.

His stomach was churning on the shot of brandy. He got up and walked stiffly to the bathroom, taking out antacids and chewing up four.

He'd never seen Hector Ramos in the aftermath of the shooting. He hadn't wanted to see him, had been afraid of what he might do if he did see him. Nick's teenage killer, who'd spent six days in the hospital afterward, thanks to Jim Brass's bullet; who'd been arraigned and scheduled for trial on charges of manslaughter; who was now out on bail.

He stared at his reflection in the mirror without really seeing it. It was time to look into the circumstances of Nick's death. Perhaps long overdue.

"I knew you'd do this."

He gazed at her. "Do what?"

Catherine sighed and leaned back in her chair. Her tiny office smelled pleasantly of vanilla, and he saw a new picture of Lindsey on her desk. "What you're doing," she replied evenly. "Asking about Ramos."

"I'm not questioning your conclusions, Catherine. I simply – wanted to know more."

"More about what? It's open and shut. You want a copy of my report? It's all there. I'm not hiding anything from you."

"No, I know that. But if you could go over it with me. That's all I'm asking." He found an awkward half-smile on his face. "As a friend."

Her reproachful look said she recognized a lame-ass manipulative move when she saw one, but would refrain from actually saying it out loud. "All right," she said reluctantly. "What do you want to know?"

"What was he doing there? Nick and Brass were finishing up the Jimenez investigation. Totally unrelated."

"It's a nasty neighborhood. You know that."

"Was it Ramos's neighborhood?"

Catherine gazed at him, and finally said, "No. Not specifically. He lives further east. But that doesn't mean anything, Gil. What are you trying to say? Don't pull this shit on me; tell me."

"I don't know," Gil admitted, shaking his head. "Maybe nothing. I have a funny feeling about it, that's all."

"Of course you do." Her voice softened. "He was your partner. Your lover. And a goddamn druggie blew his head off."

He flinched and looked away. "Jesus, Catherine."

"Ramos doesn't even remember doing it. He doesn't remember getting shot himself."

"What does he remember?" He forced himself to look at her again. "Did he say?"

She shrugged and picked up a pen, clicking it mindlessly. "He says," she replied slowly, "that he remembers that afternoon. He was coming down, hard, and all he wanted was to score. He borrowed the money from his cousin. I'm assuming that's an euphemism for 'stole it.' After that, nothing, until two days later, when he was already recovering from surgery."

"Brass told me Nick wandered off. What was he looking for?"

Catherine spread her hands wide. "We weren't ever sure of that. Gil, it was his case. An old one. Brass was still playing catch-up, remember?"

Nodding, Gil said, "The McPherson case. Nick worked it earlier this year. New evidence came up."

"Right. Rick McPherson, accused in February of engineering a business partner's death. His alibi was his wife, Cheryl; she said he was with her the night of the accident. Valentine's. PD got a call from someone who said he had seen McPherson at the scene."

"But Jim said Nick was looking at the car."

"Nick was still sure that car was the one that hit the partner."

"Was it?"

"Never could prove it. There had been plenty of time for the suspect to get the car repaired."

Gil nodded slowly. "So what happened with the witness?"

"Nothing. He disappeared. And then there was the fire, and that pretty much closed the case, permanently this time."

"Fire?"

"You were – out of town." She shifted in her chair, making a face. "The McPherson's house burned down. Fire marshal said it was faulty wiring in the air-conditioning unit. Mr. and Mrs. McPherson never had a chance. I can show you the autopsy reports if you want."

He looked at her so long she finally shifted again, this time glaring at him. "What? You're looking at me as if I'm not telling you something. That's it, that's all, Gil. There isn't anything else."

"Where's Hector Ramos?"

"Right now? Wait a minute. No, you don't –"

"I just want to speak with him. That's all."

"Gil, there are so many reasons why that's a bad idea, it would take me until next week to list them all." Catherine leaned forward, placing her hands flat on the desk top. "It's an open and shut case," she said distinctly. "And you going and harassing the guy will not help. Get it? Look, if our positions were reversed, I know good and goddamn well you'd be saying the same thing I am."

He allowed a faint smile. "I'm sure I would." He uncrossed his legs and stood. "Thanks for your time."

She sighed. "And what I just said didn't make spit worth of difference, did it?"

"Of course it did."

"But it won't stop you."

He was already walking out the door.

The department's computer obediently spat out Hector Ramos's physical address. One of the perks of supervisory status: Even if you had no official business to do, your particular password gave you access to everything.

He tucked the printout in his pocket.

Forty minutes later he pulled up in front of the indicated house. Just one more small building in a neighborhood of small, run-down buildings. This area was painfully poor: postage-stamp-sized lawns brown from lack of expensive water, roofs in obvious need of repair. Ramos's home was much like its fellows, once painted gaily pink, now faded to a sort of sickly flesh tone, like a washed-out photograph. A brand-new Ford F250 sat in state in the driveway. Gil frowned, seeing it, and opened the gate to walk to the door.

A woman about his own age answered the door, her dark eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Si?"

"Busco a Hector Ramos. ¿Está aquí?"

"Si," she said slowly. "¿Usted policía?"

"No, trabajo para el Las Vegas Crime Lab. Deseo solamente hacer algunas preguntas."

The woman – he assumed Ramos's mother, although he could be wrong – gave a stiff nod. "Okay. Hector!" she called over her shoulder. "¡El policía!

He waited on the doorstep while a muttered conversation went on inside, and then a boy opened the screen. His expression was the same as his mother's: shuttered, suspicious. He would have been a nice-looking kid if not for the acne pocking his features. He was very thin, and his tee shirt and battered jeans hung on him, made for someone four sizes larger. His right arm was in a sling, and white bandages peeked from under the collar of his shirt.

Out of nowhere, rage slammed into him. This – this CHILD – had killed Nick. Fried on so much crystal meth he'd probably been awake for two weeks, laughing as if it had been FUN, and Gil was going to TALK to him? The little shit.

"You a cop?"

Gil shook his head. "Crime Lab," he managed through gritted teeth. "I wanted to ask you a few questions."

Instead of asking him inside, Ramos nodded and came out on the porch. His uncasted hand shoved deep in his pocket, he glanced furtively around. "So ask, man. But I ain't gonna change nothin'."

"I understand you don't remember a lot of what happened the night of August 3rd."

"I remember some."

"Tell me?"

"What's this, man? You don't talk to the other guys?"

A renewed flare of rage exploded in his belly. "Just answer the question," Gil spat.

His tone got him a wary look, and a short nod. "Yeah, okay."

"Do you remember shooting N -- Mr. Stokes?"

Ramos sucked on his lower lip, visibly deflating. "Not that part."

"After? Do you remember getting shot?"

A snort. "Yeah, I remember that. Hurt, man." He reached up automatically to touch his right shoulder.

Do you think Nick felt it? Did it hurt him, too? Did he know, at all? The fury in his stomach had become nausea, too, roiling angrily. "What else do you remember?"

"Just the blood, you know? Other shit."

"But not the -- shooting."

Something flickered over Ramos's acne-scarred features, something young and scared and confused. "They said I done it," he whispered. "But I don't remember."

"What were you doing there? Is that where you usually go? To buy drugs?"

"No, man." Ramos shook his head vigorously. "Nowhere near."

"So?"

With another nervous look around, Ramos gave a one-shouldered shrug. "I was just doin' somebody a favor, that's all. No big."

His head was echoing emptily. It was terribly hard to focus. "A favor?" Gil asked thickly. "Who?"

"Just this guy. Friend of mine, you know? He had to be someplace, and he asked me could I fill in for him."

Gil looked away, out into the street. The urge to either walk away or strangle the kid where he stood was nearly overwhelming. "I see. And your friend will back you up?"

"Ain't seen him since then. Heard he went up to Reno."

"What was the favor?"

Ramos didn't answer, and finally, reluctantly, Gil looked at him again. His hands were ice-cold. "Tell me," he said woodenly.

"Just supposed to go someplace. Since Johnny couldn't."

Gil swallowed. "Someplace? 45th and Cornell, maybe?"

"I don't remember." The anxiety in Ramos's face grew easier to see. "A black car. That's it, man, that's all I remember. Some guy. I mean, Johnny said I'd get some money, you know? He knew I needed it, needed to make some purchases, and this guy was gonna set me up with it if I'd do what Johnny was supposed to do. Only I dunno what that was." He looked away, chewing busily on his upper lip. "Next thing I know, I shot the other guy. Don't even remember that. But I done it. Right?"

You don't remember it. You don't remember putting the barrel of a shotgun to the nape of Nick's neck, and pulling the trigger. You don't remember murdering the best goddamn thing that ever happened to me.

How could you FORGET that? How is it not burned in your memory for all time, like it is, mine? What kind of subhuman monster ARE you?

Red flashes pulsed in his vision. "Yes, you did," Gil said in a thick voice. "You k- killed him."

"I didn't want to kill nobody," Ramos whispered. His color had gone; he looked green now, horrified. "Man, you gotta believe that. Whatever I done, it was the fucking drugs. I swear to God."

"Where did you get the shotgun? Was it yours?"

Ramos shook his head. "I don't got a gun. Sure no shotgun."

"But your prints were all over it. You must have gotten it from somewhere."

"I don't remember."

"Well, what DO you remember?" Gil snarled. "You don't remember the gun, or why you were there – do you remember Nick? You remember blowing his goddamn HEAD off? Does that ring any bells?"

Ramos drew back several steps, his back pressed against the screen door. "Maybe I oughta call my lawyer," he said shakily. "I told you, man, I don't remember that part."

"Sure you don't." Gil stared at him, spots like solar flares in his peripheral vision. "How nice for you."

"I ain't got nothin' more to say. You wanna talk to me, you call my lawyer, man."

The screen door slapped shut, and a half-second later the door slammed. Distantly Gil heard a bolt being shot, as well.

After a very long moment, he turned stiffly and made his way back to the truck. His muscles ached as if he'd just run ten miles.

Inside the truck, he waited for the pulsing in his vision to stop, and then turned the key in the ignition.