Dying Echo A Grim Reaper Mystery - By Judy Clemens Page 0,66
care of it. I was waiting to see…I was hoping…No point in hoping now, is there? I mean, I’m assuming Lizzie didn’t have any family we should know about?”
“Not as far as we know. Or my brother knows.”
“Your brother?”
“Her boyfriend. The one who’s in jail but didn’t kill her. The one in the picture.”
“Right.” She looked at Casey briefly, then stood up. “I guess I should call and tell my father. Or maybe I’ll just go over. He’s working. The bank.” She hesitated. “Do you want to stay here?”
“If you’re comfortable with that.”
She lifted her hands, then let them fall. “It’s fine. Go ahead and look through the box. I’ll be back to help with whatever I can.”
“Betsy. Thanks.”
She nodded. “Whatever I can do for Lizzie.”
The door closed behind her, and Casey stood to look in the box. The first thing she saw was a school paper, an essay about “My Dream: Finding a Cure for Cancer.” The name on the top was Elizabeth Mann, and the grade was an A+. The teacher had written a note in red, which said:
“Wonderful paper, Elizabeth! Your mother would be proud. It is easy to imagine you being successful in this goal. You will change the world!”
A prophet, she was not.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Casey and Eric sat quietly going through the box contents, speaking only when one of them found something new and interesting. Most of the items were yellowed articles rehashing the bloody facts, delving into Cyrus and Elizabeth’s private lives (“What kind of a father has his daughter living in a Chevy?”), and making much of the fact that this “small town” police department hadn’t found either the killers or the girl. There weren’t even suspects discussed, other than the brief flirtation with Elizabeth. As far as anyone was willing to say, it was someone with a big gun. That about summed up the communal knowledge. Not exactly inspiring. The papers were much freer with the death itself.
“It really does sound like an execution,” Eric said. “Shot in the head. Nasty. Think Elizabeth was watching?”
“God, I hope not.” It was horrible enough seeing your family die in a flaming car wreck, but at least that wasn’t done with evil intent. “If she was, she had to be hiding. They wouldn’t have let her live if she’d seen their faces, and they knew it.” She stopped.
“What?”
“The Three.” Casey shuffled quickly through the remaining papers and photos, looking for anything that might relate.
“Three what?”
“Men. When she was dying she talked about three of them.” She pulled out a birthday card, to Betsy, signed by Lizzie, a Marshland High T-shirt, a bank book, and, finally, a stack of photos. Casey was so busy going through them she didn’t realize that Eric had gone still.
“How do you know that?” he said.
“Know what?”
“What she talked about when she was dying?”
“A fair question.”
Casey blinked and looked up, surprised to see Death sitting across the table.
“Yes,” Death said. “Exactly how do you know that? Oh. Right. I told you.”
“I thought there weren’t any witnesses,” Eric said. “That they didn’t find her until she was dead. Completely dead. Not almost dead. How would you know what she said when she was dying?”
A sharp pain began behind Casey’s eye. Or, actually, it was already there. Now it worsened. “Did I say that?”
“You did.”
She and Eric stared at each other, neither one willing to say any more.
“You’re going to have to tell him sometime,” Death said. “Oh, look, this guy had a mullet.”
Casey snatched up the photo Death was indicating. “Who are these guys?”
“Casey.” Eric grabbed the photo from her hand. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing. I mean, it’s nothing. Really. It’s all…in my head.”
“Excuse me.” Death’s voice rose. “In your head? Seriously?”
Eric’s jawed worked. “What, exactly, is in your head? How you imagined her death to have happened?”
“Yes. That’s it.”
“And not how she died after Ricky attacked her and you showed up to clean up his mess?”
“Eric!”
“Well, what am I supposed to think? I came along here—and to Colorado in the first place—because I believed in you. I trusted your judgment about your brother, and I really thought you’d killed that guy in self-defense, so I didn’t want you to go to jail for it. But you know Alicia’s real name, even though the cops don’t. You don’t go to the police with information. And you claim to know what she said as she was dying. How am I supposed to believe anything you say anymore?”