Grave Endings by Rochelle Krich Read Free Book Online

do that.”
    â€œWould it be okay for me to see Randy’s apartment, Mrs. Lamont? You said the police were done, right?” I added when she frowned, “I promise I won’t take anything.” I heard the anxiousness in my voice.
    Gloria heard it, too. She was looking at me shrewdly, those brown eyes narrowed. “What do you need to see his apartment for, anyway?”
    â€œSometimes you can understand a person better from seeing where he lived.” Which is true.
    â€œSo this is for your story, huh?” She crossed her arms again. “That’s a load of you-know-what. What’s going on?”
    I debated, but not for long. “My best friend was killed six years ago. Now the police are saying Randy did it. I need to know if it’s true.”
    I had startled her, but the shock turned to anger. She glowered at me. “Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?”
    â€œI didn’t know if you’d talk to me.”
    â€œUh-huh.” She studied me for a moment. “So that part about writin’ a story on Randy, that’s all lies. Not much difference between you and him, is there?”
    Well, of course I felt myself blushing. “I may end up writing something about him. Right now I’m trying to find out what I can.”
    â€œUh-huh.” She cocked her head. “How do I know you’re not givin’ me another
story
?”
    I took out my wallet and showed Gloria a photo Mrs. Lasher had taken of Aggie and me in the Lashers’ backyard against a background of hot pink bougainvillea on a June day a month before she died. “That’s my friend,” I told the manager. “Her name is Aggie. She was killed on July 23, almost six years ago. She was twenty-three.”
    â€œAn’ the cops’re sayin’ Randy did it?” Gloria looked at the photo, then at me. Then back at the photo. “But you don’t think so?”
    â€œHe could have. But you said he never fought and never gave you any trouble. And he never killed anyone before, as far as the police know.”
    â€œI seen people do things when they drunk or on drugs they wouldn’t do otherwise. Just ’cause a man brings candy to a child don’t mean he can’t turn ugly.”
    She pinched her lips, and her eyes had a pained, far-away look. I wondered if she was reliving a memory.
    â€œTen minutes,” she told me.
    â€œYou can watch me the whole time, Mrs. Lamont.”
    She dismissed my smile with a snort. “You got
that
right.”

six
    AFTER GIVING STRICT INSTRUCTIONS TO JEROME NOT TO open the door to anyone (“Not even the chief of
po
lice!”) and promising she’d be back in ten minutes, Gloria took a ring of keys, locked her door, and led me through a narrow, musty hallway to a second-floor apartment at the back of the building.
    â€œRandy’s daddy was supposed to empty the apartment yesterday so’s I can rent it, but he didn’t show,” she said with annoyance as she unlocked the door and pushed it open. She flipped up a light switch. “Well, here it is.”
    Stale air laced with an unpleasant odor I couldn’t identify greeted me like a ghost. I followed Gloria into a generous-size L-shaped living-dining room. The “living” part said bachelor’s pad: cushy red leather sofa, black area rug with a red-and-white swirling pattern, one-piece Lucite coffee table with curved ends. The sofa faced black speaker boxes the size of refrigerators that were hooked up to a sound system housed inside a black lacquer cabinet crammed with CDs, and the DVDs Randy would have viewed on the sixty-inch projection TV positioned between the speakers. Next to the sofa was a black lacquer desk whose working surface was taken up by magazines and a combination phone–answering machine and multipurpose fax machine.
    â€œHe got all that about five, six years ago,” Gloria said when I asked her