Love Lies Bleeding Read online

  One of the gravediggers, the one whose muscle was a little obscured by a layer of fat, stepped off to the side of the freshly covered grave for a swig of water. He then contemplated the view. His coworker had taken to calling him Chubs, and he didn’t have the balls to stop him. He tried to find humor in the nickname and failed. He never had been very self-deprecating.

  “To what base uses we may return,” he sighed, as if the weight of the world rested willingly on his shoulders.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Fuck, you weren’t quoting again were you?” The second gravedigger would have looked more at home with a cigarette hanging out of the side of his mouth, but he’d recently quit. He was making a real attempt to make it more than thirty days this time. Gum would have been a relief, but aspartame gave him migraines. People called him Dick, even though his given name was Earl, not Richard.

  “Can’t a man relish a little education?” Chubs continued to reflect on the view, aware that tilting his head slightly to the right made him look thoughtful. Even insightful.

  “For whatever good it does you,” Dick sneered. He knew bullshit when he saw it.

  “Bettering oneself is a noble pursuit.”

  “Is that another quote?”

  “Could be. I don’t know. Sounds like one.”

  “This job shows us day in and out —”

  “I know. Nothing lasts beyond the grave.”

  “You could let me finish,” Dick growled, but Chubs didn’t seem to hear the underlying warning.

  Chubs, unwilling to pick up his shovel just yet, offered another opinion. “Some think death is just another step in evolution. Soon, we’ll cast off our bodies and live purely in the mind.”

  “What good would that be? To never feel that first gulp of cold beer or taste a hot slice of pepperoni pizza?” Dick sneered again. His face was almost permanently crooked with it.

  “Ah, I knew you were a closet romantic.”

  Dick leaped across the freshly mounded dirt to grab Chubs by the shirt. “Take that back, you fucking fag.”

  “Hey, hey. I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “The shit that comes out of your mouth,” Dick spat, but he released Chubs. Then, leaning heavily on his shovel, he thought. It was a rather difficult process for him. He often chose to go many days without actually thinking about anything for too long or in too much detail. It was easier to just listen to his wants and needs, rather than weigh the merits and discuss things he had no real control over. Chubs watched him patiently, almost excited, as if a treat was coming his way.

  Dick indicated the grave at their feet. “Take this guy. You think he’s happier to have ‘transcended’ beyond a good meal, a good shit, and a good fuck?”

  “I’m talking way in the future.”

  “And don’t you think if he was there in spirit when they packed his body in that box, he wouldn’t be thinking about the last time his lady wrapped her sweet lips around his dick?”

  “I think …” But Chubs trailed off, as if suddenly aware that they were no longer alone.

  They both turned to see Pamela, who was still wearing her full wedding outfit though she was now holding a pink flower umbrella. And, yes, the cherry blossom theme continued in the rain gear.

  Pamela had stood very patiently, almost serenely, as she listened to their conversation. It wasn’t respectful to interrupt.

  “Oh, shit fuck,” Dick blurted.

  “I … I …” All of Chubs’ lauded higher education deserted him.

  “We … we … sorry,” Dick rather lamely offered with slumped shoulders and downcast eyes.

  “That’s all right. He, Grady, always liked a good blow,” Pamela answered, offering the gravediggers an easy out of the uncomfortable situation. She always erred on the side of exceedingly polite.

  “Men do,” Dick agreed.

  The three of them laughed awkwardly. But when Pamela quickly fell silent, the two gravediggers picked up their shovels, and — in a hell of a hurry — took off.

  •••••••••

  Pamela didn’t even bother to watch the gravediggers retreat. She had eyes only for the final resting place of her beloved fiancée, Grady. Grady’s grave sliced through the almost unnaturally green grass like a nasty hemangioma.

  Pamela crossed to the grave and knelt in the dirt. Her skirt spread rather prettily around her, as if she was sitting in a pile of meringue. She reached down, grabbed a fistful of earth, and held it in her hand. “Now we’ll never have Paris,” she whispered.

  She set down the umbrella, which, once released, was buffeted slightly by the wind.

  She peeled off a glove, and then the other.

  “I won’t lose you, Grady.” Pamela’s voice was steady and grim.She carefully removed her pearl necklace and placed it in her clutch purse. She touched the emerald-cut diamond engagement ring on her left hand — reverently — but didn’t take it off.

  “Wherever you are, so am I.” It was a statement of fact rather than a declaration of love.

  She pulled a straight razor out of her clutch, snapped the bag closed, and delicately laid it off to one side in the grass.

  She drew a thin line of blood across one of her wrists with the razor. Then she moved the blade to the other wrist. The pain of the cut didn’t even remotely register within the pain of her ragged soul.

  The wind caught the umbrella and flipped it tumbling past headstones and grave mounds. Pamela didn’t spare it a glance.

  She stretched out on the grave, her cheek pressed to the dirt. Her slit wrists curled beside her face.

  She watched as blood pooled by her wrists and was slowly absorbed into the ground.

  Then she closed her eyes.

  Still rolling away from her, the umbrella caught the full wind and was suddenly free. But then just as quickly, it tangled in the branches of a winter-bare tree.

  THE INTERROGATION

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Capilano View Cemetery — The Next Morning

  The sun actually rose the next morning, and even the cemetery was momentarily beautiful. The view helped, of course. Nothing was more gorgeous than Vancouver in the sun.

  Birds bantered.

  Voices murmured.

  “Jesus.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Holy moley is right.”

  Pamela, woken by the men’s voices, recoiled from the sunlight as she tried to open her eyes. Dirt coated her lashes.

  “She’s breathing,” Erwin said. As he loomed over Pamela, his shadow shaded the sun off her face. It might have seemed as if he hadn’t changed his suit from the funeral, but in fact Erwin owned seven identical suits. Sometimes, he changed up the tie, but not today. Today, with his dark hair, dark glasses, and dark suit, he looked like a typical G-man. It was a look he cultivated. It made up for all his other inadequacies, not that he admitted to any. Denial was Erwin’s friend, and favorite vacation spot.

  Pamela groaned and sat up, unsteady. She had one hell of a headache, and was rather disappointed that she seemed to be alive.

  Erwin exchanged a look with Phil, not knowing how to proceed. Phil’s hair curled on his damp temples. His tie was crooked and his breath slightly short, as if he’d just climbed a steep hill. The grounds of the cemetery were perfectly flat.

  Pamela inspected her wrists, which, clogged in dirt, had clotted.

  “Ah, Miss … err … Ms …” Erwin stumbled over his address and then settled on a firm, “Pamela.”

  “How many bad things do you think can happen in a single day?” Pamela whispered.

  “Ah, well —”

  “It’s morning now,” Phil helpfully pointed out. “Birds, sunshine —”

  “Right, well …” Erwin attempted to interject.

  “Maybe today will be better!” Phil ended his little pep talk with a blazing grin. He really did have lovely teeth
.

  “Let’s get started at it, then,” Erwin testily snapped.

  “Of course,” Phil agreed. He held a hand out to Pamela, who hadn’t attempted to stand yet. “If you would be so kind —”

  “You really are going to have to come with us,” Erwin menaced.

  “I don’t think it’s necessary …” Phil started to admonish Erwin, who gave him a cut-it-out look. “Fine. Your way, then.”

  “I am lead agent,” Erwin huffed.

  “I defer,” Phil said, and dramatically took a step back from the gravesite.

  Erwin turned back to address Pamela, but Phil, peering over his shoulder, interrupted. “You know best.” Erwin shot a glare at Phil, who raised his hands in mock surrender. “Done. I’m done.”

  “Ms. Alexander, we have some questions best asked in a more contained and less … emotional setting,” Erwin, rather formally, stated.

  “I don’t think it gets more contained than this,” Pamela murmured, continuing to stare at Grady’s grave.

  “I would prefer not to drag you,” Erwin threatened.

  “I won’t walk away,” Pamela politely but determinedly stated.

  Erwin growled out a sigh. “Well, I never said I had a problem with dragging.” He reached down to grasp Pamela by the upper arm. “Some help?” he asked Phil. He indicated Pamela, who was now ignoring them in favor of staring forlornly at her wrists.

  Phil, determined to be helpful, copied Erwin’s movement on Pamela’s other side, and together they lifted her to her feet. Then, for a moment, they attempted to pull her in opposite directions.

  “The car!” Erwin shouted.

  “Right!” Phil flinched at Erwin’s tone and dropped his hold on Pamela. “I thought the pathway … never mind, if you want to cross over the grass.”

  Erwin tugged Pamela away from the gravesite, and she moved with him despite her stiff legs and faint, achy head. Phil followed closely behind.

  •••••••••

  A nondescript four-door navy sedan was parked nearby. The cemetery’s roads were wide and well maintained. The pristine grass lay perfectly divided from the road by a smooth cement sidewalk. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around.

  Phil settled Pamela in the back seat of the car, including belting her in, while Erwin crossed to the driver’s side. Pamela was as compliant as she could be without being at all helpful. She didn’t speak or even really acknowledge the men. Even in her blood-loss daze, Pamela noticed a luxury vehicle as it circled back through the cemetery a second time. It turned from a perpendicular road and slowed as it passed by.

  Erwin made eye contact with the passenger of the car, Shep, who just so happened to be the brutal man from the church. A intellectually challenged-looking hoodlum was driving, but Shep’s employer, Mr. Doyle, was nowhere to be seen.

  Shep raised an eyebrow at Erwin and deliberately lifted his arm, which had been resting on the door’s window frame even though it was far too chilly to have the windows down. Shep tapped his watch, then, curtly addressed the driver. “Go. Now.”

  The luxury vehicle squealed off, the noise of which echoed around the empty cemetery. However, this would have been more dramatic had they been driving toward the exit. Now the vehicle had to either slow down, stop, or circle back to leave, as only one road led in and out of the cemetery.

  “Hey! Those guys, the funeral.” Phil, who’d been waiting by the passenger door, pointed the vehicle out to Erwin.

  “Hoods,” Erwin said. “Forget ‘em. Let’s get what we came for.” He climbed into the car, then under the guise of adjusting the rearview mirror, worriedly watched the departing vehicle. It seemed to be waiting for them to leave.

  Phil looked oddly pensive — an emotion that didn’t rest well on his normally cheerful face. He belted himself into the passenger seat.

  Pamela seemed to be sleeping in the back seat, but she was really only resting her eyes.

  Erwin cranked the steering wheel, and after hitting the curb on the other side of the street, pulled a U-turn out of the cemetery.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Interrogation Room, Undisclosed Location

  The interrogation room was one of a few in the Undisclosed Location. This facility name was a bit of a joke in the Agency. Vancouver only housed one small satellite office — this one — and all stationed agents knew where to go if they wanted to have a chat with a suspect off the official radar. So it was actually fully disclosed, to a handful of people anyway. Other than that, it looked like any other building in its area of the North Shore.

  A two-way mirror reflected thick concrete walls and a single rack of uncomfortably bright fluorescent bulbs.

  A medic put final touches on the bandages he’d wound around Pamela’s wrists, but whether this was actually his job or just a favor to Erwin was unclear. Though Pamela’s arms were now clean, the remainder of her looked like she’d slept in a pile of wet dirt. Her makeup was remarkably fresh, though.

  The medic turned away from Pamela and crossed toward the door, beside which Erwin waited. Pamela remained seated at a small, bare table in the center of the room. She stared at her hands, which she held folded in her lap. She was solemn, but not morose. Her wedding dress swamped the metal chair so thoroughly that it almost looked, from the front, as if she sat in mid air.

  “She’s lost a lot of blood,” the medic said, but he didn’t look at Erwin. Something about his stance seemed disrespectful. Erwin either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

  “I gathered. Jesus,” Erwin grumbled.

  “I’ll leave the kit, but I won’t be held responsible.”

  “Don’t you tell me what you will or won’t be responsible for,” Erwin snapped.

  The medic shrugged. “She should eat.”

  “Phil’s on it.”

  The medic exited as if washing his hands of the entire situation. Pamela didn’t look up.

  “You haven’t even asked a single question,” Erwin sneered as he crossed toward Pamela. “That’s a little suspicious, if you ask me. Don’t you even care where you are?”

  Erwin threw himself into a chair across from her, and she obligingly looked up to catch his gaze. He grew uncomfortable under her steady but sorrowful eye, fidgeting in his chair. “You don’t have to stare.”

  “I’m sorry. You were addressing me. I thought it polite to look at you.”

  Phil, winded but joyfully blustery, entered, looked around, and then flicked a switch that turned on additional lights, less harsh. “Wow, that’s way better.”

  Erwin leaped up as if to punch Phil. Then, reconsidering, he just snatched the brown paper bag Phil carried.

  “Those lights will give us serious headaches.” Phil addressed Pamela as if they were old friends.

  Ignoring Phil, Erwin looked in the bag. “Good, good.” He shoved the bag back to Phil and prompted him with a jab of his head toward Pamela.

  Phil pulled a small milk carton and muffin from the bag, smoothed the bag onto the table in front of Pamela, and placed the muffin on one side. He then opened the milk and placed on the other side of the bag, which now served as a place mat. He waved a hand over this arrangement as if presenting a magic trick.

  An awkward pause stretched between the three of them. Pamela had reverted her gaze to her lap.

  “It’s skim milk. Non fat, lots of calcium,” Phil offered up to fill the space.

  “Good,” Erwin answered.

  Pamela didn’t respond.

  “And a whole wheat blueberry muffin,” Phil helpfully added.

  “Right, whole wheat. Fine, let’s —”

  “Way better for digestion, and blueberries. Blueberries have … have something good in them, don’t they, Erwin?” Erwin just glared at Phil, who didn’t seem to notice. “Ah, they’re sweet. Not like candy, but —”

  “Antioxidants!” Erwin, beyond frustrated, yelled.

  Phil fell silent. Pamela didn’t participate.

 
Erwin paced until he’d calmed himself a bit, then he turned to address Pamela. “Listen, you heard the medic. You need to eat, especially after that scene at the grave —”

  “Yeah, you should probably be in the hospital,” Phil rather earnestly interjected. Erwin looked at Phil sharply. Phil threw his hands up in defeat. “I can’t figure out what we are playing at, good cop, bad cop, concerned nutritionists …”

  “Pamela, we’ve brought you here for a reason,” Erwin said, ignoring Phil’s outburst. “And if you don’t answer our questions, we may have to use other methods.”

  “Methods that won’t go well with the fact you’ve lost a lot of blood and haven’t eaten.” Phil attempted to menace.

  Erwin glared at Phil and he backed off. Erwin then sat across from Pamela, and she looked up at him. “I’m sure this comes as no surprise, but Grady was high up in the black ops in our division.” He paused for effect, and Pamela, for the first time, looked a little confused. “Over the last few months, Grady was sent on various missions to collect, let’s say …”

  “Information,” Phil completed Erwin’s sentence.

  Erwin clenched his jaw, but continued his prepared speech as if uninterrupted. “However, for a number of weeks his reports have been … spartan. We suspect he had allied himself with …”

  “The wrong sort of people,” Phil again finished Erwin’s open-ended statement.

  Erwin twisted out of his chair, picked it up as if to throw it across the room, but then placed it carefully back down in its exact spot. He then paced angrily. As he passed his partner, he looked pretty ready to start beating on Phil, who, conversely, seemed to be enjoying the interrogation immensely.

  “Grady is a doctor,” Pamela, still very polite, insisted. “Was. He was going to open a clinic after we returned from our honeymoon.”

  “Hawaii?” Phil asked.

  “Barcelona.”

  Erwin spun and slammed his hands, harshly, on the table by Pamela. “Really? The same Spain you wrote about in your email?”

  “Yes,” Pamela answered.

  Pamela’s guileless response momentarily threw Erwin, who had been moving in for the kill. “Well … maybe you’d like to explain that writing?”