Page 45 of The Sin Eater
“Here’s the cop’s business card.” I hand it to him, and he passes it to his sister. I take the opportunity to sink into the soft leather of the couch.
“Tsk. McGraw,” she says, and pulls out her phone.
Worrying about whether that was a good “tsk” or a bad one is interrupted when Damon sits next to me. His value as a distraction drops some when he says, “Tell me what’s really going on.”
I rake a hand through my hair, which allows me to catch a whiff of my funky self, and I wish I’d taken the time for a shower. Closing my eyes, I try to cobble together something that’ll dance around my secret. “So, you know about the prayer thing, right?”
Dorinda’s on the phone, her gaze weighing on me like a hair shirt.
“Yeah,” Damon says.
“When they brought in the body of James Smith, something told me I had to pray over him, which is, um, different.”
“What does that mean, exactly?” Dorinda asks. She must have ended the call and now the full force of her attention is directed at little ol’ me.
“Chill, Dor.” Damon says. “Take off your lawyer hat. He works in the morgue and he was raised to pray over dead bodies.”
“More or less.” I dare to glance at her. Lawyer. That fits. “And when I was saying the prayers over our buddy James, I saw... “ My voice cracks and I have to stop and clear my throat. “I saw him murder a woman. That woman.” I turn so I can see the picture over my shoulder. “She was in her twenties, and between the big hair, drag makeup, and pink polo, I figure she died sometime in the late ‘80s.”
“That’s pretty fucking specific.” Dorinda comes around the couch and sits on the coffee table right in front of me, our knees almost touching. “What else do you know about it?”
“Nothing.” I manage to meet her gaze directly. “I don’t know who James Smith is, I don’t know who the woman is, and I don’t know when or where or why he killed her.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Damon asks, and while he’s a lot more sympathetic than his sister, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“And have y’all look at me like you’re doing right now?” I stand up, dragging both hands through my hair. “I get that I’m a weird dude—you don’t have to tell me that, I know already. Mom used to tell me to shut my mouth whenever the devil was talking in my ear.”Fuck. Why do I keep telling him the truth?“Like, at that motherfucking carnival, was I supposed to say,wow, Damon, I just saw a dead woman in a crystal ball? That’s a whole ’nother level of bizarre, and then what would you have done?”
He’s still seated, his dark eyes full of sympathy. “I have no idea. Probably respond about like I’m doing now. I want to believe you, but—”
He’s interrupted by a doorbell. Muttering variations on the word fuck, Dorinda goes to an old Princess phone on the wall and gives a terse, “Welcome to crazytown.”
I sag back onto the couch next to Damon, who’s as warm and strong as I could possibly want. His sister, though, turns toward us, her expression somewhere past stern. “McGraw is on his way up, and if you think my questions were tough, wait till he gets through with you.”
For what it’s worth, she doesn’t say it with any enthusiasm. It’s more of a warning, though I’m not sure if she’s warning me or her brother.
Dorinda lets the cop in. It’s the same detective who came to the hospital, the Black man with matching square jaw and flat-top fade. He’s in jeans and a hoodie, and he’s alone, which is odd. Then Dorinda thanks him for coming over during his off hours.
“No problem. I don’t want to say I owed you one, but I owed you one,” he says to her. “And for the rest of you, I’mDetective Marcus McGraw from the Seattle Police Department, and I’m here because you called to report a break-in and with information about a possible cold case.”
“That is correct,” Dorinda says.
Damon stands and shakes the detective’s hand. “I’m Dorinda’s brother, Damon.”
I do not stand. In fact, I wish I could melt into the upholstery or hide in a shadow or something. Detective McGraw looks at me, head tilted. “You’re the guy from the morgue, right?”
“Yes, sir,” I say, my voice like whispery paper.
His eyes narrow as he surveys the three of us. “Okay, tell me what’s going on.”
Dorinda points to the photograph and explains how they found it on their table when they both came home from work.
“You and your brother both live here?” McGraw asks.
Damon answers for them. “Yes. We both happened to arrive at the same time, and we saw the picture and the note.”
McGraw goes over to the table and, without touching anything, reads the note. “I take it you don’t know anyone named Cat.”
“Nope.” Damon sits back down, and when he does, he drapes an arm around my shoulders. I snuggle in, his big body a shield between me and whatever’s coming next.