An Unsettled Grave by Bernard Schaffer

Author:Bernard Schaffer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2019-05-28T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

The only person working at the front desk of the Vieira County district attorney’s office was Miss Mabel, the staff secretary. Mabel was seated behind the glass window at the entrance, doing a crossword puzzle. Past her, Carrie could see everyone else in the office had crowded at the rear of the main room, back where the county detectives worked. Some of them were standing on chairs to look over the heads of their colleagues.

“What’s going on back there?” Carrie asked.

“They caught that police impersonator who went after that poor girl,” Mabel said.

“You’re kidding me.”

“Chief Bender has him in the interrogation room now,” Mabel replied, filling in one of the words.

“He getting a confession in there, or what?” Carrie asked.

“So far all I heard was him screaming and yelling. There might have been some tears, but knowing Harv Bender, that was him too.”

Carrie stifled a laugh. “Do you have access to the old records room?”

“Why? Don’t you have a key?”

“I can’t get into any of the records rooms or supply closets,” Carrie said.

Mabel opened her desk drawer and searched through a pile of keys. “They trust you detectives with guns, but they’re afraid you’re going to run off with all the paper towels and toilet paper.”

“That’s because they know how little they pay us,” Carrie said.

Mabel handed her the keys. “Now you be careful in there. Everything’s a mess, and there’re boxes stacked all the way to the ceiling that look ready to come down any second. Last time someone was in there, they saw a rat and screamed so loud everybody came running.”

Carrie took the ring of keys and tapped the gun against her hip. “I’m ready for any rats, trust me.”

“Just try not to accidentally shoot anybody through the walls,” Mabel said, then leaned forward to whisper, “not unless it’s somebody I don’t like.”

“I’ll do my best, Miss Mabel,” Carrie said, walking down the hall. “If you hear me scream, make sure you duck.”

She worked the key into the door to the records room and pushed it open, groaning at the sight of towering columns of cardboard boxes stuffed full of loose papers. The lower boxes had buckled, crushed beneath each tower’s weight, but all of the stacks leaned together at the top, somehow supporting each other enough to stay upright.

Rusted filing cabinets lined the walls, with a few scattered throughout the middle of the room. Boxes were stacked on top of them, too. Carrie stared at this strange interconnected labyrinth of columns and boxes and cabinets. The danger wasn’t rodents. The danger was bumping into a load-bearing tower and having it collapse on top of you.

“God damn, I hate Jenga,” she muttered, sidestepping her way inside the room. She clipped one of the oddly angled boxes with her shoulder and cringed when it swayed, but it didn’t fall.

Many of the boxes were covered in ancient water stains and split open along the seams. They were held together with duct tape, bursting with papers that had been stuffed inside.

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