Free Malice by Lisa Jackson

windows to spy dusty floors and dingy walls, some the same color they had been a dozen years earlier. Stepping backward and shading his eyes, he gazed up to the window and was bombarded by memories of images within his former bedroom, the scene he’d walked into more than a decade ago. Twisted sheets of the unmade bed and slivers of broken glass spattered beneath the gaping hole where a mirror once hung. In his mind he retraced the path to the spare bedroom on the second floor, the guest room Jennifer had used as her office. He remembered that it had taken a while to find the note that she’d left, not in an obvious location on a table or a counter, but tucked away in her desk drawer, written to Kristi and signed in Jennifer’s flowing hand.
    He’d always wondered about that.
    The suicide note to their daughter that had been tucked away in the pages of the latest self-help book Jennifer had been reading. The Power of Me, or something just as self-centered.
    All the advice in the world hadn’t helped his screwed-up ex-wife.
    But she hadn’t left the note out in the open.
    As if she’d had second thoughts.
    Or was waiting. Hadn’t yet made a final decision.
    At the time he’d discovered the note he’d pushed aside the nagging questions and had rationalized that in her pursuit of death, as in so many facets of her life, Jennifer had done a lousy job. But now he had renewed doubts. What if Jennifer’s death hadn’t been suicide? What if she hadn’t been driving the car? What if the woman he’d identified as his wife and buried six feet under had been someone else?
    Just who was decomposing in that grave?
    His gut twisted at the thought and he didn’t let his mind wander too far down that dark, rocky path.
    He returned to the Escape and drove nearly five miles to a cemetery, the spot where he’d thought Jennifer had been laid to rest. Parking in the shade of a live oak tree, he fished out his wallet and found a battered card for Detective Jonas Hayes of the LAPD. He’d carried the damned card around for twelve years and remembered the day Hayes had pressed the card into his palm. “Hey, if you ever need anything,” he’d said after the burial as clouds had rolled in and rain had started to fall. So long ago…and now Bentz wondered if Jennifer were truly entombed in the casket lying under the granite headstone.
    He walked through the drying grass and found the plot, read the simple inscription, and felt a strange pang in his heart. Had he made a mistake? Did the corpse beneath his feet belong to someone else? He glared down at the grass, as if he could see through the sod and six feet of dry earth to the casket where a woman’s body had been decomposing for twelve long years.
    A whisper of a breeze slid across the back of his neck and the scent of gardenias was suddenly heavy in the air. Did he hear someone whisper his name? He turned, expecting to see Jennifer beckoning with that come-hither naughty smile that had been her trademark. But she wasn’t leaning against one of the taller headstones, her auburn hair shimmering in the afternoon sunlight. Nor was she standing anywhere within the wrought-iron fencing surrounding the silent graveyard.
    He was alone at his ex-wife’s final resting place. The cemetery was empty, not a soul besides himself visible. Some of the plots displayed fresh flowers. A few had been adorned with plastic bouquets and others were festooned with tiny American flags that had faded in the harsh sunlight. However, no other person, nor ghost for that matter, stood inside the ominous black wrought-iron fence.
    Of course not.
    She’s dead, Bentz. Dead. You know it. You identified her body with your own eyes, for Christ’s sake! And you don’t believe in ghosts. Try remembering that one, will ya?
    He lingered a few more minutes, trying to piece together what was happening to him. He didn’t think he was cracking up, and he knew he didn’t believe in ghosts. Dead women did not just