Krewe of Hunters 2 Heart of Evil (8 page)

It wasn't a ghost; it was Ashley.

She looked just as she had looked in his dream: a shimmering figure standing upon a roof with the floodwaters rising. She looked as she had looked, reaching out for him and yet trying to warn him of something horrible and dark that loomed behind him. Her fingers had slipped through his…

He couldn't let that happen now.

He raced across the grounds, hearing earth and gravel crunch beneath his feet. “Ashley!” he called her name.

She stopped; she stared at him with huge blue eyes
the size of saucers, like a doe caught in the headlights of a car.

She still saw him as a pariah.

“Ashley,” he called again. She screamed and started to run away.

They hadn't parted that badly.
She wasn't seeing him, she realized. She was still imagining whatever nightmare had caused her to run.

She turned just as he reached her, and they collided and fell to the ground. She struck out at him from below, and he caught her arms, perplexed and yet aware that she could deliver a solid blow if she chose. She seemed to be fighting for her life.

“Ashley! It's me. Jake. Jake Mallory!”

She went dead still. He realized that she was trembling violently.

“Ashley, it's Jake. Come on, Ashley, whatever else, you've known me all your life! It's Jake. What is it, what are you running from?”

Her trembling subsided.

“I found him,” she said. “I found him.”

“Found who, Ashley?”

“Charles. Charles Osgood.”

Dead. She'd found him dead, of course. No one acted like this unless they had seen something really terrible. Certainly not Ashley Donegal.

“Where?” he asked, easing back.

He wanted to fix things for her. This was Ashley. Certainly, one of the most beautiful women he had
ever known and once loved. He wanted to hold her and tell her everything would be all right….

But it wasn't, of course. She had found a dead man.

He rose quickly, taking her hand to bring her to her feet. “Where, Ashley?” he asked again, his tone quiet but authoritative.

She blinked and seemed to gain possession of herself again. “The graveyard. The family vault,” she said.

“And he is dead? You're certain?”

“Oh, yes.”

He pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911, and carefully gave the address and the situation. Ashley stared at him while he did so. If Jackson Crow was already on the case, then they had federal jurisdiction. But they needed a medical pathologist out here now, and, naturally, they'd have to work closely with the local police.

“Go on inside,” he told her. “The police are coming.”

She shook her head. “I'm with you. I'm not moving. I mean, I'm not moving if you're not moving.”

“Someone needs to tell your grandfather.”

“He's smart—he'll figure it out when he hears the sirens.”

“When he hears the sirens, he'll be worried about you.”

“I'm staying with you!”

He wondered if she was actually so shaken that
she was afraid to head for the house herself—afraid, perhaps, of everyone on her property now.

“All right, but we need to keep a distance from the actual…scene,” he said.

“Corpse,” she said dully.

He walked back to the cemetery. She hadn't released his hand. She wasn't going to.

They had to part momentarily to slip through the gate without opening it further, and Jake was loath to make any changes to the scene. A stone cherub seemed to follow their passage through the rows of vaults, shimmering beneath the moonlight.

He didn't have to ask her to lead him; he knew exactly where to find the Donegal vault.

It was the largest, the most ornate and the most beautiful in the graveyard. When they turned the corner in the center to reach it, he stopped, trying to take in everything that he saw before the local authorities came to assess the situation.

There was the vault. Cherubs and gargoyles guarded the iron-gate doors and the four corners of the tomb. High at the front was a life-size angel, and, caught upon its foundation by the heavy canvas straps of a period backpack, was the body of a man. He hadn't known Charles Osgood, and if he hadn't seen many a portrait of Marshall Donegal, he wouldn't have known that this wasn't a trick of time, that they hadn't gone back approximately one hundred and fifty years to discover a dead cavalry man in the cemetery.

Convenient place to die. Or be murdered.

But despite the blood that dripped from the body and pooled at the feet, he didn't believe that the man had been killed here. He had been brought here soon after death, but he hadn't died here. The body had been put on display. It was evident that whoever had killed the man had done so to be historically accurate—and to make sure that the world knew that a man had been killed just as Marshall Donegal had been killed long ago. Was it an assault on the Donegal family? Or had someone wanted this particular man dead and used the Donegal family history as a means of throwing off suspicion?

“He was so proud to be playing Marshall Donegal!” Ashley whispered.

“Stay here—exactly here,” he told her.

He was afraid that she was going to cling to him, but she didn't. With him there, she seemed to be finding her own strength.

“I know. It's a crime scene,” she said woodenly.

Jake, watching where he walked, searched the area surrounding the tomb. There was nothing there. The graveled paths around the tombs certainly didn't allow much room for footprints, and he didn't expect to find any. They would have to hope that the forensic team summoned could find fingerprints, hair, fibers, DNA—anything that might tell them who had brought the man to his death, and then here.

They could hear the sirens then, shrieking through
the night. And then voices as guests staying in the various rental rooms began to rouse.

“Get to the cemetery gates,” Jake told her. “Make sure no one but the police comes through.”

She nodded jerkily yet didn't move.

“Ashley!” he said, taking her shoulders. “You don't want guests wandering in here, and your grandfather will be coming out any minute, worried to death, and he is in his eighties!”

She snapped to finally and nodded, spinning about in a whirl of shimmering white. He watched her go, his insides twisting in a knot of pain. She didn't need this; she didn't deserve this. Of course, the dead man hadn't deserved it, either. As he heard the sirens come closer and closer, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Jackson Crow. It hadn't been so important before that the team arrive quickly; now, it was.

He looked back at the corpse, and time melted away again.

Someone had reenacted murder.

A
shley stood shivering at the gates of the cemetery, trying to compose herself. She had certainly been in something like shock, but Jake was here, and now she was okay. It was bizarre that she was okay
because
Jake was here, but that was the way that it was; he was in control, and it brought her back to herself.

She had felt that she'd been losing her mind; the dreams had plagued her mercilessly, and Charles had been gone, and she had longed to see Jake.

And Charles was dead—and Jake was here. Really here.

And she had to quit behaving like a “dumb blonde” screamer out of an old movie. She started to move again, thinking that she had to get to her grandfather.

But she didn't get that far.

The first person to rise and rush out, hearing the wail of the sirens, was Cliff Boudreaux, and he didn't have far to come, racing out of his quarters in a flannel robe. His graying brown hair was mussed and
he was barefoot, as if he had been sleeping. She saw that he first looked back to the house, but then saw her and ran to her instead, gripping her shoulders, his eyes filled with worry.

“Ashley? Ashley, why are you standing here like this? What the hell has happened?”

She stared back at him, suddenly more assured, and she was even angry again, furious. Someone had killed Charles Osgood. He could be petulant; he could be whiney; but he was a good man who, to the best of her knowledge, had never hurt anyone.

She felt all sense of trembling and shaking fade away completely. Yes, Jake had done that for her.

“Charles Osgood is dead. I just found him in the cemetery,” Ashley said. “The police are on their way.”

As she spoke, she saw that people were beginning to emerge from the far stables, where the rental rooms were.

“Cliff, I'm going to get my grandfather. Please make sure no one wanders into the cemetery,” she said.

She turned toward the house, noticing Beth and her grandfather had come out to the riverside porch together and looked as confused as anyone else. She broke into a run, crossing the distance from the graveyard to the steps.

“Ashley!”

Frazier reached out, and she ran straight into his
arms. “I'm all right, Grampa, I'm all right. But I found Charles Osgood. He's…dead.”

Frazier drew away from her, staring into her eyes. Beth let out a soft gasp but said nothing.

Ashley continued, “I thought I heard something in the cemetery.”

“You heard something in a cemetery—and you hurried into it to find out what was going on? Lord, girl!” Beth said.

“I've lived my whole life with the family cemetery in full view from my window, Beth,” Ashley reminded her. “And Jake's here,” she added quickly.

“Jake's here?” Frazier said, and it seemed to make everything better.

“Yes, yes, Jake's here,” she said, nodding. It might be best to let them think that Jake had been in the cemetery with her from the beginning.

Two police cars pulled into the front. The driver of the first seemed to hesitate a minute, but then he pulled straight on down by the side of the house, slowly passing the onlookers who had gathered outside. The second car came to a halt by the first. Ashley quickly ran down the steps from the porch to meet the officer who exited the first car. It was Drew Montague, who had been on call when she had reported Charles Osgood as missing.

“Well, Ashley, what's going on?” Drew Montague asked her. Behind him a uniformed man got out of the car.

“I found Charles Osgood. He's in the cemetery.
Someone bayoneted him and hung him on the family tomb,” she said. She spoke to Drew but kept glancing at the other man who had approached them.

“I'm Detective Mack Colby, Miss Donegal, with the parish sheriff's office,” he explained. He was so pleasantly nondescript, she wondered whether that was part of his act. “Can you take me to the body and explain, please, how you happened to discover it?”

“I woke up after I'd gone to bed. I thought I saw lights out there, and I went to investigate,” she said.

“You ran into a cemetery in the middle of the night when you thought that someone might be out there?” Mack asked politely. He and Drew exchanged a glance. There was suspicion in his tone, despite the even level.

She let out an exasperated sigh. “I have lived here forever. My dead ancestors are in that cemetery. I'm not afraid of it!” she said. “The worst we've ever found before has been potheads and frat boys. I am not afraid of my own property,” she said indignantly.

“Looks like you should be,” Drew Montague murmured.

“Montague,” Mack Colby said, “can you keep people away from the gates? The forensic crew will be here shortly. Miss Donegal, please take me to the body. Did you touch him? Are you quite certain he's dead?”

“He's dead. And, no, I didn't touch him,” Ashley said. By then, her grandfather was by her side.

“Perhaps,” he said icily, “it would be best if you investigated the dead man without giving my granddaughter difficulty?”

“If she's right, this is a murder investigation,” Colby said, his eyes narrowing. “And you are—?”

“Frazier Donegal. We've not met, but you've surely known that this property was here and who owns it. My granddaughter insisted we call this man's disappearance in last night, afraid that something bad had happened. None of you seemed interested at the time.”

More sirens blared in the night; a rescue vehicle came to a halt behind the police cars. Augie Merton, a medical pathologist from the coroner's office, emerged from the passenger's seat. He was a nice man; Ashley knew him. He sometimes came out to do lectures on Civil War medicine. Though the former New Yorker had lived in the parish for almost thirty years, he was still affectionately called the Yankee doc.

“Ashley, Frazier, sorry to see you here under unhappy circumstances,” he said, coming forward with his black bag.

“Damn it, let's get to the corpse,” Mack Colby said. “Lead the way. With any luck, no one has disturbed the crime scene.”

“No one has. Jake Mallory is in the cemetery, watching over the scene,” Ashley said.

Mack Colby stopped walking. “And who the hell is Jake Mallory?”

“An old friend,” Ashley said.

“A good old boy. Great!” Mack Colby muttered.

“He's with the federal government,” Frazier in formed him.

“Feds have to be asked in. He'd best not be fiddling around in my jurisdiction!” Colby said.

“Frankly, I don't think he and his team
fiddle
with cases. I think they solve them,” Ashley said, staring at him. Of course, she didn't really know much of anything about Jake's team, but this man was truly patronizing, and she was feeling just as indignant as Frazier.

Before he could respond, she said, “This way.”

“Ashley, they can surely find the body on their own,” Frazier said, worried about her and apparently not at all fond of Detective Mack Colby.

“I'm fine,” she assured him. She mentally drew herself up, though it was difficult to do so with dignity when she was running around in a white nightgown.

She turned quickly, assuming that the men would follow. They did. It was surprising that Beth and Frazier chose to follow as well; she was certain that corpses did not fall into Beth's usual life. But she didn't protest; Frazier was proud and would insist on seeing what happened on his property. And there was no stopping Beth when she made up her mind.

When they reached the gate, Mack Colby said, “Stop! Who has touched this gate?” he asked.

Ashley turned to stare at him. “Possibly? Hundreds of people. Maybe thousands. There was a reenactment here yesterday. It was after the reenactment that Charles Osgood disappeared—something that we reported to the police.”

“How long had he been missing when you called in the disappearance?” Colby asked.

“A few hours,” Ashley said.

“You called in about a missing adult after just a few hours?” Colby asked, his voice level, and yet there was something suspicious in his tone.

“He had very badly wanted to play my ancestor, which he did,” Ashley explained. “He should have been around to celebrate with the others afterwards.”

Augie let out a sound of impatience. “Where is my body, please?”

Mack Colby lifted a hand, put on a latex glove with a snap, and pushed the gate open to a wider degree. Ashley slipped through, followed by her strange posse: Mack Colby and Augie, her grandfather and Beth.

Jake Mallory waited at the end of the path, before the turn to the Donegal family vault. Jake had always had a certain presence. His arms were crossed over his chest; he stood with his feet planted slightly apart and appeared formidable and authoritative as he stood there. Part of it was his height. He wasn't
particularly heavily built, but his muscles were toned, his stance was straight, and, when he moved, it was with a swift agility one might not expect in a man so tall. He wasn't easily ruffled, and his temper seldom stood in the way of his intentions.

“So you're the fed, huh? Did you touch anything?” Mack Colby demanded. “And what the hell kind of federal officer are you?”

Jake remained calm as he reached into the pocket of his jeans for a slim leather wallet, which he opened and presented to Mack Colby. “Agent Jake Mallory,” he said. Colby frowned, stepping forward to examine the credentials Jake had offered. His frown didn't disappear as he stepped back.

“How did you happen to be in the area?” he demanded. “And you do understand the concept of local jurisdiction? You have to be invited down if we have a problem, and I don't think that we'll have a problem here. We're capable.”

“I'm sure you are capable. I'm a friend of the family. I happened to be on my way to the house. My boss is a friend of the Donegal family as well, and Frazier Donegal called him when Ashley was first worried about the disappearance of one of their reenactors. If you'll check with your superiors, we have been asked to join in the investigation. Of course, we were looking for a missing man before. Now, we're looking for a killer,” Jake said evenly.

Colby wasn't satisfied; his gaze remained fixed on Jake.

Augie cleared his throat. “May I get to the body, please?”

“A minute, Augie,” Colby said. “They found a corpse—a man obviously not in need of an ambulance. I want the crime-scene people in here—I want pictures of the body
in situ.
I want every fiber, hair, fingerprint. And I want all the rest of you people out!”

“Detective, I'd like to stay,” Jake said.

Mack Colby grunted. “Let me tell you—this parish has amazing forensic facilities. And we're not a bunch of local yokels just because we're in bayou country. You like to come down here from the big cities and—”

“I'm from Louisiana,” Jake interrupted. “I was born and raised in Orleans Parish.”

Mack Colby paused at that. He lifted his hands. “Fine. You stay.” He turned around and looked at Ashley, Frazier and Beth. “All right. The rest of you—out!”

Ashley looked at Jake. He gave her a small, reassuring smile. Despite the fact that she was standing in her family graveyard with a dead man not far away in the middle of a bizarre night, she did feel reassured. In fact, she wanted to run to him. The breeze lifted her hair and touched her face, and she kept eye contact with him. Jake Mallory had always been steady and reassuring—when they were kids, when he teased her, when he taught her how to hold a cue
stick, when he played his guitar and patiently went through a melody or a beat over and over again.

When he made love to her….

She had still thought that it would be awkward to see him again. They had been so close for so many years, friends and then lovers, and she had shut him out as cleanly as if she'd shut a door in his face.

Nothing like a dead man to ease the transition into seeing one another again, she thought dryly.

The thought brought a rumble of something that threatened to be hysterical laughter from her throat, and she swallowed it down quickly.

“Out,” Colby repeated. “Good God, it's a crime scene!”

She nodded, turned and said to Beth and her grandfather, “Shall we?”

“This is my property,” Frazier said to Mack Colby.

“And I am a law-abiding citizen, a veteran of foreign wars, and, Detective Colby, I will be kept informed of what has happened and is happening on my property. I asked Agent Mallory and his team down—he is here on my request.”

Frazier had said his piece. He turned to Ashley and nodded.

As they departed, a trio dressed in the parish's crime-unit jumpsuits paused for a moment to ask the way to the scene. Ashley indicated the path through the vaults with their decaying elegance and hurried on out.

More officers were on crowd control; two in uniform, flanked by Drew Montague.

“Someone want to talk to that group?” Drew asked them.

“I've got it, Grampa,” Ashley said, hurrying forward.

One woman was weeping. Ashley quickly made her way through the officers and cars with their bright lights and reached the group of guests hovering by the old stables.

“As you know, we've just discovered a friend, dead, in the cemetery.” She winced. Her words sounded like an oxymoron, though they were not. “We'll get you checked out quickly, and please, be assured, no one will be paying for the night.”

She had to lift a hand against the bright car beams that were now on her. “Please come through the front door of the main house, and we'll be sure that you're completely cleared of all charges.”

“I just want to go back to sleep!” one man called out.

She looked back at Drew Montague. He shrugged. “I guess it's all right. We had a body in a hotel parking lot once, and they didn't evacuate the hotel.”

“All right. Anyone who wants to go back to sleep is welcome to do so,” she said, hoping that was the right thing for an innkeeper to say under the circumstances. She didn't know anything more about crime and murderers than what she had learned on television and the news, but it seemed that someone had
killed Charles Osgood and displayed his body in a certain way for a reason. The scenario didn't appear to offer danger to her guests for the rest of that night, especially since she was pretty sure the place would be crawling with police and crime-scene investigators until daylight and possibly beyond.