The Death Dealer (23 page)

“Do you think I’ll be able to go then?” he asked wistfully, then shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think…I think I’m waiting for Nancy. We did everything together. I can’t take a major journey without her.”

They both just looked at him, not knowing what to say.

And then William Morton was gone. He faded away, and then, there was nothing where he’d been but the air.

They all met up back at the bed-and-breakfast just before seven. Adam had been busy on the computer all afternoon, and he had information.

“Thorne Bigelow and his family
were
here when William Morton was killed. They had come to attend a series of lectures at something called Poe Fest. They got here the day before he was killed and didn’t leave until five days after.”

He produced several pictures he had found online and printed out. “These were taken during the festivities.”

One shot was of a man giving a lecture, and he was dressed like Poe.

Another was of a group at what appeared to be a garden tea party. The women wore period gowns, and several of the men were dressed like Poe.

“Kind of like trying to find a clown at a circus,” Nikki said.

“It had to be Jared,” Joe said. “Because Thorne is dead, and Mary Vincenzo couldn’t have carried it off—not alone, anyway. What we need now is proof.”

“We’re looking at a dozen would-be Poes here,” Brent said.

“Would-be Poes? What does that have to do with it?” Joe asked.

Gen cleared her throat. “The killer dresses up like Poe.”

“And how do you know that?” Joe demanded. He seemed tense.
“How do you know?”

Genevieve braced herself, lifted her chin and met his eyes squarely. “William Morton told us. This afternoon, at the cemetery. And…” she paused, wincing “…Leslie and Matt talked to Lori, and she said the same thing, that her killer was dressed up like Poe.”

Joe rose. She was sure he was about to tell them that they were all crazy, but he didn’t. He just ran his fingers through his hair and asked, “Do you know what would happen if I were to call Raif Green and tell him that a ghost told me we’re looking for a killer who dresses up like Edgar Allan Poe?” he asked.

“There might be another way to make the suggestion,” Adam said.

Brent leaned forward. “Joe, we all know that the rest of the world doesn’t see what we do. But you learn not to talk about what’s obvious to you to other people. You go around it. You call the cops, and you leave an anonymous tip that someone might have dressed up like Poe to kill Lori. Then someone starts checking the costume shops.”

Adam leaned back and sighed thoughtfully. “Trouble is, even if we can prove that Jared Bigelow rented a Poe costume, we still can’t prove that he wore it to kill anyone.”

Joe sat down again. “We have to come up with enough evidence for Raif to go to the D.A.’s office with at least a strong circumstantial case.”

“Let’s see what happens tomorrow,” Nikki advised. “In Baltimore.”

“For now, I think dinner’s in order,” Brent said. “I don’t know about you guys, but I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

They picked an Italian restaurant, on their innkeeper’s recommendation, and headed out. As they drove down Monument Avenue, Genevieve looked out at the statues that gave it its name, then gasped suddenly. “Stop!” she cried.

Joe pulled off to the side of the road so quickly that the driver behind him blasted his horn as he passed by.

“I’m sorry. I just…do you mind if I hop out for a minute?”

Joe lifted his hands and let them fall, at last staring at her as if she were crazy.

She climbed out of the car, aware that Nikki was following her as she walked across the street to stare up at the equestrian statue that had caught her attention so dramatically. Then she read the plaque at the bottom, identifying it as General James Ewell Brown Stuart, C.S.A.

“It’s him,” Genevieve breathed.

“Who?” Even Nikki sounded worried.

“I saw him. I saw him today at the cemetery. He spoke with Jefferson Davis and his wife. He tipped his hat to me.”

There was no denying it now, she thought as they walked back to the car. She really was seeing ghosts. She might have made up William Morton or somehow been influenced by Nikki’s proximity, but there was no denying that she’d seen General Stuart.

“I’m sorry,” Genevieve apologized when she got back in the car. “It’s such a beautiful statue that I just had to get a closer look.”

“Sure,” Joe said, and pulled back into traffic.

Genevieve had been given a large bedroom with a queen bed and a garden view. She wondered if Joe would be sharing it with her tonight, since she wasn’t sure of their footing at the moment. He had stayed with her last night, but that could have been simply because he was a good guy. He wouldn’t have left her alone, not when she had barely been able to stand.

But she was glad when he took it for granted that they would be staying together and went with her to her room. “This place was really a nice choice,” he told her, when she opened the door. “Leave it to Adam.” When she looked at him questioningly, he grimaced. “I probably would have opted for a chain hotel.”

She smiled. “Adam is good,” she said simply, then headed into the bathroom to shower. She closed the door, but she didn’t lock it. Then she turned the water on hot. And waited.

But he didn’t come. She sighed and picked up the soap.

You can initiate things, you know,
she told herself. But she had already done that, hadn’t she?

She had already soaped herself when she heard the door open. And then he stepped in behind her. A swift sensation of gratitude was quickly replaced with simple physical pleasure as she felt the bulwark of his body behind her. He pulled her close, reaching for the soap, then running it up and down her body in sweet suggestion.

She turned to face him. As steam and water cascaded around them, she looked up into his eyes, somehow feeling guilty, feeling that she should tell him everything.

But before she could say anything, he kissed her. Long and deep. It felt as if his tongue dipped down into the heart of her, as if they were locked together in the mist and heat. When his mouth lifted from hers, she met his eyes and would have spoken, but he whispered a soft, “Shh,” and she was lost.

His hands caressed a path down her back and encircled her buttocks, lifting her closer to him. Excitement drove through her like fire, and she pressed herself flat against his body.

They clung to one another, and his mouth found hers again, hot and sensual, no tenderness involved, just a need that seemed to fill her every cell with a soaring sensuality. She ran her finger over the wet skin of his shoulders, then down his spine. He reached past her, groping for the faucet, turning it off, and then he lifted her against him, stepping from the tub.

They didn’t bother with towels. On the bed, his tongue coursed over her, as if he could lick her dry. She gasped and shuddered, and the headboard hit the wall as he shifted above her.

“Shh,” he teased. “You don’t want to wake the neighbors.”

She nipped his shoulder, pushing him back, pushing him down. She moved with abandon against him, her body slick as she rubbed against him. She kissed and teased the muscled flat of his stomach, stroked his thighs, caught his erection in her hand. She heard his breathing deepen, catch, heard the growl that escaped him as she crawled atop him.

He wrapped his arms around her and swept her beneath him. She met his gaze, smiling, alive, feeling ridiculously vital and excited. She locked her thighs around him, and a soft moan escaped her as he thrust into her.

They began to move.

And whisper.

Words that inspired, that caressed, that soared alongside their passion.

The air was cool, his body was fire, and each thrust and parry seemed to drive her more insane. His lips found hers, broke away, found them again, and she heard the bed squeaking and didn’t care. The world began and ended with him.

She climaxed violently, her body a vise around him, shudders tearing through her at volatile speed. She felt his power as he climaxed with her, jerking into her, once, again and then again. Her arms tightened around him, and she clasped him tighter, feeling the matching drumbeats of their hearts. He caressed her head, smoothing back her damp hair, cradling her tenderly to him.

There was a loud thunk from the other side of the wall. They stared at each other, startled, then laughed.

“Is that Brent and Nikki’s room?” he whispered.

“Shush,” she teased.

They didn’t say anything else. He held her, they dozed and then they made love again.

As she finally drifted to sleep, she wished that she could really talk to him, that she dared to pour her heart out to him, to tell him about the fear and the wonder of what was happening to her.

They were so close, and yet, there were still such…ghosts…between them.

The next day Brent called Ryan Wilkins and told him that they suspected a visitor to the Poe Fest might have been responsible for the Morton murder, then suggested that he might want to talk to the costume shops that had rented out Poe costumes at the time. He also told Wilkins that Joe was convinced something had been taken from the house: the bulk of William Morton’s notes on Poe.

Brent took the wheel when they left for Baltimore, because Joe was on the phone with Raif.

“I got the phone records, but I’ll be damned if I know what they prove,” Raif said.

“Did you find any calls between anyone in the society and Lori Star?” Joe asked.

“No. Were you expecting me to?” Raif asked.

“No. I was just hoping. Anything unusual at all?” Joe asked.

“They all called each other a lot, that’s for certain. Let’s see, there are more from Lila Hawkins to Eileen Brideswell than to any of the other members. And Larry seemed to call Thorne and Don more than he did anyone else. A lot of calls went out from Thorne to both Lou Sayles and Barbara Hirshorn.”

“Interesting,” Joe said.

“Yeah? Well, the weather can be interesting, too,” Raif said wearily. “I’ve traipsed all over New Jersey—with the blessing of the cops there—and I’ve still got nothing.”

“Have you checked on boats?”

“She didn’t take a ferry over, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Raif said.

“No, what about rental boats?”

“Hey, what are you, my captain or something?”

“Is that a play on words, or are you just being pissy?” Joe asked him.

“Of course we’re checking on boat rentals,” Raif said. “Shit.”

“You might want to check to see if anyone rented a Poe outfit anywhere,” Joe said, wincing slightly.

“What?”

“And check around with the neighbors about it.”

“You mean, Bigelow’s neighbors? Or Lori’s? Doesn’t matter. We’ve talked to the neighbors.”

“But you haven’t asked them if they saw anyone dressed up like Poe walking around—” he said.

“They would have said so, don’t you think? I mean, that would have been pretty weird.”

“It’s New York, Raif. Think about it. How much weird stuff do you walk by every day of your life?”

“All right,” Raif said. “Why the hell not?”

They hung up, and Joe saw that Nikki and Genevieve were both looking back at him gravely.

“What?” he said.

Genevieve shook her head.

“We’re just glad that you mentioned the Poe costume idea, that’s all,” Nikki said.

He turned away without replying. He wasn’t admitting that ghosts were out there talking to people. He was simply…grabbing at any straw.

But he knew.

When they reached Baltimore, they went straight to the Poe house on Amity Street. Poe had gone to live there after one of his arguments with his foster father, and it was probably a place where he had found happiness. He had live there with his aunt, Maria Clemm, and his future wife, his cousin Virginia. He had done a lot of writing in the house, and though the house itself was the real attraction, it also held Poe’s lap desk, which he used when traveling, his sextant, and a full-size color reproduction of the only known portrait of Virginia.

The house itself consisted of a living room and kitchen on the first floor, with two bedrooms above and an attic. It had been saved from demolition by the city’s Poe society in nineteen-forty-one, and was reverently maintained.

They moved on to Church Hospital, where Poe had died.

It was originally called Washington College Hospital. Poe had arrived there in a carriage on October third, eighteen-forty-nine. He was attended by Dr. John J. Moran, who, later in life, made his living by telling the tale of Poe’s death, which meant he had expanded on it so much that the truth was hard to discern from the fiction. But the facts seemed to be that Poe had arrived, after a disappearance of several days, in a state that appeared to be drunkenness. He was taken to a tower room, where alcoholics were usually kept to keep them from disturbing the other patients. Poe’s cousin, Neilson Poe, tried to visit him on the sixth but was told that Poe was too excitable, so he left. Neither he nor any member of the family would ever see Edgar Allan Poe again, at least not alive.

His cause of death was listed as “congestion of the brain.”

Because it was still a working hospital, they simply stood outside and looked at the building.

Genevieve realized that Joe was watching her, and she looked at him and smiled. “It was so sad, the way he died. His whole life was so sad.”

“The grave site?” Adam suggested, and they moved on.

Even in death, poverty had followed Poe. He had originally been buried with no headstone. Later, Maria Clemm had written to the same cousin who had tried to visit Poe as he lay dying, and Neilson had commissioned a monument.

It would have been a nice one, Joe thought. Neilson had asked that the Latin for “Here, at last, he is happy” be inscribed on one side, while the other side would have read, “Spare these remains.” But the monument had been built near the train tracks, and a train wreck had destroyed it, and Neilson hadn’t had the money to pay for another.

Poe’s stone did not go up until eighteen-seventy-five. By then, Poe had at last received tribute from his fellow writers. Letters from Longfellow and Tennyson, among others, were read at the ceremony. Eventually Maria Clemm was buried beside him, and the remains of his beloved Virginia were brought from New York to rest with him, as well. Somehow, his birthday was mistakenly written as January twentieth instead of January nineteenth, an error that remained.

There was a crowd of tourists around the grave, listening to a guide, and Joe couldn’t help wondering if ghosts would appear to his friends when there were so many people in the area. Then he wondered if they would give any indication of what they saw even if they did see something.

What the hell was the point of all this, anyway? It was fine to acknowledge the sad life of a great writer, but he didn’t see how that would be helpful in solving a series of modern murders.

When the guide, a lean man of about twenty-five who was dressed as the poet, was finished, Joe stepped forward and asked him if he knew anything about Bradley Hicks.

“Poor Bradley.”

“You knew him?”

“Yes. And what a terrible way to die, frightened to death in his own family vault.”

“Was he easily frightened?” Joe asked.

The man frowned, clearly curious as to Joe’s line of questioning, so Joe showed him his license. “My friends and I are looking into the recent murders in New York,” he said.

The man’s eyes widened. “You think…?”

“We don’t know.”

“Look, I’m done here, so I can show you Bradley’s grave, if you want. Poor guy. He died there, and now he’s buried there. I’m James Boer, by the way. Nice to meet you.”

Joe made the introductions to the rest of the group, and then they got back in their car and followed James.

Bradley Hicks had been buried in a very old cemetery, rich with funerary art, slightly overgrown, and melancholy. The Hicks family had been in Baltimore for a long time. The first interment had been in eighteen-ten, and there were literally dozens of names inscribed on the tomb.

“Can all of those people really fit in there?” Nikki asked doubtfully.

“I imagine some are cremations,” Joe said in reply.

“They found him in there, though. There are shelves on three sides, and a couple of tombs on the ground where you go in,” James told them. “Hey, you can see for yourselves. You can look through the grating.”

Joe stepped up and looked in. Though shadows hid some things, the interior was just as James had described it.

“Here, use my flashlight,” Adam volunteered, handing over his keychain, which had a small but powerful penlight attached. When Joe looked at him in surprise, the older man just shrugged. “I encounter more tombs than you do,” he said lightly.

The beam showed Joe what he needed to know. On the other side of the grating was a wooden door, now open. Inside, there were four stone coffins on the ground and a number of others filling the shelves.

“That’s Bradley, over there,” James said, moving up and pointing. Bradley Hicks was resting on the top shelf on the right-hand side.

“Who keeps the keys to the mausoleums?” Joe asked James.

“The families, of course, and the cemetery manager has one,” James said.

“You want to get in?” Adam asked. Joe nodded, and Adam said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Take the car,” Brent suggested, tossing him the keys. “It’s a long walk back to the office.”

Adam nodded, and Nikki decided to go with him.

“What are you trying to prove?” James asked.

“I’m just trying to see how he could have thought he’d locked himself in,” Joe explained, then was startled by a choked-off scream. He turned quickly to see Genevieve and Brent standing together on the narrow path leading to the tomb. The scream had come from behind them, where a young woman of about twenty was standing, carrying a bouquet of flowers.

Genevieve hurried over to her, frowning.

“No,” the young woman mouthed, wide-eyed.

“It’s all right,” Genevieve said, touching her shoulder gently.

The woman ignored her, raised a finger and pointed at James. “You were here!” she said accusingly. “You were here the day that man died.”

“No, I wasn’t,” James protested. He looked at the others, shaking his head. “I swear, I was working.” He turned back to the young woman. “I’m a tour guide,” he said quickly. “I dress like this for work, but except for today, I’ve never come here in costume.”

“Calm down, everyone,” Joe said. “Miss, were you here when Mr. Hicks died?”

She nodded.

“Are you related to him?” When she shook her head, Joe went on, “So you were here because…?” he asked.

She pointed to another family mausoleum about fifty yards away. In bold letters it announced the name ‘Adair.’

“Your family?” Genevieve asked, trying to draw her out.

Another nod, then, “I’m Sarah Adair.”

“What happened?” Genevieve pursued.

“I…came to bring my grandmother flowers. I like to come. Our tomb is always open. It’s like a little chapel,” she said.

“Did you see Mr. Hicks that day?” Joe asked. “Before he died?

She shook her head. “No, I only heard about it later. But I saw
him!
” She pointed at James.

“I’m telling you, I wasn’t here,” James said.

She studied his face. “Okay. I saw someone who looked like you.”

“Someone who looked like Edgar Allan Poe, you mean?” Joe asked.

She shrugged. “I guess. Like Poe.” She suddenly clamped her hand over her mouth. “The paper said the man who died loved Poe. He wrote an article about him or something.”

“Miss Adair,” Joe said, “can you tell me about the day Mr. Hicks died?”

“Like I said, I came to bring flowers to my grandmother. When I left, I saw a man who looked like him—like Poe—walking in front of me, and the way the path runs, he must have come from over here. I didn’t think anything about it. But then I heard on the news that Mr. Hicks had a heart attack in his tomb, so I told the police that I had seen someone in the cemetery. But they told me lots of people had been here, and that there was nothing suspicious, that no one had locked Mr. Hicks in and both doors were unlocked when they found him.”

Just then Adam and Nikki returned. When they stepped out of the car, Adam was dangling a key triumphantly; then he frowned, noticing the addition to their party.

“This is Sarah Adair,” Joe explained. “And she was just telling us that there was a man dressed as Edgar Allan Poe in the cemetery the day Bradley Hicks died.”

“Oh?” Adam stared at her with renewed interest.

“Are you going in?” Sarah asked.

“Well…” Nikki said.

“You can go into any of the tombs. The keys are just hanging on the rack in the office.”

“They just leave them there for…whoever?” Joe asked.

“Of course. People come from all over the country to visit relatives who are buried here,” Sarah said.

Joe took the key from Adam, fitted it into the lock and found that the iron grate swung open easily. Unless it had been oiled since Hicks’s death—something he would have to look into—there was no way it would have stuck and trapped anyone inside. With Adam’s flashlight in hand, he stepped in and closed both the outer grate and the inner wooden door behind him. Both opened instantly to his touch.

He closed the doors again and turned off the flashlight, then tried to imagine being Bradley Hicks.

Trying to open the door…

Not being able to.

He might have tried banging on the walls, but they were brick, and very thick.

But could anyone have counted on him to have a heart attack so conveniently?

He must have had a weak heart, and his killer must have known it.

He opened the doors again.

It was almost amusing. They’d lined up in front of the tomb as if they were waiting for Lazarus to arise.

“The doors don’t stick,” Joe said briefly, then turned to James. “You said you knew him pretty well, right?”

“Yes.”

“Did he have a heart condition?”

James nodded somberly. “That’s why they figured he had the heart attack.”

“Makes sense,” Joe agreed. Then he turned back and locked both doors to the tomb. “I guess we’re done here,” he said. “James, thank you. And, Sarah, thank you, too.” He handed her his card. “Just in case you remember anything else about that day.”

Joe slipped an arm around Genevieve, and with the others behind them, they started walking back to the car.

They decided to have an early dinner in Baltimore, and just after they’d ordered, Joe’s phone rang. He saw that it was Raif and excused himself to step outside.

“I found it,” Raif said.

“What?”

“I heard from a fellow in the Richmond P. D. thirty minutes ago, said he wanted to let me know that an Edgar Allan Poe costume—complete with wig, mustache, shoes, the whole bit—was rented to a T. Bigelow the day William Morton was killed. And one of our cops here managed to find a shop here on Broadway that had rented another one just two days before Bigelow was murdered. It was rented to Thorne Bigelow, as well.”