Unhallowed Ground (26 page)

“Stop it,” she warned him. “You’re with me now, right? So I’m safe.”

He groaned and leaned his head on the table. “It’s barely eight in the morning, and I don’t have to work until this afternoon.”

“Quit whining.”

“I’m tired.”

“I’m sorry.” Then she brightened and said, “Let’s go pay a social call.”

He stared at her as if she had lost her mind.

“I want to see Mr. Griffin.”

“Why?”

“His daughter disappeared—in or around this house.”

“Do you think she’s the corpse in the attic? And why the hell haven’t you called the cops yet?”

“No, she isn’t the corpse in the attic.”

“How do you know?”

“The clothing is Victorian, certainly not from the 1920s. And we haven’t called anyone in yet because we want to hold off—just a bit—on causing another frenzy. Please, Will, you have to pay attention to me and help me out with this. Do it my way. Caleb is going to bring Floby here to see the body, and I want to talk to Mr. Griffin.”

“What about Caleb? Shouldn’t you wait ’til he gets here?”

“I’ll just send him a text message, in case he gets back before we do. We’re just going around the corner.”

“All right,” Will said with a sigh. “Let’s go.”

Floby sat in the car, staring straight ahead. “You certainly do have a knack for finding bodies.”

Caleb groaned aloud. “We were diving—
hoping
to find a body—when I found the guy in his car. Wrong body, but a mystery solved.” He fell silent for a moment. They had assumed that his first discovery had nothing to do with the missing girls. Had they been wrong?

Frederick J. Russell, banker. That was who he’d turned out to be.

“Floby, you finished the autopsy on Frederick Russell, right?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“And what did you find?”

“He drowned.”

“Had he been drinking?”

“No.”

“So how did he wind up in the water?”

“I assume he was speeding.”

“Did he have a lot of speeding tickets?”

“How should I know? I’m the M.E., not a traffic cop,” Floby said. “I give the police my findings, and they take it from there.” Floby looked at him. “You can’t think Russell was involved with the missing girls, do you? At the very least, the man was in the water before Winona Hart disappeared.”

“It’s just the timing of his death that intrigues me,” Caleb said. “And the fact that we found him while we were looking for Winona. I’m not saying there was a connection, I’m just curious. For the moment.”

“Interesting. All right, you’ve got Frederick Russell and the unidentified woman from the beach. Then there are two missing girls, and a houseful of bones. And we need to discover what—if anything—some or all of them, have in common. We know the unidentified woman had an opiate mixed with a hallucinogenic in her system. Russell was clean. Jennie Lawson? She’s a total mystery, other than that she and Winona look like twins. Then we have rumors about murders and disappearances from the Civil War era, bodies in the walls, and now a body in a trunk. Are we actually trying to connect everything?”

“We? You just said you were an M.E., not a cop,” Caleb reminded him.

“An intrigued M.E.,” Floby admitted. “Does Jamison know you’re trying to put all these pieces together?” he asked.

“Not yet, but he will. I just haven’t had a chance to talk to him about it yet.”

Cary Hagan opened the door to their knock, looking gorgeous even in workout clothing, the kind of fancy sweats you saw on models in pricey catalogues. The kind of clothes most people would never actually wear to work out in. But Cary was wearing them—to spend her time with a man who was a hundred years old.

“Hi, how are you guys?” Cary asked, as if it were the most natural thing in the world that the two of them had come by first thing in the morning. “Mr. Griffin will be thrilled to have company.”

Will was staring at Cary the way a dog stared at a juicy bone. Sarah didn’t doubt that her cousin really cared about Caroline, and she was sure it would be hard for any male
not
to be entirely charmed by Cary Hagan, but she had the sudden fear that he might actually start drooling. He looked positively hypnotized.

Sarah nudged him in the ribs. “Um, sorry. We’re fine. How are you—and Mr. Griffin?”

Cary just laughed. “We’re both fine, too. Come on in. He’s in the parlor, reading.”

Mr. Griffin’s house was built along the same lines as Sarah’s, and Cary led them into the parlor on the left.

Mr. Griffin, resting in an armchair, an afghan over his knees, looked up when they entered. He barely glanced at Will before fixing his gaze on Sarah.

“You’ve come to see me. Thank you. Have you learned any more about what I told you?” he asked her anxiously.

Cary, who probably heard him talk about the past all the time and was glad they were there to listen, said, “I don’t know about you all, but I need some coffee, and I’m getting Mr. Griffin’s favorite tea all set up. I’ll be right back.” With a smile, she was out the door.

As soon as she was gone, Mr. Griffin looked at Will suspiciously and spoke to Sarah as if Will couldn’t hear. “Who is he?” he asked her.

“This is my cousin, Will Perkins. He’s one of my best friends.”

Mr. Griffin smiled, seemingly satisfied.

“Mr. Griffin,” Sarah said, “we’ve discovered that a number of women disappeared here in town during the Civil War, and at least some of them seem to have been linked to my house. You said your daughter disappeared in 1928, and that she was on her way to my house when it happened. I was hoping you could tell me a little more about what was going on then, if maybe other girls went missing then, too, if maybe what’s happening now is repeating a pattern that’s played out at least twice before.”

He looked at her thoughtfully. “When I heard about the skeletons in the wall, I was hoping you would find Clara,” he said softly. “Then I was hoping you wouldn’t.” He looked away for a minute. “They said that the housekeeper kept a book, the witch Martha Tyler.”

“I was asking about your daughter, Mr. Griffin,” she said gently. “Not the Civil War.”

“I know exactly what you asked me, young lady, and I’m trying to answer!” he snapped.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly.

Mr. Griffin rolled his eyes impatiently. “Here’s what I’m trying to explain,” he said. “Soon after Cato MacTavish left St. Augustine, there was a tragedy at the house. Brennan’s daughter, Nellie, fell from her bedroom window and died on the stone walkway in front of the house. And soon after that, the townspeople marched on the place. You won’t find this written in any book—it’s a story my father told me. They dragged the housekeeper out of the house, and they took her out to the unhallowed ground behind the cemetery wall, where they hanged her. Before she died, she cursed the house. She said that others would find her ‘book.’ And when they did, she would come back, and all the beautiful young girls would die. I didn’t believe any of it. I thought it was nothing but fodder for the tourists. But there was a different Brennan—old man Brennan’s grandson, the son of the son who’d been fighting up north during the war—who was running the old mortuary then. He had a daughter, and she had friends, including my Clara. Two of them supposedly ran off with boys their folks wouldn’t approve of, while my Clara just went out to visit her one day and never came home.” He looked toward the door, as if assuring himself that no one else was there—including Cary—then leaned closer and whispered heatedly, “The housekeeper’s book exists, and someone has it, and that’s why girls are disappearing again. Find whoever has the book, and you’ll solve the murders.”

Cary Hagan came back in then, walking as smoothly and gracefully as a southern breeze, her smile as brilliant as the sun. She was carrying a silver tray with a coffee service, a cup of tea and a plate of fresh baked muffins. “Here we are. Mr. Griffin, I have your tea right here. Oh…! I should have asked. Would either of you prefer tea?” she asked Sarah and Will.

“Coffee is great, thank you,” Sarah said.

“Anything you have is just fine for me,” Will told her.

Sarah wanted to smack him. He was fawning again.

As Cary started serving, Mr. Griffin pointed to a painting on the wall. “That’s the old Castillo, done at the turn of century. Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked. He clearly wasn’t going to say anything more about the murders. Will might be too smitten to see it, but Sarah was very aware that Mr. Griffin didn’t want to speak in front of his own nurse.

As soon as she politely could, Sarah made their excuses and dragged Will out.

“What’s the matter with you?” she asked the minute they were back on the sidewalk. “Don’t you see? Mr. Griffin doesn’t trust Cary.”

“Oh, come on,” he protested, looking back toward the house. “You’re just jealous because she’s so gorgeous, so you don’t want to trust her.”

“Will! I am not jealous. I’m…suspicious.”

“You’re being ridiculous, Sarah. Some sicko is doing this. How can you possibly think that it’s Cary Hagan?”

She shook her head and started walking more quickly.

“It’s pretty obvious that she’s having an affair with
Tim Jamison,” Will said, hurrying to catch up with her. “So what do you think? She ditches Mr. Griffin, lures young women with some kind of drugs, kills them, bathes in their blood or whatever—and then sleeps with the cop in charge of the case?”

“Look, I didn’t say she was guilty of anything, I just said that she was suspicious,” Sarah told him. Her cell phone started ringing and she quickly pulled it out of her pocket, expecting it to be Caleb calling to say that he and Floby were at her house.

But it wasn’t Caleb. It was Caroline.

“Sarah, can you get over to the museum quickly? Please?”

“Okay,” Sarah said slowly, wondering why Caroline sounded so upset. Caroline wasn’t a fool; if there were a real emergency, she would have called 911. “Why?” Sarah asked.

“Just hurry, please,” Caroline said. “Oh, Sarah, it’s so awful!”

“What’s so awful?” Sarah asked.

Will was staring at her tensely. “Awful?” he echoed. “What’s so awful?”

Sarah frowned and waved a hand in the air, trying to shush him until she understood herself.

“Last night…last night Barry and Renee got into a fight. Barry left, Renee decided to go bar-hopping and…oh, Sarah! She was attacked.”

Floby looked at the body in the trunk and shook his head sadly. “Poor woman.”

“Well?”

“Well what? She’s practically mummified,” Floby said. “What do you want from me? Time of death?”

“Any opinions?” Caleb asked.

“Not at this moment,” Floby said slowly. “I’ll tell you, though, I would love to do the autopsy on this one. For the body to be as well-preserved as this one is…I’m thinking that she might have been drained of blood, like our Jane Doe from the beach.” He sighed. “Thing is, Caleb, this is another case for the university guys.”

“It’s a body found in a suspicious context in a private residence, Floby. You have every right to handle it.”

Floby didn’t answer as he knelt down by the trunk, opening his pathology kit. “First I’ll take a tissue sample—we should be able to get DNA, and that’s what interests you most, right?”

“It interests me, yes. Stopping the killing interests me more.”

“It would be impossible for this woman’s killer to be killing anyone else now,” Floby pointed out.

“I need to know how she died,” Caleb said. “I want to know about drugs in her system.”

Floby groaned. “I’ll do my best.”

“So call for a meat wagon to come get the corpse.”

“I can’t do that without calling the cops, and you know it,” Floby told him.

“I’ll call Jamison myself,” Caleb said. “This is important.”

Caleb reached for his phone, but as he did so, it began to ring. Sarah.

“Caleb—” she began, but her next words beeped out by his call waiting.

It was Jamison on the other line.

“Sarah, hold on.”

“Wait! I need to tell—”

He’d already switched over. “I need to know every little thing you’ve discovered since you’ve been here, and I need to know it now,” Tim Jamison said with no preamble. “Because Renee Otten was attacked last night.”

S
arah had always loved what she did, and she loved where she did it.

But today she was ready to scream, because all she could think about was Renee. On top of that, one boy of about ten was fascinated with the legend of Osceola, and he was driving her crazy.

“How
much
of his head was cut off?” the boy asked. “The whole thing? I heard that he runs around St. Augustine at night looking for his head.”

The kid next to him stuck out his arms in a Frankenstein’s monster pose and started to chant, “I want my head. I want my head.”

The parents merely smiled benignly at their charming children.

“Excuse me, please,” Sarah said, glaring at Caroline across the room. “Miss Roth will help you with your questions.”

And then she escaped quickly to the employee lounge, where she dug through her purse, anxious to find her phone.

They hadn’t kept Renee in the hospital; she hadn’t
wanted to stay, and the blow she’d taken on the head hadn’t caused a concussion, so it hadn’t been deemed serious enough for them to force her to stay.

Barry had, predictably, been feeling both upset and guilty, so he had taken the day off to be with her.

And now everything seemed to be going to hell, Sarah thought. She’d managed to get in one quick conversation with Caleb after he’d left her on hold for what had seemed like an hour. Despite her hope that everything could be kept low-key, he’d had no choice but to involve the police. Floby had claimed the body for an initial autopsy, but after that, the state would certainly be trying to take charge.

“But Floby
is
the state,” she said.

“Yes, but…there are all kinds of legalities when such an old corpse is discovered. Listen, I’ll talk to you later. I have to go talk with Jamison right now,” he’d told her.

And so, with a corpse in her house and Caleb with the cops, and Renee in a state and Barry with her, she’d been left with no choice but to offer visitors a plastic smile and do her best to be cordial.

But those two boys had about done her in.

She looked at her watch, praying that the day was nearing an end and disappointed that it wasn’t, and was about to put through a call to Caleb when Caroline came in, bringing Cary Hagan in with her.

Sarah closed her phone, surprised.

Cary must have seen the look in her eyes, because she hurried to speak. “I’m sorry, but I heard about Renee, and I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am. I never should have let her leave like that.”

Sarah shook her head blankly. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I feel responsible for what happened to Renee. She was with me last night,” Cary explained.

“Oh?” Sarah said, still confused.

“Renee ran into me at a bar over on South Castillo. She was angry with Barry, and she was downing bourbon and soda really quick. She seemed all right, though—just upset with Barry for not understanding that she likes to dance, and it doesn’t have anything to do with flirting. And then she got a call before she left, so I was sure she was meeting up with Barry again…. But with everything going on, I never should have let her leave alone, no matter what, and I just wanted to apologize and say how glad I am that she’s going to be okay.”

Sarah nodded and smiled. “Thank you. We’re grateful that she’s all right, too.”

“And, please, come by the house more often. You made Mr. Griffin’s day. Most of the time he just sits around, thinking about the past. The man doesn’t have a single physical ailment other than old age, but he needs to start living in the present. He was so much happier after you came by,” Cary said, offering her a brilliant smile.

“I’m glad to hear it. I’ll make a point of dropping in on him more often, then.”

“Wonderful. So…I’ll see y’all,” Cary said, and with a cheery wave, she was gone.

“What the hell was that all about—really?” Caroline asked.

“She wanted to apologize?” Sarah suggested. “Either that, or she’s just trying to be friendly.”

“Then she should stop sleeping with married men,” Caroline said with a sniff, before changing the subject. “Hey, my folks will be back in an hour or two, and then you’ll be able to leave. Take tomorrow off to make up for today, why don’t you? Barry will be coming back in, and Renee said she’d rather be working than sitting around being afraid.”

“Well, good for her, I guess. But it’s still terrifying to think of her being attacked that way.”

“I talked to her, and she said she felt kind of dizzy when she left the bar and knew she probably shouldn’t have been walking alone, and then suddenly she didn’t realize quite where she was. That was when she saw lights. She can remember the lights. Then…nothing. She was conked on the head and woke up in the hospital sometime around two a.m. Apparently someone saw her lying there and got her to the hospital, then took off.”

“Was her purse stolen? What do you think her attacker wanted?”

“No, and I don’t know,” Caroline said.

“Why just hit someone on the head if you’re not going to steal something from them—or worse?” Sarah asked. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know, but look, I have to get back out there. Hang in with me just another hour or so, please?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll hang in as long as you need me.”

“Thanks,” Caroline said. “We need to stick together these days.” She shivered, then hurried out of the room.

Caleb felt as if he’d been sitting in Jamison’s office—wasting time—for an eternity. Jamison was aggravated with him, he knew, complaining that Caleb hadn’t kept him fully informed about his follow-up investigation into the woman who’d been on the beach the night of the party.

Now, however, Caleb had been over everything he’d discovered, and Tim Jamison was still hostile. “You had a clue—and you went out without telling me?” Jamison demanded.

“Look, it was a worthless trip. The Martha Tyler in Cassadaga is elderly and petite, and she wasn’t running around on the beach the night the Hart girl disappeared.”

“She’s a medium,” Jamison said. “She didn’t tell you where to find the killer?” he asked sarcastically.

“No, she didn’t,” Caleb said and leaned forward. “Look, it’s very possible you have a living witness—Renee Otten. Why aren’t we with her now, pressuring her to tell you what she knows?”

“I’ve already questioned her,” Jamison said.

Caleb hesitated. He wanted to remind Jamison that the police had also questioned the kids from the beach and hadn’t come up with Martha Tyler’s name, but that wouldn’t help their working relationship—quite the opposite, so he refrained.

“I’d like to speak with her myself.”

Jamison shook his head. “She got hit on the head while she was walking home drunk. The girl’s an idiot. Who takes off alone knowing that a killer is loose in the
city? Whoever attacked her, it wasn’t our killer or she’d be missing and probably dead right now.”

“Unless someone came up and interrupted the killer before he could carry her off.”

“What do you think we are—backwoods yokels?” Jamison asked. “We’ve released her picture, and the media are asking for help, anonymous tips included, from anyone who might have seen something.”

“Even so, do you mind if I question her myself?”

“If she’ll see you, you have my blessing. But I want to know everything—and I do mean everything—you find out. Which reminds me, why were you so insistent on Floby taking the newest body from the Grant house?” Jamison sounded seriously aggravated. He’d been looking worn-out before; today he really looked like hell. His suit was wrinkled, and his shoes were muddy. He leaned back in his chair, popping an antacid. “Well?” he persisted.

“I think that corpse is an ancestor of mine,” Caleb said.

Jamison frowned. “Excuse me?”

“Sarah McKinley did some research, and she found a direct link from Cato MacTavish to me. If I’m right and that corpse is Cato’s fiancée Eleanora, there’s a possibility she’s my whatever-number-of-greats grandmother.”

Jamison shook his head. “Look, Eleanora Stewart died or disappeared halfway through the war, and the odds are that your ancestor did her in. Meanwhile, I have two women still missing, another one dead on the beach, and you’re trying to catch a killer from the
1800s. Are you here on a case, or are you just looking for your roots?”

“I didn’t know a damned thing about the Grant house before I got here,” Caleb said, trying to control his temper. Jamison was being a jerk, but he was still the lead homicide investigator and someone Caleb needed on his side.

Adam Harrison had a way of staying calm under duress that Caleb envied. Adam said it had nothing to do with being the better man; it was just a good way of making the other guy realize he was being a jerk. Caleb tried it now, sitting back and letting Jamison take the lead.

“You’ve talked with Floby, so you know about the drugs in our corpse’s system, right?” Jamison asked.

“An opium derivative and yaupon holly,” Caleb said.

“Yaupon holly, a key ingredient of the so-called ‘black drink,’” Jamison said. “There actually might be someone out there trying to relive the past. Maybe trying to get revenge for the way his people were treated way back when.”

Caleb groaned aloud. “Come on, Jamison. You’re a trained cop. Are you really trying to convince me that a modern-day Seminole is imitating his ancestors and murdering women because of some centuries-old vendetta? That’s absurd.”

“You’re the one suggesting that we’ve had a killer hanging around for more than a hundred and fifty years. Now
that’s
absurd.”

“I never said that. I’m saying we have a killer who is either imitating the past or honestly believes in black
magic. I think you have a couple, a man and a woman, who are doing the killing, but for exactly what reason, I don’t know, though the body on the beach was drained of blood, and that may have something to do with it. It’s a theory of mine, that there are two people involved. One to do the luring, maybe. The logistics involved, toting, carrying, and all in the dark—I’d say two people. One with the real power of persuasion. One easily led. I’ll tell you one thing for sure, this is someone who knows the area, who knows the history—and the legends.”

Jamison stood up. “I’m going to follow the Seminole lead—and the yaupon holly. I also have men in the streets watching every ghost tour, history tour and haunted happening out there. I don’t think Miss Otten will speak with you—she seems to be afraid of you. But knock yourself out. Do whatever you want short of trespassing, harassing or making a public nuisance out of yourself.”

“I think you’re on the wrong track, and I think you’re wasting time—time we don’t have. Renee was attacked last night, and that means the killer is stepping up the pace. We need to find out who it is quickly, before someone else goes missing or dies.”

Without a word, Jamison walked to the door to his office and held it open, waiting. As he left, Caleb noticed again that Jamison’s shoes were covered with mud.

As soon as Sarah was able to leave the museum, she headed over to Renee Otten’s place.

Renee had rented a small free-standing townhome just outside the historic section of the city. She had decorated it pleasantly with a mixture of modern furniture and period pieces, old throws, tapestry pillows, framed prints and bric-a-brac.

Barry opened the door for Sarah, and she looked past him to see Renee sitting on the sofa, propped up on a pillow, with a tray holding the remnants of tea and toast.

Sarah turned to Barry and asked, “She doing all right?”

Barry nodded, then spoke, his voice low. “She got lucky. Insanely lucky. She drank too much, she was mad at me…thank God some Good Samaritan came along and got her to the hospital. She’ll be happy to see you.” Then he frowned suddenly and asked, “What are
you
doing out on your own?”

She was surprised by the question. Yes, the world was getting scary, but it was broad daylight. She smiled, though, glad that he was concerned. “It’s the middle of the afternoon! And I told Caroline exactly where I was going, and I’ll give her a buzz to let her know I got here. Will had to work this afternoon, but they’ll both be over later.”

“I just don’t want anything to happen to anyone else. I just can’t help thinking this was my fault,” Barry said miserably.

Sarah touched his face. “Stop that. It’s
not
your fault.”

“Yes, it is. With everything going on around here, I should have followed her all over town whether she was mad at me or not,” Barry said.

“Hey!” Renee called. “I can hear you, you know.”

Sarah smiled reassuringly at Barry, then walked into the other room, and leaned down to give Renee a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

Despite the bandage on her forehead, Renee looked better than Barry.

Sarah took the chair across the coffee table from her and said, “What the hell happened? Cary Hagan came by the museum to say she was sorry—she thinks it’s
her
fault.”

Renee had the grace to look guilty. “It was my fault and no one else’s. I had a few drinks with Cary—I remember that—and then, after I left the bar, I remember feeling really woozy.”