Unhallowed Ground (28 page)

“Me? Nope, not me. I’m on my way home,” Doctor Thayer said. But he was already wearing a sinking expression, as if he’d just been dragged off the beach. “All right, I’ll go back in and get things started. I won’t wait for the results, though. They’ll call me, and I’ll call you.”

“Fair enough,” Caleb said.

He left Thayer and put through a call to Adam, bringing him up-to-date and asking him to pull strings and get the tests authorized. He warned Adam that Jamison was behaving strangely, and that he wasn’t Jamison’s favorite person at the moment.

Adam assured him that he would make sure that Caleb didn’t have any trouble with the authorities. “How’s Sarah doing?” Adam asked.

“She’s fine. She’s great,” Caleb said. “That’s right—you two know each other.”

“Whatever you do, let her talk…draw her out. I think that young woman has capabilities we haven’t seen yet,” Adam said. “And to think—I sent you down there on behalf of the Lawsons, and you’ve discovered your past.”

“Yeah, great. There’s supposedly a ghost running around town looking just like me.”

“And you’ve seen this ghost?” Adam asked, amused.

“I’ve…had a dream,” Caleb said stubbornly.

“Dreams are the mind’s way of accessing the levels we don’t use when we’re awake, maybe even a means of communication. Don’t close your mind to anything, Caleb.”

“Trust me, Adam, I never have. Now, hang up on me and get hold of the powers that be—I need to know if that girl was drugged last night or not.”

Adam promised, “Will do,” and hung up.

Caleb was finally about to head over to see Renee Otten when his cell phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number but decided to answer anyway.

It was a husky female voice. “Mr. Anderson?”

“Yes?”

“Martha Tyler gave me your number.”

For a moment, he was blank. Martha Tyler, the witch who had lived and died a hundred and fifty years ago?

Of course not, he realized almost instantaneously. Martha Tyler, the medium.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Ginger Russell. Mrs. Frederick Russell. You found my husband’s body at the bottom of the bay. Please, I need to speak with you.”

“I’m very sorry for your loss, but I’m afraid I’m fairly busy—”

“Please, Mr. Anderson, you don’t understand. My husband’s death was no accident. He was murdered.”

T
he disturbed earth bothered her, but Sarah wasn’t sure why or where to go with her feelings of unease. She could just imagine calling the police to tell them that she might have found a body. When they asked her where and she said “The cemetery,” they would laugh her into the next county.

She tried calling Caleb, but he told her that he was meeting with Frederick Russell’s widow and would have to call her back. Before hanging up, he asked her if she was still at work, and she glanced around the street, nearly empty now that the tour was over. She told him no, but not to worry, she was fine, then blurted out, “I’m at church. Lots of people around.”

Once the lie was out and she’d hung up, it actually seemed like a good idea.

Okay, so there weren’t
lots
of people.

She was still certain she was safe in church. And there were things she could do there. Useful things.

Sarah used the fact that she was a local and owned a piece of local history to get permission to look into the church records. The Cathedral of the Basilica,
dating from 1565, was the oldest house of worship in the city and had the oldest records in the United States, since the parish had been founded immediately upon the Spaniards’ arrival. But the English tended to be Anglican or Episcopalian. Trinity was founded later, in 1821, but, still, it would offer wonderful records.

Though she hadn’t come across any reference to religion as far as the MacTavishes or the Brennans went, she was pretty sure that they would have been Episcopalian, since the majority of Americans at the time had been Episcopalians.

Mrs. Hopkins, the secretary in charge of the records room, had been good friends with Sarah’s mother and was glad to see Sarah. She commiserated with her about the strange events taking place in their beloved city—and in Sarah’s beloved house.

There were several documents Sarah was actively looking for, particularly a death certificate for Nellie Brennan and a birth certificate for Magnus MacTavish, who might have been born there, out of wedlock, since Eleanora and Cato had never married—or might have been born in Virginia to some other woman entirely.

At last she found one of the pieces of information she had been seeking, buried in a long list of births and deaths in an old parish record book.

Nellie Brennan had died on May 16th, 1866. She had been seventeen years old. The old cursive script wasn’t easy to decipher, but there was a notation that she had died from a fall, just as Mr. Griffin had said.

Had Brennan killed his own daughter?

Sarah was afraid he had. Nellie had seen too much. She had known what he was doing, something Sarah was certain she knew, too.

He’d been abducting and killing young women, draining their blood for some awful, probably ritualistic, reason. He had most likely killed Eleanora Stewart first—and stuffed her body in a trunk in the attic, then moved on to other victims, some of whom had probably ended up behind the walls of the house.

His accomplice had been the witch Martha Tyler, who had helped him lure the girls with promises of love potions, then met her end at the hands of a lynch mob and died cursing the Grant house.

But she’d had a book. A book of magic, a book of spells. Spells that required human blood.

Sarah was about to give up the search when she found another entry that looked as if it could well be the other one she’d been most eager to find.

Baptized 1862, male child, Mag S, child of E.S.

Was that it? The record of Magnus Anderson? Born under his mother’s name, Stewart?
S
—for Stewart?

The full names—even the child’s first name—weren’t written out, as if whoever had made the entries knew the truth and wished to hide it, presumably to protect Eleanora’s reputation.

She carefully closed the record book and replaced it on the shelf. The past was falling into place, and nothing she’d found out contradicted her belief that the current atrocities were related to those of the past. But where did they go from there?

She hesitated, not knowing what to do. The after
noon was waning, and it would grow dark soon, so she tried calling Caleb. No answer.

She decided to try Floby, who might have found out something about the body in the attic.

He did answer her call, then groaned when she identified herself.

“Please don’t tell me that you’ve found another body in your house,” he said fervently.

“No, but…I think I might have found…well, I’ve found a bunch of dirt that’s been recently dug up.”

“In your yard?”

“No.”

“Where?”

“The cemetery.”

“The cemetery? Is this some kind of a joke?” he demanded.

“No. Please, Floby…can you come out and see what I’m talking about?”

“For God’s sake, why?”

“Floby—what if someone was buried there and then dug up? Would you be able to tell?”

“In a cemetery?”

“It’s actually outside the cemetery proper, in unhallowed ground. The thing is…” She paused, then drew a deep breath and went on.

“I think the woman Caleb found on the beach might have been buried there, then dug up and thrown in the ocean later.”

“All right.” He sighed. “Actually, it’s already been a theory of mine that she was buried—then dug up and dumped. It’s past quitting time anyway, and I won’t
have the results I want until tomorrow, at least. You shouldn’t go wandering around by yourself, though, seeing as it’s almost dark. I’ll come get you, so just stay put, you hear?”

“Thank you, Floby. I’m right on the plaza, so I’ll wait for you in the café near the Casa Monica Hotel, okay?”

“I’ll find you.”

Frederick Russell’s widow, Ginger, was a perfectly named slim redhead. She had pretty features, though looking drawn now, from the sadness that seemed to weigh her down.

She’d suggested they meet in the parlor of an Old Town hotel, now charmingly set for evening tea.

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” Caleb said as he took a seat across from her. “But I’m not sure how I can help you. I found your husband’s body, but I don’t know anything about him or how he came to be there. You said he was murdered, but…”

“First you should know that Ricky—sorry, that’s what I called him—didn’t speed, and he knew these roads like the back of his hand. He was one of the most responsible people I’ve ever met. He didn’t drink, and he didn’t do drugs. There’s no way his death was an accident.”

“Perhaps there was something wrong with his car,” Caleb suggested.

She shook her head, smiling sadly. “No way. He kept it in perfect repair.” She took a deep breath, visibly steeling herself. “I’ve asked around, and I know who
you are and why you’re here. I’m just curious if you’re aware that my husband and the girl you came down here looking for disappeared at pretty much the same time?”

“I knew it had to be around the same time, yes, given when you’d reported him missing. But with the amount of time your husband was in the water, they couldn’t establish an exact time of death,” Caleb said.

“The night he disappeared, I was talking to Frederick on the phone when he suddenly said something like, ‘What the hell…?’ And he wasn’t in his car then, he was walking in Old Town. He was meeting a client for dinner. I think he saw something, something that bothered him, and went to see what was going on. You had to have known my husband—he would never have passed up a chance to help someone. And that’s the last that was seen or heard of him,” she said. “But I think—no, I’m sure—that when he went to help, something happened, that he got involved in something he couldn’t handle and was killed for it. The police didn’t believe me then, and I doubt they’d believe me now, but I’m sure of it.”

Caleb glanced at his phone, which he’d set on the table, and realized he’d missed a call.

From Sarah.

He rose. “Mrs. Russell, thank you for calling me. I swear to you, I’ll do my absolute best to find out what happened to your husband, and whether his death is related to the disappearances of these girls.”

She offered him her sad smile again. “I know you will. Martha Tyler told me there’s something special about you. That you would help me.”

“That was very kind of her. I’ll keep in touch,” he promised.

He walked out onto Charlotte Street and pulled out his phone, trying to reach Sarah. He felt his heart slamming as the phone rang.

But then she answered. “Caleb?”

“I’m here.”

“I was just trying to reach you. I need you to meet me as soon as you can.”

“In church?”

A long moment of silence followed, and his eyes narrowed in suspicion as he waited for her answer, and then he cursed silently when she finally replied.

“No. The cemetery.”

Old Town was usually one of the safest areas of St. Augustine. There were always people about: a dozen different tours going on, locals and tourists filling the bars and restaurants, even people just out walking their dogs.

But that night, when they turned off the main street and headed toward the cemetery, there seemed to be no one around. No one but her—and Floby.

A slight breeze had risen, drifting through the moss that hung from the oaks and cypresses along the way. In the dark, the old cemetery felt lonely and forlorn.

Even Floby seemed creepy in the darkness.

Sarah glanced over at him. His hair was disheveled, and he was bent over staring avidly at the ground.

Like a mad scientist.

Like a man who believed that the blood of virgins would restore his vigor and his youth.

She mocked herself for her fear; she doubted that any of the recent victims had been virgins, and she herself certainly wasn’t. Apparently it wasn’t virgin blood that was needed, just the blood of the young.

“Where exactly are we going?” he asked, his glasses slipping down on his nose so he had to look over the top of the wire frames at her.

“The copse—where Martha Tyler was lynched,” Sarah said. “But we can wait, if you want. Caleb is on his way.” She had stopped as she spoke, but he had kept on walking. Now he turned around, and for a moment the glare of his flashlight blinded her. She felt a sudden and terrible fear that he was suddenly going to grab her and start laughing maniacally.

“Sarah!”

It was Caleb’s voice, and she spun around, shaking. He was striding down the street toward them, his steps brisk. “What the hell are you doing out here alone?” he demanded.

“I’m not alone—I’m with Floby,” Sarah said. She realized she was shaking—which was absurd, of course. She’d known Floby forever. He wasn’t a sadistic killer.

“I’m over here,” Floby said, waving his light.

Caleb stared at Sarah. “What are we doing here?”

“Caleb, you said that the Jane Doe found on the beach had been moved—that she hadn’t been in the water all that time, that she’d been buried somewhere first. When I came out here today—”

“You came to the cemetery alone?” he interrupted.

“No. I came with a tour group,” she said impatiently.
“There’s a patch of land in the back—it’s where the so-called sinners were buried, back in the day. And it’s where Martha Tyler was lynched. Someone has been digging back there recently. I wanted to see if someone was…buried there now. Or if someone
had
been buried there. Can you tell?”

Floby sighed. “We can take soil samples and find out if any organic material decomposed in the soil, but it’s not going to be easy to discover if a body was there, and if so, how recently.” He turned to Caleb.

“You have a gun, right?”

“I do.”

“And you know how to use it, right?”

“I do.”

“Good, because it’s dark back there and you never know who might be around,” Floby said.

With Floby’s light leading the way, they started along the wall.

When they reached the area of disturbed earth, Floby said, “Maybe we should call Jamison.”

Caleb stared at the ground, then hunkered down and felt the dirt. “No,” he said. “Let’s see what we can find first.”

He stood up and turned around, looking for something with which to dig. Floby reached into his lab coat and produced a small trowel and several glass bottles. He began to take samples from random spots and depths. “Come help,” he told Sarah, and she hurried over to take the sample bottles from him after he filled them.

Caleb came back over with a thick oak branch and
started digging. After a while, sweaty and muddy, he leaned on the branch and said, “We could use a real shovel.” Then he shoved the branch into the dirt one more time, shaking his head. “We’ll have to bring in the cops, but it does look like a good place to dig.”

Sarah stared at the point where the branch was sticking into the dirt, and her words caught in her throat.

Fingers—delicate, long fingers—were protruding from the earth, as if a hand were raised in supplication, begging for pity, pleading for help.

She pointed, unable to speak.