Bloodlines (66 page)

and gave a number for families and others to call.

"All right," Mitch said, "where's this secret entrance of yours, kid?"

Ethan directed Ian down a small side road. The road ran along the eastern edge of the cemetery for a short distance before dead-ending at a field. "Park here," he said. To our left was an auto body shop and next to it, a screen door repair shop. Both businesses were dark and locked up for the night.

We sat there for a few minutes with the engine running while Eric got out and looked around, checking for traps. Eventually, he motioned that all was okay, and came back to help Ian take us out of the car.

Almost from the first breath, it was there--not overwhelming, but distinct. A mustiness, mixed with the slightly sweet scent that sometimes mingles with that of decay.

Ian sniffed at the air and made a face.

"I know," Eric said. "What is that?"

"Open graves," Ethan said.

The brothers exchanged a look. "You're shitting me," Eric said.

"He's telling the truth," I said.

There were other scents and sounds as well. Las Piernas Municipal Cemetery is a little over a century old and was at one time surrounded by oil derricks. Most of the derricks are gone, but the pumping units remain, and we heard the rhythmic growling sound of the rotating gears of several oil well pumps in the field beyond the cemetery.

I watched with irritation as Ian locked up the Jeep and set the alarm on it. He had kidnapped us, used my own car to drive us around, and he was already acting as if it were his to protect? From what, a criminal?

Eric's cell phone rang. He listened for a moment, then said, "Have the chopper ready. We'll call again."

"The chopper?" I asked.

"Nothing for you to worry about," Mitch said.

The look Ethan gave me then made my stomach drop. I supposed we were thinking the same thing. If the Yeagers left in a helicopter, they might be able to get to a plane and perhaps out of the country before anyone knew what had happened to us. And if the people on the helicopter were armed or used a spotlight, we would have difficulty hiding among the tombstones until we were free.

I watched Ethan. For the next few minutes at least, my life was going to be in his hands. Everything would be decided by his ability to stall them without being obvious about it and to convince them that he had hidden something here.

"Do you have flashlights?" he asked.

Eric looked at him suspiciously, perhaps suspecting a joke at his expense, given their previous problems with fingerprints on flashlights.

"There's only a little moonlight," Ethan said. "The cemetery is torn up. We'll need flashlights."

"You have any in your car?" Mitch asked me with exasperation.

I considered a lie, decided against it, and told him where to find the flashlights in the Jeep--one in the glove compartment, the other in the back storage compartment. Ian got back in the Jeep, found them, and reset the alarm.

"Okay," Ethan said, "untie our hands."

"Giving a lot of orders, aren't you?" Mitch said. "Not going to happen."

Ethan shrugged. "That's going to cause problems, but suit yourself."

The first problem became evident as soon as the flashlights were distributed. Eric and Ian had to hold both a flashlight and a gun or risk not having a light to use to reveal their target. I could see Mitch didn't like it, but he was too proud to back down.

Ian stayed with Ethan. Eric stayed with me. Mitch walked between us.

We followed Ethan as he walked slowly along a brick fence that had occasional panels of wrought iron. The view into the cemetery was again blocked by plywood panels temporarily in place over the wrought iron. There was already some graffiti on them.

I was glad for the slow pace, not only because we needed to stall but because I was feeling the effects of their earlier blows and the fall I had taken in the garage. Ian, impatient, told Ethan to move faster.

"If you hadn't kicked the shit out of me, I could," Ethan said, one hand on his ribs.

He led us toward the back of the cemetery. I wondered whether this was mere stalling on his part. If so, I hoped he walked us all around the perimeter.

As we moved from the street into the knee-high grasses of the field, the scenery changed a bit. The field was owned by the city, but was undeveloped. We were nearer some of the pumping units now, and could see their horse-heads bobbing up and down eerily in moonlight, their beams seesawing as the counterweights rolled.

The barrier along the back of the cemetery was a rusting chain-link fence--about seven feet high. It was not in good repair. Before the cemetery was closed for the investigations, visitors were spared a view of this ratty fence by the trees and the tall, thick oleanders that now blocked our view of the cemetery. I wondered if Ethan planned to have us crawl through one of the gaps near the foot of it, but he kept walking.

Eventually, we came to an asphalt driveway that led from the road on the western side of the cemetery to a pair of rolling chain-link gates near some large metal sheds. A heavy chain and thick padlock held them shut. As we came to a halt by the gates, Eric pocketed his gun and took hold of my elbow, apparently afraid I'd run off and leave Ethan behind.

"Why the hell didn't we come in this way?" Mitch asked angrily. "We could have parked on that other street and saved time."

"And have everyone in the world see a car parked here? That street isn't a busy one, but it gets traffic."

"Maybe I'll tape your smart mouth shut next," Mitch said.

Ethan stood silent.

Mitch smiled. "Hell, scream if you want to. Nobody inside that boneyard is going to come to your rescue. And you were stupid enough to bring us all the way out here. So now what?"

"We go in. As I said before, you'll need to untie our hands."

"Why?"

"I won't be able to squeeze through the gate if they're tied behind my back."

"I don't trust you."

"Okay, let Ian squeeze through. Once he's in, I'll tell him where to find the gate key."

Mitch took Ian's gun and told him to go in.

Ian, looking dubious, stepped up to the gates and pulled them apart. He got a leg through, then said, "I can't fit, Uncle Mitch. It'll take my balls off, trying to get through."

Mitch glanced at Ian's older brother and obviously realized there was no hope there, either.

"Get your lard ass back here, then. You two have turned into a couple of butterballs, lying on your big bellies on the beach all day. I still have to take care of things myself if I want them done right, don't I? Never know how much you two will fuck things up on your own." He eyed me briefly, then asked Eric what the fuck was wrong with him, standing there with nothing but his flashlight in his hand? Eric turned red, then switched off the light and exchanged it for his gun.

"Now grab on to her," Mitch ordered, "and put that gun right up against her head.... Good."He turned to Ethan. "Okay, smart boy, I'm going to promise you that once you are through that gate, you had better return in five minutes, or she's dead."

"That's not long enough!"

"That's how long you have. So Ian will cut you loose and give you a flashlight, and I had better be able to see where you are with that light every one of those five minutes--"

"Then we've come out here for nothing," Ethan said. "The spare key isn't hidden within sight of the gate, for God's sake. It's around the corner, on the other side of that maintenance shed. You won't see me the whole time and I can't do it in five minutes."

Held by a beefy arm around my throat, feeling the painful press of cold metal on my temple, I couldn't think very clearly, but I still managed to wonder if it was smart for him to be challenging Mitch in this way.

Then I saw Ian's face, and the hint of amusement on it. Maybe Ethan was trying to undermine Mitch's authority as much as he could.

"And why shouldn't I just save myself a whole lot of time and kill you both? I'm trying to remember..."

"You think we did this not knowing who we were up against?" I said. "We made sure that if we were to vanish or to be found dead, the truth would come out."

"Miss Kelly, I think you've watched too much television."

"I haven't had time for TV. I've been busy studying you for twenty years, you selfish old man. People have a habit of disappearing around you. Ian and Eric are too young to remember Gus Ronden or Betty Bradford, but--"

"I remember them," Eric said. "What happened to them, Uncle Mitch?"

"We're wasting time!" Mitch said. "Cut the smart aleck loose and let him get in there. And Eric, damn it, if she doesn't keep her yap shut, shut it for her."

Ian cut Ethan loose, and I watched Ethan wince as the circulation returned to his hands. Another moment passed before he had enough feeling in them to be able to hold the flashlight. Ethan walked to the gate, then held the flashlight out and said, "I'm going to tuck this inside my jacket. I won't fit through the gates myself if I put it in my hip pocket. I just don't want any misunderstandings." He slowly tucked it in the pocket, making sure his hands stayed visible as he did it.

He pulled the gates apart and began to squeeze between them. I heard his breath catch on a small sound of pain as his bruised ribs were pressed against the metal supports of the gates.

A moment later, he was through, and the flashlight was out again. Ian took Eric's flashlight and tried to position himself to fire on Ethan should he reappear with a weapon or some other surprise.

"Where are you?" Mitch called.

"On the other side of the shed," Ethan called back.

"I don't like this," Mitch said. "I don't like this at all."

We all listened, ears straining for sound. Nothing could be heard over the rumbling and creaking of the oil well pumps.

As what seemed like two or three eternities passed, I began to wonder if I had fooled myself into thinking Ethan cared about what happened to me. What if he just hared off, jumping over a fence on the other side of the cemetery and leaving me and the Yeagers standing in our little semicircle? Or hid in there the rest of the night, or at least until the police showed up? I could be long past being able to tell anyone my version of events.

I told myself that would not be the worst possible outcome. In all likelihood, that was the best we could hope for. Maybe Ethan was practical enough to see that.

But even with Eric's gun at my head and a cold feeling of certainty that I would not survive the night settling in on me, even knowing that Ethan had screwed up so many other times in his life and was a self-acknowledged liar and manipulator, I thought of how he toughed out those days at the paper and couldn't bring myself to believe he was abandoning me. I was not cheered by this thought. I didn't much want to die alone, but I wanted less for the two of us to die together.

In the next moment, he came back around the corner, his flashlight beam marking his progress as he returned to the gate. Fool, I thought, close to tears. You brave damned fool.

The Yeagers were relieved. I could feel Eric relax his grip slightly, and he eased the pressure of the gun away. A moment later, as Ethan fit the key into the padlock, Eric stepped back from me.

The chain fell free, and Ethan pulled the gates in. He looked toward me and said, "Welcome to my cemetery."

**CHAPTER 67

HIS CEMETERY LOOKED AS IF IT HAD BEEN TOSSED. "Most of the grave robbing was done to the older ones," Ethan said. "They figured no one who cared about these people would still be around. But they also went for a few of the newer ones."

Mounds of dirt stood next to open graves, vaults were aboveground, and excavation equipment was parked here and there. The investigation had not yet extended into every corner of the cemetery, but where it was under way, it seemed doubtful the permanent occupants were resting in peace.

The odors were much stronger inside the cemetery. Rain had fallen during the weeks of investigation, and water collected in the bottom of the graves, intensifying the dankness and scents of decay. I could also smell traces of formalin and other chemical smells from embalming. Perhaps not in fact, but in my mind, the scent of human decay overrode all the others.

In a cemetery where no one had disturbed the burials, this rank smell would not have been present, but the practice of opening coffins and moving bodies from coffins into graves where more than one body was placed, or reburying bodies without coffins, had obviously made the soil here subject to saturation with it.

Ethan walked us past a few graves, then suddenly looked around, as if confused.

Not hiding his disgust, Mitch said, "You never found anything in Maureen's belongings, did you?"

"Not exactly," Ethan admitted.

"You son of--" Ian said angrily, but Ethan held a hand up.

"Irene got it from Betty. Betty stole it from your desk at the farmhouse. You know what I'm talking about?"

Mitch's eyes narrowed. "The locket. That bitch. I always wondered ...but that doesn't prove shit, does it?"

"Oh, together with what we found among Maureen's papers, yes, I think it does. Which is why we had to find a safe place for it."