The Gravedigger's Ball (12 page)

“It’s been a while since we’ve done a lot of things,” she said plainly.

“I know. I’ve just been really busy with work and—”

“How ’bout this?” Sandy said. “When this is over we can take some time, just the two of us, to work on something other than homicides.” She looked at him suggestively as she spoke. “I’ve got a lot of work for you to do.”

Charlie licked his lips and thought of all the images she’d packed into those words. Then he looked into her honey-brown eyes and thought of how fortunate he was to have her. She was sexy and self-assured. She had curves that the uniform couldn’t hide. Her face was so pretty it glowed, and at thirty years old, she was wise enough to provide counsel when he needed it. With all she had to offer, he wasn’t sure why they were drifting apart. He just knew that they were, and like Sandy, he didn’t know what to do.

Before he could respond to her, Coletti walked in. “I’ve got some goodies for you,” he said as he deposited Clarissa’s laptop and phone on Mann’s desk. Both items had been bagged and tagged.

“I’d better go so the two of you can talk,” Sandy said.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Coletti said. “We might need you.”

Sandy glanced at Charlie Mann, wishing he would say he needed her. But wishing couldn’t make their relationship right. If it could, both she and Mann would’ve wished things back to normal a long time ago.

“What’ve you got?” Mann asked Coletti.

“There was gunpowder residue on Clarissa Bailey’s clothing. The ME’s pretty sure that the shot I heard this morning was fired by Clarissa, not her assailant.”

“So where’s the gun?” Mann asked. “Where’s the shell?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Coletti said. “But from what her husband says, it would’ve been really strange for Clarissa to carry a gun. She hated guns.”

“So do you think she knew someone was going to try to kill her?” Sandy asked.

“She knew something,” Coletti said. “I’m just not sure what it was. Which reminds me, Charlie, were you able to find out who that e-mail address belongs to?”

“No,” he said. “Maybe the guys in IT might have better luck. Or we could get a warrant and make the hosting company give up the information.”

“We don’t have time for that,” Coletti said as he donned latex gloves and plugged in Clarissa’s phone using the charger he’d gotten from Ellison.

He handed Mann a pair of gloves and the phone. Mann put them on and scrolled quickly through Clarissa’s contact list, then through the numbers on her “recent calls” menu.

“Looks like she hadn’t placed any calls home in a while,” he said as he examined the numbers. “In fact, almost all of these calls are to the same three people: Violet, Lily, and this third one with the 570 area code. Where’s 570?”

“My guess is Dunmore,” Coletti said. “Clarissa’s husband said she visited there a few days ago.”

Mann dialed the number on the phone and an answering machine came on. He put the phone on speaker so all three of them could hear.

“You’ve reached Sean O’Hanlon,” said a voice that sounded hollow through the phone’s cheap speaker. “Please leave a message at the sound of the tone.”

Mann disconnected the call and looked at Coletti. “That name sounds familiar.”

“It should,” Coletti said. “Sean O’Hanlon is Mary and Lenore’s father.”

*   *   *

Commissioner Lynch knew, someplace deep down, that there was something dark about this case—something that he felt, but couldn’t explain. He’d seen it in Kirsten Douglas’s eyes. He’d witnessed it in the raven’s presence. He’d sensed it when he stood in the woods and saw the dead officer who’d been pulled from the ground.

But it didn’t matter if the style of the killer was unconventional or if the reason for the killings was beyond his understanding. Kevin Lynch was a cop. His job was to solve the crime, and he was going to do that, no matter what it took.

He couldn’t help replaying Kirsten Douglas’s comments in his head. Even after she left his office promising to share whatever she could find that would help them, Lynch kept thinking of the raven circling above them. He remembered the way the bird soared effortlessly, as if it were taunting them for their inability to act or, worse, daring them to do something more than talk. Whatever the reason for its presence, Kirsten was right about one thing. Not only did the killer show up when the raven did, bodies showed up, too.

Lynch called the homicide captain and told him to put together a meeting. Ten minutes later, when the commissioner walked into homicide with the captain on his heels, his footsteps echoed through the room like thunder. There was purpose in his gait, and everyone inside knew it. Coletti, Mann, and Sandy stopped fiddling with the laptop they were trying to access, and the two other detectives who were toiling away in other parts of the office pretended to work harder.

Both of them acknowledged the commissioner’s presence with mumbled words of greeting, but Lynch wasn’t there for them. He was there for Coletti and Mann, and though he hadn’t come for Sandy, he was glad to see her, because he wanted her in the meeting, too.

“I need the three of you in the captain’s office now,” Lynch said as he and the captain breezed by them.

When all five of them were inside, Lynch told Mann to shut the door and looked around at the four chairs in the office. He hadn’t been down to homicide in at least two months, but not much had changed. The offices were still ragged, and there still weren’t enough chairs.

“Sit down wherever you can,” Lynch said, opting to stand.

Sandy and Mann sat in chairs while the captain sat at his desk and turned on his computer. Coletti leaned against the wall and suspiciously eyed his commanders.

“I called you all here so we could get on the same page,” Lynch said. “I know you’re out interviewing witnesses and gathering evidence, and all that’s great, but anytime we cordon off neighborhoods, shut down schools and businesses, send cops door-to-door, and still come up empty, something’s wrong. Either we need to change tactics, or we need to rethink who or what we’re chasing.”

“What do you mean?” Coletti asked.

Lynch walked around to the front of the captain’s desk, leaned against it, and folded his arms. “I just had a talk with Kirsten Douglas.”

“Good, maybe she’ll stop calling me,” Coletti mumbled.

Lynch glared at Coletti before continuing. “When I talked with Kirsten she was still petrified from this morning. It wasn’t just about the killer, either. It was about the raven.”

“She saw the raven?” Coletti asked, sounding surprised.

“Yes, and it was just like when you saw it,” Lynch said. “The body showed up and the bird wasn’t far behind. That’s why Kirsten’s convinced that the raven is somehow tied to this whole thing.”

“Do you think she’s right?” Coletti asked.

“I know she is,” Lynch said, pausing slightly. “Because I saw the raven, too.”

There was silence as the commissioner’s admission sunk in.

“Of course, knowing the raven is linked to these murders and acting on that knowledge are two different things,” Lynch continued. “But if we’re going to act on it, we need to know it’s more than just a hunch.”

“It’s definitely more than that,” Mann said. “You don’t get this many connections by accident, especially when you think back to the poem.”

“What poem?” Lynch said.

“‘The Raven,’” Coletti explained. “It’s a poem by Edgar Allan Poe that Clarissa believed was tied to a message at Fairgrounds; a message that only Lenore Wilkinson could find. The killer apparently believed the same thing, because he left a note saying he’d be back for Lenore.”

The captain, who’d sat quietly at his desk listening, began to type on his computer as the commissioner tried to wrap his mind around the connections.

“So if the killer’s doing this based on some legend in a poem, where does an actual raven fit into the equation?” Lynch asked.

The room fell silent as they all searched their minds for answers. Then the captain looked at his computer monitor and read the first few facts he’d found while researching ravens online.

“Death,” the captain said as he scrolled through the information. “That’s what ravens represent, so if the killer’s trying to tell us there’s more death to come, the raven is the perfect messenger. But he’d have to be a patient man to deal with one, because ravens are smart, cautious, and they don’t take kindly to people. According to this, it’s almost impossible to completely control ravens, so it probably would’ve taken months, if not years, for him to train one. That tells me he’s taken plenty of time to plan this whole thing.”

“But if he’s operating according to a plan he must’ve done more than just train a raven,” Sandy said.

“That’s true,” Mann said, “and I think this whole ‘Gravedigger’ persona is part of his preparation. For all we know he’s already dug dozens of other graves back there in those woods.”

“I doubt it,” said the commissioner. “We searched every inch of Sedgley Woods this morning. We didn’t find anything else like that. Besides, why would he dig dozens of graves in advance?”

“Maybe he’s planning to kill dozens of people,” Mann said.

“Could be,” said Lynch. “But the note he left about Lenore means he’s after a specific person.”

“I think all your points are valid,” the captain said. “But we still need to answer a very basic question: Where did he go?”

They were all silent. None of them had the answer. It was the commissioner who spoke first.

“We might not know the where, but we know the why. He killed because of Lenore, which means we need to figure out what’s so special about her.”

“We already know what Lenore claims is special about her,” Coletti said. “She says she knows things other people don’t.”

“What do you mean?” the commissioner asked.

Coletti was hesitant to tell him. But he’d brought it up, and now he had to at least attempt to explain. “She thinks she has a … sixth sense,” he said haltingly. “She believes she can see the truth about people. Don’t ask if I believe it yet because I’m not sure.”

The captain looked skeptical. Commissioner Lynch looked intrigued. Coletti felt like this was his only chance to convince them, so he went on. “Lenore believes she’s what they call a seer—someone who has dreams or visions or just the natural ability to know things instantly. Now, I’m not sure that we can deal with that in a conventional sense. That’s why I was going to request that you permanently reassign Lieutenant Jackson to this case. Based on what she was able to do in the Angel of Death murders, I think she could be helpful here.”

Sandy turned around and looked at Coletti. “You’ve lost your mind, haven’t you?”

“No,” Mann said as he thought about the idea. “No, I think he’s right. You’re a lot like Lenore Wilkinson claims to be. You see things in ways other people can’t.”

Lynch and the captain saw the look that passed between Mann and Sandy. Coletti did, too. He smiled to himself, but he knew that a single glance couldn’t heal whatever was wrong between them. Lynch knew it, too.

“If you want me to start reassigning people, I need facts.”

“You want facts?” Coletti said, taking out the pictures he’d gotten from the ME’s office and handing each of them a copy. “Here’s fact one.”

They all looked at the pictures as Coletti spoke. “The coroner found this when he examined Clarissa’s body. It’s a cryptogram—a kind of code that Poe used in some of his writings. She had it tattooed on the back of her neck.”

They looked at the strange arrangement of numbers and letters that read: H20Z18G 1G 20S5 V22V18T18V5M 2I5V.

“Did anybody bother to try to find out what it means?”

“I called a buddy of mine in the State Police,” Coletti said. “He ran it through a program that decodes cryptograms and it came up with gibberish. But we’re still working on it.”

“Okay,” Lynch said. “What other facts do you have?”

“Clarissa Bailey placed several calls to Lenore’s father in the days leading up to her death.”

“And?”

“I don’t know yet. I haven’t been able to get in touch with him. But whatever Clarissa was dealing with in recent days obviously scared her, because she went out and got a gun. In fact, she’s the one who fired the gunshot in the cemetery this morning.”

Lynch looked at the captain. Then he looked at Coletti and the others as he sat on the edge of the desk and folded his arms. “Lieutenant Jackson, I’m gonna call your captain and tell him you’re being reassigned, effective immediately. You’ll work with Coletti and Mann until we close this case. Coletti, I’m assuming that laptop I saw when I came in belonged to Mrs. Bailey. Am I right?”

“Yes, Commissioner. Her husband turned over two laptops and a phone.”

“Okay, get all that stuff to IT. They should be able to dump the hard drives and give you whatever’s there pretty quickly. Mann, you’ll be responsible for following up with IT.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Coletti, you got any interviews lined up?” Lynch asked.

“I’m going to Penn to talk to the man who got Clarissa to believe in this whole thing about Poe.”

“Penn?” Mann said. “I might know the guy.”

“I almost forgot you went there,” Coletti said. “His name is Workman. You know him?”

“I think he taught in the English department,” Mann said. “Kind of intense. Elbow patches. I never had him, but everybody thought he was way too serious about literature.”

“That’s good to know,” Coletti said. “Speaking of literature, I wanted to see if you and Sandy could take Lenore over to the house on Seventh Street where Poe used to live. If Lenore’s really some kind of seer she should be able to sense something there that could be useful.”

“No problem,” Mann said. “We’ll pick her up from the Loews. I’ve got a detail there with her until we can transport her to a safe house.”

“And when will the safe house be ready?” Lynch asked.

“Should be within the hour, Commissioner.”

“It better be. I want her under lock and key right after you leave the Poe house. Once that’s done, I want the three of you to interview everyone who was sent that e-mail from Clarissa Bailey. I don’t care how you do it, just get it done.

“Coletti, before the day is out, I need you to go to Dunmore and find out who Clarissa Bailey spoke to there. What did she learn? When did she learn it? That type of thing.