The Gravedigger's Ball (7 page)

“Thanks,” he said before hanging up, a troubled expression on his face.

Both Mann and Lenore looked at Coletti, waiting for him to explain.

“We’ll have someone take you over to your hotel,” Coletti told Lenore. “And we’ll assign you a security detail until we can make some other arrangements for you.”

Lenore looked from Mann to Coletti with fire in her eyes. “I can take care of myself,” she said defiantly. “I don’t need protection.”

“I’m afraid you’re wrong,” said Coletti. “That was the crime scene unit on the phone. They found a handwritten note stuffed in Mrs. Bailey’s mouth along with the mud that killed her.”

“What did it say?” Mann asked.

Coletti looked at them both before reading the five words from his notepad. “It said, ‘I’ll be back for Lenore.’”

CHAPTER 4

By noon, the rain had stopped, and the raven was perched high in a tree that loomed nearly six stories over Sedgley Woods. Most of the tree’s dead branches had fallen off long ago, but the trunk remained. It was split in two, like a divining rod stretching toward the sky.

But unlike the rods men used to detect trinkets in the ground, the tree was used by the raven to detect power in the air. Most men didn’t believe in such power. Oh, they said they believed, even wrote of it in their most holy scriptures, but only something that lived in the air could see it.

The raven was such a creature. He spent his life in the air, stretching his wings and gliding on gusts that carried with them all the good and evil in the world. He lived in the air, where words of love and hate escaped the lips of men and floated skyward, coming apart and releasing themselves into the universe.

There was power in words. The raven knew that intuitively, but men did not. That was why the raven’s master needed him. The bird could go beyond finding the power in words. He could unleash that power.

Perched on the tree, standing two feet tall, his eyes filled with intelligence and his neck feathers fluttering in the breeze, the raven himself looked powerful. His wings, which spanned four feet across when he was in flight, were pressed tight against his body. His claws, sharp and strong, sunk deep into the tree’s damp wood. His sturdy bill looked more like a weapon than a mouth. In fact, his entire body was a weapon. It was set off by a word that held more power than most. “Lenore.”

That word was the reason for the raven’s existence. It was the task for which he’d been trained. It was the thing that had driven him back to Fairgrounds Cemetery time and time again. That word was nothing less than his destiny.

For a year, the raven had been trained to recognize that word and the woman to whom it was assigned. He was taught to identify her face, her walk, her scent, and her voice. He was starved each time he failed and rewarded with treats of bloody lamb hearts each time he triumphed. The meat fed the raven’s need for flesh, and the bird’s resultant obedience fed the master’s lust for power.

The two of them now depended upon each other. The man, for his part, was the raven’s provider, and the raven was the man’s enforcer and protector. He was an extension of the man himself.

The raven watched from the top of the tree as the scene in Sedgley Woods took shape. He saw Kirsten Douglas, still shaken, being led from the woods by police. He saw the media contingent, their ranks swollen by bloggers, YouTubers, and curious passersby. There were flashing lights and angry voices, aggressive cops and determined reporters, all scrambling forward for a glance, a video clip, or a snapshot of Officer Frank Smith’s body being carried to a waiting police van.

The raven could see the confusion taking shape below as one cameraman, then two, broke through the barricades to get shots of the spectacle. Police pushed back and a brief melee ensued, but even after it was quelled, there was an undercurrent of unrest among the media and a feeling of anger and grief among the police.

Cops darted in and out of the streets surrounding the park, searching for the man who’d wreaked havoc that morning. The cars moved in fits and starts, and the men and women who drove them did so with their heads on swivels. There was something inherently aggressive in their posture. The raven saw all of it, but he didn’t see the woman he’d come to find. His master, who watched from afar, couldn’t locate her, either, but what he saw through his live satellite feed was enough to pique his interest.

As he sat in a dank chamber with rats squealing and scurrying on the dirt walls and floors, the man closed his coal-black eyes and allowed his laptop’s azure light to wash over his face. When he opened his eyes and the secure connection revealed what the satellite filmed from overhead, the man smiled at the sight of police scrambling around the park. He wondered what they’d do if they knew he was watching.

The man sat back, his black coat draped over his rickety wooden chair. Like his hands, shirt, and tie, the coat was encrusted with the soil he’d used to choke his victims to death. His mind, however, was clear. He knew his purpose, he knew his goal, and he didn’t care how many people he had to kill to achieve it.

If it meant spending the night with filth and vermin, he was willing to endure it a thousand times. The treasure that lay beneath Fairgrounds Cemetery was more valuable than anything the world had to offer, and he was going to find it, no matter what it took.

There was a buzzing sound in the pocket of his greatcoat. The killer reached in, extracted a phone, and looked at the screen. There was a simple text message that read, “Proceed to phase 2.” The killer read it with a measure of resentment. He didn’t plan on taking orders from anyone, no matter how much money they offered to pay.

He pocketed the phone and opened another window on his laptop so he could switch from the overhead view of the park to a live feed from CNN. He watched closely as the police commissioner and a group of commanders approached a bank of microphones near the media contingent. The reporters pressed closer and hoisted their cameras high in the air. The raven left his perch and landed twenty yards from the microphones. The killer sat in his dank hiding place, hoping to see or hear something in the anger and angst of the moment that would tell him when and where to resurface.

As everyone pressed forward to listen, Lynch took a deep breath and began to speak.

“Today, a woman was killed at Fairgrounds Cemetery,” Lynch said, pausing as the boisterous crowd grew silent. “Though her identity has already been revealed by several media outlets, we won’t be sharing her name publicly until we can notify her next of kin.”

Looking around at the assembled media, the commissioner tried to be businesslike, but it was clear that he was agitated. “Here’s what we know so far. Shortly after 9:00
A.M.
, one of our detectives was already on the scene when a gunshot was fired at the Fairgrounds Cemetery.”

“Who was the detective and what was he doing there, Commissioner?” asked a radio reporter.

“We can’t comment on either of those questions right now, as the answers might compromise the investigation. But we can say that shortly after the detective heard the gunshot, he spotted a man in the area where the victim’s body was found. The detective gave chase, and when the suspect eluded him, the detective put out a description. We believe the man he described, a white male with black hair and a mustache who was dressed in black and white clothing, may have been involved in the victim’s death.”

“So is this male you described the same man who’s been identified informally as the Gravedigger?” the reporter pressed. “And are you treating the death in the graveyard as a homicide?”

Lynch glared at him for a long moment. “We won’t be commenting on the name, and we’ll have no comment on the manner of death until we see the coroner’s report, but I will say this.” Lynch locked eyes with several reporters before continuing in an angrier tone. “After that description was broadcast, Officer Frank Smith responded, and he did so with the same sense of urgency that he would if someone had found one of you dead in that cemetery. Whatever folks in the media had to say about Frank Smith in the past, I know one thing beyond a shadow of a doubt. He went into those woods because he had enough respect for his badge to do his job. And just like all the other officers who’ve been killed in the last year fighting crime in this city, Frank Smith did that job well.”

Lynch paused, his jaw working furiously as he ground his teeth in an effort to calm himself.

“I’ve already seen a picture of his body online, and I haven’t even had the chance to meet with his family,” Lynch said with a stony stare. “That’s wrong. It’s disrespectful, and I think some of you agree with me, so if you’re covering this story, do all of us a favor. Give Officer Smith the same respect he gave to that victim and this job, because the bottom line is, he lost his life in an effort to protect yours and mine.”

There was a slight pause. Then a reporter from the
Inquirer
spoke up. “Does that mean you’re placing some kind of gag order on the media, Commissioner Lynch?”

“It means there won’t be any more pictures of this officer’s body posted on the Internet for his wife and children to see,” Lynch said with smoldering eyes. “Not one more.”

The reporters looked around at each other, unsure if they’d just heard a request or an order. Lynch didn’t care what they thought. He had one more message to deliver, and the media were going to deliver it for him, whether they liked it or not.

“And to the person who fled the scene this morning, you know who you are, you know what you’ve done, but you need to know this: we don’t let our officers die in vain in Philadelphia, and we don’t take our justice lightly.”

“So you’re promising retribution?” yelled a reporter from CNN.

Lynch turned his withering stare on him, and both the reporter and the rest of the crowd grew quiet. “I’m promising that wherever this man is, we’ll find him. No matter how far he runs, we’ll get him. No matter how good he thinks he is, we’re better. So if he’s out there listening, he should know that he better not stop, he better not sleep, he better not blink, because if he does, we’ll be there waiting. I promise you that.”

Lynch walked away from the microphones to the sound of shouted questions, and when the raven flew away, the man Lynch was looking for snapped shut his laptop and took a sharp knife to his mustache. After he’d shaved it, he changed the clothes he’d worn for the killings, and smiled at the name they’d given him.

The Gravedigger. He liked the sound of that name. It fit what he was about to do.

*   *   *

Ellison Bailey awakened to the sound of the brass knocker pounding the oak door of the Society Hill brownstone he shared with his wife. The sound always startled Ellison, especially when he was sleeping, and this afternoon, he was sleeping more soundly than usual.

For what seemed like days, he’d repeatedly heard the knocker along with the sound of ringing bells in his dreams. His mind had incorporated the sounds into a story of bombs and air-raid sirens. This was the first time since he lay down that morning that he realized the knocking was real.

Slowly, he opened his eyes and looked toward the ten-foot ceiling, blinking as a shaft of sunlight knifed between the drapes in his study. He raised his hand to block the light and squinted at the leather-bound volumes of Frost, Thoreau, Dickens, and Poe that lined the bookcases on the other side of the room.

Peeling himself off the couch, Clarissa Bailey’s husband smacked his lips and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Then he sat there with his head in his hands, trying to wake up.

The knocking came again, more insistently this time, and Ellison cursed under his breath before crossing the room and turning on his laptop to make it look as if he’d been working on his never-ending novel.

“I’m coming!” he yelled as he walked down the winding staircase and through the cavernous rooms and hallways that led to the front door of the four-story, thirty-room home.

The knocking became more persistent. It was annoying, just like Clarissa. The sound reminded him of why he wanted to be rid of her. By the time he arrived at the door, he was downright angry, and it showed when he snatched open the door and yelled in his clipped British accent, “What is it!”

He was greeted by an outstretched hand holding a badge. “Detective Coletti, Philadelphia Police. Are you Ellison Bailey?”

Ellison nodded, looking at the detective and the officer who stood at the bottom of the steps, near a parked police car with another cop in the driver’s seat.

“We’ve been trying to reach you all morning, Mr. Bailey. It’s about your wife.”

“What about her? Is she all right?”

Coletti paused to look at Ellison Bailey, whose sprayed-on tan and dyed brown hair starkly contrasted the two-day growth of gray stubble that lined his wrinkled face. Dressed in driving loafers, jeans, and a slept-in designer shirt, Ellison appeared to be fighting a losing battle against age.

As they stood there looking at each other, several of the Baileys’ neighbors peeked out their windows and doors.

“Maybe I should come in, Mr. Bailey,” Coletti said, nodding toward the patrol officer. “It might be a little more private.”

“Oh, of course,” Ellison said, standing aside. “We can talk in the den.”

Coletti told the officers to stay outside. Then Ellison led Coletti through a labyrinth of halls and rooms that were lined with prominently displayed sculpture and paintings. They passed through the living room, with luxurious furnishings and Fabergé eggs strategically placed beneath banks of recessed lighting. They passed through the drawing room, with rich oils by impressionist masters encased in ornate frames. The dining room was equipped with a marble table whose velvet and silk runner was a deep royal purple. The den was appointed with plush wingback chairs, earth-toned African carvings, a giant flat-screen television, and most importantly to Ellison, a bar.

“Please sit down,” Ellison said as he mixed himself a martini and took a sip. “Can I get you anything?”

Coletti had neither the time nor the inclination to socialize, so he got to the point quickly. “Your wife’s dead, Mr. Bailey.”