by Willow Rose
I was up most of the night reading the book Jean had given me, taking notes along the way. There was so much of what these patients said that was similar to what I had experienced with Josie. Mostly the small quirky changes in personality. Yet, I was still skeptical and not completely ready to cry bloody murder. Josie could, after all, somehow have heard about the child and mother being pulled out of the water at the port before she had her heart failure…before she got the heart from Emilia. It happened three weeks before the heart transplant, and she could have seen it on TV or read about it online. Maybe she had even forgotten that she had heard about it.
I did some research online and read up on the details that had been told in the newspapers and on TV from when the car was found in the water. No one had witnessed it drive into the water, but someone at the port, working on a container ship close by, had heard the splash and seen the roof as it went down. He had called nine-one-one, and they had sent in divers to pull Emilia and her mother out. But no one had seen it go in.
At least no one that had come forward.
I dozed off at around three a.m., reminding myself to get some work done on my Four Seasons case the next day. Fowler had called earlier and left a message, asking me how things were progressing. I hadn’t called him back because I didn’t have any news to tell. The case hadn’t been on my mind much lately, but I knew I had to get back to it soon, or Fowler would get in one of his moods and start talking about taking me off it. I needed to prove my worth to him, and that I was still one of the team. It wouldn’t be long before Josie would be back in school, and then I’d be able to get back to work properly. Camille wasn’t as dependent on me anymore, and she could easily spend the hours alone while I went to work. My dad said he’d be able to take her to therapy every day once she started.
I was dreaming of seagulls for some reason, seagulls hovering about my head, trying to grab food from my hand when I heard the scream. I opened my eyes with a gasp, then jumped out of bed and ran to Josie’s room.
Inside, I found Josie sitting up in bed, lights on. She had pulled the covers up over her head, and she was shaking badly.
“Josie? What’s going on? Did you have another nightmare?”
I sat on the edge of the bed. She didn’t answer, just kept trembling. I pulled her covers off, then pulled her into a hug. I held her in my arms, caressing her hair.
“My heart, Dad, it’s racing so fast.”
“Shhh, it’s gonna be okay, sweetie. It was just a dream.”
Josie shook her head. “N-no, Dad. This wasn’t just a dream. You don’t get it. This was…so real.”
“Was it the one where you’re inside the car again?” I asked. “The one from the drawings where the car ends up in the water?”
She shook her head. “No. This one was different. Completely different.”
I nodded. “Okay, and what was it about then?”
She looked up at me, her eyes wide and scared. “A…It was a body, Dad. A body lying on the ground. There was a shot, a loud bang…actually, three of them, and then…there was this guy on the ground with blood around him.”
“Okay? And then what?”
“That’s it. I…I think I know where it happened. I think I know where the body is buried. There was a hole in the ground. Someone had dug a hole.”
“Excuse me?”
She looked down like she was certain I wouldn’t believe her. “I think it’s real, Dad. I have this feeling…”
I didn’t know what to tell her. Did I say that she was nuts? That her mind was playing tricks on her? Or did I indulge her? What if what she was seeing was, in fact, real like the people in the book? Many of them had seen actual events in their donor’s lives, things that turned out to have actually happened.
Was this what it was?
There was only one way to find out.
“Get dressed,” I said and threw a shirt at her.
“Why?”
“We’re going for a little drive.”
Chapter 24
Josie’s hands were clenched tightly around the coffee cup from Starbucks. We had stopped at a drive-through for a couple of necessary lattes and chocolate croissants to help keep us awake. Bugs were dancing in the beam from our headlights of the Chevrolet given to me by the city. I could tell Josie was uncomfortable doing this, but I still thought it was the best thing to do.
We had to know.
“Take a right over there,” she said and pointed.
She had told me she didn’t know the address of the place from her dream, but she knew exactly where it was.
I drove up in front of the City of Miami Cemetery, and she asked me to stop the car. I looked at the sign above the entrance in front of me.
“Here?”
She nodded. “Yes. I remember that sign from my dream. Come.”
I got out of the car and followed my daughter as she walked up to the pavement and continued toward the entrance to the cemetery. She stopped by the bars and the closed gate.
“It’s locked,” she said.
“Of course, it’s locked. Cemeteries are locked at night,” I said. “Says here, it closes at ten.”
She turned to look at me. Her eyes were gleaming in the light from the streetlamp above. A mosquito bit me on the neck, and I slapped it.
“In my dream, the gate was open when the man was killed. He was shot in the head and fell to the ground, limp as one of those rag dolls. We need to get in there.”
I pulled the large gate. “But we can’t, Josie. We’ll have to come back later.”
She shook her head. “No, Dad. I remember it now. I have it fresh in my memory exactly where the hole had been dug in the ground and where the man was shot. We have to do it now. We’ll climb the fence. It’s not that hard, see?”
She grabbed the bars and started to climb, pulling herself upward.
“Josie,” I said. “This is too hard for you. You have to be careful with your heart; you know this. No strenuous activity.”
“I’m fine, Dad, look,” she said as she reached the top of the fence, then jumped down on the other side. I watched her hit the ground, my heart nearly stopping at the sight of her flying through the air and landing in the grass on the other side.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She rolled to the side. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“And your heart? Is it okay?”
“It’s fine, Dad. Geez.”
“Okay, I’m coming in after you.”
I grabbed the bars and started climbing. I jumped down on the grass, then helped Josie get to her feet again.
“I’m fine, Dad, really. I feel fine. You’re doing that worrying thing again.”
“Okay, just let me know if you feel faint or lightheaded or anything out of the ordinary, okay? Shortness of breath? This is important.”
I looked around us and into the dark cemetery. A sea of old tombstones was surrounding us.
“Okay, and where do we go next?”
She pointed.
“Right over here, come.”
Chapter 25
“Here,” she said and showed me the place, lighting it up with the flashlight on her phone. The beam slid over a tombstone.
“Timothy Wilson. Beloved father and husband?” I said, reading from it. “This looks like a normal burial place, Josie.”
“I know,” she said. “But I remember this stone from my dream. I was watching…she turned around and let the light shine on a stone behind us. “From over there, covered by that tombstone, hiding behind it. I remember my hands were shaking. I also remember hearing my ragged breath. I remember being scared,” she said and pointed with the light at the ground where I was standing. “Someone was standing here, and another man was with him. Then the first man pulled out a gun and shot him in the head. Three times. POP-POP-POP. I saw him fall to the ground, dead in a pool of blood. Next to where you’re standing, there was a big hole.”
“But this guy, Timothy Wilson was eighty-eight,” I said. “He died in two thousan
d and one.”
“Look at the ground,” she said and lit up the burial ground.
I knelt by it. I had to admit; the grass seemed very new on the grave. Much fresher than on the graves surrounding it, even though some of them were newer. There was also more dirt on it than the others. The grass was only partially covering the area.
It looked like it had been dug up not too long ago.
Josie knelt next to it, then dug her fingers into the dirt.
“What are you doing, Josie?” I asked.
She kept digging dirt up and moving it to the side.
“Help me,” she said.
I looked around us, feeling sweat prickle on my face. If I were caught here, it wouldn’t look good.
“This is vandalism, Josie,” I said. “Timothy Wilson’s family has paid for this place, for their beloved father and husband to rest in peace. You can’t just dig up a random grave.”
“Well, I don’t care,” she said. “I know what I saw is true, and I need to prove it to you. And to myself. Help me or not; I need to see what is down here under this dirt.”
I stared at her, contemplating whether I should yell at her and drag her home like a good father would at this point.
But something held me back…the part of me that wanted to know too.
“Josie, you have to stop. Stop it now,” I said. “You’re gonna get us both arrested, and I could lose my job.”
“Then help me so it’ll be done faster,” she said, panting agitatedly as she removed a huge chunk of dirt. I didn’t like her working herself this hard. She had to be careful and preferably be in bed, not out digging holes in some cemetery at night. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all.
“Josie,” I said, exhaling, then knelt next to her and dug my fingers into the soft dirt as well.
Twenty minutes later, we had dug a small hole and were sweating like crazy.
“We’re not getting anywhere without a shovel,” I said, wiping my forehead with the back of my hand. “Maybe we should just call it quits.”
“No,” Josie said and continued. She dug in deep and pulled out a lot of dirt. Then, she stopped moving.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I think I touched something,” she said. She reached down and pulled away more dirt when something came to light. Josie’s face lit up, then her eyes turned terrified.
“I told you.”
She kept digging till the arm was completely free from the dirt, and soon I helped her dig a body out till the torso and waist were visible, and we could pull it the rest of the way out of the ground.
I let the light shine on the face, or what was left of it. Maggots were crawling in the empty eye sockets, and the body had started to liquefy like they tended to if they’d been in the ground in a wet environment for more than a month. Still, I could easily tell who it was, and as I realized it, my heart dropped.
Chapter 26
It was the ring on his finger that gave him away: a golden ring with a blood-red stone on the finger of his right hand, or the little that was left of it. I stared at the ring as the crime scene techs removed it from the bones and secured it for evidence, my heart sinking.
I had looked at that very ring so many times in my life when I had been in this man’s office. The mere thought brought tears to my eyes.
“Hunter!”
I turned and spotted Fowler as he came up toward me. The crime scene techs had put up lamps to light up the area, and I could see his face clearly. He held an evidence bag up with something inside it.
“They found his wallet,” he said. “It was in the jacket he was wearing when buried. It’s him, no doubt.”
I was the one who had called Fowler to tell him of our find. I thought he deserved to be the first to know. After all, he had known our former Major Wolfe better than any of us. Fowler had been Wolfe’s protégé, and his only natural successor once he retired eight years ago. Those two were like family. Heck, we all were. But those two had been closer than any.
“I am sorry,” I said. “I am so sorry.”
Fowler paused. He, too, was fighting to keep it together. He bit his lip excessively while looking at the body.
“Yeah, well…” He stopped and gazed up at me. “You know how it is.”
I nodded. “I didn’t even know he was missing. Had you heard anything?”
Fowler rubbed his stubble. “Yvette called me about two weeks ago. She told me they had split up a few months earlier and that she hadn’t heard from him in a while. He didn’t pick up when she called, and she needed some stuff from the house. I figured he was angry at her and told her to keep it cool for a little while. I knew the divorce would have been hard on him; you know how much he worshipped Yvette.”
I nodded. I did. She had been his everything. Yvette was French, and he had met her in Paris when they were both in their twenties. They had moved to Miami due to his career. But Yvette didn’t like Florida. She didn’t enjoy the lack of culture and history, as she put it, and she never grew fond of us Americans. Those two fought like cats and dogs, yet I always thought they loved each other deeply. It seemed like it. But apparently, it hadn’t been enough after all.
“Anyway…” Fowler said. “I never followed up on it. I tried to call him once but then forgot about it. It never occurred to me that something might have happened to him. And especially not…this.”
I nodded.
“So, what’s your take on it?” he asked, nodding toward the remains of our former boss.
I swallowed and took a deep breath. “Burying his body on top of another grave is a clever way to make sure no one notices. Few people actually stop to look at the grave, especially when the guy is old and has been dead for a long time. Most people won’t notice the new grass or that the dirt has been dug up. That’s why the killer believed it was okay to leave the ring and wallet there…because he assumed Wolfe would never be found in a place like this. Three very distinct holes in the skull tell me he was shot three times in the head. I’d say it was an act done in sudden anger.”
Fowler looked at the body and the crime scene techs who were taking photos and video of the scene. He then nodded.
“And you still stick to the story that it was Josie who led you out here?” he asked. “That she dreamt this because of her new heart?”
I nodded. “I know it’s hard to believe, but as I told you, according to the book I read about this, it’s been known to happen before. Earlier cases are very similar to what she’s experiencing.”
“I still don’t quite buy it,” he said. “But you did find the body.”
“I’d also like to look into the death of Emilia and Jennifer García,” I said, knowing I was overstepping here. But I had to give it a go. “Josie says she believes they were murdered.”
Fowler chuckled and shook his head. “I think you have enough on your plate as it is. I can’t have you chasing ghosts. I’m not reopening the case because your daughter had some weird dream about the girl who gave her a new heart. Come on, Hunter. How would I ever explain it to my superior? Everyone would think I had gone nuts. The case is closed, and you should let it go too. I know you cared for Wolfe, but you’re too involved in all this. I’ll have Ferdinand take this one.”
I bit my lip, repressing my desire to get angry with him.
“Let it go,” Fowler said and placed a hand on my upper arm. “For your own sake and Josie’s.”
The way he said it, it almost sounded like a threat, and it threw me off. Fowler was gone before I could confront him about it.
Chapter 27
I know I was supposed to be doing something else. I was supposed to be working on a different case. Yet, there I was, defying all orders from my boss by being at the police impound, showing my badge to the guy at the window along with an evidence number I had taken from the García case file.
“Yeah, I know that one,” the guy behind the glass said and got up from his chair. “It’s right over here. Follow me.”
&n
bsp; I did, and we walked through a carpark of impounded cars. Cars that had been parked in wrong places, cars that had been held back for evidence, and cars rusting away because no one knew what else to do with them.
He stopped by a rusty old green Ford Escort station wagon that looked like it had been young in the late nineties. The type you just didn’t see on the roads anymore. Rust was eating it up, and it hadn’t helped that it had been submerged underwater before being pulled out with two people inside of it.
Two people my colleagues assumed had killed themselves. Two people I had a feeling had been murdered.
“There she is,” the guy said. “Not much left of her, though.”
“It’s all I need,” I said. “Thank you.”
The guy gave a sniffle, then left me.
I stared at the old rusty car, while a million questions welled up in my mind. There was so much I needed answers for that I hadn’t gotten from reading through the case file. There was especially one thing I believed they hadn’t examined. Was the front door locked? No matter how much I had read through the files, it didn’t say anywhere. When they pulled it out of the water, did they have to break a window to get the bodies out? It didn’t say that either.
I reached over and grabbed the front door, then pulled it open. It sure wasn’t locked now. And no windows had been broken. Had the divers been able simply to open the front door and pull them both out?
And what about the keys? Had they been in the ignition? It didn’t say in the report, but they weren’t there now. I grabbed the case file in my hand and flipped through the pages, looking for my answer. And there it was, right in front of me in black and white in the forensics report.
The keys were found inside the mother’s jacket.
“How do you drive an old car like this one with the key in your pocket?” I mumbled and looked inside. I knelt by the driver’s seat and looked under the steering wheel. Two small wires were sticking out, and as an old Miami cop, I knew exactly what that meant.