The Buried (The Apostles)

by Shelley Coriell

  “Don’t tell him, but it’s killing me.”

  “Maybe after you get off work, you and I can get away from this really, really bad week and go out for a boat ride. I don’t have a fancy sailboat like Hatch, just a little skiff. Allegheny Blue loves to ride. He’ll come with us.”

  Alex scraped more oyster shells into a pile. “Can’t. Granny grounded me for the hair salon break-in.”

  “When you’re ungrounded, let me know. I’ll even let you drive.”

  Alex smoothed out the oyster shells. “That would be great. Now I gotta get back to work.”

  Once again Grace checked her watch. Where was Hatch? His teammate Berkley had finished the sketch, and she figured he was working to disseminate the drawing of the woman calling herself Ronnie Alderman to law enforcement and the media. But that shouldn’t take more than two hours. She checked her phone. Still no call from the nurses at Janis’s bedside. What now?

  Doers win and winners do, Gracie.

  Patience, Princess, patience.

  This time she listened to Hatch, not her daddy.

  * * *

  An angry buzz shook the air near Lou Poole’s bee boxes.

  Hatch slipped through the gate and along the wooden walkway to the house on stilts where Lou sat on the front porch in an ancient rocking chair.

  “She died,” Lou said, her gnarled hands curling around the carved knobs of the groaning chair.

  The media had been at the funeral in full force. Lia Grant’s death had rocked this community. “Yes, Miz Poole, I was at the funeral earlier this morning.”

  “Funeral?” Lou swatted a veiny hand at her face. “And people call me batty?”

  “Begging your pardon, ma’am?”

  The beekeeper tilted her head toward the bee boxes. “The queen, she died. Found her this morning on the ground. Bad time to die. Bad for the hive.” She rocked faster, the groan getting louder. “Bad time to die.”

  The beekeeper had lost an old friend, but also a business partner of sorts. A hive needed its queen. “I’m sorry.” He should say something more, but he didn’t have time. The funeral was long over, and he didn’t want Grace alone too long. “I was hoping we could talk some more.” He took the sketch from Berkley out of his pocket. “About the ghost who buried the girl.”

  “Dead. Like the queen, the ghost is dead.”

  “Yes, but I need to know if your dead ghost is the same ghost I’m looking for.” He unfolded the paper and held it in front of the old woman.

  “Unless they make a new queen, the hive will die.”

  “Miz Poole, do you recognize this woman?”

  At the rustling paper, she turned to him. “Dead. She’s dead.” Lou picked at a tiny scab on her arm. “The queen is dead. The ghost is dead. The hive…”

  He needed a way to get this woman out of her head. “The hive’s not dead yet, Miz Poole. The bees are working hard. They’re making a new queen. And while they are, please tell me.” He squatted in front of her, taking both of the rocking chair arms in his hands and stopping the frantic movement. “Is this the ghost you saw with the girl in the boat?”

  Lou Poole finally stared at the paper and nodded.

  “What’s her name, Miz Poole? Does the ghost have a name?”

  She ran her hand along the narrow face but said nothing.

  Bridge. He needed a bridge. “You knew this woman before she was a ghost, right?”

  Nod.

  “She had a name then. What was her name?”

  Lou turned from the sketch to the bees, her gaze beseeching, as if they had the answers.

  “Was she a friend? A relative? Did she have something to do with the bees?”

  Lou sprung from the chair, her eyes wide and wild. “She’s dead. The queen is dead!” With a sob, she hobbled into her house.

  Wave after wave of frustration swarmed through Hatch’s head as he drove to the cemetery. Inside Lou Poole’s head was the name of a killer. He knew he’d reach it, but she wasn’t giving up anything today, not with the death of the queen bee.

  When he reached the highway, he called Lieutenant Lang. “Poole confirmed the sketch of the woman posing as Ronnie Alderman on the cleaning crew is the woman she saw with Lia Grant’s body.”

  “Did she give you a name this time?”

  “Nope. And I tried.” Damn, did he try.

  “We can nail her for obstruction of justice.”

  “And where will that get us?”

  “A whole hell of a lot of nowhere,” the lieutenant said.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Time had stopped. Literally. Grace, still sitting on one of the chairs near Lia Grant’s grave, tapped her finger on the face of her watch, but the second hand didn’t budge.

  She checked the clock on her phone. Hatch had been gone almost three hours, and all that time she waited.

  I’ll be back.

  She’d heard those words before, more than a decade ago, on the night she’d been invited to an oyster roast at her boss’s house. It had been her first casual get-together with the SA staff, and she’d wanted to make a good impression. She’d asked Hatch to run out and pick up a bottle of wine. He’d planted a long, passionate kiss on her lips and grinned. “I’ll be back.” In town he’d run into an old college friend from Savannah, and the two had knocked back a half dozen beers together.

  He’d traipsed back to the boat past midnight, a smile on his face but no wine bottle in his hand.

  “It was an old friend,” Hatch explained.

  “And I was trying to impress a new boss.”

  Hatch simply hadn’t understood her anger and hurt. He hadn’t even bothered to call. He was too busy living in the moment.

  She checked her voicemail. No call from Hatch. Fine, she’d give him fifteen more minutes and if he didn’t show, she’d… She picked at a nub on her raw silk skirt. Hatch had driven, so she didn’t have keys or her car. Over the past few days, she’d relied more and more on Hatch. She slid her fingers along her pearls. But this was a different version of Hatch she was dealing with, the grown-up version.

  Ten minutes later, Hatch sauntered down the path, his tie and jacket gone, his face lined. “Got it,” he said, taking a paper from his pocket. “Berk dug deep and got us a face. I stopped off at the Poole place, and Lou confirmed this is the woman she saw with Lia Grant’s body.”

  Grace hopped from the chair and reached for the paper that could lead them to a killer. “Did Lou give you a name?”

  Hatch shook his head. “Today wasn’t a good day for her or the bees.” He told her about his failed bridge-building attempt. “But the lieutenant distributed the sketch to the law enforcement community and is holding a press conference to update the media. Someone somewhere knows this woman.”

  Grace studied the woman’s sharp features. Narrow face with a long, thin nose, strong chin, and angular cheekbones. Even the lips were sharp, two thin lines of barely-there pink. Amid so many razor-sharp planes and angles, the big, wide eyes with lush lashes and irises the color of dark melted chocolate looked oddly out of place.

  “Do you recognize her?” Hatch asked.

  This woman had hand-picked Grace to play this game, so it would make sense that they knew each other. She ran her finger along the thick, black eyebrows. Grace would have remembered seeing eyes like those, especially across from her at the defense table or on the witness stand. “No. I’m sure I never faced her in a courtroom, but there’s something familiar about her. I’m wondering…”

  Hatch stood quietly.

  “I’m wondering if maybe she’s related to one of the defendants I prosecuted. Maybe she sat in the courtroom or gallery and watched a trial day after day. There’s something about her.” Grace continued to study those sharp features.

  On the way to the SUV, Hatch drew up short. “Is that Alex?” The boy, still dressed in the tie and dress shirt, was stacking chairs.

  “Respect looks good on your son,” she said.

  Hatch studied the boy,
a strange half smile tugging at his lips. He picked up a chair and folded it.

  Grace grabbed his elbow. “What are you doing?”

  “Helping. It’ll take the two of us fifteen minutes to get the rest of these chairs put away.”

  Hatch claimed all that connected him to Alex Milanos were a few matching strands of DNA, but that was a crock. Hatch cared about this boy, which wasn’t a surprise. Hatch had a huge capacity to care. He cared about this boy’s health, his safety, and his future. She motioned to the chair in his hands. “I think it would be best if you let Alex take care of the chairs.”

  “His arm probably hurts like hell.”

  “It does, but his fragile ego will hurt more if anyone intervenes, especially you. This is his job, his responsibility.”

  She tried to take the chair from him, but he wouldn’t let go. Time for a story. “When I was young, probably five or six,” Grace said, “I got a new tennis racquet for Christmas. I was so excited, I hopped around the house swinging the racquet. Daddy warned me to settle down, but I didn’t. Not two minutes later, I swung so hard I knocked down the Christmas tree, a ten-footer crammed full of ornaments. I didn’t get hurt, but Daddy made sure I spent the next two hours picking up the mess I’d made. And you know what?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “I never swung my racquet in the house again.”

  Hatch set down the chair and looped an arm over her shoulder. “As usual, you’re right. You’re a freak of nature, Princess. You realize that, don’t you?”

  “With the week I’ve had, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “You should because it was.” He pecked her on the forehead, a kiss so light she should have barely felt it, but a tingly warmth rushed from her head to her toes.

  Side by side they walked away from the gravesite, passing Black Jack, who stood at the grave, a shovel on his shoulder, his face solemn. With the ceremony over, now it was time for the practical side of burial, for those who tended the dead to do their part.

  A part of Grace wanted to turn away, but another part of her, a part that longed for a world of decency and respect, stood rooted in the middle of the road as the caretaker bowed his head, his lips moving. This far away, Grace couldn’t tell if he sang or prayed. When he finished, he reached into his pocket and threw something small and shiny into the grave. Then he picked up his shovel and tucked dirt around Lia’s casket like a parent settling a blanket around a child.

  * * *

  Grace wanted to dig through her work files and see if she could find a name to go with the face Berkley Rowe had sketched. Unfortunately, Hatch had other ideas.

  “This will only take a few minutes.” Hatch dragged her through the parking lot of the sheriff’s station at a near-run.

  “The lieutenant isn’t here. She and most everyone else are either at the press conference or the cemetery.”

  “That’s what I’m counting on.” Hatch winked and pulled her into the reception area.

  “Why, Agent Hatcher!” The front desk clerk leaned forward, offering him a rounded display of cleavage.

  “Boy, did I need to see a bit of sunshine,” Hatch said. “Too much gloom today.” He rested his elbow on the counter and said something low enough for only the desk clerk to hear. She giggled. Reaching behind the woman’s ear, he pulled out a creamy camellia blossom that matched the ones on the bushes flanking the entrance door. Grace tapped her foot while the two chatted. She wasn’t jealous of the clerk. Hatch was and always would be a flirt. She just wanted to get moving, to do something.

  When Hatch finally extricated himself from the clerk, he walked with Grace down a hallway to a room marked Evidence.

  “What are we doing here?” Grace asked.

  “Looking for evidence.” He grabbed the knob. Locked.

  “The evidence tech must be at lunch,” Grace said.

  “That’s what the receptionist said.”

  “We can come back later.”

  Hatch dug into his pocket and pulled out a key. “Or not.”

  “How did you get…” She shook her head, not bothering to finish the question. Hatch would charm the keys off clerks until he was old and gray.

  He unlocked the door, flipped on the light, and walked through the rows of shelves, stopping in front of a large box with the case number 11672. Inside, she recognized the artifacts from the pair of skeletons found on her property.

  “What are you doing?” Grace asked.

  “I told you, looking for evidence.” Hatch grinned.

  “And when you get it?”

  “I’m going to steal it.”

  She pressed her lips together, not sure if she was biting back an admonition or a laugh. “You’re a sworn agent of the federal government, and I’m a prosecutor bound to uphold the U.S. constitution and laws of my state while maintaining respect due to the judicial system.” She rested her head against the shelving unit holding hundreds of evidence boxes. “And here I am helping you steal evidence. What’s crazy is I’m not at all concerned.” A manic giggle escaped her lips. “Do you hear that, Hatch? I don’t care, because while you may be unconventional and at times exasperating, you’re one of the good guys.”

  He unearthed the silver coin found with the remains of the mother and child. “That I am.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Now let’s get to the cemetery. We need to talk to Black Jack.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he knows something about the woman found on your property.” He held the silver coin to the light. “Black Jack tossed a silver coin like this in Lia Grant’s grave, and I’ll bet the bank he slipped this one into the grave on your property.”

  Her pulse stuttered. “You don’t think Black Jack has anything to do with all of this, do you?” Grace had known the cemetery caretaker most of her life. He’d helped bury her mother and her father, and she’d always found him a quiet, thoughtful giant of a man.

  Hatch tucked the coin in his pocket. “I have no idea, but he has some explaining to do.”

  Twenty minutes later, they found Black Jack at the caretaker’s cottage standing near a water spigot and hosing off a shovel. Hatch leaned against the SUV’s hood and flipped the silver coin in the air. Two silver coins. Two dead women. Grace wondered if it could all be connected.

  When Black Jack rested the shovel against the cottage, Hatch held up the coin, the mid-day sun glinting off the circle of silver. “Why the coins?”

  Black Jack rinsed his hands and arms and turned off the water. “It is of no import to the likes of you.”

  Hatch aimed the coin at the corner of the cemetery where Lia had recently been laid to rest. “The girl you buried this morning matters to me and so does another young woman who is barely hanging on to life and a third I’m desperately trying to keep from ending up here.” Hatch rolled the coin over and under his knuckles. “Today you threw a coin much like this one into Lia Grant’s grave. I’m guessing ten or twenty years ago you tossed this coin into another grave on the old Giroux property.”

  Black Jack took the coin and cradled it in his palm. “It is one of mine.”

  “So ten to twenty years ago you buried a woman and her infant child on Cypress Point.”

  The cemetery caretaker remained as still and cool as a marble headstone while Grace held her breath. Did he know about the woman and child? And more importantly, did they have anything to do with a game-playing killer?

  “We can talk here,” Hatch said. “Or you can join me for a chat at the sheriff’s station.”

  The muscles along the big man’s arms tensed into ropy cords of burnt bronze. Grace had never seen the cemetery caretaker strolling through town or sitting down to lunch at one of the oyster bars or shrimp shacks. She couldn’t see the giant man sitting in a folding chair behind a table in an interrogation room. He was at home here with the crypts and graves.

  “Or you can fling your fishing line over your shoulder and walk out of town on bare feet, never to be seen again.” Hatch held out his hand, palm-side up. “Whic
h would be unfortunate because you have much work to do here, work no one else can do.”

  Black Jack uncurled his fingers and gave Hatch the coin. “Come with me.”

  They followed Black Jack into the stand of oaks and ivy where the spongy ground sucked at her dress shoes. In the near distance water rushed, and they finally drew up to a gray-green, sluggish river.

  “Coins have long been used to pay the ferryman,” Black Jack started in his soft, rumbling voice. “A coin gets some across the River Styx into Hades and others through the gates of heaven.” He reached into his pocket and took out another coin. “And sometimes souls need coins to pay the porter.”

  The river swished and churned as Black Jack fell silent. Hatch’s jaw grew hard and tense, and Grace could tell he was fighting for patience. Like her, he wanted to know the story behind the bones and if they were by some crazy stretch connected with a deadly game.

  “Some souls have so much baggage here on earth,” Black Jack went on, “that they need to pay someone to take it from them. Only then will their loads be light enough to move on. The young miss we buried today, her final load was heavy. I figured she may need to pay a porter.”

  Lia Grant had been buried alive and greatly suffered. If that didn’t account for baggage, Grace didn’t know what did. The sliver of fear itching at Grace’s back slipped away. Black Jack was no killer. “You and the coins help lighten the load,” she said.

  “We try.”

  Black Jack had a broad, strong back, and Grace wondered at the burdens he carried, both for himself and others. “And the woman and child found on my land, the old Giroux place, you buried them, didn’t you?”

  Black Jack plucked a lily from a bush huddled on the riverbank, his leathery hands spinning the fragile bloom.

  Hatch walked to the edge of the river. “Most people think the law is black and white. You break the law, you pay the price. The truth is, life isn’t always black and white.” Hatch motioned to the silty river. “There are so many shades of gray, so many stops between right and wrong, between good and bad.”