The Buried (The Apostles)

by Shelley Coriell

  Black Jack stopped twirling the flower. “Her burdens were many.”

  “Who was she?” Grace asked.

  “Her name I do not know. Her face I’d never seen. I knew nothing of her life, but I’d held her after her death. She took her own life. Shot herself in the head.”

  “Yes, that’s what the forensic scientist’s report indicates.”

  “Science?” Black Jack scoffed. “Save your science for the living. There is little place in death for science.”

  “Was there anything about her that reminded you of the girl we buried this morning?” Hatch asked. “Any damage to her hands, as if she’d been trapped and was trying to escape?”

  Black Jack shook his head.

  “How about a phone? Did she have a cell phone?”

  Another somber shake.

  Hatch was reaching for connections. They all were, because they had so little to go on. “How did the body find its way to you?” Grace asked.

  Black Jack tossed the bloom in the slow-moving water, the lily long out of sight before he spoke again. “A dark angel brought her.”

  “Dark angel?”

  “A dark-haired angel with skin so white it glowed. She floated down the river in a boat with the bodies draped in a white sheet.”

  “What kind of boat?” Hatch asked.

  “I do not remember,” Black Jack said. “I was more concerned with tending to the bodies.”

  “And the infant?” Hatch asked. “Was there anything unusual or telling about the infant?”

  “The babe, it had died years before the woman, and it had been disturbed.” The veins on his neck thickened in anger Grace could feel.

  “In other words, someone dug it from its initial grave,” Hatch said, his words rough. “Did you recognize the angel, the person who brought you the bodies?”

  “No. Nor did I know her name or how she came across the woman’s body or that of the babe. She left the bodies with me and asked that I give them a proper burial on the highest point in Cypress Bend. That is all I know, and now I am done talking.” Black Jack turned from the water and slipped into the woods.

  The SUV bounced along the rutted road as Hatch drove away from the cemetery, but the low rumble of Black Jack’s words still echoed through her head. The highest point in Cypress Bend. She’d heard that phrase often from her father and watched his eyes light with fire as he talked about a house on the hill he’d sketched on the back of a napkin before she was born. At times the fire was so intense, it frightened her. When she was six or seven, she’d finally asked him why the land was so important.

  Her father had squatted before her and took her hands, holding so tightly her bones bit into her skin. “Unlike your momma, Gracie, I came from the dirt, from the lowest of the low where people around me told me I’d never amount to nothing, that my feet would always be stuck in the swamp. I’m not ashamed of where I started out, but I’m not going back. I clawed my way out of the muck, and I’m headed for that house on the hill. We’re headed for that house on the hill, because that house wouldn’t mean a thing without my family.”

  “He’s telling the truth,” Hatch said.

  Grace snapped her head from the past and flexed her fingers, shaking off the ache. “What?”

  “Black Jack,” Hatch said with a hint of exasperation. He must have been talking while she’d been thinking about that sketch on the back of that napkin, the one of the two-story house with tennis courts and a tire swing. “He’s telling the truth. He buried that woman’s body but doesn’t know who she is.”

  “I agree,” Grace said. “I’ve seen thousands of people on the witness stand, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I can spot the liars. Black Jack’s not lying.”

  Hatch’s right leg jiggled, rattling the key chain hanging from the ignition. “What do you make of the angel bit? From my limited knowledge of angels, their preferred conveyance is not swamp boats.”

  Surrounded by death, Grace couldn’t smile. “The angel could be metaphorical, an angel of death. Maybe the mother shot herself in the head on the boat and floated Black Jack’s way, knowing he’d take care of the body. Or maybe someone put her on the boat. In some cultures, suicide is shameful, and in some religions, an egregious sin.”

  “Or the angel could be someone who simply looked angelic,” Hatch said. “But at this point, it doesn’t matter, does it?” He swung the SUV onto the highway and floored the accelerator. “This is essentially a cold case of a missing person no one’s missing.”

  “You don’t know that. Someone, somewhere is probably missing her, wondering where she disappeared to all those years ago.”

  “You sound like you care.”

  “The woman found on my construction site was someone’s daughter, someone’s lover, maybe even someone’s best friend or sister. Somewhere she has a family, and she belongs with them. As soon as we get Lia’s killer tracked down, I’m going to hound the sheriff’s department to find this woman’s family or do it myself.”

  For the first time that day, Hatch laughed. “Some things will never change, will they, Princess?”

  “Nope. Now let’s stop by the hospital and check on Janis. We should have heard something by now.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The automatic doors of the Cypress Bend Medical Center swung open, letting out a belch of cold, antiseptic air. The air didn’t chill Grace as much as the volunteer at the visitor’s desk. She wore a large button with the words How Can I help YOU?

  Grace pictured another button on another volunteer, one who would never smile again, never offer a kind word to visitors walking through hospital doors. Lia Grant was dead and, as of this morning, buried, and now another girl was barely hanging on to life.

  “Good afternoon,” the volunteer said with a shot of cheer that felt at odds with Grace’s world. “Here to see a friend or a relative today?”

  “Janis Jaffee,” Grace said softly.

  The chipper smile faded. “I’m afraid they’re not allowing her any visitors. She’s part of that nasty situation with the uh…Gravedigger.”

  “We know.” Hatch took out his badge. “We’re part of the nasty.”

  Poor you, the clerk’s face seemed to say as she gave them a room number on the third floor. As they made their way through the main entrance, Hatch nudged her and pointed to a television screen in the corner. The local midday news rolled, and the screen was filled with the image of an anchorman at a news desk. Superimposed on a scrolling bar along the bottom of the screen was the type: THE GRAVEDIGGER.

  “The Franklin County sheriff’s office released a sketch of a person of interest in the grisly murder last week of local nursing student Lia Grant,” the news anchor said as Berkley’s sketch popped onto the left-hand side of the screen. “Authorities are looking for this woman, last seen in Port St. Joe two weeks ago, where she’d been working on a commercial cleaning crew.

  “The woman is described as thin and about five feet tall. She has large brown eyes and dark hair, possibly long and curly. She has a tattoo on her wrist, maybe a butterfly. She may be wearing a thin gold chain with a gold key around her neck.

  “Authorities said the woman, who is also wanted in conjunction with the attack and abduction of a jogger from Carrabelle, should be considered armed and dangerous. Anyone with information should contact the sheriff’s office…”

  They walked to the elevator, and Grace pushed the up button. “Incredible,” Grace said. “Yesterday those two men on the cleaning crew struggled to remember if Ronnie Alderman had been a man or a woman. Then along comes Berkley, and she gets them to remember that the woman wore a gold necklace and had a tattoo.”

  “I told you Berk’s good.”

  Grace jabbed the elevator button again. “And she’s going to take a look at the bones, right?”

  He pushed the elevator button, and seconds later, it dinged open. He placed a kiss in the middle of her forehead. “Berkley’s listening to the bones as we speak. Now let’s go see
what Janis’s doctors have to say.”

  On the third floor the nurse told them there’d been no new developments, but she reported Janis’s mother had left her vigil at her daughter’s bedside an hour ago to meet with doctors.

  The machines surrounding Janis Jaffee, with their arms and tiny lines of blood and other life-giving liquids, wheezed and beeped and blinked. They looked more alive than the still, pale-faced girl. Grace reached out and took Janis’s hand in hers. Still warm. Still alive.

  “Hold on, Janis. You need to keep holding on,” Grace said. “Because someday you’re going to run on that white sand beach you love so much. Picture it, Janis, picture Carrabelle beach. Hear the ocean. Feel the sand between your toes. If you believe something long enough and hard enough, it’s going to happen.”

  “Spoken like a true champion,” Hatch said from where he was peering out the window.

  “Spoken like my daddy. Winning starts up here.” She ran her fingers along Janis’s temple. She’d do anything to give some of her daddy’s fighting strength to this girl. “You’re going to fight this, Janis, and you’re going to win.”

  Footsteps sounded in the hallway, and a man in a white coat walked in. “There you are, Agent Hatcher. I was hoping to talk to you or the lieutenant in person.” He hoisted a thick stack of papers. “We completed our extended clinical watch on Ms. Jaffee and received a second determination from the neurologist. Unfortunately, we have the same results.” He flipped through the papers while Grace gripped Janis’s hand. “The long and short of it is we’ve had two rounds of testing and prolonged clinical observation, and there has been no brain activity since she arrived.”

  “Brain death?” Grace asked, the two words razor-sharp barbs digging into her throat. No, that couldn’t be right. Janis was going to breathe on her own and dig her toes into a white sand beach.

  “Conclusive,” the doctor said. “I spoke to the family. The mother is talking with a minister, and we’re waiting on word as to how she would like to move forward with organ donation.”

  “Organ donation?” Grace’s fingers tightened around Janis’s wrist. “But part of her is still alive.” Warmth radiated from Janis’s skin. The pulse at her wrist beat weak but steady against Grace’s fingertips. That counted for something. “Miracles happen all the time.”

  “They do, but—”

  “I’m sure someone was given up for dead but came back to life right here in this hospital. Right here on this floor. In this room.”

  “Yes, of course, but—”

  “Medical advances happen, too. If she holds on long enough, it’s possible some procedure or drug could rebuild her brain.”

  The doctor tucked the folder under his arm. “Perhaps I’m not making myself clear, Counselor Courtemanche, so let me try again. Due to sustained oxygen deprivation, Janis Jaffee suffered irreversible cessation of the functioning of the entire brain. Her brain stem is dead. All cognitive and life support functions have irreversibly stopped. I know you’re personally involved in this, and I’m terribly sorry for your loss.”

  * * *

  Hatch pulled off his shirt and yanked the holster from behind his back. His fingers clawed around his gun. He hated violence, rarely pulled his service revolver while on duty, but he sure as hell wouldn’t mind using his gun.

  He tossed the gun on Grace’s dresser and sat on the bed. He kicked off one shoe, which shot across the room and crashed into the closet door. The other shoe bulleted into the hallway. The crash and thud brought no satisfaction. Another girl had died, which meant their unsub would move on to Level Three.

  And then what? What if another victim died? Grace would be the loser? He cradled his head in his hands. If she survived that long, because she was beating up herself.

  In her mind, Grace had failed Janis. With her overblown sense of responsibility and self-reliance, she insisted she alone was responsible for the young woman’s death. Hatch tugged off his belt and unfastened the button of his dress pants. Guilt was a vicious beast. It devoured some people, destroying them from the inside out. With others, guilt simply held them hostage, keeping them forever fixed and unable to move on with their lives. But with some people, guilt snuck in and took over, controlling their thoughts and actions and lives. He unbuttoned his shirt. With Grace, he suspected the latter. After learning of Janis’s death, she’d spent the next six hours at her office going through past cases and work files, looking for a different kind of beast that had a face but no name.

  The beast remained nameless.

  Something whizzed by his ear and landed with a thud on the bed.

  Grace stood in the bedroom doorway in her tennis whites, a racquet in her hand. “Let’s play.”

  God, he loved this woman. Her drive. Her tenacity. Her fight. And he loved that she knew him inside out. Physical sounded damned good. He’d love to get on his boat, pulling ropes, fighting with sails, and battling the wind. He needed the wind pounding him, shoving away the anger and fear. He slipped off his shirt and let it fall to the floor. But that was hardly the responsible thing to do. For now, slamming a few tennis balls would work.

  With a quarter moon lighting the way, Grace took him to a large area surrounded by a chain link fence, Blue lumbering after them. She flicked a switch on the gate, and a pair of overhead lights hummed, flickered, and brightened. “It’s Giroux’s old dog run, not quite regulation. The lighting is awful, and you’ll need to watch for holes.”

  With no more words and no warm-up, Grace pounded the ball past the net, and he slammed back. Over and over they rifled shots at each other. Sweat dripped into his eyes. Heat and dust swirled up from the baked, hard-packed earth.

  Grace won the first set, and he snuck in a final ace to take the second. He almost laughed at the outrage flashing across her face. During the third set, more than an hour later, sweat drenched his body and he was at one with the sticky night air. At match point, she slammed a shot that caught the outer edge of the baseline. He dove for it and scooped it back. She reached the ball and set up her shot, her pearly skin aglow, her long, lean limbs stretched out like a sleek missile. Sweat curled her hair and glued her white tennis tank to her breasts. She slammed, and the ball probably whizzed past him.

  He couldn’t tell because he was so focused on the woman he loved.

  Her eyes flashed hot and steamier than the night. “You missed that last shot on purpose.” She gripped the racquet like a club. “Dammit, Hatch, you let me win.”

  He wiped a towel along his face. “Now why would I do that?”

  “Because you know I hate losing.” She lowered the racquet and plucked her fingers at the sweet spot on the strings. “Because you wanted to make me happy.”

  He hopped the net, took the racquet from her, and tossed it on the bench next to his. Then he took her hand in his and laced their fingers. “I think we could both use a bit of happy.”

  * * *

  She held her breath and pushed ENTER.

  The computer on her right went blank for one heartbeat, two, three.

  Swoosh.

  The door burst open and line after line of pixilated characters chased each other across her screen—so much text, so much light, that she squinted her eyes and scrambled for the contrast control. The vicious bits of light dimmed, but not her glee. Computer systems like the one used at the Cypress Bend Medical Center were like twenty-story apartment buildings. You had to keep trying different levels, scamper along a few fire escapes, and dodge nosy residents. But if you kept knocking on doors and checking tiny windows, you’d find a way in.

  She scrolled through the notes of the physician attending to the pawn from Level Two. Most of the report was in medical-speak, but a few key words jumped out at her.

  …absence of brain waves…

  …no breath activity…

  …no blood traveling to the brain…

  The pawn on Level Two was no longer a pawn but a potato. She clicked on a few more keys, and squinted at the lines of pixels. And as of fiv
e-sixteen this afternoon, the potato was officially mashed.

  With a victorious grin, she flicked off the computer and turned to the one on her left. While waiting for news on the potato, she’d played a little side game with Grace, technically with Grace’s checking account. Fun times for all.

  But not as fun as Level Three.

  With a red marker, she slashed a giant X on the Level Two pawn’s face. Tonight she’d slip into the wonderful darkness and deliver the strike to her opponent. Poor Grace. She was going to lose. With a grin, she turned the photo over and with the marker penned Grace a little message.

  The Game was heating up, and she was ready to win, but first, she needed to find a small person.

  The problem with small people was that they were always surrounded by big people, she realized once she got to the park. She stood in the shadow of a cedar and watched the children on the playground at Harbor Park. Night had settled in, and most small people were already curled up in their beds fast asleep. However, a young couple with a double stroller holding an infant and toddler wheeled along the path circling the playground equipment. One of these two small people would fit nicely in the box but neither could use the phone and call Grace.

  Bad move.

  An older small person, maybe eleven or twelve, sat on a bench eating a double-scoop ice cream cone with a bored teenage girl talking on her phone next to him. The boy with the ice cream cone could use a phone, but parts of him were not small. Rolls of fat hung from his belly, and his legs reminded her of tree trunks. It would be a tight squeeze to get him in the box.

  Small. She needed small.

  The Game was in full swing, and she was winning. Grace had made a smart move at Level Two, nearly getting to the pawn in time, thanks to all of her allies. Although the formidable prosecutor was notoriously self-reliant, she’d mustered a team, including members of the sheriff’s department, two local police forces, the Florida State Police, and the FBI.