by Anne Frasier
"As promised," Ostertag announced, "here are Katie Johnson, Twila Jackson, and Mercury Hernandez, all the way from Savannah, Georgia."
The girls moved into position. Two twirled a thick, heavy rope while the third jumped. All three chanted in unison:
Draw a circle on the floor
Whisper secret words
The city sleeps
The mayor weeps
Speak the final dirge.
Aha. No wonder the mayor had taken a sudden interest in the TTX case, Elise thought. The camera closed in on the host. "Mysterious ditties like the one you just heard have been popping up all over Savannah," Ostertag said. "Some people have compared these to nursery rhymes. But others claim they bear a striking resemblance to the meter used in spells. In black magic. One theory is that by the repetitious chanting of these spells, children are unknowingly calling forth the powers of evil upon an unsuspecting city."
Major Hoffman shut off the television. "Lovely, isn't it? We're accustomed to being ridiculed by the media," she said, "but I think ridicule on The Ostertag Show is a new low."
Elise pulled Gould's tablet close and read the question he'd written earlier: Are we going to watch porn?
He ripped the paper from the spiral and wadded it up, making a great deal of noise.
"Mr. Gould," Major Hoffman said. "Since you've played a fairly passive role in this meeting, perhaps you'd like to share some of your feelings about the case."
Christ. He was in third grade all over again. Is there something you'd like to share with the class, David?
A titter moved through the crowd. Several people twisted around to give David smug smiles. Starsky and Hutch were grinning with evil delight.
Oh, this place was its own vicious small town, David thought. Half the people in the room were salivating.
"Actually, I've had some profiling experience," David said calmly.
Hutch let out a snort. Major Hoffman looked his direction; he turned the snort into a cough. "I'd like to hear what Detective Gould has to say," Major Hoffman said. "For the sake of discussion, let's assume these deaths are murder, all by the same hand."
David wasn't thrilled at being put on the spot. But he knew his stuff and wasn't afraid to brainstorm and theorize. "For starters," he said, leaning back in his chair, "the killer is an egomaniac."
Starsky and Hutch looked at him with annoyance. If they weren't in such good company, David was sure they would have had some sarcastic comment like, "Tell us something we don't know."
"He sees himself almost as a puppeteer, someone controlling the show," David continued. "Many people kill out of self-hatred and a lack of confidence. This person is killing because he thinks it's his right. He probably doesn't even consider the victims as people."
"Could he be doing it for his own amusement?' Elise wondered aloud. "Simply from boredom? Otherwise, why doesn't he kill them outright? I don't get it."
"Some derive sexual pleasure from torture," someone offered.
"But where's the pleasure if they're comatose?" Elise asked. "Wouldn't it come from hearing them scream? From watching their suffering faces? These people can't respond in any way."
"He's getting off on their inability to respond," David said.
"That could be the key," Elise said thoughtfully. "He may have experienced a time in his life when he was unable to defend himself." Her gaze cleared as her idea solidified. "Possibly at the hands of an adult figure." She leaned forward. "Think about the way siblings will pass various childhood cruelties down the line."
"This is a little more than a childhood cruelty," Major Hoffman pointed out.
"Of course, but the principle is the same," David said. "The logic, or lack of logic, behind it is the same. They are passing the sin, that sin growing from one person to the next."
His comment was followed by a long communal silence.
"That makes sense," Elise finally said.
"What do you think about age? Race? Occupation? Education?" Those questions came from Starsky.
"I'm unsure about race, but I feel he's highly intelligent and fairly well educated, although he may have stopped short of receiving a degree. Possibly successful within his field of expertise. Age, somewhere between twenty and thirty-five. He's probably harbored a hatred of humanity for years, possibly since childhood."
"Hatred combined with ego is a dangerous combination," Elise said.
"Thank you very much, Detective Gould," Major Hoffman said with a gracious smile. "My grandmother would have said you've been hiding your light under a basket."
David found her praise in front of Starsky and Hutch to be extremely gratifying.
"I'd like a copy of your profile on my desk ASAP," the major added.
Which meant he would have to actually type one up. David hated reports. He hated typing.
"Detectives Avery and Mason." Starsky and Hutch gave Major Hoffman their attention.
"I'm putting you both on the TTX case on a part-time, as-needed basis. I want you to assist Detectives Sandburg and Gould in any manner they see fit."
David looked at Elise in dismay. Starsky and Hutch looked at each other in dismay.
Oh, boy. Just one big, happy, dysfunctional family.
Chapter 21
"It's the necromancer spirit!" the TV evangelist shouted from behind a pulpit. "Hanging over the city of Savannah! A spirit that is praying to the dead! Voodoo curses, brought by servants of the devil! Creating mindless people who have no pulse, who breathe no air, but are alive!"
A font showed up on the bottom of Elise's TV screen: brother Samuel, of the Church of Samuel. It was late. Almost midnight, but Elise couldn't quit thinking of the theories that had been tossed around that afternoon at police headquarters.
"A curse put on our fair city!" the man on the TV continued to shout. "We must pray! Children of the devil. A demon spirit we've allowed into our homes! Caused by rejecting Christianity! I plead with you to come forward now and beg forgiveness, to denounce the devil. Denounce the necromancers!"
Another message appeared at the bottom of the screen: a P.O. box where people could send their donations.
Elise clicked off the TV, picked up her portable phone, and called David.
He answered after one ring, sounding wide-awake.
"What do you know about necrophilia?" Elise asked.
"Necrophilia. A pretty word for a really sick sickness."
"I keep asking myself, why would the killer drug someone with TTX in the first place?"
"You think the guy could be a necrophiliac? An interesting theory. But a necrophiliac gets off on dead people, not zombies."
"As we all know, a dead body begins to do nasty things pretty damn quickly, especially in a hot, humid environment like Savannah," she said.
"So he simulates death. So he can romance the body until the victim eventually really dies."
"Then tosses it like so much garbage."
"What a sweetheart."
"I think we need to check local funeral homes and cemeteries. The morgue. Get a list of employees. See if any of them have ever shown a particular fondness for the dead."
"Sounds like a good job for Starsky and Hutch."
"You read my mind."
*
The flashlight beam sent cockroaches scurrying for darkness in one giant black wave. There were billions of them, packed into every crack and seam. The walls of the tunnel were made of brick, with a rounded ceiling. Years ago someone painted them white, but now the red was bleeding through.
Tunnels were everywhere under Savannah. Nobody talked about them much, but they were here. Some had collapsed; some had been filled in. All had been sealed, most with bricks and mortar, others with a grate that could still be opened if a person knew where to look.
I knew where to look. I made it my business to know.
The tunnels were a black, rotten, infested world that lurked just below the feet of the gentlemen who frequented the exclusive Oglethorpe Club. Sometimes when I was
walking along President Street and passed a sewer grate, I would get a whiff of that fetid, rotten stink and knew decay was near.
It was easy to blend with the homeless.
And there were a lot of homeless in Savannah. They liked to hang out downtown, in the square nearest Martin Luther King Boulevard.
When you're homeless, you're invisible. People, even cops, look right through you. Tourists don't want to make eye contact for fear you'll hit them up for cash or say something crazy....
Right now I was in a section of tunnel near the old Candler Hospital. It was no longer a hospital but some kind of home for old people. I could always get my bearings near Candler, because the tunnel was littered with discarded and forgotten hospital debris, like old wooden wheelchairs and rusty gurneys.
I reached in my pocket and pulled out a map dating back to the 1800s that I had lifted from the Georgia Historical Society.
Finding my way around in the tunnels was a little like playing Monopoly, only with bigger pieces.
I traced my finger along the path leading to the Hartzell, Tate, and Hartzell Funeral Home. A left, then a right, then a left.
Advance to Boardwalk.
I slipped the map back in my pocket, grabbed a gurney, and continued my journey.
The funeral home was located in an old mansion with a catacomb-like basement that seemed miles from the rest of the building. Like everything else about the tunnels, the sealed entrance was crumbling.
I'd been this way before.
It didn't take long to dig out the bricks and make a hole large enough to crawl through—and I'm not a small person.
Once inside, I got a little turned around—it was such a maze! Room after room of embalming paraphernalia. Shelves of embalming fluid. Boxes of drainage tubes and expression formers. Yes, that's right. They could actually make a dead person smile. But then, I could do that too.
I moved silently up a flight of stairs. I'd also been here before, so it was easy to locate the cooler.
And locate my friend, Mr. Turello.
He looked good, considering. And lucky for me he was a little bit freeze-dried. Much lighter than the night I dumped him in an abandoned lot off Skidaway Road.
But he was still heavy.
I wasn't exactly sure why I decided to collect him. For one thing, I thought it might be fun. Stir up the cops. Those two detectives. Elise Sandburg. David Gould.
David Gould. He was kind of sexy. Really sexy, actually. I'd seen him running and running. As if someone, or something, was after him.
I had to drape Turello over my back to carry him. He was stiff, but pliant at the same time. A little like a cheap leather jacket you know is never going to soften up no matter how many times you wear it. When I’d originally dumped him, he’d smelled. Dead-rat awful. Now he smelled . . . mysterious. Like the sweet odor of embalming fluid, but also maybe a little like compost.
Downstairs, I dragged him through the opening, sealed it back up, put him on the gurney, and off we went.
"Somebody's going to be shocked as hell," I told Gary as I shoved him along the rough floor.
Anybody who's ever had to deal with a shopping cart with a bad wheel will know how bone jarring it can be. Not fun. Not fun at all.
Then I forgot about my struggle and laughed softly to myself. I couldn't help it as I pictured the chaos tomorrow morning when they couldn't find Gary.
Psychiatrists might say I was starved for attention. That I didn't get enough attention as a child.
They would be right.
Chapter 22
A little after midnight mortician Benjamin Ming arrived for work and unlocked the delivery door of the Hartzell, Tate, and Hartzell Funeral Home. He reached around the corner and flipped on the overhead lights while allowing the heavy door to close and lock behind him.
He went straight to his desk to look over his shift orders. Old man Hartzell had already called to fill him in, but Ben always double-checked.
Two bodies.
One straightforward embalming, one just a basic sprucing up.
Gary Turello. The guy who'd been exhumed.
Ben had heard about him on the news. He was being reburied, and Hartzell, Tate, and Hartzell had donated a marble headstone. It was advertising, but still a nice gesture, Ben conceded.
The embalming order was a thirty-two-year-old woman who'd died of cancer.
Ben wheeled her from the cooler and began preparations. He undressed the body, then gently stretched and massaged the limbs in order to limber them up. After the body was washed, he sliced open an artery in the groin and one in the neck. While the blood drained into the table gutters, he returned to the walk-in cooler to retrieve Mr. Turello.
"Finch. Austin. Johnson," he said, checking the toe tags.
He straightened, hands on his waist, and perused the small room.
Hmm.
He rechecked the tags.
He lifted the sheets.
Old lady.
Middle-aged lady.
Fifty-something man.
All fresh. The women were scheduled for cremation after their funeral service; the guy was to be done tomorrow.
Where was Turello?
Ben's heart started to slam in alarm.
Had Hartzell, Tate, and Hartzell lost a body?
*
The soles of David's running shoes pounded against the sidewalk as he ran a familiar route through town.
There were three reasons he was running at four a.m.
One, he couldn't sleep.
Two, he hadn't had a chance to run for several days.
Three, he thought the odd jogging time might help him avoid Flora—who suddenly seemed to think she owned him because she'd convinced herself that she'd saved his life the other night.
She stopped by too often. She left messages on his cell phone.
David found her company easy. And certainly a distraction, but was she good for him? Was he good for her? Or were they just two smart but extremely messed-up people clinging to each other for comfort?
Yep.
As he neared Mary of the Angels, he slowed to a walk and cut to the left, stepping off the sidewalk and into the shadows of a magnolia tree. Keeping to the edges of the darkness, he stealthily approached his apartment, scanning the area for any sign of Flora.
He caught a shifting of shadows beneath the overhang at the front door.
Damn.
He glanced up the side of the building, to his room, where a dim light burned, and briefly considered trying to scale the stones and crawl in the window. That idea was quickly but reluctantly tossed out due to its lack of cool and a slant toward the juvenile.
He stepped from the shadows and approached the ivy-wrapped building. "What'll it be?" he asked. "Sex or conversation?"
Someone emerged from the recesses.
Dark, straight hair. Dark eyes. Pale skin.
Elise.
"I'm guessing you were expecting someone else."
"Forget what I said. Just an old Yankee idiom." He waved his hand in insignificance. "Roughly translated, it means 'Who goes there?'"
He wiped an arm across his sweaty forehead. "Now that I know the who answer to that question, what about the what? As in what are you doing here?"
"We've had another interesting development. Come on." She nodded her head toward the building. "Let's talk inside."
He unlocked the door with a key that was heavy and worn smooth. Side by side, they hurried up the marble steps and down the hall to his third-floor apartment.
Once inside with the door shut, she turned and faced him, her arms crossed.
"Remember how Gary Turello was supposed to be taken to a local funeral home?"
"If you're going to tell me Turello woke up in the morgue, I will then know that this is all a madman's dream, and that Mary of the Angels is really a mental institute."
Isobel came strutting from the bedroom, trying to appear casual while at the same time extremely interested in their guest.
David tugged his sweat-soaked T-shirt over his head and used it to wipe his neck and chest. "You think he may have been accidentally cremated?"
"Seems logical, doesn't it?"
Isobel circled Elise's legs. She bent to pet her. She was doing it wrong. Isobel didn't like to be lightly stroked down the middle of the back.
"Since when has anything about this case been logical?" He headed for the shower. "Give me five minutes," he said over his shoulder. "You can entertain Isobel. She likes to be scratched on the stomach."
*
"Yankee idiom, my ass," Elise said once she and Isobel were alone.
Had he been lying about the stomach petting too? Elise was a little afraid to try it. Every cat she knew clawed the hell out of you if you touched its stomach.
She scratched Isobel's chin.
Liked that.
Behind the ear.
Didn't much like that.
Down the spine.
Seemed to hate that.
Stomach.
Isobel dropped heavily to the floor, purring and stretching for more.
The cat was every bit as strange as its owner.
"It's not safe to jog in the middle of the night," Elise told David when he returned from the shower, his hair wet. "Your being a cop doesn't mean anything. A jogger, male or female, alone at night is a target."
He ignored her and looked down, buttoning his shirt. "What'd I tell you?" He pointed to Isobel, who was purring madly. "She likes it on the stomach."
Elise straightened away from the cat. "Savannah is a port city. It has a long history of street crimes against the unwary and the foolish, going back to pirate days. Are you listening to me?"
He tucked his shirttail into his pants. "I'm listening."
"I don't want you jogging at night anymore." It wasn't an order; it was a plea.