by Anne Frasier
"Remember that guy who was always in trouble for going into the Savannah tunnels?" Elise asked, heading for shade and a picnic table near her car. "What was his name?"
"Pascal. Adam Pascal," Eddie said. "For a while there, he was always in the paper and on the news."
She sat down at the wooden table and pulled out pen and paper. "Any idea where he is, or if he's still around?"
"Let me check." Elise heard the clicking of keys; then Eddie was back. "Lives on Isle of Hope. Was arrested about three weeks ago for his latest caper. Severely fractured a leg and is home recuperating."
Elise jotted down the number, thanked Eddie, and gave Pascal a call.
Like all obsessed people, the guy liked to talk about his obsession.
"Those tunnels go everywhere, man. Under houses. Businesses. Warehouses. Cemeteries. Hospitals. You should see the one under the old Candler Hospital. Creepy as hell, with gurneys and old wooden wheelchairs. The tunnels were used for all sorts of things, but mainly to transport bodies from the hospital to the morgue and cemetery."
"But aren't they sealed?"
"Long time ago. And not very well. You know how the city has always been about that kind of thing. Outta sight, outta mind. Been a lot of water through there over the years. They're crumbling. Dangerous as all get-out. People have died down there. I almost died down there. I'd offer to take you, but I'm laid up with a broken leg. A tunnel caved in on me, and it was three days before I dug my way out."
"You're lucky to be alive, Mr. Pascal."
"That's what I keep saying."
"What can you tell me about the tunnels and the Hartzell, Tate, and Hartzell Funeral Home?"
"Used to be a tunnel from the funeral home to a nearby morgue. It's not the morgue anymore. Now it's a residence."
"Description and location?" Elise asked, pen ready.
Before she'd finished taking it down, she knew the building he was talking about: Strata Luna's house.
"Black Tupelo?" she asked.
"Goes there too."
An alternate universe right under their feet.
"How about the Secret Garden Bed and Breakfast?"
"Yep. But don't you go down there in those tunnels, you hear me? I'm not exaggerating the danger."
"I won't."
"I'll fax you some maps. How's that sound?"
"Great." She gave him her fax number, then disconnected.
While Elise talked to Pascal, the manager of CD Underbelly had left a voice mail.
"You know that stuff you asked me to find?" the message said. "Well, I found it. The CDs were put on plastic. Charged to some dude named Enrique Xavier. The boss is cheap as hell and we still use the old imprint machines, so I was looking at the credit card imprint and noticed it was one of those business credit cards, and that it didn't belong to Xavier at all. Guess what other name was on it? Guess who owned the card?" He paused for effect. "That nutcase that rides through town dressed in black and wearing a veil over her face. Strata Luna."
Click.
Elise pushed number nine on her mobile phone, saving the message. Then she looked at her watch and realized it was almost time to pick up Audrey from softball practice.
*
Audrey heard tires squealing and looked up to see a familiar yellow car flying around the corner, her mother at the wheel.
Now what?
Elise jerked to a stop, leaned across the seat, and shoved open the door. "I hope you haven't been waiting long."
Audrey recognized her mother's hurry-up mode. She tossed her backpack and softball glove in the backseat, and jumped in the car. "Just a couple minutes."
"Good," Elise said with a distracted air. She checked over her left shoulder, then pulled from the curb. "You aren't anxious to get home, are you? I've got to make one or two quick stops."
"No problem."
Audrey changed her mind when, ten minutes later, they were turning into the parking lot of a funeral home. "Somebody die?"
Her mom opened the glove compartment and pulled out a flashlight. "People are always dying."
"I mean somebody you know."
"Oh, honey. I'm sorry," Elise said as if suddenly realizing she was acting a little weird. She looked at Audrey and smiled. "No. Nobody died. This involves a little investigative work. Something you might find interesting. It has nothing to do with dead people. I'm looking for a tunnel."
"Tunnel?" That might be okay.
"Come on. You don't need to wait in the car."
"Hey, isn't this the place that body was stolen from?" Audrey asked as they walked under the green canvas awning.
"Yes." Elise opened the ornately carved door.
"Cool."
They cornered the funeral director in the entry room.
The place had red carpet and a bunch of dark doors that probably had bodies behind them. Audrey hoped nobody opened a door.
If that happens, don't look. Just don't look.
"Well, sure, I've heard of the tunnels," the director said.
She stared at the man her mother was talking to.
He was creepy, with neck skin that hung over his tie. The place smelled too. Audrey had been to only two funerals in her life, both for great-grandparents. Both times she'd refused to look at the dead body, but she remembered that sickening sweet smell. Like something bad was being covered up.
"The tunnels have been sealed for years," the man said.
"I'd like to see the entrance anyway," Elise told him.
"We don't allow anybody down there."
"Mr. Simms, do I need to remind you that a crime was committed in your establishment?"
"It's just. . . that area of the home is kind of for overflow...."
Audrey immediately imagined piles of dead bodies. The smell, along with the image, began to make her feel a little dizzy.
"I'm not an inspector," Elise reminded him.
"Okay, okay."
Annoyed, he led them to the elevator, which took them to the basement level.
What a switch, from all tidy and plush to damp and crumbling stone foundation that smelled like mildew and rotting wood.
The funeral director stayed in the elevator. "Keep to the right," he said, waving his hand. "The tunnel entrance is in the last small room. Low ceiling. You'll need to duck. I have to get back upstairs." He pushed a button. The elevator door closed. A motor kicked in, taking Mr. Mortician away.
The floor was tabby cement that had been poured over sloped, uneven ground. The light was bad, and there were a lot of deep shadows and dark corners.
Elise clicked on the flashlight.
It was one of those cool police flashlights that really lit up the room. The bright white beam darted around, then landed on a shelf full of small cardboard boxes. Each box had a name and date.
"Apparently relatives don't always pick up their loved ones," Elise commented.
Sweet kitty.
Audrey didn't like being down there with a bunch of dead people even if they were ashes. At the same time, she was thinking about how nobody was going to believe her at school tomorrow when she told her friends where she'd been. They were going to, like, think it was the coolest.
A lot of people thought cremated bodies burned down to a tiny little pile of ashes. But Audrey had seen a show on the Discovery Channel, and it told how after the thing they cooked them in was cool enough to open, bones and teeth were still there. Mixed with the ashes. They had a machine that looked like a little cement mixer they dumped everything into. The machine ground up what was left.
Gross.
She fell into step behind her mom.
"Watch your head."
Elise shone the flashlight at the low ceiling, then back to a floor that had turned to rock and dirt. They entered a second room lined with metal shelves crammed with supplies. Bottles of pink liquid claimed to be embalming fluid. Others were called cavity cleaner. Pore sealer. Jugular tubes. Body inserts. Expression formers. Casket Mate, whatever that was. On the floor were drum
s labeled Drying Compound, Lightly Fragranced.
Audrey was feeling dizzy again.
Just a tunnel.
Right.
Her mother had said they were looking for just a tunnel. Maybe, if it was a tunnel from Night of the Living Dead. Her parents—well, her dad and Vivian—wouldn't let her watch those kinds of movies, but some of her friends had seen them so many times that they laughed at the scary parts. Audrey had been initiated at a sleepover. She'd had bad dreams for two weeks.
Cavity cleaner.
Body inserts.
She felt like she was going to throw up. She took a few deep breaths, then hurried to catch up with her mother, who was peering into an even smaller room.
Audrey couldn't wait to see what was in there. Ha-ha.
They had to walk hunched over.
It was tiny. And thankfully empty.
One wall was brick instead of stone.
"Is that it?" Audrey asked.
She'd seen the sealed tunnel at the Pirates' House Restaurant, so she'd kind of known what to expect, but still it was a letdown. Just a wall. How boring was that?
"Look." Elise pointed the light along the left edge where the bricks stopped, then down to a pile of rubble. "Someone's been doing a little excavating."
Audrey hadn't known what she'd expected when she'd come along. She hadn't really thought about it. But now her heart began beating faster.
She'd heard about the body that had been stolen from the funeral home. It had been all over the news, but suddenly the story changed from things kids at school were joking about to an actual crime. And here was a clue! A real clue!
She'd never seen her mom in action, actually working on a case. Suddenly she felt kind of amazed by her, kind of proud.
Elise pulled some bricks free and shone the light through the jagged black gap.
"Should we go inside?" Audrey asked, excited and scared at the same time.
"No. I need to get a crime scene team down here before anybody disturbs anything."
"Can I at least look?"
"Here." Elise handed her the heavy flashlight.
Audrey stepped forward and pointed the beam through the hole.
A tunnel. Cut from rock and earth, with the ceiling curved and lined with brick. In the distance it appeared to end, but Audrey figured it really turned.
Something hit her arm with a plop.
A bug! A huge black cockroach!
She jumped back, shook her arm, and screamed, dropping the flashlight.
Elise let out a funny yelp and knocked the roach from Audrey's arm. The bug went scurrying away, hunting for darkness. Then Elise retrieved the dead flashlight. She shook it and it made a broken-glass kind of sound.
Audrey gave her a pained look. "Sorry. But did you see that thing? It was huge. Mutant or something. Like half cockroach, half dog." She shivered dramatically.
"Jesus," Elise said under her breath, her own shudder mirroring Audrey's. "I hate those things."
That made Audrey feel better. Mainly because she'd always thought her mom wasn't afraid of anything.
It was nice to know she was.
Chapter 42
I watched and listened, making sure the hallways of Mary of the Angels were quiet and no one was coming or going.
I didn't mind the wait. Detective Gould was with me.
I cuddled him. I tasted him in his state of simulated death.
Then I retrieved the gurney from the basement.
It was the perfect way to move deadweight. I only had to drag his limp body onto the stainless steel surface, then pop the release lever, raising him off the floor.
Before leaving, I laid down a confusion trick in the doorway so no one would be able to follow.
I double-checked the hall.
Empty.
My heart was beating madly as I silently wheeled him down the strip of carpet. I pushed the black button and hoped no one else summoned the elevator.
We made it to the basement with no trouble. I quickly pushed Detective Gould through a dimly lit
room to the tunnel entrance. I lowered the gurney and removed him, dragging his body through the opening, then following with the collapsed gurney. In the weak glow of a small lantern with Detective Gould lying near my feet, I replaced the bricks.
I'd become fascinated with the tunnels years ago while exploring my house, poking around in the secret rooms. Closed doors had always held a curiosity for me, and a sealed-up wall was an even bigger attraction. A few nights of digging and I'd made a hole big enough to crawl through. That had led to years of off-and-on exploration.
I put Detective Gould back on the gurney. Time to be on our way. I bent close and brushed my lips across his.
So still.
So silent.
Was he breathing?
I laid my cheek against his mouth, and was eventually rewarded with a soft stirring of air.
Why did I like my men so docile? I often asked myself. Helpless and at my mercy?
My answer was always the same. Why would anybody want them any other way? That and the fact that the state of death had always attracted me. A shrink might say it was all those years spent in a house that had once been a morgue. I don't think so. The fascination was something that came from deep inside, from my DNA.
The tunnel was darker than night, and the light cast by the lantern could illuminate only a few yards ahead.
I like the dark. It has always been my friend. Even as a child, when others whimpered and cried for their mothers, I embraced the dark. At night, when I entered a room, I would never reach around the corner for the switch. Why have light when you can have dark?
"There was a waning moon the night I killed her," I told David Gould as I pushed him up an incline. "I coaxed her out of bed and out of the house. We were both wearing white nightgowns. What a pretty picture we must have made as I took her hand and walked with her to the fountain. At first we just sat on the edge with our feet dangling in the water. I said, 'Look at the reflection of the moon on the water.' Then I told her to pick up the image."
I was a little out of breath, my voice ragged.
The detective was heavier than he looked.
We'd reached a junction, which gave me the opportunity to pause. To the left was the cemetery, to the right the house.
"She slipped into the water," I said, continuing with my story. "And when she had the moon in her hand, I pushed her under and held her there until she was still."
*
In her office, Elise examined the first section of map that Adam Pascal had faxed. He'd been right about the tunnel system going to both Strata Luna's house and the Hartzell, Tate, and Hartzell Funeral Home.
Had Strata Luna drowned her own daughter? Had her other daughter really committed suicide, or had the woman killed her too? Did Strata Luna start her house of prostitution in order to have a handy place to feed, to satisfy, her strange death obsessions while at the same time perpetuating her own mystery?
They would never admit it, but half the cops in Savannah were afraid of her. That fear created a distance, gave her the ability to nurture her sickness.
Elise had enough evidence to justify a search warrant for Strata Luna's house. While Audrey sat at David's desk doing homework, Elise called the judge and put in a request for a warrant. While she was on the phone, the fax machine kicked in.
"Doesn't David live at Mary of the Angels?" Audrey asked when Elise hung up. She was holding another fax from Adam Pascal.
Elise removed her jacket and shoulder holster, checking the weapon. "Yes. Why?"
"I think one of the tunnels goes to his place."
Elise frowned and came closer. "Show me."
Audrey let her feet drop and sat forward, placing her finger on a small black square. "Here."
She was right.
Elise picked up the phone and dialed David's number. She got his voice mail. "Call me when you get this."
She hung up and shrugged into her Kevlar vest, attaching it
snugly with Velcro fasteners. When it was secure, she replaced her holster and gun. That was followed by her jacket.
Audrey watched with vague unease. "Where are you going?"
"Serving a search warrant."
"Why are you wearing a bulletproof vest? Will it be dangerous?"
"It's routine, sweetie."
They were supposed to have gone out to eat together. Mother and daughter. "I'm sorry," Elise said, torn between her concern for David and the fact that she was once again putting Audrey last. "You'll have to wait here until I get back."
"That's okay."
Audrey didn't seem nearly as upset as Elise had thought she'd be.
"Here's David's number." Elise jotted it down and tore off the piece of paper. "Try calling him every few minutes. If he answers, tell him about the tunnels." She folded the maps and stuck them in her vest pocket, then retrieved a spare flashlight from the cupboard.
"What if he wants to talk to you?" Audrey asked.
"Tell him I'm bringing Strata Luna in for questioning."
Normally everybody jumped at the chance to conduct a search. But as soon as Elise mentioned Strata Luna's name, her request for assistance was met with mumbled excuses and downcast eyes.
Finally someone stepped forward. "I'll go."
Starsky. He probably realized in another second she would have pointed out who was in charge and ordered him to join her.
His partner flashed him a look of irritation before also agreeing to participate. Two uniformed police officers rounded out the team.
They would take separate vehicles and converge on the house at a predetermined time. The crime scene investigators would arrive later, once the building was secure.
Elise tried to call David again.
Still no answer.
She assigned Starsky and Hutch the task of picking up the warrant, which allowed her the time she needed to stop by David's.
Ten minutes later, she pulled up in front of Mary of the Angels, immediately spotting his black car in the parking lot.
At the door, she rang David's apartment—and wasn't surprised when she got no reply. She rang the apartment manager and introduced herself. He buzzed her in and met her on the third-floor landing, a set of keys in his hand.