by Andre, Bella
In fact, with her bowed head and period costuming, the girl might have remained in the display longer—until someone was forced to realize her presence by the scent of decay.
“I realize you’re the ones who found her,” Conar Martin said, looking from Angela to Jackson. They stood in front of the tableau, all three still studying the complete ensemble within it—the dead girl, the magistrate, the crying villagers—and those who looked as if they were about to enjoy the show. “But,” Conar added with a deep sigh, “I ordered that they wait for your word before—before taking her down.”
They weren’t alone in the room; a few of the crime scene technicians were still moving about, heavy duty lights on the areas surrounding the display as they sought for any kind of a clue; they’d already attempted to find hairs, fibers, anything they could on the body.
In the background, she could still hear Elysse McKinley sobbing; she’d been hysterical when she’d discovered that she’d been alone—except for a janitor working on a water conduit in the second floor bathroom—with a corpse.
A corpse who had once been a young woman she had known. Before the police had arrived and one of Conar’s policewomen had taken over, Angela had been trying to calm her. She’d been the first in the room after them—and while Angela still didn’t know exactly who the victim was or why Elysse knew her, she knew that Elysse was upset for a reason beyond just knowing the victim.
Jackson nodded his acknowledgement, but they’d been there a while by then. They’d had a chance to study to body and the positioning. Conar’s forensic team had been in. Police photographers had taken pictures and video from all angles.
Jackson had first and extremely carefully touched the victim to see if she was alive—and also, to see if by touching her, he could get anything. Angela had done the same. Sometimes, the dead lingered on where their earthy remains were left.
But not in this case. She prayed that the poor girl had gone on; that she was at peace now.
Dr. McGregor—the medical examiner/coroner and local family practice physician—had so far done a preliminary exam on the body in situ and informed them to the best of his reckoning thru body temp and lividity and her state of rigor that she’d been killed some time during the wee hours of the morning and set in the display well before opening at 10:00 A.M.
“Mr. Crowley—who owns the museum—is here now; he’s waiting in the entry vestibule,” Conar added.
Jackson looked at Angela. She nodded to him; she’d taken enough pictures with her cell phone for them to study before the police photos were ready to aid in the investigation.
“I believe its fine that she be taken down,” Jackson said quietly.
“Ragnor McPherson is on his way in as well—he’s the mayor,” Conar said. To Angela, Conar seemed professional—and defeated, as if this display in his village on the biggest day of celebration was almost overwhelming. He seemed to be in shock.
But then, she had been, too.
“Cause of death?” Jackson asked. “Does the M.E. know, without having her down yet?” he asked quietly.
“We’ll have an autopsy, of course. But, the preliminary is that she was strangled—just as many condemned before burning in the area during the sad business of the witchcraft trials,” Martin told him.
Angela studied Jackson. Naturally, his keen eyes were on the scene before them; Jackson had been an FBI field agent a decade before Adam Harrison and the powers that be in the agency had invented the “Krewe of Hunters,” their special unit that dealt with unusual activity cases of homicide in the United States.
Angela had never suspected that they’d be on call here, in this small and charming hamlet, far across the “pond” from the U.S.A. where they were official law enforcement. It wasn’t that they hadn’t planned on coming to Ravenscroft—they had. Conar and Jackson had worked an international case together a few years before she had met Jackson and they—along with Kat, Will, Jake and Whitney, had become the first members of the “Krewe” unit. The killer had struck in small towns in the United States before heading to England to stalk a new victim in Conar’s territory; he’d been caught just in time to save his intended victim and Conar and Jackson had remained friends since. She’d become friends with Conar herself via Skype, and this trip had been planned because Conar had been so eager for them to see his lovely little hamlet.
Where now, in a wax museum considered to be a treasure of the border region—the pride and honor of local tourist boards—the body of this poor girl had appeared in lieu of the wax figure usually found in her position.
So much for vacations—and for the delayed honeymoon they had promised one another they were taking.
But that didn’t seem to matter much. Not when they were here now and this horror had struck—this tragedy of a beautiful, bright young student—murdered and displayed with such dramatic cruelty.
“Who is the young woman, Conar? Is she a local girl?” she asked. “I did my best with Elysse McKinley while we waited for you to get here, but I never did understand what the victim’s name was or how Elysse knew her.”
“They’ve not known each other long; they’ve worked together down to the finals for this evening,” Conar told her. “Our deceased young woman is one of your own. Cindy Sweeney. She’s an exchange student from the United States and takes—took--archeology classes in Edinburgh. She and a group of pros and students has been staying at the Thistle and Lily Bed and Breakfast for the past few months; we’ve recently found a burial pit from the Viking area toward the water, and they’ve been working on the archeological dig.” He paused for a minute, shaking his head with sorrow. “I’m so sorry; I invited you here to enjoy the beauty and charm of our hamlet. Instead, I’ve…well, I’m so sorry. I have to solve this.” Conar was tall and solid with sandy blond hair and dark eyes. He’d spent time around the world but the burr in his voice—distinct here in the borderlands between Scotland and England—was still pleasantly evident.
The sorrow in his eyes was both for the departed girl and his guests. Angela knew that Jackson had always liked Conar because of his ability to emphasize with victims and their families without letting his emotions rule his work.
Still, when someone died this way, it was impossible not to feel the pain. She hadn’t had a chance to live; that made her death all the more tragic.
“Conar, if we can help in any way, we’re glad to be here,” Jackson said. “As you said—we have an interest here. She was an American.”
“Of course, I’m glad to hear you say that. It’s just that….” Conar’s voice trailed.
“Sheriff?”
They all turned. A man in a lab jacket stood in the archway that led to the section of the museum where they stood. Angela had seen him already when he’d first arrived—he was the medical examiner. Due to the chaos of cops and crime scene personnel and the body, they hadn’t really met.
He studied Angela and Jackson curiously and nodded curtly before turning to Conar again. “Are you finished with the scene? I should take her now.”
“Of course, Joseph,” Conar said. “Let me introduce you properly. Angela Hawkins and Jackson Crow, Joe. Friends of mine from the states—and pros with their federal agency. Jackson, Angela, Dr. Joseph McGregor. We’re small, so Joseph is a family doc as well as our medical examiner and coroner—if I didn’t mention that already.”
Dr. McGregor was about fifty, Angela thought, with a thatch of white hair, pale skin, and green eyes. When Jackson shook hands with him, Angela saw just how pale. Jackson’s father’s family were Native American and his skin tone was darker; McGregor’s hand looked almost like snow against Jackson’s.
Since it didn’t seem appropriate to say, “A pleasure,” or anything similar due to the circumstances, they nodded at one another.
“Sad. I saw the young lady to patch her up after a hiking cut. And now…“
Now.
She’d become a display.
“Jackson, is there anything more you need with he
r—as she is now?” Conar asked.
Jackson nodded. “We’re ready for you and your team, Dr. McGregor,” Jackson said.
Angela turned away from the body and observed the room they were in. McGregor had come through the several halls that led to this exhibit while another archway led on to more tableaus in the bloody history of Scotland and England on land that had been contested—and changed hands—dozens of times during the years.
Dr. McGregor moved in, followed by two young men with a Gurney; she heard Conar and Jackson speaking softly as Cindy was carefully cut down, as the two bagged the ropes that had bound her to the stake, offering them to a man with their forensic unit.
There was, she saw, artfully hidden behind plastic and painted renditions of the vines that grew in the area, another door.
“Where does this lead?” she asked Conar.
“To employee hallways; the docents here are in costume during peak hours. They come and explain the history of events that occurred through the years—and why. It’s really wonderful when they’re here,” he said, and then he paused awkwardly—there was nothing wonderful about the present situation.
“May I?” she asked. She lifted her hands to remind him that they were gloved. She and Jackson had both donned gloves as soon as Conar and the police arrived—before doing any touching other than Jackson making a swift move to see if there was a prayer that the young woman was alive.
“Of course,” he told her.
She walked through the room to the door, thinking that he was right—when there wasn’t a murder victim in the museum—it really was wonderful. It had been very well planned. Each display was on an elevated platform but rather than appear to be uplifted and not a part of reality, fabricated rocks and dirt led to them and it appeared that they were set on any of the rugged tors that jutted to the sea or from the ground in the natural landscape. Standing in front of any of the exhibits made you feel as if you were back in time.
She opened the door and found herself in a long hallway. It was deserted at the moment but she saw a half open door that led to an office and another half open door that led to an employee room. The lights were on; there was nothing macabre about the hallway.
And yet, in a way, it was. The building had been crafted from the same stone as the nearby castle. There was a certain chill that seemed to hover around the stone—perhaps even a sense of all that was really old.
A whisper of history even here, perhaps.
As she stood there, Jackson and Conar came behind her.
“There are cameras in the display rooms,” Conar said. “None in these employee hallways. Conar had asked that any footage be pulled immediately, but there was a skeleton staff on today. Elysse McKinley had the keys to the front and the rear exit was locked with the alarm on. She was to see the janitor—Finley McCullough—out, and then lock up herself as soon as it was five o’clock. Thing is, if the M.E.’s timing is right, the poor girl was dead and in position before the museum even opened this morning. I have my constables and forensics people searching the museum to try to discern the point of entry, but, so far….”
“You have a real dead girl, and a missing wax figure,” Jackson said.
“Exactly,” Conar said. “They’re searching for the figure that was replaced now.”
Angela wondered if the killer had used the back hallways to slip in and display his victim—or if he had walked right through the vestibule entry.
She noted a velvet cord across and archway above stairs that led down—to darkness.
“Has anyone gone this way yet?” she asked.
“I have my men searching the employee areas now,” he told her.
She looked at Jackson; he nodded. “May we?” she asked Conar.
In reply, he took out a large flashlight to lead the way. “This takes us down to the old embalming rooms from when the building was a mortuary,” he told her. There’s lighting down here but it hasn’t been improved much in fifty years.
He was right; naked bulbs cast a scanty light on the bowels of the stone building. And when they reached the bottom of the stairs, Angela saw that heavy and outdated wooden preparation tables still held their positions across the floor and the walls still held labeled cabinets that chronicled embalming chemicals and instruments—whether they remained or not behind the closed cabinet doors.
The light was poor; she had to blink a moment to see that there was a form on the far embalming table.
“Our wax figure?” she asked.
But Jackson was already striding across the room with Conar.
The men were silent as they stood over the figure.
Then Jackson turned and looked at her and shook his head.
“No?” she asked.
“No,” he said.
“Then?” she asked.
“Another victim,” he said softly
Chapter 3
The mayor, Ragnor McPherson, had arrived, along with the owner of the museum, Brendan Malone. McPherson, Jackson thought, didn’t seem much like most politicians he had known. He was clad in his family tartan and looked as if he were a man preparing for the caber throw. Red-haired and somewhere around thirty-five, he looked as if gravity was not his chosen demeanor. In fact, he looked ill, which, of course, under the circumstances, was natural.
Brendan Malone, owner and operator of the museum, seemed more the man who would be the typical mayor. He was in his early fifties, Jackson judged, white haired, a bit stout, and as grim as a reaper. Maybe he smiled sometimes; Jackson doubted that he laughed often.
Dr. McGregor had moved on to making his initial inspection of the new victim; he knew her, too. She was Sally Manning, a local lass who worked at the florist down the street.
She, too, had been strangled before being lain out on the embalming table. In her position, it was easy for Jackson himself to see the bruising around her neck; the hemorrhaging in her eyes had been equally evident when McGregor had checked them.
“She’s another,” Dr. McGregor said, looking up at Conar and those gathered in the basement—which now included more police and forensic technicians.
“Another what?” Angela asked him softly. Jackson looked at his wife. In the eerie light of the cold basement, she was almost ethereal—so blond and beautiful and grave, like an angel come to touch the soul of the departed.
They had both made a point of touching the dead girl; sometimes, just sometimes, something of her spirit might have lingered.
Something to give them a clue.
And yet, he thought, were he a spirit, he’d not have remained in the icy cold stone basement, well below the teeming life of those on the street. He’d be somewhere, trying to touch someone, trying to tell them about the injustice done.
If he were to linger. Most did not.
“One of our lasses,” Mayor McPherson said. There were tears in his eyes, Jackson noted. Of course; this was a small village. People were close.
“I brought her into this world,” Dr. McGregor said. “I canna believe that now I stand here, seeing her out of it before me.” His brogue grew strong with his emotion.
Conar turned to Jackson. “She was one of the young ladies in the finals as well—in the running to be Queen of the May. And the thing of it is….”
“What?” Conar asked him.
“She’s been here a day or so,” he said. “She was killed before the other young lady. Her name is Brenda Aherne. I know that Mrs. Toddy—director of the events and pageantry around the crowning of the May Queen—was angry because she’d missed a rehearsal for the dance and intros that were to have taken place tonight. I hadn’t thought much of it when she was complaining today when I saw her by the barber shop; young women will be young women and there was a rumor that she’d been keeping time with a lad down Yorkshire way.”
Jackson saw Angela’s eyes on his.
As ridiculous as it sounded, could one contestant be killing off the others for the title of Queen of the May? As sad as it sounded, such things had ha
ppened.
“Elysse McKinley is one of the finalists as well,” Jackson said. “Maybe she knows something about the whereabouts of these girls in the last day or so?”
“We’ve sent her home,” Conar said with a sigh.
“Under sedation,” Dr. McGregor said. “I’m afraid we won’t get much out of her tonight.”
“My God!” Mayor McPherson said. “The festivities tonight…I am to speak in just a few minutes, introduce our lasses at the May Pole and speak about the fact that spring has come and that the days ahead will be bonny and bright….” His voice trailed in a choke.
“You’ll have to announce that the festivities have been cancelled,” Jackson said.
For a moment, he thought that he’d stepped into an old Hammer horror film. They all stared at him; he was sure he heard a collective gasp.
“You can’t stop May Day, Mr. Crow,” Mayor McPherson said. He looked nonetheless horrified by the deaths of the young women, but he was chagrined at Jackson’s proposition.
“Your contestants for Queen of the May are being killed off, Mayor,” Angela said, her tone low but hard and chill as a rock.
“They might have been killed for completely different reasons,” Dr. McGregor pointed out politely. “Perhaps they were after the same lad and a vengeful lover from the past did these two in. Perhaps they were into something illicit.”
“And perhaps a Viking spirit, aroused from the archeological dig, rose to smite them all?” Angela suggested.
Jackson stared at her—in their experience, the ghosts who hovered did not do so to do in the living; it tended to be the living who killed one another.
But, he realized, she was angry, and being sarcastic.
“Your pardon, Angela?” Conar asked, confused and perhaps a bit worn and angry himself—but too polite to mock an American guest and the wife of an old friend.
“What Angela means,” he said quickly, “is that we’re in an established business which is—I assume!—guarded with locks and alarms. Someone who knows this area well—and the museum—has to be involved. Since both girls were involved in the May Day festivities, it’s most likely they were killed by someone who doesn’t like the concept of there being a Queen of the May.”