Truly Dead

by Anne Frasier

  “Somebody’s just messing with me,” Elise said. “Trying to get my attention. It’s only bones and dirt.” Spells didn’t worry her. People worried her.

  Strata Luna clicked her tongue.

  She and Elise had argued over the topic of spells so many times it had become tedious, with Elise vacillating between full denial and faint belief, depending upon the circumstances and how they might impact her. And if she hadn’t believed at least a little, why had she called Strata Luna? And why had she gotten so upset the time she found out Strata Luna had given David a mojo to make Elise fall in love with him?

  Whatever Elise’s murky and confused position on the issue, there was no denying that spells could have a powerful impact on someone who believed. Elise called it the placebo effect, and it was why belief was at the core of all rootwork and mojos. And there was no denying that it was a practice deeply ingrained in low-country culture.

  They discussed Audrey.

  “He did what he had to do,” Strata Luna said in defense of Sweet. “Man had no choice. But don’t worry. Strata Luna’s gonna make you a ‘come back to me’ spell. That girl’ll be home in no time.”

  Elise didn’t mention her concerns about Audrey’s safety if she returned. Instead she told the woman good-bye. Moments after she ended the conversation, her landline rang. It was David.

  “Got a call from John Casper,” he told her. “Crime scene status was lifted from the Remy house, and demolition restarted. And guess what? More bodies. John is on-site and would like our input. I’m heading there now.” Without waiting for a response, he finished: “I’ll swing by and pick you up.”

  Before David’s arrival, Elise returned to the front porch with a broom and dustpan, cleaning up the glass and powder, dumping it and zipping it into a clear storage bag rather than tossing it in the trash.

  She considered calling the police to file a report, but all she could share was a vague description and some ground bones. More of the very thing she didn’t want associated with her name. And maybe that’s all this display had been about. She was a local celebrity, and there was a whole underground scene of people who thought she should be doing more to embrace her heritage. No, a call to the police was something she wanted to avoid unless the behavior escalated.

  The Remy house was located in the Starland District, an area of Savannah once known for high crime but currently in the process of gentrification. Gentrification was not always the best thing for neighborhoods, but if it meant fewer homicides, Elise was for it. Disturbingly—and something David probably wasn’t even thinking about—the location wasn’t that far from the house where Atticus Tremain had left his mark on her. It seemed all roads led back to hell.

  At the scene, a bulldozer and crane waited to raze the only home left standing on the block. A billboard on the corner displayed an architectural drawing of plans—apartments for SCAD students, a coffee shop, pizza joint, and green space. Marring the vision of progress were a white coroner van, local forensics, plus a forensic team sent down from Atlanta, cop cars, and yellow crime scene tape.

  It was no surprise to find Detective Avery along with Victor Lamont, the guy who’d replaced Elise in Homicide, at the scene. Avery was glad to see them, shaking David’s and Elise’s hands. “Great job in Chicago,” he said. “I followed your progress the whole time.” He shifted from foot to foot in his excitement. “Wish I could have been part of it.”

  Lamont worked his way into the conversation, addressing David, refusing to make eye contact with Elise. “It was a media circus. You apparently didn’t learn anything about decorum while working for the FBI.”

  Someone—maybe the project manager—appeared and passed out white hard hats before being pulled away by one of his crew.

  David stared at Lamont. “If decorum is code for screwing your partner’s wife, then no.” He slapped the hat on his head. “Guess I didn’t.”

  “Show some respect for your line of work,” Lamont said, ignoring the bait, probably because the argument over David’s ex was one he’d never win. “You’re giving us a bad name. And I doubt the photo that’s gone viral will get you any private detective jobs no matter how much the mayor of Chicago praises you.”

  “Photo?” Elise asked.

  Avery pulled out his phone, scrolled, and turned the screen around. Elise and David leaned in close. She’d almost forgotten about jumping on David’s back in front of city hall yesterday. It already seemed ages ago. The image was electric, both of them laughing, caught up in the excitement of the moment. Below the photo was the caption Homicide power couple.

  David smiled. Elise frowned.

  Lamont had a point. The photo was unprofessional and undignified. But what struck her was the expression on her face. She looked happy.

  Staring at the picture, she noted details that had gone unremarked in real life. How long David’s hair had gotten—over his ears and collar—how it was a few shades lighter than hers. How her arms were locked almost intimately around his chest, how his hands supported her legs. She thought about their bodies beneath their clothes. His, hers, along with the knowledge of what her clothing hid from the world. The scars. The tattoo—the signature of Atticus Tremain—a permanent stain on her skin.

  It came to her that things weren’t right in her head. She understood that now, in this moment. While in Chicago, she’d been able to put the creeping unease aside, but coming back had reawakened what had lain dormant.

  In Savannah, after her ordeal, she’d become desensitized to familiar and painful places. But going away, returning, had reset her brain, taking her to square one, returning her to the day she’d escaped from Tremain. Only back then she’d had the euphoria of her escape and something similar to the fog of fresh grief to protect her. Now she was naked, vulnerable, shaking inside, but hopefully cool and calm outside.

  Avery stuck the phone back in his pocket. “It’s everywhere. Facebook, Twitter, blogs.”

  “Go big or go home,” David said.

  Lamont grunted his disgust.

  Elise shook free of her navel-gazing and steered the conversation back to the crime scene. “I’m surprised the building was released so quickly.”

  “We’d finished our investigation,” Lamont told her. “The construction company was losing money every day the project was delayed.” Defensive, as usual.

  Seeing her doubt, he added with insistence, “We were thorough.”

  “Apparently not thorough enough,” David said.

  “One more comment like that and you’re going to have to leave,” Lamont told him. “I only agreed to allow you on-site because Casper requested it. But this is my case, and your presence alone, thanks to your newfound obsession with media whoredom, is already creating a spectacle.”

  Elise knew David had no reservations when it came to public displays of anything. Normally laid back, he’d been known to exhibit a lack of control around Lamont. And the detective was right. They had no reason to be there other than as a favor to John Casper. Without saying it, John hoped they might spot something Lamont had missed. The subtext was that nobody had much confidence in Lamont. That had to rankle.

  She put a hand to her partner’s chest. He might have been wearing his affable expression, but his body was tense and his heart was pounding. “Let’s go inside the house.” She spoke in a low voice meant just for him. “That’s what we’re here for.”

  He blinked and nodded.

  “Inside” wasn’t really the right word. The roof had been removed. Some of the walls were gone, exposing two-by-fours, studs, and wood turned black from age. That was where they found John Casper.

  Wildly curly dark hair, red sneakers, coroner jacket. She hadn’t seen him since his wedding a month ago in Wright Square. She and David took turns giving him a hug. John was the good kind of family. The kind that wasn’t blood.

  “I’m getting fat, right?” he asked, mistaking the intensity of her gaze for something other than happiness to see him. “You know how Mara loves t
o bake. Speaking of food, you’re both invited to our new place on Johnny Mercer Day. We’ll have all the appropriate fare for both vegans and carnivores.”

  The first Johnny Mercer Day was getting a lot of buzz, and the city hoped for something on par with their Saint Patrick’s Day festivities, which brought thousands of people into town. Elise internally shuddered thinking about the crush of drunks, but the event would be a financial boost for the city.

  “Love to,” she and David said in unison.

  None of them thought it odd that they were catching up in the middle of a crime scene. It was what they did.

  “Over here.” John motioned for them to follow him toward a set of stairs.

  “The first body was found in a wall on the ground floor,” he explained. “Not making excuses, but it didn’t occur to us to look further. Nobody was expecting more.”

  Upstairs, he led them down a hallway to a small bedroom. Even though the house had no roof, the wallpaper with giant flowers overwhelmed the space.

  One area had been stripped of plaster and drywall, revealing studs spaced a couple of feet apart. Beside her, David let out a small sound of dismay. Between every set of studs was a body wedged into the space, some of the bodies held in place by strategically placed nails and ropes.

  David hung back but Elise stepped closer, careful not to touch anything, scanning the bodies and the crevices they were wedged into. “Did you see this?” She pointed to gouges in the wood.

  John nodded, his face grim. “That’s one of the reasons I called you. Look under the fingernails.”

  “Wood?”

  “Pretty sure of it. I’ll know when I do the autopsy.”

  “My God. This means at least some of them were alive when they were put here. Either by accident or design.”

  “Yes.”

  She could feel David behind her, reluctant to step closer.

  She understood his reaction. The presentation was horrible enough, but the most horrifying and inhuman? All the bodies appeared to belong to children.

  “How long have they been here?” Elise asked. Judging from the clothing, the shrunken and dehydrated corpses had been there a very long time.

  “Decades, possibly.”

  Remy died thirty-six years ago. She thought of what her father had said yesterday. He hurt children. Very young children. “Didn’t think I’d be saying this,” Elise said, “but we need to get Jackson Sweet in here.”

  CHAPTER 4

  How did you know about the children?” Elise asked.

  She and Sweet stood in the upstairs bedroom of the half-demolished house. She’d asked that they be allowed to visit the room without anyone else present. Knowing Sweet, he’d be more willing to talk with no audience. Surprisingly, Lamont had agreed to give them five minutes.

  “I researched his case,” Elise went on. “He was convicted for the murder of a neighbor. An adult neighbor. This”—she swept a hand in front of the death wall—“doesn’t appear to be the work of the same man. But yesterday you said Remy killed children.”

  “Remember how I told you I sometimes did what I had to do to make sure the guilty paid for their crimes?” He gave her a look that said he expected her to understand where he was coming from. “You have to know what I’m talking about. You deal with this stuff all the time. You know someone is guilty, but you don’t have enough evidence to convict him.”

  “Are you saying you framed him? With the neighbor’s murder?” It wouldn’t surprise her. During a previous conversation, Sweet had admitted to meting out a form of justice that had nothing to do with any law but his.

  “Just leave this alone, Elise. Walk away. Leave it in the hands of Lamont.”

  “Who’ll never solve it?”

  He raised his eyebrows. Hopefully.

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Then I’m going to have to disappear again.”

  Always a runner. “That would break Audrey’s heart. It would break Strata Luna’s heart.”

  “What about you?”

  How would she feel about it? Relieved? Sad?

  When she didn’t answer his question, he said, “They’ll get used to it. I haven’t been back in their lives that long.”

  She noted the hardness of him, the conviction, the will to do whatever it took to uphold that conviction, and also whatever it took to keep himself safe. “Did you kill these children?”

  He recoiled, and she immediately felt bad for suspecting him.

  “Good God, Elise. I protect children. Don’t you get that?”

  “It’s hard for me to grasp such behavior, since I was never one of those children you protected.”

  “For somebody who is so independent, you seem to harbor a lot of resentment toward people you claim weren’t there for you.”

  “Are you talking about you? Or David?”

  He laughed. “Both of us.”

  “I don’t resent David.”

  “Come on. I know you partially blame him for what happened with Tremain.”

  It was true. Unfair of her, but true.

  They heard a sound on the stairs. Lamont. No doubt coming to tell them their time was up, to gloat, to do all manner of irritating things Lamont did.

  Sweet was still staring at her.

  “If you leave, don’t come back,” she told him. “If your cancer returns and you’re sick and need us to change your diapers and feed you baby food, don’t come back.”

  He smiled his brittle smile, basking in the cruelty of her words. And then he said something that put a crack in her heart. “If you need me, I’ll come.”

  CHAPTER 5

  John and I were able to extract DNA from beneath the fingernails of some of the cold-case victims before they were taken to Atlanta,” Mara, John Casper’s new bride, told Elise and David two days later in the morgue office. She was perched on the edge of the desk, her long dark hair shining, skin glowing, the hem of a floral skirt just visible beneath her white lab coat. Her pose might give the casual visitor the impression of noncommitment, but nobody was more committed to dead bodies than Mara. And nobody was more committed to John Casper.

  Elise wasn’t surprised to hear that the old bodies found in the Remy house were gone. Georgia Bureau of Investigation had much better equipment for dealing with crimes that required intricate analysis. The downside was they were always backed up, and bodies dead for over three decades would not be a priority. If Elise had been in charge, she’d have pushed to have the bodies remain with John and Mara as long as possible.

  “It didn’t match anything in our database, so we tried to find DNA on Remy.” John munched one of the ginger cookies Mara kept on hand for anybody who might be feeling queasy after a visit to the autopsy suite. “There is none. Not surprising considering the date. From 1970 to 1991 the state of Georgia did enzyme typing only. Not that it would have mattered, because nothing was collected from Remy—not uncommon back then with a case that was considered open and shut.”

  “Where’s Remy buried?” Elise asked.

  “Laurel Grove.”

  Laurel Grove—a recurring theme in their lives. It was where Elise had been abandoned as a baby on the grave of Lavinia Lafayette, a voodoo priestess. Later, to Elise’s mortification, someone turned the grave into a shrine. Laurel Grove was also the place where David had been shot by Lamont. They might as well buy a couple of plots and set up some lawn chairs.

  “I called Lamont,” John said. “He filed an exhumation request. It’s been approved. I’d like for you two to be there.”

  Elise took a sip of coffee and thought about the detective’s reaction to their presence at the construction site. “Lamont won’t like that.”

  “Keep a low profile and maybe he won’t find out.”

  That seemed unlikely.

  David scooted his wheeled office chair closer and grabbed a cookie from the tray on the desk. “Nothing like a good exhumation.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Elise learned long ago that the dead and buried
of Savannah didn’t always stay that way. She’d once worked a case in which victims were given a drug that mimicked death, and poor John Casper had almost cut open a living person on his autopsy table. But there were more common reasons for the deceased not remaining six feet under, one being robbery. Not even the dead were safe from crime.

  Bodies were regularly pilfered by criminals looking for anything of value. Caskets were dug up, the vault’s gummy seals broken and pried open with crowbars, bodies stripped of fancy funeral clothes and polished shoes, teeth containing gold and diamonds yanked out with pliers. Hard to say if it was worse for a family member to come upon a desecrated grave containing the stripped corpse of a loved one or to come upon an empty coffin, the mark of another kind of thief, a wannabe root doctor or shady purveyor of ingredients to be sold as goofer dust. And then there were the plain old exhumations, sometimes of victims—sometimes, like today, of prosecuted and processed criminals.

  “Haven’t decided if it feels good to be home or not,” David said from where he and Elise stood in the shady area they’d staked out earlier. A diesel truck with a winch was parked next to Frank J. Remy’s grave, hole already dug with a backhoe and shovels. Two men inside the pit attached chains to lift the cement vault that held the coffin.

  Elise crossed her arms and shifted her weight. “I know what you mean.”

  She and David were partially hidden behind a curtain of Spanish moss, observing from a distance, trying to avoid attracting the attention of Detective Lamont. Since this wasn’t their case and they weren’t on-site in an official capacity, no work clothing was necessary. David wore a gray T-shirt and jeans, his hair damp from the shower he’d probably taken after his morning run. Even in Chicago he hadn’t given up those daily jogs. It helped keep him level, he said, helped keep him sane. In contrast to David’s casual attire, Elise wore her usual black slacks and white top, thrown on in that brief moment after waking when she forgot she wasn’t heading downtown to the police station. Unlike David, she wore a gun at her waist. Too hot for a jacket.