Grave Misgivings

by Kristen Houghton

  “I blurted out the first thought in my head. ‘You mean you’re not going to kill her? Why not?’ He laughed at me and said if I wanted to have her eliminated it would cost more money. I immediately offered him twenty thousand dollars for a new contract. He laughed again and upped it to one hundred thousand, that shrewd bastard. He obviously knew about her will and what I would inherit from it. Her monetary circumstances had changed significantly since she had first contacted him. I had no choice but to agree. Why should I save her life? As I said Jennifer wasn’t exactly forthcoming with large cash amounts and even with her glamorous new looks, she was a pretty boring, clingy person. Being with her would simply drive me crazy. I like new vistas, new women, exciting, aberrant sexual adventures. Why, Jennifer would have expected me to be faithful! I need my freedom.

  “As for his fee, hell, I thought I could borrow the money against Jennifer’s account. After all, as her sole beneficiary, I would certainly have her money after she was bumped off.” He stops and flashes me a sinister smile. “Do you know that Jennifer would have left most of that lovely money to a stupid women’s shelter if I hadn’t convinced her to make a new will?”

  I am so tempted to slap that self-serving smile off his face. “A new will that she obviously signed while you had her drugged. Notarized no doubt by your cohort from the bank, the man who has come to the condo several times.”

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  “Bingo, Ms. Harlow, bingo! You are sharp, aren’t you? Oh I had her nicely sedated when she signed that crucial piece of paper. Actually I’d been giving her drugs for quite a while, always at strategic times. Of course before we arrived in your office that first time, she had been off the drugs for a week. I had to have her rather alert with no hint of sedation. You’re sharp-eyed and would notice her groggy demeanor. All you saw was a woman who was tense, tearful, and jumpy; all natural reactions for anyone who fears for her life.

  “Ah, well, now where was I? Oh yes; I made arrangements to have her, what’s that word he used? Oh yes, e-l-i-m-i-n-a-t-e-d. Jennifer would know nothing about any cancellation of her original contract and neither would the police, those security people, or you.

  “After her elimination, I would say murder but that’s such a nasty word, I would play the grieving fiancé, robbed of a life with the only woman he had ever loved. Her money would set me up quite handsomely for some time to come and of course I would have my freedom. Brilliant idea on my part.”

  He licks his lips after taking a long sip of the Petrus Pomerol ’98. Edward Penn looks me up and down then laughs. “Most women are not like you, Ms. Harlow; you’re skeptical and hard to fool.” He sits back and laughs. “But, getting back to my proposed contract with the hit man, there was a nasty little fly in the ointment. My request for a loan was denied. The best-laid plans and all that bullshit, you know? This hit man wanted the money for the new contract up front. Imagine! I didn’t have that kind of money and since the bank refused to lend me the amount, I was in quite a difficult position. What to do, eh? So…I took matters into my own very capable hands. After all, I already had her pretty well drugged, I was sending her ominous mail and messages to scare her witless.” Another sip. “Actually you almost caught me the night of that pathetic dinner you arranged. I dropped my burner phone right after I sent that last text to Jennifer. Yes, dear girl, I did it all. I was the one who ordered the fucking coffin, a fancy coffin too good for a backwoods girl really! By the way, is it still raining? She so hated rain! But, as I told you, rain washes away everything!

  “You,” Edward smiles warmly at me as if reliving a memory of a pleasant meeting, “hiring you was the best idea I had. I convinced Jennifer to hire a private investigator, I said I would find someone. I did my research, Cate dear, yes I did. You were perfect. You seem to have an affinity for helping poor whiny women. It must be your goal in life to help those stupid bitches who seem so incapable of helping themselves. There was the Reynolds woman crying ‘My baby, my baby!’ and you took her case and found her daughter who was kidnapped 22 years ago. Mother and child reunion!” He begins to sing the beginning of the old Paul Simon song by that title. “The news loved that one. And then there was that sad-faced woman, that what’s-her-name McElroy woman, another little mouse; you found her missing brother for her, kid sexually abused by the parish priest or someone. Such drama! That was all over the news media. You specialize in scared, helpless women so I thought why not throw one more your way and keep Jennifer busy while I plotted my next move? Jennifer was a weak, scared shitless bitch.”

  He said was as in is no more. “Where is she, Edward? Where’s Jennifer?” I feel my heart start to race. Edward Penn simply sips his wine and says nothing. “Where is she?”

  “My dear girl! Such drama from someone who always seems so cool.” He laughs again. “Anyway, I have no fear. She’s somewhere you will never find her.” He checks his watch.

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  “Actually she may already be gone.” He laughs at his little joke. “And you will never leave here

  alive, Ms. Harlow. The story will be that you came here and were killed by the very same hit

  man who was hired by stupid Jennifer. I will be the one who finds you. Shock, terror, oh dear me

  and all that crap.” He looks at me menacingly. “Now dear, Cate, slowly remove your gun from

  the waistband of those divinely tight jeans you’re so fond of wearing and toss it over here. Be

  careful, dear, don’t make any sudden moves.”

  I have to take a chance. Will would say I’m reckless but I have to do it. In one smooth move I take my Smith and Wesson out of my waistband holster, aim it downward, and fire it at the floor behind me, startling Edward. Stepping quickly forward I kick the silver Derringer out of his hand. He tries to reach for the heavy crystal decanter to use as a weapon but I’m quicker than he is and in a second I am aiming my gun at him. “Don’t do it, Edward. You know I won’t hesitate to shoot you.” Then, before he can react, I jab my gun hard into his groin.

  “Ow, you bitch! You fucking bitch!”

  “Where is she, Edward? Where? Tell me now or I swear I will shoot and blow away whatever manhood you’ve got there. The blood and flesh will spatter all over the very expensive upholstery on your new leather couch. And the best part about all that? You’ll still be alive, Edward. I won’t kill you, I’ll neuter you one ball at a time; I’m that precise a shot, you bastard. Trust me, I’m very good at what I do.” Actually shooting any man in the testicles will more than likely do more than neuter him; the loss of blood will kill him. But all Edward needs to know is that I will shoot him there.

  “You’ll never find her, you bitch.”

  “Where is she?” I jab harder.

  Edward gasps for breath through the pain. “In the type of coffin perfectly suited to her needs.”

  “Where? Where’s the coffin?”

  He coughs and smirks. “Now where do we put coffins, dear? In the ground, deep in the ground.”

  I twist the gun harder and he screams. “In what ground? Where did you bury her? When?”

  For a few precious minutes he’s unable to speak then, when he hears me cock the gun, he mutters, “It was...around…six, six this evening. Unmarked grave, there’re so many of them. Over 800,000. You’ll never find her.” Then he passes out. I check my watch; it’s just after 6:30. Calling Will, I hurriedly tell him about Edward and a possible murder. “I’ll send patrol cars right now and I’m on my way.” I hang up and look around for something to restrain Edward until Will and his people get here. I put the Derringer in my pocket and hog-tie Edward up tightly with corded drapery tie-backs.

  He buried her alive! Edward buried her alive! But where, where? There are so many cemeteries; where would he be likely to bury her? I have to try to find her. With no idea where to look, I race down toward my car thinking of cemeteries in the local area. I’m forcing myself to think as rationally as possible. Okay. Buried. Had to be in secret. Wouldn’t
want any witnesses. I don’t believe that he had an assistant. Secret, secret. He said “so many unmarked graves, over 800,000.” Where?! I stop and lean next to a car, then hit the Google search button on my phone. Clearly and slowly I say, “Unmarked graves, 800,000” and a robotic voice comes back with

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  “Hart Island, New York.” He didn’t go for a local graveyard. Hart Island, there’s a Potter’s Field

  located on Hart Island, a small island in New York City at the western end of Long Island Sound.

  It has quite a history; I remember learning about it in high school. It’s on the easternmost part of

  the Bronx borough and had been used over the years as a Union Civil War prison camp, a lunatic

  asylum, a tuberculosis sanatorium, a boys’ infamous reformatory, and finally a potter’s field.

  Indigent people and a lot of inmates from Riker’s Island are buried there. I also remember with

  dread that the island is a restricted area under the jurisdiction of the New York City Department

  of Correction. No one can visit Hart Island without contacting the prison system first. I hit my

  speed dial to call Will again.

  “Hart Island. Okay, Cate, I’ll deal with the bureaucratic bullshit. Where are you?”

  “Near the parking garage.”

  “Get back to the building and meet me outside. We have to get to heliport NK39 at One Police Plaza. Two other officers will be with me and I’m getting an emergency STAT Flight from Westchester Medical to follow us. I’m contacting Hart Island authorities now.”

  I race back to the building doing a quick calculation of how long a person can last inside a coffin before the air runs out. My God! A closed box under maybe six feet of dirt. How long would the small amount of air last? How much air! How can that be calculated?! Think Cate, Jesus Christ, think! I punch in Giles’s number. The call goes to voice mail. That means that he’s either in autopsy or in a conference. I call the morgue.

  “Office of the Medical Examiner.”

  “Dr. Giles Barrett. This is Cate Harlow.”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Harlow, but Dr. Barrett is not available.”

  “This is an emergency. Get Dr. Barrett now. It is a matter of life and death.”

  “But…”

  “Now! Someone will die if you do not put Dr. Barrett on the phone!”

  Two long minutes go by and then I hear Giles’s soothing voice. “Catherine? What’s going on?”

  “I need some information. How long can a living person survive in an airtight coffin buried underground?”

  “I don’t quite understand. What...?”

  “He buried her alive, Giles! Edward buried Jennifer alive. I think she’s in an unmarked grave on Hart Island, in Potter’s Field. Now tell me how long does she have?”

  “I don’t know for certain, Cate,” he says as calmly as possible though I hear a touch of fear in his voice, “but I do remember a lecture I heard in med school on controlling breathing. The lecturer talked about an escape artist who was placed in a lead-lined box. He said that there’s only about two to three hours or so of air in a sealed box. The air supply could last a little longer only IF a person could stay calm enough to keep their breathing slow and not use up the oxygen too fast. But it’s a Catch-22. As the oxygen levels get lower, the heart rate speeds up in an effort to get more oxygen to the body, which will, in turn, speed up the breathing causing the air to run out faster. Through controlled breathing the escape artist had lasted almost three hours. The average person would panic. Plus, this escape artist was in constant contact with his assistants by a communication device placed in the box. If he was in trouble they’d get him out fast.”

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  Jennifer is alone with no one to help her and death is the only possible end. Shit!

  “Catherine? Listen to me carefully. There is something that could possibly be in Jennifer’s favor. If she was drugged, if Edward drugged her to put her in the coffin, her vital signs will be lowered; her breathing and her heart rate will be shallower and slowed down considerably. Please call me later, Catherine. Let me know…either way. Good luck!” I see Will’s unmarked car screeching to the curb and put my phone in my pocket. Oh God, I hope he drugged her! I think, getting into Will’s car and racing, sirens blaring, toward the heliport.

  ๕๕๕

  Hart Island is a thin half-mile long strip of land at the yawning mouth of Long Island Sound. It is a dismal place at any time of the day but coupled with dark clouds and a steady drizzle it resembles a landscape right out of a vampire novel. People buried on the island run a wide gamut from indigents to prison inmates to the misinformed public. One third of its inhabitants are infants because their parents couldn’t afford a burial. Then there were those families who didn’t understand what the term ‘city burial’ meant on a death certificate. Many of the dead here were homeless, many others were simply unclaimed. Giles once told me that it is a sad truth that if a body remains at the city morgue for more than a few weeks that the corpse will automatically be sent for burial on Hart Island. A team of inmates from the state prison system do the honors of burying the indigent, the unwanted, and the lost.

  “Here,” says Will just before we land. He’s handing me a HAZ-LO tactical police flashlight and a state-of-the-art police mobile phone used by rescue teams. “We’re going to scan the island and hopefully the second team will be here soon to help us. Harbor Patrol is sending a crew as soon as they can. We have to split up to be able to cover as much of the area as possible.” Pointing to the phone he says, “Stay in contact with me as much as you can. If you see anything at all, let me know immediately.”

  “What about Edward Penn? Your officers get anything out of him about where he buried Jennifer?”

  Will shakes his head. “Not yet but they’re working on it. He claims he doesn’t know what we’re talking about and that you attacked him because he failed to protect Jennifer when the Eliminator grabbed her. He swears the Eliminator told him he was going to bury her but that he, Edward, has no idea where. The guy is trying to lawyer up but so far we’ve been able to keep the call from going through. We’re claiming technical difficulties with the phone service. He’s in a holding cell downtown complaining about internal genital injuries he says you inflicted. You really jam your Smith and Wesson in his balls?” I nod. “That’s my Cate,” he says admiringly.

  After landing on Hart Island we fan out in all directions to look for a fresh grave. There are really no guards on the island; just a harbor patrol that goes by every hour or so. The island is so isolated that they follow no real set schedule. We’ve got a scent dog with us but, as one of the officers said to Will and me in the police copter, if the coffin is lead-lined the dog won’t be able to sniff out anything. God help us if that top-of-the-line Perfect Ruby Rest 0557 is lead-lined.

  Even though the island is relatively small I quickly lose sight of Will and the other two officers. Only their flashlights are visible for a while, unearthly lights moving across the island. I stop near a plain white grave marker. Damn!

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  The rain has created a misty fog that hangs over the island adding to the eerie, chilling look. I cannot see where Will and the other two officers went; even their lights aren’t visible any more. I hear intermittent barking but can’t know if it’s the police dog or one of the wild dogs on the island. I feel desperate and hopeless. Over by the broken fence I see movement and then several creatures, maybe rats, scurrying across the wet ground. I don’t really want to know what they are, I just want to find Jennifer alive and get the hell out of here. A gull flying across the water’s edge gives a screeching cry and I jump at the sound.

  Even with the flashlight to guide me I slip and slide in the soaked soil. At one point I fall flat and the mobile phone goes skittering off down a small hill into a muddy trench and out of sight. I shine my light down the slope but see nothing. Going to get it is not an o
ption; I don’t know how deep that hole is and I can’t risk falling into it. Besides, time’s running out; I have to find that new grave.

  Suddenly I see a figure walking toward me out of the mist. I breathe a ragged sigh of relief and yell out, “Will!” But it’s not Will or either of the other two cops who came with us. It’s another man wearing what looks like the type of backpack worn by combat soldiers or survivalists, and he’s carrying a shovel. One of the group of convicts who do the burying on this island? Jesus! I put my hand on my gun. No, he wouldn’t be here alone; there would be guards and other prisoners with him. It has to be some type of a custodian who is employed here or maybe one of the Harbor Patrol agents. Still...keeping my right hand on my gun I pull out my PI license with my left and run toward him.

  “Sir? Over here!” The figure walking toward me stops. “Sir? Do you work here? I’m a private investigator, there are police and a detective on the island searching for a grave dug this evening. There’s a woman buried alive here. Help me!” The figure turns away from me and hides his face. “Hello? Can you hear me?” I run over and a familiar voice says, “I can hear you just fine. Stay where you are.” It is the voice of the man in my condo; the Eliminator, Marc Croft! His right hand holds a gun and a canteen hangs from the utility belt he’s wearing. I move toward him in spite of what he said and the fact that his gun is aimed in my direction.

  “Jennifer is buried alive somewhere on this God-forsaken island. Edward buried her here. He said you wouldn’t kill her because he didn’t have the money you wanted.”

  “I don’t bury people unless they’re already dead. Quick kills are what I do.”

  “Help me find her then. She’s going to die! There can’t be much air left; he buried her an hour ago.”