by Angie Fox
My heart sped up. “In front of your baby?”
Her eyes glistened with tears. “I stood up to him. No one ever stood up to him. He said, ‘No one leaves the family.’” She hung her head. “Our baby was in my arms. I didn’t let go of her.”
Sal was a monster. No wonder Chastity kept running from him, even after he killed her.
Lou stared into space. “Sal had Bonnie when he found me,” he said quietly. He looked down at his wife. “I thought he had you locked up. I didn’t know you were dead.”
Lou closed his eyes briefly. “Sal said I’d stolen from him, that I had to pay him back, blood for blood.”
“That is the code,” Frankie said grimly. “But it don’t extend to family matters.”
At least for Sal, it seemed that the business was his family, and he ran his family like the business. Mob rules all around.
Lou looked to Frankie. “I had to kill my own brother to spare my child.”
I gasped. I couldn’t imagine living with that kind of choice.
For once, Frankie had nothing to say.
Chastity’s father had been a cold-blooded killer. One with a sadistic streak a mile wide. He punished his daughter by killing her. And he took his revenge by making Lou murder his own brother at point-blank range, the brother he’d joined the mob to protect.
“You knew I’d be at the rendezvous point the night the big deal went down,” Frankie said, looking at his brother with new eyes.
Lou held his gaze. “I shot you before you even knew it was me,” he said softly. “I made it quick.”
Right between the eyes.
Frankie didn’t react, not even when his hat rode up and exposed the raw wound in his forehead. “Did I save the baby?”
Chastity’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know what happened to her.”
Lou looked down at the floor. “Sal was holding Bonnie when he gave me the orders. He sent one of his guys along with me, to make sure I did you in.”
“Did it work?” Frankie demanded. “You did your job. What happened to the baby?”
Lou cleared his throat. “Sal told me to meet him in the doorway of the church. Said he’d give Bonnie to me out there.” He flicked his eyes up to Frankie. “Instead, he shot me in the chest and tossed me into the river. The bullet hole is still in the old wood archway.”
“I’m so sorry,” Chastity sobbed.
“Did he hurt Bonnie?” Frankie pressed. “Did he kill her?”
“I don’t know what happened to her,” Lou said, looking completely and utterly lost.
Chastity buried her head in his chest and cried.
I exchanged a glance with my increasingly frantic housemate. “We know the last place anyone saw her was the church. And I’m not buying the idea that Pastor Clemens was as squeaky clean as everyone thinks.”
“Not if people are getting shot outside his church,” Frankie said.
“I told you something bad happened on that property,” I said. “And it gets worse. When I went to the heritage society this afternoon, I saw a wedding picture from 1955.”
“That’s almost twenty years too late to make a difference here.” Frankie deflated.
“The church gravedigger stood in the background,” I told him, “along with the mobster that we met in the back of the flower shop.”
That got Frankie thinking. “Hold up. The gravedigger didn’t work for any of the gangs. Nobody at the church did. Clemens didn’t allow it.”
“The photo I saw showed the gravedigger and the original Pastor Clemens with a mobster, burying something in the churchyard.” And he wasn’t alone. “There were also a few other guys standing around in suits, looking at the ground.”
“I’ll be damned.” Frankie exchanged glances with Lou.
“I don’t know the entire story, but I’d like to check out that grave,” I told them. “I’d also like to talk to the gravedigger.” If he could talk. “He might have seen what happened to little Bonnie.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Lou snarled, drawing a revolver out of his jacket.
“Hold up,” Frankie ordered, shooting me a sideways glance. “If I know Sal, he’s already gotten to any witnesses. Clammed them up. Verity is an outsider, and alive. She might be our only shot.”
“But what can Verity do?” Chastity protested. “No offense,” she said to me, “but we’re on an entirely different plane.”
I understood her doubt. “I admit, I’ve had trouble getting the gravedigger to talk to me.”
“That’s when you didn’t know what to say to him,” Frankie countered.
I still didn’t. “I can’t exactly walk up and say, ‘Hi, I heard you might have witnessed a murder and buried the body.’” Many bodies, possibly. Or other illegal objects. “Besides, I’m afraid Sal took Bonnie back to Chicago with him. Would the gravedigger know if he did?”
“Sal always kept his plans close to the vest,” Lou said.
“He liked control,” Frankie agreed.
“If you find her, I’ll never let her out of my sight again,” Chastity promised, gliding toward me.
“Please find my baby,” she urged.
“I’ll try,” I promised. I’d do everything I could.
“Come on,” Lou said, holding out a hand to her. “I’ll take you back to our apartment.”
“It’s not safe,” Chastity said, avoiding his touch, glancing at us. “Those two found me there.”
“I’ve got a shed you can use,” Frankie offered.
Pride warmed my heart as he gave them my address.
“What?” Frankie muttered in my direction as the couple thanked him and disappeared.
“You’re a good brother.” I smiled at his shock. “You helped him instead of shooting him.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets. “It’s not going to be a habit.” He stared at the wall. “Besides, I got to take care of my niece’s parents. I’m an uncle now.” He looked to me, as serious as I’d ever seen him. “We need to learn what happened to little Bonnie.”
“We do.” Lou and Chastity were reunited now, but they needed their child with them to make them whole. “Are you ready to go back to that graveyard?” I asked.
Frankie gritted his jaw and gave a sharp nod. “Are you?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
I tried Ellis again on the way to the church.
“Why do you always want to get the cops involved?” Frankie asked, digging for a cigarette. “What have they ever done for you?”
“Let’s see,” I said, tapping my fingers on the steering wheel, “Ellis has saved me from a haunted tub, camped out with me in a cursed bedroom, he’s a heck of a kisser…”
“Okay. Stop,” Frankie said, lighting up.
“I shot Frankie a slanted look. “The truth is, I don’t want any old police officer.” I needed someone who believed in me. “I want Ellis. I just don’t know where he could be.” I’d left another message. I knew he wouldn’t be thrilled to know I was running around investigating, but he should want to call just to lecture me on it.
Besides, I’d told him in my messages that it was important.
“You’ll do fine without him,” Frankie said, taking a deep drag of his smoke. “I’ll cut your power if the ghosts in the cemetery get out of hand.”
“Be sure you’re close by to do it this time,” I said, steering up the hill toward the gates of the old church. “Davey has it out for you, and there could be more.”
“You’re the one who wanted me to be friendly,” Frankie said as if it were the silliest thing he’d ever done. He leaned forward to get a better look out the window. “I told you from the start there was something wrong with this place.” Frankie wrinkled his nose, wisps of smoke trailing from it, as we passed the woman in the bloody bathrobe standing at the gate.
“We’ll get to the bottom of it,” I vowed. “And we’ll learn what happened to Bonnie.”
For Bonnie’s sake and for Frankie’s. He was starting to put his family back toge
ther, and I wouldn’t let him down.
I paused to let a man clad in long underwear and sporting a bullet hole in his back stumble aimlessly across the road.
The sky had gone cloudy, and a single raindrop smacked my windshield.
I steered past the dead preacher standing in the middle of the road. He stared blankly, not seeing, which was great by me.
I’d be quite happy to attract as little attention as possible. Last time, the ghosts had noticed me only when I began talking to Ray. The time before that, my morning had started going sideways when I approached the ghost of the organist.
“Stick close, but try not to talk to me,” I warned him.
“Oh, I can be subtle,” he said, leaning a hand out the window of my car and ashing his cigarette.
“If there are any living people at the church, we’ll leave and come back later,” I pledged. I needed room to work, and the ability to go places I maybe shouldn’t. “If the ghosts get unruly, you’ll turn my power off, and we’ll escape and come back later.”
“Piece of cake,” Frankie declared.
“Famous last words,” I said, pulling into the empty lot.
“Actually, my last words were, ‘What are you gonna do? Stab me?’”
Frankie took a drag from his dwindling cigarette, slipped out of the car, and stubbed it out on the ground.
The church stood lonely under a gray sky, and the air had gone chilly. I slammed the car door behind me and dragged my bag over my shoulder.
This was it.
I wasn’t sure where to find little Bonnie, but I’d start with getting my bearings set and my facts straight. Frankie drew his gun and held it low at his side while I started up the front steps of the church.
The arched entryway took on an entirely new meaning when I noticed the round bullet hole about shoulder-high on the right side. The hole had been filled by putty or some other substance that had sunken in over the years. It had been painted over. But the scar remained. Exactly where Lou said it would be.
I stood at the top of the stairs and surveyed the grounds. Ray’s grave appeared peacefully abandoned. Beyond it stood the flapper staring at the ground. The bloody butcher ambled about in the distance. On the other side of the road, past my gangster, I saw the oak tree that Jorie had posed under on her wedding day.
The space around it appeared blessedly ghost-free, for now at least.
I hurried down the steps and pretended not to notice Frankie as I walked past him out to the old oak.
This was the same tree that the gravedigger had stood under in the background of the photo from the heritage society, accompanied by the gangster from the flower shop and other shady-looking characters. The tree had grown taller in the intervening years; the branches sprawled wider. Still, I recognized it.
I kept an eye out for the ghost of the gravedigger as I approached. He had to be somewhere nearby. I’d seen him on all of my visits to the church recently.
The trunk of the tree stood twice as thick around as me. I stepped carefully to avoid tripping over any exposed roots as I made my way to the very spot where my grandmother and Jorie had stood together all those years ago.
There were no gravestones under the tree. It was simply a quiet, peaceful place. A gentle wind rustled the branches.
So what were those guys doing over here, in the middle of a wedding no less?
“I didn’t think I’d see you again so soon,” Ray said over my shoulder. When I turned, he quickly added, “Don’t look at me.”
“I won’t,” I said under my breath, trying to appear as if I were looking through him, at a bird in the distance or a squirrel.
Anything.
“But I do have a very important question for you,” I murmured. “Did you invite any gangsters to your wedding? Specifically, anybody who worked for Connor O’Malley or any Italians from Chicago who worked in a flower shop?”
“My.” He furrowed his brow. “That is specific. But no—we had a small wedding. No mobsters allowed.”
“I figured,” I said, nudging a rock with my boot. At least about the mob. The men standing with the old Pastor Clemens and the gravedigger hadn’t looked like they were posing for a wedding photo, as guests would do.
No question about it, the original Pastor Clemens had been caught up in something. I didn’t care what Lou and Frankie thought. Just because he hadn’t worked with the South Town Boys didn’t mean he hadn’t mixed himself up with somebody else.
“What’s going on, Verity?” Ray pressed.
I kept my eyes carefully trained away from the ghost. “Have you seen the ghost of an infant on these grounds?”
“What? No. That would be terrible,” he said. “A tragedy.”
I couldn’t agree more. But I needed to figure out what had happened to her, and it wouldn’t do to make assumptions. “What about the old Pastor Clemens?” I hadn’t seen him, but Ray had spent a lot more time here.
“Delmore Clemens?” Ray asked. “No. He’s not here.”
Shoot. “I’m also looking for the gravedigger.”
“Ah, Verity…I’m not sure that’s such a great idea,” Ray hedged. “In fact, I think we need to cut this short.”
“What?” I looked up, ready to gaze straight through him, when I saw the flapper gliding across the parking lot, eyeing me with interest. The dead preacher stumbled up the road toward us.
“How did they—?” Dang it. “We were careful just now.” At least I’d thought so.
“You’ve also got bloody-bathrobe lady coming in at six o’clock,” Ray warned.
I turned and caught her in a dead stare.
“Bye, Ray. Thanks,” I said, scurrying for my car. Curses. I’d wanted to talk to the gravedigger. At least if he ran me out of there, I knew I was doing my job.
Frankie eyed me as I headed for him and the car.
“Don’t look at me,” I warned.
“Want me to cut your power?” he asked.
“If they get out of hand, yes,” I said, trying not to make eye contact with him as I said it. “But I want a shot at talking with the gravedigger first.”
My stomach clenched at the thought of going home and breaking it to Lou and Chastity that I hadn’t learned a thing about what might have happened to their baby.
I didn’t know where she was. Or how they could hold her again.
I glanced behind me.
Bloody-bathrobe lady milled under the oak tree, confused. It seemed she’d lost her bearings. Maybe I’d been quicker this time.
I held my breath as the flapper wandered past.
Maybe I could still pull this off.
Slowly, casually, I edged around the front of the car. If the gravedigger wasn’t outside, he could be in the church.
If I caught him in the church, I could talk to him with more privacy than Ray and I had enjoyed under the tree. As long as he didn’t attack me.
I at least had to try.
“Nothing to it,” Frankie murmured, because he wasn’t the one who had to hurry casually up the steps and slip inside.
The arched door boomed closed behind me, and I quickly crossed the vestibule into the main church. The place held an air of quiet reverence. Shadows fell over the empty pews, and I stood for a moment, listening for any sounds, any trace of another soul—living or dead.
I’d seen the gravedigger in two places, in the churchyard and in the bell tower. He hadn’t been among the ghosts roaming the churchyard today, so whether I liked it or not, it was time to visit the bell tower. I glanced to my right and toward the open doorway that led to those narrow stairs.
I could do this, I reminded myself. The scent of freshly cut wood tickled my nose as I began my ascent up the tower. I’d done it before, when I couldn’t even touch the banister due to it being a crime scene.
Daylight illuminated the cut in the tower floor above.
I’d done it before I knew what might lay ahead, waiting.
Still, I wasn’t quite prepared for what I saw when I steppe
d up into the small bell tower.
Out the arched window ahead, dozens of ghosts crowded a section of cemetery far beyond Ray’s grave.
I rushed to the window and saw a shop girl clutching her neck, a waitress in a frilly apron streaked with blood, and a man in a suit, stumbling around without a head.
“Oh my God.”
I’d seen ghosts before, but never this much carnage.
Out the front window, where Jorie had fallen, I saw more. They streamed past Ray’s grave; they fanned out toward the church.
They surrounded my car.
Dead hookers, dead flappers, a trio of dead railroad workers. It didn’t make sense.
And then it hit me.
I gasped and drew a hand to my mouth.
They’d all been murdered. None of them had gone peacefully. I saw a man rise up from under the parking lot.
My heart thudded in my chest. Ray had mentioned that these ghosts weren’t exactly sitting on their gravestones.
They couldn’t.
“They don’t have gravestones,” I murmured. This was a mob dumping ground, a place to get rid of evidence. That was what was going on in the background of the wedding picture. They were plotting to bury someone in an unmarked grave.
No doubt the gravedigger knew where all the bodies were buried.
Because he’d done the work himself.
I turned away from the window and saw the ghostly shovel, rusted at the top and clumped with dirt, leaning against the corner to the right.
He was here.
The faint smell of earth and sweat lingered in the air.
If he’d been watching me, he probably knew I’d learned his secret.
“Hello?” I called.
The handle of the shovel quivered.
“I don’t mean any harm,” I assured him. “I’d just like to talk.”
The air was deathly still.
The heavy footsteps of a living person creaked on the bottom of the stairs, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Heart pounding, I listened to them scrape the newly installed safety pads on the stairs as they made their way up, up, up.