An Unquiet Grave (Louis Kincaid Mysteries)

by P J Parrish

  Louis wondered who had told this man he was a P.I. He had hoped the Ardmore P.D. badge would get him by these questions. Maybe it still would.

  Louis showed him the badge. “I am a P.I., but I’m working with the Ardmore police.”

  Bloom looked at the badge, snorting softly. “Some hick chief handing you a piece of tin doesn’t make you a cop here. You got a P.I. license?”

  “In Florida.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I’m trying to locate a former patient for a friend, that’s all.”

  The detective reached inside his coat and pulled out a notebook, flipping it open with one hand. “What’s the patient’s name?”

  Louis looked at him. He didn’t want to give anyone Claudia’s name, but he knew they had to check him out, and that would mean going back as far as they could. He had no idea what they’d find, or what might still be on record for him in Michigan.

  “Claudia DeFoe.”

  Bloom wrote it down. “Your address here and in Florida, your middle name, and your Social Security number, Kincaid.”

  Louis gave him the information, his eyes drifting across the grounds. He saw a white police car in the distance and wondered if it was Dalum.

  “Why were you in this building?” Bloom asked.

  Louis kept his eyes on the parking lot. This was going to get messy real quick. “I was helping Chief Dalum investigate the murder of Rebecca Gruber and—”

  “I thought you were looking for this DeFoe woman.”

  “It started out that way, but then Chief Dalum asked me to assist him with—”

  “I told Dalum to let us handle it.”

  “It’s his town,” Louis said. “He’s protective of it. He was just trying to help.”

  Two men from the county van came up the steps with a gurney and a body bag, and Louis and Bloom stepped aside to let them pass.

  “We don’t need his help,” Bloom said. “Or yours. Did it occur to you that maybe by sneaking around out here, you set this guy off and you got that guard killed?”

  Louis tightened his jaw, biting back his first reply. Bloom was partly right. But he hadn’t been the one to set the killer off. Louis believed it might have been Dr. Seraphin whom the killer was calling a bitch. And he knew he needed to tell Bloom that. But there was no way to say it and not lose Dr. Seraphin as an ally.

  “You fucking amateurs,” Bloom said.

  “Look,” Louis said, “when Rebecca Gruber was murdered, you guys made a big show out of coming out here and working the scene. But despite the fact that this place is enclosed by a fence, and the victim was an on-duty employee, and the killer likely lives out here somewhere, you left no one here for surveillance or to protect the remaining employees.”

  “Now I got some private dick telling me how to run my investigation,” Bloom said.

  “You didn’t even seal the tunnels back off,” Louis snapped.

  “They’re all walled up, you dumb shit.”

  “Well, you missed one. At least.”

  “You been down there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I oughta bust you for that.”

  “Go ahead.”

  The door banged open and three uniforms came out. Bloom grabbed Louis’s arm and pulled him off the steps and onto the grass. The snow was growing heavier and Louis jerked up the collar of his jacket.

  “You carrying a gun, Kincaid?”

  He was carrying a concealed weapon, and he knew Michigan was supposed to recognize his Florida permit. But Bloom seemed like the kind of guy who had his own way of doing things.

  Bloom noticed Louis’s hesitation and thrust out his hand.

  “Let me see it,” he said.

  Louis reached under his jacket and withdrew the Glock, holding it out to Bloom by the trigger guard.

  Bloom took it, then held out his other hand. “Now your Florida P.I. license and CCW permit.”

  Louis dug them out his wallet and handed them to Bloom. Bloom eyed them both, then looked up.

  “Okay, P.I.,” he said. “Tell me what you know about this case.”

  Louis blew out a breath. “The chief and I think it’s an ex-patient, probably come home to make some kind of statement about the place closing.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “All three victims were killed here and left here.”

  “You’re so smart, why bury one and leave the other girl above ground where we can find her?”

  “He didn’t bury Rebecca Gruber because he couldn’t,” Louis said. “The cemetery had security posted. He had to take her somewhere else.”

  “Still could’ve buried her.”

  “Maybe he didn’t have time,” Louis said. “Maybe the ground was too hard. Maybe he just didn’t care if we found her.”

  “Why kill the guard at all?” Bloom asked. “You think the guard saw him?”

  “No. No one sees this guy. He thinks he’s invisible. He killed him because he wanted attention.”

  Bloom took a long look around the grounds. “And you think this guy lives out here somewhere?”

  “Yeah, I do,” Louis said. “Look at the stuff he left in this building—a cigarette, a can of corn. He used the toilet. And I have one more thing for you. The warehouse.”

  Louis pointed to the far southwest corner of the grounds. “That’s where he took the food from. It has two exits to tunnels. One of them is not bricked off and leads to the men’s ward.”

  “And are the tunnels in the men’s ward bricked off ?”

  “Yeah,” Louis said. “But there are other tunnels that go completely under some of the buildings.”

  “So, what’s your point?”

  “That there has to be another entrance to the tunnels somewhere,” Louis said, “something that connects underneath and allows him to get to the warehouse unnoticed. We’re just not seeing it.”

  “You’re not seeing it,” Bloom said, “because it isn’t there. We searched every entrance. Maybe the man gets into the warehouse through a goddamn window, Kincaid.”

  Louis’s thoughts were rushed and he couldn’t shut up. “Have you checked the basements? Maybe there’s a hidden entrance to the tunnels. Maybe that’s how he gets in and out.”

  “We checked. When they added the tunnels, they ran them down off the first floors ’cause the basements were such a mess. Except for the mortuary, all the basements were closed off. Concrete walls and broken pipes. Nothing there.”

  “Then where does he keep his supplies?” Louis asked. “Where’s the can opener? Where’s the rest of the cans he’s hoarded away? And where do you think he killed Rebecca Gruber?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he lives in a farmhouse on the other side of the trees,” Bloom snapped. “He’s not a mole.”

  “Don’t be so sure.”

  Bloom snickered. “Well, I’ll tell you what, P.I. You wanna see surveillance out here, you’re going to see it. But he won’t. We’ll be hidden all over this place. If he even farts, we’ll hear him.”

  “What about the employees?”

  “They’re out of here. As of right now.”

  “They have to finish closing up,” Louis said.

  “After we catch this guy, they can finish,” Bloom said. “For now, everyone’s out of here. And that goes for you, too. You can pin that Ardmore badge on your forehead if you want but it’s not going to get you access in here. You got that?”

  Louis drew in a tight breath, knowing Bloom was right. Pulling everyone out and sitting in the shadows waiting for the killer to make a move was the smartest thing to do. But Louis wondered what the killer would do when he saw the place deserted and he had no more potential victims around.

  And there was still Dr. Seraphin.

  She needed to know what had happened here today, what was written on the wall. And she needed to know that it was obvious this man was someone who had a special attachment to his former doctor. A violent one.

  Once she knew all that,
maybe she would be willing to approach the state police with the same information she had given him. He had to give her that chance before telling Bloom they had already been through the files.

  Bloom called to a uniform standing nearby and the man came over, looking at them from under the snow-covered brim of a garrison cap.

  “Officer, I’d like you to take Kincaid here back to the station in Adrian.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you arresting me?” Louis asked.

  “Let’s just say we’re going to keep an eye on you while we check you out.”

  “Aw, Jesus.”

  Bloom handed the officer the Glock. “Lock this up and don’t give it back until he shows you an airline ticket to Florida.”

  Bloom walked away, and Louis looked at the officer. His face was set, shoulders stiff. Louis spun and started walking toward the parking lot. The cop followed, silent, always staying a few feet behind him. When they reached the cluster of patrol cars, Louis hesitated and the cop motioned to one, finally stepping ahead of him. Then he opened the back door and held it for Louis.

  The ride was a long, silent journey through a misty white landscape, south on Highway 223. As they drove into Adrian, Louis stared out the window. The place looked a little like Dexter, the town where he had found Millie Reuben. He saw a sign telling him it was the county seat for Lenawee County, and before they got to the state substation, they passed a beautiful old red brick courthouse with gold arches and a flag high atop a white spire.

  The car pulled to a slippery stop and the officer opened his door for him. Louis was led inside a building that looked like one of the smaller buildings at Hidden Lake, two stories of brick with long rectangle windows. Once inside, the officer passed him off to another uniform, who gave him to a man in a suit who asked for Louis’s ID. Louis handed it to him, and was then told to sit in a hallway on a hard bench.

  He doubted they would offer him a ride back to Hidden Lake and he finally got up, found a pay phone, and called Chief Dalum to come get him. As he hung up, it occurred to him that he should call Dr. Seraphin, too.

  He dug her card from his pocket. A clerk at her Ann Arbor office answered, so he left a message for the doctor to call him at Phillip’s tonight, then changed his mind and gave her Dalum’s office number. He reminded the clerk again how urgent it was that he talk to Dr. Seraphin tonight. Then he walked outside and stood on the steps.

  He could see the courthouse from here. His mind drifted back to the bloody hall in E Building and the word bitch written on the wall above Zeke’s head. And he couldn’t help but wonder if Seraphin knew who had written it.

  He thought about the way she had profiled the killer so quickly, and he had no idea if that came from experience or a subconscious—or even conscious—memory. But why would she hide his identity? Embarrassment that she couldn’t—or didn’t—help him?

  That was crazy. She was a doctor. And she was doing all she could to help, including breaking doctor-patient confidentiality.

  A siren caught his attention and he watched a Lenawee County Sheriff’s car pull away from the courthouse.

  Something else hit him.

  Hidden Lake was in Lenawee County, and court-houses had planning and zoning records, and even blueprints for structures. He glanced back at the doors to the state police substation. In the hall stood the trooper who had taken his ID. Louis went back inside.

  The officer saw him coming and held out the cards. “You’re free to go. But Detective Bloom wanted me to give you a message.”

  “Yeah, what?” Louis asked.

  “He said to tell you you’ll get the gun back when you leave the state, and not to come around the hospital again or one of the surveillance officers just might shoot you by mistake.”

  “He can’t keep my gun.”

  “I’m just the messenger.” The officer walked away.

  Louis stuffed the cards back in his wallet and pushed back out the front doors, heading toward the Lenawee County Courthouse.

  Inside, he found the planning and zoning department, and waited behind three people filing construction permits. The office was small and overly warm, and he pulled off his jacket. Twenty minutes later, he was at the counter and facing a plump woman with yellow curls and jingle-bell earrings that tinkled when she moved.

  “Can you get me the blueprints or building plans for Hidden Lake Hospital?” he asked.

  “The insane asylum over near Ardmore?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I don’t know. Got a Sidwell number for me?”

  “A what?”

  “Got a parcel identification number?”

  “No.”

  She turned away from him. “You’re lucky I got some holiday spirit here,” she said over her shoulder. “Lucky, too, I know where that nuthouse is.”

  With a jingle of her earrings, she opened a large bound book and started flipping pages. After a few minutes, she disappeared into a back room.

  Louis wandered over to the wall and absently read the notices, sometimes glancing out the window at the snow. He wondered if he would be able get back to Plymouth tonight. He could stay with Dalum again, but it was going to be hard not to share with him what he and Seraphin had done. But how was he going to track these four suspects down without the chief’s help?

  “Sir?”

  He turned. The clerk was spreading the large blueprints on the countertop and Louis walked quickly to her.

  “These are the blue lines,” she said. “But all we have is from 1948 to the present.”

  “That’s fine,” Louis said.

  She left him and Louis stared at the top one. It took him a few seconds to figure out it was a construction plan for one of the newer buildings—the commissary. It clearly showed there were no tunnel entrances in the store and that it was built over the top of an existing tunnel. He had been right.

  The next paper outlined the plans for another building, erected in 1959. M Building, the physical therapy building in the southeastern corner, directly opposite from E. This blue line showed only the tunnel entrances and then dotted lines that faded to nothing as they moved farther away from the building under construction.

  Same with the next and the next, plans for buildings constructed in the sixties. Not one diagram of the original structures, and not one that showed all the tunnels.

  Damn it.

  “You done?” the clerk called. “We’re closing now.”

  He pushed the papers toward her. “Yeah.”

  She frowned. “Look, mister, it isn’t my fault we don’t have what you want.”

  “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to snap.”

  Louis left the office and headed back toward the state police building. He stayed outside, huddled against the cold, watching for Dalum’s Ardmore cruiser.

  The sun had faded, leaving a dark gray glow to the sky, and for a few seconds, Louis just watched the street. After a few minutes, twinkly white lights in sagging garlands on the streetlamps popped on. And from somewhere in the air, he could hear a tinny rendition of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

  He thought about Zeke and realized he didn’t even know the guy’s last name. Or if he had a family. He thought about Frances, sitting at her sister’s house in Brighton. And he thought about the photo of Claudia DeFoe on his nightstand.

  But mostly, he thought about Joe, curled up on her sofa, a mug of coffee in her hand, a cat at her feet. He thought of Joe and he knew he wasn’t going to be home any time soon. He turned the collar of his jacket up against the cold, watching the snow sifting down from the quickly darkening sky.

  CHAPTER 32

  When Dalum picked up Louis at the Adrian Police Station, he relayed a message from Dr. Seraphin’s office: The doctor had gone to her weekend cottage on Wampler’s Lake and if Louis needed to see her immediately, he should come there.

  Dalum dropped Louis back at Hidden Lake and after fighting their way back onto the property to get the Impala, Louis immediately headed t
o the lake. But after three drive-bys along the street Seraphin had given him, he had to stop at Jerry’s Pub to get directions, where the bartender looked at the address Louis had scribbled on a paper and said, “Oh yeah, that’s the old Beuller place.”

  It was easy to see why he had missed it. Dr. Seraphin’s “weekend cottage” was set far back from the road and hidden behind large evergreens. There was an iron gate barring the driveway. The gate looked new, Louis thought, as he pulled up to the intercom.

  The doctor herself answered, and the gate slid back. He drove up the driveway and parked next to the Volvo.

  It was dark, nearly seven, and still snowing. But thanks to several well-placed floodlights, he could see the house clearly. It was a large, two-story wood-frame home, probably built in the forties, and very different from the gleaming new minimanses that surrounded it. Far from a cottage, the “old Bueller place” had that carefully cultivated shabby look that whispered old money.

  Louis was surprised when Oliver opened the door. “The doctor is in the den,” he said.

  Louis came in. He heard a click and a beep and turned to see Oliver locking the door and resetting an alarm. Louis followed him through a dimly lit living room and down a hallway. The den was all wood and glowing lamps with a fire crackling in a stone fireplace. An antlered deer head on the far wall loomed over the room, next to an antique gun case that held a couple of shotguns.

  When Dr. Seraphin saw him, she set aside her book, shrugged off a red plaid throw, and stood up from her chair.

  She was wearing what looked to Louis like a plain gray sweatsuit, but as she came toward him, he guessed it was probably cashmere.

  “Good Lord, you look half frozen. Can I get you a drink?” she asked, taking off her gold-rimmed bifocals to let them dangle by a gold chain.

  “No, thanks.”

  “You don’t mind if I have one then.” She went to a small table that held a variety of bottles. “Please, take off your coat and make yourself comfortable.”

  Louis didn’t move. He waited as she fixed her drink, looking out the large windows. The backyard was fully illuminated by floodlights, revealing a couple of snow-covered Adirondack chairs on the deck and a white expanse that tapered down to the black lake. In the distance, Louis could make out a boathouse. It looked old and like it was ready to fall away into the lake.