An Unquiet Grave (Louis Kincaid Mysteries)

by P J Parrish

  “Are you going down there?” Charlie asked.

  “Just for a second,” Louis said.

  “Don’t go.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Louis stuck his flashlight in his belt, sat down on the door rim, and grabbed the edge of the other door. Sliding off the ground, he let himself hang for a second, then dropped to the bottom.

  He hit with a clang of metal, sending a stinging through his ankles that forced him to catch the wall to keep from falling. Afraid the crash had echoed through the tunnel, he grabbed his flashlight and pointed it into the darkness. The beam stretched on, fading to a whisper of light, then nothing.

  Louis took a few steps, sweeping the beam over the floor as he walked. Concrete, with patches of ice. Leaves. Mud. Dead flies. Roaches. The ice had turned to water now, black and murky.

  It was cold, the air thick with a mustiness that almost made him gag, and he had the awful thought that the liquid at his feet was seeping grave water, probably all around him, dripping down the walls and from the ceiling.

  “Mr. Kincaid?”

  “I’m okay, Charlie.”

  Shit. He should have counted his steps, but he’d been too busy looking around. Too busy keeping his heartbeats under control. But he knew he’d gone at least twenty feet and had not seen a cinder-block wall.

  “Mr. Kincaid?”

  Charlie’s voice sounded like a child’s, high and hollow off the concrete walls. Louis turned quickly, looking back. He could still see the shaft of sunlight back at the entrance of the tunnel.

  “Charlie, can you hear me?” he called out.

  “Yes . . . yes, I can!”

  Louis ran the flashlight beam slowly over the walls. He could hear a dripping sound and smell rotting earth. A heaviness filled his chest.

  This was where it had happened.

  This was where Rebecca Gruber had been tortured and murdered. It had been her screams, her crying that Charlie, sitting in his tree, had heard.

  He swung the flashlight beam into the darkness. The killer was down here somewhere, probably right now. If he didn’t already know his home had been invaded, he would soon. And no way was Louis leaving this opening unguarded. He had to go get help.

  He went back to the shaft and looked up. Charlie was still there, peering down.

  “You coming out now?” Charlie asked.

  “Yeah,” Louis said, clicking off the flashlight and slipping it into his belt.

  He grabbed hold of a piece of metal screwed lengthwise into the concrete wall, jerking on it to make sure it was steady. Sticking a foot on one of the lower rails of the lift, he stepped up. The lower rail crumbled into dust.

  “Damn it,” he said.

  He tried the corner, where the thin bars came together, but it was already loose, and his weight crushed it to the floor.

  He stepped back and looked up. It was more than ten feet up to the top, he saw now, maybe close to fifteen. No way could he reach the middle bar, not even if he jumped. He took the flashlight back out and steadied it on the rails. They were all broken and rusted through. No. Not broken. They were all unscrewed deliberately. Some were even missing.

  He turned and looked down the tunnel. This man didn’t want anyone coming down here and getting back out.

  Louis went a few feet back into the tunnel. There had to be something sturdy enough to stand on, something the killer used to get up. If he could just get part way, he could reach that middle bar and swing his legs up to the edge or reach Charlie’s hand. But he didn’t see anything he could use.

  “Mr. Kincaid?”

  “I’m all right, Charlie.”

  He came back to the shaft. He saw a single metal post, three feet high, welded to the corner of the platform. Clicking off the flashlight, he stuck it back in his belt.

  “Charlie, I’m going to try to climb up,” Louis said. “Reach down and grab my hand and pull, okay?”

  “Okay!” Charlie leaned over and extended his arm down as far as he could. Louis brought up his foot and was able to get it up on the post. His fingers found another thin piece of metal close by, the gap between it and the wall so small he could barely get his fingertips between them.

  He eased his way up, most of his weight balanced on the sharp tip of the narrow post. He leaned inward to grab the middle bar but still couldn’t reach it. Charlie’s outstretched hand was a good three feet above him. He had to get higher.

  He knew if he jumped and missed the bar, he’d fall back to the floor. But he had to try. He made a leap, catching the bar with both hands, his fingers immediately sliding on the crusty film. But he did a quick pull-up, and grabbed it again, a stronger hold this time. The bar was like ice, and the rust like sandpaper under his fingers.

  He could see Charlie’s fingers frantically waving overhead.

  He swung his legs up, missed and swung again. His heels caught the rim. The bar snapped. He fell back to the bottom of the hole.

  The fall knocked the breath out of him, and for several seconds, even the darkness was spinning.

  “Mr. Kincaid!”

  Louis shook his head. “Damn it,” he hissed, trying to get up. “Son of a bitch . . .”

  “Mr. Kincaid!”

  He looked up. Charlie’s face was blur far above him. He struggled to his feet.

  “Charlie, you’re going to have to go get help.” The fall had knocked the wind out of him and he could barely pull in enough air to talk. “Can you run back to the hospital?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you get to the gate, where the policemen are?”

  “Yes.”

  “I need you to do that for me,” Louis said. “Right now. I need you to run as fast as you can and bring the policeman at the gate back here. Right here.”

  “Okay.”

  Louis pulled in a shallow breath. “Don’t go inside the hospital. Don’t climb the fence and don’t try to find any policeman inside the fence. Go right to the gate.”

  “Okay.”

  Louis stared up at him, afraid he didn’t understand. “Okay,” Louis said, “tell me, where are you going to go?”

  “To the gate. To get the policeman.”

  “All right,” Louis said. “Go. Now.”

  Charlie took off and Louis reached back for the flashlight. It was gone. His eyes swept the concrete floor and finally he saw it. He picked it up and flicked it on, training the beam into the dark tunnel.

  His chest and left shoulder were throbbing from the fall. He felt dizzy and slid down to the floor, sitting there, trying to get some air back into his lungs. And when he could breathe, he looked up at the bright blue sky.

  It seemed very far away.

  CHAPTER 37

  Thirty-five minutes. A damn long thirty-five minutes.

  Louis leaned against the wall, staring at the sky. He had heard nothing from above. No Charlie. No footsteps. No sirens. No voices.

  It was well after three now and what little warmth the sun had provided all afternoon was long gone and the sky was turning a smoky gray. In another two hours, it would be dark.

  He looked back at the lift. He had broken every slat and even pulled a post from the wall in his attempts to climb it again. His knuckles were bleeding and he had ripped his jeans along the shin in a second fall. The cold was seeping into his shoes and down his collar.

  He stared down into the tunnel.

  Charlie should have been back by now. Unless the troopers had just put him in a squad car and called Dalum to pick him up again. Maybe if Dalum did, Charlie would tell him about the tunnel.

  Maybe.

  He looked back up. Well, he could stand here and stare at the sky or go find something that he could use to climb up with.

  Louis turned on the flashlight and shone it ahead of him into the darkness. He took three deep breaths before he started walking, but this time he tried to count his steps, and he guessed he had gone thirty feet when he stopped to listen for sounds.

  Dripping water and a ling
ering echo of something. His footsteps? His heart?

  He moved on, the darkness suffocating, the only light coming from the sweep of the flashlight beam as it jerked around the cave of concrete.

  Ten, twenty feet more, and he wondered if he had crossed under the iron fence that formed the eastern boundary of the Hidden Lake grounds.

  Then the light picked up something new. Doors. Large, heavy, and made of rusted metal. They were wide open, pushed back against the walls.

  There would be no cinder-block walls in this tunnel, Louis suddenly knew. These doors were the barrier to the outside. He bent and examined the sides, looking for a latch or a lock. There was none. Then he pulled on them. Neither was easy to move, both too rusty and old, their bottoms resting heavily on the floor.

  The flashlight beam picked up something else. Long scraping arcs across the concrete floor where it looked like the doors had been forced open and closed many times. He was about to turn away and move on, when the light caught something on the door.

  Paint, maybe. Or even blood . . .

  A scrawl that looked like a handprint. And it came to him in an instant. The old man in Detroit, Maury. Buddy Ives’s landlord said Ives had put the same mark on his apartment wall. But there was something else, too.

  Louis stared at the handprint.

  The same mark had been on Dr. Seraphin’s old office wall in E Building, near Zeke’s head. He remembered seeing it now next to the word bitch.

  Ives was their killer. Louis had no doubt now. The teenager who had raped and killed his grandmother, raped Millie Reuben, and killed Sharon Stottlemyer and Rebecca Gruber, was living here.

  He had been right. Dr. Seraphin had been right.

  He shone the flashlight ahead of him, the beam lasering through the darkness. He knew he shouldn’t go any deeper into the tunnel. But if Ives was living down here, there had to be something down here he used to climb out with. And it couldn’t be much farther. Ives would want to keep it handy, in case he needed to make a quick exit.

  A few more feet. He’d still be close enough to hear the doors close if Ives somehow came back behind him.

  He moved on. The water was all over the floor now, a black rivulet that ran downhill with the subtle slope of the floor. He was starting to hear other things, too. The scratch of little feet. Faint knocking noises behind the wall, like some trapped animal. And the trickle of water moving in pipes he couldn’t see.

  Then suddenly the beam of light lost the wall, disappearing into an expanse of darkness to his left. It took a second for him to realize it was another tunnel, branching off in a T from the tunnel he was in.

  He tried to clear his head, reorient himself, and get a bead on his direction. If the tunnel he was in now ran east-west from the cemetery to the mortuary, that meant this new one ran due south. Maybe this was Ives’s other exit.

  He swung the flashlight beam into the darkness to his left. But this south tunnel could lead anywhere, and he was damned sure he didn’t want to end up under the hospital in a maze of darkness.

  He would go straight ahead, keep heading to the mortuary. It wasn’t much comfort, but at least he would know which building he was near then. Maybe some cop would hear him.

  Shit, maybe some cop would shoot him, thinking he was Ives.

  Louis walked on, the water at his feet turning to a slimy sludge of mold. Then he started hearing something else. The pitter of something alive and moving, and a few steps later, he saw it and he froze. The rat froze too, its eyes glowing red in the flashlight beam. Then it was gone.

  He waited until his heart slowed; then he went a few more steps.

  The beam picked up something gray ahead. A cinder-block wall. He hurried to it, and sticking the flashlight under his arm, he ran his hands over it. All the blocks were in place, solid and unyielding. He even gave it a kick to make sure.

  “Fuck,” he whispered.

  The screech came out of nowhere, long and lingering, the sound slashing through the tunnel.

  At first he thought it was a woman screaming. And it seemed to come from somewhere in front of him, maybe on the other side of the wall. But then he knew it was the scrape of metal on concrete. And it came from behind him.

  He spun and ran back, the flashlight jerking over the walls, the sound of his breath rushing in his ears. Twenty feet. Ten. Five. But he still couldn’t see the doors.

  Then suddenly the light hit metal and he ran right into them.

  Closed. They were closed.

  He spun backward, trying to hold his breath, trying to hear something. But he heard nothing. Ives was gone. Probably out through the lift entrance. He would have no reason to stay down here now. Ives knew more cops would come. He was probably crawling out onto the grass this second. And by the time Charlie brought anyone here—if he brought anyone here—Ives could be out of the state.

  Damn it! Son of a bitch!

  Louis almost threw the flashlight, but he stopped himself. He pulled in a thick breath and looked back at the doors. He hadn’t seen a lock. But there was no handle either. His fingers groped along the edges, but the doors were tight and flat against each other. He knelt, feeling everywhere, looking at every corner, and looking again, even checking the bottom for some way to get his fingers under it. Nothing.

  Okay. Think.

  Again, he ran his hands over the doors, but there was nothing. Finally, he stood back and shone the light down on his palms. They were stained with rust, dirt, and blood from where he had reopened the tears in the knuckles. He realized his hands were growing numb. And suddenly, he felt something else. A nub of fear, deep in his gut.

  Stop this. There has to be something down here you can use.

  Cans of food. Some form of furniture. A blanket . . . he could use a blanket right now. Or a fucking exit.

  Wait . . . there is another exit. You saw it in the warehouse. It was somewhere south . . . you can find it.

  He went back to the T-intersection and turned south. A few feet into the new tunnel the concrete walls and floor changed to that same ugly tile he had seen in his short walk in the E Building tunnel. He knew he was definitely inside the fence now, but he couldn’t gauge what building he might be near.

  He swung the flashlight up to the ceiling. There was a single line of electrical sockets, most empty but with a few bare bulbs still in place. But he didn’t see any switches and the lights were probably disconnected anyway.

  There was less water now, but more rats. The scratching and scampering were almost constant, and every once in a while the light would catch one as it moved along the edge of the wall. He started keeping the beam at waist level, not wanting to see them.

  Then he started spotting trash.

  Large, open cans of corn, peas, and soup, the edges of the tins crusted with mold and crawling with roaches. Then the smell of urine, and he lowered the beam to the floor, knowing what he was going to see, but needing to look anyway.

  Feces. Little piles. Dried. Some fresh. A trail of them.

  Louis put a hand out to the wall to steady himself, fighting the gag in his throat. He wanted to close his eyes, but he knew if he did, he’d lose his stomach.

  He forced his feet forward, one step at a time, and kept moving until the smell faded. The corridor was clear for a while longer, filled with just tiny pieces of garbage and an occasional dead mouse.

  He realized he had stopped counting his steps and he wondered how far he’d come and he found himself looking up, as if he could somehow see through the ceiling and earth and figure out what building he was under.

  He moved on, following the jump of the flashlight beam. The sound of the rats and water was still in his ears, and he realized he was growing used to it, beginning to think of it as normal.

  Then he came to another intersection.

  This time the tunnels went in both directions, and he had three new paths he could take.

  He walked straight ahead, counting on some weird feeling that it might be right. Maybe fifty mo
re feet, another intersection. Again splitting in four directions.

  He had a sudden strange image of Hansel and Gretel leaving bread crumbs along their trail. He reached inside his jacket, grabbed a felt-tip pen, and used it to mark an X on the tile wall with an arrow pointing back toward the way he had come.

  He heard a soft shriek, something like a frightened animal might make, and he turned quickly, scanning the tunnel. He waited, unsure what it had been.

  Now another shriek. Stronger. Closer. Human.

  He spun back, unable to tell the direction, his mind suddenly electrified with a dozen thoughts that were coming too fast. Was it a woman?

  Then a third, this one a full scream.

  Oh, Jesus. It was a woman.

  Where was she? Was she alone? She had to be alone. Ives had left, hadn’t he? Why else close the doors? Why lock himself out?

  She had to be alone. Had to be tied up or just lost. And he had to find her.

  Then another scream, this one piercing, and it was echoing all around him. He took a step down one of the side tunnels, listening, but still there was no sense of direction. He was about to shout back at her, but she screamed again—a long, agonizing scream that ricocheted through the dark tunnels and seemed to go on forever until it was absorbed by the darkness.

  Then . . . laughter? Yes, just a trickle of it, so quick and unexpected that when it was gone he wasn’t sure he had heard it.

  Ives. He hadn’t left the tunnels. He was down here with a woman and he was hurting her.

  Louis started to call to her but he stopped himself. Shouting would alert Ives that he was here. But Ives already knew that, didn’t he? But what if he didn’t? What if Louis called to her and Ives panicked and killed her? Then came looking for him?

  Jesus. Think, Louis. Think.

  Another scream, a ragged, piercing one. Louis stepped to his right, drawn to that tunnel, and he moved down it.

  More screams, a rush of them, each one louder and more wretched. Louis quickened his step, the light jumping, his ears following the echos. But there was still nothing to see. Nothing.

  Until suddenly another cinder-block wall. As sturdy and solid as the one by the mortuary.