by Tom Lowe
Elizabeth pulled the blanket off her. “Never mind, I really don’t want to know.” She pushed herself further up on her pillows. “First, you never seem to want to come up in my bed. That’s cool. I get it. I’m picky, too. That’s one reason I live alone. And, secondly, when you do show up, sometimes under the cover of night, I wake up and see you just sitting there watching me sleep. Glad I’m your source of entertainment. I hope my mouth was closed.”
She reached out and rubbed his head. “In all this time, I can’t say since I’ve owned you, because I don’t think a cat like you can be owned—but, in all of the time since you decided to move in, I’ve never heard you purr. Perhaps it’s not part of your repertoire or even in your gene pool. You may have more lynx in you than tabby cat. I wish they had ancestry dot com for cats. However, I might not like what I see in your heritage.”
Elizabeth smiled and sat at the edge of her bed, her mind slightly groggy. She looked again at the clock. “I know why I’m so tired, I was up half the night thinking—no, worrying about Wanda. Remember the drumstick I brought to you recently?”
Jack blinked.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Anyway, that drumstick came from the restaurant where Wanda works. Her boss, Martha, wanted you to have it. Let me check my messages.” She reached over to her nightstand and picked up her phone. She looked at emails and text messages. “I have two emails from students asking for an extension on a homework assignment, but nothing from Detective Mike Bradford. Maybe that’s a good sign. Could be Wanda showed up and everything is hunky-dory.” She smiled and petted the cat. “In psychology, that’s a slang term we use for the word … okay.”
Elizabeth bit her bottom lip, got out of bed and walked to the bathroom, Jack slinking from the bed and following her. She turned the shower on, causing Jack to pause, stopping in his tracks. He twitched his whole ear and the two-thirds of his remaining ear, turned around, and strolled out of the room. Elizabeth chuckled. “And I thought you weren’t afraid of anything. I found your Achilles heel … water.”
• • •
On her way to the university, Elizabeth called Mike Bradford. When he answered, she said, “Good morning. You sound tired, too.”
“Didn’t get a lot of sleep. We’ve been checking leads for Wanda Donnelly. No one we’ve spoken to has seen her. My partner, Bill, talked to Wanda’s husband, Brandon. He said the last time he spoke with his wife was early the morning she left for work. Now she’s vanished. He’s on his way back to Hattiesburg. He sounds panicked. Wanda’s mother is watching their kids. The BOLO hasn’t produced anything yet—no sign of Wanda or her car.”
“I’m so worried. How about that guy, Boyd Baxter? Are you going to talk with him?”
“Yes, but this time Bill and I will take backup, at least two units of deputies just in case Baxter goes ballistic.”
“Or you could find him on his job, cutting trees.”
“That would give him an alibi if he’s back at work. What I want to know is what’s giving him a reason, if he is the perp, to do these heinous killings.”
Elizabeth turned her car into the faculty parking lot at the university. She said, “I think it’s going to boil down to what the killer said in Latin. It has all the subtleties and convictions of someone who believes he has some right or edict to kill. But the question that tugs at my sleep is why? Somehow or somewhere in time, I think it will center around what he said about settling a score. There appears to be some component of vengeance.”
“Vengeance for him or someone else—or even some crazy cause not unlike Hitler’s vision.
“At this point, I’d suggest by him. I just wish I knew the source—the hate engine that’s driving him. He believes he’s justified, has every right in the world to carry out these killings. And I think he believes he’s tapped into a higher source for that authority. As if he’s on a mission.” Elizabeth turned off her car engine and glanced at her watch. She had a few hours before her scheduled class to get grading and other office work done.
Bradford said, “That’s a good profile, but it doesn’t help me track him. It’ll help us question and build a case for conviction once we find him. If Boyd Baxter is the perp, we might have found him. I’m not a psychologist, but I’d wager that he’s as crazy as any psychotic criminal locked up at South Mississippi State Mental Hospital. Somehow, he hasn’t already been scooped up in the lunacy butterfly net.”
“I’ll have more specifics on a profile soon. Unfortunately, the development for the highest degree of accuracy comes as more details are known and evidence arrives. There’s a pattern or a common element that I believe has strong ties to the Latin verse … you shall be strengthened by His presence in the hour of your death.” She paused, reaching for her purse. “We have to find it, and we must find it soon.”
“We have to find Wanda Donnelly now.”
“I hope and pray she’s alive.”
“With a state-wide BOLO, we’ve covered all the roads she could have taken from her farmhouse to the Front Porch Café. Not a sign of her or her car anywhere. We’re going to be checking surveillance cameras at gas stations and convenience stores along the route. I’m hoping we get a glimpse of her vehicle. If she was followed, we might see a car, truck or even somebody approach her.”
“Please keep me in the loop, Mike. In case you need to reach me, I’ll have my phone in class.” Elizabeth smiled and said, “That’s something I don’t do because I asked my students not to be texting or checking their phones while in class.”
She got out of her car, locked it, and started walking toward the university’s administration building when she noticed a TV news truck parked at the curb near the parking lot, the campus in the background. She pulled her purse strap further up on her shoulder, holding the phone to her ear. “Hold a sec, Mike.” She could see a reporter in a sports coat speaking with a cameraman, who was holding a camera on his shoulder. Elizabeth said, “Channel Three News is here. Looks like they’re doing a story. And, from here, it looks like they’re waiting for me.”
THIRTY-ONE
Brandon Donnelly could feel stomach acid boiling in his gut. The perforated peptic ulcer burned against the lining of his stomach like someone holding a blowtorch to it. He drove over the speed limit down Old River Road, close to home.
Donnelly, long and lanky, unshaven, dark hair combed back, reached in the center console of his pickup truck. He took his hands off the wheel for a second to remove the top off a bottle of antacid pills. He tossed two in his mouth, ground them between his back molars, washing down the remnants with water from a plastic bottle, his eyes squinting as he swallowed.
He slowed to pull off the road and onto his property, speeding down his long dirt driveway, chickens scattering. Donnelly parked next to his mother-in-law’s Ford Escape, bolted from his truck without closing the door. He sprinted up to his front door and went inside. Two small children, his five-year-old daughter, who resembled Wanda, and his three-year-old son, turned around in the kitchen.
Their grandmother, Loretta Dupree, was standing next to the counter, a small TV turned on with the sound muted. The little girl screamed “Daddy! Daddy!”
She ran across the kitchen into her father’s arms. The boy shouted, “Daddy’s home!” Donnelly squatted down to wrap an arm around him, too. He lifted up both of his children as Loretta used a white dish towel to dry her hands. She feigned a smile, not wanting to let the children see the fear on her face.
“You made good time.”
Donnelly half smiled, walking over to his mother-in-law to embrace her. “I ain’t slept in a while.” He stepped back and held one hand to his stomach.
Loretta glanced down and said, “Your ulcer’s actin’ up, isn’t it?”
“I’m fine. We got more important things to be thinkin’ about right now. Anybody heard anything more?”
She looked over at the children, their little faces rosy and expectant, eyes filled with courage. “We’re hopeful. I’ve been talking a lo
t to one of the detectives. His name’s Mike Bradford. Couldn’t be a nicer man or more helpful.”
“Nice is great, but we need somebody to go out there and find my wife. If they don’t, I will.”
The little girl, Alissa, asked, “Where’s mommy?”
Brandon turned around. “We’re gonna find your mommy, sweetheart.”
The boy, Andy, asked, “Daddy, can I help you find mama?”
“Don’t you kids fret none,” Brandon said. “Your mama’s gonna be all right.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, head filled with fatigue. He looked across the kitchen to the small television. His daughter pointed to the screen and said, “Mommy’s on the TV.”
There was a photograph of Wanda on the screen. “Where’d they get that?” Brandon asked.
“I gave a picture to police so they could use it in their search for my daughter.”
Brandon said nothing. He approached the TV. With hesitance, he turned up the sound. A news reporter’s voice said, “The hunt continues for the missing mother of two, Wanda Donnelly. Police are not saying whether or not they think her disappearance could be connected to the recent case of the two young adults found murdered in the De Soto National Forest. Doctor Elizabeth Monroe, who is a professor of forensic psychology at Southern Miss and often sought after by police to help with criminal profiling, is arriving for work. We’ll see if we can get an update.”
Donnelly turned off the TV, held his hand to his stomach. He turned to his children and their grandmother and said, “Let’s sit at the table and hold hands. We need to say some prayers for mommy.”
• • •
Elizabeth started to disconnect from her phone call with Mike Bradford, but said, “Mike, I’m heading into my building. If I’m on the phone, maybe the reporter won’t approach me for an interview. Or, if I’m lucky, perhaps they’ve come to the university campus for something else.” She watched the reporter speaking into the camera lens. Elizabeth, following the sidewalk that led to the faculty entrance of the building, kept her eyes trained in front of her.
As she walked by the news truck, the reporter glanced over his right shoulder and said, “Doctor Monroe, we’d like to ask you one quick question.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m on the phone.”
The reporter nodded and said, “We can wait a minute. The question we’d like to ask you is this: the disappearance of Wanda Donnelly appears to be a kidnapping. Do you think this could fit the forensic profile of the person who left the two bodies in the De Soto National Forest?”
Elizabeth stopped walking for a second and looked over at the reporter, a microphone in his hand. She said, “Do you know if her disappearance is due to a kidnapping? Did you get that information from police? If not it’s speculation and forensic science doesn’t deal with speculation.” She continued walking, phone to her ear. “Mike, did you hear that? That reporter is suggesting it’s a kidnapping?”
“Don’t let the facts get in the way of a story. We don’t know that. I just hope Wanda’s family isn’t watching that news broadcast.”
THIRTY-TWO
He was proud of the title—gravedigger. Al Benson took his job seriously, always digging the perfect grave—exact width and depth. And each time it was done by hand. He had no use for the backhoe. The machine was too loud in a place of quiet—a cemetery.
Al, fifty-two, had a roughhewn face and hands aged by the sun and hard work. He was a full-time farmer and a part-time gravedigger. There was a similarity to the two that he often thought about. Ashes to ashes or dust to dust for man; while plants dropped seeds back to God’s earth, returning to the place they came from in the beginning. It was at the end when man returned to dust.
Al hadn’t dug a grave in a few weeks. But the church pastor called and said a funeral was planned for 11:00 a.m. on Friday. Al would dig the grave for Mrs. Jane Jefferies today, Thursday. He knew Mrs. Jefferies, a long-time member of New Shepherd Baptist Church. The church, which was built 161 years ago, owned the land and the ten-acre cemetery.
Al rode through the cemetery in his old Chevy pickup truck, careful to stay on the single-lane dirt road that twisted through magnolias and live oaks towering among the dead. He kept his windows down. Radio off, forever respectful of the departed souls. He slowed to a stop in the center of the cemetery and checked the plot for Mrs. Jefferies’ gravesite.
Harold Jefferies, her husband, died last year. Al remembered the grave he’d dug. Mrs. Jefferies was to be laid to rest to the right of his burial site. Al set the laminated cemetery map on the seat beside him. A mockingbird sang from a live oak, the warm breeze fragrant, mixed with magnolia blossoms and fresh-cut grass.
Al put the truck in gear and drove toward the rear of the cemetery. He parked in the shade of an old oak, shut off the engine and unloaded his tools—a pickaxe, shovel, hand trowel, and a tape measure. He placed an unopened bottle of water in the pocket of his coveralls and walked toward the area where he’d dig Mrs. Jefferies grave, the truck’s motor ticking as it cooled.
Something was different. More than fifty feet beyond Harold Jefferies’ grave, appeared to be a fresh grave. The top wasn’t rounded, allowing for the natural settling of dirt. The sandy soil was bumpy like the back of an alligator. From the distance, it looked like a tree root twisted up from the earth.
Something was very wrong.
Al dropped his pick axe and shovel, walking towards the fresh dirt. Damn weird, he thought. Who dug the grave? As far as Al knew, he was the only person asked by the church to dig graves. His services were always requested, something that made him very proud. But something didn’t feel right, as if somehow the sanctity of the cemetery had been violated.
He walked faster.
His mind didn’t want to believe what he saw. It was as if he was outside his body watching himself but unable to stop his approach to a gravesite that wasn’t a true grave, but more an illusion—a bad Halloween trick.
The bluish skin of a human arm and hand protruded from the grave. Al stopped within ten feet of the arm, his heart racing, the sound of an acorn falling through the oak leaves. The fingernails were painted dark red. A blowfly, iridescent green back, scarlet head, crawled across one bent finger. Al leaned forward, his hands shaking, the odor of death seeped from the shallow grave. He stared at the small hand protruding from the earth like a twisted claw. The sun broke between the clouds, and in a ray of sunlight, Al spotted something on the girl’s wrist.
A tattoo.
He could see the tattoo clearly. It was an image of a single rose—the petals bright red against the bluish skin.
THIRTY-THREE
Later in the afternoon, Elizabeth got the call she didn’t want to receive. She was home, watering house plants, Jack following behind her with an occasional meow to let her know that his treat came before her taking care of the plants. She was in her bare feet on her outside deck, watering a philodendron with leaves the size of serving platters when she heard her phone ringing on the kitchen table.
“Jack, can you go in and answer that?”
Jack sat on his wide haunches, tilted his head and stared at her. Unblinking. His attention was momentarily distracted when two geese flew over the backyard, squawking, and disappearing into the piney woodlands of the state forest bordering Elizabeth’s property.
She set the watering can down, knocked some potting soil off her hands, and went inside, Jack following at her heels. She picked up the phone and looked at the caller ID. Mike Bradford. She glanced down and said, “Mike’s calling. Maybe he wants to invite me out for a fish dinner tomorrow. I’ll bring a doggy bag—pardon me, and kitty bag back with your favorite, salmon.” Jack jumped up on one of the barstools along the kitchen counter. Elizabeth said, “Even a kitty bag doesn’t seem appropriate for you. Were you ever a kitty in the cuddly sense of the word? It’s because of your tattered left ear, your life scars—puts you somewhere in the mix of Tomcat, alley cat and fat cat. The last a reference to your Garfield complex.”
Jack mewed. Louder this time. Elizabeth laughed. “All right. Let me return this call, and I’ll grab your favorite treats. I know you’re the man of the house, but I really believe that you enjoy Mike’s company. When he’s here, you sit next to him on the couch with some kind of bromance thing. Maybe down the road you two guys will have cigars on the back deck.” Elizabeth smiled and hit the button to return the call.
Bradford answered and said, “Elizabeth … are you someplace where you can talk?”
“Yes, but I never like conversations that start this way. They have a tendency to get worse. I’m home. What is it?”
“It is worse. A body was found. Appears to be that of a woman. It’s in a cemetery, partially buried. A groundskeeper found it. All that he could see was an arm and hand protruding up through the loose soil.”
“Don’t tell me, Mike. Don’t tell me it’s Wanda Donnelly.”
“We haven’t had a positive ID. Deputies have the crime scene cordoned off. It’s probably not the actual crime scene. It’s where the perp buried the body. But, where he killed her, we don’t know yet. I’m heading out there now with my partner, Bill Lee. I don’t know if you want to see the scene before we remove the body and give it to the medical examiner for an autopsy. Maybe it’ll help you with your profile, if it’s the same killer who murdered Brian Woods and Olivia Curtis.”
“Where’s the location?”
“A small cemetery behind New Shepherd Baptist Church off Indian Springs Road.”
“Okay.”
“Elizabeth, the man who found the body. He said there is a tattoo on the wrist.”
“Please, Mike. Don’t let it be her.”
“I’m so sorry. I don’t know if it’s Wanda, but I do know there’s a tattoo of a red rose on the wrist. I wish to God I didn’t have to tell you that.”