The Buried (The Apostles) (19 page)

She opened up Hatch’s clenched fist, dropped the keys on his palm, and closed his fingers.

Hatch pulled himself from the table. “Sure you don’t want to come? You and Alex seemed to have bonded.”

“I think this is one you need to handle on your own.” She walked him to the door.

“You will stay put. You will not leave this house.”

Hatch knew her well. She wanted to go into work and visit the site where Janis was buried, but that wasn’t going to happen this morning. “That’s the plan,” she said with an irritated sigh. She aimed her chin at Blue, who was still sprawled in the middle of the kitchen floor. Not only had he missed his morning dig, he hadn’t eaten a bite of bacon, and he hadn’t taken a drink of water. “I need to keep an eye on him. Something’s wrong.” She opened the door. “Now stop stalling and get the Clip & Curl issue straightened out with your son.”

A
lex scooped the tangled pile of hair with the dustpan and dumped it in the trashcan, banging until every hair was gone. With a determined face, he headed for the next pile.

“He’s not a bad kid,” DeeDee told Hatch as she motioned to the hydraulic chair. DeeDee, the owner of the Clip & Curl, had agreed to let Alex clean the shop every Sunday until he earned enough money to pay for the broken window, and to his credit, Alex was taking  the cleaning job seriously. Maybe because DeeDee had gray hair and a few wrinkles, much like the boy’s granny. Or maybe the kid was finally beginning to realize these guys he called friends were anything but, because they’d bailed on him again. Or maybe the boy had played one of Grace’s
what if
games and was picturing nuclear annihilation.

Hatch sunk into the chair. “If he’s a good kid, why’s he habitually doing bad things?”

DeeDee chuckled as she snapped a pink plastic cape and settled it around his neck. “Growing pains. I know. I raised four boys.”

“Four boys?” Hatch squinted into the mirror in front of him. “Where are your battle wounds?”

DeeDee ran a comb through his damp hair. “I got a few, the boys, too, but they all turned out all right. Two are doctors, one’s a college professor, and the baby runs a bunch of vacation rentals over on St. George Island.”

“What’s your secret?”

DeeDee picked up her scissors and snipped at the back of Hatch’s head. “Horses.”

Hatch laughed.

“If I’m lying, I’m dying.” DeeDee continued to snip his hair. “My boys raised and showed horses. They were too busy mucking stalls and combing horse tails to get in trouble.” She pointed the scissors at Alex, who was now cleaning the front glass window with a wad of paper towels. “I’m guessing your boy has too much time on his hands. A bored kid is a kid who spends too much time in his head, and sometimes that place leads to trouble.”

Between working at the cemetery and cleaning the Clip & Curl, Alex was going to be one busy boy over the next few months. Not much time to hang out and cause trouble with rowdy friends. But what about after this summer, long after Hatch left? Alex would go to school and do what? Hang out with other bored kids?

Hatch couldn’t let that happen, not as long as he breathed the good air on this earth. He would talk to Alex’s granny about sports and clubs, maybe even suggest a part-time job. He could put some feelers out and talk to Grace. She knew this town, loved this town, and she seemed to have a soft spot for Alex. He’d been surprised at how good she was with the kid until he remembered much of her childhood had been spent taking care of her mother. DeeDee continued to cut, and the heaviness weighing on Hatch’s shoulders fell away. He could rely on Grace to help with Alex.

By the time Alex emptied the final garbage can and put away his cleaning bucket, DeeDee had finished Hatch’s long overdue haircut. He ran a hand through his hair and squinted at himself in the mirror. “You didn’t take off much.”

“Cuttin’ off liquid sunshine like that would make this world a much darker place,” she said as she took off the cape and gave it a shake. “The woman you share a pillow with would kill me.”

That would be Grace. Waking up and finding her looking into his eyes was like waking up in heaven. Most folks saw Grace as cool, maybe even a little steely, but that was just the by-product of her drive and determination, which both came back to heart. And boy had he seen Grace’s heart, with Alex the past few days and during the hunt for a sadistic killer. He jammed both hands through his damp hair. And he’d seen it last night on his boat.

Grace’s bold admission of love had tangled his tongue, along with her motive for divorcing him. She’d severed their marriage with a swiftness and sharpness that had left him bloody and flat on his ass, all because she’d wanted to save him from himself. As usual, she’d been right. He loved Grace—hell, still did— but couldn’t live in her world. After they married, he’d taken a few charter fishing jobs to keep him at sea, but still, he was restless. However, he’d been unable to leave Grace. Leaving her would’ve meant leaving his heart, and that would’ve been suicide.

As he’d grown more bored and restless, he’d gone deeper into his head. And like father like son, that’s where the trouble had started. Deep in his head, he saw his father, tied to a life he never asked for and dying before age forty behind a counter in a tiny auto parts store with a heart full of regrets. Hatch swore he’d never be that man. He swore he’d never be a parent. And he swore he’d never give his heart to another woman. Grace had hurt him too much the first time.

But the truth was he didn’t have any choice about giving his heart to another woman. Grace still held his heart, and he had no idea how to get it back. And after sharing a pillow with her and waking up in heaven, he wasn’t sure he wanted it back.

“One, two, heave!”

The veterinarian, Grace, and twins Ricky and Raymond lifted Allegheny Blue onto the exam table. Blue licked her elbow.

“Yaaay!” cried Ricky. “Mission accomplished!”

Raymond tugged at the hem of Grace’s linen tank and looked at her through a fan of dark brown lashes. “Is Blue gonna die?”

She settled her hand on the boy’s head. She hadn’t planned on bringing the twins to the vet, but their grandmother, who’d given Grace and Blue a ride when Grace’s car had once again refused to start, needed to stop by the sheriff’s station and talk with a deputy about Alex, and the twins didn’t need to be there for that. “Blue’s a tough old guy,” she said. But this morning he hadn’t eaten, gone outside to dig, or moved from the kitchen floor. She settled her other hand on the dog’s head and scrubbed his floppy ear. “Let’s see what the vet has to say. Now you two have a seat.”

The boys scrambled onto the bench seat across from the exam table while the vet scratched the dog’s belly. “How’s the old guy’s pads?”

“A few days ago he broke open the front right again, and I administered the bear grease ointment.”

The vet studied Blue’s paws. “You’re looking good, old man, and I’m glad to see you stopped those long treks along Highway 319.” The vet lifted the saggy skin around the dog’s mouth, checked his teeth, throat, and ears. Then he poked around the dog’s belly. At last he sat on the swivel stool next to the exam table.

Grace sat between the boys on the bench, where hundreds of worried pet owners had sat before her. Not that she was his owner. “Well?” Grace asked.

The vet put away his clipboard. “He’s old.”

“That’s it? He’s
old
?” She hated not knowing what was going on, of being in the dark.

“Pretty much sums up his problems. His teeth and gums are in relatively good shape given his age. Coat, ears, and nose indicate general good health. Of course I could do imaging to check for internal issues, take some blood, and put him through additional tests.” The vet dug his hand into the saggy skin around Allegheny Blue’s neck and scrubbed. The dog purred. “But at this point I don’t recommend an invasive course of treatment. He’s content and not in pain.” The vet took a small pad of paper from his coat pocket. “If you feel a need to do something, get this prescription filled and give him vitamins. In the meantime, rub his belly and scratch behind his ears. If he seems to be in distress, bring him in.”

“But he’s not eating.”

“Make his meals more appealing. Soften his dog food with warm milk. Add a special treat, like a scrambled egg.”

“Bacon,” she said with a sigh. “He likes bacon.”

“So give him bacon.”

“I already give him a slice with every meal.”

“Give him two.”

“That can’t be good for him.”

“Grace, your dog is old.”

“He’s not my dog.”

Blue thumped his tail.

The vet chuckled. “Blue’s time is limited. In my professional opinion, I suggest you let him enjoy what time he has left. Let him have another slice of bacon.”

A warm, tiny hand slipped into hers. Raymond’s head dipped in a serious nod. “Or two.”

H
atch hopped onto the gunwale and tied off Lamar Giroux’s boat to the temporary dock set up in a tiny inlet along the northern end of Bremen’s Bayou. A portside seam in the boat had buckled, letting in a tiny puddle of dark, brackish water. The water sloshed over Grace’s shoes, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“You’re quiet,” he said.

She stood. “I’ve been thinking.”

He grabbed the dock post with one hand and offered her the other. “About?”

She took his hand and steadied herself as she stepped onto the dock. “Bacon.”

The boat rocked, but Hatch didn’t move. He wasn’t sure what surprised him more, Grace accepting his assistance or her answer to his question. “Did you say
bacon
?”

As if sensing his profound confusion, she shrugged. “It’s complicated.” Straightening the pearls at her neck, she headed down the dock toward the crime scene tape.

Welcome to his world.

In the bright light of day, the swampland looked no less menacing. He and Grace picked their way along sickly brown marsh grass and through noxious-smelling mud. Tangles of vines and branches clawed at his legs as they climbed the rise to where more than a dozen men and women in uniform worked the crime scene. The team included Jonny Mac, who along with three other men was helping wrangle Janis Jaffee’s wooden coffin from the earth.

“Nice of you to finally drag your ass out of bed,” his teammate said as he yanked on a rope. The coffin lurched from the mud.

Hatch shoved aside a rock wedged against the wood. “You know us pretty boys. We need our beauty sleep. Even took some PTO to get a haircut this morning.” He gave his head a waggy shake. “What do you think?”

Jon shifted his eyes from the coffin. “Everything go okay?”

Jon, like the rest of his team, knew about Alex and his latest transgression. “No blood.”

“Glad to hear.” Jon and the others yanked again. Hatch lifted, mud slurped, and the earth finally relinquished the coffin. Once they got the box settled on a tarp, Jon stepped away and smiled at Grace. “Good afternoon, Grace.”

“Is it good?” Grace held her arms close to her chest, her hands rubbing her skin as if to ward off the cold. Heat rose from the earth in steamy waves, but the gaping hole in the earth was chilling.

“Still working on that,” Jon said.

“What’d you all find?” Hatch asked.

“No surprises,” Jon said. “Same MO as the first victim. Crudely built coffin, phone restricted to call only Grace, size eight wader prints.”

“Witnesses?”

“Two alligators and a bobcat, and none of them are talking.”

“What about on Carrabelle beach?” Grace asked.

“No signs of struggle in the sand or shoreline. It looks like Janis was running along the water’s edge, rendered unconscious, and dragged to a boat. Tide washed away all prints.”

“Level Two.” Hatch rubbed at the back of his neck. “Higher level of difficulty.”

“But how can someone abduct a grown woman from a public beach and boat through the bay and river with no one noticing anything?” Grace asked.

“Someone using a boat with no lights and an electric motor,” Hatch said. “Given the clouds last night, she’d be all but invisible.”

Grace toed a chunk of caked mud. “Exactly. We’re running through the dark, not quite sure of what we’re chasing.”

Hatch worked best with people. He could touch people with his hands and words. Other than Lou Poole, they had no witnesses. Grace had compiled a list of people who may want to start a grudge match against her, but so far, they had no suspects. He paced from one end of the tarp to the other. Their unsub wasn’t invisible, just good at maneuvering through the dark. “We need light,” Hatch said.

“And since it’s not coming from the outside…” Jon started.

“We turn inward.” With a smile, Hatch reached for his phone.

Grace looked from one to the other, her forehead creased. “What are you two talking about?”

Hatch and his SCIU teammates at times spoke a language only they understood. At other times, they didn’t need words. “I’m bringing in The Professor.”

“Hayden Reed,” Jon added. “He’s our team’s criminal profiler. He’ll walk the places where our unsub’s walked, get in her head and—”

“—once in her head, Hayden can tell us an uncanny amount about her processes and motivations and history,” Hatch added.

“And the good news is Hayden’s nearby in New Orleans to give a talk tomorrow. Looks like he’ll need to make a little detour.”

“Which reminds me, after you talk to Hayden, we need to head out of the swamp for a detour of our own,” Grace told Hatch. “I tracked down the cleaning crew that employed the man posing as the long-dead Ronnie Alderman.”

Hatch flashed his badge, and a middle-aged man pushing a vacuum across the entryway of an insurance office rushed to the door and opened it. Once again, Grace marveled at the doors so readily opened by Parker Lord’s famed Apostles.

After meeting with the vet, she got hold of the owner of the property management company responsible for cleaning the phone retail store where Lia Grant’s killer had purchased the phones, the same store where the security images, both inside and outside, had been conveniently wiped for the day of purchase. She then tracked down the cleaning crew who’d worked with the person posing as the long-dead Ronnie Alderman.

“Thanks for seeing us, Mr. Montoya,” Grace said as she shook the burly man’s hand. “About the crew member you worked with, the one called Ronnie Alderman—”

“I already told my boss, I don’t remember working with a Ronnie Alderman. We get a lot of college kids in and out of here during the summer, and all the faces and names run together.”

“Maybe it was that weird chick.” A younger man pushing a cart with a squeaky wheel stopped near the receptionist’s desk and picked up a trashcan. “You know, the one who liked to vacuum in the dark.”

The older man scratched the side of his head. “That was a guy, wasn’t it?”

“Nah, she was pretty small, wasn’t she?”

“Okay, might have been a woman. Her name was Ronnie, huh?” He shrugged. “She wasn’t with our crew but for a day or two.”

“Did she get fired?” Grace asked.

“No, she just didn’t show up.”

“What did she look like?” Hatch asked.

The man rested his hands on the vacuum cleaner handle. “Smallish. Youngish. Hard to tell because like Caleb said, she liked to work in the dark. Kind of weird, now that I think about it, cleaning in the dark. But I didn’t say anything because she did a damn good job. Must have had eyes like an owl. Caleb, here, may have a better idea than me. He worked with her.”

“Dark hair.” The young man dumped the trash into his cart. “I think.”

“Long? Short? Straight? Curly?”

“Not sure.”

“How about her face?”

“Nothing stands out. Kind of average. Kind of pale. Maybe.”

“Physique?”

“Maybe skinny, but she wore baggy clothes. All black, by the way. I think. Or maybe they just looked black because she kind of lurked in the shadows.”

“Any distinguishing characteristics like tattoos, scars, or jewelry?”

“Not that I remember.”

More unknowns. More dark. More shovelfuls of nothing.

“Would you be willing to work with a forensic sketch artist from my team?”

“Sure, I’ll talk to your sketch artist,” the burly cleaning guy said. “But I’m not too sure how much it would help. Seriously, I don’t remember much about this Ronnie Alderman.”

“You’d be surprised what you’ll remember when asked by a person trained to dig deep into your head.”

“I can try, Agent Hatcher, but don’t hold your breath.”

On the way back to Cypress Bend, Grace drove while Hatch dialed his team’s forensic artist. The phone rang thirteen times. Grace would have hung up, but Hatch leaned back in the seat and watched the countryside rush by.

“Peace and goodwill,” said a woman with winded breath.

“Peace and goodwill back at you, Berk,” Hatch said with a smile that reached his eyes. “Did I catch you chasing the sun again?”

“Chasing, but not catching.” A chiming laugh tinkled. “I went through half a tube of cadmium yellow and six different brushes. Maybe I’ll have better luck tomorrow.”

 “The sun will have to wait. I need you.”

And like that, one of the finest forensic artists in the country was making arrangements to hop aboard a private jet and make her way to the Florida panhandle. Parker Lord’s team featured the best of the best, including the man sitting next to her.

Hatch had grown up, but he’d grown in other ways. Although still restless, he’d grown more patient. Although still the laid-back charmer, he’d grown a more serious side, and she had a feeling Parker Lord had a great deal to do with that.

“You’re being quiet again,” Hatch said long after he hung up.

“Still thinking,” she said.

“About bacon?”

“About you.”

He settled his fingertips on his chest and dipped in a half bow. “I’m flattered.”

“Don’t be. I’m thinking about what a liar you are.”

“Excuse me?”

“You said you wouldn’t make a good family man, but you’re a part of a family. You and Agent MacGregor are like brothers, and the minute you need something,
boom
, your teammates Hayden and Berkley are there. Sounds suspiciously like a family to me.”

“You must be hearing things, Princess, because I don’t do family.”

She just smiled.

With a frown he rolled down the window and rested his arm on the frame, his thumb tapping a steady beat on the metal. He said nothing on the remainder of the drive to Cypress Bend, and she wondered if he was thinking about his dad. Her family hadn’t been perfect—a paranoid mother and a father who spent long days and sometimes nights in the office—but she loved them and couldn’t imagine growing up alone and lonely as had been the case with Hatch. No wonder he was a hell-raiser. He desperately wanted the attention of a disconnected father.

When they reached Cypress Bend, she pulled into the sheriff’s station to update the lieutenant about their interviews with the cleaning crew.

On their way to the lieutenant’s private office, Deputy Fillingham waved them down. “Hey there, counselor. I was going to call you today. The forensic team working on your property wrapped up their investigation. I just received the paperwork releasing the site. Your construction crew can start digging tomorrow.”

In light of more recently dug graves, Grace had forgotten about the old bones. She’d even tucked away her need to push forward with construction of her dream home, a longing that had driven her the past six months. Crazy didn’t begin to describe the past few days.

“And while you’re here,” the deputy continued, “I’ll need to get an official statement from you.”

“I already talked to the lieutenant. I know nothing about the remains of the woman.”

“I know, but the forensic team found more than one set of remains.”

“Holy shit,” Hatch said under his breath.

Grace shared Hatch’s sentiment but couldn’t utter a word, her throat thick and tight as she stared at the two skeletons stretched out on the steel table in the county morgue, one full size and the other so tiny it would fit in a shoe box.

“Newborn?” Hatch asked on a ragged rush of air.

The M.E. nodded. “Skull shows signs of passing through the birth canal. Live birth. Cause of death is severed spinal cord.”

Hatch shook his head. “Such a violent way to die.”

“After only barely living.” Grace finally found her voice. She pointed to the full-size skeleton. “And this one?”

“Given the circular pelvic inlet and broad sciatic notch, definitely female. She’s of European ancestry, and the closure in the cranial sutures and rib ends show she was between the age of thirty and forty.”

A woman and child. As far as Grace knew, Lamar Giroux, who’d lived on her land for more than sixty years, had never married. He had one sister with kids, all who lived in Tallahassee. The old hunter had seemed content to live out his life with his dogs on twenty acres of secluded land. “Have your people talked with Giroux yet?” Grace asked Deputy Fillingham.

“Not yet,” the deputy said. “But I’ll be heading to Tallahassee when we get the Gravedigger off the streets.”

“What about the woman?” Grace asked the coroner. “She was shot, right?”

The coroner ran her finger along a jagged hole in the skull. “Single GSW to the head. Bullet entered right temple. No exit wound.”

“Self-inflicted or homicide?” Hatch asked.

“Given the slight upward trajectory, I’m leaning toward self-inflicted.”

There was so much story in these old bones, and each bone was a chapter. The woman could have killed her baby then killed herself. Or perhaps someone else killed the baby, and in her grief, she took her own life. Had the baby been nestled against her chest at the time she killed herself? Had the babe been buried in her arms?

“The arm,” Grace said with a start. “What happened to the infant’s arm?”

“The skeleton indicates normal bone and skeletal growth. Appears to be a recovery issue. The team in the field widened the search area and never found the arm.”

“But they found some other stuff,” Hatch said, motioning to a small tray at the head of the table. “These the artifacts?”

Artifacts, such a cold, hard word for the bits and pieces of what had once been part of a human being. On the tray was a synthetic woman’s slipper, a strip of wide ribbon attached to a square of nubby fabric with pink bunnies, a silver coin, and a large silver filigree barrette.

Grace slid her finger along the barrette. “She must have had long hair.” Was it blond, brown, or black? And what about her eyes and the color of her skin? If only these artifacts could talk and tell of the secrets buried here.

“What’s that?” Hatch asked, pointing at a pile of red dirt.

“An anomaly,” the M.E. said. “The earth at the exhumation point had a large concentration of sand. This loamy, red earth was clumped around the infant bones.”

“Which means the baby was most likely buried in a different location, unearthed, and placed with the mother for communal burial,” Hatch said. “Could be the reason for the missing arm.”