“So we’re back to square one. And since the rest of Gerrity’s story panned out,” I said slowly, “don’t you have to give credence to what he said about me?”
Devlin sighed. “I don’t want to drag you into this any more than you already are. Besides, Gerrity’s just guessing about the cemetery. He’s not clairvoyant. He wasn’t even a particularly insightful cop.”
“He would disagree with that assessment. In fact, he told me his grandmother thinks he has a gift. That’s why he’s called the Prophet—”
Devlin’s hand shot out, trapping mine against the table and rendering me speechless with shock as he leaned across the table. “Did he tell you to say that to me?”
There was nothing empty about his expression now. His eyes glittered murderously, animating his whole face in a way I’d never seen before.
“What? No. Not specifically. I just assumed everything he told me was part of the message.”
“You didn’t say anything about it the other night at Oak Grove.”
“It slipped my mind.” I pulled my hand from his. “What’s the big deal? It’s just a nickname, right?”
“It’s a nickname, but it’s not
his
nickname. He used it because he knew it would get to me.”
“Get to you how?”
“It’s not important.” But he appeared to have quite a struggle corralling his emotions. This was yet another side of him I hadn’t seen. The out-of-control side. I shivered.
“You sound so angry when you talk about him. What did he do, exactly?”
“That’s between him and me.” His dark eyes surveyed the traffic. “I’m done with this subject. Anything else you care to talk about?”
“Yes. Can we go back to Hannah for a minute? I know you have limitations on what you can tell me, but if the killer drives a black sedan, I could be in a lot of trouble. There are some things I’d like to know.”
“Such as?”
“How did she die?”
Only a slight hesitation as he contemplated how much to tell me. “Exsanguination. Do you know what that means?”
“She bled to death, basically.”
“Basically, yes.”
“How?”
“I’m not going to give you specifics. That’s something you don’t need to know.” When I started to protest, he lowered his voice. “That’s something you don’t
want
to know.”
I felt a tremor of dread. “What was the cause of death in the Delacourt case?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you said she died in such a way that the end was a long time coming.”
“That’s what I heard. I wasn’t a cop back then. I relied on rumors just like everybody else.”
“But you’re a cop now. Can’t you look in the file and find out?”
“That file is sealed. No one can touch it without a court order.”
“Is that normal?
“It happens in cases where a minor is involved.”
“Do you think that’s why this file is sealed, or is it because someone in power doesn’t want it released? You said there was a concentrated effort to keep the investigation quiet by some pretty important people. The society you told me about—the Order of the Coffin and the Claw—if they were responsible for Afton’s death, then the members who were involved might now be in those positions of power. It’s like a circle. A never-ending cover-up.”
“That’s why groups like the Order are so effective. The members have to protect each other. If one falls, they all fall.”
“Then how would you ever be able to prove anything? They’ve stacked the deck.”
He glanced around, his manner suddenly uneasy. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves, anyway. We don’t know that anyone in the Order did anything wrong. There were a lot of rumors flying around back then, including some pretty disturbing talk about Rupert Shaw.”
“About Dr. Shaw…” I brushed another petal off the table. “Let me just say that I still don’t think he did anything wrong. I can’t imagine him having anything to do with that girl’s murder. I just can’t. But…” I glanced up. “There is something that’s been…not bothering me, but puzzling me.”
“I’m listening.”
“He has this ring. Very unusual and ornate. Silver and onyx, I think, with some sort of emblem on the stone. I don’t know what the symbol is, but it looks familiar to me. I think I’ve seen it somewhere before. Anyway…what’s really strange is that he keeps changing his story about where he got it. The first time I noticed the ring, he said it was a family heirloom. Then he told someone else it had been a gift from a colleague. This morning he told me he bought it at a flea market. I feel silly even bringing this up because I’m sure it’s nothing. But in the interest of full disclosure, I needed to get it off my chest.”
“Anything else you want to get off your chest?” He said it so smoothly I almost didn’t notice the steel in his voice.
“Uh, no. That’s it.”
Deliberately he slid his glass aside and folded his arms on the table. “What about your visit with Essie? In the interest of
full disclosure,
why didn’t you tell me you saw her yesterday?”
All the air swooshed from my lungs. For a moment, I could only gape at him in awkward silence. Then I rushed into an embarrassed justification. “It wasn’t planned. I didn’t go down there to see her. I didn’t even know about her. We met in the cemetery…” I trailed off at the look on his face. “I’m sorry. I should have told you.”
His eyes were very dark, very cold, very unforgiving. “The next time you have a question about my private life, I suggest you ask me directly instead of going behind my back.”
TWENTY-TWO
D
evlin’s anger hit me hard. I’d never handled disapproval well nor had I learned to let criticism roll off my back. Sometimes I wondered if being adopted had something to do with my almost obsessive need to please. Or maybe I over-compensated because of my father’s rules and my mother’s melancholy.
Whatever the reason, I knew that if I went home, I’d spend the whole day in a mood, so late that afternoon I called Temple and asked her to meet me for drinks.
We chose a place with a waterfront view, and by the time I arrived, she was already seated on the patio watching the sailboats put in.
“There you are,” she said as I sat down across from her.
“Am I late?”
“No, I’m early.” She picked up her drink, some potent-looking concoction in a tall, frosted glass, and sipped. “After ten days of babysitting undergrads, I needed this more than you. Although…” She cocked her head. “You do look a little flushed.”
“It’s summertime in the Deep South. What do you expect?”
“Hmm, yes, except you’re not exactly sweating.”
“We glow down here, remember?”
She didn’t take her eyes off me as she motioned for the waiter.
“What?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Something’s different about you. I can’t quite put my finger on it.” She waited until I’d given the waiter my order, then leaned in. “Are you sleeping with Devlin?”
“I hardly know him! And after today,” I said a bit glumly, “the possibility of that is even more remote than the last time we talked.”
“What happened?”
“Something stupid.” I rubbed a hand across my forehead. “I’m almost too embarrassed to tell you.”
She propped an elbow on the table, drink in hand, and waited.
“I drove down to Beaufort County yesterday to visit his wife and daughter’s graves.” I glanced up to view her reaction.
She arched a brow. “And why did you do that?”
“I don’t know. Curiosity, I guess. While I was there, I met Mariama’s grandmother—who is a root doctor, by the way—and a young girl named Rhapsody, Mariama’s second cousin. Anyway, one of them must have told Devlin I’d been there, and now he’s angry that I pried into his personal life and I’m completely mortified.”
“If that’s the worst thing you’ve ever done to a man, then you obviously have never been in love,” Temple said with a shrug. “But I still don’t understand why you went to visit those graves. What did you hope to accomplish?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to see where they were buried.”
“And so now Devlin’s upset with you.” She contemplated the matter for a moment. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Wait for it to blow over, I guess.”
“The fatalistic approach. I’m not a fan.”
I sighed. “What would you do then?”
“Try my damnedest to make him forget about Mariama—at least for a night. But that’s me. And for you, I’m afraid that might be a tall order.”
Her gentle ribbing went right over my head. “I don’t want him to forget Mariama. Why would I want that?” I thought of my encounter with Mariama’s ghost and shuddered.
Temple gave me a look over the rim of her glass. “I said for a night.”
The waiter brought over my drink and I used the opportunity to change the subject. “How did you get here so fast, anyway? You must have already been in town.”
“I was. We wrapped up early and now I don’t have a thing to do for the next couple of days but hang out by the pool and soak up some sun. Well, except for a report to file and a mountain of papers to grade.” She did look relaxed and quite exotic in a mustard-colored peasant blouse with embroidered flowers. In comparison, my skinny jeans and tank seemed a little too coed. A little too vanilla.
“When are you going back to Columbia?”
“Not until I take a look at your skeleton. And speaking of Devlin, he called. He’s rescheduled the exhumation for tomorrow.”
“Yes, I know. Ethan Shaw left a message on my voicemail earlier.”
“You’re planning on being there then?”
Was that a note of disapproval I heard in her tone? Or was I being a little too sensitive after Devlin’s censure? “I don’t see why not. I’ve been involved from the very beginning. Which is another reason I wanted to see you today. I’ve been trying to research Afton Delacourt’s murder, but I can’t find anything about it online or in the newspaper archives.”
Her relaxed mood faded as she sat back in her chair and gazed out over the water. A breeze tickled the dark curls at her nape and the palmetto fronds that hung over the railing. “Why are you so obsessed with that murder?”
“I wouldn’t call it obsessed,” I said a bit defensively. “But I am interested. Two, possibly three murder victims have been found in the cemetery where I spend a lot of time alone. I think my concern is understandable.”
“Maybe. But we both know what’s really going on here, don’t we? You’re overcompensating. Something exciting has come into your careful little world and you’ve latched on with both hands.”
“That’s not it!” But I wondered if my vehemence was due in part to her hitting a little too close to home. “And, anyway, I thought you said I needed some excitement.”
“I hardly meant involving yourself in a murder investigation.”
I stared at her across the table. “Why does it bother you so much to talk about Afton Delacourt?”
“I’m not bothered. It happened a long time ago and I don’t see the point of dredging up ancient history.”
“What kind of archaeologist are you?”
Her smile was ironic and she seemed to unwind a little. “Good point. I know this sounds odd, but it feels…intrusive somehow. Like maybe we should leave that poor girl alone.”
“It’s strange that you should say that. Daniel Meakin made almost exactly the same comment the other day.”
“Meakin?” She couldn’t have been more dismissive. “Where did you see him?”
“In the archives room at the university.”
“Figures. I suspect he spends most of his time down there. He’s like a mole.”
“I saw Camille down there, too, that day. I think she was spying on us.”
“That sounds like Camille. She’s always had a tendency to stick her nose in where it doesn’t belong. I used to hate the way she’d go through my things when I wasn’t around.”
“Did you really have a fling with her or were you just teasing Ethan the other night?”
“Camille and I definitely had our moments. But there’s darkness in that woman. It drives her to do impulsive, hurtful things. Just like the darkness in Meakin drove him to attempt suicide.”
“You really think he tried to kill himself?”
She flicked at an invisible speck from her blouse. “Let me put it this way. The scar I saw on his wrist wasn’t exactly a scratch. It was thick, raised, raw and ugly. The kind you get from a deep gash. I don’t blame him for trying to keep that thing covered.”
“Did you know him very well when you were at Emerson?”
“Not really. We had a few classes together, but we didn’t socialize.” She was growing impatient again. “Why all the questions about Daniel Meakin? I thought you wanted to talk about Afton.”
“I do. Whatever you can tell me.”
She shrugged. “I guess the thing that stands out most in my memory about that time is how scared we all were when the body was discovered.”
“We?”
“My little group of friends. Everyone I knew had partied in that cemetery at one time or another. It was a rite of passage at Emerson. To hear that a girl had been killed there was very upsetting.”
“Did you know Afton?”
“Only by reputation. She was a rich, spoiled party girl who, until she was murdered, led a fairly charmed life.”
I wasn’t altogether certain the irony was intentional. It was hard to tell with Temple. “Where did you meet her? She wasn’t a student at Emerson, was she?”
“Every hotshot on campus dated her. Or so they claimed.”
“Was there much talk after the murder about her involvement with a member of the Order of the Coffin and the Claw?”
“Some.”
“Did you know any of the Claws?”
“I may have, but I wouldn’t have known it.”
“No one ever let anything slip?”
“About the Claws? Never.”
“But Emerson is such a small campus. You must have had your suspicions.”
“There was always speculation. Among the girls I knew, it would have been considered quite a coup to sleep with a Claw and then out him. Or her.”
“Did you ever hear any rumors about occult activity?”
“Nobody paid any attention to that stuff.”
I perked up. “So there was talk.”
“All those secret initiations, midnight orgies, Dionysian rituals—nothing more than a bunch of frat boys’ wet dreams.”
“You never went to any of them?”