Chapter Nine #3
As they moved toward the greenhouse, she kept talking to distract him.
“The reason we had to come here, Jeffrey, is someone said graves were being disturbed.”
He shook his head.
“That happened a while ago. It hasn’t happened since. I make sure of it. I walk this whole place twice a night to ensure everyone is at peace.”
Yeah, except this was a huge-ass place.
“What times do you walk it?” she inquired.
“Before I go to sleep at nine, and then again at five in the morning.”
Well, that wasn’t exactly a good thing. The collector, who was likely a watcher too, probably kept an eye on the cemetery and knew his habits.
Unless the man was the watching collector.
Time would tell.
She gently pushed.
“Do you stay here?” she asked, pointing at the small building next to the greenhouse, assuming that’s what he meant when he said he went to sleep after walking the cemetery.
He nodded.
“But only until Friday night. Then, I go home to see my mother. She gets lonely, but I have to work. I have to keep an eye on her. I worry that she’ll miss me.”
Ethan was listening.
Okay, so they knew that the man had a pattern, and he left for the weekends. They’d learned that in two minutes. A highly intelligent person, like a collector, would find that out too.
“How long does it take to walk this place?” he asked. “It’s huge, and I bet scary at night.”
He laughed.
“You don’t have to worry about the dead. It’s the living who are dangerous,” he said, and then switched topics. “It takes about an hour and a half in the dark.”
That was plenty of time for someone to get in here, and spend time digging up a grave when he was asleep. The caretaker’s shack was furthest from most of the cemetery.
“This is it,” he said, pointing out the greenhouse where the growing happened.
Inside, they looked around, and Elizabeth let Ethan wander, looking to see if he saw blood, or anything that would say someone was killed there.
Meanwhile, she focused on the man.
He was his own little mystery to her.
“Wow. These are so pretty,” she said. “What are they called?” she asked, building rapport with the man.
While she liked flowers, Uriel did the gardening. She didn’t know the difference, unless it was a rose. She once smelled a peony, and it smelled like a rose, and it took her a couple days to figure out that Peonies were a thing.
Why rose-shaped and scented if not a rose?
That was her big question.
With big hands, Jeffrey handed her a delicate little pot of flowers.
“They are pansies. They look like they have little faces. Those are Johnny Jump-ups. They are in the violet family. Those are Marigolds. They keep deer from eating the rest of the flowers. I like the color,” he said.
She did too.
“These are gorgeous. How long have you been working here?” she asked.
Jeffrey considered it.
“Almost three years.”
That fit in the time frame of him being tied to this. Tony had said the skulls were two or three years old.
“How did you get the job here?”
He was honest.
“My mom got it for me,” he admitted. “She knew the priest, and he hired me to make sure the cemetery looks nice for the families who come to visit.”
She had MATE running on her vest, so that a transcript was going to her drive that way everyone could be caught up and on the same page.
When Ethan approached, he shook his head, and Elizabeth got it. There was no sign of a homicide happening there.
“Can I buy some?” she asked, still trying to figure the man out. She wasn’t getting a bad vibe, but she could tell he had some delayed development issues.
He shook his head.
“No, but you can have them. Flowers should be free. They don’t cost anything to grow. I just harvest the seeds in the fall, and they keep coming back, bringing life.”
Someone really liked flowers.
“Can I have this pot of pansies?” she asked. “I like that they have faces on them.”
He smiled.
And nodded.
“They do have faces. There are the eyes, and I imagine they would smile if they could. When the wind blows, they dance in the breeze.”
She took the pot, and kept going.
“We appreciate you showing us your greenhouse. Now, can you show us where in the cemetery the graves are that were dug up a while ago?”
He tensed.
And he hesitated.
“Are you sure you’re not trying to get me fired?” he asked. “Because I need my job. I have to make my mom proud of me. She’s all I have in the world.”
She reassured him.
“Nope. Just trying to deal with some information. Just have to do our jobs. You know, like you have to do yours. We all have to take care of our families.”
That seemed to work.
Slowly, he acquiesced.
“Okay.”
As he headed out, they followed him, and Jeffrey led them across the massive cemetery, and down by some trees.
It took a good few minutes to get there.
Twenty to be exact.
That’s when he pointed, and they all checked it out.
“That’s the area,” he said. “They’ve only been burying people there the last three years or so. I make sure I patrol that area first before I call it a night. It’s creepy down here. I love the cemetery, but I don’t like it by the trees. I feel like I’m being watched.”
That was quite the observation.
Was it legit?
Oh, she bet.
Oddly, she felt like that in her home now, so she knew and understood that feeling.
Crazy, huh?
She was curious.
“Can I go over there?” she asked, wanting to get a closer look.
The man shrugged.
“Sure. Just don’t step on the flowers. They are like my babies.”
Oh, she wouldn’t.
The last thing she wanted was the man on edge. She’d managed to keep him calm so far.
As they went over, Elizabeth saw a grave that was still mostly dirt. She looked at the temporary grave marker.
‘Lory Vanbruggen.’
For some reason, she was drawn to the dead flowers and the still showing dirt.
“When did she get buried?” she asked, seeing that she died not that long ago.
He thought about it.
“Maybe it was over a week ago to two weeks,” he said. “I think it was on a weekend when I wasn’t here. I don’t normally put flowers in the ground until the permanent marker goes in. I’ll be cleaning up the grave later this week.”
Only, she was hyper-focused on one thing.
She noticed it was still dirt and no grass.
That made her curious.
She remembered from when she buried Sam, the grass started growing pretty fast—as in days later. The grass had sprouted before the flowers that they’d placed there had died.
But not here.
It was still dirt, but with dead flowers.
“Does it always take so long for grass to grow?” she asked, thinking about it.
That one little fact was bothering her, and she didn’t know why.
He shook his head.
“No, usually, it’s much quicker.”
Then, he was focused on something else.
“Those are the graves of the people who were bothered,” he said, moving toward them.
They were right by the tree line, but Elizabeth couldn’t help but focus on Lory’s grave.
She picked up the dirt in her fingers, and stared at it.
Ethan was curious.
“You okay?” he whispered.
She nodded.
“Yeah, sorry. My brain was collecting facts for later,” she admitted. “You know how it is.”
Well, that he did, but he knew it was more. his wife was onto something.
He’d bet on it.
To keep up with Jeffrey, she moved toward the graves that he’d been discussing, and she checked them out.
They were men, all three of them.
And they were side-by-side.
Now, she was even more confused.
“We have all female skulls. Why the males?” she asked, knowing Ethan would understand what she was saying.
Ethan kept his voice low.
“If he was test running, he wouldn’t care. Trust me on this, Elizabeth. My gut says he’s digging them up,” he admitted. “I’d bet my badge that if we dug up everyone in this cemetery, we’d have around twenty missing their heads.”
Oh, she believed her husband.
While the funeral home was on the back burner in her mind when it came to stealing eyeballs, she knew that the family could ask to open the casket again to say goodbye, and if eyes were missing, you’d know.
Plus, there were a few skulls found in the room. This collector had a bigger collection than just eyes.
Ethan continued.
“Gender wouldn’t matter as he was learning.
It would be about testing the time to do the deed.
These three are so close to the trees, and it’s shaded over here.
How much do you want to bet the person who dug them up was testing himself to see how quickly he could do it, and if he could get away with it too. ”
Yeah, she didn’t doubt that.
Apparently, both she and Ethan were on ‘Team Grave Robber’ as being tied to this.
Coincidences were bullshit in investigating, and with this being the biggest cemetery in Holladay, there was no doubt this would be the easiest place to steal remains.
It would be about more than just the three grave robberies.
“I don’t like anything about this, Ethan,” she whispered, as she knelt down and picked a few weeds to stall.
Oh, he knew.
This told him all he needed to know about this person, and none of it was good. They really needed that DNA done because he wanted those graves open.
His gut was warning him that this was far deeper than just some collector of eyeballs who got off on it.
They’d chased a few bad guys who made his belly go cold with fear.
Lottie was one.
George LaRue was the other.
Now, he was getting that sick feeling all over again.
“He got braver after the first three. They were picked due to location, until he could perfect his craft. That tells me he’s careful, and we aren’t going to catch him easily.”
Well, that said it all.
Ethan was locked in on that one.
That wasn’t good.
Only, how the holy hell was she supposed to get that verified? That was a big investigative leap, and she knew it.
So, she tapped her vest.