Chapter Twenty-Three
Cemetery
Tuesday
Late Morning
Just as Elizabeth assumed, it was a circus when she arrived at the cemetery. The media was there, proving that once more, there was a leak at the courthouse. Not only that, but already, the accusations were flying, and as expected, this was going to be anything but calm.
She could bet on that.
As they pulled up, police let them drive under the tape that was strung across the entrance to the cemetery, and they headed in. Once there, she saw a familiar face.
The homicide captain, the man she’d just given shit to not hours earlier, was there.
Well, goodie.
“What the fuck does he want?” Gene asked, as he and his partner headed toward him.
It wasn’t lost on them that he was in his dress blues, and not far from the large wrought-iron fencing that surrounded that particular area where the media was congregated to get a look.
“Oh, I’m going to say fame,” Elizabeth said, knowing that one thing never changed when it came to dealing with the cops. They liked a good photo op, whereas she would rather gouge out her eyeballs.
“Director!” he called, and she had no choice but to deal with the situation.
As she approached, her sunglasses were on, so she could scan the area, just in case she saw something out of place. There was no doubt that this killer would be watching.
“I was hoping for an update.”
Really?
Now?
Hadn’t she pretty much told him to expect one in one to five days? Did he not take a hint?
Now, she was pinned down, and she knew he was going to follow her around like a duck if she didn’t, so she gave him what she could.
And by what, she meant as little as possible.
“DNA is in, we tied the eyeballs to the victims in the cemetery who supposedly died of accidental deaths, like hit and runs, and ODs. We’ve been given the right to open the caskets, to see if they are disturbed.”
He crossed his arms over his chest.
“The families have been notified.”
She wasn’t shocked.
Elizabeth knew that Chris would have made calls using the numbers in the files in the morgue to give them a courtesy call to tell them what was going on.
Now, if she could just reach her ME, she could actually work.
“Was this necessary?” he asked. “You knew that you had the eyes. Couldn’t you leave the dead to rest?”
She was to the point.
“Someone already fucked with them, Frank,” she stated. “They are already disturbed. I’m sure, if they were alive, what they’d want is to have justice for their lives being robbed.”
“And you can prove that?”
She stared at him.
“Yes, because what kind of sociopath hangs out at an exhumation, waving and talking to the media?”
He glared at her.
“I’ll let you get on with your work.”
She rolled her eyes and walked past him.
Gene was to the point.
“I don’t like him.”
She laughed.
“Join the club, partner. Join the club,” she said, walking toward where the graves were marked with flags. They were all in the same area, and the only deviation had been last night’s victim, Steph Lewis.
She was in the members’ section of the church’s cemetery.
At the first grave, Chris was in protective gear, and she knew why. When the caskets came up, he’d unbolt them, and check inside. If they were untouched, he’d let her know. Since they had DNA linking them, in theory, the eyeballs and head would be missing.
If they weren’t, the shit was hitting the fan. Oh, and she wouldn’t be the least bit surprised either. This person was twisting this up so much, that all she could hope was that he got caught up in it.
“Well, fancy meeting you here, handsome,” she said.
Chris focused on his wife.
“Yeah, we have to stop meeting this way. How about we meet on a beach? You in a bikini, me in nothing but lechery?”
That made Callen laugh.
“Count me in,” he said. “I love a beach.”
Oh, what wouldn’t she do to be at the beach?
“I see you made it back, CJ,” she said.
He clued her in.
“Yeah, and Chrissy is back at the morgue, dealing with the old samples. As a heads-up, her backup head tech is not happy, and has been stomping around crankily.”
Chris laughed.
“Oh, no. Someone hates their job. Go figure,” Chris said, as he zipped up a hazmat suit as they began digging up the grave belonging to Joan Gehert.
As they stepped back, the backhoe began digging, and the cemetery was washed out with the sound of machinery. It didn’t take long before they had reached the casket. Chains were attached, and the box was brought up.
When it was placed on a gurney, specifically made for this kind of thing, Chris pulled a respirator on, and had a tech undo the bolts at each corner.
Pulling on a mask, the investigators moved closer.
When the lid was lifted, there was a rotting corpse inside, but there was something missing.
“We have no skull,” he said. “It’s gone.”
Well, shit.
They were on the right track.
DNA didn’t lie.
Chris pointed at Ben, and told him to transport. They had spare vans there, and they were going to move the victims as quickly as possible.
“You get them up, Christopher, I’m going to go talk to the priest,” she said, seeing him not far away. She was assuming he was from the parish, since he was wearing a collar.
He gave her a fist bump, and went back to work, directing the techs as they all began taking pictures and treating the first casket like it was a crime scene.
Because it was.
Crossing toward the priest, she saw the homicide captain heading there too like he was trying to be part of this, and she wasn’t having it.
“Gene, distract Frank. Tell him anything to buy me time with the priest.”
He grinned.
“I’ll give him a tour of the new hole,” he said, joking.
Or so she hoped.
As she approached the priest, he looked worried, and she didn’t blame him. There was media on the gate, there was likely going to be family showing up soon, and Hell was about to open.
“Father?” she asked, as she and Ethan reached him.
He shook his head.
“Director, was this all necessary?” he asked, looking around at the chaos. “This is a mess.”
Oh, well, that happened when you had someone killing people. If someone met their maker the old-fashioned way, it tended to be peaceful.
This was not ‘the old-fashioned way’.
Not.
Even.
Close.
Elizabeth ignored that, and instead introduced her partner in this. She knew Ethan was taking it all in, since he’d been incredibly quiet.
“I’m sorry, Father. Let me introduce my profiler, Ethan Blackhawk,” she said.
He shook his hand.
“I’m Father Gregory,” he admitted. “I can’t believe all of this.”
Elizabeth took the man in. He was older than her, probably in his late fifties. He was neat as a pin, but then again, most priests tended to be like that. His graying hair stood up from where he ran his hands through it.
“Well, Father, we’re sorry to stir up the cemetery, and know that we tried to avoid that, but we had DNA come back and it matched previously buried victims. When we opened that first grave, of Joan Gehert, the remains have been tampered with.”
He went there.
“How?” he asked.
Elizabeth knew it would get out eventually. Frank was wandering around, and likely going to run his mouth like most cops did to sink the FBI investigation.
There was no love lost there.
That was for sure.
“Her head is missing. We found her eyes.”
He gasped and crossed himself.
“This is evil,” he said. “Are you a believer in Christ?” he asked.
Elizabeth reached into her shirt, under her vest, and pulled out a crucifix. Granted, it was ruby and diamond, and a spectacle in itself, but it was still something she always wore.
And with good reason.
People were evil, and she needed all the help she could get, and Timothy was likely tired of warning her.
“We’re going to transport,” she said. “Can you tell me a little about your groundskeeper?” she asked. “Jeffrey?”
The man looked confused.
“What did he do?”
She was to the point.
“I had my team contact you yesterday, no?” she asked, knowing she wanted them to.
He shook his head.
“I wasn’t around yesterday,” he said. “We had our soup kitchen, and food pantry, and I was in and out buying supplies to feed our community. There’s need here.”
Well, that was the same everywhere. Only, for now, she had need to close this case.
QUICKLY.
Elizabeth updated him.
“He became irate when we told him about the graves, and his flowers. We felt it was best to have him head out of here and go home. We sent him home to his mother.”
The man looked confused.
Oh, and she knew why.
They’d just found out the same thing.
“His mother? She’s dead. She was run down outside her home by someone in a car. Jeffrey found her, and he was crushed. She was his whole world, and got him this job. She was the head of our choir.”
Elizabeth and Ethan glanced at each other.
“A car, huh?” she asked.
Oh, that sounded suspicious, and fit into MO that this killer had been using.
Holy fuck, but this killer had a superpower. It had to be his incredible ability to play shit out on multi-levels. His ADHD had to be off the charts, and made hers look pathetic.
“And they never found who ran her down?” Ethan asked.
He shook his head.
“No.”
When the priest heard his name being called, he glanced over.
“I’m sorry, Director, but there are family members here. Can I let them into the cemetery? They deserve to be here to watch their loved ones be disturbed.”
She simply nodded.
Oh, this was a tangled mess. Never in her life had she been this far behind at this point. Because she literally had no one as a suspect. Everyone took her off the path, and the killer might not even be on her suspect list.
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
When he was gone, Ethan kept his voice down.
“We have to get to Jeffrey’s house,” he admitted. “He was set up by this guy. He watched him, and he studied him. I’m willing to bet he took his mother out to make him so unstable, that he’d be the perfect suspect for you.”
She’d been thinking the same.
Whistling, Gene heard her, and managed to ditch the homicide captain. When he reached them, he whispered.