Chapter 13 #2
It was worth a check.
I lifted a few of the smaller pieces of rubble—
My hand struck something odd. A rock. But it wasn’t cold to touch, nor was it warm, retaining the heat from the day before. It was inert. Like plastic.
Jack and Todd’s gaze prickled the back of my neck as I pulled the odd feeling rock out of its hiding place. It was lighter than a rock should be. Hollow perhaps.
I flipped it over. There, on the bottom, was a sliding door.
The ‘rock’ was custom made for a hidey-key… and the hidey-key was missing.
I lifted the empty fake rock to the agents. “I take it cemetery staff didn’t mention this.”
“That, was definitely not included in the report.” Jack leaned down to get a closer look.
“There’s more than one door.” Todd appraised the building. “There may be more than one hidden key.”
“You check that side, I’ll check this one.” Jack took a couple pictures of the rock, and where we found it. “If we find anything else of interest, we can use it to make the case for a warrant.”
They nodded in agreement, and turned to me. “I’ll keep checking for anything else out of place. The door looks high enough to slip my phone through, I’ll see what I’m able to record from the doorway.”
Another curt nod. We were in agreement. Good.
I waited for the agents to step around their respective corners before I pulled my phone out and set it to record. The gap beneath the door was just high enough for me to slide my phone through. I ran it along the seam, camera facing up, flashlight on, to get a good look at the lock mechanism.
Pulling it out, I watched the recording.
The old lock was simple enough. A lever. No complicated series of tumblers or alarms. All I needed to do was slip something sturdy enough beneath the lever and lift. Which was a relief, because truth be told, I may have been a half decent pickpocket, but I sucked at lock picking.
Lawrence, on the other hand, had a knack for it. He’d stick his ear to the door, and begin his routine. Listening as he played with the tumblers. ‘The heartbeat of the door’ he called it. And somehow, he had the dexterity required to coax the pins in a lock just-so.
But I couldn’t think about Lawrence. Not now. Now, I needed my hotel key card.
I exhaled and steadied my hands, as I slipped the white rectangular piece of semi-sturdy plastic beneath the lever, and lifted.
Ka-chunk.
A grin blossomed on my face. It had to be the easiest lock I’d ever picked. The old mausoleum lock, it seemed, was my friend.
I gave it a gentle and appreciative pat as I crossed the threshold.
That’s where most of the plan ended. If I found nothing, I could close up, and wait for the agents to get the proper permissions. No one the wiser. Delays and policies and procedure wouldn’t matter because nothing would have been of interest.
But less than two steps into the chapel, I knew something was off. The smell too human. Too fresh. Not the stale dusty air that clung to underused places.
Come to think of it, casting the light from my phone around me, there was no dust on any of the surfaces. Nothing on the engraved stone crypts along the edge of the room, nor the pews facing the cross hanging on back wall beneath the paneled windows.
The hair on the back of my neck and forearms raised. Nausea churned in my belly. There was something very very wrong with the mausoleum. Someone, or multiple someones, had been here recently. And, whoever it was, had cleaned up after themselves.
Good news was we had a lead. Bad news was I now had something to prove while also being guilty of breaking and entering.
The lack of dust could be explained away. My sense of smell—subjective. No, if I was going to use the loophole Jack had inadvertently provided me, I needed something concrete, something tangible. Like a splatter of blood. A broken container. Something.
Think, Delilah. Think.
What did I know? Someone had cleaned up, just enough to ensure there was no visible evidence at first glance. But if the familiars were kept here, if the murders happened here, whether by accident or intent, whoever was with them would have been in a hurry. To clean what they could and get out.
If that was the case, I’d need to look in places easily overlooked, or altogether forgotten in the heat of the moment… and people tended to miss things that were out of their direct eyeline. Whether too high, or too low.
I went low, where gravity would be in my favor. Hoping for something dropped, something missed, I got to my knees, and placed my ear to the ground.
I nearly choked on the stench.
The smell was worse. Like sweat. Filth. No trace of bleach. Or lye. I held my breath as I scanned the shadows beneath the pews, shining my phone’s flashlight beneath the stone bench.
There.
There on the floor beneath a pew was a bit of blue plastic. The shape—specific. Familiar. I’d seen it once when I had to stab Salma in the leg with—
I knew what it was. It was a blue safety release cap. The kind used for epinephrine autoinjectors.
Adrenaline.
The victims were injected with epinephrine. They were held here. Died here. There was no doubt in my mind.
I staggered to my feet, forcing my breath to come in deep and regular waves, despite the bile curling in my throat, the anger and despair clouding my mind.
It never felt good to be right when people died.
But this was something. It was evidence. Hard evidence. And the agents needed to see it. I couldn’t touch it, couldn’t bring it to them. I’d contaminated the crime scene enough already. They needed to come to me. And they’d been firm about not breaking and entering.
Exigent circumstance.
The term had been rolling and rolling around in my mind since the moment Jack mentioned it. My loophole. I knew what I had to do. They could hate me for it later. I could hate me for it later. So, I screamed. And screamed.
One Mississippi. Two Mississippi—
The agents burst into the mausoleum. Weapons drawn, scanning the room. God, they looked intense. And they were about to get a lot more furious when they found out this wasn’t an emergency. That my life wasn’t in danger.
“What… what is it?”
But before I could respond to Jack, Todd had holstered his gun and had closed the space between us. His hands were on me, checking that I was intact. “I’m fine.” I swatted Todd’s hands away. Smack. Smack. Smack. “I found something.”
“Jesus, Delilah.” The tension dropped from Jack’s shoulders as realization dawned on him. He holstered his weapon. “Haven’t you heard of the boy who cried wolf?”
“I’m much more familiar with the woman who cried exigent circumstance.”
Exigent circumstances permitted the agents to gain access to spaces if someone’s life was in danger, or evidence was at risk of being destroyed. I wasn’t about to threaten the agents with destroying evidence so I’d opted for the former. Even if the act itself felt dirty.
“Do you know how much trouble—”
“You love your loopholes as much as I do,” I interrupted before Jack could continue his lecture. “And I wouldn’t have called you in here if I hadn’t found something. So, you can get mad at me later.”
Thankfully, Jack and Todd were above letting the tension fester. We had a job to do, even if my methods left them wanting. They spoke in tandem, “What should I be looking at?” “What did you find?”
I pointed where the blue cap lay beneath the pew. Without hesitation, Todd got to his knees and peered beneath.
“Shit.” If anyone would know what an autoinjector cap was at first glance, it was Todd.