* * *
Aidan didn’t go back to the hotel. Instead, he called Logan.
The suspects they were watching were all in; they’d probably head out to dinner, but the members of the Krewe were ready to follow each one of them if necessary. Detective Van Camp had been interviewing more and more people on his own, while Detective Voorhaven had been working with the agents, ready to follow a suspect if needed or scrutinize the video screens if not.
Aidan told Logan what he’d learned. Logan promised to look into the Highsmith, Hampton and Bakker lineage to see if he could find any dark secrets—or get some facts about the murder of Lizzie herself—to decipher what it could mean. And whether it related to Richard’s death...and Wendy’s.
“The hospital’s alerted me that J.J.’s being released,” Logan said. “There’s an officer with him, so he’s fine, but I’m not sure he and Debbie should go back to Wendy Appleby’s home. At least, not yet.”
Aidan agreed. “Can we get another room on our floor?”
“I’m sure we can. I’ll book something with a door that connects to one of us.”
“Then I’ll drive to the hospital now to pick them up.”
Right after that, Aidan went to the hospital.
Even considering what they’d learned, he wasn’t sure why the killer would want to kill J.J.—or, at any rate, leave him to die in the vault. What would Richard Highsmith’s relationship with a long-dead woman have to do with Wendy or J.J.? But none of it made sense. What did make sense was to watch over J.J. and keep him safe.
When he arrived at the hospital, both Debbie and J.J. were pleased to see him. And Debbie was relieved about his plan to take them to the hotel where his unit was staying.
Because of his nature—which was both protective and suspicious—and perhaps because of his work, he found that he was keeping a close eye on Debbie, too. She’d been close to Wendy Appleby. But J.J. evidently loved and trusted her; she’d been his mother’s best friend. And she appeared to be grateful that she was going to be at the hotel with the agents and the police. It made her feel safe, she said.
“I couldn’t tell J.J., of course, but I’ve been worried about leaving the hospital, about being alone with him. We could’ve gone to my apartment instead of his house, but I’m still scared. The only thing is...I can’t pay for the hotel. I haven’t worked since it all happened, and if I want to keep J.J., I don’t even have a job to go to anymore.”
“We’re taking care of it. J.J. is a material witness, so you don’t need to worry,” Aidan assured her.
They waited while the doctor came and signed the papers to release the boy. Then J.J. said goodbye to the medical staff who’d come to care about him. Finally, they walked down to Aidan’s car.
“Where’s Mo?” J.J. asked Aidan as they drove off.
“She’s working at the Haunted Mausoleum tonight,” Aidan told him.
“I wish you had Rollo,” J.J. mumbled.
“I’m sure you can see him tomorrow,” Aidan said. He called Logan again and found out that he’d gotten the room for Debbie and J.J. It was attached to his room. Detective Voorhaven would meet them downstairs and take them up.
Voorhaven was in the parking lot to meet them with keys. He took the bag of clothing and toiletries Wendy had brought and led the way.
Before he let her go up to their room with J.J. and Voorhaven, Aidan stopped Debbie. “I need you to do me a favor.”
“Yes?”
“I need you to think of any reason at all that someone would want Wendy dead. And what her connection with Richard might have been.”
“I will. Oh, my God, yes, I will!” Debbie vowed.
He escorted her up to the room where Voorhaven waited with J.J. Once they’d settled in, Voorhaven met him at the door. “I want to apologize,” he said in a low voice.
“For what?”
“For being an ass. You know, touchy over the federal-local thing. Your guys here—and Jane!—are great. I’m sorry. We never could have handled this without you. We just don’t deal with this kind of situation very often. Thank God.”
“It’s okay, Voorhaven.” Aidan smiled.
“James or Jimmy.”
“Jimmy, it’s okay,” he said.
But when Aidan went to Logan’s suite to catch up with the others and work on their future strategy, he was dismayed that Jimmy joined them. He wasn’t ready to talk about the ghosts he didn’t actually see—but Mo did—in front of someone who wasn’t a part of the Krewe.
But that was easily solved. J.J. wanted to go to the hotel’s game room. Voorhaven volunteered for the duty of accompanying him and Debbie down to play games. “I don’t show mercy, even to kids,” Voorhaven warned J.J. “And I’m a kick-ass air hockey player.”
“You’re on!” J.J. told him.
When he was alone in the room with Logan, Sloan, Jane and Will, Aidan went over everything that had occurred that day.
“All the local legends coming to the fore,” Jane said. “The headless horseman, Andre’s ghost and the Woman in White. But why would anyone kill over any of them?”
“Revenge?” Will asked. “Yeah, I know, revenge for a two-hundred-year-old death may be crazy—but there are crazies out there. And as for Elizabeth Hampton and her family—Lizzie was a murder victim! If you were out to avenge her death, you wouldn’t kill her descendant.”
“There has to be an answer. I believe Richard did find out about Lizzie grave,” Aidan said. “But even if a man found out he was related to a woman who had been killed for her association with a Revolutionary-era spy, what would that mean today? Half the population around here can trace their ancestry back to the founding days.”
“Maybe this goes deeper,” Sloan suggested.
“People kill for love, hate, jealousy and money. I don’t see here where money enters into this. Richard poured his life’s earnings into his work. And Wendy was barely getting by,” Aidan said. “But, maybe that’s an angle to look into.”
Will stood up suddenly. “Doors opening on the Taylor Branch floor,” he said. He pointed to the screens. “Yes, there’s Branch, out in the hallway, and there’s Jillian Durfey. They’re meeting up to go out together.”
“I’m on it,” Sloan said. “I’ll be out in the car, watching them, and I’ll tail them when they leave.”
“More movement,” Jane noted. “The security guys are heading out, too. Looks like they’re surprised to see Taylor and Jillian in the hall—like it’s a coincidence that they’re all out there now.”
“Go down and be ready to leave, too,” Logan told Will.
Sloan and Will hurried to the door, and Jane followed. “I’ll take one of them if they split up.”
“Let me know as soon as possible who leaves with whom,” Logan said.
The others left. Aidan continued to watch the screens. Branch slipped an arm around Jillian Durfey’s shoulders; she looked up at him gratefully.
They moved toward the elevator.
Aidan leaned forward, trying to see if he could make out any of the conversation.
“I think the big guy—Muscles, what’s his real name? Cory Stile?—is telling Branch that they need to start looking for new jobs,” Logan said. He glanced at Aidan. “I read lips—a little. I took some lessons in sign language and I worked with the deaf years ago in college.”
“What’s Branch doing? Looks like he’s arguing with him,” Aidan said.
“Branch is telling him they can’t go yet, can’t leave town, because the police need them.”
“So there is trouble among the five of them,” Aidan murmured.
“I don’t know. Branch comes across as sincere,” Logan said. “As if he wants the truth.”
“Here’s what I can’t figure out. To my mind, it had to be someone close to one or both
of our victims. Someone who knew that Wendy Appleby was on her way to see Richard. And if it wasn’t someone close to Richard—then who? By all accounts, Wendy was a private person.” He sighed. “We have to keep watching this group. See what they’re up to at all times.”
“I agree,” Logan assured him.
As they studied the screen, Jillian smiled at something Magic said. They both seemed to enjoy each other.
Branch pulled Jillian closer to him.
“Hmm. We can learn a lot from body language,” Aidan murmured.
“Yup. Trouble in paradise, all right. That’s good for us,” Logan said.
Aidan’s phone rang. He didn’t look away from the screen but hit Answer. It was Van Camp. “Aidan, that boy and Ms. Howell with you?” he asked.
“Yes. Detective Voorhaven took them to the games room.”
“Good. The neighbors at the Appleby house reported a disturbance. There’s a patrol car on its way. I’m going out there, too, and I’ll meet you there.”
Logan had heard their conversation, which had been on speakerphone. “I’ll get Voorhaven back up here with Wendy and J.J. and I’ll keep them in here for now. Go.”
Aidan nodded and left.
In the lobby, he ran into Richard Highsmith’s retinue. Taylor Branch called out to him. “Agent Mahoney, what’s happening?” The man seemed to be grinning.
As if he knew something had happened.
“We just keep working,” Aidan said. “We just keep working. Good evening,” he told the others and hurried out. Maybe Branch was pleased about whatever was going on. Maybe he knew what was going on.
Well, Aidan was pleased, too. When the group left, their moves would be tracked.
The thing was...
He knew damned well that one of them had to be involved.
And that there had to be an accomplice on the outside.
But who could that second person be? Someone who knew both Richard and Wendy. Someone who’d had an agenda.
What was he missing? If he could just understand why they’d been killed, he’d be on his way to identifying the killers.
* * *
The night drew to an uneventful end. The last group of squealing visitors went out. They’d been a group of college-age kids, eight of them, and they’d been especially silly, screaming constantly.
Of course, “haunted” venues made their reputations on screaming and scaring, so she supposed that was good.
On the other hand, Mo was getting tired and the screaming had just seemed...
Annoying.
A voice boomed over the loudspeaker, informing them that the last group had gone through. A floodlight didn’t brighten the entire graveyard, but it did a lot to dispel the shadows—and to show the actors for what they were.
Fading.
Makeup was beginning to crack or congeal, and they were all looking a little the worse for wear.
Grace came over to Mo’s area and said with a sigh, “Another night down! At least we’re doing really well. We’ve sold out for Halloween a week early, Sondra was telling me.” She grimaced at Mo. “I’m so glad you’ve done this. You are the Woman in White, one of our most famous legends!”
Mo smiled. No, she wasn’t the Woman in White.
Phil walked over to join them, rolling his shoulders to work out muscle kinks. “You’re divine, ladies. Divine. Are we going to eat? I’m starved.”
“Sure,” Grace said. “Mo?”
Ron came out from the setup area. “Everyone accounted for?” he asked. “Me, Phil, Grace and Mo. Come on out, kiddies. I just don’t know where Sondra went. I’m dying to get out of here—no pun intended. Starved. Too bad we get off so late that even Tommy’s is closed. That means the café. Maybe Mr. FBI agent will show up at the café again, huh, Mo?”
“Let’s hope not. I don’t want anything else to be wrong anywhere,” Mo said.
Phil frowned. “You said everyone’s accounted for?” he asked Ron.
“Except Sondra, and we can’t leave without her!” Ron said. “Have you seen her?”
“This afternoon, when I came by,” Mo said. “And then when I was in makeup.”
“That’s odd,” Phil muttered.
“What?” Grace demanded.
Phil pointed. One of the “cracked” coffins was leaning against a tomb. There still seemed to be someone in it.
“That’s Joshua Kirbin’s spot,” Phil said. “And I said good-night to Joshua already. He lit out of here in a hurry, trying to catch up with some friends working the hayride.”
Mo didn’t know how she knew. She just knew it was bad. Really bad.
They all turned to look in the direction Phil had pointed.
There was definitely a body in the coffin. It was loosely covered in what appeared to be a black shroud. The coffin was a prop, of course, built to appear like an old Victorian coffin but with a glass window at the head area. The bottom half of the lid was broken off; the head area with the window remained.
The four of them looked at one another.
Mo didn’t want to take a step toward the coffin. It was across a field of broken gravestones, scattered “bones” and thick webbing.
“We have to go and see,” she said flatly.
She started across the center of the graveyard. She could hear Grace behind her, pushing Phil. “Get up there! Help her.”
“I’m going, I’m going!” Phil said. “Why me? Why is the heterosexual male supposed to be the brave one all the time?”
“Oh, please, just get out of the way!” Ron told him.
Mo heard them, but she reached the coffin first.
She peered through the Victorian window....
And there was nothing.
For a moment she dared to breathe, dared to hope, that it was a prank—in extremely bad taste—being played on them.
But she reached out and opened the broken lid.
And she saw it.
The bloody stump of a neck.
She’d seen nothing through the window...
Because the corpse had no head.
* * *
When Aidan reached the Appleby house, Van Camp and police had already arrived.
“Crime scene units are on the way,” Van Camp told him. “The place is trashed. What someone was looking for, I have no idea.”
“The neighbors heard a commotion, but no one saw anything?” Aidan asked.
“Hey, you expected this to be easy?” Van Camp asked dryly.
“I wish to hell something would be easy,” Aidan said. “Who called it in?”
“The guy in the sweater over there, talking to the woman in the cat slippers with the trench coat over her pajamas. I’ve talked to them both. You go give it a try.” He glanced down at his notebook. “The guy is Marshall Long. The lady is Penelope Seaford. Like I said, he called it in. She came out once we got here. She lives right next door, and the house on the other side of Wendy’s is empty. Long, who lives across the street, met the cops out here. He didn’t see a car or anything, although he’s pretty sure he heard someone burn out of here while he was on the phone.”
Aidan walked over and introduced himself to the neighbors and fielded their questions. Marshall told him he was a teacher. Penelope Seaford, an attractive woman of about fifty, told him she worked for the chamber of commerce. She’d loved Wendy Appleby. “Wendy was a great neighbor. She caught my escape-cat for me several times,” Penelope said. “Everyone in the neighborhood was devastated to hear that she’d died.”
“And so horribly!” Marshall said, shaking his head. “A lovely woman.”
“Did she date much? Was she seeing anyone?” Aidan asked. The police had been through that round of questions already, Aidan knew, but he’d yet to talk to anyone other than D
ebbie who’d been close to her.
“Date? No. No boyfriend. She was devoted to her child,” Penelope said.
He asked them a few more questions, then went into the house.
The least affected area was J.J.’s room. Wendy Appleby’s bedroom, office and kitchen had been ripped to smithereens. The intruder’s first area of concentration had been the office, Aidan thought.
“There’s no computer,” he pointed out as Van Camp came into the room with Gina Mason, the head of the forensic unit, whom he’d met before.
“But there was evidently one here,” Grace said. “You can see the outline on the mat. Looks like it had a seventeen-inch screen.”
He nodded to Gina. “Thanks. I think I remember it being here when we came and searched the house once Debbie Howell gave us Wendy’s identity.”
“Someone was after something,” Gina said. “Every desk drawer has been dumped. It’s the same in her bedroom. Clothing all over the floor. I just gather up the evidence and I’m no rocket scientist, but I’d say, yeah—whoever came through here was looking for something. And if it’s the same person—or persons—we’ve been dealing with on the murders, they’re smart. I guarantee you we won’t find a fingerprint. The best I’m going to come up with is some answers from the tire print out front. Someone did burn rubber. We’ll know what kind of tire it was pretty quickly,” she promised him.
Aidan paused. A framed picture had fallen over.
He picked it up.
The photo was of Wendy Appleby as she’d appeared in life, with her son, J.J. He studied the picture, and a sort of epiphany came over him. It was often hard to tell with kids, but...
He’d been friends with Richard when they were both J.J.’s age.
And there was something about J.J. that reminded him of Richard. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed it before—but, of course, he hadn’t been looking for it or expecting it.
The picture had been taken at one of the cemeteries. As he narrowed his eyes to study the shot, he saw the mausoleum with the name Bakker engraved in the stone.
They were both smiling for the camera. There were other children in the background and a woman who seemed to be trying to herd them.