“That is very sad.”
“I also found a bottle of Narcan under Rebane’s pillow.”
“You didn’t mention that to Detective Wallis. Any particular reason?”
“Just my gut. We’re sort of in foreign territory right now, Carol. I’d like to play things close to the vest. Wallis already knows Rebane had relapsed. He didn’t need to know about the Narcan to reach that conclusion.”
“So what do we do now?”
“We have to wait for Wallis to get some more leads. Hopefully, some of the other people at the apartment building might have seen our mystery man.”
“So you definitely think he exists? Clemmons wasn’t even certain there was anyone.”
“Other things being equal, the change in her, wanting to get out of adult films, being withdrawn and secretive, all point to someone out there influencing her. And Clemmons seemed to think she was susceptible to that. Predators key on people that way.”
“But,” said Blum.
“But that doesn’t mean that person killed her.”
“I wonder why the killer picked Andersonville to dump the body.”
“That could imply some connection to the place. Killers like familiar surroundings. They want ingress and a way to escape all planned out beforehand. They still get the high they crave, but it takes away some of the risk of being caught.”
“Do you believe the person will strike again?”
“Yes. I’m afraid it’s just the beginning.” Pine paused, her face tensing.
“What?” asked Blum.
“And you might have been right. My presence here might have been the catalyst for the killings to commence.”
“I know I raised that possibility, but this is in no way your fault.”
“I know that, Carol. But at the end of the day that doesn’t matter. People will still die.”
“Well, he made a mistake then.”
“What’s that?”
“He did it while you’re in town. My bet is on you to bring him down.”
“I appreciate your confidence.”
“I don’t give it out freely. You earned it.”
Blum went to her room to go to bed while Pine stayed in the breakfast room.
“You look lost in thought.”
Pine glanced up to see Lauren Graham standing in the doorway.
She had on light blue slacks, a cream-colored sweater, a matching blue headband through her short ginger hair, and shoes that matched her sweater.
Pine thought the woman must plan her wardrobe using a paint color wheel.
“Just chilling.”
Graham came over and sat down in the seat Blum had been in. “Why do I think you never ‘chill’?”
“I had lunch with Jack Lineberry.”
“Where?”
“Americus. At a restaurant across from the Windsor Hotel.”
“He’s never asked me out to eat,” she said with a trace of bitterness.
“He said it was a spur-of-the-moment thing.”
“Doesn’t sound like Jack.”
“I didn’t believe him, either,” said Pine, drawing a sharp glance from Graham. “He was really interested in what became of my mom.”
“Well, that’s not so strange. They were friends.”
“Thirty years ago. They haven’t seen each other since.”
“I haven’t seen your mother in all that time, and I’ve wondered what happened to her.”
When Pine didn’t respond Graham said, “So, is she doing okay?”
“I’ll tell you what I told Lineberry—she has her challenges. It hasn’t been easy for her.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“How’s the novel coming?”
“Slowly. It’s harder than people think.”
“I never thought it would be easy to write a book.”
“Any progress on the woman who was found dead?”
“Running down some leads.”
A few moments of silence passed.
Graham stirred and gave Pine a nervous glance. “Look, I know this is an odd segue, but would you be willing to talk to me about some of your cases? For my novel, I mean.”
“I can’t talk about specific cases.”
“No, I know that. I just mean some general things.”
“Let me think about it.”
Graham looked put out by this but didn’t respond.
Pine rose. “Well, it’s been a long day. Think I’ll hit the hay.”
“What else did you and Jack talk about?” Graham asked in a casual tone, but Pine observed her to be anything but relaxed.
“That was about it.”
“Really?”
“Really. If you’ll excuse me.”
Pine walked off.
Chapter 24
IT WAS A RESTLESS NIGHT of scattered dreams with Pine’s chasing various iterations of Daniel James Tor and Clifford Rogers around in the darkness until she awoke at around six in the morning.
There were no gym facilities at the B&B, but Pine had a workout app on her phone, with the only necessary equipment being her body and willingness to sweat. Which she did in her room for forty-five intense minutes. As she sat on the floor afterward breathing hard, she had to admit that the release of endorphins was always a good way to start the day.
She showered, dressed, and headed out into an awakening day. There was no one else walking along the pavement and no car or trucks driving down the road.
She steered her rental across Highway 49 to the Andersonville National Historic Site.
The area mainly consisted of the old prison site, some impressive statuary, the vast cemetery of Union dead, and the National Prisoner of War Museum.
The place didn’t open until eight, so Pine parked and walked along the perimeter of the area. The Prisoner of War Museum hadn’t been here when she lived in the Andersonville area. She learned it had opened in the late 1990s.
Pine entered the grounds right when they opened. A National Park Service Ranger greeted her, and since there were no other visitors at the moment he offered to show her around. He introduced himself as Barry Lamb. He was around forty, about six feet tall and muscular, with a clean-shaven face and large green eyes. His Ranger uniform fit him well.
“FBI?” he said, noting the shield on her belt.
Pine nodded. “I’m assigned to the Grand Canyon. Just visiting out here.”
“The Grand Canyon?” Lamb said in a wistful tone. “I’d love to have a shot at going out there to work.”
“Popular destination for park rangers. But you should give it a try. It’s pretty unique. How long have you worked here?”
“Six years. It’s interesting for sure. But after a while you know every square inch of it. It’s not that big. And the theme is sort of depressing. All those Union soldiers died for really no good reason.”
“But they helped end slavery. That was momentous.”
“You’re right about that. Just a damn shame it took a war.”
He showed her the old prison site, which was represented by a replica of a portion of the prison’s stockade. Lamb pointed out a spot set back from the wooden wall, something he called the “Deadline.”
“You passed that line, you got shot dead,” said Lamb. “Hence the name. I think some prisoners did so just to end their misery. They were starving to death and disease ridden.”
“I could see someone in such a situation doing that,” said Pine.
“Until 1864 the Confederates would just carry their prisoners around with them. When that became unmanageable, this prison was constructed as a solution. It was built to hold ten thousand men. Problem was, in the single year it was in operation, it would hold over four times that many.”
She looked around at the sheets of cloth strung over wooden stakes in the middle of the stockade. “So where were the prisoners housed?”
“There were no shelters built, no cells, no buildings. They’d have a dozen prisoners under two gum blankets strung over st
icks, like that one over there. When a prisoner died, the survivors would fight over his clothes and shoes. When the prison was liberated in 1865 the remaining prisoners looked like something you would have seen in a German concentration camp. Henry Wirz, the commandant, was later executed for war crimes.”
“Yeah, I knew about that. He has the big statue in town. Did anyone ever try to escape?”
“Some men escaped in transit or while on work details. A few others did so by tunnels. There are still remnants of some tunnels around. Like this one over here.”
He led her to a spot some distance from the edge of the replica. There were warning signs around it and a steel grate in the earth. “It begins here, which would have been rather in the middle of the prison grounds. It extends out to the west, well under the walls of the original prison and into some very thick woods. Some made it to the Union lines from here.”
“Good for them.”
“Let me show you what I call the ‘mother’ of all the prisoners here.”
It was a large statue in marble. The engraving on it said it had been erected by the state of Michigan in memoriam for Michigan soldiers and sailors who had been prisoners here. Pine’s gaze was riveted by the other part of the monument. It was of a woman with a headpiece and long flowing robes who had her left arm draped over the top of the monument and her gaze downcast, as though in grief. This obviously was the “mother” Lamb had been referring to.
“That’s very moving,” said Pine in a low voice.
“There’s nothing like a mother’s love.”
“Or a mother’s grief,” added Pine quietly.
As they walked over to the cemetery he stopped at a spot and pointed out a row of graves. “These are the six leaders of the Raiders. You know about them?”
Pine shook her head.
“They were a group of prisoners who terrorized other prisoners.”
“And the guards did nothing?”
“There weren’t nearly enough guards to really control the prisoners. This place was like a shantytown you’d see in a third world country. So the prisoners were pretty much on their own.”
“So what happened?”
“This group called the Regulators rose up and took out the Raiders. Then Henry Wirz held a series of trials with the judges and juries being fellow prisoners. Most of the men convicted received light sentences, at least light by the standards back then. Stockade, thumbscrews, having to run a gauntlet where they were beaten with sticks. But the main six leaders, they were called the ‘chieftains’ who ran their own little gangs, were convicted and executed. And that’s where their graves are. They’re set off from the others to denote this.”
Pine studied the sunken plots of dirt. “It doesn’t take much for civilized people to become animals.”
“I guess you see a lot of that in your line of work.”
“More than I would like.”
She left the ranger there and ventured to the museum.
It was a large building that held a library and a film room, and told the story of American POWs from the Revolutionary War up to the present. This theme was filled in with exhibits and information about the capture of POWs, their living conditions, relationships among prisoners and their guards, escape attempts, and liberation of some POW camps. When she walked out of the place later Pine was both overwhelmed by the bravery shown by the POWs and depressed that a “civilized” world allowed such things to actually happen.
She stood outside in the growing heat as the sun rose overhead and the humidity picked up. Pine involuntarily glanced to her left at the rows of graves in the cemetery. The somberness of the place could not be overstated. And it was very likely that Mercy was also in a grave somewhere. Only not in a formal cemetery, but in a shallow hole in the middle of nowhere, which animals would have long since desecrated.
She touched her Glock and wished she could right this very minute shoot and kill whoever had taken Mercy. But that was not going to happen. She had to get there another way.
She got into her SUV and drove back across the road.
She wondered how long they would have to wait for the killer of Hanna Rebane to strike again.
As it turned out, it wouldn’t be long at all.
Chapter 25
PINE WAS USED TO GETTING PHONE CALLS at odd hours; that came with being an FBI agent.
When she heard Max Wallis’s voice and saw the time was two minutes past five in the morning, she sat straight up in bed and swung her feet to the floor.
“Where?” she said instantly.
He was too much of a veteran cop to ask how she knew.
“The cemetery. Across the road from you.”
Pine’s jaw slackened. “The National Historic Site? I was just there yesterday morning.”
“I’ll meet you at the front gate.”
It took her five minutes to dress. She didn’t wake Blum. There was no reason to do that right now. She could be filled in later. Pine was starting to regret even bringing Blum here. But then again she hadn’t anticipated a potential serial killer commencing operations in Andersonville, either.
She was out the front door of the Cottage a minute later, started her SUV, and a couple minutes after that she was at the cemetery. The darkness was total. There was no hint of dawn yet, just inky blackness.
A murder, darkness, and a cemetery. What a combo.
Two county police cars were already there, along with Wallis’s Crown Vic.
The detective was standing by the front gate wearing a tattered beige trench coat and holding a cup of coffee. He looked about ten years older than the last time she had seen him.
Pine walked up to him even as she could see lights off in the distance. They started walking in that direction.
“It’s a man this time,” said Wallis. “Black guy around thirty.”
“COD?”
“Prelim is a single gunshot wound to the chest.”
“Anything unusual?”
“You’ll see for yourself,” he replied cryptically.
They reached the cemetery and walked between the rows of graves until they arrived at the bank of work lights that had been set up next to a popup tent, which Pine assumed had been placed over the body.
“Who found it?”
“A ranger coming on duty early. Guy was laid right over a grave.”
Pine looked around and suddenly realized where she was. “You mean on a Raider’s grave.”
Wallis looked at her blankly. “Come again? Raider’s grave?”
Pine explained the distinction.
“You think that was intentional?” asked Wallis.
“Right now we can’t afford to assume that it wasn’t. Let’s see the body.”
They passed by the officer guarding the tent and ducked inside it after putting on booties and latex gloves.
Pine and Wallis stared down at the man lying on top of the grave. There was a light shining on the body so they could see it clearly.
Pine’s eyes widened. She said, “He’s in a tuxedo. With a top hat on his stomach and a corsage on his jacket.”
“It’s old-fashioned like the veil.” He glanced at her appraisingly. “So what’s your take?”
Pine said, “It was a wedding veil. She’s the bride. And this guy’s the groom. It’s like they’re the toppers on a cake.”
“Right, that one I figured out. So what the hell is the perp trying to say? Is he striking out against marriage in general? But Hanna Rebane wasn’t married, at least that we know of.”
“But she did have a child. Maybe this guy was the father.”
“How the hell do we prove that? We don’t even know where the kid is.”
“We have to ID this guy. If he has a connection to Hanna Rebane, we might have our answer.”
“We’ve taken prints and are running them. Hopefully something will pop.”
Pine squatted down and ran her gaze over the man and the ground surrounding the body. She touched his hand. “Cold.” She tried to
bend the arm. “He’s in rigor. Been dead at least twelve hours, probably more.”
“Coroner said the same thing. We’ll have more after the post, of course.”
Pine examined the wound on the man’s chest. “He obviously wasn’t killed here. His estimated time of death would place that no later than late yesterday afternoon. And there’s no blood on the ground. He bled out elsewhere.”
“Like the first vic. Killed somewhere else and placed later.”
She opened the jacket and looked for a label but didn’t see one. She did the same for the hat with the same result. “He might have bought the tux somewhere. Top hats aren’t that easy to come by. If he ordered it online that might be a lead. The corsage looks pretty fresh. That’s another lead.”
“Lots of people order corsages.”
“But not top hats. It’s something, at least. Although he might have already had them in his possession. The tux and hat look pretty decrepit. Or he could have gotten them at a secondhand shop. Or even inherited them.”
She looked at the man’s fingernails. “No obvious signs of skin or blood. Any defensive wounds?”
“Not that we could see. But you wouldn’t necessarily have them with a shooting.”
Pine rose and looked down at the dead man.
“What are you thinking?” said Wallis.
“I wonder if the race of the victim was coincidence or it has meaning.”
“You mean white bride and black groom?”
Pine nodded. “Maybe we’re looking at some sort of hate crime. Or maybe it’s something else altogether. We just don’t know enough yet to tell.”
“We’ve got to ID this guy as fast as we can.”
“If he doesn’t have a criminal record, that might be tough. I can make some calls and have his prints run through other databases.”
“I’m not too proud to ask for help, so yeah, make the calls. I can text you the print deck.”
“Let me know when the post is.”
“Will do.”
“Anything on the rest of the security footage from Rebane’s apartment building? Or any activity on her phone or credit cards?”
“We looked at all of it yesterday. Nothing on any other surveillance tapes. Struck out on the phone and credit cards, too.”
A Minute to Midnight Page 14
