The Morning After

by Lisa Jackson

“For what?”

  “I don’t know. You think maybe this is a benign nutcase or a bonafide psychotic?” She frowned, her worries about court-ordered child support reduction seeming to have disappeared. “I don’t like the mention of ‘listen to them die.’ God, there are some real sickos in the world.” She studied the block lettering, then scrutinized the envelope. “Mailed directly to you.” Her eyes narrowed on the postmark. “From here in Savannah. And the return address is downtown on Abercorn…Jesus, just around the corner.”

  “Colonial Cemetery,” Reed said as it came to him.

  “The cemetery. Who would send a letter from there?”

  “Another crackpot. This letter’s a crank,” he said, frowning. “Someone who read about the Montgomery case and wants to jerk my chain.” Since last summer when he’d been on the trail of a killer who had a vendetta against the Montgomery family, Reed had gotten a lot of press. Too much of the kind of publicity he abhorred. Credited with cracking the case, Pierce Reed was suddenly looked upon as a hero and sought after as an expert by other departments, by reporters who were still reliving the case, even by the attorney general in Atlanta. His reputation had been exaggerated and his personal life picked and prodded ever since capturing Atropos, a woman determined to decimate one of Savannah’s wealthiest and most infamous families.

  In the past six months, he’d been quoted, photographed, and interviewed more times than he wanted to think about. He’d never liked the limelight, had always been an intensely private man. He had a few demons of his own, secrets he’d rather keep hidden, but hell, who didn’t. Reed would have preferred to go about his job without the inconvenience of fame. He hated all the attention, especially from those reporters who seemed fascinated with his past, who had taken it upon themselves to find out every little piece of information about him and to tell the world what made Detective Pierce Reed tick. As if they had any idea. He picked up the letter and envelope with a handkerchief, then found a plastic bag in his desk drawer. Carefully, he slipped the envelope and note into the bag. “I think it’s nothing, but you never know. Better keep it in case it ends up being evidence.”

  “Evidence of what? That there’s another looney on the loose?”

  “There’s always another looney on the loose. I’ll keep it just in case and then send out a BOLO over the local system and through NCIC, just in case any other department in the country has gotten anything like it.” He turned to his computer, accessed the National Crime Information Center run by the FBI. “Maybe we’ll get lucky,” he said to Morrisette. “In the meantime, I think I’ll take a break and walk over to the cemetery.”

  “You think you’ll find something?”

  “Nah. Not really. But you never know.” He stuffed his arms through the sleeves of his jacket. “As I said, it’s probably just a crank. Someone getting his jollies by making a vague threat against the department.”

  “Not the department. This particular crazy has zeroed in on you.” Sylvie was adjusting her shoulder holster. “I’m coming with you.”

  He didn’t argue. It would have been useless. Sylvie was the kind of cop who followed her instincts and bent the rules—the kind of hardheaded woman who couldn’t be talked out of a decision once she’d made it. He slid the plastic bag into a file drawer.

  They walked outside through a side door and the winter wind slapped Reed hard on the face. The weather, usually mild in December, had a definite bite to it, the product of a cold snap that was roaring down the East Coast and threatening crops as far south as Florida. Morrisette, fighting the stiff breeze, managed to light a cigarette as they walked the few blocks past Columbia Square. Colonial Cemetery, Savannah’s oldest, was the final resting place to over seven hundred victims of the nineteenth century yellow fever epidemic and was the site of far too many duels in centuries past. General Sherman had used this plot of land in the middle of Savannah as a campground during the Civil War, or, as many of the locals referred to it, the War of Northern Aggression. Shade trees, now barren of leaves, seemed to shiver in the wind, and dry leaves skated down the pathways that cut through the ancient gravestones and historic markers where so many people believed demons resided.

  It was all bunk as far as Reed was concerned. And this morning, this burial place seemed as much a park as a graveyard even though dark, thick-bellied clouds scudded overhead.

  Only a few pedestrians wandered through the tombstones and nothing about them looked suspicious. An elderly couple held gloved hands as they read the markers, three teenagers who probably should have been in school smoked and clustered together as they whispered among themselves, and a middle-aged woman bundled in ski cap, parka and wool gloves was walking a scrap of a dog wearing a natty little sweater and pulling on its leash as it tried to sniff every old tombstone. No one seemed to be lurking and watching, no graves appeared disturbed, no cars with tinted windows rolled slowly past.

  “Don’t we have better things to do?” Sylvie asked, struggling to keep her cigarette lit. She drew hard on the filter tip.

  “You’d think.” Still, Reed scanned the dried grass and weathered grave markers. He thought of the cases that he was working on. One was domestic violence, pure and simple. A wife of twenty years finally had decided enough was enough and before suffering another black eye or cracked rib had shot her husband point-blank while he slept. Her attorney was crying self-defense and it was up to Reed to prove otherwise—which wasn’t that hard, but didn’t make him feel good. Another case involved a murder-suicide pact between lovers, in this case a couple of gay boys, one seventeen, the other almost twenty. The trigger man, the younger of the two, was still hanging on to life in the hospital. If and when he got off the ventilator and came to, he’d find himself looking at a murder charge. The third recent homicide case wasn’t as defined. A body pulled out of the Savannah River two days before. No ID and not much left of her. Just another Jane Doe. No one seemed to be looking for her, no missing persons reports were on file for a black woman whom, the ME thought, was around thirty years old, had type O-positive blood, extensive dental work, and had borne at least one child.

  Yeah, he did have better things to do. But as his gaze swept the cemetery that was the final resting place of Savannahians who died two hundred and fifty years ago, a graveyard where it was rumored ghosts resided, he had the unnerving sensation that the crank letter wasn’t the last he’d hear from its author.

  One, two, the first few. Hear them cry, listen to them die.

  What the hell did that mean?

  No doubt, he’d soon find out.

  “I seen him,” Billy Dean Delacroix insisted excitedly, the pimples on his boyish face a brighter red in the cold wind. At fifteen he was a pistol. “That ol’ buck started up over ta the hill. But he won’t get far. I nailed him, I did, he’ll be drop-pin’ soon. I seen his white tail a-flashin’, come on, Pres!” Billy Dean took off at a dead run, galloping through the undergrowth with the easy gait of a track star, his pappy’s big-eared dog streaking beside him.

  Prescott Jones, Billy’s second cousin, older by six months and heavier by fifty or sixty pounds, struggled to keep up. Berry vines pulled at his old jeans, ripping at the denim while branches scratched his face, nearly knocking off his glasses as he dashed along the old deer trail that wound along the banks of Bear Creek. A raccoon, peering from behind his dark mask, waddled quickly out of the way and deep into the bracken. Overhead, a hawk slowly circled.

  Prescott was panting by the time he reached the crest of the hill, sweating beneath his hunting jacket and his pa’s old thermal shirt. Billy Dean, dressed head to toe in camouflage, was nowhere to be seen. Nor was the ugly red-coated dog.

  “Son of a bitch,” Prescott muttered, gasping for breath. Sometimes Billy Dean could be such a bastard, running off ahead and all. He wondered if Billy had even hit the buck hard, probably just clipped him and they’d be chasing the wounded sumbitch for miles.

  Prescott caught sight of some red spots on the dried grass near the trai
l, enough to change his mind and make him think that the deer had been wounded badly. Good. He couldn’t handle much more of this fast-assed traipsing through the wilderness. Truth to tell, Prescott enjoyed everything about hunting but the actual tracking of the prey. Oh, he liked to shoot a squirrel, buck or fox as much as the next guy. Even fantasized about killing himself a bear or a gator and having it stuffed, but all in all, hunting was a lot of work and he much preferred the beer, weed and a bit of crank now and again that went along with the actual hunt. He liked campfires and making up stories about whores and big game, all the while getting high. The hunting itself, the tracking game, the wounding game, the gutting game and the hauling out of the game was kind of a pain.

  “Hey! Over here! Pres! C’mon. Just over the ridge…What the hell?” Billy’s voice came from down in a holler, one deep in shadow. Prescott followed the sound, noticed a few more splashes of fresh blood on the bent grass and curled up leaves on his way down an overgrown trail. Through tall pines and scrub oak, he eased his way down. The path was steep, cut into the side of a cliff, and precipitous enough that his hunting boots slid a time or two. Prescott’s heart was thumping. Holding on to his pa’s hunting rifle with one sweaty hand, Prescott feared he might pitch himself over the cliff. But all along the way down he spied a smattering of blood. Maybe Billy hadn’t lied, after all. Just because the boy was known for telling whoppers didn’t mean he hadn’t actually struck the whitetail in a vital organ.

  Prescott eased his bulk through a thicket of saplings to a small patch of dead grass, a shadowy clearing in this dark ravine. Ringed by scraggly woods, the clearing saw very little sunlight.

  Billy Dean was standing to one side of a snag that bore the charred bark of a tree hit by lightning. In front of the dead tree and Billy Dean was a thick mound. At first, Prescott thought it was the lifeless buck, but as he got closer he could see that he was wrong. Dead wrong. Billy Dean was scratching the side of his face nervously while staring down at a pile of dirt and rocks that was about seven or eight feet long and over two feet wide. Billy’s dad’s old dog was whining and pacing around the edge of the neat, unnatural heap.

  “What is it? What you got there?” Prescott asked and noticed that the red dog held his nose up, into the wind.

  “It’s a grave.”

  “What you say?”

  “A grave, man, look. And it’s big enough for a human.”

  “No way…” As Prescott, breathing hard, walked closer, he saw that Billy Dean was right.

  The dog whimpered, his fur shivering.

  Prescott didn’t like the looks of it. A grave out here in the woods near Blood Mountain. No, he didn’t like it at all. “What d’ ya think we should do?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Dig it up?”

  “Maybe.” Billy Dean nudged a pile of soft dirt with the barrel of his gun, something his daddy would skin him alive for if he ever caught him.

  The hound was still acting weird. Jumpy. Whining and staring across the clearing. “Oh, shit.”

  “What?”

  Billy Dean leaned down. “There’s somethin’ here. A ring…hell, yes, it’s a weddin’ band.” He reached down and picked up a gold band with several stones. Billy wiped it on his pants and a diamond, a big sucker, winked in the poor light. Smaller red gems glittered around the diamond as the nervous old dog whined. “Jesus. Look at the size of it. Must be worth somethin’.” Squinting, he studied the inside of the band. “It’s got something etched into it. Listen to this: To Barbara. Love forever. Then there’s a date.”

  “Whose is it?”

  “Someone named Barbara.”

  “Duh! I know that.” Sometimes Billy Dean could be so damned dense. He might be able to run like a gazelle, but Prescott figured he weren’t no smarter than one of his daddy’s half-breed dogs. “But Barbara who? And why’s it here?”

  “Who cares? Too bad, though. The inscription prob’ly means it’s not worth as much.”

  “So what? You ain’t thinkin’ of stealin’ it.” But Prescott knew better. Billy Dean had a larcenous bent to him—not that he was bad, just poor and sick to the back teeth of never havin’ anything. The dog let out a low growl. Lowered his head. Prescott saw the reddish hackles rise.

  “I’m not stealin’ nothin’. I just found it. Tha’s all.” Billy pocketed the ring, then before Prescott could say anything else, let out a whoop. “Looka there. Now don’t tell me this ain’t my lucky day. There’s the buck! Shit-o-day! Look at him. It’s a damned four-point!”

  Sure as shootin’, the deer had dropped and breathed his last damned breath just on the other side of a pair of knotty oaks. Billy Dean had poked it to make sure it was really dead, and satisfied, was already unsheathing his knife, but Prescott didn’t help. He felt a chill as cold as the devil’s piss. It skittered down his spine from the base of his skull clean to his tailbone and it had nothin’ to do with the wind whippin’ and screamin’ down the holler.

  No, it was somethin’ more.

  A feeling, the kind that warned him of danger.

  Just like ol’ Red, the hound.

  Prescott glanced over his shoulder, his eyes squinting behind the smudged lenses of his glasses.

  Was someone watching them?

  Demon eyes peering through the dark foliage near the abandoned old logging road?

  Why did the damned dog keep watch, staring at the darkest part of the forest?

  The spit dried in Prescott’s mouth. He suddenly wanted to pee. Bad. “I think we best git outta here.”

  “Why?” Billy Dean was already on one knee, slitting the buck’s belly from sternum to his privates.

  The dog growled again.

  Low.

  A warning.

  “I got me a buck to gut,” Billy said, “then I figure we’ll dig up the grave.”

  “What? No way!”

  “Hey, there might be more where that there ring came from.”

  “Maybe we should call the police.”

  “Why?”

  “Cuz there’s somethin’ evil here,” Prescott whispered, edgy as he eyed the other side of the clearing where the brush was dense and dusky. The dog showed his teeth and began to circle, his eyes never moving from the shadowy trees. Prescott’s insides nearly turned to water. “It’s somethin’ we don’t want to mess with.”

  “Speak fer yerself. I ain’t goin’ nowhere till I field dress this sumbitch, dig up the grave and see what’s what. Maybe there’s some more damned jewels—some kinda treasure.”

  “Why would there be?”

  “Who knows?” Billy Dean rocked back on the worn heels of his boots and squinted one eye up at the sky as if to see better.

  Dark clouds shifted. An omen if ever there was one.

  Billy didn’t seem to see it that way. “I figure this here is God payin’ me back fer all the times He shit on me.” Billy turned back to his work. He’d already sliced the four-point’s hide just far enough not to puncture any innards. The guts rolled out on the ground in one glistening lump. “I know, I know I shouldn’t talk that way about the Lord, but He never did much fer me. Till now. I figure He finally’s squarin’ things up a bit.” Shoulders hunched, Billy worked at cutting the buck’s bowel and tying it off.

  “I don’t reckon so,” Prescott argued, fear making his skin crawl as stubborn Billy worked. “Come on, Billy Dean. We need to get out of here. Now.”

  “I’m not leavin’ my kill. And I’m diggin’ up the damned grave. What’s got into you?” Billy stood, then turned, still holding his hunting knife in his left hand, blood dripping from the blade and staining his fingers. The skin across his face appeared more mottled than ever as he glared at his cousin. “Ye’re scared, ain’t cha? Jesus H. Christ.” His voice was filled with disgust. Billy’s eyes moved to the shaded woods. “What is it? What’d you see?”

  “Nothin.’ I ain’t seen nothin’, but that don’t mean there ain’t somethin’ there.” Prescott caught a movement, shadow on shadow, a bit of l
eaf twisting unnaturally in the wind. The dog’s growl was low enough to seem unworldly. “Come on,” Prescott ordered, starting back up the trail at a jog. “We need to get goin’,” he yelled over his shoulder. “Now!” He didn’t stop to see if Billy Dean was following him, just took off as fast as he could, running hard up the trail. The dog streaked past him on the fly, tail between his legs.

  Damn it all to hell, Billy Dean had better come along. No deer or no damned ring was worth dealin’ with the pure evil Prescott sensed had trod through this stretch of backwoods. The path was steep, his feet unsteady, his lungs threatening to give out as he breathed hard enough to fog his glasses. Sweat poured down his face, into his eyes, under his collar. God, please help me git outta here alive and don’t blame me for Billy Dean’s attitude. He’s an idiot, God, please…His lungs were on fire, his heart pumping crazily as he stumbled past a fork in the path and around a steep switchback. This was the right way. Or was it? Had he passed that split oak—

  Something moved…shifting in the hazy light filtering through the trees. Jesus! Whatever it was, slid through the undergrowth. A person? A dark figure. A man? Or the embodiment of Satan himself? Prescott’s heart froze. He spun around too quickly, twisting his ankle.

  Pain splintered up his leg.

  Oh, shit! Prescott let out a squeal, then bit his tongue. He didn’t want Lucifer to find him.

  Run! Now!

  He had to hide. He bolted. Up. Down. Wherever the trail led while the pain in his leg shrieked through his body.

  Don’t think about the pain. Don’t think about Billy Dean. Just get away. Fast!

  The forest, bracken, scraggly trees, scrub bush flashed by in a blur.

  From the trail ahead the dog let out a frightened, painful yelp. The cry echoed through the canyons.

  And then there was silence.

  Deadly, empty silence.

  Oh, God. Prescott felt a fear as deep as he’d ever known.

  He froze, his ankle screaming in agony. He strained to see through the foggy, smeared lenses. Where was the dog? Where the hell was the damned dog? And the dark figure? Holy shit, where had that devil gone? Maybe it had all been a figment of his imagination. That was it. A trick of gloomy light in shadows? And where had it been—the black image? Higher on the ridge, or had he been turned around with the switchbacks and offshoots on the trail? He couldn’t think, could barely breathe.