The Gravedigger's Ball

by Solomon Jones

  Kirsten knew he had no intention of helping her, and she understood from the numerous times she’d interviewed him over the years that he wouldn’t tell her anything that wasn’t in his own self-interest. Still, she had to ask him something, so rather than waste her time on questions he wouldn’t answer, she asked him the one question she knew he would be officially free to address.

  “Do the memories still haunt you?” she asked.

  Coletti was taken aback. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Mary Smithson. The Angel of Death. Do your memories from that case affect the way you’re handling this one?”

  “This is on background, right? No names?”

  Kirsten nodded.

  “Okay, then I’ll answer it this way. Every case is different, including this one.”

  “So are you saying that what happened with Mary has no bearing on how you view Lenore?”

  “I’m saying when someone’s killed, we gather evidence, build a case, and take it to prosecutors. That’s what we do. Anything that happens before or after that doesn’t matter.”

  “All right,” Kirsten said, her frustration mounting. “Let’s go totally off the record.”

  “Okay.”

  “What I’m asking you is whether Mary’s crimes affect how you view her sister. And if they do, should you really be working on this case?”

  Coletti took a deep breath and looked out the car window at the crime scene. He considered his answer before he spoke.

  “Look at all those people over there, Kirsten. They’re all here for their own little piece of the pie. The politicians want to talk tough and make people think they’re on top of things. The cops want to catch a killer. The firefighters want to put out fires. The reporters want to tell stories. All those people, no matter what their job, bring their own experiences with them. Some bring heartbreak, others bring loss, or grief, or fear. The one thing those people share is their humanity. Their experiences affect the way they see their jobs, so here’s my question to you: Should they be working on this case?”

  “You’re trying to cloud the issue, Detective. Their connections to this aren’t personal.”

  “How do we know that?” Coletti shot back. “And if we really want to be fair about it, the only person working on this case who has a definite personal connection is you, Kirsten. You even went on CNN and talked about how it affected you. Does that personal connection keep you from doing your job?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then what makes you think it would stop me from doing mine?”

  Kirsten wanted to come back with a snappy answer, but she couldn’t, so she turned and looked out over the crowd of cops and reporters who were milling about outside the house. She also looked inside herself.

  “I guess I should consider myself corrected,” she said with a wan smile.

  “No, you should consider yourself lucky to be alive.”

  “I do,” she said seriously. “I guess that’s something we have in common.”

  Coletti looked at his watch. “Do you have any other questions for me?”

  “Just one.”

  Coletti looked at her expectantly.

  “Have you heard anything from Lenore’s family?”

  “You mean her husband?”

  “No, I mean her family—her father especially.”

  “We’ve been trying to reach her father, but we haven’t heard anything from him.”

  Kirsten smiled. “I have. He called the paper about an hour ago and asked to speak to me.”

  “Okay,” Coletti said anxiously. “I need to speak to him, too. How do I reach him?”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t reveal my sources,” she said coyly.

  “But you can get locked up for obstructing an investigation.”

  Kirsten’s smile broadened. “Do you really want to go through the freedom-of-the-press thing and turn this into an even bigger media circus? There’s an easier solution than that.”

  “What is it?”

  “We can go up to Dunmore together.”

  Coletti stared at her, knowing that Clarissa Bailey had made several calls to Sean O’Hanlon in the days before her death. Coletti had to speak with him, and if Kirsten could make that happen, he’d gladly deal with the fallout later.

  “All right,” Coletti said. “You can do a ride-along to Dunmore, and if Sean O’Hanlon’s okay with it, we both sit in on the interview. But after that we go our separate ways. Agreed?”

  “Okay,” said Kirsten.

  Suddenly there was a tap on the car window. Coletti looked up and saw the lead detective from Cheltenham Township. Cheltenham had jurisdiction over the Workman scene, but the detective was an old friend who’d once worked with Coletti in Philadelphia’s homicide unit. Coletti expected no contentious turf battles from him. But Coletti didn’t know what to expect from his trip to Dunmore with Kirsten Douglas.

  As the two of them got out of the car, Coletti was unsure what their unholy alliance would yield. But as Kirsten returned to her corner of the world and Coletti returned to his, he knew that they could learn more together than they could apart.

  “You having a little one-on-one time with Kirsten?” Coletti’s old friend asked while they watched the reporter walk away.

  Coletti laughed it off. “I need that like I need a hole in my head,” he said as they shook hands. “They finished with the scene yet?”

  “Just about.”

  The two of them walked toward the line of trees where the bodies had been found, reminiscing about the days when they worked together in homicide.

  “I still remember the time you had that foot pursuit down in South Philly,” the detective said with a smile. “You were running so slow it looked like you were moving backwards.”

  “I was moving backwards,” Coletti said. “I tricked the guy into thinking he was fast so you could catch him.”

  Their laughter faded as they walked between the trees, stood at the edge of more crime scene tape, and looked down into the shallow grave. The sight was grisly.

  Workman’s one remaining eye bugged out from his skull and stared up at them with a steadfastness that was sickening. There were third-degree burns over most of his body. The woman who lay on top of him had no such burns, but her smashed face and mutilated chest were covered with blood.

  “We don’t get much of this out here,” said the Cheltenham detective.

  “I wish we didn’t either,” Coletti said with a sigh. “If I was smart, I would’ve left for the suburbs, too.”

  As crime scene officers took pictures and blood samples, Coletti squinted and looked hard at Workman’s dead body.

  “I’m willing to bet that missing eye was gouged out with the same thing that made those gashes in his face,” Coletti said.

  “What do you think the killer used to do that?”

  Coletti looked skyward, half expecting to see the bird circling overhead. When he didn’t, he turned to his old friend and gave it to him straight.

  “Those injuries came from a raven,” he said. “My guess is the killer had the bird attack Workman to torture him into talking.”

  “What kind of information would Workman have had?”

  Coletti explained while the two of them walked away from the ghoulish scene.

  “Workman knew the Gravedigger,” he said. “But for some reason he didn’t tell me that when I spoke to him today. My guess is that whatever Workman was hiding from me is the same thing he tried to hide from the killer.”

  They walked to a spot in the grass where bits of bloody flesh were marked off with yellow markers. Officers in latex gloves and goggles collected samples.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think something had that for a meal,” said the detective.

  “Something did,” Coletti said as he watched an officer pluck a black feather from the grass and deposit it in a plastic bag. “And I’m guessing it was the raven. It seems to show up wherever the killer does.” He watched the crime scene c
ops for a few minutes more before turning to his friend. “So, in terms of sharing the evidence across jurisdictions—”

  “Don’t worry about it. We’ll share whatever you need, whenever you need it. There won’t be any delays or paperwork or red tape. Just let me know what you want, and you’ve got it.”

  “Thanks,” said Coletti. “But the main thing I need is to find out what Workman really knew.”

  A woman’s voice called out from beyond the perimeter. At first Coletti thought it was Kirsten again. The voice was too high, though. When they turned around to see who it was, there were two middle-aged women standing there. One of them had strawberry blond hair and a world-weary face. The other had short brown hair that was flecked with gray, and the low-cut blouse she wore beneath her coat showed pearls resting against a hint of cleavage. Both women had sadness in their eyes.

  A uniformed officer walked over to the detectives to deliver the women’s message.

  “They say they need to talk to you, Detective Coletti.”

  “Who are they?” Coletti asked.

  “Lily Thompkins and Violet Grant. They’re with a group called the Daughters of Independence.”

  Coletti’s eyes came to life. “Excuse me for a minute,” he said to his friend. Then he hurried across the grass while taking his notepad from his pocket.

  The press corps watched closely as he made his way over to the pair. Coletti pulled them inside the perimeter and walked along the edge of the scene until they reached a sprawling oak tree. The three of them stood beneath the tree as if it could hold the weight of all that had occurred that day.

  “I’m Lily,” said the one with the strawberry blond hair, “and this is Violet. We got here as soon as we heard.”

  “We’ve been trying to reach both of you,” Coletti said. “How come I didn’t hear from either of you before now?”

  “We were afraid,” Lily said.

  “Afraid of what?”

  “Afraid we were going to be next,” said Violet.

  Coletti took out a pen and began taking notes. “Why would you think that?”

  “Because no one would kill Clarissa unless they wanted what she knew, and the only thing Irving Workman and Clarissa had in common was their belief in the professor’s theories.” Violet nervously played with her pearls. “For all we know, this killer could be tracking down everyone who believes. That would make us targets.”

  “That’s right,” said Lily.

  “Had either of you ever met anyone other than the members of your group who believed in Workman’s theories?” Coletti asked.

  Lily nodded. “There were a couple of young men from Penn, but they came and went.”

  “Wait here,” Coletti said. He went to his car and retrieved the manila envelope containing the pictures he’d gotten from the university. He came back and showed them to both women. “You said there were a couple of young men who came and went. Do either of you see any of them here?”

  They both looked through the pictures, their eyes lingering on one or two. “I can’t say that I recognize any of them,” Lily said.

  “I don’t recognize them, either,” Violet said. “But you have to understand that people who weren’t serious didn’t stay around long enough for anyone to remember them. Professor Workman wouldn’t let them. He only nurtured people who showed real fire.”

  “You make it sound like a cult,” Coletti said, only half joking.

  Lily smiled sadly. “It’s not a cult. It’s just a group of people who love the past even more than the present. Professor Workman gravitated toward people like us. That’s why he trusted us with his theories.”

  “How’d you get to know Professor Workman?” Coletti asked.

  “By getting to know each other,” Lily said, as Violet nodded in agreement. “We were just three women who loved history. Not the tourist stuff they show you at the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. We loved the unusual—everything from Native American burial grounds to stops on the Underground Railroad.”

  “We wanted to see secret passages and hollow walls and long-lost documents and hundred-year-old secrets,” Violet added. “But even when we saw those things, it was never enough for us. We wanted to be in the history, so when the Fairmount Park Commission came along and asked for a community group to maintain Tookesbury Mansion, we became one. We called ourselves the Daughters of Independence.”

  “Any significance to the name?” Coletti asked.

  Violet and Lily exchanged a glance.

  “We all lost our fathers pretty young,” Lily said. “We used to joke that history was our dad, since we all loved it so much. It might sound corny, but we almost felt like history set us free to be ourselves. It gave us independence. That’s where the name came from.”

  “So, how did you meet?”

  “We met about two years ago,” said Lily. “Violet and I already knew each other socially, and we’d occasionally visit historical sites around town. We started seeing Clarissa at some of the sites, and the more we ran into each other, the more we wanted to, so the three of us decided to start doing it together. We all have a role in getting into new sites. I’m an adjunct in Temple’s history department, so I do the research.”

  “My background is as a business manager,” Violet said, “so I’m the forceful one who persuades reluctant owners to let us into places that aren’t open to the public. Clarissa? She’s the sweet one. She’s more caring than either of us, but also a lot richer. So if worse comes to worst, she buys our way in. Well … at least, she used to.”

  Violet stopped twirling her pearls around her fingers as a tear rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away quickly. “I’m sorry. It’s just odd to think of her in the past tense.”

  “It’s all right,” Coletti said. “Please go on.”

  “The three of us were voracious learners,” Lily said. “That’s why we went to Fairgrounds Cemetery the first few times. It was right near the mansion, and the history was there to be studied. Eventually we met Irving Workman there, and he knew so much that we were immediately drawn to him.”

  “When did he bring up his theories about Poe being a seer?” Coletti asked.

  “Fairgrounds gives tours of the more famous gravesites,” said Violet. “We took one along with Irving. The tour guide mentioned the Gravedigger’s Ball and started talking about the legend behind it. That’s when Irving asked if the cemetery could substantiate the rumors of Poe working there as a gravedigger. The tour guide said no, but he invited Irving to share what he knew about it. By the time the professor finished speaking about Poe and the potential of the human mind being literally buried beneath our feet, it was almost like a whole new world opened up to us. The story was fascinating, his theories were riveting, but as entertaining as it was, we all had our doubts.”

  “Ellison Bailey did, too,” Coletti said.

  Lily rolled her eyes. “Ellison wouldn’t know a historical fact from a hole in his head.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Coletti said. “But he did say something I found interesting. He said he didn’t trust Irving Workman. So my question is, why did you?”

  Lily looked at the ground as she spoke. “Irving showed us things,” she said softly. “He had handwritten drafts of ‘The Raven,’ with Poe’s notations in the margins. He had the first draft of the ‘Paean,’ which Poe rewrote and later renamed ‘Lenore.’ He let Clarissa bring in an expert to authenticate the items. And when her expert proved they were real, we listened to the professor more closely. That’s when he showed us how the poems went together to form a single message.”

  Violet jumped in, her eyes lighting up as she described the way the poems weaved together. “In ‘Lenore,’ Poe describes her as young, blond, beautiful, wealthy, and surrounded by people who don’t really love her. By the end of the poem, there’s a call for someone to sing to summon the gods. Irving believed Poe intended for that to be a call to Pallas Athena—the Greek goddess of wisdom and war.

  “In ‘The Raven,’ Pa
llas arrives when the bird sits on a sculpture depicting her. Workman believed that finding Pallas was the key to unlocking the wisdom Poe hid at Fairgrounds.”

  “So if finding Pallas was the key to unlocking this mystery, why would Clarissa become so obsessed with finding Lenore?”

  Violet looked at Lily, and they both turned to Coletti with eyes that wanted to say more, but just as they were ready to speak, the detective from Cheltenham walked over to them.

  “The firefighters found some stuff in the wall near the spot where the fire started.”

  “What kind of stuff?” Coletti asked.

  The detective glanced at Lily and Violet before he spoke. “I can show you when you finish with your witnesses.”

  “It’s all right,” Coletti said. “I think they might need to see it, too.”

  The detective led the way as they crossed the lawn to the side of the house where the firefighters had piled items from what appeared to be an art collection. There were oils and sculptures, busts and reliefs. One bust in particular got Coletti’s attention.

  He bent down to look at it, and his face creased in a look of disbelief. He snatched a handkerchief out of his pocket. Then he picked it up and asked the question whose answer he already knew.

  “Why would Workman have this?”

  “Because that’s a bust of Pallas,” Lily said simply.

  “Pallas?” Coletti repeated, sounding confused. “This is…”

  The words trailed off as he looked at the bust. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, yet there it was, staring at them with hollow eyes and sculpted hair pinned up on a graceful neck. Even though it was chipped and charred, there was no mistaking the identity of the bust. It was Lenore Wilkinson, and it was haunting.

  “That bust is why Clarissa was so obsessed with finding Lenore,” Violet said. “It’s the reason we all believed.”

  Coletti looked at the bust once more before calling over two cops from the crime scene unit. They bagged and tagged it. Then Coletti turned back to Lily and Violet before reaching into his pocket and extracting yet another piece of artwork.

  “I almost forgot to show this to you,” he said as he opened up the folded sheet of paper and held it in front of them. “It’s a cryptogram that was tattooed on Clarissa Bailey’s neck. Do either of you know what it means?”