Once Buried

by Blake Pierce

  But no answer came.

  Riley added, “There’s been another murder in Lorneville, just north of Sattler. Bill and I are on our way there. We need you to join us.”

  Riley paused again, then added, “Call me. Right away. Tell me what’s going on. Bill and I are worried about you.”

  Riley ended the call but she kept worrying during the rest of the drive to Lorneville. Should she have seen something like this coming? After all, she’d long sensed that the young agent harbored some kind of secret. And Jenn had seemed uncharacteristically distracted yesterday.

  But Riley hadn’t imagined that Jenn would shirk her duties.

  Was she in some kind of danger?

  Surely she’s all right, Riley kept telling herself.

  *

  Jenn was sitting at her desk in front of her home computer, trying to persuade herself not to listen to Riley’s message again.

  But somehow, she just couldn’t help it.

  She pushed the play button and began to listen …

  “Jenn, this is Riley. Where are you?”

  … then Jenn pushed the pause button.

  She realized that her eyes were stinging with tears.

  “That’s a good question,” Jenn whispered aloud. “Where am I?”

  She was at home in her apartment, of course.

  But where was she in her priorities, her loyalties?

  Where was she in her life?

  Bill had knocked on her door a little while ago. She’d known it was him—she’d seen him through the peephole. It had made her sick at heart not to answer the door, just as it had made her feel sick not to pick up Riley’s call.

  She ran the rest of Riley’s message …

  “There’s been another murder in Lorneville, just north of Sattler. Bill and I are on our way there. We need you to join us.”

  Then after a pause, Riley added …

  “Call me. Right away. Tell me what’s going on. Bill and I are worried about you.”

  The message ended.

  Tears were rolling down Jenn’s face now.

  What would they think of me if they knew? Jenn wondered.

  It had all started yesterday. The woman she had long known as “Aunt Cora” had contacted her to make a demand—a demand that Jenn had spent all of yesterday trying to ignore.

  But very early this morning, Aunt Cora had called again. This time, Jenn had realized that she couldn’t refuse.

  She had to do what Aunt Cora insisted she do.

  She’d realized yesterday that Riley and Agent Jeffreys had noticed something was troubling her. She hadn’t been able to hide it completely, even though she’d spent the whole day trying.

  Today they surely knew that something was wrong, now that Jenn was shirking her duties. Not even answering their calls.

  Was it over now—her FBI career?

  Maybe if she got in her car right now and drove straight down to Lorneville and joined her fellow agents, she could make up some excuse for her tardiness and all would be forgiven.

  But no, she couldn’t do that.

  Her past had caught up with her, and she had to contend with it here and now.

  She hoped she could finish this task today. But what would happen after that?

  She felt Aunt Cora’s dark, inexorable pull.

  She’ll never let me go, Jenn thought.

  She cleared her head, looked at the string of messages on her computer screen, and set about her task.

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  When Bill pulled the SUV into the marina at Lorneville, Riley saw that it was a rundown hodgepodge of docks and storage buildings, mostly an abandoned ruin. She was dismayed to see a rowdy gathering of reporters, most of whom she recognized from yesterday.

  Some local cops stood along a line of police tape, doing their best to keep the reporters away from the crime scene. FBI Agents Whittington and Ridge were also here, undoubtedly waiting for Riley and Bill to arrive.

  Riley looked at her watch and saw that it was nearly eleven o’clock.

  She felt a stab of despair. The day was going by much too fast already.

  The fact that Riley couldn’t stop worrying about Jenn added to the pressure.

  Naturally, as soon as Bill and Riley set foot outside the SUV, the reporters surged around them, yelling questions.

  “Tell us what you know about the latest victim.”

  “Why hasn’t his name been released yet?”

  “Was he buried alive like the others?”

  “Is it true the Sandman is going to commit a murder every twenty-four hours?”

  “Do you have any idea who the Sandman might actually be?”

  The Sandman, Riley thought.

  At least the reporters had finally settled on a nickname, and they had eliminated “Father Time.” Riley didn’t much care for either alternative. Nicknames had an unfortunate way of granting a certain mystique to serial killers, often giving them a fascinating aura of mystery and power. That was never helpful.

  Riley and Bill said nothing to the reporters as Whittington and Ridge flanked them protectively and escorted them past the police tape. The other agents led Riley and Bill into one of the storage buildings, where the murder had been committed.

  Inside, Riley saw that Zane Terzis, the slender, black-haired medical examiner for the Tidewater District, was here with his team. Parker Belt, Sattler’s stocky, red-haired police chief, was standing beside Terzis. The FBI agents who had been working on the case yesterday were also here, including Craig Huang.

  Huang was huddled with his fellow agents, looking very much in charge. Riley knew this was a good thing, since as far as Carl Walder was concerned, Huang was in charge, and Riley was only following his orders.

  When Huang spotted Riley and Bill, he hurried toward them.

  “Isn’t Agent Roston with you?” he asked.

  Riley exchanged uneasy glances with Bill. The time had come for them to start covering for their wayward colleague.

  Bill said, “Agent Roston is working on another detail.”

  Another detail? Riley thought.

  What could that possibly mean? But obviously, Bill was being intentionally vague. And Huang just nodded, too busy to ask for specifics.

  Huang led Bill and Riley over to an overweight man with an unflattering buzz cut. His hands were stuffed in his pockets and he kept shuffling his feet in a restless manner.

  Huang introduced him as Waylon Fellers, the Lorneville chief of police. Fellers acknowledged the introduction with a wordless scowl. He just stood staring into the hole that had been dug in the building’s dirt floor.

  Realizing that the Lorneville chief wasn’t going to be of any help right now, Riley turned her attention to the larger scene. She saw that the entire floor inside the building was of sandy soil. The victim had been buried in a hole dug in the center of the space. A large sand timer was placed at the foot of the hole.

  The whole scene gave her a chilling sense of déjà vu. It was different in many details from the first two sites, but the same in its awful eradication of life and prophecy of yet another death.

  Terzis’s team was unearthing the body with the same delicate care that they might use searching for fossils or rare artifacts. Unearthed from the waist up, the corpse looked even more grotesque than the one at the beach had yesterday. The torso was twisted, the back arched in frozen agony, while the hands remained fastened behind the man’s back, bound with duct tape.

  Unlike yesterday’s victim, this one’s eyes were wide open, his gaze permanently fixed upon the tormentor who had murdered him.

  Chief Fellers shook his head with disapproval.

  He said to Terzis, “Now that the last of the Feds have showed up, can’t we get poor Silas out of this goddamn hole? He deserves better than this.”

  “Soon,” Terzis said. “Be patient.”

  Fellers let out a growl that sounded anything but patient.

  “Who found the body?” Riley asked Fellers.

>   The man finally looked directly at her.

  “Stuart Miles, the man who owns this property. Stuart’s been fixing to renovate this place for a while now, put a whole new nice facility in this area. This morning Stuart was showing a builder around here, making plans for what they’d have to tear down to get started, when he noticed this building’s lock was broken, and the door was standing open, and the lights were burning inside.”

  Fellers pointed up. Riley saw that the ceiling lights were still on.

  Fellers continued, “Well, none of that was normal, so Stuart and the builder came in here to see what was going on. They found a freshly filled hole with a sand timer standing there. He’d heard about the goings-on down at Belle Terre, and figured out what this had to be, so he called me then and there.”

  Riley saw that this sand timer looked much liked the others. Although the frame was made out of lighter-colored wood, the carvings appeared similar. And of course, sand was trickling from the top globe into the bottom.

  Fellers shuffled restlessly again.

  He said, “My boys and me started digging, and dug just deep enough to find Silas’s face, looking up at us like this. I called Chief Belt right away—and the medical examiner too.”

  Fellers fell silent. He gulped and wiped his nose.

  Riley asked Fellers, “Have you and your men moved the timer at all?”

  “No, we left it be. It’s exactly where we found it.”

  “That’s good,” Riley said.

  Riley stooped beside the hole and looked at the body. She saw that the victim was wearing a uniform.

  “I take it you knew the victim,” she said to Fellers.

  “I sure ought to,” Fellers said. “Silas Ostwinkle’s my first cousin.”

  Riley looked at Fellers and noticed a flash of guilt in his expression.

  Fellers said, “It was my idea, getting this night watchman’s job for him. He’d been having troubles with booze ever since he came back from the Gulf back in the nineties. I thought this would be an easy way for him to pay the bills and keep him out of trouble. There’s never been any problem here in this marina—until now.”

  Fellers blinked a few times, apparently trying to hold back his tears.

  “If only I’d known,” he said in a thick voice.

  Still crouching beside the hole, Riley looked around and saw footprints in the surrounding dirt. They looked just like the ordinary sneaker prints they’d found where Courtney Wallace had been buried.

  Riley looked at the victim again and shuddered at the horrified, pleading, wide-eyed expression on his face.

  She glanced up at Terzis and asked, “Have you found any wounds on this one?”

  Terzis said, “There was a blow to the back of his head by some hard, rough object. Maybe he was knocked out for a while.”

  Riley looked into the victim’s eyes again. One thing was certain—he hadn’t stayed unconscious.

  He’d been all too aware of what was going on when he’d been buried alive—the same as the other victims.

  She noticed a distinctive bruise around his mouth and jaw.

  Duct tape, she realized.

  The killer had taped the victim’s mouth shut to keep him quiet.

  But then he’d pulled the duct tape off.

  Why? Riley wondered.

  Obviously, he hadn’t been worried that anyone would hear his victim’s screaming.

  But even so, she wondered—wouldn’t his task have been easier if the victim had kept quieter?

  She felt a familiar tingle coming over her—a sense of what the killer had been thinking and feeling.

  Again, she sensed the man’s charming manner as he exchanged mock-banter with his terrified victim—the same behavior she was sure he had shown to the other two victims.

  And yet Riley sensed something different about this killing.

  What was it?

  An icy grip came over her as she saw something in the victim’s eyes. It was more than just the terror that he’d surely shared with the other victims.

  It was weariness, exhaustion—perhaps even a desire for this ordeal to be over with.

  But the killer hadn’t granted that wish.

  Riley sensed that this burial had been slower than the others—much, much slower, and much more sadistically cruel.

  Riley shakily got to her feet.

  She whispered to Bill, “He’s enjoying this more with every murder. And now he’s taking his time to relish every minute of it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Riley could see Bill shudder with horror at her words.

  “Damn,” Bill said in a whisper. “You mean he’s burying them more slowly? Drawing the whole thing out?”

  Riley nodded grimly, and Bill added, “What the hell are we going to do to stop him?”

  Riley didn’t know the answer. But she did know that the killer was likely to get even harder to stop, now that he was getting a taste for killing in an especially ugly way.

  Just then Riley heard Craig Huang’s voice from a few feet away.

  “Yes, sir … Yes, sir … Yes, sir.”

  She turned and saw that Huang was talking on his cell phone, looking thoroughly abashed as he kept saying “yes, sir” over and over again.

  Riley stifled a sigh. It wasn’t hard to guess who Huang was talking to.

  With a final “yes, sir,” Huang ended the call. He walked toward Riley and Bill and spoke to them quietly.

  “That was Chief Walder. He’s even more pissed off than he was yesterday.”

  Riley felt a pang of sympathy for Huang. She’d long since gotten used to being the butt of Walder’s frustration. But today it was Huang’s turn. After all, Walder was still under the impression that Huang, rather than Riley, was in charge of this investigation.

  “Don’t tell me,” Bill said to Huang. “He’s mad because of all the negative media coverage.”

  Huang nodded. “Oh, he’s mad, all right.”

  Riley said, “Don’t let him get to you, Agent Huang. That’s pretty much all Walder cares about—whether the agency’s getting good or bad publicity. When it’s bad, he blames us. When it’s good, he takes all the credit.”

  Huang looked a little relieved. Riley realized that this was probably the first time she’d spoken to him openly about her dislike for Walder. She wondered if maybe she was being indiscreet. It certainly didn’t seem very professional of her.

  But she liked and respected Huang. She figured it was about time he knew what more senior agents thought about the boss.

  Huang said, “Well, you’re still in charge as far as I’m concerned, Agent Paige.”

  By then the other FBI agents—Engel, Craft, Geraty, Ridge, and Whittington—had clustered around Huang and were looking at Riley, obviously waiting for her to give orders.

  Riley’s spirits sank a little.

  These were good agents—some of the best Riley knew. But after a whole day under her leadership, they’d gotten nowhere, and now someone else had been murdered. She simply wasn’t at her best right now. Under normal circumstances, she’d hand over the decision-making to Bill at this point. But she sensed that Bill was still shaky from his bouts with PTSD. Was he in any condition to assume authority?

  Maybe Walder’s right, Riley thought. Maybe I should just turn the whole thing over to Huang.

  But she could see that the younger agent was still upset about the petty scolding he had gotten from Walder. Riley realized that Huang hadn’t yet developed the toughness and resilience it took to give commands in the field, especially when things weren’t going well. He was good, and he was getting better all the time, but he was still green.

  She gathered her fortitude and told herself …

  It really is up to me.

  She thought fast and started giving instructions.

  “Agents Whittington and Engel, ask Chief Fellers where you can find the two men who found the body this morning. I want you to interview them, see if they can remember anything helpful.�
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  Whittington and Engel nodded, then walked over to Chief Fellers.

  Riley continued, “Agent Craft, take lots of photographs of the body while the ME’s team keeps uncovering it. Check and see what belongings he’s still got on him. If he’s like the others, nothing will have been stolen—he’ll still have his wallet, money, ID, even his cell phone. Use your own judgment as to when Terzis and his people should take the body away.”

  Craft took out his cell phone and went straight to work taking photographs.

  Then Riley said, “Agent Ridge, work with the local cops to comb the area inside and outside this building, see if the killer left any clues. Agent Geraty, get out and knock on doors and talk to people. Interview everybody who lives near the marina or is connected with it in any way.”

  Geraty asked, “What about the sand timer? Should we send it to Quantico?”

  Riley thought for a moment.

  “Not yet,” she said. “Get one or two of the local guys to help you take it out to the SUV, then make sure it’s secure and safe. Be careful getting it out there. Don’t let any of those damned reporters get to it.”

  Geraty nodded and left.

  Riley had now assigned tasks to all the agents except Bill, Huang, and herself.

  She walked over to Chief Fellers and asked, “Did Silas Ostwinkle have any friends or relatives you think we should talk to—aside from you, I mean?”

  Fellers shuffled his feet and made a slight snorting sound.

  “I was figuring you might ask me that,” he said. “I got in touch with Silas’s kin a little while ago, told them to get together at his house. I’ll take you right over there to meet them.”

  As she and Bill followed Fellers out of the building, Riley gestured to Huang to come with them. More reporters had already gathered beyond the police tape, some accompanied by TV cameras. As the reporters aggressively yelled out questions, the BAU agents and Chief Fellers pushed wordlessly through them to the chief’s car.

  It was a short drive to Silas Ostwinkle’s house—so short that Riley thought maybe they might as well have walked. She could see that nothing in this tiny village of small wooden houses was very far from anything else. Riley guessed that no more than a few thousand people lived in Lorneville.