Death & the Gravedigger's Angel

by Loretta Ross

  It was Tyler Jones.

  And I thought he was bad when he was scripturing at me!

  She pulled the door closed behind her but there was no lock. The staircase was steep and narrow; Death’s shoulders would have brushed the walls. There was a wooden handrail on the right-hand side, nothing fancy, just a plain board painted gray. The steps were bare wood, red in the light of her headlamp, with a worn spot in the center of each tread where generations of feet had passed.

  Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust and the scent of it filled her nose and clogged in her throat. Wren climbed swiftly, and as she went she scattered fuses on the steps. She waited until she was three-quarters of the way up to start. She wanted him to trip on them and fall far enough to get hurt. He’d found his gun, but his flashlight was broken so he was still running in the dark.

  The door at the top was also stuck, but she put her weight into it and tumbled through just as Jones yanked open the bottom door and put another bullet into the fabric of the old house. She slammed that door behind her and took stock.

  She was standing in the upstairs hall, with the end of the hall and the gravedigger’s bedroom to her left and the main staircase to her right. There was a window at the end of the hall and she could see, through it, lights at the vets’ camp down in the hollow.

  Across the hall from where she’d emerged was another door, leading to a staircase to the attic. She yanked it open, then closed it most of the way in the hopes that it would misdirect Jones if he made it to the second floor. Then she ran down the hall to the gravedigger’s room to the sound of Tyler Jones falling down the stairs.

  _____

  “I’m not a demon. I’m your son. Your son who’s done everything you ever asked of me.”

  “If you’d done everything I’ve ever asked of you, we wouldn’t be here.”

  “You sent me to the mosque to learn about the people there.”

  “No! Beasts. Devils. Savages. Not people.”

  “People! You said they were doing horrible things. Having orgies and worshipping Satan and sacrificing babies and making bombs. You sent me to infiltrate, and get evidence, so we could drag their crimes out into the light. So I went in and I infiltrated. And you know what I found? They’re just people.”

  “You’ve been seduced by the Father of Lies. God himself has spoken against them, striking down with his own hand their she-devil bitch.”

  “She wasn’t a she-devil and she wasn’t a bitch. She was a nice lady. She liked old American country music and she sang off-key and she pretended she liked burned sugar cookies so the little girl who made them wouldn’t feel bad.”

  “And God in his wrath raised up his staff and struck down the harlot.”

  “She was killed by a drunk driver. People die every day. It’s part of being alive. It doesn’t mean that someone is evil. We’re alive so we’re going to die. Every one of us.”

  “You would betray God for those heathen swine!”

  “They’re people! They’re just normal people! They talk about baseball and share cat videos on the Internet and they’re kinder to their children than you ever were to us.”

  “You are no longer of my church.” Tyler Jones voice was raising, in pitch and volume, with every word.

  August’s, in contrast, was growing quieter.

  “No, I’m not,” he said. “I realized weeks ago that I could no longer be a part of what you’re teaching. But I am still your son, and as your son I’m asking you, this one time, to walk away. Cancel your protest at Mrs. Dozier’s funeral. Leave my friends to mourn in peace.”

  There was a brief silence, and, when he spoke again, Tyler Jones’ voice was quiet now too.

  “You are my son,” he said.

  There was a sudden, pained gasp. August’s voice was tight and shocked.

  “Sir, what have you done?”

  There was a dull thud, like the sound a body might make falling on a sandstone patio. Something creaked and groaned, low and dismal.

  “That’s the gate to the crypt,” Death said.

  They heard a dragging noise and a puffing sound; someone out of breath and panting from exertion. There was a low moan of pain.

  Tyler Jones spoke again. “Deuteronomy 21:18-21,” he said.

  There was another long, rusty squeal from the gate and a clang as it closed.

  “If he had his phone with him,” Randy said, “why didn’t he just call 911?”

  “No signal, maybe?” Death offered. From the phone they could hear fumbling noises and labored breathing. The face of the phone was streaked with dark stains. “It sounds like he took it out of his pocket. He probably was trying to call for help. That’s how it wound up being left in the crypt for Harriman to find.”

  “Reception is iffy around here at the best of times,” Kurt said. “The nearest cell tower is the other side of the church. No way he’s going to have any bars down under that hill.”

  Orly reached out and turned off the phone. “This recording goes on for hours. It must have continued until a timer went off or the file was full or something. I think we’ve heard the important part, though.”

  “What was that Bible verse Jones referred to?” Randy asked. “Deuteronomy something?”

  “Deuteronomy 21:18-21,” Death said.

  “Yeah, that.” He took out his own phone, turned it on, and sighed. “Case in point. No signal.”

  Nichelle went into the living room and came back with an old leather-bound Bible. “Deuteronomy, right?”

  Death repeated the chapter and verse for her and she looked it up. She read it to herself, silently, and her eyes teared up.

  “Here,” she said, handing it off to her husband. “Here. You read it. I can’t.”

  Robinson took the book and read aloud.

  “‘If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him … and all the men of his city shall stone him with stones that he die.’”

  twenty

  Wren closed the bedroom door behind her and tossed the empty cardboard box that the fuses had been in into a corner. She’d left her pool cue in the kitchen, but she still had her cosh gripped in her right hand and half a dozen fuses in her left pocket. She tried the light, as she’d been doing in every room, but it seemed as if the power was, indeed, out throughout the entire house.

  They’d already nearly emptied this room. The bed had been disassembled and carted downstairs along with the bedside table, a couple of small dressers, a lounge chair, and all the boxes of smaller items that she’d packed up. All that remained was an empty wardrobe, taller than Wren and nearly four feet wide.

  She listened for a long minute, but there was no sound coming from the hallway. She hadn’t heard the door to the back staircase open, nor any sounds from it since Tyler Jones stumbled over her scattered fuses and fell back down. If she was lucky, he was lying unconscious, crumpled on the tiny landing.

  It was equally possible, however, that he was circling around and coming up the main staircase, where she hadn’t had an opportunity to set any traps for him.

  There was no lock on the bedroom door. The wardrobe wouldn’t keep him out entirely, but it would slow him down and buy her time to prepare if he tracked her to this room. On the other hand, if he didn’t know where she was, the sound of her moving the heavy piece of furniture could very well betray her position.

  Wren weighed the pros and cons in her mind and swiftly decided that she had to have some sort of barricade. While he was forcing his way in, if it came to that, she could be figuring out some means of defense or even, if necessary, climbing out the window to make an escape.

  The eastern windows looked out over the roof of the kitchen ell. There was still a light rain falling. The steeply pitched roof, with its tiles glistening black under the strobes of lightning, looked anything but inviting. But
necessity, she had found, made for a great motivator.

  She ran her fingers over the ring on her left hand, tracing the cool, smooth gemstones in the darkness. She was going to come out of this encounter alive.

  She sized up the wardrobe, gripped it by the upper edge, and tried to drag it across the floor. It was too heavy for her to move quickly against the friction it created. Changing tactics, she opened the doors, took hold of the top, and pulled it toward her. It tipped as if it were going to fall on her and she was able to lift one front corner and pull it out. She let that corner come back to the floor and tipped it again, lifting the other front corner, walking it across the room.

  She got it in front of the door and pushed it up as close as she could get it. With the entry as secure as she could make it, she turned her attention to the window.

  She’d had the windows up every day she worked in this room, even though it had been a struggle to get them to move in their frames. A couple of those days had been humid, but nothing like it was tonight. She wanted the east window open, in case she had to use it as an egress. The north window opened over a straight drop onto the remains of the carport. If she went out that side, she’d be lucky to walk away with only moderate injuries.

  The window stuck, and she prised and shook it, trying to loosen it up. The right side came loose, but the left side was stubborn. She had to raise it an inch at a time, pushing one side up, then lowering it again to even them out and free up the other side.

  It had just gotten up high enough for her to climb through when she heard footsteps in the hallway. The door opened two inches and hit the wardrobe.

  There was a pause.

  The door was drawn closed, then slammed open as far as it would go, striking the big antique with bruising force. There was a high-pitched squeal and the wardrobe slid across the hardwood for half an inch, leaving a scar in its wake.

  Jones closed the door and slammed it open again, edging the barricade a little bit further into the room.

  Her heart in her throat, Wren turned back to the window and took off her headlight.

  _____

  “I’ve put a BOLO out on Tyler Jones,” Jackson said. “Salvy says I have to call the city and explain what we learned. They’re gonna want to know why I listened to the phone recording.”

  “Because the sooner you knew who the killer was, the sooner you could take steps to get them off the street and under lock and key,” Death replied promptly.

  The deputy snapped his fingers and pointed at the ex-Marine. “Exactly!”

  “You know, Jones showed up at the Hadleigh House a couple of days ago looking for this phone. Eric Farrington brought him out. I guess we know now why he wanted it. I don’t understand why he didn’t destroy it when he had the chance, though. Considering what was on it.”

  “I can answer that,” Jackson said. “He didn’t know about it. There was a mention of it in the case notes I read. They asked him if he had any idea what had become of it and he said he didn’t know what they were talking about. When they told him they had reason to believe that August had a cell phone with a recording of his murder on it, Jones became agitated and demanded to know what they were doing to find it.

  “Yeah, I’ll bet,” Death said.

  “He had to have known about it,” Randy objected. “He called him on it.”

  “Yeah, he had to have known that August had a phone. But I’m betting he didn’t know he recorded people on it, or that it was even possible for him to do so. My impression is that he’s pretty clueless about technology in general. I’ve spoken with Tyler Jones several times since the funeral. Mostly because people complained about him and his group trespassing and disturbing the peace or because he called us to complain that people were interfering with his first amendment freedom of speech.” Jackson rolled his eyes. “I’ve probably explained to that man fifty times that freedom of speech means you can say whatever you like. It doesn’t mean that no one can call you an asshole for it.”

  “Did they tell him that they pinged it out here?” Nichelle asked.

  “I doubt they’d get that specific with a civilian. The standard line is ‘sir, we’re doing everything we can and we just need you to trust us.’”

  “Maybe Eric Farrington told him,” Death suggested.

  “Maybe. Self-important little twerp. That’s the sort of thing he’d do. Jones is famous, never mind what he’s famous for, and it’d be just like Farrington to try to ingratiate himself with him. Does the chief know about his little adventures?”

  “Oh yeah. I understand the jail cell toilets are very clean now.”

  “What’s going to happen with Tony now?” Robinson asked.

  Jackson shrugged. “I can’t really speak for another department, but this recording seems pretty cut-and-dried to me. I’d guess that they’ll charge Jones and drop all the charges against Dozier. He’ll probably be out tomorrow. I wouldn’t worry about him. He should be fine now.”

  “He might not be in trouble with the law anymore,” Robinson said, “but he’ll never be fine. He’s lost his keystone and I don’t know how we’re going to keep him from falling apart.”

  “He needs something to do,” Death suggested. “A goal. A purpose.” He remembered Aramis Defoe and how he’d killed himself, all those years later, when he’d finished carving the angel for his grave. “A project,” he said, “that isn’t ever going to be done.”

  “I need to call the city. They can get us a warrant for Jones’ arrest,” Jackson said, messing with his phone. “I don’t suppose you have a landline I can use? ’Cause I got no bars.”

  “Sorry, afraid not. Why don’t you try going out on the porch? It’s usually better out there.” Robinson dragged himself to his feet. “I need to go back out to the barn, too. I haven’t unsaddled Sugar yet. Poor guy’s still standing around in his wet tack.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Nichelle said, standing as well.

  “No, sweetheart. I know you’re tired. You wait here. Take a hot bath and try to relax.”

  She leaned against him and rested her head on his shoulder. “August Jones was killed by his own father because he was trying to be a decent human being and I just really don’t want to be alone right now.”

  “Okay,” her husband said gently, running his hand across her back. “Okay, it’s all right. We’ll stick together. We’ll take care of the horses and get them settled and then fix some supper and watch a movie or something. How would that be?”

  She sighed and nodded, and Death nudged Randy. “And I think that’s our cue to leave.”

  _____

  The storm was moving away to the northeast now. Wren could see it, a still-fierce bulk of dark clouds dancing with near constant steaks of lightning. A thick bolt sizzled down, striking somewhere on the horizon, and she cringed away from its ferocity. It had left this corner of Rives County behind, though. Sparkling stars covered the freshly-laundered sky in its wake and a gibbous moon shone down on the sodden landscape.

  The winds had deprived some of the trees of their autumn finery. She peered down the hill, past bare branches and dripping evergreens, at the lights shining in the yard at Warriors’ Rest.

  Tyler Jones was throwing himself at the door to the room in a frenzy, breathing hard and muttering imprecations. With every strike the barricade gave a little. Wren glanced behind herself. Moonlight cast the outline of the window in bright relief against the dark floor, her own silhouette a part of the pattern. The rest of the room was pitch-black by comparison.

  Headlamp in hand, she leaned out the window into the cool, fresh night. She could see the yard light down at the camp, but that was at the top of a pole. There were other lights visible through the trees, but she couldn’t see exactly what they were and she didn’t know if anyone standing on the ground would be able to see her, even on the off chance that they were looking up the hill.

  She tried to remember, from when she’d been down there the day they walked through the woods to the cemetery,
if it was possible to see the Hadleigh House at all. This was, she realized, a long shot at best. She was determined to take every possible shot offered her, though.

  Before she could begin to signal, the sound of a gunshot made her jump and cringe away. It was followed by two more. She turned to look.

  The door was open wide enough now for Jones to get his hand and gun inside. He couldn’t come anywhere close to pointing it at her yet, but that hadn’t stopped him from putting three bullets into the plaster wall.

  _____

  Death stopped at the edge of the porch steps and looked up. “What was that? Was that someone shooting?”

  “Nah,” Robinson said. “I think it was Old Man Pickering hammering. He builds weird things out in his shed and sells them to tourists at one of the flea markets.”

  “At this time of night?”

  “Yeah. He’s got insomnia. I think I heard him a couple of times earlier, during the storm.”

  “Are you sure? Because that really sounded like gunshots to me.”

  “I know.” Robinson gave Death a rueful smile. “I think it’s a military thing. We think we hear gunshots because we expect to hear gunshots. But we’re not in a war zone now. It’s only a hammer.”

  _____

  Wren put a hand on her heart and forced herself to breathe. If he were shooting an old fashioned six-shooter, she thought inanely, he’d only have one bullet left, assuming he hadn’t had a chance to reload. Of course, she had no idea what kind of gun he was shooting and he’d had plenty of time to change cartridges, so she supposed that was a pointless line of thought.

  In any case, it was going to be several more minutes before he was able to get far enough into the room to be a serious threat.

  She leaned out the window again, wasting no more time, and pointed her light down the hill, at the other lights there. Light speaking to light, she thought.

  Dash, dash, dash … dot, dot, dot … dash, dash, dash. Dash, dash, dash … dot, dot, dot … dash, dash, dash. Dash, dash, dash …

  _____

  “OSO?” Nichelle said, puzzled.

  “What?” Death turned to her. She was gazing up the hill with a perplexed look on her face.