by M. Z. Kelly
I decided to tell him what one of the officers I worked with had recently mentioned. “I heard the local cops call the cemetery the Killing Fields. Rumors have it, there was a killer known as ‘the Phantom’ at work here years ago. He supposedly...”
“Murdered his victims and dumped them in the cemetery,” Hammond said, finishing my sentence. “We’ve heard the rumors, but there’s nothing that backs it up.” He checked his watch, ran a liver-spotted hand over his cheek. “That should do it, for now. We need anything further, we’ll be in touch.”
After being dismissed by Hammond and leaving the chapel, I happened to come across Roland Davis on the cemetery grounds. I’d known the uniformed cop for a couple years. He was an older black cop, slight of build, with short graying hair, who was nearing retirement.
“You ever seen anything like this?” I asked him, after saying hello.
He shook his head slowly. “Seen some bodies posed here and there, but nothing comes close to this.”
“Detective Hammond thinks she was a working girl from the Lexington area.”
“Remy Powell.” He watched as the crime scene people continued to photograph the victim. “I ran across her a couple times while on patrol. Lost kid, just trying to survive on the streets.”
“You might want to give Hammond her name. I don’t think they know who she is.”
His eyes were still on the victim. “Guess so.”
I studied him for a few seconds. “Even if they have a name, you don’t think it will make a difference, do you?”
His bloodshot eyes shifted in my direction, traced back over to the victim. “The case will probably go OU. Just a matter of time.”
“OU” stood for Open Unsolved. I’d heard there were over fifteen hundred unsolved homicide cases languishing on the books. The department had recently shifted much of their resources to Manhattan, at the expense of other areas. The cold case units were understaffed and overworked. The murder of a black woman, especially a prostitute, would be given low priority, despite the sensational nature of the crime.
“What about a pimp?”
Davis looked at me, raised his brows.
“Just curious if she was working for somebody.”
“Guy named Darnell Howser runs a lot of girls in the area. She might have been one of his.”
After leaving Davis, I met up with Max and Amy, who were standing a few yards from the crime scene, watching as the victim was being cut down from the crossbeam that supported her body. There was a sudden movement off to the side of the body as two men with cameras came running out from behind one of the grave markers.
“It’s Rich and Mitch,” Amy said.
“Who?” I asked.
“Paparazzi,” Max said, as a couple uniformed cops came over to the men and began questioning them.
Amy confirmed that. “They got one of them idiotic gossip shows on cable TV, and talk about celebrity hook-ups. Let’s go see what the hell’s going on.”
“It’s too late,” we heard Rich telling one of the cops as we got closer. “It’s already on the air.”
Detective Hammond had seen what was going on and came over to him. “What are you talking about?”
“The video we just took is on social media as we speak. Now everyone knows about the Angel of Death.”
FIVE
“I don’t know about you two, but I’m dead on my feet,” Amy said. “Let’s get some shuteye.”
We had spent a few moments looking at my phone, which showed the graphic video of the victim the paparazzi had uploaded to their TV station’s website. Rich and Mitch had also posted it to dozens of other sites. I had no doubt that it would go viral and probably end up on the evening news.
We trudged back to our underground cavern and collapsed into our beds, sleeping until late afternoon. I woke up to what can only be described as a scraping sound coming from somewhere in the cavernous labyrinth of rooms surrounding our quarters. I got up and found my roommates in the kitchen, where it looked like they’d also just gotten out of bed.
“Did you guys hear that strange noise?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Max said. “We were wondering if somebody’s burying a body.”
“Maybe it’s another victim of the Night Slayer,” Amy said. She saw my questioning look. “It’s the name Rich and Mitch came up with for the killer.” She hit the remote on the TV. “It’s on all the news programs.”
I watched for a few minutes as the reporters showed scenes of the cemetery and partially blacked out images of the victim seemingly floating above the cemetery, referring to her as the Angel of Death.
Amy grew tired of the commentary when they started repeating the same information, and hit the mute button. As soon as she muted the sound, we heard the now familiar scraping noise coming from somewhere outside our living quarters.
“I’m gonna get to the bottom of this,” Max said, rising from the sofa.
Amy and I followed, my friend pushing me ahead of her.
“You guys go first,” Amy said. “If there’s some kinda crazy killer out there, you get paid to deal with that sorta thing.”
Max looked back at her. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not on duty.”
Despite what she’d said, Max and I both had our service weapons with us as we left our living quarters and moved down the corridor. The meandering passageways through our underground chamber had been built in the late 1800s. They were narrow and dark, and there were dozens of twists and turns. As we moved deeper into the subterranean passages, I worried that we might get lost.
“Let’s stop and listen for a sec,” I said, tapping on Max’s shoulder.
She stopped abruptly and looked back at Amy and me. The dim light made her heavy features look a bit menacing. “I don’t hear nothin’.”
“Shh,” Amy said, keeping her voice low. She turned her head slightly, listening intently.
We heard the sound again. It was much louder than before.
“It’s that way,” Amy said, pointing to a place where the corridor turned and dimly receded. She grabbed my arm and pushed me ahead of her. “I’ll let you lead the way.”
I looked back at her. “I thought you were from Jersey.”
She let Max follow me, before saying, “Some of us Jersey Girls are smart enough to let other people do the killing for us.”
We cautiously made our way down the adjacent corridor, where the sounds grew louder. I had the impression that someone was digging, the sound of a shovel occasionally hitting rock. We stopped outside the room where the sounds were originating.
Max knocked on the door and raised her voice, saying, “This is the police! What’s going on in there?”
We heard a shuffling sound from inside the room. The door cracked open, and two dark, beady eyes regarded us.
“You,” Thorndike said, with disdain.
The mortician for Funk’s Fields took a step out into the corridor and slammed the door shut behind him. Thorndike was in his fifties, about five foot nothing, with dark hair, slicked back from a widow’s peak in the front. An elderly Eddie Munster came to mind as we regarded him.
“What are you doing here?” the little man demanded.
“You’re the one who needs to answer that question,” Amy said, stepping forward. “You burying bodies in there?”
Thorndike’s dark eyes shifted as he glanced back toward the room. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“We heard digging sounds,” I said. “What are you doing in there?”
“I’m just...” He straightened his dark coat, which was covered with dust. “I’m doing some cleaning and rearranging things, nothing more.”
“What’s in the room?” Max demanded.
“Supplies, and a few odds and ends.”
“Yeah, like maybe a bunch of hearts and livers you carved out of some bodies,” Amy said. “We wanna take a look.”
Thorndike stiffened and stood in front of the door. “It’s strictly off limits.” He held up what looke
d like a skeleton key. “Besides, it’s locked, and I’m the only one that’s allowed access.”
“You’re a little creepazoid,” Amy said. “Did you have something to do with the girl that was murdered last night?”
“What are you talking about?”
“A girl was stabbed to death in the cemetery and strung up above a grave in an angel outfit. What’d you do, decide to get an early start on your Halloween decorations?”
Thorndike scratched his dark head. “Oh, my. I had no idea. I’ve been working down here non-stop.”
“On what?”
He took a step away from the room. “I’d better call Mr. Funk and tell him what’s going on.”
“I doubt that’s necessary,” I said. “The murder is all over the news.”
The little man pushed past us, saying, “I need to take care of things. The victim...she might even end up here, once the authorities are finished with her.”
After he was gone, we tried the door to the room where he’d been working. It was locked, and solid as a rock.
As we made our way back to our living quarters, Amy said, “That creepy little bastard’s doing something crazy in that room, and I’m eventually going to find out what it is.”
“Maybe he’s putting body parts together and making a monster,” Max said.
“If he is, it would fit in perfectly here,” I agreed.
Once we were back in our living room, Max got us drinks, and we settled in on the sofa again.
“You think the guy that killed the girl could be the Phantom?” Amy asked me.
“I mentioned that possibility to one of the homicide detectives this morning. He said he’s heard the rumors about the Phantom burying bodies in the cemetery, but nothing’s ever been proved.”
“Do they have any other suspects?”
“Not that I know about. I also talked to an officer named Roland Davis, who was working security after the murder. He’s worked this area for years. He said the victim is a black prostitute named Remy Powell. He thinks the case will go OU.”
“Say what?”
“Open Unsolved—the department’s cold case unit.”
“The vic’s a black prostitute,” Max said, clutching her sides. “You ask me, he got it right.” Her body began to shudder, like she had a sudden chill.
“You okay?”
“Not really.” She still had her arms wrapped around herself. “I’m getting me some vibes—and none of ‘em are good.”
Our roommate claimed she had psychic powers and got vibrations involving dead people. I didn’t know if that was true, but what she’d said about a recent case we’d worked had panned out, adding credence to her claims.
I looked at Amy, back at Max. “What kind of feelings are you getting?”
“We gotta help find whoever did this to the girl. There’s gonna be more killings.”
“How we gonna do that?” Amy asked. “We all got jobs.” She looked at me. “Speaking of that, I might need some help tonight.”
“What’s going on?”
“I got a RICO.”
“A what?” Max said.
A Rich, Idiotic, Cheating, Oops.”
Max’s heavy features tightened. “Huh?”
“Let me spell it out for you: Alex Puig.”
“The boxer?”
Amy nodded. “His wife, Sophia, wants me to follow him, get the goods on him cheating on her.” She looked at me again. “That’s where you come in. She said Alex is heavy on the ‘I’ in RICO. She’s his Oops, and she’s not going down without a big payday, which means a big commission for yours truly.”
“What’s an ‘oops’?” Max asked.
Amy rolled her blue eyes. “You really gotta get out more. He’s the baby daddy after an ‘oops’ a couple of years ago. He married Sophia without a prenup, dotting the ‘I’ in Idiot. Cha-ching!”
Max seemed to be processing everything as I said, “I guess I can help out, since my personal life’s about as dull as a duff.”
“Guess I need me a dictionary if I’m gonna continue to live with you two,” Max said.
“A duff’s a Dull Ugly Fat Friend,” Amy said. She looked at me. “And you’re about as far from a duff as you can get. Whatever happened with that FBI guy you were gonna see?”
Sam Crawford was a feebie I’d worked with on a prior case. He’d expressed some interest both in me and in finding my long lost mother, even making promises about snooping around the cemetery and taking me out to dinner.
“Sam texted me that he got busy with a case and said he’ll be in touch,” I told Amy.
“Sounds like classic text dump,” she said, doing nothing to bolster my spirits.
“Let’s get back to our victim,” Max said. “I got a proposal. Me and Amy can help you out with your RICO case, but I want us to work Remy Powell on the down low.”
“How we gonna do that?” Amy asked. “It’s high profile, all over the boob tube.”
“For now it is, but we all know she’s a black prostitute. The case will fade faster than a Jersey shore tan.”
“I do got me some personal experience with that—I mean, the Jersey tan part of the equation.”
Despite what Max said, I had some reservations. “You really think we can make a difference?”
Max’s eyes were heavy, surprising me. “I seen dozens of girls like her, cases that go nowhere ‘cause the victim was black and poor. We can’t just walk away from this.”
“There is the matter of that fuck swear,” I said nodding in agreement and looking at Amy.
We’d all taken an oath a few weeks back that Amy said she’d come up with on the streets of Trenton. We’d pledged to work together to help others when no one else would. It was our version of a women’s secret crime fighting club.
Amy looked at Max. “This is really important to you, isn’t it?”
For the first time since I’d known her, I saw Max brush a tear from the corner of her eye. “It means everything.”
Amy held out a fist that Max and I bumped. “We’re all in. We’re gonna take down the fuwking dewsh bag that murdered Remy Powell.”
SIX
Mary pulled the blanket up around her shoulders and tried to drown out the voices in the other room. She knew it was Adam and the disciples, deciding her fate. She closed her eyes, trying to push the images back into the darkness. Sleep wouldn’t come, the scenes from two nights earlier assaulting her senses.
“The others are waiting,” Belinda had said. The woman, one of the disciples, was in her forties, with long dark hair. She had a round face and big dark eyes. Mary’s breath had stopped as the shiny object had been thrust into her hands. “You know what is expected.”
Mary nodded, as her fingers had wrapped around the knife. It was bigger than she’d expected, and heavy. “I’m scared,” she said, her gaze moving off. “I’ve never...”
Belinda reached down, cupping a hand under her chin and tilting her head up, forcing Mary to look at her. “You do understand what’s happening?”
Mary nodded. “The girl must be cast out. It is the will of Adam.”
“Exactly. There is evil in this world, Mary. We are the ones, chosen by Adam, to end it.”
Mary took a breath and tried to steady her hand and her voice. “I’m ready.”
The night was freezing cold. As she and Belinda moved through the cemetery, Mary thought about running. Maybe, if she was fast enough, she could get away and go back to her father’s house.
It had been almost a year since she’d left home one night after an argument with her father about Daniel. He was her first real boyfriend. She’d come home late one night after going to the movies with him. She and her father had argued, and he’d slapped her. Later that night, she’d packed her belongings and left.
God, she’d been so stupid. She remembered going to Daniel’s house and waiting outside until morning when he left for school to tell him what had happened. “My father says we can never see one another again.”
But Mary had soon found out it wasn’t the only way. After she’d gone back home and pleaded with her father to see Daniel again, he’d beaten her and grounded her for a month. After that, she’d packed up again and left for good. She’d spent the first of several cold nights in a shelter before meeting Darcy. At the time, she’d thought her new friend was just another runaway. She soon learned that the girl was part of the Strand.
“The Strand will be your new family,” Darcy had said. “They will feed and take care of you.”
“What is the Strand?” she asked.
“The Strand is God’s army, chosen to do Adam’s will on earth.”
Over the next several months, Mary had come to understand that God spoke through Adam, who, in turn, delivered his message to the disciples. The disciples were Adam’s chosen ones, who made sure the members of the Strand carried out his will.
In the months that followed, Mary had spent every night with the followers of the Strand, moving from house to house. She ate communal meals and listened to Adam’s constant sermons about eradicating evil from the world. It all seemed like just talk until one night when Darcy came to her and said she had been chosen by Adam.
“Chosen for what?” Mary asked.
Darcy took her hand. “You’ll see.”
She was led into a bedroom, where Mary saw that Adam was in bed. They stopped, and Darcy whispered to her, “You are expected to please him.”
“But I’m...I’ve never...”
“I know. That’s why you were chosen.”
“Chosen.”
Darcy smiled. “Everything has been planned, Mary. I’ll see you later.”
When Darcy was gone, Mary stood in the darkness, unsure what to do. Finally, she heard Adam say, “Come here.”
She walked over to the bed, her eyes downcast. God, was this really happening? Adam was here and she was expected to...
“Closer.” He had her by the hand now and pulled her onto the bed. She lay down beside him and felt his hardness as he pressed himself against her. “Everything is as it’s meant to be.”
