Wildflower Graves: A totally gripping mystery thriller (Detective Ellie Reeves Book 2)

by Rita Herron

  His words sounded like an accusation, a reminder that he was still on edge from the last case, when Derrick had questioned him. He wasn’t going to like her doing the same now, she knew that.

  But it had to be done.

  She relayed her conversation with the psychiatrist. “That leads me to dig deeper into the profile and look at his MO.”

  “You’re talking about the wildflowers and the way he dresses them, as if he’s preparing their bodies for a funeral?” Cord asked through clenched teeth.

  “It’s possible that he learned all of that online, but we have to consider the fact that he could have worked in the field, perhaps as a medical examiner, a mortician or funeral home director. Or he… grew up around that kind of work.”

  Angry heat flared in Cord’s eyes. “That’s the reason you’re here? You think I had something to do with those women’s deaths?”

  Ellie grimaced at the vehemence in his tone. “That’s not what I said.” She hesitated, knowing she was stepping into unwanted territory. “I know one of your foster fathers was Felix Finton and that he owned Finton’s Final Resting Home when you lived with him. What can you tell me about him?”

  “You’ve been researching my background?”

  Ellie released a slow breath. “It came up when the deputy was looking into the funeral home angle.” A tense heartbeat passed. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask.”

  Cord’s throat muscles worked as he swallowed, then he spun away from her and dumped his coffee in the sink. “What can I tell you?” he said in a low but lethal tone. “I can tell you that you should stay away from him.”

  “Why, Cord?” Ellie pressed. “Is he dangerous? Do you think he’s killing these women?”

  “Not him,” he ground out. “He would be in his sixties by now.” Slowly he turned back toward her, his calm mask tacked in place, although the rigid set of his body suggested he was holding back.

  “How about his son? He runs the funeral home now.” She couldn’t back down now. She had to push for the truth. “Did you know him, Cord?”

  Cord’s grim look told her everything. “Yeah, he’s just as mean as his old man.”

  Eighty-Nine

  Dahlonega, Georgia

  Derrick found Karl Little’s house on the outskirts of Dahlonega, where his family had lived all their lives.

  Although Derrick’s mother had mourned her little girl for two decades, she felt some semblance of peace in the closure that they’d finally found, after so many years. She’d been able to bring her daughter home and give her a proper burial.

  Apparently, Mrs. Little had the opposite reaction. The week after Hiram was arrested, Karl’s mother had taken her own life.

  The property was overgrown with weeds, and the cornfields that had once probably supplied the family’s income had long since died. To the right of the house sat a silo, and an old barn that tilted to one side as if the ground was going to swallow it.

  A mangy dog loped up to Derrick when he got out, and he leaned down to examine it. It was dirty, its skin patchy and dry, but there were no cigarette burns or scars indicating the dog had been abused.

  The strong scent of moonshine filled the air as Derrick walked toward the barn, and a quick glimpse inside confirmed there was a still. Judging from the odor, Karl Little was brewing apple pie, a favorite in the mountainous, rural parts.

  Before he reached the porch, the front screen door screeched open and the barrel of a shotgun poked through the opening. “Stop right there!” a gray-haired man called.

  Derrick halted, raising his hand. “Don’t shoot,” he called out. “I just want to talk.”

  “We got nothing to say to you. This is my land and if I want to run a still, I aim to.”

  “I don’t care about the still,” Derrick shouted. “I need to talk to Karl. Is he around?”

  “Sure as hell is. Passed out in the barn. Told that boy to sell the liquor, not to drink it, but he’s been on a binge ever since our daughter’s killer was found. Hasn’t left the farm.”

  “I’d like to talk to him anyway.” Derrick knew better than to take the man’s word for it. Parents covered for their kids all the time.

  “Sure. Knock yourself out,” the old man said, gesturing toward the dilapidated outbuilding.

  Derrick turned and picked his way across the patchy grass, stepping over litter and dog crap. The stench of corn liquor brewing clogged his nostrils, and he breathed out the fumes.

  As he neared the building, he kept one hand on his weapon, just in case. Easing open the barn door, he shined his flashlight inside and scanned the interior. No dog cages.

  The ground was littered in hay, farm equipment, the man’s still and moonshine-lined shelves in one corner.

  “Karl?” he called. “I’m Special Agent Fox, I need to talk to you.”

  He inched inside, then heard a noise coming from one corner. A rumbling sound. Walking closer, he spotted a heavyset man in overalls passed out on a ratty blanket, snoring. The pungent odor of apple pie, cigarette smoke and sweat wafted toward him, and one look told him the man’s clothes hadn’t been changed in days.

  Losing his mother could well have been a trigger for him to murder. But if he’d been drunk and passed out here for days on end, he wasn’t the killer they were looking for.

  Which meant he’d just wasted time chasing another dead end.

  Ninety

  Thirty miles north of Crooked Creek – Elm Grove

  Ellie felt the tension between Cord and her intensify as they parked at Finton’s Final Resting Home, which was in a small community called Elm Grove. She shuddered at the sight of the morbid exterior where Cord had once lived.

  She’d seen enough death the last few weeks to last a lifetime. What exactly had he seen growing up? She’d asked him to explain on the drive and he’d completely clammed-up, becoming even more sullen.

  The parking lot was empty, and on the front door of the red-brick building was a sign that read “CLOSED FOR RENOVATIONS”. A blue tarp covered the roof, and building supplies were dotted around. An empty mortuary would be the perfect place to hide hostages or a body until the perp was ready to dump it.

  “Tell me the layout of the building,” Ellie said as she surveyed the property.

  “The top floor was living quarters for Finton and his wife and however many kids he took in,” Cord said. “The ground floor houses the funeral parlor, with visitation rooms, Finton’s office and a kitchen. The cold room where bodies are stored until he can process them for burial and the prep room are downstairs, in the basement.”

  Ellie cringed at the thought of what actually took place between those walls. “I take it the basement is insulated for odor and sound proofing?”

  Cord nodded. “You could scream your lungs off down there and no one upstairs would come.”

  She sensed he was speaking from experience and her gaze swung to his, goose bumps skating up her arms.

  But he stood ramrod straight, his expression grim, a million miles away.

  “Let’s search the downstairs first,” Ellie said. “If he’s holding someone here, that’s where he’d keep the bodies.”

  Thinking about the Weekday Killer’s victims, she asked, “Did he ever defile the bodies he had in his care?”

  Cord made a low sound in his throat. “I can’t talk about what he did, Ellie. Let’s just go.”

  “No.” She reached for the doorknob, but it was locked. “If Finton is sadistic, and his son is like him, he could have escalated from prepping dead bodies to murder.” With a sigh, she went to find another way into the building. Technically she needed a search warrant, but these were exigent circumstances. “And if he is our killer, Shondra could be somewhere inside.”

  Ninety-One

  Ellie checked the back door of the main building, but as expected, it was locked. A quick trip to all the side doors yielded the same results. Deciding the best method of entry without drawing suspicions from any passersby would be the basement, she asked
Cord to show her the way.

  The exterior door was locked, and the windows were set three feet apart on either side of the door. Ellie pulled a tool from her pocket, and jimmied it between the ledge and sill, prying it until the lock snapped. Thankfully the building was old, the lock half broken and easy to trigger open. Slowly she pushed up the window while Cord kept guard. She hoisted herself inside, then dropped to the cement floor.

  Darkness coated the interior, and she froze, the space closing around her with its acrid odors and memories of death clinging to the walls. Ellie swayed, haunted by an image of the countless people who’d been laid out here, their final hours before interment spent naked and cold and left in the hands of the mortician as they were prepared to be laid to rest. Suddenly she felt trapped, suffocating, locked in the dark with no way out.

  “Ellie?”

  The sound of Cord’s breathing echoed around her, a comfort as the cloying tentacles of fear wound around her throat.

  Dragging herself from the waves of fear swirling around her, she listened for signs that someone was inside. A dripping sound echoed in the silence. Holding her breath, she inched down the hall, using her flashlight to lead her and listening closely for any sounds of a woman crying or calling out for help.

  Cord pointed toward the prep rooms and the strong scent of formaldehyde and body decay permeated the air, making Ellie’s stomach twist. Tiptoeing inside, she glanced at the metal tables, but to her relief there were no bodies laid out.

  “The cold room,” she whispered as she crept toward the refrigerated area where bodies were stored until they were released for viewings or burial.

  Cord led the way, his jaw set in stone as he pushed open the door. Holding her breath, Ellie prayed that she didn’t see Shondra inside but braced herself for the worst.

  The room was ice cold, the frosty air slamming into Ellie, and it was lined with metal tables ready for multiple bodies to be stored. But it was empty. Ellie breathed a sigh of relief.

  Ducking back into the hallway, she scanned the sign at the end of the hall. It was the room which stored the coffins for families to choose from. Tension knotted her shoulders as she pushed open the door.

  Her flashlight darted across the eerie scene of a row of coffins. Pewter, silver, bronzed, some of the lids open, some of them shut.

  Shondra’s face taunted her and she stepped forward to search the caskets. She imagined opening a coffin and seeing her friend, pale and lifeless, lying there.

  But just as she shoved aside the image, Cord grunted. Suddenly something hard slammed against the back of her head and she let out a yelp of pain. Her flashlight fell to the floor, immediately going out and enveloping them in darkness. Ellie tried to reach out for Cord, to call for help.

  But her hand connected with empty air and spots danced behind her eyes as she collapsed on the floor with a thud.

  Ninety-Two

  Crooked Creek

  Entering Crooked Creek’s police station, Derrick hoped to meet up with Ellie. He’d phoned her on the way back to town but gotten her voicemail. A quick check with the hospital, and he learned she wasn’t there. She’d mentioned talking to McClain about a place to look for Friday’s victim. Was she out looking now?

  Captain Hale was in a meeting with the mayor and the sheriff when he arrived, heated voices coming from his office, and Deputy Landrum was hunched over his computer, his face pinched with worry.

  “Have you heard from Detective Reeves?” Derrick asked.

  The deputy gave him a quick glance, then his eye twitched as he looked away, as if he didn’t know how to answer.

  “Where is she?” Derrick asked again.

  “I don’t exactly know.”

  Derrick threw an accusing stare. The sheriff, the mayor and Ellie’s captain stepped from the office and went still, listening. “Listen to me, Deputy. Someone tried to kill her last night, and we think he may have a partner. If you know something, tell me. She could be in trouble.”

  The deputy rocked back in his chair, his expression worried. “She asked me to look into funeral homes and morticians in the area. I dug around and learned Ranger McClain grew up above a funeral home. A place called Finton’s Final Resting Home. It’s run now by the old man’s son, Roy. He’s had complaints filed against him for desecration of female corpses. I think she was going to question him about it.”

  Holy shit. “You let her go alone?”

  “She didn’t ask me to go with her.”

  Of course she wouldn’t. She was independent and stubborn and would never ask for help.

  “She should have called me,” the sheriff said.

  “You need to get your people under control,” the mayor told the captain.

  Captain Hale cut him a sharp look. “What else did you learn about the Fintons?” he asked Deputy Landrum.

  The deputy ran his fingers through his hair. “Felix Finton was one of Ranger McClain’s foster fathers, but Cord was sent to juvie at age fourteen for assault. Finton told the social worker that Cord had a sick obsession with the bodies he brought in for preparation. That he found him running his fingers over the corpses of the females. And that twice he caught him dressing the bodies in pretty clothes and making up their faces.”

  “Did Ellie know all this?”

  The deputy shook his head. “Some of it. I tried to call and tell her the rest, but she didn’t answer.”

  “What happened after McClain got out of juvie?” Derrick asked. “Any arrests?”

  “Not that I found.” The deputy exhaled. “Although I can’t seem to find anything on him until he started working for FEMA.”

  “What about Finton?”

  “Can’t find a current address on the father. But the funeral home is not far from Crooked Creek, and the son, Roy, still runs it. And there’s something else.”

  Derrick traded looks with the captain and the sheriff. “What?”

  “The lab called earlier about prints found on Deputy Eastwood’s truck. They belonged to Ranger McClain.”

  The sheriff muttered an obscenity while Captain Hale shook his head in denial and the mayor wiped a hand down his chin. He was starting to sweat profusely.

  Derrick mentally reviewed what he’d just learned, fitting pieces together. McClain knew all about Ellie’s family issues, about Hiram and the dolls, about the locations on the trail. He was a loner who disappeared into the woods for god knows how long and would know the perfect places in the wilderness to hide a hostage or plant bodies. And no one knew where he had been or what he’d done for years.

  Ellie had defended him on the Ghost case. But lightning doesn’t strike twice.

  Ninety-Three

  Finton’s Final Resting Home

  Ellie slowly roused back to consciousness, confused and disoriented. Her head throbbed, and it was so dark she blinked to bring the world back into focus. But her head and memory were fuzzy.

  Closing her eyes, she struggled to remember the last few minutes before she’d passed out. Slowly they came back to her, the scenes reeling through her head. She and Cord had come to Finton’s funeral home to search for Shondra. They’d searched the prep room and cold room, finding them empty. Then they’d entered the room housing the caskets. And everything went black.

  Panicking suddenly, she attempted to sit up but realized there was no room, her head banging on something hard. Heart racing, she reached out to either side and felt the slick coldness of satin. Choking on a sob, she lifted her hands above her but could only reach a few inches. More satin.

  God help her… she was in one of the coffins.

  The cave where she’d been trapped as a child had been tight, but she couldn’t even sit up or turn over in here. It was so black, she found herself paralyzed with fear.

  Tense seconds passed as she lay frozen in horror. Her chest constricted as she worked to catch her breath. The top of the casket seemed to slowly drop closer to her face. The sides closed in, and her lungs strained for air.

  Where was C
ord? Had he been assaulted, too? Had Finton been here and caught them looking for Shondra?

  Fighting hysteria, she finally forced herself to move, lifting her hand and feeling along inside the coffin for a release button. Surely there had to be one. Her fingers brushed over the satin lining below her and on the side panels, then she ran her fingers frantically along the top.

  The small space shifted around her again, robbing her of breath, and she gasped.

  Think, Ellie, think. Breathe through the panic.

  Slowly her breathing steadied, and she remembered a class discussion at the academy. Someone had asked the instructor how long a person could survive if they were buried alive. The time frame varied depending on a person’s body size, and rate of oxygen consumption per minute. She couldn’t remember the exact formula, but she thought a person could survive about five hours on average.

  A shudder coursed through her. She couldn’t stay in here for five hours, couldn’t just lie here and slowly suffocate in the dark. Perspiration beaded on her forehead, sweat trickling down her back.

  Frantically she ran her fingers along the interior, this time focusing on the edge of the coffin lid.

  Forcing slow, even breaths in to calm herself and preserve air, she fumbled across the lining. Finally, she felt a tiny metal clasp. She almost cried with relief, feeling the cool steel in her hand.

  Running her fingers around it, she pushed the edge and shoved the top of the casket at the same time. But the clasp broke, snapping in her fingers, and the lid refused to budge.

  Her breath quickened, and silent tears ran down her face.

  She was trapped.

  Ninety-Four

  Finton’s Final Resting Home

  Derrick glared at Sheriff Waters, who’d insisted on driving and checking out the funeral home with him.