Born on the 4th of July

by Heather Graham Pozzessere

  “Sir, yes, of course. I want to help you. But—”

  “I know you’re something, some law enforcement. I’ve seen you before. I know you come here, and I’m begging you! My daughter did not go off. She isn’t shopping. She isn’t angry with her husband. She didn’t run away. She comes here to honor me. We were close. Kyle gives her time alone at the grave, and then he joins her. She was kidnapped! I saw it! Of course, Kyle didn’t, he came when she’d already been swept away. He went to the office and they said they were so sorry, but they hadn’t seen her. He called the police and they . . . they said he couldn’t report her missing because she’d only been gone a few hours . . . but I know about such things. She has to be found soon, now, as quickly as possible! This can’t be . . . it can’t be for a ransom, they’re both just teachers! I don’t mean ‘just’ teachers; teachers are the most important people, really, but they don’t make much money.”

  “Sir, sir, please, calm down. And let me get my husband. We are law enforcement, yes, FBI, a special unit. And Jackson is the field director for our unit, so if—”

  “He can see me?” Cameron Adair interrupted.

  She nodded. “We’ll need to know everything, and we will help you. You just must calm down and give us every detail.”

  “I . . .”

  He broke off and she turned to see Jackson had followed her. He was so concerned. He was a great husband—except when his concern became a little overmuch—and he was a great dad. He and Corby had enjoyed an incredible bond on Father’s Day, and she knew he would always be an amazing parent with their biological child and their adopted child.

  She looked at the ghost of the man before her. She saw the anguish in his eyes. And she thought about his son-in-law, desperately searching for his pregnant wife.

  “Jackson, this is . . .”

  “Cameron Alan Adair,” the ghost said.

  Jackson nodded to the man, adding, “I see by your uniform that you’re First Lieutenant Cameron Alan Adair,” he said. “I’m Field Director Jackson Crow. Of the Krewe of Hunters, special unit,” he said. “How can we help you?”

  “They won’t file a missing person’s report yet!” Cameron said. “The police came out. An officer who told Kyle they couldn’t file a report because his wife wasn’t at a grave when he was supposed to pick her up. Kyle told them she’d never just walk off. And I saw what happened, and I jumped in front of the officer and tried to manifest . . . something! But nothing, and . . . my daughter. She’s a good woman, the best, kind and caring. She’s due in less than a week. Her first child. Please, you must help me. She was kidnapped.”

  “Sir, we’ll help you,” Jackson promised. “I need to know everything you saw.”

  Cameron Adair was looking at Angela. “I see you, too, are expecting,” he said softly. “You must know . . . how I feel, how her husband must feel . . . I’m worried sick. She’d never risk the baby for herself. I . . .”

  “Please, sir, tell us what happened,” Jackson said.

  “They flew! The crows . . . they flew out of the trees, as if in warning. She even murmured something about it. A murder of crows. And then . . . he was there. He came from across the path, but he just seemed to emerge from nowhere. He walked across the cemetery in a hooded cape of some kind, ridiculous for this weather. And he was wearing a mask, which no one would notice, most would applaud, but it was a mask that covered his face and his head. He walked straight to her. He walked with purpose and intent. He had a handkerchief or a cloth drenched in something that knocked her out instantly. And he carried her straight back across the path, fast, almost as if he flew like a crow. He walked through the graves and behind a mausoleum and . . . I ran. I moved as fast as I could, but they disappeared, they just disappeared. She was kidnapped and I saw it—and I was powerless!”

  “He didn’t come by car?” Jackson asked.

  “If he did, he parked far away. How could he have walked through the cemetery like that with others not noticing? There aren’t many people here today, and I know the world may be social distancing, but . . . he appeared from nowhere and he disappeared back to nowhere.”

  “We have to search the cemetery,” Angela said. “He may have a family mausoleum, and maybe he hides out in it until . . . until an accomplice comes for him.”

  Adam and Josh had joined them by then. Cameron Adair looked confused that Josh was with them, but then said, “Hello, young sir. Oh, this gentleman sees me, too,” he said, referring to Adam.

  “No, I’m afraid my dad only sees me. And that took forever,” Josh said. “I heard you, though. I’ve brought him up to speed.” He gave his fellow revenant a grim smile. “My dad put these people together; they are great law enforcement agents, and they’re exceptionally gifted, too. Or cursed. Most often, I say ‘gifted.’”

  “Thank you,” Cameron said.

  “So Lieutenant,” Jackson summarized, “your daughter came to pay honor to you for the upcoming Fourth of July. She comes frequently, and her husband always allows for a little alone time for her before joining her, and they leave together. Usually. But today when he came back, she was gone. And you saw what happened. A man knocked her out and seized her.”

  “And he ran into the cemetery, not to the road. He didn’t drive in to get her. And wherever he was parked, you didn’t see him drive out,” Angela said

  “You think this man is hiding out in the cemetery?” Adam asked then. “It’s got several family mausoleums, but—” he paused, looking about, not sure exactly where the ghost of Cameron Adair might be, “I’m not sure how you could hide a living woman who . . . might wake up.”

  Adam had carefully worded his question and statement. Angela knew he was trying not to suggest the only way to assure a captive would remain silent would be if that captive was dead.

  “There may be a place to hold on to someone until an accomplice arrives,” Jackson said.

  “Quite possibly,” Angela said. “A number of these family mausoleums are a fair size.”

  “I’m going to the offices; there will be one person on duty. Angela, you and Adam—”

  “Adam, would you be so good as to pick up Corby and bring him here? If Jackson and I split up, we’ll have a better chance,” Angela interrupted.

  “Angela—” Jackson began. “If you could get on the research angle—”

  “I will, but I won’t leave the cemetery. I have my phone and I can access any file I want this way. I’ll look out for similar occurrences in nearby areas. I’ll find out what the police have. And so you can feel I’m safe and we can move more quickly, I’ll go to the office here at the cemetery. You can start searching the cemetery for tracks, broken locks, anything you can find. When I get to the office, I’ll find a bench. There’s a beautiful place to sit between the office and the old chapel, and we can all rendezvous there. Adam, if you don’t mind—”

  “I’ll get on the phone to our offices and the DCPD. Josh, Corby, and I will come right back here,” Adam said.

  Angela knew Jackson wasn’t happy. Well, of course, he wasn’t. But for the very reason he was so worried, she was, too. She couldn’t imagine a father’s agony and a husband’s fear and desperation.

  She couldn’t imagine the poor kidnapped woman, worrying desperately for the life of her child.

  The case was near and dear to Angela—too near and dear—but she wasn’t walking away from it.

  Jackson nodded. “Keep in touch, Adam. We can tell you right where we are—or where we and the police need to be.”

  Adam nodded and headed out to his car. Josh looked lost for a minute.

  “We’re fine; go with your dad. Corby loves you; he’ll be reassured seeing you’re there,” Angela told Josh.

  He still looked torn, but he hurried after his father.

  Cameron Adair looked at them anxiously and asked, “What do I do?”

  “Keep watch, between here, your grave, and the direction in which the man disappeared with your daughter,” Jackson said.

&n
bsp; “Better yet, he could go with you. He may see what you don’t,” Angela said.

  “Fine, but we’re walking you to the office first,” Jackson said.

  They started walking to the office for the cemetery where records were kept and where burial and interment arrangements were made. Once, it had been the rectory for the little chapel that had begun it all—the area’s earliest Anglican settlers had been buried in the churchyard—where they remained to this day. They were on the outskirts of the city, wilderness still when the Victorians had come along. The chapel had been decommissioned so that a larger structure might be built for the congregants; and a private company had taken over, expanding the graveyard to a large—and beautiful—cemetery.

  “There’s your bench?” Jackson asked and pointed.

  She smiled. There was a bench surrounded by flowering shrubs between the chapel and the rectory.

  “I’ll talk to them and find out if they know about broken gates or seals at any of the mausoleums, if they’ve had trouble . . . I’ll do the talking. Then, I’ll head to the bench and just be on the Internet, all safe!” she said.

  She headed to the door of the place. Jackson and Cameron were waiting until she had gone in.

  She knew Adam would make sure he talked to the right people and made them understand that the lives of a woman and an unborn child were at stake, that they had to get to moving.

  As soon as she found out if the cemetery had been alerted and if they knew of any possible hiding locations, she would start looking for similar cases.

  But Cameron Adair’s words came back to her. He’d said the man had knocked his daughter out, crossed the path . . . and disappeared behind a mausoleum.

  She decided she’d investigate the cemetery itself, first via the Internet and history.

  The cemetery had only become privatized in the last fifty years. There could be secrets within the current owners didn’t know about.

  She slipped her mask over her nose and mouth before entering the office.

  There was one woman there, seated at a desk. The office area of the one-time rectory was small, but afforded two desks, with only the one occupied now.

  It also offered a counter with a coffee machine and a large station for water. There were boxes of tissues on both desks and by the service stations.

  Smiling, she approached the desk with the one woman.

  She’d had a mask hanging over one ear and she slid it into place and stood as Angela entered. She was about forty, Angela thought, neatly attired in an attractive suit. Her hair was short-cut, a neatly styled chestnut brown.

  “Ma’am, hello. How may I help you?” she asked.

  “Please,” Angela murmured through her own mask.

  The woman looked Angela up and down.

  Angela assumed she was smiling.

  “I see we’re expecting a new life,” she said. “Lovely. Have you come to our beautiful cemetery to pay respects to a loved one? I like to believe those who have come before us do get to see the generations who follow after them.”

  If she only knew.

  “I was visiting with a friend,” Angela said. “But—"

  “Oh, dear, I’m so sorry. Have you come to make arrangements for a loved one of your own?”

  “No,” Angela said.

  “Oh.” Despite the mask the woman was wearing, Angela could see the disappointment in her eyes, though she quickly said, “We are seeing to it that the dead who seek eternal rest here are honored, though we are following a careful protocol these days. Should you be looking, perhaps, for a place for yourself in the future? With a child on the way, it’s always good to preplan so that we don’t leave our heirs to have to deal with such matters when they’re grieving.”

  “You’re right, of course, but that’s not why I’m here today,” Angela said. “May we?”

  The woman was still standing; Angela was still standing.

  “Yes, yes, of course. I’m sorry, I’m Merissa Hatfield, assistant director here,” the woman told her. She indicated a chair in front of the desk and while Angela murmured a, “Thank you” and took the offered chair, Merissa sat again behind her desk.

  Angela thought she should produce one of her cards; but for some reason, she held back.

  “Angela Hawkins Crow,” she told Merissa Hatfield. She wasn’t sure why she held back on her official position. Instead, she said, “I’m sorry to bother you, but we have a witness who saw something bizarre in the cemetery today. I know there aren’t cameras all over the cemetery, but you do have cameras at the entrance and exit.”

  “We do,” she said carefully. “But—those are for our security. We’re not big brother here. We’ve never had trouble—in all these years, through wars, protests, anything, you name it—at this cemetery. Can you tell me what it is that you’re looking for?”

  “The cameras at the entrance and exit are your only security?”

  The woman nodded, frowning slightly. Then she tried to smile. “When are you due?”

  “Any day to a week,” Angela said, distracted. “Ms. Hatfield, aren’t you concerned with the bizarre and criminal event I’m about to describe for you?”

  Merissa Hatfield waved a hand in the air.

  “I know a man thinks his wife disappeared here. She probably saw a friend or went off shopping and lost her cell phone or some such thing. Yes. I saw Mr. Green this morning. He came to get his wife; she had—left,” she said. “He already made a ruckus out of the whole thing. The police came, and they had to explain to him his wife was an adult—she’d been missing fifteen minutes when he called them!” She sighed deeply. “I understand Mrs. Green was expecting, too. But there’s nothing—”

  “But there is. We have a witness. He saw her being drugged and carried off by a man in a bizarre black cloak and a hooded mask.”

  “What?” For a moment, the woman seemed stunned. Then she frowned and shook her head and said, “What witness? I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be impatient, but if you believe you know something, you need to be calling the police.”

  “Well, the police can gain access to your video surveillance, you know,” Angela said.

  “Whatever! Listen, Charlie Dearborn is the manager in charge of the upkeep and maintenance of this place. We strive to maintain the beauty of the cemetery, for history, and for the present. If anything had happened, Charlie would have known.”

  “It’s a big cemetery.”

  She waved a hand in the air again. “There’s a holding vault Charlie was inspecting this morning, and it’s just a hundred yards or so from the old Cameron Adair grave the woman was visiting. Your witness must be crazy . . . perhaps senile. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. Call the police and produce this witness of yours to them. Oh, I’m being rude! And you’re so far along. Would you like some water? Tea? I could make you a cup of tea.”

  “No, thank you, I’m fine.”

  “You don’t need to be afraid; we disinfect in here constantly,” Merissa Hatfield assured her.

  “Thank you. I just really don’t want any tea or water. And thank you. We will be calling the police, and I imagine all the law enforcement agencies will wind up investigating a kidnapping.”

  “They may feel free to investigate all they like.”

  Smiling—though she wasn’t sure that was at all visible through her mask—Angela stood again. “Well, thank you for your time. And I’ll certainly consider your recommendation when I make arrangements for my resting place soon.”

  She wasn’t going to push it and cause trouble—not when Adam could make sure everything about their investigation was legal and quick. If she pushed without the proper resources behind her, she could put them into a worse position.

  As she headed toward the door, she heard Merissa Hatfield pick up the phone.

  “Quickly!” She said.

  Angela turned back to look at her. A mistake.

  The front door opened and a man walked in. She barely turned in time to see him. He was wearing a black busin
ess suit and black mask and head covering, looking much like many a politician or businessman walking around the entire D.C. metropolitan area.

  On the streets, she would have thought nothing of him. In fact, she started to say, “Excuse me.”

  Except that he grabbed her.

  Her Glock was in her bag, but she wasn’t without means of defense, even if she was expecting a baby.

  More so, because she was expecting a baby!

  And on the good side of the situation, of course, was he wasn’t expecting the elbow jab and knee to the groin she gave him.

  He doubled over in pain, shouting, loosening his grip on her.

  Angela reached for the flap of her bag, but the woman, Merissa Hatfield, was right behind her.

  And she had something.

  A rag drenched with a knockout drug.

  “This one walked right into our arms!” Angela heard the woman say.

  The man, still furious and grumbling about his pain, swept her into his arms, “When the kid is out of her, this bitch will have it coming!”

  He moved through the office to the back. Angela’s limbs were failing her. But she grasped at him anyway. Something came free in her hand. Fabric?

  The darkness was closing in. She’d ripped or pulled something. She didn’t even know what. But as he walked through the hallway of the old rectory to the back door, she knew she had to drop it.

  She did. In the dirt before he could load her into a cemetery maintenance vehicle.

  And then . . .

  That was it.

  Chapter 2

  There were far more little family mausoleums than Jackson had imagined.

  The ghost of Cameron Adair was shaken and confused. Of course, someone had kidnapped the beloved daughter he had left behind. But while they traipsed over slate stones, bronze markers, above-ground tombs, and around—and around—at least ten free standing mausoleums, they found nothing unusual. Most were sealed and gated. A few had heavy doors—one had been built in the late colonial period that boasted many nails, a sign of the family’s prosperity at the time.

  “I know I saw him come this way!” Cameron said. He paused, looking over the grounds. “No one is here. It’s such a lonely place right now.”