Jonah had told Genie and Sydney what was going on, and the two soon rushed out—a little frightened, but mostly intrigued.
“How did you find her?” Genie asked.
“Well, we suspected she was back here somewhere—and probably others, as well. Dallas had been telling me about Jackson and his machines, and I thought it would be interesting to search,” Kristi told them.
“Interesting,” Genie murmured.
“Creepy!” Sydney said.
They stared at the hole as Joe Dunhill arrived, and shortly thereafter, medical examiner Dr. Perry, who they’d specifically requested, and who was bringing in a friend of his from the nearby university, an anthropologist and a visiting lecturer who had most recently been excavating a Georgia battlefield site. Perry had told them she was an MD and also had her doctorate in biological anthropology—a very impressive woman.
Dr. Perry arrived, along with his colleague, Dr. Colleen Horvath, a very thin woman of about fifty with close-cropped iron-gray hair, bright blue eyes—and tremendous energy. She pumped Kristi’s hand, and let them all know she was delighted to help them in any way.
“I’m a field worker—I love young minds, but I already miss being in the field. Of course, I’ve heard about McLane House, and what happened here.” She hesitated. “This is one of your ancestors, and I will be gentle, and take very good care of the remains, I promise you.”
“Thank you,” Kristi said.
Monty was watching, with Justin behind him, a ghostly hand on his shoulder. Monty had, at least, regained control. His only sad words after the doctors arrived were “She’s here, she’s here, and yet, still, I cannot see her, I cannot touch her, I can’t tell her how very sorry I am that I came home and that Huntington arrived just as I did.”
It was inevitable the guests of McLane House should come back to their lodging. Granger Knox was the first to come back, and he appeared to be curious at first, and then disgusted. “Let the dead alone, that’s my motto,” he said, shaking his head, and returning to the house. Carl Brentwood, accompanied by Murray but not Claire, arrived, and he immediately thought that a documentary on McLane House and the discovery of the bones would be a terrific effort.
Carl cornered Kristi in the kitchen when she’d gone in to bring out a few bottles of water for those who had been in the yard for hours now. He was already holding his digital video camera.
His enthusiasm was electric, but she wasn’t particularly in the mood for discussions on a show—not at the moment.
“Carl, please, let’s just get her out of the ground,” she said softly.
“Oh, Kristi, I am so sorry. I didn’t think about what this meant to you. I guess, I just think it was all so far in the past, but then...you’ve been through a lot, huh? You were at a funeral for your friend yesterday, and you just lost Jedidiah... I’m so sorry. Truly, I don’t mean to be so thoughtless. But you found your great-great-whatever grandmother...wait, she’d have been McLane—you’re Stewart. Are you a descendent?”
“A Stewart married a McLane daughter in the years after the Civil War,” Kristi explained.
“Of course, then, forgive me. I can’t help but thinking...”
The kitchen door swung open and Lacey Knox walked in. She smiled seeing Carl Brentwood, and then frowned—apparently, she hadn’t expected to find Kristi, too.
“Hi, Lacey,” Kristi said.
Lacey gave her an odd look. “You’re all dirty,” she said. “You’ve been grave-digging, I hear.”
“Something like that,” Kristi said.
“Guess you need a shower,” Lacey said, her tone sweet—but something else, as well. With some amusement, Kristi realized Lacey was jealous of her.
“I guess I need a shower,” Kristi said, and headed out.
“Kristi,” Carl called her back.
She paused.
“Thank you for everything, and I’m so sorry.”
“Carl, it’s okay. We’ll talk about it—just later, please.”
She went back out to the courtyard, a six-pack of water in her hand. At the back door, she hesitated. Shelley had arrived; she was standing by one of the courtyard tables, speaking animatedly with Murray Meyer.
Murray seemed angry.
Shelley seemed angry, too.
Kristi opened the door just in time to hear Murray saying, “Well, it’s just a little too late now, don’t you think? Who the hell ever figured on this?”
Shelley cleared her throat, directing Murray’s attention to Kristi in the doorway.
He turned and saw her. “Ah, Kristi, big happenings here today, huh?” He grinned. “If you’re going to find a body,” he added, “it’s best to find a very old one, huh?”
“It wasn’t an accidental find,” Kristi said. “Dallas had his friends come down because we’d been talking about the fact several family members were supposed to have been buried hastily on the grounds.”
“Ah, you went looking. Séance got you going, too, huh?”
“Maybe,” Kristi said. “But I guess it’s something I’ve always thought about—I used to talk about it with Jedidiah,” she said. In truth, they had mentioned it now and then—but never taken the idea anywhere. They wouldn’t have known what do to, really. They hadn’t known anything about tools such as the ground-penetrating radar mechanism Jackson had brought, and randomly digging up the yard hadn’t seemed like a particularly good idea.
“I suppose such a thing would be natural,” Murray said. “I mean, when you know you have relatives in your yard.”
“I’ve been telling you Trinity is here, haunting the place,” Shelley said.
Kristi just smiled and walked by them.
There were workers who had come along with the two doctors; they were arranging a grid so the bones could be removed with several inches of the dirt around them. Dallas looked over at Kristi, a frown furrowing his brow. She smiled at him, hoping that would show him she was doing just fine.
Yellow tape and warning placards now surrounded the hole; Joe Dunhill told them not to worry—there were police patrolling the area at all times already, watching out that Carl Brentwood’s fans didn’t become so overzealous that they encroached on his space, or her property.
They stood and waited and watched, and eventually the bones were loaded into a box and onto a panel van. Dallas was going to fill in the hole; Dr. Horvath asked that they wait.
“We may want to do a little more exploring in there. You don’t have any children staying here, do you? It’s clearly marked—no one should be falling into it, especially with everyone in the house aware there is a big hole back here.”
Kristi was still unhappy the yard wasn’t fenced, but it was certainly too late to throw one up. She thought about the times they’d discovered that kids had been digging in the yard—a set of young adults as well—looking for bones or artifacts themselves because of the house’s reputation.
But police were patrolling; her guests were adults.
“Liability is scary as hell,” she muttered.
“You do have insurance?” Jackson asked her.
“If anyone is foolish enough to come out here and fool around, you can haul them into court for trespassing and ignoring obvious signs to beware,” Colleen Horvath said.
“You’re coming with us?” Dr. Perry asked, looking at Dallas.
“Yes, I’ll accompany the bones,” Dallas said.
“Hey, I hang at the morgue often enough,” Joe Dunhill said.
Kristi lingered in the yard while Dallas and Joe climbed into the front bench of the panel van containing the bones, and they drove off, followed by the doctors and the rest of the forensic team in their own cars.
She had the distinct feeling of being watched.
Jonah was in the house.
But she could see him standing at the back window.
Murray and Shelley remained in the courtyard, solemnly watching the strange procession drive away. Genie and Sydney had gone in, but she knew they were in the back parlor, looking out—she had seen them in the back door.
Angela said, “There’s nothing more we can do for the time. I’m thinking that Colleen Horvath wants to come back here and explore around the hole, hoping for more artifacts. I’d like to get back to the Murphy place now and start in that library. Jackson?”
“That’s a good plan,” he said, and then hesitated. “Kristi, I was about to tell you that you’re welcome to come with us or stay here, but with this discovery—even if we did find Trinity and her remains are down to bone—things may start happening. If there’s a killer operating in the area, this might make them nervous. I think you need to be with one of us. In fact, I think Dallas would want my head on a platter if anything happened to you.”
“I understand. Searching in the library still seems important. I just... I need a shower,” she said.
“We’ll wait,” Jackson said.
Kristi nodded and went in through the back door. Genie and Sydney had obviously just moved away from it. Again, she felt as if Shelley and Murray Meyer were watching her—why and for what, she had no idea.
Upstairs, she unlocked her door and slipped into her room, shedding her clothing as she headed for the shower.
Halfway to the bathroom, she paused. There was a piece of paper on the bed. She picked it up, knowing it had not been there when she’d left the room.
It was a page from a McLane House notepad. There were only a few words on it, the letters or full words clipped from a magazine and stuck on.
“Stop trying, or suffer the consequences.”
14
“It’s actually far easier to give an age for a child, but with just a precursory study, I can tell you this—the bones belonged to a woman. You can tell from the pelvis. She stood about five foot two. Her teeth are good—she was very lucky, she had all of them. The amount of wear on the teeth and other factors suggest the woman died somewhere between the ages of thirty-two, say, and thirty-seven. There are many, many more tests I can do,” Dr. Horvath said. “If Miss Stewart wants it documented as pure fact that this lady was her ancestor, we can do DNA testing.”
“Cause of death?” Dallas asked.
“I’m still studying the bones for nicks and abrasions,” Horvath said. “There are all kinds of things we can do to determine what might have happened. But they do take time.”
“Right,” Dallas said.
“Cause of death, and method of death,” Dr. Perry said. “At this point, we can’t tell you either. If there are nicks on the bones, we could possibly theorize about a bullet wound, or a knife to the chest. But if a bullet hit soft tissue, or even if a knife hit soft tissue, that tissue is long gone.”
Dr. Horvath had been doing most of the work, but Dr. Perry hadn’t left the autopsy room. He felt Dallas studying him and looked up. “Sorry, she is the expert here. No brain or heart to weigh, no stomach contents... Bones this old, well... But,” he said cheerfully, “I am happy to be here, to have her in my morgue, to share in this fascinating discovery. And, luckily, no elderly person died alone last night, and we didn’t have a single murder in the county!”
“Yep, lucky,” Dallas murmured, glancing over at Joe Dunhill.
“Right now,” Dr. Horvath said, “I’ve taken some samples. They’ll go to the lab. We’re going to put her away for the night—tenderly and with respect, Mr. Wicker. You may convey that to Miss Stewart for me. We will be extremely careful and respectful, I promise you.”
Dallas glanced over at Joe. They were politely being asked to leave, and since Perry and Horvath were going off to do all the paperwork needed for the tests they were requesting, there was really no more reason for them to be there.
Not to mention, Monty and Justin had followed them to the morgue; those two wouldn’t be leaving—they would watch over the remains.
“Thank you,” he said, and he and Joe headed out.
They stood out on the sidewalk.
“You weren’t digging to find old bones, were you?” Joe asked.
“It was no big surprise, though,” Dallas said. “There’s nothing—nothing at all new on the disappearances—Eliza Malone or Simon Drake?”
Dunhill shook his head. “Eliza Malone’s case is still open on the books, but in truth, it’s gone very cold. When it happened, of course, we interviewed every coworker, every family member—everyone. We were still left with nothing other than she was having a meeting somewhere around Johnson Square. As far as Simon Drake goes, we’re still getting reports of sightings of the man—and we follow every lead, and we’ve discovered that he looks like half the men in the city. People are trying to help, but we’ve had nothing concrete.” He inhaled deeply. “Man, I’m hoping. I mean, there are cases that go unsolved, but I honestly believe two people were murdered, and the two who have disappeared are dead, as well. That’s just—heinous and unacceptable.”
“Yes,” Dallas said.
“Jackson and Angela—they’re Krewe?”
“Top Krewe,” Dallas told them. “Jackson is our acting field director. Angela runs the office, chooses and assigns cases and can find out almost anything about anyone.”
“We’ve pulled up everything we could, too,” Dunhill said. “What’s so bizarre is there is no real victimology. You might kill a politician because he’s got an agenda that would wreck you. You might kill a personal trainer because...you’re in love with him and he doesn’t love you. Or something personal like that. But why the hell would anyone throw an old man out from his balcony? He was going to die anyway.”
“But maybe not quickly enough,” Dallas said. He looked at the detective. “You had the usual suspects. I’m looking at the more unusual, putting it all together around the fact everything took place in the same general area—and just might have centered on Ian Murphy.”
“Eliza Malone disappeared two years ago. Ian Murphy is hardly cold in his grave.”
“Right, but what if someone thought he had something then—that he didn’t actually have until later? Or had no idea what he had. I’ve gone through this over and over again in my head, and I know my people have looked at it from every angle, too. Unless we’re both just way off the mark, and Ian jumped and Lachlan tripped, and the two disappearances were for monetary and political reasons, it’s the only theory that makes any sense.”
He was going to tell Joe about Kristi being threatened in the ladies’ room, but Kristi wasn’t sure herself if the threat had come from the living or the dead.
“Kristi was out in the courtyard at the brewery after Lachlan Plant’s funeral. She thought she heard people whispering about a letter.”
“A letter? Did she think it had to do with Lachlan’s death?”
“Yes, I’m assuming.”
“Keep your eye on her,” Joe Dunhill said softly. “We have cops going by the house constantly, but they aren’t sitting on the property.”
“No, they’re not,” Dallas said.
“What’s your next move?”
“We only covered part of the McLane property today—not even half. But with Jamie Murphy’s permission, I think we might use some ground-penetrating radar over there.”
“Let me know—if it’s all right with you, I wouldn’t mind being around,” Joe told him.
“I’ll give you a call in the morning,” he said.
He and Joe had barely parted ways before his phone rang. It was Jackson.
“Is everything all right?” Dallas asked.
“Status quo. I got a call from Vickie Preston back at headquarters. She’s a historian who recently graduated from the Academy, and she helps Angela with research. After Angela’s initial searches, Vickie kept digging. Here’s an interesting bit—she found that Lacey Knox was adopted. It was a closed ad
option, everything sealed, and she was an infant when it happened. Also, the construction guy—Granger Knox—has political aspirations.”
“Very interesting. Thanks.”
“There’s more, we have a bit on the agent, Mr. Murray Meyer. A very interesting connection there—Meyer is a second cousin to a man named Richard Burr. Mr. Burr was convicted of manslaughter in the second about fifteen years ago—the victim being his wife. He claimed they were both drinking, and she fell. Apparently, there were eyewitnesses who saw them arguing, and the charge the DA went with was manslaughter. Mr. Murray’s travel records indicate he was here two years ago—specifically to see his cousin.”
“You said a fall—how did Mrs. Burr die exactly?”
“Impact with the ground—she went off a third-floor balcony.”
“Now, that’s really interesting. Is there anything tying anyone to locations near Johnson Square—or to Ian Murphy, specifically?”
“Not that we’ve found—they’re still looking.”
“We can try to draw Mr. Murray into conversation, see what he has to say. Worst thing with all of this, we can’t find a reason to haul anyone down to the police station to be questioned,” Dallas said.
“One more thing,” Jackson told him.
“What’s that?”
“Jonah Whitney. His great-grandfather was married to a woman from New York,” Jackson said.
Dallas frowned. “And? Sorry, I mean, through generations, we’re all married to people from all over the country—and from other countries, as well. We are a land of immigrants—and, of course, Native Americans,” he said, acknowledging Jackson’s paternal heritage.
Jackson laughed. “And—you’re right. It means nothing to most of us. Jonah is just a die-hard Southerner. He may not be happy about it. It might be the family scandal.”
Jonah? The man had been best friends with Jedidiah McLane and Ian Murphy. He had worked in the house for years. He seemed to love Kristi...
But it was true that what seemed to be wasn’t always what was.
“You’re with Kristi now, right?”
“She just went up to shower, then we’re going to hit the Murphy place, and Ian’s library again—the answers may well be there.”
The Summoning Page 24
