Dying Scream (7 page)

Mrs. Wells patted her on the shoulder. “Well, at least you’ll be getting something done if you do your fretting at the main house.”

“You’re right.” And honestly, she just wanted to get away from Gage. “If anyone needs me, just tell them that I’ll be at the main house. Or they can call me on my cell.”

“Will do.”

Adrianna thanked Mrs. Wells and got into her Land Rover. She started the engine and backed up. When she put the car in drive, she glanced up and realized Gage had turned from the crime scene and was staring at her.

Chapter Five

Tuesday, September 26, 9:40 a.m.

Adrianna’s Land Rover kicked up dust and gravel as she drove off toward the main house. When her car rounded the corner out of sight, Gage let out a breath, which he felt like he’d been holding since he’d first seen her.

She was just as stunning, just as poised, and just as elusive as he remembered. This was the first time he’d seen her in glasses with little make-up. And each time he’d seen her before, her hair had been blown dry, straightened. Today the unexpected waves made it look a bit wild.

For a split second, the last four years melted. Pain and anger receded. His body hardened at the sight of her until his gaze caught the wink of gold and diamond on her left ring finger. And in a rush, he remembered what had slipped through his fingers.

“She’s wound tighter than a bowstring,” Gage muttered.

“Makes you wonder if there was something else chewing at her?” Vega said.

Like facing off with an old lover? “Maybe.”

The detectives moved toward Mr. Miller, who frowned over a clipboard. When they approached, he lowered it and tried out a smile that didn’t quite work. “Detectives.”

Gage slid his hand into his pocket. “Something’s been bothering me since I arrived. Why did you search the land around the graves? Is that standard procedure?”

“Ms. Barrington asked. She said she’d done research on this kind of work and said that old cemeteries often had other unmarked graves. She didn’t want any surprises.”

“Really?”

“Said a little extra time now could save her big trouble down the road.”

“Speaking of time, she was late this morning,” Vega said.

“She called me around seven thirty. Had to take her mom to the emergency room last night. Turns out the old lady was fine. Ms. Barrington drips with stress but does her best not to show it.”

“Other than her mother, why is she stressed?” Gage said.

“I’ve not met anyone that likes moving graves. Messing with the dead doesn’t sit well.” He shrugged. “Hell, you’d know better about that than anybody.”

Vega took that one. “Death is the ultimate deadline. And nobody likes to be rushed.”

Miller nodded. “I hear ya.”

“You ever had surprises like this on a job before?” Vega was good at relaxing people, getting them to drop their guard and reveal more information than they’d originally intended.

“I found an infant’s body outside of Bethesda, Maryland, on a job once. That caught us off guard. I told Ms. Barrington. Mention of the baby spooked her.”

A dead child upset most folks. Adrianna would be more susceptible considering she’d lost her child in the car accident. There was also the child that had died twenty-seven years ago—the child she’d been intended to replace. Frances Thornton and Margaret Barrington had been friends back in the day. Interesting.

“What are the chances that you’d find a grave out here?” Vega said.

“Slim,” Gage said, rising. His knees ached, a holdover from too many tackles. “Even just fifty feet from the other graves the bones could have been missed. I’ve worked a missing persons case a few years back. Serial rapist killed a twelve-year-old girl when she fought back. He buried her in the woods. We traced the evidence found in his pickup truck to the girl. He confessed and told us where the body was buried. Still took us five days to find it.” He glanced around the field. He’d not had his share of good luck in his life and always questioned it when it found him. “Miller, how the hell did you find this?”

Miller pulled off his hat and scratched his bald head. “A radar blip and then we spotted the mounds.”

“Find anything before that? Something else that might have caught your eye?”

“Funny you should say that. There was an old bandana tied to the fence. Old, torn, and blowing in the wind.”

“A what?” Gage said.

“Bandana.” He reached in his back pocket. Sunlight and time had faded the red die and frayed the edges. “Until you asked, I forgot all about it.”

Gage frowned. The bandana had been contaminated. Miller’s clothing fibers and DNA would be all over the damn thing. Gage reached in his coat pocket and pulled out a plastic bag. “Put it in here.”

Miller glanced at the fabric before dropping it in the bag. “It’s just a damn bandana.”

Vega released a breath, muttering, “Shit.”

“It might be a private marker that only the killer would recognize. It’s not uncommon for a killer to return to a burial site,” Gage explained.

“Why would he come back? You’d think they’d just stay clear.”

“They come out of remorse or even to relive the thrill of death.”

“Damn, didn’t think it was anything more than a bit of trash.”

Gage sealed the bag. “That just happened to be next to an unmarked gravesite?”

“Yep.”

Gage shook his head. “You find anything else in this area?”

“Nope.”

“What about your men?”

“Doubt it, but go ahead and ask. They’re getting paid to do nothing right now.”

Gage glanced at Vega. “You mind?”

“No, I’ll go talk to them.”

“Who from forensics is coming?” Gage asked.

“Tess Kier,” Vega said.

“Good.” Tess Kier had worked on the forensics team for the last three years. She was sharp. All business. She had a brother on SWAT and another on the homicide team. Normally, forensics was first on the scene. Homicide followed hours later. Tess would be irked that they’d gotten here first.

Miller planted scuffed hands on his wide hips. “Don’t suppose if I stay out of your way I can get to work on the Thornton cemetery?”

Gage smiled at the guy, admiring his balls. “No. You’re closing up shop today.”

“Figured as much.”

Gage pulled off his sunglasses and studied the disturbed earth. “You said you found two mounds.”

“That’s right.” Miller stretched out his thick arm. “See the land just about three feet to the left of the hole?”

“Yes.” Gage could make out a rectangular patch that was just a few inches deeper than the land around it. There was also a second depression in the center.

“When a body is put in the ground, it’s solid. As it breaks down, decomposes, the flesh that had been supporting the soil vanishes. So the soil drops. And see in the center of the rectangle the soil is compressed even more?”

Gage nodded. “That’s the belly. It expanded upward with the decomposition gases and then collapsed.”

“Right, I guess you would know about that.” All that shifting up and down cracked the earth. A body also affected the vegetation, which tended to be weedier and thinner in the decomposition zone.

“And you searched this entire area?” Vega said.

“I searched along the fence and the open area twice.”

“What equipment do you use?”

“A little ground radar. Handheld stuff.”

“And nothing unusual?”

“No. I found eleven bodies, as expected.”

“Even the oldest graves? I’d have thought by now they’d have disintegrated.”

Miller nodded. “Would be true for a wooden coffin. But these folks had money. Coffins are iron. Intact.”

Gage slid his hands into his pockets. The guy was pretty damn thorough. “That it?”

Miller pulled off his hat and drove his round fingers through his thinning red hair. “I better go talk to my men and then talk to Ms. Barrington.”

“Don’t worry about Ms. Barrington. I’ll fill her in on the situation.”

Miller nodded. “Sure.”

Gage watched the man walk away. Miller reminded Gage of his own father: small town, knew all his neighbors, and had no desire to ever leave.

“You think it’s Minor?” Vega spoke loud enough for only Gage to hear.

Gage glanced toward the road that led to the main house. “Assuming always gets me into trouble. Let’s wait for some facts before we start theorizing.”

The crunch of tire over gravel had them all turning to catch the arrival of the Henrico County white forensics van, which parked just beyond Gage’s car closer to the site.

The driver’s side door opened and a leggy brunette slid out. Tess Kier. She wore a blue jumpsuit and her hair in a loose ponytail.

Vega stared at Tess, his admiration clear.

“She moves like an athlete,” Gage said.

“She was a swimmer in college. Division one. Qualified for the U.S. Olympic team.”

“Impressive.”

“Smart as hell, too, but don’t tell her I said that. I try to be obnoxious. I want her to think I don’t like her.”

“Vega, this isn’t middle school.”

Vega shrugged.

Tess moved toward them with purpose. She had a straightforward attitude that had won her a good deal of respect. Meticulous, she protected her crime scenes like a mother hen.

“So what do we have?” Her voice was husky. “I hear you have a skeleton.”

Vega nodded. “Maybe two.”

Gage always knew where he stood with Tess. It was black and white with her. He didn’t always like what she had to say, but he respected her. Adrianna Barrington was a different matter. She was awash in grays and he suspected kept many secrets locked away. “Let me show you.”

Tess grabbed her camera from the van and snapped pictures as she closed in on the site. “I’m gonna need a list of people who’ve been around the grave.”

“Can do,” Gage said.

“That includes shoe imprints, fingerprints, maybe even hair samples.” She snapped more pictures and then peered into the hole. “Human. Who dug it up?”

Gage gave her the recap.

Tess frowned, her displeasure clear. “That’s too bad.”

Vega folded his arms over his chest. “If not for them, we’d not have anything.”

“Yeah, I know.” But she didn’t look appeased. “I’m not an expert on this but I do know that excavating a body is a slow process. Hand shovels and small brushes kind of slow. God only knows what they’ve wrecked with their boots and shovels.”

“You think you can handle this job?” Gage said.

Tess shook her head. “Honestly? No. I’ve never done it before and you’re better off with a forensic anthropologist like Dr. Alex Butler.”

“He works in the medical examiner’s office,” Vega said.

“Yeah. But he’s got more degrees than I can count and worked in Hawaii with the government identifying the remains of U.S. soldiers. Long story short, he knows this kind of stuff.”

Gage reached for the cell clipped to his belt. He dialed the medical examiner’s office and within minutes was connected to Dr. Butler. He explained the situation, heard the rustle of papers and finally Dr. Butler’s commitment to be there as soon as he could.

He closed his phone. “I’m anxious to get the body excavated. It might connect to a missing persons case I worked a couple of years ago. And if not mine, someone else’s.”

“We’ll move as fast as we can.” But she didn’t look the least bit rushed. “As soon as I shoot the area and check the immediate crime scene for anything out of the ordinary, Dr. Butler should arrive. But I’ll warn you again, it’s going to be a slow process. I don’t know what we’ll find when he starts stripping away the dirt. Better to treat this like an archeology site.”

Gage thought about the bandana and held it up for her. “This was found hanging on the fence by the grave.”

Tess’s lips flattened. “And handled by how may people?”

“Just the foreman, Billy Miller, from what I can tell.”

“Great.” She took the plastic bag.

Tess shot dozens of more pictures from multiple angles. She pulled out her sketchpad and did a rough drawing of the area.

Gage scanned the crowd of construction workers. His gaze landed on the slight man who stood hovering by a tree. Dr. Heckman, who had a keen interest in the whole process. Gage moved toward him. “What are you still doing here, Dr. Heckman?”

Dr. Heckman flipped a silver coin in his hand. “I wanted to be sure I didn’t miss anything.”

“Like what?”

“I want to make sure those graves stay in the ground.”

“That so?”

“Andrew Thornton, who is buried in that cemetery, was a colonel in the Confederate Army. He died at the battle of Chancellorsville, 1863. Great, great man. I’ve read diary accounts of his funeral and we believe he was buried in an iron coffin. Next to him will be his wife Eleanor. Another accomplished woman. They deserve to be left in peace.”

Gage rested his hand on his hip. “I never did like the idea of messing with the dead. Leave ’em in peace is what I say.”

Dr. Heckman arched a brow. “My thoughts exactly. I just wish I could convince Ms. Barrington that what she’s doing is wrong.”

Gage kept his tone even. “I’d hate to think someone was going to dig me up one day and poke around my remains. I say, just leave me the hell alone.” He reached in his coat pocket and pulled out a pack of gum. He offered one to Dr. Heckman and when he declined, unwrapped a piece as he slid the package back in his pocket.

Dr. Heckman bristled. “That’s what I’ve been telling her.”

Gage noted the way the man fiddled with the coin. “So how long have you had an interest in this property?”

“Since I met Mrs. Thornton, Mrs. Frances Thornton, about ten years ago. I shared her love of this family. She’d be ill if she saw what was happening here today.”

“Mr. Mazur wants the graves removed.”

“She didn’t have to sell to him.” There was menace behind the mothballs.

“You think Ms. Barrington has any idea who is in that grave?”

“I think her conscience is troubled.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve noticed a lot about Ms. Barrington.” Gage kept his voice even, but he could see that the guy had a thing for Adrianna.

Dr. Heckman straightened. “She’s a beautiful woman. She’s an easy woman to watch.” He flipped the coin faster in his hand.