Unhallowed Ground (21 page)

Sarah paused in her reading. What wonderful—if dark—insights into what life in St. Augustine had been like at the time. Was it skewed? Of course—everyone saw the world through their own eyes. But it was still wonderful information to add to her growing store.

She started reading again.

The authorities denied that the women were ever found, Nellie Brennan had written in her diary, but they were and are such liars. But I know the truth. Because I saw the body of Susan Madison.

M
indy Marshall was just getting out of a yoga class.

Caleb had found her schedule in the case file and headed to the gym, which was right on the plaza, to find her. He was waiting in the hallway, watching through the studio window as the class ended, and he knew who she was right away from her photograph.

Mindy was a pretty, slim brunette with large dark eyes, and she must have sensed that he was waiting for her, but she seemed in no hurry to come out and see what he wanted. Finally, though, as the students for the next class started arriving, with one sneaker still untied, she came out, and to her credit, she didn’t try to evade him.

“Are you another cop?” she asked him, tying the second sneaker and looking up at him.

“No.”

“But you’re here for me, right?” she asked warily.

“Yes. My name is Caleb Anderson. I’m a private investigator, and I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“You must be here about Winona,” she said miserably. “That body in the water…was it her?”

“It wasn’t Winona,” he said. “But the thing is, Mindy, something terrible does seem to be going on around here. I’m trying to find another young woman who disappeared about a year ago, as well as Winona. And the woman in the water…we need to find out what happened to her, too, and whether there’s a connection. Can you think of anything from that night that might help me out? ”

She shook her head, sad and confused. “We told the cops everything….” She hesitated, looking around. “I know Nigel told you about the booze and pot—but just pot, nothing stronger. It was a big party. Winona was there, and then she wasn’t. Where she went, if she left with somebody…I don’t know how. If I did, I swear I would tell you. She was one of my best friends.”

“Listen, there’s a coffee shop right next door. Can I get you something? I can tell you what I know already, and you can tell me anything else you remember. Even something small could end up being a big help.”

“Yeah, all right. They have herbal tea. The body is a shrine, you know.”

He smiled at her. “Herbal tea—and beer and pot?”

“Hey, pot is an herb,” she told him.

He laughed and led her next door. As soon as he opened the door for her, she headed straight for the counter and placed her order for an orange-infused chamomile tea, and then asked him if it would be all right if she got a cherry Danish, as well. He told her she was welcome to anything behind the counter and ordered coffee for himself.

The minute they were seated, she started wolfing down the Danish.

She worshipped the temple of her body in a strange way—a teenage way—he decided.

“So what else can I tell you?” she asked him, washing down the Danish with a big gulp of tea. “I have the feeling you know the story already.”

“You, Winona and Nigel got there first. You were bringing the cooler and…other things.”

She nodded. “Nigel drove. He has an old Xterra.”

“You guys built a bonfire—and then a woman came out of the woods.”

She finally smiled at him. “You’re asking about the weird old hippie? I forgot all about her ’til Nigel reminded me.”

“She was old?”

“Sure.”

“How old? Fifty? Eighty?”

“No, no, not that old. I don’t know. Thirties? Forties? She was wearing a long flowing skirt, a bandana and huge sunglasses. She looked like she walked out of that old comedy show.
Laugh-In.
That’s the one.”

Mindy took another bite of her Danish, then looked at him, frowning. “She was thin, too. I remember that. Trust me—Winona could have taken her. Besides, she was just a kook. She told us she was a medium and lived someplace where tons of mediums live, Castle-something.”

“Cassadaga?” he asked.

“Yeah, that’s it! Cassadaga. You know it?” she asked him.

“It’s a spiritualist town. I think the people who live there are sincere, that they believe in their abilities to read palms and cards and even people.”

“Whatever,” Mindy said. “Well, Winona loved horror movies and ghost stories and stuff like that. She wanted someone to prove that stuff to her, though. Like, she thought most everyone was a fake. She wasn’t rude to the woman, really, but she kind of suggested that
she
was a fake, too. Then the woman said something to her, right into her ear….” She stopped speaking, frowning in concentration. “I couldn’t hear what they said, and then Nigel asked me to watch the fire and I told him he was idiot, because the fire was fine. And by then Winona and the woman seemed to be getting along okay, and the woman left right afterwards. Oh! I remember one more thing about her. She was wearing these long black lace gloves.”

“Gloves, huh?”

“Could that be important?”

“Maybe. Little details matter a lot. You’re sure she said she was from Cassadaga?”

“Positive. Once you said it…yes, I’m positive. And I can prove it. I think. She gave Winona and me business cards. Except that…” She paused, her brow wrinkling. “I don’t know what I did with mine.”

Caleb’s hand tightened around his coffee cup, and he tried not to swear, just kept his voice level and asked, “Do you remember her name?”

“Um…Betty? Wait, no, it was an M name. Missy? Mary? Oh, no, no! It was Martha.” She flushed with pleasure. “Martha! That was it, I’m sure.”

“Did Martha have a last name?”

“Well, of course.”

He tried to remember that she was young.

“And do you remember her last name?” he asked.

“Um…”

“Do you remember what letter it started with?” he asked, trying to nudge her memory.

“No, but…it was a president’s name,” she told him. “I remember that, because last fall, Mr. Bayley, our history teacher, was upset because he said no one bothers to learn history anymore, not even the names of the presidents.”

“Which president?” he asked, praying for patience.

“Oh, God, um…”

“Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison…Monroe?”

“No, no.” She shook her head.

“Recent president? Old president?” He was trying to remember all the past presidents himself.

She shook her head. “He had some kind of a slogan, though. I remember we laughed about that.”

“‘Tippecanoe and Tyler, too’?”

“Oh, my God!” she exclaimed. “You know the slogan! That was it. Tyler.”

“You’re sure? Martha Tyler, and she was from Cassadaga?” he asked.

She nodded and he thanked her for her time, then rose to leave. He glanced at his watch. He wasn’t sure how long it would take to drive to Cassadaga, but he was determined to get there as quickly as possible. First, however, he called information to find out if there was a listing there for Martha Tyler.

There was.

He punched the number into his cell and waited.

Martha Tyler answered on the third ring, and he
noticed immediately that she had a pleasant voice, melodious, low and soothing. Perfect for a medium looking to get people to trust her.

He made an appointment to meet her in an hour and a half.

Sarah felt chilled as she sat and read in the General’s Room, which had always seemed so comfortable and welcoming. But today it was as if a blanket of cold had settled over her, so chilling that she didn’t want to keep reading—but she had to. Whatever the truth turned out to be, she had to know it.

They didn’t know I was there—my father, or the Union officer who was the acting sheriff. It was Sergeant Lee who had brought her in; he had come up the side drive, in a small wagon. I heard them talking down in the library and I don’t know why, but I crept down the stairs. When they went out to look at the body, I followed them, keeping my distance and lurking in the shadows.

Sergeant Lee pulled back a tarp, and I could tell he was angry. They were arguing—my father was angry, too. He didn’t want anything to do with whoever—whatever—was under the tarp.

They kept arguing, and then Sergeant Lee covered the back of the wagon with the tarp again.

I hurried back inside the mudroom and hid behind a rack of coats. I suppose I was being an ostrich, thinking that I could hide there, for surely the men would see my feet.

But they didn’t. They were still talking, but in hushed tones, and they were so intent on one another that they didn’t even notice me. “I won’t have it. I’m telling you, I won’t have it,” Sergeant Lee told my father. “It’s bad enough that half the town is spying for the damn Rebs. That’s why these girls are disappearing. They’re running to the Rebs like a pack of harlots, hoping that any little bit of information will earn them a man. This is one incident. One incident.”

“If the body is found, they’ll just say that she was killed by the Reb who owns this place,” my father argued. “It will be blamed on Cato MacTavish—he will be branded a murderer. The truth will come out.”

Sergeant Lee stared at my father and said, “Really? Because this girl was seen after he skedaddled out of here to rejoin his regiment. So it would have been hard as hell for the bastard to kill her, since he was long gone.”

My father swore and said he would open up the back door and they would haul the body in through the same door they used for household supplies. My father said, “Don’t you see Mactavish is still out there—somewhere.”

Sargeant Lee snorted his disbelief, but said nothing.

As soon as they headed down the hall to open the door, I ran back outside. “I couldn’t help myself. I was horrified and frightened, but I had to see. I don’t know why. Because I will never forget, and
I will never be free from the nightmares that have haunted me in the weeks ever since that night.

I reached the wagon and hauled myself up to see inside the bed, and then I lifted the tarp.

She was dead, and I thought I was about to give myself away by screaming, but somehow I managed to keep quiet. I almost fell off the wagon, though, I was so stunned.

But I didn’t. I had to see more of her. I was both repelled and fascinated, as if I were caught in a terrible dream.

Her name was Susan Madison, and she was so beautiful—had been so beautiful. Her face was unmarred. In the moonlight, it looked as if she were a porcelain doll. But then I saw her throat. It was nearly nonexistent, and I thought instantly that there should be blood, with such a gaping hole. It looked almost as if an animal had ripped out her throat. And yet the face…

It was so perfect. White. Eerily white. A doll’s face. She was a doll, beautiful—and empty.

I pulled the tarp farther back. And I saw what had been done to her.

I did fall from the wagon then, but somehow I kept myself from screaming, afraid that if they knew what I had seen, the same thing would happen to me.

Not only was her throat a red horror, but she was covered in dirt, as if she had come out of the ground. I could only think that her face was so perfect and white only because the sergeant had
cleaned her up in an attempt to discern her identity. But it was more than the filthy condition of the body that was so disturbing. She looked…gnawed, as if consumed by wild beasts. She had no fingers on one hand, and a chunk of her midriff was entirely gone. Her legs had been worked upon as if they were turkey drumsticks.

I managed to get myself up. And still I never let loose the scream that seemed to echo in my mind, terrified and shrill.

I lived in a mortuary. I had seen dead bodies before.

But never—never—anything like this.

I heard the door opening, and ran to hide in the bushes by the side of the house, my heart thundering. I was terrified.

I couldn’t help feeling that I was in danger of ending up like that poor girl.

My father was still complaining to the sergeant for bringing the body to him.

“You can make her look beautiful. She deserves a proper funeral, and her family deserves to be able to mourn her.”

“Sergeant Lee, you’re mad! Why did you bring her here? Why didn’t you leave her where you found her?” my father protested. “Better she had stayed in the dirt, stayed missing! What if someone insists on digging her up again? What if they discover our deception?”

“I chose not to leave her because—someone else would have discovered her. Stop worrying.
No one will question her death. Doctor Howard, the old souse, has already signed a death certificate. She was struck by a carriage and left by the road. Don’t you understand me? Her death must be seen as a tragic accident. The work of a coward who left a girl dead in the streets, rather than admit he had struck her. If the truth were to come out, the city would erupt. There would be slaughter of an entirely different kind if the populace were to discover that there is a killer in our midst—and we have not the slightest idea of who he is or what sickness drives him to his atrocities. You will do this, and you will do it right, or I will see to it that you are run out of this town. Get that witch of a housekeeper of yours to mix up a few potions so that she looks good. Start tonight. I must go and inform this poor girl’s family.”

My father was angry; furious. But Sergeant Lee was a powerful man. Watching them together, I felt ill. It was as if they knew things about each other that created a strange bond between them. They weren’t friends, but there was a connection binding them. I waited in silence as they picked up the body, still wrapped in the tarp, and carried it to the back door. Still I didn’t move. I didn’t dare.