Unhallowed Ground

“You don’t care if he sees me coming out?” he asked politely.



She shook her head, smiling.



He nodded, lowered his head, then looked at her again. “Lock the door.”



He left, and she closed and locked the door. She knew now that no one had broken in the other night, but this wasn’t the time to be taking any chances.



She spun around, still feeling ridiculously happy, as if she were walking on air, and headed for the shower. She was as quick as she could be, only towel-drying her hair before slipping into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. She was anxious to see Gary.



But when she emerged, his van was already gone. Frowning, she pulled out her cell phone and called him.



“Hey, you,” he said, answering after the first ring. “I was going to call you, but I wasn’t sure you were up yet.”



If there was any insinuation in his words, it certainly wasn’t evident.



“No, no, I was awake. I was hoping you were working again.”



“Nope, sorry. I just went in to pick up a few tools I’d left the other night. I’m assuming you’ll know before I do when it’s okay to start working on the house again.”



“I’ll get through to Tim sometime today and see what I can find out,” she promised. “Thanks, Gary. Oh, we’ve all been hanging out at Hunky Harry’s lately. Come by if you’re at loose ends.”



“Sure. Thanks,” he said, and hung up.



It was still early, too early for the library to be open. She decided to take her book around the corner to one of the cafés on the plaza and combine coffee, a decadent pastry and some research.



Along the way, she picked up the newspaper.



Body Found on Anastasia Island, the headline read.



She scanned the story while she stood in line for coffee. So far, if the police knew anything other than the top-line details, they had managed to keep it from the press. The story did immediately dispel any notion that Winona Hart might have been found.



A woman’s body was found on the beach yesterday afternoon on Anastasia Island, apparently having washed in from the sea. Preliminary reports suggest that the unknown brunette was approximately five feet tall. Age and other identifying features are still to be determined. The coroner estimates that she has been dead at least six months. The police are asking for help from anyone who might know about a missing person who fits the description and timeline.



She felt ill, reading the article. It was quite possible that three women had been abducted and killed in less than a year. There were other possible explanations, of course. The cases might not be related at all. But Caleb seemed to think they were, and she was fairly certain—and not just because she was falling for the man—that he had an instinct about such things.



She heard a strange noise, a soft sob, and looked up. A woman was standing outside the window, wearing antebellum clothing, a corseted day dress with a wide skirt over a hoop petticoat, along with a bonnet. And she was staring directly at Sarah.



She couldn’t have been the source of the sob, Sarah thought, because she wouldn’t have been able to hear the sound through the glass.



“Miss?” The man in line behind her pointed to the counter, where a barista was available.



“Sorry, thank you,” she said, stepping forward. When she looked back out the window a minute later, after giving her order, the woman was gone.



Sarah looked around the café, searching for her.



Several of the tables were in use. Three couples, an elderly man, a woman with a name tag designating the tour company she worked for. She was reading the comics page and smiling.



None of them looked likely to have been crying.



She must have heard something else and mistaken it for a sob.



And a woman in nineteenth-century costume? They were so common here that the locals never even noticed them most of the time.



Dismissing what she had seen, she took her coffee and croissant, and headed for a table.



“Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen,” Floby announced, drawing the sheet back from the corpse.



Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, Caleb thought. All things organic were meant to return to the earth. Including human bodies. Embalming was man’s last desperate measure to stave off the inevitability of mortality. It was true that an embalmed body certainly appeared more lifelike than one left to decompose naturally, though Caleb had never seen a dead person who truly looked as he had in life, and in many cases the dead might have been better off left alone.



But what was truly horrific was what the combined forces of man and nature could do to human flesh.



This young woman seemed to have been consumed in more ways than fate should have allowed. First the land creatures—worms, flies and maggots—had gone to work on her, and then she had been left to the ravages of the water and the creatures that called it home.



Her face—with much of the jaw nothing but protruding bone—seemed to have frozen into a death mask, a caricature of an artist’s rendering.



“How did she die, Floby? Have you figured that out yet?” Caleb asked. “She didn’t fall off a boat, did she?”



Floby produced a magnifying glass from the table of tools at the side of the gurney. “My best guess is that she had her throat slit. If you look closely, you can see a cut, right there, at the jugular—or it might have been a series of puncture wounds. There’s so much damage, I couldn’t swear an oath in court and say exactly what weapon killed her.” Floby paused and took a deep breath. “Basically, she was drained of blood.”



“What?” Caleb asked, frowning.



“There was no blood left in her. That’s why the body is preserved as much as it is. Usually, the drier a body, the more slowly decomposition occurs.”



Caleb was silent. Drained of blood? That was definitely an unexpected twist. Were these women being abducted and murdered ritualistically?



“You said there might have been puncture wounds. You don’t think someone is running around pretending to be a vampire, do you?”



“I’m the M.E.—you’re the investigator,” Floby said, shrugging. “But…honestly? I don’t know. I was thinking maybe you should be looking for some modern-day Countess Bathory, wanting blood in large quantities to preserve youth or beauty. All I know is that the body is in perfect condition from the murderer’s point of view. Any trace evidence—hairs, fibers—is long gone, and I can’t get anything by scraping under the nails. Even if she scratched the killer and captured his DNA, there’s nothing there anymore for me to find. Hell, so far, this is the perfect murder.”



“Thanks, Floby. I appreciate you bringing me in on this.”



Floby nodded. “Jamison doesn’t want this information out yet.”



“Then I won’t say a word. But this has been a big help. You’ve confirmed that I’ve been heading in the right direction.”



“Oh?”



“Both Jennie Lawson and Winona Hart wanted to do things that were truly creepy, to be genuinely scared. I think they looked for—and found—someone deeply into the occult in a really sick way.”



“Mind if I suggest something?” Floby asked.



“What’s that?”



“Whatever you’re going to do, do it quickly. You’ve got to find this guy.”



Caleb found himself looking down at what remained of the face of the dead woman.



“I can swear I’ll do my best.”



I hate her, Nellie Brennan had written in her diary. She is a monster, but no one else sees it. The fools keep coming to her. All because she gave Loretta Mason a potion, and then Loretta managed to get herself a husband. He has one eye and one leg, but since the war, any husband is better than no husband at all.



Reading in the General’s Room, Sarah found herself fascinated by Nellie’s stories. She might not have been the most beautiful girl in St. Augustine, but she was accomplished with her pen.



We came here during the war, when I was fourteen, and I know why. My father. He is a monster, too, of course. He told me we came to St. Augustine so he could find work—but it wasn’t the truth at all. We came here because there was a terrible scandal about my father and Mrs. Pellingham back up North, where we used to live. The gossips said they had an affair, and then Mr. Pellingham found out about it. My father took me, and we headed south. But I know the truth because I came upon my father and that witch woman, Martha Tyler. She was telling him that he was indebted to her, that if it hadn’t been for her, he would have been ruined by the Pellingham incident, so he had to do as she told him. He told her that if she didn’t behave, he would sell her to a slaver, who would put her up for auction. That’s all I heard before they must have realized they might be overheard and closed the door. Of a house that shouldn’t be ours. Poor Mr. MacTavish, who was so dignified and kind, went broke and died while his son was away fighting. I think my father never paid him for our lodging, and that hastened his death. Before that, it was Mr. MacTavish, my father and myself—and often the young lady who was to marry Mr. MacTavish’s son Cato came by to visit and play the piano. I remember when Cato MacTavish came home on leave. He was in butternut and gray, and he wore a plumed hat. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen such a handsome man. I think he wanted his father to get us out of the house. I don’t know what Eleanora said to him about my father, but Cato didn’t like him. He was kind to me, though. But then the Yankees came and occupied the city, and Cato had to rejoin his unit, lest he be caught here and killed. Eleanora disappeared then, too. They say he killed her, but I don’t believe it. He loved her so much. They were so happy together. But it’s true that she disappeared, and other girls disappeared, too. But few people had time to pay attention. There was a war. Men were dying by the hundreds on a daily basis, and people had all they could do just to stay alive.



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.