“Seems to be the wrong side of... I don’t know.” Jackson shrugged. “But, hey, I have no family here. Who am I to judge, hm?” he murmured.
Angela laughed softly. “As you tell me, we are all entitled to our opinions, so long as we don’t attempt to force them on others. So, I’ll say it. It’s creepy.” She frowned suddenly, noting that the great metal doors to the mausoleum weren’t locked—they weren’t even fully closed.
“Jackson?” she called.
“Ahead of you,” he said and was already moving forward.
She wasn’t sure why she felt the way she did. She had worked in law enforcement in one way or another her entire adult life. She was a capable agent and armed, and she was an expert with her Glock.
But she was glad Jackson was with her. Of course, she loved her husband. More, she respected him as an agent and as a human being. Even more than that, though, she couldn’t imagine anyone she’d rather have at her back. It was an extraordinary situation with the Krewe of Hunters. Agents often wound up with other agents as their spouses and partners, which the bureau didn’t accept in most situations. But the Krewe, under Adam’s assistant directorship with Jackson as the supervising field agent, was a different creature altogether. Their gifts—or curses—were strange and difficult to share since only a percentage of the population was born with such strange abilities.
No one ever said publicly—or even privately to others who weren’t in on the minuscule spectrum of those born with the ability to speak with the dead—that the deceased helped with their cases.
They’d be laughed out of usefulness.
And Jackson was also determined that such things never be twisted to injure truth and justice. Half Indigenous, he was a passionate student of history. With the early witch trials, the dead had been helpful. And Jackson was extremely appreciative that they still were to this day.
But they could not testify in court. That was reserved for the living and restricted to good investigative work—how to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a criminal was guilty.
The Krewe members were law enforcement; they were not judge and jury.
“Wait up!” Angela called. Jackson was tall, an imposing man and striking with the ink-dark hair of his father’s people and his mother’s deep blue eyes. He could also move like the wind.
Angela was shorter and slimmer, but fast as a whip herself when she chose to be. She almost crashed into his back as they reached the doors.
Her phone rang before Jackson had a chance to grasp the brass handles and pull open the giant, carved metal door.
“Hang on. It’s Kat,” she said, answering the call.
Kat and Will were among the original six members of the Krewe of Hunters. Before joining, Kat had been a medical examiner. She was still their on-call person when they encountered mysteries concerning a death.
“This is absurd!” Kat said. “Will and I have been all over this place. I’ve seen ghosts, ghouls, witches, bats, black cats, werewolves, slasher demons, you name it. Still, we dug a bit where we noticed some disturbed earth. Referring to the map we were given, all those plots received recent burials. We checked mausoleums and crypts, and all were securely locked. Which may not mean anything. Still, I hate to say it, but I might have to agree with the local police on this one. The young lady so sure she saw a murderer might have been the victim of a prank—or her imagination. I just spoke with Colleen and Mark. They are turning up nothing. Anything your way?”
“Not sure,” Angela told her. “We’re at the Robertson mausoleum. You must be near us. We’re almost dead-center of the triangle. The doors here weren’t locked. We were about to go in to check and see—”
Angela broke off. Jackson had thrown open the double metal doors, which allowed her to see within the crypt.
The odor that emerged from the tomb was the first warning.
Daylight was truly dying. Shades of the coming night—weakening golds, mauves, and grays—fell over the contents of the crypt.
One fine mahogany coffin was in the center on a dais. Bronze lettering honored Ethan Robertson, the Revolutionary hero for whom the crypt had first been constructed. One of the two coffins set just off-center commemorated the most recent death, that of the man’s descendant, Joseph Robertson.
Catacomb-like shelves on either side of the room contained countless bodies—some in coffins, others in shrouds.
The natural contents of a tomb built over two hundred years ago.
But three scarecrow-like figures hung from the catacomb shelving to the right of the tomb. Figures strung up with heavy wire, all with jackets stuffed with straw and wearing strange hats.
But faces peered out from beneath the head coverings.
Features on bodies in various stages of decomposition.
Fresh corpses that were real—one with open eyes that seemed to stare at Angela with tearful and desperate appeal.
Too late.
As the scent of death and rot continued to assail her, Angela knew the scarecrows in the tomb were anything but Halloween decorations.
“Angela. Angela, are you there?” Kat’s voice came to her over the phone.
“I’m here,” she whispered but then took a breath and found her voice. “And we need you here, too. Along with your medical expertise.”
“Um... it’s a cemetery.”
“No, Kat. We’ve got some newly dead.”
* * * *
Kat was one of the best medical examiners Jackson had ever known, and she now used her knowledge as an agent of the Krewe. She was the only member of their number who had first been a medical examiner. While Philip Law also had a medical degree, his was in psychiatry. His knowledge of the human mind, along with his extra talents, often helped in dealing with the criminal element.
But even with Kat at the cemetery to give them her best preliminary findings, Jackson immediately called in the city and county law enforcement and then briefed Adam.
Night fell as FBI forensic teams arrived, along with a second and third medical examiner. As they turned the site over to those with the forensic skills, Jackson and Angela headed into headquarters. It was time for his wife to perform her research magic. Kat naturally stayed behind, and Will, Mark, and Colleen would also stay until the forensic teams had finished for the evening.
“In Kat’s estimation, John Doe number one has been in the tomb for approximately three months. Jane Doe has been there one month, and John Doe two was most likely killed last night. Kat believes the cause of death was exsanguination, while the method was a knife,” Angela said. “No ID on the victims, and no clothing to trace. The corpses were wearing strange scarecrow costumes.”
“When was the last interment in the mausoleum?” Jackson asked. “I know about the article in which Benjamin Robertson talked about decorating the cemetery for the holidays, but I don’t recall seeing the exact date that his father was interred.”
Angela looked up from her computer. “He was laid to rest about the same time our first John Doe is presumed to be killed and set up in the tomb. Which makes his son and now owner of the vault, Benjamin Robertson, a suspect. Then again, is it too obvious? Unless he wanted to be caught.”
“Someone wanted them found. The vault wasn’t locked,” Jackson noted.