Mary Jane's Grave (15 page)

The entire next week wasn’t much better. With the girls back, I told them that Michael was out of town for work. I needed to get myself mentally stronger so I could be there for them when I gave them the bad news. Two days after finding the Melissa Drake murder file, I was served with a notice that stated my appearance at the depositions was no longer needed; they were canceled. I guess Vanessa kept her word. I couldn’t help wondering if they were back together. That thought alone sent me into emotional chaos.

Needless to say, having the girls around was rather therapeutic since I couldn’t fall onto the floor in a poignant mess when they were there. I learned to control my feelings a little better, like the old days. Michael had yet to call and make arrangements to pick up the rest of his things. I began to wonder if he ever would. I knew he despised every part of me and probably didn’t want to come back here. That hurt.

Naomi and Coop treated me like a fragile china doll. They were constantly asking me if I was okay and stopping by my house. I assumed they thought if they didn’t check on me every five minutes, they’d find me hanging in my garage. I told them they were being ridiculous, but they knew how Michael and I felt about each other, and they knew what we had been through.

It was near the second week after Michael left that Danielle Horton called me. She wanted to come in and talk. She said she remembered some other things about the night she was attacked. I didn’t get too excited because I anticipated more ghost stories. I was partially right.

When Danielle came to see me, she looked much better than she had the night in the hospital. Her head was almost healed, as well as the burns. She said the doctors told her the burns would definitely leave scars, but they weren’t painful anymore. When she began to tell me what she remembered, she appeared very uncomfortable, wringing her hands and playing with her hair.

“I don’t know if this means anything, Sergeant, but I was taking a shower last night and I totally remembered that when I was on the trail, I saw someone standing in the woods.” She blew out a highly audible sigh of relief that she was able to tell me.

“Are you sure it wasn’t one of your friends?” I asked.

One chubby hand went directly to stroke her hair. “No, I mean, I’m positive it wasn’t, because this guy, or person, was soooo tall. I mean, like, huge. None of my friends come close to that.”

She was onto something, I’d give her that. She most likely was describing the person whose footprint that I had in a plaster cast locked away in evidence.

“Danielle, do you remember anything else about him? Did you see his face, clothing, anything?”

She shook her head. “It was dark. I just saw, like, the outline of him. Ya know what I mean?”

I had a thought. “If I drove you down there could you show me exactly where you saw him standing?” Maybe I could get another print and match it.

She shook her head aggressively. “I can’t go back there, Sergeant. I’m sorry! I haven’t told you the rest of it yet!”

“I’m listening.”

“You’re gonna think I’m crazy, but”—if I heard someone say that one more time, I believe I might be the one ending up in a straitjacket—“after I blacked out I remember waking up for a few seconds, and I was actually standing on my feet.” She drew in a deep breath. “I was disoriented, ya know, confused, and I heard something behind me. Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I’m telling you this, but when I turned around…” She began to cry. “There was a lady behind me!”

She cried for a little while until I prodded her to continue. I put my pen down, knowing I was about to hear about the woman in white again.

“Sh-she was standing less than two feet from me, and her eyes, her eyes were red!” She sniffled.

“Danielle, what do you mean they were red?” I tried not to sound disbelieving, even though I was.

“You know when you break blood vessels in your eyes? Kinda like that, except it was the entire eye, both eyes!” She put her hands up to her face for just a second. “The next thing I remember, she reached out and grabbed my neck, and her hand, her hand was all black and burned, and you could see the bone!”

“Then what?”

“That was the last thing I remember until I woke up in the hospital. I suppose I could’ve imagined it, right?”

“Most likely, Danielle. You were scared anyway, being at the grave. The mind does funny things to people, but you’re sure about the man in the woods?”

She nodded.

“I’d really like you to go down there and show me,” I said before she could protest. “Danielle, I’m a police officer. Nothing is going to happen to you there. And if it makes you feel any better, we can take more police officers with us. You want to find out who did this, don’t you?”

She gave a slight nod.

I had three uniformed officers meet us at the grave. I would’ve had other detectives go, but I think seeing officers in uniform and their marked police cars was far more comforting.

It was evident that Danielle was edgy while at the cemetery. She kept looking back at the officers, making sure they were still there. She wasn’t quite sure where the trail was but found it near the back, behind the large pine tree. I hadn’t even known it was there. We had walked about twenty feet on the trail, into the thick overgrown woods, when Danielle pointed to her right.

“There, over there by that tree. That’s where I think he was standing.”

I tried to make my way over to the tree without getting pricked to death, but the woods were full of briars. I was a bloody mess by the time I walked the entire five feet. It was clear around the tree, but I saw nothing. It had rained considerably over the last few days, so any prints most likely got washed away. My legs and hands took a beating for nothing, but I remained hopeful regardless.

As we were leaving the cemetery, Danielle muttered something that made me slam on my brakes and look at her.

“What did you just say, Danielle?”

“I just said I’m gonna start spending my weekends at church instead of here, that’s all. I was just kidding.”

I had a brainstorm. All the attacks had happened on weekend nights, and we were a week away from Halloween.

“Danielle, can you call your friends and have them come, with their parents if need be, to the police department?” I asked eagerly.

“I suppose.” She looked suspicious. “Why?”

“I’ll tell you shortly.”

I had to hurry if I was going to organize my plan. It was late afternoon already. Once back in my office, I called Coop and Naomi. They sensed the anxiety in my voice and came into my office immediately.

“What’s going on? Did you come up with a suspect or something?” Coop asked.

“Nope. We’re going to bait him.” I waited for their response.

They looked perplexed. Naomi spoke first. “Bait who?”

“The suspect, or suspects.”

She looked irritated. “CeeCee, please tell me what you’re talking about since you lost me the minute I came in here.”

“Every attack and murder has happened on a weekend. Today is the Friday before Halloween.” They weren’t getting it yet. “I’ve called Danielle and her friends down here to help us bait this guy. We’re going to station ourselves around the cemetery, incognito of course, while they drive in and pretend to party like they did before.” I waited to see if they caught on. Coop did first.

“I get it. You’re assuming the suspect will be there to -night watching for cars. So we can catch him if we send one in, right?”

“Exactly.”

Naomi pondered this for a while, taking a seat in front of my desk. Ultimately, as captain she had to give the final approval.

“You realize the chances of this guy, or whoever, being there and us catching him are slim to none, right? I mean, anyone, I don’t care how bright they are, would anticipate something like this, wouldn’t ya say?”

I nodded. “It’s at least worth a shot. We can have the road blocked off at Pleasant Valley and Hastings East Road to keep other cars from showing up down there. From what I understand, they’re disregarding the gates that were put up from Kari’s murder. They won’t drive past a marked cruiser, though, so at least we can control this.”

She stood up. “All right, I’ll pull the other detectives together. Plan on meeting in the conference room in half an hour for a briefing, and bring the list of equipment you’ll need.”

I quickly drew a sketch of the cemetery and marked where I needed detectives placed. I made copies for everyone. Next, I had to confirm that Danielle and the others were willing to participate, a small tidbit I hadn’t shared with Naomi. After serious coercion and promises that their children would go home in one piece, the parents and teens agreed.

The plan was that they would drive down to the cemetery close to midnight, park their car and get out with what appeared to be a case of beer. Of course, they would be drinking from empty beer cans. They would simply act like they were having a good time. Meanwhile, the other detectives and I would be situated throughout the woods with camcorders, night- vision goggles, advanced audio recording equipment and most importantly, our guns and handcuffs.

After the briefing, we were getting ready to leave when I had a moment in my office, simply standing and staring at the wall, thinking of Michael. Naomi came in and saw it.

“CeeCee? You okay?” she said quietly. “Have you heard from Michael?”

I broke out of my stare and sighed. “I’m functioning, barely, if that’s what you mean, and no I haven’t, nor do I expect to ever hear from him again.”

She narrowed her eyes and looked like she was going to say something, but decided against it before turning around to leave. When she got to the door she stopped, but kept her back to me.

“You know, CeeCee, things have a funny way of working themselves out…trust me on that.” Her voice was still quiet, barely above a whisper. “I’ll meet you outside.”

I knew she meant well, but this was one of those things that couldn’t possibly work itself out. Michael and I were done, and I was slowly beginning to accept that, although I didn’t feel that I would ever be completely over it. With my heart heavy, I grabbed my bag of equipment and went outside to meet the others.

We were at the grave almost five hours before Danielle and her friends were due to arrive. That gave us time to set up and, with luck, maybe the suspect would show up early to do the same. It took us two hours to get situated and put everyone in place, and another three hours of sitting there in the dark woods, freezing. That was three hours of me wondering what Michael was doing. My conclusion was always the same: he was with Vanessa. Coop, who was next to me, noticed I was distracted.

“C’mon, CeeCee, you need to stay focused to night,” he whispered.

I nodded and tried to shake the visions out of my head. It didn’t work, but seeing the oncoming headlights of Danielle’s car did. I sat straight up, anticipating and ready for anything.

“Here we go,” I whispered to Coop.

I radioed to the other detectives that the car had arrived, and to keep their eyes and ears open. Coop and I were at the edge of the woods where the road ended. Danielle pulled her car right up to the gate, so Coop and I had to duck to avoid being spotlighted.

They all piled out of the car, whooping and hollering and passing around beer, just as we had instructed them to do. One of the first problems was that they started blasting the car stereo, some type of reggae- rap-dance mix. We wouldn’t be able to hear anything. Coop didn’t seem to mind, though. He did a slight, jerky movement that fairly resembled the dance of the Scarecrow in the
Wizard of Oz.
I couldn’t help giggling.

“What the hell was
that?
” I whispered loudly.

“It’s called crunking. You need to brush up on your moves, girlfriend,” he whispered back.

“I know what crunking is, and that wasn’t even close. That was more like the hillbilly crank,” I chuckled.

“Very funny.”

I tried to get serious again. “They need to turn that goddamn music down. I can’t hear anything.”

As if she heard me, Danielle slowly walked over to her car and turned the music off completely. She also turned her car off and grabbed three fully charged flashlights that we had provided and passed them out to her friends. They began walking toward the large pine tree that loomed over the rest of the cemetery. I was too far away to hear much of what they were saying.

They all stood around the tree in a circle, and began to act out a mock séance, something else we had planned. I was sure if anything were to happen to night, it would happen in the next several minutes. The teens were holding hands and mumbling, with a few giggles in between, “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary.”

This went on for five minutes before they stopped, obviously under the impression that it wasn’t working. They continued to hang out and pretend to drink beer and tell ghost stories. Naomi radioed it was time to call it quits since there was nothing to indicate the suspect was here. Coop let out a low whistle, a sign to Danielle that it was time to leave. As the teens were gathering the beer cans off the ground and heading to Danielle’s car, something happened.

I wasn’t in a position to see what she was looking at, but one of the girls with Danielle stopped walking and turned to look at the woods to her right. What followed was a scream that made my hair stand up on end. All the teens dropped their flashlights, leaving the cemetery in complete darkness, and started running in different directions. All of them were yelling and screaming.

Naomi was screaming too, on the radio, telling us to move in. I went to grab Coop, but he was gone. Over the sounds of the screams and yells I heard something I couldn’t possibly believe. It began low and gradually got louder until it hurt my ears. It was a baby crying. I was spinning my flashlight around trying to see where it was coming from when I heard something behind me. I turned around to see what it was and my flashlight went dead.

In a flash, I saw a shadow move to my right. Hearing the leaves and sticks break, I knew it was a person, and not one from our party. Everyone else was in the cemetery trying to get the teens together and calmed down. As the sound moved away from me I gave chase.

The faster I ran, so did the person in front of me. He or she knew the woods, no doubt about it. He was zigzagging back and forth through the trees and briars. I tried to keep up, but since I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face, I had to rely on sound alone, and it wasn’t working. Branches and briars scratched my face and arms, and when I finally felt a large briar bush catch me in the leg, I knew I couldn’t go any farther without tearing a patch of skin off. I stopped, but I heard the running continue in front of me until it completely faded away.

“CeeCee!” I heard Coop yell from a distance.

“I’m over here!”

When Coop made his way to me, I grabbed his flashlight and looked at my leg, which was caught and bleeding.

“Ouch! Jesus! Your face is all scratched up. What the hell were you doing?” Coop asked as he began to delicately pull the briar branch from my leg.

“I was chasing our suspect, that’s what!”

“You were?”

I told Coop about my relatively short foot pursuit and he was irritated at himself.

“Damn it, I knew I should’ve stayed back here with you! I’d have caught the fucker.”

Coop and I walked back to the cemetery and to the commotion of all the teens. The girls were crying, and the boys looked rattled. Naomi was trying to figure out what exactly happened. The girl who I saw look behind her was the first to speak.

“When we were walking to the car, I heard something, and I turned around to look. At first I thought it was fog, and then the harder I looked at it, it looked like some old lady! It scared the shit out of me!” she cried.

“Did anyone else see it?” I asked.

They all shook their heads and started talking at once. When they heard their friend scream it scared them so they all started running. When they heard the baby crying they started running faster and tried to hide in their car. I asked Naomi if any of the cameras were pointed to the area where the girl claimed to have seen the woman. She shook her head.

“No, they were all on the cemetery and the edges around it. She’s talking about behind the clearing. The other detectives didn’t see anything either. We all heard the baby, though,” she whispered.

“What
was
that? A recording, maybe?” Coop asked.

“Probably, although it was high-quality sound equipment, I’ll give you that,” I said. “I’ll be anxious to listen to that again when we get back to the department. Coop, did you radio any marked cruisers to patrol where these woods end, in case the suspect comes out?”

He nodded. “They’re thick woods. I’ve already called a K-9 officer down here to see if he can pick up a track where you said you first heard him.”

We gathered the teens and took statements from them before driving each one home. By then I was tired. I decided viewing the video from to night could wait until morning. After I got home, morning came quickly. I slept very little.

It was supposed to be my day off, but I had a lot to catch up on. Selina and Isabelle were going back to Eric and Jordan’s for their week, so I decided to work for a little while after I dropped them off. I dreaded the thought of the girls being gone, because I would face the empty house again, and my emotions, for the next week.

Once in my office, I viewed the video several times. It was exactly as I remembered it. The sound of the baby crying was very clear and seemed to be coming from all around the cemetery, not just one particular area. The other detectives had already searched for hidden sound equipment or wires, but found none. After I was done with the video, I spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on paperwork and organizing the files.

On my way home, I had to fight the strong urge to call Michael. I was so tired of being tired and tired of being sad and tired of being depressed, I didn’t think I could take one more day of it.