The Gravedigger's Ball (18 page)

When his time volunteering at the cemetery was completed, the man continued to come back to see the raven. Over the next year, the raven and the man bonded. There were disagreements, as evidenced by the deep gouge the raven had inflicted on the man’s left forearm, but over time, they both came to understand what they needed in order to live again. They needed the power to overcome whatever they faced, and when the man recalled Dr. Workman’s theory, he trained the raven to help him get that power. He trained the raven to help him get Lenore.

Now, as he stood on Fairmount Avenue, fresh from the execution of the first part of his plan, the man who’d trained the raven placed his hands on his hips and twisted his body, preparing for an afternoon jog. Cars passed by, and their drivers cast perfunctory glances, but none of them was suspicious. In their minds, if the man could afford the luxury of a midday jog in one of the city’s most trendy areas, he was above reproach.

As the dome lights from nearby police cars glowed red and blue in the crisp autumn air, the killer continued to warm up for his short jog, bending his neck to the left until the bones cracked loudly, then bending it to the right until they cracked again. Grabbing his left foot, he pulled his leg toward his back, and did the same with his right. Then he bent and touched his toes, holding the pose for a full ten seconds before plucking an iPod from his pocket and sticking the earplugs in his ears.

With another glance at the police cars that were gathered just blocks away, he turned and jogged east on Fairmount Avenue, running toward nearby Eastern State Penitentiary, the long-closed prison whose thick, castlelike walls had once housed Al Capone.

He jogged past the gas station and the water ice stand, beyond the bars and the restaurants, and as the autumn breeze whispered in the air around him, he turned up the volume on his iPod and listened intently to his favorite poem.

“The Raven” had opened the door to a whole new world for him. It was a world where his mind could go beyond any boundaries. It was a world where he could achieve anything he could think. It was a world where he could dominate everything around him. He simply needed to find the woman who would lead him to Poe’s secret.

He listened to the poem while he ran, his heart pounding as the reader’s voice rose and fell with the cadence of each verse. He listened to the words of love and hate, life and death, good and evil. His breath came faster as he listened to each stanza, and every time he heard the name Lenore, he got excited. Each time he heard the tortured, mournful words of love and loss, he felt energized. Each time he thought of the true meaning of that poem, he moved faster. By the time he reached the final verse, which spoke of souls and shadows, he felt almost as if his own soul had come out from the shadows. He felt almost as if he, like the raven, could fly.

With Poe’s words reverberating in his mind, he ran as the sour smell of damp earth emanated from his skin like sweat. The vacant look in his jet-black eyes seemed to harden with each step he took.

He knew Workman’s theories intimately. He’d read all the works the professor had written and had followed those who followed him. That was how he knew that Lenore Wilkinson was the seer they’d all sought. Now that she’d come to Philadelphia, he was nearing the end of his race. But Clarissa Bailey and the cop who’d gotten in his way weren’t the only obstacles he’d have to clear. There were others, and if he was to have the chance to reap the rewards he so desperately sought, they’d have to be eliminated as well.

For that reason, he ran, unconcerned with the police who were seeking him. He ran, unafraid of the fate that awaited him. He ran, believing that he could traverse the quarter mile to his waiting car without incident. This whole thing, after all, was about the power of the mind. If he believed in his mind that he could make it, then reality should bend to his will.

As he ran toward the car that would take him to his next destination, he passed the walls of Eastern State, the prison whose history of solitary confinement had been blamed for driving inmates insane. The killer didn’t know he was losing his own tenuous grip on reality. He only knew that he was going to find out what he could from the man who’d convinced him to believe.

He looked up in the sky above him and saw a familiar sight, circling and soaring on the autumn breeze. The raven’s wings were extended to their full four feet. He circled effortlessly, his wings capturing the power of the air. The man almost smiled at the sight of the raven, watching over him as the man had once watched over the bird. He saw the raven and in that split second, he forgot about the danger he faced in being outside. In the next instant, he was reminded.

A black Ford slowed as it passed by, and the driver cast a long, lingering glance in his direction. Everyone had heard the description by now. The killer was a white man, tall and powerful with jet-black hair and eyes to match. His skin was extremely pale, he had a mustache, and he was dressed in a black coat with the wide lapels and the numerous buttonholes of a time gone by.

The woman in the car was perceptive—too much so. When she saw him, she slowed and took a second look. This jogger seemed to have everything but the mustache and the clothing, so she stopped and looked again. Pulling over and putting the car in park, she looked away from the jogger and reached for the cell phone in her pocketbook on the passenger seat. Before she could pull it out to call the police, her driver’s-side door flew open. The man was upon her.

He punched her once, and the bone in her nose crunched into a dozen pieces. Thick maroon-colored blood poured down her face and back into her throat. She was choking on it. Gasping for breath, she reached up to try to fend him off, but he was much too strong. With one powerful hand, he grabbed her throat and squeezed until her windpipe collapsed. Still holding her throat, he pushed her aside and climbed into the driver’s seat. With the other hand he closed the door to the car. He pushed the woman down into the space between the glove compartment and the seat, looked up into the sky, and saw the raven dip his left wing into the autumn breeze and fly north.

The killer put the car in drive and turned north as well. He wouldn’t need his car after all.

*   *   *

Charlie Mann hung up the phone after placing the last of his calls to headquarters. Then he cracked the blinds, looked out onto the tree-lined street, and watched a breeze blow red and orange leaves toward the car where the cops sat watching the front of the house.

There were only eight houses on the entire block. They were all huge, with winding driveways and expansive lawns, shade trees and two-car garages. There were no white picket fences here. Instead, there were huge black gates that hid abusers and drunks and unhappy wives. Each morning, when the gates were thrown open, the denizens of this street donned the masks they wore in their daily lives and told themselves that everything was all right.

If you could hide whole lives in such a place, it made perfect sense to hide witnesses there, too. The department had done so for years, and today was no different.

Mann shut the blinds after looking once more at the patrolmen who were parked in a car on the driveway. Then he turned from the window and saw Lenore sitting on the couch watching round-the-clock coverage of the murders. He walked across the hardwood floor and sat down on a chair across from her.

“How are you holding up?” he asked.

“I’ve been better.”

“Yeah, me, too,” he said, glancing at the television and seeing Clarissa Bailey’s face onscreen once more. “Doesn’t it bother you to watch that?”

She looked at him and smiled nervously. “I’d be lying if I said it didn’t.”

“So why are you doing it?”

Lenore sat there for a moment, searching for the words to express what she was feeling. “I guess I’m trying to understand my place in it all. I didn’t understand that cryptogram, I didn’t sense anything at the cemetery, but after hearing the ranger back at the Poe house, I feel like I’m supposed to be able to see something in all this.”

“Maybe you’re trying too hard.”

“Or maybe I’m not trying hard enough,” she said with a forlorn sigh. “I’ve always had trouble seeing things that are too close to me.”

Mann looked at her curiously. “Why do you think that is?”

“Because it’s easier to look at other people than it is to look inside. I think that’s true for everybody.”

“Yeah, but we’re not talking about everybody right now.”

Lenore knew he was right, but she didn’t have an answer—at least, not one that she wanted to give.

Mann watched her for a few seconds. Then he looked off into the distance. “I would love to have a gift like yours,” he said with more than a touch of envy in his voice. “To be able to look into people’s lives and see the truth.”

“It’s more like a curse than a gift,” Lenore said. “The truth is the ugliest thing in the world, and when you look in a person’s face and see it, sometimes you just want to run and hide.”

“Is that why you’re hiding from yourself?” Mann asked.

Lenore looked at him and smirked. “I think you’re the one who’s the psychic.”

“No, I’m just an observer. That’s my job as a detective. I look at a set of facts and come up with a theory that fits.”

“So what have you observed about me?”

“You want the truth?”

“I already told you the truth is ugly. Why would I want it?” Lenore asked with a grin. Her smile quickly faded when Mann began to speak.

“I’ve only got a few facts about you, but here they are,” he said soberly. “Your father cheated on his wife with your mother, and because of that, you had a hard time in the town where you grew up. You can see things that other people can’t, but you use that gift reluctantly, if at all. You’re twenty-nine and you claim not to know who you are outside of your connections to other people. One of those people is a man who married you but doesn’t seem to care for you. Another was your sister, who happened to be a serial killer. The fact that you came here to learn about a woman who didn’t even like you is amazing to me. The fact that you stayed says even more.”

Mann stopped and looked at Lenore as tears streamed down her cheeks. He felt no guilt for making her cry. At least the tears were honest.

“Then there’s the biggest fact of all,” he said, staring at her as he spoke. “Clarissa Bailey believed you could unlock the truth about Poe, and when she found you, someone killed her.”

Lenore wiped her eyes and whispered the only question that mattered. “So based on the facts you have,” she said in a raspy voice, “what’s your theory?”

“I think you’ve always blamed yourself for the way Mary and her family treated you and your mother. You figured if you came here and found out some things about your sister, it might help you stop hating yourself. But when you got here and learned that you might actually have value, it scared you. Now you don’t know what to do.”

There was a long pause. Then she wiped her eyes again and looked at him. “So that’s it, huh?”

“For the moment.”

“And you’re expecting more facts, I suppose?”

“Of course I am. Until we solve the crime, there’s always more to learn.”

“I guess I have more to learn, too,” Lenore said. “Based on your facts, I live a pretty pitiful life.”

“No, you live a life that a lot of women would kill to have. It’s just that…” He let the sentence trail off.

“If you’re trying to find a nice way to talk about John, don’t bother. You’ve already said what you thought.”

“So am I wrong to think that?”

Lenore rolled her eyes. “You can’t judge him based on one phone call.”

Mann laughed. “It’s not just the phone call. He should be here right now.”

“How could he be here when he doesn’t know where I am?”

“He would find you if he really wanted to,” Mann said, getting up and walking over to the window. “A man who really cares enough doesn’t let his woman go if he can help it.”

*   *   *

Sandy pulled up in her black Dodge Charger and stopped at the yellow barricades that stretched across the entrance to Fairgrounds Cemetery. One of the cops who was posted there leaned into her open window with a flirty smile. His demeanor changed immediately when she flashed her badge.

“Go ahead, LT,” he said in reference to her rank as he moved one of the barricades aside for her.

She smiled her thanks and drove up to the tarmac that had earlier been occupied by dozens of police cars. Now there were only two. Their dome lights flashed in the late-afternoon light. Sandy parked behind one of the cars and waved a greeting at the cop inside.

As she got out of the car and walked toward the spot where Clarissa’s body had been found, she felt relieved to be in the place where it had all started. In a strange way, it helped her to deal with the fact that her friend Smitty was gone. If following orders meant helping to find the murderer who’d taken him far too soon, she was anxious to fall in line.

To that end, she’d called the Philadelphia Zoo as she drove to the cemetery from North Philly. She was trying to find out what she could about nesting locations for ravens. The zookeeper told her that the zoo hadn’t kept ravens in 150 years. He did, however, tell her that ravens nest in cliff ledges, in cavities, or in trees, and he warned her that ravens are extremely territorial and secretive about their nests.

“Whatever you do, don’t get too close,” he’d said.

Sandy had thanked him and hung up before placing a call to the cemetery manager. He was all too anxious to be helpful after the debacle that morning. They had arranged to meet at Fairgrounds in twenty minutes. Sandy had made it there in ten. She took the opportunity to look around on her own.

She walked slowly along the grounds, watching as the afternoon sun glowed orange on the gray stone monuments. She looked up at the trees and down at the grass and watched as colorful leaves blew in circles. She watched the trees bend with a stiff breeze and felt goosebumps rise up on her skin.

She walked above the graves of the cemetery’s long-dead residents and wondered if they knew their eternal home was now the center of attention. She looked at the hand-chiseled names on the mausoleums and the likenesses of the dead that had been carved into headstones. She tried to compare them to the makeshift memorials that lined too many Philadelphia streets, but it was more contrast than comparison. In a city where a quarter of the people lived in poverty, having one’s life memorialized in anything more expensive than spray paint was unimaginable, and the opulence of a Fairgrounds burial was out of reach for most.