The cemetery was founded in 1831 and was the first garden cemetery in this country. Its 174 acres of rolling hills are heavily forested in parts with native trees and bushes. The graves and monuments are scattered throughout, accessible by a system of roads and meandering footpaths.
Diesel drove into the heart of the cemetery, following instructions from his assistant. He parked on the side of the paved road, and we took a footpath to the Tichy family plot.
Peder Tichy was buried in 1862 on a grassy hillside now shaded by mature oak trees. The granite monuments around Tichy were worn by age and weather, but the inscriptions were still clear, and we went headstone by headstone, reading names, looking for Tichy.
“I found him,” Diesel said, squatting in front of a headstone with a cross carved into the top. “Peder Tichy, survived by his wife, Mary, and his children, Catherine and Monroe.”
I joined Diesel and looked at the headstone.
“No message,” I said.
“None that I can see.”
“This is getting old. At the risk of being a whiner, I’d rather be home taking a nap.”
A flash of silver caught my eye, and I looked beyond Diesel to a heavily shrubbed area toward the top of the hill.
“I see feet,” I said. “In running shoes. They’re sticking out of the bushes, and they aren’t moving.”
Diesel walked up the hill, reached the feet, and stepped into the rhododendron thicket.
“It’s Hatchet,” he called down to me.
“Is he dead?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
I scrambled up to Diesel and watched him pull Hatchet out of the bushes.
“Are you sure you should drag him out by his feet like that?” I asked. “What if he has a broken back or something?”
“His problem, not mine.”
I looked down at Hatchet and a wave of nausea rolled through my stomach. Hatchet had a handprint burned into his neck.
“Oh boy,” I said. “Why would Wulf do this to his own minion?”
“It wasn’t Wulf,” Diesel said. “The print is too small.”
“I thought Wulf was the only one who could burn people.”
“Apparently not.”
Diesel prodded Hatchet with his foot. “Hatchet! Wake up.”
“Unh,” Hatchet said, eyes closed.
Diesel kicked him in the leg.
“Thank you, sire,” Hatchet said.
Diesel shook his head. “That’s sick.”
Hatchet’s eyes opened and took a moment to focus. “What?” he said.
Diesel grabbed Hatchet by the front of his tunic and hoisted him to his feet. “That’s my question. What happened?”
“I know not. I was investigating the grave site, and that’s all I remember.” He touched his neck. “Ow!”
“It’s burned,” Diesel said. “In the shape of a hand.”
Hatchet looked confused. “Why?”
“Did you remove anything from the Tichy House?” I asked him.
“Nay. ’Twas junk and not worth taking.”
“That burn’s going to blister,” I told him. “You need to put some aloe on it.” I looked more closely at his face. He had a huge red splotch on his nose and another on his forehead. He scratched the one on his forehead.
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
“’Tis as if the foul farts have turned to these beastly hives. I rid myself of one plague only to acquire another.”
“If you still have them tomorrow, you might want to talk to Glo about it.”
Hatchet scratched his leg and his butt. “Might she find some spell to cure this?”
“Maybe,” I said. “In the meantime, you could try calamine lotion.”
“You have been most kind,” Hatchet said, “but I will still smite thee down if I must. I will slice off your ear, run my sword through your liver, boil you in a cauldron of oil if you attempt to slow me on my quest.”
“Wonderful,” I said. “I’ll add that to the list of things I can look forward to.”
“I think I doth got carried away with the oil,” Hatchet said. “It would be difficult to procure such an amount of oil.”
He scratched his crotch and under his arm, and he limped down the hill toward the road.
Diesel and I took one last futile look around, saw nothing that would indicate the presence of a clue, and followed Hatchet.
“I’m pretty sure there weren’t any other cars on the road when we parked,” I said to Diesel. “How did he get here? And how is he getting home?”
“Methinks we’ll find out,” Diesel said. “It appears he doth stand by my SUV.”
“Where’s your car?” I asked Hatchet.
“Stolen,” Hatchet said. “This day doth suck.”
Diesel took Hatchet’s sword so he wouldn’t be tempted to run it through my liver, and we loaded him into the back of the SUV.
“Where do you want us to drop you?” Diesel asked.
“Put me in a sack and throw me into the river,” Hatchet said.
“Not my thing,” Diesel told him. “Pick something else.”
“A pharmacy.”
Diesel found one on Massachusetts Avenue. He pulled to the curb, gave Hatchet his sword back, and watched him get out of the SUV.
“Do you want me to wait?” Diesel asked.
“Nay. I will find my own way.”
Diesel slipped back into traffic, continued down Massachusetts, and called Wulf.