Chapter Fourteen
I have yet to meet a relatively sane person who is anything but twitchy in a cemetery late at night. I consider myself to be mildly sane, therefore I was twitchy. Detective Goodes was right, this was a very sad affair, a tragic conclusion to a young girl's life.
The backdrop for the cemetery was the rolling foothills of the Santa Lucia Mountains. Three patrol cars from the police department in San Luis Obispo were already parked around the gravesite of Mary Alice Richardson. The medical examiner's van was parked nearby. Plus two beat-up trucks without any clear identification on them.
Four cemetery workers were digging in the bright light cast from the patrol-car headlamps. The soil looked rich and loamy and was thick with worms. When the hole was of sufficient depth, a backhoe was brought in to finish the job.
The police observers, including myself, had nothing to do but stand impatiently around the grave. We drank coffee, exchanged small talk, cracked a few dark jokes, but nobody really laughed.
I turned my cell phone off. I didn't need to hear from the Mastermind, or anybody else, here in the cemetery.
Around one in the morning, the container of the casket was finally uncovered by the cemetery workers. A lump rose in my throat, but I looked on. Beside me stood Jamilla Hughes. She was shivering some, but sticking it out. Nancy Goodes had retreated to her Suburban. Smart lady.
A crowbar was used to pry off the top of the liner. It made an unpleasant groaning noise, like someone in deep pain.
The hole in the ground was approximately six feet deep, eight feet long, less than four feet wide.
Neither Jamilla or I spoke. Every detail of the exhumation held our attention now. My eyes blinked too rapidly in the eerie light. My breathing was uneven and my throat felt a little raw.
I was recalling crime-scene pictures of Mary Alice that I'd seen. Fifteen years old. Hung two feet off the ground by her ankles, left that way for several hours. Drained of nearly all her blood. Another Class IV death. Viciously bitten and stabbed.
The victim in Washington hadn't been stabbed. So what did that mean? Why the variations on the murder theme? What did they do with all the blood? I almost didn't want to know the answers to the questions throbbing inside my head.
Tattered gray canvas straps were carefully secured to the casket and it was finally, slowly raised out of the ground.
My breathing was ragged. Suddenly I felt guilty about being here. I had the thought that we shouldn't be disturbing this poor girl in her grave. It was an unholy thing to do. She had been violated enough.
'I know, I know. This sucks. I feel the same thing,'Jamilla said out of the side of her mouth. She lightly touched a hand to my elbow. 'We have to do it. No other choice. We have to find out if it's the same killers.'
'I know. Why doesn't that make me feel any better about this?' I muttered. 'I feel all hollowed out.'
'That poor girl. Poor Mary Alice. Forgive us,'Jamilla said.
A local funeral director, who had consented to be on hand, carefully opened the casket. Then he stepped back, as if he had seen a ghost.
I moved forward to get my first look at the girl. I nearly gasped, and Jamilla's hand went to her mouth. A couple of the cemetery workers crossed themselves and bowed their heads low.
Mary Alice Richardson was right there staring up at us. She was wearing a flowing white dress and her blond hair was carefully braided. The girl looked as if she had been buried alive. There had been virtually no decay of the body.
There's an explanation for this/the funeral director said to us/The Richardsons are friends of mine. They asked me if anything could be done to preserve their daughter for as long as possible. Somehow they knew their little girl would be seen again.
The condition of the body, once interred, can be in any state of decay. It depends on the ingredients. I used an arsenic solution in the embalming process, the way we used to in the old days. You're looking at the result.'
He paused as we continued to stare.
This is the way Mary Alice looked the day she was buried. This is the poor girl they murdered and hung.'