Sweet Dreams Boxed Set

“Drunk—the Keys can do that, too,” said another.

But the captain just nodded wordlessly and left; Sandy Bracken told Quinn, “He’s impressed—you made a point. Davy hasn’t a drop of blood on him. Of course, we noted that, but you brought it up and…hey, I guess when you have murders like this, well, we all wanted to believe that we had a viable suspect, you know?”

Quinn nodded.

“You want to head to the cemetery, right?” she asked him.

“Yes.”

“Okay. Come on; Detective Mason is there—with a bunch of forensic people.”

The bodies had been removed when they arrived; markers showed where the three boys had been found. Despite the blaze of police lights set up to illuminate those working, there was something incredibly mournful and atmospheric about the cemetery. He glanced down the street as they arrived; Colby’s house was just a few blocks away and he couldn’t help but wonder if a zombie-nun-doll could have left the house on Elizabeth Street and walked down to the cemetery, killed three young men, and walked back to climb the steps to the attic before he and Danni had arrived that night.

He’d pulled the movie mannequin apart. There had been nothing of life to it. The fabricated thing had been created from polyurethane and fabric and rubber and plastic and paint and whatever else they’d used in the studios.

But, battery operated, it had been able to move.

Move enough to kill? Of its own free will?

Detective Mason had been walking the cemetery. No onlookers were inside—the police were seeing to that—but many people were still gathered on the sidewalks and lawns surrounding the cemetery. He wondered why they were all out so late and realized that it wasn’t so late—it had just been a long day for them. Four in the afternoon when they’d arrived in Miami, five or a little after when they’d arrived at the hospital, and just about eight—with darkness having falling—when they reached Colby’s house.

It was just eleven now. Not late at all for a town where on Duval Street, bartenders liked to keep the music going, the drinks flowing, and the party going.

And Danni out—with the party.

He didn’t like splitting up, but she’d promised she’d stay on Duval near Front Street until he joined there. Plenty of people would be about—they might be horrified by the murders and some might have even packed up to go home. But most who had come to dive or go fishing or boating—or celebrate a bachelor party or the like—weren’t going to be deterred by a few dead frat boys. And those who stayed would gather in numbers in the bars on the main party street of Old Town.

“First boy found here…not far from the monument. We have just about every kind of grave in this cemetery, in ground, mausoleum, tomb, stacked sarcophagi—you name it,” Detective Mason told him glumly. “As you can see…markers there along with the pool of blood by the praying angel, and then….” He walked a distance until they were near a giant monument to sailors who had been killed and said, “And here, the second victim, and….” This time the walk was longer. They came to a wall—but before the wall was a high-stacked tomb with funerary artistic handles—a great place for someone to scale the wall from the inside to the outside.

“Third victim right there, by the little obelisk,” Detective Mason said. “Again…you can see the spill of blood. The M.E., of course, hasn’t had time for a real report, but each boy had his throat slit. Odd, though. He doesn’t believe they were attacked from behind. He believes the killer was looking right at them and killed with a razor-sharp blade, left to right, across the throat. Blood must have spilled out of them in a gush.”

“So, Davy would have been wearing it—certainly,” Quinn murmured.

“Unless he was good at hopping back,” Mason agreed.

“You know anyone that good?” Quinn asked.

“Easier to believe that he could hop back that far than that a zombie nun did it,” the detective told him.

“But, perhaps someone used that kind of a doll.”

“A doll? There’s a new murder weapon. I guess you could bash someone’s head in with a doll,” Mason said.

“Such mannequins do exist,” Quinn told him. “They were animatronics used in a horror film.”

“So, you’re trying to tell me that someone ran around with a life-sized zombie nun doll and killed people with it?”

Quinn realized, that to Mason, the concept was beyond ridiculous. He’d let it go for now.

“Did any of them fight back?” Quinn asked.

“Not a defensive injury on one of them,” Mason said flatly. He turned away to bark at one of his officers, making sure that the force was out, that there were officers stationed all over the cemetery and that they were watching for anyone out of the ordinary on Duval Street.

“Yeah, and what is ordinary on Duval?” one of the officers muttered.

“Try a zombie-nun!” Mason snapped back. “Anything else?” he asked Quinn.

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