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“Outside mine, too,” Crow said.
The waitress came and they ordered. Cheese omelets for Crow and Jonatha, a stack of French toast for Newton, and a bagel with whitefish for Val. Everyone had second coffees.
“If you don’t mind me asking, Ms. Guthrie,” Jonatha said, “what’s your involvement in this?”
“Val, please, and I’m an interested observer. ”
“Crow and Val are engaged,” Newton explained.
Jonatha stirred Splenda into her coffee. Her eyes lingered on Val’s. “I read the last few week’s worth of papers. Please accept my condolences. ”
“Thanks. ”
“I read that the mayor of the town is in a coma. ”
Val paused. “Yes. ”
“Unrelated events?”
“Yes. ”
“But on the same day as the attacks on your brother and his wife. ”
Val said nothing.
“Which is the same day you shot and killed that criminal, I believe?”
“Are you going somewhere with this, Dr. Corbiel?”
“Jonatha. No, I’m just trying to put the pieces together. You’ve all been through a terrible series of events. It’s pretty amazing that you can find the peace of mind to work together on a pop-culture book. ”
The food arrived, which gave Newton, Crow, and Val time to share some brief eye contact. All of them were hustling to reevaluate Jonatha Corbiel. When the waitress left, Crow said, “Distraction is useful under stress, don’t you think?”
“Distraction? That’s a funny word to put on the pursuit of a book on vampires. I would have thought you’d have had enough of monsters by now. Human monsters, I mean, which I think we can all agree are much worse than anything we find in film, fiction, or folklore. ”
Val tore off a piece of bagel and put it in her mouth as she leaned back in her chair and assessed Jonatha. “Is this going to be a problem? Would you rather not help us out with this?”
Jonatha gave them all a big smile that was pure charm and about a molecule deep. “Not at all. I’m rather interested to hear what you have to say. ”
They all digested that as they ate, but it was Jonatha who again broke the silence. “So…who wants to start?”
“Why don’t I give it a shot?” Crow said.
She waggled a corner of toast. “Fire away. ”
“Okay, if you’ve been reading about Pine Deep, then you’ve read about the Massacre of 1976. ”
“The Black Harvest and the Reaper murders, yes. ”
“Um…right. Well, since the seventies there have been a lot of urban myths built up arou
nd what happened. Have you heard of the Bone Man?”
“Sure. That’s the nickname given to Oren Morse, the migrant worker who was falsely accused of the crimes. ”
That threw Crow. “Falsely…?”
“I have copies of the news stories, Crow,” she said. “When Newton told me that the records from the Pine Deep newspapers had been destroyed in a fire I just probed a little deeper. Crimes of that kind are widely reported, and I have photocopies of the stories as reported by the Doylestown Intelligencer and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Some Daily News and Bulletin articles as well. Prior to his own murder, Morse was quoted in an Intelligencer article. It was just after your brother was murdered. ”
