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“No, it’s all right,” Michael said. “It’s just a spat. Nothing serious.”
“Got it,” Faith said. “Well, if it makes you feel better, the ‘spat’ between me and David seems to be a lot more serious.”
He glanced over at her. “Why would that make me feel better?”
“No idea. Forget I said that.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Faith looked over at Michael, who kept his gaze stoically ahead at the road but quipped, “Take a picture. It’ll add ten pounds, and then I won’t look so good, and you won’t feel a need to stare.”
Faith chuckled and turned away. They had arrived at their hotel just after midnight and, remembering the exhaustion of their last case, they chose to get a good night’s sleep and hit the case fresh in the morning.
Michael had suggested they get separate rooms, and when Faith reminded him that the Bureau would only pay for one room, he said he would pay for his. Faith didn’t have a good reason to say no, so she didn’t protest, but she wondered now if the fight with Ellie had something to do with her. She and Michael had dated before, but their relationship had ended years ago, and Faith saw Michael as more of a brother than a romantic interest. Michael, if anything, was even more enamored with Ellie than she was with David, so there wasn’t even the slightest risk of the two of them straying.
But she could see how Ellie might have a problem with Michael sleeping in the same hotel room as his former lover. Those kinds of arrangements were part of the job, but civilians couldn’t be expected to understand that.
She wasn’t worried. Things would settle. She and Michael had weathered worse storms. As far as Ellie and Michael were concerned… well, she couldn’t say much, could she? For all her worries about them, they were still together while she and David weren’t.
She pushed the thought away and focused on the case. If they had another Demon on their hands, then they needed to move quickly. Ritualistic killers like these were compulsive. They didn’t stop unless theywerestopped. Two victims in two weeks meant they could expect a third any day.
They reached the graveyard just as the sun crested the horizon. The cemetery was a massive lot spanning possibly forty or fifty acres consisting of manufactured rolling hills with the occasional oak tree sprouting from odd places among the rows. The walking paths were lined with the same white marble that the gravestones were made of. In the center of the cemetery was a massive mausoleum, also of white marble, trimmed with gold and in the same Greek Revivalist style as government buildings.
The whole aesthetic seemed garish to Faith. She never understood why people needed to commercialize death. She was a capitalist through and through, but this was too much. Some things in life should remain sacred.
Their killer clearly didn’t feel the same as Faith did. Burying someone alive in a fresh grave was probably the most brutal way Faith could think of to kill someone, psychologically, at least.
They were met at the entrance by a short, heavyset policewoman who looked like a bulldog and was just as thickly muscled. She stuck out a meaty hand, and when Faith took it, she found her grip was as powerful as the rest of her.
“Detective Sergeant Missy St. George,” she said in a thick Texas drawl. “I’m the lead on this case. Or I was until you two showed up.” She smiled to show there were no hard feelings, and when Turk barked, she looked down at him and said, “I’m sorry. Make that you three.”
She removed her bearlike hand from Faith’s and held it out for Turk, who lifted his paw and formally placed it in her palm.
She introduced herself to Michael and said, “Wow. You’re the pretty boy of the field office, aren’t you? You’re not looking to date, are you?”
He chuckled politely. “Afraid not.”
Missy shrugged. “Oh well. Can’t blame a girl for trying.”
Her gregarious personality and feminine name contrasted with her wrestler’s build, an incongruity that Faith could tell hid a sharp and observant mind. She decided she liked the burly woman.
The burly girly. Faith cracked a smile at that thought.
“All right,” Missy said, dropping the smile and adopting a professional expression. “Let’s get this road on the show.”
She led them to a grave just around the corner behind one of the manufactured hills. It was a good spot to bury someone alive, Faith thought. It was hidden from the road, and since the cemetery was at the top of a high, natural hill, it was a solid three miles between the grave and the rest of civilization. Faith could easily believe that the killer hadn’t been noticed.
A moment later, Missy confirmed that thought. “Security didn’t hear a damned thing,” she said. “According to the owners, this is the first time anyone’s ever been harmed on their property. They only had one night watchman, an older guy named Gene. Good guy, but slow-moving and a little hard of hearing.”
Faith watched Turk, who sniffed around the grave but didn’t seem to find anything of interest. “Have you interviewed the employees?”
“We’re in process with that,” Missy said. “Nothing’s popped up so far.”
“Where’s the body?” Michael asked.
“Coroner’s. Both of them. We haven’t received an official report yet, but the COD is pretty clear. They ran out of air.”
Michael nodded and gestured to a small bell attached to a length of wire that lay atop the pile of dirt that hours ago had covered the untimely grave of Marvin Prescott. “That the bell?”
