"Sounds biblical."
"It does. Anyway, there have been two more reports. One in Savannah and one in Charleston. Wiley wants you to check them both out before coming back to D.C."
"Has any of this leaked to the press? We don't need any copy cats."
"No leaks that I know of, just more problems." George interrupted. "The grave in Savannah belongs to a black man."
"The one here was a black man as well and it's the same M. O. as the ones in Arlington and Andersonville."
"What do you think that means?" Fontaine asked.
"I don't know, George. But I intend to find out."
His mother had been so upset he had abducted the wrong person that she didn't speak to him the entire day. How was he to know that Sam Connors was Samantha Connors? It only made sense that the woman at the house was Ashley. He'd never even considered that she had a roommate.
His mother's silence was actually a welcome relief, he thought, because two nights ago when she found out Samantha Connors wasn't Ashley Regan, her reaction was insane.
He watched as his mother grabbed a large needle and plunged it deep into the woman's neck. Blood spewed onto the stainless steel table in spurts flowing down toward the woman's feet and into a drain at the lower end of the table.
"No." He yelled. "You can't do this."
She glared at him. He saw pure evil in her eyes. His greatest fear realized. "We have to do this. We have to protect this family. The whole family. Not just you and me, but this business as well. And your twin."
"But this woman had no part."
"Scott, if you hadn't kidnapped the wrong woman, we wouldn't be in this predicament in the first place. I'm cleaning up your mess. No loose ends." Heidi turned her attention back to the woman. "It'll be over soon, honey…it'll be over soon."
His mother stroked the young woman's hair like a loving mother comforting a sick child. Samantha's face grew ashen. He'd dealt with the dead for many decades but he'd never watched anyone die. The woman's eyes closed for the last time and blood stopped flowing from the needle. Samantha Connors, a victim of mistaken identity, was dead.
Heidi looked at Scott. "Prepare the crematorium. We need to destroy anything and everything that could link us to this woman. She's small, set the retort for 90 minutes. That should be more than enough."
He turned to leave, then glanced back. His mother was stroking the dead woman's hair again. The woman who gave birth to him, whom he loved, had gone mad…or had she always been insane? And he was helpless to do anything about it because in the eyes of the law, he knew he was just as guilty as she was. His mother was right about one thing; they did have to protect the family. All of it.
Katzer tried to compose himself and looked at his daily calendar, a family consultation and two funerals. The family consultation was scheduled in ten minutes. He thought he had time for another cup of coffee and then get back to business as if nothing had ever happened until the receptionist buzzed his office informing him that his consultation had arrived early. His palms were sticky. He went to the restroom and splashed water on his face. The man in the mirror looked haggard. He dried off, slipped on his dress coat and headed to meet the family.
Katzer joined the family in the conference room where he usually held all consultations. He'd known the family for years. The man in front of him had been in the Nashville Rotary Club with him for years. He'd socialized with the man and his wife and now, at 65, she was dead.
He began with the usual formalities of gathering information for the death certificate. It usually helped to get the difficult process started. After that he moved to the obituary. Katzer knew this was the part where he had to drag information out with a series of questions. Grieving family members seemed to have difficulty thinking of obituary wording, so Katzer did it for them. On rare occasions someone would walk in the door with an obituary already written. This was not one of those times. Excluding the obvious, Katzer asked the man about his wife's relatives, living and dead, schools attended, occupation or occupations in this case, church, social activities, and involvement in charity work. Something he knew the man's wife had been heavily involved in.
He asked about the type of service and where it would be held. The man had little trouble with this. As an active member of the largest Episcopal Church in Nashville, there was little doubt about selecting a church or priest for the ceremony. The man had little trouble in the casket room either. He seemed to know the casket his wife would have preferred as soon as he entered the room. Which was quite unusual because Katzer Funeral Home's casket room offered a very large selection of caskets. Several times larger than his closest competitor.
Katzer left the man in the conference room and told him he would return shortly with an itemized cost sheet. He handed the receptionist his notes. "Sylvia, will you prepare Mr. Parker's estimate?"
"Certainly, Mr. Katzer. Mike is waiting for you in your office again."
"Did he say what he wanted?"
"No, sir. Just that he needed to talk to you."
Katzer turned and headed for his office. If the cemetery manager was in his office it usually meant he would have to spend money. Sometimes, a lot of money. Something got damaged or a piece of equipment broke. It was never good news, only bad.
The cemetery manager stood when Katzer walked in. He'd been cemetery manager at Mt Olivet for over fifteen years. Katzer had personally recommended him. His appearance then was neatly groomed with short hair, average height, and very slim. No, skinny was a better description. The man he was looking at now had changed over the years. An easy forty pounds overweight, his now thinning gray hair was long and oily and pulled back into a ponytail. The top went bald years ago and the man kept it covered with a baseball cap. His hands were always grimy, clothes crumpled, and worst of all, he smelled. When his wife left him seven years ago, so it seemed, did his personal hygiene. Katzer sat on the corner of his desk.
"Mike, what do you need?" Katzer's tone was rather matter of fact. Not rude, but down to business.
"We had a break-in last night in Section 2."
"A break-in? What kind of break-in?"
"The Beckel crypt. Found the door busted in about ten minutes ago."
Katzer's heart skipped a beat. "Which casket?" He already knew the answer but he needed to hear it.
"Looks like they started with Andrew. The kid who died in the war. But all of them were broken into."
"How could you tell who they started with?"
"His casket was in the middle of the crypt, busted and torn to pieces. The parents' and grandparents' caskets were pulled down on top of his."
He knew too well what that meant. His mother told him about the Beckel crypt when she revealed everything else to him. About his stepfather. About his real father. This meant only one thing. Ashley Regan has the book and has been here. Only one day after his mother killed the woman's roommate. He could visualize his mother's reaction to the news. Her eyes ice cold, filled with anger. She would give him that sharp, penetrating stare, like she was measuring his value to her, then she would lash out at him again for abducting the wrong woman.
"Mr. Katzer? Excuse me. Should I call the cops?"
The question actually startled him. He'd just expected the cemetery manager had already made that call. "How much damage?"
"Quite a lot. Jimmied the door, broke the lock, and took a sledgehammer to the marble vault. Then they pulled the casket into the middle of the crypt and busted it open."
"Let's wait a bit to call the police, Mike. I don't want to alarm our customers." Katzer stood. "Anyone else know about the break-in?"