The Morning After

“First, Nikki, I need the tape.”

  She opened her eyes and nodded.

  “And your cell phone?”

  “But—” She started to protest, then didn’t. The police needed anything the killer had touched, for evidence.

  “You touched the phone and tape without gloves?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. I’m sure my fingerprints are on them both, but the police have my prints on file.” When he looked at her, she added, “There was another incident, years ago. I think I told you about Corey Sellwood. When he was a kid and, I thought, stalking me, the police needed my prints to compare to others in my house.”

  “But no one else touched the phone or the tape since you found them this morning?”

  “No.”

  “Hold on a second.” She watched as he walked to the Caddy and retrieved two plastic bags from his glove compartment. Once he returned to her car he used a handkerchief and placed the phone in one bag, then carefully extracted the vile recording from the player and dropped it into the other bag. She showed him the envelope and he took it as well, sealing it in the plastic envelope with the tape.

  “You know I’m going to have to impound the car,” he said, “just in case the son of a bitch left any evidence behind.”

  “Now, wait a minute Reed, I can’t be without a car.” As distraught as she was, she couldn’t imagine that she would have to give up the Subaru.

  “Nikki,” he reproached and she didn’t argue.

  “Fine, fine. Just take me to a rental agency, after the cemetery.”

  “You’re sure you want to go.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Reed called for someone to retrieve her car and once the officers and tow truck arrived, Nikki signed all the appropriate papers, then climbed into Reed’s Caddy and, as he drove through the rain-washed streets toward the outskirts of town, she was silent, her heart filled with dread, her world darker than it had been only a day before.

  What would she do once she knew the truth? Race to the office and write an intimate story as she was close to the victim, work hard to edge out the competition on the most recent killing by the Grave Robber?

  She barely noticed the change of scenery as they reached the bend in the river where Peltier Plantation had once stood. Now, police vehicles, news vans and unmarked cars clustered around the main gate where a uniformed police officer stood guard, waving through other cops, but keeping the public and press at bay.

  Reed passed the WKAM rig and parked behind the crime scene van. As Nikki stared out the window she noticed Norm Metzger arriving in his Impala. Thankfully, he didn’t even glance her way as he joined the crowd at the gate. To Nikki the media frenzy was suddenly personal. And ugly. These people with their recorders and cameras were her peers, her contemporaries, and they were rabid for news, any kind of sensational news, regardless of the tragedy involved, not caring that Simone Everly had been a living, breathing, loving and charismatic individual. A person, not just a story.

  How many times were you one of them? How often would you have done anything for a story? How many bereaved people did you interview looking for that little gem in their personal catastrophe, that unique angle that would push you onto page one.

  Her stomach heaved and she thought she might be sick. If there was any way that Simone could have survived…if the Grave Robber had just once shown some mercy…but she knew better. The tape proved it all.

  She stared through the watery drizzle on the windshield as Metzger and the others craned their necks for a better view and shoulder cameras were elevated in hopes of a glimpse of the Grave Robber’s work. Overhead, the sound of a helicopter’s blades indicated that a television station was going airborne for a panoramic shot of the graveyard with a zoom lens focusing on the police sifting through the evidence, exhuming the coffin, perhaps opening it. Grief and guilt tore at her soul.

  Her stomach roiled again and she flung open the door and threw up on the bent grass. She didn’t care if anyone saw her. Didn’t even notice the tears streaming down her face as she coughed and wiped her mouth. She was too focused on what she had to do. She couldn’t just let the bastard get away with this. Couldn’t let him terrorize the city and kill again. The damned Grave Robber was communicating with her. Using her. It was time to turn the tables.

  She had to find the son of a bitch and nail his sick hide to the wall. No matter what it took.

  They had to wait until all the evidence had been collected around the grave site before they could remove the coffin. Shoe prints were measured, photographed and cast, the surrounding grounds searched and the dirt sifted for anything that might lead to the Grave Robber’s identity. Savannah police officers worked side by side with the FBI. Along with an agent named Haskins, a skeletal-looking man with a freckled pate and hooked nose, Morrisette directed the investigation, Cliff Siebert in close attendance, his expression dark and unreadable. At the sight of Reed he visibly tensed.

  Reed stood nearby in the hastily constructed tent, knowing with a steadfast certainty who shared the grave of Tyrell Demonico Brown, one more juror in the Chevalier trial.

  Tyrell Brown, Morrisette had already informed him, had died barely a month earlier. Single car accident on the interstate. A blown tire coupled with a high alcohol content in his bloodstream and lack of a seat belt had combined to send the thirty-seven-year-old father of two to this grave.

  “I assume you’re videotaping everyone who shows up here,” he said to Morrisette.

  She shot him a look that told him he should know better. “Yeah. And we’ll compare it to the other tapes we’ve got of the other crime scenes to see if we have any special guests.”

  “Good. And you’ve checked out Sean Hawke and Corey Sellwood.”

  “Still working on those, but yeah, we’re looking into them.” Her lips tightened over her teeth as she added, “Even though we know Chevalier is our man.”

  “Right.” Reed couldn’t disagree. Chevalier was the glue that held this case together. And it made sense that Chevalier would be contacting him because he helped with the collar. The senior detective, Clive Bateman, was already dead, alcoholism having sent him to an early grave at fifty-eight.

  Reed remembered the case all too clearly and the incidents leading up to Carol’s brutal slaying. How many times, before he’d been assigned to Homicide, had Reed or some other detective been called out to the Chevalier home, a small, run-down cottage with an overgrown yard and a dog tied to a tree? How many times had he seen Carol or her children battered? How many times had she refused to press charges? He remembered vividly one incident as he had stood on the porch of that little house.

  Flies and mosquitoes had buzzed around his head, the dog had barked and Carol’s three children had been hanging out. Marlin, the eldest boy, had been working on a dilapidated old Dodge that had been rusting in the driveway. His hair had fallen over his eyes and he’d studied Reed suspiciously and wiped his hands on an oily rag. The younger boy, Joey, had been at his brother’s side, peering beneath the hood at an engine that, Reed had guessed, hadn’t started in a long, long while. Joey, too, had turned his eyes on Reed as the detective had urged their bruised mother to press charges.

  Carol’s daughter Becky had been insolently smoking a cigarette on the porch and swatting at the flies. “She won’t do it,” Becky had interrupted, tossing her streaked hair off her shoulders.

  “Hush. This isn’t your business.” One of Carol’s eyes had been swollen and bruised, the white part bloody and red. Her nose hadn’t been broken that time, nor her jaw, but she’d still looked like hell.

  “Not my business?” Becky repeated, smoke filtering out of her nostrils. “I suppose it’s not my business when that fat old turd—”

  “Stop it!” Carol had turned back to Reed. “Please leave, Detective. You’re just upsetting my family.”

  “I’m not what’s upsetting them.” Reed’s gut had churned. He was certain the whole damned family was suffering under Chevalier’s quick temper and he
avy fists.

  “Get the hell out.” Marlin had strode to the porch and placed himself squarely between his mother and Reed. “She don’t want any help from the police.”

  “But he’s right,” Joey had said. He was thin and gawky and had crept up the porch steps behind his brother. His eyes were round with worry. “The detective’s right.”

  “Ms. Legittel, for the sake of your children and your own safety, please don’t back down now.”

  “Just leave, Detective Reed. This is family business.”

  “Dad wouldn’t do this to you!” Joey said stubbornly. “He wouldn’t make us—”

  “You don’t know what your father would do,” Carol burst out. “He’s a psycho.”

  “But he wouldn’t—”

  “Shut up, Joseph! You don’t know your father. Not the way I do.”

  “I want to go live with him.”

  “Do you? Oh, for the love of God, you’d last ten minutes with that son of a bitch. He’s a druggie. He threw us out, remember? All of us. He doesn’t love you, Joey.” Her stern face softened as she reached out to touch her youngest son’s face. The boy jerked away. “Stephen Legittel doesn’t understand love. He only knows hate.”

  “And what does LeRoy know?” Becky said. “He’s sick, Mom. A perv.”

  “He takes care of us.”

  Becky snorted and squashed her cigarette in a pot where petunias were busy dying. “He sure does.” She looked at Reed. “Don’t come back here again. It’s a waste of your time.” She pointed to her mother with her chin. “She’s not gonna listen.”

  “That’s right,” Marlin agreed, scowling down at the floorboards, his dirty hands clenched into fists. He’d been suffering from guilt, Reed had assumed, the eldest boy unable to save his mother from the monster she’d tied herself to.

  “No! He can’t leave!” Joey turned big eyes on Reed. “You can get rid of him. You can send him away.”

  “If your mother presses charges.”

  Spinning so fast he nearly stumbled, Joey glared at the woman who had brought him into this hell of a world. “You have to do it. You have to.”

  “Joey, please.”

  “He’s gonna kill us, Mom. He’s gonna kill all of us!”

  “Then just run away, you little chicken,” Becky muttered.

  Reed said, “Ms. Legittel, this has to be stopped. I can help.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a card. “Call me.”

  “Don’t leave,” Joey pleaded.

  “I could call child services.”

  “Like hell, Detective. You won’t take my children away from me. Joey, hush!” She placed a protective arm around her son. “My kids are all I have, Detective Reed. Please don’t try to take them from me.”

  “I just want to protect you. And them.”

  “You can’t,” she whispered, a tear tracking from her bad eye. “No one can. Come on in, kids.” She’d shepherded them into the house and Reed had felt bleak inside.

  “I’ll be back.”

  “Don’t bother.” The torn screen door slapped shut and the dog started barking loudly. Reed stood on the steps and felt impotent. The door behind the screen shut with a slam and he noticed his card was still on the floorboards of the porch. Carefully, he tucked it into the windowsill and noticed the slats on the blinds move. Someone from the inside was watching him. Good. Something had to be done, or Joey’s prophecy might come true, he’d thought at the time, not understanding completely the depths of depravity Chevalier had wallowed in. Only at the trial had he learned how he’d abused the children and their mother, molested them and made them touch each other for his own vile entertainment.

  LeRoy Chevalier should never have gotten out of prison. Never.

  Now, as he stood in the tent, waiting for the coffin to be removed from the grave and opened, he realized why the killer was contacting him. He’d collared Chevalier and been a part of the trial.

  Judge Ronald Gillette had presided. And Nikki was Big Ron’s daughter as well as a reporter for the Sentinel during the trial. The pieces were beginning to fall together. There was some logic in all this chaos.

  LeRoy Chevalier had to be the killer. Had to be. He could almost convince himself and decided his reservations were clearly because he was a skeptic by nature, never believed anything until he saw it with his own two eyes.

  Theories were just that—all conjecture.

  Hard evidence, that was what counted.

  Reed edged to the tent’s doorway. He looked at the area beyond the gate, to the parking lot half filled with cars parked haphazardly beneath huge live oaks. He noted that Nikki was still inside his car. Seeing her huddled there, looking small and frail, he felt a pang of empathy that went bone deep. Guilt was eating at her, torturing her, and as strong as she was, Nicole Gillette might not survive the horrendous death of her friend. She felt far too responsible.

  No telling what she’d do. He saw the car door fly open and then she was hidden from view as she leaned over. No doubt losing her breakfast. He waited and she eventually sat up again and wiped a sleeve over her mouth. He wasn’t able to define her features through the foggy glass, just her small silhouette.

  He’d always considered her a pain in the butt. A privileged brat with brass balls to accompany her brains, a pushy reporter who got under his skin and a person to avoid. Now, he didn’t want to think too closely about his conflicted feelings for her. Nor did he have the time.

  He only hoped she’d brace herself and, despite all of his previous grumblings about her, mentally crossed his fingers that she was as strong and tough as he’d once thought. He stepped back into the tent and stood near one of the plastic walls.

  Show time.

  The coffin was being hoisted out of the grave and into the tent. Diane Moses barked orders, kept a log, and made sure that nothing was damaged, no evidence lost, destroyed, or tampered with as the exterior of the casket was photographed and examined for tool marks, fingerprints or scrapes.

  Reed waited, his stomach in knots as the coffin lid was raised. The stench of death rolled out of the tomb and caught on an easterly wind.

  “Shit,” Morrisette said, turning away from the two bodies.

  Cliff Siebert took a long look, then dragged his eyes away. “Son of a bitch.”

  “You know this woman?” Diane asked.

  “Simone Everly.” Reed turned his back on the open casket, unable to gawk at the bruised, naked body and unblinking eyes of Nikki’s friend. Her hair was matted and wild, caught in the remnants of flesh beneath, and her skin where it wasn’t contused was the pale gray shade of death. Once beautiful features were marred and broken where she’d banged her head on the lid and her fingers, as Bobbi’s had been, were covered in blood, the skin rubbed off, bare flesh exposed. “She went missing yesterday.”

  “There’s something in here…a microphone and some kind of note.” One of the officers of the crime scene waited until the photographer had done his job, then carefully pried an envelope from the side of the coffin where it had been taped near Simone’s head.

  “Don’t mess with the tape,” Diane warned sharply. “It could have fingerprints.”

  If the guy’s stupid or careless, Reed thought, but didn’t say it. He didn’t have to. Morrisette stepped up to the plate.

  “I doubt that Chevalier would make that kind of mistake.”

  “Anyone can get distracted and slip up.”

  The investigator removed the envelope and Reed’s name was written in block letters.

  “This guy’s got a hard-on for you,” Morrisette muttered. Reed donned gloves, extracted the single sheet of paper and read:

  FOUR ALREADY GONE,

  TOO MANY MORE STILL ALIVE.

  NO LONGER TWELVE,

  NOW TEN AND TWO AND FIVE.

  “What the hell does that mean? Four already gone?” Morrisette growled, motioning toward the open casket. “What four? I count six.”

  “He’s talking about a total number of victims. Seventeen.
Look at the last line. Ten, two and five. Seventeen.” Reed’s mind was spinning ahead as he read the note again and again, comparing it to the others that had been received.

  He thought hard. Why up the tally? Were they barking up the wrong tree? This had to be Chevalier’s work. All of the victims had been jurors…so far. What if he’d expanded his list. But who…or why?

  “I don’t get it,” Morrisette grumbled.

  “Some of the people died of natural causes, right? Maybe that’s what he’s talking about. He’s going to kill twelve, but four were already dead.”

  “Three, Reed.” She held up three fingers and dropped them one at a time as she said, “Brown, Alexander, and Massey.”

  “There could be someone else we haven’t found yet.”

  “We checked. We’re all out of dead jurors. Everyone’s alive and accounted for. Kinda blows your whole jury panel theory then, doesn’t it? Unless the freak is so hung up on the number twelve, why not just kill the remaining jurors who were alive? Why isn’t the number nine? Seventeen? Crap! This doesn’t make any sense.”

  “He’s giving us a clue,” Reed insisted.

  “Or just messing with us!” Morrisette said irritably as wind lashed at the flaps of the tent.

  “No…I don’t think he would bother. The words on the note add up to seventeen. That’s the number he’s working with now.”

  “Well, since you seem to think you know how this perv’s thought processes work, you’d better figure out what he’s talkin’ about, and fast.”

  She was right. Reed rubbed the back of his neck and wished he understood the cryptic note. As far as the police knew, Pauline Alexander, Thomas Massey and Tyrell Demonico Brown were the only three jurors who’d died of natural causes. Another three, Barbara Marx, Roberta Peters and now Simone Everly had been buried alive. At the Grave Robber’s hands. The other six jurors were alive and under police protection. And that total was only twelve. Why up the score by five? What was the significance of that particular number? He thought of Nikki and how the Grave Robber had chosen her to contact. To terrorize. The creep had been in her apartment? Bugged her? Why? And why contact Reed as well?