Colder Than Death

might’ve been some older guy who she thought would treat her nice.”

“An older guy who might’ve also been a cemetery buff? Is that possible?” said Perry.

I shrugged. “Why not?”

Perry scribbled something down on a piece of paper, then said, “Do you think it’s possible that this ‘older’ man you think she might’ve been seeing is the one who introduced her to being interested in cemeteries?”

“There’s no way I could know that. Until Del mentioned the words cemetery buff I never even knew such a thing had a name.”

“Anything else I should know?” said Perry.

Quilla thought for a few seconds. “No.”

“Let’s see if I get any info from your Aunt’s things, then we’ll talk again.”

“Alright,” said Quilla.

“Del,” said Perry. “I need to talk to you for a second. Quilla, why don’t you wait out front with Greg?”

“Why should I be left out?”

“I need to ask Del about another matter.”

Clearly not believing Perry, Quilla blurted a suspicious, “Okay,” glared at me and walked out.

I looked at Perry as he began removing the possessions of Brandy Parker from the box.

“Who came up with this crap about three murders?” he said, lifting out a thick photo album. “Her or you?”

“Both of us.”

“I get the feeling you think that little shit’s a good kid.”

“She is. She’s troubled, but she’s okay. She’s honest and sincere.”

“This idea about Kyle Thistle’s wife and your girlfriend is so off the wall I’m not even gonna consider it.” He pulled out Brandy Parker’s notebook. “But what I will consider is what the kid said about her Aunt being a cemetery buff. I don’t know what it is about that, but ever since you mentioned it the day we found the body I’ve been haunted by it. I’ve felt that somewhere in it was the clue I need. And now that she says her Aunt was one, it places the victim in the cemetery.”

“She could’ve been killed somewhere else and brought to the mausoleum.”

“Or she could’ve been doing whatever cemetery buffs do, checking out a tombstone and the killer could’ve snuck behind her, killed her and hid her in the mausoleum. So I have to ask myself if the killer was a cemetery buff or not. And if he was… was he there with her, you know, like, on a date or something? Or was he just a stranger who popped into a cemetery to look at old tombstones and who saw Brandy Parker and maybe he knew who she was from her wild nights in bars… and maybe he thought she was sexy because she was wearing that tight ‘I’m A Virgin Islander’ T-shirt…and let’s face it, she was a babe. Only problem with this line of thought is what you said about the graves where she was hidden.”

“Whattya mean?”

“Nobody goes there to visit.”

“That reminds me,” I said. “We made a list of all the names on the headstones near the mausoleum.” I reached into my shirt pocket and removed the pieces of paper on which we’d written down the names and handed them to Perry. “We figured that maybe one of the names on the headstones might be the ancestor of the killer.”

“And?” said Perry as he picked up the sheets of paper and glanced at them without much interest.

“The idea being that even though it’s a low traffic area populated with graves of people whose relatives and friends are long since dead, perhaps the killer happened to be paying his respects nine years ago and… ”

Perry shrugged and tossed the list of names onto his desk dismissively. “I’m way ahead of you. I had Greg and Wendell check out all the names on those tombstones plus the dates that the people died and not a one was after Nineteen-twenty. I don’t know exactly how many years make up a generation, but let’s say it’s twenty, twenty-five. That means nearly five generations of people have lived and died since the last person was buried in that Section. And your theory is that the average person won’t visit a grave beyond his parents and grandparents.” He leaned forward and picked up the names again. “So these are all bullshit.”

What Perry said made sense, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing I agreed with him.

“Then what’s your theory, Perry?”

“Try this on for size. Two perfect strangers, cemetery buffs, encounter each other over a grave. They fall into conversation. Maybe they actually hit it off because they’ve found this weird common bond. They spend time together, checking out old graves and maybe this is the first girl the guy’s ever met who had the same fascination with cemeteries as him. The guy hits on her, but she doesn’t want to. She screams. The guy panics. He didn’t want any trouble. He just thought he was gonna get lucky with this sexy fellow cemetery buff. She won’t stop screaming so the guy grabs her a little too hard and he doesn’t mean to hurt her. He just wants her to stop screaming. He puts his hand on her mouth and she’s struggling because she’s still scared and before you know it they’re on the ground and she hits her head on an old headstone and she’s dead. It’s not like the guy planned on it. It was an accident. If only she had stopped screaming. You think that could’ve happened, Del?”

“It’s possible,” I said.

“Now, the killer has a problem. Does he call the cops and tell them what happened? Hell no. He’s a decent guy. Just has a strange hobby. It’s not like he came there to kill anyone. But he knows that if he calls the police and tells them the truth they might not believe him. He might be arrested. Have to go to jail. Get a lawyer. Go to trial. Maybe he’s poor. Can’t hire a good attorney. Maybe he has a nice career going for himself. He’s watched enough TV and movies to know there might be some ambitious District Attorney who wants to nail him because it’s an election year or something. Our boy knows his ass is grass if he does the right thing and reports what happened. So he thinks, ‘If I hide the body, nobody will know what happened.’ And since he’s a cemetery buff he figures he’ll stash the body in a place that wouldn’t have a lot of people paying respects, so he looks for an old, out of the way mausoleum, breaks in, hides the body, seals it back up and he’s gone. And he figures the odds are in his favor that the body’ll never be found. And for nine years he guessed right. Bastard never figured that some teenagers would spoil his perfect crime.”

He looked to me as if he wanted my approval.

“You’re assuming she was murdered there. If she was killed somewhere else and brought to the cemetery it changes your theory completely.”

“That’s another scenario. All I can work with is something that sounds logical. What I just said sounds possible. But just to show you I can be open minded, let’s call mine Theory One. Now let’s talk about Theory Two. Del’s theory — that she was killed somewhere else. I’ll make this quick, because it’s real simple. For argument’s sake, let’s forget about the fact that Brandy Parker was a cemetery buff. Let’s say that on the day she was killed she picked up a guy in a bar. They went somewhere to do the dirty deed. For whatever reason, things get out of hand, and for whatever reason, he kills her. It’s late at night. Again, let’s assume the killer didn’t plan on killing her. It just happened. Just like our guy in Theory One, he has to decide whether or not to call the police. He says no way. He has to hide the body. Now this guy’s a cemetery buff. He figures he’ll take his chances and hide the body in the mausoleum. Bingo! That’s how she could’ve been strangled somewhere else and then brought to the cemetery.”

“You’re pretty much basing everything on the idea that the killer’s a cemetery buff.”

“Has to be. Or like I said to you the day we found the body it’s somebody who knows that cemetery inside and out.” Perry turned back to the computer, punched a couple of keys and watched as something came onto the screen. He pressed the Print button and in seconds out came a sheet of paper.

“I made of list of the employees of Elm Grove, your Funeral Home and DiGregorio’s. There’s a grand total of nineteen people, including you. Take a look.” He handed the sheet of paper to me. I read the list of names.

Elm Grove Cemetery

Inside

Mel Abernathy (Manager)

George Granger (salesman)

Joanne Linley (bookkeeper)

Patricia Aimes (secretary)