even know I saw. Or maybe there’s something in one of the Oak Grove images we haven’t found yet.” I paused, sensing darkness in the breeze now, a harbinger of a distant storm cloud. “What if Tom Gerrity was right? What if my knowledge of cemeteries is the key to finding the killer?”
Devlin had been in the process of lifting the mug to his mouth, but now he set it down with a thud. His gaze hardened and I suddenly remembered what he’d told me about the private detective. A case had gone bad and another cop had been killed because of Gerrity.
No wonder the mention of the man’s name seemed to set him off.
“The minute you start taking Tom Gerrity’s word for anything is the minute you ask for trouble,” he said.
“Was he right about Hannah Fischer?”
Devlin glanced away, eyes glinting with anger.
“He was, wasn’t he?” I pressed.
“Yes, he was right. Mrs. Fischer ID’d the body this morning.” He looked as if it pained him greatly to admit it.
“Poor woman. It must have been so hard for her. I can’t even imagine the horror of seeing your child dead…” I froze.
The anger in Devlin’s eyes vanished, replaced by the dull gleam of something too tragic to contemplate, something too sad to look at. The fleeing vitality made his face go flat and stiff, like a cardboard cutout. I thought if we sat there long enough, every last drop of life in him might drain away.
Already, the circles under his eyes had darkened, the hollows beneath his cheekbones deepened. He looked ghostlike himself now. Pale, gaunt, lifeless.
I glanced away, shaken.
It took a moment for both of us to recover a semblance of normalcy.
“Mrs. Fischer came by the station and gave a statement,” he finally said, his voice strained.
I nodded. “Were you able to talk to her?”
“Yes.” He picked up his beer, his eyes meeting mine over the rim. With some effort, I managed not to look away.
“Did she corroborate Gerrity’s story?”
“For the most part. She did hire him to find Hannah. According to Mrs. Fischer, she’d suspected for some time that her daughter was in an abusive relationship. One of many, apparently, that began with her father.”
“Then whoever she was seeing is a suspect, right? Did she tell you who that is?”
“She didn’t know his name. Hannah never brought him home, never even talked about him. She knew her mother would ‘try to save her,’ is how she put it.”
“Well, that’s not much to go on, is it?”
“It’s enough. I’ve managed to track him down through some of Hannah’s friends. He has an airtight alibi.”
“How airtight?”
“He was in jail during our time frame. The guy’s a creep and I don’t doubt Hannah was scared enough to try and run away from him. But he couldn’t have killed her.”
“So we’re back to square one. And since the rest of Gerrity’s story panned out,” I said slowly, “don’t you have to give credence to what he said about me?”
Devlin sighed. “I don’t want to drag you into this any more than you already are. Besides, Gerrity’s just guessing about the cemetery. He’s not clairvoyant. He wasn’t even a particularly insightful cop.”
“He would disagree with that assessment. In fact, he told me his grandmother thinks he has a gift. That’s why he’s called the Prophet—”
Devlin’s hand shot out, trapping mine against the table and rendering me speechless with shock as he leaned across the table. “Did he tell you to say that to me?”
There was nothing empty about his expression now. His eyes glittered murderously, animating his whole face in a way I’d never seen before.
“What? No. Not specifically. I just assumed everything he told me was part of the message.”
“You didn’t say anything about it the other night at Oak Grove.”
“It slipped my mind.” I pulled my hand from his. “What’s the big deal? It’s just a nickname, right?”
“It’s a nickname, but it’s not
“Get to you how?”
“It’s not important.” But he appeared to have quite a struggle corralling his emotions. This was yet another side of him I hadn’t seen. The out-of-control side. I shivered.
“You sound so angry when you talk about him. What did he do, exactly?”
“That’s between him and me.” His dark eyes surveyed the traffic. “I’m done with this subject. Anything else you care to talk about?”
“Yes. Can we go back to Hannah for a minute? I know you have limitations on what you can tell me, but if the killer drives a black sedan, I could be in a lot of trouble. There are some things I’d like to know.”
“Such as?”
“How did she die?”
Only a slight hesitation as he contemplated how much to tell me. “Exsanguination. Do you know what that means?”
“She bled to death, basically.”
“Basically, yes.”
“How?”
“I’m not going to give you specifics. That’s something you don’t need to know.” When I started to protest, he lowered his voice. “That’s something you don’t
I felt a tremor of dread. “What was the cause of death in the Delacourt case?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you said she died in such a way that the end was a long time coming.”
“That’s what I heard. I wasn’t a cop back then. I relied on rumors just like everybody else.”
“But you’re a cop now. Can’t you look in the file and find out?”
“That file is sealed. No one can touch it without a court order.”
“Is that normal?
“It happens in cases where a minor is involved.”
“Do you think that’s why this file is sealed, or is it because someone in power doesn’t want it released? You said there was a concentrated effort to keep the investigation quiet by some pretty important people. The society you told me about—the Order of the Coffin and the Claw—if they were responsible for Afton’s death, then the members who were involved might now be in those positions of power. It’s like a circle. A never-ending cover- up.”
“That’s why groups like the Order are so effective. The members have to protect each other. If one falls, they all fall.”
“Then how would you ever be able to prove anything? They’ve stacked the deck.”
He glanced around, his manner suddenly uneasy. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves, anyway. We don’t know that anyone in the Order did anything wrong. There were a lot of rumors flying around back then, including some pretty disturbing talk about Rupert Shaw.”
“About Dr. Shaw…” I brushed another petal off the table. “Let me just say that I still don’t think he did anything wrong. I can’t imagine him having anything to do with that girl’s murder. I just can’t. But…” I glanced up. “There is something that’s been…not bothering me, but puzzling me.”
“I’m listening.”
“He has this ring. Very unusual and ornate. Silver and onyx, I think, with some sort of emblem on the stone. I don’t know what the symbol is, but it looks familiar to me. I think I’ve seen it somewhere before. Anyway…what’s really strange is that he keeps changing his story about where he got it. The first time I noticed the ring, he said it was a family heirloom. Then he told someone else it had been a gift from a colleague. This morning he told me he bought it at a flea market. I feel silly even bringing this up because I’m sure it’s nothing. But in the interest of full disclosure, I needed to get it off my chest.”
