“I believe so, Corby, and I’m sorry—I’m sorry you’re the one who discovered the truth, but because you did, maybe . . .”
He let his voice trail.
“The sooner someone finds a crime, the better the chance it might be solved,” Corby said.
“Right, and thank you,” Jackson told him. “I’m calling Mom; I need her down here. She can have Mary take you home now. You’ve done your work.”
“Yeah, I have. There’s nothing . . .” Corby broke off and looked at Jackson and shrugged. “He’s not still here.” he said softly.
Corby wasn’t just a great kid. Like Angela and Jackson—and all Krewe members—he had the ability to speak to the dead. If they remained.
And if they chose to speak.
“I don’t feel him—or see him—anywhere either,” he said.
Police cars and an ambulance arrived. Thankfully, Jackson’s wife—Special Agent Angela Hawkins—arrived at the same time with Mary, another agent’s aunt who had come to live with them and care for the kids when Angela and Jackson were at work.
Mary was like a gift from heaven. She might have been his own aunt or Angela’s, the way she had fit into their household and lifestyle so well.
Jackson saw Angela arrive with Mary and turn the car over to her after giving Corby a hug, and Jackson believed, asking him to make sure he still did his schoolwork.
She walked over to Jackson’s side on the embankment where he was standing. He’d flashed his badge to the first officers on the scene; they had nodded and cordoned off the house and yard with crime scene tape. A detective he knew well and had worked with before, Barry Armstrong, arrived and walked over to him shaking his head.
“It’s a dead guy?” he asked Jackson. He didn’t wait for an answer. He drew a handkerchief from his pocket and covered his face. “Yep. It’s a dead guy—or a whole pack of dead raccoons. What the hell? I’ve driven by and seen this . . . this display a half a dozen times. It never occurred to me that . . . ah, man! I’ll never look at a decoration the same again!”
“There’s Marty,” Jackson noted, “and her people.”
The medical examiner who arrived was Doctor Martina Lopez, one of the best, and a tiny woman. And while she was a trained physician, she was also one of the best forensic experts—in Jackson’s opinion—in the country. She often surprised people; she was about five-feet-even, maybe ninety pounds, with steel gray hair and sharp gray eyes. She looked as if she might be the gentle, sweet granny knitting socks by the fire.
She was anything but, Jackson thought.
Except she had told him once she did like to knit.
So maybe she was just that—with a zillion more talents.
A good thing in the D.C. area, where “crazy” could be centered.
She, too, shook her head as she approached the scene.
“Hey, Barry,” she said, and then, “Jackson, Angela!” she continued, a small frown knitting her brow.
There was one dead man; she was obviously wondering why FBI agents were there.
Then her frown eased.
“Barry, this is ours?”
“Ah, yeah, our jurisdiction,” Barry said. “But . . .”
His voice trailed. He didn’t mind the Krewe being on the case as well. This one was going to garner all kinds of publicity. Halloween was on the horizon. But with the pandemic and the world going a bit insane already, Halloween—as far as parties and trick-or-treating went—was going to be low-key.
But that meant people had gone overboard on decorating. Who would have noticed this display? Skeletons, witches, pumpkins, zombies, and you name it were set up in yards across the country.
“Leave it to you guys—which one of you found the body?” Marty asked.
“Neither.” Jackson told her. “Our son was walking by and smelled . . . death. He called me here, and I called you all,” Jackson said.
“You didn’t touch the body?” Marty asked.
“I know better and you know I know better. Medical examiner touches the body first,” Jackson said.
“Barry?” she asked the detective.
“Hey, I know better, too.”
“But you’re sure it’s human?” She asked, and then she shook her head, wondering at her own folly. “Yeah. Of course. You’re sure. You get to know that particular smell,” she said. “All right, well. You’re here. I guess you’re staying. Which is good. We just got word about a strange poem being sent to the paper. I don’t know if it’s associated, but . . . ah, hell. I used to love Halloween!” She shook her head again. “Can’t anyone decorate without a real corpse anymore?”
She left them, making her way to the porch and the costumed body. “What poem?” Jackson asked Barry.
“The paper called us; they received a weird poem. Postmarked three days ago. They said it was probably a Halloween prank, but they sent it to us anyway. May or may not be related. I’ll send it in an email to you both right away. And I . . . I’ll get the preliminary from Marty now.”
Barry walked away and Angela turned to Jackson.
“Neighbors,” she murmured. “I’ll start with them. Maybe Marty will find I.D. on him, or . . . is it a him?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Great,” she said. “You get to start with the body. I’ll take the block.”
She looked to the two houses next to the old Fillmore place. It was an affluent neighborhood and yards were big.
And decorated.
She glanced at Jackson. “Jackson—there could be more.”
“Right. But the Fillmore place is empty. When people are living in houses, something set up in a yard would be noticed by the owners.”
“Unless the owners are . . . well, we might find more,” she said quietly. “Jackson, it’s just today and then it is Halloween.”
“I know. And there could be . . . more.” He winced. They were both silent for a minute; watching as the police and a woman from the forensic team took pictures of the body as it was found, and then every step of the way as it was moved per Marty’s direction,
