the embodiment of evil. Satan. Wiccans don’t buy into that.”
“You saying there’s no devil?”
Finney hesitated, choosing his words.
“Wiccans acknowledge that all nature is composed of opposites, and that this polarity is a part of everyone. Good and evil are locked within the unconsciousness of every person. We believe it’s the ability to rise above destructive urges, to channel negative energies into positive thoughts and actions, that separates normal people from rapists and mass murderers and other sociopaths.”
“You use magic to do all this rising above?” There was menace in Slidell’s voice.
“In Wicca, magic is viewed as a religious practice.”
“This religious practice involve carving up corpses?”
“I’ve already told you. Wiccans perform no destructive or exploitive magic. We hurt no one. Why would you ask such a question?”
Slidell described Jimmy Klapec’s corpse.
“You think
Slidell impaled Finney with a glare.
“I robbed a grave when I was seventeen. Got picked up once for relieving myself in public. Two stupid pranks. That’s it.”
The glare held.
Finney’s eyes sliced from Slidell to Charlie to me. “You’ve got to believe me.”
“Frankly, kid, I don’t believe a thing you’re telling me.”
“Check it out.” Finney was almost in tears. “Find Donna. Talk with her.”
“You can bank on it.”
20
WE CAUGHT A BREAK. OR FINNEY DID. SINCE THE ALLEGED grave grab had taken place after 1999, the incident was on the CMPD computer. Using the year of occurrence and Elmwood as identifiers, we pulled the report in minutes.
On the night of 3 August, an unknown suspect/suspects unlawfully entered crypt 109 located at Elmwood Cemetery. The reporting officer spoke with Mr. Allen Burkhead, cemetery administrator. Mr. Burkhead stated that upon arriving at the cemetery at 0720 hours on 4 August he discovered crypt 109 had been pried open. Mr. Burkhead did not believe the crypt was damaged when he left work at 1800 hours on 3 August. Once inside the crypt the suspect/suspects opened a coffin and violated the remains of Susan Clover Redmon by removing the skull. The Medical Examiner was notified, but declined to visit the site or to examine the body to determine if other bones were removed from the coffin. At the time of the incident the cemetery was closed and there are no witnesses. A record search revealed that Marshall J. Redmon (deceased) holds deed to the tomb. A Redmon family member, Thomas Lawrence Redmon, was located in Springfield, Ohio. Thomas Redmon has been notified and will be kept abreast of developments. I request this case remain open for further investigation.
I skimmed the rest of the information:
Slidell determined that Hewlett was now assigned to the Eastway Division. He phoned and was placed on hold. Seconds later Hewlett picked up. Slidell switched to speakerphone.
“Yeah, I remember the B-and-E at Elmwood. Kinda sticks in my head, being the only grave robbery I’ve ever caught. Case went nowhere.”
“You have a gut on it?”
“Probably kids. I caught a double homicide that week, so vandalism didn’t top my dance card. We had no leads, nothing to work. Local Redmons were all dead or moved away. The one out-of-state relative we managed to locate didn’t give a rat’s ass. Eventually, I decided to just wait and see if the skull surfaced.”
“Did it?”
“No.”
I jumped in. “Why was the ME a no-show?”
“He asked my opinion. I told him nothing else in the tomb or in the coffin looked disturbed. He said he’d contact the family member living in Ohio.”
“And?”
“Thomas Redmon said seal her up, call if you find the head.”
“Real humanitarian,” Slidell said.
“Redmon had never been to Charlotte, didn’t know that branch of the family, hadn’t a clue who was stored in that tomb.”
“Did you check cemetery records on Susan Redmon?” I asked.
“Yeah. There wasn’t much. Just the name, burial location, and date of interment. Apparently hers was the last coffin in.”
“When was that?”
“Nineteen sixty-seven.”
“How many others are in there?”
“Four in all.”
“None of the others was vandalized?”
“Didn’t appear to be. But nothing was in good shape.”
Slidell thanked Hewlett and disconnected. For several seconds his hand lingered on the receiver. Then he turned to me.
“What do you think?”
“I think Finney’s lying about Cuervo. Maybe Klapec.”
“How ’bout we have us a crypt crawl?”
Elmwood isn’t the oldest burial ground in Charlotte. That would be Settlers. Located on Fifth between Poplar and Church, Settlers Graveyard is lousy with Revolutionary War heroes, the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence signers, and well-heeled antebellum movers and shakers.
Elmwood is a relative newcomer on the local cemetery scene. Opened in 1853, the first interment took place two years later, purportedly the child of one William Beatty. Record keeping was less than detailed back then.
Business at Elmwood was slow for a while. Sales picked up in the latter half of the century due to population increases associated with the arrival of textile mills. The last plot sold in 1947.
Designed from its inception to serve both the quick and the dead, Elmwood remains a popular venue for joggers, strollers, and Sunday picnickers. But its hundred acres offer more than azaleas and shade. The cemetery’s design immortalizes in hardscape and landscape the changing attitudes of America’s New South.
Like Gaul, the original graveyard was
No roads connected Elmwood to Pinewood, and the latter could not be accessed via the main entrance to the former. Sixth Street for whites, Ninth Street for blacks. Sometime in the thirties, a fence was erected to ensure that racially distinct corpses and their visitors never commingled.
Yessiree. Not only did African-Americans have to work, eat, shop, and ride buses in their own special places, their dead had to lie in barricaded dirt.
Years after Charlotte outlawed discrimination in the sale of cemetery plots, the fence lingered. Finally, in 1969, after a public campaign led by Fred Alexander, Charlotte’s first black city councilman, the old chain-linking came down.
Today everyone gets planted together.
