Solomon's Grave

if the caretaker really had left, snuck out and taken some back way like these two had done?

He’d know soon enough. He didn’t want to call Paulson, afraid the dim glow of the phone would give away his position behind the tree. He made himself comfortable on the ground, making sure the couple’s position was at least partially in view, and waited for something to happen.

Chapter Fifty

Vincent Tarretti needed to get off this street as soon as possible. Even if he could run without skewering himself with the crowbar, he didn’t dare draw any attention. The pistol bumped against his belly with every step. Vincent hadn’t realized he’d forgotten to bring a flashlight until he’d already walked half way across town. He usually kept it in the front pocket. He’d become too much a creature of routine, never thinking outside of whatever box he’d built around himself. He would have to be sharper than that to get through whatever was ahead. Hopefully Dinneck thought to bring one. Going back to his house now, or to the church, was a detour he didn’t think they could afford.

The sense of urgency plaguing him these past few days filled every muscle in his body, growing stronger the further he walked across town. Tonight’s discussion—or confrontation, depending on how one looked at it—was its fuel. Dinneck and the girl might not be there when he arrived. They might have stayed at the church and called the cops. What he’d said tonight certainly convinced Elizabeth he was a little under-stocked in the sanity department.

Vincent felt, with all his heart, that he’d connected with the young minister. Nathan Dinneck believed him, or at least hadn’t completely ruled him out.

There was nothing to do but continue forward and trust that God would keep Nathan on the right path. Vincent kept mostly to the darker, residential roads, moving at a forced leisurely pace in the more populated corners of Hillcrest. It was the second time in less than a week he had traveled this route. Cutting through the woods at the end of the main cemetery was always difficult, and he wondered how the teenagers managed it so often during the summer without breaking their necks. His jeans were caked with mud up to the knees, the result of stepping in a soft section of the wetlands. Now as he walked along Hepworth Avenue, his sneakers squished with trapped water. He reached back and adjusted the steel bar under his jacket.

Hepworth intersected with the far end of Greenwood Street. Almost there. Headlights behind him. He looked in panic for a place to step off the road. Nowhere, not without looking suspicious. He continued on, hands in his pants pockets, keeping a steady pace. The pistol suddenly weighed a hundred pounds. He hoped the approaching car wasn’t a police cruiser. Nothing like coming across a guy with a pony tail wandering through Smalltown, USA, carrying both a gun and a crowbar.

A minivan passed by. He made a point not to look into its windows. The van continued to the far curve in the road before pulling into a driveway. Its headlights cut out. Vincent slowed his pace, not wanting to catch up too quickly. As it was, he moved past the house just as the driver, a teenager obviously having borrowed his parents’ van for the night, was walking up the front steps. He looked over as Vincent passed. Vincent waved absently and the kid waved back, obviously assuming he was a neighbor taking a late stroll. The boy went inside.

Vincent let his breath out in a slow, cleansing sigh. He was nervous, edgy. He wished he could go back to the house and write in his notebook. Noting the events of his life gave him control over them. Or, at least, the illusion of control.

He reached the intersection with Greenwood. It was a long road, mostly wooded, with the old cemetery at the far end. As he turned onto it, something troubled him. When he brought Dinneck and the girl down into the crypt, what would they see? The vault held more than one secret. An amazing, terrifying thing. When Ruth first showed him, he was shocked. Dazzled wouldn’t be far from a qualifying adjective. The Ark had been smaller than he’d anticipated, barely a yard long, two feet high and deep, but that fact didn’t seem to matter. Not at first. It should have. There was so much power filling the small room. She made him look a second time, bringing him closer to what he’d assumed was the source of such pulsing energy. He saw something very different, as if a veil had been lifted inside his head.

At that moment, twenty-seven years ago, a much younger Vinnie Tarretti wondered aloud how in the world he’d seen what he’d seen the first time. Ruth had smiled, weakly, and whispered that nothing in the world had anything to do with it. More than anything else, that moment standing before the makeshift altar under the earth had convinced him. Of everything. This, more than anything, would be his ace when convincing Dinneck. It had to be.

Twenty-one paces past the last house on his right, he turned off the road and made his slow way through the mountain laurel and sumac, deeper into the woods. It didn’t take long before he stepped into a clearing dotted with the muted outlines of dozens of gravestones at the far northern edge of the graveyard.

He was blinded by the glare of a flashlight.

“Who’s there?” whispered Dinneck’s voice.

Vincent raised his hand to his face and whispered back, “Could you please try your best not to blind me, Reverend?”

The light cut out. The dark cemetery was replaced by a white sheet.

Dinneck and Elizabeth had been hiding behind a statue of the Virgin Mary near the exact point of Vincent’s arrival. They probably heard him coming as soon as he’d stepped off the road.

He blinked and waited for the night blindness to resolve itself. Two shapes walked up to him.

“Sorry,” Nathan said.

“It’s all right.” He reached behind him and carefully pulled out the crowbar. The woman gasped. He said, “Oh, relax,” and waved it in the air like a baton. “We need this to get inside.” He pointed toward the grave across the way, then handed the bar to Nathan. “Let’s get to work.”

*     *     *

In that brief, second flash of light across the clearing, Peter saw Vincent Tarretti. Soon after, their voices reached across the distance to him. Paulson, he thought, you are such an ass. He needed him here now, but did not dare turn on his phone. Not yet. Aside from the LED’s glow, the subtle beeps of the number pad as he dialed might as well be fireworks. He needed to wait, at least until the trio were out of sight.

From the way things were progressing so far, he knew that meant when they’d lowered themselves into the grave. Even if they wisely left one of their number at ground level as lookout, he would have to make the call. There would be precious little time left. While he waited, he busied himself wiping the gun he’d used to kill Pastor Hayden. He used a new handkerchief, working at every corner. If everything panned out, this would be the last time he held the weapon.

*     *     *

“I’m glad you thought to bring a flashlight,” Vincent mumbled. “I can’t believe I forgot something so basic.”

Elizabeth kept the light aimed at Tarretti’s feet. She didn’t trust much of anything he said, but Nate had chosen to trust him so she didn’t have much choice.

“After you,” she said, waggling the beam quickly across the ground. He took the lead, followed by Elizabeth, who tried to keep the light fixed at a spot just ahead of him. Vincent’s shadow loomed over the angels’ bent forms. Nate was being his usual quiet, introspective self. She wondered—not without a little hope—if he was suffering from second thoughts now that the moment of truth had arrived.

The caretaker wasted no time. He knelt down, occasionally directing her to point the light this way or that. He pushed aside the leaves and dirt like someone looking for a lost marble. An appropriate image, Elizabeth decided.

Tarretti worked his fingers along the concrete base, at first only pushing aside a thin layer of dirt, but shifting more and more as he worked his way to the edge of the platform. Here the dirt and sediment was at least three inches thick. Once he found what he sought, he carefully ran his fingertips back along the narrow groove he’d made, then stopped.

“Here it is,” he said. Nate moved beside Elizabeth, gave her one quick glance, then continued to stare. All their attention was on the kneeling man as he slowly uncovered more and more of what was apparently the edge