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  “Bullshit. I know what I saw. I am not crazy.”

  Not knowing what else to do, Ssabra decided to try something she had seen numerous times in movies and television shows. It was rather cliché, but it was the only thing she could think of doing. Keeping her eye on the coffee cup, she asked in a loud, clear voice, “If there are any ghosts or spirits here in this apartment, will you please give me a sign?”

  A moment of silence passed. She started to repeat the question, but was interrupted by a man’s voice.

  Ssabra jumped back and looked around. The voice had come from right next to her, but there was no one else in the room. She only heard one word, but it was enough to cause the blood to drain from her face.

  “Osiyo.”

  It was the same word she had heard at the Huguenot Cemetery the night before, the same word that had magically formed on her bathroom mirror. Jenny was right; someone, or something, had followed her home from the cemetery. She had a spiritual intruder in her apartment, one that was fond of playing games and scaring the daylights out of people.

  She looked around the room, terrified she might see something to go along with the voice: a ghostly specter with rotting skin and empty eyes, a corpse freshly risen from the grave, or perhaps an animated skeleton to dance around her tiny apartment. The voice was terrifying enough, and she would surely lose her mind if a dead man suddenly appeared to go along with it.

  “Enough of this,” she said, finally finding the strength to move. “I’m out of here.”

  Ssabra hurried across the room, picking up speed as she went. She ran for the front door, pausing only long enough to grab her purse and keys off the kitchen counter. She had just reached the door when she remembered that she had left her historical dress laying on the bed.

  “Damnit,” she stopped and turned back around. The bedroom looked an awfully long way away, but she had to go back. She needed the dress for work. It was either take the dress with her now, or come back for it later in the afternoon. The apartment would be dark then, the sun on the backside of the building. Dark and spooky, and very much haunted.

  Taking a deep breath, she decided to dash back into her bedroom to grab the dress. Moving at almost a dead run, she looked neither left or right as she crossed the living room, afraid of what else she might see. Grabbing the dress off the bed, she hurried back toward the front door. She was halfway across the living room when she again heard the voice.

  “Osiyo.”

  Turning in the direction of the sound, Ssabra saw the coffee cup was once again moving under its own power, sliding from one end of the table to the other.

  Through she didn’t slow her pace, she shouted as she ran past the table, “Stop that! You’re going to spill coffee on my carpet!”

  She didn’t look back over her shoulder to see if the cup had stopped moving. Nor was she really worried about a little spilled coffee. That was the least of her troubles. Jerking open the front door, she exited the apartment as fast as she could, slamming the door behind her.

  Ssabra didn’t linger in the hallway, but hurried down the stairs to ground level. Nor did she take her time getting into her car. Only when the engine was started, and she was driving out of the parking lot, did she start to feel safer. Maybe she would be a little less frightened at work, her mind occupied with giving tours to senior citizens and school kids. But work only lasted so long, and sooner or later she would have to return to her apartment. Sooner or latter she would have to deal with a most unwelcome house guest.

  Chapter 10

  It definitely looked like Detective Colvin had another homicide on his hands. The Crime Scene Investigation Unit had gone through the Dumpster, located in a parking lot bordering the north side of the Tolomato Cemetery, carefully removing pieces of what were obviously human skin. There was no doubt they were human, not when one of the pieces was the face of a man, complete with lips, nose, partial beard, and eye-holes.

  All together they had removed over a dozen pieces of skin, ranging in size from a few centimeters in diameter to almost a foot in length. In addition to the skin, several pieces of bone had been discovered in the bottom of the Dumpster. Bones had also been found scattered on the ground along the fence line, a few feet to the left of the container: fragments of a rib, half a vertebra, a sliver of cranium. It was a jigsaw puzzle of the macabre; not enough parts to put the body back together, but enough to help with a possible identification.

  One of the most identifying pieces of evidence was the turtle tattoo, found on a piece of skin that had come from the left side of the victim’s chest: it was definitely his chest, because part of a nipple was still attached to the skin. The turtle tattoo was a tribal design, completely black in color, and could prove useful in providing a name to go along with the remains. Jack would check the missing person reports back at the office to see if anyone disappearing in the last year or two sported similar body art. He would also send out a bulletin to other police agencies in the state, just in case they were searching for someone with such a tattoo.

  The CSI officers had taken close-up photographs of the turtle tattoo. Once the photos were developed, he would have one of his men take copies around to the local tattoo shops to see if any of the artists recognized the design. It was an unusual piece of art, and he didn’t think that too many people were fond enough of turtles to get one permanently drawn on their chest. The tattoo shops usually kept records of who their customers were, and often made them sign releases before getting any artwork. Some of the shops even kept photos of the designs, especially if it was something unique.

  According to the medical examiner, the remains found in the Dumpster had once belonged to an adult Caucasian male, between five feet ten inches tall and six feet, with sandy brown hair and a full beard. Once he got the remains back to the laboratory, the ME would be able to obtain DNA samples from the victim’s skin and hair. The information the DNA samples contained could then be run through the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), a data base sponsored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  Each state maintained its own data base, and the entire system was linked together in a network. That allowed local police departments, and law enforcement agencies, to conduct DNA searches across the entire country. Unfortunately, the only DNA samples listed in the data base were those belonging to Felons who had been sentenced to state prisons. Civilians were not in the system, which meant they would not be able to come up with a match for the second victim unless he had been convicted of a felony in recent years.

  Since the medical examiner’s office was not normally open on the weekend, tests had not yet been run on the remains found at the Tolomato Cemetery the previous day. The office would open at nine on Monday morning, and tests would be run on both victims at the same time. There was a possibility that the remains found on the two different days had actually come from the same person. Jack had suspected the remains found inside the Tolomato were from a woman, but only because of the tattered clothing that had also been found. But the perpetrator might actually have planted the clothing in an effort to throw off the police.

  No clothing had yet been found in connection with the second crime scene, even though Jack had sent several police officers to search a two-block area around the scene. Nor had they discovered any jewelry, leather bags, smudge sticks, or magic rocks.

  In addition to the DNA testing, the Crime Scene Investigation officers had tried to obtain a few latent prints from the largest piece of skin, using the Magna Brush Powder Technique, but hadn’t had much luck in the process. It was extremely difficult to develop latent prints on human skin, because the fingerprints usually only lasted for an hour or two. To make matters even more difficult, the skin they were testing had been contaminated by dirt and other foreign debris when it was tossed into the Dumpster.

  The CSI officers had much better results lifting prints off the metal surfaces of the trash container. Unfortunately, the bright green Dumpster had been used by dozens of people over the past
few days, and its smooth surfaces were covered with hundreds of prints, many of them overlapping one another. If the perpetrator had left fingerprints on the Dumpster, then it would be nearly impossible to pick his out of all the others. Still, the crime lab was going to process the prints that had been lifted, hoping to obtain a few leads in the case. The investigating officers were also going to take elimination fingerprints of everyone who worked at the Old Drugstore, in an effort to rule out as many useless prints as possible.

  Deciding that a break was needed, Detective Colvin left the crime scene in the capable hands of the Medical Examiner and CSI officers, and slowly walked across the parking lot to his patrol car. His car was the only vehicle sitting in the lot, because it had already been parked there when he sealed off the area with barrier tape. He had not even allowed the medical examiner, or the CSI officers, to drive their vehicles onto the lot, fearful of valuable evidence being destroyed in the process.

  Directly in front of his vehicle was an ever growing pile of garbage, for the spot had been designated as the official trash pile. A certain amount of waste material accumulated during the investigation of a crime scene, including empty film canisters, paper bags, coffee cups, packing material, and discarded blood testing kits. The trash pile was always located as far away from the actual crime scene as possible to prevent possible contamination of the area. Since they didn’t have an actual trash can handy, Jack had spread a newspaper on the parking lot to mark the location of the trash pile.

  In addition to serving as a spot to discard waste materials, the trash pile was also used as a place for investigating officers to take a break away from the crime scene. Judging by the number of cigarette butts in front of his car, and by the empty coffee cups and soda cans, several of the officers had already put the trash pile to good use.

  Jack pulled a pack of Winstons out of his jacket pocket and shook out a cigarette, lighting it with a butane lighter. He was starting to get a headache, and was hoping a little nicotine would stop the pain before it got any worse. He wished he had a coffee to go along with the smoke, black and extra strong, but he had not brought along a thermos, and there were no convenience stores in the area. He actually had a portable coffee pot back at the office that he often set up at crime scenes, creating a place for visiting officers to gather around and to keep them out of the way. But he hadn’t had the opportunity to go back to his office after discovering the remains in the Dumpster.

  Nor had he been able to contact his partner, Detective Moats, to inform him that another set of human remains had been found. It was Bill’s day off, and he was obviously smart enough not to answer his cell phone when he wasn’t working. Jack had tried calling the other detective three times, but all he had gotten for his trouble was an answering service. He had left two different messages, and was hoping Bill would get in touch before very much longer, because he really needed the help.

  “Wild Bill, where are you when I need you?” The answer to that question was easy. Bill owned a twenty-five-foot fishing boat and spent most of his free time out on the water, hunting for the big ones along the Intercoastal Waterway. That’s where he always was on his days off, beyond the reach of friends, family, and coworkers, safe from interruptions that might threaten to hamper his leisure activities. Jack had gone along with Bill on numerous fishing trips, and knew that his fellow detective always left early in the morning, and rarely returned before sunset. Sometimes, when the fish were biting, he would stay out on the water all night, coming to work the next day with bloodshot eyes and smelling a little bit like bait.

  With any luck, Bill would check his messages and give Jack a return call. Or better yet, he would cut his fishing trip short and show up at the crime scene. Jack had great respect for the senior detective, and really appreciated his keen insight and logical way of looking at things.

  In the meantime, Jack would just have to go it on his own. Once the CSI officers had finished with the crime scene, and the medical examiner had removed the remains of the second victim, he would be free to start investigating clues, as well as tracking down a few leads.

  Jack inhaled the cigarette, and released the smoke slowly out of his nose.

  The only problem was he really didn’t have any clues or leads to go on. He knew that one, or maybe two, people had been murdered, their bodies apparently cut up and mutilated. Where the homicides had actually transpired, the identity of the victims and why they had been killed, as well as who the killer was and the motive behind his or her action, remained a mystery.

  The two homicide cases were still in the early stages, and Detective Colvin knew from experience that clues and leads would fall into place as the investigation went along. Since there were no bodies in either case, the work done in the laboratory would be of vital importance. DNA samples might provide the identity of one, or both, of the victims. The turtle tattoo found on the remains of the second victim, as well as the ornate silver ring found inside the Tolomato the previous day, might also produce valuable leads.

  Knowing things would probably fall into place as the case went along did not make him feel any better. He wanted answers now, and he didn’t like having to wait while the boys in the lab did most of the investigative work. He wanted to interview witnesses, but sadly there didn’t seem to be any. And he wanted to slap around a perpetrator, but there were no suspects in the case. Not yet, anyway.

  Jack also felt like he was overlooking something, as if someone had laid the big picture out in front of him but he was too stupid to see it. He knew the Tolomato Cemetery played an important part in the two homicides, but he just couldn’t figure out the connection. There was something special about the ancient cemetery, at least there was something special about it to the perp. Figure out the mystery of the Tolomato and he might possibly be able to solve the case.

  The detective finished his cigarette and dropped the butt on the parking lot, crushing it beneath the toe of his shoe. He needed to finish up his work at the crime scene, but made no effort to leave the spot where he was standing. Instead, he remained next to the trash pile, his attention focused on the ancient graveyard on the other side of the fence.

  The Tolomato Cemetery lay cloaked in heavy layers of shadows, looking no different than it did any other day. It didn’t look any different to Jack Colvin, but it definitely felt different. The atmosphere around the graveyard was one of silent expectation, as if the ancient burial ground was holding its breath, waiting to see what would happen next. It was a nervous feeling, and it caused a slight tingle to walk down his spine.

  Speak to me, Tolomato. What horrors have you recently seen? What secrets can you share?

  Chapter 11

  Ssabra arrived at First City Tours a few minutes early, which gave her time to call Jenny at work. It was almost nine a.m., so she was hoping the restaurant’s breakfast rush would be just about over and her friend would be able to talk. Dialing the number, she asked the hostess to speak to Jenny Sanders.

  “Jenny?” The hostess fumbled with the phone, obviously waiting on a customer at the same time. “That’s three-fifty back to you. Thank you and have a nice day. Yeah, Jenny’s here. Let me see if she’s free. Hold on a minute.”

  She was placed on hold for a few moments, then someone answered the phone.

  “Hello. Jenny speaking. Can I help you?”

  Ssabra cleared her throat. “Hi, Jenny. It’s me. Ssabra.”

  “Hi, honey,” Jenny answered, her voice becoming more pleasant. “How you doing? No problems back at the apartment?”

  “No. Not really,” she answered. “But there is something I need to talk to you about. Do you have a few minutes, or is this a bad time?”

  There was a pause. “No. No. It’s okay. I can talk. We just finished up with the breakfast crowd. I was planning on taking a few minutes anyway. What do you need?”

  She hesitated, trying to come up with the right words. “Remember what you said to me last night?”

  “Honey, I said a lot of
things to you last night, especially after the wine at my place. Oh God, I didn’t try to make a pass at you, did I?”

  “Quit being silly, you know perfectly well that you didn’t try to make a pass at me. You’re not gay, and you never have been.”

  “Whew, that’s a relief. You didn’t try to make a pass at me, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t. And will you please be serious for a moment?”

  “I am being serious. You know how I get after two glasses of vino. I was drunk and vulnerable, and you might have tried to take advantage of me.”

  “I’m not gay either,” Ssabra said, trying not to laugh.

  “Really? You’re not gay? You could have fooled me. I’ve never seen you with a man.”

  “What are you talking about? I had a man in my apartment last night. Remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember. And what did you do? You ran away from him.”

  She laughed. “Stop it. Let’s get serious. I need your help. Remember what you said to me last night, about how you thought a ghost might have followed me home from one of the cemeteries?”

  “I said that? I must have really been drunk.”

  “Yes, you said it. You said it at the sandwich shop, and you weren’t drunk. You were sober.”

  “That must have been the problem,” Jenny laughed. “Yeah, I remember saying it. Why?”

  She again cleared her throat. “Because I think I might have a ghost.”

  There was a moment of silence on the phone. “You’re kidding me. A ghost?”

  Ssabra nodded, then remembered that she was speaking on the phone. “I’m not kidding. Remember what I told you last night, about the lights in the bathroom turning off, and the word ‘osiyo’, appearing on my mirror? And how cold it got in my apartment, and the smell of tobacco?”