St. Patrick's Day Read online

  St. Patrick's Day

  Heather Graham

  Slush Pile Players

  Copyright © 2021 Heather Graham

  St. Patrick's Day

  Copyright © 2021 by Slush Pile Productions

  All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior express written permission of the author. Unauthorized reproduction of this material, electronic or otherwise, will result in legal action.

  Please report the unauthorized distribution of this publication by contacting the author at theoriginalheathergraham.com, via email at [email protected], or at Heather Graham 103 Estainville Ave., Lafayette, LA 70508. Please help stop internet piracy by alerting the author with the name and web address of any questionable or unauthorized distributor.

  St. Patrick's Day is a work of fiction. The people and events in St. Patrick's Day are entirely fictional. The story is not a reflection of historical or current fact, nor is the story an accurate representation of past or current events. Any resemblance between the characters in this novel and any or all persons living, or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To my mom, born in Dublin, always Irish, while

  embracing America with all her heart.

  And to Granny B, Granda, my cousin, Patrick,

  and the beautiful family I was blessed to

  know as I grew up.

  And, of course, to banshees and leprechauns everywhere!

  An owl hooted just as the moon, rising over the crimson and gray shades of dusk, slipped behind a cloud.

  The cemetery was bathed in a strange red glow and shadows.

  One shadow seemed to watch her from the cover of darkness, and then disappear into the very void created by the coming of the night.

  Angela Hawkins wasn’t afraid of cemeteries.

  And she wasn’t afraid of the dead.

  Some who were dead in fact became very good friends; and many before moving on, helped the Krewe of Hunters find justice again and again.

  But something had seemed extremely eerie about the shadow. Or maybe it was because she and others were on stake-out in the cemetery for a reason.

  She slipped around the side of the huge oak where she’d been waiting and watching, though it had not been the dead she had been looking for, but rather the living.

  The shadow had slipped behind one of the Gothic family mausoleums that dotted the rolling landscape. She crept around, heading along the structure herself, searching.

  But whatever it was she had seen—or thought she had seen—it was gone.

  And there was nothing here tonight to fear.

  She gave herself a mental shake. She knew Jackson would stay through the night along with the local police and a handful of Krewe members. But she’d come back in the morning. Instinct told her nothing was going to happen that night.

  Instinct, or her gut, and nothing special about that. While she and other Krewe members saw and spoke with the dead—when they remained and chose to be seen—her feeling about this had nothing to do with any special gift, curse, or talent.

  She just didn’t think anything was going to happen that night.

  Time to go find Jackson.

  *

  “What do you think,” Detective Angus Connell asked Jackson Crow, walking around one of the small mausoleums in the historic cemetery.

  Jackson leaned against the concrete of the building, shaking his head.

  “I wish I had a definitive answer for you,” he said.

  Connell had come to the Krewe offices specifically asking for help.

  A threat had come from the cemetery; and while the Krewe of Hunters members naturally kept the secret of some of their success, local law enforcement in the D.C., Northern Virginia, and Maryland regions often came to Jackson with strange problems.

  This time it was words discovered by the groundskeeper etched into a centuries-old tombstone. The groundskeeper had discovered them when he had cut back a growth of weeds by an ancient oak.

  “For the love of freedom, for the saints who bled, we will rise to arms and defend the land! Gather ye here, for ye’ll not be left to bear the burden alone, for we are one, no matter our place of birth.”

  Intelligence analysts theorized that it was a threat centered on St. Patrick’s Day, which seemed strange to Jackson.

  He’d read about the historical figure of St. Patrick.

  He hadn’t been a man fond of violence and trouble.

  Jackson didn’t think he’d banished the snakes from Ireland, but rather that ‘snakes’ meant he had perhaps banished some pagan practices. He’d led a rough life himself and believed in his calling to a tee.

  The kind of guy he’d have liked to have met.

  “It may be nothing,” Jackson said. “But it’s not St. Patrick’s Day until tomorrow.”

  “And everyone is a little bit Irish on St. Patrick’s Day,” Connell murmured. He nodded his head, disturbed. “There were times when we didn’t take graffiti in cemeteries seriously. But this place has a dozen entrances. Several dozen family mausoleums and concrete or marble tombs. Places to hide weapons—places for people to hide. But . . .”

  “Hey. It’s all right. We’ll stay on guard,” Jackson said. “Better to be safe than sorry.”

  Connell agreed. “No choice these days. And then there’s Covid. We weren’t planning a mega-St.-Pat’s Day party anyway.”

  Connell knew Jackson—they had worked together before. But after Jackson’s words, Connell studied him curiously; and Jackson grinned at him and said, “Yes, like about ten percent of the American population, I have some Irish in me. My father was a Native American. My mom—mostly Irish.”

  Connell grimaced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be—”

  “You’re not at all offensive,” Jackson assured him. “Connell?” he asked in return. “Sounds Irish to me.”

  “Oh, hell, yeah. Irish, English, French, German and Indian. Indian from India,” he explained quickly. “My mom’s grandmother immigrated during World War II. They say I have her beautiful brown eyes,” he added, grinning.

  “Ah, yeah,” Jackson said. “Beautiful brown eyes,” he agreed and grinned.

  The man did have a good face. Lean features and a strong jaw. He liked Connell and had worked a case with him before, a missing person’s case with a happy ending. A young woman had gone missing on her way to Harpers Ferry. She’d been found, having had an accident in the Blue Ridge, alone and terrified. Her cell hadn’t been able to find a satellite connection, and she’d been crawling her way to the road with a broken ankle.

  They’d even found the man who had driven her off the road—thanks to a long-dead Civil War soldier.

  Connell grew serious. “Do you think the etching in the old stone is serious—or someone’s concept of a joke?” he asked. “Or just plain old vandalism?”

  Jackson had studied the stone—so had Angela Hawkins, his wife and second-in-command at Krewe headquarters, and other Krewe members.

  Who could say? Maybe before, he would have shrugged it off. But he understood Connell’s concern. The last year had been tough. Too many people had been lost. Too many had lost their jobs. And it seemed people had cabin fever—and cabin fever made them violently determined they were right, no matter what their cause. And maybe violence would prove their point.

  The etching was evidently fresh. If it was a joke, it had been done recently.

  “The bureau doesn’t take any threat lightly,” Jackson said. “So, it may be a joke. It may be simple vandalism. But we’ll keep covering this with you. No problem.”
/>   He saw Angela coming toward them. She had been walking around the cemetery, searching for any other sign that someone might be planning a violent protest or attack in the midst of whatever St. Patrick’s Day activities or performances or speeches there might be.

  “I haven’t found anything that might suggest someone is using the cemetery as a staging ground,” she said. “But there are all kinds of places where . . . well, weapons could be hidden, bombs set . . . and it isn’t St. Patrick’s Day yet.”

  “I might be dragging you all out for nothing. There are other saints. St. Patrick seems to have been a cool one—usually it’s pretty amazing to be in cities like Savannah or Chicago or others on St. Patrick’s Day. But . . . the words could refer to a different saint. Patrick wasn’t warlike. Hey, St. George is the one famous for slaying the dragon,” Connell noted. “We may be way off.”

  “Or we may find a trickster tomorrow and nothing more. Hopefully,” Angela said. She looked at Jackson.

  “I’ll take night,” he said. “The McFadden brothers, all three, will stay through. And Axel Tiger. Axel told me to make sure to give Mary his love.”

  Mary Tiger, Special Agent Axel Tiger’s aunt, watched the children for them. She had her own apartment, but she had a room in their Arlington home, too.

  Angela smiled. “Okay, then. I’ll be back at about eight.” She grinned at him. “I’ll bring donuts and coffee.”

  “Crow, you really could go home with Special Agent Hawkins,” Connell said, nodding to Angela. He wasn’t usually so formal, but they were on a stakeout. “I have six cops holding here through the night, too,” he added.

  “I’ll bring lots of donuts,” Angela assured him.

  “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “Hey! I’m happy to bring donuts. Donuts are easy.”

  “And we’ve all got some Irish in us,” Connell said. “We should be . . . well, it will be different this year. Last St. Paddy’s Day, I watched a parade and had a great evening at my brother’s house, hoping it would be the same as in a pub. This year . . .”

  “Covid has made everything different,” Angela said. “Though I’m sure many people will be out and there will be celebrations to see. Anyway, since it’s not such a great year for parades and parties, it’s not so bad to be working. Anyway . . .” she murmured, and paused, looking around.

  Jackson knew his wife. She was appreciating the history and beauty of the cemetery.

  Most of the graves were in-ground with flat or stone markers. Although some work had been done in the cemetery to re-etch and preserve historic markers, many were illegible, rounded stones. But as the years had gone by, different forms of memorials had been utilized. Some were in single-body tombs above ground stone or concrete tombs, and in the mid-1800s, the mausoleums had started going up. But there were still beautiful stretches of land where markers had disappeared all together, along with clumps of trees and brush. The earliest graves were those of a few Revolutionary war soldiers, one who had perished in the conflict and three who had survived into the early 1800s. There was a small chapel on the grounds that had once been an Anglican church but was now deconsecrated and simply seen as a lovely little place for any who felt the need to pray or find a moment of quiet.

  There was also a holding vault for those who had died when the ground had been too hard to dig out.

  The whole of the cemetery was well-kept, thanks to a local ‘save our cemeteries’ group.

  “Angela?” he murmured.

  “Nothing. It’s a strangely beautiful, peaceful place,” she said. She looked at Connell. “We’re not seeing anything that might be trouble at the moment, right?”

  “My men on the outside would have contacted me,” Connell said.

  “I’m going to head home, then,” she said. “But I will be back bright and early, and I promise not to forget the tons of donuts!”

  “I’ll walk you to the car,” Jackson told her.

  Connell bid her goodnight and slid against the mausoleum wall to sit and lean against it.

  Darkness had come. Luckily, the world around the cemetery had grown. Lights from the surrounding areas cast a glow that gave them some vision. But it was shadowed, and Jackson thought such a place would not be great for the faint of heart at such a time.

  “Any thoughts on the cemetery?” he asked Angela as they made their way to the path that wove through the various sections of the park-like setting.

  “Technically, it began life as a graveyard,” she said.

  “What?”

  “The term ‘cemetery’ was used to describe burial grounds that were free-standing. Graveyards go to churches, but the chapel was a church, still is, so . . . oh, and vaults are dug into cliffs or mountains, so what we often call vaults are mausoleums. Or so said the book I just read on old burials and interments. I mean, obviously, if you’re in a mausoleum, you weren’t buried. You were interred.”

  Jackson shook his head and smiled. “Okay. So, again, any thoughts?”

  “The etching on that stone was fresh. Our forensic experts agreed on that.”

  “So? Prank or real?”

  “I don’t know. But I wasn’t expecting anything today. Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day. It’s a happy day—usually a time to get together, and people may get together a little bit too much, since we’re crawling out of a pandemic, but still in it. But here, it’s always been a time to celebrate Irish heritage in America and the life of a good man. But some people will use any date as an excuse to create trouble or cause violence. I still believe most people just want to live nice normal lives, working and raising their families. But we know there is a percentage—small, I still believe—who will cause trouble. So. We can’t let any perceived threat go.”

  “Wow.”

  “Wow, what?”

  He laughed. “I was looking for a ‘yes’ or a ‘no.’”

  She made a face at him. “How about an ‘I don’t know.’”

  “I don’t either,” he said. “But . . . I’m going to hang through the night with the detective.”

  Angela nodded. “That’s good.” But she paused as they neared the road. “I’m tempted to call Mary and do the same,” she said softly.

  “Oh?”

  “There’s something . . . I don’t know. I thought I saw a shadow moving earlier. I walked through the trees—especially where the words were written on that stone.”

  “So, you think there is someone in the cemetery?”

  She looked at him with a dry smile. “There are tons of people in the cemetery. But I haven’t seen any ghosts hanging around today, though most like to hang around other places. Seems like they still check in with fiends where they are buried.”

  “Or interred.”

  “Or interred,” she agreed smiling. “Hey, it’s a strange time of day—or was. The darkness is already coming on for real.”

  “It is,” he said. They’d reached the car. “Kiss the kids for me.”

  “Will do,” she promised.

  They were alone. On a professional level, they kept hands off one another when working. But no one was around. He pulled her close for a minute and kissed her forehead. “By the way, glazed donuts seem to be the main draw, so lots of glazed,” he told her.

  “Lots of glazed,” she promised, slipping into the driver’s seat of their SUV. She gave him a last smile and revved the engine.

  He watched her car lights disappear and then headed back to the mausoleum. Connell was still sitting there, leaned back, his eyes closed.

  He opened them as he heard Jackson approach.

  “This is probably silly,” Connell said.

  “I always prefer silly to deadly,” Jackson assured him. “No need to take any chances. You look tired. Go ahead and doze off. I’ll take first watch.”

  “There are other cops out there, scattered around the sections.”

  “And we have three agents on. It’s like camping, right?”

  “Well . . . hm,” Connell said.

&
nbsp; But the man did look tired. He closed his eyes again and slept.

  And Jackson kept watch, rising, walking a few feet here and there, but maintaining position; they were at a place where they could see the stone and the trees.

  He wondered about Angela’s shadow.

  His wife didn’t see things or imagine things that weren’t real.

  But the hours wore on.

  And he didn’t see a soul—living or dead.

  *

  Victoria Sophia-just eight months old—was sleeping when Angela arrived home. Corby was watching one of his favorite movies.

  “I hadn’t seen it myself, and it is adorable and charming!” Mary said.

  “Don’t tell me—‘Darby O’Gill and the Little People,’” Angela said.

  Mary nodded.

  “Well, get in there, and see the end! In fact, do you mind just staying? That will save you driving home late and waking up early?”

  “Don’t mind a bit,” Mary assured her. Mary had been an incredible gift in their lives. Her real home was down in Florida with the Miccosukee people, but she had loved coming north to be near her nephew and to look after Corby and the baby, Victoria Sophia.

  Corby hadn’t heard her come in. The dogs had greeted her, but Corby had been glued to the TV.

  “Hey!” she said, and he jumped up to give her a hug, watching the television all the while.

  “Sorry, Mom, love this movie. Where’s Dad?”

  “Working through the night. Mary is going to stay. I’m going to have to go back early, okay?”

  She was surprised when he stopped looking at the TV and gave her his attention. “Back to the cemetery?” he asked.

  She nodded. He looked at her strangely.

  “Corby, is something wrong?” she asked him.

  He shook his head. “Um, movie is almost over!” he told her.

  “Okay,” she said, and didn’t press him. And she sat by him, slipping an arm around his shoulders as they watched the movie come to an end.

  Mary yawned. “Okay. Over and out. Corby, that was adorable. But now, what are we going to watch tomorrow?”