Pale as Death Read online

  “Recording?” Bruce asked.

  “Yep.”

  “They’ll call back.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Waiting is hard, I know.”

  To her amazement, her phone rang.

  “This is Detective Manning.”

  “I’m Sabrina Hayes. I manage the old church and burial grounds.”

  “And I’m so sorry to bother you, but—”

  “No bother! I’ll be happy to meet you there first thing in the morning. If our property is being transgressed in any way, we want it stopped immediately!”

  “Well, thank you—”

  “Delinquents! They like to come in and put graffiti on graves and drink in the church—I thank you so much! Eight a.m.?”

  Sophie was about to say that what was going on might be a lot worse than some trespassing and vandalism, but Sabrina Hayes spoke too quickly.

  “Thank you, thank you!”

  And she hung up.

  But Sophie smiled as she looked at Bruce. “Eight a.m.”

  “Excellent.”

  She should have been tired. She probably was. But she was also alive with adrenaline. Once they reached Bruce’s room and the door was closed and locked behind them, she turned eagerly into his arms. He indulged her in a long, wet and wonderful kiss, but then he drew away.

  “Old burial grounds, dirt, icky stuff...that’s when a shower and time and soap and suds and cool stuff is all the better.”

  She smiled. “I was thinking of a bath. The hotel offers such a lovely big tub with jets and all.”

  “So it does!”

  They both started with their holsters and guns and then they undressed one another as they made their way to the bathroom. They were touching even as Bruce fumbled for the water, kissing as the steaming water filled the tub, and they were still half kissing and half laughing as they made their way into it.

  His hands were on her.

  What he could do with suds was amazing.

  Steam surrounded them. They were wet and slick and it seemed that their flesh was on fire, hotter than the water. They kissed and touched...his body pressed to the length of her. They laughed, kissed all over, half-drowned, and slipped and slid until they wanted more than the tub could afford.

  Soaking wet, they made it to the bed.

  And he touched her.

  And she touched him.

  He whispered that she was a fast learner, and she assured him that he was an excellent teacher.

  Then there was the unbelievable feeling of his lips again, and when she thought she might explode, implode or die of pure ecstasy, he was with her, inside her, and the incredible sensations were starting all over again...

  Yes, before last night, it had been a long, long time...

  But she didn’t remember anything like this, ever.

  After, they were together, just breathing, limbs still entwined, holding on.

  And there were no words.

  No words, just finally...sleep, and the feeling that she had never been so cherished in her life.

  Friday morning, early

  Bruce wasn’t sure why he had expected Sabrina Hayes to be an older woman—prim, maybe super LA slim with a soft tinge of old-fashioned old-lady blue in her otherwise white hair.

  She wasn’t old at all—if anything, she was pushing thirty.

  She was indeed LA slim, and she showed up in yoga pants and a tank top that advertised her gym. Her hair was blond—but it did have a streak of blue. Neon blue.

  She shook hands vigorously with both Sophie and Bruce, once she had opened the gates for them and led them to a patch of parking right inside.

  “We’ve had trouble several times—I don’t know what it is about people thinking that historical properties are fair game for being abused. But then, half the people in this country don’t seem to think a thing about history, anyway. Hell, the schools aren’t doing anything about teaching history. Well, you see, that makes us all the more important. We have all kinds of literature about the LA area available in the church.” She suddenly made a face and asked, “Too much? Sorry, my dad is a history professor at UCLA. He’s supported our group since I was a child. We’ve saved missions all up and down the coast—and a few decaying saloons, taverns, inns and theaters, too.”

  “Not too much,” Sophie assured her. “But please, tell us what kind of trouble you’ve had?”

  Sabrina looked surprised. “I thought you were here because of my report. I called and said that I needed the property to be patrolled, at the very least.”

  “I’m so sorry, I don’t know about the call,” Sophie said. “We’re here because—”

  “You can help us, right?”

  “Please, tell me, what’s been going on?”

  “Last week, a group of kids climbed the wall, and I found beer bottles and all kinds of trash all over the graves. A few weeks before that, I’d come in and found out that some of the tombstones had literally been ripped out of the ground and laid up on top of each other. And then the neighbors have called us repeatedly about all the screaming going on.”

  “Screaming?” Bruce asked.

  “When?”

  “Oh, I get calls on that almost every day. And, of course, the people reporting that the ghosts are out here partying, too.”

  “I didn’t know that ghosts partied loudly,” Bruce said lightly.

  Sophie glanced his way with a serious frown.

  Sabrina Hayes laughed delightedly. “Trust me, I have been here at all hours. The only danger here comes from those mortal creeps who like to break in.”

  They were looking for more than a creep.

  Bruce waited to see what Sophie might have to say; it was her case.

  “We’re worried as well, Miss Hayes, that a murderer might be at work here,” Sophie said quietly. “We need access to the grounds and the church—and whatever catacombs may lie beneath.”

  “A murderer?” Sabrina Hayes said. Then she gasped. “Oh! Oh, my God, you mean that man who killed the Black Dahlia girls? Oh, no! No, no, no—nothing like that could have gone on here.”

  “We’re following up on a lead. May we search the church?” Sophie asked.

  “Of course. The first church on this property was here before Felipe de Neve was governor here—Spanish governor—in 1777. In that year, Neve wanted more balance—military to balance the power of the Church. The Los Angeles Pobladores was the name given the original forty-four townspeople—the name meaning townspeople! Twenty-two adults, twenty-two children. Anyway, before they came, there had been burials around the original church, but our earliest gravestones are from the Spanish period here—and, as you can see, there are numerous styles of graves now. The current church has been here since 1862. It was built in the Gothic style, and the graveyard served the people until about 1920, when it became too full to accommodate more dead—and, of course, by then, Los Angeles had many beautiful cemeteries.”

  As she spoke, Sabrina Hayes led them to the front of the church where richly carved double doors allowed them entry.

  The church might have been something created somewhere in Norman France; it was definitely Gothic with its graceful arches and ribbed vaulting. The altar was on a raised dais; there was a high podium—reached by winding stone steps—for a priest to deliver a sermon.

  “The church is Gothic—even the shape of the windows is gothic—but the windows are Tiffany stained glass, right?” Sophie asked as they entered.

  “Yes! They were fashioned in New York in pieces, and then his workers came here and put them all together, installed in the church.” She sighed. “Lucky thing—most scroungers who hang around here wouldn’t know the value of a Tiffany window if it were to bite them in the ass. Uh...sorry.”

  Sophie laughed softly. “No worries.”

  “Well, at leas
t they’re protected—they’ve been reinstalled with sheets of bulletproof, earthquake proof, just about anything else proof Plexiglas on both sides.” She grimaced and continued. “I was just in the church this morning,” Sabrina said. “I didn’t see any sign of disturbance or anything.”

  Bruce looked slowly and carefully around.

  She was right. Nothing was out of order.

  There was no blood.

  It certainly didn’t appear that horrible murders had taken place here.

  “What about the catacombs?” Bruce asked.

  “You want to go to the catacombs, too?” Sabrina asked.

  “Yes. Please,” Sophie said.

  “Well, excuse me for a minute, then. I have to get to my car. As you saw at the gate, we use old-fashioned padlocks. Old things—old measures. Excuse me.”

  Bruce looked at Sophie and smiled. When she had stepped out, he said, “I want to take a loop around the church while she’s opening the padlock.”

  “See if you can find Ann Marie?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “Go.”

  He hurried out. Sabrina was at her car. He smiled and waved. “I’ll be right there—just taking a look at the fantastic windows.”

  “Cool. This will take me a minute... I think I have too many keys to things!”

  He waved and started around and came to the spot where he had seen the lovely young ghost the night before.

  “Ann Marie?” he said softly.

  No reply. Nothing at all.

  He’d called Jackson while Sophie had been showering that morning; Jackson had his people back in Virginia looking up everything they could about the cemetery—including a girl named Ann Marie.

  “You might have given us a last name,” he said softly, aware he was speaking to nothing but air.

  He started back in. As he did so, he noticed a fresh chip on an old tombstone. Pausing, he hunkered down by it.

  Then he saw that there was something different—it wasn’t a chip caused by a slight accident, by wind, rain or any other natural device.

  Deep in the chip, there was something metallic.

  Before he even dug in his jacket pocket for a knife and an evidence bag, he knew what he was going for.

  There was a bullet imbedded in the stone.

  It had very recently been fired.

  He was suddenly chilled to the bone.

  Someone had shot at Grant Vining. There just couldn’t be that many shooters around—especially shooting at cops trying to ferret out the truth of a series of murders. So it would seem that same someone might have been shooting at Sophie.

  If so, they didn’t know the murderer.

  But the murderer sure as hell knew them.

  * * *

  A trapdoor slightly behind the altar—created of thick heavy wood and metal—led the way down to stone steps that went to the catacombs.

  Sabrina struggled with the door. Sophie hurried over to help her.

  “Thank God you’ve got some muscles going for you,” Sabrina murmured.

  Sophie shrugged. “I try to keep up,” she murmured.

  Sabrina straightened and indicated the winding stone steps that led into the darkness below. “Oh, wait...hang on. We aren’t so historically minded that we forget safety.”

  She walked up to the altar and found a switch. Lights suddenly flooded the catacombs.

  “Excellent,” Sophie assured her.

  Sophie started down the steps just as Bruce returned to the church. He strode over to them swiftly. “Aha! Down to the depths of hell!” he said.

  “A brightly lit hell,” Sophie told him.

  “All the better.”

  He made his way past Sophie and down the winding stone stairs. Sabrina followed them tentatively, as though afraid of what they might find.

  Sophie hoped that none of the priests had been very old. Or that they had suffered from heart disease or arthritis or any other malady that might have made the treacherous steps any worse.

  The floor was rough. Stone and dirt. A large plaque on the wall noted the dead who lay beneath their feet.

  There were tombs lined up along the walls, with plaques above them commemorating the dead. “Priests were buried here, in the church,” Sabrina told them. “And then, of course, those who earned special favor with the priests were buried down here, as well.”

  The catacombs appeared to be clean and clear.

  It wasn’t the kind of floor that might be cleaned with a few bottles of bleach.

  There were no implements that suggested they might even possibly be used to bisect a human body.

  “Oh, thank God!” Sabrina breathed.

  Sabrina was relieved. Sophie wasn’t at all sure.

  “What’s beyond that wall there?” she asked Sabrina.

  “Dirt. Earth. And maybe more long-dead people,” Sabrina said. “This is it—the foundation, the catacombs...this is it. Look, I know that this is... I mean this is truly a horrible situation for all of Los Angeles, for all of California. We kind of all need to be terrified, with a killer like that running around. But even though you didn’t find what you were looking for, you will see to it that the church is more protected?”

  Sophie looked her way. “Oh, definitely. I plan to have cameras up by tonight. They’ll guard the entrance to the church and take in what they can of the graveyard.”

  “Cameras? Oh, well, we can’t afford them. I mean, if we could, our preservation company would have cameras everywhere.”

  “We’ll see that they’re put in,” Bruce said. He was looking at Sophie oddly. She frowned at him. He was stone-cold serious.

  “Are we done here?” Sabrina asked.

  “For now,” Sophie told her.

  As they left the church, Sophie found it strange that Bruce stayed extremely close to her—so close that she almost tripped over him.

  Almost.

  He wouldn’t let her fall. He steadied her and turned quickly to Sabrina Hayes. “Miss Hayes, do you know of a young woman by the name of Ann Marie who is buried here?”

  “Ann Marie—do you have a last name?” Sabrina asked.

  “I’m afraid not,” Bruce told her.

  “The archives are actually downtown at the museum.”

  “Great. Thank you,” he said. Then he told her, “Miss Hayes, forgive me. We’re going to have to get more officers down here.”

  “Really? But you didn’t find anything.”

  Sophie stared at him.

  He looked steadily back at her.

  “Someone was firing a gun into the cemetery last night. In fact, I’m going to suggest a sniper’s rifle, but then, I do have a bullet that lodged into a gravestone, so we will find out for sure.”

  Sophie felt a bolt of heat and an eerie sensation of fear—unlike anything she’d experienced before—sizzle through her.

  The sound she had heard last night...the commotion she had heard on the road.

  Someone out there had been firing at her. There had been a silencer, or something similar to a silencer, on the gun. She’d heard the sound of that bullet...

  And she—who should have known much better!—hadn’t even realized what it was. But then, she had been busy, searching for an opening, and seeing...

  A ghost.

  She pulled her phone out to call Captain, staring at Bruce all the while.

  “I—I don’t understand.”

  “Someone was shooting in here last night,” Bruce said. “I hope you don’t have the place rented out tonight.”

  “Sunday...a wedding,” Sabrina said, distracted. “But are you sure—”

  “Yes,” Bruce said, his voice final. “Yes, we need a crew out here.”

  * * *

  Sabrina Hayes wasn’t leaving her precious property; she stayed.r />
  Sophie wasn’t leaving—not while her department was studying the stone, not while experts were working on the trajectory of the bullet.

  Captain himself came out. The media frenzy on the killings was such that he was taking a hands-on interest in everything that was going on.

  Henry Atkins wound up out there as well—while there were thankfully no corpses and they didn’t believe they’d found a crime scene, the place had become part of the investigation, and as such, it would be photographed.

  She couldn’t help but wonder about Henry.

  He did so love his work.

  Henry appeared to be in a kind of strange, professional heaven.

  He was actually working, but there were so many amazing things to photograph. He excitedly snapped pictures of the old angels and cherubs and the amazing monuments.

  There with the forensic team, Lee Underwood shook his head while looking at Sophie. “So, it’s you and Detective Vining. Someone is out for the two of you. Idiot. If he were to kill you both, they’d just bring on more and more detectives. And it’s been announced everywhere that the FBI is in on the case, too!”

  “I don’t know if they were shooting at me,” Sophie said. As far as she knew, neither she nor Bruce had said anything about having actually been in the graveyard the night before.

  “I thought you guys scoped the place out? Working a lead. That’s why we’re here, right? And you all looked at it last night and met Miss Hayes here this morning. So, last night, if you were on the outskirts by the fence, someone had to be up high, shooting... Hmm. If they were aiming at you...”

  “Yes?”

  He shrugged. “They have lousy aim. They shot into the cemetery. It looks like they were aiming at the pretty angel over there with the folded wings. They missed. But man, they were way wide of you or your friend. Well, we have to move onward.” He made a face. “Those experts are on the bullet and trajectory,” he said, pointing to more of his team. “Me? I get to explore vandalism. Beer bottles. Oh, and cigarette butts. Yep, the good stuff!”

  “At least it’s not blood today,” Sophie said.

  Lee agreed. He brushed back a lock of hair from his forehead and grinned. “And, tomorrow, it’s the weekend. I’m off. But if I know you, you won’t take any time. I’ll think of you when I’m kicking back with a few at the beach!”