The Day of Legion (18 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Detective Matthew Roper surveyed the scene in complete bewilderment. He’d never seen so many graves in one spot before. He never thought one small group of people could create death on such an obscene scale. He stood on the top of a dune behind police tape and watched as five teams of specialists sieved through multiple graves below him; twenty-five figures clad in white paper overalls, paper boots and hairnets.

Tarps had been erected over each grave site, and under each tarp, were string grids, so that each grid outside of the grave could be minutely searched for evidence among all the sand. Lights had been set up to aid the searchers through the night.

In one area the sand was especially soft and damp, so a crane had been brought in with a suspended platform to enable an officer to literally lay over the sand without touching it.

A sandwich truck was parked not far from the scene, providing the officers with food and drinks. Portable toilets were lined up on one side of a clearing where most of the vehicles were parked, and a small bus was provided to transport the workers.

Single-crew cordons were put in place at any point accessible to the scene, preventing the media and the curious from impeding the operation.

So far they had located twenty-three bodies, including one child, but they were having trouble identifying many due to decomposition. They knew there were a lot more, perhaps double what they had already unearthed.

They called in the Disaster Victim Identification team. Usually this was reserved for plane crashes and train wrecks, events with multiple victims. This scene was far too big for a standard investigation team. The media was demanding updates and answers the police weren’t prepared yet to give.

Roper asked for all the information on the suspects Ravenbrook and Leland. They were complete unknowns to the police. Neither had been in trouble before, both were highly-educated professionals, and although Ravenbrook’s work history was thin, Leland had been a dedicated psychiatrist at Middlefield Hospital and was highly thought of. Everyone spoken to so far said there was no way she could be involved, at least not voluntarily.

She had no known family members. Her parents had died in a car crash when she was very young. The local police had mislaid the report on the accident, but the old officer he spoke to remembered it well. Their car had been hit by a truck that fled the scene. It was never found. It looked as if the truck had pinned the car to a tree and rammed it several times.

The car was so badly damaged that it was hard to identify the make or model. The only thing he said that remained in one piece was the little angel wings that hung from the rear-view mirror.

Roper turned when he heard someone clambering up the dune behind him. It was his partner Paul Jacobs, a corpulent individual most people despised. He was rude, arrogant and thought the world revolved around him. Unfortunately, Jacobs was the only solo officer when Roper joined the department, so they became partners.

He wordlessly handed Roper a clipboard. Jacobs needed to catch his breath. He bent over and painfully sucked oxygen into his overworked lungs. He looked at the clipboard. They had just discovered another grave, taking the total to twenty-four.

Roper shook his head. This was incredible. A career-defining case like this would seal his reputation if he played his cards right, but there were aspects that didn’t sit right- Leland and Ravenbrook for one. He usually got a feeling about suspects before he even interrogated them, and, although they were the main suspects, there was something about them as suspects that felt wrong. He couldn’t put his finger on it.

Jacobs finally managed to get his heart rate down to a level that enabled him to communicate in syllables with a breath between.

“Grave. This-rate-here-for-ev-er.”

“Jesus, Paul. You have to start exercising or something. You just walked five meters up a sandy hill and your heart rate is probably two hundred.”

“Up yours!” Jacobs replied, turning and making his way back down the dune. “Oh, by the way, there’s a man at the south cordon who wants to see you. Says there’s a ‘paranormal’ aspect to this and needs to get it off his chest.”

“Did he ask for me personally?” Roper asked. He could hear the sarcasm in his partner’s voice.

“No, but since you’ve got time to think up insults you might as well take it.”

Roper had nothing to say to that. Jacobs was the senior detective and could delegate as he saw fit. He made his way down to the vending truck, got two bottles of water and walked to the south cordon.

He was met by a uniformed officer, unlucky enough to be volunteered by his sergeant for cordon duty. He handed him one of the water bottles and was directed to a man standing behind the police tape.

As Roper approached, he attempted to read the man. He was dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved, button-down shirt. He wore hiking boots and had an
acubra
-style hat in his left hand. His hair was gray and tied in a ponytail which extended to the middle of his back. Probably fifties, and hard-ridden. The skin on his hands was weathered and his face quite wrinkled.

He extended his hand to the man, who shook it firmly. His grip was strong and Roper could feel the calluses on his palm. The man had done a lot of manual labor in his time and could probably lift a mule over his head.

“Detective Roper,” he said, introducing himself. “My partner tells me you have some information you’d like to impart.”

The man nodded. He looked Roper directly in his eyes when he did. A trait the detective liked in people.

“Your partner the fat man?” he asked.

Roper smiled and nodded. “Yes, Detective Jacobs. He’s the lead officer on the investigation.”

“He’s not long for this world,” the man replied. “His arteries are clogged and his resting heart rate is higher than yours after a strenuous workout.”

Roper chuckled. “Well, that’s an interesting observation, but I was told you have information pertinent to this case.”

“Yes. There is far more to this than meets the eye, and you see it. You can feel it.”

“Could you be specific please?” Roper asked. He’d already decided the man was a nut, but decided to humor him. It would, at least, keep him from the depressing scene over the dunes for a few minutes.

“These graves are the work of pure evil Mister Roper. There is a darkness descending like never before, and although there are some of us battling it, people like you are being used.”

Roper nodded, feigning interest.

“Your suspect is a bad man who works for a worse woman. She has caused this and in turn is directed by evil itself. He told you two names, but you don’t believe him. I can see it in you.”

“Who is this woman?” Roper asked.

She goes by many names and many forms. Don’t worry. She’ll find you before this case is over.”

“Okay, Mister..?”

“Baker. Charles Baker.”

“Well, Mister Baker, thank you for your time. This officer here will take your details and write up your statement for you to sign and...”

“You don’t believe me, but that’s okay. You will in time.”

He started to walk away, but turned. “Oh, by the way. You need to see your doctor. That dull pain in your lower back is a disc that’s about to slip.”

Roper smiled uneasily. He was sure he was walking with a slight limp or had touched his back while talking to the man, but he was right. His lower back was killing him and had been getting worse.

“The throb will wake you tonight,” the man called as he walked away. “Midnight.”

Roper watched him walk away. He was odd, that was for sure. He was right about things. He did have a feeling the investigation was going the wrong way, and Baker was on the money about his back.

As he returned to the scene, he couldn’t get Baker out of his mind. It was such an unreal conversation to have in that environment and there was something strange about him.

“There I go,” he muttered to himself. “I’m listening to my gut again.”

Chapter Twenty

David swung the car around a steep curve that led to a flat area with a natural canopy of trees. The shade was cool and reminded Patricia of a place she and her parents once visited but had forgotten about. It was
déjà vu
coming here; a shiver travelled up and down her spine.

David stopped the car and they got out. He got the bags from the trunk. He looked at her. She was staring up into the trees as if she was reminiscing, until she realized he was watching her.

“From here, we walk,” he told her, slinging one bag over his shoulder and carrying the other with his left hand.

Patricia frowned. They had left the farmhouse hours before, then followed a track that had once been well-used but was mostly concealed by overhanging trees. They had stopped briefly to drink some water and eat a little of the food David packed.

Patricia was going to comment about his food choices, but decided against it. He had picked salami, sausage, ham, cold beef, smoked chicken and a little lettuce.

“How far do we need to walk?” she asked.

“Just until we get over that ridge,” he said, pointing into the distance.

“Then what?”

“Someone will meet us and take us to the sanctuary by four-wheel drive. My car can’t handle these roads.”

“What is this sanctuary?” she asked.

“It’s a lovely cabin in the middle of nowhere, where we’ll be safe for a while and have a little time to gather our thoughts and come up with a game plan.”

“That’s it, a cabin?” Patricia asked. “The way you were talking I was expecting some sort of mystical castle carved by hand out of a sheer rock wall.”

David smiled. “It’s not ‘Lord of the Rings’, you know.”

Patricia laughed and walked alongside him. She took one of the bags from him and grasped his free hand. She didn’t know why she did that, she just felt like it, and he didn’t pull away.

The air had cooled as the sun began its descent. There was a gentle breeze. A few birds soared above them, enjoying the last of the day’s warmth.

Patricia looked at David. He was staring into the sky as he walked. He had a serene expression. It showed Patricia another side of him. She could tell he was appreciating the beauty around him.

They were walking in an open expanse of green fields with trees. The land was flat where they walked, but Patricia could see hills and a mountain range in the distance.

When they got to the ridge, a woman was waiting in a four-wheel-drive vehicle. She jumped out when she saw them and ran up to David. He let go of Patricia’s hand, dropped his bag and hugged her tightly, lifting her off the ground.

“Patricia, this is Amanda. She’s taking us to the sanctuary.”

“Patricia, I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Oh?”

“Yes,” Amanda said. “Uncle Albert spoke to me every day. He was excited that you’d come in to our lives.”

“Uncle? You two are cousins?”

“Yep, it’s a family business,” David laughed.

Amanda laughed too. She picked up the bag David left on the ground and threw it in the rear hatch. Patricia tossed the other one in.

“We should get going before nightfall,” Amanda told them.

Amanda and David sat in the front with Patricia in the back. Amanda drove along another worn track winding through open plains and under forest canopies. The track was smooth, giving Patricia the impression it had been in use for a very long time. She wanted to ask a hundred questions, but decided to wait until they got to where ever they were going.

“I’m sorry about Albert,” Amanda said to David.

“He did what he knew was the right thing. I still don’t know what we’re doing, but he’s set us in the direction he wanted.”

“He’s still with us, you know,” Amanda said.

David nodded and smiled. “I know, but I’ll miss seeing the old grump cheer up with his first morning coffee.”

They both laughed. Patricia sat in the back listening and watching. Amanda looked about thirty-five and was very pretty. She had long blond hair about a quarter of the way down her back, with pale skin and dark green eyes. She wore jeans, boots and a stockman’s shirt. To Patricia she looked feminine but tomboyish.

After half an hour of driving, they drove into a pine forest, which twenty minutes later led to a clearing. There were old stone foundations and partial walls where a building once stood. It covered most of the clearing and Patricia could see it had been quite large. The stones were dark and covered in moss. Some stones had fallen from the broken walls and were sitting almost randomly about the clearing. Grass and vines covered much of the area.

A log cabin sat in the center of the stones, with two smaller cabins to either side. Wooden stairs led up to a wraparound balcony and a solid wooden door that looked like it came from an old sailing ship.

Tall pine trees thickly surrounded the clearing like sentries. They reached up to the sky, and spread inwards to protect the cabins from view above. Pine cones and needles littered the clearing around the decaying stone remains.

David and Patricia followed Amanda up the stairs and into the main cabin. It reminded Patricia of pictures she’d seen of old hunting lodges. A huge stone fireplace was at one end. In front of that were a sofa and two chairs. A dining table sat behind those, and the kitchen looked over the two areas from the other end.