Slow Burn

The ancients understood. Consuming an enemy gave a man his enemy’s strength. A heart offered courage and wisdom. Some organs gave strength. Bone-meal gave a man physical and mental powers.

Ah, and now this….

Everyone would be up in arms again.

The cops would be going crazy. It must be Danny’s widow stirring up the dust. Spencer, the beautiful wife. Trey had seen her picture. Very blond, elegant. Tempting.

He popped a chicken heart into his mouth and drew a deep breath from the hashish pipe at his side. The girls were still giggling.

Spencer…

She was trouble. So pretty. So much trouble. So pale, slim, elegant.

He wondered how she would taste.

In his office, Sly read the headline and groaned.

Audrey was sipping her coffee and reading, as well. Poor Spencer. The wound Danny’s death had left was being ripped open all over again. Of course, Spencer was doing it herself, but still, it was sad.

So many people would be upset! Dangerous people. But there would be no stopping Spencer. Audrey knew her well, and she didn’t really blame her.

Audrey bit her lip and continued to scan the paper.

Jon Monteith, Jared’s father, Spencer’s uncle, lay his head wearily on his pillow.

If only they could let matters rest!

After all, it hadn’t been a drive-by shooting, and any fool knew Spencer wasn’t guilty. It hadn’t been robbery.

So why kill a cop?

It was simple. The way he saw it, the cop had known too much.

A cop learned things on the streets. He was an investigator. He found things out, and sometimes he was careful about telling even his associates what he knew.

And pursuing what was going on could be dangerous. Danny had been bright. Danny had been on to so many things. And with Spencer raising a fuss and the newspapers going crazy, things were bound to happen.

Yes…

A veritable Pandora’s box could fly right open.

He swore and groaned.

Spencer had come home, and she wouldn’t let things rest. She just didn’t know what was good for her.

Spencer was one royal pain in the ass.

He picked up the phone and waited for an answer. “Have you seen the headline?”

“Yes,” came the reply. “I’m on it. I’ve been on it, damn it!”

“Make sure you stay on it. Make damned sure, because if you don’t…”

He let the force of the husky threat fade, then replaced the receiver with a sharp click.

Accidents did happen. Oh, yes. Accidents did happen.

3

There were at least a hundred good reasons she shouldn’t be in a cemetery in the dead of night, Spencer thought.

And the longer she stood in the darkness, the longer the list became and the more foolish her errand seemed to be.

It was just that…she had to do something. Someone had to do something. She had tried very hard to let the police do their work. She had even understood when they had grilled her, relentlessly, apologetically, relentlessly again. She applauded their efforts—at least it had seemed as if they were traveling along every possible avenue.

And she even believed—no, she knew—that David Delgado would have stopped at nothing to catch Danny’s killer.

It was just that they weren’t doing enough.

She’d gone away for a long time. She’d stopped working for a while, but idleness had been sheer misery. She knew that she couldn’t bring Danny back. But she also knew that she would never be able to live the new life David was ordering her to until she had laid Danny’s ghost to rest by seeing his killer caught.

But this…this was probably sheer stupidity. She might not find out anything, and she might well be mugged by some petty thief. Or worse. The casual crime in South Florida was as scary as the acts committed with premeditated malice.

Sly was worried about her, she knew. It was because of the beam that had collapsed in the old house she’d been working on last week. But the place had practically been condemned, and she’d only agreed to work on it because her cousin Jared had set up a meeting with an ace architect and one of the best builders in the city. And it had been a gracious old place, designed by DeGarmo, with fantastic huge beams in the ceiling, the original tiles and stenciling—all crying out to be saved. The beam could have fallen on anyone, and it hadn’t actually fallen on her. It had missed her by several inches. She wouldn’t have thought anything of it, herself, but Sly had been with her….

A cloud rolled over the moon. It was very dark. A breeze suddenly stirred against the humidity and heat of the night, and she was startled to feel a creeping sensation of cold sweep over her.

The paper today had carried a wealth of information. The grave robbers were at it again, and the police again suspected Trey Delia’s offshoot of Santeria. Santeria was indeed a strange religion, from what Spencer knew of it. It was a form of Catholicism mixed with some very odd theologies from the islands. Its rituals often called for live sacrifices—chickens and goats, usually, although human body parts were also considered useful, especially by some offshoot groups. Grave robbers had absconded with fingers and toes and the like before.

Today in the office, Audrey had idly pointed out how the grave robbery had seemed to follow a pattern the first time, a pattern that circled the city, then came dead center back into it. And now it seemed that things were happening just the same way again.

Was that what had brought her here?

She had one contact left who no one knew about. Not the police, not anyone. His name was Willie Harper; he lived on the streets in downtown Miami, and though he didn’t have a drug problem, he did like a good bottle of Scotch. Spencer had once been very unhappy about Willie, telling Danny that he was paying the man just to help him kill himself with his alcoholism. But it wasn’t really that bad. Willie was a good sort. Danny paid him well, and before he drank any of it away, he bought food for all his friends, blankets, sometimes even a cheap hotel room for the night. But Willie liked living on the streets. He liked to make money, too. When he’d contacted Spencer, she’d promised to keep paying him for any information he could give her that might help find Danny’s killer.

He’d called her that afternoon—with the same observation that Audrey had made.

She exhaled, leaning against the edge of the small family mausoleum that sheltered her from the view of anyone who might have been driving along the twisting roads that led through the cemetery. The stone felt very cold, and she felt like an absolute idiot for being here. It wasn’t as if she was carrying a gun—or as if she would know how to use one if she did. She had pepper spray in the car—Danny had always insisted she carry it, and he had shown her how to use it. But she hadn’t thought to bring it with her; she wasn’t planning on accosting anyone. She had just come to see what was going on, to make sure that if any grave robbers did come, they wouldn’t touch Danny’s grave or desecrate his tomb in any way.

She started to shiver.

This was nuts. What did she think she was going to do, if someone did show up? Was she going to yell at some ghoul in the middle of a dark cemetery and tell him to stop?

Especially when he might be her husband’s murderer?

It was an old cemetery, filled with trees and foliage. She tried to tell herself that her car was parked relatively close by at the doughnut shop just across Eighth Street, that even though it was very late, the main streets were teeming with people—even though the cemetery did seem unbelievably dark and still and silent, and far from civilization. In fact, there were probably a number of cops eating doughnuts right by her car. But then, that was at least half a mile away.

An owl let out a hoot, and a nearby tree rustled, and she nearly jumped into the mausoleum. She forced herself to remain still and stare toward the tree. Images of Dracula came to her mind. Creatures breaking out of their tombs. Maybe the human monsters from Night of the Living Dead. Werewolves, mummies…