Page 3 of Dirty Valentine (A J.J. Graves Mystery #17)

As if on cue, a shriek erupted from somewhere behind us. The redheaded boy was pointing excitedly at something near the cemetery’s wrought-iron fence.

“There’s another dead person over there!” he yelled. “This place is like a zombie apocalypse!”

“That’s a statue, Kevin,” Mrs. Warren called wearily. “It’s been there since 1847.”

“Are you sure?” Kevin asked, clearly disappointed. “It looks pretty real.”

“Maybe we should get these kids back to school before they contaminate any more of my crime scene,” I suggested. “This is going to take a while, and I don’t need an audience critiquing my technique.”

“Riley’s working on transportation,” Martinez said. “We’ll need formal statements from the kids who found the body, but that’ll have to wait until their parents come to get them.”

“We’ll need to find an expert who can tell us exactly what we’re looking at here,” Jack said.

“We can assume the way the body was discovered is some kind of symbolism or historical reenactment. I’ll make a few calls when I get back to my office.

I’m sure the historical society has a recommendation of someone we can consult with. ”

I grunted and said, “Let’s see what we’re dealing with,” and then I pulled out my measuring tape. “I need to document everything before we start moving stones.”

The victim was a white male, probably in his fifties based on his graying hair and the lines visible on his face and hands. His clothes were folded neatly and placed on a nearby headstone. They looked expensive—slacks, a button-down shirt, and nice leather shoes that had a label even I recognized.

“Any ID?” I asked, though I doubted our killer would have been thoughtful enough to leave the victim’s wallet intact.

“Nothing obvious in the clothes,” Jack said. “But maybe once we clear these stones and boards we’ll find something more.”

The process of removing the stones was painstaking.

Each one had to be photographed in place, measured, and carefully catalogued before being moved.

Some were the size of softballs, others were larger than my head.

All of them had been selected for their flat surfaces and arranged to distribute weight evenly across the wooden boards.

“So here’s the million-dollar question,” Cole said. “Where did these stones come from? Did the killer come prepared? Seems like a lot of work to load up your trunk with stones ahead of time. These things aren’t light.”

“Definitely not a crime of passion,” Jack said, bending down to heft up another stone.

“This was calculated and well planned. Our killer needed time. The gates to the cemetery are supposed to be locked after nine o’clock, and a deputy does a drive-by on regular patrol to make sure kids aren’t doing stupid things.

But somehow our killer unlocked the gate, drove in their vehicle and kept to the perimeter road, got the victim to this location… ”

“Not only that, but the killer got him to be compliant,” I said. “Most victims fight back while they’re waiting for their murderer to get the job done.”

Jack nodded and said, “And as we can see, moving these stones takes a little time.”

“Which suggests the victim was already dead,” Cole said. “Or drugged.”

“He wasn’t killed here,” I muttered as I worked.

I lifted his thigh since it was easily accessible.

“Look at the lividity.” I pointed to the bluish-purple skin where blood had pooled to the lowest part of his extremities after death.

“He’s got striations. This body has been moved.

Looks like he was lying on his side when he died.

He’s got faint coloration along his entire left side.

And then when he was placed here on his back the blood pooled again.

” I pointed to the second line of discoloration.

“We need to talk to the grounds crew,” Jack said. “Whoever was on duty to lock up last night. Maybe he just got lazy and didn’t lock the gate.”

“Already got the name,” Martinez said, handing Jack a piece of paper. “Al Contreras. Works for the city. Said to give him a call if you need to talk to him.”

“Helpful,” Jack said, taking the piece of paper.

Once we’d cleared the stones, the wooden boards were revealed—two thick planks that had been placed across the victim’s chest and upper abdomen.

As we carefully lifted them away, the victim’s torso was finally visible.

There were clear impressions from the boards across his skin, but something still felt off.

“Jack,” I said, leaning closer to examine the victim’s face and exposed torso. “Look at this.”

The victim’s eyes were closed, his face relaxed.

While there were marks from the pressure of the boards across his chest, there were no signs of the prolonged agony that should have accompanied death by crushing.

No protruding tongue, no bulging eyes, no indication that he’d struggled against the weight for an extended period.

I pulled back the victim’s eyelids to check for burst capillaries, but there was nothing but the milky film that covered his blue irises.

“This isn’t right,” I said, sitting back on my heels. “The staging is elaborate, but he didn’t die from being crushed.”

Jack’s eyebrows rose. “You’re sure?”

“I won’t know for certain until I get him back to the lab,” I said, pulling out my thermometer and a scalpel to take a liver temperature reading.

“But while there’s evidence of compression from the boards on his chest, this doesn’t look like death by crushing.

He wasn’t even restrained. No ligature marks on the wrists or ankles.

If someone was piling stones on my chest and I had mobility I’d be doing everything I could to get them off. ”

I made a small incision and inserted the thermometer, checking my watch to note the time. “Core temperature is seventy-nine degrees. Given the ambient temperature and exposure, I’d estimate time of death between 3 and 4 a.m.”

“The witching hour,” Martinez observed, looking up from his notes. “How perfectly appropriate for our location.”

“So our killer had plenty of time to stage this scene,” Jack said. “Martinez, I need you to expand the perimeter to include the entire section of the cemetery. Look for any evidence of how the killer got here—tire tracks, footprints, anything disturbed.”

“Already started a preliminary sweep,” Martinez replied. “Found some tire impressions. Looks like someone drove a vehicle right up to the edge of this section.”

I continued my preliminary examination, checking for obvious wounds while documenting the position of the body. “No visible trauma to the head, neck, or extremities. I’ll need to examine the torso more thoroughly once we get him back to the lab.”

“Martinez, you and Riley start a grid search of the access roads leading to this section. See if there are security cameras. If I remember right, the county council voted against them because of the expense, but maybe one of the nearby houses has cameras.”

I snorted and said, “Hey, at least the council president got them to confirm a brand-new Cadillac as his city vehicle. You’d think he was part of the presidential motorcade.”

“Well, priorities,” Cole said dryly.

Martinez’s mouth quirked in a smile and he said, “I’ll grab Riley and get started.” And then he headed off, making a detour around where the group of kids was huddled waiting to get on the school bus.

“I need to find the real cause of death,” I said. “This is smoke and mirrors.”

“Could be a copycat like that Jack the Ripper case we had,” Jack said. “Could be someone trying to send a message. Or…”

“Or?” I asked.

“Or could be our killer is just plain crazy.”

“My favorite kind,” Cole said.

As if on cue, a cool breeze rustled through the ancient oaks overhead, sending shadows dancing across Bridget Ashworth’s weathered headstone. The whisper of wind through the leaves sounded almost like voices—the accumulated whispers of three centuries of the forgotten dead.

I shivered despite the warm temperatures, suddenly aware that we were standing in a place where justice had been perverted once before. Where an innocent woman had been crushed to death by the weight of lies and fear and small-town politics.

“We need to find out who he is,” I said, taking one last photograph of the victim’s peaceful face. “He wasn’t picked at random.”

“CSI team just pulled up,” Martinez said, his voice coming through the radio attached to Jack’s belt. “And I can see the news van right behind them.”

“Perfect,” Jack muttered. “Nothing like having the media turn murder into a circus.”

I looked down at our victim one more time—at his peaceful face that belied the violence of his final hours, at the careful arrangement of his body on top of Bridget Ashworth’s crumbling grave.

The killer had chosen this spot for a reason.

Had positioned him here like an offering to the dead witch beneath the stone.

“You know what bothers me most about this?” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

“What’s that?” Jack asked.

“Whoever did this knows our history. Knows about Bridget Ashworth, knows about the pressing, knows exactly which buttons to push to get our attention.” I stood slowly, my knees protesting after crouching for so long. “This feels personal.”

The wind picked up again, rustling the leaves overhead and carrying with it the faint scent of decay that seemed to seep from the very ground beneath our feet. In the distance, I could hear the news crew setting up their equipment, ready to turn our investigation into entertainment for the masses.

But here in this forgotten corner of the cemetery, surrounded by the graves of the unwanted and the damned, something darker was stirring. Something that had been waiting three hundred years for the right moment to claw its way back to the surface.

And whatever it was, it had found its voice in death.