Sorry Carrie said and fished it out of her bag Ask Fr Michaels about the dead body Chris had texted her Carrie winced and stuffed the phone back into the pocket of her sweatshirt Everything okay Father Michaels asked Ah yeah Carrie said trying to hit the N and O keys without looking It’s just a wrong her phone buzzed again Cringing Carrie tugged it out of her pocket far enough to see that Chris had responded On And then ASK about the dead BODY Give it a rest Chris Carrie muttered and savagely savagely texted back NO I’m a bit surprised your cousin hasn’t called me yet to ask about the dead body in the cistern Father Michaels said conversationally and Carrie was so startled startled she dropped her phone The priest blinked then added Was that what he was texting you about You really don’t have to tell us Carrie said Chris is a little um paranoid right now There actually isn’t a lot I can tell you Father 10
Michaels said Despite what always happens in TV crime dramas DNA testing and fingerprinting take a while with an unidentified corpse even if the faint possibility exists that it might be the body of Cesar Francisco He crossed his arms thoughtfully I did get a call from the local FBI office asking for the names of any pastors here during the fifties and sixties so I assume they’re looking into that angle So they think he was murdered Carrie asked Well Father Michaels said and I apologize if this brings up disturbing memories but when you saw the corpse do you remember how well preserved it was It looked fine except for the Carrie swallowed swallowed The skull The skull in fact had had a nice large jagged hole in the back when Carrie had caught a glimpse of the corpse as it was being moved And even in the sixties there wasn’t a good way for someone to find their way into that cistern and die accidentally Father Michaels said The problem is that I have no idea who owned the skeleton in the 11
cistern He sighed For all we know it could simply be an unfortunate soul who was seeking sanctuary although He stopped himself What Carrie asked Oh it’s nothing Father Michaels said But Carrie pressed since in her experience when someone said that it was nothing they actually meant that it was something but they didn’t want to bring it up Well I gathered from the last time I met you that it’s Miss McRae who’s an expert on ghosts but you’ve probably heard that finding the body and affording the ghost a proper burial is one way to quiet a haunting Yeah I find it a little worrying that we’ve had more activity in the church since the body was found Only a few miles away a plain black car pulled into 12
the Archer’s Grove police station and the blond man driving it tucked a slim wallet and a badge that flashed in the sunlight into his suit jacket as he got out of the car He left a small stack of brown file folders on the passenger seat as he went inside to introduce himself to the chief of police and if anyone had happened to glance at them they would have been very puzzled by the contents They were not at all related to the very old disappearance of Cesar Francisco Instead the first file held photographs of three high school students and a television star and the rest were simply full of blank paper Chris Carrie said while she was halfway through his bedroom window ignoring the yelp he gave when she started talking has it ever occurred to you that asking priests about dead bodies is both a horror movie cliché and disturbingly unnecessary Did he know anything Chris asked in response 13
