Nick plopped down his empty mug, gestured the keep for another. “You know, for a gal who’s in the papers so much, you sure don’t read them very often, do you?”
“What do you mean?”
Nick leaned over the bar. “Hey, chief. Gimme that Tribune there, will ya? Slide it over here.”
Nick handed her the paper. It was true, Helen hadn’t had time to pay much attention. Three front-page articles on Dahmer, and one on Bosnia. STATE VIOLENT CRIMES UNIT CONTINUES TO DENY DAHMER’S ESCAPE, read one headline. And here was a small picture of Helen. What a terrible picture, she thought. I should sue them for defamation of character. Another header read: ENTIRE COLUMBUS COUNTY DETENTION STAFF UNDER INVESTIGATION. Nick’s finger pointed to a third. “There ya go.”
Helen’s eyes fixed down. CIRCUIT COURT BLOCKS “DAHMER’S” CREMATION.
“Two family members fighting over custody of the ashes,” Nick said. “Can you believe it?”
Helen half-tuned out Nick’s voice in order to read. She loved the way they’d put Dahmer’s name in quotes. But it was true. “You know, Nick. In the 90s I can believe it. But… All right, family members are suing each other over ownership of the ashes. But what’s that got to do with a county circuit judge blocking the cremation?”
“Keep reading.”
Unbelievable. To add to the ashes mess, a third party was suing the department of corrections, to see to it that there would be no ashes at all. And that third party was Father Thomas Alexander, the detention center’s chaplain. “As Jeffrey Dahmer’s only true friend,” Alexander stated to reporters, “I have an ethical responsibility to him, even in death. I was Jeffrey’s guide to faith, his spiritual guardian, and as an Epiphanist Protestant, I do not believe in the rite of cremation. I am, in fact, offended by it, as is God. Cremation was originally instituted by pagans in the Middle Ages as a protest to the chief tenets of Christianity: the glory of resurrection. Jeffrey would not want to be cremated, and he can’t speak for himself now, so I will. And I’ll tell you this, any county judiciary decision that conflicts with my wishes will be immediately appealed to the appellate courts, the state’s supreme court, and even the U.S. Supreme Court if need be.” Alexander’s hot air had sufficed to urge a judge to delay the cremation via “internment for the interim.” The body was buried yesterday at an unspecified cemetery.
So there it was, right in her face. And the solution was obvious. Why hadn’t anyone thought of this before? “Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Nick,” she blurted, got up, and rushed out.
««—»»
“You’ve gotta be shitting me.”
Helen didn’t quite know what to say. It was close to one a.m. now, yet she hadn’t thought twice about waking Olsher at his home. And here he stood now, on the front porch of his Chapel Forge rancher, in a robe and slippers as the winter air froze his breath.
“What the big deal, Larrel?”
“The big deal?” Olsher’s sleep-hooded eyes drilled into her gaze. “Do you know how hard it is to get an exhumation order? Do you know how much it costs? Do you have any idea of the heat we’ll have to take even in asking for one?”
“Then we’ll just have to take the heat,” Helen retorted.
Olsher winced as if stricken with sudden heartburn. “The press will kill us, Helen.”
“Larrel, we’re cops, remember? We have a job to do regardless of the press. We’re going to have to forget about the damn press for one minute and start making moves before the killer strikes again.”
“You still don’t think Dahmer is alive, do you?”
“No, Chief, I don’t. I think he’s dead and buried, and I think the murders are being carried out by an intricate copycat. An exhumation order will prove it.”
“And what if you’re wrong?”
“Then the papers will make us look like idiots, but they’re doing that right now anyway. And here’s another reason we need that body exhumed, Larrel. Let’s just say I’m wrong—which you already believe. If it’s not Dahmer in that grave, then we need to know who is. IDing the substitute body can get us a line on whoever helped Dahmer break out, which could lead us do Dahmer himself.”
Olsher blinked in the cold. “Well—hmm. You’re right, I never thought of that… You’re the investigator, how come you didn’t think of that?”
Helen laughed humorlessly. “I just did, Larrel. So get me that exhumation.”
“All right.” Olsher paused as though his mind was running in neutral. “No guarantees, but I’ll make the calls in the morning, see what they say. It’s the DA’s office who has to talk the jive to the judge, and the DA owes me a few favors.”
“Thanks, Larrel.”
Olsher turned in his foyer as he was closing the door. He was shivering obliviously. “You better be right, Helen. ’cos if you’re not, those people downtown will never put you up for deputy chief.”
Helen thought about that and shrugged back at him. “I don’t care,” she said, and remembered Nick’s eloquent jive. “Those people downtown are just a bunch of… rubbernecks.”
— | — | —
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
It typically took days or even weeks for a police department to get a writ of exhumation. A plea of equity needed to be filed along with a petition of injunction to an officer of the court of general jurisdiction, in this case the Circuit Court of Madison County. Evidently, though, whatever favor it was that the district attorney’s office owed Olsher must’ve been a big one. Helen got a grumpy call from her boss at 6:30 the very next morning.
“Winter-Damon Cemetery,” he said. “The north end. Be there in an hour.”
The news woke her up at once. “That’s great, Larrel! Wow. You really burned some midnight oil.”
“Tell me about it.”
She showered and dressed hurriedly, her hair still wet when she dashed to the car. Now, at least, she could prove her point. When the body they pulled out of that grave proved to be Dahmer’s, she could focus her skills on the real elements of the case: a conspirator, or perhaps even several. Someone on the outside corresponding with Dahmer, secreting notes, planning all this as a good chess player anticipates his tactics ten moves in advance…
It was four degrees, according to the radio, with wind-chill, but Helen’s excitation kept her warm when she parked. She should’ve guessed it would be the old Winter-Damon graveyard just outside of Madison. The state owned part of it, to bury John and Jane Does, mental and nursing home patients with no next of kin, etc. A fleet of vehicles awaited, more than she’d expect for something like this. Beck was here with her work-up van, six state cruisers, two EMT trucks, a transport van from Columbus County Detent, a jade-green Pontiac Grand Am with federal plates. A sound of chugging combustion ruptured the chill air: an Ingersoll-Rand trencher/power shovel canting its blade—like a huge chainsaw—deep into the earth.
An array of scowling faces in winter hoods fired glances when Helen approached. Disdain, she thought. Everyone knows I’m the one who pushed for this. No one spoke to her as she shouldered through to get to Olsher. “It’s almost zero, Helen,” he told her. “You ain’t exactly the most popular gal in town right now.”
“I don’t care. This is great. I can’t believe how fast you got this. But—” She glanced down at the plots, marked only by small inset stones bearing an ID number. The trencher crew had already dug down to the top of the cement grave liner, but now they were cutting out what looked to be a recess at the head of the liner. “Why the extra hole?” she asked.