Elise jotted down the number, thanked Eddie, and gave Pascal a call.
Like all obsessed people, the guy liked to talk about his obsession.
"Those tunnels go everywhere, man. Under houses. Businesses. Warehouses. Cemeteries. Hospitals. You should see the one under the old Candler Hospital. Creepy as hell, with gurneys and old wooden wheelchairs. The tunnels were used for all sorts of things, but mainly to transport bodies from the hospital to the morgue and cemetery."
"But aren't they sealed?"
"Long time ago. And not very well. You know how the city has always been about that kind of thing. Outta sight, outta mind. Been a lot of water through there over the years. They're crumbling. Dangerous as all get-out. People have died down there. / almost died down there. I'd offer to take you, but I'm laid up with a broken leg. A tunnel caved in on me, and it was three days before I dug my way out."
"You're lucky to be alive, Mr. Pascal."
"That's what I keep saying."
"What can you tell me about the tunnels and the Hartzell, Tate, and Hartzell Funeral Home?"
"Used to be a tunnel from the funeral home to a nearby morgue. It's not the morgue anymore. Now it's a residence."
"Description and location?" Elise asked, pen ready.
Before she'd finished taking it down, she knew the building he was talking about: Strata Luna's house.
"Black Tupelo?" she asked.
"Goes there too."
An alternate universe right under their feet.
"How about the Secret Garden Bed and Breakfast?"
"Yep. But don't you go down there in those tunnels, you hear me? I'm not exaggerating the danger."
"I won't."
"I'll fax you some maps. How's that sound?"
"Great." She gave him her fax number, then disconnected.
While Elise talked to Pascal, the manager of CD Underbelly had left a voice mail.
"You know that stuff you asked me to find?" the message said. "Well, I found it. The CDs were put on plastic. Charged to some dude named Enrique Xavier. The boss is cheap as hell and we still use the old imprint machines, so I was looking at the credit card imprint and noticed it was one of those business credit cards, and that it didn't belong to Xavier at all. Guess what other name was on it? Guess who owned the card?" He paused for effect. "That nutcase that rides through town dressed in black and wearing a veil over her face. Strata Luna."
Click.
Elise pushed number nine on her mobile phone, saving the message. Then she looked at her watch and realized it was almost time to pick up Audrey from softball practice.
Audrey heard tires squealing and looked up to see a familiar yellow car flying around the corner, her mother at the wheel.
Now what?
Elise jerked to a stop, leaned across the seat, and shoved open the door. "I hope you haven't been waiting long."
Audrey recognized her mother's hurry-up mode. She tossed her backpack and softball glove in the backseat, and jumped in the car. "Just a couple minutes."
"Good," Elise said with a distracted air. She checked over her left shoulder, then pulled from the curb. "You aren't anxious to get home, are you? I've got to make one or two quick stops."
"No problem."
Audrey changed her mind when, ten minutes later, they were turning into the parking lot of a funeral home. "Somebody die?"
Her mom opened the glove compartment and pulled out a flashlight. "People are always dying."
"I mean somebody you know."
"Oh, honey. I'm sorry," Elise said as if suddenly realizing she was acting a little weird. She looked at Audrey and smiled. "No. Nobody died. This involves a little investigative work. Something you might find interesting. It has nothing to do with dead people. I'm looking for a tunnel."
"Tunnel?" That might be okay.
"Come on. You don't need to wait in the car."
"Hey, isn't this the place that body was stolen from?" Audrey asked as they walked under the green canvas awning.
"Yes." Elise opened the ornately carved door.
"Cool."
They cornered the funeral director in the entry room.
The place had red carpet and a bunch of dark doors that probably had bodies behind them. Audrey hoped nobody opened a door.
If that happens, don't look. Just don't look.
"Well, sure, I've heard of the tunnels," the director said.
She stared at the man her mother was talking to.
He was creepy, with neck skin that hung over his tie. The place smelled too. Audrey had been to only two funerals in her life, both for great-grandparents. Both times she'd refused to look at the dead body, but she remembered that sickening sweet smell. Like something bad was being covered up.
"The tunnels have been sealed for years," the man said.
"I'd like to see the entrance anyway," Elise told him.
"We don't allow anybody down there."
"Mr. Simms, do I need to remind you that a crime was committed in your establishment?"
"It's just… that area of the home is kind of for overflow…"
Audrey immediately imagined piles of dead bodies. The smell, along with the image, began to make her feel a little dizzy.
"I'm not an inspector," Elise reminded him.
"Okay, okay."
Annoyed, he led them to the elevator, which took them to the basement level.
What a switch, from all tidy and plush to damp and crumbling stone foundation that smelled like mildew and rotting wood.
The funeral director stayed in the elevator. "Keep to the right," he said, waving his hand. "The tunnel entrance is in the last small room. Low ceiling. You'll need to duck. I have to get back upstairs." He pushed a button. The elevator door closed. A motor kicked in, taking Mr. Mortician away.
The floor was tabby cement that had been poured over sloped, uneven ground. The light was bad, and there were a lot of deep shadows and dark corners.
Elise clicked on the flashlight.
It was one of those cool police flashlights that really lit up the room. The bright white beam darted around, then landed on a shelf full of small cardboard boxes. Each box had a name and date.
"Apparently relatives don't always pick up their loved ones," Elise commented.
Sweet kitty.
Audrey didn't like being down there with a bunch of dead people even if they were ashes. At the same time, she was thinking about how nobody was going to believe her at school tomorrow when she told her friends where she'd been. They were going to, like, think it was the coolest.
A lot of people thought cremated bodies burned down to a tiny little pile of ashes. But Audrey had seen a show on the Discovery Channel, and it told how after the thing they cooked them in was cool enough to open, bones and teeth were still there. Mixed with the ashes. They had a machine that looked like a little cement mixer they dumped everything into. The machine ground up what was left.
Gross.
She fell into step behind her mom.
"Watch your head."
Elise shone the flashlight at the low ceiling, then back to a floor that had turned to rock and dirt. They entered a second room lined with metal shelves crammed with supplies. Bottles of pink liquid claimed to be embalming fluid. Others were called cavity cleaner. Pore sealer. Jugular tubes. Body inserts. Expression formers. Casket Mate, whatever that was. On the floor were drums labeled Drying Compound, Lightly Fragranced.