frustrated, and looked around again.
Each of the square niches in the wall for coffins were sealed in and had an iron basket at one end for flowers.
He started at the front on the left side and twisted, turned, and inspected them, one by one.
His frustration grew again.
Then . . .
Midway through the right side, he twisted one of the little iron buckets.
And it kept going.
The altar shifted backward and a hole was revealed.
He rushed to it and Cameron followed. They saw steps led downward into darkness.
“Corby, yes!”
His son had been right. Tunnels stretched below. And whoever had taken Annie Green had come through this mausoleum and taken her down . . .
Angela had disappeared from the office.
So, there were other entrances. The tunnel system had to be vast and huge and lead to . . .
He started down the ladder and then hesitated, thinking that the earth-packed tunnels might not offer cell service.
He tried Corby’s phone and then Adam’s. No answer.
He tried Jon Dickson. No answer.
He called headquarters.
And that was needed. Within minutes, the cemetery and surrounding areas would be flooded with police.
He headed quickly down the steps . . .
And into what appeared to be a dark abyss.
*
The tunnels were gruesome.
Corby couldn’t think of any other way to describe them.
He had done his reading so he knew they had been dug out slowly and painstakingly by a group of people who had done the work at night, by darkness, determined on their belief that slavery was wrong. There had been a few underground vaults from the early days, and the tunnel workers had built on that.
But when the war had ended and the world was in conflux and people were free, they still weren’t seen as equal. And so those who were friends, close or even relatives, wound up being buried deep in the ground in the “white” cemetery.
Others were buried here as well. People of all colors. Corby had found sketches of the services that had been performed in the tunnels that had become catacombs.
He knew all this; he applauded the silent heroes of the past, and he would have loved to have known the good priest and the Rosser family member who had so secretly brought it all about.
But now . . .
It was creepy.
He wished he knew more about the silence. Some of the bodies were down to their shrouds and their bones. Some had actually been buried in poor coffins, decaying like all else now. Sometimes, the dead had been partially mummified. There were thin shrouds stretched over faces with sightless eyes and macabre, open mouths.
He felt something on his shoulder and nearly jumped a foot in the air.
It was Josh’s soft touch.
“Sorry!” Josh said quickly. “I just . . . well, it doesn’t matter, you know. We aren’t the bodies we have or the skin we wear. What makes us who we are is all that we keep in our hearts and our souls and our minds. I mean—” Josh paused, making a face, “I sure don’t want to know what my body looks like now, and to this day, I don’t know why some of us stay and some just go, but . . . I know this. These souls have gone on. What we see here . . . is only discarded clothing. Don’t let it upset you!”
Corby nodded and smiled. “I know why you’re here,” he told Josh. “Because you’re good and your dad and others needed you and . . . and I need you!”
“Always wanted a little brother,” Josh assured him. “We’ve got to keep moving. Well, cell phones may be worthless down here, but the flashlights in them are pretty darned good!”
They moved on, but as they did so, Corby nearly barged into Jon Dickson.
Dickson knelt, and while the light they had wasn’t much, Corby could see that he was frowning. “Adam?” he said, lifting fragile, stained material. “This isn’t an old corpse.”
“Oh, my God! One of the missing women,” Adam said.
“No,” Jon said, his tone puzzled. “It’s a man. I’m not a medical examiner, but . . . dead several months? Looks like . . .” He hesitated, pulling the shroud away. “Single bullet to the chest; there’s a massive stain in the area. Strange decomp down here. I’d say this man had been in his late thirties or early forties . . . business suit, white shirt, both stained in the chest area.”
“Shot and killed and dragged down here?” Adam asked.
Corby didn’t look; he didn’t want