and a couple minutes after that she was at the cemetery. The darkness was total. There was no hint of dawn yet, just inky blackness.
A murder, darkness, and a cemetery. What a combo.
Two county police cars were already there, along with Wallis’s Crown Vic.
The detective was standing by the front gate wearing a tattered beige trench coat and holding a cup of coffee. He looked about ten years older than the last time she had seen him.
Pine walked up to him even as she could see lights off in the distance. They started walking in that direction.
“It’s a man this time,” said Wallis. “Black guy around thirty.”
“COD?”
“Prelim is a single gunshot wound to the chest.”
“Anything unusual?”
“You’ll see for yourself,” he replied cryptically.
They reached the cemetery and walked between the rows of graves until they arrived at the bank of work lights that had been set up next to a popup tent, which Pine assumed had been placed over the body.
“Who found it?”
“A ranger coming on duty early. Guy was laid right over a grave.”
Pine looked around and suddenly realized where she was. “You mean on a Raider’s grave.”
Wallis looked at her blankly. “Come again? Raider’s grave?”
Pine explained the distinction.
“You think that was intentional?” asked Wallis.
“Right now we can’t afford to assume that it wasn’t. Let’s see the body.”
They passed by the officer guarding the tent and ducked inside it after putting on booties and latex gloves.
Pine and Wallis stared down at the man lying on top of the grave. There was a light shining on the body so they could see it clearly.
Pine’s eyes widened. She said, “He’s in a tuxedo. With a top hat on his stomach and a corsage on his jacket.”
“It’s old-fashioned like the veil.” He glanced at her appraisingly. “So what’s your take?”
Pine said, “It was a wedding veil. She’s the bride. And this guy’s the groom. It’s like they’re the toppers on a cake.”
“Right, that one I figured out. So what the hell is the perp trying to say? Is he striking out against marriage in general? But Hanna Rebane wasn’t married, at least that we know of.”
“But she did have a child. Maybe this guy was the father.”
“How the hell do we prove that? We don’t even know where the kid is.”
“We have to ID this guy. If he has a connection to Hanna Rebane, we might have our answer.”
“We’ve taken prints and are running them. Hopefully something will pop.”
Pine squatted down and ran her gaze over the man and the ground surrounding the body. She touched his hand. “Cold.” She tried to bend the arm. “He’s in rigor. Been dead at least twelve hours, probably more.”
“Coroner said the same thing. We’ll have more after the post, of course.”
Pine examined the wound on the man’s chest. “He obviously wasn’t killed here. His estimated time of death would place that no later than late yesterday afternoon. And there’s no blood on the ground. He bled out elsewhere.”
“Like the first vic. Killed somewhere else and placed later.”
She opened the jacket and looked for a label but didn’t see one. She did the same for the hat with the same result. “He might have bought the tux somewhere. Top hats aren’t that easy to come by. If he ordered it online that might be a lead. The corsage looks pretty fresh. That’s another lead.”
“Lots of people order corsages.”
“But not top hats. It’s something, at least. Although he might have already had them in his possession. The tux and hat look pretty decrepit. Or he could have gotten them at a secondhand shop. Or even inherited them.”
She looked at the man’s fingernails. “No obvious signs of skin or blood. Any defensive wounds?”
“Not that we could see. But you wouldn’t necessarily have them with a shooting.”
Pine rose and looked down at the dead man.
“What are you thinking?” said Wallis.
“I wonder if the race of the victim was coincidence or it has meaning.”
“You mean white bride and black groom?”
Pine nodded. “Maybe we’re looking at some sort of hate crime. Or maybe it’s something else altogether. We just don’t know enough yet to tell.”
“We’ve got to ID this guy as fast as we can.”
“If he doesn’t have a criminal record, that might be tough. I can make some calls and have his prints run through other databases.”
“I’m not too proud to ask for help, so yeah, make the calls. I can text you the print deck.”
“Let me know when the post is.”
“Will do.”
“Anything on the rest of the security footage from