She wondered if The Cove now had a sister Victorian city in England.
She thought about what James had said about all those missing people. She knew the direction of his thoughts, but she wouldn’t accept it.
She just couldn’t. It was outrageous. She stepped onto Amabel’s small porch and knocked on the door.
No answer.
She knocked again and called out.
Her aunt wasn’t home. Well, she’d doubtless be back soon.
Sally knew where she wanted to go, had to go.
She stood in the center of the cemetery. It was laid out like a wheel, with the very oldest graves in the very center. It was as well tended as the town. The grass was freshly mowed, giving off that wonderful grass scent. She laid her hand lightly on top of a marble headstone that read:
ELIJAH BATTERY
BEST BARTENDER IN OREGON
DIED JULY 2, 1897
81 RIPE YEARS
The lettering grooves had been carefully dug out and smoothed again. She looked at other headstones, some incredibly ornate, others that had begun as wooden crosses and had obviously been replaced many times. Those that hadn’t weathered well had been replaced.
Was nothing in this town overlooked? Was everything to be perfect, including every headstone?
She walked out from the center of the cemetery. Naturally, the headstones became newer. She finished with the 1920’s, the 1930’s, the 1940’s, all the way into the 1980’s. The planners of the cemetery had been very precise indeed, working outward from the middle so that if you wanted to be buried here in the 1990’s, you’d be nearly to the boundaries.
She found Bobby Nettro’s grave, on the fourth circle out from the center. It was perfectly tended.
As far as she could tell, they’d kept to this wheel plan since the beginning. There were so many graves now. She imagined that when the first townspeople decided to put the cemetery here they’d considered the plot of ground they were setting aside to be immense. Well, it wasn’t. There was little space left, since the west side of the cemetery was bounded by the cliffs, and the east and north were bounded by the church and someone’s cottage. The south nearly ran into the single path that led along the cliff.
She walked to the western edge of the cemetery. The graves here were new, as well tended as the others. She leaned down to look at the headstones. There were names, dates of birth and death, but nothing else. Nothing clever, nothing personal, nothing about being a super husband, father, wife, mother. Just the bare information.
Sally pulled a small notebook out of her purse and began to write down the names on the headstones. She walked around the periphery of the cemetery, ending up with a good thirty names. All the people had died in the early to late 1980’s.
It didn’t seem right. Thing was, this was a very small town, grown smaller with each decade. Thirty people had died in a period of only eight years? Well, it was possible, she supposed. Some kind of flu epidemic that killed off old folk.
Then she noticed something else and felt the hair rise on her arms.
Every one of the headstones bore a man’s name. Not a single woman’s name. Not one. Not a single child’s name. Not one. Just men’s names. On one of the graves, it just said BILLY with a date of death. Nothing more. What was going on here? No women died during this period of time, just men? It made no sense.
She closed her eyes a moment, wondering what the devil she’d discovered. She knew she had to get this list to David Mountebank and to James. She had to be sure that these people had lived here and died here. She had to be sure that these people had nothing to do with all the reported missing folk. The thought that there might be a connection made her want to grab James and run out of the town as fast as she could.
She shook her head even as she stared down at one headstone in particular. The name was strange—Lucien Gray. So it was an odd name; it didn’t matter. All these names were legitimate, they had to be. These were all local people who’d just happened to die during this eight-year stretch. Yeah, and only men died. She found herself looking for Harve Jensen’s grave. Of course there wasn’t one. But there was that one headstone with Lucien Gray scripted on it. It looked very new, very new indeed.
She was beginning to sweat even as her brain raced ahead.
No, no. This town was for real.
This town was filled with good people, not with evil, not with death, more death than she could begin to imagine.
She put her notebook back in her purse. She didn’t want to go back to Amabel’s cottage.
She was afraid.
Why had that poor woman whose screams she’d heard on two different nights been taken prisoner in the first place?