Mary Jane's Grave Read online

  MARY JANE’S GRAVE

  STACY DITTRICH

  LEISURE BOOKS NEW YORK CITY

  Always for Rich, Brooke, and Jordyn

  STAKE OUT AT THE GRAVE

  I wasn’t in a position to see what she was looking at, but one of the girls with Danielle stopped walking and turned to the woods to her right. What followed was a scream that made my hair stand up on end. All the teens dropped their flashlights, leaving the cemetery in complete darkness, and started running in different directions. All of them were yelling and screaming.

  Naomi was screaming, too, on the radio, telling us to move in. I went to grab Coop, but he was gone. I hadn’t seen him leave. Over the sounds of the yelling I heard something I couldn’t possibly believe. It began low and gradually got louder until it hurt my ears. It was a baby crying. I was spinning my flashlight around trying to see where it was coming from when I heard something behind me. In a flash, I saw a shadow move to my right….

  “The first time I went to Mary Jane’s Grave, I was young then, only eight years old, but went with sisters and friends. Four people urinated on her tree, and all four are dead today…That was 1973.”

  —graveaddiction.com

  “When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet…”

  —Virginia Woolf

  “My mother says I must not pass, Too near that glass; She is afraid that I will see, A little witch that looks like me; With a red mouth to whisper low, The very thing I should not know.”

  —Sarah Morgan Bryant Piatt

  “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

  —Exodus 22:18

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  COVER PAGE

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  STAKE OUT AT THE GRAVE

  EPIGRAPH

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PRAISE

  OTHER LEISURE BOOKS BY STACY DITTRICH

  COPYRIGHT

  PROLOGUE

  March 3, 1898

  She had been unconscious only a few moments, but that brief reprieve had been more than welcome. Now, as she opened her eyes and saw the men peering down at her, she prayed for the blackness to envelop her once again.

  Her legs were broken, and she was unable to move away. The runt of the bunch and the one with the terrible skin had been responsible, their leader standing apart watching it all, laughing. Now the brightness of their torches was an assault upon her sight, and she closed her eyes to restore the bleak comfort of the dark, cold night.

  She opened her swollen eyes and tried to focus on the small lifeless shape that lay ten feet away; it had once been her baby son, Ezra. They had killed him, just as they intended to kill her, and had forced her to watch. Never had she known such anguish, and a part of her had died along with the child. Only her body continued to endure, but for how long? And did it really matter?

  She pulled herself up by her arms, feeling blood run into her eyes, blinding her. A sharp pain in her left side forced her to lie down on the ground again. Their kicking had finally begun to taper off. Could they be getting tired? She lay motionless, praying that Madeline had gotten away, if only to be spared witnessing the horrific acts taking place here in front of their home.

  She knew the men blamed her for something she’d had no part in, and she rued the day the girl had pulled up in her horse and buggy asking for the medicine. If she’d only known then, she would have sent the girl away and told her never to return. But now it was too late. There was no escaping her nightmare. There was only “the blessing.”

  Ever since she was a small child, her mother had taught her that the blessing was only to be used for the good of others, not for their downfall. Her mother had had the blessing, as had her sister and her grandmother, and she suspected that Madeline had it, too, although they’d never discussed it. She had wanted to wait until Madeline was eighteen and a grown woman before telling her of the special gift God had blessed her with. But from this day forward, if Madeline escaped from these men, she would be on her own and would have to discover it for herself.

  She smelled the sour alcohol on their breath as the men’s rough hands reached out to grab her arms and drag her toward the large pine tree that dominated the land in front of her house. She suddenly flashed on an image of her husband, Joseph, who had died two months after Ezra was born. How proud he had been of his son! She hoped they were together now, and she told herself she would be seeing them soon, very soon. She stared at baby Ezra’s body one last time as they pulled the rope around her neck, and as it tightened, finally a new emotion rose within her. Rage.

  “Die, witch!” the men shouted in unison.

  It was then that she made the decision. Putting aside all she had been taught, she cursed these men and vowed they would pay dearly for what they had done.

  “Do it!” the leader yelled. And as she felt the rope begin to pull her upward, she used every ounce of her last breath to finish the curse she had begun. “Ego vomica quisque vestrum, Ego vomica vos totus!” she managed to croak as the noose grew tighter.

  And then the darkness she had prayed for finally came.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Present Day

  The healing rays of the sun shone down on me as I dug my toes into the warm, crystal white sand. Closing my eyes, I listened to the tranquil sound of the waves breaking ten feet away. Michael’s hands lovingly caressed my shoulders, and I knew I was about as close as I could get to heaven on earth….

  And then the phone rang, and I was no longer on my fantasy beach, but here in bed, my body screaming that I had been asleep for only five minutes. After painfully forcing my eyes open, I focused on the clock next to me.

  Wrong! I had been asleep for five hours. I closed my eyes again as Michael sleepily groped toward the phone, picked it up, and mumbled, “Hello?”

  I prayed that the call was for him, not me, but I expected the worst. Michael was a supervising agent with the FBI, but rarely got phone calls in the middle of the night. I, on the other hand, received them at least once a week. Because I worked in the major crimes division for the Mansfield, Ohio, Richland Metropolitan Police Department, most calls came straight to me. Still, I prayed the call was for Michael. God, I needed more sleep.

  “It’s for you, Cee,” he mumbled, handing me the phone and snuggling deeper be
neath the covers.

  Damn! As my dream of suntan lotion and a fabulous massage ebbed away, I switched on the bedside lamp. “Detective Sergeant Gallagher,” I said, trying to sound official.

  “Sergeant Gallagher, it’s Jan at the Communications Center. There’s been a homicide at Mount Olive Cemetery at the end of Tucker Road, and we need you there as soon as possible.”

  “Are you talking about Mary Jane’s Grave? Seriously?”

  “Yes, ma’am, we were all talking about that, too. Captain Cooper is already on her way and told us to call you.”

  “All right, give me half an hour.” I cradled the phone, threw on some clothes, and gulped down some O.J. There was no way that I wanted to leave my fiancé and my warm bed to examine a dead body at this ungodly hour. But Mary Jane’s Grave added a new level of urgency to this summons.

  First, though, let me explain my less- than-eager attitude to leave hearth and home. I’ve been looking at dead bodies since I was a kid. My father and his two brothers are also policemen with Metro. My uncle Matt, a third brother, had proudly joined them on the force and was building an impressive reputation when he was shot and forced to go on disability. That was almost thirty years ago.

  Despite the family setback, Dad and his remaining brothers stayed on to share a combined ninety-five years’ experience on the force, and bless them all, they’re still going strong.

  When I was about eleven, my family began the somewhat bizarre practice of keeping homicide photographs in albums to share with one another at family gatherings. Despite my tender years, I eagerly joined my cousins in poring over pictures of victims who had been brutally disemboweled. My reaction? Awe and wonderment.

  Back in the day, I considered all this to be cool. At age fifteen, my dad invited me to ride in his police cruiser for an entire shift, keeping him company and getting a feel for what he did every day. That was the year I saw my first dead body up close, and that was even cooler.

  When I was twelve, I shot my first gun. My father was going to the police department’s pistol range to qualify the other officers on their weapons. I begged to go, and my mother, utterly horrified at the thought, finally relented when my father promised to closely supervise me. My older brother, Tony, who was sixteen at the time, tagged along, too.

  That first gun had been a .38 revolver: a wheel gun. Even now I remember the mixture of fear and excitement that rose in my chest when it was time to pull the trigger. I applied the minimal two pounds of pressure and heard a loud pop! Jumping back against my father, I exclaimed, “Wow! That was cool.” I proudly exchanged a grin with my father, who’d been watching me closely for signs of trauma.

  But all he saw was a preteen wearing a wide grin with bullets sticking out of her ears. (When there wasn’t enough ear protection to go around, bullets did the trick.)

  In fact, I proved to be a damn good shot. After more practice, Dad winked at me and said, “Show ‘em how it’s done, baby!” I fired six shots from twenty- five yards directly into the center target. Bull’s-eye. Of course, I look at guns differently nowadays.

  My fascination for law enforcement goes back as far as I can remember. I read my first “adult” novel when I was eight years old. It was about Ted Bundy. The author’s take on Ted’s homicide spree kept me locked in my bedroom for two days straight until I finished the last page. I would look up from the book and gaze around my room, terrified that my parents could telepathically sense what I was reading. (I had swiped it from my father’s bookshelf without his knowledge.)

  Never without an escape route, I kept one of my favorite Judy Blume books within reaching distance. If someone knocked on my door, I’d quickly shove Ted Bundy under my blanket and launch into the middle pages of Shelia the Great or Superfudge.

  Yes, law enforcement was all around me, and I was a willing captive audience. Now, after having been a cop for fifteen years, I no longer find it “cool” when I have to deal with victims’ loved ones and surviving family members. In fact, it’s thoroughly disheartening. Most cops get burned out around their twenty-year mark, but then again, I’m not like most cops.

  Breaking into my reverie, Michael asked, “What was that all about? Who’s Mary Jane?”

  I laughed, a reprieve from my dismal thoughts. Michael had the grace and confidence of a scholar, but could sometimes be as cute as a toddler trying to pronounce “Pennsylvania.” He’d grown up in Virginia, the son of a respected FBI agent and a local professor. His first experience in Mansfield came when we met on the Murder Mountain case. At the time, he was living in Cleveland with his first wife, which is why I sometimes have to update him on local history.

  “Mary Jane’s Grave has been a local haunt for as long as I can remember. Legend has it a witch, Mary Jane, was hanged from a pine tree in the middle of this old cemetery. Supposedly, a burnt cross formed in the tree because she was buried underneath it.

  “People tell stories about weird things that happened to them at the grave site. My friends and I would go there when I was in high school, daring each other to stay there for a while.”

  “Are the stories true?” Michael asked.

  “Nope. Obviously, local historians have looked into it. Mary Jane was nothing but an herbalist who cleaned houses, died of cancer, and was buried in a normal grave. There’s a campground nearby, so the legend probably got started to scare campers. The cemetery is pretty creepy, though.”

  “Sounds like it. I’ll go make you some coffee,” Michael offered, now awake. What a guy, I marveled. But then I reminded myself that he’d probably jump back into bed the minute I kissed him good- bye and shut the door. Life wasn’t fair.

  If someone had told me two years ago that I’d be engaged to Michael Hagerman, I wouldn’t have believed it. Two years ago, I’d said good- bye to him for what I thought would be the last time.

  Michael and I had met and fallen in love while working a tough case together. I was married at the time to the father of my two children and chose to stay with him. Eric Schroeder, my ex- husband, is—what else—a uniformed officer at Richland Metro. Although I was in love with both men, I decided to save my marriage and said a tearful good- bye to Michael.

  Then, last year, Fate brought us back together again while investigating a child’s murder case. I tried desperately to fight my feelings for Michael, but they grew deeper and more intense, despite my honorable intentions.

  In the end, it didn’t matter. I found out that Eric had been having an affair with Jordan Miller, a rookie officer he subsequently got pregnant. That was the end of our marriage and the beginning for Michael and me.

  Eric and I share custody of our two daughters, twelve- year- old Selina and five- year- old Isabelle. Without a doubt, these girls are the most miraculous creatures that ever entered my life. My daughters are the reason I wake up in the morning, my reason for living. I hadn’t ever known the depth of my own emotions until the girls were born.

  Emotion had been a foreign word to me until I became a mother. The expression of feelings had been absent in my house as a child, and I had never seen my father cry, react, or exhibit a shred of emotion. Clearly, this was how a law enforcer behaved.

  As a child, if I fell down and skinned my knee, any initial cries were quickly aborted by my father’s calm voice asking, “Are you bleeding? Do you need to go to the hospital?”

  “No,” I would say through quivering lips and blinding tears.

  “Then there’s no need to cry.”

  Crying or visible emotions were for the weak, I learned. Don’t get me wrong, my father didn’t choose to be the way he was. Vietnam and thirty years of policing unquestionably changes a person—and were most likely why he and my mother finally divorced.

  I admit it. I have a real blind spot when it comes to my father, and the love and respect I have for the man is indescribable. When my mother moved back to Cleveland, I chose to stay behind with Dad. Tony was already in college, so it was me and Dad, an oddly compatible twosome.

  As
a single parent, a cop no less, raising a young daughter could be harried at times, but he took it all in stride. Never lecturing, he guided me in the right direction with his stern advice and kind words. He taught me to stand up for myself, become my own person and deal with whatever consequences followed.

  Subsequently, by the time I was twelve, I scoffed at such minor occurrences as a bee sting or menstrual cramps. Of course, this proved to be quite an obstacle for me in high school, where I was dubbed the Ice Queen.

  My daughters, and ultimately Michael, changed all that. Unfortunately, I was still the Ice Queen while married to Eric, at the helm of a marriage that was doomed from the beginning. My divorce from Eric had been finalized six months ago, and his son with Jordan was now five months old, so everything had worked out just fine. Even Michael’s six-year-old son, Sean, got tossed into the mix, staying with us every other weekend. His ex- wife, Vanessa, now lives in Cleveland.

  Michael makes the hour commute to the Cleveland FBI office every day and has never complained. It meant the world to him for us to be together; we’d been through a lot. I wore my engagement ring faithfully, but continued putting off a wedding date. I tried not to let my failed ten-year marriage to Eric make me bitter, but sometimes it got the better of me.

  After the Murder Mountain case and the hunt for child murderer Carl James Malone, I had become somewhat of a celebrity for a while. I took a book deal and decided to write about my experiences.

  The advance alone bought us a monstrous house on the south side of town, something Michael often complained about. He didn’t think we needed a house with five bedrooms. But the girls and I loved it. Quite frankly, I could’ve probably bought the house without the advance. Eric and I always had money smarts, and I was financially better off (even after the divorce) than most cops I knew.

  Looking into the mirror for a final inspection before I left, I paused. I saw what everyone else did. CeeCee Gallagher: long blonde hair, piercing green eyes, and a face that, for a brief time, graced the covers of news magazines.