BLAIR WITCH: GRAVEYARD SHIFT

  DAVE STERN

  * * *

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2000 by Artisan Entertainment, Inc.

  ONE

  The first thing Crawford saw when he stepped off the plane was a big white billboard.

  DORTMANN'S XMAS TREE FARM

  5 Minutes Down Route 144

  The letters were in red and green: underneath them was a smiling Santa Claus. Someone had painted over Santa's red-and-white cap and given him a big, pointed black hat; something was written next to the hat. The plane's lights, shining out into the darkness, weren't bright enough for Crawford to read the words.

  Sweat beaded on his brow, and he wiped it away.

  It was Saturday, August 10, 1991, just after 10 P.M. He was ten seconds out of the air-conditioned Beechcraft and perspiring already. Christmas seemed a long way off.

  "Detective Crawford!"

  He turned to his right. Fifty feet away, a man wearing a Stetson and a deputy's badge was standing next to a black-and-white patrol car.

  Crawford walked briskly across the packed earth of the runway, carrying his briefcase.

  "Deputy Green?"

  The man nodded.

  "Sorry for the delay." Crawford extended his hand, and they shook. "Hit some fog coming in."

  Green was in his mid-twenties, slim, in good condition. Strong jaw, creased trousers, a real no-nonsense air. Not the squeamish type.

  That was good.

  "That's all right. I was running late myself--just got here a couple minutes ago." Green looked up. "Rain seems to be holding off."

  "Let's keep our fingers crossed."

  They got in the patrol car. Green got on the radio.

  "Base, this is Deputy Green. Over."

  "Go ahead, Green. Over."

  "Crawford's here. We're on our way. Out."

  Green put the mike back on the dash and started the car. Gravel crunched underneath the tires. Green backed the car up and turned away from the runway. They drove past a sign that said FREDERICK MUNICIPAL AIRPORT, and onto smooth, black pavement.

  Crawford glanced at his watch. "How far away are we?"

  "‘Bout half an hour. You need coffee or anything?"

  "Not yet." He'd been running nonstop for the last six hours, ever since the call had come in. Crawford had been up in Montreal with Sharon and the kids when his beeper had gone off. He'd returned the call, and then he was arranging for a charter. When he left, Sharon had the kids hanging on her arm and a big frown on her face. It couldn't be helped.

  This was Fellowes. Everything else took second place.

  "We got his picture off the wire," Green said. "Showed it around. Nobody recognized him."

  "He likes disguises." Crawford put his briefcase on his lap and snapped it open.

  A light green manila folder was on top; on the tab was written the word Fellowes. Crawford opened it and began pulling out pictures.

  First was an artist's composite: Fellowes as Crawford had first met him, his hair (a mixture of blond and gray) tied back in a ponytail.

  Then came the mug shot, the one that had gone over the wire, a younger Fellowes with his head freshly shaved, chin thrust forward aggressively.

  Finally there was the picture they had got off the security camera in Jordan's Creek, Fellowes wearing a black wig, with sideburns and a goatee to match.

  "I see what you mean," Green said, glancing over. "We can make copies of those later, when we get to the station."

  Crawford nodded. He put one arm out the window and leaned back against the seat.

  Suddenly, he was tired, and that cup of coffee he'd turned down seemed like a good idea. Ice coffee, maybe. It was so damn hot. He was sweating again: his arm was wet.

  No. Not sweat. Rain.

  "Shit."

  Off in the distance, lightning flashed.

  "Here it comes." The drops were falling faster now: Green switched on the windshield wipers. "What do you want to do?"

  "We're what--fifteen minutes out?"

  "Yeah."

  "Damn." Crawford thought for a second. "How many men at the site?"

  "Two."

  "Better tell them to start."

  Green picked up the radio again.

  "Base, this is Green. Over."

  "This is base. Over."

  "Tell them to go ahead."

  "Roger. Out."

  Green hung up the radio.

  Crawford was going to ask him to go a little faster, then the car suddenly shot forward. The road was deserted: Green flicked on the high beams. The speed limit was twenty-five; the speedometer read double that.

  "I'd hit the siren, but that's not what we want, is it?"

  Crawford nodded. "That's not what we want."

  Another sign went past, with arrows pointing to the right:

  Black Hills National Forest

  Seneca State Park

  They turned.

  Crawford kept his arm out the window, letting the rain splash against it.

  It had been raining the first night he'd met Fellowes too.

  A little more than three years ago, early spring: Sharon was pregnant with Donnie. He was on the four-to-midnight shift with Politti. Around ten o'clock, they pulled up in front of 121 East Coleridge, right off the Inner Harbor Freeway. The address was still right there, in his head. So was the picture of Politti, stepping out of the car in a trench coat and gloves, pulling the coat up around his neck.

  No. 121 was a run-down building in a run-down neighborhood. Not much more than a tenement: four stories, plastic sheeting on two of the upstairs windows instead of glass, garbage strewn all over the alleyway next to the building. Crawford and Politti had been in the neighborhood the day before, investigating a body someone had dumped in that same alley, a sixteen-year-old girl named Sharisse Graham.

  In the vestibule, Crawford ran his finger down a row of buzzers.

  "Four-B," he said. "Four-B, Four-B, Four-B--here."

  He pressed the buzzer.

  "Who is it?"

  "Mrs. Larrabee, this is the police. We want to come up and talk to you again."

  "What for?"

  "A few more things to go over." Like where your son Frank is right now. "We'll just take a minute."

  "It's late."

  "Yes, ma'am, I know it's late. We'll be quick."

  The door buzzed. Crawford pushed it open and entered. Politti was a step behind him.

  A tall, thin man with a ponytail was coming down the stairs as they walked in, whistling as he went. He looked down, Crawford looked up, and their eyes met. The man stopped whistling.

  Right then, all thoughts of Frank Larrabee, or any other suspects on the list they were putting together, vanished from Crawford's head. He knew it right then, that split second; this was the guy they were looking for.

  He unbuttoned the snap on his holster.

  "Can I talk to you a second, sir?"

  The man took the last few steps down to the ground floor, a little slower than before. "Sure."

  "I'm Detective Crawford; this is my partner, Detective Politti. We're investigating the body that was found here yesterday."

  "Body?"

  "That's right." Politti pushed forward, following Crawford's lead. "You sleep all day or something? You don't remember the police being here?" Dominick Politti was five-six, overweight, and balding, but he intimidated people. When they played good cop, bad cop, Politti was the heavy.

  The guy on the stairs, though, didn't seem intimidated. "What can I tell you?"

  "Let me just get some information from you if I could, sir." Crawford reached into his jacket and pulled out a memo pad. "Can I have your name?"

  "Fellowes. John Lee Fellowes."

  "Can I see some ID, Mr. Fellowes?"

  "Sure." He reached into his front pants pocket and came up with a driver's license.

  "This is you?" The picture showed Fellowes, clean-shaven with short, brown hair.

  "Yeah."

  Crawford gave the license back to him. "The license says you live in Philadelphia; that right, John?"

  "John Lee."

  "Excuse me?"

  "John Lee. Not John."

  "All right, John Lee. You live in Philly?"

  "No. I live here."

  "Which apartment?"

  "Two-F."

  "What do you do for work, Johnny?" Politti asked.

  Fellowes gave him a cold stare. "John Lee."

  Politti gave it right back. "What do you do for a living?"

  "I'm a brain surgeon."

  Politti turned to Crawford. "Look here--we got a comedian."

  Crawford was flipping through his notebook. Detectives had supposedly canvassed the whole building. Here: 2F, no answer. Super told them it was rented to a woman named Joan Kerrmann.

  "You know Joan Kerrmann, John Lee?" Crawford asked.

  "I sublet the apartment from her."

  "That legal, Johnny?" Politti asked.

  Fellowes didn't answer.

  "How 'bout Sharisse Graham?" Crawford asked. "You know her?"

  "No."

  "She lives on the third floor."

  "I've never seen her." The man's voice, his posture, were both nonchalant. His eyes, though, were cold and hard. They told a different story:

  Of cours

e I know her. What are you going to do about it?

  "Sharisse was killed yesterday," Crawford said.

  "I'm sorry."

  "Mind if we ask you a few questions now, John Lee?"

  "I'm on my way out."

  "It'll just take a second."

  Fellowes shrugged. "All right."

  Crawford noticed the fingernails on Fellowes's right hand were caked with dirt. Those on his left hand were clean.

  He looked again. The color was more maroon than brown.

  Maybe it wasn't dirt.

  "We might be more comfortable," Crawford suggested, "in your apartment."

  The man shook his head slowly back and forth. "I'm fine here."

  Crawford had another flash of insight: Fellowes was going to feed them a line of bullshit right here, walk out the front door of this building, and never come back. This was their one chance to nail him.

  In the inside pocket of his trench coat, Crawford had a summons from a grand jury folded up: he was supposed to be in court Thursday morning to testify.

  He pulled out the summons.

  "This is a search warrant, John Lee," he lied. "It covers every apartment in this entire--"

  Fellowes punched him in the stomach.

  Crawford was stunned. He prided himself on his reflexes; he hadn't seen that coming at all.

  "You sonuva--" That was Politti, behind him.

  Crawford looked down and saw a knife handle sticking out of the middle of his shirt. A red stain was spreading from it.

  Fellowes pulled Crawford closer, embracing him, using him as a shield. The pressure drove the knife in deeper.

  The embrace blocked Politti's line of fire.

  Fellowes reached inside Crawford's jacket and drew his gun. He fired once, then again.

  "What's goin' on down there?"

  That was Mrs. Larrabee. Crawford tried to open his mouth, tell her to call for help. Nothing came out but a wheeze.

  Fellowes was still holding him: their heads were close enough that Crawford could see the dark roots in the man's hair.

  "Thanks for the gun," Fellowes said. He let go; the ground rose up and smacked Crawford in the head.

  He woke up in the hospital two days later.

  Politti was dead. Fellowes was gone. Crawford had Sharon bring him the Sun: the front page was full of pictures of the grisly things they'd found in Apartment 2F.

  He'd been right about what was under Fellowes's fingernails.

  Lightning flashed. Outside Crawford's window, farmland stretched off into the horizon.

  Up ahead, another patrol car was parked on the side of the road, next to an iron scrollwork fence. Green pulled up behind it and stopped.

  "Here we are."

  Crawford opened his door. The rain had slowed: it was a light, warm mist, just what Crawford imagined the air in a tropical rain forest might feel like.

  He took off his suit jacket, unclipped the cell phone from his belt, and put both on the seat next to his briefcase.

  "This way," Green said.

  They walked along the fence till they came to a heavy iron gate. A padlock and a chain hung off one of the doors.

  Beyond stood row after row of stone markers, poised at attention. Written on the archway above were the words

  BURKITTSVILLE UNION CEMETERY

  Green stepped through the gate.

  Crawford followed.

  TWO

  The ground was wet and muddy: a dozen feet past the gate and Crawford's shoes were soaked through. He squinted ahead into the haze, trying to avoid the big puddles. Green, wearing boots, walked in a straight line away from the cemetery gate, toward an orange glow at the top of a slight rise.

  The glow came from a half dozen electric lanterns, set up underneath a plastic tarp stretched over an area three plots wide. The tarp was fastened to four metal poles and hung high over their heads. Two men in uniforms similar to Green's stood under the tarp, dressed in shirt sleeves, arms shiny with rain and perspiration. One was tall and thin, the other medium height, stocky, with a handlebar mustache. The thin one was leaning on a shovel, the other was snapping pictures.

  They turned at Green's approach.

  "Harris." The stocky man smiled. "You look like a drowned rat."

  He and Green shook hands.

  "Hank, this is Detective Crawford. Detective, this is Hank Hart. He's in charge here."

  "Sheriff," Crawford said.

  "Acting Sheriff," Hart said. "While the boss is down in Myrtle Beach. The man with the shovel here is Leonard Callihan."

  Crawford shook hands all around. He pointed to the tarp. "Smart idea."

  "We wanted to give you a chance to see it in situ," Callihan said.

  "In situ." Hart smiled. "You trying to impress the big-city detective?"

  They all laughed except Callihan. "Just doing my job," he said.

  Crawford sized Callihan up. Button-down, by-the-book; throw anything out of the ordinary at him, and he'd fold up like an accordion.

  "And I appreciate it." Crawford made eye contact with him, and then Hart. "I appreciate you keeping the site intact."

  "It was a lot more intact before it started raining," Hart said. The camera--a Polaroid--hung from a strap around his neck, as did a large, clear, plastic envelope. Crawford sized him up too: soft on the outside, but he liked the way the man carried himself. He would do.

  Hart reached into the envelope and pulled out a handful of pictures. "Here," he said, motioning Crawford forward. "Come stand under this so they don't get too wet."

  Crawford moved, stepping around a portable generator. The first picture Hart showed him had been taken at dusk: the clouds were black and threatening. Whoever had snapped it had been standing ten feet away from the tombstone and gravesite.

  Surrounding both was a perfectly formed circle made out of fist-sized stones. Within the circle, all the grass had been pulled out, leaving bare earth.

  Crawford looked at the picture, then up at the site. The stones were still there. It looked just like the other sites had. This was Fellowes's work, no doubt about it. Might as well sign his name in big letters in that dirt.

  "We think he was here this afternoon," Callihan said.

  Crawford was surprised. "He did this during the middle of the day?"

  "Could've been last night, late," Hart put in. "Maybe early morning. This isn't Baltimore, Detective. Not a lot of people around here to watch, no matter what the time."

  Crawford nodded. Hart flipped to the next picture. A closer shot of the inside of the circle. Looking at it from this distance, you could tell the earth was freshly turned.

  Hart showed him a dozen more photos: the gravesite from a few different angles, a boot impression in the dirt that may or may not have belonged to Fellowes (Crawford bet not), a few shots of the tombstone itself, Callihan holding an ultraviolet light next to the surface.

  "We dusted this one, and the next couple over for prints," Hart said. "Nothing."

  Crawford nodded. Also just like the other sites.

  Fellowes wasn't making it easy for them.

  Crawford crossed under the tarp, and stood next to the tombstone.

  "Anyone got a flashlight?"

  "Hold on." A big blue duffel bag was lying under the tarp, with the words PROPERTY OF FREDERICK COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT stenciled across it in white letters. Hart reached into the bag and handed Crawford a flashlight. He switched it on and ran the beam over the tombstone.

  KATHARINE HOLDER

  1862-1927

  Beloved Mother and Wife

  Hart was standing at his shoulder. "The others were women, too, weren't they?"

  Crawford nodded.

  "What's the significance of that?"

  "Damned if I know."

  The FBI shrink who had driven up from Washington had made a big deal about Fellowes's relationships with women too. Crawford remembered six detectives and Joan Kerrmann lying on her kitchen counter, Sharisse the shrink in the lieutenant's office looking at pictures of Graham lying in the alley. Fellowes had a deep-seated the shrink in the lieutenant's office looking at pictures of Joan Kerrmann lying on her kitchen counter, Sharisse Graham lying in the alley. Fellowes had a deep-seated hatred of women, the shrink had said. Ten minutes in, Crawford had had enough.

  "When this guy knifed me," he interrupted, "when he shot Politti--"

  "Randy,--" the lieutenant warned.

  "--I didn't see any women around," Crawford finished.

  "Of course not," the FBI man said soothingly. "But his actions were driven--"

  Crawford snorted. "You want to know what drove his actions?"

 

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