That man saw you, Timothy. You have to get her out of here. When she’s found, he’ll know you did it. He saw your car. He might’ve seen the plates. He’ll send the police. They’ll come looking for you.

Timothy wished he were Lonnie from his novel. Lonnie always knew how to take care of things. He always knew the best thing to do.

For a moment, Timothy considered dumping Julianne into the river, but eventually she would be found. Conversely, the cold water might just revive her, wake her up, and then what would he do?

He glanced at the open trunk, then down at her body.

Use the letter opener. It’s just what you need.

But this time he resisted the voice.

He knew what he needed to do instead. He would take care of things. Just like Lonnie would’ve done if he were here.

He is here, Timothy. Lonnie has never been far at all from your side.

++++

I could see that the Trinity Church Cemetery was surrounded by a sturdy, metal, spear-topped fence two meters high.

Bare-limbed trees protruded from the manicured gardens, now withered and dried out in summer’s wake.

In the daylight, the cemetery might have been a tranquil and peaceful place, but there in the nighttime, it had a foreboding feel.

The church was closed and so was the cemetery entrance, so I scaled the fence and dropped to my feet on the other side.

Here I was, on my second visit to a graveyard in as many days.

Tired, brown grass covered most of the property wherever there wasn’t a walking path or flowerbed. By the looks of the ancient, weathered headstones, I doubted that anyone had been buried here in decades.

I wasn’t sure which gravestone was Leeson’s, but from what Tessa and I had been able to uncover online about the stone, it would be located somewhere near the Soldier’s Monument that rose grandly in the northeast corner of the cemetery near where Pine Street intersected with Broadway.

Crunching across the frozen grass, I angled my Mini Maglite down and began inspecting the area, looking for the grave.

32

It didn’t take me long to find it.

Yes, it was near the monument and approximately five meters from the perimeter fence.

At first, James Leeson’s gravestone didn’t jump out as distinctive in any way from the other old headstones in the cemetery, and I guessed that most people would just walk right past it, oblivious to its historical significance.

However, at the top of the granite were the enigmatic carvings of the cryptogram Mannie had used. A wavering crack and chipped section across the headstone obscured any images that might have been engraved on the bottom third, but the symbols near the top were still clearly visible, even after all these years.