Freak by Jennifer Hillier Page A

into his pockets. “Have you seen anyone hanging out near this particular grave since the burial two weeks ago? Or the weeks leading up to it?”
    Aubrey shook his head. He was balding, and the wind blew the few hairs of his comb-over the wrong way, revealing a shiny pink scalp that glowed in the uneven light. “Not that I’ve noticed. We don’t keep records on who visits. When the gates are open, people can come and go as they choose.”
    “And what about the day of the burial? Were you here?”
    “I was, yes.” Aubrey squinted, deep in thought as he continued to watch the diggers. “It was a small service. Only a dozen or so people, and most were dressed in scrubs.”
    “Scrubs?”
    “I assumed they were nurses or caregivers from the retirement home the deceased lived in before she passed away.” Aubrey chewed his bottom lip. “They seemed sadder than her grandson did. He kept checking his watch, as if the funeral service was keeping him from something more important. Very sad.”
    “Sir, let me ask you something else.” Jerry’s low tone got the caretaker’s full attention, and the rotund man finally pried his eyes away from the grave site. “In your expert opinion, how would somebody go about getting a dead body—one that isn’t in the casket that matches the name on the gravestone—into the grave before a burial? How is that even possible? Don’t you check to make sure the hole is . . . empty . . . before you lower the casket in?”
    Aubrey’s eye twitched. “It’s all in the timing,” he said, echoing what Maddox had said earlier at the prison. A tingle went up Jerry’s spine. “It’s certainly not unheard-of to bury other things in a grave along with the casket, though it happens a lot less than it used to. It used to be that graves were dug a few days early and covered with tarp until the burial. But animals used to get stuck in the graves, you see, and it was always a pain—not to mention a danger—to remove them in time for the service.”
    The caretaker suddenly made a wheezing sound, alarming Jerry, until he realized the man was laughing.
    “I remember this one time, a deer fell into a grave and broke her leg,” Aubrey said. “Must have been there all night, and boy, was she spitting mad the next morning when we tried to gether out. Animal Control finally had to shoot her.” He laugh-wheezed again.
    “Funny,” Jerry said.
    “I’ve been in the caretaking business for a while now, and you hear stories like this, but you never think it’ll happen in your cemetery. Urban myths, you know?” Aubrey blinked rapidly several times, an annoying facial tic. “It’s kind of an old-school thing to do, hiding a body under a casket.”
    “How do you mean?”
    Aubrey seemed delighted at the question. He held up a chubby finger. “One, it’s risky. Graves are dug late at night before a burial, and you’d have to know in advance one was being dug because there isn’t a large window of time between the digging and the service.” He held up another chubby finger. “Two, look around. We’re right in the middle of the cemetery. You’d have to be lucky that nobody sees you dragging a dead body across all this open space.” A third chubby finger joined the other two. “And three, if you’re going to kill someone and dump the body, why not just dice it and dump it in the Sound? Like on Dexter . Neat, clean, minimal risk of getting caught, water washes away all trace evidence.”
    Jerry studied the caretaker. “You’ve given this some serious thought.”
    The man shrugged. “Everything you need to know about killing is on television these days.”
    Jerry couldn’t dispute that, but before he could respond, Torrance’s voice cut in. “We’ve got the casket!”
    His former partner was gesturing him over, and Jerry reluctantly stepped closer to get a better look.
    A moment later, a rectangular concrete box was lifted out of the ground with a forklift. Roger Aubrey had explained to