I have yet to meet a relatively sane person who is anything but twitchy in a cemetery late at night. I consider myself to be mildly sane, therefore I was twitchy. Detective Goodes was right, this was a very sad affair, a tragic conclusion to a young girl’s life.  The backdrop for the cemetery was the rolling foothills of the Santa Lucia Mountains. Three patrol cars from the police department in San Luis Obispo were already parked around the gravesite of Mary Alice Richardson. The medical examiner’s van was parked nearby. Plus two beat-up trucks without any clear identification on them.
Four cemetery workers were digging in the bright light cast from the patrol-car headlamps. The soil looked rich and loamy and was thick with worms. When the hole was of sufficient depth, a backhoe was brought in to finish the job.
The police observers, including myself, had nothing to do but stand impatiently around the grave. We drank coffee, exchanged small talk, cracked a few dark jokes, but nobody really laughed.  I turned my cell phone off. I didn’t need to hear from the Mastermind, or anybody else, here in the cemetery.  Around one in the morning, the container of the casket was finally uncovered by the cemetery workers. A lump rose in my throat, but I looked on. Beside me stood Jamilla Hughes. She was shivering some, but sticking it out. Nancy Goodes had retreated to her Suburban.  Smart lady.
A crowbar was used to pry off the top of the liner. It made an unpleasant groaning noise, like someone in deep pain.  The hole in the ground was approximately six feet deep, eight feet long, less than four feet wide.
Neither of us spoke. Every detail of the exhumation held our attention now. My eyes blinked too rapidly in the eerie light. My breathing was uneven and my throat felt a little raw.  I was recalling crime-scene pictures of Mary Alice that I’d seen.
Fifteen years old. Hung two feet off the ground by her ankles, left that way for several hours. Drained of nearly all her blood. Another
Class IV death. Viciously bitten and stabbed.
The victim in Washington hadn’t been stabbed. So what did that mean? Why............