Wicked Business (Lizzy and Diesel 2)

“What about love and friendship?”

“Girl stuff.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeesh.”

Diesel gave a bark of laughter. “I don’t know how you’ve survived this long, considering how transparent and gullible you are,” he said.

I punched him in the arm. “Jerk.”

Diesel followed his GPS southwest, skirting Harvard Square, hooking up with Mount Auburn Street. Mount Auburn Cemetery is for the most part located in Watertown, but its granite Egyptian Revival entrance is in neighboring Cambridge. It’s bordered by other cemeteries and by densely populated neighborhoods of the living.

The cemetery was founded in 1831 and was the first garden cemetery in this country. Its 174 acres of rolling hills are heavily forested in parts with native trees and bushes. The graves and monuments are scattered throughout, accessible by a system of roads and meandering footpaths.

Diesel drove into the heart of the cemetery, following instructions from his assistant. He parked on the side of the paved road, and we took a footpath to the Tichy family plot.

Peder Tichy was buried in 1862 on a grassy hillside now shaded by mature oak trees. The granite monuments around Tichy were worn by age and weather, but the inscriptions were still clear, and we went headstone by headstone, reading names, looking for Tichy.

“I found him,” Diesel said, squatting in front of a headstone with a cross carved into the top. “Peder Tichy, survived by his wife, Mary, and his children, Catherine and Monroe.”

I joined Diesel and looked at the headstone.

“No message,” I said.

“None that I can see.”

“This is getting old. At the risk of being a whiner, I’d rather be home taking a nap.”

A flash of silver caught my eye, and I looked beyond Diesel to a heavily shrubbed area toward the top of the hill.

“I see feet,” I said. “In running shoes. They’re sticking out of the bushes, and they aren’t moving.”

Diesel walked up the hill, reached the feet, and stepped into the rhododendron thicket.

“It’s Hatchet,” he called down to me.

“Is he dead?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

I scrambled up to Diesel and watched him pull Hatchet out of the bushes.

“Are you sure you should drag him out by his feet like that?” I asked. “What if he has a broken back or something?”

“His problem, not mine.”

I looked down at Hatchet and a wave of nausea rolled through my stomach. Hatchet had a handprint burned into his neck.

“Oh boy,” I said. “Why would Wulf do this to his own minion?”

“It wasn’t Wulf,” Diesel said. “The print is too small.”

“I thought Wulf was the only one who could burn people.”

“Apparently not.”

Diesel prodded Hatchet with his foot. “Hatchet! Wake up.”

“Unh,” Hatchet said, eyes closed.