Chapter 5 - The Unmarked Grave
The quest for the truth led Finnley and Marcus back to the Pinecrest Cemetery under the cover of a rainy afternoon. The elderly groundskeeper, whose name was Albert, met them inside a secluded tool shed at the edge of the property.
"They didn't want him found," Albert whispered, his hands trembling as he held a map of the county. "Reagan brought a private transport van in the middle of the night a year ago. She paid the former manager of this cemetery a lot of money to sign a fake burial certificate. But they didn't bury him here. They took him to an old, abandoned family plot near the abandoned logging mill town, forty miles north."
"Why go to all that trouble?" Finnley asked, his heart aching for his father’s undignified treatment.
"Because a standard funeral requires a medical examiner's signature," Marcus explained, his eyes narrowing. "An illegal burial in an abandoned town bypasses the entire state health registry. If there’s no official body, there’s no official murder investigation."
Leaving Albert behind, Finnley and Marcus drove north through a torrential downpour. The old logging town was a ghost city, swallowed by weeds and rotting wood. Deep in the woods, behind a rusted iron fence, they found the overgrown cemetery.
Finnley cleared away the thick briars with his bare hands until he found a fresh, unmarked concrete slab hidden beneath a pile of dead leaves. There was no name, no date, just a small, hand-carved stone reindeer resting on top—a token Camden had kept on his desk since Finnley was a little boy.
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"He’s here," Finnley choked out, kneeling in the mud, his tears mixing with the rain. "They put him in the dirt like he was nothing."
Marcus placed a steadying hand on Finnley’s shoulder. "He’s not nothing, Finnley. He is the man who is going to take them down. I've already called the state forensic unit. They are en route with an exhumation order signed by a state judge. It’s time to bring your father home."
