"Strange indeed, though I'm not sure we can do much here tonight, nor what we'd gain from it. Besides, we probably want to be quick. Maybe that sound was nothing, but I'd not want to be found out in here," he said. The shock his peers at the university would have if he were to be apprehended in part of a suspected grave robbery was unthinkable! He idly started spinning stories in his head about how this might be related to his research...

Jake's not ready to just give up. They've discovered something unexpected in the crypt, but not what it means. He starts by judging the direction in which the tunnel goes, checking outside briefly to see where that leads in the grounds. He will also try all of the marble plates that seal the grave shafts tight to see if any others look dirty or feel loose.

Arthur steps outside and keeps watch, ready to move in a hurry back to the ladder spot if they need to. Just before he steps out, however, he turns to Jake, who he's noticed is continuing the work of investigating in here, and says: "Try to be quick!"

Stepping outside, his eyes well adjusted to the darkness, Arthur scans the cemetery grounds, looking for any sign of others who might be present. But the photographer sees no one. The graveyard is entirely vacant. Nothing moves among the gravestones and memorials.

Examining the burrow, Jake can tell that it travels in a roughly southwestern direction, though the slant of it informs the detective that it also descends deep into the earth at a steep angle. Some of the grooves in the soil that Jake can see are suggestive of claw marks.

Testing the closest of the marble slabs which cover one of the places of internment, Jake is surprised to find that it pulls away easily, as if it is only loosely fitted into the wall. Moving it to the ground, the detective peers inside to find that the space is occupied by the broken remains of a casket; the wood splintered and separated, several of the brass fittings pulled free. Aside from a few fragments of torn clothing, there is no sign of the body that was once placed there.

"Rats?" Sully asks the detective, peering into the opening beside him, "Grave robbers?"

"Or escapees?" Jake nods at the tunnel.

With a shrug at Sully, he tries the next slab to see if it too conceals and empty grave.

Arthur leaned back and peered into the structure, because he was pretty sure he was hearing things. Graverobbers? What in the hell would these folks be graverobbing for? Seems like you'd just run off business, not attract more of it.

"Or maybe a very expensive way to cover up some unorthodox but lucrative activity. A mortuary could be used to hide a criminal operation - a place where the stench of death wouldn't be unusual. A place like this with the latch on the inside...it could double as a safehouse as well," he suggested.

"Yeah," Jake moved on to the next panel. "But if they was using the place to hide extra stiffs, you'd expect 'em to double up the occupancy, right? Not take out the old ones.

"Plus, that coffin wasn't just slid out. It looked busted up. Like maybe someone broke out from the inside."

He's actually saying this for the shock effect, but even as he does, he gets a shiver at the very idea.

Sully tags along with Jake as he checks out other niches.

"There are certainly more convenient and comfortable places to hide out. And nothing here suggests anyone's been living here, no table or chair, no bedroll, no empty bottles or cigarette butts.

"And if the idea is to conceal murder victims... Well, two in one coffin isn't unheard of."

Like the first slab he sought to move, Jake finds the next rectangle of marble loose and easy to pull free. Within the space beyond it, the detective is greeted by a similar sight: a destroyed coffin reduced to fragments of splintered wood and no trace of the corpse that rested within it, save for some dirty shreds of clothing and a gold wedding band, lying a few inches from the opening.

Outside, the cemetery remains silent.

Sully points at the ring.

"No grave robber would miss that prize. Is there an inscription?"

Jake picks up the ring to examine it for an inscription. He puts it over the end of his finger to gauge its size -- is it a man's ring or a woman's?

He will also glance at the marble slabs that cover each niche looking for details of who was interred and when.

"Looks to me like someone tunneled in here and took the bodies," he muses. "Not your average crime scene, that's for sure. And not robbing the dead, as you point out," he flicked his eyes to Sully.

He straightens and moves on to the next grave, intent on opening them all.

"Ain't no critter, either," he grunts, tugging at the next marble slab. "If it was a big rat or something eating the bodies, it wouldn't have bothered to put the covers back in place. That's a deliberate act that implies a sense of imagining what someone might suspect by looking in here. Possible future sort of thing. That's the way only a person would think."

The ring does bear an inscription on its inner surface: ”Z.G. & I.G. 12/11/1868” The ring slides onto the detective’s finger easily, leading him to believe it belonged to a man.

Examining the slab he removed, Jake sees that the grave was for one Zundel Greenberg, who passed away on October 17, 1897. In close proximity to Zundal’s place of internment is one for Isabella Greenberg, who died on August 10, 1901.

Removing the slab to the left of Zundal Greenberg’s resting place, Jake finds another grave in the same condition as the others he has opened: the casket destroyed, with only fragments of wood left behind. Shreds of what were once a white cotton garment of some kind can be seen and, at the very back of the space, a few bones comprising what Jake feels certain was once a finger.

"Well clearly there were bodies here at one time. Long dead too. Why move them?" he asked, perhaps rhetorically.

OOC:

Anthropology: 66 (vs 71)

Just rolling to see if anything comes to mind about things various cultures may have use of bodies.

22:30, Today: Anthony Wells rolled 66 using 1d100.  Knowledge about some stuff.

Arthur was getting a bit antsy and, perhaps, wanted to rush this process, but he reminded himself to remain patient and continued keeping an eye on the outside of the structure.

Still, he was trying to stay listening to the findings the others were making, and so he turned back to comment, "My thought was...medical students, those sorts have robbed plenty of graves in the past. But this seems like a lot of work to go to, just to rob a grave, doesn't it?"

"It seems to me that medical students would want fresh corpses, not sixty-year-old remains. Besides medical schools get plenty of supplies these days and don't have to resort to skulking around cemeteries. Unless... Is there any way of telling whether these crypts were looted back in the last century, rather than recently?"

Sully stoops to peer into one of the niches, trying to figure out how long ago they were disturbed.

"Reckon we found more of a mystery than we expected," says Jake, sliding the gold ring off his finger and putting it back in the grave.

"Give me a hand with these," he asks the others, starting to replace the marble slabs covering the empty niches.

"Not sure what it means, but there's something going on in this crypt all right. Though what grave robbing has to do with slashing pretty girls open, I have no idea."

When the crypt is returned to as close to its original shape as they can manage, he suggests they follow the line of the burrow in the direction it goes across the graveyard and see if there is anything in that direction that might illuminate this deepening mystery.

With a little effort, the investigators are able to return slabs to their places, leaving the interior of the Greenberg Crypt with the appearance of having not been disturbed. Outside, the wind finds its strength again, a brief, muted howl sounding in the cemetery as it rushes through the tombstones.

Standing outside the crypt and estimating the angle of the burrow as best he is able, Jake sees that the tunnel would appear to travel beneath the cemetery’s oval driveway before reaching the structure at the graveyard’s southwestern corner: the Bishop Mortuary.

Sully follows Jake's gaze across the grounds.

"You know, I think you're right," he says, suppressing a yawn, "Those caskets look to me like they'd been ransacked ages ago when they were new. I doubt their condition has anything to do with our case. Still, something's out of whack with this place."

He gazes speculatively at the mortuary. "Contemplating a late night exploration?"
This message was last edited by the player at 11:26, Thu 17 Mar 2022.

"In for a penny, in for a pound, right?" grins Jake, lifting his lock picks up to show them.

He will try to relock the crypt door as they leave.

Jake is able to secure the door to the Greenberg Crypt as the investigators depart.

The wind keeps its strength as the group approaches the mortuary, buffeting the investigators, the nearby trees and shrubs swaying under its force. The darkness in the cemetery is deep, the gravestones and crypts reduced to looming shadows in the murk.

As they draw closer, the investigators can see that there is an entrance door into the mortuary on the northeast potion of the structure. Unlike the public entrance, the door is unpainted and plain, with no light fixture to illuminate it. Just to the right of the doorway is a metal trash receptacle.

Arthur prepared his camera as they approached. He thought that, if the things they had seen so far led them this way, it was possible that he could be taking photographs of some evidence relevant to the young lady's murder.

"Ready, fellows?" He crept forward.

Quinn scans the building, looking for any lighted windows.

Sully does not see any hint of illumination in any of the mortuary’s windows. Aside from the exterior light at the building’s front entrance, the structure is completely dark.