Alex had never liked this particular crypt. The others seemed almost silly, a kind of Disneyland version of a particular style—Greek, Moorish, Tudor, mid-century. But this one felt too real, a temple to something dark and wrong that they’d built right out in the open, as if the people who had raised those red stones knew no one could touch them. It didn’t help that she’d seen the Bonesmen cut human beings open and root around in their insides, searching for a glimpse at the future.
“Well,” said Turner as they climbed out of the car. “You have a plan, Stern?”
“We have to tread lightly,” Dawes urged, coming up behind them, still clutching her notebook. “Skull and Bones is very powerful, and if word gets back to—”
Alex pounded on the heavy black door. She didn’t know much about the tomb, except that there was a debate over the original architect and that it had supposedly been built with opium money.
No one answered. Turner stood back, arms crossed.
“Did we miss them?” asked Dawes, sounding almost eager.
Alex slammed her fist against the door again and shouted. “I know you’re in there. Stop fucking around.” “Alex!” Dawes cried.
“If they’re not home, who’s going to care?”
“And if they are?”
Alex wasn’t entirely sure. She raised her hand to knock again when the door cracked open.
“Alex?” The voice was soft, nervous.
She peered into the gloom. “Tripp? Jesus, is that ice cream?”
Tripp Helmuth, third-generation legacy and son to one of the wealthiest families in New England, wiped his hand over his mouth, looking sheepish.
He was wearing long athletic tear-aways and a dirty T-shirt, his blond hair tucked under a backward Yale baseball cap. He was a member of Bones— or he had been. He’d graduated the previous year.
“You alone?” Alex asked.
He nodded, and Alex recognized the look on his face instantly. Guilt. He wasn’t supposed to be here.
“I—” He hesitated. He knew he couldn’t ask them in, but he also knew they couldn’t stand there.
“You’re going to have to come with us,” Alex said with all the weary authority she could summon. It was the voice of every teacher, principal, and social worker she’d ever disappointed.
“Shit,” said Tripp. “Shit.” He looked like he was going to cry. This was their murderer? “Let me just clean up.”
Alex went with him. She didn’t think Tripp had the balls to make a run for it, but she wasn’t taking any chances. The tomb was like all of the society crypts, fairly ordinary except for the Roman temple room used for rituals.
The rest looked like most of the nicer places at Yale: dark wood, a few fancy frescoes, one red velvet chamber that had seen better days, and an abundance of skeletons, some famous, some less so. The canopic jars full of important livers, spleens, hearts, and lungs were all kept behind the walls of the temple room.
The tomb was dark except for the kitchen, where Tripp had been having some kind of midnight snack. There were cold cuts and bread on the table, and a half-eaten ice cream sandwich. It was a big, drafty room with two stoves and a huge walk-in freezer, all better suited to preparing banquets than serving a dozen college students. But when the alumni came to town, the Bonesmen had to make sure they put on a proper spread.
“How did you know I was here?” Tripp asked as he hastily returned everything to the fridge.
“Hurry up.”
“Okay, okay.” Alex noted his very full-looking backpack and wondered if he’d squirreled away more food in there. Hard times for Tripp Helmuth.
“How’d you get in?” Alex asked as he locked the doors and they headed to Turner’s Dodge.
“I never turned my key in.”
“And they didn’t ask about that?”
“I told them I lost it.”
That had been enough. Tripp was so hapless it was easy to believe he’d lose his key and anything else that wasn’t stapled to his pockets.
“Oh God,” Tripp said as Alex joined him in the back seat of the Dodge.
“Are you a cop?”
Turner glanced in the mirror and said sharply, “Police detective.”
“Of course, yeah, I’m sorry. I—”
“You’d best stop talking and use this time to think.” Tripp hung his head.
Alex caught Turner’s eye in the mirror, and he gave a small shrug. If they were going to get Tripp in on this, they needed him scared, and Turner was very good at being intimidating.
“Where are we going?” Tripp asked as they headed down Chapel.
“Lethe House,” Alex replied.
Most of the members of the societies viewed Lethe as a tiresome necessity, a salve to the Yale administration, and most had never bothered to set foot inside Il Bastone.
“What are you doing on campus?” Alex asked.
