by Kathy Reichs
My booze-battered cortex offered a list of excuses. The conscience guys countered each one.
Scanning electron microscopy is now irrelevant.
Not your thinking on Friday.
Klapec’s been ID’ed. Histological age estimation is now superfluous.
Why the shadowing in the Haversian systems?
The cortical guys had no hypothesis.
Do it, Brennan.
Could be pointless.
Can’t know until you try.
Score a win in the conscience column.
After another Coke hit, I dialed. Ireland answered on the first ring. I asked about her weekend, sat out the answer, then explained my puzzlement concerning the irregularities in the thin sections I’d made from Jimmy Klapec’s femur.
“At a magnification of one hundred, everything looks dandy. When I crank it to four hundred, I pick up odd discolorations in some of the Haversian canals. I don’t know what they are.”
“Fungal? Pathological? Taphonomic?”
“That’s what I’d like to clarify.”
“It will take a while to prepare your specimens. I’ll have to etch them with nitric acid, place them in a vacuum dessicator, then dust them with gold palladium.”
“I can drop them off anytime.”
“If all goes well, they should be ready by late afternoon tomorrow.”
That would work. Rinaldi’s funeral was at eleven.
“I’ll be there within the hour.”
Allowing no time for a second cerebral spat, I dialed Roberts. She, too, was right by her phone.
“Dr. Roberts.”
“It’s Tempe.”
“Thanks so much for calling me back. I’m sorry I bothered you on a holiday weekend. I should have known you’d be out.”
“It’s no bother.” I was out, no question. Just not in the sense she meant.
“I understand you’re not feeling well today?”
“Just a flu. I’m much better now.”
“Hang on.”
I heard the receiver tap a desktop, footsteps, then a closing door. I pictured Jennifer crossing the office two down from mine. Identical desk, credenza, filing cabinets, and shelves, hers filled with volumes on animism, henotheism, totemism, and dozens of ism’s of which I was ignorant.
“Sorry.” She spoke softly. “There are students in the hallway.”
“I think they camp out there to avoid paying rent.”
She laughed nervously. “You may be right.” I heard slow inhalation, release. “OK. This is difficult.”
Please, God. Not a personal problem. Not today.
“I read in the Observer that you’re investigating the altar discovered last Monday on Greenleaf Avenue.”
“Yes.” That surprised me.
“Human bones were among the objects recovered.”
“Yes.” I had no idea where this was going.
“Last Thursday, a headless body was found at Lake Wylie—”
“Jennifer, I can’t discuss—”
“Please. Bear with me.”
I let her go on.
“The victim was identified as a teenaged boy named Jimmy Klapec. His body was marked with satanic symbology. Earlier, I haven’t the date, another headless boy was pulled from the Catawba River. I don’t know if that corpse was similarly mutilated.”
Obviously she’d heard, or been told of, Boyce Lingo’s tirade. I didn’t confirm or deny the information.
“The police have arrested a young man named Asa Finney. He’s been charged with possession of human remains and is a suspect in the Klapec homicide.”
“Yes.” All that had been reported in news coverage. I didn’t mention that Slidell also suspected Finney of involvement in Rinaldi’s murder.
“They’ve arrested the wrong man,” Roberts said.
“The police are conducting a full investigation.”
“Asa Finney is a Wiccan, not a Satanist. Can you appreciate the enormous difference?”
“I have a rudimentary understanding,” I said.
“The public does not. Asa is a self-proclaimed witch, it’s true. Have you seen his Web site?”
I admitted that I had not.
“Go there. Read his postings. You will find the musings of a kind and gentle soul.”
“I will.”
“There is a Wiccan camp at Lake Wylie. Though I don’t know the exact location, I know that Jimmy Klapec’s body was found at Lake Wylie. That will not put Asa Finney in a good light.”
I didn’t mention the books by Anton LaVey, the resemblance to Rick Nelson, or the Ford Focus seen in the area the night of Klapec’s murder.
“In today’s climate of religious extremism, there are those who condemn beliefs they don’t understand. Responsible, intelligent Christians who would rather see people dead than following what they consider pagan practices. Their numbers are few, but these fanatics exist.”
I heard a voice in the background. Jennifer asked me to hold on. There was muffled conversation, but I could make out no words.
“Sorry. Where was I? Yes. County Commissioner Lingo has twice mentioned Asa Finney by name, fingering him as a disciple of the devil, an example of all that is wrong in today’s world. Given the atmosphere of anger created by Saturday’s police shooting, I fear for Asa’s ability to get a fair hearing.”
“He has excellent counsel.” I didn’t mention names.
“Charles Hunt is a public defender.”
“Charles Hunt is very good.” In more ways than one. I didn’t mention that, either.
Jennifer lowered her voice further, as though fearing her words might carry through the door.
“Asa Finney stole bones from a crypt when he was seventeen. It was a juvenile prank, stupid and thoughtless. That’s a far cry from murder.”
How did she know that? I didn’t ask.
“The police are doing a thorough investigation,” I said.
“Are they? Asa Finney is a loner. They will find no one to vouch for him. Will Asa be sacrificed on the altar of Boyce Lingo’s ambition?”
I couldn’t figure Jennifer’s interest in Finney. Did her zeal grow from a commitment to the principles of her discipline? Or was it born of something more personal?
“I’m unclear what it is you want me to do.”
“Nullify Lingo’s poison. Make a public statement. You’re a forensic specialist. People will listen to you.”
“I’m sorry, Jennifer. I can’t do that.”
“Then talk to Lingo. Reason with him.”
“Why are you so concerned about Asa Finney?”
“He is innocent.”
“How can you know that?”
There was a moment of dead air, then, “We are members of the same coven.”
“You are Wiccan?” I couldn’t keep the surprise from my voice. I’d known Jennifer eight years and hadn’t a clue.
“Yes.”
I heard an indrawn breath then silence. I waited.
“Come to Full Moon tonight. We are having an esbat ritual. Meet us. Learn our philosophy.”
My battered brain cells were screaming for sleep. I started to decline.
“You will see. Ours is a joyous religion born of kinship with nature. Wiccans celebrate life, we do not take it.”
The conscience guys piped a voice through the pain in my head.
While Slidell was drowning his grief in work, you were drowning yours in booze.
“When?”
“Seven P.M.”
Barring horrendous traffic, I could make it to the university and get home in time for a power nap before leaving for Full Moon.
I reached for my tablet.
“I’ll need directions.”
26
THE NAP DIDN’T HAPPEN. IRELAND INSISTED ON SHARING A BLOW-by-blow of her SEM prep process. Then I spent an hour creeping through a construction slowdown on I-85. I arrived at the Annex in time to feed Birdie, pop two aspirins, and set out again.
Jennifer’s directi
ons sent me along the same route I’d taken to the Klapec scene on Thursday. This time, a quarter mile before hitting the lakeshore, I turned onto a small, winding road. At an abandoned fruit stand, I made a left and continued until I spotted a hand-painted wooden plaque with an arrow and the words Full Moon. From then on it was gravel.
The sun was low, turning the woods into a collage of green, brown, and red. As I slipped in and out of shadow, crimson arrows shot the foliage and danced my windshield. I saw no other cars.
A quarter mile in, I spotted a wooden trellis curving eight feet above a pair of tire tracks taking off to the right. Following Jennifer’s instructions, I made the turn.
Ten yards beyond the archway, the woods gave way to a clearing approximately sixty feet in diameter. At the far side, two dozen cars angled toward a crudely built log cabin. Another hand-crafted sign above the door announced Full Moon. This one featured what looked like a Paleolithic mother goddess—full breasts and buttocks, just a hint of head, arms, and legs.
Parking beside a battered old Volvo, I got out and looked around. No one approached or called out. Below the goddess, the cabin door remained closed.
The air smelled of pine and moist earth and a hint of bonfire smoke. Notes drifted from the trees beyond the cabin. Panpipes? A recorder? I couldn’t be sure.
Circling the building, I spotted a path and moved toward the music. The sun was down now, the woods in that murky limbo between dusk and full night. No birds called out, but now and then some panicked creature skittered away through the underbrush.
As I picked my way along, the music sorted itself into flute and guitar. A lone female voice sang lyrics I couldn’t make out.
Soon I saw the flicker of flames through the trees. Ten steps and I reached a second clearing, this one much smaller than that surrounding the cabin. Pausing at the edge of the trees, I looked for Jennifer. No one noticed my presence.
The gathering was larger than I’d anticipated, perhaps thirty people. A few sat on logs placed around the perimeter of the fire pit. Others stood talking in groups.
The guitarist was a woman of forty or fifty, with long gray hair and a whole lot of jewelry. The flautist was a person of indeterminate gender with squiggly snakes painted on his/her cheeks and forehead. The singer was an Asian girl in her late teens.
Beyond the musicians, eleven women and one man followed the instructions of a woman clothed in an intricately embroidered robe.
“Raise your hands to the heavens.”
Twenty-four arms went up.
“Inhale deeply. Follow your breath. Feel it enter each part of your body, moving down your throat, to your heart, your breasts, your solar plexus, your genitals, your feet. Repeat. One. Two. Three. Four times.”
A lot of breathing and arm waving followed.
“With each breath receive blessings from the universe. Five. Six. Seven times.”
More air intake.
“Accept a deep inner calm. Be filled with peace.”
Embroidery woman drew her hands to her mouth.
“Now, thank yourself. Love yourself. Kiss each of your hands.”
Embroidery woman kissed her palms. The others did likewise.
“Kiss your knuckles. Your fingers. You are love!”
Mercifully, at that moment I spotted Jennifer. She was wearing jeans and a black hoodie, adjusting logs in the fire with a long iron pole. Sparks spiraled around her, like tiny red stars carried on a cyclone.
Skirting the edge of the trees, I joined her.
“Hey,” I said.
Jennifer looked up, skin amber in the glow of the flames. A smile lit her face. “You found us.”
“The group is”—I was quite at a loss—“larger than I expected.”
“This is actually a small gathering. Since we’re between holidays, we’re not celebrating anything special tonight.”
I must have looked confused.
She smiled. “Let’s sit down.”
I followed her to one of the logs circling the fire.
“OK. Wicca one-oh-one.”
“Condensed version,” I said.
Jennifer nodded. “Wiccans recognize the existence of many ancient gods and goddesses—Pan, Dionysus, Diana. But we also view the God and Goddess as symbols, not as living entities.” She swept one arm in an arc. “In the trees, the lake, flowers, the wind, each other. All nature’s creatures. We view, and treat, all things of the Earth as aspects of the divine. You with me?”
I nodded, not sure that I was.
“The Wiccan calendar is based on the ancient Celtic days of celebration, with eight commonly recognized holidays. Four occur at the time of the solstices or equinoxes, the other four fall roughly midway between. Historical research shows that these holidays were celebrated throughout Europe and the British Isles in early pre-Christian times. Many festivals were so popular the Church couldn’t stamp them out, so they appropriated and linked many to various saints.
“Brigantia, or Imbolc, the day when newborn lambs begin to nurse, became the Christian Candlemas, honoring the purification of the Virgin. Held February second, it marks the end of winter and the beginning of spring. Brigantia is the day of Brigit, the Irish goddess of smithcraft, healing, and poetry. Moving on toward spring, the vernal equinox usually falls around March twentieth.”
“Twelve hours of darkness and twelve hours of light,” I said.
She nodded. “Roman Catholics turned this one into the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Next comes Beltane, on May first.”
“The day for dancing round maypoles.”
“Exactly. An obvious fertility ritual. Summer solstice, the longest day of the year, falls around June twenty-first. For Wiccans, the summer solstice is when the maiden gives way to the mother aspect of the Goddess.
“Lammas, celebrated around August first, announces the coming of autumn and the beginning of the harvest. Then it’s on to the fall equinox, around September twenty-third.”
“The point when day becomes shorter than night and winter looms.”
“Right again. The fall equinox was also the time of the second harvest, and of winemaking. For Wiccans, it is when the mother prepares to yield way to the Crone aspect of the Goddess.
“Samhain falls on the last day of October, and is celebrated today as Halloween. In ancient times, it was customary to slaughter livestock and begin smoking meat on Samhain. In the old Celtic calendar, it was the end of one year and the beginning of the next, so the separation of the living from the dead was especially dicey at this time.”
“So we dress up in scary costumes to keep the spirits at bay?”
“That’s one interpretation. Finally, the winter solstice falls on or about December twenty-first. Also known as Yule, this is the shortest day and longest night of the year. For Wiccans, it’s the period of the year during which the Crone aspect of the Goddess reigns. Many religions have placed the birth of their gods at the solstice. Jesus, Horus, Dionysus, Helios, and Mithras all claim Yule as their birthday.”
“Makes sense to me. The days begin growing longer, so it’s a time of rebirth and regeneration.”
“Right on, again. So, to make a long story short, tonight we’re not celebrating anything special. Just coming together for companionship and to worship the God and Goddess.”
I thought of Slidell’s reports from neighbors concerning activity the night before Jimmy Klapec was found.
“How often do you gather?”
“Typically, the second Tuesday of each month.”
Funderburke first spotted Klapec’s body the previous Tuesday.
“Always?”
“Usually.” Her brow furrowed. “Why do you ask?”
“What about last Monday?”
“Yes, of course. There was a planning session that night for the Samhain festival. I forgot because I wasn’t here.”
Maybe she was being honest, maybe not. Her expression gave no hint.
“Did Asa Finney attend that meeting?”
“No. He attends very few.”
“Do you know where he was?”
She shook her head.
“Did you try contacting him?”
“I called several times to see if he would be going out to camp that night.” She looked down at her hands. “I got no answer.”
I watched the bonfire reshape the features of her face, elongating her nose and deepening the hollows below her eyes and cheekbones.
She looked up into my gaze.
“Asa is incapable of harming another human being.”
“He’s a self-proclaimed witch.”
“So am I. So is every person here.”
I said nothing.
“Asa is fully committed to Wicca, and, therefore, to a reverence for life. I know in my heart of hearts he could never take a life.”
She shook her head in frustration.
“There are so many misconceptions about us. We’re linked to Satanism, vampirism, Freemasonry. Some say we engage in group sex and human sacrifice. It’s all madness, based on ignorance.”
She turned to me, body tense, reflected firelight flickering in the darks of her eyes.
“Fear of women’s power runs like a subtext through most of today’s religions. Modern church doctrines are full of stories of sirens and witches and enchantresses under the full moon. Empowering male propaganda.
“And it’s so ironic, because ancient artifacts suggest people first worshipped a female deity, a goddess or earth mother. Did you see the image over the coven house door?”
“It’s modeled after the Venus of Willendorf,” I said, referring to a Paleolithic figurine unearthed in Austria in 1908.
“Of course.” She smiled. “You would know your prehistoric archaeology. And you would also know that the earliest written records suggest worship of both gods and goddesses. And that these early female deities eventually lost out to patriarchal storm gods like Baal, Raman, and Yahweh.”
Her eyes moved over my face.
“Wiccans are modern pagans who imagine our first mother as the Goddess worshipped in prehistory, before the old boys’ deity network came along. We strive to bring the subtext of female subjugation to the forefront, and to change that mind-set. We want a different world here and now, one in which women and men are equal, in which assumptions about who should hold power and what has value are different.