Aaron stammered a bit and then said, “Yeah, I think Chief Nickels called them in, but he hasn’t shown up yet.”
“What about CSI from Boston?”
His partner looked nonplussed. “Devin, we just found her. No one is here yet.”
Devin should have expected that much. In Boston, everyone would be there within mere minutes. It was his job as a cop to secure the scene and make sure nothing was tampered with. He had listened over the shoulders of plenty of investigators to piece together crime scenes, but he was still no expert.
Chief Nickels came forward, his expression full of righteous indignation. “About time you got here.”
“I can’t do much, Chief,” he admitted, trying not to let himself get riled over his boss’s tone. He was just as stressed as any of them. “But I can take a look.” Even from a distance, he had an eyeful. The torso of the body was mutilated rather methodically. “Did anyone touch anything?”
“We ain’t that stupid, son,” Chief Nickels spat out in his rather thick southern accent. If he remembered correctly, the senior officer was from Tennessee originally. And he had the country temper to boot. These first couple of weeks on the job were almost as tough as his time at the academy. Chief James Nickels could have been a great cadet trainer.
“Good. Can we tell if the body was moved at all?” Devin’s eyes deviated from the corpse for just a moment to inspect the grass and dried leaves that had been trampled in the wake of the hysteria.
“How can we tell?” Aaron asked, following his partner as he walked all around the body, but didn’t go near it just yet.
“Drag marks in the grass or on the pavement. If the killer dropped her off at the road, there would be blood on the curb.”
“I’ll have a team check,” Nickels said. Now it was like this was Devin’s case and it felt odd to be giving orders or suggestions. He wasn’t an investigator by any means, and he wasn’t trained as one. The chief put a lot of stock in him, apparently.
Nickels rounded up two of the other officers who weren’t occupied and told them to look up and down the road.
From what Devin could see, there were no obvious signs that the body had been moved before the department arrived. He’d have to check deeper into the tree line for any other clues. For now, he needed to turn his focus back to the body.
He stayed a good yard away from the victim, not wanting to step into the puddle of blood that was slowly seeping into the soil around the corpse. She wore high heels and a moderate knee-length skirt, but the shirt was too torn open to identify it as anything but sleeveless. Her purse, spattered with blood, lay beside her, which might have suggested that the murderer wasn’t after her money.
By the way her torso was carved open, Devin guessed she must have been either knocked unconscious before the deed was done, or the slit in her throat was what killed her first. He couldn’t imagine anyone sitting still long enough for a giant cross to be carved into their chest that way.
That was all he could determine at a glance. He asked for Aaron’s flashlight and he squatted down to take a closer inspection.
“No bruising or cuts on the fingers indicate that she struggled… But the bruising on her wrists means that she might have been tied up while she was still alive.” He checked around her neck and, though the blood had poured out from the gash in her throat, he could just barely see the deep purple blotches. “And she was strangled at some point.”
Her face, blankly staring into the night sky, was unfamiliar to him, but that didn’t mean a whole lot. He still had a difficult time remembering the names of his fellow officers. “I’m assuming she’s been IDed?”
Behind him, Aaron replied, his voice thick with emotion, “Yeah. Her name’s Elizabeth Thatchman. She worked at Torn Sails Bar.”
Devin skimmed his light over the body, searching for any other hint he could go on. “Did she have any enemies?” It might have been a better question for a friend or family member. But by the way Aaron sounded, his partner must have known Elizabeth. Not surprising.
“I wouldn’t say enemies,” Aaron said warily. “I don’t think anyone openly hated her. I doubt anyone would wish this on her, anyway.”
Devin sighed. Yeah, people may not openly admit they hate someone until they decided to pop them off one day. But this… This was something else. Even after being on the force for a number of years, being the first on crime scenes similar to this one where victims had their heads bashed in, arms severed, intestines spilling onto the pavement, his stomach still churned at the sight of so much blood and carnage.
“Since you know her, do you think you can come up with a list of names and associates? We can give the investigator the list once he gets here.”
“Investigator?”
Devin looked up to his partner and squinted. “We don’t have an investigator on staff, do we?”
Aaron slowly shook his head. “Not really. You’ll find out we all have to fill different shoes here in Goldcrest Cove. Investigator isn’t one we’ve really needed in a while.”
With a helpless shrug, Devin looked back to Miss Thatchman’s body. “I guess I’ll have to do it then, unless you have any better ideas.”
“Just don’t expect a raise from Nickels.” Aaron paused and they both stared down at the lifeless, mangled corpse with her arms and legs set at odd, contorted angles. “I still can’t believe anyone would do this.”
Devin stood up. “People are capable of a lot.” He knew from experience that was true. And though he would have never wished this kind of death upon anyone, maybe it would be a good chance to give this town a taste of how imperfect and nasty the world could be. “I want that list made up,” he continued. “Coworkers, her boss, any known friends or family members. I want to know if she was working or if she was on a date tonight. By the way she’s dressed, I would assume the later.”
Aaron smacked his forehead. “Damn it, I totally forgot you had that date with Krystal tonight. Man, I’m sorry.”
He closed his eyes and tried to not picture Krystal’s face right then. He couldn’t linger on the fact that someone had been killed in her hometown and they hadn’t caught the killer yet. He couldn’t think about the idea that she might be in danger, even though it was a longshot. He didn’t know for sure, but this appeared to be a crime of passion. Someone hated this girl enough to kill her, but no one hated Krystal. She was well liked by everyone in town and they all knew her name. He took consolation in that.
There was no reason for anyone to kill her.
Then again, was there any reason for someone to kill Elizabeth Thatchman?
“It’s fine,” Devin said. “She understood I had to go.”
Aaron seemed relieved. Or, as relieved as he could be in a situation like this. “That’s good. Did you tell her why you had to leave?”
“I told her to stay inside and I said someone had been murdered, but that was all.”
Devin handed the flashlight back to Aaron, satisfied that he got all he needed to know for now. When CSI arrived from Boston, they would take any DNA or forensic evidence off the body to be sent to the labs. From there, it could take days, maybe weeks to get the results back. Hopefully, by then, Devin would have a list of suspects to pull from. All they needed was a good match and they could put the murderer behind bars.
“If you want to go check on her or finish out your date, I think Nickels would understand. It’s your night off anyway.”
There was no way he could go back and finish what they started after something like this. It would take a lot of brain bleaching to get him to forget about Elizabeth Thatchman. It might be physically impossible for him to get a boner for a day or two – even if Krystal stripped down naked for him.
“No,” he said. “I’ll stay here and see this through. She’ll be all right.”
He and Aaron walked away and ducked back under the yellow tape. “How did it go anyway? I’d much rather be talking about your budding love life than this right now.”
There was weird mix of humor and melancholy in his statement that made Devin pity him. For such a small town, this was going to be a big blow. They were probably thinking the same thing. Once the news leaked out, the citizens would surely react. They would come banging on the police station doors, demanding answers and action. They could only do so much.
“The date went fine. Did you know she was afraid of going out on the water?”
Aaron made a sound like he wanted to laugh. “Yeah, I did. She didn’t say anything about it?”
“Not a word,” Devin replied with a bit of bitterness. “But, I don’t know if she’s afraid anymore. We took the boat out and she seemed to have a good time, though she was pretty nervous at first.”
It might have been a dangerous thing, but the farther they walked away from the body to go check on Chief Nickel’s progress with the curb search, he found himself relaxing a bit. Maybe thinking about Krystal was what he needed to block out the harsh reality of what this town was about to experience. Its first murder case in probably decades, if not longer. He didn’t envy them. Not one bit.
Krystal kicked her legs in the air behind her as she lay on her stomach across her bed. She watched her two friends’ faces on the screen as she three-way FaceTimed them. Artemis laid at the foot of the bed, his tail curled around his body and unconcerned with the drama that had unfolded earlier that evening. When she hurried upstairs to call her friends, she found him sprawled out across her comforter, asleep. She had wondered where the pudgy cat had run off to while she and Devin were getting hot and heavy in front of the fireplace.
“And then he left?” Alexa asked, her blonde hair in damp ringlets on her shoulders.
“Yep,” Krystal replied as she laid her head down on her forearm and tilted the phone just right, so they could still see her. “I haven’t heard from him since he left.”
“Have you tried to call him back?” Valerie asked. Krystal could see the light blue light from a television screen dancing across her face in the darkened room. She must have been winding down for bed, because her eyes were free of the usual black eyeliner and thick, matte eyeshadow.
“Nope. I’m letting him do his job.”
“I still can’t believe someone was murdered in Goldcrest Cove,” Alexa whispered, as if it were some taboo thing to even say the word “murder” in this town.
“Me neither.”
Krystal narrowed her eyes. “Was that Shawn?” The deep masculine voice was what gave him away, and the fact that no other pairs of lips were moving.
Valerie’s wry expression confirmed it. “I told you to hush or I’d take it into the other room,” she scolded the teacher who must have been watching television beside her on the couch. Then again, maybe he was playing a videogame.
“Hi, Shawn!” Alexa shrieked.
Valerie made a face and turned the phone, so they could see him with a controller between his hands. He took his blue eyes off the television long enough to say a greeting, and then Valerie angled the phone back to her face. “Sorry, girls. I wanted to watch him get through this level.”
“Well, can you do me a favor and go to your room, so we can talk about something privately?” Krystal asked, itching to ask for her friends’ advice on this new development in her powers. It was a good thing she decided to get the business of this murder out of the way. Otherwise that might have been a rather awkward conversation with Shawn later. He still didn’t know he was living with a witch.
The two girls waited as Valerie got off the couch, walked down the hall, and into her darkened room. She paused, only to call to her big black lab, Thor, to come join her. The tinkling of the dog’s tags on his collar verified that he was going to be their second eavesdropper for the evening. At least dogs could keep secrets. Only when Krystal heard the door shut did she blurt it out. “Something’s going on with my powers.”
“What’s going on?” Alexa asked, her eyes wide.
Krystal then went on to explain how ever since she first came into contact with Devin, she had felt these weird hot flashes that steadily got worse after they kissed. She didn’t give them a ton of details about how they ended up on the couch, but she told her friends about the way they treated the poor bluefish like a sacrificial offering and charred up the fireplace chimney.
Valerie, not usually one for hysterics, began to freak out more than Krystal had. “Oh, my goddess! Are you coming into your dark magic? I mean, it makes sense since you’re a little older, but do you think Devin really has something to do with it?”
Krystal shrugged helplessly and sat up on her bed, crossing her legs underneath her. “I don’t know. I mean, I am an Aries, and fire is supposed to be my element, but I’ve always had trouble with fire rituals. It’s probably one of the things I’m terrible at as a witch, and now it’s just blown up.”
For witches and warlocks, their dark magic normally began to develop in their later adult years. Krystal’s parents didn’t get their dark magic until shortly before they were married. She suspected that she still had a few more years of uncomplicated magic to deal with before anything like this would happen to her. It was much like puberty, only more inconvenient and highly dangerous if not mastered quickly.
Alexa bit at her nail. “Fire represents passion, love, and change too. None of that really describes you.”
Krystal nodded in agreement with that. She might have been the most placid Aries in existence. She prided herself on keeping a cool and level head when it came to making decisions or dealing with people. Never prone to angry outbursts or mad flings of emotion.
“Up until she met Devin,” Valerie corrected.
She nodded to that as well. “And I only get heated like that when I think about him.”
Krystal had plenty of time to stew about this in between the time that Devin left and when she called her friends. She had to think through it before she ever called them, or she’d be a mess of confusion.
“That must be it, then,” Alexa said excitedly as if they had just solved the mystery of the universe. “So, your special witch power is fire manipulation.”
“That’s just it, though. There is no manipulation here,” she said with blatant frustration. “There’s no control, no focus. I get hot and I get everything else hot too, like the fireplace and the oven, which were both putting off heat.”
Valerie nodded and a weird smile spread over her face. “It’s like you just intensify any kind of heat source around you. That’s so cool! You’re a real-life pyro.”
Not in all the years Krystal had been a witch, had she ever met someone who could genuinely control fire as their dark magic, or specialty. Some witches preferred to call their focus of dark magic as their special magic, whereas some still called it dark magic. Mostly that was because whatever new ability that happened to be, there was a destructive force behind it that took years, maybe decades of training to harness.
That thought alone made Krystal’s guts meld into one big knot. If Devin was the catalyst for her dark fire magic, then she would have to distance herself from him. If she dwelled on that idea too much, Sierra would come home to a heartbroken sister. Krystal refused to allow herself to fall to pieces like that. They could figure something out, so she could be with Devin and still embrace this dark magic she was coming into.
“Right, so what do I do about it?” she asked.
Both of the girls gave her blank stares. This might have been the first time she was ever asking for help from the two witches she had practically trained since they were kids. She was always the one to answer their questions and solve their magic problems. Now, she was coming to them for ideas, because Sierra wasn’t answering her phone and calling her mother was out of the question. If she asked too many questions, the truth would leak out about Devin and she’d have a real shit show on her hands.
“Hell, if I know,” Valerie replied. “Aren’t there charms to suppress fire?”
“There are,” Alexa answered, “but this isn’t a case of suppressing a physical,
open fire like a camp fire. This is suppressing passion itself.”
It sounded so unnecessarily poetic, but Krystal didn’t correct her. She might have been right.
“Okay, I think there’s a charm for that, but I’d have to check our catalogue.”
Some witches had their books, some had a digital database for their spells, charms, and potions. Krystal’s family had a catalogue, almost like a rolodex of flash cards containing every spell passed down through the generations. Sierra and Krystal would someday add their own personally crafted charms into the catalogue, but it would be many more years before they could manage to create spells from scratch. Maybe, with her friends’ help, Krystal could make one to stave off her dark magic. To her knowledge, it had never been done. But there was a first time for everything.
“Do you really want to block out all that passion you feel for Devin?” Alexa questioned, her face twisting. “You two are so into each other and if he’s the one that brings out this power in you, don’t you think he’s worth keeping?”
“Of course, he’s worth keeping, but I can’t set the furniture on fire every time we start making out. What if I hurt someone? What if I hurt him?”
This time, neither of them had an answer. They knew perfectly well what could happen when a witch’s powers got out of hand.
“I hate to admit it,” Alexa started, “but maybe you should call your mom or dad and ask them. Have you talked to Sierra yet?”
Krystal held back her bangs for a moment. “No, she hasn’t come home yet, but she’s probably thinking that Devin and I are having sex right about now, so she may not come back for a while.”
“Have you called her?” Valerie asked.
“She’s not answering her phone.”
“Do you think she’s all right? There is a murderer on the loose after all,” stated Alexa, then she let out a cry that rang in Krystal’s ears for a solid few seconds. “Oh, dear Gaia! What if she was the one murdered and that’s why Devin didn’t tell you any details?”
The thought had occurred to her, and even though she had discredited such an idea, it still made her lungs seize. “No, Devin would have told me. Family members are the first that get called.”
Bewitching Fire Page 15