Katz rolled his eyes. “Look, we won’t lose her. I promise.”
“Sorry.”
“But how can you not let me take her back?”
“How can I let you? These questions you’re asking her could give her nightmares—could screw her up for the rest of her life!”
“Please! Let me be the psychologist and you the cop. When was the last time you heard someone speaking in premedieval Latin, asleep or awake?”
“She never actually did say his name. All we got were nicknames.”
“Nicknames? Nicknames! ‘God’s Son’? Render unto me a break, Pierce. When was the last time you heard a nickname like that?”
“The answer is no. You’re just gonna have to be patient.”
“If you asked every person on this planet whom they would want to meet if they could meet any person from any time, half of them would say Jesus Christ. And you want me to be patient? We could confirm or rewrite the Bible!”
“Leave me out of your professional aspirations, Katz. Leave Karianne out of it. Look, the longer you argue with me about it, the longer it will take us to get Krogan. And the longer that takes, the longer you’re going to have to be patient,” Gavin said.
“Okay. Okay,” Katz said. “If that’s what it’s going to take, let’s get him. He’s ruining everything.”
Gavin had to laugh to himself as he followed a newly motivated Harold Katz into the living room. The psychologist took his seat facing Karianne with a determined countenance.
“Karianne, I want you to go back to the life of Glaucus Tertius,” Katz said, motioning to Gavin, who was already half out of his seat, to relax. “I want you to go back to the next time Glaucus sees Krogan.”
Once again, Karianne’s head swayed slowly for almost a minute. “No Glaucus,” she said. “Glaucus dead,” apparently free to answer in the language spoken to her while between bodies.
“How did Glaucus die?”
“Decapitated. Battle ax,” she said calmly.
Doesn’t she ever die of natural causes, Gavin wondered.
“Hmm. If Glaucus is dead, where are you now?”
Gavin cleared his throat and tapped on the board. When Katz turned, he underlined the same message he had already given: Krogan.
Katz mouthed, “I know.”
“Searching,” Karianne said.
“For Krogan?”
“No. Want comfort. Want life. Krogan will come later. Krogan always comes.”
“I want you to move forward to the next time Krogan, uh, comes.”
After a brief pause, Karianne’s eyes sprang open. Gavin reflexively stopped breathing, anticipating that she might freak out again, but she didn’t. Her eyes, though opened wide, didn’t appear to be moving or focusing on anything in the room. She began laughing. She appeared to be still under, but the laughing didn’t put Gavin at ease. It sounded more scornful than cheery.
“Has Krogan come?”
“Sic,” she said, still laughing.
Hearing her speak again in Latin, Katz looked at everyone’s face and then back to Karianne. “What is your name?”
“Dorjan Maximus,” she said proudly.
“What country are you in?”
“Roma.”
“And what is Krogan’s name in this life?”
“Krogan.”
“In every life his name is the same?”
“Sic.”
“Does Krogan like his name?”
“Sic. Scribere nomen cutis.”
“She says Krogan writes his name on skin.”
“On skin? You mean like a tattoo?”
“Sic.”
“Are there any other tattoos Krogan likes?”
“Sic. Shadahd.”
“Shadahd. Hmm… Does he do this in every life?”
“Sic.”
Katz frowned. “How is that possible? He can’t be born with the knowledge of his previous life’s name. His parents certainly can’t know it. Could he be that in touch with his subconscious in every life? Is that it? Is Krogan somehow psychically linked with others from his past?”
Karianne laughed. “Krogan praevalida… firmus. Krogan convinco. Krogan excellens,” she said with the swagger of arrogance in her voice.
Steinman looked confused, but relayed what he had heard. “She says Krogan is very powerful, very strong. Krogan overcomes. Krogan is superior.”
Gavin wondered if this Dorjan character had misunderstood the question. By the look on Katz’s face, he was probably wondering the same thing.
“Krogan maintains his name because he’s superior?” Katz repeated.
“Sic.”
“His memory is strong—is that what you mean?”
Karianne laughed arrogantly again. “Krogan commorantes praevalens.”
“She says Krogan exists very powerfully.”
Katz looked around the room. Gavin made note of what she had said and motioned for Katz to move on.
“Who is the emperor?”
“Nero.”
“Nero?” Katz blurted. He turned to Gavin. His droopy face looked even more pathetic than usual. Gavin stoically shook his head, then tapped the marker once on the board, where the psychologist’s first duty was clearly spelled out. He felt like a stern parent marching his sugar-craving child through a candy store, slapping his hand whenever it came near the object of its temptation. With a sigh, Katz turned back.
“How do you recognize Krogan when he comes? How do you know it’s him?”
“Krogan palificare,” she laughed.
“Krogan makes himself known,” Steinman said.
“How?”
“Shadahd,” she said proudly.
Katz looked at Gavin as if for an answer, then shrugged. “What is Krogan doing?” he asked.
“Comprehendo discipulus,” she said, laughing condescendingly.
“Seizing disciples,” Steinman said.
“Christians?” Katz asked.
“Sic.”
“Why?”
“Concutio.”
“To terrorize,” Steinman said.
“Why?”
“Contemptus infirmus, inanis, laudator. Desipio.”
“They’re useless, weak, contemptible praisers who make asses of themselves.”
“What will you do with them?”
Karianne laughed louder. “Cruor. Carnifico. Eviscero. Connubium. Diripio. Deleo,” she yelled, her eyes flaming with intensity.
Steinman looked queasy. He paused until Katz finally motioned for him to speak. “She says they will rape and slaughter them. They will behead, mangle, disembowel, and tear them to pieces until they are all gone forever.”
Gavin quickly cleared the dry-erase board and wrote, Don’t let Karianne witness this stuff. Find out if Dorjan knows how Krogan dies.
Katz nodded quickly, as if he had been thinking the same thing.
“Does Dorjan know how Krogan’s body dies?”
“Sic,” she said delightedly.
“Did you see him die?”
“Sic. Shadahd,” she proclaimed. “Mons via. Raeda. Abruptus clivas. Petra.”
“She keeps speaking in imagery, not complete sentences. I believe she’s saying Krogan was on a mountain road in a large horse-drawn wagon full of captives and he drove it off a steep hillside and crashed it into a rock.”
“Was that correct, Dorjan?”
“Sic.”
“Were you with Krogan?”
“Sic.”
“Did you die, too?”
“Sic.”
Gavin cleared his throat to catch Katz’s attention, then signaled a time-out with his hands and motioned for Katz to follow him into the foyer.
“How’s she doing?” Gavin asked.
“She seems to be holding her ground well while in regression. I’ll have to be very careful bringing her back to this time, but in the other lives she’s remarkably solid.”
“How much more can we press her?” Gavin asked, looking at his watch. “It’s after ten
. We’ve been at this for more than three hours.”
“Actually, we are the ones affected by the time. For all intents and purposes she’s asleep. As long as she doesn’t pop out like she did before, she’ll outlast us.”
“Then let’s keep going. In each life I want you to key in on what Krogan is doing and how he dies. Find out if he ever gets arrested. And how.”
“Are you sure you want to continue? We’ve already covered a lot of ground tonight. There’s always tomorrow.”
“Forget tomorrow! The problem isn’t if Krogan is going to be stopped. It’s when. He’s not a pro. He just kills and escapes. He doesn’t do much to cover his tracks, and if we wait, sooner or later we’ll get him. But in the meantime he’ll continue to do just what he’s been doing apparently since who knows when. He kills recklessly until he or someone else sends him into the next life. And as far as I’m concerned, his time in this one is way overdue. Now… Let’s get some coffee and get back to our history lesson.”
SUDDENLY, or so it seemed, morning light invaded the darkness outside the living room windows. Gavin, in disbelief that so much time could have passed, checked his watch. To his surprise, dawn was still keeping its regular schedule. His eyes were burning from lack of rest and his stomach was burning from coffee acid. Katz’s speech was slurred and Steinman had to be regularly reminded to translate into English, not German or French or, once, Japanese. Amy, who had been keeping scrupulous notes from the outset, occasionally jerked her head upward after unintentionally slipping into sleep.
Gavin was trying his best to stay objective under the bizarre and sometimes frightening circumstances. Although there was nothing in his training that dealt with past lives and finding clues in historical nightmares, he had been trained to focus and find patterns in the midst of chaos, whether they made sense or not. And there were patterns. They had found that whenever they were together, Krogan was always the leader and Karianne’s host, male or female, was always the follower. Krogan, for whatever reason, was always male. Another strange coincidence was that they always seemed to be under the influence; every reunion was one of drunkenness and destruction and almost every life ended in tragedy. They never seemed to live past thirty-five years of age.
Katz sat back in the folding chair and dabbed with his white handkerchief at his puffy, drooping eyes. Gavin didn’t know if the tears were from fatigue or sorrow. Maybe both. “I need a break,” Katz said. “If I could just close my eyes for a little while, I’d…”
“Get some rest, Doc,” Gavin said. “I think we’ve pushed as far as we can for now. We need to compare notes when we can all think straight.”
Gavin also needed a break. The fact all this reincarnation crap was actually becoming plausible to him made him desperate for sleep. A rested mind could function at a level impossible for him now. He had to rest.
Amy stood up and stretched her arms toward the ceiling, then slowly lowered them to her side, moving her head back and forth until a small pop was heard. After a second’s hesitation, Gavin walked up behind her, rested his hands on the top of her shoulders, and lightly massaged her neck. She sighed gratefully.
“Would you like me to drive you home so you can sleep for a while or would you rather lay down in Karianne’s room? According to Katz she won’t need her bed. She’s had the equivalent of a full night’s sleep by now,” Gavin said, hoping she would opt for Karianne’s bed. He was too tired to drive and needed only a pillow and a place on the carpet for a couple of hours.
“Neither,” Amy said. “I want you to take me for a drive in the country.”
Gavin was too tired to repeat himself or be humored. “There’s beautiful country just the other side of that door,” he said, motioning toward the bedroom.
“Then send me a postcard; I’ll go upstate by myself,” Amy said, bending over to put her notebook into her handbag.
It took Gavin a second to understand, as if his brain was on some kind of low-battery time delay. “Whoa! Where exactly is it you think you’re going?”
“Upstate. The Catskills. I want to talk to the Reverend Jesse J. Buchanan.”
“Now?”
“Yes. It’s Saturday morning. The perfect time,” Amy said, hanging her handbag strap on her shoulder.
“Aren’t you too tired?” Katz asked. “The Catskills are a good three hours from here. Can’t you simply call him?”
“Hamden is more like four hours and I want to talk to him in person.”
Katz shook his head and dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “Then I’ll take Karianne’s bed.”
Gavin watched Katz walk back away and felt the need to control a rising anger. Why did she have to be so pigheaded? “Amy, I want to talk to the Reverend Buchanan, too. But I need to check out the work list from the Lighting Company. We’ll both think much better after a little think— I mean sleep. See? I can’t even talk straight.”
“We’ll have plenty of time to sleep when we’re dead,” Amy quipped.
“The list is just as important as the Reverend Buchanan and has to be done first, while whatever evidence there might be is still fresh.”
Amy paused for a long moment. “How long is the list?”
“There are several jobs here but there’s an asterisk next to the last stop where work was completed. The truck was stolen somewhere between there and the next job that never got started. The two locations are less than a mile apart.”
“You do the list, I’ll go upstate.”
Gavin sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose.
“What makes this Reverend Buchanan guy so important he can’t wait?” Katz said, coming back from the living room. “I don’t generally like to butt in, but you do need sleep. A four-hour drive could be dangerous.”
“He’s a strong lead,” Gavin said.
“Strong lead? He was a victim,” Katz countered.
“A victim the Norwegian police questioned and released begrudgingly because he admitted to knowing the killer’s identity. And Karianne had spoken of him as Krogan’s enemy.”
“With Krogan’s face and name on the front page of the newspaper, don’t you think he would call if he had something of value he was willing to share?”
“That’s just it. He’s not willing,” Gavin said.
Amy started walking toward the door. “If you want to get some shut-eye I’ll understand.”
“You’ll understand?” Gavin said.
“Yeah, where your priorities are.”
“Oh, and where are they?”
“Eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work,” she said, motioning with her hand at different imaginary levels in the air with work always getting the lowest level.
Gavin rolled his eyes at her attempt to make him feel guilty, but was too tired to fight her silver tongue. Amy opened the door and without hesitation started to close it behind herself.
“Amy,” he called. “Wait.”
She stopped, but didn’t turn around. Apparently, the more tired she got the more stubborn she got—just like him.
“We’ll do both,” he said. “I guess a little change of scenery would do me good and I do want to be there when Buchanan is questioned,” he said. “But first the list.”
She turned around and faced him. “Do us good,” she said, the hardness gone from her voice. “I’ll make sure you stay awake.”
Gavin looked at her—her beautiful eyes now heavy-lidded red slits. He managed a thin smile. “A job you do very well. But who’s going to keep you awake?”
GAVIN DROPPED AMY OFF at her house to freshen up then went home to feed a lonely Cedar, shower, and change his clothes. The shower and new clothes felt good, but were no substitute for sleep. By the time he got back to Amy’s, she was sitting on the front brick stoop. She slung her handbag over her shoulder and walked toward him. She had traded in her usual play clothes for new jeans, a sage-green V-neck T-shirt, and a blazer that matched her eyes. As she got closer Gavin could also see she was wearing makeup. Gavin won
dered if it was possible for her not to look absolutely stunning.
“Excuse me,” he said as she got into the car. “Do I know you?”
“I doubt it,” she said with a sly smile and a slanted look.
“I suppose the next thing you’ll want is to carry my shield?”
“Some of us don’t need a badge to stop traffic,” she said smartly.
To that he had no reply.
30
Dead end,” Gavin said, pointing at the yellow road sign before turning onto the street. He looked at the Lighting Company’s work sheet, then up at the street sign, then pulled his car to the side of the road and parked. For the next few moments he and Amy stared in silence at the street before them. With the exception of one dilapidated house at the end of the block, the street was empty of homes. There were no sidewalks, only rubbish-riddled overgrown vacant lots on either side with a few rusted-out, abandoned cars.
“This was where the guy was killed?” Amy finally said.
“This was the last recorded place he worked,” Gavin said, getting out of the car.
“What was he doing here?” she said, joining Gavin.
He pointed up to the lone transformer on a telephone pole. “Working on that gray can.”
“Eww,”Amy said in a shiver and folded her arms. “This has to be where it happened. No wonder nobody reported it. Who would see anything?”
“You never know,” Gavin said, walking toward the pole. “Maybe someone from that lumberyard or that house.”
“If anyone even lives there,” she said, following slowly.
Gavin stopped and waited for Amy to catch up. Her arms were still folded as if she were cold. “If he was working on the pole when he was shot, the arrow would probably have come from this direction.”
“How do you know that?”
“The first arrow was in the right shoulder. Assuming he was facing the pole while working…”
“But how do you know what arrow was first?”
“The arrow in the neck killed him. There would be no further need to send another arrow after that.”
“Wait a minute. You mean the worker was shot in the bucket and Krogan just left him in there, driving around town?”
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