Wisdom's Grave 01 - Sworn to the Night

by Craig Schaefer

  It smelled like magic.

  Interlude

  All through Carolyn’s story, the interrogator took notes. A yellow legal pad sat at his right hand, a mechanical pencil in his steady grip. Across the brushed-steel table, under the hot dangling light, Carolyn Saunders watched him write out a question. Then he double-underlined it. The pencil slashed across the page like a knife.

  “You seem agitated,” she said.

  His hooked nose wrinkled.

  “There are certain details we weren’t aware of. These three witches, interfering from a distance. The Lady in Red, the Mourner, this ‘Dora’…I assume one of them was the author of Ms. Roth’s spell book?”

  “If I was writing the story, that would be the case. I mean, it fits, given how they were shaping Nessa’s evolution and pulling strings from the shadows. Also, there’s the whole economy-of-characters thing. But there are, sad to say, certain unavoidable truths in play.”

  “Such as?”

  Carolyn shrugged. “First of all, have you read my novels? I’m a total hack. But more to the point, reality is always messier than fiction, and there was more than one hand manipulating things behind the scenes. Trying to, anyway. If they’d had any idea what kind of nightmare they’d unleash, once Nessa was finally pushed that last, lethal inch…well. They might have hesitated.”

  He rapped his pencil against the pad.

  “But these witches.”

  The crow’s-feet at the corners of Carolyn’s eyes crinkled. “You had no idea, did you? The Network, with all its power and a thousand eyes, vaunted puppet masters—”

  “I said we would know if you lied to us.”

  “And am I lying?” Carolyn asked. Her voice lightly teasing, almost playful.

  The interrogator glowered. “No. But there’s a difference between a lie and an incomplete truth.”

  “Dora’s task was done,” Carolyn said. “The Oberlin Glass was in the mail, cross-country, on its way to Nessa’s doorstep. Meanwhile, the Lady in Red was moving her pieces onto the board. Setting Harmony Black and her team on a collision course with Marie. That wouldn’t be important until much later, but it’d make all the difference in the end. She was playing the long game, as she always does, and she had covert operatives on the ground in New York. Her servants are few, in this day and age, but devoted.”

  “Who is the Lady in Red?”

  Carolyn smiled, silent for a moment.

  “The Mourner,” she said, “had her own operative in motion. Daniel Faust had been combing the streets of Hollywood on the trail of celebrity-chef-slash-cannibal Andre Lefevre and his Cutting Knife.”

  “Lefevre,” the interrogator said. “He disappeared around that time, as I recall.”

  Carolyn lifted her eyebrows, her voice bone-dry. “Ah, Andre. You know, I hear he was a man of exceptional taste. Anyway, while that was going on, Marie and her partner were reeling—like their entire city was—from the massacre in Bed-Stuy. Trying to find their footing. More importantly, trying to find the culprit who leaked the news about the police raid and set those officers up to be killed. And Nessa…was finding herself. She’d just crossed a threshold that could never be uncrossed. And she was preparing to cross another.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “That being?”

  “Blood will have blood, they say.” She leaned back in her chair and spread her hands as far as her cuffs would allow. “Blood will have blood.”

  Forty-Four

  Nessa needed to buy a few things.

  She haunted the antique shops in SoHo until she found the perfect pieces. Vintage fabric, an antique needle, thread, and a heavy brass skeleton key. That last was for the “Game of Crossing the Boundaries,” one of the new pages in her book. In her workroom, she drew a circle of chalk around the key and a hexagon around the circle, etching seals and symbols as she whispered a fervent chant.

  Then she sat in a coffee shop across the street from Dr. Neidermyer’s building, waiting for him to go to lunch.

  She bit back a surge of fury when she spotted his insipid, smiling face. Her anger rose like hot bile in her throat. She forced herself to hold it down, to breathe deep, to bide her time. She watched him trundle up the sidewalk, out of sight in the downtown crowds, and then she crossed the street.

  She took the elevator up and stood at his office door. She’d brought her own way to get inside. The antique brass key tingled against her fingers as she touched it to the lock.

  “No man’s design will bar my path,” Nessa recited under her breath. “No locks, no wards, no hopes, no dreams. I am the shadow behind your back, the whisper in your ear. I am the night wind. I am inevitable consequence.”

  The skeleton key slid inside the lock, fitting impossibly, perfectly.

  “Surrender to me.”

  The key turned. The lock clicked.

  She let herself in.

  Nessa’s stomach clenched. There was the couch she’d spent hours on, the desk, the chair where Neidermyer sat and pretended to treat her and fed her bottle after bottle of poison. All patience and fatherly wisdom as he slowly murdered her.

  And there was his wastebasket. Filled, as usual, with used tissues thanks to his allergies. She picked the crusted tissues out, gripping the edges between thumb and forefinger, and dropped them into a plastic baggie. He’d been cutting his nails in the office; there were fingernail clippings at the bottom of the waste bin. She took those, too.

  A few wispy strands of hair clung to the fabric of his chair. She plucked them one by one, adding them to the collection. Then she left and locked the door behind her.

  Back at home, safe in her workroom, she laid out her sewing supplies and the vintage calico fabric. She began to cut, to stitch, shaping the outline of a poppet. At her side, her phone lit up.

  Marie’s voice, tired as it was, felt like a caress. “Hey. Sorry to call, I just…well, I just needed to hear your voice.”

  “Hey yourself.” Nessa tucked her legs beneath her, shifting as she sat on the workroom floor. “Are you okay? You sound exhausted.”

  “Long day. Are we still on for tonight?”

  “Oh, yes.” Nessa’s lips curled into a hungry smile. “We certainly are.”

  “I might be a little late. Work is kind of crazy right now.”

  “That’s fine,” she said. “Keep me updated. I have something special planned, and the timing has to be just right.”

  Marie chuckled. “Something special, huh? Should I be excited or afraid?”

  “Both, I think. I’ll see you soon.”

  * * *

  The mood at the precinct was somber. Driven. Phones rang out over the din of low, terse conversations and clacking keyboards. Captain Traynor poked his head out of his office.

  “Fisher? Reinhart? In here.”

  Tony and Marie stepped into his office while he lowered the blinds over his windows. Marie shut the door.

  “Lock it,” he told her.

  They stood, uneasy, as he circled his desk.

  “We’ve got a rat in our house.”

  “Sir?” Marie said.

  “The death toll from the Bed-Stuy raid is up to nine. Flannery died on the operating table twenty minutes ago.”

  The detectives bowed their heads, a moment of silence for the fallen. Most of the cops who died in the raid were from the Emergency Service Unit, but they had a few empty desks in the squad room today. Flannery’s was right next to Marie’s.

  “Every door to that warehouse was trapped with white phosphorus bombs,” Traynor told them, “rigged to blow on a breach attempt. They stationed shooters across the street to stage an ambush. They knew we were coming. Someone talked.”

  “Sir,” Tony said, “with all due respect, we weren’t the only people involved. ESU headed things up—”

  “And they didn’t know who they were hitting until fifteen minutes before the raid. Same with the medical and fire teams on standby. That ambush took time to set up. The way I see it, the only way it could have happen
ed is if someone right here, in our house, called to warn the dealers before we got there.”

  The captain slid a sheet of paper across his desk. A list of names in stark black type.

  “Everyone who knew. Twelve names, not including the three of us.”

  Marie leaned in. Her eyes widened as she read the list.

  “Sir, these…these are solid cops. Nobody on this list has less than five years on the job; most of them have at least a decade. I’d trust every one of these people to have my back.”

  “And one’s a real good liar,” Traynor said. “I’ll be blunt: the only reason you two aren’t on the list is because you found the place and brought me the intel. Wouldn’t make sense for you to sabotage the raid you set the stage for in the first place.”

  “So you want us to sniff around, see if we can dig up a lead?” Tony asked.

  Traynor sat down behind his desk. His gaze went distant, fixed on the closed blinds. The muffled din of the bullpen drifted through the glass.

  “I don’t know what I want you to do. IAB’s already on it. They’re going to put every last one of us under a microscope, but…”

  Marie nodded. “It’s a problem in our house. You want it fixed in our house.”

  “Do what you can,” he said.

  * * *

  They left the precinct. There wasn’t anything to be done in the grim and dusty squad room, and they couldn’t discuss Traynor’s unofficial orders in earshot of anyone they knew. Tony and Marie ended up at a fast-food place two blocks down. They ate in the car, reading the list of names over a couple of greasy hockey-puck hamburgers.

  “I don’t like anyone for this,” Marie said. She slurped Coke through a fat straw and gestured at the page. “Evans? Gorski? Jefferson? Jefferson’s a giant puppy.”

  “I don’t see it either, but the cap’s right. They knew we were coming. That’s a fact.”

  “I know it’s true,” she said, sullen. “I just don’t want it to be.”

  Her phone buzzed. She glanced down at the screen.

  “ME’s office,” she said to Tony. She put the phone to her ear. “Reinhart.”

  “Detective,” the medical examiner said, “I finished the autopsy, and…well, I really hate to say this, but you were onto something.”

  Marie sat up straight, her spine going stiff.

  “Baby Blue? Her body was cannibalized?”

  “I wouldn’t say cannibalized, per se, but there are unquestionably bite marks. Most of them are covered up by the other forms of trauma, and I wouldn’t have noticed them unless I was looking. One bite mark in particular is a standout, though. Lower calf, left leg, deep. And yes, the bite is human.”

  “How clear is the impression?” she asked.

  “Oh, it’s a beauty. I’m photographing it right now. You find some dental records and I can play matchmaker.”

  She thanked him and got off the phone. Tony eyed her over his half-eaten burger.

  “You got good news?”

  “We’ve got a bite mark,” Marie said. “One they can ID if we find a match.”

  He shrugged. “Not much to go on.”

  “The DA can subpoena dental records, can’t he?”

  He set his burger down.

  “Don’t say it.”

  “Everything keeps coming back to Richard Roth. His company was linked to the stash house in Monticello. That Five Families hitter was scooped off the sidewalk right by another one of his properties. Roth is connected to the ink cartel, and the cartel is connected to the murders.”

  “Nothing you just said is wrong.” He sipped his soda. “And nothing you just said is proof. No chance in hell a DA’s gonna go after somebody’s medical records on what pretty much amounts to a hunch. Besides, didn’t you say we’re looking for multiple killers now, like some kinda cult thing? Even if Roth was there, anybody could have taken that bite.”

  Marie sighed. She slumped in her seat. Another turn in the labyrinth, another dead end.

  “You know,” Tony said, “when I moved up to detective, I had a mentor. Day one, he gave me the best advice I ever got.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Never have a horse in the race. The second you decide you want somebody to be guilty is the second you’ll start cherry-picking the facts to fit your theory of the crime. And all the other facts, and the real perp, will skate right on by.”

  “You think I want him to be guilty?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me.” Tony shook his head and took a bite of his burger. “You’ve been weird about the guy since we met him. I don’t know why you’d have a personal grudge, but you’re acting like you want him gone.”

  Her gaze dropped. She stared at her food.

  “I just want the truth,” she said.

  “So we’ll go get it. I’m not saying Richard Roth is innocent. I’m saying he’s powerful, he’s rich, and he’s connected, so we gotta play it smart. Take a shot at a guy like that, you better not miss. Tell you one thing I know for sure.”

  “Yeah?” Marie asked.

  “People are capable of some truly sick, heinous shit.” Tony swished his straw around, stirring the ice in his paper cup. “And the more virtuous and squeaky-clean they look on the outside, the deeper and darker those waters tend to run.”

  Forty-Five

  The kid went flying over the padded leather bench. His tray crashed to the ground, tattoo needles skidding across the grimy parlor floor. Daniel Faust grabbed him by the front of his tank top and hauled him to his knees. He cocked his fist back.

  “You want to rethink your position?” he asked. “You know, I tried asking nice.”

  The kid looked up at him, dazed, his lip split. Fresh blood glazed his chin.

  “Man, I can’t. Those people are crazy. They’ll freakin’ kill me if I rat ’em out.”

  Daniel shoved him to the floor. Then he snatched up a tattoo gun, dropped his knee on the kid’s chest, and started it up. The needle whirred, sharp and gleaming.

  “I’ve been chasing leads and knocking down doors for a day and a half. My feet are tired. My knuckles? Also tired. So are you going to tell me where I can find the Hollywood Gourmands’ Society, or do I have to use your face as a canvas? Before you decide, understand this: I am not an artist.”

  “Okay, okay!” His eyes bulged as the needle hovered over his forehead. “It’s on Burbank! Little hole-in-the-wall butcher’s shop, no name on the place. The door’s in the back.”

  Daniel shut the gun off and tossed it aside. He patted the kid on the cheek.

  “Thank you. Was that so hard? Next time, try cooperation. It hurts less.”

  Standing up, Daniel adjusted the lapels of his jacket. Then he dug in his wallet for a pair of rumpled twenties.

  “For the info,” he said. “Now forget I was here.”

  He tossed the money onto the padded bench and walked out the door.

  The spot wasn’t hard to find. The blue neon outline of a cow hung over the shoebox-sized butcher’s market. He strolled through the icy shop without a word to the stone-faced workers behind the counter, right past the glass displays and dangling sides of beef, and pushed through the swinging back door like he’d done it a hundred times before. A tiny vestibule lay beyond, and a second door: this one made of reinforced steel with a sliding metal window about six inches wide at eye level.

  He knocked. The window slid open. He held up the card he’d taken from Lefevre’s condo, with Admit One stamped on the back.

  The door swung wide. A waiter in classic black, with an ivory towel over one crisp sleeve, welcomed him inside with a regal sweep of his hand.

  It was a restaurant, big enough for maybe two dozen people, draped in red velvet and lit by candlelight. Couples in suits and evening gowns chatted over plates of meat. Their stainless-steel knives sawed into rare cutlets and medallions, served up in strange, lumpy scarlet broths. A woman in a silk halter dress dabbed a cloth napkin at a smear of red on her lips, while her dining companion picked his te
eth with a splinter of bone. Soft chamber music drifted across the room, along with an aroma—a floral perfume with a chemical tang—that strained to conceal the odor of offal and blood.

  The waiter escorted Daniel to a tiny table off to one side of the room, a two-seater with a lit candle and a menu on crisp parchment for his approval. Nothing on the wine list had a price. Then again, from the vintages he recognized, this was very much a “if you have to ask, you can’t afford it” kind of place.

  The meal offerings were even less helpful. It was a short list, nothing described, with names like The Third Forbidden Thing, It Still Has Breath, and Flower of Her Regard. This place had its own tribe, its own customs, its own shared language. And they ate outsiders. Outsiders like him.

  The waiter hovered, fixing him with an expectant stare.

  One item on the list had an annotation: “*prepared tableside by our resident chef.” Daniel tapped the menu. “Let’s go with…the Forest of Old Desires.”

  “A challenging dish, sir. And the accompaniment?”

  Daniel picked a random item on the wine list, poking his finger at it as he asked a question with his eyes. The waiter frowned, just a bit, and gave a tiny headshake. Daniel slid his finger down to the next wine on the list. The waiter smiled.

  “Very good choice, sir. Chef Lefevre will be out to greet you shortly.”

  “Great, and, ah”—he lowered his voice—“is there a washroom?”

  The waiter pointed toward the back of the restaurant. “Of course, sir. Just back there, up the short hallway, past the kitchen doors.”

  “Perfect,” Daniel said.

  He lingered outside the washroom, using the stub of a hall as cover, and watched the kitchen. He knew Andre Lefevre’s face from television. The portly man, his yellow-inked hair worn in slick rooster spikes, merrily rolled out a cart bearing a scattering of knives and a serving dish under a silver dome. His tableside service. Daniel slipped behind his back and into the kitchen.