“If that were the sort of place you’d have chosen, when might you have stopped using it?”
Merle looked back at him and those eyes of his gave away absolutely nothing. But damned if he didn’t look amused by the question. “If I had to guess, I’d say no less than four months back.” A ghost of a smile creased his lips. “Can’t be too close to the lodge up the road from there when hunting season starts, or you might get spotted. And I reckon a spot like that needs to get abandoned early on if the hunting’s gonna be any good.”
That made a bit of sense. Merle and his family did love their deer meat. “You wouldn’t know of anyone who’s been running around in that area, would you, Merle?”
“Should I, Carl?” His eyes were hardly looking amused any more. They were looking shrewd. Blackbourne might have suspected something was up, but Carl doubted he knew exactly what was going on. “I can’t well be expected to read minds, can I now?”
Movement came from behind the man, and Carl’s eyes shifted away from him to look at the motion. The woman that stepped toward them fairly glided out of the sprawling house and moved with a grace that made Merle look like an awkward lump in comparison.
She was wearing a simple white blouse and a long black skirt, and she sported a small purse. Despite the mild chill in the air the woman wore no jacket, and despite himself, Carl focused his full attention on her. Like Merle the woman had presence. Unlike the head of the Blackbourne clan, she was beautiful. Long dark hair. A body designed to catch a man’s attention. A face that made a thousand promises and eyes the same color as Merle Blackbourne’s, only on her they looked absolutely enchanting.
And there was something familiar about her, though Carl was at a loss to place where he might have seen her before.
Merle never took his eyes off of Carl as the woman moved closer and whispered something in his ear. Carl looked at her lips as they just avoided brushing the man’s skin, and held his breath, barely aware that he was doing it. How long had it been since a woman caught his attention that fully? He couldn’t have guessed but it had been a good while.
Her hand rested on Merle’s thick shoulder and Carl found himself envying the man that contact. He made himself look away, fully aware that he was close to making an ass of himself with his staring eyes.
And a moment later the woman was moving away, heading toward the side of the house where Carl knew the family parked their numerous vehicles. Damned if he didn’t catch himself staring at her as she moved away, enjoying the way her hips swayed softly with each step. He looked away again, forced himself to find Merle’s face.
Merle was looking at him with a certain amusement again. This time there was a knowing glint in those faded blue eyes.
“Siobhan just told me there was a body found up near marker 27. She said it might be that the body was found near an abandoned meth lab.”
Siobhan. The name meant nothing, but there was that feeling that it should have meant something. He resisted the urge to shake his head until the cobwebs went away. Damn, but he was distracted by her even after she’d gone and that was preposterous. He felt like a teenager just noticing girls for the first time.
“Yeah, Merle. There’s a body.”
“It’s nothing to do with me and mine, Sheriff.” He turned and started away, no longer bothering with formalities. Carl should have had something to say to that, some comment to make clear that the interview wasn’t done. Instead he turned his head and watched as the woman he’d spotted, Siobhan, drove past in a car that had no good reason for being down in the Hollow. A classic Jaguar with an engine that purred.
She and her car moved away and he watched them, momentarily at a loss for words and barely capable of rational thought.
What the hell was that, he wondered, angry with himself. He was investigating the murder of a friend. It was hardly the right time for girl watching.
Still, he moved to his truck and he followed the luxury car on the path that led from Blackbourne’s place, feeling a little feverish. There were things he had to get done, and people he had to speak to.
He headed for Sarah Wallace’s place, barely conscious of driving the narrow, rutted paths. Half lost in thoughts of a woman he’d seen in passing.
“What the hell was that?” This time he asked the question aloud. He didn’t expect an answer. He didn’t get one.
* * *
Though Griffin didn’t consider himself a sentimental man, he couldn’t escape thoughts of his early years in Brennert County during the drive home to Gatesville. Griffin hadn’t attended any of his high school reunions so far and had no intention of ever attending one in the future. Now that both his parents were dead he rarely had any reason to head north to Brennert. He simply wasn’t a man who spent much time thinking about the past. And yet...
Jerry Wallace had been one of his best friends when the two of them were kids. Even though they hadn’t really kept in touch, there was still something there. Some bond that you only felt with the people with whom you had stood upon the brink of adulthood. Now Jerry was dead and there was suddenly a hole in Griffin’s existence. A quick, sharp pain in a place he thought he had forgotten.
Full dark had almost arrived by the time Griffin reached his apartment and with it came a drizzling rain. Halloween was a week away and Griffin spotted several forlorn jack-o-lanterns in various windows of his building. It seemed to Griffin that there were more families living in his complex than in previous years. Perhaps the economic downturns of the last few years had forced people to put off buying homes. Gatesville and other bedroom communities of Atlanta had seen some hard times.
Once in his apartment Griffin dropped his keys on a small table in the foyer and switched on the lights. No one there to greet him. Once Beth might have met him at the door or he might have found her in the kitchen cooking up one of her Italian extravaganzas or in the living room with the TV on but with the sound turned down because she was reading. But that was over and he wouldn’t go there. Not tonight. He had other things to think about.
Griffin went to his desk, sat down, and turned on his computer. He took out his phone and plugged a small cable from the phone to the PC tower. He could have emailed the pictures to himself, he supposed, but he would have felt odd since he was already sitting here. He transferred the pictures he’d taken of the cuts on Jerry’s torso to the computer. He was glad that he hadn’t gotten Jerry’s face in any of them. He needed to think calmly and dwelling on what had been done to Jerry wasn’t going to help him do that.
Using a freeware graphics program, Griffin carefully traced the glyphs. He put them on a separate layer so that when he was done he could drop out the background, leaving him with clean drawings of the strange symbols. When he was finished he saved the file, then printed the symbols out on several sheets of paper. Carl Price had told Griffin that he had sent copies of the photos containing the glyphs to various agencies, but Griffin had resources of his own. Besides, there was something very strange about the glyphs. They reminded Griffin of something, but he wasn’t sure what. Fortunately, he knew who to ask. Griffin bundled up his printouts in a folder, reclaimed his keys and went back out into the night.
Griffin cut across Highway 41 to the old Gatesville town square. The rain seemed to be keeping most people home and the evening traffic was light. He found a parking spot in front of the wrought iron gate that surrounded the small park at the center of the square. A monument to some Civil War hero, whose name Griffin couldn’t remember, loomed against the night sky. Griffin crossed the street to a row of small shops. Most were still open, though there were few shoppers about. One of the narrower storefronts had a single glass window on which were lettered the words Baba Yaga’s. Surrounding the words were tiny decals in the shapes of stars and moons and less recognizable symbols.
A rush of warm air and the smell of incense washed over Griffin as he stepped through the front door. Griffin had been in the store several times but the contents still drew his attention. The shelves
that lined the narrow little store were filled with old books, papers, and scrolls. Griffin slipped past a small, inlaid table covered with pewter figures of wizards and witches, and almost knocked over a shelf full of crystals and glass globes. Other tables held candles, bottles, small wooden boxes, and all sorts of strange items.
The far end of the store was taken up by a counter, and behind the counter, a curtain of beads covered a doorway. That curtain parted when Griffin was halfway across the store and a young woman stepped out of the back room. She was small but well formed, with jet black hair, cut short and parted so that a wave of it fell across one eye. She wore a lavender sweater over a black t-shirt. She also wore a lot of mascara and deep red lipstick.
Griffin said, “Evening, Charon.” Griffin had always suspected the girl’s name was really Karen but that she had adopted the name of the ferryman from the Greek myths to suit her occupation, the proprietor of an occult book shop. He wasn’t sure or her age but he figured her for ten years younger than his own 35. Too young for him, but hot in a Goth next door kind of way.
“Griffin,” the young woman said and she favored him with a wide smile. “Haven’t seen you around in a while. Not since you were looking for that guy who thought he was the reincarnation of an Egyptian Priest.”
“Haven’t run across anything else that I thought might interest you in a while,” Griffin said.
“And now you have?” Her dark eyes looked bright with curiosity.
“Maybe.” He placed his folder on the counter and removed the sheets of printed symbols. “Ever seen anything like these?”
Charon’s eyes widened. “Where did you find those?”
“Do you know what they are?”
“Not exactly but there’s something familiar about them.”
“That’s what I thought too. I thought maybe I had seen them in a book or something here.”
Charon shook her head. “No, I’d recognize them if that were the case. Like I said, I feel like I’ve seen them before but I can’t recall where. Let me do some checking around. Why are you interested in them?”
“I’d rather not say. It’s part of a case I’m working on.”
“It’s not just a case,” Charon said, looking at Griffin with her head angled to one side. “There’s something personal to this.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Maybe I’m a little psychic.”
“I don’t believe in psychics.”
Charon smiled. “You don’t believe in much of anything, but here you are again, talking to the little witch girl.”
“Maybe I just think you’re hot.”
“No maybe to that, but you’re too much of a straight shooter to do anything about it.”
“Hmm, maybe you are psychic.”
“But you’re still not going to tell me what this is about.”
“Not yet, Charon. But you’re right. It is something important to me.”
“I’ll see what I can find,” she said. “But you owe me dinner.”
“Any place you like.”
“Your place?”
“Any place but there.”
“Tease. I’m going to close up so I can start digging for info. Not like I’m doing any business in this weather anyway.”
Griffin said, “No offense, but I’ve always wondered how you stay in business.”
“I tell some fortunes. Sell some charms. Ward off demons. The usual thing. It’s a living.”
“I appreciate the help, Charon. Really.”
“I know. Now get out of here and let me work. I’ll call you later.”
Griffin stepped out and Charon locked the door behind him. A silver wind chime near the door jangled in the wind. Griffin hunched his shoulders and walked back to his truck. He had taken this line of investigation as far as he could. He’d just have to wait and hope Charon found something. So the question was, what now? Carl was following the meth angle, which Griffin agreed was the most likely motive.
But what if the killing wasn’t drug related? What did that leave? It left the ritual nature of the murder. Griffin had noted the high degree of what the FBI Behavioral Sciences boys called signature. The ligatures. The spikes in the eyes. The symbols carved in Jerry’s flesh. All calling cards from the killer. One of Griffin’s professors had pointed out, way back in cop school, that signatures like that usually took time to develop, especially the more complex ones. The level of complexity was extremely high in the case of Jerry’s killer, which meant one thing. Jerry wasn’t likely to have been the first. If a similar signature had been seen and reported before then the VICAP database would turn something up. But if it hadn’t? Then the devil might well be hiding in the details.
Griffin got into the truck and started the engine. He needed to get back home to his computer. He had some research to do.
* * *
As a rule, empty houses are miserable places.
Carl unlocked the door, turned off his security system and stepped inside, barely taking the time to look up in the process. His hands moved to re-lock the deadbolt and the doorknob and he moved inside. There wasn’t a part of him that wasn’t tired and there wasn’t a damned thing he cared to do about it at the moment, aside from taking a shower.
The clothes hit the floor. The pistol went into his safe, which he closed and locked. He didn’t have any kids in the house to get to his weapons. He didn’t care. There was always the chance that someone might break in some day and he sure wasn’t going to let any intruders kill him with his own weapon.
Besides, that was his work gun. The one for defending the house was hidden but easily accessible.
There was a possibility that he was paranoid, but he didn’t think so. Work a crime scene or two, and eventually you see how easily people can die in home invasions.
“Enough of that shit.” He spoke to hear somebody talking. A second later he walked over to his iPod and tapped the appropriate spots to get music playing. Flogging Molly started a raucous song and he stepped into his bathroom and started the shower. By the time the second song was done playing he was drying off and putting on a pair of running shorts and a sweatshirt.
He let the music continue playing through the place and headed for the kitchen. Rituals were designed, he believed, to let the mind relax and see the things it had missed. His rituals included music, shower and something light to eat. He’d picked up a half bushel of Fuji apples three days earlier and deftly cut two of them into wedges as he moved toward the living room, chewing one slice of the fruit and savoring the crisp, tart taste even as the coffee machine started burbling and hissing behind him.
Everything was exactly where it should have been, which was the way he preferred it. Carl settled into his favorite chair, grabbed his latest book—anything but crime, thanks. In this case he was reading a collection of spooky stories in preparation for the Halloween festivities—and settled down to read.
And as soon as he opened the book it dawned on him that the woman, Siobhan, had absolutely no reason to know about the murder of Jerry Wallace. He kept chewing on the Fuji, which suddenly had no taste at all, and thought back to the conversation.
“Fuck me sideways.”
The book got put back down and he headed for his second bedroom, long since converted to his office. After a moment’s hesitation it was back to the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee. He didn’t wait for the brewer to finish, but instead slid the cup under the filter and watched it fill as he held the actual pot out of the way.
The computer went on and the passwords were entered and a few moments later, he was looking at the records for Merle Blackbourne and his family. The odds were good that if the woman was hanging around the Blackbourne place, she knew the family well. They weren’t exactly known for having friends over to watch the big game on Sunday afternoons.
The family was as bad as he remembered. Not surprising, as he’d been with the sheriff’s department since graduating college. Wade Griffin had a bad cast of wanderlust, wanted to k
now what was on the other side of every mountain, hill and forest between Brennert County and East Bumblefuck. That was his thing. Carl didn’t feel the same way about things. He was far more interested in what was hiding inside the human mind and the human heart. Those particular mysteries didn’t require that he drive very far. He could look just fine from his bedroom window or from the office that was his second home.
He shook the thought away. Thinking about Jerry being dead was making him feel a touch more sentimental than he liked on a good day and it had decidedly not been a good day. His fingers tapped across the keyboard and he looked at the screen, waiting as patiently as he could while the system got around to showing the full run of family members and known associates for the Blackbournes.
And got rewarded for his patience. Siobhan Elizabeth Blackbourne was a cousin to Merle. The eyes were a dead giveaway, of course, but aside from that they looked almost nothing alike. Unlike Merle, however, she actually had a home planted on a paved road. He stared at the picture of her from the DMV and shook his head. Even in a photo that he knew couldn’t have been taken on a good day—no picture ever taken by the DMV showed a person on a good day—she was damned attractive. But the photo didn’t have the same overwhelming charge as the woman did in person. Thinking back on that was enough to make him shake his head all over again.
He looked further. Siobhan Blackbourne was the same age as he was, 35, but he couldn’t remember going to school with her. Then again, it was always possible she’d gone to school elsewhere. The Blackbourne’s were a weird group and some of them actually had money. Just because she and Merle were cousins didn’t mean they’d grown up in the same house or in close contact with each other.
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