by Evie Rhodes
Raven’s eyes sprayed bullets at Wolfgang. She set her legs apart in a combative stance. She pointed a finger directly in Wolfgang’s face. “For the last time. The man I was in bed with last night was Micah Jordan-Wells. And for the record, he is not a murderer.” She locked gazes with Wolfgang, looking supremely confident and sure of her position.
Wolfgang only nodded. His decision had been made.
Chapter 29
Later in the evening Wolfgang and Nugent stood in front of City Hall. They were in a huddle. They watched the passing traffic.
Wolfgang pulled his collar close around his neck. The night air was brisk. He eyed Nugent before speaking. Finally he said, “Nugent, I have to ask you a question I’m not happy with.”
Nugent appeared distracted and said, “Shoot.”
Wolfgang turned to him. “I know you usually stay all night with Micah. Were you in the office with him the entire night last night?”
Nugent was back in focus now. He turned away from the burning heat of Wolfgang’s eyes. “What kind of crazy-ass question is that?”
Wolfgang swallowed hard. “It’s a direct question, Nugent. Were you with Micah all night long?”
Nugent was evasive. He shifted uneasily. “I might have left for a little while.” He walked away, but Wolfgang put out a hand to stop him.
“What do you mean by a little while, Nugent?”
Nugent stopped walking. He faced Wolfgang, “I don’t know exactly, Wolfgang.”
Wolfgang stepped closer to Nugent. He grabbed him by the shoulders. “Micah is like a son to me, Nugent. He is the homicide department. He holds the most convictions in the history of this department.”
“He is the brightest, smartest, toughest detective Newark has ever seen. This is serious business. Now I’m going to ask you again. Exactly how much of a little while is a little while?” Wolfgang gritted his teeth. He waited for Nugent’s answer.
Nugent summoned everything he had to stay in control. Wolfgang didn’t miss a twitch. “I didn’t stay all night. I was feeling burned out. I came back this morning. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
Wolfgang let go of Nugent. Pure weariness was etched into his voice. “As a matter of fact, it isn’t. I’m getting worried, Nugent. Lately Micah doesn’t seem to be where people think he is. The evidence is stacking up against him.”
“Micah was in the office all night last night, Wolfgang,” Nugent said testily.
Wolfgang shot back, “How do you know? You weren’t there.”
“If you’d seen his face when Raven stated he was with her last night, you’d know damn well he wasn’t in bed with her, Wolfgang. If he’s telling the truth about that, then he’s telling the truth about the rest. Raven may very well be the only answer.”
Wolfgang looked up at the sky as though the answer to all his problems was written there. He closed his eyes in contemplation, and said, “Okay. Maybe Raven’s all we’ve got. Maybe she’s all we need.”
“The killer has made his first real mistake, Wolfgang. By sleeping with Raven Oliver.”
Micah Jordan-Wells stood across the street from City Hall in the shadows of the alleyway. He watched Wolfgang and Nugent talking.
Darkness descended on the city of Newark. Micah stared down at the ground. A molten “X” in flaming fire appeared before his eyes. A spasm passed through his body. Micah shook uncontrollably.
Standing behind Micah in the shadows was Quentin Curry. Light streamed from his eyes. He whispered, “Welcome to my world, Micah. Come to me, little boy.”
Micah stood stock-still. He was not aware of Quentin’s presence. He continued to stare across the street at Wolfgang and Nugent.
A light emitted from his eyes. The pounding in his head started once again. He grabbed his head as though somehow he could stop the searing pain.
Chapter 30
The following morning some kids were cutting through the alleyway across the street from City Hall. One of them screamed. The others stopped to see what was going on.
Once the horror of what they were looking at sunk in, the screaming broke out in unison. A collective high-pitched wail erupted from their throats as though being conducted by an unseen director.
One of the boys retched on the ground losing his breakfast. It bubbled up from his stomach landing with a splat all over the ground, covering his shoes.
On the ground was the body of a six-year-old boy. Written in blood on the ground was the symbol of an “X.” Below that, in blood, it read, “X was here.”
The boy’s body was nude. It was the same pattern as all the others. The child lay in his own urine and feces. His body was drenched in blood. The carving of an “X” had split open the middle of his chest.
His arms and legs were spread-eagled, nailed to pieces of wood. His eyes stared at the early morning sky. They were filmed over with a glaze that enhanced the petrified look in them.
Rigid eternity glared from the fixed pupils. The child’s expression was one of scathing horrid fear. The fear was so cloying it hung in the air.
The nails in the child’s body were rusty, ragged and much too large for the size of the child’s hands and legs. They had torn and ripped the skin, leaving a trail of ragged, jagged skin, ripped and torn with blood trailing out.
A foamy white creamy substance streamed from the boy’s lips. The child’s mouth was thrown open as though a desperate plea were trying to escape it and it had gotten strangled in the creamy white substance.
Wolfgang hung up the phone. He looked at Nugent. Nugent stood tensely in the doorway of Wolfgang’s office. “Another boy has been found, right in our own backyard, across the street from City Hall. It’s the same M.O. Although, the usual message, ‘What is the tie that binds?’ is missing.”
Wolfgang stuck his hands in his pockets. He went to the window and stared out wondering how many times he had made this same journey from his desk to the window. It was becoming a familiar pattern.
At the offices of the New Jersey Institute for Living, Derrick Holt was talking to one of the office clerks. She shook her head at Derrick. “I can’t help you. I’m sorry.”
“Well thanks for your assistance,” Derrick told her. He left the office. He was determined, yet disappointment flashed across his face.
Outside, Derrick spotted an old man. He watched the old man. He seemed to be about seventy-five years old. He was the maintenance man for the institution.
The old man had the wizened look of someone who had seen everything. Excitement coursed through Derrick’s veins as an idea developed.
He walked up to the man and introduced himself, “Excuse me, sir.” The old man stopped raking the leaves to look at Derrick. Derrick stuck out his hand in a warm and friendly manner. “I’m Derrick Holt from the Star-Ledger newspaper.”
The old man wiped his hands on his overalls and reached to shake Derrick’s hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m William Broughton.” William was glad to see a friendly face. Sometimes working at the institution was very lonely for him.
Encouraged by the maintenance man’s warm manner, Derrick decided to take a chance. “How long have you worked here?” he asked William.
William scrunched his eyes in thought, “About forty years.”
Derrick brightened at his answer. He took a flying leap in pursuit of his goal. “So you knew Silky? He probably went by the name of David Edward Stokes when he was here.”
William smiled a toothy grin. Derrick knew he had hit pay dirt.
“Knew him and the other one. Things about them that you wouldn’t believe though. Strange things.”
Derrick was taken aback at his answer. “The other one? What other one?”
William raked the leaves so he could look busy and not like he was just gabbing. “Him and the one named Shaughn Braswell. Whew!”
Derrick watched him work, mesmerized with his good fortune.
William wiped a hand across his brow. “I’ll tell you they were something. They used to conduct some kind of ri
tuals.” He paused for a moment to catch his breath. “Unspeakable things. Ugly things. Pure evil. Messing with things people shouldn’t be messing with. Stirring up bad spirits. It wasn’t pretty, I tell ya. It was a rare day the reverend ever left his knees at the altar in the chapel when them two was here. Had to pray them bad spirits away.”
He pointed to a basement window in the institution. “Right over there.” He stopped raking to look at Derrick. “Of course, you learn over the years to keep your mouth shut in these places about things. Everybody has something to hide. So many secrets, you know.”
William rambled, “I can’t say these people haven’t been good to me. I’m seventy-five years old, should have been gone long ago, but they been keeping me on, continuing to let me work. I’ve got to work you know. When you get to be my age, if you don’t work, you die.”
Derrick nodded. “At your age you should be enjoying some of the finer things in life too, William.” Derrick pulled three crisp one-hundred dollar bills from his pocket. He slipped them to William. “I’d like to talk about Silky and Shaughn’s stay here.”
William accepted the bills. They walked across the manicured, leaf-strewn ground as William narrated the story of Silky and Shaughn for Derrick.
William’s sense of loneliness had faded for the time. He was animated with sharing information from the past. The past was where he lived most of the time these days.
The past was also where some of the darkest of his memories were buried. This particular memory had been tucked away behind a curtain in his mind, not to be retrieved until now.
They walked over to the basement window as William Broughton led Derrick down a pathway to a dark world that hovered just outside of the natural. Occasionally there was a merger that upset the balance of things.
Later that night, Derrick was in the dark office of the New Jersey Institute. It was the same office where the clerk had refused to help him. He shined his flashlight into a broken file drawer where he had just picked the lock.
In his entire career, he had never broken and entered into anything to obtain a story, but he considered this a small breach considering what he thought he was on to.
He spotted the file he was looking for. He lifted it out of the drawer. Opening it, he reached inside to rifle through the papers. He scanned the information quickly. A surge of joy rushed through him.
Derrick pulled out a mini camera. He snapped shots in quick succession. The digital camera produced laser-quality photographs. He was euphoric. He came to a newspaper clipping. He pulled it out for closer inspection.
A long slow involuntary whistle puckered his lips.
Derrick exhaled. He felt like he had been waiting to exhale all his life. Now he knew what all those women had been so exhilarated about when the phrase “Waiting to Exhale” had been coined. Yes. It could happen to a man too.
Albeit his reasons were different.
But feel it he did. His excitement knew no bounds. He’d known all along that something wasn’t right. Now he had the evidence to prove it. Although in a million years he had never expected this particular bonanza. He wouldn’t have imagined this in his wildest daydreams. “I’m going to be Journalist of the Year!”
It was all he could do to keep from flipping a cartwheel. He was already picturing the sparkling award hanging in his office. Offers would pour in from all over the country when the story broke. Damned if he wouldn’t be ready.
Derrick drove home. He talked into his microcassette recorder. Getting it all down. One of the first things he had learned in journalism was to always carry the tools of your trade. You never knew when something might pop up.
Derrick was a good student. He had followed this advice religiously throughout his career. He put the microcassette recorder close to his lips and said, “This exposé is hot. It is going to blow the lid off one of the most incredible, twisted cases Newark has ever seen.”
He paused visualizing the headlines. He could hardly believe his good fortune.
When Derrick arrived home, he went straight to his desk. He pored over his notes. He flipped through his files. He knew he had finally hit on the truth surrounding Silky. What an incredible truth it was.
Silky and Shaughn. There was no doubt after what he’d discovered that Shaughn was part of the killings, both then and now. He had known Silky’s story didn’t stop there, that there was more to it, that Silky was somehow affiliated with the occult. The murders of the women had smacked of it and so had Silky’s strange death.
People always said that the truth was stranger than fiction. Here he sat with the perfect specimen of the popular myth.
The story was so explosive he knew it was going to rip Newark open to its very core. It would blow away the very foundation of Newark. This was absolutely the mother ship of all stories. Derrick slapped his forehead. He just couldn’t believe it.
Shivering with excitement, Derrick booted up his computer. He gleefully typed in a draft of what his headline would be.
“Damn,” he said as he looked at the headline he’d typed. “Pulitzer Prize material.” His daydream ran rampant. The bold black letters leaped from the computer before his eyes. He could hardly wait to see the expression on Chris White’s face when he told him. The sweet smell of being right was making him dizzy.
“Now Wolfgang and Micah will come face-to-face with the truth. And we’ll see what they have to say about this. Oh, what a day it will be.” Derrick smiled.
He thumbed his nose at an imaginary Micah. He recalled Micah’s words, “There is no story. Period. Now go find some real work to do.” Derrick’s eyes shone brighter than the light on the computer.
“No story, huh? I wonder what you’d call this, Micah.”
He leaned back in his chair. He jiggled the toothpick from side to side, unaware he was being watched and of the threat his newfound information posed. He heard a whooshing sound behind him.
Derrick turned in shocked surprise to see a flaming ball of fire heading toward him with the speed of light. In an instant Derrick was engulfed in flames. He turned into a human fireball. His screams of anguish bounced and then echoed off the walls.
The flames licked slowly away at everything in the room. His research, his camera, and his computer melted in the molten heat of the fire.
The fire licked its way over to the microcassette recorder. It left nothing in its wake but ashes.
Chapter 31
Micah stood in the hall outside of Patrick Hayes’s office. Patrick was forty years old. He was hands down one of the hottest DAs on the East Coast.
He rose to shake hands with Micah as he entered the office. “Micah. Please have a seat,” Patrick told him. “It’s good to see you.”
Once Micah was seated Patrick took his seat behind the desk.
“It’s good to see you too, Patrick,” Micah replied.
Patrick smiled. He had always liked Micah. His manner was forthright. He had a strong sense of fair play. Those were qualities Patrick respected and admired. Micah was a man who could be trusted. Not to mention one hell of a detective. They had danced together on a tightrope in their case against Silky and won.
“So, what brings you here?”
“Do you still have the psyche report on Silky?”
Patrick gave him a strange look. “Silky’s dead.”
“Yeah I know but I’m playing the hunch so humor me.”
Patrick knew it was more than that but he didn’t question it further. “Yeah, I’ve got the report.”
“Patrick, let’s go over Silky’s psyche.”
Patrick looked at Micah before replying, “You know he was the devil’s watchdog. Automated and programmed.”
Patrick picked up a computer disk from his desk. He twirled it in his fingers. “Just like this disk. What you put in is what you get out.”
Micah didn’t say a word.
“The problem is, Micah, you’re talking about mind control. You know as well as I do the medical community doesn’t totally ac
cept it. But it happens.” Patrick looked past Micah, momentarily. “This case crossed the realm. David Edward Stokes was possessed. He wasn’t an ordinary criminal by any means, you know that.”
Patrick sensed Micah’s uneasiness but he continued on. “There were things about the murders that were inconsistent with other murders of this type. I still have the report.”
“What do you mean by inconsistent, Patrick?”
“Remember the markings?”
Micah seized on a moment of insight as the image of the marking parked itself in his mind’s eye.
Patrick flashed Micah a look. “All of the victims had the number six embedded into the base of their skulls. Just above the neck area. Barely visible to the human eye.” Patrick cleared his throat.
“When David was interviewed he claimed the women he killed were carriers. He said they were carriers of a mark from God. Carriers of a seed that would rise up and fight against the seed of Satan.”
“He said that was why they needed to be destroyed. He claimed the seeds of the chosen ones were here. Here in Newark. Who knows what he meant? He ranted on and on about how Satan had been tricked because the women were carriers of the mark but would never produce the seeds of the chosen ones.”
In a flash of insight Micah suddenly realized an elaborate plan of deceit had taken place. The chosen ones were not born of the murdered women. These women had the ability to produce but the boys they had born did not bear the mark. The ones that were being killed now did.
A tremor shook Micah’s body. Shadowy images of the murdered women branded with an “X” rose from his consciousness. The six-year-old boys floated before his eyes.
Trying to gather himself Micah asked, “What did the report say about Silky’s parents?”
“It said he was an orphan. He was picked up by Child Protective Services while wandering the streets of Newark when he was . . .” Patrick paused trying to recall. “When he was six. David Stokes was raised by the State of New Jersey at The New Jersey Institute of Living. The address of the institution is right here.”