Hicks said, “Okay, Lieutenant, but—”
“But what? But you have a better idea? A guy just got poached to death back there and you have some procedural explanation?”
“I just think that we shouldn’t lose sight of the possibility that there could be a logical, nonsupernatural solution to this.”
“Don’t try to get all Sherlock Holmesy on me, Hicks. Sherlock Holmes wasn’t always right. All those things that happened to Jerry Maitland and George Drewry and this poor bastard weren’t just improbable, they were impossible, but the only way we’re going to crack this case is if we start believing that sometimes impossible things can actually happen. Things that seem to be impossible, anyhow.”
“Like a Santería god, taking his revenge?”
“Why not? Millions of people all over the world believe in Santería. People in Africa and Haiti and Cuba and all across America. Maybe they believe in it because their gods really exist, and their gods answer their prayers, and reward them when they’re good, and punish them when they’re bad.”
“I don’t know,” Hicks said. “It all sounds so ethnic.”
“You’re not ashamed of who you are, are you? You’re not ashamed of being colored?”
Hicks looked away. When he turned back, there was an expression on his face that Decker had never seen before.
They were nearly back at Madison and Grace when Decker’s cell phone played the opening bars of “The House of the Rising Sun.”
“You changed it,” Hicks said.
“Didn’t want you to think that I wasn’t responsive to criticism. Yes? Martin here, who is this?”
“Hi, Decker. Dan Carvey, from the fire department.”
“How are you doing, Dan? Haven’t seen you since you burned all those burgers at the charity cookout.”
“I have a preliminary finding on that fire of yours.”
“Any sign of arson?”
“No. There were a couple dozen bottles of 120-proof rum on the premises, some of them broken, but I couldn’t detect any accelerant.”
“So what caused it? Natural gas?”
“Gas pipes were all intact. Stove was turned off. No—all the early indications are that it was lightning.”
“Lightning? There was no lightning around.”
“Well, it can come out of a clear sky sometimes. The way the humidity’s been building up lately. But there’s all the signs. Scorch marks on the wallpaper, electrical appliances all blown out.”
“You’re sure about this?”
“I’ll stake my reputation.”
Decker turned right, down the ramp into the police parking lot. Hicks said, “What?”
“The fire department thinks that Moses’ apartment was hit by lightning. His daughter said that she warned him not to mess with Changó. Changó, in Santería mythology, is the god of fire and thunder and lightning. So what do we conclude from that?”
He pulled into his parking space and killed the motor. He turned and looked at Hicks and he expected an answer.
Hicks said, “I don’t know. You make me feel cornered.”
“I make you feel cornered, do I? How do you think I feel, with this Changó breathing down my neck? You don’t believe in it? You don’t want to believe in any of this? You’re a police officer, Hicks, you have to believe in it. Just because you want to deny your ethnicity, don’t let that distort your judgment.”
“I’m not denying my ethnicity. I just don’t like all of this African magic stuff. It’s primitive, and it’s demeaning.”
“And?”
“And nothing. I just don’t like it, that’s all.”
“Then why do I get the feeling there’s something more personal here?”
Hicks didn’t answer. “I’ll get on to that Mason family tree.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Cab held a media conference at 4:15 that afternoon. The press room was crowded and noisy and electronic flash flickered like summer lightning.
“All I can tell you so far is that John Mason was the victim of a suspicious drowning incident. We have some constructive leads and we’ll report any developments … well, as soon as any developments develop.”
Leo Waters from WRVA News Radio raised his pencil and asked, “I talked to the super at John Mason’s building He said that the victim was deliberately blinded and then scalded to death. Is there any substance in that?”
“The super was not an eyewitness to the incident.”
“With respect, Captain, that doesn’t exactly answer the question.”
Cab paused for a moment and then he said, heavily, “There were some unusual circumstances attached to this incident, yes.”
“So you’re admitting it’s true? The guy was blinded and drowned in boiling water?”
“Yes.”
Decker heard the news bulletin as he drove back to his apartment. “A cook was himself cooked last night. Thirty-year-old John Mason was boiled to death in his bathtub at his apartment on the edge of the Fan District. An unknown assailant blinded him with a sharp instrument and then somehow raised the temperature of his bathwater until he was literally poached to death.”
Decker said, “Shit,” and switched the radio off. The last thing he needed right now was hysterical pressure from the media. He had a feeling that the killings were somehow connected to the Devil’s Brigade, but no clear idea how, or why, and no hard evidence at all. Having the media chasing him around was only going to make these investigations ten times more difficult.
He went home and took his ritual shot of Herradura Silver. Then he took a hot shower and changed into a baggy pair of gray drawstring pants and a white T-shirt. He felt hungry but he didn’t know what he felt like eating. He opened the icebox and stared into it for a long time before closing it again. He would have done anything for one of Cathy’s spicy pork and guacamole burgers.
The phone rang. To Decker’s surprise, it was Father Thomas, from the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart.
“Decker, I tried to call you at headquarters, but they told me you’d gone home.”
“Even us detectives get a few hours off. How can I help you?”
“I’m not sure, but I think that I may be able to be of some assistance to you. I heard about this latest homicide on the radio this afternoon, while I was out pruning my roses.”
“Sick business, Father. Very sick.”
“The thing that struck me was the way in which he was killed. Blinded, and then boiled in a bath of hot water.”
“Not a pretty way to die, was it? But I guess you can’t accuse the perp of not being original.”
“Actually, I can. I think his method was highly derivative.”
“Derivative? What do you mean?”
“That was the exact same way in which Saint Cecilia was martyred by the Romans in 265. Her eyes were put out. Then she was seated in a bath of scalding water and boiled.”
“Go on.”
“It was then that I got to thinking about your other victims. Mrs. Maitland was beheaded, and her unborn child was killed. This happened to Saint Anne of Ephesus, who was supposed to have been pregnant with a virgin birth. Major Drewry had his stomach cut open, like Saint Cyril. Mr. Maitland was disemboweled, and this was very similar to the martyrdom of Saint Erasmus in the fifth century … a hole was pierced in his stomach and his intestines were wound out of him by means of a winch. There’s a very famous altar piece of it by Nicolas Poussin in the Pinacoteca Vaticana.”
“So what are you saying? All of these people were killed in the same way that saints were martyred?”
“I may be jumping to conclusions, but you have four very unusual homicides on your hands, don’t you? And it does seem that there might be some kind of pattern emerging. You see, I discovered something else: your victims were killed in the same sequence as their saints’ days, starting with Saint Anne on December fourth, Saint Cyril on January twelfth, and so on. Saint Cecilia’s day is March ninth.”
“What about Junior Abraha
m? He had his head blown off.”
“It’s difficult to tell if Junior Abraham fits into this pattern, because so many saints had their heads removed, in one way or another. You should read your Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. One poor soul was tied to the tail of a mad bull, so that he was dragged down the temple steps and had his brains knocked out.”
“Jesus. Gives me a migraine to think about it.”
“Oh, there were far worse tortures than that. Some Christian converts had their stomachs cut open and filled with corn, so that pigs could be brought to feed off it and devour their intestines at the same time.”
“Terrific. I’m glad I haven’t eaten yet. But thanks, Father. This could be a very useful line of inquiry. We’re pretty sure that these homicides are something to do with Santería, so maybe you’re right, and there is a connection with saints.”
“Santería? I’d advise you to be extremely cautious, in that case. The santeros guard their secrecy with great zeal.”
“Thanks for the warning, Father, but I think I already have a good idea of what I’m up against.”
“God be with you, Decker.”
“You too, Father.”
That night, he was struggling his way through the undergrowth again. He knew it was only midafternoon, but the smoke from the burning scrub was so thick that the sun appeared only as a pallid disk, paler than the moon. The crackling of the fire was deafening, and he could hear terrible screaming somewhere off to his left. Men were being burned alive.
He lurched down into an overgrown hollow, where his face was lashed by crisscross briars. For a few moments he thought he was going to be hopelessly entangled, but then he managed to break free and climb up a short, steep slope. The next thing he knew he was standing on the plank road, and he could see troops gathering up about a hundred yards ahead of him, both cavalry and infantry, their bridles clinking, their swords and bayonets shining in the smoky gloom.
He slowed down now and walked more steadily, feeling the rough-sawed boards beneath his lacerated feet. Somebody was shouting, “Muster together, boys! We have them on the run now! Make for the railroad track, we can outflank them!”
He was only thirty yards away from the assembly of troops when he came across a blackened shape sitting on the edge of the plank road. At first he couldn’t think what it was, but as he came closer he realized it was a man, almost completely charred, yet obviously still alive, because he was trembling and uttering grunts of pain. Smoke was still trailing from his hair, and his ears were burned to tiny cinders.
“What’s your name, fellow?” Decker asked him.
The figure didn’t answer.
“What division are you with? Anderson’s? Wofford’s?”
At last the figure turned its head and stared at him. “Hancock’s,” he croaked. “We were all set afire.”
Decker unscrewed his water bottle and poured some into the palm of his hand, touching it against the man’s lips. They felt dry and crisp, like burned bacon rinds. The man managed to suck up a little before he started coughing, and when he coughed he sprayed shreds of bloodied lung into Decker’s hand.
“Tell me your name,” Decker repeated. “You may be a Yankee, but I’ll get word to your family, if I can.”
The man shook his head. He couldn’t stop coughing and he couldn’t find the breath to speak.
Decker was still kneeling next to him when he felt the plank road shaking, as if horses were approaching. He turned around and he could see the tall dark figure storming toward him, its coattails flapping like wings. It was less than fifty yards away, and it seemed to rumble as it approached, more like a thunderstorm than a man.
Decker stood up and tried to run—an exhausted, sore-footed canter. He knew that it was probably hopeless, trying to escape. If this creature had set fire to whole divisions, God knows what it was going to do to him. But he kept stumbling forward, gasping with effort, waving every now and again to see if he could attract the attention of the troops up ahead of him.
“Hi! Hi there! Help me!”
But then he turned to see how close the creature was, and it was right on top of him. He was suddenly overwhelmed by the curtains of its coat, and again he found himself trapped in a knobbly cage of bones, unable to twist himself free, unable to breathe.
He shouted out, and sat up, and switched on the bedside light.
And Cathy was there.
She was standing beside the bed, quite still. She was dressed in one of her plain white nightdresses, and there were green leaves and purple herbs entwined around her wrists, like bracelets. Her face was intensely white, almost fluorescent, and her eyes were blurry, as if they were filled with tears, or as if she were blinking as fast as a hummingbird’s wing.
He started to say, “Cathy—” but then his throat choked up. He simply couldn’t find the words. He had tried to talk to her so many times through mediums and clairvoyants. He had searched for any trace that she hadn’t left him forever, that her spirit was still somewhere close by. He had heard nothing, felt nothing, found nothing. No perfumes, no whispers, no shadows. But now she was here, unbidden, looking as real as if she were still alive.
“This will be the last time,” she said. Her voice sounded high and resonant, like a tuning fork. “If I try to come again, Saint Barbara will have me trapped by Oyá for all eternity in the split second between life and death—dying and dying and dying forever.”
Decker smeared the tears from his eyes. “I, ah—I know that you have to go, sweetheart. But I know what you’ve done for me, too. How much you’ve been protecting me. I know who Saint Barbara really is, too.”
“I can’t keep her away from you any longer. She wants her revenge, and it has to be your time next.”
“You don’t know how much I miss you. If it’s my time next, then maybe that’s something I can look forward to. We can be together again.”
Cathy gave him a wan smile. “The afterlife is not what you think it is, my darling. It’s lonely and silent. The dead grieve for their loved ones as much as the living. They grieve for their lost lives, too.”
“So this is it, then? The very last good-bye.”
“I’ve come to tell you more than good-bye. You can still save yourself from Saint Barbara. But you will have to make an ally of the one person you hate more than any other.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“I saw who killed me, Decker.”
“What?”
“I saw who shot me. I was asleep and I felt somebody shake my shoulder. I opened my eyes and then she appeared, out of thin air. She was smiling. She had come to kill me, and she was smiling.”
“A woman shot you?” Decker said, dumbfounded.
“She was very tall and she had beads in her hair.”
“Jesus. I don’t believe this. Queen Aché shot you herself?”
“Nobody saw her but me. She said, ‘Irosun oche,’ and then she fired.”
“I’ll kill her. I swear to God I’ll tear her head off.”
“You need her help, my darling.”
“Her help? All I want to do is blow her brains out, the same she did to you.”
“Saint Barbara wants your blood, Decker, and it’s your time next. Queen Aché is the only one who has the power to save you.”
“Why should she? She hates me as much as I hate her. Why do you think she shot you? To warn me off. To keep me from breaking her drug racket. And she was clever, wasn’t she? She killed a cop without actually killing a cop.”
“She will help you if she has to.”
“I don’t get it.”
“She came close up to me to shoot me, so close that she pressed the gun against my forehead. I seized her hair, and pulled it, and some of her hair and some of her beads came out in my hand. They’re still there now, under the bed.
“I was the only witness to my own killing, but those beads will give you proof of who did it. Then there’s Junior Abraham. When Queen Aché shot him, there were many witnesses. They don’
t think that they saw her. They think that they saw somebody else. But they did see her, and if you can find a way to open their eyes, you will have all the evidence you need.”
“Cathy—”
“I have to go now, Decker. I can’t do any more.”
“Can I touch you?”
“Of course.”
He stood up and cautiously approached her. She looked up at him and he saw in her yellow eyes all of the years they could have had together, all of the summers and the winters and the walks along the waterfront, where the Confederate army lay dead, and where she lay dead, too.
He took her in his arms and closed his eyes and there was nothing there, no substance at all, only the briefest of chills.
“Good-bye,” she whispered, inside his head. He opened his eyes and she was gone.
He knelt down and peered under the bed, but he couldn’t see any beads. He knew that the forensic people had gone over the apartment after Cathy was shot, and if there had been any beads there, or pulled-out hair, surely they would have discovered them.
He took the flashlight out of the nightstand and flicked it around, but he still couldn’t see anything. In the end, he heaved the bed to the other side of the room.
They really took some finding, but there they were. Three small ivory beads, almost the same color as the carpet, in the gap between the edge of the carpet and the skirting board. Decker went to the kitchen for a polythene food bag, carefully picking up each bead with tweezers and dropping it inside. When he inspected them closely, he saw that two of them had wisps of hair in them.
“Got you, Your Majesty,” he breathed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Back at headquarters, Decker found that Hicks had left a scribbled note for him.
I checked the historical records at City Hall. John Mason’s great-great-grandfather was Hiram P. Mason, who was manager out on Cudahy’s tobacco plantation out near Tuckahoe. He served as a captain in Heth’s division in the First Army Corps during the Civil War, November 1863–May 1864.
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