Devil's Nightmare (Devil's Nightmare, Book 1)

by Pruneda, Robert

  “Shouldn’t we call backup?”

  “You’re it.”

  Plastic and boards covered the bay window and Cody’s bedroom window. The front door had yellow police crime scene tape stretched across it, with red tape sealing the edges of the doorway.

  I examined the tape.

  “It doesn’t appear tampered with. Go check the windows on that side of the house, while I check the other side. I’ll meet you in the backyard.”

  Riley acknowledged and walked around the side of the house. I pulled latex gloves over each hand and examined the front windows. They were locked, so I checked the three windows on the left side of the house. No one had tampered with those windows either. The blinds were drawn, and I didn’t see any visible fingerprints on the windows.

  Riley sent me a text message: I think you’d better come back here.

  I hopped over the chain-linked fence and stopped. “Holy mother of…”

  “We’d better call this in,” Detective Riley suggested.

  Matted blood covered the back walls, windows and patio door. I covered my nose and mouth with my jacket to keep out the putrid stench. Hundreds of flies swarmed around chunks of flesh hanging off the window sills and from the lid of a stainless steel barbecue pit. Something on the back door caught my eye. I stepped carefully toward it, making sure not to disturb any potential evidence. Someone had drawn a bloody pentagram on the sliding glass door. Underneath it, written in blood, were the words IN PUER MUSTUM MORI.

  “In puer mustum mori,” I read aloud, certain I had mispronounced it.

  “The boy must die,” Detective Riley translated.

  “You can read this?” I asked, pointing at the patio door with my thumb. “That’s the same thing I heard on my cell phone.”

  “It’s Latin. I’m a little rusty, but I’m pretty sure that’s what it means.” Detective Riley lowered his eyebrows and asked, “You don’t think this means Cody Sumner, do you?”

  I nodded slightly, thinking about the relationship between Cody and the victims in the case.

  “Remember anything else from the phone call? The voice was in Latin, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess it was. Couldn’t tell you what the guy said.” I had no idea what it meant, but something did come to me. I raised my index finger and said, “I do remember one thing. Diabetico and tantibayus… or some shit like that.”

  “Diabolicae tantibus?” Riley spoke the words with fluidity.

  “Yeah, that’s it. Dia-bo-lica tan-tibus.” I may have underestimated the rookie after all. “What’s it mean?”

  “Diabolical nightmare, or maybe devilish nightmare,” Detective Riley scratched his forehead. “Like I said, I’m a bit rusty.”

  “Devil’s nightmare?” I asked with revelation. “That’s what Cody called his dreams last night… The devil’s nightmare”

  Riley’s face lost color. He stared at me for a moment.

  “What?” I said.

  “He told you he was having the devil’s nightmare?”

  “No, his social worker did.” Riley’s tone of voice and the look on his face made me suspicious. “Why? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

  “It’s probably nothing, but we need to talk to that kid.”

  “After what happened earlier, I don’t think we’re getting back in there anytime soon. We’d better give it a few days.”

  “You, maybe. They didn’t seem to have a problem with me,” Riley said, pressing an open hand over his chest. “You know, good cop, bad cop kind of thing?”

  I resented the fact that Riley had just labeled me as the bad cop, but he did have a point. I took a deep breath, which I quickly regretted, as the stench from the rotting flesh and blood filled my lungs. I motioned for Riley to follow me to the front of the house, where I called Dispatch to report our backyard discovery. Then I called Chief Hernandez.

  “We’ve got a bit of an issue here at the Sumner residence,” I told the chief. I filled him in on the details. “We really need to talk to Cody.”

  “Lo siento. I wish I could make that happen, but you really blew it today. I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, considering the circumstances, I think my actions were justified.”

  “¿Qué es exactamente lo que quiere?” I hated when he went in full Spanish mode. It was akin to a mother using a kid’s full name when he’s in trouble. And he only did it to me because we’d been friends for so long. I guess he figured one day it would rub off and I’d actually start speaking Español with him. When I didn’t answer, he asked again, in English, “What exactly do you want, Aaron?”

  “I know Padre Hadley is a bit peeved with me, but I don’t think he had a problem with Riley.”

  “And?”

  I glanced at Riley, who listened with focused interest in his eyes. “Could you talk to Hadley?” I said to the chief. “Convince him to let Riley schedule a meeting?”

  “I don’t understand. You made it very clear that you didn’t want him anywhere near this case, and now you want to send him out to speak with your only witness, without any supervision?”

  I made eye contact with Riley and pursed my lips. I was even questioning the idea myself.

  “Well?” the chief asked.

  “I think he may be more helpful than I care to admit.” I scorned myself for saying that within earshot of the rookie detective, but I figured that maybe it would be his chance to prove himself.

  The chief initially responded with silence, but finally agreed to make the call and try to smooth things over with Hadley. “I’ll let you know what happens. Just make sure that Riley doesn’t manage to make things worse.”

  “Oh, trust me. I think I’ve got that covered.”

  I ended the call, motioned Riley over, and handed him a business card. “This is the contact info for Cody’s social worker. Ask her to set up an appointment. The chief is going to try to smooth things out with Hadley, but I personally think Miss Jimenez would do a better job of it. She seemed to like you, so you shouldn’t have a problem.”

  “You sure you can trust me with your woman?”

  I ignored the comment. “Just make sure you don’t screw this up, okay?”

  †

  A team of crime scene investigators was collecting evidence behind the Sumner residence. The smell of rotting flesh filled the air from many hours—if not days—of exposure to the sun. I searched the yard for signs of footprints or anything else the perpetrator may have dropped, but I came up empty.

  A forensics investigator approached me wearing bloodstained latex gloves. “Detective Sanders,” he said to me. “I don’t think the blood is human.”

  “How can you tell?”

  The CSI motioned for me to follow him. He led me to the barbecue pit, where he grabbed an aerosol can and sprayed it in the air to make the flies disperse. Then he lifted the lid of the barbecue pit. I covered my mouth and nose with my hand against the sight and smell of a pig, sliced up and gutted. The decapitated head lay beside the body. Maggots had already infested the carcass. Of all creatures, maggots disgusted me the most. Just as that thought crossed my mind, several of them dropped from the pig’s snout.

  “Okay, I believe you,” I said. “You can close the lid now.”

  The CSI smiled. “Kinda makes you want to lose your lunch, don’t it?” He reached for the lid.

  “Wait! Don’t close it yet.” I pointed to the pig’s head. “You see that? There’s something in its mouth.”

  The CSI leaned forward for a closer examination. He got the attention of another colleague and asked for a pair of forceps. He used the tool to extract a skeleton keychain from the pig’s mouth. The chain had a single key attached to it. “What do make of this?” he asked me.

  “It’s a key.”

  “Well, yeah, it’s a key,” he said while bagging the evidence. “But why leave it in the pig’s mouth?”

  “What I want to know is what the key unlocks. That’s the real question.” I gazed at the sliding glass door. A
crime scene investigator was snapping several photos of the pentagram and inscription written in swine blood. I pointed at the red sealing tape around the frame of the glass sliding door and asked her, “Is that door sealed?”

  “Were you talking to me, sir?” she asked.

  “Yeah, tug on that door for me.”

  She held her camera with one hand and tugged on the handle of the sliding glass door. The door slid open. “This should be locked,” she said.

  “Yes, it should.” I walked onto the patio, being careful not to step on any blood splattered on the cement. I then asked the other CSI holding the key to rinse it.

  “Want to see if I can get any prints off it first?”

  “Look at it. You won’t find any. The perp that left us this mess wouldn’t have been so careless to leave us prints on the key anyway.”

  “All right, if you say so.” He complied, washing the gore off the key with a water hose connected to a faucet beneath the kitchen window, and handed me the key. I slipped it into my pocket and entered the house.

  Nothing appeared out of place inside the home, until I noticed a chest sitting at the end of Cody’s bed. I stepped closer and shined my flashlight beam on a keyhole on the front of it. I slipped a latex glove on my hand, and pulled on the lid., but as expected, the lid wouldn’t budge. The key I found in the pig’s mouth, however, was a perfect fit.

  I lifted the lid with one hand and shined my light inside with the other. The chest stored a few toys, baseball cards, and board games, the typical items in a kid’s toy chest. Nothing unusual. I was about to close the lid, when a book tucked underneath the toys caught my eye. I removed the toys and discovered a trinket of some sort resting on top of the book.

  “Hey, can I get some more light in here,” I yelled out.

  One of CSIs entered the room with a battery-powered work light and set it up for me next to the bed. She aimed the light over the chest and switched it on.

  “Thanks,” I said, and then asked for her to get her kit.

  While I waited for the CSI to retrieve her kit, I carefully lifted the book and trinket out of the chest. The book appeared very old. It didn’t have a title on the tattered parchment cover, either. The trinket was about the size of my hand in diameter, and was made of a wood material. It was somewhat heart-shaped, with a pointed end on top, rounded at the bottom, with three small supporting legs. A glass lens caked with dirt covered a circular hole cut out near the pointed end. A carved pentagram decorated the lower end of the weathered item.

  “Looks like a planchette for a Ouija board,” the crime scene investigator said, holding her kit in one hand and a camera in the other.

  “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” I set the book and planchette on the floor and stood. “Could you take some close ups and get me a few samples of dirt off that Ouija board pointer thing?”

  She shot photos of the book and the Ouija board planchette and then took close-ups of both items. She then scraped dirt off the planchette, scooped the dirt into a small plastic baggie and sealed it. She handed me the sample and then grabbed a fingerprinting kit out of her box.

  “Looks handmade,” she said, examining the surface of the planchette. “It’s a bit rough, but if anybody touched this, I should be able to lift at least partials off it.” She then examined the book and said, “I won’t be able to lift any prints from the book, though. We’ll have to do that in the lab.”

  “Just do what you can,” I said. “What’s your name, anyway?”

  “Glenda Patterson.” She grabbed a small powder brush and shook it to spread the bristles apart. “I heard you were attacked by a cougar last night,” Glenda said. She dipped the tip of the brush in a small container of powder and then slowly tapped the handle to remove the excess.

  “Not me. Something attacked the guy with me. I didn’t see what it was though. It could have been a pack of coyotes, or maybe it was a cougar. I don’t know.”

  Glenda ran the brush gently over the surface of the Ouija planchette in quick, short strokes. “I’ve heard that cougars are starting to grow in population again. Even rumors of jaguars crossing the border from Mexico.”

  “Yeah,” I nodded. “I can definitely vouch for the jaguars.”

  “Well, it looks like we’ve got three, maybe four sets of prints here.” She pointed to the kit and asked, “Would you hand me those tape strips, please?”

  I retrieved the cellophane tape strips and handed them to Glenda. She removed a plastic liner exposing the adhesive end of the tape and pressed it gently over a section of powdered fingerprints on the planchette. She then pulled the tape quickly back in a fluid motion and sealed the tape on the attached paper backing to preserve the prints. She repeated the process with the rest of the prints.

  “I’d like to have these prints processed and the dirt analyzed as soon as you get back to the lab.”

  “Yes, sir,” Glenda acknowledged. “What about the book?”

  I carefully picked up the old book and opened it to a random page. The writing inside was in a foreign language, but I immediately recognized one word… Diabolicae. I flipped through more pages; all the writing appeared to be in Latin. The front page revealed a pentacle with an inverted pentagram and a title… DCLXVI Rituum de daemone accersito.

  “Looks Latin,” Glenda said.

  “Probably right. I’m taking the book with me, but go ahead and bag that Ouija board thingy.”

  “It’s a planchette.”

  “Whatever.”

  “What about fingerprints? You don’t want us to process it at the lab?”

  “No, that’s not necessary. Whatever prints are on that Ouija thing would likely be on this book, anyway.” I stepped into the hallway, turned around and said to her, “See if you can find the Ouija board that belongs to that planchette. In the meantime, I’m taking this book to Saint Hedwig Youth Home.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Ouija

  No, Aaron, I want you to turn that car around and head back into town,” Chief Hernandez ordered. I was holding my cell phone with one hand and steering with the other.

  “I’m telling you, I think he’s in danger. We’ve already had two threats today.”

  “You don’t know they were directed towards Cody Sumner.”

  I held my phone in between my shoulder and cheek as I flipped up the turn signal lever. “A call stating the boy must die, and blood plastered on the kid’s house with the same message, isn’t a threat on the kid’s life? What the hell else do you need?”

  I turned my vehicle onto the county road leading toward Saint Hedwig, nearly dropping the phone in the process. After several seconds of silence, I checked the screen to see if I still had a connection. The call timer was still ticking.

  “What about Hadley?” I asked. “Did you call him?”

  “Yes, Aaron, I called him,” he said in an exasperated tone. “He’ll allow Riley to meet with Cody and Miss Jimenez, pero he was very specific about you not being there.”

  I drove past the spot where Rick had died. I could still see the blood stains on the pavement. His screams burned in my subconscious. “I promise not to lose my head.”

  “All right, pero if you have any problems getting past security, you leave and get a court order. ¿Entiendes?”

  “I can’t make any promises.”

  “Aaron, I mean it.”

  “I’m just kidding. Lighten up.”

  On the surface, Saint Hedwig seemed like a fairly decent facility, maybe even reformed from the poor treatment many other children and I had received when I’d resided there many years ago. But I had a major problem with what had happened during their so-called chapel service.

  Within a few minutes, the large stone mansion came into view. A few exterior lights were illuminated around the building as the sun set. The guard stepped out and motioned for me to stop as I approached the security booth. I pulled up next to the man, and held my badge out the window.

  “Sir, I need you to turn around an
d leave the premises.”

  I raised my badge higher. “I’m Detective Aar—”

  “I know who you are. I have orders from Mr. Hadley to keep you out. So, unless you have a warrant, I suggest you turn your vehicle around and be on your way.”

  I set the gear lever to ‘park’ and shut off the engine. “My partner is already in there, so I’m not going anywhere until you open that gate.”

  The security guard pressed the call button on his radio. “We have a situation at the gate entrance. That detective is back. He’s insisting I let him in.”

  I rested my arm on the door and waited for the response.

  “Your orders were clear,” a voice said over the radio. “He needs to leave.”

  “You heard the man, Detective,” the security guard said, pointing down the road. “Please leave or—”

  “Or what? You’ll call the cops?”

  The security guard stood there with a blank expression, clearly unable to come up with an intelligent answer. He finally said, “Sir, I’m just following orders.”

  “And I respect that, but consider these two options…” I started the car. “One, you open the gate and let me inside and let me deal with your boss. Or two, you make me get that court order and I then arrest you and your boss for interfering with a murder investigation.”

  “Sir, I’m sorry. Please understand that I’m just taking orders.”

  “Do you know what obstructing justice is?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you want to see your name listed on a stack of court documents anytime soon?” I raised my eyebrows and shot the young security guard a serious glare. I was bluffing, of course. No judge would approve a warrant to arrest the kid, but he didn’t know that. The guard shook his head. “I didn’t think so.”

  “I’m going to lose my job over this,” he said on his way back to the security booth.

  As soon as the guard stepped inside, the gates swung open. I rolled through the gates and parked behind Detective Riley’s car. Maria’s car was further down the circular driveway. Before I got out, I called Cody’s social worker.