Scottish Rite (Maggie Devereaux Book 1)

by Stephen Penner

  Cameron frowned. "Are you sure?'

  "Ssure? No," Wood replied. "But you asked what I thought, and I think it's a different killer."

  He raised his right hand slowly and pointed to its fingers with his left. "First, this girl ssuffered a broken neck; sshe wasn't sstrangled. In fact there are no indications of any true attempt at sstrangulation. There are bruises on the neck, but they are pre-death and I think relate to the breaking of the vertebrae, not any attempt to clamp the esophagus sshut. I think whoever did this sshook her until her neck broke. That's very different from the other killings.

  "Ssecond, the organ removal was entirely different. Whoever did the first three killings knew his anatomy." The doctor paused for a second and smiled at Warwick. She smiled back, a bit embarrassed. "But this bloke—assuming it was a bloke—he had no idea what he was doing. He cut her open and pulled out the first things he could find. Pulled 'em out like he was pulling taffy and then cut 'em off when they wouldn't budge anymore. He only got the sslightest part of the intestines out. Our other lad, he removed everything nice and clean. And of course with this one, most of the organs were sstill inside, whereas before we had to go looking behind bushes to find the rest of them.

  "Third, there is absolutely no way it's the ssame murder weapon, unless he's sspent the last four weeks chopping wood with it. The incisions are rife with trauma—the blade was too dull to cut well. Most likely that's why he ssettled for the few organs nearest the incision.

  "Sso, it would sseem," Dr. Wood lowered his right hand and balled his left into a loose fist, "that we have two different killers."

  Cameron frowned.

  "But I could be wrong," the doctor added. "Maybe it is the ssame killer, but he's sswitched to new methods. That wouldn't be unheard of. I wasn't there, sso I can't know for certain."

  Cameron added a nod to his frown. Then he laughed quietly. "Not very helpful, Andy."

  The doctor looked a little surprised. "Ssorry," he said with a glance to Warwick.

  "No, it's not you," the inspector went on. "It's this damned case. It's getting to me. If you're wrong and it is the same killer, then we've missed him again. If you're right, then we've got two of them on the loose."

  Warwick shrugged at the doctor, who shrugged in return.

  "Any next of kin?" Dr. Wood asked, changing the subject. Now it was his turn to worry about business.

  Cameron shook his head and looked to his sergeant. "No word, right, Warwick?"

  "Right," she replied. "I called it in to the station while you were inside the nightclub, but no reply yet."

  "Well, then," Dr. Wood wiped his hands on his lab coat. "I'll sstart looking into arrangements for a pauper's funeral. Hopefully that won't be necessary, but just in case."

  "And we'll confirm there's no other family," Warwick added.

  Cameron looked over the doctor's shoulder toward the hallway David had disappeared down. "Are you going to wait to do the autopsy then?"

  "Yes, if that's all right," Dr. Wood replied. "I'd prefer to wait until we have confirmation there's no next of kin. Is there any reason it can't wait until morning?"

  Cameron frowned. "Well, it is a homicide."

  "Oh, I know they couldn't refuse the autopsy," the coroner explained. "It'll be necessary for the inquest, if nothing else. But I've found it generally more considerate to explain the need for the autopsy in advance rather than afterward. Particularly if there are religious objections."

  "You're a good man, Andy." Cameron put his hand on his friend's shoulder.

  The doctor displayed a crooked smile. "If you ssay sso," he replied. He then turned to Sgt. Warwick. "Good night, Elizabeth."

  "Good night, Dr. Wood."

  The ice-cold rain hadn't let up any, but the two officers nevertheless walked slowly to their car. They were used to such rain.

  "You were right," Warwick said, climbing behind the wheel. "That wasn't very helpful."

  "No," Cameron laughed slightly. "No, it wasn't."

  He stared out the windshield for a few moments, then said, "I wish I knew. I just—"

  Warwick nodded in agreement, and empathy, as she pulled the car away from the curb.

  "I really hope this isn't a copy-cat killer," Cameron went on. "We don't need two serial killers running loose."

  Warwick frowned and looked out on the wet, shining road, considering whether to voice her own opinion. Finally she said, "I actually hope it is a copy-catter."

  "You do?" Cameron seemed genuinely surprised. "You want two killers on the loose?"

  "No, of course not," she chided. "What I mean is, I hope this one isn't related. That it's some sort of isolated incident and the killer tried to cover it up by making it look similar to what he'd read in the papers."

  She paused, but Cameron didn't say anything.

  "At least then," she continued, "we've still got some chance of catching the real killer before he kills again."

  Cameron nodded weakly. "But how much of a chance?"

  Warwick recalled what she had read from the eighteen year old newspaper clippings.

  "A day and a half at least," she replied. "And every day counts. We do what we can."

  * * *

  Maggie sat on the floor of her aunt and uncle's living room. The news had long since moved on to other topics. Football scores seemed to be the current one. Alex and Lucy were still talking with her and each other, but Maggie gave only the most limited of responses. She sat transfixed on the floor, her mind numbed by the news of another murder.

  This is wrong, she thought. It's too soon. By three days at least.

  She looked around the room at the television, at her aunt and uncle and at her heavy, full purse lying to her side.

  What can I do?

  43. Consideration

  "Aaaahhhh!!"

  Maggie shot awake, her heart racing.

  Another night of studying and practicing the magic. Another dream.

  She wiped the sweat off her brow with her pajama sleeve. She looked down at her hands—no blood. Good.

  In this one, she was back at the castle. But this time it was she who reached into the prisoner's stomach and ripped out the still beating heart. She had raised it to her mouth, salivating at the raw power she was about to taste.

  Nice. She shuddered at the memory of the image.

  Instinctively, Maggie dabbed at her mouth with her hand. No blood there either.

  Good.

  She swung her feet off the bed and took a long cleansing breath. Then up and across the room to the magic book. Back to business. She may have found the spell. The one the killer was using. Or similar to it anyway. The one in the book was for grafting a demon to a human host. It seemed to be a very powerful spell, but it was a long process. It required sacrificing four victims, one each on the vernal equinox, summer solstice, autumnal equinox and then finally on the winter solstice. So it would take approximately nine months to complete. And even then, the demon wouldn't appear until the next equinox. It actually seemed a bit of a waste to Maggie. That's a long time to wait to get help in a war. You'd probably lose well before then.

  Of course, the spell in the Dark Book clearly wasn't the exact spell the murderer was using. The murderer was killing on the moon cycle. Moon phases, she corrected herself, Angus MacCadie's voice echoing in her head. The book did contain another spell having to do with sacrificing victims on the phases of the moon, but it involved killing pigs every full moon. Maggie did find one scrawled note interesting, however; it was a caveat that the sacrificer should take care to wait until the moon had actually risen. It wasn't enough to just do it the day of the event. It was the moonrise that controlled.

  In any event, the spells she had encountered confirmed two things: First, the killer was definitely following, or attempting to follow, some sort of ancient sacrificial ritual. Second, it wasn't any spell she had in her book. So she couldn't know for sure what his next move would be. But the next new moon seemed the most likely bet.

&n
bsp; That was Sunday, a small black circle on her calendar marking the day the moon phases started over.

  And today was Thursday morning. Three and half days to solve the mystery.

  And one person who might believe her.

  * * *

  There were so many trees near the train station. But Warwick had already checked them all. She was sure that Annie Gwyer's death was not related to the others, except inasmuch as they had inspired her killer to hide his culpability behind a poor imitation of the college killings. But that meant there was only one more day before the next murder. And she had no clue of how to stop it.

  Actually, she had one clue. A young woman named Maggie Devereaux—the American niece of one of the suspects no less—had told her that the murder weapons were in a locker at the train station. And that the key to the locker was hidden in the knothole of a 'nearby' tree. And Elizabeth Warwick was desperate.

  But scanning the area, she could see no trees she hadn't already inspected.

  She looked around again. Maybe it was farther away than Maggie had realized. Maybe over there. She spotted a line of trees across the street, but just as she fixed her gaze on them, a city bus pulled up and blocked her view.

  Damn bus, she thought. Move already.

  Then she paused.

  Bus?

  * * *

  "All right then," Dr. Wood said wiping the blood off of one of the saws. "We can put her back now. We'll need her to keep 'til Ssunday."

  "What's Sunday?" David asked as he pulled the sheet over the corpse's head.

  "That's the funeral," Dr. Wood replied conversationally. "They can't find any family, sso the church is going to bury her remains on Ssunday."

  David started to fill out the log they kept for removal and return of bodies from the storage area. "Why Sunday?"

  Dr. Wood looked up from his gore-stained instruments, his face awash in unchecked astonishment. "Why, lad," he explained, "that's the Ssabbath."

  * * *

  Iain knocked on the door.

  Lucy MacTary opened it.

  "Oh, hello, Iain," she said warmly. "How are you? What brings you by?"

  "I'm fine thanks," Iain replied, trying to look past his employer. "Is Maggie ready?"

  "Ready?" Lucy tilted her head.

  "Aye," Iain raised an eyebrow. "We had plans for the day. It's my day off and all"

  Lucy turned and looked back into the home, unease crossing her face. "Well, actually, Iain, she's left already."

  Iain was taken aback. "Left?"

  "Aye," Lucy turned back to face her visitor. "She left this morning. She didn't mention ... She's been a bit distracted lately."

  Iain smiled and nodded. He'd noticed that too, but he kind of liked it somehow. "Aye, she's like that sometimes. Okay, well... Please tell her I stopped by then."

  "I will, Iain," Lucy smiled softly. "And you're feeling better?"

  "Eh?"

  Lucy's eyes held her question still.

  "Oh. Oh, aye. Much better," Iain remembered his fib. "Thanks for asking."

  "All right then, Iain," Lucy's eyes sparkled with understanding. "I didn't think it was anything too serious. Neither did Alex. We'll tell Maggie you stopped by."

  "Right. Thanks." And he scurried down the stairs and back to his car.

  * * *

  Aberdeen, being Scotland's third largest city and Britain's eighth, is connected with the other major cities of the island by airplane and by train. And by bus. The main bus terminal stood on Guild Street, quite near the train station in fact, its busses leaving the station several times a day to such destinations as Inverness, Glasgow and Edinburgh, with connections to England and Wales beyond. The bus station was actually rather large and held a similar feel to the nearby train station. There were schedule boards, and ticket booths, and long lines of passengers. And lockers.

  Warwick stood in front of the main doors of the bus terminal and scanned the horizon for trees, or more correctly, for knotholes.

  She started walking away from the bus station, along Guild Street. There was a row of medium sized oaks standing each approximately twenty feet apart, designed to cast shade and beauty across this stretch of the road. As she passed, she scanned each tree, looking for just the right sized knothole. One large enough to allow a human hand to reach inside and grasp a key, but not so large as to risk losing it within. The first tree she came across had no knothole at all. The second one also had no knothole. The third had a large decaying hole about three feet off the ground. A quick visual inspection confirmed no key inside. The next tree again had no knothole. The next two appeared previously to have had knotholes, but they had been filled in with some sort of tar-resin compound. Good for the tree; bad for the investigation.

  Then she came to the seventh tree. She didn't see the knothole at first, because it was rather high off the ground and faced away from the direction from which she was approaching. But as she craned her neck to see the other side, and just before she pulled her eyes away to inspect the next tree, she saw it. Some nine inches across and more than six feet from the pavement. Warwick held her breath and looked at her watch. It was almost noon. She had thirty, maybe thirty-five hours left.

  She strode over, stood on her tip-toes and reached up, sticking her hand inside the hole.

  The inside of a tree knothole is not the most disgusting surface in the world, but after several months of Scottish rain, it is not the most pleasant either. And not being able to see inside it as one's hand traverses the slimy bark doesn't enhance the experience in any positive way. Neither does scraping one's wrist across the opening of the knothole because one is only 5'9" tall and has to stand on one's toes to be able to reach inside.

  The only thing which could make such an endeavor worthwhile to Elizabeth Warwick was about to happen. Her hand hit something. Something hard. And small. And metal. She grasped at it as best she could, her fingertips slipping on the slick metal, but eventually she was able to wrap her hand around the object and pull it out.

  When she opened her hand, what she saw made her not care one whit about the scratches on her wrist which had started to ooze the smallest amount of blood.

  In her hand was a key.

  The key.

  With the number '99' etched into its side.

  Elizabeth Warwick felt a flood of different emotions wash over her that moment, from relief to exhilaration. But one of the emotions, almost lost in the tempest, was admiration for young Maggie Devereaux. She had been right after all.

  Warwick squeezed the key in her hand and reflected.

  After a moment, she looked around to see if anyone had noticed her actions.

  Then she stood back up on her toes and returned the key to the knothole.

  * * *

  "No, I'm sorry, miss," said the teller in the police officer's uniform. "I'm afraid Sgt. Warwick's not in her office just now. Would you like to leave her a message?"

  "No, thank you," replied Maggie dejectedly.

  She turned around, lowered her head, and crossed over to the door.

  As she pushed the door open onto the gray Scottish afternoon, she asked herself, Now what?

  44. Reflection

  This time it wasn't just any bloody, mutilated carcass. It was Iain's.

  Carved up and lying at Maggie's feet. She bent down to touch his lifeless form. At her touch he gasped and forced open one half-dead eye. He was still alive.

  Maggie reached out and touched his face gently, tracing the curve of his cheek and jaw. Then she lowered her hand to his neck—and dug her fingers into the flesh, ripping out his windpipe in a single, life-ending flourish.

  Looking up, Maggie could see the demon watching her. And although he'd never say so, she knew she had pleased him. He produced a golden jewel-encrusted chalice and held it under Iain's torn throat to catch the blood spurting down the crimson stained neck. Maggie too raised a goblet of Iain's blood. She interlaced arms with the demon and drank. Fully.

  Maggie jerked awa
ke. No scream, but she immediately spit onto the floor. No blood. And yet it had seemed so real. Had tasted so ... good.

  Maggie looked over at the spell book she had left open last night. Next to the spellbook was the T-shirt, four new black splotches added to its already stained fabric. Reminders of her failed attempts to divine more information from samples from the murder scenes. She had been unable to find any more good samples. The threads and the hair and the blackened blade of grass proved to be wholly unrelated to the murder of her friends. She stayed up until nearly midnight, the rising sliver of a moon her only companion, as she had learned where some the students at the college shopped for coats, got their hair cut, and so on.

  Maggie looked down at her hands—the same ones that she had just watched rip out Iain Grant's esophagus. The dreams were so awful. But the magic was so useful. So powerful. So ... addictive.

  She sighed and shoved a hand through her thick hair. Then, reluctantly, she stood up. Time to shower.

  * * *

  Breakfast was somehow unappealing that morning. The tomato juice in the refrigerator had not helped. She grabbed a single scone from the bread basket and walked out into the misty, drizzly Friday morning.

  She needed to clear her head.

  * * *

  The walk had led Maggie haphazardly through the MacTary's neighborhood. Earlier in the year she would likely have followed a direct path toward the college, but now—now she wanted to get away from things for a bit. And the college was smack in the middle of things.

  She found herself adrift in a residential neighborhood filled with nice, middle-class townhomes. Aberdeen, like most European cities, was too crowded to afford every resident the luxury of a yard. Most had a small two foot strip between their building and the sidewalk, but nothing like the yards which were part and parcel of homeownership in the United States. Still, the streets were lined with trees, dark and leafless as they might be in late December, and traffic was light on the narrow streets. The sheltered calmness of the neighborhood gave Maggie the chance to clear her head a bit and let her brain concern itself with suppositions about the residents of some of the more interesting homes, and minding uneven blocks on the pavement.