Jodi lowered her right gun hand to her side. She always shot with a solid two-hand grip, but in this situation she might need her left hand to throw open doors. Then she fell into a half-crouch like a football player preparing to charge the line.
“Uh huh,” she said.
Joe Mac swung open the door.
Jodi was through it instantly noticing the red blinking light on the wall, and saw the staircase. She swung around the rail and took the steps three at a time, and when she reached the second floor she caught a faint glow in a room to her right. She went through it silent but fast and saw a man lying on the bed. Leaping to land solidly on top of him, she slammed the barrel against his forehead as he screamed.
“Shut up!” she shouted. “When that phone rings you give them the right code, or I’ll blow your brains out! And if anybody shows up I’ll still –”
The phone rang.
Like someone hesitant to stick their hand into a fire the man slowly reached out.
“Answer it!”
He snatched up the phone. His voice was tremulous, and his hand was shaking as he weakly asked, “Yes?”
A moment.
“Sacrilege,” he said. “No. Everything is fine. I was just a little late punching in the code. Yes. Thank you.”
He set down the phone with almost as much caution before he raised both hands to each side of his head and asked, “Do you want money?”
“What kind of code is sacrilege?” Jodi whispered with more confidence. “Yeah. You’re the right one. Is your name Austin Phillips? Don’t lie to me.”
He whispered, “The right one for what?”
“Is that your name!”
“Yeah! I’m Austin Phillips!”
The room light was turned on, and Jodi didn’t need to look. She heard Joe Mac lightly scraping the carpet with his cane as he walked forward, and she saw the man’s eyes widen as Joe Mac’s melancholic shadow darkened his face.
“We want to talk to you,” Joe Mac said in a low voice infinitely more alarming than the voice of someone who shouts.
Phillips’ eyes switched between them. “About what?”
“About some dead people,” Joe Mac declared. “We want to talk to you before you join them.”
“Uh …” Austin Phillips slowly scooted up until he was lying against the head board. “I’m not sure you have the right place. I don’t know anything about any dead people.”
Jodi took the fore because she was afraid to leave it to Joe Mac. If Joe didn’t get the answers, he expected he might very well leave a dead man on this bed. And if they did happen to have the wrong address, that wasn’t a burden of conscience Jodi was willing to bear. She leaned forward: “Listen to me very carefully. I’m going to ask you some questions. If at any time I think you’re lying I’ll step aside and let him have you. And you don’t want that.”
“No!” Phillips agreed. “I don’t!”
“Are you part of some kind of weird Druid cult that meets in this city?”
“What?”
Joe Mac took a step.
“Yeah! Sort of!”
“You talk to this group online, don’t you?” Jodi continued. “Don’t you and your friends meet at some kind of game site and exchange messages?”
Phillips didn’t remove his eyes from Joe Mac as he said, “Yeah. But so what? It’s just a game. We get together and play dress-up like priests and have anonymous sex.” He stammered as he added, “I mean, yeah, I guess some people take it a lot more seriously than others. But it’s just a game! I’m a lawyer! I don’t know anything about any dead people!”
“So why do you dress up like Druids?”
“Because that’s the game!” Phillips took a second, visibly calming. “Look, this is how it works. We all get together and dress up like Druid priests with these long robes and hoods and masks and stuff, and we have sex. We just find someone we like and do our thing. It’s so dark nobody knows who’s who, so there’s no guilt. You can see ‘em the next day at work and nobody cares because you don’t have any idea. It’s just … uh …”
“Sick,” said Jodi.
Phillips shrugged. “I can’t exactly argue with that. I mean, it’s not for everybody, that’s for sure. But nobody ever gets hurt.” His hands remained in a holdup position. “Listen, I’m being honest with you. It’s just a game. It’s just stress relief.”
Jodi asked, “They why does your website talk about human sacrifice and cutting off people’s heads and eating them?”
“Oh,” Phillips shrugged, “well, that’s just part of the fantasy.”
Joe Mac said, “Explain that.”
Sweeping a hand down over his face with a sigh, Phillips continued, “Okay, it works like this. We get together, and some of the guys are responsible for bringing a ‘victim.’ But it’s not a ‘real’ victim. It’s just someone who wants to join the group. A newbie. A first-timer. Being the victim is sort of like an initiation. Then we have this huge, fake ceremony where we play this bizarre music and dance around in our robes and play like we’re doing all this kind of ancient Druid stuff. Some of them do a little cocaine, get all worked up. Maybe smoke a little weed. Whatever cranks your tractor. Then we get down to picking partners and … well, you can guess the rest.”
Resisting the impulse to lower the gun Jodi, asked, “Do you know anything about all the dead people that have been attributed to ‘The Hangman?’”
“Yeah. I’m a lawyer. I follow the news.”
“Do your people have anything to do with any of that?”
“What!”
“Answer me!”
“NO!” Phillips searched the room as if there might be someone who could save him. “Is that why you’re here? You think I had something to do with all the people that have been killed in the last four years? Are you crazy? I only got stationed in New York two years ago! I wasn’t even here then!”
“Aren’t you people having a big meeting in two nights?” asked Joe Mac.
“Yeah!” Phillips nodded fervently. “Two nights from now. It’s called the Winter Solstice. That’s the first day of –”
“I know what it is,” said Jodi and found herself staring down, her rage abating like a wave washing out to sea.
She actually believed this guy was telling the truth. In the first place, he was too scared to be a serial killer. He was also cooperative and obviously inexperienced at deadly encounters, and the psycho they were after was neither of those. Then she did lower the gun and sat slightly back on her heels, staring through narrow eyes.
She cocked her head toward Joe Mac. “The man we’re looking for murdered this man’s grandson. So you know what we’re going to do when we find him, right?”
“Uh huh,” Phillips nodded slowly. “And I’d do the same thing. Can’t blame you. In fact, now that you’ve told me, I won’t even mention that you’ve been here. That’s as good a reason as any to bury somebody under the bridge. But you’re not looking for me. You … have … the … wrong … man.”
“You seem like an idiot,” said Joe Mac.
“I am not an idiot.”
“The man we’re looking for isn’t an idiot, either.”
“Oh! You were talking about me. Yeah, yeah, I’m an idiot. I don’t know how I ever passed the BAR. Failed it three times.”
Jodi pulled Phillips up by the hair of his head.
“Show me your Druid stuff,” she said.
“It’s in the closet.”
“So get it.”
He pointed. “But … it’s in the closet.”
Jodi smiled sweetly, “That means you’re not showing it to me yet.”
Phillips stared. “And that means …?”
“GET IT!”
Phillips jumped up, ran to the closet, reached in, and pulled out a long, black robe. Then he walked back and laid it across the rumpled bed with a gesture. “That’s it. We all wear the exact same thing, so that you don’t know who’s who.”
Jodi studied the robe, and it was ident
ical to the one found in Jacob Statute’s house. It had the same circular half-moons with twenty-one stars and a line of seven pentacles. Even the golden embroidery and the distance between emblems were exact. And, for Phillips, yeah, it was just ‘a costume.’ But to their killer this was a robe.
Anything worn to shed blood is a robe. Not a costume.
“I’ve checked every costume shop in town, and nobody sells a robe like this,” Jodi said absently. “Where’d you get it?”
Phillips was eager to volunteer, “An old man makes them for us. And, no, he doesn’t have a shop. It’s just something he does, like, to supplement his social security, I guess. But he’s supposed to be some kind of genuine expert on the Druids. And everybody wants to look authentic, you know?” He nervously looked at Joe Mac, who had begun moving forward. “I mean, the people I’m with are just playing a grownup version of Dungeons and Dragons! But you want to look the part, right?”
“It’s the same robe, Joe,” said Jodi. “Exactly.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.” She didn’t look at Phillips. “What’s this man’s name?”
“Ben Chamberlain.”
“You know him pretty well?” asked Joe Mac.
“No.”
“Then you’ll introduce us.”
Joe Mac stepped perilously close as Phillips quickly replied, “Yeah, man! I’ll take you to his shop first thing in the morning!”
Jodi: “You said he didn’t have a shop.”
“Well, I meant that he didn’t have an ‘official’ shop. He doesn’t have a sign up or anything. He just works in a place that’s above an old magic store in Brooklyn. And he only accepts cash so – needless to say – he’s not ‘on the books.’” A pause. “Actually, it’s not a magic store per se. It’s more like this huge archive of ‘magical artifacts.’ It’s got Egyptian and Babylonian and African staffs and mummies and shrunken heads from the Amazon or the Congo or whatever godforsaken part of the world still shrinks the heads of human beings, God help me for even looking at it. I don’t even know how they got that stuff into the country. It’s gotta be illegal.” He blinked. “Expensive, too.”
“Sin isn’t expensive,” said Joe Mac. “In this world.”
“It’s expensive if you want to buy it from him. These robes cost a bundle.”
“You’ll take us there,” said Joe Mac. “Soon as it opens. You’re gonna introduce us as a couple of friends who want robes just like you got.”
“You bet.”
“Until then,” Joe Mac added ominously, “we’ll stay here. With you. And nobody’s leaving this room until we leave together.” He lifted his face, chin jutting. “I know I don’t need to tell you that I’ll kill you with my bare hands … real slow … if you try to hurt this little lady. Or don’t do exactly as I say.”
Phillips slowly lifted a trembling hand to his head.
“Glad to help,” he said.
SEVEN
“I want ya’ll to know that I’m not real comfortable with any of this.”
“Phillips, shut up,” Jodi sighed. “If brains were dynamite you wouldn’t have enough to blow your hat off.”
Seated behind the steering wheel of her squad car with Joe Mac beside her, Jodi didn’t remove her eyes from L’Megra Relics, which seemed like a nondescript and unimpressive dime-store Hobby Lobby located deep in the south side of the Bronx. There was certainly nothing evil about the exterior although Jodi was becoming well accustomed to the mask of polite civility hiding the depths of human depravity.
From the back seat Phillips hesitantly asked, “What are we waiting for?”
“For an expert.”
“On Druids?”
“Yeah.”
“But you already have me.”
Jodi briefly closed her eyes; “Phillips, you don’t know any more about Druids than you know about a man on the moon. You’re just some pervert who dresses up like a priest and has sex with strangers. At best, you’re irresponsible. At worst, you’re a walking bubonic plague. If you used good sense for five minutes you’d probably go insane.”
The roof thumped.
“Hey, Poe,” mumbled Jodi and looked at Joe Mac. “How long has he been around?”
“He never left.”
“Should have known. Just ‘cause you can’t see him …”
A rap on the window made her turn, and Marvin Mason was standing there dressed in a leather bomber jacket, khaki pants, boots, and a cowboy shirt. Flanked by the Kosiniskis, he was wearing a New York Yankee baseball cap.
Jodi opened the door and got out. She stared him up and down before she asked, “What? No bullwhip?”
Marvin smiled, “I’m undercover.”
“Yeah. Nobody would ever mistake you for an archeologist.”
Jodi smiled at Ronnie and Bobby Kosiniski. Ronnie was carrying a trombone case; Jodi had wondered how he would conceal his truly massive combat shotgun. She smiled, “Thanks, guys. And, just so you know, those guys you hit at the old lady’s house are in potter’s field. No prints. No ID. Nobody claimed them. Nobody cared. We just named ‘em John Doe and planted ‘em.”
“Good,” grunted Ronnie.
“I ain’t sheddin’ no tear,” echoed Bobby. “We’ll never be able to repay Joe Mac for what he did for our daddy. We feel the same about you. You know we won’t let you down. We’ll bag ‘em and bury ‘em just like Joe Mac did for our daddy and us.”
“I know,” Jodi smiled. “And I’ll always cover you guys. But for right now I want you to disappear. We’ll take it from here.”
“If you need us, just call.”
“You bet.”
They turned and vanished in the crowd.
Poe squawked, and before Jodi even thought about it, she fearlessly reached over the roof to smooth the raven’s feathers. With a short hop, Poe closed the distance, so that she could touch his entire body and Jodi realized – with a surprise – how humanlike he truly was.
He was more human than most humans.
Exiting ponderously, with a slight resettling of the car, Joe Mac stood on the other side and stated, “Advise Marvin what we got … Poe, come here.”
The raven lifted off and with a single collapse of its wings settled on Joe Mac’s shoulder. With a gentle hand, Joe Mac smoothed its wings as he opened the counter-locked back door and Phillips stood on the street, straightening his tailored suit.
It took Jodi thirty seconds to explain the situation to Marvin, and then the archeologist gazed at the shop before he said, “So this guy made the robe for whoever was killed out on Long Island? And you know for certain that he was part of the coven that’s responsible for all these murders?”
“Uh huh,” said Jodi.
Joe Mac stepped onto the sidewalk with, “We want you to check him out, Marvin. We want you to see if he might be involved in this, or if he’s just some kind of psycho suit-maker.” He waved at Phillips without turning his head. “He made a robe for this idget, too. And he’s no more a Druid than Poe.”
Marvin narrowly searched the street. “Poe?”
“The raven,” said Jodi and turned. “Let’s do it, Joe.”
As they began walking four-wide toward the store Jodi said, “Phillips, all I want you to do is tell this old man that we’re all part of your sick little group, and we want robes, too. Then let Marvin do the talking.”
Phillips muttered, “Whatever. I don’t even wanna be here.”
“If you don’t mess this up, you’ll be free to resume your sad little life.”
“I resent that remark.”
“You resemble that remark.”
As they reached the store, Joe Mac shrugged, “Go on, Poe.”
The big raven lifted off and settled on an easement at the edge of the door, immediately staring through a window. Poe’s quick head jerked left to right almost too fast for the human eye to follow, and Jodi knew Poe saw everything; the raven was worth a hundred guard dogs.
A doldrum bell droned as they entered the
shop, and they stood hands in pockets as Phillips walked to the counter, which was staffed with a single middle-aged woman; she had short-cut, black hair and wore a gleaming silver pendant of a half-moon. She smiled quaintly as Phillips said, “Hey, Seka. How’s business?”
Joe Mac angled his head as if already listening to something Jodi couldn’t hear, but he didn’t raise his face. Still, his mouth turned down and nothing could have fully concealed what deep purpose had abruptly condensed within him.
“These are friends of mine,” Phillips lifted a hand toward them, and Seka nodded politely. “They, uh, are part of our group, and they want to order some robes from Ben. Would he happen to be around?”
Seka’s gaze searched them this time and to Jodi’s electrifying horror focused for a longer moment on Joe Mac.
As if he felt the concentration, Joe Mac removed a fist-size roll of bills from his coat and suddenly seemed harmless as he said, “I’d like to pay in cash if that’s all right. I don’t trust banks. Never have.”
Still, Seka hesitated.
Jodi stepped forward with, “That’s a beautiful pendant! Do you have any more like it? Or did you get it somewhere else?”
“Oh, yes, we have more,” Seka smiled. “We can talk about it when you’re finished with Ben.” She picked up the phone and a moment later said, “Ben? You have customers! You free? Okay.”
Lifting a counter door and stepping aside, she stretched out an arm toward a staircase that rose behind the desk. “Go on up. Ben’s at the top of the stairs.”
Jodi smiled, “Thank you.”
Leading Joe in their now-normal manner, Jodi ushered him to the staircase, which he climbed with casual confidence. Then, when they entered the upper room, she saw a slightly bent old man. He was about five-seven with long, brilliant white hair and a wispy build. But his shoulders and arms seeming disproportionately developed as if he had once made his living cutting stone or steel, and the strength had endured the years.
“How do you do?” he smiled. “I’m Ben Chamberlain. How can I be of service?”
The near-dark room was equipped with three machines of dissimilar design, but each was obviously manufactured for sewing. The walls were exclusively draped with voluminous sheets of sheer, black cotton cloth obviously hung in preparation. There were no other colors – no red, green, blue or any disparate hue. From the blackened windows to the blackened walls the room was devoted to darkness.
DARK VISIONS Page 16