by J. R. Rain
“Yeah, just throwing bits and pieces around.” Rick rubs the bridge of his nose. “Forensics is going to have a field day with this.”
I keep my eyes on the ground to avoid stepping on any pieces of our victim, some of which look like intestine fragments.
A large, irregular flap of beige tissue off to the left catches my eye, and feels significant. “Rick. What’s that?” I point at it. “Tell me that’s not a sliced-open stomach?”
Two of the cops gag.
Rick winces. “Yeah, that’s kinda what it looks like.”
I circle the area, studying the layout of the clearing, the pentagram, the altar, the body parts. They feel at odds with each other. I catch myself continually glancing at the stomach as I roam about. The line between hunch and help from the Goddess is a blurry one, so I offer a mental thanks for her assistance, just in case.
“So you think this was some kinda ritual killing?” asks Rick.
I face him, fold my arms, and frown. “I think we’re dealing with someone who saw too many movies.”
Chapter Nine
An Eye for Truth
I continue to search the area, taking notes and pictures for some time, while Rick does the same. A crime scene crew stumbles in maybe forty minutes after our arrival, bitching and moaning about the long walk. Yeah, the police should send out a public announcement asking murderers to be considerate of law enforcement and display their victims in handicap-accessible locations.
At the end of the small group, a youngish Asian woman in a navy pantsuit far too nice to be out in the woods arrives, pulling a gurney bearing an empty body bag. At least she’s traded high-heels for white sneakers. When she gets closer, I recognize her. It’s Amanda from the ME’s office. Rick and I approach, and greet her.
“Hi,” says Amanda. “I’m here from the medical examiner’s office. Wow. This guy eat a grenade?”
Rick winces. “Looks like it.”
Amanda sets her hands on her hips and gazes around at the carnage. “Well, the body will at least be lighter. We’re a little overwhelmed at the moment; hence, I’m here alone. Would one of you mind helping me get him on the stretcher once the forensics people are done?”
We both say, “No problem” at the same time.
With nothing to do as we wait for the CSI crew to crawl over the scene, I wander to the edge of the clearing and observe while letting my thoughts roam. Figures in white Tyvek suits document the location of each body fragment, take meticulous pictures of every inch of ground within the clearing, and collect all sorts of fun things like bugs, dirt, and deer crap.
I can’t take my gaze off the flap of stomach tissue when one of the men bags it and carries it over to a cooler. Grr. There’s something definitely important about it, but I’m missing it.
Focusing on my desire to understand, I clutch my pentacle amulet and, as inconspicuously as I can, turn in place three times clockwise, envisioning a small circle of power forming around me. A shimmer of sun among the leaves overhead bathes the area in golden energy, which I draw into myself.
Fickle glimmer, fickle light,
Goddess, show me what is right.
To Hecate, I send a plea,
Let the lost soul speak to me.
I offer a moment of thanks to the Goddess and Hecate for listening to my request, and turn three times counterclockwise to close my personal circle.
“Planning to take a catnap?” asks Rick.
“What?” I peer over at him.
“You’re”―he spins his finger around in the air―“doing that turning in place things that dogs and cats do before they go to sleep.”
“You’re a regular comedian,” I say, but offer no more. Just because he’s my partner, Rick doesn’t get to know all my secrets. I let my eyes sweep over the crime scene again, my mind open to receive any help from the outside. Asking Hecate to let the dead man reach me might be risky, but I’m hopeful my intention to receive information (and not draw forth a specter) will keep things under control.
Rick grins. “Yeah, well, you―”
I hold a hand up at him when a flash of light on the ground makes me zone in on a leaf near the spot where the mangled stomach had been sitting. Following the odd pull, I advance back into the clearing.
“Whatcha got?” asks Rick.
“Saw a glint.” I crouch by the bloody patch of ground, but don’t notice anything that could’ve reflected the sun.
“CSTs have already been over this spot,” says Rick. “There’s nothing here.”
“Trust me.” I brush my gloved fingers over the ground in a back-and-forth grid pattern. The third time I touch soil, I unearth a diamond. It’s on the small side and not mounted, which makes me think it fell from jewelry someone (perhaps the killer) had been wearing. “Got something.”
“Whoa.” Rick tries to laugh and grin at the same time. “That was buried.”
I pop the little gem into a baggie and hold it up, staring past it at my partner. “Well, you did say I’d cast a spell and solve this in one day. No promises about the one-day thing, but I can do the spell.”
He sputters. “Wind shifted the dirt. Or someone stepped on it. You obviously saw it before it got covered.”
“Obviously,” I say, winking.
***
A little more than an hour later, we finish up by helping Amanda lift the remains onto the gurney. I wince inwardly realizing she’d been right… our victim is significantly lighter with a completely hollow torso. She manages the stretcher herself over the uneven terrain, but does flag down one of the patrol officers to help her get the remains down the hill without losing control.
Another officer, a fellow redhead named MacLeod, walks up to us. “Detectives?”
“I’ve been accused of worse,” I say.
“Ugh, what a mess.” MacLeod shakes his head at the spot where the body was. “Probably one of the worst things I’ve seen. If not the worst.”
My stomach can’t help but to agree.
MacLeod leans toward us, lowering his voice like he’s about to reveal the identity of JFK’s assassin. “Look, I don’t know if it matters, but I’ve been out here before.”
“Oh?” I ask. “Recreationally or for business?”
He chuckles. “Guy one house over called us a couple months ago. We found a pack of high school kids hanging out here, drinking and doing that Satanism stuff. The pentagram in the dirt, dancing naked, drinking, smoking, etc.”
“Wait, so this shit was here months ago?” asks Rick, gesturing at the ground next to us.
I’m already nodding. “Yeah, that makes sense. I had the feeling this pentagram has been here for a while, and that it took a lot more effort to put together than a killer is going to do in the heat of the moment.” I point at the bloody mess. “The star is uneven. It’s not measured out properly. Perhaps most damning, it looks like something high school kids would do.”
“Hoping you mean the altar and not the disembowelment.” Rick might have shuddered. Truth is, homicide cops aren’t as cold as people think. Something like this rattles the best of us.
Anyway, sad as it is to think, it’s not completely implausible to imagine a couple of high school boys hacking someone up. There are some sixteen-year-olds out there who are pretty damn big… and pretty damn crazy. Though, how many of them would be wearing diamond earrings?
“Naw,” says MacLeod, “last time, it was just a pack of kids and beer. They did up this whole place with the star on the ground and the little altar and such. At the time, I was half expecting to find a dead cat, but the only thing they killed were their own brain cells. We would’ve left ’em alone, but they had alcohol and all of them were under twenty-one. The girl was the youngest… sixteen, if I remember right.” Officer MacLeod makes a drinking gesture. “She’d been the most blitzed of the lot. So bad she couldn’t walk. We transported her to the hospital to get checked for alcohol poisoning.”
“Any idea if those kids have been back in the area?” Rick
asks.
MacLeod shakes his head. “Hard to say. If they have, no one called us about it. Val and I were the first ones on the scene here today after the homeowner called 911. We, uhh, weren’t quite ready for the gore. Val, uhh, my partner, might need to see the department shrink.”
“Got the teenagers’ names and info?” I ask.
“Not on me.” MacLeod pulls a little notepad off his belt. “Let me have your email and I’ll send it as soon as I’m back at the station.”
“Great.” I give him the address.
MacLeod jots it down. “I don’t think they’re all involved, but the one kid was real into the dark stuff. Had on a black robe and a staff. A fucking staff.” He whistles, shaking his head as he puts his notepad away. “An honest-to-goodness staff. Like he’s going to part the Red Sea or something.”
A drunk sixteen-year-old girl might’ve lost an earring. But they were here months ago. Depending on how often people tromp around this area, it’s unlikely that a diamond dropped months ago would still be here. Then again, Rick and I missed it, the forensics people missed it, and I needed a helping hand from the Goddess to find it. Had my focus on that stomach tissue instead been trying to point out the spot of ground near the diamond? Or did I sense a wrinkle in cosmic energy from the organ itself?
If the diamond did belong to that girl, those kids probably had something to do with this killing since my magic led me right to it. I pinch the bridge of my nose, dreading the thought that kids so young might’ve been responsible for something so ghastly.
I let a long, slow breath out my nose.
Relax, Wimsey. Take it easy and stop trying to jump straight to the end.
“This one’s not gonna be a one-day case,” I say, to no one in particular.
Rick sighs, hands on his hips. “Yeah. I got that feeling too.”
Chapter Ten
Chicken Soup
It’s a bit after nine that night before I walk in the door at home.
Between gathering the information we do have, setting up meetings with the ME’s office, and following up on Officer MacLeod’s months-old police report, the rest of the day after leaving the crime scene shot by in a blur. The whole ride home, I can’t stop thinking about the grisly details… and the stomach that had been sliced into a mostly flat sheet.
Caius is in his office/den, laughing with someone on the phone. From the few snippets that make it past my brain fog, it sounds like a lead singer made a request for a ridiculous outfit he wants to use in their next music video. Not cost or practicality ridiculous, but ‘looking stupid’ ridiculous. Caius is trying to talk them out of it, since the guy thinks it’s badass.
The whump of the front door closing attracts him from his lair, and with a, “gotta go, call you soon,” he tosses his phone on the table by the sofa and walks over to me. “Bad day?”
I melt into his embrace. Sometimes, life would be much easier to deal with if I could forget all the horrible stuff and cling to Caius when the world exceeded my tolerances. Or my parents. In some way, I envy Elise for that, having Abigail. Maybe instead of mentally damaged, her inner soul is still that of a child, so she projects that to the outside world.
A sigh leaks out as I bask in Caius’ embrace. I’m no kid anymore. Nor am I a traumatized twenty-year-old. Theoretically, I am old enough to be Elise’s mother… if I got knocked up at fifteen. Hey, I said theoretically, not likely.
“Something’s bothering you,” says Caius, his warm breath washing over my left ear and neck.
“Yeah. New case. Bad one. The, umm… gore kinda got to me.”
He scoops me up and carries me into the living room, sets me on the couch, and takes my boots off. “Want to talk about it?”
I lean up when he moves to sit beside me, then recline with my head on his shoulder. “Are you sure you want to know? I’m not sure I want to know.”
“I’m here for you, babe.” He kisses the top of my head. “Always.”
It would be so easy to fall asleep half on top of him. Having him hold me like this is exactly what I needed. Even if he didn’t say a word. “The gore got to me. I don’t know… I’ve seen almost as bad before, but I mean those were car accidents. This was someone mauling a person on purpose. Am I doing the right thing? Working this job? I can’t understand how people can be that evil to each other.”
Caius runs his hand through my hair while I stare down the length of my body at black socks with little crescent moons on them. Their cuteness makes me smile.
“You walk the path that’s called to you,” he says. “Questioning if you’re in the right place is something we all do. But if you were not where you were meant to be, you would be doing more than questioning. You would act.”
“As in, I would find a new profession if I felt strongly enough I was in the wrong one?”
“Right. And I don’t see you sending out resumes.”
I smile and grasp his hand. “I love that you’re so confident in me. I don’t want to wind up one of those old, burned-out ex-cops who spends their days swimming around the bottom of a whiskey bottle.”
“Your reaction shows your humanity, even if your example is a little clichéd,” he says, grinning. I elbow him lightly as he lifts my chin with a finger and kisses me on the lips for a long moment. “You are the most kind, compassionate, and caring person I know.”
“Says the man who spends all day talking to drunken rock stars and money-grabbing managers?”
“They’re not all drunk. Some are high too.”
“So, I’m the most caring person you know?” I gaze into his dark hazel eyes, not sure if I should laugh or melt. “Even more than your mother?”
“Oh, yeah. Definitely. If I fake being sick, she kicks me out of bed and makes me go to school. You’d bring me chicken soup.”
Laughing wins and I feel better already.
“Speaking of soup… did you eat?” asks Caius.
I roll onto my side, cuddled against him. “Yeah. Well, I consumed something. I’m not sure the vending machine cheeseburgers at the station count as actually eating.”
He cringes. “Before you do that to yourself again, call me. I will bring you real food.”
“My hero,” I gasp.
Caius grins.
“Thank you,” I say.
He tilts his head, raising an eyebrow. “For…?”
“Being here. Making me feel better. Taking my mind off that mess. And, well… everything. I know the universe brought us together for a reason.”
“I’m sure it did, and the Goddess knows what she’s doing.” He lifts my chin into an even longer kiss. “Oh, I baked another French silk pie.”
I gasp. “You’re going to make me fail the department physical!”
He tickles my stomach. “You are quite far away from being out of shape, but I think you could use a thorough examination.”
“Do you now?” I bite my lip as he traces circles around my belly with a fingertip.
“Oh, yes,” he says, wagging his eyebrows. “A very thorough physical.”
Chapter Eleven
Kitchen Witchery
Wednesday, late morning, I’m sitting at my desk sipping coffee while waiting for a call from the medical examiner’s office. Last night helped tremendously. We messed around for a bit on the couch before he ran me a bath… and while I soaked, he fed me a piece of pie. Seriously. Nothing beyond cuddling in bed happened after, but it was perfect.
Rick puts so much sugar in his coffee, I can taste it on the air. He’s been gathering information on those kids Officer MacLeod busted for drinking while I’ve been trading emails with the ME to obtain the decedent’s fingerprints. They finally come through, and I get lucky. The prints pull up a match, courtesy of the FBI database. Mr. Walter Manning, age thirty-six. According to his file, he’s got a long list of arrests including burglary, simple assault, shoplifting, dealing in stolen property, and even a forgery count. That one stands out so I check deeper, and it turns out he signed his mother�
��s name on a check when he was eighteen. Wow. His mother pressed charges over $142. I hope that was a parent at their wits’ end trying to make young Walter wake up.
Doesn’t look like he got the message. Hmm.
He’s done time here and there, but the longest was only three years. Well, that’s something. People you meet in prison can carry some long grudges. I decide some old cellie he pissed off feels like a better place to start looking for a killer than a group of underage drinkers with an occult hobby. Time to start digging. I fire off a request to the BOP, asking them for records from Manning’s time behind bars. Did they document any conflicts with other inmates, disciplinary infractions, that sort of thing?
Rick’s on the phone with someone at the high school, more or less doing the same thing with the kids from the forest site. Heh. There’s quite a few similarities between prison and high school when you think about it.
I look up from my screen at a commotion by the hall, as Ed Parrish walks in. In the time I’ve been here, I’ve never seen the senior detective late for work even once… and worse, he looks worried. Disheveled, even.
“Shit,” I mutter, before hurrying over. “Hey, Ed? What’s up?”
He gives me a beleaguered glance and runs a hand up over his unkempt hair. He’s about to start talking when Captain Greer comes out of her office and approaches with the same expression of concerned curiosity that must be on my face. She indicates her office with a slight nod and an eyebrow lift, more of an offer than a request.
“Nah, it’s all right.” Ed rubs the bridge of his nose. “Tim had an accident at camp yesterday.”