by J. R. Rain
“I know! I don’t mean what you’re thinking.” She sighs. “He got pissed because I didn’t like that band, and I know that’s not my fault. But it is my fault, I think, that he got rammed.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “The spell.”
I blink. “What?”
Colleen continues talking a little louder than whispering. “A few days ago, I cast a ward on myself for protection. Justin was making me uneasy. I thought he was going to get violent someday, and I was waiting for a good time to tell him it’s over. I just know he was coming over to slap me around or worse, and the spell reflected his negative energy back on him. I cast a karmic shield, and it put him in the hospital.” She again begins to wind up for a sobbing meltdown.
“Coll. Easy. Stay with me. This guy… is he already hitting you?”
She’s quiet.
“Coll?”
“Yeah,” she says in a meek tone. “A little.”
My face heats up with anger. “Okay, one: you are leaving the guy. Two: if you want to stay with me and Caius for a while, you’re welcome to… but you are going to get away from him.”
Colleen sighs. “He’s really not that bad.”
Ugh. Her frustration at her lack of luck with love is starting to make her tolerance for mistreatment go into real danger territory. “If you’re sure your spell put him in the hospital, he is that bad.”
She squeaks. “By the Goddess! You’re right.”
“You didn’t wish harm on him, you protected yourself. That guy put his own ass in the hospital,” I say.
“Right. You’re right.” She sighs. “Okay. I’ll break it off with him.”
I smile. “Good.”
“I will.” She lets out a huge breath of relief. “Thank you. I, uhh, gotta go. I’m at work still.”
“’Kay. Call me if you need anything.”
“Will do.” Colleen exhales, remaining quiet for a moment. “Thanks, Maddy.”
Not that she can see, but I nod, and end the call.
Rick quirks an eyebrow at me. “Drama?”
I explain between bites of my second slice.
“So, your friend has an asshole problem?” asks Rick.
“Colleen’s got horrible luck with men. She’s been trying to find someone for years. One died, two wound up in jail, and the rest turn out to be jackasses.”
Rick watches me eat for a moment or three. “Wow. All that hair of yours, and none of it gets on the pizza.”
“I have years of practice. Besides, she’s hungry too. If I don’t eat, she gets nothing.”
Rick rushes his next mouthful with an urgent look, like whatever gem of a joke he thought up can’t wait to leap into the spotlight. “Hey, you guys are witches, right? Why doesn’t she just whip up some kinda love potion or whatever, and make him adore her and treat her right?”
I pause, pizza less than an inch from my teeth, staring at it. “Because, she doesn’t believe in altering a person’s desires.” I take a bite.
“Uhh.” Rick’s right eyebrow creeps upward. “You sounded way too serious there.”
“You asked a serious question, didn’t you? Manipulating someone’s fate like that is black magic. It never ends well for the witch or the poor bastard. Colleen’s got bad luck; she doesn’t want bad karma on top of it.”
He gawks at me for a few seconds more, then looks down and resumes eating. I’d say I’m sorry for killing his joke, but I’m not. Stealing a man’s mind isn’t a playful topic.
Chapter Seventeen
The Damndest Thing
By the time we get back to the station, Rick’s in full gear about investigating the teenagers who set up the ritual site where we found Manning’s remains. I’m intending to call the patrol officer who rounded them up two months ago while Rick makes contact with the high school to arrange some interview time.
The desk phone rings while I’m reaching for it. Argh. Timing.
“Wimsey,” I say.
“Hey, Wims. It’s me, Parrish.”
“Oh, hey, Ed. What’s up? How’s the poison ivy?”
He’s quiet for a few seconds. “I, uhh… don’t really know how to say this, but Tim’s doing much better. It’s the damndest thing I’ve ever seen. The rashes are noticeably shrinking and he’s not screaming or even trying to scratch anymore. We’re probably going to keep him inside for a couple more days though.”
I grin to myself and offer a momentary thought of thanks to Brigit. “That’s wonderful news.”
“Hey, uhh. Thanks. Sorry for teasing you about all that witch stuff before.”
“It’s cool.” I smile. “You always meant it in fun, and I don’t take myself too seriously.”
Ed chuckles. “Yeah, but… wow. I never really thought it was like real, ya know?”
“I know.”
“You’re, umm, really talented.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.”
“Hey, before things start getting weird with us, would you mind letting Greer know I’m on the way back in?”
I laugh. “Sure.” I open an instant-message window on the computer and pass his status along to the captain. “See you soon.”
While holding the phone to my shoulder with my head, I disconnect the call, then dial over to patrol division and ask for all the info they have on the teens in question. I’m patched through to Officer Gerard. He takes a few moments to pull the files and collate the info. Once done, he gives me what I want verbally, promising to email me the info as well.
First off, there’s Kevin Sayers, age nineteen, works as a short-order cook at a little restaurant near the West Bay. Lives with his parents still, east of Ken Lake. The police have a few calls about ‘suspicious activity’ at his place, but it sounds like uptight religious neighbors objecting to his display of pentacles and/or other pagan symbols on his car.
Marco Ruiz, age eighteen, still a senior. The school notified police on two occasions regarding his potentially having marijuana on the property, but no drugs were found either time. Other than that, he’s got no record.
Trevor Roberts, also eighteen and a senior. Someone called in an anonymous tip last year claiming he intended to shoot up the school, but it turned out to be a false report from another student who had been on record as bullying him. The officer who went to the home noted that his room had numerous ‘Satanic artifacts’ in it. Oh, boy.
Dante Malcolm, age seventeen, a junior at the same school, has no record of contact with the police with the exception of the night two months ago when they got caught drinking. I don’t get much from the patrol guys about him other than one pointing out his father’s a dentist, mom’s a lawyer.
Last, I ask about Mackenzie Roberts, the sixteen-year-old. Looks like she’s Trevor’s sister, and a sophomore. Her record is clean as well, barring the underage drinking issue from two months ago. Officer Gerard adds that the girl couldn’t even walk out of the woods and they sent her off in an ambulance.
Ugh. My thoughts return to that diamond. If the girl smooched a tree, she might’ve lost an earring, or at least knocked the stone out of one. Why had the Goddess directed me to it? What is its significance? Meanwhile, Rick hangs up looking pleased with himself. He waits for me to finish with the Patrol Division. Once I set the phone down, he grins at me.
“We’ve got appointments set up with the students in a little over an hour, and Kevin Sayers is presently home.”
“Okay. You drive.”
“Feeling okay?” asks Rick.
“Yeah. I’m thinking too hard to focus on traffic.”
Chapter Eighteen
The Cook
The Sayers’ home is a nice grey one-story with an attached two-car garage on the right side. A tall wooden fence continues off to the right from the garage, behind a huge bush. The lawn looks professionally maintained, and mowed within a day or two.
One car, an older, small green pickup truck, sits in the driveway, probably Kevin’s since his parents would be at work now and it has a pentacle decal on the back
window. That is, of course, if he comes from a stable, nuclear family. Turns out, according to our paperwork, he does. We approach the front door and I ring the bell.
“This kid could be erratic,” says Rick, lowering his voice. “Word I got from the school was they considered him an outcast. Spent as much time in detention as the teacher in charge of monitoring it. He might be young, but don’t let your guard down.”
I’ve arrested stone cold killers before. Teens too, but fortunately none for murder… yet. I’m ready for anything. “Right.”
Except a short, heavyset old woman with fluffy white hair in curls answers the door. She’s so damn cute I want to hug her. “Hello? Can I help you? You’re not Mormons, are you? If so, I ain’t interested. But I appreciate you worrying about my everlasting soul. Mighty considerate of you. Still, I ain’t interested.”
“No, ma’am.” I hold up my badge. “I’m Detective Maddy Wimsey with the Olympia PD, and this is my partner, Detective Rick Santiago. Is Kevin here? We’d like to talk to him.”
“Oh, my grandson’s down in his room. C’mon in. Care for some tea? Lemonade?”
“Thank you. I don’t think we’ll be here long enough to trouble you for drinks. We just have a few quick questions.” I follow the old woman through the living room to a hallway where a narrow stairwell leads down.
“Kevin’s room’s in the basement.” She knocks on the door three times. “Kev. You decent?”
An exasperated moan emanates from below.
“The boy probably stayed up too late on them video games again.” Grandma opens the door and sticks her head in. “Kevin!”
“I’m up!” he almost-yells. “What do you need, Gran? Geez. Scared the sh―crap out of me.”
“Some p’lice here ta speak with you.”
“Cops? Wow, umm, okay,” says Kevin. “Sec. Lemme put on pants.”
At the boy’s nonchalance at hearing the cops are here, I glance at Rick. He looks a bit surprised/impressed.
“’Kay,” yells Kevin, less than a minute later.
“G’won down.” Grandma ambles back to the living room and eases herself into the sofa.
Rick takes the lead down the stairs into a finished basement. Or at least a finished three-quarters of a basement. Another door on the far left likely leads to the room holding the furnace, water heater, and so on. Posters of heavy metal bands cover most of the walls, many with quasi-Satanic imagery. He’s got a huge black tapestry with a silver pentacle covering the wall opposite his bed, near a flat-screen TV hooked up to a PlayStation. His dresser is covered in candles, some of which bear pentacles, crescent moons, or elemental glyphs.
Kevin, shirtless, barefoot, and wearing jeans, sits on the foot of his bed, grinding the heel of his hand into his left eye and yawning. His hair’s much shorter than his old high school photo, light brown and thick. My guess is he had to cut it to get a job working around food. The boy’s thin, with a narrow face and sunken cheeks, though his arms and pecs aren’t doughy. He’s no athlete, but he’s not an utter couch potato. Still, I don’t think he could’ve dragged a guy Manning’s size around alone. An investigator’s brain never stops.
More telling, though, is his utter ease with our presence. He’s either still asleep, or has nothing to worry about.
“Mr. Sayers,” says Rick. “How are you?”
“That’s my dad.” Kevin half-grins.
I step forward, making sure he can see my pentacle necklaces. “Any time after eighteen, you can be called ‘mister.’ But yeah, it takes a bit of getting used to.”
He stares vacantly at my chest (the amulets, I’m sure) for a few seconds before his lips pull into an amused grin. “Nice. So, uhh… what do you guys want me for?”
I repeat our introduction, and point out we’re homicide detectives. “When was the last time you visited your circle in the woods west of the lake?”
“Uhh.” He scratches his head. “I wanted to go out there Sunday for the new moon, but I couldn’t get off work. My asshole boss doesn’t think it’s a ‘real holiday.’”
“So… when were you there last?” asks Rick.
“Month ago? Maybe two? Haven’t been in a while. The guys don’t want to go.”
“Why’s that?” I ask.
He yawns again. “You probably already looked it up. We got bagged for drinking. Cops were real cool about it though. Some of my friends’ parents, not as cool.”
Rick takes an 8x10 printout, nine faces of white guys in their thirties, one of whom is Manning, out of a manila folder and offers it to Kevin. “Do you recognize anyone on this page?”
I watch his expression for any changes, but he strikes me as genuine in his confusion.
“They all kinda look the same. Nah, man. I guess some of them might’ve been at the Pines, but I don’t usually leave the kitchen so I don’t see people.”
Rick takes the paper back, nodding. “So, what did you do out there in the woods?”
“Cast some circles, draw down the moon, basic stuff. Couple of spells tryin’ ta help my friends with their grades, maybe get Mack’s dad to chill out a bit.”
“Whoa. You think there’s enough space in the woods for the moon?” Rick chuckles. “Where would you put it?”
That gets me to laugh. “Rick… it’s not literal. Drawing down the moon is a ritual where we invite the Triple Goddess to borrow our body and speak through us. My coven has done it a few times. Abigail, as our high priestess, is the one who beckons her.”
Kevin’s eyes widen at me.
I add, “When we say ‘the moon,’ we mean the Moon Goddess, not the actual Moon.”
“Oh.” He gives me the side eye, jabbing a thumb at me. “This one rains on all my jokes.”
Kevin grins.
I edge closer. “Kevin, why would Mackenzie’s father need to relax? Is there something going on there?”
“Oh, he’s just uptight. Always on them both, but her in particular. Still treats her like she’s six. Screams at her if she wears the wrong thing or doesn’t get an A. Dude’s a perfectionist asshole.” He cringes. “Uhh, sorry. Not sure if it’s illegal to curse around cops.”
Rick laughs. “If cursing around cops was illegal, we’d all have to arrest ourselves.”
My feel of energy in this place is weak, but somewhat present. I’m pretty sure Kevin does it because he thinks it’s ‘cool,’ not really out of any true connection to the Goddess. I’ve also mentally written Kevin off as a suspect, or at least pushed him to the “long shot list.”
“Can I ask where you were last Monday?” I give him an easy smile.
“Yeah. Workin’ at the Pines.”
“The Pines?” asks Rick.
“The Pines Inn… the restaurant.” Kevin reaches across his chest to scratch at his left shoulder. “Monday, I was there from 5:00 p.m. until like two in the morning.”
Rick glances at me. Dr. Ferrante put Walter’s time of death around 2:30 a.m. Tuesday morning. It makes for a really tight schedule, but it’s theoretically possible for Kevin to have left the restaurant at two and made it to the ritual circle in a half hour… though doing so while wrangling an unconscious adult man defies reasonable expectation. Plus, where would he have stashed Walter while at work? He wouldn’t have had time to go anywhere else to pick him up or he couldn’t have arrived at the circle in time to match Ferrante’s estimation. Then again, if he had accomplices bringing Walter to the circle, he could’ve made it from work to the murder scene in time.
“So you haven’t been near your ritual circle at any time within the past week?” I ask.
“Nah.” Kevin shakes his head. “Like I said, the guys don’t wanna go back there after we got busted. Plus, Mack’s old man threatened to shoot me if I came near her again.”
Rick’s eyebrows both go up. “He threatened you like that? Did you do anything to the girl?”
He ‘pffs’ while shaking his head. “Barely talk to her. I’m just ‘the bad-influence bogeyman.’ And he’s extra pissed ’caus
e Trevor’s into this stuff too, which of course, is also my fault. Little does he know that Trevor’s really into it. Like hardcore. He gave me so much shit for not digging a circle around the pentagram. Anyway, she’s totally about Dante. Only reason she even came with us that night was him. I finally talked him into skipping track practice once. Doubt he’s gonna do that again.”
“What are the chances any of your friends might’ve gone back to the, umm, ritual site?” asks Rick.
“Slim to nil.” Kevin scratches his side. “They all got pretty much reamed out by their parents after. Somehow it turned into my fault, but I didn’t even bring the beer.”
“Who all was in your group?” I ask.
Kevin rattles off the same list of names I got from the officer in Patrol Division. His honesty pushes him further down my list of suspects. He also doesn’t add any new names that the cops missed.
“Why, did something happen?” asks Kevin, looking up, as if the thought had just occurred to him. Maybe it had.
Rick glances at me, then to Kevin. “Yeah.”
I let my guard down a little and speak in my normal ‘non-cop’ voice. “A man was killed at your ritual site.”
“Whoa.” His eyes bug out. “You don’t think… we did it?”
“I admit it’s striking me as highly unlikely, but we’re just running down all the leads we have.”
My tone of voice seems to calm him. He slouches somewhat, shaking his head while muttering, “That’s messed up…”
“It will be a little while yet before the area ceases being an active crime scene, but in a couple months if you ever decide to go back there, you should do a thorough purification to balance the energies. I didn’t feel anything tainted, but it can’t hurt.” I raise an eyebrow. “Oh, and you should probably circumscribe your pentacle.”
“Isn’t that a Jewish thing?” asks Rick.
I stare at him, mouth open. Is he serious?
Rick winks at me. “A guy was killed and you didn’t feel a taint?”
I shrug. “The kind of thing I’d just feel right away without performing any kind of sensing ritual goes a bit past the terrible act of a human being killed. Yes, of course there’s negative energy associated with murder, but nothing worse used it as a crack to slip through.”