by J. R. Rain
“Whoa.” Kevin’s gaze darts around at random. “Someone tried to set us up… make it look like a sacrifice.”
“How do you know that?” asks Rick, a hint of suspicion on his face.
“I ain’t sayin’ someone killed a dude to make us look bad on purpose, but if you killed a dude in the woods and then found our shit… why not use it and make it look like something else?”
I look at Rick. “It wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine them doing it as a way to throw us off their trail. Fake ritual killing. Thanks, Kevin.” I smile at the kid and mean it. “We’re, of course, going to verify your hours with the Pines Inn, but I wouldn’t worry too much.”
He nods. “If you guys need anything, I’d be happy to help out.”
“Thanks.” Rick shakes his hand.
We make our way upstairs, wave goodbye to Grandma, and head outside to the car. Once we’re in and the doors close, Rick sighs.
“I think the kid’s being honest.”
“Me too,” I say. “But I’m still going to call the restaurant. You think the killer might’ve done it somewhere nearby and moved the body into the circle after finding it in the woods?”
Rick scratches at the side of his neck. “Damn. Watching that kid itch himself has me feeling fleas everywhere. Yeah, maybe. The forensics people didn’t turn up any drag marks though, and the amount of blood in the ground was consistent with the murder happening there.”
“Guess they were luring Walter into the woods looking for a good spot.”
“Yeah.” Rick starts the car. “And they found one all right.” He glances at me. “If we wind up on the trail of a demon, I think I’m going to retire early.”
Chapter Nineteen
The Bard
I spend the whole ride to the high school feeling queasy.
In between squirming in my seat and rubbing my gut, my thoughts drift back to the sliced-open stomach that had stood out to me at the murder scene. Argh! This is frustrating. Not only am I sure the Goddess is trying to tell me something, I feel like my not seeing it is disrespectful to her.
The unease fades soon before we meet the principal, a middle-aged man with a bad greying comb-over and a frumpy suit. He’s pulled the students out of class and moved them to the guidance office where we can meet them individually in small conference rooms.
We thank him and offer our assurances that we won’t take up too much of their time.
“Should a parent be present?” asks the principal.
“At the moment, we have no reason to suspect them of any wrongdoing. They’re all associated with a particular location of interest, and we only need to interview them as a matter of procedure. You can stand in for the parent if you like,” says Rick.
“All right.” The principal leads us into an office.
A thin white kid with long, black hair and black clothes sits closest to us in a row of chairs by the wall. The girl seated at his left looks younger than sixteen, also with black hair. She also likes black clothes, a sweatshirt and jeans, but her T-shirt is hot pink with a Hello Kitty on it. The pair of them are almost as pale as me, though she lacks freckles. Can’t all be me. She’s shivering like we’re about to cart her off to jail for thirty years. As soon as we enter, she looks up at us with enormous dark green eyes. That cat… Puss in Boots? Yeah, he’s got nothing on this kid’s pleading stare.
Dante Malcolm sits on the other side of the girl. He looks like he’s from an entirely different world in a peach-colored polo shirt and khakis, a neat flat-top afro, and glasses. Of the lot, Kevin included, he’s by far the most muscular, which, given his position with the varsity track and field squad, makes sense. He’s the only one of them participating in any extracurricular athletics. He’s no slouch academically either.
“Trevor?” asks the principal. “Come on into the back now, okay? This won’t take long. The detectives have some questions for you.”
The boy gives us a surly glower, rises to his feet in the posture of a bipedal vulture, and lopes off after the principal. Once inside the conference room, he sits with his side facing the door, not looking at us, his arms folded across his chest.
“Hi, Trevor,” says Rick, to no reply. “How long has it been since you visited the, ah, circle in the woods?”
“You tell me, you’re the detective,” snaps Trevor.
Rick closes his eyes, meditating away the anger. “Have you been back there since the night you were picked up for underage drinking?”
“All this over a couple beers?”
“This isn’t about the drinking,” I say, trying to sound soothing.
“I didn’t do it,” mutters Trevor. He shifts his weight, and I catch sight of a leather bracelet with a little pentacle on it.
I sit at the table opposite him and lean forward enough for my amulets to swing into view. “We’re talking to you because you and your friends have a connection to the place where a serious crime occurred.”
He glances at me out of the corner of his eye, his expression sour as months-old milk. “What crime?” Finally, the boy notices my pentacles, and his demeanor shifts to utter confusion. “You Wiccan?”
“Yep.”
Trevor rotates to face the table, sitting like a normal person in the chair. “They let cops do that?”
I nod, smiling. “Yes, they do. Look, Trevor, we’re not here to give you a hard time. I’m trying to figure out who did what. Can you tell me when you were last out there?”
“That night we got caught drinking.” He fidgets. “I’m still grounded. My parents are all over me. They think I almost killed Mack.”
“Killed?” asks Rick, sounding shocked.
“Just a little alcohol poisoning. It wasn’t that bad, but my dad totally freaked out.” He leans closer to me. “What did they do to our circle? Is it fuc”―he glances at the principal―“I mean, is it messed up?”
“The circle was disturbed a little bit, but most of the damage is spiritual in nature.” I disregard the unease radiating from the principal and keep going. “When I was out there, I did not feel a significant amount of energy in the surroundings. If you had managed to establish a link to the Goddess on the site, the crime we are investigating there has all but ruined it.”
Trevor fidgets with his bracelets. “Really… I haven’t been out there since. You can ask my parents, or even the old couple next door. I dunno if I’m gonna go fix the circle. It’s, like, maybe on private property or something. Might just wait ’til I’m livin’ on my own and set up a new one. Don’t got a lot of time now. Trying to get a band going. At least my parents still let the guys come over to practice.”
I smile. “That’s cool. Music is a good outlet.”
He rolls his eyes. “Sure, you’re just saying that.”
“I’m not. When I was your age, I dreamed of being in a band too. Still sing with one sometimes.”
Trevor leans his head back. “Oh, yeah? Which one?”
“After Purgatory.” There are, after all, perks to dating someone in the music industry. In my case, it was being a backup vocalist for my favorite band.
“Dude! No way!” He blinks. “I have some of their CDs!”
“You probably have heard me then.” I examine my fingernails. “Penumbra Spiral album?”
He nods, mouth dropping open. For the first time in my life, I feel famous. Ten minutes flies by with Trevor machine-gunning questions at me about the band, the songs, the lyrics… he almost bounces out of his chair when I sing a few lines. Rick shakes his head. The principal, I suspect, wishes he was anywhere but here.
“Is it true JJ has the Mad Priest’s finger bones inside his guitar?” asks Trevor, awestruck.
“Well, I haven’t taken Jose’s gear apart, but I’m pretty sure that’s just a rumor,” I say.
He asks about Krol’s legendary alcohol tolerance. Kristen Rollins is the drummer, and yeah, she can drink like hell for a little thing. When he asks if Marty, the bassist, is really a vampire who never sleeps, I play
coy and say, “Well, I’ve never seen him sleep, but that doesn’t mean anything.”
He keeps asking about the Norway tour, which I was not part of, but Caius did set up. I don’t mention my boyfriend, famous in his own right, or we’ll be here all damn day talking about bands. Eventually, I steer the conversation back to the ritual circle by commenting that the place would make a wicked backdrop for a music video, and ask if he’d ever taken his band buddies there.
“Serious. Swear. I haven’t been back there since that night.” He looks down. “My kid sister got really messed up, vomiting all over the place. Ugh.”
“What’s your connection to Kevin Sayers?” asks Rick.
Trevor shrugs. “We used to hang at school. Outcasts and all that. He graduated last year.”
Rick nods. “Do you see him much these days?”
“Not since I’ve been grounded.” He sighs. “Is it legal to ground me now that I’m eighteen?”
I grin. “It’s embarrassing but not illegal. Be glad that’s all they’re doing. Technically, they could kick you out of the house.”
He sags in the chair. “Ouch.”
“Trevor, do you recognize any of these men?” Rick shows him the same paper that got no reaction from Kevin.
This boy’s expression contains a similar amount of nothing. “Nah. Should I?”
“Ever run into anyone walking around that part of the woods while you were out there?” asks Rick.
“Just a hunter or two,” says Trevor. “But I don’t think any of those guys.”
“All right.” Rick glances at the principal. “I don’t think we need to bother Mr. Roberts here any longer today.”
“Very well.” The principal stands. “Please wait a moment; I’ll be back with the next student.”
He and Trevor walk out.
“Well, you got a groupie,” says Rick.
I grin. “Yeah, maybe thirty people have heard of that album. What are the odds of me running into one?”
“Life is full of weird coincidences.” He leans away, giving me an appraising look. “How can you tell what’s a coincidence from what’s one of your… umm”―he waves a hand around―“spells.”
“Guesswork. Mostly. Usually, the only way to tell is gut feeling, but every now and then, something happens that’s so obvious it’s difficult to write off.”
“Like finding a bloody bat in a ravine?”
I grin. “I could’ve merely gotten lucky.”
“But you weren’t lucky.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“You were guided to the bat?”
“I was, yes.”
“That’s some freaky shit.”
“You have no idea, Big Guy.”
“Big Guy?” Rick raises an eyebrow.
“Felt like a ‘big guy’ moment.”
Rick laughs while we wait for the principal to return with the next student.
Chapter Twenty
The Innocent
Principal Hollister arrives a few minutes later, ushering Mackenzie in by a hand on her shoulder. The poor girl’s still shaking in her black Converse and can’t look either of us in the eye. A faint hint of fruitiness wafts from her, likely shampoo or conditioner. When she sits opposite us, I note a trace of pale purple eye shadow. Judging by its hasty appearance, I’m sure she put it on in the bathroom here, well away from parental eyes.
Poor kid. Alas, there’s nothing illegal about a parent being overbearing.
Within seconds of her butt making contact with the chair, she starts crying.
“Hello, Mackenzie,” I say in my best comforting voice. “There’s no reason to be frightened.”
“There isn’t?” She sniffles. “Why are you here then?”
“We need to ask you a few simple questions about that place in the woods with the star on the ground.”
She wipes at her cheeks, makes eye contact with me for an instant, and resumes staring at her lap. “Okay.”
“How often did you and your friends go out there?”
She shrugs. “All the time, I guess. Like every weekend. Trevor, my brother, is seriously into that pagan stuff, and his friend is too. There’s, uhh, weed sometimes, but I never touch it. I swear. It’ll get in my hair and Dad will smell it.”
“What else happened out there?” asks Rick.
Mackenzie bites her lip. “Uhh. The guys dressed up in black robes and chanted stuff. Lit candles. Drank a lot. I didn’t think anything would really happen. Why, did they do something? Are we in trouble?” Her shaking gets out of control; she doubles over forward, holding both hands to her mouth.
I scoot around the table and put a hand on her shoulder. “No, you’re not in trouble. It’s all right. We were hoping you might have seen something… out of the ordinary. We’re looking for witnesses.”
Her shaking recedes to trembling. “I haven’t been outside except to go to school since we got busted. I’m totally super grounded. I’d probably have more freedom if I’d been sent to jail. Just ask my parents.”
“Heard you got pretty sick that night,” says Rick.
“Yeah.” She touches her throat. “Threw up a lot. I don’t remember much. We were in the woods, then flashlights are in my face, and the next thing I know, I’m in a hospital bed with a massive headache.”
“You drank a lot,” I say.
“Yeah.” She fidgets. “I know. I shouldn’t. It sounds cheesy, but I don’t think I can drink anymore. Even thinking about beer makes me sick now. If I smelled it, I’d probably throw up.”
Rick grins. “Nothing like overindulgence to cure an addiction.”
“Is this about me getting drunk?” asks Mackenzie in a sheepish tone. She paws at her hair with both hands, pulling her fingers down the length in front of her chest in a repetitive, nervous habit.
“No,” I say. “And you haven’t been back there since the night you were taken to the hospital?”
She shakes her head.
“How do you feel about Kevin Sayers?” asks Rick.
Mackenzie shrinks in on herself. “I think he’s mad at me. I’m kinda scared of him. I got so messed up I threw up and fell over. It’s my fault the cops figured out we’d been drinking.”
The girl starts shaking hard again, so I pat her back and keep trying to calm her down by telling her it’s all right and she’s not in trouble. She bursts into tears and blurts, “I’m sorry” over and over, along with declaring how she never should’ve gone out there and she won’t do it again.
It takes me a little while to get her back to a relative state of calm. No longer shaking, she merely stares up at me with pure anguish. I hold her hand and reassure her a few more times that she isn’t in any trouble and she doesn’t even have to talk to us if she doesn’t want to.
“How do you feel about the others who visited that circle with you?” I ask. “You don’t have to answer, but we would appreciate your opinion.”
“Marco’s a pothead. He’s maybe involved with a gang or something. I’ve heard people say he even deals. He’s scary. Trevor’s really into the whole occult thing. He’s kinda a dork, but he’s my brother. I think it’s silly… running around the woods in robes, right? Dante…” She squirms and looks down, a little color appearing in her porcelain face. “He’s okay, I guess. Into metal. We both like Killswitch.”
“Dante part of that whole pagan thing too?” asks Rick.
Mackenzie shakes her head. “No. He doesn’t believe in anything like that. Just hangs out with Trevor ’cause they’re friends. He’s afraid of my dad though. Thinks my dad’s got a thing against black people, but he doesn’t. Dad just looks like that. You know, mega-white, dresses like a dork… like he’s from the 1950s or something.” She manages a feeble smile.
Rick laughs.
“But, Dante’s such a rule follower, my dad would love him.” Her cheeks redden even more.
I smile to myself. Yeah, this girl’s totally crushing on him.
Rick shows her the pictures, and she has no r
eal reaction to them other than biting her lip again with confusion.
“Uhh, they’re not pervs, are they?” asks Mackenzie in a mousy voice.
“No. One of these men is a victim of the crime we’re investigating, the others are random guys who look like him.” Rick smiles. “You haven’t seen any of them?”
“Nope.”
I stand and smile at her. “You can go back to class now, Mackenzie. Thank you for helping us out, and please don’t worry. You’re not in any trouble.”
She glances at the principal as if waiting for his permission to get up. When he nods, she silently rises to her feet and creeps out the door with her head down.
“Mackenzie?” I ask, a thought springing to mind.
“Huh?” She spins, half out the doorway. The look on her face says she’s expecting me to say ‘Oh, just kidding’ and arrest her on the spot.
“Did you lose or damage any jewelry when you were out there?” I hold up a hand. “Before you say anything, we already know you were at the circle in the woods. If I found something of yours, it will help me to know if it wound up there before or after the crime. Whether you say yes or no won’t get you in any trouble; I just need the truth.”
“No.” She answers without hesitation, while holding eye contact.
“You’re not missing any little diamonds?” I ask.
Mackenzie shakes her head, looking relieved. “No, ma’am.”
Huh. How about that? I’m not sure what catches me off guard more―that the diamond isn’t hers or I got called ‘ma’am.’ I smile at her. “Thank you.”
The principal excuses himself and walks with the girl out into the office.
“Wow,” whispers Rick. “That poor kid is almost traumatized. I wonder if she saw something?”
“I don’t think so. That doesn’t look like ‘watched a murder’ trauma. Some kids are petrified of being in trouble, and I think her father might be overbearing to the point of causing PTSD. She’s somewhere between the fear of getting busted for underage drinking and afraid of getting in trouble again, for anything. These kids don’t feel like killers. We’re wasting time here.”