by J. R. Rain
His expression radiates ‘yeah, you’re probably right,’ but he says, “Two more to go.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The Loner
Dante Malcolm enters two steps ahead of the principal. He shakes both our hands before moving around the table to sit facing us. Rick’s caught off guard by the formal/respectful greeting, and I’m distracted by thinking of the diamond. If it’s not that girl’s, could it have come from the killer? Or even the victim somehow?
Rick recovers first. “Thanks for meeting with us, Dante.”
The boy nods. “I didn’t have much choice, but sure.”
Rick blinks once, twice. “Well, please understand you’re not obligated to answer any of our questions at this time.” Rick slides the sheet of pictures across the table. “Do any of these men look familiar?”
Dante picks the paper up and stares at it for about fifteen seconds before offering a weak grimace and setting it back down. “I’m sorry, detectives. I don’t know any of them.”
I nod. “What can you tell us about the ritual circle in the woods west of Ken Lake?”
“Oh, umm.” He laces his fingers together on the table. “It wasn’t what I had expected. I knew Kevin and Trevor were into some strange stuff, but I had no idea they were that into it. Or it would be that strange.”
“Something about it disturbed you?” asks Rick.
“Well, standing around a creepy circle in the woods in black robes and lighting candles… I felt like I was in a lame horror movie.” Dante smiles. “Those guys are a little over the top.”
I idly twirl a finger around some of my hanging hair. “If you had no interest in their ritual, what convinced you to go out there with them? The beer, just hanging out with friends, or someone or something else?”
He breaks eye contact for the first time, searching the fake wood grain on the table for answers. “Well, it surprised me how into it they were. I wasn’t quite prepared for how seriously they took it, quite frankly. Marco brought the beer. I, uhh, mostly wanted to see what the hell they were all talking about. And, umm… Mack asked me to go.”
“That girl, Mackenzie,” says Rick, “drank quite a bit for her size, didn’t she? Could barely walk.”
“Yeah.” Dante’s eyebrows knit closer. “Sorry. They said the pink ones weren’t too strong, like fruit punch, but they were harder than the beer. She didn’t even know how bad she got until she tried to stand.”
“Pink ones?” I ask.
“Mike’s Hard Fruit Punch,” says Rick.
“You know this how?” I ask.
“It was in the report,” says Rick, winking at me. He looks at Dante. “According to the police report, you didn’t appear intoxicated. Did you have any?”
Dante sighs, glances over at the principal, and nods. “Yeah, one.”
“Have you been in the area since that night?” I ask.
“No, ma’am,” says Dante. “I’m either here at school, at home or at work pretty much all the time. Oh, and practice and homework eat whatever time I’m not at work.”
“Mind if I ask where you work?” Rick smiles.
“Burger King at Capital Village.”
I ask, “Dante, would you say you went into the woods that night mostly to spend time with Mackenzie?”
He again breaks eye contact. After a few seconds, he shrugs. “Yeah, she’s all right.”
Rick glances at me. I know that look in my partner’s eye. We silently agree this kid has nothing to do with the killing.
“That’s all, I think.” I pat the table. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Malcolm.”
“No problem, detectives.” Dante stands. “Can I ask what happened that you’re here asking us questions?”
I fold up my notepad and stick it back in my purse. “Someone was killed in the woods near the place you kids were hanging out. We’re talking to everyone who might’ve been in the area.”
Dante’s eyes widen. “You don’t think Kevin or Trevor killed someone?”
“No.” I smile. “But whoever did wanted us to chase a bunch of young Satanists.”
“They aren’t Satanic,” says Dante.
“I know.” I pat my pentacles. “And I’m sure the killer doesn’t know the difference.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Herbalist
The last of the teens involved in the underage drinking event, Marco Ruiz, had called in sick today, so we decide to take the interview to him, germs be damned. On the drive there, we debate it being a potential waste of time, since none of the others set off our BS detectors, and unless this Ruiz kid is some overdeveloped monster, he wouldn’t have been able to drag Manning around on his own.
His being out of school isn’t suspicious since none of them had any clue we’d be meeting them today.
Marco lives in the Black Lake apartments, east and south of Ken Lake and the crime scene. A bit of a trek to the magic circle in the woods, but not an impossible ride for a mountain bike. Then again, Kevin has a truck so he could’ve easily given his friends a ride.
A fortyish woman in a black sweater and coral-colored yoga pants answers the door, eyeing us with annoyed suspicion, which evaporates when I hold up my badge. She probably thought we were missionaries or something. Yeah, we get that a lot.
“Hello, Mrs. Ruiz?” I ask, then introduce myself and Rick. “Is your son, Marco, home? The school told us he wasn’t in today.”
She glances back and forth between us, vacillating between fear (that we might take her son away) and anger (at him for whatever he did). “Can I ask what this is all about?” Rick barely gets started talking about the spot in the woods when she holds up a hand. “Pardon me, but they said that was all over with, that he wasn’t in any trouble.”
Guess the patrol officers didn’t figure out Marco supplied the booze. Oh, well, I have bigger fish to fry right now. “This isn’t directly about that, but about the area where it occurred,” I say, since I see that Rick is annoyed he’d been cut off. “A man was killed, Mrs. Ruiz. His body turned up at the same spot Marco and his friends had been drinking. We don’t suspect your son had anything to do with this, but we are interviewing everyone who has been in that area of the woods in case they might’ve seen something that could help us.”
“Oh.” A little paler, but far less confrontational, Mrs. Ruiz takes a step back and waves us to come in. “He is in his room. He’s been sick today. A cold.”
The woman waits for us to walk inside, closes the door, then leads us down a hall of brown shag carpet to a back bedroom from which the tweeps and chirps of a video game emanate. She knocks twice and sticks her head in, speaking a couple words of Spanish before ducking out.
“Si. Sure, whatever,” says a teen boy.
Detective Rick Santiago smiles at the woman and speaks in rapid Spanish, reminding me all over again that my partner is fluent in two languages.
The woman shrugs, looks at me, eyes my amulets, and makes the sign of the cross before hurrying off.
I’m used to that, so I pay the gesture no mind and whisper, “What was all that about?”
“She told him he doesn’t have to talk to us and to demand a lawyer if he gets nervous.” Rick smiles. “I said, ‘I was going to tell him that, but thanks for saving me the trouble.’”
“Heh.”
We step into a pretty stereotypical teen-boy bedroom, heavy with the overpowering menthol of something like Vicks rub. The obvious presence of ‘sick’ in here gets me sipping air in small breaths. He’s got some band posters, surprisingly enough of nineties rock, one big one of Santana over his bed holding a gleaming white guitar, his face contorted in the magical flow of riding the music. Socks, underwear, jeans, shirts, and two Army jackets litter the floor.
The left side of the room glows blue in the castoff light from a forty-inch TV hooked up to a video game console. Within seconds of me looking at it, the game pauses, trapping a little spaceship in the middle of its maneuvering among floating orbital junk.
Marco appears quite sick, as well as… fearful. Snot glistens around his reddish nostrils, and he’s sweating heavily. Maybe his fever is breaking. He’s got large eyes and a smooth, rounded face that makes him look closer to fifteen than eighteen. Long hair and a slender build probably get him into a lot of fights. I can see someone mistaking him for a girl from behind. Heck, if this kid wanted to do the drag thing, he’d be scary hard to tell apart from a real woman. That is, when he’s not fighting off the flu or whatever he’s got.
Rick and I keep our distance, remaining by the foot of the bed.
Still, there’s something to his nervousness or fear, and Rick senses it too. My partner’s ‘oh, let’s just knock the last kid off the list’ casualness has given way to the little forward lean he takes on whenever he thinks he’s dealing with someone guilty.
“Howdy,” says Rick. “Sorry to hear about the cold. Looks like a nasty one.”
Marco nods, sniffs. “Yeff. It thucks. Fanks.”
“We’re here about the ritual site in the woods,” I say.
“Wub about it?”
“When were you there last?” Rick glances around at the floor, using his shoe to lift a pair of jeans and peer under them.
I take a step to the left, also scanning for anything incriminating―muddy shoes, bloody clothing, something with a diamond on it―or something with a diamond missing. Finding such evidence would, of course, be too easy. This kid’s sloppy, but he can’t be stupid enough to leave blood-soaked clothing on his floor for Mom to clean up. Besides, he’s way too short/skinny to possibly have dragged an unconscious adult man around. Seeing nothing alarming, I sigh. My next intake of breath explains why the kid’s on edge with cops in his room.
Pot.
I catch a hint of raw marijuana that’s so fresh it couldn’t have been cut more than a day ago.
“Not thince that night,” says Marco. “Thorry. My nothe ith plugged.”
“You been sick long?” asks Rick.
Marco shakes his head. “Tharted Thaturday.”
I put a hand on Rick’s arm. “I know why he’s nervous, and it’s got nothing to do with why we’re here.”
Marco stares at me.
“You can’t smell anything, can you, Marco?” I ask.
“Listen to the kid,” says Rick, gesturing at him. “He may never smell again. And all I smell is Vicks.”
“He’s kidding,” I say at the panicked look on the kid’s face.
Marco shivers.
I smile. “If you’re honest with us, I won’t make a big deal out of what I’m smelling.”
Rick, confused, walks past me into the left corner, sniffing. After four breaths, he spins to quirk an eyebrow at me. “Is that what I think it is?”
I shoot him a blank with my finger.
Realization dawns over Marco’s face. Finally, he shrugs, deflated. When you’re caught, you’re caught. “Ubb. I went back there Monday night.”
Rick whips his stare off me, onto the boy. “What time?”
“Late.” Marco fidgets at the controller.
“Why did you go out there Monday night?” I ask. “To buy what I smell?”
“Ubb, yeah, but no one thowed up.” Marco reaches for a tissue and blows his nose, then tosses it into a nearby wastebasket with a thump so loud my stomach does a backflip. “I was s’posed ta meet some guys, but they didn’t show up… but.” He cringes. “You guys gonna bust me for trying to score some… herbal remedies?”
“We’re homicide, not narcotics,” I say. Weed has been legal up here for a number of years, but selling to minors isn’t.
“You say homicide?”
“I did.”
“Someone’s dead?”
“Bingo,” says Rick.
Marco swallows, or tries to swallow. Mostly, he looks like he might vomit. Maybe his cold has turned into the flu. Or maybe he knows something.
“What else happened out there, Marco? Something freaked you out. Talk to us.”
He nods. “So, I’m hangin’ out there, waiting, right? And I hear some people coming, only it ain’t the people I’m expecting. I duck off a bit and hide, thinkin’ maybe it’s cops.”
“And?” asks Rick.
“I saw two dudes draggin’ another dude. Maybe he got passed out drunk or somethin’, but it felt like a real wrong vibe, ya know? Energy was all over the place. I hauled ass.”
Out comes my notepad. “What did these men look like?”
“Umm. The drunk dude was white. Dark hair. Other two had ski masks on or something. I didn’t see their faces, but drunk dude was out. Gringo had way too much.”
Rick and I spend a few seconds jotting.
“What else did you see? Clothes? Car? Did they say anything you could understand?” asks Rick.
“They had on all dark thit. I ubb, didn’t―” Marco holds up a finger asking us to wait, blows his nose again, and hurls the glop of ooze into the wastebasket. Good aim. “Nah, they were wearin’ all dark shit. Had flashlights. I kept my head down so they didn’t see me.” He coughs a few times. “One dude seemed nervous as hell, the other one sounded pissed. I think one of ’em said, ‘this place is great,’ and the other guy said, ‘you do it.’ That’s when I got my ass outta there.”
I jot down ‘two killers, men.’
“The ‘drunk’ guy,” asks Rick. “Did he move at all, struggle, stumble, speak? Anything?”
“Nah. He was out.” Marco makes a sideways chop with his hand in time with the word ‘out.’
“Could he have been dead at that point?” I ask.
Marco shrugs. “I guess, but I dunno, man. I wasn’t that close. And did you really just ask me that? Like, is this for real?”
“For realz.” I flip the notepad closed. “We might need to ask you additional questions or at some point need to ask you to repeat what you told us under oath.”
“Uhh.” He shifts his gaze back and forth between us. “Did I for real watch some dudes murder someone?”
“No, I don’t think you saw a killing, or even a dead man.” I smile, reassuring him. “You got out of there before they did anything.”
Marco nods and somehow looks even sicker. “Truth is… I knew something happened, but I wanted to forget what I saw. Tried to pretend it didn’t happen. But I guess it did.”
Rick gazes around the room. “Bit of advice. Ease back on the uhh, ‘gardening.’” He winks at the kid.
“Okay. Thobe dubes.” He again blows his nose, loud, long, and gooey. “Ugh. Those dudes… they didn’t see me, did they?”
“Did you hear any shouting or get chased?” I ask.
“No.”
Rick sets his hands on his hips. “Considering they went through with it, they didn’t see you. If they thought they were seen, they probably would’ve fled.”
“Oh… right.” Marco leans back against the headboard, clearly relieved.
“Thank you for your time, Marco,” I say. “I hope you feel better.”
“Fanks.”
We head out the door. At the living room, I tell Rick to hold on, hook a right, and go through an alcove at the far corner into the kitchen/dining room. The mother is pulling pots and such out of the cabinets in preparation to cook. “Mrs. Ruiz?”
She looks over at me. “Are you done with Marco?”
“Yes, thank you. He’s got a pretty nasty cold.”
“It’s a bad one,” she says, nodding.
“Whenever I get like that, I make a brew that helps. Bring one pint of water to a boil and pour it over an ounce of yarrow leaves, making a tea. Add a teaspoon or so of honey and three drops of habanero oil. Let it steep for about ten minutes and then give it to him to drink. It’ll make him sweat, but it purifies the blood of toxins.”
She gives me the suspicious eye. “You’re a witch?”
I hold my hands up. “Yes. Only trying to help.”
Mrs. Ruiz relaxes. “My son’s friends say they are too, but don’t talk of herbs and teas.”
“You
r son’s friends are playing around. Anyway, give it a try. Would you like me to write it down?”
She nods… slowly, studying me, not sure if she likes what she sees, but too polite to say anything. And so I do, scribbling the ingredients on a magnetized pad on the refrigerator.
“Thank you for your time,” I say, capping the little mini-pen and returning it to its plastic slot, adjacent to the notepad.
She walks me to the door, where Rick is waiting. She thanks me again for the recipe and I tell her no problem. Rick looks at her, then me. He shrugs, thanks her for her time, and we walk out to our car. I’m closer to the driver’s seat; this time, Rick doesn’t fight me over it.
“Well that wasn’t a waste of a trip,” he says.
“Nope,” I say. “Assuming you believe his story.”
“Don’t you?” Rick pulls open the passenger door, gazes at me over the roof.
I hesitate with one leg in, staring at the house in thought. “Yeah. I do. Without a doubt.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Dude Earring
Two minutes into our drive back to the station, Rick lets out a grumbling sigh. “We should’ve come here first.”
“We would have talked to all of them anyway. Besides, whoever killed Manning wanted us to spin our wheels chasing Satanists… or Kevin and Marco―hell, all of them―could be exceptional liars.”
“But they all agree that the Trevor kid’s into the occult stuff far more than the others. Wouldn’t he be the most likely to take it to the next level?”
I glance at him for a few seconds while slowing for a red light. “What next level?”
“Human sacrifice.”
“If he killed a guy, he’d have been far more jumpy and uneasy around us unless he’s a serious clinical psychopath―not to mention his sister would’ve given us some kind of hints. Calling him a ‘dork’ doesn’t make me think something darker is going on… or that she’s hiding a terrible secret.”