Harm None: A Rowan Gant Investigation

by M. R. Sellars

  “You mind expanding on that a bit, Doc?” Ben asked.

  “D-Tubocurarine chloride,” she stated matter-of-factly as she stepped past him.

  “Dee Tube of what?” Deckert voiced in a confused tone.

  “D-Tubocurarine chloride,” she repeated. “It’s a curarine derivative.”

  “English,” Ben urged.

  “Curare,” she returned seeming somewhat annoyed. “You know, poison darts, all that jazz. Tubocurarine is commonly used as a paralytic agent for patients experiencing violent and uncontrollable seizures. The tox reports came back on the Tanner and Barnes cases. They both had it in their systems. I’m willing to bet we’ll find it in the Gray case, and this one as well.”

  “Would the individual still be able to feel pain?” I asked.

  “Absolutely,” she answered with a nod, “The patient would remain conscious and fully aware. Totally capable of feeling pain, just unable to move. The effects are usually short lived but drastic.”

  “That would fit with what this S.O.B. is trying to accomplish.” I offered.

  “But that still doesn’t explain why the other three victims were restrained, and this one isn’t,” Deckert observed. “If he shot the others up, why didn’t they just lay there too?”

  “I can shed some light on that for you. May I?” Doctor Sanders looked at me and motioned to the body.

  I stood and moved back as she leaned over and turned the young woman’s lifeless arm slightly to allow a better view. Expertly, she ran the index finger of her gloved hand across the cooling skin and brought it to rest. “Right here,” she announced. “He injected her intravenously. The other three were intramuscularly.” She left her finger where it was until we had all inspected the puncture wound then gently rolled the arm back against the body. “Tubocurarine chloride is some pretty wicked stuff, but it’s unpredictable when injected into muscle. Dosages are pretty tricky as well because just a little too much can cause respiratory arrest.”

  “So it’s possible that the other victims weren’t completely paralyzed,” I thought aloud.

  “Precisely,” Doctor Sanders affirmed. “Based on the differing amounts between the Tanner and Barnes cases, I’d venture to say that the killer was experimenting. It can also depend on how long it was in their system because it can metabolize in as little as thirty minutes.”

  “What about the fact that the killer ingested blood from the victims?” I queried. “Wouldn’t the drug affect him then?”

  “Doubtful.” She shook her head. “He would have to ingest much more than he has for it to have an effect on him, and even then it’s unlikely.”

  I continued to stare quietly at the lifeless body so neatly arranged upon the bed. The killer had been more precise with his movements, more exacting. Nothing was wasted. After a few moments, I realized I was holding my breath. I let it out in a long sigh. The cloying odor of the opium made my nostrils tingle as I drew in a fresh breath. Something was rattling around in the back of my brain. Something recent. Something I should know.

  “I guess this clears the kid,” Deckert was speaking to Ben. “Maybe,” Ben answered, “maybe not. His fingerprint was still on that candle. Maybe there’s an accomplice. Like a cult thing or somethin’.”

  “No,” I volunteered over my shoulder without taking my eyes off the corpse. “There’s only one killer. I would have felt it if there were more.”

  “Hey, Doc.” Ben turned his attention to Doctor Sanders. “Have you established a time of death yet?”

  “I’d place it around eleven last night, give or take an hour,” she replied. “I can be more specific once I get a liver temp, but between ten and midnight is your ballpark.”

  The sigh that Ben Storm let out was barely audible. I suppose I heard it simply because I could also feel the tension as it drained from him. I could sense him relaxing as if an unbearable weight had just been lifted from his shoulders. I felt all this because I had been aware of his thoughts. I had known what he was thinking ever since I had climbed into his van less than an hour ago.

  “Feel better now,” I asked without turning.

  “Huh?” he grunted.

  “Do you feel better now that you know I didn’t commit this murder?” I turned to face my friend.

  “How did...” His voice trailed off as he looked at me, obviously both surprised and embarrassed.

  “What are you talking about?” Deckert inserted, genuinely befuddled.

  “I had a vision tonight,” I explained. “Something of a nightmare I suppose. In it I saw that this murder had occurred, so I called Ben and told him.” I didn’t go into the details of his not believing me. “Of course, being the good cop that he is, when the body was found, he immediately considered me a suspect. That is, until the doctor here established that it probably all happened while he and I were sitting in his living room drinking a beer.”

  “Rowan... Look, I’m sorry man... I...” Ben stuttered.

  “Forget it,” I told him sincerely. “You didn’t have any choice. I know I sounded like a lunatic when I called you...”

  “Yeah, but you’re my friend,” he protested. “And after everything that’s happened... Well, I shouldn’t have doubted you.”

  “Really, Ben. It’s okay. I would have done the same thing if I were in your position. Let’s just figure out who it is, so we can stop him.”

  “How did you know anyway?”

  “Like you said. I just ain’t natural.” I smiled.

  He nodded and returned the smile, and I knew that the matter was settled.

  I turned back to the neatly arranged sacrifice. The earlier thought was clawing its way forward from the back of my head, tearing painfully at my brain. I knew for certain that the answer was right in front of me. I just didn’t know why I couldn’t see it.

  Her arms were at her sides, palms upward—an act of supplication. Her hair was fanned out like a diaphanous halo floating around her head. The flaying was precise and clean.

  Deckert and Ben were still talking behind me, discussing the question of whether or not this event actually did clear R.J. of the crimes. I pressed myself to tune them out and listen only to the rhythmic patterns of my measured breathing. I wasn’t about to try channeling this young woman, especially without Felicity here to anchor me on this plane. I simply wanted to read the room with something other than my eyes. I wanted to know what the killer was up to. What he was trying to accomplish.

  I stretched my senses outward, closed my eyes, and concentrated on the sound of my own heart. I raked my senses through the ethereal atmosphere only I could see. I let every molecule of residual energy run through my otherworldly fingers like ghostly grains of sand. To be inspected. Scrutinized. Discarded.

  Nothing.

  I could feel nothing but darkness and death. It was just like the other crime scenes. It was as if no ritual or ceremony had ever been performed in this room.

  “This is just the dress rehearsal,” a child’s tiny voice echoes in my brain.

  “This is just a dress rehearsal,” I whispered aloud as my eyes opened wide.

  “What was that, Mister Gant?” Doctor Sanders looked up from her work.

  “A dress rehearsal.” I made the comment louder now as the thought scratched its way up through my brain to reside clearly and positively in the front. “Look at the way she’s arranged.” Ben and Deckert had broken off their conversation to listen to me. “Her hair. Her hands, palms upward in supplication or offering. The detail of the flaying. The opium in the incense.” By now I had moved around the bed motioning to each of the points I had mentioned. “The whole ritual has gotten more complicated each time. The first three were for practice, and this one was the final dress rehearsal.”

  “Dress rehearsal for what?” Ben appealed.

  “For the invocation,” I answered quickly. “For the actual ceremony.”

  “No offense, but so what?” Deckert interjected.

  “So it’s something that has bothered me ever
since the second murder, but I could never really put my finger on it.” I continued, “I’ve never felt any residual energy from the crime scenes. I know that means nothing to you, but to me it’s important. I’ve just been assuming that I was missing something, and now I’m sure that I was.”

  “I still don’t follow.”

  “The refinement in the ceremony with each murder. This has all been one big rehearsal for the final ceremony. This was the dress rehearsal. The next time it’s going to be for real.”

  “That still doesn’t tell us anything,” Deckert returned. “It just means that the asshole is going to kill again. That is, unless you’re trying to tell us you actually believe he’s going to summon up a demon or something.”

  “That’s entirely beside the point,” I returned. “I’d rather he never get a chance to even try. All of this DOES mean something though. It tells us WHEN, and in a certain respect, WHO he’s going to kill next. That’s what I’ve been missing.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Based on some of the things I dug up when I researched ritual sacrifices.” I continued, “If I’m on the same page he is, and I’m pretty sure I am, he’ll plan to perform the ritual on a full moon.”

  “Anyone got a calendar?” Ben called out. “When is the next full moon?”

  “This Friday,” I told them before anyone else could respond.

  “Okay, so that’s the when.” Ben looked at me expectantly. “What about the who?”

  I bit back a rush of bile in my throat at the thought, then quietly uttered the answer, “He’ll believe he needs a virgin.”

  “A virgin?” Deckert posed, “How the hell is he going to know if the victim is a virgin?”

  “A kid,” Ben answered him flatly, still holding my gaze.

  “A kid?!” Deckert exclaimed. “Holy fucking shit, you can’t be serious!”

  “Tell me I misunderstood, Rowan,” Ben appealed, eyes still fixed on mine. “Please.”

  I couldn’t.

  I just looked away.

  * * * * *

  There was a note waiting for me when Ben dropped me back at home later that morning. Felicity had already left for a photo shoot she had scheduled, and she was letting me know that she would be home later in the afternoon. I showered and changed clothes while the coffeepot performed its prescribed duty. After grabbing a cup and filling a thermal carafe with the resulting brew, I settled in at my desk upstairs.

  I hoped that doing some work would take my mind off the events of the past days and allow me at least some small period of rest. Much to my chagrin, I found the reason behind why the previous week had been so grueling. I was entirely caught up. No unanswered support calls. No clients needing upgrades or modifications. I had nothing to do.

  I was just preparing to call it quits when I noticed the yellow pickup slip in my box. It had been lying there since Saturday afternoon, completely forgotten. The odds were that the package was a software backup from a client needing a minor modification or a database recovery; either of which would only amount to an hour or so worth of work. In any event, it was better than nothing, so I snatched up the canary ticket and made the short drive to the post office and back.

  As expected, the small package contained a tape cartridge full of data. The included trouble sheet indicated that the database was corrupt and needed to be recovered, which was one of the contract services I provided to my clients. I quickly scanned over the trouble sheet to see if there was any more information and noted that this particular client was located in Seattle, Washington. I was just preparing to slip the cartridge into my computer’s tape drive when the hair rose on the back of my neck.

  “It always rains here,” Ariel’s voice rings through my head. “It’s mostly just a misty rain.”

  Rain.

  Constant misty rain.

  Seattle, Washington.

  The second of my nightmares suddenly made sense as the electrochemical reaction within my brain generated the connection. It almost always rained in Seattle. I remembered that from a magazine photo layout Felicity had done about the Seattle Bumbershoot Festival. A festival to celebrate the rain. Work was once again forgotten as I seized the phone and stabbed out Ben’s cellular number on the keypad.

  His voice came after the second ring, “Hello?”

  “Ben, it’s Rowan.”

  “Hey,” he replied, “I was just gonna call you. You’ll be happy to know that the D.A. decided to hold off on filin’ charges against R.J. pendin’ further investigation.”

  “That’s great,” I answered quickly, “but that’s not why I called.”

  “What’s up?”

  “I know I’m going to sound crazy again,” I started. “But I’m calling about another vision I had.”

  “When? Just now?” he asked.

  “No, a couple of nights ago,” I continued. “I’ve been having them almost every night since I got involved in this whole thing. They just haven’t necessarily made sense until now.”

  “So what is it?” he pressed anxiously. “Did you see another murder? The kid?”

  “No, not yet.” I hoped we could make that yet into a never. “I’m pretty sure this one is a clue about the killer’s identity, but I don’t quite know what to make of it.”

  “Well spit it out man,” he urged. “What is it?”

  “Seattle,” I told him. “Seattle or the Pacific Northwest. I think that’s where he’s from or something.”

  I could hear him scribbling notes in his book. Less than half a dozen hours ago, he had considered me a lunatic and possibly even a murderer. Now he was accepting what I said on blind faith. He wasn’t taking any chances.

  “What makes you think Seattle?” he asked.

  “Rain,” I told him simply and then explained it. “It almost always rains in Seattle. In the vision, I saw Ariel and she told me that it was always raining. I think she’s trying to tell me who the killer is or where he’s from at least.”

  “Okay. I’ll check NCIC and call Seattle PD to see if they have any cases similar to ours, open or closed. You got anything else I should know about?”

  “I’ve had two other visions, but nothing has clicked yet... except maybe money.”

  “Money?” he asked in a perplexed tone.

  “It doesn’t make sense to me either but then neither did the rain until just a few minutes ago.”

  “No problem. I’ll start makin’ some calls, and I’ll get in touch with ya’ as soon as I know somethin’. If anything else falls into place for ya’, call me right away.”

  “I will. Talk to you later. Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  I gently settled the handset back into its holder, silently grateful that Ben had been willing to believe me this time. I only wished that a young woman hadn’t had to die in order to open his eyes. But then, that wasn’t his fault.

  I really didn’t feel like working anymore, but my clients weren’t paying me to track down serial killers; they were paying me to fix their computer software. I turned back to the small tape cartridge and spent the next hour and forty-five minutes earning my living.

  * * * * *

  It was almost three hours before I heard anything from Ben, and instead of calling, he and Detective Deckert simply appeared at my house. The pendulum clock had just issued an audible announcement of the time, telling me that it was 1:00 in the afternoon when I answered the doorbell.

  “What’s for lunch?” Ben said to me as I swung open the front door.

  “I was just nuking some lasagna,” I answered.

  “That’ll work.”

  The dogs scrambled about, nosing one another out of the way in a contest for the attentions of the two visitors. I sent them out the back door as Ben and Deckert seated themselves at the kitchen table.

  “Where’s Firehair?” Ben asked, lounging back in his chair.

  “Working. She had a shoot for some department store scheduled today.”

  “Shouldn’t she be restin’ or somethin�
��?”

  “How long have you known Felicity, Ben?” I returned.

  “Yeah. You’re right. Forget I ever asked that.”

  “So, I’m assuming you didn’t just come by for lunch,” I told them while preparing the dish of pasta.

  “You assume correctly,” Ben returned, “but I still wanna eat.”

  “I’m working on that,” I answered and looked over at Deckert who gave me an animated shrug.

  “Well, it appears that you’re two for two on this nightmare thing,” Ben started. “We hit paydirt with the Seattle PD. They’ve got an open case that bears a striking resemblance to our four. Especially Ariel Tanner.”

  “Coed at the University of Washington, Seattle.” Deckert picked up the thread. “Found dead in her dorm room. She had been skinned in a similar fashion to the Tanner woman, but the autopsy revealed that she was probably already dead due to respiratory arrest.”

  “He overdosed her on the curare,” I mused.

  “Kinda,” he replied. “Toxicology showed the dose to be too low to have caused respiratory arrest in your average person. Seems this young lady was unlucky enough to be a member of the small percentage of people who are hypersensitive to the drug.”

  “Considering what she would have had to endure otherwise,” I observed, “I’m not sure I would call her unlucky in that respect.”

  “Yeah,” he grunted, “I see what you mean.”

  “The mirror in the room was shattered, and there was a Pentacle inscribed on the wall along with the words ‘All Is Forgiven,’” Ben added. “Not to mention that the door was propped open. Sound familiar?”

  “More than just a little,” I answered. “But shouldn’t it have shown up earlier? I thought this was what things like NCIC and VICAP were all about.”

  “They are,” he affirmed. “Clerical error. The case was never entered into the database.”

  “Lovely… Well, did they turn up any leads?” I queried. “Fingerprints? Anything?”

  “No prints,” Deckert answered. “According to their forensics lab, the size and shape of the incisions were consistent with those of a scalpel or a similar cutting implement.”