“It’s fine,” I lied. “I’m just not real hungry right now.”
“So…” He paused for a moment and guzzled cola from a thirty-two ounce plastic cup before continuing, “You’re pretty sure this nutcase is gonna keep killin’?”
“Yes. If he’s following the mentality of the inquisitors, I would guess that he sees himself as apostolic. He probably believes that his actions are being directed by God.”
“Don’t tell me God’s talkin’ ta’ this wingnut through his electric razor or somethin’.”
“I don’t know, Ben.” I said. “If you’re looking for an accurate and expert psychological assessment, then I’m not the one you need to be speaking to. You know that. I can help you with the historical aspects, and if I visualize something up here...” I tapped my forehead with my index finger. “But other than that…”
“You think I need ta’ call the Feebs, don’tcha?”
“If you want a profile of him.” I confirmed his comment with a nod then added, “Look, I know you have a problem with the FBI getting involved, but you’ve got a pretty good working relationship with Constance Mandalay in the local field office. She’s pretty open-minded and you know it.”
“Yeah,” he grunted. “She’s workable. I just don’t wanna get stuck with another one of those know-it-alls with an Ivy League sheepskin an’ a big fat zero in the experience department. I don’t need that kinda aggravation when somethin’ like this is goin’ on.”
“So request her specifically.”
“I s’pose I could get ‘er involved unofficially and see where it goes. If the Feebs end up knee deep in it then...”
Ben’s vocal musing was bitten off cleanly by the shrill cry of his pager as it demanded immediate attention. He thumbed the button to silence the device and peered at the liquid crystal display with a thin-lipped frown.
“Office,” he proclaimed as he proceeded to slip the beeper back on to his belt, only to have it begin blaring loudly once more. Extracting the screaming palm full of electronic components, he glanced at its face with sharp disgust before returning it to his side once again. “Jeezus… Fuckin’…It’s the goddamned office again.”
Ben reached around the back of his chair and into the folds of his coat. After a moment of wrestling with the flap on the pocket, he withdrew a hand-held cell phone and pressed the power switch. The compact apparatus looked like a child’s toy in his massive hand. The moment the ready tone announced the phone’s status, he stabbed out the department number from memory and then held it to his ear.
“Yeah, it’s Storm,” he said after a short wait. “I was paged.”
He paused for another moment, apparently holding to be transferred to the individual who had done the paging. I decided I was finished with my lunch and pushed the plate of gelatinized gravy and cold vegetables to the side then began molesting my itchy forearm in a distracted fashion.
“Yeah. I’m at lunch. What’s up?” Ben finally spoke into the cell phone once again.
I watched him as he listened to the voice at the other end. Slowly, his face took on an expression of deep concentration, and his free hand went to the back of his neck and began automatically massaging.
“Yeah... Yeah... Uh-huh,” he grunted. “Hold on a sec...”
He switched the phone to his other ear and fumbled for his notebook. The struggle ended quickly, and he flipped the pad open on the surface of the table then snapped the button on his ink pen. Resting one elbow on the notepad to hold it in place, he looked like a contorted giant trying to use miniature replicas of everyday items.
“Okay, go ahead... Yeah... Uh-huh... Yeah, I know ‘im…” He scribbled furiously, stopping only briefly as breaks in the information coming to him warranted. “Sure. We worked together a few months back.”
Ben scrawled a line on the paper and accented it with a double underline then motioned for me to have a look. The blue ink scribble read “Carl Deckert.”
Detective Carl Deckert worked for the county police department. We had met during the last case I worked when he had been assigned to the Major Case Squad, Saint Louis’ version of a violent crime task force. The MCS was formed as a collective of municipal police departments, all supplying manpower whenever a particularly heinous or high profile case came along. That case would then receive the highest priority and the undivided attention of the officers assigned. The intention was for the squad to be a trump card, activated only when absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, these days, they seemed to spend more time active than not.
“Yeah... What’s the name of the place again? Uh-huh... Uh-huh... Got it.” Ben flipped to a fresh page and returned to scribbling. “Yeah, I took ‘im down ta’ the morgue a little while ago.” He pointed at me, verifying for me that I was the him to whom he was referring. “He identified the symbol and he’s got a theory. It ain’t a good one, but I’m guessin’ you already figured that out. Yeah, he’s with me right now... I dunno, hold on....”
He cupped his free hand over the mouthpiece and turned his attention completely on me.
“Jonsey says the chief wants ta’ know if you’re free ta’ go check out another crime scene.”
“When?” I asked.
“Now.”
I mulled it over for a moment. I had at least two clients waiting for updates on their software, and I had to customize it specifically for them. Fortunately, owning my own consulting firm and working from home allowed flexibility in my schedule. It didn’t take me long to decide that I could spend a few hours working in the evening to catch up.
“Sure. No problem.”
“He’s okay with it,” Ben said as he resumed speaking into the phone. “Yeah... No problem. We’re on our way.”
He remained silent after switching off the device and stowing it in his coat, then he gathered up the notebook. His grim countenance was almost enough to verify what I already suspected.
“He killed someone else, didn’t he?” I asked, following Ben’s example and shrugging into my coat.
“That’s gonna be your call,” he responded. “But yeah, looks like it. Meadowbrook Park out in the county. Carl Deckert’s waitin’ for us.”
“How was the victim killed?” I pressed.
“Not sure ‘bout that, but the body was burned,” he answered. “The vic was found tied to a piece of a telephone pole in one a’ the pavilion fire pits where it’d been torched.”
The itching sensation on my forearm had now mutated into a knife-edged pain.
CHAPTER 5
Ask any number of people on the street, and they will tell you that they abhor violence and crime. Then ask those people how they feel about rubbernecking sightseers who slow down to gawk at automobile accidents, and they will tell you that they despise them. They will tell you that such individuals are sick and twisted. They will tell you that such individuals are morbid and in need of psychiatric help.
Now, using the very same people you’ve been questioning, throw in yellow crime scene tape, flashing lights, police cars and a dead body. Mix well.
Suddenly the morbid becomes the curiosity and they, along with scores like them, will flock to the perimeter in order to catch the tiniest glimpse of what the commotion is all about. Meadowbrook Park was filled with those people today.
Normally, the paved road through the park would remain untouched during the winter; there was no reason to waste taxpayers’ money plowing a street that wouldn’t be traveled. Of course, when a murder scene planted itself in the middle of the snow-covered venue, the concept of normal became quickly obsolete.
Street crews had cut a double-wide swath from the park entrance to a point thirty or so yards past the easiest access point to the main pavilion, effectively clearing a small avenue to allow ingress and egress for the multitude of emergency vehicles present. Mounds of the wet winter precipitation were piled unceremoniously in the center of the road exactly where the plows had left them, and there they would stay until removed slowly by the process of thaw.
Wide strips of bright yellow plastic tape—repetitiously imprinted CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS—were strung between pillars and trees, forming an official barrier against the spectators and the unauthorized. Mother Nature dispassionately ignored the carefully erected boundary, sending icy gusts of wind to tear angrily at the tape and to blow swirling white devils of crystalline snowflakes throughout the pavilion.
Nearby, arctic-suited maintenance workers were laboring with shovels to dig out the first vehicles that had arrived on the scene. Small levees of snow had been piled to their rear bumpers by the passing plow. Ben and I buttoned up then climbed from the warmth of the van into the frigid winter afternoon. The sky was still marbled splotchy grey, and the second round of the predicted snowfall was barreling down upon us from the northwest. Even at this distance, along the frosty backbone of the crisp air, I could detect the sickly sweet odor of scorched flesh. I knew it would only get worse as we drew nearer.
I had to remove my thick glove in order to sign the homicide scene log before entering the area. I was just dragging it back onto my frozen hand when I heard my and Ben’s name called out across the snow-whitened landscape.
Detective Carl Deckert was a fiftyish, portly, grey-haired man possessing at once a boyish charm and a grandfatherly demeanor. He had been the only member of the Major Case Squad, aside from Ben, to accept me when I was first brought in as a consultant on Ariel Tanner’s murder all those months ago. It didn’t take long for us to form a strong friendship. He was trundling toward us now, bundled in a heavy topcoat with a matching scarf. A brown fedora sat perched atop his head, threatening to take wing on the chilly gusts. His nose and ears glowed red from the early stages of mild frostbite, giving an immediate visual indication of how long he’d already been out here.
“Ben! Rowan!” He greeted us again as he drew closer and thrust out his gloved hand. “Sorry I called you guys out in this mess, but I gotta tell ya’, I’m sure glad you’re here.”
“Hello, Carl.” I shook his hand heartily. “Good to see you too, though I wish it were under different circumstances.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Carl.” Ben followed suit, shaking his hand as we continued walking. “So, whaddaya have here?”
Carl reached up to press his hat back down as a prickly sideways surge of wind sought to rip it from his head. He proceeded to fill us in as we headed briskly for the negligible shelter of the picnic pavilion.
“Near as the coroner can tell from what’s left, it looks like we’re dealin’ with a female. Looks to be about five-six, five-seven and pretty well developed, so we’re most likely talkin’ adult. She was secured with chains and a padlock to what appears might have been a piece of a telephone pole.”
The acrid stink of burnt flesh mingled with the putrid smells of urine, feces, and vomit to form a sickeningly malodorous potpourri. Every step closer to the scene intensified the stench by yet another factor.
“We didn’t get a call on this till a couple’a hours ago,” Carl said, still continuing with his rundown. “But judgin’ from the pile of ashes and the amount of damage to the body, we’re guessin’ she was torched sometime after midnight. Probably real early this morning.”
“I suppose it’d be too much to hope for a witness,” Ben spat the rhetorical comment as we rounded a wide stone pillar and came face to face with the unbridled horror.
Shriveled black patches of skin and cooked flesh were drawn tight over the gnarled skeleton held partially erect in the fire pit. The jaw of the charred skull locked open in a silent, agonized scream, hideously baring blackened teeth where the softer, unsupported flesh had been completely seared away. Surprisingly, more than enough of the torso remained intact to show with relative certainty that the corpse was in fact that of a woman.
“Jeezus...” Ben exclaimed, unable to pry his stare from the disfigured remains.
“Coroner wanted to take her on in,” Carl offered, “but I wanted to wait until you got here.”
Though an autopsy was yet to be performed, I knew that she had been alive when the fire was ignited around her. In my mind, I could see the flames licking up her body, first blistering her skin and then consuming it with an appetite unmatched by a starving animal. The fire enveloped her, searing her nose as she fought not to breathe, only to then be sucked deep into her lungs when she could no longer hold her breath. She wanted to cry out. To scream. But she couldn’t. She had been gagged.
The barrier had eventually burned away, but by then it was too late. I could sense without a doubt that she had been aware of her fate to the very end.
Color and light began to drain from the scene around me in a glittering whirlpool, and I knew I was being pulled into a place I didn’t dare go. Without even trying I was about to channel her last moments on this physical plane. Consciously, I knew that without a solid anchor to pull me back, this was one I could not survive.
Steeling myself against the onslaught of desperate emotions and excruciating unearthly pain, I latched myself onto the nearest thing I could find.
“Rowan!” Ben yelped, finally breaking his stare as I grasped his arm and stumbled forward. He took hold of my shoulders and steadied me before I could plunge face first onto the concrete.
Standing on the opposite side, Carl came to my aid as well. “Hey, Row, are you all right?”
“Thanks...” I muttered to them both as I shakily regained my balance. “Sorry about that.”
“You were goin’ all Twilight Zone, weren’t ya’?” Ben asked. I’m sure that having witnessed similar episodes before he knew the signs all too well.
“Yeah,” I sighed. “But I think I caught it in time.”
“You sure you’re okay?” Carl interjected in his usual fatherly tone.
“I’ll be fine.”
“I hate ta’ ask,” Ben queried in an apologetic tone, “but ya’ didn’t happen to see the asshole who did it when you went... Well, went wherever it is ya’ go when ya’ do that.”
“No. I wish I had.”
The flesh rending pain that had started as a simple itch on my forearm was eating at me with a vengeance. I could feel my eyes watering as I fought to suppress tears.
“Did you find a Bible anywhere on the scene?” I queried Detective Deckert while attempting to ignore the torment.
“No. No Bible.” He shook his head. “But funny you should mention that.”
“Why?”
“Well,” Carl ventured and extended his arm, pointing toward the corpse. “The real reason I called was the symbols.”
My eyes followed his finger down to the stone base of the fire pit. There, skillfully drawn in matte black spray-paint, was the Christian symbol that had become painfully familiar over the past few hours. The Monogram of Christ.
“Fuck me,” Ben muttered.
“Excuse me?” Carl looked at him curiously.
Ben shook his head. “Sorry… Just that we got one just like it carved into a dead call-girl in the city morgue.”
“You found Christ’s Monogram at another murder scene?” Carl asked incredulously.
Ben cocked his head to the side and gave Deckert a sideways look. “You know what it is?”
“Yeah. I’ve seen it before.” Carl nodded. “Not a lot, but I remember it from church when I was a kid.”
“You said symbols,” I interjected the question between stabs of blinding pain. “Plural.”
“Yeah,” Deckert answered with a nod. “The other one is layin’ on the ledge of the fire pit. It’s one of those Pentacle necklaces. That’s kinda why I wanted to get your opin
ion.”
By now I could take no more. It felt as if someone were driving a white-hot blade mercilessly into my flesh.
“I told ya’ you shoulda had the doc look at that, white man,” Ben chided, noticing my attention to the appendage.
“Somethin’ wrong with your arm?” Carl asked, genuine concern wrinkling his face.
“I don’t know. It started itching when we were at the morgue,” I grimaced against another bolt of pain as I answered. “Now it’s killing me.”
I peeled off the glove and unzipped my coat. The cold no longer mattered at this point. I had to see what could possibly be exacting such pain upon my arm. I knew that I hadn’t injured it, and there had been nothing wrong until Ben had taken me to the morgue. I couldn’t imagine that I had touched something and not noticed doing it. Besides, I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt.
Carefully I slid my throbbing arm from the thick coat. It had begun to feel sticky and wet, and upon seeing it the answer became obvious. Blood had soaked through the fabric of my shirt along the forearm and matted it to my skin.
“Shit, man, you’re bleeding!” Ben intoned.
Unbuttoning the cuff and gingerly rolling up the sleeve, I revealed the source of the crimson flow. My flesh was bruised purple and black, looking for all the world as if I had been beaten. Off-centered, in the mass of dark contusions, blood oozed freely. Carved deeply into my skin was a circle, decorated with hash marks along the side arcs and encompassing a large letter X that was bisected by a large letter P.
Carl Deckert was the first to break the silence as he softly muttered under his breath, “Holy Jesus, Mary Mother of God.”
* * * * *
Even with the intense pain radiating up my arm, I still felt that Ben’s reaction was overkill. Despite my reservations, I had been instantly hustled into a county police cruiser and taken to the nearest emergency room. Inescapable, as well, were the full benefits of a warbling siren and rapidly flickering light bar. When all was said and done, the trip to and from the local medical center had taken less time than the treatment itself. Of course, as if I didn’t have enough to think about, the lengthiest portion of my stay in the E.R. was the period spent trying to convince the doctor of two basic things. One, that, no, I did not purposely carve the design into my own arm. And two, no, I did not need a psychological consultation because, I repeat, I did not purposely carve the design into my own arm. Since I knew they wouldn’t believe the truth, and I had been unable to concoct a convincing lie, I was unable to give them a reasonable explanation for the injury. In the interest of time, and my own sanity, I was finally forced to assure them that I would seek help for what they had deemed to be an “unhealthy proclivity toward self-mutilation.”
Never Burn A Witch: A Rowan Gant Investigation Page 6