Never Burn A Witch: A Rowan Gant Investigation

by M. R. Sellars

  Ben let out a blatant, teasing wolf-whistle as he stopped and did a double take. “Whoa, the Feeb’s wearin’ girl clothes! Nice legs, Mandalay.”

  “Watch it, Storm, or I’ll call your wife!” she warned jokingly.

  “I’ll risk it, ‘cause I’m just dyin’ ta’ know where you’re hidin’ your Sig in that getup,” he returned with a grin, referring to her sidearm.

  “I’m afraid that’s a government secret,” she quipped then smiled over at me. “Hi, Rowan. I see he’s got you involved in this one up to your eyeballs.”

  “Heya, Constance,” I acknowledged. “I thought you were on some kind of security assignment?”

  “Visiting dignitary,” she said, as she nodded and held the front of her overcoat open wide for a brief moment. “Just finished working the farewell party. A real Yawwwn if you know what I mean.” With a quick nod she canted her head toward me. “What’s your excuse?”

  “Felicity’s grandparent’s anniversary party.”

  “Watchin’ after a vip, huh,” Ben snorted the acronym as a word instead of spelling it out. “I would’a figured that for a Secret Service gig.”

  “Normally it would be,” she answered with a sigh. “It’s a long story. Suffice it to say he’s gone, and I’m all yours now. Would you like to bring me up to speed? All I know is what you told Agent Bartlett and what’s been on the news. The only reason I knew you would be here is that I returned your call figuring I’d leave a voice mail and got a live person instead.”

  Someone loudly cleared his throat nearby. Ben held up a finger to Constance and turned to the evidence technician. “Yeah, what’s up?”

  “We’re all finished out here,” he said. “It’s all yours.”

  “Get anything?” my friend asked.

  “A few smudges on the sliding door. Nothing of any consequence. There’s a Bible out there, King James Version. Hardback, like you’d find in just about any bookstore. It’s bagged.”

  “Was it marked in any way?” I questioned while pawing at the insistent itch on my forearm.

  “Yeah,” the tech said with a nod as he referenced a sheaf of papers attached to a worn clipboard. “Plain Jane cardboard bookmark. Looks like a standard yellow hi-liter was used on a passage in the book of First Samuel. Chapter fifteen, verse twenty-three. For rebellion is...”

  I interrupted and finished the passage for him. “...As the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.”

  “Yeah. That’s it,” he acknowledged, the paused and nodded toward my absently clawing hand. “Something wrong with your arm?”

  “Trust me,” I answered. “You don’t really want to know.”

  “Anything else?” Ben queried, cutting him off before he could comment.

  “Well, the rope looks like regular utility clothesline you can get at any hardware store. We’re gonna check it out. The symbol on the door was spray-painted. We took samples. That’s about it.”

  “Okay, thanks.” Ben gave the tech a quick pat on the shoulder. “Do me a favor, will ya? Check downstairs and see if the coroner is here yet. I wanna get this body moved as soon as possible. The uniforms can’t hold off those reporters down there for much longer, and we really don’t need ‘er showin’ up on the ten o’clock news.”

  “Will do.”

  “Thanks.”

  The technicians were barely out the door when Ben turned to me with a concerned gaze. “What’s goin’ on with the arm? I thought it was all healed up.”

  “It was,” I answered and began tugging off my coat. “But it started itching again earlier this evening.”

  “Why do ya’ think that is?”

  “Well, obviously I’m being told something. Maybe I was being warned about this murder.”

  “Ahem.” Constance mimicked the earlier noise made by the tech to grab our attention. “You guys want to fill me in? What’s wrong with your arm, Rowan?”

  “Show ‘er, white man,” Ben told me.

  He held my coat and jacket for me after I wrestled out of them, and I proceeded to unbutton my cuff and roll back the shirtsleeve. There was no blood soaking through the fabric, so it apparently had not yet progressed as far as it had the last time.

  Agent Mandalay stepped closer to have a look as I finished peeling back the material and turned my forearm upward to bring it into view. The faint pink scar of the original wound was barely visible as a pale outline against my brightly flushed skin. The flesh of my forearm was hot and already beginning to take on shades of purple and blue as the unseen force bruised me. On the surface of my arm was a raised circular welt encompassing a large X bisected by a large P.

  “Christ, Rowan!” Constance exclaimed as she reached out and gingerly touched my arm. “How in the world did that happen?”

  “You shoulda seen the first one,” Ben interjected.

  “I think it’s a sign from the other side,” I told her as I reached up and started to dig my nails in for a blissful scratch.

  “Don’t,” she admonished and grabbed my wrist. “You’ll just make it worse. What do you mean a sign from the other side? I thought you saw things in visions or something?”

  “I do,” I explained. “But communication from an ethereal plane can take different forms. I think someone is trying to tell me something, and I just haven’t figured out what, so they are getting a little insistent.”

  “Damn, Rowan,” she muttered. “You’re like something out of a horror movie.”

  The door to the balcony was still hanging wide open, and the temperature inside the room was spiraling toward equilibrium with the frigid night. Outside, a thumping echo sounded rhythmically in the distance. I realized as we were standing there that I was beginning to shiver.

  “Guys,” I said between teeth that were starting to chatter. “It’s getting a little on the chilly side. Mind if I put my coat back on?”

  “Wait a minute,” Ben insisted. “Look at your arm again. Does it look a little strange to you?”

  “I think that’s already been established, Storm,” Constance told him in a sardonic voice.

  “No, I mean look at the symbol,” he huffed in exasperation and directed our gaze with his finger. “It’s like a twin image or somethin’.”

  “Twin image?” I asked.

  I was so intent on what Ben was trying to point out that I scarcely noticed that the reverberating clamor outside had grown louder.

  “You ever seen a coin that’s been double-struck?” he asked. “Like that. One image overlappin’ the other.”

  “He’s right,” Constance agreed. “Look.”

  Upon closer inspection, I could see exactly what Ben was trying to say. The welts that formed the itching Monogram of Christ on my arm were offset slightly over another similar set. The blemish was carefully enjoined to scribe two circles encompassing a matched pair of X’s bisected by P’s.

  “Whaddaya think that’s s’posed ta’ mean?” Ben queried.

  I didn’t get a chance to answer him. Just as I opened my mouth to speak, a violent rush of wind and icy snow blasted through the open sliding door. Outside, amid a thunderous din, the light of a small sun was born into the chilled darkness.

  CHAPTER 12

  “Sonofabitch! Goddammit!” Ben exclaimed at the top of his lungs. “That’s gotta be Street!”

  Special Agent Mandalay and I could barely hear him over the cacophonous racket of the news helicopter hovering a frighteningly short distance from the balcony. We were all half-blinded by both the screaming wind and blazing spotlight, and I knew he could no more see into the aircraft than I could. However, if the Eyewitness News logo emblazoned across the side of the Bell JetRanger was any indication of the machine’s occupants, his intuitive guess was most likely correct.

  I scooped up my coat from where he had allowed it to drop and quickly pulled it on as I made my way to the door. Ben had already barreled through the opening wi
th Constance close on his heels and was now fighting to hold down the sheet that had earlier been placed over the still hanging corpse. By the time I pushed myself out onto the balcony to help him, Agent Mandalay was stiffly holding her ID forward in plain view and making angry motions with her free arm—vigorously indicating without any ambiguity whatsoever that the aircraft was to leave immediately if not sooner. The hostile bite of the manmade gale tore through my unzipped coat and buffeted the three of us wildly as it continued kicking up a cloud of snow from the overhanging watershed dormers. The intense spotlight burned across the balcony in a harsh antiseptic beam, starkly illuminating everything in sight, even the shadows. I was forced to squint and turn my head away from the glare while fighting to keep my side of the sheet pulled taut through the wrought iron railing.

  By now, the raucous event had attracted one of the uniformed officers that had been guarding the door to the apartment, and he burst out onto the balcony.

  “Get on the goddamned radio and call it in!” Ben screamed back at him over the maelstrom. “I want everyone on that chopper in handcuffs the minute it touches down!”

  The officer gave him an animated nod to the affirmative and shot back through the door. A frigid zephyr suddenly tore upward and billowed out the sheet, threatening to rend it from my grasp. I hunched down and entwined my fist in the fabric, holding on so tight I could feel my fingernails biting into my palm.

  “GET OUT OF HERE NOW!” Agent Mandalay’s shrill demand sliced through the cacophonous thudding to reach my ears as she continued to wave her free arm furiously.

  Obviously, there was no way the pilot could have heard her command, but it was at this moment, he apparently elected to obey her pointed gesticulations. Either that, or someone elsewhere had told him it was time to go.

  The brilliant spotlight suddenly switched off, and the pitch of the hovering craft’s engine rose with a rapidly increasing whine. Still seeing multi-colored spots before my eyes, I watched as the helicopter smoothly nosed forward then canted to the side and sped off and upward across the thickly clouded night sky.

  I slowly began relaxing my grip on the sheet as I watched the winking, red and blue anti-collision lights of the craft shrink in the distance. My friend was staring after it as well, his face grim and temper seething. His heated glare was a textbook example of looks that could kill, and I was more than relieved that it wasn’t aimed in my direction.

  “DAMMIT!” Ben exclaimed and hammered the heel of his fist against the top of the iron railing in a frustrated release of anger. “I just don’t believe that bitch!”

  Constance was standing next to me on the other side, and I noticed that she had traded her badge for her cell phone. She held the device pressed tightly against her ear as she pushed her ruined hairdo from her eyes with her free hand.

  “Yes, FAA?” she began speaking, “This is Special Agent Constance Mandalay with the FBI, Saint Louis field office. My badge number is nine-five-seven-four-dash-three-six-six. I need to speak with someone regarding an airspace violation...”

  * * * * *

  “I shouldn’t even hazard a guess at a time of death before I get an internal temperature,” Doctor Sanders informed Ben and Constance. “Not with her being exposed to the elements unprotected like that.”

  “I can understand that, Doc,” Ben returned, “but if you can ballpark it, I’d really appreciate it.”

  “Well,” she replied, “I can tell you this much. The wounds on her back and abdomen appear recent, and the bruising would indicate that she was alive when they were made. She’s definitely not completely frozen yet...”

  I was standing across the room next to the gurney containing the woman’s body. I followed along distractedly with the banter between the coroner and the two law enforcement officers. Hearing, but not really listening to what was being said.

  The sliding doors leading out to the balcony were now shut, and the temperature in the room was returning to something more bearable. While Doctor Sanders and her assistant were moving the corpse, I had mechanically removed my coat and unrolled my sleeve then slipped back into my tweed jacket.

  Ben had turned up the volume slightly on the television when the Saturday night movie had been interrupted for a breaking news update. Brandee Street, her cameraman, and the pilot had been arrested all right—but not before getting the morbid video into the station’s hands. Even through the overblown colors of the malfunctioning set, you could easily make out Ben, Constance and me on the balcony of the apartment. We had fought a desperate fight, but in the end the sheet had fluttered enough to give at least a partial view of the woman’s nude remains.

  We all stared silently at the picture as the talking heads behind the anchor desk identified us each in succession. It was all we could do to stifle disgusted sighs as they proceeded to tag us with a sensationalized nickname. A moniker that would unfortunately not only stick for some time to come but was also picked up immediately by every other station and newspaper in the bi-state area. We had been christened “The Ghoul Squad.”

  The welts on my arm had continued growing, and my flesh was dappled with the full spectrum of colors normally associated with bruises—and a few unrelated shades as well. The itching was growing fiercer by the moment, and each time I tried to tend it, I would wince at the soreness my fingers awakened. I knew it was only a matter of time before the welts would turn into bleeding lacerations. Whoever was trying to get my attention definitely had it. Apparently, I just didn’t comprehend the message.

  I stood, looking down at the shrouded body. The earlier emotions that had welled up inside me fought to return and I let them. I had never known this woman, but the sense of loss overwhelmed me as I stared mutely at her covered remains. My nose tingled with an acidic burn for a brief moment, and a single watery tear crawled from the corner of my eye to begin rolling across my wind-ravaged cheek.

  “...at my office.” Agent Mandalay was speaking now. “If there’s anything you need, I can get it rushed through the lab in Washington.”

  “I appreciate the offer,” Doctor Sanders replied. “I’ll be certain to call you if...”

  I ignored the snippet of the conversation that had intruded on my sorrowful introspection. While they continued to talk, I knelt next to the gurney and then carefully pulled back the sheet and tugged down the zipper on the body bag. Absently I reached over to claw at my savagely itching arm, and the stiletto of pain that shot up to my shoulder reminded me of why I hadn’t done it sooner. I flinched and pulled my hand away then continued to quietly stare at the young woman’s lifeless face.

  Sheryl Keeven’s strawberry-blonde hair was tousled about her head in a tangled halo, whipped there by the wind and elements. The thin poly-cotton cord was still snugged about her neck, visible against the blotchy contusions that surrounded it. I visually counted the loops in the slipknot. Then I counted them again. Both times the total ended in thirteen.

  A hangman’s noose.

  Her features were a grotesque mask of fear and pain, sculpted in life and frozen in death. Her eyes were locked open in an endless stare, showing the glassy, bloodshot whites where they had rolled upward. Gummy tape residue still surrounded her mouth. The wide swatch of silver duct tape that had once been there had eventually come loose but was still precariously attached by one small corner. The same kind of tape had been used to make several revolutions around her wrists. Her now exposed lips were parted to reveal the bulbous purple mass of her swollen tongue as it forced its way between them.

  She had asphyxiated.

  She had strangled to death while suspended by the neck with her arms bound behind her back. Hanging was simply another of the favored methods of execution used during the Inquisition. Its effectiveness had not waned over the years.

  I closed my eyes, and the scene flashed haphazardly through my mind. I could see her struggling.

  Fighting.

  Kicking.

  Wrestling to free her hands so that she could claw at the c
onstriction around her neck, until finally, the lack of oxygen to her brain won out, and she slipped into darkness.

  “I realize it’s the weekend but the sooner you can get the labs started the better,” Ben was saying in the background. “We’re still followin’ up the lead on the Roofies.”

  “I can have samples ready to go to the lab first thing Monday morning,” the coroner replied. “But other than that I...”

  Once again, I forced the distant conversation out of the forefront and focused entirely on the corpse in front of me. I knew how Sheryl Keeven died. I even knew the twisted reasoning behind why. What I now desperately wanted to know was who had killed her... And Kendra Miller... And Brianna Walker...

  But what I wanted most desperately of all was for him to stop.

  Without even thinking I reached out my latex gloved hand and laid my palm across her cold forehead. The connection that formed was as immediate and piercing as if I had just wrapped my hand about a frayed electrical cord. The jolt that followed exploded through my consciousness with blatant disregard for the here and now, ferociously replacing present with recent past.

  Pain.

  Why are you doing this to me?

  I can’t stop crying.

  The pain again.

  Please!

  Please stop stabbing me! Just take what you want and leave! Please!

  I cannot scream.

  There is tape across my mouth.

  I cannot see.

  Something dark covers my head.

  The pain again.

  “Sir?” the voice of the coroner’s assistant echoes in my skull. “Sir, what are you doing?”

  I am so cold.

  What is that hissing noise?

  Paint?

  I smell paint.

  “Sheryl Renae Keeven, in accordance with the thirty-third question, in as much as you stand accused of the heresy of WitchCraft by another of your kind, and as you have admitted these crimes and remain still impenitent, and that on this day evidence of your heresies has been found in this very dwelling...”