Never Burn A Witch: A Rowan Gant Investigation

by M. R. Sellars

  A crowd had been gathering out beyond the barrier tape and was still gaining mass as more gawkers straggled in. Die-hard thrill seekers that even the weather couldn’t deter from a feeding frenzy of morbid curiosity. Some of them were just as bad, if not worse, than the media hounds that were vying for position with them. This fact was unequivocally proven when our concentration on the scene was diverted by the clamorous sound of a verbal altercation and physical scuffle.

  Outside the fence a patrolman was shining his flashlight directly into the lens of a video camera that was being operated by an onlooker in the front of the crowd. The bright light effectively blinded the device, and the spectator began boisterously protesting the action.

  Another uniformed officer quickly joined the patrolman as he attempted to calm the man down; however, after a few moments of the complainant loudly misquoting constitutional amendments, it became obvious that they were fighting for a lost cause. Finally, the obnoxious individual was unceremoniously handcuffed and parked in the back seat of a squad car where he continued his now muffled vociferations.

  During the short commotion, the maintenance worker and crime scene unit technicians had managed to slightly more than double the size of the hole in the sheet of snow-covered ice. A diver clad in a dark wetsuit was now sitting on the edge of the pool nodding his head at a series of instructions he was receiving from the coroner who squatted next to him.

  After a moment, a sharp hiss of air blasted into the now quiet site as he tested his regulator then slipped the mouthpiece between his lips. In a smooth, practiced motion, he shifted and turned, lowering himself into the icy pool, then snapped on a powerful underwater lamp. Seconds later, he slid into the murky depths, leaving us to stare at a dimly glowing hole and an occasional burst of bubbles rising to the surface.

  “Man, that’s gotta be some cold ass water.” Ben whistled between his teeth and shot me a sideways glance. “You doin’ okay so far?”

  “I’m fine,” I nodded in assent.

  “No Twilight Zone or anything?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “You having those visions again, Rowan?” Deckert inquired.

  “Some,” I returned.

  “Some my ass,” Ben spat. “He scared the piss outta all of us at the last scene.”

  “What happened?”

  “Long story, man,” Ben shook his head. “You’d think I was nuts if I tried ta’ tell ya’.”

  “You had to be there, Carl,” Agent Mandalay offered in agreement. “There’s no way to explain it and keep it from sounding like some kind of fantastic tale.”

  “Well, we are talkin’ about Rowan here.” Deckert gave me a half-hearted, knowing grin.

  “Let’s just say that when we put two and two together, all of a sudden your call wasn’t much of a shock,” Ben explained.

  Deckert made the connection quickly and glanced from Ben and Constance to the pool, then to me. “So you mean you predicted this murder? You’ve done that sorta thing before. No big deal, right?”

  “I wouldn’t say predicted really. More like someone on the other side went out of their way to make sure I knew exactly what it felt like,” I answered then paused as the remembrance made me shudder. “In any event, it was a little too late to do anything about it I’m afraid.”

  “What it felt like?”

  “Drowning,” I explained.

  “You mean someone wanted you to know what it felt like to drown?”

  “Yeah,” Ben answered for me. “In a bone dry apartment, nowhere near water.”

  “So, how?” Deckert pressed.

  “Let’s just say my lungs are still a little damp,” I replied.

  He just looked at me and muttered, “Weird.”

  Agent Mandalay agreed softly, “That’s the word that came to my mind too.”

  A large burst of bubbles shot through the surface of the water on the other side of the pool, and the shiny neoprene-covered head of the diver poked through. A raspy exhale through the regulator hissed into the night as he clamped one hand on the side of the deck and removed the mouthpiece with the other. He spoke briefly with the coroner and senior evidence technician before finally nodding and sliding back beneath the surface, trailing a rope behind him.

  The tech looked up from the hole and glanced across the short expanse at Carl then gave a curt nod. The aging detective let out a steamy breath and announced quietly, “He found the body.”

  The talk of my recent otherworldly contact prompted me to recall the reason I was present at this crime scene to begin with. As much as I feared what I had to do, I knew I needed to get on with it. I realized fully that opening my senses to the surroundings would not necessarily bring useful information, though I dearly hoped that it would. I was patently aware, however, that it would most certainly bring a handcart full of painful emotions and Technicolor horror streaming directly into my very soul.

  The dim glow of the diver’s flashlight was starting to grow brighter, and small eruptions of expelled air bubbling up through the surface of the murky water were coming at increasingly regular intervals. The coroner’s assistant and a burly crime scene unit tech were steadily and carefully pulling on the rope that had been attached to the body.

  We stood watching the macabre scene unfold under the harsh glow of the halogen lights. Oblique blue shadows cut across the still forms of the officers on the other side of the pool giving a surreal appearance to their stoic faces. Each gurgle of bubbles that broke the surface of the water seemed to echo louder in my ears and reverberate through my body.

  Slowly my chest began feeling heavy, and I noticed my heart was rattling mercilessly against my ribs. Bitter fear surged upward from my bowels at the thought of once again feeling the water in my lungs. I was only seconds away from panic when the first of two cinder blocks appeared above the edge of the ice as they were dragged from the turbid depths. I exhaled heavily, and it instantly dawned on me that I was not reliving the drowning, as was my immediate suspicion. I had simply been holding my breath.

  The twinge of panic subsided, and I continued to watch across the expanse of smooth, crystalline snow to the gaping wound in the sheet of ice. I was amazed by how silent the scene had suddenly become. The only sounds to be heard were the rhythmic bubbling of the diver’s expelled air coupled with the wet scrapings of the two concrete weights rubbing against one another as they were wrestled from the hole. Even the multitudes of police radios riding on the hips of uniformed officers and in the hands of detectives seemed to have fallen unnaturally mute.

  I was concentrating so hard on what was before me that I scarcely realized my meticulously erected defenses had fallen of their own accord. I wasn’t even aware that my hand had crept over to begin tearing at a violent itch on my forearm.

  A tangle of blonde hair finally breached the surface of the water and was slowly followed by the nude body of a young woman being skillfully supported by the diver. From where I was positioned, I could easily see that her arms were bound tightly behind her and that the rope stretched down her back to encircle her ankles.

  As she was lifted out of her recent and final hell, and gently placed on an open body bag, profane sound once again returned to the night. The clamor of the camera crews, blaring police radios and murmurs of the gathered spectators began assaulting my ears as if they had never stopped.

  I understood then that the silence had never been real at all. It had merely been a product of my own deep-seated reverence for the passing of a life.

  “Female,” Carl mumbled sadly. “Looks like Ben and I were right.”

  The maintenance worker who had helped clear the snow and ice was now gesturing to the coroner and pointing beyond the fence. Even at this short distance, we were unable to make out for sure what was being said, but it appeared that he knew the victim.

  “I think they might have an ID or something,” Ben spoke. “I’m gonna go see what’s up. I’ll be right back.”

  I was completely unprepared as the sha
rp stab of light pierced my eyes and burned mercilessly into the back of my skull. Color fled from my surroundings in a whirling tempest of shattered psychedelic glass as the illumination bloomed again and then slowly subsided. Disjointed sounds crashed in distorted waves against my tortured eardrums, and fear drove a steely spike into my heart as the grainy black and white inhumanity played itself out in my mind.

  I am bound painfully.

  I cannot move.

  I can barely breath.

  Tape covers my mouth and I cannot cry for help.

  “Robert! Where are you? ROBERT, HELP ME!” My scream is trapped between my teeth, only to be swallowed in a bitter lump.

  This can’t be happening.

  No! This can’t be happening!

  Who are you?

  Why are you doing this to me?

  What have you done to Robert?

  “ROBERT!!!”

  There is a voice speaking to me.

  It is the one who asked me the questions.

  The one who hurt me.

  “Christine Liann Webster, 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 refused to admit these crimes, remaining still impenitent, and that on this day evidence of your heresies has been found...”

  Evidence?

  What evidence?

  What are you talking about? WitchCraft? I don’t understand.

  I am freezing.

  Why did he bring me out here in the snow?

  Why are we next to the pool?

  What is that noise?

  What is he doing?

  “ROBERT, HELP ME!!”

  “...In as much as you have been found guilty, and that you are damned in body and soul, you are hereby sentenced on this day to death. To be executed immediately and without appeal in the manner of drowning. May the Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on your soul.”

  “...Is Christine Webster,” Ben’s voice muscled its way into my ears, forcing me back to reality. “Maintenance guy over there ID’ed her. Apparently, she lived in a condo about half a block up this street. Got a coupla uniforms checkin’ it out.”

  “Robert,” I muttered.

  “Excuse me?” Agent Mandalay questioned.

  “Robert,” I repeated. “She kept trying to cry out for Robert to come help her.”

  A jagged shard of agony tore through the flesh on my forearm and felt as though it scraped against bone. I sensed its sickening message deep in the pit of my stomach, and all I could do was issue a tired sigh because I hated the fact that I had become so accustomed to violent death.

  My head was starting to ache, and I closed my eyes for a moment.

  “Dammit, Rowan! Whaddid I tell you?” Ben admonished.

  “It just happened, Ben,” I barked back as I rubbed my throbbing temples. “I didn’t have any control over it. Besides, it’s what I’m here for, right?”

  “Jeezus... Okay... Shit...” he stuttered for a moment, and then decided to make the best of the situation. “Well, any idea who this Robert is?”

  “A husband. A boyfriend. I don’t know.” I shook my head as I opened my eyes and began to carefully peel off my glove. My bare hand revealed a smear of blood across its back, now spreading from beneath my coat sleeve. “But, unfortunately, it looks like we were all correct because I’m certain that he’s victim number five.”

  My comment was punctuated by a nearby patrolman’s radio as it crackled and spewed forth a dispassionate voice from its tinny speaker, “Yeah, this is Ross. You want to advise Detectives Storm and Deckert that we have another body up here...”

  CHAPTER 14

  “His wristwatch stopped when the face was shattered,” Doctor Sanders told us over her shoulder. She was kneeling next to the latest victim and carefully affixing bags over his hands to preserve any possible evidence. Mundane things such as hair follicles or even a shard of the killer’s skin beneath his fingernails could be crucial in the investigation. “Assuming death occurred sometime during the struggle, which is a pretty safe bet, I would place the T.O.D. on or around eleven-forty this evening, give or take.” She peered over the rim of her glasses at her own timepiece and made a note on her clipboard. “That’s just a little over two hours ago which is also consistent with his liver temp.”

  “We just missed him,” I breathed sadly.

  The harried Saint Louis city chief medical examiner had arrived shortly after the young woman’s corpse had been pulled from the depths of the swimming pool. Her counterpart from the county jurisdiction had seen to the care and transport of that body leaving Doctor Sanders free to do the same for Sheryl Keeven. This now being the third murder in one evening, she had scarcely had time to see to the delivery of those remains to the morgue before heading out for this scene. In the somewhat crowded condominium, I couldn’t help but overhear a veteran detective from the local municipality speaking to another uniformed officer. With a respectful, somber tone, he referred to the almost choreographed conveyance of the corpses as a “dead man’s dance.”

  Robert Webster’s body was positioned, for the most part, just as it had been found. He was sprawled against the wall in the small dining room that adjoined the kitchen. He was still fully clothed and bore none of the signature markings that had screamed so prominently from the bodies of the previous victims. A double strand of nylon cord was still looped tightly about his throat, and bloody abrasions were visible along his neck where he had apparently clawed at the makeshift garrote. The opposite end of the thin noose trailed out across the floor, ending at a jumbled pile of beige vinyl strips—the remains of mini-blinds that had once been mounted over a now bare window.

  “Gal. 3:1” was harshly scribbled in black on the wall directly above him. A wide-tipped magic marker was found on a nearby counter and had already been bagged by the CSU technicians.

  Various signs of a brief struggle were obvious throughout the room. Mini-blinds that had been unceremoniously ripped from their mountings now lay in a crumpled heap. A chair overturned near the table. A potted plant now rested on the floor, its terra cotta planter shattered beyond repair and dark soil sprayed across the tile in a wide caricature of a comet tail. The cluster of aloe vera that had once called the clay pot home now sat upright in the middle of the debris field almost as if it had been placed there purposely. I made a mental note to myself to re-plant it once the crime scene had been cleared. I saw no reason for it to become a victim too.

  As futile as the struggle turned out to be, at least Robert Webster had put up a fight.

  “Sure doesn’t fit the profile of the other murders. Actually, it looks more like he wasn’t expectin’ the husband ta’ be here,” Ben muttered as he surveyed the scene. “That could kinda blow a hole in the stalkin’ theory.”

  “Maybe not,” Agent Mandalay offered. “If he’s stalked all of the other victims, I doubt he’s suddenly going to change that aspect. Could be that the husband was normally gone on Saturday nights.”

  “Yeah. Like bowlin’ or somethin’,” he nodded as he spoke. “Good point. We’ll check it out.”

  “He was never intended to be a victim,” I announced. “This was quite obviously unplanned. You’re right, I don’t think he was expecting him to be here...”

  I tilted my head to the side and stared at the shaky inscription on the wall. It was plainly scrawled in extreme haste. What was even more perceptible, to me at least, was the fact that it had been done as an afterthought.

  The visual inconsistencies were by no means the only problem with the setting either. There was no feeling of greater purpose for this killing as there had been for all the others. My empathic senses registered none of the conviction and fiery intent that had thus far been woven through the fabric of horror that shrouded each successive scene.

  What I detected instead was blinding anger and, to my surprise, painful sadness. All were the product of a presence recently in the room… A presence that had been at every other
site… A presence that had until now conveyed only misguided determination coupled with the passing of a terrifying judgment.

  “...In fact,” I finally submitted, “I think he could be upset by what he’s done here. I think he may even be feeling very intense remorse, and he’s trying to come to terms with what he has done.”

  “How do ya’ figure that?” Ben asked.

  “The Bible verse,” I answered with a nod in the direction of the wall. “Galatians chapter three, verse one. ‘O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been set forth, crucified among you?’...

  “I think the killer is trying to tell us that this man was bewitched by his wife and her path, and for that he had to die. Kind of a guilt by association thing.”

  “You sure he didn’t just kill ‘im because he was in the way?”

  “In reality that’s probably exactly what happened. But remember, this individual doesn’t kill just for kicks. He has an agenda, and in some perverse way, he still respects life—but only the life of the good and righteous as defined by his beliefs. This is his way of justifying his actions as much to himself as to us.”

  “Man, I know it’s been awhile since I’ve been ta’ church,” Ben declared. “But I sure as hell don’t remember the Bible advocatin’ all the shit this asshole is doin’.”

  “It doesn’t in a literal sense,” I replied, “but it is written in a way that leaves itself open to a wide range of interpretations. The killer is picking and choosing passages and taking them out of context in order to vindicate his actions. Notice they always contain a key word—Witch, bewitched, wizard, sorcerer...”

  “This guy is just plain demented,” Mandalay expressed.

  “You’ll get no argument from me on that account,” I told her. “But in this case, I doubt even he believes the message he left behind. I think he might even be in some severe emotional pain over this. That’s what I’m feeling anyway, for whatever it’s worth.”