Morris and Chastain Investigations: Play With Fire & Midnight at the Oasis

by Justin Gustainis

  “Even if that’s true,” Cummings went on, “all it means is that somebody went on the internet and did his research. What’s that got to do with those ‘ritualistic elements’ you’re talking about?”

  “Because, despite all their elaborate efforts,” O’Donnell said, “the arsonists fucked up.” Cummings loved it when attractive women talked dirty – possibly because his own wife never said anything nastier than “fudge.”

  “A section of the church’s ceiling fell over the altar area before the building was fully engulfed. It partially protected Father Middleton’s corpse from the flames,” Fenton said. “It was still pretty badly burned – but it wasn’t reduced to ashes, which is what we figure the arsonists had in mind.”

  “So, there was enough of him left to do a half-decent autopsy, I get you,” Cummings said. “How did the poor guy die, then, if he didn’t burn to death?”

  “The killers used a knife.” O’Donnell’s voice, fairly expressive to this point, had become flat and emotionless. “A large one, from all indications.”

  “More important was the way the knife was used,” Fenton said.

  “You mean multiple stab wounds?” Cummings asked him. “Nothing unusual about that, unfortunately.”

  “It was more than that. Several occult symbols were carved into the body, probably ante-mortem,” Fenton said.

  “That was before Father Middleton was castrated, eviscerated, and had his heart cut out of his body,” O’Donnell said. “All while he was still alive, most likely.”

  Cummings, who was cursed with a vivid imagination, felt his stomach perform a slow somersault. His office dealt with a few bank robberies, the occasional kidnapping, and a parade of terrorist suspects who always turned out to be innocuous – but nothing like this. The cases of real butchery were outside his jurisdiction, and handled by the police. He swallowed a couple of times and said, “Why in the name of God would somebody do that? I mean, what were they trying to achieve?”

  “Well, for one thing, it wasn’t in the name of God – at least not the same one you and I worship,” O’Donnell said grimly. “As to their precise motive – I look forward to asking them about that someday – preferably through the bars at a maximum security prison.”

  “All right,” Cummings said. “So, what can the field office do to assist you?”

  “There’s nothing we need from you right now,” Fenton said. “Bureau procedure says we’re supposed to check in with the local field office, and we always follow proper procedure.” Cummings thought he detected a light touch of irony at the end of that sentence, but wasn’t certain.

  “However, we need to talk to some of the detectives at DUPD about the case,” O’Donnell said, “and there’s no way to tell in advance how much cooperation we’re likely to get. If somebody starts digging his heels in, we may ask you to make a phone call or two, to smooth the way.” She stood up then, and her partner followed suit. “I’d like to think we can count on you for that, should the need arise.”

  Cummings had a full bottle of Pepto-Bismol in his desk, and he wanted to get these two out of there so he could down about half of it. He could not stop focusing on the mental image of what father Joe Middleton must have looked like, once those crazy fuckers had finished with him. “Yeah, sure,” he said hastily. “I’ll grease the wheels for you. Whatever you need.”

  “Thank you, Agent Cummings,” O’Donnell said.

  “We appreciate it,” Fenton chimed in, and then the two of them turned and left.

  The door had barely closed behind them when Cummings was reaching into the bottom drawer of his desk.

  Seven

  RON SHUMAKER, THE lead detective on the church arson/murder case, had a beat-up desk in the detective’s bullpen at Duluth police headquarters. Around the big room other detectives, men and women, were typing, drinking coffee, checking e-mail, or reading the paper – when they weren’t throwing covert glances toward Shumaker’s two visitors, who were said to be a couple of feds from out of town.

  With his button-down shirt and tweed sport coat, Shumaker came across more like a college professor then somebody who’d been a cop for nineteen years. The black-rimmed glasses he wore didn’t hide the bags under his eyes, however. Ron Shumaker looked as if he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in a long time.

  He pushed a thick manila file across the desk toward Agents Fenton and O’Donnell. “You’re welcome to look it over, but I can’t let you take it out of the building or copy it – the chief would have my ass. If you want to spend some time on it without being disturbed, I can probably find you an interrogation room that nobody’s using.”

  Unknown to Shumaker, agents O’Donnell and Fenton had already seen a copy of the case file. But that had been three days ago, and a lot can happen in an investigation during that length of time.

  “Maybe it’ll save us some time if you can just answer a couple of questions,” Fenton said.

  Shumaker gave a tired shrug. “Ask away.”

  “For starters,” O’Donnell said, “the forensic evidence about the perps currently amounts to shit, right?”

  “Yeah, pretty much. Of course, they did burn down the fucking building, which makes it kind of hard to identify hair, fiber, fingerprints, all that. The arson squad wrote up a report about the stuff they used to create the blaze – that’s in the file, for what it’s worth.”

  “There’s no shortage of snow around here, this time of year,” O’Donnell said. “Any useful footprints?”

  “Not one. We hadn’t had any precip for a couple of days before this all went down, so the stuff on the ground was hard-packed into ice.”

  “Eyewitnesses?” Fenton asked.

  “At five in the morning? Not likely, in that neighborhood. Nobody even knew there was a fire, until a passing patrol car saw the flames coming through the roof.”

  “How about nuts calling up after the fact, taking credit, if that’s the word,” O’Donnell said. “Any of those?”

  “Yeah we had a couple of confessions. None of them could answer questions about the means of ignition, the mutilations, or anything else that wasn’t on the news. Nuts – like you said.”

  Fenton leaned back, the chair he’d borrowed creaking in protest. “What do you think, Detective? Were these locals? You guys must keep tabs on the local hate groups.”

  “Yeah, we worked our snitches among the local skinheads and KKK types. Came up empty.”

  “You’ve got the Klan, way up here?” Fenton asked.

  “Oh, sure – the local Klavern, if that’s what they call it, consists of four guys and two of their girlfriends. Those clowns couldn’t organize a barbeque, let along something like what happened at St. Bart’s. And besides–” Shumaker hesitated.

  “Besides, what?” O’Donnell asked him.

  “I’m trying to think how to put this,” Shumaker said. “If it had happened at a local synagogue, or the one mosque we have in town, I could kind of understand it. I mean, there’s assholes who hate Jews – everybody knows that. Other idiots hate Moslems, especially since 9/11. But nobody around here’s pissed off at the Catholic Church. Not that pissed off, anyway.”

  “But as you’ve suggested, they might not be locals,” O’Donnell said. “Which raises the question – why Duluth? There’s Catholic churches in pretty much every city and town in the country.”

  “A better question,” Shumaker said, “is why anybody would do that to a priest before burning the church down around him. Somebody’s got a lot of hate going – and before you ask, we checked to see if Father Middleton had any enemies. Didn’t find a thing. The guy was a priest, for cryin’ out loud – and not the kind who fucks altar boys, either.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t personal at all,” O’Donnell said slowly. “Maybe any Catholic priest in Duluth would do.”

  Shumaker stared at her. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” she said. “Just something that needs thinking about. Forget it for
now.”

  “If we assume the perps weren’t local,” Fenton said, “then how did they get there? To the church, I mean.”

  Shumaker shrugged. “Drove, I suppose, but it doesn’t matter. Nobody saw a car parked near the church – we asked that when canvassing the neighborhood.”

  “But you’re assuming there was a car, right?” Fenton said.

  “Either that, or they walked. But being on foot means it takes too long to clear the neighborhood, once the fire’s started. So, yeah – they probably drove. So what?”

  “So, if they’re not local, and they had a car,” Fenton said, “where’d they get it?”

  Eight

  “SINCE WHEN DOES the FBI care about stolen cars?” Axel Swenson asked. “It ain’t a federal offense, last I heard.”

  Swenson didn’t look at all like a Viking type, Fenton thought. Short black hair, brown eyes, and a Fu Manchu mustache that had gone out of style with bell-bottom pants. His construction company must be pretty successful, since he could afford the Cadillac El Dorado that was parked in his driveway. The police report said Swenson had reported it stolen Tuesday morning. On Thursday, the manager of a supermarket, clear across town, had reported to police what seemed to be an abandoned vehicle in his parking lot. The license number and description matched one on the police hot sheet, and the following day Swenson was invited to pick up his car at the police impound lot.

  “You’re right, Mister Swenson – it isn’t a federal crime,” Fenton told him. “But it’s possible that the people who stole your car have been involved in a series of bank robberies across three states – and that is the FBI’s business.”

  Swenson’s thick eyebrows headed toward his hairline. “Bank robbers? Jeez Louise! I figured it was just some fuckin’ kids, out joyriding, or something.”

  “You’re lucky it wasn’t,” O’Donnell said. “Joyriders almost always trash the car once they’re done with it – especially when it’s a nice ride like yours. They’re probably resentful that the owner can afford a fancy car, and they can’t. But from what I understand, your car wasn’t damaged, at all.”

  “Yeah, thank God. Didn’t have so much as a scratch on her.”

  “And if a professional had been involved,” she went on, “you’d never have seen your car again. The thief would either be filling a specific order – usually from somebody in another state – or he’d have sold it to a chop shop, for the parts. That’s why we think this might have been the people we’re interested in.”

  “But there wasn’t no bank robbery around here,” Swenson said, frowning. “Not that I heard of, anyway.”

  “You’re right,” Fenton said. “Something must have scared them off, or caused them to change their minds.”

  Swenson may not have gotten past high school, but that didn’t mean he was stupid. “So what makes you think it was bank robbers, if no bank got robbed?”

  Fenton was ready for that one. “Because the M.O. of the car theft was the same as the cases where there were bank robberies. M.O. means–”

  “I know what it means,” Swenson said. “I watch TV.” He sounded slightly offended.

  “Of course – sorry,” Fenton said. “But, to get specific – you’ve got a car alarm, right?”

  “Sure – factory installed. The dealer said it was the best there is.”

  “But it didn’t go off, did it?”

  “No – if it had, I’d have been out there with my gun faster than a scalded cat.” After a second he hastily added, “I got a permit.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Fenton said. “You’ve also got a steering wheel lock on your Caddie. The wheel’s not supposed to turn unless the ignition’s turned on, right?”

  “Yeah – that didn’t stop them either. Bastards.”

  “And the police report said that none of the ignition wires were loose. The thieves didn’t hot-wire it.”

  “Christ, what’d they do, then?” Swenson asked. “Use magic?”

  Fenton glanced at his partner before saying, “No, of course not. But however they did it, somebody did something similar to three other cars that were used in bank robberies within the last six months. That’s why we’d like to take a look at the car, if you don’t mind.”

  “It’s okay with me, but what are you expectin’ to find that the cops didn’t?”

  “Uh, we brought a mass spectrometer with us,” Fenton said. “The Minneapolis PD didn’t use one when they went over the car.”

  “Mass spectrometer, huh? Yeah, they use those on CSI all the time,” Swenson said. “Let me get you the keys.”

  Nine

  COLLEEN O’DONNELL, FBI Special Agent and practitioner of white witchcraft, pulled the Caddy’s door closed and looked at her partner, one eyebrow raised.

  “Mass spectrometer? For goddess’s sake, Dale.”

  “Best I could come up with,” Fenton said. “Anyway, it worked, didn’t it?”

  “We should count ourselves lucky he didn’t ask to see it.”

  “If he had, I was counting on you to work some hocus-pocus and convince him that we’d showed it to him.”

  O’Donnell just shook her head. Then she said, “Speaking of hocus-pocus, I might as well get on with it.”

  “Right.”

  O’Donnell closed her eyes and began to breathe very slowly, very deliberately. After five such breaths, she began to speak softly in a language they don’t teach in any university. Fenton wasn’t conversant in the language, but he’d heard these words before and knew what they meant.

  O’Donnell continued in the arcane language for perhaps two minutes. Then she took a deep breath and expelled all the air from her lungs in a vigorous exhale. After a slow count of three, she inhaled loudly. Again that slow, silent count of three before she let the air out and began to breathe normally again. With her eyes still closed, she said “Yessss. Oh my, yes.”

  She opened her eyes half a minute later to find Fenton looking at her. He did not appear happy. “Black magic,” he said.

  “Undeniably. And fairly fresh – it certainly could have been conjured five days ago, when the car was stolen.”

  Fenton nodded glumly. Making a slight gesture toward the house, he said, “I don’t suppose it’s possible that Swenson in there is a practitioner?”

  “No – I’d have known the moment we walked inside.”

  “Figures – our luck never runs that good.”

  The two of them sat quietly for a few moments. “So a black magician rolls into town and ritualistically murders a priest,” O’Donnell said.

  “Uh-huh. Then burns the church down around him. Just to hide what they did to the poor guy?”

  “No, that’s too... elaborate,” she said. “If that’s all they wanted, it would have been a lot simpler to just take the body away and bury it someplace.”

  “In Minnesota? In January? Somebody around here dies this time of year, they either cremate ’em, or keep the body on ice until the ground thaws in April.”

  “That’s a point, but not a huge one. There’s lots of ways to hide a corpse that don’t involve that kind of arson, Dale. Burning the church – that was part of the ritual. I’m sure of it.”

  Fenton shifted in his seat. “You’re pretty well versed in what black magicians do, and how they do it. It’s part of your witch training, right?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You ever hear of the bad guys using a ritual like this?”

  “No. Nothing that even comes close,” she said.

  “Well, shit.”

  They got out of the Caddy making sure to lock it behind them. By prior agreement, Fenton went to their rental car parked at the curb while O’Donnell rang Swenson’s doorbell.

  When he answered she said, “Here are your keys, Mister Swenson. We want to thank you for your cooperation.”

  “That’s okay,” he said. “Where’s your partner?”

  “Oh, he’s putting... our equipment away.” O’Donnell did not trust herself to say “mass spectrom
eter” with a straight face.

  “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “No, I’m afraid not,” she lied.

  As Fenton pulled the car into traffic he said, “I’m trying to get my mind around this mess. Somebody conducted a black magic ritual at the church, but it’s one you never heard of.”

  “Correct, unfortunately.”

  “People do black magic in order to get something, right? Power, riches, revenge – something they can’t achieve on their own.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So what does this fucker want?”

  O’Donnell looked out through the side window, at all the innocent, unaware people who went about their lives oblivious to the darkness that was all around them.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “And that’s what frightens me.”

  Eleven

  IT WAS SNOWING lightly as Morris headed their rental toward the motel.

  “You were pretty hard on him, Quincey,” Libby said.

  “Not as hard as I should have been. He’s just a fucking bureaucrat, and they’re all the same, whether they wear a three-piece suit or an outfit like Bowen’s. All they care about is covering their asses.”

  “But, as you said, it’s the assignment that matters, not the employer.”

  “Keep reminding me of that, will you?”

  “Getting a line on this Corpus Hermeticum isn’t going to be the easiest job we ever took.”

  “If the jobs were easy, they wouldn’t need us to do them,” Morris said. “But you’re right – this could be pretty complicated. Tell me – did you get a whiff of black magic down there in the book room?”

  “No, not a trace.”

  “I was afraid of that,” he said.

  “Afraid? The absence of black magic isn’t usually a bad thing, Quincey.”