Carl made it a point not to look too closely at Jolene. He also made good and damned sure that he wasn’t alone with her. Not because he was afraid of her, precisely, but because she seemed to have a ridiculous ability to wreck men without even trying. He didn’t quite understand why she was always in the center of the storms that brewed around her. He also didn’t need to know what she was doing hanging with the sort of morons that would get into that kind of bloody trouble. He understood enough to know that Jolene was a dangerous girl. Technically she wasn’t old enough to go into the bars in the area. And to date he’d never actually seen Jolene in a bar, but she’d been hanging around outside a few of the local watering holes when the violence erupted.
Carl rubbed at his face and thought idly that he should probably shave sometime soon. Maybe even tomorrow, much as he disliked having to handle that particular chore. On the other hand, he was going to look into exactly why a woman named Siobhan Blackbourne was whispering about crime scenes she shouldn’t have known about and he was going to try to catch her at her home instead of at her cousin’s place. No matter how attractive she was, he was fairly sure he preferred to deal with her away from Merle and the rest of the clan.
Siobhan Blackbourne and her daughter, Jolene. Just possibly two of the most stunning women in the entire county. He was very tempted to call Nichole to be his backup, just in case he made an ass of himself. Instead he promised himself he’d shave in the morning before heading to the address he jotted down.
He left his office and headed back to the living room and his book. The visit to see the Blackbourne women would wait until morning. The county would remain safe until the daylight came back around. He had deputies to see to that.
The front door was open.
Carl took three paces and froze in his tracks as soon as he realized that the door was open. He’d locked it. He knew that as sure as he knew his name. Back to his office, he could reach the pistol if he could get there. But he had to make sure, didn’t he? That no one was in the place? That he was alone? Surely he couldn’t just turn his back without checking, could he?
Flogging Molly continued crooning on to the slightly frantic sounds of an Irish jig. He took three more steps toward the living room. Most of the rooms were fairly small. He could handle himself well enough in close quarters without a firearm. He couldn’t make himself walk away from the room without checking first. His nerves were screaming too damned loud to let him.
Nothing looked out of place, except for the lump of red clay sitting on the table next to his remote controls. No one was in the room. He looked at the clay for a moment and then moved through the rest of the house, checking each room. He took the time to get his pistol from the office and checked carefully because people could hide the damnedest places if they were serious about hiding.
Nothing. No one. Carl closed and locked his door a second time, his skin crawling just a bit. It was like a violation, really: a desecration of the sacred place that was his one sanctuary from the rest of the world. And as he moved back into the living room his hands clenched and his heart thundered. Rage tried to sneak into his soul and he forced it back. Nothing was missing. Not a solitary thing. The only changes were the now closed door and the lump of clay.
He examined the clay before he considered touching it.
The rough links of a flat gray chain peered at him, half buried in the clay and surrounded by the roots of whatever vegetation the clay had been buried under.
Someone had left him a present. He was almost certain he didn’t want to look too closely at it.
***
The small town of Carlton, Georgia had seen better days. Griffin drove slowly up Main Street, glancing at the various storefronts. Where once had stood drug stores, banks, and mom and pop stores, now were mostly antique shops and consignment stores. The same fate had befallen most of the older towns. Even the somewhat larger ones like Roswell, Marietta, and Gatesville had seen the crowds move away from downtown to shop at strip malls or Wal-Mart. While some of the towns had been successful in gentrifying the downtown area, Carlton seemed to be struggling.
Griffin spotted the Carlton Police Headquarters, a squat, red brick building, and parked in front. He stifled a yawn as he got out of his truck. He had only slept for a few hours after spending most of the night going through news reports on the Internet. He had turned up only one unsolved murder from the past six months that had possibilities. It had happened three weeks back near Carlton, which was two counties over from Brennert. It hadn’t been the news article itself that had caught his attention at the Carlton paper’s website, but rather a few comments that had been posted by readers, one asking about reports of mutilations to the unidentified corpse. No one had responded to that particular comment and the thread had been locked.
Griffin walked up the three marble steps that led to the front doors. A cold front had blown away the clouds and rain during the night and the morning had arrived clear and cool. The early autumn sun threw harsh shadows all about. Fall had always been Griffin’s favorite time of year, though it made him restless. Something about the sharpness of the air and the particular quality of the light.
Griffin stepped through the double doors and found himself in a small lobby. The walls were a utilitarian green and the floor tiles were white and green like the ones Griffin remembered in barbershops when he was a kid. The rear wall held a small window and a heavy metal door. A slender woman in a uniform that needed pressing sat behind the window reading a newspaper and drinking coffee. She put the paper down when she saw Griffin and asked if she could help him.
“I’m here to see Chief Crowe,” Griffin said. “I called earlier. The name is Griffin.”
“Hang on a sec,” the woman said. Then she disappeared into whatever lay behind the window. A few moments later the metal door opened and a heavy set man with a crew cut and a dark five o’clock shadow stepped out. He looked to Griffin like one of those guys who would always have such a shadow, no matter how many times a day he shaved.
The man regarded Griffin with eyes that said he’d seen everything at least twice and hadn’t been much impressed with any of it. He said, “I’m Chief Crowe. Like I told you on the phone, I don’t know what I can do for you. We’ve never identified the dead man and we haven’t learned anything new.”
Griffin said. “I thought I’d come out and talk to you anyway, Chief. Get you to walk me through what you do know.”
Crowe rubbed the stubble on his jaw. “I don’t know that that’s a good idea. This is an open case, Mr. Griffin and you don’t have any official standing.”
Griffin smiled. “I’m working with the Brennert County Sheriff’s department on what might be a related killing. You can call and talk to Sheriff Carl Price if you need a reference.”
Crowe thought about that for a moment. He gave a small shrug and said, “Come on back. We can talk in my office.”
Griffin followed Crowe down a short hallway and into an office that obviously hadn’t been redecorated since the seventies. The walls were cheap wood panel and the desk that took up most of the room was steel. Two mismatched file cabinets leaned against the wall behind the desk. Crowe went around the desk and sat. He nodded to a chair in front of the desk.
Griffin sat down. Crowe looked at him without speaking. Griffin looked back. After several minutes of this Griffin said, “I’m picking up on a certain reluctance on your part to discuss this, Chief.”
“You got that right. How about you tell me more about the killing you think may be related.”
“A body was found in a remote part of Brennert,” Griffin said. “There were considerable mutilations. I understand your John Doe might have been cut up as well.”
Crowe grunted. “You’ve been reading the Internet. Some idiot at the coroner’s office shooting his mouth off. Wish I knew who. Thing is, we’re not sure exactly what was done to the body.”
“How do you mean? I assume there was an autopsy.”
“Yeah, for wha
t it was worth. Here’s the deal, Griffin. A few weeks back I get a call out to the Patrick farm. It’s an old place. Been abandoned for years. Seems somebody has set the barn on fire. Big blaze. The fire department eventually gets the fire put out but the barn is mostly gone. Couple of my guys go in to the rubble to look for signs of arson and they find a body.”
Griffin said, “I’m guessing the fire had made identification impossible.”
“Yeah, the John Doe was pretty much a crispy critter. The ME did what he could, but he didn’t have much to work with. He found what might have been some recent cuts on what flesh wasn’t charred off, but that was about it and that was by no means a certainty.”
“There wasn’t anything else unusual?”
Crowe’s eyes narrowed. “Like what?”
“The victim in my case had been bound in an unusual way prior to being killed. Thought maybe your John Doe might have shown ligature marks.”
“Mine wasn’t trussed up,” Crowe said.
Griffin said, “Oh well. It was worth a shot.”
“Mine had been nailed to a wall.”
Griffin felt his hear rate pick up. “Nailed?”
“Yeah. With some sort of weird little spikes.
We could tell that from what was left of the barn.”
“Did he have spikes through his eyes?”
“Now how the fuck did you know that?”
“Like I said, related.”
“Jesus. You think we’ve got some sort of serial killer loose around here?”
“I don’t know what we’ve got, but now we both have a hell of a lot more than what we had. Can I get copies of your reports? I can get Sheriff Price to send you what he has for comparison.”
“Yeah we can trade info, but I’d rather you boys take the point on this. Brennert County has a lot more resources than my little Podunk department.”
“I’ll let the sheriff know,” Griffin said. He dug into a pocket and pulled out one of the prints of the glyphs and put it on the desk. “One more thing. Did you see anything like this anywhere around the crime scene?”
Crowe studied the symbols for a moment. “No. What are they?”
“I don’t know yet. There may have been some of them carved into the body of your victim.”
“Shit, Griffin. What are we dealing with here?”
“Something outside or your philosophy, Horatio.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing. You said you still haven’t identified the body, so I take it no locals have gone missing lately?”
“None that have been reported. Why?”
“Just a thought I’d had. Anyway, I’ve taken up enough of your time. Can I get those reports?”
“I’ll have Elaine make you some copies.”
“You can email them to me if it would be easier.”
Crowe’s smile was wry. “You see a computer in here, sport?”
“Ah,” said Griffin.
“Like I said, you boys got the resources. But keep me informed. If some sick son of a bitch is killing folks near my town I want to know about it.”
“I’ll do that, Chief.” The two men shook hands and Griffin returned to the lobby. While the slender woman from the window was making copies, Griffin stared out the front windows at the cold, bright, morning. His little chat with Chief Crowe had paid off in more ways than one. He knew that there was at least one more murder by Jerry’s killer, and it didn’t seem to be drug related. At least for the moment.
Then there was the fact that no one seemed to be missing from Carlton. It was a small town so it was likely that if someone had disappeared, someone would know. That made it likely that the man killed in the barn wasn’t local. A transient maybe? Someone who had been at the wrong place at the wrong time? The point was, if there was one ritual murder that someone had tried to cover up and failed, how many more were there where the killer had been successful at covering his tracks?
It was time to talk to Carl. Like Crowe had said, he had the resources. Griffin reached for his cell phone but then stopped. There was one other thing he wanted to check before he gave his friend a call.
***
“Oh, I’m sure you’re very sorry, Mrs. Potterfield.” Carl nodded amiably as he finished writing the ticket and handed it to the peroxide blonde in her little BWM convertible. “And while I’d like to let you off with a warning, I do not, as a policy, let people off easy when they try to run me off the road.”
She put on her best pout, which was a very impressive one, and sighed deeply. “It was an accident, officer.”
“Sheriff.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I’m not an officer, I’m the sheriff.” He shrugged. “I know I’m not actually driving a squad car that says it but that’s what I am and that’s what the badge on my jacket means.” He’d put the badge in place right after the woman had spent two miles of winding two lane road trying to speed him up by just missing ramming into the rear bumper of his truck. She’d likely have actually rammed the truck if she thought it would speed him up and not destroy the perfect paint job on her brand new toy. “The date for your court appearance is on the back.”
“I live in Florida.” That whine and pout combination again. Probably it made her husband crazy with desire. It was the only reason he could imagine for anyone staying with the thing looking at him past her $. designer sunglasses. It just made Carl want to write her another ticket.
“I know. I checked on your license and confirmed with the DMV.” He kept his cheerful voice in place, because he knew it was confusing the woman severely. He rather enjoyed confusing her. It was like playing chess with a feeble-minded three-year-old. Not at all a nice thing to do, but somehow satisfactory in a depressing way. “I also know that you’ve had no less than a dozen other warnings for reckless driving. So this time, I’m gonna have to give you a real ticket and you’ll either have to pay the fine or come to court.” Likely she’d fight it, or her husband or his lawyer would fight it. Any way it broke down, he got to inconvenience her and maybe teach her a lesson at the same time. Probably not, but he could hope.
“Isn’t there anything I can do to change your mind?” her voice was kept soft and low and the full pouty lips pouted even more. That was the impressive thing, really, that those lips were natural and not the byproduct of too damned much collagen.
Just to brighten her day he leered. “Naw. Might have worked something out, but you’re married, darlin’.” He stood back up and tipped his Stetson in her direction. Then headed back to his truck while she slowly, carefully pulled back onto the road, following the speed limit until she was sure she could make a clean getaway.
Carl sighed, called in to Nichole and told her to let everyone know a speed demon was headed for town in a souped up red Beamer. It was open season for tickets, apparently. Then the Stetson went into the back seat of the truck. Mostly he only put it on for show when someone looked like they really, really wanted to meet a genuine, backwoods, redneck sheriff. He was going to have to work on his extra thick southern drawl though. He didn’t want to disappoint the tourists.
Two miles down the road he pulled off and grabbed a bag of boiled peanuts from Elmer Buck, a man whose age could have been sixty or ninety-five. Either way, he had four teeth, weighed too much, sweated constantly and was a delight to chat with.
Pleasantries handled for the morning, he drove the rest of the way into town and down Scufflegrit Road╤a name he still found amusing after spending his entire life in the area╤heading to the seventh house, an older affair, with a wraparound porch, that had been taken care of properly over the years.
By the time he reached the front door, the man he was looking for was already waiting at the threshold, a puzzled smile on his weathered face. He wasn’t actually puzzled about anything. Carl had called him earlier. He just always had that look on his face when he was smiling.
Doctor Andrew Hunter stepped out of the way and silently invited Carl into his house. Carl nodded an equally sil
ent greeting and stepped into the place. It smelled of old books, dust and floor polish. He couldn’t resist sucking in a deep breath of the scents.
“How you been, Carl?” The old man patted his shoulder affectionately and moved past him, leading the way toward the den that he’d converted into an office a long time back.
“I’m good, Andy. Been staying busy. How about yourself?”
Andy waved a hand to dismiss any questions about himself. “I’m old. After you reach that stage anything else is just a side effect. But I do have work to do, so why don’t you show me what you’ve got?” The old man was retired. Back in his day he’d been a professor of archaeology. These days he restored books for fun and profit. He’d moved away to Atlanta when he was working and now that he was retired he’d come back to the old home grounds to, in his words, “fade into obscurity.” Carl doubted that would ever happen.
Carl nodded his head and fished the Zip-lock baggie from his coat pocket. Inside was the jewelry he’d eventually cleaned of clay deposits and old roots. The chain was rough, made of hand-forged links. Attached to the links were a dozen small decorations, some of them simplistic in their design and some very complicated. He had no idea what sort of metal it was, and no clue about the trinkets, so he called on his father’s poker buddy to shed a little light on the subject.
Andy took the bag without preamble and carefully slipped the chain out. He fumbled with one hand around his desk until he found a set of lenses that had obviously been designed for working with jewelry and studying fine details.
“What are we looking at, Andy?”
The man skewered him with a stare. When he spoke the temperature in the room dropped by easily ten degrees. “Currently I’m looking at an impatient man who can’t give me five minutes to study what he brought for me to examine.”
Blind Shadows: A Griffin & Price Novel Page 3