by Hopkin, Ben
* * *
Maggie was making Trey a BLT, which was awesome for several reasons. One, he was away from that nasty piece of work, Carson Speer, the new APA. Two, he was with Maggie in the middle of the day. Three, she was making him a BLT, pretty much his favorite sandwich ever.
What’s not to love? It’s basically toast and breakfast meat with mayo and a little bit of lettuce and tomato so you didn’t feel so guilty. Although Trey had been known to pick some of that stuff off. You know, occasionally.
He was taking the rare lunch at home. When he’d called Maggie to let her know, she’d almost fainted in shock. If it weren’t for the fact that Darc had always been a taskmaster, Trey would totally think it was because he was sleeping with his partner’s ex-wife.
Speaking of… Trey eyed Maggie’s shoulders, back and then on down the line as she pulled the bacon out of the frying pan. Her long red hair swayed back and forth with each of her movements. It never ceased to amaze him how he had ended up with such a complete knockout. He looked down again. Hm. Maybe if he was stealthy about it he could talk her into a little afternoon delight.
“Knock it off, Trey,” she said without turning around.
“How did you…? I mean, what are you talking about?” Trey sputtered, trying to shift gears midstream.
“I know you,” she replied in a matter-of-fact tone. “We’ve been in the same space for more than fifteen minutes. You’re thinking about sex.”
“Yeah, well…” Trey began, trying to come up with what should come next. Ooo! There it was. “What’s wrong with me wanting to give my lady some lovin’?” He asked, and then winced. Yikes. That sounded like something out of a bad 70s sexploitation flick.
Maggie turned around, her eyebrows raised. “Some lovin’?” The only thing that made Trey keep from preparing for a physical assault was the fact that her lip was twitching. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it. You’ll get me going just enough to piss me off when Darc calls right in the middle.”
“That… well, actually… Okay, that only happened once.” Trey stumbled around his words while Maggie glared at him in what he hoped was mock anger. “Twice. Oh, there was that one time in… right, three times. That’s not so bad.”
“No means no, babe.” She shrugged her shoulders, turning back to the sandwich. “You’re just going to have to wait until tonight.”
Trey was about to reply, when his phone buzzed. Darc. Maggie turned around, looked at the ID attached to the incoming text.
“See, I told you.”
Sticking out his tongue at her, Trey swiped the screen with his finger to read the text.
Another crime scene. Come now.
Man, that guy sure knew how to turn on the charm. “Mags, I gotta take that sammich to go.”
“Sure thing, babe. Just remember to make sure you get home at a decent hour tonight.” Maggie handed him the BLT, already wrapped in a paper towel, and gave him a deep, lingering kiss. Deep enough and lingering enough that Trey started calculating in his head just how long it would be before Darc actually called.
“Not long enough, buddy,” she answered his unspoken question for him. “Go.” She slapped him on the butt. “Take care of yourself out there.” She turned around and spoke over her shoulder. “And take care of him, too.”
“I always do,” Trey answered, and walked out the door.
And it was true. He always did.
* * *
No one had come close to the body. The unis that had been called in had immediately contacted Darc, as it was obvious this was one belonging to his case. CSI hadn’t arrived yet, but Trey had just driven up and was stepping out of his Land Rover. Darc watched as his partner picked his way across the rocky terrain.
“What have we…?” He started and then gulped. “Never mind.”
Darc had examined the site from a safe distance and was waiting for the crime scene unit to clear the area before proceeding. It was a difficult endeavor for him, as he felt perfectly capable of analyzing the scene himself.
Trey moved past him toward the body, pushing past one of the uniformed cops standing guard. “Sorry, dude. Haven’t found my sea legs yet. Or my rock legs. Whatever.”
It was on the rocky shore north of Alki Beach Park, far enough back from the water to avoid the tides, but close enough to the water to have been found by a woman walking along the coast. She’s spotted the bizarre crime scene from a distance down the beach and had called 911, frantic.
Darc stared down at the body, circumscribed in its own blood, its interior transcribed by the lines that formed the five-pointed star. Threads of logic brushed their colored light along the lines, surrounding, illuminating, exposing the secrets of the crime.
Except that they weren’t. The symbols were clear. They spoke of the cleansing of Seattle, just as Father John’s and Bryce Van Owen’s had. In fact, they were a near identical copy to those other two damaged crusaders. It was a parroting of their rhetoric. Not something this killer seemed to believe or even be interested in. There was something else here that Darc could not identify.
“Well, at least we’re close to the beach,” Trey spoke as he wandered closer to the body. He jerked suddenly, tripping over something in front of him.
Flame sparked, racing out toward the pentagram and the human form within. The flame was white hot and fierce.
“Thermite,” Darc warned. “Move back. And do not attempt to put it out. It will explode.”
“Explode?” Trey squeaked. “Okay, you heard him. Don’t put it out!”
The blaze surrounded the body, tracing the lines of blood that had formed the symbols. The after-image of the thermite reaction burned itself into Darc’s retinas, reinforcing the symbols and colored pathways of logic that were already present.
This fire would burn away much of the evidence. And yet there was nothing Darc could do.
“Hey, look,” Trey pointed out as the fires burned. “The same kind of numbers.”
The lines of information in Darc’s head swirled orange and red. He had already noted the two digits inscribed above the head of the victim. At the first crime scene, the symbol had been a single one. At the second, another one had joined the first.
Now there was a number two followed by a one.
But the threads of light confirmed the frustration that was building inside of Darc. He had no idea what those symbols could mean.
“Maybe we’re just supposed to add them together,” Trey mused. “You know. One for the first body. Two ones added together to make the second. A two and a one added together to make the third…” He glanced over at Darc and then back at the body. “I know. Too simple. I’m just going to shut up now. Leave the ideas up to the professional.”
But Darc had no thoughts.
The body belonged to Regina Peterson, another member of the council. The woman had been cut fully in half, right at the waist. The upper and lower halves of her body were resting a few inches apart. Off to the side, a pile of her intestines had been placed over a pile of wood. They were now burning in the thermite, crisping up and turning black. There would be nothing left but ash once the reaction finished.
“Dude. That whole Satanism angle is looking better by the corpse,” Trey muttered.
There was something there, but it was unclear. The lines and symbols that danced about in Darc’s mind would not settle. Every time they began to do so, the two and the one intruded, breaking up the patterns.
One of the CSI team members peered from a safe distance into the fire off to the side of the pentagram. It was the young intern from the first site.
“This wood looks familiar,” he said. He sniffed the smoke that was rising up from that blaze. “Yep. It’s yew.”
“How in the hell would you know that?” Trey asked, walking over to the young man.
“It’s the look of the wood there that’s not burnt, as well as the smell,” he answered. “See? The grain’s got this nice light and dark pattern that’s all knobby and stuff. And there’s the pine smell
with a hint of like menthol or something.”
“No, I meant why the eff would you know how to recognize yew?”
“Oh, right,” the intern straightened up and ran his hand through his hair. “I used to do a lot of woodworking in high school. Made myself a longbow once out of yew wood. Loved working with it.”
The swirlings of logic light coalesced for a moment in Darc’s mind, leaving behind a clear note of information.
“Death.”
“Sonofa…” Trey said. “Stop that!”
“What is he talking about?” the intern asked.
Trey shrugged in apparent disgust. Or perhaps it was hunger. Those two expressions were difficult for Darc to delineate.
“He does that all the time. Just says a word and expects everyone to understand what the freak he’s talking about.”
The words were a buzzing in Darc’s awareness. The meanings were filtering in, but they did little to disrupt the flow of the ribbons of light. Ribbons that kept getting shredded on the two numbers up at the top of the pentagram.
But before they disintegrated, they gave him some insight. Some glimmers of intelligence he could use.
“Rebirth.”
“Seriously?” Trey responded, his pitch going up about an octave. That could be indicative of being struck in the testicles or possible frustration. Seeing as how no one had approached Trey’s genital area, the latter was more likely. “ Are you kidding me right now? You are making me crazy with this stuff.”
The strands of light dissipated, leaving Darc with bits and pieces of knowledge. “The yew tree is a symbol of both death and rebirth in occult ceremonies.”
“Oh,” Trey muttered. “Well, that makes a whole lot of sense now. Thanks for the clarification.”
This seemed to be one of those moments where his partner’s meaning could be the exact opposite of what it seemed. Sarcasm was not something that Darc understood or could identify all that well.
“I’ve got a friend who’s Wiccan,” the intern said. “She’s always going on and on about herbal remedies and crystals and that kind of crap.”
“Maybe we should bring her in,” Darc’s partner responded. “What’s her name?”
“Yana Donner, but I don’t know how she’d--”
“Oh, and what’s your name, by the way?”
“Um. Cody Lyons. But--” The young Cody seemed to be doing what he could to interject. Trey would do that to Darc on occasion, when there was a problem with his attire or personal hygiene. Perhaps Trey had his fly down.
Darc checked, but everything appeared to be fine.
“It’s fine, we’ll be gentle. Don’t worry about it.” Trey grabbed the intern by the shoulders and propelled him back to the crime scene. The reaction was burning down now and would be done in moments. “Give us her contact information and we’ll take care of it while you’re finishing up here.”
“Okay. Sure. But I really think you should--”
“Seriously. Dude. Don’t worry about it. We got this.”
Cody Lyons knelt down next to the pentagram, measuring the circumference of the circle perhaps. He muttered to himself, but Darc couldn’t understand any of the words.
There were so many parts of interpersonal communications that remained a mystery to him.
CHAPTER 3
The meeting wasn’t going well.
All right. That was an understatement. The meeting was going terribly.
From the moment that Mala sat down alone with Richard Templeton, he had gone after her in every way conceivable. He had attacked her as a foster parent, as a child psychologist and as a human being. It seemed there was no limit to his hatred of her and everything she stood for.
And Mala felt completely sandbagged.
True, she had seen at least part of this coming. By pretty much every professional standard available, her actions regarding Janey could be seen as highly problematic at the least, criminally negligent at the worst. And Mr. Templeton didn’t even know all of it.
“You took a child, your foster child, to a slaughterhouse where a serial killer was on the loose?” he yelled, his eyes bulging. “Where you proceeded to lose track of her. Then… let me make sure I have this correct… she climbed through the air ducts and ended up in a pile of snakes?”
Mala had no idea how he had gotten all of this information. She certainly hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, and she couldn’t see either Trey or Darc volunteering it.
“There were extreme circumstances, that--” she began.
“I don’t care what the circumstances were. There is no circumstance imaginable that would require you to put Caitlyn in danger. It was unbelievably irresponsible and could have led to her harm or even death.”
“I understand how you might--”
Templeton cut her off with a chopping motion, his ring striking the desk with a clacking sound. “I knew that you were going to be a problem. From the second you tried to maneuver your way out of the PRIDE classes--”
“Excuse me,” Mala fired back. “I attended every one of your classes. I had to step out for three minutes to take a--”
“Yes, there it is. Right there in a nutshell. The arrogance that you displayed throughout my PRIDE classes.” He squinted at her, his nostrils flaring. “Always disagreeing with me in front of the class. Dismissing what I said. Needing to clarify.”
It was becoming clear that there was a personal element to this investigation. Mala did what she could to maintain her temper.
“I’m sorry. I meant no disrespect. I was simply trying to participate in the discussion.”
“While always making it clear that you were the trained professional. You knew so much better than anyone else, and you had to let everyone know about it.” Templeton’s face was flushed a deep red, and there was a vein that was standing out on his forehead. Not good signs, either one of them.
Making a sincere apology was one method to try to defuse a hostile situation like this. Mala had used this many times to good effect. But in this instance it seemed to do nothing but further enrage the social worker. It had turned a disgruntled but mild-mannered man into what almost felt like a raving lunatic.
“Again, Mr. Templeton, I’m so sorry. I didn’t intend to be disrespectful in any way whatso—”
“There it is again! That same holier-than-thou tone. That condescending attitude.” He pointed at her, his skin darkening by another half-shade. “You’re so smart you think you can completely disregard the rules.”
Mala started to respond, and then it started to dawn on her. He had ramped himself up in order to have this conversation in the first place. Mala had become his nemesis, his personal avatar of evil. Everything she said or did would be viewed through that warped lens.
She was also beginning to suspect that he might be an anger addict. The more he expressed his rage, the greater it seemed to become. He might be getting a sort of thrill from the episode.
The only way to handle a situation like this, other than maintaining her calm, would be to get out of the situation. But that wasn’t really a valid option right now. Leaving during the middle of a meeting about her issues as a foster parent could be seen as a blatant disregard to the authority of the state in this case.
In short, Mala had no idea what to do.
She opened her mouth, about to try whatever she could to try to diffuse the situation, when Richard’s coworker Joan, who was watching Janey, burst out of the room where she had taken the little girl. The woman’s cheeks were streaked with wet tracks and her hair was mussed, like she had been running around or tumbling on the floor.
“You… I… that girl…” she stammered, then burst into fresh tears and went running down the hallway. Richard followed her progress with his gaze, whipping his head back around to Mala. His eyes narrowed.
“I have to go take care of Ms. Bladworth. You…” He stopped as Janey came out of the room. The little girl was perfectly composed, and gave him a sweet smile. “I… ah… We will need to reschedul
e.”
Time for Mala to retreat with grace. “I’m more than happy to come back in. Just call or email, and we’ll set up another time.”
She needn’t have bothered. He was already halfway down the hall by the time she’d finished speaking. Mala heaved a huge sigh of relief, then turned to face Janey.
“Don’t think I don’t know what you just did in there,” she said. Janey’s face remained an innocent mask. “You might have just made things worse, you know.” Mala shook her head and relented a bit. “But thank you. I’m not sure how much more of that I could’ve taken.”
Janey walked over, lifting up her small hand to stroke Mala’s cheek. Her touch was so gentle and loving that Mala felt tears spring to her eyes.
“You’re an amazing little girl, you know that?” she asked.
Janey just stared back into her eyes and nodded her head, a shy smile lighting up her face. It was a real smile, different than the good-little-girl expression she’d used on Richard Templeton.
Tomorrow she’d deal with the social worker. Today she was just happy to be taking this precious creature back home with her.
* * *
Trey watched as Yana Donner walked around the desk to take a seat across from him. Darc was off to the side, looking like he wasn’t paying attention at all. Trey knew better. That guy could hear a frog fart from a half-mile off. He knew exactly what was going on at each and every moment.
Yana was both completely like and completely unlike what Trey had expected. She was wearing a necklace with what looked like an insect trapped in amber, there was an ankh tattooed on the inside of her left wrist and she had an extra piercing on her left ear. Other than that, she seemed like any other girl fresh out of high school, probably working as a barista at a local coffee shop while attending community college.
“So, Ms. Donner--” Trey began.
“I’m going to stop you right there,” the young woman cut him off. “I just want you both to understand that I’m here of my own free will and choice, but the second this becomes antagonistic, I will be engaging counsel.”
“Yes, well--”
“It’s my understanding that this is a murder investigation that may have something to do with the occult. I will not allow you to mock my beliefs or railroad me because of your narrow minded attitudes toward Wicca.”