by Kay Hooper
Deciding to speak up, Leah pointed out, “If he went missing on Sunday afternoon or early evening, it’s less than forty-eight hours. Unless he had somebody waiting for him at home—wherever that was—it’s at least even money that nobody’s noticed him missing. Especially if he was here on vacation.”
Riley nodded. “The needs of vacationers vary; not everybody walks on the beach or visits the restaurants or shops. Some people come with a bag of books or briefcase full of work, park themselves in front of the view, order takeout delivered, and never leave their own little rented piece of sand until it’s time for the drive home. If this guy came here alone, his absence may have stirred no more notice than his presence did.”
“How are you doing that?” Jake demanded.
She looked at him over the top of the open folder. “Doing what?”
“Reading and talking. Or are you just pretending to read?”
Leah kept her mouth shut again and just listened.
“No,” Riley said. “I’m reading. It’s a knack I have. Another agent in the unit taught me.”
He grunted. “Must come in handy.”
“Sometimes.”
“That’s considered a masculine trait, isn’t it? Being able to compartmentalize mentally? Or emotionally.”
“I’ve heard it said.”
“You don’t agree?”
“Never really thought about it.” Riley’s voice remained mild, and her slight smile was merely polite, but Leah was certain the other woman was perfectly well aware of what was going on.
Jake was showing off one of his least attractive traits, one Leah had seen often enough to recognize. Quite simply, he was accustomed to women paying attention to him no matter what else happened to be going on. Virtually all women. And that part of him disliked taking second place, to another man or to a murder.
Coming in third where Riley was concerned was obviously bugging the hell out of him.
Leah made a silent bet with herself as to the direction Jake would steer the conversation.
“You’re probably good with numbers too,” he said.
“I am,” Riley confirmed, still mild. “I can also change a tire or the oil, use power tools skillfully, read any sort of map accurately, hit what I’m aiming at on the firing range or in the field, and I play a mean game of pool. Not bragging or anything. Just saying.”
“Poker?”
“That too.”
“A paragon,” Jake said. “Can you cook?”
“Afraid not.”
“I guess it’s a good thing Ash can then, huh?”
Leah won her bet.
“Guess so.” Riley shrugged.
“Doesn’t really matter to you?”
“Well, I usually live on takeout, so it’s something new. I could get used to it.”
Jake was so transparently not pleased by that statement that Leah nearly laughed. But not quite. He was, after all, her boss.
Riley closed the folder and tapped the edge against her free hand. “Getting back to the murder, with no good way to I.D. the body, I say our best bet is to look for a man who isn’t where he’s supposed to be. Starting from the easier end. Summer visitors.”
“That will be the quickest,” the sheriff agreed. “We can check with all the motels and realtors for a single guy renting a room, a condo, or a house; in this area, we tend to get more families and groups than singles, so it ought to narrow the field. I’ll get my people on it.”
“It’s a start, anyway.” Riley offered the folder to Leah. “Want to take a look?”
“Pass. Wouldn’t know what I was reading anyway.”
Riley smiled and returned the folder to Jake. “Not much we didn’t already know. White male approximately forty to forty-five years old, tortured and then decapitated. No tox-screen results yet. Estimated time of death was between two and six A.M. Sunday night. Or Monday morning, rather.”
“Does that help?” Leah wondered.
“Not really. Not without more to go on. Jake, may I see all the paperwork you’ve got on any of the other possibly related crimes this summer? The arson, vandalism, whatever else you have.”
“Of course.” He was all business now, the foray into her personal life seemingly forgotten. “Looking for a common thread?”
Matter-of-factly, she said, “If there was one, your people probably would have seen it. Unless it’s occult-related. Those can be very subtle, and I wouldn’t expect most cops to pick up on them.”
“But you would?”
“Maybe, maybe not.” She shook her head. “Sorry to sound vague, but I haven’t had a chance to do any research yet; until I work up a list of possibly related occurrences and try to figure out what they have in common, research is tough and fairly useless. The occult is a broad topic.”
With a sigh, Jake said, “Yeah, I did an Internet keyword search using human sacrifice. You wouldn’t believe some of the shit that came up.”
“Oh, I’d believe just about anything.” Riley’s voice was dry. “But I’d rather start at the beginning, not with the end result.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that the preparations for an occult ceremony are every bit as important as the eventual outcome, possibly more so.”
Leah got it first. “So if you find something out of place in the prep work, you’ll be more inclined to believe the occult…elements…were used as a smoke screen.”
“Exactly.”
Jake was frowning. “That’s what you think? Seriously?”
“I think it’s possible.”
“You’ve been listening to Ash.”
“Actually, I think he’s convinced this murder has nothing to do with the occult. I’m not quite ready to rule it out just yet.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Jake said. “Thought I’d have to waste a lot of time arguing the possibility.”
“I’m always open to possibilities,” Riley said. “There are usually plenty of them, and this case is no exception. Maybe it’s a garden-variety murder dressed up to look like something else. Or maybe it really is something else.”
It was Leah’s turn to frown. “Wait a minute. You said there wasn’t much in the autopsy report we didn’t already know.”
“That’s what I said.”
“So there was something. Something you didn’t expect?”
“One small thing,” Riley agreed. “The stomach contents.”
Jake looked at the closed folder he’d placed on the table, then back at Riley, his brows lifting. “What about them? We don’t have the tox screen yet, so—”
“So we don’t know if he was drugged or poisoned. Yeah. But what we do know is that his stomach was full of blood. And it wasn’t his.”
Riley bent to pick up a charred bit of wood and straightened, turning it in her hands. “The house was under construction when it burned?”
“Not much more than a shell,” Jake confirmed. “The roof was on, and it was mostly closed in, but that was it.”
“And it was being built by a construction company, not an individual.”
“Yeah, a big company bought up a shitload of land on the island a few years ago, when one of the original owners finally sold out. They’ve been building on lots ever since. Usually have two or three houses going at the same time. Big crew.”
“Insurance?”
“What you’d expect. Nothing excessive.” Jake shrugged.
“And nothing crooked that I could find. They build a house and then sell it, to either an individual, a co-op, or one of the properties groups that own rentals. Business as usual around here.”
Riley dropped the charred wood and absently brushed her hands together. “And your fire marshal is sure it was arson?” She was behaving as though this was her first visit here, although she had to assume that she’d been here to this site at least once before, and unbeknownst to the sheriff. This fire had, after all, been one of the unusual occurrences to rouse Gordon’s suspicions this summer.
So it on
ly made sense that she had come here at some point. She might even have found something here to deepen—or erase—her own suspicions, for all she knew.
She didn’t remember.
“An accelerant was used,” Jake replied. “And not something common, like gasoline or lighter fluid. I don’t have lab results on just what kind, but we’re sure of that much.”
“Anything else we’re sure of?” The question was straightforward and not at all sarcastic.
“Not a whole hell of a lot. Happened in the middle of the night, closer to dawn, really. Report called in by a neighbor who was up early to take his dog out. The fire was well under way, and nobody was seen here or running—or driving—away from here.”
Riley frowned at the blackened pilings intended to support the house well above the sandy ground as required by code and the only parts of it still upright and recognizable. Around the base of the massive timbers were mounds of charred wood, some of them waist high, where the building had caved in on itself while burning.
“What’re you thinking?” Jake asked.
She wished she knew. There was something very familiar about this, but she didn’t know what it was. Or even why it was. Maybe it just looked familiar because she’d stood here before, studied the debris of this fire before.
Or maybe it was something else.
“Riley?”
Why do I get the feeling it’s something else?
“I guess the fire marshal sifted through all this stuff,” she said, more to be saying something than because she had any real doubts.
“Twice. And then I had a closer look myself—early yesterday, as a matter of fact. Except for signs of that accelerant I mentioned, neither of us saw anything that didn’t belong here.”
Riley looked at him with a frown. “Then why do you have this fire lumped in with the other unusual occurrences? Fires happen. Arson happens.” Thinking of the earlier conversation with Leah, she added, “Even in paradise. And burning a building doesn’t play a part in any ritual I know of. So why do you believe this might have had something to do with occult practices?”
He sighed. “Well, there was one unusual thing here. The fire marshal didn’t notice, or at least didn’t put it in his report. And I only found it yesterday. Haven’t even had the chance to tell Ash, if you want the truth.”
“Found what, Jake?”
He led the way through the mounds of rubble toward the beach side of the property, saying over his shoulder, “The company wants to clear all this and start rebuilding, but their insurer’s investigator apparently wants to take a look and won’t cut them a check until he does. Supposed to be here by the end of the week. Otherwise, all this’d be cleared out by now.”
An awful lot of things appeared to be happening—or were supposed to happen—by the end of the week, Riley thought, conscious of a new prickle of unease. As if a clock were ticking off the moments until…something. She didn’t know what. Or whose clock it was.
Or even if it mattered, dammit.
But all she said, calmly, was, “I’m not surprised the insurer wants to take a look, if an accelerant was used. I gather it was one of those rare policies that actually covers arson, but only if no evidence points to the company?”
“Yeah. Buildings under construction are tempting targets for arsonists, and having a special rider on the policy is usually less expensive than hiring security to watch the place twenty-four–seven all during construction. But the insurers take a harder look when something like this happens, of course. Personally, I don’t see how the builder would profit from a fire, not at this stage. The policy is one designed just for a building in progress, so at any given time it only covers what the company can prove it’s cost them up to that point.”
“Sensible.”
“Yeah, and pretty much stops some unscrupulous builder from throwing up shoddy workmanship and then burning it and claiming the loss as market value. Apparently, you’ve gotta have the paperwork to back up your claims of cost—actual cost of materials and manpower, not appraised value when finished. That sort of policy keeps the cost down for the builder but still makes it so they don’t lose their shirts if something happens during construction.”
“I bet it’s saved the insurance company some major bucks too. Jake, where are we going?”
“Here.” He stopped near the edge of the dunes, which presently hid their view of the ocean and over which a wooden walkway had already been partially constructed, with more thick pilings sunk deeply into the sand.
Ignoring the STAY OFF THE DUNES! signs posted liberally up and down the beach and near every walkway, Jake stepped behind a piling and crouched down.
“Almost missed it,” he said.
Riley joined him, going down on one knee in the soft sand, and stared at the rough surface of the massive post. “I don’t suppose it could be natural,” she said.
“No. Found the same thing at the abandoned building that burned in Castle last week. I’d say this was a brand—or at the very least made with something hot enough to burn the wood.”
After a moment, Riley reached out and traced the very clear shape that did indeed look as though it had been deliberately charred into the surface of the post.
An inverted cross.
It was nearly lunchtime when Riley and the sheriff finished what little they could do at the second arson site, an abandoned building on the outskirts of downtown Castle. What little they could do having consisted of looking at a burned-out hulk of a building that had once been a small store and studying the inverted cross that had been burned into an otherwise untouched plank jammed upright into the ground and left conspicuously behind the building.
“Not very subtle,” Riley murmured as they headed back toward the street.
“Was it supposed to be?” Jake asked. “I mean, isn’t a sign supposed to be…well, a sign?”
“A sign of what? Here there be devil worshippers? Most practitioners keep pretty quiet about it, Jake.”
“That group down the beach from you has been vocal.”
Which led Riley to believe they were likely to be harmless, more apt to be on the candles-and-chanting “conventional” end of Satanism rather than out on the extreme fringes, where blood rituals and attempts to harness the elements or some supernatural force were practiced.
But all she said was, “Leaving signs of occult activity for outsiders to find isn’t smart. Unless you have a very good reason.”
He frowned. “Okay. Then, maybe…a warning of some kind?”
“I guess it’s possible.” She couldn’t seem to think clearly, and Riley was aware of another chill of unease. How many PowerBars had she eaten since breakfast? Two? Three? That should have been enough. More than enough. For Christ’s sake, it wasn’t as though she’d been running an obstacle course—
“Are you okay?” Jake demanded. “You’ve been acting sort of weird all morning.”
“Have I?”
“Yes, you have. And that wasn’t an answer. What the hell’s going on with you?”
She wouldn’t have pegged the handsome sheriff as being particularly sensitive to undercurrents, which told her that it was only too screamingly obvious something unusual was going on with her.
Great. That was just great. She really couldn’t fake it anymore, apparently.
Falling back on the tried and true, she said, “I’m different when I’m working, that’s all.”
“No offense, Riley, but if this is you working, I don’t know how much help you’re going to be to this investigation.”
Despite the beginning of that sentence, his tone was aggressive and his entire attitude impatient, and it didn’t take any extra senses to tell Riley he was in the mood to pick a fight. Probably, she thought, because needling her at the station hadn’t achieved whatever results he’d been after.
She wondered now if she had stopped dating Jake less because she’d met and been attracted to Ash and more because she really didn’t have much time for men who believed th
ey were God’s gift.
Under different circumstances, she probably would have given him the argument he so clearly wanted to start, but today she simply didn’t have the energy for it.
In any case, he was distracted before Riley had to come up with some kind of response. And she didn’t know whether to be relieved or irritated when the distraction proved to be Ash. His Hummer was parked beside Jake’s Jeep out on the street.
“How’d he even know where we were?” Jake muttered.
“He didn’t have to know,” Riley pointed out mildly. “All he had to do was drive the few blocks between here and the courthouse and look for your Jeep.”
Jake grimaced. “Yeah. Sometimes I forget how small this place really is.”
“I wouldn’t think you could hide much here,” she agreed.
“You ever lived in a small town?”
Riley nodded.
“Then you know that there are secrets everybody in the entire town knows—and then there are secrets that stay that way, sometimes for generations.”
“True enough.” Something was nagging at her mind, had been for at least the last hour, but Riley couldn’t make it come clear. Something about one of the arson sites? Something Jake had said? A memory trying to surface?
She didn’t know. Whatever it was, it remained maddeningly elusive.
It’s like an echo of something I only half-heard in the first place. How the hell am I supposed to figure out what it was?
Especially with her Swiss-cheese memory and still-dulled senses.
Ash had gotten out when he saw them approaching and, when they joined him on the sidewalk, asked Riley, “Any ideas about our mysterious arsonist?”
“Nothing helpful, I’m afraid,” she replied, pushing the useless worries out of her mind for the moment.
“Still thinking it could be part of some kind of occult activity?”
“I still can’t rule it out.” Riley shrugged. “I’ve got to do some research, see if any of this fits any known pattern.”
“Would you expect it to?”
“Well, yeah, at least to some extent. There are basic tenets to every religion, every belief system. The bells and whistles may change over the years, and some strong leaders may invent their own rituals or their own methods of conducting them, but the broad outlines tend to stay the same.”