Authors: Ben Hopkin
Tags: #General Fiction
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 reschedule.”
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.”
Trey waved his hands, trying to ward off her apparent anger. “Oh, we have no—”
“And finally, I find it offensive that you could believe that a religion that stresses the Goddess and harmony with nature would have anything to do with something like this.” She whipped back her long black hair, sat back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest, pinning Trey with a confrontational stare.
So, it appeared that Trey needed to up his opinion on the girl. From community college barista to super-smart chick putting herself through law school with a part-time job. And who happened to practice some weird religion.
“Look, Ms. Donner…” Trey could see that she was ramping up to say something else combative, so raised his hands and his volume. “You’re not a suspect. Seriously. We just wanted to talk to someone with knowledge about the occult.” Trey tried a smile on her, but she set her mouth in a line. “Promise.”
“I’ll tell you again, Detective. There is no way a serious practitioner of Wicca would ever murder someone.”
“Could you just take a look at some of the crime photos? See what you think?”
“Fine.”
Hey, Trey would take it. “I have to warn you, they’re pretty brutal.”
Yana rolled her eyes at him. “Just show me the pictures.”
He placed several photos of all three murders in front of her. In spite of her bravado, seeing them clearly affected her. The girl’s face blanched, and she drew in what seemed to be an involuntary breath of surprise or shock. As she reached out to pick up one of the photos to view it more closely, her hand shook.
“This… this is sick,” she muttered under her breath.
“Tell me about it,” Trey answered.
“Is this consistent with anything you’ve seen in your practice of Wicca?” Darc stepped in, his tone the flatness of a still pond.
The girl glanced up at the bald detective, almost as if she were seeing him for the first time. All of her defiance and belligerence seemed to have evaporated with the sight of the crime.
“No. Never. I mean we use pentagrams and stuff, but…” She stared down at the picture in her hand. “… nothing like this. It’s like something out of a horror movie.”
“So you have no idea who could have done anything like this?” Darc pressed.
A modicum of her previous spark seemed to come back to Yana. “I said no. Wiccans don’t do this shit. This is… unnatural.” She appeared to be thinking for a moment. “There is another group out here that gets into some pretty freaky stuff. I run into them sometimes at farmers’ markets and stuff like that.”
“Who?” Trey asked.
“The Satanists. Some of them are pretty creepy.” Her eyes flickered back to the photo, and she shook her head. “But look, most of them are just in it to be weird, you know? I can’t believe even they would do anything like this.”
“Do you know how to get a hold of any of them?” Trey tried hard not to give Darc his I-told-you-so look. Who had mentioned Satanists right out of the box? Not Darc, that’s who.
“No, not really,” she answered. “But I think they have a website.”
A website? For Satanists? Trey shook his head at that. That was just wrong on every level.
“Okay, thanks,” he told the girl as he gave her his card. “If you think of anything else, please give me a call.”