“Don’t let the rustic setting fool you,” Talling said. “I know how to keep an eye on things. Retired and came up here to keep order while I get in some fishing.”
“How’s it working out?”
The sheriff chuckled without much humor. “Fish haven’t been too worried, lately.”
Touches of hominess dotted the station, softening the stark walls and lighting: a crayon drawing scotch-taped to the side of one desk, a Tigers baseball cap on a lamp, the banner of a lodge named for an animal in one corner. Nothing too unprofessional, but they added up to a sense of comfort Donovan couldn’t imagine at Midtown North. One corner of his mouth rose as he thought about Braithwaite’s t-shirt: “
Our guns fire quick, and our nightsticks are hard
.”
Talling led Donovan into his office, a smaller room separated from the rest of the station by glass and wood partitions. A young redheaded woman was inside, leaning over the desk to give an unintentional but pleasant view.
“Oh, sheriff! I brought in the files on the, uh, the case.” She straightened suddenly, knocking a folder on the floor. She quickly bent to pick it up, then wiped her hands on the seat of her pants as though the folder had dirtied them. Donovan smiled.
“Thank you, Sharon.”
“Would you like some coffee, Mister, uh—?”
“Graham. Call me Donovan. That would be great, thanks.”
She blushed. “Sheriff?”
“Bring us a fresh pot, would you please?” Talling waited until she left before he glanced at Donovan. “She’s determined to be a good cop, so I’m bringing her along slowly. Worse things to aspire to, but she’s got to stop being impressed by big-shot out-of-town investigators.”
“Charisma is my curse.”
Talling snorted as he took off his hat. He hung it on a rack made of some kind of antler and took a seat behind the desk. Donovan sat opposite him, wondering if his black motorcycle boots, black jeans, blue t-shirt and untucked white dress shirt made him look underdressed for his role of “big-shot out-of-town investigator.” They looked at each other for a moment. “Do I pass?” Donovan finally asked.
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve been sized up by the best.”
Conrad.
“Do I pass?”
“We’ll see.” Talling leaned back until his chair squeaked. “Unfortunately, the fingerprints you have raise some questions about a case I’d closed. Coletun is supposed to be dead. We have a confession from his killer, and the circumstances of that confession are compelling. On top of that, Coletun’s case has some aspects to it that are a little…different. Maybe you noticed the people in town aren’t exactly outgoing?”
“They seemed sad. A little scared.”
“What happened sucked a lot of life out of them. They’ve been through a lot, and I don’t much relish the idea of picking at fresh scabs.”
“But you are.”
“I am.” Talling nodded. “Something about the case was never right.”
“And you think I can help you.”
Again, Talling nodded.
“Why would you think that?” Donovan asked.
“I told Sergeant Fullam a little about the case. He told me a little about you.”
Did he?
“No wonder the fish aren’t worried. Doesn’t sound like you get away from work long enough to threaten them.”
“Sergeant Fullam said you’re an expert on strange, bizarre things?” Talling’s low-key façade coated penetrating curiosity. Donovan shrugged. His manner must have conveyed something, for a thin strand of relief wound through the sheriff’s caution. “Then maybe you’re the right man to have sent. Maybe. All due respect to him, I saw people associated with your field when I was with Detroit PD. Psychics and mystics and whatever else they called themselves. I don’t think there were any who
weren’t
full of shit.”
“A lot of them are, whether it’s deliberate or delusional.”
“Which one describes you?”
“Neither.”
Talling took a second before sitting forward. “Good. I hate dealing with flakes.”
Sharon returned with two cups and a coffee pot on a tray. Next to the milk and sugar was a plate of cookies. “My niece is filling her Girl Scout quota. Dig in; there are plenty more where they came from.” She cast a sideways look at Donovan before glancing at Talling to see if she was being too informal.
The sheriff gave an indulgent nod and selected a coconut macaroon. “Thank you, Sharon. That’ll be all for now.”
“Yup.” She blushed again and shut the door behind her.
“Bringing her along slowly,” he repeated. “Well there may be a load of shit in your field, Mister Graham, but what happened to the Churners was brutal murder. How much do you know about Coletun’s case?”
Churners?
Donovan thought. “Frank didn’t want to prejudice my findings. All I know is he disappeared from school.”
“The last sign we have of Coletun is his fingerprints in the house of a man named Zeke Wissex. Wissex is currently incarcerated in Standish Maximum Correctional Facility for multiple murders. One of those murders is supposed to have been Coletun.”
Donovan’s eyebrows rose.
“Zeke came out here about three years ago from Massachusetts, kind of a trust-fund college kid. Rode out here on a giant Harley, like a Hell’s Angel. One of those hippie types—do kids still follow the Grateful Dead?—but big.” Talling puffed out his chest and shoulders. “Worked out; a health food nut. Kind of a charmer, some of that rich kid prick-arrogance, but not a
bad
bad guy. At least, I didn’t think so. He founded a group that called themselves Churners. Most were local high school dropouts and college kids, pretty much fed up with life around here but without the skills to do much about it. Zeke bought a house—big place on a few hundred acres—and set them up as a kind of commune about two years ago.”
“A commune?”
“He turned them into a little business, selling microbrew beer, soap, any natural-hippie substance. They named themselves after some Irish god.”
Churners?
Donovan thought again.
Irish god…?
“Cernunnos?” He pronounced it “chur-new-nohss.”
“That’s the one; Cernunnos—Churners.” The corners of Talling’s mouth turned down. “Anyway, one of the things helping them have such a good time was that, as a hobby, Wissex started growing a pretty good crop of weed out there. He didn’t sell much—didn’t need the money—but it made him The Man around here.”
“Really?” Donovan was surprised he’d tolerated it.
“Why did I tolerate it?” Talling seemed to have read Donovan’s mind. “He was strictly local—no ambition to be a kingpin. I think he genuinely liked it out there, the people, the set-up…”
His voice trailed off, and Donovan could see the sheriff still wondered if not busting Wissex had been the right thing. Considering events, who could say?
“The Churners were devoted to partying and having a good time, as far as I could tell,” Talling continued. “All his friends were over eighteen, and they kept their private lives private. Wissex always covered his tracks, so we never got enough on him to really come down hard.”
“And he helped keep things quiet.”
Talling examined Donovan, searching for a sign of accusation. He saw none. “That, too. Anyway, last August, August first, at 11:42 p.m., I got a call from dispatch to go out to the woods on the Wissex estate.” Talling indicated at a stack of photographs. “Crime scene photos; better have a strong stomach if you want to look.”
Donovan reached for them, thinking of people he knew who took great pleasure out of these types of pictures, collecting and trading them like ghoulish baseball cards.
This selection would have done any of those macabre collectors proud. Blood splattered dark patterns across the black and white backgrounds while limbs and organs were strewn about the pictures in occasionally identifiable, gruesome messes. Donovan shuffled through the photos then went through them again, slower. He saw more than bone shards and wet gristle this second time, he saw inhuman cruelty not sated by mere killing. The bodies had been savaged until barely recognizable as human beings. “Jesus Christ,” he murmured. “
Wissex
did that?”
Talling nodded. “So he said. But it didn’t fit my reading of him, and we never found any axes or hatchets.”
Donovan paused. “Was Coletun one of the bodies?”
“No. In spite of Zeke’s confession that he’d killed him, we never found Coletun’s body, or any DNA evidence of it.”
“And that’s the thing that bugs you.”
“One of them.”
Donovan nodded. “Tell me about Coletun.”
Talling squinted at the files. “Coletun lived in that trailer park out by the airstrip. His parents, Eddie and Lola, were, frankly, white trash. They used to fight about Coletun, among other things. Eddie never did accept that Coletun was his son, I think.”
Donovan felt a pang of sympathy for the little boy caught between fighting parents. He sorted through the files and came across a school photo of a small, scrawny-looking boy. “Is this him?” The sheriff nodded. Donovan examined the picture. Coletun squinted at the camera, tentative grin wondering if he was doing what the photographer wanted. He looked sickly, as though breakfast on too many occasions had consisted of a handful of beer nuts and a push out the door.
“On the last day of school, last June, Coletun didn’t come home. The principal, Sam Rolf, reported the boy got into a vehicle Sam swears belonged to Zeke. Said Coletun wasn’t dragged in, didn’t fight, he just got in. When he didn’t show up at home, Lola decided he’d been kidnapped.” Talling gestured indulgence. “Taken, maybe. But kidnapped? I told her it didn’t make sense; anyone who thought they had ransom money just had to look at their trailer to see the truth, but Lola was a little, ah, imaginative about the way she viewed her life. Eddie came home, learned what happened and—I don’t know. For all the emotion he showed, Coletun could have been a runaway hamster.”
“Was there ever any evidence for kidnapping? Or anything else?”
“Like did they beat him to death, or something? No. His teachers saw bruises, one time he had a broken arm, but among some people around here that’s considered normal. Neighbors heard plenty of verbal abuse, too. We did the usual follow-up: checked with the Staties, put word out on the wires, put that picture on a milk carton. I got a warrant and searched Zeke’s house. Coletun never turned up. He’d just vanished. Two weeks later we got a call about shots fired at the Ruscht trailer, found them both dead. Interesting thing was it was Lola who’d shot Eddie and turned the gun on herself, not the other way around like you might expect. Neighbors said they were fighting about money, which we found scattered around the trailer. More than I would’ve expected, but Eddie did have a shady side.”
“Where do the Churners come in? Was Eddie a member?”
Talling shook his head. “Too old.”
“Wissex heads up a group of bored people looking for a thrill. Wissex comes from money. Shady Eddie suddenly has money. Coletun disappears, his fingerprints are in Wissex’s house.” Disgust clouded Donovan’s face as he put it together. “He sold his kid to the Churners? Jesus Christ. And when his wife found out, she shot him.”
“About how I figured it. Zeke claims he sacrificed Coletun before he did,” the sheriff gestured at the pictures, “that.”
“So he sacrificed Coletun with the Churners, butchered everybody, and then called you on his cell phone to turn himself in? I see why it bugs you.”
“Did nothing to help his attorneys during the trial. Almost like he went berserk, then got religion after he saw what he’d done.”
“Too bad for the Churners he didn’t see the light a little earlier.”
“You’re not kidding—well, you just saw the pictures.”
“And none of them tried to escape?” Donovan sorted through them again. “I mean, bigger and stronger or not, not one of the twelve managed to get away?”
“Nope.”
“August first?”
Talling nodded.
“Lammas Eve,” Donovan said. “A pagan feast. They were probably sampling the crop, as part of a celebration for the first harvest. I doubt any of them could have tied their shoes, much less fought off someone as big as Wissex intent on butchering them.”
Talling nodded, impressed. “Tests showed they all had high levels of various drugs in their systems.”
Donovan glanced out the window. “The site where Wissex says he sacrificed Coletun—can we get to it before dark?”
“Probably, if we leave now. What are you looking for?”
“Not sure.” Donovan remembered Fullam’s words. “But I’ll know it if I see it.”
***
“It’s a partially man-made clearing, about a quarter-mile from the house.” Talling gestured into the thick woods through which they drove. “I’ll get us as close as I can. It’s not too far from the road.”
“Did Wissex own all this land?”
“A lot of it. There was no great demand; it doesn’t offer much.”
“Except privacy.”
The sheriff grunted as he parked. “I don’t know how much evidence is left. I haven’t been out here in awhile.” He ducked around a fragrant pine tree, the needles whispering as they brushed against his windbreaker’s sleeve. Above them faint stars had come into view as the sun continued its downward trek. “Anything in particular you were hoping to find?”
“I’m curious about what kind of ritual they did—Lammas Eve is a kind of Thanksgiving. There might be an animal sacrifice to assure the next season’s crop, but—barring a giant wicker man—it’s not a holiday about violence, or murder.”
“I just thought they all prayed to ‘the Devil’?”
Donovan’s boot snapped a dead branch next to a log he stepped over. The sound was like a gunshot in the stillness. “‘The Devil’ can mean any of a thousand occult beings, but Cernunnos is a fertility god. He doesn’t ask for human sacrifice. He wouldn’t require Wissex to kill his followers.”
“Uh-
hunh
.” Talling regarded him with caution, looking for common ground. “Interesting. I guess your attachment to NYPD is as kind of a psychological profiler?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
“You any good at it?”
“Yeah. I am.”
In another few minutes they made it to a clearing about the size of a baseball infield. Talling stepped to the side. “I’ll stay out of your way,” he said, taking out a tin of chewing tobacco. “But you don’t mind if I watch?”