Book of Shadows (20 page)

Even in his best suit, Garrett felt painfully underdressed. Then he felt shame at the thought.
You think the Carmodys give a good goddamn about clothes, today?

He forced himself to the task at hand, and scanned the crowd from his vantage at the end of a back pew.

Landauer sat on the other side of the chapel, looking as impassively uncomfortable as Garrett felt, and Carolyn was toward the front; not observing, as the detectives were, but present simply because this was her own social circle. By mutual agreement she and Garrett were not communicating while he worked the funeral, which was a relief; he was distracted enough already.

His pulse suddenly spiked as he spotted Shelley Forbes and Kevin Teague taking seats together in the Carmody’s pew, up-front.

Okay, then, jocko. We’re going to have a little talk, you and me.

Garrett settled back into the pew to wait out the service. These days he felt out of place in any church, but today it was particularly painful. The funeral seemed to him a total lie, the body within the coffin incomplete, missing the part that makes human beings most human.

Erin’s life had ended in a dark ritual, and the one going on before him seemed a flimsy and inadequate attempt to counteract the damage done. Whatever God there was had some explaining to do.

Garrett looked up at the stained-glass panels in the slanted ceiling to distract himself . . . only to find himself staring at a pane depicting winged Lucifer tempting a gaunt Christ in the wilderness.

He had a sudden clear image of the reptilian things that Tanith
had shown him the night before.
“Choronzon in particular is said to cause madness, chaos, and decay.”

Garrett’s stomach twisted.
What century are we in? How can civilized people believe these things?
He looked quickly away from the colored glass, letting the hymn block out his thoughts.

As the service concluded, Garrett caught Land’s eye across the chapel and nodded slightly toward Teague. Landauer nodded back and started out the door with the flow of mourners.

Outside the church the day was still dark, with scudding clouds and the threat of rain, a heavy feeling in the air to match the somber proceedings.

Mortuary attendants discreetly herded the funeral party out onto a winding path toward the grove that encircled the graveyard. Garrett walked at the edges of the crowd, following Teague, and when the young man drifted behind the Carmodys, Garrett stepped in front of him, cutting him off from the others.

Teague recognized him instantly; his eyes turned hooded and wary. Garrett indicated a side path with a jerk of his head. Teague glowered under those dark, full eyebrows, but stepped onto the path with him.

“So you’ve never been to Cauldron,” Garrett said flatly, as soon as they were out of earshot of the other mourners.

“No, I haven’t,” Teague snapped back, hostility seething in his voice.

“So I guess you didn’t attack Jason Moncrief in the parking lot there on September seventh.”

Teague’s lip twisted. “Who says so?”

Garrett paused. The only real witness was Jason; the bass player’s story was hearsay.

A smug look crossed Teague’s features. “You better watch those unfounded allegations, Detective.”

Garrett took an abrupt step toward the young man and the smirk disappeared from his face. “You better watch that mouth, Teague. I have witnesses who place you at Cauldron.”

“The night she died?” Teague demanded. Garrett didn’t answer
and Teague shook his head, disgusted. “You’re tripping. If you think I killed Erin you’re as crazy as Moncrief.” He stepped back from Garrett, clearly knowing that he could. “Like I said. From now on talk to my lawyer.”

He strode off down the path, toward the graves.

Garrett felt a surge of anger and had to stand for a few minutes in the quiet circle of trees to compose himself. The wind whispered through the leaves above him.

When he was calm enough to rejoin the funeral party, the mourners were filing past the grave site, putting flowers and gifts—notes, stuffed animals, trinkets—on top of the coffin. A good number of the procession broke down in tears.

Garrett felt a tightness in his chest, a new fury—for Erin’s wasted life.

And then his pulse suddenly spiked as he caught sight of a familiar figure, unmistakable: a slim young man with heavy dark glasses who towered a full head over everyone else around him.

The bass player from Jason’s band, Danny Coyle.

He paused beside the coffin and lay a white, square envelope on the gleaming surface with the other gifts.

Keeping his eyes fixed on the musician, Garrett stepped into the line of mourners filing by the coffin. When his turn came he stopped on the fresh earth beside the bier and lay one hand gently on the surface of the casket as if in tribute, while he snagged the white envelope with his other hand and slid it into his coat pocket. He bowed his head for a moment longer, then turned and walked quickly away from the grave, following the bassist at a distance, weaving through the headstones and monuments. It was an easy tail, given the dispersing crowd and the height of his target.

As he followed the young man through the graves, Garrett pulled the envelope from his pocket and examined it. It was a CD in a white sleeve, with Erin’s name written on it. The CD inside was unmarked.

Garrett strode faster to overtake the bassist. “Danny,” he called. The young man turned around, and looked startled to see Garrett. He stopped beside a tomb and waited, with a hunch in his shoulders, as Garrett caught up.

Garrett stopped in front of him, smiled, spread his hands as he glanced back toward the grave site. “I thought you didn’t know Erin.”

“I don’t,” the musician began.

“Yet you come to her funeral and you leave her this?” Garrett held the CD up between his fingers.

Danny stared at Garrett, and Garrett saw a mixture of conflicting emotions on his face: confusion, a flash of anger, a hint of what looked like contempt.

“It’s from Jason,” the young man said.

Now Garrett stared at him.

“He called me and asked me to bring it here, today.”

“From where?” Garrett demanded.

Danny gave him an odd look. “From jail.”

“I mean, where did you get the CD? We cleaned out his room.”

“It was in our rehearsal space,” Danny said patiently. “He called me and asked me to get it.”

“What’s on it?” Garrett was furious with himself for not searching the room.

Danny stared at him stonily. “I didn’t play it. It’s private.”

“Do you not realize that this is a murder investigation and you could be charged with withholding evidence?”

Danny looked startled, then straightened his shoulders and said in a steady voice, “Jason is my friend, man. I can’t believe he killed anyone. Whatever he was into, I don’t believe that. He wanted her to have it”—he nodded at the CD in Garrett’s hand—“so I brought it.”

He met Garrett’s eyes and did not look away. And then Garrett nodded, dismissing him.

As Danny started off across the grass, Garrett suddenly called after him, “Wait.”

The tall young man turned back, impassive.

Garrett stood, for a moment just collecting his thoughts, unsure of what he wanted to say, only that there was something. And then he found himself asking a question that surprised him. “Did you guys do a gig on August first?”

The bassist thought for a second. “Yeah, in Saratoga.”

“Saratoga Springs? New York?” Garrett asked.

“Right.”

“Was Jason with you for that one?”

Danny frowned. “Yeah.”

“The whole time?” Saratoga Springs was at least a ten-hour drive.

Danny looked bewildered. “Yeah. We drove up together, did the gig, spent the night in a motel, drove back. Why?”

Garrett didn’t answer, because he didn’t quite know himself . . . only that August first was one of the dates that Tanith Cabarrus had given him.

He shook his head, and after a time, Danny turned and continued walking through the gravestones.

The skies opened up just as Garrett got to his Explorer, and he sat back with the rain pounding on the roof and bouncing off the windshield and started the engine, then slid the CD into his player and sat back to listen.

It was completely unexpected, the music, nothing heavy or hard, nothing like the death metal that had been on the
Current 333
CD, but a simple, haunting track, and a single vocal.

Garrett sat back against the seat and listened to Jason Moncrief sing.

Magical, lyrical, princess of light
Guide my way through this starless night.
Moon in your hair and fire in your eyes
Make me worthy to claim your prize.
Forest nymph, my forest queen.
Shining lady of the unseen.

Garrett leaned back against the headrest.
Fuck me
. He stared out at the drenching rain, with blood pounding in his head.

He didn’t kill her.

The moon was rising through the tall windows of the detectives’ bureau. The glass bricks of the lower floors glowed pale green.

Hunched at his work pod, Garrett had been staring at the Missing Persons reports for some time now, as if a name would somehow miraculously appear on the dates he was checking. There was nothing. There simply were no missing persons on or around the dates Tanith had given him.

But her voice kept insisting.

“There are three dead already.”

And the sweet, haunting lyrics of Jason’s song to Erin refused to go away.

Garrett stood and walked down the back stairs (the DNA stairs, he always thought of them, the double spiral staircase in the back of Schroeder), with the tall clear glass windows looking out onto the darkened adjoining strip of park, and crossed the lobby to the complaint desk, where walk-ins and call-ins could make reports. The desk was generally staffed by rookies or even cadets, and rookies made mistakes.

He was in luck; tonight there was an actual sergeant behind the desk, with a crew cut and handlebar mustache. Garrett leaned in to
the counter. “I need to know if any missing persons were reported on or around these dates.” He passed the sergeant a Post-it with the dates
June 21
and
August 1
. “Anything around those dates.” He paused, then took a shot. “I’m thinking it would be a young woman.” Garrett had meant that the report would be
about
a missing young woman, but the desk sergeant misunderstood.

“Yeah, a streetwalker did come in—August one sounds right. Said a friend of hers never came back from a date.”

Garrett stared at him, fury building. “Where the fuck is the report?”

The sergeant’s guard went way up and Garrett knew he had to contain himself if he was going to get what he needed.

“She didn’t fill one out. She came in less than twenty-four hours after this hooker ‘disappeared.’ I told her we couldn’t take a report on an adult until forty-eight hours had passed.” The sergeant shrugged, defensive. “She never came back in.”

All kinds of bells were going off inside Garrett. Tanith Cabarrus was right—there was another. A prostitute. And he’d initially thought the killer might have mistaken Erin for a prostitute. He felt a building rage that none of this had been recorded and that he had been a breath away from missing it entirely.

“I need a name. A description,” he ground out.

The sergeant bristled. “She was a hooker,” he said, as if that covered everything. “Eighteen, nineteen. Using, twitchy. Wig and dark glasses, like she was in disguise. Said her and her friend were working Chinatown.” Then something flickered in his face. “She had a food name . . .” he paused, thinking. “Bree. She said her name was Bree.”

A couple of years back Garrett had dated a vice cop named Stoney—Melissa Stone. Her name conjured a rush of erotic flashbacks: fucking in backseats; up against the rough brick wall of an alley; Garrett standing, shaking, sweating, Stoney on her knees, wide lips wrapped around him; Garrett’s fingers up inside her and Stoney shuddering as he pressed against her from behind . . .

She’d been working undercover in the BPD’s “Operation Squeeze”:
an aggressive series of busts of prostitutes and johns in the gentrifying Chinatown district. When Garrett was being honest with himself he had to admit it gave him an illicit thrill to hook up with a pretend hooker. Landauer had taunted him unmercifully and Stoney was no fool, either; she’d called him on it, Garrett was unable to deny the charge, and ultimately Stoney couldn’t get past it. The problem with dating a cop was that they read you too well.

All of that played for a moment on Stoney’s face when she looked up from her desk in the vice squad room and saw him coming. Garrett was selfishly gratified to see an involuntary ripple of attraction as well, her own rush of erotic memories, quickly covered.

She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms as he stopped in front of the desk. “So you finally caught your big one,” she said, as if no time had passed.

“Yeah. And now I’m hoping it’s not even bigger than everyone thinks.” He said it bluntly and the change in her eyes made it clear she understood he wasn’t playing. She sat up straighter.