Book of Shadows (39 page)

Wind pushed through the streets of Salem, rustled through the brilliance of the autumn colors, swirled flurries of dry leaves on the sidewalks and driveways, swept through the cornhusk decorations and swayed the Halloween lights in the eaves and rafters and pillars of porches.

Children roamed the streets in costumed packs: pirates and aliens and princesses and goblins and ax murderers, followed on foot or in cars by parents who had long ago ceased to believe that it was safe to let their children out on this night or any other, even in the biggest pack.

Toward the town center the streets were closed off to accommodate the waves of revelers who had been flooding the town for the
last few days, by train, by car, by shuttles from Boston and elsewhere. Every available parking space was taken and illegal parking was rampant.

The costuming on Essex Street was more elaborate than the children’s. There were pirates and princesses and Pilgrims here as well, but others with hundreds of dollars invested in materials and makeup and special effects for their costumes, many with lights and sound effects and moving parts. The night was warm enough that fetish wear abounded: there were large men in leathers and chain-mail codpieces and women in no more than bits of lace, in addition to the green men and vampires and, naturally, every possible variation of witch: maidens, queens, crones.

And there was a man who walked the streets, with no costume but a white mask and black cloak, and yet everyone who passed by him shivered away from him with the impression that there was something far more grotesque and calculated about his costume than they were actually seeing, like some troll.

And that was what he did; he trolled. There was one in his trunk already, chloroformed and trussed, and one he’d taken yesterday, secure in his ceremonial space. He had one more to find, now, and a banquet of victims was spread out before him; he reveled in the choice.

He walked on the cobblestone streets, clearing a path as other revelers moved subtly away from his presence, though none that looked at him really saw him; the glamour he’d conjured for himself assured him of that.

The girl walked and weaved in the crowd a few yards in front of him, resplendent in her glittery dark fairy costume; dyed black hair and painted black nails and deep purple sequined bodice with yards and yards of tulle, a black half mask and high, high fetish boots. She had fallen behind her friends, like a hobbled antelope; it was, of course, the boots. Those boots would make her easy to take; she could not run, literally, to save her life. Add to that she was drunk already, as most of the revelers were, drunk and high, and adrenalized with the gaiety and sheer numbers of the mob that surrounded them.

The troll took her arm and mumbled to her, steering her toward an alley, asking directions. She had no time to think; the hypodermic was stabbing her in the neck before she had a sense of anything. Her eyes registered one moment of sheer terror . . . and then she was buckling, crumpling.

The killer swooped her limp body up into both arms in one deft gesture and she was gone, then, that quickly, hidden in his cloak, which fell over her body and only made the troll look more misshapen, more troll-like, as he pushed and weaved his way through the crowd toward his car and the sun flamed in the sky, a perfect Samhain sky, of orange and scarlet and shimmering gold.

Garrett stood in the salon in stunned silence. There were no doors to the room but the one he stood in, and no windows, either.

He turned to Selena in a daze. “Where is she?”

Selena looked pale, but resolute. “I think we both know the answer to that.”

“That’s insane. She would go alone?”

“If she felt she had to,” the elder woman said softly. “You must do what you must do, and so must she.”

He took a sharp step toward her. She didn’t flinch. He summoned all the self-control he had. “This is a killer, Ms. Fox. Whatever else you believe is going on, this is a man who will kill without hesitation, a man who has killed and beheaded three teenagers without a second thought. If you think that whatever ‘talents’ Tanith has are a match for that, that’s one thing; maybe you think you know her well enough to allow her to go into that kind of jeopardy. But if you believe that this man is going to use three more teenagers as sacrifices to his demon, do you think you have the right to decide for three innocent victims?”

The older woman looked him full in the face and he could feel the conflict raging in her. He held her eyes and put his soul into his
next words. “Don’t let her try this alone. If you know something, help me.”

Selena shook her head. “I am sure where she has gone. She will go to release the souls of the bound.” She hesitated, then finished bleakly. “I’ve no idea where that is.”

Garrett had had to surrender the murder book, with all his notes, to Morelli and Palmer when he was suspended.
But it’s a new trail now,
he thought as he paced Selena’s library, while Selena watched from the love seat. All he had to go on were the words Tanith had shrieked in the forest clearing, with a voice that was not her own.

“Glass panes, dirt floor, like a barn,” he muttered.

There was something solid in this, after all, and he would focus on that. It was the
place
he had to find: McKenna had a new lair where he was taking his victims. And that was the question: where? He’d been using his own cellar, his own—well, his inherited house, because as it turned out, he’d taken over the house when his mother was killed in an automobile accident. (And if Garrett had not been racing against time, he would be looking into that death.)

The house was isolated, remote, McKenna’s own: it had been perfect for the killer’s purposes.

Now he needed a place that was even more private, if he was holding live victims, and planning a—Garrett’s mind balked at the word—sacrifice.

“Glass panes, dirt floor, like a barn,” Garrett mumbled. Was it a barn, or a greenhouse? He shook his head. “There must be thirty thousand barns in Massachusetts.” Not to mention the surrounding states, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island . . . And there were no guarantees McKenna wasn’t out of state by now. The Camaro was gone, and an APB had failed to pick it up for going on four days now . . .

“Detective Garrett, stop. Be calm. Breathe,” Selena said placidly. “You know all you need to know.”

Garrett stopped his frenzied pacing and looked at Selena, so still on the love seat where she sat.

This is a place that he knows,
Garrett thought again.
He uses places that he knows. His own home. The landfill where he worked—

Where he worked.

Garrett spun and stared at Selena.

“I need your computer.” He hoped to God she had one.

Selena not only had a computer, she had a state-of-the-art system, and in no time Garrett had called up AutoTrack, a private database service that provided searches of all public records, including DMV, public utility, cable service, and credit reporting agencies. He punched in the police department’s code for access and inputted McKenna’s vital statistics to get a screen that provided McKenna’s past addresses and what Garrett really wanted: his employment history. Garrett scanned the list, eyes moving quickly over the entries . . .

And there it was. Greenbrier Nursery, in Malden.

While Selena watched, hands folded in her lap, Garrett paced with his phone to his ear, listening to the recording telling him, “The number you have dialed is no longer in service.” He punched off, and punched in information, asked for the Greenbrier Nursery. “No such listing in Malden or the greater Massachusetts area,” the operator came back. Garrett punched off and stared at the address. He made one more call back to information. “Malden, Massachusetts—main post office, please.”

And he was lucky; he got a chatty postal clerk. Five minutes later he punched off with the knowledge that there had been a Greenbrier Nursery in Malden, it had closed down over a year ago, and the property still stood vacant at the address listed on Garrett’s AutoTrack printout.

An abandoned nursery where McKenna had worked. He’d caught a break.

Garrett shoved his phone in his pocket and turned to Selena. “I need you to call BPD and get them to this address.” He circled the information for the Greenbrier Nursery, and shoved the page at her. “Call them and keep calling. That’s where he is. That’s where she is.”

And he was striding for the door.

Garrett drove like the wind on the country road under a darkening sky, wishing like hell he had Land with him. One hand on the wheel, he speed-dialed Schroeder and asked for Palmer or Morelli. Neither was in. Garrett left an urgent message.

Next he called Dispatch to connect him to the local police in Malden. “Detective Garrett, BPD. I have a possible hostage situation at the old Greenbrier Nursery. Suspect John McKenna, resident of Lincoln, whereabouts unknown. Suspect wanted for murder,” he lied. “Request immediate assistance.” He disconnected before he had to answer questions.

Just past the town of Malden, acres of dense forest had been cleared to make room for the fields of commercial trees, shrubs, and plants of the now-defunct Greenbrier Nursery. Garrett turned off the highway and onto the packed dirt road and looked out through the windshield over gently rolling slopes under dark and fast-moving clouds. Rippling on the hills were high canvas tents, erected to create a more sheltered environment for the less hardy outdoor flowers and plants, but now filthy and sagging and flapping in the strong wind.

Garrett rounded a curve and the main building came into view:
a barn with several attached greenhouse wings, the whole structure vaguely in the form of a star, or a starfish, with its arms being the long glass-paned greenhouses.

Garrett didn’t drive all the way up to the nursery’s front door, with its drooping sheltered porch. Instead he parked the Explorer beside a massive spreading oak tree. He killed the engine and his ears were immediately assaulted by the spiraling rumble of the wind outside, so strong it swayed the Explorer on its tires.

He looked back toward the dirt road.
Where the fuck are the cars?
There were no police vehicles in sight, no sirens either, and that was unnerving.

An uneasy thought flicked through his head.

A spell. No one’s coming. He’s keeping them away.

Then he dismissed it as nonsense.
Insane.

Garrett turned back and stared through the windshield as the car shuddered. There was no other vehicle in sight, no sign of the dark blue Camaro. Maybe he’d gotten lucky and arrived when the killer was off the premises. Then again, he wouldn’t expect the car to be parked anywhere immediately visible.

Wait for backup?
Could he chance it?

And if Tanith is here, if she’s really been so foolish and crazy to come out here on her own, with nothing but some belief in occult powers, and perhaps a ritual knife which McKenna will take from her and use on her without blinking . . .

Garrett opened the console and withdrew the Glock he’d taken from the drawer of his nightstand. He checked it and holstered it on his belt. He took out the Taser and put that in his windbreaker pocket for good measure. He already had the Kevlar vest strapped on underneath the jacket. His thoughts were racing, against his will.

It’s beyond stupid to go in. But if they’re in there . . . if
he’s
in there . . .

He reached again to the console and took out protective latex gloves, several pairs of them. He pulled one pair on; the others he stuffed into his other jacket pocket.

He got out of the Explorer and started up toward the building, fighting the wind. It hurled dry leaves in his path, papery flurries,
racing and rolling as the trees swayed precipitously, their branches shuddering and shaking.
Witch’s wind,
he thought, not knowing if he’d made the phrase up. The sky was layered thickly with clouds, from steel gray to purple to black, and there was an eerie orange light.

Hell of a storm coming,
Garrett’s uneasy thoughts continued.
As if things aren’t bad enough.
He looked back toward the road, hoping to hear the sound of sirens. There was nothing.

He tried to focus ahead of him as he walked. The property had been stripped and most inventory moved away, but there were still vestiges of ponds and waterfalls and fountains in the front of the building, and some statuary and concrete garden accessories, which Garrett wound his way through now: cracked and chipped birdbaths, urns, benches, sundials, forlorn stone frogs and rabbits and turtles that had been too damaged to bother moving out or looting: the discards, the left-behinds.

The greenhouses had been vandalized; there were shattered windows and some with rock-sized holes and spidery cracks, and ugly words spray-painted on the sides of the barn. The site had been utilized, most certainly, for timeless teenage rituals; Garrett saw scattered beer cans and broken bottles and limp condoms in the dirt. But there was a pall over the place now that had nothing to do with those hopeful drunken fumblings. The wind pushed through the trees, laying branches flat and swirling dead leaves in cyclones along the packed and parched grounds. Dark and layered clouds moved and gathered in silent waves, and lightning flared on the horizon, not close enough to branch, yet, but flickering feverishly, like a dying lightbulb. Garrett braced himself against the gusts, smelled the iron scent of rain.