Absence of Faith (27 page)

"I'm right in front of the house
now. I'm taking it. Send a uniformed as a backup," Nick barked
back. "Besides it's my way of salvaging a bad night."

He got out of the car sucked in his
aging and slightly protruding gut and walked up to the porch of
Linda and Carson's Victorian house. A wave of sadness washed over
him - the house reminded him of a life he once had - a life, which
seemed like it was hundreds of years ago. A crisp, clean breeze
whipped off the ocean, and its coldness bit into his face like an
invisible hand that had just slapped him. He rang the doorbell and
waited. A few seconds later, a tired man in his mid thirties opened
the door.

"I'm Detective Vancuso," he said
holding his wallet badge up to Carson's face.

Nick suddenly felt a tinge of
regret for taking the call - this kind of call was way out of his
league. A uniformed, beat cop would normally handle such a call. He
had handled many such calls years ago when he first joined the
force.

"Come in," Carson said, opening the
door wider. "I’m Carson Hyll." He was too tired to notice that a
detective had responded to the call.

Nick walked in and instantly
scanned the surroundings without being obvious, and then he looked
at Carson with a questionable look on his face.

"Come in here," Carson said leading
Nick through the long foyer and into the small living
room.

"This is my wife, Linda," Carson
said.

"Glad to meet you," Nick said. He
stopped and stared at her. Linda shifted on the chair. Nick
continued to stare at the young woman. She could be his wife’s
twin.

"We believe we had intruders here
last night. My wife thought she was having a dream, but now we know
it wasn't..." Carson said.

Nick said nothing and continued to
stare at Linda.

"Excuse me, detective!" Carson
said. "Are you all right?"

"I'm sorry. Your wife looks like
someone I knew," he said sheepishly. "What did you say?"

"We think the intruders came in
through that window," Carson said pointing to the east
window.

"How do you know?" Nick said
cutting him off.

"The window can’t be locked because
it's old. Linda couldn't close it all the way last night and put a
towel on the sill to keep a draft out. This morning the towel was
on the floor."

"So? A gust of wind could have
blown it off," Nick said. He felt a bit smug since this call was
just a routine complaint. This was too easy. Maybe, he should have
taken the dispatcher's advice, he thought.

"We thought of that except when
Linda woke up this morning she found something," Carson
said.

Linda pulled the one leg of her
shorts up revealing the strange symbol painted on her inner thigh.
Nick's eyes widened. He approached her and bent over to get closer
look. Linda moved back on her chair and put the shorts
down.

"I'm sorry. I wanted to get a
closer look," Nick said.

"Have you seen this before?" Carson
asked.

"Yeah, I have," Nick said and
rolled his eyes slightly. "Can I see it again?"

Linda slowly pulled up her shorts
and revealed the diamond flanked by two inverted Cs. Nick looked at
it with renewed interest. Linda watched his changing
eyes.

"What it is?" Linda said
alarmed.

Nick stood up and faced Carson. His
eyes sparkled with enthusiasm, but they were overshadowed by dread.
Carson did not notice the change. Nick did not want to look Linda
in the eye and say what he had to say, but Linda knew that
something was wrong.

"The symbol is Satanic...from a
cult."

"Oh, God! What does it mean?" Linda
screamed.

"It means...it means that they have
designated you as Satan's bride and that you have been chosen to
have the Devil's baby," Nick explained his voice cracking and
losing volume. He seemed to have a large dust ball in his
throat.

"Oh, no!" Linda screamed and burst
into tears.

Carson went to her.

"I was afraid of that," Carson
said.

Nick waited for Linda to calm
down.

"I've seen this before...several
years ago. What's strange about it is that it's usually a voluntary
thing. A girl volunteers to have the Devil's baby and she usually
tattoos or paints this symbol on herself. Can I talk to you alone,
Mr. Hyll?" Nick said and turned to leave.

"We can go into the kitchen,"
Carson said.

Carson pulled a chair and sat down
at the small kitchen table. Nick did the same.

"Do you know if your wife is
involved in such a cult? This kind of thing can go on without the
spouse knowing - they are very secretive and very adept at hiding.
Does she go out at different times at night?"

"No. She goes to work, comes home,
goes food shopping - nothing out of the ordinary," Carson
explained. "Besides, you said the woman usually volunteers for it.
Why would she be so petrified about it if she were in a cult? Why
would she bring attention to herself if she was trying to hide her
membership?"

"You have a point there, but I
wouldn't put it past these bastards to come up with some kind of
scheme. They are really clever sons of bitches," Nick
explained.

Carson frowned.

"You really think so? I know my
wife better than anyone. I think you're full of shit," Carson said
standing up.

"Listen. Do you remember the Harmon
murder a few years ago in Little Silver?"

"I didn't live here then," Carson
said.

"Well, it happened on the street
next to mine. Good old Bobby Harmon. He was a typical teenager from
a typical Catholic family. He went to Catholic school. He cut lawns
in the summer and shoveled driveways in the winter for extra cash -
an all-American kid, except for one thing. He got involved in a
cult. The son of bitches convinced him that he had to kill his
parents to reach Satan. This is the ultimate test for Satanism to
disown your parents, to relinquish their love, the family and
everything that's good. I was one of the first detectives on the
scene...I found his mother in the basement...she was lying face
down in her own blood and vomit. Her nose had been cut off, her
eyes were gouged out and her cheeks carved up. He also stabbed her
28 times in the chest and then smashed her skull in with a hammer.
Her hands were also cut off. Then he tried to kill his father with
a baseball bat while he was sleeping. Luckily, the father woke up
seconds before the fatal blow and moved out of the way. The
brutality was enough to make even me sick. We knew that this kid
was capable of anything so we organized a manhunt, but we didn't
find the kid until the next day. He went into the woods and cut his
own throat, all in the name of the Devil. We found all kinds of
stuff in his room...books, pamphlets, DVDs. We investigated for
about year trying to find the cult and track these sickos down, but
found nothing. You still think I'm full of shit - I'll get you the
damn police report! I don't know who did this to your wife, but
there are two kinds of Satanists - the traditional, who condemn
anything illegal and openly worship the Devil in their own
churches, and the outlaw Satanists, who form secretive cults and
use sex and drugs and everything else to lure teens and whoever
else into the group. They usually target teens because they are
highly rebellious, and the most destructive. They convince these
poor kids to literally do anything," Nick explained. "I'd bet we
have one of the outlaw cults involved in this."

Carson was silent. He stared at the
detective in a daze.

"Now, is there a time that she
could go out and you wouldn't know about it?"

"Yeah," Carson said meekly. "I'm a
doctor and many times I work all night, but if she's a Satanist,
I'm Albert Einstein."

"I'm not convinced your wife is a
member of any cult judging by the way she reacted, but I wouldn't
put anything past them. Do you have any dealings with them or did
you cross one of them in any way?"

"No. I'm a doctor. I work with
other doctors and nurses," he said. "What do you take me
for?"

"Listen, everyone is a suspect when
it comes to them. Like I said, they are very clever," Nick shot
back.

"So what are you going to do?"
Carson said.

"I'm going to take this case," Nick
said rising from his chair. "Don't touch the window. I'll send CSI
to dust for prints. After that, fix the window so it locks, and
keep the rest of your house locked at all times. I might suggest
getting a big dog or an alarm system. And keep your eyes
open."

Carson was silent. They walked to
the door.

"One more thing," Nick said as he
stepped onto the front porch. "Try to think about anybody you might
have pissed off recently. Satanists come in all shapes and forms
and some of them are doctors and nurses."

H
elen had
asked Stokes to take care of funeral arrangements and to check her
husband's car for any possessions. She was too distraught over
Henry Graber's fiery death to do it herself. Besides, she had no
one else to turn to because Henry's one brother was dead, and the
couple’s two daughters were equally upset. Stokes reluctantly
accepted knowing in his mind that it would be almost as painful for
him as it would be for Helen. He had told Helen he would free up
some time and do it as soon as possible.

It was the following Monday when
Stokes drove to a Gulf service station near where Henry had the
fatal accident to view the car. Helen had said she did not have the
courage to see the car that her husband was killed in - the wake
and funeral were hard enough. Stokes pulled up to the run down,
dirty station - even the large orange and white sign towering above
the roof of the square building looked greasy from lack of
cleaning. The front of the building consisted of two large square
windows separated by an equally dirty glass door. The inside of the
windows had years of nicotine, soot and dirt layered on their
surfaces. When one glimpsed through them, it was like looking
through a fog.

Stokes pushed open the door and
walked in. An unshaven man wearing soiled blue work pants and a
matching blue shirt talked on a grease smudged beige telephone.
Why would they have a light-colored phone in a place like this?
Why not black or brown so you couldn't see the grease marks?
Stokes thought. The man talked with a burning cigarette hanging out
of the side of his mouth. He squinted now and then as the curling
smoke touched his eyes and caused them to water.
It was
strange
, Stokes thought. The man knew that the cigarette smoke
would burn his eyes, yet he still held onto the cigarette instead
of putting it out. The man finished his conversation, hung up the
phone, and looked up through red teary eyes at Stokes.

"I'm here for Henry Graber’s stuff.
I was sent by his widow to get his personal items out of his car.
It was a Chevy - the one that burned," Stokes said.

"Oh yeah. It’s in the back. I don't
think there's much to get from the looks of it," the man
said.

"Yeah."

Stokes left the messy office and
walked around to the back of the building to a chain link fence. He
pushed the gate open and headed towards Henry's car in the back of
the yard. When he viewed the violence of the accident - the
twisted, rusted metal, the broken glass, the charred and blackened
interior - his chest began to heave and he had a hard time holding
back the tears. The wrecked car made the reality of Henry's death
even more real and believable, and now he knew why this would be
too painful for Helen. He walked up to the rear of the car, and
pulled up on the paint less trunk. It was stuck. He exerted more
force and it popped open. He spotted a metal toolbox, a small
flashlight, and a few road flares tucked away in one of the
corners. He took the items out and placed them on the ground next
to the car. Then he walked over to the driver's side and pulled on
the door several times until it opened. He looked around the inside
of the car and determined that anything that was here would be
either melted or turned to ash. He went back to the trunk for a
last look, and noticed the light brown, short hair scattered over a
small black rug. Some lay in balled clumps. He determined it was
dog hair by its coarse feel and length. It puzzled him because he
knew that Henry didn't own a dog.
Perhaps, he had bought one
that day, but why would he put it in the trunk?
Stokes thought.
He gathered the few items he had found in the trunk and left. When
he arrived at Henry's house, he asked Helen if Henry had a dog or
was thinking of purchasing one.

"Not that I know of. He didn't say
he wanted a dog, although a dog would have been nice to keep us
company and add some life to this house," she explained.

"Do you think he would have
purchased one without telling you?" Stokes asked.

"No. Henry wasn't like that. He
would always tell me about things like that. He always wanted to
include me in anything he did..." she broke off and began to
cry.

"He was a good man and a good
friend," Stokes said. "I placed the few items from the car in the
garage. I have to get back."