Crone's Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation (28 page)

Mandalay gave a tired chuckle. “We can only
hope.”

“Jeez, Mandalay,” Ben said. “I’m likin’ you
more every day.”

“Cool it, Storm,” she replied. “You’re a
married man.”

“Yeah, at the moment maybe.”

“Aye, what’s that supposed to mean?” Felicity
asked, puzzlement in her voice.

“You still haven’t…” He waved his finger
between Constance and Felicity but directed the unfinished query at
me.

I shrugged. “When have I had time?”

Mandalay visibly straightened in her chair
and cocked her head to the side as she focused her gaze on Ben. “Is
that it? Is that why you’ve been so flaky, Storm? Are you and
Allison…”

Her question was interrupted as the door to
the interview room swung open, and Lieutenant Albright followed it
inside. A stack of files, several inches thick, was tucked in the
crook of her arm, and she held them close as if they were a prized
possession.

“I’ll tell ya’ later,” Ben offered quietly to
Constance and Felicity and then turned his attention to
Albright.

The lieutenant was still wearing the scowl
that seemed to be a permanent adornment for the lower half of her
face, but there was definitely something different about her. I
couldn’t put my finger on it at first, but unless I missed my
guess, she was ruffled.

I suppose it could have been that she
actually had overheard Mandalay’s epithet, but that sort of thing
had never seemed to faze her before. This was something different,
and you didn’t have to be a Witch to feel the chaotic energy
emanating from her.

She half-turned, pushed the door shut, then
strode purposefully over to the table and simply glared at me. She
opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, then closed her mouth and
found a way to frown even harder than before. After a moment, she
angrily tossed the file folders onto the laminated surface.

Crime scene photos, notes, and official
reports peeked out of their manila sheaths as the folders slid a
few inches and partially spilled their contents.

“These do not leave the building,” Albright
announced. The deliberate control she was exercising on her voice
was plainly audible.

“Okay” was all I could think of to say.

I glanced down at the photos and caught a
quick glimpse of a headless female corpse paper-clipped to an
autopsy report. A similar photo was protruding from one of the
other folders as well.

“Understand right now that I am against
this,” she continued. “However, the mayor seems to think we should
utilize your so-called talents regarding these cases. I did my best
to convince him otherwise, but his emotions are getting the better
of him at the moment. I am sure he will eventually come to his
senses.”

I don’t suppose I was surprised by the
callous attitude she was displaying, but that didn’t keep me from
finding it utterly abhorrent. I had plenty I wanted to say to her
in response, but I knew starting yet another argument would
accomplish nothing, so I picked the most innocuous of the replies
that flitted through my head. “So Felicity was right. Those were
Brittany Larson’s remains.”

“Yes” was her monosyllabic response.

“And because of her, you have a very fresh
crime scene,” I pressed, unable to help myself.

She hesitated and then replied again, almost
choking on the word. “Yes.”

Without thinking, I allowed my next thought
to escape in the form of audible words. “You know, where I come
from people say thank you.”

She leaned forward, placing her hands on the
table and locking her gelid gaze on me. “Do not patronize me,
Mister Gant. Trust me, if it were not for the fact that one of the
victims is his daughter and that you found her body by whatever
godless means your kind employs, I can guarantee you that this
would not be happening.”

“Godless? Our kind?” I started. “Look, I’ve
got no idea what I did to you that makes you hate me so much, and
honestly, I’m not sure I want to know.”

She simply continued glaring at me without a
word.

Getting no response, I resumed speaking.
“And, apparently you aren’t going to tell me anyway… Well,
Lieutenant Albright, if it’s any consolation at all, I’m not
particularly excited about having to work with you either.”

“Understand, Mister Gant, that we are not
working with one another.” She placed more than the lion’s share of
emphasis on the word ‘not’. “We are simply working on the same case
whether we like it or not. And, I for one, do not.”

“Then I guess we’ll just have to make the
best of it for the duration,” I offered flatly.

“Rest assured that with the exception of
locking you in a cell, something I would relish mind you, I would
just as soon have no contact with either of you whatsoever.”

“Aye, the feeling is mutual,” Felicity
snipped.

“And, as for you…” Albright began, looking
over at my wife.

“Fine,” I interjected before the two of them
could go at it full force. “I think we all agree that we don’t much
care for one another, so let’s drop all the bullshit here and now.
What, exactly, is it that you want from us?”

“Review the files, strike whatever deal with
Satan you usually make, and then find the killer,” she said,
ticking off the short list in a perfunctory fashion.

“Just like that,” I replied.

“Is that not how you normally do things?” she
spat sarcastically.

“Well, for one thing,” I replied. “Satan is a
Judeo-Christian entity. He’s your boy not ours. But, I doubt I can
convince you of that.”

“Spare me your double-talk, Mister Gant,” she
growled. “I have dealt with devil worshippers before, and you
cannot fool me.”

“I’m not trying to fool anyone,
Lieutenant.”

“The wicked worketh a deceitful work: but to
him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure
reward. Proverbs, chapter eleven, verse eighteen.”

The hair rose on the back of my neck, and I
felt a cold chill run up my spine as the words struck my ears. The
last person to quote Bible passages to me had been Eldon Porter,
and he was trying to kill me. I had been convinced for months that
Barbara Albright was intent on the same end, though perhaps not in
such a blatant way as he. This just served to cement my belief in
that fact.

“I’ve read your book,” I told her. “I don’t
need a Bible lesson.”

She didn’t let it go. “Set thou a wicked man
over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand…”

“…
When he shall be judged, let him be
condemned: and let his prayer become sin,” I replied, continuing
the verse for her just as I had done when confronted by Porter.
“Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his
children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Shall I continue?
Book of Psalm. Chapter one-oh-nine. I already told you, I know the
drill.”

Her voice moved up a notch. “Do not mock
me!”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“Just make it happen, Gant!”

Albright had been flustered when she entered,
but she was practically livid now. As if I didn’t already press all
the wrong buttons in her life, I’d obviously just found one labeled
do not touch.

“Look, it ain’t like that, Lieutenant,” Ben
spoke up in a well-intentioned attempt to defuse the situation.

“I was not speaking to you, Detective Storm,”
she snapped, turning her hard stare on him.

“He’s right,” I said. “That’s not how it
works.”

“I don’t care how it works,” she replied, and
then turned back to face me before continuing, her voice still a
mark or two above the necessary volume for the small room. “In
fact, I don’t even know if I believe that it works. All I do know
is that the mayor insists that you be brought into the loop, and
that is what I am doing. From this point forward, I expect you to
stay out of my way.”

“With pleasure,” I told her.

“Good. I am glad that we understand one
another.”

“So,” I asked. “Since I’m obviously persona
non grata, what do you want us to do if we come up with
something?”

She regarded me silently for a moment, boring
a hole through me with her stare, then pushed back from the table
and stood fully upright. She reached into a pocket on her jacket
and withdrew a rectangular, gold-tone case. Flipping it open, she
slipped a business card from it and tossed it onto the table before
me.

“You can leave any information you have on my
voice mail,” she said tersely. “Make certain that you do not waste
my time, Mister Gant.”

“Yeah,” I grunted. “Wouldn’t dream of it,
Lieutenant.”

She turned on her heel and started
purposefully toward the door. Before she’d made it two full steps,
my wife spoke up.

“Lieutenant Albright,” Felicity called out, a
demanding note in her voice.

The lieutenant stopped and turned to face
her, then snarled, “What is it, Miz O’Brien?”

“I’ll be having my Jeep back now,” Felicity
stated, staring coldly at the woman and not even bothering to
pretend her words were a request.

Albright was noticeably annoyed by the
demand. She looked at my wife as if she were sizing her up for a
fistfight, then finally returned sharply, “Have Detective Storm
show you to the impound lot.”

That said, she wheeled around and left the
interview room, slamming the door in her wake.

Ben looked over at me. “Jeez, white man. You
sure got under her skin that time.”

“Bible verses,” I muttered.

“Yeah, Rowan,” Constance spoke up. “Are you
sure you didn’t memorize the whole book?”

“No, like I’ve said before, just the passages
regarding Satan and WitchCraft,” I replied. “Those are the ones
that get thrown in my face. But that’s not my point.”

“Okay.” Ben shrugged. “What gives?”

“She just justified her actions to me with a
Bible verse, Ben,” I replied. “And then got upset when I was able
to quote them back to her.”

“Yeah, I noticed. So?”

“Yeah, so tell me, who else do we know who
does that?”

“Eldon Fucking Porter,” he replied slowly,
his eyes lighting with realization as he reached up to massage his
neck. “Sonofabitch.”

Thursday, October 3rd

Three days prior to the new moon

3:19 P.M.

St. Louis, Missouri

A
few days shy of four
months had passed, and any lead connected with Brittany Larson’s
murder had long since gone cold. To be honest, absolutely frigid
was a more accurate description.

The case had started its death spiral in the
hours immediately following the postmortem on the young woman’s
remains. As fresh and undisturbed as the crime scene had been, it
had revealed nothing to police other than the fact that they had a
dead body on their hands and that said remains had been
intentionally buried in a shallow grave.

The only hopes left in that empty wake were
the autopsy results along with the off chance that someone had
witnessed something and that they would come forward. The latter
option quickly became the center of an official media blitz that
rivaled almost any ad campaign you could imagine: everything from
regular television appeals, radio spots, constant mentions on the
nightly news, and full-page ads in the metropolitan newspaper.
Calls came in to the Major Case Squad at a steady rate for the
first few days and even ballooned in volume at one point before
tapering off to a modest trickle. Unfortunately, each potential
lead consisted only of attention seekers and frustrating dead
ends.

As to the postmortem, there were clues to be
had, most definitely. However, they were only indicators as to what
had occurred during Larson’s final few hours of life; and
eventually, what had brought about her death. Unfortunately, they
were not the kind of telltale signs needed to help identify her
killer or even convict him, should he be found. There were no
fingerprints, no foreign hair or traceable fibers, nothing.

What the autopsy did reveal, however, was
that she had been brutally tortured; and, the laundry list of
things that had been done to her read like a script from a bad
‘hack and slash’ horror flick.

Ligature marks on her forearms, wrists, and
calves, along with patterned bruising showed that she had been
bound, possibly in a chair, for several hours. Hypostasis of the
blood in her lower extremities showed that she had died in that
position and remained there for some time before being moved. Deep
cuts and punctures scored her torso, most having occurred while she
was still alive, although some well after she had expired. Her
breasts had been severely mutilated, and she was pockmarked with
well over one hundred cigarette burns of varying degrees. I don’t
suppose any of these came as a great surprise to us considering the
stigmata that had displayed across Felicity’s body the night she
channeled Larson. Still, the photos were more than just a little
hard to take.

There was vaginal and anal tearing,
indicating that she had been violently raped, but there was no
trace of semen whatsoever. This lead the investigators to believe
that either there had been no ejaculation, a condom had been used,
or more likely, due to the amount and nature of the trauma, that
the penetration had been performed with a foreign object.
Conspicuously absent from the trauma was bruising, which meant she
had been defiled post mortem, a small consolation for her.

Another of the glaring observations was, of
course, the fact that her head was missing. This, and the fact that
hacksaw marks were found on the exposed vertebrae instantly tied
her homicide to those of Tamara Linwood and Sarah Hart. That was
something we had all suspected, and in fact known in our own way,
but the physical evidence simply proved us out.