It was half past four when I finished. Larabee and Hawkins were leaning on the back of the van, drinking bottled water.
“Thirsty?” Hawkins asked.
I nodded.
Hawkins pulled a six-ouncer from a cooler and tossed it to me.
“Thanks.”
We all drank and stared at the lake. Larabee spoke first.
“Slidell’s convinced we got devil worshippers in our midst.”
“Commissioner Lingo will have a field day.” I couldn’t keep the disdain from my voice.
Hawkins shook his head. “Old Boyce was sounding off less than twenty-four hours after you and Skinny wrapped up in that cellar.”
“Don’t you know? Lingo has a hotline to God.”
Larabee snorted.
“Remember that stabbing off Archdale?” Hawkins tipped his bottle in Larabee’s direction. “Lesbian lady took issue with her partner coyoting around? Body bag’s barely zipped and Lingo’s pontificating on the evils of homosexuality.”
“Not a peep last week when that trucker blew his ex-wife’s boyfriend away. That was a righteous heterosexual murder,” Larabee said. “Biblical motive. If I can’t have her, nobody can.”
“If Lingo gets wind of this one, he’ll roll it into his current soap opera.” Hawkins tossed his empty bottle onto a Winn-Dixie bag beside the cooler. “The Devil Goes Down to Georgia.”
“He’ll be dead-ass wrong,” I said.
“You don’t get satanic vibes from this?” Larabee asked.
“From this one, yes. From that cellar, no.”
I described what I’d found.
“Don’t sound like Baptists to me,” Hawkins said.
I outlined what I’d told Slidell and Rinaldi about syncretic religions. Santería. Voodoo. Palo Mayombe.
“Who’s into animal sacrifice?”
“All of them.”
“Satanists?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s your money?” Larabee’s bottle joined Hawkins’s.
“The colored beads, the coins, and the Catholic saint point to Santería. The wooden sticks and the padlocked nganga suggest Palo Mayombe.”
“The human remains?”
I raised my hands, frustrated. “Take your pick. Voodoo. Santería. Palo Mayombe. Satanism. But the cellar had no inverted pentagrams or crosses, no six-six-six symbols, no black candles or incense. Nothing typical of devil worship.”
“Nothing like this kid here.” Larabee tipped his head toward the lake.
“No.”
“You think there’s a link?”
I pictured the mutilated body lying on the shore.
The cauldron skull and leg bones.
I had no answer.
Wending toward the highway, I passed two cars. One pleased me. The other did not.
The SUV held the search dog promised by Rinaldi. I wished the canine better luck than I’d had in locating the missing head.
The Honda Accord was driven by the same woman I’d seen outside the Greenleaf house Tuesday night. What had the Observer photo credit been? Allison Stallings.
“Just friggin’ great.” I palm-smacked the wheel. “Who the hell are you, Allison Stallings?”
Noting her plate number, I wished Radke luck in keeping Stallings far from the body.
My mobile rang as I was merging from the entrance ramp onto I-77. Traffic was heavy, but not yet the bumper-to-bumper crush it would be.
The caller ID showed an unfamiliar number with a 704 area code.
Curious, I clicked on.
“Go Mustangs,” a male voice said.
I was tired, preoccupied, and, to be honest, disappointed the call was local and therefore not from Ryan. My reply wasn’t overly courteous.
“Who is this?”
The response was the first line of the Myers Park High School fight song.
“Hi, Charlie.”
“Up for that coffee?”
“It’s not a good time.”
“Six o’clock? Seven? Eight? You name it.”
“I’ve been in the field all day. I’m tired and grubby.”
“As I recall, you clean up real good.” An old Southern expression.
I am competitive. Play hard. Work hard. Some people manage to do those things and remain well-groomed. I’m not among them. Following our tennis tournaments, Charlie usually looked like a GQ model. I usually looked like a badly permed shih tzu.
“Thanks. I think.”
“Katy tells me you like lamb chops.”
The veering segue caught me off guard.
“I—”
“My specialty. How about this? You shower while I hit the Fresh Market. We meet at my place at seven. You relax while I toss a salad and throw chops on the grill.”
Whoa, big fella!
“Katy’s invited, of course. I’ll catch her before she leaves here.”
I suspected his co-conspirator was right at his side.
“It’s been a long day,” I said.
“A shower will make a new woman of you.”
“But the old one will still have to work in the morning.” That sounded lame even to me.
“Look. You like lamb chops, I like lamb chops. You don’t feel like cooking. I do.”
He had me there.
“I have to go to the ME office to FedEx some bugs.”
“Dead ant, dead ant.” Sung to the opening bars of The Pink Panther theme.
“Mostly flies.” I couldn’t help grinning.
Curtis Mayfield. No lyrics.
“Superfly,” I guessed.
“Very good,” Charlie said.
“I can’t stay late.”
“I won’t let you.”
A car cut into my lane, forcing me to brake hard. The phone dropped to my lap. Steering one-handed, I groped it back to my ear.
“You still there?”
“Thought you’d hung up on me,” Charlie said.
Looking back, I probably should have.
My clothes went directly into the laundry. My body went directly into the shower.
Emerging, I found Birdie batting a blowfly around the bathroom floor. Before I could act, he ate it.
“Gross, Bird.”
The cat looked proud. Or smug. Or introspective, pondering the nuances of fly.
Smiling, I spread orange blossom body cream onto my skin.
Charlie was right. I felt rejuvenated. Cheery, even. Going out was a good idea. Making new friends was a healthy move.
A group of memory cells offered a collage of images, fuzzy, like snapshots left out in the rain.
The Skylark.
Charlie in cutoffs. Just cutoffs.
Me in shorts and a tank with bling on the front. A sparkly butterfly. Or was it a bird? Hair doing that layered, flippy seventies thing.
Upholstery stinging my sunburned back.
Maybe this wasn’t such a peachy idea.
Reacquainting with old friends, I amended my thinking. Friends. Just friends.
Uh-huh, the memory cells said.
Moving to the bedroom, I clicked on the news and crossed to the dresser.
“—sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. Those words of Revelation never sounded more true. Lucifer is right here, at our own city gates.”
I froze, panties half out of the drawer.
12
BOYCE LINGO WAS ON THE STEPS OF THE NEW COURTHOUSE, cameras and mikes aimed at his face. Behind him stood a middle-aged man with buzz-cut hair, Brad Pitt cheeks, and a prominent chin. From the conservative dress, I guessed he was an aide. Navy jacket, white shirt, blue tie, gray pants. He and Lingo looked like fashion clones.
The commissioner was staring straight into the lens.
“Another body was discovered today. Another innocent slaughtered, his head cut off, his flesh desecrated. Why such brutality? To serve Satan. And what do the authorities say? ‘No comment.’”
My fingers curled around the
panties.
“They will not comment on a headless body identified three days ago, a twelve-year-old child dragged from the Catawba River. They will not comment on a human skull found last Monday in a Third Ward basement.”
I stood rigid.
“No comments, indeed.” Lingo shook his head in theatric dismay. “Why alert the public to the godless depravity invading our city?”
Lingo paused for effect.
“Citizens of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, we must not accept ‘no comment.’ We must demand answers. Swift and forceful action. We must insist that these murderous devil worshippers not be allowed to go unpunished.
“Let me share a story. A sad story. A horrifying story. In London, in 2001, a tiny, headless body was found in a river. The child is called Adam because, to this day, his name is unknown. What is known is that little Adam was smuggled to England by human traffickers to serve as a human sacrifice.”
Lingo wagged a finger at the camera.
“We must protect our children. These evildoers must be rooted out. The guilty must be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Satan’s minions must be driven from amongst us. Our city has no room for a Night Stalker. An Andrea Yates. A Columbine. A poor little Adam.”
Birdie was licking orange blossom from my leg. I couldn’t take my eyes from Lingo. Richard Ramirez? Andrea Yates? Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold?
“It’s up to each and every one of us to insist that these killings receive top priority. We must be adamant. We must urge our brothers and sisters in government and law enforcement to don the armor of God and fight the Prince of Darkness. We must join hands and hearts to cleanse our great city and county of this cancer.”
The broadcast cut back to the anchor. He talked of Anton LaVey, founder and high priest of the Church of Satan until his death in 1997, and author of the Satanic Bible. A list of Web sites scrolled behind him.
Kids and Teens for Satan
Synagogue of Satan
Church of Satan
Superhighway to Hell
Satanic Network
Letters to the Devil
Birdie nudged my leg.
Dropping the undies, I scooped and hugged my cat to my chest, a sense of foreboding rippling through me.
The coverage wrapped up with footage from LaVey’s 1993 documentary, Speak of the Devil.
The clip had barely ended when my landline rang.
“You talk to Lingo?”
“Of course I didn’t talk to Lingo.” I matched Slidell’s outrage with outrage.
“The pompous old lizard just held a press conference.”
“I caught most of it.”
“Accused the cops of a cover-up. Told Joe Citizen to ready up his noose for lynchings in the name of the Lord. Won’t that just stir up a freakin’ hornets’ nest.”
Though Slidell was exaggerating, in large part, I agreed.
“How’s this asshole get his information?”
“As I was leaving the scene today I saw Allison Stallings driving toward it.”
“The dame what was creeping around on Greenleaf Avenue?”
No one but Slidell had said “dame” since the fifties. On the upside, at least he knew one other French expression besides ex-cuse-ay-moi.
“Yes,” I said.
“I made a call. Stallings don’t work for the Observer.”
“So why’s she showing up at my scenes?”
“I damn well intend to find out.”
For a moment, no one spoke. In the background I could hear Slidell’s TV mimicking mine.
“You think Stallings is tipping Lingo?”
“It’s possible.”
“What’s in it for her?”
“The guy’s a grandstander. Maybe she’s a wannabe, or a freelancer selling pics here and there to the press. Maybe she thinks Lingo will blow the situation into a bigger story than it might otherwise be, score her some fame and fortune.”
I waited while Slidell chewed that over.
“So where’s Stallings get her info?”
“She could have a police scanner.”
“Where’s a little girl like that gonna come up with a police scanner?” Slidell said police with a very long o and a whole lot of scorn.
“RadioShack.”
“Get out. How’s she gonna know to operate a gizmo like that?”
Slidell’s ignorance of technology always astounded me. I’d heard rumors that Skinny had yet to make the move to touch-tone dialing at home.
“It’s not rocket science. The thing sweeps through a group of frequencies searching for one in use, then stops so you can listen. Like the SCAN button on your car radio.” I couldn’t believe Slidell was hearing this for the first time. “Stallings could have picked up on Rinaldi’s request for a cadaver dog. Or maybe Lingo has a scanner of his own.”
I waited out more mental mastication. Then, “Who’s this Antoine LeVay?” Slidell’s tone had edged down a notch.
“Anton. He founded the Church of Satan.”
“That’s real?”
“Yes.”
“How many members?”
“No one really knows.”
“Who’s this other kid Lingo’s talking about?”
“Anson Tyler. Lingo’s way off base there. Tyler’s whole upper body was missing, not just his head.”
“Missing where?”
“When a corpse floats, the heavy parts hang down. A human head weighs about four to five kilos.” I stopped. Could Slidell convert metric? “About the same as a roaster chicken. So the head detaches early.”
“That don’t answer my question.”
“The missing parts are wherever the current took them.”
“So you’re saying there’s no link between this Catawba River kid and the kid we found today?”
“I’m saying Anson Tyler lost his head due to natural processes, not intentional decapitation. There wasn’t a single cut mark anywhere on his skeleton.”
“What about the skull in the cauldron?”
“That’s a tougher call.”
“You find tool marks on that?”
“No.”
“On the leg bones?”
“No.”
“That bit about the kid in London, that true?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me ’bout that.”
“In 2001, the headless, limbless body of a four-to-six-year-old boy was pulled from the Thames below the Tower Bridge. The cops named him Adam. The postmortem showed he’d only been in that part of the world a short time.”
“Based on what?”
“The food in his stomach and the pollen in his lungs. It also showed that he’d ingested a potion containing poisonous Calabar beans in the forty-eight hours prior to his death.”
“And?”
“Calabar causes paralysis while keeping the victim conscious. It’s used commonly in witchcraft rituals in West Africa.”
“Go on.” Slidell’s voice was pure steel.
“Adam’s bones were also analyzed to determine geographical origin.”
“How’s that play?”
“Foodstuffs bear traces of the soil in which they were grown or reared.” I kept it simple. “Samples taken from Adam and compared to places around the world suggested he came from the vicinity of Benin City, in Nigeria. Investigators went to Africa, but discovered little.”
“Any arrests?”
“No. But there are persons of interest. Mostly Nigerians, some of whom have been linked to human trafficking.”
“But there’s insufficient evidence to bring charges.” Skinny has never been a champion of individual civil liberties. His disgust was evident.
“You’ve got it.”
As dual voices reported sports scores in my bedroom and across town in a condo I didn’t want to picture, I debated in my mind. Tell Slidell the most worrying element and risk sending him off in the wrong direction? Keep it to myself and risk impeding the investigation?
“There’s mor
e,” I said. “Authorities in London claim that in recent years some three hundred black boys have gone missing from the system and not returned to school or reappeared. Only two have ever been traced.”
“Where the hell are the families?”
“When questioned, caregivers and relatives say the boys have left the UK to return to Africa.”
“And no one can confirm.”
“Exactly.”
“Cops think these kids have been murdered?”
“Some do.”
My eyes drifted to the clock radio. Six thirty. I was naked, sans makeup, with tangled wet hair that looked like seaweed.
And due at Charlie’s in thirty minutes.
I needed to hurry. But I wanted to know what Slidell and Rinaldi had learned about the property on Greenleaf.
“What did you find out about Kenneth Roseboro?”
“Kenny-boy’s some kinda musician living in Wilmington. Claims the minute Aunt Wanda went belly-up and the place was his, he ran an ad and rented the dump out.”
As Slidell talked I tried donning the panties one-handed.
“Roseboro never lived in the house?”
“No.”
“How many tenants occupied the premises?”
“One. Upstanding citizen name of Thomas Cuervo. T-Bird to his friends and business associates.”
“What business?”
“Pissant little shop out South Boulevard.” Slidell snorted. “La Botánica Buena Salud. Natural cures, vitamins, herbal remedies. I can’t believe people blow money on that horseshit.”
While I didn’t totally disagree with Slidell, I wasn’t in the mood for his thoughts on holistic healing.
“Does Cuervo have a record?”
“In addition to brain tonics and flatulence powders, T-Bird has periodically dealt in stronger pharmaceuticals.”
“He’s a drug dealer?”
“Penny-ante stuff. Nickel bags. Racked up some drunk and disorderlies.”
As I did my Karate Kid crane kick maneuver, the panties caught on my upraised foot. I toppled and my elbow slammed the wall.
“Shit!”
Birdie shot under the bed.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Why did Roseboro decide to sell?” I chucked the skivvies to rub my elbow.
“T-Bird skipped, owing a lot of back rent.”
“Skipped where?”