The Hexed

  “So,” Rocky said, moving to use Jack as his mock victim, “the killer came up directly behind her, placed the weapon so—and slashed?”

  “Yes, that appears to be what happened,” Samuels agreed.

  “The same as Carly Henderson?” Jack asked.

  “From what I’ve read, yes.”

  “And what about Melissa Wilson?” Rocky asked.

  Samuels frowned. “I don’t think I know that name.”

  “She was killed thirteen years ago—she was found the same way.”

  “I’ll have to look up that report. I was working in San Francisco thirteen years ago,” Samuels told them.

  They thanked him for his time and headed back to their car.

  “None of them was molested,” Jack said. “I guess there’s a small comfort in that.”

  Small comfort? Rocky thought. Maybe. They were all still dead.

  “Yeah,” Rocky muttered. “I guess. I don’t think they had any idea they were going to die. It must have been quick.”

  “I don’t understand how he pulls it off. This guy has to be covered with blood once he’s done,” Jack said.

  “Not that much. He’s behind the victim, and the spray would go forward.”

  “But then he’s lowering his victim to the ground—laying her out. And placing the medallion on her,” Jack said.

  “Yes, some blood, but not so much that he couldn’t cover it if he’d stashed a jacket nearby. Soon as he’s done he goes home and cleans up. And since we don’t know where home is...”

  “Gotta be Wiccans,” Jack said.

  “I don’t think we can automatically suspect an entire community. It might just as well be someone who wants to cast blame on the local Wicca community. Maybe some nut job who believes that they’re Satanists and it’s up to him to get rid of them.”

  He might have been away from the area for a long time, but he knew enough to know that Wiccans didn’t practice human or animal sacrifice, and did not in any way, shape or form condone murder.

  “Yeah, I guess. Everything about this case is one thing or the opposite, isn’t it?” Jack asked. “Either it’s the same killer or a copycat. Either it’s a misguided follower of a nontraditional religion or it’s someone trying to pin it on them. Thank God the witch trials are over, that’s all I can say. All we need is another witch scare.”

  “That alone makes it imperative that we keep a lid on the details,” Rocky said.

  “Some of them have gotten out, you know,” Jack told him.

  Rocky looked at Jack and waited.

  “The boy who found Carly Henderson. Luckily the kid was terrified—he saw her and ran. But people know she was splayed out and covered in blood.”

  “I have it on my list to talk to the kid, anyway,” Rocky said.

  “No problem. Whenever you want to go.”

  “How about now?”

  Their timing was good. School was out, and Manny Driscoll, the fourteen-year-old boy who had discovered Carly Henderson when he was out on his after-school job delivering Chinese food, was home.

  “I’m not letting him work right now,” Manny’s mother, Martha, told them. “Chow Chang, his boss, understands. When this is all over, maybe. Manny can just mow the yard for allowance,” she said firmly. She sat with Rocky and Jack while they questioned her son.

  “Did you see anyone leaving the woods or hanging around anywhere nearby?” Rocky asked him.

  Manny was a sober boy. He looked at Rocky seriously. “No. I fell off my bike onto the road and...and that’s when I saw her through the trees. Man, I fell down when I got a look at her. I...” He paused and looked around, as if he wanted to make really certain none of his friends were there. “I screamed like a girl—like a little girl,” he said, sounding disgusted with himself.

  “That’s all right, Manny. I’ve screamed like a girl, too,” Rocky said.

  “Really?” Manny asked him.

  “Really,” Rocky echoed.

  “You fell, though, because a car almost sideswiped you, right?” Rocky asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “What kind of car?”

  Manny stared at him blankly. “Um, I don’t remember.”

  “Was it dark, light? Old, new?”

  “Not too old, I don’t think,” Manny said. He perked up. “It was dark—maybe a truck, but maybe not that big.”

  “A big SUV?” Jack asked him.

  “Yeah, maybe,” Manny said.

  “Did you see who was driving?” Rocky asked.

  “No. I just saw how close it was coming.”

  “My boy is lucky to be alive,” Martha said, setting a protective arm around his shoulders.

  “Of course, and we’re very grateful,” Rocky told her. “What then, Manny?”

  “Well, I fell. And the orders fell, too. Mr. Chang is really nice, and I didn’t want all that food to end up on the ground, so I was picking it all up—and then I saw her. I just threw it all away and grabbed my bike and got out of there. Fast.”

  “As soon as he got home, we called the police,” his mother said. “We didn’t believe him at first,” she admitted. “I thought he’d maybe been playing too many video games. But...she was real.”

  “Thank you, Manny, you really helped us,” Rocky said. He left the boy with a card—which, of course, his mother took. But Rocky thought it was important to make kids know they were respected and believed. “Call me if you think of anything else.”

  “I can’t believe you got something,” Jack muttered as soon as they were outside.

  “The car?” Rocky asked.

  Jack nodded. “When my men questioned him, they never asked about it. It’s not a lot, but it’s something. Or could be. It might just have been some idiot speeding home. Asshole might not even have realized he almost ran down a kid.”

  “True. Can you take me by the scene?”

  “At your command,” Jack told him.

  The crime scene tape was down, the fact that Carly Henderson had died here only a memory for many. Two weeks ago she had been planning her future.

  Now...

  Now she was underground and the soggy tape that had fallen from the trees was all that was left to mark the place where she had passed, a sign of nature regaining control.

  Jack led him the ten feet off the road to the spot where Carly had been found. He stooped down over the faint depression that told him where the body had once been. He could see the point of the star that had been marked by her head, the indentations made by her arms and legs, and was grateful the ground had been soft and muddy from a recent rain the day of her murder.

  What the hell did the position and the pentagram mean, though? A killer who was pretending to a belief he didn’t share? A killer who was sending a message, or one who was pointing a finger?

  He closed his eyes in thought.

  Help me.

  He thought he heard the words in his head.

  The victims knew, he realized with a sudden certainty, despite the absence of proof. They knew that something was wrong, there in the woods. But the killer was there with them—hiding. Either he brought them there or lured them there. Then left them. And he would wait—and watch. He wanted them to realize something was wrong, and only then did he slip up behind them.

  “What is it?” Jack asked. “You’ve figured something out, haven’t you?”

  Careful not to sound too certain and raise suspicion, Rocky said, “Here’s how I think it plays out. Most likely the killer gets there first, then he hides and watches his victim arrive.”

  “We found Carly’s car in town,” Jack said. “It was right where she’d left it, in a garage.”

  “Then she got a ride here somehow. Maybe even with the killer, and then he left her here on some pretext. Or maybe he has an accomplice.” He looked at Jack. “He picks his victims carefully. He convinces them that he has something unique to show them or give them. Or maybe he romances them or comes up with some other reason for them to come to the place he’s
chosen. But he’s already there, and he watches. Maybe he takes them when they’re still calm and just waiting—or perhaps he waits until they get impatient, maybe even angry, and finally afraid. Then he attacks.”

  Rocky looked around and noticed one of the trees where the bark had peeled away.

  “He waited there,” he told Jack quietly, pointing.

  “What makes you think so?”

  “The way the bark is worn in places and plucked at. I believe that’s where he was.”

  “I can get a crime scene unit back out.”

  Rocky shook his head. “No, you won’t get any physical evidence. Not now. I’ve got to get into his head, Jack.”

  “Or her head,” Jack said.

  “Or her head,” Rocky agreed.

  He was pensive when they returned to the car.

  “Want to come home with me for dinner?” Jack asked after a while. “Haley would be delighted.”

  “Not tonight. Thanks,” Rocky said. “I’m going to go over everything one more time. I’m expecting some more members of my team soon, too. So...”

  “You going to want a room at the station?” Jack asked him.

  “Thank you. That would be perfect.”

  Jack drove to Rocky’s hotel. There was a group of men in business suits standing out front, finishing up a discussion.

  “Hey, an old friend!” Jack said.

  Rocky studied the group and recognized Vince Steward easily. He had to be six-four, at least, and he was still built like a brick wall.

  He stood out in any crowd.

  “I’ll park,” Jack said. “Vince is going to want to say hello to you.”

  Vince saw Jack before he saw Rocky. He grinned and waved. He’d come a long way from the kid who drank beer in the back of a pickup truck.

  His suit was custom cut; his hair was neatly clipped. His eyes flashed with good humor when he saw Rocky.

  Vince strode over to throw his arms around Rocky. “The prodigal son returns. No, wait, can’t use that. You were never a prodigal anything. Good to see you, buddy. What brings you back to town?”

  “He’s working the murder,” Jack said.

  “Oh,” Vince said, and his grin faded. “Yeah, sad thing, huh? So, you still a fed, huh? That’s the last I heard, anyway. You know, old friends can keep up. They have this new thing called Facebook. Oh, yeah, there’s also a great invention called email.”

  “I guess I spend too much time working,” Rocky said. “But hell, if I’d known you were going to go to law school, I’d have come back just to see it,” Rocky said with a laugh.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re here, anyway. Let’s get together before you leave town again.” He called out to his group. “Hey! Got an old friend in town. Craig Rockwell. Rocky, come meet the boys.”

  “The boys” were a group of maritime attorneys, as it turned out, and they met once a week at Rocky’s hotel.

  There was conversation all around for a few minutes. The men asked Jack about the murders, but he was an experienced cop and said very little.

  “It’s good to see you,” Vince told Rocky when the conversation wound down. “We should all get together soon. No one can work around the clock.”

  Actually, Rocky thought, he often did.

  “Has Haley seen our old shining star?” Vince asked Jack.

  “She has,” Jack told him.

  “Renee will want to see him, too. We have to get together.”

  “We’ll make a plan,” Rocky promised.

  “Yes, but for now, I’d better be going,” Vince said. “Court bright and early tomorrow—I’m defending Harwell Marine. Meanwhile, if you need me, buddy, for anything, don’t hesitate,” Vince said sincerely.

  Rocky thanked him, and the three of them said their goodbyes.

  As Rocky headed into the hotel, he was glad that they’d run into Vince.

  The rest of his old crowd was doing great. Even Vince had developed ambition and made a real success of his life.

  Melissa.

  She had changed them all.

  He went to his room and set his briefcase on his desk. He liked the hotel. It was near the waterfront and offered inexpensive mini-suites with all the necessary conveniences. He had a coffeemaker, a wet bar and a large dining room table that allowed him to spread out the reports for all three cases.

  It had been good to see Jack, but he was obsessed and he knew it.

  Back to work.

  The women and the circumstances were all similar.

  The women were all young. They were all of similar height and weight, but with different coloring. All Caucasian, though. They had all been fully clothed, no sign of molestation.

  They had all been found with a silver pentagram on a silver chain lying on their breasts. Cause of death appeared to be the same: throat slit by a double-edged blade that was six or seven inches long. The crime scenes had yielded no clues. No footprints, not even near Carly’s body. The killer must have taken the time to obscure them. No gum wrappers, beer cans, condoms or wrappers, not even any cigarette butts. No evidence that anyone had used any of the crime scenes for anything at all.

  Frustrated, he picked up the photographs of the medallions. They were similar—and very much like the one Devin had—but from the photos, he couldn’t even prove that they’d been made by the same designer.

  He stood. He wanted to see the medallions again. It was time for a trip to the evidence lockup.

  * * *

  Somehow Devin managed not to drop the mayonnaise. She groped toward the counter and set it down, never taking her eyes off the apparition still standing just inside the kitchen doorway.

  “Come on now, Devin, dear,” Aunt Mina’s ghost said. “You didn’t think that a loving aunt would leave you so easily, did you, child?”

  Aunt Mina sounded both sincere and worried.

  A thousand responses ran through her mind. They ranged from, “You almost made me waste good mayonnaise” to a scream of pure astonishment. Or terror.

  No, not terror. How could she ever be afraid of Auntie Mina?

  Maybe she was just hallucinating, she told herself. After all, she’d recently discovered a dead woman. She was still not herself.

  “Auntie Mina.”

  The words came out like a croak.

  “Make some tea, dear. That always helps everything.” Aunt Mina smiled broadly. “I’d be delighted to help you, but frankly, I’m just learning this ghost stuff. Manifestation isn’t easy. And I did die when I was over one hundred. But the good thing is that nothing hurts. Nothing at all.” Her smile faded. “I think I’m here for a reason, Devin. I think I’m here to help you.”

  Devin was shaking. She walked forward and reached out to touch her aunt. She felt a slight chill in the air but nothing more.

  “You can’t touch me, child,” Aunt Mina said sadly. “Don’t you think I wished I could stroke your hair last night? Try to soothe you?”

  “You know what happened?” Devin asked.

  “I saw the face at the window,” Aunt Mina said.

  “A face at the window?”

  “You weren’t looking or you might have seen her, too. You heard her, though—and then you found her. I haven’t managed to leave the house yet, but I did try to stop you from going out, but...well, you are the child I helped raise. Kind and compassionate. So you went in search of her. And when you came back with that officer, I figured out what had happened.” She shrugged. “And you did turn on the television and your computer.”

  She might have died at a hundred and one, but Aunt Mina had known her electronics.

  Devin’s knees felt wobbly. She wasn’t sure she could make tea without breaking something. She swept past the great-aunt she couldn’t touch and made her way to the parlor, sinking down on the sofa.

  She was imagining things.

  No, Aunt Mina had followed her.

  Poe squawked. He flew over and tried to light on Mina’s shoulder, then ended up fluttering to the ground in confusion.
r />   “Poe, my poor Poe,” Aunt Mina said.

  “I’ll get him,” Devin muttered. She rose and scooped up the bird, who flapped agitatedly for a second and then settled into her hold.

  The damned bird was seeing the same apparition!

  “I can’t stay long, my dear. I haven’t mastered the skill yet, though I’m getting better and stronger every day. I practiced speaking when you were out, but...I had to pray that you would hear me when I finally showed myself. Not that I doubted you for a minute. Not really. After all, last night you heard the dead. And once you hear them...well, dear, I’m afraid you can’t just turn them off.”

  Devin stood stroking the bird and staring at her aunt. Suddenly tears welled in her eyes.

  “I loved you so much,” she said. “Still love you, of course.”

  “Love lasts forever,” Aunt Mina told her. “And I love you, too. So very much. Since I never had children of my own, you are, in spirit, my child. Not to take anything away from your lovely mother, you’re just my child in a different way. And your books! They’re getting better and better. I’m so proud of you. What are you working on now?”

  Devin told her, and Aunt Mina clapped her astral hands. Then she looked down and sighed. “The house is locked up tight?”

  “It is.”

  “Good. Oh dear, I’m fading already. Well, at least now you know I’m here.”

  “Auntie Mina...?”

  Too late. Aunt Mina was gone. And, Devin realized, darkness was falling quickly and she was still standing by the love seat, stroking the raven.

  * * *

  The night shift was on; the evidence room was quiet.

  An Officer Buckley was manning the desk while Rocky sat at another desk in the back, studying the three medallions.

  It had taken some doing to find the first. While Jack had been looking into the old case, he hadn’t gone so far as to request the medallion, which had been misfiled and hard to locate. After half an hour of studying the three pentagrams on their silver chains, Rocky shook his head.

  Having them right there in front of him didn’t tell him anything that the photographs hadn’t. None of them carried an artist’s mark, which was what he’d been hoping to find.