“Who found the body?” I asked, eyes on Jill and the latest victim.
“Some guy out walking his dog. A preacher.”
Jill stood and walked over to us, giving a shudder as she approached. “Ugh. I’m really disliking this Symbol Man,” she said, rubbing her arms. “That was seriously nasty.” Then she gave me a smile. “Heya, darlin’. Nice way to wake up, eh?”
“Heya, chick. That’s why I love this job. I don’t need to waste money on alarm clocks.”
Jill laughed, then peered into my face. “You look … different. Are you okay?”
I shrugged with a casualness I didn’t feel. “I’ve been busy. Not much sleep. Working, you know.”
Jill shook her head. “No, that’s not it. You look different. I can’t explain it.” She gave a wicked grin, blue eyes flashing. “Did you finally get laid?”
“Oh, come on! Why is everyone saying I look like I got laid?” I glowered at Jill and Scott.
Jill smiled and shrugged. “Dunno, darlin’. Maybe it’s the ‘freshly fucked’ hair thing you have going on.”
I laughed and shoved my hand through my hair in a futile attempt to make it lie flat. “No, that’s called falling-asleep-at-desk.”
She set her hands on her hips and glared at me. “You are so incredibly pathetic. Would it kill you to ease up on the work and go out and have fun?”
“Why, yes, I am pathetic,” I said, with a grin that I didn’t quite feel. Yeah, I’m pathetic enough to have a one-night stand with a demon. Pathetic and desperate. I’m even having weird-ass dreams about him at my desk. “And I can’t exactly slack off on work when it’s my first crack at a homicide investigation,” I reminded her.
“Okay. I’ll let you slide for now.” Then she leveled a sharp look at me. “But as soon as this case is wrapped up, I am going to drag your pathetic ass out drinking.”
A warm flush filled me, as if I’d downed a slug of hot brandy on a cold day. “Deal,” I said, smiling. “Now show me what we have.”
Jill made a face and headed back toward the body. I followed, mentally bracing myself for what I would see.
I had seen bodies. Natural deaths, suicides, homicides, motor-vehicle accidents. Enough years in police work and you get to see more than your share of death. No matter how many times I’d seen the horror of what one human could do to another, I was always shocked at the result. But this was worse than anything I’d ever seen. Even worse than the woman from three nights ago. Victim number two, or maybe number fifteen—however you want to count it. And the killer’s already stepping it up. Usually it was months between bodies being found. Now it was days.
It was a male victim this time, with a stick-thin frame that spoke of some sort of drug addiction, perhaps in his twenties though it was difficult to be sure. He had dark greasy hair and a scraggly beard and mustache that looked like they hadn’t been trimmed in months, and for a bizarre instant I thought that he was my intruder from the other night, until I remembered that he’d had stubble, not a full beard.
But the pattern of injuries drew my attention quickly. The Symbol Man had changed his technique from the previous victim. Instead of perfect and precise lines carved into the flesh by blade, this victim had been burned in the same sort of pattern. All I could think was that the killer had merely turned the blade over and heated it, using the thin edge to lay hundreds of agonizing brands up and down the victim’s body. A thousand times more painful, I thought. There were even perfect patternings of burns seared onto his genitals. I’d seen similar signs of this sort of ritual torture in the pictures of previous victims, but it was far different to see for myself.
I shivered at the mere thought of how agonizing it had to be for this victim. It’s a wonder he didn’t die of shock. And how long did all this take? How long was he tormented before being finished off? And a disturbing realization: The Symbol Man had this guy and the other girl at the same time. He just finished with her sooner.
Now that I knew to look for it, I could see that this man had the same deep cuts at his elbows and ankles as the other victim, and the symbol was there as well, burned perfectly into the skin just above his pubic area. A pattern that was oddly beautiful and at the same time disturbing, the symbol was an intricate writhing of circular forms that hinted of teeth and claws, twisting in on itself and defying identification. It looked vaguely Celtic but with shades of Egyptian or perhaps Oriental flavor. My frustration coiled more tightly. Damn, but I wished I knew what that was! This same symbol was on every victim, though not always in the same place. I just knew it was something arcane. I’d shown pictures to Aunt Tessa and had spent countless days poring through every book and scroll in my aunt’s library, but while Tessa agreed with my conviction that the symbol was arcane, nowhere could we find what it meant or to what it could possibly refer.
I took note of the deep ligature marks on his throat, red and purple flesh squeezing up between the deep grooves, as well as the petechial hemorrhaging that indicated strangulation, just like on the other body. And this victim had the arcane smudges too. I frowned and crouched. The body flickered with sigils barely visible to my othersight. Just traces, like smeared fingerprints, but they would be there only if the murderer was using the deaths as some part of a ritual.
It had to be a summoning. Everything fit, especially the way the timing of the three-year break fit with the convergence of the spheres. But why use blood magic and death magic for a summoning, unless it was for a demon who couldn’t be bargained with? One with whom agreeable terms could not be set? But what demon could be worth all of this trouble and mayhem? None of it made any sense to me.
I clenched my jaw in frustration. If I could just figure out some way for my aunt to see these smudges, surely we’d be able to decipher them—or at least more so than I was able to do on my own. Unfortunately, there wasn’t even enough left of the arcane traces and sigils to sketch. I scrubbed my hand over my face and sighed. I really needed my aunt to actually look at the body.
Too bad I had no idea how to manage that. I was vaguely aware of Jill shifting behind me, but I continued to focus on the traces and smudges, gathering as much impression from them as I could. They were fading even as I studied them. Beyond frustrating.
I finally stood, knees creaking after being forced into a crouch for so long. “All right, I guess we can call the coroner.” I turned and walked back the way I’d come in. “I assume the rest of the area has been swept?”
“Nothing,” Jill replied. “I mean, the usual cigarette butts and trash, but nothing else. It’s a ball field, so there are a ton of footprints all over. But no tire tracks or drag marks on the field itself.”
I looked around at the field and its placement in reference to the road and driveways. “It would have been pretty easy to carry the body over here. He doesn’t look like he weighs all that much.”
“Yeah. Skinny little fuck,” she agreed. “Probably a homeless crackhead.”
“Maybe this one will actually have a criminal record, so we stand a chance of identifying him.”
“I’ll take prints when the coroner gets here and run them as soon as I get back to the office.”
I smiled, grateful. “You rock.”
Jill laughed. “Yes, I do.”
A whistle caught my attention, and I looked up to see my captain standing on the other side of the crime-scene tape, motioning me over. Jill made a rude noise beside me.
“God forbid he should actually enter a crime scene,” she said with a roll of her eyes.
I suppressed a groan. I respected his reasons for not entering scenes. I really did. But, unfortunately, Captain Turnham still wanted to know what was going on beyond the tape, and he had developed a rather aggravating habit of whistling to his detectives and motioning them over every few minutes so he could find out what they’d come up with.
Not even six in the morning and he was already showered, shaved, and dressed in clothes that held more starch than I had ever worn in my entire life. “M
orning, Gillian,” he said when I reached him. “What do you have?”
“Morning, Captain. It fits the pattern of all the others. Shitload of torture—burned in a zillion little lines.” I shuddered. “It’d look really cool if it wasn’t so nasty.”
“Symbol on the body?”
“Right above the pubic bone. And cause of death is probably going to be ligature strangulation.”
He nodded, face impassive. “I pulled Boudreaux and Pellini from their other cases for the day to canvass for witnesses, but I’m working on getting you some permanent help.”
“I met Agent Kristoff yesterday during the autopsy on the other victim.” Some sourness must have crept into my tone, because my captain gave a dry laugh.
“He didn’t light your fire?”
“He barely spoke to me.”
“You know how some of those Feds are. He isn’t even officially assigned yet. He called me after the body was found at the wastewater plant and asked for the file.”
“Well, that’s strange,” I said, frowning. Hadn’t Kristoff said that he’d been assigned to a task force?
The captain gave a half shrug. “Actually, not really. He’s on another task force that focuses on ritual murders and cult things. He’s probably evaluating the case to see if it falls under their sort of thing.”
“Oh, jeez.” I groaned. “Is he the kind who’s going to insist that it’s satanic rituals?”
Captain Turnham’s mouth twitched slightly. “I’m well aware of how you feel about that.”
“Sorry, Captain, it’s just that it gets a little old having the ‘satanic’ label slapped onto everything—especially when the people don’t have a fucking clue about satanism. It’s almost as bad as when they start screaming about witchcraft.”
He lifted an eyebrow at me. “Your aunt’s been ranting again?”
“Yeesh, you should hear her whenever she gets wind of that sort of thing. She’s considered an expert on the occult and paranormal, you know.”
“Oh, yes, I know.” He tilted his head. “It still amazes me that she never gets hassled for that. This is the Bible Belt, after all.”
I shrugged. “Everyone just thinks of her as a harmless eccentric.”
He nodded, absently polishing his glasses on his sleeve. “So, did Crime Scene find anything that we can work with?”
“Not yet.” I paused, then decided to take a chance. “Look, Captain, I know this is going to sound insane, but is there any way I can bring my aunt out here to take a look at the body?”
His brows lifted. “Are you kidding? Look, I know she’s an expert on the occult, but the chief would lose his mind if I brought a civilian in to look at a corpse.” He paused. “But I’ll let you show her some pictures, see if maybe you can get that symbol identified.”
I’d done that right after I got the old Symbol Man file, but of course I wasn’t about to tell him that.
“So, is there going to be a task force? I’m thinking it would be pretty nice,” I said. Even with Mr. Personality, I added silently. Boudreaux and Pellini aren’t exactly falling over each other to help me out.
A grimace flickered across his face. “I agree with you, Gillian. I think that there’s sufficient reason to form one, and I’m still pushing the issue. But the chief isn’t ready to announce that these bodies are Symbol Man victims. Bad press, you know?” He spread his hands.
I looked back at the pitiful lump on the ground. “Yeah, well, if either of these victims had been the daughter or son of an upstanding member of society, we’d have had FBI, CIA, NSA, FAA, you name it, crawling all over this place.”
“He’s picking his victims well. People no one gives a shit about.”
“No. He’s wrong,” I said, eyes narrowing. “Because I give a shit about them.”
“And that’s why you’re the lead on these cases. Because you’re a stubborn, obnoxious, tenacious bitch.” His dark eyes flashed in rarely shown humor and something that might have been approval.
I laughed. “Aw, Captain, I didn’t know you cared.”
“Don’t let it get out. I have a reputation to maintain.” He lifted his chin toward the bleachers, where a man sat with an imposing Rottweiler on a leash. “That’s Reverend David Thomas over there. He’s the one who found the body.”
“Thanks, Captain. I’ll let you know what I find out.” I turned and headed to the bleachers.
The man looked up as I approached, and my first thought was that he didn’t look at all like a preacher. He was dressed in utilitarian gray sweats and worn sneakers. Then I realized that I was looking for a clerical collar but that this was a preacher, not a priest. His hair was salt-and-pepper and his face was weathered, though not heavily lined. He looked to be well on the far side of middle age, probably late fifties, perhaps early sixties, though he also looked like he was in pretty good condition, which made it hard to tell. I had known out-of-shape forty-year-olds who looked older than fit and trim octogenarians.
The dog gave a low growl as I got close. I slowed, and the preacher put his hand on the dog’s collar. Light-blue eyes lifted to mine. “I’m sorry,” he said, brows furrowed. “He’s usually very friendly.”
He smells the demon on me was my automatic thought. Then I realized that didn’t make sense. It had been two days since I’d accidentally summoned Rhyzkahl, and I’d certainly bathed since then. I couldn’t see how his scent or feel would still linger on me. “That’s all right,” I said, keeping a distance of about ten feet. It wouldn’t be the first time that a dog owner had insisted a dog was perfectly safe right before it attacked. “I can stand right over here, if you could just answer a few questions for me?”
He nodded, then gave the collar a slight jerk as the dog growled again. “Easy, Butch,” he said to the dog, then he looked back up at me. “Ask away, ma’am.”
I asked the usual identification questions, quickly jotting the info down in my notebook, and was surprised to find that he was actually in his early seventies. He was the preacher at a nondenominational church in town—one with which I was familiar, though certainly not as an attendee. It was a popular church—so much so that the church hired off-duty officers to help with traffic control on Sundays. I’d worked that particular detail a couple of times when I was in desperate need of extra income.
“Can you tell me what happened?” I asked.
“I was out walking Butch this morning. I go out every morning at about five a.m., unless it’s raining.” His mouth twitched into a smile. “Fortunately it does that enough in Louisiana that I get a break every now and then.”
I echoed the smile and waited for him to continue.
“Butch started acting really strange, pulling on the leash and barking. Then he finally pulled right away from me and ran over to the ball field.” Reverend Thomas grimaced. “He was going crazy, and so I had to go get him and pull him back. I saw it was a … body, so as soon as I could drag Butch away, I tied him up here and called 911.” He patted his pocket. “Thank God I always carry my cell phone.”
“Did you see anyone else in the park while you were walking?”
“No, I’m usually by myself this early in the morning. I don’t worry about it too much, since Butch looks fairly intimidating.” He gave me an apologetic smile as the Rottweiler continued to emit a low, unnerving growl in my direction. “I really am sorry. He looks fierce, but he’s normally incredibly placid and friendly. I guess he’s unnerved by the body.”
“But you don’t seem to be,” I pointed out.
He met my eyes. “I was a POW in Vietnam. Unfortunately, I’ve seen quite a bit of what one human can do to another.”
I exhaled. “I see.” I made a note to myself to check his military record. “Do you always walk in this park?”
Reverend Thomas shook his head. “Not always. I mix it up a bit, among this one and the lakefront and some of the parks south of here. Depends on how far I feel like driving. But this one’s closest to my house, so I usually end up here at least three
days a week.”
“Do you think you would notice anything unusual? Any vehicles?”
“I think I would notice,” he said. “But, unfortunately, I’m fairly positive that I saw no vehicles other than mine this morning.” He gave me another apologetic smile. “However, I think I can be of help with identifying him.” He gave a nod toward the body, an expression of pain crossing his features.
“You know him?” That would be a hell of a break.
“I … think so. I would have to take a closer look to be sure, but I think it’s a young man who was in a rehab program I used to work with.” He sighed and scrubbed at his face. “It’s so disheartening when these young people get caught up in drugs. It’s like they’re drowning, but by the time they realize that they’re in the riptide, it’s too late for them.”
I nodded in full agreement. “I know. I’ve watched people completely destroy themselves. It used to be crack, but lately it’s meth.” I closed my notebook. “Would you be willing to come take another look at this victim, to see if you know him?”
He hesitated. “Yes … yes, of course,” he said after a few seconds. He bent and made certain that the leash was well secured to the bleachers, then stood. The dog gave a soft whine and the preacher patted his head. “I’ll be right back, Butchie,” he said, then followed me as I turned and walked back toward the crime scene.
The coroner’s office personnel were just finishing placing the body in the body bag as we approached. The reverend leaned over the bag and then gave a heavy sigh. “Yes, that’s him.”
“Do you know his name?”
“Mark Janson. He used to live with his mother, but she died a couple of years ago of various health problems, and after that he just went downhill. He’d always had issues, but she managed to keep him vaguely in line. Without her guidance, he fell apart.”
I wrote the info in my notebook. “Reverend Thomas, you’ve been a huge help. I’ll be in touch if I have any more questions.”