I had tried not to think about the surreal image of Paul Klein’s body. That was probably human nature, but I was an investigator. Klein had been so securely nailed into the tree everyone had wondered if they would need to cut down the oak in order to get his body.
“He put the spikes between the carpals and the radius in the hands,” Martinez said, reading from his notes, “and then went in through the second intermetatarsal space in the feet.”
Gump said, “Thank you, Dr. Martinez.”
“Any time, Nurse Worsley.”
I did a rim shot on the creamer with my pen. “At the crime scene we were wondering if it was possible for the killer to have acted alone. Did Doc weigh in on that?”
“There were lots of ligature marks found on the victim,” Gump said. “Haj was pretty sure it was a one-man operation. He said the victim was hoisted up onto the tree and then strung up on the limbs and supports before any nailing took place.”
“That would explain those rubbing marks we saw in the upper branches,” I said. “That would also be about the only way one person could hoist up that much dead weight. Klein probably weighed a buck seventy.”
“You could get a job guessing people’s weight in a carnival, Gideon,” Gump said. “The vic was one-six-eight.”
“Maybe that was the reason the killer went to the trouble of putting up the footrest and the seat rest. He wanted to have them to support the victim’s weight.”
“You mean the suppedaneum and the sedile?” Martinez asked, again reading from his notes.
“You might be Latin,” Gump said, “but you can’t even read Doc’s words right.”
“Latin’s a dead language. Who’s going to tell me whether I’m saying them right or not?”
“It’s not a dead language. It’s the official language of Vatican City.”
“You must be almost fluent in it then, all those years you served under priests as an altar boy.”
Gump blew Martinez a kiss and said, “Carpe denim-seize my jeans.”
“Eat my shorts.”
“I’d be afraid of crappy diem.”
I’d had enough of the comedic stylings of Homicide Special and stood up to leave. “How many LAPD detectives does it take to nail a crucifixion case?” I asked.
“Is there a punch line?” Gump asked.
“Not yet,” I said.
The three of us worked into the evening. Martinez spent most of his time putting the book together, while Gump and I pursued leads. If there was progress, it was the kind of which none of us was aware.
The Crucifixion Killing, as it was being called, had the media doing cartwheels. The news of Paul Klein being found with drugs had somehow leaked out. The early reports that had portrayed him as the best and the brightest, as an athlete-scholar, suddenly changed. Reporters were now saying Klein was suspected of being a drug dealer.
It was almost ten o’clock when I made it home. There were no clouds in the sky, but that only made it that much darker and colder. For a few moments, I sat in my driveway. I didn’t want to go into an empty house, and I was afraid of what my dreams might bring.
January, I thought. The month was a black hole, and I didn’t have the gravity to resist its pull. Staying active wasn’t helping. Much as I didn’t want to admit it, the darkness was sucking me in.
Sirius made a whining sound, and I reached my hand back to his muzzle. He was focused on something, and that’s when I noticed the lights coming from my next-door neighbor’s house. On a dark street there was one point of light. My neighbor’s living room curtains were open and the glow from inside his house dispelled the shadows. There was only the one car in the driveway, a Jaguar with the personalized license plate of SHAMAN.
There was a reason my partner was fixated on the house. One of his favorite humans in the world lived there. As if on cue, my neighbor’s front door opened and he stepped out on the porch.
“Let’s go see our favorite fakir,” I told Sirius.
My partner didn’t need to be told twice and raced off for Seth Mann’s door.
When Seth first moved in, I remember asking him what he did. “I’m a shaman,” he told me.
Wondering if I’d heard correctly, I said, “So, on your mortgage application, that’s what you wrote down as your occupation? Shaman?”
“Of course,” he said.
Maybe shamanism is a growth industry. Although his job isn’t run-of-the-mill, Seth has always been a great neighbor and friend. After Jennifer died he did all the organizing I couldn’t bring myself to do, and when Sirius and I were being treated in the burn unit, Seth helped us in every way imaginable. He even supplied the two of us with a homemade balm that he said would bring us relief. His potion smelled rank, but it did seem to have some healing properties, or maybe it was the beer that Seth invariably snuck in with his potion. Because Seth and Sirius are thick as thieves, whenever I leave town my partner vacations next door.
Before I even got a chance to enter into his house, Seth extended a bottle of Sam Adams my way. My shaman only drinks premium beer.
“Did you divine the kind of day I had?”
“No,” he said, “but there was divine intervention of a sort. Father Pat was worried about you. Apparently, you didn’t return his calls. I found him waiting for you on your front porch.”
“Shit,” I said.
“Not to worry,” Seth said. “I invited him inside. We had a nice talk and toddy. I promised Father Pat that I would see to your spiritual needs tonight.”
“I’d rather you saw to my toddy needs.”
Father Pat and Seth didn’t exactly practice the same religion, but each enjoyed the other’s company. On several occasions I had been party to their wide-ranging discussions. As strange as it seemed, each had great respect for the other. On very different paths they had found God.
Seth’s house reflects his travels. He’s been all over the world spending time with medicine men, witch doctors, healers, and sages. During Seth’s journey to become a shaman, he was even adopted by a tribe deep in the Amazon rain forest. By the sounds of his initiation ceremony, it’s not a tribe I’ll be joining any time soon. I was pleased to see my two shrunken heads now on display, gifts I’d presented Seth at his recent birthday party. After he told me he’d spent time working with a Shuar medicine man and then mentioning in passing that not too long ago the Shuar were infamous for shrinking the heads of their enemies, the shrunken heads seemed like an obvious present. The two heads look the real thing; one of them even bears a miniature resemblance to Seth’s round face, fan ears, flat nose, and hooded eyes. What it doesn’t show is his big smile and even bigger stomach. Imagine a cross between a koala and the happy Buddha, and that’s Seth.
By now I was used to the figurines, masks, rattles, drums, and effigy figures displayed on the wall shelving throughout the house. There was also no shortage of native pottery, vases, and baskets. Tobacco leaves and other pungent herbs filled bowls and containers and contributed to a beguiling aroma that filled the house. I have always made a point of never looking too closely at what kind of herbs are in the house.
Seth does workshops and has a loyal clientele. He says that his work requires him to be a combination of psychotherapist, healer, and social worker. Before becoming a shaman, Seth was a financial manager at an insurance company. One day he was wearing a suit, he told me, and the next he found himself being “liberated” in the Amazon rain forest. At least once a year, Seth returns to the jungle for what he calls a “refresher course.” Invariably, Seth says, he drinks ayahuasca, a brew made from a plant known as the visionary vine, and the vine of the dead. Evidently, what doesn’t destroy you makes you a better shaman.
I plopped down in an easy chair while Sirius sprawled out in his hemp dog bed, filled with organic millet hulls that Seth had bought for him. A drug-sniffing dog probably wouldn’t have looked as comfortable as Sirius did. Seth brought over a water bowl for him before taking a seat on the sofa.