“Well, get your lips on those titties, man.”
“Don’t even think about it,” I said, walking round the corner and holding the rifle on them. “Hands in the air.”
They turned toward me and stared. When they saw the weapon, they complied, slowly.
“Look what we got here, Bobbie,” said one of them, licking his lips and giving me a slack smile.
“Feels like we’re back in Texas, Billy Ray. Ain’t that a M16?”
I stopped about five yards in front of them. I wasn’t too keen on firing the weapon in town and reckoned I could take them whatever they tried.
“You guys from Texas?” I asked.
They nodded. They were both heavily built and red faced, and substantially the worse for drink.
“Thought I smelled cow shit.” I grinned at them. “You fancied swinging your tiny dicks at a woman for a change, uh?”
They came at me surprisingly fast. I turned the rifle sideways and raised it like a weight lifter pumping the bar. One of them got the muzzle in his throat, the other the butt. They hit the ground, gasping feebly.
“All done?” I asked.
The one called Billy Ray suddenly had a switchblade in his hand. I clubbed him with the rifle stock and then followed through to make contact with the other man’s head. They went down again. This time they were unconscious.
I moved to the woman. She was sitting up, and wearing only socks and panties.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She nodded. One of her eyes had already started swelling.
“Just a second.” I ran back and picked up my jacket, then put it round her shoulders. “Can you get up?”
“Yes.” Her voice was faint.
I held her under one arm and she got to her feet without too much difficulty.
I looked at her face and saw that she was fairly young, probably in her late twenties. Her short blond hair was mussed and her face was dirty, but I could still make out that she was a looker. She was holding one arm over her breasts.
“Who are you?” she said, looking at me intently.
I could smell that she’d been drinking, too.
“Just passing through,” I answered. “You meet these fools in the bar?”
“They were in there, but I didn’t talk to them. Guess they must have followed me out.” She touched the skin around her eye and winced.
“Did you get hit anywhere else?”
She shook her head. “No, the assholes didn’t get that far.”
I picked up what was left of her clothing. “Don’t know if this is much use.”
She threw away a badly ripped shirt and pulled on her jeans. There was a tear under the waistband and dirt on the legs.
“Do you live here?” I asked.
She nodded. “Schoolteacher. But I’m from Portland. This hellhole is my first job.”
“Is there a police station?”
She looked at me curiously. “Where are you from?”
“London.”
“London, England?”
“Yes.” I smiled.
“Nice,” she said, still ill at ease but smiling back at me as she slipped on her shoes. “Always wanted to visit.” She twitched her head. “Police? Yeah, there’s a state troopers’ station.”
“Maybe we should head over there,” I suggested, taking her arm.
She tugged it free gently. “I’m Mary Upson,” she said, extending her right hand. “Thanks a lot.”
“Matt,” I said, instantly feeling half-naked, since I couldn’t remember my surname.
She waited and then shrugged. “Mystery man, huh? All right, Matt, let’s go. It’s about fifty yards beyond the bar.”
I was wondering what to do about the M16. I decided that slinging it over my shoulder was the least-threatening way of carrying it. At least Mary Upson didn’t seem bothered by it. Hunters in the area probably carried rifles all the time. I glanced down at my belt. They probably didn’t carry Glocks. I slipped the pistol round to the small of my back. At least it wouldn’t look at first glance as if I was carrying out a frontal assault on the police station. Mary also didn’t seem bothered by the gray uniform.
“What about…what about them?” she asked, glancing back.
I stopped in my tracks. “Good point. Want to take any private revenge?”
She looked tempted for a few moments, then shook her head.
“Hold this,” I said, handing her the rifle. I kneeled down and unzipped the would-be rapists’ jeans. Then I pulled them off, prompting a groan from one. I managed to secure their wrists and ankles with the trouser legs. I took the cell phones, wallets and keys that I found in their pockets, as well as Billy Ray’s switchblade. No doubt the authorities would look after the valuables.
I got to my feet and turned toward the schoolteacher. For a moment I thought she was holding the rifle on me with intent to fire. Then she handed it back with a smile.
“Let’s go and see the troopers,” she said.
“Right,” I said.
We both had pretty good stories for the representatives of the law in the small town of Sparta, Maine.
Seventeen
Detectives Simmons and Pinker were on one side of the conference table on the fifth floor of the Metro Police building in Washington, D.C., FBI agents Sebastian and Maltravers on the other. Chief of Detectives Rodney Owen, thinner than the most ascetic of monks, the pale skin stretched tight over the bones of his face, sat at the head.
“Clem?” the chief said. “You want to bring us up to speed?”
Simmons nodded, then started to run through what had been done in the Monsieur Hexie case. The victim had been officially identified by the woman who cleaned the shop, a Tennessee native who didn’t seem too surprised by the murder. According to her, folks who played with fire ended up getting burned. It turned out she didn’t have anything specific in mind but, as a devout Baptist, she thought that “voodoo and all that mumbo jumbo was an offence to the Lord.” However, she was in her seventies and had cried when she saw the victim’s face. Living with a daughter who taught grade school, she wasn’t any kind of suspect.
“Canvassing hasn’t gotten us much,” Simmons went on. “You know how it is in Shaw. Nobody wants to talk to us.”
“You think maybe she saw more than she’s saying?” the chief asked.
“Doubt it, sir. But even if she did, I don’t think she’ll come out with it.”
Owen sighed. “That neighborhood is supposed to have gotten better.”
Simmons glanced at Pinker. He was tugging on his cuffs, displaying a pair of cuff links that must have cost him most of last month’s salary. Clem nudged his partner; they’d agreed beforehand that they would share the presentation.
“Yeah, right,” Gerard Pinker said, looking at the file in front of him. “You’ve all seen copies of the M.E.’s preliminary findings and what we’ve got from the CSIs so far.”
“Which doesn’t amount to much,” Peter Sebastian said, narrowing his eyes. “Would you gentlemen care to put this murder in context with that of the singer who called himself Loki? Indeed, do you have anything further to report on that case?”
Simmons leaned forward, his eyes warning Pinker off. “Apart from the skewers, the most obvious common factor is the drawings.” He paused as the others found their copies of the pages attached to the bodies. “As you can see, they’re similar in terms of the shapes, but the layout is different.”
“Is there some occult meaning, do you think?” Chief Owen asked.
“Voodoo?” Pinker said, smiling at his partner.
“Nothing strikes me,” Simmons said, shaking his head. “I’ve checked my books.”
“Do you have any inkling of what the shapes might mean?” The FBI man’s tone was almost neutral, but the hint of authority was plain enough.
“Do you?” Pinker riposted.
“We’re looking into it,” Sebastian said, glancing at his assistant.
Dana Maltravers nodded. “Copies have been passed to our Document Analysis Unit. They have a database of symbols and signs.”
“A database, eh?” Pinker said with a grin. “That’s great. When can we expect the killer’s name, address and social security number?”