“You wouldn’t dare!” she spat angrily.
“Try me.”
She didn’t.
“I guess I don’t have to tell you that Street wasn’t too far out in left field. The Major Case Squad is running the show now.” Ben told me as he carefully propelled the van down dark streets through a thickening veil of white. “Carl and I are both assigned to it. Big surprise.”
During my brief absence, the crime scene unit had finished gathering and cataloging anything remotely resembling evidence. The weather had not been a friend to them, and the aforementioned items had been few. Of course, little had been found at the scene of Brianna Walker’s death as well. Inwardly I pondered the fact that no Bible, or even Bible verse, had been found at this latest homicide. I had fully expected one and even hoped that it might help to determine a pattern. Perhaps a clue as to the way the victims were chosen, some tangible connection between them other than their religion, or his perception of such.
Very simply, I was looking for anything.
The idea that the verse may have been nothing more than an afterthought at the first scene crossed my mind. It was something I didn’t believe but at the same time couldn’t dismiss, so it remained cocooned in my brain as a minor bother until such time as it could emerge as a full-fledged aggravation.
With the mobilization of the MCS, Ben had pulled some strings in order to get the body of the latest victim transferred to the city morgue where Doctor Sanders could be in charge of the postmortem. The county coroner had put up a minor fuss, citing jurisdiction and various boundaries, but whomever Ben had in his corner had made short work of the red tape and the unprecedented occurred. With all the I’s dotted and T’s crossed, the case was transferred to the city without delay. By the time I had returned from my visit to the ER, the remnants of the woman’s charred corpse had been carefully removed and were already en-route downtown. It was there to which we were now endeavoring to return.
The crisp halogen beams of the headlights seemed, from one moment to the next, to be more hindrance than help in the near blizzard conditions. Cacophonous rumblings overhead were randomly punctuated with still louder aerial booms, each one seeming to add another measure to the deluge of fluffy white flakes. For the first time in many years, Saint Louis was experiencing the meteorological phenomenon aptly called “thunder snow.”
“Plan is,” Ben continued, throwing a quick glance at me, “ta’ go with your theory that this asshole is creatin’ his own Inquisition, or whatever, and assume he’s not gonna stop at two.”
“He won’t,” I asserted.
Ben slowed the vehicle and ignoring the barely visible signal, cautiously hooked a sweeping right turn through an empty intersection. The road conditions were deteriorating with each passing minute, and he didn’t dare come to a complete stop for fear of becoming stuck. He gave me an animated nod and spared only a quick glance in my direction as he spoke.
“I believe ya’, and apparently so do a few people in important places. Not that anyone is happy ‘bout the theory, mind you. At any rate, word came down from on high while you were gettin’ patched up. The chief wants ya’ involved… Every step of the way.”
“I can think of a lot of other things I’d rather be involved in,” I said. “But it’s nice not to be considered a crackpot for a change.”
“I’ll be honest with ya’, Row. I told ‘im I’d ask ya’, but I also let ‘im know I wasn’t all that keen on it and…”
“I thought we had this conversation this morning, Ben.” I cut him off with an exasperated sigh and prepared to refute another episode of his self-imposed guilt.
“Yeah, well that was before ya’ ended up bein’ some kinda mystical carvin’ board,” he shot back. “But lemme finish, will ya’… Like I said, I told ‘im I wasn’t keen on the whole idea and that I ‘specially didn’t like bein’ put in the position of askin’ you just because we’re friends…” Before I could voice another objection, he drew in a deep breath and continued. “Then, I told ‘im that knowin’ you like I do and considerin’ what you’ve seen so far today, I figured we’d be hard pressed to keep ya’ out of it without lockin’ ya’ up.”
After a short pause, he added, “The decision is still yours to make, though. Ya’ don’t have to do this.”
“Well, since I’m the one that wanted to head down to the morgue in this mess, I guess you already know what that decision is,” I said. “So that’s a moot point. If it would make you feel any better though, tell him that next time he can ask me himself.”
“I already did.”
“I guess I should have known you would.”
Ben tacked the lumbering van down the snow-packed avenue and fell in behind a city maintenance dump truck. In the hard swaths of the headlights, we could make out the attached salt-spreader spewing bluish granules of chemical deterrent in tired, jerky bursts. If the temperature fell to the lows predicted for later this night, the corrosive sno-melt would be well beyond its threshold of usefulness, and Mother Nature would be winning this skirmish. Considering the current conditions, my money was on her.
Visibility had dropped to zero, and we tracked the plow by the evenly spaced flares of yellow brilliance emitting from the pulsing warning lights. A twenty-minute long half mile later, Ben suddenly cranked the steering wheel hard to the left, and the rear end of the van fishtailed in an oblique arc.
“Shit! Almost missed it!” he exclaimed.
The tires spun with a raspy crunch until they chewed through the loose ice and bit into pavement. With a short squeal of rubber against asphalt, we were launched forward over a small snow dike and bounced our way once again into the near-deserted parking lot of the Saint Louis city morgue.
Once Ben parked the van in what he declared to be a valid space, we braved the cold wind and deepening drifts to hurry inside. We both took a moment to shake off in the outer foyer before pushing through the second set of double doors and embracing the welcome warmth of the building’s interior.
Ben had just unzipped his coat and was about to display his badge to the receptionist when she spoke up. “Was that you that just pulled in the lot?”
“Yeah, that a problem?” he responded as he held the gold shield up for her to see.
“Haven’t you been listening to the radio?”
Ben looked at me then back to her and raised an eyebrow. “Should we have?”
“The snow is coming down at over an inch per hour,” she explained with mild exasperation in her voice. “All city and county streets are closed to traffic except emergency vehicles and road crews until further notice.”
“So, did the body make it in from the county?” Ben queried, dismissing what he had just been told without acknowledgement.
“About two hours ago,” she returned. “Doctor Sanders is back there with her now.”
I looked at the clock on the wall behind the young woman’s desk and then drew in a deep breath. It was already approaching seven p.m.
“Excuse me,” I addressed her politely, “but could you direct me to a phone I can use? If we’re going to be stuck here, I need to call my wife.”
“I just saw you on television,” Felicity told me as soon as I had finished explaining where I was, along with the fact that I wouldn’t be home anytime soon.
“Wonderful. I hope they got my good side,” I returned without even trying to hide the sarcasm. “What are they saying?”
“A lot of speculation for the most part,” she answered. “The popular theory at the moment is that a cult is getting their revenge for that whole thing last year.”
“Cult, huh? They just love that stuff, don’t they?”
“Row, what’s really going on?” I could hear mild concern in her voice. “And what was all that about you being wounded?”
“That? It was nothing.”
“Rowan…”
“Seriously, just a minor cut. No big deal.”