A man’s lower legs jutted out from behind one of the open balcony doors.
Thinking of the other recent crime scenes, Damon found himself hoping there was a body attached to that leg.
“Ed,” he said aloud, pointing out the limb to his companion, who was still staring in amazement at the condition of the room. The two men made their way to the balcony, being careful not to disturb anything as they crossed the room.
On the balcony they discovered the mutilated body of a middle-aged man. Like the Cummingses, large chunks of flesh were missing from the corpse. However, this time the killer had added a new twist. Several weapons, obviously taken from the weapons case in the next room, had been thrust violently into the body and left there, reminding Damon of pins in a pincushion. One corner of Damon’s mind began absently cataloging the weapons;that’s a broadsword, and an epee, and a dirk…. He shut the voice off quickly.
“Recognize him?” Strickland asked.
“No, but we’ve got a positive ID.”
Partially splashed with blood, the man’s face was twisted in a savage expression of fear and pain. Damon told Strickland that Jake had provided a confirmation that the man was Charles Turner, Blake’s butler.
Strickland set his bags down on a clean section of the balcony and opened one up. Withdrawing a pair of thick rubber gloves, he pulled them on and knelt next to the body to begin his examination.
Damon gave him a few moments to do the prelim, and asked, “What do you think?”
“No question it’s the same killer. Exterior soft organs gone; eyes, tongue, etcetera. Chest cavity penetrated, probably find a few organs missing from there as well once I open him up on the table. What I can’t figure are these weapons.”
“Pre or post?” Damon asked, referring to whether or not the weapons had been used while the victim was still alive.
Ed gave it some thought. “At a guess I’d have to say he was still alive when they were used. There’s some evidence of bleeding around the wounds themselves, though it is hard to be sure. From his facial expression there is no question the poor bastard suffered.” Ed shook his head in frustration. “Then again, they could all be postmortem. Wounds of that type should have bled one heck of a lot, yet the floor beneath him is practically blood-free.” He looked up at Damon. “I can’t say either way until I open him up.”
When Ed bent again over the body, Damon left him to his task and walked back into the room. He surveyed the damage, then headed over to the dark stain in the center of the room. As he got closer to it, several details became clear.
The stain was obviously blood; that was immediately apparent. And though the shape was partially obscured by the blood, Damon could see that the design laid out on the floor was actually a pentagram enclosed by a circle, drawn first with salt or colored sand and then retraced with blood. It reminded him of the Hopi sand paintings he’d seen once on a trip out West.
The symbolism troubled him. A pentagram inside of a circle was not all that common. He didn’t like the implications. Back in Chicago he’d encountered the symbol once before, during a rash of cult-related homicides. The killer had been deep into the occult, the murders took place as sacrifices in the midst of a black mass.Is that what happened here? Damon wondered.Is Turner the sacrificial victim in some occult ceremony? Did his death take place here, inside the room, and his body was dragged out onto the porch once it was no longer needed? If so, why? Damon gritted his teeth in frustration. This one was like all the others; too many questions and not enough answers.Starting to be the story of my life, he thought.
Being careful to avoid disturbing anything, Damon moved closer to get a better look at the sword. The blade, most of which was stained with blood, was roughly three feet in length. The weapon’s hilt was covered with what looked to Damon to be precious stones, though they might have been fake; he certainly wasn’t one to tell the difference.
All in all, it was an impressive weapon. As were the others in the room.Blake must be quite a collector, Damon found himself thinking.
The thought froze him in place.
Damon stood and moved over to the display case. Some weapons were still in their proper places, but the majority lay in a reckless heap on the floor in front of the case. He looked them over carefully, taking his time, examining the setup. He counted those he could see, then did his best mentally to place them in their proper places with the help of the identification tags inside the case and his own knowledge of ancient weapons. He did this three times, each time arriving at the same result. If he included the sword in the center of the room and those still in the corpse outside, he came up one short. Another sword of approximately the same length as the one in the center of the room was missing.
Had the killer taken it with him?
Damon moved around the room, bending to look beneath the furniture and the bookshelves, making certain he hadn’t simply overlooked it. Beneath the shelves closest to the display case something glinted in the light from his flashlight. Something red.
Damon withdrew an extendable pointer from his breast pocket and used it to fish the object out into the light.
It was a necklace. A gold necklace on which hung a ruby red stone of considerable size. The chain itself was broken and stained with more dried blood. Damon guessed that it must have been torn off and flung aside during a struggle, and wondered whose it was.Blake’s? Turner’s? The murderer’s?
He used the pointer to push the necklace into a clear plastic evidence bag he withdrew from another pocket and marked with his pen, noting the date, time, and location he found it.
At that point Strickland came back in from the balcony. “Okay. Here’s what we’ve got. Turner’s wounds are definitely consistent with the other killings. Rigor has set in, but hasn’t left yet, so we know that his death took place sometime in the last twenty-four hours. There’s no sign of postmortem lividity on the body. A full autopsy should provide more answers, but for now my guess is that he was killed in this room and moved out to the balcony afterward.”
The sound of Damon’s radio interrupted him.
“Wilson here.”
“Nelson, sir. The CSC team is here. And, uh, so is the press.”
Shit.
“Send up the team. Hold the press at the gate; do not, I repeat, do not let any of them onto the property. We’ve got a crime scene to protect here. Tell them I’ll be right down to talk to them personally.”
He replaced the radio on his belt and looked over at Ed.
The coroner nodded, a grim smile playing across his face. “Have fun.”
“Yeah,” Damon responded dryly, and went downstairs to face the music.
18
TO PROTECT AND SERVE
“Ihate this,” Deputy Steve Bannerman mumbled beneath his breath.
In the seat next to him, his partner, Deputy Charlie Jones, nodded in silent agreement. He knew without asking just what it was that Bannerman was referring to; the fear they both felt, fear bred from constant hours of uncertainty. A week ago, night shifts like this one were considered an easy ride. A few cruises around town in the patrol car, a little time spent at the station house doing paperwork, an extralong dinner break over at Rosie’s Truck Stop on the west edge of town. They were simple and hassle-free tours.
Until the killings started.
Now these shifts were the worst.
Knowing that somewhere, out there in the darkness, was a killer who operated solely at night and whom they knew next to nothing about was not a reassuring thought. It made them constantly edgy, always looking over their shoulders, wondering if he was behind them, waiting, watching, choosing his next victim.
It did not make for a relaxed evening.
“Did you hear the latest?” Jones asked his partner.