THE GUY WASN’T WHAT DETECTIVE MASON EXPECTED. GIVEN EVERYTHING about the case, he’d figured on someone with a big black trench coat, maybe a priest’s collar. An air of mystery anyway. Instead, he got this chubby guy in his forties, balding, with an uncertain expression that he’d worn so long it was etched in his skin. His button-down shirt had fit him about fifteen pounds ago. The knot in his tie was so tight, it had probably been there for years, lifted over his head and put back on without ever being remade. When the desk sergeant brought him back, the guy had bumped into Winehart’s desk hard enough to splash coffee out of her mug, then apologized like he was afraid she’d mace him. Now he sat down across from Mason at Anderson’s empty desk, put his hands between his knees like a kid in school, and smiled nervously.
“You’re Detective Mason, then?”
“Am. And you’re the exorcist.”
The man bared his teeth and shook his head.
“No, not really. I wouldn’t put it that way. Richard Scarrey. Like the children’s writer, but with an extra
“The who?”
“Children’s writer. Illustrator too. He wrote the Busytown books? Pigs in lederhosen, things like that? He spelled it with the double
“Okay,” Mason said. “I’m Detective Mason. Chief told you about me?”
“A little. He said you’d arrested a man, and that he thought I might be of some assistance.”
“Nothing more than that?”
Scarrey shook his head again, more firmly that time. Mason leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. Winehart’s phone rang, and she took it out of her pocket and walked away with one hand over her free ear.
“So five months ago, this girl Sarah Osterman goes missing,” Mason said. “College age. Had a fight with her boyfriend, stormed out of the house, never came back. He’s freaked out, but it just looks like a bad breakup. No one pays a lot of attention. About a month ago, her body shows up in a warehouse down by the rail yards. She’s been dead about a week, but she wasn’t having any fun before that.”
“I’m sorry, Detective,” Scarrey said, and the way he used the words made it seem like he really was sorry. “I appreciate your professional reserve, but I will need the details. Had she been tortured?”
“Yeah.”
“Um. Assaulted?”
“Raped, you mean? I’ve got the coroner’s report. Chief said you might want it.”
“Thank you then, yes. That’s fine. Go on.”
“The scene had some elements that made us suspect there was an occult angle. Writing on the walls. Wax from a black candle. And there was some blood spatter, and the forensics guys said there was a clean spot in it where maybe someone had an inverted cross, then took it away again after.”
Scarrey was nodding with every detail, his head almost vibrating, but his eyes were flickering now, moving across the air like he was reading. It was what Mason saw people do when they were trying to remember something. When they were making things up, their eyes were stable.
“How old was the girl?” Scarrey asked.
“Twenty-three.”
“Was she pregnant?”
“No.”
“On her period?”
“What?”
“Was she menstruating when she died?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s in the report.”
“We can ask if it isn’t. I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“We start investigating. Turns out the girl’s been seen with this scumbag, Maury Sobinski, so we find out where he is. We lean on him. He’s one of those assholes who’s read a book about cops and thinks he knows everything. Acts like he’s practically on the force himself.”
“Talks too much?”
“You know that whole give-a-man-enough-rope-and-he’ll-hang-himself thing? This son of a bitch would have strung himself up on dental floss. He screws up everything. Practically makes our case for us, doesn’t even know he’s doing it.”
“But not a confession.”
“No. Just stupid things. Saying he wasn’t with the girl on a particular day when we hadn’t asked him yet. Talking a lot of shit about how some people invite bad things happening. Hanging out big neon I-did-it signs. We ask for a DNA sample for elimination purposes, he finally figures out that we’re not just there because we enjoy his company, he stops talking. Can’t remember anything. Hears his mommy calling. Like that.”
Winehart came back to her desk, her expression sour. He tried to catch her eye, but she wouldn’t look at him. Mason felt a pang of anxiety. Had it been Anderson? Or, worse yet, the assholes from Internal Affairs?
“And then?”
“What? Oh, yeah, we get a warrant, go through his house. He’s got all her stuff there. We know he knows her, but there’s nothing conclusive. No witnesses, no forensics that we can take to a jury. We know he did it, and we need a confession. So we bring him in.”
“And he lawyers up?”
Scarrey blushed and tittered.
“It’s just something I picked up. Television or . . .”
“He doesn’t, though,” Mason said. “Ask for a lawyer, I mean. He starts talking funny. Starts moving weird. We’ve got a camera on him, and he’s not just doing it when he knows we’re watching. Does it all the time. Calls himself Beleth, the King of Hell. Every now and then, he stops doing the whole voodoo thing, sounds like himself again, and he says he’s the victim of a huge satanic conspiracy. Asks us to help him. Begs, cries, shits himself. Then Beleth shows back up, and . . .”
“Ah.”
“Chief saw the act, told me to expect you. Said you might be able to help, and that I ought to cooperate with you, but maybe we don’t document anything. Keep it informal.”
“And you said?”
“I said ‘Yes, Chief.’”
Winehart, at her desk, turned around. Whatever that call had been, she had her composure back. She looked her question at the back of Scarrey’s head. Mason coughed a little to hide his nod.
“May I speak with the prisoner?”
“YOU DON’T HAVE TO TALK WITH ME,” SCARREY SAID. “IT’S NOT REQUIRED. I’m not a policeman or a psychiatrist or anything like that.”
In addition to bars, the holding cell had a thick metal mesh too narrow to fit even a finger through. The floor was concrete, the three walls were brick painted with high-gloss cream-colored paint that came clean with a little Windex and a paper towel no matter what was smeared on it. The cot was a metal shelf bolted to the far wall with the small steel toilet beside it. The whole thing wasn’t more than six feet by eight, and most days it would have three or four people in it.
