Chuck had been bobbing his head at strategic points throughout my statement. “It’s rapidly becoming the preferred method of sending anonymous hate mail.”
I shrugged in agreement. “Sure. I’ve been on the receiving end of threatening e-mail myself.”
“What the fuck?” Ben’s eyes grew wide. “Why haven’t ya’ ever told me this before, white man?”
“Why?”
“So maybe I could do somethin’ about it.”
“So you could do what, Ben?” I questioned. “Fly halfway across the country and beat up… oh, I don’t know…” I shrugged and shook my head before continuing, “maybe a beer swilling bigot in his mid-twenties whose biggest thrill in life is denigrating others over the internet just for something to do? People like that aren’t worth your time any more than they are mine.”
My friend stared at the floor for a moment, silently working his fingers on a tense knot at the back of his neck. “Okay,” he finally spoke. “So if I understand what you two are sayin’, this lead may or may not get us any closer to our guy.”
“Right,” Chuck answered.
“Correct,” I agreed. “But there’s only one way to find out, and that’s to go talk to the administrator of Kendra Miller’s ISP and see what kind of information we can get.”
“You know,” Chuck offered, “internet stalking is a federal crime. You might want to get the Feeb’s in on this.”
Still massaging the base of his neck, Ben twisted around and motioned across the room with his free hand. “Hey, Constance, you got a minute?”
We were sitting in a small waiting area in one corner of the homicide division squad room. My auburn-maned wife was planted lethargically in her seat next to me, one leg draped over the other, unmoving. Ever since I had known her, whenever she sat with her legs crossed, she would invariably begin lightly tapping her foot in the air to a rhythm only she could hear. Her now uncharacteristic motionlessness was a sure indicator of her fatigue.
Her upper torso was slightly twisted and tucked neatly into the crook of my shoulder with my arm hooked about her. She cupped a half-full coffee mug in her dainty hands, absently running the tip of a neatly manicured nail around its rim.
I rested my chin lightly atop her head, and since her contaminated jacket was draped across a seat several feet away, all I could smell was the fresh sweetness of juniper wafting from her soft hair. I closed my eyes and relaxed, feeling the fistful of aspirins beginning to force my headache into submission.
“We’ll be leaving in about thirty-minutes or so, I guess,” I told Felicity in a quiet voice. “I don’t know how long it will take, but I wouldn’t expect more than an hour or two.”
“That’s okay,” she answered with an exhausted near whisper. “I called my client before I came up here. They still want to see if we can do the shoot today, so I really need to be getting over there then.”
Between her lingering hangover and coming down from the adrenalin rush, I knew she was fading fast. I also had no doubt that she would muster a second wind and do everything in her power to make her client happy-and she would succeed as usual. This evening, however, one could be certain that she was going to crash and crash hard.
“You look to me like you need a few more hours sleep as opposed to working,” I admonished. “No offense intended. You’re still the prettiest sight I’ve seen all day.”
“Aye, none taken,” her voice lilted as she rested against me. “Surely I feel like I could use it myself. And I suspect you need to have your glasses checked then.”
“Uh-huh. My glasses are fine, sweetheart.”
“Ahh, you’re just besotted then.” My petite wife let out a satiny, musical laugh then stretched cat-like against me and pressed herself deeper into the cradle of my arm. “Oh, and I almost forgot, Austin called shortly after you left this morning. He’d like to take us to dinner tomorrow night if we’re free. I told him I’d check with you.”
“I don’t see why we couldn’t,” I said with a slight shrug. “I can’t say what’s going to happen between now and then, but as far as I know I’ll be available. And I definitely didn’t get to spend much time with him last night. How did all that work out anyway?”
“What’s that? The fight?”
“Yeah,” I said and gave her arm a squeeze. “Best I could get from you last night was that you’d bailed him out.”
She let out a breath and inhaled deeply. I could feel a slight movement of her head against me as she gave a shallow nod. “The charges were dropped. Austin didn’t hurt him that badly, and seems that after Daddy was finished threatening the hotel management with lawsuits, they were apologizing and assuring him they would take disciplinary action against the bartender.”
“Leave it to Shamus,” I muttered with hollowness in my voice. “So some poor stiff is going to lose his job on top of getting pummeled by my brother-in-law, all because he happened to make a joke about me? I can’t live with that.”
“Aye, I’m thinking not, so don’t worry,” she returned. “Daddy told them they should leave it be. Just let men be men and be done with it.”
“If the guy dropped the assault charges though, you can be sure he got some pressure from the upper management.”
“Aye. Surely you’re correct on that.”
“I realize Austin felt he was just being loyal to a family member, but he should really go apologize to the man.”
“He probably already has.” She reached over and gave my thigh a loving pat. “That’s where he was planning to go this morning after breakfast.”
A flat-bottomed mass of clouds hung like an anvil over the small corner of Saint Louis’ south county-an oppressive reminder of winter casting a harsh, blue-grey silhouette across the mounded snow. The temperature managed to bootstrap itself to a few degrees above the freezing point by the time the clock hands met at twelve. This, in combination with the moderate amount of sunshine that peeked through, had already rendered the small dusting of the fresh white stuff we had received overnight to a damp memory. It was now continuing to work silently at melting away the remnants of the recent miniature blizzard.
The general populace of the city and county were visibly active in the wake of this serendipitous “heat” wave. Self-service car washes were raking in the quarters as patrons choked their small lots-everyone vying for positions to wash the corrosive road grime from their vehicles. For every clean car to exit on the backside, seemingly two more would rush to join the throng waiting for a turn. As we passed by these small pockets of frenzied activity, we saw no less than a half dozen fender benders caused by the impatient confusion.
Special Agent Mandalay turned the dark sedan into the parking lot of a plain looking strip mall on Gravois. Due to the possible federal jurisdiction surrounding this crime-or portion of a larger crime-she and I had been elected to make this call. Constance was, of course, the official representative of law enforcement. I was along simply as a translator. Someone to make sense of any computer and internet jargon she might not be familiar with.
Everyone else, including Ben and Deckert had either remained behind or set out in different directions, all intent on following up other leads, sparse as they were. Another purpose for my friend to remain at the MCS command post was to be able to direct the actions of the squad. Even his superior officers were giving him free rein over this case based on his recent past history with the last serial killer and to an even greater extent, me. Because of his relationship with me, as well as the circumstances surrounding the last case, he was viewed as the ranking officer when it came to crimes that dealt with anything even remotely related to what they termed “occult dealings.” I suppose that in their opinion, a madman going around murdering Witches by all the conventions of the Inquisition fell under that particular heading. I guess I had to agree.
The long brick building we were rolling toward across the wet asphalt was nestled comfortably between a
