number, all that. From the looks of the address the owner’s local.”
I gave the listing a quick once over, noting the address as well, then slid it over to Constance who picked it up and began to quickly read.
“We appreciate all your help, Mister Wendell,” she told him as she slowly stood and extended her hand, all the while still looking at the information on the page I had just given her. “We will be sure to contact you if we have any further questions.”
I followed her cue and rose up from my chair as well.
“Glad I could help,” the man returned as he shook her hand then looked over at me and reached out to shake mine. “Mind if I ask you something?”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Well I always thought you Feds were supposed to be clean cut and all,” he spoke as he pumped my right hand and gestured at my hair with his free appendage. “But you’ve got a ponytail and a beard. What’s up with that? You some kind of undercover agent or something?”
“Mister Gant isn’t with the Bureau,” Constance volunteered.
“She’s right, I’m not.” I smiled at him. “I’m one of those nutball Witches.”
CHAPTER 18
“Yes, that’s right, last four digits are two-five-two-two,” Agent Mandalay said into her cell phone as she cranked the steering wheel and backed us out of the parking space. The tires let out a dull squeal as they spun against the wet pavement before taking hold. “Address looks like it’s a private residence in West County… Millchester… The man’s name that holds the registration on the domain or whatever is one Allen Roberts. That first name is spelled A-L-L-E-N… Yeah, like a surname. The last name is Roberts, R-O-B-E-R-T-S.
“Yes… Yeah… Uh-huh, okay… Rowan and I are on our way there right now. Uh-huh, okay, call me on my cellular if you need to. Uh-huh, yes…I’d say about twenty minutes… Okay, see you there… Bye.”
The phone let out an audible squelch as she pulled it away from her ear and stabbed the END button with her thumb, then dropped it onto the seat.
“Storm and Deckert are meeting us there.” She glanced quickly at me as she seized a break in the traffic and pushed the sedan out into the westbound lanes of Gravois. “Carl is calling in some backup from County right now.”
“You know,” I started hesitantly, “I don’t really want to rain on your parade, but something just doesn’t feel right about this. I don’t think this is our guy.”
“Why not?” she asked, settling into her seat and smoothly accelerating the vehicle as we merged with the flow.
“It’s just not right.” I shook my head. “It… It just doesn’t feel like him.”
“What about the message?” she posed. “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live? Exodus twenty-two eighteen, just like was highlighted in the Bible that old bum had in his pocket. You said you were sure he got it from the Miller crime scene.”
“I am sure,” I agreed. “And yes, it is the same verse, but that is the most commonly quoted, misquoted, and misinterpreted, mind you, passage from the Bible with regard to Witches and WitchCraft. It is definitely not out of the question that someone else would quote it in their hate mail.”
“Well what about the rest of it? The whole ‘You’ll burn you fucking bitch’ part?” Constance insisted. “That’s exactly how she was murdered, right?”
“Granted, he did burn her, but the whole comment doesn’t sound like this guy at all. He passes judgment using the questions and conventions of the Malleus Maleficarum, and he quotes it directly. It definitely has a tendency to be much more eloquently worded. This is not to mention the fact that he passes the judgment in person just as it would have been done at a Witch trial. He’s very intent on adhering to these methods, up to and including the motions of proving out the accusation through some means of torture. I don’t believe he would actually verbalize, or in this case write, the judgment until he had done that at the very least.
“The use of denigrating expletives in calling her a ‘fucking bitch’ is way out of character as well.” I shook my head vigorously. “No, I think this is all just a bizarre coincidence.”
“You don’t think it’s just a little too bizarre?”
“Believe me, I can see where you’re coming from, Constance,” I admitted with a sigh then endeavored to explain my logic. “But, just from my own experience I can tell you that when you mention Witches to someone, one of the first things they think of is burning at the stake. You’d be surprised how many people out there believe that those accused of WitchCraft in Salem were burned, when in fact they were hanged. While in one respect that is a testament to the apathy of the population, in another it shows how the whole myth surrounding Witch Burnings has become a very common and deeply ingrained fallacy. I really don’t find that comment surprising at all. Besides, for all we know, whoever wrote that e-mail could have meant she was going to burn in hell. That’s another well worn expression we’ve all been subjected to at one time or another.”
“You could be right,” she replied. “But I think the similarities between the e-mail and the actual crime are too important to ignore.”
“Don’t misunderstand,” I told her, “I’m not saying that anything should be ignored, least of all this. I’m just telling you that I truly don’t believe this is the guy. It just doesn’t feel right.”
Constance snapped a quick look over her shoulder and then eased the car onto the ramp to Highway 270. We continued wordlessly for a few moments, the ticking sound of the turn signal filling the cab like a metronome as she blended us into the other traffic. With another glance behind and quick check of the mirrors, she hopscotched the government sedan across a trio of lanes and leaned on the accelerator.
“So this is one of your feelings, huh?” she finally voiced the half question.
“Yeah. One of my feelings,” I affirmed.
The landscape was beginning to slip past the windows at an ever-increasing rate, and the other cars sharing the highway with us had become only momentary flashes of color. I let my gaze drift over to the dashboard and saw the vibrating needle of the speedometer hovering somewhere between seventy-five and eighty.
“Well I guess we’ll know soon enough,” Mandalay expressed matter-of-factly. “Storm is supposed to be getting a description of this guy from DMV. Besides, we should be there inside of ten minutes anyway.”
“Got two cars in the driveway. DMV shows both of them registered to Allen Roberts,” a stocky, African- American officer clad in a crisp tan-over-brown County uniform, told us. He was among a number of people I had seen today who was devoid of a jacket or coat, regaling themselves in the illusion of spring-like weather in the heart of winter. Absently he reached to his belt and adjusted the volume of his radio as it chattered with the voice traffic of the other units patrolling the suburbs of Saint Louis. “Shades are up and I caught some motion through the front window on a drive by. Someone is definitely home.”
Constance and I had met up with Ben, Deckert, and the patrolman on the parking lot of a small combination gas station/convenience store less than a half-mile from the residence. Cars streamed in and out of the station at random intervals. Some moments every available pump would be occupied, and at others the lot would be almost empty. The occasional patron would stop for a moment and stare in our direction, drawn in by idle curiosity at the small assemblage of badge-wearing individuals. I could feel their eyes upon us making the hair stand on the back of my neck as they gazed in wonderment. Being the only non-law enforcement member of the group, I suddenly felt thoroughly conspicuous and horribly out of place. Logically, I knew that the onlookers had no way of knowing that I wasn’t just another cop, but that didn’t stop the prickling sensation from running up and down my back.
In truth, since the beginning of this case, I had been treated by all of them as though I was one of their own. I had only recently begun to realize that I was an altogether vested member of this elite group and that I had been accepted fully into their fold. They depended on me to make sense of things that were unknown to them. They used me to track bizarre killers the way a traffic cop uses a radar gun to catch speeders. While some of my talents and revelations still brought a furrowed brow, or even a brief glazed look of fear, they were doing all this with little or no
