“Local kid,” Deckert responded. “He was out walking his dog. Says when he walked it by here, it just went nuts. Broke away from him and ran in. Apparently, the door had been propped open.”
“Animals can sense death,” I stated aloud, still taking pictures of the scene before me. “He did the same thing with Ariel Tanner. The door was propped open. Could be he wanted the body found as soon as possible.”
“You sure you ain’t some kinda psychiatrist or something?” Deckert asked the back of my head.
“I’ve got a semester of college psych,” I told him as I turned. “But that doesn’t qualify me to practice the science, no.”
“Well,” he continued. “You sure sound like some kinda FBI shrink. It’s like you’re getting inside this asshole’s head or something.”
“Like I said, I’m just speculating,” I replied.
Detective Deckert didn’t realize how close to the truth he was with his last comment. My experiences channeling Ariel’s death and the blatant evidence left at both scenes were all acting as catalysts to pull me in. The more I saw, and the more I sensed, the more I feared what would be waiting around the next corner.
“What time do ya’ think the murder occurred?” Ben inquired.
“Based on the time the neighbor says she left for her walk,” Deckert started, “and the time the kid found her, we’re estimating somewhere between five-thirty and eight P.M.”
“Between five-thirty and eight,” Ben repeated, looking at me from the corner of his eye.
I knew what the glance implied. He had been suspicious of R.J. from the beginning, and I had to admit, his actions this evening coupled with his late arrival at the meeting hadn’t helped. Salinger and Dickens voicing their feline distaste had even compelled me to wonder about what the young man was hiding.
“We might be able to pin it down a bit closer,” Deckert intoned, “once your M.E. gets here.”
“She’s here.”
A voice came from the doorway, and the three of us turned to face a bleary-eyed woman clad in faded denim. Dr. Christine Sanders pushed back the hood of her rain-soaked jacket and hefted a thick aluminum case from one hand to the other.
“Detectives.” She nodded to them as she entered the room. “I thought I told you to get some rest, Mister Gant.”
“And I thought this was your day off,” I replied with a slight smile.
“Me too,” she returned. “But that was before the captain of the Major Case Squad called me at the request of Detective Storm.”
“You’re familiar with the Tanner case,” Ben stated matter-of-factly.
“Officially, I’m only here as a consultant,” she informed him. “This is out of the city jurisdiction. You’re just lucky the county coroner and I have an understanding.”
“I know, Doc. I just want the best on this.”
“Save the flattery for your wife, Storm,” she told him with a weak grin. “You’re still going to owe me big.”
By now, Dr. Sanders was kneeling next to the body of the young woman and had thrown back the sheet that had been covering it. The injuries appeared very similar to those of Ariel Tanner. The skin had been peeled away from what I could see of the woman’s chest, leaving behind raw, exposed muscle. Her eyes stared off blankly, and her face wore a grimace of excruciating pain and horror. Her arms were twisted behind her body, and though I couldn’t see them, I was sure they were bound.
A departure from the similarity with Ariel’s torture was the fact that Karen Barnes’ mouth was covered with a wide strip of duct tape. It had been wrapped tightly around her head to keep it from coming loose. Her ankles were also secured in the same fashion, and the tape wrapped around the post of a stall to keep her legs in place.
“I’ll have to do a swab,” Dr. Sanders was telling us. “But if he’s establishing a pattern, I doubt if she was raped. The Tanner woman wasn’t.”
“He didn’t rape her,” I said. “That would have soiled her. He wouldn’t defile his sacrifice.”
I moved around to get a better view of the body and was about to expand upon my statement when the angle that had been blocked by the doctor’s kneeling form came into my line of sight. Directly beneath Karen Barnes’ rib cage, a deep, ragged incision stretched horizontally across her flayed torso. The uneven gash puckered open like a bloody, toothless smile, exposing lacerated internal organs. Instantly I turned away and bolted for a stall, bile rising in my throat.
A few moments later, I heard Deckert asking from behind me, “Are you gonna be all right?”
I had just finished expelling the contents of my stomach into the toilet I was kneeling before. I spat and wiped my face then stood and flushed.
“Yeah,” I answered weakly. “Sorry about that. I’m not as used to this stuff as you guys.”
“Used to it, hell,” he answered. “I came close to doing the same goddamned thing earlier.”
I walked out of the stall, and Deckert patted me on the shoulder as I passed him. Dr. Sanders was cutting the body loose from the metal post, and the County Coroner had come in and was preparing a body bag. Ben was facing away from the morbid activity looking very green.
“Her heart has been removed. Can anyone here tell me if it was found?” Dr. Sanders asked as she and her peer rolled the body and slid the open, rubberized bag beneath it, then let it gently back down.
“You won’t,” I told them, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “He took it with him.”
“What, like a souvenir or somethin’?” Ben asked.
“No,” I replied. “As part of the ritual.”
The violent bout of vomiting had shocked my system and broken my concentration, effectively weakening my defenses against otherworldly interference. Dizziness swarmed over me as the room began to spin. I was losing control. My ears filled with a rushing sound, and color melted liquidly from the images before me. I fell backwards down a dark tunnel, speeding inexorably away from an ever-diminishing point of light. When I at last jerked to an abrupt halt, I was floating above the room, looking down upon the recent past.
A hooded, cloaked figure.
A pretty, vital young woman bound nude on the floor.
A dirk. I know that dirk. It belonged to Ariel.
She wants to struggle but she can’t. I can feel her trying to scream, but he’s taped her mouth. Her head hurts. She remembers someone attacked her from behind.
What are you doing? Get away from me with that knife!
I can feel the silent scream, the searing pain as the knife bites into flesh, peeling back the skin.
“Stop it you bastard,” I say to myself, struggling to break the connection.
“ I’m sorry,” he says to her.
Why is this happening? Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come…NO!
I see him press the knife, Ariel’s athame, into her solar plexus and draw it across carefully, making the ragged cut.
The pain is unbearable, indescribable.
He slowly removes a surgical glove.
He thrusts his hand into the incision. With a twisting motion, he wrenches it back out.
Still quivering.
Dripping.
Karen Barnes heart lay in his hand.
“Rowan,” Ben’s voice echoed in my ears. “Hey, Rowan.” He was nudging me. Colors flashed back into the scene and kaleidoscoped wildly before finally settling to their proper shades and places.
“Yeah,” I half whispered. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
“You kinda spaced on us there,” he told me.
“Just a second.” A sudden realization hammered down upon me. “Dr. Sanders, don’t you do something with Superglue and a black light to find fingerprints on skin?”
“Cyanoacrylate fuming,” she corrected. “And it’s a bit more than just a black light. But it really depends on the circumstances. Sometimes we use Ninhydrin. Fingerprints on skin are very short lived. Perspiration and other natural secretions destroy them rather quickly. Why?”
“He took off his glove before he removed her heart.”
“How can you know that?” Detective Deckert asked me.
