pile ta’ worry about. Granted, his bricks are a little heavier than R.J.’s.”
“Seems to me they should be a lot heavier,” I interjected.
“Like I said,” Ben blew out a stream of smoke, “the information you get from one of your visions doesn’t do a damn bit of good in a courtroom. If it gives us a lead, great, but I still hafta come up with hard evidence. Hell, I don’t even know why I believe you. This ain’t exactly an everyday method of investigation, you know.”
“Maybe because you’re an open-minded individual,” Felicity chimed. “Whether you want to admit it or not.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “But sometimes, I still feel like I might be a little nuts to go for some of this stuff.”
I knew exactly what Ben meant; I had even been known to be a bit skeptical myself in earlier years. I had been a practitioner of The Craft for all of my adult life, and though I had come to accept the things my otherworldly senses would tell me, I could still be surprised. As someone unfamiliar with the supernatural talents of the mind, this had to be very hard for him. I had to admit, he was holding up better than most.
I took advantage of the momentary silence to watch our dogs at play in the sun-soaked backyard. They tumbled and rolled with one another, tails wagging in a delighted frenzy as they wrestled, oblivious to the horror we three humans were being forced to contemplate. I sometimes wished I could be just as unmindful.
“Any ideas where Devon might be?” I queried, ending the self-imposed reticence.
“Nada,” Ben answered with a slight, somewhat animated shrug. “His mother hasn’t heard from him in six months, or so she says. We’ve got somebody sittin’ on her place too, just in case. We checked with his former co- workers, and it appears like he’s a bit of a loner. None of ‘em really got to know ‘im that well, and from what was said, they really didn’t care to either.”
“What about Cally?” Felicity intoned. “He called her once. Do you think he might try to contact her again?”
“We hafta hope that she’ll tell us if he does,” he returned. “We’re watchin’ her place, but if he calls ‘er or meets ‘er somewhere else, we’ll prob’ly miss it.”
“Can’t you follow her?” I asked.
“Not enough evidence at this point.” Ben turned his attention to me. “Last thing we need is ta’ get nailed for harassment.”
Ben paused as he puffed on his cigar and quietly watched the hummingbirds assault a hanging feeder like WWII era airplanes in a spectacular dogfight. Eventually he reached up and began smoothing his hair. Felicity and I looked at each other then back to him, as we were both intimately familiar with the gesture.
“So let me ask you somethin’,” he finally spoke.
“Shoot,” I returned.
“You said somethin’ about this creep taking Karen Barnes’ heart with ‘im so he could ‘finish the ritual’. What was that all about?”
“It’s part of the sacrifice,” I explained. “And what he does with it is entirely dependent upon what he is trying to accomplish. He might burn it, or he might bury it… Hell, he might eat it.”
“I was afraid you were gonna say somethin’ like that,” he mumbled.
“I wish I could say for sure, but I’m still not entirely clear on what he’s trying to do.” I continued with a frustrated sigh. “To be honest, something about his whole ritual is bothering me.”
“How so?” Felicity asked.
“The energy at the crime scene.”
“What energy?” she queried, confused. “I didn’t feel anything except death.”
“Exactly,” I replied.
“What are you two talkin’ about?” Ben interjected his question, coming fully upright in his seat and paying rapt attention.
“Whenever a Witch or practitioner of magick does something, an invocation for example,” I explained, “he or she leaves behind residual energy. Kind of a left over that just floats around until it dissipates.”
“So what’s your point?” he pressed.
“That excess energy wasn’t there,” Felicity stated. “Neither of us felt it.”
“I was at that scene within hours of the murder,” I told him. “And we were there again today. That energy should hang around for a good long time, but there’s nothing there. Just the energies given off by Karen Barnes. Her fear, pain, and especially her death.”
“Okay,” Ben replied slowly. “So I’d still appreciate it if ya’ could tell me what this is s’posed ta’ mean.”
“Maybe nothing,” I answered. “There could be a few different explanations, like maybe he just went through the physical motions but didn’t actually perform the ritual as he should have. It’s just something that kind of bothers me.”
“So it’s not a lead or anything like that.”
“No. At least I don’t think so.”
Ben returned his attention to the cigar held loosely between his fingers then relaxed and leaned back in his seat. It was obvious that he was on edge, and I was certain that a lack of sleep was partially to blame.
“When is the last time you had a decent night’s sleep, Ben?” Felicity asked him, following my thoughts as if I had spoken them aloud.
“I think it was sometime during winter ‘bout three years ago,” he answered facetiously.
“Do you really need to talk to R.J. today?” I questioned. “Couldn’t that wait till tomorrow?”
“Probably. Why?”
“You need sleep, Ben,” my wife stated matter-of-factly.
“Yeah, chief,” I agreed. “No offense intended, but you’re all edgy, and you look like someone ran over you with a truck.”
“Your health is going to start suffering,” Felicity intoned. “You can’t keep going like this. You really need to decompress.”
“Yeah… I know,” he answered with a sigh. “I haven’t seen my wife face to face in nearly a week. Shit, she told me this mornin’ on the phone that the little guy asked her if Daddy still lived there.”
“Go home, Ben,” I told him. “Go home and hug your kid, kiss your wife, and have a meal with your family. Then get some sleep.”
“I haven’t got the time,” he objected.
“Unless you have some kind of secret information that you haven’t told us about,” I admonished, “you aren’t going to catch this guy tonight. You need some sleep, man. Besides, it’s not just you working this case. The entire Major Case Squad is on it now.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re right.” He slumped more noticeably in his chair. “But I still wanna talk ta’ the kid today. I think I’ll sleep better if I do.”
“If that’s what it takes, do it,” I told him. “But get some rest either way because something tells me we haven’t seen the end of this yet.”
“What a cheerful thought,” he mumbled.
Ben eventually left us in search of R.J. Felicity and I spent a quiet afternoon together trying not to think about serial killers and of course, were unable to ponder anything else. In an effort to put the subject out of our minds, we made a quick trip to the store and returned with fresh, yellow fin tuna steaks for the grill. Together with a medley of vegetables from our garden, we made a light meal and after cleaning up the dishes, generally lazed about into the evening hours.
Stories of Ariel Tanner and Karen Barnes’ murders flooded the airwaves as the top story during the late evening news on every station. Details about the crimes were convoluted and misconstrued to the point that they were telling a different story on each channel. The two points they all agreed on were the nominative “Satanic Serial Killer” and the practice of flashing the newspaper photo of me on the screen. Touching my thumb to the remote, I rolled back through the channels in the hope they had found something else to talk about. I was giving serious consideration to turning off the chattering box when a familiar face, other than my own, leapt out at me from the screen. I swiftly reversed the direction of my scan and came to rest on that station.
Detective Arthur McCann’s worry-lined face stared back at me with concern and determination creasing his brow. Apparently, he had just finished speaking as the picture suddenly cut to a wide-eyed Brandee Street anxiously
