Coven

“Like a fine tooth comb. Found nothin’.”

“Nothing? There’s blood on the floor, Peerce.”

“What blood? I don’t see no blood.”

“Bend over and look down, Sherlock.” She pointed to the darkened streaks along the run. “What do you call that? Cherry smash?”

Peerce lost his southern snideness. “Thought it was horsepiss.”

“Yeah, horsepiss. Look out, and watch where you walk!” She followed the blood line with her SL beam. It ended at some larger splashes by a utility stall. A spatter of “fall” dotted the wall in an arch; what she knew about bloodfall trajectory told her the victim must’ve been moving away, not forward. Drop- configuration like this was rare. The large bleed at her feet bothered her most of all. A bleed this big in conjunction with this fall pattern indicated an excruciating wound. At D.C. they’d once walked into a basement where two crack taxis had been murdered. They’d found the men in a pile of neatly stacked pieces. Axes had been used.

Her eyes followed another line up. The halfboard on the stall had a gouge in it, what a tech would call strike impactation. More blood stained the gouge. Shit, she thought. Had the victim been reaching for the pitchforks in the stall? Yes. It’s too perfect. She peered over and looked down. More blood.

The impactation looked good, a good strike. She’d need no toolmarks workup to tell her this was an ax, and a big one. A big blade with an unusually flat cutting edge. But there had to be more.

Follow back, she thought. “Look at the fall.”

“Huh?”

“The bloodfall. The drop points change direction here, a 180 degree shift. They don’t lead forward, they lead back.”

Peerce didn’t know what she was talking about. Lydia followed the line. “Jesus,” Peerce observed. “Fucker lost a lot of blood.”

“Don’t walk in it!” Lydia yelled. “Look, Peerce, this place is too small for both of us. Do me a favor and —”

Peerce didn’t need to be told. He sputtered and went back to the office, bitterly chewing a wad of tobacco.

Now we’re in business. She aimed the SL back on the blood. It went about fifteen feet to the stable charge’s office. The phone hung off the hook. A larger splash had coagulated on the floor. Lydia crouched down, thinking. She closed her eyes and tried to see the victim. Despite the wound, he’d made it back here.

Why? To use the phone.

What then? He hadn’t died here. Not enough blood.

So he left. He’d dressed his wound and he’d left.

Now where? Where would I go if I’d just been severely cut by an ax wielding maniac near the stable entrance?

The stable exit, dumb ass.

But what about the attacker, the axman? He’d still be in the aisle. Cut this bad, did the victim actually have the balls to go back out and fight?

Weapons.

Maybe he was strapped. If the victim was Sladder, maybe he had a gun. Some guards carried them, some didn’t. The security office would know; they had sign out sheets. The suspicion needled her.

She went back out, imagining herself in great pain. She fixed her SL beam, and there they were, like gold ingots at the baseboard. Bingo! she thought. There were six of them. .25s, maybe .32s. He popped six caps at the axman. Okay, okay. What then?

Escape.

She followed away from the empty cartridges. Where did he go now? She pictured a frantic, bleeding man stumbling along. Come on, come on. Show me.

The last swing door before the exit. Bingo! she thought again, but it was a pale thought. She’d been rooting for the bleeding man, for nothing. This was as far as he’d gotten.

Her SL beam frozen down, Lydia stared quietly. Jesus. The bloodstain lay wall to wall. Footprints led out of it like stick on dance steps. It was obvious. The victim had been butchered.

The blood was here, all over the place. So where was the body?

««—»»

“How could you miss bloodstains on the fucking floor?” White was bellowing at Peerce when Lydia came back in.

“It’s dark in there, Chief. Without no lights, it’s hard to—”

“Shit, Peerce! She’s makin’ us look like fools!”

“Well, sir, I—”

“Shut up! What else that stuck up priss find that you missed?”

“Plenty,” Lydia said at the door. Stuck up priss? “The weapon was probably an ax with an unusually long, flat blade. I got several impactations that look the same. The back fence was cut with it, and so was the entrance door and the phone lines. One thing I’m sure of, though. Someone died in there.”

“How do you know someone died?” White protested.

“I followed the bloodfall. No one could lose as much blood as I found at the exit and live. Only problem is there’s no body.”

White conjectured this and scoffed. “I don’t believe someone was murdered.”

“You just don’t want to believe that someone was murdered in your juris.”

White glared. “You got a lot of nerve, girl.”

“Just being honest, Chief. Question. Was Sladder packing?”

“No,” White said. “Only supervisors carry guns. Why?”

“I also found six spent casings. Remington .25s.”

“Shit!” White’s fist slammed the desk. “What the fuck’s my campus turned into?”

A slaughterhouse, Lydia thought, almost with a smile. But the smile drained when she remembered the blood. She wished for her daily Marlboro. “I can stand here and speculate all day, Chief. But it’d just be a waste of time.”

White’s voice lost its edge. An unsolved murder could make the papers, smear the school, get him fired. “I can’t stall this, Prentiss. This shit’s gotta be solved, and I mean by us, not some outside agency. We’ll be closed out once the state gets here.”

“State? The agro site’s part of the campus. It’s ours.”

“No, it ain’t, not really. All them animals are licensed through the state department of agriculture. Health inspectors will be wantin’ to know if some disease killed the animals. We’ll be up to our butts in state by late afternoon.”

Late afternoon? “That’s no time for me to do a workup,” Lydia complained. “I’ll have to get started right now. I need you to get the power back on, I need lights to sweep for prints. And I’ll need cold storage, I’ll need lab space, I’ll need—”

“I’ll get you everything you need,” White interrupted. “You say you can do this kind of shit, then get to it. I’m puttin’ my trust in you, Prentiss, but hear this. If you fuck up and make me look like a damn fool, I’ll make sure you’re checkin’ parking meters for the next twenty years. You got that?”

“I’m touched by your confidence,” Lydia said.

—

CHAPTER 7