To Kill a Sorcerer Read online

  “Enough for the girls to meekly allow him to suspend them from the ceiling? Gonzales is right. They would be screaming and clawing at him. He’s sedating them.”

  “The Barlow girl came back clean, you know that,” she said, peering into Jessica’s chest. She stepped back. “I think we can take her down now.” She looked at Kennedy who waved two men inside. They came in with a rolling stretcher and a black body bag. A third man followed, carrying a black military knife. For the rope, I realized.

  We moved out of the way, our steps crunching on the plastic sheets. I don’t think any of us wanted to watch the ME’s people cut Jessica down from the ceiling of her home.

  Once over the threshold, I took several deep breaths of fresh air. The smell of blood and incense slowly cleared from my nostrils. Almost. I knew I would smell it faintly for the rest of the day. The scent had mixed associations for me.

  I glanced at Kennedy: nostrils pinched, eyes a little wide, face pale.

  “Ever see anything like that, sir?” she asked.

  “No.”

  Hamilton, Gonzales, and Watanabe joined us.

  “Her heart was missing, Tasha?” I asked. “Just like the Barlow girl.”

  “Yes.”

  “Montero,” Gonzales said, “zip your lip.” He signed the log and handed me the pen. “The press is foaming at its collective mouth to hang a tag on this guy. We don’t need some sacrificial overtones to give them what they want.”

  “It would never occur to me to give them anything at all.” I signed out. “You don’t really expect to keep it secret that she was torn open like Sherri Barlow, do you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You’re not that dumb.”

  “Rich boy,” he said, “remember who you’re talking to.” He stood close, scowling from above.

  “Or what?” I said. “You guys going to take me to a back room?”

  “You’re pushing in the wrong place,” Hamilton said. “Skip the voodoo angle, I told you that already.”

  “I heard you. Incense and cutting out her heart? Candle wax?”

  “So the perp’s a fucking nutcase, so what?” Gonzales said. “How does that help us catch him?”

  “I don’t know if it will,” I said. “But what if he’s doing something else here?”

  “You mean besides murdering the girls?” Watanabe asked.

  “Yes. If it’s a ritual, he may—”

  “Montero, I warned you,” Hamilton said, glancing around. “Stop now.”

  I stopped. Kennedy glanced at the detective, an annoyed look on her face.

  Gonzales said, “I’m going to supervise the door to door.” He walked across the lawn, meeting two uniformed officers on the sidewalk.

  The Channel 5 news van still sat across the street. Virginia Sanchez, the field reporter from the station, stood close to the barrier, talking into her microphone while her cameraman got footage of the house—and of us talking.

  “Detective Hamilton!” She was waving him over.

  Hamilton straightened his tie. “How do I look?” he asked Watanabe.

  “Like you’re about to lie your ass off.”

  “Shit, it shows?”

  “Now it does.”

  “Thanks for your help.”

  “Any time. I’ll expect you guys in a couple of hours, right? My team is ready to put a rush on this one.” She followed her assistants out as the cameras shot footage of them taking the body to the ME’s ambulance.

  I turned to Hamilton and asked quietly, “Have you ever hit on her?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Oh, no reason.”

  “Let’s get this over with,” Hamilton said, leading the way.

  The sun had already dipped below the trees lining Greenleaf. The streetlights blinked on too early as we walked across the lawn. We stopped near the crime scene tape as Sanchez and her camera operator pressed against the other side of it.

  “Is this officially a murder, Detective Hamilton?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is there anything that ties this to the murder of Sherri Barlow?”

  “It’s much too early to determine that now.”

  “Do you have any suspects?”

  “Again, it is too early to know.”

  “So you didn’t find the murderer inside the house?”

  “Is there a question, Ms. Sanchez?”

  “Do you have a suspect?” she repeated.

  “I arrived here less than an hour ago. A homicide investigation takes time.”

  She turned to her camera operator and shook her head. He powered down his unit. Sanchez handed him the microphone, pushed the yellow tape up, and slipped under. Chen moved to intercept, but Hamilton waved her away.

  “So that’s all I get?” Sanchez was a beautiful Mexican woman with an oval face, long black hair parted on the side, and large, lazy brown eyes.

  “That’s all,” Hamilton told her. “Give us some time. You’ll get more.”

  “Yeah. When everybody else gets it. And then it’ll be crap.” She looked at us speculatively. “You know, if there is a nutcase killer out there, and you know it, and you could protect people by telling them . . .”

  “Ms. Sanchez,” I said, “you wouldn’t be trying to coerce us, would you?”

  “What gave you that idea? But you should warn people if they need to be more careful. This guy’s not killing adults—he’s killing kids. And if you freeze me out, and another girl is murdered, I’ll make you guys look really bad, I promise.”

  I knew she cared about the residents of the San Fernando Valley. Their safety was her first priority. In this case, it didn’t hurt her ratings, either. One thing was certain: the public would howl if she could show we had withheld knowledge that a serial murderer was on the prowl, especially if he killed again.

  “Just give us some time, Virginia,” Hamilton urged. “We’re really not sure what we’re up against. The guy is some kind of crazy.”

  “Is it the same as the Barlow murder?”

  “Yes.”

  “He strung her up?”

  “Yes, just like before.”

  “So that’s two you’re sure were done by the same guy in the last three days.” She looked at the house where Jessica Patterson used to live. “Do you have any idea why the murderer is doing this?” she asked me.

  “No idea. He might be following a plan,” I said carefully, remembering Hamilton’s admonition not to comment on the ceremonial style of the killings. “But if so, we don’t know what the plan is.”

  Even this bland comment drew a severe glare.

  Sanchez didn’t notice. She nodded gloomily. “I’ll make sure you guys look good tonight. Tonight. Tomorrow is another story.” She looked at the house again and spoke in a flat, fierce voice. “You guys are our A team. You get this son of a bitch. You get him, and you take him out of circulation.”

  Sanchez and I were on the same page.

  Fifteen

  Wednesday, December 22, 4:46 p.m.

  “It’s going to take Watanabe and her team a couple of hours at least to do a tox panel,” I said to Hamilton as we climbed into the Maserati. “What do you say we grab a late lunch?”

  “Sure. How about Howard’s?”

  “Sounds good.”

  The irony of piloting a fast car through bumper-to-bumper traffic in Los Angeles was never lost on me.

  “So you and Aliena think this is a ritualistic murder,” Hamilton said. He managed not to sound sarcastic, a neat trick. “She say anything about the picture of you and Sofia?”

  I looked around the car as if trying to find something.

  “What?” he said.

  “I don’t see a watercooler in here.”

  “You do have a mouth,” he said softly. “So rich and smart—”

  “Leave the rich part out, can’t you? It’s nothing to do with this.”

  “No? Without it, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Don’t be so obtuse. We’ve worked tog
ether twice before. If I spent the same time coming up through the ranks, I’m right where you are. Anything you can do, I can do, so spare me the condescension. Any time I can’t keep up, feel free to point it out.”

  “Well, well.”

  I cursed my flare of temper. “I think you’re an exceptional investigator, Steve,” I told him. “It’s why I like working with you.”

  “Yeah?”

  I decided to quit while I was behind. “I think one thing we can agree on is that we don’t have a lot of time. If this guy murders again tomorrow . . .”

  “We have a very serious problem.” He stared out the window. “We don’t have a single suspect, and you know it. The way he did the bodies, that’s not angry boyfriend or anything like that. There was detachment. The murderer most likely didn’t even know these girls.”

  “No doubt about it. And if these are stranger murders, we may need to question the girls’ neighbors again. An eyewitness could be all we have to work with. Besides, even if Sherri and Jessica were unknown to him, he picked them somehow.”

  “Yeah, but how?”

  Good question. “Why do you think he’s hanging them upside down?”

  “I suppose you’re going to say it’s because he wanted them pointed away from heaven.”

  “Well? It certainly fits our theory.”

  “We don’t have a theory yet.”

  “Any sign of forced entry this time?”

  “No.”

  We putt-putted in silence for a while. I could feel him staring at me. I pretended not to notice.

  “With all that money, you do this.”

  The traffic slowed in front of us again, and I hit the brakes harder than I needed to, jerking him against his seat belt.

  “This is not all I do,” I said, accelerating and changing lanes, the flow of traffic an accordion. “I also own a successful technology firm.”

  “Yes. That specializes in forensic analyses for the LAPD, the FBI, even secret government contracts.” He stretched his legs. “You just don’t figure. Why would you work homicide cases when you could do anything you want? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “This is what I want to do.”

  “It’s crazy.”

  “Why does this continue to be a problem for you?”

  “Why? You’re discovered on the bottom of a pool at the mayor’s party and claim it’s because you like to look at the moon through the water. For ten minutes.” He paused. “Or however long it was.”

  I waited, putting a polite expression on my face, hoping he wouldn’t continue. I hate lying.

  “You didn’t serve time in a uniform. You look young for thirty, and you haven’t got a mark on you. You ever see a man get shot? A man you knew and cared about? Ever see someone you love die?”

  “Yes,” I said. “To all three questions.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Why would I lie?”

  “Whatever. I suppose you’re going to tell me you’ve killed a man.”

  “Are you asking?”

  “Shut up. You’ve never killed a man.” He stared out the windshield. “Have you?”

  “Have I what? Killed one man? Or many?”

  “God,” he said, leaning back and scrubbing his face with his hands, “you’re so full of it. Let me guess. You’ve killed dozens of men.”

  “You don’t really believe that.”

  He turned to me slowly. “You didn’t answer the question.”

  “Yes,” I said immediately. “I have killed many dozens of men.”

  He sat there, not saying anything to that. And, I thought, not liking it. Though I had told him the truth.

  I pulled up in front of Howard’s Café. When we climbed out of the car, the cool atmosphere of its interior quickly became a distant memory.

  The café was packed.

  The Metropolitan division was well represented as usual. Most of the officers who work Metro were young adrenaline junkies, lured by the excitement of serving high-risk warrants to the most dangerous suspects. They made up the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams and served all the stations of LAPD, having been selected from across the department for their specialties.

  Two of the men wore the Metro tux—uniform pants, boots, belt—and a body-hugging white T-shirt with sleeves so short they hardly deserved the name.

  Hamilton and I ordered chicken and rice plates with Cokes. After collecting our food and securing a table, we dug in.

  “Well,” he said, “if the drug work comes back negative on the Patterson girl, how in the hell is this guy stringing these girls up when they’re conscious and unbound?”

  “They missed something on the Barlow girl,” I said. “They must have. I guarantee Watanabe will look more carefully this time. And if she finds a drug, I’m certain a reexamination of the first victim will show the same thing.”

  “Fine. If you want to go with the drug theory, I’ll follow. But what drug? And how is the killer administering it?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s got to be something hypnotic or physically debilitating. Gonzales is right when he says these girls were not just passively waiting for this man to hang them from the ceiling.”

  “That still doesn’t explain how he’s getting the drug into their bodies.”

  “I know.” How does a stranger drug a teenage girl? If they were at a party, he could put something in her drink. These killings had happened in the victims’ homes. It did not seem possible the killer was administering the drug by pill or injection. How could he manage that without a struggle that would leave bruises on the victim’s body?

  We ate for a while in silence. Hamilton looked morose as he forked food into his mouth. I knew he didn’t want to hear my next question, but I had to ask it.

  “What if the Patterson girl was a virgin?”

  He paused with his rice-filled fork halfway to his mouth and gave me a pained look. “Please, not the voodoo stuff again—not while I’m eating. I don’t have any Zantac on me.”

  “I’m just saying . . .”

  “Well don’t.”

  Sixteen

  Wednesday, December 22, 5:38 p.m.

  The Los Angeles county coroner’s office on Mission Street occupied what used to be an attractive old red brick building. Now, like everything in the area, it sagged with age, its facade grown dingy.

  I parked in the lot. Full dark had fallen, and the metal halide lights were ablaze above us as we walked up the steps to the entrance.

  “I’m going to check in with Reyes,” Hamilton said, stopping before we got to the doors. “See you inside.”

  I rode the elevator to the sublevel alone. When I arrived at exam room two, it was deserted.

  The center of the room contained eight tables, four of them occupied. Along the wall were computer stations and tables.

  Footsteps approached. Rubber soles. Not Hamilton.

  Moving quickly to an empty table, I climbed onto it and became still. This was one of those perfect setups only fate could provide, an ideal opportunity to give someone a scare.

  Looking down along my body, I saw Watanabe walk in. I remained unmoving until she was in the middle of the room. Then I sat up suddenly.

  No reaction.

  “Do you have an audition for a horror movie, Mr. Montero?” she said, not even looking at me.

  “You never know. I may need the job. Are we early?”

  “No, I told you, I put a rush on.” As I swung my legs over the side of the table, she gave me a speculative gaze I recognized. She thought I was a nut, but in a good way. Sometimes, men and women have to take chances on looking like fools in order to express the fun side of their personalities. I had just bombed with my corpse-in-the-box impression, but I knew Watanabe liked me for trying. “Let’s take a look at what we’ve got.”

  Hamilton pushed through the doors. He looked at me quizzically as I climbed off the table. We joined Watanabe where she was examining Jessica Patterson’s body.

  “You were right about t
he introduction of a drug to immobilize the victim,” she said to me, pulling on a pair of exam gloves. “We found minute traces of something in her trachea.”

  “Something?” Hamilton asked.

  “Whatever it is, it breaks down fast. The lab said they’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “So what is it?”

  “No idea. It appears to be composed of organic elements that have been fused by an unknown process.”

  “Unknown?”

  “The fact that the compound disintegrates as rapidly as it does is unusual. It’s why it was so hard to detect in the first place.” She frowned. “It doesn’t make sense, but it’s as if the process to create it was somehow unnatural.”

  I did not ask her if she meant magical. Hamilton had his gun. Besides, he spoke up first.

  “Do we know what the drug does, Tasha?”

  “Yes. It immobilizes the victim, leaving her conscious but unable to perform voluntary muscle movement.”

  “So,” Hamilton said, “you’re saying it’s possible these girls really did watch him arrange that rope, totally helpless, allowed themselves to be tied up and suspended from the ceiling, and then hung there as he prepared to cut them open.”

  “I wish you hadn’t spelled it out like that, but yes, that seems to be what this drug would do.”

  “Christ.” Hamilton rubbed his hand over his face. “What a nightmare.”

  “You say you found it in her trachea,” I said. “Did you check the Barlow girl?”

  “Yes. It was there, too.”

  “Inhalation?”

  “Yes. The quantities in her system were tiny.”

  “Mist? Powder?”

  “I don’t know, but they’re definitely aspirating it.”

  “Anything on the way he cut her up?” Hamilton asked. We looked back at the body.

  “I don’t know why he cut her the way he did, but he removed her heart, just like he did with Sherri Barlow.”

  Hamilton and I exchanged a glance.

  “Did you finish the rape kit?” he asked.

  “Yes. Negative on that. And—”

  “And she was a virgin,” I finished for her.

  She gave me a searching look. “What is this, Sebastian?” She sounded perplexed, frightened. “Do you know what this guy is doing?”