He ran his eyes over my outfit again. "Okay." He turned to leave, and I breathed easier.
He was gone when Glenn strode in, a decidedly preoccupied air about him. There was a nice-size packet of paper in his grip, and I thought the FIB's information gathering must be on par with the I.S. after all. He stood for a moment in the center of his office, then pushed the papers on his long table against the wall to one end. "Here's the first one," he said, dropping the reports on the cleared spot. "I'll be right back with the ones from the basement."
I froze in my reach for them. The first one? I had thought that was all of them. I took a breath to ask him, but he was gone. The thickness of the report was impressive. I wheeled my chair to the table and positioned it sideways so I wouldn't have my back to the door. Sitting, I crossed my legs and pulled the wad of pages into my lap.
I recognized the front picture of the first victim because the I.S. had released it to the papers. She had been a nice-looking older woman with a motherly smile. By the makeup and jewelry, it looked like they lifted her photo from a professional picture, like those poses you get for anniversaries and such. She had been three months from retiring from a security firm that designed magic-resistant safes. Died from "complications from rape." This was all old news. I shuffled to the coroner's report, my gaze dropping to the picture.
My gut clenched, and I flipped the report closed. Suddenly cold, I stared out of Glenn's door to the open offices. A phone rang, and someone picked it up. I took another breath, and held it. I forced myself to breathe, holding it again so I wouldn't hyperventilate.
I suppose, in a loose fashion, it could be considered rape. The woman's insides had been pulled out from between her legs and were dangling to her knees. I wondered how long she had stayed alive through the ordeal, then wished I hadn't. Stomach turning, I vowed to not look at any more pictures.
Fingers shaking, I tried to concentrate on the report. The FIB had been surprisingly through, leaving me with only one question. Stretching, I snagged the cordless phone from the desk. My jaw hurt from having clenched it too long as I dialed the number listed for next of kin.
An older man answered. "No," I assured him when he tried to hang up on me. "I'm not a dating service. Vampiric Charms is an independent runner firm. I'm currently working with the FIB to identify the person who attacked your wife."
The picture of her lying twisted and broken on the gurney flashed before me. I shoved it down to where it would probably stay until I tried to sleep. I hoped he hadn't seen the picture. I prayed he hadn't found her body.
"I apologize for calling, Mr. Graylin," I said in my best professional voice. "I have only one question. Did your wife happen to talk to a Mr. Trent Kalamack anytime before her death?"
"The councilman?" he said, his voice thick with astonishment. "Is he a suspect?"
"Perish the thought," I lied. "I'm following up one of the faint leads that we have concerning a stalker working his way up to him."
"Oh." There was a moment of silence, then, "Yes. As a matter of fact, we did."
The zing of adrenaline pulled me upright.
"We met him at a play this spring," the man was saying. "I remember because it was the Pirates of Penzance, and I thought the lead pirate looked like Mr. Kalamack. We had dinner afterwards at Carew Tower and laughed about it. He's not in any danger, is he?"
"No," I said, my heart pounding. "I'd ask you to keep our line of investigation quiet until we've proven it false. I'm very sorry about your wife, Mr. Graylin. She was a lovely woman."
"Thank you. I miss her." He hung up the phone in the uncomfortable silence.
I set the phone down, waiting three heartbeats before whispering an exuberant, "Yes!" Spinning my swivel chair around, I found Glenn standing in the doorway.
"What are you doing?" he asked, dropping another stack of papers before me.
I grinned, continuing to shift back and forth in my chair. "Nothing."
He went to his desk and punched a button on the phone's cradle, frowning as the last number called appeared on the tiny screen. "I never said you could call these people." His face went angry and his posture became stiff. "That man is trying to put this behind him. He doesn't need you dredging it up for him again."
"I only asked one question." Legs crossed, I swiveled, smiling.
Glenn glanced behind him into the open offices. "You are a guest here," he said roughly. "If you can't play by my rules - " He stopped. "Why are you still smiling?"
"Mr. and Mrs. Graylin had dinner with Trent a month before she was attacked."
The man straightened to his full height and drew back a step. His eyes narrowed.
"Mind if I call the next?" I asked.
He looked at the phone beside my hand, then back to the open floor. With a forced casualness, he shut his door halfway. "Keep it down."
Pleased with myself, I pulled the stack of papers closer. Glenn went back behind his computer, typing with an annoying slowness.
My mood quickly sobered as I scanned the coroner's report, skipping the picture portion this time. Apparently the man had been eaten alive from the extremities inward. They knew he had been alive at the time by the tearing pattern of the wounds. And they were fairly confident he had been eaten by the lack of body parts.
Trying to ignore the mental picture my imagination provided, I called the contact number. There was no answer, not even a machine. I called his former place of work next, my intuition settling into a nice groove at the name of the place: Seary Security.
The woman there was very nice, but she didn't know anything, telling me that Mr. Seary's wife was away at a "health resort" trying to relearn how to sleep. She did look in her files, though, telling me that they had been contracted to install a safe on the Kalamack estate.
"Security..." I murmured, pinning Mr. Seary's packet to the bulletin board atop Glenn's sticky notes to get it out of my way. "Hey, Glenn. You have any more of those sticky notes?"
He rummaged in his desk drawer, tossing me a pack, shortly followed by a pen. I scrawled the name of Mr. Seary's workplace and stuck it to his report. After a moment's thought, I did the same to the woman's, writing "safe designer" on it. I added a second sticky note with "Talked to T" circled in black ink.
A scuffing in the hallway brought my eyes up from the third report. I made a noncommittal smile recognizing the overweight cop, minibag of chips in hand. He acknowledged me and Glenn's nod, coming to a rest in the doorway. "Glenn's got you doing his secretary work?" he asked, his good-old-boy tone almost thick enough to cut.
"No," I said, smiling sweetly. "Trent Kalamack is the witch hunter, and I'm just taking a moment to tie the links together."
He grunted, eyeing Glenn. Glenn wearily returned his look, adding a shrug. "Rachel," he said, "this is Officer Dunlop. Dunlop, this is Ms. Morgan."
"Charmed," I said, not offering my hand lest I get it back covered in potato-chip grease.
Not getting the hint, the man walked in, crumbs falling to the tile floor. "Whatcha got?" he said, coming to peer at my thick reports stuck to the board atop Glenn's faded sticky notes.
"Too soon to say." I pushed him out of my space with a finger in his gut. "Excuse me."
He backed up but didn't leave, going instead to see what Glenn was doing. Heaven save me from cops on break. The two talked over Glenn's suspicions concerning Dr. Anders, their rising and falling voices soothing.
I blew chip crumbs off my papers, my pulse quickening as I saw that the third victim had worked at the city racetrack in weather control. It was a very difficult field of work, heavy in ley line magic. The man had been pressed to death while working late, stirring up a fall shower to dampen down the track for the next day's race. The actual implement of death was unknown. There had been nothing in the stables heavy enough. I didn't look at that picture, either.
It had been at this point that the media realized the three deaths were connected despite the varying methods of death and named the sadistic freak the "witch hunter."
A quick phone call got me his sister, who said of course he knew Trent Kalamack. That the councilman often called her brother to ask about the state of the track, but that she hadn't heard if he had talked to Mr. Kalamack before his death or not, and that she was just sick about her brother's death, and did I know how long it took for insurance checks to come in?
I finally got my condolences wedged in between her chattering and hung up on her. Everyone handled death differently, but that was offensive.
"Did he know Mr. Kalamack?" Glenn asked.
"Yup." I pinned the packet to the board and stuck a note to it with the words "weather maintenance" on it.
"And his job is important because..."
"It takes a heckuva lot of ley line skill to manipulate the weather. Trent raises racehorses. He could have easily been out there and talked to him and no one would have given it a second thought." I added another note with "Knew T" on it.
Old Dunlop-the-cop made an interested noise and ambled over. He hung a respectful three feet behind me this time. "Done with this one?" he asked, fingering the first.
"For now," I said, and he pulled it from the board. Some of Glenn's notes fluttered down to fall behind the table. Glenn's jaw tightened.
Feeling like someone was starting to take me seriously, I sat straighter. The overweight man ambled back to Glenn, making noises as he found the pictures. He dropped the report onto Glenn's desk, and I heard the patter of chip crumbs. Another officer came in, and an impromptu meeting seemed to be taking shape as they clustered around Glenn's computer screen. I turned my back on them and looked at the next report.
The fourth victim had been found in early August. The papers had said the cause of death was severe blood loss. What they hadn't said was that the man had been disemboweled, torn apart as if ravaged by animals. His boss had found him in the basement of his workplace, still alive and trying to push his insides back into him where they belonged. It was more difficult than usual since he only had one arm, the other hanging by his underarm skin.
"Here you go, ma'am," a voice said at my elbow, and I jerked. Heart pounding, I stared at a young FIB officer. "Sorry," he said as he extended a sheaf of papers. "Detective Glenn asked me to bring these up when they finished. Didn't mean to startle you." His eyes dropped to the report in my hand. "Nasty, isn't it?"
"Thank you," I said, accepting the reports. My fingers were trembling as I dialed the number for the victim's boss when there was no next of kin.
"Jim's," a tired voice said after the third ring.
My greeting froze in my throat. I recognized his voice. It was the announcer at Cincinnati's illegal rat fights. Heart pounding, I hung up, missing the button the first time. I stared at the wall. The room had gone silent.
"Glenn?" I said, my throat tight. I turned to see him surrounded by three officers, all looking at me.
"Yeah?"
My hands shook as I extended the report across the small space. "Will you look at the crime scene photos for me?"
His face blank, he took it. I turned to his wall of sticky notes, listening to the pages turn. Feet shuffled. "What am I looking for?" he asked.
I swallowed hard. "Rat cages?" I asked.
"Oh my God," someone whispered. "How did she know?"
I swallowed again. I couldn't seem to stop. "Thanks."
With motions slow and deliberate, I took the report and stuck it to the bulletin board. My handwriting was shaky as I wrote "T availability" and stuck it on the pages. The report said he had been a bouncer at a dance club, but if he was one of Dr. Anders's students, he had been skilled with ley lines and was more likely the head of security at Jim's rat fights.
I reached for the fifth packet with a grim feeling. It was Trent - I knew it was Trent - but the horror of what he had done was killing any joy I might find in it.
I felt the men behind me watching as I leafed through the report, recalling that the fifth victim, found three weeks ago, had died the same way as the first. A call to her tearful mother told me she had met Trent in a specialty bookstore last month. She remembered because her daughter had been surprised that such a young, important man was interested in collectable, pre-Turn fairy-tale anthologies. After confirming that her daughter had been employed in a security subscription firm, I gave her my condolences and hung up.
The background murmurs of the excited men added to my numb state. I carefully wrote my big T, making sure the lines were clear and straight. I stuck it beside the copy of the woman's work ID picture. She had been young, with straight blond hair to her shoulders and a pretty, oval face. Just out of college. The memory of the picture I had seen of the first woman on the gurney flashed into my mind. I felt the blood drain from me. Cold and light-headed, I stood.
The men's conversations stopped as if I had rung a bell. "Where's the ladies' room?" I whispered, my mouth dry.
"Turn left. Go to the back of the room."
I didn't have time to say thanks. Low heels clacking, I strode out of the room. I looked neither left nor right, moving faster as I saw the door at the end of the room. I hit the door at a run, reaching the toilet just in time.
Retching violently, I lost my breakfast. Tears streamed down my face, the salt mixing with the bitter taste of vomit. How could anyone do that to another person? I wasn't prepared for this. I was a witch, damn it. Not a coroner. The I.S. didn't teach its runners how to deal with this. Runners were runners, not murder investigators. They brought their tags in alive, even the dead ones.
My stomach was empty, and when the dry heaves finally stopped, I stayed where I was, sitting on the floor of the FIB bathroom with my forehead against the cold porcelain, trying not to cry. I suddenly realized someone was holding my hair out of the way, and had been for a while.
"It will go away," Rose whispered, almost to herself. "Promise. Tomorrow or the next day, you'll close your eyes and it will be gone."
I looked up. Rose dropped her hand and took a step back. Beyond the propped-open door was the row of sinks and mirrors. "Really?" I said miserably.
She smiled weakly. "That's what they say. I'm still waiting. I think they all are."
Feeling foolish, I awkwardly got to my feet and flushed the toilet. I brushed myself off, glad the FIB kept their bathroom cleaner than I kept mine. Rose had gone to a sink, giving me a moment to gather myself. I left the stall feeling embarrassed and stupid. Glenn would never let me live this down.
"Better?" Rose asked as she dried her hands, and I gave her a loose-necked nod, ready to burst into tears again because she wasn't calling me a newbie or making me feel inadequate or that I wasn't strong. "Here," she said, taking my purse from a sink and handing it to me. "I thought you might want your makeup."
I nodded again. "Thanks, Rose."
She smiled, the age lines in her face making her look even more comforting. "Don't worry about it. This is a bad one."
She turned to go, and I blurted, "How do you deal with it? How do you keep from falling apart? That - What happened to them is horrible. How can a person do that to another?"
Rose took a slow breath. "You cry, you get angry, then you do something about it."
I watched her leave, the clack of her quick heels sounding sharp before the door closed.
Yeah. I can do that.