Hallowed (17 page)

When I got home, Mom and Dad were asleep. The kitchen was still a mess, very uncharacteristic of my mother, who said that she couldn’t rest easy knowing that there was a mess waiting for her downstairs.  In the living room, I found Dad’s watch and wallet on the coffee table next to an open bag of chips.

Strange.

I made my way upstairs and started to my room past Dad’s office but stopped.  I could hear a steady raspy breathing coming from behind the closed door down the hall that meant that my father was into deep REM sleep. (Funny, they usually left their door open.)

Before I could think about the repercussions, I was inside the office and sitting in the chair behind his desk.  It gave a loud creak of protest as if it knew I was an uninvited occupant.  I lifted my head and waited a few moments for the sound of a door opening.

I found his brief bag--heavy with its promises of answers--and lifted it into my lap.  I couldn’t see a damned thing and realized that I would have to take it somewhere I could read.

I rushed out of my father’s office and into the bathroom.  Sitting on the toilet and feeling like a lecherous kid sneaking a look at a porno magazine for the first time, I opened his bag and rummaged through his investigation materials.

There were a series of manila folders with dates. Inside each folder, I found scribbled notes written in my father’s distinctive handwriting atop a stack of Sheriff’s Department forms.  Figuring this was probably the most pertinent information, I started with the one dated Wednesday, October 14.

Dad had written:
“Body of 17 yr old male, black hair, 5 foot 8, found @ bottom of tub converted for use for watering cattle in pasture, 300 yds from Highway 158 between Ulee’s Junction and Haven.  Throat slit @ jugular.  Head removed from torso.  Autopsy reveals death occurred 2 to 3 days previous.  No sexual trauma.  Bruising and tissue damage show convincing evidence of struggle.

“Richard Crawford, pasture owner, woke to sound of disturbance to cattle @ aprox 4:30am, and saw taillights of vehicle identified as 80’s or 90’s model domestic truck pulling off shoulder and heading NE on Highway 158.  Body found just after 5:00am (daybreak 7:33am).

“The words ‘ALLAHU AKBAR’ written (block letters, all caps) w/Sharpie style pen--top edge of tub.

“Death card from Tarot deck arranged, tucked into neck collar of body where head should be.”

I read through his notes in the other two manila folders, refreshing my memory on the first two victims:

“Sadie Nayar, 16 yr old female, blond hair (worn long), 5 foot 4 (San Marcos, TX).  Body found wrapped in Tuff N’ Hefty brand garbage bag in otherwise empty dumpster behind abandoned parts warehouse in Pine Marsh, Saturday, October 10
th
.  (Warehouse closed over 1 1/2 yrs previous.)  Entire body wrapped in burial shroud and burned.  Face/Hands undamaged.  Fibers of fire-proof material found around neck and right wrist.  Autopsy reveals death occurred between 7 to 10 days previous.  No trauma to sexual organs.

“Body found by Brent Long, known transient, who attempted to gain entry to warehouse for the night, smelled ‘something rotten’ and traced the smell to dumpster.  He hiked 1 1/2 mi to Victor’s Fill N Go gas station to call 911.

“In addition to various entries of graffiti on the outside of dumpster, the freshest and only entry on interior of container were the words ‘Sam Hain’ written (in cursive script, both upper and lower case) in red spray paint.

Then this following entry was underlined:

“Cross w/loop in place of top vertical quarter (aunk?) cut from polished silver (worn on chain as necklace) arranged on top of trash bag.”

I read the contents of a third folder:

“Grace Fischer, 18 yr old female, short dark brown hair, 5 foot 8, (Rendon, TX).  Skeletal remains found in ravine along bicycle path on Ventnor Avenue, Abner on Wed, Sept 30th.  Neck broken by apparent strangulation.  Autopsy indicates victim killed 2 to 3 mos previous (July-August).”

I found two photos; one was the object Dad had called a “cross w/loop” and the other was the tarot card found with the next victim.  The cross had been arranged atop the trash bag, with the chain forming a semi-circle above the cross. The tarot card of Death was positioned half inside half outside of the collar of the body of the male victim.  The card displayed a knight atop his horse in profile holding a banner.  The knight’s face was a skull.

Then there were the photos of the corpse.  These I carefully avoided.

Arranging the folders back in the same position that I’d found them, I turned out the light in the bathroom and glanced down the darkened hallway.  Once I heard Dad’s regular breathing again, I walked casually back to his office and placed the bag back where I had found it.

Inside my room, I found a brand new cell phone wrapped with a bow and sitting on my desk beside my computer.  The accompanying note read: “Happy early birthday!  Already activated and ready to go.  Love, Mom and Dad.”

Great!  I was already feeling guilty enough without adding this to the mix.  A gift this large wasn’t typical of my parents, but I also knew that it was sure to come with strings attached—imposed twenty-four hour tabs on me.

Though I knew I was foolish to think that anything had happened to her, I still had to know if Claudia was safe at home before I could comfortably go to bed.  I booted up my computer and immediately noticed that Claudia was on-line as well.  My messenger panel displayed her screen-name, Rigor Mortis.

I breathed a sigh of relief and was about to power down and go to bed when I received a message:

“Hi,” I read.

I typed the safe response: “Hi.”

I typed out the three words “We should talk” then hesitated before sending it.  Reading it over and over, measuring the connotations and realizing that it could be interpreted in more than one way, then deciding that it was exactly how I wanted her to read it, but before I could send it, I received the exact word-for-word message from Claudia.

“We should talk.”

I scoffed.  It was scary when someone else rented space in your own head.

I deleted my previous message and typed my response: “Definitely!”

The message “Meet me in my backyard,” flashed up in the messenger box.

I found her in the backyard standing in the shadows of the doorway leading into the garage. She was wearing the black cloak she had worn to the cemetery over her nightgown.  I tried to look casual as I gazed at the clothes she slept in.  She pulled the cloak just a bit tighter and just stared at me expectantly.

“I just looked through my Dad’s files.”

She rushed forward and gave me an excited slap on the arm.  “Y’see, I knew there was a reason I kept you around.  There’s been a third victim, hasn’t there?” she asked starting past me into the yard in her bare feet.

“How did you know that?”

“Web.”  She leaped up and sat on the edge of the old trampoline that was left there by the last owners.  Mrs. Wicke had wanted to keep it despite the fact that Claudia insisted that she was too old to “jump around like an acrobat on acid.”

“Claudia, no one outside of the Broward County Sheriff’s Department has this information.  You have to swear to me…”

She tucked her legs beneath her in excitement and crossed her breast.  “Hope to die a slow and torturous death!  Let’s hear it.”

My stern look was wasted on her.  “There’s been a third victim all right.  They found his body between Ulee’s Junction and Haven in a cow pasture on Highway 158.”

She considered what she’d just heard, her eyes glazing over a bit.  “Wow, that’s close.”  Then, “A guy?” she murmured with furrowed brow.  “Was he strangled?”

I gave Claudia a hard look and swallowed awkwardly.  “His head was removed.”

Claudia actually paled.  A tiny sound of confusion escaped her throat.  Finally, she said, “If this is the same guy, he’s getting more intimate with the bodies.”

“Have you ever heard the phrase
Allahu Akbar
?”

She made a sound of concern in the back of her throat.

“Those words were written in block letters, all caps with a Sharpie on the top edge of the tub sitting out in the middle of a cow pasture.”

“He’s getting bolder.”

“Also, the death card from a Tarot deck was found arranged in the collar of the victim’s body.”

Claudia let herself fall back, her legs dangle.  I didn’t know what to make of this body language, but it felt like frustration to me.

“Allahu Akbar,” she murmured to herself.  “It’s Muslim.  Means ‘God is great,’ or something like that.  It’s used during Islamic prayer, but a lot of extremists have been using it before committing an act of terrorism.  That would also fit the style of the killing.  Beheading is a ritual in Sharia law, shared by both peace-loving Muslims and the crazies.”

“There was also something highlighted in the typed material about a cut matching the style of an animal being slaughtered.  The cut appeared to have been made in the front with a small knife and not a straight cut from behind which is the usual humane method.”

“He must have been drained of blood like an animal,” she remarked.

“Now I wish I had glanced at those photos.”

“He had the pictures!  Dammit!  I need to see those!”

I shushed her, glancing back at the house.  “Are you kidding me?  It’s bad enough what I did.  I feel like a criminal or something.”

“Catholic guilt is your area of expertise, not mine.”  With the conspiratorial tone of a priest reading the text of an ancient prophecy, she muttered: “The victim was placed in a cattle pasture, to remind us of an animal slaughtered.”

I glanced at Claudia to check her state of mind, the memory of her condition arising in my mind for the first time since I’d arrived.  She seemed a little more bewildered than I was used to, but otherwise fine.

“The other two bodies were found in a ditch and a dumpster,” she calculated aloud.  “It seemed haphazard before.  He was more deliberate this time.”

My eye had fallen to her dangling bare feet.  I could see dewy blades of grass sticking to the bright white skin beneath.  I had a sudden overwhelming urge to touch them.

“Paul, this is the method that terrorists use to kill infidels. 
Allau Akbar
is a battle cry for extremists.  But the tarot card?  What does that have to do with anything?”  She ran a head through her hair in irritation.

“I thought that would be obvious,” I said.  “After all, it’s Death.”

She gave me a wide-eyed look.  “No, Paul, the Death card does not mean the end of life, in fact it more often refers to a transformation of some sort, a change.”

I looked into the darkness surrounding us, the bright moonlight reflecting off the roof and the tops of the trees in their yard.

“None of this is making any sense.”

“Claudia, maybe we should just think about all this in the morning after a good night’s sleep.”

“We won’t be able to talk about this at lunch tomorrow.”  She gave me a side-long glance.  “I got detention for cutting school today.”

“You cut school?  Why?”

“Just felt like sleeping.” For a moment, she looked profoundly sad. “By the way, I found out Sadie Nayar is not Egyptian.  Her parents are from Delhi.  Her father works as a programmer in Austin.”

Suddenly a light went on in one of the windows upstairs, and I bolted like a roach at the flick of a switch.  I could hear Claudia’s barely contained snorts of laughter behind me as I dashed up the sidewalk and onto Ash Avenue.

When I got home, there was a single message on my computer screen: “Our secret is safe.  See you tomorrow!”