The End Of Desire: A Rowan Gant Investigation (29 page)

This was new, and definitely not what I had
foreseen.

I stopped a few steps through the doorway and
looked around the room. True to what Ben had been told, the beige
carpet was stained with bloody footprints, the shape of which was
obviously made by a pair of women’s high-heeled shoes. While they
radiated out in various directions, the majority of them were
clustered around a far more solid stain, upon which the victim’s
body was currently resting.

Someone had placed an open body bag over the
top of the remains. I assumed that party to have been someone from
the coroner’s office since one of their official vehicles was in
the parking lot. Why they had simply covered him and not
transported him from the scene, I wasn’t certain. In any case, he
was still here, and I couldn’t help but stare.

The rubberized bag covered his face and
torso, but his arms and legs were still exposed. The one wrist I
could plainly see was shackled into a wide leather cuff, which
appeared to be snugged so tightly as to be biting into his flesh.
If that weren’t enough, it was attached to what looked to be a
metal bar that ran beneath his back. I assumed it ended in a like
manner at the unseen hand. A similar apparatus had been used on his
ankles, rendering him more or less immobile. She definitely hadn’t
wanted him to get loose.

Two of the fingers on his exposed hand were
bent up at an odd angle, visibly broken. A number of ragged holes
were torn in the back of the hand as well as his forearm. His legs
hadn’t faired any better as they were covered in long gashes that
were now crusting over. His knees appeared to be buckled backwards,
hyperextended to the point of shattering the joints.

As I stared, the rage continued spreading
through me, punctuated by twinges of satisfaction. I knew in that
moment, there had been nothing at all sexual about this kill for
Annalise. There was no arousal or gratification on the physical
level. It was purely emotional.

This had been all about revenge.

I heard a new voice and looked up from the
horrific tableau. A man around Ben’s age was entering the room from
a doorway near the back. “Yeah, bag that but get pictures of the
whole thing first.”

He turned toward us after completing the
statement, and a look of mild surprise flitted across his features.
Continuing into the room, he looked over at Ben and said, “Hey,
Storm.”

“Martin,” my friend replied.

The detective glanced over at me with an odd
look on his face then said, “Hey, Rowan. How are you doing?”

“Hello, Mike,” I replied. “Getting by. And
you?”

“Better than the stiff I guess,” he grunted
then looked back over to Ben. “Storm… Can I see you back here for a
minute?”

“Yeah,” Ben returned then looked over at me
as he followed him deeper into the apartment. “Wait here, Row.”

I answered with a quick nod.

Detective Martin was one of a handful of cops
on the Major Case Squad who actually took me seriously, so I hadn’t
actually expected to be getting the “what’s he doing here?”
treatment. However, that was exactly the look he had on his face,
and I knew it probably had quite a bit to do with the fact that I
had been banned from the investigation by the powers that be. My
reception told me that Ben was going further out on this figurative
limb than I wanted, but there was nothing I could do. I was already
here, so the damage had been done.

After a handful of minutes, the two of them
came back into the main room, Detective Martin trailing along
behind my friend. He didn’t look particularly excited, but at least
he didn’t look angry either. I didn’t know what was actually
discussed while they were out of earshot, but it wasn’t hard to
guess.

Ben asked, “So, you got anything new?”

“Not much,” Martin began, gesturing toward
the covered corpse. “We’re pretty sure the victim is Lewis, but we
don’t have a positive ID just yet and probably won’t until the M.E.
gets done.”

“That bad?” Ben asked.

“Not much of his face left,” he offered. “Not
to mention the missing part you already know about. Rest of ‘im
isn’t much better. If you think what you can see is bad… Well,
trust me, you don’t really want to look under the bag. I don’t
think she stopped working him over for a while, even after he was
dead.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Ben grunted.
“They gonna transport the body soon?”

Martin nodded. “Yeah. The restraints he’s
wearing are attached with padlocks, so they went to get some bolt
cutters. Until they get those off ‘im, he won’t fit in the
bag.”

“Lovely,” Ben replied. “So, what about the
rest of the apartment? Anything helpful?”

“Well, not really.” Martin pointed toward the
floor, indicating several points in succession. “As you can see, we
have a fairly clear trail to follow. It pretty much gives us an
idea everywhere the killer went inside the apartment. Residue in
the tub indicates she might have showered or bathed after she
killed him. Hell, it looks like she might have even had herself a
late night snack.”

“Why do ya’ think that?” my friend asked.

“There was a gallon jug of milk sitting on
the back of the toilet. What little was left of it anyway.”

“She didn’t drink it,” I offered. “She added
it to her bath water.”

“What makes you say that?” Martin asked,
looking over at me.

“Voodoo. Given her religious leanings,
bastardized as they are, it’s something she would do for
purification,” I explained.

Ben grunted, “Ain’t nothin’ pure about this
bitch except that she’s evil.”

“True, but she would have wanted to cleanse
herself after this murder.”

“I don’t remember there being anything like
that at any of the other crime scenes,” Martin added. “Why this
one?”

“There was no need in those cases,” I said.
“This is different. She didn’t kill him for the sexual high like
she has with her past victims. She was exacting vengeance, and the
ritual bath would be her way of ridding herself of any leftover
emotions.”

He nodded. “Okay. So, what was she getting
revenge for?”

“I’m not sure.”

“She sent his tongue to your wife, or at
least we think it’s his. Do you think it has something to do with
her?”

“Possibly.”

“Why his tongue, though?”

“That’s hard to say. My best guess would be
that since the tongue is associated with speech, the obvious answer
is retribution for something he said or she feared he was going to
say.”

“Okay, but why send it to your wife?”

I shrugged. “To frighten her maybe. Again,
I’m not really sure. I’m just telling you what I’m seeing and
feeling.”

“So this is coming from one of your gut
instincts?” he asked.

“Some of it. The rest is pretty much just a
hypothetical application of what I’ve studied about Voodoo and
hoodoo.”

“Okay, well since we’re on that particular
subject, Storm said the real reason you came here is to have a look
at what we found in there,” Martin said, as he nodded toward the
half wall that divided the main room of the apartment.

We followed him as he stepped around the
tented evidence markers that were lined across the floor and headed
in the direction of the small kitchen. It was no big surprise that
a fading trail of bloody shoe prints marked the path we
followed.

Detective Martin guided us through the
doorway then pointed toward the counter near the sink. “Don’t touch
anything,” he instructed. “The techs haven’t gotten to this
yet.”

“No problem,” I replied, an absent tone in my
voice as I scanned the area where he indicated.

Whole cloves were scattered across the floor
where they had fallen from a large pile on the countertop. Next to
the pile itself was a plastic container lying on its side, the
dried flower buds spilling from the open mouth in a dark brown
spread. The sharp aroma of the spice was even thicker here in the
small room.

I edged around the mess on the floor and
leaned forward to peer closely at the other remnants of magick
occupying the space near the sink. A slag of red wax with a small
piece of blackened wick sat to one side. Near it was a pattern of
drips, which at first glance also appeared to be wax but was black
and had a much glossier sheen. Upon closer inspection, I could tell
they had come from a very different type of candle besides simply
the color. Next to these sat a bowl, which contained a rusted red
substance that had the distinctive look of slowly coagulating
blood. Drops of the dried liquid formed a trail across the surface
of the counter. I followed it with my eyes until it ended at a
roughly circular spot that was devoid of the scattered cloves.

“Have the evidence technicians removed
anything in here?” I asked.

“No,” Martin replied. “Like I said, they
haven’t made it this far except to set markers and take a few
pictures.”

“Something is missing,” I muttered.

“What did you say?” Ben asked.

“Something is missing,” I said louder, as I
pointed to the clear spot. “Whatever she did, it involved a bottle
or a jar maybe. See this round spot here that doesn’t have any
cloves on it?”

“Yeah,” he grunted. “So what’d she do?”

“I can’t tell.”

“Whaddaya mean ya’ can’t tell?”

“I mean I can’t tell,” I repeated. “I’ve
never seen this exact type of magickal working before. The basic
components of a lust spell are here with the red candle and the
cloves. But, by the same token, you also have blood, which I’m
betting once belonged to Lewis. And, see these black droplets here?
That’s sealing wax.”

“You mean like the stuff they put on the back
of fancy envelopes?” Martin asked.

“Exactly. Whatever she did, she sealed it in
a bottle or jar.”

“So it’s some kind of Voodoo?” Martin
asked.

“Hoodoo, maybe. Even more likely, it’s some
manner of old folk magick,” I told him.

“Okay, well I hate to be a skeptic, Rowan,
but what bearing does it really have on this investigation?”

“For the police, probably nothing more than
evidence that she was here.”

“So it’s nothing,” he replied.

“No, it’s something. I just don’t know what
because it doesn’t make sense.”

“Which part?” Ben asked.

“The outward appearance of the spell in
general. I don’t get why she would be doing some kind of convoluted
sex magick because she killed him out of anger, not for the
thrill.”

“Do you think maybe you could be wrong about
that part?” Martin asked.

“I could be wrong about all kinds of things,”
I replied. “But, I can guarantee you that I don’t feel any sexual
energy emanating from this apartment, and that has always been the
predominant psychic feature of all the others.”

“Okay, so then what do you think the bottle
or jar was for?”

“Like I said, to contain whatever magick she
performed, so that in itself creates another mystery. Sealing a
magickal working into a bottle isn’t unusual, but it can be done
for just about any type of spell, so it really doesn’t give us any
clue as to exactly what she did.”

“But, if I’m followin’ ya’, you’re sayin’
maybe she made ‘erself some lust in a bottle,” Ben interjected.

“On the surface that’s what it looks like,
but we’re talking about blood magick here, so I’m seriously out of
my element. Even so, since the container isn’t here, I’d be willing
to bet she either has it with her or she buried it somewhere.”

“And that means what?” Ben asked.

I dipped my head and gave him a half shrug.
“Unfortunately, it means we aren’t going to find out what it is
until it does whatever it’s supposed to do.”

“S
o what do we do now,” I
asked.

Ben and I had signed out of the crime scene
shortly after Detective Martin had showed us the mysterious bit of
magick Annalise had worked in the kitchen. My headache still hadn’t
really subsided at this point, but a good amount of the tension had
finally ebbed. The most important thing for me at the moment,
however, was that my skin was no longer prickling with the
unbridled anger that had been so prevalent throughout the
apartment.

“Whaddaya mean?” Ben returned. “It’s simple.
We go back to your place, pick up Firehair and your luggage, then I
take you two ta’ my place.”

“I know that,” I said. “I meant, what do we
do about stopping Annalise?”

“Gotta find ‘er first, so unless you
got some kinda
Twilight Zone
thing tellin’ us where ta’ look, it’s just gonna take police
work and a bit of luck.”

“Define police work.”

“We ask around and hope somebody saw
somethin’.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s where the luck comes in,” he grunted.
“If we’re lucky, someone did and will be willin’ ta’ talk to us
about it.”

“That doesn’t sound terribly promising.”

“Welcome to the real world, Row. The majority
of the time, that’s how criminals get caught,” he said with a shake
of his head. “That crap on TV is e’zactly that. Crap. Ain’t nobody
gonna stick a piece of hair under a microscope and suddenly say,
‘Bingo! She’s standin’ at the corner of Fourth and Broadway, go get
‘er.’ When it comes to this kinda crime, real police work is three
parts paperwork, one part luck. Truth is, right now Devereaux is
really just a suspect. Until we catch up to ‘er and compare the DNA
and all that shit… Well, you got the idea.”

“It’s her. Believe me.”

“I do. We just gotta make sure the evidence
supports it.”

“Okay, so what if nobody saw anything?”

“Then we hope she uses a credit card or
somethin’, and we get a hit.”

“And if that doesn’t happen.”

“Awfully goddamned negative today, aren’t
ya’?”