The Wizard Murders (12 page)

"....
Go
with you?" Denise is startled.

"Yeah, um... go, and look... I don't know, help me go look for the Northern Cross? God, that sounds so stupid."

"I don't know what good I'd do, I'd be scared to death!" Denise laughs. "Where- where are you gonna go to look at the stars?"

"I'll start simple. I'll... I don't know, start at the police station?" He pauses, and feels a fresh rush of frustration coming over him.

"God, this is friggin' ridiculous. Someone out there is just pulling my chain and they know it." Pitt's anger quickly gets the best of him and he picks up the remains of his lunch and drapes his coat over his arm. "Look, just forget it. It's a stupid damn idea. I'm not gonna go stargazing just because some freak wants me to. If that's even what he
wants
me to do. All I know is I want my town and my life back, goddammit."

Embarrassed, he storms over to a trash barrel and tosses his lunch into it with a resounding, empty thud. "Let's just get back to the station, get back to filing all of the other charges that need to be taken care of, and get on with our day. Let's stop kidding ourselves. 'Barney Fife' here is not going to crack a murder case."

"No, wait, I'll go with you," Denise rises from her bench, protesting. "I'll help you tonight. I didn't mean to make light of the situation."

Pitt sighs and calms down for a moment. "I didn't mean to lash out at you. I apologize. I really do. It's the situation, not you." Denise is quickly gathering her food and her purse. "I... I just don't know what the hell else to do. We thought we had him pegged as victimizing young girls. Then he kills this fella, while warning us about something that could actually happen after this murder. At least, we think he did. It's like I said to Clarence- it's like we've got a couple of picture puzzles here, and none of them are complete."

"I'll go with you," Denise replies, taking a moment to adjust her ponytail with one hand. She lowers her voice into a confidential, joking tone. "You do carry a service revolver, right?"

"I will tonight," Pitt says. "But see, that's just the thing. I usually don't carry a revolver with me. I really don't. The other guys in the department think I'm nuts. But I don't think I should have to carry a weapon, not in Beaumont. It sends the wrong message. Everybody knows someone who knows someone else around here. Generally our department won't give you a hard time, unless you've really screwed up. I mean, I can count the times on one hand that I've ever needed to show my badge- and one of them was yesterday, the other day, at the hospital. And that was only because this thing felt out of control, like it was larger than anything we've ever been through around here." He takes a moment to make sure that his shirt is tucked in properly. Denise reaches into her purse for her sunglasses, and Pitt reaches into his front pocket for his own pair. "Again, I'm sorry."

Denise smiles underneath her oversized sunglasses. "No need to apologize, hon. We're all scared."

They set foot on a trail leading the way out, and after a moment of silence between them, Pitt lets out a sardonic laugh.

"What?" Denise asks.

"Look to the sky, eh?" He points in the distance to a hilltop near Bogart Park, where there stands a lone cross in the summer sun. It's the location where Easter services have been held for years in Cherry Valley.

Pitt stops cold. "Northern... cross?"

They stand riveted for a moment, looking at each other, then back to the cross and even around themselves, almost reflexively. Its beams are somewhat indistinct against the pale blue sky.

Finally, Pitt speaks, slowly drawing out his first word.

"Noooo... but I am going to send a patrol up there."

                                   *************

By sunset, a patrol has already been dispatched to the hilltop area, but officers find nothing of any value... no freshly upturned dirt, no cryptic messages, nothing.
Didn't really expect them to find anything out there
, Pitt thinks to himself, checking his watch and monitoring the progress of nightfall between the blinds of his office.
It's too vague, too broad a clue for it to have anything to do with that cross.
He's already fended off J.C. with a cover story as to why he's staying later than usual at the station- "Need to catch up on case work," he'd told him- which isn't entirely untrue. He isn't about to tell him his plans for the night include looking for homicide clues by gazing at stars with the cute secretary.

Pitt expects Denise to arrive back at the station at about 9PM; they've already agreed that there will be no point in meeting until the skies are dark enough. Finally, Pitt's anxiousness in getting this desperate move over with motivates him to stand outside the building until Denise arrives. She arrives at fifteen past the hour, driving up in her red Pinto.

"You know those things are deathtraps," Pitt calls to her. "You won't get me to ride in one of those things. All you need now are some Firestone 500s and you're done."

"Ha, ha," Denise responds with gentle sarcasm. "It's a good little car and I've never had a problem."

"You've got more guts than I do," Pitt deadpans. "All right. Let's get this over with." He pulls his notebook out and turns once again to the now dog-eared page with his "LOOK TO THE SKY" notes. "Might as well just tear this page out separately," he mutters, doing just that, folding it over, and pulling out a small flashlight. "Did you bring your star chart?"

"Yep. Right here." Under her arm, she's carrying a smallish bit of cardboard, on which she's taped a chart. "I know the print is kind of small on this one, but everything we need is right here."

"Okay. Now... give me kind of a crash course here. All I know how to do is find the Big Dipper or the Little Dipper. Talk to me like I'm stupid."

"You're not stupid, Andy," she protests, poking him gently in the arm. "If I can understand these charts, anyone can.

"Now. First let me explain how it is you pinpoint the position of stars. Stars move together in the sky from east to west. Usually, if I'm going to be looking for them, I'll sit outside for about ten to fifteen minutes so my eyes can adjust to the darkness. Here in California- well, in Beaumont, at least- it's kind of like Texas 'cause there aren't a lot of trees and buildings to block the view.” She points to the chart. “Now, east, west, north and south are marked around the edge of this circle that represents the night sky. So if we point ourselves south-" she turns around, facing the building- "we're gonna want to hold the chart in front of us with the marked-south horizon pointing towards the ground. If we then raise the chart-" she does so- "all the stars on the chart will correspond with what's in the sky. The stars directly in front of us correspond to the bottom of the chart. The stars directly behind us correspond to what's at the top of the chart." She then turns away from the building. "So... if you look right there, there's the Northern Cross." She points it out to him.

"You mean the swan constellation?"

"Well, no, remember the Northern Cross is a
part
of the Cygnus constellation. It's an asterism."

"Whoa, hold on, you've lost me there. It's a what?"

"An asterism. It's part of the constellation. It starts from the swan's tail-" she gracefully traces the outline with her long fingernails- "all the way to its beak."

Pitt is squinting. "Well.. okay, it's kind of a stick figure, but all right."

"Everyone always says that." Denise wrinkles her nose as she studies the chart. "I guess you kind of have to use your imagination."

Pitt is glancing from the chart to the sky and back again. "God, I hope no one sees me doing this. Okay, so... yeah, there it is, but now what?" The two of them stand silhouetted in the indirect fluorescent light coming from the windows of the station, and the night is still.

Denise slowly shakes her head and shrugs. "I don't know, sweetie, I suppose you could take your chance and propose your undying love and affection for me while we're out here under the stars." She winks at him.

"Cute. Very cute," Pitt offers, finding himself a curious mix of excited and upset and nervous and distracted. He fumbles for the "LOOK TO THE SKY" note. "Let me take another look at this thing, I want to check something..." as he's pulling the note up, the tenseness in his hands is preventing him from unfolding the note and holding the small flashlight at the same time. As he does so, however, he catches a glimpse of his writing being backlit, the letters facing differently than they normally would because the note has been folded. He stops for a moment. The "paseniw" line looks different now. For an instant, his crossword puzzle trained eyes hold the word together and then apart, forwards and then backwards, his eyes darting back and forth horizontally. "Hold on. Hold on for a moment, here."

"What? What is it?" In the dim light Denise searches for clues on Pitt's face, which has gone slack-jawed. "What is it, Andy?"

Paseniw... pas... sap... wine... winesap.

"Winesap. Winesap! It says Winesap, for Chrissake. Winesap!"

"Like... Winesap Avenue? By Bogart Park? Winesap? Is that what it says?"

"It's backwards!" Pitt exclaims. "10404 Winesap. It's a damn address!"

"Oh my God." Denise slaps a hand over her mouth and her already fair skin turns even more pale. "It's a house? Do you think there's a body there?"

"I don't know. Come on, let's take my car." He moves quickly in the direction of his Rambler, but then senses that Denise hasn't budged. "Yes, I have my service revolver. Come on."

The drive takes about ten minutes, and Denise is clutching her purse close to her face the entire time. "Please, you're not going to make me go in there, are you? I don't want to see dead bodies."

"Of course not," Pitt responds tersely. "Mainly, I just want to verify that it is in fact an address, and we'll take it from there." He's aware that Denise tossed her star chart unceremoniously into her footwell immediately before they left the station. "Keep that thing handy. We can't just assume we're going to find something there. Remember- the note said LOOK TO THE SKY. We also don't want to scare the bejeezus out of whoever might live there, so let's just try to play this thing cool, all right? Are you with me? Do you trust me?"

"Yes... yes." Denise takes a moment to collect herself. "I'm sorry. I'm overreacting. I'm just not used to this sort of thing."

"You want to know something?" Pitt pauses for effect while keeping his eyes on the road. "Neither am I. And I don't ever
want
to be used to this sort of thing. I either want to go back to working some nice simple burglaries, or if this continues, I want to retire and leave this area. But I'm not going to ask you to do anything dangerous. I just... kind of want you here." Pitt hears himself talking and for an instant feels embarrassed.
Don't be a sap, you idiot, don't be a sap....

"Really?" Denise responds; he can't determine if she's incredulous or touched, and at the moment he realizes he just doesn't have the time.

He takes Brookside to the southern terminus of Winesap, and then turns left to head up that street. "Okay. Start looking at mailboxes. Let's find out where the hell we are. Here, take my flashlight, help me." Pitt hands her the flashlight and slows the car down, as Denise tries to pinpoint the address on various mailboxes as they roll by, but she doesn't have much success. "Here, is this the ten thousand block? Okay, it is."

The few homes on the road are surrounded by pyracantha, juniper bushes and a few palm trees; it's hard to make out any other details in the darkness, but Pitt rolls on, looking for 10404. Finally, as they approach High Street, he senses they're getting close, and indeed he spots a mailbox with larger than usual reflective numbering:
10404.
Is that deliberate?
he thinks.
Did he choose a place 'cause it has kind of distinctive numbers?
He rolls to a stop on the dirt-covered roadside, and quickly cuts his headlights off.

"Oh my God, it's an address, it's an address. What do you think is in there?" Denise is speaking in a stage whisper while the car's engine is still idling.