A Life of Death: Episodes 9 - 12 (2 page)

“I can see your point,” Rollen replied. “Seems kinda insane… paranoid even, but if that’s how it is down there, then you do what you’ve gotta do. I can tell there’s somethin’ nagging you about your suspect, though.” Rollen grabbed the printouts off the printer.

“Well, I haven’t found the kinds of things I’d expect to. Irene certainly got away close to scot-free on the murder of her husband, and some of the characteristics are the same: arson and such. However, I expected to find more mementos of her murders—you know, souvenirs.”

Sergeant Rollen took a deep breath and sighed. “Yeah, most serial killers do. Maybe you just haven’t looked closely enough,” he added with a shrug.

I looked close enough to tell what size undies she wears,
I wanted to add, but didn’t.

“Where’d you hear about this woman anyway?”

“Anonymous tip,” I answered, knowing those were always less than reliable and didn’t help my case.

“No wonder,” was all he said. A moment later he continued though. “However, that isn’t your biggest problem.” My face tightened as he slid one of the sheets to me, a flight report. “Last year, she left town early to burn their DC house down.”

He was right. According to the flight statement, the ticket was for September 20, at 12:53 a.m.
How did I miss this?

“Do you know when the murders took place on the twentieth?”

“Yeah,” I replied with a disheartened nod, “the night of. The time and location varies, which is why we haven’t been able to catch her, but it’s always the night of the twentieth—Shit!” I hissed, crumpling the paper in my fist. “She couldn’t have been there.”

“Nope, not if she really murdered her husband. You said the locations changed, but they’re always in Tranquil Heights, right?”

“Yeah, except for her husband’s murder. I figured that was number fifteen, but you don’t think she did it, murdered Victor?” I asked, intrigued by the idea, although my own memory of the murder confirmed that she had.

“I didn’t say that. I worked the case—that’s how I know there wasn’t any bumbling going on—but leave it to the bureaucrats to run in fear whenever someone with a high-powered attorney steps up. She did it, but that means she’s not your gal.”

Taking a stab in the dark, I asked, “Did her husband have any tattoos, by chance?”
Maybe we lucked out. Maybe the tickets weren’t just for her. Maybe it was her husband all along and I’ve been chasin’ a ghost all this year.
The thought stirred me with excitement, but also seemed hollow and unlikely.

Rollen perused the documents and autopsy report before saying, “Nah, nothin’ that I know of, but he was pretty charred up. It would’ve been hard to tell. Why do you ask?”

As the feminine voice echoing from the monster’s snout in my past visions came to mind, my shoulders slumped as though mimicking Jessie’s earlier. “That’s just one of the few things I’ve found that tie the murders together, an ankh tattoo, but the serial killer couldn’t have been Victor Harris.”

“How do you know?”

Closing my eyes for a second, I pondered telling the truth, but knew it would end any hope of future information.
Yes, Rollen’s superstitious, but will he buy my story?
“I can’t really say, but a reliable witness told me it was a woman’s voice he heard.”

“You’re sure?”

I nodded.

“Okay then. Seems like you’re back where you started. You know there’s more women in this country than men, right? You’ve got a long way to go, and a new question to answer: if Victor Harris wasn’t victim fifteen, who was? Worse yet, was there a murder last year, or did she take the year off?”

“Yep,” I said with a frown as the added uncertainty piled on. “I’ve got one more question for you, though. Can you look into Greg Rayson?”

Rollen spun his computer chair to fully face me. “Why? Didn’t you just say you were sure it was a woman?”

I wanted to tell Rollen about Greg Rayson and Evie Cervantes, to expose him, to mention her
abuela
, Mrs. Sanchez, and Louis’s needless death, but none of these were callous murders. The living were suffering, and there was no one to avenge, no justice to serve. The deaths were so closely linked that it would rip apart all of their lives and end their livelihood if the health department found out. The Taco Hut couldn’t be using the same meat, no matter how vivid my nightmarish imagination was. Weighing the costs against the suffering of the living, I stood in silence. Rollen just stared until I finally said, “Yeah, but there might be a connection. It’s a hunch.”

The sergeant’s eyes said he knew there was more to it, but he said nothing and turned back to his computer. Pulling up another screen, Rayson’s rap sheet appeared. “He’s got some priors, a B and E as a kid, a couple DUIs, and a domestic disturbance with his ex-wife, but their addresses are separate now. It appears they divorced and are living in different states. There’s nothing to implicate Rayson, though. We’re pretty hooked up to things, but without giving me more to go on, I can’t fully investigate the guy. Your department might be able to though.”

I nodded.
Just a man in the wrong place at the wrong time who made some bad decisions.
The inner turmoil of the decision whether to fess up ate at me, and Rollen’s face turned quizzical.

“What’s on your mind?”

I shook my head. “Nothin’ I can say until I’ve got more to go on. You got a card? I’ll let you know if I come up with anything.”

Rollen pulled one from his breast pocket and handed it to me. “Alright—Alex, was it?”

“Yep.” I gave him a half smile. “Alex is fine.”

He reached out a hand. “Keenan Rollen. My friends call me Keen.”

I shook it.

“By the way, keep your investigation on the down low. Not too many guys on the force up here like outsiders traipsin’ through. If you get something, call me. The last thing we need is a fiasco with cops working out of their jurisdiction. At least if I’m involved, we can keep things legal and from becoming a thorn in the bureaucrats’ asses.”

“Sure thing, Keen. You have my word on that.”

As I turned away, he added, “And if you finally come to a decision about that other stuff or just want to run it by another professional, let me know.”

I nodded and stepped out from behind the corner, heading to where Jessie sat waiting in the car. Flipping out my cell, I called home base and got Taylor, our only dispatcher. She said she’d look into Rayson further, but it was really just a shot in the dark.

* * *

“Find anything worthwhile in
big brother’s
office?” asked Jessie when I ducked into the driver’s seat.

“Only if you call having to start at the beginning worthwhile.”

“So Irene’s off the hook?”

“It appears that way.”

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” he shouted, breaking from his distraught expression. “Now don’t get me wrong, I ain’t tryin’ to get people off. But I’ve been sayin’ those ankh tattoos really aren’t connected for years.”

I nodded, sullen with the lack of prospects after years of investigating and so many murders.
Maybe he was right.
Something tickled the back of my brain, telling me the tattoos were still important, but thus far they’d gotten me nowhere.

“So where to next?” he added, a bit more cheery than before.

I shrugged. “Home, James.” I turned to shift the car into gear and spotted an assortment of flyers and advertisements in the center-console shelf. “What’s up with the flyers? You trying to clutter up the car and get me charged for cleaning?” I grabbed the handful and scanned them.

“Nothin’ much. Just got a girl I’ve been dating for a while. I thought I’d take her out. She’s into that kinda thing.”

“What… food?” I asked, holding up a flyer with a pizza coupon advertising two-for-one. “Most people are, Jessie.” I grinned, but the look disappeared when I saw what was on the back.

“Nah, not the pizza. The stuff on the ba—”

“Yeah, I see it,” I mumbled, lost in thought.

“She’s into that Egyptian-mythology stuff,” he added, but the words seemed distant and muted. “GW’s got something going on…”

On the color flyer was an advertisement for George Washington University’s Archaeology department. However, what caught my eye was the brown bowl pictured below the title. In jagged hieroglyphics was a line of symbols and connecting lines in black ink. A stick figure seemed to be moving around as though it were an ancient flipbook. In one hand it held a large key in the shape of an ankh, and in the other was a staff with an angled, oblong head and a forked base. I couldn’t decipher the text, but the key and creature’s head brought back a particular vision of the first victim, Junior Lee. Vague images of the woman’s mask had been silhouetted at times by torchlight. In my drugged state I hadn’t been able to make out more than partial figures, but piecing them together the image began to take shape. The depiction on the bowl was of a man with a wolf’s head. I hadn’t been able to make out the creature in the visions before, but this couldn’t be coincidence.

“Alex, what is it?” Jessie asked, pulling me from my thoughts.

“Give me a minute,” I said, holding up an index finger. The tug in the back of my mind wouldn’t let up. My research and the Internet had been pretty reliable, but maybe there was more to it. I tried our local college years ago, but unfortunately they shut down the archeology program due to budget cuts. “You know, you may be right about the tattoos, but I’ve got a hunch that there’s more to it. I think the ankh’s the key.” I flipped over the flyer and slapped the image. “See, it’s a key, literally, and that’s exactly what I saw.”

“What, Anubis?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s a dog-headed god. He was over life and death or somethin’ back when Egyptians ran things.”

“I ran across him in my past research, but it just hit me what that creature was.”

“You know, you could have mentioned that before: like years ago, before more than a dozen people were murdered.”

I lowered my head. “I didn’t realize it before. You don’t understand how hard it is to interpret these memories, especially when the victims are drugged. I barely realized the glimpses I got of the wolf and ankh were one and the same.”

“Dog.”

“Right.” I paused, squinting at my friend. “Wait, how come you never mentioned you knew about this?”

“Because everyone does.” He made a wide circle with his arms. “It’s nothing new. Didn’t you see
Stargate
? There were ankhs and Anubises all over in it. It’s about different worlds, somewhere people still worshipped Ra and the ancient Egyptian gods. It came out years ago.”

I shook my head. “No, I haven’t, but I know someone who can tell us more than we ever wanted to know.” I pointed at the bottom of the flyer where Dr. Mohammed Kamal’s name was listed as a guest speaker, a visiting Egyptian historian.

“Alex, you gotta get a hold on yourself here. You’re grasping at straws. Irene, the only reason you came up here, is innocent. You’ve got nothing left to go on, so you’re gonna barge in on a visiting professor from Egypt based on a hunch? Does that sound sane to you?”

“Yes, it does,” I agreed immediately. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this before. The ankh tattoos might be the key to breaking open this whole case.”

The astonished look on Jessie’s face was almost comical, except for the ounce of fear hiding behind his eyes.

What’s he hiding?
I thought as I pulled into traffic.

Eight

Present or Past?

September 16, 2011

Pulling into the GWU campus, Jessie spotted the sign first. “There! Over there,” he said, pointing at a large, red-brick, two-story building with unique cornicing and window air conditioners hanging out upper-story windows. The look of it was quite interesting compared to other buildings on campus.

“Anthropology, right?” I asked.

“That’s what the guy on the phone said,” Jessie replied. “The Anthropology department hosts a bunch of the exchange students and visiting professors for the other departments. I couldn’t believe it when Dr. Kamal said he’d see you. You know he probably never sees anyone outside of the school faculty and students.”

“That may be exactly why he agreed,” I said, grabbing my hat off the backseat and stepping out.

“Maybe. I still think you’re chasin’ your tail on this, though,” Jessie added.

I waved him off and locked the car. “We’ll soon see who’s right.”

“Hold up a second,” Jessie said, walking around to my side, eyeing me up and down. “You gotta stop wearing that hat, Alex.”

“What do you mean,” I asked, taking the fedora off my head and flipping it over in my hand. “It’s nice. It looks good.”

“You ever seen those gangster movies set in the forties? If you were wearing a suit you’d look just like them,” Jessie explained. “You’ve gotta get rid of it. I’m tired of seeing you out of the corner of my eye and thinkin’ any second you’re gonna pull a tommy gun on my ass. Talk about conspicuous.” He snatched the hat out of my hand. Opening the door, he tossed the fedora inside like a Frisbee.

“Come on, Jess. It’s my style.”

“Dude, you look like the stereotypical dick, and I do mean that in both possible ways.”

I frowned at him. “It’s not that bad. I like it.”

“I know, Alex. I know what you’ve been doin’ over the years. You don’t want to be that kid you were while growing up. You’ve even created this whole persona—”

“No, I never—” I interrupted, but Jessie didn’t stop. He was on a roll, and this time he was being serious. It was one of those rare conversations where I could tell.

“You can’t stop being who you are. You’re a good guy. You’re not your stepdad.”

I breathed a sigh of resignation. It wasn’t snowing yet, but winter was certainly on its way. Feeling an anticipatory chill as a cold wind swept past, I pulled at the collar of my black overcoat. “This gotta go, too?”

Jessie smiled and glanced at the fall leaves on the large oaks and maples around us. “Nah, that looks cool. Now you’re stylin’. Plus, it’s a bit too chilly to go without a jacket. Let’s see this mad professor of yours.”

I shook my head and ran a hand through my black, wavy curls as we headed into the building. “Paige likes that hat,” I mumbled.

“Good for your wife. When you’re in the bedroom, wear it for her. Till then, keep it in the trunk.”

* * *

It didn’t take long to find Dr. Kamal, just three wrong turns through the corridors of the building and a confused stop in a random secretary’s office for directions. The Anthropology building was much larger than it looked from the outside. I knocked on the door to the office they had supplied the visiting professor and entered at the request of the deep voice inside.

The room was dark and without windows, reminding me a little of our local jail cells, but that’s where the similarities stopped. A desk lamp and two wall sconces brightened the otherwise gruesome atmosphere. A battered skull sat atop the mahogany desk, and a wide, matching credenza spanned three-quarters of the back wall. A few pieces of ancient pottery were enclosed in luminescent glass cubes and spaced appropriately on top of it. A dark-skinned man in his fifties with a scraggly beard and charcoal eyes rose to meet us, offering me his hand. “Good to meet you—Mr. Drummond, yes?”

I nodded and shook his hand. “That’s me, and this is my friend Jessie Arturo. Thanks for taking the time to see us.”

“No problem. This murderer, or serial killer you spoke of on the phone, seems very unusual,” he added. He spoke perfect English, but his accent inflected every word. Motioning to an occupied chair at the side of the office, he said, “And this is Dr. Mayna.”

The woman was about our age and wore a black business skirt and white blouse. She rose and nodded, shaking both of our hands in turn. “It’s nice to meet you. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m the local professor at GW on Egyptian history and wanted to sit in.”

“The more the merrier,” I replied, draping my jacket over the arm of the chair Dr. Kamal indicated and lowering myself onto the leather seat. Jessie took the other one facing the desk. “This is actually more than I could hope for. I’ve been investigating a serial killer for years, but our local resources are a bit sparse. I’ve had to rely on the Internet.”

Dr. Mayna grimaced as soon as I mentioned the Internet, but Dr. Kamal just nodded. “The net can be helpful, Mr. Drummond, but you really should have come to us sooner. There are all too many misstatements online,” Dr. Mayna chided in her perfect, college-educated speech. However, I thought I heard a hint of southern drawl subtly clinging to her words. Dr. Kamal nodded again, but had nothing to add. “Now,” she continued, “why haven’t we heard anything about this serial killer, and how many years has it been going on?”

“Well, you haven’t heard because the mountain folk in southwest Virginia are a bit tight-lipped, especially when it comes to things they find embarrassing. Fourteen or fifteen years of unsolved murders can be a little embarrassing.”

“So the murders aren’t happening here?”

“No, down in Tranquil Heights, about seven hours from here.”

“I see—wait, how many years?”

Jessie chimed in then. “It’s complicated. Alex followed a woman up here to DC who he thought was the murderer, but we just found out she’s not. Big surprise there.”

I shot him a look that would boil water, but he ignored me.

“Now, there may or may not have been a murder last year,” he continued. “She did commit a murder, but she did it here. Plus the timing wasn’t right.”

My eyelids grew tired as he piled on the complications and setbacks, and I slumped against the back of the chair. “Yeah, that about sums it up.”

“Okay. So what brings you here? What can we do to help?” asked Dr. Mayna.

Dr. Kamal placed both elbows on the desk and rested his chin on his interwoven fingers, intent on our answer.

“I found out a few things when I first began researching years ago. I’m pretty sure the information is reliable, but am beginning to think there might be more to it.

“The murders began just after I finished high school. By the time I made the police force, the murders had a mystique about them. Officers and detectives tried for years to find the killer, but couldn’t. I’ve come the closest, but I still don’t have the proper evidence. When I first came across the remnants of a staff in one of the victim’s hands, it helped to focus my research. We’d known they were ritualistic killings, but not what kind. What I found left impressions on the body in the shape of this.” I unfolded the flyer from my pocket and pointed at the depiction of Anubis’s staff.

Both professors nodded again. Dr. Mayna mumbled, “A Was staff.”

“A what was a staff?” asked Jessie, his brows furrowed.

“No, a Was staff. That’s what they were called. It used to be spelled differently, obviously, but that was the Egyptian name for them,” Dr. Mayna added. “They represented the power of the gods. Lots of gods were depicted with them throughout Egypt on artifacts, clothing, tombs, and a variety of other places.”

Dr. Kamal nodded once more, but said nothing. His silence and dark eyes hiding under bushy eyebrows were beginning to unnerve me.

“Yeah, that’s what I found.”

“So you found an actual staff?” Dr. Kamal interjected, curious.

I shook my head. “No, not quite. I felt it—” I stopped myself and reconsidered my words. “I think it’s a Was staff. The autopsy report even showed a burn pattern and gave me its approximate dimensions.”

“How big was it?” Dr. Kamal asked, his interest piqued.

“About five feet tall with an angled head, like in the picture. I think the bottom forked.”

“The head is normally an ornate carving of an animal head,” Dr. Kamal explained. “The Set head, people often call it.”

“Whoa-whoa-whoa, what in the world? What’s a Set? Is there a set of these things? Do they, like, come in a package you pick up at the local corner store?” Jessie asked.

Dr. Mayna waved a hand. “No, nothing like that. Set is another Egyptian god. The Set animal was his mascot. It was a kind of wild dog from the deserts of North Africa.”

“So do you guys think this thing that’s been attacking people is a god?” He looked from me to them, waiting for an answer. After searching for the murderer for so many years, the question seemed at first to hold possibility.

“No,” Dr. Kamal answered. “The gods don’t meddle in human affairs.”

“Wait, but they do exist?” Jessie asked.

Both professors looked at Jessie like he’d just asked what color underwear they were wearing. The question was one I’d pondered for years—not in relation to the Egyptian gods, but considering my gift and how unexplainable it was, I couldn’t fully accept or reject the idea. I’d more or less just learned to deal with it and take my future into my own hands. Dr. Mayna answered first. “Mr.…,” she said, drawing out the word.

“Arturo,” Jessie supplied.

“Look, Mr. Arturo, it’s complicated,” she continued. “Whether gods actually exist or are just figments of human imagination doesn’t matter here. What matters is who’s behind the murders.” Dr. Kamal looked like he had something to add, but rather than do so he simply nodded at Dr. Mayna’s remark. Turning her attention back to me, she asked, “Detective Drummond, what else do you know?” I considered the few conclusions I’d been able to come to, but before I could answer, she said, “Before you mentioned that the killer was a ‘she.’ Are you sure about that? You said yourselves that you were wrong about the woman you followed here.”

How to answer? I can’t tell them how I know.
“It… It’s a hunch, a solid one.”

Her eyelids drew down in a look that spoke volumes about what wasn’t being said and her silent opinion of my leaving it out.

“Look, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Just trust me, it’s a woman,” I added.

“Okay, let’s say it is,” she said, an undercurrent in her tone showing her skepticism. “Is there anything else you have to go on? For instance: how often do the murders happen, is there any regularity to it, what’s the murderer’s motivation for the ritual sacrifices?”

It wasn’t the first time those questions had tumbled through my mind. For years I’d wondered. “Every year on September 20. I’m not sure about her motivation. The whole department’s tried to find an answer to that at one time or another, but all of the murders have occurred in and around our little town, aside from the last one.”

She cocked her head at my final comment.

Jessie said, “We assumed the last one was Irene’s husband. She burnt him alive in their house here in DC, but we’ve pretty much decided she didn’t do it. It’s a good thing, too, because that woman was hot!” Turning his attention to Dr. Kamal, Jessie hissed, “You should have seen her when we first arrived. Even after the flight she looked like the hottest school teacher you’ve ever met with an added dose of
good-God!”

Dr. Kamal smirked. “I went to a religious school. My teachers were all nuns.”

I bent my head into my hand, massaging my temples.

“So, about the motivation issue,” Dr. Mayna said, trying to hide the look of disgust on her face. “It probably is a ritual sacrifice, like you mentioned. There has to be some significance to September 20, but nothing stands out in my mind that would be relevant. Maybe it’s something personal? But there has to be more to it. The Was staff ties it to Egyptian culture and a couple others. Is there anything else that will help us narrow it down?”

Clearing my throat, I said, “The ankh symbol.”

Jessie bowed his head at the mention, but Dr. Kamal’s eyebrows shot up. “The ankh? That’s fairly common. It exists in ancient Egyptian religions and goes back to others. It’s very big even now, although its meaning has become somewhat distorted.”

“Yeah, I know. In my research I found that it was supposed to symbolize the unity of man and woman. Supposedly it meant a blessed union or something. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Why kill only people with ankh tattoos?”

Dr. Kamal’s face contorted in thought. “So, all of the victims had this… this tattoo?” His words were still thick, but thankfully easy to comprehend.

“I’m not sure about all of them. Like I said, a few people had already died by the time I came onto the force. I was interested in it before then, but wasn’t privy to the information firsthand. I was just a kid. I’m pretty sure they did though. Unfortunately, the bodies were burnt beyond the extent that we could tell. I looked at some pictures of the victims and saw the tattoos. Other times friends and family corroborated the story. That accounts for most.”