It Never Rhines but It Pours (6 page)

The GPS announced that we had arrived at our destination. Another cookie-cutter house in a cookie-cutter subdivision. I could have been a few streets over from my own house. I was reminded of that movie with Salma Hayek where she lives in a neighborhood where all the houses look the same but she paints hers in crazy southwestern colors. Why did we all live in look-alike houses? Oh, yeah, because custom homes were way more expensive.

Cecily got out first. Her skirt and blouse still looked fresh and clean even after being out in the rain. I felt more like a partially drowned rat. The rain had soaked Sarah’s clothes as well and made her t-shirt almost see-through. I gritted my teeth and refrained from any rude comments about her appearance.

They followed me up the front walk and I had a troubling thought. Why were they acting like I was in charge? Shouldn’t Cecily be in charge? She was older, faster, and scarier. I wasn’t sure I like being the one who gave the orders. They both stopped in front of the door and waited for me to knock. Good grief. I did not want this responsibility.

I knocked on the door when it became apparent that neither Cecily nor Sarah was going to do it. A plain woman in cutoff-shorts and a t-shirt answered.

“Yes?” she asked.

I looked down at the computer printout in my hand. “Does Detective Rodriguez live here?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said again.

“May we speak with him?”

“What is this regarding?” she wanted to know.

I tried my fake smile again, “We have a few questions regarding one of the cases he is working on.”

“I’m sorry,” she smiled just as fake-ly back. “This is his day off. He’s resting and he doesn’t discuss open cases with anyone outside the police department. Regulations.” She smiled again. “You understand.”

Sarah elbowed me very unsubtly in the side. I glared at her and Cecily backed her up with a cough and an exaggerated “get on with it” head gesture.

I hated using the Voice. Becoming immortal would be horrible. But being executed now for not doing my job would be worse. I didn’t want to live forever but I
did
want to live a little longer.

I cleared my throat and used the Voice. “Please take us to your husband at once.”

She instantly invited us in to the living-room and asked if we would like anything to drink. We all declined and waited while she went to fetch her husband.

He had obviously been sleeping and I felt bad for disturbing him on his day off. “What case is this about?” he asked with a yawn.

Cecily and Sarah waited for me to speak. This was getting out of hand. I would have to talk about it with them when we were done here. I did not sign up to be the chief.

“The double homicide, ritual murder case,” I answered.

He sat up straighter. “Yes?”

“Umm,” I looked over at Sarah. I wasn’t sure how her memory thing worked. Did the person have to be thinking about what she wanted to change? Or did she just have to be near them to change their memory?

“Can you tell me your initial impressions?” I asked, trying to sound like the cops on TV.

He frowned at me, “I don’t know what my wife told you, but I don’t discuss cases with the press.”

It was Sarah’s turn to give an exaggerated cough.

“Please tell us all about the witchcraft case,” I commanded with the Voice.

His face cleared at once and he spoke, “Some teenagers found the crime scene and called it in. My partner and I were second on the scene, some uniform officers arrived first. It was pretty gruesome. I’ve seen some bad things, but this was …” he paused, “… worse.”

“Go on,” I encouraged.

“It was hard to tell how many victims we were looking at. There were only two heads, but since the arms, legs, fingers, and toes had all been dismembered, there appeared to be more body parts than two victims would account for.” Sarah made a face. I tried to keep mine blank and professional.

He went on, “There was a pentagram done in blood in the ground, with melted candles, bowls full of blood, and four silver coins. The two heads had been stuck on spikes and faced east and west.” He stopped his dry recital and said, “My partner puked up his entire lunch.” A smile came to his face in remembrance. I guess if you didn’t laugh at things in this job then you would go crazy.

“We immediately called in backup and secured the scene. The forensic guys were able to determine the identities of the victims. DNA evidence pointed to a man with prior arrests involving witchcraft.”

“DNA?” I asked.

“A hair was found at the scene, and there was a partial fingerprint on one of the bowls.”

“Really?” Sarah spoke for the first time. “Doesn’t that seem rather sloppy?”

Detective Rodriguez smiled at her in a paternal sort of way. “Things very rarely happen the way you see on TV. It is almost impossible not to leave
some
trace of DNA at a crime scene. It’s really more surprising that the hair and fingerprint were
all
we found.”

“So you arrested the man?” Sarah asked meekly. Hmph. She was going for child-like innocence and curiosity.

“Yes. Richard Parker has been brought in a couple of times for various witchcraft-related crimes. We should have no problem convincing a jury that he is guilty.”

I closed my eyes for a moment in guilt. No problem. Well, after we were done he wouldn’t remember that he had almost closed the case. I nodded at Sarah. She got a slightly unfocused look on her face.

“Thank you so much for your time, Detective Rodriguez,” I said, standing up. I paused, “Can you tell me again the name of your prime suspect?”

He shook his head. “Like I said, we don’t have a suspect yet. It’s still in the early days of the investigation. We’ve looked at some of the practicing witches in the area with priors, but all of them have come up clean. Don’t worry,” he said grimly, “we’ll get the guy.”

I gave him a sick smile. “I’m sure you will.”

We headed off for his partner’s house next. He told pretty much the same story and was taken care of in the same way. Neither one of them would remember talking with us, or arresting Richard Parker. Sarah fixed it so that they would think the killer was still out there and they needed to catch him. That was all good, I suppose. After all, the killer
was
still out there, which gave me a rather prickly feeling between my shoulder blades.

After the detectives, we had to find the two officers out on patrol. This was a little harder as it involved deciphering the shorthand of the police department to see in what area their car would be during which time. We finally tracked them down outside a Burger King and quickly erased their memories of arresting Richard Parker.

I was beat at this point and insisted that we go inside the restaurant and get a drink or something in the cool air-conditioning before doing anything else. Sarah and Cecily each got a large hamburger, fries, coke, and milkshake. I tried to make them gain weight with the power of my evil thoughts while I ordered a salad and a diet coke. Life was not fair.

Chapter Six:

Holy Ground

“Now what?” Sarah asked, dipping a french-fry into her milkshake.

“Now we have to find out who really killed those kids.” I said.

“Oh. Is that all? I thought we had something really hard to do,” she said sarcastically.

I turned to Cecily. “So, what’s the deal with not completing our Guardian assignment? I take it that the Synod won’t take ‘he was innocent and we let him go,’ as an excuse.”

“Right,” she said, dashing all my hopes that the Synod was more understanding and lenient than I was giving them credit for. “Since we let Pravus go, we have to kill someone else or be killed.”

Sarah raised her hand, “When you say ‘kill someone else’ does that mean
anyone
else, or just someone who really did do the crime?”

Cecily shrugged. “Or just someone that we can convince the Synod did the crime.”

“You mean, an innocent person?” I was annoyed. “If I wanted to whack an innocent person I would have killed Pravus and been done with it. We’re not killing someone for convenience.”

“I was just saying …” Cecily took a big bite of her burger.

I shoved some unappetizing lettuce into my mouth and chewed angrily. I did not ask for this. When I signed up to be a Guardian it had been the only option. Now my only option was to play detective and I wasn’t happy about it. This job was supposed to be easy. Be given a target. Take the target out. Cover up the mess. Go home and pretend to be normal with my husband and kids. Things were not proceeding as planned.

“How are we supposed to find out who really did this?” I wanted to know.

“We could always talk to some of the victims’ friends,” Sarah suggested. “On the cop shows the victim is always killed by someone they know.”

“That’s because it makes for more interesting TV,” I pointed out. “It’s not very entertaining if the murderer chose the victim at random with no motive.”

“That’s the word!” Sarah cried. “Motive! You find the motive, you find the killer.”

“And the cops missed this how?” I asked sardonically.

“The police stopped looking once they found Richard Parker,” Cecily pointed out. “The evidence pointed clearly to him and they did not have our inside knowledge that he has to be innocent.”

I sighed. “I wish he had been guilty. This would be a whole lot easier.”

“We could still go execute him and be done with this,” Cecily said, needlessly.

“Yeah, yeah. Been there, tried that. Not a solution.” I took a sip of diet coke. Why is it that fountain drinks taste so much better than canned or bottled? There must be extra aspartame or something in them. I know artificial sweeteners are supposed to make your brain synapses misfire and cause cancer in lab rats, but I really like the taste. Maybe I like having my synapses misfire too. I drink diet coke so often that I wouldn’t know what it was like to
not
have my synapses misfiring. Plus, I have no idea what a “synapse” is. It’s just a fun word to say.

“Do you have any better ideas?” Sarah asked.

“Than what?”

“Than talking to the victims’ friends.”

I thought for a moment. “Alright. We can track down their friends and try to get an idea of why someone would kill these two kids. Was it a crime of opportunity? Or premeditated? Was the satanic ritual real or fake? Maybe we should talk to a witch too and find out what the ritual was supposed to accomplish.”

“I know a witch we could talk to,” Sarah smiled.

“No,” I said firmly. “We are not talking to Pravus again. That man is annoying. Innocent or not, I will kill him myself if I have to be around him again.”

Cecily finished her milkshake and pushed the rest of her fries away. I was so tempted to take one. Just one! How many calories could be in one little french-fry? Self control, Piper! Self control!

“Friends it is,” Cecily said.

I looked at my watch. “We only have the rest of today and a couple of hours tomorrow to figure this out. Then I have to get back to my family. My girls will forget what I look like and start calling my mother-in-law ‘mom’ if I stay away any longer.”

“Oh, come on, Piper,” Sarah chided. “You left them with Mark, not Carolyn.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “But I guarantee that she is over there every single day I’m gone. Undermining me. Spoiling my kids. Turning me into the bad guy.”

“You’re not paranoid or anything, are you,” Cecily said dryly.

“Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean that someone isn’t out to get you,” I said wisely. “That woman hates my guts. I’m just lucky she loves my kids. Mark really does need the help. Why is it that men can’t multi-task?”

“God made women different,” Cecily smiled. “And when I say ‘different’ I mean ‘better.’”

“Still,” Sarah cut in, “Mark is completely capable of spoiling the girls rotten without his mother’s help. No matter who you leave them with you are still going to be the boring mom when you get back.” This was spoken with true love and understanding. Ha.

I had to agree though. “I know. They miss me, but when I get home life has to go back to normal and that’s hard for little kids. That’s one of the reasons why I hate to leave. That and I miss them.”

“Well then,” Cecily stood up. “We have limited time and a lot to do. Shall we ladies?”

We quickly realized that we had no destination in mind. After conferring, we decided that the best place to start was the school that both of the victims had attended. Legacy Christian School was run by the Baptist Bible Church of Kissimmee and was located on the edge of the open farm lands we had tromped through hours before.

It was a large, red brick church with white columns. Very Deep South. Since it was Saturday, I was not surprised to see only a few cars in the parking lot. Unsure where to go, we followed the signs that pointed to “Church and School Office.” They led to the main building. Over the door was the sign “Biblically Preparing Eternal Souls.” Sarah stopped short.

“Do you want to wait out here?” she asked Cecily.

“Why?” Cecily was puzzled.

Sarah pointed at the church door. “It’s a church,” she said, rather obviously.