Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #1: Books 1-4 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [classic children's novels txt] 📗

was crazy but went over, hunkered down, and looked anyway. He squinted, then pulled out his penknife and scraped at the floor. “Well, I’ll be damned… How did you know that?”

“Believe it or not, Detective, this was a Satanic ritual killing.”

He made a “really?” face, and I heard Charles snort. I pointed at the bike. “North…”

Dehan took out her phone. I frowned. She had an app that was a compass. I sighed. She said, “Exactly north.”

“Thank you. Earth, gold, wealth. You have the bike, the greatest symbol of wealth to a Hell’s Angel, and you have a small pile of dirt.” I pointed behind me. “West, water, emotion, the unconscious. The color green.” I pointed at the bottle. “The weapon through which the killer’s rage was expressed.” I pointed across at the open door. “East, air, communication, the sword athame.” I pointed at where the candle would have stood. “South, fire, red.”

I stepped over by the door. “So, having knocked him down from the west, using water in a green bottle, I come over here and I take the dagger athame, and I use it to communicate my message by stabbing it into his back. Notice that the blade does not go, as you would expect, between the ribs, but it points north-south. Now…” I stood and took a few steps back. “Charles, in order to fall in that position, how would he have had to be standing? But let me ask you this, before you answer—to have his arms splayed like that, how much force would the blow have had to carry?”

He stood. He was nodding. “It’s a very good point, John. A powerful rifle might do it. Or a Smith & Wesson magnum. And he would have had to be standing in a very bizarre position, with his legs splayed.”

Dehan was looking from Charles to me. “You’re saying he was positioned after he was killed.”

I nodded. “Yeah. What shape is he in?”

She stared at him. “A five-pointed star. A pentagram.”

“Zak had several around his club.”

Marco sighed loudly. “Is this your investigation, Stone?”

“I think so. I’ll get my commander to call your precinct. I don’t mind who has it, as long as you’re willing to share your information. This man is probably dead because I questioned him about a cold case.”

He was shaking his head. “I’ll talk to the chief. You want it, you’re welcome to it.” He stepped away, dialing his precinct.

Charles was stripping off his gloves and closing his black bag. “You done with the body?”

“Yeah. You’ll let me know if anything unexpected shows up?”

He saluted and left, and the guys brought in the gurney to take Hank away. Dehan watched them wheel him out and asked me, “Why do you know that?”

I stared at her a long time, like I was wondering whether to tell her something or not. Finally, I sighed and said, “There is an ancient mystery. It dates back to the fifteenth century, 1455, in Germany. Though it is said that the mystery is rooted in much older traditions that go back to ancient Japan and Korea…” I paused. She was watching me, waiting. I said, “Books. It’s called books.”

“Jerk. Why would you read a book on ritual magic? Athame, the north, gold, earth…”

I shrugged. “You start reading Freud, that leads you to Jung, next thing you know you’re reading Kabbala. One thing leads to another.”

The CSI team were bagging the bottle and the sand and dusting the bike for prints when Marco came back.

“We’re happy to let you have it, Stone. My chief will call your chief, and we’ll send over all the stuff. Take it easy.”

I gave him a thumbs-up and he left. The CSI guys finally packed up and left too, and Dehan and I were left alone. I stood staring at the space where Hank had lain, trying to visualize what had happened.

Dehan spoke suddenly. “He must have brought the candle, the bottle, and the sand with him. He would have stepped in here…” She stood in the doorway, with the rain spattering behind her, looking in. “What did Hank say? How did he receive him?”

“He was scared.”

“Because he pulled out his phone and started to call you, walking away, toward the bike. That means one thing. He recognized his killer as somebody dangerous, that you needed to know about.”

“That’s good.”

“So is the killer alone? If it’s two or three Angels, good luck finding anyone who noticed some bikers at a bike garage on a rainy day. “

“Either way, he didn’t run and it doesn’t look like he put up a fight.”

“So he was scared enough to call you, but not panicking or fighting for his life. For some reason he walks over there, toward the Harley.” She paused. “Now that’s important.”

“Why?”

“Because the Harley is the right color for the north. I can’t imagine that the killer brought a 1200 CC with him just to place it in the north end of the garage when he killed him. So we have to believe that the positioning of the bike was fortuitous. Which suggests a degree of opportunism. The killing pentacle was constructed around existing elements. The door for the air, the bike for the north.”

I sighed and rubbed my face. A cold breeze crept in through the door and wheedled its way into my ankles.

“Ritual and note suggest a serial killer. But we are both thinking Zak—it all points to Zak, which would make it a motive killing, a punishment execution. And, also, as Fenninger said, Zak does not fit our profile.”

We were silent a moment, and then she went on like I hadn’t said anything.

“Hank moves toward the Harley, dialing your cell. As he does so, Zak, or whoever, moves across, taking out the bottle to place himself in the west, and smashes