Alexandra Sokoloff - Book of Shadows

Garrett was aware of Landauer tensing in recognition just as he did. And Landauer didn’t even know about the voices Garrett had discovered on Jason’s interview tape; Garrett hadn’t remembered to tell him. That’s three times, now, the babble of voices. What the fuck is that about?

“Freaked me the fuck out,” the drummer mumbled, off in his own world. There was a distinct chill in the room.

“So—what?” Landauer suddenly said, too loudly. “You thought he was pranking you? Fucking with the sound?”

The three musicians were silent. “Yeah,” Hartlaub finally said, flatly. “Sure.”

There was a long silence, which Garrett finally broke. “When you heard Erin Carmody was dead and Jason was arrested, what did you think?”

“Complete freakout,” the drummer muttered from the drum set.

Garrett glanced to him. “You were surprised?”

“Whoever thinks that shit is going to happen?” Hartlaub said.

“Did you think it was possible?” Garrett said, looking around at all the boys.

The bassist glanced toward the hole in the wall, but said nothing.

Hartlaub shrugged… then for a moment, he looked bleak, older than his years. “Something wasn’t right.”

“Ever get the sense this kid wasn’t right?” Landauer said as they walked over dirty sidewalks back to the Cavalier, with traffic blowing by them on the industrial street. “At least now we know why. His daddy was a sumbitch. Explains everything. My daddy was a sumbitch, too. Whose wasn’t? Nowadays that’s supposed to mean something.” Land waggled his fingers like a distressed drag queen. “Boo fucking hoo.”

Garrett let all that pass. “Teague lied about never going to Cauldron,” he said.

Land shook his head. “You know, Rhett, I knew you were gonna be all over that. Why don’t you just admit you have a hard-on for that guy?”

“I’m just saying—he lied.” He’s an asshole, with a temper, he’s a lot stronger than Jason, and he was pissed.

“Bottom line, his alibi’s gold,” Landauer reminded him. It was true. Kevin Teague had spent the night of Erin’s murder on a basketball court in full view of hundreds of sports fans, then on a bus full of his teammates plus four coaches and assistant coaches, and then in a hotel suite in Connecticut with five other people. Unless he had hired someone to kill Erin, he had had nothing to do with it.

And Garrett had to admit, everything else the band had said pointed to Jason, not Teague. It was all starting to sound like a broken record. A disturbed kid, possibly psychotic. A perfect match for Frazer’s profile. But there were some things that didn’t fit, that twisted and poked at Garrett like broken glass.

They had reached the Cavalier, and as Landauer stepped off the curb onto the street, Garrett suddenly spoke. “You catch that about the babbling voices?”

Landauer’s face tightened. “Kid is a musician. Sound technician,” he reminded Garrett.

“It was on our interview tape, Land.” Garrett put his hands on the top of the Cavalier and looked across at his partner as cars raced by behind him. “I played it back and I heard it.”

Landauer looked back at him for a minute. “The stereo was on, remember? Don’tcha think that might account for any—babbling?” He shook his head. “Don’t let all this freak you out, G. Kid’s in jail. What’s he gonna do?” He pulled open the passenger door and lowered himself into the car. After a moment, Garrett did the same.

Inside, as Garrett started the engine, Landauer leaned forward and switched on the radio.

“In our top local news, the district attorney’s office will seek charges of first-degree murder for Amherst sophomore Jason Moncrief in the killing of W. P. Carmody heiress Erin Carmody. Carmody’s mutilated body was found in the Pine Street landfill on Saturday morning. Both students were residents of Morris Pratt Hall on the Amherst campus; authorities are investigating rumors that Moncrief may have been stalking Carmody.”

“Sounds like Shelley’s been talking,” Landauer grunted. Garrett frowned; he’d been thinking the same thing.

The female anchor continued. “Sources speculate that there were satanic aspects to the killing.”

“Look what you learn on the radio,” Landauer said with exaggerated delight. “There are satanic aspects to our killing.”

The radio anchor continued, in that oh-so-serious news voice. “Assistant District Attorney Carolyn Carver announced the charges on the courthouse steps.”

Carolyn’s smooth, silky voice replaced the announcer’s. Garrett felt himself start to harden, even hearing her on the radio. “The state is certain that the grand jury will hand down charges of murder in the first degree in this incomprehensible crime.”

Landauer glanced toward Garrett. “She’s a star.”

“Yes, she is,” Garrett agreed without inflection. In his mind he could see Tanith Cabarrus leaning across the table to put her hand on the grimoire, see her black eyes, hear her voice.

“You’re wrong. And you know it.”

He reached and turned up the radio, letting Carolyn drown out the voices in his head. “We are confident that we will win justice for Erin Carmody and her family.”

Garrett made the turn downtown, hoping to God that she was right.

The grand jury hearing went off without a hitch.

Garrett and Landauer spent a day testifying in the stifling conference room at Three Pemberton Square, the high-rise courthouse. Jason did not appear; the defendant’s attorney does not put up a defense for grand jury hearings, and all the state had to show was probable cause. Carolyn smoothly and expertly led the detectives through their recounting of the witnesses’ testimony, and after just an hour of deliberation the grand jury had handed down a true bill of indictment: murder in the first degree.

The detectives decided to take a well-deserved night off, but Garrett pled exhaustion to Carolyn and took a rain check on her offer of a debauched celebration. The real truth was that his gut was gnawing at him. His grand jury testimony had been an honest presentation of the facts as he knew them, but all his doubts about the case were raging. Most people they arrested were so obviously, patently guilty that Garrett never had any qualms. Even in the highly unlikely circumstance that the suspect was not guilty of what they’d arrested him for, he was without a doubt guilty of something .

But this case—there was nothing that felt right about it.

Now as the sun set outside his dining-room window, Garrett sat at the table that was never used for dining, surrounded by stacks of Jason’s belongings: the magic books, the bloodred leather grimoire, the file boxes containing the contents of Jason’s desk drawers and bookshelves.

Garrett pulled the grimoire toward him and opened the cover. The pages were dated, almost as if the book were a diary of sorts. Garrett stood and retrieved the substitution code Tanith had written for him from the desk drawer where he’d hidden it, then sat back down with it to translate the first date. Jason had begun the book in May, May 14. And according to his friends, his personality had changed radically over the summer, and not for the better. His behavior had become bizarre, he had violent outbursts, he was scaring people around him. Then on September 21, a girl he had known and likely dated, and had been with that night, was murdered.

How does that happen?

Garrett reached for a plastic evidence crate, the books and other items he had requested from Jason’s dorm room, and rooted around in it until he found the Current 333 CD. He rose and put the disc in his sound system, then stood in his living room, listening. It was death metal but with some sophisticated musicality going on (undoubtedly coming from the bass player, and possibly Jason himself). Garrett could hear the influence of The Cure, U2, R.E.M. The word “Choronzon” stood out immediately. “The Master of Hallucinations,” Jason had said, and now, listening to the music, Garrett caught the words “My Master” and “Mighty devil” and something that sounded like “Sacrifice to your will,” but Jason’s voice was little more than a growl and Garrett couldn’t be sure what he was hearing. He checked the CD for liner notes, but there were no lyrics.