Alexandra Sokoloff - Book of Shadows

Hell is right, Garrett thought, and wondered briefly why this should be any more distressing than the killing of any young woman, a waitress, a prostitute. W. P. Carmody was the corporate and family name of a major Boston office supply company that the original William Carmody had started in the 1860s as a rubber stamp company, offering free delivery by horse and wagon. The modern corporation was the official paper goods supplier of the Boston Red Sox, the Philadelphia Phillies, and the New York Yankees, sponsored the postgame show after Red Sox games, and had built a state-of-the-art gymnasium at the current William Carmody’s alma mater, Amherst.

They weren’t going to have to worry about expediting any lab work, now. But everything had just gotten a whole lot more complicated.

“She was a sophomore at Amherst,” Malloy said, his spit-and-polish formality seeming even more brittle than usual. “Her roommate called her parents this afternoon to say that Erin didn’t come home last night and she hadn’t seen her all day. Carmody called an hour ago. The daughter is eighteen, five-six, 116 pounds.”

“Hell,” Landauer said again, in confirmation, staring down at the photo.

The lieutenant didn’t say so, but Garrett imagined Carmody had called him directly. Either the lieutenant, or maybe the police commissioner himself.

Malloy was speaking. “Carmody’s on his way over to the M.E.’s office to do the ID.” He looked across the table at Garrett grimly. “How bad is it?”

Garrett shook his head. “As bad as it can be.”

There was a heavy silence in the room. They all knew how bad it could be.

“Rape?” the lieutenant asked, tightly.

“Blood on her thighs and pubic region,” Garrett said. “But the kill looks quick.” That, at least, was a relief to say. “A single stab wound at sternum level, from the back. The decapitation was postmortem. There were… ritualistic aspects.”

“Ritualistic how?” The lieutenant’s voice had an ominous edge.

Garrett and Landauer exchanged a glance. Malloy was a devout Catholic, the protégé of a highly religious former mayor, and Garrett knew the mere suggestion of satanism was going to chafe. “There are symbols carved into the body,” Garrett said. “We’ll have to research it, but it looks occult.” He reached for a pad of paper and drew a rough approximation of the three triangles, the number 333.

The lieutenant looked both outraged and skeptical, and with good reason. In truth, crimes with “occult” elements rarely had anything to do with satanism or witchcraft. Despite a wave of purportedly satanic crimes in the 1980s, and another rash of “satanic ritual abuse” cases in the nineties that were exposed as mass hysteria, so-called occult crimes generally turned out to be clumsy postmortem attempts to mislead investigators and disguise the much more mundane motives of the real killers or, in a few infamous cases, were misidentified as occult by overzealous authorities.

“It wasn’t done for show,” Garrett clarified. “We think he didn’t expect the body to be found. This was his own private deal. And he’s definitely organized; there was planning here. He’s not going to present as a raving nutcase. I’ll set up a psych consult with Dr. Frazer ASAP.”

The lieutenant sat back, and his face was stony. “This is going to be as high profile as it gets. Everything you do will be under scrutiny.” The look he gave Garrett fairly shouted that he didn’t think Garrett was up to it.

Garrett suppressed a surge of anger, kept his tone neutral. “We’re on it.” He hesitated for a fraction of a second. “Lieutenant, this kind of sex killing… there are probably going to be more. If there haven’t been already.”

“Don’t speculate,” the lieutenant snapped. “I don’t need to hear any hunches, and I don’t need any creative ideas from you, Detective Garrett. I want this by the book—textbook.”

“Yes sir,” Garrett said, fighting an urge to deck his superior officer.

“Meet Carmody at the morgue. With kid gloves on.” Malloy stood, dismissing them.

“Yeah, he loves your ass,” Landauer said sardonically as soon as they were out the door.

“Wants me bad,” Garrett agreed. Landauer flipped him an affectionate bird and ambled off for a smoke break while Garrett headed back toward the homicide room, brooding.

Malloy was the kind of Catholic Garrett had always despised: prudish, self-righteous, a Bible-thumper. Probably thinks I’m headed straight for hell.

Then again, Garrett all too often had that effect on older authority figures.

He knew it was his own ambition that rankled; he wore it on his sleeve. But he couldn’t help himself. It was something about Boston, the city itself, that inspired greatness, that demanded greatness, something beyond the ordinary. The gleaming gold of the State House dome, the cathedrals, Faneuil Hall, the ever-present ghosts of giants: Revere, Adams, Thoreau, the Kennedys—the history of extraordinary human achievement was thrust in your face from the time you were a kid: sports heroes, political heroes, authors, philosophers, presidents.

Being a beat cop had been enough for Garrett’s father. It was not enough for him.

He turned a corner and slowed. A blonde in a Givenchy suit was striding toward him, with the devastating legs of a runway model and the confidence of a CEO. She was all the way down the hall but he could feel a wave of heat, seeing her: Carolyn Davenport, assistant DA for Suffolk County. Male heads swiveled in her wake and Garrett was hit with an uncomfortable wash of pride, possessiveness, and unease.

He couldn’t quite believe he was with her: heiress, star prosecutor, on a lightning track to a political career, following in her senator father’s footsteps. She and Garrett had fallen into bed (actually, against the wall) one night after a case he’d headed and she’d prosecuted, a triple homicide. He’d had more than his share of cop groupies and was aware of his own appeal to women: a cop’s rough-edged masculinity tempered with vestiges of altar-boy innocence, a fair education thrown in to sweeten the pot. And Carolyn had clearly been looking for a little walk on the wild side, which Garrett, no fool, was more than happy to provide, but he’d never expected her to stick. Her family money and pedigree put her way out of his league—he’d thought. But she’d seen something in him, a diamond in the rough, a restless drive that would take him out of the streets. On good days Garrett didn’t even feel like a project, but that maybe, just maybe, it was possible to grab the brass ring and ride the carousel all the way…

She reached him, stopped a few paces in front of him, a professional distance away, feet planted, accusing. “You didn’t call me,” she said, lovely, pissed off.

“We caught a case today—” he started.

“You didn’t call me about the case. ”

It hit him what she meant. She wanted it.

“We didn’t know what we had at first…” he said lamely. A lie. The truth was that he hadn’t thought of her at all.

She fixed him with a cool blue gaze. “It’s a serial, isn’t it?”

“Probably.”

“Well, I’m on it. The school connection.” It took Garrett a second to remember that Carolyn had gone to Amherst, Erin’s college, before Harvard Law. “And of course, a woman’s touch.” She smiled at him, but he could see she was still put out about not getting the call directly from him.

“You think it’s going to be kosher for you to take it—even though—”

“Even though what?” There was a warning note in her voice.

“Us,” he said, holding her eyes.

She gave him a tolerant look. “Don’t you worry about the office. That’s my job.” He felt a flash of irritation at her certainty. It was inbred, a birthright… no one had ever denied her anything.