Alexandra Sokoloff - Book of Shadows

The two older detectives nodded briefly and filed out of the room, giving Garrett oblique glances. He felt his blood pressure skyrocket, an ominous warning.

Palmer closed the door behind him and Garrett turned to face Malloy, seated in front of his wall of photos of himself with various Boston luminaries.

“Detective Garrett, we are not looking at McKenna as a suspect at this time.”

Garrett stared at him. “What’s the alternative?”

“The alternative is that Jason Moncrief killed McKenna and was using his home for his rituals.”

Garrett shook his head in total disbelief. “Jason Moncrief has been in jail since September twenty-third.”

“And there is no evidence to indicate anyone has been in Mc-Kenna’s house since then,” Malloy said flatly.

“So where’s McKenna’s car?” Garrett demanded. “What about the witness who saw Amber Bright get into a car matching the description of McKenna’s?”

“The witness is not credible. And even if the wit did see the car, Jason Moncrief could have been driving that car.”

“For that matter, so could I have been,” Garrett shot back.

Malloy’s eyes were stone. “That’s not necessary to prove.”

“How does Jason Moncrief end up in McKenna’s house?”

“Jason Moncrief has been placed at the scene.”

Garrett felt a shock of disbelief.

“There were CDs with his prints in an upstairs bedroom of the house,” Malloy said, with grim satisfaction.

Garrett was reeling. “You seriously think Moncrief killed Mc-Kenna and was using his house?”

“I think it’s more likely they were working together,” the lieutenant said.

“A cult?”

“A cult, quite possibly including Tanith Cabarrus.”

Garrett stared at him, and then—he couldn’t help himself. He started to laugh. And as the lieutenant glared up at him in disbelief, Garrett chortled, “That’s beautiful. That is some magnificent detective work, there, L.T. You don’t need me—you’ve solved it.” Malloy was seething, and Garrett stopped, pulled himself together. “I apologize, Lieutenant. It’s been a shitty day. I need some sleep.” He turned toward the door.

“We’re not done here,” Malloy snapped at him.

Garrett turned back.

“Your lab results came back. You have atropine in your bloodstream. Only it’s broken down, which indicates that you ingested it more than thirty-six hours ago.” Malloy stared across the room at him. “What haven’t you been telling me, Detective?”

Garrett felt a hard knot in his stomach. “I accidentally ingested the atropine in the course of the investigation. I didn’t know that… some liquid was laced with the drug—”

“Some liquid,” Malloy said contemptuously. Garrett was silent. Malloy shook his head, but Garrett saw the gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. “I know about the congress you’ve been having with that—woman.”

Congress? Garrett felt himself bristling. Oh, yeah? What do you know? The rituals? The flying? The fucking? He forced himself to remain calm as Malloy elaborated.

“The one who identifies herself as a ‘witch.’ Who has a prior relationship with Jason Moncrief—”

Garrett countered, “I’ve found no evidence of a prior—”

“Who has a criminal record for fraud,” Malloy overrode him, and Garrett stopped. “You mentioned none of this in your reports,” the lieutenant finished grimly. “This woman is an occult practitioner. She should have been listed and investigated as a potential suspect or accomplice as soon as you discovered the connection. Why was this not done?”

Garrett used every ounce of will he had to remain calm. “I consulted with her about occult rituals that were relevant to the case—”

“Is that what you call it? Consulting?” Malloy’s outrage had that tone of religious condemnation that Garrett despised. He pressed his hands into the desktop to keep silent as Malloy raged on. “Your conduct has been completely unprofessional, and your partner is now in a coma because of your negligent—”

“Coma?” Garrett interrupted, feeling as if Malloy had just hit him with a two-by-four.

“A drug-induced coma,” Malloy elaborated, and Garrett felt there was a small and sadistic measure of satisfaction for the lieutenant in delivering the news. Too sickened to look at him, Garrett turned on his heel and strode for the door.

“Tell me, Detective,” Malloy shot at him from behind. “Did this Cabarrus woman send you to that house? Is that where you got your tip?”

Garrett stopped in his tracks and turned back to look at him.

The lieutenant stared back, then nodded. “Just as I thought.” His face hardened. “We’re picking her up for questioning. Detectives Palmer and Morelli will be taking over the investigation. You’re relieved of duty pending review. Surrender your weapon—and get out.”

Detectives Palmer and Morelli led the team of uniforms to raid Tanith’s shop. Their warrant was in hand and they wore HazMat gear: suits and huge impenetrable gloves. There was no answer when they rang the bell, then pounded on the door—and then they kicked the door in, bursting into the exotically scented shop.

No cat looked up from the counter; no one answered their shouted summons. They fanned out to search the rooms and the upstairs.

The altar room was empty: no Book of Shadows, no crystals, no daggers, no cards, no candles—just the empty cabinet and shelves and the heavy drapes on the walls and the pentagram on the floor. There was no one upstairs, either, and the closet looked sparse for a woman’s room.

The police finally lowered their weapons and began methodically to tear the house apart.

Unseen by anyone, a mouse watched from a hole in the baseboard.

She was gone.

None of the neighbors questioned by the officers had any idea she was leaving. Her utilities and mortgage payments were on auto-pay; the mail had been stopped. Her car was gone. There was no forwarding message on her voice mail; there was no personal computer in the shop or upstairs; she had no e-mail accounts that anyone could find. The cat was gone; her desk and personal drawers had been cleaned out.

The detectives seized samples of belladonna from the shop. More ominously, a doll was found on the premises in the shape of Landauer: the same proportions, dressed in a suit, with a crude badge pinned to its chest.

Cabarrus’s sudden flight confirmed departmental suspicions that she was involved somehow with Landauer’s poisoning. The belladonna seized from her shop, the threat that the detectives had witnessed in the bull pen ( You’re done… ), and the weird doll were enough to justify a BOLO: wanted for questioning.

But so far there were no leads on her. She was “in the wind,” as was said in law enforcement, and Garrett thought that in this case the term was more literal than anyone might suspect.

He had more time than he wanted to think about all of these things as he camped out in the hospital beside Landauer’s bed, where his partner lay with a machine breathing for him. So far there had been no improvement.

He watched as the lung machine inflated Landauer’s chest in a slow and horribly artificial-seeming rhythm. I’ll find her, Land. I swear to you, I will.

When Garrett heard about the Landauer doll, he had risked Malloy’s wrath—and disciplinary action—to sneak into the crime lab to see Tufts. Tufts showed him the doll, and Garrett understood why the other detectives, particularly Malloy, had reacted so strongly. It was a crude and alien thing, burlap hand-sewn in the shape of a man and dressed in some doll-clothes version of a blue suit, with a metal badge pinned to the chest.