M Sellars - Harm none

“Just checking,” she said with a thin smile.

We moved off to the side and allowed Dr. Sanders and her assistant to carefully place the lifeless young woman into a body bag and zip it shut. They expertly placed her on a gurney and proceeded to wheel her out.

“I guess she’s been reading what the papers have had to say about me,” I stated after they left.

“She’s okay with it,” Ben told me. “She doesn’t necessarily believe in it, but she’s okay.”

Felicity was still looking a bit pale, but she seemed to be holding up well so far. She had retrieved a camera from her bag and was going about the task of photographing the back area of the room where the killer had performed his atonement ritual. We knew the pictures would be redundant, but cameras were like a focal point for her, probably due to her profession. Simply peering through a lens brought an entirely different clarity and dimension to the world around her, and she used it to her advantage.

“When do you think you’ll be notifying the husband?” I asked.

“We’ll be contacting him as soon as the M.E. gets to the morgue,” Deckert told me. “It shouldn’t be long. Why?”

“Something just doesn’t feel right,” I answered.

“You think the old man did it?” he questioned. “Like a copy cat or something, to cover it up?”

“No, that’s not it,” I replied. “I think it was the same guy, but I’ve got a really weird feeling. The whole sex thing just doesn’t fit with what this guy seems to be up to. Maybe she and the husband got together for a fling, or maybe she’s got a boyfriend, and that’s why they split up. I just don’t believe the killer raped her.”

“We’ll be checkin’ all of that out,” Ben agreed. “But remember, we’re dealin’ with a sicko here.”

“You’re right,” I told him. “But it’s too much of a deviation. I think there has to be some other explanation.”

“Hey, you two,” Felicity’s voice came from behind us. “Come over here and have a look at this.”

My wife was still holding the camera deftly in her hands but had pulled it away from her eye and was staring at the dressing table with a puzzled expression.

“Aye, is this fingerprint stuff supposed to do this?” she asked, pointing at the hardened puddle of white wax where a candle had once been.

“Supposed to do what?” Ben responded to her query with one of his own.

“Glow like that. Don’t you see it, then?”

“See what, honey?” I asked. “All I see is what’s left of a candle.”

“The fingerprint,” she pled in exasperation. “Right there in the wax. Open your eyes.”

“There can’t be a fingerprint there,” Deckert asserted. “Forensics already dusted over here, and they said the candles were clean. Besides,” he contended, “an imprint on wax would be pretty obvious.”

“It’s not an imprint on the wax,” explained Felicity. “It’s a fingerprint IN the wax. It’s like it’s inside it.” She stepped closer and thrust her index finger at the center of the small mound.

Ben and I both leaned closer but still couldn’t see anything other than the remains of a candle. Felicity was becoming more agitated each time we told her as much.

“It’s glowing, you guys,” she volunteered. “It’s like the person had something phosphorescent on his fingers or something.”

Her last statement gave me the clue I needed. Though I was still unable to see what she was seeing-and neither was Ben nor Detective Deckert, I was sure-I suddenly realized what was happening. My wife was definitely seeing the fingerprint in the wax; however, she was seeing it with what a Witch calls Second Sight. This ability is not something that can always be turned on or off at will. It is the stuff of clairvoyance and psychometry-the talent to witness the future and read the energies and impressions of inanimate objects. It was the simple gift of being able to observe those things that are hidden from earthly eyes.

“Felicity,” I posed, “could the fingerprint be on the underside of the candle? Is it possible that you’re visualizing it?”

“Aye, I suppose it could,” she said as a look of understanding spread across her face. “Yes. Yes, I think that could be it!”

“You’d better get your forensic guys to check the underside of that pile of wax,” I told Detective Deckert as I turned. “If they plan on collecting and bagging this stuff for evidence, they might destroy the print if they aren’t careful.”

Deckert hurriedly left the room and soon returned with a member of the crime scene unit who had been working elsewhere in the house.

“We already dusted this area,” he told us as he was led to the melted candle. “There’s nothing there.”

“Just humor us,” Ben told him. “I need ya’ ta’ check the bottom of the wax.”

“The bottom?” the evidence technician echoed.

“Yeah, the bottom,” Ben replied.

The young man stared at the hardened puddles with a baffled expression on his face, then shrugged. He knelt on the floor and opened a thick case he had been carrying. After rummaging briefly through its contents, his hands emerged holding a can of compressed air and a tool resembling a putty knife. Using the compressed air, he blew away the residue from the earlier dusting and cleared the area around the piles of wax.

“The white one,” Felicity volunteered. “That’s where it is.”

“Okay,” the forensics tech acknowledged in a humorless tone.

After rapidly shaking the can of air, he turned it upside down and aimed it at the remains of the white candle. The propellant in the can that normally expelled as a jet of gas when held properly upright now streamed from the nozzle as a frigid mist.

“What’re you doin’ that for?” Detective Deckert questioned.

“If I cool it down enough,” the tech explained, “I should be able to lift it off the surface in one piece.”

The technician quickly moved the spray back and forth across the wax for a few moments then released the trigger and set the can aside. Slowly and carefully, he slipped the thin, knife-like tool under the edge of the now somewhat frosted mass. With great patience and skill, he worked the blade gently around the edge as we watched on, until finally, the oblong heap of dull white paraffin popped loose in one complete piece. Setting the bladed tool aside, the technician gingerly turned the wax over in his gloved hands and inspected it closely.

“Right there in the middle,” Felicity intoned, trying to peer around him.

He remained silent, but from where I stood, I could see his face, and the expression now crossing it was one of disbelief. He placed the wax upside down on the counter then quickly retrieved a brush and small bottle of powder from his kit and began gently dusting the mass.

The candle had been a votive type and had apparently been mass-produced in a factory as was evidenced by a thin metal plate embedded in the center. The piece of metal had been the anchor used for the wick when it was originally made, and it was the focus of the evidence technician’s scrutiny at this very moment.

“I don’t believe it,” he muttered. “There’s a print there big as shit. It’s partial, but it’s a good one.”

“Son-of-a-bitch,” Deckert said slowly.

“How in hell did you know that print was there?” the forensics tech asked, turning to Felicity.

“Lucky guess,” Ben answered for her. “I want that print lifted and run yesterday,” he continued. “And while you’re at it, check all the candles from the previous crime scenes.”

“That might be a problem,” he replied.

“Whaddaya mean ‘that might be a problem’?” demanded Ben.

“There were no prints on them.” The tech visibly inched away from an angered Ben Storm. “So we just pried them up. They’re in quite a few pieces.”