Ruddy Richardson: The Innocence

Chief Merrels had sunk back into the depths of his chair. “Yes, but why now?”

“Why ever?” Kelly countered. “Why start in the first place. That’s more of the question. But maybe now it’s easier. Maybe they have figured out what to do and how to do it. Or maybe they have a new reason. Maybe the first two were just trials.”

Rita looked at her friend with a hint of disbelief. Where had that come from? She was taking the death of her neighbor far too personally. She was getting too involved into this. Rita needed to end this conversation before her friend went too far and ruined the chances of the Police Chief taking them seriously.

“Anyways, here is all the information we found.” Rita interrupted, handing over a pack of copies and texts. “Obviously you know better what to do with all this that’s why we are here.” Turning to her friend she added, “I think it’s time we let the Chief do his job and we go enjoy a distraction.” Her friend turned to her with a look of weary bitterness across her features. “How can we find any enjoyment in any of this?” She looked down at the papers on the chief’s desk but let herself be led away. Chief Merrels watched the girls disappear down the hallway then turned to look at the “evidence”. He had to give them credit. Those two little librarians had come up with some pretty damning suggestions. But was it possible in this little town, for something to go so completely wrong.

He remembered the murder of Bobby Warren. The body had been mutilated as though it had been an act of desperation before it was tied and sent to the bottom of the cove. Skin had been removed from the face, stomach, and legs, as well as two finger bones, the tongue and the eyes. Blood had been found in the woods close by but had been mistaken for a hunter’s kill rather than a child’s murder. The boy had suffered, that much the coroner had been sure of. It was messy, unplanned, but not a shred of evidence was found. He consoled himself on this failure with the fact that in the 80’s the type of analysis that could have solved the case hadn’t been released to the field quite yet. Now with the most recent murders, he couldn’t deny the fact that it had reminded him directly of the Warren case. The three children. Their peaceful faces. Their mutilated bodies. The strange marks on the spines. Coroner Michaels had said they had been drugged before dying. But still it was horrifying to think that someone could have done such a thing. Something about their deaths echoed in his mind and connected with the Warren boy. Ritualistic, one journalist had described it. Merrels would have to agree. Ritualistic is exactly what it was. But in a catholic community that kind of statement was likely to set off a modern day witch hunt. This was exactly the kind of situation he had hoped to avoid by becoming the Chief of a town with a population under 5,000. And now here it was dropped in his lap. It was time to get to work. Merrels pulled a pack of Camel’s from the back of his drawer and struck a match. It was going to be a long night.

Walking out of the police office Rita did her best to muster up her energy and instill her friend with a lighter purpose. “C’mon. I think it’s time I take you up on the blind date offer.”

Kelly looked at her with a sad sort of smile. “Really?”

“Sure. How about tomorrow night?”

“What about the kids? Do you have a sitter or anything?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about them. They’ll be fine. It’s you I’m worried about. I have the perfect person for your date though.”

“Wait, who?”

Rita let out a laugh that surprised the both of them as though they hadn’t heard any sound of the like in too long. “I can’t tell you, it’s supposed to be a blind date! I'll see you at 7 tomorrow. Try and enjoy the weekend huh?”

Kelly replied with a sidewise smile touched with a hint of bitterness as she fingered the keys for her own pickup. “I’ll try.” She replied and without either saying goodnight the two departed for their homes, both thinking of children gone missing.

Once home Rita made the calls and verified the blind date for the next night. Matthew Bradson, an old friend and the teacher at Little Pearls Pre-School agreed to the set-up with his only condition being that he knew the other man going. Since he and Jack had been buddies since Jack had come to Oyster Bay he had no hesitations choosing the location and promising to show. Matthew was known to be a bit of a lady’s man, making his rounds of the eligible women in town and those just traveling through earning himself a bit of a reputation. Rita knew him to be a standup guy and trusted him to show his date a respectfully good time. “Trust me, Rita. I wouldn’t miss this chance to make some lucky lady’s night.”

When Rita hung up the phone she pulled out her journal to jot down the points of the day’s investigation. Three children and two tourists had seemed to fall victim to a similar fate. What was it that made them connected besides the subjects themselves? There was something missing from the puzzle, some piece that could make the whole picture come into focus. Eyes drowsy from the day she resigned to putting down the book and turning off her bedside lamp. Falling asleep, she began thinking of her own children sleeping safely in the rooms. She knew she had made the right choice bringing them here for safety but maybe this wasn’t the right small town to look for sanctuary in. She looked over to her nightstand and the small Aztec engraving she had picked up on a summer vacation with the kids last year, closing her eyes to the memories. Suddenly her eyes shot open and she flipped the lamp back on. She grabbed the engraving to look in closer detail at what she remembered the tour guide describing as a sacrificial ceremony. There on the altar lay the slave with his heart beating in the priest’s hand; the priest’s face pulled into a grimace of victory as snakes and other deities swarmed about him. Rita picked up her cell phone and made an appointment with Father Phillips for first thing in the morning. There was no sense in waiting.

“The ideas of spiritual purging and ritual sacrifices have been around since the time of the Aztecs, and even before I’m sure. When religions still centered on vengeful gods needing appeasement or the ideas that we could control their affection by giving them gifts, sacrifice was in its prime. The Incas left children on mountain tops; Aztecs sent sacred hearts from war victims into a purging fire. Even the bible has accounts of God asking for a human sacrifice to test the faith of Isaac. We know of course that he prevents the sacrifice of Isaac’s oldest child, asking instead for a ram. So it exists even in the works of Christianity. But the sacrifice of children is an abomination to a loving God so I’m not sure why you would think the church may be tied into this.”

“Father Phillips, I don’t think it is. I’m just asking about all this sacrifice stuff because I had a thought last night looking at this engraving.” Rita pulled out the small square figure with the depiction engraved and handed to Father Phillips for inspection. “My thought was maybe some sort of sacrifice, religious or not, is going on and maybe you might have some ideas. I know you studied world religions in school before choosing the ministry. Do you have any thoughts at all?”

The priest inspected the figure with interest before handing back over to Rita who slid it immediately into her purse. He drew his hand across his chin as they walked, stopping to glance up at a mural depicting the Old Testament from the tree and the garden to the exile from Eden, the plagues of Egypt, and the exodus of the Jews. What reason would anyone have, in their small community especially, to kill children? That was the kind of thing that happened in those large cities. Not in Oyster Ridge Bay. “If the victims were all women I would say you have someone who believes in the stories of original sin.” He told her, after many minutes lost in thought. But the victims are males and females.