M Sellars - Never Burn A Witch

I placed the cup back on the table and absently rattled clumps of sugar from an off-white cardboard cylinder, scarcely noticing when they plopped into the black liquid. Scanning the area around the coffeemaker, I searched for a stirring stick and found none. Ben noticed my fruitless quest then reached into his pocket and offered me a cheap plastic ballpoint.

“So you’re goin’ all…” He finished the sentence by letting out a low, vibrato whistle tied to an animated gesticulation with his outstretched arm. Over time, I had come to know this as his particular brand of sign language for “out there.”

“Not really… maybe… I don’t know.” I finished stirring and tapped the pen on the rim of the cup before laying it aside on an already stained paper napkin. “It doesn’t really feel the same… It could be just pieces of a bad dream.” I shrugged and took another sip of the bitter brew. The sugar hadn’t helped. I don’t know that I had really expected it to.

“You didn’t by any chance come up with anything on the doubled up Bible verses from last night didya?”

“You mean the one from First Samuel?”

“Yeah, that one.”

“Not really.” I shook my head. “The only thing I can think of is that it’s a pretty generic verse as far as the condemnation of WitchCraft goes. It would easily fit as a catch-all if he doesn’t have a specific heresy over and above that in mind.”

“So no greater reasoning that might give us a bead on this wacko then, eh?”

“Not that I can see.”

Ben pursed his lips and nodded back. “Well if anything else clicks, just say the word. I don’t give a damn if ya’ interrupt the meeting even, ‘kay?”

“Okay.”

“So where’s the little woman this mornin’?” He changed the subject as he wandered in the direction of his desk with me tagging along. “I kinda figured she’d be with ya’.”

“When I left her she was holding her head and muttering Gaelic curses about a bottle of whiskey,” I answered.

“Oh yeah, that’s right. The party. Sorry again ‘bout that… Did ya’ get yourself any of that Cold-cannon stuff?” He’d never know just how accurate his mispronunciation matched the way the contents of my stomach felt at the moment.

He wheeled out his seat and pointed to a molded plastic chair next to his desk. It looked like something from a discarded seventies era dinette, and I suspected it would be even less comfortable than it appeared.

“Something like that, and yeah, she brought me home a plate. It was my breakfast.” I rested my mug on the corner of his workspace as I sat down and glanced quickly at my watch. “Of course, I expect she’s on the road by now. Had a photo shoot for a client today.”

“On a Sunday? I thought she went freelance so she could set ‘er own hours.”

I held my hands apart wide in a one-that-got-away type of gesture. “Really big client.”

The answering bob of his head told me I needn’t say any more. “Ahhh, much wampum. I get it. Well, at least she has a choice in it.” He sighed as he looked around. “Some of us have a crazy fuck makin’ the decisions for us.”

I mimicked his swiveled head scan of the room, and his reference dawned over the sleep-deprived fog that clouded my mind. On a normal Sunday morning, the homicide division squad room was relatively still and near lifeless. Today, however, with the advent of the emergency meeting and the fact that the Major Case Squad was using it as a base of operations, it was slowly coming to bustling wakefulness.

Phones were beginning to add their annoying jingles to the vanishing silence as calls were transferred from the main switchboard into the squad room. Bleary-eyed detectives with vacant faces were cradling handsets against their ears; some while lethargically scribbling notes, others while just leaning back in their chairs and pretending to listen.

The petite thud of a hurried pair of cross-trainers against aged linoleum started softly at the door and grew louder as their owner came breezing in. Making her way through the grid of desks, the tousled-haired federal officer shot us a quick good morning without so much as slowing down.

“Sorry I’m late. I overslept,” Agent Mandalay announced as she strode past us with an oblong white box in her hands. “Hope you like glazed. It’s all they had fresh.”

“Don’t tell me,” Ben offered, “Rachel’s Donut Hut down on Chippewa.”

“How did you know?” she asked as she deposited the container on the table next to the other box of morning sweets.

“Great minds think alike.”

“Okay, I’ve heard that before, but what’s your excuse, Storm?”

My friend chuckled a muted expletive at the playful jibe but, other than that, elected not to reply.

Constance unzipped and shrugged off her coat while at the same time surveying the scene in front of her. When she turned back to face us, we could see that over her denim jeans she was wearing a slightly faded sweatshirt emblazoned with a steeple like logo, the lower portion of which disappeared into a line of stylized text that read, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. The tail of the garment was tucked behind a worn leather holster clipped to her right side, and high on her hip rode a forty caliber Sig Sauer. I knew from the experience of having seen her in action that this young woman could be much more dangerous than was boasted by her rumpled college co-ed appearance.

She swept her hand back at the disorderly mess and frowned. “Sheesh, don’t you guys ever clean up after yourselves?”

“It’s not that bad,” Ben grunted then sipped his coffee. “Besides, ain’t my turn.”

Agent Mandalay rolled her eyes and proceeded to remove the visitors badge from her jacket and clip it onto her belt before finding a place to hang the garment. “Is everyone here, or am I not the only late one?”

My friend rolled his arm up and peered over the rim of his cup at the watch face on his wrist. “Just you’n Deck. He called about fifteen, twenty minutes ago, so I expect him ta’ be walkin’ through the door any time now. Doc Sanders is here, but she ran down the hall for a minute. Other than that, I think we’re all accounted for.”

“I didn’t sleep too well last night.” She let out a small sigh as she dragged over a chair similar to mine and dropped her petite frame into it. “What about you guys?”

I looked at her and shook my head.

Ben simply shrugged and took a pull at his cup of java then said, “Me neither. Nightmares. Of course, it’s not like there was an overabundance of time for sleepin’ anyway.”

“I know what you mean. The alarm went off way too early,” she agreed. “Either of you catch the national news this morning? That video byte got picked up by the wire services.”

“Don’t tell me…” Ben muttered the rhetorical question.

“Yeah. The ‘Ghoul Squad’ is national news.”

“Were they at least a little more selective about which part and how much of the tape they showed?” I asked.

“Not the station I was looking at,” she returned.

“Figures,” Ben spat.

“Ben, Connie, Rowan,” Carl Deckert’s gruff voice met our ears as he trudged in, holding a box of donuts in one hand while working the buttons of his overcoat with the other. “I hope you guys like glazed. It’s all they had fresh.”

“So we’ve heard,” Ben answered and raised an eyebrow at Constance.

“Rachel’s Donut Hut over on Chippewa,” she chuckled.

“How’d you know?” Carl continued fumbling with the last button and gave them both a puzzled expression. After a moment, he began eyeing the carton on all sides, presumably in search of a telltale marking.

“Table,” Ben answered and pointed to the other boxes near the coffee.