I certainly understood why we had been shut out, but that didn’t mean I had to like it or like that my friend was now ignoring my calls. In fact, even though Helen had reassured me on that point, I still found it very disturbing.
Of course, it only stood to reason that we would be more or less disavowed given that the microscope was now aimed at my wife. They couldn’t very well have us being privy to what they might be looking for to use as evidence against her. Not that I believed there really was anything for them to find, mind you, and I was certain their legwork would soon prove that out. Still, I simply couldn’t sit idly by and wait for them to finish because I also wasn’t necessarily willing to trust the police in this specific endeavor.
The fact is, there were some serious underlying issues at play. I had begun consulting for the Greater Saint Louis Major Case Squad somewhere around five years ago. Ever since the first time the tortured spirit of a murdered young woman had chosen to slap me across the back of the head with an ethereal two-by-four and beg my help. It hadn’t been easy getting someone to listen, even my close friend, Ben. But, eventually he had come around, as well as a few others within the local law enforcement community. Since then, I’d racked up more than my share of unwanted press clippings, but that was something that came with the territory. Headlines like “Self-Proclaimed Witch Solves Serial Murder Case” tend to sell papers. Unfortunately, it got to be my not-so-smiling face displayed beneath the bold type.
The real problem, however, was that while there were those who realized I could be a benefit, I also had some extremely vocal detractors. There were more than a few who felt my ethereal visions were just parlor tricks and bids for attention. Others literally claimed it to be the work of Satan. Those were the ones who even went so far as to publicly denounce me purely because of my chosen religious path.
Under different circumstances I would have just tried to ignore them like I usually did, but this was a completely different situation. It was largely because of the fact that some of these individuals held fairly high-ranking positions that I wasn’t convinced of a fair and impartial investigation. In my mind, finding the real killer was the best way to be sure Felicity wouldn’t get railroaded as a way of getting to me. I tended not to voice that too much because I knew that it sounded like the convoluted plot of a Hollywood conspiracy thriller, but the truth is that it was pretty much my life in a nutshell.
On top of it all, my need to clear Felicity hadn’t completely overshadowed the fact that a terribly sick sociopath was still out there. A sexual sadist none of whose games were safe, sane, or consensual. It didn’t take an advanced degree to surmise that she was going to kill again. Since I knew for a fact the police were looking in the wrong place and were showing all the signs of continuing to do so, it fell to me to do something about it before she produced another victim.
Adding up everything I already knew, it seemed that finding out all I could about Voodoo would be the best course of action under the circumstances. I hoped that the knowledge would provide the clues necessary to track down the person responsible, and some of the primary leads I was following were the symbols, called veve, which were left behind at the second scene.
I’d had no trouble identifying two of them as belonging to generally accepted figures within Voodoo practice, those being Papa Legba and Ezili Danto. The third, however, remained as elusive as a real steak in a vegetarian restaurant. The best I’d been able to determine was that it had been patterned after a symbol widely used within the bondage community. Not surprising, I suppose, given the mind-set of the killer, even though her version of the lifestyle was twisted and grotesque. Still, that didn’t give me the name of a Lwa, and that missing bit of information just fueled my need to know. If the veve didn’t belong to a generally accepted spirit, then there had to be more to it. There had to be something special about that ancestor that might lead me to the killer.
Certainly, something else I wanted to know was whether or not Felicity’s preternatural incident had actually been her body being used as a horse by the Lwa. I was almost certain that it was, but there was still a small, nagging doubt. What if it was something else entirely? I couldn’t imagine what that might be; however, I couldn’t deny that she had been known to channel both the dead and the living herself, just like me. Her brush with that affliction was something for which I blamed myself because she had opened herself up to the other side of the veil when trying to protect me. And, as I had discovered, once they had their foot in the door, it was all over. They were unwanted houseguests with no intention of ever leaving.
Still, channeling was one thing. In this case what she had done was completely out of the park, at least in my experience. Either way, the thing that troubled me even more was whether or not it was going to happen again, whatever the cause turned out to be.
Therefore, it was for those reasons, and a number of others, that I once again found myself sitting in front of my computer, books piled about me, and the contact page of a university’s website glowing on my screen.
I suddenly noticed that the page was now finished loading, and the screen had been refreshed. In fact, it probably had been for several minutes because, in truth, I had just caught myself staring off into space. I rocked forward in my desk chair and looked at the blurry lines of type displayed against a muted background.
I rubbed my eyes then pushed my glasses back up onto the bridge of my nose. I blinked hard, trying not only to focus but also to forget the headache that was still raging inside my skull. Finding what I was after, I picked up the telephone handset and put it against my ear. Glancing between the phone and my monitor, I punched in the number listed on the web page before me. Before it even began to ring at the other end, I rocked back in my chair and began idly moving the mouse across the surface of my desk as if doodling on a notepad. A moment later, the buzzing tones abated and were followed by the sound of the phone being taken off-hook.
“Louisiana State University Department of Sociology,” a woman’s voice eventually drawled into my ear. “How may I direct your call?”
“Doctor Rieth’s office, please,” I replied.
“Please hold.”
I continued watching the pointer as I nudged it around the screen. My real attention, however, remained focused on the hollow sound of the phone as I waited for the transfer to occur.
A minute or so passed before there was a dull click at the other end and a new voice issued from the handset. “Doctor Rieth’s office, this is Kathy, may I help you?”
“Good afternoon, Kathy,” I said as I rocked back forward and straightened my posture. “Is Doctor Rieth in by any chance?”
“No sir, I’m afraid she’s gone for the holiday break. I’m her assistant, can I help you?”
It hadn’t even dawned on me that Thanksgiving was less than one week away at this point. Considering that, I was probably fortunate to have reached anyone at the university at all.
“No offense, but probably not,” I replied. “I’m calling from Saint Louis, and I need to speak with the doctor about something in her book, Voodoo Practice in American Culture.”
I glanced at the corner of my desk where the tome was resting atop a pile of other books, all with the same general subject matter, Afro-Cuban religion and mysticism.