Meyer was back staring at the big computer screen, watching it scroll through case descriptions. Suddenly he stopped it.
'How about Satanism, Harve? Does that strike your fancy?'
'Satanism?'
'Here's a little town called Gideon down in the southern corner of the state, probably hasn't had a major homicide in twenty years. The local PD thinks Satanists killed a housewife down there.'
'Gideon? There's a nice biblical name,' St Claire said. 'Seems an unlikely place for Satanists to rear their ugly heads.'
The chief of police refused to supply any crime reports. Didn't even call in the state forensics lab - which is required by law in a case like this. According to the cover sheet, it's a small, religious community. They think it involves Satanism and they don't want any publicity about it.'
He ripped a computer printout of the cover report from the printer and read it aloud:
'UNREPORTED HOMICIDE, 7/12/93: Murder of Gideon Housewife. Gideon is a religious community of Mormons. The population is approximately 2,000. Al Braselton, an agent with the state Bureau of Investigation, learned of the event while on an an unrelated investigation in Shelby, 12 miles north of Gideon. The Gideon police chief, Hiram Young, reluctantly turned over to Agent Braselton some photographs and the sketchy homicide report. This is all the information the Bureau has on this crime at this time. According to Chief Young, the town didn't want a lot of outsiders coming there…'
Meyer exclaimed, 'And this in quotes, Harve, ' "Because of the Satanism angle"! The homicide is still unresolved.'
'There's an angle I never thought about,' said St Claire. 'Satanism.' He laughed at the thought. 'My God, look at these photos,' Meyer said. Six photographs had popped up on the computer monitor. Like all graphic police studies of violence, they depicted the stark climate of the crime without art or composition. Pornographic in detail, they appeared on the fifty-inch TV screen in two rows, three photos in each row. The three on the top were full, medium, and close-up shots of a once pleasant-looking, slightly overweight woman in her mid to late twenties. She had been stabbed and cut dozens of times. The long, establishing shot captured the nauseating milieu of the crime scene. The victim lay in a corner of the room, her head cocked crazily against the wall. Her mouth bulged open. Her eyes were frozen in a horrified stare. Blood had splattered the walls, the TV set, the floors, everything.
The medium shot was even more graphic. The woman's nipples had been cut off and her throat was slit to the bone.
But the close-up of her head was the most chilling of all.
The woman's nipples were stuffed in her mouth.
'Good lord,' St Claire said with revulsion.
'I'm glad we haven't had lunch yet,' Meyer said, swallowing hard.
The lower row of photographs were from the same perspective but were shots of her back, where the butchery had been just as vicious.
'I can see why the police chief thinks Satanists were involved,' Meyer said. 'This is obscene.'
St Claire leaned over Meyer's shoulder and together they read the homicide report filed by Chief Hiram Young:
On October 27, 1993, at approximately 8 A.M, I answered a call to the home of George Balfour, local, which was called in by a neighbour, Mrs Miriam Peronne, who resides next door. I found a white female, which I personally identified as Linda Balfour, 26, wife of George, on the floor of the living room. Mrs Balfour was DOA. The coroner, Bert Fields, attributes death to multiple stab wounds. Her son, age 1, was five feet away and unharmed. Her husband was several miles from town when the crime occurred. There are no suspects.
Meyer turned to St Claire. 'Not much there,' he said.
But St Claire did not answer. He stood up and walked close to the screen. He was looking at the close-up of the back of the woman's head. 'What's that?' he asked. 'What?'
'There, on the back of her head.' St Claire pointed to what appeared to be markings under the woman's hair. 'I'll zoom in,' Meyer said.
He isolated the photograph, then blew it up four times before it began to fall apart. Beneath the blood-mottled hair on the back of her head were what appeared to be a row of marks, but the blown-up photo was too fuzzy to define them.
'Maybe just scratches,' Meyer suggested. 'Can you clear it up any?' St Claire asked. Meyer digitally enhanced the picture several times, the photo blinking and becoming a little more distinct each time he hit the key combinations.
'That's as far as I can take it,' Meyer said. 'Looks like numbers,' St Claire said, adjusting his glasses and squinting at the image. 'Numbers and a letter…'
'Looks like it was written with her blood,' Meyer said with disgust.
A familiar worm nibbled at St Claire's gut. Nothing he could put his finger on, but it was nibbling nevertheless. 'Ben, let's give this Chief Young a call. He's got to know more about this case than the network's got.'
'Harvey, I've got four cases on my desk…'
'I got a nudge on this, Ben. Don't argue with me.'
'A nudge? What's a nudge?'
'It's when your gut nudges your brain,' the old-timer answered.
Six
In the lobby of the Ritz Hotel, the city's three hundred most-powerful men preened like gamecocks as they headed for the dining room. They strutted into the room, pompous, jaws set, warily eyeing their peers and enforcing their standing in the power structure by flaunting condescending demeanours The State Lawyers Association Board of Directors luncheon was the city's most prestigious assembly of the year and it was - for the most powerful - a contest of attitudes. Three hundred invitations went out; invitations harder to acquire than tickets to the final game of a World Series because they could not be bought, traded, or used by anyone else. The most exclusive - and snobbish - ex officio 'club' in town established who the most powerful men in the city were. To be on the invitation list connoted acceptance by the city's self-appointed leaders. To be dropped was construed as a devastating insult.
Yancey's invitation to be the keynote speaker was a sign that he was recognized as one of the city's most valued movers and shakers. For years, he had secretly yearned to be accepted into the supercillious boys' club and he was revelling in the attention he was getting. Vail followed him into the dining room, smiling tepidly in the wake of the pandering DA as he glad-handed his way to the head table. This was Yancey's day and Vail was happy for him, even though he regarded the proceedings with disdain.
His seat was directly in front of the lecturn at a table with three members of the state supreme court and the four most influential members of the legislature, an elderly, dour, and boring lot, impressed with their own importance and more interested in food and drink than intelligent conversation. Vail suffered through the lunch.
Yancey got a big hand when he was introduced. And why not? Speaking was his forte and he was renowned for spicing his speeches with off-colour jokes and supplicating plaudits for the biggest of the big shots. As he was being introduced, Yancey felt an annoying pain in the back of his head. He rubbed it away. But as he stood up to speak, it became a searing pain at the base of his skull. He shook his head sharply and then it hit again like a needle jabbing into his head. The room seemed to go out of focus; the applause became hollow. He reached for the lectern to steady himself.
Vail saw Yancey falter and shakily steady himself by gripping the lectern with one hand. With the other, he rubbed the base of his neck, twisting his head as if an imaginary bee was attacking him. He smiled, now grabbing the edge of the speaker's platform with both hands. From below him, Vail could see his hands shaking.
Yancey took all the applause, taking deep breaths to calm himself down.