"Not in a murder, Ash."
"We haven't had a murder until now, not since I've been DA. And not since you've been sheriff. I'm betting if we'd had one, we'd have worked together. I may not be a cop, but I have experience in investigations-murder investigations included. And you're too good a cop to ignore that."
Leah glanced at Riley, interested to know how the other woman was reacting to all this, and wasn't very surprised to see that Riley was apparently engrossed in reading reports concerning what little information had come in since the previous afternoon.
There wasn't much. Teams had been canvassing Opal Island as well as Castle, literally going door-to-door in search of an identity for their murder victim. So far, the search had turned up three temporarily misplaced teenagers and one temporarily misplaced husband (the former all found sleeping off a late party and the latter discovered on a nearby golf course), but no man missing since sometime Sunday night.
Leah had read and reread the reports Riley was now studying, and wondered what the federal cop found so interesting. Then again, she decided, maybe it wasn't interest so much as a refusal to get involved in the "discussion" going on between the two men.
"I'll take any resource I can get," the sheriff was saying. "But don't you have to be in court?"
Ash shook his head. "Not at all this week, and hardly next week. Unless something unexpected happens, at least. Even my paperwork is all caught up."
"Just bored and have time on your hands, huh?"
"Jake, it's your investigation. Want me to keep my nose out of it, just say the word."
It wasn't really a challenge, Leah thought. And yet it was. If Jake refused Ash's offer of help, it wouldn't be a smart move; Ash had worked as an assistant DA in Atlanta for several years, and whatever rumor had to say about why he left, nobody doubted he had gained considerable experience with murder investigations while he was there. More than Jake had, when it came right down to it.
Refusing the offer of that sort of experienced help might well be something the voters would remember come the next election, particularly if the situation worsened. Plus, it made Jake appear either insecure or jealous of his authority.
Or just plain jealous, period.
So Leah wasn't very surprised to see her boss accept the offered help, albeit with little grace or gratitude.
"As long as we're clear about who's in charge, I got no problem with you helping out, Ash."
"We're clear."
"Okay, then." Jake looked at Riley. "See anything there the rest of us missed?"
"I doubt you missed it," she said calmly. "The blood in the vic's stomach contained glycerol."
"An anticoagulant, yeah. I got that. And an ingredient in all kinds of things, from antifreeze to cosmetics, so not exactly difficult for someone to get their hands on. Which means virtually impossible to trace."
Leah asked, "So what does that mean? That there was glycerol in the blood?" She hated to admit to ignorance, especially when the sheriff had-rather surprisingly, to her-chosen her to assist him on this case, but she didn't feel less of a cop for not having specialized knowledge, and she needed to understand.
It was Jake who said, "Somebody didn't want the blood to clot too quickly."
"I'm still in the dark," Leah complained.
Riley said, "What it probably means is that the blood the victim drank-whether willingly or because he was forced to-wasn't fresh. Someone had kept it for that purpose. Maybe for quite a while."
Leah grimaced. "Bucket of blood. Oh, yuck."
"Was it so much?" Ash asked.
"At least a quart," Riley answered. "That's way more than is used in any ritual I know of."
Ash said, "And more than anybody could have swallowed without vomiting some of it back up, I would have thought."
Riley looked at the M.E.'s report again. "Some minor abrasions inside the esophagus. I'm betting they used a tube. Probably while he was unconscious. Poured the stuff straight into his stomach. And I doubt he lived long enough after that to get rid of it."
"Then what was the point?" Jake demanded. "Fill his stomach with blood and then decapitate him-why?"
"I don't know," Riley said. "But there had to be a reason. Blood in a ritual represents life, power. Human blood much more so than animal blood."
Leah's thoughts were running along a different track. "You mean the stuff I've heard about that is true? Human blood really is used in occult rituals?"
"Some very rare black-occult or satanic rituals, yeah. But the donor-or donors-offer up only a small amount of their blood, willingly, as part of the ceremony. By pricking a finger, usually, or a cut across the palm. It's pretty much a symbolic thing. Nobody gets bled to death."
"But somebody did this time? I mean, other than the guy we found in the woods?"
Riley frowned slightly as she gazed at the now-closed folder on the table before her. "Like I said-there was at least a quart in his stomach. All of it the same blood type, so likely from the same donor, though we can't be sure without DNA testing. But if it all did come from one person, that's a lot of blood to lose at one time."
"Too much?" Leah asked.
"Could someone have lost that much blood and lived? Sure. Five or six quarts in the human body, depending on size and weight. Losing a quart would be serious but not necessarily fatal, especially if it was a ritual blooding and not some traumatic injury."
"Thing is, at least some more got splashed all over the scene." Jake nodded when Ash looked at him. "We've got two blood types in all that, most from the vic but some apparently from the same…donor…who provided what was in his stomach. No real way to measure how much, especially since the ground soaked up a lot. I'm betting it was more than a couple of quarts, all told."
"Then there's likely to be another murder victim we have yet to find."
"Maybe." Riley was still frowning. "Or maybe not. Maybe the anticoagulant was necessary because it took a while to get enough blood without killing the donor. Or donors. You could probably take a little bit every day for several days without too much danger, if you were careful, knew what you were doing."
Ash said, "So, we're looking for somebody with anemia?"
"Failing a second victim. Or a first victim, rather." She looked at the sheriff. "Any luck finding some kind of pattern in the blood spatter at the scene?"
"So far nada. Melissa says the software hasn't run its course yet, but her gut feeling is that there's nothing to find."
"It was a long shot." Riley shrugged.
"What would you have expected, if there had been a pattern?" Ash asked.
"Well, whoever this is seems to be big on signs. So I would have expected another sign or symbol."
"Here there be devil worshippers?" Jake suggested dryly.
"Something like that. Subtle they aren't."
"They?" Leah asked. Then she shook her head. "Of course-it would be a group, wouldn't it?"
"Probably. There are solitary practitioners in most religions, but for any major ritual there would have to be more than one. Anything up to a dozen or so participants is most likely."
"Conspiracy in murder," Ash noted neutrally, "is very rare."
"They wouldn't have viewed it as murder," Riley said.
"Still, for a group of people to keep this sort of secret…How likely is that?"
"If they practice Satanism, very likely. Or at least very possible. Ash, these groups can only survive if they keep their…less conventional activities to themselves. And they learn that early. They're just too far out of the mainstream for community tolerance, much less acceptance."
Leah was faintly surprised. "Do they need community acceptance?"
"If they live in the community, sure. Their religion is only a part of their lives; they shop, go out to eat, go to the movies and the theater, usually send their kids to school. It's not all that uncommon for some of them to hold public office, especially at the local level. So, generally speaking, they keep quiet about occult practices."