Book of Shadows

Chapter Eighteen

He woke again, this time to full and painfully bright sun. He knew from the angle that it was way past dawn; it was not the shiny brightness of morning, but used daylight, afternoon daylight.

Waking more, he realized he was alone in bed. Carolyn was long gone, leaving a lingering scent of Dolce & Gabbana on the sheets. Her last words, before he’d dropped into a black abyss of sleep, had been, “I think you should meet my father.” And exhausted as he had been, Garrett had registered the words with an electric thrill.

Now, turning the idea over, he understood that he had passed some test, had graduated to a new level. Meet the family.

He lay back on his pillow, marveling. This was turning into a hell of a fall. Even though all of this—the high-profile nature of the case, the apparently quick solve—was partly just luck. Then again, luck was possibly part of the ongoing test, with Carolyn. He suspected luck was toward the top of Carolyn’s internal list of non-negotiable requirements.

The thought gave him a twinge of discomfort he didn’t want to look at, so he glanced at the clock instead. 3:00. That was P.M., which meant he’d slept nearly thirty hours, minus, of course, their little interlude.

But for once he didn’t feel any jolt of tension, of urgency to be somewhere. He stretched, savoring the feeling—and the warm fragrance of perfume and sex.

It’s not that they could stop working, never that. But the investigation had entered a new phase, a slower phase. Now they had to build an airtight case (unless the charging package proved to be enough to force a plea, which neither Garrett nor Carolyn thought was likely).

And they had time. Justice was slow. Realistically, after the arraignment, Jason Moncrief’s trial would not be for months. There was no longer that urgent rush…

The word Samhain flickered briefly in Garrett’s mind, spiking his pulse.

But he immediately shut down the thought. He would prove Jason did it, beyond a shadow of a doubt, and that would be that. There would be no replays, no more killing. Their suspect was in custody. The world was safe.

He threw back the bedclothes and stood.

It was 5:00 P.M. before he rolled into Schroeder, and Landauer had barely preceded him. The big man looked him over knowingly. “You look relaxed, this fine evening, Rhett.”

Garrett allowed himself a small indiscretion. “Yeah, I just about got myself relaxed into a coronary.” He grinned at Landauer, the cat who ate the canary.

“Wild women,” Landauer said. “Rich, connected wild women,” he added. He looked pretty relaxed himself. Land didn’t talk much about his wife except the obligatory marital bitching, but there was no bite to the barbs. Garrett knew that—except for the smoking—Bette kept the big man in line, and that was saying a lot.

The newly relaxed partners headed for the lieutenant’s office, and not even the prospect of facing Malloy could take the swagger out of their steps.

“What’s on the agenda for tonight?” Malloy began coolly, without preamble. So much for that brief flash of goodwill. Garrett reined in his thoughts, kept his face carefully neutral.

As Carolyn had predicted, there would be no getting in to see Jason, and his high-powered lawyer had also denied requests to interview the family, not that there was much of one. The gag order was frustrating, but it made sense to Garrett. No lawyer with a single brain cell in his head would want anyone questioning that kid.

He answered Malloy, his voice level. “We interview potential corroborating witnesses: Moncrief’s bandmates. I want to establish an ongoing threat to Erin Carmody.” I want someone to give me incontestable proof he did it, he thought to himself silently. I want to hear someone say,“Yeah, it was him.”

I want to believe it.

“Good,” Malloy sniffed, shuffling files so he wouldn’t have to meet Garrett’s eyes.

Fuck you, Garrett told him silently. I’m on the rise, and you know it. You can kiss my shapely Irish ass, and sooner than you think. You keep that chair warm for me, L.T.

“Yes, sir,” he said aloud, and followed Landauer out.

Garrett had found regular band rehearsals listed on a calendar taken from Jason’s desk drawers. Instead of calling ahead the partners decided to just show up; the element of surprise had worked in their favor before.

The rehearsal space was in a warehouse near Kenmore Square, on a dicey side street just a stone’s throw from Cauldron. Jason’s bandmates were far less eerie in person than they appeared in the poster and on the cover of the CD, really just eighteen- and nineteen-year-old kids with dyed hair and black clothes—and none had Jason’s feral charisma. The long-haired keyboard player, Todd Hartlaub, was cute in a puppy-dog way that probably netted them a sizable number of young female fans, and he did the talking for the other two: a bassist who was a good six and a half feet tall, with black-rimmed glasses and huge hands, a cross between Ray Manzarek and Tommy Tune; and a spaced-out drummer, mop-haired and clearly, hopelessly stoned.

“When was the last time you saw Jason?” Garrett began.

The boys looked around at each other. “Two weeks,” the keyboard player answered. Front man, Garrett thought.

“Can you be any more specific than that? A day?”

Hartlaub assumed a serious and deferential expression, but those big brown eyes were watching the detectives carefully. “Yeah. nine-eleven.”

Garrett frowned. Something already sounded off. “So two weeks ago today. Don’t you rehearse more often than that?”

“Hell, yeah,” Hartlaub said, resentment plain in his voice. “He just wasn’t showing up. Then he fucking missed a gig. We were always hauling ass to cover for him. So—we voted, and he was out.”

That’s interesting, Garrett thought. I bet Jason wasn’t happy about that. He looked over at Landauer, who nodded slightly, tapping his unlit cigarette against the edge of a speaker. Garrett pulled out a pocket calendar and looked back to the keyboardist.

“You told him he was out that Tuesday, then? September eleventh?”

“Right,” Hartlaub said heavily.

Garrett made a note on the calendar. “And?” he prodded.

“He lost it. Totally. Broke things.” The kid’s eyes were oblique. “Kicked in a drum.” Behind him, the drummer roused himself from his haze to nod vigorous assent. “He did that.” Hartlaub nodded toward the wall, where there was a hole in the Sheetrock the size of a fist, with cracks radiating out from it in the plaster—a brutal punch. Garrett saw Landauer raise an eyebrow, and Garrett himself had a flashback to the feeling of Jason’s uncanny strength when he’d attacked Land in the dorm room.

“Would you say that was typical of Jason—that kind of temper?”

“No,” the bassist suddenly spoke. Danny Coyle.

“Last few months, though…” Hartlaub looked away.

“What?” Garrett prodded.

Hartlaub shrugged. “He was different.”

“How long have you known him?”

“We’ve been playing since eighth grade.” That was the tall bass player again, in a quiet voice.

Hartlaub shot him an oblique look and continued himself. “Last year we were really going, you know, getting some serious gigs. But this summer he started fucking up, big time.”

“Where were you all on Friday night?” Garrett asked without any change in tone. He had not forgotten Frazer’s profile of the “youth subculture” killers: the bandmates who had sacrificed their classmate to the devil.

Hartlaub started to answer, then his eyes widened, and he spoke slowly. “We had a gig at Man Ray. It was big—the equinox party.”

Another equinox party.

The bandmates were nodding assent. “From when to when?” Garrett queried.

Hartlaub answered again. “Got there at nine to set up. We went on, like, eleven… did three sets, broke it all down after.”

They would check that alibi, but Garrett didn’t think Hartlaub would be stupid enough to offer it if it wasn’t true. “Was Jason supposed to do that gig with you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Hartlaub said, and his voice was tight. “Why do you think he was so pissed?”

“Have any of you heard from him or seen him since that rehearsal two weeks ago?”

“No,” Hartlaub said, and the other boys echoed him.

Garrett suddenly shifted focus. “Did you know Erin Carmody?”

“No,” Hartlaub said. Garrett looked to the other two boys, who shook their heads.

“She never came to any rehearsals?”

“No.”

“How about performances? Gigs?”

“No,” Hartlaub said. Again, the bassist shook his head in agreement, and a beat behind, the drummer mirrored him.

“Are you sure?” Garrett pulled out a photo of Erin, the radiant senior portrait, and moved around to each of the musicians in turn, so all the boys could see. He was watching their faces carefully. Again, universal head shaking, more seriously sober than Garrett was expecting. The bassist turned his head away from the photo in what looked like genuine emotion. He spoke, and his voice was tight.

“She didn’t. But her asshole boyfriend did.”

Garrett stared at the bassist. “Did what?”

The tall young man didn’t look away from him. “Came to a gig. That jock.”

“Kevin Teague?” Garrett demanded. The bassist nodded. “Which gig was that?”

“It was at Cauldron.”

Garrett looked at Landauer. Teague had said he’d never been to Cauldron. Garrett felt his pulse speeding up. “When was that?”

“About…” The bassist stopped, thinking. “September seventh. He stood in front of the stage the whole time just staring at Jason, real asswipe stuff. And then followed him out to the parking lot and beat the shit out of him.”

“Teague,” Garrett repeated.

“Yeah. Teague.”

“Did you guys report it?” Garrett asked, even knowing there was no way.

Hartlaub rolled his eyes. The bassist lifted his shoulders, resigned. “We weren’t there. The pussy just jumped him. Split his lip, broke a rib. What do you do?”

I knew that arrogant shit was up to no good, Garrett thought to himself. But killing Erin to get back at Jason? That’s a stretch.

He circled the rehearsal space, trying to collect his thoughts. He spotted a stack of flyers on the low, burn-scarred table, reached, and casually picked one up. “So what does this mean—‘Current 333’?”

The keyboardist shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Garrett stopped, looked at him. “You don’t know? It’s the title of your CD.”

Hartlaub looked uncomfortable. “That was Jason’s trip. Something about entropy.” He glanced toward the bass player. “ ‘Chaos magic,’ he said. It sounded—you know—edgy. He wrote a couple of songs about it—Choronzon, the Master of Hallucinations.”

Choronzon, again.

Garrett realized with a start that he hadn’t yet listened to the CD they were talking about, though he’d been meaning to all along. He mentally kicked himself for the oversight. There could be any number of emotional or virtual clues in the music or lyrics.

“So what is that, satanism? Black magic?” Garrett asked aloud.

“Jason called it ceremonial magic,” the bassist said. “He was reading Aleister Crowley, especially.” Garrett thought again that Hartlaub might be the front man, but formal education or not, it was this bassist who had it going on.

“But ceremonial magic wasn’t something you practiced or believed?” Garrett asked the bassist.

“No,” Hartlaub scoffed.

“Hell, no,” murmured the bassist. And the drummer shook his mop of hair.

“Do you know if he attended any group ceremonies, or hung out with other practitioners?”

The bassist and Hartlaub looked at each other. “Nothing like that,” the bassist answered. “It was just a slam at the colonel—you know, his father—the whole military/religious thing. The old man’s a fascist, always trying to force Jason into ROTC, used to not let him play, that shit. So what was guaranteed to piss him off the most?”

Hartlaub jumped in. “But then it started getting whacked.”

“Whacked how?” Landauer asked.

Hartlaub just shook his head. The bassist answered slowly. “We’d be laying a track and he’d start chanting in the middle of a song and go on and on, we couldn’t get him to stop. It was like he was gone.” The young man, who towered over Garrett by four or five inches, grimaced in what looked very much like revulsion. “And when we played it back—”

“Shut up, Danny,” Hartlaub warned.

“Come on, you know it’s—”

Garrett stepped between them. “This is a murder investigation,” he reminded Hartlaub coldly, and the keyboardist backed down instantly. Garrett turned to the bass player.

“When you played it back, what?”

The bassist’s voice dropped. “There were other voices on the recording. Not ours. This—babbling—river of voices, all at once.”

Garrett was aware of Landauer tensing in recognition just as he did. And Landauer didn’t even know about the voices Garrett had discovered on Jason’s interview tape; Garrett hadn’t remembered to tell him. That’s three times, now, the babble of voices. What the fuck is that about?

“Freaked me the fuck out,” the drummer mumbled, off in his own world. There was a distinct chill in the room.

“So—what?” Landauer suddenly said, too loudly. “You thought he was pranking you? Fucking with the sound?”

The three musicians were silent. “Yeah,” Hartlaub finally said, flatly. “Sure.”

There was a long silence, which Garrett finally broke. “When you heard Erin Carmody was dead and Jason was arrested, what did you think?”

“Complete freakout,” the drummer muttered from the drum set.

Garrett glanced to him. “You were surprised?”

“Whoever thinks that shit is going to happen?” Hartlaub said.

“Did you think it was possible?” Garrett said, looking around at all the boys.

The bassist glanced toward the hole in the wall, but said nothing.

Hartlaub shrugged… then for a moment, he looked bleak, older than his years. “Something wasn’t right.”

“Ever get the sense this kid wasn’t right?” Landauer said as they walked over dirty sidewalks back to the Cavalier, with traffic blowing by them on the industrial street. “At least now we know why. His daddy was a sumbitch. Explains everything. My daddy was a sumbitch, too. Whose wasn’t? Nowadays that’s supposed to mean something.” Land waggled his fingers like a distressed drag queen. “Boo fucking hoo.”

Garrett let all that pass. “Teague lied about never going to Cauldron,” he said.

Land shook his head. “You know, Rhett, I knew you were gonna be all over that. Why don’t you just admit you have a hard-on for that guy?”

“I’m just saying—he lied.” He’s an asshole, with a temper, he’s a lot stronger than Jason, and he was pissed.

“Bottom line, his alibi’s gold,” Landauer reminded him. It was true. Kevin Teague had spent the night of Erin’s murder on a basketball court in full view of hundreds of sports fans, then on a bus full of his teammates plus four coaches and assistant coaches, and then in a hotel suite in Connecticut with five other people. Unless he had hired someone to kill Erin, he had had nothing to do with it.

And Garrett had to admit, everything else the band had said pointed to Jason, not Teague. It was all starting to sound like a broken record. A disturbed kid, possibly psychotic. A perfect match for Frazer’s profile. But there were some things that didn’t fit, that twisted and poked at Garrett like broken glass.

They had reached the Cavalier, and as Landauer stepped off the curb onto the street, Garrett suddenly spoke. “You catch that about the babbling voices?”

Landauer’s face tightened. “Kid is a musician. Sound technician,” he reminded Garrett.

“It was on our interview tape, Land.” Garrett put his hands on the top of the Cavalier and looked across at his partner as cars raced by behind him. “I played it back and I heard it.”

Landauer looked back at him for a minute. “The stereo was on, remember? Don’tcha think that might account for any—babbling?” He shook his head. “Don’t let all this freak you out, G. Kid’s in jail. What’s he gonna do?” He pulled open the passenger door and lowered himself into the car. After a moment, Garrett did the same.

Inside, as Garrett started the engine, Landauer leaned forward and switched on the radio.

“In our top local news, the district attorney’s office will seek charges of first-degree murder for Amherst sophomore Jason Moncrief in the killing of W. P. Carmody heiress Erin Carmody. Carmody’s mutilated body was found in the Pine Street landfill on Saturday morning. Both students were residents of Morris Pratt Hall on the Amherst campus; authorities are investigating rumors that Moncrief may have been stalking Carmody.”

“Sounds like Shelley’s been talking,” Landauer grunted. Garrett frowned; he’d been thinking the same thing.

The female anchor continued. “Sources speculate that there were satanic aspects to the killing.”

“Look what you learn on the radio,” Landauer said with exaggerated delight. “There are satanic aspects to our killing.”

The radio anchor continued, in that oh-so-serious news voice. “Assistant District Attorney Carolyn Carver announced the charges on the courthouse steps.”

Carolyn’s smooth, silky voice replaced the announcer’s. Garrett felt himself start to harden, even hearing her on the radio. “The state is certain that the grand jury will hand down charges of murder in the first degree in this incomprehensible crime.”

Landauer glanced toward Garrett. “She’s a star.”

“Yes, she is,” Garrett agreed without inflection. In his mind he could see Tanith Cabarrus leaning across the table to put her hand on the grimoire, see her black eyes, hear her voice.

“You’re wrong. And you know it.”

He reached and turned up the radio, letting Carolyn drown out the voices in his head. “We are confident that we will win justice for Erin Carmody and her family.”

Garrett made the turn downtown, hoping to God that she was right.