Spell Blind

CHAPTER 3

I read the rest of the article about Claudia Deegan, my insides winding themselves into knots as the details of the “Angel Murders” investigation flooded back into my mind.

Murder cases are never a picnic, but trying to chase down a serial murderer is about the worst part of a homicide detective’s job. You feel that the killer is mocking you with every clue he leaves behind, and you feel responsible for each new murder he commits after you’ve taken on the investigation. But bad as that is, the worst part is the time in between killings, when you know another one is coming and that there isn’t a damn thing you can do to stop it. It’s no wonder that cops who investigate serial killings become obsessed with their victims and suspects, and that they’re even more prone to drinking, drug use and emotional problems than their colleagues.

Kona and I worked the case from the beginning. We were the first detectives on the scene when Gracia Rosado was found in Red Mountain Park three years ago. It didn’t take either of us long to realize that this murder was unlike any we had seen before. Gracia herself was all too typical of murder victims in the Phoenix area. Young, pretty, poor, Latino. She’d been involved with drugs for a couple of years and in the months leading up to her murder had started turning tricks to pay for her habit.

But in every other way, Gracia’s killing was chillingly unique. Her body was found by a jogger in a small ravine deep in the park. She was fully clothed and there was no sign that she’d been sexually assaulted, which is pretty much the first thing you check for in a case like this. There were bruises on her neck, but I knew right away that her killer hadn’t strangled her to death. Red magic shone like fresh blood on her face and chest, though I was the only cop working the scene who could see it. On the other hand, every cop and reporter there could see that her eyes had been burned out of her skull.

“Looks like we’ve got ourselves a new freak to track down,” Kona said at the time, staring down at Gracia’s body and shaking her head. “Just what Phoenix needs at the start of the damn summer.”

“It’s worse than you know,” I said, keeping my voice low.

“What do you mean-?” She stopped and stared at me. “Oh, don’t tell me, Justis, because I don’t want to hear it.”

Kona was the only person on the force who knew I was a weremyste. I’d told her early on, following number seven of my father’s ten rules for being a successful cop: “Never keep secrets from your partner.”

She hadn’t believed me at first, but it hadn’t taken more than a spell or two to convince her. And after my magical abilities helped us clear a couple of cases, she began to think of it as a good thing, even if it did render me useless three nights out of each month.

But on that morning in June, standing over what turned out to be the first of at least thirty murder victims-thirty-one, if the papers were right about Claudia Deegan-she wasn’t amused at all.

“Talk to me, Justis,” she said. She and my father were the only people who called me Justis rather than Jay. “What are you seeing?”

“There’s red magic on her face and chest. Powerful magic-it’s already starting to fade.”

“If it’s already starting to fade-”

“The faster the residue fades, the more powerful the sorcerer,” I told her for what had to have been the twentieth time.

She nodded. “Right. I always get that backwards. So you’re saying she was killed by magic. For sure.”

“For sure.”

“Well, that’s just great. What do your magic senses tell you about that shit her killer did with her eyes?”

I shook my head. A white sheet lay over Gracia’s body, but I could still see her ravaged face in my mind. In fact, I still can see it to this day. “I have no idea,” I told her at the time.

The second body was discovered about a month later. Also a young woman, also killed by magic, her face mutilated in the same way. Others followed, some of them men, though most of the victims were women. All of them were young, and all of them died the same way. And, it turned out, all of the killings took place about a week before the full moon. Sometimes it took longer to find the bodies, but always the coroner put the time of death around the first quarter moon. I still have no idea what this means, but I know it’s important.

Each body had been found in either Red Mountain Park, east of Mesa, or in South Mountain Park, on the west side of Tempe, so those of us working the case referred to our perp as the East Side Parks Killer. But the media fixated on the ritual aspect of the killings-the facial mutilation-and dubbed the killings the Blind Angel murders.

There had been no shortage of media coverage of the killings, but now that Claudia Deegan had been murdered it was likely to turn into a frenzy. Randolph Deegan, Claudia’s father, was Arizona’s most powerful and popular politician. Word was that he was running for governor this year, and that a presidential run might be in his future. Everything the Deegans did was news. Claudia’s death would be on the front page of every paper in the country; the Arizona papers wouldn’t be covering anything else.

Reading the article left little doubt in my mind that the Deegan girl had been murdered by the Parks Killer. The medical examiner claimed that she’d died two nights ago-the night of the quarter moon. Her body had been found yesterday in South Mountain Park. The article also mentioned that like so many of the other victims, Claudia Deegan had drugs in her blood and on her person at the time she died. Spark to be specific, which in addition to being addictive and expensive, also happened to be one of the drugs some weremystes used to suppress the effects of the phasings. As to the rest, the paper dealt with the details as delicately as it could.

A spokesperson for Senator Deegan’s family refused to comment on the condition of Miss Deegan’s body. However, sources within the police department confirmed that her face had been disfigured in a manner consistent with past Blind Angel killings.

The paper said nothing about magic, of course. It never did. No one at the scene would be able to confirm that magic had killed the Deegans’ daughter. That was why Kona needed me.

For the second time that day, I drove back toward Scottsdale, this time heading into the foothills near the city. Traffic was starting to build again, but aside from the stop-and-go, the drive from my place in Chandler to the Deegan estate wasn’t a difficult one. Still, judging from the difference between the neighborhood where I have my office, and the community in which the senator and his family live, you might have thought I’d entered another country.

The estate was located on a twisting road with more million-dollar houses than you could shake a stick at, all of them gated, all of them with clear views of Camelback Mountain.

As I rounded the last turn before the Deegan house I found the road half-blocked by a huge mob of reporters and cops. More than a dozen news vans lined the road; state patrol cruisers had been parked strategically to control traffic in both directions. There were sound booms and cameras everywhere-still and video. I slowed the Z-ster and crept past it all. As I did, the media people peered into the car, hoping to recognize someone famous. They all looked vaguely disappointed when all they saw was some guy in an old bomber jacket with wild hair and a three-day beard.

A uniformed cop stopped me and signaled for me to lower my window.

“You live up here?” he asked.

I almost laughed. “No. I’m a PI. I’m on my way to the Deegan place. Kona Shaw asked me to come. You can call ahead and check with her if you want.”

He shook his head, straightened, and waved me on.

The Deegans’ driveway was maybe thirty yards beyond the mob scene; nice for them, but I doubt their neighbors were thrilled with the arrangement. I guess it paid to be the most powerful man in Arizona.

The wrought-iron gate in front of the senator’s place was guarded by two guys in navy slacks and powder-blue, short-sleeve dress shirts with the insignia of some security company I’d never heard of emblazoned on the sleeves. They were built like linebackers, with necks about as thick as my thigh. I also noticed that they carried.40 caliber Glock 22s in their shoulder harnesses. A good choice; that’s what I carry, too.

“Can I help you?” one of them growled at me through my driver-side window as the Z-ster idled in front of the gate.

“Jay Fearsson to see Detective Kona Shaw.”

“License?”

I pulled out my wallet, flipped it open to my driver’s license and handed it to him. As an afterthought I took off my sunglasses. Most security guys want to see your eyes.

He studied the picture, looked at me, and handed back my wallet. “They’re expecting you.” He nodded to his partner and a moment later the gate slid open with a low electrical whir. “Everyone’s in the main house.”

I nodded and steered the Z-ster to a spot next to about nine other cars. Four of them were worth more than I make in a year, even a good year. Of the other five, two were police cruisers and two of the others were cheaper models with police tags.

I didn’t like this. Not at all. Aside from Kona, most of these people thought the worst of me. Many of them had nothing but contempt for what they thought I’d become; others pitied me, which might have been worse. A voice in my head screamed at me to leave now, while I had the chance. If not for the way Namid had pinned me with his stare when the phone rang, I would have. I got out of the car.

The driveway, if you could call it that, was an enormous cobblestone courtyard with a small bronze statue and fountain at the center. On the south side of the courtyard, arrayed in a semicircle, stood three buildings: two smaller ones-guest houses probably-flanking the main house. All the buildings were built in Spanish Mission style, which was popular among homeowners in Paradise Valley and throughout the Phoenix area. A cobblestone path to the front door of the mansion wound past an elaborate desert garden; hummingbirds darted among an array of glass feeders.

The door opened as I approached the front landing. I expected to see Kona. Instead, two people I didn’t know emerged from the house. One was a short, slender man with thinning hair and tortoise shell glasses. He was wearing charcoal suit pants and a white dress shirt. His sleeves were rolled up, his tie loosened. He had dark rings under his eyes and a deep crease in his forehead, as if his face was stuck in a permanent grimace. He struck me as someone in the midst of a really bad day. Still, he managed a smile as he extended a hand to the woman standing beside him.

She was taller, and very attractive. She had long, curly brown hair that she wore pulled back from her face, and she wore dark-rimmed glasses with those small rectangular lenses that college professors tend to like. They were cute on her, though they made her look way too intelligent for a guy like me. Call it a cop’s instinct, but I had a feeling that she was every bit as smart as she appeared.

“Thank you for coming, Billie,” the man said. “I trust you’ll be kinder to the senator than you’ve been recently. At least until we’re through this.”

“No promises, Mister Wriker,” the woman said, smiling at him. “But I hope that you’ll convey my condolences to Senator and Missus Deegan.”

“I will. I’m sure they’ll-” The man spotted me and stopped. “Who the hell are you? And how’d you get in here?”

The woman turned and eyed me with obvious interest.

“I’m Jay Fearsson. I’m here to see Detective Shaw.”

The man narrowed his eyes, but then he began to nod. “Right. She said something about that. Forgive me, Mister Fearsson.” He walked down the path to where I stood, the woman following.

“Howard Wriker,” he said, as I shook his hand. “I’m Senator Deegan’s chief of staff and a close friend of the family.” He indicated the woman. “This is Billie Castle.”

“Miss Castle,” I said, shaking her hand as well.

“Are you a police officer, Mister Fearsson?” she asked.

I started to answer, but out of the corner of my eye caught a warning glance from Wriker.

“I’m an investigator,” I said. Before she could ask me more, I faced Wriker again. “Where can I find Detective Shaw?”

“In the house,” he told me. “I’ll join you in just a moment.”

I nodded once to the woman and hurried to the door. I couldn’t say why, but I felt like I’d come through a shootout without being hit.

Stepping into the house, I saw that it was as impressive on the inside as it had been from the courtyard. The front foyer opened onto a large living room with oak floors that made the wood in my office seem cheap and dull. Opposite the entry was a bank of windows offering views of the mountain and, in the distance, the buildings of downtown Phoenix. My first thought was that this place had to be spectacular at night, not that it was bad now. The room was decorated tastefully with Native American art: pottery from Acoma and Jemez set on tables and shelves, Navajo blankets hanging on the walls, Kachinas in glass cases-not the cheap dolls made for tourists by the Navajo, but the real things, carved from cottonwood by the Hopi. I knew enough about the Southwestern tribes to understand that the Deegans had one hell of a collection, one that would have been the envy of many museums.

I was still admiring the Kachinas when I heard a footstep behind me. Turning, I saw Wriker close the door, a weary look on his face.

“That was well done, Mister Fearsson. If you can avoid talking to Billie Castle you should. For your sake and the senator’s.”

“Why? Who is she?”

Wriker frowned. “You don’t know?”

I shook my head.

“You’ve never heard of ‘Castle’s Village’?”

“No. Should I have?”

“It’s a blog,” Wriker said, making “blog” sound like a dirty word. “A political one-probably the most popular of its kind in the Southwest. She has correspondents and opinion writers from all over Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Southern California, West Texas.” He shook his head. “Suffice it to say that few of them are fans of the senator.”

“And yet you allowed her in the house.”

Wriker crossed to a wet bar in the near corner of the room. “You want a drink?”

“Water would be fine, thanks.”

“You don’t mind if I have a Scotch, do you?”

“Of course not. I’m sure this has been an awful day.”

“You have no idea,” he said.

“You and the Deegans have my deepest sympathies, sir,” I said. There are only so many ways to tell the family of a murder victim that you’re sorry for them, and over the years I’d used every one. But just because I’d said these words a thousand times that didn’t mean I wasn’t sincere. I’d never been a fan of Randolph Deegan; I’d never voted for him. But I wouldn’t have wished this tragedy on my worst enemy.

“Thank you.” He plunked ice cubes into a pair of tumblers, filled one from the tap, and poured a good deal of scotch into the other. “To answer your question,” he said, handing me my drink, “yes, I let her into the house. Her readership is greater than the combined circulation of every newspaper in the state. And a little goodwill now might smooth things over for us later in the year.”

I sipped my water. “Well, I know how hard a time this must be for the Deegans and for you. If you can just tell me where I’d find Ko- Detective Shaw, I’ll be out of your way.”

Wriker nodded and took a long drink of scotch, draining more than half the glass. “Of course,” he said. “She’s in with the senator and his wife right now, but I’ll tell her you’re here.”

He put down his glass and walked through the front foyer to the other side of the house. Left alone, I crossed to the windows and stared out at the city. For the past year and a half, as I’d followed the Blind Angel case in the papers, poring over every article for details of the sixteen killings-now seventeen-that had occurred since I left the force, I had tried to put myself in Kona’s shoes, to feel what she must have been feeling with every new murder. But I hadn’t been able to. Losing my job had devastated me, but it had also released me from this one burden. The killings continued to haunt me, but that crushing feeling of responsibility I’d felt while still working homicide vanished once I was off the job.

Until now. Standing in Randolph Deegan’s living room, I felt it returning; I could almost feel my shoulders bending with the weight of it. One phone call from Kona and the Blind Angel murders were mine again. It wasn’t anything I wanted, and yet it felt strangely familiar, even comforting. I realize how twisted that sounds. As I said before, once a cop, always a cop.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

I knew that voice almost as well as I knew Kona’s. Cole Hibbard: Commander of the PPD’s Violent Crimes Bureau, and the man most responsible for forcing me out of the department. Before, when I said that I wouldn’t wish the Deegan mess on my worst enemy, I had forgotten about Hibbard. I’d wish a whole load of crap on him.

I turned.

Hibbard stood in the entrance to the living room, looking like he had half a mind to pull out his weapon and shoot me then and there. He was silver-haired, stocky, and pretty fit for a guy in his mid-sixties. There’d been a time when he and my father were close, but then my dad’s mind started to slip and Hibbard turned on him, assuming that he was using drugs or drinking. I suppose it’s understandable. Unless you’re a weremyste, you really can’t understand the intensity of the phasings. It’s not something we like to talk about. Even those of us who are willing to admit that we’re mystes are hesitant to tell the people around us that we’re doomed to go insane. That’s one of the reasons we use the word “myste” to describe ourselves rather than “weremystes.” No sense conjuring images of werewolves howling at the moon; the reality is too close to that for comfort. Hibbard wouldn’t have had any reason to suspect that one of his best friends on the force, a young, seemingly normal guy with a promising career ahead of him, was quietly going nuts right before his eyes.

Hibbard had it in for me from the start, assuming that I was trouble like my old man, and that it was just a matter of time before I screwed up, too. That he was right did nothing to make me hate him less.

“Hi there, Hibbard. Have you missed me?”

“Don’t give me any of your crap, Fearsson. I want to know what you’re doing here.”

“I called him, Commander.” Kona stepped around him into the room, with Wriker on her heels. It was like a big old family reunion; the kind you read about in the tabloids beneath headlines like “Grandmother Goes on Shooting Rampage.”

You couldn’t have found two people who were less alike than Cole Hibbard and Kona Shaw. Apart from the fact that they were both cops, they had next to nothing in common. Kona, whose real name was Deandra, was tall and thin, with skin the color of Kona coffee, which, as it happens, was just about all she drank. Hence the name. She was quite possibly the most beautiful woman I’d ever known, with big dark eyes, the cheekbones of a fashion model, short, tightly curled black hair, and a dazzling smile. She was also gay, in a department that was hard enough on women detectives, much less black, lesbian women detectives. That she had lasted in the department so long was testimony to how good a cop she was. If anyone needed further evidence, she had at least ten commendations to her name.

Kona had been my partner the entire time I was on the force. I can’t say that she taught me everything I know about police work, because my father taught me a good deal before his mind totally quit on him. But if it hadn’t been for Kona, I wouldn’t have been half the cop I was.

“You called him in?” Hibbard said, glowering at her. “Where do you get off making a decision like that without clearing it through me first?”

“Sergeant Arroyo told me to call him,” she said. Hibbard opened his mouth, no doubt to remind her that he outranked Arroyo. But she didn’t give him the chance. “And he was acting on orders from the assistant chief.”

“Latrelle? I don’t believe it.”

If it had been me, I would have demanded to know if the bastard was calling me a liar. But that was one of the reasons Kona still had a job on the force and I didn’t. She flashed that gorgeous smile of hers, and said, “You’re free to call him, Commander. But I promise you it’s true.”

Hibbard turned his glare back on me. For several seconds he said nothing. Then he shook his head and muttered, “Fine. Keep him the hell away from me.”

Before Kona could answer, he stalked out of the room.

“What did you do to piss him off?” Kona asked, turning my way.

“Since when do I have to do anything? You know that Cole doesn’t play well with others.”

She lifted an eyebrow.

I held up my hands. “I swear, Kona. I said hello, and he acted like I’d been saying stuff about his mother.”

Wriker cleared his throat, and both of us looked his way.

“I take it you used to be on the force,” he said to me.

“Yes, sir.”

“And now you’re a private investigator?”

“That’s right.”

“Would you be willing to work for the Deegans?”

I exchanged glances with Kona. The PPD wouldn’t be paying me for whatever work I did to help Kona with the case. They never did. But still, working for two clients at once on the same case was a bit sketchy ethics-wise.

She shrugged. “It doesn’t bother me.”

“What is it you’d want me to do?” I asked, turning back to Wriker.

“The papers are saying that Claudia was a drug addict, that she had drugs in her system and on her person when she died. We don’t believe that.”

I shook my head.

“Hear me out,” Wriker said. “Either the medical examiner will say that she had drugs in her blood or he won’t. But the police say she was carrying. We’d like to know where those drugs came from. If. . if she was an addict, like the papers and television news say, we’d like to see the dealer who sold her the stuff put in jail.”

I glanced at Kona again. She was staring at the floor, her lips pursed, as they often were when she had something on her mind that she knew she couldn’t say aloud.

“Arresting drug dealers isn’t the job of a PI,” I told Wriker. “As to finding out where she bought her stuff. .” I shrugged. “I’m afraid I don’t see much point. Chances are the dealer was small time-maybe a college kid. I doubt it would do much good to go after him. Or her.”

Wriker sighed, sounding exhausted. “You’re probably right. Thank you anyway.”

I took a breath. I’d never been fond of politicians, but in that moment I felt bad for the guy. Call it a moment of weakness. “I’ll find out what I can, Mister Wriker,” I said. “No charge. If I find anything of value, you can pay me then.”

“Yes, we will. Of course. Thank you, Mister Fearsson.” He pulled a business card from his shirt pocket, wrote his cell number on the back, and handed it to me. “Call me when you know something. Please.”

“I will.”

Kona and I thanked him for his time and left the house.

“No charge?” she said in a low voice, as we walked down the path toward the cars. “That your idea of a business plan?”

“You heard the guy. He was ready to hire me just so he’d feel like he’d done something.”

She winced at the memory, then nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

“I won’t spend much time on it. But we know that our killer seeks out kids who are using. Maybe knowing where she scored her drugs will tell us something.”

Kona looked impressed. “I hadn’t thought of that. You must have been a pretty good cop, and you must have had one very good teacher.”

“I did,” I said, grinning. I waited a beat, then, “My dad taught me a lot.”

“Shut up.”

We both laughed. It was good to see her. Of all the things I’d loved about being a cop, having Kona as a partner was what I missed the most.

After a minute or two she grew serious again. “You ready to go over to the OME?”

OME. Office of the Medical Examiner. I needed to see Claudia Deegan’s body, to confirm that she’d been killed by magic. It was amazing how quickly we could jump from the best part of my old job to the worst.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m ready.”

I started toward the Z-ster, but Kona didn’t move.

“You coming?” I said.

She remained where she was, watching me, a sly smile on her lips. “I’ve got something for you. Drop me at 620 before you park. We’ll walk from there.”

“What have you got?”

“It’s a surprise.”

I didn’t answer; I just waited.

“Fine then. Claudia Deegan was arrested a couple of weeks ago at a political protest down at the military base in Florence. She put it together, apparently; they were demonstrating against some new bomber that her father had sponsored. She was trying to embarrass him, I guess.” She shook her head. “Anyway, there was someone else arrested that day. I think you’ll be interested in who it was.”

Before I could ask her more, she climbed into the Z-ster and pulled the door closed. I had no choice but to get in and drive her to Phoenix Police headquarters.