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Tattered clouds drifted in front of a crescent moon making the murky shadows of the graveyard shift and slither. Creeping lines and angles from bare tree branches mingled with a spray painted pentagram and other graffiti desecrating the side of a white marble tomb.
OZZIE RULES
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL
SATAN LIVES
Max Broderick leaned against a weathered gravestone, clutching a half-empty bottle of Thunderbird. The smell of the cheap wine on his clothes overpowered the lingering scents of damp earth and burning leaves. Max studied the graffiti. Kids, he thought. Stupid doped-out little punks and gang-bangers. He hated these stakeouts. Aside from their monotony they gave him the fucking willies,but bizarre assignments came with the territory and no one could do them better—at least that’s what they told him.
Graduating at the top of his class at the F.B.I.’s National Academy, Max had been asked to join the Investigative Support Unit at Quantico as the youngest criminal-personality profiler in the history of the unit. After five years in the field, his undercover skills had become as legendary as the weird circumstances of his stakeouts. Now Special Agent Broderick had the distinction of being the sole member of the U.S. Justice Department's Occult Crime Unit.
At thirty-six, the one man O.C.U. still looked boyish. His tousled, dirty-blond hair, the dimple on his cheek, and his mischievous blue eyes made women wonder what went on behind them. Cops teased him, saying that he looked more in his element at the country club carrying a tennis racket instead of on the streets packing a thirty-eight. He looked perfect, except for a small pink sickle-shaped scar over his right eye, compliments of an amped-out tweaker wielding a ritual dagger.
Two months ago the Boston Police had asked for his help. Over a three month period, fifteen bodies had been dug up from the Cedar Grove Cemetery in Dorchester. Three had been recovered—minus their heads.
In contrast to everyone else's horror, Max expected some heads to be missing. He'd run across it before, but never on this large a scale. High whacko concentration on this one. Crazy fucks were probably having a convention. How to get a head in life – - or death. He smiled at his own black humor. No, these boys were serious. Human skulls went for five hundred dollars or more on the black market.
At most of the exhumation sites, the Boston P.D. found bones from animal sacrifices and other signs of ritual worship which wasn't unusual in body snatching cases, but the alarming frequency of disinterments and evidence of the same M.O. here pointed to a large, well organized cult. Their unchanging routine piqued Max’s interest, especially when the Boston P.D. sent him copies of the crime reports. In every grave robbing, detectives found sprigs of mistletoe beside the open graves and among the residue of whatever ritual had been performed.
Calling cards.
A chilled New England November wind soughed through the trees. The sound of dried leaves skittering across the grass of the graveyard sounded like a small army of rats. It was going to be a long night. Max shivered and pulled the collar of his ragged field jacket closer to his neck, thinking of all the places he'd rather be, like in front of a warm fireplace with...
The sound of a car engine, followed by tires on gravel made his heartbeat quicken. He slid his hand inside his jacket, resting it on the butt of his thirty-eight. The feel of it gave him comfort, but not enough. In a place like this, a crucifix would probably do a better job.
Looking in the direction of the noise, he saw an eerie blue light filling the graveyard. A moment later a police cruiser topped a rise and rocketed toward him, skidding to a stopa few feet away. A uniformed cop jumped out, the beam of his flashlight sweeping the headstones until it came to rest on Max.
So much for the stakeout.
"Broderick?"
Max stood and stretched to his full six feet, working the kinks out of his back. Getting too old for this shit. "Yeah. What's up?"
"Lieutenant O'Grady sent me. She wants you over at a crime scene in Cambridge."
"Cambridge? Shit. I don't work for O'Grady. She's supposed to be working for me."
The cop shrugged. "I'm just following orders. I come to get you, you yell at me. I can deal with that. I go back to her without you, I got to listen to her shit. Have a heart, will ya?"
"I see your point. Aw, what the hell, the stakeout's blown anyway."
The cop opened the door of the cruiser and gestured for Max to get in. "We've got a stiff over there with no head and some pretty spooky shit."
"No head?"
"That's right."
Max thought about a connection between the headless bodies recovered from the grave robbings and this new murder. He shook his head. Too much of a coincidence.
"Whew." The cop held his nose. "That's a hell of an aftershave you got on there. Fit's right in with this shithole neighborhood."
Max climbed into the cruiser and they headed for Cambridge, half-listening to the cop tell him what he knew about the murder. They took the Southeast Expressway toward downtown, then followed Mass. Ave. while the uniform rambled on. Max grunted and nodded at the right places, but his thoughts dwelled on his liaison with the Boston P.D.’s Lieutenant Colleen O'Grady, a thirty-three year old striking, red-haired beauty from South Boston.
She was a stubborn go-getter with a legendary Irish temper who was getting to be a royal pain in the ass, but he would cut her a lot of slack. O'Grady was a good cop.
Recently divorced from a homicide dick with a drinking problem, she took great pains to come across cold and indifferent, but Max saw fire smoldering behind those incredible green eyes, and on the other side of all that heat, tenderness. She had high cheek-bones with a hint of faded freckles that appealed to Max. Her looks combined with the way she carried herself made her a natural for a career in acting or modeling, but she wanted to be a cop.
What a waste.
They turned off of Mass. Ave. and took side streets until they stopped in front of an old Brownstone with newer glass doors and modern fixtures lighting the building. Two cruisers and an unmarked parked out front. Another uniformed cop stood sentry. Max hopped out of the cruiser, thanked his driver and went up the steps, nodding to the cop by the door.
"Second floor," the blue said, pointing. "209".
"Thanks."
Ducking under the police ribbon on the second floor, Max went down the hall. Another uniform stood outside the apartment. Max flashed his shield. The cop knocked once, then pushed open the door, letting him in.
The apartment smelled of Patchouli. Overstuffed pillows and braided rugs covered newly varnished floors. Woven baskets and oriental fans hung on pastel walls. A mauve colored vase sat in one corner with large peacock feathers sticking out of its top. Max heard voices from a back bedroom.
Rounding the corner, he collided with O'Grady. His hands flew up, instinctively grabbing her by the waist. His surprise passed quickly, replaced by the pleasant feel of the curve of her hip beneath her blazer. The sweet fragrance of Dare cut through his own soured odor of stale Thunderbird.
She stiffened at his touch, her eyes flared, and she jerked her head back.
Max let go. “Sorry, didn’t hear you.”
A puzzled expression flitted across her face, then her features softened and her eyes met his. “Thanks for coming.” She looked away, then pointed over her shoulder. “In there.”
Max walked past her into the bedroom, stopping when he saw leaves on the floor which struck him as out of place in an otherwise neat apartment. Maybe they blew in a window left open by the killer? He turned his attention to the aftermath of the carnage in front of him.
Spotlights lit the area where a surgical-gloved forensics technician with frizzy brown hair and thick eyeglasses took samples from reddish-black pools of congealed blood saturating the bed where the body had been. Two homicide dicks in dark jackets stood in a corner, heads together in close discussion. Max nodded to them.
The headboard and window behind it were splattered crimson. The words:
Cromm Cruaich
were scrawled on the wall in blood. Max studied the words. Celtic?
"She was probably sleeping when he found her," O'Grady said from behind him, her voice composed.
Pretty cool customer, Max thought watching her in the mirror. Bet she’s seen a few stiffs in her day, but I doubt they were as pretty as this one.
"He got into the apartment some time during the early evening and waited for her in the closet,” O’Grady said. “This one's definitely strange."
Max turned back to her. "That's an understatement."
"What I mean is, he was very careful. Thought things out beforehand. Went through a lot of trouble to conceal himself. Even oiled the hinges on the closet door so she wouldn't hear him coming out.” She nodded toward the two homicide detectives who still hadn’t spoken to him. “We know from the arterial spray on the wall and window, and the neck wounds, that this guy used a sharp instrument with a long, curved tip."
Max thought of Richard Ramirez, Southern California's Night Stalker climbing into people's bedrooms and murdering them in their sleep. Ramirez wasn’t part of a cult, he was a self-proclaimed Satanist, but that had been bullshit too.
O'Grady nodded toward the bed. "This is where it gets really weird."
Max looked from the bed to the forensics tech. "We've got some good hair and tissue samples," the man said pointing to his lab case.
Max turned his attention back to O'Grady who shook her head.
"He left his prints everywhere. We found them on the window outside, the closet door, the walls. He went to such great pains to sneak in without getting caught, then got sloppy."
Max nodded. "What makes you think it's connected to my body snatchers?"
"I wouldn't have thought anything about it if I hadn't read about it in the paper. I figured I’d better come over and take a look.”
"I have to admit, I was pissed about you pulling me off my stakeout, but figured you wouldn’t yank me here because of what you read in the paper. What else you got?"
A hint of a smile flickered at the corner of her lips. She caught herself and motioned for him to follow her into the living room. "I've gathered from the crime reports of the bodies that have been recovered, that none of the heads have been found, right?"
"That's right."
"And mistletoe was found at all the exhumation sites alongside evidence of animal sacrifices, right?"
"Sacrifices are common in cases like this, but mistletoe is unusual, especially at all the sites."
"That's what I thought. We've done a cross-check on the blood samples. Not all of it is human." With trembling hands, she pulled out a folder and spread a handful of photos out on a coffee table.
Close-ups of a headless female body.
Her midsection had been eviscerated, the entrails piled neatly on her breasts as if placed with great care. Mistletoe poked up from the stump of her neck and arranged alongside the gutted organs.
"We still haven't found the head," O'Grady said.