Knowing I was a sociopath by choice, wasn’t really life altering. Some part of me had always known it. I had all the physical benefits of a psychopath, but the mental benefits of a sociopath. Something in the nurturing aspect of my childhood had overridden the genetic component, something that I imagined had a lot to do with Nyleena, my mother, and my time in the hands of a pedophiliac serial killer. Besides, Lucas and Xavier had both been hinting at it for over a year now.
We’d been back to the hotel to shower and get dressed for dinner. Dressing for dinner didn’t mean we were going anywhere fancy, it meant that Xavier and I smelled and couldn’t go into even a fast food restaurant without washing and changing our clothing. I was in my usual jeans and T-Shirt. My T-Shirt said “It’s Hard To Think When The Voices In Your Head Won’t Shut Up.” I was wearing it because Xavier had bought it for me as a Christmas gift. The shirts I bought tended to have funny science or history things on them or they were band T-Shirts. I would never have bought this one for myself.
The highway had been open for a day or so now, but we weren’t leaving anytime soon. We’d just hit the long haul, so to speak. We had lots of speculation and nothing solid, except a skull and some feet. Neither were willing to reveal the identity of their killer or the manner of death.
The little dive bar was busy. We’d eaten Shakespeare’s and Sub Shop, the two Columbia staples, and were moving onto different local fare. Tonight, we sat in a crowded Booches’. Technically, this was a Columbia staple, especially if you loved burgers. However, it wasn’t one of my favorite places. This was not because I didn’t love burgers, I did, but because there was some strange sordid history. I didn’t know the story, just that my father had detested the place. Somehow, that had rubbed off on me.
Sitting it in nearly ten years after my first experience, not much had changed. It was still a billiard hall and bar with slider style burgers and wax paper for plates. I had ordered one burger and a bag of chips. Booches doesn’t serve fries.
Conversation at the table was limited. Everyone was weary and worn-out. John had spent the day making lists of missing teenaged boys within seven counties of Columbia as well as St. Louis, Kansas City, and Springfield. Gabriel had spent the day trying to rush the DNA lab.
Neither seemed to have enjoyed much success. There were lots of missing teenaged boys in Missouri. Worse, John was pretty sure he’d found a serial killer in St. Louis. He’d passed the information along to the VCU. With conversation at the table wanting, my attention was easily attracted to other places.
We had sat at a table near the middle of the room. All of us were paranoid, but we couldn’t all sit with our backs to the wall. Our compromise was to sit at a square table in the middle of the room. This allowed us to watch the entire room, each responsible for the space behind the person across them. Xavier sat across from me, Gabriel had specifically positioned him there because I still wasn’t sure I trusted John. This was not because of anything John had done or not done, he seemed good at his job. This was because I rarely trusted anyone.
My senses were in overdrive, the result of a strange day. The table to our right held three girls, all of them roughly in their early twenties. The table to our left, was a couple of students well on their way to having a hangover in the morning from draft beer and cheap burgers.
The girls caught my attention first. One was discussing her evening. She’d been in a fight with another girl at a club. The gabby girl had been grabbed by another girl. An argument had ensued. The argument had been about a guy. The girl telling the story was sleeping with the other girl’s boyfriend. A fist fight had followed. The speaker proclaimed to be the winner, despite the black eye she was sporting.
I found it confusing. It seemed like a lot of energy had been wasted fighting over this guy. I sat at a table with three of them, one was technically married, but separated, while the other two were single. Obviously, the old adage of there being lots of fish in the sea was, in fact, true. Not only that, but why fight for a guy who is cheating. The girl speaking wouldn’t want to date him, she was proof that he was cheating. The girl that he was cheating on shouldn’t want to be with him, he was sleeping with someone else. The entire thing was a cycle. One of the many aspects of human nature that I didn’t understand.
Next, my attention was drawn to the table of college guys. Here were some fish for the girls next to me. However, it was their loud, drunken boasting that won them my consideration. One of them was talking loudly about a girl he’d met the other night at a club. Maybe some fish were slimier than others.
His shirt was black with a white skull, a red rose clenched between the bony jaws. Beneath the skull, it said “Love Kills.” The boy had said his sister had been taken by a demon. Not a person, not a guy, not a dog, a demon and he was supposedly well versed with demon ideology.
The word wendigo whispered through my mind again, like a breeze causing a flame to flicker. The spectral cannibal of Native American legends was said to be fierce looking. A tall, thin, featureless body cloaked in darkness; a long face with the skin stretched taut over the skull revealing its human like teeth that constantly gnash together, creating a violent chattering noise. It fulfilled the qualifications of a demon. However, I didn’t really believe in demons kidnapping little girls or teen boys, even demons like the wendigo.
The human teeth marks on the eye socket still bothered me. I could tell Xavier it could happen in a fight all I wanted, but I didn’t believe it. The wendigo theory held more water. People just didn’t bite people on the upper eye socket during a fight. They were more likely to go for a cheek or an ear, maybe the lip or nose, but not the eye. The bone around the eye was hard, biting against it was going to hurt the teeth.
“Hey,” Xavier snapped his fingers in front of my face.
“Hey yourself,” I answered.
“What were you thinking about?” He asked.
“The wendigo,” I answered. Gabriel frowned at me. I shrugged back, not voicing anything else that was running through my head.
“What’s a wendigo?” John asked.
“A myth,” Gabriel answered. “Native Americans believe it is a spirit that can possess people.” Gabriel had an interest in Native American belief systems.
“Oh,” John said.
“It turns them into cannibals,” I added. John sat one of his half eaten cheeseburgers down.
“Just once, I’d like to go through a meal with you and not hear anything about death or plague or cannibals,” John said.
“Good luck,” Xavier grinned and finished off his third slider. He’d ordered six.
“I don’t know why you’re smiling, you are just as bad. Also, you talk with food in your mouth all the time. When I’m not being grossed out by the conversation, I’m being grossed out because I can see everything you shove in your mouth.” John ranted.
“Done?” Gabriel asked.
“No,” John was fuming. “You let them do it.”
“Should I monitor them like children? Should I be holding their hands when we cross streets or scolding them for putting their elbows on the table? Death is what we do. It’s the glue that binds us together. Yes, we talk about other things, but when a case is in front of us, it’s hard to talk about anything other than that. I admit the plague obsession is unusual, but better plague than listening to her chatter about some guy or listen to Xavier brag about his latest conquest.” Gabriel proved he’d been paying attention to the conversations around us as well.
John remained silent for the rest of our time at the bar. Xavier and Gabriel finished their pitcher of beer. We paid the tab and left.
“It was good,” Gabriel said as we got into the SUV.
“It was good,” Xavier said. “I like these little hole in the wall local places and we rarely find them because we rarely know anyone from the town.”
“Now, why were you thinking about wendigos during dinner?” Gabriel turned in his seat.
“Xavier thinks he found human teeth marks on the eye socket of the skull. I keep trying to tell myself that it was the result of a fight, but even I don’t buy it. People just don’t bite people’s eyes. It isn’t exactly the easiest place to get to, unless the person is on the ground and not fighting.”
“Xavier?” Gabriel asked.
“Dr. Burnett has made arrangements for a forensic odontologist to come in tomorrow. I agree with Ace, it is an unusual injury to say the least. I think someone munched on our victim’s head. The fact that they did it at some point before or after it had been crushed by a jaguar is strange.”
“Jaguar slobber,” I cringed. “I can’t see a human doing it after a jaguar, but I can’t imagine a scenario in which the human manages to munch on the face of the victim before the jaguar kills it.”
“Not everyone is as germophobic as you,” Xavier pointed out.
“True, but to chew on a face after a jaguar has been chewing on it? Those are special germs. I have no idea what sorts of diseases jaguars carry that can be passed to humans, but I’m sure there are a few.”
“Wow, something Ace doesn’t know,” Gabriel smirked.
“Oh, I can guess,” I answered. “Rabies and bubonic plague come to mind immediately.”
“Oh boy,” John groaned from the back seat.