Adult Content Warning
The following work of fiction may contain language, violence or themes considered unsuitable for young readers. Parental discretion is advised. (If this story was a film, it would likely pull a PG-13 rating.)

The Cards Call Themselves

©2000 Michael A. Stackpole

Part Four

I hate when he does that. He takes this little factoid that might not even exist—whether or not she dyed her hair—and makes everything hinge on it. Granted, Bloodstone lives in his own universe, which gives him a tourist’s perspective on ours, but how her being worth L’Oreal would point us to the murderer completely escaped me.

Jensen didn’t seem terribly impressed, either, though she did stare at him awaiting an explanation that never did come.

Before she could ask him to elucidate, Paradise Valley detective Barry Kent entered the office. Barry had been here a couple of times before—his tea preference was Darjeeling, which I set to making right away. He had consulted Bloodstone on cases where psychics were offering advice. He used Bloodstone as a psychic bullshit meter, sorting wheat from chaff. Kent had sent people to Bloodstone when the detective felt they were vulnerable to psychic scams. The one case I remember best was that of a family whose twelve-year old daughter had gone missing. Bloodstone made sure they were sharp enough that no fraud would con them out of money while promising more than could ever be delivered.

Kent, who is about a third again as tall as Bloodstone, and very lean, nodded a greeting. “I’ve cleared interviewing folks here with the Chief, provided I’m present and all the formalities are met with. Having a call from your people, Terri, helped a great deal in making his mind up. I‘m set to go. Can we do video?”

Bloodstone scrunched his face up. “Audio only, please. Connor, is the system working?”

I turned away from the makings of tea, punched up a program on the G4 Cube at my desk, and put the recording system online. “Pick-ups are live from the couch and chairs.”

Agent Jensen smiled. “Audio will have to do, I guess. I think the best approach is to establish alibis and motives. We know the knife used was from the kitchen, so anyone who had access to the house had the means to commit the murder. We need to know who had keys.”

The detective came over and took a mug of first-flush Darjeeling from me and appropriated the nearest of the leather chairs. “Dot-coms are risky, so I think the money angle to this is going to be important. I want it covered.”

Bloodstone picked up his cup and saucer, then moved to the centermost of the leather chairs. That was a relief because, given the snit he’d started the day in, I was afraid he was going to have everyone turn the chairs around while he remained behind his desk. As it was, he did manage to nudge his chair out of line and back several inches, so both Agent Jensen and Detective Kent would have to turn a bit to see him.

Kent sipped his mug, then lowered it. “My people are bringing her close associates in. One is here now, the chief programmer at Thothsoft. His name is Raymond Exner. The others are on their way. I’ll have them held in your front room and dining room when they get here.”

Bloodstone nodded. “That will do. Connor, if you would summon Mr. Exner.”

I went to the office door and signaled one of the Paradise Valley cops to send the programmer in. When Exner looked up I was pretty sure I recognized him, but I was having a devil of a time placing him. Then it came to me. I’d missed it because he had long pants on, and oxford shoes, a bit more paunch and a bit less hair, and not just from having had it cut. His hairline wasn’t receding, his scalp had lost the war and was being occupied by the People’s Republic of Baldness.

Bloodstone waved Exner to the couch. “Please, be seated. My condolences on the death of your employer.”

“Thank you.” He looked around the room. He seemed unimpressed with what he saw, but brightened up considerably when he saw the G4 Cube on my desk. “Sweet machine.”

This admission brought a scowl to Bloodstone’s face, since he resented the intrusions of the twentieth century in his life—tolerating the phone only because it was a nineteenth century invention. He would have said something, but Jensen leaned forward and spoke first. What she ended up saying was pretty much boilerplate and repeated to the others, so I’ll put it down once, then only record the variances hereafter.

“Mr. Exner, I’m Special Agent Theresa Jensen of the FBI. We’re looking into the death of Syndi Rooker. You knew her and undoubtedly have information we’ll find useful in figuring out who did it. You are not under arrest. This is a preliminary investigation and we are taping our conversation. We’re holding the interview here because Dr. Bloodstone has been consulting with us on a case that may be related.”

“That Deathdealer thing?”

“Yes.”

“Do I need a lawyer?”

Kent stretched. “If you want to call one, you can, but if you have nothing to hide, there’s really no reason to bring one in on this, is there? If you want to stop at any point, we can do that.”

Exner nodded and frowned. His face still had that pinched expression I recognized from disappointment or suspicion. He pointed at Bloodstone. “You two are cops, but what about him? Do I have to answer his questions?”

Bloodstone set his cup and saucer down on the table at his left. “I believe you will find mine less onerous than those asked by either Agent Jensen or Detective Kent, but you are under no obligation to answer me.”

“Okay, well, let’s go. I want to help you catch the guy who did this to Syndi.”

Jensen began. “How long have you known the victim?”

“Six years. I was at Microsoft for four years before I met her, then she came aboard as a manager in our group. She had some ideas about the net, but no one wanted to listen. She bolted after a year and, um, convinced me to come down here with her to work on projects. It was just the two of us for a while, working on special business applications. That gave us the initial money for Thothsoft.

“About two years ago we started working on Voyager.” His voice picked up a bit and he smiled, holding his hands before him as if he were hefting an invisible capsule slightly larger than a football. “It has everything, you know. Browser that’s better than Explorer or Netscape, and chat and instant messaging that beats the snot out of ICQ or their clones. We’re set up to add Napster and Gnutella modules to let folks provide a soundtrack to their webwanderings. It will smoke everything out there.

“And the best thing about it was that because folks would be hooked into our servers so they could chat and tour their friends around the web, we’d know what they were doing. We’ll be getting all the data on where they go and what they see, then we’ll be able to send them package tours of sites they’ll like.”

Kent nodded. “Like the casinos bundling gamblers on a bus and taking them to Laughlin.”

“No, man, you’re thinking too small. Not an e-mall thing, better. You want sites of prehistoric cave paintings, we’ve got them. Cutting edge science, we’ve got them.”

Agent Jensen arched an eyebrow. “Tours of kiddie-porn sites.”

Exner straightened up as if she’d slapped him with a transcript of the Microsoft anti-trust suit. “The net’s about freedom, you know. I don’t like those kinda creeps anymore than you do. Think of it this way, Agent Jensen, the pervos will be lining up to join you on some tour to Stingland and you’ll have them all wrapped up.”

Kent held a hand up. “So, if this Voyager goes big, you’ll make a ton of money, right?”

The programmer shrugged. “I suppose so. Doesn’t matter, though, I had stock options from way back at Microsoft. I’ve got more money than I can use in a lifetime. I own a lot of Thothsoft, too. Stock’s already dropping with news of Syndi’s death, but it will be back. Voyager will see to that.”

Kent sat back, so the Fed asked a question. “You can account for your whereabouts last evening?”

Exner nodded and yawned. “I left work about 9:30. Syndi had called and told me to knock off for the day. I got home about 10.”

“Were you alone?”

“Sort of.”

“Meaning?”

The programmer smiled slyly. “I was alone at the house, but logged into an IRC chat with Timothy Zahn about his Star Wars novels. There’s a transcript at Jedinet.com. I logged in at 10:10, stayed to midnight, asked some questions. Then I played Everquest until four—plenty of folks saw me there and will verify I was online with them. After that I got some sleep and hit the office by nine. That’s where you found me halfway through my first can of Jolt.”

Jensen nodded. “Did you have access to the Rooker house? Did you have keys or know the security code?”

“I have keys and the security code numbers both.” Exner shrugged. “Syndi headed up a software company, but she wasn’t really conversant with software and hardware. I mean, she knew our stuff inside and out, and was great convincing clients to buy it, but installing stuff, recovering from a disk crash, all those sorts of things were beyond her. I’d get calls at all hours go to over and fix things, or install new software.”

“You didn’t mind getting called-on that way?”

“Nope. Part of the job.”

Something in that answer prompted the barest flicker of a response from Bloodstone. “What do you know of the Tarot, Mr. Exner?”

The programmer shook his head. “Nothing much. In school I programmed a card randomizing routine and used Tarot cards because seventy-eight is more impressive than fifty-two. I wanted to do an interp module for the thing, but never got around to it.”

“I see.” Bloodstone sipped more Ti Kuan Yin. “There is some indication that Ms. Rooker was moving into a romantic relationship with someone. Would you know who that might be?”

Exner glanced down at his shoes. “Um, I guess that would be me.”

This brought Jensen’s head up. “You ‘guess?’ Were you dating?”

“Not exactly.” He sighed. “Look, when Syndi left the Great Satan she came down here. She wanted me to join her to work on stuff, so I came down for a visit. One thing led to another and we had a thing, okay? So I came down and we saw each other for a while, then she got busy and I got busy and we drifted apart. With Voyager coming close to release, we were working closely again and things looked good for starting up again. We’d have time and all the money we needed.”

Bloodstone lifted his chin. “Do you know if Ms. Rooker dyed her hair and, if so, what the original color was?”

Exner’s grin broadened and he giggled a little. “She was a natural blonde.”

The answer did not appear to impress Bloodstone. He finished his tea and then held his cup up to me. “More, please. Agent Jensen? Detective Kent?”

Bloodstone’s inquiry broke any flow of the questions being asked of Exner. The other two continued with a few cursory questions about any enemies Rooker had, anyone she owed money to, and the like; but the responses amounted to very little. Basically, for someone who had dated her four years ago, and had worked for her since, Exner really knew little or nothing of Syndi Rooker’s private life.

Then again, if he was spending time on the net chatting and playing Everquest—an online game addictive enough to be known as Evercrack—he had a private life about as exciting as a meal of saltine crackers—without the salt. The law enforcement officers said they would be checking on things and then, at Bloodstone’s suggestion, asked Exner to stick around in case they had more questions.

The PV cop escorted Exner from the room while I was brewing Bloodstone some more tea.

“Connor,” he began.

I turned my head and scowled at him. “Yes, I recognized him. I knew him for several years. Not his full name, just as Ray. And I saw her with him a couple of times, probably when he first came to the valley.”

Kent sat up in his chair. “Details, Moran, sooner rather than later.”

I turned all the way around, folding my arms across my chest, and leaned back against the wetbar. “Okay, I play indoor soccer on Sundays on the west side of town. Ray played for about three years, up to two years ago. I mostly played against him and he was a pain in the butt. Rooker came to some early games, and he was playing to her—saluting her when he’d score, that sort of thing. He wasn’t bad, but wasn’t great. Still, he usually got at least one goal a game off me.”

Agent Jensen came walking over for a refill of tea. With the fluidity in her gait, I’d have loved to have gotten her out on the field playing on our team. Heck, just the way she’d look in shorts would have been inspiring. The fact that she carried a gun, that would count for a lot, too.

“You ever play on the same team?”

“Pick-up games, sometimes. I played for a team he was on for one season, when my team took the summer off. Everything had to be just so for him. His water bottle had to be in one place. He had to start, or his game would be off. He ironed his game shirts. He always was telling me how to do my job. It’s a game, you know? We go to work on Monday. Winning is nice, but, gosh. We all pay the same fees to play—though if I knew he was a Gates Welfare child, I’d have talked him into sponsoring us.”

The Federal agent smiled. “He never got Thothsoft to sponsor a team?”

I thought back. “Actually, there was one, just for a season, his last season.”

“What happened?”

I took the teaball out of Bloodstone’s cup. “My team played against Thothsoft. They beat us, Exner got a hat trick—scored three.”

The FBI agent nodded. “I know what that is.”

“Okay, so after the game my friend Darius and I are sitting there having a soda, watching the game after ours. Exner comes over, gives me static about his scoring spurt. I give him crap back, telling him that anyone could beat a goalie at point blank range. He said, ‘You couldn’t.’ Insert macho posturing here. Anyway, a new game comes up and the teams are short, so Exner goes into the goal for one team, Darius and I play on the other. Darius feeds me, I pump four in on Exner.”

“And he quits playing in disgust?”

“Nope, after the fourth goal he’s still giving me grief, slides on another shot and takes me down. Hard. I limp off. Darius gets the ball, delivers a wicked shot, snaps two of Exner’s fingers. So much for typing code. I heard his boss dissolved the team. That would have been Rooker, I guess.”

Bloodstone smiled. “Stopping someone from playing soccer—there’s a motive for murder.”

“Yeah, we call it ‘justifiable homicide,’ boss.” I shrugged and brought him his tea. “Ray’s got money, was looking at getting back together with the vic, so the two big motives are out. I don’t think soccer is it, at least not after two years.”

“Alas, you are probably correct.” Bloodstone set his tea beside him, then adjusted his coat. “Perhaps, Detective Kent, our next guest will provide with more useful information.”

_______________________

If you are enjoying this story and want to be a patron of the arts, please visit the Stormwolf Store. You can show your support by purchasing a variety of short fiction pieces and instructive booklets devoted to writing. Merlin Bloodstone’s adventures continue in Brewed Fortune, a tale of magic and mayhem set at the Arizona Renaissance Festival.

24

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Adult Content Warning
The following work of fiction may contain language, violence or themes considered unsuitable for young readers. Parental discretion is advised. (If this story was a film, it would likely pull a PG-13 rating.)

The Cards Call Themselves

©2000 Michael A. Stackpole

Part Three

Serial killings are referred to as ritual crimes by law enforcement because the killers tend to repeat the same behavior over and over again. Sure, they refine it, learning from their mistakes, but once they develop a pattern, it becomes as individual as fingerprints. The murders have a signature to them, and the Deathdealer’s John Hancock was big, red and tough to miss.

As splashy as it was, though, it was also easy to imitate.

The files that had been hacked from local law enforcement computers gave detailed descriptions of how the Deathdealer operated. Read in chronological order, the files even showed how he was adapting and evolving. The first victim was an exotic dancer and, while she was in college studying to enter medical school, law enforcement generally listed her occupation as high risk for sex-related crimes. None of her acquaintances even hinted at the idea that she might have been turning tricks—in fact, they all said she was very kind-hearted and a bit naive. The police quickly assumed she might have fallen for a helplessness ploy—such as when Ted Bundy would put a fake cast on his arm to get coeds to help him carry his books to his car.

A couple of the Deathdealer attacks had occurred in the victims’ homes, and there were no signs of forced entry, so this murder certainly fit the pattern that had been reported. Since Jensen didn’t think this was a Deathdealer murder, but someone trying to make it look like it was, and since most murderers know their victims, the immediate task would be to rule out close acquaintances. With any luck at all, the killer would be someone with access to the home, and a motive for wanting Syndi Rooker dead.

If we were not lucky, the killer would be some demented copycat, which meant more blood was likely to spill. Face it, anyone nuts enough to copy a serial killer’s method of operation is nuts enough to want to rack up more kills and become something more than the person he started out imitating.

Agent Jensen was able to get us a lot of information on Syndi Rooker, including the sort of headshot publicity photos that the papers run. They weren’t hard to look at in the least. She’d been a very pretty woman, with a softness to her features and big doe eyes. She wore her blonde hair short and there was something familiar about her. I knew I’d seen her before in Phoenix, but it could have been just seeing the picture in the paper or watching her be interviewed on TV.

She had done a fair amount of local media. Her company, Thothsoft.com, had developed an integrated internet browser that allowed users to chat over it while surfing the web. Acquaintances would show up as icons running down the left side of the display—and the icons could be customized with their own picture, or, more often, the image of some movie star or supermodel. Click on the icon and you send instant private messages. Type into a dialog box and everyone gets your message. And if everyone has slaved their software to yours, you get to drive them on a tour around the web —allowing for virtual shopping junkets or student field trips. The software was called Voyager, though plenty called it Voyeur, since using it for tours of sex-sites was popular.

Rumors abounded about the company and what it was going to do. Rooker was reported to be in negotiations with Microsoft to acquire the Thothsoft, though AOL-Time-Warner was said to be coming up with another offer. Everyone else, from AT&T to Oracle, likewise was interested, and shares of Thothsoft.com had been bucking the trend of dot-coms crashing and burning.

I read over the data on Rooker and made tea—Ti Kuan Yin for Bloodstone, a black tea blend flavored with feijoa for Agent Jensen and Pu-erh for me to settle my stomach—while Bloodstone went up to the third floor and returned with a deck of tarot cards in hand. He had quite a collection of them up in his sanctuary and not a month went by that a new deck or other didn’t show up in the office. Bloodstone had two or three favorites, including a very ornate Russian deck, that he used to impress high-paying clients.

Bloodstone quickly stripped out of the deck the cards that had been deposited on Syndi Rooker’s body. He placed them carefully on his mahogany desk—which was a control tower shy of being able to have planes land on it—recreating the spread. He pondered over it, the size of his desk making him look a lot like a child chess-prodigy studying a board. His concentration did not waver as I slid his tea onto the desk.

The rectangular office really deserves describing. The north wall and the longer east wall are floor to ceiling with bookshelves. The ceiling actually goes up to the height of the second floor rooms, and there is a doorway to a second story corridor in the middle of the east wall. A cast-iron spiral staircase in the room’s southeast corner provides access to the catwalk serving the upper section of the shelves. The west wall is pretty much all window, looking out toward the north side of Camelback Mountain. From the catwalk it would have been just barely possible to see the Rooker house. The south wall runs from the staircase to the wetbar by the windows. It’s mostly a brag wall, with plaques and photos of Bloodstone with the rich and famous adorning it. The doorway to the foyer is set in the middle of the photo forest.

Bloodstone’s desk is centered against the backdrop of the north wall. My desk, which is much smaller, sits in the southwest corner, so I can attend the wet bar and make tea as needed. In the middle of the room a tan leather couch faces Bloodstone’s desk at a slight angle, and a phalanx of three rust-colored leather chairs defend the desk. Little end-tables sit between the chairs and one long coffee table fronts the couch. All the furnishings, including the black bust of Edgar Allen Poe in the northeast corner, have been positioned according to the dictates of Feng Shui. I’m not sure that really makes a difference in how the office functions, but when some folks are told about it, they smile and seem to calm down.

Bloodstone tapped a finger against the desktop. “Our killer is quite clever. I will use male pronouns to describe him, though I am not convinced of his gender. I am aware, of course, that the crime scene would indicate a crime of rage, but since our killer is aping the Deathdealer, that passion could be simulated. I suspect it was not feigned, though, not entirely. The killer did a good job. He followed the formula save in one area. These cards tell a tale.”

Agent Jensen set her mug on the corner of Bloodstone’s desk and came around to stand beside him. “I don’t see it.”

“Perhaps not, though not because of any lack of intellect. The Halloween Tarot swaps symbols on the cards. Pentacles or coins become pumpkins, swords become bats, cups become ghosts and wands become imps.”

She gave him a sidelong glance. “That doesn’t help much.”

“No, I suppose it does not.” He looked up at me. “Connor?”

I shook my head. “From my perspective everything’s inverted, so I’d just read it wrong anyway.”

“It’s fairly simple, and obviously constructed. Rooker is represented by the Queen of Bats. This is a woman who is solitary, usually seen as smart and creative. She’s not averse to confrontation and can even be aggressive.”

I nodded. “Fits Rooker.”

“Seemingly, yes. The rest of the cards illuminate her circumstance and possibly even identify the killer.” Bloodstone pointed to each card in turn of the trio crisscrossed at the heart of the spread. “She is covered by the Knight of Imps inverted, taking a blond, blue-eye man from being a generous and energized friend and lover to a jealous creature who is disruptive and frustrating. The crossing card is the two of pumpkins, indicating she was juggling things, looking for a balance. The fact that the Knight is covering her—and the killer chose to use the term covering in one of its more earthy connotations—would suggest she was part of a love triangle.”

He shifted his attention to the four cards arrayed around the trio. He started with the card above, then moved counter clockwise. “She was hoping for the four of Imps, which indicates prosperity and possible romance. Of recent import is the three of Bats, suggesting betrayal and grief. In the foundation position we have The Lovers, one of the major arcana that can be interpreted literally, or as a card of temptation and seduction. And for the near future we have the card Death. It is a harbinger of change. These cards taken together would paint of picture of a woman leaving a treacherous lover and moving into a new and prosperous era with romantic prospects.”

Jensen pointed at the four cards arrayed on the side. “These four are read as a unit, correct?”

“Very good, Agent Jensen. The five of Pumpkins shows the victim was at a turning point and in some distress. The six of Imps tells us that her friends thought she would be making the correct decision and would win out. The Moon is in a position to represent what she feared, and it is a card of deception. The werewolf image on this card may be descriptive of someone she knew changing fearfully, becoming violent. And then the last card, the Haunted Tower, this is a card of disaster. Inverted, as it is, just makes it worse.”

The FBI agent sipped her tea. “That makes for quite a story. Basically she ditches the Knight of Imps because he’s a weasel and he kills her. Now we just have to figure out who the Knight of Imps is.”

“And then we would figure out who the killer wants to frame for her killing.” Bloodstone frowned. “Or, is he the killer and frames himself so he can claim he was framed if caught? As I said, he is clever.”

I smiled. “You’ll just have to be more clever.”

“Oh, I am, much more.” Bloodstone steepled his fingers and perched his chin on them. “Once we know if Syndi Rooker dyed her hair, and who knew it, we will have our killer.”

_______________________

If you are enjoying this story and want to be a patron of the arts, please visit the Stormwolf Store. You can show your support by purchasing a variety of short fiction pieces and instructive booklets devoted to writing. Merlin Bloodstone’s adventures continue in Brewed Fortune, a tale of magic and mayhem set at the Arizona Renaissance Festival.

Adult Content Warning
The following work of fiction may contain language, violence or themes considered unsuitable for young readers. Parental discretion is advised. (If this story was a film, it would likely pull a PG-13 rating.)

The Cards Call Themselves

©2000 Michael A. Stackpole

Part Two

I rode in the front of the Taurus beside Agent Theresa Jensen, leaving Bloodstone alone in the back seat. I kidded myself that I’d chosen the front seat because the air conditioning is always better up front, but the fact was that Bloodstone’s cold fury was sucking enough heat out of the air that I’d have been frozen stiff if I’d ridden back there. I didn’t even try to talk to him, and Agent Jensen stopped after a couple of monosyllabic answers that I translated into a “just drive” hand signal.

Bloodstone had every right to be angry, with this latest serial murder performing the rough equivalent of crossing high power lines. When the FBI had originally come to him to ask him to consult on the serial killing, he’d been very reluctant to do so. One condition of his agreeing to work with them was complete anonymity. He’d said that if the Deathdealer were to learn he was on the case, things would change, and for the worst, and he did not want to bear responsibility for that.

The FBI had acquiesced to his conditions and had given us copies of all their files, which we agreed to keep confidential. What they gave us, while exhaustive, was not enough for Bloodstone. He wanted to be able to touch the actual cards the Deathdealer had left behind to see if he could pick up any sensations from them. While I don’t believe in any of that psychic stuff, Bloodstone clearly thought psychometric examination of the evidence would be helpful. The Feds refused that request, claiming they didn’t want evidence contaminated, which frustrated Bloodstone no end.

What the Feds wanted from him was interpretation and analysis of the tarot card spreads left behind with the victims. Each of the victims had been a blonde Caucasian woman with blue eyes in her mid-20s, well educated, fit, successful in business. Their trades varied from exotic dancer to Realtors, account executives to business entrepreneurs. The killings had taken place all over the country, at roughly six month intervals.

The Feds couldn’t find any connection between the women, but that was no real surprise. Serial killers tend to fixate on a particular prey model and go after it. The FBI was hoping the card spreads, comprised of eleven cards, would provide some sort of clue as to the killer’s background or his interaction with the women.

Something.

Anything.

Bloodstone got nothing. The killer always used a new deck with each killing, and none of them were unique or special enough that their purchase would have attracted attention. He never used the same style of deck twice. The spreads, while laid out rather haphazardly, were clearly positioned post mortem. The card selection, with the exception of the significator—a card used in readings to represent the subject of the reading—appeared to be completely random and utterly without value.

This drove Bloodstone up a wall, which made my life a living hell. Normally I function as Bloodstone’s aide, but while he was working with the Feds, I was his amanuensis, and heavy on the slave part of the word’s origin. I took down more dictation that dead-ended, building his frustration and mine. I got to hoping someone else caught the Deathdealer because if I got my hands on him, he’d be shuffled, cut and dealt in short order.

That, of course, was bad enough, but things quickly got worse. The New Times, a local entertainment weekly with Pulitzer pretensions, had obtained computer files that included autopsy photos from victims, and full reports that contained facts the Bureau had withheld to be able to sort copy-cats from the genuine article. What they published was contained in the files we’d been sent and, while they admitted the files were transmitted to them electronically, we got a call from Agent Jensen almost immediately to see if the files were ours.

I took it and reminded her that because Merlin Bloodstone—occultist and reluctant immigrant from the 19th century—doesn’t like computers, she gave us hard copy of everything. We didn’t have it in electronic form. She started investigating where any leaks might have occurred, but the damage was already done.

Sheriff Doug Hastings, who has found press conferences to be a prime tool in crime fighting, ripped into Bloodstone as the source of the leak. In an orgy of self-congratulations, he accused Bloodstone of being a publicity-seeking, opportunistic mountebank. Hastings added that he’d say Bloodstone was in league with the devil, but he didn’t want Satan calling up to protest the association. That remark really hacked me off, mainly because I’d said it about Sheriff Doug during one of his visits to Bloodstone’s office.

So, in the center ring of a media circus, Bloodstone’s involvement in the Deathdealer case was exposed. The fact that he couldn’t offer any help underscored the mountebank remark, which angered him, and fed back into his sense of dread concerning the Deathdealer. Bloodstone lives in a reality that doesn’t always interface well with the real world, but I knew that in his world, he was feeling that this latest death was somehow his fault.

The fact that it occurred only four months after the last killing, which pointed to an escalation of the killer’s cycle time, left me wondering if the Deathdealer weren’t throwing down a gauntlet. It wouldn’t quite be in keeping with the accepted psychology of a serial killer, but the rules governing their behavior are somewhat loose, and exceptions to them are bound to crop up. The Deathdealer had been exceptional through his spree so far, which sent a chill coursing down my spine.

It didn’t help matters that Jensen took us to a house on the north side of Camelback Mountain. From the front door I could see Casa Chaos. Bloodstone looked back at his home as he alighted from the car, and I was fairly certain he was wondering how his nemesis could have been so close and yet he felt nothing.

Wordlessly we followed Agent Jensen. At the doorway we donned booties over our shoes and pulled on latex gloves. Mine hung on my hands like a senior citizen’s skin—my hands are small—but Bloodstone’s just layered a corpse-like pallor onto his slender, long-fingered hands. He flexed his hands down into claws, then uncurled them again slowly and deliberately.

Jensen opened the door to the faux-adobe mansion and a blast of cold air slammed into me. “Private security found her when they responded to a silent alarm at 3 AM. The killer had cranked the AC down, making sure the body cooled off faster. It makes time of death analysis tougher, though I hope the coroner will be able to peg it from stomach contents.” She hesitated. “If we find the stomach, that is.”

Even with that sort of preparatory remark, and despite having seen autopsy photos of previous victims, there was no way to be ready for what I saw. It pretty much boiled down to a sunken living room, carpeted in white, with a red ocean in the center of it. What once had been a woman rose like an gray island out of that ocean. Blood splatters trailed over the walls, furnishings and ceiling like a galaxy of red stars swirling in a white sky.

The woman, who, as nearly as I could make out, was naked, lay on her back, with her hands up above her shoulders, arms bent at the elbow. Her legs were bent, too, with heels together. The arrangement of her limbs reminded me of the position of those frogs we dissected in high school, and she’d been laid open about as effectively. The only things missing were the little paper labels attached to the organs that had been removed.

Instead of those labels, though, I could see tarot cards. One on her forehead, one in each palm, one over her pubic hair, and a trio crisscrossed on her exposed sternum. In addition we had one each on her heart, liver, lungs and womb as they were laid out to the right of her body, in a line paralleling the edge of the couch.

It surprised me that I didn’t immediately turn and vomit, because I knew I should have. There was something about her, though, the way she lay there, that removed her from humanity. She’d gone from being a person to a victim and even a piece of evidence. It gave me some distance, and that was a distance I was happy to maintain.

The three of us were not alone in the house. Paradise Valley PD was there, with their forensic team photographing, measuring, taking samples, dusting for prints and all the other things they do. Bloodstone drifted forward as if we were alone, however, approaching the body slowly and reverently. He stepped down into the living room, to the edge of the crimson sea, and squatted. He closed his eyes for a second, then shook his head.

My boss slowly rose, turned and stripped off his gloves. “This isn’t a Deathdealer murder. You know that.”

A little bit of color drained from Jensen’s face. “I suspected.”

“You knew. You arrived at my house at eight, which was eleven back at Quantico. The agents there told you this was not a Deathdealer case before their first cups of coffee had gotten cold.”

“They weren’t on-site.” Her arctic eyes tightened as she stared down at him. “I needed to be sure.”

I frowned. “What am I missing here?”

Bloodstone glanced at me momentarily. “He utilized the Halloween Tarot.”

“Oh.” So far, the Deathdealer had never repeated use of a deck of cards. He’d used the Halloween Tarot in the fourth murder, two years ago, in October. His employment of the Halloween Tarot at that time had been taken as a clue, but no seasonal factors matched up with any of the other killings. “The significance of his utilization of that deck,” Bloodstone had concluded in a dead-end memo, “is that it was easy to find, especially at that time of year.”

Bloodstone looked up at Jensen. “Had you told me the name of the deck, I could have dismissed the connection in my office. Connor could have done it over the phone. Now, if you have no further need for me…”

“Look, Dr. Bloodstone, I feel bad about not being able to help you out through this whole thing. I want to make amends, and I will. Right now, though, I need your help.” She pointed past him to the body. “That was Syndi Rooker. She’s dead, and whoever killed her wanted to make it look like the Deathdealer did it. You know, as well as I do, that the moment the press and Sheriff Doug get wind of this, there’s no chance of conducting anything even approaching a good investigation. We finger a suspect and his lawyer will be protesting that we’re looking for a scapegoat because we can’t stop a monster. There’s already reasonable doubt built in and with juries made up of folks who aren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty, chances are justice won’t be served here.”

“You want me to help you solve her murder, then.”

“I need you to, yes.” She nodded. “You saw the cards. There’s a message there this time, isn’t there?”

Bloodstone gave her a curt nod. “There is. Misdirection, certainly.”

“That’s why this one is going to be tough, and we have to move fast. Longer we take, the better the chances he has of covering up any mistake he made.”

Bloodstone tapped a finger against his lips. “If I am to help you, we will have to do this my way. You will interview her close associates, of course, and I will want to be a part of that process. At my home. In my office.”

The FBI agent stiffened. “That would be highly irregular. I don’t know if my superiors….”

“Tell them you’ll clear the murder in time for national headlines on Sunday.”

She blinked. “What did you see that I didn’t?”

“Many things, but whether or not they are relevant remains to be determined.” The diminutive occultist shrugged. “It is very clear to me, however, that solving this murder quickly is vital. If we don’t catch the murderer swiftly, the press will tally this body up to the Deathdealer. The Deathdealer won’t like that. With his cycle being so close, I don’t want to see what he will do to vent his ire, do you? We will prevail, we have no choice.”

_______________________

If you are enjoying this story and want to be a patron of the arts, please visit the Stormwolf Store. You can show your support by purchasing a variety of short fiction pieces and instructive booklets devoted to writing. Merlin Bloodstone’s adventures continue in Brewed Fortune, a tale of magic and mayhem set at the Arizona Renaissance Festival.

Bad Moon Rising

John Gorenfeld’s book is subtitled “How Reverend Moon Created the Washington Times, seduced the Religious Right, and Built an American Kingdom. I’m only halfway through, but I’m learning a great deal which is surprising and illuminative—both about the world today and in how a cult moves from fringe to mainstream. I’ve followed the Unification Church (the Moonies) for years since one of the early “deprogramming” cases was based in Vermont. I recall Stephen Peregrine and I “discussing” theology with two Moonies on the street at a World Fantasy Convention. It may be cruel to play with the brainwashed, but it was also fun.

What I find fascinating about the book so far is not the easy confirmation that many politicians are for sale—that’s been true as long as politics has been around. What’s amazing is that the Unification Church has diversified so much, that it has become an economic powerhouse which funnels its money into efforts that Reverend Moon—the self-described Messiah—deems vital. This includes little things like a 2004 ceremony in the Dirksen Senate Office building in Washington, DC during which he was “Crowned” the King of Peace. Senators and Members of the House of Representatives participated in this ceremony and, to this day do not repudiate the ceremony or the Church.

I heartily recommend the book. It’s clearly written, incisive and a good read. Scary, but a good read.

The title above is a link to the book on Amazon.com. If you click on it and snag the book, I make nothing. I include the link so you can see what the book looks like for your next trip to a bookstore.