There may be some of you who are not yet acquainted with Douglas Hastings, our county Sheriff. He's the sort of man who would think of Jesse Helms as being a leftist pinko, and has serious suspicions about anybody who doesn't have an ironclad alibi for a fateful November day in Dallas, 1963. (My having been several years shy of birth at that date has put me into the secondary ring of suspects.) He's become famous for serving county inmates surplus corndogs and threatening to make the TV in the jail broadcast Teletubbies all the time.
He once had the build of a linebacker, but that was in the day when linebackers weren't giants, and his shoulders were wider than his waist. His hawk-nose clearly took one too many forearm shivers in his younger days. He'd had his iron-grey hair chopped short, then combed it forward to cover his balding scalp. I'd call his dark eyes piggish, but pigs have feelings, right?
Sheriff Doug stood there in the doorway, fists planted on hips, glaring triumphantly. The Josts rose and turned to face him, then Hastings dismissed them with a jerk of his head. He graciously took a step forward so they could slip past, then he nodded at the deputy behind him to close the doors.
"You see, while you've been here listening to Merlin the Meddler, I've been working hard." He strode into the room with his fists still on his hips, moving one foot forward and then the other, as if someone had made a giant croquet wicket out of rebar and had stuffed it down his pants. His suit, which had been woven of the finest khaki polyester and tailored in a western style, didn't quite squeak as he moved, but I could tell it really wanted to.
The rebar evaporated as he seated himself on the left arm of the leather couch. That arm did creak and I saw Bloodstone's lips get thinner. "We swept Rooker's brother Billy up after a citizen reported finding a vagrant behind the pool house. He was strung out, talking about blood and his sister. He had some of her stuff in his pockets, including a key to the house."
Bloodstone stood, filling his hands with his cup and saucer. "And you suppose, Sheriff, that Billy Rooker killed his sister?"
"Don't have any psychic vibes about him, do you, Bloodstone? You should, there are plenty. Drunk and disorderly, burglary, assault, possession of a deadly weapon, possession of cocaine. He's got a rap-sheet taller than you. Well, hell, babies born yesterday got a rap-sheet taller than you, Bloodstone. Fact is, Rooker had cut Billy off, wasn't going to pay for him to go to rehab any more. He told us the key was one he'd made when they were still talking and she let him crash there."
Kent sighed. "Means and motive. More than we have on any of the others."
"Exactly." Hastings thrust his chin at Bloodstone. "Not going to offer me a cup of victory tea? Where are your manners?"
"Connor, oblige the Sheriff." Bloodstone smiled coldly. "We need to show him some kindness, since we will show his theory none of it."
"What are you talking about?"
I got up and started making the Sheriff a cup of Earl Grey tea. It's the only thing we have that he'll drink, since he's suspicious of foreign teas. Somewhere he's gotten the impression that Earl Grey is named after Zane Grey's brother, and what could be more American than that?
Bloodstone sipped tea, letting Hastings wait, which made the Sheriff hotter than Bloodstone's tea. "Is there any indication Billy knows anything about the Tarot? Did he have cards on him? Were discarded cards found nearby? Was he wearing gloves to prevent leaving fingerprints?"
His lip curling into a sneer, Bloodstone offered a final salvo. "Perhaps, in his possession, you found his sister's stomach."
The Sheriff's chin came back. "No, but he described the scene. He said he must have cut her. He said he was mad at her."
"Of this I have no doubt, Sheriff. Please, sit down on the seat." Bloodstone walked past Kent and toward his desk. "It is blatantly obvious her brother came to the house, found her dead, then fled, terrified. He undoubtedly set off the alarm that led to her discovery."
"Obvious to you, maybe, Bloodstone."
"Obvious enough for even you, Sheriff." Bloodstone's upper lip almost twitched its way to a sneer. "The person who killed Syndi Rooker did so with passion, as well as calculation. Threaten her, tie her up, hit her, steal from her, all of these things her stoned brother could have done. Imitate the Deathdealer down to placing cards on the corpse, not possible."
Bloodstone set his cup and saucer down on his desk, then scooped the spread tarot cards into a pile and returned them to the deck. "The killer here was highly motivated and intelligent. The exposé of the Deathdealer's methods created an opportunity to murder Syndi Rooker. The only thing we know about the Deathdealer that the killer did not was my analysis of the tarot card spreads left on the victims."
Agent Jensen shook her head. "But you said those spreads were inconclusive and meaningless."
"Exactly." Bloodstone smiled. "Our killer learned enough about the tarot to manufacture a spread, but his knowledge of the cards stops there. I believe this is something we can exploit."
"Exploit it all you want, Bloodstone." Hastings raised the mug of tea I handed him in a salute. "I've got my man and I'm keeping him."
"Very good, Sheriff, you are welcome to him." Bloodstone nodded to me. "Connor, if you would be so good as to fetch Mr. Exner, Ms. Okamoto and the Josts. Detective Kent, if you would move your chair around for Ms. Okamoto."
Hastings blew on his tea to cool it. "What are you pulling here?"
"What concern is it of yours, Sheriff? You have your man." Bloodstone shrugged and his voice softened. "I will have the murderer."
Agent Jensen looked up. "Did you hear something I didn't?"
"Undoubtedly, but that's not important at the moment." Bloodstone fanned the cards out in his left hand, then swept them together again, and began to shuffle. "We all agree that everyone had means, no one had a motive and, given the lengths the killer went to in creating the impression that the Deathdealer killed Syndi Rooker, I will suppose any physical evidence of his presence will be minimal or accounted for by his acquaintance with Ms. Rooker. The chances of a conviction here are minimal. Unless..."
Hastings snorted as he moved away from the couch. "If you've got nothing, you're not going to get a confession."
"Oh, I think a confession could be in the cards."
I opened the doors into the foyer and nodded to the cops stationed by the doors to the front room and the dining room. "We need them all."
I noticed Hastings had only brought one deputy with him, the man who had stayed at the door. The deputy squared up as the other cops sent the suspects back to the office. His eyes tightened as each suspect walked past, with Exner in the lead and Okamoto last, having put the Josts between her and Xray.
I pulled the doors shut behind us all. Bloodstone, standing on the far side of the coffee table, smiled and pointed the visitors to their seats. "Mr. Exner, Mr. And Mrs. Jost, the couch, please. Ms. Okamoto, the chair is for you."
"Being told I'm getting the chair isn't what I wanted to hear."
Hastings snorted at her remark. "It's the needle in this state, missy."
Bloodstone's dark glance at the Sheriff suggested one person would be getting the needle, and it would go deep. Hastings had come around to stand with his back to the windows, near the chair, putting himself at right angles to Bloodstone and the guests. Kent and Agent Jensen both stood back and away from Bloodstone, he with his hands clasped at the small of his back, she with her arms crossed.
I returned to my desk and sat, able to see around most of Sheriff Doug to watch Bloodstone at work. I wasn't quite sure what Bloodstone was going to do, but I'd watched his theatrics enough to recognize when he was setting up for a major display. I considered, briefly, calling the bomb squad because I knew, no matter how it turned out, Hastings would explode. I decided to live dangerously and just watch him boil.
If enough of him evaporated, my line of sight would be totally unobstructed.
Bloodstone fanned the tarot cards out as a magician might at the start of a trick, drawing the attention of the visitors. "There are some things I must explain to you so you understand what I am going to do. Ms. Rooker's murder was made to look like the work of the serial killer known as the Deathdealer. He is known for brutally butchering his victims, then leaving tarot cards scattered over their bodies. You would know this unless you had the good luck or good taste to avoid last month's newspaper coverage of his predations."
Hastings smiled slowly, but said nothing.
"In that coverage, I was mentioned. At various points I was called a shaman, a psychic, a warlock and, by our esteemed sheriff, a 'fakir, fraud and mountebank.' I hope I quoted you accurately, Sheriff, though I fear I may have dropped some of your more colorful adjectives."
"You caught my drift."
"Indeed." Bloodstone graced him with a vaguely courteous nod. "In fact, I am none of those things. I am an occultist. I study that which is hidden in order to find truth. The FBI had asked me to look into the Deathdealer case because of the tarot angle. This is why I was asked to consult on the Rooker murder. Already, in speaking with you, a great deal of information has been revealed, but I need more, and simply talking will not get it for me."
Bloodstone thumbed through the deck of tarot cards and pulled a pack of five cards aside. He laid them face down on the coffee table. He continued on through the rest of the cards, grunted, cut and squared them, then slipped them into the left hand pocket of his coat. He picked up the five cards he'd dealt out, studied their faces, then closed his hands around them.
"Before I proceed, I need you to understand a couple of concepts in the realm of magick. The first is the Law of Similarity. It suggests that two items that are similar have some sort of a mystical bond. Iconography is a simple offshoot of this: the idea is that having a picture of a saint or wearing a medallion of some god somehow links you to that being, presumably for your benefit. Burning someone in effigy is likewise something that utilizes this same idea, but in a more malevolent form."
He brandished the cards, fanning them before the visitors who strained to look at the faces when he flashed them. "These cards come from a deck that is of the same design as that used by the killer, and used by the real Deathdealer in one of his murders. Being from the same print run, on the same stock, with the same images and ink, they are all but identical. Twins, if you will, or triplets, and we all know the sort of tight bonds such children have with each other."
The visitors nodded, spellbound by Bloodstone's low and rich voice. Even Hastings nodded for a moment before he caught himself. Verdict: guilty. Punishment: a blush that made his face as pink as the underwear he makes inmates wear.
If Bloodstone noticed his discomfort, he gave no sign of it. "A companion law of magick is Contagion. It holds that anything that has been in contact with another thing has a bond with it. Pieces of the True Cross, the relics of saints, a vial of Elvis' sweat: all of these things are seen to have power because of their connections. Memorabilia, hidden behind a thin veil of collectibility, has its popularity based in the direct connection between an item and the person who once owned or touched it. We all fall prey to this.
"Contagion, though, plays a more important part here. By studying and imitating the Deathdealer's methods, the killer absorbed some of the Deathdealer's essence. His evil, if you will, was catching. His taint could spread. The murder, I'm certain, shocked the killer when he saw what he had done." Bloodstone flicked a finger out to silence Hastings. "That evil has power, and by that evil the killer will be caught."
Bloodstone flipped one of the cards face up on the table. "This is the Queen of Bats. It was used to represent Syndi Rooker in the spread on her body. What is odd is that Ms. Rooker was blonde and had blue eyes, so she should have been represented by the Queen of Imps. This is why I asked if she dyed her hair, for this card would have been appropriate to a dark-haired woman. Our killer, though, in reading through the guide that accompanied the Halloween Tarot, chose this card because the description fit her, not the image. The law of Similarity in play again."
He passed one card to each of the visitors, emptying his hands. "Ms. Okamoto, you are represented by the Page of Pumpkins, a card reserved for a young woman of your coloration. Mrs. Jost, you are found in Pumpkins, again based on your coloration, and made Queen because of your maturity. Your husband is the King of Imps, which is perfect for a man with blond hair and blue eyes. And you, Mr. Exner, are the Knight of Bats."
They all studied their cards for a moment. Jini tapped hers against her chin while the others set theirs on the table again. Bloodstone drew the deck from his pocket and squared it in his left hand.
"The fact that you have each touched your card has now connected you with it. I want each of you to turn your card face down and reinsert it into the deck. Anywhere will do." He held the deck toward Jini and she inserted her card near the center. It quivered there for a moment, then Bloodstone tucked it away neatly.
"Thank you. Mrs. Jost?"
Helen Jost's card trembled, but slid into the deck a third of the way from the top. Marty Jost's followed, near the center, but more toward the bottom of the deck. Ray Exner had his card up and began to slide it toward the deck.
"Make sure it is head first, Mr. Exner."
The programmer flipped his card over, saw it was going in head first, flipped it back and inserted it. Bloodstone squared the deck, then turned to Agent Jensen. He pointed to the Queen of Bats.
"If you would be so kind."
Jensen picked the card up, made sure it was going in properly, and tapped it home.
Bloodstone smiled. "Thank you. Now that we have the victim and her known associates in the deck..."
"Wait just one minute." Hastings snorted and posted his fists on his hips again. "You're forgetting her brother, the killer."
My boss sighed and snapped a card off the bottom of the deck. "The Fool, how appropriate. If you don't mind, Sheriff?"
Hastings took the card, studied it closely, then knife-edged it into the deck. "This is as far as I'm going with your game."
"Your sportsman-like attitude is refreshing, Sheriff, but this is no game." Bloodstone placed the deck on the coffee table, the bright orange and black backs of the cards easily visible. "Tarot cards have magick in them. They have been used for centuries to predict the future and even to reveal the truth of past events. In this deck, Syndi Rooker has found her killer."
Squatting down, he gently slid cards to the right and a third of the way down, the Queen of Bats lay face up. Bloodstone nudged it out of the pack. He kept going, sliding cards to the right, stopping when he revealed the only other face-up card.
"She found her killer." Bloodstone glanced at the murderer. "The Knight of Bats. That would be you, Mr. Exner."
Ray Exner sprang to his feet and cut around the edge of the couch, making a direct line for the doors. He seemed to have forgotten that two cops and a deputy waited in the foyer. He was on a mad dash for freedom, and had a look on his face that I'd seen before.
On the field, when he hoped to score.
The fact was that I put the cops and deputy out of my mind, too, when I saw the expression he wore. I was up and out of my chair, at speed in a step or two, then down and sliding. Carpet isn't quite astroturf, and I regretted almost instantly my lack of shin-guards, but my slide-tackle scythed through Xray's legs real easy. He went flying and smashed into the doors hard enough to get me a six-game suspension. The door didn't give much, so Xray rebounded all jellyboned, went down and stayed down.
The deputy opened the door, found Exner twitching and me rubbing my shins.
Hastings snarled. "Take him downtown."
Kent waved the two PV cops forward. "He's ours."
"Just a minute, Kent, if you think..."
"I am thinking, Hastings, which is why he goes with my..."
"Gentlemen!" Bloodstone's voice cut through the rising din. "If you have jurisdictional battles to wage, do so outside my home. Having had a murderer here is disturbing enough. I will not have bickering."
I got to my feet by the time the two of them headed out of the office. A cop had one of Exner's ankles, the deputy had the other, and they were dragging him into the foyer. I wondered what their wishes would be before they started tugging him to their separate cars. I closed the doors behind them.
In the center of the office our visitors and Agent Jensen all stared agog at Bloodstone. He'd slid onto his face a mask of serenity, but I knew he was loving every minute of their astonishment. For my part, I raised my hands and gave him a polite but silent opera-clap. His amethyst eyes flicked up and caught it, then he bent and gathered the cards.
Jini Okamoto broke the silence. "How did...?"
"The cards know?" Bloodstone finished her question, then pondered it for a moment - a pause for drama, nothing more. "Things were rather obvious, once all was considered. We knew everyone had the means to commit the murder, since you all had access to the house, and the knife used was from the kitchen. Unfortunately, this was far too parochial a view of the means to the murder."
The FBI agent shook her head. "Access and tools are pretty much how means are defined."
"I understand this, Agent Jensen, but Exner's planning extended far beyond that. Look, if you will, at the frame he fashioned for the murderer." Bloodstone placed the cards in his jacket pocket. "He set things up so this murder would be dismissed as one of the Deathdealer murders. His only error in the modus operandi was in using a deck the Deathdealer had used before. Oddly enough, though, the files never explicitly noted that the real killer had never reused a deck. The decks were talked about in depth, and more was written about the Halloween Tarot than any other, so he lit on that as the one to use."
Jensen shook her head. "But that information was available to everyone once it was leaked."
"Precisely, and Exner was the only person here who had the skills needed to hack into the database and release that information. I have no doubt he was the one who leaked the Deathdealer data - recall, he said the net was about the freedom of information. I think he plotted to kill Syndi Rooker for a while, and secretly studied the files of serial killers to find someone who had a victim profile that matched her. Once he had chosen the Deathdealer, he sent the data to the New Times, manufacturing a furor that would attract national attention. He sought to create a plausible reason why the serial killer might come to Phoenix to harvest a victim. Here the Deathdealer's methods had been exposed, here law enforcement was waiting for him, here they had consulted with a psychic to find him. It was a challenge we might believe the Deathdealer could not ignore. Exner built a frame that would have fit the Deathdealer perfectly. There would be no question that he alone could be guilty of the murder."
Helen Jost shivered. "I can accept that Ray killed Syndi - I've never liked him. Still, it makes no sense. Why would he do it?"
Bloodstone smiled ever so slightly. "The most common motive, money, was not a consideration for any of you. Your financial stakes in Thothsoft would pay off well. Jealousy was not a motive. Ms. Rooker's affections were well and truly engaged. Exner knew she would never be his again, and his plays for her were merely to eliminate this motive. He didn't care for her at all. He loved another, and to protect his lover, he plotted to kill, and killed with passion."
Marty Jost shook his head. "Who? What? Xray was a virtual hermit. Who did he love?"
"You don't see it, Mr. Jost? Not who, what." Bloodstone half-closed his violet eyes as he shook his head. "Ms. Okamoto said that Voyager had become Exner's mistress. Mr. Exner talked about the freedom his program would provide people, all the good it would do for them. You suggested he did not know Voyager's true worth, but you were talking dollars, and he was seeing it in a sense of empowerment for the masses. He was Pygmalion, having created a work of art from nothing, imbued it with life, only to find that Syndi Rooker was going to sell it and the company to Microsoft. His vision, his gift to intellectual freedom, would be dominated by a company he hated. That drove him to plot her death."
Agent Jensen cleared her throat. "It is hard to believe he killed someone for a lot of ones and zeroes."
"Perhaps, but his passion for Voyager was truly the passion of an artist for his masterpiece. It would shock none of us to know an artist had killed to save his Mona Lisa." Bloodstone shrugged easily. "In interrogating him, suggest the program will be abandoned, as the code will be locked away as evidence and not revealed until there is a conviction in the case. He'll confess to save Voyager. He will gladly go to prison to set Voyager free."
The Federal agent frowned. "What about his alibi?"
I raised a hand. "Online chats can be pretty banal and are often moderated to prevent chaos. The questions he said he asked were probably sent to the chat moderator who asked them of the guest. The chat runs two hours and he set the program to log him off after that long. The logs would show he was there.
"As for the online game, folks write programs all the time to train characters up - that way they can sell them on Ebay for serious long green. The programs take input from the game and go to a database to send back the right answer. For a programmer of Exner's skill, putting together something that did that, and even answered simple questions politely would have been easy. That program won't have been a masterpiece, but I bet there's a copy of it on his machine at home."
Jensen nodded. "I'll have our techs look for that."
Helen Jost shivered. "Dr. Bloodstone, what about the thing with the cards? We know there is no such thing as magick. How could you have thought a card trick would make him expose himself?"
"My dear woman, despite your belief that there is no such thing as magick, can you deny feeling a bit of terror and dread as you put your card in the deck?"
"No, but..."
Bloodstone kept his voice warm, and only let it get a little patronizing. "We are raised to be rational people, but we all accept and revel in stories of magick, in talismans and omens. We might scoff at superstitions, but we claim weird things happen under a full moon. Would you get on a flight numbered 1313? Have you seen a hotel with a thirteenth floor? If someone told you the sweater they just loaned you had been worn by Hitler, would your skin crawl?"
Helen nodded and Bloodstone smiled. "From Connor I knew a bit about Exner's behavior at athletics. Like most athletes, he engaged in superstitious rituals. Many do. Connor is positively rigid in his, aren't you? You wrap the left ankle first, then the right?"
I coughed into my hand and hoped I at least partially hid my blush. "Yes, except on game days that have a prime number, then it's both at the same time."
My boss snorted. "You see, even a skeptic has these little behaviors. In that solitary moment of irrational fear, Ray Exner knew he'd been caught. His knowledge of his own guilt exploded through the door unlocked by that card, and he ran."
That seemed to cover enough of the situation that our guests asked no more questions. After a round of good-byes, I escorted them from the office. I returned to see Agent Jensen sipping her tea. "So you refuse to tell me how you pulled that trick?"
Bloodstone shook his head. "I don't know why you persist in assuming it was a trick, Agent Jensen. You're an intelligent woman, you watched me and saw no trickery. Either you're not as smart as you think you are, or you witnessed the true magick of the cards."
She frowned for a moment, then drained her cup. "I'll figure it out, you know."
"It's nice you'll have a hobby." Bloodstone accepted her mug from her. "It pleases me to have been able to help you in this matter, but that should not be taken as meaning all is forgiven. You will communicate that to your superiors."
"Good day, Dr. Bloodstone, and thank you." She nodded to him, then shook my hand. "I'll see myself out."
I followed her to the office door, then returned and began to gather up the cups and mugs. Bloodstone sat behind his desk, with the cards spread out before him. He picked up one and tossed it aside, and then another.
"Nice trick, that one, with the cards."
He looked up. "Ah, you're about to suggest some prosaic explanation to salve your skeptic's sensibilities?"
"I could work on the 'how' and get it, but you'd deny it." I smiled easily. "I've got the 'why' pegged solid, though."
"Oh?" He let a card idly drop from his hand. "Please."
"Since you used magick to expose him, there's not a snowball's chance in hell of them ever calling you as a prosecution witness. And since you could always turn around and say it was sleight of hand, the defense won't call you either. No swearing an oath, no having to go to the courthouse, no disagreeable lawyers cross-examining you, no one making you adhere to a schedule somehow connected to this world instead of the one where you live."
The little man chuckled lightly. "If this is what you choose to believe, Connor, good for you. I think the alternative would be less to your liking."
I set the mugs down at the wetbar, then glanced at the deck of Black Tarot cards on my desk. "Are you going to tell me you had some sort of a vision? You had a feeling the Deathdealer is going to strike?"
"That deck, that layout, will be on his next victim."
A shiver ran up my spine. "No, sir, I'm not buying it. And you're not going to tell me that this Contagion nonsense is reflective. You said Exner had the Deathdealer's taint because he used his methods. You want me to believe you did this so you could get Exner to touch a card that would link back to the Deathdealer?"
"That would certainly make things easier, wouldn't it?" Bloodstone fingered a single card. "What I think will happen is this. The Deathdealer has done all he can to proof himself against modern forensic science. He knows of no law enforcement method that can catch him. He'll learn, however, that an imitator was caught through a new means, an arcane means. He will have to change how he works, learn new ways of acting, and in making those changes, he will make mistakes. He makes mistakes, and he can be caught."
"Oh yeah?" I folded my arms across my chest. "And what if the change he decides to make is to come after you and kill you?"
"That's possible, Connor." Bloodstone walked the card
The Magician through the fingers of his right hand. "We'll
have to make sure, if he chooses that strategy, it's the biggest
mistake of all."