Secret Rituals (Morgan Knight Mysteries Book 1) - Jo Beekman

Secret Rituals (Morgan Knight Mysteries Book 1) by Jo Beekman

Book excerpt

Morgan sat quietly, holding the memorial album in her lap. No tears. Re-reading Chris’s obituary was her way of measuring her emotional spillover potential. Sometimes, like today, she was saddened but ok. Some days the sadness and emptiness were overwhelming and she cried; sometimes for Chris, sometimes for Rambler. She would probably make it through her meeting with Jack Brannigan without embarrassing herself today. She hadn’t seen Chris’s Captain since the funeral, almost a year ago. She hoped whatever he had for her wasn’t too awful.

Arriving at the station, she parked in the visitor’s lot and went in the main entrance. The chubby red head at the reception desk was drinking a chocolate Slim Fast and although the computer screen wasn’t facing Morgan, she could see the woman was playing Spider Solitaire from the reflection of the screen in the one-way glass behind her. “Morgan Knight to see Captain Brannigan,” Morgan said.

The woman glanced up at her. “Is he expecting you?”

“Yes.”

“Just a moment please”. The woman picked up the house phone and murmured something into the handset. After a moment, she hung up and said, “Have a seat.”

Jack burst through the door a few minutes later, a six-foot husky man with short salt-and-pepper hair that always stood on end due to his habit of absentmindedly spiking it with his fingers throughout the day. His blazing blue eyes looked even brighter than the last time she had seen him and she wondered briefly if he had gotten new contacts. She stood and held her hand out but he bypassed it and enveloped her in a quick bear hug. “So good to see you,” he said. Still no tears. She was going to get through this.

She followed him back through the maze of hallways to his office. Same office. Same worn wood desk, ugly chairs and hideous picture on the wall. The picture had been there when he first moved into the office and he saw no reason to change it after all these years. It was an office, he was fond of telling people who grimaced upon seeing it for the first time. It wasn’t his home. Morgan had been in his home and knew there was no artwork there. Just like his office, it was plain, simple, and met his needs. She sat in the right ugly chair, knowing that it was slightly more comfortable than the left one.

Jack sat down at his desk and looked her over. She looked ok. Her thick dark brown hair was still fairly long, just below her shoulders. She was on the slender side, but not skinny, and tall , not that much shorter than he was. A nice-looking woman with pale grey-blue eyes, average nose, nice mouth and chin. In the right outfit and a little make-up, she could turn a few heads, despite being in her forties. In the “Knight Integrity Security Systems” grey polo shirt and black jeans she was wearing…not so much.

“We all know that while Chris had the title, you did the heavy lifting,” Jack said quietly after a moment. “We’d like you to be our formal consultant on the offbeat stuff.” He hesitated, waiting to see her reaction. When she didn’t say anything, he added, “We haven’t come up with a title yet but we’ll give you a contract and pay you, of course. Probably call you our Special Knowledge Consultant or something like that.”

Morgan nodded. “Something’s come up?”

Wordlessly, he passed her an envelope. She pulled the pictures out, shuffled through them for a quick look and then studied them one by one. This had been Chris’s “Special Knowledge Specialist” part of the job—identifying cult and occult symbols and practices. “The Wizard of Weird” is what he called himself.

The pictures appeared to be of the same outdoor site. The first one was a close-up of a badly decomposed head. A little mustache hair was still attached and the small amount of hair on the sides of the head was short. Probably a male. The head had been split open. There were some jagged edges, almost as though it had been pried open. “What the hell?” she murmured to herself. She looked at the next one, same head, slightly further away, showing the neck with no body attached. “Decapitated,” she said, stating the obvious. “Before or after the skull was split open?”

“Mattie says before.” Matilda Conner had been the Medical Examiner for the tri-county area for over twenty years. “But not much before. Hours, not days. They took his brain. The head was out there for around three months. Lots of bugs, some animal chewing, almost no flesh left. A guy looking for aluminum cans stumbled across it Monday. He swears he didn’t touch anything—just saw it and ran.”

Morgan looked through the remaining pictures. Cigarette butts. A couple soda cans. The long-distance shot only showed a few officers standing in the field. The head wasn’t visible. “Do you know who he was? Was either the decapitation or the skull splitting done there? Any remains of the brain?”

“No idea who he was. We have some DNA but no one to match it with. No body, no hands, no prints. Best guess is that the head was brought there without the body and the brain may or may not have been removed on-site. An animal could have eaten it, but Mattie said it was scooped out with something similar to a serving spoon. They left a few bits in the skull but most of it was gone. Why do that if you’re leaving it for animal food?”

Monday. Three days ago. “Have you had anyone else look at this? What did they say?” She knew that they had used a consultant on at least one other incident. Something was nagging at the back of her skull. She had never seen anything quite like this, but something rang a distant bell. Or maybe it was too many zombie movies.

“We, uh, temporarily hired a consultant but he wasn’t working out,” Jack said, a little embarrassed. “And I didn’t know if you’d want to continue doing this sort of thing…you know…without…”

Morgan reached across the desk and lightly touched the back of his hand. “I understand.” The silence stretched awkwardly. “Why did you decide to bring me in?”

“This wasn’t his first case with us, but now we’re wondering if he’s really any good at this sort of thing. He works with a couple other counties that think he’s the best thing ever, but so far all he’s told us for both cases he’s worked for us is that they’re witchcraft. But nothing that actually helps us except that we now know there are witches among us.” He grunted. “A lot of witches. Apparently, it’s popular nowadays.”

“I don’t think the church vandalism was witchcraft. Of course, I only know what was in the paper, but it seemed more like kids playing at something.” Morgan studied the pictures of the immediate area around the remains. “And I don’t think this is witchcraft either. Of course, there’s a lot of home-grown stuff out there now, but this definitely isn’t traditional Wiccan.”

“Ballpark guess—I won’t hold you to it.”

“Ballpark guess. These days’ people see a movie or read a book about the occult and make up their own rituals. Paranormal stuff is popular these days. It could be some sort of off-branch witchcraft thing, but that would be low on my list.” She sat quietly, thinking. “A lot of African and Caribbean cult religions use bones. Satanic stuff sometimes. But the brain makes it odd. How quickly can you do the contract? I don’t care about the money but I would like copies of these. I also want to talk to Mattie and maybe visit the site myself, in case something stands out to me that didn’t to you. Although we can hope this was a one-time thing, it’s odd enough that it might not be.”

“I’ll see if I can speed it up. Why do you think they took the brain?”

Morgan shrugged. “There’s not a market for random dead brain tissue that I know of. Some kind of ritual. Magic. A dark ceremony of some sort. There may have been symbols drawn in the dirt that have disappeared since. I don’t know what this is, but I would think if the brain removal was part of a ceremony, it would take place at the ceremony. Not somewhere else and then taken to the ceremony site. If it were that, why wouldn’t the body be there as well? Or if it was taken afterwards to a ceremony, why not leave the head with the body? Or there was no ceremony here and they dumped the head, but not the body. I’ve never heard of any ritual where the body and head had to remain separate, but there may be one out there. Too bad it wasn’t found sooner. Then it would be clearer if this was just a dump site.”

“I thought ‘ritual’ when I saw it.” Jack held out his hand and she put the photos back in the envelope and handed it to him. “So how are you really?”

“I’m mostly ok. Better when I’m busy. Much better than I was. Since Chris was ten years younger than I am, he was supposed to outlive me. Even being a cop.”

Jack leaned back in his chair. “How’s the business?”

“That is going really well,” she said, relieved the potential teary part seemed to be over. Knight’s Integrity Security Systems (Protect what you love with a KISS) was her baby. She and her band of geeks (as Chris had called them) designed and installed security systems that the homeowner could monitor from their cell phone or computer. Or they could recommend a monitoring company. They also installed store-bought systems for people who didn’t feel comfortable wielding a drill and screwdriver. “I hired a college student to help out in the office. Business is up and Hector is too busy most of the time to answer the phone.”

“So, you have a secretary I can pester? What’s her name?”

“His name is Julian. He’s working for a degree in Cyber Security so he’s also getting hands-on training from Hector. Really nice kid. And smart. After he gets his degree, if I can afford him, I’ll try to keep him.” Morgan stood up. “So, you’ll give me a call when the contract is ready?”

“As soon as I have it. And I’ll have the copies for you and the notes from the officers. Riley and Ticker were the first responders. I’ll get the M.E.’s reports copied for you too. Maybe it will tell you something it didn’t say to any of us. I’ll let Mattie know you may want to talk to her. She’ll be happy you’re back.”

Four days later, Jack called. “We have another one. I’ll pick you up in ten. You can see it firsthand.”

A patrol car sat in the driveway. No lights, no occupants. Morgan followed Jack across the front yard of the empty house and through a gate into the back. Small backyard, mostly dirt and gravel, a few cacti against the cedar privacy fence. And of course, a head.

The stench was strong enough that her eyes watered whenever the wind shifted. “We’re waiting on the doctor,” one of the patrol officers said to Jack. “House was owned by a Mrs. Rostern, who passed away a couple months ago. Three adult children who stripped the house after she died and are currently bickering about whether to sell it or keep it, according to the neighbor. One kid lives in Orlando, one’s in Tampa and the other one is out of state. Georgia, Alabama, he’s not sure. He has the number for the one in Orlando somewhere. He’s looking for it.” He pointed to the house next door. “He’s the one that called in the odor. The front gate was locked so we walked around to the back easement. We could smell it so we used one of the garbage cans back there to climb over the fence.”

“One of you go out front and shut the gate behind you. The other one, go back to the easement. Let’s not roll out the crime scene tape until we get the head out of here unless we get an audience,” Jack said. “And you,” he said to the scene technicians that had just walked into the back yard, “go ahead and get started but don’t move the head. Mattie’s on her way.”

Morgan moved back beside the fence and watched one of the techs glove up and take a camera out of the kit box. From her vantage point, she didn’t see anything unusual in the dirt and gravel. No drawn symbols, no patterns. No pools of blood. She walked next to the fence so she could see the head at a different angle. Split skull. To her eyes, it looked pretty similar to the other one. She couldn’t tell if it was male or female. Some very short dark hair. The eyes were gone but the nose and lips were there, although tattered from insects and birds. No evidence of facial hair. Enough flesh remained that the head’s natural square shape was still obvious.

“Whew! You guys got a real stinker this time. Morgan! Long time no see, girl.” Mattie turned to her assistant. “Put the case down there, Danny, and bring the gurney and an extra-small body bag.” She walked over to Morgan and gave her a hug. “Good to see you on the job.” She patted Morgan’s arm. “Come see me soon and we’ll talk about this mess.” She turned from Morgan and walked over to the head. “No brain. Sheesh.” Morgan heard the petite woman with the bright red-dyed hair begin to hum as she started to work. Mattie, as Chris used to say, was a trip. She had to be close to sixty, if not older, but you’d never know it from her attitude or her energy level. Or her language. She was the only person she knew that could out-swear her.

Mattie directed the techs on what picture angles she wanted. Once that was done, she carefully inserted a thermometer into a small pocket of decayed flesh near the chin. “Waste of time,” she said cheerfully, “but better to have it in case some smart ass accuses me of screwing up because I didn’t.” Morgan bit back a smile. She had seen Mattie take a temperature of a totally decayed severed leg before. The woman stuck a thermometer in, on, or around everything she handled. On the plus side, it was hard to picture her missing anything or missing a step anywhere. OCD should be a requirement for medical examiners, Morgan thought to herself.