Chapter 3 #3
She turned to look at him. “What about you? When you hold something and see what you see? Does it hurt? Is it exhausting?”
“Nothing like what you go through,” he told her. He tried to smile lightly. “As you said, I don’t run around trying to touch things that have a horrible past—unless it can do something to help in the present, or as you said in the future.”
“You didn’t get anything from the shop?”
He shook his head. “That wasn’t the kind of place where … Okay, too many people handled too many things, if that makes sense.”
“Of course!”
“But …”
“But?”
He produced the zebra.
“Cute. And?”
“I couldn’t do anything with Howell there and”—he paused, wincing—“I didn’t ask Howell if I could take it. Of course, I’ll return it! But …”
“So, did you get anything yet?”
“I may get more when I have time to keep holding it. Right now, I know she wasn’t afraid; her mother kept her from being afraid.”
“I guess every little mercy needs to be appreciated!” Skye said.
It wasn’t much of a drive to reach the headquarters.
When they were there, they discovered that a crew of officers, state and local police, and extra agents from the Boston area had been gathered by the man who had seen to it that Jackson brought people in; they were all to be part of a task force and/ or at least aware of what they were looking for.
They met with Lieutenant Gavin Bruns first.
He was, as she had expected, a serious man with cleanly cut dark hair and a professional demeanor that was tempered by a warmth beneath as he greeted them.
She was certain as they spoke that he had a deep empathy for victims. He didn’t dig when Skye said they’d seen something online that had almost instantly disappeared, someone claiming they’d witnessed a green witch with a pointed hat head toward the Bolton house.
He was a friend of Jackson’s. Maybe he had learned he just needed to let Jackson and his people go—accept the good without question.
Zach didn’t know what had happened in Salem before; but whatever had gone down, Bruns had been impressed. He didn’t appear to want to pry or feel any need to pursue the why behind their explanation of what they believed had happened.
He just wanted them to talk to the assembly of law enforcement officers they had gathered.
They needed to warn the force that was being sent out to find the victims. And they wanted to make sure that those who would be working their regular beats needed to be aware of what they should be looking for.
Bruns, recently given a promotion, was managing a few cases; he had sent Detectives Cason and Berkley home.
No one could work efficiently when they’d gone too many hours without sleep.
The next morning, as soon as they reported in, the two partners would learn what they needed to be doing, and looking for.
“And you two! After this meeting, you’re going to let other officers and agents work through the night.
I promise you, we will be looking for these women and children.
But you also need to get to your rooms and get some sleep.
No one works well when they are so exhausted that they are about to keel over.
Not even Feds,” he said, offering a smile and a dry shot at humor.
They were ready for the meeting.
After having met with Bruns, they both were disappointed he wasn’t going to be working with them, but he was, of course, just a phone call away at any time they might need him. He brought them out to introduce them to the squad, to many of those who would be handling any tech on the case.
“I must admit, I haven’t had much time with them or any time. They’ve been in the field, and I’ve been stuck behind a desk,” Bruns told the pair. “But you’re introduced, take it away with these folks.”
Skye gave Zach a nod, and he knew she wanted him to do the talking.
It was going to be easier for him to lie, he figured.
Because there was no choice. They had to make use of lies. Easier was his only choice.
Zach did his best, first telling the assembled law enforcement what was simple fact, then telling them that the rather ridiculous possibility of someone dressing up as a witch to carry off the crimes appeared to be what was happening.
The second place hit had been the costume shop, where there was evidence that someone, paying cash, had purchased both the makeup and the costume.
Some of the team apparently thought the idea of such a thing was still theory; others believed if they could find a suspect who was holding on to the costume paraphernalia, they might well have a case against them.
The meeting was over, and officers in Salem and surrounding areas would be on the search through the night for the kidnapping victims.
While neither Skye nor Zach believed Fin was involved, a search warrant would be issued so his tiny studio and his car could be searched.
Then …
Then there was no choice. They were being asked to get sleep.
They’d been set up at a small nineteenth-century home near Salem Common. It was close to the station; but as they settled into the car, Skye closed her eyes again, and it appeared she was almost wincing.
“Are you all right?” he asked her. “Sorry—I do keep asking that. It’s just that I was pretty worthless today, and I guess it took a greater toll on you.”
“I am fine, just tired, and historic witch trials—and a green witch. Human beings … we’re capable of being so ridiculous!”
“Beyond a doubt. Beyond a doubt. Human—and then inhumane. But … while things were bad here, did you know that werewolf trials took place in Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries?” Zach asked her.
“Trials—for someone being a werewolf?” Skye asked. “I must admit, that never came up in any of my history classes.”
He nodded grimly. “I know of one that was … horrific. In Germany, 1589, Peter Stumpp. He was tied to the large wheel of a cart, his skin was removed with hot pinchers, and his head was cut off before his body was burned on a pyre and then the head was put on a wooden pole designed to look like the body of a wolf—you know, warning to other werewolves. Of course, after some pretty extreme torture, he admitted to being a werewolf, eating sheep, goats, and, naturally, women and children. Was he a killer? Who knows—but his mistress and daughter were killed alongside him, a bit more mercifully strangled before they were burned on the pyre.”
Skye winced. “I knew, of course, about the witchcraft trials in Europe—and Asia, and all over the world just about. It’s estimated that somewhere between sixty thousand and maybe even two hundred thousand people were persecuted and executed.
When you’re looking back at something like the Peter Stumpp situation, maybe he was a criminal, if not a werewolf, or maybe his neighbors just wanted revenge for some wrong or slight. ”
“The world never really changes,” Zach said.
“People will always believe what they want to believe. Indoctrinated and brainwashed sometimes, perhaps by a community in which they live or grow up, maybe forced into belief sometimes, but …” Zach paused, shrugging.
“But these days? Someone believing in a green witch with a black pointy hat—I’m not seeing it.
The gun this person is wielding is doing all the talking. ”
“But what then?” Skye wondered. “What is the end game? There haven’t been any ransom calls.
And thankfully, I mean, the bodies of the kidnapped women and children have not been found, which—very hopefully—means the missing women and children are still alive.
So, are we going on the concept they are alive?
Then where are they being kept and why?”
“That’s why a task force is going to be so important. And every officer out there knowing that they’re looking for a green person in a witch costume … everything that you saw today is really going to help, Skye!”
She smiled at that, leaning back again.
“I have a feeling,” she said.
“A paranormal feeling?” he asked lightly.
That drew a smile. “No, just that gut law enforcement feeling thing,” she told him. “Tomorrow … tomorrow we’re going to find something—and you’re going to be the most helpful!”
He smiled. And as they did so, he saw the little house that had been rented for them just down the street. “Ah, parking!” he murmured. “Magic! There’s a space almost right in front of the place.”
They headed on in. Zach had arrived first that morning; he’d set his computer up on the dining-room table.
He saw she had done the same thing when she’d arrived.
When Jackson Crow sent agents out, it appeared that he did so carefully. The house was small; it offered just two bedrooms upstairs, the kitchen, dining room, and parlor downstairs.
Of course, the dining room as a work area made sense—there was really nothing else.
“Scotland,” Skye said suddenly.
He turned and arched a brow to her. “Scotland?”
“James VI of Scotland, who also became James I of England,” Skye murmured.
“I think he’s been dead awhile,” Zach noted.
“Right. But he was one of those people—one with great power—who became obsessed with the idea that witches and witchcraft were real and evil.
He wrote a dissertation called Daemonologie, which was published in 1597—ironically, several years before the King James version of the Bible.
The man had been married by proxy to Anne of Denmark, and a fierce storm almost killed her when she was on her way to Scotland via ship.
James went to Norway—part of the Danish empire at the time—to retrieve her himself.
They spent a bit of time in Copenhagen and then Oslo and boarded a ship to head back to Scotland.
“Once again, a storm swept up. James had always been paranoid about people wanting to kill him—possibly since his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, had been beheaded. Who knows? But people—mainly women—were accused of causing the storms in the Danish empire. And, of course, it’s always amazing what people will admit to under torture.
Someone confessed, others confessed … and it all started up all over again in Scotland.
Not that witch trials hadn’t existed there before, but beneath James’s kingship …
it all went a little crazy, and thousands were burned at the stake. ”
“We’ve been aware that history is—” Zach began.
“Tragic!” Skye finished, shaking her head. She looked at him. “It makes it all the more perplexing! What the heck is going on? Who would dress up as a wicked witch in Salem to commit a murder and kidnap women and children?”
Zach grimly studied her. “The who is what we must find out. And the why … well, that’s probably going to be really crazy, but—”
“But! Again! Maybe finding out the why will give us the who,” Skye cut in.
“And I have the strangest feeling …”
“Feeling?” she queried.
“Just a feeling,” he said, grinning. “A feeling that it’s just not going to be what we’re expecting at all. Anyway, the little zebra and I are going to bed. Maybe holding it in the darkness, I’ll get a few visions of my own.”