eggs.”
“Well, the yellow stuff inside the muffin was purportedly once inside a chicken.” She’d reached the sleepy peace of an elementary school set in a long sprawl of grass punctuated by swings and a slide. All empty, of course, this early on a summer morning. Parking spots were slanted along its length. She pulled into one and wondered if the dead children had gone to this school. “I’ve got coffee, too.”
“I’ve got coffee. Hotels put coffeepots in the rooms these days, thank God. It’s food I lack. Are you chewing? Do I hear chewing?”
Lily swallowed and grinned. She could picture Karonski sitting in a generic hotel room in his rumpled suit . . . No, he wouldn’t be dressed yet. He probably slept in his shorts, but no way was she going to picture Karonski in his underwear, so she mentally provided him with brown Sansabelt slacks and a wrinkled shirt. Karonski’s shirts were always wrinkled. “Who, me? That would be rude, even though I am in a hurry. I’ve got a meet in twenty minutes.”
“Then you’d better tell me about these bodies you found.”
Another image replaced the one of a wrinkled Karonski. This one had her putting the uneaten portion of her egg sandwich back in the bag it had come from. “Actually, Rule found them.” She folded the bag down so no crumbs could escape, giving the task more attention than it warranted.
“A woman and two kids.”
“Yeah. The locals locked up the father for it even though they didn’t have the bodies, but they had cause. He showed up at the sheriff’s office with the bloody baseball bat. There’s supposed to be a witness, too, a postal worker who tried to help and got whacked.”
“But you detected death magic on the bodies.”
“Yes, and I don’t understand it. Here’s how it looks to me. Either the victims were killed by death magic, or they were killed creating it—as part of a ritual empowering the practitioner. The first one seems unlikely. Physical evidence on the bat marks it as the murder weapon, and there’s a witness. It’s barely possible the perp pounded the bodies afterward in an effort to hide their true manner of death, but that doesn’t fit with his subsequent actions.”
“Disposing of the bodies, then driving back into town so he could hand the sheriff the bat with all that great physical evidence.”
“Yeah. The guy’s nuts, but insanity usually has its own weird logic. I can’t make that fit any kind of logic, no matter how twisted. As for the other scenario . . . evidence at the victims’ home suggested that the kids were killed in their beds, but the mother was chased down. Death magic—the extraction of power through killing—has to be performed ritually, right? That doesn’t sound like the kind of controlled situation a ritual requires.”
“Could be the first kid was killed ritually and the others were taken out because they’d witnessed it.”
“What kind of idiot sets up a ritual killing with others in the house?”
“He’d have to be loony tunes,” Karonski agreed. “Probably a lousy practitioner, too. Maybe he thought he’d spelled the others asleep and got it wrong.”
Lily tapped one finger against the steering wheel, frowning. It didn’t feel right. “They all had it on them. I confirmed that on the scene. Death magic was smeared on all three of them. Would that be true if only one of them was killed ritually?”
Karonski had a deep, windy sigh like a weary hound. “No, you’re right. I obviously need more coffee. Nothing I know makes that possible. Of course, there’s a hell of a lot I don’t know about death magic. What I keep having trouble with, though, is the bat. Blunt force trauma is not symbolically correct.”
“Expand on that.”
“Death magic involving human victims is extremely rare, but animal killings aren’t, so we know a little about what’s required. Every ritual I’ve heard of uses a knife or blade. The Aztecs didn’t bash their sacrifices’ heads
“Well, the yellow stuff inside the muffin was purportedly once inside a chicken.” She’d reached the sleepy peace of an elementary school set in a long sprawl of grass punctuated by swings and a slide. All empty, of course, this early on a summer morning. Parking spots were slanted along its length. She pulled into one and wondered if the dead children had gone to this school. “I’ve got coffee, too.”
“I’ve got coffee. Hotels put coffeepots in the rooms these days, thank God. It’s food I lack. Are you chewing? Do I hear chewing?”
Lily swallowed and grinned. She could picture Karonski sitting in a generic hotel room in his rumpled suit . . . No, he wouldn’t be dressed yet. He probably slept in his shorts, but no way was she going to picture Karonski in his underwear, so she mentally provided him with brown Sansabelt slacks and a wrinkled shirt. Karonski’s shirts were always wrinkled. “Who, me? That would be rude, even though I am in a hurry. I’ve got a meet in twenty minutes.”
“Then you’d better tell me about these bodies you found.”
Another image replaced the one of a wrinkled Karonski. This one had her putting the uneaten portion of her egg sandwich back in the bag it had come from. “Actually, Rule found them.” She folded the bag down so no crumbs could escape, giving the task more attention than it warranted.
“A woman and two kids.”
“Yeah. The locals locked up the father for it even though they didn’t have the bodies, but they had cause. He showed up at the sheriff’s office with the bloody baseball bat. There’s supposed to be a witness, too, a postal worker who tried to help and got whacked.”
“But you detected death magic on the bodies.”
“Yes, and I don’t understand it. Here’s how it looks to me. Either the victims were killed by death magic, or they were killed creating it—as part of a ritual empowering the practitioner. The first one seems unlikely. Physical evidence on the bat marks it as the murder weapon, and there’s a witness. It’s barely possible the perp pounded the bodies afterward in an effort to hide their true manner of death, but that doesn’t fit with his subsequent actions.”
“Disposing of the bodies, then driving back into town so he could hand the sheriff the bat with all that great physical evidence.”
“Yeah. The guy’s nuts, but insanity usually has its own weird logic. I can’t make that fit any kind of logic, no matter how twisted. As for the other scenario . . . evidence at the victims’ home suggested that the kids were killed in their beds, but the mother was chased down. Death magic—the extraction of power through killing—has to be performed ritually, right? That doesn’t sound like the kind of controlled situation a ritual requires.”
“Could be the first kid was killed ritually and the others were taken out because they’d witnessed it.”
“What kind of idiot sets up a ritual killing with others in the house?”
“He’d have to be loony tunes,” Karonski agreed. “Probably a lousy practitioner, too. Maybe he thought he’d spelled the others asleep and got it wrong.”
Lily tapped one finger against the steering wheel, frowning. It didn’t feel right. “They all had it on them. I confirmed that on the scene. Death magic was smeared on all three of them. Would that be true if only one of them was killed ritually?”
Karonski had a deep, windy sigh like a weary hound. “No, you’re right. I obviously need more coffee. Nothing I know makes that possible. Of course, there’s a hell of a lot I don’t know about death magic. What I keep having trouble with, though, is the bat. Blunt force trauma is not symbolically correct.”
“Expand on that.”
“Death magic involving human victims is extremely rare, but animal killings aren’t, so we know a little about what’s required. Every ritual I’ve heard of uses a knife or blade. The Aztecs didn’t bash their sacrifices’ heads
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