Second Chair, A Stan Turner Mystery, Vol.4

by William Manchee

  Chapter 19

  The Devil’s Den

   

  To say I was depressed would be an understatement. When Snake finished with Nate I was sure it was all over. I was already starting to feel that incredible high that always follows a stunning courtroom victory. Then Sarah jolted everyone with the revelation of a second childbirth. Now we had to start all over again, almost from scratch to solve an even more perplexing murder. It wasn't a certainty that the burnt fetus, found the same night as the Winter's child, was her twin but it was too coincidental to disregard. We knew we must solve that murder to find the truth or to get closer to the truth about the fate of the Winter's twin.

  The coroner wasn't thrilled about coming back to work after he'd just got home, but Snake was adamant he had to see everything on the child immediately. He was pacing at the front door of the morgue when the Coroner, Dr. Walter Herman, drove up.

  "What was most shocking about this murder was the manner of death," Dr. Herman said. "The child was murdered and then incinerated."

  "How was he killed?" Snake asked.

  "A knife through the heart."

  "Really?"

  "My guess it was some kind of Satanic ritual. The child was probably a human sacrifice to Lucifer or some pagan god."

  "I've seen that in the movies and read about it in the newspaper but I never suspected anything like that happened around here," Snake said.

  Herman shook his head. "I wish it weren’t true but how else do you explain something like this? Babies are almost always suffocated when they are murdered. It's the simplest and cleanest way to kill them. It doesn't make any sense to use a dagger."

  "Have the police done anything about this?" Snake asked.

  "Not really. No one reported a missing baby. There was nothing at the scene to indicate where the baby came from. They just blew it off."

  "What about the sacrificial manner of death? Didn't anyone care that a Satanic cult was preying on innocent children?"

  "They didn't want to cause a panic in the community. Without proof of what happened, they figured it was a puzzle that was better left unsolved."

  Snake told Herman what happened at the Winters trial and then asked him, "Can you determine whether this is Sarah Winter's baby?"

  "Maybe, we can compare blood and tissue samples from both children and, if they are twins, they should be identical."

  "How long will it take to do that?" Snake asked.

  "A couple days maybe."

  He handed Herman his card. "Let us know just as soon as you make that determination," he said.

  "I will."