Don't Slay the Dragon (The Chronicles of Elizabeth Marshall Book 1)

by Rachel Lucas

  Once it did, I saw that her background wallpaper was another picture of a fierce looking black dragon, obviously done by another artist. It was breathing blue-red fire and had large, veined wings. It would have been nice to see a happy family portrait on the wallpaper instead of another frightening black dragon.

  “Could Atrus Dracona be Latin for Black Dragon?” I guessed.

  “I wouldn’t doubt it,” he answered.

  “Where should I start? Documents? Files? Internet?”

  “My guess is that the internet isn’t working,” I double-clicked on the Explorer icon and he was right. “No one paid that bill. Try her most recent documents.”

  I went to the menu then to documents. There were several on the list. I opened the first one entitled “September Dawning”. It looked like a short story of science fiction/fantasy. I skimmed over it, noting magical creatures and mystical worlds. Nothing really jumped out at me.

  The next document seemed to be a book section from another author down-loaded from the internet. This one was fictional about the medieval time period. It was well written and maybe fifty pages long. It was about ancient rivalries and powerful kingdoms.

  The next few documents were similar. She had always had a love of fantasy, so none of it surprised me.

  The last few documents at the end of the list seemed out of place, though. There was a definite shift in the subject matter. Gone was the fantasy and the fiction, in its place were articles and documents with a definite religious theme to them.

  It seemed to be research down-loaded from the internet. There were pages full of the history of Baptist beliefs and the mainstream offshoots of it. There was the life of Martin Luther and his impact in religious ideology. There was information about Buddhist beliefs, reincarnation, and Muslim traditions. There were articles about Judaism and excerpts from the Talmud as well as Jewish prayers in what looked to be Hebrew. What a strange mixture of religious history and theory.

  I knew about Barbara’s strict religious upbringing, but I thought she’d left all that behind her many years ago. She had always been the first person to scoff at anyone weak enough to rely on some kind of religious superstition. She would much rather believe in nature and Mother Earth, mysticism and magic. I couldn’t imagine why she would have all of this down-loaded onto her computer.

  The last document was about Catholicism and its history. It was quite lengthy and I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to skim through the entire thing until Logan stopped me.

  “Wait.” I stopped scrolling down the pages as he pointed to the screen. We were in a section about rites and prayers. “That’s Latin. Some of the words seem familiar.”

  His hand covered mine on the mouse. It was the first time he’d touched me and to be honest, it was a struggle not to be distracted. He moved the cursor down to a section and high-lighted it.

  “Exorcizo te, omnis spiritus immunde, in nomine Dei Patris omnipotentis, et in noimine Jesu Christi Filii ejus, Domini et Judicis nostril, et in virtute Spiritus Sancti, ut descedas ab hoc plasmate Dei, quod Dominus noster ad templum sanctum suum vocare dignatus est, ut fiat templum Dei vivi, et Spiritus Santus habitet in eo. Per eumdem Christum Dominum nostrum, qui vesturus est judicare vivos et mortuos, et saeculum per ignem.”

  “What in the world?” I looked it over. “What do you think it means?”

  “I’m not sure, but I have an idea.” He started exiting out of all the documents and programs and began the shut-down process.

  “What are you doing?” Just when we might be on the verge of finding out something important he was shutting it down.

  “Just a second.” He was in ‘detective mode’, I could tell. He left the room and then the trailer. I looked through a crack in the boards and out the small window and watched as he went out to the back of his car, opened the trunk and began rummaging through it. A moment later, he came back in with what looked like a few large plastic bags and a long tube then he started dismantling the computer.

  “What are you doing?” I repeated myself.

  “I’ve got a friend in our IT department, he’s a genius. I want him to look at this hard drive. We need to check out her internet history. We also need to go back over any other files she has in here and see what we can retrieve from her recycling bin.” He was bagging up the hard drive, leaving the rest of the computer in pieces. “I want to take the Black Dragon picture with us too. There might be more on there. Would you mind starting to get that secured too?” He handed me what looked like a large poster tube.

  I nodded and walked into the front room. Kneeling down, I started rolling up the canvas and placing it carefully into the tube. Before I was finished, he was standing next to me, helping me seal clear tape along the lid.

  “We can come back later and search more if we need to. I want to get back to the precinct before Travis leaves. If anyone could find what we need on this hard drive, he could.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I followed him back to the station and parked next to him in the back parking lot. I carried the canvas and he carried the hard drive. He used his security card to let us in the back door. I noticed the security cameras and was glad he was with me. I would never have had the access to any of this if it hadn’t been for him.

  There was a staircase immediately to the left as we walked through the door. The newer offices were straight ahead but he headed for the stairs instead.

  We walked down a flight then down a long hallway. There were several doors leading off the hallway, all shut for the night. There were no identifying signs to explain where we were. The area seemed quiet and empty since it was after hours. He didn’t stop until we came to the end of the hall. A small plaque read “IT” but a hand-written sign over the plaque said “The Cave”. He slid his security card through the scanner and opened the door.

  Sure enough, the room was as dark as night. We carefully made our way through several partitions. A few computers were on, the light from the screens guiding us through the maze.

  “Travis, my man, are you back here?” Logan called.

  A big head popped over the top of the nearest partition. Long dark hair was spiked out in all directions and his right eyebrow and lip were pierced.

  “Dude!” His face lit up as he spied Logan. “It’s been a long time since you’ve visited the bat-cave.”

  “I know,” Logan grinned.

  The large cubical was a mass of disorganized order. Pictures of the Joker from the Batman movie covered the walls right beside the latest combat video game. There was a table covered with boxed CDs, files and paperwork right next to a PC game review magazine. Logan moved a few things aside on the table and set down the hard drive.

  “Travis, this is Caitlyn. She’s helping with the Marshall case. I’ve got a job for you.”

  “Marshall case? Isn’t that a done deal?” Travis was a big guy. He wore a large black T-shirt with the words “Your IQ test came back and it was negative” written on it. He had a broad, happy face and seemed in a constant state of amusement.

  “Maybe not,” Logan said cryptically.

  “Really? You got something juicy for me?” His manicured black eyebrows lifted in question.

  “How are you at translating Latin?” He challenged.

  “Latin? Piece of cake!” He turned around to his desk area. It faced a corner but took up most of two walls. He had three large computer screens, several different-looking hard-drives and a couple of keyboards. “I just got this incredible computer program from the feds. It translates from any language to another within seconds. And it’s very accurate. Been looking for a good reason to try it out. Show me what you’ve got.”

  “We’ll need to access this hard drive,” Logan said, pointing to the plastic wrapped drive. “We also need to check internet history and see if there’s anything in the documents or files that we may have missed.”

  Travis’ face lit up like a child on Christmas morning.

  “I know you’re probably getting ready
to head home, but if you wouldn’t mind hanging around for a while and looking at this…”

  “Dude, they’re paying me overtime to install the new Windows operating system in all the computers upstairs, I got all night.”

  He happily began clearing off a space next to his other hard drives and frantically rewiring his systems. I would have been lost trying to figure out which wires plugged into what outlet.

  “What’s in the other bag?” He gestured to the long, tube-shaped object in my arms wrapped in plastic.

  “That’s for forensics,” Logan explained.

  Travis shrugged and seemed to dismiss it. If it didn’t have to do with a computer, he wasn’t interested in it.

  Before I knew it, the computer screen closest to me lit up and it looked just like the screen on the computer in Barbara’s trailer, except that the display was larger and the images sharper. Logan gave him the password to continue. He looked a little disappointed that he didn’t get the challenge of figuring it out for himself.

  “Ok, where’s the Latin you wanted translated?” Travis asked.

  Logan directed him through to the document we had been looking at earlier. He had Travis scroll down and showed him where to stop.

  “Right there. It starts with ‘Exorcizo te,’” Logan pointed.

  We watched as Travis did a copy and paste then pulled up a computer program on another screen. It was called Eden 5. We watched him request a Latin to English translation then copy in the text. A blue processing bar came up and we watched as it processed the translation. English words started to read out.

  “I exorcise thee, every unclean spirit, in the name of God the Father Almighty…”

  “Dude!” Travis shouted out before we could read further. “Do you know what this is?”

  I had an idea, but before I could answer he went on.

  “Dude, this is the Latin rite of exorcism! Look, read the rest!”

  “…and in the name of Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord and Judge, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, that thou depart from this creature of God, which our Lord hath designed to call unto His holy temple, that it may be made the temple of the living God, and that the Holy Spirit may dwell therein. Through the name of Christ our Lord, who shall come to judge the living and the dead, and the world by fire.”

  “The rest of the original text is probably the rest of the rite. Here, let me check.” With fingers that flew, I watched as he copied and pasted the rest of the text and fed it into the translating program. Sure enough, the rite continued.

  “Ephpheta, quod est, Adaperire. Be opened.

  “In odorem sauvitatis. Tu autem effugare, diabole; appropinquabit enim judicium Dei. And to you, O Devil, begone! For the judgment of God is at hand.

  “Abrenuntias satanae? Do you renounce Satan?

  “Abrenuntio. I do renounce him.”

  “Dude, this is some deep stuff.” Travis breathed.

  “Why would Barbara want to save a document about exorcism?” I looked over at Logan and asked.

  “I don’t know but I think we should keep looking. Travis, can you look at her internet history?”

  “No prob,” his fingers flew again and before I knew it he was accessing the internet through Barbara’s hard drive and bringing up the history of everything she had searched for. “It’s usually easy to locate the history when they use a search engine like Google or Yahoo. Her system is massively outdated though. It must have taken forever to load each page,” he explained as he continued. “Here we go.”

  Logan leaned closer and read the display.

  “Dissociative Identity Disorder. Multiple Personality Disorder. Signs and Symptoms. Medications for. Thorazine. Haldol. Zyprexa. Seroquel. Carbolith. Valium. Xanax. Ativan.” He sighed. “It’s a shopping list for a pharmacy.”

  “These were some of Lisbeth’s medications. I think Barbara was trying to help her, to better understand her disorder.” I answered.

  “Man, look at these next ones.” Travis pointed to the screen again. “History of exorcism. Exorcism rite in the Catholic church. Prayer of Exorcism. Exorcism in the Lutheran church. Exorcism and Buddhism. Exorcism and Judaism. Exorcism and Scientology. Do you think there’s a theme going on here?”

  I ignored Travis’ sarcasm and looked at the display in concern. That’s a lot of research on one subject. And the subject really worried me.

  “Do you think Barbara may have begun to believe that Lisbeth was possessed instead of having this Dissociative Identity Disorder?” Logan asked. “Do you think she may have believed she needed to have an exorcism done on Lisbeth?”

  My heart started to ache at the idea. What if Barbara was more troubled than I had thought? What if she had some mental disorders herself? I had no children of my own, but I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like dealing with a child with all these disorders. How much more difficult would it had been if she had been unstable herself?

  “Jackpot!” Travis’ shout made me jump. “Here’s the Holy Grail, Dude!”

  I looked to where he was excitedly pointing. There on the screen read out the most recent internet searches.

  “Suicide. How to plan a suicide. How to plan a suicide and made it look like a homicide. How to frame someone else for murder. Planning the crime scene. DNA and how to use it to your advantage. The perfect murder/suicide.”

  Logan and I looked at each other in stunned silence.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Shock. I didn’t want to believe the words I was reading on the display before me. What did they mean? Planning a suicide? Planning a murder/suicide? Using DNA to your advantage?

  “I don’t understand. What could she have possibly been thinking?” I asked aloud.

  “Dude, it sounds like you we’re dealing with a real sick puppy here,” Travis grinned.

  “Travis, can you go into her recycle bin and check for anything she’s tried to delete?” Logan asked.

  “Sure, it’s easy to do but it will take a while with this ancient system,” Travis answered.

  “That’s fine. You don’t mind, do you?” Logan questioned. “I’m not taking you away from anything important, am I?”

  “Hell no. Beats installing new operating systems,” Travis shrugged, but I could tell he was enjoying the challenge.

  “Caitlyn and I are going upstairs to my office to check on a few things. Give me a call if you find anything else that’s interesting.”

  Logan took me by the elbow and started guiding me back out of the dark maze. I gave him a questioning look, wondering what he was thinking. It wasn’t until we were out of the IT department, back down the hallway and on our way up the stairs that he spoke.

  “I want to take another look at her autopsy and the case file,” he explained as we climbed the stairs and I followed him down the hall towards his office.

  “Why? Nothing’s changed in the file? What difference does it make?” I had to admit, I was feeling dejected about the whole situation and it was starting to show.

  “Sometimes it’s a matter of perspective,” he answered cryptically. We reached his office to find the door closed. “Good, Hammond’s already left for the night. I really don’t want to say anything to him unless I’m sure about this.”

  “Sure about what? Logan, where are you going with this?”

  He had opened his office door and pulled a chair for me over next to his desk. He reached down and unlocked a desk drawer and pulled out a fairly thick case file. I settled next to him and watched as he opened the file and booted up his computer. He seemed to search through the file, looking for something specific. His hands stopped as he came to a medical examiner’s report.

  There was a printed explanation of the ME’s findings and the standard diagram of a generic, nude female body and all of the injuries that were on the victim.

  “Do you know by any chance if Barbara was right or left handed?” The question seemed to come out of left field.

  “Right, I think. Why?” I asked, puzzled.
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  “Ok, look at the injuries.” He pointed to the little slashes on the diagram, each representing a stab wound. One in her upper left shoulder. Two in her upper left arm. One in her lower left arm. One in the left hand. Two in each thigh. One in the lower right calf. Two in the left hip. One in the upper left breast. One in the lower abdomen. And the fatal injury in her heart. “Thirteen stab wounds but twelve of them superficial. Twelve that were shallow enough to hardly bleed. All injuries to the left side of her body. Every one of them also came from the front. There were no injuries to her back or sides. Initially we’d assumed that her attacker had come from the front then she’d turned away to the right. That was why all the injuries were on her left side. But what if…?”

  “What if…?” I repeated in confusion. Then it dawned. “No, no way. You can’t possibly be suggesting what I think you’re suggesting.”

  “Think about it, Caitlyn. What if Barbara faked her own murder to set Lisbeth up?” He was pouring through the case file again.

  “Logan, think about what you’re saying. How could someone possibly stab themselves twelve times and then a final time in the heart?” I asked, stunned.

  “They could if they were determined enough,” he persisted.

  “But what about the murder weapon? Didn’t the knife just have Lisbeth’s fingerprints on it?” I pointed out.

  He searched though the file until he came to the forensics report on the knife. He seemed to deflate a bit. Sure enough, only Lisbeth’s fingerprints were found on the knife.

  He sat there for a moment with a determined, silent expression, brooding. He spread out a few things in the file, looking at them with different eyes. There were several photos of the crime scene. I really didn’t want to look at them again, but after having just been in the trailer, it seemed easier.

  There was another photo of Barbara at the scene. You could see the red marks through her blouse and skirt where she’d been stabbed. Lying on the floor next to her was the knife, stained red with blood, lying along her right thigh, pointing slightly away from her. It did sit at an odd angle, come to think of it. There was a white rectangle next to the knife with tiny speckles of blood on it.