Past Rites

by Claire Stibbe

  “Can you believe it,” Demon said. “Men always stare. Size each other up. They even stare at women as if they’re the last goal in a football match.”

  Gabriel studied his coffee. He couldn’t remember what he was doing there, couldn’t remember where his car was parked either.

  It was Demon that made him forget. In hindsight, he knew he shouldn’t have opened his mind in the first place, shouldn’t have caved in to the fear.

  Demon had turned him into someone he no longer recognized and, like a drug, he had chemically reprogramed Gabriel’s brain, his loyalties, his interests, even his loved ones. Memories faded away into the past and all that mattered was the next high. He craved Demon more and more, and he knew if he had a few days without him his mind came back in flashes, if it ever came back at all.

  I can’t go on, he thought, can’t keep killing. Weren’t two deaths enough?

  “Two down, three to go.” Demon reminded, nails clacking on the table top. “Remember what they did to you. Remember how it was. Onwards and upwards.”

  “What if I get caught?” Gabriel whispered.

  “Then you’ll be incarcerated in one of New Mexico’s finest correctional facilities and you wouldn’t like that, would you? Wouldn’t like all the―”

  “No, no, don’t say it!” Gabriel begged. The images were bad enough.

  The bikers fell into silence, fingers raking their nicotine stained beards. They were all looking at him now, wondering why he was talking to himself, wondering why his hand was suddenly in front of his face, head lowered.

  “Get away from me!” Gabriel whispered to the seat next to him.

  He could feel warm breath on the inside of his hand, feel the vibration of his voice. If Demon didn’t go away he’d threaten him with a name. The pastor on 19th, the one who had counseled him at school.

  “Remember the rules,” Demon reminded. “No pastors, no prayers. Or there’ll be no peace.”

  Demon was always full of rage and fire, and the pastor’s name always seemed to whet down the kindling. Gabriel was beginning to feel like an actor in a poorly directed film, where he was standing on an empty street without a bullet proof vest. For some reason Demon had been voted in all those years ago and he’d been a dictator ever since.

  Gabriel was halfway out of his chair when the whole room began to lurch. He waited, felt the ground harden beneath his feet and tried again. This time he made it to the door, stepped out onto the low concrete step and didn’t look back. He knew they were watching, stroking those long gray beards and wondering what he was all about. That was the trouble. They’d remember him if they were asked.

  Pulling out of the parking lot, he veered sharply onto Alameda, headed west along a familiar stretch of road that would have led to a familiar house. All he could think about was Asha’s laptop, tucked away in his bedroom and wrapped with an extension cord.

  He wanted to see how many emails there were because he’d already replied to a few of them. Kept the momentum going, kept up the pretense.

  Too many deaths in one week would only arouse suspicion and the girls would be missed in a day or two. Better take a break and breathe in some good fresh air. Better rethink the whole thing, because the detective had been asking questions at the school. And that could only mean one thing.

  “Number three,” Demon said with a melodic giggle. “A car drowning I think. Poor little chinless. She’s there every Friday night.”

  “Where?” Gabriel’s mind was scrabbling for a reason to slow down. He could read Demon’s face without turning. It was like a sunny spot in a cloudy sky, lips set, cheeks dimpled. Everything was a game to him, the more intricate the better.

  “The cycling path under Alameda Bridge,” Demon said. “Nice and quiet.”

  “You can’t get a car anywhere close to the river.”

  “There is a place. On the bank. No concrete wheel stop. Clean drop all the way to the water.”

  “I need time.”

  “Time for what? For the detective? Looks like you’ll have to kill him too.”

  Gabriel took one hand off the steering wheel so he could flip a finger. “You’re actually jealous.”

  “I’m actually worried.”

  Gabriel had his own theory but he said nothing. Demon had been by his side since school, cold limbs clutching and cleaving like ivy to brick. “You wouldn’t like it if I found another friend, would you?”

  There was no reply from the passenger seat, not even a whimper as they turned right into the parking lot.

  Damn him for showing up as someone familiar. All dark ones do that. Nothing new. But Demon had to be handsome, had to be the legend plastered in everyone’s subconscious, the one you couldn’t ignore. And now he sat there in silence for once, all because he couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “I could lock myself in a room,” Gabriel blurted. “Course you’d try to get in. But you wouldn’t have much luck if I renounced you.”

  “You’re being flippant now.”

  “You don’t exist.”

  Gabriel tried to rationalize how it all happened. How a bond was sworn over a secret book and how that same bond could so easily be broken.

  I renounce and forsake the master demon and his false claims of allegiance.

  That night, six women dismissed reason, sense and sanity for a touch of the absurd. Just to see if it worked. To see if it was real.

  I renounce the spirit that has made me a slave to drugs and destruction.

  The pendulum swung from hard right to hard left. Their lives would never be normal again because Demon had the power to kill them. Hadn’t he proved it with the first three?

  I renounce the evil one who has filled me with hatred. The one who manipulates and controls.

  Alice, Asha and Kenzie were dead. Rosa, Zarah and Adel were almost. In these six women Gabriel had created family, a distant memory he kept in his head. But he had been the victim, the one they hated, the brilliant one they didn’t understand. The pain still stung sharp just as it had at school.

  Drowning? Rosa? It suddenly made no sense. She was an opera singer. Got lungs larger than a blue whale.

  I renounce the fear that has held me captive.

  Like a fever, the nightmare broke and Gabriel began to feel a strange sense of control, if only for a moment.

  “Rosa Belmonte,” he whispered, pushing his foot hard on the gas. “Let’s hear you sing.”

  FIFTEEN

  Malin studied the Los Poblanos Year Book and stared at a row of smiling heads. Her skin prickled as she focused on Asha, the young woman they had not yet found.

  Adel’s email yielded one message from Asha in the last twenty-four hours. She had been asking about her car. Malin typed out a response on that iPad, told her everything was good and asked when she was coming home. There had been no reply since.

  Mass alerts had been issued to the media and the New Mexico Department of Transportation had distributed a picture of Asha on all the state highway billboards. Someone must have seen her.

  Malin sensed a rush of apprehension as she plugged search criteria for similar homicides into a computer VICAP form ‒ the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program and the FBI’s database of crimes countrywide. The NCIC database yielded a list of missing persons, twenty-one females between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five reported missing in Bernalillo and Sandoval Counties. She added the list to the file.

  Taking a deep breath, she felt a prick of pain under her ribs. Need to get out in the fresh air and start exercising again. “Need to find Asha first,” she muttered.

  Tucking the photographs of the Delgado girls under one arm, along with a copy of Glamor magazine, she walked down the corridor and knocked on the frame of Luis’ open door.

  It was one forty-five on Friday afternoon and her eyes were sore. What with Temeke calling her last night about his interview with Adel Martinez she’d had little sleep. Temeke had advised Adel to stay with a friend on Columbia Drive and Malin hoped she was O
K.

  She studied the lieutenant as his voice rose one minute and fell the next, telephone crooked against his shoulder. He played a toothpick between his fingers and heaved a weary sigh.

  “We’re not that nosy down here, you know. Not like Homicide,” Luis said to the person on the other end of the phone.

  Malin slid into the vacant chair without being asked, crossed her legs and suppressed a yawn. On the desk was a file labeled Performance Evaluations and another labeled Leave Requests. Otherwise, the desk was tidy so he could keep a clear head and only a computer and a large bowl of fruit told you someone actually worked there. A healthy somebody who kept a vegetable garden in his spare time.

  “Offensive? What part of the article was offensive?” Luis began to laugh. “Well, that’s as maybe, but he’s a cracker under fire and we haven’t had a detective quite like him... Yeah, yeah, yeah, so it was a little unconventional, but he knows what aspects mark a serial killer, sir, what methods.”

  Luis rolled his eyes at Malin and mouthed the name of an old case they’d put to bed before Christmas.

  “Those victims weren’t selected at random, sir. Temeke always said the murder was motive enough... Cornell Drive’s blocked with what?” Luis covered the phone and jutted his chin at Malin. “Criminalistics motorhome.” He listened some more and nodded. “Yeah, well brains run in his family, sir. You should have met his mother... Doesn’t trust you? Must be your suit, Chief... How much did you say? Three grand!”

  Malin felt the giggle in her gut and grinned at Luis as he put the phone down. He held his breath and then let it out in one long hiss. “That’s one big sweepstake they’ve got going on. He’ll never do it.”

  “I bet he does. He never misses a trick.”

  Luis waved a hand and looked down at the file on his desk. “Ms. Samadi’s car is with forensics, an Audi coupe. Nice ride. Nice and clean. Temeke found a few pills in Adel’s medicine cabinet. Adderall. Not the medication the doctor had given her. Any new messages on that iPad?”

  “One from Asha asking Adel where her car had gone.”

  “Which means whoever’s got Asha’s laptop is keeping an eye on her house.”

  “Which also means they know we’re keeping an eye on the place, sir.”

  “Suggesting if they’re playing a dangerous game with law enforcement they might want to pack it in.” Luis dropped a search warrant on the desk. “This is for you. Ask for Mr. Hanlon when you get to the bank. Heavy set, balding. He’s expecting you.”

  Malin wasn’t looking forward to spending her afternoon at Wells Fargo, but she knew if she stared at the photograph of Alice and Lily one more time, she’d wear her eyes out. There was something in Alice’s expression that bothered her, a stirring in that age-old memory that refused to rise to the surface.

  She placed the photographs and the magazine on Luis’ desk and tapped them with two fingers.

  “You recognize the older girl.” She waited for him to nod. “This is the younger sister. Also featured on the front cover of this magazine.”

  Luis frowned and rubbed the sides of an open mouth with thumb and forefinger, eyes narrowed as if he was mentally computing the face in a bank of many.

  Malin flicked through the pages and showed him three full length photographs submitted by Orion Modeling. “A private show in Beverly Hills. Here, she’s dressed in a pant suit and in these two, she’s in a Sorrento evening gown. Her hair’s longer and blonde at the ends. It’s called an Ombré.”

  Luis leaned forward a little. He stared at the magazine silently for a moment and then looked up and frowned. “So, she plays dress up and sells clothes.”

  “Your sister was a model with Orion,” Malin said, reluctant to say the name of Temeke’s ex-wife. “How often did she do catwalk?”

  “Started when she was fourteen, dresses with splits up the back and down the front. Mom threw a fit and made her go to college. Then she met you-know-who and that was that.”

  Malin caught a glimpse of something in her memory, a face, a pose, someone she had run into recently but couldn’t recall. The cell phone buzzed in her pocket and whatever it was that clicked inside her head shattered at the sound. It was Temeke.

  “Lieutenant Alvarez is looking for you,” she said.

  “Tell that crafty old buzzard I’ll be back in ten minutes,” Temeke barked over a car horn. “Oh, and tell him I’ll get my report to him this afternoon.”

  Malin gave Luis a tight nod to convey the message and then turned her attention back to Temeke. “I’ve got an appointment this afternoon with the manager of Wells Fargo, sir. About Lily Delgado’s account.”

  “Oh, not that fat, balding man with shifty eyes. Make sure you get a flaming statement,” chopped in Temeke. “And make sure you take some breath mints. It can get bloody rank in there.”

  Malin ended the call, wishing she hadn’t pressed the speaker button. She lost her train of thought and caught Luis cackling.

  “Chief wants to can him,” Luis whispered. “Asked me to give a below average on his performance evaluation. Truth is he exceeds expectations. You both do.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “So, I’m asking you to talk to him. In confidence. Ask him to tone down the sarcasm, because people here don’t understand it. And ask him to give a little appreciation to where he’s working.”

  “He’s just teasing, sir.”

  “I know that. You know that. But everyone else finds it offensive. Might want to take him the HR manual. Give him a refresher.”

  “Talking of offensive, sir.” Malin played Luis the tape of Fowler. Watched two eyes narrow to slits and a heavily knitted brow.

  “It’s time Hackett made a few decisions about him he should have made a long time ago.”

  “You and I both know that’ll never happen.”

  “Keep it between us,” Luis whispered, “but Hackett received a complaint from Mrs. Delgado yesterday. He was mad alright.”

  All the way to the parking lot, Malin couldn’t help feeling lightheaded. Fowler was in for a treat. She also wondered how Temeke had managed to stay employed for as long as he had, why even the hard nuts in Homicide turned a cold shoulder, snickered behind his back. They were jealous, that’s all. He’d make a great chief of police, she thought, and then laughed out loud.

  She nodded at Hackett and Fowler as they sauntered toward her, tried to force a smile at the takeout boxes from Marcello’s Chop House. On the way to the bank, she picked up a microwaved pasta dish from Smiths and ate it in the car with a plastic spoon.

  The front foyer was bright and empty, and a teller dressed in a black suit waved her over with a smile. Two girls stood behind, eyes glistening and hands covering a bout of snorting. Whatever the joke was, the teller lifted her chin and chose to ignore it.

  “Bernard Hanlon,” Malin said, sliding her badge under the window. “I’m a bit early, but he’s expecting me.”

  She was ushered down a narrow corridor, eyes instinctively drawn to a Post-it note that had become stuck to the back of the teller’s skirt. There was a question mark written in black sharpie and as to the meaning, Malin could only guess.

  Bernard Hanlon interlaced his hands and rested them on his oversized paunch. A round face and three chins, Malin counted, with a fourth secreted behind a navy blue tie. His lips were thick and moist, and an occasional spray of spittle found its way to the blotter on his desk.

  “Detective Santiago. Thank you for seeing me,” she said, popping a Tic-Tac in her mouth.

  “You must understand,” he began, “this is all very unethical. Law enforcement or no law enforcement, I’m not in the habit of revealing the particulars of a customer’s bank account.”

  “But you are in the habit of conforming to a search warrant,” she said, dropping the envelope on the soggy blotter. “I would like hard copies of all her statements. My lieutenant called ahead. Said they’d be ready to pick up.”

  Malin hoped it would be quick. The office was slowly fogging up
with halitosis and she wasn’t sure how long she could stand it.

  “She saved it all,” he whispered, swiveling his chair to the credenza behind him and grabbing a large brown envelope. “If I had the privilege of half that money, I would have bought an Aston.” He slapped the envelope down between them and pushed it toward her. “Instead, she bought a vehicle from Minerd’s Scrap N’ Haul. I saw the transaction. We send all the statements to a PO Box. Zip code 87114.”

  Rio Rancho, thought Malin. “You don’t send them to her mother?”

  “We received a letter requesting they be forwarded after Ms. Delgado moved out.”

  “Moved out?”

  “Yes, detective, moved out. It’s all in there.” He nodded at the envelope.

  Malin pulled out the contents, found a letter clipped to a pile of statements and date stamped. The signature was said to be Lily Delgado’s and approved against any previous checks she had signed. It was simple and straight to the point, asking for all correspondence to be forwarded to a four digit PO Box number in Rio Rancho, a sub-station near the Farmer’s Market on Corrales Road.

  “Have you heard from her?” Malin asked.

  “The most recent phone call I had was a month ago, asking if she could withdraw $10,000.”

  Her monthly allowance, Malin thought. “Why such a large sum of money all at once.?”

  “I didn’t ask. She didn’t say.”

  A flash of intuition worked its way through Malin’s gut and into her head; she suddenly saw what was important.

  Solid ground, not sinking sands.

  There wasn’t much she could glean from a post office, but there was a truck-load she could prize out of a junk yard.

  SIXTEEN

  Gabriel walked down the bicycle path until he reached the bridge, body strong, mind sharp. The air was strangely thin as the sun bled out along the western horizon and the lights in the parking lot pulsed on, piercing the dusk with a silver haze.

  He lifted his chin at the honk of a goose, squinting at the v-shaped formation in the sky. Where were they going? What were they thinking? Could they see him down there, a small black speck stopping on an incline that led into the parking lot?