“Come on, my brother,” Cal said, “what’s a day in wine country without a little alternative religion?”
Reed crossed to the altar. It sat in a six-foot circle that had been created with rocks. What had been a concrete picnic table had been transformed into the altar. On its top, the remnants of black candles, sitting in pools of dried wax. Inverted letters, stars and a pentagram had been drawn on the top and sides. Greenery had been collected and arranged around the altar, notably grape stalks and vines.
Reed frowned. Sure, the thought of some nut job up here burning black candles and scribbling pentagrams was unnerving, but the unmistakable stain on the table and ground below was downright disturbing.
Blood. And plenty of it.
Reed studied the stain. Blood had an unmistakable quality to the way it ran and puddled. The dark reddish-brown color it turned. And the rancid way a pool of it smelled as it sat in the sun decomposing.
“This was a fair amount of blood,” Cal said. “We’re not talking a chicken here.”
Reed agreed. “An adult human has what, five, six liters?”
“Yup. An infant about one.”
“A small dog, maybe? A cat?”
“How long ago, do you think?”
Cal drew his eyebrows together in thought. “Rained three days ago. So, since then.”
“No sign of the carcass?”
“None. Did a search of the area, fifty feet in all directions. But another animal could have dragged it off.”
“Or our nut job could have taken it with him. Or her,” Reed murmured, starting off. “Keep me posted, all right?”
“You got it. Say, Reed?”
He stopped and looked back at Cal.
“Why so interested?”
“A hunch.”
“Thinking our ceremonial friend here also strung up the baby doll.”
Reed gave him a thumbs-up, climbed into his car, then called back, “I have a friend who studies religious cults and rituals. I might have her take a look, see if she knows what we’re dealing with.”
Moments later, on his way back to the Barn, Reed thought again of Alex. Interesting how things worked out. Somebody constructs a crazy altar and begins sacrificing animals just about the time an expert on such things arrives in town.
Reed glanced at his watch and frowned. But contacting Alex about it had to go way down on his list of priorities. At the top of the list was discovering who’d killed Tom Schwann.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Sunday, March 7
9:40 A.M.
Alex awakened with a start. She moved her gaze around the room, disoriented. She’d been dreaming, she realized. One of those disjointed dreams that left her feeling vaguely uneasy.
She untangled herself from the sheet and sat up, struggling to recall what the dream had been about. She’d been moving toward the sound of voices. There had been a strange light. The smell of incense, like in the cave.
The incense. She recognized the scent, Alex realized. But from where?
On the bed stand, her cell phone went off. She snatched it up. From the display, she saw it was Tim. “Morning,” she said.
“Way to answer your phone. I called three times last night. I was getting worried.”
“You did? I never heard it ring.”
Probably because she had been in the middle of a mind-blowing orgasm.
She squirmed, remembering how loud she’d been. Damn, Alex, could you be any classier?
“Are you okay?”
“Sure.” She cleared her throat. “Why?”
“Just thinking about you. What’d you do last night?”
She supposed, Went to bed with an incredibly sexy guy I hardly know, had some of the best sex of my life and now want to crawl under a rock and hide wasn’t appropriate, so she told him the other truth.
“Went to a fabulous wine launch party.”
“What wine?”
She climbed out of bed and, phone propped to her ear, headed to the bathroom. “The new Red Crest Bear Creek Zin. Fabulous. Hold on, would you?”
She relieved herself, then went back to her cell. “You still there?”
“Yeah, I’m here. And green with envy. You have room in that rental for two?”
She pictured Reed and Tim in a staredown. “Sorry.”
“Seriously, you’re okay? You need anything?”
“Some help analyzing a dream I had last night would be nice.”
Tim had done his doctoral dissertation on dream interpretation. While they were married, he’d analyzed plenty of them for her.
“Shoot.”
“I was watching some sort of religious ceremony or ritual.”
“Part of the worshippers?”
“No. On the outside. Looking on.”
“Spying?”
“Maybe.”
“Do you remember how you felt while looking on?”
She thought a moment, then shook her head. “No. But I woke up disoriented and uneasy.”
“Go on.”
“I was inside, but it wasn’t a traditional church. I remember feeling closed in. Or surrounded.”
“Trapped?” he asked.
She thought a moment. “No.”
“What else do you remember?”
“Nothing.” She squirted toothpaste onto her brush, ran it under the water, then stuck it in her mouth.
“It’s not much to go on, but here goes. Your dream’s clearly about ceremony and commitment. It’s your subconscious urging you to cling to what’s deeply important to you. On a physical and spiritual level.” He paused. “Me.”
It took her a moment to realize what he had said. When she did, she laughed, nearly choking on toothpaste foam.
“No, listen to me,” he said. “Clearly, you’re longing for me and the comfort of our marriage.”
She laughed again, then spit. “Goodbye, Tim.”
“It’s true,” he said. “You’re crazy about me.”
“Goodbye, Tim,” she said again, ending the call. She rinsed her toothbrush, then her mouth. Truth was, she did miss him.
She just didn’t miss being married to him. Tim was a better friend “with benefits” than he had been a husband.
Some guys just weren’t meant to be married.
Alex grabbed the hand towel to wipe the sink and vanity top, then stopped, her gaze settling on what appeared to be a drop of blood on the rounded lip of the sink. Dried but distinctive.
She looked at both her hands, palms and backs. No cuts or scrapes. It hadn’t been there yesterday, she was certain of that.
Maybe Reed, she thought, from the night before. She didn’t remember him using the bathroom… but it wasn’t like she had been thinking all that clearly.
Reed. Damn. She dampened the towel and wiped away the spot. Another expertly executed move on her part. Way to think it through, Alex.
Think it through, that’s what she needed to do. But she definitely needed coffee to make that happen.
A short time later, mug of coffee cupped in her hands, she sat in the swing on her small front porch. She breathed deeply, working to quiet her mind and focus her thoughts. On what her first steps would be, what she wanted to accomplish.
The task should have been be easy. Instead, her thoughts kept circling back to the same three things: the bizarre dream she had awakened to, her panic in the wine cave the night before, and making love with Reed.
Quite a way to start off her stay here in Sonoma; not quite the “bang” she had hoped for.
Alex rolled her eyes at her own crude play on words. Other than her making an ass of herself in front of her former family, what had happened in the cave the night before? She knew what she had heard and smelled. Others had been in the cave and had somehow slipped out before Reed and his brother came along.
But that wasn’t what was really bothering her. It was her panicked reaction to being lost. Her absolute terror when the lights went off.
Neither was like her. She had been most
ly taking care of herself all her life. She remembered being in grade school and getting herself up, fed and ready for school, then walking alone to the bus stop, remembered coming home in the afternoon and finding her mother still in bed, too depressed to participate in her daughter’s life. Many times she had prepared them both dinner, then gotten herself put to bed. No hand-holding or night-lights for her.
The amount of wine she’d drunk, Alex decided. Fatigue. Grief. The newness of her situation. A potent mix that had upended her typically self-confident and fearless self.
Alex sipped her coffee, picturing the smiling, obviously happy woman her mother had been in Lyla Reed’s photographs. She couldn’t lose focus, Alex reminded herself. That woman was why she was here. To discover what had happened to her.
Maybe, as Lyla had suggested, the loss of Dylan had destroyed her. Maybe, because Alex wasn’t a mother, she couldn’t understand.
Even if that was true, she wanted to know that Patsy. The woman who had smiled and laughed and taken pleasure in being alive. She was hungry to know her.
Coffee mug empty, she stood and headed back into the house. After being out in the fresh air, she noticed a subtle, sour odor inside. She wrinkled her nose, trying to identify the smell. She couldn’t and decided it must be something that had drifted in the night before.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Sunday, March 7
11:50 A.M.
Reed met his brother Joe at the second-floor elevator. Joe and Tom Schwann had been friends since grade school and had run in the same pack as teenagers. With Joe was another of their lifelong friends, Carter Townsend.
“I can’t believe it, Dan,” Joe said, voice thick. “Tom had his faults, but he was basically a good guy.”
“I’m really sorry, Joe.” He gave his brother a quick hug. “I know how close you were.”
Reed turned to Carter. “Sorry, man. How’re you holding up?”
The man looked stricken. “Best I can. Like Joe, I can’t believe Tom’s dead.”
“Let’s find a quiet place to talk.”
Reed led them to an interview room. They sat. “I’m glad you came in. You were both good friends of Tom’s; do you have any idea who could have done this?”
“Maybe Jill,” Carter offered. “They fought all the time.”
“Jill is currently not a suspect. Is there anyone else? A former lover? Business employee?”
The two men looked at each other, then Joe turned back to him. “I can’t imagine anyone who knew Tom doing this. He was an okay guy, not perfect, but who is?”
“Not perfect, can you elaborate?”
The two looked at each other; Joe took the lead. “What you already know. He was a notorious hound dog and drank too much, but as far as I know, he was a straight-up businessman. Didn’t screw with his suppliers or clients. Paid his bills and was generally the life of the party.”
Carter spoke up again. “The newspaper said he was killed with a secateur. How… I mean, where-”
“We’re keeping that part out of the press for now. But I can tell you, it was a bloody, gruesome mess.” Reed threw that out there so he could judge their reactions.
They passed with flying colors. Joe looked sick. Carter went white and clasped his hands together.
Carter broke the uncomfortable silence first. “I read about that altar being found up off Castle Road.”
“Yes?”
“It’s got me spooked,” he said.
Reed frowned. “Why? The two aren’t related.”
“You don’t remember,” Joe said. “You were really young.” He stopped. “Never mind.”
“Bullshit, Bro. I was too young to remember what?”
“There was a whole rash of that crap,” Joe said. “Around the time Dylan disappeared.”
“Rash of what kind of crap?”
“Altars popping up around the countryside. Animals disappearing.”
“Animals?”
“A couple dogs. A lamb and goat. Chickens. Not all at once, but over the course of months.”
Carter jumped in. “I remember people talking. You know, wondering if…”
His voice trailed off. Reed looked from one man to the other. “If what?”
“If Dylan had been taken as a… human sacrifice.”
The words landed grotesquely between the three. Reed cleared his throat. “I’ve never heard any of this.”
“You were young. Remember, I was a teenager.” His brother’s voice shook. “I heard everything.”
“There’s more,” Carter stepped in. “Another murder, by secateur.”
“When?”
“Not too long after Dylan disappeared.”
“Who?”
“Some guy. A fieldworker. I don’t remember his name.”
“Why are you telling me all this, Joe?”
“What if history’s repeating itself? I have kids of my own. What if something happened to one of them? I couldn’t take it, Dan. It’d kill me, I know it would.”
“Joe, look”-he leaned forward-“Dylan was not the victim of some bizarre cult ritual. The Sheriff’s Department did a thorough investigation. So did the FBI. They determined he was kidnapped.”
“But no ransom-”
“Recent findings may explain why. Trust me on this, Joe. Dylan was kidnapped, but something went terribly wrong.”
“And the other murder?”
“Every Tom, Dick and Harry carries one of those Red Roosters around. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been called to a scene where one drunk field hand has pulled his secateur on the other. You remember this so clearly because it occurred so soon after Dylan’s disappearance. I’ll check it, though. Let you know if anything turns up.”
A short time later, Reed had a name: the Sommers’ groundskeeper, Alberto Alvarez. He had been considered a strong suspect in Dylan’s abduction-he had been seen on the property that night, then afterward failed to show up for work-until he turned up dead.
Murdered by secateur to the throat.
The murder had gone unsolved, swallowed up by the furor over Dylan.
Reed frowned and leaned back in his chair. It seemed obvious that Alvarez had either seen something and been murdered because of it, or had been part of the plot and murdered when it went south.
And yet, as he dug, he found no records of an active search for a link between the two crimes. A search for the man’s killer, yes. But no suspicion that his death had been linked to Dylan Sommer’s disappearance.
How had they missed this? It represented shoddy, irresponsible police work. Why hadn’t the FBI followed the lead?
Reed drummed his fingers on his desktop. Who, if anyone, was still on the force from back then? His captain was only an eighteen-year veteran of the force. He dug his department directory out and began scanning. Names of a few old-timers popped out, guys who’d been around thirty or so years.
“Why so serious?”
He looked up at Tanner. She stood in the doorway, a carton of yogurt in her hands. “Alberto Alvarez, ever hear that name before?”
“Nope.” She took a spoonful of the yogurt. “Why?”
“He was a groundskeeper for the Sommers. Took a secateur to the neck shortly after Dylan’s disappearance. Before his murder he was considered a strong suspect in the abduction.”
“Then he turned up dead.” She wandered across to his desk. “Who killed him?”
“Never solved.” He turned his computer monitor to face her.
She scanned the report, eyebrows drawing together. “How’d you find this?”
“My brother. This shouldn’t have flown under our radar.”
“It’s a twenty-five-year-old crime. What bothers me is the ignored no-brainer here.”
“The link between this murder and Dylan Sommer’s disappearance.”
“Exactly.”
“Here’s another weird fact, according to my brother and his buddy Carter Townsend. Around the time of Dylan’s abduction, there was a rash of re
ports of ritual sites and animal sacrifice. There was talk that Dylan had been taken by one of these groups.”
“You verified any of this?”
“Not yet.”
“Let’s do it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Monday, March 8
8:35 A.M.
A search of old reports had verified his brother’s facts. Reed and Tanner had decided to wait until the following morning to bring it to their superiors.
They met at eight thirty sharp. Tanner had brought him a Venti-sized dark roast. “Thanks,” he said, taking it.
Together they headed for Jon MacIntyre’s office. When they reached it, Reed tapped on the open door. “Morning, Mac. Have a few minutes?”
The sergeant waved them in. Jon MacIntyre had been on the force eighteen years, the last four as the VCI sergeant. His Teddy bear demeanor belied an iron will and fierce intellect.
Now, he fixed that sharp gaze on the two detectives. “What do you have?”
Tanner began with their progress so far. “Processed the scene. We’ve got a boatload of possible evidence to sift through. No viable prints on the weapon. Could’ve been wiped or the perp may have been wearing gloves.”
Reed took over. “Jill Schwann’s story checked out. So did the girlfriend’s. Cell phone numbers verify both witness accounts. We’re running the list of all calls made the twenty-four hours before and after his murder.”
“Good. Your report indicated Schwann had been robbed.”
Reed nodded. “Watch, wedding ring, contents of his wallet.”
“Autopsy?”
“Scheduled for tomorrow.”
Mac looked from one to the other of them. “Is that it?”
“Not quite. Ran across something interesting. Another Red Rooster murder. Unsolved.”
The sergeant frowned. “Where?”
“Here in Sonoma County. Twenty-five years ago.”
“You think it’s relevant?”
“Let’s just say I’m not ruling out its relevancy yet.” Reed handed Mac the file of printouts he’d prepared, then filled him in on the details. “What struck both of us were the lapses in the initial investigation.”
Blood Vines Page 12
