[Sign Behind the Crime 02.0] Aries

by Ronnie Allen

  “Adam?” Nick asked.

  “Don’t know,” she said. “Would she kill her twin?”

  Frank jumped in. “Usually, no. But, hey, look at the Gemini case. Barbara Montgomery did it,” he explained. “But, on the other hand, they had been separated at birth. One had a great life, she, the killer, a life of anguish. These two were raised together.”

  “Hold on. Hold on.” Sam paused for a moment. “Got an idea. Aries. The Aries myth. A Golden Ram was begged by Nephele to save her children. The evil stepmother wanted them killed. As the Ram was crossing the strait, one of the kids, Helle, fell off his back. The son, Phrixus, though safe, was ungrateful and killed the Ram as a sacrifice to Jupiter. The theme is ungratefulness and that’s a negative Aries trait. Now, who has helped the twins but been totally unappreciated?”

  “Jaye Manning,” they all said simultaneously.

  “I’m putting in a call to get him into PC.” Nick went upstairs to get better reception on his phone.

  “It fits. Meghan Mason tried to help her out, too, and gave her employment. And I’m sure Valerie, and even her mother at times, weren’t all bad. Ooh. Ooh. The evil stepmother. Mrs. Manning. Tell Nick to get her into protective custody, too.”

  Frank sent a text to Nick. Sam stared at him. “What? I want to hear what you have to say, too.”

  Withers snickered. “What else, rookie? Though I’m probably not going to be able to call you that for long.”

  “I like that. Look at all these oils here. They’re labeled with purposes. This one says, Death Commanding Oil.” Sam opened the bottle. She sniffed. “Yes. Jasmine, basil, and pennyroyal. What she used on the amulets. These are the oils of Hecate, the Goddess of the Dark. Well the jasmine and basil are. This is Hecate’s statue. Isn’t she beautiful? Look at the engravings to show the pleats in her gown. She’s holding torches. Wow.” She lifted up the ten-inch-tall statue.

  In a child-like trance, she was oblivious to the stares of the men. “She’s made from resin. I have several, but not this one. And here’s Aradia, the queen of all witches. Wow, look at these oils. Listen To Me, Beg Me, Do As I Say, all commanding. None asking for peace, prosperity, or love.”

  “She actually thinks these work? You actually think these work?” Withers asked.

  “Yup. They do in combination with a ritual and with someone trained in the right way to perform it. AriellaRose probably went to a coven to learn. There must be one in this area. And she may have met other women who she used and disposed of. Something to investigate if need be. And she wanted me to do a spell on Tattooman, here.”

  Frank’s eyes opened wide.

  “Yup. A sex and love spell.”

  He returned a wickedly sexy grin that Sam knew even Withers would understand. “Won’t have to.”

  “I know that and I didn’t.” Sam winked at him before she looked toward the benches. “Oooh. Three pillows. Each one of her beholden--yeah, that’s what she’d call them, because they are beholden to her since she knows their secrets. There’ll be finger prints.” She walked over to them. “Um, all paisley, multicolored. She didn’t use their signs. That’s because she’s the only one who matters.” She picked one up. BlackCloud was sewn on the upper right hand corner. “BlackCloud, that’s her Wiccan name.” She picked up the second pillow. The label read BlackFlower. The third pillow was labeled BlackMoon. She paused for a moment. “Okay, I bet BlackRam is AriellaRose’s Wiccan name.

  Frank hiked his eyebrows. “And you know that AriellaRose’s name is BlackRam, how?”

  “Just a hunch. Black cause the rest have it and she’s Aries dominant. The symbol of the Ram. Her fashion lines is Aries Fashions, too, remember? There’s got to be a laptop here somewhere. Now we have to match these to their IDs. Bet there’ll be DNA transfer from their backs. Get these processed ASAP. Oooh, I know. I bet the C on the outfit is the initial of the Wiccan name. Which ones was that? Who’s about five feet ten?”

  Withers found the ID. “Okay, the shooter of Mason, the one five ten, Rachel Hawthorne is this here, Black Cloud. So how does that help us?”

  “Don’t know yet. Give me a chance to process this. Now where the hell would she keep her laptop? Probably hidden if it has all her client info.”

  Sam stayed in one place and just pivoted around to check out each area. Her eyes scanned the tiles beneath the bench, the open wall units that hugged the side opposite the steps. At closer look, the shelves held design books, probably ones she had kept from school. The bookshelf next to it held metaphysical and Wiccan books. Sam recognized many of the same titles she had.

  Damn! We really do have things in common.

  Sam thought for a moment about where she could have wound up if her mind and actions had gone to evil. She shook it off, not wanting to address the negative realm, and walked behind the bar. “This could have been a wet bar had it been hooked up.”

  She checked the compartments which turned up empty. She looked around and opened the cabinets on the wall behind the bar. No files, just Wiccan supplies.

  She listed the items. “Crystals, jars of dried herbs, different sized and colored candles, chalices, incense and holders, oils, parchment paper, Hathor’s Mirror, meditation DVD’s, several crystal pendulums, different Tarot decks, different sized knives. The usual Wiccan tools.”

  Looking around, she slowed her breathing and found another door to the right of the bar. Her excitement level was high and she needed to be careful. She had to exert a little pressure to push the door open. It squeaked from the top bolts.

  She wandered into the laundry room--dryer and washing machine that drained into a slop sink. The sink was rusty around the rims of the hot and cold faucets and the drain, filthy, and full of lint. There was a big crack in the porcelain that looked deep enough for water to seep through to the floor. The hose that hung into the sink had a stocking over the mouth. She guessed it was to prevent lint from clogging the drain. The sink was dry but with that crack it couldn’t be functional.

  What is the point of the stocking then?

  Didn’t look like this room had been used in a long time. There was soot on top of the washing machine and dryer. The oil heater took up most of the space. She nodded. That’s where the soot came from. To the right of the oil burner, in the corner, was a dirty white metal cabinet that stood about six feet tall. She wouldn’t run her fingers over it, but the smudges looked like oil soot, as well. She exhaled a deep breath and grabbed onto the handle of the cabinet, which pulled apart at her touch, leaving her with only a dangling piece to grasp. She tugged the cabinet open.

  Bloodied towels fell from the crowded top shelf. She jumped back to the wall behind her in an automatic startle reflex. “Guys, in here, quick!”

  Nick, Frank, and Withers shoved into the cramped space. They grimaced at the sight. Sam had counted them, moving her eyes to each one, as the towels laid in a pile overlapping, cross contaminating. Some landed across her toes as they ricocheted after their fall. Damn! Another pair of my sneakers just became evidence.

  Formerly white hand towels, someone had folded them neatly around an implement of some kind.

  “Twenty here. My guess is that knives are in each one. Maybe murder weapons? From more than just ours. And it stinks. Decomposing flesh. The odors from the oil tank masked the human odors, preventing them from seeping through to the rest of the basement.”

  Nick’s disgust mimicked her own. “This case has just multiplied.”

  “Yeah. Maybe by years,” Frank grumbled.

  CHAPTER 26

  Flower lay naked on a white tarp on the black concrete floor of the warehouse in a commercial district in downtown Brooklyn. Her body temp dropped, clammy from anxiety, and because the stinking landlord kept the heat down low. The colder November air seeped through the bottom of the gate. The draft blew directly on her. There was nothing that blocked the wind. She was in the middle of the space that Arie had wanted kept open. No clutter. She whimpered when her louder moans fell on deaf ears.
<
br />   The other two women didn’t care and the traffic noise, coming in from the commercial area, drowned her out. The cars, beeping, trucks pulling into driveways continued through midnight for some of the shops. And they weren’t planning any deliveries here, today.

  Cloud, who held the knife loosely in her hand, and Moon both sat back on their knees on either side of her.

  “Come on get it over with already,” Flower snapped. “Just tell me how many more.”

  Moon and Cloud exchanged hesitant looks. Moon’s eyes looked vacant, but Cloud definitely had something on her mind.

  “What?” Flower protested.

  “There’ll be no more. We gotta think. Ram is locked up in a psych ward. They’re going to find us soon. We’ll get life without parole. More than her. We did the kills. Just let me take a pic of the cut we made. She’ll want to add it to her bedroom wall. I’ll send a text. Get me the towels.”

  Moon stumbled up, walked across the ten thousand square foot space to a cabinet that spread the length of an entire wall, removed a stack of new white hand towels, and returned, all in robotic movements. She handed them to Cloud and sat down, leaning back on her knees, without uttering a sound.

  “I can tell you’re using again, Moon. You look like a space cadet,” Flower said.

  Moon didn’t look at Flower when she responded. “I am, so? We’ll be locked up soon. And I wouldn’t mind having that shrink as my doctor. You should have seen him. Even unbuttoning my sweater to expose my--boobs--didn’t--interest--him. But--I--could--dream.” Her speech slowed and slurred.

  “Are you telling me that you started using again, just to have him as your doctor?” Flower asked.

  Moon closed her eyes and rolled over onto the floor in a fetal position. They paid her no attention.

  Cloud unfolded a towel, dabbed the one twelve-inch surface cut she made on Flower that ran from under her right breast diagonally to her left hip. It had barely bled. No worse than a paper cut. She placed the blood spotted towel over her thigh. Then she dabbed another spot on the cut. She placed that towel over Flower’s stomach, not covering the cut she had made.

  “Good. She’ll think we made a lot.” Cloud took a pic on her smartphone. She checked it and showed Flower. “Perfect. Okay, and, there, clicked ‘send.’ Let’s bandage this and get going.”

  She stared at Moon lying on the floor. Cloud put her finger under Moon’s nose and felt her breath. “She’s still with us.”

  Cloud opened a towel, placed it on an untouched part of the tarp, near an outer corner, placed the paring knife in the center. She folded the right side over the knife, then the left side. Next the top over and the bottom of the towel, up. She had a neat bundle. “Okay, we’ll go to the brownstone and put this into the cabinet. Arie will be happy we’re continuing her quest.”

  “Yeah, Moon’s all right for now. Remember we got another kill, tonight.” Flower insisted.

  “You’re actually planning on doing him? Snap out of it. Maybe if Ram wasn’t locked up. We’d have to, or she’d turn us in. Remember, these kills weren’t our first show. I could get the death penalty if my kill of my grandmother in Atlanta gets found out. You. You only did her dad and mom. You’re safe in New York. Get dressed. We have to get rid of the tarp.”

  “What are we going to do with her?”

  “Ya know what? Let her sleep. She’ll catch up with us later.”

  Flower put on the white long sleeved, low cut T-shirt and black skinny jeans she had worn to the precinct for her interview. Okay, she’d have to make Calinda disappear soon. At her apartment, she’d shred every paper with that name and close her accounts. She’d tell the banks she was moving. Absentmindedly, she grabbed one end of the tarp while Cloud grabbed the other. They came together in the middle as if they were folding a flat queen size bed sheet. They picked up the corners and came together again. One more time and they had it. Cloud folded the tarp over her sleeved forearm.

  “Where we’re going to stash this, I don’t know,” Cloud said.

  “All right, let me just make sure we have everything. No we don’t. We don’t have our outfits for the last kill. When we stop off at the brownstone, I’ll run upstairs and get them.”

  “You still want to do this?”

  “Yeah. I want the clout,” Flower demanded.

  ***

  Emma and Rachel stared out the front window of the Camaro as they looked down the block. They couldn’t drive down. It had been cordoned off by that yellow crime scene tape that they’ve seen quite often lately. From their doing.

  “Looks like that puts a damper on our plans.” Emma pounded the steering wheel with her fist. “Fuck! What did Arie say to tip them off? She promised we’d get away with it! I didn’t give anything away with that bitch detective.”

  “Yeah. You sure did. Don’t bullshit. You said you told her all about that sex club, Arie and Leonardo are an item. And you really thought you could hide that you were fucking her dad and get away with it? They probably found out there is no Calinda Alexander. And you lost your band and amulet? Come on. The cops aren’t stupid. They probably have all our IDs by now. Yeah. I’m sure they do. I even said that before.” Rachel sat for a moment. “Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. What kind of assholes are we?”

  “What are you talking about, now?”

  “We sent Arie a text of the cut we made on you. She’s in a psych ward.” She smacked her forehead with her palm. “We sent the text to the cops! They gotta have her phone.”

  “So now what the fuck are we supposed to do?”

  “For one, I can’t add this cut to her collection. That’ll be a downer. And it was a good one. I feel bad it won’t make it onto the wall of blood. It would have been preserved forever.” Rachel sighed. “But we can’t do that last kill, either. Don’t have the clothes.”

  “You’re really a moron. Know that, Rach? Doesn’t matter what we wear on this gig. We get too put together, he’ll know something’s up. I have what we’re using already at my apartment. What’s there to prepare? I say we do it tonight. Tomorrow at the latest. So what if it’s a day out of plan? I’ve got to get myself back on Arie’s good side. She’s wanted him out of her life for ten years now.”

  “Where do you want to go now?”

  “Back to my place. This cut burns like hell. Need to take something.”

  “Emma! Go back to your place? Are you fucking kidding me? I’m not going back to mine. Hell, no.”

  “Do what you want. I’ll drop you at your car.”

  ***

  Jesus Parvos had gotten the message all right. And several messages from Leonardo’s weapon suppliers. Put down anyone he sold weapons to. No trail was to lead back to them. No one left to rat them out.

  Okay. Fair enough.

  The one on top of the list was a bitch named Emma Sanders. She bought guns and ammo from him and distributed them. The suppliers said to also do her friends. And after the confirmation he got from Leonardo last night in his visit to the jail, another one was dumped in his lap.

  Leonardo didn’t have to speak. His eye blinks and nods confirmed what he had to do. Jesus had read the papers. He knew the detectives on the Larcon case. He’d been a part of Leonardo’s crew long enough to know who he’d want whacked. He had never made a hit for him, but anyone late on payments, Leonardo could count on him to deliver a strong message. Jesus still thought about the guy in the wheelchair.

  The one that he had turned into a quadriplegic.

  Too bad, Leonardo never wanted Adam taught a lesson. If any one deserved it, it was him. Guess he didn’t want the brother of his girl permanently damaged. Mrs. Larcon had quivered whenever he or a member of his crew showed up at their door for payments. Leonardo had never agreed to a drug installment plan for anyone, except for Adam. Guess he really dug AriellaRose.

  But Jesus knew who AriellaRose ran with. They were all there when the last deal was made. That wasn’t the first time, either. He had met them all when they hung out on the beach at
the Jersey shore. Oh, man, their partying at Seaside Heights, back in the day. All behind him now. And this Emma Sanders and the other two cunts wound up on two hit lists. AriellaRose’s and the weapons dealers. These kills would really put him up there.

  Yeah. He’d finally be able to make his mark. They’d finally be able to count on him to carry through. He put his jobs in order. One. Make that detective, Samantha Wright, disappear. Two. Do the same to Emma Sanders, Rachel Hawthorne, and Meredith Cummings. Three. No, that’s four. Five. Bust AriellaRose out of that hospital. He’d need to call his crew in for that one. No telling how many cops were around her now. He hadn’t seen her mentioned in the paper. Guess the cops wanted to keep her under wraps. They still hadn’t gotten any of the suspects. No one was specifically mentioned in the paper.

  Sitting on his worn couch, he looked around his studio apartment. Oh, man, would he like a bigger place. He could afford it. Leonardo and the other street pharmacists he worked for treated him well. He did his job and nothing trailed back to them. That was the way he planned for it to stay. But he had to stay low key. Nothing expensive. He had furnished the place with second and third hand stuff from a consignment store and Salvation Army. He pled poverty and was even receiving food stamps. He made his appearance so outrageous with tats on his neck, and nose, face, and ear piercings, he put it on the state of New York that he couldn’t get a job.

  What a joke. He grossed more a year than a cop and a teacher put together. All cash. And no taxes. Too bad he had to keep it all in his apartment.

  He perked up. Got a major thought. Whack a cop? Not such a great idea. But she was a new detective. Probably not as skilled as the others. Ah. She’d be easy. Okay. Be smart about this, Jesus. Move the pig down a few notches.