5th Pentagram: The sequel to the #1 Hard Boiled Mystery, 9th Circle (Book 3 of the Darc Murders Trilogy) (Book 3 of the Darc Murder Series)

by Hopkin, Ben

  “Exactly. I’m here to support Detectives Keane and Darcmel in their investigation.”

  Trey pulled out his cell phone. “First things first. We’ve got to get a CSI unit in here, pronto.” He turned to Darc. “You got that intern’s number in your cell?”

  “You mean Cody?” Mala asked. “I’ve got it.”

  Bradley’s face grew white. “Cody Lyons?”

  Trey turned to the assistant, his eyebrows raised. Surprise? Suspicion? “Yeah. How do you know Cody?”

  “Oh,” Bradley said, in a tone that seemed to be strained for some reason. Perhaps a vocal obstruction? “He’s just… a friend of a friend. You know.”

  “Right,” Trey said, stretching out the word. He then turned back to Mala. “Call him up, see how fast he can get out here. I’ll call dispatch for the ME.”

  Darc was having an unusual reaction to the information that Mala had the intern’s phone number stored in her cell phone. The color of the strand of logic that had been created was not one with which he was familiar. It had streaks of red and a strange mauve coloring running through it, and its shape was irregular. The result of interference from this thread was strangely unsettling.

  “Of what use is it to alert the intern?” Darc found himself saying. The other pathways of logic had no issue with the young man coming. He had done more than adequate work for them up to this point. There was also the assumption that if Trey was requesting Cody’s presence, it could be for a significant social or emotional reason that would be beyond Darc’s capabilities to discern.

  And yet, he was fighting the decision.

  “He’s familiar with the case,” Mala answered. “Plus, there is another angle that I’ll discuss with you at another time.” She gave Darc a look that was indecipherable to him. It was clearly intended to deliver some sort of message, but Darc had little idea what its significance might be.

  Could she be telling him that she and Cody had some sort of relationship outside of work? The oddly colored thread twitched, disrupting the rest of Darc’s mental process.

  Bradley, on the other hand, seemed to be avoiding eye contact with everyone in the room. Perhaps he too suffered from an autism spectrum disorder. That was a topic on which Darc might wish to engage with the young man.

  “I don’t care who comes at this point,” he said, staring at the symbol on the desk. “I just want to know what all of this means.” He waved around the office, indicating the symbols and pictures drawn and carved into the walls, ceiling and furniture.

  “There are a lot of them,” Mala said, after giving Darc another look. This one was different, but no more discernable. She pointed up at the ceiling. “This is called the Egg of Life. It’s a grouping of seven intersecting circles.”

  “There are five other symbols leading up to that one,” Darc clarified. “Here is the first.” He pointed out two circles that intersected one another. “It is called Vescia Picis. The center of each circle is bisected by the circumference of the other.”

  “They’re depictions of the six days of creation,” Mala said, pointing to each in turn.

  “What’s this one?” Trey asked, pointing to the opposite wall.

  “It is a depiction of the rotating octahedron.” Darc moved closer to the figure to examine it.

  “A symbol of God or the creator,” Mala murmured. She pointed out the features of the symbol to Trey. “It’s a circle that contains within it the Star of David. The Star’s then further divided by lines that bisect each of the six points of the star.”

  “But what does it all mean?” whined Bradley.

  “These are all symbols of sacred geometry,” answered Mala. “And these…” She pointed around the room. “… all have to do with the Freemasons.”

  Once more, Bradley’s face whitened. This time, there was no way to tell if it was due to another vocal obstruction, as the assistant was not speaking.

  The streams of light and color dancing about in Darc’s mind coalesced in agreement. Everything here pointed to the fraternity of men that some claimed went back to the secrets of architecture and geometry found in Solomon’s temple.

  And someone in this day and age appeared to be uncovering those secrets.

  * * *

  Trey was just waiting.

  There was a riot of symbols and whatnot in this office. Trey was pretty sure he’d never seen this many clues left in one place at one time.

  Darc was known for dashing off after getting one or two of these suckers. There had to be like twenty in here. The fact that the bald detective was still standing here was a little shocking to him.

  In the meantime, Trey decided to do some normal detective work. And by normal, he meant boring. Ask the standard questions that Darc never bothered with. They never seemed to matter, but you never knew when one of them might give Trey a leg up.

  Okay, that wasn’t going to happen, but Trey didn’t like feeling useless, so…

  “How did the kidnapper get in?” he asked Bradley, the overanxious assistant, as he walked out into the hallway. “I’m assuming you guys have been here the whole time?”

  “I have no idea,” the young man answered. “We were here, but most of us were down the hall working on the big Halloween celebration coming up this weekend.”

  Trey had heard about that. Apparently, there was going to be a huge Halloween bash happening right there in the middle of the Municipal Court, followed by a big parade. It was the first one they’d done in Seattle, and it seemed like there was some controversy around it.

  The Mayor had put the thing together with the City Council to boost flagging business. Something about Detroit going bust had gotten a bee in their collective bonnets and they’d all decided to get proactive about things.

  But the Evangelicals were all up in arms about it, calling it a hedonistic holiday at best, a demonic celebration at worst. That had gotten all the Wiccans and Satanists pissed off, as well as everyone else who just wanted to have a good time, and now everyone was at each other’s throats.

  And it all came back to the Mayor.

  If this thing went off without a hitch, he was the big hero that was helping to save Seattle’s economy. If it went south, he was the idiot who came up with the idea. Or the Antichrist, depending on whom you were talking to.

  Trey thought it sounded like a good time, but who was he to have an opinion? No one really listened to Catholics much, lapsed or otherwise. Prejudiced bunch of jerks.

  “So no one saw or heard anything?” Trey asked. That didn’t track. There had to have been some kind of noise made, with all the stuff that had been done to the office.

  “No,” Bradley assured him. “Like I said, we were all working here in the conference room, making calls, running around… It was kind of chaotic.”

  Trey looked around the hallway. “Any surveillance cameras around?”

  The assistant shook his head. “Not here in the hallways. There might be some in the elevators or around the stairwells. I’m not sure.”

  “I’ll check with the building,” Trey muttered, partially for his own benefit, so he wouldn’t forget. Partially because he wanted to sound like he was a contributing member of the team. No one on the outside could really understand how hard it was to make sure that Darc left the office with his pants on.

  Seriously. One time Darc had come out of the bathroom with no pants. There had been a problem with one of the sink faucets, and he’d gotten his trousers thoroughly hosed down. Rather than wring them out, Darc had decided to just take them off.

  But explaining that to anyone that didn’t know Darc just sounded like a lame excuse. Trey liked to save those for when he had to run someplace. Then he could start talking about his high school football injuries and stuff. Didn’t really matter that he’d never played. Little white lies. Nothing more.

  He yanked his attention back to the obnoxious little assistant, who was looking at Trey like he was an alien or something. Or maybe he was still just reacting to what he’d seen back i
n the office. The guy was more skittish than a drop of water on a hot skillet.

  Trey was just about to ask him if there was a number to get in touch with building security, when Cody Lyons, the CSI intern, strolled around the corner. He caught sight of Bradley Moore and waved.

  “Hey, Brad!” he called out. “Missed you last week.”

  “You guys know each other?” Trey asked the intern. Bradley was looking like he wished the earth would swallow him up. Did he hate Cody that much?

  “Oh, yeah,” Cody gushed. “We’re both Entered Apprentices over at the lodge.”

  Bradley was making some kind of hand motion to Cody, trying to get his attention. Trey turned to him, and the gestures stopped immediately.

  “You’re Freemasons?” Trey asked, his brain whirling.

  “Uh, yeah,” Cody answered. “Why?”

  “Because whoever has been killing people all over Seattle and just finished kidnapping the Mayor is using an awful lot of Freemason symbols,” Trey shot back.

  The young intern seemed to deflate. “Oh.”

  “Oh is right. I’m guessing that’s why your fellow Mason over here wasn’t too interested in telling us that he was part of the brotherhood.”

  Bradley shook his head. “No, no. That’s not it.” Trey leveled a look at him. It was one he’d copied from Maggie, and he was pretty proud of it. The assistant quailed. “Okay, yes. I mean, I saw all the symbols and stuff and I just panicked. It’s just way too freaky for me.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s no walk in the park for me,” Trey muttered back. He was about to launch into another round of questions for the two budding Masons when his least favorite person on the planet walked in.

  Carson Speer. Assistant Prosecuting Attorney.

  “Hey, guys!” he smiled at the two young men in front of him. “There a lodge meeting I didn’t hear about?”

  CHAPTER 18

  Mala came out into the hall to Trey screaming at the top of his lungs.

  “That’s it! You’re all under arrest!” He pulled two sets of handcuffs out of the back of his pants. “Darc! I need your cuffs out here!”

  “Trey,” Mala called out to him. “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” he barked at her. “I’m arresting a conspiracy!”

  At that point Darc had exited the office and was approaching the grouping of men in the hallway. He laid a hand on Trey’s shoulder, causing the smaller detective to whirl around, his arms flailing.

  “Oh, Darc. Sorry, man. These guys are all Masons!” he hissed in disgust.

  Well, that put a slightly different spin on Trey’s apparent descent into insanity. The fact that all three of these individuals was involved in a group whose identifying symbols were plastered all over Seattle made them persons of interest, at the very least.

  “Handcuffing them is unnecessary,” Darc intoned, pulling Trey back away from the trio of men, all of whom were looking like deer in the headlights of a semi.

  “But, Darc, didn’t you hear me? They’re Masons.” The last sentence was given in a loud stage whisper that would have been comical in some other situation. But right now, this grouping of men seemed like the best bet they had to get the Mayor back alive.

  “I understand that,” Darc replied. “But Bradley was here with witnesses the entire evening. And Carson was at the hospital.”

  “Yeah!” Yelled Trey. “Killing a witness!” He spun to the remaining member of the trio. “What about Cody? Where was he? Huh?”

  Cody lifted up his hands in a defensive gesture. “I was out watching movie with Yana.”

  “The Wiccan?” Trey screeched. He spun back to Mala and Darc. “See? It’s all interconnected.”

  Mala placed a hand on Trey’s shoulder. “You may be right. But we’re not going to get clear answers out of any of them if you keep trying to put them in cuffs.”

  “Look,” Bradley said, stepping forward. “I just joined the lodge three weeks ago. Cody, too.” The CSI intern nodded his head, looking like he’d just been spanked. After the conversation she’d had with him earlier, Mala wouldn’t be surprised to find out that’s exactly how he felt.

  “Okay, fine,” Trey spat. “But what about Mr. APA there?”

  “Oh, him?” Cody asked. “He’s a Master Mason.” Both Bradley and Carson glared at the young intern. “What?”

  “That’s gotta be enough to arrest him, isn’t it?” Trey pled with Darc. “Come on! You know there’s something up with this guy.”

  “Detective Darcmel,” Carson addressed the taller detective. “I hope you can understand when I say that this is beginning to feel like harassment.”

  “Beginning to?” snarled Trey. “Then I haven’t been doing my job.”

  “Trey,” soothed Mala. They weren’t going to get anywhere with him popping off like this. “Calm down for a second.”

  He started to give what looked like a strongly worded retort, seemed to think better of it, and stalked a few paces away, muttering to himself as he went. Every few seconds, Trey would look back over his shoulder at one of the three men in the trio. What he thought of them was written on his face, plain for anyone to see.

  The APA lowered his voice so that Trey couldn’t hear. “I think you can understand why I’d be reluctant to let him take me into custody.”

  Mala pitched her voice at a similar volume. “And I think you can understand, Mr. Speer, why he might be suspicious.”

  “I did not kill anyone,” the attorney said, his tone aggrieved. “And I certainly didn’t kidnap the Mayor. Come on. I was at the hospital just a few minutes ago.”

  A thought crossed Mala’s mind. “How did you know about the Mayor?”

  “I got a text from Bradley,” he answered, looking into Mala’s face. What he saw there seemed to spark even more defensiveness. “Okay, look! I can’t help the fact that we’re all Masons. But I had nothing to do with this.”

  “There is something you can do,” Darc said, entering into the conversation once more.

  “Name it,” the APA replied.

  “Give us the names of all the brothers in your lodge.”

  “But… I…”

  Mala stepped in. “You can see that every symbol in that room has some relation to Freemasonry on some level. We have to track this down. We have no idea how long the killer will wait before he kills the Mayor.”

  “He may be dead already,” Trey said, moving in closer. “Sorry about the screaming and stuff,” he said, nodding to Mala and Darc. He then turned his attention to Carson. “I’m not apologizing to you.”

  The APA held Trey’s gaze for a long moment. “You know, I have been nothing but helpful this whole time—”

  “That’s my problem!” Trey answered. “Since when have you heard of a friendly APA?”

  He had a point there. Mala turned to the attorney, waiting to see what he would say to that. The lawyer was just about to open up his mouth, when his attention was diverted downward.

  There, right on the edge of their circle of people, was Janey, holding her bear.

  * * *

  The grownups were yelling. A lot.

  Janey knew she was supposed to be sleeping, but she wasn’t sure how anyone could think she’d be able to do that while everyone was making such a racket. Mommy used to call Janey a noise monster, and that’s just how they all sounded.

  So, she’d gotten up.

  Popeye had grumbled a lot, saying that they were going to get in trouble and then they’d never be able to ask for ice cream on the way back to Mala’s apartment. But Janey knew better than that. There was no chance Mala was going to get them ice cream this late at night. Trey might, but Mala would never send them back with Trey.

  Once Janey had explained this to her bear, he settled down. At least a little bit. Sometimes it seemed like Popeye thought that it was his job to complain about stuff.

  She slipped around the side of the big group of grownups. The one yelling the most was Trey. That was funny. Tre
y usually didn’t yell much. But right now his face was all red and there was this vein that was sticking out on his forehead. It seemed like he was really mad at one of the older guys there that Janey didn’t know.

  She was glad she wasn’t that guy. She’d never thought that Trey was all that scary. He was usually just funny and got her snacks that she wasn’t supposed to eat. He was definitely Popeye’s favorite. Popeye liked Mala okay, and Darc he put up with, but he really liked Trey. Mostly because of the cheesy puffs.

  But right now, even Popeye seemed a little scared of Trey. At least he didn’t say much as they passed by.

  Janey walked into the office where Mala and Darc had come out just a second or so ago. They had all been in there before the yelling started. Janey had gotten up a few times to look, so maybe it wasn’t just the yelling that had kept her awake.

  But now she was glad she had come in here. There were messages all around the room, making colored lines in her mind, pointing out things that she wouldn’t have noticed by herself.

  There were the symbols, but she knew that Darc understood all of them. They were easy for Darc. But there was something else. Something that was more like how Darc and Mala and Trey were all different.

  The person who drew these things was different, too. Not in a way that Janey liked, but she could see it, like a glowing orange light that pointed to certain things on the desk. It meant something. Janey was sure of it.

  Now she just had to explain it to the grownups before they told her to go back to bed.

  * * *

  Darc observed Janey as she trundled back into the office, dragging her bear along behind her. He also noticed that she gripped a sheet of paper in her other hand.

  The informational pathways coalesced around that paper, zeroing in on whatever it was that Janey had discovered. It was clear that she was communicating with him.

  She knew something that he did not.

  As Darc entered the room, Janey turned and handed him a picture. It was a drawing of Seattle, but overlaid with lines and patterns that made little sense to him. The lines snagged and fought with his internal threads. There were similarities, but the differences were enough to cause chaos.