Scottish Rite (Maggie Devereaux Book 1)

by Stephen Penner

  "God keep you too, Mr. MacCadie," and Maggie broke into a jog toward the car.

  Iain picked up his feet as well and met her at the vehicle. "What's the rush all of a sudden?"

  "Oh, I just want to get going," she explained. "It's getting dark and I want to get back to Aberdeen."

  Iain opened the car up and climbed in next to Maggie. "Dinner first?"

  Maggie closed her eyes so Iain couldn't see them rolling into her head. What should she do? She had new information. She wanted to hurry home and figure out how it all fit together. On the other hand, Iain had been such a dear all day. And she would have to eat dinner at some point anyway. She opened her eyes again.

  "Okay. Sounds good."

  After all she still had four days until Sunday.

  * * *

  The walk had done no good at all. Warwick felt like she was staring at a brick wall for all the good it was doing her to pour over the files again and again. The truth was they had no hard forensic evidence, and every suspect they had considered had some sort of alibi.

  Annette Graham had been blackmailing her birth mother, Lucille MacTary, and her husband, Alex. But when Fionna FitzSimmons was murdered the MacTarys had been with their niece readying for their week-end.

  Fionna FitzSimmons had a hot-headed brother, Sean, and an ambitious boyfriend, Will Hopkins. Her pregnancy could have cost Will Hopkins his professional goals, but the abortion she was considering had outraged Sean. But Sean FitzSimmons was in a Belfast jail the night of Kelly Anderson's murder, and Will Hopkins' parents and sister had confirmed that he had spent that weekend with them in London.

  Kelly Anderson had been sleeping with Craig Macintyre, who had also plagiarized her work. She ended up dying the night after she'd given Macintyre an ultimatum: either he confess to stealing her work, or she'd broadcast his infidelity and plagiarism on every available channel. And Annette Graham had also been one of his students. But Macintyre was in Amsterdam when Annette Graham was murdered. Confirmed by 200 witnesses. And he only needed one.

  So everyone who seemed to have a motive could be eliminated from being the single killer Dr. Wood was certain they were dealing with. That left only two alternatives. Desperately attaching guilt to every male she came into contact with. Or accepting the most frightening proposition of all: they were dealing with a madman, whose sick twisted mind they could never truly understand, and whose next move they could therefore not even hope to anticipate.

  The only saving grace on that Wednesday evening was that Warwick had two more days to try to think of something. Anything.

  Just then, she heard a knock at her door. She looked up to see Jenkins, one of her patrolmen, standing in the open doorway, his knuckles only millimeters away from the doorframe he had just knocked on.

  "Sorry to bother you, Sergeant," he said, "but there's been another one."

  41. Annie Gwyer

  "What was her name?"

  Cameron had finally arrived. Warwick was beginning to wonder where he'd been. Even Dr. Wood had been and gone by now.

  "Annie Gwyer," she responded. Then anticipating the next question, went on, "She was a dancer at the club round front."

  The two officers hunched their shoulders against the freezing rain as they stood in a dirty alleyway not four blocks from the shipping docks and directly behind a seedy nightclub frequented by longshoreman, transients, and people looking to avoid too much attention. The club had lost a lot of business that night. If there was one thing their clientele wanted to avoid it was police officers, and the area was lousy with them just then. A dozen officers if there was one, and all swarming over the several blocks surrounding the club. All because of a young woman named Annie Gwyer.

  "Same killer, then?" Cameron lit his pipe.

  "I'm not sure," Warwick titled her head and looked at the corpse lying in the oil streaked puddles which danced with each rain drop. "It's different."

  "How so?" He leaned in to look as well.

  "Well, to start off with, the abdominal cavity's not been emptied. The only things removed were some intestines and a couple of smaller organs. I think Dr. Wood said one of them was the gallbladder. So the organ arrangement's not the same."

  "So, perhaps he's moved on to a new pattern?" Cameron smacked at his pipe stem. "You said you thought it was an evolving pattern."

  "Well, yes, I did say that," the sergeant frowned. "But that's not all. Dr. Wood did a preliminary exam. He said the cause of death was a broken neck, not strangulation."

  "Maybe she struggled?" Cameron countered.

  "Maybe." She wanted to say, 'As if the others hadn't?' but she was done trying to convince him.

  "So you think it's a different killer, then?" he prodded.

  Maybe. Could be. Probably. "Yes."

  Cameron nodded a few times and smacked again at the pipe. He turned away from the body. "Could it be that it's the same killer, but he's become more violent? Perhaps the methodical manner of killing had lost its thrill?"

  "Possible," Warwick conceded.

  "Or perhaps it's a simple matter of location. We're only feet away from a busy street, frequented at night by dozens and dozens of local revelers. Perhaps he was interrupted, or perhaps he simply wished to hurry so as to avoid detection. This would seem to be a more heavily trafficked area at night than a college campus."

  "True enough," Warwick answered, "but that just begs the next question: Why choose your next victim from this area, when you just increase your chances of detection?"

  "Does he though?" smoke wafted from the inspector's mouth. "We've increased patrols, haven't we? And where? Why, in the college district. Not the docks. Detection by a random civilian is far preferable than detection by law enforcement, I should think."

  Warwick pursed her lips and looked away. He was not to be persuaded. She decided not to mention her belief that the next murder should have happened Friday night, not Wednesday.

  "Fine," she replied. "But I still think we should be open to at least the possibility of a copy-cat killer."

  Cameron frowned deeply and tapped his pipe on his lip. "No. No, we don't need a copy-cat killer. That won't do at all."

  Warwick found this reaction puzzling. 'We don't need a copy-cat killer'?

  "And in any event, it's unlikely," he went on. "That would require knowledge of details we've mostly kept out of the press."

  Mostly, Warwick thought.

  "Oy, right! To one side!" The voice came from the end of the alley. A man was trying to push past two officers who were restraining him from entering the alleyway. "I need to talk wi' the head copper!"

  Cameron walked slowly up to the man, who was still struggling, and exhaled a rather large cloud of smoke in his general direction.

  "I'm the head copper," he announced calmly.

  "Right then!" The man shrugged off the two officers and straightened his shirt, stained at the bottom where it curved under his belly and back into his too tight blue pants. He wore no tie, and his sleeves were rolled up revealing thick forearms with black hair hiding several faded tattoos. What was left of his hair—his hairline had already retreated halfway across his scalp—was a reddish brown. A gold tooth shone as he spoke to the inspector. "Right, I need you blokes out of here. Now. I can't have coppers traipsing aroun' me nightclub. 'S not good fer business."

  Cameron exhaled slowly. "And you are?"

  "I'm Jamie Lancaster an' I own this nightclub," he pointed to the back of the building which abutted the alleyway. "And I need you coppers to leave."

  "Sir," Cameron's voice was calm. "There's been a murder."

  "Well, thank you very bloody much, Officer Obvious," Lancaster threw his hands in the air. "I bloody well know that. But I don't see why you need a bleeding battalion to investigate one bloody murder. You're scaring me customers away."

  Cameron elected to ignore the 'Officer Obvious' comment. "Your customers don't like the police?"

  Lancaster narrowed his eyes and met the inspector's gaze. "Me customers d
on't like questions. And coppers ask questions."

  "You do understand that your yelling and interrupting will not speed things up any?"

  Lancaster just glared at him.

  "However," Cameron raised his pipe-stem to the black sky, "if you're willing to cooperate, things will go far more smoothly. And quickly."

  "Cooperate how?" Jamie Lancaster crossed his arms.

  "First, leave these officers to their work. They needn't waste time restraining the likes of you from contaminating a crime scene."

  Lancaster just grunted.

  "Second, I'll need to ask some of your customers if they recognize some photographs."

  "Absolutely not," Lancaster stamped his foot and shook his head vigorously.

  Cameron returned his pipe to his mouth. "I don't think you understand," he said through clenched teeth. "I'm not asking your permission. A woman—one of your employees—has been brutally murdered. Behind your bar. We intend to find her killer. We need to speak with your customers."

  "But—"

  "And we can do it one of two ways. The first way is that you cooperate. You let us approach a few select patrons as they sit in the bar and we quietly show them a few photographs."

  Lancaster glared at the inspector. "And the second way?"

  Cameron nodded slowly and exhaled more pipe smoke onto Jamie Lancaster. "The second way is that you don't cooperate. In which case, we will lock down your club. We will interview each and every customer until we've spoken to them all. And before which we will not open the doors again."

  Lancaster's eyes widened and his mouth opened to respond.

  Cameron beat him to it. "What do you think that would do to your business?"

  Lancaster's face turned bright red, and his chest heaved in heavy breaths. "Fine," he said at last. "But hurry."

  "I'll do my best," Cameron replied. "Now go inside and let us do our jobs."

  Lancaster stared at the inspector one last time, then turned away and stormed off toward the front of the club, muttering several words far stronger than 'bloody.'

  Cameron walked up to one of his patrolmen. "How much longer do you lads need?"

  "We're almost done here, Inspector," was the reply. "Not much longer."

  Cameron walked back over to where Sgt. Warwick stood. "Have them finish up, then get the body to the morgue for a full examination. I want confirmation that it's the same killer. If it's a copy-catter, then we've got serious trouble."

  "Yes," Warwick replied. Yes, we do.

  "I'll head inside," Cameron continued. "See if anyone recognizes any of the current suspects." He patted his coat pocket where the photographs of the suspects obviously were.

  He walked toward the street, then turned back. "And stick around 'til I'm done. We can head over to the morgue together. See what Andy has to say before we start trying locate the girl's next of kin."

  * * *

  All in all it took Cameron just over forty minutes to make his rounds inside the club.

  "Lovely establishment, that," he said sarcastically as he climbed into Warwick's patrol car. "It's a wonder we've not been called out here every night."

  "Anyone recognize the photos?" Warwick asked, not hopeful, as she pulled the car into the roadway.

  "Some of them," Cameron let out a grunt as he reached into his coat pocket for the envelope with the photographs.

  He pulled out a few and held them up for Warwick to glance at as she drove.

  "Several of them recognized Sean FitzSimmons. Knew him just as 'Sean.' Said he worked down on the docks and was a regular for a time. Haven't seen him for a while."

  "Being in jail across the Irish Sea will do that," Warwick observed.

  "No one recognized the others: Alex MacTary, Will Hopkins, Macintyre. I'd really hoped they'd recognize Macintyre, but it doesn't surprise me much that he's never been in that place. Not exactly his pot of tea, I'd wager."

  "Most likely not," Warwick agreed.

  "But they recognized this one," he held up another photograph. "He's a regular, they say."

  Warwick glanced quickly at the photograph, but had trouble seeing it in the dark of the car while trying to stay on the slick, winding road leading up to the morgue.

  "Who—?"

  "Don't recognize him?"

  "I can't really see it," Warwick explained, her attention was focused fully now on the quickly approaching morgue to their left.

  "Devan Sinclair," Cameron said simply, and tucked the photograph away. Then pointing out the front windshield, said, "Right in front there. No one will give us a ticket."

  Warwick pulled the car up into the no parking zone in front of the morgue. Before the car had even stopped rolling, the inspector opened his door and hopped out into the rain.

  "Let's see what Andy has to say."

  42. Information

  Iain's silver car pulled slowly up to the MacTary's house, headlights dimmed.

  "Thank you so much, Iain." Maggie smiled warmly at him.

  "No problem at all, Maggie," Iain smiled back. "I'm starting to like these little excursions." He looked at her with narrowed eyes and raised brows. "You're very mysterious," he observed.

  Maggie's smile broadened. "Well, I don't know." She wasn't sure what to say. "Thanks, I guess."

  "Can I walk you to the door?"

  "Oh no, that's all right," Maggie waved the suggestion away. "Just wait 'til I get inside again?"

  Iain's smile faded a bit. "Sure."

  Maggie cocked her head at him. "You don't want Alex and Lucy to know you were with me today, do you?"

  Iain's face lit up in recognition. "Oh, right," he agreed. "I'd forgot about that."

  Maggie smiled and nodded. She began to open the car door, then she realized what he had really meant when he'd asked if he could walk to the door.

  "C'mere." She leaned over and pulled his face to hers, kissing him fully on the mouth.

  After a moment she pulled away, her face and body flushed. "Good night, Iain. Thanks again. See you tomorrow?"

  Iain grinned happily. "Aye. See you tomorrow, Maggie."

  She stepped out of the car and quickly trotted up the walk to the waiting porch. Unlocking the door, she turned to wave at Iain as his darkened car pulled away, waiting until the next house before turning his lights back on. She had had a good day with Iain, in more ways than one. But returning her mind to business, she pictured the moon symbols on her calendar. Four days left. Time to get to work.

  "Maggie, is that you?" It was Uncle Alex' voice.

  "Yes," she replied cautiously.

  "Come in here with us for sec, love." That was Aunt Lucy.

  They were watching the television in the living room, lights off, the room illuminated only by the multicolored lights on the Christmas tree and the blue glow of the television. It looked like the evening news was about to start. Maggie was amused by the similarities the introduction had with local news shows back home.

  "How was your day, dear?" her aunt asked.

  "Well enough," Maggie replied. "Ellen and I visited some of the local stone circles. Very interesting. And helpful for my research."

  "Oh really?" Alex asked, and followed it up with a more pointed question about her studies. But Maggie didn't hear him. Her attention was focused on the television anchorwoman.

  "What did she say?" Maggie pointed to the screen, filled with the anchorwoman's face in front of an illustration of a chalk body-outline. "Turn it up."

  Alex complied with a press of the remote control.

  "... —lice aren't saying yet whether this murder is related to the others which have plagued Aberdeen in recent weeks. However, preliminary information from an unnamed source close to the investigation confirms that the woman's body was found in the same badly mutilated condition as the other three victims. Police are not yet releasing the name of this latest victim of the Aberdeen serial killer until they have notified her family ..."

  Maggie stared at the television in disbelief.

  I
t's too soon.

  * * *

  The Aberdeen City Morgue was housed in a rather old building not too far from the Old Campus. It was made of sandstone and brick and looked much like any other municipal building from last century, save the word 'MORGUE' carved somberly into a gray stone inserted above the front door. Walking along the street and looking up the seven cement stairs to the front door, one's perception of the entire structure would change once that word was encountered. The warm red bricks would become far less inviting and one would undoubtedly hasten to be out of the shadow of this depressing, yet necessary building. Every city needs a place to store its deceased while proper arrangements are made. This is especially true when the deceased has no family or friends to attend to such details, and even more so when the deceased was the victim of a crime. In such cases, a morgue becomes not only a storage facility, but an investigative resource, and the coroner a detective.

  "Andy!" Inspector Cameron walked into the examination room where Dr. Wood and his assistant had just finished their work.

  "Robert," came the friendly reply before the coroner turned to his young assistant. "David, go ahead and put her back into sstorage. The ssame place we got her from, okay? Then you can go home. There's no telling when we'll get the go ahead for the full autopsy. No need to wait around. It'll keep 'til tomorrow."

  "All right then, Dr. Wood," replied David. "Thank you. G'night. G'night officers."

  "'Night," responded Warwick, as the assistant rolled the gurney into the hallway.

  Cameron just nodded.

  "You're looking better, Andy," he remarked. And it was true. The doctor's face had lost its last hint of slackness.

  "Thank you, Robert. It's sslow, but improving. One thing about this job," he waved around the room with his left hand, "you learn to appreciate every day you're alive."

  "So what can you tell me?" Cameron quickly got down to business. "Is it the same killer?"

  Dr. Wood pursed his lips and drew his left hand up to his chin. "It's hard to ssay of course. Always is. But I'd have to ssay, no. No, it's not."

  Told you so, thought Warwick, but she knew better than to say anything, or even let the thought cross her face.