“There is a broken tea cup,” Grace said. There was a small delegation of officers, coming and going. It felt like a small circus with the common denominator was badges. Grace was a fresh faced officer. Her dark hair cut short, dark blue eyes set in the whitest pupils Colin had ever seen. She was short and stocky. He knew she could hold her own in a fight with a perp.
Jim sniffed the air around it. “What is that smell?”
Grace breathed in deeply, “Camomile tea.”
“There’s another smell too…can’t quite make it out.” Grace said.
“Rosemary,” chimed in Jim and they looked at him in shock. “I use it for my steak marinade. Not exactly a drink for a hostile meeting.”
“Unless she was trying to calm her nerves,” Colin replied. “Why didn’t she finish it?” He looked closer at the cup’s handle. It was sticky, with a faint residue.
“We need to get the fingerprint people into this room too. Get that tea cup into a bag for evidence and off to the lab. There might be something other than tea in that cup and maybe some trace amounts of DNA, who knows.” Colin had moments of clear commands. He hadn’t started out that way, more timid than commanding. He knew Jim had worn off on him.
Another officer with a notebook stood in the door way, trying to get their attention.
“What is it officer?” Jim asked him and he jumped. He cleared his throat and started to read from his notes.
“The victims name is Cassandra Marks, a well-known medium. She had a stall here at the convention, quite popular with everyone. Preliminary shows that there is no signs of a struggle, but signs of petechiaei in her eyes, indicating strangulation. There was no defensive wounds to her hands, but we will check under her finger nails too. She may have been unconscious already when she was killed.”
“Just like the last one. This one had the sage though. I wonder what that is about,” Colin said, his arms were folded across his chest.
“The tarot cards are the only thing that seems to link them together as a serial killer’s calling card. We need to look closer at the victims background. The bell may have been the first mistake.” Jim almost sounded elated. He closed up his gray trenchcoat, tightening up the belt. “The weather out there has certainly changed.“
Colin scanned the room, an unlit candle, green and embedded with herbs, sat on a side table. Grabbing it, he smelled it. “This is the source of the rosemary.”
“Rosemary is used for rituals,” Grace said. The officers wrote it in his notebook. “Rosemary is for protection. Looks like someone brought it with them and forgot it.”
“Or the victim did,” Colin replied. “But why light a candle for protection, then get killed anyway.”
Jim gave him a concerned look and laughed, “because it is nonsense.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot,” Jim turned away and rolled his eyes. Skeptic he thought.
Colin turned his attention to the desk. A planner laid to the side, some pages were smeared with ink. “Oh, this is something.”
“The entry for yesterday is: 8 PM — E.G. private meeting, office.” Jim read it aloud. “E.G.,” he murmured, his mind immediately jumping to Edward Grant, the convention manager. He flipped to some previous pages and found more notes referencing “E.G.” A second note unlined: “Don’t forget payment.”
“Looks like someone had a side deal going,” Colin said, peering over Jim’s shoulder.
“So you said there is no cameras near the offices, but what about other areas. Anything on those?”
“There is a few security cameras, we can get access to them this way.” Grace led them down the hall into a security office, the desk filled with keyboards and a line of monitors in front. “The closest one is outside the main hallway.” She sat down and started scanning the feed from the previous evening. Jim and Colin discussed evening plans while they waited. Jim had a game he planned to watch. Colin could see him in his boxer shorts and t-shirt on the sofa, popcorn bucket in his lap, and beers littering the table. It was seared in his mind from last time. Colin had dinner plans with his girlfriend and hoped to be on time, but she had gotten used to waiting for a little while till he could escape his job.
“I got something,” Grace said, her voice sharp. “Victor Hayes. He’s on camera pacing outside the door, the time stamp says 7:45 pm when he decides to head down the hall. What does the schedule say for that time, does it confirm an appointment?”
Colin flipped back to the page, “Yes, V.H. 7:45 pm. Interesting.”
“I wonder what went down at that appointment?” Jim said. “But the hallway does lead to other offices and outside down the side passage to the right.”
“I think that is too much of a coincidence,” Colin replied. His phone vibrated in his pocket. His eyebrow shot up. “Ask Lila about the bell. She knows more than she’s saying. Who’s Lila?”
“She is Cassandra’s mentee,” Grace said. “She told me she left early that day because she wasn’t feeling well.”
“Who sent the text?” Jim asked.
“It’s just a random number, doesn’t even look like a phone number. Anonymous tip?” Colin queried.
“Looks that way,” Jim said. “But it feels like someone is toying with us. Let’s find Lila and the others, bring them back here. We need some answers before someone else ends up dead.”
Stay tuned for Part 3….
Written by Rachel D. Knepp
