OBLIGATION
By MeridyM
meridym@home.com
Distribution: Just let me know where.
Disclaimer: Nope, these characters aren't mine, except the
ones you don't recognize--those came from my own
imagination.
Rating: A strong R for violence, language, and sexuality.
Key Words: Doggett/Other, Doggett/Reyes friendship, case file.
Classification: A Doggett/Reyes case file complete with
romance, magic, mayhem, friendship, drama, sex, angst, violence,
and...birds!
Summary: Face it, John: Normal life involves family. It involves
recreation. It involves friendships with people you *don't* work
with. It involves companionship with the opposite sex. And if you
were really lucky, it might even involve love. He missed the man
he'd been. That man would have kissed that pretty woman in a way
she wouldn't have forgotten. Where the hell had he gone?
Feedback: You know I love it!
Note: This story is a stand-alone case file, but it
features an original character, Morgan Dannah, who first
appeared in "Intuition" and then in "Empathy." You can
definitely enjoy this story without knowing a thing about
her, but it would enhance your pleasure (ooh!) at least a
little to have read those stories first and to know her
history.
Special thanks to David Stoddard-Hunt and WJMTV for their
helpful comments, to Jo, Michele and Rina for bearing with
this long piece as a work-in-progress, and to Entil'zha
for letting me borrow a bit of his DoggettFic universe.
Author's notes are at the end of the Epilogue.
CHAPTER 1
Ft. White, Florida
June
Carrying a bouquet of fresh wildflowers, the ruddy-faced
man stepped carefully between the headstones of the old
graveyard in Ft. White, Florida. The sun was
already fierce even in the early morning, the grass dry and
brittle from the lack of rain. His coppery hair was damp
with sweat, and he wiped his forehead with the back
of his hand. He crossed a gravel path and walked over to a
grave in the shadow of a towering cypress tree that was
draped heavily in pale green Spanish moss.
He sat down in the scrubby grass to the side of the grave
and bowed his head for a moment. He rubbed his hand across
his mouth and spoke quietly, leaning over close
to the gray marble headstone.
"I'm going to punish the people who failed you," he said in
a slow north Florida drawl, "and the ones who shouldn't
have lived. I owe you that." He traced his
fingers over the letters on the headstone, slowly, one by
one: N. . .O. . .R. . .A. "They'll pay, all of them--the
sorcerers, and the whoremongers, and the fearful, and
unbelieving, and abominable, the idolaters, and all
liars..." His voice had become monotonous and singsong as
he quoted from Revelation, and his fingers, trembling
now, moved on the headstone again: G. . .O. . .O. . .D. .
.A. . .L. . .L.
"The doctor who didn't save you is dying. God's justice is
working. But the others--" He stood up abruptly. "I'll
make them pay." He leaned over and carefully laid the bouquet
on the grave and stood up. He looked at the headstone for
another moment and then turned to leave. He almost bumped
into the tall black groundskeeper who was trimming the wayward
grass around the headstones. The man nodded to him, and he
wondered as always why they let a heathen like that work in a
good Christian place like this. Then he walked away, heading
east into the stark morning sun, toward the river.
* * *
The Ft. White Methodist church sat back from a sandy lane
lined with moss-strewn cypress trees. The building was
old, its whitewashed lumber fading from age and neglect.
The minister's name in the display case out front read
"erald P ice," the "G" and "r" in the name having fallen
away long ago.
The nearby streetlamp cast a weak glow over the front of
the old church. A beat-up pickup pulled around to the
back, and a man slid out of the driver's seat and pushed
the door shut behind him. He walked with a still
deliberation to the back of the truck and opened the
tailgate. Reaching inside, he dragged a garbage bag to the
edge of the truck bed and strained to lift it out. He
hefted the heavy burden and half-carried, half-dragged it
to the back door of the church.
Inside, the man lugged the bag past the door to the
sacristy into the moonlit sanctuary. He stopped at the
front of the high-ceilinged room with its hard wooden pews
and pulled his skinning knife out of its scabbard on his
belt. He bent over and slit the garbage bag completely
down the middle and pulled out the freshly killed Nubian
goat. He inserted the knife at the notch of the sternum
and slit the animal down the middle, opening up first the
skin, then the fascia. Then he hooked the barbed tip of
the knife into the top layer of muscle and split the animal
in two at the chest.
"Damn!" he breathed, jumping back as the warm blood poured
out over his feet and soaked into the old carpeting, a
spreading stain. He reached inside the hot carcass
and carefully sliced the filmy serosa, loosening the
intestines and pulling them out, slicing them free of the
carcass.
His hands slick with blood, he carried the armful of goat
intestines up to the altar, climbing the stairs slowly. He
dumped them without ceremony onto the old cherry wood
altar, and began winding them around the altar, around the
brass cross in its middle, and around the large leather-
bound bible.
"But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and
murderers," he muttered as he wound the entrails, "and
whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars,
shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire
and brimstone, which is the second death." He walked back
to the gutted animal and carried it to the front of the
sanctuary and laid it on the carpet in front of the altar.
He knelt in front of the goat and dipped his hands in the
blood pooled in the animal's abdominal cavity, stood up
again and splattered the blood over the altar, shaking his
hands, watching droplets of blood fly and land on the pews,
the pulpit, the carpet. He did this again, and again,
until he could get no more blood from the carcass.
Then he walked over to the split-open garbage bag, gathered
it up from the floor, and walked back out the way he'd come
in. He tossed the remains of the bag into the truck bed,
got behind the wheel and drove off.
Inside the sanctuary, the light of the full moon filtered
through the stained glass in the windows: Jesus feeding
the multitudes, the Good Shepherd, the Resurrection. It
was quiet, except for the wind moving the cypress trees
outside. That, and a low sound almost like faraway cicadas
or perhaps a generator, rhythmic, hypnotic. There was a
smell like ozone.
And then a light, that started out low and built to a
brilliant flash that illuminated the entire sanctuary and
all the darker corners of the foyer at the front of the
church. And a fire descended on the goat, the entrails,
the blood, with heat that seared, burned, evaporated.
A tall black woman, the fire reflected in her dark eyes,
stepped out of the sacristy doorway and watched the flames,
her face unutterably sad. She slowly turned and walked back
into the darkness.
* * *
Gainesville, Florida
One Month Later
Wednesday
The bearded, dark-eyed man yawned and stretched his long
legs as much as he could in the cramped airline seat.
He was just glad to be on the ground, home again after a
week-long business trip--an exhausting one, too, mostly
spent putting out fires and holding clients' hands.
He pulled his briefcase out from under his seat and set it
on the empty middle seat next to him. He looked again at
the woman across the aisle in the opposite window
seat, knowing that if he was going to make any kind of
move, it was going to have to happen soon. The plane was
taxiing slowly to the gate, and soon everyone would be
crowding into the aisle, grabbing things from the
overheads, and squeezing to the exit, heading to points
unknown. If there'd been an empty seat beside her during
the flight, the move would have been a fait accompli.
He looked at her. He'd been looking at her off and on for
the last three and a half hours. Right now she was turned
to the window, but he'd had plenty of time to study
her. He'd surreptitiously watched her sleep, read a book,
eat lunch, write in a journal. She was slender but had a
nice figure, shapely legs obvious in the sandals and short
denim skirt, pretty breasts hinted at under a white shirt
rolled to the elbows. She had short glossy-black hair,
falling loose from a big comb in messy curls. A big watch
on a black strap hanging loose on her fine-boned arm, no
rings. She'd looked his way a couple of times and had
smiled at him once. She had wide eyes that were a
startling shade of light green. A soft, full mouth with an
easy smile. Fair skin. He bet she smelled good too.
He was definitely interested.
The plane pulled up to the gate, and people began standing
up, gathering up their things. The aisle filled up fast,
and he straightened his tie and watched her. She sat,
quiet, holding her black leather shoulder bag in her lap,
as the aisle filled up with waiting people. She remained
in her seat as they began filing down to the plane's
exit.
At last she stood up and squeezed her way out of the row of
seats into the aisle. He stood up, picked up his
briefcase, and followed her down the aisle.
"Thanks, y'all," she said to the flight attendants standing
at the exit, and he heard the Southern voice. She's home
for a visit? She lives here and was visiting in Denver?
He followed her down the bridge from the plane to the
terminal. There was a slight hesitation to her gait,
almost but not quite a limp. It made her body sway just
slightly when she walked, and it was oddly attractive.
Finally, she turned and looked over her shoulder at him as
she walked. "I'm not buyin'," she said.
"You married?" He followed her closely.
"Not anymore."
"Do you have a guy?"
"Yes." She kept walking.
"Is he meeting you here?"
"No."
"Would you like to have a drink?"
The woman laughed, and glanced at him again, exasperated.
"Mister, what part of 'I'm not buyin' ' is so hard for you
to grasp?" She pushed through the terminal door
and began walking a little faster, scanning the crowd for
the familiar faces that were supposed to be there.
"Mo! Over here!"
It was her sister's voice, and she smiled, relieved,
straining to find her in the sea of bodies. Out of the
corner of her eye, she saw the man hesitate, stop. Then
she caught sight of the two small women who were pushing
their way through the crowd to her. They both pulled her
into a hug at the same time, and the three women, two
short, one quite a bit taller, held each other in silence
for a moment.
Then the younger, auburn-haired woman held her at arm's
length and looked her up and down. "Mo, you look good--
skinny, but a hell of a lot better than you did."
Mo Dannah nodded. The last time her sister had seen her,
she *had* looked pretty rough. "I'm a whole lot better,
Maeve. Thanks." She turned to her mother. "Mama,
how are you?" She hugged the older woman, who patted her
back.
"I'm holdin' up, sweetie," Ruth Dannah said in her soft
Carolina drawl. "Just a day at a time, you know?"
"Come on, let's go get your baggage and get out of here,"
Maeve said to Mo. "Did you pick up a bird dog, Mo?" Maeve
gave her an amused glance as the three of them
walked toward the stairs to the lower level.
Mo rolled her eyes. "Oh, you mean that guy? He was
staring at me the whole flight. I think he just wanted to
ask me out, but it *was* a little creepy. I mean," she
looked at Maeve, "havin' a man think you're attractive is
one thing, but a man actin' like a stalker is another thing
altogether."
"Hey, maybe a man is what you need." Maeve laughed. "Not
necessarily that one, though."
Mo put her arm around her mother and smiled down at her,
then over at her sister. Maeve had that right: A man was
exactly what she needed. Damn, was it that obvious?
Outside, the heat hit Mo in the face, like the fiery
assault when you open an oven to check on what's inside.
She gasped.
"Not like this in Boulder, huh?" Maeve said with a smile.
"My God, no," Mo said. "Mama, how long's it been since it
rained?"
"A good long time, darlin'," Ruth Dannah said. "Seems like
a couple of months. There've been wildfires not too far
south of us. They had to carry some folks from
Judson and Trenton over to Gainesville a while back."
"There's the car," Maeve said, and pushed the button on her
key to unlock the doors.
"Here, Mama, you sit up front where it's comfy--I'll take
the back," Mo said, opening the door for her mother.
"Sweet darlin'," Ruth said, reaching up and hugging her
older daughter. "It's so good to see you, Morgan. I'm so
sorry it has to be for somethin' like this."
Mo just held her mother, and helped her into the front seat
of the new model Stratus coupe. Then Mo climbed into the
back seat and fastened her seatbelt. Meave got in
and gunned the car and pulled out of the lot.
"Is this your car, Mevvie?" Mo asked.
"Well, it is for the next few days," Maeve replied,
following the signs for I-75 north.
"A rental. I thought it was awfully clean." Mo smiled.
"Oh, har," Maeve replied, throwing her sister a look.
"Mama, are all the arrangements made? Do you need me to do
anything?" Mo asked her mother.
"Sweetie, about the only thing we really need is some help
with the food on Saturday, at the wake," Ruth said.
Mo leaned back in the seat and pressed her fingers to her
eyelids, suddenly realizing how tired she was. "I'll help
do whatever you need, okay?"
"Are you gonna tell her about the weird stuff, Mama?" Maeve
asked, "Or do you want me to?"
" 'Weird stuff'?" Mo sat up straighter.
Ruth shook her head.
"Mo, someone's been desecrating local churches," Maeve
said, catching her sister's eye in the rearview mirror.
"How? Who?" Mo frowned. "Do the police know anything?"
"Well, if they do, they're playing it close to the vest,"
Maeve said. "The press has been having a royal field day,
as you can imagine. There were animals sacrificed,
blood everywhere. The press is saying it's a devil cult of
some sort." She glanced over to Ruth. "Mama didn't really
want to tell you, Mo, well, because of the whole
cult angle."
Mo sighed, not sure whether she should feel angry or
grateful. "I appreciate your concern, but what happened to
me was quite a while ago now, and I'm not as fragile
as y'all seem to think."
Maeve glanced at her mother but didn't say anything.
"What churches were desecrated?" Mo asked.
"The Calvary Baptist at the end of town, the Lutheran
church, and the Methodist church."
"The Methodist church behind grandmama's house?" Mo was
shocked. "That's scary." She stared out the side window at
the fields and the billboards rolling by on I-75. "How
long has this been going on?"
"Seems like it started about a month ago, honey," her
mother put it. "I don't think it's anything you need to
worry about."
"Yeah, she has other things to worry about," Maeve put in,
smiling wickedly. "Like the fact that Max is coming
tomorrow."
"Max?" Mo laid her head back against the seat and sighed.
"Oh, Jesus God," she muttered. Max definitely wasn't the
man she had in mind.
* * *
Jimmie Lee Carlson shifted his ample behind on the hard
seat of the weathered wooden skiff and hocked a big one
into the brown water. Was there, he wondered,
anything better than this? Unless it was doin' the naked
pretzel with a pretty little thing, he couldn't think of
anything.
Yep, it was hotter'n a bitch, but here on the river at
least there was a breeze. He had to hug the shore to fish
under the vegetation there. The river was low 'cause of
the damn drought, lower than he'd seen it in an age, but
the guys at Stu's Live Bait and Tackle had told him the
redfish and mullet were biting close to shore--and if you
were lucky you might find y'self some cats or some bass.
He cocked his head to one side. Goddam, what the hell were
the birds goin' on about? Crows, from the sound of 'em.
He wiped the sweat off his face and neck with a large red
bandana and pulled his white mesh cap off. His curly blond
hair was plastered against his skull in soggy ringlets. He
fanned the cap in front of his red face, and reached into
his cooler for another cold Busch.
As he pulled the wet can out of the cooler, something on
the shore caught his eye, over amidst the pines. He shut
the cooler and squinted at the line of trees, trying to
make out what it was. He popped the can open and took a
deep swig. The cold beer felt good going down.
Huh, Jimmie Lee huffed to himself. It was a man. Sitting
under a friggin' pine tree. It was a damned odd place for
a picnic--not that the guy looked like he was takin' the
air for pleasure. He was sitting stiff and still, bolt
upright against the tree trunk, like he had a stick up his
ass.
Jimmie Lee took another drink of the beer and set the can
down on the seat beside him. He slowly reeled in his line,
watching to see if anything dragged on it. Jack
shit.
Jimmie Lee looked back over at the trees, feeling like
something cold was touching his spine. The man hadn't
moved a muscle. He reeled his line in all the way and
fastened it to the rod. He laid the rod and reel in the
bottom of the skiff and pulled on the oars for a few
seconds, propelling the skiff a little closer to shore.
"Fuck me," he breathed, peering at the man through the
pines again. Whoever the hell it was still hadn't moved.
Jimmie Lee climbed out of the skiff and splashed through
the shallow water, pulling the boat after him and beaching
it. He walked up the bank and, slowly, over to the
stand of pines.
The birds had gone quiet, and Jimmie Lee could hear his
footsteps in the sandy soil, crunching pine needles
underfoot. He stopped, feeling his stomach dropping out
from under him at the sight of the man propped up against
the pine tree in front of him.
It was a big black man, dressed in what looked like some
kind of drab gray uniform. He was staring, sightless,
right at Jimmie Lee's midsection. The man's body was
sliced open from his chest to his crotch, and his
intestines had been pulled out and twined around and around
and around the tree, effectively binding him to the trunk.
He had bled out into the sandy soil below the tree, stained
a deep red, starting to turn brown now.
Jimmie Lee fell to his knees and got rid of the fried steak
and collards he'd had for lunch, and then kept vomiting
until there was nothing left in his stomach.
The crows in the trees began calling to each other again,
first one, then another, and then the air was full of their
hoarse cries. The only other sound was the quiet retching
of the man crouched next to the dead man, and the buzzing
of the flies.
* * *
CHAPTER 2
Alexandria, Virginia
Thursday Noon
Monica Reyes grabbed the carton out of the fridge and
poured some of the orange juice into a glass on the
cluttered kitchen counter. Barefoot, she carried it out to
the empty flagstone patio. She looked around and sighed,
returned to the kitchen and hooked the step stool there
with one hand and carried it back outside. It had rained a
few hours before, cooling the city down for about a
heartbeat. D.C. was oppressively hot, stiflingly humid, and
staying inside in the air conditioning would have been
smarter.
But she wanted a smoke, so she sat on the step stool in the
middle of the patio and pulled a cigarette and lighter out
of the pocket of her shorts and lit up. She smoked and
slowly sipped the juice, thinking about how perfectly
innocuous things become habits. There was no reason on
earth why she couldn't smoke inside, but going outside for
a smoke had been drummed into her over the years. And she
had to admit that maybe she didn't really want to smoke
inside her new place anyway.
Her life was ass-over-teakettle right now. Essentially, her
life was in boxes, or half in and half out of boxes,
scattered all over this strange new apartment in this
strange new city. She didn't do chaos well. Having a
tendency to feel too much from the get-go anyway, when
things were turned upside down she felt totally ungrounded
and found it hard to think straight. But she wasn't a space
case; it was just that, because of the things she was able
to perceive, she often knew things other people didn't--and
she wasn't afraid to mention it right out loud. She knew
damn well it was one of the reasons why she sometimes
seemed a trifle, well, flaky to people.
She drew the smoke into her lungs and wondered for the nth
time if she'd made the right decision, leaving a city and a
job she knew well for a job in a small, less-than-
prestigious division of the Bureau, even if it were in
Washington, D.C. On top of it, she'd be working with a man
who, she was fairly certain, viewed her with a conflicted
mixture of fondness and dread. She smiled ruefully. If
"conflicted" wasn't the right word for John Doggett, she
didn't know what word was.
But it wasn't like he didn't want her to work with him--
*he'd* asked *her*, after all. She crossed her long,
slender legs and pinched her lower lip in thought. She
liked to keep an optimistic attitude; she'd found it worked
far better for her than the opposite, despite the
"Pollyanna" label it had earned her from some of her
colleagues.
And it wasn't as if John wasn't a good man and a superior
agent, one of the best she'd ever known. He was
intelligent, fair, meticulous, indefatigable, stubborn,
hard. But also, under the flintiness, he could be
thoughtful and gentle and kind, with a deep lode of
melancholy--not that he would ever consciously let most
people in on the secret. He was that type of man, kind of a
throwback. Monica liked him for it, though he could push
her buttons faster than almost anyone she'd ever known. She
was pretty sure she had the same effect on him. More often
than not, she could see right through him, and she knew
that unsettled him, though he tried not to show it.
Monica stripped the elastic out of her messy ponytail and
ran a hand back through her dark brown hair. She took
another drag of the cigarette, another sip of the orange
juice. Well, if the cases John had already involved her in
were any indication, at least this new assignment wouldn't
be boring. Weird as hell, but not boring. But then, she
*did* do "weird" pretty well--had quite the reputation for
it, in fact. She shook her head and stood up, grabbed the
stool, and walked back into the messy kitchen. She had
about four days before she actually started official work
on the X-Files. It wasn't much time to get her house in
order.
She tucked the stool up under the breakfast bar and looked
around for the ashtray she'd just unpacked. Damn, it was
there just a minute ago. Her cell phone trilled. She
rummaged around in the stuff on the breakfast bar and
finally found the phone--and the ashtray--underneath a
towel. She picked up the phone.
"Monica Reyes," she said into the phone, stubbing out the
cigarette in the ashtray.
"Mon, what the hell you doin' in D.C., gal?"
Monica frowned, confused, until she placed the honey-
magnolia drawl with the right face.
"Why, Everett Clyatt, how are you?"
"I'm just fine, hon. I spoke to Sid this mornin', and he
said you'd taken an assignment there in D.C. When'd you
leave N'awlins, anyway?"
"Just a few days ago, actually, Ev. It all happened pretty
fast," Monica moved a box off one of the dining room chairs
and sat down.
"Well, I was wonderin' if y'all might have time to give me
a hand with somethin', just a consult, mind you."
"Are you still down in Jacksonville, Ev?"
"Yes, ma'am. There's been some weird shit goin' on down
here in a little bitty town, Ft. White, not too far from
Gainesville."
"What kind of weird are we talking about, Ev?"
He chuckled. "You know, your name came up in the database
search when we input 'weird.' No, seriously, there've been
a series of church desecrations, sacrificed animals, blood
chucked around. There were threatening messages left in a
couple churches. In one, the bastids left a dead dove. And
there's been a murder--body was found yesterday by a local
man who was out fishin'. Looked to be dead five, six
hours."
"Is it related? Was it ritual too?" Monica asked, intrigued
now.
"There was another dead dove, and the man was gutted just
like the animals in the churches, with the same exact type
of blade. M.E. used the word 'eviscerated.' I'm sure y'all
know what that means."
Monica felt her stomach take a little lurch, and she took a
deep breath. "Yeah," she said. "Do you have any leads? Any
ideas about motive, who could be doing this?"
"The Gilchrist County Sheriff seems to think it could be
tied to a Santeria cult in the area. The dead man was a
Santeria priest."
Monica frowned, doubtful.
"Mon?"
"Yeah, I'm still here."
"There any way you could help us out?"
Monica looked around the room at the half-unpacked boxes,
the out-of-place furniture. Then she laughed to herself.
John will just *love* this, she thought. She glanced at her
watch. It was just a little after 1. "Sure, Ev," she said
into the phone. "When do you want me?"
"When's the next plane to Gainesville?"
* * *
The little bungalow just off the road to High Springs was
quiet. Its weathered boards normally vibrated with music
and energy and laughter. Now its silence felt like anguish.
It felt like death.
The front room was carpeted with a remnant bought at
Discount Carpet Warehouse in Gainesville several years
before. It hadn't held up very well, and the thin spots
were beginning to show up as pale patches in the otherwise
dark blue. The walls were covered with brilliant West
African hangings, family photos, and musical instruments--
a mbira from Zimbabwe, a kora from Senegal. The furniture
was old but comfortable, an overstuffed red sofa overlaid
with colorful throws, a wooden chair, a large armchair, an
old floor lamp. It was a welcoming room, rich in color and
warmth.
Deborah Boadu sat down at the kitchen table with the glass
of iced tea she'd poured--a habit she'd picked up since
living in north Florida, where everyone seemed to have a
jar of it in the refrigerator year-round. A tall, stately
dark-skinned woman with a head full of long black braids
caught back in a cloth, she wasn't used to feeling as lost
as she felt right now. Normally lively and optimistic, she
hadn't felt anything remotely like this since she had left
Lagos with her late husband Jaime and her young son and
came to live in the U.S. with her brother-in-law Enrique.
That was 17 years ago.
How could it be that long ago already? She had been so
much younger then! Stephen had only been 6 when they'd
moved here and didn't really remember Africa very well. He
was truly American. She had always tried her best to be
American, and she thought she'd succeeded fairly well. She
seldom wore African dress, just the occasional color-
drenched headcloth. But she and her family were Lucumi,
and it had been very hard to fit in at first. Their
religion was suspect; their ways were mocked. She had
learned to be very circumspect over the years. She had
even taken a job as caretaker at the local Methodist Church
in an attempt to continue to reassure the rest of Ft. White
that Lucumi, or Santeria as they insisted on calling it,
had nothing to do with their Christian devil or his
worship. Why they would even assume that was hard for her
to understand, but that was the way it had always been,
here and everywhere--even in Africa, among fearful
Christians and Muslims.
She smiled bitterly and sipped the cold tea. But as lost
as she had felt when she first came here, a young Nigerian
wife and mother transplanted to Florida, it was nothing
compared to the horror of her husband's brother being
murdered. That she was quite certain she knew who had
killed him made it ten times worse.
The screen door opened and slammed shut, and Deborah slowly
got up and walked into the living room.
"Stephen, what have you found out?" She asked the tall
young man who stood, very still, in the middle of the room.
A much smaller, much older man stood next to him. What the
man lacked in size, however, he more than made up for in
substance and powerful dignity.
"The police and the people at the morgue say that we can't
have Uncle Enrique's body for another day, because he was a
murder victim," Stephen sank down into the armchair and
looked up at his mother and the other man. "They say they
need to do more tests."
"You told them that we need to prepare his body for ritual
and burial?" Deborah asked.
"Of course I did, Mama." Stephen wiped his damp forehead on
the rolled sleeve of his work shirt.
"The authorities here have their rules," the old man spoke
up. "We have no choice. And they do not understand our
ritual."
"But they will let us have him tomorrow?" Deborah asked,
feeling a knot grow larger in her stomach. "We can go to
Gainesville and get him?"
"That's what we were told," Stephen said.
Deborah looked at the old man. "Old Owdeye, I have to go
to the police and tell them what I saw, what I know,"
Deborah said to him.
"Deborah," the old man said, his eyes intent on her face,
"the alejo justice cannot be trusted. The police, the
ashelu, they do not need to be told. We must trust Olorun.
He will take care of us."
"You know that I trust and honor the orishas. But if this
man is doing what I think he is doing, he may come after the
rest of us too." She stood very still. "We can't let that
happen, and you need to know that right now. If I have to,
I will take care of it my way."
* * *
"Mon, thanks again for comin' down on such short notice."
Everett Clyatt glanced over at Monica Reyes, who turned
away from the car window to smile at him.
"Oh, Ev, no problem. I don't have to start my new job till
Monday, and I didn't want to unpack right now anyway."
Monica uncrossed and recrossed her long legs, feeling
fidgety sitting in the hot sun that was beating in through
the windshield. They were on their way down Route 24 from
the Gainesville Airport to the Alachua County Sheriff's
department.
Ev Clyatt really was a lovely man. He'd worked with Monica
and her former partner on a couple of cases before, in 1996
and 1997. He'd been in the New Orleans field office for
14 years before he was transferred to Jacksonville in 1999.
He was tall, starting to go to fat now that he was past 40,
his dark hair thinning and combed over in that ridiculous
thing balding men sometimes do. Come to think of it, Ev
couldn't be a whole lot older than John Doggett. She
raised her eyebrows at the thought. John still had plenty
of hair--albeit short--and a midsection you could serve dinner
from. There wasn't a lot of comparison in the looks department,
that was for sure. But at least Ev was less likely than John
to think she was, well, flighty.
John Doggett. She smiled to herself just a little. He'd
probably be more convinced of that than ever when he got
wind of this. Somehow that gave her a perverse
satisfaction. She really did like and respect John, but
sometimes he could be awfully fun to tweak.
"Ev," she said, "I'll need to see the body of the murdered
man."
"Sure, Mon. Sheriff Ritch'll arrange all that stuff."
"And this might seem like an odd request, but I'd also like
to take a look at the dead dove that was left next to the
body."
Clyatt glanced over at her skeptically. "Well, I don't see
why you can't do that." He didn't ask why.
"And fill me in: You were brought into this case why--?"
she asked, smiling.
"The county authorities were scared shitless of the hate
crimes statute. Simple as that."
"Because the murdered man was Lucumi?"
"You got it." Clyatt turned left onto Hawthorne Road.
"Everybody's nervous about that crap nowadays."
"And it's about time," Monica said.
* * *
The first thought that came to Monica when she and Ev had
walked into the Alachua County Sheriff's office was that
Sheriff Al Ritch was one big fellow. Monica figured he'd
probably always been the biggest kid in his class, even in
grade school. Had to shop at the Big and Tall Men's stores
and remember to duck going through certain doorways. She
realized that she literally had to look up at him, and she
wasn't exactly petite. He was the classic cinema Southern
lawman, 40-ish, slow-moving, sunglasses hooked in his shirt
pocket, face sun-blasted and crinkled, voice a slow drawl
that stretched each vowel to its breaking point.
And right now he was standing with her and Ev in the County
Morgue.
"Whoever killed this guy had to be higher'n a Georgia
pine," Sheriff Ritch said to Monica. "I mean, the man was
still alive when the sumbitch gutted him, pulled out his
insides. It's enough to make y' lose y' lunch."
"Well, I understand that the man who found him did just
that," Monica put in gently, leaning over the body of
Enrique Boadu and squinting prettily. Whoever had done
the autopsy had done a fine job of stitching up a body that
had been opened up from the pubis to the sternum. Monica
swallowed hard. The man was tall and sturdy and had been
strong and vibrant once, of that she was certain. Ev had
told her Boadu had been a priest, but she would have known
that without being told. There was. . .something about
him. She couldn't put her finger on it, but this man had
been a powerful presence. Some of that power lingered
still, despite the death of his body.
The infamy of the murder brought sudden tears to her eyes,
taking her by surprise, and she blinked hard to keep them
at bay. There was no way she'd let Sheriff Ritch see her
cry. She took a deep breath and turned around to face the
big man.
"Tough sometimes, ain't it, gal?" His shrewd brown eyes
studied her not unkindly.
She met those eyes, ready to reject what sounded like
condescension, but saw something else in his face.
Understanding--*real* understanding. The corners of her
mouth quirked up. Damn, sometimes irony just reared up and
smacked you. He only *looked* like a Central Casting
redneck.
"Yes, it is," she said simply. "Sheriff Ritch, I was led
to believe that the motive was rivalry within the Santeria
community, not drugs."
"Yeah, that's true. I guess I just have a helluva time
believin' that anyone not totally whacked out could do what
was done to that poor bastid."
Monica nodded. "And I have a hard time believing that any
practitioner of Lucumi would do something like that."
"And why's that?" Ritch leveled his sober gaze at her.
"Just my past experiences--not that you won't find crazy
people in any faith," Monica hastened to add.
"And there was the bird," Ev prompted.
Monica nodded. "The dove that was left at the scene-
there's no way Lucumi would have killed the bird that way."
Ritch squinted at her skeptically. What the hell did *that*
mean?
"A dove is a common sacrifice in the religious practice of
Santeria, but to the people who practice Lucumi, a
sacrifice--whether it's fruit or a dove--is always a symbol
of love and devotion to God. The bird would never be
gutted like that one was. It would have been killed as
gently as possible and offered to whatever orisha was
receiving the sacrifice."
Ritch didn't look convinced, but he was clearly not going
to argue with her, the reputed expert on all such things.
"So what're you sayin', Miz Reyes? That whoever did this
was tryin' to make it look like it was the Santeria folks?"
"Well," Monica said, "that's one possibility. I'm sure
you've already thought of it," she added. She walked away
from the priest's body and back over to Ev, who was
standing by the wall, letting her take the lead. "From
what I know about Lucumi, I'm just suspicious, that's all."
Sheriff Ritch joined her and Ev, and they walked out of the
bay and into the hallway. "Am I assumin' rightly that
you're gonna want t' see the murder scene and the churches
too?"
"Sheriff Ritch, you're assuming just right." Monica smiled
at him.
"Well, then, y'all may as well come on with me." Sheriff
Ritch settled his hat on his head and pointed the way. "We
can take my truck."
* * *
The old clapboard house had stood there in the little town
of Ft. White since 1927, when Gerald Dannah, his wife,
brother, cousin, and various friends had built it. It was
a comfortable but modest house for its time, and downright
small for the 21st century, with its modern motto of bigger
is always better. But the house had seen three children,
seven grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, at least 16
cats and seven or eight dogs arrive and thrive and move on
over the seventy-some years it had been there, and it still
felt like home to the various Dannahs who visited it, and
to the two who had come to stay several years earlier.
When Gerald Dannah's widow had passed on in 1997, their son
Jack and his wife Ruth had sold out their business and home
in South Carolina and had moved everything down to Florida,
ostensibly to retire. But neither one of them liked
retirement. Ruth found herself playing piano at local
nursing homes, and Dr. Dannah ended up practicing medicine
the way he always had, taking patients who couldn't afford
to pay most of the time. Ruth kept telling him to slow
down, but he was as hardheaded as their two daughters, so
she just watched him and smiled. She told herself it was
why she'd fallen for him all those years ago, anyway, so
why complain now?
When they found his cancer two years later, he still didn't
want to slow down, but eventually his body made it clear to
him that he had to, and, grudgingly, he did. Eventually he
became too weak to do much of anything, and that had been
the worst time of Ruth Dannah's life.
Mo Dannah pulled on her mother's old gardening gloves and
sat down cross-legged on the spiky broad-blade grass in the
side yard. Her mother's flower beds needed some serious
help. Her father's final illness had taken a toll on her
mother, on the house, and on the yard. Mo wanted to do all
she could to get things ready for the wake on Saturday,
just two days away. She had already watered the three
parched beds here on the side of the house, to make it
easier to get the weeds out and then put in some new
flowers she'd just bought at the nursery outside of Lake
City.
She adjusted the sun hat on her head and gave silent thanks
for sunblock. The afternoon sun was fierce today and
could bake her fair skin well-done. She dug into the soil
with the garden fork and loosened some of the more stubborn
weeds. Her mother's four o'clocks were wilted, the cosmos
barely holding their own. Some new petunias and pansies
were just the ticket.
A shadow fell on her, and she looked up to see Maeve
standing there, extending a glass of iced tea her way.
"Thought you could use a cold drink."
"Thanks, sweetie, it's just what I need," Mo said, taking
the glass from her sister.
Maeve settled herself in the grass next to Mo.
"What's Mama doin'?" Mo asked her. She took a grateful sip
of the cold, sweet tea.
"You know, right now she's actually lyin' down. I
practically had to force her. But I convinced her that you
and I can take care of gettin' the house ready and that she
really *could* relax a little bit."
"Good," Mo said, hollowing out a space for a pansy. She
put the plant into the soil and patted the brown earth back
on top of it.
"So, Mo, how've you been? I mean, really." Maeve sat back
and wrapped her arms around her drawn-up knees, studying
her older sister. She loved her sister Morgan to
distraction, but they were so different it was hard to
believe they'd grown up in the same house. Where Mo was
medium-tall and slender like their father, with the same
black hair and green eyes, she was like their mother:
little, rounded, auburn-haired, and brown-eyed. She was
outgoing, had dated the football captain in high school,
led the debate team, majored in political science and had
become a lawyer. Mo was quieter, hadn't gone out much in
high school, had hung with the drama crowd, studied classical
ballet and modern dance, and made intuitive healing her
life work.
Mo glanced at her sister, wondering if it was a loaded
question. "I've been okay. I've been working pretty hard
since I went back full-time."
"When was that?"
"I think it was about four months ago," Mo replied.
"Any guys? I mean, you haven't really talked about anyone
since. . ."
"Since Max and I split? Yeah, well, there haven't been
too many guys--or at least not too many who meant anything.
One or two. You know what it's like. Once you've been
divorced, it's not easy to climb back into the saddle."
"So to speak," Maeve said dryly, grinning. "There's no one
special though? Mo, you're too young to turn into a
celibate. I can't believe there aren't any guys you're
interested in."
"Well, there're a couple I've seen in the last year or so.
There was a guy named Chris who I saw for a while. He was
sweet, but that didn't really go anywhere. That ended last
winter. And there's a guy I've spent a little time with.
Nothing too serious. I hardly ever see him." Mo's voice was
carefully casual, which immediately alerted her sister.
"Really? What does he do?"
Mo gave one of the weeds a particularly savage prod with
the garden fork. "He works in law enforcement." She dug more
earth out of the way, this time for a petunia.
Maeve stared at her sister, and then laughed. "Sorry, Mo.
No offense--a cop? You?" Maeve was thoroughly amused.
"The Hippie Healer and the Lawman. They could write a
Harlequin romance about you."
Mo laughed gently. "I guess it *is* pretty odd. But it's
not like we're an item. Like I said, I don't see him very
often. He lives out of state."
Maeve gave Mo a long, appraising look. It was clear to
Maeve that her sister was lonely. Maeve might not have the
intuitive abilities Mo had--she couldn't "feel" other
people in the same way--but she could read people, and she
knew Mo like a favorite novel. Even though Mo's divorce a
few years back hadn't embittered her--well, at least she never
spoke ill of her ex-husband--Maeve knew Mo's heart had
taken a beating when her bittersweet marriage had ended and
her photographer husband had left town pretty much for
good. Maeve also knew that Mo spent far too much time
taking care of other people, and there just didn't seem to
be many people in her life right now who were taking care
of *her*. Maeve found herself wishing she could do or say
something to help.
"Mo, I--" Maeve started to say, when they both heard a car
drive up, a door open and slam shut, and a deep voice call
out:
"Hey! Anybody home?"
It was a familiar Carolina drawl, and Mo stopped her
weeding mid-pull. "Oh God," she said. "It's Max."
"Over here, Max!" Maeve yelled, and the tall man shortly
followed the deep voice.
Mo took a deep breath. She hadn't seen him in almost two
years.
*Oh, God.*
He was even more gorgeous than she'd remembered. He was
older, but he was still probably the best-looking man she'd
ever known, tall, lean, well-muscled, with black hair and
dark blue eyes and lips that. . .well, they were really
nice lips.
She stood up as he walked over to her and Maeve. Dressed
in khaki cargo shorts and a white muscle shirt, his bare
arms and legs tanned and strong, he stopped in front of
them. His black hair was shorter than Mo remembered--and
was that a little gray in that hair?--but those blue eyes
were still kind and compelling.
"Hey, Mevvie," he said softly, bending to give Maeve a kiss
on the cheek. Then he turned to Mo with a small smile that
got wider as he looked at her. "Mo, honey," he said and
gathered her into a hug that almost lifted her off her
feet.
He released her, and Mo smiled up at him, blinking a little
in shock, just grateful that he hadn't kissed her.
"How's the job? How's Kyoto?" Mo asked him, trying to
think of something innocuous to say.
"It's good. The assignment's really challenging, but I'm
havin' a great time," Max said. "Incredible photographic
opportunities there, but it's been an adjustment, I can tell
you. Can you imagine me living with the Japanese?" He laughed
softly. "I've been there three months, and I haven't met
anyone yet I can look in the eye."
"You don't find that many people in the *States* you can
look in the eye," Mo said, and he grinned. "Max, thanks
for coming all this way. It means a lot to us," she added,
her hand on his brown forearm.
"Mo, your dad meant a lot to *me*." Max ran a hand back
through his thick, dark hair and looked at her. "You look
good."
Mo laughed. "Yeah, sure," she said. "I'm all dirty and
sweaty."
"You always did look good, girl," he said softly, closing
his big hand over her fingers.
"What *is* this? Visiting hours at the asylum?" Maeve
muttered, and Mo and Max turned. A 4 x 4 was moving slowly
up the lane toward the house. They walked around to the
front of the house to see who was going to get out of it,
Mo leading the way.
The muddy Blazer pulled up in front of the house, and both
doors opened. Two men and a woman climbed out and walked
toward the three standing by the porch steps. The driver,
an imposing man who had a good two inches on the 6-foot 4-
inch Max, stuck his hand out to Mo.
"Ma'am, I'm Al Ritch, Alachua County Sheriff's Office," the
big man said, taking Mo's hand in a surprisingly gentle
grip. "These two folks are from the FBI. Are you the
property owner here?"
Mo shook her head. "No, my mother lives here. She's
inside, resting." She glanced at Max and her sister. "This
is my sister, and my ex-husband. We're here for my
father's funeral on Saturday."
"I'm sorry, ma'am." Sheriff Ritch said. "Could we talk to
your mother for a few minutes? And to y'all?" He looked
at Max and Maeve, then back to Mo.
"Sure," Mo said. She looked from him to the other, shorter
man and the tall, dark-haired woman. "Is--is this about
the man who was found yesterday?
"Yes, ma'am," Ritch confirmed.
"I'll go tell Mama," Maeve said. She headed up the steps.
Max stood next to Mo, protective, silent.
"Come on inside. I'll get y'all some tea," Mo said, and
motioned for them to follow her.
The dark-haired woman was staring at her with a look of
uncertainty, almost of wonder. As they walked up the
steps, Mo glanced at her. She was a little taller, a
little thinner than Mo. She smiled at Mo almost shyly and
continued to study her.
"I'm sorry," Mo finally said. "But have I met you
somewhere?"
Monica held out her hand. "No, I'm pretty sure you haven't.
I'm sorry if I was staring. I don't mean to be rude. But
you. . .remind me of someone. I'm Monica Reyes."
Mo took her hand, nodding. "I'm Morgan Dannah. No, it's
okay--I was just wondering because, well, of the way you
were looking at me." She held the screen door open for the
other woman.
As they went inside, Mo tried to remember why the name
"Monica Reyes" sounded familiar.
* * *
CHAPTER 3
Alachua, Florida
Ramada Inn
Thursday Evening
Monica Reyes pushed the shower curtain aside and reached
for the towel she'd left on the back of the toilet. She
grabbed it and wrapped it around her wet hair. She
stretched her long arm out and pulled the other bath towel
off the towel bar and wrapped it around her slender body,
tucking it up over her left breast. She bent over and
rubbed her wet hair with the thick towel, trying to get the
excess moisture out of it.
It was only about 8:45 p.m., but she was tired. Ev Clyatt
had headed back to Jacksonville about an hour ago. Before
he left, he'd treated Monica to dinner at a little place
just up 163rd from the motel. He'd watched her, slack-
jawed, as she'd eaten two helpings of fried snapper with
hush puppies and butter beans, muttering something about
where the hell she put it in her skinny little body.
Monica smiled to herself, remembering his expression.
She walked out of the steamy bathroom into the air-
conditioned motel room and shivered. She finished drying
off and pulled a T-shirt and a pair of panties out of her
suitcase. She slid them on and wrapped the towel around
her hair a little tighter. Grabbing a little bottle of
Scotch out of the mini-bar, she poured it into a plastic
motel cup and sat down on the bed. She pulled the extra
pillow behind her, and sighed as she sank back onto them.
She crossed her ankles, wiggled her toes, and sipped the
Scotch. Not the best Scotch, maybe, but it would do. What
a day! It was hard to believe that only six hours ago
she'd been boarding a plane for Gainesville. What she'd
seen today had thoroughly puzzled her, intrigued her, and
frightened her, just a little. She knew now that she had
to call John. Between what she'd seen at the morgue, at
the Dannahs' house--and especially at the Methodist Church
--it was clear to her that more was going on here than
anybody had clue one about.
She took another sip of the Scotch, liking the way it bit
at her tongue, and closed her eyes. As she knew it
probably would, the scene in the Methodist Church replayed
behind her eyelids. She stood in the aisle of the little
sanctuary with Ev and Sheriff Ritch. The Sheriff was
speaking, describing where the sacrificed goat had been,
how the entrails had been wound around the altar, how it
all had been burnt. His voice began to fade away, and
everything slowed. . .way. . .down. The Sheriff's mouth
continued to move as if he were talking, but she couldn't
hear his voice. Instead, she was hearing a sound, like a
distant hum, or a faraway motor. And then a brilliant
flash of light, and the fire fell and burned the animal and
the viscera. . .but nothing else.
Monica opened her eyes and set the glass down on the
nightstand, her hand shaking a little. She had seen that
this afternoon--she *knew* she had! But neither Ev nor
Sheriff Ritch had any idea what she was talking about when
she asked them if they'd seen it too.
Sheriff Ritch's eyes had gotten that look in them that
she'd seen in John's a few too many times: an odd mixture
of hard skepticism, concern that she was off her nut, and a
grudging desire to believe. Because she'd been a trifle
white-faced and shaky afterward, Ev had stuck close to her,
his hand on her arm. But, knowing Monica considerably
better than Sheriff Ritch did, he hadn't said much at all
beyond making sympathetic noises.
She picked up the TV remote and punched the "ON" button.
VH1's "Behind the Music." Great, it was the one on
Aerosmith that she'd already seen. Figured. A stupid
sitcom. Some old Kathleen Turner movie. Benny Hinn
healing the true believers. A rerun of "Saturday Night
Live" from an earlier century. Shit.
She got up off the bed and went over to the desk, where her
jacket was draped over the back of the chair. She fished
her cell phone out of the pocket of the jacket and stared
at it, biting her lip.
John probably wasn't going to like this.
* * *
Falls Church, Virginia
John Doggett glanced up at the sky. The darkness was
starting to close in, and he was going to lose his light if
he didn't get this job wrapped. Looking over at the
upturned bicycle on the deck, he snagged the Sam Adams off
the redwood table and upended what was left of it down his
throat. Sweet fucking Jesus, it was hot. He rubbed the
chill bottle down his damp cheek, sighing.
He wanted to get this thing done so he could ride over the
weekend, but he was bone tired. It had been a crazy week--a
solo assignment in West Virginia that had teamed him with a
hapless local sheriff and had run him ragged. The past
four days had been even more nuts than your average week on
the X-Files, and he had never missed Scully more than he
did right now.
What was it Fox Mulder had told him, a while ago now?
"You'll get used to chasing shadows, Agent Doggett, and
driving yourself crazy trying to solve cases that can't be
solved. After a while, it'll pass for normal life."
It was what he was afraid of, that this fucked-up stuff
could possibly start passing for normal. That what had
always been "normal" to him would gradually start becoming
less and less important. That normal life wouldn't seem
that way anymore. After a year on the X-Files, he was
beginning to wonder if it hadn't already started happening.
There just didn't seem to be a whole lot of normal left.
Face it, John: Normal life involves family. It involves
recreation. It involves friendships with people you *don't*
work with. It involves companionship with the opposite sex.
And if you were really lucky, it might even involve love.
Do you realize how long it's been since you had a social
life? Since you even *kissed* a woman? Well, yeah, there
*was* that pretty redhead that Davis in VC fixed you up
with, what, a month or so ago? You took her out for drinks,
and when you pulled up in front of her apartment and she
leaned over and kissed you goodnight, you let yourself
enjoy it for about a nanosecond, then stammered out some
bullshit excuse and went home by yourself. The poor woman
must have thought you couldn't stand her, for all the
interest you showed in her sexually. Or maybe she thought
you were studying for the friggin' priesthood. Or maybe--
and this was the most likely scenario--she just thought you
were an asshole.
He missed the man he'd been. That man would have kissed
that pretty woman in a way she wouldn't have forgotten.
Where the hell had he gone?
He spun the wheel of the bicycle, squinting at it. It
dragged against the brake pad, making a telltale hissing.
Yeah, the thing was definitely out of true. He rubbed his
finger across his upper lip and picked up the spoke wrench
he'd laid on the step, started adjusting the spokes, one by
one.
*Really* kissing a woman, making love to a woman? He
hadn't done that since Mo Dannah's visit, going on four
months ago now. The first woman he'd let himself get close
to in a long time, she'd stayed seriously on his mind long
after she'd left that last time. Maybe, in the long run,
it was a good thing she lived so far away and that they
didn't talk very often. He had a feeling that if she lived
closer he would have been completely undone by now--and he
knew that loving a woman was the last thing he needed. Or
more accurately, the last thing a woman would need.
How many times had he been injured since he'd been assigned
to the X-Files? He'd lost track. Yeah, that was a swell
thing to ask a woman to deal with. And, even though he
knew that Mo, being who she was, would be open to the
weirdness of the job--a whole lot more open than *he* was,
he realized with amusement--laying a load of insomnia-
inducing worry and paranoia on her was just bullshit. She
needed a good man who would love her and treat her right
and come home to her at night with no worries about whether
or not he was going to make it through the next day in one
piece. She deserved that.
She didn't deserve what he could offer her. No woman did.
Or was that just an excuse? Was he just afraid?
He spun the wheel again, savagely, and lifted the wrench to
the spokes again and made some more adjustments.
His cell phone rang from inside the house.
"Fuck," he muttered under his breath. He slid open the
screen door to the kitchen, padded inside barefoot and
grabbed the phone off the breakfast bar.
"John Doggett," he said, more tersely than he'd intended.
"John, hi, it's Monica," the voice in his ear said.
Monica. Jesus, he'd completely forgotten about her. He'd
just returned from West Virginia that afternoon, and his
head was still spinning. But, damn, he should have called
her. Starting Monday, he was going to be working closely
with her, and he may as well start acting like it.
"Monica," he said, trying to sound a little less testy, not
that it really mattered. He knew he didn't intimidate
Monica anyway--at least, not anymore. But Monica had been
there for him those years ago, and she really didn't
deserve attitude from him. "How you doin'? You getting
settled in okay?"
"Um, yeah," she said, and he knew that something was up.
He could almost see her pacing, twisting a strand of hair
around a finger. "Actually, John, I'm in Florida."
"Florida?" Doggett stepped back out onto the deck, waving
away a mosquito. "What the hell are you doing in Florida?"
"Well, actually," she said, "I got a call today from an
agent in Jacksonville, a guy I used to work with at the New
Orleans bureau, and he wanted me to come down for a short
consult."
Doggett frowned at the phone. "Are you sure that's the
wisest thing you could be doin' right now, Monica? I mean,
it's your life, but you start a new job in, what, three or
four days? And you just moved into a new place."
"Yeah, I know all that," Monica replied. "I thought about
that."
"Well, it's your decision," Doggett spun the bicycle wheel
again, studying it intently. Monica didn't say anything
for a few seconds. "You still there?" he asked.
"Yeah, I'm here. John, what's going on down here is an X-
File," she said. "I think you should come down."
At that, he stood up straight and raised his eyebrows.
"Oh, you do? Can you give me one good reason why?"
There was silence on the other end for a few seconds while,
Doggett assumed, Monica marshaled her forces. "Okay, yes,
I think I can, John. Do you have a minute? I can explain
a little about the case."
Doggett scowled at nothing in particular, then looked over
at the bike. "Yeah, go ahead," he said into the phone. He
sat down in the wooden glider on the deck, pulled his bare
feet up, and got comfortable. He listened to her as she
told him about church desecrations, a particularly grisly
murder that had even him wincing a bit, and about something
that had happened at the Methodist Church that afternoon.
"Sorry--you what?" he asked, afraid that he'd actually
heard what he thought he'd heard.
"When I was at the church this afternoon with Ev Clyatt and
Sheriff Ritch, I saw it, John. The fire."
"You *saw* it," Doggett said, leaning back into the glider
and rubbing his eyes.
"I did," she said simply. "You can call it a vision, or
whatever you want, but I *saw* it. And I heard a sound,
almost like a motor or cicadas or something--a hum. And I
smelled ozone. It was pretty odd, John."
"Well, I'd say stop the presses, but, Monica, you seein'
odd things isn't exactly news. I'll ask you again: What
makes this an X-File?"
"You know I don't make these things up, John," Monica said.
The sad thing, Doggett thought, is that he *did* know she
didn't make the stuff up. Her "hunches" had played out
right on a number of occasions, and he did tend to trust
her instincts, grudgingly. . .unless her instincts had
something to do with him. Then all bets were off.
"It might make a difference to you that police and FBI
forensics weren't able to find any trace of an accelerator
that could have started the fire that burned in that church
last month. And," she hastened to continue before he could
interrupt, "nothing else in the church was burned. Just
the animal sacrifice."
At that, Doggett sat up. "You mean nothing the burned
parts contacted was burned?"
"Right. The altar wasn't even singed. The carpet was
fine, aside from the bloodstains."
"How do we know the animal sacrifice wasn't burned before
it was brought to the church?" Doggett stood up to walk
back and forth on the deck, running his hand back through
his hair.
"That's been thoroughly investigated," Monica said.
"Forensics says it's pretty clear that the dead goat was
brought into the church in a plastic trash bag and was bled
and eviscerated in the middle of the sanctuary in front of
the altar before any burning happened."
"And in your. . .vision," Doggett said, "how did the
burning happen?" He couldn't believe he was even asking
the question.
"It just fell, John. It just fell from somewhere."
Monica's voice was quiet. "Would you come? I know there's
more going on here than the police want to look at."
And who the hell could blame them for not wanting to look
at the stuff Monica was implying? He sighed. "Monica,
what makes you think I'm gonna want to look at it either?"
"Because deep down, John, you know I'm not full of it. And
because it's your job."
He could hear the satisfaction in her voice, and he shook
his head. "I'll think about it," he said. "I'll call you
in the morning if it looks like I can come down."
"Well, thanks for at least thinking about it," Monica said.
"It really is a weird situation down here. Oh, and I almost
forgot," she added, "there's a woman down here I think you
need to meet."
Doggett blinked, sure that he couldn't have heard her
right. "Monica, don't *even*. I'll call you in the
morning." Doggett turned off the phone and laid it down on
the glider. All he was going to do tomorrow was catch up
on reports anyway. He *could* go down for a couple of
days. It was feasible.
He shook his head again. John, you're due for a mental
health evaluation.
He picked up the spoke wrench and slid it into his pocket.
He turned the bike right-side up, wrestled it back into the
kitchen and propped it against the wall. It was too damn
dark out to do any more tonight. He shut and locked the
door.
A woman. Jesus Christ. He walked upstairs to shower.
* * *
Alachua, Florida
Friday, Early Afternoon
John Doggett set his suitcase on the motel room bed and
then stood there for a minute, looking around him. It was
Classic American Motel: brown tweedy carpeting, white
walls with dark paneling, a desk, table and chairs, with a
blindingly white-on-white bathroom off to the right and a
queen-sized bed that took up most of the middle of the
room. It was no different from the scores of motel rooms
he'd slept in during his career, on the road by himself or
with a partner. There was something reassuring about that,
and at the same time something a little depressing. He
rubbed his hand down his cheek, a bit stunned to find
himself in room 18 of the Ramada Inn on 163rd Lane in
Alachua, Florida. Of his own free will.
"Everything okay, John?" Monica walked through the open
door into the room to stand next to him. She watched him
but didn't say anything else. She just waited.
"Yeah, fine." He looked at the card key he held in his
hand for a second and then slid it into his breast pocket.
He glanced at Monica, who was looking at him a little too
intently for comfort. "You're next door?" he asked.
"Yep, room 16."
Doggett nodded, seeming to shake himself out of whatever
reverie he was in. He turned to Monica. "We may as well
do this," he said.
~~~~
"I'm coming!" Deborah Boadu called out as she walked from
the kitchen through the living room to answer the door.
She saw the strangers standing on her porch through the
patched screen and slowed her pace, wary. More police?
Why won't they leave us alone?
"Yes?" She peered through the screen at the tall, dark-
haired woman and her stern-looking male companion.
The woman on the porch held up what looked like an
identification badge. Deborah strained to read it. "Mrs.
Boadu, hi," the woman spoke, in a gentle voice to match her
smile. "I'm Monica Reyes, and this is John Doggett. We're
from the FBI. Could we please talk to you for a minute?"
Deborah unlatched the screen door and opened it. The man
held it open for the woman, and then followed her inside,
nodding to Deborah politely, though she noticed he didn't
have the easy smile of his companion.
Deborah latched the screen door and turned to the two
agents. "May I get you anything? Iced tea? A glass of
water?" She may not want to talk to these people, but she
would be polite.
The man shook his head, and met her eyes with a softer
expression, not exactly a smile.
"No, but thank you, Mrs. Boadu," Monica Reyes said.
"Then, please, sit." Deborah gestured to the living room.
Deborah watched the man sit down in the wooden chair. The
dark-haired woman chose the large armchair, unconsciously
smoothing her fingers over its soft, colorful throw as she
sat down.
"Mrs. Boadu," Monica said, "we just need to ask you a few
questions. I don't think it'll take too long."
Deborah looked at her steadily, and then glanced at the
man, whose watchful blue eyes, she noted, missed nothing.
"All right. Although, you know, I have spoken to the
police on two different occasions."
"Mrs. Boadu," Doggett spoke up, "do you have any idea who
might have killed your brother-in-law?"
Deborah's lips curved upward just slightly. A man of few
words, this one. She felt as if he could almost read her
thoughts. The woman, in contrast, was all heart.
"Agent--" She'd forgotten his name.
"John Doggett, ma'am," the man said.
"Agent Doggett," she said, "I know of no one who could do
such a thing. What was done to Rique crossed every human
boundary."
The dark-haired woman nodded her head slightly. "Yes,"
she said. "But, Mrs. Boadu, is it possible that someone
was jealous of Enrique, or had a grudge against him for
some reason? Or would stand to benefit from his death?"
Deborah shut her eyes for a moment. "There was no reason
for anyone to be jealous of Rique. He had no power that
anyone would have wanted for themselves."
The sharp-eyed man leaned forward in his chair, put his
hands on his knees. "Did he have any enemies, anyone who
might've felt he'd done something to hurt them in the past,
any business dealings that went bad, any former lovers he
was on bad terms with?" he asked her.
Deborah met his steady gaze with her own. "Agent Doggett,
when you are Lucumi in this country, there are always
people who are afraid of you. But Rique didn't have any
enemies that we were aware of. No bad business. No
scorned women."
"The local cops seem to think that someone in your group is
responsible for the church desecrations that have been
goin' on," Doggett said. "Y'know, it's really not too big
a stretch to think your group might have something to do
with the murder too."
Deborah pushed down the anger his words stirred in her.
She knew that he was a federal policeman, that he was only
doing his job, that he was trying to find out information
any way he could. She breathed in hard through her nose
and exhaled, looking away from him to the woman, who sat
quietly, very much with the man but extending something to
Deborah, too.
"Mrs. Boadu," the woman said, "is it possible that someone
is trying to make the police *think* that the local
practitioners of Lucumi are the ones behind all the
crimes?"
Deborah stopped breathing for an instant. Could this FBI
woman know something? Her question didn't indicate that
she really knew anything for sure, but it was close to the
mark. That hugely tall sheriff who had been here yesterday
seemed to sense something as well. And this man, here now,
he seemed to know more than he was letting on too.
"Yes," Deborah said at last, very softly. "I think it is
possible."
"In that case," Doggett put in, "any ideas who?"
Deborah looked at him, shaking her head. "No, Agent
Doggett. I only hope that anyone capable of doing what was
done to Rique is not a member of our community."
Doggett held her calm gaze for a moment, then nodded.
Monica handed Deborah a card. "Thanks for your time.
Would you please call us if anything else comes to you?"
Deborah nodded slowly, looking at the card. "Monica
Reyes," it read. It had several telephone numbers on it.
"I will. If anything else occurs to me, I will call you."
The two agents stood up, and the three walked to the screen
door. Doggett and Monica stopped and turned to Deborah.
"I'm sorry for your loss, ma'am," Doggett said to her
quietly. "We'll find out who did it."
Deborah looked into his eyes for a long moment, seeing
something genuine there that she hadn't seen before, and
then he turned away and walked out onto the porch.
"Thanks, Mrs. Boadu," Monica said. "Please call me any
time." She caught up with Doggett.
Deborah stood at the door and watched them as they walked
to their car.
Monica slid into the car and shut the door.
"What do you think?" she asked Doggett. "Was she telling
the truth?"
"Not a chance," he said, and put the car in gear and headed
back onto Highway 27, toward Ft. White.
* * *
"So, who we gonna see now?" Doggett asked dryly, glancing
over at Monica.
"I'd like you to talk to Ruth Dannah. She owns the
property where Enrique Boadu's body was discovered on
Wednesday afternoon. Mrs. Dannah's husband died on Monday,
and they're burying him tomorrow."
Doggett frowned in thought. " 'Dannah.' " He blinked. "Do
you think his death has any connection with the case?"
Monica watched the pine trees and wooden houses roll by the
car window. "No," she said, finally turning to look at
him. "I don't get that feeling. Though I don't think much
about this case is as straightforward as it seems."
"So this Mrs. Dannah lives on the property across the river
from the old cemetery?" When Monica didn't respond, he
looked over at her. "I mean," he went on, "that's where
the body was found, right? By the river, across from the
cemetery."
Monica was staring out the windshield at nothing, her mouth
open.
"Monica?" Doggett said. "Hey, you there? Don't get all
weird on me, now."
She blinked a few times and turned to look at him. "John,
there's something about the cemetery that's important."
He frowned and looked over at her. "Monica, what--"
"Okay," she said to him, turning her body toward him in the
car seat. "Just listen for a minute. In religion and
folklore, water--especially running water--always seems to
signify purification, truth. This might sound odd, but no
one's been able to come up with any reason at all for Boadu
to have been murdered where he was."
"Well, maybe that's 'cause there *isn't* any," Doggett put
in dryly. "What are you suggestin', that somebody killed
him across the river from the cemetery for a reason? And
that would be because--?"
"Because the cemetery is hallowed ground, and that murder
was anything but holy." Monica raised her brows and looked
at him. "It could mean that the murderer has something to
do with the cemetery, or is religious in some way."
He shook his head. "I think you're reachin', Monica."
She shrugged. She'd heard him say that before. "It beats
not having a clue, doesn't it?"
"Depends on your point of view," he said. "Where to? This
is Ft. White."
"Right at the stop sign, then another right at the first
little lane."
Doggett drove the rented Taurus sedan slowly down the old
macadam road, and turned right onto the sandy lane, through
the tall moss-hung trees.
"This is it," Monica said, pointing to the weathered wooden
house.
Doggett stopped the car. He looked at Monica. She smiled
and opened her door.
Doggett got out of the car, shut his door and looked
around. The rural deep South was a place he hadn't been in
a long time. He took in the barbed-wire fence, the old
wooden house on stilts, the sandy soil and the tough grass
with the prickly sand spurs, the gnarled pecan tree full of
big black birds. He took a deep breath of the humid, spicy
air and remembered being a barefoot kid running wild in
just this kind of baking heat, heat that would soak your
shirt through in five minutes. He envied Monica her
sleeveless blouse. He'd left his jacket in the car. Screw
protocol--it was just too fucking hot for a coat. Or even
shirtsleeves, for that matter.
Monica joined him, looking at the house. "How old do you
think it is?" she asked.
He threw her a glance. "I dunno, the '20s, '30s maybe." It
looked like they were renovating it slowly, though the
porch didn't look like it had changed any in decades. He
didn't think the old swing had ever been replaced.
Monica walked up the steps to the front door.
"Monica," Doggett said quietly.
She turned back to him.
"I'll be right there. I saw something around there." He
gestured to the side of the house.
Curious, he walked around to the side yard. He'd seen
motion, a flash of white.
It was a woman he'd seen.
Wearing shorts, a white halter top, and a big sun hat, she
was sitting in the scrubby grass maybe 30 feet away,
pulling weeds out of a flower bed, her arms working hard to
get the stubborn weeds out of the ground. At the sound of
Doggett's footfalls in the dry grass, she looked up,
startled.
Mo Dannah watched as the man slowly walked toward her:
dark dress pants, a white shirt with rolled sleeves, a big
watch on his right wrist, a somehow-familiar odd, loose-
limbed gait. He reminded her of John Doggett. . . But
that was crazy.
The man ran his hand back through his hair, an unconscious
gesture.
**Oh my God.**
It *was* John Doggett.
She stood up, hoping her legs would hold her, and pulled
off her sun hat and gloves. As he came closer, she could
see him clearly and wondered if she looked as dumbstruck as
he did.
Then a smile spread over his face, and he closed the
distance between them and wrapped her in his arms,
enveloping her in his strong hug. He rested his cheek
against her hair and held her tightly, rocking her back and
forth. She could smell his aftershave, the familiar scent
of his skin. She hoped he couldn't tell how fast her heart
was hammering away in her chest.
He held her away from him by her arms, smiling at her in
wonder. "Mo, what the hell?" Then some sort of
understanding dawned in his eyes. "Is this your mother's
place? Is it *your* father who's passed on?"
She nodded, a small motion, never taking her eyes off his
face. "The funeral's tomorrow."
"Ah, sweetheart, I'm sorry," he said softly, laying his
hand gently against her cheek. "I'm so sorry."
She smiled, a little in shock, just happy to see him.
~~~~
Monica walked back down the old wooden steps and picked her
way quietly through the yard to the side of the house,
where she saw Doggett in conversation with a woman. She
stopped still, suddenly feeling like an intruder. Doggett's
hands were on the woman's upper arms. The woman was
smiling at him. It was Morgan Dannah.
Monica raised her eyebrows, turned around, and walked back
to the porch to wait.
~~~~
Doggett still couldn't believe she was standing there in
front of him. "God damn, it's good to see you. Are you doin'
okay?" He looked her up and down, from her head to her
bare feet, his eyes lingering on her sunburned arms, her
bare midriff, her slender legs.
"I'm fine. How are *you*, John?"
"I'm good."
"You're here about the murder?"
Doggett smiled wryly and gave a shake of his head. "You
could say I got called in on it, yeah." That reminded him:
Monica. He gently let go of Mo's arms and looked back to
the front of the house. Where *was* Monica?
"John," Mo said, and he turned back to her. "Are you here
to speak to my mother?" She wanted him to touch her again,
but she was sensing his need to be circumspect.
"Yeah," he said. "Agent Reyes is here with me. She wanted
me to see your mother."
"John, my mom's not here right now. Max and Maeve took her
into Lake City to do some shopping. There's going to be a
wake here tomorrow morning." They slowly walked together
to the front of the house. She looked up into his face.
"They should be back in a couple of hours, if you can come
back."
Monica was sitting in the porch swing, watching them. "So
I guess I don't have to introduce you?" she said as they
walked up the porch steps.
Jesus Christ. Doggett rubbed his ear, looking away. Then
he turned back to Monica. "Mo was involved in a case
Scully and I handled in Colorado last winter," he said.
Monica got up out of the swing. She smiled at Mo. "It's
good to see you again," she said.
"You too," Mo said, smiling back. "My mother's not here
right now, Agent Reyes. But she should be back in a while.
Could I get you two a glass of water, or some iced tea,
anything?"
"Some water would be great, thanks," Monica said.
Mo looked at Doggett, her brows raised.
"Sure," he said. "Thanks."
Mo went into the house, and Monica and Doggett were left
alone on the porch in awkward silence.
"She was involved in a case in Colorado, you said?" Monica
finally spoke.
Doggett looked at her. "She was abducted, by a crazy-ass
son of a bitch. It was a cult thing. She almost died--to
this day I'm surprised she didn't."
"She had more to do," Monica said.
"Monica, don't even start that with me," Doggett said,
wearily.
"Why is it so hard for you to hear that sort of thing,
John?" she asked him gently, though she pretty much knew
why it was so hard for him. "Maybe she didn't die because
she wasn't through doing what she came to do."
He didn't say anything. He didn't want to think about Mo
dying. He didn't really want to think about what had
happened to her at all; it had been too close a thing. But
Monica didn't need to know any of that.
Monica smiled at him. "John," she said, "you remember I
told you over the phone that there was a woman down here
you really needed to meet?"
He stared at her, knowing what she was going to say.
"It was her," Monica said quietly.
Somehow she'd known something. Monica usually did. He
wasn't sure if he loved her or hated her for it.
Mo came back out onto the porch and handed the two agents
tall glasses of ice water. They drank in grateful silence,
while Mo watched them.
After a few moments, Monica handed her the empty glass.
"Thanks, that was just what I needed," she said. Mo took
Doggett's empty glass with a smile, looking into his eyes,
not saying anything.
"If you can come back in a couple of hours, I'll make sure
my mom's available," she said to the agents.
She watched as they walked down the steps and back to the
car. She raised her hand to them as they got into the car
and drove off.
Then she sat down on the porch steps and just looked off into
the distance for a while. Life is just getting stranger and
stranger, she thought, wondering what could possibly happen
next.
* * *
next part