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Chapter Two

FOURTEEN YEARS.

It was hard to believe it had been that long since he’d set foot in Lancaster County, much less the state of Pennsylvania itself, but that’s how long it had been. Fourteen long years that seemed to have gone by with the speed of a few months.

Vince Walters thought about the time gone by as Delta Flight 189 taxied down the runway of Philadelphia International Airport. It was already late afternoon, and he had another two-hour drive to Lititz. He unfastened his seat belt, pulled his carry-on baggage out from beneath the seat in front of him and put it on his lap. An elderly woman beside him was watching the scene from the window with a sense of longing; she was coming to visit her brother who she hadn’t seen in fifteen years. They’d talked briefly during the nearly five-hour flight, and Vince hadn’t lent himself too well to the conversation. She was a sweet woman, but he had too much on his mind. Last night’s conversation with Tom Hoffman for starters.

And then the dreams.

The dreams had actually been recurring figments for the past year now. The first one had started off innocently enough; he is alone in the dark, seated on something (a raised dais perhaps?) There is the faint flickering illumination of lights far off in the distance. He thinks it might be candles but he can’t be sure. And then he senses others with him, grouped around him. He is elevated above them somehow, as if the dais is a throne. And then the low hum starts. That’s when he wakes up.

Or at least when he used to wake up. The dream had intensified a little bit as the months passed, and they seemed to explode after Laura died. This time the low hum turned into a chant, and the darkness in the room lifted just ever so slightly so that he could make out the figures gathered around him. Only they seemed to be cloaked in darkness.

He’d sought therapy when the second dream came. This dream was more disturbing and violent.

In this dream he is around three years old. He is in a house somewhere. There are other adults in the house with him. It feels very much like the adults are here to visit his parents, although he doesn’t see them anywhere. He doesn’t really recognize anybody in the dream, although he feels that he should. They all have a sense of familiarity to them that is nagging. In the dream he is happy and playing. One of the adults, a young woman, acts as a babysitter. She sits by him, smiling at him as he plays with a Mr. Potato Head on the floor. A few other adults are gathered around talking to her, pausing every now and then to look at him. They are keeping an eye on him, making sure he doesn’t hurt himself or get into any trouble.

After awhile he senses they’ve left their positions and are now in other areas of the house. He turns to see where they’ve gone and finds that the woman is now talking to somebody on the couch on the other side of the room. Her back is to him. All the people in the room are young; the women lithe, wearing blue jeans and halter-tops or long flowing dresses. Their hair is parted down the middle. Some are wearing headbands. The men, likewise, are long-haired for the most part. Some are sporting beards. Others have short hair, but appear to resemble the other men by their choice of dress: blue jeans, sandals, T-shirts or denim vests. There is a scent in the air that he has later come to associate with marijuana. It hangs in the air like a cloud.

He doesn’t notice the wild man until it is almost too late. He sees him hanging in the background of the hustle and bustle of the party, watching over everything with avid interest. Every time Vince turns to see what is going on among the adults, the wild man averts his eyes, as if he doesn’t want Vince to know he is watching him. The man has long scraggly hair and a beard, ratty looking T-shirt and jeans, barefoot, beaded necklaces hanging down his hairy chest. His eyes are gray and piercing in the dim light. He hangs back in the shadows, leaning against the doorjamb between the living room and the kitchen. Not talking or mingling with anybody.

Vince continues playing quietly with himself. He is happy and content. And then a forearm snakes around his throat and hoists him off the ground roughly.

He is jarred out of his play as he’s lifted off the ground. He begins screaming and crying, mostly from the shock of being so roughly picked up, but also from the pain and pressure of the arm around his throat. He screams, but he can’t hear himself over the shouts of the others in the room. He feels a mad rush, and then all at once everything is a sense of jarred images: shaken perceptions of the room he is in, as if he’s being jostled about; excited and angry voices; the rush of running people, the crush and mad violence as he is pushed and pulled and shoved; the constriction of his throat, and then the sharp pain as something is held against his temple, the point digging into his flesh, and over it the mad voice of the man who has picked him up. The man is shouting something above the din of the others and he sounds angry and insane. And then there is nothing else but the screaming and the total helplessness of being unable to escape.

The first time he had the dream he came awake gasping for breath, the beginning of a scream lodged in his throat. He’d thrown the covers off his body, his skin tinged with sweat as the nightmare washed over him. Laura had only been gone a month and he hadn’t had what he referred to as his “darkness” dream in months, and then all of a sudden he’s hit with this. That first night he’d climbed out of bed and went to the bathroom where he’d splashed cold water on his face, then leaned over the wash-basin, head bowed, trying to gather his composure. His adrenaline had been pumping and he felt nervous, tingly. He felt like he’d just escaped the clutches of a deranged madman, or the jaws of a slobbering monster. He looked into the mirror at his reflection, ignoring the dark circles under his eyes. “God, that was bad,” he’d said. “That was a bad one.”

He’d tried to get back to sleep that night, but remained awake.

The dream returned a few nights later, more intense and terrifying then the original. The second time he had it he woke up screaming.

The third time the dream came there was an added bonus. As he struggled to free himself from the wild man’s grip, as the madness erupted around him, he felt warm wetness cascading over him, soaking him completely. And then the smell of blood.

He’d screamed himself awake that time.

Vince gazed out the window as the 757 angled into the terminal. Passengers next to him began to rise and gather their baggage. Vince rose to his feet and hung back, waiting until the plane was stopped and people began moving. The elderly woman who’d been seated next to him had already gathered her purse and was standing up, waiting patiently for the aisle to clear. She cast him a warm smile. “I hope you enjoy your stay in Philadelphia,” she said.

“Thank you,” Vince said. He almost said, I hope so too. He didn’t think anything about this trip was going to be enjoyable.

“Are you visiting family?”

“Family.” He confirmed.

“Oh, that’s nice! Cousins? Aunts or uncles?”

“A little of both, actually,” Vince lied. He looked down the aisle to see if it was moving. The plane had finally parked and those that were in first class seemed to be getting up and moving. Vince was halfway back in coach, near the wing. It would be a while before those in the front of the plane cleared the way enough to allow him to leave his aisle.

“Well that’s so nice,” the elderly woman said. She was wearing cranberry colored slacks and a lavender blouse. Her hair was a mix-match of blond and gray, short and curly. She looked to be somewhere between sixty-five and one hundred. “It gives me such joy to see young people like yourself take time out to visit with their families. I think family is a very important thing to have.”

“I agree,” Vince said. The truth was, he didn’t. As far as he was concerned, she could take her concept of the American Family as defined by wherever she’d gotten the myth from—Newt Gingrich, Ralph Reed, whoever—and shove it up her elderly ass. The only thing the concept of the American Family had ever done for him was hurt and scar him.

He turned to glance out the window, making as if to check the weather. What he was really doing was avoiding more conversation. The woman was nice and he was sure she meant well, but if he had to engage in conversation with her for another ten seconds he was going to snap at her and he didn’t want to do that.

She seemed to take his turning away as a hint and settled her sights on the aisle again. Already those that were toward the front of coach were moving into the aisle and down, heading out of the plane. Vince sighed, hoping the crowd would hurry up. He still had to get his baggage, secure a rental car, and drive out to Lititz. And then he wanted to find a hotel and try to catch some winks. He hadn’t slept well at all last night.

The dreams…

Both of them hit him last night, the “darkness dream” followed by the dream in which it felt like he was going to be murdered by the long-haired man. He hadn’t had either dream in months and had come awake with a sudden gasp, the scream on his lips, his body dotted with sweat. The bedroom windows had been open, allowing an offshore breeze to blow through the curtains to help cool down the house. He usually slept better on warm nights with the windows open a crack.

Not so last night. He hadn’t been able to get to sleep at all, and he finally rose around four a.m. and went downstairs to watch TV. When seven-thirty came, he’d called Brian Saunders’ office. Brian had picked up on the second ring. “Brian.”

“Brian, its Vince.”

“Vince! How’re you doin’ this fine morning?” Vince could picture Brian at his desk, immaculately dressed, sport coat hung up on the coat rack in the corner of his office, his chair overlooking the sprawling suburbs of Irvine and north Mission Viejo. Brian Saunders had the best office in the building. “You caught me just in time. I was just about to go down to the cafeteria to indulge.”

“Those breakfast burritos will kill you, bro,” Vince had said, grinning.

“I know, but ya gotta have a vice, right?” Brian chuckled.

“I guess so.” Vince then plunged into the news of his mother’s death with Brian pretty easy. There was no holding back with Brian on anything. Next to Laura, Brian was his best friend. “Listen Brian, I got some bad news last night. My mother passed away and I’ve got a ten-thirty flight to Pennsylvania this morning.”

“My God, that’s horrible!” Brian had exclaimed. He’d become serious almost immediately. “What happened?”

Vince had given him a quick run-down, which really wasn’t much. Brian listened calmly and quietly. When Vince finished, Brian’s voice was low, sincere. “I’m very sorry to hear what happened, Vince. I know… well, I know you two weren’t very close, but still, it’s a horrible thing. It’s a horrible way for her to die.”

“I know,” Vince had said. He’d been sitting on the couch, still dressed in his Bart Simpson boxer shorts. He’d turned down the volume of the TV, which was tuned to VH1. Lenny Kravitz had been singing about an American Woman. “I keep thinking that I should feel differently about all this. I should feel… sad, or… I don’t know…”

“You should be mourning,” Brian had said. “The way you mourned for Laura.”

Vince had nodded to himself. “Exactly. But I don’t. Is that shitty, or what? Here my mother has died—been murdered—and I react as if it was nothing more than a goldfish I had for two weeks that kicked the bucket.”

“But you weren’t close to your mother,” Brian had quickly interjected. “You told me yourself how she treated you. How she neglected you. I mean, look how she reacted when you told her you were getting married.”

Vince remembered that all too well. When he and Laura had gotten engaged, he’d made a last ditch effort to patch things up with his Mom. Things had been rocky ever since he left home for college and they’d only grown worse. But when he’d told her he was getting married she’d gone, in a not-so subtle term, bugshit crazy. She’d gone into her “Jesus talk,” rambling about Original Sin and how the prophecies were being fulfilled and that he was surely serving the Devil. Then she told him that she never wanted to hear from him again; if he was going to go this far in defying her, in denying what the Lord had offered him, she wanted no part of him. She hated him. And then he’d slammed down the phone, cutting off her hateful, spiteful voice. Laura had been sitting beside him on the couch when he made the call, and when he hung up the phone he’d looked up at her, his throat locking up and the tears springing up into his eyes. His mother… hated him. “She… sh-she,” he’d stammered.

And then Laura had taken him in her arms as he cried.

Vince tossed the memory back in the files of his mind as he talked to Brian. “You’re right. I guess I’m just over-rationalizing things. She really was… well, a shitty person toward the end there. I guess I’m just feeling… I don’t know… required to grieve for her. You know what I mean?”

“Of course,” Brian had said. “Because under any other circumstances you would grieve. You would feel mournful. But in your case there’s no reason to if you don’t feel any grief. And there’s no reason for you to feel guilty over your lack of grief. Laura’s passing was understandable. And if I kick the bucket before my time, you better cry and mourn over my casket as well.”

Vince had laughed. Brian could lift your spirits when you were feeling at your lowest, and this morning proved to be no exception.

“So I take it you’ll be taking the next few days off?” Brian had asked.

“Yeah, I gotta take care of this.” Brian had been his manager a few years before. Now he handled the Middle-East division and reported to the Director of Finance, much as Vince himself did. Vince handled the U.S. division. Their boss, a man who Brian once remarked to Vince looked remarkably like Hubert Humphrey, was currently vacationing in the Cayman Islands. Rumor had it he was with his secretary, a blonde twenty-two year old with a pair of mangos a man could die for.

“Okay, no problem,” Brian had said. “Steve is out for three weeks frolicking in the Caymans with Sarah anyway. He probably won’t even be checking his voice mail. I’ll cover for you.”

“Thanks, Brian.”

“Listen, if you need to talk?”

“Of course. I’ll call you.”

“Okay. See you when?”

“Monday morning, hopefully.” It was already Wednesday, and he figured he would try to arrange for a small service for his mother on Friday and fly back to Irvine on Saturday. He quickly outlined his itinerary for Brian. “If I do get in Saturday, I’ll call you. Maybe we can get together Sunday.”

“Good deal. See ya.”

The traffic near his aisle began to move down the plane and the elderly woman quickly moved in place. Vince followed and made his way down the aisle, the remnants of this morning’s conversation with Brian already a faint memory. He felt drowsy. If he could just get through the next few hours the first thing he was going to do was check into a motel, take a sedative, and crash. He could deal with Chief Hoffman and the task of arranging his mother’s belongings tomorrow.

As he walked out of the plane and down the concourse of Philadelphia International Airport past people greeting loved ones, he never felt so alone in all his life.

THE HOUSE LOOKED the same as when he first left home fifteen years ago.

He pulled up to the side of the road and stopped the car. Behind him, Chief Hoffman pulled in and Vince got out of his rented Toyota Hatchback. The Pennsylvania weather was warm, the air clean and fresh. The sky was a deep blue, dotted by scarce clouds. Rolling hills dotted the countryside beyond his mother’s house, which sat alone on a patch of land surrounded by fields of corn. A farm rested half a mile down Mill Lane, where his mother’s house stood. He turned his attention to the house as a flood of memories threatened to break loose. Tom Hoffman approached him, hands on his hips, eyes squinted against the mid-morning sun.

“Crime scene tape is still in place,” Tom Hoffman said, nodding at the house. The tape was still up, its harsh yellow standing out like a beacon, proclaiming to anyone who came within sight that this was a CRIME SCENE. “But the homicide detectives have already gone over the place and taken away everything they need, and I got a key. Come on.” He led Vince up the worn walk to the sagging front porch. Vince was still trying to take all of this in; how the house and the land around it really hadn’t changed all that much.

Tom Hoffman inserted the key in the lock and opened the door. He turned back to Vince, who was standing on the porch and looking out at the yard with rapt wonder. “Been awhile, eh?”

“Too long,” Vince murmured.

“I know how it feels,” Tom Hoffman said. “Not much has changed here, Vince. The town’s spread out a little towards Newport Road, and you saw that big shopping center when you drove up 501; that’s all new. Not much else has changed, though. ’Specially your mom’s place and the rest of them.”

Vince turned to Sheriff Hoffman. “The others are still around?”

“Oh, yeah. Couldn’t break that group apart for the world.”

“They still have services at Hank Powell’s place on Owl Hill Road?” Vince asked.

“Yep.” Tom Hoffman took off his hat and squinted at the sun as he looked down the road where they’d come from. He was in his early fifties, of medium build with thick brown hair and craggy features. He looked like the Marlboro Man; rugged, beefy with no hint of fat. In short, a man’s man. His blue police uniform was clean and wrinkle free. His hands were large, his forearms thickly muscled. Tom Hoffman appeared to be the type of man you wouldn’t want to tangle with. “Most of them still live up that way.” He cocked his thumb toward the direction they’d come. “Lillian still lives in that little house behind your mom’s. She’s probably home now. She’s been too upset to return to work.”

“I can only imagine,” Vince said.

“Why don’t you come with me and we’ll have a look around.” Tom Hoffman headed toward the door. Vince turned to follow him. The Chief fished in his pocket for the key, found it, inserted it in the lock. He opened the door and stood aside. “After you.”

Vince took a deep breath and stepped into the house.

Nothing had changed. When he and Mom moved to Lititz, the seventy-year old three-bedroom farmhouse that sat off Mill Lane was weathered and beaten by too many snow storms and neglect. He’d helped mother renovate the house that summer; new shingles on the roof, stripping the old wood off the outer walls and replacing them with more sturdy material, a new paint job. Then they’d done intensive repairs to the interior; more repainting, re-carpeting. When all was done the house was cozy. And with what furniture they’d brought with them from Toronto, most of it antique to begin with, it made the house a throwback to the 1920s. Simple furniture, simple times. It brought a sense of nostalgia and peace. The only thing Vince thought distracted from it were the many religious paintings she insisted on hanging where most families would install more secular decorations. None of them had been taken down; there was a large crucifix over the fireplace, Christ’s face looking forlorn and wracked with pain. Above the worn lavender sofa there was a framed excerpt from that old standby, John 3:13: “For God so Loved the World That He Gave…” In Vince’s bedroom Mom insisted that the “The Wages of Sin are Death” framed slogan remain hanging over his bed. Since Vince was already treading the water of sin in the form of good old-fashioned teenage rebellion—sex, drugs, and rock and roll—he hated waking up to that proclamation every morning. If Mom thought it was going to work in steering him away from the occasional toke with the guys after school or a romp in Kathy Stevens’ bed when her parents were at work, then she’d been seriously mistaken. At seventeen, with his hormones raging fiercely, he could not have cared less what she would think about his—

“—when you’re done just give me a holler,” Tom Hoffman was saying. He was putting his hat back on his head, heading for the door. “Number’s on my card. Homicide Detectives from Lancaster are coming back today at three and they’ll probably want to speak to you. They know you’re in town.”

Vince started and turned toward Tom Hoffman. He’d been snapped out of his silent reverie but hadn’t missed much. Tom was leaving, so he could get down to whatever business he had to do. “Fine,” Vince said. He held his hand out to Tom. “And thanks. Really. I appreciate everything you’ve done.”

Tom Hoffman’s eyes held his as he shook his hand. His grip was warm and firm. “Don’t mention it,” he said. “Just doin’ my job. And I hope I do it right, because what happened here really bothers the hell out of me.”

“I know what you mean,” Vince said.

“I understand you and your mother weren’t very close,” Tom Hoffman began. “From what I gathered in talking to Lillian, you and your Mom have been estranged for ten years or so. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“We’re still checking things out around here,” Tom Hoffman continued. “That’s one of the things you have to do in a homicide investigation. The most likely suspects to come up are usually those that are closest to the murder victim. In this case, Lillian and the rest of your Mom’s church friends are the most viable suspects, since they were the only ones your mother associated with. But there’s just nothing there to connect any of them. A lot of them may be nutty in their religious beliefs—hell, I think they’re nuts and I’m a rock-solid Christian myself—but there’s no way they could have done such a thing. The very idea that Maggie was murdered was enough to get them to assemble for an emergency prayer session at Reverend Powell’s house. Lillian was just beside herself with grief. They not only don’t display the signs of guilt or suspicious behavior, but the physical evidence isn’t there. Vincent Caruthers and John Van Zant were both at home with their families that night; Lillian was on the phone with her sister; a few of the others in their little congregation were with the Reverend preparing for a Bible study. The only person alone that night was your mother. That’s why we think it was a home-invasion robbery.”

Now all the questions that had been on his mind since hearing about his mother’s death wanted to spill out. He’d held back as long as possible, especially since meeting Tom forty minutes before at the station. At that time the Chief had given him information on when the coroner would be finished with his report, and when Vince could claim the body. He’d also given Vince the names and phone numbers of his mother’s friends so that he might contact them with funeral arrangements. They hadn’t talked about the specifics of the murder at all. Now that they were alone, away from the hustle and bustle of the police station, there was so much he wanted to know.

“You told me over the phone that it appeared to be a robbery gone bad. I’ve been mulling that scenario over in my mind since last night when you called me and I just don’t get it. Don’t get me wrong, I realize people are killed in home invasion robberies all the time… especially in L.A. and other big cities. But…”

“To have it happen in a rural community like Lititz Borough is something you just can’t fathom,” Tom Hoffman finished for him, nodding. He hooked his fingers through the belt loops in his slacks and regarded Vince seriously with his dark eyes. “That’s an understandable position. It’s true, we don’t have much to speak of in the way of crime in Lititz. You should know that yourself, having lived here for a while. But it happens. And when it does, especially when it’s a murder like this, it becomes the talk of the town for the next ten years. We just don’t get that kind of crime in communities like this. Christ, everybody in Lancaster County is still talking about the Laurie Snow murder and that happened eight years ago!”

“Which I suppose brings me to my next question,” Vince said. He crossed the living room to the small kitchen that his mother had spent long hours toiling over pot roasts, cakes, and pies for church bake sales. “Do you have any suspects in mind? Could it have been anybody local?”

“That’s a possibility, although I doubt it.” Tom Hoffman looked a little uneasy as he stood in the center of the living room. “Don’t get me wrong, Vince. We have exactly one bad boy here in Lititz. Guy by the name of Steve Anderson. Steve is nineteen years old and is a hopeless excuse for a man. When he’s not serving time for shoplifting and grand auto theft or assault and battery, he usually spends time in our drunk tank for disorderly conduct. He did two years in a Lancaster Youth Facility when he was sixteen for beating another boy so bad that the victim lost an eye and was permanently brain damaged. His parents are alcoholics—his dad is on disability from a work injury as a welder at the Harley plant in York, and his mother is a sorry excuse for a woman. There are two older children who haven’t fared much better; the older son left home four years ago and is living in Baltimore, doing what, I don’t know. The daughter, from what I gather, works as a stripper in Philadelphia and has a few prostitution convictions. The family had a fairly nice home, but they lost it when the parents of the boy Steve beat up sued them and won. It wasn’t long after that when Steve’s father lost his job at the plant. They’ve been gettin’ by on public assistance since then. Anyway, to put it as bluntly as I can, the minute I stepped in your mother’s bedroom and saw what had been done to her, Steve Anderson was the first person I thought of who could have done such a thing. I came this close to heading down to the trailer the Anderson’s have moved to and arresting Steve myself.” He held his thumb and forefinger up, emphasizing how close he’d come to hauling Steve Anderson’s white-trash ass to jail the night Maggie Walters was killed. “But then Guy King, my deputy, talked some sense into me. The… well, the things we found in your mother’s bedroom was what Guy convinced me that somebody like Steve wouldn’t have the sophistication to do.”

“The sophistication?” Vince raised an eyebrow at that. What was so sophisticated about murder?

“Yeah,” Tom Hoffman took off his hat again and rubbed the top of his head with his right hand. He looked slightly queasy. “Did you ever hear about the incident in Arkansas a few years ago regarding the murder of three little boys? Eight years old I believe they were. Three teenagers were caught and ultimately convicted in their deaths.”

Vince shook his head. “No.” Watching the local news was about the most he digested when it came to the world’s atrocities.

“It happened in a community similar to Lititz. The boys had been sexually mutilated and sodomized. Then they’d been brutally slashed with a knife. The murders were committed in a gully, off in the woods. The murder weapon was found six months later, but it’s questionable that’s even the weapon used. Anyway, what led the police to their suspects was that they were regarded as local riff-raff, much in the way Steve Anderson is. Only these guys—kids, actually, ’cause they were no more than seventeen or so when it happened—were nowhere near the scum Steve Anderson is. Their biggest sin was that they were into heavy metal music.”

Vince knew what was coming. “They were swept up in a witch hunt.”

“Right. They were forced to confess and recanted their confessions during the trial. But the prosecution had them. Here they were, long-haired, rock and roller kids and they were the perfect scapegoats. The prosecution successfully branded these young men as Satanists and claimed that the crimes were ritual murders, despite the fact that the evidence said otherwise. The community this happened in is very conservative, and the jury bought it. The prosecution fed on the jury’s fear that these kids were ruthless devil worshippers and that they must be stopped. So they’re currently on death row.”

“And your deputy didn’t want you to react in the same way?” Vince ventured.

“Correct,” Tom Hoffman said. “But here’s where the similarities in both cases end. While the men convicted in the Arkansas case definitely had the sophistication to make the murder appear cult related if they wanted, there was no cult related evidence left at the scene to present such a theory. Steve Anderson, on the other hand, has no knowledge or understanding of cults, much less religion in general, and wouldn’t know a pentagram from a hole in his head.” Tom Hoffman paused, eyeing Vince gravely. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”

“For God’s sake, yes!” Vince exclaimed.

“This murder is a cult,” Tom Hoffman said.

The words hung in the air with their grave clarity. Vince looked at Tom Hoffman with a sense of puzzlement. “What do you mean?”

“You sure you won’t be squeamish?” Tom Hoffman cut off Vince’s impending question.

“No.” He was more curious now than ever before, yet he could feel his stomach grow heavy with dread.

Tom Hoffman regarded him warily. Then he turned toward the rear of the house. “Okay, follow me.”

Vince followed Tom down the short hallway toward his mother’s bedroom. The door to the bedroom was closed, and Tom paused to cast one more look at Vince as if to say, are you ready for this? Are you sure you can handle this? Vince’s expression told Tom that he was ready. Tom nodded, gripped the door knob with his left hand and opened the door.

Vince followed Tom into his mother’s bedroom, the crime scene where she met her untimely demise. The drapes over the windows were drawn, making the room shroud-like, the shadows the furniture cast even darker and longer. Tom reached for the light and chased the shadows away with a flick of the switch. Vince blinked and almost stepped back in horror from the scene in front of him.

The double bed his mother had kept as far back as he could remember was missing, along with the small bureaus that flanked both sides. There was a dried pool of blood on the floor where the bed would have sat, and a spray of blood on the wall where the headboard of the bed would have rested. Toward Vince’s right was a large bureau with a mirror over it. Toward his left was a small chest where he knew she kept her embroidery and crocheting equipment. There was a small closet next to the chest.

On the wall where the headboard would have rested, directly beneath the spray of blood, was a series of symbols in maroon. There were six of them, drawn in a straight line. To Vince’s eye they were archaic and meaningless.

“Homicide removed the bed and the bureaus for testing,” Tom Hoffman said, as Vince looked at the room in growing shock. “They’re still running tests on it. The rest of the room and its belongings have already been swept by homicide for evidence.”

Vince got over the initial shock and took a deep breath. For some reason he expected it to look worse than it was. While he was expecting it to be bloody, Tom Hoffman had built up such a drama around his theory that it was a cult-related murder that he was expecting something… more grotesque. Ghoulish perhaps. With the exception of the strange symbols written in what was obviously his mother’s blood on the wall above her bed, there was nothing else unusual about the scene. His mother had been stabbed to death in what was probably a home invasion robbery, and naturally there was a lot of blood. So what?

“To tell you the truth, Mr. Hoffman, those symbols mean nothing,” Vince began, choosing his words carefully and speaking softly. “Some doped up kid could have done it in emulation of something he read in a book or something.”

Tom Hoffman looked at Vince seriously. “You weren’t here when we found the body.”

“No.”

“I also didn’t tell you… everything.”

“Then perhaps you’d better.” Vince was getting tired of this beating-around-the-bush behavior.

“I will, now that you’ve pretty much proved that you can handle it.” Tom Hoffman gestured at the bloody scene in front of them. “First, tell me if you notice anything out of the ordinary about this room besides that bloody mess on the floor.”

Vince looked at the room. It had been fourteen years since he’d been home. He wouldn’t know if his mother had made slight decorations to the room. But from the placement of the furniture, and the way the room looked, it appeared that nothing much had changed. He looked at the room, trying to remember what it looked like from the last time he was here. The bed was in the same position he remembered, the bureaus, likewise, were where they’d always rested. The wall was bare now, but—

“There used to be a crucifix hanging over her bed,” he said, motioning toward the bloody wall. He remembered that clearly now. For not being Catholic, his mother sure had a fetish for graven images. “It’s not there, and I don’t see it anywhere else.”

Tom Hoffman nodded. “What I’m going to relate to you about the state of your mother’s body when we found it is pretty graphic. I realize that your comments about those symbols are true; they could have been done by some stupid kid who was robbing the place. But the condition we found your mother’s body in is my firm conviction that this wasn’t just a robbery.”

“Okay,” Vince said. If this was going to be bad, let’s get it over with.

“When we found your mother’s body—or, rather I should say, when John Van Zant found your mother’s body—it was lying in a normal position, feet toward the foot of the bed, head resting on the pillow. Her eyes had been gouged out and her chest was ripped open. Whoever did it appeared to know what they were doing. The coroner said the cuts were precise and were executed with surgical skill.” He looked at Vince. “Are you okay?”

Vince nodded. He felt a little light-headed, but he was okay. “Yeah. Just… the initial shock of hearing that did me in there for a minute. I’m okay. Go on.”

“You sure now?” Tom Hoffman looked concerned.

“Yes, please.” Vince swallowed a lump in his throat, bracing himself for the rest. Laura’s death had been horrible, but this… this was madness.

Tom Hoffman regarded him for a moment before going on, as if checking to be sure Vince had the stamina to hear the rest. “The killer, or killers, cut out her heart and her eyeballs. We haven’t found them. Whoever killed her took them with him.” He appeared to hesitate again. “They also shoved the crucifix into her vagina.”

Vince closed his eyes, trying to cast the image away. “Jesus,” he breathed.

“Somebody bent on a simple robbery who encounters the homeowner does not go through the extreme… cruelty that your mother went through. Nor do they invest in the time it takes to do something like this.” Tom Hoffman spoke slowly, as if he were teaching a course on the fine arts of homicide investigation. “The coroner estimates that whoever did this tortured her first—post mortem evidence suggests your mother may have been tortured for probably fifteen minutes before she was killed. They most certainly violated her with the crucifix before she died. The coroner says she would have died eventually from those wounds, but they spared her the pain and horror of that. They slashed her throat. Then they performed the eviscerations. To perform such surgery takes time and precision. They weren’t interested in robbing your mother. They had motives far more sinister than that.”

Vince closed his eyes. He thought the details of Laura’s death were horrible, but this was worse.

“Vince? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Vince said. He looked at Tom Hoffman. His body felt hollow and empty. “You have to understand something here, Mr. Hoffman. I… lost my wife nine months ago in a car accident. I’m still trying to get over it. Was doing a pretty good job of it until I heard about this.”

“My God, I am so sorry.” Tom Hoffman looked devastated at this news, as if he were partially responsible.

“I was never very close to my mother,” Vince continued. He turned away from the cop, looking out the window into the back yard. “The last time I was really close to her was a long time ago. She… changed a lot when we moved to New York. And then we hopped around so much after that, it seemed that she changed into a different person every time we moved. By the time I was fourteen she was a completely different person than the woman who raised me. Hell, I barely remember that other woman. And she became downright loony the last few years I was home.” He managed a slight smile and chuckled. “Shit, she got worse in the years after I left home.”

Tom Hoffman stood quiet and listened.

“Anyway,” Vince seemed to be groping for the right words. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that… I’ve been through a lot the last nine months. I think I’m just now beginning to get over my wife’s death, even though I know I will never—ever—be completely over it. And to hear that my mother had been murdered… didn’t really strike a dent in me.” He looked at Tom. “Do you know what I mean?”

Tom nodded.

“I’ve talked about this already with a good friend of mine back home. I just… I don’t know… I’ve been so numbed by Laura’s death that I guess the news of Mom’s passing just hasn’t hit me yet. And to hear your theory is just… mind boggling, I guess.”

Tom laid a gentle hand on Vince’s shoulder. “I know it’s tough to understand. Hell, I don’t even understand how somebody could do something like this.” Tom Hoffman’s voice was low, gentle and soothing. “But if you need me during the next few days, you know where to find me.”

Vince nodded. He looked away from the bloodstained hardwood floor at Tom Hoffman’s weathered face. “Yeah.”

“Good.” Tom motioned toward the room. “I’ve got a team of detectives from Lancaster coming today to question some of the neighbors and perform another sweep of the property. If you’d like, come back later this afternoon and I’ll give you a key. You can collect what you need then.”

“Thanks.” He turned and walked out of the bedroom. Tom Hoffman followed him. He really wanted to spend time in the house and poke around, look to see what she’d been up to. Find out about her. For the first time since his childhood, he realized he really didn’t know very much about his mother or her family. Why is that? He thought. Every time I tried to bring the subject up as a kid she would find some way to avoid it. She refused to talk about it. I stopped asking as I grew up. But now that he was an adult he realized it was the one enigma about his life that he always knew was beckoning: who am I? Where did I come from? Who are my people?

“Listen, I’ve got to get back to the station.” Tom Hoffman glanced at his watch. “The local PTA wants to meet with me to discuss the fall school semester’s extracurricular activities. And since I’m on the local PTA board, well, that sorta lends to my duties as well.”

Vince and Tom Hoffman walked outside together. Tom locked the front door, and as they walked to their cars Vince asked him one last question, one that had been in the back of his mind since he heard about the grisly circumstances of his mother’s death. “Mr. Hoffman, did my mother or any of her friends talk about anything… well, anything about their past to you?”

“Their past?” Tom Hoffman stopped at his cruiser and eyed Vince curiously. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, you know, the way people make offhand remarks about their pasts. Reminiscing. That sort of thing.”

Tom Hoffman shook his head. “I’m afraid not. At least not to me. Your mother and her bunch were quiet. Kept to themselves mostly. Despite the fact that they’re church going folks, I imagine everybody has a past. Why?”

Figments of the dream drifted in his mind, like tendrils of fog along a dark moor. “Oh… just something I’ve been wondering about.”

IT WAS ANOTHER five hours before he could get back into the house again. This time alone.

He’d spent the rest of the day driving his rented Toyota around Lititz and the surrounding countryside. Remembering. How he and his mother, Lillian Withers and some of the others from Mom’s congregation had moved out here from Toronto, Canada where they’d spent the previous eight years. He’d been sixteen going on seventeen then, and the move had been especially hard on him. He’d been taken out of the middle of the semester, away from his friends, and driven across the snowy country to the Pennsylvania Dutch Country with no conveniences of the modern city life he had grown accustomed to in Toronto. He’d been dating a pretty cheerleader when they moved, and his sixteen-year old heart had especially ached over that. For a while, he thought his relationship with Anna was the reason for the sudden move. Mom became increasingly angry with Vince during the last year or so of their residence in Toronto. He’d started on the rocky road to adolescence and wasn’t going to church with her as often—he claimed his paper route duties kept him from worship, and in turn, mother began spending more time away from home. When Vince came home from school he usually sat down to supper in an empty house. To fill in the emotional gaps, he began inviting his friends over after school for water-bong parties. When he had his first girlfriend, a cute brunette named Marion, they lost their virginity to each other on a night his mother was at a church service.

He always wondered if his mother was praying for his soul that night.

He drove around Lancaster County, remembering the year-and-a-half he lived there. He drove by the local high school. He drove by the homes of the friends he’d made in the year or so he lived in the area, wondering where they were now, or what became of them. He almost stopped at the house of a friend he’d hung out with, a guy named Judd Campbell, when he saw that the Campbell family vehicle was parked in the driveway. The vehicle was a beat-up Ford station wagon that had seen better days in the 1970s. Judd had called it the Campbell hearse because his grandmother was the prime driver of the vehicle and she was eighty-seven years old. Grandma was probably dead now.

Vince pulled the Toyota over to the side of the road and looked at the Campbell house. There were two other cars parked in the driveway beside the wagon, a Jeep Cherokee and a Subaru. He could make out movement in the house, but couldn’t tell who it was. The temptation to walk to the front door, knock and ask for Judd was great, but in the end he suppressed it. Today was not the day to go chasing after nostalgia.

He spent the rest of the day at his motel room where he napped for an hour. Then after a quick lunch at Nino’s Pizza, he headed over to the Lititz Borough Police Station. Tom Hoffman had told him to come to his office at three for the keys to his mother’s place. He picked up the keys and headed to the house.

He let himself in and stood in the dark living room, listening to the silence. Then he turned on the lights. The curtains were drawn and he moved to the kitchen, wondering where to begin.

He went to the bedroom and turned on the lights. The wall and floor were bloodstained with the remnants of death.

Something drawn on the wall in blood, on the other side of the bed, made him gasp.

Tom Hoffman told him about the atrocities performed on his mother but on his earlier trip, in the dim light, he hadn’t noticed this drawing. It was set apart from the other scribbles on the opposite wall where the bed’s headboard had rested against.

No wonder Tom Hoffman thought this was a cult related murder.

Drawn at about chest height was a horned figure. Vaguely satanic, its body was winged, its face long, eyes blazing. It was centered within a circle and a strange design that was not written in blood; rather, it appeared to be drawn with a felt tipped marker. Vince did not recognize the symbol. It wasn’t a pentagram by any means. It held to geometric lines that were similar, but there were a lot of angles, a lot of circular shapes that twisted and turned within it. Scrawled close by, also in blood, was a line of gibberish. M’gwli acht K’tluth K’ryon Hanbi e ’ghorallth liber daemonorum.

He turned away from what was written on the wall and looked around the room, images of the past flickering past the lenses of his mind. This room was as good as any to get started.

He got down to business, going through the closet and the chest. As he began sifting through her belongings, he thought he would stumble upon information somewhere that would reveal relatives; he knew she had a sister somewhere. And she had to have parents. He dimly remembered mom talking about them years ago, but she stopped talking about them after their first move to upstate New York. Now he wanted to find out everything about her, which was almost nothing.

He spent the next three hours going through the house from top to bottom. He searched through the closet in her bedroom, the hall closets and linen drawers, the closet in the second bedroom that had once been his room, and the drawers and cabinets in the kitchen and bureaus in the living room. All he found were clothing, shoes, old books on Christian philosophies, Bibles, a few boxes of Christmas decorations, boxes of old silverware, and an old stereo system. When he left home for college, he’d left a collection of Circus magazines in a cardboard box at the bottom of his closet. Now all those items were gone. Probably burned them, he thought. That would have been her way of thinking. Burn the devil’s possessions and cast the beast out.

By the time he reached the living room he was convinced he wasn’t going to find a single thing. The closest he’d come to actually finding something was a scrapbook in the bottom of the chest in her bedroom. When he opened it all he found were photos of their lives in Toronto.

When he opened the drawer in the kitchen near the silverware compartment he didn’t think he’d find anything either. Amid the scraps of paper, some pens and pencils, a pair of scissors and some clothespins, he found a worn phonebook. He pulled it out and opened it. He flipped through it slowly. Not many names. Twenty in all. All of them people he either knew growing up—people like Lillian Withers, who’d traveled with them from Canada—or their phone numbers and addresses were all local. Not an unfamiliar name in the book.

He closed the book and sighed. He had planned on starting the delicate task of calling some long lost distant relative bearing the bad news, but it looked like that wasn’t going to happen. A small part of him that had held out hope in finding out who her relatives were shriveled up and died. He’d probably never find out where she came from, who her family—his family—really was.

He left the house when he was finished and headed for his motel room.