Free Do Not Go Gentle by James W. Jorgensen

You’re a gem.”
    â€œDon’t I know it.” added Jamie.
    â€œFlattery will get you two everywhere.” She leaned down and gave Jamie a kiss. “Cal, it was good to see you, but if I find you here when I get home from work tonight, we’ll be having some words.”
    Cal sat up straight and saluted smartly. “Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am. Right away, ma’am.”
    â€œThe two of you, I swear,” Eileen said, walking out of the room shaking her head.
    Cal and Jamie ate their sandwiches in silence, waiting for Eileen to leave. It wasn’t that they had a problem discussing work in front of her—they just preferred to keep a clear line between police work and their personal lives. Jamie always struggled to leave his work at the office, but sometimes he couldn’t help having it intrude on his personal life.
Occupational hazard, I guess.
    They were finishing their sandwiches when they heard the garage door close. “So, where do we start?” Cal asked.
    Jamie wolfed down the last bite of his sandwich and took a big gulp of the coffee. “Well, I actually found out some interesting stuff doing online research.”
    â€œTold you, Griffin. The Internet is going to be one of our most valuable tools before long.”
    â€œYeah, yeah. Okay, here’s what I’ve got. Remember the burn mark we found on the body?” Cal nodded, finishing his sandwich. “Hanover was able to restore it despite the condition of the body. She scanned it and emailed it me.” Jamie handed Cal a piece of paper. “After doing some online research, I found out that this symbol is called a ‘
skandola
’.”
    â€œOkay. I see a lion, bee, and scorpion.”
    â€œYeah, and the circle around them is actually a snake.”
    Cal peered closer at the picture. “So it is, but what the hell is it supposed to be?”
    â€œI’m not completely sure, but from what I’ve found out so far, it’s part of a Middle Eastern religion that dates back to around the time of Christ. The ring is a symbol of power of some type among the priests of the religion. They believe ancient man brought the ring back from the underworld. Some sources cited a belief that a
skandola
can be seen on images of the Shroud of Turin.”
    â€œWow. That’s cool.”
    â€œAh, here we go.”
    Cal bristled. “What do you mean ‘here we go’?”
    Jamie sighed and grinned. “Nothing, oh spook-master. I
knew
you’d go crazy with this crap.”
    â€œHey, just because you don’t believe in the supernatural doesn’t mean it’s just a load of crap.”
    â€œTrue, but it’s a load of crap all the same.” Jamie held up his hands. “Anyway, I told Hanover what I’d found out and asked her if she knew anything about it or how we could find out more about it.”
    â€œYeah, Marie has an open mind unlike some people sitting in this room,” replied Cal.
    â€œAgain, I say anyway, she didn’t know anything about it, but said she might have a source who would be willing to talk to us about it.”
    â€œNot if you go in with that attitude.”
    â€œJust what she said. Now, back in the real world, yesterday I was able to do some research through the online case database and found more than a dozen cases scattered throughout the metro area where the corpse had what was called a ‘distinctive burn mark.’”
    â€œThe same mark?”
    â€œI didn’t get that far. I ran out of gas—thanks to this damned flu or whatever it is. I wrote down the case numbers. Plus, I found another half dozen or so where the body was in too bad of shape to find anything, but had the same type of shriveling as we found on our girl.”
    â€œSo we may have a pattern.”
    â€œYeah. So here’s what I propose. You can get on Eileen’s laptop and between us, we can pull up the detailed files and