Free Dead Voices by Rick Hautala Page A

was that made her feel so inclined toward him, Maybe, she thought, it was simply that she felt a sense of empathy from him concerning her loss, He might help set her free ... as free as those sea gulls she had seen, white specks circling against the blue.
     
    6.
    “What the fuck is this?” Frank snarled as he walked up to his partner, who was standing in the parking lot behind the Bristol Mills police station with Ed Phillips, the night dispatcher, and Chuck Willis, the desk sergeant. “You guys having a cops’ convention or what?”
    It was three o’clock in the afternoon, an hour before his shift began, and Frank had had to stop short to avoid running over the three men.
    “This is something you’d sorta expect to have happen in Hitler’s Germany, not Maine,” Willis said, pointing to a freshly spray painted piece of graffiti on the wall.
    “Come on, Chuck,” Norton said, snickering. “That ain’t no Star of David. This here’s a pentagram. It’s something they use in witchcraft stuff, I think.”
    “When’d this happen?” Frank asked. He frowned deeply as he scanned the uneven five-pointed star.
    All three men shrugged, and then Norton said, “Must’ve been sometime last night. I ‘spoze we didn’t notice it in the dark when we got off duty. Ed was the first one who spotted it this morning. “
    “Who in the hell would do something like this?” Willis asked, still scratching his head. Frank found himself wondering if Willis’s habitual scratching was out of perplexity or due to scalp problems.
    “It ain’t nothing but a Goddamned prank, that’s what I think,” Ed said with a snarl.
    Frank and Norton exchanged meaningful glances, and then Frank cleared his throat and said, “If you fellas have heard about what Norton and me found out to Oak Grove last night, you might think otherwise. “
    “What?” Willis asked. Yesterday had been his day off, and he had obviously not yet heard about the “incident” at plot 317. In as few words as possible, leaving out the more gruesome details, Frank filled him in.
    “Well, then, Jesus H. Christ! No wonder,” Willis said excitedly. For about three seconds, he stopped scratching his head, then he started up again. “I’ll bet you, sure as shit, there’s one of them witchcraft — what d’yah call ‘em? Convents or covenants or whatever.”
    “You don’t mean covens, do you?” Ed asked.
    “Yeah — whatever,” Willis replied. ‘‘I’ll bet that’s who did this.”
    “I think this is serious,” Frank said, frowning as he squinted at the dripping red lines of freshly applied paint. The pentagram covered an area roughly six feet by six feet. “Someone tall enough to reach this high did it. I don’t think it’s any kid’s prank.”
    “Come on, Frank, lighten up, “ Norton said, slapping him good naturedly on the shoulder. “You’re still just freaked out from last night.”
    Frank turned to his partner and was about to say something about Norton puking all over his shoes, but he decided to let it pass. Pointing at the muddy tire marks on the asphalt, he said to Willis, “I’ve got a report to write up and file before I head mit, but if I was you, I’d get a lab tech to take a few snaps of these tire tracks. Who knows? Maybe one of ‘em will match up with the ones we found out in the cemetery last night.”
    “You just drove over them,” Norton said.
    Cocking an eyebrow, Frank said, “Yeah, well I didn’t see any of you guys flagging me away, either.”
    “Yeah, I’ll get a tech out here right away,” Willis said, running his fingertips over his ears; but he and none of the other men moved from where they stood as Frank turned and walked into the station to fill out his report.

THREE
    Toys in the Attic
     
    1.
    During the drive home from Graydon’s, Elizabeth had plenty to think about as she evaluated her new therapist. She was fairly certain she would work with him, especially since Dr. Gavreau had recommended him so