"I thought so, too," Scanlon said. "Then I saw something. Come on."
He led us over to where some forensics guy was taking photos of the body, his strobe flashing in the semi-darkness.
"You about done?" Scanlon asked him.
The guy looked up and realized he wasn't being asked a question. "Yeah, sure, all finished," he said, and backed off.
Scanlon produced a pencil flashlight and clicked it on. The beam lingered for a moment on the throat wound that looked like a sardonic grin, then moved up to the victim's face. The dead guy had a thick head of brown hair, and some of it was combed down over his forehead. With his free hand, encased in a latex glove, Scanlon lifted the hair away so that we could see the victim's forehead clearly, and then I understood why we'd been called.
Three symbols I'd never seen before were carved into the victim's forehead – one over the left temple, another over the right one, and a third square in the middle.
The man in the alley wasn't just a murder victim.
He was a sacrifice.
• • • •
Inside the bar, Karl made the rounds of the customers while I had a word with the bartender, a pretty brunette in her mid-twenties whose nametag read "Andrea." She wore black pants on her slim hips, and a matching shirt, the cuffs folded back a couple of turns to leave her forearms bare.
I described the vic for her and asked if she remembered serving him.
"Yeah, sure. He was the double Scotch and water. Sat over there" – rea gestured to the right with her chin – "third stool from the end."
"Notice anything unusual about him?"
She glanced back toward the spot where the vic had been sitting, as if it helped her remember. "Well, he wasn't exactly killing that Scotch. When I figured out he wasn't coming back, I cleared the space. Glass was still full – he hadn't touched a drop."
Why would somebody come into a bar, order booze, then not have any? Unless he came to do something besides drink.
"He didn't stiff you, did he?"
"Hell, no. He paid when I served him, just like he was supposed to. It's either that or run a tab, but I'm only supposed to run tabs for regulars." Andrea leaned closer and lowered her voice a little. "Listen, um, the guy paid with a twenty, and left his change on the bar. I didn't touch it until I was taking the glass away. By then, I figured he was either absentminded, or a hell of a good tipper. What should I, you know…?"
"Might as well treat it like a tip and keep it," I said. "Let the guy's last act on earth be something good, even if he didn't intend it that way."
"I like the way you think," she said. "Thanks."
She straightened up, restoring the distance between us.
"Do you remember him talking to anybody?" I asked her.
"Uh-uh. He sat by himself, and I didn't see anybody come over. Only time I heard him talk was when he ordered the Scotch." She frowned. "Wait – his phone went off, once. I remember, cause the ringtone was this old Blue Oyster Cult song that I like."
"'Don't Fear the Reaper'?"
"Yeah, that's it. How'd you know?"
"Lucky guess," I said. "So he got a phone call. Did you hear any of the conversation?"
"Nah, I had customers further down. Anyway, I don't eavesdrop. I just went down his way cause I needed some ice." I saw her eyes narrow.
"What?"
"Nothing, I guess. But it wasn't long after the call that I noticed his chair was empty. At first, I just figured he went to the john."
I glanced down and saw that the inside of her right arm was covered with thin scars running in all directions. I looked up before Andrea caught me staring.
So she was a cutter. She fit the profile – it's almost always young women who feel the need to wound themselves in that particular way, over and over. Some of them do it so they can stop feeling whatever's gnawing at them. Others do it in the hope of feeling something, anything at all.
I thanked her for the information and got up from the bar stool. Mentioning the scars wasn't going to do anything except embarrass Andrea. I wanted to think that she'd gotten help someplace and put it all behind her, but I knew better. A couple of those cuts were as fresh as yesterday's tears.
We've all got our demons. And most of them can't be exorcised with a razor blade – even for a little while.
Karl and I walked back to our car, which we'd had to park half a block away. The bars were closed now, and the streets had grown quiet. Some tendrils of fog from the Lackawanna River were wrapping themselves around the trees and lamp posts.
"Since I came up with zip from the customers, that phone call of yours is about the only lead we've got, unless forensics finds something," Karl said.
"The CSI guys? Hell, they'll probably crack the case tomorrow. Don't you watch TV?"
"Well, just in case they don't, I hope one of the phone companies will tell us who called the vic tonight."
"That would be nice," I said. "Not as good as the perp confessing on the front page of the Times-Tribune tomorrow, but still not bad."
"Is your buddy gonna send us a copy of the autopsy report?"
"Yeah, along with the crime scene pictures, for all the good they'll do."
"It was no bar fight, that's for sure," Karl said. "Hell, I knew that, soon as I got a look at the vic's wound."
"How do you mean?"
"Guy's throat was sliced, haina?" Karl said.
"Yeah, so?"
"So in any kind of a fight, guy uses a knife, you're gonna have stab wounds as the COD. Maybe some defensive cuts around the hands and arms, but the real damage comes from punctures." Karl kicked an empty soda can and sent it clanging into the gutter. "This was no fight, this was pre-fucking-meditated murder."
"Could've been a mugging," I said. "Guy comes up behind the vic, knife to his throat, says, 'Give it up, motherfucker.' The vic struggles, maybe gets in a good kick backward or something. Then the perp panics, bears down too hard with the blade, the vic tries to pull away, and it's good night, sweet prince."
"Yeah. But," Karl said.
"'But' is right. We've got that artwork carved into his forehead."
"You ever come across anything like those-" Karl stopped talking suddenly, and a moment later I realized why.
Somebody was leaning against our car.