A Cup Full of Midnight Read Online Free Page B

Razor’s butchered body lay on top of the stack, and it suddenly occurred to me that maybe it was a good thing we’d come at a slow time.
    The photo showed a naked young man stretched across a pentagram drawn in blood. His own blood, according to the lab results. Drawn postmortem—though how you could sacrifice a guy who’d already bled out was beyond me.
    The next photo was a candid shot taken a few weeks before Razor’s death. He had high cheekbones and a straight, narrow nose and, except for a few faint lines at the corners of his eyes, he looked younger than his years. Thick hair dyed onyx juxtaposed with blue-white skin and a sullen, effeminate mouth that had probably seduced dozens of boys like Josh.
    I studied the picture, trying without success to muster some sympathy for the dead man, but all I could think was, Flirt with the devil, and don’t be surprised if he asks you to dance.
    Suddenly queasy, I shoved the photograph to the bottom of the pile. Sifted through the haphazard stack of papers. Crime scene photos, the medical examiner’s report, police reports, transcriptions of interviews, including Absinthe’s confession. Razor’s death, laid out in front of me like a hand of cards.
    “How about an overview?” I said.
    Frank took a swig of beer, took his time swallowing. “We found traces of blood in the tub,” he said, finally. “Looks like they carried your buddy Razor upstairs and hung him up to drain the body.”
    “Hung him up where?”
    “Chin-up bar in the upstairs hall. We found a little spatter on the wall there. We think they drained the blood into a bucket and rinsed it out in the bathtub when they were finished with it. They disinfected afterward, but you know how that is.”
    I knew. Chemiluminescent compounds could reveal traces of blood years after the fact. The newer ones worked just like Luminal, only better.
    Frank went on. “After they drained the blood, they went downstairs and drew the pentagram with it, splashed the rest around the room, posed the body, then used some kind of vacuum on the couch and carpet.”
    “They leave the bag?”
    “I wish. They did leave a couple of footprints—looks like somebody stepped in the blood and tracked it around some—but even if we could pull prints from the carpet, they’re too smeared to be of any use. Can’t even tell what size they were.”
    “You think they smeared the prints on purpose?”
    “We’re pretty sure they did.”
    I picked up the next photo, a close-up of Razor’s forearm, arcane symbols carved into it, dark slits between whitened edges of skin. “Ugly,” I said.
    “Aren’t they all?” He tapped one of the symbols with a forefinger. “Some of these are defensive cuts. The symbols were carved on top of them later. Like somebody didn’t want us to know he fought.”
    Somebody. Not Absinthe. Not Josh. Just somebody. The muscles in the back of my neck loosened a bit.
    I rummaged through the stack and plucked out the medical examiner’s report. Cause of death was a jagged throat wound. Its size and shape showed that the blade had gone in straight, then jerked sideways, slicing through the jugular; but there was no way to tell whether the killer had planned it that way, or whether Razor had widened the wound in an instinctive attempt to pull free of the blade. The forensic pathologist called it a compound wound. Like the defensive cuts, it indicated a struggle.
    The other wounds—the occult symbols, the long vertical slash that opened his gut like a dressed deer, and the one that had severed his genitals—had occurred postmortem.
    My better self was glad he hadn’t been tortured. The rest of me wished I’d killed the son of a bitch myself.
    I dropped the report on the table and picked up a photo of the blue ceramic bowl found beside Razor’s body. The inner curve of the bowl was streaked with black, and in the bottom of it, three charred lumps lay in a pool of something that looked like tar but wasn’t. A