“I hope you have a strong stomach, kid.” Rousseau, the hard-bitten drill sergeant for the Witchfinders, had a habit of speaking out of the side of his mouth. On the other side was a loose cigarette. It was his fourth cigarette of the evening and the one that finally drove Benoit to mention cancer.
“The sooner I get to see God, the happier I’ll be,” was Rousseau’s retort. It caused Benoit to smirk. He needed the levity, for his first patrol saw him thrust out into the deep end.
Via the intelligence room at the Master’s mansion, which doubled as the training and operations headquarters for the Witchfinders, Rousseau and Benoit heard several cryptic calls. These calls came courtesy of the hundreds of police scanners, apps, and livestreams that operated around-the-clock in the intelligence room deep within the mansion’s sub-basement. One call was assigned to Rousseau and Benoit—a report of a missing child found at an apartment complex in one of the seedier parts of the city. Rousseau picked up one of the many cellphones used by the organization and contacted a “mole” within the local police force. The contact proved to be a certain Patrolman Westford. Westford informed Rousseau that the case of the missing child included elements that would interest the Witchfinders.
“The apartment alone warrants a visit from you guys, plus some of the things that we have found out about the mother are worth checking out,” Westford said.
“10-4, Eleanor.” Rousseau’s little rhyme was a staple of his vocabulary. Benoit loathed it even before the night was over.
The pair of Witchfinders arrived at the scene an hour later. Rousseau told the rookie to take as many notes as possible, so Benoit began furiously marking everything he saw and heard in a small black notepad that had been given to him by the Master. Benoit noted that the apartment complex was built at a southeastern angle, with a large crest of hills behind it and an expansive parking lot in front. Across a highway access road and to the northeast stood a medium-sized shopping plaza. The plaza contained a gas station, a couple of down-at-the-heel restaurants, and an old mall whose best days were well behind it. Overall, Benoit characterized the area as one of economic depression, with lowly wage earners and those on welfare prevailing as the majority population.
When Rousseau and Benoit toured the complex with Patrolman Westford, the police officer informed them both that he and his fellow officers were quite familiar with the area.
“Lots of drug trafficking going on around here. Just last week, we arrested a tenant here for narcotics possession. Turned out that the bad guy was a low-level associate of the 18th Street Gang,” Westford said. When Benoit informed Westford that the 18th Street Gang meant nothing to him, the patrolman let loose with several factoids about the gang’s origins, their power in Central America, and their deadly rivalry with the far more infamous MS-13.
“18th Street are all over this place now. And it’s only going to get worse,” Westford said ominously. “Racial tensions in this area, and especially within this apartment complex, are as bad as they have ever been. This used to be a place where poor whites and blacks co-existed in a tense, but usually violence-free cooperation. Now that the complex is majority immigrant, with Central Americans being the biggest group, everyone is out to get each other. Some of the native-born have formed impromptu self-protection committees, while others, especially the young ones, have linked up with the Central Americans. Drugs, prostitutes, and guns all come and go here with regularity. But most shocking of all was the fact that the missing little girl, Rosalie Sanchez, was found because someone here called in a tip. Even when this complex was more peaceful, that never happened. Nobody used to trust the police around here, but now, I think that the natives are trying to co-opt us as their enforcers.”
“Hell of a sociological study,” Rousseau said.
“Just wait until you see what’s inside the perp’s apartment. And, by the way,” Westford reached into one of his pockets and handed a silver badge to Benoit. “Keep that on you at all times, newbie.” Benoit looked at the badge. It was a simple item devoid of any decoration except for a five-pointed star in the middle. The words “Special Police” were written above and below the star.
“That’s an official badge,” Westford said. “All of you guys have one. Consider it a kind of cross that keeps the bureaucratic vampires at bay.” Benoit raised an eyebrow.
“Not everyone likes us, kid,” Rousseau said. “A lot of the higher-ups in the police department think that we are unnecessary interlopers. But hey, like I always tell them, we are private. None of us takes taxpayer money.”
“And you boys really do help us to solve some of the nastier cases,” Westford added.
“We solve the really awful stuff in our own way.” Rousseau punctuated his comment with a wink.
Westford led the men up a flight of stairs. Benoit nearly tripped when he failed to notice a missing step in time. Eventually, after passing several doors and windows, some of which included the chaotic gaze of clearly terrified residents, the trio reached apartment number 333.
“Three 3s,” Rousseau intoned.
“Not good?” Benoit asked.
“Never good.”
Yellow crime scene tape barred entry, but Westford pulled it down without a second thought. “The CSI boys just left, but a lot of juicy stuff is still in here,” he said. “Obviously, don’t touch anything and watch where you step. Take notes and pictures; that’s it.”
A foul odor assailed Benoit’s nose as soon as the door opened. He pinched his nostrils together out of instinct.
“Can’t keep that up for too long, kid,” Rousseau said. “May as well try and get used to it.”
Benoit relaxed his pinch and tried his best to put the stench out of his mind. The entire apartment was covered in piles of trash, only half of which included actual trash bags. The rest, from semi-empty food containers to used paper towels, dotted the confined space. Benoit noted that that small armies of flies and ants had already claimed their trash kingdoms. The trash only explained a part of the smell, though. The deeper, more disturbing odor was the smell of a decomposing body, which Westford informed them had been pulled out of the apartment earlier in the evening.
“Apparently a grandma to one of the perps. Been dead for quite a while. They found her in one of the back bedrooms.”
“Jesus,” Benoit whispered.
“Who are the perps?” Rousseau asked.
“Yanette Garcia and Daniel Acevedo. Garcia is a Honduran national, while Acevedo moved here from Texas last year. Both have several offenses on their record. Mostly petty stuff, but all of which points to connections to the drug trade. The responding officers confirmed that when they took out of here tons of cash and baggies full of brightly colored pills. Some cocaine too.”
“And what about the grandma?”
“No idea yet, but whether her death was natural or a homicide, it’s pretty damning that our two lovebirds kept the corpse around and let it rot.”
“Savages,” Benoit said.
“Wait until you see what’s in the second bedroom. That’s where they found the Sanchez girl.” Westford took the men to the bedroom off to the left. It stood across from the bedroom with the rotting corpse, and Benoit noticed immediately that an occupant of the room would have easily been able to see the body. He considered the possibility that that was the point. Dark ideas pervaded Benoit’s mind until they were interrupted by even darker thoughts. These came because of what he saw in the other room.
“Pretty sick, right?” Westford asked.
The room’s walls were decorated by satanic symbols, all of which appeared to be hand-drawn. Images included fork-tongued devils, nude female and male demons engaging in sexual acts with animals, and several gory images of severed heads and hands. Trash covered both sides of the floor, and when Benoit bent down over the bed, he saw ants marching across the covers. More worrisome though were the many bloodstains on the bed’s sheets. Even worse than that, Benoit noticed a camera in one corner of the room. Its lone red eye indicated that it was still operable.
“What’s with the camera?” Benoit asked.
“You really are a newbie,” Westford ribbed. “It’s for making movies, of course. Not the kind of movies you watch, though.”
“Wait? Snuff films?”
“Probably. Cannot confirm anything yet, but I would not be surprised. Got to hear back from the lab rats.”
“And, with that Sanchez girl, they were going to make a new one?” Benoit’s question was answered with silence. “What kinds of monsters are these people?”
“The kinds that make for our cases, kid.”
“So, you’re saying that this is a Witchfinders job?” Westford asked Rousseau the question. The older man, with a new and unlit cigarette in his mouth, nodded his head.
“Welcome to your first case, kid,” Rousseau said. “Be prepared to go weird places.”