Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 6-10 - Laurell K. Hamilton [628]
“You’ve made your point,” he said. He sat up and didn’t seem the least bit stiff. Maybe the floor was good for his back. “I still don’t understand why you want to talk to this woman. The report was taken by Detective Loggia. He was very thorough. He asked good questions.”
“You noticed that he took more time with why people left than the rest of the cops, just like I noticed it.”
Edward shrugged. “Loggia didn’t like the way everyone cleared out. Too damn convenient, but he couldn’t come up with anything that tied the people together into a conspiracy.”
“A conspiracy?” I almost laughed then stopped at the seriousness in his face. “Did someone actually suggest that an entire upper-middle-class to more-than-middle-class neighborhood conspired together to kill these people?”
“It was the only logical explanation for why they all left within thirty minutes of each other on the night of the murders.”
“So they investigated all these people?” I asked.
“That’s where some of the extra paperwork comes from.”
“And?” I said.
“Nothing,” Edward said.
“Nothing?” I made it a question.
“A few neighborhood squabbles over kids destroying the flowers, one affair where the husband that turned up dead was banging the next door neighbor’s wife.” Edward grinned. “The neighbor was lucky that the other man got cut up in the middle of a string of serial killings. Otherwise, he’d have been the top of the hit parade.”
“Could it have been a copycat?” I asked.
“The police don’t think so, and believe me they tried to make the pieces fit.”
“I believe you. The police hate to let a good motive slide since most of the time motive isn’t even one of their top priorities. Most people kill over stupid things, impulse, screw motive.”
“Do you have a logical reason why all these people would vacate their houses just at the right time for the killer, or killers, to make their move?”
I nodded. “Yep.”
He looked up at me, a slight smile on his face. “I’m listening.”
“It’s very common in hauntings for people to be uncomfortable in the area where the ghost is strongest.”
“You’re saying ghosts did this?”
I waved a hand. “Wait, wait until I’m done.”
He gave a small nod. “Dazzle me.”
“I don’t know if it’s dazzling, but I think it’s how it was done. There are spells that supposedly can make a person uneasy in a house or a place. But the spells I read in college were for one person or one house, not a dozen homes and twice that many people. I’m not even sure a coven working together could affect that big an area. I don’t know that much about actual witchcraft of any flavor. We’ll need to find a witch to ask. But I think it’s moot. I just mentioned it as a possibility.”
“It’s a possibility the cops haven’t come up with yet.”
“Nice to know I haven’t entirely wasted the last five hours of my life.”
“But you don’t think it was witches,” Edward said.
I shook my head. “Witches of almost any flavor believe in the threefold rule. What you give out comes back to you three-fold.”
“What goes around comes around,” Edward said.
“Exactly, and no one is going to want this shit coming back on them three-fold. I would have said they also believe in ‘do what you will, only harm none,’ but you can have bad pagans just like you can have bad Christians. Just because your belief says something is wrong doesn’t mean someone’s not going to break the rules.”
“So what do you think caused them all to leave their homes just when our killer needed it?”
“I think whatever is doing this, is big enough and powerful enough to simply arrive on the spot and want the people to go, and they went.”
Edward frowned at me. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”
“Our monster arrives, knows which house it wants, and he fills the rest of the houses with dread, driving the other families out. That takes a hell of a lot of power, but to then turn around and shield the murder house so that that one family doesn’t flee, that’s truly