“Too soon to say.” I pushed him out of my space with a finger in his gut. “Excuse me.”

He backed up but didn’t leave, going instead to see what Glenn was doing. Heaven save me from cops on break. The two talked over Glenn’s suspicions concerning Dr. Anders, their rising and falling voices soothing.

I blew chip crumbs off my papers, my pulse quickening as I saw that the third victim had worked at the city racetrack in weather control. It was a very difficult field of work, heavy in ley line magic. The man had been pressed to death while working late, stirring up a fall shower to dampen down the track for the next day’s race. The actual implement of death was unknown. There had been nothing in the stables heavy enough. I didn’t look at that picture, either.

It had been at this point that the media realized the three deaths were connected despite the varying methods of death and named the sadistic freak the “witch hunter.”

A quick phone call got me his sister, who said of course he knew Trent Kalamack. That the councilman often called her brother to ask about the state of the track, but that she hadn’t heard if he had talked to Mr. Kalamack before his death or not, and that she was just sick about her brother’s death, and did I know how long it took for insurance checks to come in?

I finally got my condolences wedged in between her chattering and hung up on her. Everyone handled death differently, but that was offensive.

“Did he know Mr. Kalamack?” Glenn asked.

“Yup.” I pinned the packet to the board and stuck a note to it with the words “weather maintenance” on it.

“And his job is important because …”

“It takes a heckuva lot of ley line skill to manipulate the weather. Trent raises racehorses. He could have easily been out there and talked to him and no one would have given it a second thought.” I added another note with “Knew T” on it.

Old Dunlop-the-cop made an interested noise and ambled over. He hung a respectful three feet behind me this time. “Done with this one?” he asked, fingering the first.

“For now,” I said, and he pulled it from the board. Some of Glenn’s notes fluttered down to fall behind the table. Glenn’s jaw tightened.

Feeling like someone was starting to take me seriously, I sat straighter. The overweight man ambled back to Glenn, making noises as he found the pictures. He dropped the report onto Glenn’s desk, and I heard the patter of chip crumbs. Another officer came in, and an impromptu meeting seemed to be taking shape as they clustered around Glenn’s computer screen. I turned my back on them and looked at the next report.

The fourth victim had been found in early August. The papers had said the cause of death was severe blood loss. What they hadn’t said was that the man had been disemboweled, torn apart as if ravaged by animals. His boss had found him in the basement of his workplace, still alive and trying to push his insides back into him where they belonged. It was more difficult than usual since he only had one arm, the other hanging by his underarm skin.