Chapter 18

Dashiell stepped into the dark room and the lights automatically flickered on. The room was clean, but it appeared unused. For all he knew, he was the first person to enter the archives since the Bureau had been closed.

He always thought of it as the Bureau, even though most people meant the FBI when they used that shorthand. But he figured it served them right. After all, even though the official designation for his former employer was the BOI, most feds couldn’t resist making a play on the nature of what was investigated, and referred to it as the Bureau of the Occult, or to be cute, BOO.

He made his way through the spacious room, looking around for the reference materials. Once he located them, he took his time trying to locate the volume he wanted. But at last, there is was: “Deities and Demigods.” He pulled the large volume from the shelf next to the more popular Monster Manual, and headed to a large table.

He flipped open to the index and started looking for cross-references to tigers. There were at least 30 different Gods and demigods listed. He decided to skip over the Gods and move right to the demigods and demigoddesses. This still left over twenty five deities. Several were Tiger-Gods, while others were only tangentially related to tigers.

Suddenly, his phone vibrated.

He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the display. It showed the number for Metro P.D. That meant it was either the captain calling to check up on him, or Regina with something to tell him. Either way, he decided to answer the phone.

“Aldridge here.”

“Hey Dash.” It was Regina’s voice. “How goes the investigation?”

“Slowly. And I’ve come up with some disturbing possibilities. How about on your end?”

She sighed heavily. “You know, you’d think it’d be easy to return information that I asked for, and not a bunch of extraneous crap. I sent out a bolo to all the local M.E.s asking for information on bodies with missing extremities, and I get all sorts of random bullshit. Like the idiot up in Baltimore who sent word of the body with the missing liver.”

Something in Dashiell’s brain sat up and took notice.

“Wait, what?”

“Huh? I said we got word of a guy with a missing liver. Why? Is that significant?”

“I’m not sure. Tell me about it.”

There was the sound of shuffling papers as Regina looked around on her desk for the file.

“Let’s see….Abe Goldman, 57, killed in his home last weekend, liver had been removed.”

Dashiell’s face creased in thought. “When last weekend?”

“Uh…Friday night.”

“What time on Friday?”

“Let’s see….best the M.E. can tell is sometime around 8 p.m.”

That seemed right. He was right on the edge of something. Like a name on the tip of your tongue.

“Regina, did the Fairfax M.E. send you the report on the car accident on the 273? The local Coroner told me about it.”

More shuffling papers. “Yeah, here it is. Captain Todd Stevens. What about it?”

“Captain? Was he in the armed forces?”

“No. Says here he flew for Delta Airlines.”

The thought that had been percolating in Dashiell’s subconscious for the last several hours sprang fully formed into his mind. It was almost too absurd to be believed. Could someone really be trying that? His eyes scanned the list of demigods on the table in front of him and he found the name he was looking for.

“Which way was he headed when the accident happened? In towards the airport, or away?”

“Uh…westbound. Away from the airport.”

Words flashed through Dashiell's mind. "Here I have a pilot's thumb, wracked as homeward he did come."

“Clever girls….” His voice was soft, as if he was speaking to himself.

“What was that Dash?”

“Regina, I’m almost positive our cases are connected. And that means we’re looking for women. Three of them.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ll explain when we meet, Regina.”

“Meet where?”

“The Folger Shakespeare Library.”

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