"QUACKENBOS, QUACKENBUSH, Quail, Quam, Quandt, here it is, Quarterman. Found him,” Reg called over his shoulder to Reuben, who was sitting in the car.
"Got him?”
"Roger Quarterman, Mission Ridge."
Reg scribbled the address on the yellow post-it he got from the owner of the taco stand. "Thanks for the White Pages."
"You going to buy something?"
"Rube, you want a taco, or burrito, or ... what else do you sell?
"Tacos, burritos, enchiladas and frankfurters. Pepsi, Sprite, and Mountain Dew. I also have chips."
"Hey, Rube—
"Nah, knock yourself out.”
Reg wasn’t hungry, but didn’t want the favor to go unrewarded.
"I'll take a Pepsi."
As he ferried the wet-napkin wrapped can back to the CRV, his thoughts turned to his wife. Carol often sighed favorably, after a few gulps of her favorite soft drink.
If they had been blessed with children, Reg could imagine he and Carol with something along the lines of Reuben’s Honda. He knew she wanted kids, and he had verbally agreed. In the depths of his heart, he vacillated. Since it hadn’t happened in seven years of attempts, it was easy to assume that it wasn’t meant to be.
He was a thirty-one year old black man married to a white woman a year younger. They could deal with the racial bullshit. Kids were another matter. He would dread having to explain to little Jeffrey or Sarah how their grandmother was a bigot. And if she were to say anything ignorant, they should ignore her.
Reg turned the ignition key in the compact SUV, and wondered at what age his children would begin to notice the looks of scorn.
“Daddy? Why is the man at the bus stop mad at me?” he could hear his little Sarah asking.
“He's not mad honey, he's just stupid,” he would have to respond.
Forty years removed from Dr. King's speech, and people still had trouble grasping the concept of equality. The relevance of his thoughts was insignificant. Carol left him, and by all indications, wasn’t coming back.
Reg glanced over his shoulder for oncoming traffic, and pulled out of his curb side space. He got to the stop light at the end of the block, before realizing he didn't know where he was going. He was spazzing again.
"Rube?"
"Yo."
"Know where Mission Ridge is?
"You don't?"
"If I did, would I be asking you?"
Directions and a bag of chips later, Reg hopped back in the CRV and drove toward what he hoped would be a break in the case.
***
"Mission Ridge, right there,” Reuben pointed at the fastly approaching street sign.
Reg turned onto the short row of blocks and attempted to ignore the uneasiness in his gut. All the way down the turnoff street, Harlan Drive, each passing house waxed more extravagant than the one before. Nothing about the pattern changed turning onto the Mission Ridge cul-de-sac.
The smell of money was in the morning air. People with means weren't keen on intrusions into their space. Truthfully, no one was keen on intrusions into their space. But politicians, and as a trickle-down effect law enforcement, tended to respond to the rich quicker than on average. He and Reuben were miles out of their jurisdiction, in the wrong neighborhood. Reg wanted to be in and out of there faster than a lightning strike.
"That’s the house," Reuben motioned diagonally across the street. A woman in a late model, silver Elantra, was pulling out of Quarterman’s driveway.
Reg waited for the Elantra to pass, then turned into the winding driveway. Quarterman’s small mansion estate shortly came into view. An expertly manicured lawn glistened beneath large bay windows. He parked behind a Mercedes in front of the sizable home. They got out, rang the bell, and waited.
"I need to talk to you about something when we’re done here."
Reg nodded at Reuben’s whisper.
"What do you want?" An ill-tempered voice assaulted them from the other side of the heavily paned, glass door.
"Roger Quarterman?"
"Who wants to know?"
"Could we have a few words?" Reg added.
"I said, who wants to know?"
"Face to face would be better."
"There will be a bullet in your face, if you don't go away, or tell me who wants to know.”
"Calm down, Roger, we’re all on the same side here,” Reg said. Most cops knew what that meant.
No sense offering their names until they determined whether Roger was the canary type. It stood to reason, if he took a bribe he probably wasn’t, but there was the safe and sorry thing to consider. The locks unfastened hastily, and angrily, if that were possible, and they were finally face to face with him.
"Where you from? I’ve never seen either of you before."
Reg cringed. He quickly forced away the distorted expression, and hoped the complete wreck of a man standing in front of him hadn’t noticed.
Quarterman’s half open eyes were blood-red. His knee-length, formerly white, terry cloth robe appeared as if it hadn't been washed since his days on the force. His t-shirt and jeans beneath, stained with various unidentifiable substances, matched the ragged weeks’ worth of salt and pepper growth on his face. A faint hint of cannabis wafted up Reg’s nostrils from inside the house. He forced himself to look into Quarterman’s red, peppercorn eyes, and not at the sizable dark brown stain, on his white shirt, competing for attention.
"Mr. Quarterman, we’re from Bay City."
"What do a couple of badges from Bay City want with me?" he said, casting a wary, crimson eye at them.
"Could we talk inside?" Reg said, his uneasiness about the neighborhood returning.
"Tell me what you want, and I’ll think about it."
"Artemisians,” Reuben blurted, turning up his nose.
Reg placed his hand in the middle of the wood framed door when he saw Quarterman about to slam it in their faces.
"Off the record."
Quarterman squinted. He scanned them from head to toe, then expanded the crack in the door to get a better look around the outside of his home. Seeming satisfied, but still scowling, he waved them in.
The second Reg stepped into the living room it was obvious Quarterman had a maid service. He had readied himself for his own apartment twenty times over. Empty pizza boxes, liquor bottles, newspapers, clothes, and two feet of dust strewn about. Not so. The house was immaculate. It was as if the maid had just left. Reg remembered the young woman pulling out before they arrived. The maid had just left.
The contrast of Quarterman looking and smelling like he spent the night sleeping at the bottom of a clothes hamper, and the freshly dusted shine on high end furniture, confused Reg’s senses. One had the aroma of fresh pine, and the other of bear scat in the woods. He didn’t know whether to crinkle his nose or breathe in deeply.
He and Reuben took the plush sofa. Quarterman opted for a leather recliner across from them.
"So, you want to know about the Artemisians?" he said, stumbling more than sitting into his E-Z Boy.
"Yes, there’s this case—"
"Don’t care. But I would like to know how you came to be at my door?"
"Long story," Reg said, not wanting to divulge the information.
"Want to know what I know, tell me what you know."
Reg reluctantly gave up his Alan Hanson story.
"Hanson was a good egg. Sorry to hear about his passing. I’m not going to blame him for telling, if that’s what you’re thinking. Truth be told, I’m glad you guys are here. Not even my ex-partner likes strolling down memory lane when it comes to the Artemisians."
"I gave up my story, what’s yours?” Reg said.
"What do you want to know?”
"Everything you remember."
"Off the record, right?" he asked, and reached into his robe pocket for an unfinished, finger-sized joint.
Way off the record, Reg thought, as Quarterman put lighter to joint. He appeared to be as high as he could get. That wasn't about to stop him from getting higher. Reg took a pass on judgment. If they were about to hear details of the story told to him by Carol’s father, Quarterman probably needed to be higher.
"The Artemisians," he said, after exhaling, “they weren't pure because there were men in the group. But make no mistake, the bitches were in charge."
"What do you mean by pure?" Reuben asked.
Quarterman’s eyes popped, momentarily revealing a circumference of white outlining their wine-red high.
"You guys don't know nothing? You just got my name and came straight over here?"
Reg said, "We already had your name, but yes, we came straight over."
Quarterman waved the joint at Reg’s explanation. A bulb of ash fell to the polished hardwood floor.
"From what I researched after it all went down, the Artemisians are a feminist, Neo-Pagan group that worships the moon and nature and shit. They are supposed to look out for one another, like sisterly love—oh, and they believe God is a woman."
Reuben took out his pad for some unofficial notes.
“Ah-ah-ah, off the record, remember?"
"This is for me, so I can …"
Quarterman shook his head slowly.
Reuben put away his pad.
"Where was I?" he continued, both the toking and the story. "Right, so they were into this woman God and stuff, but what the book doesn’t say is all the crazy shit they did in worshiping her. Man, if I could show you what I saw."
"Telling us will suffice," Reg said. He feared Quarterman wouldn’t be coherent much longer.
"I'm getting to it, I'm getting to it. Where was I? Oh, yea, man, you should have seen the shit we saw when we walked in there. There were people in cages around this campsite. They had ten foot torches lit in a circle, and in the middle of the circle they had this ... they had this ..."
Quarterman stopped and produced a bottle of Jack Daniels from the recliner's side pocket. Following a swig that put Reg’s drinking habits to shame, he picked up where he left off.
"In the middle of the circle of torches they had a woman strung up, hog-tied to a wooden post. She was beaten and cut to pieces. Lacerations everywhere, man, and some weird symbol carved on her titty. I'm looking at this and thinking, what the hell, with my mouth open, and then I see—toke, I see—toke, hold on a second."
Toke-toke-toke, extinguish, blow smoke.
"I see people around the edges of the camp having sex. I couldn't believe it. I turned to my partner, Roach, and said, ‘You ready to bust these sick bastards?’ And you know what Roach said to me? 'Not yet, Roger. We should wait for backup and witness as much as we can.’”
Quarterman paused to gulp Jack Daniels. Afterward, he hacked out a phlegm-filled cough, and continued his tale.
“What the hell? I wanted to bust some heads and Roach wanted to keep watching. He was right about the backup, but I think he was turned on. Guess I should have figured that, with him having a name like Roach, right? Shoot, where did I put that damn bottle?”
Bay City's Finest remained silent. Reg had heard some of it from Alan. Reuben heard what Reg remembered. Now they were getting a firsthand account.
"Ah, here it is, good stuff. Care for a shot?" Quarterman extended the lip of the open bottle toward them.
When Reg's head shook left, Reuben's shook right. When Reg's swung right to complete the refusal, Reuben's went left. They continued the opposite pendulum a few more rotations.
"Your loss." He shrugged and turned up the bottle. When he was done, he slid his hand into the same robe pocket which surrendered the half joint, and yanked out a whole one.
His onlookers engaged in a second act of pendulum aerobics. Reg wondered if he would be okay to drive, if he left there with a contact high.
"You were saying?" Reg nudged Quarterman back towards the death camp.
"I was saying what? I didn't say anything."
"Artemisians?" Reuben reminded him.
"Oh, them. I thought you said I was saying something, because I didn't remember saying anything. I mean, did I say something?"
Quarterman’s words were beginning to slur. He was still coherent, so Reg let him be.
"The Artemi ... Artemi ... fucking moon worshipers. So, I said to Roach, ‘Let’s go. Let's do this. Then I take a good look in the cages, and I thought, no way! No blasted way! You know what they had in the cages? Did Hanson tell you? Kids. Ten, eleven, twelve year old kids. I was ready to bust a nut over bagging these guys. Then I squint my eyes like this, see here?"
He showed them his squint.
“And I'm looking, and looking, and trying to make this out, and fuck me, the kids were who these sick bastards were having sex with! To hell with Roach if he didn't back me up. To hell with them all. I jumped from behind my cover near the back porch, and said, ‘Nobody move.’ Roach, deciding to back me up, said, ‘Freeze, Frankenmuth Police Department.”
Detective partners had an idea of what was coming next. It was the reason Quarterman couldn’t sleep, the reason he went to Alan in the first place, and the reason he was sitting there baked out of his mind.
The Artemisians were prepared for such an event. All scattered with but one thought in mind—get out of the line of sight of the two shooters on the roof.
If one of their services was ever interrupted, their plan was to eliminate every potential witness against them, and escape in the mayhem. The snipers began shooting, the shot children began screaming and dying, and the worshipers ran as if the bullets were meant for them.
They didn’t get far. The entryway to the underground passage constructed as their contingency collapsed weeks before. Since it went unused until then, there was rarely need to check it. Having carried out their depraved practices for years without consequence, they were overconfident.
"When they couldn’t escape, they fell down like sheep, begging for mercy and throwing out credentials. Roach talked to one and then had me speak to the Mayor. A whole lot of threats and hush money later, here I am. The two shooters are the only ones who got away. Well, they all got away, but you know what I mean."
Quarterman took his biggest toke yet, and exhaled just as deeply. The living room air surrendered to his cloud of THC.
"I shouldn't tell you this, but to hell with it. I'm tired of being KIWI's butt boy. Fuck them, and fuck Mayor Swartz.”
He took another quick toke, and let out finally, "There was a survivor, man.”