Nowhere Land: A Stephan Raszer Investigation by A.W. Hill

I’m just a PI looking for a missing girl, and I don’t know anything. So
what was Henry’s brew if it wasn’t the usual small-town, heavy-metal Satanism?”
         “My
guess is, it was something else the boys brought back from Karbala,” said
Aquino, sliding open the top right drawer of his desk. “Along with this.”
         He held
up a palm-size piece of black ore, dimpled with little pits. It might have been
basalt, or a small meteorite, but it looked a whole lot like Brigit’s moon
rock. A lot like the rock that had given Silas Endicott apoplexy and then
stopped his heart.
         “May I
see that?” Raszer asked. It was heavier than he’d expected.
         “We
found a few of these in the trailer, along with some weird little statues,”
said Aquino. “It’s technically evidence, but I, uh, kept one as a souvenir.
Sometimes, when I get bugged that we never solved this case, I take it out and
use it as a paperweight.” He shrugged. “Like it’s gonna talk to me, right?”
Detective Aquino’s chair creaked as he sat back heavily. “It’s just iron ore,
but of a type found across northern Iran and eastern Turkey. Possible meteoric
origin. I have no idea what it meant to Henry or where he got it from over
there. The kids who could tell us are either dead, missing, or out of state.”
         “You
mean Ruthie?” Raszer said, his eyes fixed on the stone. “Katy’s sister?”
         “Yeah,”
said Aquino. “Maybe you won’t have the same jurisdictional problems we do. All
we ever found of Henry’s was a book about something called chaos magic. But the
best clue, Mr. Raszer—for someone smarter than me—is what we didn’t find . . . ”
         Raszer
looked up and slowly closed his fingers around the stone.
         “The
best evidence,” Aquino continued, “was on Henry Lee’s body.”
         He spun
the file folder 180 degrees, pushed it toward Raszer, and flipped through a few
more morgue photos until he came to one detailing the midbody. Henry Lee’s uncircumcised
penis lay to the left in repose, but beneath it, there was nothing but a badly
healed scar.
         Raszer
moved closer in. “Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?” he asked.
         The
cop’s eyes met Raszer’s. “He had himself neutered. And not by an expert surgeon,
either. He must’ve done it when he was in Iraq, or after, because his
predeployment physical was normal. Now, why would a man do that, Mr. Raszer?”
         Raszer
sat back and pushed his fingers through his damp hair. He had some ideas, but
none trumped his own puzzlement. “If it was voluntary, I dunno. There are eunuchs all through history, mostly slaves but
occasionally saints. A whole range of stuff goes down in the transgender
sector, but the cut would have been cleaner. I can imagine a number of reasons
it might have been done to him,
though, especially in Iraq. Maybe he got caught messing with a local girl.
Maybe his appetite for rape didn’t start with Katy Endicott. Did you get a look
at his military record?”
         “Nothing
but a couple of minor AWOLs and a reprimand for smoking hashish on a weekend
leave. No visits to the medic, except for a case of bronchitis.” Aquino pulled
a magnifying glass out of his drawer and handed it to Raszer. “Take a look at
that scar. According to the coroner, the wound was cauterized. See these
secondaries—here at the stem, and there? Those are burn scars. Coroner’s hunch
is, the wound was sealed with the flat side of a red-hot knife. Immediately
after the cut. If I was a crazy Arab and I’d caught him doing my sister, I don’t
think I’d bother with the post-op.”
         “I see
what you mean,” said Raszer. “It definitely suggests procedure—either
prescribed punishment or self-mutilation.”
         “What
about some weird religious thing, Mr. Raszer? Some kind of cult.”
         Raszer
pulled in a breath as a substitute for the cigarette he