To Kill a Sorcerer by Greg Mongrain

Thanks.”
    “This isn’t a party, Montero,” Gonzales said. “You can’t just invite a civilian to view a crime scene.”
    “So far we have no way to trace this killer,” I said. “Incense has been present at both scenes. This man might be able to tell us what kind of incense this is. Scent, maybe even a manufacturer. It gives us something to work with, especially if our killer is purchasing it locally.”
    “Please,” Gonzales said. “He’s probably buying it on the Internet from some place in China.”
    “Do you know a lot about the Internet, Lieutenant? If we know what sort of incense he’s buying, finding him electronically may be easier than going store to store and asking for receipts.”
    “Because of your little team of nerdy experts?”
    “That’s not very nice. They are respected scientists, all of them published in their fields. I employ them because they’re the best.”
    “And pay them gigantic salaries.”
    “They earn every penny.” I turned to Hamilton. “Are you going to let this man in? He might be able to identify this odor.”
    “This is bullshit,” Gonzales said.
    “We can’t let a civilian in here,” Hamilton told me. “Still . . . I could smell this outside. If we open the doors again, he should be able to catch the scent. He doesn’t have to see anything.”
    “You don’t have to worry about that. He’s legally blind.”
    “Fine, we’ll let him take a sniff.”
    “What gives this man any expertise in the first place?” Gonzales asked.
    “He has made a small fortune as an incense manufacturer, and his loss of vision has given him a remarkable nose.”
    One of the SID team had been hovering on the edge of our group, and now, as Gonzales turned away with a disgusted look on his face, she stepped up to Hamilton.
    “Sir?”
    “What have you got?”
    She held up a plastic bag with a tiny black ball in it. “I found this on the carpet under the body. It was mostly outside the pool of blood— . . .” She stopped and swallowed a couple of times.
    “Thank you.” Hamilton took the bag. “What do you think it is?” He held the bag higher and peered at the contents.
    “It felt soft when I picked it up.”
    “Like wax?” I asked.
    “Maybe.”
    “Okay,” Hamilton told her. “Is this the only one you found?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Keep looking.”
    Hamilton handed the bag to me. I studied the contents. “We’ll need an analysis.”
    “Why did you say wax?”
    “As I told you last night, the Barlow murder looked ritualistic. This is obviously the work of the same man.”
    “So you think that’s candle wax?”
    “Yes.”
    “We’ll see.”
    I handed the bag to a tech who cataloged all of the evidence.
    Hamilton and I turned our full attention to the scene.
    Framed photos stood on a nearby table. I picked one up. Jessica stood with her brother and two sisters at a family picnic. Young and beautiful, she probably ran on the track team and had a boyfriend who adored her. I looked back at her hanging body. The pretty girl in the photo was unrecognizable. The face was twisted out of true, the eyes mute horror.
    The techs from the coroner’s office looked at the mutilated corpse, trying to figure out how to get it down. Their faces shone pasty, and there was some nervous murmuring.
    Hamilton and I walked over to the hanging girl.
    “Okay, give us some room, will you?” he said. He looked around, raised his voice. “Hey? Everybody take a break.”
    Slowly the crime scene team, uniforms, and ME techs left the room. Gonzales remained with us. He walked closer, hands on hips, and looked the body over. The three of us stood in a circle around the murdered girl. The outer edge of the blood pool kept us a meter away.
    Her upper body was stripped bare, but she still wore pink shorts, white socks, and red tennis shoes. I looked closely at her dangling arms. She had no defensive bruises—and the wrists showed no signs of having been bound. Yet the killer had strung