Ash Return of the Beast

CHAPTER 21



ONE HOUR LATER…

Detective Wheeler handed a page of notes over to Kane. “Here’s the names of the band members, their phone numbers and addresses. We ran a quick check. No priors. Clean sheet on all of these guys. But check this out.” He produced another sheet of paper and handed it to Kane. “It’s a flyer for tonight’s concert with a picture of the band on stage. The guy in the middle is the leader. Check out what he’s wearing.”

Kane took the flyer. “Well, I’ll be damned. A hooded robe.” He moved to the copy machine, ran one off for Ravenwood and handed it to her.

“Yeah,” Wheeler said. “But I wouldn’t get too excited. From what I hear, a lot of his fans show up at the concerts wearing hooded robes. Bunch of friggin’ weirdos.”

“Mega Therion,” Ravenwood said, reading the flyer.

Kane looked at her. “You’ve heard of them?”

“No, can’t say that I have. Not exactly the kind of music I have on my iPod. But the name is interesting.”

Kane shrugged. “Really? It’s Greek to me.”

“Maybe that’s because it is Greek. It means Great Beast. No doubt a reference to Aleister Crowley. Crowley sometimes used it as a pseudonym.”

Wheeler shook his head. “What are we talking about here? Who’s Crowley? What’s this about a beast?”

“I’ll brief you on it later,” Kane said. “Right now I want you to go to a concert.”

Wheeler backed up. “What? Oh, no. C’mon. I don’t wanna have to listen to that crap for two hours.”

“Grab Detective Moreno and get on over there.”

Wheeler shook his head. “Moreno? She’s not gonna like it any more than I do.”

“I don’t care. I just want to know what goes on at one of those concerts. You can report to me in the morning. Now get out of here.”

“Um… tickets are sold out.”

“Your badge is your ticket, Wheeler. Now get the hell out of my office. And try not to be conspicuous when you get there.”

“Conspicuous? I’m wearing a suit and tie, for crying out loud.”

“Take the tie off.”

“Oh, yeah. That oughta do it.”

“So find yourself a hooded robe. Go!”

Wheeler left in a huff and Kane turned to Ravenwood. “Rookie. Drives me crazy sometimes. Where were we?”

“We were talking about names and I just noticed the band leader has an odd name, too. You don’t hear the name, Rye, very much.”

“Well, according to Wheeler’s notes here, this Rye Cowl’s real name is Rodney Duckworth.”

Ravenwood chuckled. “You’re not serious.”

“What it says here.” He handed the notes over to her. He could see her wheels were turning. “What is it?”

“The name ‘Rye’ was beginning to ring a bell and I just remembered why. There’s a hell of a blues guitarist named Rye something. His guitar playing was dubbed into a movie about Robert Johnson back in the eighties.”

“Who the hell is Robert Johnson and why would you remember something like that?”

“Long story. But I was just thinking this Rye Cowl may have borrowed the name from that other guy. Seems likely because of the music connection.”

“Okay. But what about the last name? I’ve heard the name before but I’ve never seen it spelled that way. Have you? Doesn’t seem like something someone would just make up out of thin air.”

Ravenwood nodded. “Good point. I can’t recall ever seeing it spelled like that either. But of all the names he could possibly pick, why would he choose that one, regardless of how it’s spelled?”

“Maybe the name of someone he admires or idolizes? You know. Like you said about his first name.”

“Could be. Or––”

He saw her wheels spinning again. “Or what?”

“Hang on,” she said, taking a pen from her briefcase. “It’s a long shot. But I have a nose for things like this.” She started jotting something on the back of the flyer.

“A nose for things like what?”

“Just give me a minute.”

He leaned back and gave an impatient groan.

Finally, Ravenwood looked up with a smug expression. She slapped the flyer down on his desk. “Tell me that’s just a coincidence.”

Kane looked at what she’d written. “What’s this?”

“Rye Cowl is an anagram for Crowley.”

“A what?”

“An anagram. It’s a type of word play where the letters of a word are rearranged to form another word. In this case the letters in the name ‘Rye Cowl’ are the same letters that spell the name ‘Crowley’.”

Kane’s eyebrows went up. “Well, I’ll be a son of a–– How did you know that?”

“I told you. I have a nose––”

“––for things like this. Yeah, I heard you. So this guy thinks he’s Crowley reincarnated or something?”

Ravenwood shrugged but didn’t say anything.

Kane cautiously entertained a glimmer of hope. “You think this could be our guy? He did have a motive, when you think about it. That preacher was bent on trying to ruin the concert. I mean, I’ll admit, killing the guy is a pretty extreme way to put a stop to the protest but still––”

“Yeah, but it could just as well have been one of the fans of the band. Wheeler said a lot of them are so into it that they dress in hooded robes at these concerts. The word ‘fan’ is short for fanatic, you know. Who knows what kind of demented fanatics might be under some of those robes? Not to mention the fact that we’ve got a major Church of Satan right here in Seattle. I happen to know that the head of that church is not only an expert on everything Crowley ever wrote but he’s also an exceptionally knowledgeable practitioner of the Dark Arts. I wouldn’t doubt if he and some of the members of his church are also some of Cowl’s biggest fans. They could all be suspects. But there’s still a problem.”

“What’s that?”

“You could argue that Cowl or one of his fans had a motive for killing this preacher because of the protest thing. But, what about the other five preachers? The motive falls apart. You’ve read the reports. There’s nothing linking any of them to Cowl, to his band or to anything even remotely related to any of that. Hell, there isn’t even anything linking any of them to each other.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. We’re missing something.”

“I wish you had a nose for that.”

“Oh, I do. Believe me. I just haven’t caught a whiff of the scent yet.”

“Well, you’ve got another nine days to get your sniffer goin’. Be nice if you could catch a whiff of something before then. I say we start with this Cowl guy. Let’s pay him a little visit tomorrow and see what kind of a scent he throws out.”

“You read my mind.”

“Not really. I just have a nose for these things.”

Ravenwood took the jab with a grin.