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track marks, either. But . . .” He looked up from the body, nodded toward his clipboard again. “The tox screen indicates significant levels of atropine in her bloodstream.”
    The word was vaguely familiar, but Garrett couldn’t immediately call it up. The back of his neck was tingling, though.
    “Atropine is a chemical used by the military as an antidote to nerve gas, and as a means of resuscitation,” Edwards continued.
    Garrett frowned.
Resuscitation? Antidote?
That wasn’t why the word was familiar. “I don’t understand—”
    Edwards lifted a finger. “Atropine is naturally occurring in belladonna, or deadly nightshade.” Now the tingling escalated to a buzz. Garrett could see Landauer struggling to place the reference, too.
    “Isn’t that some—ritual thing?” Landauer asked. “Is it satanic?”
    “Belladonna has been used throughout history in witchcraft rituals,” Edwards confirmed. “It’s a toxin and hallucinogen that reputedly induces the sensation of flying.”
    Unbidden, the Mexican mechanic’s voice whispered in Garrett’s head:
“Bruja.”
    The men stared down at the carvings in the girl’s torso.
Are we seriously standing here talking about witches?
Garrett thought.
    “More fucking rituals. Shit,” Landauer muttered. “You think he fed it to her?” All the men knew it was a rhetorical question—it was not the M.E.’s place to speculate, just report the facts.
    Garrett tried a more specific question. “Is belladonna hard to get?”
    “It’s a weed,” Edwards answered. “It grows domestically in this region. The berries are sold in those witch shops up in Salem. And it gets used as a recreational drug, mostly by teenagers, into the Goth scene.” Garrett could almost see the quotation marks around “Goth” as Edwards said the word.
    “What about the carvings?” Garrett asked.
    “Postmortem,” the M.E. said. “There are no hesitation marks. The characters are distinct and the proportions fairly regular, which might indicate that these are not improvised marks, rather, the person who did the cutting is very familiar with these symbols.” Edwards looked at the detectives. “And the knife is unusual. The regularity of the edges of both the stab wound to the chest and the carvings indicate the use of a double-edged blade with a needlelike point.” The M.E. paused. “A dagger.”
    Another jolt. Garrett looked at Landauer, who was startled enough to stop fiddling with the unlit cigarette he held nervously in his fingers.
    Edwards continued grimly. “And another thing. The lab identified the black substance on her shoulder.” He gave a nod to Garrett again. “You were right. It’s beeswax, with a common dye. Candle wax.”
    Black candles and belladonna. A dagger and sword.
    Laundauer exhaled. “Well, shit on a stick. If it’s not satanic, it’s a damn good fake.”

Chapter Five

    It was, as always, a relief to take the elevator up from the basement lab, to escape the whine of bone saw and queasy sight of exposed organs. The smell, of course, remained. Garrett and Landauer left the brick building on Albany Street and stopped at a liquor store for a lemon, squeezed juice into their nostrils, tearing up at the acid bite—but they were looking at a long night and the sting of lemon was better than the stink of death.
    The Homicide Unit of Schroeder Plaza, with its new computer terminals and desks grouped into work pods, always looked to Garrett more like a law firm than a police station, especially at night when there were fewer detectives to break the illusion of corporate order. Landauer immediately took his Camels and cell phone outside to set about tracking down Erin’s roommate and boyfriend. Garrett threw his jacket over a chair and jumped on his computer to fill out the VICAP form to check the national FBI database of violent crimes for similar murders. He was sure in his bones that this was not a onetime killing, and there were so many distinctive signature