“And this.”
I pulled out my phone and hit play on the video I’d watched a hundred times since that morning.
5
Darby
I waited until Colson’s flashlight had faded into the distance to resume my search of the woods around the Voodoo Tree. I assumed he was on his way to track down Jagg, and I only hoped he’d tell him I was still searching the scene. Two points for the new kid.
I kept my flashlight up and my head on a swivel. Never could be too careful when it came to witchcraft. Being born and raised in Berry Springs, I knew that all too well.
The town was made up of three types of people. Your traditional cowboys—the majority of the population—who’s idea of dressing down was wearing their leather cowboy boots instead of their ostrich ones, their wool cowboy hats instead of their felts. Acknowledging anyone by anything other than sir or ma’am was unacceptable, and very likely to get you a swift slap in the jaw. Southern women were serious about their discipline. I still can’t look at a wooden spoon without a shudder. The folks that inhabited Berry Springs were the real deal. True southern cowboys and cowgirls, the kind that rode horses and shit. I rode a horse once on a class field trip. Fell face first into a mound of horse dung, fracturing my shoulder and busting out my two front teeth. I was called Dingleberry Darby until the day I graduated high school. I was also laughed out of anything that involved any kind of athleticism whatsoever.
Kicked ass at Dungeons and Dragons though.
Anyway, a smaller part of Berry Springs was made up of hippies, as the rednecks so lovingly called them. They were nature lovers who’d migrated to the town for its hiking trails, campsites, creeks, caves, and some of the best rivers for kayaking.
Thirdly, there was a small group of misfits—as they’d been labeled—who practiced Wiccan, claiming half the land as their own, their annual protests always falling on deaf ears. I remember first hearing about the Berry Springs witches on the playground at school, then, my grandpa would tell me the stories at bedtime after he’d fall off the wagon. Many moons ago, he always started out, a small group of witches escaped the Salem Witch Trials and fled to the mountains of Berry Springs. They lived deep in the shadows of the caves and cursed anyone who crossed their paths. Normally, that’s where the story would end, but on nights that he overindulged, he’d tell me the most tantalizing part of the tale, leaving me with visions of twitching noses and my hand between my legs. Aside from the curses, the witches used their beauty to seduce the men of the villages with one goal in mind—to avenge their dead sisters by reproducing and re-populating the world with more witches. The Berry Springs rednecks hated the story and tried, unsuccessfully, to bury it for decades. Bad blood for our small town, they’d say.
As I stared up the Voodoo Tree, I was afraid the age-old feud was about to fire up again.
Starting with Detective Max Jagger of the state police.
It took me a minute to figure out, but suddenly everything clicked into place. From the detective’s sudden obsession to prevent forest fires, to the reason he was wandering the woods with whiskey in his back pocket in the middle of the night—not that the latter was abnormal. The detective’s superhuman ability to consume alcohol while remaining coherent was also legendary in Berry Springs.
Under normal circumstances, Detective Max Jagger, known as Jagg, would have probably taken a piss on the shrine and sauntered away, but not this one. Why? Because Jagg believed this one had something to do with Police Lieutenant Jack Seagrave’s murder, three days earlier.
I’d stood behind Jagg at the funeral where he’d positioned himself just far enough away from the crowd to let everyone know he didn’t care to be addressed. As was Jagg, in every social setting he crossed. It was just him and I, in the background, although I assume he didn’t notice I was there. Not many people noticed I was anywhere. Pretty much the opposite of Jagg. Everyone took notice of that guy, no matter where he was, what he was doing, or who he was insulting.
He stood like a statue during the benediction, behind dark Ray-Bans and a faded grey suit. While everyone else hovered under shade trees, Jagg stood in the blazing sun, as if welcoming the punishment of the heat.
Tears were shed, prayers whispered, none of which by Jagg. And while everyone exchanged hugs and kisses after the casket was lowered, the detective still didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Nothing. The funeral goers passed him by, a few wary glances by the men, a few lingering ones from the women.
I didn’t receive a single glance, men or women.
As was my life.
I was always that kid that no one noticed. Always hiding in the shadows, ducking behind other kids, praying that the teacher wouldn’t call on me in class. The curse of being shy. I learned quickly that shy meant nerdy, meant no one wanted to hang out with you. And then the whole Dingleberry Darby thing kind of sealed the deal.
Confidence was something I never had. Ever. I doubted every decision I made, every move I made, every breath I took. I floated through life on fear, nothing else. I graduated high school with nothing—no friends, no money, no job, no idea what I wanted to be. Then, I heard that BSPD was hiring. I’d almost pissed myself when I hit the submit button, adding my name to the list of badasses who surely applied for the job. I passed each test by the hair of my chin—three to be exact—and was floored when I received the offer. To this day, I don’t know how or why I’d been chosen over someone else. Anyone else. Regardless, with a bottle of Pepto in the glovebox and Saint Christopher hanging from the rearview mirror, I’d shown up to my new job pretending to be ready to tackle whatever they could throw at me. I threw up twice that first week.
Jack Seagrave’s murder was the biggest thing to happen since I’d started.
I hadn’t worked the scene but heard about it. Everybody had. The Lieutenant had been shot six times in the chest in an alley downtown and left to rot in a puddle of his own blood. I heard Jagg lost it at the scene. Not crying, but going completely ape shit. A prequel of what was to come, no doubt about that.
Lieutenant Seagrave had spent over a decade in the Navy, like Jagg, before deciding to walk away from the military after knocking up his new bride during one of his leaves. Definitely unlike Jagg. Seagrave had accepted a job as a beat cop at BSPD and worked his way up to Lieutenant where he remained before someone shot him to death.
The man was two months from retirement.
The connection between Jagg and Seagrave was cloudy at best, as was most of Jagg’s life, but I got the impression the two men had been close.
Jagg was the type of detective to go to the ends of the earth to solve a case. Add in a personal connection and the devil himself couldn’t stop the man.
Forget about witches, Jagg was a true legend in Berry Springs. Someone talked about, whispered about. Wondered about, fantasized about. Hell, Tanya, our receptionist/dispatcher couldn’t even form a full sentence around the guy. I couldn’t imagine having that kind of power over the opposite sex. Jagg was said to have plenty of lovers, but was always single, if you catch my drift. Women dropped to their knees for him, and if I’m being honest, this phenomena was a bit of a mystery to me. Sure, the guy was the walking stereotype of a bad boy biker, covered in tattoos with dark eyes, and a six-foot-four frame that I’m not ashamed to admit that I’d kill for. But the guy seemed to live every day in a constant state of pissed. He was an asshole. Cynical. Assume the worst, there was no best. The guy never smiled, but maybe women liked that. I sure as hell wouldn’t know considering my last sexual experience had been with a jar of jelly and a banana peel. Two birds with one stone. Delicious.