The Diviners (The Diviners 1)

Evie continued. “ ‘Their business is anything spooky, and anything spooky is good for business. On a recent Friday, this reporter witnessed a mob scene parked outside the doors of the old Cornelius T. Rathbone mansion near Central Park. That’s because the curator of the museum, Professor William Fitzgerald’—oh, Unc! That’s you!” Evie exclaimed. “ ‘… is helping the New York boys in blue figure out what makes this diabolical killer tick in the hope of finding him before he strikes again. He’s aided in his work by his niece, Miss Evie O’Neill, late of Zenith, Ohio, a comely seventeen-year-old Sheba who knows her onions about everything from witches’ coifs to the bones of Chinese conjurers. But when this reporter tried to get the goods on the hunt for a killer, the dame played coy. “I’m afraid I can’t comment on that,” she said and batted those baby blues. Fellas, start lining up. There’s more than one killer in this town.’ ”

Evie tried to keep the grin from her face. T. S. Woodhouse had come through after all.

“Evangeline, did you speak to this Woodhouse fellow?” Will demanded.

Evie’s eyes went wide. “Unc, I had no idea he was a reporter! He was a paying customer. I gave him the tour. When he started asking questions, I stonewalled him. He played me for a chump, that cad!”

“You have to be more careful. Develop a New Yorker’s skin.” Will tapped a second cigarette against the table, packing down the tobacco before lighting it. “Whatever happened to objective, truthful reporting?”

“Haven’t you heard? It doesn’t sell papers,” Jericho said.

“You’re so right, Unc. That Woodhouse is a rat. But he did mention the museum, at least,” Evie said. “Do you know what this means?”

Will blew twin streams of smoke from his nostrils. “Trouble,” he said.

The phone rang, startling them all. Will took the call, his expression hardening. “We’ll meet you there.”

“What is it?” Evie asked.

“The Pentacle Killer has struck again.”

THE BOGEYMAN

Will and Evie were met at the front door of the Grand Masonic Lodge by a small man with a thin mustache whose round black spectacles magnified his eyes into two large, blinking blue orbs that made Evie think of an owl.

“This way,” the man said nervously. “The police are already here, of course.” He led them through a wood-paneled hallway to a plain door. A brass plaque designated it the Gothic Room. The small man opened the door into a stuffy antechamber before opening a second door into a large room like a church’s sanctuary. The smell hit Evie right away—a terrible, cloying odor of smoke and cooked flesh that sat at the back of her throat.

Evie’s eyes focused first on the grandeur of the room: the high, wood-beamed ceilings and large chandeliers. At one end was a pipe organ; at the other was the letter G placed inside a sun. In the center of the room, a phalanx of cops and a coroner surrounded a small altar. They moved aside and Evie gasped. On the altar was the badly burned body of the Pentacle Killer’s latest victim.

“One of our Brotherhood found the body this morning around ten o’clock,” the blinking man said. He stumbled over the word body and his mustache crinkled in distaste. “The Most Worshipful Grand Master has been notified by cable. He is away with his family.”

“The deceased is Brother Eugene Meriwether—” Malloy said.

“He is a Junior Warden,” the owlish man interrupted.

“Was,” Malloy said, letting the little man know just who was in charge here. “He was working late in the office last night. Left around eight to have dinner with a coupla Masons at a restaurant over on Eighth Ave. They said good-bye at about ten or so, and Mr. Meriwether came back here alone. The killer took the feet this time.”

Evie’s eyes reflexively glanced at the rounded nubs of the man’s legs, and she felt a wave of light-headedness roll over her. She grabbed the edge of a chair to steady herself and shut her eyes, but the afterimage remained.

“He left the victim with the same pentacle brand. It’s the only part of his body not burned.” He pointed to a spared circle of flesh on the man’s torso.

“May the Great Architect watch over us all,” the owlish man said solemnly.

“Doors were locked from the inside.” Malloy pinched the bridge of his nose. He squinted at the owlish man. “You got anyone in the Brotherhood who’s got a score to settle? Or maybe somebody who’s a little over the edge?”

“Certainly not.” The man’s giant eyes did not blink behind his spectacles. “George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Jacob Astor, Henry Ford, Harry Houdini, Francis Bellamy—the author of the Pledge of Allegiance, the very pledge, sir!—these are our Brothers, great men all. This country could not have been founded, nor would it continue to flourish, without the Masonic influence.”

The man and Detective Malloy began to argue, their voices rising in the defiled room.

“We are all a long way from home and weary,” Will said at last.

The owlish man stopped his indignant lecture and smiled. “I didn’t know you were a fellow traveler, sir. Forgive me, Mr…. ?” He moved in for a handshake, which Will avoided, keeping his focus on the body.

“Did the deceased have any enemies?”

“Mr. Meriwether? No. He was highly regarded.”

“Well, somebody didn’t like him,” Malloy grumbled.