Bad Moon Rising

Hondo told him and he wrote it down. “I’ll check it later. Now, may I see your phone?”

Hondo opened it and punched in his code, then handed it to the officer. “Mr. Berra’s text is here, but unopened. You didn’t check your phone last night?”

Hondo said, “I had it on vibrate during the shoot, and didn’t bother to check when we finished work.”

He nodded, “Can you tell me what it means, this text?” He showed it to Hondo, and I peeked over my friend’s shoulder.

no moonshok sun

Hondo said, “I have no idea.”

He nodded. “We may need to talk with you again. The homicide detectives I mean.”

“No problem. I can come to the station.”

I said, “I can come, too. I love to talk.”

The sergeant gave me a pained look. “It won’t be us. This is a County case, we’re assisting on this piece of information.” He said to Hondo, “If you’ll give us permission to check your home, I think that’ll be enough.”

Hondo handed the sergeant his keys and pointed to two of them, “These open the safes.”

I said to Hondo as the sergeant left, “It’s county, so we can call Vick and get more information.”

“As soon as we can get free,” he said. I nodded.

They didn’t take long, maybe twenty minutes. The sergeant gave Hondo his phone and the keys, “Thanks for your cooperation. And I’m sorry about your friend.”

I said, “Where did they find him?”

“A citizen reported the body out by the Santa Susanna State Historic Park.”

I felt a prickly thread of unease crawl up my spine. “Do you know exactly where?”

He said, “Wait a second.” He went to his sedan, worked the laptop for a bit, then returned. “They discovered Mr. Berra’s body just beyond the park boundary.”

I said, “At the old Spahn Ranch?”

“You know about that place?”

“We do.”

“Ah,” he nodded. “This information hasn’t been released yet. The suspects tied Mr. Berra’s hands and feet before killing him. We think they accosted him at a different location before transporting him to the murder site. The assailants stabbed him over sixty times. They also wrote a message on a large boulder by his head, like a tombstone, and they wrote it in Mr. Berra’s blood.”

“What was the message?” Hondo asked.

The sergeant returned to his laptop, punched the keys and motioned us over to look. An image appeared of the boulder. The four crimson words glistened as if moist:

Rise

Revolution

Wrath

Reckoning.

“Thanks, sergeant.”

They left, and Hondo called Vick, who said he would get updated on the case and meet us at our office in an hour. We drove in silence to the office, with both of us thinking about Wilson.