Fixed in Fear Read Free Page A

immediately. Rita had seven years’ experience as a patrol officer and four as lieutenant before the mayor tapped her to replace the retiring chief six years ago. In all that time with Enumclaw’s finest, she’d never known an officer to request an immediate meeting with any superior. Especially on a Sunday morning. When the two men finished their debriefing she understood their urgency.
    “We’ve got five bodies,” she said.
    “You should have smelled it, Chief.” The younger officer, Dalton Rogers, crunched his face. “It was hot enough in that sweat lodge to have done ’em in even without somebody killing ’em. At first I figure the fire just got too hot and burned ’em all. But then I took a closer look at the bodies. Throats slashed, deep wounds to arms and legs, and this one black guy was bleeding from the eyeballs.”
    “It was a mess, all right.” Tugger Mahoney, Rogers’s partner and twenty years his senior, seemed equally rattled, despite his best efforts to look calm and controlled. “Add to that the caterwauling of the gal who phoned it in.” He referred to his notes. “Calls herself ‘Blue Dancer,’ but she was Cindy Easton back when she went to high school with my son. She gave us the ID on one of the victims. Sam Adelsburg. Blue says he owns the operation running the sweat lodge. The twenty acres it sits on, too. Along with a pretty nice lodge Blue says was for paying guests seeking spiritual growth and something she called ‘central cleansing.’ ”
    “I know him. From Rotary,” Chief Willers said. “Prefers the name Tall Oak. Always struck me as a nice enough guy.”
    “The scene’s sealed off. Blue gave us a list of possibles for the other dead folks, too.” The younger officer handed a list of names to his chief. “That’s her list of guests who signed up for the sweat lodge. None of them have returned.”
    Willers scanned the list. No names struck her as local. “There’s seven names on this list.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” the two patrolmen responded in unison.
    “Blue Dancer says all seven got on the shuttle that took them to the site,” the elder officer said.
    Chief Willers reached for the phone. “Grab the dog and search the property. Either you come back with two more bodies or we just got our first inkling about how this thing went down.”
    She waited until they left her office to punch the familiar number. She announced herself and listened to recorded road conditions while her call was transferred. She knew the sheriff would take her call regardless of what he had going on.
    “Hey, Rita.” King County sheriff Don Barton had a smile in his voice. “How are things in the rolling rural countryside?”
    “I’m gonna need some muscle, Donnie. I just got dumped something that’s way bigger than my overtime budget can handle.”

Chapter 4
    “You got a visitor.” Daphne’s nasal announcement pulled Mort away from his monthly budget report. “I walked him up myself.”
    Mort told her he could see that and did a double take when L. Jackson Clark, Ph.D., stepped into his office. He thanked Daphne and motioned his friend toward a battered leather chair. “This is what, Larry? The second or third time you’ve been to the station since I’ve known you? Did hell choose this particular Monday to freeze over?”
    The stately black man with graying curls displayed none of his customary humor when he raised sad brown eyes toward his friend. Mort tossed his budget aside and shifted his tone to reflect the concern he felt. “What’s going on?” he asked.
    Larry’s mouth opened and closed several times. He tapped his large hand on his knee and stared into nothing.
    “Are you okay?” Mort leaned forward. “You just come back from the doctor or something?”
    The internationally renowned scholar, a man accustomed to lengthy discussions on any number of arcane topics with the world’s greatest minds, remained silent. Mort got up and closed his office door. He grabbed