At First Light(Dr. Evan Wilding #1)(19)

“Hmm.” Evan picked up R. J. M. Cragg’s small blue book and flipped through it. Frowned. “I’d prefer this work be done by an actual runologist rather than by us rank amateurs. I don’t suppose you know any?”

Diana gave up scowling at the board, thought for a moment, then snapped her fingers. She picked up a piece of chalk and wrote as she spoke. “Ralph Rhinehart.”

“Who?” he asked even as his mind automatically categorized the name—an Americanized version of the German Reinhardt, which originally meant clever in counsel.

Diana said, “The guy with the podcast on mystical symbols and alphabets.”

Evan set aside the Cragg book and picked up Barnes’s Runes: A Handbook. “Never heard of him.”

“That’s because you live in a medieval bubble. Rhinehart was even on Jimmy Kimmel Live! I don’t think he’s a scholar, per se. Certainly not a PhD. But he seems to know his alphabets.”

“Ah.” A picture formed in Evan’s mind of a tall man with a soft middle, a lumpy nose, and a head of tangled gray hair that resembled nothing so much as the business end of a mop. “The guy with the hair.”

“Ha! You do watch television. Just as I suspected.”

“Not at all. One of my students mentioned him in class. Something to do with the dark arts, I think. Rites performed in ancient temples and modern-day cornfields.”

Diana had grabbed her phone, and now she showed the screen to Evan. “This is Rhinehart’s website. His specialty is black magic. Not as a practitioner, he says, but as a scholar. He did some graduate work at Duke back in the day. Cultural anthropology.”

Evan thumbed through the website as he considered the brutalized body of James Talfour. “Maybe a scholar of the dark arts is exactly what we need.”

But something niggled at the back of his mind. Ralph Rhinehart. Had he been involved in a scandal of some kind? A forgery, maybe. And . . . a death?

“The plot thickens,” Diana said. “Runes and ritual and magic. Perfect.”

“It remains to be seen whether our killer is a serious runologist or a dabbler in sorcery. Either way, perhaps Rhinehart can be of help, as long as Addie and her partner agree. The posing of the body is certainly ritualistic.”

“Thus we return to the bog bodies.” She began pacing the floor. “Regardless of what the runes do or don’t say, placing them with a bog body makes no sense. At least, not historically. Bog bodies are from the Iron Age. The Vikings came centuries later, taking center stage from 774 AD until the Norman Conquest in 1066.”

He gave her an admiring look.

She kept walking. “And while Vikings often lived near bogs and no doubt burned peat on their hearths, they sent their dead into the afterlife by either burying the body or burning it on a pyre. Not shoving it into a bog.”

“There are numerous variations on these themes, but yes.”

She stopped. “So what gives here?”

He felt the familiar buzz that came whenever he attempted to break open a puzzle. He looked at the lines written on the chalkboard. Listen up!

Now that, all by itself, was interesting.

He went to the Old English and medieval literature section of the bookcase where Diana had pulled the rune books. He ran a finger along the spines, scanning the titles. But the books he wanted were missing. He must have taken them home.

He turned back to Diana. “Maybe the killer is selecting his favorite elements of the past without regard to their placement in time. Runes because they’re mysterious. And bogs because they were once considered hallowed places. Or dark and secret places. Liminal areas that were neither land nor water.”

“So you don’t have a theory?”

“Only the barest glimmer of one.” Evan returned to the table and reached absentmindedly for the brandy. “For the moment, it’s a mystery.”

Diana deftly interceded, plucking the bottle away.

Evan flailed, tried to grab it. “I’m still half-frozen, you know. Wandering far and wide through weather not fit for man or beast. My spirits are naturally flagging. And, if you’ll recall, the Latin word for alcohol is spiritus. Ergo, a man’s need for fortified drink.”

But she only laughed. “Poor thing. I’ll have you know you weren’t the only one working hard before the crack of dawn. I’ll make us some tea. That will lift your spiritus. And back to the business at hand—maybe the killer doesn’t know much about history. Or doesn’t care. Or it could be he or she is just sloppy.”

Evan frowned at the bookcase. Listen up!

While she plugged in the electric kettle and hunted for clean cups, he picked up his sketch of the crime scene and held it next to the photograph of Lindow Man. “I don’t think this killer is sloppy about anything. I think he knows exactly what he’s doing.”

“Or she.” Diana rattled the lid on the sugar bowl. “Maybe she knows exactly what she’s doing.”

Evan looked up at Diana as she brought over the tea. His eyes focused on the bulging biceps of her right arm. “Is that a new tattoo?”

She deftly nudged aside a stack of books, set down the two mugs, and flexed her arm. “It’s a hatchet.” She kept flexing, and the ax leapt up and down. “I’ve been practicing down at Ragnar?k Axes. There’s a tournament coming up.”