At First Light(Dr. Evan Wilding #1)(36)

Criver swiveled his chair to look at Evan. “And you? What do you think of this idea?”

Evan unlaced his fingers and stretched. “I agree with Mr. Rhinehart that it’s possible we’re looking at ritualized hate crimes.”

Rhinehart’s look was cutting. “Possible?”

Evan tilted back in his chair. “Putting aside the fact that the vast majority of the ásatrú are peaceful and productive members of society who are no more or less racist than the rest of us, I see nothing in the writing left by the killer to suggest neo-Nazism.”

A flush rose in Rhinehart’s face. He crossed his arms. “You’re wrong. As a single example, there are forty sigel runes in the lines we have from Talfour.”

Patrick spun his chair toward Evan. “What’s that mean? What’s a sigel rune?”

Evan leaned forward again and rested his forearms on the table. “The sigel rune is the sixteenth letter in some versions of the runic alphabet. It’s used to represent the s sound. The sigels are sometimes called bolt runes because of their resemblance to bolts of lightning. The Nazis used two sigel runes to represent the Nazi SS, the Schutzstaffel. But in the case of the runic writing left with Talfour, there’s only one instance in which two sigel runes appear next to each other.”

Rhinehart’s flush deepened. But he shook his head as if at a particularly disappointing student. “The sigel runes aside, Mr. Wilding, you might have noticed we have a symbol for the Nazi party right smack in the middle of the lines left next to Talfour’s body.”

A stirring in the room. Addie frowned. Evan hadn’t mentioned this.

“It’s Dr. Wilding,” Evan corrected. “And you’re referring to the sun cross.”

“Call it what you will,” Rhinehart said. “It’s a version of the swastika. It’s the symbol used by neo-Nazi organizations in America.”

“It’s also known as the Cross of Odin and—”

“Yet another reference to Vikings.”

“—and a prehistoric solar symbol,” Evan persisted. His look of dissatisfaction deepened to a frown. “Which the killer placed next to a body he posed to resemble prehistoric Iron Age burials.”

Rhinehart waved a dismissive hand. “Everyone knows the Cross of Odin is a symbol of Nazism. It’s the most logical explanation for what we’re dealing with.”

Evan shook his head. “It’s one of the possible explanations for what we’re dealing with. We must be aware that every sign or symbol left at a crime scene can carry a number of meanings. To our killer, this symbol could represent a Nazi emblem, yes. But it could equally stand for the sun cross, which is linked to pre-Viking burials. It’s dangerous to draw conclusions too quickly and without considering all the signs present.”

Rhinehart rapped his knuckles on the whiteboard in a steady metronome. “May I remind you, members of the Aryan Brotherhood identify as ásatrú.”

“Not only them,” Billings piped up. “There are several neo-Nazi groups who reject Christianity and claim to be pagan. Groups like O9A and the RapeWaffen.”

Addie had heard about both groups during a domestic terrorism class. She tried to pull up what the instructor had told them. “Don’t members of O9A practice Satanism?”

“That’s why they’re of interest here,” Billings said.

“Then how,” Evan said, “does accusing our killer of being ásatrú explain why our victims were ritualistically murdered and posed in exactly the same fashion as the ancient bog bodies?”

Rhinehart’s tapping knuckles stilled. Expressions rippled across his face—confusion, anger, even alarm. “Bog bodies?”

“I feel like I missed the first half of the lecture,” Patrick mumbled.

Evan smiled apologetically at the detective. “I’m probably making this needlessly complicated. And forgive me, Mr. Rhinehart. Bog bodies would naturally fall outside your area of expertise. I’m referring to the Iron Age bodies found mummified in peat bogs in Northern European countries. These bodies were placed in the swamps centuries before the Viking Age.” Evan reached down to his satchel, removed two photographs, and handed them to Addie to pass around. “Here are a couple examples. The first picture shows Tollund Man, a two-thousand-year-old bog body found in Denmark in 1950. His death was relatively peaceful—he was merely hanged. But the second picture is that of Lindow Man. He suffered multiple deaths, exactly like our two victims. His killers beat him around the head, strangled him with a rope of sinew, and cut his throat.”

“Holy crap, Batman,” Wao said as Addie handed the pictures to him. “These guys look like Talfour.”

“That’s right,” Evan said. “Thus, we must consider the fact that while a noose—when placed around the neck of a Black man—has a horrible and very specific meaning in twenty-first-century America, it has an entirely different connotation when looked at in context with a bog body. In a bog burial, a noose is not indicative of a racially motivated hate crime.”

Patrick used a thick forefinger to scratch around his ear. “So the killer makes his victims into bog bodies. But that has nothing to do with Vikings?”

“And yet we have the runes,” Evan said. “It’s hard to know what message the killer is trying to send.”