At First Light(Dr. Evan Wilding #1)(75)

“Please,” Evan said, grateful for the normalcy, while Christina murmured, “You’re a peach, Simon.”

Simon blushed. “Just don’t tell my clients that. I prefer they think of me as a shrewd and ruthless businessman, not a purveyor of raspberry scones.”

While Simon poured, Christina went on. “Do you remember those wooden figures that appeared around Chicago last spring?”

A coolness brushed the length of Evan’s spine, the faintest touch of intuition. “I was in the Middle East then. I seem to have missed them.”

“I remember.” Simon put down the scone he’d just picked up. “Four of them, weren’t there? Curious things. Human-size stick people made out of branches. Some of them were rather sexually evocative, as I recall.”

“You recall correctly,” Christina said. “Large branches were used to suggest the male phallus. Knotholes indicative of female breasts. Very much like the Viking Age wooden figures that have been found in bogs.”

“They stayed around for a few days, didn’t they?” Simon said. “Then disappeared as mysteriously as they’d arrived.”

Christina reached for a scone. “I always thought it might have been some of my students having a bit of fun, since I often include a mention of the figures in my lectures. But no one ever came forward.”

Evan wrote in his journal. Could the killer have started with wooden sacrifices before turning to humans? Definitely an unusual form of escalation for a serial killer. Indeed, unique. Check w/Addie re: police have any knowledge? Any suspects? He hesitated a moment, then wrote, Any link to the figures left for Sten and me? Is it a message?

“Two more questions,” he said when he’d finished writing.

“Please.”

He was thinking of Officer Blakesley, a member of the Lesbian and Gay Police Association. The last person he knew who had been at his front door before Addie arrived.

“You mentioned ergi men as possessing magical powers,” he said. “So I assume the Vikings were favorable toward homosexuality.”

“Not at all. They viewed homosexuals with both disgust and horror and, in the words of one expert, considered them cowards without honor.”

“Why would a despised person be granted magical power?”

“It was a trade-off. The power that came with sorcery was apparently enough of a lure for these men to risk the ridicule of being labeled effeminate.”

“Magic often exists at the edges of society.”

She nodded. “A talent considered necessary for the good of society. But also despised.”

Thoughts of despised magic made Evan think of Rhinehart’s interest in occultism and its link to the Nazis. “The Nazis also loathed homosexuality.”

“Lovely people, weren’t they?” Christina asked with a sardonic edge in her voice. “They also went after the Roma and Sinti, the so-called Gypsy nuisance. Jehovah’s Witnesses. Those they considered subhuman like the Poles or Soviet prisoners of war. People who were disabled in some way. Those who couldn’t walk, for example.”

Evan thought of the bog bodies with their twisted spines and broken hips. “And people with dwarfism?”

“Yes. Although a family of dwarfs survived Auschwitz because Josef Mengele was fascinated by them—they were literally pulled from the gas chambers before they breathed their last. We’re appalled, but the Nazis saw themselves as moral crusaders intent on purging any deviation from their concept of the ideal. You can thank the occultist Walter Nauhaus for raising the ghastly specter of racism in post–World War One Germany—he of the Germanic Order of the Holy Grail and the Thule Society.”

“If I recall, the Thule Society is the group that sponsored the political organization that ultimately became Hitler’s party,” Evan said.

“And who counted Rudolf Hess among their number. They’re considered by many to be the occult force behind the Nazi Party.”

The three were silent for a time, save for the scratching of Evan’s pen across paper. After a few contemplative minutes, Simon said, “More tea?” to which Evan replied, “Thank you, no,” and Christina disappeared to use the bathroom. By the time she returned, Evan had finished writing and closed his journal.

Christina resumed her seat and picked up Tolkien’s translation of Beowulf from the table.

“Does your curiosity stem from a newfound interest in Beowulf?” she asked.

“In part. I took a course on Old English poetry as an undergraduate. I was fascinated, no doubt. But I missed the Beowulf unit. Plus, I was a teen with raging hormones. Which, translated, means I was frequently distracted by things having nothing to do with old parchment.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m no longer a teenager. Hopefully, my interests have matured along with the rest of me. Also, recent events have required me to take a deeper look.”

Christina’s look was penetrating. Even though Evan’s name hadn’t appeared in the news—at least, not yet—she might have put two and two together. But if so, she was tactful enough not to question him directly.

“Maybe I can help with that, too,” she said. “Anything in particular you’re looking for?”

Evan glanced at his watch. He had forty minutes before he needed to leave for class. Whatever Simon had to tell him about Rhinehart could wait for a conversation later in the day—he needed to know as much as possible about the saga of Beowulf to see if he could gather additional insights from the killer’s poems.