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“It isn’t,” Nox countered, then crouched to get a closer look at Ma MacCrory.
Bixby ducked and took a knee so they were on the same level. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked under his breath. “You look a little pale. Paler,” he added with a wink.
“I’m great,” Nox insisted. “But I think you’ll find a high presence of the alkaloids Taxine A and Taxine B when you test her blood.”
Bixby nodded. “Those would essentially paralyze the heart,” he confirmed as he used his gloved thumb to tug on her lower lip, revealing deep purple gums. “That would be consistent with the hemorrhaging we see here. And it would be damn near undetectable unless we knew we were looking for Taxine,” he said, but Nox shrugged absently and rose.
“You would have found it when you tested the mug,” he predicted.
There was a sarcastic chuckle from Jones. “Eventually. After we tested every other dirty dish and piece of trash she touched.”
“Helps to have context,” Nelson said with a hard look at Nox. “I’m going out back to have a word with Sheriff Boyle. The kitchen furniture’s coming with us and I’m getting footprints and shoe impressions this time. Think it was Boyle’s suggestion that Ma not be charged as an accessory. Said he couldn’t see how she’d be involved,” he added, making Bixby laugh.
It was wry and heavy with disgust as he stood and looked around the dilapidated trailer. “How did he figure? As far as I can tell, she wasn’t involved in any cooking and cleaning like my ma was, but she had to be up to her neck in whatever her men were up to.”
“It does seem like it,” Nox concurred. “No television in the living room and no company but Colin and Brian for miles.”
“There’s an…altar of some kind in the bedroom. If that’s what you want to call it back there,” Bixby said as he tossed his chin over a shoulder.
“Oh?” Nox turned on his heel, suddenly curious. “Sounds like something I’d better take a look at.”
“I was hoping you would. We’ll go ahead and get her loaded up and into the van. Just about everything in here is going to need to be bagged and tagged, but it would help us out if you could tell us what’s trash and what’s evidentiary treasure back there,” the older man said, sounding irritated and overwhelmed.
Nox didn’t blame him as he held up a thumb and stepped over a dried puddle of what he assumed was dog urine. “I’m on it.”
“You’re the man, Nox,” Bixby declared, making Nox smile as he sidestepped through the living room.
The smile fell from his face when he peeked down the darkened hallway. It was just a few steps to the cracked bedroom door, but Nox felt an ugly, ominous tickle in his center and he was getting queasy. He slid Chip a nervous look. “You said it was clear back there?”
“Yeah. You can’t really get into the bathroom. Uncle Woody said to keep it shut because it smells like hell. The toilet’s full of shit and the plumbing’s busted. There’s just the one room back there on that side and it’s a mess like in here. Can’t get to nothin’ but the bed and the weird shrine in the closet.”
“Cool,” Nox said, taking a few hesitant steps and leaning to see around the door. The smell of urine, sweat, and general staleness had him covering his nose. He paused and held up a finger. “You seriously had no clue that they were like this?” he asked Chip in disbelief.
To Chip’s credit, he had enough shame to blush and his gaze dropped between them. “No, sir! I mean—” His nose scrunched as he floundered. “We were always told to stay away from this place because ol’ Colin and Brian liked to shoot at trespassers. Just chalked it up to them being a little bit rougher. This is the country, some folks are still kind of wild. We thought the MacCrorys were good, God-fearing people, though. I went to Sunday school with Brian when we were kids.”
“They probably went so you’d believe they were good, God-fearing people and leave them alone.”
The MacCrorys couldn’t have existed as a practicing coven for so many generations if they had thumbed their noses at the community’s traditions. Not with New Castle being as small and isolated as it was. They would have been dealt with if the local church congregation had discovered there were actual witches in their midst. It was also the Tuatha Dé’s MO to infiltrate their local church and government in order to protect themselves.
The MacCrorys may have gotten that part right, but Nox was sickened by their practice before he even laid eyes on the altar, before he had even passed over the room’s threshold. He used the toe of his combat boot to ease the bedroom door open, bracing himself for the stench as he took a large step into the room. As Chip had said, the bed was practically buried and Nox felt claustrophobic in the cramped space.
Bins, boxes, overstuffed garbage bags of who knew what, and various pieces of small furniture had been packed into every available space around the bed. Even the mattress was covered in piles of dirty, rumpled clothes and sour-smelling pillows and bedding, leaving just enough room for one person to sleep.
He didn’t want to touch the switch on the wall so Nox turned on his phone’s flashlight, aiming it at the closet to his left. “Gods!” he spat and jumped when he saw the dripping red triskelion and horns staring back at him. The design mimicked the symbol on the barn and had been spray painted on the closet’s back wall over a massive cast-iron cauldron, which was embedded in a great glob of melted candles. Hundreds of singed wicks and formations of dripped wax covered the surface of an old dresser and climbed up the side of the cauldron.
Nox smelled something rotting and heard buzzing as he tiptoed closer on shaking legs. He aimed the light into the pot, covering his mouth and ducking as flies pelted his face and hands. A photo of a child’s face smiled back at him, the edges curled and charred and Nox became dizzy, his stomach rolling as he recognized the picture from the mantle in his bedroom. It had been taken by his father at Rocks State Park at the King and Queen Seat. Nox had hiked all the way without being carried for the first time and he could hear Clancy cheering as his father took the photo.
“No…” Nox shook his head and turned to run to find Nelson, then paused when he spotted his mother’s locket. It had been pried open and was covered in soot and burnt blood and tissue, but Nox recognized his family’s crest and the embedded moonstone. “No!” Nox roared, reaching for the cauldron.
“Wait!” Bixby shouted as he lifted Nox, pulling him back as Nelson crashed into the room after him.
“No! It’s mine!” Nox kicked and flailed, straining for the closet. “That’s me! That’s mine!” He cried in agony as he recalled the single curl of his baby hair that had been stored in the locket. “That’s mine!”
“Shhhh!” Bixby had Nox wrapped in a bear hug and was rocking him. “We’ll get it back to you after it’s been checked out.”
Nelson’s hand was extended, holding Nox at bay as he leaned through the closet door for a closer look at the contents. “That’s Nox,” he confirmed, biting back a curse. “I recognize the picture and the necklace. They were in his room.”
“Fuck,” Bixby sighed, his arms going slack around Nox. “Get him out of here. Take him home and let me worry about this.”
