Axis and Allies

Monday Late Evening

Chapter 9

"You sure you don't want me to take my own car?" I asked as Murphy walked us toward her unmarked Ford Taurus police car. The car was relatively new looking, which to me meant it carried all the latest gadgets and doohickeys available. Of course these were just begging to malfunction in the presence of a wizard. Murphy seemed to understand my hesitation and smiled to dismiss my concerns and waved me into the car.

"The car is brand new and still under warranty." She laughed. "So any damage you do to it, the dealer will have to fix. It won't cost the city of Chicago a dime."

"I'm glad you understand." I said getting in and putting on my seatbelt as she started the car.

"Oh I do not assume that I understand." She said. "But I do have enough history with Harry to expect such odd things as the price of doing business. I gave him a ride home in my Saturn once and he burned out my entire stereo system during a ten minute ride. Not just the radio mind you but all six connected speakers throughout the car as well. The shop said the only time they had ever seen such a thing was a car that had crashed into an electric pole. They were certain I had been hit by lighting. In fact that is what the even told the insurance company. Of course without a strike point the insurance company was not buying it."

The smile seemed more compelled at the end than at the beginning of her story. "That still cost me three hundred and fifty dollars to get fixed and only then because as a cop I had first dibs to buying fenced merchandise the insurance companies had replaced." She explained. "So no I certainly do not understand how you live like an anti-transformer, but I am smart enough to understand the consequences." With that we pulled off into traffic heading back I noted toward the north side of Chicago again.

I figured I would wait for Karrin to start talking as she drove rather than try and distract her while she was speeding through the city. We did not have lights and sirens on, yet Murphy drove like we did. And the fact that we blew through two speed traps without either officer attempting to stop us told me they recognized the car as a police cruiser so did not waste time on it. I'll have to ask Harry if there is some spell to make the Blue Beetle look like a Ford Taurus. Not that the Blue Beetle was capable of speeding on any road other than through a marked school zone, but hey you never know when looking like a police car might come in handy.

"I ran Ishmael Rothstein through the city law enforcement database." Murphy began reminding me that I had suggested she do this and the same with Heinrich Hummel as well. "He came up clean having lived in his same house now for just under sixty years."

"Oh well you tried." I said disappointed at the dead end.

"No I mean he came up too clean." She clarified. "He had no speeding tickets, never a witness to a crime, not even a jaywalking complaint against him." She said.

"That just means he is a law abiding citizen, right?" I asked not following her police logic.

"No, it means someone has erased his files to keep him off the books." Murphy said. "No one can be this clean in city records after almost sixty years of living here. In that time you have filed a noise complaint, had your car scratched, something." She continued on. "And every one of those results in a police report and a little note goes into your file that tells us are you a decent citizen, one of those who thinks it's fun to call the police for every little thing, or someone likely to be packing a weapon and may use it if we happen to stop you on your drive home one night."

Okay that made sense. The police would certainly want to keep track of those who had been less than polite with them in the normal course of duty so as to know what to expect next time. "Okay, so his file was erased, that still does not give us anything to go on." I reasoned. "Lack of evidence does not tell you what was erased, does it?"

"True, it just said someone had an interest in keeping Rabbi Ishmael Rothstein out of the public eye. It also almost certainly had to be a cop since we are the ones with access to this database. This time instead of adding a note, whoever erased everything from the file." She explained. "So figuring it was a cop, and perhaps a sloppy one, I logged into the city payroll accounts, something I had access to because of a case I had worked on as a lieutenant and they had never purged mu access from their files, and checked what I could of his background that way. Guess what this provided?" She asked me like a game of twenty questions.

I was really tempted to say either 'nothing' or 'he was once the mayor of Chicago' but decided to hold back my sarcasm. Maybe mom is right. Maybe some of Harry's grumpiness is rubbing off on me. "I have no idea Murph." I said politely just hoping she would explain her points in a way that I could understand better than my current level of confusion.

"It seems our Rabbi Ishmael Rothstein was employed as an assistant curator at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry." She said like this was supposed to mean a lot to me. I guess I have some catching up to do in certain private investigator skills.

When I did not immediately make the connection she filled in the details. "Jonathan Rothstein worked at the same museum, remember?" She clarified reminding me that I did know that he had worked at one of the Chicago museums according to Ms. Brown's story because that is where the Eric's friends had singled him out. I did not remember if she had stated it was this exact museum but obviously Murphy had confirmed it herself so I had no reason to doubt this. Still there could be lots of reasons for this coincidence.

"So maybe his grandfather got him the job." I reasoned trying not to make more out of something than there was.

"Oh he certainly did." Murphy answered. "In fact the grandson was employed in the exact same position that his grandfather had worked for his entire career."

"And this is odd because…"

"Molly no one works the same job for nearly forty years without getting promoted or moving to another section or something." She explained. "City government workers especially are protected by powerful trade unions who make sure under the rules of longevity those employed the longest are moved up before they retire unless they get busted like I did in order to ensure better retirements for their members. Hell it happens with us cops. There is no way Rabbi Rothstein could have stayed in that job for all those years under normal conditions. His years would have seen him retiring as the head curator at least. I checked into it. That would have netted him almost double his current retirement pay for the rest of his life. Now why would anyone want to give up all that money?" She asked.

"They do not want the responsibility?" I offered.

"Maybe." She said. "Or maybe in this case the job they have is too important to give away to just anyone. Maybe you hold it until your grandson can take over." She said.

"What the heck could be so important at a museum dedicated to machines and stuff?" I asked.

"I have no idea." Murphy answered. "But I plan to stop by Mr. Rothstein's home tomorrow and ask him that very question."

I nodded to Murphy and made a mental note. I was free in the afternoon tomorrow so I decided maybe I should check out the museum itself and see if I could figure it out from that angle. Murphy would not want me questioning Mr. Rothstein or even calling him again as this might interfere in her investigation, but she could hardly complain if I took a look around a very public museum. I was thankfully that most of the exhibits would be dedicated to old, rather than modern, technology so I hopefully would not do too much wizard type damage there.

"Are you familiar with the name Simon Wiesenthal?" She asked pulling me back from my own mulling and planning of future events to the here and now. The name was one I was familiar with, probably one I heard in school, but no associations immediately jumped to mind of who he was or what he may have done.

"Sounds familiar." Was all I said.

"Well like your friend Rabbi Rothstein, Wiesenthal was also a Holocaust survivor." She said making something click in the back of my head. "Before the war, World War II that is, Mr. Wiesenthal may have been an engineer or an architect, or perhaps both since there is a lot of conflicting data about his early life. The fact that there is such confliction of so public a person smells similar to the missing data from your friend Ishmael."

"But what does this man have to do with Mr. Rothstein, except that they were both Holocaust survivors?"

"I will get to that but I need to tell you about a few more odd details and then I need to ask a favor of you." I merely nodded so that she would proceed to her story.

"Well, right after I got done checking out the city records on our good Rabbi Ishmael my phone starts ringing. Not my work phone on my desk mind you, but instead my personal cell phone with its unlisted number that I carry in my pocket." She continued.

"The number came up blocked even though I have caller ID." She said. "This has happened before with wrong numbers so I answered it with a simple 'Hello?' figuring someone had dialed wrong."

"The voice on the other end was as cool, calm, and calculating as they come." Karrin continued. "He said only this: 'Sergeant Murphy if you ever want to have another chance at those lieutenant's bars again you will stop looking into Ishmael Rothstein immediately! Close down your investigation and go look into that murdered cheerleader out in Hyde Park. That is more in your line of work sergeant.'"

"I asked 'Who is this' but all I got was a sigh and sound of the phone being disconnected." She relayed. "It was a bit disconcerting also because the cheerleader case had only landed on my desk four hours earlier. Whoever called me sure knew a lot about me."

"Who could possibly know you were looking up Rabbi Rothstein in the computer?" I asked. "Could it be the cop who had erased all the files in your database?"

"Yeah I wondered that too and after a while I have to say I do not think so. The cops who might know what is on my desk are nowhere near as chilling calculating as the voice on the phone had been."

"From your explanation I have this feeling you did not take the caller's advice?"

Murphy looked at me. "Molly if you think I will let some heavy breathing guy with too much time on his hands try to intimidate me from solving a case I have been assigned they you do not know me very well." I had seen this same look Murphy was sporting, a dare to the world, on Harry's face, though he was not one for making this kind of speech he just did what had to get done. It was no wonder why two strong personalities like Karrin and Harry could respect and even like each other. I guess it was either they shared mutual respect or they would kill one another one day.

"So I take it you did something then." I said prompting her to continue with her story.

"I did indeed." She answered. "I called a guy I know over at the FBI and asked him to run Rabbi Ishmael Rothstein through their computers. The feds have a completely different database on people of interest, and I figured if someone was calling me to say stay away, then the feds would likely know why this was important."

"I thought Harry said you don't like the feds much."

"I don't." Karrin replied. "They usually just barge in and take over a case, but I had a date with one of their special agents who is not so bad." She said in a sister conspiratorial way. "Actually, the guy is not bad, the date was horrible. He took me shooting and then got upset when I beat him in three out of three matches with both pistol and shotgun." She laughed. "Molly, if I can pass along any advice on guys it is that sometime you need to let them win to stroke their egos. I won the bet, but suddenly dinner afterwards went from a nice, expensive Italian restaurant he had been talking up all week to a little Scottish sounding place."

"That doesn't sound so bad. It is still a foreign restaurant right?" I prefer Italian too but hey if the date was driving.

"Yeah the Scottish place I am referring to is McDonalds."

I looked at her and tried hard not to laugh, but she smiled and I let out a roar. "Well that certainly goes a long way toward making me not mind Harry not allowing me to date." I said still laughing.

"What?" She asked surprised. "Why would he demands that you do not date? Is it just because he doesn't or does he have some issue with women in general?"

Okay this was a little awkward. It's not like I ever had a big sister to talk to like this, and no way I was ever going to even broach the subject with my mother. I had talked somewhat to my girlfriends but I really did not have a whole lot of them that I trusted enough to talk about dating in any serious sense. But Karrin's cop's eyes staring into me said I was not going to get away without some sort of explanation.

"You know how we wizards have this detrimental effect on electronic gizmos?" I asked using the automatic window to let some air into the car. Of course it died halfway down, making my point for me to Murphy, but not good in the greater picture sense considering the weather forecast had called for rain tonight.

"Yeah, I uh sort of know about that." She said shaking her head. I could have sworn she mumbled something about thank God for the warranty. I mumbled sorry in return but she just waved her hand to tell me to get on with my story.

"Well Harry says that while I am in my apprenticeship it is really a bad time for me to date. Part of it has to do with losing focus and concentration which I am learning is really important in casting spells correctly but that is not all of it." I tried to explain. "You have seen that Harry's magic is more physical based; casting fire, breaking things, etc. So when he gets into a fight or other physically stressing environment the power starts to well up in him. Of course he has years of experience controlling it so the magic still does what he commands, well for the most part at least." There were a few odd damage marks in our training area that I could not account for and he would not discuss though he looked a little sheepish.

"See my magic is more senses based therefore things that affect the senses or emotions tends to work me up in the same way." I explained trying not to say too much because I felt I was right on the edge of blushing and that she, being a girl, would understand without having to be graphic. "And I do not have the same level of control over the magic yet to make this safe."

"Really?" Karrin asked surprised. "You mean you could be in a hot make out session in the back of the car or sneaking a quickie in your parent's room and you might fry your partner?" Okay so much for the whole girl's can share unspoken emotions thing. I guess I really should have considered that Karrin works mostly around guys so she probably had picked up a few of their bad habits.

That was it, I could feel the burning that said the blush was in full bloom on my cheeks. How the hell did we get from discussing old men, which seems to have become the bane of my existence lately, to my sex life, or rather my lack of a sex life! "Yeah it is supposed to be something like that I guess." I said trying to deflect.

"You guess?" She asked not looking at me as she made a left turn. "You mean you never…"

"Can we just get back to the Wiesenthal story you were telling me about?" I said in obvious embarrassment without looking at her. She glanced my way then went back to focusing on her driving.

"Oh." She said putting the pieces together and suddenly remembering she was a woman and not a hairy knuckled guy. "Okay, anyway even though our date did not go so well, nothing says don't expect me to call you tomorrow better than a Big Mac meal, we still work together professionally when we have to." Karrin continued as the burning in my cheeks slowly subsided. "I went down to the diner where you had reached me earlier and used their phone to call my friend and I gave him the name. I had a quick piece of pie and before I was done he called me back."

"Murphy what the hell have you gotten involved in?" He whispered into the phone as if afraid he was going to be overheard by others in his office. For all I know that was a real threat so I did not ask him to speak up only listened as carefully as I could.

"So you got something?" I asked.

"Not in criminal." He replied. "Your boy is as clean as they come, too clean if you get my meaning."

"Yeah that is what I saw in the local files too." I told him.

"For the hell of it I checked the law enforcement eyes only espionage files and your friend's name is in there along with a host of interesting characters." He said and then passed along the jackpot. "I sent you a copy of that file to your e-mail, but do me a favor and delete it after you read it." He asked and I agreed before hanging up.

"I probably should have warned him someone had been monitoring my computer and telephone on this case but I had thought it was better not to make such a big thing out of this if I did not have to." She explained as we had to stop for a traffic light. "I paid for my snack and raced back to the office. Luckily I was able to print the file before someone found a way to delete it from my computer as if it had never existed." She said before reaching behind her, grabbing a folder and handing me the results.

I look at thirty or so double-sided pages of data with photos and all but knew I did not have the time to read them as we were likely getting close to the murder scene. Karrin had not intended me to read it now because she kept explaining what she had deduced while I paged through everything that was here. I noted after these FBI pages there were also copies of the police reports from the murdered Nazi's apartment from last night, Jonathan Rothstein's apparent suicide last week, which included his college graduation picture as well as photos from the accident site, and of course the case file from the missing dirt call at his grave which also was heavily photographed. It seemed obvious to me that Murphy was not taking any chances on losing all her data now that someone powerful was aware of what she was doing. The paper copies were her insurance in case the rest of the records went the way of Rabbi Ishmael Rothstein's police file.

"So what does it say? I asked.

"It says your friend Rabbi Ishmael Rothstein is almost assuredly Mossad." She answered as she made another turn.

"Mossad?" The term was unfamiliar to me.

"They are the Israeli equivalent of both the FBI and the CIA rolled into one with some assassin skills to boot." She explained. "When some terrorists killed the Israeli Olympic team in Munich in 1972, Mossad hit teams were assigned to the case and tracked down many of the perpetrators and killed them quite publicly in response."

"So you are saying Ishmael was an assassin?" I asked. "I'm sorry but the old man I had spent a few hours with was not way Bond, James Bond, in anyone's book."

"Not according to the feds." She answered. "When the Mossad was stood up after World War II and the creation of Israel it seems one special unit was tasked with tracking down ex-Nazis who had escaped Germany at the end of the war. While the new nation itself was forced to focus on and fight three wars with its Arab neighbors, this small group of men and women were given this task of bringing these war criminals to justice and told to focus solely on this and nothing else. The team's leader, if you can believe the FBI's files on the subject since all other sources that have done research result in conflicting data, was Simon Wiesenthal."

"And Ishmael was part of this group?" I asked.

"So it would seem to me and the feds." Karrin replied. "He certainly fits the profile."

"What profile?"

"According to the little our government knows, Simon hired for his inner circle only those of Jewish descent who had actually survived incarceration in the German concentration camps." Murphy explained as we came up on the scene of the crime and she pulled in to stop behind a parked police car with lights flashing. She turned the engine off but made no effort to get out of the car just yet.

"Your friend Ishmael was part of this group, at least at the beginning. He was a survivor from the Auschwitz concentration camp so fit the Wiesenthal profile for recruitment." She said. "Wiesenthal was hunting Nazi's just as the history states, but it appears he was not hunting random Nazis. Somewhere he acquired a list of specific Nazi's he was looking for. If our records are right he was hunting those who were part of a group responsible for 'The Necessary Ending and The New Beginning.' Our files are pretty sure that these terms were somehow purposely mistranslated over time into the infamous 'Final Solution' and meant to refer only to the Holocaust though what little data our intelligence agencies have collected since have determined there was something else going on in these camps as well."

"From the end of the war for almost a decade your friend Ishmael was part of the team that helped track down Adolf Eichmann, the man responsible for running transportation of the 'The Necessary Ending and The New Beginning elements." To stay behind the scenes and not let the other Nazis from this group know they were being hunted specifically the capture of Eichmann was completed by other Mossad agents, as were the captures of at least a dozen others on this Nazi program list. Again, piecing together what little we have all we really know is that all those captured were high-level Nazis and all these Nazis worked directly in the death camps. If the records are right, supposedly the only one that escaped their net was Dr. Josef Mengele, the German doctor who performed some type of medical experimentation on the Jews in the concentration camps. He died in the 1970s in Paraguay we think."

"Wait a minute you are talking about this group hunting Nazis for thirty years." I did the math and it did not make sense to me. "But I thought you said that Ishmael worked for forty years or more at the museum. Was that all a cover story?" I asked

"No it wasn't. Wiesenthal's group operated for all that time, and may still be operating today." Karrin answered. "In September of 1954 Ishmael apparently gave up his membership and settled down here in Chicago. And from what I can tell from the FBI records, other than some regular phone calls with members of Wiesenthal's group, he has not left Chicago in all those years. No vacation, no going to the funerals of deceased friends, hell he has not even travelled back to Israel as his religion commands. Oddly enough it was right after retiring and taking his assistant curator post at the museum that he also became a rabbi." She said.

"Maybe he found forgiveness." I said. "My dad says even the most wicked of men will sometimes see the error of their ways. Ishmael did not strike me as evil, maybe between the war and a decade with this group he just simply had enough with killing and death and decided to settle down and raise a family dedicated to life."

"I doubt it." Karrin replied. "First of all he is considered on the conservative fringe of Judaism, one of the real fire and brimstone Old Testament types of an eye for an eye. I have trouble seeing him stop all that suddenly with everything else I know about him."

I had to agree with that assessment. In the very short time that I dealt with Ishmael he did not seem one to forgive a slight easily. He certainly did not find acceptance with his grandson's death. I doubted watching hundreds of thousands of Jews killed right in front of him would be any easier to accept. But that did not answer the greater questions hanging out there.

"So why do you think he stopped hunting and stayed in Chicago all these years?" I asked.

"I am not sure though you just gave me another idea." Karrin replied. "Hunters often stop stalking their prey when they find a good place to set up shop and let the prey come to them. Maybe your friend Ishmael was placed here to wait for the prey to come to him. Perhaps there is something here in Chicago that he knows they will be after sooner or later."

Thankfully I was not looking at her when she said this but Ishmael's last words to me of 'They know about it' seemed to confirm Murphy's own deductions. Of course only Ishmael knew what this mysterious 'it' likely was which did not do me any good at the moment. And without asking him directly I was not likely going to find out.

Except, he said the skinheads that had attacked him also knew. That meant I could get my answers from them maybe and keep Ishmael out of it. Murphy would be happy because I did not go talk with him and compromise her investigation, and at the same point I could find out what was really going on and give her something she could use.

"Hey Molly I still need a favor from you if you do not mind." Murphy said drawing my attention back to her.

"What's up?"

"I'd like you to hold onto that file for me." She said pointing to the one in my lap. "If I keep it I have a feeling it will disappear. Maybe my car or apartment will get broken into to find it. I do not know. But no one would suspect you of having it so you could keep it safe, at least for a few days so I can wrap this up. Will that be okay with you?"

"Sure." I said knowing I could look over the file myself too. I opened up my backpack to slide it inside and noted that I had forgotten to take the Katz Manuscript out of it. Being old leather it was sort of obvious and Murphy noted it right away.

"That is the book I was having checked out for you." I explained. "Turned out it was nothing."

"That is the book that you showed to Rabbi Rothstein?" She asked me. "And HE told you it meant nothing?"

My God she was right, whoops sorry for the blasphemy. But still if Ishmael did have cause to not speak the truth about his life and all of these events, then the book might actually be something important after all. "Good point Murphy, maybe it is important."

"But you can't read it?" She asked.

"No but I have a teacher at school, my history teacher in fact, Mr. Goldman who is Jewish, and maybe he will be able to tell me what it says." I answered back. "At least we can get an uncompromised second opinion that it is nothing." I said and she agreed. I closed my backpack now holding both the book and her files. It seems detective work was going to give me a sore back at the very least.

We got out of the car and headed toward the building where the murder had taken place. It was slightly more upscale than last night, but not by a whole lot more. Rent was likely paid by the week rather than the day. Less porn shops and more drugstores in the neighborhood too I noticed.

"Sergeant we may have a witness." One of the uniformed officers talking to an older woman off to the side spotted Murphy and called to her. She changed her direction like a peregrine falcon on the attack and I had to rush to stay up beside her.

"Ma'am, can you tell me what you saw?" Murphy asked without so much as an introduction. I looked at the little old woman and the hand cart she was pulling behind her filled with groceries so knew she was not someone living on the street but likely a resident of this neighborhood. That meant she would likely know the other residents from outsiders.

"As I told the young man I was walking home from the store when the guy you are looking for passed right by me." She said nodding to the officer who had called us over. "In the dark he had seemed no different than any other young man, except he was dressed all in black, and even his face was shadowed and hidden."

"Could you describe him?" Murphy asked.

"Not really." She answered. "I saw him first at a distance between two streetlights but then the wheel of my cart got caught in a crack in the sidewalk and I was more focused on trying to pull it free and not having much success." She explained pointing to the wheel which looked a bit more bent than it should be.

"Did he stop and help you?"

"No, but he bumped into my cart on the edge of it which pushed the whole thing backwards nearly five feet and out of the crack right." She pointed to a spot about ten feet away. Something odd caught my eye and I wandered to it while listening to the rest of Murphy's questions.

"Did he say anything to you?" Murphy asked. "Apologize or tell you to get out of the way?"

"No nothing at all. Not even that he was sorry. He just kept walking and entered the building." She said. "I had to reach down and try to straighten my wheel somewhat because the cart would not move the way it was. Just as I was finishing I heard shots coming from inside the building…eight of them I think…and then some sort of screaming. I moved out of the way and within a few minutes I heard your sirens coming this direction."

I bent down and saw not only the obvious crack that had caught the old woman's wheel, but also a handful of very familiar topsoil like dirt right beside it. I guess the guy carrying it had spilled some in the accidental encounter. It certainly seemed to link to last night's murder.

"Did the guy you saw leave in that period of time?" Murphy asked.

"No, no one came out of the building." The old woman replied.

"Okay so he went out another way or he is still in the building." Murphy said to the uniformed officer who had called her over. "Did you set up a perimeter?" The officer nodded.

"From what we can tell no one went out the back door either sergeant. It's locked from the inside, which violates fire safety codes, but a place like this is a deathtrap anyway." He said.

"Okay, so hopefully the killer is still inside. Get some more squads down here and then we will start sweeping the building floor by floor." She turned back to the old woman. "Ma'am is there anything about this guy that you remember that could help us identify him? Anything about his face, his clothing, his hair, anything like that?"

"Only that as he walked away I noticed he was wearing one of those funny little round religious hats." She said.

"A skullcap?" Murphy asked.

"Yeah that is the one." The old woman replied. "Mildred's son wears one when he comes to visit."

"Ma'am, the guy wearing the cap, do you have any idea how old he was?" Murphy asked. "Was he your age?"

"Heaven's no!" She said. "He was much younger. He walked a little stiff for his age, but he was only in his twenties or so I think."

I could tell Murphy was disappointed. Had this been a ninety year old man in a skullcap then we likely would have been heading out to see if Mr. Rothstein was at home this evening. The fact that the witness said the murderer was so young, far too young for a mistake in age, meant Ishmael was most certainly not the killer Murphy was seeking.

"Thank you very much. That will be all for now ma'am." Murphy said. "Please provide this officer with your name and address and that will be helpful. We might need to contact you about further questions we may have later." She pulled a business card from her shirt pocket. "This is my number. Please feel free to call me if you think of anything else that would be useful to our investigation."

Murphy turned away and I followed at her heels, entering the building and thankfully staying on the first floor this time. The room right near the front door we arrived at looked strikingly similar to the one from last night in both its barrenness and the single, rather than double, Nazi flag proudly tacked to the wall.

"Glad you are here Murphy." A cop carrying a camera said as Karrin entered. "I have taken all the preliminary photos of the scene but wanted to give you a chance to look things over before we began to clean the victim up and take more pictures."

"Thank Bill." Murphy said and did a quick walk around the apartment in concentric circles until she reached the victim lying on the floor. The notable differences from last night my less than well trained eye picked up on were the eight or so bullet holes in the walls of the apartment, the spent shell casings on the floor, and the odd shaped handgun lying near the victim's body.

"Looks like a Lugar." Murphy said.

"Yes it is sergeant." The photographer replied. "In fact I think it's a real German one and not one of the cheap copies made after the war." Murphy only nodded at this and kept looking around.

"Did you see any signs of blood other than the victim's?" Murphy asked.

"Not a one sergeant." He replied. "The guy must have been a terrible shot to have missed eight times at close range."

"Bad luck for him." Murphy said now standing and looking at the body.

Unlike last night's murder victim, this one was lying on the floor and the pile of dirt, the same type as last night's, was this time covering his chest, most of his arms, and all but the top of his shaved head. Once more it looked like someone had just poured a really big wheelbarrow full of topsoil on the victim after he had been killed, but for what purpose this served I had no clue. The one exposed arm though, the left one again in fact, had been carved with a small paring knife in the exact same way as the victim from last night. Now I am not an expert in police matters, but that seemed pretty obvious to me that this was certainly the same killer.

"Do we have the victim's name?" Murphy asked.

"The lease says Rudolph Himmler." The other cop replied. "I ran it and this is a known alias for a Joe Bob Stanton who did a nickel at Joliet and then came out a reformed Nazi by the name of Rudolph Himmler."

"Glad he took full advantage of the taxpayer's generosity to chart a new course for his life." Murphy said making the other cop smile. She leaned down as she put some latex gloves on and began to remove the dirt from around the victim's face. I really did not care to take a look, knowing Murphy would tell us if the mouth and nose were stuffed full again. I already knew that this is what we would find so I tried looking around the room for anything else that would catch my eye. Perhaps a wizard might note things that were normal to the rest of the world.

"Wow, looks like our skinhead was not satisfied with just a head shave." She said. "It looks like he even burned away his eyebrows."

That last statement caught me by surprise and I turned to look confirming exactly what I had somehow already known. The guy lying here dead on the floor was the same one I had flamed just a few short hours ago. "Hey Murphy." I said drawing her attention. "I really need to talk to you right now."