The bell above the pharmacy door gave a thin and trembling chime as I pushed inward, the sort of nervous little sound that reminded a man of funeral wind chimes or chapel bells rung for the passing of some poor sinner who never quite managed to reconcile his accounts before the almighty closed the ledger on his miserable little life.

  Inside, the place smelled of iodine, and the faint medicinal sweetness of cough syrup, a scent that drifted through the room like the ghost of good intentions. Sterile, respectable, and about as comforting as a priest who’s already measuring you for confessional.

  The building itself looked as though it had been erected sometime around the administration of President Grant, back when men still believed railroads would lead mankind toward Eden and the frontier would redeem our collective sins, and the wooden floorboards chortled with the weary resignation of veterans who had marched too many miles beneath too many indifferent suns.

  Shelves of amber glass bottles stood in neat military formation along the walls, their contents glowing faintly in the afternoon light like votive candles in some secular cathedral dedicated not to god but to chemistry, morphine, and the American promise that pain might someday be solved with a pill small enough to swallow.

  A ceiling fan rotated above me with the tired lethargy of Saturn itself, tracing slow circles through the air as though time had grown thick and heavy in this forgotten town of two hundred and eighty souls, where men grew old without moving and the world beyond the horizon might as well have been Rome, Babylon, or the far shores of Homer’s wine-dark sea.

  Behind the counter stood a brittle man in wire spectacles who looked as though he had been born tired and had spent the intervening decades cultivating the condition with great discipline.

  “Afternoon,” he cautiously uttered. His voice carried the quiet suspicion of a man who knew that strangers in New Haven generally arrived for one of three reasons: debt, death, or some regrettable combination of the two. Surely, I had a score to settle.

  “Afternoon,” I replied, allowing unease to settle around me like a priest’s cassock as I drifted slowly between the shelves, trailing my fingers along the glass bottles the way a bored emperor might trail his hand along marble columns while considering whether the province deserved taxation or annihilation.

  “You Julius?” he asked.

  I stopped.

  “That obvious?”

  ”Everyone’s heard of the flame merchant.”

  I smiled faintly. “Occupational hazard.”

  Outside, the desert wind whispered faintly against the windows, carrying with it a dry rasping sound like the breath of something ancient buried beneath the sand, something older than this town, older than the road, older even than the church.

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  I leaned against the counter. “Mind if I ask you something?”

  “That depends,” he replied.

  “On?”

  “How much trouble the answer might cause.”

  “Fair enough. You know my name, what's yours?”

  “Gabriel”

  “Well, Gabriel, tell me,” I reached into my pocket and withdrew the folded photograph Henry had given me earlier that morning, a pale and unpleasant image of Carmen Sandor, her skin drained of life and her bashed head sparkling as wine. Gabriel studied it briefly, then inhaled sharply. Recognition. Always a useful thing.

  “You’ve seen something,” I insisted quietly. His eyes darted toward the back hallway, then back to me. It was a moment which told me more than words could ever hope to achieve.

  “Back room,” I murmured.

  He swallowed. “I… don’t think-”

  “Friend,” I said gently, “five women have already been reduced to anatomical riddles by a man who treats the human form like a carpenter treats spare lumber, and I assure you with the full sincerity of a tired sinner that today is not the fucking day I’m going to pretend politeness matters more than truth.” Silence stretched between us like gallows rope awaiting its neck. Finally he stepped aside.

  The back room was small and poorly lit, its single window smeared with dust so thick the sunlight entered only in sickly yellow threads, like weak communion wine poured through dirty glass. Medical instruments rested on a steel tray near the sink.

  Forceps.

  Bone clamps.

  And a surgical chisel.

  I stepped closer.

  Slowly.

  Reverently.

  I recognized it.

  Not the tool itself, but the wound it made.

  I had seen its signature carved into flesh above Jeffery’s left nipple. Surrounding this surreptitious setup were a series of sickening photographs. The chisel tapping in a crucifix on skin like a Roman augur opening a sacrificial bird to read the will of the gods in its trembling organs. There were six photos like this, all clipped crosses. Only one was above a nipple, I assumed that to be Jeffery. Why would he not tell me someone did such to him? The chisel’s edge glimmered faintly beneath a light sheeting of sun. Recently cleaned, but not perfectly. There were still faint brown traces clinging to the metal, stubborn as original sin.

  Behind me, the pharmacist spoke with the strained desperation of a man who had already begun rehearsing his testimony before whatever jury awaited him.

  “He brought it here last week, he made me hold it here. Says it's for you, that’s why I knew your name.” he said.

  “Who did?” Gabriel hesitated, and in that hesitation I felt the slow grinding gears of fate begin to turn, the way ancient poets must have felt when they realized Achilles would indeed kill Hector and Troy would indeed burn.

  “A preacher,” he finally rasped out. My spine stiffened.

  “What kind of preacher?” As I said it, Gabriel wiped a bead of sweat from his brow.

  “The kind,” he whispered, “who kept talking about bones. He held a gun to my head, man.” Outside, somewhere beyond the dusty streets of New Haven, the church bell rang once. Noon, right on schedule. For a moment neither of us spoke, because sometimes the universe clears its throat before delivering the punchline.

  I picked up the chisel, weighing it in my hand. It was at this moment I knew, I had to do what I never really wanted to. I had to see the bodies.

  “Gabriel, you’re coming with me.”