Read In the Blood for Free Online Page B

were simple and rustic. The land was studded with live oaks veiled in Spanish moss. Longleaf pines towered above. It was a clean and pastoral setting, radiating calm.
    On a slight hill behind the cabins were three crosses made from telephone-pole-sized logs, the center cross taller than the others. A grouping of white rocks at the base of the rise proclaimed Camp Sonshine. We were in a church camp, one of many in southern Alabama.
    “Over there.”
    Harry pointed to a larger cabin outside the circle, two stories tall and set in its own copse, almost hidden in the dense green canopy. It was more house than cabin; the director’s quarters, I figured. I saw a woman in front of the structure, her face in her hands. We roared up the drive and bailed. I ran to the woman, Hispanic, in her forties.
    “What is it, ma’am? What happened?”
    She jabbed fingers toward the house, speaking Spanish through her tears. She bordered on hysteria and I couldn’t catch a word. I put my arm around her shoulders, walked her to the end of the porch and eased her into a wicker chair.
    “Calm down, ma’am. Speak English if you can.”
    I held her hand as she took a few trembling seconds to gather herself.
    “I clean cabins,” she said. “When I come I find a man ees muerte , dead. Madre di Dios. Es de trabajo de diablo. ”
    “Is anyone else inside?”
    “I saw no one.”
    I patted her shoulder again, thanked her. Harry had eased open the door and was peering inside. Harry called, “Police.” Waited. Called again. No response, the cabin as silent as an undersea tomb.
    We entered and saw why the woman had been screaming.
    A man was hanging upside-down beneath asuspended staircase, a rope tight from his ankles to a hardware-store pulley on the upper staircase. His purple and blood-swollen head swayed a foot above the plank floor. His eyes bulged hideously, the whites turned red by gravity-exploded veins. Rivulets of blood ran from his eyes to the floor.
    The man was wearing lacy women’s panties and metal clamps bit into his nipples. A black ball gag filled his lipstick-smeared mouth, and something like a black cucumber was lodged in his anus. His toneless, fatty back and buttocks were striped with welts. His hands were bound behind his back with a red scarf. His hair was wild, like whirlwinds had blown across his scalp. Six dead candles lay at points around the carpeted floor, white and thick, the wax pooled and hardened on the carpet. It looked like a scene from a demonic Tarot card.
    “Lord Jesus,” Harry whispered.
    I crept to the body, pressing a puckered thigh with my index finger and studying a pool of congealed brown on the floor.
    “The blood’s caked and rigor’s gone. He’s been dead for hours.” I looked closer. “A lot of blood, but I don’t see any wounds beyond superficial: lashes on his back and ass, broken skin on his nips.”
    “Every time I find one of these scenes it creeps me out for days,” Harry said. “I never understood B&D.”
    “More like S&M,” I corrected. B&D was Bondage and Discipline, a sexual practice where people get a kick out of being restricted in theirmotion and spanked or whatever. Sadism and Masochism was like B&D on steroids. Some people liked to see how much pain they could take; for them the pain was mixed up with pleasure – the more it hurt, the better the sex.
    It was all way beyond me.
    Harry walked to the front door, checked side to side. “The housecleaning lady’s booked. She’s not coming back, at least not for a while.” He ducked back inside, started a visual inspection. “Let’s you and me take the place apart. I’ll toss the back rooms.”
    Harry stepped through the doorway and took a fast stutter-step, grabbing the door. He muttered, “Shit.”
    “What is it, bro?”
    “Water on the floor. I just about slipped on my ass.”
    I walked over, saw a puddle about two feet around. I got on my hands and knees and sniffed.
    “Weird,” I said. “It smells like sea