The 13th Warlock

Chapter 2

My knowledge and the history of Jase Carmichael amounted to very little. I knew of his younger sister, Amanda Carmichael, and how she worked at Pitt University in the biology department, steering clear of Bitter and her brother. Throughout my fact-gathering, I had obtained details about Jase’s parents: they were separated when Jase was three years old and his father moved to Las Vegas where he was purposely gunned down by a drug dealer. Barbie Carmichael, his sixty-seven-year-old mother, lived in Caribou, Maine, secluded herself from the world and studied her Bible, a born-again Christian who was never visited by her two children. Jase mostly lived his adult in Bitter; a specific location had yet to be learned. He wasn’t one to bounce from one city to the next, living off men’s money. At thirty-four, his history had proven that he had taken an assortment of jobs to survive in Bitter: baker, bartender, construction, hotel work, appliance delivery man, truck driver, and many other positions. Unlike his jobs, I couldn’t determine that he had jumped from one man to the next. Instead, I gathered he was single most of the time, on his own.

I comprehended that Jase had an intimate relationship with Maximilian Astor. I knew the two had dated, were seen together last at the Memorial Day party in Pine Park, and that they did drugs together, sometimes uppers, but most of the time they smoked weed. Max had more to tell me, I believed. Mostly because he played a key role in Jase’s disappearance, being present during its occurrence. Some things were obvious when fact finding, of course.

October 2. I decided to meet Max in Pine Park, exactly the last place where Jase was seen. Coincidence? Not quite. Brilliant on my part? Maybe.

We walked side by side in the afternoon’s chilly wind. Autumn flared with bright hues around us. Both of us wore light jackets, jeans, and tan work boots that you see construction people use.

Max stood an inch taller than me, seemed less cheerful than most, and had pointed ears like an elf. He smelled of rosemary and Pine-Sol; such an odd and unkind pairing. I thought him handsome in a rough kind of way, overtly butch. Sort of a bad boy with a lot of sexy.

“How old are you?”

“Thirty. Jase was older than me. I think he was thirty-four.” He paused on our walk. Looked to his right, left, then directly at me. He scratched the side of his right head, acting strange. Was he being watched? Did he feel uncomfortable in my presence? “We’re on the same trail that Jase and I walked on the night he vanished.”

I knew that. Good planning caused such reactions.

He pointed to two birch trees next to Lake Erie. “He sucked me off over there. Got on his knees, unbuckled my jeans, and went to town on me. I didn’t mind being inside his mouth.”

“How did you two meet?”

He removed a long and cylindrical device from one of his back pockets, placed the vibrant green gadget to his lips, and pressed a button on it. Eventually he exhaled a plume of smoke into the afternoon and told me, “We met in Orlando. Back in March. I was visiting my aunt there. A short vacation. He said he had business there, next to Walt Disney World. I never learned what his business detailed, though. Maybe I should have asked him. Didn’t really care, though, since I was only after his body. He rented a room a block away from my aunt’s. We both smoked, needed cigarettes, and met at the convenience store near my aunt’s house. We hit it off, mostly because we both learned that we were from the same town of Bitter, smoked some weed together, f****d around inside his room for a week, and stayed friends.”

“Then what happened?”

“I came home, returning to Bitter. He stayed down there.”

“How did he end up in Bitter?”

He vaped again. “Didn’t I tell you this already?”

He did. I wanted to hear it again. I nodded. “Double-checking. It’s good to be accurate in my position. It’s what I do.”

“The s*x with him in Florida was the best thing ever. I texted him, told him to come home, up to Bitter. I missed his body and my c**k wanted him. He listened, saying he had connections here, and with me. He moved home. We f****d for a month, until he went missing.”

“Did he live with you?”

He shook his head, vaped. “No. I think he lived in Brothshire Woods somewhere. Didn’t find out. Didn’t care. He liked s*x, and I was the guy to give him a lot of it. It’s really the only thing we had in common and liked about each other. I’m not sure where he lived, though, or what he did to make a living. Hell, I didn’t even know his friends here in Bitter. Not that I wanted to. I just know that he liked having me inside his mouth and bottom, and that the s*x between us was unbelievable. To tell you the truth, we were more f**k buddies than anything.”

We continued walking. Birds chirped, the wind continued to blow, and a boat on the lake made a booming sound, which told us that it’s engine probably blew.

“Walk me through Memorial Day again,” I told him.

“He broke into my apartment around nine in the morning, woke me up, and seduced me. We showered afterwards. I bought him breakfast. We went to the beach near Presque Isle and sunbathed for a few hours. My sister, Tammy Rae, had us over to her house for lunch. We played with her two daughters and ogled her hot doctor husband, wanting a threesome with him, which didn’t happen. Then we went back to my apartment and napped together.”

“What time did you get to the party?”

Max vaped a last time and slipped the smoking tool away, returning it to his back pocket. “Around six in the evening. All my friends were there. Tony Lippon knows how to throw a party. He can’t do much else right, though. Drugs, alcohol, good music marked the day. It’s always a good time with him. When we got to the party, I introduced Jase to my friends. He and I drank a lot, danced next to the lake, and after dark we decided to go for a walk on this trail.”

“Then what happened?”

“We smoked a joint, I did some drugs, he sucked me off, and…I can’t remember the rest.”

“Did you pass out?”

“I did. I don’t know if it was the drugs we took, or the alcohol, or a mix of both. I remember coming in his mouth and…the rest was blackness to me.”

“What kind of drugs did the two of you take on your walk?”

He shook his head. “Jase didn’t take any pills. He smoked some weed, though. I took a pill called Lux. A mix of X and something else. It knocked me off my ass.”

“When did you come to?”

“The next morning. Someone found me. I don’t even know her name. A pretty girl. Blonde. Blue eyes. Slim build. She kept calling me sweetie, or something like that.”

“And Jase was gone?”

“Exactly.”

“Your sister, Renee, told me that Jase had a lot of enemies. She also said that she didn’t like Jase’s family. What’s that about?”

“Don’t worry about what she says. Renee writes short stories about life. She’s always getting fiction mixed with facts. Anyone who knows her can tell you this. Renee met Jase a few times. They barely talked to each other.”

“She published?”

He shook his head. “She does it for fun. I guess when you have two young girls to watch all day long, you need some fiction in your life to relax.”

“Makes sense.” I coughed. “Can you tell me anything else about Jase Carmichael that you thought was strange or abnormal?”

He nodded. “One thing.”

“What’s that?”

“He told me about this guy he knew.”

“Who?”

“He was named after a bird or something like that. Jase told me he lived in the woods outside of Bitter. I think they were living together. Maybe they were boyfriends. Or f**k buddies, just like Jase and I were. Not sure.”

I knew he meant Wilhelm Ravenrock but didn’t say.

“Jase told me he liked the guy. A lot. I wasn’t sure how they met or what was going on with them. Honestly, it wasn’t any of my business since I only wanted Jase for his d**k, which is exactly what I got for a month.”

I was just about to tell him that I appreciated him meeting me when he instantly went from sane to strange and flipped a mental lid. Out of the blue, he burst, “I don’t know where Jase’s body is buried. I can’t help you with that. Don’t even think I have anything to do with Jase missing.”

“Come again?”

“Jase’s body. I don’t know where it’s buried. You think I killed him, and you want to know where I buried his body. But I can’t help you with that. I didn’t kill him. I’m not into murdering the guys I f**k around with.”

I didn’t know what he was saying. Confusion surfaced within my mind and caused me to shake my head.

“Ravencock…that’s the guy’s name Jase liked. Yeah, Ravenrock. He’s the one you need to talk to if you want to know where Jase’s body is. I’m sure he’ll know and can help you. You’ve got the wrong guy if you think it was me who got rid of Jase.”

“You mean Ravenrock,” I corrected him.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “Him. Ravenrock. He was the only other person Jase talked to in Bitten.”

“Was Ravenrock at the party with you and Jase?”

Again, he shook his head. “Not that I remember. I was pretty high, and drunk. Plus, Lux had control over me.”

Enough said. I ended our time together and we made our separate ways. Was Max Astor any help regarding Jase’s disappearance? Maybe. Maybe not. Only time and more compiled facts would answer that question.