Linda Welch - A conspiracy of Demons Read online

  Thankful my roommates were immediately immersed in a show, I poured water in the coffeemaker, filled the filter with French Roast and flipped on the machine. I held a mug under the drip until it filled, then exchanged it for the carafe with unusual sleight of hand. Only a few drops escaped to sizzle on the hot plate.

  I took a deep gulp of coffee before letting Mac out of the backdoor and sitting at the kitchen table. I took my time sipping the rest; a good cup of coffee can’t be hurried. Another full mug accompanied me upstairs to my bedroom where I dressed in the first T-shirt and pair of Levis my hand found in the closet. I sat on the bed to tug on socks and sneakers.

  Mac still explored the outside world, which gave me an excuse to drink my third mug of coffee while I waited for him to finish his business. With perfect timing, he came inside as I drained the last drop.

  “I have to go out. Won’t be long,” I said as I rinsed the mug and put it in the sink.

  I took a moment to slide the cover down on the pet door and say bye to Mac. He paid as much attention to me as my roommates did. All three ignored me.

  Oh well. I snatched my keys from the table in the hall, my green cord jacket from the hook, activated the house alarm and headed for my car.

  Saturday is Farmer’s Market day and today’s event the last of the season. Shoppers already packed the area.

  Twenty-Second was closed to traffic. As my car idled at a light, I looked past the barriers and saw a stagecoach guided by a cowboy clip-clopping along; inside, a woman restrained a little girl who tried to climb out through the window. People in period clothing mingled with the crowds. I grinned at two prostitutes in their fancy dresses, garters and feathers as they paraded along the sidewalk. Cowboys on horseback cantered up and down the street. The afternoon promised mock gunfights and exhibition marksmanship with rifle, bow and axe in the park. Entertainment would continue into the evening.

  Finding somewhere to park meant circling several blocks, hoping someone would pull out. I got lucky when a Dodge van vacated a spot behind the Clarion Hilton Hotel. Zipping in before another auto got there before me, I exited my Jeep, locked it and walked through the nearest alley to Twenty-Second.

  Aromas from a variety of foods, fresh-cut flowers, produce and perfume drifted down the street. Market stalls and pedestrians crammed the sidewalks. Merchants had positioned tables outside their stores to display a variety of wares, including small antique pieces, jewelry, local art, knickknacks and baked goods. Children screamed as they took advantage of giant blow-up playgrounds with slides and other fun stuff in the center of the street. A guitarist sat on a small stage surrounded by fold-up chairs with an audience of ten people.

  Do not go to Farmer’s Market if you are hungry, unless you intend to eat your way along the street. I gave in to temptation and stopped to buy a donut. The vendor dropped dough in a vat of bubbling oil, scooped out the bloated donut three minutes later and rolled it in a pan of granulated sugar. It tasted delicious; hot, slightly crisp and crusted with sugar on the outside and soft inside.

  I ate as I walked, then licked my fingers clean.

  Vorhoff German Bakery’s stall tempted me but I went on by. Getting past the booth where a guy fried onions and sausage took willpower.

  The courthouse is closed on weekends, so the handful of people in the gigantic foyer wanted Clarion PD and would sooner wait out here until called than sit outside the various departments. I crossed the marble floor to the desk sergeant’s cubicle. Not that you often see a sergeant at the desk; a lower-ranking officer usually mans the post. Officer Maurer told me to head on up.

  I took the escalator to the next floor and headed down the corridor to Homicide. The squad room looked as busy as on a weekday, with guys and gals at their stations or moving between them. Sunlight streamed through the windows in the north wall to wash pale-gold streaks over dusty, seldom used cabinets and desks covered with paperwork, and made sticky coffee cup rings shine. Trash overflowed wastepaper baskets.

  Captain Mike Warren stood in his office talking to two guys I didn’t recognize. Both were in the six to six-five range, wore light-gray suits, and obviously were cops.

  Mike came from the office and shut the door behind him as I walked the aisle between desks. I smiled. He didn’t. Then he growled in a low voice, “You took your time.”

  I shifted my shoulders. “Much as I wanted to rush out the house immediately, I didn’t think the good folks of Clarion would appreciate me walking through town in my night clothes. And yeah, I had a cup of coffee.”

  “You had a pot.” He grabbed the door handle. “And you got sugar all ‘round your mouth.”

  Oops. If anyone can tell the sugar on your mouth came from a donut, it’s a cop.

  I wiped the corners of my mouth with my index finger. Mike opened the door and ushered me inside.

  I stopped in the doorway and gaped. Tidy and dust-free, this didn’t look at all like Mike’s office. Gone were the stacks of folders and papers on the floor, the tilting towers of file boxes. Only a few folders sat atop his file cabinets. The old fax machine did not hide behind mounds of paperwork. The folders on his desk were in neat piles, and pens and pencils in a proper holder instead of scattered over the desk. And - hotdamn! - his coffee mug sat on a cork coaster.

  My forehead furrowed. “I’m sorry, I must be in the wrong place.”

  Mike scowled.

  I made a production of looking at the office. “What did you do, Mike, get a maid?”

  With his customary curtness, Mike jerked his chin at the two guys and said, “Detectives Haney and Stirland, Provo PD.”

  They didn’t react to my appearance. I usually get something, if only a gaze sliding up my six-four height to my silver-white hair, ice-blue eyes and pale skin. Perhaps Mike described me, or they had heard about me. They stared, expressionless.

  Then one guy stepped forward and presented his hand. Portly, with thinning brown hair, hazel eyes and belly-bulge over his waistband, he’d have appreciated the donut I still tasted in my mouth. “Jerry Stirland. Thank you for coming in, Miss Banks.”

  We clasped hands for a firm shake.

  Thinner, although not thin, Haney stood a few inches taller than his partner. Black hair stubbled his scalp and chin, his washed-out blue eyes looked tired in his olive skin, with dark bags underneath, and grooves carved arcs at the sides of his mouth.

  He held out his hand. “John Haney.”

  Another firm shake.

  “Take a seat, Tiff,” Mike instructed.

  I obediently sat. Mike lowered his bulk to his chair on the other side of the desk.

  His hard, stern expression made my stomach flutter. “What’s this about, Mike?”

  He ran his fingers through his slick of wheat-colored hair, then laid his beefy forearms on the desk and nodded at the detectives.

  “The foreman found a body on his construction site in Provo early this morning,” Haney began. “Female, Caucasian, five-four, hundred and eight pounds, blond hair, brown eyes, no identifying marks. She’s not in the criminal database.”

  So they want me to talk to the victim. “Murder?”

  Mike nodded. Before I could open my mouth, he held up a photograph. A dead woman, just her face, the edge of a sheet pulled up to her chin.

  I grasped the photo. A heavy lump replaced the jitters in my stomach and my mouth went dry.

  My lips were numb. I managed to say, “Lynn.”

  Stirland opened a small notebook. “What’s her full name? Is she local?”

  I forced breath through the tightness in my chest. “Lynn Summers. She lived in California.”

  “Your relationship?”

  What? They must know, or why bring me here?

  “Was she a friend?” Haney asked.

  Lynn was one of the few people I could talk to openly about shades and demons. Like me, she saw through the Gelpha glamour to what lay beneath, and she saw the dead, although not in the same way I did. We seldom saw each other, but often talk
ed on the phone, and I’d always thought of her as a friendly acquaintance. But with images of her smiling face flashing behind my eyelids and her light laugh echoing in my ears, I knew I had lost a friend.

  I placed the photo on the desk and trapped my hands between my knees. “Why was she in Provo?” I asked Mike.

  Stirland said grimly, “You tell us. No identification, no possessions.” His mouth hitched on one side in a humorless smile. “But whoever tried to make her anonymous missed this in her back pocket.”

  Mike slid a plastic baggy across his desk to me. It contained a small piece of white paper with handwriting on it. I picked the baggy up for a closer look. The paper had been crumpled, then flattened out again. I smoothed the baggy to better decipher the handwriting.

  My address.

  Haney leaned down and planted his hands on the desk. “Did you call her when she didn’t keep your appointment?”

  They thought Lynn and I planned to meet, but we didn’t. Alarm tingled through me like electricity. Lynn was one of those people who planned every step of a trip and panicked if something caused them to deviate. She would not dream of stopping by to see me because she was in the area; she’d phone and set up a time. She didn’t do that, yet my address indicated she intended to see me. Therefore, she didn’t call because she could not, or dare not.

  My muzzy brain cleared and I knew I had to be careful. Lynn having my address made me part of the investigation, but not as an investigator.

  “I haven’t heard from Lynn for an age, we had no plans to meet.”

  “Then why did she carry your address?” Mike asked.

  My address, crumpled in her back pocket. “Did she drive here?” I pictured her driving with the paper on the dashboard or passenger seat so she could easily refer to it when she reached Clarion. Someone came after her; she spotted them and didn’t want the address to lead them to me, so crumpled it and shoved it in her pocket. They mistook it for a piece of trash.

  “We don’t know. Now we have her name, we’ll check flights out of California.”

  I half-closed my eyes and tried to ignore the drumming in my head. “She must have been in the area for another reason and thought to stop by and see me.”

  “In what capacity do you know her?” from Stirland.

  “We met at a workshop. We talked on the phone a few times.” I pushed my feelings into a small, hard knot and stared at Stirland. “How did she die? Was she killed on the building site or elsewhere?”

  “We can’t release that information at this time.”

  I sucked in air through my teeth and tried to hold it together as the realization hit me. They didn’t ask me here to help with Lynn’s murder. My association with her and that little note in her pocket made me a person of interest.

  My gaze swung to Mike. “C’mon, Mike, give me something.”

  He frowned heavily, then looked at Haney and Stirland. “You know how she works. I want to give her this, else she’ll be up there to see for herself.”

  “Let her,” Stirland said. “She sets one foot on that site, we arrest her for contaminating a crime scene.”

  Mike gestured expansively. “You don’t need the extra paperwork.” He turned his eyes to me. “Prelim indicates she died elsewhere.”

  Haney poised pen over notepad. “We need her address.”

  I made a face. “Don’t have it.”

  He gave me a sour look. “You talked on the phone. We can trace her through her phone number.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know her number off the top of my head. It was in my old cell’s address book, but that phone is on the bottom of the lake,” I told Mike. “When that guy ran Royal’s truck off the road and in to the lake.” And we were lucky not to go down with it.

  I hiked my shoulders. “I have her number written down at home, but I’ll have to find it. I’ll head there directly and call you.” I pushed up from the chair.

  “A little more of your time, if you don’t mind, Miss Banks,” Stirland said. “Does she have family?”

  “An ex-husband. I think he’s an accountant. She didn’t mention kids or siblings. Or parents.”

  “What vehicle did she drive?”

  “No idea.”

  I sat down, settled back and prepared to be grilled.

  Half an hour later, I picked up Lynn’s photo for one last look, then flipped it at Mike. It fluttered to the desk. “Thanks for breaking it to me gently.” He didn’t know my relationship with Lynn, we could be associates or real close. He could have been kinder.

  His eyes became steely. “You know how it works, Tiff.”

  Yeah, I knew; I had seen Mike interrogate suspects. I held his gaze for a second, clamped my mouth shut and slammed out of his office. I didn’t like being on the receiving end, like someone on the outside looking in.

  I got in my car and rested my head on the steering wheel. Street noise became a lull, as if sorrow muffled my hearing.

  Lynn. Oh God, poor Lynn. Hot tears pricked behind my eyelids. I blinked hard as I saw a pointed chin, hollow cheeks and brown eyes, her thin face framed by wiry wisps of blond hair.

  I closed my eyes, slumped back in the seat and gave in to the sick feeling.

  Dammit, why didn’t you call me?

  But I didn’t have time to indulge my feelings. Suck it up, Tiff. This is getting you nowhere. Because I damn sure would not let the cops keep me in the dark. I had to move, and fast.

  I rooted in my pocket for my cell-phone and dialed. The call went to voicemail.

  “Royal, I need you. I’ll be at the office. Get here as soon as you can.”

  Five minutes later, I had barely sat down when the office door flew open so hard that the knob dented the wall. I leaped to my feet and into Royal’s arms.

  Arms around his waist, I hugged him tight. His hyped-up body heat seeped through my shirt, his long silken hair lay against my cheek as an 80s rock tune suddenly pounded in the street, drowning out children’s laughter, adults’ chatter and vendors’ patter.

  I pulled back so I could see his face, gathered myself together and looked in his worried copper eyes. “Mike called me in. Lynn - you remember I told you about Lynn?”

  His eyebrows drew together. “The woman you met at the workshop for police consultants.”

  “She’s dead.” I moistened my lips with the tip of my tongue. “They found her in Provo on a construction site.”

  “Tiff, I am so sorry.” His palm cupped my cheek, I leaned into it. “Homicide?”

  “Yeah. The guys from Provo were tight-lipped, they gave me hardly anything. She had nothing on her apart from my address. She was on her way to see me, Royal, but didn’t call first. That’s not at all like Lynn. She had a reason she wanted kept to herself. She didn’t dare warn me.”

  “How did she die?”

  “I wish I knew. The cops are shutting me out.” I sniffled. “If they won’t let me in on this, I’m doing it on my own. Will you help me?”

  “You do not have to ask.”

  “Yeah, I do, because I don’t know what we’re getting ourselves into. I want to get to her house in Seaside quick as we can, hopefully before the cops get there.”

  Provo had nothing more than her name. Names are rarely unique and locating someone by name alone is a painstaking process. Dozens of Lynn Summers and others with a variation of the name Lynn live in California. I discovered that when I checked up on her after we met. It’s a private investigator thing, and I wanted to know more about a woman who saw the dead, and Gelpha as they actually are, as I do.

  And, yeah, there are other Tiff Banks and Royal Mortensens in the States.

  I told Provo PD the truth. I did meet Lynn at the workshop and we did talk on the phone. However, I omitted to say I helped her with an investigation in California five years ago. I stayed with her for a few days. If the detectives found out, I would deal with it then.

  I once made quite a thing about demons lying by omission, but I had done my share in the past few years, since I
became involved with demons in fact. Sometimes it is easier to keep my mouth shut, that way I am not lying, I’m just not saying something.

  Royal stroked my hair. “They may have already alerted local law enforcement. What is the first thing the examiner does with a homicide?”

  Deflated, my voice sank. “Get fingerprints.”

  “And run it through the national databases. Lynn worked for the police, her fingerprints are on file, as are yours and mine.”

  I closed my eyes and thumped my forehead on his shoulder. “Hell. Why didn’t I think of that? How much time do you think we have?”

  “Depends on when Provo contacts local law enforcement, their manpower and availability.”

  “In other words, you have no idea.” I looked past him, through the window at the busy street, seeing Lynn’s face in my mind’s eye. “Maybe we can beat them to it.”

  “We can try. When you said quick as we can, you mean quick-quick?”

  “Yeah, that quick.” I wrinkled my nose. I do not agree to the torment of a demon dash unless there is a damn good reason, yet now I asked for it.

  “It will be hard on you.”

  “Always is, but I have these.” I shook a small tube of anti—nausea pills. I always carried them, just in case. “How soon can we be there?”

  “Forty-five minutes, if we hurry.”

  “You okay with this?”

  He nodded. We left the office and descended the steps to the street, then headed for Montague Square.

  Chapter Three

  With more than half the stores vacant, Montague Square verged on seedy. Shoppers had little reason to venture here if not for the Valley Market, Coffee You and Me, and Graham’s Hardware.

  Most stores are on the north side of the square with a few creeping east and west, but as you enter Montague Square, the east and west boundaries begin with the sidewalls of shotgun-style buildings. Many old buildings downtown are shotgun-style and on a quiet day they exude an Old-West atmosphere. Royal’s apartment was originally shotgun and Bailey and Cognac which occupies the first floor is still. They are between forty and fifty feet long, fifteen and twenty wide, with one room leading to the next, and the idea is if you stand at the front door with a shotgun and all the connecting doors are open you can shoot all the way through the building and out of the backdoor.