Linda Welch - A conspiracy of Demons Read online

  “I didn’t mean that.” But I didn’t struggle. Not while his hands stroked up and down my spine and the scent of amber and sandalwood engulfed me. “Jack and Mel were annoying me, I wanted to get away from them.”

  “I can understand that.” He eyed the open laptop. “What are you doing up here?”

  “Following up on Lynn’s appointments for the past seven weeks.”

  His embrace tightened. “I do not envy you. Any luck?” Then, “Your window is open.”

  Good grief. His obsession with security went over the top. I eased from his arms and went to my desk, kicking aside a shirt and Levis on the floor. “I need air on occasion, Royal! No, no luck at all.”

  I bent over my desk, heels of my hands braced on the edge. “Lynn helped on four police investigations. I wonder if we should check them out.”

  He looked over my shoulder. “Okay.” He pointed at the laptop. “What is the RP?”

  “Don’t know.” I scribbled the addresses of Lynn’s consultancy jobs on a scrap of paper. “She went to Portland for a job on October 8th. She stayed for another day and left on the 10th.” I jabbed my finger at the laptop screen. “She saw this RP on the 9th so it was in Portland or roundabouts, but maybe it’s not a person. Could be a local tourist trap or some such. Could be anything.”

  I raked my fingers through my hair. “This is such a long shot, and I bet Provo will be on it soon enough.”

  “I’m sure they are checking her financial and phone records as we speak,” Royal agreed. “If only we had someone inside Provo PD.”

  I momentarily stopped breathing as I remembered the day we left Little Barrow. Carrie said she wished she could come with us, which made me think of various uses for a shade who could move away from her place of death and travel wherever she wanted.

  No one in Provo PD would talk to us, but we could put someone in there, an unseen interloper, a listening ear, a hidden eye.

  Could I? Should I? No, I should not. Definitely not. No, no, NO, Tiff.

  I pulled in a shallow breath and faced Royal. “About that.”

  His eyebrows drew together. “You are about to tell me something I will not like.”

  I moved away and sat on the edge of the unmade bed. “Do you remember Carrie?”

  “Carrie? No. Should I?”

  “Carrie in England?” I plucked at my rumpled duvet. “The Hart and Garter Carrie who followed us everywhere?”

  His eyebrows almost met above his nose now. “Ah, that Carrie.” He pushed his hands in his hip pockets. “What about her?”

  “She’s here.”

  “Here?”

  “Downstairs.”

  He pulled his hands free and sat on the desk chair. “How?”

  I began to lose patience. “She can go where she wants, remember? She decided to come to the States.”

  Definitely a scowl on his face. “How long has she been here?”

  “I found her outside this morning.”

  “And she will follow us wherever we go.” He looked at the room. “Is she in here?”

  Shoulders tight, I flipped my hands palm out. “She won’t. She’s behaving herself, giving me space.”

  His gaze swooped around as if he thought he’d spot her. “So you have three of them now.”

  “She’s visiting, said she’ll leave tomorrow.” I twined my fingers together. “But if she agrees to stay a little longer, we could maybe use her.”

  “Use her how?”

  My mouth twisted. “We can plant her at Provo PD.”

  “You asked her to help while we were in England,” he retorted obstinately. He pushed back in the chair. “As I recall, she gave us nothing worthwhile.”

  “My fault. I didn’t brief her properly on what we wanted.” I leaned over my knees. “If I give her specific instructions, we can take her to Provo tomorrow on the pretext of bugging them for information, leave her there and pick her up the next day.”

  “You cannot trust this to a ghost.”

  My breath burst out as a tiny puh! “Yeah? How many shades have we trusted to solve an investigation? Tell me, because I’ve lost count.”

  He stared at me for a moment, then his shoulders set in hard lines. “What time do you want to leave tomorrow?”

  “I thought eight, if she agrees to do it.”

  He rose up. “Do you want to drive, or shall I?”

  “Whatever.” I stood.

  “I have things to do.” He went to the door. “I’ll pick you up at eight.”

  And off he went.

  Deflated, I sat on the bed again. Why did he act like this? The shades who helped us provided an invaluable service and he knew it, yet at the same time he hated my relationship with them, especially with Jack and Mel. And now Carrie.

  I decided to eat before talking to Carrie. Having spent years in the Hart and Garter Inn, their kitchen and restaurant, and eating establishments in other parts of the world, I didn’t think my cooking supper would entertain Carrie. But she stood with Jack and Mel as I got a frozen chicken pot pie from the freezer, slit the top crust with a sharp knife and put it in the microwave.

  “How long does it take?” Carrie asked. “Is it any good?”

  Head tilted up hopefully, Mac sat by my ankles.

  “About eight minutes. Yeah, it’s good.”

  She bent over the carton. “Chicken Pot Pie. Why is it called a pot pie? It’s not in a pot, unless you call the little foil thing a pot.”

  “They possibly were originally in iron pots,” Mel said. “But some food historians think the pastry wasn’t meant to be eaten. It was a very thick container for the filling, meant to preserve it for quite a long time.”

  My, she sounded pompous. “Really?” I said.

  “Yes. Or people lined pots or skillets with pastry so food didn’t taste metallic.” She averted her face. “I’m not as stupid as you think.”

  “I don’t think you’re stupid,” I protested. Scatterbrained, yes.

  “She heard it on The History Channel,” Jack said in a dry voice which made me imagine his eyes rolling.

  I peeked through the microwave’s glass door. The crust had browned and sauce bubbled through the slit. It smelled wonderful.

  “I remember my first microwave oven,” Carrie said. “So fast, but after a while eight minutes seemed too long to wait. Funny how quickly we take things for granted.”

  “Like you do, going all over the world,” Jack said.

  Carrie’s hands spanned her hips. “Don’t start that again, yobbo.”

  “Yobbo? If I had any - ”

  “Don’t get into it, you two.” I reached for a glass from the top cabinet. “I can’t take it right now.”

  Their silence felt sullen. Trepidation daunted me by the time I took my pie, fork and glass of water to the table. Jack and Mel would not take my request well.

  “Not much of a holiday, this,” Carrie said. She sat across the table from me as Jack and Mel returned to the television. “I’m bored.”

  “What do you expect,” from Jack. “Nobody invited you.”

  “Let Tiff take you outside. I’m sure someone will be along soon. With luck they’ll take you far, far from here,” Mel added.

  If I could get them alone, maybe I could talk Jack and Mel into being more accepting, or make Carrie more sympathetic to what they were going through.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be gone tomorrow,” she said.

  “Er, Carrie, can you hang on another day?” I blurted. “I could use your help.”

  Jack and Mel simultaneously gasped.

  I couldn’t tell them about Lynn between mouthfuls - it would take forever - so I pushed my plate away. It still took a long time because I had to relate what they knew about Lynn but Carrie didn’t.

  I outlined what I wanted her to do and added, “This will be intense, Carrie. Can you handle it?”

  “What?” Jack shrieked, abruptly at my shoulder. He raked his fingers through his hair. “This is too much! First you bring her
in our home, now you’re taking her out on a jaunt!”

  Mel slapped the back of her hand to her forehead. “Oh, the betrayal.”

  Carrie sat up straight. “Don’t be silly. This is work.” She fixed her unchanging gaze on me. “I can do it! A real police investigation. I’m so excited. Don’t you worry about a thing, love. I’ll keep my eyes peeled and ears open, I’ll stick to the detectives like glue. Nothing will get past Carrie Wood.”

  Chapter Six

  We left the house at seven forty-five. Instead of watching for Royal from the house, or waiting on the porch, we ambled along Beeches. On the brow of the hill, when I knew Jack and Mel couldn’t hear us, I drew Carrie’s attention to a commemorative bench on the grass behind the sidewalk. “Carrie, we need to talk.”

  We sat side by side, then she leaned nearer. “That sounds ominous.”

  I smiled slightly. “I didn’t mean it to. We haven’t had a chance to chat in private.”

  “It’s about your Jack and Mel, isn’t it. Honestly, how do you put up with them?”

  “They are possessive of me, but we are fond of one another although it may not come across as such.”

  “I wouldn’t have come if I’d known they were here. They’re like the rest, they hate me because I can do what they can’t.”

  “They envy you. It’s natural, Carrie. If you were in their position, you’d understand.”

  She tipped her head up. “I don’t have to be in their position to understand, and I sympathize. But what am I supposed to do? Stay in one place when I needn’t?”

  “All I’m asking for is tolerance and patience. If they get nasty, don’t sink to their level, it makes matters worse.”

  “But I haven’t sunk to their level!” She sniffed. “Although it’d be easy.”

  “You haven’t, but as you say, it would be easy.” I shifted on the bench. “I’m trying to avoid it getting that bad and you can help by being the adult when they act like kids.”

  “All right,” she responded grumpily. “Are you going to give them the talk too?”

  “I will, but I wanted to speak to you first.” I sighed. “You were getting along well for a moment there.”

  “Until you asked me to go to Provo with you.”

  “Yeah. Bad enough you can go where you want to, I had to make it worse by soliciting your help.”

  A big engine purred up the hill. “Sounds like Royal.” I rose up.

  Carrie sounded much happier. “I am excited, Tiff.”

  “I can tell.” I stepped to the curb. “Remember why you’re there. I’m relying on you.”

  Royal pulled alongside and leaned over the passenger seat to open the door. He looked impossibly gorgeous in a pale-gold shirt, long black leather coat, black jeans and those sexy brown cowboy boots. Carrie slipped into the back seat as I climbed in.

  “Bloody hell,” came from the back seat. “He couldn’t get any sexier if he tried.”

  He leaned in, but pulled back before our lips could meet. “Is she here?”

  “Of course I am, darling,” Carrie crooned.

  “She’s in back.” I took his face between my palms and brought him in for a kiss. I took my time with it, too, and ignored Carrie’s comments. I didn’t hear her as more than a murmur, my senses consumed by Royal’s intoxicating scent and his lips on mine.

  She raised her voice. I vaguely heard her declare, “Do you mind!”

  I released him and he sat back, smiling. “And a very good morning to you, too.”

  “Nothing like starting the day off right,” I agreed.

  He eased the big machine into the street. We went left and headed for University Drive. Carrie oohed and aahed over the old, once-stately mansions as we drove the secondary streets.

  “My niece came to America. She went to some historically significant places, but all she said is it’s not really old, is it, as if that made them less important. I told her age doesn’t matter, it’s still history.”

  She rattled on. “Look at this! The buildings look Wild West if you ignore the cars and modern signs. Ooh, look at that - was it a saloon once upon a time?”

  I glanced to the side. “A hotel, I think.”

  I passed the time by giving her an abbreviated version of Clarion’s history. The organized gambling parlors and brothels, strip joints and opium dens. The local Mafia, assassinations, murders. How decent people avoided downtown and it went into decay until the 1980s when the Clarion Restoration Society started raising money for renovation and tempted specialty stores and restaurants to move in. Today it is Clarion’s entertainment Mecca.

  Royal’s mouth looked tight.

  I walked a fine line, talking to shades when Royal hung out with me. Since meeting him I had gone from hiding my abilities, to declaring he had to accept I came with baggage and would not pretend they weren’t there, to trying to be sensitive to his feelings. I mean to say, not every guy can tolerate hearing his girlfriend have animated conversations with thin air.

  I talked freely to Carrie now. I wanted her in a good mood, cooperative. I’d try to explain to Royal later when Carrie had gone on her way.

  After an uneventful drive through Clarion, we circled the lake and drove down Fork Canyon, where we merged with traffic on the I-15 and headed south toward Salt Lake City. The Great Salt Lake and Antelope Island stretched along west of the highway. Carrie kept up a one-sided conversation, asking questions and answering them herself. Fine with me.

  “Is that an amusement park? It is, by golly!” she enthused as we drove past Farmington. “Can we stop there on the way back? I haven’t been on a ride for donkey’s years.”

  “It’s closed for the season.”

  “Oh bother. Well never mind. I remember the last time I went to an amusement park. I was a tiddler. They had one of those huge gravity drums. I don’t think they were called that, but you know what I mean. You get inside, it spins and you’re sucked against the wall. Well, I was plastered to it, didn’t dare move, but all these little lads were scrambling like spiders.”

  “Damn!” Royal eased off on the gas. Traffic had backed up. “Road-works. We can avoid it on the way back.”

  After inching along for seven minutes, he took the Centerville exit where we turned south along South Main. We rejoined the Interstate at Bountiful.

  “This reminds me of Switzerland, all those houses up on the mountainside,” Carrie said. “Not that I’ve been there, but I’ve seen pictures. I expect you have, haven’t you? Perhaps I’ll go to Switzerland next.

  “Some parts of France near the border look like this. You should visit France, it’s an experience. Although it would be quite a journey for you, as bad as going to England, not just a trip on the ferry or through the Chunnel. My neighbor Margaret took the Chunnel all the time. Not me, I told her! All that water pressing down. They tout the safety but I ask you, what if… .”

  At the bottom of the concrete steps leading up to Provo PDs squat, concrete building, I pretended to talk to Royal as I spoke to Carrie. “You remember what to do?”

  “Yes. I latch onto Detective Stirland or Detective Haney, because obviously I can’t go with both of them. Unless they’re together all day and night, which I doubt. But I am not going into a Men’s room, if you want that you can think again. I suppose if they’re on a watchamacallit, a stakeout, they’ll - ”

  “Carrie!”

  She humphed at me, then sighed. “I go everywhere with either one of them. I listen for anything they say about your friend Lynn and read everything I can see. Case file. Autopsy report. Anything. If you leave today without seeing the detectives, I stay here, hitch a ride to the Criminal Investigations Department and find them. You’ll pick me up tomorrow afternoon. I come outside, head right and go to the next block. What’s a block?”

  “Walk to the next corner and cross the alley.”

  “I suppose lots of people come in and out of a police station. I should be able to get in there.”

  “I hope we can take you in an
d right to the detectives.”

  The air felt heavy and sullen in a pale, cloudless sky, and too warm for this time of year. Maybe a storm headed this way.

  A prickle ran up my spine, tickling my consciousness, almost as if we were being watched. Spinning in a circle, I surveyed the street. My words came out softly. “Royal, someone has eyes on us.”

  People went about their business on foot and in autos. Nothing and no one looked suspicious, out of place. Yet the sensation of watching eyes lingered.

  “I do not see or sense anything.” Royal put his arm along my shoulders.

  “I don’t know either, but… .” I clamped my lips together irritably. I felt something, I knew it, though not now.

  We walked up the steps and in the precinct building. I stood at a big window and looked at the street as Royal went to the desk and spoke to the officer on duty.

  He joined me a minute later. “They will let us know.”

  We moved to a long, narrow leather seat. Carrie stood behind us. We were not there more than five minutes when the officer beckoned to us, then flipped one hand to indicate the stairwell.

  The precinct was new territory so we followed signs at the top of the stairs and were soon in the Criminal Investigations Department. I probably could have found it by the noise. You hear a contradictory kind of sound, where officers and detectives talk on the phone, assist people and question others. Jocularity laced with tension, casual banter and sharp tones.

  A homeless man grasped two large shopping bags filled with old clothes in one hand as he gestured wildly at a detective with the other. A heavyset man in his fifties wearing a brown boiler suit sat beside a desk with hands cuffed in front of him. Two teen girls with red-rimmed eyes sat with a female detective.

  “It looks like NYPD Blue,” Carrie said.

  “The old cop series? You got it on British TV?” I murmured from the side of my mouth.

  “One of my favorites at the time. Now it’s all CSI this and CSI that.”

  Stirland and Haney sat at facing desks. Stirland, in his shirtsleeves, pecked at his keyboard. Haney relaxed in his chair, hands at his waist and thumbs tucked in his belt beneath the unbuttoned jacket. He rose to his feet when we reached him.