Dead Demon Walking (16 page)

“
Yes. I’m sorry I have to
ask.”

“
This is why you
came?”

“
I’m helping the
FBI.”

“
I see.” She nodded as she
crossed one leg over the other and draped her arm along the chair
arm. I gave her a minute to gather her thoughts, hoping they were
still cohesive.

“
It was two in the
morning,” she began. “I woke and heard sounds from downstairs,
drawers opening and closing, so I thought Robert had returned early
from France. He was there lecturing. I came down and found a young
man in the office. He had a sheaf of papers from my desk in his
hand.”

“
Papers? What were
they?”

“
I have no
idea.”

“
Then how do you know they
were yours?”

“
Oh. I don’t, I suppose.
The desk was always a mess: letters, bills, notes, books, you know
how it is. I think half were on the floor near the desk. I assumed
so were those he held.”

So the guy searched for something in
Janine’s house?

“
What did he look
like?”

“
Mid-twenties, very tall.
Exceptionally tall, perhaps six-eight. More than his height, I
noticed his hair, black and long, and it shone slickly as if
oiled.”

“
What nationality or ethnic
group?”

She put one finger on her
lip, rubbed it, as if thinking. “
Possibly
Indochinese.”

American Indian, Mexican, Columbian
and now Indochinese. “Go on. What happened then?”

She spread her hands. “Nothing. I woke
up dead.”

“
You didn’t see him come at
you?”

“
The last thing I remember,
he stood by the desk, staring at me.”

He moved too fast for her to see him
coming. I leaned over my knees. “Did he speak? Did you?”

“
I was about
to.”

Well drat. This was going
nowhere. “Is there anything,
anything
else you can tell me about
him and what happened that night?”

“
I . . . don’t think so,
but my memory is not what it was. Perhaps something will come back
to me.”

But I couldn’t wait all day for her
fading memory to reboot. “I wish I could stay longer, Janine, but
an impatient FBI agent is waiting outside.”

She rose up, fidgeting with
her fingers. “I understand, but before you go I
must
tell you about my visitor.” She
waved one hand. “Not him. It was . . . what month is
this?”

“
It’s August.”

“
Then six months ago. I was
so excited! I think you will - ”

I heard a creak behind me and dropped
off the chair to my knees, hand fumbling for a weapon, but Royal
and I left our pistols locked in his truck’s glove compartment, in
Salt Lake City.

“
Hello, Miss Banks,” Agent
Solomon Gunn said.

I went up on my knees to see over the
back of the chair. Agent Gunn stood near the French windows. So
that’s why they were open.

He peered at the room. ”You were
having quite a conversation.”

Dumfounded, I grasped the chair arm to
pull myself up.

“
You’ve been holding out on
us. You do more than receive messages from the dead, you have
conversations with them.” He said as he moved into the
room.

I put one hand to my hip
and thanked my lucky stars I hadn’t said anything to let Gunn know
I met Janine before. “What, your
file
didn’t tell you exactly how I
communicate? And what does it matter, when you don’t believe me
anyway?”

“
I’m not sure what I
believe.” He sauntered over and faced me with his thumbs hooked in
his belt. “But it looked to me you were chatting up a storm with
Miss Hulme. I expect you had a nice conversation with the Fenshams
too.”

I gave him a filthy look. “I don’t
give a rat’s ass what you think.”

Janine said, “Oh, no!” and
disappeared.

“
Janine?” I walked across
the room. “Janine!”

Not a whisper. Something
scared her away, likely the smug-faced asshole behind me who
thought he passed for a human being. I silently cursed Gunn from
one end of Vegas to the other. Boy, was I
mad
.

I jerked my head at the door. “Let’s
get out of here.”

“
Sure you’re
done?”

“
Thanks to you,
yeah.”

I spoke loud into the silence. “Maybe
I’ll get back this way sometime, just for a chat.”

Gunn looked a question at me, then his
face cleared. “Oh, right, you were speaking to Miss
Hulme.”

I walked away. “No, the Tooth Fairy.
Come on.”

***

Eyes a dark, simmering brown, Royal
strode up the path as we came out the front door. He spared Gunn a
black glare as the agent passed us and went on to join Vanderkamp,
who spoke into his cell phone.

“
I came close to flattening
an FBI agent,” he said under his breath.

I clenched my fists. “Shame you
didn’t. You knew Gunn was in there?”

“
I sensed someone
approaching from the rear after you went inside. Then I recognized
Gunn. I guessed it must be an underhand FBI tactic, anything more
and nothing would have stopped me coming in. But I was angry, Tiff.
What was he up to?”

I rolled my eyes, hissed through my
teeth. “Spying on me. He heard me talking to Janine.”

We walked to the curbside, where Gunn
and Vanderkamp appeared to have an animated conversation punctuated
by arm-waving and finger-pointing.

“
Get in the car,”
Vanderkamp barked as we reached the street.

I opened the rear door. “Fine by
me.”

Royal and I got in back and had to
move over when Vanderkamp climbed in with us. Gunn took the front
passenger seat.

Gunn twisted in his seat to look back
at us. Vanderkamp said, “So, Miss Banks, what did Miss Hulme tell
you?”

Although I didn’t look directly at
Royal, I caught the barely there nod of his chin. “A tall man in
his mid-twenties. Long black hair. She thought he could be
Indochinese. He was standing near her desk with some papers in his
hands when she went in the den.”

After a silence, Vanderkamp prompted
me, “And?”

“
She didn’t see anything
else.”

“
He attacked her. Did she
see the weapon?”

“
She saw him at the desk,
and next thing she knew, she was dead. She didn’t see him come at
her, or a weapon.”

“
He had an
accomplice.”

I shook my head. “No, just
him.”

“
They kept out of
sight.”

“
Nope. She would have seen.
The deceased know who killed them. They could have their eyes
closed and still see. That’s how it works, Agent.”

He made a
pah
noise. Used to
disbelief, I shrugged his off. I wasn’t going to waste my breath
arguing with him.

Gunn faced front. “Let’s go,” he told
the driver.

We drove at double the
twenty-mile-per-hour speed limit, but not so fast I didn’t see the
guy in an older model black Corvette parked just down from Janine’s
house.

“
I was just notified of
another incident, in Nebraska,” Vanderkamp said. “We would like you
to accompany us.”

It can’t be. I imagined
him.

I didn’t want to contemplate what Rio
Borrego’s presence in Janine’s neighborhood could mean. Rio
Borrego, Gia Sabato’s lover. I closed my eyes and let my head
sag.

“
Nebraska?” Royal
asked.

“
Two hours ago. David and
Gwen Welsh of North Platte. A neighborhood family went to visit,
found them in their basement.”

I couldn’t concentrate on Nebraska
when memories of Gia Sabato crowded my mind, unpleasant memories of
when she and her friend Daven Clare came to Banks and Mortensen a
year ago. Gia and Daven are Dark Cousins, powerful entities somehow
related to Gelpha. They wanted us to find Rio, who had disappeared
without a trace. Of course the case was not as simple as that.
While I tried to locate Rio, I discovered Royal helped the Cousins
with something much direr: Gelpha and Dark Cousins were victims of
what appeared to be ritual executions.

At the same time, a journal belonging
to Victorian Elizabeth Hulme arrived in my mailbox. In the journal,
fifteen-year-old Elizabeth recorded her expedition to what was then
Upper Burma, now Myanmar, with her father Edward and his
assistants. Edward, an archeologist, travelled to Burma to
investigate Nagka, an ancient ruined city. Elizabeth’s little diary
made interesting reading.

Finding Janine Hulme was nothing more
than luck. I gave up trying to locate Edward Hulme’s descendants
when I discovered just how many Hulmes are in the USA, but when I
made plans to go to Las Vegas to read a book about the expedition
by Hans Stadelmann, I thought I’d give it the old college try. I
phoned the sole Hulme in Vegas, who happened to be Janine, who
happened to be fascinated by her forebear Elizabeth’s history and
eventual fate in the Burmese jungle.

My meeting with Janine pointed us back
to Professor Hans Stadelmann, and eventually to the murderer we
were seeking: Phillip Vance, aka The Charbroiler. It also led us to
Rio, who was near death in a house belonging to Vance. Vance’s men
tortured Rio, trying to make him give up Gia’s
whereabouts.

At times I look back and am awed how
the case came together. But to solve it we had to work with Gia
Sabato and Daven Clare, and I learned enough about Dark Cousins to
make me hope I would never see them again. At the same time, the
mystery of exactly what Dark Cousins are and of what they are
capable became an involuntary, rasping irritation, always there,
gnawing at me.

Now Borrego lurked in Janine’s gated
community. Coincidence? Don’t make me laugh.

“
Miss Banks?”

I opened my eyes to look at Gunn
quizzically.

“
North Platte. David and
Gwen Welsh,” he reminded me.

I struggled to get back on topic. “Did
the visitors see anything?”

“
The husband saw the
bodies, the wife and kids stayed upstairs. None saw another person
on the property.”

“
Nevada, Arkansas,
Nebraska. . . . What drew the killer to those places? What’s the
connection?”

One corner of Gunn’s scarred mouth
twisted up; he shook his head. If he had an answer to my question,
he would not give it to me.

Royal put his hand on my shoulder and
gave it a light squeeze which conveyed his sympathy. “I know it’s
tough, Tiff, but I think we should.”

He was right, of course. The Welsh
couple could possibly give us valuable information. The dead lose
memories over time, so although Janine and the Fenshams told me the
truth, they might have forgotten something significant. A kill this
fresh, they should remember everything. But, Nebraska? We would
either spend interminable hours on planes and in cars, or stay the
night in a motel with no change of clothes and travel necessities.
I felt dog-tired, frustrated, cranky and very worried.

I gave Royal a weak, wavering smile.
“Yes, we should go.”

I dropped the smile as I met
Vanderkamp’s eyes. “Will we stay the night?”

“
That’s your choice. The
Bureau can spring for a motel room if you’d rather take a flight
out tomorrow morning.”

Driving to the airport, my brain felt
like a ping-pong ball bouncing in my skull. I thought I would burst
before I had the opportunity to speak to Royal in
private.

The SUV left us at the terminal and
drove away to wherever black FBI vehicles go while they wait for
their next unwilling passenger.

***

I almost changed my mind when I
learned we would fly back to Salt Lake City to connect with a
flight to Denver International Airport. You would think with the
money and resources it has, the FBI could lease a private jet. But
no, we had to crawl back and forth across the States, cabin class.
I think I’d have been out of there and back in Clarion if the
layover had been longer than forty-five minutes.

From Denver, we rode a Great Lakes
Airlines Beechcraft 1900D twin-turboprop to the North Platte Lee
Bird Airfield and I thanked every deity I could name the flight
took only an hour and seven minutes. We climbed, bumpily, flew
bumpily and descended, bumpily. And landed, bumpily. I wished I
hadn’t bought that sandwich and eaten both mine and Royal’s
pretzels on the flight from Salt Lake to Denver.

The entire trip from Nevada to
Nebraska took four and a half hours. Four and a half hours of
desperately needing to talk to Royal.

Chapter Twelve

The wrong end of summer in Nebraska
brought a hot, strong wind which tried to force dust and chaff
between my eyelids. I crossed a verge of dry, brittle grass from
the parking lot to the street, expecting to see a black SUV at the
curb, but the agents led us to where two men, a North Platte police
cruiser and a big silver-gray crew cab pickup waited.