ROUSE THE DEMON
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2015 Brash Books
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 1941298516
ISBN 13: 9781941298510
Published by Brash Books, LLC
12120 State Line #253
Leawood, Kansas 66209
www.brash-books.com
Also by Carolyn Weston
Poor Poor Ophelia
Susannah Screaming
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ONE
“You’ve been shopping again,” his mother observed. “Casey, where in the world did you get that tie?”
“A real mind-bender, isn’t it?” Enjoying his psychedelic image in the dining-room mirror—wide flowered tie, purple striped shirt, blue denim hacking-style jacket—he ignored her expression. “Coffeepot’s full, I only drank one cup. Got to split, like now. My public’s waiting.”
“Some public,” she sniffed. “Murderers, thieves—”
“And I’m wasting a perfectly good education,” he finished for her. “You’re in good voice this morning, Mrs. Kellog.” Blowing her a kiss, he ducked through the kitchen, calling, “See you later!” and slammed out the back screen door.
Her voice floated after him as he trotted down the driveway of the garage: “Did you read your astrological forecast? It says to be wary of strangers…”
And Greeks bearing gifts, he thought. And hoods bearing guns. His new Mustang started with a Grand Prix roar even louder and more satisfying than the power-punch boom of his last year’s model, now a heap of incinerated metal in some junk dealer’s lot—RIP, lost in the performance of duty. He’d broken his arm in that fracas on the hilltop, too, but it had mended perfectly; not even a twinge this morning as he shot down the long driveway in reverse, crimping the wheel hard to swing into the street.
From two blocks away, the first traffic signal at Montana Avenue gleamed a tiny green eye of temptation at him. Succumbing, Casey floored the accelerator, shattering the middle-class morning quiet of his neighborhood. Zero to fifty in six seconds flat, and he caught the green. Caught the next and the next. Obviously this was to be a banner morning. Seven minutes later when he whirled into the entrance by the Santa Monica City Hall—a snow-white building, part of a gleaming complex of municipal structures which ended, a block away, with the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium—he found he’d tied his portal-to-portal record.
Parking in a slot marked official vehicles only, he jogged into the beehive-busy police headquarters housed in the rear of the City Hall. Ten minutes to spare, he congratulated himself, pounding up the stairs to the Detective Bureau. Time to grab a cup of coffee. Time to skim through the overnights before the morning rundown…
“Don’t bother to sit down.” Krug’s harsh voice stopped him at the counter which divided the desk-filled squad room from the small area which served as the captain’s anteroom. “New one just came in, and it sounds like a beaut.”
My partner, the early bird. Spying Ralph Zwingler’s grin across the squad room, Casey’s spirits sank. Caught a worm already, too.
“No details yet.” Krug’s ruddy, weather-beaten face looked even sourer than usual. “Only what the cruiser team reported in. Some dude with his head beat to a pulp. The troops have already gone with the lieutenant. Come on, let’s roll.”
So much for banner mornings.
The address was on Palisades Avenue, Krug filled him in as they pounded down the stairs and made their way through the bustling corridors below. “Don’t get much business in that district.”
Casey nodded. “I used to bicycle along there to get to the beach. It’s still nice, quiet.”
“Keep forgetting you’re a native son.” They climbed into the Mustang, and as usual, Krug slammed the door violently. “My wife claims there ain’t no such animule here; the storks in California bring poodles instead of babies.”
Dutifully Casey said, “Hoho,” and swung out onto Main Street again. More sedately than usual, he crossed the freeway bridge by Sears, turning toward Ocean Avenue. Squinting in the glare cast up from the sea lying hundreds of feet below the towering bluffs which Ocean skirted, he headed north. Palisades Avenue was five minutes away—a wide, seven-block-long residential street lined with spacious old houses which had not changed in the twenty-odd years he could remember.
“There it is.” Krug was pointing. “You can always tell where the action is.”
Neighbors in bathrobes had gathered in groups on the sidewalk. Squad cars clustered at the curb, parked helter-skelter. The ambulance sat in the drive in front of the porte-cochere to the left side of the large, square, two-story stucco house. Casey turned in and pulled up behind it. Krug was already out of the car by the time he set the brake. Bloodhound, Casey thought, and his stomach tilting queasily, he jumped out, following his partner across the lawn to three wide cement steps which led to a square-pillared porch.
The front door was open, guarded by a uniformed patrolman who greeted Krug cheerily. “Hi, Sergeant. Looks like we got an easy one for you. Murder One, no doubt about it.”
“So now all you got to do is give me the killer’s name and I can relax, right?”
As Krug brushed by him, the patrolman winked at Casey. “Would you believe that guy was ever a pink-cheeked rookie peeing in his pants when he made his first arrest?”
“Whose imagination is that good?”
Inside, Casey saw a square entry hall with a wide staircase, a long hall. To the right, near the stair, was a closed sliding door. To the left, an archway let into another larger room, and on the waxed floor under the arch lay a body.
McGregor, the senior lab man, was already busy marking the outlines of the sprawled legs, the long form clothed in a glen-plaid suit. A police photographer hovered nearby, impatiently waiting for a chance at his next shot. As one of the medical men moved aside, Casey caught a glimp
se of the dead man’s head—a bloody pulp of bone and tissue and brain matter. Thick dark hair with a little bit of gray where it wasn’t matted with blood. The bold-nosed, full-lipped profile of vigorous sensual man. A corpse now.
“Take a look at this,” he heard Krug saying behind him.
His partner and Lieutenant Timms crouched over something lying on the polished floor. “Your murder weapon, all right,” Timms was saying.
Squatting beside them, Casey stared at the bronze statuette of a knight in armor, the sort of old-fashioned art object which was back in style again, kitsch to some, camp to others.
“Must weigh ten pounds or more.” Timms poked at it delicately with a pencil and said, “See that?” as he pointed out a dark crust on the solid metal. It looked like dirt or grease to Casey. Then he saw the hairs sprouting from the crust, and his stomach lurched. “Exhibit A—when and if we catch ourselves a killer. Pray for a full set of nice clear prints.” The lieutenant’s knees cracked as he rose, groaning. “Leave it for the lab boys to handle.”
They inspected the contents of the dead man’s pockets which lay spread out on a refectory table pushed against the left-side wall. “Burglary maybe?” Krug suggested.
“Could be. But there’s fifty bucks in his wallet. A ring. A watch.”
“Yeah.” Krug sucked his teeth. “Any sign of a break-in?”
“Can’t tell yet.”
A flashbulb popped behind him, its lightning glare cast back by a large gilt-framed mirror hanging over the table. Half blinded, Casey saw his own and the others’ reflections as faceless shadows, like retinal ghosts. Then his sight cleared and they emerged again: two square, solid senior detectives, and a medium-sized, medium-good-looking, junior-grade self—tanned, muscular, but embarrassingly baby-faced compared to the other two.
“Housekeeper found him,” Timms was saying. “Lotte Something. A German name. I’ve got her stashed in a back room with a couple squad-car guys for baby-sitters.”
“She got any ideas about time?” Krug asked.
“Take a look.” Timms gestured toward the large room through the arch. “Lights are still on. Good chance, I say, it happened last night.”
They wandered through the arch into the large room, which looked to Casey as if it were used more for waiting than living. All the lamps burned brightly. The draperies were drawn. Ashtrays were full. “Looks like a club,” he murmured.
Krug scowled at him, but Timms nodded. “Good guess,” he said. “The neighbors say he ran his practice here, if you could call it that. Some therapy deal.” A smile flickered across his somber face. “Believe it or not, what we’ve got here is a dead hypnotist.”
Krug gaped at him. “Well, for sweet Christamighty—now we’ve really had ’em all!” He punched Casey’s arm. “Okay, sport, let’s get started. Like the book says, begin at the beginning. Let’s see what this hypnotist’s housekeeper looks like. Before she gets away on her broom, that is.”
TWO
Her name was Lotte Haas, a shrewd-looking, handsome middle-aged woman—more Valkyrie than witch, Casey decided. Sitting ramrod-straight in a hard chair, she glared at them as they entered what was obviously her own large comfortable bed-sitting room at the back of the house. She scarcely acknowledged Krug’s routine identification of himself and Casey. It wasn’t hard to imagine why the two patrolmen had looked so relieved to be sent away when she announced in loud uncompromising tones that she had told her story, there was no more to say, and as a naturalized citizen she demanded her right to an attorney.
Krug glanced at Casey. Another telly-watching legal expert, his sour expression said. Nowadays every boob in the world is an amateur shyster, thanks to ten reruns of Perry Mason. Casey explained to her how they could not accept any secondhand statements, even from other policemen. There was no need, he assured her, for an attorney present at this point.
“So?” she said doubtfully and thought it over. From the bathroom that Casey could spy through an open door came the slow drip-drip of a leaky tap. The floor creaked as Krug shifted impatiently. “All right,” she said finally. “Last night I am at my sister. Sunday and Monday always I go there. My days off. You understand? Then this morning, I walk back—”
“This sister,” Krug interrupted. “She lives here in Santa Monica?”
“Only now I have said I walk.” Her smile was contemptuous. “You think perhaps from the San Fernando Valley?”
Casey kept scribbling rapidly in his notebook. The sister’s name was Mrs. Annaliese Gorman. An address on Fourteenth Street south of Broadway. Mrs. Haas had left there at six o’clock exactly, arriving here about half an hour later…
“So you walk in about six-thirty,” Krug picked it up, “and spot the body?”
“Now you put words in my mouth! Is this not so bad as the secondhand statement?”
Krug sighed. He had little enough patience, none with women. “Okay, tell it your own way, Mrs. Haas. Just try not to take all morning.”
She entered the back door about half past six, the housekeeper repeated. She had a key for the front door, of course, but never used it. “And like always, I come first to my own room here. Hang up the coat. Put away the purse. So as not to disturb the Herr Doktor, change the street shoe which is heavy. I wear here the…” She searched for a word.
“Slippers?” Casey suggested.
“Ja, the shlippers I put on. Then to the kitchen for hot water in the kettle. Is too early for the Herr Doktor, of course. Even so, I think I look around, clean a little because he has the patients last night.” Her voice dragging then, she told them how she had discovered the body; the confusion of shock and terror and horror which had rooted her in the long hallway. Had she screamed for help? No, natürlich, why would she with no one in the house? Except—a shiver—perhaps the murderer. When she was able to move she had called the police—
“From where?” Krug interrupted. “Is there more than one phone in the house?”
“In almost every room, ja.” She pointed toward the kitchen. “There I call.”
Through the open door of her bedroom they could see into the modernized kitchen with its color-coordinated vinyl and tile and enamel. On a long counter under what must be a crockery cupboard sat a white princess telephone.
“The police are here,” she went on, gesturing wildly. “Gott sei Dank, so quick! I try to call Annaliese, but the officer says this is not permitted—”
“Who besides you has keys?” Krug interrupted again.
“Why, Doktor Myrick, of course, and that Crewes woman.”
“Who’s that, his girlfriend?”
“Ach, what an idea!”
Casey thought the name was Cruz, a Spanish name, until she spelled it for them. Miss Crewes worked for Dr. Myrick also, it turned out, apparently as a secretary. Mrs. Haas didn’t know her address, but assured them it must be listed in the doctor’s personal directory. As for his activities last night, she couldn’t be certain, but from the looks of the front room, there was the meeting as usual. “Always they smoke and make terrible mess. Is the same thing every time.”
Krug inquired what sort of “meeting” she meant, but Mrs. Haas had trouble explaining. As near as she could get, they all talked together and the Herr Doktor supervised.
“An encounter group,” Casey suggested.
Ja, that was it. The meetings were held three times a week—Monday, Wednesday and Friday—beginning at seven usually, finishing by nine-thirty. In any case, never later than ten o’clock, because always the Herr Doktor went out at that time.
“Out where, Mrs. Haas?”
Her shrug was European. “To that Mona, I suppose.”
Krug looked to see if Casey had caught the name for his notes. “You happen to know where this Mona lives?”
“Is a local phone call, that is all I know. Two, three times he leaves the number, and I call him there wh
en one of those Halbstarken comes crying to the door.”
“You mean one of his patients?” Casey asked.
“Hoodlums, ja. Bums they are, dopeheads. Is all the world over now—even in Germany!”
“About last night, Mrs. Haas,” Krug said. “I know it was your day off, but do you happen to know if he went out as usual? Or if he was expecting anybody after the meeting?”
She hesitated, appearing baffled for a moment by the double question. “Well, I know always he writes who comes to see him. In the book of appointments. But if he goes out…” She hesitated again. “No, I think maybe not. Because he calls me at Annaliese.”
“What time was this?”
“Ach, I cannot say for sure. Nine o’clock maybe? Annaliese has already the television turned on for the big movie. Then the phone rings and comes the Herr Doktor on so angry as I have never heard him. Somebody has ruined a tape, he says. Do I play the machine at any time?” She sighed feelingly. “Well, natürlich, I say no. Am I a fool to meddle with expensive equipment? No, it must be her, I tell him. That Crewes woman. A mistake she makes. Or maybe—” She stopped herself, and blinking rapidly, seemed to consider some idea which Casey could almost see developing. “Always they argue now,” she went on slowly. “Like something goes wrong. Ach, I cannot explain!” She pressed large, pale, ringless hands to her ample breast. “But so ridiculous it is. A woman like that—” One hand flew to her mouth, and her eyes widened. “But you must not think I suggest…”
“All right, Mrs. Haas,” Krug said sourly, “we’re getting the message.” And with an old-timer’s skill, he pinned her down—five minutes of facts, no more feelings or suppositions. Then thanking her, he called in a reluctant patrolman to baby-sit again. “Women,” he muttered as they headed once more down the long hall. “Let her sit there and stew awhile, see what else she can come up with. We better check out that Crewes dame as soon as we can, too. Before she gets here. Her reaction might give us some bright ideas.”
Rouse the Demon: A Krug & Kellog Thriller (The Krug & Kellog Thriller Series Book 3) Page 1