Rouse the Demon: A Krug & Kellog Thriller (The Krug & Kellog Thriller Series Book 3)

by Carolyn Weston

  But Krug didn’t wait. “We’ll have to ask for your cooperation, Miss Crewes. And we haven’t much time. If you’ll meet us at his house. Like in an hour, say.”

  Her eyes flew open. “You can’t expect me to—to look at him!”

  “Nothing like that,” Casey assured her hastily. “It’ll all be, uh, cleared away there.”

  “Then what is it you want of me?”

  “A list of his patients, for one thing,” Krug answered. “The group that met there last night. And his friends, too.” He kept staring at her. “Lady friends, in particular.”

  “There’s only one I know of. Mrs. Allman. Mona Allman. He spends—spent almost every evening with her.”

  “Except yesterday evening. Her name’s down for noon in his appointment book.”

  “I didn’t realize.” She seemed exhausted now. “Come to think of it, though, he was away all afternoon.”

  “Which meant he’d probably be home last night, right?” Krug waited, but she did not respond. “Who’s Lila, Miss Crewes?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “You mean you’ve never seen that picture in his desk drawer?”

  “How could I unless he showed it to me?”

  “You saying you never went in his office?”

  “Of course, but I never opened his desk drawers.”

  “Not even to look for a pencil or an eraser?” Krug’s smile was disbelieving. “Okay, Miss Crewes, whatever you say.” He stood up abruptly. “We’ll send a patrol car around to pick you up in an hour, then.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Sergeant, I can drive myself.” She gazed at him coolly. “Unless you meant I’m under arrest.”

  “What for, Miss Crewes?” Leaving it hang there, Krug nodded his thanks and they walked out. “Incubi,” he muttered as they stepped into the elevator. “So what the hell is that?”

  “Plural for ‘incubus,’ Al. An evil spirit that supposedly lies on people in their sleep.”

  “You mean she was talking dirty and I didn’t even know it?” The idea seemed to bother Krug, and he brooded all the way back to the station house.

  Next time, Casey thought, Miss Crewes had better watch it. She was a score for Krug to even up now.

  FIVE

  Done to death. Like a litany, the phrase kept repeating itself, and sitting very still with her eyes closed, Adrian Crewes waited to feel something. Killed. Someone murdered him. But without the detectives there, the words had no effect, the idea of murder was an abstraction. At the center of her mind was only a resounding emptiness where apprehension should be.

  Feather-light, something brushed her hand, and Adrian started, sending the cat skittering away. “Marmalade. Come here, kitty.” Groaning, she leaned down, enticing the half-grown, yellow-striped kitten back, hugging him as he purred like a miniature motor. “He’s dead,” she whispered into the soft, thick velvet fur. A shiver rippled over her body, and suddenly all the tiny hairs on her skin stood up. Out of some hidden compartment of his secretive life had come violence. Murder, the unmasker.

  When she had first heard of him, Myrick was not a person yet, only a possible project to Adrian—a California psychologist, her agent told her, who seemed to be working miracles in the field of drug therapy. “There was a squib about him in one of the news magazines a while ago. Maybe you saw it? Anyway, he’s been querying publishers—or vice versa—and one bit on the bait.”

  “Don’t tell me, let me guess, they’re looking for a ghost writer. ‘How I Became an Instant Guru.’ No, thanks.”

  “Don’t be so negative, Adie. The way I get it, what they’ve agreed on is a sharp, straight, no-nonsense case history sort of thing. Taking a group and following it through therapy from beginning to end. Right up your sociopsychological alley, right?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Got a call from Sullivan-Hall this morning, checking to see if you might consider it. How do you feel about a year in sunny California?”

  “The same way I’d feel about a year in hell.”

  “Insular New Yorker.” His sigh over the phone was a long hissing. “Adie, think of all the poor pale scriveners who’d jump at a chance like this. You will, too,” he predicted, “when you hear the advance money Sullivan-Hall’s talking about.”

  But there was a complication, she discovered when she traveled uptown to the publishing house. The miracle worker in California objected to collaborating with a woman writer.

  “Baloney,” said her agent when Adrian reported back. “You’re one of the best, and Sullivan-Hall knows it, or they wouldn’t have pitched you to him already. Give them a few days to lean on him, and we’ll see what happens.”

  “But isn’t that a little unrealistic? If he doesn’t want me, and they shove me down his throat…”

  “Ah, come on, Adie, where’s that old Women’s Lib spirit?”

  Where indeed, she wondered ruefully as she boarded a westbound flight at Kennedy International two days later. In her handbag was the copy of Newsweek which contained the article about Myrick. Adrian had meant to look it up in the library, but there hadn’t been time. Her sister had picked up the magazine at a bookstore specializing in back issues of periodicals—parting gift, Ellen said, bon voyage and all that. Adrian thumbed through the pages as the jet motors shrieked and the plane began to move. Morbidly certain that she was not only risking her life flying but also wasting her time on this wild-goose chase, she stared at the handsome smiling photograph. Dr. Stephen Myrick, the caption read, so it couldn’t be a mistake. Mesmerizing cure-all?

  Until a year before, she read, Myrick had specialized in obesity cases, then by accident he had discovered the effectiveness of his hypnotic techniques on pill addicts.

  God, Adrian thought, what have I got myself into? A two-bit Svengali to a lot of fat Trilbys. But now he’s found himself a new gimmick.

  Her blood pressure soaring, she read on. No mention of academic background, which probably meant he had a cow-college degree. No word, either, about wife or family. Misogynist, hell, she thought savagely, more likely this undereducated overambitious phony is a screaming homosexual.

  Her fury only increased by the stewardess’s offer of a wheelchair at Los Angeles International, Adrian headed for the reservation desk as soon as she disembarked. There was one seat available on a return flight the next afternoon at two o’clock. She told the ticket agent to book her, hearing her own name over the loudspeaker—“Please come to the information desk. Will Miss Adrian Crewes please—”

  It was Stephen Myrick, there to meet her.

  SIX

  Nailing down Lotte Haas’s alibi took less than half an hour, for two neighbors were at the Gorman house kaffee-klatsching, and both swore they had seen the sisters watching television the night before. It was hot, remember, they agreed triumphantly, and the windows were open on both sides of the house. No mistaking the evidence of neighborly eyes.

  “Christ, women,” Krug snarled as they crossed the sidewalk to the Mustang. “All this shit about liberation. Who needs to be liberated is the poor bastards those cows are married to!” But he calmed down as soon as the car doors were closed. “Nice and neat,” he commented, checking his watch. “She comes in, signs a statement, and that’s that. Too much to hope for, I guess, his girlfriend’ll be that easy.”

  Zero to forty in four seconds flat, Casey burned rubber down Fourteenth Street. The floorboards creaked as Krug kept braking unconsciously. But when they stopped for the light at Colorado, he relaxed again. Wetting his thumb repulsively, he leafed through Casey’s notebook, muttering, “Allman. Allman. Christ, you write like—Here it is. Mona Allman. Mrs. Allman. Divorcee, maybe?”

  “Didn’t look that way in the phone book, Al. A Robert Allman is listed for the same phone number at the same address.”

  “Well, isn’t that just great? Something new, a triangle. What’ll these nasty sexy types think of
next?”

  The Allmans lived in a sea-front, high-rise apartment complex which towered over Ocean Park on the southern edge of Santa Monica. A top-floor apartment, they discovered, one of the largest in the building. Several bedrooms and perhaps a den, Casey guessed, a number of baths and a huge sun deck high over the beach. Expensive living, no mistake about it. The tall, elegant, black houseman who opened the door confirmed his guess.

  “Yes”—he eyed them coldly—“what is it?” His nostrils twitched as if he smelled something bad when Krug, after identifying himself and Casey, asked to speak to Mrs. Mona Allman. “Couldn’t you have arranged to telephone before coming?”

  “No,” said Krug rudely. “And our business is important, George, so just tell her we’re here, okay?”

  “The name is Merriweather, and I’m afraid I can’t oblige.”

  “You mean she isn’t home?”

  “Oh, yes, she’s home, but I’m afraid disturbing her is quite out of the question. Mrs. Allman always meditates in the morning.”

  “She always what?” Timms barked when they reported back to the house on Palisades Avenue less than fifteen minutes later. “You pulling a gag of some kind?”

  Krug’s explanation produced a rare laugh from the lieutenant. He agreed they could catch the meditating lady later.

  The body was gone, Casey saw. McGregor had left also. But through the archway he spied the technician still patiently dabbing for latent prints.

  “The secretary just got here. Miss Crewes.” Timms indicated the closed sliding door. “Said you asked her to meet you. I put her in there, she says it’s her office.” He lowered his voice. “Not much of a suspect, is she?”

  “I’m not counting her out.”

  “Come on, Al, she can hardly walk.”

  “She can lift her arm, can’t she? And pushing those canes around, she must be strong as a horse. She tell you they got tape recordings of those meetings, including last night’s maybe?”

  The lieutenant nodded. “We found a third tape recorder behind some books in there,” he said, indicating the front room. “A partly used tape on it. Nothing much I could hear but some loud-mouth kids cussing each other out. McGregor took it with him. Madam Queen in there put up a squawk.” He jerked a thumb at the closed sliding door. “Says it’s privileged material. I explained to her how it’s direct evidence, too. Or could be,” he amended. Then he grinned slightly. “Don’t need to tell you, I guess, to keep hands off any others?”

  Krug nodded. “We got any next of kin yet?”

  “Brother somewhere up north. Crewes has the dope on him.”

  They had the housekeeper’s alibi nailed down, Krug told him. Then he reported the information they had squeezed out of Merriweather: “According to him, Mrs. Allman had this dinner party last night. Five people there—we got names—plus Mona and Robert Allman. And,” he added, “Allman’s girlfriend. Merry-what’s-his-name claims nobody moved out of the apartment till after two this morning.”

  “Some dinner party.” Timms hesitated. “You said Allman and girlfriend?”

  Krug grimaced. “The Beautiful People. Looks like Missus spent her time with Myrick. Allman spends his with his cookie, I guess, playing house on a boat down at the marina.”

  “Cozy arrangement. I’ll be interested to hear Allman’s version.”

  “We’ll check him out, and the other people, too.”

  Timms nodded. “How’d the butler—or whatever he is—take the news about Myrick?”

  “Blandly,” Casey replied. “But that’s his style.”

  “Yeah, he’s strictly hincty all the way.” Krug scowled at Casey. “How about getting the smartass in there started on that list of patients?”

  “We want everybody,” Timms instructed, “including any dropouts. And name and address for the brother right away.”

  Adrian Crewes was sitting at the desk. One of the locked files was open. A tape spool turned slowly on the machine—a soft babble of voices which she shut off as he entered. “I’m sorry, but I’ve forgotten—”

  “Kellog, Miss Crewes. Is that a tape of the group?”

  “Yes, it’s last Friday’s. Thought maybe it might be the one Steve called me about. But it seems to be in perfect condition.”

  “There’s another one on the machine in his office. We only switched it on for a second, but it sounded to me as if it had been erased.”

  “Then that must be it.” Slipping her forearms into the leather cuffs of her crutch canes, she rose laboriously, levering herself over to the open file. “They’re all in sequence here.” Leaning one cane against the file, she quickly ran through what looked to Casey to be hundreds of boxed and labeled tape spools. “I wonder which—”

  “Would it help if I got it from his office?”

  “If you could.” She smiled faintly, composed now, ironic—a style Casey liked, he decided, even though it was slightly unnerving. “Heard the other man say only the hall and this room were done. I suppose he meant fingerprints?”

  Casey nodded. “Latents.” Then he asked her if she knew Myrick’s brother’s name and whereabouts, discovering they already had it in the private phone directory under “Bill.” Scribbling William Myrick and an address in Sausalito in his notebook, he suggested that she start a list of the patients as soon as possible. Meanwhile he would retrieve the damaged tape from Myrick’s office.

  Krug and Timms were in the front room, both comfortably seated in armchairs, smoking. Casey passed on the brother’s name and phone number. Myrick’s office had already been worked over for prints, the lab man informed him, so it was okay to remove the tape from the recorder.

  Timms was on the front-room phone, Casey saw when he came out of the hypnotist’s office a minute later, already at the grim business of notifying next of kin. William Myrick would make the formal identification of the body.

  “ ‘Group Five,’ ” Adrian Crewes read from the label on the tape spool Casey handed her. “ ‘Friday, June thirtieth.’ That’s almost two months ago. I wonder—” Looking bewildered, she listened to the hiss issuing from the playback. As if she could not believe her ears, she speeded up the tape, sampling section after section. “But—this is terrible. It’s completely ruined!”

  “Are these files open to anyone else?”

  “No, only Steve and I have—had access to the keys.” She stared at the tape turning in the machine, woebegone. “No wonder he was so angry. This breaks the sequence, you see.”

  “Could it have been erased accidentally? Maybe by the housekeeper?” But she was shaking her head no. Casey toyed with an idea, decided to keep it to himself, then changed his mind. “Is it possible one of the patients might have done it?”

  “I suppose so. But when?” She blinked rapidly. “Oh, I see what you mean.” She looked ill all of a sudden. “If one of them stayed after the session…”

  “Only an idea, Miss Crewes. We don’t know anything for sure yet.” Casey hesitated, rapidly sifting the questions which must be asked. “Do you play these tapes frequently? Like once a week, say, something like that?”

  “No, I only monitor once for my preliminary notes. Usually the day after the taping. Then each tape is filed till I’m ready for the verbatim transcriptions. That’s the last part of the book, so it’ll be some time—” Her eyes widened, moist suddenly, luminous. “But it won’t be finished now,” she whispered. “It’ll never be finished, will it?”

  Helplessly Casey watched her struggle with the terrifying reality of death by violence. The bloody, unspeakable horror of murder. This is when they collapse. When it finally hits them. “Miss Crewes, maybe you’d better sit down? Here, let me—”

  “No, please.” One hand stayed him, a gesture so eloquent of pride and the fierce unself-pitying strength which must sustain her every day that he froze in mid-step. “I’m all right. Really. Just have to—to think it o
ut.” She explained then about the publisher’s contract she and Myrick had signed six months before. “The book was to be a kind of group journal, you see. Case histories charting the backgrounds and progress of the patients, individually and as a group. My job was to get it together and write a readable text.”

  “This group—they’re all drug addicts?”

  “Not hard stuff. No cocaine or heroin.” She leaned exhaustedly against the file. “They’re all barbiturate and amphetamine addicts. Pill droppers. Speed freaks. They’re all teenagers. All troubled, of course—”

  The sliding door flew open, and sour-faced, Krug looked in at them. “How about that list of patients? We haven’t got all day.”

  “Coming right up,” Casey said, and ten minutes later he emerged with the list. They began the long tedious process of checking out names.

  SEVEN

  Amuttering in the hall grated on her nerves, the scraping of feet, someone running down the stairs when the one they called Lieutenant asked for help with something. Concentrating on the damaged tape, Adrian tried to shut out the noises. Friday, June 30. Why had Steve chosen this one to monitor last night? Must have been something said during the meeting, she decided. Some connection between the trouble and the June 30 meeting. In her sketchy notes, Adrian knew, there might be a hint, but how would she know without last night’s tape for reference? The police had it now. And her notes were in her briefcase, which she had left behind in her apartment.

  “Fifty different sets,” a quiet voice, slightly hollow-sounding, was saying outside the door. “You got hers in there yet?”

  Fingerprints, he meant. Later today, they would ask her to sign a statement, the bulky middle-aged lieutenant had told her, and her prints would be taken as a matter of routine. Also, they must ask her to stay in the vicinity in case further questioning might be necessary.