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

by Carolyn Weston

  Leaving Casey the task of calming the old man, Krug quietly hung up his extension and called out on another line. “Let’s go,” he said impatiently when Casey had finished talking. “Big deal, the Simmons kid’s father says he can give us a few minutes between appointments.”

  FIFTEEN

  “I’m expecting a prospect in half an hour, but he can wait if he has to,” Frank Simmons told them cordially. “Like to help you fellows whenever I can. Come on back…” He gestured toward a desk at the rear of the storefront office. “We’ve got coffee or a drink, whichever you want. No? Nothing? Well, at least have a seat. Come to think of it,” he said, laughing, “we should have stayed up front. At Sol’s desk. Business has been so lousy lately, we need some activity by the window to let ’em know out there we’re still operating!” Large, ungainly, older than Casey expected, he slumped into the Naugahyde executive chair behind his desk, still talking compulsively—a high-powered, eternally smiling salesman.

  Krug kept nodding politely while they progressed from the subject of high interest rates and taxes, which made real estate hard to move these days, to the new high rises which were changing the nature as well as the skyline of Santa Monica. When it became apparent that Simmons might never run down, Krug finally interrupted, reminding the talkative Realtor why they were there.

  “Yes, I read about the case in the paper,” Simmons said. “A terrible thing. Just terrible. A real shock for some of those Palisades Avenue residents, all right, a murder on their doorsteps. Thing like that happens, you always see some changes in a neighborhood.” He winked at Krug. “Bad as undesirables moving in, if you know what I mean.”

  But when they got down to details, his voice slowed and the jovial mask of the salesman slipped, revealing the tired, bitterly bereaved man behind it. He didn’t understand what had happened to his daughter, he told them mournfully, maybe it was his own fault for doting on her so, this child he and his wife had waited for all those years. He showed them a snapshot he kept in his desk, of a pretty, long-haired teenager, and told them how she had changed overnight, one day a sweet, loving child, the next this moody stranger who refused to say what had come over her.

  “By the time we realized, it was too late, of course,” he said as he brooded over the photograph. “She was arrested. And that boy never came forward. The one she’d been going with who gave her the stuff. My God, we never even knew his name!”

  “Take it easy, Mr. Simmons.” Krug cleared his throat. “We see a lot of it nowadays. Isn’t anything you have to blame yourself for.”

  “But I do. God knows, I do!” His eyes filled, and blinking rapidly, he stared beyond them into the sunlight falling through the wide front window lettered Simmons and Bernstein, Realtors, Licensed Real Estate Brokers. “We got her released and took her to our doctor,” he went on unsteadily. “And he recommended this Myrick fellow. Said he’d heard he was doing wonders with—with cases like Sandy’s. Well”—he drew a deep, shuddering breath—“it was fine for a while, she seemed to be doing all right. Then, after a few weeks, all of a sudden she wanted to quit.”

  “Did she say why, Mr. Simmons?” Casey asked.

  “Ah, for God’s sake,” he groaned, “what difference does it make?”

  “This is a homicide,” Krug reminded him. “Anything might make a difference.”

  “Yes, I understand. But to tell you the truth, it all seems so far away and—and—unimportant.” He looked at them pleadingly. “I know that’s a lousy thing to say. But since Sandy—since we lost her—nothing has seemed to matter very much.”

  His face looked naked, blind, as he pushed up his dark-rimmed spectacles and rubbed his eyes. He was sweating, Casey noticed. And his fingers trembled. It was difficult to recall him as the bustling salesman they had first encountered. A basic lesson in human psychology, Casey reminded himself: no one is entirely what he appears; seldom is the person that he characterizes himself to be.

  “She never told us what was wrong,” Simmons was saying, “but my wife guessed it might be Myrick.”

  Krug glanced at Casey. “You mean he made a pass at your daughter—something like that?”

  “Tell you the truth, I didn’t know what to believe, Sergeant. She wouldn’t say anything, so maybe it wasn’t that at all. Maybe it was that bunch of hoodlums. That group he got her into.” He kept sighing deeply. “She wouldn’t tell me anything at all. Ashamed maybe; I don’t know. But she told my wife some of the things they talked about at those meetings, and I tell you it made my blood run cold. I never heard such stuff in a locker room, much less in a mixed group of teenagers!”

  “Yeah, they’re pretty wise these days,” Krug agreed before Casey could inquire what kind of stuff Simmons meant. “So what did you do then, Mr. Simmons?”

  “Why, I called and told them she was dropping out.”

  “Was this your decision or hers?” Casey asked.

  “Hers, of course. Tell you the truth,” Simmons confessed, “I tried to persuade her to handle it herself. I mean, that was one of the problems, she wouldn’t take responsibility for what she did. Like I told you, there wasn’t a damn thing I knew for sure, but I still had my suspicions.” He sighed again deeply. “Anyway, I phoned and told them she’d decided not to go on. They tried to talk me out of letting her quit. Spouted a lot of psychiatric jargon at me. Absolute nonsense, of course, and I made damn sure they knew I knew it, too.”

  “You keep saying ‘they,’ ” Casey said. “Apparently you talked to someone else besides Myrick?”

  “Sure, his secretary. Had a hell of a time getting it through her head I meant business. But when she finally got the picture, she let me talk to Myrick.”

  “Must be Crewes,” Krug muttered. “A lame woman?”

  “Wouldn’t know, I never saw her. But I do know,” Simmons added with a glint of humor, “she’s a damn good talker.”

  “You can say that again,” Krug grunted. “If she can write as sharp as she talks, for sure that’s one female don’t have to worry any she’s a cripple.”

  “What d’you mean, write?” Simmons asked curiously. “What would she write in a job like that but an occasional letter?”

  “The way we hear it, she come out here specially to write this book about those kids with Myrick.” Krug shrugged. “Beats me who’d be interested.” Unaware of his gaffe, he went on briskly, “Mr. Simmons, we don’t want to take up any more of your time than we have to. Just a couple more questions.” He hesitated. “You remember your daughter mentioning anything about that Group Five bunch that might indicate they were unhappy with Myrick?”

  “No, I don’t recall anything like that.”

  “She ever say anything about the meetings being taped, anything like that?”

  Simmons shook his head.

  “How about Judy Flesher, she ever talk about her?”

  “Sorry.” The real estate broker made a helpless gesture. “Looks like I can’t help you there, either. I don’t know the name.”

  “Christ,” Krug groused when they had climbed into the Mustang again, “some more fat nothing. Thought the least we’d get is some word on the Flesher kid. Time, I say, we get an APB out on her.” He was still elaborating on the possibilities when they walked into the squad room once more.

  At his corner desk, Timms was on the phone, and he beckoned urgently, covering the receiver. “Get on this, Al! Line six. Some nut about to slaughter his whole family, he says, and he won’t let loose of his address.”

  No longer harsh, but soft-voiced and soothing, Krug spoke gently into the receiver. Good old Uncle Al, Casey thought, charms birds out of trees, maniacs out of hidey holes—

  “Crazy bastard!” Krug slammed the receiver. “Okay, I got him located.”

  “You want some backup, Al?”

  “Nah, it’ll only spook him. Let me try it solo.”

  As Krug rushed out, Case
y took a call from Robert Allman, who reluctantly agreed to meet them later in the day.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to cooperate with the police any way I can,” the producer explained, “but, you understand, I’ve got schedules to meet. A budget to keep up with. I walk off the set even at four, four-thirty, I’ve blown a third of a day’s shooting.”

  “If you’d rather, we can meet you earlier at the studio,” Casey offered.

  “No, no, that’s all right. Around five is fine. But if you don’t mind, let’s make it at the apartment instead of the boat. Merriweather says Mother seems to be handling it all right now…”

  Mother? Casey stifled an exclamation. “That’s Mrs. Mona Allman you mean?”

  “Yes, Merriweather said you wanted to talk to her, so this way you can kill two birds with one stone.”

  Just for the record, Casey inquired, how old was Mrs. Allman? Eighty-two, the producer replied. But she was sharp as tacks. His mother ran rings around women half her age.

  Well, Casey thought as he hung up, it wasn’t the first time he and his partner had missed the obvious. Nor the first time that some preconceived idea of Krug’s had short-circuited his own. Something new, a triangle. The insidious thing about experience, Casey decided, is that it can kill imagination. He was still brooding on the subject when Lotte Haas called from her sister’s, saying it was necessary for her to get into the Palisades Avenue house. Not only was she without her belongings, so fast had they made her leave yesterday, but also, she had promised the poor Doktor’s brother to keep watch in case those verfluchten Halbstarken should try to break in and do further mischief.

  Wondering what marvels of translation had made murder into mischief, Casey said he’d let her know when the premises would be officially unsealed. “Incidentally, Mrs. Haas,” he added guilelessly, “maybe you can help me? It’s about that photograph in Dr. Myrick’s office. The one signed ‘Lila’?” He waited, but she didn’t bite. “We were wondering if he might have seen her frequently. If you saw her around there much.”

  “Lila. I don’t know this person.”

  “But you have seen the photo.”

  “Ach, I suppose so.” Her tone gave him a clear picture of her shrug. “When I clean, you understand, maybe I see it.”

  “I’m surprised she never phoned or dropped by,” Casey said neutrally. “She says they were old friends. And she lives fairly near. Mrs. Cesana?”

  “That one—sure, she calls all the time. Like the Kinder she talks, always wanting the papa’s comfort.”

  “What sort of comfort do you mean, Mrs. Haas?”

  “Ach, you know these women. They make love with the problems. She calls she cannot sleep. Or some dream she must right away tell him. And always she is talking and talking about this ‘other side.’ ”

  “What d’you think she meant by that, Mrs. Haas?”

  “Lieber Gott, how should I know?” Sputtering, she protested that her grasp of the language made any but the simplest speech almost impossible for her to really comprehend. And when Casey returned to her phrase about making love with problems, she accused him of putting words in her mouth, of taking advantage of her linguistic lack and of prejudice against the foreign-born. For one whose grasp of the language was as slight as she claimed, Casey decided, Lotte Haas’s eloquence was positively magical. A gift of tongues. Also sprach Frau Haas.

  Escaping the squad room before Timms could put him on one of the tedious nit-picking tasks which fill a detective’s day, he stopped by the public library on Sixth, then headed for Adrian Crewes’s apartment.

  SIXTEEN

  It’s not fair! Decibels higher than all the others, Judy Flesher’s shrill voice dominated the tape-recorded babble. You motherfucker, you said you’d help me!

  Punching the off button, Adrian stopped the furious tirade, one of several in the August tapes she had monitored until her perceptions felt numbed. Inevitably, next would come the sound of something crashing. Then distantly the boom of a slammed door. And someone would laugh, someone always did. Man, that Flesh, she really blows her mind.

  How savage they are, Adrian thought. So pitiless of everyone but themselves. Monday’s tape would be a violent repetition. No wonder Steve had ended the meeting early.

  But then what had happened? she wondered. Through the open sliding door she could see the entry hall where Lotte had found him lying face down, sprawled in his own blood. Shuddering, Adrian rubbed the gooseflesh on her arms. Murdered. By a fat adolescent in dirty jeans and a leather jacket? The Princess of Invective, Steve had called her. Yet he had said Judy was an excellent subject for hypnosis…

  “Then, why,” the young detective had asked earlier when she told him this, “did he dismiss her from the group?”

  “She became so disruptive he felt he had no choice.”

  “Any particular reason for her change of behavior?”

  “Nothing I can say specifically.” Adrian hesitated. The hell with it, she thought. Sooner or later she must tell them what she knew, a sleepless night had convinced her of that. “My notes seem to indicate that it happened about a month after Sandy dropped out. Like a change of climate. All of a sudden the boys became very hostile toward Judy. And of course, being Judy, she fought back. The result was chaos, naturally.”

  “Could it be sexual?” he asked. “She was the only female member left…”

  “No, it’s something she did that they’re punishing her for. Steve tried to find out, but it was no use. Nobody would tell him…”

  Adrian had been trying to decide whether to call New York City when the detective knocked on her door late in the morning. Kellog his name was; unlike his partner, he had the courtesy and patience to listen while she worried aloud about notifying Sullivan-Hall Publishing. She could call her sister, too, Adrian told him. But the idea of murder had something contagious in it, didn’t he think so? And she could not bear to worry Ellen.

  “Then why don’t you wait a few days?” he had suggested. “There’s a possibility you’ll be able to leave then—if you want to.”

  “If it turns out I’m not guilty, you mean?” But he only smiled and began to question her about the members of the group. And reluctant to answer after her session with William Myrick, Adrian commented tartly that the lawyer must be more convincing than she thought. “He’s a little crazy on that Manson thrill-kill idea. Someone should have warned the boys to get legal aid as fast as they could. I suppose by now you’ve got them all locked up?”

  “We don’t book anybody without evidence, Miss Crewes. Not even juveniles.”

  “How enlightened. I must say I’m surprised. I’ve always heard the California police are notoriously freewheeling.”

  “That’s regional slander.” His grin was charming. “Scout’s honor, Miss Crewes, we’re really not fascist pigs.”

  A bright young detective. He looked like a Kennedy who’d been baked longer than the others—brown instead of ruddy, hazel-eyed—but with the same combination of shrewdness and humor and, possibly, idealism.

  Obviously accustomed to pets, he was leaning forward stroking Marmalade, who crouched at his feet. “Smell dog, do you, kitty?” he murmured as the cat sniffed him intently. “We’ve got three at home. The Ugliness Triplets. To her, I probably reek like a kennel.”

  “Him,” Adrian corrected. “He’ll get hairs on you.”

  “Well, if he does, it’s fair exchange—I’m probably passing him a flea or two.” He hesitated. “Miss Crewes, all I’m trying to determine is whether it’s important or not—if it matters that the members of the group apparently didn’t know their meetings were being taped for a book. For instance,” he went on before she could speak, “isn’t it possible such an arrangement might be considered a violation of professional ethics?”

  “Not if privacy was maintained. Certainly not if the taping was only for the sake of reference.”
<
br />   “But you said the tapes were going to be used in your book.”

  “You’ve forgotten the key word—‘anonymously.’”

  She sensed his suppressed sigh. “Miss Crewes, I’m not trying to make you admit anything you don’t want to. All I’m after is your opinion.”

  “You have it already. It’s ridiculous to imagine anyone committing murder because of something on that tape. There’s nothing on any of them that important. Nothing, for instance, that could incriminate any of the patients.”

  They discussed the Flesher girl then, her problems with the group. And Adrian explained that all but Sandra Simmons had undergone extensive individual hypnotherapy before Group Five was formed. Then, on June 1, Myrick had launched the group as a special study to be published eventually. “The sessions were free,” she continued. “The only thing he required of the members was a firm agreement to continue to the end. And except for the two girls, it’s been very successful.”

  “First of June. That’s only about two and a half months.” The detective hesitated. “From what you said earlier, I thought it had been longer.”

  “No, that’s my work. I have a hundred pages of typescript to show for my half year. The Myrick Method, and an analysis of the individual patients. All wasted time, I’m afraid. Obviously I can’t go on with it now.”