Dead Demon Walking

by Linda Welch

  I sipped my coffee. “Going off alone on a hike wasn’t unusual for him?” Jack was hiking when Frederick Coleman snatched him. Coleman owned my house till he died of heart disease and I inherited two bodies in my basement and the shades who go with them.

  “We often hiked together, but. . . .” His voice faltered, trailed off.

  Had Jack not left New York, he would not have gone hiking Clay Basin alone.

  I wiped the last drizzle of gravy off my plate with the last morsel of biscuit. “At the moment I don’t know any more than you and the police. Anything you can tell me would be helpful.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t think there is anything more.”

  I chewed, swallowed, dabbed my mouth with the napkin and let it fall in a crumple on the plate. “I don’t know what I can do for you, Mr. Jericho. The police investigation of Trewellyn’s disappearance was thorough and nothing new has come to light.” I rested my elbows on the table. “Tell you what, I’ll go over it again and see what it tells me. If I turn up anything new, my fee is fifty dollars an hour plus expenses. If I don’t find anything, I won’t charge you a dime.”

  He nodded. “That sounds more than fair.”

  Not really, because I didn’t mean to investigate Jackson Trewellyn’s disappearance, but had every intention of investigating Dale Jericho.

  He opened his wallet. “Breakfast is on me. It’s the least I can do.”

  I didn’t argue.

  Jericho retrieved the photo, tucked it back in his wallet and replaced it with his business card. “My cell number is on the back. I’ll be in Saint George for a few days before I head home.”

  I read the card: Dale Jericho and Associates. Criminal Defense, Accidents and Injury, Wills and Estate Planning.

  “You’re an attorney.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  I smiled at the card. I think he cracked a joke.

  “I’ll be in touch, Mr. Jericho.” I held out my hand. “Thank you for your time.”

  It doesn’t hurt to be polite, even when you could be shaking the hand of an accessory to murder.

  ***

  I sat at my computer half an hour after leaving Dale Jericho outside Audrie’s. I hoped Jack would not materialize behind me and see the data scrolling down the monitor. I would talk to him later. Meanwhile, Royal’s less than legal, demon-tech search engine poked its sticky little fingers in Jericho’s life.

  Dale Jericho, born in Clarion in 1958, sister Felicity born in 1960, parents Graham and Margaret Jericho. The Jerichos divorced in 1961. They shared custody of Dale and his sister until Graham died of mesothelioma in 1966. Margaret married Harry Chambers in 1971. They moved to a home on Bluebell Lane, West Clarion. Margaret and Harry now lived in Laramie, Wyoming.

  An only child, sixteen-year-old Jack moved in with the Jericho family in January, 1974.

  As Jericho said, he attended the same Junior High and High School as Jack - they graduated on the same day - then on to River Valley College. Jericho majored in criminal law.

  Jack majored in environmental engineering, but didn’t graduate.

  Jericho went to work for Miles, Bingham and French, Attorneys at Law.

  Jack worked full-time at Denny’s.

  June 1986, Jericho had just made junior partner when he moved to New York City.

  June 1986, Jack worked for Big Powder Recreation when he vanished in the Clay Basin area of the Wasatch Mountains.

  Why did Jericho move to New York City when he just made junior partner?

  I poked a bit more. Jack and Jericho did indeed share a campus apartment, and later, a duplex on Berkley Road.

  Jericho had done well for himself. Senior partner in his law firm. A penthouse apartment in Hoboken and a holiday home in Carmel. Never married. No scandal, no affairs, no activity in the political arena. He supported several major charities.

  Which gave me little to go on. I could probably find the same information using Google.

  The phone rang. I leaned to see Caller ID, and smiled.

  “Why are you using that search engine?” Royal asked.

  “Snoopy? Ah, spotted me on there, did you?” I said unnecessarily. When Royal first showed me how to use it, I called the search engine a snoop program, which morphed into Snoopy. Compliments of Royal, a small Snoopy with his pilot’s helmet and scarf now sits atop the monitor. “Can’t I have a little privacy?”

  “Sorry. Technology’s a bitch.”

  Royal and I could log on Snoopy from different locations at the same time and do multiple searches as a team. He logged in and saw me on there.

  “What are you up to, Tiff?”

  I didn’t want to tell him, lest Jack hovered in the immediate area and heard me. He would bust right in on our conversation. “I can’t talk about it now. Can I tell you later, when we go see Harley Frost?”

  “Is someone there with you?”

  “The usual suspects.”

  After a brief silence he said, “Oh. I see. I think.”

  I chuckled and hung up. Royal and I are not ones for long phone conversations and lingering good-byes.

  I printed what I found on Dale Jericho, put it in Jack’s file and stowed the folder in my desk. Then I went downstairs to have a word Jack.

  ***

  Noon, and the kitchen warmed up as the sun overhead unleashed its heat on my house. I closed the windows to keep the cooler air in and the hot out, shutting out the sounds of children at play down the street and the faint, distant traffic buzz. My old pink refrigerator stopped humming and shuddered into silence. She’s a genuine 1950s model and runs well for an old lady, except what I put on the top shelf tends to freeze. The kitchen seemed unnaturally quiet without that busy hum. I could hear myself breathe.

  Mac had no bright patches to lie in while the sun hung overhead. With a disgruntled huff, he roused himself to come flop on my feet.

  I had positioned my chair sideways next the table. Jack and Mel can blink out in one area, back in another, and go through walls and other obstructions, but they generally move through the house like the living. I expected Jack to enter the kitchen from the hall and wanted to face him when he arrived.

  I didn’t raise my voice. He would hear me just fine from wherever he lurked in the house. “Hey, Jack, I got something for you.”

  He skipped down the stairs and in the kitchen with Mel at his heels. “What is it?”

  Mel came in close. “You got something for Jack and not me!”

  “What I got is a question for Jack.”

  Jack sagged. “Have I told you before you’re a heartless bitch?”

  “Often and loudly.”

  He twitched one shoulder irritably. “All right, what’s your question?”

  “Who’s Dale Jericho?”

  “Who?” Mel asked.

  Jack went still. “Never heard of him. Why do you ask?”

  That gave me pause. “Odd. He showed me a photo, you and him together. Said you were friends in Junior High.”

  He wound his fingers together. “You talked to . . . this man?”

  “Over breakfast.”

  “And he had my photograph?”

  “Both of you. Sure seemed like you knew each other.”

  He flipped one hand in a dismissive gesture. “You know those old school photos, they sit you next to anyone.”

  “I didn’t say a school photo.” I shook my head. “This was taken when you were in college.”

  Jack marched across the kitchen, stopped, swiveled on his heel and marched back the other way. “I went to college with hundreds of guys. Can’t be expected to remember them all.”

  If I knew my Jack, he was antsy, to say the least. “So you weren’t best friends. He lied.”

  “Apparently.” He stopped up against the kitchen counter, looking like he leaned on the edge. I say looking like, because he just pretends to lean. To me he looks solid, but he has no physical substance. “Though why anyone would lie is beyond me.”

  “You’re sure?
You’d tell me if you knew him?”

  He flipped his hands up, palm out, fingers splayed. “I told you I don’t. Haven’t I made that plain?” He came away from the counter and zoomed at me, veered at the last moment and stopped, facing me across the table. “What did he say?”

  “He came to me about you, wants to hire me.”

  “Why would anyone I don’t know take an interest in me? Why get so het up he wants to hire a PI - you did say he sounded upset, didn’t you?”

  “No I didn’t, but he seemed so.”

  He jogged one shoulder up near his ear. “Don’t care. Don’t know him - you had breakfast with him?”

  “Earlier this morning. He’s looking for you, Jack. Now, why would a stranger want to find you?”

  “Looking for me,” he parroted. “But I’m dead.”

  “Only we three know that.”

  I stared at him intently, reading his body language. He settled first on one foot, then the other, back and forth. He does that when he’s disturbed.

  “Let me see the photo.”

  “Don’t have it. Mr. Jericho tucked it away nice and safe, like it means a great deal to him.”

  A shudder ran over Jack’s shoulders. He was upset.

  “What’s going on?” Mel asked.

  I knew better than try to exclude her from the conversation or ask for time alone with Jack. She would ignore me. “Dale Jericho hails from New York City, but he grew up in Clarion and lived here till 1986. The year Jack died. He says they were buddies since they were kids. According to Jericho, they planned a move to New York City. They went there to scope out the place and had a falling-out, and Jack came back here. He didn’t know Jack disappeared till five years later. He’s regularly called Clarion PD for updates. Now he wants to hire a private detective. Brad Spacer gave him my name.”

  Mel rounded on Jack. “Wow!”

  Jack sniffed. “I don’t know what she means. Honestly, I do not know any . . . what did you say his name is?”

  I caught his wandering gaze, held it. “Jack, I know for a fact you lived with him and his parents after yours died. I know you had an apartment during college, then a duplex.”

  Jack went still again, mumbled, “Oh, that Dale Jericho.”

  “There’s more than one?” Mel asked. She even sounded serious.

  We ignored her. “Why deny you know him, Jack?”

  He stared at the backdoor.

  Hm. I squinted at him. “I met him because I’m suspicious of someone who asks after you, especially a man who kept in touch with Clarion PD concerning your disappearance. I think I should take a good look at Dale Jericho.”

  He tossed his head in my direction. “You leave him alone. It’s true, I knew Dale for years, we did go to New York, he stayed and I came home. That’s it. Period.”

  Curiouser and curiouser. If that was it, period, why so defensive? I worked the knife in a little deeper. “This argument you had, bad enough he’d want to see you dead?”

  Jack’s body followed his head as he spun to face me. “Don’t be ridiculous. You know who killed me!”

  “Maybe Coleman had an accomplice. Maybe this - ”

  “Dale would never hurt me!” he snapped. “You are so heading in the wrong direction with this, Tiff.” He straightened up. “Tell him you can’t help him and then leave him alone!”

  And with that, he stalked from the room, leaving me alarmed and Mel spinning with excitement.

  “Jack!” I called.

  He stopped in the kitchen doorway, then faded out.

  Chapter Two

  “Interesting,” Royal said. “Do you think Jericho was involved in Jack’s death?”

  “I’m not sure. They definitely have a history, but Jack is adamant Dale had no part in his murder.” I worried at my lower lip with my fingers as we parked next the Mount Lomond Cemetery.

  Late August is a time of sudden, violent storms. They are usually just a lot of noise, but this year brought unseasonal rain. A dark cloudbank menaced the mountain peaks as I got out the truck and walked to the cemetery. I hoped this would not take long.

  The old graveyard didn’t get many new occupants nowadays, just those whose family bought plots years ago. The deceased almost filled the small, lonely place and I think older coffins lay beneath the newer. I had not visited since my childhood when I snuck away from the house to come up here. I spent a grand afternoon, reading old gravestones, making up stories about who hid beneath, and fell asleep in the shade under the hedge. I woke hours later, in the dark, scared to death.

  On the East Bench, above where Thirty-Third peters out, the cemetery is scrupulously maintained, for the five mausoleums near the east wall belong to the old families. The bones of Clarion’s founding fathers, whose descendants spread their wealth throughout Utah, rest here. Many grave markers resemble small, gray and weathered mausoleums among other stones which tilt lopsidedly. The newer stones, by which I mean those laid in the last fifty years, stand out like poor relatives. A line of poplars rise behind the east wall, the roof of a small house visible in breaks between them and a copse of ancient yew outside the south wall mark the path to the parking area. I always think the place looks unbalanced with the low wall and tall stone posts which flank the entrance.

  The view over the valley is stunning, but the wall does nothing to protect a person from the sharp winds which can howl along the bench.

  I saw Harley Frost as we approached the wall. He looked natty in his dark suit, glaring white shirt and thin navy-blue tie as he slouched on his headstone. The old man stood at his and wife Agatha’s burial plot the day of her funeral, when his handyman walked from the gathered mourners and dented his cranium with a shovel. Before anyone could react, Harley tumbled in the hole, where he landed atop Agatha’s casket. And just like that, God answered Harley’s insincere plea that he soon follow his loving wife. Harley wasn’t pleased about that. He didn’t mean one word he said at Agatha’s funeral.

  Mason Haskins told police he killed Harley because the old monster made his wife’s life miserable. A spur of the moment response to the pain eating his gut, the acid of loss. Mason stood at Agatha’s graveside, mourning the woman he loved, and lost control. His attorney will plead temporary insanity.

  I trudged over cobblestones slicked by an earlier rainfall. A brisk wind hit my exposed face and snuck inside the gap at my neck where I left my collar unsnapped. Storm clouds boiled in from the east at an awesome velocity.

  Harley and I already met the day before, so I skipped the formalities. “Mr. Frost, a whole lot of folk want a look at your will.”

  “So you said yesterday. I told you I didn’t make a will.”

  “Yes you did. Last night I found out Malcolm Grape witnessed one you made in 1989. He spoke of it in a letter to his daughter.” Actually, Malcolm said, “Went to town Friday to witness that bastard Frost’s will.”

  “Old Grape? Ask him what the damn thing said.”

  “Wouldn’t be legal, Mr. Frost. Now why don’t you tell me what you did with it?”

  “Burned it.”

  I hoped he didn’t mean that. “You were a wealthy man. Your estate will be tied up in court for years if your will doesn’t surface.”

  He said in a venomous hiss, “Exactly.”

  I eyed him intently, and knew the old hellhound would not give up the will, if it still existed and he did not, as he claimed, burn the thing. Spiteful in life, spiteful in death, Frost would rather his money rot than give a penny to his heirs.

  I don’t understand that. If I had money, I’d spend it, not stick it in a bank vault to molder. And if I had any left when my time neared, I’d make damn sure it went to a worthy recipient, like a no-kill animal shelter.

  ***

  Royal waited at the two stone pillars in the shadow cast by one. A single harsh sunbeam broke through the clouds to define the contours of his face, touching one high cheekbone, sliding down, cradling his jaw. His copper eyes shimmered, copper-gold strands of hair gleamed as
if gilded.

  Knowing the high-altitude cemetery could be cool this late in the afternoon, I wore a light jacket over my T-shirt and jeans, so most of me felt comfortable, but the extremities were a mite chilled. Royal pretended to flinch as I slid my hands inside his open shirt, warming my fingers on his toasty skin.

  “My nose needs warming up too.” I pushed my face into the hollow of his neck. “Do you ever feel the cold?”

  “You know us demons, hot as Hades.”

  Hot in a number of ways. Amendment: hot in every way imaginable.

  Even if I remembered to call them Gelpha, he’d not forget the label I gave him and his people. They looked kind of demonic to me with their metallic hair and glimmering eyes, not to mention the pointed teeth. Demonic, lethal, and incredibly handsome. Sometimes I wondered what kissing another demon would feel like, those teeth pressing into my lips.

  Royal had his teeth capped. They marry human beings, have children and family lives just like we do, and a wife or husband could have a hard time with a pointy-toothed spouse. Those that don’t have new dental hardware installed must put their will on their mates, so they have no inkling their intimate relationship is with an alien being. I like Royal’s way better.

  After only a minute my hands felt a lot warmer. I saw the churning clouds bearing down on us and reluctantly moved back. We should go, or end up soaked. He crooked his arm and I tucked my hand inside his elbow, then the sun disappeared, smothered by dark, heaving clouds. Rain spattered down.

  We made a dash for the trees just outside the cemetery. Heavy foliage shielded us from the downpour, but huge, warm drops of water spattered from above where raindrops caught on the leaves, pooled, then came down like bullets. Royal pulled me nearer the cemetery’s wall.

  We turned the corner and dived into the gloom between the trees and hedge. Pieces of flint and small rocks pitted the dirt path. Behind the poplars, an old brick wall fronted a small brick house with windows and doors boarded up and a slate tile roof beginning to sag. Broken tiles littered a small concrete patio surrounded by what were once flowerbeds. A few old rose bushes struggled from long, dead grass and bindweed.