The Demon Pool

by Richard B. Dwyer

“Shit.”

  He banged his other elbow and then jerked the handle to the off position.

  “Shit, shit, shit.”

  He stood there naked, dripping wet, and suddenly ice-cold. Son-of-a-bitch. What else is going to go wrong today?

  ***

  Kat extinguished the black candle and returned it to her tote. She did not know what the exact effect of burning the black candle would be on Demore, but she still trusted the magick, even if she had not yet perfected it. She believed in its power. She also realized that since she and Kevin had both failed to stop Demore, her execution of the magick may have been less than perfect.

  Kevin had not called her yet to confess his failure, but she would deal with him later. Kat knew that something, some greater power, now fed her information. It came from some place that she could not quite identify. Not a voice, but more like a feeling. The best she could come up with was that it was a “knowing,” like the first time at the pool with Bruce. The book that Martha had given her had a section about special knowledge. It described a candle ritual that would allow her to connect with the universal mind and its unlimited knowledge and power. She only lacked the right candle. Martha would take care of that when Kat returned to the store in Ft. Myers.

  More immediately, Kat needed to prepare for her meeting with Demore. Since he had survived, and both her magick and Kevin’s assassination attempt had failed, she had put another plan together. The first part of that plan would be to get Demore back to Tampa. Her phone call would accomplish that. This time she would rely less on magick and more on good old-fashioned, human weakness.

  ***

  Jim dressed in the civilian clothes he had bought, put his uniform in the plastic laundry bag he found attached to a coat hanger in the motel room’s tiny closet, and went to the one-hour dry cleaner next door. Returning to his room, he wiped down his leather duty belt, holster, and other gear. He cleaned off his shoes and laid down on the motel room’s cheap, but welcome, mattress. Jim set the alarm on his cell phone for four p.m. and tried to relax.

  He was damned lucky to be alive, and although he didn’t give much thought to religion, Jim took a second to thank God, assuming God existed, for getting him out of his house alive. However, Jim could not resist, before drifting off, asking God why He had let Jim’s house blow up in the first place.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Bruce closed his eyes and tried to lie very still. Kat had called him at his office and told him to meet her at his house. He didn’t argue and left work early. By the time Kat was finished with him, he was raw and sore and did not want to do it anymore. At least, anymore today. Lucky for Bruce, Kat appeared to need a break also. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he was sure he would need a few days to recover. He also had a feeling that it was going to hurt like the devil just to piss. His brother had served in the Navy and once shared with him how overuse of the equipment could result in NSU, nonspecific urethritis. It wasn’t the clap, but it hurt just the same when you took a leak.

  Any movement below his waist brought a burning pain, reminding him that sex always had its price. At least with Kat, he finally felt he was getting his money’s worth. Assuming he could ever get it up, or even find the strength to walk again.

  Despite all the release, his brain seemed crowded. Thoughts kept jumping around as if his skull didn’t have room for all the things going on in there. Bruce slowed his breathing down and tried to relax.

  He had mixed feelings about showing Kat the spring at the de la Garza estate. He had brought her too close to the source of his financial windfall. On the other hand, it had gotten him laid, and not just once. Yet, it appeared that taking Kat to the estate also had some unexpected consequences. Regardless, the real problem wasn’t that Kat had done something wrong. The paranoia that left him thinking he needed to protect himself from Kat had abated. No, she was not the problem. Some jerk had frightened her and all she did was try to escape. The nosy, freeway cop was the problem. He could ruin everything.

  Don’t let that happen, Bruce.

  Bruce opened his eyes. He was sure someone had talked to him. He listened, not moving, barely breathing. He heard the shower running and the low whisper of the air conditioning. He closed his eyes again.

  She loves you, Bruce. Don’t disappoint her.

  Bruce opened his eyes again and rolled them around, taking in as much of the room as possible without moving the parts that hurt. Nothing. He closed his eyes one more time.

  Take care of her, Bruce.

  Take good care of her.

  Don’t screw this up.

  More than one voice spoke to him.

  Take care of her, Bruce.

  In spite of his unease hearing voices, Bruce found himself accepting them. Agreeing with them.

  “Yes. Yes,” he said aloud.

  Bruce agreed with the voices. He would take care of Kat, and he understood that the best way to take care of Kat would be to take care of Trooper Demore. He knew exactly what he needed to do to Trooper Demore, and he knew exactly where to put Demore’s worthless, lifeless body when he finished.

  ***

  Jim sat in his overstuffed chair dozing. The shrill screech of an alarm sliced into his subconscious. Not quite asleep, not quite awake, his dreams and memories twisted together. He had to get out of the chair. He was seconds away from becoming an organ donor. His eyes snapped open and he sprung up out of bed. Sweat covered his body, even though the room’s air conditioner blew furiously.

  The alarm function of Jim’s cell phone blasted out its obnoxious blat, blat, blat. Jim had purposely downloaded the horrible ringtone so no matter how sleep deprived he became, the alarm would still cut through the brain fog and wake him. It had certainly done its job this time.

  Jim cut off the alarm, barely registering the Gideon Bible resting next to his phone. He sat back down on the bed and allowed himself to fall backward. He closed his eyes for a moment and was back in his overstuffed chair. The alarm blared again and he snapped back up. He grabbed his phone and turned the alarm completely off this time. An hour later, he was back in his cleaned and pressed uniform, and on his way to see Pedro de la Garza.

  ***

  Robert Teal flipped through the notebook on Kat’s desk. He had been disappointed when she left early, but what he was looking at more than made up for it. The handwritten notes were in Latin. Apparently, Kat had more going on than her stunning looks, killer body, and apparent appetite for office sex. How did I miss this before?

  The formulas next to the notes exceeded the complexity of those he had worked with during his postdoctoral program. Not even his advisers had written formulas this expansive, yet so incredibly elegant. These were even more advanced than what Briggs had shown him when he explained how human mortality was as much a mathematical problem as a biological one. Kat’s mathematics expressed a beauty almost equal to physical attractiveness.

  Yes, Robert. So beautiful.

  Robert looked around. No one had come into the lab. Hearing voices in an empty lab was a new experience for him. He looked around again, confirming that he was alone. I must be working too hard.

  Robert looked back down at the notebook, perusing a few more pages. It was hard to believe. This was Nobel Prize stuff. Robert imagined himself walking up to receive the Nobel Prize in genetics, beautiful Kat sitting at the guest of honor table, sharing in the adulation. The greatest beauty of it all would be that he would not have to share it with Briggs.

  Don’t betray her, Robert.

  Robert looked around once more. Still no one around. Don’t lose it now, Robert. You’re too close to the pot of gold.

  He opened the rings of the notebook and took out the loose-leaf papers. He went to the copier in the small workroom next to his office. He scanned and emailed the notes to both his AGT and his personal accounts.

  She gave you a gift, Robert. Show her your gratitude.

  Robert ignored the voice. He decided it came from some sexual, post-traumatic stre
ss, combined with deeply subconscious guilt over what some might perceive as an ethical lapse. Plagiarism, when detected, killed careers. But Kat worked for him, in his lab, doing his research. She had simply synthesized his work and expressed it mathematically. He would certainly credit her as his assistant, but lab assistants did not win Nobel Prizes. Research PhDs did.

  Robert gave himself a mental pat on the back. The next time he went to a South Beach club, it would be with money in his pocket, the best in fashion on his back, and Kat on his arm. As he left the lab, he wondered if Einstein had ever heard voices.

  ***

  Bruce York dialed the cell phone number listed on Jim Demore’s business card.

  Demore answered on the second ring.

  “It’s Bruce York. I need to talk with you,” Bruce said, as if he was ready to tell a secret.

  “Ok, give me a second.”

  Jim held the steering wheel of the Charger with his knee as he hit the switch for the light bar. Grabbing the steering wheel again, he guided the Charger over to the paved shoulder and slowed to a stop. He pulled his little notebook and a pen out of his pocket.

  “What have you got Mr. York?”

  “Look, I can’t talk right now. Can you meet me?”

  “Not tonight.” Did the bond between Connors and York have a few cracks? York had denied letting Connors drive the Viper, but was York the kind to deny Connors anything?

  As far-fetched as it might seem, Jim had to question whether this could somehow be tied to the bombing. York had not initially popped up on Jim’s radar as a suspect in that disaster. York came across as too much of a milquetoast bureaucrat. Connors, however, was another story. She danced at a strip club, and a bunch of those clubs had Mob connections. Who knew what one of her seedier clients might be willing to do if he thought she would give him a taste of something sweet? If de la Garza had seen York’s Viper, maybe York suspected that Connors might roll on him and implicate him in Briggs’ death.

  “How about tomorrow?” Jim asked.

  “Tomorrow’s fine,” Bruce said. “But it will have to be after work. I can meet you near Ft. Myers. The government has a property there. It’s quiet. The de la Garza estate. I can meet you there at eight p.m.”

  De la Garza estate? Coincidence? Or does de la Garza know something that he hasn’t told me?

  “I’ll be there. Eight o’clock, tomorrow.”

  The other end of the line went dead.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Jim sat across the table from Pedro. The sun was still up and Jim had plenty of time before heading up to Tampa to meet Kat. Pedro pushed the photo array back toward Jim and pointed at the picture of Bruce York’s Viper.

  “Señior Demore, I cannot say for absolutely sure, but I think it is this one.”

  Pedro’s cigar rested comfortably in the cut-glass ashtray. A tumbler sat in front of Pedro with a splash of whiskey in it. Its twin sat in front of Jim.

  “That’s good enough,” Jim said. He picked up his glass and inhaled the aroma of the whiskey to kill the lingering odor of his burning house. The stench had stormed into his nose and taken up residence there. He sat the glass down without taking a drink.

  “I saw the news,” Pedro said. “I am glad you were not killed.”

  It was a simple statement, but there was genuineness in Pedro’s voice. Jim almost hated to ask his next series of questions. He did not want to think that this quiet, polite, obscure construction worker was somehow more involved than just as a witness. Nevertheless, he had to find out if a link existed between Pedro de la Garza, the de la Garza estate, Bruce York, and Kat Connors.

  “Mr. de la Garza, did your family ever own an estate near Ft. Myers?”

  The sadness in Pedro’s eyes deepened. He picked up his cigar, puffed on it, and let the smoke linger in his mouth. He exhaled slowly, watching the smoke swirl around and finally make its way toward the ceiling. Pedro put the cigar back in the ashtray and finished off his whiskey. He poured himself another half-glass and held it up toward Jim.

  “Some people wonder if their glass is half full, some wonder if it is half empty. As long as it is whiskey in the glass, who would care?”

  Pedro drained the glass in two swallows and refilled it. He offered the bottle to Jim.

  “If I wasn’t driving to Tampa tonight, I might, but I think, for tonight, I’ll just enjoy the aroma.”

  Jim picked up his glass and sampled the whiskey’s heavy fragrance again. It cut through the unrelenting stink of the smoke.

  “The estate belonged to my family, Señior Demore. For many, many years. Then the government took it away. My father fought them all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States. But he lost.”

  Pedro folded his hands together on the table in front of him. Jim had never seen so much sad resignation in one man’s face.

  “Was there something special about the estate?” Jim asked. He sniffed at the whiskey again.

  “My great-grandfather became rich selling the spring water to wealthy Northerners. One day, they found his body in the pool that supplied the water. During the Depression, my grandfather lost the estate. Now it belongs to the government.”

  Bruce York was the government’s property manager for this part of Florida. Why would York want to meet me at the estate?

  “What else can you tell me, Mr. de la Garza?”

  “The government found Indian mounds on the estate. My grandfather told us about how his father would go to those mounds and talk to the spirits of the ancient ones. We always thought that our great-grandfather must have been crazy, but when they found his body floating in the pool, no one from the estate would go in to get it. They were afraid of something. The sheriff had to come out to retrieve the body. No one knew how old great-grandfather was, but people said he outlived five wives. Let me show you some pictures.”

  Pedro got up and went through the living room toward the bedrooms. A moment later, he came back with two framed pictures. He showed them to Jim. They were old photos in black and white that had faded to sepia. One of the pictures was of a man standing by himself in front of the estate. Jim pointed him.

  “Is that your grandfather?”

  Pedro shook his head and smiled slightly.

  “Great-grandfather. A few weeks before they found his body in the pool. Notice how young he looks. Maybe forty-five or a young-looking fifty. However, when they pulled his body from the pool, they found it had shriveled up like an ancient corpse. Like one of those Egyptian mummy things. At least that is what my father and grandfather remembered.”

  The photo seemed normal, except Pedro’s great-grandfather did not look any older than someone maybe in his mid-forties. The one thing that did look unusual was the way the shadows appeared in the picture. One obviously came from the sun and the other, less distinct, appeared to extend up and out of the man’s torso. Could be a flaw in the print. On the other hand, could be some halation effect from the negative that showed up as an extra shadow on the developed picture. Hard to tell.

  “He doesn’t look old enough to have outlived five wives, unless every one of them died very young.”

  Jim handed the picture back to Pedro.

  “They say his wives got old, but he stayed young. He sold the water claiming it had the properties of the Fountain of Youth. He became wealthy, but most of his money was not in the banks. My father told me once that his grandfather had an evil spirit. I do not know, Señior Demore. I only know that it would be nice to be wealthy. A man can buy better cigars.” Pedro raised the glass again, “and better whiskey.”

  Jim smiled at Pedro.

  “I can’t say that I believe in evil spirits, Señior de la Garza. I do, however, believe in evil people.”

  Jim looked at his watch.

  “Well, I have an appointment in Tampa in a couple of hours. Thank you for your time. Your identification of the Viper helped.”

  Jim stood and extended his hand across the table. They shook hands and Jim picked up his hat an
d turned toward the door. Pedro came around the table to show him out.

  They stepped outside. The sun hung low in the western sky. For the first time in weeks, Jim noticed a drop in the evening temperature. It was not quite comfortable, but it was a marked improvement. Maybe fall would finally arrive before everyone in Florida died of heatstroke.

  “Señior Demore, why are you interested in my family’s estate?”

  Pedro’s voice held nothing defensive. Just genuine curiosity. Jim thought about his answer for a moment. Nothing he knew or had heard made him think that Pedro had anything to do with either the Briggs collision or the subsequent investigation. But if a connection existed to the de la Garza estate, it could be helpful to have Pedro as an ally.

  “The man who owns the Viper wants to meet me there tomorrow,” Jim revealed. “I suspect his Viper may be the car you saw the night of the accident. The woman you believe you glimpsed driving it may be an associate of his. I’m meeting her tonight in Tampa.”

  Jim understood the risk in sharing information with a witness. In this case, he was confident that it was a risk worth taking.

  “The man who owns the Viper, is he a wealthy man?”

  “He works for the government and has a nice house, but I would not say he is wealthy. He did say he had received a small inheritance.”

  Jim did not know where Pedro’s question was going, but he was willing to go along for now. At least the sun was not beating the crap out of them as they stood on the small porch. Pedro’s house painfully reminded Jim of what his pile of burnt rubble used to be. Small, but comfortable, and most importantly, his. Well, his and Linda’s anyway.

  “The Viper, that is a very expensive car, no? Would a government man be able to afford such a car?”

  Jim thought about that for a moment.

  “Unless he won the lottery or cashed out his retirement. Or maybe inherited some money. I don’t know.” Have to look into that.

  “Be careful Señior Demore. They say my great-grandfather talked to the spirits of the ancient ones. They say that when he died, his spirit did not leave the pool, but came to inhabit a creature, an alligator. Very big. Very hungry. People disappeared and were never found.”