Lebec leaned toward me, her breath smelling like a carton of cigarettes. “Where did you get your—well, what do I call it, hmm? Training? What correspondence course did you take, Teagan Doyle?”
“I trained under the best. John Bergland.”
Conceding temporary defeat, Lebec reclaimed control of her emotions. She straightened, raised her chin, and said, “Call me if you need help, Matt. These two are as dangerous as the spirits trapped here. Don’t hesitate to call.”
Matt chuckled affably. “I appreciate your concern, but I think we’re okay. And like I said, we’ll call if—”
“Ask them what they believe in!” she roared.
I nearly jumped out of my shoes. So much for control. This woman could travel from calm to unhinged in a millisecond.
“Ask them why they’re well known in the field,” she screeched. “Hell, I know about them and I make it my life’s mission to avoid such people. They do more damage than you can possibly know. They don’t believe in ghosts—in those precious souls trapped and calling out for our help.”
“Well, like I said—”
“They believe in evil, Matt, and they call ghosts demons. Tell Carissa that before it’s too late, I’m begging you.”
CHAPTER 6
I took a sip of a Bricktown Burgers fountain-direct Diet Coke and leaned against my vinyl seat back. We’d scored a booth, the last one open, affording us a little privacy while we ate. The old joint’s decor was red and white, mostly utilitarian, and probably hadn’t changed in thirty years, but their burgers, topped with caramelized onions and some kind of mayo relish, were worth every hinky metal spring digging into my posterior.
I waited until Berg had finished chewing a bite of his burger and asked, “Why does Lebec have it out for you?”
He wiped his mouth on a paper napkin. “I’ve come across many Madame Lebecs in my time.”
“Her anger was personal.”
“I was encroaching on her territory, challenging her authority.”
“That’s not all of it.”
“Maybe she has a general dislike of nondenominational ministers.”
“That’s not funny.”
Berg dropped his French fry on his plate. “What?”
“Why do you do that to me?”
“I’m lost.”
“No you’re not. I asked you a serious question and you blew me off.”
“A little humor never goes amiss, especially in our business.”
“You do it all the time.”
Berg sighed, leaned back, and laced his fingers. “Don’t take what people like Lebec say personally. You’ll burn out faster than a match.”
“I’m not taking her personally. I don’t give a rip what she thinks or says. I asked why she has it out for you—personally—and as usual you tap-danced around my question. You don’t trust me.”
“Of course I trust you. I trust you with my life. What do you think we’re doing here?”
“You didn’t trust me with Jack.”
Berg was taken aback. He worked his jaw, picked up another fry, dropped it. “I told you why I didn’t say anything until now. It’s been forty-five years.”
I shook my head.
“What about you, Teagan?” he asked, his tone gentle. “Are you completely forthright with me?”
“In everything that counts.”
“And you alone decide what counts.”
“Your point?”
“You never let me in. You never let anyone in. I’ve often wondered if you let God in.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I snatched my cheeseburger from my plate and took a huge, dripping bite of it.
“That act precludes you having to answer me, doesn’t it?”
I scowled.
“Never mind. Let’s discuss the case in private while we can, then get back to the church. I’m beginning to think a temporary hotel room might help the Petersons cope. Especially Carissa.”
My infrequent arguments with Berg, which were almost always at my instigation, bubbled but never went full boil. It was charge and counter-charge and charge again, and then I’d see it on his face: it pained him to argue with me. And the more heated my charge, the less he counter-charged. He always folded—this strong man folded—and his folding bewildered me.
I finished chewing, took another sip of my Coke. “We still have to check out the Petersons’ bedroom and some other rooms in the church. When Lebec said the word demons, I thought Matt might toss us out along with her.”
“If he does, he’ll think he’s protecting Carissa.”
“She believes Lebec’s garbage about spirits trapped on earth.”
“Ghosts are easier. People say they believe in the spiritual world, but it’s always rainbows and cotton candy, maybe with a non-threatening ghost or two in extreme cases. People like that—like Lebec—don’t understand the nature of evil. I’m sure some of them don’t believe in evil. Oh, they believe in bad people and bad events, but not remorseless, relentless evil. Evil that’s chosen a side and will never choose anything different.”
“What a cheery conversation.” I dragged a fry through a pool of ketchup on my plate. “Should we have dinner here tomorrow too?”
Berg laughed and reached into his coat pocket for his phone. “See what I mean? A little humor never goes amiss. Hang on.” He tapped the screen and read what I supposed was a text message. His face was expressionless—the “I’m listening” face of a minister—but as he read, he slumped back in his seat. His shoulders sagged.
A moment later he dug a few bills out of his wallet and told me to finish up, hushing me when I asked who’d texted.
We climbed into my SUV, Berg using his cane to propel himself to the running board. How would he manage when his upper-body strength waned, as it surely would one day?
“The man the Petersons found in their wall was Edward Lloyd,” he said the second he shut the passenger door. “He died of exsanguination.”
“His throat.”
“It was cut twice, one small, wavering cut, then a deep, purposeful one from right to left. Could be the killer was squeamish on the first cut, but by the second cut, he knew exactly what to do and cut all the way through a carotid artery. Lloyd also suffered a severe but nonfatal blow to the back of his head.”
“I noticed the blood covered his shirt but didn’t pool around him. He was attacked elsewhere—you can’t hit someone on the head inside a space that small, and he didn’t look like he’d struggled.”
“Small blessings. His throat was cut while he was unconscious.”
“But there was a single bloody smudge inside the wall, inches from his body at about shoulder level.” I retrieved my phone and rechecked the photo Matt had taken. “Yes. See?” I held it out, pointing. “Doesn’t sound like Lloyd made that mark.”
“There was no blood on his hands.”
“He couldn’t have, then. Does your contact know if it’s Lloyd’s blood?”
“Not yet.”
“All this time his family’s been wondering what happened to him. They probably kept attending church, and all along he was in a wall in the basement.”
Berg was shaking his head. “Here’s the odd part. The medical examiner estimated that Lloyd’s been dead a month.”
“What? Oh, hell.”
“Exactly.”
“But he looked like a leather bag. How do they know he died a month ago?”
“The timing of certain insects, bacterial decomposition. I don’t know all the ins and outs of it, but my contact was confident of the time frame. The Colorado dry air and an air duct with faulty seams running through the wall gave Lloyd the appearance of having been dead longer.”
“I noticed that air duct. So basically, Lloyd was sitting in a dehydrator.” I turned in my seat, laid a hand on the steering wheel, and stared out the windshield. The whole case had turned on a dime. “The Petersons moved in a month ago.”
“That they did.”
&n
bsp; “But unless they’re psychotic, and I’m not saying they’re not, they didn’t kill Lloyd. They wouldn’t have brought in a medium and psychic, started a renovation project where they buried him, called the police, and then called us. They could’ve lived in that church their entire lives without anyone finding Lloyd.”
“Agreed. On the other hand, Lebec knew the body was Lloyd’s.”
“Yeah, she slipped up there.”
“Question is, how did she know? And where was Lloyd up until a month ago?”
“Why did he run away from his church and then go back?”
“If that’s what happened. We can’t assume anything.”
“Can we assume that Lloyd’s murder and the Petersons’ troubles are connected, especially considering Lebec’s slip-up and Jack the dog?”
“We don’t believe in coincidences.”
“Especially in this case. That’s Nicole, our waitress.” I pointed toward the passenger-side window as our Bricktown waitress trotted over, waving with both hands to keep us from pulling away. Dressed only in a sweater, faded jeans, and a white apron, her face was rosy from the cold and wind. Berg hit the button and rolled down his window.
“Hi, hi, I was looking for you,” she said, tugging at a tendril of brown hair that had escaped her bun. “I thought you’d left. Are you that priest?”
“I’m a retired minister,” Berg answered. “How can I help you?”
“Okay, so.” She absently swiped a corner of her mouth, smearing her cherry red lipstick, and eyeballed the parking lot. “I know just about everyone who eats here, right? Like I knew you were that guy because I’ve never seen you before and I heard you’re working with a woman.” She glanced quickly at me.
“Excellent deduction, Nicole,” Berg said.
“Thanks. So there’s this guy who came in today—an old guy—and I’ve never seen him before, and when that happens it always gets my attention. So when I serve him his soup, he starts asking me if I’ve seen a priest and a younger woman who are new to Wells come in here, and I go, ‘No, I haven’t,’ and he goes, ‘I’m worried about them since they’re staying at the Petersons’ new home.’ So I say, ‘Oh yeah, I know the Petersons—they bought that old church,’ and he says they’re friends of his, and he goes on, telling me again how he’s worried.”
“Did this guy have brown teeth?” I asked.
“That’s him,” she said. She laughed a little and seemed to relax. “Like the worst coffee stains I’ve ever seen. It’s easy to buy whitener at the supermarket, so why he doesn’t I can’t figure.”
“Did he say why he was worried?” Berg asked.
“He said you guys are in danger and the Petersons are new in town and someone could take advantage of them. My mom always tells me I can sense things about people. I’ve always been like that. Like when something’s wrong about them but I can’t say what it is. You know?”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Berg said.
“Like, I kinda knew you two were okay when I served you,” she went on, “even though I don’t know you. But this guy with the teeth freaked me like nobody before. Maybe I shouldn’t say that, ’cause I don’t know why he freaked me, but I wanted to tell you he was saying things about you and something’s screwy with him. You know?”
Berg pulled his card from a zippered pocket inside his coat and handed it to Nicole. “My cell phone number’s on that,” he said. “If you hear anything else from or about him, or about the Petersons, will you call?”
“Sure thing.” She winced as a gust of frigid air blew through the parking lot.
“But don’t talk to that man if you can help it, and don’t tell him you talked to us. It might be best to steer clear of him.”
“That’ll be easy. If he comes in again, I’ll get someone else to wait his table.” She jammed Berg’s card into the right back pocket of her jeans.
“Call if you need us,” Berg said, “and thank you.”
“No problem. You guys can come in anytime.”
Nicole rushed inside to the warmth of Bricktown, and I leaned back on my headrest, thinking back over the past twenty-four or so hours, starting with Carissa’s near-hysterical phone call to me. A call she made, I reminded myself, because Ray Nickle gave her my number.
Though I didn’t say as much to Berg, what disturbed me most was this Jack business. The dog, the note, Berg’s brother. All Jack. It smacked of a well-coordinated battle plan, put in place long ago. It stunk, and not to high heaven.
“We need to find out if Ray and Hattie have a key to the church,” Berg said.
“I wonder what Carissa will say about Lloyd. She was hoping the man in the wall was killed a safely distanced two years ago.”
“Not a word to her or Matt,” Berg said. “Soon they’ll learn it’s Lloyd, but the police are keeping his time of death under wraps.”
“Your contact’s with the police?”
“Can’t say. Let’s go back to the church.”
I slipped the key in the ignition and started the car. “I’m going to find out who the Petersons’ psychic was and do some online research on him. And on Lebec.”
“Tip? Lebec’s real name is Audrey Tucker.”
We shared a laugh as I wound my way out of the parking lot and swung onto Overland Road, but our good humor came to an end at the first light, when Ray Nickle, driving an ancient blue Camaro, pulled up to my Explorer as we waited for green. He rolled down his passenger window and made a motion for me to roll down mine. I complied.
“Fancy car!” he shouted, angling his head for a better look at me.
Berg cordially waved.
“It’s a Ford,” I said.
“How did you manage the payments on it?”
“Embezzlement.”
“A bank?”
“My ex-husband.”
Ray laughed, giving me another view of his dental deficiencies, and I looked away, pretending I was checking the traffic light. Luckily it turned green a moment later and I drove off.
“What does he hope to gain by following us?” I groused. “It’s none of his business why I’m driving an Explorer. Fancy car, my rear.”
Berg’s phone must have vibrated again because he pulled it from his coat and gave it a finger tap.
I continued driving a couple blocks and then asked if it was his contact again.
“That wall smudge?” he said in a solemn voice. “They think it was daubed on, with a cloth or something similar, and the blood’s not Lloyd’s. It’s from a female, but that’s all they know right now. They’ll do DNA on it and the other blood to see if they can pull anything, but the rest of the blood underneath the body appears to have been Lloyd’s. Male, and the same type as in his medical records.”
This case was getting creepier by the minute. I didn’t press Berg for more, but when I parked at the church and shut off the engine, he laid a hand on my arm. “It might be wise for you to go home, Teagan. I don’t like what this is becoming.”
“But you’re staying?”
“I can’t leave these people. But this is my fight, not yours. The note in the wall made that abundantly clear.”
“Hogwash.” I popped open the door, turned back to him. “I can’t believe you said that. You’re wrong. It is my fight, and I’m not going anywhere.”
CHAPTER 7
“Keep to your usual evening and bedtime routine,” Berg told the Petersons. “Do what you normally do at each time of the night, go to bed at the same time, and try to stay in bed. Let one of us know if either of you get up so we don’t confuse your sounds with anything else. Don’t be surprised if you hear us walking around, opening doors, or even going outside or into the attic. We’ll both have flashlights, so you’ll know it’s us if the lights go out. You should probably stay dressed, but get into bed.”
“I won’t be able to sleep,” Carissa said. “There’s no way. I didn’t last night or the night before.”
“That’s all right,” I said. “Just don’t make noise if
you can help it, though don’t do anything you wouldn’t usually do. Why not have a snack?” I gestured at their fridge. “Cheese or something like that. Dairy might make you sleepy.”
Carissa sat down at the table and shook her head. Eat? Are you serious?
Anxiety made me eat more, not less, so it was hard to empathize with her reluctance. I was swigging a Diet Coke and thinking about my donuts again.
“Treat this as an ordinary night,” Berg said. “As ordinary as it gets here, anyway,” he added with a smile. “Try not to worry too much. This is step one in the investigation. Don’t think further into the future than that.”
Matt had remained standing and was now watching Berg with great intensity. “I thought it was funny Lebec knew the murdered man was the former pastor of this church,” he said after a moment.
“And so you should,” Berg said. “What do you know about Lebec?”
He dropped to a chair. “Not a thing. Carissa?”
“She was recommended by Weston Meyer, the psychic we hired.”
“Weston Meyer?” I perked up. “So he came here first?”
“The day after our closing,” she said. “I asked him to do a psychic cleansing. He told us there was an unusual level of activity here and suggested we bring Madame Lebec in.”
“How did you find Meyer?” Berg asked Carissa.
“Through the Northern Colorado Paranormal Society. I found them online, called, and thank goodness Weston was available right away. Is this important?”
“Did he say he’d come back?”
“He did, actually. He wanted to come yesterday, but I asked him to hold off.”
“Don’t let him in unless we’re here,” Berg said, “and don’t invite him.”
Matt drew in a long breath. “Why did you disagree with Lebec about this place being haunted by spirits or ghosts or whatever she calls them? I mean, I think I agree with you, but I need to know.”
The urgency in his voice required a candid response, yet Berg and I knew from experience to dole out honesty in teaspoonfuls, particularly when there were still so many unanswered questions. Why tell clients more than they could bear to hear? We still hoped for a few rubbing pipes in the basement.
Chasing Angels (Teagan Doyle Mysteries Book 1) Page 5