“What are we having?” Ray asked Berg. “Oh, I see, Bricktown’s traditional burger and fries.”
“Actually, mine’s not the traditional, it’s the stroganoff burger.”
Hattie took an eyeball tour of my plate. Then she sniffed the air, and I thought I’d be sick.
“I think I’ll have that,” she declared. “Ray?”
“Sounds perfect.”
Ray twisted in his seat, spotted Jenna refreshing a customer’s coffee, and waved her over.
She held the coffeepot aloft, as if to explain why she hadn’t catered to him the second he put rear to chair, then mouthed, “Just a minute.”
Ray gave me a thin smile. “I’m with you, Teagan. It’s never too late for coffee.”
“You’ll have trouble sleeping tonight,” Hattie warned.
“Don’t fuss, dear,” Ray said.
“I can’t help it. You haven’t been sleeping well, and I worry.”
“I know, I know. Just for tonight, all right?”
“Yes, you’re right. Let’s enjoy ourselves.”
Their lovey-dovey act was repellent. They could’ve rubbed against each other like two giant flint and steel fire starters—an awful image—and not worked up a spark of true love. What bonded them was a love of evil and a quest for power.
In other circumstances, passing such harsh judgment on two people I’d met only a few times, and then only briefly, would be hasty, but not with the Nickles.
Berg was right: a man’s outward appearance was often contrary to his true nature. But after decades of evil thoughts and deeds, might not the outward man begin to echo the inward?
I wanted to take a verbal hammer to the couple’s nauseatingly polite crap. Shock them right out of their shoes with some pertinent words about Lloyd, Meyer, and Lebec and watch their jaws drop.
And I wanted to ask them how they knew about my dream, to pin them down like bugs on a tray until they told me.
But I knew their answer would shatter me. Who but God could know my nightmares? What I really wanted was to punish them for knowing that I had nightmares, and for telling me they knew.
Berg popped a fry in his mouth, wiped his hands on his napkin, and said, “Did either of you attend St. Michael’s?”
A flicker of disgust crossed Ray’s face. “We’re not churchgoers.”
“We like our Sundays free,” Hattie quickly added.
Looking past Ray, I caught sight of Jenna approaching our table, her body language oozing apprehension.
Hattie perked up.
“What can I get you, ma’am?” Jenna asked.
“My husband and I will have what Teagan’s having,” she replied, directing a bony finger at my plate. “And two waters.”
“I’ll have coffee,” Ray said.
“Be back in a sec,” Jenna mumbled.
Something told me we wouldn’t be seeing Nicole. She’d already swung a wide circle around our table to attend to new diners on her side of the restaurant, and with her exit from employment planned, she had no reason to do us a favor.
I began to eat with gusto, shamelessly dripping stroganoff sauce with every bite of my burger, and I noticed Berg was digging in too. If we had to leave quickly, we could.
“How long have you known the Petersons?” Berg asked around a mouthful.
“A month,” Hattie said. “We met the day they moved in. Getting new neighbors is like playing the lottery, isn’t it? But we were lucky.”
“And how long have you lived in Wells?”
Hattie looked to her husband. “Fourteen years?”
“Give or take,” Ray said. “Where do you live, Berg?”
“Fort Collins.”
“And you’re a retired minister?”
“I pastored a nondenominational church in Fort Collins.”
“A small one?”
“Very.”
“Which one?”
“Grace Church, north of Old Town.”
“Oh, yes, I know that one. Last I saw, it was bit run down, but it’s special in its own way. Why did you retire?”
“I’m old, Ray.”
“Now, now, don’t sell yourself short.”
“Old, not useless.” Berg smiled kindly and took a huge bite of burger, squeezing caramelized onions out the back of the bun.
“How we age, how we age. What if I were to tell you two I’m ninety-seven?” Ray shot me a slimy wink.
Was there a painting of the real Ray in an attic somewhere, à la Dorian Gray? If so, good Lord, what did that look like? I finished my fries and picked up the last of my burger.
“Teagan,” Hattie said. Her face took on a confused expression. “Unusual name.”
“Family name,” I said. “Irish.”
“Do people call you Tea for short?”
“Do people call you Hat?”
“By the by,” Ray said, looking at Berg, “have you thought more about a home security system? I’m sure I can get you a price break.”
“I’ll let you know,” Berg replied, wiping his hands on his napkin.
Jenna showed up with a coffeepot. She turned over Ray’s cup—something he might have done himself if he was the considerate type—filled it almost to the brim, then looked over at me.
“No, thanks,” I said.
“Nor for me,” Berg said. “In fact, I’ll take the check when you have a minute.”
“Be back,” Jenna said. It was a stock answer, the minimum number of syllables required to communicate, and in waitress-speak it meant, If I have to work this stinking job one more day I’ll scream.
“You’re leaving so soon?” Ray asked. “You two ate faster than our Jack getting a special treat.”
“Apologies, but we’re meeting someone at the church,” Berg said.
“The Petersons?”
“No, your friend Madame Lebec, the one who gave you Teagan’s business card.”
Hear. Pin. Drop.
For a moment I glimpsed shock in Ray’s expression. Who was this devious yokel of an ex-minister? He looked down at this coffee, trying to gather his thoughts. “Oh. No, well . . . I don’t think . . .”
Hattie jumped in to save him. “You might have met her at that meeting, dear. You’d forgotten who gave you the card.”
“That must be it. But I”—he glanced at me—“I did say I was having a senior moment.”
“One hands out so many business cards belonging to other people,” I said. “I know I lose track.”
Ray went back to his coffee, jamming his face in his cup like I’d jammed my face in mine. Unbelievable. For once the man didn’t have a comeback. Good Lord, he was human after all. Evil, and perhaps a vicious killer, but a flesh-and-blood human being.
While Ray was still face-in-coffee, Jenna arrived with the check. Berg took it and handed her a ten-dollar tip. He wasn’t going to chance leaving it on the table with the Nickles.
“Thanks! No dessert?”
“Not tonight. You hang in there, Jenna,” Berg said, pushing out of his seat and shuffling in place to get the blood flowing. “Make your dreams come true. Don’t give up.”
Jenna grinned broadly. “I will. Thanks.”
As soon as she was out of earshot, Ray looked up at Berg. “You’re extravagant.”
“Am I?” Berg said. “I don’t see it that way.”
“Either that or you’re fat in the wallet.”
I laughed. Loudly. Then I stood and buttoned my coat. “He’s neither.” Hoping to make Ray squirm, I stared at him, but despite that and my outburst, he kept his eyes fixed on Berg.
“Guilt makes us do foolish things, Mr. Bergland,” he said, “for decades after the guilty act. Would that you didn’t feel so guilty.”
“I couldn’t disagree with you more, Mr. Nickle. Sometimes guilt is an appropriate, even necessary, response. Not condemnation, you understand, but guilt. Strangely, it’s often the most culpable who feel the least guilt. You two have a nice dinner.”
Jenna was carrying two burger-fr
ies plates bound for the Nickles, and we had to sidestep her on our way to the door. “Tell Nicole we’ll try to catch her later,” I said.
“Will do. Thanks again, guys.”
We got into my Explorer and I started the engine, waiting for the car to warm before I pulled out of the lot and turned on the heat.
“That was delightful,” I said.
“What did you learn?”
The question puzzled me at first. “In the fact department, nothing we didn’t already know. Except maybe that the Nickles didn’t realize we knew about their connection to Lebec. It shocked Ray.”
“And?”
I shifted sideways in my seat, leaned against my door. “And they’re flesh and blood. Fallible, able to be bested. Worried.”
He nodded. Good. You got it.
“Which was partly why you invited them. So I’d know that.”
“Was it wrong for me to enjoy rattling their cages?”
“It was wonderful. Almost as delicious as a Bricktown burger. You know what? Even their buns are amazing, and they’re just hamburger buns.”
“They spread herb butter on the undersides and fry them.”
“You know far too much about cooking.”
“What else has an old man got to do but test recipes?”
I turned on the heater. It blasted cold air for a few seconds before warming.
Fallible, yes, but the Nickles had what I liked to call inside information. When it came to me, that information was knowledge of my dreams—a knowledge they could only have gained from an unnatural source. How likely was it that they also had inside information on Berg?
“So what do you have to feel guilty about?” I asked.
Berg’s head jerked almost imperceptibly. “Everyone with a conscience feels guilt.”
“Not continually. Not for decades.” And then, with the brazen hypocrisy of someone running from her own demons, I presumed to quote the Bible to this retired man of God. “But there is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
“Not now, all right? We’ll talk one day.”
“Is your guilt about Jack?”
“We have work to do first. Let’s focus on helping the Petersons.”
I was struck by the sadness in his voice. The kindness, too, even though I was treading on intimate ground and refusing to reciprocate by telling him how my heart and soul condemned me.
“All of this is about the Petersons. What Ray Nickle said to you, what both Hattie and Ray said to me. It’s about the Petersons and whatever is prowling that church. The Nickles have made sure of that.”
CHAPTER 20
Madame Lebec, aka Audrey Tucker, was ahead of schedule, waiting for us in her car—a small SUV, I noted—when we returned from Boyle’s. The church floodlights and pole lights in the parking lot were still out, but inside the church, lights in the sanctuary and kitchen guided the three of us out of the narthex and down the hall. Lebec sat next to me at the kitchen table while Berg cut, plated, and served three small slices of apple pie.
“It’s homemade,” he told her. “You’ll have to tell me what you think.” He pulled up a chair and sat.
Lebec began to undo her black trench coat but halted at the second button down. “It’s freezing in here. Is it always so cold?”
“This is the warmest room in the church,” I replied, wolfing down a piece of pie.
“It wasn’t this cold three weeks ago. The situation is deteriorating.”
On seeing me eat, Lebec took a bit of her pie.
“About that,” Berg said. “I’d be interested in hearing your opinion on what’s happening here and why.”
Lebec snorted and threw back her head. It was then I realized that her auburn bun wasn’t her own hair but a clip-on, and she’d almost dislodged it with her head-whipping move. “You’re not at all interested, John Bergland. I know you too well.”
I’d forgotten the two shared an acrimonious past.
“But that’s why I asked you here,” he said. “To hear your opinion, and not just on my apple pie.”
I nodded enthusiastically. Yup, that’s why we asked you here.
“Very good pie, and I’ll take the rest to go.” Lebec laid down her fork, sat up straight, and took a deep breath. “You’re approaching a serious subject with contempt from the outset. That’s your problem.”
And here beginneth the lecture.
“How do you expect to learn?” she continued. “Either of you? You don’t believe in ghosts, ergo, there are no ghosts. You don’t believe in contacting the dead, ergo, no one contacts the dead. So if someone does contact the dead—say, me—you disbelieve without proof. You’re blocked, and you’ll stay blocked until you open up to the unseen world.”
Berg opened his mouth to protest but she cut him off.
“And by unseen I don’t mean God, angels, and demons, John Bergland, as you know. There’s no such thing as a demon. The very idea is offensive to a thinking human being.”
“A fallen angel, then?” he offered.
Lebec leaned toward him, laser focused. “These majestic beings, these winged creatures. Fallen from where?”
“They were expelled from God’s presence.”
“Their rightful place?”
“Then you do believe in them.”
She laughed—a warbling, birdlike sound—and said, “I’m pulling your leg. Human beings, I believe in, dead or alive, but there are no mythical creatures. No unicorns, no elves, no Santa Claus—and no angels except for the ones in stained-glass windows. Like that gigantic monstrosity in this church.”
“Michael the archangel,” Berg said.
“What about him?” Lebec barked.
“You consider that work of art a monstrosity?”
“A waste of money.”
“He wins in the end. Michael, his fellow angels, and most of all God.”
“If you say so,” she said with a shrug.
“You said you sensed more than one presence in this building,” Berg said.
Lebec was momentarily thrown by the swift change in tack. “Yes. That’s what I told Carissa.”
“Can you describe them?”
She eyed him suspiciously. “Do you care? I doubt it, but all right, I’ll play along. There are two souls, possibly more, trapped in this building. They won’t or can’t move on. But I told you this already, and if I remember correctly, you pronounced it hogwash.”
“Why would they be trapped?”
“They don’t know they’re dead.”
What claptrap. I couldn’t stay quiet. Warning: Dynamite. “If you were dead, do you think you’d know it?” I asked her. “Say I killed you right now—”
“Excuse me?”
“Say I killed you right now. With a pie knife, for instance. Do you think you’d know you were dead?”
From the corner of my eye I saw Berg giving me his cease-and-desist expression, but I was on a roll.
“Would there be any confusion?” I asked. “No, you’d think, Oops, I’m dead. And if the reality of your death still weren’t utterly clear, your soul would then leave your body and face God, wiping away all doubt.”
“You ridiculous fool!” Lebec flung out her right arm as though fending off an attack, and I caught a whiff of stale cigarettes.
“It’s a reasonable question,” I said flatly. “Have you ever asked yourself why the dead don’t know they’re dead?”
Lebec turned on Berg. “You asked me here so you could unleash your little attack dog?”
“I asked you here to share a piece of pie and ask—”
The kitchen lights flickered suddenly, shutting all of us up. Lebec lifted her widened eyes to the ceiling.
I observed her for a moment, feeling a tinge of pity. Fraud though she was when it came to being a medium, when it came to her supposed ability to speak to the dead, she had an unhealthy fear of this church and any phenomenon that might be attributable to the beyond—or whatever she would call it. She lived in a fanta
sy world of her own making and was easily alarmed.
But she also lived in the Nickles’ world, as their lackey, and so she’d seen evil up close, and in that sense her alarm was understandable.
Silence prevailed until the lights ceased their flickering. Then Berg, seeming to read my thoughts, asked Lebec, “Do you know why Weston Meyer was at this church the night he was killed?”
Lebec flinched. “I saw the yellow tape when I drove up.”
“He was killed on the lawn. Do you know what he was doing here late at night? You were colleagues.”
“He might have wanted to see the Petersons.”
“I don’t think so. He was killed sometime around eleven o’clock, a little before midnight. Was he involved with something or someone dangerous?”
For a second I thought she might crack, and in her fear tell us what she knew, but old habits of mind die hard when the lights are no longer flickering, when danger isn’t breathing down your neck.
“John Bergland, you haven’t changed one bit. Who are you accusing now?”
“I’m asking, not accusing.”
“The hell you are. And you can keep your damn pie—I’m out of here.”
Before she could rise, Berg leaned forward and laid a hand on hers. “Audrey, listen to me.”
Lebec chafed at the sound of her real name. She pulled her hand back and let it fall to her lap.
“Forget our past disagreements,” Berg said. “Two men connected to this church have been brutally murdered, one of them last night.”
“I don’t plan on getting myself killed.”
“Neither did Weston Meyer. He trusted whoever led him or met him here. He was taken by surprise. His throat was cut, just like Edward Lloyd’s throat was cut.”
The battle raging within her—to give in and acknowledge her fear or continue to wallow in her disdain for Berg—was playing out on her face. She opened her mouth, closed her mouth, let her eyes wander over the kitchen.
“I’m worried about you, Audrey. I truly am.”
“Since when?” she said. “You almost ruined my business. You did ruin it until I built it back up, and it took three long years.”
“You know why.”
“I had to change my name.” She started tapping the table with her forefinger, emphasizing each short sentence. “Join the Paranormal Society. Reinvent myself. Move my office. Make new contacts. Reestablish myself as a medium.”
Chasing Angels (Teagan Doyle Mysteries Book 1) Page 14