“Where would you like us to start?” Berg asked.
“Did you know Meyer or Lloyd?”
“No, neither of us did,” Berg answered, “though we’ve since come to learn a fair amount about Lloyd. Have you talked to Dennis Reft?”
“Priest here before Lloyd? Yeah. He mentioned some shady financial doings in Lloyd’s time, said he thinks Lloyd was hiding at his sister’s place in Ridgway until he returned to Wells and someone killed him. We contacted her after we found his body, but Marshal Toomey down there is looking into whether Lloyd was in Ridgway the whole time. He hasn’t gotten back to us yet. I want to know why Lloyd ran two years ago. Do you think it had to do with these financial doings?”
Berg rubbed his forehead, considering the question. “I think there’s more than money involved.”
“But without money, a building this size soon gets into trouble.”
“Membership began to fall soon after Lloyd took over, along with donations,” I said. “Six months into his tenure, both plummeted to unsustainable levels, and six months ago, under various temporary priests, the church decided it needed to sell the building. But I agree with Berg, money’s just the tip of the iceberg.”
Logical questions and answers, earthly crimes rather than supernatural ones, and the presence of a third person, a detective, were breaking the shadow spell and soothing my nerves. I was glad Dempster had showed up.
The detective’s gaze shifted to Berg. “So what’s below the tip of the iceberg?”
“According to Reft, Lloyd was popular at first, but as his rather un-Christian beliefs became known, there was discord in the congregation.”
“Was he a Buddhist or something?”
“I don’t have proof yet, but I suspect he was more of an occultist.”
Dempster whistled. “Not your kosher Episcopalian. Okay, so let’s leave him for now. What do you know about Weston Meyer?”
“Weston was a psychic hired by the Petersons the day after their closing to do a cleansing—”
“Hold on,” Dempster said, pulling a pen and worn notepad from his suit jacket. “Okay, go.”
“He was hired to cleanse the house psychically—what that means you can decide for yourself—and told the Petersons there was an unusual amount of psychic activity here. Ghosts. He in turn urged the Petersons to hire Madame Lebec, a medium, who told the Petersons there was more than one presence in their new home and that the situation was becoming dangerous.”
As he jotted away, Dempster alternately furrowed his brow and curled his lip. “Presence, dangerous,” he mumbled to himself.
“The two were colleagues at the Northern Colorado Paranormal Society,” Berg added.
Dempster stopped writing. “Ah.” With his left hand he rubbed his thumb and first two fingers together—the universal sign for moolah. “Am I right?”
“A typical scam played on frightened people, or it would be if it weren’t for the murder,” Berg replied.
“That mucks things up, I’ll agree.”
“I don’t know if it’s significant,” Berg said, “but Weston Meyer was the great-grandson of Thaddeus Meyer, an occultist whose house used to sit on the land this church was built on. The elder Meyer died of a heart attack during purchase negotiations, and the town of Wells tore down the house, causing bad feelings that lasted a number of years among his supporters.”
Dempster penned a quick note. His hands were large, his nails short and neat. “Cosmic hipsters keep popping up. What’s your best guess on what got Meyer killed?”
“I hear he was kneeling when his throat was cut,” Berg said.
Dempster’s eyebrows went up. “You do have a lot of friends.”
“Someone he knew and trusted asked him to kneel facing the church.”
“In a cosmic-hipster kind of way.”
“A request he was willing to fulfill and didn’t necessarily find objectionable or suspicious. But when his throat was cut, he was taken by surprise. He didn’t have time to defend himself.”
Dempster nodded. “And?”
“His murder was almost sacrificial, don’t you think?”
“Could be, considering the weirdos he associated with.”
“Have you talked to Ray and Hattie Nickle next block up?”
“No, haven’t.” Dempster jotted, mumbling, “Nickle, Oliver Street.”
“They’re friendly with the Petersons and know Madame Lebec.”
“You think Lebec or one of the Nickles killed Meyer?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Berg answered. “But I think they have an interest in driving the Petersons from their home, as did Meyer.”
Dempster looked skeptical. “Seems a lot of trouble just to get a bargain price on a building. One dead guy in the wall, another on the lawn. And for what? So they can hold magic rites?”
I broke in. “The land means something to them, and they don’t like a church sitting on it.”
“We’re not saying that’s why Meyer was murdered,” Berg added, “but don’t ignore the occult angle. You asked our opinion, and that’s it.”
Dempster put his pen and pad away. He’d had enough cosmic-hipster talk for one evening. “I don’t believe in that stuff.”
“Does it matter what you believe?” Berg asked. “What counts is what they believe and what they’re willing to do about it. Can we show you something?”
Dempster and I followed Berg down the hall and into the sanctuary. We walked up the center aisle until we came to the first of the splattered red paint. Berg stopped. “It’s latex, fortunately. It’ll come off.”
“When was this done?” Dempster asked.
“Friday night, a few hours before we found Weston Meyer.”
“Why didn’t you call us?”
“Weston Meyer.”
The detective conceded the point. “Yeah, okay. I guess finding a body would shake the shingles and make it hard to think about something else.”
Then we started up the podium steps, Berg pointing out the larger puddles of red, until we came to where the altar should have been.
“Hell’s bells,” Dempster said. “Who’s Jack?”
“My brother. He committed suicide forty-five years ago. At least I believe it refers to him.”
“Huh?” Dempster’s head snapped up. “Why?”
Berg reminded him of the note found in the wall, which he’d surely seen.
The detective brought out his notepad and flipped a few pages. “I had that Latin stuff translated. It says, ‘We have Jack. He is with us forever. The closed door. He was sealed, in fire-steel and in water.’ Gotta say”—the detective put away his notepad—“except for the word Jack, I can’t make heads or tails of it. Who’s this ‘us’?”
“I believe it refers to demons,” Berg said.
Dempster gaped. “Well, that’s a kick. So what’s the door and why’s it closed?”
“The door to heaven, perhaps?” Berg lifted a shoulder. “It’s closed to him now. That’s what the note writer wants me to believe. Or fear.”
“Nuts,” Dempster said succinctly. “Did your brother know Lloyd or Meyer?”
“He was twenty-five and living in Iowa when he died, so no.”
Dempster mumbled to himself.
“A week ago, on what would’ve been Jack’s seventieth birthday, I received an anonymous sympathy card. It read, ‘I would have been seventy. Love, Jack.’” Berg swallowed hard. Talking to a stranger about his brother was painful, but I knew he felt obligated to fully inform the detective and not leave him in the dark about Lebec, the Nickles, or any of their minions.
“Who wants to jerk you around like this, Mr. Bergland?”
“All of them do,” I said.
Dempster swung to me. “All of them being the Nickles and this Lebec woman?”
“Probably Weston Meyer too. Maybe others we don’t know about yet. It could be anyone in their cosmic-hipster circle.”
“So what’s the fire-steel and water part of the note?” Dem
pster asked.
“I assume the fire-steel refers to a gun or bullet. My brother shot himself. I don’t understand what the water part means.”
“Damn. That’s crazy.”
The water part. Oh, God, now I understood. Fire-steel and water. They knew us to our cores. They knew our most tender wounds, and they wanted us both. How could God leave us open to such an attack?
Berg started down the podium steps. “Detective, do you still have the drywall taken from the basement?”
“In evidence, yeah,” said Dempster. “But it’s in a few big pieces. The contractor ripped it out.”
Trying to keep my fear in check, I forced myself to move, to follow them and wipe the terror, the realization of water, from my face.
“Maybe you could check to see if a small slot was cut into one of the pieces and then repaired at some point after Lloyd was sealed inside,” Berg said.
“Interesting, yeah.” Dempster had strode ahead of Berg, but now he pivoted back to him. “Someone decided a dead body in the wall was a great opportunity to mess with your head? I’ll look into it. In the meantime, let me know if anything else happens. I mean, weird cosmic sounds, bumps in the night, anything at all.”
The three of us headed for the front doors, Dempster saying he’d be in touch, tilting his head at the heavy silver chain looped around one of the handles. “Did you lock up the other doors like this?”
“All of them,” I replied.
He nodded, pressing his lips together. He approved. “And you two are staying up all night?”
“Alternating our naps, but yes,” Berg answered. “One more thing. The day Lloyd went missing, a woman arranging flowers in the sanctuary discovered a few drops of blood near the altar. She didn’t think a whole lot of it, so she scrubbed it up. Maybe it was connected to Lloyd, maybe not.”
Dempster shot Berg a wry smile. “We keep coming back to altars and sacrifices, don’t we? And what happened to the St. Michael’s altar? Obviously it’s not there anymore.”
“We don’t know,” Berg said. “Sold like some of the pews? By the way, the Petersons don’t know about the paint. I thought it best to shield them for now.”
“The state Mrs. Peterson is in, I agree.”
Dempster pushed the door open and was about to leave when he halted. When he twisted back, his expression was crystal clear: I shouldn’t be telling you this, but hell’s bells, I’m going to. “We found critical forensic evidence on Meyer. Can’t tell you what it was, but Lloyd was clean. Not a shred on him. So we’re thinking we have two killers, one of them a rank amateur.”
CHAPTER 23
Berg leaned against one of the church doors, wearily rubbing the gray and white stubble on his jaw. “What’s going on, Teagan? I saw that look on your face when we were on the podium.”
“I was just thinking,” I said. “You know how my mind works.” And here I completely, boldly lied by omission to my friend and mentor. Though to be fair, I had been pondering the thoughts I was about to utter. “Lloyd was never a believer, was he?”
He let his hand fall. “I doubt it.”
“But he became a priest anyway, and at a relatively young age. Then he took the fast track to becoming St. Michael’s priest. It’s as if he was destined to be here before he even finished seminary. I don’t see how that happens without the help of higher-ups.”
“Someone in the Episcopal Church, you mean.”
“I know the idea smacks of a conspiracy theory, but no heretical priest gets where Lloyd went as quickly as he did without major help from someone in authority.”
“Very unlikely, I agree. Someone assisted him.”
“Someone or someones. No one put a halt to his rise in the ranks. At best, they turned a blind eye, and at worst, several people were in on it.”
“It being what? Maybe Lloyd was a directionless young man and they wanted to help him find a purpose in life.”
“By inserting him like an infiltrator into the church.”
“They didn’t have the welfare of the church in mind, I’ll agree.” Berg straightened and checked his watch. “Let’s visit Reft. I’ll text him first.”
“I thought we were going to explore the church.”
“We have time, tonight and tomorrow, but we need to talk to Reft face to face.”
“Do you trust him?”
“I do, and I pray I’m not naive in that.”
just after ten o’clock we pulled to the curb at Dennis Reft’s house, an olive-green one-story bungalow just outside of Wells. I’d shoved fire-steel and water to their rightful places in the back of my mind, hoping they would stay there.
Reft greeted us at the door and introduced us to his wife, Helen, a woman as waiflike and ivory skinned as Reft was large and ruddy. Thankfully, they weren’t early-to-bed types. Wide awake, they welcomed us warmly, and Reft seemed eager to revisit the subject of Lloyd and the church.
Even at that late hour, the house smelled like an Italian dinner, right down to the wonderful aroma of garlic toast. Helen asked if we wanted decaf coffee or tea, but we declined, and she showed us to the living room.
Berg and I sat in armchairs across from the Refts, who sank into a puffy-cushioned, floral-upholstered couch. What with the furnishings, the warmth, the smell of a home-cooked meal, and my scant few hours of fitful sleep in the past thirty-six, I was perilously close to falling asleep, so I roused myself with thoughts of the Nickles and how I wished to see whatever plans they’d devised for the Petersons crumble to dust.
After a few pleasantries, Berg got down to business. “I’d like to hear your opinion on how Lloyd made it through seminary without being chucked out on his ear, and then how he made it to the priesthood and St. Michael’s, both in record time, as you pointed out.”
“When there were better candidates,” I said, crossing my legs and leaning back in my comfortable armchair.
“I’ve thought a great deal about that,” Reft said. “Even more since we talked. I think you should know everything I know.”
Helen tensed a little, and I suspected she’d heard what Reft was about to say and didn’t like it.
“First, there’s making it through seminary,” Reft began. “I think we can both admit that seminarians with aberrant beliefs have graduated from many different seminaries, Protestant and Catholic.”
“I’m afraid so,” Berg said.
“Even some seminary teachers have questionable beliefs. But after graduating with a bachelor’s from college, it took Lloyd only three years and four months to graduate from seminary, be ordained as a deacon, and then find his own church.” Reft vehemently shook his head. “No, no. Three years in seminary is fast but not terribly unusual, but four months as an ordained deacon is unheard of. It’s usually a year and often more—and never, never less than six months. And then to be given a pulpit? Frankly, there aren’t that many openings. Keep in mind, Lloyd came to St. Michael’s just four months after graduating seminary. Four months.”
Silence settled over the living room. Reft had made a compelling case for questioning Lloyd’s rapid rise to St. Michael’s. But had that case ever led him to question those who had propelled Lloyd along the way?
“To your knowledge, did anyone at any point challenge this pace?” Berg asked.
“If they did, they didn’t make much of a to-do about it. When I inquired about his past, soon after he joined St. Michael’s, I got the firm impression I was to shut up.”
“Who did you talk to?”
“Bishop Gardner Talbert.” Reft scooted to the edge of his cushion, his body language attesting to the importance of what he was about to say. “Talbert was evasive in a way I’d never seen before, and he kept turning my questions back on me. He asked if I was jealous or mourning retirement. He wouldn’t talk to me about the process of ordaining Lloyd. In some ways that’s understandable, but since I was St. Michael’s former priest, I think he should have addressed some of my concerns. Instead he referred me to a congresswoman in Illinois,
Elizabeth Neal. Illinois! And this congresswoman, before I made any contact with her, wrote me a letter—using her official Washington letterhead—in which she vouched for Lloyd’s unassailable character.”
Berg, as was his habit, responded with calm understatement. “That’s different.”
“Now, I know when I’m being told to step down and stop making trouble or else. How many times did that happen when I was at St. Michael’s, Helen?”
She smiled. “More than I care to remember.”
Though Helen’s expression was one of concern mixed with amusement, I detected wifely pride in her voice. Her man was a troublemaker, and for good causes.
“And the conclusion you drew from all this?” Berg asked.
“At first I thought of the money connection,” Reft said. “But that didn’t seem right. Someone high up in government or the church establishment pushed Lloyd into St. Michael’s so they could get a portion of the donations? Did they even know he was a grifter? Had they asked him to be one for them? No, that would’ve been high risk for low returns.”
“But the drop in donations caused the diocese to close the church,” I said.
“Funny about that, eh?” Reft said. “The lack of money closed the church, but that stolen money didn’t make anyone wealthy. A little well-to-do, but not wealthy. So after we talked this morning, and after I asked around about Lloyd, I reconsidered that letter from Congresswoman Neal and did what I should have done almost three years ago. I asked my network of contacts about her.”
“Excellent,” Berg said.
“She’s not Episcopalian,” Reft said, “and though she and Lloyd are both from Illinois—he’s from Rockford, she’s from Niles, outside Chicago—I doubt they ever met. Lloyd graduated from the University of Illinois thirteen years ago, at age twenty-two. Between graduation and seminary, he worked as a landscaper and handyman in Rockford. Never left the city. Now, Neal wasn’t a congresswoman back then, she was an attorney in Niles. Two years before she was elected to Congress, she became mayor of Niles—her first foray into politics.”
Chasing Angels (Teagan Doyle Mysteries Book 1) Page 16