“Shut up!” Carissa exploded. “Use your brain for once! Do you want to get us killed?”
“He went with me to the basement and cut a notch in the drywall.”
“Matt, honey, listen—”
“Then he pushed that note I showed Teagan inside and patched it up. He brought his own cup of drywall mud. Then he told me to take a photo of the note and the body when the contractors opened the wall. I lied about everything except the body. I swear, I really didn’t know Lloyd was in there. I didn’t think someone had been murdered. But Ray and Hattie knew. And Carissa”—he gave her a brief glance—“what a con job. I’ll bet she knew.”
Carissa laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
He turned on her. “That’s right, that’s right. I’m ridiculous. I’m a liar and I’m weak. I’m pathetic and I don’t make enough money to support our family. You told me you wanted to sell this place, and I fought you on that and you let me win. Why?”
“I believe she wanted the Nickles or their handlers to have it, at a loss,” Berg said. “The more time passed and the more desperate the situation seemed, the more the handover would appear legitimate.”
“Is that right?” Matt begged.
“You really are being ridiculous,” Carissa said.
“Am I, honey? I’ll tell you what I’m not. A murderer and a mother who drags our children through hell.”
“This is not—” Lebec began, her voice thin and high-pitched.
“What you signed up for?” Matt sneered.
But Lebec was wide-eyed, frightened. “This is not what I do.” She did a quick pivot and marched for the kitchen, Carissa calling after her.
Turning her full fury on Matt, Carissa shrieked, “You’ve destroyed everything!”
“The police have the photo and note now,” he responded with surprising calm.
“You damn fool! We were going to have everything! I had it set! I had it all! Don’t you dare—don’t you dare walk away from me.”
Matt exited the door and Carissa followed like a banshee on a broom. He wanted to shield his children from Carissa’s insane rant, I figured, judging rightly that she’d follow him outside.
How had we so misjudged her character? I felt like a damn fool myself.
Lebec passed by me, dressed in her black trench coat and still reeking of cigarettes, but before leaving the church she shuffled up to Berg. “I’m a medium and that’s all I am,” she said. “I really thought the spirits were . . . and I guess . . .”
“I believe you,” Berg said.
“Good, because I never thought . . .” Again she let her words trail off.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I said, heading down the hall. If Lebec was in the mood for an apology, my presence would make that more difficult for her.
Anyway, there was something I needed to do.
Stopping at Sophie’s door, I knocked gently and slowly opened it. Sophie was sitting at the end of her bed, but she angled toward me as I leaned in the door. “Hello.”
She rubbed tears from her cheeks. “Hi.”
“My name’s Teagan. Your mom and dad hired me and my friend to help.”
She sniffed. “It didn’t work.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” I gestured at the bed. “Do you mind if I sit?”
She shrugged. “I guess.”
“Thank you.” I pushed a pillow out of the way and sat on the side of her bed. “It must be hard to hear your parents argue. I hated it when my parents argued.”
“I hate it too. I wanna go to our old house.”
“They didn’t argue so much there?”
“Not screaming.” She sniffed again and brought the neck of her shirt to her eyes, soaking up the last of the tears.
My eyes wandered around her pink princess bedroom and landed on the doll she’d once more turned to face the wall. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s a pretty doll on your dresser. Why do you turn it so she looks at the wall?”
“I don’t like it.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged again.
“Do you think it’s not pretty?”
“My mom keeps turning it around. My dad did too, but he stopped when I told him I didn’t want to look at it.”
“Why do you think your mom keeps turning it around?”
“She likes it. I saw her talk to it after the man gave it to her.”
“Who gave it to you?”
“My mom, but she got it from a man on our street.”
“And you don’t like him?”
She shook her head. “Call I tell you a secret? Don’t laugh.”
“I’d never laugh at you.”
Sophie rose, plucked the doll from the dresser, handed it to me, then whispered, “He put something on it.”
I stared down at the round plastic face bereft of cheekbones, at the mass of braids, the blue eyes, and the snap-front green top. “Where?”
She leaned closer, her voice lower still, and pointed at the doll’s chest. “I saw him, but he didn’t see me.”
“Her top?” I whispered.
Sophie pointed at a button, and instantly I saw this one differed from the others. I smothered it with my hand. “Did the man who gave it to you have bad teeth?”
She made a face and giggled a little, nodding.
“Mr. Nickle?”
She nodded again. “He lives across the street. He’s always here.”
I put my finger to my lips and then, using my fingernail, pried a black mesh cap from what I suspected was a listening device.
Holy cow. Underneath the cap was a microphone no larger than the tiniest watch battery and a nano-sized circuit board.
“Teagan?” Berg said, appearing in the doorway. I covered the button. “Hello, there. You must be Sophie.”
“Yeah.” She smiled now, more at ease.
“Wait here a minute, okay?” I said to her. “Can I take your doll?”
“I want you to take it.”
My hand still over the button, I shunted Berg into the hall and five feet down from the door.
“Be quiet,” I said under my breath. “Ray put a listening device on this doll, and a very sophisticated one.” I lifted my hand, pointed at the button, covered it again. “He can hear anything that goes on in Sophie’s room—through a simple radio since he’s close enough. He’s probably listening right now, unless Dempster has him.”
“Did Sophie see him put that on?”
“Yup.”
Berg pulled his phone out. “Stay with her.”
“Where are the Petersons?”
“Outside screaming at each other. Lebec left.”
Liam’s door opened a foot and he cautiously poked out his head and took a peek.
“Hello, young man,” Berg said, his voice soft and gravelly, like a grandfather’s.
“Hi.” His mouth twitched upward in a small smile.
“Your parents are just outside. They’ll be back in a minute.”
“Okay.” Liam looked at the doll. He shut his door.
“Stay with her,” Berg repeated. He took the doll in hand and started down the hall, as quickly as his cane and old aches would let him.
Back in Sophie’s room, I sat on her bed and raised my hands. See? Empty. “I got rid of it, and you’ll never have to look at it again.”
“Will my mom be mad?”
“Nah, I don’t think she’ll mind.” I located the mesh cap on the bedspread and stuffed it in my jeans pocket. “Anyway, your dad will be very happy it’s gone. Trust me.”
Sophie looked over to where the doll had sat, and it seemed to me it had tormented her for some time, but being a child, all she could do was turn its face to the wall, again and again. “Sometimes it made sounds. It really did.”
“I believe you. What sounds did you hear?”
“Mostly scratchy sounds, but sometimes words.”
“Do you know what the words were?”
“No
.”
No kidding, I truly wanted to strangle Carissa. “There’s no need to worry about it anymore.”
“I just wanna go home.”
“Maybe you’ll move now, to someplace better.”
“Are you leaving?”
“Today, yes.”
“I don’t like something else my mom gave me.”
“What is it?”
“My mom put it there.”
“When?”
“The day we moved here. She told me to leave it there, and I did, honest.”
“Do you want me to take it away?”
Sophie rose, stuck her hand under her bed’s foam mattress, and withdrew what appeared to be a purple priest’s stole. Wrapped loosely around a small object. “I don’t like it.”
She placed the little bundle in my hands, and I gently undid the stole.
CHAPTER 39
I was past fear, past shock. Now I was as angry as I’d ever been and on the rampage, and even Berg couldn’t get me to go easy. Lord knows what passersby thought. The four of us stood on the church steps, in full view of the community, and I had no desire to keep my voice low.
“This was under your daughter’s bed!” I shouted for a second time. “Wrapped in a priest’s stole!”
Carissa bristled. Then seethed. “I can’t believe you searched her room. You have no business—no business.”
“She gave this to me,” I said. “It scares her—and frankly, so do you.”
“Hang on, hang on,” Matt said, rubbing his temples. “Let’s calm down, okay? I just—I need a minute. Carissa?” Near despair, he turned to his wife. Please, please tell me they’re wrong.
“Be a man!” I yelled. His return to spinelessness infuriated me. “Your seven-year-old daughter’s at risk. Do you understand what this is?” I shook the figure, forcing him to look at it. “It’s Baphomet, a demonic being, not a Barbie doll, and it was wrapped in this priest’s stole and placed under your daughter’s mattress. Carissa told her to leave it there, and it scares her. Sophie lives in fear, and she’s being twisted and used by the likes of Ray and Hattie Nickle. And that’s just for starters. Where’s the doll, Berg?”
“In the sanctuary,” he said, his eyes like dark coals, his voice flat and hard. “Dempster will be here any moment.”
When my attention shifted to the doors, Carissa lunged for the stole on my shoulder. “That’s mine!” she shrieked.
“Hell no, lady!” I yanked it away and held it out of her reach.
Screeching like a hag, Carissa went for me, her eyes wild.
Astonished, I stumbled backward as Matt reached out to pull her back.
“What are you doing?” he cried. “Let them have the damn thing.”
Berg turned and calmly took Baphomet, the ram-headed demon-man from my hands. “Go get the doll, Teagan.”
“Get what?” Carissa asked. Fear was creeping into her voice, and this time she wasn’t putting on an Oscar-worthy act.
“We’re through playing games,” I heard Berg say as I walked back inside the church.
The doll from Hades was on Berg’s pew, but before I grabbed it I shoved the stole in my backpack and then hid the backpack under my seat. The listening device, as I examined it anew, was even more sophisticated than on first look. I’d seen the likes of it while at the police academy, and I knew the average citizen couldn’t buy anything like it online. Though simple in concept, its diminutive size and range made it expensive.
This was James Bond stuff. Government issue.
Yet little old Ray Nickle had put it on the doll. If we needed more evidence that he was a puppet in a more powerful person’s service, this was it. Best of all, we had Ray himself. Bugging a child’s bedroom would not be looked on favorably by the Wells PD, despite Carissa’s complicity.
It was then I realized I’d put my fingerprints all over the device’s cap. Crap. Hopefully Nickle had touched the back of it too, or even the circuit board itself. He wouldn’t have worn gloves. Not with his arrogance.
I grabbed the doll and stormed outside. Detective Dempster was mounting the steps.
“So this is the monster doll, is it?” he said. He extended his hand and I gave it to him.
“Tell me what’s going on, Carissa,” Matt said. “Do it now.”
“There’s a reason Sophie kept turning that doll to the wall,” I said. “Why don’t you ask her?”
“Officer, that’s my property and I demand it back,” Carissa said.
“It’s Detective,” Dempster said, staring down at the fake button. “Teagan, how did you come across this doll?”
“Sophie Peterson handed it to me. She told me she saw Ray Nickle”—I shot a glance at Carissa—“put something on it, and she pointed to what I thought was a button, until I took a closer look.” I took the mesh cap out of my pocket and gave it to Dempster. “That covered the device.”
“You didn’t take the doll from her?”
“She took it off her dresser herself and handed it to me, without me asking for it.”
Dempster looked at Carissa. “Sounds kosher to me. Did you put a device on the doll, Mrs. Peterson?”
“No, I did not.”
“Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. This looks like a bug of some kind, Mr. Peterson. Someone was bugging your daughter’s bedroom and it wasn’t your wife. Was it you?”
“Hell no.”
“Then it’s okay if I take this as evidence?”
Matt hesitated.
“What’s wrong with you?” I said.
His head jerked. “Yeah, okay,” he said, finally relenting. His shoulders sagged and there was a slight catch in his voice. He was a man utterly defeated, a man who hadn’t yet found strength in being his children’s protector.
Dempster waved the doll. “Can you tell me what this is, Mrs. Peterson?”
“It appears to be a doll,” she replied.
“Funny. Yeah, this is hilarious. Know what’s funnier? The penalty for bugging an underage child’s room.” Dempster rocked back and forth on his heels, letting that sink in. “Ray Nickle’s in felony trouble. Even if your daughter was an adult, he’d be in felony shit, but she’s a child. What do you think he’s going to say when we tell him things will go better for him if he tells us everything? Hmm?”
“I don’t know,” Carissa said. Suddenly her tone was breathy. Gone was the bravado of moments earlier.
“How come you’re not concerned about your child, Mrs. Peterson?” Dempster continued. “See, I don’t get that. If she was my daughter, I’d visit the Nickles, taking a baseball bat with me—know what I mean? So would my wife, and she’s a little thing. I wonder what else we’ll find in this church?” He gave Berg a glance. “What do you think, Mr. Bergland? Think there’ll be more stuff we can get the chuckles about?”
“I wouldn’t be the least surprised,” Berg said. “After I called you, Teagan found this under Sophie’s bed.” He showed him the Baphomet figure.
Dempster grimaced. “Saw that, wondered about it. Glad to hear it isn’t yours.”
“I’ve never seen that before,” Carissa said.
“Sophie said Carissa gave it to her and made her keep it under her mattress,” I told Dempster.
“Well, now, it’s not exactly a doll from—what is that movie? The one about all the ice? My niece likes it, makes me watch it every time she comes for a visit.”
Berg handed him the figure.
“Nope, not a fun doll,” Dempster said. “And how old is your daughter, Mrs. Peterson? I gotta tell ya, this isn’t kid friendly. What do you think, Mr. Peterson?”
Dempster was playing Matt’s desire to protect Sophie, buried though it was under his selfishness, against Carissa’s wish to protect herself, hoping Sophie would come out ahead.
“Carissa?” Matt asked.
Dempster continued to hammer Matt. “Why would your wife put this under your daughter’s bed?”
“You don’t have any proof of that,” Carissa said.
Not I didn’t or I wouldn’t, but You don’t have any proof. Couldn’t Matt see clean through this?
“Your daughter’s lying?” Dempster asked. “Why would she make up such a story? Did she save up her pennies, sneak to the freak fair, and buy this thing herself?”
“Of course she’s lying,” Carissa said.
Matt recoiled at his wife’s words. “God, Carissa.”
“Listen, Matt, honey . . .”
“Our daughter. Why would you say that? I’ve been an idiot.”
The cracked dam was finally crumbling.
“Matt, I’ve only tried to protect us, not hurt us.”
“You’re saying our daughter lied about that thing?”
“Sophie’s always had a vivid imagination.”
“She’s not a liar!” he fired back. “If she says you put that under her bed, you did. What I want to know is why. And why did you wrap it in a priest’s stole? Do you have any idea how creepy that is? Did the stole belong to Dennis Reft?”
“Priest’s stole?” Dempster asked.
Telling Dempster I’d get the stole, I entered the church and went back to the sanctuary, to my pew, and unzipped my backpack.
I removed the stole and quickly checked it against the photo of Reft behind the altar I’d copied to my phone. It looked the same. Purple with gold fringe and embroidery, and slightly frayed embroidery in the crown above the cross. The reverse side was green, but that didn’t show in the photo.
Reft was a monster, and I fumed as I looked at the photo. Wearing priest vestments during his macabre and abusive ceremony. Why? If he didn’t believe in Christ, why go to grotesque lengths to mimic the faith of the church, using altars and stoles and crosses?
The only answer that made sense was that he did believe. And he loathed what he believed in.
I headed into the narthex carrying yet another piece of evidence I’d marred with my own fingerprints and DNA. Still, I thought, Dempster could find Carissa’s DNA on the stole. It was there. Another nail in her coffin. No wonder she’d lunged for it.
I halted just inside the front doors.
Carissa hadn’t tried to grab Baphomet or the doll. Just the stole.
Frantically. As if her life had depended on it.
This was a woman who found meaning, perhaps power, in souvenirs, and she kept them at her own risk. They were talismans.
Chasing Angels (Teagan Doyle Mysteries Book 1) Page 27