Secrets of the Demon

Chapter 12

I removed Roger from the room and secured the door, then parked him in the hallway while I started making calls. My first call was to dispatch, informing them of the situation and requesting a patrol unit to help secure the scene. My second call was to Sarge to let him know that I’d found the missing person—and not in the desired way.

“No such thing as a simple case with you, is there?” he grumbled after I gave him the rundown.

“I’m an overachiever,” I said. “If I give you the particulars, can you get a search warrant for me so that I can go through the office? He’s a financial advisor and I don’t want to get flak later over privacy issues from client information I might run across.”

“Always safer to get the warrant,” Crawford agreed. “Text me the details.”

I hung up with him and thumbed in the pertinent info, grateful that I had a sergeant willing to dig in and help with stuff like this. It was a basic boilerplate warrant, but if I had to take care of it myself it would be hours, since I’d have to wait for the scene to be secured and processed before I could leave to type it up and hunt down a judge.

Roger hadn’t moved the entire time I’d been on the phone. He wasn’t freaking out or falling apart, but he did appear stunned. It didn’t take much urging from me to get him to come downstairs. Fortunately, the body was deeply hidden in the bushes at the base of the building, so I wasn’t too worried that anyone would disturb it while I waited for the patrol unit to arrive and get the area properly cordoned off. Right now I was more interested in watching Roger’s reaction. I was convinced that Lida Moran had been attacked by the same sort of creature that had apparently tossed Vic out a window, and Roger Peeler was a big glowing link between the two incidents.

“I never thought Vic was the type to kill himself,” he said in a rough voice, eyes hollow. He leaned up against the wall, looking stricken.

I knew that wasn’t what had happened, but I figured I’d go along with that for a while to see what I could get out of Roger. “Well, you said yourself that he didn’t have much family. Maybe he got tired of being lonely?” I offered, keeping my tone gentle.

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I ... I guess. But he had lots of friends. He was a super nice guy.” He looked up at me. “Look, I can’t see him committing suicide. His dad killed himself and Vic used to go on and on about how selfish and vicious suicide was to everyone left behind.”

Well, that wasn’t quite the response I’d have expected from someone who might have wanted to stage a murder as a suicide.

“All right,” I said. “Had he mentioned anything about arguments or bad business deals he’d made recently?”

Roger shook his head slowly. “No. He was such a nice guy. Everyone liked him. He got along with everybody.”

I nodded in response, but I remained skeptical. Nobody got along with everybody.

The marked unit pulled up then and I excused myself from Roger for a few minutes to get the scene secured. As soon as the tape was up and the crime scene log started I returned to Roger. He didn’t look as if he’d moved—he was still in a stunned daze.

“Roger, I’m going to need to talk to you more a bit later, but for now you’re free to leave. Are you all right to drive?

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be okay.” He took a deep breath and straightened. “You’ll let me know what you find out?” The expression on his face was pleading.

“I promise,” I said, then watched as he returned to his car, those wide shoulders seemingly crushed under a great weight. If he’s responsible, then he’s also a fucking good actor, I thought. I wasn’t going to dismiss him entirely as a suspect, because I’d definitely been snowed before, but my gut instinct was leaning pretty far away from him at the moment. But if he’s not the link, then what is?

Or maybe he was still the link. If Roger had a habit of using the workout equipment here, maybe the golem had been after him, and Vic had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe someone had a beef with the band, not just Lida.

I put Roger out of my mind for the moment and returned my attention to the crime scene here. I’d yet to get a good look at the body and I hadn’t wanted to do so with Roger around.

The bushes ringing the building were high and deep, and it wasn’t easy getting to where I could even see the body up close. It would have probably been another week before the body had been found, and then only if someone decided to investigate the smell. I didn’t want to mangle the bushes too badly, but I managed to squeeze through enough so that I could get a peek. Not that the effort and scratches were worth it. He was quite clearly dead, and had been so for several days. He had on dark blue pants and a leather bomber-style jacket over a dress shirt that had once been white, though blood and dirt now marred it. I could see a few maggots around the eyes and nose. A couple more days and his face would have been barely visible beneath the carpet of maggots.

I extricated myself from the hedge in time to see my sergeant get out of his car and head my way.

“Got your warrant. Search away. You do know this was supposed to be a simple do-nothing case?” Crawford said with a sour look as I brushed leaves off my pants.

“It’s my own fault,” I said with a sigh.

He regarded me with narrowed eyes.

“I made the mistake this morning of saying that things were pretty slow right now.” I gave an apologetic shrug.

“God almighty, are you nuts?” He rolled his eyes. “So, do you figure he took a dive out the window?”

“He took a dive all right, but I think he was helped along.”

He looked at me sharply. “Not a suicide?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Come on, I’ll show you.” Together we headed upstairs to the office. I unlocked the door with Roger’s key, then walked to the window, carefully avoiding the thin smear of dirt on the floor.

“The windows prop open and have to be pulled shut,” I said. “But it was shut—even though it wasn’t latched. I doubt he climbed out, hovered for long enough to push it closed, and then plummeted down.”

Crawford frowned. “No way the wind could have pushed it closed?”

“I don’t think it’s likely.”

“Well then, we’ll treat it like a homicide unless some other evidence to the contrary comes along.”

I gave a slow nod as I stepped back out into the hallway. “It’s a funny coincidence too ...”

“What’s that?”

I looked up as Jill exited the elevator with her case in her hand and camera slung around her neck.

“Bitch, you suck,” she grumbled with a good-natured gleam in her eye. “Two scenes for the price of one?”

“I hate for you to get bored,” I replied. “And can you please collect a sample of the dirt at the base of the window?”

She nodded and proceeded on in, too used to me to question any of my strange requests. But Crawford gave me a funny look.

“What’s so special about the dirt?” he asked.

“I don’t know if there is,” I replied glibly. “But the rest of the floor seems pretty clean, so it might be from the attacker’s shoes. Can’t hurt to collect it.”

He seemed content with the answer, to my relief. “So, what’s a funny coincidence?” he asked, dragging me back to the subject from before Jill arrived.

“Oh, right. Well, the reporting person is Roger Peeler, who also happens to be the drummer in Lida Moran’s band.” Too bad I couldn’t tell him about the fact that I was fairly positive that Lida and Vic were attacked by the same sort of creature.

“What about the victim? Any connection there?”

“Not that I know of,” I replied. “But I haven’t had a chance to look it into yet.” I then explained how Roger was in the habit of using Vic’s private gym.

“Hunh. That’s interesting.” He pursed his lips, silent for several heartbeats. “It looks like you have a lot of digging ahead of you.”

“Yay. Woo,” I replied, deadpan.

“Don’t bitch about digging,” Jill said from across the room as she snapped pictures. “I’m the one who was asked to pick up dirt.”

Crawford glanced at me. “Is she always such a whiner?”

“Always,” I said with a deep sigh. “It’s embarrassing.”

“I heard that!” Jill mock-snarled.

He chuckled. “I think I need to leave before this gets bloody.”

“Smart man. I’m going to go through the office and see if anything leaps out as a motive,” I said.

“Sounds good,” he said. “I’ll see about talking to others in the building.”

“Can you check and see if there’s any video surveillance?” I wasn’t too confident that there would be. The building was old and decrepit, and I seriously doubted that any of the cameras still functioned properly.

“Will do.” He turned to head out.

“Oh, and Sarge ... ?”

He pivoted back to me while I put on my best hopeful /pleading expression.

“Kara, that expression doesn’t work on you,” he said with a glower. “It looks like you have gas. Just tell me how you want to add to my workload.”

I snickered. “Well, I’d like to take a look through the victim’s residence. But, at the rate I’m going here I might not be done until late, and I’d feel awful if I had to call you out in the middle of the night if I found something that needed your expertise.”

“Yes, I’ll take care of getting the search warrant,” he grumbled, muttering dark invectives about worthless investigators under his breath as he left the room.

“Love you too, Sarge!” I called after him cheerily. I swung back to Jill. “You done with your pictures?”

She nodded as she unslung her camera. “Just finished. You need to do something?”

“Can you go ahead and collect the sample of dirt? I want to check something.” I couldn’t do this with Crawford in the room.

Jill pulled on gloves and scraped a portion of the dirt into an envelope, then stepped back. I crouched and placed my hand on the dirt that remained, shifting into othersight. Taking a steadying breath, I allowed the feel of the odd resonance to hum through me.

“It’s the same as the thing that attacked Lida Moran,” I murmured.

She crouched beside me. “A monster made of dirt. The golem.”

“Or something similar.” Shifting back to normal sight, I stood and pulled on gloves, then moved over to the desk and began opening drawers. Boring tax forms, boring letters, boring financial statements. I shuddered as a flashback from my time in white collar crimes washed over me. Too many hours spent poring over tedious paperwork ...

“Whoa,” I said, slowly pulling a paper from the top drawer

Jill glanced at me from where she was dusting the window for prints. “Got something?”

“Not sure,” I admitted. “These are photocopies of checks written to Victor Kerry ... and written by Adam Taylor, manager of Ether Madhouse.”

She frowned and came over to peer at the paper. It showed the fronts and backs of three checks, each for five thousand dollars, and each stamped with NSF. I looked to see if there was any notation for what the checks had been for, but the lines on the checks were blank. However, the back of the paper had two brief lines of handwriting: A.T. $15,000. R.P. $15,000.

R.P? Roger Peeler?

“Adam Taylor already has several outstanding bad check warrants,” I informed her.

“Hmm.” Jill furrowed her brow in thought. “So maybe Adam came up here and they fought and he chucked ol’ Vic here out the window with his trusty golem?”

“Quite possible,” I said. “Though these checks are dated from only a few weeks ago, and I don’t remember seeing any warrants for this amount. But that certainly doesn’t rule out a confrontation.” I set the paper aside and continued rifling through the drawers and file cabinets, but nothing else non-boring leaped out. A laptop case was propped against the desk, and I confirmed that there was actually a laptop within it. “Let’s take this as well,” I said.

“Sounds good. I’m finished up here,” Jill announced as she gathered up her case and camera. “If you’ll carry the laptop down, I’ll take it to the lab and submit it for processing.”

I pushed the desk drawers closed and picked up the laptop case. “Lemme give Ryan a call and tell him what’s going on.”

“Meet you downstairs.”

I nodded to her then called Ryan. “So, get this,” I said after he answered. “I think I have a homicide where the victim was thrown out a window by the same thing that attacked Lida. Or rather, the same type of thing.” I gave him a quick synopsis of what I had and who the victim was. “At first I thought that maybe Vic was in the wrong place at the wrong time and that Roger was really the target since he often worked out up here, but then I found copies of some NSF checks from Adam Taylor to Mr. Kerry.”

Ryan made a hmmphing noise. “You sure don’t go for the simple cases, do you?”

I laughed. “Where’s the fun in that? But it’s also possible that the thing with the checks is totally unrelated, and that the entire band is being targeted, one by one. But even if there’s no connection,” I continued, “now we have a legitimate reason to go talk to Mr. Taylor.”

“Did I miss something?” he said, sounding puzzled. “Why do we need a ‘legitimate reason’?” I could hear the quote marks in his voice.

“Oh, that’s right,” I replied, a note of acid creeping in. “I haven’t spoken to you yet today to bring you up to speed on Ben Moran speaking to the chief and the mayor.”

“Do tell,” he growled.

I gave him the gist of my meeting with the chief.

“I like your chief,” Ryan said gruffly after I finished.

I smiled. “Yeah, he’s all right. But now that I have a possible homicide, all bets are off. Ether Madhouse is rehearsing at Adam’s studio every night this week, and Ben Moran and the mayor can kiss my ass.”

“You’re becoming quite the rebel, aren’t you?” he said with a laugh.

“You feds are rubbing off on me.”

“About damn time. So did you want to hit the rehearsal tonight?”

Grimacing, I glanced at my watch. “Ugh. It’s four already? I don’t think I’ll be able to tonight. I have no idea how much longer I’ll be here. I want to run a search of the victim’s residence tonight as well.” Sleep? Who needed sleep?

“Stop being coy. I know how much you love all of that paperwork.” I could hear the grin in his voice.

“Wow, we have a bad connection. I’ll touch base with you later on, but I think that further harassment of Lida Moran and the band will have to wait until tomorrow.”

“That’s cool. Zack’s in New Orleans right now anyway, picking up some paperwork from the bureau office there.”

“Maybe we should sic Zack on Lida. She’ll melt beneath his charms,” I said, laughing.

“As if he needs any more reason to be cocky.”