Speak of the Devil

CHAPTER 15

I tried to call Adam as soon as I left Hillerman’s office, but he was on duty today. I didn’t feel like going through the hassle of trying to get his office to put me through to him, so I just left an urgent message for him to call me. Then I bought an extra-salty, mustard-coated soft pretzel from a street vendor for lunch. What can I say, I like to eat healthy. Besides, the pretzel didn’t break my bank.

Afterward, I went to my own much-neglected office. I didn’t have anything terribly interesting to do, not when I was under suspension, but at least I could sort through the mail and make sure there weren’t any bills I’d forgotten to pay.

For once, there weren’t. I threw away approximately ten acres’ worth of junk mail, then cleared my work e-mail of the penis enlargement and debt consolidation ads. Do I know how to live it up or what?

I’d run out of time killers and was on my way home when my cell phone rang. As usual, it was at the bottom of my purse, and it seemed to consider ringing an invitation to play hide-and-seek. I finally got a grip on it and pulled it out, dislodging a used tissue and a pair of tampons at the same time. I answered the phone while I dove after the tampons, which naturally rolled to a rest right at the feet of a stuffy-looking middle-aged man in a three-piece suit. He started to bend to help me retrieve the dropped items. Then he saw what they were and gave me a look like I’d just flashed him.

“Hello!” I barked into the phone as I grabbed the tampons and shoved them back into my purse.

“Where are you?” Adam asked. His voice wasn’t quite a bark, but there was no missing the tension in it.

“About three blocks from my apartment,” I said, standing up now that I had everything stuffed back in my purse. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“I’ll be at your apartment in about fifteen minutes.”

“You know, you could at least acknowledge that I spoke, even if you’re not planning to answer me.”

“Just be there. This isn’t something we want to talk about on the phone.”

Of course, I objected to being ordered around. I guess Adam knew that, because he hung up after making his will known.

I’d have loved to say “to hell with him” and gone on about my day. However, that probably wasn’t a good idea, and right now, going on about my day entailed going home anyway.

I made it home before Adam arrived. Saul had gotten a cryptic call from Adam, too, but he didn’t know any more than I did. Neither one of us had been terribly comforted by the tone of Adam’s voice, so the wait for Adam was a tense one. It didn’t help that Saul was still ticked at me about the whole Taser thing.

I’d told the front desk Adam was coming, so they didn’t bother to call and let me know he was there. I was so tense I actually jumped when he rang the doorbell.

His face when I opened the door suggested that whatever was wrong, it was serious. Not that I’d doubted that, but a girl can always hope. I wanted to curse out the universe for piling even more shit on my shoulders, but that wouldn’t be terribly productive.

“Do I need to sit down for this?” I asked. I was trying for a tone of nonchalance. Trying being the operative word.

“Not a bad idea,” Adam said, gesturing me toward the couch.

Shit. I was beginning to hate my couch. Nothing good ever seemed to happen when I was sitting on it. But I sat anyway, with Saul on the other end of the sofa and Adam in the love seat. I tried to brace myself for whatever was coming, but it’s hard to brace for the unknown.

“Jack Hillerman is dead,” Adam said, and the words detonated like a bomb.

There was a moment of shocked silence afterward. I replayed the words in my head, hoping I’d misheard. But no, he’d said what I’d thought he’d said.

“What?” I finally managed to yelp. “When? How?”

Adam gave me one of those chilling glares of his— he’s really good at that. “How was with a silenced 9mm. When is somewhat under debate, but it’s around the time you left his office.”

Gee, he sounded kind of ticked about that. I refused to bow my head in shame. “I was hoping I could get a read on his motive.”

He was still glaring at me. “You realize that ‘around the time you left his office’ can very easily be ‘while you were in his office,’ right?”

I swallowed hard. No, I hadn’t realized. I’d been too focused on the accusation in his voice.

“As of now,” he continued, “you’re officially a ‘person of interest,’ not a suspect. So far, the police don’t know you have a motive, so it’s hard to pin it on you just because you were there sometime around the time he was killed. The receptionist doesn’t remember seeing anyone else go into his office after you left, nor does she remember seeing Hillerman after you left. Luckily for you, she’s not sure no one went in.”

I shot him a glare of my own. “You make it sound like you think I did it.”

“It doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what the evidence suggests. And if the police discover you have a motive, the evidence is going to point to you. More than it does already, that is.”

“That’s crazy!” I protested. “If I were going to kill him, you can bet I wouldn’t show up at his office and announce my presence to the world beforehand. And obviously—” I cut myself off, remembering with a start that Lugh and I had determined with a fair amount of certainty that Jack Hillerman wasn’t himself.

How badly did he have it in for me? Based on our conversation, pretty bad. Bad enough to kill his own host in an attempt to make my life even more miserable.

“Whoever ‘discovered’ the body,” I said, making the requisite air quotes, “is the real killer. And he or she is now possessed.”

Adam did a double take. “Come again?”

I told him about my chat with Hillerman and about how bizarre he’d acted. It was hard to argue Lugh’s diagnosis. And it was hard to imagine someone just happened to sneak into Hillerman’s office and shoot him to death shortly after I left.

“That’s why he was so happy to see me this afternoon,” I concluded. “I’d come at the perfect time for him to frame me for his own murder.”

Adam looked grim. “He was discovered by an intern. If you’re right and the intern is now possessed, you can bet he’s going to produce evidence that you have a motive.”

“You mean evidence like Barbie?”

He cursed, and I had to agree. It was looking bad for the home team.

While we were chewing over this latest disaster, the phone rang. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone, but I guess Saul was feeling like he lived here—which he did for the moment, in a manner of speaking— because he picked up the phone. His side of the conversation consisted of a couple of uh-huhs and a very unhappy face.

“That was the front desk,” he said when he hung up. “The police are here and want to talk to you.”

A bolt of panic shot through me, and I looked at Adam with wild eyes. “Can’t you take care of this?” He’d intervened for me with the police numerous times already, taking my statements—sometimes making up my statements and informing me later of what I’d said.

“I’ve already gone out on a limb for you enough times to raise a few eyebrows. I can’t interfere this time. I’d do you more harm than good.”

“But—”

“As long as you’re just a person of interest, you’re not legally required to answer their questions. I’d advise you to admit to nothing more than when you arrived at the office and when you left.”

“And if Barbie’s already told them about the letter?”

He looked almost as unhappy as I felt. “Then say nothing without the advice of your attorney.”

I was getting far too accustomed to being interviewed by the police. I didn’t like it when I was the victim. I liked it even less when I was the suspect. Oh, excuse me, “person of interest.” Based on the intensity of the questioning, I didn’t think there was a whole lot of difference between the two in the cops’ minds. They were pretty grumpy with me when I refused to tell them what Hillerman and I were talking about. The receptionist had told them I’d said it was personal, and that’s the generic answer I stuck to.

Adam had abandoned me, though with good reason: he wanted to have a word with Barbie before the police tracked her down. I knew he was taking a big risk on my account. If Barbie felt like it, she could probably accuse him of obstructing justice, and the charges might stick. After all, for a cop, he played pretty fast and loose with the law on a regular basis.

Despite my lack of cooperation—or perhaps because of it—the interview with the cops went on forever. They wanted to take our little discussion downtown, but I declined their offer of hospitality. It made me even more popular. I was on the verge of calling my lawyer to see if he could scrape them off my back when they finally wrapped it up with instructions that I shouldn’t leave town. Gee, just like in the movies!

As soon as the cops were gone, I went ahead and called the lawyer who had represented me when I’d been accused of illegal exorcism. I wasn’t sure if Adam would be footing her bills as well, but at this point I was just asking her to be on standby anyway.

By the time I got off the phone, I had an unexpected visitor: my brother, Andy. Apparently, Adam had taken it on himself to call a meeting of Lugh’s council, so I could expect to have quite a collection of testosterone gathered in my apartment before the evening was out.

Andy looked terrible. He’d never fully regained the weight he’d lost while he’d been catatonic. In fact, he might have even lost a little since I’d seen him last. His cheekbones stood out in stark contrast on his face, his eyes shadowed by dark circles. My heart clenched with pity, and I wished there were something I could do to make him feel better. Problem was, I wasn’t sure what was wrong with him. He still insisted it was “nothing,” but I don’t think he expected me to believe it.

He gave me a hug in greeting, but though I appreciated the gesture, I couldn’t help noticing how bony he felt. Damn it, the last thing I needed to do at a time like this was worry about someone else’s problems!

To take the situation from uncomfortable to nearly unbearable, Raphael was the next of Lugh’s council members to arrive. I think Saul is the only person in the universe who hates Raphael more than Andy does, and that’s saying a lot. The air in the room fairly crackled with tension as the three men sized each other up.

“Is a fight going to break out, or can you behave like civilized beings during a time of crisis?” I asked.

Raphael held up his hands in a gesture of innocence. “I’m on my best behavior. I have no quarrel with anyone here.”

Saul opened his mouth like he was going to make a cutting remark, but I pointed at him sternly. “You be quiet. I know you and Daddy Dearest have issues, but I’m not in the mood to referee.”

Saul’s mouth closed with an audible click, and I could see the muscles working in his cheeks as he ground his teeth. But he didn’t say anything, so it was a moral victory for me.

Andy didn’t look inclined to start anything. On the one hand, that was good, because I didn’t want to deal with it. On the other hand, if he’d started something, it would have given me some evidence that he was still alive inside.

But I forgot all about my brother and my worries when Adam arrived. Because, you see, he’d brought the rest of Lugh’s council with him—including Brian.