Dark Demon Rising: Whisperings Paranormal Mystery book seven (7 page)

As
if I ever had patience for anything. By the time we got through the house and outside
to a small unattached garage, I wanted to shake speed into her. If I could
shake her. No automatic opener for Maggie, she unhurriedly bent to reach the
handle and
slowly
raised the door.

A
robin’s-egg-blue Mini Cooper. Were I solid, I’d have to crawl in and sit with
my knees pressed to my chin. Being incorporeal had its advantages, though I’d
have preferred being alive and crunched like a pretzel inside the Mini.

Inside,
we released Maggie and inched to the back seat. Mel pretended to bounce up and down.
“I’ve wanted a Mini since one drove past the house.”

Too
busy wondering how the three of us fitted inside a Mini without overlapping, I
didn’t comment.

Maggie
backed the car along a short gravel drive to Third Street and drove to the
nearby intersection. The sleet had stopped but the sky looked solid and leaden.
We took a right on Pennsylvania and headed for the city center.

I
turned my gaze from the sullen streets to Maggie. “Tell us about yourself.”

She
glanced in my direction, quickly away. “Nothing to tell.”

“Please.
I’m interested.” I wanted her to fill the nothingness I existed in with words. I
missed everything I’d taken for granted to the extent I didn’t notice it before.
The pine scent from a tree-shaped air freshener dangling from the rearview
mirror, the slippery inflexibility of stiff vinyl seating, exhaust fumes from
other vehicles. Everyday smells you don’t often notice, but now the lack preyed
on my mind.

I
understood why Jack and Mel chattered so much.

Maggie’s
fingers tapped the steering wheel. “Lived in Bountiful with my parents and
sister most of my life. Went to Bountiful Elementary, South Davis Junior High
and Bountiful High. Graduated, majored in IT and minored in psychology at U of
U, but two years in knew I didn’t want any of it. So I dropped out. My parents
said I didn’t aspire to anything. Maybe they’re right. I’m twenty-five and can
blend coffee fifty various ways and toast an English muffin without burning it.
My grandma left the house to my parents when she died and they asked me to move
in as caretaker when they relocated to California. I think they were diplomatic,
they knew I wouldn’t let them give me the house. Now I’m paying them
rent-to-own.

“And
here we are!” she concluded. With the engine idling, she opened the car door
and stuck her foot out, then whipped it back in. “Damn, I didn’t think about
location. Someone at Beanz might look out the window. I can think of a reason
to stop for a second but not for going in the courthouse. Can I leave you in
the street?”

“Sure,”
Jack and I said in unison.

She
pushed the door wider and started to ease out.

“Wait!”

Maggie
froze, all over, including her face.

“It’s
okay,” I reassured her. “Give us a second to get into position.” I hastened to
touch her aura; Jack and Mel already stuck to her like glue.

“Go,”
I urged when I held her in my grasp.

She
scooted from the car and we went with her. Jack and Mel immediately released
her. I took a few seconds; I still had to get used to this.

Maggie
walked around her car, pretending to check the tires.

“When
you want me, plenty of cops come to Beanz.”

“We’ll
get to you, but I don’t know how long we’ll be in there.”

She
remained, hesitant, then pushed up one shoulder and got in the car. We watched
her make a U in the street and drive away.

Beanz
is diagonally across from the courthouse, the first building next to the park
on the north side. As Maggie said, cops are there at any given time. They zip across
the street for coffee and Danishes, and departments send rookies with orders.
We shouldn’t have a problem finding Maggie again.

But
getting in the courthouse wasn’t easy. People went in the place but none of
them came near enough for us to catch them. We waited fifteen minutes until a
taxi dropped off a fare in front of us.

“And
we’re off!” Jack said as the man walked toward us.

My
experience of catching a ride had so far been easier as we used people
strolling or stationary for the moment, but this guy hurried. I silently prayed
I could grab him.

“Gotcha!”
I said gleefully as I grasped his aura.

“Well
done,” from Mel.

“I
told you, it gets easier the more you do it,” Jack said as our ride trotted up
the steps and in the courthouse building.

He
made for the double doors to the actual courthouse so we released him in the
big marble foyer. I tried to move and managed two steps before the floor dragged
at my feet. Another step, and I couldn’t move at all. I thought when we moved
in Homicide, we would in the entire building. Why did shades move freely in some
places but not in others? I’d asked myself the question countless times.

We
didn’t wait long and latched onto a woman who headed for the escalator, but let
go when she veered right to the door giving access to Vice, Narcotics, the Gang
Division and Missing Persons. We needed upstairs, the home of Robbery, Homicide
and the Cold Case Divisions.

I
looked at the foyer, at people waiting on benches or walking through, the desk
sergeant behind wire mesh at his cubicle, the towering walls and high windows.
I’d been here often.

“Tiff,”
Jack said.

I
blinked, feeling stupid for getting emotional about a public building. A man in
plainclothes with a police badge hung around his neck approached the escalator.
We three poised to grab him.

And
we moved up the escalator. We jumped off the detective when he headed for Vice
and waited another ten minutes for someone who wanted Homicide. The someone
turned out to be Detective Grace McMullin,
who
from the red on her nostrils suffered from yet another bad cold. Sure enough, she
stopped to sneeze and blow her nose twice before we got to Homicide.

The
squad room ambience, minus its typical bouquet, closed around me again.

“McMullin,”
Mike bellowed, beating the air with a file folder as he came to his door. “You’re
on the Blair case.”

“Jeez,
thanks, Mike,” Grace snuffed as she walked to Mike. Her tone indicated the
assignment didn’t thrill her. She snatched the file from Mike’s hand and about-turned.

In
Mike’s office, I peered at every face-up piece of paper and checked the files
on his desk. Nothing. I sat on the chair facing him.

“What
ya doing?” Jack asked from behind me.

“Think
I’ll wait for a while. Maybe he’ll make a call.”

“About
you?”

I
nodded. “You and Mel can make yourselves useful. Look at any open paperwork in
the squad room. If the phone rings, listen in. If anyone makes a call, ditto.”

Jack
made a
tsk
. His mouth twisted sourly. “How long will we be here?”

“What,
you need to be someplace else?”

“Huh.”
Jack went to the squad room. He spoke to Mel, both their faces turned in my
direction. They split up and wandered.

Mike
shuffled his mouse to wake his computer and jabbed away at the keyboard. Perhaps
he entered data in my file? The paper copies were for distribution and backup, almost
everything goes into a database nowadays. I rose and went to stand behind him.

But
he entered numbers on man-hours and other uninteresting stuff. I looked down on
his thick thatch of sandy hair and amused myself by blowing on it. Not a hair
budged.

This
sucked.

I
lifted my eyes at a tap on the doorframe. Brad Spacer, one of my favorite
detectives, stood in the doorway. He’d grown his salt-and-pepper hair to
collar-length and wore a thick blue cable-knit sweater over a white shirt.

He
stuck one hand in his Levi’s hip pocket. “Roy was in here.”

“Yeah.”
Mike raked one hand through his hair, making it stick up shaggily.

“You
didn’t tell him.”

I
instantly became alert.

Mike’s
meaty shoulders sagged. “I’ve let Roy and Tiff in on a lot, more than I should,
and when I want to tell Roy and give him a head start instead of have him
browbeat it outta me, I can’t.”

“He’ll
learn eventually.”

“Eventually?
How about today? The obituary’s in the paper.”

Obituary?
Aha, the plot thickens.

“Maybe
he won’t see it.”

Mike
pressed his lips together and parted them to let a
pah
huff out. “He
will. I’d bet my life on it. Roy will be listening to the radio while he reads
newspapers as he watches news shows. He doesn’t miss a trick, which is why he
was a darned good detective.”

“Should
we assign a man to him?”

“Put
a tail on Roy?” Mike snorted. “Might as well try to tie a silk bow on a
sidewinder. I’d request a C and D and get it, but it won’t stop him.”

“Yeah.
Right,” Brad conceded. He slapped the doorframe and backed into the squad room.

“C
and D?” Mel asked.

I
hadn’t noticed she and Jack returned to the office. “Cease and Desist.” How
odd, to feel excitement sizzle in my invisible body’s veins. “They have a lead.
It . . . something to do with an obituary in today’s paper and they think Royal
will jump on it.” I hustled through the door. “We have to get our hands on a
paper.”

“
Not
gonna happen,” Jack said.

Oh,
right. “I didn’t mean
us
,” I lied, having forgotten for the moment I
didn’t have working hands. “Maggie will read it for us.”

I
saw an officer heading out and hastened to catch him. Reaching, I grasped his
aura. Jack and Mel came a split second behind me.

Mel
sighed loudly. “Look at our Tiff, all grown up and off on her own.”

She
made me laugh, and I hadn’t done it in awhile.

And
away we went.

Dusk
fell between one minute and the next as we floated with our human transportation
through the courthouse doors and down the steps. It happens this way in the valley
when the sun drops behind the western peaks. Behind the park, the Clarion
Hilton’s lighted marquee announced next week’s dinner and auction to benefit
The United Way of Northern Utah.

The
officer must be new for I didn’t recognize him. He was fast on his feet, fairly
hurtling north along the slick sidewalk.

“Maybe
he’s thirsting for a cup of joe?” Mel wondered.

But
he took a sharp left along Stevens and, surprised, we went with him. Jack and
Mel dropped off. I went a few more feet before I made myself let go.

I
looked east. At least we stood kitty corner across from Beanz. Now we needed to
get over the street and inside.

I
saw Maggie in there, her teal-colored head dipped over a table. She unbent,
laughing with the customer, and went behind the service counter.

What’s
Royal doing?
I wondered for the umpteenth time as I
waited on the sidewalk metaphorically twiddling my thumbs. Searching the Internet?
Scanning the newspapers?

Visiting
me in the hospital?

Snow
fell in fat flakes, gray in the dimness near a closed and shuttered store,
brilliant white and sparkling as they drifted through light from bright white
fluorescent signs and shop entrance lights. Pedestrians clomped along, watching
where they put their feet, wary of slick ice and frozen snow.

Standing
stock still on the street I experienced a sickening sense of isolation. I was
the little kid with her nose pressed to the toy store window. The girl standing
in the doorway of Chuck E Cheese watching other kids celebrate their birthdays
with a party. I was the teen, hungry and shivering on the street corner across
from a homey diner where families munched through course after course. I was
the solitary woman hitching-hiking her way across Wyoming on Christmas Day.

Again,
I stood on the outside looking in. The fact I no longer had a connection or
involvement with the world apart from Maggie suddenly terrified me. And I felt
lonely, deep in my heart. I had Mel and Jack, and now Maggie, though
temporarily. But I looked at Clarion’s streets and felt apart from everything
and lonesome for what I might never have again.

My
head filled with regrets, but I angrily stamped my feet and firmly banished
them. I refused to swim in doubt and grief. I can be a grouch and I err on the
side of negativity but I am not a melancholy person and
would not
be a
gloomy shade. I was
not
dead, my body in Clarion General attested to it.
I vowed to get back inside it.

And
I refused to let that I had to keep repeating the vow worry me.

A
young couple struggling to push a stroller along the sidewalk came toward me.
They headed in the right direction so I latched on to the guy. Mel and Jack
caught the woman. The family stopped at the intersection, waiting for the light
to change.

They
took us across. We let go as they veered left, and landed close to Beanz. Snagging
someone heading in for refreshment should be easy.

“Everyone
looks so cold.” Mel wrapped her arms about herself.

Jack
gave her a withering look. “Could it be because it
is
cold?”

Mel
focused her gaze on Beanz’ window and ignored him.

Two
young men wearing navy pea coats with woolen scarves muffling their necks and
mouths came along the sidewalk. As they approached Beanz, one of them began to
unwind his scarf.

“They’re
going in,” said Jack.

I
reached for one guy and missed but managed to adhere to the other. The
old-fashioned bell above the door dinged as the first entered Beanz and my ride
followed. I dropped away as they stamped their snowy boots on the doormat. They
walked past the square aluminum-topped tables and padded chairs and rounded the
partition to get to the side where low, comfortable, deeply upholstered chairs
and sofas waited.

Maggie
stood behind the counter with her back to us as she worked the espresso
machine. Relieved to see her, I aimed for the café’s rear wall.

Except
I didn’t. “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” I couldn’t move my stupid feet.

Jack
shrugged his shoulders and flung his hands out in the universal
guess we’re
fucked
gesture.

“Maggie,”
I called, but she didn’t hear me above the hiss of the machine. Or she didn’t
hear me, period.

So
I yelled. “Maggie!”

Nope,
she couldn’t hear me.

She
rounded the counter, a rag in one hand, and came to a table near where Mel
stood. She piled coffee cups and plates in one hand and swiped slops on the
table with the other.

“Maggie.”

She
dropped the china. It hit the floor and chunks flew everywhere. Coffee
spattered her shoes and ankles. Customers near her leaped to their feet and
scampered out of the way.

“You
all right, hon?” a thirtyish woman behind the counter asked.

“Yeah,
Jen. Thought I saw—” She crushed her lips together.

“A
mouse?” Mel suggested helpfully.

“A
roach?” from Jack.

She
couldn’t say she saw either of those, not in a coffee house.

“A
what?” Jen asked.

Maggie
shook her head. “Someone walked by, for a second I thought she was Aunt Fran.”

“Dead
Aunt Fran?”

“I
don’t have another.” Maggie smiled at Jen sheepishly. “Had.”

“She’s
fast with a comeback,” Mel remarked admiringly.

“Probably
has to be in her line of work.” Jack sniffed. “Inventing messages from the dead
at the drop of a hat.”

Maggie’s
face paled. She heard us now.

“You
need to read the newspaper,” I urged.

“Not
now,” she said in an undertone.

“Why
not?” Jack pointed at the tables. “They’re on every table.”

Maggie
spoke low, through her teeth. “I’m working.”

A
growl rose up my throat but I stifled it.
Patience, Tiff. Patience.
“Okay.
But when you have a minute, can you grab a newspaper? You don’t have to read it
aloud, turn the pages so we can read it.”

She
nodded her head and scuttled behind the counter. She returned with a dustpan,
brush, and another damp rag and proceeded to clean the mess.

The
inaction while we waited for Maggie and a newspaper frustrated me no end. I was
frantic to get moving, literally. I craved the ability to pace.

I
often stopped in Beanz for coffee on the way to and from the courthouse.
Usually, I rushed in and out and now I wished I had stopped, rounded the
partition and relaxed in one of those sagging old armchairs. I wished I could
smell the coffee. I couldn’t conjure the aroma in my imagination. Did I when I
was in my body? I didn’t think so. You smell something tantalizing and it gets
your taste buds excited, but without the first whiff you’ve got nothing. You
can evoke the memory of a noise or—

Good
god!
It’s a wonder shades don’t go insane. They have all the time in the world to
ponder the inconsequential.

The
customers thinned out an hour later, near closing time. Maggie came to a table
nearer Jack than to me, sat and opened the newspaper lying there.

At
last. “Find the obituaries.”

Maggie
turned pages until she found the right section. I stood too far away to read
it.

“Jack,
can you read them?”

Jack
nodded and leaned in for a closer look. He began reading. “Patricia Carol
Radmussen, October 15, 1938 to February 15, 2015. Nola B. Silvers, June 6, 1952
to February 18, 2015. Ethan Wendel Magnusen, March 21, 1996 to February 17,
2015. Peter Bartholomew Holmes, April—”

“Stop!”
One name rang a bell. “Ethan Magnusen, read that one.”

“Our
loved and missed son, brother, grandson and uncle went to his rest on February
17, 2015.”

The
obituary went on to describe what a lovely person Ethan was. It didn’t say how
he died, or where.

“Ethan
Magnusen. He’s who Mike talked about.” Pressing my fingers to my brow, I
marshaled my thoughts. “Do you remember the Claireborn case last year?”

“No.
Wait! Yes!” Jack exclaimed. He leaned forward. “Didn’t some kids knock a couple
other kids off the mountainside?”

“And
you nailed them!” Mel rocked on her heels.

“They
were students at Clarion University. They’d been drinking when they decided to
take a spin in Marlon Canyon.”

“Marlon
Canyon? Drunk?” Jack tutted. “Young people today. . . .”

“Ha!
Don’t tell me you didn’t do anything remotely stupid when you were—”

“Guys!
Back on track, huh?” I folded my arms and glared at them. “Right. Yes, they
were drunk and the alcohol did the thinking for them. Jamie Claireborn drove. Joy
Tempser and Gary Raglin went hiking. They came off the trail and on the road
when Jamie drove along. Joy and Gary weren’t part of the popular set. Jamie
decided to have fun with them. He drove at them and backed them to the verge.”