Linda Welch - A conspiracy of Demons (5 page)

I rubbed his side.
“
Okay, let’s go.
I’ll be fine. I have to be.
”

Clarion to Seaside via Bel-Athaer took a total forty-two minutes. I didn’t
have
Lynn’s address, but I remembered the location. When Royal got us to Seaside, I gave him a description of the house and pointed him in the right direction.

I
tried to calculate
the time
required to reach Lynn’s house using conventional travel. We would have gone to
Salt Lake
Internation
al
Airport -
a one hour fifteen—
minute drive - and got a two-hour flight to
the Monterey Peninsula Airport
.
Then
rented
a car for the drive to Seaside, probably
another fifteen minutes
.
All this
based on the assumption
an
airline
out of Salt Lake provided a direct service to Monterey and
we were lucky enough to get an early flight today
. I supposed I could let Royal demon me to Salt Lake,
and
from Monterey to Seaside.

It would still take too long.
The local cops would be at Lynn’
s place before we arrived,
b
esides which
Provo would discover Royal and I flew to California
if t
hey decided to keep an eye on us
.

A jarring halt snapped me out of my mathematical musing. At least it had kept my mind diverted. “Not so bad,” I declared as Royal steadied me.

My stomach flipped the instant the words left my mouth. Gulping down what surged up my throat, I dashed behind a
rhododendron
and
let it all out
.

Embarrassed, I didn’t look at Royal as I stalked past him. “You will
not
get near my mouth till I’ve brushed my teeth and gargled
a pint of mouthwash.
”

Lynn
owned a small, older
white clapboard
home
surrounded by lawn and wind-beaten trees
,
fifty feet from the cliff’s edge
on the Monterey coast not far from Seaside.

T
he tide crash
ed
over huge
jumbled rocks
and
boom
shush
ed
as it
pounded
in
shoreline caves
then receded
.
A stiff wind heavy with the smell of salt water and seaweed whipped Royal’s long copper and gold hair as he squatted at Lynn’s door. “
Is there a
security system?”

I pushed my
braid back over my shoulder. “
Not
when I
came
here, but it was years ago
.”

“If she does and I cannot silence it, we will have perhaps
three to four
minutes until
the agency notifies the police
.” He
removed lock picks and thin neoprene gloves from his pocket. After snapping on the gloves, he
inserted his lock picks in the keyhole. “What are we looking for?”

“No idea.”

The
lock
clunked
. Royal passed a
nother
pair
of gloves
to me. I pulled them on as we stepped inside a hall with white paneled walls and polished pine floor.
A large display of dried
yellow
flowers fanned over one wall and a small table opposite held a few pieces of mail.
Mail also lay in a pile on the floor.

An odd scrabbling noise came from a door on our left.
Jowls flapping
, spittle flying, an ominous rum
ble in its throat, an enormous R
ottweiler
erupted out and
almost
filled the narrow hall as it charged
.

I scuttled
behind Royal
. “Yep, she has a security system!
”

A blur of motion, a surprised
yelp
, and Royal stood at the far end of the hall
as he closed
a door beneath the stairs
.

“
A closet
?”

“
The basement
.”

Barking, snarling and the sound of splintering wood deafened me.

“
Let’s hope we don’t have to
go
down there.” I looked in the doorway
from which the dog had emerged
,
which led to a small living room. “
She wouldn’t leave it here alone when she
left town
.
Someone has to come in and see to it.
We’d better make this fast.
”

A large bay window provided a spectacular view of the
slope down to the
cliff and
churning sea
beyond
. Lynn
didn’t have many pieces of furniture
,
a
mo
ck-Victorian couch and chair, two
occasional t
ables and a bow-fron
ted
bureau. P
lants in a variety of containers on the floor
took up most of the room
. I rifled through the bureau as Royal checked the dining room on the opposite side
of the hall
.

“Look for calendars or an appointment book,” I called.

He
already stood in the doorway with
hands
braced
on the frame. “
I do not see anything
.”

“Here neither.” I straightened up. “Let’s check upstairs.”

We went up the staircase to a small landing which gave access to
two bedrooms and
a bathroom
with a white claw-foot tub
.
Lilac fain
tly perfumed the gleaming
,
white—
tiled bathroom. Like the downstairs rooms, it w
as neat to the point of anality
and so were the bedrooms. One must be a guest room, with lightweight oak furniture, the paneling pa
inted white and
shades of
pale
yellow.

Like me
,
Lynn used a corner of her bedroom as an
office.

I went to the
antique pine
desk. Unlike mine,
clutter did not cover it
. A laptop, printer, ream of printing paper,
stapler
and tape dispenser
were neatly positioned. M
iscellaneous pens, pencils and a ruler stuck from a ceramic jug.

Royal went through one set of desk drawers as I
searched
the other.

Nothing.

“We’ll take the laptop,” I announced. “I bet everything’s on here since she doesn’t
seem
to have an appointment or address book.”

“She could have had it with her
and
her killer took it
.”

I nod
ded. “
If she did, I hope she also kept a record on the laptop.
Wonder if she has
backups?
” I popped open the keyboard shelf.

Bingo.
I pocketed t
wo USB drives
.

Mindful of approaching sirens or pet-sitters, we began a more thorough search. I looked under the mattress, behind the mirror, then opened Lynn’s free-standing
clothes closet
and went through her
coat and pants
pockets. Royal checked th
e undersides of tables, dresser and
bathroom fixtures
,
and peeled back throw rugs. He felt along the top of doorframes, and paced, listening and feeling for suspiciously loose floorboards.

I didn’t know what we were looking for
,
but it pays to be thorough.

My
cell-phone
ra
ng as we came down the stairs
. I checked caller ID and let the call go to Voice Mail.

I raised my voice above the
deafening racket made by the dog
.
“That was Mike.
”

Royal
exaggerated a wince
.

We went through the downstairs rooms
again
,
then
met in the hall. I eyed the basement door.

“I’ll go,” Royal said. “I saw a leash in the kitchen.”

He got the leash, jerked open the basement door and went in there. Another yelp, and the barking went on, but not as loud
ly
. Royal must have take
n
the animal down to
the basement and tied it up.

He whizzed through the door
a few
minutes later and slammed it behind him. The leash dangled from his fingers.
“I did not find anything of interest. The basement is all but empty.”

“Except for a honking great dog.”

A thump on the
door, and the R
ottweiler vocalized
its
rage. Royal took the leash
in
the kitchen.
“
Go on out and I will
release the dog
.”

“Fine by me.”
Toting the laptop,
I went
through
the front door and shut it behind me
.
The police would know Lynn had a computer; I hoped they’d think she took it with her
.

The
front
door opened and closed so fast and hard, I’m surprised it didn’t shatter. And the mutt was right there, snarling and tearing at it
on the other side
.

We
leaned on the door
, until Royal straightened, opened his arms and said, “Ready?”

My shoulders s
lumped
. I didn’t look forward to the return trip.

My insides
felt much better as I
sat in the office
munching potato chips
.

Royal had gone to retrieve his truck from where he left it on the side of Interstate 15
when I phoned him
.

I would have been a lot happier if I didn’t have Mike on the phone.
“
Three
hours, Tiff!”
he
bellowed.

I
swallowed a chip and
held the phone angled
to get the earpiece
farther from my ear.
“Sorry, Mike.”

“Is there a reason you ignored my call
s
?”

“
I didn’t hear
the phone
ring.
I was upstairs digging for the number,
then I had a minor catastrophe to deal with. I had to run to the supermarket for supplies to . . . uh . . . clean up the mess. Time got away from me.”

“I was about to send someone to your place.
Tell me about this
catastrophe?”

“I had lunch in the oven and - ”

“That’s a
lame excuse, even for you
,
” he said in a level tone worse than his customary bellowing
.
It meant he was really, really angry.
“What have you been up to? If you did anything to jeopardize the investigation. . . .”

Mike knew me too well.
I couldn’t
tell him what Royal and I did,
so I said nothing.

“I
f I or Provo PD
discover
s
you’re investigating this homicide,
I’ll
issue a C and D
.
”

The infamous Cease and Desist. As if he hadn’t threatened me with it before now.

“I found the number, Mike.”
I
rattled off
Lynn’s phone number.

“We already have the number, Tiff.”

I expected that. Doubtless they
found it in one of their databases.

After a silence, he said, “Tiff, you and people like you are the reason my desk drawer is stocked with antacids.”