No Place Like Hell (29 page)

"William Decker, businessman; Robert Haskell, pro bowler; and Matthew Shertleff, writer, all dead. That still leaves five people to interview."

"Four," Kasker corrected.

"Because eight minus three equals four?"

Goats! How would he explain that Lester Renquist—although not a Slasher victim—was already deceased? The sweet taste of the crooked lawyer's soul sliding down his gullet brought a momentary smile to his lips.

"Whatever. Math's not my thing," he replied while walking to the door and searching frantically for a lie to explain his knowledge of Renquist's untimely death. "Let's bug out."

The ward trailed behind, the paper rustling in her hands. "Merkel isn't on here. If Holmes is sticking to members of Calderon's cult, his name should be listed."

Merkel was on a list, it just wasn't the mobster's. Holmes didn't choose his sacrificial receptacles randomly, Kasker realized. Holmes expected the damned souls he'd shifted to new bodies to be beholden to him, and he'd want them in positions of power where they could serve his interests, cover his crimes.

Merkel, a rich man with influence in business and politics was exactly the kind of victim Holmes would target. Like Merkel, Erick Richards—the recipient of Matthew Shertleff's soul and a respected judge—fit Holmes' victim profile perfectly. Who else might Holmes target? The city offered too many choices.

The ward drove to a working-class neighborhood of apartments and scanned property numbers for their destination.

"What's she do now?"

"Who?" he asked, pulled from his thoughts of his coming rendezvous with Shertleff.

The ward tossed him a glare. "Deborah Peck, the beauty contestant at the top of the list."

Kasker shrugged. Debbie Peck's day would come, and he would devour her soul, but Matthew Shertleff was ready now. He wanted to ditch the ward, race to Shertleff's location, and suck down the sweet taste of sin.

Unfortunately, Erick Richards/Matthew Shertleff's new incarnation would be at the court house this time of day, surrounded by pigs. Kasker wouldn't get his flesh within a mile of the damned soul without being arrested.

The ward turned into a parking lot and squeezed the car into a visitor space. They walked past an office and into a courtyard dominated by a large swimming pool. The chlorine stung Kasker's nose.

A hot babe sunning in a skimpy pink bikini caught his eye. A full salute rose in his jeans. The flesh had been without a woman for two days.
Two days
. It seemed an eternity.

The ward led the way up a flight of stairs and along a balcony that overlooked the pool. No souls blazed in most of the units, not surprising for a Wednesday noon. If they didn't find Peck in her apartment, he would convince the ward to go for lunch while he got it on with the chick in the bikini.

They stopped in front of a door, and the ward knocked. Kasker shifted from foot to foot, eager to answer the call of Shertleff's damnation. He could use the Mexican peasant disguise to get into the courthouse undetected. All thought of the woman by the pool fled.

The door opened. A shapely blonde dressed in a sleeveless t-shirt and shorts stared out at them. The alluring scent of damnation drifted through the warm air to Kasker drawing his attention from Shertleff. Her eyes flicked from the ward to him. He gave her a wanton smile.

"Officer Demasi, Solaris PD. Are you Deborah Peck?" the ward asked.

A little crease formed between Peck's eyes, ruining the near-perfection of her face. "I'm not interested in contributing to the Police Department Benevolent fund."

Kasker caught a slight rise of the ward's eyebrows and a shift in her stance. He dragged his attention from Peck's breasts pushing on the soft fabric of her shirt to consider the ward's reaction.

"This is official business. Can we come in?" the ward asked.

Peck hesitated. Kasker barged past.

The main room looked more like an illegal sewing factory than a living space. It contained no comfortable furniture for entertaining. Bolts of cloth were stacked against the walls. Hand-drawn pictures of blouses, skirts, dresses, and swimsuits hung above them.

A large table covered by a layer of silky fabric, paper patterns, and straight pins took up the center of the room. A portfolio containing a pile of drawings sat open at the far end of the table. An old-fashioned Singer sewing machine stood in front of the window. A dress-maker's mannequin squeezed in next to it.

"Calderon sent us," Kasker said. "Where's Holmes?"

Peck's shoulders lifted, her face stiffened, and one finger pointed to the door. "Get out!"

Kasker thrust out his chest and took a threatening step toward Peck. The woman clenched her jaw. Her pointing finger didn't waver.

The ward shot him a fierce look, stepped between them, and faced Peck.

"My apologies," the ward said. "Ignore him."

Peck's hand dropped, but her anger didn't. "Anyone who works for Calderon is lower than a rat. Lower than a worm."

"We don't work for Calderon," the ward said, voice low and calm. "And I couldn't agree more. Calderon is the scum of the earth. He ought to be in jail."

Kasker chuffed a breath and crossed his arms over his chest. The ward had been more than willing to consort with the demon when he had something she wanted, and from her scent, she'd been plenty afraid, too.

The ward took Peck's elbow, turned her ninety degrees, and gestured to the walls. "These are amazing. Are they your designs?"

Peck's gaze flickered to the pictures and back to the ward. "Yeah, they're mine."

"What did Calderon promise you? That he'd get you a job at a fashion house? Is that why you joined his cult?"

Surprise blossomed on Peck's face. It morphed to anger. "He promised I'd win the Miss Southern California title. I thought that the fame and prize money would be enough so I could start my own fashion house."

Peck's hands balled into fists. "But I didn't have enough cash to do it alone, and banks won't loan money to young single women who want to start a business."

"Tell me about it. So you're selling privately?" the ward asked.

"At consignment shops. If I can get a rich patron to back me…" A flash of hope crossed her face but drained away. "Calderon cheated me."

"You got what you bargained for," Kasker said. Stupid, gullible humans. Always wanting short-cuts to a happy-ever-after. The demon hadn't given her anything she couldn't have gotten by herself.

The ward shot him another withering look.

"We think you might be in danger," the ward said.

Peck's brow wrinkled, and alarm shone in her eyes. "From Calderon?"

"From the Slasher. He appears to be targeting people who signed contracts with Calderon."

The woman relaxed. "Thanks for the warning. I'll be careful."

Peck walked a few steps toward the door. "Now I have work to do."

"Has the Slasher contacted you?" The ward drifted in Peck's wake. "He may have used the name Holmes, or he may have used an alias."

"How stupid would a killer be to contact his victims?" the woman said.

"We think he develops a trust relationship first so he can lure them to their deaths. You haven't been approached by someone who's taken a sudden interest in your designs?"

Peck opened the apartment door. "Sorry, Officer. I'll be sure to let you know if he does."

Kasker followed the ward out. The door thunked closed behind him.

Goats! What a waste of time. All they needed to do was arrive at each murder scene early enough for him to identify the victims to which the damned souls transferred. If Kasker devoured them after the transfer, then Holmes would never get the five the Oracle claimed Holmes needed for whatever ritual he planned.

The ward marched away along the balcony. He strode after her and ground his teeth.

The scent of Peck's damned soul had tormented Kasker. His peasant disguise was at the hotel. He could claim a return of his food poisoning, go back to the hotel, don the costume, and head to the courthouse while the ward continued her useless interviews without him.

Once inside the building, he could hide in the men's room and wait for the judge to be alone in his chambers. Shertleff's demise would take only moments. Saliva broke in Kasker's mouth.

"She's lying," the ward said as they neared the car. "She's getting ready to run."

Surprise stopped Kasker in his tracks.
Could
the ward read minds?

"She'd moved most of her drawings to her portfolio. She's going soon."

Kasker sneered at her assumption. "How do you know they weren't already in the portfolio?"

"Because there were thumbtack holes in the walls where they'd previously been hung."

"Maybe she ran out of space."

"Plenty of space with no holes," the ward said. She opened the car door and looked across the roof at him. "She also had a suitcase open on the bed."

49

Sleeth no longer hummed under his breath. Instead, his leg jiggled non-stop, and his brow creased in a frown. The tapping of his foot drove me crazy.

He'd tried to convince me he wasn't feeling well and needed a nap at the hotel. I'd told him I'd be happy to drop him there, but I wasn't coming back for him—ever. He'd made a remarkable recovery. I hadn't figured out why he wanted to ditch me.

I also couldn't figure out why Merkel wasn't on Calderon's list. Sleeth knew too much about the millionaire businessman for him not to be involved in this mess somehow. I put Merkel aside to focus on Calderon's cult list.

All the murders occurred after dark. I decided to keep on with the interviews and loop back to stake out Deborah Peck in the evening. To that end, we pulled in down the block from the Solaris Youth Shelter. Late afternoon sun blinded us as we trooped to our destination. Heat rolled off the pavement in waves.

The shelter occupied an old store-front in a flea-bitten neighborhood just east of downtown proper. Runaway and abused teens could shelter there, get a hot meal, and talk with adult volunteers who could help them sort out their messy lives.

I pulled the door open and stepped into the dim coolness. Three scruffy youths played pool at a threadbare table to the left of the door. In a lounge space to the right, an attractive dark-skinned girl and a Latino boy watched an old movie on a big, square black-and-white console TV.

"Can I help you?"

A woman in her mid-fifties crossed the room to greet us. Curling salt-and-pepper hair created a soft halo around her broad face that was at odds with her stick-thin figure. She was clad in a dark brown skirt that reached below her knees and a plain white blouse. She wore sensible black shoes.

"Sister Magda?" My words came out strangled. I'd last seen Sister Magda when I'd graduated St. Charles Catholic School. She'd taught math there.

Her face clouded in concentration before recognition dawned. "Nicola. Nicola Demasi."

She was the last person I expected to belong to a secret cult run by a mobster. She'd been one of the most honest and devout people I'd ever known. I'd never seen her in civvies and stared at her attire.

"It's just Magda Krohn now," she said with a wistful smile. She placed a hand on my arm and lowered her voice. "I'm sorry for your loss. You and Dave were inseparable all through school. How's Cindy holding up?"

Tears pricked my eyes. I blinked and sucked in a breath. "Is there somewhere we can talk?"

She led us through a door at the end of the room, down a claustrophobic hallway past stairs leading up, and into a tiny, cluttered office at the back of the building. She took the ancient wooden swivel chair behind the desk. I squeezed into a visitor chair. Sleeth stood in the doorway looking unhappy, although there was a second chair.

Sister Magda looked expectantly at Sleeth. He crossed his arms. She turned to me.

"Oh, sorry," I said, my face heating. "This is Kasker Sleeth. He's assisting with the Slasher investigation."

Sister Magda arched an eyebrow at me. "He's a police officer?"

Sleeth snorted and rolled his eyes. Sister Magda's lips drew into a hard line. I'd seen that look before and expected her to pull out a ruler to rap Sleeth's knuckles.

"I don't know how I can help you," Sister Magda said to me. "I don't know anything about the horrible murders that have afflicted the city."

"We believe the Slasher targets individuals who…" I clasped my hands in my lap and screwed up my courage, "have signed secret agreements with the mobster, Seve Calderon. Your name is on the list."

Sister Magda's shoulders drooped, and her gaze shifted to the desk. "Yes, I sold my soul to Calderon."

"Why?" I asked. "No one had more faith than you."

She straightened her spine and looked me in the eye. "Giving up my habit doesn't mean I lost my faith. I tried to convince the diocese that we needed a youth shelter. They said having a safe place to go would only encourage more children to run away. I couldn't change their minds.

"So a year ago, I did a deal with the devil. Calderon got what he wanted. I got a free twenty-year lease on this building."