Along Came a Demon (13 page)

Mel put one hand to her hair. “Why would we?”

Puzzled, I rubbed at the headache forming between my brows. “He broke in.”

“
He didn’t,” Jack said. “He had a key.” He shared a look with Mel. “He did have a key?”

“
Seemed so. He came up the path, the deadbolt opened, he came in, threw the bolt, and trotted upstairs.”

He has a key to my house!
Outrage all but overwhelmed me, and it showed, because my roommates backed to the door. “He had a key,” I seethed. “You thought I expected him.”

Jack’s chin went up and down like a yo-yo.

“
You mean you didn’t?” Mel asked in a tiny whispering voice.

I threw my hands in the air and fell back on the bed.

I went through the house, checking doors and windows. All closed, all secure. He
must
have a key, or lock picks, which would surprise me less than a key. I secured the heavy bolts at top and bottom of the back and front doors.
Nobody
could get those doors open now short of dynamiting them.

If someone really wants in your house, they will find a way, but now Royal would have to break glass to reach those bolts. I’d hear breaking glass.

I got back in bed and snuggled down under my duvet, but in my cool bedroom I felt too hot. Not surprising, the way he got me all riled up. I kicked at the covers, but I had the sheet beneath the duvet tucked in tight. So I had a tantrum.

I got on my knees and hauled the duvet off the bed so it tumbled to the floor in a heap. Then I tried to pull the sheet free. That didn’t work, so I got out of bed and tugged one side out, went around the bed and freed the other side. I dropped it on top of the duvet, and stomped on it.

Wisely, Jack and Mel did not reappear in the room.

Tripping on the duvet, I went to the window. I rested my elbows on the sill, clasped my hands and put my mouth on my knuckles. It was early morning now, and the frosty grass in the backyard glittered in the light of a crescent moon. The fruit trees were almost bare. Poor naked Lindy sat beneath the apple tree, arms holding her bent knees, impervious to the cold but not to her grief.

Lawrence. That was the important thing. Find Lawrence and give his mother the peace she deserved. Forget hair which looked like metallic silk and warm copper-penny eyes. Forget a taut body and manipulative lips. He was a demon. I couldn’t trust him.

With a moan, I dug my fingers in my hair. Unfortunately, where Royal Mortensen was concerned, I couldn’t, apparently, trust myself.

I woke to the smell of frying bacon. And was that sausage?

Hot, sweaty, my braid coming apart, I looked for my Ruger and found it on the bedside table where Royal left it. Not bothering with my robe, I crept from the room and stood at the top of the staircase.

Funny. Where were Jack and Mel? They should be in my bedroom, in a panic, shouting in their whispering voices for me to wake.

I inched down the stairs, cautiously stepping over the one which creaks, gun at the ready. Don’t tell me a burglar will not cook breakfast; you read about it happening all the time. Intruders don’t just break in and steal your stuff nowadays, they eat your food, watch your TV and drink your beer.

I crossed the hall, put my back to the wall, and looked around the doorframe to the kitchen.

I do not believe it!
Royal stood at the stove with his back to me, busily stirring in my small nonstick pan with a wooden spoon. My big cast iron skillet sizzled on another burner, and my electric skillet, on the counter, vented steam. The oven was on. Jack and Mel stood behind him as close as they could get. Mel had her hands clasped and jiggled on her feet. Jack held his folded hands to his face in an attitude of prayer.

I marched in. “You again! Mortensen!”

Leaving the spoon in the pot, he spun on his heel and his shoulder went through Jack’s head. Jack staggered to one side and clutched his cranium. “Ah, he got me. I’m dy … ing!”

Mel tittered.

“
Mortensen? Royal is easier on the tongue. Try it, Tiff.”

“
Mortensen, you - “

“
I thought after last night - “

“
Nothing
significant happened last night, Detective.”

We locked gazes. I gave him my best steely-eyed glare.

A smile twitched the corner of his mouth. “If you say so.”

He turned back to the stove and gave the pot another stir. “Please put your pistol down. You don’t need it and you are making me nervous.”

He didn’t appear nervous. He looked relaxed and confident, at home in my kitchen, wearing the same clothes as last night, except his brown corduroy jacket hung from the peg next the backdoor.

Putting the table between us, I carefully laid the Ruger down. Carefully, because I didn’t engage the safety. I could snatch it up and fire in a second.

If he didn’t take it from my hand again.

I tried reasoning with him. “You have to quit breaking into my house.”

He bent over the stove to sniff the pot, the tail of his long copper-gold hair sliding over one shoulder. “Your security measures are pitiful.”

“
Yeah, well, my alarm system appears to be out,” I said, glowering at Jack and Mel.

“
I don’t recall signing any contract,” Jack said.

“
You don’t have an alarm system,” Royal said.

I didn’t have a retort. I couldn’t say my security measures relied on two dead people, who at the moment were more interested in breakfast than my safety.

“
Bacon!” Mel exclaimed. “You never make bacon.”

Because I eat at Audrie’s Family Restaurant if I want bacon. Audrie’s doesn’t burn the bacon, or the sausage, and their eggs don’t end up the texture of leather.

I sat at the table, fiddling with the end of my braid, trying to think up something scathing to say. But a kind of calm settled over me. Morning sun streamed through the window in the backdoor, the kitchen felt warm and steamy, and the smell of bacon and sausage was
wonderful.
Mel and Jack were either side of Royal like happy, eager kids, chattering about a breakfast they would never sample.

He put his weight on one hip, which drew Mel’s attention to how the fabric of his pants hugged his rear end. She looked at his butt, looked at me and sang a refrain: “Do you see what I see?”

Turning to me, Royal pointed at my old refrigerator, which crouches next the backdoor like a giant wad of pink bubblegum. “Do you like milk with breakfast?”

I shook my head. He looked like a smooth-shaven barbarian. Did demons have hair on their bodies? His arms were hairless. I snuck a look at where his shirt gaped open, at a smooth expanse of lightly-bronzed skin with not a hair in sight. If I closed my eyes, I bet I could imagine sleek warmth beneath my palm.

So I didn’t close my eyes. I didn’t dare.

“
You need to air out your living room; it’s musty,” he surprised me by saying.

What the… ?
“You snooped through my house?”

He opened the oven door, letting out a blast of heat, and removed a small baking sheet with half a dozen perfectly round, fluffy biscuits. “I spent the night in there.”

As I spluttered, beyond words, he quickly whisked the covers off the skillet and electric skillet, loaded a dish and brought it to the table. Still wordless, I gazed at fried potatoes—the real, homemade kind, not those limp, stringy hash-browns—two eggs over-easy, two slices of bacon, and two biscuits covered in creamy sausage gravy.

“
Your favorite,” he announced.

He must have asked at the precinct; I had breakfast with the guys enough times. “You forgot the melted cheese.”

“
I will remember next time.”

He checked my kitchen clock. “I have to go.” Then he dropped a kiss on my forehead and headed for the backdoor, saying, “I’ll see you later, sweetheart.”

I put my fingers to my forehead. “What the hell! What did you call me?”

Grinning, he grabbed his jacket off the hook and left by the door.

“
He’s very domestic, isn’t he,” Mel commented.

“
He didn’t make coffee,” Jack provided.

“
And he didn’t load the dishwasher,” from Mel.

I momentarily closed my eyes. “You could have said he spent the night in the living room.”

Jack twitched his shoulders. “We didn’t know. We only go in there when you do. You know, those twice-a-year excursions to flick dust from one piece of furniture to the next. No wonder it smells like a tomb.”

“
We had no idea till he sauntered out. He left the house for fifteen minutes or so and came back with a sack of groceries,” Mel said. “Then we were … distracted.”

“
Instead of alerting me, you hang over him, drooling over breakfast,” I accused.

“
The guy let himself in the house as if he had every right to be here!” Jack protested. “Why should we know any different?” He rolled one shoulder. “Anyway, anyone who makes you breakfast can’t be all bad.”

“
Honey, I was drooling over a lot more than breakfast,” said Mel. She joined me at the table. “Are you going to eat that, s
weetheart
?”

I smoldered as I drove downtown. How
dare
the man come in my house, spend the night and make breakfast in
my
kitchen! And he thought he was so damned funny with, “I’ll see you later, sweetheart.” I could see him bouncing back in with, “Honey, I’m home!” or some such nonsense.

Forgetting to be angry, I bit down on a snicker - it was kind of funny. And it was a damn fine breakfast.

He couldn’t watch me all the time. I meant to do a little investigating of my own sans Royal Mortensen and I didn’t feel at all guilty for ignoring Mike’s directive. Lawrence’s disappearance was my case; so what if I accidentally forgot to let my so-called partner know what I was doing?

Armed with a copy of Lawrence’s photo, I went to the Swinn’s Supermarket nearest Lindy’s place, because most of the frozen food in her freezer came from there. I felt really awkward as I went from one employee to another and I expected someone to sic a store manager on me. I flashed my consultant’s badge and hoped nobody asked in what capacity I assisted the police department. Nobody asked, nobody called a manager, and nobody recalled seeing Lawrence.

I might have had better luck with Lindy’s photo, but the only one available was of her body lying on a mortuary slab. I made a mental note to ask for a copy.

I visited a book-swap store on Charmane Avenue called Books Galore. A couple of books on Lindy’s bedside table bore their stamp on the back cover. No luck there either, but the sales assistant suggested I return the next day when the manager came back from vacation.

I hoped Clarion’s branch of the Lincoln County Library would get better results. Lindy had a whole stack of books from them. I wondered if anyone from the PD would return them to the library.

They remembered Lawrence. “He comes for Miss Molly’s Story Hour every Thursday evening,” one of the librarians told me. “I could never forget a face like his. What a little angel. Parents like the story hour because they can safely leave their children with us while they browse the library.”

The implications of my questions and flashing the boy’s picture in her face sank in. “Oh my goodness! Has something happened to him? Oh! Oh! I remember. His mother died!”

I pushed back a strand of hair escaped from my braid and stuck to the corner of my mouth. “Lawrence is missing. We know very little about Ms. Marchant and we’re trying to track down her friends. He could be with one of them. Did she come here with anyone apart from Lawrence?”

She must have been in her seventies, a plump little gnome-like woman who wore face powder much too pale for her, bright-pink lipstick, and dyed her hair the peculiar pale rusty-red some elderly women seem to favor. She put one pudgy hand to her forehead and closed her eyes. “Let me think. Yes.” She opened her eyes and squinted at me. “I did see a young man on several occasions. Very tall, with long blond hair and the most beautiful blue eyes.”

I perked up. “Do you know his name?”

She put her head on one side and pursed her lips in a cupid’s bow, which made her look like a chubby little bird cocking its head. “No. I’m sorry.”

“
You didn’t hear her say it?”

“
They were always very quiet when they came, very respectful of library rules.”

Which was no help to me at all. But I would turn it over to Mike. Perhaps he could sit the librarian down with a police sketch-artist.

Blond hair. Yellow-haired. There he was again. The man in the apartment the night Lindy died? The way she described the guy’s speed, he
must
be a demon. Library guy could be a demon—the librarian would see a regular human male. Was the man in the apartment and the library one and the same? But maybe Lindy had a yellow-haired man friend who accompanied her to the library.

Walking from the library and down the steps, I paused to slap my forehead with the heel of my hand.