California Demon (17 page)

I read the note twice, only stopping because I couldn’t make the words out through my tears. I blinked, and the tears streamed down my face, falling in fat drops from my cheeks to the paper. I wiped one away, then pulled the paper to my heart, hugging it close.

“Momma?” Timmy was by my side, stroking my arm. I managed a watery smile, then hoisted him up onto my lap, hugging him tight, too. He looked at me with big, serious eyes, then somberly kissed my cheek. “Kiss and make better,” he said. “Momma better now?”

I nodded and forced the words to leave my throat. “Absolutely. Thanks, big guy.”

But it wasn’t true. Not at all. Because as cryptic as this note was, it made one thing crystal clear: Eric hadn’t been the victim of a random mugging all those years ago.

Someone had intentionally murdered my husband.

Nine

l think Timmy Could sense my mood, because he not only behaved beautifully all the way home, but he kept blowing kisses from the backseat to the front. Do I have a great kid, or what?

I needed those kisses, too. Because the truth was, I was smothering under a blanket of guilt.
Murder.
The San Francisco police had never even suggested premeditated murder. The theory had always been a mugging gone bad. Murder, yes. But not planned. My husband had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. We’d been ten years out of the demon business. Our lives were boring. Wonderful, but boring. Murder wasn’t even on my radar.

Now, though, that little bubble had burst, and I was kicking myself for not having been suspicious. For having blithely gone along with what the police had told me. Why didn’t I see? Why didn’t I know?

Because there’d been nothing suspicious about his death. Nothing, that is, except the fact that he’d died at all. And the fact that a mugger had actually been able to take down my husband. We might not have been actively training every day, but Eric hadn’t been a slacker. He’d never let his body go soft.

I thought about that, my stomach tightening more and more as the reality of the situation settled in my bones. My husband had been murdered. And I, the woman who knew and loved him best, hadn’t even suspected.

I tightened my grip on the steering wheel, thinking about the odd timing of the note’s appearance. Could it be fake? A trap?

Part of me wanted to believe that, but I knew it wasn’t true. Too many phrases in the note sounded like him. And even after all these years I recognized the handwriting. No, the note was from Eric.

How the key had landed on my doorstep, though. Well, that was still a mystery.

I glanced toward the passenger seat and my purse. The note was inside. For five years, I’d let Eric down, and I couldn’t help but believe that the key was some sort of silent accusation. A shout out to me that I’d failed.

Not anymore. Somehow, I was going to find out what had happened. I was going to interpret his cryptic message and I was going to find the truth.

I only hoped that after five years of doing nothing, the trail hadn’t gone completely cold.
l Steered the car home on autopilot, ignoring the list of errands I’d planned to do while I was out and about. While the garage door creaked open, I tried to think what Eric could have meant.
The best of us
? What was that? I really didn’t have a clue. And, unfortunately, that was where I needed to start. That was me, a demon-hunting Nancy Drew.

The first thing my sleuthing discovered was a note on the table. Short and to the point, Stuart had said that he’d come home for a bit, but he had to get back to work. He was going to miss both dinner and Allie’s beach party. And he was sorry.

I closed my eyes, expecting a rush of irritation. Lately, I was seeing evidence of my husband (damp shower stalls, laundry on the floor, rumpled sheets) more than the man himself. For weeks now, that little fact had been driving me crazy, a flash point for frequent fights when we did cross paths.

But the annoyance didn’t surface. This time, I only felt relief. My senses and memories were full of Eric. I wanted to wallow. And unless I wanted more fights added to our regularly scheduled program, I knew that wallowing about the dead first husband in front of the second was a really bad idea.

Not that I had time to wallow. For better or for worse, life with kids prevents deep descents into morbidity. I needed to get Timmy settled, check on Eddie, hide a body, and then get myself to the beach.

Not that I
had
to go to the beach, but I had a feeling that the number of times Allie was going to invite me to accompany her when she was on a date (or, rather, a pseudodate) were exactly one. In other words, this wasn’t an opportunity I was going to let slide by.

I found Eddie where I’d left him, sound asleep in the armchair, the television blaring. I clicked it off, then opened the cabinet and pulled out Timmy’s tiny toy piano. He honed in on it immediately, and I figured I’d just bought myself a solid—if noisy—ten minutes.

Normally, I’d ask Laura to babysit, but even though Mindy wasn’t in the surf club, she’d decided to go to the cookout. And she’d also granted Laura permission to come to the beach party (“so long as you promise not to do
anything
that would embarrass me”), and that meant we needed to move our date with the demon earlier in the afternoon. As in, right now. Either that or leave a body in the trunk while we frolicked at the beach. And I didn’t think Laura was up for that. The risk, or the frolicking.

After this morning’s experiment in cosmetology, there was no way I was leaving Tim with Eddie. Not unless I wanted to find the house in shambles, my son swinging from the curtains, and every bit of makeup I owned converted to war paint.

I grabbed the cordless phone and started dialing the other women in the neighborhood. Ten minutes and three conversations about the dead guy in the school basement later, I found one who could watch my son.

“You’re sure?”

“No problem,” Sylvia Foster said. “This is Carl’s weekend to have Susan,” she said, “so I’m all alone in the house anyway. Frankly, you’re probably doing me a favor.”

Sylvia and Susan live at the other end of our block across from the community pool. Susan usually goes into school early for band practice, but when she doesn’t, she’s part of our car pool. When the girls were in seventh grade, Sylvia and Carl had divorced. I don’t see Susan often, but even I could see the change in her disposition. Lately, she’d gotten some of her spunk back, but it was two years coming.

I thought of Allie and those years after Eric had died. And then I thought of Stuart and how frustrated I was by his recent absences. I made a mental note to sit him down and talk about this. There are a lot of things in this world worth fighting for. More, even, than keeping demons out of the neighborhood. My family was tops on that list.

“I really appreciate it,” I said to Sylvia, then made plans to drop Timmy off on my way out of the house. “And if there’s anything I can do to return the favor . . .”

She jumped all over that one. “Actually, I’m having a Pampered Chef party a week from today. Maybe you could come?”

“Sure,” I said, thinking about the heart attack Stuart was going to have when I told him I’d just ordered another half dozen kitchen items, none of which would actually improve my cooking skills.

Sylvia promised to be available, and I rushed upstairs to change. Timmy was still banging away, and Eddie was still sound asleep. That’s about as calm as my house ever gets, and I was actually a little depressed to be leaving. Then I remembered: Allie, beach, bathing suits, boys. Oh, yeah. I was so outta here.

Since the bathing suit part of the occasion was for the kids only, I chose a pair of white drawstring pants that I’d bought at Old Navy during one of Allie’s back-to-school shopping sprees. I topped that with a purple T-shirt, then finished the outfit off with plain, white sneakers.

I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, grabbed my purse, then checked myself in the mirror. Not bad, really. Definitely nothing about my appearance that would make my child spend the evening avoiding me.

Years ago, I dressed for practicality. Military gear designed to hold weapons and facilitate movement. Now, I dressed for my family. Practical clothes that made errand-running easier, decent outfits appropriate for Stuart’s political functions, and, now, a mom-ish outfit, carefully chosen so that my daughter could acknowledge me publicly without melting into the sand in embarrassment.

One day, I thought, it might be fun to simply dress for me.

The only thing wrong with the image in the mirror was the clunky brown purse. Way too much for an evening at the beach. I found a small cloth bag I’d picked up at a street fair one year, and was just starting to switch the contents of the purses over when I heard the doorbell ring.

“DEMONS!” Eddie cried, his voice reverberating through the house. “The beasties are everywhere! EVERYWHERE!”

I grabbed my half-filled purse and raced down the stairs. Eddie’s been through a lot over the years. So much, in fact, that it’s a wonder he’s kept his grip on sanity. That grip, however, is significantly more tenuous when he’s asleep.

For the most part, I write his dreams off as merely that— the nightmares of an old man. That seems to satisfy Allie, who’s so enamored of having a grandfather in her life, that he could probably brandish a battle-ax and she wouldn’t care. I’d thought Stuart would be more concerned about Eddie’s outbursts. I was wrong. Stuart’s managed to tune Eddie out so well that I don’t think he even hears them.

The neighbors, however, were not prepped to my pseudo-grandfather-in-law’s foibles, and I raced down the stairs, desperate to get to the front door before Eddie did. Or before whoever was out there heard Eddie’s cries through the door and ran screaming down the block.

“Stop!” I cried, sliding into the front entrance hall with about as much grace as a Little Leaguer sliding home. Eddie was standing there, eyes wild, a lethal-looking stiletto clutched in his hand.

“At the door, girlie,” he said. “The demons are coming through the damn door!”

“Eddie, no.” I closed my hand over his, taking the knife. “You were having a dream and the doorbell woke you up.” I looked in his eyes. “It’s okay. It’s safe. It’s
fine.
”

In the living room, Timmy started wailing. Honestly, I couldn’t blame him. At the moment, I’d like to wail a little, too.

“Momma, Momma, Momma,” he cried. “Where you at, Momma?”

“In here, sweetie,” I said. “It’s fine. Mommy’ll be right there.” To Eddie, I said, “You okay?”

He cast a suspicious look toward the door, but nodded.

I hesitated, wanting to be sure, but the bell rang again, this time accompanied by Sylvia’s voice. “Kate? Are you okay in there?”

I lunged for the dead bolt, squeezing in between Eddie and the door. I flung it open, hoping my smile looked genuine. “Sylvia! Hi!” I shoved the knife behind my back and leaned against the wall. “I, um, thought I was bringing Timmy to your house.”

On cue, Timmy called for me again.

“Coming!” I shouted back.

“They can just smell when you’re leaving, can’t they?” Sylvia said, stepping around me and into the hall. “I had to run to the Seven-Eleven, so I thought I’d swing by and see if you’d rather I picked him up.” She held out her hand to Eddie. “Hi. I’m Sylvia.”

“Mmph.” He took her hand, then tugged, pulling Sylvia right to him before either she—or I—could do anything about it. He took a long sniff of her breath, then nodded at me. “She’s okay,” he said.

Try as I might, I couldn’t convince the floor to open up and swallow me.

Eddie turned back to the living room. Sylvia gaped at me. “I promise he’s harmless,” I said. “He just wakes up a little disoriented.”

She stared.

“Why don’t I bring Laura with me to the Pampered Chef party?” I asked, in a not-too-subtle attempt to distract her. Everyone in our neighborhood knows that Laura is physically incapable of not buying cooking supplies. We go out of our way to avoid Williams-Sonoma, just to ensure that she and Paul are able to pay their mortgage.

“Oh, yes,” she squealed. “You have to bring Laura.”

Behind me, the front door swung open, and Laura stepped inside. “Bring me where?” she asked.

“Pampered Chef,” I said. “Next weekend. Can you make it?”

“Are you kidding?” she answered, as if I’d asked her if she’d like twenty million in cash. “Just tell me when and where.”

Because Sylvia’s no fool, she jumped all over that, and while she and Laura discussed the joys of kitchen gizmos, I gathered Timmy’s things and gave Eddie a hug, reminding him to lock up and set the alarm if he went for an evening walk.

Laura drove, and we dropped Timmy at Sylvia’s on our way out since I wasn’t crazy about him driving in someone else’s car, even someone I trusted as a babysitter. I ran down all of Timmy’s idiosyncrasies, suggested a few bedtime books, then made sure she had the phone numbers for Stuart and the hospital. I gave her mine and Laura’s, too, of course. But cell service is spotty at the beach, so Stuart was on point tonight.

“Ready?” Laura asked, turning the key in her ignition.

I checked my purse, found my keys, wallet, and sunglasses, and nodded. “Let’s go.”

About the time we reached Rialto Boulevard, the main street into our subdivision, Laura turned to me. “Are we going to be okay? Not waiting until dark to take the demon out of the trunk, I mean.”

I shrugged. I’d been considering that very question. “I think it’ll be okay. The Saturday mass doesn’t start for another hour.”

She made a face. “That’s still cutting it close,” she said.

“I know. But Father Ben said we should come around to the service entrance. He said no one’s ever back there on the weekends.”

“I hope he’s right,” Laura said. “I need tailored clothes. I’d look horrible in prison chic.”