Linda Welch - A conspiracy of Demons (22 page)

Despite the fact Jack and Mel saved my ass, Royal didn’t have much faith in my “watch ghosts.”

The
tang
of sharp, aged cheddar assailed my senses as I took another huge bite of sandwich
and chewed
.
Royal had already eaten his and the plate sat on the bedside cabinet.
“Good stuff,” I commented.

My fingers
banged
on
the keyboard, leaving a smear of mayonnaise whic
h I wiped with a napkin. W
orse than mayonnaise
lurked
between the keys
, I wonder
ed they didn
’t stick together with
everything
clogged in there
.

“What are you doing?”

“Following up on something.”

Taft Hogan
had not done
anything noteworthy
that I could see
.
Royal’s sneaky snoop programs found his record
s
of
birth and marriage. Born in 1950, which made him thirty-six
when he died, h
e mar
ried Jennifer Bennington in 1973
. Another search told me Jennifer
Bennington
Hogan still lived in their family home in Ogden. Nothing
about a divorce or remarriage.

I plucked the phone off the receiver and dialed. A nasal female voice answered on the third ring.

“Mrs. Hogan? My name is Tiff Banks and - ”

“Do you know what time it is?”

I glanced at the clock on the nightstand. “Nine-thirty. Mrs. - ”

“You people aren’t supposed to call after nine in the evening.”

“I’m not a solicitor, Mrs. Hogan
.
” I rubbed my stiff nape. “I’m a private investigator.
Would you mind answering a few questions about your husband?”

“If he owes money, you’re twenty-six years too late.”

“I’m looking into his disappearance.”

“
Taft disappeared? Well, don’t look for
the
son of a bitch here.
”

I squinched my eyes.
I had the feeling we were not on the same wavelength. How could she not know her husband
went missing
in 1986?
“
I don’t mean recently;
when he disappeared in 1986.
”

“Disappeared? That’s a laugh.” She snorted. “I suppose you could say he disappeared, since I’ve not seen or heard
from
him since. He left me.”

So she had no idea. No
wonder he was not reported
missing. “
When did you last see him?
”

“The
evening
before he
walked out
. I came home from work
the next day
to find a note.
He typed
it
-
his handwriting
is
atrocious
– and made everything
clear. Said it
wasn’t working and never would.
He
packed a suitcase and t
ook
off
.
Didn’t take a penny from our joint accounts either.
I was glad to see the back of him. Never heard from him again.”

Oh. “You didn’t remarry?”

“No I did not. Now, whatever your name is, either you tell me what this is all about or I’m off to bed.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t divulge that information, Mrs. Hogan.”

“Goodnight, then.
Don’t
call back.”

“
Wait!” I practically shouted down the phone. “
Does the name Rusty ring a bell?”

I
sensed
her hesitation. After a few seconds she said,
“Rusty?
You must mean
Russell
Mallory, Jason Mallory’s son. Taft, Jason
and Hugh Kennedy were partners in
Supra
Gear
Engineering
.
And before you ask, Taft didn’t tell Jason or Hugh he
meant to take
off and they haven’t heard from him
either
.
”

Mallory.
The name rang a bell
. Where had I heard it?

About to squeeze in a few more questions, I realized the line was dead.

I lowered the receiver to the cradle.
Mallory
. I
had
heard it before.

“What are you up to, Tiff? I don’t recall a case involving a Hogan.”

“Ah, yes.” I smiled brightly, swiveling the office chair to face Royal.

He sat up and fixed me with a heavy gaze. “Jack and Mel warned you when you were
coming home
. You were
out
, on an investigation.”

“About that.”

“
You should have been home
.”

“
Damn good thing I wasn’t, if a Cousin came after me.
”

I had him there.
He slumped back and rested his head on the headboard. “
What are you looking into?
”

“I went hiking in Clay Basin,”
I continued blithely
, anticipating a
strong
response.
I couldn’t tell him
why
I went to Clay Basin, not with Jack and Mel in the vicinity.

Royal did not disappoint me. He came upright like someone jerked his strings. “
Clay Basin
?
Were you out of your mind?
”

I folded my arms. “My mind worked fine, just like my fe
et. Don’t start in on me, Royal
.”

A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Seriously, Tiff, how could you be so irresponsible?”

Here we go again.
“I don’t know, Royal. I guess it’s a talent.
We all have them. Yours is
to be a pain in the ass
every time I do something you don’t like
.”

“I don’t
like
you endangering yourself.”

My face felt ugly as I glared at him. “Hey, I’m fine.”

“You’re fine,” he said flatly. His pale-copper complexion darkened, his voice rose. “What about me, Tiff? I am not fine with spending the rest of my days without you.”

I
held
on to the chair arms. “You think I don’t care when you take risks, like chasing up the mountainside with a bullet in your shoulder? You think I don’t sweat, fearing I’ll never see you again, wondering how I’ll carry on without you
?”
I held up one finger. “
We are stressed to the max. Let’s not say anything you’ll regret.”

“
I’ll
regret?” H
i
s eyes rolled back in his head.

I slowly, deeply inhaled through my nose.
“Do you want to hear this or not?”

He gave me teeth, then nodded, short and sharp.

“
Good.
So, I
went
to
Clay Basin
and
found a dead man.”

I told him
about
Taft Hogan
,
for the moment
omitting any mention of Jack and Mel. And as I finished up, the lightbulb snapped on in my head.
I hadn’t heard the name Mallory before, I’d read it.

“Heck
.” I pulled open the desk drawer and removed Jack’s folder.
I
knew
I saw Mallory somewhere!
Coleman’s obituary was tucked in the back. I quickly scanned it.

. . . .survived by son Frederick Coleman Junior, brother Phillip Coleman, sister Alicia Coleman Mallory, three grandchildre
n and four great-grandchildren
.

I showed
it to Royal
with a finger to my lips
.
Shades, thankfully, do
not
have
enhanced
hearing. Jack and Mel could not hear us if we kept our voices low.

He got the message and whispered,
“This Rusty Mallory may
be Coleman’s nephew.”

“And there we have it
.
” Well, not quite, but I was getting there.

Less than five minutes later I knew Russell “Rusty” Mallory
,
Vice President of
SupraGear Engineering
, lived
in Ogden. I’d thought tracking him down would be
hard
er, but no, he
was a prominent member of Ogden society. If I’d had any interest in engineering, or society, or Ogden, I might have already heard of him.
Mallory was married, with two sons and a
big
house in South Ogden. His sister Florence was a
screenwriter
and his brother Tom owned a huge spread in South Africa.

Making the mattress jiggle,
I climbed over the bed t
o Royal and flopped at his side
. “I’m gonna go see him tomorrow. Want to c
ome along? You can be the heavy.”

He raised his arm so I could slip beneath and
nestle
against him
. “What does being a heavy entail?”

I internally sighed with relief. The storm clouds seemed to have lifted from his brow.
“You
loom and look threatening.”

“I can manage that.”

I smiled. Sure, we were in a precari
ous position with a Dark Cousin or two
after us
and we had no idea why, but getting this close to Mel’s and Jack’s killer
felt good
.

I
filled Royal in
as we drove to his apartment so he could change clothes before our ap
pointment with Russell Mallory.
“I knew
Coleman took Jack
as he
came
home from Clay Basin, but I only just found out Mel went up there too. I had to check it out.”

“And you think they found this Hogan’s body?”

“They’d have told me. No, someone
thought
they did at the time.”

“What promp
ted this
, after all the years you have lived with them?”

“
Believe it or not, Carrie got me thinking when she asked Jack and Mel why they didn’t pass over when Coleman died.
When I
met them and asked the same question
,
they said they decided not to
, and I didn’t
delve deeper. I thought they knew what they were talking about
. But I’ve learned
more
about the dead since then and I’m
not
sure Coleman kill
ed
them, they
only
thought he did.” My voice sped up eagerly. “Coleman didn’t fit the
profil
e of a serial killer,
I’ve wondered about his motive.”

“Taft Hogan’s murder.”

“Right.
He was involved.
”

Royal parked at the curb opposite his apartment. We dodged
traffic to cross
the street and went up the wrought-iron staircase
.

I stopped at the office door. “I’ll check messages while you change.”
I groped in my pocket for the office key, but the door swung open as I touched the knob.

“Goodness gracious, looks like someone forgot to lock up,” I mocked.

His hand on my arm kept
me in place. “I did
not forget
.”

Uh oh.

We automatically stepped to the side
as he pushed
the door open, Royal on the left, I on the right. He peered
inside the room
, then stepped in. “Someone has been here
.”

The office looked fine to me.

Royal went to his computer. “I did not leave this on.”

My computer was also on
, and when I looked around the office it seemed to me a few things were a little off kilter. A drawer in the file cabinet was not properly closed. A framed print hung a little crooked on the wall. If I went through everything, I’d bet more stuff would be out of place.

I joined Royal in the living room. Again, small indications the room had been gone through. And s
ome of the branches on the artificial Christmas trees were bent. What could you hide in a Christmas tree
? Something small?

The intruders could have trashed the apartment, but they were careful.
I didn’t think
they
cared that we knew they’d been here
, b
ut they worried about the proprietor of Bailey and Cognac on the next floor
down hearing a ruckus, so
didn’t
make one
.

We raced through the front door
and
up to Royal’s bedroom and bathroom on the top floor. They had been through his roll-top desk, his closet, and the bathroom cabinets. His laptop was open.

I plopped down heavily on the desk chair. “Peachy.”

“Nothing has been taken.” Royal closed the laptop which sat on his
desk. “Not even the hard drive
.
”

“
But they likely made copies.”

He sat cross-legged on the floor beside me
with one arm draped over my thighs. “No doubt, though they wi
ll not find sensitive material o
n there or the desktops.
”

“We don’t have any sensitive material at the moment, do we?”

He shook his head.

“I . . . I . . . I don’t know what to say. I can’t think straight.” Re
asoning and logic deserted me, had I
any to begin with. Instead of providing me with intuition, my gut
had become
a dead weight in my body.

We sat there for a few minutes. I leaned so my cheek rested on his silken copper-gold hair. “Do we tell the cops?”

“The less they know, the better. Much more of this and they will put a tail on us.”

He smoothly rose and stood with
hands loose at his sides.
“We are missing something.”

I looked up. “Don’t I know it.”

He opened a drawer
in his roll-top desk
and got out his fingerprinting kit. “
They may have left prints
.”

I stayed in the
bedroom
while he went through the apartment. With so many
spotless, shining
surfaces perfect for fingerprints, he soon came back with the results.

H
e placed the papers before me. Two sets of prints and sure enough, they
were odd, as if
lots
of ridges were missing.

“
Dark Cousin
s
?
” And
big one
s
. The prints were huge.

His eyes narrowed as he fingered his chin.
“Wha
t could we have of interest to
Dark Cousin
s
?”

Damn. “He was looking for anything to do with Lynn,
if we’ve made any progress
.
”
A
nd a
Christmas tree would make a nifty hiding place for a USB drive.

Royal sat at his laptop; his fingers rattled on the keyboard. “These files were accessed twenty minutes ago.”

A ti
ngle of alarm ran through me. “Th
e
y
could be at my place now.”
I didn’t care about what an intruder found in my house and what he
did
to my property, I cared about what could happen to Mac at his hands.

Royal
made for the door.

“You’re not going there without me!”
I scrambled upright and grabbed
for
his arm
, and missed
.
Too late.

“Agh!” I said to the room.

Fuming, I went through the open door, closed it behind me and stomped down the stairs
to the office
. The need to head for home all but overpowered me.
I
could
break into his truck and drive the thing.
That would teach him to leave me here.

I sat on an office chair and simmered.
A few more minutes, and I’d get a cab to my house.

The door opened
,
and
what I meant to yell died in my throat as Royal came
in
. He held something large, black, hairy and very wriggly against his chest, partly concealed by his jacket.

I jumped up. “Is that Mac?”

“Yes, and his nails need clipping.” Royal winced, eased Mac from under his jacket and handed him to me. “I knew you would want to go check on him. This seemed easier.”

I hugged Mac to me as Royal repeated, “
Seemed
easier.”

I melted a little and my emotion notched down from furious to angry. Royal
’s thoughtfulness
didn’t excuse his running off without me. I sat down again, with Mac on my knees. He struggled to get down but I held onto him.

Royal grasped his lapels and tugged to straighten out his jacket. “
I am beginning to wonder if the home security system was a waste of money. They bypassed it. Your house is fine,
p
erhaps because they saw me co
ming and made a swift exit,
but
more likely because
they got what they wanted, Lynn’s laptop and the USB drive
s
.”

He avoided my eyes, perhaps because they’d have burned him down to a charred lump on the floor.

I stroked Mac rhythmically and decided to let go of my anger. The intrusion into my home stung, but my house was fine, Mac was fine, we knew what was on Lynn’s laptop and USB drive
s
so the intruder
s
knew no more than we did
. Although. . . . “Could they find something we missed?”

“
I’m positive we
saw everything
.
There were no hidden files
”
He supported himself with one hand on the back of my chair.
“
Perhaps we should go back to the beginning. W
hy did Lynn stay another day in Portland, and who did she meet?”

I bent over Mac.
“You
r
guess is as good as mine,
”
I said into his fur.

“Let’s tak
e a look at
events
i
n Portland when she was there.”

“Right.” I
lowered Mac to the carpet, swung my chair and
clicked on Snoopy’s icon as Royal
sat at
his computer.

I allowed myself a small smirk. If Mac decided to lift his leg, hey, I was too busy to notice.

“This is so weird,” I said a moment later. Here we sat, practically face to face as we
interacted on Snoopy. I had an
impulse to instant message
Royal
instead of speak to him.

Newspaper archives popped up on my screen. Royal looked over the top of his. “This is a week’s worth. You check The Tribune, I will take The Oregonion.”

I had to
keep
uncross
ing
my eyes to clear the blur. Reading newspaper articles can send me into a state of zombification. Stories on the
Republican
rally and other
related
boring political stuff headlined
;
a few of them added sensationalism by including a synopsis of the Collins/Klein murder.

I plodded on.

Leaning nearer the screen, I studied
a small article.
A
Portland mortician was strangled and tucked away in an unfinished c
asket
on October 8th
. Gave the carpenter quite a turn. No clues, no suspects.

Did the police ask Lynn to look at it?

“I
kind of
wish Carrie were still here,” I said.

Royal eyed me over the top of his monitor. “Because?”

“I found something. A murder in Portland the same day Lynn
investigated
the Collins case. Maybe the cops
asked
her
to
talk to the victim. If Carrie were still here, we could plant her like we did in Provo.”

Royal’s fingers tapped the keyboard. “
I see it in T
he Oregonion, the story was buried because
a connection to the Republican party made
the Collins murder
more newsworthy
.
”

“But
nothing remotely RP
in here. And without fail Lynn recorded name, time and location for her other appointments.
” I lifted one shoulder.
“
Initials and nothing else doesn’t fit her pattern.”

“If she did investigate
the mortician
, it is in the police database and Provo already has the information.”

“Right. Damn.”

I waded through another day of articles.

“Look at this,” Royal said.

Another screen popped up. It
showed
an article about the rally. “I already saw this,” I said as I brought up The Tribune’s version so they were side by side on the screen.

“Check out the speakers.”

With a muted sigh and roll of my eyes, I did just that. Blah blah blah.

Then
a sentence
caugh
t my eye and
practically dragged it to within an inch of the screen. “
Republican Representative
Bob Pride,” I breathed. I
read some more. “Robert Pride.
Lynn would call him Robert, she was plenty anal
sometimes
.”

I brought my head up. “He gave h
is address the day Lynn fingered
Olivia. Maybe Lynn saw him speak, or she w
ent
with the cops when they
pick
ed
up
Olivia for questioning.”