Linda Welch - A conspiracy of Demons (3 page)

He ran his fingers through his slick of wheat-colored hair, then laid his beefy forearms on the desk
and nodded at the detectives.

“
The foreman
found
a body
o
n his
construction site in Provo
early this
morning,
”
Haney
began
.
“Female, Caucasian, five-four
,
hundred and eight pounds
, blond hair,
brown
eyes, no identifying marks.
She’s not in
the criminal database
.
”

So they
want me to talk to the victim.
“Murder?”

Mike nodded.
Before I could open my mouth,
he
held up a photograph. A dead woman
,
just
her face, the edge of a sheet pulled up to her chin
.

I
grasped the photo.
A
heavy
lump
replaced the jitters in
my
stomach and my mouth went dry.

My lips were numb. I man
aged to say, “Lynn
.”

Stirland
opened
a small
notebook. “
What’s her full name?
Is she local?
”

I
forced
breath
through the tightness in my chest. “Lynn Summers.
She lived in California.
”

“
Y
our relationship?”

What? They must know, or why
bring me
here?

“Was she a friend?”
Haney
asked.

Lynn
was one of the few people I could talk to openly about shades and demons. Like me, she saw through the Gelpha glamour to what lay beneath, and she saw the dead, although not in the same way I did.
We seldom saw each other,
but
often talked on the phone, and I’d always thought of her as a
friendly acquaintance. But
with images of her smiling face flashing behind my eyelids and her light laugh echoing in my ears, I knew
I had lost a friend
.

I placed the photo on the desk and
trapped my hands between my knees
.
“Why was she in Provo?” I asked Mike.

Stirland said grimly,
“You tell us. No identification, no possessions.” His mouth
hitched
on one side
in a humorless smile
. “But whoever tried to make her anonymous missed this in her back pocket.”

Mike slid a plastic baggy across his desk to me. It contained a small piece of white paper with handwriting on it. I picked
the baggy up for a closer look. T
he paper had been crumpled, then flattened out again. I smoothed the baggy to better decipher the handwriting.

M
y address.

Haney
leaned down and planted his hands on the desk.
“
Did you call her when she didn’t
keep your appointment
?
”

They thought Lynn and I
planned to meet
, but we didn’t.
Alarm tingled through me like electricity.
Lynn
wa
s
one of those people who plan
ned
every step of a trip and panic
ked
if something
caused
them
to
deviate. She would not dream of stopping by to see me because she was in the area;
she’d
phone and set up a time. She didn’t do that, yet
my address indicated
she intended to see me. Therefore, she didn’t call beca
use she could not, or dare not.

My muzzy brain cleared and I knew I had to be careful. Lynn having my address made me part of the investigation, but not as an investigator.

“
I haven’t heard from Lynn for an age, we had no plans to meet.”

“Then why
did she carry
your address?” Mike asked.

My address
, crumpled in her back pocket.
“Did she drive here?”
I pictured her driving with the paper on the dashboard or passenger seat so she could easily refer to it when she reached Clarion. S
omeone
came
after her; s
he s
potted
them and didn’t want the address to lead them to me, so crumpled it and shoved it in her pocket. They
mistook
it
for
a piece of trash
.

“We don’t know. Now we have her name, we’ll check flights out of California.”

I half-closed my eyes and tried to ignore the drumming in my head
. “She must have be
en
in the area for another reason and thought to stop by and see me.”

“In what capacity do you know her?” from Stirland.

“We
met
at a workshop.
We talked on the phone a few times.” I pushed my feelings into a
small, hard knot
and
s
tared
at Stirland. “How did she die?
Was she killed on the building site or elsewhere?”

“
We can’t release that information at this time
.”

I sucked in air through my teeth and tried to hold it together as the realization hit me. They didn’t ask me here to help with Lynn’s murder. My association with her and that little note in her pocket made me a person of interest.

My gaze swung to Mike. “C’mon, Mike, give me
something
.”

He frowned heavily, then looked at Haney and Stirland. “You know how she works.
I want to give her this, else
she’ll be up there to see for herself.”

“Let her,”
Stirland
said.
“She sets one foot on
that site
, we arrest her
for contaminating a crime scene
.”

Mike gestured expansively. “You don’t need the extra paperwork.” He turned his eyes to me. “Prelim indicates she died elsewhere.”

Haney
poised pen over
notepad. “We
need her address.”

I
made a face. “
Don’t have it
.”

He gave me a sour look.
“You talked on the phone. We can trace her through her phone number.”

“Yeah,
but I don’t know her number off the top of my head. It wa
s in my
old cell’s
address book, but that phone is
on the bottom of the lake,” I told Mike
. “W
hen that guy
ran Royal’s truck off the road and
in to
the lake.
” And we were lucky not to go down with it.

I hiked my shoulders. “I have her number written down at home, but I’ll have to find it.
I’ll head there directly and call you.”
I pushed up from the chair.

“A little more of your time, if you don’t mind, Miss Banks,” Stirland said.
“Does she have family?”

“An
ex-husband. I think he’s an accoun
tant. She didn’t mention kids or
siblings. Or parents.”

“What vehicle did she drive?”

“No idea.”

I s
at down, s
ettle
d back and prepared to be g
rilled.

Half an hour later, I picked up Lynn’s photo for one last look, then
flipped
it at Mike. It fluttered to the desk. “Thanks for breaking it to me gently.”
He didn’t
know my relationship with Lynn, we could be associates or real close
. He could have been kinder.

His eyes
became
steely
. “You know how it works, Tiff.”

Yeah, I knew
; I had seen Mike interrogate suspects
.
I held his gaze for a second, clamped my mouth shut and slammed out of his office.
I
didn’t like being on the receiving end
,
like
someone on the outside looking in.

I got in
my car and
rested my head
on the steering wheel.
Street noise became a lull, as if sorrow muffled my hearing.

Lynn.
Oh God, poor Lynn.
Hot tears pricked behind my eyelids. I blinked hard
as
I saw
a
pointed chin, hollow cheeks and brown eyes
, her thin face framed by wiry wisps of blond hair
.

I
closed my eyes, slumped back in the seat and
gave in to the sick feeling.

Dammit, why didn’t you call me?

But I didn’t have time to indulge my feelings.
Suck it up, Tiff. This is getting you nowhere.
Because I damn sure
would
not
let the cops
keep me
in the dark.
I had to move, and fast.

I rooted
in my pocket for my
cell-phone
and dialed.
The call went to voicemail.

“Royal, I need you.
I’ll be at
the office. Get here as soon as you can
.”

Five
minutes later,
I had
barely sat down when
th
e office door flew open so hard that
the knob
dented
the wall.
I
leaped
to my feet and into Royal’s
arms.

Arms around
his waist, I hugged him tight. H
is hyped-up body heat
seeped
through
my shirt
, his lon
g silken hair
lay
against my cheek
as a
n 80s rock tune
suddenly
pounded in the street, drowning out
children’s laughter, adults’ chatter and vendors’ patter.

I pulled
back so I could see his face
, gathered myself together and looked
in
his
worried
copper eyes. “
Mike called me in
. Ly
nn -
you remember I told you about Lynn?”

His eyebrows drew together.
“The woman you met at the workshop for police consultants.”

“She’s dead.
” I moistened my lips with the tip of my tongue.
“
They found her in
Provo
on a construction site
.”

“
Tiff, I am so sorry.” His palm cupped my cheek, I leaned into it. “
Homicide
?”

“
Yeah.
The
guys
from Provo were tight-lipped, they
gave me hardly anything. S
he had nothing on her apart from my address.
She w
as on h
er way to see me, Royal, but
didn’
t call first
.
That’s not at all like Lynn.
She
had
a reason she wanted
kept
to herself
. She didn’t dare warn me.
”

“How did she die?”

“
I wish I knew
. T
he cops are shutting me out.”
I sniffled. “If they won’t let me in on this, I’m doing it on my own. Will you help me?”

“
You do
no
t have to ask.”

“Yeah, I do,
because
I don’t know what we’re getting ourselves into.
I want to g
et to her house in
Seaside
quick as we can, hopefully before the cops get there.”

Provo had nothing more than her name. Names are rarely unique and locating someone by name alone is a painstaking process. Dozens of Lynn Summers and others with a variation of the name Lynn live in California. I
discovered that when
I checked up on her after we met. It’s a private investigator thing, and I wanted to know more about a woman who saw the dead, and Gelpha as they actually are,
as I do
.