Dark Places (5 page)

I said, “What does he look like? I guess you wouldn't have a picture of him, by any chance?”

“No, I don't. But they've got one up on the first page of his website. He's fairly handsome, I suppose. Stocky man, who doesn't take care of himself the way he should. I saw him smoking out at the mailbox on several occasions. Held his cigarette in one of those long white cigarette holders my mother used back in the 1920s. I suppose he's probably in his thirties, maybe even forties, with that dishwater shade of blond hair. Sometimes he dyes it red or black. It's red right now, I think. He fixes it in sort of a pageboy style, I guess you'd call it. Talks all the time, mile a minute, at least he did with me. Never let a person get a word in edgewise. I wouldn't be surprised if he was one of those junkie types you see on
CSI.
”

“Did you ever see him take drugs or sell them to anyone?”

“No, but I doubt he'd do such a thing out in the street for everyone to see, now would he? No, but he's a big phony, going on with all that angel cockamamie stuff. I bet deep down he's a devil in disguise. He probably has 666 tattooed on his scalp.”

Bud said, “Like Damian did, huh?”

Edith was really warming up to Bud now. “Do you like those
Omen
films, young man?”

“Yeah. I like the part where Lee Remick crashes over the banister. She played the mom, right?”

Mrs. Talbott nodded. “I liked that part, too. And when the priest got impaled on the iron cross in the churchyard, that was quite remarkable.”

I interrupted the Ebert and Roeper review and got us back on track. “Do you have any reason to suspect that he's a bad person, ma'am? Maybe into drugs himself?” I thought comparing Classon to Lucifer was a bit out of the mainstream, as far as casual remarks go.

“I saw him throw rocks at my cat once. Snuffles was just sitting on my wheelbarrow watching him. She's dead now, poor kitty, but I had the dear little thing for years and years. I don't trust anybody who mistreats animals. And I can assure you that the archangels wouldn't frequent a chatroom with somebody who throws rocks at cats.”

Well, there you go. I thanked her kindly, and we finished our green tea before we headed back to Angel Land to see if Shaggy the Great had uncovered any evidence for us. Tonight I'd go calling on the angels via Classon's website, and tomorrow we'd visit the ones holed up at the Dome of the Cave Academy for the Gifted, whatever the hell that turned out to be.

The little boy trapped inside the grave stopped crying as his tormenters ran away. Eyes wide and frightened, he squinted up into the sun until a figure blocked out the bright glare, dropping a cool, dark shadow across his face. He could see the person above him had golden hair the sun turned into a shining halo. The angels had finally come for his family, and he was terrified. Then he saw an arm reach down to him and a deep voice said, “Grab hold, and I'll pull you outta there.”

Grasping the proffered hand with both his own, he held on tightly as his savior lifted him upward as if he weighed nothing. When he was out in the sun again, he scrambled to his knees and stared up at the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen. The angel's hair was pure gold, silky, and long enough to brush his shoulders. He wore all white, and his eyes were blue and clear and smiling. It
was
an angel, he thought, thunderstruck, come to earth to escort his family to heaven. Maybe if he begged, the angel would take him, too.

“Are you really the Angel Gabriel, the one from my Sunday school lessons?” he asked, too scared to speak above a whisper.

Then the Angel Gabriel laughed like a regular person. He knelt down on one knee and wiped the dirt off the boy's cheeks with his white tunic. “Hell, no, those brats just call me that 'cause I'm the preacher's son and have all this blond hair. You can call me Gabriel, though, if you want to.”

“But you're wearing all white like the angels do, and you look just like the pictures of angels.”

“Thanks, kid, but I'm no angel, believe me. And these ain't angel robes, either. You're that orphan kid, aren't you? I just got back from my karate class in town or I would've been here for your mom and dad's funeral. I saw what those guys did to you. Now don't you worry about them no more, you hear? They're a bunch of punks.”

He hadn't thought about being an orphan, but that's what he was. He wondered if the angel thought he was ugly. “You don't think I'm ugly, not even with this?” He pointed to his head injury.

“
Nope. You think I am?”

“No. You look like an angel.”

“Don't worry about those kids anymore. I'm gonna be your best friend from now on. And if you stick close to me, we'll show those jerks what they get if they mess with us. Deal?”

The boy stared up at his bright savior and wondered how old he was. Fifteen, sixteen, maybe, about the same age as Betsy, his babysitter back in Pittsburgh. “You sure do look like the angels in my Bible. You sure you're not the one coming to get daddy and momma and Katie?”

“Nah, they already came for them anyways. Probably when they were out on the highway when they got killed. Whisked them up to heaven in the blink of an eye. That's what the Bible says happens. And I heard the angels always snatch their souls out of their bodies right before the crash so they don't have to suffer much pain.”

“Really? I don't remember much about the crash. I remember waking up in the hospital, though.”

“Yeah, well, you don't need to be worrying about it no more. The Bible's a cool book to read. My dad made me study it since I was littler than you. I'll teach you lots of things, now that you're my special friend. Want to come out in the woods and see my secret hideout? Nobody else's ever been out there but me, but I'll show it to you, if you promise to God you'll never, ever tell another soul about it. I bet your grandma'll let me show you around and take you back home later, before it gets dark. Yeah, let's do that. But you gotta promise you'll be my friend and never tell my secrets, not even to my dad or your grandma. You promise?”

“I promise. I'll never tell anybody anything about you. You'll be my special friend, too.”

“Good deal. C'mon, let's tell your grandma where we're going, then I'll show you some really cool things.”

Looking up at the beautiful, blond-haired boy, he felt certain this being was divine, really the Angel Gabriel who just wasn't allowed to tell anyone who he was. He'd saved him from the bullies, and from being buried in the grave, hadn't he? He had to be the Angel Gabriel, and the angel wanted him as his special friend. For the first time since his family had died, he smiled and felt hope.

It was well after eleven before I got back to the sheriff's office where I'd left my black Ford Explorer. That made me more than a couple of hours late for my date with Black, but he probably wouldn't mind. He was a busy man himself, and he'd gotten used to my irregular hours and understood that my job took precedence over our hanky-panky. Maybe if I got out a big red handkerchief and waved it back and forth, I could distract Black from my late arrival. We'd agreed to meet at my place at nine, and he didn't have a key so he was probably standing outside, freezing and mad as a hornet. I wondered where Bud would say “mad as a hornet” came from? Oh, great, now I was doing it.

The snow was floating straight down in huge white flakes in the smoky beams of my headlights. So beautiful and clean, cloaking the world in peace and quiet like the Christmas card I got the other day from my car insurance agent. But that was only an illusion. Crimes were happening all around Lake of the Ozarks, even now on this cold, snowy night. Silent and stealthy, violence in the purple shadows, and in one of those terrible, dark places Simon Classon was probably in some very big trouble.

Shaggy and the rest of the forensics team hadn't turned up much yet in the way of evidence but they were taking samples of blood and hair back to the lab and would let me know as soon as they had some results. I'd already contacted the Dome of the Cave Academy for the Gifted, a.k.a. the dumbest name I'd ever heard of in my life, and it was closed, of course. But I finally got the custodian on my cell, some guy named Willie Vines, who gave me the phone number of the school's director, a Dr. G. Richard Johnstone. Mr. Director was at home in his house on campus and seemed genuinely surprised to hear about Classon's disappearance. He said Classon had been on vacation for the last week so no one had thought much about his absence. Said he was the resident angelologist on staff and taught classes on the hierarchy of angels, seraphim, and cherubim. Bud said it sounded like a class about sea urchins to him.

In any case, Johnstone appeared suitably concerned, promised they'd search the school thoroughly, and called back twenty minutes later with word there was no trace of their chief angelologist anywhere on campus. At that point, we decided there was little more we could do until tomorrow, not with a heavy snowfall settling in over the lake.

So it was closing in on the midnight hour when I turned into the gravel road that led down to my tiny A-frame house. My friend Harve Lester has let me live there rent free for the last few years because we'd been partners in the LAPD back in the good old days before he got hit with a bullet and paralyzed from the waist down. Something I try not to think about too much because it was my fault. He lives in an old house he inherited from his grandmother about a quarter of a mile up the road from me, and as I passed it, I saw him sitting in the window. Sometimes he watched for me like that, just to make sure I made it home safely. He waved his arm, and I flashed my lights in answer. If I wasn't so late meeting Black, I'd stop and have a Heineken with him.

A couple of minutes later, I rounded the last curve on the road and caught sight of my house. I stomped the brakes so hard my Explorer did a sideways skid off the snow-slick road and knocked snow off a whole row of bushes. I blinked and stared through the wet snow plopping against my windshield. I wiped the inside of the glass with my hand and looked some more. Wait a minute, whoa, and what the hell? Then I saw Black come out of the huge, glassed-in front porch on my house and start striding down the road toward me. Only thing is, I don't have a huge, glassed-in front porch on my house. At least I didn't that morning when I left.

Black was wearing Levi's and a black cashmere sweater under a brown suede coat and heavy black leather snow boots that he'd picked up the last time he went skiing in Gstaad. That's in Switzerland. I know because I asked him. He's usually wearing expensive suits hand-tailored in Hong Kong and made out of rare yak hair or something, but it was snowing tonight so he dressed down for our date. He motioned for me to drive into the attached garage beside the huge, glassed-in front porch. I hadn't had the garage this morning, either.

I pulled my SUV inside, killed the engine, and then Black was there, opening the door for me. Did I mention that, despite all his wealth and fancy clothes, he was gentlemanly that way?

“Merry Christmas, Morgan.” He had started calling me that because he disliked the habit I had of calling him Black. Sometimes he called me Claire, usually when we were in bed and pretty breathless.

“Who said you could do all this to my house?” Ungracious, true, but I was pretty damned shocked.

“Harve did. Said you'd love it but he wasn't sure you'd appreciate the surprise part.”

“Well, I hate surprises.”

“I like them. Come on, let me show you what I've done.” Then he saw the puffy bruise on my cheek. “What the hell happened to your face?”

“Nothing. Just ran into a criminal type.”

“Good God, Claire, it's your first day back.”

“Yeah, bad things happen.”

“How did it happen? Has a doctor looked at it?”

“Forget it. It's nothing, just a little bump.” Then I climbed out of the car, looked around the garage, and cleverly changed the subject, “You're awfully smug about remodeling my entire house without my permission.”

Black merely smiled and took my hand. “You're going to love it, trust me.”

He led me to a white door that I suspected led into the new huge, glassed-in front room. When he hit a button beside the door, the garage door slid down behind us with a low, efficient purr. Hey, this meant no more scraping ice off windows in subzero weather, hallelujah and praise the Lord. I was suddenly a heck of a lot more gracious. I smiled, too, and to my embarrassment, felt a bit giddy.

“How in the world did you get all this done so fast? Jeez, I left here at seven this morning.”

“Yes, it's amazing, all right, what you can accomplish with twenty carpenters, five electricians, and four plumbers, and a significant cash bonus to get the job done. Besides, you've been promising to get me a key to the front door and you haven't done it. So I got a front door I already have a key to.”

“Okay, I admit it. This is pretty cool.”

Black smiled. I smiled. We were a smiley couple tonight. My smile faded a little. The book I got him was going to look pretty damn lame, even if I put a big red bow on it. I could hear it now: What'd Black get you for Christmas, Claire? He remodeled my house and gave me a big glassed-in room with a garage and everything. What'd you get him? A book. My stomach dropped a bit. Black, on the other hand, was in his element.

“Close your eyes.”

“C'mon, Black, give me a break here. You know I don't like playing games.”

“Humor me.”

I shut my eyes and let him lead me into his megasurprise. The filthy rich and their games, what's a poor girl to do?

“Okay, open your eyes and behold paradise.”

I opened them and beheld paradise. “Good grief, Black.”

The room was bigger than it looked from outside. Completely furnished, completely decorated down to the appropriate law enforcement and NRA gun magazines that I liked to read, and burning vanilla candles, and all in a single day, too. Beige carpet, brown suede sectional, a crackling fireplace, and oh, happy days, a hot tub, partitioned off with French doors, the kind that had little miniblinds inside the glass. Oh, man, did I ever love those doors with the miniblinds inside the glass. Dozens of candles were lit all around and the ones on the ledge behind the hot tub framed a view of my private cove through a curtain of gently falling snowflakes.

“Like it?”

“Are you frickin' kidding me?”

“Then take off your coat and let me see you.” He unbuttoned my less-than-luxurious, weasely fur and gave my body a slow once-over. “My, you do look lovely in that outfit.”

“You ought to like it. You bought it.”

Black nodded. “Ah, yes, I remember that day well. Last summer, I believe it was, when I took you sightseeing in my favorite Louisiana swamp and you beat up this guy and then later we found our first corpse together? No wonder I'm so turned on.” He grinned and carved all those damn dimples in his cheeks. His gaze dipped to my hooking togs again. “And the fishnet stockings and skunk fur are definitely eye-catching.”

He slipped his arms around my waist and pulled me tightly against him. He was as warm as I was cold. “You're earlier than usual, only two hours late tonight.”

“Sorry, couldn't be helped. A missing person came in.”

“You're ice cold. Go change into something warm. I brought in dinner, and it's still warm.”

“Chef Pierre from the hotel, huh?”

“I don't cook except on special occasions.”

“This seems pretty special to me.”

“You bet it is. It's been almost five months since you frisked and handcuffed me the first time. Tonight can be our first-time-you-arrested-me anniversary.”

“It's still a bit extravagant, even for such a momentous occasion.” So what if I've grown to using bigger words since I met Black.

“There's more.” Black handed me a long silver remote.

“This controls everything. The hot tub, the TV, garage door, alarm system, computer, Internet access, fireplace.”

“You got me an alarm system?”

“Yeah.”

“I'm an armed officer of the law.”

“With lots of enemies.”

True, a plethora of them. See, what I mean about the big words. I looked around. “What? No unfolding bed and dimmed lights like Doris Day did for Rock Hudson in
Pillow Talk
?” Black and I had watched that old movie late the other night on the 13-inch TV in my bedroom loft. He'd asked me if I had any binoculars so he could see the screen.

“That's where I got the idea to put a new bed upstairs. I'll unfold it myself. Ditto with the lights.”

“You got me a new bed?

“I got
us
a new bed, yes.”

“King-size, right?”

“California king-size. I can't sleep in that barracks cot you call a bed. Not without a killer backache in the morning. Where'd you get that thing anyway? A garage sale at a monastery?”

“Black, I really appreciate this, I really do, but you've gotta quit getting me expensive gifts. It's making me feel funny.”

“This is the only big thing I've ever given you, and it's an early Christmas present, but okay, fine. If it makes you uncomfortable, this'll be it. No more gifts.”

That's Black for you. Using all his fancy degrees in psychology, never arguing with me, just killing me with kindness.

Black said, “Let's eat, I'm starving. And tell me about your day. You know, how many men you enticed into sin with that hot body of yours and then threw into jail, stuff like that.”

“Let me get changed, then I'll tell you about all my new boyfriends now languishing behind bars.”

Upstairs, I found a huge bed that took up most of the loft. It was covered with a luxurious gold satin comforter that looked soft enough to sink to the floor in. I suspected there were black silk sheets underneath. Black liked gold-and-black decor, almost to the point of absurdity, but he had those silk sheets on the bed at his place and they felt like heaven so I wasn't going to argue that point.

I took a quick shower, washed my hair, dressed in Levi's and a black sweater, not cashmere but Wal-Mart chenille, just so we'd be the Olsen twins, then I actually combed my short blond hair and brushed my teeth with orange-flavored Crest. Black's influence, I guess, but I drew the line at lipstick. I am not a makeup kind of woman. I stood at the top of the stairs looking down at my new huge, glassed-in front room and couldn't believe it was mine. When I reached the bottom of the steps, Black handed me a glass of white wine. I wished it was a bottle of Coors as I followed him to a new teak dining table with four matching swivel chairs upholstered in brick-red Ultrasuede. I do love swivel chairs. I do love brick-red Ultrasuede.

“You gotta stop doing this kind of stuff for me. I'm serious now, Black. This isn't your way of putting a brand on me, is it?”

“I'm not the type to brand things.” He sounded miffed.

“What about all your monogrammed shirts and cufflinks? And what about the big brass
B
on the gates outside all your houses?”

“Well, that's different.”

“We've talked about this before, you know. Let's just take things slow, get to know each other, don't redecorate each other's homes, et cetera.”

“You don't like it?”

“Of course, I like it. Who wouldn't? But it seems sort of much for the length of time we've been dating. Sort of extravagant, I guess.” Sort of?

“I've been spending more time waiting around here for you than I have at home, so I added a few amenities. What's the harm in that? It's a Christmas present, nothing more, nothing less. Tell me about your missing-person case.”

He was good at changing the subject on purpose, too, but I didn't mind. The truth was, I was delighted with the improvements on my shabby little A-frame, which now resembled Elizabeth Taylor's Swiss chalet. Maybe it's in Gstaad, too. Maybe she and Black are neighbors and borrow cups of sugar and stuff like that. But the book I bought for him still seems plenty crappy, even if it was a full-price hardback. I was going to have to find something else to put with it. Maybe some stocking stuffers. Maybe a deodorizer pine tree to hang on the rearview mirror of one of his Mercedes.

Black said, “Who's your missing person?”