Linda Welch - A conspiracy of Demons (25 page)

“This is about you and Fred Coleman.”

“Tush.” Jack flapped one hand. “Not about you and Royal, and how you’re going to dump him?”

My brow knitted. “No!”

“Don’t you dare
ditch that luscious man
!” Mel exclaimed.

I
rolled my eyes up
. “This is serious. Listen to me.”

“All e
ars.” Jack leaned over the table and stared
with his fixed expression.

I plunged in. “You thought you decided to stay here when Coleman died. You didn’t. You had no choice, because he didn’t kill you.”

I kept talking, barely pausing for breath, and they did not as much as twitch as they listened. I had their avid attention after
two
sentences.

Finished,
I waited for their reaction.

Jack and Mel looked at each othe
r, then were silent for so long that
I thought the news took their voices.

Finally, Jack said,
“Why did he say he burned us?”

“He wants me to believe your bodies won’t be found. Wheth
er that’s to protect him,
or
his brother, I don’t know.”

“But he’ll be prosecuted for Hogan’s murder.”

“He’ll plead manslaughter, which carries a sentence of two to twenty years depending on circumstances
, but I
have no notion of
how this will go
.
I’ve attended trials where the defendant is accused of murder
and pleaded manslaughter, but I’m not familiar with
the precedent for a guy who confesses to manslaughter when
no one
knew a crime was committed
, if there is one
.
”

“But he won’t be executed, right?”

“I doubt it. As he’s pleading guilty,
he may not
even
go before
a jury. I gues
s it depends on what the State P
rosecutor decides.
”

“So he could
live
to an
old age
,
”
Mel mused as she fingered her lower lip.
“What about the brother. Is
he
healthy?”

I realized where this was going.
“
You mean how long will he live?” Wh
ich translated to how long they woul
d be here.

Jack sounded agitated.
“We don’t care about justice, Tiff. If
whichever brother did kill us
is convicted o
f our murders and hangs for it -
or whatever
they do to murderers nowadays -
we won’t be
here
as lon
g as if he dies
a natural death.
”

“
Jack, convicted killers stay in the system for
decades nowadays. He could - ”

I stopped speaking. I didn’t want to say
a convicted killer
could be
in prison twenty years or more
and put a time
frame to my friends’ lingering existence.

“People live longer now,” Mel said in a rush. “They could
both
live to be a hundred.”

I eyed them thoughtfully. “
So you’d rather I don’t pursue this?”

Mel an
d
Jack exchanged looks
again
.

“
Not on my behalf
,” said Jack.

Mel nodded.

Relief made me giddy. I could
avoid The Wrath of Mike, make Jack and Mel happy,
and more importantly, not
be responsible for
sending them to the great beyond.
“Whatever you want, guys.”

The story aired on the seven o’cl
ock news
. “Russell Mallory, forty-five
, of
Clarion walked into Clarion Police Department last night and confessed to the man
slaughter of Taft Hogan twenty-six
years ago.”
Mallory
was in custody, scheduled to go before Judge Brady tomorrow morning.
After the hearing, h
e could well get out on bail until his trial.

No mention of Jack and Mel.

A
brief interview with Jennifer
Hogan
followed
. She clutched a hand
kerchief, yet her eyes were dry and
held
no hint of sorrow. “All this time, I thoug
ht he left me, when he was dead,
”
she wailed.

Heart
broken. Yeah. Right.

If Mel and Jack had wanted me to go after Rusty
or Tom, or both
, I woul
d be stee
ling myself to talk to Mike and tell him I ha
d lived wi
th two murder victims for years.

I
f the cops dug up my roommates, would the
y find DNA on their clothes
or what remained of their bodies
? To whom would it belong?

Ninety percent of my consultancies resulted in proof of guilt
or a confession after I pointed law enforcement in the right direction
, and had this been one of those investigations I would have pursued it to t
he best of my ability. But I’d let
this one go.

I turned off the television with the remote. Royal stirred
at my side
. I didn’t think he slept at all last night. I barely did,
only
dozed, and his breathing told me he was awake each time I surfaced.

I slid from beneath the covers without speaking, pulled my ro
be on over my old, worn T-shirt
and went in the bathroom.
I showered first, then unbraided my hair and washed it.
Royal was gone when I returned to
the bedroom with my
hair wrapped in a bath towel.

The aroma of frying bacon drifted upstairs as I used
a
dryer to damp-dry my hair
, then
braided it
.
I sniffed appreciatively.

A
s we were going to see a
big-shot
politician,
I
dressed in gray
slacks,
a
long-sl
eeved navy blouse
, and
went
down to the kitchen barefoot
with navy dress shoes in my hand
.

His back to me, Royal stood at the stove wearing
nothing but
red
silk
boxers. Mel leaned o
n the counter next to the stove
mere inches from his
glowing, satin-sleek
torso.

“Mel!”

“Shh,” she crooned. “
I am in a
state of rapture.”

Royal
face
d
me, a spatula in one hand and
wooden spoon in the other.
Bacon sizzled and spat in a big skillet.

“When did you get bacon?”

“I could not sleep last night so I went to the supermarket.”

He left me all alone to whip to the market. I took that as a good sign.
“
Great
,
but
y
ou c
an’t walk around here like that.
”

“Why not? The blinds are down
.” He grinned widely. “Although the bacon grease
is
annoying.”

“If only I could use my tongue,” Jack said.
“I’d get those tasty little dribbles off him.”
He stuck out his tongue and wiggled it.

“Jack! That’s disgusting!”

“Don’t tell me you wouldn’t enjoy doing it.”

“What?” Royal
asked
.

I flushed from my cheeks all the way down my neck. “You don’t want to know.”

I half-turned to find Jack
nearly
in
my back.
I angrily glared with my lips squashed together. If he and Mel didn’t quit this
up close and personal thing
, my buds and I were going to have words.
“Back off, Jack,” I told him. He shrugged and moved away.

I took the spatula from Royal and waved it at him. “Maybe the neighbors can’t see in
, but the other residents of this house are ogling you.” I tried to stop my lips twitching. “It’s indecent.”

His chin tucked
in
his neck. “I am indecent?”

“No, the way they’re behaving is.”

“I do not care. They can look, but they cannot touch.”

“Bastard,” Jack groaned.

You become accustomed to your partner’s body after a few years, but it was as if I saw Royal through new eyes. All that burnished muscle, silken skin, the long, lean line of his legs, his tight abdomen. My mouth fell open as it filled with saliva. “
Please put some clothes on
,” I said wetly.

From the way
Mac
gazed up hopefully,
Royal was
his favorite person this morning. I swear he gave me a filthy look as Royal left the kitchen without giving him any bacon.

Mel sighed. “Sometimes I hate you,” she told me.

“Yeah, well stick
your tongue back in your mouth.”

I cut a piece of bacon off a rasher, blew on it, and took it to the pantry.
It went in Mac’s bowl with the kibble.

“You’re like my mom,” Mel said. “She’d tell me I was overweight and urge me to have another slice of pie in the same breath.”

But Mac was ecstatic, and he wasn’t all that fat.
Not exactly lean, but not obese
, I reassured myself.

Royal
came in
the kitchen c
lad in black
pants, a pale yellow
and blue striped
shirt and dark-navy jacket
. He donned my spiffy plastic apron to
keep bacon grease
off his outfit.

He brought bacon, potato cakes cooked in bacon grease and
scrambled eggs to the table. I filled two glasses with milk from the fridge and we tucked in
.

I swallo
wed a savory mouthful. “I
f we ever give up this detecting business, we c
an open a restaurant. They’ll
come from miles
around
to taste your food.”

“Good idea,” Jack said from where he
peered
over Ro
yal’s shoulder, gazing steadfastly
at
the plate. “
Clarion has
almost
every ethnic food
avai
l
able
, demon food w
ill
be something new.”

“What’d you call it?” Mel asked. She sat beside Royal, chin in hands, elbows on table, gaze constantly switching from his plate to his mouth. “Diabolically Delicious?”

“The Devil
Mad
e Me Eat It,” from Jack.

“I gather I would be the chef,” Royal stated.

“Heavenly Bites in Hell,” Mel contributed.

This is what comes of calling Royal and his people demons. I had a hard enough time breaking
the
habit without Jack and Mel getting into it.

Lynn saw, or discovered, something which led to Cousins killing her, and they were after us.

Hopefully a chat with Bob Pride could throw some light.

I
roll
ed my eyes up to see if the pall of gloom
hanging over my head was actually real. It sure felt like it
. “I wonder if I’m menopausal.
One minute I’m up, the next I’m down.
”

Eyes crinkling,
Royal
glanced at me,
“You are not menopausal. You are
not that age
.”

“
W
ho made you an authority?”

He faced the road again. “You know why your emotions are in flux.
You are angry and
frightened
because we were attacked
and frustrated because we are not making headway with Lynn’s murder. Y
ou rushed off to Clay Basin instead of waiting until I could accompany you
and
immersed
yourself in another
investigation
so to
put your fears on the backburner.
But
you are done with that
, and the implications of Dark Cousin
involvement
in Lynn’s
death
chew at you
again
.
”

“You know me better than that, I don’t shy away from -
”
I started to say before I
bit off
the words
.
He was right, damn him.

“So, what
are
the
implications,” I finally said. “Are C
ousins hiring out as assassins?
”
I shook my head. “I don’t see it
.”

“And you have dreaded some nefarious agenda since Gia Sabato helped you defeat Cicero and reveal the truth about Seers.”

I looked up again. Yep, I could
practically
see it, a heavy, roili
ng shadow
above my head.
What i
f Bob
Pride
turned out to be
a dead end
?

I looked in the side mirror as we approached
Pocatello.
We pretty much had the road to ourselves, but that didn’t mean a thing.
“Do
you think we’re being tailed?”

“I do not
believe
so.”
His
gaze flashed to the rearview mirror. “But if we are, we have every right to drive to Pocatello, and we are not required to give Provo or Clarion a reason.”

“Hm,” I hummed. But Mike Warren would push for one if he felt so inclined.

Pocatello
had grown since last I visited, but the main streets and avenues had not changed much. Mostly, newer development
had spread toward the mountains
Pride was supposed to be at
Bannock County Republican Party HQ on Yellowstone Avenue
today
.
We walked
past
the glass-fr
onted office. Inside,
people
sat at desks
talking on the phone
and gesturing, probably making a pitch
for support
. Other folk came in from somewhere in the back, some
yelling to be heard,
others
dashed
through tossing papers
and rolls of stickers on desks.

We could go in the headquarters, but we would have to tell them why we wanted to see Pride. The words “detective” and “murder investigation” would send headquarters into alert mode and no one is better at erecting a wall between an outsider and a politician than their aides.

I laid my hand on Royal’s forearm. “How do we do this?”

“
First we
make sure he is here
.
Leave it to me
.
”
He
led
me away from the building.

We waited for a break in traffic and walked to the far side of the street
, then angled until we stood kitty corner to the offices
. Royal
used his cell to
connect
to directory assistance
.

After getting the number, he punched it
in
his phone and waited with the device held to his ear.

“Hi. I’m in town for the rally and want to make a donation to the party. Should I drop it off
on Yellowstone
?”

Af
ter a pause, “Great. Say, I’m an
admirer of Representative Pride, heard he’s here. Any chance I can give him the donation personally?”

Pause. “Huh. Yeah. I’ll come by in half an hour.”

He disconnected and slipped the phone in his jacket pocket. “Pride is en route. He should arrive in the next half hour.”