Demon Hunting In the Deep South (39 page)

He was in a music room of some sort. A sweet, almost suffocating odor permeated the space. A wooden instrument with three legs, a black and white keyboard, and a horizontal harp-shaped frame stood open. As Ansgar paused to get his bearings, the ghost of a slim, blond-haired man materialized on the bench in front of the instrument and began to play a lively tune.

“Don’t play that boogie woogie, Junior,” a woman said. “Play something restful.”

Ansgar turned his head. Clarice Peterson sat in a winged-back chair on the far side of the room, her head bent over the needlework in her lap. It was her cloying perfume he smelled, he realized. He scrutinized the frail, older woman. She seemed detached and removed, untouchable. It was impossible to tell what swam beneath the surface of that calm water.

“He’s having a bad day,” she said, “and your music is the only thing that soothes him.”

The ghost complied, and the music became softer. An unusual household, Ansgar thought, shaking his head. The ghost looked up at him and smiled as though reading his thoughts, his pale eyes full of gentle humor.

By the sword, he can see me,
Ansgar realized with a sense of unease. This was a new experience; never before had a shade been able to penetrate his cloak of invisibility. Once again, things were different in Hannah. But why so? Conall was right. There was more to Hannah than demon mischief, though there was that, too, and aplenty.

The ghostly musician halted, and Ansgar heard the distant sound of masculine voices in another part of the house.

“Don’t stop, Junior,” Clarice said. “You know how he loves your music.”

He? Of whom did she speak? Another shade perhaps? Ansgar shrugged away the thought. It did not matter.

The ghost gave Ansgar another beatific smile and tilted his head in the direction of an interior door before launching into another melody. Leaving the odd pair to their music, Ansgar strode quietly out. To his frustration, he found Blake Peterson already in conference with Sheriff Whitsun in a room at the end of a hall. The chamber was large with a high ceiling and gleaming paneled walls of dark wood. Lighted glass cabinets held an impressive collection of knives, and more knives were displayed on brackets on the walls. Blake Peterson sat behind a marble-topped writing desk listening to Sheriff Whitsun.

“—curious about that missing knife in your collection,” the sheriff was saying. He walked over to a lighted case full of knives and pointed to an empty bracket. “There’s an impression in the felt backing that’s the same size and shape as the handle on the murder weapon.”

“And how could you possibly know that, Sheriff?” Blake Peterson asked in a bored voice.

“I told you last night that I took a photograph of the knife before I sent it to forensics.” Whitsun pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and held it to the glass. It was a picture of a knife. “See? The dent in the felt matches the ridges and the shape of the horn handle.” He put his finger on the glass. “And right there is the ring the brass quillion made on the cloth. How do you explain that?”

“It’s very simple,” Peterson said. He leaned back in his chair and offered the sheriff a cool smile. “I’m a rich man. I have several knives with horn handles in my collection. The knife missing from that case is at the appraiser’s.”

“I’ll need the name of that appraiser, sir.”

Peterson slammed his hand on the desk. “Have you no sense of decency, man? We’ve had a death in the family, and we are all very upset. Why are you in my home harassing me on the day we’re burying my grandson’s wife? We already know who killed Meredith, and it wasn’t me.”

“I don’t think Evie Douglass killed Ms. Peterson,” Whitsun said.

“I don’t give a damn what you think, Sheriff.” Peterson rose. “What matters is what the grand jury thinks. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a funeral to attend.”

He strode out of the room without another word.

“Learn anything, Mr. Dalvahni?” the sheriff said.

Whitsun and his infernally sharp senses were becoming a nuisance.

Irritated, Ansgar removed his shield. “Nothing I did not already know. You think Peterson killed Meredith.”

“Yes, I do, and then he planted the knife in Ms. Douglass’s car to frame her for the murder,” Whitsun said. “But the collector in him couldn’t bear to let the knife go, so he broke into the evidence lab in Mobile and stole it back without setting off the alarms, something only a demonoid could do. Or a demon hunter.” He stuck the piece of paper back in his pocket. “One thing bothers me, though, and that’s the motive. I don’t know
why
Blake Peterson killed Meredith.” He shrugged. “I’m still working on that one.”

“What if you found the missing knife, Sheriff?”

“Which one, the murder weapon or the knife that’s missing from Peterson’s collection?”

“What if they turn out to be one and the same?” Ansgar said.

“Well, then, I reckon we’d have us a new suspect. You know anything about the whereabouts of this knife?”

“No, but I know someone who may be able to find it.”

“Really, who’s that?”

“His name is Collier, and he uses a tracking device similar to a divining rod called a contrabulator.”

Whitsun rubbed his jaw. “You don’t say? I’d like to meet this fellow.”

Ansgar smiled. “That can be arranged.”

By the time Addy closed shop at one thirty that afternoon, Evie was exhausted. The activity at the flower shop had been nonstop, and her nerves were worked by the stress of the last-minute orders and the snide, sometimes downright ugly remarks made by customers. Evie didn’t blame folks. She was a suspected murderess—an already convicted murderess in many people’s minds—out on bail. But that didn’t make dealing with the venom any easier.

She bit her tongue and didn’t say anything to them or Addy. Addy would have flown off the handle and clean into next week if she’d heard some of the hateful things people had said to her that morning. Between filling orders and fielding the endless, excited questions about Shep’s scandalous artwork, Addy had her hands full. The last thing Evie wanted to do was add to her problems.

She stayed out of the way at the funeral home, watching the memorial service on a monitor in Bitsy’s office, then helped Nicole and Addy haul the last of the flowers out to the van for transport to the gravesite. Normally, Addy’s job ended when she delivered the flowers to Corwin’s, but the Peterson funeral was such a big event that she’d agreed to give Shep and Bitsy a hand. And a good thing, too—Shep’s engagement and his impromptu artistic debut had pretty much fried Bitsy to a crispy, crackly crunch. She walked around with a stiff smile on her face and a blank look in her eyes.

They pulled into River Oaks Cemetery and began to unload. People had gone all out to show their support of one of Hannah’s leading families, and the Peterson plot overflowed with flowers.

“There.” Nicole set down a funeral spray of red and white carnations decorated with a crimson sash hand-printed with the words S
AY
H
ELLO
T
O THE
B
EAR FOR
U
S.
Reaching over her shoulder, she patted the Chihuahua riding on her back in the pet pouch. “That’s the last one. Ain’t that right, Frodo?”

The Chihuahua grumbled in response.

“Just in time,” Addy said. “Here they come.”

The Petersons’ cemetery lot stood at the crest of a gentle hill guarded by three tall oaks. Evie looked down the slope. The two police cars at the head of the funeral procession made a sharp turn, blocking the road, their blue lights flashing. In the distance, a groundskeeper was tooling around on his four-wheeler near the front gate of the cemetery. He halted, idling his motor as the hearse turned onto the white gravel drive that wound through the cemetery. A line of cars with their headlights on crept down the highway and into the cemetery behind the hearse, like a long, lighted tail. Two more police cars brought up the rear. Hannah’s finest were out in force today.

“I’ll move the van and wait for y’all over yonder,” Evie said, pointing to one of the trees. The temperature was in the low seventies, but it still got hot in the van sitting in the sun.

“I will go with you,” Brand said.

Brand had been on her like a duck on a June bug all morning since Ansgar had vamoosed without a word.

“You don’t have to do that,” Evie told Brand. “I’ll be fine.”

“I insist.”

Evie sighed. “I thought you’d say that. Where did you say Ansgar went?”

“He had business to attend to. He asked me to protect you in his absence.”

Sweet, but unnerving, like having a 250-pound pit bull glued to your butt cheeks.

She parked the Pepto-Bismol pink van under the tree and waited, wishing she could get closer. The whole town had turned out for Meredith’s funeral, and it was the perfect opportunity to do a little spying on the mourners to try to figure out who killed Meredith. Evie’s stomach clenched. Mr. Collier had stopped by the shop this morning to confirm that the preliminary hearing was, indeed, set for this Thursday—three days from now. Time was running out.

Ansgar appeared in the back of the van without warning. “All is well?” he asked Brand.

“Yes,” Brand said, and vanished.

“My, people come and go so quickly here,” Evie muttered.

“He cannot bear to be away from Addy for very long,” Ansgar said. “I think he is addicted.” In a blur of motion, Ansgar moved to the front seat and pulled her into his lap. “As am I.”

She sighed and leaned against him. “You smell nice.”

He nuzzled her neck. “You smell nice, too. What is this fragrance you are wearing?”

“Kudzu flower. It’s a new scent I’m trying at the shop. You like?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you go?” she asked. “I missed you.”

“I have been speaking with Sheriff Whitsun. Come, we must attend the sepulchral service.”

“I can’t,” Evie protested. “It would be too awkward. Not to mention tacky.”

“It will not be awkward. No one will know we are there.”

Ansgar wrapped his arms around her. Evie felt the now familiar pulling sensation, and they were out of the van and standing in the middle of the crowd gathered around the large canvas tent that had been erected over the gravesite.

“Be at ease,” Ansgar said in her ear. “We are shielded from human eyes and ears.”

The family members were seated in cloth-covered chairs under the navy blue tent. Trey, Clarice, and Blake sat on the front row along with Meredith’s parents, Brenda and George Starr, and her brother, Joey, an insurance salesman. Father Ben, the Episcopal priest, was reading from the
Book of Common Prayer
to the accompanying drone of the four-wheeler. Rude; somebody ought to tell the guy to park that thing during a funeral.

Mayor Tunstall stood at the priest’s elbow, his Bible at the ready and Priscilla the possum on her jeweled leash. Mayor Tunstall always prayed over dead folks. He liked to say that praying his constituents into the hereafter was his sacred duty as mayor. Evie suspected he mumbled over the dead because he enjoyed the attention and because it got him votes. Who wouldn’t vote for the man who read the Good Book over Aunt Bertha Mae and Cud’n Floyd? Why, he was practically family.

Tunstall kept shooting the priest anxious little looks, like the
Book of Common Prayer
made him nervous or something, which it probably did. Mayor Tunstall was a Hard Shell Baptist.

Shep and Bitsy stood at a respectful distance, looking calm and professional. Or at least Shep looked calm. Bitsy looked sucker punched. Muddy and Mr. C were somewhere in the crowd, too. Addy, Brand, and Nicole were at the edge of the tent just outside the awning. Frodo kept sticking his head out of the pooch pouch to leer at Priscilla. Priscilla, for her part, was playing hard to get. Maybe she wasn’t into guys with curly hair.

And standing by the gargantuan granite Peterson crypt were Meredith and Leonard Swink.

Meredith looked smashing in a vee-neck black sheath dress with a wide band of white trim at the neckline and hem, a chunky white bead necklace, black heels, and a big brimmed black hat trimmed with yards of black netting and a matching bow.

Meredith had her head down, as if overcome with emotion. She appeared to be listening to Swink, whose lips were moving. Then she lifted her head, and Evie saw the look in her eyes.

Uh-oh. Meredith was emotional, all right. She was
pissed
.

“I think Meredith can see us,” Evie whispered to Ansgar. “She’s staring right at us, and something has ticked her toodle.” She looked around. A few people cast nervous glances toward the mausoleum. But, by and large, those assembled seemed unaware that Meredith was attending her own funeral. “Let’s go talk to her.”

“Surely you jest. Why you would seek out that fishwife apurpose, I cannot fathom.”

“Maybe she remembers who killed her and the murderer is here pretending to be sorry she’s dead. I know that would make me mad.”

“I confess I had not thought of that,” Ansgar admitted. “Although it seems to me not many mourn her loss.”

He had a point. Meredith’s parents seemed distraught, and Trish and Blair were shedding crocodile tears, but few other people were crying. Blair kept sidling closer to the tent and Trey. Any closer and she’d be in his lap. Trey didn’t seem to notice. He looked more tired and shell shocked than sad. Probably had something to do with Mer Mer returning from the Great Beyond and attaching herself to him like a tick, poor guy.

Blip!
Ansgar bopped them out of the crowd and over to the Peterson mausoleum.

“Hey, Meredith, how are you doing?” Evie asked.

“How do you think I’m doing, Fatback? I’m
dead,
and that trout-mouthed bitch Blair Woodson has her twat aimed at my husband.”

“Now, now, Mrs. Peterson, remember our mantra. Composure, control, and contentment.
A placid ghost is a happy ghost,
” Swink said.

“Stick a cork in it, pudgy,” Meredith told Swink. “I don’t do placid.”

Evie cleared her throat. “Ansgar and I were hoping you might have remembered who killed you. It’s important. The preliminary hearing is in three days, and I could go to jail.”