Demon Hunt (5 page)

Behind her, she could hear the chugging sound of Pam’s truck making its way up the road. The battered green pickup slid into the driveway and stopped behind the newer SUV, not quite bumping the rear bumper.

“
I’m up with the chickens because of you. Have you been
outside
working out? Stupid question - of course you have,” Pam shouted as she hopped from the vehicle. The tall woman turned to unfasten the car seat of her three-year-old daughter, Katie. “I feel so healthy and wholesome I could puke. Please tell me there’s coffee containing caffeine in your house.”

“
Rhi! Come get me now,” Katie demanded as she struggled through the snow while her mother unloaded a backpack and huge purse from the truck.

Rhi obliged the little girl, wading through the snow in moccasins to pick her up. Snow spilled into Rhi’s shoes and melted into her wool socks. Better dressed than her rescuer, Katie wore a shocking pink snowsuit and boots. The outfit gave her the grace of a tiny feminine Michelin Man. Picking her up was the equivalent of picking up a squirming pink pillow.

“
I
have
caffeine and food that doesn’t require the use of a microwave,” Rhi shot over her shoulder as she climbed the steps to carry Katie in the house. She deposited the little girl on the couch to strip the snowsuit off of her tiny form. An even pinker Nike tracksuit hid beneath the snowsuit, the color almost blinding. Rhi blinked.

Freed, Katie ran squealing over to pet Ellie Mae. The dog lounged by the warmth of the woodstove, resting after a morning romp in the snow. Rhi started the sausage links and poured another cup of coffee.

Pam struggled through the door and kicked it shut behind her with a boot. The little A-frame filled with the intoxicating aroma of pancakes, sausage and good black coffee.

“
My God, what a fabulous
smell
!”

“
This is what is known as cooking. These little knobs on the stove make the food hot. We just put the pan on the stove with meat products inside,” Rhi instructed soberly, miming putting links in the pan.

“
I don’t suppose those are fat free.” Pam eyeballed the links of brown sugar and honey sausage cooking in the pan. She grimaced at the sight of a platter of sliced fruit and shed her coat and boots before plopping down at the breakfast table with a cup of steaming coffee to root through the box of books.

“
I thought you told me we burn off calories quicker at this altitude?” Rhi raised an inquiring eyebrow.

“
Was I drinking when I told you this?”

“
Of course.”

Pam leafed through several dusty books, exclaiming when something caught her attention. “By the way, if we get snowed in for days on end, I think we should eat Ellie Mae first.”

“
She’d taste a bit gamey if you ask me. But I guess if anyone in this house is gonna qualify as an Alferd Packer it’s me.”

“
Who’s
Alferd
Packer?” Pam glanced at her quizzically.

“
I can’t believe you’ve been up here for three years and are a Colorado
native
. Don’t you read? Alferd is the state cannibal. He got caught in a snowstorm on the way to the gold fields in the late 1800’s with a group of men and good old Alferd was the only man to walk out of the mountains still breathing a few months later. Everyone noticed he seemed pretty well fed for someone lost in the mountains that long. He murdered and ate his companions. The University of Colorado named a cafeteria after him.” Rhi’s grin shone in the sunny kitchen as she tended her stove. “There’s a great cookbook written in Alferd’s honor I’ve got somewhere. It’s mostly pork dishes.”

“
Ewwh! Sorry I asked,” Pam grunted as she dug again. “Nasty, dusty books. Can’t you carry home something interesting? Like a man? Oh, great! This is disgusting - a beautiful Bible with a dragon and skull printed on the inside of the cover. What were people thinking? Did the Hell’s Angels exist when this thing was published?” She held the book gingerly, taking care not to damage the gilded lettering and designs on the black leather cover. “Isn’t this kind of sacrilegious?”

Such a book occupied a place of honor in the homes of a bygone era. The Bible’s gilded pages, hand-sewn binding, ornate cover and illustrations were beautiful and of the highest quality.

The book’s splendor had been one of the reasons Rhi claimed the tome for her own out of the dusty bin of a Victor, Colorado junk store. But she’d missed the skull.

A skillfully rendered human skull filled the flyleaf of the book Pam held up for her inspection, the colors a strange combination of dark purples and shades of green, rich and textured. A rich purple outlined the eyes and mouth of the skull and ran in veins through the rest of the head, combined with mottled shades of green. A small black dragon had gracefully wrapped itself around the skull, the creature’s emerald green eyes the exact same shade as Rhi’s.

“
How beautiful!” She took the proffered book to examine the picture. “What on earth is it doing in a Bible? The picture must have been printed as a part of the original book - and what about the caption below?” She squinted to decipher the stylized script. “
Behold, I stand at the door, and knock.
Where have I heard that before?”

“
Revelations,” Pam replied and took a gulp of coffee, trying to ignore Rhi’s questioning glance.

Rhi cleared her throat.

“
Okay, okay - I’m a fallen Catholic, if you must know. And things like my mother forcing me to memorize Bible verses are what made me fall.” Pam took the Bible to stow the book in the box. “Bibles give me the willies and this one’s creepier than most.”

The sausages were done and the pancakes browned and warming in the oven. Rhi took her coffee to the breakfast bar to lean and face her friend. She glanced at Katie, who had managed to find the cartoon channel on the television in the interim. By mutual, unspoken assent, they had avoided the subject of the last night’s events thus far.

“
The
accident
last night – any other news?”

“
Nope, but we will know more this morning. They’re sending someone out to talk to us since I knew Marie and you … well you
were
the last person to speak to her, they think. I left a note on my door. They’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“
Great. You’ve invited the cops here and I only have enough sausages for us.” Rhi hurried to the freezer and dug for another package of sausage links.

“
If they send the cop I think they will, I doubt he’ll break bread with us. He thinks casinos are the root of all evil. He opposed the vote a few years ago when they held the gambling referendum. Like my maw maw always said - cards are the devil’s play pretties.” Pam waggled her empty plate in front of Rhi’s nose. “He’s also the owner of one of those god-awful gingerbread houses you worship.”

“
Okay, okay. No wonder you’ve been divorced twice, demanding little creature.” Rhi turned to the stove with the plate to fill with food. “Is he some old miner turned cop?”

Pam grinned. “No, he’s not an ex-miner and he’s not old - unless you think I’m old. Besides, in the right light, Nick’s kind of cute.”

Rhi dished out lumberjack-sized portions of food for her guests and placed the plates on the breakfast table with the coffee pot, orange juice, butter and syrup.

“
Come and get your chow while it’s hot!” She pretended to cower as Pam and Katie rushed the table.

Rhi took her seat as Ellie Mae jumped up to start voicing the bloodhound’s characteristic bass howl in response to the sound of the doorbell.

Pam glanced up as her hostess stood. “Watch out, the testosterone level in here might go up a few notches, even if it is only Nick. You know, you need to let more men into this house or you might just dry up.”

Rhi ignored her friend and opened the door to be greeted by a rounded bundle of nylon and down that topped off a baggy pair of Levis and hiking boots. Not much taller than her own five and a half feet, her guest lowered his hood to reveal a jolly, round face covered in a neatly trimmed brown beard.

She stifled a giggle. He resembled a young Santa Claus.

The twinkling blue eyes narrowed at the sight of Rhi, body lost in giant woolen socks and baggy sweats, black hair gathered into a heavy braid hanging over one shoulder.

“
Well, here’s another eastern carpetbagger moving in to suck us dry,” he said dryly, his eyebrows moving up a notch.

Rhi almost stepped back when he pushed forward into the house without an invitation. She stopped, blocking his path. He paused for a moment.

“
Mind if I come in?”

She forced him to wait another heartbeat before nodding and stepped back to allow him into her territory. Rhi noticed that the moment he stepped through the door and removed his Stetson, the lawman examined everything and everyone in the room, ticking off some unseen mental checklist. She almost offered him her camera to take a picture before deciding back off as her newest guest examined her well-furnished little home.

“
I‘m from the South. Where I come from the term
carpetbagger
is worth a black eye!” Rhi turned her back on him to sit back down to breakfast.

“
Ms. Douglas found someone to feed her child something besides frozen entrees?”

“
She can clean too,” Pam announced around a mouthful of pancakes. “Chief Nicholas Boyd, Rhi Brennan. Rhi Brennan, Nick Boyd, but I am the only one who gets to call him Nick.”

Katie attacked her breakfast, ignoring all stimuli in the room but her syrup coated plate.

Ellie Mae ambled over to the new visitor and gave his jeans the once over with her nose. He knelt down to scratch her ten- inch long ears.“Well, someone who has a dog like this can’t be all bad.” He smiled, Looking all the more like the jolly old elf.

Saint Nick.
Rhi snorted a laugh down.

Suddenly all business, Cripple Creek Police Chief Boyd took a small notebook from his jacket pocket and turned his attention to Pam.

“
Katie, since you are done eating, why don’t you go up to my bedroom with Ellie Mae to watch cartoons,” Rhi suggested. “You guys can lie on the comforter and not have to hear us interrupt your show.”

“
Okay, Rhi. Come on Ellie,” the child chirped and jumped up to head for the stairs, the dog trailing behind.

Rhi offered up a mug of coffee to the invader. He accepted, not taking his eyes off of his interview subject.

“
Cream and sugar, Chief?”

He grinned again and his round face lit up the room. Rhi revised her estimation of the man.

“
Call me Boyd and no frills, thanks, I don’t like my coffee scared.” He plunked down in the chair closest to Pam. “I’m sure you know the details of what happened last night, Pam. Telephone, telegraph, tell a Pam.”

Rhi shuddered. Yes, they were aware of the details.

“
Rhi, let’s run down your evening. I’ve talked to Stephen and a few of the other dealers. But I need your version too.”

Rhi took a deep breath and told the chief everything she could remember about the Silver Pearl’s New Year’s Eve bash. No, she didn’t notice anyone eyeing Marie at the table. Yes, there were a few weirdoes in the casino the night before but there were
always
weirdoes in the casino, any casino, any time.

His eyes narrowed.

“
Weren’t you worried about her heading to the lots alone?”

“
Why? We all walk to the lots alone, all of the time … I didn’t like her very much but … oh hell,” Rhi sat back in her chair with her head in her hands. Why hadn’t she insisted on Marie staying to help close?

“
Yeah, there’s another problem I’ve got,” the chief shook his head as he jotted another note in his book. “It seems everybody in town detested the girl and quite a few wives had some serious reasons to hate her. And there is a rumor, Pam, you threatened to kick Marie’s ass more than once.” He hesitated before speaking again, examining his hands as he spoke. “I hate to ask this, but I have to. You and Marie had a big falling out a little while ago, didn’t you? Where were you last night at about two twenty or two thirty?”

“
If you’re asking if I murdered Marie in that Gawd-awful way because she was a spoiled little slut who liked to gossip, the answer is no.” Pam was obviously not bothered by the whole ‘don’t speak ill of the dead’ thing. “She tried to convince everyone I dumped to try to steal the pit supervisor’s spot from me a few months ago.”

“
Now Pam, you know I don’t know diddly about casino lingo.”

“
Dumping, Chief … reshuffling the cards when they grow cold to dump more money to the players and up the tips. The trick is illegal if you get caught. Marie did the dumping in that casino and we all knew it. I might have told her I would kick her ass a few times, I don’t know. It’s a figure of speech. As for where I was - I was home to set loose Katie’s sitter at two on the nose on this side of town. If you think I drove back into town with my sleeping daughter in a snowstorm to cut some girl’s heart out, you’re crazy!”