Linda Welch - A conspiracy of Demons (14 page)

We took the same ro
ute to Provo but avoided
the road—
works, and arrived outside Provo Police Department
a little
over an hour later.

I pointed down the street. “There, on the corner.”

Carrie stood on the curb bare inches from the street. She saw us coming and waved. I held my arm out
of the window as we pulled over
so she could c
onnect with me. She blinked out
and reappeared in the rear seat.

“Whew!” she exclaimed, hands moving as if she dusted herself off. “What a lark.
Your face, when you saw me with Detective Stirland! But I got to meet your Captain Mike Warren. Well, not meet, but you know what I mean. He’s rather a gruff character, isn’t he.
Were you really in Portland?
”

I made a noise in my throat. “Of course not.”
I didn’t care if she knew
about Bel-Athaer, the
Gelpha, the
Ways and the Gates
,
since she couldn’t share it with a living soul, but
her tongue would wag about it all the way till next Sunday if I told her.

I imagined trying to
explain
the Ways. They were a mystery to the Gelpha,
how could I explain? I walked the Way from Clarion to Bel-Athaer in fifteen minutes when I went there to ask the High House for help finding Royal. Royal used demon speed along them to cut down on the time. But they were not roads of a fixed distance.

The Ways are one of many things I have experienced which defy logic. Any attempt to rationalize ends in failure.

“Is Haney back?” I asked.

“He’s flying here as we speak.” Carrie fussed with her frizzy hair. “Poor man, the stress of his job must be affecting his brain.
He thought he
saw you halfway across the country.
Fancy that.
”

I watch
ed
her in
the rearview mirror as Royal drove
away from the precinct. “Well
, did you learn anything new about Lynn
?”

“It was q
uite an education
.
I hope I’m never interrogated. Some of them were horrible. The ones where detectives questioned people, normally, you know what I mean, they were all right.
But some of them -
they had already decided the
suspect
was guilty, and spent
hours
doing nothing more than try to
break
down
the
poor sod
. I felt sorry for some of those people, I did.”

I coughed out a small, frustrated noise. “Carrie, you won’t be interrogated. What about Lynn?”

Her h
ead jerked back. “
What if you get to heaven and the first thing they do is interrogate you? They’re supposed to have a huge book, aren’t they, with all your life in it and they tell you everything you did right and wrong.”

If she were flesh, I think I
would
have reached back and throttled her.
“Forget what else you saw
in Provo
,
tell me
what
you found out about Lynn.
”

She was quiet for a moment, then said, “Are you sure you want to hear this, dear?”

Which told me I wouldn’t like what I heard. “Yes. Go ahead.”

She sighed and flopped back. “
They didn’t bury her very deeply, so when the workmen started pouring concrete, the weight hit her body and it shifted. The foreman saw something and called a halt. It was her foot, sticking up.”

I closed my eyes. “Go on.”

“
Let me see. Livi
dity -
is that the right word
?
-
lividity indicated the body had been moved,
and the temperature of her liver indicated
she died somewhere else about
four
hours before she was found.”

“I already knew that.
At least
,
I knew she didn’t die at the building site
.
”

“
You did, did you?” She sniffed as if offended. “And did you know a
very strong person broke her neck. They think it had to be a man because women don’t have that strength
in their arms.
They had to be terribly strong t
o break her neck from in front of her
.
I saw photos,
the
awful, awful bruising
. The detectives are in a right pother.”

I tried to envision what she described. I couldn’t. “You mean someone faced her and did it?”

“Isn’t that what I said?
A
s if they put one hand on
the front of
her neck and the other on her jaw and . . . well, twisted.
”

I
’d only seen it on TV, when a villain stood
behind the victim with one arm around their neck and the other arm clamped around their head,
twist and snap . . .
but what Carrie described. . . .
“My God,” I murmured.
“Just their hands?
How can anyone be that strong?”

“Do you know they can get fingerprints off a dead person’s skin if the conditions are right?
But it
wasn’t right, it wasn’t all there.”

“Do you mean they got a
partial?
”

“I suppose. Still odd, though.” She looked at the fingers of one hand. “Didn’t have as ma
n
y squirly things.”

“
Did the
y get anything from it
?”

“No
t yet, but t
hey’re still looking at national databases, then they’ll start on the international.

“
They found
a
hair caught under her fingernail, but the DNA results
weren’t any help either.
They found multiple DNA patterns, a sequence with the genetic materials of human beings and something they couldn’t identify.
”

I repeated what Carrie said to Royal, then asked, “How did they get DNA results so quickly?”

“It’s a basic i
nvestigation technique nowadays.
”
H
e indicated and headed
right
to merge with I-15. “
M
any PDs have their own DNA labs
, but Provo sends ou
t to U of U. The university lab
give
s
priority to homicide cases.”

Although
he stared ahead as if concentrating
on driving, his voice sounded tight and
his knuckles were white where he gripped the steering wheel.

“Hey,
we’ll crash if you break that.
”

His fingers loosened but his expression
was
stormy.

“Gonna tell me what’s got your panties in a bunch?”

“You do not want to know.”

I let a minute pass as his tension, palpable, filled the cabin.
“I think you have to tell me.”

“An abnormally strong person killed Lynn. She sees our true appearance. I am sure you can put it together.”

A dark window opened in my mind.
I
swallowed, hard.
“Gelpha?
”

His gaze remained on the road, but I knew his mind must be in turmoil. “Goddamn,
Tiff.”

A lump formed in my throat, my voice sank a decibel. “Could you . . . could you do that?”

I knew the answer before he nodded.
“A small human woman? Yes.”

“What?” Carrie piped. She leaned forward. “What are you talking about?”

I knew our discussion
would rouse Carrie’s curiosity, but Royal
was
in no
mood to accept ‘
let’s talk about this when a shade’
s not in the backseat listening,
’
so
I caught her eyes in the rearview mirror
and said,
“Later.”

“But some drugs make people crazy and
extraordinarily
strong,” I said to Royal.

“
The odd DNA.
Your DNA has never been tested, has it,” he stated. “Neither has mine.”

The sinking feeling got worse
.
Gelpha DNA wa
s
different?
M
ine was different?

“Why didn’t you tell me?” You’d think
he’d
have mentioned something this important before now.

“I did not think of it.”

“You mean to say no Gelpha has ever had DNA samples taken?”

“T
hey ha
ve, b
ut
the results
are fi
led away as anomalies. Forensic
science is not
exact, there are too many variables.”

“Surely, with enough of it on record, a connection will be made one of these days.”

His hands eased on
the wheel, but he looked tired
. “I do not doubt it.”

“And then the
Fringe division descends on us?
”

He
loosed
a mirthless chuckle. “You think our government does not already have a Fringe division?”

My eyes widened. “Tell me you’re not serious.”

“I’m not.” His looked in the rearview mirror and indicated right. “Although
I expect there are many government departments of which the public knows nothing.”

“You two are driving me potty!” Carrie exclaimed.

A
silent minute stretched to two.

“It could have been an incredibly
strong human
being
,” I commented
, although I knew it
was
wishful thinking
.

“
I’m sure
you are
right. A strong human, and the DNA was contaminated,”
Royal said
, sound
ing
far from
positive.

I wished I had not made him tell me.
Crap. Crap crap crap.
I thought I was done with Gelpha and their machinations.
Why did they kill Lynn
?

“I think a man is trapped inside the amusement park,” Carrie said suddenly.

I looked up from my folded hands. “Huh?”

“You said it’s closed, and I can see it is, but look at
him
. He’s trying to get out. They must have shut him in.”

I looked east from beneath lowered brows.
Lagoon stretched alongside the highway and back to the mountain benches,
the
huge rides stationary and empty. The big south gate gave access to deliveries and fun-seekers who drove their motor homes or trailers to the park. The man who clung to the gate’s upright bars with
his
face pressed between them was hard to see from this distance, but I knew him.

“It’s Toby Shiver. He
chose the wrong time to call
off his engagement. They were on
the old Ferris Wheel
when his fiancé pushed him off.
Poor Toby
dived
two hundred sixty-four f
ee
t onto concrete.
”

“Oh!” Carrie pressed her face to the glass. “He’s dead? I can’t tell from here.
”

I couldn’t either. I
identify
the dead from their frozen expressions, and their whispering voices if they speak, but have to be
nearer
to them than several hundred feet.

We got a better look at Toby as the
I
nterstate angled toward the mountains.
“He doesn’t look as if he fell that far,” Carrie remarked.

“Yeah, well, some of them look okay on the outside, but their internal organs rupture.”

“Ugh
.
”

“Pretty much a puddle of goo in there.”

“Shut up, you! You’
re lucky I can’t be sick
.”

I grinned. But a moment later my thoughts were back with Lynn and how she became involv
ed with Gelpha, and the problem
of
tracking down a demon
killer
.

Carrie ripped me back to the present again. “What happened to her?”