Congregations of the Dead

by Moore, James A. ; Rutledge, Charles R. ;

  “I have to ask.”

  “Of course. Well here’s the odd thing, Mister Griffin. Had you asked me that three months ago I’d have said yes, we were having problems. Lynn is sixteen and for the last year she’s been the stereotype of the difficult teenage girl. She got into a Goth phase. You know what that’s like?”

  “I do,” said Griffin, thinking of Charon.

  “She and her mother were fighting all the time and there were all kinds of problems, but then out of the blue it just all cleared up. Lynn stopped hanging around with her Goth friends and started dressing normally. Her grades improved and she suddenly seemed focused. Her mother and I were mystified, but obviously pleased.”

  “You’ve no idea what brought about the change?”

  “None. If we asked Lynn about it she would just smile and say she had just learned what was important in life. That was all we could get out of her. Since things were going well and she seemed happy, we didn’t press her.”

  “Had she made any new friends by chance? Anyone who could have influenced her?”

  “None that we knew of. She didn’t bring anyone home, as far as that goes. Thinking back, I probably should have paid more attention to where she was in the afternoons and evenings. But she wasn’t staying out late, and as I said, she seemed more normal than she had in a long time.”

  Griffin said, “I’ll be honest with you. Finding missing persons is something the police are very good at. They have the resources and the manpower. I’m not sure you need a private investigator at this point.”

  Traylor waved a hand as if dismissing Griffin’s remark. “I’ve already spoken to the Wellman police Chief. He said he’d put the wheels in motion, but he warned me that runaways aren’t classified as ‘critical missing persons’ unless there’s evidence the kid’s life is in danger.”

  “That’s standard procedure. If she’s gone for much longer he’ll contact state authorities and the various organizations for missing children.”

  “I know all that. Thing is, Mister Griffin, I’m a man who believes in doing everything he can. Don’t let my apparent calm fool you. My little girl is missing and my guts are churning. You were recommended to me by a business associate and he said you got things done.”

  “Can you tell me who it was that recommended me?”

  “He asked me not to use his name, but he said you helped him in a hostage situation once.”

  Griffin had a good idea of who Traylor was talking about, and that meant Traylor traveled in some interesting circles. “What sort of business are you in, Mister Traylor?”

  “Stocks and bonds. On an international scale. I get things done too. I’m not used to twiddling my thumbs when something goes wrong.”

  “Okay, I’ll see what I can do. I’d like to have a look at Lynn’s room if I could. And I’ll need a recent photograph.”

  “I’ll take you to her room right now.” Traylor rose and Griffin followed him back into the front hall. They went up a flight of stairs and down a long hallway. Lynn’s room was large and built on one corner of the house.

  “I’ll leave you to look around,” Traylor said. “And I’ll go find you a picture of Lynn.”

  Griffin walked slowly, letting his gaze sweep the room. Pastels predominated here as well. The girl had apparently liked to read, as there were two bookshelves against one wall. The bed was neatly made and a poster for the movie Twilight hung on the wall behind it.

  Griffin crossed to a chest of drawers and began going through them, carefully looking under all the expected contents. Nothing of interest. No drugs, condoms, or anything else that might give a clue to what had caused Lynn Traylor to take off.

  In the closet, clothes hung in neat rows. Shoes lined up on the floor. Either the reformed Lynn really was a neat freak or her mother did her cleaning. Taller than most people, Griffin was able to look on the closet’s upper shelf without needing something to stand on. He saw a small cardboard box in the back corner behind some bedding and lifted it out.

  He sat on the bed and opened the box. Not much to see. Some CDs. A few pictures of a blonde girl in black clothes and fishnets. Lynn as a Goth? Another young girl was in most of the pictures. She had raven dark hair cut punk-rocker short and sported a nose ring.

  “Find something?” Traylor said as he came back into the room.

  “Maybe.” Griffin held up one of the photos of both girls. “I assume this is Lynn and one of her Goth-phase friends.”

  Traylor looked at the picture. “Yes, that’s Irene... Candler or Chandler. Something like that. They were really tight until Lynn gave up the black nail polish and fishnets.”

  “Do you know if they were still in touch?”

  “I don’t think so, but I’m not sure.” He held out the picture he had brought. “Here’s a recent picture of Lynn. You can see what she looks like without all the mascara.”

  The photograph showed an attractive girl with a narrow face and a high forehead. She was wearing a pale pink sweater over a white, button down shirt. About as far as one could get from the girl in the other pictures. “She’s a pretty girl. If anyone has seen her, they’ll remember her.”

  Traylor nodded, but said nothing. For the first time Griffin thought he could see a break in the man’s calm exterior. Griffin looked back in the box to give Traylor a moment. A bit of lavender colored plastic under the other objects caught his attention. He fished it out. It was a plastic bag. The logo was familiar. It read: Baba Yaga’s.

  Traylor said, “That’s some store over in Gatesville. Lynn used to beg her mother to drive her over there. I think it’s some kind of occult book store.”

  “I know the place,” Griffin said.

  “That’s right. Your office is in Gatesville.”

  “It is, but I’m living here in Wellman now.”

  “Like I said, Lynn gave up the Goth thing. You think someone at that store might know something that would help?”

  “You never know.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  There were some seriously pissed off people in the world. Carl knew exactly how they felt. That said, he had to calm himself down if he was going to do his job. Officially the Wellman PD was in charge of the investigation as it happened inside the town limits. One phone call to Bob Stack took care of any potential problems. There’d been about seven too many missing children cases lately and as soon as Carl offered to look in and share information they were good to go. There were a lot of towns where it didn’t work out that well, but the main sheriff ’s office and the county seat were in Wellman and that meant he and Bob dealt with each other all the time anyway. Besides, he’d already forgiven Bob’s wife, Dina, for that unfortunate incident at the Stop & Go out on 41, and Bob was the sort that remembered favors when the time came.

  Carl climbed from his truck and looked at the house that matched the address on Euclid Street. Nice place, one story starter, really, but sometimes that’s all a person can afford. Corey Phillips had a good business and a small family. The place was neat and kept in excellent repair. It was close enough in design to Carl’s that he could almost guess the layout. It might be tight for a family of more than three, but was fine otherwise.

  Not that he knew anything about that of course. He was still flying solo. His mind jumped at thoughts of Tammy and he shoved the notion back into the darkness where it belonged. Best not to feed that sort of thing right now.

  The moment he was heading for the door, Corey Phillips stepped outside to meet him. The man was a few years younger, going a bit soft around the middle and dressed like a small businessman who wanted to succeed in a small town. Phillips had the deer-in-headlights look on his pinched face that said he was dealing with something completely foreign to him.

  “You Sheriff Price?” The man was nervous, worried about his daughter and even as he looked at Carl he was pacing with too much energy. It wasn’t caffeine
this time; it was dread. He had an eleven-year-old daughter and she was missing along with his truck. Any possible combination of reasons could come up and they would all be the sort no one wanted to think about.

  “You must be Mister Phillips?” The man nodded at jackrabbit speeds. Oh yes, he was nervous. “Why don’t we go inside where we can talk. I’ve already called a couple of my lab boys over. They’ll take a look around in just a moment.”

  Phillips damn near jogged inside. He was a wreck, but it wasn’t sitting right with Carl. Not at all. There was something off about how he was acting. Then again, he had to allow that maybe he wasn’t quite himself right now, either. Tammy did that to him damned near every time she was around.

  Once inside he saw the woman of the house. She was leaner than her husband and didn’t seem as completely wrecked as he did. There was always one in a couple that seemed to hold it together better, and he suspected he knew who that was in this case. The woman was dressed in a summer blouse and slacks with her sandy blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail and a small, tasteful set of earrings glittering in her ears. A gold crucifix dangled around her neck and she turned toward him with a doubtful expression on her pretty face.

  “Ma’am.” He nodded to her.

  “Police Chief Stack tells me you’re very good at what you do, Sheriff Price.” She looked toward him with hard eyes. Her husband was an absolute wreck and she was holding herself together through force of will. He admired that. She moved her hands nervously around as she spoke, but otherwise was cool and professional.

  “I do my best.” He moved closer to her. “I’ll do my best here, too. Tell me about what happened, please. Tell me how you realized something was wrong with Amber.”

  The house was as clean inside as it was out, and Carl took in the details while he looked at the woman. There wasn’t much to tell. She’d gone to bed at the usual time and when they went in to wake her up for her day at the Lake Forest Summer Camp she wasn’t in her room. The window was open and the screen had been popped. After a quick check of the room and a glimpse outside the window they called the police.

  Actually, Missus Phillips called the police. Mister Phillips freaked out a bit and ran out for his truck, doubtless planning on canvassing the neighborhood. That was when they noticed the lack of a truck.

  Carl wrote the pertinent information in his note pad. He took his time and as he meticulously wrote his notes, he looked around the living room and the kitchen. Something was wrong, but he was having trouble figuring out exactly what it was.

  Around the same time he was done with the interview two of his team showed up lugging a couple of canvas bags worth of equipment. He’d been wrong to say a couple of his boys. Nora Evans was there, a lanky woman with black hair and a perfectly-pressed uniform. She was a professional through and through, belying the stories he heard from her and others about her interesting weekends in Atlanta. She’d been born and raised in the city and moved here when a job presented itself. He never regretted the decision to hire her, though if he’d been pressed he would have pointed out that the sleeve of tattoos she wore on both arms was distracting as hell. They were currently covered, as one of his rules was that no one was allowed to show ink at work. You had a tattoo on your hand you wore gloves. You had a tattoo on your forearm you wore long sleeves. You tattooed your damned face, you’d be wearing makeup to cover it or you’d find a new job.

  Nora had no problem with his guidelines. He admired that about her, too.

  The man with her, Brett Collins, he could have done without. He did his job and followed guidelines, but he liked to talk shit behind everyone’s back and assumed no one ever passed on his comments to Carl. He was wrong. Carl would deal with him sooner or later, but for now he didn’t have the time or patience to handle the matter as delicately as he needed. Collins was exactly the sort to whine about how he was being done wrong at every turn.

  The good news was that Nora took exactly none of his shit and she outranked the little prick. He left them to the task of examining the room and stood at the door long enough to get a feel for Amber. She was a little girl. She had little-girl interests, but he could see a few posters of twerps like Justin Beiber on the wall – along with a dozen other scrawny, androgynous boys he couldn’t have recognized on a bet – and knew she was starting the path to being a teenager. He wanted to make sure she got a chance to walk that particular path unscathed if he could.

  He walked outside and the lady of the house followed him, her eyes as stormy as before. She kept her distance and that was good, because he wanted to leave the actual evidence untouched. Instead he just peered carefully around the side of the house until he could see the screen that had been pulled free.

  Some asshole had cut it open before peeling it back. If he was lucky they’d pulled it free with bare hands and left some evidence behind.

  “Evans?”

  Nora’s head popped out of the window and she looked his way. “Yeah?”

  “I’m leaving. Check the screen for fiber and prints. I know you know your job.” He held up a hand to prevent any possible snappy comments from the woman. “I’m just being a worry wart.”

  “Got it, boss.” She vanished and he turned back toward the front of the house, pausing long enough to wipe at the sweat already forming on his brow.

  A moment later he offered the usual platitudes. The man of the house fretted and bobbed his head. The lady of the house stared hard as if she might will a better result from him through sheer force of personality. If that were the case, she’d have her kid back in about ten minutes.

  And as he pulled away he felt the pieces click.

  The house was pristine. Everything was exactly in its place. The only exception was the little girl’s room, where the bed had not been made. They were smart enough not to touch the evidence.

  The house should have been a mess. The people should have been a mess. Daddy looked ready for work. Mommy looked like she’d taken the time to get herself in perfect order before she even checked on her daughter. Or maybe she’d just made sure that everything was perfect after the fact. He wasn’t sure yet, but something about the Phillips family seemed wrong to him.

  Carl tended to trust his gut when it said things like that. He had to. It had saved his bacon more than once.

  * * *

  Half an hour after leaving Paul Traylor, Griffin pulled into a parking space on the Gatesville town square. He locked his truck and jaywalked to the other side of the street to a row of trendy shops and restaurants. Gatesville had managed to survive the arrival of shopping malls and Walmarts better than some small towns by renovating the old town center.

  Griffin headed for a narrow storefront with a large, single plate glass window. The logo Baba Yaga’s was emblazoned across the window along with silver decals of stars, crescent moons and other symbols. A wind chime hung motionless in the still hot air. An old fashioned bell jangled as he stepped inside the shop.

  Charon was with a customer but she flashed Griffin a grin when she saw him. He never got tired of her smile. She was a petite woman with dark hair and eyes, and today she was wearing snug black jeans and a black t-shirt that had a picture of HP Lovecraft on the front. Not for the first time, he wondered how he had ever thought she wasn’t right for him. At twenty-six, Charon was about a decade younger than him, and that had been part of his problem. The other part was a previous relationship that had gone horribly, tragically wrong.

  Griffin wandered around the store, looking at Charon’s stock of spell books, crystals, charms and statues. As always, he was amazed she could make a living selling that sort of thing. Charon rung up the customer’s purchase and as the patron left the store, she hurried over to him. She stood on tiptoe to give him a quick kiss that turned into a longer kiss.

  “What are you doing here at this time of day?” Charon said, when she came up for air. Her dark eyes were shining. “Not that I
’m not glad to see you.”

  “Believe it or not, I’m here in my professional capacity.”

  One of Charon’s eyebrows arched. “Nothing to do with what happened last October?”

  “No, nothing like that. This has to do with that guy you talked to on the phone.”

  “Oh, the missing girl. So you decided to help him.”

  “I’m doing a little digging. And look what I found in the girl’s room.” He held up the plastic bag.

  “One of my bags! What are the odds?”

  “I don’t know but I have this too.” He brought out one of the photos of Lynn Traylor and her friend.

  Charon looked at the photo for several seconds. “I remember these girls. They were in a few times. They mostly bought jewelry, but the dark-haired one bought some tarot cards I think. I assume one of them is the missing girl.”

  “The blonde,” said Griffin. “Do you remember anything else about them that might help? I was hoping you might know who the other girl was. Her first name is Irene and her last name may be Chandler.”

  “Hmmm. I don’t know but I think I can find out. You remember my friend Sandra? You liked her. She has big boobs. She’s a teacher at Wellman High School. She and I were talking about the Goth kids a while back and I remember saying I had two who always came in together, and she knew who they were.”

  “I knew I’d come to the right place.”

  “Well it’ll cost you, big boy.”

  “Are we talking sexual favors?”

  “And how.”

  “But it can wait until you’ve talked to your friend.”

  Charon blew out an exaggerated sigh. “It can. Sandra will be teaching right now, but I’ll text her and maybe she’ll call me back when she gets a break.”

  The bell above the door chimed and two women loaded with shopping bags came in. “I’ll leave you to it, kiddo. Give me a call if you hear from Sandra. Otherwise I’ll see you this evening.”