“Psalms,” Malin blurted out over the rim of her teacup. “As do quite a number of verses in scripture.”
“Scripture?” Adel uttered as if she found the concept alien. “That is ‒ if I’m honest ‒ a bit old fashioned. You need to understand, this demon is very much part of this world. He might go away for a time but he always comes back. I could say... he’s right behind you. But you’d take a peek, see nothing and then expect me to say monkeys always look. But he’s everywhere.”
The Esoterica made reference to a demon who had no face, who caused illness and death, and whose powers were fiercest during a waning moon. A demon who worked in concert with man because he could do nothing on his own. A demon who was invisible, except at night. A familiar.
Malin decided to get things straight, to evaluate the case correctly in order to keep the profile realistic. Demons weren’t tangible. But a cold-blooded killer was. A man who hunted his victims and killed them in their own homes. A stalker... a predator, a revenge killer. Someone known to the victims, close to them, dependent on them. A killer who remained under police radar, not because he was fashioned from smoke and vapor, but because he was always moving. Always changing.
The cell phone clattered along the surface of the table and Adel lunged for it.
“This is Adel,” she said, body twisting around to an end table and reaching for a notepad. “Who? No, I don’t have it. Is this... The Spring Fair... OK. I’ll try.”
Maybe because Adel was staring at the phone as if it had burned her ear, maybe because the caller had hung up without saying goodbye, but there was something odd about that call. Malin had overheard a male voice pressing Adel to find the book and bring it to the Fair.
“Is everything OK?”
Adel’s lips were parted and there was a faraway stare in her eyes that gave Malin the impression the caller was someone she hadn’t spoken to in a while.
“Are you using, Adel?”
“Why do you say that?”
“You look nervous.”
Malin felt like she was stumbling around in a mine shaft with a broken flashlight. Why didn’t the killer fit a profit killer or a team killer? He had no sexual motif. The crimes were sudden, brutal and quick and had garnered no witnesses. Except for Zarah Thai whose rambling speech and hallucinations had kept law enforcement away, although she repeatedly inquired about her dog.
Not one person had come forward with any information, which roused the possibility that the killer was a person who looked, acted and sounded normal. A next-door neighbor. A workmate.
“This demon...” Malin asked, studying the cell phone on the table. “What’s his name?”
“We just call him Demon. That’s all I know.”
“But what does he look like?”
Adel’s eyes scuttling up and down the walls while running a finger along her lower lip. “Sometimes kind, sometimes mean. He’s so random. You never know which side you’ll get.”
“Moody, volatile? I need words. I need to gauge the mood, to see a face.”
Adel drew her arms around her waist and shuddered. “Two faces. One looks into the future. And one into the past.”
Malin felt a sudden rush of heat followed by a stirring chill. She knew she was onto something, kept seeing a figure that seemed vaguely familiar, but she was too far away to see the face.
“Can you see him now?”
Adel squinted and stiffened. “All the time.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
Wrought-iron gates crept open and a guard waved Temeke through to Los Poblanos Academy. The driveway was crammed with black Suburbans and a limousine that took up the equivalent of three parking spaces. It was six o’clock in the evening, bloody March already and a dinner party he hadn’t expected.
“Hello, sir. Greetings, greetings.” A man rushed forward and bowed, starched white kurta buttoned to his throat. “Come, come. Yes, sir.”
Temeke smiled, appreciating the warmth of a Pakistani gentleman, at least he assumed he was Pakistani. He introduced himself as Ravi and rattled on about cricket.
“I pray to God England always win,” Ravi said. “Andrew Strauss, marvelous batter. Do you remember Bangladesh at Birmingham? Most glorious―”
They cut through a courtyard to avoid the guests, through sweeping archways to a large kitchen. But in all the spaciousness, Temeke noted how Spartan it was.
“Chef Moose,” Ravi whispered, jutting his chin at a young man who was giving Puccini’s Nessun Dorma a surprisingly good shot.
Moose was a striking young man with keen eyes and a starched chef coat that hung from a slender frame. Temeke couldn’t think for the life of him where he’d seen him before. In his line of business it was usually a six pack, a trawl of police lineups all gift-wrapped in a three ring binder. Better still, wrestled to the ground in a jangle of cuffs behind the old Bernalillo Courthouse.
“Pastor Razz. Very good man.” Ravi nodded at a portly African American who was peering under pot lids and pitching a fit at the lobsters in the sink. Temeke had met him before.
Moose stopped mid-key when he saw them in the doorway and Pastor Razz gave a wide smile. Temeke assumed it was the black polo shirt and khaki pants, and a Glock in his belt. He must have had the words Duke City Police written all over him.
“Good to see you,” Pastor Razz grabbed Temeke’s hand and gave it a sturdy shake.
He pointed to a door opposite the kitchen and led Temeke into a small office with a mission style bench and a polished mahogany desk. Behind it was a black and white photograph of Georgia O’Keeffe with a faraway smile and hands splayed over one exposed breast. There was a second photograph of an old man smoking a pipe in one of the downtown Albuquerque alleyways. It reminded him of a drug deal some years back.
“It’s been almost six months,” Razz said. “The Eriksen case?”
Temeke rubbed a hand over his bald head. “I’m wondering if this one’s tougher.”
“I counseled Lily Delgado, if it helps. Although―”
“Confidentiality. Yeah, I know.”
Pastor Razz lowered his head and placed his hands flat on the desk. “There is an enemy we cannot see. It doesn’t mean he isn’t real. If it takes tempting you in secret... slander, stealing, sex, drugs, he’ll go there. Whatever it takes to crush you. Have you ever killed anyone?”
The question took Temeke by surprise, but he got a kick out of Razz’s sharp-eyed nature.
“A few years ago,” Temeke said, “there was a rising tide of drug traffickers DCPD had no chance of controlling. I was downtown when it happened. Followed my Glock toward a locked dumpster, sensing something up ahead.”
Temeke could still feel his heart booming in his chest, muscles knotted with adrenalin.
“I stopped when I saw the muzzle of an AR-15. I told him to drop his weapon. But he didn’t hear. Didn’t want to hear. So I aimed, shot twice, watched the body jerk and heard the clatter of that brute of a rifle. I turned him over and cuffed him even though he was dead. We always follow procedure.”
“Then you understand how to defend yourself. How to rid yourself of the threat. But what if you had no gun? No training. What then?”
Clacking heels in the corridor wiped the smile from Razz’s face and brought both men to their feet.
“Ah, there you are, detective,” Miss Baca said, shaking his hand and showing Razz the door with a snap of her fingers. Her perfume seemed to provoke an allergic reaction and Temeke began to sneeze.
“It’s the juniper,” she said, wrestling with a tissue from a box on the desk and handing it to him. “I was glad to hear you’d found Lily Delgado. As much as I hate it, I think we need the National Guard to surround the school until this terrible person is caught.”
Temeke sneezed loudly and covered both nostrils with the tiny tissue. He sat down again.
“This monster makes people disappear, burst into flames and then delivers poisonous pizza. I bet he’s from New York and speaks Italian,” she said, nodding and poi
nting a finger. “And he intends to do the same to the rest of us.”
“There’s no need to assume he’s a terrorist, ma’am, or that he’s from New York.”
“All the pizzerias across the nation could be at risk. And we’ve got two dead girls already.”
“I have a few questions about Adel Martinez, ma’am. There’s something I’d like you to see. Were you aware she had ADHD?”
“I’m perfectly sure that she didn’t.”
“Seen these?”
Temeke took a small evidence bag from his jacket pocket and placed it on the desk between them. He noted the downward slant of her eyes and the slightly parted lips. She leaned in toward the evidence bag, mouth moving, but he heard no words.
Go on, tell her it’s Adderall. She looks like she could use a bloody good laugh.
“Omeprazole,” she whispered, sounding out the name. “Never heard of it.”
He felt an uneasy twinge. She had either seen the medication or she hadn’t. And if she hadn’t, he could have read her all wrong and he didn’t like that feeling at all.
“Take a closer look,” he said, pushing the bag toward her.
“You people should be checking cars for New York plates instead of asking innocent citizens to look at pills.”
“Ma’am?” Temeke heard his voice rising by a major third. “The name on the bottle is Adel Martinez, one of your former students. As you can see, she was taking Omeprazole for an ulcer. Only, these aren’t Omeprazole. They’re Amphetamines.”
Miss Baca only managed to whimper the first syllable and then, “No one here takes amphetamines. It’s in the contract both parents and students are required to sign.”
“You insist on the highest grades, ma’am. The school board insists on it. The last time we met you said there was simply no wiggle room. Students are given one chance to raise their grades to an A. Anything less requires disciplinary action. What type of disciplinary action?”
“Detention, garden duties.” She hitched her shoulder a little, not a shrug, more like an unconscious attempt to readjust her posture. “Cleaning windows, that kind of thing.”
Cleaning windows... Temeke thought about the fire escape and the bathroom window, the same window Alice may have looked out of during her final hours. He just wasn’t sure how it tied into the investigation, but something in that tight little list of duties made his stomach curl. “You said the window was broken, used to stick a little.”
“Yes,” she lowered her head, even colored a little as if it was something she had overlooked.
“The book... why didn’t you give it to the police sooner?”
“I didn’t think it was important.”
“A missing girl and a couple of murders are important. Someone was running a lucrative business handing out drugs to students who were struggling to get straight A’s. You wouldn’t know who that someone was, would you?”
Temeke knew his deliberate allusion to some of Miss Baca’s students would be lost on her if she knew nothing about it. He wasn’t sure yet if she was shooting straight and that made him jumpy.
“This is ridiculous. Why would anyone do that?”
“When did you raise the fees?”
“Three years ago.”
“Ten thousand a semester is quite a jump from when Alice Delgado started. I understand they were seven thousand then.”
“The upkeep of this school has taken its toll. And as you know there was a fire ten years ago.”
Upkeep or no upkeep, Temeke thought, the school had had far more than just a lick of bloody paint. It was palatial, and serving lobster on the school’s anniversary was a luxury reserved only for the rich.
“I understand the building, contents and store are insured against theft, fire, explosion and stampeding animals for the sum of three million.”
Her eyes widened. “I can’t believe it.”
“Neither could I.” Temeke gave her the benefit of his blackest stare. “I doubt there’s more than ten grand of stock in the place now and I’d be surprised if that was paid for. Tell me about Chef Moose?”
“He worked at the Frontier on Central before he came here,” she said, handing back the evidence bag. “He was a little banged up, shall we say.”
“Not sure the kitchen’s the right place for an ex-con. He may not have told you his real name.”
“His name’s Moose Ham. It’s on his driver’s license. You can check if you like.” A barely perceptible pause before her face tightened and her eyes blazed. “Are you insinuating I employ illegal immigrants?”
“They get about.”
“Not here they don’t. All my employees go through a thorough screening.”
Temeke realized he was losing it and one more snide comment would give Hackett the legitimate excuse he needed to bounce him. All he seemed to do these days was stagger from one disaster to the next.
“Moose is a fine chef. It’s time someone gave him a chance.”
Temeke gave her a sideways smile and heaved himself from the chair. “First impressions are always big in law enforcement. So, I’ll be keeping an open mind. Any chance I could talk to him?”
THIRTY-EIGHT
Clouds moved fast toward the iced sliver of a moon and Malin thought she saw a blur of movement in the front yard of Columbia Drive. It was only the shadows cast by the clouds and a scuttle of leaves across the pavement.
Sitting on the couch and staring through a window smeared with a year’s worth of dust gave her time to think, time to watch a beam of light as it spilled through the trees, a strobe from the neighbor’s garage. A coyote perhaps? Something was slinking along the wall out there, black as midnight, unless she was seeing things.
Demon. The name made her flesh ripple. Whatever it was, whoever it was, even if she had to venture into the dirty alleys and shady denizens of the Albuquerque drug world, she would find him. The murders had all the features of a serial, and lab tests had been rushed to the top of the autopsy line. She wanted to file away all the mug shots in the database, wanted time to wander around the house while Adel and her roommate slept.
The clock on the mantel reminded her it was midnight and her mind drifted back a few hours, rewinding Adel’s words, trying to understand how she fitted in to all this. Malin knew she was getting ahead of herself, imagining a young woman burning with hatred and fingers curled around the handle of a knife.
As far as Alice’s autopsy report claimed, Alice was five feet five inches, stocky, firm, and by no means overweight. By contrast, Adel was lean, had upper arms you could snap and a mind that quite frankly wasn’t sharp enough to mastermind a poisoning or a gas explosion. She also wasn’t the type to fire off a few rounds and deck a crowd either. But she could have slit a wrist if she was under the influence.
Malin instinctively turned her head and gazed into Adel’s bedroom. It was about ten feet from where she sat, door half open and only the right side of the bed was visible. One hand lay on the edge of the mattress, fingers twitching as if caught in a nightmare. For one brief second, Malin wondered if there had ever been any trace evidence under those painted nails.
So what did Alice say that made you kill her? What did she do? Did you have the knife in your pocket all the time? What were you looking for?
Malin pulled her mind away from the scene and walked toward Sarah Hughes’ bedroom first. Window barred and locked, no access from the outside with a cruiser parked along the curb. Moonlight shone through the open blinds and onto a dark-skinned girl, rounded limbs with the plumpness of baby fat.
Adel’s bedroom was next door; a rocker, a small white dresser about six feet from the bed and a cell phone charged and ready to use. A nightlight cast a scroll pattern on the ceiling and a dream catcher hung from a curtain rod. No sign of that overnight bag. Malin had looked hard enough.
Adel lay on her back, hair thrown over the pillow, sheet turned down to her hips. Malin could just make out the faintest pulse on a bare stomach and the quiver of a belly ring. The more
she watched Adel, the more troubled she felt.
Paddy had pissed off a lot of girls, leading them on, casting them off. A guy like that was bound to come to a sticky end one way or another. But did Adel’s jealousy merit killing all those women? Judging by the vacillating moods, the idea wasn’t exactly off the charts. Malin could file the theory as possible, not probable, but the question kept hovering in the back of her mind.
There was only one thing for it. Tilting her head back in that ringing silence, she crept further into the bedroom and reached for Adel’s cell phone. Scrolling through two calls from someone called Tammy in Admissions, she found a local one without a name. It was a number worth memorizing.
She pressed the phone against her ear, heard four rings before it went through to voicemail.
Hi, you know who this is. If you don’t leave your name and number, I will find you.
Nailed it. The hesitation in the male voice was a dead giveaway, identical to the one Adel was meeting at The Spring Fair.
Malin caught a flicker of movement from the bed, pressed END and replaced the phone on the dresser where she found it. Adel was restless, one knee lifted as if she was about to turn over and a deep moan slipped through open lips.
Malin tensed, felt a prickle of adrenalin as it powered through her body and she mumbled rapidly to herself. One slip, one tiny mistake, and Adel would wake up. Malin lurched for the door, had to keep moving, had to keep alert, had to write that number down before she forgot it.
The pad was there by the couch and the pen seemed to tremble in her hand before she could get a grip. She tore off a sheet, stuffed it in her pocket, and swallowed hard before the hunger pain hit.
Couldn’t stop thinking about the only witness they had left. It wasn’t by some confluence of fate that Zarah Thai had become a victim. She was part of a group, a sick and twisted sisterhood that may have created a monster in all that alchemy and magic. She was a material witness, the last person to have seen the killer. But the entire case couldn’t rest on the word of a tortured young woman and it was doubtful she would be available for interview until the end of the week.
Past Rites Page 20
