Buried Memory (Harbinger P.I. Book 2)

by Adam J. Wright

  “How did your dad react to that?” I asked. From what I’d seen of Sheriff John Cantrell, I was guessing that his reaction wouldn’t be too pleasant. He was a man who spoke his mind and had a short fuse. Although, maybe he’d only become like that after the death of his wife.

  “He didn’t say much about it at first. He knew Mom was having a tough time so he kept quiet. We began having Sunday lunch at my house because Mom’s empty chair at the dining table at home was a constant reminder of her absence. Eventually, when Mom began driving over to Clara at night as well as going there in the daytime, Dad confronted her and asked her what was so great about the church that she was never at home anymore. She told him that he wouldn’t understand and ignored his pleas to spend some time with her family.” She paused to drink more coffee.

  “Did you or your dad check out the church?” I asked.

  “Of course we did. We pulled the records on the place and ran background checks on the owners. There’s been a church in that location for the past two hundred years, owned by a family named Fairweather. It’s abandoned now, but the pastor at the time was Simon Fairweather and his record was clean. He lived in Clara all his life and never had so much as a parking ticket. Same with the rest of the family. They’ve lived in in that small area all their lives. It’s like the only reason they exist is to run that damned church.”

  “Do you think it’s a cult?” I asked. “They recruited your mom at a vulnerable time in her life. That’s typical cult behavior.”

  Amy shrugged. “Or it could just be coincidence. All I know is that going there made her turn her back on everything else. I have no idea what the attraction was; I drove over to Clara one day to take a look at the church. The place gave me the creeps.”

  “So how does Sherry Westlake figure into all of this?” I asked.

  “I guess she was investigating the church. She was asking around about it for a while, but nobody in Dearmont knows much about the church, or Clara, for that matter. It’s just a tiny township in the middle of the woods, really. I don’t know what made her interested in the place. After my mother’s death, I tried to find out if someone in town had hired Sherry Westlake to investigate the church but I couldn’t find anyone who had, or would admit to it.”

  I turned to Felicity and said, “We might be able to get our hands on Westlake’s files.”

  Felicity nodded and made a note on her legal pad. If Westlake had disappeared, then the Society of Shadows would have sent a clean-up crew here to gather all her work-related files.

  Focusing my attention on Amy again, I said, “So Westlake was investigating the church your mom was a member of, and it all ended badly. Tell me what happened.”

  “It happened on Christmas Day. There had been a heavy snowfall a few days earlier and my dad was grateful because he thought it meant Mom wouldn’t be able to make the drive over to Clara. She’d been talking about going to a Christmas service at the church, even though Mike had flown in from New York and we were going to spend the holiday together, as a family.

  “As it turned out, the roads were cleared and Mom drove the Ram over to Clara on Christmas morning. I didn’t think about it at the time, but later I remembered that as Mom drove down the street, Sherry Westlake’s blue Jeep was following her.”

  “Do you think Westlake had been waiting for your mom to leave the house?” I asked. “Or could it have been coincidence?”

  “The street where my mom and dad live is a dead end, and there was no reason for Sherry Westlake to be there. I probably would have thought it strange at the time if I wasn’t so upset about Mom leaving. I was worried about her. Hell, I almost followed her myself.” She paused and then added, “Maybe I should have. She might still be alive today.”

  “What happened next?” I asked as gently as I could. I didn’t want her going down the road of regret. I knew that the next part of the story was going to be the most upsetting for Amy and I needed her to stay.

  She sighed. “We all spent the day worrying about Mom. We spent most of the morning in the kitchen cooking a Christmas dinner: turkey, potatoes, vegetables, the usual things people eat on Christmas Day. But we hardly ate any of it. Finally, Dad said he was going over to Clara to find out what the hell Mom found so interesting there. Mike and I agreed to go with him. We took my dad’s patrol car and drove over to the church.”

  She stopped for a moment. Her eyes looked down at the scarred surface of the desk but I knew she wasn’t really looking at it. She was probably unaware of the office, or me, or Felicity. Her mind was replaying whatever image met her as she stepped out of the patrol car at the church.

  “It was cold,” she said, her voice far away. “There were dark gray snow clouds hanging in the sky over the woods. My dad parked the car in front of the church and got out. There were maybe six or seven other vehicles there, including my dad’s Ram, and even though there must have been people in the church, the place was as quiet as the grave.

  “My dad rushed up to the door of the church and pulled it open. He’s a big, strong man, but what he saw made him fall to his knees and weep. Mike and I ran over to him and we saw what was inside the church. There was blood everywhere, all over the walls and the floors. It covered the windows, turning the cold winter sunlight red as it shone into the room through the blood-stained glass.”

  Amy looked up into my eyes. “There were thirteen bodies. Men and women. They were lying in various parts of the room as if they’d been flung around like rag dolls. All of them had their throats slit. The coroner said that in all cases, the cause of death was a crushing blow to the body, as if they’d been thrown against the walls or floor with great force. My mom’s body was lying near the front of the church. She was face down but I recognized the clothes she’d been wearing when she’d left the house that morning. My dad ran to her and cradled her in his arms while Mike and I stood there in a state of shock. There was a metallic smell of blood in the air so strong that I ran outside and vomited. That brought me out of the shock and I called the state police.”

  I nodded slowly, trying to picture the scene in my mind. “Was there any other smell in the air inside the church?”

  “The smell of death,” Amy said.

  “Was there anything else? Like the smell of sulfur, maybe?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “So why do you think Sherry Westlake killed your mother? There’s no reason to believe she would be able to kill thirteen people in that manner.”

  “The scene was investigated by the state police and the FBI. They found Sherry Westlake’s Jeep half a mile away in the woods. They found tire tracks at the church that matched the Jeep. There was blood in the Jeep that matched some of the victims at the church. There were footprints in the snow leading from the Jeep, through the woods to the highway.”

  “So the evidence is circumstantial,” I said. I had no idea if Sherry Westlake had killed those people or not, but there was no way she could have done it the way the coroner suggested. Westlake was a P.I., which meant she was human. The Society had no preternatural creatures on its payroll except for some witches, and they didn’t work as investigators. Westlake could have been possessed by a demon, but that was unlikely, since she would have the same magical symbols tattooed on her body as I had, and they protected us from possession by all but the most powerful demonic entities.

  “She left that church after everyone else was dead,” Amy said. “She didn’t call the police or an ambulance. And she hasn’t been seen since. If she was innocent, she wouldn’t have vanished like that.”

  “Maybe she was killed,” I suggested. “Maybe whatever killed those people chased her into the woods and killed her, too.”

  She shook her head. “Her tracks in the woods suggested she was walking at a normal pace. Nothing was chasing her. And the tracks led to the highway. She obviously got into another vehicle there and left the scene. The only people killed that day were the thirteen inside the church.”

  I couldn’t arg
ue with her; I didn’t have any crime scene photos or case reports to look at. The authorities had constructed a theory about what had happened, which was that Sherry Westlake had killed those people and left the area. The problem was, the people who had constructed that theory were mundane investigators and could only go on what they knew of the world, which didn’t include the otherworldly beings that preternatural investigators dealt with all the time. I could think of a dozen creatures that could kill thirteen people in the way the coroner described, but those creatures would never make it into any police report because most people didn’t know of their existence.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” I told Amy. “Were those two men who crawled out of their graves along with your mother also members of the church in Clara?”

  “No, definitely not. Ethan Jones attended Saint Mary’s here in town and Ben didn’t go to church at all.”

  “How did they die?”

  “Ethan died of cancer and Ben had a heart attack.”

  “And what happened to the church at Clara after the murders?”

  “It closed down. The place is abandoned now, but the Fairweather family still lives there. Simon Fairweather, the pastor, was murdered along with the others, but the rest of the family is still alive.”

  This was getting us nowhere. There wasn’t any obvious connection between the three people that would explain why they’d risen from the grave together. “We’ll take the case,” I told Amy. “I assume you’re not claiming the expense from the sheriff’s office.”

  “No, I’ll pay for it myself.”

  “Do you want me to investigate the church as well? I might be able to find something that isn’t in the police records.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t see the point. The police and the FBI have closed the case. As far as they’re concerned, Sherry Westlake killed those people. They admit they don’t have a motive or know exactly how she carried out the murders, but they’re satisfied that she’s responsible. She’s on their wanted lists.”

  “And are you satisfied?”

  “No amount of investigation will bring my mother back,” she said flatly. “Something happened that I can’t explain regarding her grave, but I have no illusions; I know she’s dead and isn’t coming back.”

  “I’ll investigate the church if the investigation of the graves leads there for some reason.” I told her.

  Amy nodded.

  “Felicity will take you to her office to sort out the details and get you to sign our usual contract,” I said, looking over at Felicity, who was already getting to her feet.

  “Thank you, Alec,” Amy said as she stood. “And please be careful to avoid my father. If he knew about what’s happening at the cemetery, it would kill him.”

  “I’ll be careful,” I said. “At least now I know why he hates preternatural investigators. Luckily, that’s a prejudice you don’t share.”

  “Maybe I do,” Amy said. “But I have no one else to turn to for help.” She left with Felicity and closed the door behind her.

  I took a sip of coffee, but it was cold and bitter. So I turned my chair to face the window and looked out over Main Street, bustling with people going about their business, unaware that the dead were rising from their graves in the cemetery. They lived a life I could never live; a life absent of the knowledge of the dark creatures and forces that inhabited our world. Sometimes, I envied that lack of knowledge, but if I had a choice, I would rather know the truth about the world and be equipped to deal with the nasties rather than be unaware of their existence.

  Felicity returned and said, “Everything is sorted with Miss Cantrell. She’s paid the usual retainer and signed the contract.”

  “Great,” I said. “Let’s take a closer look at those graves. We’ll take a crystal shard to detect for magic in the area.”

  “I’ll get one from the safe,” she said, turning and heading back to her own office where the office safe was located. I kept some of my minor enchanted items in there for convenience. My most powerful artifacts were stored in my basement at home because the safe wasn’t big enough everything, and some of the items had to be stored in certain ways for safety reasons. You couldn’t just stuff a safe full of magical objects without consequences, the worst being a possible magical explosion that would rip through the time, space, and dimensional barrier.

  There was one item in my possession that wasn’t stored either at my office or at home. The gold and silver hieroglyph-inscribed box that I had apparently mailed to myself from Paris was too dangerous to keep close. For one thing, I had no idea what it did, what magical power it had. For another, there were people willing to kill for it and they were connected to the Society in some way. If it was so important to them, it had to hold a great power, a power I couldn’t risk falling into the wrong hands. So the box was buried in the woods north of Dearmont. Its location was known only to myself and my friend, Mallory Bronson. Until we researched the box and knew exactly what it was—a task I had set Felicity because research was her area of expertise—it would remain buried.

  My cellphone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out to answer it. The number displayed on the screen had a 44 code in front of it, which meant the call was coming from Britain. That meant it was probably my father calling from London.

  I answered it, and sure enough, it was my father.

  “Alec, I need you to come to London,” he said, without any further explanation.

  “Really, Dad? You think I should just drop everything and fly over there when you didn’t even send a team to rescue me when I was stuck in Faerie?”

  “You didn’t need a team to rescue you. You were fine.”

  “But you didn’t know that, Dad.”

  He sighed and said his next words slowly, as if he were talking to a five-year-old. “Alec, you need to come to London. I’ll send a jet to pick you up. And bring Felicity. I’ll let you know when the jet is at Bangor International.” He ended the call.

  “God damn it!” I shouted, wanting to throw the phone at the wall but resisting the urge. Why didn’t he ever listen to me? Or at least pretend he’d been worried about me when I was trapped in Faerie? His timing was lousy; I didn’t want to go to London right now because whatever he wanted was obviously Society business, and at the moment, I was none too pleased by the fact that they’d thrown me out of Chicago and sent me here.

  Also, the last time I’d been in London was a month ago, when the Society had questioned me about the events in Paris, and that questioning had involved me wearing an enchanted iron collar that the Spanish Inquisition had used to extract confessions from heretics. That had kind of left a sour taste in my mouth where the Society was concerned.

  Felicity came back into the office and handed me a small leather pouch containing a crystal shard that could detect magical energy. “Is everything all right, Alec?” she asked when she saw what must have been an expression of frustration and anger on my face.

  “My dad called. He wants us to go to London.”

  “Oh. Did he say what for?”

  “Nope.”

  “So what are we going to do about the graveyard case?”

  I stuffed the leather pouch into my pocket. “We’re going to take a look at those graves. Come on, let’s go.”

  Chapter 3

  North Cemetery was, as the name suggested, at the north edge of town. Felicity was quiet during the drive over there and I wondered if she was thinking about Jason, her boyfriend in London. He worked for a bank there and wasn’t happy that Felicity was over here. A couple of weeks ago, he’d given her an ultimatum: fly back to England to be with him or the relationship was over. As far as I knew, he hadn’t made good on that threat yet, and Felicity hadn’t gone back there, so they were at a stalemate. If Felicity and I flew to London at my father’s request, she would be able to talk to Jason face-to-face and sort out their problems one way or another. I hoped I wasn’t going to lose her.

  The cemetery was enclosed by a six-foot-high brick wall
and had a brick archway that led to the parking lot. As I climbed out of the Land Rover and saw the beauty of the place, I found it hard to believe that people were trying to get out of their graves here. If I was buried here beneath the manicured grass, shrubs, and trees of North Cemetery, I’d be satisfied with my final resting place. The sun shone brightly on the rows of gravestones, birds sang in the trees, and there was a smell of freshly-cut grass in the air. The parking lot had maybe fifty parking spaces, but only a dozen were occupied. It was a slow day for visiting the dead.

  “Wow,” Felicity said as she came around the Land Rover from the passenger side. “This place is lovely.”

  A low brick building with arched windows and a heavy wooden door in a gothic style stood near the parking lot. A sign on the door said OFFICE, so we went over to it and pushed it open. Unlike the exterior of the building, which had been styled to suggest an architecture of days gone by, the office inside was modern and lit brightly by overhead lights.

  A young man in a white shirt and black tie sat at a glass and chrome desk, typing on a keyboard, focused on his computer screen. A nameplate on the desk told me the guy’s name was Steve McDonnell and he was the Manager’s Assistant. “One moment,” he said, without looking up. After a few more keystrokes, he turned to us and asked, “How can I help you?”

  “We’d like to talk to Dennis Jackson,” I said. “Is he here?” I nodded to a door that had Jackson’s name on it above a sign that read MANAGER.

  “Whether or not he’s here isn’t really the point,” McDonnell said. “The point is whether or not you have an appointment.”

  I didn’t have time for this. I stepped toward his desk but Felicity put a hand in my arm, stopping me.

  “I was only going to explain the situation to him,” I said to her. To McDonnell, I said, “Tell Mr. Jackson that Alec Harbinger, P.I., is here to talk about his containment problem.”

  “Containment problem?”

  I nodded. “I’d call potentially dangerous dead people crawling out of their graves a containment problem.”