The Dead Detective Agency (The Dead Detective Mysteries)

by Peg Herring

  “Damn!” The Dog mouthed the word once, in a whisper, but finally it came out again, stronger. “Damn.” He turned away, one hand moving to his stomach in the classic gesture of the nauseated. “Don’t feel good.”

  As Selina looked on, her expression unbelieving, the man who had stalked her for days bolted up the stairs as if pursued by demons. Loud, running steps echoed through the restaurant. There was a shout as someone tried to slow his headlong rush, and then all was quiet. Seamus imagined Selina, alone and safe in the darkened hallway below, shaken but feeling better than she had felt all day.

  Inside the man’s head, Seamus vented all the frustration of the past twenty-four hours. Making his presence as large and intrusive as possible, he shouted commands as if his host were a horse, directing him out of the restaurant and onto the busy sidewalk with a steady stream of verbal abuse that, to the Dog, sounded as an occasional word amid a deafening roar in his ears. Passers-by stepped quickly out of the way of the madman coming at them, his eyes wild and his destination unplanned but apparently urgent.

  “You got nothing better to do than terrorize innocent women? You think you’re some kind of tough guy when you pick on girls? Right!” Obeying the last word, the frightened man turned right and ran down the block wildly. “Left!” The Dog turned left, cutting off traffic as he crossed a street against the light, narrowly escaping two cars and causing a cacophony of horns, brakes, and shouted objections. “Left!” Seamus called again, and the Dog turned into an alley. In a final fit of pique he shouted, “Left!” once more. His panic-stricken host obeyed, running smack into the brick wall of a building. Dazed, he fell to his knees, blood trickling from his nose.

  “Serves you right, you piece of garbage!” Seamus snarled as his anger finally ebbed. Having no desire to cause permanent injury to his host, he finally made himself small and fell silent. He needed the man to be operational, despicable as he might be. As he acclimated himself to his new circumstance, Seamus picked up the Dog’s thoughts as rationality slowly returned.

  His name was Kenny. He was smarter than he appeared, but Seamus sensed he possessed cunning rather than true intelligence. Kenny worked nights at an insurance company, cleaning offices and serving as a sort of watchman. He hated everyone who had more, knew more, or saw more than he did, going all the way back to the teachers in school who had tried to educate him. Kenny hated his bosses, the people on the street who wore expensive clothes and looked through him like he wasn’t there, and especially cops who sensed he was up to no good even when he was doing nothing wrong at the moment.

  Kenny liked pretty women. He was drawn to a trim body, smooth skin, the scent that often accompanied their presence, and the symmetry of a beautiful face. Since he was not wealthy, charming, or in any way attractive, his access to women in general was limited and access to pretty women almost nil.

  In retaliation against this unfairness, Kenny had begun terrorizing an occasional female when he could get away with it. Choosing a helpless victim at random, he’d follow her, sometimes for days, until he caught her alone. Although he never hurt them, it pleased him to see their pretty faces crumple in terror, watch their soft bodies cringe at his touch, hear them cry for mercy.

  At least it had until today. Kenny stood staring into the darkness of the alley, ignoring a fitful breeze that blew dirt into his face as he wondered what had gone wrong. He had pursued the little Mexican for days, losing her several times as she pulled clever evasive tactics, but knowing it was only a matter of time. And then, when he had her cornered, something happened. His mind had turned on him, and his body had reacted. He had become his own victim, fleeing in terror from imagined demons.

  Demons! Kenny’s mind went back to what he knew of possession. Had something evil taken control of him? Did he need an exorcist? A haunting voice came from inside his head. “No!”

  Kenny shuddered in terror. It was a message, but from where? An image of his grandmother came to mind, decades old but impressed on his childhood memory. On her knees, she’d prayed earnestly, face lifted and hands folded, and listened, telling him the voice of God spoke in response to a person’s readiness. On impulse, Kenny knelt on the hard-packed dirt of the alley floor, ignoring the dampness that chilled his knees.

  “God?” He looked vaguely upward, assuming that pleas ascended, and waited several seconds. “God?” he repeated.

  There was a pause, as if God was considering whether the call was worthy of a response, but finally a reply echoed inside his head. “Yes.”

  Kenny’s eyes widened in awe, and his gaze automatically lowered in the Divine Presence. “God, are you trying to tell me something?”

  “Yes.” The traffic noise outside the alley continued its constant whoosh. He waited, but nothing more came.

  “Am I supposed to—” Kenny sought the right words. “Do you want me to be…different?”

  “Yes.” That reply came quickly and with decision.

  Kenny nodded. He knew right from wrong, had recognized all along the cruelty of stalking and frightening women who had done nothing to him. He looked upward with an earnest expression. “All right. I will.”

  “Good.”

  Kenny took that as a promise of strength. If I mend my ways, I’ll receive Help. He took in the dingy alley, overflowing trash cans, and blank, anonymous brick walls. Not a place one would expect a miracle. “Grandma always said You move in mysterious ways.”

  Seamus chuckled at his own cleverness but decided he should jump as soon as possible. The feeling of lightness that came as he departed might cement Kenny’s resolve to be a better person, convincing him he’d made the right decision.

  After wiping the blood from his nose with the tail of his T-shirt, Kenny stepped onto the street again. Half a block down an attractive girl stood, waiting to cross the street. A few feet away, a policeman also waited. Careful not to draw the attention of either, Kenny approached the corner and stopped near the cop, on the side away from the pretty young woman. He smiled at his own righteousness in choosing the less desirable position.

  Seamus was also pleased with Kenny’s choice. As vehicles purred smoothly past them, he was able to jump easily from one man to the other. The officer reacted with a slight spasm, as if he had been jostled from behind. He turned and glared at Kenny, who looked as if a burden had been lifted from his soul. He smiled politely as the light turned green and said, “Hey, Officer” without even a glimmer of his usual inward sneer. Seamus felt sure Kenny’s grandmother, if she could see from Heaven, would have been pleased with him for once.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two

  Madison woke again, confused for a few seconds by the darkness around him, the odd noises above, and the pain that chewed at the edges of his mind until he moved. Then the pain bit. Hard.

  After a while, Talbert again peered over the edge, “Still with us, Detective?”

  “I really should be going. Could you call me a cab?”

  “Very funny.”

  Madison was close to drifting into lethargy, despair, and unconsciousness. He needed a focus, and Talbert was all he had. “So tell me, who’s this partner of yours?”

  Talbert rubbed his face with the back of one rather dirty hand. “Let’s play a little Jeopardy. A man is disappointed with his lack of forward progress at PLK. He resents clueless people making money from his work, and he gets a thrill out of beating the system. Care to make a guess? Please remember to frame it in the form of a question.”

  Madison’s mind conjured three possibilities: Loomis, who longed to run the firm; Falk, a bitter man who had reached the end of his career with no offer of partnership; and Pardike, who seemed to need more and more money. He added a fourth: Although Abe Gougeon hadn’t seemed dissatisfied, he had the training to run a scam, especially with Talbert’s assistance. He might have wanted more income than an intern’s job could provide. “I’ll pass on guessing for now.”

  The face above him turned sli
ghtly as Talbert twisted an apparent spasm from his neck. “My partner was already operating when I went to work for PLK. As a team, we simply expanded the scope of the operation.” If that was true, Gougeon was probably off the hook. Could Talbert be lying, even now, to protect his partner?

  Madison took a moment to consider the little he knew of the business. “You’re not just selling away and keeping the firm’s half of the fees anymore. You’ve started taking clients’ money.”

  Daryl gave him a mocking salute.

  “How?” Madison had a fair idea, but conversation kept him focused, kept his mind off the pain.

  Talbert checked his watch. “I do have a flight to catch, but it doesn’t leave for a while. I’m safer here than sitting in the airport where someone might recognize me.”

  He crossed his legs and propped his elbows on his knees. “Here beginneth the lesson, ‘How to Get Rich on Someone Else’s Money.’ First, take a job with a firm whose reputation is solid. Second, choose clients who don’t know a computer from a cuspidor and would never in a million years trade stocks on their own. Lots of otherwise intelligent people are like that. Third, feed them genuine-looking documents so they believe they are keeping track of their accounts. And then—” He waved a casual hand.

  “Move their money into accounts you control.”

  “People who aren’t smart enough to keep track of their wealth deserve to lose it.”

  “How long did you think you could get away with it?”

  Talbert shrugged. “As long as we gave them what they expected and appeared to have the prestigious firm of PLK behind us, clients didn’t think twice about handing over their money. They sign what we tell them to sign.” He looked away for a moment. “It’s a kick, watching them put their name on documents they haven’t even read. I never get over the thrill.”

  “Thrill?”

  Talbert seemed anxious to explain. “It’s kind of scary, kind of fun. You hand them the papers, you pull out a pen and wait expectantly. You’re thinking, ‘What if they really look at it this time?’ But they never do.” He looked almost disappointed. “If you choose carefully, it always goes well.”

  “Because investing is a mystery to most people.”

  “Exactly. I’m good with a computer, and I know PLK’s system cold.” Daryl’s grin might have seemed charming to some. Madison considered the wall behind him warmer and less slimy.

  “Nice scheme. Too bad you had to mess it up with murder.”

  Talbert rose to his feet, his disembodied face moving upward like a magic trick due to Madison’s position. “Water under the bridge.”

  “You’re up to your neck in it, Daryl.”

  “Which is why we leave for parts un-American today.”

  They heard a sound from outside, and Talbert’s expression changed from confident to fearful. He vanished for a second and reappeared holding Madison’s service revolver. “Keep quiet!” he said through barred teeth.

  The sound came again, muted and far removed. Someone was at the building’s front. Madison felt a moment of anticipation, but the noise ceased. Daryl waited patiently to be sure the intruder was gone, his gaze shifting from Madison to the windows for any sign of movement, but he apparently saw nothing. It was enough to break the mood.

  “Gotta run, Detective. Things to do, you know.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Soon and Very Soon

  Tori was pleased when Detective DeMestrie decided to interview Abe Gougeon as his next step. She was less enthusiastic about his conviction Abe was part of Talbert’s schemes. Pulling his jacket from its hanger and briefly checking his appearance in the window’s reflection, Jaime looked up the address and drove to Abe’s condo to form his own impression of the intern.

  Abe answered the door in sweats with faded GVSU lettering. His hair hadn’t yet been combed, and he made an attempt at shoving it into place with one hand. Obviously he’d planned a quiet Saturday at home. Acting neither shifty nor nervous, he invited the detective in.

  The living room was gracious if a bit feminine, neat but dusty in the corners. Abe offered coffee from a carafe on the kitchen counter, poured two cups, and then sat. “What can I do for you, Detective?”

  “Let me start by asking the last time you saw Detective Madison.”

  The smooth brow furrowed. “Wednesday, I think. Yvonne told me he was at the office Thursday, but I was taking my Series 7.”

  “Who did he see there?”

  Abe’s raised eyebrows indicated uncertainty. “I know he talked with Carmon, and I think Mr. Pollard too. Maybe some others, I don’t know.” He laced his fingers behind his head, stretching lightly. “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “We haven’t been able to locate him today.”

  Abe’s face showed the realization this was no casual interview. “And you thought I’d know where he is?”

  DeMestrie set his mug on the coffee table. “Let’s be straight, Mr. Gougeon. Someone at PLK is dishonest, and five people are dead because of it. When my partner left the station yesterday afternoon, he planned to investigate a link to Daryl Talbert. Now I can’t reach him, and I’m getting worried.”

  “He thinks Daryl’s suicide is tied to Tori’s murder?” Abe seemed genuinely confused.

  “Talbert isn’t dead.”

  Abe shifted forward, all attention. “But it was on the news.”

  “The corpse we found wasn’t Talbert, and whoever he was, he was no suicide. A cab dropped a guy off at Fulton and Clingell shortly after this unknown person died. Madison went down there to check it out and hasn’t been seen since.”

  As she listened, Tori tried to make a decision at the same time. She’d done what she could to make DeMestrie do her bidding. It was time to try someone else.

  “Another murder.” Suddenly, Abe seemed a bit sick. He slumped back in the chair while opposite him, DeMestrie looked around as if the room had brightened. Abe swallowed hard. “You said five people are dead?”

  “It appears someone forced Jennise Bowdlin off the road and killed her while she was still dazed from the accident.”

  “My God! That’s terrible.”

  “It is.” The detective’s gaze narrowed as he focused on Abe’s face. “What I want to know is how involved are you in all this?”

  To Tori’s relief, Abe’s thoughts inside his head were as innocent as his response to DeMestrie’s question. “What do you mean?”

  “Daryl Talbert was running some scheme out of PLK. He had inside help, and I think it was you. I think you pulled your girlfriend Tori into it, but when a client got killed, she balked. Did you plan her murder with Talbert, or did he surprise you on that one?”

  Abe shot up from his chair, weaving slightly as nausea threatened. “You’re way off, Detective. In the first place, I never liked Daryl Talbert. I avoided him whenever possible. Second, Tori was not my girlfriend. I needed her help with some things I was working on, that’s all. And finally, if you think she’d have been involved in anything remotely illegal, it can only be because you never met her. Tori radiated honesty like nobody I’ve seen outside a sitcom. You need to go back to Square One.”

  Tori felt vindicated but a little surprised, too. Am I really that different from everybody else?

  DeMestrie was not convinced. “How do you explain your expensive car?”

  The question seemed to surprise Abe. “It was a graduation present from my great uncle.” Moving to the window, he looked out at the carport where the car waited. “He says a classic automobile is the finest gift a person can receive, practical, valuable, and aesthetically pleasing.”

  DeMestrie seemed unimpressed. “You’re a real lucky guy. How about the job at PLK? You told Miss Calley Loomis arranged the position, but Loomis hardly knows who you are.”

  Tori felt the tensing of Abe’s jaw. “I’m not authorized to talk about that.”

  The detective stared at him in surprise. “Not authorized? What does that mean?”

  “I can’t say,”
Abe replied stubbornly. “But I’m afraid there is a connection between what I’ve been doing and the deaths that have occurred.”

  “My thought exactly.”

  “You can’t think I had anything to do with Tori’s murder,” Abe protested.

  “Why can’t I? You and this Daryl have something going. I’m not sure what, but I’m sure Mr. Pollard will be interested when I lay it all out for him.”

  Abe’s left eyebrow rose despite his anger. “I bet he’d love to hear your theory.”

  “Let’s go see him right now. We can both tell our stories and see which one he believes.”

  “I’d like nothing better. Unfortunately, he’s unavailable this weekend.”