Chasing Angels (Teagan Doyle Mysteries Book 1)

by Karin Kaufman

  Of course! “Yes! They could be lying about his name, and we’d have no way of knowing that.”

  “We’ll find out. Back to the sanctuary?”

  “I’d like to take a thorough look at that library, if you don’t mind. Maybe it has church records from Lloyd’s time.”

  “Knowledge is power.”

  We walked down the hall and around the corner. First on our right was the small meeting room we’d searched—nothing much in it—and just around the corner on the left was the library. It was no more than twelve by fifteen feet, but the shelving was nicely aged solid oak, and in the center of the room, burnished to a lovely patina over the decades, sat a heavy-footed oak table.

  “How come we couldn’t find our graffiti artist when we searched the church?” I asked, perusing the shelves.

  Berg set his coffee cup on the table and began his own survey of the bookcases. “Maybe our intruder kept one step ahead of us.”

  “I saw four entrances in this building. Unbelievable. We should chain them all. Or rope them, or whatever.”

  “Maybe we can find rope in the basement.”

  “Look at this.” I held up a dusty volume. “It’s called A History of St. Michael’s in Wells. But it looks too old to include Edward Lloyd’s time as priest.”

  Berg stuck his hand out and I gave him the book. I didn’t think the solution lay in the distant past, but Berg was far better than me at connecting history to the present day.

  “Notebooks,” I mumbled, lifting a stack of maroon binders and taking them to the table. Berg was already seated, running a finger down the contents page with one hand, drinking his coffee with the other. I blew across the first binder’s cover, dislodging what must have been months’ worth of dust, and started flipping pages.

  The top binder contained records going back to the handover from the Methodist Church, so I turned the rest of the binders sideways to check the labels on their spines and quickly found the one containing records from St. Michael’s last three years as a church. I opened it.

  Glued to the front page was a photo of Edward Lloyd—so read the caption—standing proudly before the stained glass.

  I thumbed my way to the last pages, the oldest documents in the binder. Repair invoices, general notices addressed to the congregation, donation records. On and on.

  Three years ago, about the time Lloyd transferred from Illinois and became pastor of St. Michael’s, the church had pulled in good money, it appeared. They’d even spent about eleven thousand dollars on landscaping around the front entrance and parking lot. Not the action of a dying church.

  Then, two and a half years ago, things changed drastically. Donations plummeted and the number of baptized and confirmed members declined by a third.

  Berg was still reading his history volume. “Would donation and membership records normally be kept in the library?” I asked him.

  “No.” Apparently finding nothing of value in the book, he shut it and began to scan the bookcase behind his chair. “They should be in the church office, not here for anyone to see.”

  “But someone cleaned out the office.”

  “Maybe they temporarily moved the records here and then forget about them? But the church or diocese should have been on top of that.” He looked over at the binder I’d been exploring. “Those records are in there?”

  “Yup. What about the desk drawers and filing cabinet in the office? We didn’t check them out.”

  I rose and told Berg to stay put since the church office was ten feet up the hall on the right, but he’d have none of it. He followed me to the office door and leaned on the doorframe—keeping watch on the hall, it seemed to me—while I sat on the brown vinyl chair behind the desk and dug through all three drawers, starting with the bottom one.

  “Why would someone take office records to the library?” I asked. “And why wouldn’t the diocese make sure everything was shipshape before they sold the church?”

  “All good questions,” he replied.

  “Nothing here.” I closed the top drawer and strode to the gray filing cabinet on the opposite wall. That search was also a bust until I noticed a bit of clear tape about the size of my small fingernail protruding from under the cabinet’s top drawer. I ran my hand along the metal underside, just behind the tape. “There’s something stuck up here.”

  With his back still pressed to the doorframe, Berg swung around, watching me.

  By directing my flashlight inside the cabinet and bending my head to one side, I could make out a letter-sized envelope secured front and back with tape. I peeled away the first strip and then tugged on the envelope until I freed it. “Well, lookee here.”

  Inside the envelope I found a single ledger page with only two columns, dates and inflow dollar figures, filled in. The dates matched Lloyd’s time as priest at St. Michael’s.

  “Let’s go back to the sanctuary,” Berg said.

  I trotted ahead and slipped into the library for my binder and Berg’s coffee cup, but before I could join Berg in the hall, the church’s lights dimmed briefly and went out.

  “Not again. Don’t trip, Berg,” I shouted. “It’s dark as hell.”

  “Coming.”

  As I edged toward the library door, listening for the thump of Berg’s cane, I felt something cold brush past me and sweep across the back of my neck. The sensation hit me like a gut punch. I whipped around and backed into the hall.

  “Teagan?”

  Berg was standing alongside me.

  “Something touched me.”

  “What was it?”

  “I don’t know, but I felt it. It was cold, and it was around me—on me. And I thought—I thought it was going for my neck.” I wanted to see his expression so I could gauge his reaction to what I’d experienced, but all I saw were shadows: his tall frame, the outline of his thick hair, the cane at his side.

  “Do you feel anything now?”

  “No. Did you feel anything?”

  “Nothing.”

  “But something’s in there. This is much worse than our last case, Berg. That was all in my mind—this is physical.”

  “I left my flashlight on the library table. Where’s yours?”

  “In the office, on top of the filing cabinet.”

  I heard him chuckle, a low, familiar sound that gave me immense relief. “From here on out, we keep them in our pockets at all times.”

  “Couple of amateurs.”

  He laughed, told me he was going to get his flashlight, and started into the library. I heard him swing his cane like a walking stick so he wouldn’t bump into the table, and seconds later he was back with me in the hall, flashlight on, flicking the beam over the library.

  “Matt said they had an electrician out,” I said, “but something’s wrong with their system. Another thing. Did you see a new floorboard in there?”

  “Where Matt was supposed to have replaced one? No.”

  We lingered a moment, Berg still shining his light into the library, then walked to the office to pick up my flashlight. On our slow walk back to the sanctuary, Berg halted suddenly. He sucked in his breath. Hard.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I felt it,” he said. “Just now. Like a cold wind, but not everywhere. Just around me—then on me.”

  “That’s what I felt. Around me at first, and then on my neck, like it was brushing over me but wanted . . .” I trailed off, the next thought coming to my mind so absurd that I could hardly express it.

  By then we’d reached the sanctuary and Berg was encouraging me to go on. So at last I laughed a little and said, “I thought it wanted to grab hold of my neck. And stay there.”

  CHAPTER 11

  The brightest azure blue. Summer blue. Far-off laughter, the sweet sound of purring insects whose death will never come. Sand ceaselessly trickling between toes, promises of cloudless days without end.

  Above my spinning body, children are cartwheeling on emerald lawns. I cartwheel too, floating mid-water, the wild blu
e all around me. I hold my breath.

  It’s only a matter of time. Of seconds.

  I smell algae, green and abundant on the blue tile. Chlorine. The acid stink of urine.

  I am about to die.

  It’s fair. It’s right. It’s long past my turn.

  I gasped and felt my body jerk.

  “Teagan?” Berg said. “Are you all right?”

  “What?” I slowly emerged from the fog of my nightmare, my wakefulness hindered by the fact that the church lights were still off. “Yeah. Yeah.”

  “How’s your hand? You smacked the pew pretty hard.” Berg was standing over me, peering down, pointing his flashlight off to the right.

  “Oh.” I rubbed my hand and sat up on my sleeping bag, which I’d spread out in the sanctuary aisle. “It’s freezing in here.”

  “You had a nasty dream.”

  “Did I?”

  “You tell me. You were the one having it.”

  “Who knows? Sorry I fell asleep. I was just going to close my eyes for a bit.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I said I’d take first watch. Or second nap, whichever you prefer.” He sat on the pew across the aisle from me, flicked off his light. Parking lot lights shone amber and red through the stained glass.

  I raked my fingers through my hair.

  “Want to tell me about it?” he said. “The same thing happened at the Steer house in Timnath. At least two bad dreams there, and you refused to tell me about them.”

  “It doesn’t have to do with this church or the Petersons,” I said. “What time is it?” I asked as I checked my own watch. Just past eleven o’clock.

  I’d fallen asleep to the sound of Berg walking around the sanctuary, praying in his not-so-silent way. It was comforting, the way he clomped softly around, how he was always on watch.

  He persisted. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Knowing how unyielding he could be when he wanted an answer, I decided to break my silence about what I’d sensed while the Petersons were packing. My little sleight of hand—throwing him off the topic of nightmares—probably wouldn’t fool him, but it would buy me time. “There’s one thing I didn’t tell you about.”

  “What a surprise.”

  I shot him a snarky look, got to my feet, and plunked myself down on a pew. “I felt something weird while I was looking into the lobby—excuse me, narthex—waiting for the Petersons to finish packing. It was different from what I felt in the library. This seemed like it passed directly through me and took over my thoughts, or feelings.”

  Berg turned on his flashlight and aimed it at my neck, giving him a better view of my face without pointing the beam in my eyes, which I’m pretty sure he wanted to do. “What exactly did you feel?”

  “Blackness. A sense of . . . I don’t know.”

  “Put it into words.”

  “Despair? Hopelessness?”

  “About what we’re doing here?”

  “That and everything else. Everything.”

  Berg waved his hands and the light went with them, raking across the ceiling and then down to the floor. “Why didn’t you tell me before? We’re supposed to communicate.”

  “It only lasted a few seconds—and I’m telling you now.”

  He switched off the flashlight. “Are we in this together or not?”

  “We are. Of course we are.”

  “Because defeating this evil is going to take everything both of us have.”

  “How do you know?”

  “After twenty-one years, I know. You were right when you said this isn’t like our other cases.”

  “Yeah, well, here’s the thing. You’re stronger than I am. Whatever this is, it went after me because I can’t handle things like you can, and it knows it.”

  “Do I have to remind you what happened to me in the hall? Evil doesn’t play favorites. Every soul won—every doubt sown—is a trophy.”

  “So what’s this evil waiting for? A cold wind here, a door slam there, lights going off. It’s like a B-grade horror movie.”

  “Escalating the anxiety is a superb tactic. Consider its effect on you. Consider what it does to your dreams.”

  “I’ve had bad dreams for years.”

  “Have you now?”

  All that fear, sugar, and caffeine had lowered my natural defenses. “Never mind that. Let’s think of what Liam and Sophie will have to deal with if we don’t send this evil packing. Carissa won’t let them come back here, I’m sure, but Matt doesn’t want to leave and he’ll fight Carissa over selling the church. It could mean the end of their marriage. If only we . . .” I grunted and cupped my hands around my nose. “Ugh. Do you smell that?”

  “It’s hard to miss.”

  “Talk about escalating the anxiety. It smells like a dead animal. Where did it come from all of a sudden?”

  Berg pushed himself out of the pew. “Let’s find out.”

  I put my coat on and we walked the perimeter of the sanctuary, stopping at supply and return air vents, but none seemed to be the source of the dead-meat odor, so we moved on to the narthex. Again we paused at vents—finding them by flashlight—and again we were disappointed in our search.

  “Down the hall,” Berg said, starting off. “Curious how it began instantaneously, without a hint of it minutes or even seconds before.”

  “We didn’t tie the entrances shut,” I pointed out. “Maybe someone got in again. I’ll look for rope when we’re done here. Maybe the church has padlocks and chains stored somewhere. School buildings do.”

  Shining our lights along the baseboards and where the walls met the ceiling, we found more vents, but none of them seemed to be the source of what was now such a powerful odor that I was on the verge of gagging.

  We checked the three Peterson bedrooms and the small meeting room before turning a corner for the library and office

  As we neared the office door, the odor grew even stronger. Berg coughed and I covered my nose with my coat sleeve.

  “It’s not coming from a vent,” I said, flinging my free arm toward the door. “It’s in there.”

  Feet from the office, Berg held me back with a hand on my shoulder and stepped around me. “Let me go in first.”

  He crossed the threshold and I stayed in the doorway, still covering my nose and breathing through my mouth. I knew if I breathed through my nose, I’d vomit. “This can’t be what Carissa meant when she phoned me,” I said. “This would’ve driven the Petersons from the church. What is it? It smells like a hundred pounds of rotting meat.”

  “No, Teagan, I don’t think so. It’s not natural.”

  At his words, a chill raced down my spine.

  It’s not like I expected him to say it was fish guts or a dead bird, but Berg, a man with a sense of humor far grander than mine, had gone deadly serious, and I was certain I detected fear in his voice—something he always made an effort to hide.

  My flashlight traced him as he walked around the room, and when he came to the desk, I noticed the brown vinyl chair was no longer in its place, as I was sure it had been when Berg and I had left the office. Now it was three feet behind the desk, its high back facing the door.

  “Someone moved that chair,” I said. “We didn’t leave it like that.”

  “Yes.”

  “We need to secure the entrances, and now would be a really good time.”

  Berg exited the office, and the second we turned the corner and moved into the longer hall, I heard a pounding noise from somewhere near the front of the church. A door slamming repeatedly? Someone knocking?

  “I think that’s the front doors,” I said

  “Sounds like it,” Berg said, leading the way.

  By the time we reached the narthex, it was obvious someone was rapping hard on one of the church’s cranberry red doors. Without a moment’s hesitation, Berg flung it wide.

  Nicole the waitress, wind whipping her now-bunless hair across her mouth and neck, stood with her hand poised to knock again. She yanked the hair from h
er face and breathed, “Oh, you are here. I wondered if you’d left.”

  “Come in, come in,” Berg said, waving her inside.

  He was a kind man, his kindness routinely overcoming his fears and suspicions. It being nearly midnight, however, my fears and suspicions conquered my sense of hospitality. I waited for Nicole to explain herself.

  “It’s freezing out there,” she said.

  “Come have a seat in the sanctuary,” Berg said. “Where’s your coat? It’s not much warmer in the church, but it’s out of the wind.”

  “No, I won’t keep you,” she said. “Why’s it so dark in here?”

  “The lights went out,” I answered.

  “So I know it’s late, but I tried to call first and couldn’t get through.”

  “You did?” Berg pulled out his phone, tapped the screen. “That’s odd.”

  It hit me then that Nicole hadn’t reacted to the foul air. And then it hit me again. The odor had disappeared. Just like that.

  “I see two calls from you,” Berg said, “but my phone didn’t ring.”

  “Maybe the signal wasn’t strong enough,” Nicole suggested. “Wells can be spotty.”

  That sounded reasonable, and she had tried to call. My suspicions began to recede.

  “Could be spotty coverage.” Berg tucked his phone away. “What can we do for you?”

  “It’s what I can do for you. That freaky guy? He came back to the restaurant like two hours after you guys left, asking for takeout. Okay, so, normal enough, though it’s only the second time I’ve ever seen him at Bricktown. But the funny thing is, he asked if I knew the Peterson family found a body here, and I said yeah, everyone in Wells knows by now. And he started talking about how this church is haunted, which I’ve heard before, and how the police suspect the Petersons killed the guy they found, which I’ve never heard before. And then he said—”

  Nicole ground to a sudden halt.

  “Please go on,” Berg said.

  “It sounds kinda bad,” she said, a penitent whine in her voice.

  “Don’t worry about that. Feel free to tell us what he told you,” Berg said.