Chasing Angels (Teagan Doyle Mysteries Book 1)

by Karin Kaufman

  “Money, power, and comfort,” Berg said simply. “Some people will pay any price for all three.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Back in the Explorer and buckled up, Berg asked me to make a quick run to Fort Collins so he could take a look at the handwriting on the sympathy card he’d received a week ago. He’d hadn’t seen a connection to the Peterson case at the time, but of course now that connection was undeniable.

  Heading west from Wells, a light snow began to fall. Large, fat flakes melted on contact with the roads, but over the higher mountain peaks, behind the snow clouds, the sun was breaking through. Soon it would bathe the cities of the Front Range in a pale, autumn honey.

  “The sun’s heading this way,” I said.

  “I see.”

  “When Long’s Peak and Mount Meeker glow like that, it’s hard to keep my eyes off them.”

  Though not a Colorado native, I’d developed a deep love for this land, its mountains, pines, and turquoise lakes, and for Fort Collins and its welcoming people, gentle neighborhoods, clean streets, and yards blessed with a stunning abundance of lilacs and spring-flowering trees.

  Wasn’t my being here a mark of God’s goodness? A sign that he hadn’t abandoned me? How many other places, less happy ones for me, might I have ended up?

  I swung onto Chestnut Avenue, a quiet street one mile northwest of downtown, and pulled into Berg’s driveway. I loved his cream-colored Mission-style house, its little groves of junipers and blue spruces, all making a shady haven of his front yard. My own, smaller house was plainer, and I hadn’t gotten around yet to planting trees or doing much of anything to it.

  Ian, kind adulterer that he was, had given me the house we’d lived in together, and with that and the Explorer, I’d agreed to no further financial support, though he was pulling in big bucks at the time and kept our savings account. But I’d wanted a clean cut—no more haggling over money—and fresh start. Two months after our divorce, I sold our house and moved to my new neighborhood.

  When I spotted the metal trash can at the side of Berg’s house, I suggested I toss the Petersons’ occult junk there in lieu of a dumpster. Berg agreed, and while I gleefully stuffed the board, cards, and other stuff in the can—I had to snap the Ouija board in half, what a shame—Berg struggled to his door. I asked him to wait for me at his kitchen table while I got the sympathy card.

  “In the top drawer of my writing desk,” he said, leaning back with a sigh.

  I went to the living room and found the card on top of some stationery in the drawer. It wasn’t a cheap card. About five by seven inches and of heavy stock, its cover was classic sympathy: mint green background, flowers, a few butterflies, and in script the words “Love never dies.” I opened it. “I would have been seventy. Love, Jack” was written, cursive style, in black ballpoint pen.

  I took the card back to the kitchen, handed it to Berg, and searched his fridge for a stray can of Diet Coke.

  “In the door, left side,” he said.

  “Did you throw the envelope out?” I asked, taking a seat, popping the can.

  “Unfortunately. But the handwriting on that matched the inside. It doesn’t strike a chord with me, does it with you?” He slid the open card across the blue Formica.

  “No, but let’s search the office and library, and I’ll look through the binder again. There were handwritten receipts and notes in it.” On the off chance something happened to the card, I took a photo of it as backup. “Can I use your computer?”

  He knew my request was in part a ruse to get him to sit in one place for a while and maybe nap, but he didn’t call me on it. More proof that he hurt like heck.

  I fired up the laptop on his writing desk and did a quick search for Order of the High Places. Nothing. Which was to be expected.

  But the term “high places” yielded many search results, most of them referring to biblical-era man-made pagan shrines set on elevated land in the open air. On first hearing the term, I’d thought of Congresswoman Neal and her “high place” in Congress, and perhaps the name was meant to evoke that in some measure, but now I saw the name in a different light. Pagans were known to have committed human sacrifices—even of their infant children—in these places, in obeisance to their deities.

  I shivered on reading that and thought of Lloyd and Meyer and their cut throats. St. Michael’s wasn’t technically a high place, but for the Meyer family, Lebec, the Nickles, and others, it was a revered place and belonged to them.

  Next I did another search for Elizabeth Neal. We lacked sufficient information on both her and Talbert, and though we knew they were connected to Lloyd, we only suspected they knew the Nickles and gave the couple their marching orders.

  Scrolling through search results, looking for something out of the ordinary, I thought of Matt and the list of names he was writing back at his hotel. He’d given us Frank Hecht’s name, but how many more figures in Colorado were connected to the Order of the High Places? And what if this order was just one of many so-called clubs connected to Talbert and Neal?

  What about the Tillers? More worrisome still, what if Talbert and Neal were foot soldiers themselves, outranking the Nickles but not the chief string pullers? There was no telling how deep this thing went.

  I’d told Berg that Talbert and Neal’s primary object was to ruin him, to in some way make it impossible for him to do his job because he was so darn good at it. He was a threat to any plan they might have. But they wanted much more than his absence. In making sure the Petersons employed Berg, they were simply killing two birds with one stone, I now believed, and Berg, though an important impediment to their plans, was a small bird.

  Whatever they hoped to achieve went beyond buying up churches or installing pagan-loving pastors and priests. If exposed, Talbert and Neal would lose everything, and that meant the prize they sought was big enough to make the risk worth it.

  The article I was now skimming was not complementary of Neal, but neither did it contain useful, derogatory information. Neal had belonged to the Freethinkers Club at the University of Illinois, I noted, but that didn’t surprise me.

  Freethinkers. I couldn’t help chuckle. Has there ever been a more self-congratulatory term? Yet far from being independently minded, freethinkers tended to hold the same opinions as every other freethinker and were uniform in their disdain for people like Berg, who was flagrant and unapologetic in his faith.

  “I believe all the way, no holds barred, Teagan,” he’d once told me. “The resurrection of Christ, the virgin birth, the parting of the Red Sea, demons and angels, miracles, prophecy—the whole shebang. There’s no point in being a Christian if you don’t. No point at all.”

  Just as I dove into another search for Bishop Talbert’s name, the doorbell rang. Shouting to Berg that I’d get it, I went to the door and was met there by a stocky brunette in her early fifties. “Can I help you?” I asked.

  “I recognize your Explorer. You must be Teagan.”

  I admitted that I was.

  “I’m Joanne Millhouse. I live next door.”

  “Oh yeah, Berg’s talked about you.”

  “It’s nice to finally meet you. Is Berg at home?”

  “He is, come on in.” I stood back to let her inside, then whispered, “He’s in the kitchen and he’s exhausted.”

  She nodded knowingly then let me go ahead of her so I could tell Berg he had a visitor. I’d expected to find him dozing at the table, but his eyes were alert and his expression told me he was deep in thought. “Joanne Millhouse is here,” I said.

  “She is? Let her in.”

  Joanne poked her head around the doorframe. “Have you got a moment?”

  “Joanne! Of course I do.”

  He started to rise but Joanne signaled for him to stay seated. “No, no, I’ll join you. I’ve been gardening, excuse the dirty nails.”

  She took a seat opposite him. I offered her coffee, but she said no, she’d only be a minute.

  “First of all,” she began, �
��that apple pie was out of this world. There’s nothing better than hot homemade pie on a cold day.”

  “I’m glad you liked it.”

  “Second of all, your fish are doing fine, in case you haven’t looked yet, and I’ve got your mail, which I didn’t bring with me.”

  Berg smiled. “We’re heading back to Wells soon anyway.”

  “I see. Well, third, I saw a man peeking in your back windows yesterday afternoon.”

  “You did?” I joined them at the table. “He was in the back yard?”

  “He rang the doorbell first, and when he saw the living room drapes were closed, he had the nerve to walk through your gate. So I went to my back window, where I keep my birdwatching binoculars, and there he was, checking all your windows, bold as can be—standing inches from them.”

  “Do you remember what he looked like?” Berg asked.

  “Do I remember?” she asked rhetorically. “When I said I’d keep watch on your house, I meant it. I’ve been carrying this around with me, hoping I’d see Teagan’s car in the drive.”

  Digging into a pocket of her too-tight jeans, Joanne extracted a piece of paper, unfolded it, and read from her notes. “My phone was in my purse and I didn’t want to lose sight of him so I couldn’t take a photo. He was about fifty years old, but don’t hold me to that. He was thin and about as tall as Randy, so five foot eleven or so, and he had gray and brown hair—you know, salt and pepperish. Styled very professionally, too. His car was a silver Acura—I recognized it by the symbol on the grille. It had a Colorado plate, and”—she flourished the paper—“I wrote down the number.”

  Berg took the paper. Scrawled at the top was a license plate number.

  “Joanne, you went above and beyond,” Berg said. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  “When he rang your bell I had a feeling he knew you weren’t home. He didn’t wait more than four seconds for an answer, and he looked all around him, like he wanted to see if anyone was watching. Silly man didn’t see me lurking behind my drapes.” She grinned proudly.

  “Did he do anything else?” I asked.

  “No, or I would’ve called the police, believe you me. Though I did wonder if he was going to break in the patio door. Something about his body language told me he was thinking about it.” She stood. “So that’s it. Should I watch for him again?”

  “I’d appreciate it, yes,” Berg said, “but don’t confront him, Joanne, and don’t let Randy, either. Chances are he’s harmless, but you never know.”

  “Living next door to you is like living in a spy novel,” she said, “and I mean that in a good way. One of these days you’re going to tell me what you really do for a living—and no, I’m not asking again. By the way, you missed a very good sermon at church today.”

  “I wish I could’ve been there.”

  Joanne paused by the entrance to the kitchen and looked from Berg to me. “Make sure he gets enough sleep, Teagan. He won’t get enough, of course, but at least make him nap now and then.”

  Berg shooed her with his hand. No need to worry about me. “Thank you again, Joanne. My fish thank you, too.”

  Walking her to the door, I asked her if she’d recognize the man if she saw him again.

  “I’m sure of it. His suit was nicely tailored, too. Did I mention that?”

  “That fits with the professional haircut.”

  On the porch now, she stopped and pivoted back to me. “I had the strangest feeling while I was watching him, like—I don’t know, you’ll think it’s crazy.”

  “Trust me, I won’t.”

  “He wanted to break into the patio door, and I think the only reason he didn’t is because he changed his mind about it, not because he cared if anyone saw him. I got the feeling he’d do anything. Have you ever seen these videos on the internet about shape-shifters appearing in crowds? Not that I’m saying”—she groaned and threw back her head—“I’m not saying he’s a shape-shifter or anything like that. Really, I’m not. Ask Berg. I’m really not the crazy woman next door.”

  I laughed. “Berg wouldn’t like you so much if you were.”

  “But that man oozed . . . being different. That’s the only way I can think to describe it. He wasn’t normal. He didn’t have boundaries like normal people.”

  CHAPTER 35

  The sun had bathed my car, warming it just shy of the need to crack open a window, even though it was in the low forties. Berg and I headed back to Wells under a bluebird sky, Berg with the sympathy card folded and stuffed in one coat pocket and a spare Diet Coke in the other, which he presented to me when I turned onto County Road 64.

  “Thank you! I left mine in your kitchen.”

  “Pop destroys your stomach lining. I’m an enabler.”

  “I don’t smoke, do I?”

  “Small favors.”

  I plugged my phone into the car, and a second later the first strains of Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” filled the Explorer.

  Berg laughed. “Mind the road.”

  “Minding the road.”

  I wanted to keep driving. Listening to that beautiful if melancholy song, cheered by Berg’s soft chuckle, relishing the sun. Was I cut out for this job? After washing out of the police academy, was I cut out for anything? If I was meant to work alongside Berg, why did I want to run at every turn?

  Don’t do this job because you need to punish yourself. Maybe Berg was right and I was punishing myself. Like most people, I just wanted to make it through the day, and the next day and the next, and to do it with some measure of comfort and as little pain as possible. There was no virtue in that. It was quite ordinary.

  I turned the volume down a tad. “I think Joanne was more disturbed by that man at your door than she first let on. She said he was different, and not in a good way. He had no boundaries. She also mentioned shape-shifter videos on the internet.”

  From the corner of my eye I saw Berg shoot me a look.

  “Not that she thought he was one, but she was searching for a way to describe him,” I continued. “She said you’d vouch for her sanity, and she seemed grounded to me.”

  “Joanne possesses common sense, a rare quality these days. So does her husband. If she felt something, it was there to be felt.”

  “It wasn’t Nickle or Matt at your windows.”

  “I texted the plate number to Dempster, but I don’t want him to jeopardize his new job in Fort Collins. He’ll look it up if he can.” He folded his arms over his chest, as if to warm himself. “I don’t like where this is going.”

  “Should I turn up the heat?”

  “No need.”

  “That thing in the basement. I can’t get it out of my mind. I know spiritual warfare is real, but this was a . . . thing.”

  “Evil took shape, yes. For a second time.”

  “Only I didn’t quote Scripture to that shadow in the hall. It was all I could do not to pass out.”

  “You were alone and it took you by surprise. I don’t know if you realize it, Teagan, but I take a lot of comfort and strength from your presence.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. Berg took strength from me? Surely he was exaggerating, but it was kind of him to say so. Minutes later I nosed my car into our parking space at the church and shut off the engine. “Do you think that thing’s still in there?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But even if it’s gone and the Petersons feel safe enough to move back in, and even if Dempster arrests Nicole for murder and scares off the Nickles, this isn’t over by a long shot. What we’ve seen is the first salvo, nothing less.”

  “That’s what you’ve been mulling over.”

  “Talbert and Neal, the club, the lightning-bolt symbol . . .” His words trailed off. He opened the door and stepped down from the car.

  “We’re supposed to leave first thing tomorrow,” I said, clicking the remote, locking the doors. “On the plus side, I don’t think Carissa will be asking Lebec back again.”

  “Doubt it.”<
br />
  “But Liam and Sophie are coming home.”

  “Unless Matt and Carissa are prepared to make considerable changes, that’s not a good idea, and I plan to tell them so.”

  Inside the church, I locked the front doors and followed Berg into the sanctuary. Michael was drenched in sunshine, laying patches of red, purple, and gold across the podium and floor.

  I popped open my Coke, took a couple sips, and wolfed down some donut holes. The breakfast of champions. You’d think the blueberry scone would’ve satisfied me, but oh no.

  My diet at home was nothing to be proud of, but on the job it was abysmal. Berg was right: one of these days it would come back to bite me.

  “I’m going to take a quick look at the Petersons’ bedroom,” I said. “Matt’s stuff, actually. I want to snoop around before they come back.”

  Berg anchored his cane to the floor, ready to rise.

  “No, stay here. If I can’t walk to a room just down the hall in broad daylight, it’s pathetic. Let me do this.” I gave him my best upbeat, jovial smile, impressing upon him a confidence I didn’t feel.

  “You’ll be sensible?”

  “I often am.” I sat behind him. “You look more than tired, Berg. Is it the case or something else?”

  “Do you remember I told you I haven’t been honest with you?”

  “In the basement, yeah.”

  “You haven’t asked.”

  “I figured you’d tell me when you tell me.”

  “The last thing I want you to think is that I’ve never done anything for which I’m deeply ashamed. That I’ve never sinned terribly. We all sin. When we talk about it, we all say we sin, but when we’re face to face with the horror of that, when we finally understand what sin is—that it’s more than a word or even an action—we can’t bear it. We at last understand that it’s who we are without Christ. So we hide and lie to each other and try to forget. Maybe if I’d told you earlier, I could’ve relieved your own burden a little, because you, dear Teagan, have gotten it into your head that God has limits on his forgiveness. He forgives bank robbery, rape, and adultery—all that, yes—but not reading a book while a child, unknown to you, drowns.”