Diana Rowland - Secrets of the Demon

He gestured downward and I peered into the ditch. It was a decent six-foot drop down to the bottom where Roger Peeler lay, faceup, with mud streaked across his face and torso. The lower half of his body was still in the water, which didn’t look to be more than a foot deep and only about three feet across at its widest spot.

“Dunno if you can see it from up here,” he said, “but there’s some blood on the back and side of his head.”

I nodded. “I see it.” Now I was interested to see where he was going with this. I had an enormous amount of respect for Scott and his experience. He’d have been a shitty detective, but he was one of the best street cops I’d ever known.

“Saw something like it on a body a buncha years back,” he told me, tone still as conversational as if we’d been talking about whether the Saints would win the Super Bowl again this year. “Guy got jumped in the bathroom at Rosie’s Roadhouse and after he got a good beatdown they shoved his head into the john and drowned his ass.”

I had to shudder. I’d been in the women’s bathroom at Rosie’s before and had been completely grossed out. I doubted that the men’s room was any classier.

“Dude put up a fight,” Scott said, “but whoever was holding him had a solid grip. So solid that his scalp tore a bit during the struggle.”

I breathed a curse, my eyes on the body of Roger. “Same thing here, right?” I asked. Scott nodded. “I told him to be careful,” I muttered. “I told him to not go anywhere by himself.”

“Then he shoulda listened to you better,” Scott replied with a scowl. Then he shook his head. “But I know it’s gonna eat you up for a while. I get it.”

I gave him a small smile. This was why he was one of my favorite people. “Thanks, Scott. So, can you give me the gist?”

He jerked a thumb toward the other officer. “I’ll let Gordon do the honors. He’s my latest trainee, and I’m actually not worried that he’s going to shoot me by accident. Can you believe it? We might have a keeper here!”

Officer Gordon gave me an amused smile and extended a hand. “Tracy Gordon. Pleasure to meet you, Detective. Sergeant Glassman says you’re not clueless, which I understand is one of his highest compliments.”

I gave a low laugh and shook his hand. He had a lovely rich baritone that I could have listened to all day. “I have him thoroughly snowed. Good to meet you.”

He winked, then released my hand and flipped open his notebook. “A Ms. Jeanne Henry, white female, forty-three years old, was out walking her dog at approximately oh-nine-thirty. Her dog, Scooper, a three-year-old Labradoodle, began to pull at the leash and bark and led her to this point where she saw the victim facedown in the ditch.”

“I’m sorry,” I interrupted. “What the hell is a Labradoodle, and how did you know it was three years old?” I asked, mildly incredulous.

His lips twitched. “A Labradoodle is a cross between a Labrador and a Poodle. I asked Ms. Henry how old the dog was—”

Scott interrupted with a snort. “No, Kara, I wish you could have seen this. Gordon here is the smoothest of the smooth talkers. This lady was spilling everything she knew about everything. In another couple minutes he coulda convinced her to give up her account numbers and passwords!”

Officer Gordon merely smiled and dropped his eyes back to his notebook. “Ms. Henry advised that she is an ER nurse, and that as soon as she saw the victim she climbed down and pulled him out of the water and attempted to resuscitate. However, she realized fairly quickly that rigor had begun to set in and ceased her resuscitation attempt. At this time she dialed nine-one-one on her cell phone and notified our agency. EMS responded at oh-nine-forty-seven and verified death. Sergeant Glassman and I arrived at oh-nine-fifty-four and secured the scene.”

I shot a look to Scott. “What do you want to bet ... a year and a half before he’s recruited to come to Investigations?”

“If that!” he replied sourly.

I gave Officer Gordon a nod. “You have contact info for the witness?”

In response he flipped to the next page in his little notebook and pulled a sheet out and handed it to me. On it was everything I could ever want to know about the witness and how to contact her, including home phone, cell phone, work phone, email, place of employment, and her work hours.

“I have no words,” I stated. Holy shit, but I wanted a dozen more like him on the road.

I tucked the page into my notebook, then turned back to the ditch, taking in what I could of the scene. The bank of the ditch had numerous boot marks and shoe impressions, many of them probably from EMS when they’d run an EKG strip to confirm death. But I wasn’t looking for footprints. Even without shifting into othersight the distinctive resonance hummed through me. The golem had done this.

“Has this been photographed?” I asked.

“Gordon here took pics,” Scott said with a nod toward the other officer. “I called out the lab, but I figured we should get some pics before everyone and their brother got to traipsing around down there.”

“And that’s why you’re the best,” I said fervently.

He snorted. “Words mean nothing to me. Buy me a beer later.”

“I’ll do that.” I gave him a friendly clout on the shoulder, then moved to where the majority of the scuff marks were and began to clamber down into the ditch. I wanted to get as much of a feel of the resonance as possible, and since some pics had already been taken I didn’t feel too guilty for possibly disturbing evidence. Besides, I doubt the golem was wearing shoes.

Miraculously, I managed to reach the bottom without tripping and doing a face-plant into the water. I crouched beside Roger’s body as the spasm of guilt tightened my chest again. Should I have done more to warn him that he could be in danger? But what else could I have done? Something. Anything.

I sighed and shifted into othersight, confirming what I’d felt from the top. I looked across the ditch. From my crouched position I could see gouges in the opposite bank. He tried to climb out and was pulled back down. I let my gaze travel over the body. He was wearing his Magnolia Fitness Center T-shirt with TRAINER on the chest, long athletic pants, and sneakers—on his way to work. He came out of his apartment and went to his car, I mused, then saw the golem, took off running. That would explain why he was so far away from the complex. But the golem could be fast. I’d seen that for myself. And Roger hadn’t been running in a while, so he probably wasn’t as fast as he might have once been. It was dark and maybe Roger didn’t see the ditch, or perhaps he thought he could gain some time by going through it? Either way, the golem caught up with Roger and dragged him back down, then simply held his head under the water until he stopped struggling.

I swiped my finger across the mud on Roger’s shoulder, then rubbed it between my thumb and finger. A faint flicker of the resonance seemed to prickle my fingertips. It melted a bit as it held Roger under. But not all the way. This mud had a clay-like consistency, and the dirt in the ditch seemed to be mostly sandy. There were a couple of glops of the mud scattered in the vicinity, but nowhere near enough to account for a whole golem. Or even a decent-sized piece of one.

“Fuck,” I muttered, then stood and clambered back up the bank with help from Gordon and Scott. Brushing mud and dirt off my pants, I scanned the area for Knight. I finally spotted him at the edge of the complex parking lot. He was crouching and looking at something on the ground and I headed his way.