Cat Adams - Demon Song

She nodded. “What I can do until I hear from Vicki is check the board and the incoming bulletins, see if there have been reports of anything strange out there. I can do that without alerting anyone. We’re all supposed to look at those anyway, and I’m behind on them.” She smoothed her skirt as she stood. “If what you say is true, I’ll do whatever I have to do to get the priests out there, even if I have to drive one there myself.” She picked up the cassette and put it back in the machine. Without asking if I was ready, she pushed the record button. She remembered just where she left off. “Your incentive is to do the right thing. For yourself, for the people of this city, and for all of us who protect them.”

It was all true and, again, I didn’t disagree with the concept. I paused an appropriate length of time before responding. “I want to talk to a mage I know to find out more about the process … and the consequences . Call me tomorrow about this same time and I’ll have an answer for you. Deal?”

She reached across the desk with her right hand and also met my eyes in a way that wasn’t for the tape. “Deal.”

After a few more pleasantries to show she had taped the whole interview—as such—she left. I sat in my chair, thinking a thousand different thoughts.

6

By thetime I went downstairs, to both stretch my legs and take the soggy, sticky tissues to the main trash can in the kitchen—which got emptied every day, unlike mine, which I dumped whenever I got around to it—the investigator had arrived. I’d only worked with Shawn Beall once before, but he’d done a good job and had only charged for his actual time. When you’re a sole proprietor, money is the bottom line—regardless of the client’s ability to pay. My goal was not to gouge Vicki’s estate. I wanted the truth, whether it came cheap or expensive. But cheap was always better.

Shawn followed me back to my office and took the chair Alex had so recently vacated. Shawn is one of those guys you wouldn’t really look at twice. He looks like a computer geek … and he is. But the small frame, unruly dark hair, and pop bottle glasses hide a sneaky, near-criminal mind and a surprisingly athletic body. He’s got the wiry frame and agility of a long-distance runner along with the determination of a pit bull. The combination is the gold standard of a good investigator.

“So, what have you got for me?”

He pulled an envelope from an inner jacket pocket and handed it over. “Wish I had more, but there’s more dead ends than leads. Take a look. I’ll answer any questions I can.”

I slit the envelope and scanned the pages inside. The first page was a profile of one Michael Murphy, known as Mickey or Mick to family and friends. The photo was just as I remembered him at Vicki’s Will reading. Carrot orange hair was neatly combed to the side and a scattering of freckles dotted his face below vivid green eyes. I remembered a cultured southern accent that got stronger the more befuddled he was. There had been plenty to be surprised about that day. The only person more shocked than her parents, best friend, and lover to learn that Vicki had left a quarter of her multimillion-dollar estate to a total stranger was the stranger himself.

I’d been tasked to find out why she’d done it.

I was still wrapping my head around the fact that she’d trusted her clairvoyant gift enough to write a Will that would inevitably be challenged. While it was no crime to give money to a total stranger, it was a little odd and might lend credence to her mother’s allegation that Vicki wasn’t in her right mind.

So, my goal was to prove there was a good and valid reason for my friend’s act before the lawsuit went to court. Fortunately, the law firm Vicki had used was one of the best in the state, so I was pretty sure I’d have all the time I needed to search.

Mickey had a wife, Molly, and two daughters: Beverly, aged twelve, and Julie, who was eight. They lived in a comfortable home in Fool’s Rush, Arkansas, where Mickey was a law clerk for the local county judge. Molly ran a diner she’d inherited from her parents, and the girls were above-average students. “Okay, so pretty normal people.” I flipped the dozen pages. I didn’t want to sit here and read while Shawn stared at me. “Give me the condensed version.”

“Sure,” he said with a nod. He settled back into the seat and interlocked his fingers over his stomach, his arms resting comfortably on the padded rests. “I checked all the obvious connections first. Vicki is English on her mother’s side and, despite the surname, German on her father’s. Cassandra Meadows can trace her lineage to the Mayflower and, trust me, a thousand fans have done so quite convincingly. Jason Cooper’s grandfather emigrated from Germany after the First World War—the family surname was formerly Braun. Nobody really knows how or why the name was changed at Ellis Island, but it appears the government had something to do with it. I’ll have to do more checking, but it looks like Franz Braun was a chemical scientist and our government wanted something he’d invented.” That piqued my curiosity and I began to ask questions, but Shawn held up a hand bearing a rather heavy gold wedding ring to stop me. “That doesn’t really matter right now, because Mickey Murphy’s family comes from old Irish stock. Molly is apparently quite the amateur genealogist and was happy to show me the scrapbooks she’s put together.”

Since the investigation had been requested in front of Mr. Murphy, it seemed logical to have Shawn interview them openly. “Mickey’s multi-great-grandfather came to this country to help the colonists fight England. He used his salary to bring his wife and kids over. No prior trips to either Germany or England and I can’t find anything to indicate that the Murphys or DeVeres—Molly’s family—ever mingled or crossed paths with the Coopers or Meadowses. Of course there could be something that I missed, since I’m not a specialist in such things. I hope it’s okay that I subcontracted out part of the search to a company that specializes in lineage searches.”

I like it when investigators don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Find people who do the specific job, pay them, and get back to work. “No problem at all. Is the information in here to give to the attorney?”

He nodded. “At this point, I’m wondering how you want me to proceed. I could sit back and wait for the genealogy report, or look for something in the present time that directly ties Ms. Cooper to the Murphys. It could be as simple as them meeting at some point in the past that she didn’t consciously remember. A flat tire he helped fix, a really good meal at Molly’s diner, who knows? Finding that out would require lots of interviews and time on the road. And it might turn up nothing. Ultimately, how much money do you want to throw at this?”

Well, Vicki could be absentminded. It was the mark of clairvoyants that they could disappear into the future and totally forget what was happening in the present. So it might well be that simple. “Speaking of being on the road, the summer after college Vicki took a long trip to ‘find herself.’ She rented a car and drove from her mother’s place in New York to her own home, California. I’d gotten the impression at the time that it was a fast trip, just a few days. But maybe it had taken longer. Maybe things happened that she just didn’t remember, a hundred visions and a half decade later.”

He tilted his head with an odd look and pulled a pad from his pocket. “First time I’m hearing that, and I spent a couple of hours talking to her parents.” His pen tapped on the page. “New York to California, huh? A lot of ground to cover in a couple of days. Do you remember anything she told you? You were best friends even then, right? Did she rave or rant about anything?”