“This is so Nero Wolfe.” Rachel snuggled against me on the couch as I set up the laptop.
“Nero Wolfe? He’s fat. Why can’t I be Hercule Poirot?” I lit the candles with a cigarette lighter.
“Because this way I’m Archie Goodwin, instead of that stupid Captain Hastings.” She elbowed my ribs. “Don’t worry, you look fine.”
Jasmine came on first. “Hello, Tom. Hi, Rachel.”
“Thanks for doing this, Jasmine.” I sat back. “I don’t know exactly how it’s going to go, but—Hi, Marcus.”
Marcus Keene was next, followed by Frank Starrett. Then Joe Busch and Anis. Everyone said hello to each other, and for a moment it was like a normal Zoom session. Then Warren came in.
He smiled. “Hey, everybody! What’s going on?”
“Thanks for coming, everyone.” Yeah, I did feel like a detective hero drawing all the suspects together, at least in a row at the bottom of the screen. Except I didn’t feel very heroic. I tried to hide that. “At the risk of sounding like, uh, Nero Wolfe—” I glanced at Rachel. “This is the situation. Four years ago you guys held a séance in Charmaine Attlee’s apartment room, and summoned up a demon named Azar. Now Charmaine’s dead, along with Natalie McGinnis. Both of them left the name ‘Azar’ behind when they killed themselves. Charmaine and Natalie both had nightmares about Azar in the nights before they killed themselves. And Anis is having nightmares too. Is that right?”
Anis unmuted herself and nodded. “Yeah.”
“So that’s one common denominator. The other one is Warren. You dated all three of them at one point, right?”
Warren blinked. “Yeah. So what?”
“And when they dumped you, you stalked them.”
He sat back. “Now wait a minute—”
I had the power to mute him, and I did it. “What I want to do tonight is recreate that séance, find Azar, and send him back to hell before he can hurt anyone else.”
Joe Busch leaned forward. “I’m in.” Anis, her face pale, gulped and nodded.
“Me too.” Marcus ran a hand over his scalp.
Frank Starrett shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”
I unmuted Pierce. “Warren?”
He clenched his jaw. “This is BS. I don’t believe in any of it.”
“Then it won’t hurt if you stay, will it?” I tapped Jasmine’s picture. “Are you ready? Folks, this is Jasmine. She does séances. Anytime you’re ready.”
I watched Warren as Jasmine went through her intro. He ducked down, and I thought I heard a snort. He rose back up, wiping his nose, glaring at his screen. “All right.”
Rachel and I held hands. The candles around the computer flickered. Marcus stared straight ahead, breathing heavily. Anis and Joe Busch held each other. Starrett simply stared into the screen.
After a few minutes of silence, Jasmine spoke. “Is there a spirit near?”
No one spoke. Not a surprise. Starrett didn’t seem to be taking it seriously. And Warren was obviously fighting.
Then Jasmine said, “I’m calling on Azar now. Azar, are you nearby? Speak.”
Rachel and I squeezed hands, waiting. What if nothing happened? What if this backfired? It never happened to Nero Wolfe, but—
I held my breath.
Then Warren l lurched back, his body jerking as if he was having a seizure. “Ah—ah—oh! Ahhhh . . .”
His face twisted, red and suddenly sweaty, and his neck bent. His eyes narrowed to black dots.
“Warren?” Jasmine tried a hushed tone. “Warren, are you—”
“I am Azar!” The shout threatened to blow out my laptop’s speakers. I leaned back. Rachel stayed perched on the edge of the sofa. Yeah, she’s braver than me.
“Warren!” I forced myself to lean forward. “Push Azar out! Make him go away!”
His face loomed into the screen. “I’ll never go back!”
I gripped the edge of the table. “Warren! He’ll kill you. Just like he killed Charmaine and Natalie. Don’t let him control you! Get rid of him!”
Warren sat back. At the bottom of the screen, everyone watched, shocked and frightened. Especially Anis and Joe.
Warren’s shoulders squirmed. Tears streamed down his cheeks—tears of rage. He opened his jaws wide, exposing yellow teeth and a blood red tongue. “No!” Whether it was Azar or Warren, the scream was thunderous. “No!”
“Jasmine! Can you do anything?” She was a medium, so maybe . . .
Jasmine glared at me. “I don’t—I’m not an exorcist!” But she leaned her face forward. “Spirits don’t stay where they’re not welcome. Azar, you are not welcome here! Go back!”
Joe clutched Anis around the shoulders. Marcus’s face shook. Starrett looked stunned, as if he’d wandered into an ongoing crime scene. Rachel squeezed my hand so tightly I had to pull away.
Suddenly Warren’s eyes blinked. His sat back, his face going pale. He wiped a hand across his nose. “What—what?”
“Warren?” I lifted a hand. “Are you okay?”
He shook his head wildly. “Goddamn you. All of you. If Charmaine hadn’t—done that—I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t . . .” He started crying. “I never wanted to be a lawyer!” He reached out of the screen and yanked up a bottle of vodka for a long gulp. “But when my grandmother—my grandmother . . .” He wiped his nose with his sleeve. “I hate this! I hate you! I hate all of you!”
“Warren . . .” This came from Marcus. “She was a ghost. It was just a goof. You didn’t have to—”
“She was my grandmother! I couldn’t—goddamn it. I tried, I tried, but every day it just got worse.” His face started getting red again. “Then I started dreaming about that thing, that—Azar? And I was back in that room, with all of you, and that’s when my life turned to hell.”
“So that’s when you decided to take revenge?” I asked. “On the women who dumped you?”
Another gulp of vodka. “I got fired. Laid off. Whatever you want to call it. Because of this damn coronavirus. I got fired from a job I hate, because of Charmaine and her stupid games!”
Rachel and I looked at each other. Now what? She shrugged, helpless. Great.
I turned back to the screen. “Warren? What Jasmine said. You have to let Azar go. Get him out of your system. You can do this.”
“No.” He shook his head. “Yes. No. No, no, no . . .”
His face turned dark red, and his eyes started to glow. He lurched back, his body twitching. “Yes. Yes!”
Azar again. Did I screw up?
Jasmine came on. “You are not welcome here. Go, Azar. Leave this realm.”
“No.” Warren’s voice was a hoarse grunt. “No. Not before—until—”
His body jerked back. The vodka bottle flew sideways, drenching his screen. Warren shrieked in agony, clutching at his hair. “Ah! Fuck! Shit! Ohhh . . .”
Then he collapsed backward, leaving an empty screen.
I picked up my phone. “Does anyone know his address? I have to call 911.”
Anis spoke in a whisper. “I have one address. It’s in the city, it’s old, I don’t know if it’s any good.”
“Why should we—” But Joe stopped. “Okay. That’s fine.”
Anis read me the address from her phone. I called 911.
The police would have lots of questions. After the call and before we signed off from the Zoom séance, I advised everybody to tell the truth, and refer any questions to me. “They won’t believe you—they don’t usually believe me. But it’s safer to go with what you know instead of trying to lie.”
“Uh, right.” Marcus Keene looked nervous as everyone else clicked off. “I’m kind of sorry I started this.”
“Not your fault.” At least we’d saved Anis. I hoped.
Jasmine was the last one left. “That was—intense.”
“Yeah. Do you think Azar is gone?”
She rubbed her eyes. “I felt . . . a presence. It seemed to vanish when Warren dropped from sight. But I can’t be sure.”
Of course not. “All right. Thanks for your help.”
“Anytime.” She winked. “Nice seeing you, Rachel.”
“Yeah, same here.” Rachel stood up as I shut down the laptop. “Beer.”
I nodded. “Lots.”
My phone buzzed a few minutes later, just as we were sitting down to another episode of Real Housewives of Wherever. I sighed, grabbed my beer, and headed into the office. “Tom Jurgen speaking.”
“Jurgen? This is detective Chelsea Porter of the Chicago PD. You called in a 911 on Warren Pierce?”
“That was me, yes.” I sipped my beer. “Is he all right? We were on a Zoom call together—”
“He’s dead.”
Oh no. “Warren Pierce was possessed by—or channeling—a demon named Azar, who killed Charmaine Attlee and Natalie McGinnis, and was on its way to killing a woman named Anis Busch, or Anis Welch. They were all friends at the U of C four years ago, and there was a séance—”
“Wait, wait, wait. Shut up.” Porter groaned. “Okay, come down to police headquarters first thing tomorrow—and be ready to tell the truth. This sounds crazy.”
I stifled a sigh. “I know. For what it’s worth, talk to detective Anita Sharpe. She thinks I’m crazy too.”
Sharpe and I had worked together on vampire cases. She’d vouch for me—even if she didn’t like me that much.
“All right. Nine o’clock.”
I yawned. “I may be a little late. Tough day.”
Porter hung up.
Right away my phone buzzed again. Marcus Keene. “Everything all right? I just talked to a cop on the phone. I told him—what you said. He sounded annoyed.”
“They usually do.” I rubbed my forehead. “I’m going downtown tomorrow morning to try and sort this out. Let me if know if they keep harassing you. I can’t promise anything, but at some point, they sometimes listen to me.”
He sighed. “Okay. Send me your bill.”
Most of his bill had been covered by the retainer. But I thanked him and headed back to the living room.
“Oh, look!” Rachel pointed at the TV. “Pool fight!”
The real housewives were splashing and tugging at each other’s bikini tops. Ordinarily I would have been fascinated. Right now, though?
I stood up again and headed for the kitchen, even though I didn’t need another beer right now. Instead I sat down at the table and found Joe Busch’s number.
“Hello? Oh, hi, Tom.” His voice was low. “Anis is asleep.”
“Is she all right?”
“I think so. She’s not talking, or rolling around or anything. Just quiet. Like, for the first time in a few days. I’m watching her.”
Good. “I hope this is over.”
“Yeah. Me too. Thanks, Tom.”
“Call me if anything changes.”
“I think she’s fine. It was weird, right?”
I nodded. “Definitely.”
Back in the living room, I slouched on the sofa. Rachel glanced at me. “Everything okay?”
“I think so. Anis is asleep, and I have to go talk to the cops tomorrow morning. And . . .” I reached for my beer. “Maybe Azar’s gone. But Warren is dead, so . . . Not quite the win I was hoping for.”
Rachel stroked my arm. “Not your fault.”
“Yeah.” I leaned my head on her shoulder. “I just hope for good dreams.”
# # #
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