Dead Demon Walking Read Online Free

you dead?”
    Jack’s body followed his head as he
spun to face me. “Don’t be ridiculous. You know who killed
me!”
    “ Maybe Coleman had an
accomplice. Maybe this - ”
    “ Dale would never hurt me!”
he snapped. “You are so heading in the wrong direction with this,
Tiff.” He straightened up. “Tell him you can’t help him and
then leave him alone! ”
    And with that, he stalked from the
room, leaving me alarmed and Mel spinning with
excitement.
    “ Jack!” I
called.
    He stopped in the kitchen doorway,
then faded out.

Chapter Two
     
    “ Interesting,” Royal said.
“Do you think Jericho was involved in Jack’s death?”
    “ I’m not sure. They
definitely have a history, but Jack is adamant Dale had no part in
his murder.” I worried at my lower lip with my fingers as we parked
next the Mount Lomond Cemetery.
    Late August is a time of sudden,
violent storms. They are usually just a lot of noise, but this year
brought unseasonal rain. A dark cloudbank menaced the mountain
peaks as I got out the truck and walked to the cemetery. I hoped
this would not take long.
    The old graveyard didn’t get many new
occupants nowadays, just those whose family bought plots years ago.
The deceased almost filled the small, lonely place and I think
older coffins lay beneath the newer. I had not visited since my
childhood when I snuck away from the house to come up here. I spent
a grand afternoon, reading old gravestones, making up stories about
who hid beneath, and fell asleep in the shade under the hedge. I
woke hours later, in the dark, scared to death.
    On the East Bench, above where
Thirty-Third peters out, the cemetery is scrupulously maintained,
for the five mausoleums near the east wall belong to the old
families. The bones of Clarion’s founding fathers, whose
descendants spread their wealth throughout Utah, rest here. Many
grave markers resemble small, gray and weathered mausoleums among
other stones which tilt lopsidedly. The newer stones, by which I
mean those laid in the last fifty years, stand out like poor
relatives. A line of poplars rise behind the east wall, the roof of
a small house visible in breaks between them and a copse of ancient
yew outside the south wall mark the path to the parking area. I
always think the place looks unbalanced with the low wall and tall
stone posts which flank the entrance.
    The view over the valley is stunning,
but the wall does nothing to protect a person from the sharp winds
which can howl along the bench.
    I saw Harley Frost as we approached
the wall. He looked natty in his dark suit, glaring white shirt and
thin navy-blue tie as he slouched on his headstone. The old man
stood at his and wife Agatha’s burial plot the day of her funeral,
when his handyman walked from the gathered mourners and dented his
cranium with a shovel. Before anyone could react, Harley tumbled in
the hole, where he landed atop Agatha’s casket. And just like that,
God answered Harley’s insincere plea that he soon follow his loving
wife. Harley wasn’t pleased about that. He didn’t mean one word he
said at Agatha’s funeral.
    Mason Haskins told police he killed
Harley because the old monster made his wife’s life miserable. A
spur of the moment response to the pain eating his gut, the acid of
loss. Mason stood at Agatha’s graveside, mourning the woman he
loved, and lost control. His attorney will plead temporary
insanity.
    I trudged over cobblestones slicked by
an earlier rainfall. A brisk wind hit my exposed face and snuck
inside the gap at my neck where I left my collar unsnapped. Storm
clouds boiled in from the east at an awesome velocity.
    Harley and I already met the day
before, so I skipped the formalities. “Mr. Frost, a whole lot of
folk want a look at your will.”
    “ So you said yesterday. I
told you I didn’t make a will.”
    “ Yes you did. Last night I
found out Malcolm Grape witnessed one you made in 1989. He spoke of
it in a letter to his daughter.” Actually, Malcolm