“You mean a drug problem?” I prodded gently.
“Yeah. She started going out with this guy last year.” I could hear the distaste in Beth’s voice. “I don’t know where she met him. He’s too old to be in school. Anyway, that’s when she started to change.”
I remembered Scott Sherwood mentioning that Melanie had been acting strange for about a year. I also remembered how Patsy had shot him down when he mentioned it. My guess was she hadn’t appreciated the reminder that her daughter’s “possession” had coincided with her new relationship with a human man.
“The madder Mom got about stuff, the more Melanie changed. She was doing it just to make Mom mad, but Mom saw everything she did as proof that she was possessed. But it’s not a demon that’s making her act like that! It’s her sleazebag boyfriend!”
I sat back in my chair and wondered what I was supposed to do with this information. Technically, it was none of my business.
Yeah, and that was going to make me feel much better when Melanie Sherwood’s “purification” by fire made the evening news. I wasn’t sure what I could do to help. But at least I could try.
“Do you have any idea who Melanie might have gone to for help?”
“The only one I can think of is Rick the Prick.” She coughed. “Um, I mean her boyfriend.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “Shall I look him up in the phone book under ‘the Prick,’ or do you have a last name for him?”
Beth gave a little snort of laughter, quickly cut off. “You have to swear on your life you won’t tell my parents. I told them I didn’t know his name, because I don’t want them to find Mel.”
“I swear on my life I won’t tell them,” I promised.
Beth took a deep breath—for courage, I supposed. “He says his last name is Bull, but that could be, you know, bull .”
“It’s a start, at least,” I said. “I have a friend who’s a PI. We’ll see if we can locate Melanie.” Before Patsy and friends did.
“And can you help her? If you find her, I mean.”
“I don’t know,” I told her with complete honesty. “But I promise I’ll do everything I can.”
*
Barbara Paget was the kind of woman I usually disliked on sight. Petite, blond, curvy, and stunningly pretty, she looked like an adult version of the cliché vapid cheerleader from every teen flick I’d ever seen. I’d started calling her Barbie when we’d first met, and I’d been unable to break myself of the habit even now that I saw through the pretty packaging to the sharp, driven woman beneath. (Not that I’d tried very hard.)
She was a private investigator, and she’d been drafted to be a member of Lugh’s royal council when her investigations had led her to uncover forbidden knowledge. She’d turned out to be quite the valuable asset—and a decent human being, to boot. I was counting on her good nature to convince her to help me find Melanie Sherwood.
Barbie did not disappoint. After I told her about my meetings with the Sherwoods and Beth’s phone call, she volunteered to do a little digging—I didn’t even have to ask. Within twenty-four hours, she had unearthed an address for Richard Bull, aka Rick the Prick, and had put together a dossier that proved Beth was an excellent judge of character. I read through that dossier when Barbie brought it over to my apartment early Friday evening.
Richard Bull had been arrested five times since he’d turned eighteen—which was six years ago. The charges were all drug-related, but apparently nothing that would keep him off the streets for any extended period of time. The mug shots showed a scrawny, hollow-cheeked thug with greasy hair, bad skin, and soulless eyes. I couldn’t imagine what Melanie saw in him.