Daemon

technology problem. I’m in a twelve-step program.’
    Sebeck looked around at the car interior again. ‘How much is a car like this?’
    ‘About a hundred and thirty. But I talked them down to a hundred and twenty.’
    Sebeck winced. That was a third higher than his annual salary. A pang of jealousy stole over him. Surely police work was vital. Why did the white-collar professions earn so much more? It was a puzzle to him. One he didn’t think he was going to resolve.
    The Audi raced north, giving him plenty of time to try.
    Ross had a turn-by-turn map to the funeral home, but they could just as easily have followed the satellite news trucks. As they drove past the manicured front lawn of the funeral home, the parking lot overflowed with camera-ready protestors holding up signs reading
BURN IN HELL, SOBOL
, American flags, and yellow ribbons – while still others bore banners withanarchy symbols and pentagrams. It was a flea market of anger. Police and reporters with microphones vied with each other, alternately shoving back competing protestors and interviewing them. The side streets leading to the funeral home were blocked off by SBP traffic cops and sawhorses. No cars were allowed in.
    Ross turned to Sebeck. ‘I’m not sure about this.’
    ‘This is where I come in. Pull up to the roadblock.’
    Ross turned into the side street, and two policemen held up their hands to stop them, then pointed back at the main street.
    Sebeck lowered his passenger window and showed his badge. One of the cops came up to the window. Sebeck spoke with authority. ‘Detective Sergeant Sebeck, Ventura County Sheriff’s Department. I was heading the murder investigation in Thousand Oaks.’
    ‘Welcome to Santa Barbara, Sergeant. I saw you on the news. Park around back.’ He waved to the other cop to move the barrier aside. The first cop leaned down to Sebeck again. ‘The Feds are running the show inside.’
    Sebeck nodded and motioned for Ross to drive on through.
    They entered the funeral home through the rear door. After a brief discussion, one of the federal agents at the door peeled off to escort them to the chapel.
    As they moved through the rear hallways, the acrid smell of embalming chemicals and cleansers assaulted them. Men and women in suits were everywhere, going through files and computers in side offices and interviewing a man who appeared to be a mortician in a lab coat.
    Soon they passed through a double set of automated doors that let out onto an ornate hallway with marble tile floors. They could hear funerary music playing ahead, and another doorway brought them through a side entrance into a churchlike room with a podium, rows of pews, mountains of flowers,and a raised dais whereupon sat a bronze coffin on a pedestal draped in white satin. The lid of the coffin was partitioned for viewings, and the upper portion was raised – although the body within could not be seen from this vantage point.
    Everyone in the place looked like an FBI agent – including the dozen or so people sitting in the nearly empty pews up front. A crime scene photographer was busy taking photos of the room from every angle – although it wasn’t apparent what crime was being committed just now. Apparently the Feds didn’t want to wait.
    Ross gestured to the coffin. ‘Behold the devil himself.’
    The FBI agent escorting them excused himself to resume his post, leaving Sebeck and Ross standing in the doorway relatively alone. The sonorous tones of funeral Muzak were punctuated by the occasional squawking of police radios.
    Sebeck glanced around the room. It was remarkably unremarkable. Tapestries depicting generic salvation – lots of light beams coming from on high – hung down between the unexceptional stained glass windows. A stylized statue of Jesus stood at the head of the chapel, set into an alcove. It was eroded in a modern art sort of way to render it theologically inoffensive and appeared to be fashioned out of cheap, imitation-stone resin – stuff that would last until the Second Coming. Its hands were outstretched like an Australian-rules football referee signaling a goal, with robes hanging down.
    The room was modern and provided no sense of history or permanence. The floor sounded hollow under the heels, and on the whole the room reminded him more of a library annex than a chapel. It was sterile and unfeeling, except for the banks of flowers – all white lilies – which through their sheer numbers answered the