Blood Hunt

by Lee Killough

  With that family history and what the librarian said about Lane’s behavior and treatment in high school, no wonder she embraced being a vampire. It gave her the power to take revenge on the world.

  He pulled his attention back to Mary Catherine. “How would Adele have known where Mada was?”

  “She’d been widowed and was living with Ben. Except for several years after running away with the professor, Mada always keeps in touch with Anna...letters, phone calls. I think she did write in that time...from your grandmother’s about her situation...but Anna never got the letter because Adele intercepted it and got so mad she decided to go tell Mada just what she thought of her. Giving her name as Maggie Bieber let Mada know someone knew who she really was.”

  The plausibility of the story and its smooth dove-tailing with his cover story left Garreth suddenly feeling as if he were wading and lost contact with the bottom...that reality was blurring, and with it his ability to distinguish between the true Mikaelian and role he played here.

  Mary Catherine gave an emphatic nod. “I believe when Mada abandoned your father, she went on to Europe like she and the professor originally planned, and that’s why Anna believes she was there the whole time. Even though I’m sure Adele spitefully tried to convince Anna otherwise. Ask Mada about it if you’re here at Thanksgiving or Christmas. I don’t see how it would embarrass her now. Nothing does as far as I can tell. She tells the most scandalous stories about herself.”

  No...the least scandalous stories, nothing touching the truth about her...Lane the vampire, the killer.

  He gave Mary Catherine sincere thanks as he left. “You’ve answered important questions for me. I will stick around and see Mada.”

  But he needed to arrange a logical way to do so.

  Taking a back way to the hotel, he considered the most obvious option. Signing on to the local PD fit the I Ching advice Lien gave him when he left San Francisco, that acting to re-create order must be done with proper authority. His conscience stung at trying for a job that deserved a commitment he knew impossible to honor, but if Grandma Doyle were right about his continued existence being only to bring Lane to justice, they would never learn he joined knowing it would be temporary. Not that Nat’s desire to recruit him made acceptance a slam dunk. He doubted Nat had hiring authority and who knew how whoever did might feel about it.

  7

  Whatever the attitude of those doing the hiring might be when the subject came up, Nat had clearly created some interest here in the PD office. When Garreth walked up to the glass of the front desk a bit before eight, a plump young woman swivelled from a long communications desk that divided the receiving area from one with desks and file cabinets and gave him a bright smile.

  “You must be Garreth Mikaelian.” She hurried over to eye him with interest through the glass, from head to the sport coat he put on for the evening, to jeans and boots, then opened a door at the end of the desk to let him in. “I’m Sue Ann Pfeifer, the evening dispatcher.”

  A real Pfeifer. Who smelled of blood and...chocolate?

  “Would you like a chocolate chip cookie? I brought a fresh batch this evening.” She pointed to a plate of cookies sitting between the radio and teletype on the communications desk.

  The smell brought a vivid memory of his mother baking. He remembered the taste...so sweet then, nauseating to think of now. “No thank you. I’m not a cookie eater.”

  She sighed and patted a generous hip. “I shouldn’t be either. Tomorrow — ”

  “...You’re going to go on a diet.” Nat appeared out of a hallway at the back of the room, buckling on his gear belt. “I’m glad you decided to come. Maggie Lebekov here is just getting ready to go off duty, so come and meet her.”

  He stopped beside a desk where an attractive, trim brunette in her twenties sat typing a report.

  “Maggie is our Afternoon officer, our expert with juveniles and domestic disputes. Maggie, this is Garreth Mikelian.”

  Garreth came around the communications desk, holding out his hand. “Glad to meet you.”

  She glanced up no farther than his hand, and returned to typing. “Nat, I forgot to mention Scott Dreiling has the keys to his Trans Am again. I guess Mama couldn’t stand her baby not being able to drive himself to school and football practice.”

  Garreth examined his fingers for frostbite. Terrific. They had Up-Against-the-Car Duncan and Ice Queen Lebekov. So much for being a friendly department. Did he really want to work here?

  Nat’s ears reddened. “Let me show you the rest of the station.”

  That consisted, downstairs here, of the complaint, communication, and officer desk areas, a locker room for personnel that doubled as an interview room, and across the hallway from it, a look through a glass panel into Chief Kenneth Danzig’s office, which also held the evidence lockers. All of which could fit into Homicide’s office with room to spare. Upstairs they had three cells — male, female, and juvenile — and a drunk tank. Empty at the moment.

  “These are basically holding cells.,” Nat said. “Anyone with real jail time goes to the county lockup in Bellamy.” He sighed. “I apologize for the reception you got from Maggie. It’s my fault. I was telling her all about you and Wayne, making it pretty clear I hoped I could talk you into applying here. If you come on, you’ll get the shift I have now, which she’s been wanting.”

  A perfect shift for a vampire, but... “She would have seniority, though, so — ”

  Nat cut him off with a head shake. “Nope. Danzig’s okay with female officers but he won’t let one patrol alone at night.”

  Lebekov was gone from the officer area when they came downstairs again. Nat picked a portable radio out of a rack by the hallway. “Okay, Sue Anne, we’re going 10-8.”

  She beamed at them. “Let’s be careful out there.”

  He saluted and led the way down the hall out the rear entrance to the parking lot. After running through a check of the patrol car’s lights, siren, and shotgun, Nat steered out of the parking lot and east on Oak.

  “Sorry you didn’t get to meet more of us tonight.” He peered in his outside mirror at a battered pickup which passed them going the other direction. “Briefly, Danzig’s been chief for three years. Came from the Wichita PD. He’s...pragmatic...prefers keeping the peace to law enforcement, following the spirit of the law more than the letter of it. He listens to complaints and ideas we have, cares that we have decent equipment and continued training...because good equipment keeps us safer, he says, and pride in it makes us better cops. But you need to always be straight with him. Don’t step out of line or he’ll land hard on you, and your arrests and evidence better not get thrown out of court for irregularities.

  “Lieutenant Byron Kaufman is a twenty year man who definitely prefers peace keeping. I doubt he’s ever drawn his weapon except to qualify at the range. Never had to. If talk won’t work on an offender, he’s a ninja with a baton. He knows this town and the people inside out, and remembers every detail of every case since he joined. Bill Pfannenstiel, our other officer, is almost a carbon copy. They’re both a little old fashioned about women in police work.”

  “Do they give Lebekov static?”

  “Not as such, but they tend to be condescending...sure she’s just playing cops and robbers until Mr. Right comes along. She wants to prove she isn’t and is as good as any male officer. Danzig hired her not long after he came. She was a dispatcher before, on Sue Ann’s shift, wanting to be an officer...but Sewing, the old chief, didn’t believe in women cops. Neither did the mayor and council until Danzig argued we needed a female for handling juveniles, domestic situations, and rape victims.”

  So they presumably had to approve him, too.

  “She’s homegrown like Kaufman, Pfannenstiel, and me. Duncan’s semi-homegrown, from Russell. Came here after a hitch in the Marines to share a house with his sister and her two kids.”

  “He’s not a peace keeper type.”

  Nat shook his head. “But a big stick can be u
seful.” They turned on to Kansas Avenue. “Welcome to the teen cruise and, along with tomorrow night, our heaviest traffic of the week.”

  It was, Garreth reflected, a matter of perspective and proportion. Hardly heavy traffic by Market Street or Embarcadero standards, but still...a stream of cars, pickups, and vans looping south to the Pizza Hunt and across the tracks north to the Sonic Drive-In and back across the tracks south again. The vehicles frequently pulling up alongside each other for the occupants to call across the space between. Considering Baumen’s size, the number impressed Garreth.

  “Do you really have this many teenagers?” Every one with a vehicle and a driver’s license must be here.

  “They come in from the farms and down from Lebeau, too. There isn’t much else to do Friday and Saturday night other than the movies, and football this time of year. And tonight the football team isn’t playing.” Ahead of them a girl leaned out a passenger window toward the car next to them. Nat burped the siren. “Stay in the car!”

  She made a face but pulled back inside.

  “Do you write them up for things like that?”

  Nat shook his head. “Duncan sometimes does. I tend to cut them slack. I’ve — ”

  “Been there?” Garreth said.

  Nat grinned, then frowned. “Now he...” he said, pointing at a black Trans Am dodging between lanes on the other side of the tracks, “...is something else. Scott Dreiling, perennial offender...or at least perennially offensive.” He whipped the car over the tracks at the next crossing and worked his way toward the Trans Am. “Daddy’s on the city council, which Scott thinks entitles him to diplomatic immunity.” He pulled alongside the Trans Am and shouted across Garreth toward the blond boy at the wheel. “Scott, try driving like you want to keep those car keys. Officer Duncan is on duty tonight, too.”

  They pulled ahead. In the side mirror, Garreth watched Scott raise a middle finger after them. “Does the threat of a big stick work?”

  Nat rolled an eye toward him. “That was a reminder, not a threat. Just listen to Duncan run DL’s and registrations tonight to warn the kids he’s watching. And speaking of the devil...”

  Garreth glanced over to see another patrol car overtake them on his side. Duncan grinned across at him. “You should have told me you were a cop the other night instead of letting me make an ass of myself.”

  Garreth bit back the obvious reply.

  “Is it true you broke every bone in Hepner’s hand? Good going! I wish I’d been there to see it. Has Nat convinced you to apply here yet? We need someone else who knows how to get physical.” Giving Garreth a thumbs up, he pulled on ahead.

  Garreth stared after him. “Tell me you don’t see me as the next big stick.”

  Nat laughed. “Nope. We only need one. The way you handled Wayne in the Main Street made me think of Bill Pfannenstiel talking raging drunks to their knees in tears.”

  The radio crackled. “Baumen Three. See Mrs. Linda Mostert at 215 South Cottonwood about a missing person.”

  Nat keyed the mike. “En route. It sounds like Mr. Halverson is wandering again.”

  Mr. Amos Halverson turned out to be Mrs. Mostert’s father, a healthy but sometimes confused old man who regularly took walks and forgot his way home. By talking to people in yards along the street, they learned the gentleman had headed north. Twenty minutes later they located him working on his third beer in the Cowboy Palace and drove him home.

  Returning to patrol, Garreth said, “I wonder if he’s all that confused. You realize we paid for his beer and gave him transportation home?”

  Nat shrugged. “He’s earned it. He ran a grocery store when I was a kid and a lot of times gave me and my sisters free candy. Once when my dad was out of work for six months, he carried us on credit ‘til Dad could pay again.”

  Not something that happened these days, although Garreth remembered being told that Mr. Campera, the bodega owner Wink O’Hare killed, had done that for some regular customers. A kindness which added to the outrage the neighborhood felt at his death.

  Past the Pizza Hut Nat turned left onto 282 and checked the businesses along there. He had a conversation with a couple parked behind Walmart before letting them leave — “Minors,” Nat said — but found no one behind the Dillons supermarket and Co-op. Radio traffic indicated Duncan was indeed busy running car registrations and drivers licenses. Which did not include Scott Dreiling’s.

  Another pass along Kansas at eleven found the cruise traffic down to a last few vehicles, the Sonic and Pizza Hut closed, and the last of the late show patrons at the movie theater leaving for home.

  Nat returned to 282 and pulled into the American Legion parking lot. “Time for a break, before Ed goes off duty.” He keyed his mike. “Three Baumen, 10-10 at the Legion. We’ll come sometime when the dining room’s open. Best steaks in town. But the bar food is good, too, and that’s served until the bar and hall close at one.”

  Garreth followed him inside. “I ate earlier.” Finished the last of his blood supply. Tonight he needed a cattle run. “I’ll have tea, though.”

  “Why not check out the pool tables. The game room is that way.” He pointed.

  The game room had two pool tables along with card tables and dart boards. Both tables had players but as Garreth came in, the men at the nearest one looked up to eye him with interest...both early forties, a fit-looking country club type and the other instantly recognizable as a cop, with shoulders capable of battering through a felon’s door.

  Country Club smiled. “Are you looking for someone?”

  “No...just checking out your tables while Nat grabs a bite at the bar.”

  “Nat Toews?” Country Club’s eyebrows rose. “Are you the guy who helped him rescue that waitress last night? Glad to meet you. Al Dreiling.”

  “Garreth Mikaelian. Are you Scott’s father?” Which made him one of those responsible for approving police hires.

  The cop turned back to the table without introducing himself...not acting hostile, just more concerned about his game. With reason, Garreth saw. The six ball sat literally behind the eight ball and not in line for the pocket.

  “You’ve met my son?” Dreiling beamed. “Great kid isn’t he.”

  Garreth hunted a diplomatic reply. “I’ve only met him in passing so far.”

  The cop smiled.

  Dreiling said, “Care to join us for a quick game, since I think my esteemed opponent is stymied and we might as well start over.”

  Not hardly stymied. Garreth’s fingers itched for a cue. “May I have a try?”

  “Be my guest,” the cop said.

  Garreth picked a cue from the rack, chalked it while studying the table, lined up, and hit the cue ball low. It jumped the eight ball and kissed the six, which brushed against the nine and deflected just enough to slide along the cushion into the pocket. Then Garreth finished clearing the table.

  Dreiling blinked. The cop laughed. “Nat said don’t bet against him.”

  Nat said. Suspicion flared in Garreth.

  Nat appeared in the game room door. “Let’s roll, amigo. We’ve got a domestic. Tom Loxton.”

  The name meant nothing to Garreth but the cop swore, confirming Garreth’s suspicions.

  “You set me up,” he said as they ran for the car. “That was Chief Danzig with Dreiling.”

  “Guilty.” Nat flipped on his light bar and peeled out of the parking lot. “He wanted a candid look at you. I didn’t know he’d bring Dreiling, but the man was smiling so I’d say it worked out.”

  Garreth hoped. “I take it this Loxton’s bad news?”

  “Oh yeah. Not only a mean drunk who’s put his wife in the hospital a couple of times but he has man-eating Rottweilers. If they’re loose we can’t get to the house.”

  Get to the house. Remembered fire blazed in Garreth and he stood again at Wink O’Hare’s kitchen door, paralyzed by the flames. Why did he think he could work for this or any department? For all the houses he might be invited to enter, there would
always be those the occupants did not want him in. And another officer could suffer for it.

  They pulled up in front of a house with a six foot chain link fence around the property and three Rottweilers with bared teeth barking viciously from the middle of the yard. Duncan stood at the fence with a pepper spray canister while neighbors crowded their own fences or sidewalks watching. A woman screamed inside the house.

  “I can’t reached the bastards with the spray. Why can’t we just shoot the damn things?”

  “They haven’t attacked us,” Nat said.

  “So you go in and when they charge you I’ll pick them off.”

  The woman screamed again.

  Duncan scowled. “We gotta do something. He’s killing her in there.”

  Garreth thought back to the coyote the other night. Might a domestic dog react the same? He walked up to the fence. “Hey, fellows.”

  Their barking shifted into hysteria. One dog started forward — the alpha? — only to halt. He stopped barking, too, and lifted his nose, sniffing. Then he stared at Garreth, head tilted in obvious confusion. The other two dogs, one male, one female, looked at the alpha and stopped barking, too.

  Garreth stared back. “That’s better. Nice dogs.”

  His peripheral vision caught Nat, Duncan, and the neighbors gaping from him to the dogs. Son of a bitch. Did he have yet another Vale of Chablis here?

  The woman in the house screamed again...higher, louder, sounding more in pain.

  What was it the deputy said: the good Lord looks after fools. “I think I can handle the dogs.” He hoped.

  He eased open the gate enough to slide inside, keeping his gaze locked on the alpha’s. Slowly he walked toward them. The dogs stood rooted.

  “Good dogs!”

  Their stubby tails wagged. When he reached down to gingerly pat the alpha’s massive head, its tail wagged faster, and faster yet when he rubbed its ears. The other two crowded in for a pat, too.

  “I think they’re all right now,” he called back toward the fence. “Come on in.”