Exotica (Episode Two: The Nightshade Cases)

by Larsen, Patti

  “Detective Geraldine Meyers, Silver City Police,” she said. “I’m looking for Garret Jay.”

  His Adam’s apple jumped, longish, dark hair a mess around his lean face. He looked like he could get away without shaving for two or three days, skin pale, chest narrow with a soft down of darkness in a patch in the center. Just a kid.

  “I’m Garret,” he said, voice cracking, free hand leaving the door handle to wipe at his bleary eyes. More than just sleep in them. From the smell of his breath, he’d been drinking, probably on drugs, too. Two female voices came from inside the apartment, the dark space on the other side just shadows.

  “Can I come in?” Gerri pushed past him, crossing the threshold before he could say yes or no. She knew she was being a bully, but her patience was long gone and, though it was wrong to take her shit out on this kid, she just didn’t care at the moment.

  A light came on across the apartment, the large loft’s corner aglow in yellow light. Two naked girls, about as scrawny as he was and about his age, squealed and dove under the dark red comforter. Not before Gerri caught enough skin to know what they’d been up to.

  Like she cared.

  “What’s going on, officer?” She gritted her teeth, the term making her even more irritated, partially because it reminded her of Jackson and her digs at him. Not a good thing to remember at the moment. Gerri turned to the kid, hands firmly on her hips.

  “I have questions,” she said. “Do you know Tasha Pear?”

  He nodded quickly, free hand running through his hair, making a bigger mess. “We used to go out,” he said.

  Gerri glanced over at the two girls peeking out from under the covers. “Put your clothes on,” she called out to them before returning her attention to Garret. “Party’s over.”

  She ignored the sound of movement behind her as he finally found his balls, a frown crossing his face. What the hell did girls see in his type, all bony and petite? Seriously.

  Gerri could have eaten him for breakfast.

  “Do you have a warrant?” Why did they always go for the warrant question?

  “Do I need one?” That shut him the hell up. Gerri grinned in her head, temper finally easing. She had a suspect to make uncomfortable. “Well, Mr. Jay? Will I find something in your place I should arrest you for?”

  The two girls hurried past Gerri, shoes in hand, barely dressed. She let them go, her gut whispering they had nothing to do with it, but confident if she needed to track them down, she could get their names out of this guy. The second girl closed the door behind her with an apologetic shrug for Garret, leaving them alone.

  Just how Gerri liked it.

  She had him at a solid disadvantage, half naked like this. Maybe it was time to ease up a little, put him in a better frame of mind. The trained detective in her embraced her instincts, just like always, thoughts of being a freak washed away in her drive to do her job.

  “Go put some pants on,” she said. “And let’s have a talk.”

  He stumbled off, leaving her to look around. No warrant, no, but she didn’t think she needed one. A quick peek around told her he was a slob, about as much as Kinsey. Which made Gerri wince, thinking of the blonde. Was she still drunk? Stumbling home on her own… Gerri shook off her regret. Kinsey was a big girl and perfectly capable. Gerri made a mental note to call her friend as soon as she was done here. Just in case.

  Garret returned a moment later, faded jeans sagging from his narrow hips, pulling a torn t-shirt over his bony chest. Gerri tried a smile and some sugar as he sank to a stool at the large, marble topped island that bordered the kitchen area of the open space.

  “What’s going on? Why are you asking about Tasha?” Was that worry in his voice?

  “She’s dead.” Screw sugar. Gerri didn’t soften the blow on purpose. She needed to see his reaction. He was just drunk and stoned enough he might give her what she needed in the instant of reveal.

  His instant shock felt genuine, but Gerri had met great actors before in murderers. She continued to observe as one of his hands covered his gaping mouth, pale green eyes wide and full of hurt.

  “She’s what?” He shook his head, stammering on. “How? When?”

  “When did you see her last, Mr. Jay?” Gerri pulled out her notebook, her shiny silver pen, but mostly just for effect. She was still busy watching him, feeling him through her highly tuned instincts.

  “Um, I don’t know. Tuesday, maybe?” He sagged on the stool, hand falling from his mouth. “Jesus, she’s really dead?”

  “We haven’t alerted next of kin. Her body was only identified a short time ago.” His eyes tightened around the edges, a flinch. Guilt?

  “Her parents live in San Fran,” he said, tone flattening out, a sign of grief. If he was faking it, he was very, very good. A-list Hollywood good. “I can give you her mom’s number.” He turned, fumbled on the counter for his phone.

  “Where were you last night, between the hours of 2 and 4AM?” Gerri watched carefully as he looked up from the glowing screen of his smartphone with hurt flashing over his face.

  “Wait, am I a suspect?” His hand lowered, shoulders hunching, protective gesture. Also really hard to fake. Her gut whispered he wasn’t guilty, but she refused to believe it alone. Damn it, she was a cop. Instinct or no instinct—always right or not—she had a job to do.

  “We’re just checking into all possible leads. Your location?”

  He shrugged. “Here. I run a software company. I was working until dawn.”

  “Alone, I take it.” No alibi.

  He stared at her, mute, damaged, unsure. “I think I need a lawyer.”

  Gerri snapped her notebook shut and slipped it into her pocket, holding his gaze. “If you think so,” she said. “Any idea who might have wanted to hurt her?”

  Garret shook his head, still dazed, but talking, at least. Innocent, the voice whispered. She told it to shut up.

  “She’s been acting fucked up.” He toyed with the case around his phone, head down. “Crazy, you know? We broke up two weeks ago because she went psycho on me at Exotica, bit me for shit’s sake.” He turned, lifted his arm and the hem of his shirt. A dark mark just over his ribs showed two crescents curving toward each other, meeting at the ends. Teeth marks. Gerri winced. To leave a wound like that, she must have drawn blood. “She tried to apologize and I let it go. But I ended it.”

  As Garret turned back, Gerri’s eyes traveled up to his neck. And her heart pounded once, hard, in her chest.

  “Where did you get those marks?” She stepped forward in a rush, grasping his thin bicep, pushing his hair out of the way. He jerked free, pushing her away as he surged to his feet, finally angry himself.

  “Don’t touch me,” he said. He smoothed his hair over the spot, protective suddenly. No longer the hurt boyfriend. Maybe she was finally seeing the real Garret Jay.

  “I asked you a question.” Gerri wasn’t going to let this little pisser stand in her way of getting what she needed to solve this case. Not when the dead girl and the injured one from the bar tonight both had the same punctures.

  “Ask my lawyer.” Now he turned asshole. Fine, she’d figure it out without his help.

  Gerri stepped back. “Tasha’s parent’s number?”

  He read it off his phone with grudging darkness. “Now, get out.”

  She almost laughed. “I’ll be seeing you, Mr. Jay.”

  Garret glared at her, watched her go. Gerri waved to him as she closed the door behind her. Her gut might have believed him, but her inner cop didn’t. Garret Jay just jumped to the top of her suspect list.

  Forgetting entirely about Kinsey, Gerri avoided the elevator and pounded down the stairs. Time to check in with Ray and find out where the puncture wounds were coming from.

  ***

  INT. – SILVER CITY MORGUE – EARLY MORNING

  Ray pulled the overhead lamp closer, magnifying lens tight over the puncture wounds on Tasha’s neck. She’d already sampled the spots and sent her tests off
to trace to check for chemical residue and possible DNA evidence, but they were backlogged, as usual. Maybe it was time for her scalpel to do a little digging. She hated to destroy evidence, but the scans she’d done told her nothing.

  How odd. She didn’t notice before how the skin around the punctures looked healed, whole. That couldn’t be. Ray prodded one of the gaps with the tip of a probe, pulling the small lip back. The bright, unforgiving light told her she was right. But, in order for a hole this size to remain while the skin healed, it had to have been held open by something.

  Or whatever made the wounds healed it on the way through.

  Ray jerked back from the body, pulse skipping. She hated her thoughts these days turned to the paranormal. But, her reaction was an honest one, wasn’t it? Was she really the only person who saw these wounds and thought how closely they resembled fang marks?

  Vampire fang marks.

  She laughed softly to herself, shaky, an attempt to dispel her nerves. Silly Rachel. There was no such thing. She knew better. She was a scientist, a doctor for goodness sake. And yet, the moment she tried to hush her nerves, she thought of the creature that pulled Gerri’s dead partner, Joe Mutch, into the lake, and the body of Aisling the transsexual dancer, who was missing her heart.

  Ray stepped back, shaking her head, ponytail swinging behind her. Enough. She had a job to do. And there was second victim in the hospital with these same wounds. It wasn’t her task to go talk to the girl, but she felt like it, just to clear her mind and stop all the vampire nonsense running through her head.

  Ray liked the morgue, usually. The dead spoke to her in ways she could understand and deal with. Unlike the living, with their imminent demise shoved in her face if she let them. With the dead, she could reveal the reason for their passing and no one ever thought it odd or weird or freakish she knew just what killed them. This was her job.

  Of course, aside from Kinsey and Gerri—and Mummy, bless her black heart—no one knew Ray didn’t need to cut people open to see the truth.

  The door to the room swung open, startling her. Ray jumped, a tiny squeak escaping. Gerri grinned at her as the tall redhead crossed the room, hands in her pockets. Ray almost smiled back until she noticed Gerri wasn’t alone. Her most despicable partner, Jackson, trailed behind her with his wide lips in a grin Ray saw as pure predator. How many times did she have to tell him she was gay?

  Some guys just didn’t get it. Bloody hell.

  He approached the slab with cocky aggression, leaning over the magnifier to look at the wounds she’d just been observing. “This what killed our girl here?” He winked at Ray. “I didn’t know better, I’d say a vampire bit her.”

  Ray stared at him, open mouthed, floored he’d just said what she feared. Until he laughed out loud, poking a finger at her like this was some colossal joke and she was the butt of it. Heat flared in her, anger rising. She glared at him, grateful for the excuse to pull herself together.

  “From what I can tell,” she addressed Gerri who frowned sideways at her partner before meeting Ray’s eyes, “the punctures match those on our second victim, Myra Banks. There is an oddity about them.” She gestured for Gerri to take a look. The detective bent, peered through the glass. “The punctures themselves are uniform in size, leaving a one millimeter gap that appear to have healed at the edges.” Gerri looked up, eyebrows raised. “I have no idea what could have caused such a wound and left a clear gap.” She really didn’t. Couldn’t think of one damned thing, not with Gerri staring at her with growing unease, with Jackson watching with a smirk on his face. “I’m waiting for trace to come back before I can go any further. But a blood test showed no drugs in her system, only an alcohol level of 0.07.” Hardly enough to call her drunk, just below the legal limit to drive, in fact.

  Gerri straightened. “Thanks, Ray.” She spun on Jackson. “I want you chasing down the people you interviewed at the club. Alibis for the five girls who claimed they were friends with the victim.”

  Ray held her breath, waiting for Jackson to protest. He certainly looked like he wanted to. But, after a long moment of sullen anger aimed at his partner, Jackson shrugged those broad shoulders of his and turned, leaving the morgue with a slouching, casual strut.

  Gerri waited until he was gone before leveling her cold stare at Ray. Instantly putting her ill at ease. “Tell me you’re not thinking what that asshat joked about is true.”

  Ray opened her mouth, tried to deny it. Closed her lips. She just couldn’t lie to Gerri. “There’s no explanation.” She looked down at the body, the stillness of the girl’s pale, gray skin. “None, Gerri. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Gerri shook her head, anger clear on her face, in the way she stood, hands on hips. “Listen,” she said, voice low and tight. “I don’t care what you and Kinsey think of all this weird shit.” Gerri hated talking about it. Ray knew that, though she didn’t understand why. They’d seen enough, hadn’t they, to make investigating the possibility valid? Or was she just deluded and insane? “But no matter what killed Tasha Pear and hurt Myra Banks, murder is murder.” Gerri’s attitude shifted, softened. What private conversation was she having in her own head that let her turn off like that? Ray wished she knew. Maybe it could help her get a freaking grip already. “You know, no matter what, I’m going to chase this down the bitter end. Even if it leads to weird.” Gerri exhaled heavily. “But I need you to focus, Ray.”

  Sharp anger prodded her. How dare Gerri imply she wasn’t doing her job? “Understood.”

  Gerri’s small, sad smile killed Ray’s temper. “You know I trust you.”

  Ray nodded, pressing her gloved hands to the slab to steady them. “I do. I’m sorry.”

  Gerri laughed. “For what? Jesus.” She rubbed one hand over her face. “After what the three of us…” she trailed off before swearing softly. “Have you seen Kinsey?”

  Ray’s mind rewound to the club, to leaving after Myra was taken away by the ambulance. She clamped her lips together in distress as she realized she hadn’t, not since the street outside Exotica.

  Speak of the devil, and she appeared. The door to the morgue opened again. Ray breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of her blonde friend crossing the room, looking back over her shoulder in a nervous gesture.

  “Hey.” Kinsey grinned at the two of them, glanced at the body with a flinch before rushing on. “I had to sneak in. I hope I don’t get you in trouble.”

  Ray shrugged, smiled. “You’re on a case.” She arched her eyebrow at Gerri who rolled her eyes.

  “Sorry we abandoned you earlier.” So Gerri felt as guilty as Ray did. Kinsey just shrugged it off, though there was a flicker of something Ray didn’t like passing over her friend’s face before Kinsey went on. She slipped a piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to Gerri. Ray could see through the white page enough to recognize the symbols from their last case together and thought again of Aisling and her missing heart.

  She shivered as Kinsey spoke.

  “I finally translated this one.” She pointed to the third in the row, swirls with a sharp “V” in the middle. Her eyes settled on the puncture wounds on Tasha’s neck. “It means vampire.”

  The page half crumpled in Gerri’s hand while Ray felt certain she’d lost the ability to breathe. “Are you fucking with me?”

  Kinsey glared right back. “Would I? Come on, Gerri.” She pointed at the dead girl as Ray clutched her gloved hands together, suddenly cold. “Get over it already. If we’re dealing with the paranormal, we are. Denying it is just going to get people killed. Vampire, Gerri. Deal with it.”

  The detective stared at the page with such intensity, Ray thought it would burst into flames at any second. When Gerri finally unclenched, Ray did the same, muscles aching from holding herself so rigid.

  “I’m not making this up.” Kinsey’s shoulders dipped, her face falling, sad. “And there’s another victim.”

  Gerri’s face snapped around, eyes intense. “Who?”

&nb
sp; “One of my students.” Kinsey’s misery cut Ray to the quick. “My phone rang early this morning, some strange girl asking for my assistant, Mitchell’s mom. She sounded shaken. When I told her she had the wrong number, she hung up.” The blonde was clearly upset. “I called the hospital, found he was in the ICU, but the doctors expected him to be fine. Some kind of seizure.” Her long, slow exhale shook slightly. “When I asked what happened, the nurse finally clued in she shouldn’t be talking to me about it over the phone and started asking her own questions.”

  “At least he’s okay,” Gerri said.

  Kinsey ignored that platitude. “I tried Mitchell’s cell phone and got a busy signal. And did my best to put it out of my mind. Until I remembered an important detail.” Need burned in her blue eyes as she leaned slightly toward Gerri. “Twin puncture marks on his neck.”

  The detective’s mouth pulled down into a frown while Ray, unable to stop herself, gently rubbed Kinsey’s back, as though her touch alone could make the blonde feel better.

  “So, you put two and two together and got my murder case.” Gerri sighed in turn.

  “He’s in the hospital right now with the exact same wounds, the exact same symptoms as Myra Banks.” Her blue eyes locked on Ray before turning their intensity on Gerri. “Now, will you listen to me?”

  ***

  INT. – SILVER CITY MORGUE to 9th PRECINCT – EARLY MORNING

  Gerri couldn’t help it, glaring at Kinsey while the acid in her stomach slowly ate away at the ulcer she was sure was forming over this weird stuff she couldn’t stand to think about.

  “Thanks for your scientific input,” she snapped at her blonde friend, while Ray flinched, looking down at the body, refusing to meet Gerri’s eyes or back her up. God damn it, this was ridiculous. She balled up the page and flung it at Kinsey, hitting the anthropologist in the middle of her chest. “But I, for one, out of the three of us, refuse to believe some superstitious mumbo jumbo, or jump to the conclusion a fucking vampire is responsible. Because I’m a god damned grown up and a cop who believes in the real world, thank you very fucking much.” This wasn’t Kinsey’s fault. Gerri was already wound up. Her rejection of weird had nothing to do with Ray and her downturned mouth, the hurt in her whole body as Gerri yelled at the two of them over the body of a dead girl. It wasn’t Kinsey’s either. Gerri dragged her into this, asked her to translate those damned symbols in the first place. But Jesus H Mother of God.