by Kathi Daley
Zak sat down across from Catherine and began feeding her the homemade baby food he added to the pancakes she loved. “I don’t disagree with you. I’ve thought about the dance as well. I guess it would be okay to let her go, within a few parameters.”
“Such as?” I took a sip of my coffee.
“I drive her to and from the dance. I walk her in and she waits for me to escort her back to the car afterward. I’m fine with picking Diego up so they can arrive together. And we notify the dance chaperones of the situation, so they can keep an eye on things.”
I let out a breath. Whew. That was easier than I’d expected. “I think she’ll agree to that. I honestly thought you were going to want to go on her date with her.”
“I do want to go on Alex’s date with her.” Zak smiled. “But I won’t. She’s a smart, capable girl. I’m confident she can avoid putting herself into a dangerous situation even if her honorary mother has often found that task impossible to accomplish.”
“I’ve been staying out of trouble just fine lately,” I shot back. I wanted to elaborate but decided it was best to leave well enough alone. “I’m going to let Alex know about the dance while you finish feeding Catherine. We can talk after.”
“Are Ellie and your mother coming over again?” Zak asked.
“Yes. They should both be here soon. I know it isn’t an ideal situation, but I feel better having them here when Levi and Dad are at work, rather than having them home alone with just Eli and Harper.”
I headed to Alex’s bedroom, where I found her sitting on the floor watching the newborn puppies, who were curled up with their mama in the closet.
“How’s the little family doing today?” I asked.
“Good. All four pups seem healthy and they’re all eating. The mama dog is pretty tired after her ordeal, but she’s eating and drinking, so I think she’ll be fine. How are you doing?”
I shrugged. “I’m okay. I wish this thing was over with, of course. I just spoke with Zak, who’s fine with you going to the dance. There are a few rules you’ll need to follow, but he isn’t even planning to go along with you, so that shows progress.”
Alex smiled. “It does. I promise to follow the rules and stay out of trouble. Are Ellie and Grandma coming over again today?”
“Yes. They should be here soon.”
“Good. I wanted to talk to them about my makeup. I won’t need much, but I want some. Grandma said she’d help me figure out the best look for my character.”
I chatted with Alex for a while longer, then went back downstairs. I could hear Ellie and my mom talking to Zak in the kitchen. Again I felt guilt wash over me. If not for me they’d be going about their everyday lives.
******
We got Catherine settled in Zak’s office. I was curious to hear what he had to say and hoped it would be something that would make sense of everything. I really, really wanted to get back to enjoying what was left of Halloween.
“So what do you have?” I asked him after I’d pulled up a chair and sat down next to him. When he worked he was usually in the zone. I wasn’t even sure he’d seen me sit down next to him.
Zak ran a hand through his blond hair, which had grown long and thick on the top. “First, I managed to convince Carl Poland to come clean about the thousand-dollar-a-month payment Irvine had been sending him. It seems he’s in possession of something that proves Irvine was responsible for Becka’s death. He was blackmailing him.”
I frowned. “I thought Becka died as the result of a snakebite.”
“She did, but according to Poland, it was Irvine who told Becka to approach the snake so he could get a photo. After she died Irvine acted like he hadn’t been anywhere nearby, that Becka had broken protocol and wandered off on her own. Poland admitted he wasn’t on the trip, so he didn’t have firsthand evidence of what happened, but while he was searching in Irvine’s files for a source he needed for his current research project, he found a document written by Irvine admitting the truth. Poland realized the value of the information and decided to use it to help his bottom line.”
“He wouldn’t have killed Irvine if he was benefiting from Irvine’s mistake. Did he have any idea who might have wanted him dead?”
“No. I mentioned the guy Stella brought up, Matt Carson. Poland had heard about the altercation he’d had with Irvine, but he thought a shot to the head in a dark alley would be more his style. He was sure Carson wouldn’t have come up with the whole vampire thing. He did say Becka had a brother who was part of the role-playing group Irvine belonged to, thought his name was Mark or Mitch or something like that. Someone else I spoke to thought his first name could be Mason, and she said Becka’s last name was Watson. Poland never met the brother and didn’t know what he looked like, but he’d heard the guy was loaded. If the brother blamed Irvine for his sister’s death, was in to the dress-up thing, and had the financial means to procure the venom, he might be a viable suspect.”
“Salinger is looking in to the brother as well. We figure with all the vampires in town now, someone visiting from the LA group might know who a member with a sister named Becka might be.”
“That’s great, Zak. This feels like the first real lead we’ve had. This guy would have the motive to want Irvine dead and he could afford to kill him the same way his sister died, though I still don’t know why he’d go to all the trouble of staging the murder in Ashton Falls or what he has to do with me.”
Zak frowned. “Yeah, that part still isn’t clear.”
“Do you have anything else?”
“I followed up with several other people who’ve worked as assistants to Irvine. Most agreed he was an okay boss. He paid them all an hourly rate for research, transcription, data processing, or whatever else he needed. He was a nice-enough guy, although he was a bit of a womanizer; it seems Becka wasn’t the only female assistant he had a physical relationship with. Several of the other assistants told me he traveled frequently, and it wasn’t unheard of for him to take one or more of them with him. It was considered a perk by most. I asked about Becka specifically, and it did seem it was widely known they’d become a couple, though according to the rumor mill, Irvine had been thinking about breaking up with her. In fact, one of Irvine’s ex-assistants said the only reason he hadn’t dumped her before the trip to Africa was because he had a social relationship with Becka’s brother and didn’t want to upset that particular apple cart.”
“Did anyone say they’d heard Irvine might have been responsible for Becka’s death?”
Zak shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a conclusion anyone other than Poland, who found the document, would necessarily have come to.”
“Have you spent any time checking out Becka?”
“I did a search for Rebecca Watson of Los Angeles and found some basic information on her. I haven’t done an extensive search yet, but it appears she’d never been married, so it seems the brother’s last name could be Watson as well. I’ll look for information about Mark or Mitch or Mason Watson and see what I can find. If nothing pops I’ll try to find a link to a brother by digging further into Becka’s records.”
I smiled. “I feel like we might actually be getting somewhere. I know we still don’t have a smoking gun, but I feel like we’re making progress. How can I help?”
“We never did finish our timeline last night. I’m not sure it’s relevant, but Salinger thought it important enough to ask us to do it. I’ll continue with my search if you want to work on that.”
I doubted developing a timeline was anything more than busy work, but I went along with it for now. Zak had been pretty accommodating when it came to supporting my involvement on any level, so I didn’t want to make things complicated for him by being difficult. I figured if I hung out in the background, as Zak wanted, when things got down to the real nitty-gritty I’d have a front-row seat at the takedown.
Before I agreed to dig into the timeline I logged onto my e-mail account. There were several messages from Hillary that I�
�d deal with later. I also saw I had a return e-mail from Orson Spalding, the man who’d stopped by the Zoo looking for me the other day. He was in town to film an episode of Monster Hunter and wanted to know if I could meet him at the old cemetery outside of town. He’d been told I was the one to find the victim of the vampire killer and wanted to interview me about what I’d seen.
“Oh, this can’t be a coincidence,” I said aloud.
Chapter 11
“What can’t be a coincidence?” Zak asked.
I looked up to find him staring at me. I explained about the man who’d spoken to Jeremy about me, and the e-mail I’d sent him to establish contact. My belief had been that he probably wanted to adopt a pet, I said, though the e-mail I’d just read had informed me otherwise.
“Call Salinger,” Zak said as soon as I brought him up to speed.
I punched in Salinger’s number. “Way ahead of you.”
I waited while the phone rang, hoping Salinger would answer. This could be the break we needed. Or not. This case was so screwy, I was at the point where I wasn’t certain what could be connected and what couldn’t.
“Hey, Zoe. What’s up,” Salinger picked up after the fourth ring.
“We need to get out to the old graveyard outside of town right away.”
“Why?”
I explained about the e-mail.
“Did he say when he wants to meet you?” Salinger asked.
“He said he’d be at the cemetery for most of the day. He hoped I’d get the message and stop by.”
“I agree the e-mail should be checked out, but I think I should go alone. You’re supposed to be hanging back where, theoretically at least, you’ll be safe,” Salinger reminded me.
“Zak is here and is willing to come with me, and you’ll be with us. We should be perfectly safe.”
Salinger hesitated.
“The guy wants to speak to me. In fact, it seems as if he’s gone out of his way to speak to me specifically. We aren’t sure if he’d be willing to talk to you or anyone else. He said he’s in town to track down the vampire. He’s a professional monster hunter, so he might know something important.”
Salinger still hesitated. I plowed ahead. “I’m going to e-mail him back to say I’m on my way. Zak and I will meet you at the graveyard in twenty to twenty-five minutes.”
“Let me come by to pick you both up,” Salinger suggested. “It won’t take that long for me to swing by your place, and we can discuss things on the drive over.”
“Okay. We’ll be ready.”
As soon as I hung up the phone I headed downstairs to let the others know what we were doing. Mom offered to keep an eye on Catherine while we were gone. Levi was coming over to the house after work and my mom was going to call my dad to have him come here when he closed the store. There was comfort in numbers; it seemed everyone was fine with hanging out here.
After Salinger picked us up I tried to quell my nerves by looking at the scenery out my window. I really loved this time of year, when everything was so fresh and colorful. I just hoped we could put the rest of the pieces of this mystery together and catch whoever had killed Irvine so I could stop thinking about it. Although by now I doubted that was true. I also hoped the same man who killed Irvine would turn out to be my stalker, so I could stop thinking about that too.
“You said you were going to e-mail this guy to let him know you were on your way,” Salinger said. “Did he respond?”
I frowned. “No. Hopefully, he was just busy taking photos and whatnot and didn’t have the opportunity to reply.”
“Did he give you his cell phone number as well as his e-mail address?” Zak asked.
“No, just the e-mail address. Which is actually kind of odd. Most people have smartphones these days. When I e-mailed him I gave him my cell number and suggested he call or text, but he chose not to.” I shrugged. “Different strokes for different folks, I guess.”
Salinger turned off the main highway going out of town onto the county road off which the cemetery was located. “And you said he has a television show?”
“That’s what he said, though I’ve never seen it. It’s called Monster Hunter. You know,” I said, “Jeremy said the guy looked familiar but couldn’t place him. I wonder if he’s seen the show and just didn’t make the connection.”
“Call him and ask.”
I did as Salinger suggested. As it turned out, Jeremy had seen the show, and now that I mentioned it, he was sure the man who’d come in looking for me was the same person he’d watched tackle legendary creatures like Bigfoot and the Lake Tahoe Monster. Not that he’d managed to film either creature during the course of thirty-minute episodes, but he filmed on location where sightings had been reported and interviewed people who’d made them. According to Jeremy, the show was big on theatrics but short on content. Still, he said, it was entertaining.
“So he’s here to try to capture the vampire on film?” Zak asked, a slight look of confusion on his face.
“That’s what he indicated, although if that’s his intention it seems he ought to be filming in the graveyard after dark. I guess he might have gone there early to do the groundwork.”
“I could see how it would be important to get the lay of the land before setting up equipment for the shoot,” Zak replied. “But there are several cemeteries in this area. I wonder why he honed in on this one.”
“If I was looking for a vampire this is the cemetery I’d go to,” I said. “It’s the oldest. And I don’t think anyone has been buried here in three quarters of a century or more, so there are seldom any visitors, and it has all those crypts. The newer cemetery in Ashton Falls doesn’t have any of those, and the older one in town only has a few.”
“If a vampire did want to set up camp in Ashton Falls I suppose this one would be the place to hang out in terms of isolation,” Zak said, a hint of teasing in his voice. “Still, there wouldn’t be much of a food source all the way out there. There are a lot more people in town, so there’s more blood to dine on.”
Were we seriously discussing vampires and their likely choice of lodging and food supply? This was getting crazier and crazier. “Look. There’s a van in the dirt lot,” I pointed out. “It must belong to Orson Spalding.”
Salinger pulled up next to the van and we all got out. Salinger looked in the van’s windows, but there was no one inside. There was a lot of expensive video equipment inside, which seemed to confirm its owner. A quick look around the cemetery, however, didn’t reveal the person who went with it.
“I wonder where he went,” I said.
“This is a big cemetery, and the crypts block our line of sight,” Zak pointed out. “Let’s just walk around and see if he pops up. I doubt he went far from all that equipment in the van.”
Zak was right; the guy wouldn’t have wandered far. There was an old abandoned house at the far side of the cemetery he might have decided to check out. It was totally trashed, but it was old and decrepit enough it would draw the attention of someone with monster hunting on his mind.
We wandered the grounds from one end to the other before we checked out the house, which was boarded up and locked, so it wasn’t as if we could just wander inside. But if our monster hunter had found a way in, I reasoned, we could use the same one to look for him.
The front door was locked and the windows on that side all had large sheets of plywood nailed over them. The house was two stories, but from a visual inspection they didn’t appear to have been tampered with. We walked around one side to the back, which looked to also be tightly buttoned up. It was on the far side of the house, where the branches of a large tree grew right up to the second story that we spotted an unboarded window that looked as if it might be cracked open.
“I can climb up,” I offered.
“It’s a pretty big climb,” Salinger said.
“I’ll go,” Zak insisted.
“No, it has to be me,” I countered. “The window’s tiny. It’s probably for a bathroom. Neither o
f you will fit through it.”
“If we can’t fit the monster hunter probably couldn’t fit either,” Salinger reasoned.
“Maybe not, but I’d hate to leave without knowing for sure whether he’s inside.” I looked around. “He has to be somewhere.”
“Maybe we should just go back to the van and wait for him there,” Zak suggested.
“It’ll just take a minute for me to check,” I argued.
“It could be a trap,” Zak said.
Salinger looked back toward the cemetery grounds, assessing the situation. “I agree with Zak that the open window feels like a trap. I don’t think Zoe should go in alone.”
“Let’s try prying one of the boards covering a downstairs window free,” I suggested instead.
“The small window on the side did look like it might have been tampered with at some point,” Zak said. “The board might be loose.”
It took the three of us a few minutes to pry the board loose, and the window behind it wasn’t locked, allowing us all access to the house’s interior.
“This place is a mess,” I said to no one in particular when we’d climbed through the window and entered the main living area. The year we’d tried to use it for Haunted Hamlet a man had died inside, and the person who’d killed him had vandalized it to cover his tracks.
“Hello,” Zak called out as we walked through the dimly lit house.
“Mr. Spalding,” I shouted. “Are you in here?”
No answer to either of us. We walked down the narrow hallway to the stairs to the second floor, pausing to look into each empty room. Once we’d cleared both the first and second level we headed back down the stairs and out the window in which we’d climbed.