by Parnell Hall
“He was that bad?”
“Actually, I kind of liked him.”
“You really think it’s the father?”
“Yeah.”
IT WAS Daddy all right. MacAullif picked him up, shook him down, he caved right in. That’s how it is with some tough guys. They put up a good front until their luck turns. Daddy spilled his guts. Admitted it all.
“Except for the stake,” MacAullif said. “He won’t admit to the stake.”
“What?”
“Claims he never saw the stake. Didn’t mention it till we brought it up. Then he denied it.”
“Really?”
MacAullif waved it away. “Not that it matters. He admits to the knife. Between his confession and the testimony of the medical examiner, we got him dead to rights.”
I nodded as if I agreed. But that wooden stake would haunt me long after the event. As would the image of goth girl, her boyfriend dead, her Daddy convicted of the crime. A hell of a legacy to carry with her. I had visions of her getting a law degree, finding a loophole, getting Daddy out. A pipe dream, of course. But sometime pipe dreams keep you going.
Yeah, MacAullif was satisfied. But I couldn’t help thinking of that wooden stake.
The way I saw it, there were only two ways that could have happened.
I only met the vampire once, but as I told MacAullif, I liked him. I don’t know if he was crazy or playacting or what, but within his own separate universe he seemed to have his own set of rules. There was a certain gallant nobility about him. I could imagine him, realizing he was dying, wanting to go out with a bang. Or not wanting to disappoint the goth. Or wanting to keep up the mystique, for to him image was everything.
I could imagine him pulling the wooden stake out of his pocket and sticking it in the knife wound in his heart.
Either that, or Daddy was lying. Not unusual in a perpetrator, though somewhat unlikely in one confessing all. Still, I could imagine the guy being embarrassed about it, withholding it because he figured it didn’t matter.
And because he couldn’t face it.
Because, according to the medical report, Daddy killed the vampire right after I left him that night. Which meant that, despite Debbie’s warning, and in spite of the fact I never spotted him, Daddy was there when I spoke to the vampire. Daddy saw the vampire show me the stake and put it back in his pocket. So Daddy knew it was there.
I could envision Daddy stabbing the kid again and again and again with the butcher knife, and he still won’t die. Until, in spite of himself, Daddy takes the wooden stake out of the vampire’s pocket, and plunges it into his heart. He drags the body into the bushes, throws dirt over him. And refuses to admit, even to himself, that the stake was what killed him.
It had to be one or the other.
Either way, it freaks me out.
Books by Parnell Hall
Stanley Hastings private eye mysteries
Detective
Murder
Favor
Strangler
Client
Juror
Shot
Actor
Blackmail
Movie
Trial
Scam
Suspense
Cozy
Manslaughter
Hitman
Caper
Stakeout
Steve Winslow courtroom dramas
The Baxter Trust
Then Anonymous Client
The Underground Man
The Naked Typist
The Wrong Gun
The Innocent Woman
Puzzle Lady crossword puzzle mysteries
A Clue For The Puzzle Lady
Last Puzzle & Testament
Puzzled To Death
A Puzzle In A Pear Tree
With This Puzzle I Thee Kill
And A Puzzle To Die On
Stalking The Puzzle Lady
You Have The Right To Remain Puzzled
The Sudoku Puzzle Murders
Dead Man’s Puzzle
The Puzzle Lady vs. The Sudoku Lady
The KenKen Killings
$10,000 in Small, Unmarked Puzzles
Arsenic and Old Puzzles