Many Bloody Returns

by Charlaine Harris

  Mark was in bed with Stella when she came back to life, and she responded immediately, if not in the way he’d hoped.

  “You reek!” she said with a grimace.

  “Damn it,” he said, sliding out from under the covers. “All I had was a cheeseburger! No onions or mustard, and I brushed my teeth and used mouthwash. Twice!”

  “It’s not the food,” she said, sniffing.

  “I ate next door to a chicken farm,” Mark said.

  She shuddered. “Maybe that’s it. After living near one all those years, I was ready to switch to blood just to make sure I never had to eat chicken again.”

  “Ready to hear about the body in your grave?”

  “Not yet—I’m hungry.” As long as he got regular food, Mark could go two or three days without blood feeding, but Stella could not. “Did you scout out a place for us to hunt? What should I wear?”

  “Workout clothes. The desk clerk recommended a nearby jogging path. It’s around a lake and includes numerous twists and turns.”

  “I’ll hit the shower and get ready to go.”

  “I better shower again, too, to get that nasty smell off of me. And in the interest of conserving water…”

  “By all means, let’s conserve.”

  Oddly, taking a shower together took longer than two separate showers would have.

  If it had been his grave, Mark would have been frothing at the mouth to find out more about the body buried there, but older vampires were annoyingly patient. Stella wanted to wait until after dinner.

  Admittedly, it didn’t take her long to pick out a healthy-looking man and bespell him into following her to a darkened patch of trees. She quickly sated herself, and then Mark took his turn. After that, Stella kept the man bespelled long enough for their saliva to heal the wounds, and fuzzed his memory before sending him on his way again. All he’d remember was that the run had taken more out of him than usual.

  Mark could have tried to bespell his own donor, of course, but it would have taken longer, and he’d have had to spring for a nice dinner and a movie. Stella’s methods were much more efficient.

  Afterward, they headed back for the Caddy, and since he didn’t have Stella’s patience, Mark was about to explode with his news by the time she asked, “What did you find out?”

  He told her everything Norcomb had told him but wasn’t so distracted that he didn’t notice that Stella was driving back toward the Spivey family plot. He finished as they arrived, and when she parked the car, he followed her to the grave.

  She just looked at it. Though it was a much darker night, he had no doubt that she could read each letter of the tombstone’s inscription.

  “We could have her moved to a public cemetery,” he said.

  “How would we explain it to that cop?”

  “We’ll tell him Aunt Estelle doesn’t like a stranger in here, that she wants this space. Hell, we’ve got enough lawyers and money that we don’t have to explain anything. Or you can bespell him—that would be cheaper.”

  “I don’t want to do that to her.”

  “It’s not like she’d know. She’s dead—really dead, I mean. It wouldn’t hurt her feelings.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

  “A year ago, you’d have said that there’s no such thing as vampires. A year from now, there’s no telling what you’ll be saying.”

  A chill ran down Mark’s spine, but that was a conversation he wasn’t ready for. “Well, if she is watching, she’ll understand why you want your grave back.”

  But Stella shook her head. “I don’t want to just dump her somewhere. At least here, she’s got Norcomb looking after her. She won’t be forgotten.”

  “Then we’ll move her to another spot here in the Spivey plot.”

  “No. Why should I care if there’s somebody buried here anyway? It’s not like I’m planning to use the grave. And who knows? Maybe someday Norcomb will figure out who she is, and her people will take her home.”

  “Maybe,” Mark said doubtfully, knowing that the majority of cold cases were never solved. What had Norcomb said? That there wasn’t enough time or money to pursue an investigation forever. Mark considered it. Time wasn’t a problem for him, thanks to the eternal life clause of vampirism, and neither was money. Stella was loaded and, as was customary, had settled a big chunk of change onto him when she brought him over.

  “Stella, did you ever read the Nancy Drew books?”

  “Why?” Before he could answer, she said, “Are you seriously suggesting we go snooping around like Nancy Drew to find out what happened to Jane?”

  “Why not? We’ve got no plans for the next few days.”

  “And you believe you can solve a murder in a few days when the police haven’t been able to in two years?”

  “I don’t think it’s any more ridiculous than believing in vampires.”

  She gave him a look.

  “Okay, maybe it is,” he conceded. “But how about this? We snoop around for a few days, and if nothing comes of it, we’ll hire a private investigator. How does that sound?”

  “Ridiculous.” Then she smiled. “Let’s do it.”

  Mark still didn’t believe Jane Doe’s spirit was watching, but he sketched a salute toward her tombstone as they left, just in case.

  “What first?” he said once they were in the car.

  “Are you admitting that even though this was your idea, you have no plans about what we should do first?”

  “I’m a big-picture guy. I leave the details to you.”

  “I see,” Stella said dryly. “In that case, I think I’d like to meet my third-cousin once removed, or whatever relation Officer Norcomb is to me.”

  They decided making another call to the police station to track him down might provoke unwelcome attention, so rather than drive back to get to Mark’s laptop in Raleigh, Stella called Ramon in Boston and asked him to find Norcomb’s address and directions to his house.

  After hanging up, she said, “By the way, Ramon said—”

  “I know, he said to remind me to put dirt in my bed. Smug bastard! I’ll come up with a way to get him back one of these days.”

  “Would it help if I mentioned that Ramon is afraid of snakes?”

  “Is he?” Mark said with just the kind of fiendish grin a vampire was supposed to sport. He was happily plotting revenge when they passed by Norcomb’s house. A squad car was parked in the driveway, making it a good bet that Stella’s cousin was at home.

  Stella drove a few blocks farther and parked outside a dark house. “Does he live alone?”

  “No wedding band, so he’s not married, and he mentioned calling his mother, so he doesn’t live with her,” Mark said.

  “Good. I don’t want to risk anybody seeing the car, so you take it and keep circling the area. I’ll call you on the cell when I need you.”

  “Aye aye, captain.”

  “Don’t get lost!” She scooted out and was gone in a blink, while Mark moved to the driver’s seat to randomly drive up and down the streets of the housing development, hoping nobody would notice him. An hour and a half later, his cell rang.

  “Stella?”

  “No, it’s dear old Aunt Estelle. Do you remember that big red house right after we turned onto Norcomb’s street?”

  “Having driven past it approximately twenty-eight times tonight, I doubt I’ll ever forget it.”

  “Pick me up there.”

  “Aye aye—”

  “Once was funny. After that it gets old.”

  “Yes, beloved.”

  “That one never gets old.”

  “Neither do we,” Mark said, and broke the connection.

  Stella wasn’t in sight when he drove up but appeared at his window almost immediately. “Move over.” She climbed in and, as she got the car moving, tossed a yellow legal pad and a videotape into his lap.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “My notes from my t
alk with Norcomb and a copy of the Wal-Mart security tape. Or rather the copy of his copy that I had him make. If he’d had a photocopier, I’d have copied the case files, too.”

  “He had all that at his house?”

  “For one, your talk today got him thinking about Jane again, and for another, I think he’s a little obsessed with her.”

  “Clearly.” Then a thought occurred to him. “He didn’t kill her himself, did he?”

  “Nancy Drew would be proud of you,” she said approvingly, “but no, he did not. I asked.”

  “You’re sure? How thoroughly did you bespell him?”

  “Deeply enough that he won’t remember me, you, or Aunt Estelle. I could have made him forget his own address while I was at it, but that seemed a bit excessive.”

  “You’ve got to teach me how to do that.”

  “It just takes practice,” she said.

  “What else did he tell you?”

  “Everything he knows about the case, but there wasn’t a lot more than what he told you, unless you count the forensic details: decomposition, tissue damage, lividity. I’d have been done half an hour sooner if I hadn’t had to ask what all the terminology means.”

  “You’ll have to watch more CSI. Any leads we can use?”

  “Possibly. It turns out that Jane was at Benny’s the day she went to Wal-Mart.”

  “That’s where I met Norcomb. Kind of a coincidence, isn’t it?”

  “Not really. How many restaurants do you think there are in Allenville?”

  “Good point. Was she there before or after her shopping spree?”

  “Before, when her outfit was still noticeable. Black on black, with a skull ring.”

  “No wonder she threw it away.”

  “A good thing she did, or the murderer would have disposed of it along with the clothes she was wearing when he killed her.”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “Well, it turns out my cousin is one devoted investigator. He went to the dump and found Jane’s old clothes, still stuffed in the shopping bag.”

  “Don’t tell me he had that at his house, too?”

  “He did. Having a boy like that in the family does my heart proud.”

  “And well it might. Did you learn anything from the clothes?”

  “I didn’t want to handle them too much—I’ve watched enough CSI to know about contaminating evidence—but I did get a good whiff of them. Of course, I got a good whiff of garbage from the dump, too, but still, I’ve got Jane’s scent.”

  “Stella, how good do you smell?”

  “Sweet enough to make bees give up roses, according to the perfume bottle.”

  “Granted, even without the perfume, but I was referring to your sense of smell. Compared to, say, a bloodhound’s.”

  “I’ve never made the comparison,” she said, “but I am considered gifted, even for a vampire.”

  “Gifted enough that you’ll be able to track her after two years?”

  “It’s a long shot, but since this whole idea is a long shot…”

  “True enough.”

  It took a while for Stella to find a secluded parking place somewhat near where Jane’s body had been found, though it was still a long enough walk that Mark was glad they were wearing running shoes. Even vampires got blisters on their feet from walking too far in dress shoes.

  Finally they found the spot Stella was sure matched the description in the police report, just past a decrepit wooden fence. The neon of Benny’s was visible as a glow above the tree line.

  “Now I know why you reeked when you came to bed today,” she said.

  Mark inhaled deeply and regretted it. “I see what you mean about chicken farms. They’re foul. Or fowl, if you’d rather.”

  “It’s not the chicken,” Stella said. “Yes, I smell them, and yes, they are foul, but there’s something else.”

  He started to ask what she meant, but she was leaning over, sniffing at the ground. Mark decided further bloodhound references would not go over well, so concentrated on staying out of her way as she wandered this way and that, sometimes breaking into a run so fast that he’d have lost her if he weren’t a vampire, too.

  Finally, after he’d chased her over what seemed like half the state, Stella came to a dead stop. “Here.”

  “You actually tracked her?” he said incredulously.

  “No, you were right. It’s been too long. I caught a trace of Jane’s scent back where the body was, but that’s it.”

  “Then what are you talking about?”

  “I smelled somebody else. There’s another body here, Mark—we’re standing on the grave.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Can’t you smell it?”

  “You know I’m new at this,” he grumbled, but leaned over and tried again. She was right. The stench of death was there, though masked by the chickens’ stink and several feet of earth between them and the corpse. “It’s not fresh.”

  “No, but I think the one over there is.” She pointed a little bit away.

  “There’s another?”

  “More than that, I think.”

  “Jesus, Stella, what have we gotten ourselves into?”

  Between their sense of self-preservation and the realization that dawn was coming, they made their way back to the car and drove back to the hotel, arguing as they went. Mark was in favor of an anonymous call to Norcomb about the bodies, along with another bout of be-spelling him if necessary, but Stella wasn’t willing to risk their involvement coming to light.

  Or so she said, but Mark suspected that she just didn’t want to give up their investigation, and when he said so, she pulled rank on him. He objected, and by the time they got back to the hotel, they were no longer speaking.

  Mark was still angry when he woke the next day, and both ignored Stella and pretended he’d never heard of Jane Doe. It was only when he’d gone out for lunch, defiantly eating a large bowl of chili with onions on top, that his resolve weakened, as it always did with Stella. She was older, richer, stronger, and faster than he was, and had other vampiric abilities he was just beginning to discover, and he still felt protective of her. He had no idea if it was a man-woman thing, a vampire-sire thing, or just a Mark-Stella thing. Whatever it was, he went to buy something they were going to need, and nearly had it set up when Stella woke.

  Her nose wrinkled, so he knew she smelled his lunch despite his using a whole bottle of mouthwash, but she refrained from comment. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I got a VCR so we can watch the security tape.” He made the last connection, turned on the TV and VCR, and reached for the tape.

  Stella got to it first. “We don’t have to do this,” she said. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “I know.”

  “All that ‘I’m your sire and I say so!’ stuff is bullshit!”

  Mark blinked at that—Stella rarely swore—and repeated, “I know.”

  “Then why did you get the VCR?”

  “Consider it a belated birthday gift.”

  She smiled. “Only if you come here and let me give you an early birthday gift.”

  He started to join her on the bed but then stopped. “My lunch was kind of smelly.”

  “So I won’t kiss you. Not on the lips, anyway.”

  An hour later, they got around to watching the video. Norcomb had put together a greatest hits tape, with snippets from various camera views that showed Jane. The film quality was mediocre, but they got the general idea.

  Jane arrived dressed in urban Goth glory—black cargo pants, a black T-shirt ripped at the neckline, scuffed black boots. Her hair was, of course, black with the flat look of a cheap dye job. It was short, but Mark couldn’t tell if it had been styled to look asymmetrical or just hadn’t been brushed recently. She must have used half a tube of mascara to ring her eyes so thoroughly, and she was wearing a fine selection of heavy-looking Goth adornments: a skull ring, a bat wing necklace, and other less visible chain
s and rings.

  “She doesn’t exactly blend in, does she?” Mark said.

  “But she doesn’t seem to mind being stared at,” Stella commented.

  Even though nearly everybody who saw her did a double-take, Jane strode through the store confidently, not seeming to notice them. She headed out of range of that camera, and the view switched to the juniors department. Jane went through the racks to pick out a pair of jeans and a light blue pullover sweater. After a trip to the dressing room, which was not documented, she went to the shoe department to try on sneakers in blinding white. She got socks, too—the ones she was wearing had holes in both big toes. Next she got panties and a bra.

  “Granny panties,” Stella said thoughtfully.

  “Beg pardon,” Mark said.

  “The female equivalent of tighty whities. Waist-high briefs, instead of a bikini or a thong.”

  The next scene was of her standing next to a rack of hats, and she settled on a light blue sun hat, the kind of modified ball cap Mark saw girls wearing in the summer.

  She went to the register with her gleanings, still ignoring the curious looks she was getting, and once it was all paid for, headed toward the bathroom. There was a break in the film, and it started up again with her coming out again. Now Jane was dressed in her new outfit, and with her face scrubbed clean, her hair hidden under the hat, and the jewelry gone, she looked like a new person. The people walking past her didn’t give her a second glance, except a high school boy who flashed a grin.

  Jane walked toward the front of the store, carrying the Wal-Mart bag that presumably carried her old things. But just before she stepped out, she looked at the bag, then stuffed it into a trash can by the door. She walked out the door, and after ten seconds more, the tape ended.

  “Kudos to your cousin for spotting her,” Mark said. “I wouldn’t have known it was the same girl.”

  “I don’t know that I would have, either,” Stella said. “Not by sight anyway. So how did her killer recognize her?”

  “He must have known her well.”

  “What about the other bodies?”

  “Norcomb thinks drugs were involved,” Mark said, “and drug dealers make lots of enemies. Though I have to say that Allenville doesn’t seem like the place for that kind of activity, even with the big city nearby.”