by Unknown
It’s been two years and there have been a lot of ups and downs, but we’re making it, one bag of blood at a time. I think other than the obvious, having our professions intertwine like they do has made life together doable for us. Now, enough of this backtracking. I really have to do the autopsy on Jane Doe and find the creep that’s playing dropsy with pretty girls.
“That better be my boss and she better have coffee and donuts or I’m going on strike,” Reggie hollered as my heels striking the tile announced my arrival.
“She does and she’s so amazing she brought you a baker’s dozen with all your favorites.”
I made it exactly two steps into my office before my five-foot-five, carrot-topped assistant came flying into the room. His Harry Potterish glasses were in their usual place at the tip of his nose; his cheeks were bright red from the frigid temperatures of our workspace, making his millions of freckles even more pronounced than usual. He was still sporting his rubber gloves and apron as he reached for his coffee and the box of confections, simultaneously. Using my five-foot-ten inch stature to keep him separate from the food, I lifted it all above my head.
Reggie pulled off the gloves and threw them in the trash along with his disposable apron, giving me the stink eye over his glasses the entire time. Biting the inside of my cheeks to keep from busting out laughing, I lowered the food, placing it into his outstretched hands. Grumbling to himself, he cleared a spot on my desk, plopped in the only other chair besides mine in the room, and began chowing down.
Reggie tried to tell me something he found extremely important halfway through donut number two and with a mouthful of powered donut. All I could make out was ‘police’ ‘homeless’ and ‘stabbed’, or at least I thought that was what he said.
Rolling my eyes and shaking my head, I sighed. “Reggie, swallow first. I mean really, you have the manners of a pack of wild dogs.”
Finishing his donut and following it up with a big gulp of coffee, Reggie began again. “The cops called. They found the body of a homeless guy who’d been stabbed in the heart five blocks from this morning’s victim. Kavanaugh said the scene had been worked over by every vagrant within a mile radius, so the paramedics bagged and tagged the victim and they’re on their way in right now.”
“Kavanaugh called it in, not…” I let my words fade, knowing I’d opened my mouth before engaging my brain and giving Reg more fodder for his ever growing ‘tell me everything about you and Bobby’ diatribe.
Grinning like the cat that ate the canary, Reggie answered my unfinished question in a sing-song voice. “No, Loverboy Bobby did not call it in. Apparently, he and his partner caught another case across town. But Kavanaugh was quick to tell me that Bobby and Mitch would be taking over this afternoon. So never fear, boss lady, your Prince Charming will be back on the beat ASAP.”
Laughing at his own joke and grabbing two more donuts, the brat scurried out of the room, shouting over his shoulder, “Gotta get back to Jane Doe’s fingerprints and bloodwork. Chop, chop and all that. Don’t want to make our office look bad.”
I could’ve run after him, could’ve even yelled after him, but it wasn’t really worth it. Reggie was the closest thing to a little brother I had, along with being one hell of an Assistant Medical Examiner, so I put up with his overzealous interest in my love life and whatever hair-brained schemes he cooked up. There were times I contemplated telling him about my fangless condition but just as quickly changed my mind. Can you imagine how he’d go on and on if he knew? (Oy Vey!)
Finishing my coffee in peace, (yes, I eat and drink just like other people. It does nothing to stave off hunger or nourish my body, but I enjoy food.) I put on my lab coat and headed to the Exam Room. It had been a busy twenty-four hours. Reggie had three tables prepped and the other one filled with the supplies he’d yet to place. A quick glance at the wall of cold chambers showed all but four compartments filled and I knew we had another on the way. It was going to be a long couple of days, but since sleep was not something I required, I would keep working even when Reg had gone home. All I had to do was make the amount I accomplished seem reasonable and I’d be in the clear. It was something I’d gotten good at over the years.
Dressed in all my gear, I stepped up to our Jane Doe from earlier, started the overhead recorder, and began with the physical description for the record. I had just begun my Y-incision when Reggie called from the computer in the corner. “We’ve got a name. Vanessa Davenport, age thirty-one, attorney to the rich and famous, recently moved to Georgia from the D.C area. One ex-husband and another in the works, neither live here, and an ailing mother in Green Pines Assisted Living, just outside of Buckhead.”
‘So that gives us a Pediatrician, Psychiatrist, College Professor, CEO, and the owner of the largest software company in the South, along with Ms. Davenport, the attorney. Me thinks our killer has a problem with powerful women. Can you say mommy issues?”
“Trying out your psychology minor there, boss?” Reggie raised his eyebrows and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Not so much that, but come on, this can’t be a coincidence; they’re all rich, successful, and in their thirties.”
“Is there a doctor in the house?” Bobby’s voice floated into the room. My heart fluttered, just as it had the first time I’d met him, just as it did every time. The low timbre of his voice, combined with his rolling southern accent, made my pulse race and my palms sweat. (Yes, vampires sweat. Well, at least I do, but God knows I’m unique.)
“She is. Is there someone in need of medical attention?” I answered, trying not to sound breathless but failing, as I always did. This was a game we played every time he came to see me, and I knew if I looked at Reggie, he would be rolling his eyes. (Jealous, much?)
Not answering but stopping right in front of me, placing his hands on my shoulders and leaning forward, the sexiest man in Georgia kissed me just a teeny bit senseless amid the dead bodies, antiseptic smells, and right in front of Reggie. Always a gentleman, Bobby steadied me on my shaky legs before taking a step back.
Grinning because he knew how he affected me, he finally answered, “Darlin’, my heart is always skipping a beat or two when you’re around. Do you think it’s terminal?” (Yes, our hearts beat. Sheesh!)
“No, but I better do a thorough exam later.” He winked and I swooned. “Oh, the things you do to me, Detective,” I whispered for his ears only. (Yes, we have super kicked up hearing.)
“Damn Vi, I’ve missed you.”
Before I could answer, the sound of pretend gagging came from behind us. Reggie called out, “Y’all are gonna make me lose my coffee and donuts. Get. A. Room.”
“I told you that little redhead in dispatch was asking after you, Reg. Sure I can’t set you up? Might help you loosen up a little,” Bobby teased as we turned to begin our consultation about Ms. Davenport’s untimely demise.
It took about an hour, but the general consensus was we were no closer to finding out who was killing these beautiful women or why. It was the most frustrating case I’d had to date, and it was seriously pissing me off. I looked at Bobby and could see the wheels turning. Experience told me not to bother him while he was thinking, so I continued my Y-incision and began to remove what was left of Vanessa Davenport’s organs for Reggie to weigh and test. It wasn’t the favorite part of my job, but it was something we did with every body. However, this time it bothered me. Somehow, taking apart what was left of the sixth woman that had literally been thrown away like yesterday’s garbage by the killer being called “The Tosser”, without any clues to his identity, was getting the best of me.
The computer running the DNA search beeped. Reggie, who’d been across the table from me weighing and recording organs, dropped what he was doing (not literally, don’t be gross) and ran. A groan, accompanied by a sigh, let me know once again we’d come up empty-handed. Bobby, who’d been hanging out waiting for the results and making eyes at me, stood, kissed me on the cheek, and said his goodbyes, promising he’d see me
later that evening.
Reggie returned to his task looking like he’d lost his last friend, and to be honest, I felt the same way. How in the hell was this douchebag subduing these woman, cutting their necks from ear to ear, and then throwing them out a window with no one hearing him, no one seeing him, and leaving absolutely nothing behind. It was as if he was a ghost. (No, they’re not real. I mean really…ghosts? Y’all are funny.)
The tox screen showed nothing. Not a one of them had been drugged or even had a drink in the hours preceding their deaths. Reg had fluids he’d extracted from each of the organs and was beginning to test those for everything, including the kitchen sink. I prayed we’d find out something…anything from them. In the meantime, I started the pre-exam on the homeless man that was found only a few blocks from Ms. Davenport, looking for any clues that he was murdered by the same person.
Hours ticked by. We worked until almost midnight. It wasn’t until Reggie dropped his scalpel for the fourth time that I insisted he go home.
“But Vi, I don’t feel right leaving you all alone. I need to stay and help you figure this shit out.”
Pushing him towards the office, helping him out of his protective gear and then out of his lab coat, I put his messenger bag over his shoulder and walked him to the door. “Go home, Reggie, get some sleep. That’s an order. I’ll see you in the morning. Don’t worry about being on time, get here when you get up. I called Doc Marten from Savannah for a consultation, so I’m just gonna bed down in my office.”
I could see he wanted to continue arguing, so I added, “I’ll call Bobby to come hang out with me, okay?”
He looked at me over his glasses, as if he could read my mind, and finally relented after seeing whatever he was looking for. I think at that point he was about to fall over and had no choice but to leave, but whatever, the poor guy needed some sleep. I watched as he walked through the heavy double doors and then I returned to my office.
Over the years, I’ve found that sometimes, I have to go old school when solving a problem. I have to get all the actual pictures and real paper reports, spread them out where I can, look at each and every one, and then see what doesn’t fit. It’s like playing that game kindergarteners learn ‘Which One of These is Not Like the Other Ones’. I’m looking for the thing or things that doesn’t fit. Reggie thinks I’m crazy, but I’ve noticed that the longer we work together and the more times my antiquated system works, the closer he is to coming over to the dark side. (Cue the evil laughter. Okay, maybe I needed some sleep too.)
It took me a little while to gather up all the files, print the stuff we usually stored in the computer, change into my yoga pants along with Bobby’s Van Halen T-shirt, and put my hair up in a ponytail. Grabbing a bag of O positive from the refrigerator hidden under my desk, I started organizing all the information. As much as I enjoy real food, it does nothing to stave off the hunger pangs, and a hungry vampire (fangless or not) is not a friendly vampire.
First, I put the ante mortem pictures on the rolling bulletin board in order of death. Then, did the same with each pertinent piece of paper. By three am, I had everything I needed displayed and was just about to sit in the middle of it and see what I could find. The radio behind me signaled I would be having company in the next hour or two. Seems some guy decided to drink too much moonshine and then play chicken with a train. That was gonna be a fun identification. The tech had used the phrase ‘a mushy puzzle with pieces missing’. Remember that country song ‘Some Days are Diamonds’? That day had been coal and that’s all I’m gonna say about it.
Have you ever been looking at something so hard you miss what’s staring you right in the face? Yeah, me too, and this case was one of those times. It was time to take a step back. Getting up to refresh my coffee and starting a new pot, I thought about the two things that were bothering me the most. Why was he carving a ‘V’ in their ‘v’, and why was he choosing successful, thirty-something women? These things had to be the key to finding him. I could feel it in my bones.
The lists of known associates the police had added to the digital file was no help. Yes, these lovely ladies had been part of the up and coming young professionals scene in Buckhead, but, at least by all accounts, they hadn’t even known each other much less hung out with the same people. No one had been able to find any serious love interests. Only casual dinners associated with work, and those were so rare, they weren’t worth mentioning.
There was a report detailing their social media activity that I’d looked at several times but for one reason or another, had never gotten all the way through. Something was screaming at me to take a closer look. Taking an ‘almost’ lotus position (give me a break here, curvy girls do not make good pretzels, but we’re flexible), I plopped down in the middle of my mess, shoved everything but the computerized reports to the side, and carefully went line by line through each woman’s life on the web.
I thought I had no life! Sheesh! These ladies did nothing but promote their businesses and fend off well-meaning family members trying to set them up with every single man between here and the Mason-Dixon Line. Some of the pictures made me laugh despite myself. One in particular was in Olivia Huntington’s messages from her mother. The guy looked like an absent-minded professor who had literally run a comb through the front of his hair (the back stood up like feathers on an Indian’s headdress) and thrown a jacket on over his wrinkled, plaid button down (one side of the shirt’s collar was over the jacket’s collar while the other side was tucked in). Someone had obviously told him to take off his glasses, bite the tip of the arm, and look thoughtfully into the camera. (He instead looked constipated, but who was I to judge.)
Olivia’s mother had given a full, two-paragraph bio detailing the awesomeness of Dr. Vincent Kinkade, Professor of Anthropology at Emory University. Olivia had been polite, as only a well-raised Southern girl who knows her momma can kick her ass no matter how far apart they are can be, when she’d answered. She explained how busy she was with the fourth start-up in the third country of her software company. After much debate, however, she did relent and promised to call Dr. Kinkade. I made a note to check her phone records for that call. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust the police or believe they would do the best they could to find this asshole. It was that, for some strange reason, I felt a kinship to these women. They were my sisters in some unexplainable way, and I owed it to them to do everything in my power to bring their killer to justice.
Thankful for my vamp abilities, I spent the next hour in super-speed, repeating the process I’d established with Olivia’s information. The techs dropped off the ‘Train Tamer’ as I affectionately called anyone silly enough to stand in the way of a speeding locomotive. I knew he would be okay for a little while longer, so I highlighted reports, made notes, and grouped clues until my eyes felt as if they night bleed if I didn’t take a break. Walking around the huge expanse that made up the morgue, I followed the path Reggie and I called “Dead Man’s Track’. (Go ahead laugh. You know you want to.) We used it when we were stuck working, had consumed too much coffee and too many doughnuts, or felt the effects of cabin fever setting in from too many hours in the morgue. It was three-quarters of a mile if you made every loop and went in and out of every office.
Deep in thought, following the abundance of clues I’d collected to an unknown destination, I walked the track. You know those damn hidden picture paintings? The ones where the artist has used a larger picture to disguise his real intent and all you have to do is stare at it long enough for your brain to move beyond the obvious to the concealed? That was what was happening in my brain. I had seen something or written something that my brain was trying its damdest to discern, but for whatever reason, just could not. It was right there. I knew it. I could feel it. Now, all I had to do was get to it. My ‘spidey senses’ as Bobby called them, were all but smacking me in the back of the head and still, I struggled.
More frustrated than I could remember being since the day I tried to make my non-exi
stent fangs pop from my gums (Mom had been doing research my entire life, and had a whole plan as to how my ‘transformation was going to go. To say it was an abysmal failure would be an understatement, but I loved her all the more for trying), I started my second trip around the track. Deep in thought, I only half registered the sound of the double doors I thought I’d locked when Reggie left being opened. Figuring one of the EMTs or techs had forgotten something, I ignored it and kept moving.
Names, think names, kept floating through my mind. But the names of what? I’d made at least five lists that were nothing but names. Names of co-workers, names of known associates, names of appointments they had the week leading up to their deaths, names of family members, and names of…OH MY GOD! That was it! How had I been so blind?
Spinning on my heels, I ran in my sock-covered feet, sliding on the tile and deciding not to use my vamp speed. Just the thought of coming up with an explanation for a broken nose from running into a wall and then the explanation of how it had healed in less than forty-eight hours seemed exhausting. (Graceful I am not, even on the best of days.) I needed to look at notes. I need to see…
The sound of boots striking tile echoed through my abandoned lab. My heart started to beat a bit faster. (Read this as fifteen beats a minutes instead of twelve. (What can I say. Fangs do not a vampire make, but an almost non-existent heartbeat damn sure does.) For a split second, I thought it was Bobby. I was immediately relieved. Then my super hearing picked up just a slight stutter every other step. Not Bobby. His swagger was engraved in my brain. Just a slight scrape of his right heel after every step. Kinda like he was two-steppin’ every step he took. The person whose steps I heard probably didn’t even know one leg was just a fraction shorter than the other, but as I have learned, vamp hearing doesn’t lie.