I knew it wasn’t Mr. Oliver again, because I’d killed him. I’d crushed his heart, and no matter how many times Dracula might rise in old movies, Oliver was well and truly dead. I could guarantee it. Which meant we had a new group of nuts on our hands, and they could have an entirely new motive for killing. Hell, maybe it was personal. Vampires were legal citizens now, which meant they could have grudges just like humans.
But somehow it didn’t feel personal. Don’t ask me to explain it, but it didn’t.
Dolph saw me coming toward him. He didn’t smile, or say hi, because one, it was Dolph, and two, he wasn’t completely happy with me. He wasn’t happy with the monsters lately, which rubbed off on me because I was way too intimate with the monsters.
Still, convincing his son not to become a vampire had earned me brownie points. The fact that Dolph had just gotten off of a leave without pay, with an informal warning that if he didn’t shape up, he’d be suspended, had also mellowed him out. Frankly, I’d take whatever I could get. Dolph and I were friends, or I’d thought we were. We were both a little unsure where we stood right now.
“I need to move the Dumpsters to look at the body. I also need to move the body around to look for more bite marks, or whatever. Can I do that without screwing the crime scene up?”
He looked at me, and there was something in his face that said, clearly, he was not happy to have me here. He started to say something, glanced around at the other detectives, the uniforms, the crime-scene techs, and beyond that to the waiting ambulance, shook his head, and motioned me off to one side. I could feel people’s gazes follow us as we moved away. All of the detectives there knew that Dolph had dragged me up a flight of stairs at a crime scene. When I said manhandled, I wasn’t exaggerating. God knows what the stories said now, probably that he’d hit me, which he hadn’t, but what he’d done had been bad enough. Bad enough I could have pressed charges and won.
He leaned over and spoke low. “I don’t like you being here.”
“You called me,” I said. God, I did not want to fight with him tonight.
He nodded. “I called, but I need to know that you don’t have a conflict of interest here.”
I frowned up at him. “What do you mean? What conflict of interest?”
“If it’s a vamp kill, then it was someone that belongs to your boyfriend.”
“It’s nice that you said if it’s a vamp kill, but if you mean Jean-Claude, then it might not be his people at all.”
“Oh, that’s right, you got two vampire boyfriends now.” His voice was ugly.
“You want to fight each other, or fight crime? Your choice,” I said.
He made a visible effort to control himself. Hands in fists at his sides, eyes closed, deep breaths. He’d been forced to go through anger management training. I watched him use his newfound skills. Then he opened his eyes—cold cop eyes—and said, “You’re defending the vamps already.”
“I’m not saying it’s not a vamp kill. All I said was that it might not be Jean-Claude’s people. That’s all.”
“But you’re defending your boyfriend and his people already. You haven’t even looked at the vic completely, and already you say it can’t be your lover boy.”
I felt my eyes grow cold and said, “I’m not saying it couldn’t have been Jean-Claude’s vampires. I’m saying it’s unlikely. Thanks to the Church of Eternal Life, St. Louis has a lot of bloodsuckers that don’t owe allegiance to the Master of the City.”
“The church’s members are more straitlaced than right-wing Christians,” he said.
I shrugged. “They do come off as sanctimonious, I’ll grant you that. Most true believers do, but that’s not why I say it was them, or strangers, instead of the vampires I know best.”
“Why, then?” he asked.
My only excuse for telling the absolute truth is that I was pissed and tired of Dolph being mad at me. “Because if any of Jean-Claude’s people did this, they’re dead. Either he’ll turn them in to the law himself, or have me do it, or they’ll just be killed.”
“You’re admitting that your boyfriend is a murderer?”
I took in a deep breath and let it out slow. “You know, Dolph, this is getting old. Yeah, I’m fucking a vampire or two, get over it.”
He looked away. “I don’t know how.”
“Then learn,” I said. “But stop letting your personal shit rain all over the crime scene. We’ve wasted time arguing, when I could have been looking at the body. I want these people caught.”
“People, plural?” he asked.
“I’ve only seen two bite marks, but they both have a slightly different pattern to them. The one on the chest is smaller, less space between the fangs. So, yeah, at least two, but I’m betting more.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because they bled her out. There’s almost no blood anywhere. Two vamps couldn’t drain an adult human being without leaving a mess. They’d need more mouths to hold that much blood.”
“Maybe she was killed somewhere else.”
I frowned at him. “It’s October, she’s outside wearing five-inch plastic stilettos, an inexpensive wool coat, and not much else.” I motioned at the building behind us. “We’re in the parking lot of a strip club. Hmm, let me see, five-inch plastic stilettos, naked woman… could this be a clue that she worked here, stepped out for a smoke, or something?”
Dolph reached into his pocket and got out his ever-present notebook. “She’s been identified as one Charlene Morresey, twenty-two, works as a stripper—worked, as a stripper. Yes, she did smoke, but she told one of the other girls she was going outside for a breath of fresh air.”
“We know she probably didn’t know the vamps.”
“How so?”
“She came out to get some air, not to visit.”
He nodded and made a note. “There’s no sign of a struggle, yet. It’s like she came out here for air and just walked over there with them. She wouldn’t do that for strangers.”
“If she was under mind control, she would.”
“So one of our vamps is an old one.” Dolph was still making notes.
“Not necessarily old, but powerful, and that usually means old.” I thought about it. “Someone with good mind control powers—that I’m sure of—age,” I shrugged, “I don’t know, yet.”
He was still writing in his notebook.
“Now, can I move the Dumpster and move the body around, or do you still need the techies to get back in there and do their thing first?”
“I had them wait for you,” he said without looking up from his writing.
I looked at him, tried to learn something from his face, but he was all concentration and business. It was a step up that he’d had the techs wait for me. And that he’d called me at all. Before his time off, he’d tried to get me barred from crime scenes. It was a step up, so why was I still wondering if Dolph was capable of letting his personal life go long enough to solve this case? Because, once you’ve seen someone you trusted lose it completely, you never truly trust them again, not completely.
4
« ^ »
There was a matching set of bite marks on the other side of her neck. They were so close to the same size as the ones on the left-hand side, that I wondered if the same vamp had bitten twice. I didn’t have my ruler with me. Hell, I didn’t have most of my equipment with me. I’d been planning on a wedding tonight, not a crime scene.
I asked if anyone had something to measure bite radius. One of the techs offered to measure for me. Fine with me. She had a pair of calipers—I’d never used a pair of them before.
Measurements do not lie. It wasn’t the same vamp. Nor was it the same vamp at each of her inner thighs or her wrists. Counting the bite mark on her chest, that made seven. Seven vampires. Enough to drain an adult human being dry and leave very little blood behind.
There was no obvious evidence of sexual assault, according to a CSU technician. Glad to hear it. I did not bother explaining that the bi
te alone can be orgasmic both for the vic and the killer. Not always, but often, especially if the vampire is good at fogging the mind. A vampire with enough juice can make someone enjoy being killed. Scary, but true.
After I’d seen every inch of the dead woman, when I knew that her pale flesh might dance through my dreams in their plastic shoes, Dolph wanted to talk.
“Talk to me,” he said.
I knew what he wanted. “Seven vamps. One has to be good enough at mind control to have made the vic enjoy what was happening, or at least not mind it. Someone would have heard her screams otherwise.”
“Have you walked into the club?” he asked.
“No.”
“Music is loud, lots of people inside,” he said.
“So they might not have heard her, even if she did scream?”
He nodded.
I sighed. “There’s no sign of a struggle. They’ll look at her nails, but there won’t be any sign of a fight. The vic didn’t even know what was happening, or at least not until it was way too late.”
“You’re sure of that?”
I thought for a second or two. “No, I’m not sure. It’s my best educated guess, but maybe she’s one of those people that doesn’t fight back. Maybe once seven vampires surrounded her, she just gave up. I don’t know. What kind of person was Charlene Morresey? Was she a fighter?”
“Don’t know yet,” Dolph said.
“If she was a fighter, then vampire mind tricks were used. If she wasn’t, if she was real docile, then maybe not. Maybe we’re looking for a bunch of young vamps.” I shook my head. “But I’d say not. I’d say at least one, maybe more, were old, and good at doing at this.”
“They hid the body,” he said.
I finished the thought for him, “And then exposed it, so that someone would find it.”
He nodded. “That’s been bothering me, too. If they had just closed her coat over her body, not messed with the hair, no one would have found her tonight.”
“They’d have missed her in the club,” I said, “or was she done for the night?”
“She wasn’t done, and, yeah, they would have missed her.”
I glanced back at the body. “But would they have found her?”
“Maybe,” he said, “but not this quick.”
“Yeah, she’s still fresh, cool to the touch, but not long gone.”
He checked his notes. “Less than two hours since she was on stage.”
I looked around us, at the bright halogen lights. There was no good place to hide in this parking lot, except behind the Dumpsters. “Did they do her behind the Dumpsters?”
“Or a car,” he said.
“Or van,” I said.
“The serial killer’s best friend,” Dolph said.
I looked at him, trying to read behind those cop eyes. “Serial killer, what are you talking about? This is the first kill, to my knowledge.”
He nodded. “Yeah.” He started to turn away.
I caught his sleeve, lightly. I had to be careful how I touched him lately. He took so many things as aggression. “Cops do not use the phrase serial killer unless they have to. One, you don’t want it to be true. Two, the reporters will get hold of it and report it like it’s truth.”
He looked down at me, and I let go of his sleeve. “There aren’t any reporters here, Anita. It’s just another dead stripper in Sauget.”
“Then why say it?”
“Maybe I’m psychic.”
“Dolph,” I said.
He almost smiled. “I got a bad feeling, that’s all. This is either their first kill, or the first kill we’ve found. It was awful damn neat for a first kill.”
“Someone meant for us to find her, Dolph, and find her tonight.”
“Yeah, but who? Was it the killer, or killers? Or was it someone else?”
“Like who?” I asked.
“Another customer that couldn’t afford to let his wife know where he’d been.”
“So he opens her coat, draws out her hair, tries to make her more visible?”
Dolph gave one small nod, down.
“I don’t buy it. A normal person couldn’t touch a dead body, not enough to open the coat, mess with the hair. Besides, that flash of pale flesh was done by someone who knew that it would be as visible as it is. A normal person might drag her out from behind the Dumpster, maybe, but they wouldn’t mess with her, not like that.”
“You keep saying, ’normal,’ Anita; don’t you know yet, there is no normal. There’s just victims and predators.” He looked away when he said the last, as if he didn’t want me to see whatever was in his face.
I let him look away, let him keep that moment to himself. Because, Dolph and I were trying to rebuild a friendship, and sometimes you need your friends to pry, and sometimes you need them to leave you the fuck alone.
5
« ^ »
I didn’t want to go back to the reception. First, I wasn’t in the mood to be merry. Second, I still didn’t know how to answer Arnet’s questions. Third, Micah had made me promise I’d dance with him. I hated to dance. I didn’t think I was good at it. In the privacy of our home, Micah, and Nathaniel, and hell, Jason, had told me I was wrong. That I actually danced very well. I did not believe them. I think it was a throwback to a rather horrible junior high school dance experience. Of course, it was junior high, is there any experience except horrible for those few years? In Hell, if you’re really bad, you must be fourteen forever, and be trapped in school, and never get to go home.
So I walked into the reception, hoping I could say I was tired, and we could leave, but I knew better. Micah had dragged a promise out of me that I’d dance with him, and he’d gotten me to promise a dance for Nathaniel, as well. Damn it. I don’t promise things often, because once I do, I keep my word. Double damn it.
The crowd had thinned out a lot. Murder scenes take so much time out of your night. But I knew that the boys would be there, because I had the car. Nathaniel was at the table where I’d left them, but it was Jason with him, not Micah. Jason and Nathaniel were leaning so close together that their heads nearly touched. Jason’s short blond hair seemed very yellow against Nathaniel’s dark auburn. Jason wore a blue dress shirt that I knew was only a shade or two bluer than his eyes. His suit was black, and I knew without seeing him standing that it was tailored to his body, and probably Italian in cut. Jean-Claude had paid for the suit, and he was fond of Italian-cut designer suits for his employees. When he wasn’t dressing them like they were extras in a high-class porno movie, anyway. For a mainstream wedding, the suit worked. Jason also worked at Guilty Pleasures as a stripper, and Jean-Claude did own the club, but it wasn’t that type of employment that let Jason rate designer clothes tailored to his body. Jason was Jean-Claude’s pomme de sang. Jean-Claude did not think I treated Nathaniel with enough respect for his position as my pomme de sang. I had let Micah and Nathaniel go shopping with Jason for dress clothes, and I footed the bill for my two boys. It had been outrageous, but I couldn’t let Jean-Claude be nicer to his kept man than I was to mine. Could I?
Technically, Micah wasn’t a kept man, but the salary he drew from the Coalition for Better Understanding Between Lycanthrope and Human Communities didn’t cover designer suits. I made enough money to pay for designer suits, so I did.
I had time to wonder what Jason and Nathaniel were up to, talking so close together, like conspirators. Then I felt, more than saw, Micah. He was across the room talking to a group of men, most of them cops. He shook his head, laughed, and started across the room, toward me. I didn’t get much chance to see Micah from a distance. We were always so close to one another, physically. Now I was able to watch him walk toward me, able to admire how the suit clung to his body, how it flattered the broad shoulders, the slender waist, the tightness of his hips, the swell of his thighs. The suit fit him like a roomy glove. Watching him move toward me, I realized the suit was suddenly worth every penny.
The music stopped before he reached me,
some song I didn’t recognize. I had a moment of hope that we could just sit down and find out what the other two men were finding so fascinating. But it was a vain hope, because another song came on. A slow song. I still didn’t want to dance, but as Micah got close enough to touch, I had to admit that an excuse to touch him in public was not a bad thing.
He smiled, and even with the sunglasses in place, I knew what his eyes would look like with that smile. “Ready?”
I sighed, and held out my arms. “As I’m ever going to be.”
“Let’s shed the leather jacket first.”
I unzipped it, but said, “Let’s keep it, I’m a little cold.”
His hands slid around my waist. “Is it getting colder outside?”
I shook my head. “Not that kind of cold.”
“Oh,” he said, and he pulled back his hands, which had been sliding up my back underneath the leather jacket. He went back to my waist and slid his hands underneath the tux jacket, so that only the thin cloth of the dress shirt separated my skin from his.
I shuddered under that touch.
He leaned his mouth in close to my ear, before he’d finished the long, slow slide of his hands that would have pressed our bodies together. “I’ll warm you up.” His arms pressed me into the curve and swell of his body, but not so tight as to make me uncomfortable in public. Close, but not like we were glued together. But even this close, I could feel the swell of him under the cloth of his pants. The barest brush of touch, which let me know that there was more than one reason he didn’t hold me as tight as he could. He was being polite. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure whether this politeness was really Micah’s idea, or if he’d picked up my discomfort. He was always very, very careful around me. In fact, he mirrored back so exactly what I wanted, what I needed, that it made me wonder if I knew him at all, or if all I saw was what he wanted me to see.
Anita Blake 12 - Incubus Dreams Page 3