“Who’s the victim?” he asked as they went up the walk.
“Rosana Orozco,” Greg said. “Legal immigrant, trying to get citizenship, but this kind of puts a crimp in her plans. She worked swing shift at a dry cleaner’s and cleaned houses for a few families in Oak Park.”
“Any drug connections?” Larissa asked. “Or smugglers?”
“Not that we know of. Seems like she was a pretty straight arrow.”
“Witnesses?”
“We canvassed the block. Nobody saw or heard anything. Here we go.” Greg opened the front door. Alex took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the last fresh air they would get for a while. Then he followed Larissa and Greg into the house.
Apparently cleaning other people’s homes didn’t leave Rosana Orozco a lot of time to deal with her own. It was neat, but not spotless, with a layer of grime on the kitchen cabinets and an overflowing wastebasket in the corner. The smell of her last meal hung heavy in the air. Budget store furniture and appliances, cheap dinnerware, some candles with saints on them. The pantry was sparse, the refrigerator bare. She had a stack of Spanish-language magazines; telenovelas, they were called. She had DVDs of American and Mexican movies, mostly romances. A shelf was filled with Happy Meal toys.
“She have a kid?” Larissa asked.
“No. Neighbor said she had a cousin somewhere in the area who came by sometimes with her two toddlers, but Rosana lived alone.”
“No roommate?”
“It’s a two-bedroom house,” Greg said. “But the second one is tiny. She has an ironing board in there, and a mending basket. She wasn’t making piles, but her landlord says she was never behind on the rent. And we found a bankbook. Twelve hundred bucks in a savings account.”
“Hardworking woman,” Larissa said. “Putting money away. Came to a new country, alone, to try to make something different of her life. It’s a damn shame.”
“And she did it the right way,” Greg said. “Followed the rules.”
“Where is she?” Alex asked.
“In her bedroom.”
“Show us.”
“You got it. Coroner’s people will be glad to get the okay to come and get her.”
“Was there any sexual assault?” Larissa asked.
“Doesn’t appear to be.” Greg opened the bedroom door. The stench came out in a rush. Rosana’s bladder and bowels had evacuated at death, and those smells overwhelmed those of blood and mortality. For now, anyway, although Alex knew that the smell of death was one that could conquer almost anything, given a little time.
Her body was on the floor, at the foot of an unmade bed. Like the others, her throat had been sliced open. The olive skin was pale underneath the pigment, with little blood in the veins to darken it up. Rosana was short, probably just topping five feet, if that, and on the stocky side.
“Has there been a crime scene team in here?” Alex asked.
Greg laughed. “That would be me,” he said. “We’re a small-town force, don’t have much in the budget for that sort of thing. Way I see it, good police work is all you need.”
Larissa looked at Greg and smiled. She had already been checking out the swell of his arms against that blazer.
Just what I need, Alex thought. For her to have a crush on some local yahoo.
Not that she was interested in him. That, he could live with. But if she started dating someone like Greg, and he had to hear about it every day?
That was the kind of thing that drove a man to the bottle, or worse. As far as Alex was concerned, it wouldn’t be a very long trip.
He just hoped he could stay sober long enough to find out who was killing women in his town, because drunk he wouldn’t be worth a damn.
29
ZACHARY KLEEFELD’S DESK WAS like something from another era, a massive construction of wood with slabs of what looked like marble inlaid into it and ornate gold filigree accenting that. He kept its surface free of anything but a couple of telephones and whatever paperwork he was looking at. When he needed to use a computer, he had a separate workstation for that, in another part of an office nearly large enough for a formal ball. Where much of the black-bag budget went, Marina supposed. As long as she got hers, she wasn’t about to pass judgment.
Zachary Kleefeld labored under no such restrictions. He was a master at passing judgment and not shy about letting people know it. Just now he was looking at Marina with his head tilted slightly back, brows raised, wrinkles cresting across his bald head like waves moving toward shore. His nostrils were flared and she half-expected him to snort. “What do you know about someone named Barry Wolnitz?” he asked.
“Is he a vampire?” Playing innocent, not that he was likely to buy the act.
“No, but he was the victim of a vampire.”
“Then nothing, I guess.”
“You didn’t meet him when you went to Senator Harlowe’s office?”
“I met a lot of people, but the senator made the biggest impression.”
“Marina, we’ve shown Wolnitz’s photograph to the crew on the airplane you took that night. We know it flew the two of you to Philadelphia. Where Wolnitz died. His body was mostly consumed by a building fire, but not entirely, and the Philadelphia police department was very disturbed by what they found in the ruins.”
Marina shrugged. The truth was that she had been more shaken than she wanted to admit about Barry’s death. She kept picturing his face when she closed her eyes. She hated it when her people died, but at least they knew the risks going in. They were trained to be able to handle themselves. Barry’s life had been in her hands and she had screwed up. She couldn’t afford such mistakes, especially not when the lives of her own people were at stake, too.
If this was conscience, maybe she could find a way to have hers surgically removed, because she didn’t like it one bit.
“Okay, maybe I knew him a little. He blackmailed me into taking him along. But he made a mistake and let himself get eaten, so I left him there.”
Zachary shook his head slowly. “My God. What are we supposed to do with you?”
“Well, I don’t know. Do you have anyone else who’s as good at finding and killing bloodsuckers?”
“You know we don’t.”
“How about anyone else who has an understanding with Senator Harlowe, guaranteeing continued funding with no questions asked?”
“Not that either.”
“Then I guess you leave me alone and let me do my job. You could give me a raise if you wanted.”
He smiled, which made his jowls jiggle like semi-inflated balloons. “Let’s just leave things as is for now.”
Marina started to get out of the visitor’s chair. “If that’s all—”
“It isn’t,” Zachary said. “You’ll want to see this.” He shoved a photograph across his desk. Marina reached for it, perused it briefly.
“That’s the missing scientist,” she said. “Greenbarger.” He had been photographed from above, pumping gas into a pickup truck. Insects buzzing around overhead lights showed up in the picture as glowing spots.
“Larry Greenbarger, yes.”
“When was this taken?”
“Two nights ago, in Little Rock, Arkansas.”
Little Rock, Marina thought. The agency had been buzzing about Little Rock. “So he’s alive.”
“Not necessarily,” Zachary corrected. “You heard about the little difficulty there the other day.”
“Of course. A vampire causing havoc in the daytime. I was planning to head out there this week.”
“We’ve determined that a household on the corner, right where the vampire went berserk, was used as a base of operations. The house’s resident was found inside, dead and drained. Her credit card was used at a gas station the night before the event, but after she apparently died. When it was determined that the card had been used fraudulently, we looked at the gas station’s surveillance video. He turned up, and facialrecognition software identified the presumably late Dr. Lawrence Green
barger.”
“So you think he’s one of them?”
“We know he is. Once we had that, we went back over the victim in the house. Greenbarger’s DNA, not the berserk vampire’s, was found on her wounds. He sucked her dry.”
“Fascinating.”
“Troubling, I’d say.”
“Well, that, too.”
“Obviously someone’s been in the house. Any sign of where he might be now?”
“Not that we’ve found,” Zachary said. “But you might want to get out there. I don’t know what the good doctor is up to, but we need him stopped.”
Marina smiled. This was the kind of challenge she enjoyed.
Especially when “stopped” was a euphemism for “killed.”
“I’m on it, Zach. Send me everything you’ve got. I’ll be on the road.”
“That’s just where we want you, Marina,” he said, dismissing her with a wave of his hand. “On the road. Please.”
30
LARRY FELT LIKE HE had pushed his luck far enough in the South, for now. Little Rock was a fair-sized city, but he would feel more comfortable losing himself in the more populous northern states. He started working his way up Interstate 55, not worrying about covering much distance and leaving plenty of time to hunt, to find safe haven, and to continue his research as he went.
He had spent a couple of days at a motel in Overland Park, on the edge of Kansas City. Deeply immersed in some difficult calculations, he paid little attention when the sun went down. Hours passed, and Larry worked.
Then he achieved a satisfactory result. The answer he was looking for, or so he believed. He smiled and pushed away from the little motel desk.
He was starving.
He had been working so hard, he’d paid little attention to the demands of his body. He still had more calculations to go, to apply the answer he had just found more specifically to the problem at hand. But he needed to feed; now that he had noticed, he wouldn’t be able to concentrate until he’d had his fill.
He slipped from his motel room, shutting the door quietly behind him. The motel had two buildings, at right angles, with parking in the middle. Each building had two floors.
Larry walked quietly to the other building, found the staircase next to a humming soda machine and a grinding ice machine. Condensation from window air conditioners pooled on the sidewalk. He climbed the stairs and strolled along the upper walkway, glancing at each curtained window he passed. Finally, three rooms from the end, he saw a light burning and heard the faint mutter of a television tuned to a porn channel.
Stopping in front of the door, he tapped lightly. Immediately, the rustle of sheets sounded, then feet brushing across the carpet. A man opened the door wide, wearing only red bikini briefs, gold chains around his neck and wrist, and so much cologne that Larry almost choked. He had a bottle of cheap champagne and two glasses on the nightstand. “Really?” Larry said. “I don’t know who you’re expecting, but wearing that?”
“Hey, fuck you, who are you?” the guy demanded. He had a deep chest but a bigger gut, arms that showed the results of occasional exercise or manual labor, and skinny legs that seemed inadequate to support his weight. His hair was curly, his face florid. He started to swing the door shut, but Larry moved into it, shoving it open again, barreling into the man at the same time and driving him back into the room.
“Look, you gotta get out of here,” the guy began. “I got company coming.”
Larry cut his complaint off with a hand around the man’s throat. The guy made gagging sounds. His ruddy face started turning purple, his eyes bulging. Larry kept up the pressure, intensified it. The man went limp, his red briefs soaking through at the same time.
Not Larry’s ideal situation, but a meal was a meal. He dragged the guy into the bathroom, put him in the tub, sliced him open and drank deep.
Partially sated, he went back into the bedroom and turned off the porn. He left the light on and sat on the edge of the bed, thinking about daylight and the Immortal Cell, trying to work out some last details while he waited for the guy’s hooker to show up.
In the morning, the police knocked on his door, as they had on every other door in the motel, asking questions about the dead pair upstairs. Larry let them in and answered their questions, showing them notebooks full of complex calculations they couldn’t begin to understand so they would think him an innocent, nerdy scientist. He feigned a cold, which they bought completely, remaining bundled in a blanket and holding a tissue over his nose and mouth, insisting that the curtains stay drawn. They didn’t stay long. When they had left, he got online to see if he had any new correspondence. As usual, there were a few emails from people he could tell at once were phonies. A couple of them might have been from real vampires; at least, the writers seemed to understand the problems and frustrations of the night dwellers.
But one message, from someone tagged as Walkin_ Dude, struck Larry more than the rest. It was simple, straightforward, to the point. And it indicated that a group of vampires were interested in what he had to offer.
That was better than one vampire at a time. When he rolled this out, he wanted the biggest possible audience. This discovery would revolutionize the vampire world, and as a result the entire world. One vampire protected here or there from the sun was almost meaningless in the greater scheme of things—he needed to get it out to thousands. Millions, if there were that many.
Larry replied at once to Walkin_Dude. I can help with the daylight situation. My method is new, still somewhat experimental, but will be perfected shortly. It needs to be administered face-to-face though—is that a problem?
Through the walls, he listened to the police for a few minutes, questioning other guests, milling around the parking lot. The prevailing assumption was that the killer had followed the prostitute in, or had known somehow that she was coming. Chances that it was someone staying in the motel were remote, detectives theorized, because who would be stupid enough to do that?
Soon his computer chimed, letting him know that a message had arrived. He rushed to look. It was from Walkin_Dude. Not a problem. I don’t know where you are, but some neutral ground would be good. How about Chicago?
Chicago would be fine, Larry wrote back. I can be there in four nights.
Four nights would be pushing it, but he had made a breakthrough. He thought he could synthesize the new formula over the next day or two, and then spend the next couple nights traveling. He was nearly certain he had eliminated the problem he had come to think of as sun-rage. The vampire species should be able to get the benefit of the increased strength and ferocity that sunlight could give them, but without the accompanying total loss of mental control.
If he still needed to make alterations to the formula, he could do that during the days, when he couldn’t drive.
And when he got to Chicago, he would have test subjects ready and waiting.
All his efforts would soon pay off. And the things that science had not delivered to him as a human—appreciation, recognition, reward—would finally be his at last.
All he’d had to do to earn it was to die.
31
WANDA CASE HAD BEEN rude to Walker, last time he’d been to Cap’n Bligh’s Fish’n Fries. She had shafted him on onion rings, leaving the bag at least two short, a hollow shell of what it should have been. When Walker complained, she had made a fuss, sighing audibly and rolling her eyes at the people behind him in line, as if he hadn’t been standing right in front of her. The moment he left the counter, he heard her bitching to her co-workers.
Mitch thought he should have said something to the manager the next day. But Walker hadn’t. Instead he had let it simmer and stew, and now, four nights later, he was finally going to do something about it.
Wanda Case was going to get hers.
She worked swing shift, which was perfect. He knew her last name even though her nametag just said “Wanda,” because he had asked her once, hoping it was something he could turn into a suggesti
ve joke. Something that would rhyme with “screw,” maybe. He hadn’t been able to do anything with Case, but he had remembered it. Looking her up on the internet was easy—if you knew the right sites you could find ridiculous amounts of information about people, and he was able to find her address and phone number in a heartbeat. Then he searched for the restaurant, obtained its number, and called it. He asked for Wanda and was asked to wait a moment. The person answering shouted her name, hand held loosely over the receiver, so he took that as confirmation that she was working tonight and quickly hung up.
Walker and Mitch headed over to her place a little before ten. She lived fifteen minutes from the restaurant, so they had time to scope out the neighborhood. Wanda’s house was small, the yard surrounded by a chain-link fence that a half-decent wind could have blown over. There was a light on over the door, but the windows were dark. Walker cruised past, went around the corner, and parked under a willow that blocked the light from the street lamps.
An unpaved alley bisected the block. The homes had gates onto the alley, and garbage cans lined it for pickup in the morning. Walker and Mitch went up the alley until they reached Wanda’s place. Same pointless fence, three feet high. The backyard was in worse shape than the front; weeds had overpowered the grass and traffic had worn footpaths along the most traveled stretches, from the house to the garbage cans and there to the gate. A rusted swing set with only one swing stood on another bare patch, looking more like a historical relic than anything people still used. The lights on this side were dark, too.
The house didn’t have a garage. Walker and Mitch decided to hang in back until Wanda came home, wait for her to get inside, then knock on the door while she was still getting settled. Chances were that she would open the door immediately and they could go in and take care of business. They huddled in the yard, close to the corner so neighbors wouldn’t be likely to spot them. If there were neighbors. Except for the barking of a dog a couple of blocks away and the lingering smell of some late night smoker’s cigarette, the whole area might have been deserted, the site of some sort of holocaust.
30 Days of Night: Light of Day Page 15