Wilding Nights

by Lee Killough

  “Was this Porsche yours?” she called back to him.

  “Yes.” He sounded wistful. “You’d have thought that after all the traffic casualties he’s put back together it would have occurred to my father that an adolescent male and a 356 Porsche could be a lethal combination, but... he blithely passed it on like one of his old tuxedos so he could buy himself a Ferrari.”

  Nice hand-me-down! “So how long before you totaled it?”

  Zane’s expression went righteous. “I never put a scratch on it!” He smiled wryly. “The first few weeks I had it, every cop I knew stopped me to drool over it and warn me the car was a radar magnet and they wouldn’t cut me any slack on traffic violations.”

  Every cop he knew? That must have a story behind it. “What happened to it, then? I haven’t seen it in the LEC parking lot.”

  He grimaced. “Divorce. Susan learned killer instincts at her father’s knee.”

  It baffled Allison why humans made ending a relationship so difficult. Though the idea of being legally bound to a mate was equally absurd.

  Then Allison began reading book titles, and once past sections with law-enforcement texts and classics, she abruptly forgot human absurdities and Kerr’s toys. Gary Golden mentioned seeing books about aliens in Kerr’s locker. The shelves here overflowed with them...row upon row of sci-fi and fantasy. Also mysteries.

  She came back and sat down in the arm chair. “Do you believe in UFOs and vampires?”

  He shrugged. “I believe we can’t dismiss their existence. It’s a bigger, stranger universe than we know.”

  He sounded quite ready to consider possibilities that would never occur to Garroway or most other humans. Until now, she felt uneasy about the curiosity and interest with which he watched her, but her real concern was for the danger Blondie posed to him. Now she wondered if he himself posed a danger. His grenade needed to be juggled very gingerly.

  She reached for more pizza. “You have some concerns about the case, I believe?”

  Kerr took a breath. “Ah...yes. I know you’re the experienced pro and I’m the detective rookie, and Lieutenant Garroway told me how you two worked independently, but...” He leaned toward her, forearms propped on his thighs, expression earnest. “...I don’t know your moves. How do I keep from wasting time covering the same ground you have? If I don’t know what you’ve turned up, what if I miss seeing a link to that when I’m in a position to easily follow up the information?”

  He must have given long thought to how he could complain without whining. They were valid points, she admitted, but in this case it left her with the problem of how to satisfy him without really giving him what he wanted. Keeping that grenade in the air.

  Should she try Honora’s suggestion? She had all the privacy they needed here. Except... she also had no idea how to go about seducing a human. Being clumsy and ridiculous would hardly serve her purpose.

  So she stayed in the arm chair and pumped apology into her voice. “I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t think...just did what I’ve always done with Garroway. I’ll try to communicate better.”

  To her satisfaction, the tension in his face eased.

  She finished off one pizza and started another. “So...we discussed Church and the ATL. What else can I tell you to bring you up to speed?”

  He hesitated a moment. “I can’t ask about what I don’t know about. But...I am curious why you never mentioned the bite anomaly or that computer search on animal attacks.” His ears went pink as her eyebrows rose. “Didn’t you know I saw it? I thought that maybe since you knew I’d been looking at your thesaurus...”

  She might have been wrong to reveal even that much to him. Then glancing down the loft at his bookshelves, she changed her mind. If he believed in a big, strange universe, she could use that to concoct lies explaining information sources and quirks in her behavior. “I knew. I guess I can tell you, if you really believe the stuff in those books is possible, but you have to promise you won’t repeat what I’m going to tell you or I’ll be a laughingstock in the department.” She had no trouble sounding sincere. She would be a laughingstock.

  Kerr raised his brows. “Are you going to tell me you’re psychic?”

  Bless his imagination and inquiring mind! “You’ve already guessed? And believe it? Garroway teases me about being psychic, but he isn’t serious.”

  “I thought it had to be something like that, the way you were acting with those footprints at the Demry crime scene. Is that what made you anxious to know Tonya’s description and if Manning had a girlfriend? You’re receiving some kind of impression about a woman?”

  For a moment she felt chilled. He had been watching her as closely as she feared. Yet playing to his assumption might lighten those grenades. “Yes. The images aren’t always clear, so I don’t know if there’s really a woman involved or it’s Blondie.” Now if only she could explain away Peter’s idiocy. But for now, they had other business to tend to. “I’ve had one very clear image, though...that there’s another victim.”

  Kerr stared at her. “Are you--” He grimaced. “We spent the whole night on the A. If your cousin had come forward sooner, we could have been looking for the right man, not Blondie.”

  “It wouldn’t have helped. The victim was taken in front of Rick’s. The vision was so strong I went in and asked about customers who bought liquor late last night. They had this.” From reached into her shoulder bag for the copy of Surrette’s purchase receipt.

  Kerr read it with a sharp intake of breath. “There’s an ATL on this man. We ought to--”

  “Tell someone? Do something?” She grimaced. “Tell who, do what? Unfortunately I didn’t see who did it. And I don’t have any idea where to look for his body.” She wished she did. “I just know he’s dead...somewhere. It’s cold, but I’m waiting for him to be found in the hope he’ll find a way to point us to his killer.”

  “Two victims in two nights.” Kerr handed back the receipt copy, face grim. “What about tonight?”

  Just what she had been asking herself. Blanketing the warehouse district had not helped. “It’s a problem since we don’t know where he’ll pick up his next victim, or where he’ll take him. Without something material to back my reasons, I can’t ask for patrols to be increased.” Not openly, but she could have Drew put extra patrols close to both sides of the bay, hoping a loose net flung wide detected something. She would have liked to draft the whole clan and put one member on every street corner, but that was certain to catch some human’s eye and raise curiosity. Worse, Blondie might notice and play her deadly game elsewhere again.

  “Without a good description of the man in Benton’s, we don’t even know who to look for.”

  The damned Peter grenade! “Let me call him.” As Gary warned, she reached only the answering machine. “Peter! This is Allison. Call me ASAP about the Benton’s incident! It’s vital to catching this killer.” She hung up. “For lack of any better choices, are you willing to walk the A again tonight? Not the whole evening, since our killer seems to like late hours. Say, meet at nine?”

  He nodded. “I’m game.”

  She stood up, closed her empty pizza boxes, and eyed the two remaining slices in the third. “Are you going to eat those?”

  He stared at her. “Where do you put it all?”

  “High metabolism.” She stacked the slices and headed for the stairs. “I’m off to the office to check whether Surrette’s body or car has turned up. I’ll see you later.”

  8.

  Zane tossed the empty boxes in his trash barrel in the elevator and started to pull down the gate for the ride to the ground, but stepped back out to survey the loft. It felt oddly empty and quiet...like the silence following a storm. Having Allison here had been...interesting. As Garroway predicted, she heard his complaints without anger and explained everything with no sign of impatience or sarcasm. Admitting being psychic explained behavior that puzzled him. He should feel reassured and relieved. He wanted to.

  So what bothered h
im?

  He came over behind the couch and eyed the painting. Right now the brooding landscape could be Mordor in Lord of the Rings. Remembering how Allison reacted to it, reaching up to embrace it, touching the Northern Lights in that intimate way, reminded him that while not angry with him, she had been so with someone. There outside Jorge’s, returning the pizzas, the current around Allison set his skin crawling the same way it had when she tore that strip off him at Mercado Square over Demry’s photo. Without hearing her words or tone, without seeing her face, he felt the force of her fury and gave thanks for not being the target. For a moment, when the air around her took on a ripple like heat waves, he had even felt...unaccountably, irrationally... sheer terror. Then it was gone. She turned and he faced only Allison, cool and elegant, not...whatever the terror expected. The fear might never have existed.

  He even forgot it in the confusion of Allison suggesting they talk here, with the thought crossing his mind– or maybe a hope?– that she was coming on to him. Driving into the building, he had tried to remember if he made the bed that morning, then forgot that in seeing her reaction to the painting.

  A memory of his fear outside Jorge’s touched him again. Allison answered his questions about the case, but she also left him with disturbing others.

  9.

  There was still no sign of Surrette or his Mercedes, but information on the disappearance in Coral Gables had arrived. Allison read through it while driving home. On February ninth, a cabin cruiser belonging to Coral Gable resident Randall Wallace, age thirty-seven, had been found adrift three miles off the coast... unoccupied, with blood on her deck and gunwales. The blood matched Wallace’s type. Witnesses at the marina where Wallace kept the boat had seen him take it out around midnight. Investigation discovered he had met a tall blonde female at a local bar, and a parking attendant saw the two drive away together in Wallace’s Porsche Boxster. The vehicle was discovered two weeks later at the bottom of a canal, the shape spotted in the water by a news helicopter crew covering an area fire. No useful prints could be developed.

  The fax included photos of the cabin cruiser’s deck. A smear on one edge of the blood ended in the partial print of a long-toed bare foot.

  Seeing it, Allison almost smelled the hunter.

  At home, squeals and laughter drew her through the entry hall and French doors at the far end onto the verandah. Out beyond the patio, Jason and Heather rolled in the grass, letting the three children pummel them. When Jason somersaulted to his feet and tossed Sara high into the air, she screamed happily. Tara and Dylan abandoned their attack on Heather to dive at Jason’s legs, biting his trouser legs. Allison watched a glance pass between Heather and Jason. Seconds later the children scrambled away, squealing in excitement. They had felt the adults’ normal body current intensify. Current became heat ripples, rapidly widening, that abruptly disappeared into the forms expanding to engulf them. Two great wolves, one grey, one nearly black, charged forward, running in circles around the children. When the children lunged for them, they whirled on their haunches and raced toward the rear wall of the estate...not too fast. Side-slamming each other, leaping sideways over each others’ backs, they paced themselves to let the children charge in howling pursuit. Soon, the whole group had disappeared around a stand of bamboo.

  Allison made her way down to Honora’s studio.

  Her grandmother left the ladder in front of her still-blank canvas, and sat at her café table while Allison reported the day. Several times she closed her eyes and shook her head, and when Allison told her about John Surrette she bared her teeth, but motioned Allison to keep talking.

  At the end Allison said, “I wanted to update you now hoping you can contact the Miami clan chief and see what she knows about that case or any rogues in the area.”

  Honora nodded. “I’ll also talk to Marlena Golden and Camilla Makepeace and we’ll see if we can’t unearth Peter. It will be easier to make him recant if he can avoid criminal charges, you know.”

  Meaning Detective Goodnight was supposed to figure out how? Allison winced in dismay. Peter had dug a deep hole for himself.

  “I presume you’ve considered that if the hunter here and in Coral Gables are the same, your new victim’s car may have been driven into the bay,” Honora said.

  Allison nodded. “When I go back downtown, I’ll see what I can do about having the chopper take a look.”

  “Bring Kerr home with you tonight. I want to meet him.”

  Allison stared at her dismay. “Here? Baba, wouldn’t it be better to arrange it for somewhere else?”

  “No. Since he’s curious about you, let’s satisfy a little of it while I see what he’s made of. Being secretive will only make him more curious, and he’s already demonstrated his willingness to pry.” Smiling, she stood and returned to the ladder. “Let’s not stimulate that behavior.”

  10.

  Allison might appear her usual cool self, but Zane suspected differently. Current around her kept the hair on his neck and arms at attention as they worked their way down and back up the A.

  Not that he blamed her for being tense. So was he. It had been a frustrating hour. How did you watch for someone with almost no description to go on? Their killer was unlikely to do something as obvious as exit a bar with his victim in a take-along hold. He also had a good chance of spotting them before they saw him. Not only did their reflections in windows show them looking like cops, the Sentinel tonight had a photograph of Allison smack in the middle of the front page with the headline story about Demry’s murder.

  “Don’t you think we’d be less obvious with one of us on each side of the street?” he asked. Though not much less, with them wearing coats, despite the warmth of the evening, to hide their weapons and radios. But his goosebumps would appreciate the chance to subside.

  “He might be,” she answered.

  Did he sense a little distraction there?

  She stopped and spun, peering across the street.

  Zane stared the same direction, feeling an icy rush of adrenaline. “What is it?” He saw no male matching Sir Galahad’s descriptors, though there was a blonde woman in high heels that made her look as tall as the male with her. “You’re not thinking Peter Makepeace is going to show up here in drag again, are you?”

  She glanced sideways as she resumed walking. “No.”

  Over the next half hour, he wondered whether she believed that. Noticing the people she alerted on, he found them all similar to Blondie. Allison might be tense. She might be distracted. He did not believe she had forgotten who they were looking for. For some reason she chose not to mention, she still had Blondie on her mind.

  He was about to remind her about her promise to communicate better when the desultory change-of-shift radio traffic coming through his earphone suddenly became an agonized groan. Electricity ran down his spine. Zane saw Allison stiffen, too.

  “Assistance.” The voice struggled. Zane struggled to identify it. “Officer...I...son of a bitch!”

  “Identify yourself,” Dispatch said. “What’s your Twenty?”

  “Third. Fortuna and...” The officer moaned again. “Mother and Lights.”

  Zane jumped, stung by the current crackling around Allison. Like him, she no doubt wanted to race to the officer’s assistance. However, there would be plenty of officers much closer to Third and Fortuna already on their way there. And he and Allison had business here.

  Zane started to move on, but Allison remained rooted in place, a hand pressing the earphone of her radio tight against her head. Dispatch sent an ambulance, as multiple voices reported arriving at the scene, and as one, hoarse with horror, requested Ident and number forty-three. Forty-three was Gordon Viapiana. Had the officer died? Allison went ashen.

  Dispatch ordered all traffic on the incident to Channel Two. Zane and Allison switched, too. A minute later an officer said, “We need number thirty-three.”

  Allison! Zane’s stomach lurched.

  Her expression looking as though
hers had, too, she grabbed for her mike button. “Thirty-three direct. Does this appear to involve the same subject who was on Lavaca the other night?”

  “10-4.”

  Zane barely kept up as they raced for the cars. Allison stayed on the radio as she ran. “Scramble the chopper! Get it up now, FLIR activated. Tell the pilot to...” She glanced back at Zane. “...to scan the area for a subject with an unusually bright heat signature. We’re on our way.”

  11.

  Her siren, grill lights, and the strobe light on the dashboard cleared a path before her through the light traffic. Kerr ran right behind her. A dead body, even one of a clan member, could always wait, but for a chance to catch Blondie in the area of her kill she would push the sound barrier if she had to. Never mind the question marks she saw leap into Kerr’s eyes at her orders for the chopper pilot. Any problems rising from that she would deal with as the need arose.

  Turning off West Bayside up Fortuna she found vehicles, only two of them patrol units, clustered ahead of her on the right-hand side of the intersection at Third. Somewhere a building alarm shrilled. Parking just short of the intersection, she noticed that the civilian vehicles included a van with the call letters of a Houston TV station. They must have stuck around in the hope there really was a homicidal maniac. With Kerr right behind her, she shouldered past the camera and microphone thrust in her face to circle the patrol unit.

  Another five units clustered at mid-block along with Ident’s van, their light bars still on, flashing blue and red, while two more blocked the Warehouse Street intersection, where she recognized a Sentinel reporter and photographer. Yellow barrier tape stretched everywhere. The alarm appeared to be coming from inside the building on the corner of Third and Warehouse.

  They ducked under the crime scene tape and headed toward the central cluster of patrol units. One stood by itself with Viapiana watching Dasra Phadatare photograph its open driver’s door.