Wilding Nights

by Lee Killough

  Makepeace lifted his chin, all slouch gone. “Detective, I don’t know who you talked to Wednesday, but it wasn’t me. I’ve never met you in my life before today.”

  From the corner of his eye, Zane saw Allison start. Anger flashed through him. That had to be the oldest, sorriest claim in the book: It was not me; I was not there. He clamped down hard to control the anger, “Don’t give me that crap! I met you. You can change your clothes and go from vamp to this James Dean act but I still recognize you!”

  “It wasn’t me!” Makepeace’s voice rose. “Why would I claim to be this Blondie when she’s a killer?”

  “Protecting someone is a possibility that leaps to mind.”

  Makepeace rolled his eyes. “Protect a killer like this? That’s crazy! He needs to be put away somewhere!” He took a breath and met Zane’s eyes squarely. “Look, I don’t know who’s done this...whether they hate me and are trying to get me in trouble, or are just playing some really sick joke, but I swear...I swear by all the saints, that wasn’t me yesterday.”

  Zane’s anger faltered. Could he sit in a witness chair and say with absolute certainty that this Makepeace and the one across the table from him in Quickie’s were the same person? He sighed. Maybe it had been someone else. A number of the family looked so similar anyway, and in that getup, maybe–

  Then he caught a twitch at the corner of Makepeace’s mouth...a glint of laughter in his eyes. Anger flashed up in him again...at Makepeace, at his own gullibility, letting Makepeace play him for a fool.

  “That’s it!” He reached for Makepeace. “The fun’s over! Maybe sitting in a cell for a while--”

  The rest of the sentence froze in Zane’s throat as the air rippled around Makepeace. Heat and terror enveloped him. His heart slammed into his ribs while a voice in his head screamed: Run! But his muscles had paralyzed. He stood rooted, too terrified to move, unable to even breathe, waiting for--

  Through the thunder of blood in his ears came a whipcrack whisper. “Peter!”

  Abruptly the heat disappeared. The terror vanished, leaving only an afterimage of itself.

  Zane found Allison standing between Makepeace and him, shaking her head. “Both of you need time out.”

  He stared at her. It had happened again...but ten times worse than outside Jorge’s. What caused it? What...nightmare had he expected to appear? His brain felt as if it were gasping for air, too.

  “It wasn’t me that talked to him,” Makepeace protested. “Give me a lie detector test or whatever you’re using for a third degree these days. You’ll see I’m telling the truth!”

  She turned on her cousin and pointed at the bench against one wall. “Sit! Shut up! Kerr, I guess people really do go white with anger. Why don’t you head back up to the office. Take the stairs to give yourself some breathing time.”

  If he moved he would fall flat on his face. His knees barely supported him now. “What just happened here?” He struggled to put his brain back in gear.

  “I’d say your red hair started to get the better of you,” Allison said dryly.

  “No!” Zane shook his head. “I mean the heat waves around Makepeace, and that panic coming from nowh...”

  Steam ran out of the sentence at the mixture of pity and clinical concern on her face. “Is this the first anxiety attack you’ve ever had?”

  He stiffened. “I don’t have–I mean, this didn’t come from–” Forget it. She looked as though she were calculating his sedation dosage.

  Wheeling, he stalked out.

  7.

  Allison watched Kerr go, then turned back to Peter and leaned down into his face so she could keep her voice barely more than a whisper. “Just what the hell did you think you were going to do?”

  Peter edged back on the bench. “I’m sorry. He was going to manhandle me. I didn’t think.”

  “Not your first instance of that. You’ve never met him before? You didn’t talk to him?”

  “What else could I say?” Peter slouched against the wall. “If I just recanted he’d arrest me for those charges he mentioned, right?”

  “Of course.” She straightened. “Sometimes you have to fall on your sword. We’d handle it and see you end up with probation.”

  “And him badgering me about who I’m trying to protect by making up that story. Which means he’d be looking to see who in our family that could be.”

  Peter had a point there.

  He grimaced. “So this is the only way out. If I didn’t try feeding him false information, then I’m not protecting anyone in our family. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”

  Allison sighed. “I hope so, because to convince Kerr, you’re going to have to pass high-tech truth testing.”

  “No sweat.” Peter peeled loose something behind his ears. As it came off, his ears went from jug handles to normal position. “I can beat a lie detector.”

  “It won’t be a polygraph.” They needed a test they could run quickly and a polygraph exam took time to set up. Kerr might not buy those results anyway. She pulled out her notebook and began jotting down questions for Gary Hesston, Ident’s director and specialist in their lie detection technologies, to ask. “You’ll have to beat a computer voice stress analysis.”

  Silence made her glance up from the notebook to Peter. He had frozen, staring at her with obvious alarm.

  Good. He finally worried about something. She went back to composing questions. “Courage, Peter. Remember, it’s the truth that you didn’t kill any of those men. The truth that you don’t know who the killer is, aren’t protecting the killer, and wouldn’t protect the killer. Everyone lies about things, so let yourself be caught in one. Claim you wouldn’t lie to protect a family member. The toughies will be did you meet Detective Kerr in Quickie’s yesterday and did you give him a false statement. But you can handle that, right?” She strode toward the door. “Remember the confidence you felt yesterday morning playing your role.” She gave him a knife blade smile and tweak of his ear in passing. “When it was all just another of your repo games.”

  With arrangements made for the CVSA test and Peter left in Ident’s hands, Allison ran back up to the office. She arrived to find more people than she had ever seen in it at one time before...a unfamiliar male and three females seated beside four of the six desks, talking to Kyle Singer, Haley Nightingale, and Holly Gallegos and Andy Trembecka from Property Crimes.

  Oh...the major case squad...busy taking statements by the look of it. While she stood in the doorway, the male and one female finished reading theirs and signed them. Allison stood aside to let them leave.

  Kerr leaned against the frame of Carillo’s office door, talking to Carillo inside. From where she stood, he looked normal...his color back, no shakes.

  She made her way over to him. “Peter will be taking a voice stress analysis. Who are these people?”

  “A bartender and waitresses from Ice And Ivory.”

  He showed no nervousness at her proximity. So apparently he had recovered from Peter’s near Shift. But it was too much to hope he had forgotten.

  After the remaining two waitresses left, Allison had Kerr run off a stack of composite copies. She gathered the squad to organize them. In the middle of handing out assignments, Garroway came through. At Carillo’s door he caught her eye and tipped his head the direction of the office, then went on in. When she had Holly Gallegos installed at the phone on Viapiana’s desk, much to that detective’s obvious disappointment, and the others off on their assignments, with strict instructions not to approach Blondie if they found him but call in, then wait for her and the backup she brought, she joined Garroway and Carillo.

  Garroway stood at the window, staring out into the office. “All squared away?”

  Allison nodded. “Gallegos has the phone. Kerr is calling the trailer parks asking about recent arrivals and rentals. The others are canvassing realtors checking out recent rentals they’ve handled, in case our killer took one of the cottages out along Marais Road or a condo on L
aguna.

  Carillo said, “You’re positive this guy’s a visitor?”

  “He’s a Brit and none of the local trannies know him,” Allison said.

  Garroway turned to sit against the lower edge of the window. “How did the meet with your informant go? Anything useful there?”

  She would have liked to say no, but printing Peter and running the voice stress test had to be accounted for. “Not really. Our meeting was with Peter Makepeace, Sergeant Makepeace’s nephew. Kerr received an anonymous tip that Peter was the blonde who picked up Alex Demry. But,” she hurried on, as Garroway and Carillo started, “Peter has an alibi and documentation backing it up, and his feet are too big for the killer’s shoes. We’re still waiting for results of the palm print comparison and we’re also running a CVSA.”

  “You never mentioned this anonymous tip before,” Carillo said.

  She allowed herself a smile. “Don’t expect me to be unbiased. I’m confident Peter isn’t involved and I don’t want his name leaking out for the media to pounce on like they did that security guard at the Olympic bombing in Atlanta.”

  Garroway smiled back, then folded his arms. “Do you have a plan for tonight? The chief agrees with holding off mention of this third victim until we have positive confirmation that the bite marks match Demry’s, but very shortly we’re announcing activation of the major case squad. Which means people will now expect major progress.”

  Since she could hardly tell them about the clan deployment, she needed an official plan to propose. “How many officers can we afford to stake out the North Bay area?” Not just for window dressing, either. Every pair of eyes counted at this point, even human ones.

  Carillo frowned. “Didn’t you and Kerr spend Tuesday and last night down there?”

  “Two of us couldn’t be everywhere. I can use the whole major case squad tonight...but that gives us just six officers, which isn’t enough either. The ideal would be twelve teams, one in each block.”

  Garroway rubbed the bridge of his nose where his glasses had left impressions. Allison could see the calculator clicking in his head, adding up the cost of paying time and a half to twenty-four officers. “That’s a hell of a lot of overtime when we don’t have any assurance our man even will be there. He didn’t pick up Surrette in a bar.”

  A tough point to argue...especially when she agreed with him. She sighed. “And he might choose a bar in a different area...like The Bull Pen at the rodeo grounds. I know. All I have to go by is gut feeling and determination not to let someone else be shredded without doing something to try preventing it.”

  The two men exchanged glances. Garroway grimaced. “Gut feeling is pretty thin to gamble all that personnel on. But...we sure can’t just sit here with our thumbs up our butts. I’ll talk to Maldonado and see what we can do.”

  8.

  Zane had the office of the Campo del Sol trailer park on the line when Allison’s phone rang. He motioned to Holly Gallegos to answer it.

  She leaned across from Viapiana’s desk for the receiver. “It’s Ident,” she said. “They have the results of your fingerprint comparison and CVSA.”

  Yes! “Tell them we’ll be right down.” He finished his call and peered into Carillo’s office. They still looked involved in their discussion, intent on something on Carillo’s desk. He headed for the office door, calling back to Gallegos, “When Allison comes out, tell her where I’ve gone.”

  Downstairs he stepped into the waiting room, curious to see Makepeace’s state of mind. Smug? Relieved? Nervous? He found Allison’s cousin apparently asleep...slouched on the bench with his back against the wall and his cap down over his eyes, arms folded, legs stretched out with ankles crossed. Interesting. Zane had never figured out why, but where innocent suspects paced and fretted, guilty ones took a nap.

  As he started to back out, however, Makepeace sat up, pushing his cap back. “This is a drag, man. There aren’t even any old magazines to read.”

  “The individuals waiting here aren’t usually big on reading. Even when they have free hands.” Zane pointed at the heavy bar low on the front of the bench, for attaching a handcuff or looping the chain on leg irons.

  Makepeace leaned over to eye the bar. “I see your point.” He straightened. “Okay...is it a good sign when the dude at the computer does a lot of ummm’s and grunts?”

  “You worried?” Zane asked.

  “Nope.” Makepeace put his hand over his heart. “My heart is pure.”

  The line was too good to ignore. Zane grinned. “But if you’ve watched the old Lon Chaney movies you know that even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers each night--”

  “Becomes a wolf et cetera.” Makepeace grinned back. “Maybe you ought to add hairy palms to your blonde’s description.” He turned his palms up, ink stained but hairless.

  Zane left him rubbing at the ink stains and moved down the hall to the polygraph room.

  At the other end of the room from the polygraph machine sat a table with a laptop computer and a small printer. Gary Hesston stood laying out several sheets of printout, each with 1½ inch squares containing a line rising from the bottom of the square into a series of needle-sharp peaks before returning to the bottom of the square.

  “How did he do?” Zane asked.

  Hesston glanced around. “You’re working with Goodnight on this case? Well, except for test lies and one other answer, Mr. Makepeace appears to be truthful.” He pointed at one square. “Here is where I asked him if he was in the North Bay Monday night.” The graph peaks rose high and steeply. In voice stress analysis, truth was tall. “We have a truthful yes, as you see. Here we have a truthful no when asked if he told you he was there. Then I asked if he would lie to protect a family member and he answered no.” In that square the peaks widened. “Clearly, he lied. Later I asked him again if he would lie for a family member and this time he said yes and it registers as truth. When I asked if he would lie to protect the killer, however, we have a truthful no, also a truthful no where I asked if he knows the identity of the killer, and a truthful no when I asked if he met you Monday morning.”

  Zane frowned at the squares. This seemed impossible. He knew that had been Makepeace yesterday. Every instinct in him said so. Did he believe the test results? The results might not be valid if Makepeace felt no anxiety about the subject matter in the questions asked. Then no stress would register in his voice. Yet...the test lies registered as such, and he had been caught lying about whether he would lie for a family member.

  So once Zane stopped in the fingerprint lab and learned that Makepeace’s palm prints did not match those of Blondie on the PT Cruiser or patrol unit, he had no choice but to give Makepeace the good news and let him go.

  He returned upstairs to learn that Allison had been authorized to draw six officers from the uniformed division to help stake out the A that night.

  9.

  The task force assembled at seventeen hundred hours for Allison to hand out Blondie composites and brief them on the operation on the dry board. With a total of twelve officers, each would be assigned one block and watch both sides of the street in that block. If they spotted Blondie, they were to radio Allison but maintain visual contact only, not approach him until Allison gave the signal when to move in.

  “Remember, this is a severely psychotic individual capable of inflicting great bodily harm,” she said. “Don’t risk your life or those of any citizens.”

  “I hope to God this has better results better than the canvass,” Gallegos muttered to Trembecka.

  Zane hoped so, too. No realtor had rented property to anyone with a British accent, male or female, nor anyone with the killer’s descriptors. Showing the composite at the trailer parks, he had three people identify Blondie as a neighbor, but two proved too short, and one the wrong coloring and far heavier in weight, making him wonder if anyone ever really looked at anyone else.

  After Blondie slipped past them two nights in a row, did they have a chance at him tonight? Cou
ld one officer watch a block effectively? Midweek, off season...maybe. He crossed his fingers.

  By eighteen hundred hours they had reached the A, slipping away from the LEC a car at a time in their own cars and initially heading different directions, to avoid alerting the media camp in the front parking lot to the presence of a police operation. Zane took up his station in the 700 block, the next block down from the jazz club. On his first sweep, he dropped into every open business in the block to leave a copy of the composite and his card with his phone number on it, asking bartenders, waitresses, cashiers to call him if they spotted Blondie.

  The humid warmth of the evening made him want to shed his coat, but he needed it to hide the fact he was wearing a radio and a gun...especially the gun. He wanted the weapon handy, not tucked into the pocket of a coat slung over his arm. He tucked his tie in the coat pocket instead, and opened the top button of his shirt.

  Traffic ran light yet. The drink-after-work group had headed on home, leaving mostly couples and families, the early diners. He strolled up one side of the block and down the other, pausing at the corners to look each way on the side streets...scanning faces on the sidewalk and in passing cars, and the trolley, when it went by.

  Seven o’clock passed without a face that could be Blondie’s. Pairs and trios of young adult males and young adult females appeared among the couples on the sidewalks and in the cars, and mixed male and female groups. The club crowd had begun arriving. A typical evening.

  Except for the vampire that installed himself at one of the sidewalk tables outside The Taproom down in the 800 block.

  Every trip to the Sailfish intersection, Zane could look down and see him lounging with one elegant tuxedo leg crossed over the other, dark hair gleaming in the lights on the building facade as though lacquered, the lights occasionally gleaming on a fang, too. Which probably accounted for using a straw in his beer.