Pale Death

by Aimée Thurlo

  Diane brought the tool out of her big purse and handed it down to him. He crouched down, inserted the tool between the grate and one of the large bolts that attached it to the wall, and pushed. The bolt popped out with a creak.

  He grabbed the other side of the grate and yanked, popping the bolt loose. “Didn’t need the crowbar, but I don’t want to look too strong to these detectives.”

  “Yeah, especially after seeing what kind of treatment vampires get up here in the Four Corners,” Diane answered. She looked over at the closest detective, thirty yards away. He nodded.

  “All clear, let’s move,” she said.

  Lee pulled the grate away from the opening, set it to one side, then ducked beneath and slithered through the damp grass into the Walker property, holding on to his hat so it wouldn’t get knocked off. Diane followed.

  They remained still for a moment, watching the house. Ceiling-high windows at the closest end of the house revealed what they knew to be a den or living room, according to the plans they’d examined. The curtains were open, but no living creature was visible, and they’d already confirmed that the Walkers apparently had no dogs or cats. No housekeeper had been seen arriving, and no vehicles were visible on the property, so if Tanner was there, chances were he was alone.

  “If Tanner’s in there, he isn’t going to stand in front of the open window and risk being seen by someone from the pedestrian or driveway gate. Though he could be keeping watch from behind a curtain in another room.” Lee was trying to watch several of the other windows of the house at once.

  “Well, even if he spots us, he can’t very well come outside during the daytime—not for more than a few seconds—right?”

  “But he has a rifle, so let’s move.” Lee rose to a low crouch, then ran for cover behind a tree farther down the wall and toward the closest side of the building. He paused, selected another tree farther ahead, then continued on again.

  Diane followed, one hiding place back each move, until they were both side by side. Their backs were against the wall at an inside corner of the west wing of the roughly five-thousand-square-foot main building. They’d moved carefully as they’d approached, making sure that they couldn’t be seen from the big garage at the rear of the property.

  Lee motioned with an upward look. “There’s a window open a few inches on the second floor. I’m going in through there.”

  “What if it’s a trap and he blows your head off as you’re climbing in?”

  “Then don’t let me fall on you,” Lee whispered back. “Don’t worry. He can’t know we found out about Marci.”

  “What’ll I do while you’re sneaking around inside?”

  “Work your way to the corner so you can keep an eye on that garage. If you see any movement, just call me on the cell.” He’d already set the phone from ring to vibrate.

  “How about opening this when you get inside so I can join you?” She pointed to the closest ground-floor window.

  “Well, okay.” Lee nodded. “I can use the extra set of eyes and ears anyway.”

  “Be careful.”

  Lee nodded.

  “Wait a second, Lee,” Diane whispered, then reached down and grabbed her cell phone. She looked at the number, then flipped the device open to take the call.

  She spoke very softly, mostly listening, then finally ended the call. Lee could see from her expression it was bad news.

  “Another body has been found, a piece of wood from a broken kitchen chair driven through her heart. It’s Rosanna Luna, according to FPD. Wasn’t she your witness last night?”

  Lee nodded. “I guess Tanner must have seen her watching, then came back after all the officers cleared out. Or maybe he was hiding in her garage or house all the time. That vampire is really starting to piss me off. Let’s nail the bastard.”

  He took a step back from the wall, crouched, then leaped up, grabbing the sill of the window on the second floor. His feet bounced against the wall, but it was brick, so it was unlikely anyone could hear.

  Still angry at the unnecessary death of the woman, Lee struggled to place his emotions aside and concentrate. If he didn’t pay attention now, he might fall on Diane and break her neck. Feeling the power flowing through his body and into his fingertips, Lee brought his chin up to the sill and peeked into the room through the open window.

  A cool breeze blew across his face, along with a faint scent of lemon he associated with furniture polish. Pulling himself up higher, he saw the shiny wooden surface of a dresser or credenza against the inside of the window. The room was either a library or a home office.

  Holding on with his right hand, Lee pushed the window up several inches, then he grabbed hold again and pulled himself up and through the window. It was awkward coming in head first across the flat service, and if anyone had been waiting for him, he wouldn’t have had a chance. But the office was unoccupied, and the door leading out was closed.

  He turned around and slipped off what he discovered was a big wooden file cabinet. Using his sleeve, he wiped off the scuff marks of his passage as well as he could, then crept over to the door to listen.

  Deep, loud voices came from somewhere in the house, but after only a few seconds Lee realized it was from an expensive sound system set to a local radio station. The commentator was from one of those call-in shows, and he was talking politics. Turning around slowly, Lee looked for signs of recent activity, but found none. The computer was off, no papers or correspondence were on any surfaces, and the room looked and smelled like it had been cleaned recently.

  The radio could mean that Tanner or a housekeeper was around, or else Marci Walker left the thing on to make anyone approaching the home believe it was occupied. He hadn’t seen any sign of a burglar alarm, but maybe there was something on the ground floor that would set off an alarm.

  He decided to open the door. Catching a particularly loud commercial for a local restaurant, Lee took advantage of the covering noise. He pulled the door open slowly and peered out into the hall. There were two rooms to his left, and to the right, a large stained-glass window at the end of the hall above a wide staircase.

  He listened, noting that the radio came from below. Inching to his left, he walked to the stair railing and looked down. A spacious den or living room, the same room with the big picture windows he’d seen from the outside, was tastefully decorated with black leather chairs and a large maroon sectional sofa. The light fixtures and lamps were black and gold, with more touches of maroon to match the sofa. All of the furnishings rested upon a beautiful grayish white stone floor, probably marble. He’d have to walk quietly down there, but with the radio so loud, he probably couldn’t even be heard upstairs.

  Lee proceeded slowly, waiting at times to look around, including checking back upstairs. Once on the ground floor he’d find the room, on the west end, where Diane was waiting outside, and let her in—after he confirmed that no one was actually listening to the radio, like the housekeeper. Together they could sweep the house, their activity covered by the amplified program. If Tanner was inside, they’d have the advantage with two pistols to his one. The rifle would be a tactical disadvantage at close quarters despite its potential firepower.

  Lee already knew what he’d do if they managed to incapacitate the vampire. He could see a bright patio outside through one of the windows, and already had selected a particularly hot spot.

  At the foot of the stairs, Lee paused, looked into the living room, and saw one of those Bose radios beside a lamp. That’s where all the noise was coming from. He waited, looking toward a wide door that led into a formal dining room.

  The more he thought about it, the more Lee doubted that Tanner was in the house. He’d have kept the radio off, using his sensitive ears to listen for intruders. If there was a housekeeper, the only way she’d discover Lee would be by actually spotting him. He thought about making a quick sweep of the ground floor before letting in Diane, but decided she’d been outside, more exposed than he, long enough.

&n
bsp; He turned to find the door beneath the stairs that led into the right room, but a large painting on the wall stopped him in his tracks. A man and woman were depicted in the flattering portrait—apparently one of the late Mr. Walker and his wife done years ago. The man was a tall, blond, blue-eyed Anglo in his fifties. The buxom woman, except for the hair color, could have been a younger version of Rosanna Luna!

  Lee grabbed his phone as he walked quickly toward the glass door leading out into the patio. “I’m letting you in through a door in the room with the big glass windows,” he said to Diane as soon as she answered. “You’ve got to see this.”

  Diane stood before the painting. “It certainly looks like the woman on the porch,” she had to whisper loudly to be heard over the radio.

  “I never checked her ID or questioned who she was. If she really was Marci Walker, Tanner was probably in the next room, laughing his head off. And Ms. Luna was already dead elsewhere in the house.”

  “You’re lucky he didn’t make a move on you right then. With the woman there they could have played you right into the grave,” Diane said.

  “Tanner wasn’t ready to kill me yet, I guess, though the woman did invite me into the kitchen. She played it cool, suckering me like that. I should have realized she didn’t belong there when she couldn’t figure out how to turn off the TV set.”

  “What about the green sedan, then? She must have made that up too. But then how did they get away from the Luna house after the officers left the area?” Diane asked.

  Lee made a quick call, and confirmed his hunch. “There was no green Crown Victoria. Ms. Luna had a gold Toyota Corolla, and that’s missing. Marci Walker knows about cars, so those misleading details would have been easy for her to make up.”

  “So, do we still search this place for Tanner? He must have been here at one time, and neither one knows we’re on to them, not yet, or she wouldn’t have gone into work this morning.”

  “Maybe they’re too cocky for their own good, but are we sure she’s still at the dealership? The officers watching her are supposed to let us know if she leaves the premises,” Lee said.

  “I’ll double-check.” Diane brought out her cell phone.

  “I’ll keep watch.” Lee stood, pistol ready, watching the stairs and the exits from the large room. He ignored the patio door for obvious reasons.

  “Business as usual,” Diane said a moment later, ending the call. “Mrs. Walker has been making the rounds with her employees, talking to customers, and basically doing what she apparently does at work, according to the officers watching her.”

  “I wish I knew for sure …”

  “ … if she’s really the person who said she was Rosanna Luna last night?” Diane finished his sentence. “One of the officers managed to get an advertising brochure which shows the woman and her late husband. The image is being faxed to the detectives keeping watch on the grounds. Wanna take a look?”

  “Let’s finish our search first. Tanner’s got to be somewhere inside. Why not this place?”

  Covering each other as they worked, Lee and Diane went through every room in the main house, checking closets and any hiding places large enough to hide an adult. Even the attic was examined. Few private homes in the Southwest had basements today, and this house was no exception, so they decided the garage would be next. Going upstairs, they found a window where they could examine the separate building while deciding on the best approach.

  “Okay, Lee, we have one door and four windows big enough to crawl through. The curtains in the apartment or office upstairs are all open, so anyone inside will see us coming. The grounds around the garage are wide open for a good fifty feet or more, minimum. Even if we circle around, we’d still be exposed once we make a move for a window.”

  Lee shrugged. “He could pick us off with a rifle, and unfortunately, Tanner knows what we look like. Posing as a delivery person just wouldn’t work either.”

  He watched the window for several seconds and for a moment thought he saw movement farther back in the room. “I just saw someone, or something, move. And it makes sense—its a guy thing.”

  “Cars, tools, studly stuff? That what you mean?”

  “Yeah. It would be the last place any honest visitor or delivery person would go, so he’d have more freedom to move around. The windows are smaller too, so any inside movement is less conspicuous. Plus, he’s probably got a car in there for a quick exit.”

  “Maybe even that gold Toyota. You could be right. So, how do we handle it?”

  “Let’s overwhelm him. Get the FPD detectives to divert his attention by making a move on the garage from the side facing the house. We’ll come in the front, through one of the bay doors. He can’t confront us physically there, at least not close-up, without the risk of being fried. The doors face east, and right now the sun will be shining into the garage several feet.”

  “Good idea, Lee. And if Tanner believes you’re a vampire, like him, he won’t be expecting you to approach from a sunlit location. You think you can pop open the garage door with your …”

  “Vampire strength? Sounds Hollywood, doesn’t it?” he said with a wry smile.

  “Hey, it’s a good thing, like the household diva says.” Diane smiled, patted him on the arm, then motioned toward the door. “Let’s make hay while the sun is shining.”

  Diane made the calls while Lee watched the garage. At first, the detectives were reluctant to move in without the necessary warrants, but after she pointed out that Mrs. Walker was probably involved in a criminal conspiracy with the killer of a federal official, and that Lee believed he’d spotted Tanner, they knew they’d be off the hook.

  While they were waiting for the detectives to get set up, Diane made a call and got a warrant issued. Several provisions of the Patriot Act came into play here, especially the sneak and peek rule that gave them permission to search, and Diane was used to dealing with all the legal aspects.

  A half hour later they moved into position. Lee waited at the corner of the big house, hidden from the garage by a large white trellis containing a wall of climbing roses at least ten feet high. The blossoms were in full bloom, and the scent was much more satisfying than with nursery roses, which tended to sacrifice aroma for longevity and appearance.

  Diane was right beside him, cell phone in hand. Once the detectives began to move in on the garage from the west side of the house, she and Lee would run around to the big front doors. They’d found a spare garage remote in the kitchen, so breaking in wasn’t likely to be an issue after all. The iron gates set in the property wall that gave vehicles access to the driveway and the garage were closed, though it could be activated from a wall unit in the kitchen, which looked out toward the driveway.

  There was probably another control panel in the garage, but the Farmington detectives had arranged for another officer to block the gate with a department vehicle once they moved in. Tanner wouldn’t be able to escape in a car, not one inside the garage, at least.

  Lee saw Diane react, then look at the phone, which was apparently vibrating. “They’re moving in,” she said.

  To his left Lee heard running footsteps. He stepped out from behind the trellis, less than twenty feet from the corner of the garage, and pressed the remote button that, according to the label, would open the closest garage door.

  The sound of a powerful engine outside in the street nearly broke his focus, and he fought to keep his attention on the garage. But when the ground shook as something heavy crashed into the iron gates, he finally turned to look.

  The gates burst open at the center, almost coming off their hinges as a big black SUV with an oversized bumper came skidding onto the driveway.

  “What the hell? That wasn’t the plan,” Diane yelled, coming up beside him.

  Three big men in black clothes, flak jackets, and raid caps jumped out of the SUV, then sprinted toward the rising garage doors carrying big, strange-looking pistols. They were Dr. Wayne’s people.

  “No! It won’t
be enough!” Lee yelled, realizing that the men were planning on using sleeping darts to take Stewart Tanner alive.

  “Idiots. Cover them, Lee,” Diane yelled, moving forward, her pistol out. Lee quickly caught up, reaching the half-open bay door just as the first two raiders ducked into the garage.

  Two powerful blasts rang out, less than three seconds apart, and someone screamed. Lee crouched low, peering inside, and saw a rifle swinging in his direction. He ducked back just as a chunk of wood erupted where he’d been a second ago and another round went off.

  Diane crouched, fired a shot, then jumped up again and dove for the side of the garage as an odd-shaped, flaming stick flew out the bay door. “Cover!” she yelled.

  In the back of his mind, Lee recognized the flare attached to a glass jar just before it hit the concrete. The makeshift bomb exploded with a brilliant flash of light and heat, and he turned his head away. The blast wave threw him to the ground, knocking away his pistol. Pieces of glass and debris whistled by at high speed, and Lee stayed low, groping for his weapon.

  There was another gunshot, then the whine of a motorcycle engine made him turn to look. Someone wearing coveralls and a big, tinted helmet shot out of the garage on a big red Honda cycle, slipping through the opening between the ruined gate and the SUV and out into the street. Diane was already sitting up, but she turned too slowly to bring her pistol to bear.

  “That’s Tanner. We need to get after him,” she yelled, scrambling to her feet.

  Lee grabbed his pistol, noting offhand that the gasoline bomb had already burned out except for a section of lawn. He ran into the garage, putting away his handgun and whipping out his cell phone. One of the three men from the SUV was on his knees, trying to stem the blood from a chest wound one of his companions had suffered. “Call an ambulance,” the man pleaded.

  Lee was already punching out the number, so he nodded. As he asked for an emergency team, Lee turned and saw the third man on Dr. Wayne’s team. The back of his head was a mass of ravaged red and grayish white tissue, and a jagged hole the size of a dime in the middle of his forehead was dripping a dwindling stream of blood. Even if he’d been a vampire, the deputy marshal probably wouldn’t have made it.