Crimes by Moonlight

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Crimes by Moonlight Page 29

by Charlaine Harris


  “We need him for the FBI to quethtion. So Harry can wrap up his cathe.” She, too, spoke awkwardly around a mouthful of sharpened teeth and two long fangs.

  MacLaren, unable to see past Jake’s head, still had it in him to be offended by mercy from a lady. “What makes you think I’ll talk, sister?”

  Olivia leaned down so MacLaren could see her. Her black eyes narrowed, and her head swayed slightly, fixing MacLaren with her gaze. He almost screamed, but stiffened, stared as if in a trance.

  “You’ll thing like a canary, when I get done with you,” she said. No one hearing her would have doubted her, even with her hissing lisp.

  A thrill of power rushed through the air. Vic had Changed back to human form, shivering in the night air wearing only his union suit. “Hey, Jake, we got to finish up quick. I left the car a few blocks back after I dropped off the girls and tried to make sure the coast was clear for us to join you. But we won’t stay alone forever.”

  “Right,” Jake said. He got up and Changed back to his skin-self, handed the shivering Vic his jacket. “You and Rosalie move the bodies so it looks like they were fighting each other. The big guy down the end was a knife man; use that to cover up the worst of the claw and bite wounds.”

  He turned to Olivia. “And how about you lay one of your Lamont Cranston-Shadow whammies on MacLaren? Suggest he remember this was a fight among his own men, and we were never here. And that he’s dying to confess to the FBI, starting with who the ‘new boss’ is. I’m willing to bet he’s a Nazi or linked to them, if he’s dealing in top secret calculations.”

  “Right, Jake.” She pulled MacLaren up by the lapels and slammed him against the wall. “I know what evil lurks in the hearts of men.” She sank her fangs into his neck; MacLaren went limp, his eyes wide.

  “Jake?” There was a weak voice from the sidelines; Harry struggled to pull himself upright. “Jake, what the heck—?”

  “Harry, it’s all right!” Jake tried to reassure him, but Vic was standing in his long underwear and a borrowed suit coat, and Rosalie was Changing back from her wolf-self, mourning a run in her last whole pair of stockings. Olivia, still a purple vampiress in a muddied coat, was whispering to MacLaren, who nodded eagerly.

  Harry rubbed his head woozily. “Jake, there was a wolf-man. And he was wearing your ugly hat...”

  “Harry,” Jake said, “We’re Fangborn. And we’re here to help. Give us a hand, Olivia?”

  She turned from MacLaren, delicately licking the blood from her fangs.

  “We need to clean up my friend. And please give him a good story about how he followed Eddie from the club just in time to see the fight among MacLaren’s men. How he flagged down the local cops and brought them here.”

  Olivia cocked her head. “It’ll be tricky. It’s harder to alter the blood chemistry of an opium addict. And he’s concussed.” It sounded like “concuthhhed.”

  “Do your best. We’ll alert the Family down in Virginia to keep an eye on him. They’ll give him more forget-me juice, if he shows signs of remembering us too well.”

  After they rearranged the bodies to suit their story, they loaded the still-dazed Harry in the back of MacLaren’s Cadillac, his head cradled in Olivia’s lap.

  Jake handed Rosalie into the front seat and, after she smoothed her skirt around her knees, got in beside her and shut the door. He leaned around to the backseat. “Hey, Harry? How’d you like a kiss from my cousin Olivia?”

  Harry’s head ached from the beating, and the need for a fix was almost crippling. He looked up woozily at the lady who was stroking his hair in the dark. He couldn’t see her well, but he knew, somehow, she was pretty.

  He did like a pretty girl.

  “Okay,” Harry said. Was it his imagination, or was the pain that consumed him lessening?

  Olivia leaned down to him, her lips slightly parted. Harry imagined a glint of white teeth. She brushed right past his lips and went for his neck.

  By the time her fangs had pierced his skin and his blood was flowing into her mouth, Harry was so overwhelmed by a sense of well-being and comfort, the pain and the call of the opium needle was as remote as Shangri-La. There was room for only one thought:

  That’s some A1 kissing ...

  IN the front seat, Vic peered into the night, navigating their way back to his car. “So the girl, the computer—Ida? She was letting her boyfriend, Eddie there, into the lab?”

  “She thought Eddie was just helping her out,” Jake said. “But he was helping himself to the calculations and the information about who they were for. We were looking for some criminal mastermind, not Eddie trying to keep his junk supplier happy. MacLaren’s men, well, let’s say they didn’t just deal drugs. I’ll be surprised if they weren’t being encouraged to expand their businesses by the Nazis. The Bureau will track down the rest, shut them down, as soon as they find MacLaren’s ‘new boss.”’

  Jake continued. “Harry couldn’t afford to reveal himself as a Fed to MacLaren’s men. He couldn’t admit to his boss that he was taking opium. So he brought me in to get the evidence, while he kept himself out of the picture.”

  A voice came from the backseat, as if from a great distance. “Wow,” Harry said.

  “How you doing, Harry?” Jake asked. Vic and Rosalie exchanged tense glances.

  “Well, I don’t mind telling you, Jakey, I’m feeling pretty fine. But, tonight I saw a wolf-man wearing your darned hat. I saw a giant dog kill that cut-rate hood Eddie. And Olivia, well, apparently, she’s a vampire—but nothing like what you see in the movies, let me tell you! At first, I thought I was high—who knows what that lovely, wicked Sadie has been giving me?—but I hadn’t fixed. And it all seems so clear now. Like that time, up in Salem, when you—”

  Time for Jake to step in. “Yes, Harry, my Family is full ofwerewolves and vampires, but not like in the movies. We’re the good guys.”

  “Gee.” Harry sighed. “That’s swell.”

  “Olivia?” Vic said quietly. “You got the mix a little off. A little rich on the truth-telling serums and light on the memory blockers.”

  “Hey, it’s a complicated case,” she said, weaving a little. She was drained and giddy from the night’s work. “But I’ll take another crack at it.” She smiled blearily and regarded Harry. “C’mere, lover boy.”

  A week later, Harry was back in Washington, whistling his way down Pennsylvania Avenue, his second-best suit cleaned and spruced up, a brand-new fedora cocked jauntily on the back of his head. There was a spring in his step that would have been out of place during wartime, save that everyone who saw him was suddenly filled with encouragement. Everything about his attitude shouted: We can do it!

  Something had changed him in Boston. Maybe it was solving the case, maybe it was seeing his old friend, maybe it was getting hit on the head in that filthy alley, but Harry hadn’t had the urge to use since then. It was days before he even noticed. Before Boston, he would have described himself as possessed by opium.

  No more of that, now. Never again.

  He’d already convinced his boss, Mr. Roundtree, to keep him on the job. In a month or two, Harry’d be back on track to run his own projects. Heck, he’d win the war from this side of the Atlantic!

  He was still whistling as he entered the Department of Justice. He’d be hunting and pecking his way through another night at the old Smith Corona, and his fingers would be sore and stiff from jabbing the heavy keys. But his work—with Jake’s help—had been a significant break, uncovering a major conduit for drugs and industrial-military espionage in the Northeast.

  Something stopped him in his tracks. It took one minute to realize he wasn’t ill, another to wonder what the problem was. But there was no problem. It was the image of the family sitting at the cloth-covered table, joined in company, sharing food, giving praise. On the left-hand side was a large, scruffy, shepherdlike dog, his head happily uptilted to the woman serving coffee.

  He had passed the murals every day, had never really tak
en the time to examine them. Too tied up with work and then the pursuit of the needle, he’d barely bothered to look up. He did now. Amazing.

  It was the dog that caught his attention. He wasn’t much for dogs, didn’t like the way they slobbered and jumped all over you—

  In the alley. In Boston. Something had attacked MacLaren’s men. Harry had been rattled, his head half—caved in, but he hadn’t been high, and he knew what he saw. A wolf, standing on two legs, wearing a suit and one damned ugly hat—

  The hat had been Jake Steuben’s. He’d have recognized it anywhere.

  As Harry stared at the mural, he remembered it all.

  Jake had pulled a Lon Chaney in the alley, turned into a wolf-man. And Jake’s friend Olivia had bitten him in the neck, just like Dracula. Only Harry was in better shape than he had been in years, and clean, to boot.

  The first thing he thought was: Oh, no. I don’t want to want to have to get high again ...

  And when he realized the idea left him with distaste, rather than that burning desire, he took a deep breath and considered. He’d done shady things to feed his addiction, seen horrors on the job. And now he realized Jake and his family were something out of a Saturday matinee.

  But he’d trusted Jake with his life on more than one occasion. And Jake had always come through. Olivia had taken the most terrible burden from him, given him his life back.

  Jake and his family were the good guys. They were patriotic and discreet, too. Had to be.

  Harry decided that there was nothing monstrous about them. He was eternally grateful to them.

  It took him a while to find out the name of the mural—Society Freed Through Justice, by George Biddle. It stuck him as particularly appropriate. He wondered why the artist had included the dog. Wondered how many more—Fangborn?—there might be out there.

  Harry thought long and hard. If Jake and his family could defeat MacLaren, and save a lost cause like Harry, imagine what they could do with a little help from the Federal Bureau of Investigation ...

  He made an appointment to discuss the matter with Mr. Roundtree. He had a feeling that after hearing what they could do, these Fangborn would suit his boss down to the ground.

  Riding High

  By CAROLYN HART

  I hovered above my beloved hometown of Adelaide, Oklahoma, enjoying a late summer evening and the sparkle of lights on the terrace of the country club. Women in summer frocks and men in dressy sportswear mingled at a party. I wished I could plunge down and have a glass of wine and some Brie and crackers, and chat up that good-looking young man illustrating his golf swing.

  Hovering? It’s easy for me. No, I don’t have a personalized jet pack. The reality is both less and more startling.

  I’m Bailey Ruth Raeburn, late of Adelaide, a green-eyed, freckle-faced redhead, who loves laughter, good times, gorgeous clothes, and adventure.

  You did note the modifying late? In short, I am a ghost.

  Shh. That’s just between us. My supervisor at the Department of Good Intentions refuses to describe those temporarily on Earth as ghosts. Wiggins is vehement that we are Heavenly agents assisting those in trouble. In his view, ghosts have quite a shady reputation on Earth. You know, clanking chains, pulsating protoplasm, dank drafts even when all the windows are closed.

  Ghost or emissary, I loved coming back to Earth to be of help. I should perhaps be frank—I’m known for frankness, too—and admit I’d had a few challenges attempting to become one of Wiggins’s regulars. Wiggins is a dear fellow but set in his ways. On Earth, he’d been a stationmaster. Since his idea of Heaven was a well-run train station, the Department of Good Intentions resided in just such a station, and emissaries were dispatched to earth on the glorious coal-burning Rescue Express, charged with providing a helping hand but—great emphasis here—circumspectly. Wiggins impressed upon all emissaries the necessity of observing the Department’s Precepts for Earthly Visitation:

  1. Avoid public notice.

  2. No consorting with other departed spirits.

  3. Work behind the scenes without making your presence known.

  4. Become visible only when absolutely essential.

  5. Do not succumb to the temptation to confound those who appear to oppose you.

  6. Make every effort not to alarm earthly creatures.

  7. Information about Heaven is not yours to impart. Simply smile and say, “Time will tell.”

  8. Remember always that you are on the Earth, not of the Earth.

  I suppose that all seems simple to you. Certainly the strictures are straightforward. I cannot say emphatically enough how great an effort I have always made to observe these rules.

  However, I am chagrined to reveal that on previous earthly visits I careened from one contravention of the Precepts to another.

  Not this time.

  I would put that in capital letters (NOT THIS TIME!) except I don’t want to appear proud. Pride is not becoming to a Heavenly emissary. Boasting would indicate that I was too much of the Earth. Please don’t take umbrage. We all know that earthly creatures exhibit pride, greed, avarice, anger, and all manner of unworthy behavior.

  So, of course, I am not proud.

  I FOLLOWED THE RULES THIS TIME.

  Oh. Quickly. Make that lower case.

  However, I feel I am entitled to admit to pleasure. This time I didn’t break a single Precept. Not one. I came to Earth, assisted my charge, and was now awaiting the arrival of the Rescue Express for my return to Heaven. Admittedly, my path had been smoothed by Ogden, a rail-thin seventeen-year-old with a shock of black hair, thick glasses, and an affinity for electronic gadgets. We’d saved his father from a false accusation of embezzlement, and I hadn’t had to appear once. Ogden, with assistance from me, had traced the peculations to a squinty-eyed accountant with a penchant for ponies. Of course, Ogden was unaware of my participation. His electronic sophistication made it easy to use a false identity to send him txt msgs that exposed the thief.

  I’d learned more than I ever wanted to know about the new electronic world from Ogden, all about a computer pen that turned handwriting into a computer file, a card that wirelessly downloaded photos from his digital camera, and even a robotic pet—Willie—who talked and responded to Ogden’s mood. In the trap I helped him set, he’d filmed the entire matter on a small video camera with sound. That had been my suggestion, txtd of course. I’d first become familiar with the cameras through my association with the Adelaide Police Department. I quite missed not having appeared this time as Officer M. Loy (a tribute to famed film star Myrna Loy, the better of half of Nick and Nora with William Powell). All uniformed officers carried such cameras. A picture with words is worth its weight in gold in a courtroom. All in all, my mission had been a resounding success.

  Thanks to Ogden, my good behavior should convince Wiggins to remove me from probationary status.

  “Yee-hah.”

  Upturned faces from the revelers on the terrace brought home to me that I had shouted aloud. Oh dear, a clear violation of Precept One.

  However, libations were flowing and, after that short, startled pause, voices lifted again in intense conversation, punctuated by occasional guffaws.

  No harm done.

  The Rescue Express would be here soon, and I would report my outstanding conduct to Wiggins. Yet I felt restless and vaguely dissatisfied. I’d succeeded with my mission, but I’d never really felt I’d been here, hands on.

  Because, of course, I hadn’t.

  I’d not appeared in person. I hadn’t swirled into being, donning lovely clothes simply for the sheer delight of them. I hadn’t talked to anyone. I’d never had a chance to pop here and there. No car chases. No confrontations. No challenges.

  To be quite honest (always a desirable intent for emissaries), this perfect mission had been bor-ing.

  BOR-ing.

  Without volition—I assure you I didn’t deliberately flaunt Precept One again—I groaned aloud. “I’d been BOOMS.”

&n
bsp; Fortunately the sound of my voice was lost in a rattle of castanets. Still, what I had spoken aloud appalled me. Was I succumbing to the assault of txt msgs on the English language?

  What a dreadful prospect for a former English teacher. Obviously, the solution was to clear out the electronic cobwebs, immerse myself in the real world as opposed to the virtual reality that reminded me of Plato’s shadows on the wall.

  Truth to tell, I’m a gregarious sort. I like for things to be lively. My husband Bobby Mac (the late Robert McNeil Raeburn) said I added more fizz than champagne to any occasion. Believe me, Bobby Mac and I on Earth had fizzed as brightly as July Fourth sparklers. In Heaven . . . Oh yes. Precept Seven. I will only say you have much to look forward to.

  I swooped nearer the terrace. The party was bright with a Latin theme, serapes for tablecloths, the terrace bordered by luminarias, colorful maracas for party favors, and, of course, the best in Latin music. What harm would it do if I joined the revelers? I deserved a little recreation.

  I landed behind a potted palm and swirled into being in a floral tunic and skirt, red plumeria vibrant against a black background. I chose slingback sandals until I spotted a cunning pair of black crocheted shoes and switched.

  In no time at all, I was dancing a samba with the attractive fellow whose pink nose indicated too much golf under a July Oklahoma sun. “... and my lie was right at the edge of the sand trap . . .”

  I made admiring murmurs and thrilled to the music. I soon realized many of the guests were from out of town, present for a members-guest golf tournament. That eased my concern about a hostess wondering who in the world I might be. I was soon in demand as a partner. I will confess that I dance rather well. (Stating an accurate observation in no way indicates pride.) I sambaed, rhumbaed, tangoed, and cha-chaed.

  It was such a joy to once again be with people. I knew my time was almost up. The Express was scheduled for midnight, and I intended to be high in the sky, ready to swing aboard. I still had an hour to play.

 

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