by Lee Killough
“Kerrigan?”
“No,” Thone said wryly, “one of the dead men. Only I didn’t know they were dead until the next day. I went to the room in the morning to see if there was any way to get back my van, but a maid said that room was empty. When I talked her into letting me look in, it was not only empty but not the suite I remember, just a room with no sign of a poker party. I knocked on Kerrigan’s door and someone else was in it. I gave Kerrigan’s name to the desk and they said he wasn’t registered anywhere in the hotel. But there was a message for me, an envelope with picture postcards of the other players in the game.”
“Picture postcards?” Garreth’s mind scrambled. “Of the dead men.”
“Yep.” Thone paused a beat. “Wyatt and Morgan Earp, Doc Holliday, the James brothers. Jesse held the royal flush.” Thone paused again. “I know I was had, and this Kerrigan let me know it. I just don’t know how the hell he did it, or why, for just a few bucks and my van. I’ll swear those guys weren’t just made up to look like the postcards, and there’s no way that room could have been made to look like a suite.”
Except under the influence of a vampire?
“So like I said, I lost the van in the Twilight Zone. Why are you asking about it?”
Garreth kept his answer simple. “It was used to kill a police officer and we’re trying to identify the man who drove it.” Who, though not Jesse James, might indeed be a dead man.
After hanging up, Garreth wrote his report, brooding over the computer screen and his notes. What a piece of work this albino was. Whatever else came out of his trip to Cheyenne and talking to Thone, he had learned the albino liked playing games. Knowing that did not help identify him. He could equally be a human wanting to prove himself smarter than other people or a vampire toying with humans to amuse himself. But now the effort put into the Homesick Runaway scam outweighing its profit made more sense. Ditto the elaborate charade perpetrated on Thone. The take only kept score. How successfully he played the mark was that mattered.
Rather...it had been what mattered. Who knew now, with the introduction of blood games. Having killed a dog for its blood, then drunk from dying accident victims, where might he go from there?
They might learn soon enough, because the albino also clearly liked flaunting his cleverness. Why else populate his poker game with dead men and advertising the scam to Thone, or risk discovery waiting here Monday until he could leave the van in Baumen?
Garreth preferred finding the suspects before they went for anyone else’s blood. The problem was doing so when the albino used disguises so effectively. Changing female companions as he had between Spokane and Cheyenne, or shedding them altogether–like the dead girl in Billings?–would make him even harder to recognize.
He opened his phone and called Thone again. “Do you have a fax machine there at home?”
In a puzzled tone, Thone said, “Yes.”
Garreth pulled the case file out of his laptop case and extracted the fax photo from Billings. “I’m going to send you a picture. Tell me if you recognize the person.”
Five minutes later Thone said, “That’s the girl with the redhead.”
Although he expected the identification, Garreth felt a surge of anger, and apprehension. The albino gave that girl champagne, had sex with her, and slit her wrists. Had he also killed the redhead?
He had Sue Ann query the Spokane and Billings PD’s about females of the redhead’s description found dead in their jurisdictions between a year and a half and two years ago. He went back to his report while waiting for a reply, wondering if the bobbsey bitches were still alive. Killing them would not only break the trail by reducing the trio to a solo but if the albino were a vampire, it eliminated the threat of flunkeys revealing that fact.
Sue Ann said, “Garreth, phone.”
On the other end of the line, Sheriff Reichert asked, “How did Cheyenne go?”
“I’m working on the report now.” The weight on him vanished--sunset, finally! Stretching in relief, Garreth gave Reichert a synopsis that included searching Gehrt’s barn and the phone conversations with Thone. The account of the poker game he edited, as he had the written report, to reflect only that Thone lost the van to the albino in a poker game. No sense confusing the issue with dead men and phantom suites.
“You think this turkey’s killed these girls, too?”
Garreth shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope not.”
“Continue to follow up on the redhead. And add the items from the barn to the other evidence we’re sending up to the KBI lab.”
Garreth sighed. The KBI techs could find the trace evidence in the tote, match the glass to fragments taken from the van’s broken headlight, and scan any prints on the matchbook for transmission to the FBI. But everyone here might die of old age before results came back, the lab was so overworked.
“How’s the Super Glue doing, do you know?” Reichert asked.
There, at least, he had something good to report. “I think we have prints developing on the back of the rearview mirror.” Even though wanting a print warred with the fear that it would end up matching some police record a half century old and raise uncomfortable questions..
“Well, let me know when we know.”
He was printing out his report when he heard Sue Ann’s voice. “Go ahead, Four.”
Duncan’s number. Garreth spun Sue Ann’s direction.
She nodded at him. “Great! I’ll let One and Two know.” She reached for the phone. “Ed says we’ve got prints.”
Garreth headed for the rear entrance.
Behind Sterling’s he found Duncan leaning against the van’s undamaged front fender with a proprietary smirk. “I think you ought to buy me a beer for handing you Lebekov’s killer.”
“If this van gives us prints that identify the albino,” Garreth said, “I’ll buy you a case.”
Nat’s Silverado rolled up the alley to the driveway. “Show me what you’ve got.”
Duncan pointed. “Back of the mirror.”
Nat stepped up on the bumper to peer through the windshield, then jumped down and walked around the van opening all the doors. “Let’s have a look.”
Garreth stepped well back. These fumes always overwhelmed him. “Did you find anything more at the barn?”
“One more piece of headlight, plus Nancy pulled up some of the bales where you found the tote and farther on down found Maggie’s day planner.”
While they waited for the van to air out, Nat brought the evidence kit from the Silverado. Danzig arrived, parking behind Nat’s truck. They watched while Nat unpinned the strings on the glue paper from the headliner and dropped the strips in a plastic baggie. And they crowded around the van’s side door while he sidled up between the front seats and carefully grasping the rearview mirror by the side edges, pulled. It came loose from the windshield with a crunch. Once he had it free he turned the mirror over and held it up close to the dome light to study the fine white lines Garreth could see on the back, where the glue fumes had reacted with the organic compounds left behind by whatever member of the trio touched the mirror.
Nat’s sigh felt like a punch in the gut.
“What?” Danzig said.
Nat turned around grimacing. “They’re smudged.”
Duncan swore. Mocking laughter echoed in Garreth’s head.
“I’ll go ahead and lift these anyway, because even smudged you can tell one is a tented arch.”
With arches of all types making up about five per cent of prints, a right hand tented arch turning up anywhere else could help make their case.
The laughter in Garreth’s head died away.
“I need light to hunt for prints, so, buckaroos, if you’ll give me a hand, please.”
They raised the garage door and pushed the van inside. Duncan hung around a few minutes longer, but when Nat checked the dash and the front seats with no more results, he left mumbling about heading for a beer.
While Garreth and Danzig watched Nat work his way
around the interior of the van with a spotlight, moving seats and checking the under sides of arm rests and storage space lids, Garreth told the chief about Thone. He frowned at the van. “The more about this albino I learn, the more I worry about locating him. Disguises... maybe killing the females...maybe changing vehicles again if he’s paranoid enough.” The pickup could be parked behind some other auto repair shop. Instead of sitting here watching Nat conduct what appeared more and more a fruitless search, he should be out hunting the albino. If only he knew what direction hunt.
An hour later Nat slid out of the van shaking his head. “It’s a bust. There are some partials scattered around, but the lanolin from the baby wipes they used for cleaning has leached into them.”
Blurring the partials to useless smudges.
Frustration snarled in Garreth while he helped Nat pack up the evidence kit and secure the garage and funeral home’s rear door. Nor did it help that back at the office no word had come from Spokane or Billings about the redheaded female. He climbed into the Porsche and gunned out of the parking lot.
Duncan was drowning disappointment with a beer. Drinking sounded like a good idea. Several pints of blood remained in the cooler. Garreth drove to the cemetery and carried one pint to the far corner where Lane’s grave lay. Sitting cross-legged beside the rose bush planted on top keep her in, just in case cremation had not totally destroyed her, he broke the seal on the pint and took a big swallow.
Blood...salty, metallic, fiery sweet, flowed cold down his throat. Beneath him, the soil drew at him, inviting him to stretch out and lose himself in it.
“Do you have any suggestions to help me find this bastard?”
But instead of imagining some mocking reply from Lane, he seemed to hear Maggie’s voice...angry, hurt. You’re out here again? I still don’t understand. She ruined your life. She tried to kill you. Yet you’re asking her advice? Why don’t you ask mine?
Guilt pricked him. Why was he talking to Lane? Habit?
No, because you’re mine, lover. He imagined arms sliding around him from behind. You always will be. Her breath tickled the back of his neck. I made you; we’re bound forever. Blood calls to blood, even from beyond the grave.
Garreth started. He stared at the bottle in his hand. Irina said that, too: blood calls to blood. She located him at the wake that way. And he had felt her in his apartment. If one or more of these suspects carried his blood now, could he feel their presence?
He closed his eyes and let his senses reach outward. Presently something tugged at him...very faint and tenuous. Garreth turned toward the sensation and...
Saw the albino with a bloody-tipped knife, and a naked man blindfolded and gagged with duct tape. Blood streamed down the victim’s arm while the albino dragged his tongue up the liquid, eyes reflecting red as the blood he drank. Grinning, he licked his lips. “Belly up to the bar, children. Drink it while it’s still warm.”
The vision vanished. Garreth found himself on his feet staring north, skin crawling. So at least one of them had drunk his blood. And they had gone somewhere that away, escalating the violence of their games...or about to. He needed to find them fast...now...before the games turned more lethal.
Chapter Nineteen.
He ought to call Reichert about heading north after the suspects. But he could not imagine the sheriff agreeing without all the persuasive power Garreth commanded. Meaning face to face...descending on Reichert at home tonight or waiting until morning. Or he could follow Grandmother Mikaelian’s mantra for living with his despotic grandfather: it is easier to apologize than ask permission.
So trying to put himself in the suspects’ place, he left at eleven, by which time on a Monday night they would have found the section of 282 along the east side of town quiet enough to dump the van behind A-1's shop. He called the SO before starting and left a message with Cheryl for Reichert.
“Tell him that since the suspects headed north when Maggie and I chased them, I have this hunch they’ve gone north again, and maybe switched vehicles again. I want to check the auto repair shops and salvage yards between here and Kearney for the pickup.” Not all that difficult a task with only half a dozen towns on 282 in Kansas, and another three between the Nebraska state line and Kearney. “I’ll call when, or if, I locate the pickup and have a description of their new vehicle.”
Gospel truth, as far as it went...and hopefully not a message that would be interpreted as him going lone wolf.
With the Porsche packed for an indefinite trip, including cash, credit cards and ID in three other names, and the rest of his blood supply stowed in the cooler, he headed out. Of course the albino hoped the van went unnoticed indefinitely, but in his place, Garreth would proceed on the premise that it might be spotted as early as the next morning, and the pickup’s description broadcast. So as he put distance between himself and Bellamy County, the albino would be watching for a chance to switch vehicles. Stealing another was easy enough with night for cover. Many people in these small towns never locked their cars. When Garreth first moved to Kansas he had been astonished to discover that older farmers even left the keys in their vehicles. Garreth credited the albino with the intelligence to realize that a small town also meant people knew local vehicles by sight, so a strange one would be noticed instantly...and a theft even sooner. So the albino would be looking for a vehicle no one would miss.
The sky clear and moonless overhead tempted Garreth to run without lights again. Had the albino also done so? Been able to? It would make him invisible on the highway and let him slip unseen through the dark and sleeping towns. Duplicating what he guessed to be the albino’s movements, Garreth made one pass down the main street of each town and along several side streets. When a local gas station also served as the auto repair shop, he had one stop checking, but if he spotted anything else worth closer inspection, he parked the Porsche in deep shadow and explored the town on foot. With their populations not much over five hundred, even a human could cover them in a short time.
Though a human might have trouble with the dogs. They lunged at their fences and the end of tie-outs, barking in challenge. Loose dogs charged into the street. He could shush them. Could the albino?
His jog through the first several towns revealed possibilities for ditching a vehicle, though not the one he sought....unused barns and garages, an overgrown yard filled with automotive carcasses–pull off the wheels and tags, rake up the grass flattened by driving in and the pickup would blend right into the collection. Thinking of farm trucks with keys in their ignitions, ripe for theft, he eyed ponds between towns, but the wide stretches of dried mud around them left him doubtful any remained deep enough to hide the pickup.
He also noted For Sale signs on cars along the way. Might the albino hot wire one of these vehicles and gamble on being able to outrun a theft report long enough to switch to yet another vehicle? The longer Garreth thought about it, the more it seemed only blind luck would locate the pickup.
He drove on.
Cyrus, population one thousand, had an actual salvage yard. An eight-foot corrugated metal fence with matching chained gates surrounded it, but a tree overhanging one side let Garreth drop into the yard and satisfy himself that anyone had access to it. The pole light above the cinder block office cast enough light for human eyes to see by. A vampire, of course, could just pass through the gates, and if he knew how to pick locks, let in the bb’s too. The trick was not to be caught. Coming through town Garreth had seen the police department sign on a former bank building and glimpsed a woman behind the counter inside. A dispatcher meant a patrolling officer out here somewhere.
He slipped along the crisscrossing paths...between vehicles in varying stages of cannibalization and past piles of fenders and frames and doors. Bins in a long shed held smaller parts like pistons and mirrors. His search turned up several F-150's. None, however, of the right year or right damage, or with a topper. But as he explored, he felt increasing discomfort...an uneasiness like he felt the night Grandma D
oyle died. Something about the salvage yard seemed...wrong. But what? The area smelled of dust and old oil. Crickets rasped among the metal hulks. Listening close, he also caught the scramble of mice feet. It all seemed perfectly normal.
Or maybe not. Behind the office sat a dog run with food and water dishes in it. Where was the dog?
Looking around for it, he caught a scent of blood. It led him to a spot a few yards inside the front gate...where a stain darkened the asphalt drive. Not an oil stain. Blood.
It smelled old and sunbaked, but the scent remained. Garreth squatted on his heels, licked a finger, drew it across the spot, and tasted his finger. Animal blood–a dog’s...and more. He also tasted human blood, with a tang of familiarity. Reflecting on the word, he suddenly saw its derivation from “family”.
He swiveled on his heels, staring from bloodstain to the gates. So they had what?...come in by one means or another to see if this looked like a good place to ditch the pickup. The dog attacked one of them, someone human, not vampire, and they killed it. Then spooked? Because they had not brought in the pickup.
Excitement sparked in Garreth. The fact they contemplated ditching it here meant they had either acquired another vehicle or were about to.
Jumping to his feet, he passed through the gate. Back at the car, he slapped on the Bellamy SO emblems and drove to the police station.
The dispatcher, a wiry little woman in her sixties, sat at the communications desk dozing over a novel.
Garreth lifted his hand to knock on the glass over the counter when her radio crackled to life. “Four Cyrus.”
The dispatcher did not stir.
“Four Cyrus.”
Her head sank lower.
“Abby...wake UH-HUP!” the voice on the radio sang.
Abby started, and hurriedly answered the call, then started again when Garreth rapped on the glass. “Who are you?”