Dead by Sunrise

by Richard Ryker

  The last thing Brandon needed was the Sheriff on Nolan’s side.

  Friday mid-morning Brandon received a call from Lisa Shipley.

  He realized he hadn’t talked to her since Monday when he’d been in the car with Jackson. He’d promised to call her back.

  “I emailed a new report, but I figured I call,” she said.

  “What do you got?”

  “We had Doug Nevins’ DNA profile in CODIS.”

  Brandon had updated the coroner about the case when they’d found out Nevins was a registered sex offender, meaning his DNA was on record.

  “And?”

  “No match to the semen we found with Lauren Sandoval.”

  “Dammit.”

  That made the case against Doug Nevins even weaker. He’d given the girl a ride, dropped her off in the middle of nowhere. That was it. The prosecutor wouldn’t touch this one.

  “They didn’t find blood in his truck. Some hair, but nothing else,” she said.

  “And we already know she was in the truck, so no news there.”

  “Alright, thanks for the update.”

  “I’m not done yet,” she said. “We got a hit on the semen.”

  “Who?”

  “One match was for Adam Cane.”

  “That was quick,” Brandon said.

  “Yeah, don’t expect such rapid results every time.”

  Brandon knew better than that. Even with testing done at the state level, things took much longer.

  “Okay, Adam was Lauren’s boyfriend. But you said one match. Was there another?”

  “Justin Tate. Another CODIS hit.”

  Justin?

  Brandon thought back to the accusation Brooke had made against the young man—the allegation of rape she later retracted.

  “Your initial report indicated no signs of sexual assault,” Brandon said.

  “Right,” Lisa said.

  “And that hasn’t changed.”

  “No, but it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,” Lisa said.

  She was right. Not all assaults left evidence.

  “Okay. We know Lauren had sex with her boyfriend Adam, and Justin Tate.”

  She wasn’t there to tell them whether it was consensual or not. He couldn’t rule out that Justin and Lauren were cheating with each other. Adam’s coworker had said Adam worried about Lauren cheating. Adam had confessed—then tried to minimize—those concerns.

  “How does this line up with other evidence you’ve uncovered?” Lisa asked.

  “Adam suspected Lauren was with another man. Even to the point that he considered cancelling their camping trip.”

  “Did Adam know it was Justin?” she asked.

  “Hard to tell. The two men don’t get along, though.”

  “Makes sense,” Lisa said. “What’s next?”

  “I need to interview Justin, see if he wants to be honest about what happened between him and Lauren.”

  “And Adam?”

  “I’ll get a read on how much he knows,” Brandon said.

  He’d have to involve Brooke too. It was her boyfriend, after all, that was sleeping with Lauren—her best friend.

  “Thanks, Lisa. I appreciate you pushing this.”

  “Keep me updated,” she said.

  “One more thing,” Brandon asked. “Any news on the beer cans from the beach? Prints or DNA?”

  “Prints, nothing usable. DNA. We found saliva and we’re waiting. Like I said though—”

  “Things take time, I know.”

  “Right,” she said. “Talk to you—”

  “I know I said one more thing. But there’s something else.”

  “What’s up?”

  “You want to go out sometime?” he asked.

  It had been in the back of his head to ask her all week. The was silence on the other end and he wondered if she was still there.

  “I thought you weren’t interested,” she said.

  “Yeah, I was in the car with an officer the last time we talked. So, how about I meet you in Port Angeles?”

  “I’m out of town this weekend but back by Sunday.”

  “Sunday night?” Brandon asked.

  “Let’s do it. I’ll email you my personal number.”

  They ended the call and a minute later, an email popped on his screen. Lisa’s contact info and the name of a steakhouse in Port Angeles. Seven o’clock Sunday. She was taking the initiative. He liked that.

  Brandon called Sue and told her he needed her to relay a message to Will and Jackson. Both were on duty until afternoon. They were to contact Adam, Justin, and Brooke and escort them to the station.

  Brandon had brought a few cans of soup to work and opened one now. He scrounged around the station’s kitchen for a bowl, couldn’t find one, and used an old mug instead.

  He stood watch at microwave, briefly hypnotized by the carousel’s slow spin. Sue interrupted him.

  “There you are,” she said. “There’s a man on the phone by the name of Vaseline or something like that.”

  “Vaseline?” Brandon asked.

  “Exactly. What kind of perv calls himself Vaseline?”

  “What does he want?”

  “Said you left a card at his house, told him to call you. And I had to wonder, what’s the chief doing visiting a guy with a name like—”

  “It’s Vasile,” Brandon said. “Hungarian or something like that.”

  He pulled his soup from the microwave. “Transfer him to my office.”

  Brandon answered. “This is Mattson.”

  “Vasile Anghel here,” the man said. Despite his foreign-sounding name, there was no hint of an accent in his voice. “You asked me to call.”

  “I heard you might help with a case I’m working on,” Brandon said.

  “I don’t see how.”

  “It involved vampire lore. You’re an expert,” Brandon said. “At least that’s what people say.”

  Brandon guessed Vasile was the kind of guy who liked his ego stoked.

  “Indeed.”

  “You’re home now?”

  “Just for today. I leave for a conference in Japan tonight.”

  “I’ll be there in half-an-hour.”

  Brandon disconnected.

  His first priority was to interview Justin and Adam, considering the new DNA evidence. But the vampire angle, fantastic as it was, had to be considered. There was the bite mark on the girl’s neck. Not to mention the graffiti. There could be no connection at all, but if he ended up on the stand, the defense attorney would call him out on any unexplored leads. And as off the charts weird as the vampire aspect of this case was, it had to be covered.

  Vasile was waiting for Brandon in front of the large barn that stood several feet from his dark blue and red Victorian three-story.

  “Vasile,” Brandon said. “Is that your real name?”

  Vasile had black hair slicked back and a devilish goatee. But his resemblance to a character from a B-rate horror movie ended there. He wore a yellow short sleeve button-up shirt, khakis, and leather sandals. The fact that he was about forty pounds overweight killed the vampire vibe, too, Brandon thought.

  He stifled a laugh as he imagined Vasile in a red and black velvet cape.

  “If you are asking if it is the name I was born with, no.”

  “Why the change?”

  “To honor my Transylvanian heritage,” he said.

  “Your birth name?”

  “Gordon Banner.”

  He was right, Vasile was a much more interesting name.

  Brandon pulled out a notebook and wrote the name down.

  “So, Vasile.” Brandon said. “You operate this group that deals with vampire culture.”

  Vasile sighed. “The Nightside Coven.”

  “Coven. That sounds sort of…creepy.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” Vasile said, his eyes resting on Brandon’s badge.

  “Why not?”

  “By nature, cops are conformist.”

>   “Okay.”

  “And we are not,” Vasile said.

  “Tell me. Who is we?”

  “Vampire enthusiasts. People of the night.”

  “So, what, you dress up like Harry Potter and drink Bloody Marys?”

  Vasile rolled his eyes. “Thank you for proving my point. Is there a reason for these questions? Have we done anything wrong?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out, friend.”

  Brandon pulled out his phone and scrolled to the photo of the graffiti outside the Forks Diner. “Does this look familiar?”

  Vasile took the phone from his hand and held it out.

  “Ah,” he said, smiling.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “It is a vampire symbol.”

  “It’s an ankh, right?” Brandon said, referring to the ancient Egyptian symbol.

  Vasile’s eyebrows rose.

  “We police may be conformist, but we aren’t entirely ignorant.”

  Vasile’s lips rose in a creepy smile. “This ankh has been modified to include the dagger point. This one seems to be giving the impression of dripping blood. Nice touch, by the way. It’s been a sign in the community for decades.”

  “You think a member of your coven might have done this?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “It is possible.”

  “Why would someone paint this symbol?”

  “I have no idea,” Vasile said.

  It was becoming obvious Vasile wouldn’t go out of his way to help Brandon.

  “Okay. Another question. Is there anyone around here who sells vampire teeth? Not the plastic kind kids play with. Sharp enough to penetrate skin.”

  “Nothing you’d find in those chintzy tourist pits in town, no.”

  “But they do exist? Metal, maybe?”

  “Porcelain.”

  “And that stays in the mouth?”

  “The fangsmith—”

  “What?”

  “Fangsmith, a crafter of vampire teeth. Anyway, the smith takes a mold of the customer’s teeth. The mold is used to fit the fangs for the customer.”

  It reminded Brandon of the process for getting a mouth guard when the dentist had told him he’d been grinding his teeth at night.

  “There are dozens of models. You can choose the number of fangs, length of the canines or incisors—”

  “And they pop them in the mouth and walk around with these all day?” Brandon asked.

  “They stay on with denture cream, but you take them out for eating.”

  Brandon pictured a group of twenty-somethings in black capes applying Fixodent in the bathroom mirror before a night on the town. There was no end to the lengths some people would go to be different.

  “These fangs—they’re sharp enough to draw blood?”

  “Possibly.” There was a twitch of excitement in the man’s voice.

  Brandon’s eyes followed his thoughts, landing on the large barn.

  “Is that something your coven encourages? Drinking blood?”

  Vasile waved a hand at Brandon, the color draining from his face. “No. Not at all. We don’t condone that here.”

  “Others do though?”

  “Some covens have been known to indulge in the life-giving practice of blood consumption. Always voluntary, of course.”

  Something in Vasile’s voice told Brandon that the man was more familiar with the practice than he wanted to admit.

  “You mean people volunteer to give blood for drinking?”

  Brandon imagined a mobile blood donation center, victims reclining in comfortable chairs while Vasile and his friends waited impatiently on the receiving end of an IV, crimson goblets in hand.

  “It happens. Not here though,” he said, hastily.

  “What’s the barn for?” Brandon asked, nodding that direction. He’d noticed that there were no signs of horses or livestock. And the surrounding pasture was overgrown with tall grass. Another sign there weren’t any animals.

  “Just storage,” Vasile said, not looking at the barn. “It came with the property.”

  “And what do you do for a living, besides running a coven?”

  Vasile narrowed his eyes at Brandon. “I’m an IT professional. Programming. I work remotely. Is that everything?”

  “Almost. I’ll need a list of everyone in your coven.”

  Vasile leaned away from Brandon. “For what?”

  “In case we need to interview anyone connected to a case we’re working on.”

  “What sort of case?”

  “Murder.”

  Vasile, if he’d been out of town for the past few days, wouldn’t have heard about the case.

  “What’s it got to do with my coven?”

  “A girl was found dead with a bite mark on her neck.”

  “Oh, come on, man. You don’t think—”

  “Are you going to give me the list of names or not?”

  “Don’t you need a warrant for that sort of thing?”

  “Not if you give it to me now,” Brandon said. He leaned in, lowering his volume so Vasile had to lean in to hear him. “I could get a warrant. Trust me, it’s not that hard in a backwoods place like this.” Brandon wasn’t sure if that was true, but it sounded convincing. “And when I do, the warrant will include a search of every inch of this property.”

  Brandon had done his own research on these vampire groups the night before, after Emma had gone to bed. Some of them were into raves, Ecstasy, and other activities Vasile claimed hadn’t occurred on his property.

  “Ok. Fine. It won’t be of any help, though. No one in my coven is capable of murder.”

  After over a decade in homicide, Brandon was convinced that there are plenty of people capable of committing murder, no matter what their friends or family—or coven leader—thought.

  “You let me decide who’s a suspect or not. Just get me the list.”

  Five minutes later, Brandon left with a printout of an email distribution list for Vasile’s vampire group.

  Brandon drove to the end of the driveway and scanned the list. Vasile’s grand coven was fifteen people strong, at most. None of the names looked familiar. Except one.

  Ruby Taylor.

  Ruby involved in a vampire cult? It was hard to imagine the crusty, cantankerous cashier participating in any social activity, much less with a bunch of wannabe vampires.

  There could be a drug connection—Ruby peddling opiates to the coven members. But that wouldn’t require Ruby’s involvement in the cult.

  For the moment, he had to accept that Ruby was somehow involved in Vasile’s subculture. But if Ruby was guilty of murder, why did she lie about Nevins’ involvement with Lauren? Why not lead the police right to Nevins?

  He’d follow up with Ruby about her involvement in Vasile’s coven, and have his officers check out the others on the list for any connection to Lauren’s death.

  Brandon’s phone rang. It was Sue.

  “Will’s got the two kids here—Justin Tate and Brooke Whittaker.”

  Now that they had the DNA, it was time to find out what really went on between Lauren and Justin the night she died.

  “I’m on my way.”

  Chapter 27

  Will had found Justin and Brooke at her aunt’s home, where they were both staying.

  Brandon let Justin stew in the interview room for about fifteen minutes before heading in with Will. Brooke waited in the main lobby. Brandon took the time to update Will on the DNA evidence indicating both Adam and Justin had sex with Lauren.

  They sat down across from Justin.

  Brandon asked Justin to sign the waiver-of-rights form. As far as Brandon was concerned, the kid was a suspect. To his surprise, Justin signed the form without asking for an attorney.

  “Did she fight back?” Brandon asked.

  The abrupt question had the desired effect. Justin’s smug smile crumbled like the façade it was, revealing a scared kid who wanted nothing more than to be far, far away from Brandon and
anyone in a police uniform.

  “What…what are you talking about?”

  “Don’t act stupid,” Brandon said. “It will just make things worse. And if you have more than one girl in mind, you’re in deeper than I thought.”

  Brandon and Will stared at each other and then both moved as if to stand up.

  “Ok, wait,” Justin said. “Lauren…”

  Justin paused as if to make sure he was going the right direction. Brandon didn’t give him any indication one way or another.

  “We’d been together for a month. Or more. It was totally consensual.”

  “How long had you been having sex with her?” Brandon asked.

  “Same. I didn’t count the number of times if that’s what you mean.”

  “Hard to keep track between her and your girlfriend?” Will asked.

  Justin glanced at Will briefly before looking away without a word.

  “And the night she died?” Brandon asked.

  “I didn’t know she was going to die, man. Otherwise I wouldn’t have…”

  “This young girl is dead and you’re more concerned about leaving evidence?” Will asked. There was a genuine disgust in his voice.

  “Not like that. I mean, am I a suspect in her murder now?”

  “You already were,” Brandon said.

  A look of terror crossed his face.

  “I didn’t do anything. I swear.”

  “Tell us what happened that night.”

  Justin slid his chair back and buried his head in his hands. He took a deep breath and looked up at Brandon.

  “Okay. We all partied, like we said. Then later. I don’t know, like after everyone passed out, I went to go take a piss. When I came back, Lauren was awake, smoking a cigarette. Out by the campfire.”

  “And then what?”

  “We went for a walk and then…you know. It wasn’t the first time we’d done it, so it wasn’t any big deal.”

  Brandon tapped his pen on the table.

  “Was this before or after Lauren walked into town?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “It had to be before. I mean, it was before midnight I think.”

  “Did you and Lauren climb one of the sea stacks?” Brandon asked.

  “No.”

  “You’re sure, you didn’t go up and have a beer with Lauren?”