by Lauren Carr
“Are you sure the van was Dylan’s?” Cameron asked.
“Positive. It was a Dodge van. Black with big orange stripes along the sides. The weird thing was that it was parked behind the gas station. If Dylan had decided to head out the next morning, why didn’t they get a room? I know there were openings at the hotel.”
“And if he was staying at the hotel,” Cameron said, “why did he park across the street, behind the gas station?”
“Was it there the next morning?” J.J. asked.
“No,” Catherine said. “But when I got up to go to the bathroom about an hour later, I heard its engine. I looked out the window, and I saw the van pulling out. I watched it pull out of the gas station. It went right past our room, and I could have sworn that I saw Silas at the wheel.”
“Silas Starling?” Cameron asked. “At the time, you were certain that Dylan had given Silas his walking papers. Didn’t you think it was strange that he was driving the van?”
“I’d had a lot to drink that night,” Catherine said. “I thought I’d been imagining things until I saw that cold-case show and realized that Dylan had been killed.”
“The van was gone by morning,” Harrison said when Cameron asked him about it. “I have no idea when it left, because I’d had so much to drink that as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out like a light. I didn’t get up until Catherine woke me up the next morning, about twenty minutes before checkout.”
They had met the former guitarist at a bistro in town that was near his public-relations company.
Like his wife, Harrison had aged well. He was in his fifties, but he stayed fit. He had shaved his thinning hair, and the style looked good on him. He was dressed neatly in khakis and a polo shirt. One would have never known by looking at him that he’d played in a pop-rock band.
With a chuckle, Harrison said, “You should have seen us rush to get out of there before they charged us for another night. As always, Catherine was perfect, with perfect clothes, hair, and makeup. And there I was, looking and feeling like death warmed over in the same clothes I had performed in the night before. We were a pair.”
“You’re sure the van that you saw behind the gas station was Dylan’s?” Cameron asked while leaning over her cheeseburger and fries.
“Positive,” Harrison said while loading his fork with some of the romaine lettuce in his Caesar salad. “Black with big orange strips from the front to the back on both sides. You could never miss it.” He ate the forkful of salad.
“Do you think Dylan would have left Wendy behind?” Cameron asked.
“Never,” Harrison said with certainty. “He screwed us, but he never would have screwed Wendy. She was his family. Catherine lived with Dylan off and on, and she told me later that she thought he’d gone after an agent and a shot in Hollywood for Wendy—to get her away from that wack job, Silas.” He shrugged. “We have three kids. If I had to screw over my friends to help them…I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
“I guess maybe now that you’re a father,” Cameron said, “you regret your actions that night.”
Harrison set down his fork. “Can I be frank without becoming a murder suspect?”
“You’re already a murder suspect,” she said.
His eyes narrowed, Harrison let out a deep breath.
Cameron urged him to speak his mind. “I’m going to find out one way or another.”
“I could kill Suellen Russell for calling you guys,” Harrison said. “When Catherine and I saw that cold case show—”
“I know,” Cameron said, “you all agreed to keep your mouths shut.”
“Not because we killed Dylan,” Harrison said. “The eighties was a long time ago. None of us are the same people we were back in 1988. We’ve grown, matured. We have roots—families.”
“Dylan had family,” J.J. said. “His sister Wendy.”
“I know that you have to investigate this because it was a murder and there is no statute of limitations on murder,” Harrison said with a grumble in his tone. “But Suellen agreed—we all agreed. At this point, what good can come from digging in everyone’s past and potentially ruining someone’s life?”
Cameron leaned across the table toward him. “You said you have three children?” After he nodded, she asked, “Suppose that was one of them locked in that freezer?”
Harrison lowered his eyes to his salad.
“A little bit ago you said that you’d screw over someone in a heartbeat for one of your kids,” J.J. reminded him. “Assuming you’re telling the truth, then if one of them was murdered, you’d want anyone and everyone who knew something to help the police catch the killer—no matter how long it took.”
In silence, Harrison turned his attention to his salad.
Eventually, Cameron asked, “What about Keith Black? What did he think about getting dumped?”
“You mean Malcolm Geller?” Harrison said with a laugh, which caused J.J. to laugh, too.
“You and Catherine were drinking with him that night,” Cameron said. “How did he feel about Dylan screwing you over?”
“Nothing got under Keith’s skin,” Harrison said.
“But he was addicted to alcohol and drugs,” Cameron said. “Maybe with the right mixture and the right opportunity—”
“Not Keith,” Harrison said. “And not that night. He hooked up with a very lovely and very willing woman who had her own place. Believe me, when he left that bar, the last thing he had on his mind was killing Dylan Matthews.”
“Did he take his bass with him?” Cameron asked.
“As a matter of fact, he didn’t,” Harrison said. “That’s how preoccupied he was with this woman. After he left, I saw his bass on the stage. But then, not very long after that, I went to the men’s room, and when I came back, it was gone. Catherine said that Keith had come back to get it.”
Chapter Fifteen
Cameron set down her cell phone and buried her head in her hands and shook it. “That is not good,” she said over and over again.
J.J., who was sitting on the sofa across from her in the suite that Suellen had booked for the two of them in State College, looked up from his computer tablet. “What’s not good?”
“Clyde Brady fingered Noah Dickens as his wife’s killer.” Cameron pressed a button and put Joshua on speakerphone.
“After Noah had cleaned up and gotten a haircut,” Joshua said.
“But Clyde said in his statement that the killer had long blond hair,” Cameron said.
“Sorry, babe,” Joshua said. “But it looks like Clyde has been showing signs of dementia. He told his neighbor that Monica had been cheating on him.”
“Wasn’t she in her sixties?” J.J. asked.
“She was old, not dead,” Cameron said.
“At the very least, he’s showing signs of paranoia and confusion,” Joshua said. “Today, before he fingered Noah, he was looking at the horses like he’d never seen them before and swore Suellen was playing Great Balls of Fire.”
“Great Balls of Fire?” Cameron asked.
“A hit song by Jerry Lee Lewis,” J.J. said. “A defense attorney is going to have a field day with Clyde if he’s a witness.”
“He’s my only witness.”
“Dad, what did you do about Noah?”
“Of course, Noah was upset,” Joshua said. “He thought he was going to jail for murder. Suellen and I calmed him down, and I called Tom and asked him to take him home.”
Cameron stopped shaking her head. “In my investigation, I didn’t find any indication that Monica Brady was cheating on her husband. None at all.”
“And I don’t think Noah is a killer,” J.J. said. “I don’t know him very well, and I haven’t known him for very long, but I don’t get the sense that he’d be able to hurt someone—especially an old woman.”
“Me neither,” Joshua said. “Hon
, I think you need to take a second look at Clyde and Monica’s home situation. According to Andy Simmons, she was keeping secrets from her husband. She indicated that they had money problems that she didn’t want Clyde to know about.”
“I didn’t find anything suspicious about their finances,” Cameron said.
“Well, Monica told her neighbors that they were having problems,” Joshua said. “And Clyde told them that Monica was cheating on him and that he’d found pictures of her with another man.”
“Maybe she was keeping a man on the side,” J.J. said. “That could have put a strain on their finances.” In response to a glance from Cameron, he reminded her, “Monica was old, not dead.”
“She also wasn’t stupid,” Cameron said. “If she was running around, why would she have left pictures of her with this man lying around for Clyde to find?”
“Honey, when you get back, get a search warrant, and search through the Brady house. See if you can find pictures of the victim with a man who looks like the man in the composite picture that’s based on Clyde’s description. If you can find an actual picture of him, you may be able to get an ID on him.”
“Maybe lover boy killed her for trying to end it,” J.J. said.
“There’s no evidence that there was anyone else at the scene of Monica’s murder,” Cameron said.
“Now you have a witness saying that Clyde specifically told him that he was going to strangle his wife if he saw her with this guy we can’t identify,” Joshua said, “and strangulation was the cause of death.”
“Could this witness have a motive for wanting Clyde to go to jail for killing his wife?” J.J. asked.
“Are you thinking that with Monica dead and Clyde in jail, this witness and his wife could purchase their farm for a song?” Joshua asked. “I’m way ahead of you on that, Son. I’ll do some nosing around. For one, I’m going to ask him for a copy of his receipt for the livestock that he bought from Monica. The only thing is—”
“What?” J.J. asked.
“My gut is telling me that Andy is a straight-up guy,” Joshua said. “And besides, Clyde knows him—”
“He also knows Noah,” J.J. said.
“He knows me, and he wanted to fill me up with buckshots,” Joshua said.
“True,” Cameron said.
“That would not make him a reliable witness for the prosecution,” J.J. said.
“How much credence should we give to his statement about seeing Vinnie?” Cameron asked Joshua.
“You have to follow up on it,” Joshua said. “If you don’t and it turns out that Vinnie has been around, you’re going to kick yourself for not investigating that lead, especially if it turns out that Vinnie did commit the murder.”
“That’s better than no leads at all,” Cameron said. “Where is Clyde now?”
“I drove him back to his place. His neighbors and Suellen will keep a close eye on him.”
“I’ll talk to him when we get back into town.”
“In a nutshell, hon,” Joshua said, “you’re in a race to find Monica’s killer and to get him to trial before your witness totally loses it.”
“Good idea,” Cameron said.
“What’s next on the agenda for you two?”
“Well,” Cameron said, “now that the sun has set, we’re going to meet Karrie, the blogger, to get the inside scoop on Wendy’s relationship with Silas—and to see if they were really as in love as he claims they were.”
“You two have had quite a full day,” Joshua said. “Why don’t you meet Karrie tomorrow?”
“Because we’re going from here to the Poconos to meet with Keith Black—”
“Malcolm Geller,” J.J. said with a grin.
“The bass player,” Cameron said. “Besides, we can only meet Karrie at night, after the sun has gone down.”
“Why?” Joshua asked, laughing. “What is she? A vampire?”
J.J. joined in until he saw a crooked grin on Cameron’s face. “No? Seriously?”
“What?” Joshua asked.
“Karrie is a vampire,” J.J. said.
“At least that’s what she says,” Cameron said.
“Cameron,” Joshua said, “I forbid you to interview a vampire.”
“There’s no such thing as vampires,” Cameron said.
“I know,” Joshua said, “so the fact that this nut thinks that she is a vampire—”
“I have my gun,” Cameron said.
“Bullets don’t work on vampires,” J.J. said, “Everyone knows that.”
“Yeah, everyone knows that,” Joshua said. “You’re not going.”
“You can’t stop me,” Cameron said through clenched teeth.
“Well, okay, but be sure to take J.J. with you.”
“Who do I look like?” J.J. said. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer?”
“Have you ever met a vampire before?” J.J. asked Cameron as they waited for Karrie at a mom-and-pop diner that was open twenty-four hours a day.
As it was ten o’clock at night, the diner was relatively full with students, who made up the majority of the college town’s population. Luckily, Karrie hadn’t suggested meeting at a loud, rowdy nightclub. They’d all wanted to go someplace quiet so that they could discuss Silas Starling and his relationship with Wendy Matthews.
J.J. and Cameron had already eaten dinner, but the sour expression on the short-order cook’s face convinced them that it would be best to order at least a dessert to go with their coffee.
Thinking that J.J. was joking when he asked if she had met a vampire before, Cameron laughed. “No, have you?” To her surprise, he nodded his head. “Seriously?”
“Not too many,” he said, “but a few. There were a couple in some of my general-studies classes—they usually studied liberal arts. I also had one in a prelaw class I taught. She was planning to become a civil rights attorney.”
Not wanting the server to overhear their conversation, Cameron waited for her to fill their coffee mugs and to serve them each apple pie à la mode before she said, “These people really believe they’re vampires?”
“They want to believe they are,” J.J. said. “It’s an alternative lifestyle, but don’t you dare say that to one of them. It all has to do with auras and energy. It grew out of the gothic subculture—”
“Which is what Wendy was into,” Cameron said.
“The gothic period was during medieval times,” J.J. said. “They don’t just play dress up. They have an actual belief system, and people commit themselves to the lifestyle, maintain ethical tenets within a hierarchical system, and participate in rituals.”
“All of this sprang up out of Anne Rice’s books.” Cameron rolled her eyes.
“Actually,” he said, “vampirism was around even before Bram Stoker wrote Dracula. Anne Rice made it popular again.” He leaned across the table toward her and lowered his voice. “Did you know that there are different types of vampires?”
“No!” She uttered a mock gasp over the top of her coffee cup.
“There are ‘real’ vampires, who actually believe that they have to drink the blood of animals or humans in order to maintain their energy. There are psychic vampires, who get their energy psychically from the living beings around them.” He counted the kinds of vampires on his fingers. “There’s a third kind, the—” He tried to recall the third kind’s name.
“How do you know all of this?”
“I read.” He snapped his fingers. “Living vampires. They just live the lifestyle. They don’t drink blood or suck up your aura.”
“That’s good to know.” She turned her attention to her pie.
“Then you have transcendental vampires, who believe that they have immortal souls. They believe that their souls can fuse with those of younger vampires and that they can achieve immorality. They may be blood drinkers or psychics. Which one
is Karrie?”
Cameron looked up from her pie and over to the overweight woman wearing a long black dress who was stepping into the diner.
The gown looked like it belonged in a gothic period movie, and it was complete with a tightly cinched waist, a bustle, and a train. It had a tall collar and a plunging neckline that exposed her overflowing, heavily tattooed bosom.
Her thick black hair was up in a bun. Her face was covered in white makeup, there were dark circles under her eyes, and she had painted her lips black. Her eyes were red. Everybody’s attention was drawn to her, and she greeted the patrons with a broad smile that revealed her long fangs.
More than one person in the diner gasped.
The only things missing were cobwebs, bats, and a coffin.
“Maybe you should ask her yourself.” Cameron gestured for her to join them. “Karrie?”
As Karrie crossed the diner to their table, they saw that underneath the clothes and the heavy makeup, she appeared to be much older than they had assumed that she would be, considering that she’d chosen such an alternative lifestyle. Cameron concluded that she must have been in her fifties.
When she smiled, they saw that she was wearing a tongue ring. Cameron cringed at the thought of how much it must have hurt when she had her tongue pierced for the ornament.
“I hope I didn’t keep you waiting,” Karrie said after ordering a breakfast sandwich.
“Oh no,” Cameron said. “We were just talking.”
“Are you a sanguinarian?” J.J. asked.
“Yes, I am.” With a grin that creeped Cameron out, she looked J.J. up and down. “Then you know about us?”
“A little.” J.J. leaned over to Cameron and whispered, “’She does drink blood.”
“Not human, I hope,” Cameron said.
“Only when I can,” Karrie said. “When human blood is not available, I have to settle for animal blood. Donors are so hard to come by. Vendetta was my donor.” In a voice softened by the memory, she added, “She had such sweet blood.”
