When Lacey entered the room, Angelica was curled up in a corner of the tiny space, both hands fisted in her hair, her arms shielding her face. The woman was terrified and continued to scream. A dark and handsome man in the green scrubs of a doctor was attempting to slide out the door as the nurses rushed to their patient. His gaze latched onto Lacey.
She jerked her head to the side, indicating that he should step into the hallway with her. He hesitated a brief moment, seeming torn between his duty to the patient and his desire to escape, even for a moment, from the terror and screams. Escape won, and he pulled the door shut behind him.
“Doctor Matthews.” He stuck his hand out, surprising her. It was obvious that she was a Vampire, and most people wouldn’t offer to shake hands unless she offered first, shaming them into it.
“Lieutenant Anderson. What happened?” Lacey’s tone suggested that he better answer up, and answer well enough to suit her.
He shook his head as if to clear it. “I had just stepped into the room,” he began in a halting manner. “I knew she was an assault vic, and more than likely raped, so I had her nurse ask her if she minded a male doctor, and she said she didn’t. Nurse Calloway noted it in her chart.” He said this last as if to convince her that his actions were complete and well-documented.
“I understand.” Lacey softened her voice. She knew as well as anyone else the strain doctors, especially those in an E.R. rotation in one of the city’s largest and most-stressed hospitals, would be feeling. “Go on.”
“Well, I walked in with her chart.” He indicated the tablet he still held in his hand. “She took one look at me and started screaming bloody murder. I never even had the chance to get a word out!”
Lacey looked at the young man a little closer. Gaunt face, straight black hair, deep dark eyes, these were all characteristics that could be applied to large numbers of the human population. But she sensed there was more to it than that. “You’re a Reaper, aren’t you?”
Reapers could pass for ordinary humans, even eat and drink the same things, and were almost always one of the lowest demographics as far as committing crimes went. But as a group, they were one of the few Undead species that the humans had tried to ban from citizenship status.
Because Reapers sustained themselves by harvesting human souls (though they didn’t consume them, just sent them on their way, while keeping some of their released energy), humans in general had been adamant against granting them Registry status. A few high-level and influential Reapers had succeeded, after a long political battle, in gaining admittance to the Registry for all of their species.
They tended to be highly intelligent and gifted for medical services; Reapers could be found in emergency rooms, health care clinics, and as EMS workers all across the world, and they excelled. Lacey always thought this made it even more difficult for humans to trust or interact with them. After all, would you want to be in a car accident and have a Reaper EMS attendant, not knowing if your number would soon be up?
They both glanced at the closed door as the wailing inside subsided. “I told them to give her a sedative.” His voice sounded relieved. “I knew someone would be coming to talk to her, so it’s nothing too strong. Maybe I can even examine her now. Did you talk to her in the field?”
“Yes. I told her I’d see her here.”
“Good. Maybe with you in the room, she’ll feel a bit safer.” That’s ironic, the Vampire and the Reaper will try to make the human feel safe!
The nurses left the room, dimming the lights by half on their way out. Cautiously, Dr. Matthews poked his head into the door. With a quick hand gesture at Lacey, he stepped inside. She followed.
Angelica was back on the exam table, wrapped in a thin white blanket. She was much calmer, but Lacey noticed that she was trembling. Her entire body seemed to sigh in relief when she saw Lacey.
“You’re here,” she whispered in disbelief.
“I told you I would be. Didn’t you believe me?”
Tears had dried dirt and blood into a thick cake on her cheeks, and her disheveled hair moved a bit as she shook her head. “Well, I don’t know. I thought maybe that was just something you said. You know, how people do.”
“When I say I’m going to do something, I mean to do it.” Lacey spoke with conviction.
“Okay, I get that.”
The doctor had watched in silent patience, until Lacey beckoned to him. “This is Dr. Matthews. He needs to examine you.” Angelica shivered violently. “Will you let him?”
“Can I have a blanket?” Her voice sounded like that of a young child. “I’m so cold.”
“It’s always cold in hospitals,” Dr. Matthews said with a soothing tone. “But we can’t give you a blanket just yet. We need to collect evidence, and that will include the sheets you’re using now.”
The young woman looked at Lacey. “He’s right. Once we get everything we can get, we’ll let you take a nice hot shower and get you something warm to wear.”
The doctor stepped to a thermostat. “I’ll turn this up a little, for now. Will you let me examine you? We don’t have any female doctors available right now but we could call one.”
“Then I’ll have to wait even longer?” He nodded. “Will you stay?” She asked of Lacey.
“Glad to,” Lacey told her, stepping closer to the side of the small exam table.
As Dr. Matthews stepped closer, Angelica shivered again. “You’re not here for...you’re not...” Her teeth seemed to chatter and she couldn’t finish her sentence.
“No, I don’t have a writ for you.” His voice held an amused tone. Lacey assumed he’d been asked similar questions countless times.
It appeared to soothe the young woman, and she nodded to the doctor. Lacey took a digital camera out of her kit, and began snapping pictures from different angles as the doctor began his exam. He had a gentle touch that seemed to settle Angelica even more. Lacey handed him a small paper ruler shaped like an L, which he held up to various wounds on the victim’s face and shoulders as a measurement while Lacey continued to photograph. “This one might need some stitches,” he remarked, pointing to a very vivid bite on her left cheek, and another on her shoulder. “This one, too.”
Lacey took wide-angle and close shots of both wounds. The doctor checked for indications of broken bones in her face, skull, and arms. Then, he stripped his latex gloves off inside out, and handed them to Lacey, going to the station hanging over the room’s door for a fresh pair. The blood on the fluid-slicked gloves would be tested, in case some of it belonged to the assailant. When he returned, he glanced at Lacey.
Without a word, she handed him a small paper envelope, like those used once upon a time at bank drive-through windows. He unsealed the flap and pulled out an orangewood stick, the same kind a person could get in the manicure section of any store. It was pointed on one end like a toothpick, the other end beveled at an angle.
Angelica turned away from the doctor as he carefully scraped under her nails, collecting any material that might have lodged there. The stick went into the envelope too, and all was sealed inside as per protocol.
Lacey reached for the last bundle of evidence collection bags and vials. This was the most difficult part of a PERK kit, for the victim as well as the examiner. As Dr. Matthews put on yet another pair of fresh gloves, Lacey stepped closer to Angelica.
“This is going to be the hardest part,” she said, trying to make her voice soothing. She laid a hand on the woman’s arm, wishing that she could at least offer some warmth. Angelica’s skin was clammy even to her touch.
“I know what you have to do. Just get it over with!”
Dr. Matthews instructed her to shift position so that he could examine her vaginally. Lacey always wondered about this; she knew women went in for regular exams to check for cancer and other health issues. But she could never figure out how a woman wouldn’t feel debased and exposed in such a position, bared from the waist down, feet in metal stirrups and legs parted wide. Angelica turne
d to stare at the wall. Lacey left her hand on the woman’s arm, offering what comfort she could.
“Definite lacerations here,” the doctor said, his voice muffled through the sheet draped over Angelica’s midriff. “Blood too.” He handed Lacey a cotton-tipped swab sealed in a plastic vial. This, she initialed with date and time and placed with care in her case. “Do you have a pair of sterile tweezers?”
She took a pair from the kit and, after removing the packaging, handed the tool to him. “What do you have?”
“Some tissue but I don’t think it’s hers. Has a strange look to it. Nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
She felt the hair on her neck stand on end, and again she had the sensation that she knew something, but it remained just out of her grasp. When the doctor held up the piece of tissue, she opened a glass jar so he could drop it inside. This she filled with a solution of formalin that would “fix” the tissue so it could be examined and tested later on.
“You won’t need stitches there,” Dr. Matthews told the woman when he had collected all the evidence he could find. “But you’ll be a little sore for a couple of days, especially when you urinate. Using wet toilet wipes might help, but I’d suggest using baby wipes. The chemicals in them aren’t as harsh. Are you on any contraception?”
She shook her head. “We’ll give you something that will prevent pregnancy. It may cause some light cramping. If it does, you can take any regular over-the-counter medicine for it. I’ll send a tech in to get those wounds cleaned and stitched, then you can get cleaned up.” He patted her knee gently. “You were very brave.”
With that, he left the room. “He’s right, you know,” Lacey told her when they were alone. “You were very brave. I know that must have been hard for you. But it’s over now, and we’ve gotten what we need to give us the best chance of catching this guy.”
A brisk knock at the door was followed by a patient care tech, arms loaded down with two thick blankets from the warmer, a pair of baggy scrub pants, and a scrub top that snapped up the front as well as on the short sleeves (hospitals had long since abandoned the use of archaic hospital gowns).
Lacey, resigned to this interruption, unfolded a large paper sack from her evidence kit. The girl seemed happy to leave the bed and jump into the tiny shower stall in the corner of the room. The remnants of Angelica’s clothing, removed during her exam, as well as the stiff, paper-thin sheets that she had been using on the bed were placed with great care into the bag, and Lacey sealed it with red evidence tape, adding the date, time, and her initials.
The tech, a heavy-set yet matronly woman, let Angelica dress while she finished making up the bed, then tucked her in tight, piling the warm blankets on top of her. “There you are, dearie.” Her voice was full of kindness and pity. “That’ll keep you warm until we can get you stitched up and a room ready for you. Doc wants to keep you overnight, just as a precaution.”
“I can’t go home?”
“No, honey, I’m afraid not. He wants to make sure you won’t have a reaction to the medicine, and give you some antibiotics while you’re here. But we’ll take good care of you. Someone will be in shortly to stitch you up.”
When they were alone again, Lacey took out her tablet, taking in the text message with a single glance. “One of our sketch artists will be here to talk to you soon. Is there anything more you can tell me about the attack? Anything at all?”
Angelica shook her head. “No, not really. I mean, it was dark, and I never got a good look at him. But...” Her voice trailed off.
“What was it?” Lacey prodded after a few moments of silence.
“There was this...smell. An odor, like cinnamon, or maybe ginger. I thought, at the time, it was strange, to smell something like that in that alley. I mean, there aren’t any bakeries nearby.”
Another déjà vu moment flashed through Lacey, like a single spark in a pitch-black cave. But whatever memory Angelica’s words had nudged remained elusive in the recesses of her mind. In her experience of interviewing countless witnesses and victims, she knew that most humans said that Wolves didn’t have much of an odor, or that if they did, it was more of an earthy or woodsy scent, like patchouli.
Lacey asked several more questions, calling on her expertise to draw more details from the woman, but she could tell that Angelica was almost tapped out. The sedative and the ordeal itself had left her eyelids drooping, and Lacey wanted to give her a break before she spoke with the sketch artist. She pulled a card from her pocket.
“Look, you talk to the artist when he gets here. His name is Thomas. He’s very nice, and good at his job. Tell him everything you can remember, no matter how small the detail. I’ll be in touch with you later, but here’s my card. If you remember anything else, you can call me. Or send a text. Anytime, okay?”
“Okay. You’re going now?”
“Yes. I’d like to give you a break before Thomas gets here. You let me know if there’s anything you need. I can get you in touch with Victims’ Services too, for counseling, help with medical care, things like that. Is there someone I can call to sit with you?”
“No, both my parents are dead, and I’m an only child. I haven’t been in the city long, so I don’t have any close friends. I’ll be okay.”
“Yeah, you will. I’m going to make you a promise.” She looked with intensity into Angelica’s sleepy and troubled eyes. “I’m going to catch this son of a bitch.”
4
“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.” ~~Mahatma Gandhi
Lacey was more than relieved to be climbing back into her car, though the smell of blood would linger in her nostrils for hours. Even more troubling was the young woman’s account and her inability to recall the memory it had jarred loose. Locking the vehicle doors, she leaned her forehead against the steering wheel for a brief moment.
Unbidden, a memory flashed through her mind, a reminder of the worst time of her Undead life:
~~The yips and cries of Wolf song was piercing to her sensitive ears, the smell of blood, both Vampire and Wolf, was acrid to the nose. Lacey, young yet to the life of the Undead, lay on her right side, desperate to staunch the flow of blood from her wounds with the weight of her own body. Almost unconscious, she watched the scene through eyes dulled with pain.
Her father, the one who ‘Turned’ her into this life, was desperately trying to defend himself from the Wolf pack. But it was ten Wolves against him, and Lacey could see that his strength was fading fast. She tried, once, twice, to climb to her feet so she could help him, but she was too weak from the loss of blood. A feeble cry escaped her lips as she watched her friend and mentor ripped apart by teeth and claws.~~
With a sharp gasp, Lacey sat up in her seat, fighting to push the memory to the back of her mind. She needed to focus on the job at hand, to find the animal responsible for the brutal attack on Angelica. I don’t have time for this nonsense, she thought with a burst of anger. Ignoring the feeling of dampness on her cheeks, she started the car and zipped out of the hospital parking lot.
She mused over her interview with the victim as she sped through traffic on her way back to the station. A now-familiar sense of déjà vu tickled the back of her mind. Again, she had the sense that she should know...something, but like the mist rising in wisps from the dewy grass of the warming spring day, it was just as insubstantial.
Frustrated, she switched the car radio on and called up a 24-hour news station, more for the noise than because she cared to hear the latest news. The monotone voice of the news reporter droned on and on, pushing the elusive memory once more into the back of her mind, and by the time she arrived at the cop shop she was once again focused on her case.
“Colton!” She called to him as she shrugged off her evidence collection kit to set it on her desk. He loped into the office behind her.
“Get anything more from the vic?” His mouth was full of what appeared to be powdered do
nut. He had white crumbs on his shirt.
“Where’s my donut?”
“Um.” He swallowed with an audible gulp, then gestured toward the bullpen.
Lacey took an assortment of sealed plastic bags, swab vials, and paper sacks sealed with red evidence tape out of her case and pushed them across the desk. “These need to go to the lab.” She took out her tablet and scanned a bar code on each container of evidence while Colton took out his own. A Bluetooth connection easily transmitted the information from one device to the other, keeping the chain of custody intact as protocol demanded.
Once Colton left the office, she turned to her laptop and booted it up, typing in the security code without even looking at the keys. Since David wasn’t due in yet, she pulled up the assault report forms and laid her tablet on the desk within easy reach. Again, a wireless connection transferred data from her pocket device to the computer.
The software was, in her opinion, beautifully crafted for what they used it for. The main form, blank in areas where the investigator would fill in the correct information, was situated on the left-hand third of the screen, while the remaining side held the notes she had beamed to it from her mobile device. A person could write, type, or speak notes into their tablet and it would show up in the “Notes” section of the software.
It was far easier than trying to transcribe information entered on the tablet, reading on a small screen, and then retype it while looking at the larger screen of the computer. The software was designed to reduce the strain on humans’ eyes, but Lacey appreciated it for its simplicity.
Even though she didn’t have a chance of becoming near-sighted, she had discovered early on that this format sped up report writing, and cut down on typographical errors. It just took a couple times of using the program before it became habit, and now she spent far less time proofreading her reports and those of her crew.
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