“No need,” he said. He dangled the car keys in front of her and smiled.
She looked furious. “I told you!” she shouted. “No more unnecessary killing!”
“Oh, were you planning to pay for this? Because I’m broke at the moment.” It wasn’t true, but he wanted to wake her up to her new lifestyle.
“I know I have to kill to survive,” she said. “But I told you, I want to eat only bad people.” She was pouting. She was trying to care, but he could tell that it was meaning less and less to her. She’d learn soon enough. She was no longer human; soon they would mean no more to her than hamburgers had meant to her when she was human herself.
“He was bad people,” Horsham said. “These clothes were way overpriced.”
Chapter 32
Horsham and Jamie waited just outside the light of the flood lamps, invisible to the naked eye.
The police started loading up around midnight, and an hour later, they were gone. They’d be back in the morning, the vampires overheard them saying to the homeless guys. They cops seemed to know who they were, and their names.
Then it was quiet again. The campfire had been built back up, but Horsham and Jamie were able to get within a few feet of the two remaining men before they were noticed.
“What now?” the taller of the men said when he noticed them, as if tired of all the fuss.
“Sorry to disturb you,” Horsham said, stepping fully into the light. Jamie followed demurely.
But she wasn’t dressed demurely. Horsham might as well have not been there. She was dressed about as daringly as she could get away with in a small town––maybe a little more so.
Her dark blue skirt barely covered her ass, but she was wearing striped black and white leggings, so technically she was decent. Her white blouse was so tight that her breasts threatened to burst out of it. She wore a black choker and shoes with high enough heels that they put a swing in her step. Over it all, she wore a long black coat. She’s a real vamp, Horsham thought, delighting in the irony.
Both men stood up upon seeing her. They couldn’t keep themselves from eyeballing every inch of her, top to bottom. The bearded guy literally licked his lips.
“We’re looking for a friend,” she said. “Can you help me out?”
“Anything you want,” the taller man with the shaved head said. “Come on over here, baby, and sit your beautiful ass down. My name’s Mark.”
She walked over, accentuating the swing in her hips a little. Both men were frozen, watching her. She sat down between them and put one hand on each of their knees. “My friend’s name is Terrill––a tall guy, not as tall as Horsham here, but slender. Dressed nicely, though a little worse for wear. Handsome.”
“Well, we haven’t had anyone like that around here,” Mark said. “There was a guy, kind of skinny and tall, but he was a mess. Doubt he was the same guy.”
“What happened to him?” Jamie asked innocently.
Again, both men froze. Finally, the bearded guy said, “You just missed the cops. The guy was killed in a fight.”
They probably expected her to look distressed, but she only smiled. “Where did he go?”
“I just told you, lady. He’s dead.”
Horsham stepped forward and the two homeless men looked startled, as if they had forgotten he was there. “Was he alone?”
The bearded guy looked down at Jamie’s hand on his knee, then up at Horsham’s cruel little smile. He stood up, looking behind him into the darkness as though getting ready to run, seeming to sense that something was wrong.
His more belligerent friend didn’t seem to notice a thing. “I told you, buddy. He’s dead. How’s he going to go anywhere?” He waved off into the desert darkness around them. “He’s under a couple feet of dirt right about now. The coyotes will be taking him if the cops don’t find him first.”
“But someone carried him away,” Horsham said calmly. “Who is this Perry? Where would he go?”
“Like we told the cops, he and Grime probably headed for the homeless shelter in town. It’s too cold to go anywhere else.”
Jamie stood up. “I know where that is.”
The tall man’s hand lingered on her until the last possible second. He sighed.
“Jesus, lady. You’re the biggest prick tease I’ve ever seen.”
“Oh, you actually have a prick?” she said, and Horsham winced at her withering tone.
The tall man scowled. He reached into his coat and pulled out a gun. “You know what, lady? I’d have let you go if you hadn’t said that. I’m no rapist. I hate rapists. But you can’t walk into my home looking like that and insulting me. Take off that stupid coat.”
Both of the bums glared at Horsham as if daring him to do something. Now that his friend was holding a gun, the bearded one no longer looked so worried. Horsham decided to watch what Jamie did. His baby vampire was full of surprises.
Jamie’s face was impassive. Then she looked straight at Horsham and smiled, as if to say, “These are what bad guys look like.” He shrugged in response.
She took off the long black coat. She dangled it from one finger and then let it drop onto the crude wooden picnic table.
In the light of the campfire, her blouse was see-through. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath.
“Now the blouse,” said the man with the gun.
She took it off slowly, teasingly. Then, without being asked, she dropped her skirt. She was naked except for the striped leggings.
“Come over here, bitch. I’ll show you what a prick looks like.”
As she walked over, Mark stood up and dropped his pants. He handed the gun over to Harve. “Hold onto this.”
Harve lowered the weapon on Horsham, who still hadn’t moved and was standing there with an ironic smile on his face. The bearded bum looked as though he was having second thoughts, but managed to mutter, “Save some of that for me, Mark.”
Jamie stood in front of Mark. Horsham saw the transformation from behind. There was a slight movement at the back of her head, as if it had changed shape. Her claws extended, reached up, and wrapped around the man’s head. Then blood was shooting into the air and the human was screaming.
Horsham leaped forward. Harve managed to get off one shaky shot that hit the vampire in the shoulder, and then his body was dropping to the ground, spouting blood from the gory stump where his head had once been. His head rolled out of the circle of firelight, a surprised expression still on his face.
After feeding, Jamie poured the contents of the white water bottles over her until she was completely clean. Then she put her clothes back on and whirled around in the light of the dying flames.
She laughed. “Good thing they asked me to take my clothes off. I like this outfit.”
Chapter 33
After taking the motel clerk’s statement, Brosterhouse drove back to the police station. It looked deserted. He made his way to Captain Anderson’s office. He was surprised to find the old man was still there.
The door was open, but Brosterhouse knocked on the frame anyway before going in. “What’s going on?”
The captain jumped at the sound of Brosterhouse’s deep voice. He’d been staring into space. “Wow, you surprised me,” he said. He shook his head tiredly. “There was a stabbing out at a homeless camp. We don’t have that many murders around here, and it brought out every cop on duty.” He checked his watch briskly, as if to say, “This better be important.”
“What can I do for you, detective?”
When Brosterhouse detailed what he’d found, Anderson didn’t seem very surprised. “It’s suspicious, all right,” he said. “But I’m not sure there is enough evidence there to pursue it. We’re talking about a cop, one of our own. I think we need more evidence than that.”
“I agree, captain. But there is enough for a search warrant, surely.”
“Ordinarily, I’d say no. But with Carlan? Let me see what I can do.” He picked up the phone and dialed. “Judge? This is Captain Anderson. I
need a quick search warrant, and I need it to be quiet. It’s for a cop. What’s that? Well, as a matter of fact it is for Richard Carlan… Yes, sir. I’ll send Detective Brosterhouse right over.”
He hung up and gave Brosterhouse a glum look, as if realizing what an unusual thing they were doing. He scribbled on a notepad and tore off the note. “Judge Parrish will be waiting for you at this address. We’re lucky. Carlan is going to be busy this evening, what with the stabbing. Right now would be a good time to make the search.”
“Right.”
“Oh, and Brosterhouse? If you don’t find anything, maybe we could just keep it quiet?”
“I’m not sure,” Brosterhouse said. He wasn’t about to break the rules for anyone, even a fellow policeman. He left without another word.
On the way out, he poked his head into the squad room. There were only a couple of officers there, but one of them was Patterson.
“Patterson!” he shouted. “With me!”
#
Judge Parrish was waiting by the door when Brosterhouse pulled up. “Stay here,” he told Patterson, and hurried up to the doorway.
“I’ve always kind of thought Carlan was dirty,” the judge said by way of a greeting. “This doesn’t surprise me at all.”
He held the warrant out, but held onto it for a second as Brosterhouse reached for it. “I hope you’re right about this, or there will be hell to pay.”
“Yes, sir,” Brosterhouse said, and Parrish let go of the papers.
The detective turned and left without another word.
#
When they pulled up to Richard Carlan’s house, Patterson looked pale. “What are we doing here?”
“Just what it looks like; we’re serving a search warrant.”
“Shouldn’t we wait until Carlan is home?” Patterson asked, obviously hoping to delay the unpleasant task.
“Well, maybe we can be in and out before anyone knows we were here,” Brosterhouse offered. It was bullshit, but the young cop seemed to buy it. Brosterhouse would be leaving a copy of the warrant on the table, as legally required.
The back door was unlocked. They entered and quickly made their way to the office. It was a mess, and Brosterhouse left Patterson to start searching through the mass of papers.
“What are we looking for?” the patrolman asked.
“Anything,” Brosterhouse said. “If you see anything that relates to Jamie Lee Howe, let out a holler.”
He chose the bedroom, which in his experience was the place most miscreants hid things.
He’d only been searching for a couple of minutes before he found it, tucked under the underwear in the top drawer of the dresser near the bed.
The book was bright purple, hardly the kind of thing a hard-nosed cop would be likely to have. He guessed what it was even before he opened it and started reading.
He flipped to the end of the book and started reading the last few pages.
#
“Richard has threatened me again. He beats me if I refuse to have sex with him. He’s playing weird little games. He makes me lie on the floor naked, with my arms crossed across my chest as though I’m dead, and he kicks me if I move. Then he has sex with me again…
“Richard has vowed to kill me if I leave. He found out about the abortion and was so angry he beat me. I’m afraid to stay. He’s going to kill me one of these days. I’d be better off in Portland or Seattle or someplace like that.”
Then, two days later: “I’m leaving. Richard told me to my face that he was going to drain me dry of blood, just like he thinks I’ve drained him. He’s going to leave me lying on the floor, naked to the world, like the ‘whore’ I am. I can’t stay in Bend any longer. He really means it.”
#
Brosterhouse snapped the book shut. He did a quick search of the rest of the bedroom, but found only what you might expect in the disordered room of a bachelor.
“Find anything?” he asked, making his way back to the office.
“Ten-year-old electric bills,” Patterson said. “Taxes from years ago. Crap. Junk. It’s a waste of time.”
“Not entirely,” Brosterhouse said, holding up the purple book. He took his copy of the search warrant and wrote down a description of the diary, and had Patterson witness it. Then he made the same notation on the copy he left on the desk.
Carlan could scream and holler all he wanted. The diary wasn’t prima facie evidence, but it was damning, probably enough to shame him off the police force. Certainly no one was going to look at him the same way again.
#
They held a telephone conference that very night: Captain Anderson; the district attorney, Jim Haller; and Brosterhouse, with Patterson sitting in the corner looking as though he wished he were anywhere else.
“Are you sure it’s all Ms. Howe’s handwriting?” Haller asked.
“I haven’t had it analyzed yet, but I have no reason to doubt it,” Brosterhouse said.
“Still, it isn’t really evidence, is it?” Captain Anderson interjected. “Not enough for an arrest.”
“Not on a murder charge, maybe,” the detective admitted. “But tampering with evidence? He broke into a victim’s house and stole a diary. He planted the victim’s necklace in another man’s suitcase. He had a restraining order taken out on him by the victim. It’s enough to suspend him, at the least.”
“I agree,” Haller said.
Anderson nodded. “I agree, too, but I’m not sure everyone is going to see it that way.”
“It’s enough to make him a suspect,” Haller continued. “But it’s not enough for a conviction, in my opinion. I think you need one more piece of evidence before you can make an arrest.”
Brosterhouse was frustrated, but he knew the district attorney was right. He’d been to enough trials to know that in the age of CSI television shows, they needed a strong preponderance of evidence.
“At least now we know where to look,” he said.
Chapter 34
The man stood blocking the doorway of the shelter and wouldn’t let them in. He was a round man, round of face and body, but with fine, slender hands and a strangely gaunt face. The door was at the back of the shelter, in a dark alley, with a single light bulb above it.
“You’re too late,” the man said.
“Come on, Harry,” Perry argued. “We were kicked out of our camp. We got nowhere else to go!”
“…t’s …old,” Grime said.
“Cold? Yes, it’s going to be cold tonight, but maybe you should’ve thought of that earlier. If you bundle up, you’ll be all right.”
“Look, we understand the rules,” Perry said. “But the new guy, Christian here, he ain’t dressed for it; he ain’t used to it.”
The man looked over Perry’s shoulder and saw Terrill for the first time. His eyes widened in sudden fear and then clouded over, as if he was confused by his own reaction. He shook his head. “Well… maybe this once. We’ll let Christian’s name be the password. Wait!” he held up his hand. “You’ve been drinking. I can smell it on you.”
“Well, hell. When aren’t we drinking?” Perry laughed.
“You can’t bring any alcohol in here. I won’t bend on that rule.” The man crossed his arms and stared them down.
Perry sighed. He pulled the bottle out of his pocket. There was only an inch of whiskey in the bottom, but he eyeballed it regretfully. Then he shrugged, walked over to the trash cans lining the other side of the alley, and dropped it into one with the sound of breaking glass. He winced, then walked back.
The man moved aside, and the others filed in. Terrill was last in line, and as he crossed the threshold, he felt as if he’d been thrown into a pit of burning coals. He cried out and fell backward, landing on his rear end in the alley. “What is this place?” he shouted.
“The shelter at St. Francis Church,” the man said. “I’m Father Harry Donovan.”
“What’s wrong, Christian?” Perry said, confused. “Come on, it’s cold. Let’s get inside!”
Grime came outside and, with surprising strength, pulled Terrill to his feet by the back of his new coat. “…ry …gain,” he muttered.
Expecting the pain this time, Terrill cautiously approached the doorway. He hadn’t been on sanctified ground in centuries, not since his Turning. He should have burst into flames, and yet, though he’d fallen backward, that had been more from surprise than anything else––the pain had been endurable.
So he crossed the threshold slowly, gritting his teeth, and found that though the pain didn’t go away, it started to recede into the background, like a toothache.
Father Harry was staring at Terrill, and he shook his head, then reached under his sweater and brought out a crucifix on a chain.
“Christian’s got that same cross!” Perry exclaimed. “But he don’t need no chain. Show him, Christian!”
Terrill shook his head. This conversation was heading in dangerous directions.
“Please,” the priest said. “I’d like to see it.”
Terrill unbuttoned his shirt. The crucifix gleamed in the soft light of the hallway. The skin around it was pink, nearly healed.
“How did you do that?” Father Harry asked.
“Can we just go to sleep?” Terrill asked. “We can talk about this in the morning.” He had already decided that he’d wait until everyone else was sleeping and then get out of there, find a hole somewhere to hide in. This priest seemed entirely too interested in him.
“Of course,” said Father Harry. “This way.”
He led them to a big room that was full of sleeping men, then shook his head as if changing his mind and went on down the hallway. They passed a small kitchen. It looked as though they’d interrupted Father Harry while he was fixing a pot of stew. There were sliced carrots and potatoes piled on plates atop the counter, and on a cutting board, there was a pile of raw meat. There was a smaller supply room beyond the kitchen, with some disassembled cots leaning against one wall.
The Vampire Evolution Trilogy (Book 1): Death of an Immortal: Page 16
