“I have orders from the Lieutenant that nobody gets past me. So if you’ll just move along, sir…” He made the mistake of looking me in the eye, and as soon as our eyes locked, I had him. I put the mojo on him in a heartbeat and leaned down, speaking quietly so only he could hear me.
“You will let us pass. You will forget we ever came this way. And for the next three days you will wear mismatched socks and no underpants.” The dazed kid nodded and Greg and I ducked under the tape barrier.
“That was petty, bro.” My partner said as we navigated the mass of cops and crime scene techs in the tight alley.
“Petty is my middle name, dude. Besides, I didn’t like his shoes.”
“He was wearing uniform shoes.”
“I have authority issues, what can I say?”
“Authority issues? You’ve got more issues than National Geographic.” Greg muttered as we got close enough to see Sabrina in a heated discussion with a tall black man in an expensive coat. I waved my partner over to the side and we hung out well out of human earshot, which of course was plenty close for us to hear every word.
"I understand your hesitation, sir, but these guys have some resources that we don't have. They have connections within the community to people who are...reluctant to speak with the police." Sabrina was saying to the tall man, whom I guessed was her Lieutenant.
"I appreciate that, Detective, but it's not your call to make."
"Then whose call is it, sir?" Sabrina was getting upset, and I could tell that her newly discovered personal relationship with the victim was not going to do her any favors with her boss. "Either I'm the lead on this case or I'm not. And if I am the lead, then my resources are mine to do with as I see fit, so if I'd rather hire a couple of investigators outside the department than just line the pockets of the same snitches all over again, I should be allowed the freedom to do that. And if I'm not..." I decided Sabrina shouldn't really give her boss that option, especially judging from the stormy look on his face, so I barged in right then, feigning ignorance of anything I shouldn't have been able to overhear.
"Detective Law? The uniform said we could find you back here. Excuse us, you must be...?" I extended my hand to the man, who looked at it just a second too long before shaking it with his expensive gloved one.
"I'm Lieutenant Joseph McDaniel. I assume you're the private investigators we've heard so much about." Someday I'll meet someone over the age of twelve who doesn't say "private investigator" like it's a venereal disease, but I doubt they'll work in law enforcement.
"Well, sir, I can't vouch for what you've heard, but we're here to help any way we can." I put on my best "aw shucks" face and tried not to look like I could drink every drop of blood in his oversized frame without batting an eye. Not that I think he'd recognize that look. "So what can we do to help, Detective?" I didn't put too much extra emphasis on "detective," but I made it pretty plain who we were here for. McDaniel's eyes flashed a little and I could tell my subtle dig wasn't lost on him. Too bad. There are entirely too many perceptive police officers in Charlotte for my tastes, and not all of them were friendly. Lieutenant McDaniel was definitely both perceptive and unfriendly. I hoped I wasn't going to have to drink him before the case was over.
Sabrina led Greg and I over to one side of the alley as McDaniel made his way back to the main street where all the reporters were waiting. "Here's where it happened, at least the last of it." She indicated a wall of the library with blood smeared at least eight feet off the ground. "It looks like he was held high against the wall somehow and pummeled. But the bloodstains and spatters are too high for that."
"Unless the guy that attacked him moonlights for the Bobcats. And those spots are high even by NBA standards." Greg cracked, and I kicked him in the shin. "Sorry."
"How is your friend?" I asked once the bossman was out of earshot.
"They're pretty sure he'll live, but they don't know if there's going to be brain damage. He was beaten so badly I didn't recognize him. I only knew it was Stephen when I looked in his wallet."
Just then a distraught young man ran into the alley and headed straight for the crime scene. He was well dressed, attractive and slender, with perfect hair and tears pouring down his face. Everything about him was the picture of modern young gay man whose partner just became a statistic. I cut him off before he could make a bigger mess of the alley and tried to get him turned around before he saw too much of the mess on the wall. "Hey, hey, hey," I murmured as I put an arm around his shoulders and steered him back the way he came. "I'm Jimmy, and I'm a detective. I'm here to help. I'm guessing that you're a friend of Stephen's?"
"No, he's my husband. We were married in Boston last year. Where is he?" I didn't bother to mention that gay marriage wasn't recognized in North Carolina, because it didn't matter, and since I wasn't exactly the family values candidate, I didn't care. I also didn’t bother to add the “private” to the “detective,” since the longer he thought I had some official capacity, the more information he was likely to give me.
"He's at Presbyterian Hospital, he's probably still in surgery. We can get someone to take you over there as soon as you answer a few questions for us, okay?" By now I'd gotten him to the back of an ambulance and had him sitting down. I motioned for a paramedic to bring over a cup of coffee and sat there with my arm on his shoulders until he pulled himself a little more together.
After a minute he stopped the worst of his shaking, and I asked, "Are you okay? Can I ask you a couple of questions now?" He nodded and I went on. "What's your name?"
"Alex Glindare."
"And you said that you're Stephen's partner?"
"Sure, if that works for you." He gave the smile of someone who was a little tired of explaining things to people like me, and I let it go.
"Where were you tonight?" I knew this guy could no more cause the kind of carnage I saw in the alley than I could be a Coppertone girl, but the question had to be asked.
"I was working late. I'm in acquisitions for Belle Fairmore, and you might have heard that we bought this little bank a few months ago." He jerked his thumb from one skyscraper to another. I knew something about banks buying each other all over town, but since I'm more of a stuff cash in my mattress kind of guy, I just took him at his word.
"And where was Stephen?"
"He had rehearsal. Down the street. He was going to come meet me at the office when he was done." Alex pointed down the street to the new headquarters of the city's premier dance company.
"Do you know when rehearsal was due to be over?" I was trying to keep the questions simple, so he didn't have to push too hard to answer, but still felt like I was giving him some attention. Since I knew he had nothing to do with this, I could only hope that by running interference with the spouse, I was freeing Greg and Sabrina up to do the real investigating.
"He was supposed to finish up around ten, then walk down to meet me. We did this all the time, and nothing like this had ever happened..."
I gave him a minute to pull himself together before starting in on the more direct questions. "Do you know anyone who would have any reason to hurt Stephen? A jilted former lover, perhaps, someone he beat out for a part in a show, anything like that?"
He took a minute to think about it before answering; I had to give him that. Most spouses in this situation sanctify the injured party, and all of a sudden a wife-beating SOB with a twelve-pack-a-day Miller habit becomes a choirboy who helps little old ladies cross the street. "No. We've been together for more than five years now, and I'm pretty sure he's never cheated on me, and I've never cheated on him. And as far as competition at work goes, somebody might put Icy Hot in his dance belt, but I can't see a modern dancer beating someone almost to death." He gave me a wry smile. "Stereotypes exist for a reason, Detective. Gay men aren't all sissies, but we're not usually beating people up in alleys, either."
He had a point. I didn't know a whole lot about Charlotte's gay culture, if there was such a thing, but I couldn't imagine
a guy putting another guy in the hospital by beating him with a point shoe. I then made a note to ask somebody if male dancers wore point shoes. "Alright, Mr. Glindare, that's all we need for now. Would you like one of these officers to drive you over to the hospital, or do you think you can make it there safely on your own?"
"I'll be alright. Just, please, catch the bastard that did this to Stephen." His blue eyes became fierce, and I revised that opinion about sissies on the spot.
"We'll do everything in our power, sir." I didn't bother to mention that our power included a few things not normally in the police arsenal, but I shook his hand and headed back over to Sabrina and Greg.
Chapter 4
Sabrina and Greg were back at the blood smear with a nebbishy looking man who was pointing some kind of laser measuring device at the wall. Sabrina introduced me to the blood spatter expert, whose name I promptly forgot, and motioned me over to the side, leaving Greg to geek out over all the button and LEDs on the man's toys.
"What did the partner say?" She asked.
"Husband." I replied absently, going through my mental notes to prepare the recap.
"Huh?"
"Husband. They were married out of state last year."
"Okay, what did the husband say?" There was something in her eyes that I wanted to ask about, but in a fit of discretion, I decided to let it go. Obviously there was something going on with this guy, and if she wanted me to know, she’d tell me.
"He doesn't know anything, nobody would want to hurt your friend, the victim walked alone this way fairly often, blah, blah, blah."
"Kinda what I figured. There's not going to be anything here of any use, either. At least there hasn't been at any of the other scenes."
"So now what?" Not being well versed in police procedure I didn't know if we all had to stand outside for the rest of the night in freezing weather, or just her. Like I said, the cold didn't really bother me and Greg, but with no blood of our own, it took a long time to warm back up after being outside for a while.
"We go to the hospital."
"Good deal, I'm getting a little peckish." Even if my blood hookup didn't work at the hospital, they were good sources of nutrition for so many reasons.
"You ate just a couple hours ago. How can you still be hungry?" Apparently there had been a few holes in Sabrina's vampire education. I blamed Greg.
"I had one pint tonight. The human body holds about ten pints. I need to replace all ten pints at least every three days, preferably every two. And for me to be at full strength, I need ten pints daily. So what you saw was the equivalent of a decent breakfast, but nothing near enough to keep me going all night, especially if we run into anything we have to fight."
"Wow. I had no idea." She looked a little pale, probably thinking about exactly how much ten pints of blood really is. The answer is a gallon and a quart, which is a lot of blood.
"Fortunately, most people don't. Now you have some idea why blood banks are always running short, even though they're constantly doing blood drives. It's not just humans and hospitals that are getting that blood; it's vampires too. And some of us aren't as thrifty and me and Greg."
"That must get expensive, and what do you do if your guy takes a vacation? Do you have to go back to...you know?"
"Eating on the hoof? Not always. Our guy has a nice little network of assistants and backups, and there are other places to get blood if really need it. Don't ask, because I promise you don't want to know. But sometimes, if supply gets tight, we have to hunt. Greg refuses, and he learned some kind of Zen yoga trick that lets him hibernate until the flow is restored, but I'm not against grabbing take-out from time to time."
She wrapped her arms around herself a little tighter. I could tell this was not what she wanted to hear from a guy who might be turning into more than an investigative asset, but I also knew she needed full disclosure if we were ever going to be anything serious. "I guess it's just a little unnerving hearing you talk about it like that, like it's nothing."
"Well, look at it from my perspective," I kept my voice calm, and purposefully didn't look into her eyes. I didn't want any spare mojo messing this up. "You guys make blood all the time. We don't. It takes you about 24 hours to replace a pint of lost plasma, and about a month to replace that many red blood cells. And you'll never miss it. So as long as I'm not drinking more than a pint or two at the most, the worst thing that happens is my donor feels a little woozy when they wake up. And in a few days, they're back good as new. But if I don't eat, I will die. I will get weak, then I'll get a little nuts, then I'll get really nuts, then I'll turn into a monster. Then I'll eat, with no regard for leaving anything behind, and then we've got a bigger problem."
"A new vampire."
"Yeah, a new vampire. If I go nuts and drain somebody completely, unless I take precautions, they're coming back. And most of the time, we don't want that."
"Most of the time?" She looked at me questioningly.
"Okay, I can't think of a time that I'd want to turn somebody, but it might happen. But yeah, we don't want that. So sometimes I go out for dinner. I don't go after anyone that's been fed on recently; and since Greg and I are the only vampires in Charlotte..."
"That you know of."
"Fair enough, that we know of, it's easy to avoid going back to the well too many times. And now you know far more about the feeding habits of vampires than you ever wanted to know."
"True, but it was probably pretty high on the list of things I needed to know."
"Which coincides with just about everything you never wanted to learn." Said Greg from where he'd joined us behind Sabrina. She jumped, he giggled, and she kicked him in the shin.
"Lay off the shins, people. Much more of that and I'm going to have to add to the uniform." He whined, rubbing his leg.
"Costume." I teased.
"Uniform."
"Costume."
"You wanna walk home?"
"Uniform."
"That's what I thought. Anyway, your Dr. Fishbein was very enlightening, Sabrina. As we suspected, a large part of the attack took place well above the ground, with the victim's head"
"Steve's." Sabrina interjected in a small voice. Greg toned down the professorial tone a bit and continued.
"Sorry, Steve's head was held at nearly eight feet off the ground and beaten severely against the wall. I asked Dr. Fishbein to speculate on what could have done such a thing, but he was reluctant to do so." Greg looked a little chastened, like the blood spatter guy had spanked him over something.
"Let me guess," said Sabrina, affecting a hunched posture and nasal quality to her voice "I do not speculate, Mr. Knightwood. I leave that to the detectives."
Greg looked relieved. "Yes, exactly. I wondered exactly what it was that he has against detectives, but I didn't want to stick my nose in where it didn't belong."
"There's a first." I shot.
Sabrina snorted and punched me in the arm. She was a lot stronger than she looked, that punch actually hurt a little. "He's failed his pistol qualifications seven times. It's the only thing keeping him from coming into the department and starting out as a gold shield, and he's a little bitter. Don't sweat him, we've got bigger issues."
"Like what?" Greg asked as Sabrina walked past him to her car.
"We gotta go to the hospital to talk to the victim." I said, following her.
"Oh good," he exclaimed, digging in his costume for his car keys. "I'm a little hungry."
Chapter 5
It was far from a comfortable ride to the hospital, mostly because Sabrina wasn't talking to either of us. I tried a few lame jokes, but they fell even flatter than usual. She was obviously worried about her friend, but I felt like there was something else going on. As we walked past the nurse's station on the way to Stephen's room, I grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop.
"What's going on?" I asked in a low voice. I didn't want a huge scene if we could avoid one, but I was not going in that room without all the information.
"What do you mean? There's nothing going on, it's just a case." She didn't look me in the eye, which is generally a good idea with vampires, but Sabrina was immune to our mojo somehow, not to mention the fact that she knew I'd never use it on her even if it worked.
"Sure," I said, sarcasm dripping from my words, "It's just a case where you know the victim and for some reason your heart is beating twice as fast heading to his hospital room as it was at the very bloody crime scene. So do you want to tell me what you're afraid of, or do you want to keep trying to BS a guy who can hear the very blood in your veins?"
Sabrina looked up and down the hall, and seeing no one, pulled me and Greg over to a sitting area by the elevators. She took a deep breath, and then began. "I wasn't telling you everything."
"Wanna move on to the things I didn't already know?" I shot back.
Black Knight 02 - Back in Black Page 2
