Bloodlinks

by Lee Killough

  With what, he wondered, but believed her, remembering Holle clutching something in his sweater pocket. He pushed the glasses up on his head. “I didn’t come back and I didn’t kill him. Why would I?”

  “You left angry.”

  “Because he treated me like a kid, saying I was too young and inexperienced to help hunt this vampire killer.” The memory put an edge on his voice.

  “You probably are.” Her hand came out of her pocket. “Sometimes, though, the bravery of ignorance is an advantage. Do you still want to help...because you know your detective friends are useless here.”

  “I take it you don’t think the window indicates a human killer?”

  She hesitated. “That might be to confuse us and fool the police. Will you help?”

  He nodded. “Of course you realize if a vampire killed Holle, he — or she — has been here before. Do you know everyone who’s visited?”

  She paused again as if debating something, then shook her head. “I have no idea who Leo’s entertained after I’ve gone to bed.”

  Should he ask her to put him in contact with Irina? What if Irina was involved in Holle’s death, though? Grandma Doyle warned him against a woman with violet eyes. Irina supposedly looked on Holle as a friend of vampires but that might be true only as long as she considered him useful. “Does Holle have an address book, maybe with a code identifying vampires he knows?”

  “He has an address book. I don’t know about codes. You can look and see.”

  She opened the door, letting in a scent of roses.

  As she started out, Garreth said, “One question. What’s with your medley of air fresheners?”

  Kriss halted, turned back. “What disturbs you most being around humans? The constant smell of our blood, right?”

  He considered. “It’s one thing, yes.”

  “How much have you noticed that here?”

  Oh. Clever. Then a thought struck him. Going to so much trouble for the comfort of vampires had to mean more than an occasional visitor. “Does hosting friends of friends apply to vampires, too?”

  She turned away again. “The address book is in the library.”

  That as good as confirmed it. Somewhere in this house Holle had sleeping quarters fit for vampires.

  They swung by the library, where Kriss handed him a leather-bound book from a top drawer of the desk. Scanning the first several pages as they walked back out, Garreth found cryptic notations by a number of the names. Quickly he flipped to the K’s...and found an entry for David Knight. To his frustration, it included no notations, only Knight’s name address, and telephone number.

  Girimonte’s voice broke into that frustration. “What do you have there?”

  He looked up and swore silently at finding himself facing her and Harry coming out of Holle’s room.

  Kriss answered for him. “I thought Mr. Holle’s address book might be useful to you. His lawyer’s name is in it, Marshall Cross.”

  “Thank you.” Girimonte held out her hand.

  Garreth squelched an urge to clutch the book and bare his teeth. As though he had a choice about surrendering the book. He did have a choice of recipients, though. He handed it to Harry.

  The assistant ME stepped out the door. “We’re taking the body now.”

  Kriss said hurriedly, “I’d better check on the coffee.” And rushed toward the rear stairs, averting her eyes as she passed Holle’s room.

  Moments later the attendants rolled the stretcher out, around to the stairs, and eased it down to the hall below.

  Watching, Girimonte said, “The killer cut the cord on Holle’s wrists from the drapery pull, then tortured him.”

  Garreth sucked in his breath. Tortured! “Why?”

  She eyed him. “You’re not interested in how?”

  That had the sound of interrogation, especially with the frown Harry sent her. Garreth snorted. “How’s a no-brainer. Wet pillow. Wet hair. How many movies have you seen where the bad guy, or the hero, tries to make someone talk by shoving their head in the john until they almost drown?”

  “Washbowl,” Harry said. “He cut his head on the faucet.”

  Garreth caught a disturbing note of relief. Why? Because he named the john for torture? Had Harry worried how he might answer?

  “What information does a guy like Holle have to torture him for?” Garreth said. “Maybe the combination to a safe?”

  Girimonte considered. “Good question. But my gut says his murder’s related to Barber.” She paused. “Just for the record, where were you at the time of Holle’s death, Mikaelian?”

  “Van!” Harry protested. “That’s—”

  Garreth waved him off. “It’s all right. I was running on the beach. ”

  “And there are sandy, salt-water soaked running shoes in my hall to prove it!”

  “It only proves he walked down to the surf. Okay, okay,” she said as Harry’s face hardened. “Forget it. Look, both of us don’t need to talk to the airline hostesses. If you want, I’ll start canvassing the neighbors in hopes of finding someone as sleepless as Mikaelian. Or do you want to flip for it?”

  Harry relaxed enough to smile. “I never refuse someone else willing to wear out shoe leather.” He leaned on the railing watching as she descended the stairs and her boot heels clicked across the hall. When the front door closed behind her, he sighed. “She’s a good cop. What’s the problem between you two?”

  Garreth considered her comments last night. “I think I remind her of someone she’s had a problem with.”

  Harry frowned. “There’s a sister, thin like you in the one picture I’ve seen, that she’s touchy about discussing.” He took a long breath. “I — I feel like a rat asking this, but...did you only go to the beach?”

  Garreth’s gut knotted. Girimonte worried Harry enough to make him want reassurance? Not wanting to lie, he said, “I swear I did not come here and kill Holle.”

  And at the furrowing of Harry’s forehead he regretted the words. They answered the unasked question, but clearly Harry wondered why Garreth had not given him a straight yes. He pushed his glasses up on his head to meet Harry’s eyes. “Isn’t that what you really wanted to know?”

  After a moment Harry nodded. “Yeah. Well, let’s go see the hostesses.”

  But uncertainly remained in the almond eyes...bringing Garreth an unhappy mental replay of the burning bridge dream. Now with new flame flaring on it. And the sound of Lane laughing.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Garreth suspected Harry drew out the interview with the hostesses for the coffee Kriss brought. The women had little to contribute other than establishing that Holle had still been alive at one-thirty, when he let them in and reset the alarm. Neither heard nor saw anything after they went to bed.

  They had questions for Harry, wanting to know what happened to Holle that brought the police in. “It can’t be just an accident. Did he kill himself?”

  Harry gave them an inscrutable Oriental face. “We’re still trying to determine what happened.”

  Which they clearly doubted, especially when one of the crime lab techs fingerprinted everyone.

  Steffie regarded the process with fascination, peppering the tech with questions as he rolled her prints, then pressing her still-inky fingers on the contents page of a magazine. “They look like little mazes.”

  Once printed, the hostesses demanded, and were given, permission to leave and check into a hotel. The crime lab crew departed. The uniforms left.

  Girimonte returned.

  Kriss appeared with more coffee, a pot of tea, and a tray of sandwich triangles she set on the coffee table. “As it’s past noon, I thought you might be hungry. When you’re ready to leave, that velvet rope hanging by the archway is an actual old-fashioned bell. Pull it and I’ll come lock up behind you.”

  When she left, Harry and Girimonte dug into the sandwiches. Garreth caught Girimonte’s eyes on him, registering the fact he poured himself some tea but ignored the sandwiches. Shrugging off
an impulse to take some in a pretense of eating — Harry paid no attention to him and if she knew what he was, why bother — he took a chair to the side with his tea.

  “So what did you learn from the neighbors?” Harry asked.

  It pulled her attention from Garreth. “God bless restless babies.” Girimonte laid her notebook open on the coffee table and flipped the pages with her free hand. “Mrs. Charles Hanneman, who lives across the street and one house north, has been getting up at night with her infant son for the past week or so. She walks him to sleep and tends to look out the nursery window when she passes it. A little after three she saw someone in front of Holle House. She said she wouldn’t normally have paid much attention because she’s seen guests show up at all hours of the night, corroborating what Kriss said about Holle and friends being night owls. But when guests come, she says there’s usually lights on. They weren’t last night. This individual — she couldn’t be sure about the sex since the person wore a rain jacket coming down past the hips — stood on the sidewalk in the rain staring at the house for maybe five minutes while Hanneman watched, then went into the entryway. She doesn’t know if Holle let the person in. She walked away from the window and didn’t see anyone when she passed it after that.

  “Did she have any kind of description other than sex uncertain?”

  Girimonte frowned at her notes. “Hanneman couldn’t judge height looking down, just thinks the legs were long and if it was a women she was tallish. Which fits Barber. She’s more confident about the build — slender — and the way the person walked looked athletic to her. That also fits Barber. The jacket hood kept Hanneman from seeing the head or hair. I just have one problem with Barber for this.” She took a bite of sandwich. “The killer came with tools for breaking in...knew where to do it and could move through the house to Holle’s room without arousing anyone. Which tells me she/he knows the house. According to Holle, assuming he was telling the truth, he never met Barber. She’s never been here. Then there’s the murder itself. I can understand her killing Holle to keep him quiet if he let slip he knew she’s wanted for murder but I don’t see a reason to torture him. The killer’s got to be someone wanting information.”

  Harry nodded. “Good points.”

  She did have a point about needing familiarity with the house to break in, Garreth reflected. If in fact it was a break-in. He also liked Kriss’s suggestion it was faked to point the police the wrong direction. Might the same be true of the torture? Unless, considering how viciously the hooker and hustler were attacked, the killer did it out of malice.

  Could the neighbor’s description fit Irina? Probably not. Lane had described her as “exquisite”, which suggested someone petite. She also mentioned Irina being at least four hundred years old and he doubted many sixteenth century women were “tallish.”

  Girimonte glanced his direction. “You’re very quiet. No glib theories to neatly cover all bases?”

  Should he mention Kriss’s suggestion? Minus, of course, mention of vampires...for Harry’s benefit and in case Girimonte was unaware how vampires dealt with locked doors. “The killer didn’t need to know the house if all he, or she, needed was a way out. One look at those dormers in a house of this vintage, and anyone automatically thinks of servant quarters and back stairways.”

  Girimonte frowned skeptically. “You think Barber talked her way in? I don’t see it. Holle was in his pajamas, ready for bed, and he knew she was wanted for murder. He’d call 911 if she showed up.”

  “That’s why I don’t think it was Lane. But someone else might have a persuasive excuse for showing up at that hour. And before you suggest it, it wouldn’t be me.”

  “Maybe he could be made to feel guilty about snapping at you earlier.”

  Harry hissed in exasperation. “God, Van...give it a rest! Why do you have this bee up your butt about Garreth!”

  Her mouth thinned. “Because my gut says he knows things he’s not telling us.”

  Garreth saw a chance to strike back. “I think your gut’s trying to equate me with your sister. Well here’s a flash. I’m not your sister! However angry you are at her or about her, stop trying to hang your baggage on me!”

  Above a grim chin, her eyes darkened with anger.

  “You give it a rest, too, Garreth!” Harry set down his coffee with force that splashed some over the edge of the cup onto the coffee table. “Much as I respect gut feelings, let’s try sticking with actual evidence. Garreth, are you holding out?”

  “I don’t know anything that might help toward an arrest.”

  He should have lied. Both of them registered the evasion...Harry unhappily, Girimonte with a smug smile.

  They finished eating in stiff silence.

  Harry did the honors at the bell rope, and thanked Kriss for the meal when she showed them to the door.

  “I’ll do anything that helps find Leo’s killer. Promise me you’ll find him.”

  “We’ll do our best,” Girimonte said.

  But Kriss looked at him, Garreth saw.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Outside, clouds were rolling in, dark and drooping, threatening rain again.

  Back in Homicide, Rob Cohen looked up from his typewriter, peering at them over his half glasses. “Sorry to put you to work today, but when the call came in, I knew the case belonged to you. Was your guy murdered in his bed?”

  “Yes.” Girimonte ran through what they knew.

  Cohen shook his head, gaze sliding to Garreth. “Brutal. Looks like popping off at you can be dangerous, Mikaelian. You want to change any of your statement about Dan Maruska?”

  Garreth kept his voice flat. “No. Have you found anyone who saw me with him after I walked away in front of Afterglow?”

  “No...but we haven’t found anyone who saw Maruska with anyone else after that, either.” The address book had removable pages. When Harry clicked open the little rings holding them in, Cohen said, “Maybe you ought to let Mikaelian try his phone book voodoo and see if that gives you a lead to the killer.” Then resumed typing with a smirk.

  Sitting by Harry’s desk watching him and Girimonte divide the pages and start calling local numbers, Garreth felt a tickle in his brain. Like a hand waving to catch his attention. Something he just glimpsed in the book? Or saw in the library? No, not the library...the sitting room. He closed his eyes to mentally turn and see the room again. Nothing there struck him. Still, the tickle persisted.

  Instead of chasing the source, Garreth tried relaxing and letting his mind drift to it. With the press of daylight, the drift pulled him toward sleep...even sitting in this chair, nowhere near soil. Why fight it, he reflected. Worry about the tickle later.

  Into that thought came Girimonte’s voice: “...members of Philos.”

  Philos! The tickle became a sharp kick...and a voice...Holle saying something about being eligible to be a life member. He straightened with a jerk. In most organizations, life membership came as an honor or for donating a big chunk of cash to the organization. What made him eligible even before joining? Being a vampire? Was that what Irina meant by calling it our organization? So...if life members were vampires, the Philos offices must have a list of their names. Except...was a killer vampire likely to be a member? He did not see anyone harboring the kind of anger reflected in these murders being clubby enough to join Philos. Still, a visit to the offices might be useful...find names, talk to those vampires and see if they knew anything helpful.

  “Hello, hello. I didn’t expect to find you here this afternoon, Inspector G.” They looked around. Fowler stood in the doorway, holding a carton in front of him and an umbrella hooked over his arm. “I thought this was your day off.”

  “Plans change,” Girimonte said.

  Harry nodded toward the carton. “What’s that?”

  Fowler grinned. “A stroke of fortune. A near complete set of my books. Well, the ones I care to own up to...in hardback, minus only the last two. I spotted them in a secondhand store while walking around this
morning. They’re from the estate of a chap who died recently and I thought I’d bring them by to give away. Anyone interested. You?” he asked Schneider. “Or you, Inspector Kolb? I know your husband told me at the party he likes my books.” He set the box on Cory Yonning’s desk behind Harry’s.

  Evelyn looked up from her desk. “Thank you. I’ll check whether you have titles he doesn’t.”

  “You’re not interested yourself?”

  She hesitated. “No offense, but no, and I’ve tried them. I understand making the women in these kind of books either maidens in distress or scheming femme fatales, but the protagonists put me off...cold blooded under all their charm and wit.”

  “Fine by me.” Cohen came over to root in the carton. “Give me suspense and action and skip the sloppy touchy-feely stuff. What are these about?” He held up two books.

  Fowler glanced at the titles. “Winter’s Moon and Winter Gambit? They’re the third and fourth Colin Winter books. He’s a fifty-ish spy that the bosses in British Intelligence keep trying to claim is over the hill but who still out-fights and out-thinks all the university boys.”

  “I’ll try them.” Cohen carried the two back to his desk.

  Fowler turned to Girimonte. “What changed plans? A development in the Knight case?”

  “A new murder,” Harry said. “Leonard Holle.”

  Fowler’s jaw dropped. “Good lord. When? How?”

  “Someone broke into the house last night and broke his neck.”

  Fowler’s brows rose. “That sounds like your Miss Barber’s work. I wonder what happened. Perhaps she did finally contact him to learn about the job in Germany...but he made the mistake of letting her know he’d learned she’s wanted for murder, so she killed him to keep him quiet?”

  “It had to be someone who knew the house,” Girimonte said.

  “And she didn’t.” Fowler looked thoughtful. “But that isn’t necessary if she could talk her way into the house. Security systems are designed to keep intruders out. I dare say she’d have no difficulty finding a way to leave once inside.”