Marty Phillips (Book 2): The Taste of Blood

by Kieran Double

“Deflower her? D’you have any idea how sexist that is? And, while we’re on the term deflower, have you been reading ‘Game of Thrones’ too much? That’s quite an archaic term. Who won, anyway?”

  “I did, of course.”

  “Of course,” agreed Tasaria sarcastically. “Because competing for women isn’t sexist at all.”

  “Are you telling me girls don’t do this?” I retorted. “Doesn’t that count as being sexist?”

  “We don’t admit so openly that we do it, so no, it’s not sexist.”

  “That’s like saying a man who thinks that women are dirt, but doesn’t say it isn’t misogynistic.”

  “Yeah, well…”

  “Marty! Concentrate,” interrupted Muller sternly. “Why the hell didn’t you ring Ashley? She could have helped you.”

  “Spare me the brother-in-law disapproval,” I answered. “I didn’t need Ashley’s help. I never need her help. Someday, everyone is going to realize that.”

  “I’m not your brother-in-law.”

  “You’re – at the moment – the nearest thing to a brother-in-law I will ever have,” I admitted. “Ashley’s not exactly the marrying type”

  “No,” agreed Muller. “She isn’t.”

  “Well, I don’t know about you boys, but I’ve had enough chit-chat. We need to do is work,” Tasaria said. She gave me a peck on the cheek, then pulled her motorcycle helmet over her head, and jumped on her Harley-Davidson. Muller and I were left standing the dust.

  “Well… I’m getting somewhere after all. She kissed me,” I said confidently. “After all that rejection and all that hard to get stuff… she’s actually really into me.”

  “Wait until she kisses you somewhere else than your cheek, and then you can say ‘she’s actually really into me’,” Muller pointed out. “Not after she kissed you on the cheek.”

  “Don’t be such a smart-alec, Muller. You riding shotgun in the Jag?”

  “Does it look like there are very many options around here?” asked Muller sarcastically. “Yes, I’m riding shotgun. Andy took our car.”

  “Get in then,” I said. The Jag’s engine roared to life loudly.

  6

  Women

  And so the little girl really did grow up; her skin was white as snow, her cheeks as rosy as the blood, and her hair as black as ebony.

  (Snow White/Snowdrop)

  Karen Arthurs’ apartment was modern and stylish, I suppose. I’m not that much into interior design. It was clean too. Worryingly so, in my mind, because I’m only at home in a mess. A perfectly cultivated mess. We sat in front of the coffee table, coffee mugs in our hands. She looked even more beautiful in a light black dress, shoeless, than she had when I first saw her. Lack of blood, and extreme shock, could really change a person’s appearance for the worse, of course.

  “So I wasn’t dreaming the other night?”

  “No, unfortunately,” I answered. “You really were attacked by vampires. I’ll check in on you every once and a while, to make sure you’re alright.”

  Suddenly, she looked scared and shocked again. “Is that supposed to be reassuring? I thought I was hallucinating or something. Maybe we’re all just mad.”

  “You weren’t hallucinating. But I am mad, or so most medical professionals believe,” I answered, smiling.

  She laughed, a tinkling, gentle, laugh. “What’s your name, anyway? I need to know.”

  “My name… is not important.”

  “I thought you’d say that, Marty Phillips.”

  “How did you know?” I said, slightly worried, but trying not to see it.

  “You should keep out of the papers, Marty,” she said, throwing a copy of the most recent ‘Seattle Times’. The headline was ‘Phillips Family vs. Lewis Gang’. There was a picture of Ashley and I going to court, and one of Adam Lewis across from it. “You and your sister got the front page, again.”

  “Well, I suppose I could do incognito better.”

  “Yes,” agreed Karen. “You could. Now tell me, is this vampire-hunting thing a family business?”

  “Not really. But we do deal with this kind of thing on a daily basis.”

  “Who was the other guy?”

  “Now that, I won’t tell you, and you won’t find his name in a paper.”

  Karen Arthurs took a sip of her coffee. “You like being mysterious, don’t you?”

  “Always goes down well with the girls.”

  “So you are hitting on me?”

  “Am I that obvious?”

  “You’re a married man,” said Karen “Married men are always obvious.”

  “I’m not married,” I muttered softly. “I was… until my wife was murdered.”

  “Oh, Jesus, I’m sorry,” she muttered back to me. “I didn’t know.”

  “Really? I thought you knew everything,” I mused aloud. “How did you know?”

  “You still wear a ring on your finger,” Karen pointed out.

  “There is that.” Why I still wore it, I don’t know. It wasn’t as if I wouldn’t have welcomed another woman into my life. No, I had moved on that much, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t miss her or wish that Merkel hadn’t killed her.

  “Yeah, there is. You still must be very attached to her memory,” said Karen sympathetically.

  “I am” I agreed, twisting the wedding ring on my ring finger. “But it gets easier with every day. She’s gone. I just have to move on. I get that.”

  Karen just nodded. Then she continued on a different subject. “While you’re here, I thought I might ask you to do a job for me, Mr. Phillips.”

  “What kind of job?”

  “Nothing too difficult for a man of your experience,” Karen answered. “I have a bit of a stalker problem. There have been notes, my clothes were moved around, and there were break-ins. It’s all really… creepy, and it’s freaking me out.”

  “Okay, I’ll take the job,” I conceded lightly, without any thought. That is normally how I take cases, without a second’s thought. This approach has gotten me into trouble before. “I hope it doesn’t take up too much time, I’ve got a big caseload from the Police Department at the moment. Part of the on-going campaign to get me back in the Department.”

  “They must really want you back a lot,” commented Karen.

  “Wouldn’t you?” I said, smiling. Sobering up, I continued, “I’ll need to see the notes, of course, and the police reports.”

  “Anything,” said Karen gratefully “Anything to get this creep to go away.”

  We visited the family of the missing student that evening. Catherine Waters. Her parents were affluent, the house was large and the lawn wide. Walker led the interview as usual. “Did you daughter report any unusual activity by people around her in the days before her disappearance?

  “No… everything was normal,” answered Catherine Waters’ mother.

  “Do you know of anyone that would want to hurt your daughter? An ex? Anyone like that?”

  “No.” The answer was curt, perfunctory, nothing more.

  This was going nowhere. Or everywhere. Was there something small in Catherine’s personal life, a habit, perhaps, that connected her to her kidnapper? There was almost always a connection. Even if there appeared not be. It was small, inconsequential, chance more than fact.

  Chance is what solves a crime. Facts and figures are needed too, of course. But sometimes, when you didn’t have facts or figures, you had chance. You could always fall back on chance. And chance could bring you facts. Facts that were needed for the prosecution.

  Muller knew that too. He’d read too much not to. Yet that did not give him the ability to guess. Books are ordered, predictable with the right mindset. Most crimes are too, but… sometimes they are wild, unpredictable. That is my area of expertise.

  “Did you daughter have any close friends?” I interrupted Walker in full flow. Vaguely, I was aware was being rude. “Not that it mattered. Ones which would know her well? Her habits. Favorite haunts. That kind of thing.”<
br />
  “Well,” said Catherine’s mother, “there is a roommate, Annabelle Greene. I can give you her address if you want.”

  “Marty…”

  “We’ll go,” I offered, gesturing to Tasaria and me. “I think we’ll get more important information. You stay here.”

  Muller looked at me as if deciding. “Fine. I’ll go with them. Andy can take care of this.”

  Muller sat in the front passenger seat, relegating Tasaria in the back. “Why did I get the back?”

  “Shush. You’re my employee now, Tasaria. And it’s your own fault for not bringing the Harley-Davidson.”

  “I wanted a break. I haven’t been in a car for weeks,” Tasaria answered self-righteously. “Riding a motorcycle can be sore on the tail-bone.”

  “Too much information,” muttered Muller softly.

  “Of course. Anyway, you two idiots thinking what I’m thinking.”

  “I don’t know what you’re thinking, Tasaria,” I said. “So please enlighten us.”

  “Oh, come on,” said Tasaria coolly. “Are you really that stupid?”

  “Vampires,” I muttered.

  “Yep.”

  “You’re jumping at shadows,” cautioned Muller. “We have no proof.”

  “There’s a nest of vampires in your city. The rate of missing persons has skyrocketed,” said Tasaria bluntly. “That’s enough proof for me.”

  “We’ll conduct the investigation normally for the moment, but, tonight, we hunt the Lewis gang down. Put an end to them for good,” I said, pulling up in front of Annabelle Greene and Catherine Water’s shared apartment building.

  “You two go in. I’ve got something else to do,” I said after Muller and Tasaria had gotten out of the Jag.

  “Seriously. You’re just going to leave us here?” exclaimed Tasaria incredulously.

  “That’s the idea. You know why I wanted to interview one of Waters’ friends. The parents just weren’t going to know where she’d likely have been. I trust you both know your jobs well enough.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked Muller.

  “I’ve got another case.”

  “What? Why can’t I come?”

  “Because I promised my client I’d do it. It’s a stalker problem. She’s a model.”

  “Christ, Marty,” exclaimed Muller. “You’re hanging around with Seattle’s high society now.”

  “If you call models high society,” I said, smiling. “Besides, you forget I’m from high society, technically. Dad just raised us as working class.”

  I’d read over the police reports and looked at the pictures Karen had given me. It looked nasty. Three break-ins had been identified over a month. Her clothes had been moved around, disorganized. A series of letters had been dropped outside Karen’s apartment. The last three had included pictures of Karen. In the shower. Outside her apartment. At the cinema. Watching Netflix at two o’clock in the morning.

  “It’s not looking good. This is one of the worst cases I’ve ever seen.”

  “You’ve seen a lot?” her mother asked anxiously.

  I shrugged. “A few times. Mostly with the police. Though I did have one a year back.”

  “How did it end?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”

  “Why not? Client-detective privilege?” said Karen’s father. He had quite the business look to him. She hadn’t told him that they’d be there. I was annoyed, if not angry. I didn’t like surprises. They stunk of secrets and secrets always led somewhere bad.

  “I wish… the problem was after I found the stalker,” I answered delicately “If I told you what happened, things would get… complicated, especially given my sister’s an Assistant City Prosecutor. That’s not the point anyway.”

  “You won’t call the police?” said Karen anxiously “If this got out… I don’t want there to be hysteria in the papers. It wouldn’t be good for my career.”

  I shrugged. “Sure. I’ll only call the police if you’re physically attacked. If you are, there’s nothing I can do.”

  “Do you think it’ll come to that?” said her mother anxiously.

  “Probably not,” I admitted. I took out my notebook. “Your building has cameras?”

  “Yes,” answered Karen. “But the police couldn’t see the man’s face. He came in on a moped.”

  “Were you neighbors interviewed?”

  “The nearer ones. But I don’t think they saw anything.”

  “Do you remember anyone out of the ordinary? Anyone that was acting suspiciously?”

  “No. I’m sorry I can’t be any more help.”

  “Well, that’s my job, why you hired me in the first place.”

  Karen shrugged modestly. “I suppose.”

  “I’ll need a copy of your normal schedule, and your schedule around each of the incidents,” I continued swiftly. “I’ll also need to see any of the photos that you’ve taken since this has started, to see if the man is in any of the photos.”

  “Do you need anything else?”

  “I’ll need to go through all your old mail, all the spam, especially the stuff you haven’t read. There could be a lot of dangerous things all that junk mail.”

  “So what are our chances of catching the guy?” asked Karen’s father.

  “Quite high, actually,” I reassured them. “The man’s clearly obsessive about Karen, which means he won’t be thinking straight. We can use that against him.”

  “You mean use me as bait,” said Karen, not angrily.

  “No, not deliberately at least,” I said. “You’re his weak spot, the only reason he’s committing crimes in the first place. And he will keep coming back, over and over again. Of course, when we do find him, we might only get him for harassment or something like that. Sentences can be quite light for that, especially given your profession.”

  “My profession?”

  “Well, from a judge’s point of view – they get very high and mighty sometimes – you might be asking for it, being a model and all,” I advised. “If we get him for attempted assault or assault, he’s screwed, though. But if we don’t, at least he’ll be in the system, and you’ll know who he is.”

  “Thank you, Marty. Really. It means a lot to me,” said Karen, taking out her discreetly plump purse. “How much will it cost?”

  “A hundred dollars for taking the case. Thirty a day after that,” I answered.

  “That’s it?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t need much. Besides, you’re not my only case.”

  “Really? I’m dull and dreary, am I?” said Karen, pushing herself closer to me.

  I took her hand and twirled her into a pirouette. “You could never get dull or dreary.”

  Karen giggled, a little trickling giggle. “Do you flirt with all of your clients?”

  “Only when they look as good as you,” I countered.

  Someone coughed behind us. I turned around.

  Tasaria Brasoveanu had just walked into the room.

  “How did you find me? And how did you get here without the Jag.”

  “GPS, Marty. That and a little help from Susie,” answered Tasaria coolly. “As for how I got here, have you heard of a vehicle called a bus? Am I not getting paid for this one?”

  “No, you’re not getting paid for this, because you’re not working on the case,” I muttered. I turned back to the Arthurs family. “This is Tasaria Brasoveanu, my employee. I didn’t know she was coming, and I still don’t know why she did.”

  “A few reasons. One, you haven’t been answering your cell. You know Susie gets worried when you don’t. And we’ve got a new lead in the Catherine Waters’ case.”

  “And?”

  “What?”

  “What’s the lead?”

  “Who said I was going to tell you?”

  “I’m your boss, I’ll fire you if you don’t tell me what the lead is,” I said, half seriously.

  “Oh, yeah? Then where are you going to get another employee. You’ve take
n on too much work for one man and an eleven-year-old, even if the eleven-year-old is Susie Phillips.”

  “There is Nicolae.”

  “You hate my brother.”

  “That be as it may, he’s a good investigator, and I like him.”

  “You can’t like and hate him at the same time.”

  “Just because you’ve got the emotional capacity of a teaspoon,” I said, recalling a memorable passage from a film.

  “Christ, you’ve been going on a Harry Potter binge?” exclaimed Tasaria incredulously. “No one told me.”

  “You spent all of last night at ‘The Foxes Den’. There wasn’t much chance for me to tell you,” I said. I’d called her a few times, but when she had answered she had been stupidly drunk. Somehow, it was reassuring to know that vampires could get drunk. They shared that much with humans

  “Well, you could have told me before I left.”

  “You left stupidly early.”

  “You could have followed me. ‘The Foxes Den’ is two minutes’ walk from your apartment.”

  “I don’t make it my business to follow my employees.”

  “Marty, you have two employees, and you’re the guardian of one of them. You’re just afraid of going into a bar, afraid you’ll get drunk.”

  “I’m more afraid of what my sister will say if I get too drunk.”

  “You’re scared of Ashley,” Tasaria said, smirking. “I thought you could stand up to her in high school.”

  “I could. In high school. We’re in our thirties now. She’s just gotten grumpier with the years.”

  “So that your excuse?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  Tasaria sighed, clearly disagreeing with me. She left it though, not in the mood for an argument. “You back to your old ways?”

  “What would make you say that?”

  “Well, Miss Arthurs here is smoking hot, a model to boot. Nothing like that to get a ladies’ man back and running after – what is it? Seven years since you started dating Annie again.”

  “Tasaria, you can’t go around saying stuff like that.”

  “What? Can’t I express my admiration for another human being’s physical attractiveness?”

  “That’s not the point. Have you heard of such thing as professional etiquette?”