“Checking for an escalation pattern, Doc?”
“That’s it exactly. Let’s make sure we didn’t miss anything in the local area.” He smiled at Butler, clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Charlotte and I will go talk to the Homicide guys, let them know what we’re on to. We’ve got a few hours of daylight left. Let’s make the most of them.”
As they left the building, he felt a spark of hope. This might come together after all.
Twenty-Two
Nashville
11:00 a.m.
Taylor and McKenzie left Hillsboro High School with the files of several students, including Juri Edvin, and a list of the kids the counselors had termed Goth. She was surprised to recognize a name on that list—Letha King was a part of the alternative crowd. Taylor couldn’t help but wonder if she was involved.
Could a girl murder her own brother? The answer, unfortunately, was yes. She called Marcus, asked for a meeting with the girl later.
Taylor wanted to go directly to the hospital and have a chat with Juri Edvin, then do a six-pack of like photos and take them to Theo Howell, see if he could pick out the drug dealer he knew as Thorn. It all made sense to Taylor, the idea that Thorn and Juri Edvin were one and the same. And maybe Theo could shed some light on the relationship between his friend Jerry and Jerry’s little sister, Letha, and what Jerry and Brandon Scott had been fighting about.
But as they drove back downtown, her cell rang. It was Marcus.
“That was quick. What’s up?” she asked, driving with one hand. They were in Hillsboro Village, passing Vanderbilt, and she sent a quick prayer toward Brittany Carson.
“We’ve got the man who was at the crime scenes, Keith Johnson? To start, he insists on being called King Barent. And he’s claiming he’s responsible for the murders.”
“Really. Why do you sound so unconvinced?”
She heard him sigh. “I don’t know. He knows some details that haven’t been released, but he might have seen the video online, too.”
“We’ll come there first then. Can you check on Juri Edvin’s status for me? I’m more convinced than ever that he’s the boy named Thorn who’s been pushing the drugs into Hillsboro. Make sure there’s a guard on his room, too. If he tried to kill Brittany Carson once, I don’t want him getting any ideas now that she’s in an even more vulnerable position.”
“Sure. Hey, speaking of that—at the Carson place? There was a small patch of semen found on the bricks outside the bay window. It looks into the den.”
“Semen, huh? My gut was right on the money there. I bet you Mr. Edvin was watching through the windows, masturbating to Brittany Carson’s dying body. That nasty little bastard. I should have let Max chew him to pieces.”
“You want me to send that over to Private Match as well, get DNA from Edvin to look for a match?”
“Yes, please.”
“One more thing. The letter? Tim Davis said to tell you that he thinks the blood came from several different sources. Possibly all the victims. He’s matched blood types to them. Several distinct samples, he said.”
“Jesus. So the symbols were drawn in the victims’ blood?”
“Looks that way.”
“Wow. All right. I’ll see you in a few.”
She hung up the phone and filled McKenzie in. They were nearly to Broadway now, just a few more minutes to the CJC.
“You look exhausted, LT.”
“I am exhausted. Aren’t you?”
“Sure. But this is an incredibly fascinating case. Witches and vampires and Goths, teenagers possibly murdering their peers, all thrown into a psychotic melting pot. What’s not to like?”
She huffed out a laugh. “I’m glad you can find the intrigue in all this. I just want to piece together the case and find who’s responsible. Let’s go see if the vampire king knows from whence he speaks.”
Taylor was surprised by the looks of the man calling himself the vampire king. He was burly in an unfit way, a red-and-blue-striped rugby shirt stretched taut across his belly. His brown hair was mousy and thinned at the top, curling over the collar of his shirt in greasy tangles. His skin was pale and strangely devoid of facial hair—there was no sign of a beard or eyebrows. Brown eyes, not unintelligent, capped off his moon-round face.
She watched him on the video-feed monitor that was running into Interrogation One, assessing. He didn’t seem nervous or excited, just bored. One long finger snaked against his chin, then sauntered casually up to his nose. With a furtive glance at the door, he indelicately picked, then examined the end of his finger. Taylor turned away, mildly repulsed.
McKenzie and Marcus watched with interest. “Amazing. His teeth, he has fangs, too. Though I can’t tell if it’s the mouth from the video. What do you think, LT?”
“Is his finger in his mouth?” she asked.
“No,” McKenzie laughed.
She turned around and looked back to the video.
“I’ll have to see the movie again to be sure, but it could be him. Though it seems to me that the face on the film was thinner—it had a much sharper chin. I’ll talk to him alone to start. You guys observe from here.”
Interrogation One was right next door. She entered the room and Barent jumped to his feet. The movement was so sudden, so surprising that her hand went to her weapon. She unhooked the snap with her middle finger. He backed away from her, hissing.
“Sir, sit down,” she said, voice ringing with authority. He feinted at her, going right, then left, still making the hideous noise that sounded like a strangling cat. The room was small—he’d have to go through her to get out. She heard the door open, but she didn’t take her eyes off Barent. He was staring into her face like she was holding a knife to his jugular. His eyes finally strayed away from hers, and that moment was all she needed. She pounced on him, flipped him around and smashed him face first against the wall. He snapped his jaws at her and she leaned away while he struggled. Then Marcus was next to her, and Barent was in handcuffs and pushed heavily into the chair. He was panting, frustration bleeding off him in waves. Taylor caught her breath and stepped away, letting Marcus secure Barent.
“What is wrong with you?” she yelled.
“Keep her away, keep her away, keep her away, keep her away.” Barent was panicked, sweat dripping off his brow, and she didn’t know what to do except listen to him.
“Detective Wade, join me outside,” she said, then turned. The panting ceased behind her, the door swinging shut. Two seconds later, Marcus came out. The look on his face made her want to giggle, the adrenaline spilling away.
McKenzie met them in the hall.
“What the hell was that about?” she asked.
“I don’t know. He had a completely real and visceral reaction to you.”
“He nearly gave me a heart attack. When he jumped at me I almost shot the idiot. Marcus, was he like this at all before?”
“No. He’s been completely normal. Well, as normal as someone who claims to be a vampire can be.”
They went back to the video feed. Barent was calmed now, his eyes the only thing moving, roving constantly around the room.
“Was there any record of mental illness in his file?” McKenzie asked.
Marcus shook his head. “Not that I saw. Why don’t you let me have a go at him. He’s not reacted badly to me yet.”
“You up for that?” she asked.
“Yeah, just have the Tasers ready in case he freaks out on me.”
They watched him enter the room. Barent started at the noise, but relaxed when he saw Marcus.
“Please, please, please don’t let her in here again.” His body bowed in supplication, his lips quivering in terror.
“She’s just outside, observing,” Marcus said. “What’s the problem?”
“You don’t recognize her? Of course, how could you? You aren’t one of us, you don’t understand. She’s the Bruxa. She’s Lilith, Lilitu. She came to me in the night and drank my blood, turned me into one of her kind. She was my
mother. She kills me in all my lives.”
Marcus warily took the chair across from Barent.
“All your lives?”
Barent warmed to his topic with fervor. “We are the reincarnate, young one. We find each other, our spirits moving across the centuries to find safe haven in corporeal bodies. We are traditionally agents of destruction, but some of us have had a powerful reawakening, have found that love will compensate for our sadistic natures. But Lilitu kills all of that. She wishes for us to return to the Old Ways, to feast on the blood of the children and discard the code of ethics put into place by the Sanguinarium.”
“The Sanguinarium?”
“It is our ruling body. Our church. All psy and sang vampires follow a specific code of ethics. We aren’t blood-thirsty monsters driven by our desire for death and destruction. Well, not all of us, anyway. I lead the Vampyre Nation, as I told you before. We are but one subsection of the Sanguinarium—there are many families across the world.”
“Psy versus sang? What’s that?”
Barent warmed to his topic, eyes shining as he spoke. “Psychic versus sanguine. Energy versus blood. Many of us don’t drink blood anymore, we’ve evolved. We can feed off energy. But some still enjoy the sanguine lifestyle. There is precedence for it, after all.”
Marcus glanced up at the camera, the silent message sent to Taylor and McKenzie. Nut. Job.
Taylor tuned him out, turned to McKenzie. “So I’m Lilith?”
“The succubus. The rumors about you are true, apparently. I just didn’t realize men could tell that from your aura.”
“Oh, you’re just hysterical. What do we do with this guy?”
“Listen to him. I don’t know what we can glean, but you never know.”
“You chat with him then, since you speak the language. I’ll stay here. I don’t feel that great.”
“LT, what’s wrong?”
“I feel…like…all my…energy is…gone.” She collapsed into laughter, felt better immediately. There were no such things as vampires. There were strange people in the world, and she’d run into a slew of them on this case. Period, end of story.
“You’re a riot, LT.” He entered the room and she headed back to her office.
A young woman was sitting in the spare chair outside Taylor’s door. There were several other people in the small space, detectives going about their daily work, all keeping a safe distance from the woman. Sidelong glances, lots of throat clearing. When Taylor entered the room, the woman stood, her long black skirt swishing with the effort. Black hair glistened nearly to her waist, thick and coiled. She was small, no more than five foot three, and looked up at Taylor with blue eyes the color of the sea. Taylor felt oddly mesmerized, stopped, at a loss for words.
The woman smiled, held out her hand.
“I am Ariadne,” she said. “I am here to help.”
Twenty-Three
Northern Virginia
June 15, 2004
Charlotte
Charlotte paced around the Fairfax County Homicide offices. God, what was taking so long? She had other things to do today.
Baldwin sat quietly, flipping through the file over and over again. She’d tried getting his attention by slipping past him and running her foot up his calf, but he cock-blocked her, clearing his throat meaningfully. She finally caught his eye, there was a combination of desire and exasperation lingering in the clear green. She winked at him, then resumed her pacing.
They’d been waiting for Max Goldman, the commander of the Fairfax County Homicide team, for the better part of an hour. He finally chugged through the door, running his hand through his wispy black hair, combing it back from his prominent forehead. Baldwin jumped to his feet, shook the outstretched hand. Goldman turned to Charlotte second, grasped the tips of her fingers in that bizarrely effeminate way some men had. She supposed it lingered on from the days when a touch of the fingers would lead to a kiss, planted softly on the top of the hand. But this was 2004, for Christ’s sake. Like a real handshake was going to give them girl cooties or something. She only took minor offense at being handed the limp fish second; Baldwin’s shake had wiped some of the sweat off Goldman’s palm.
“Sorry I’m late. Got caught up in court this morning. What can I help you with? You got something for me on this Clockwork asshole? He’s running our asses ragged, and we got nothin’. Fucking squirrel. I hate working these kiddy diddlers.” As he spoke, he ushered them into his office.
Charlotte measured people on a scale of one to ten, ten being the ones she wanted to fuck immediately, one representing the ones who she wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. Goldman fell into the latter category. He had yellow teeth, crowded together in his mouth like they were planning a jailbreak, and he’d eaten onions with his lunch—she could smell him from five feet away. Which is where she stayed, perched on the edge of a credenza near the open door, to help catch a breeze. Baldwin was sitting face-to-face with the man, God bless him.
Goldman was still chattering. “I hope you’ve got something for me, ’cause I’m getting crucified, Jesus H. Roosevelt on the cross crucified, by anyone with a microphone within a hundred miles.”
A colorful man. What a match for that breath.
Baldwin nodded. “We have more for your team to look at, yes. We’ve refined the profile, and we have someone we think could be a suspect.”
“That’s fan-fuckin’ tastic.” He looked at his watch. “Let’s go arrest him. We do it now, we can make the five-o’clock news, get little Kaylie home by dark.”
“Let’s just go over the details first, okay? Charlotte?”
Charlotte swiveled her head toward Goldman.
“His name is Harold Arlen. He’s a convicted sex offender, lives in the Great Falls area. We think you should put some eyes on him.”
Goldman looked impressed. “What was with that big song and dance you gave me about not identifying suspects, just pointing us in the direction of a type of person? You do voodoo now, too?”
Baldwin laughed briefly, then got serious. “Not exactly. We’ve been working on the profile, and he fits many of the top-line points. We believe the man who is perpetrating these crimes is a sex offender, mid-thirties, who needs the privacy of his own home to act out his fantasies. Like we talked about, he’ll have an extensive collection of child pornography. This suspect is fascinated by children, but girls only. He was probably abused in his early years, before he was ten or so, by a female babysitter or close relative. He’s controlling, manipulative and deceitful. He doesn’t have any real friends. There’s something about him that makes children unafraid, which means he has no obvious, visible physical deformities. But he’s impotent, unable to have meaningful physical relationships with adults or children. Regardless of that, he’s charming and fits into society. His car is nondescript, a sedan, probably an import. A high-end Honda, Nissan or low-end Lexus, something that wouldn’t stand out but wouldn’t look out of place. It would match the demographics of this neighborhood. The median income in this area is about $170,000, so he isn’t driving a clunker. He’s white, too.”
“That’s not a lot to go on, Doc. You’ve described half the country-club set, and three quarters of the folks who hang at the Great Falls Pub.”
Charlotte slid off the credenza. She’d had enough fore-play—it was time to get back to work. “Listen, Arlen works at Sears in the photography department, which gives him access to children. How he got the job is beyond me. Our suspect will have a history of violence in his teens, before he learned to control his temper, so I’d advise backtracking Arlen’s life. See if he’s got something in his juvenile jacket. We’ll keep working it from our end.”
Goldman gave her legs an eyeful, then turned to Baldwin.
“Can I ask you a question, Doc? How did you narrow it down to this guy?”
“The Depo-Provera. The stabbing is a stand-in for sexual penetration. Arlen is only one of ten in the local files who are on the shot who fit the profile. I’ve got my
people looking for something that might be a stressor, a breaking point that would drive him to start killing. And to be perfectly honest, when I talked to him, he gave me the creeps.”
“That’s pretty damn scientific, if you ask me. Instinct counts for a lot in this business.”
“I know. You can’t teach instinct. I tell everyone on my team to follow theirs. So I’m practicing what I preach. Arlen is involved.”
“Okay then, if you say so. I’ll get the team rounded up, and we’ll take a gander.”
Baldwin stood, stuck out his hand to shake goodbye. Charlotte just stood by his side, listening, feeling the power surge off of him. He smelled good, warm and clean, like leftover soap and shampoo and the tiniest hint of male sweat squeaking through. He didn’t wear cologne, which made her happy. She liked men who smelled like men, not flowers or wood chips or cedar. Her mind drifted back to their earlier romp.
A few seconds later, things were wrapping up. She’d missed something. Wow, she really needed to try and focus. Just being around him made her lose all track of time and space.
“Good. Thanks for your time. We’re going to go back to the office, we have more interviews to conduct. I’ve got my people back tracing the hard copies of Arlen’s life. Just give us a yell if you need anything,” Baldwin said.
He and Goldman shook hands and Goldman said, “I’ll let you know. One little problem—we do need some sort of evidentiary material to get a warrant. Judges up here aren’t easily swayed.”
“Remind them that we have a missing girl, then. See if they want Kaylie’s death on their conscience.”
“Yeah, yeah. I hear ya.”
Baldwin seemed willing to let it go at that, but Charlotte didn’t think he was taking the request seriously enough.
“Mr. Goldman, we need that warrant. We have to find some evidence,” Charlotte said.
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