Code 61 ch-4

by Donald Harstad

  “Okay.” I reached out and took the DL sheet.

  “Wanna know what kinds of cars? Please say yes. Please?”

  How could I refuse? “Sure,” I said.

  “One: a silver 2000 Mercedes Benz ML55 AM6 SUV.” She looked up. “Those run over fifty grand.”

  “Wow.” I guessed there really was such a thing as a wealthy dance instructor.

  “Two,” continued Sally, savoring the moment, “a silver 2000 BMW Z8. Convertible, no less.”

  “How much?” I had to ask.

  “Well,” she said, “my sister looked it up on the net, and she says that they go for about a hundred twenty-five thousand.”

  Impressive.

  “This is a dance instructor?” asked Hester.

  “Yep. That's what everybody says,” said Borman.

  “I quit dance lessons when I was thirteen,” said Hester. “Mother always said it was a mistake.” She reached over and took the vehicle sheets from Sally. “There's got to be more to this woman than teaching dancing.”

  I agreed.

  “Whatever else she does,” said Sally, “she's got a clean record. TRACIS, NCIC, Wisconsin, and Iowa indicate no criminal history. Not even a traffic ticket.”

  “Wow,” said Hester. “Not bad.”

  I looked up.

  “I mean, no traffic tickets. Wisconsin drivers are terrible.”

  Sally and I smiled. “I'd be careful, too,” I said, “if I drove cars like that.” I looked across the table. “Anything else on her?”

  “Nope,” said Sally, “which brings us to our Daniel Peel.”

  I perked up right away.

  “You told us last night,” said Sally, addressing Hester, “that Toby said he was about thirty or so, white, male, and in pretty good shape?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well,” said Sally, “I ran an Iowa check. Nobody, and Iowa files go three years either side of a possible date of birth. So I did an alphabetical. There was a… umm… let's see. Oh, here,” she said. “We have a Dabney, a DaMar, two Darwins, four Davids, a Dawane, a DaVere, and a DaBurl under Peel.” She sat back. “Everything but Daffy. None of these even close to thirty. Youngest is forty-three.”

  “Yeah… ” There was bound to be more.

  “So,” she smirked, “just on the off chance you didn't spell it right, I did a sound-alike pass, and got it spelled Peel, Pele, Peal, Pfeil, Pale… lots, let me tell you.” She shrugged. “So I did a fifty-state check, with a date of birth of 06/30/1970, and got nobody that matched.” She looked disgusted. “NCIC will check one year either side of a DOB, but you need the month and the day right. That means that we'd have to run the name three hundred and sixty-five times, and we'd only get a two year spread even if we did.”

  Great.

  “So, I called Gray Eyes, and explained part of this to her. Murder suspect.” She held up her hand, to forestall complaints. “I certainly didn't mention the 'V' word. Don't worry.”

  “Gray Eyes” was a dispatcher buddy of Sally's who once worked for the California Highway Patrol. The two of them had met at an APCO meeting, and Gray Eyes happened to be, in Sally's estimation, just about the greatest dispatcher ever. She'd been hired away from the CHP, and was now working for NCIC in Washington. They'd kept in touch. Obviously.

  She looked up. “She expanded the search, because she's allowed to actually program a search. By making him between twenty-five and fifty. DOB between 1950 and 1975. We got one dude in North Dakota, who was forty-seven, and two in Montana, for shit's sake, one twenty-five and one fifty exactly.”

  “That's it?”

  “Oh, no, not really. In California, there were two hundred eighty-seven, actually, and four hundred sixty-two in New York.” She indicated the papers. “Total of nearly nineteen hundred in the U.S., so far, and the Illinois, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and Arizona computers are down for routine maintenance, and can't be accessed for an expanded search at this time, and we haven't done all the ages yet.” She took a breath.

  Oh.

  “So,” said Hester, “what did their criminal histories say?”

  Sally didn't even look up. She did raise her wrist and put up one finger, though.

  “Then,” she continued, “I sort of exceeded my authority a little, and used our Deputy Houseman's name and ID, and started looking for vampires.”

  “You did?” I was aghast. Not that she'd actually done it, but that she'd said so in front of Borman and Hester.

  “Yep. Well, not vampires, really. But cases where there was a conspicuous blood involvement.” She looked up. “Relax. Hester and I talked about it last night,” she grinned. “After you'd gone night-night. I don't get all the credit.”

  “We used your LEIN ID,” said Hester, “because mine would attract too much attention.”

  “So, who am I, Carl the Obscure?”

  No response.

  A conspiracy. Well, so what? I know when I'm outclassed. LEIN, by the way, stands for Law Enforcement Intelligence Network. Certain officers in Iowa have been certified to operate within that system, and we all have an alphanumeric ID. The programmer in Des Moines wouldn't think much of my ID, but Hester's would signal a DCI interest.

  Sally pushed a LEIN Records Search Request form over to me. “Sign here,” she said. “Just to cover my ass.”

  I did. “And… ” I was really curious.

  “Well,” Sally said, “I guess there really are people out there who believe they're vampires. And they get caught, when the victims either die or complain, or the neighbors do.”

  She pushed over a list. “These are crimes in Iowa and Wisconsin and Minnesota involving the 'ingestion of blood from unwilling victims.' Or so they say.”

  I thought the “unwilling” qualifier was interesting.

  There were eighteen incidents listed, along with the investigating agency, and date of ffling. The oldest was 1993. The most recent was July 2000. I pushed the list over to Hester. Sally had underlined the '93 case in red. The investigating agency was listed as Walworth County, Wisconsin. Sally had also made the notation “is co. where lk. gen. located.”

  “The county where Lake Geneva is located?” said Hester. “Really?” She passed the sheet to Borman, politely.

  Sally was very pleased. “You betcha.”

  “Then I guess we better talk with 'em… ”

  Sally pushed another sheet of paper toward me. The phone number of the Walworth County Sheriff's Department was on it, along with the headquarters number of the Wisconsin Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

  “Then… ” she said, not missing a beat, “you'd better return the call of the county attorney. He called about thirty minutes ago, wanting to know how it went last night.”

  I winced. I'd forgotten about him.

  “And call Lamar before you go up.”

  “Any word,” asked Hester, “from the guys up there?”

  “About every thirty minutes all night long,” said Sally. “They finished the search of their assigned rooms in less than an hour. Bored out of their minds the rest of the night.”

  I called Harry over in Wisconsin first. I knew what was coming.

  “Houseman, you rotten son of a bitch,” said Harry, laughing. “Where did you find this fuckin' Chester dude, and thanks for sending him to me, you bastard.”

  “Anytime, Harry. What are friends for?”

  “Right. Anyway, you turn up anything new for me, other than a dickhead vampire hunter?”

  I took a breath. “Well, yeah, we did.”

  “Really?” Suddenly, he was all business.

  “Yep.” I told him about Toby, and the vampire business from last night.

  “You gotta be shittin' me, Carl… ”

  “Nope.”

  There was a silence. Then, “Care to meet with me and Mr. Chester today?”

  “I'll make the time, for sure,” I said. “When?”

  “Dunno yet. Let me shake the motels for the little bugger, and I'll get back to ya.”

&n
bsp; Hester was doing the call to the Walworth County Sheriff's Department and the Wisconsin BCA, so I did the county attorney and Lamar. Sally went home to get some well-earned rest. Borman washed up the coffee cups and pot. I honestly think he expected Sally to do it, until it seemed to dawn on him that he who contributed least got the crap job. That was okay. He'd contribute soon enough, I was certain. He still wouldn't be able to get Sally to do the cleanup, of course.

  “Are you really serious about this vampire stuff, Carl?” Borman seemed so sincere sometimes it was almost painful.

  “Yes. And your lips are sealed. Right?”

  “Oh, sure. Right.”

  “One slip on this can cost a job. I'm serious.”

  He seemed to listen well. I hoped so. I got on the phone again.

  Mike Dittman, the county attorney, was a little surprised that we'd bothered a district court judge in the wee hours of the morning, but was even more startled that we'd started the search and then gone to bed. I reassured him that we had people doing stuff on the property all night.

  “Are you sure we can do that?” He was asking me.

  “Yep. Judge agreed we could, said you'd probably be able to find the applicable citations before the suppression hearing.” Judge Winterman had a fine sense of humor. Well, I thought so, anyway.

  Lamar just wanted me to know that he'd told his sister that it was not a suicide.

  “That's fine, Lamar.”

  “You know what she said?”

  That had to be rhetorical, but I answered anyway. “No… ”

  “She said, 'I bet it was that Finn bitch.' Just like that.”

  “No shit?” Our girl Huck? Hard to believe.

  “That's what she said. Anything to it?”

  “Not as far as I know, Lamar, but I'll sure as hell check.”

  “Oh, Carl… you just might want to think about a statement for the press. We can't expect them to stay dumb forever.”

  Not even on a Sunday.

  My plate, as they say, was filling up. And we hadn't even gotten back to the Mansion yet.

  Hester had disappointing news. Anything regarding the incident in Walworth County was in their confidential records section, and wouldn't be available until tomorrow. Wisconsin BCA's weekend answering service was a State Radio dispatcher, who had no access to records, either. He offered to contact an agent, and have one go into their records section, but he wasn't sure he'd be able to find one with the proper credentials to get to their records on a Sunday.

  “For 'credentials,' substitute keys,” said Hester. “We wouldn't be able to get them, either, unless it was really urgent. I told him to try, but not to call out the director, or anything.”

  We met the lab crew as they pulled in the department's parking lot. Specialist Christopher Barnes, of blood-spatter fame, would meet us at the scene.

  We arrived at the Mansion at 09:38, let the two officers who had spent the night go home, and logged ourselves in. It was to be a daunting task, as there were six rooms on the second floor, seven on the main floor, and an unknown number on the third. Not to mention the basement.

  Chris Barnes was waiting for us. He was the best blood-spatter pattern analyzer in the Midwest, at least as far as we were concerned. He was also easy to work with, and eager to explain any aspect of his art.

  We started in the basement. It was enormous, with vaulted ceilings and seven separate and distinct chambers. The pillars were brick, with a concrete floor, concrete walls, and plastered ceilings. It was just about the cleanest basement I'd ever seen, with just a little debris in the fruit cellar, and some empty bags of salts near the water conditioner. But even those bags were neatly folded and stacked.

  The oil furnace was quite large, converted from a coal burner, complete with a big boiler and very complex piping. One of the techs started there, checking for any traces of burned materials. Borman stayed with him, to assist in recording, preserving, or photographing any evidence that was discovered.

  A lab tech named Grothler and I drew the main floor by default, as Hester, Chris Barnes, and the chief lab technician were going to do the second floor. Hester had started out as a laboratory technician years ago, and since we felt the most likely area where we'd locate trace (as in blood) evidence was the second floor, the most experienced people got that job.

  I hadn't been there more than a minute, it seemed, when the phone rang. It was Harry.

  “You can run, Houseman, but you can't hide. How about meeting with us right now?”

  “Sure, Harry. Where?”

  “My office. Quieter.”

  I told Hester, and she decided to remain with the search team. I got in my car, and headed over to Conception County. It was clouding up, I noticed, as I crossed the mile long bridge spans to the Wisconsin side. Cooler, too. Rain wasn't too far off. And there, I thought to myself, go the beautiful leaves.

  It really was quiet in Harry's office. I mentioned it as I sat down.

  “I told everybody to get the fuck out onto the streets,” said Harry.

  I looked at William Chester. “Harry has great administrative skills,” I said.

  He nodded, but didn't answer.

  “Carl,” rumbled Harry, “you wanna tell Mr. Chester here what you told me?”

  “Might as well. But, first, Mr. Chester, you have to understand something. I'm going to ask you to sign a form, promising not to reveal anything that's discussed here. Under severe penalty.” With that, I opened my attache case and withdrew one of our standard forms. I passed it over to him. “Please read that carefully.”

  He took it from me, and glanced at it. “I've signed these before,” he said. He pulled a pen from his shirt pocket, and signed it with a flourish. “I'll just need a copy… ”

  “No problem,” said Harry. “Machine's in the next room. I'll be right back.”

  I looked at our vampire hunter. Or, rather, tracker. “Okay, this is what's happened since we last talked… ”

  Five minutes later, I was through.

  “I see,” said Chester. “So, then. Are you willing to concede that you're dealing with a vampire, now?”

  “Not even for a second.” I wanted him to be very clear about that. “What I'm dealing with is quite possibly some poor deluded bastard who believes he's a vampire. Nothing more. Because I know vampires really don't exist.”

  “As you say,” he said.

  I hate it when people do that. “So, what I want from you is this. I want to know how somebody who might think he's a vampire thinks a 'real' vampire behaves. How he's going to act. To convince himself and maybe some others that he's for real.”

  “In exchange for which?” asked Chester.

  “In exchange for access to some, but not all, of our information. Access to all I can think of that might deal with the vampire stuff, but not with the core case data.”

  “Unless I need it?”

  “Let me put it this way… If I think we need you to testify as an expert, you get what we got. Fair enough? That way, if you make a significant contribution to the whole investigation, you get the material you want. But you can't talk to the press, and you're locked in as a prosecution witness first.”

  He thought for a moment. “Agreed, but I can publish my data afterward? I need to do that.”

  I glanced at Harry. “Okay with you?”

  “Yep.”

  The way he said it, I knew that Harry would renege at the drop of a hat. That was going to have to be between him and Chester.

  I told him some of what I knew. He was impressed, in a satisfying sort of way.

  “My God, do you realize what you have here? You have a nest. You have a vampire's nest, with a house full of Renfields and blood donors. My God.” He appeared stunned.

  “Renffelds?” asked Harry.

  “Renffeld was the slave of Dracula,” said Chester.

  “Oh sure,” said Harry, with great aplomb. “And there are more of these than you expected?” I think he did it just to needle Chester, but the
tracker didn't appear to notice.

  “I've been looking for years,” he said. “Years. Never anything like this. Never.”

  “Well,” I said, wanting to get back down to business, “I'm really pleased for you. Now, then, we need a little information… ” I'd been fairly careful, and didn't think it ever occurred to him that he was a suspect. I had to keep it that way, at least until he'd been ruled out. Although it was unstated between us, I knew that Harry felt the same way.

  It was also sinking in that this man really, truly believed in vampires. Since he did, just how reliable could his information be? As it turned out, pretty good, if what you wanted was mostly folklore. And that was just what we wanted.

  “What is this guy trying to say?” I asked, for openers. “Assuming that he has actually killed… ”

  “Oh, he has, he has,” said Chester.

  “Right,” said Harry. “So, what's with the throat injury bit? Post mortem and all.” “Ah,” said Chester. “Are you so certain they've been inflicted after the victim has died?”

  Harry and I said, in unison, “Absolutely,” and “Bet your ass.”

  “Oh.” Our expert cleared his throat. “Then, possibly, to disguise the true nature of the wound? To obliterate, say, a bite mark?”

  He sounded so hopeful.

  “Not a chance,” I said. “No bite mark.”

  “I think he's doin' it to make people talk about neck or throat injuries,” said Harry. “How about that?”

  “He could. I'm not saying that as fact, but, yes, he could.”

  Chester warmed to his subject, and I spent about an hour with him and Harry. The upshot was that blood, while significant to a “vampire wannabee” as Harry called him, wasn't in any way a source of nutrition.

  “Unlike true vampires, poseurs will consume, maybe, an ounce or less at a time, for the most part,” said Chester. “Daily would be too often. You'd end up with diarrhea and other things if you did more than that. Like a bleeding ulcer will do to you. Sometimes, they might overindulge. But not often.”

  That was good to know, but it left me wondering what had happened to much of Edie's blood.