Deadworld

by J N Duncan

  Hauser laughed. “Told you it was creepy. The guy should be dead.”

  She looked over at Laurel and remembered what she had said about holding his hand. The guy had felt like he was dead. Laurel was still studying the photos, looking back and forth between them. “What about her?” She pointed at the image of what looked like Shelby Fontaine.

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. Haven’t run her. You want me to?”

  Laurel nodded. “Yes, please.”

  “Laur?” Jackie said again. “What are you thinking here?” She was going to have to put some trust in her opinion on this because she could make no sense of it.

  After a few seconds, Laurel finally stood up straight. “Not sure yet. I think I need to go talk with someone about this.”

  “Someone?”

  “A witch friend of mine,” she said with a faint smile.

  “Cool,” Hauser said.

  Jackie frowned at him. Witches. This case was going in completely the wrong direction. “Wish we could just arrest the prick.”

  They both snickered at her. Hauser turned back and pulled up the information he had been working on. “You’re such a ballbuster, Jack. Glad I’m not married to you.”

  Laurel slapped him on top of the head. “Be nice.”

  “Anything else, Hauser?” Jackie snapped back.

  “Yeah. Another couple news articles during that same year as the Princeton pic. Seems our crotchety old man was involved in another serial murder case. Five people killed, and he could never be tied to it, but was a person of interest apparently.”

  Now that was interesting. “And the first one?”

  “No murder case, but his career came to an end a few months after that photo was taken. Big shoot-out with some local outlaw. His family was killed, and he quit.”

  “Interesting,” Jackie said. “There are five family members in the photo here.”

  Hauser shrugged, smiling. “Very interesting.”

  Five. They were all fives. “All these things are thirty-six years apart?”

  “Freaky, isn’t it? Like some bizarre repeating murder spree.”

  Laurel tugged absently at her ponytail. “I wonder what significance the thirty-six years has?”

  “Oh,” Hauser answered, “that might be a simple one. Anderson was thirty-six years old when his family was killed.”

  “How old were the family members?” Jackie wondered.

  “Um, give me a sec and I’ll see if I can find out.” He began clicking through screens with his mouse faster than Jackie could read what he was pulling up.

  “You don’t suppose,” Laurel said, finger twirling at her ponytail, “that Anderson or someone related to him is repeating the death of his family?”

  The thought had just occurred to Jackie as well. “It’s awfully suspicious, if you ask me.”

  “Here we go,” Hauser cut in. “Boys were twelve and fifteen, girl was eight, wife thirty-one, and Anderson’s grandmother seventy-five.”

  “Twelve,” Jackie and Laurel said together.

  Jackie poked Hauser in the shoulder. “Run the other cases. I want as many of the vic’s ages that you can find.”

  She felt her mind beginning to spin in helpless futility. The scenario they were considering was insanity. “Okay, this is more than I can digest. I want to get a tail on Anderson and Fontaine. Hauser, can we prove these are all the same guy? A judge would laugh this out of court.”

  “Haven’t turned up any kind of paper trail yet to prove anything. We’ll keep digging. This stuff has been easy to find so far. He’s not going far out of his way to hide his past, just altering things a bit so nobody makes any obvious connections.”

  “Well, who would believe that shit?” Jackie shook her head. “I can’t believe it.”

  He laughed. “I know. It’s like he’s cloning himself, or… or he’s a fucking vampire! That would be so cool.”

  Jackie shook her head. “Shut up, Hauser. This is about as far from cool as it gets. Laur, we need to get Gamble on organizing tails, see if Belgerman will okay a phone tap. There has to be some way to get Anderson to implicate himself or whomever it is he knows is doing this.”

  “Why not just ask him?” Laurel offered. “Show him what we have? Maybe he’ll see the game is up and cave in.”

  “He’s too cool for that. If it’s someone else, he doesn’t want us to know, for some reason. We need something to entice or threaten him with. He needs to want to talk.”

  “Most killers want to talk,” Laurel said.

  “Did you get the impression he wanted to? Or that he was baiting us to find out what a genius he is?”

  “No, which is why I’m leaning toward some other killer he doesn’t want to talk about.”

  “Exactly. So how do we sucker him into blabbing or leading us to the real culprit?”

  Laurel shrugged. “We have a stolen penny, and we have information about his past.”

  “The penny.” Jackie walked to the doorway. “Hauser, send everything you’ve found by five today. I want to go over everything we’ve got tonight.” She motioned to Laurel. “Come on. I’m so hungry I can’t think, and we need a plan.”

  Chapter 17

  The afternoon skies bore down on Nick like a gloomy gray stone. A steady, windswept drizzle coated the city in a glossy sheen. Not that bright blue skies would have made the task any easier. Drake had been frustratingly hard to pinpoint. The tingling sense of awareness of the other side would pop up but then fade a few minutes later. It was something Nick could not understand. The feeling should have been more constant, even if Cornelius was driving around. The fleetingness of it made no sense, and Nick found himself growing more irritated as the day wore on. They were being played with, and there was little they could do except keep playing the game.

  Drake would be taking his next victim soon. After the first it had been days between victims, but now, knowing full well how quickly law enforcement could work, Nick figured he would be lucky if it was more than a day or two. Drake would want him to get a good whiff, too-offer up a little extra inspiration and maybe do something to link him even more closely to the murders. Jackie Rutledge would be all over him then. He’d be lucky if he didn’t get arrested-but then, that would ruin the game. Cornelius would not want that, so he was counting on Nick’s ability to avoid incarceration. Nick had entertained the thought of turning himself in just to break things up, to see what Drake would do, but who was to say he would not just march right into the jail and slaughter everyone, including himself for not playing by the rules. If anything, the man had proven he did not like his life to be interfered with.

  He found himself thinking more about what might happen to Jackie Rutledge if she got too close to things. Technology made it so difficult now to circumvent investigations. The odds were growing stronger by the hour that he would be brought in on suspicion. If they found reason to get a warrant to search his house, shit would really hit the fan. The woman was close to the point of pulling him in just for breathing funny.

  Nick crept along, barely holding the speed limit while he let his mind wander, catching the occasional whiff of a ghost, potent enough to still be lingering in the world of the living, but missing that peculiar, bittersweet stench of the other side. Shelby was right, of course. The FBI could make this search easier. Whatever Drake had up his sleeve, it was confounding their senses. They were no closer to him now than earlier. Of course, a little blood would go a long way toward evening the odds. No matter how much the thought lingered though, Nick could not bring himself to call Drake’s bluff on that account. Promises had been made, ones that would damn him to hell regardless if he broke them.

  Then Nick caught the familiar whoosh of the door to Deadworld opening up, a faint but persistent echo in his mind, like the caw of a crow stuck in an endless loop. Drake was feeding again, and it had not even been twenty-four hours.

  Turning north up Western Avenue, Nick gunned his engine and began to weave through traffic, ignoring the bl
aring horns. It was up near the area Shelby had been searching in. The soft, singsong lilt of her voice spoke into his ear.

  “Hi! Shel here, and, no, I’m not. Just leave me a-” Nick grumbled and clicked the cell shut. What the hell was she doing?

  Five minutes later, he tried her again with similar results. “Damnit, Shel! Where are you?” A thousand hopeless, gut-clenching scenarios tumbled through his head while he began to zero in on the source. He was close, a few blocks, perhaps. Then, mysteriously, the feeling faded away to the usual dim whisper.

  This time, her voice rang loud and clear. “Hey, babe.”

  “Where in Christ’s name were you? I had him for a minute. I’m on Western, heading north.”

  “I was ignoring all the calls to flash my boobs,” she said, laughing loudly.

  Funny. He was years removed from feeling any jealousy over her. “You could take this just a little more seriously.”

  “Oh, fucking lighten up, Nick. We’re closing in. He’s close.”

  She was evading. Being a sheriff and a PI did give you certain advantages at times. What would she need to be evasive for? “You weren’t actually flashing your breasts at anyone, were you?”

  “Aw, could my Nick be-” She cut off for a moment, her voice replaced by the screaming roar of her motorcycle’s engine and the screeching of tires. “Out of the way, dipshit!”

  Nick pulled to a stop in front of a Starbucks. Coffee sounded good now, and he could use a break. “Where are you going in such a hurry? You’re going to kill yourself, powers or not.”

  She laughed again, the sound almost giddy. “Just cruising, sweetie. Clearing my head. Besides, I need to lose this tail again. These feds suck.”

  The tail had been a constant since noon. It did not take much to lose them, but it wasn’t long before they picked either of them up again. It hit Nick abruptly then, like a punch in the gut. Sweetie. She had not called him that in thirty years.

  Anger and fear swept through him like wildfire. “Damnit, Shel. Tell me you didn’t just drink. Tell me that feeling I just had five minutes ago was Drake and not you drinking from someone.” There was no answer, just the changing of gears on her bike. “Shelby! Answer me, goddamn you!”

  The BMW screeched to a halt in his ear, and the roar of the engine quieted to a dull rumble. The sarcasm stung Nick like a wasp. “Drink what, Nick?”

  Nick slapped a hand over his face in disbelief. “You did. Sweet mother of God, you drank blood.”

  Shelby was silent for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was more subdued. “I didn’t kill anyone, Nick.”

  “Like that makes a fuck-” He stopped himself, taking a deep breath. The anger would do no good. Shelby would enjoy the fight, more than likely. “That doesn’t make a difference, and you know it.”

  An exasperated sigh whispered in his ear. “So what, Nick? You realize the position we’re in now, don’t you? One down, four to go, and then it’s you, babe. We’re no closer than we’ve ever been.”

  True, but still wrong. “You promised me, Shel. No more blood.” We swore upon the graves of our loved ones. Swore never again to be so corrupt and evil.

  “Yeah, I did. It was thirty fucking years ago, when it didn’t really matter.” Her voice grew steadily louder in his ear. “But it matters now, and we need all the goddamn help we can get. Besides, he deserved it, Nick. Don’t worry, he’ll live. We won’t if we don’t do something.”

  “There are other things-”

  “What things!” she yelled in his ear, years of frustration and rage bursting out of her so loudly it made his ear ring. “We aren’t doing anything, and you are shuffling your weary ass up to the firing line just so you can feel better about getting shot. Well, fuck that! Fuck that, Nick. I’m not doing it. My senses are pumping now, and, oh, does it feel good. So I’m going to hunt a while, babe. Okay? You’re lucky I don’t give Agent Rutledge a call and have her join me. Later.”

  The phone went silent, and Nick hurled it against the opposite door. She was right and wrong at the same time. Moral ambiguity was such a pain in the ass. Nick forgot his coffee and gunned his car back into traffic. Somehow she had gotten over the ethical hump and broken her promise. It didn’t mean as much to her. How could it? Nick swore. He could almost hear the blood that had been singing in Shelby’s veins, pushing open the door and letting the delightfully abhorrent rush come pouring through. Damn her.

  The thought of blood would not leave his mind. It would be so easy to give in, but it would make him once again into that same monster Drake was.

  On the passenger-side floor, his cell rang, interrupting the troubling thoughts. Nick was forced to pull into the parking lot of the Riverview Plaza so he could stop and pick up the phone. The number didn’t indicate who was calling.

  “Anderson.”

  “Agent Rutledge, Mr. Anderson. Am I bothering you?” Her tone was decidedly calm.

  “Just running some errands, Agent Rutledge. How can I help you?”

  “Everything okay there, Mr. Anderson? You sound a little annoyed.”

  Nick took a deep breath. She picked up cues well. “Frustrating day is all.”

  “I hear you there,” she said, sounding a little too pleased. “I had something come up today I was wanting to ask you about.”

  Nick put the car into park and sagged back into his seat. “Ask away.”

  “That penny we showed you before-you remember the one?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, it was stolen this morning from our evidence room.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” he said. “And, no, I’m not sure how or why that would have happened. If that’s what you were wondering.”

  “Oh, no,” she replied, not taking the bait. “We have some strong leads on that account. I wanted to ask you though if you had thought of anything relevant in this matter, you know, that might help us pinpoint our culprit. We have some suspicions, but it would help us out if you might offer some information that would narrow it down for us.”

  Where was she heading with this? Could they really know already? No, he assured himself. He would be handcuffed in an interrogation room right now if that was the case. She was fishing. “I was perfectly honest with you before, Agent Rutledge. I have no additional information for you in that regard.”

  “Hmmm, okay,” came her simple reply. “I wanted to double-check before we head out to look into these leads. Thank you for your time.”

  “Anytime. Feel free to call again if you have any further questions.”

  This time her reply had a tinge of anger. “Oh, we will. Don’t worry.”

  Nick clicked off his phone and put it back in his pocket. At least he knew they didn’t have him on that yet. They were trying, however, and it was only a matter of time. One thing was certain. Their presence was not going away any time soon. He put the car into gear and pulled back out onto the street. A block behind, he caught sight of the brown sedan as it pulled out of a gas station and began to follow.

  Chapter 18

  The door to Jackie’s apartment swung open, and Laurel stepped in, plastic shopping bags dangling from her hands.

  Jackie looked away from the oversize corkboard mounted on her living room wall where all the pictures Hauser had found were tacked up with multicolored push-pins. “What’s that? You cooking us dinner?”

  “It’s stuff for your pathetic excuse of a kitchen,” she said. “You can’t live off day-old Chinese food, you know.”

  “Why not? I like Chinese food.” Grocery shopping rarely ever made it on the to-do list.

  Laurel shook her head. “You’re an embarrassment to independent women everywhere. College dorm rooms are better stocked.”

  “Peh!” Jackie waved her off. “Coffee, wine, and chicken fried rice. What more could a girl need?”

  “Oh, how about some fruit? Vegetables? Maybe a little dairy once in a while?”

  “There are veggies in the rice, and I get milk in every latte.”

 
Laurel put the bags down on the counter and began to unload the food. “Your body is going to hate you. You can’t catch bad guys on such a shitty diet.”

  “Hasn’t been a problem so far,” Jackie said with a smile. “Besides, you bring all that healthy crap over a couple times a month, so it’s all good.”

  “Only if you eat it.”

  She shrugged and looked back to the board. “I eat some of it.”

  “Uh-huh,” Laurel replied. “So, your nutrient-deprived brain figure out anything new for us to work with?

  “Not really.” Jackie sighed and put her hands on her hips. “Other than being completely weirded out by the whole prospect of dealing with someone who drinks blood to stay alive, I haven’t figured out anything. Nothing that makes sense anyway. I’d like a motive that doesn’t involve a century-long serial-murder spree by the undead, and I’m just not finding one.”

  Laurel wrinkled her nose at a Chinese food carton as she dropped it in the garbage. “You ruling out the penny?”

  “No. I don’t know. We tracked Anderson and Fontaine around a four-square-mile area north of downtown all afternoon and got nothing. They didn’t stop to talk to anyone. Anderson’s phone calls were to Ms. Fontaine and work. That’s it.”

  “He could figure we’re baiting him.”

  “Or even if the penny is relevant to the case, it has nothing to do with what is motivating our killer.” Jackie tapped at the sequence of pictures detailing the murders. “It’s in these murders somewhere. We don’t have every last detail on them, but our intel indicates we’ve had someone killing off a group of five people every thirty-six years since Anderson’s family was killed.”

  “This would make the fifth time it’s happened, too.” Laurel began to rinse off a tomato and bell pepper in the sink. “The numbers are significant.”

  Jackie stared at the old picture of Nick and his family, the classic sheriff’s star pinned to the breast of his shirt. “Maybe he just snapped when his family died and has been reliving the murders over and over again.”