Lester Howard had lived, and died, in apartment 518. The uniform stationed at the door peeled back the crime scene tape to let us in.
The uniform's name was Meroni. I knew him well enough to nod "Hi" in the halls, but that was all.
"Forensics been here yet?"
"Not yet, Sarge. Busy night for them. There was a murder over in Dunmore – looks like a domestic, I hear." Dunmore's a suburb of Scranton. They've got their own police department, but it's too small to afford its own Forensics and SWAT, so they share with us.
"Another crew's over on Mulberry," Meroni went on. "I hear a couple of vamps were found staked in their house. Good riddance, you ask me. Somebody should stake 'em all."
I glanced at Karl, but apart from a mildly disgusted expression, he didn't react. I didn't say anything about it, either – but there was a time when I might've agreed with Meroni.
"Just let us in, will you?" I said.
The apartment looked like it had seen the services of an interior decorator. Not only was it not done in Early Man Cave – which is the style most young single guys adopt – I'm pretty sure most men living alone don't have curtains that coordinate with the walls. Hell, most guys don't even have curtains.
That impression of quiet good taste continued in the bedroom – apart from the corpse on the bed, which probably wasn't part of the decorator's original plan for the room. I figured it sure wasn't part of Lester Howard's plan.
In life he had been a thirty-something white male, in decent physical shape, who wore his hair long and his beard short. His penis was large and uncircumcised. In death he was just an extremely pale naked corpse on the bed with two small holes in his neck, his brown eyes staring at something only the dead can see.
I've been to a few vampire murder scenes. Not many. Vampires don't have to kill to get nourishment, especially in this age, with everything out in the open. But just as there are sicko humans who'd rather rape a woman than have consensual sex, there are some vampires who think that blood tastes best when you take it by force.
Other times, it's just loss of control. A vampire, especially a baby vamp who's new to the undead state, might be having such a good time at somebody's neck that he can't make himself stop. And the victim, if that's the word, won't always call a halt to it, even when vision starts to fade. I understand that being fanged feels really good, which is why there seem to be so many humans willing to part with a pint or two of their life's essence in return for the pleasure involved in giving it up.
But something about this murder scene was off, and it took me a minute to figure out what it was. "Look at his facial expression," I said to Karl.
"Doesn't have much of one, does he?"
"The guy looks… placid, like somebody laid out in a funeral home – what Mom used to call a 'corpse house'."
"Your mom sounds like somebody I could've learned to like," Karl said. "But you're right – he doesn't look like any vampire victim I've ever seen."
"If he gave it up willingly, he oughta look… blissful, not neutral. Like somebody who'd died from an overdose of marijuana."
"Um, I don't think that's possible, Stan."
"I'm just sayin'."
"Yeah, I know. And if he was attacked, there should be bruising and contusions. And his face would look frightened, or angry. Just like anybody else who's being murdered."
"Which means we have a serious case here of whiskey tango foxtrot."
He looked at me. "Say what?"
"Phonetic alphabet for WTF, or–"
"What the fuck. Yeah, OK. That's pretty good."
"Christine says they use it at work all the time."
"Not to the people calling in, I hope." Karl went to the bed, leaned over the corpse, and inhaled loudly. Then he moved a couple of feet down and did it again.
"You're gonna let me in on what you're doing eventually, right?" I said.
He straightened up and turned to me. "Vampire senses are more acute than human. All of them, not just sight. You knew that, right?"
"Yeah, I guess I did."
"Not all vampires are alike, and I hope you know that, too. But they all give off that characteristic vampire scent. I don't know how to describe it, but it smells like nothing else. And I'm not getting it from this guy, Stan. Not even a whiff."
"So we're back to…"
"Whiskey tango foxtrot," Karl said. "Exactly." He walked slowly around the bed, staring at the corpse of Lester Howard the whole time. "I think we better give Homer, or whoever does the post, some specific instructions, Stan."
"Such as?"
"Have him look at the wound track, if he can work with one that small. See if it gradually narrows, the way it would if fangs made the puncture – or if it's uniform the whole way down, as if somebody used…"
"A couple of needles. Yeah, I gotcha. And I agree. Anything else you wanna tell Homer?" I said.
Karl was looking closely at the bite marks – or whatever they were.
"Yeah, let's have him test the wound for vampire saliva," he said. "He might not do that unless we ask him. Could be he sees what looks like fang marks, figures 'vampire', and never gives the wound a close look. But it needs a close look."
"Goddamn right it does. And I was thinking we oughta ask him for a tox screen, too. If somebody drained this guy using some kind of needle, they'd need a way to make him lay still the whole time. And no bruises means they didn't just hold him down while they did it."
"I like the way you think," Karl said.
"All this stuff is leading us to a bigger question," I said.
"You mean whiskey tango foxtrot again?"
"Kind of. Assuming it wasn't one of the undead who chilled this guy – why the fuck would somebody kill him and want to make it look like a vampire did it?"
"Could be misdirection," Karl said. "Point suspicion away from the human killer. A jealous husband, maybe. Judging from the size of this guy's schlong, it isn't out of the question."
"Maybe," I said. "Or it could be something a lot worse than that."
"Such as?"
"Helter Skelter, buddy. Helter fucking Skelter."
Karl blew breath out between pursed lips. "You figure they're working both sides at once? Killing supes to make the supe community pissed off, and killing humans in a way that looks like a supe did it?"
"I hope I'm wrong," I said. "Because if I'm not, this isn't the work of one lone nutcase, or even a couple of them. This could be bigger than we thought."
Karl gave me the grin again. "Bigger than both of us?"
"Nothing's that big."
A Dell desktop computer sat on a small desk in one corner of the room. I made a mental note to have Forensics copy the hard drive for me to look at later. The computer was still on, but had gone into sleep mode. Using the tip of my pen, I moved the mouse a couple of inches – just enough to wake the machine up, and see the last thing that Lester Howard had been doing with it.
The screen came to life, and I was looking at
DRAC'S LIST
FOR VAMPIRES AND THE THOSE WHO LOVE THEM.
No matter who the murder victim is – or the killer, for that matter – the detective routine is the same. A forensics crew arrived as we were leaving Howard's apartment, and went in to do their CSI thing. Scanlon and his boys from Homicide never did show up. I guess the word had already gone out that this was a vampire kill, which made it a problem for the Supe Squad alone. I'd send Scanlon a copy of our report anyway.
Karl and I checked for witnesses by interviewing every tenant on Howard's floor. Nobody we talked to said they had seen or heard anything unusual. Nobody ever sees or hears anything, but you still have to go through the routine. We made note of the apartments where nobody answered the door, so they could be canvassed later. All told, we spent about three hours inside Franklin Towers.
Back at the car, we'd barely got the doors closed when my cell phone started playing "Tubular Bells". The caller ID simply read "Unknown Caller."
"This is Mar
kowski."
"Sergeant, it's Victor Castle. We spoke recently at my place of business."
"Yeah, how you doing?"
"Less than optimal, I'm afraid. That's what I wanted to talk to you about."
"So talk."
"I much prefer to discuss this kind of thing in person, Sergeant."
"Listen, Castle," I said, "we haven't got time to swing by the rug store right now. Maybe we–"
"That won't be necessary. I'm only a hundred feet or so away from you. With your permission, I could appear in your back seat almost immediately."
"If you're so close, why don't you just walk over and get in?" I said.
"I'd rather be unobtrusive. Your car is not under observation – I determined that while waiting for you to complete your business in that apartment building," he said. "Still, I would prefer not to take the chance that we be seen speaking together at this stage."
"All right. If that's the way you want it, come on in."
"Very well. I will see you very shortly."
I closed the phone and said to Karl, "Don't jump – Castle is about to magic himself into our back seat."
"Huh? Why the hell would he do that?"
"Because I think it wise not to be seen talking with you officers," Castle's voice said from behind us. Despite my warning, Karl jumped a little. We turned, and there was the Supefather. He was wearing the jacket that went with his three-piece this time.
"If you can do this," I said, "and it seems pretty clear that you can, why wait until we got back? You could've been waiting back there when we got in."
"That would show rather bad manners on my part, Sergeant. In any case, I did not want to startle you officers, and run the risk of a violent response on your part."
Karl turned to me. "Isn't there a spell on all police vehicles designed to repel magic?"
"Yes, there was," Castle said, as if he'd been the one Karl asked. "Very competent journeyman work. I dismantled it while waiting for you to return."
"Who the fuck said you could do that?" Karl said. "Now we're helpless against magic!"
Castle gave him a tight smile. "If you'll pardon a little professional hubris, Detective, as long as you are with me, you will never be helpless against magic." He shrugged those well-tailored shoulders. "In any case, I will replace the protective spell when I leave. In fact, I worked out a variation that will make the spell even stronger than before. It helped pass the time while I waited."
As long as Castle was feeling generous with his magic, I toyed with the idea of asking him to give the car a bigger engine, plush carpeting, and a kick-ass stereo system. But then Karl would want an ejection seat and machine guns under the headlights, just like James Bond. Fuck it – McGuire would probably consider the whole thing a bribe and report us to Internal Affairs.
"OK, fine, whatever," I said. "You're here now – so what's on your mind?"
"Recent events," he said, "have taken a turn that disturbs me greatly."
"What events are we talking about here?" I asked.
"In addition to the recent witch burnings, you mean? Well, there was that tragic business in Nay Aug Park the other night."
"You know about that, huh?" I said.
"Such a bizarre event could hardly remain a secret for very long, to one with my resources. Besides," he said, and gave a brief laugh, "the story was in today's Times-Tribune."
That's what I get for not reading the paper every day.
"Yeah, that was some fucked-up shit, all right," Karl said, earning him another thoughtful look from Castle that made me glad Karl carried a badge.
"What was not in the paper just yet," Castle said, "was the news that two vampires, a husband and wife, were staked in their home sometime today."
That must have been the case Meroni had referred to, the one keeping the forensics techs busy.
"You probably know more about that than we do," I said. "It's not our case, and I just caught a mention of it in passing from another officer."
"And now," Castle said, "I find you officers at the scene of an alleged vampiric murder of a human."
"That's private police business!" Karl snapped. "You've got no right to that until it's released by the department."
Castle turned his head slightly so that he was looking at Karl directly. He studied Karl in silence for a second or two, then said quietly, "Benimm dich, du Grünschnabel. Solche Unverschämtheit passt einfach nicht für Neuankömmlinge."
Castle and Karl had locked eyes, but Karl looked away first. I didn't know what Castle had said – I recognize German, but don't speak it – but it sure got Karl to chill out.
"Regardless of whether you should know about this case, you obviously do," I said. "So I might as well break a few regulations of my own and fill you in on what we know. Your use of 'alleged' to describe this vampire attack is a good choice of words, as it turns out."
I told Castle what we had observed in Howard's bedroom, as well as what we suspected. I laid out for him what we were going to tell the doc who would perform Howard's autopsy.
When I finished, Castle was quiet, staring out the side window as if the solutions to all his problems were out there in the night somewhere. When he spoke his voice was pensive.
"We have witches being killed by humans…" He looked at me. "I gather that's the working assumption?"
When I nodded, he went on. "Then a werewolf murdered by persons, or beings, unknown. Two vampires, staked in broad daylight."
"Which is the best time, if you're going to do that kind of thing," I said.
"Yes, to be sure," he said absently. "And now we have what on the surface appears to be a human murdered by a vampire, although that conclusion may not stand up to close examination."
He glanced at Karl, who seemed fascinated by the knobs on the radio, then looked at me. "What in the name of all the gods is going on here, Sergeant?"
"We have a theory about that," I said, being sure to give some of the credit to Karl.
"Would you care to share it?" Castle asked.
"It boils down to two words, I told him. "Helter Skelter."
Castle blinked a couple of times. "Helter Skelter. Wasn't that an old movie about that murderous lunatic, Charles Manson?"
"Yeah, and before that it was a song by the Beatles," I said, "but now it's a crackpot idea, and somebody around these parts seems to think its time has come."
I told him what I'd learned from Pettigrew. When I was done Castle just sat there, looking stunned.
"Race war?" he said. "Between supernaturals and humans? That has got to be the most ridiculously absurd notion I've ever heard of."
"It's up there on my list, too," I said. "But somebody seems to believe in it. And he's trying to make it a reality. Or they are."
Castle looked at me. "They?"
"I can't believe that one guy is doing all of this," I said. "It's either a bunch of loonies who all believe the same thing, or one guy with enough money to hire a lot of help."
"If you had to bet it was one or the other," Castle said, "where would your money go?"
"At this stage, I'd keep my money in my pocket," I told him. "We don't have enough information yet."
Castle pondered this for a few seconds, then said, "If we lack data, perhaps logic will get us somewhere. Isn't there an expression you detectives use – cui bono?"
"Who benefits? Yeah, we use that one sometimes."
"So who stands to benefit if this so-called race war were to take place?"
"Nobody," I said, "unless some dude's been stockpiling wooden stakes and silver bullets."
"Detective Renfer," Castle said, "as one who might be said to have a dual perspective on such matters, who do you think would emerge victorious, in a worldwide race war?"
Karl started when Castle spoke to him, but he answered quickly enough. "Humans," he said. "It would take time, and the cost in human blood would be high, but I'm pretty sure the humans would win in the end."
"I'm not disagreeing with your conclu
sion," Castle said, "but I'd be interested to know what led you to it."
Evil Dark Page 13
