Underdead (Underdead Mysteries)

by Liz Jasper

“I’m not accusing anyone,” Becky said wearily. “I don’t have the foggiest idea what happened, how it happened, or who helped it happen. Frankly, I don’t particularly want to think about it. The fact remains, however, and whether we like it or not, Bob was murdered.”

  The headmaster held up a restraining hand before Roger could respond.

  “If indeed, as Becky has suggested, Bob has died under suspicious circumstances, we can best hope to right that injustice by helping the police in any way we can. To that end, we, Bob’s friends and colleagues, will not discount what the police have said, regardless of our own views on the matter. The speculation and gossip that would undoubtedly result from the premature identification of Bob’s demise as murder would dilute legitimate evidence and hinder the investigation.”

  He looked around the room, making sure each one of us understood the seriousness of talking out of turn. “Unsubstantiated rumors will hurt Bob, his family and loved ones, and our school community. So, whatever our personal opinions, we will not discuss them with students, in or out of class, with each other, or even with friends outside of school. Is that clear?”

  Becky gave a tight nod that seemed to satisfy the headmaster, and the rest of us dutifully muttered our acquiescence.

  As I moved to follow the crowd out, the headmaster touched a hand lightly to my arm and asked me to stay.

  I took a seat in a plush chair opposite Headmaster Huntington, who proceeded to spend the next twenty minutes scaring me shitless.

  He didn’t mean to of course, he was just concerned for my safety. But listening to him hint around the fact that since Bob had been killed in my room, I should be extra careful, if I didn’t have the heebie jeebies before, I certainly had them then.

  When he was done, he considerately walked me to my car and waited until it had started before heading back across campus to the adjacent headmaster’s residence. As I put my old grey Volvo into gear, I glanced at the dashboard clock. Assuming I went to bed the second I got home and slumbered docilely through all the nightmares I was sure to have, I was looking forward to four and a half hours of sleep.

  It might have been the extra fatigue born of knowing this that I idled so long in front of the parking lot gate before realizing it wasn’t opening. I pulled up the emergency brake and got out of the car. Fred, the aging night guard, was prone to napping in his cozy little booth. His ineffectiveness was a mild joke among the faculty members, and while normally I was inclined to rather admire the guy’s ability to sleep, it didn’t seem so funny now. I rapped on the window and peered in. Fred wasn’t there.

  “Dammit!” Why did he had to have picked now of all times to leave the booth. “Where could he be?” I said aggravatedly. My fatigue had crept up a couple notches and I was getting cranky. I didn’t want to wander around the stupid school looking for the stupid security guard at one-stupid-thirty in the morning. Lord knew where or when I’d find him if he had actually gone on his rounds for once.

  Just as I was seriously considering getting back into the car and using it as a battering ram, I noticed he had left the communication window ajar. I pried it open the full three inches allowed by the safety latch and stuck my arm in as far as it would go.

  I was an inch shy of the gate switch. Getting on my tiptoes, gained me another half inch. Just as I was debating whether I should force the window or repark the car so I could get a boost on the bumper, I heard the guard coming around the corner of the administration building.

  “Fred,” I called out, stepping away from the window and rubbing my armpit to get the circulation back. “Can you let me out, please? I need to get home.” I forced my features into a pleasant smile as he stepped out of the shadows. But it wasn’t Fred.

  “Oh, no.” I whispered, backing up until I felt the guard box against my back. Please let the guard come back, please let the guard come back.

  “The security guard is taking a little break right now,” Will said lightly as he rapidly closed the distance between us. I braced myself and wondered how I was going to fight him off this time—if I was going to fight him off this time—when he abruptly stopped a few feet from me.

  “Jo,” he said rather formally, “I would like to talk to you.”

  An unexpected note of contrition in his voice made me stop flinching and look up at him.

  “I want to apologize for Natasha.”

  “Natasha?” I repeated stupidly. I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “She had no right to interfere with your work,” he said somberly. “She wishes to express her regret.”

  I hadn’t noticed there was someone waiting in the shadows until she suddenly appeared a few feet to my left.

  “Arhgh!” I cried indistinctly, jumping and clutching my chest.

  “Oh, dear.” The woman’s husky voice dripped with mock apology. “I hope I didn’t scare you, Ms. Gartner.”

  “Mrs. Beckworth?” I said, confused. I recognized her cloying perfume and wondered why I hadn’t noticed it sooner. She practically bathed in the stuff.

  Will chuckled indulgently. “No, that was Natasha’s little joke.” He gave a slight jerk to his head and she began to apologize dutifully if not sincerely.

  “I’m sorry for interrupting your parent conference,” she said. “I just wanted to meet you.” She favored me with a look of contempt that Will couldn’t see.

  “That’s better,” Will said approvingly. “We want Jo to feel a part of our family.”

  “That’s okay,” I said sincerely.

  “Now run along, Natasha,” Will said dismissing her. She gave him a sweet smile and a seductive bat of her heavily mascaraed eyelashes, but the look she directed at me was not nearly so pleasant. If Will hadn’t been there I would have been in big trouble. Of course, I was still in big trouble. She sauntered away, hips swinging. Boom shiska boom shiska boom.

  It was a wasted effort on her part—I was the only one who watched her walk away. Will’s attention was focused squarely on me. His deep blue eyes took on a look of concern as he stepped closer to me and gently pushed a lock of hair out of my face. A traitorous flare of desire intermingled with my terror and I forgot to breathe.

  “I saw the ambulance and the police here earlier, coming out of your classroom,” he said softly. “Was it a friend of yours?”

  That was not what I expected him to say. It didn’t even really make sense. How could he have seen that? And did he sound—was he—worried about me? I dismissed the thought as quickly as it had come. Romanticizing about a vampire was the last thing I needed to be doing. I refocused on the matter at hand.

  “He taught in the classroom next to mine. I— How did you know it wasn’t me?”

  He took my hand and pressed it to his chest. “I know,” he said. He ran a finger slowly down my cheek, following its movement with his eyes. I felt the tingle to my toes and stood there for a moment in breathless anticipation until his finger moved to gently touch the bandage on my neck, and I was able to make myself remember who—what—he was. I yanked my hand out of his and took a half step back. It was as far as I could go. The window ledge of the guard booth dug into my back.

  Will smiled lazily and took a half step forward. My breath caught as his fingers deftly removed the pins that held back my hair. It cascaded in a shimmering fall down my back. As if mesmerized, he wound the fingers of one hand through it, and slowly leaned in. I closed my eyes.

  “Teeth marks,” I blurted out accusingly.

  “What?” Will’s movement toward me was checked and his hand stilled on my cheek.

  “Teeth marks,” I repeated. “There were teeth marks on Bob’s neck. I could see them, distinctly, even through the blood. You did that to him,” I said, my voice catching.

  “What?” he said. “I did not!” He looked appalled.

  I gave him a hard, disbelieving stare, but he just stood there unflinchingly, with a quiet dignity.

  “You…” I hesitated, suddenly filled with doubt. Had Gavin talked me into something
that wasn’t true?

  Will didn’t say anything, just waited curiously for me to finish. It was that hint of a smile that made me say it out loud.

  “You’re a vampire!” I blurted out. “Aren’t you?” I added uncertainly when he didn’t immediately respond.

  Something flared deep in his blue eyes. He inclined his head in the barest sketch of a nod, and that little bit of doubt I had clutched like a safety jacket disappeared.

  “But I did not touch your colleague.” He adjusted impeccable shirt cuffs. “Why would I choose to spend eternity with that man? I do have standards you know.”

  “One of your minions then,” I said sharply, “Natasha.”

  “No,” Will said firmly.

  At my disbelieving stare, he relented. “It’s true I usually don’t recruit the males—I let the girls handle that. They quite enjoy it, it’s a power thing for them, I think. But they didn’t hurt anyone here, not without my permission.”

  He leaned closer, his eyes glittering fiercely. His voice turned harsh, commanding. “And I assure you, Jo, I did not give it.”

  “No, beautiful, the only one I want here is you.” He pulled me roughly against him and kissed me hard, expertly, thoroughly, sending shock waves through every part of my body. Just as his kiss began to linger, he put me gently away from him. When I opened my eyes, he was gone. I touched a shaking hand to my neck, but everything was intact. I was more confused than ever.

  Chapter Eleven

  * * *

  By some stroke of luck I got a parking spot right in front of my place. Maybe it wasn’t luck—it was getting so close to dawn I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the early commuters had already left for work.

  As I reached my apartment, I heard footsteps coming up the stairs behind me, but I didn’t jump or scream. I was expecting him. I finished unlocking the door before turning to address my visitor. “Hello, Gavin.” He wore comfortably worn jeans and a lightweight runner’s windbreaker over a blue button-down shirt creased from a day’s wear, as if he’d gone home from work and gotten only as far as changing his pants before having to leave again. “Come on in.”

  The invitation was a formality. He’d already followed me in. He shut and locked the door behind him, and turned to face me. “I’m sorry to bother you so late.” He gave me a once-over and his forehead puckered in a slight frown. “It’s just—”

  “You saw the teeth marks, too.” I tossed my keys onto the table near the door, and they slid right off the pile of unopened mail and onto the floor. I left them where they lay and headed for the kitchen. It had been a helluva of a day on top of one helluva past few weeks, and I needed a snack.

  My kitchen was fairly large (though maybe it just felt that way compared to the rest of my apartment), a long and narrow room with old-fashioned yellow tiles and a small breakfast nook at one end. I stood in the center and stared at the stove as if it would solve all my problems. “I’m going to have some cocoa,” I announced finally. “Want some?”

  “Sure.” Gavin sat himself in one of the two rung-back chairs at the small pine table under the window as if he were a friend come over for a cozy chat, and watched me measure hot chocolate mix into two mugs. “How are you do—”

  I set the pot of water and milk on the stove with a clang. “Don’t ask me that.”

  “All right.” He shifted the chair a little bit so he could stretch his long legs out toward the center of the kitchen, and helped himself to a chocolate chip cookie from the plate I slapped down in the middle of the table.

  I busied myself with unnecessary kitchen chores until the cocoa was ready, then brought the mugs to the table and sat across from him.

  “So,” I prompted, stirring my cocoa with the spoon and sipping from it.

  “So.” He sighed wearily and stirred his own cocoa in unconscious mimicry. He took a meditative sip, wincing slightly as the boiling hot liquid scalded his mouth. As he put the cup down, he glanced at me, and something in my face must have communicated my mounting impatience for he dropped the kid gloves treatment and began to talk in what I thought of as his cop voice. “The EMTs noticed the odd wound on Bob’s neck. When the captain learned of it, he arranged for an immediate autopsy and then sent for me.”

  I reached for a cookie and broke off a piece, scattering crumbs across the sunflower print tablecloth. “Will says he didn’t do it.”

  Gavin’s face froze for a split second but quickly—so quickly, I thought I must have imagined that look—his features resumed their usual appearance of benign professional curiosity. “Oh?” he said.

  I told him about Natasha’s visit and, leaving out the kissing part, how Will had cornered me in the parking lot when I was leaving. As I spoke, a dark flush of anger began to spread over Gavin’s face, and I hurried through the rest of my story. “He said he wouldn’t have—‘recruited’ is how he put it, I think—any man, much less Bob. Apparently the female vampires recruit males.”

  “How quaint.”

  I ignored the comment as if he hadn’t spoken. Gavin had a nasty habit of baiting me and this time I was going to make sure he heard me out. I pulled the cookie plate away from him to get his attention. “I think Natasha killed Bob. He saw her as she was leaving my classroom, and thought she was gorgeous. And I promise you, she’s not one to miss that look in a man’s eye. I wouldn’t be surprised if she came back after I left and cornered him in my classroom.”

  “Sexual attraction is how they reel in their victims,” Gavin said. His attention shifted from his cocoa mug to my face.

  I flushed.

  His eyes rested curiously on my neck. He said thoughtfully, almost to himself, “You Will said found you alone in the parking lot tonight. Why didn’t he bite you again?”

  “I—I don’t know,” I admitted. I was rather curious about that myself. “I think he was being considerate, nice.” I stared at the tablecloth and corralled my cookie crumbs into a neat pile.

  “Nice? A vampire? Are you sure he didn’t bite you again?” His hand reached for my bandage. I slapped it away.

  “Stop doing that! It hurts!”

  “Sorry.” The apology was automatic, mechanical. His thoughts had already moved elsewhere. We sat there for a moment, sipping our cocoa in silence until he spoke again. “Where was the security guard while you were having your little chat with the vampires in the parking lot?”

  Fred! A horrifying image rose before me clear as day—sweet, portly, old Fred lying on the quad, navy uniform rumpled, thick glasses askew, one wrinkled hand clutching ineffectually at his neck as blood seeped through and drained away. “Oh my God. I forgot to make sure he was okay!” I stood up. “We have to go back and check! Will said he didn’t hurt him but—”

  Gavin motioned me to sit back down and reached into his jacket pocket for his phone. He contacted one of the officers who was still at the school and instructed him to look for the guard. I stared intently at Gavin’s phone until the officer reported back that Fred was fine if a little confused that the police were asking after him.

  I sank down into my seat and put my head in my hands. I was the lowliest of worms. What was wrong with me these days? I had the attention span of a gnat! If anything had happened to Fred…

  “Jo? Are you okay?”

  “No, I’m not.” I let out a breath of air in a long sigh and moved my hands away from my face. “At least Will was telling the truth about Fred. I guess that’s something.”

  “Will was telling the truth about Bob, too. He didn’t do it. No vampire did.” Gavin spoke reluctantly, as if hating to give Will credit for anything decent. “The teeth marks were faked. No one actually bit Bob’s neck—no saliva.”

  “What? Why?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” Gavin said sharply.

  “You think I know something about this?”

  “No. As I understand it, you had an alibi—unless a parent and the middle school principal were in it with you, which I’m inclined to doubt.”

 
; Thank you, Gavin, for that vote of confidence.

  “As I was saying, the ‘teeth marks’ seem to have been made with something sharp, like glass.”

  I thought back to my ruin of a classroom. “There was a lot of broken glass around, you know. Maybe some of the glass shards nicked his neck.”

  Gavin shook his head. “No. Someone deliberately made those marks, Jo. Someone tried to make Bob’s death look like it had been done by a vampire. One in particular, I’d guess—you.”

  “But I’m not a vampire! You said so yourself. Besides, no one knows.”

  “Are you sure about that? Someone could have seen or overheard us at the bar the other night. We weren’t exactly keeping our voices down.”

  “Surely we would have noticed…” My voice petered out uncertainly as I realized the fallacy of this statement. Godzilla could have been behind me roaring and spewing fire and I wouldn’t have noticed. “The place was so empty, I guess I assumed we were alone—except of course for the dead people coming back to life, and all the vampires popping in and out.”

  “If someone had overheard us, they would know that I would suspect you when I found the bite marks on Bob’s neck.” Gavin’s voice grew harsh. “That we would assume Bob was your first victim.”

  “But you don’t think that.”

  He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms across his chest. “You have an alibi.”

  I scowled at him. “Whose side are you on anyway?”

  “Bob’s.”

  “Sometimes you’re just a big jerk, you know that?” I snatched the cookie plate away from him and brought it to the sink. I didn’t feed jerks.

  Gavin watched me rinse the plate. “Bob was murdered at 8:40. According to the schedule posted outside your door, you had another conference at 8:45.” He held up a hand as I began to correct him. “Yes, I’m aware it had been canceled, but someone looking at your schedule wouldn’t have known that. You were supposed to have been found hovering over Bob’s body.”

  I waited for the rest of the explanation, but Gavin had finished. “That’s your theory? That someone—a teacher or a Bayshore parent—snuck unseen to my classroom, killed Bob and arranged things so I would get the blame? Shouldn’t they have at least planned for contingencies, like the fact that I was in Maxine’s office when the glass broke?”