Once bitten

by Stephen Leather

  Anyway, to cut a long story short, they were picked up in a bar in Hollywood and I was called in to run them through the Beaverbrook program. You've got to remember that this was some time ago and that the program wasn't as sophisticated as it is now. Or as accurate. It wasn't a bug in the programming, it was more the fact that I didn't have enough case histories input as comparisons.

  That's what I told Canonico, anyway. Not that it did me any good. I ran them both through the program and it highlighted a number of mental abnormalities which I reckoned were serious enough to justify the men being held in a secure hospital rather than a prison. Canonico protested and demanded a second opinion, I insisted that any further examinations were carried out in a hospital and they were put into separate vans and driven over to a secure institution near Santa Ana.

  There was a cock-up, Vincent escaped, and was on the run for ten days. During that time he picked up a fourteen-year-old girl, manacled her in the back of his van, and filmed himself raping, buggering and finally strangling her. They caught him in a motel outside Palmdale, watching the video and playing with himself. Canonico forced me to watch the video, right the way through, slapping me around the face every time I tried to get out of the chair and away from the images of pain and terror and the little girl's unheeded tears.

  He'd never forgiven me for the girl's death, and I didn't expect that he ever would. It wasn't my fault, I knew that, and when Vincent eventually went in front of a panel of psychiatrists they came to the same conclusion as I had and he ended up in a secure mental hospital. Bryant was executed a year or so ago when his appeals ran out.

  Filbin was still at his desk working his way through the city's knife retailers and I asked him if De'Ath was still talking to the Ferriman girl. He shook his head and said that he'd gone to the Coroner's Office to see how the autopsy on the victim was going. I left the building quickly without bumping into Canonico, which almost made up for the fact that I had indeed been given a parking ticket. Somebody had impaled a clove of garlic on my aerial and I pulled it off and threw it into the gutter. The vampire joke had worn thin a long time ago.

  When I arrived at the lab where the Coroner was working away on the victim of the previous night's murder I parked the Alpine next to De'Ath's car. Inside a receptionist told me that Black De'Ath had gone into the lab where the body was being sliced up and analysed. I said I'd wait outside because I'd seen more than my fair share of corpses being cut up and to be honest they always made me feel pretty queasy. I'd never actually thrown up, but why take the risk? After half an hour or so a grey haired man in green overalls came out carrying a tape-recorder, followed by De'Ath. De'Ath raised his eyebrows when he saw me.

  "I was curious," I explained. "I just wanted to know what the autopsy showed."

  "Knife through the heart," said De'Ath. "Slash to the throat came afterwards. We've got a pretty good idea of the shape of the knife that did the damage."

  "So what's the plan? Get hold of a knife like the missing one and compare it with the shape suggested by the autopsy?"

  "Man, you should be a detective," laughed De'Ath. "I'm not sure how much good it's going to do us. I asked her about the knife. She said that when she rented the apartment the knife was already missing, and she said she could prove it. In one of the drawers of the kitchen there should be a full itinerary of everything in the flat, dated when she took on the lease. Maybe we missed it.

  I'm on my way there now." He saw the look on my face and wagged his finger before I could speak. "If you want to tag along, that's OK with me, but don't let the Captain find out about it," he said.

  On the way out he waved his notebook in front of me. "There is something else you should know," he said. "Victim was drained of blood. Most of it anyway."

  "What?" I was shocked, but then realised that he was probably building up to another vampire joke.

  "There was hardly any blood left in his body. Now that's not all that surprising considering that he'd been stabbed in the chest, but there wasn't more than a pint or so in his clothes or on the ground where we found the body. And like I said, the girl's clothes were clean." He stopped by his car and unlocked the door.

  "You're not going to tell me he was bitten by a vampire, are you, Samuel?"

  He roared with laughter and slapped the roof of his car with the flat of his hand. "You've been mixing with weirdos for too long, man. You're going over the edge." He laughed again and shook his head. "What it means, Van Helsing, is that he was almost certainly killed somewhere else and then dumped in the alley." He got into his car, still laughing.

  As I followed him down the road to Terry's apartment I could see him still shaking with laughter and shaking his head.

  He let us into her apartment and I waited by the hi-fi while he put on another pair of polythene gloves and carefully went through the draws in the kitchenette. "Yeah, here it is," he said, fishing out a sheet of paper. "A full inventory." He looked at the knife rack and counted them off. Six knifes in the rack, six knives on the list. Dated six months ago." He folded the list up and slid it into a polythene bag and put it in his inside pocket. He pulled a plastic carrier bag out of the drawer and carefully put the knives into it. "Right, that's us," he said.

  "Give me one minute," I said and headed for the bedroom.

  "Don't…" he began.

  "I know, don't touch anything," I yelled back at him. I was playing a hunch, don't ask me why, but I just wanted to get the name of the man in the photograph. The film star. Greig Turner it said on the back of the chair and I scribbled the name down on the back of one of my business cards.

  "What are you up to, Doc?" De'Ath asked as I returned to the lounge.

  "Nothing. Nothing important," I said. "You fancy a drink?"

  He looked at his wristwatch, a Seiko electronic job with lots of buttons. "Yeah, you've talked me into it. I know a place near here, come on."

  De'Ath knew a place no matter where you were in Greater California. He locked the bag of knives in his trunk and we walked to a place on Sunset, a narrow bar with stools and a barman in a green and gold waistcoat and a sniffle like he had an expensive habit, if you get my drift. He brought us a couple of cold beers and we clinked glasses while the barman retreated to a tactful distance.

  "So what's on your mind?" De'Ath asked eventually.

  "I dunno, Samuel."

  "It's the girl, right?"

  I shrugged. "Sort of. Maybe. I dunno."

  "You're playing with fire, man. She's facing a murder rap and you're employed by the LAPD.

  Just be careful, all right?"

  I nodded and drank my beer. "Can I talk this through with you?" I said.

  "I'm listening."

  "She's found over the victim's body, right?"

  He nodded. "Right?"

  "Do we know who he is yet?"

  De'Ath shook his head.

  "OK, so she's found over his body, with his blood on her face. He's been stabbed, but there's no knife around. There's a knife missing from the rack in her kitchen which might or might not be the same type that killed the guy, but she's got proof that the knife was never in her possession, right?"

  De'Ath patted his jacket pocket. "Assuming this list is kosher, that's right."

  "There's no murder weapon near the body, and the Coroner reckons the victim was killed somewhere else and dumped in the alley. Right?"

  "Right," he repeated patiently.

  "There was no blood on her clothes, which means she couldn't have been the one who dragged or carried him into the alley. Right?"

  "That's a maybe, Doc. But I hear where you're coming from. It'd have been hard for her to have done that on her own without leaving a trail of blood and getting it over her clothes."

  I put my glass of beer down on the bar. "But don't you see, no murder weapon, no blood on her clothes, she couldn't have done it."

  De'Ath nodded and took a long pull from his glass. He turned to face me, wiping the froth from his upper lip with the back of hi
s hand. "It still don't add up," he said slowly.

  "What doesn't?"

  "If he was dead before he was taken into the alley, why was she claiming to be giving him the kiss of life?"

  "Maybe he was still alive."

  De'Ath snorted. "Coroner reckons he'd have died within seconds. Long before he was dumped."

  "Maybe she didn't realise he was dead. Maybe she thought she'd be able to save him."

  "Yeah, Doc. Maybe. But I think we'll keep her in the cells for just a little while longer. Just to be on the safe side, huh?" He waved the barman over and ordered two more beers. "Tell me Doc, have you got a thing for this girl?"

  "Give me a break, Samuel. There's such a thing as professional integrity, you know."

  "Yeah, I guess so. Besides, you're probably old enough to be her father."

  "What! Come off it, she's twenty-five, you know that. She looks younger, I know, but she is twenty-five."

  "Yeah? So how old are you, Doc?"

  "I'm thirty five, thirty six next month."

  He nodded, as if unconvinced. "I always thought you were older."

  "You thought I was old enough to be the father of a twenty-five year-old-girl?" I looked at my reflection in the mirrored gantry behind the bar, turning my head left and right and examining my reflection. The beers arrived but I didn't drink mine, I'd lost the taste for it. I went home.

  I parked the car and let myself into the house. The quietness took me by surprise, as it always did. I still expected Deborah to be there, watching television, working out in her pink tracksuit, cooking, cleaning. Now there was just silence. I left the briefcase in the lounge and made myself a cup of coffee in the kitchen.

  I leant against the fridge as I took a mouthful of the milky brew, feeling the vibrations shiver through my legs. The phone rang. It was my lawyer, Chuck Harrison, asking if I could go round to his office. I made an appointment for four o'clock. While I had the phone in my hand I called Peter Hardy. Peter and I arrived in Los Angeles at about the same time, me to run psychological profiles on the city's weirdos, him to write about them. Well, different weirdos most of the time, he was a reporter working for Britain's brasher tabloids, shovelling showbiz gossip and West Coast dross across the Atlantic as fast as Fleet Street would pay for it. Only very occasionally did our paths cross professionally but we spent a fair amount of time getting drunk together. We were both going through painful divorces. Painfully expensive, that is.

  "Jamie," he said. "How're the animals? Full moon keeping you busy?"

  "Tell me about it," I said. "And I'm fresh out of garlic." I didn't mind being teased by Hardy, he was OK. "Hey, what can you tell me about Greig Turner?" Hardy was a movie buff, always out catching the latest releases but he was also into old films in a big way. He had an extensive video library in his flat, hundreds of black and white classics, most of which I'd never heard of.

  "In what context, mate?"

  "Films. Some time ago, 1930s I guess. Maybe 1940s."

  "What was his name again?"

  "Turner. Greig Turner."

  "Was he an actor, or director, or what?"

  "I dunno, Pete. All I've seen is his picture. He was a good-looking guy, so I guess he was an actor."

  "Was?"

  "Was. Is. It looked like an old picture, he could be dead now." I fished the card out of my pocket, the card on which I'd written Turner's name. "He was in a movie called Lilac Time."

  "Lilac Time?"

  "That's what it said. He was sitting in a director's chair and Greig Turner and Lilac Time was written on the back."

  "Yeah, OK, I'll check it out for you. Shouldn't be too difficult. I'll get back to you, OK? How's the legal battle of the century going?"

  "I'm seeing my lawyer this afternoon."

  "Yeah? Me too. Hey, did you ever see the film Strangers On A Train? You know, the Hitchcock movie, the one where two guys plan…"

  "Yeah, yeah, you do mine and I'll do yours. Thanks, but no thanks."

  "If ever you change your mind…" he said. He was joking, I knew that, but it struck a bit too close to home. When I hung up I finished my coffee and paced up and down, unable to relax. I looked at my watch. Three o'clock. One hour to get to Harrison's office. More than enough time.

  I wondered what the problem was this time. I'd thought that Deborah and I had finally got the money thing sorted out, she'd made it clear that she hadn't wanted the house or the car, just cash, and Chuck had thrashed out a deal with the hard-faced cow she'd employed as a lawyer that had too many zeros on the end of it but which at least left me with a roof over my head. Six years of marriage going down the tube was bad enough, but to see everything I'd earned over the past ten years go down with it was a bit much to bear.

  I took the car to a filling station on the way to Chuck's office and checked the oil and water levels and the tyre pressure and filled the tank with gas. I arrived ten minutes early but he didn't make me wait, just had his secretary usher me in and shook my hand warmly. It was, I knew, a handshake that cost something in the region of five hundred bucks an hour. He waved me to a big leather chair that must have cost him at least three hours work, after taxes, and leant back in his, steepling his fingers and frowning.

  "We have a problem, Jamie," he said quietly.

  "We?"

  He smiled a little. "I'm on your side," he said.

  "I'm listening," I said.

  He nodded. "OK, we've now come to a settlement over community property, over the medical plan and over the bank deposits and insurance. The other party has agreed to the split pretty much as I outlined at our last meeting. However, I'm afraid that I now have to inform you that the other party has now decided to press a claim for cruelty."

  "Cruelty?"

  "Mental cruelty. Pain and suffering. To the tune of two hundred thousand dollars."

  "Deborah says that I was cruel to her? I don't believe it."

  "Don't forget that she has employed one of LA's toughest counsel to act for her. Carol Laidlaw is one mean son-of-a-bitch. And a dyke to boot. By the time she's finished she'll have your wife hating your guts, no matter how friendly you started out."

  "That's great news, Chuck," I said, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice. "What are their chances?"

  "That depends on how solid their grounds are. Whether or not they'll be able to prove their case in court."

  "Cruelty. No way, Chuck. I never laid a finger on Deborah. Never. And as for mental cruelty, God, I can barely remember the last time we had an argument." That wasn't true. I could remember. And I could remember her final words, too.

  "You've got to remember that Laidlaw is a real professional at dragging up all the bad things that happened during a marriage. She's not interested in the happy memories, the good things you shared. She wants the skeletons, and she knows exactly how to get them rattling out of your closet."

  I didn't like Chuck's imagery, I didn't like it one bit. It had been more than a year but I hadn't come close to getting over April's death and I doubted that I ever would. She lived for just four days, all of them on a life support machine, tenaciously clinging to life but with so little chance of success that we almost didn't even give her a name. We spent hours next to the incubator, watching her little deformed body twitch and breath, her perfect tiny hands clenching and unclenching.

  "What does she want, Chuck?"

  "Another hundred thousand."

  That would just about clear me out. "Tell her it's OK. She can have it." I'd have to sell the car.

  And a few other things. Like the house.

  "We could fight this, Jamie. There's no need to give up. I had no idea it was going to get this nasty. I should've expected it when she hired Laidlaw. She's a bloodsucker of the first order, a real vampire, she sucks and sucks until there's nothing left. But we can fight."

  I held up my hands. "Just leave it, Chuck. Just pay what we have to pay so that I can get on with my life."

  He looked pained. "I'll tell you what I'll do,
Jamie, I'll offer fifty thousand and see what happens. Maybe I can get her down, get her to accept less." He didn't sound convinced. Maybe I was the one who should have hired Laidlaw.

  I stood up and held out my hand to say goodbye. "Whatever you want, Chuck. Just do what you think is best." He shook my hand and I went back to the car. I was going to miss it. I sat for a while, gripping the steering so tightly that my knuckles whitened, my head full of thoughts of the daughter I nearly had. I missed her so much.

  Eventually I started the car and drove home, my mood swing wildly between sorrow and bitter, bitter anger. I was so busy seething that I nearly tailgated a Mercedes convertible and I had to practically stand on the brake before I screeched to a halt. A horn honked as the red pick-up behind me stopped suddenly and I waved an apology and tried to clear the bad thoughts from my head.

  My heart was pounding in my ears again and there was a dull pain in my chest like I'd pulled a muscle there.

  When I arrived home I pressed the remote control device in my car that automatically opened the garage door but I didn't drive in, suddenly I couldn't face the house or the memories it contained so I reversed back into the road and drove to the precinct instead. It was early evening and I figured I might as well wait out the full moon where the action was.

  I checked out Homicide before I went to my office but both Filbin and De'Ath were out. A couple of the detectives nodded hello and when I walked past one of them howled like a wolf and the other laughed and I heard the words "vampire hunter." As usual De'Ath's desk was hidden under a sprawl of papers and phone books and torn-open envelopes. I dropped into his chair and picked up the phone, pressing numbers at random while I scanned his desk. What was I looking for? I wasn't sure. There were half a dozen active files on his desk and some mugshots of men who looked as if they'd be prepared to kill for a handful of change and under a large envelope I found a half-eaten ham on wholewheat with mustard. Whatever number I had dialled turned out to be engaged so I cut the line and dialled my home. I flicked the envelope open and slid out some black and white photographs of Terry Ferriman. They weren't the front and side views with numbers underneath like they take when they're processing a perp, they were more casual, she was wearing the leather motorcycle jacket and her hair was neatly combed. I reckoned De'Ath had arranged for them to be taken so that he could use them to show witnesses and the like without making it obvious that the girl was in police custody. I took one of the photographs and put it in my briefcase as my voice droned in my ear that I should leave my name and number so that I could get back to me. I replaced the receiver and went upstairs to my office. It was half past six and starting to get dark outside.