Bloodthirsty

by Marshall Karp

  “That guy over there with the Rottweiler is Winston Wynn, the night watchman,” she said, reading from her notepad. “He doesn’t work for the museum. He’s with Pro-Tech Security, a private company that specializes in providing guards and 24/7 surveillance cameras for construction sites. He was making his rounds when the dog started barking at that one particular bathroom facility. He opened the door, found the body, called his dispatch, and they called 911 at twenty-forty-five hours.”

  “What time is that in English?” Terry said.

  “Oh, sorry. A quarter to nine.”

  “Thanks. Go on.”

  “My partner and I got here at twenty…about seven minutes later, secured a perimeter, and requested backup. We now have several other teams on the scene looking for anything that might be evidence.”

  “That’s pretty efficient, Officer Young,” Terry said. He pointed at her pad. “You didn’t happen to write down who killed him, and when they’ll be home, so we can arrest them?”

  “No, sir. I’m only on the job six months. This is my first homicide. Did I step out of line?”

  “No,” Terry said. “It’s just that we’re used to much shabbier treatment. Starting immediately, I’d like you to be first on the scene of all our homicides.”

  She beamed. “Thank you, Detective. That means a lot. I’ll introduce you to Mr. Wynn. He’s quite a character.”

  Winston Wynn was about fifty years old, short, and gaunt, with a tiny head and oversized ears that were set off with a diamond stud in each lobe. His Rottweiler was much easier on the eye.

  “Win Wynn,” he said, when Young introduced us. “My mother thought it was the kind of name that would give me a leg up in life. And look at me now. Fifty-six years old and I’m a night watchman.”

  If he was hoping for a reaction to his fascinating intro, he didn’t get one. “Tell us how you found the body,” I said.

  “Marilyn found him,” he said pointing to the Rotty.

  “Your dog is named Marilyn?” Terry said.

  “Yeah, but not after Marilyn Monroe. He’s a male, so I named him after Marilyn Manson.”

  Terry was trying not to laugh. I could see his wheels turning, thinking about what he’d say when he got home to his Marilyn. He shook his head and silently passed the torch to me.

  “Did you hear or see anything that made you inspect this part of the site?”

  “No, sir,” he said. “I have to make a circuit every hour. Marilyn started barking when we got close to this clump of Port-O-Pottys. I figured maybe some wino was holed up in there. I open the door, and I recognize him on the spot. He’s the actor that got kidnapped this morning. What’s his name? Hodges?”

  “Hedge,” I said. “Damian Hedge.”

  “Never heard of him,” Wynn said, “but I’ve seen his mug all day long on the TV news. No question he’s dead. So I look around, and that’s when I see somebody took a pair of wire cutters to the fence and dragged him in here. Beats me why they went to all that trouble. Could have left him outside the fence. Marilyn would have found him no matter what.”

  “And then you called 911?” I said.

  “No, sir. I called my dispatch. That’s Pro-Tech Edict Numero Uno. If it’s not an emergency, you call the company before you call the cops.”

  “A dead body in the crapper is not an emergency?” Terry said.

  “No, sir. He was dead. If he was still breathing, and he needed an ambulance real quick, then I would have called 911 first. Otherwise, the company wants to be in the loop ahead of LAPD. They figure us guards are either drunk or stupid, so they like to call the shots. I’m not drunk or stupid, so I always play the game by their rules.”

  “Did you see anybody? Hear anything?”

  “Not a thing.” He cleared his throat. “But I do have a professional observation, if you want to hear it.”

  Suddenly the strange little man with the diamond earrings wasn’t so strange. He had an intelligence and an intensity about him that I had overlooked at first. Maybe I was distracted by the Win Wynn. Or by the fact that he named his dog after a rock star who wore white makeup, black eyeliner, and lipstick and whose own name came from a cult murderer.

  “We’d be glad to get your take on it,” I said. “A private cop is still a cop.”

  “That’s not the profession I’m talking about,” he said. “My family owns a mortuary in Glendale. I’m a licensed funeral director and embalmer. I retired six years ago, but I’ve seen more dead bodies than you and ten other homicide detectives put together.”

  “And what did you observe about this one?” I said.

  “Well, I had five or ten minutes’ quality time with this Mr. Hedge before your uniforms showed up. I got to take a real long look at him. And I’m betting that boy doesn’t have more than two tampons’ worth of blood in his entire body. It’s like he’s already been to the funeral parlor, and he’s all prepped and ready for his formaldehyde cocktail. I’ve done it myself to eight thousand, six hundred, and forty-seven people. But every one of them was dead first.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Wynn,” I said. “Of course we can’t determine the cause of death until the autopsy.”

  “Maybe you can’t,” he said. “But I can. No blood coursing through your veins. It’ll kill you every time.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  It was 2 a.m. by the time I got back to Diana’s apartment. I crawled into bed, and she grunted something romantic. I tried to respond, but I fell asleep in mid-grunt. Nineteen hours and forty-two minutes makes for an exhausting shift.

  Four hours later, Diana was sitting on my side of the bed, her freshly showered body sending out notes of sweet fragrant jasmine. “You smell fantastic,” I said, eyes still shut, brain still drifting.

  And then I inhaled the exhilarating, intoxicating aroma of freshly brewed French roast. “Oh, God,” I said. “That smells fantastic too.”

  “The warm blonde or the hot coffee,” she said. “Pick one.”

  I sat up, wrapped two hands around the coffee mug, and took a long slow sip. “I don’t remember ordering room service,” I said. “So you must be the answer to my prayers.”

  “Or you’re just lucky to be living with a nurse. You better not pray for this every day of the week.”

  “I don’t know if I can take too many more days,” I said. “I’m too old for this multiple homicide shit.”

  “Oh, please,” she said. “How hard can it be to find a vampire?”

  “What?” I snapped awake.

  She held up the morning edition of the L.A. Times and read from the front page. “‘Damian Hedge, who was abducted and murdered yesterday,’ blah, blah, blah, but you already know that. Here’s the good part. ‘The man who found the body says Hedge may have been killed by some kind of vampire cultist.’”

  “Oh, Christ, give me that,” I said.

  “Drink your coffee,” she said. “I’ll read it. ‘Winston Wynn, a security guard at the LA County Museum of Art and a retired funeral director, told reporters that in his opinion Hedge’s body had been drained of all blood, and that the murder had vampire cult overtones. Neither the police nor the coroner’s office has given the official cause of Hedge’s death. There is some speculation that Barry Gerber, whose body was found in Hollywood Hills on Monday, may have been murdered in the same ritualistic manner.’”

  “Do you know what this is going to do to my investigation?” I said.

  “For starters, you’ll probably get phone calls from everyone who works with, lives next door to, used to date, or actually is a vampire.”

  “What did I say the other night, when I told you about Barry Gerber’s autopsy?”

  “You said the doc found a tiny incision near his groin and decided that someone had used some kind of medical device to exsanguinate him.”

  “And what will everyone think happened to Damian after they read the morning paper?”

  “Dracula did it.”

  “Right. Some guy with a black cape swooped in, sank tw
o fangs in Damian’s neck, drank his blood, and flew out the window.” I gulped down the rest of the coffee. It was just hot enough to hurt my throat and feel good at the same time.

  I picked up the remote control and turned on the TV. I flipped between six of the major channels. Five of them were doing Damian Hedge stories; three had clips of Wynn spouting his vampire theory.

  “I wonder if these TV news idiots have any idea of how much they screw up my case when they run shit like this?”

  Diana leaned in and kissed me. “Are you kidding? They ran the kidnapping tape, and now they have the Vampire Hunter and a dog named after Charles Manson. This is great television. I bet they’re wondering if you know how much you’ll screw up their ratings if you solve this too fast.”

  My cell phone rang. “That’s probably Terry,” I said, muting the television. “At least he’ll make me laugh about all this.”

  It wasn’t Terry. It was Kilcullen. And he wasn’t laughing. “I’m driving to the office,” he said. “Guess what I’m listening to on the radio.”

  “The news,” I said.

  “No, I stopped listening to the news,” he said. “I switched over to one of those morning zoo shows, where they don’t give you the real news. They do funny little bits. They just did one about us. It said that the task force working on the Damian Hedge homicide is being issued garlic, wooden stakes, and large crucifixes. It also said that Captain Van Helsing, who is heading up the investigation, has asked the city council to authorize a budget for silver bullets. They’re having a goddamn field day at our expense, Mike.”

  “Look, Loo—”

  “I’m not finished,” he said. “They’ve also asked listeners to call in and guess who the Hollywood Bloodsucker will strike next. Do you believe that? The Hollywood Bloodsucker? Hold on, I got call waiting. It’s the Mayor, calling from his home number.” He jumped off and came back a few seconds later. “I gotta go. Meet me in the office in an hour.”

  “I can be there in twenty minutes.”

  “Yeah, well, in twenty minutes I’ll be on the carpet in the Mayor’s office. Kissing his ass.” He clicked off.

  It was shaping up to be a really bad day. And I hadn’t even gotten out of bed yet.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  By eight o’clock Terry and I had a hefty Things To Do list, and Wendy Burns had drafted as many coppers as she could find to help us do them.

  Kilcullen didn’t get to the station until 8:20. “I hate this job,” he said.

  “Don’t take it out on us,” Terry said. “You’re the one who wanted to take the lieutenant’s exam.”

  “You’re right. And I should have bailed out when I saw the first question. When you have your tongue up some politician’s ass, how many times do you have to twirl it? (A) Once. (B) Twice. (C) Till he tells you to stop.”

  “I’m going to have to go with (D),” Terry said. “When you see how much the politician is enjoying it, and you want to be the twirlee instead of the twirler.”

  “What have you got for me?” Kilcullen said.

  “Lots of phone tips,” I said. “Apparently everyone in LA knows a vampire.”

  “It’s going to get a lot worse,” Kilcullen said. “His Honor just informed me that there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward.”

  “A hundred thou?” I said. “Who put up that kind of money?”

  “Pita Productions, Barry Gerber’s company.”

  “Gerber is dead,” I said. “Who authorized it?”

  “Tyler Baker-Broome.”

  “Did anyone try to talk him out of it? It’s going to open up the floodgates for every nut job in the county.”

  “Why don’t we have a separate number just for crazies?” Terry said. “So you think you know who killed Barry and Damian? Call us at 1-800-VAMPIRE.”

  “Tyler didn’t like either of the two victims,” I said. “Why would he put up a reward?”

  Terry raised his hand. “I’ll take Hollywood Slimeballs for two hundred, Alex,” he said. “What is, who thinks he’s the next victim?”

  “You think Baker-Broome is next, so he put up a reward?” Kilcullen said.

  “I think Baker-Broome thinks he’s next, so he put up a reward,” Terry said. “Barry Gerber and Damian Hedge were superstars. They didn’t get their hands dirty. So who recruited the Cokettes and set up all the drug deals?”

  “Tyler,” I said.

  “So who does Tyler think is next on Dracula’s hit list?”

  “Tyler,” I said.

  “Then bring him in,” Kilcullen said.

  “On what charges?”

  “Don’t arrest him. Just talk to him. Tell him he’d be smarter to drop a dime on these drug dealers than to put up a hundred- thousand-dollar reward.”

  “No, it wouldn’t,” I said. “If Baker-Broome really is a target, what good is locking up dealers? Barry and Damian are not drug-type executions. Pushers don’t settle their grievances by tapping a femoral vein like a beer keg. They want faster results, so they tend to use .357 magnums and make bigger holes. Whoever is behind these homicides is settling the score for a dead Cokette.”

  “The Chinese girl,” Kilcullen said.

  “You’re about twelve hours behind us,” I said. “I started to tell you this morning, but you had some tongue twirling to do. Her name was Joy Lee. Her body was shipped to Texas. The pickup truck that picked up Damian was from Texas.”

  I paused to give him a second to process it all. I didn’t have to. “Go on,” he said.

  “Joy Lee worked for Barry, and probably for Damian. Both dead. The gangbanger who killed her also called in dead Friday night. Somebody slit his throat. Three murders, all of which could have the same motive.”

  “Payback,” Kilcullen said.

  “Terry and I were about to follow up on the lead last night when Damian Hedge’s body hit the fan.”

  “Well, follow up on it now,” he said.

  “We are. We’ve got a team digging out everything they can on Joy Lee’s mother, father, sister, brother, boyfriend, and her Girl Scout leader.”

  “Good work,” he said. “I still think you should talk to this Tyler Baker-Broome guy. Find out who else was involved in these drug runs this little girl was making. He may be right. He might be the next victim. But he might not be the last.”

  Terry and I turned toward each other like a pair of magnetic dogs. “Halsey,” he said.

  “You’re right, boss,” I said. “We’ll talk to Baker-Broome and find out who else might be in the line of fire.”

  Wendy Burns stuck her head in the door. “Quick update,” she said.

  Wendy is a pro. No nonsense, no drama. Terry and I have had our share of glamour cases, but Wendy likes to fly under the radar. She supervises three homicide teams, and she’s the lieutenant’s right-hand person. She’s a born manager and Kilcullen knows it. He waved her in.

  “Joy Lee’s body was flown to Houston,” she said, “and according to the airline, she was released to a funeral home in Katy, Texas. We contacted them to see who paid for the burial, but their computer is down.”

  “Computer?” Kilcullen said. “They only have one?”

  “Yes, sir, and to quote the cowboy undertaker I’ve been talking to, ‘that damn Dell’s trickier than nailing jelly to a tree.’ But he promised to dig through their paper files.”

  Kilcullen put his fingers to his temples and rubbed them.

  “I don’t have a Texas address for Joy Lee, because she had a California license. We’ve asked Texas DMV for a printout of all the people in the state with the last name of Lee who have a license. Then we’ll cross-check it with anyone named Lee who has a Chevy pickup.”

  “How long is that gonna take?” Kilcullen said.

  “Too long,” she said. “They don’t seem to be in a big hurry down there.”

  “We’d have been better off if the girl was from New York,” Terry said.

  “Anything else?” Kilcullen said.

  “I could use a dozen more p
eople to handle the tips that are flying in,” she said. “That hundred-thousand-dollar reward hit the airwaves about thirty minutes ago, and the phones have spiked.”

  “Anything legitimate?” Kilcullen said.

  Wendy rolled her eyes. “Lots and lots of vampire sightings. But we did get a call from a woman named Gerri Lillianchild. She doesn’t buy into the vampire angle. She said Damian and Gerber were exsanguinated.”

  “She used that word?” I said.

  “It sounded promising, so I called her back,” Wendy said. “I asked how she knew they were exsanguinated, and she said her boyfriend told her.”

  “And how did he know?” I said.

  She was grinning. “Should I let you down slowly, or can I just put you out of your misery?”

  “Just shoot me right between the eyes.”

  “Her boyfriend knew because it was in a movie script that he read,” Wendy said. “The nature of Ms. Lillianchild’s frail voice led me to ask how old she was. She refused to say, but she did say that her boyfriend was ninety-two. They live in the Golden Years Senior Center in Burbank.”

  “A fucking nursing home?” Kilcullen said.

  “That’s kind of harsh,” Terry said. “Some of us like to think of it as God’s Waiting Room.”

  Kilcullen wagged a finger at Terry. “I have a good mind to send you over there, Biggs.”

  “Gosh, as much as I would love to meet Ms. Lillianchild and her decrepit old paramour, Mike and I are just too darn busy,” Terry said. “How about you, Lieutenant? Got time for a little geriatric tongue twirling?”

  Kilcullen’s rosy Irish face went crimson. He had already been raked over the coals by his bosses, and now Terry was busting his balls in front of me and Wendy. It’s not my job to keep Terry from crossing the line, but I try to bail him out when he does. I pushed him toward the door.

  “Don’t go,” Kilcullen said.

  We stopped in the doorway.

  Kilcullen took a deep breath, and the red in his face went to a mellower shade of pink. “I appreciate the fact that you’re trying to separate us, Mike,” he said, “but this is my fault. I’ve obviously failed to motivate Detective Biggs.”