by Lee Killough
She started, eyes widening and ears reddening. “Oh! Oh my god.” She jumped to her feet.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, fine! I was just walking and…” Her voice trailed off…casting for an excuse to be here?
He knew why she came…drawn by some vampire pheromone for luring prey. The reason Lane’s one-night stands came begging for more. Even Velvet wanted another go with him, and prostitutes did not enjoy sex. And of course he had strained toward Lane’s mouth in that alley, welcoming her lips, tongue, teeth.
“I mean,” Maggie said hurriedly, “I needed to tell you we’ve cancelled the waffle and sausage feed. It’s always a kind of celebration with family and friends and…I — we — just don’t feel like — Anyway, it’s off.” She started down steps. “I’ll go now.”
He blocked her with an arm. “Please don’t. Come in.”
“No!” She shoved at his arm. Her voice tightened. “I’m not looking for another pity fuck!”
Was that her assessment of it. Why did she beat up on herself? “Did you ever consider I might have needed last night as much as you did?” Maybe he did, remembering how good it felt holding her afterward.
“I didn’t need…” she began heatedly, then broke off to frown suspiciously at him. “You…?”
Could he stand ripping open the old wound for her benefit? “My wife died in a traffic accident last year. Sometimes you need to be reminded you’re alive.” More or less.
Maggie caught her breath. “Your wife… I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” Instantly sympathetic.
He nodded. “Let’s have tea.”
A hand under her elbow steered her up the steps and inside, where they hung their slickers on the coat rack. He put mugs of water in the microwave again and — oh, hell, he might as well — reached into the fridge for blood.
“What’s that?” she asked.
Of course she would ask. “A liquid protein health and energy drink.” Deal with this head on. Avoid any suggestion of furtiveness. “Try some.” He poured a little into a glass.
She swirled the glass and sniffed. “It looks like blood.”
Jump in with both feet. “It has beef blood in it.” When she wrinkled her nose he said, “There are African tribes who drink a blood and milk mixture as a regular part of their diet. But it is an acquired taste.”
She sipped, grimaced, and pushed away the glass. “It isn’t a taste I want to acquire.”
Which should make his supply safe from further curiosity on her part. She had not even asked where the beef blood came from.
He finished off the blood in the glass, to her obvious disgust, then brought her tea from the microwave and sat down with his. “Look, last night we…comforted each other. Think of it like that.” She started to speak, to protest, from her expression, and he cut her off with: “It’s a human need. I know an ex-hooker in San Francisco who made very good money in World War II meeting that need for soldiers and sailors on leave or shipping out maybe to die. So what happened doesn’t reflect weakness in you. Like I said before, you have bigger balls than many cops I’ve known. Or were you afraid I’d write your name on the restroom wall.”
She went bright red. “I…ah…I…no, I never thought anything like that.”
He smiled at her. “For a cop you’re a terrible liar. But I understand, since you don’t know me well enough to have a better opinion of me than that.”
The red deepened. “I’m sorry. I guess I should get to know you better.”
“I’d like that.”
She eyed him for several moments, then suddenly stood, with the look of someone acting before she lost her nerve, and unbuttoned her jeans. “These are wet. Can I dry them before I leave?”
Even given the vampire lure, that surprised him. Still, to be a gentleman, he should rise to the occasion, right? He stood, too. “Do you need help out of them?”
This time they unfolded the bed, and in comfort, proceeded slowly, exploring each other. Though they ended as fiercely and explosively as last night.
“Wow!” Maggie collapsed on him. “Wow!” Rolling off, she snuggled against him. “Yee-haw.”
It had to be the vampire thing. Not even Marti, unstinting in her enthusiasm, ever gave him a wow yee-haw. Nice to know unlife had one benefit.
He did not remember falling asleep, but woke near sunset to find a note by the pillow. Your energy drink certainly seems to work for you. It may not be to my taste but you are. I think, and hope I’m not misjudging you again, that we need to “comfort” each other regularly. And maybe even find a time we can go on an actual date. I tried waking you before I left for Mass, but you were dead to the world. I could hardly tell you were breathing. See you at the station. Maggie.
14
She saw him…but other than giving him a warm and breezy greeting — countering the continued drizzle outside — said nothing hinting at last night, nor indicated any change in their relationship with her body language. Then she came out of the locker room with her purse and paused to eye Nat, standing at the forms rack dropping reports into the Return To Officer box.
“I never noticed before, Sarge, but you have a nice butt. Yours isn’t bad either, Mikaelian.”
And took off down the hall, out the rear entrance.
Nat and Sue Ann stared after her. Garreth made himself do likewise while grinning inwardly. Nice move, making him an “afterthought” in her wisecrack. He had no trouble accepting the way she wanted to play this. Around here he doubted it could be kept quiet long, but when they were found out, Maggie might be ready for the smart remarks and tasteless practical jokes sure to follow.
“That’s a first,” Nat said. “I wonder what got into her.”
“Or who,” Sue Ann said.
Garreth ticked his tongue. “Don’t tell me you think getting laid is the answer to whatever ails a woman.”
“Yes,” she shot back, “…and for whatever ails a man, too. I know it’s always good for my Leland’s tension.” She wiggled her brows, then narrowed her eyes at him. “Wouldn’t hurt you, either, Garreth.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, and escaped before she saw more than he wanted.
Rain continued until about three, giving him another quiet shift. With Maggie waiting for him in the dark in his apartment when he reached home.
She blushed. “Helen Schoning stopped me outside the municipal court today and gave me a key. She said she’s afraid I’ll catch pneumonia on the steps. I’ll give it back if you don’t want me to have it.”
He considered. The idea of anyone being able to walk in while he slept and was vulnerable chilled him. But was that any different than letting himself go to sleep with her still there? “Keep it.”
Only when she sighed did he realize she had been holding her breath waiting for his answer. “Helen also asked if you will please drive your car to work tomorrow, even if it isn’t raining, and park on her side of the drive when you come home. Why?”
“So a friend can use the garage.”
Her eyes widened. “A — Helen is — ”
“As entitled to her privacy as I’m sure she feels we are. So you can be reassured no one will hear about us from her just as I never look to see if I know her friends’ cars. Now, how do you rate the rest of the butts in the BPD?”
15
It rained again for his Monday shift. Maggie did not come over and the bed already felt empty without her.
Tuesday dawned with a clear blue sky, crisp autumn air, and leaves glowing incandescent yellow and red. Tuesday Baumen buried Diane and Jonah.
Garreth made himself wake up and attend the funerals. Not exactly ordered to, but the memo Danzig posted on Monday made his feelings clear.
I think it would be a mark of respect, and demonstration that this department’s regard for accident victims and their families goes beyond working those accidents, if as many officers as possible attend the Barnes and Wiltz services, in uniform. My family and I will be there.
&nb
sp; So Garreth made sure he was, too…uniform crisp, gear belt polished. And went well fed to curb hunger amid all that blood scent. They held Jonah’s service in the morning. PD officers and their families sat in a block. Counting noses — Danzig, Lieutenant Kaufman, Nat, Maggie, Duncan — Garreth wondered who was minding the store besides Bill Pfannenstiel.
Reserve Officer Chuck George it appeared, who drove the patrol car leading the procession from the packed First Christian Church to Mount of Olives cemetery.
Diane’s service came in the afternoon, at the equally crowded St. Thomas More Catholic church…where a horse blanket covered with show ribbons, mostly blue or purple, draped the casket. Pfannenstiel replaced Duncan in the PD contingent, though Garreth spotted the woman and teenage girl who had attended Jonah’s funeral with Duncan — his sister and the niece who wanted to barrel race like Diane — elsewhere in the congregation. He sat next to Maggie. During the service, her hands and jaw clenched with the effort of keeping her composure. He put a hand over the near fist, and her hand turned to interlace fingers tightly with his. Beyond her, Garreth saw Martin Lebekov notice and smile.
Since the cemetery lay just across from the church, they had no vehicle procession. Everyone walked. Sterling-Weiss had a vintage buckboard waiting in front of the church, draped in black. It carried the casket, still covered by the horse blanket, across to the cemetery. Followed by a bay horse tacked in western saddle and bridle with cowboy boots turned backward in the stirrups like a military funeral, then the rest of the mourners. At the grave site, John and Anita Sterling folded the horse blanket and presented it to Diane’s parents like a flag.
Garreth did not see a dry eye in the house, including his.
Maggie had the bed unfolded when he reached home after his shift. Not for sex this time, but to cuddle against him and talk about the pain of losing her mother to breast cancer when Maggie was fifteen. Holding her, he thought of his father accusing him of burying himself here. There were, he reflected, far worse places to be buried.
16
Wednesday, their dead buried, the majority of Baumen began moving on. Halloween decorations disappeared from yards. Scott Dreiling resumed driving just short of violations and pushing his home curfew. The real flowers in the memorials on 282 wilted. Nat handed Garreth a memo from Danzig. The department was beginning to receive requests for the home security checks Garreth had volunteered to perform, so he needed to make appointments with the citizens whose names and addresses appeared on the bottom of the memo.
He groaned. Gaining access to Baumen homes seemed hardly worth the effort now, no longer than he was likely to be here, but…he better play his role to the end. With the sun setting about six-thirty now, late afternoon and early evening inspections should not be too uncomfortable.
Before going out on patrol, he called the citizens and made appointments for the next three days, then spent the rest of the week being invited into dwellings before going on duty, working his shift, riding herd on the now-normal Friday/Saturday cruises…and except for Saturday night, coming home to find Maggie waiting for him.
A Maggie who wanted to talk as much as have sex. Fine by him. Marti, too, had liked to talk. As then, he was content to listen, since it came without Judith’s implied You will be tested later. With Maggie he definitely preferred listening over, say, answering questions about Grandma Mikaelian. The trouble with lies was remembering what he said about her bogus death and Depression era boarding house.
While the apartment and bed felt lacking without Maggie, solitude did let him force himself to sleep so he could drag out for Maggie and Martin’s waffle and sausage feed in the morning. Arriving in dark glasses and his cowboy hat to fend off the bright autumn day, he found a crowd in their back yard similar to get-togethers at his parents’, except with fewer cops…just Nat and his family, Bill Pfannenstiel, and Sue Ann. Once Maggie handed him a plate of waffles and sausage and introduced him to everyone — Martin’s VFW buddies, fellow members of St. Thomas More, a gaggle of aunts and uncles, plus Pfannenstiel’s wife and a soft-spoken hulk and a female toddler who turned out to be Sue Ann’s husband and daughter — he further resisted daylight by sitting on the ground under a big cottonwood tree. There he cut the waffle and sausage into small bites and pretended to eat, while surreptitiously sneaking the pieces to four dogs who came with other guests but gravitated to him.
Looking around, it did not surprise him how many of the faces looked familiar from seeing them around town, nor that he had met two of the aunts without knowing their relationship to Maggie. He ran security checks at their houses on Friday. It would not have surprised him, given the town’s interlinking kinships, to find Anna here, too. He sat feeding the dogs and brooding about her. If only she were here, since he had been unable to arrange an encounter this week…not seen her in her yard nor out shopping on Thursday. With the weather appearing to bear out her prediction of an early, cold winter — temperatures crisp by day, dipping near freezing at night — he needed to know how that was affecting her thoughts about Acapulco.
Familiar blood and skin scents announced Maggie’s approach. She grinned. “Are all of us so overwhelming that you’re driven to a retreat with dogs?”
“No, I’m fine, just savoring the sausage. My compliments to your Uncle Leo.” He held up his fork with one of the last bites on it.
“Since that’s the case…” She brought more sausage.
To the dogs’ delight.
Settled against the tree and earth, he started to doze, when a boy’s voice roused him. “Blue doesn’t usually take to strangers.” One of Nat’s sons, staring at the Blue Heeler with its head on Garreth’s knee and along with the other dogs, mournfully eyeing the empty plate.
Yes, what was it with dogs and him. The thought prompted a joke reply. “It’s a kinship thing. He senses my secret identity as a werewolf.”
“Is that how you’re going to the wedding? I always thought weddings were boring but Dad says this one will be cool. Mark and I get to go trick and treating first and then wear our costumes to the wedding. I’m a Jedi.”
“I can’t go; I’m on duty.”
“Too bad.”
An opinion everyone at the station seemed to share when he came in Monday for duty.
Nat urged him to at least drop by the reception. “That’s where I’m catching up with Charly and the boys after I go home and change.”
Doris, looking bonier than ever in a witch’s costume complete with pointed hat, said, “You could bring me back a piece of the cake, maybe a piece of a tower, and tell me all about what everything looks like.”
“Are you going?” Garreth asked Maggie.
She shook her head. “I’d feel awkward since I wasn’t invited, but your uniform will look like just another costume. I’m going home to help Dad with the trick and treaters.”
He had seen the small forms as he walked to the station…tramping along the dark sidewalks undeterred by the appropriately heavy mist- Jedis and witches, ghosts, fairy princesses, a Crayon box, a TV set — glow sticks and loot bags in hand, followed by parents with flashlights. With trick and treaters calling Anna to her door, this might be a good night to catch her.
If Halloween mischief did not keep him busy elsewhere.
“How much vandalism should I anticipate dealing with?”
Nat and Maggie exchanged considering looks. Nat said, “There’s not usually too much and it’s rarely serious. Decorations knocked over, pumpkins smashed…at least one yard hit with toilet paper, usually a high school teacher’s. Soap or shaving cream on car and store windows.”
“Last year someone we never identified used a caulking gun on windows downtown,” Maggie said.
“With three different colors of caulk.” Nat grinned. “They were actually kind of artistic designs.”
Maggie frowned. “The store owners didn’t appreciate them. One year when I was still dispatching we had tombstones tipped over and spray painted.”
“So keep your eyes
open,” Nat said, “but use your judgement in dealing with the situations.”
Doris added, “Drive careful later. We’ve got a frost warning tonight.”
That could be a good thing, Garreth reflected, pulling on a jacket as he left the station. This mist freezing on mischief-inclined goblins might drive them indoors to warmth. The temperature was already dropping. Faint puffs of breath preceded him on his check-out walk around the patrol car.
Leaving the parking lot, he headed straight for Anna’s. If he wanted to catch her, he better try before parents took their chilly trick and treaters home. But to his disappointment, Anna appeared to be out. Only the light over the side door was on…not the front porch’s nor those in the front rooms. Lady Luck had frowned at him this week.
Cruising back down Pine, he passed the high school. Light shone inside the windows around the top of the gymnasium and streamed out through open double doors. A delivery van with Carolyn’s Catering and a Bellamy address and phone number on its side sat backed up to the doors…getting ready for the wedding reception.
He rolled on to Kansas Avenue…cruised down to the Pizza Hut and then north to Sonic. They had a few cars yet in their parking lots, and more vehicles parked around the Brown Bottle and VFW revealed customers and members there. Otherwise, very little stirred downtown. He crossed the tracks and started back south, mist turning the streetlights and the stoplight ahead of him fuzzy.
No…something stirred. A roar of loud pipes and chorus of haunted house shrieks came at him from the far end of Kansas. The pipes he recognized: Scott Dreiling’s Trans Am.
As the car neared him, he saw Scott had attached an oval device to its grill with lights inside flashing in sequence, giving the impression of a single light sweeping side to side…making the Trans Am look like KITT from Knight Rider. In honor of the season, Scott and a buddy in the passenger seat wore skull masks, with the passenger waving a plastic scythe out the window. Giving Garreth a one-finger salute, Scott gunned up Kansas — unfortunately holding his speed at twenty — squeaked through the traffic light on yellow, and trailing the shrieks, shot on north into the mist.
