The Scene (15 page)

CHAPTER 15

              It was after eight when we hit our first exit for Fresno. It looked like a mini L.A., just as dirty and dank only without the swanky snobs that fill Los Angeles. The town I thought to be a small hick village was beginning to appear as a sprawling metropolis. We were on the freeway for quite some time before we reached an area of town that seemed reasonable enough to get off at.

             
Tatum flipped her signal and merged onto Shaw Ave; traffic was crap. We could hardly squeeze into the lane as other motorists were paying no mind to the yellow light and the backed up lane.

             
“Get outta my way, asshole!” Tatum screamed out her window.

             
We pulled into the first well-lit fast food joint we came across. Tatum typed the word hotel into her GPS. A few clicks of a button and we were back on the road seconds later. We ended up at the La Quintana just up the street.

             
“Like a little L.A., huh?” Tatum asked as she exited the car.

             
“Yeah, just a little.” I got out too and stretched my legs. We were in a weird part of town. It was like someone threw a bunch of brightly colored businesses into the middle of a field. There were a few dilapidated buildings hidden away in dark corners, but I could see brighter lights in the distance. I expected we were only on the edge of town and the fun stuff was just over that way.

             
Tatum and I checked in and got our little plastic room key. We had nowhere to begin and not a friend in sight. All we had was the number Mike had given me for his friend who works for the police department.

             
“Ugh. I need to check in with Mike before he sends the search party.” Grabbing my phone, I plopped down on the bed.

             
The other line rang. And rang.
Answer damn it!

             
“Yeah.” Mikes sleepy voice came over the line.

             
“You’re still sleeping? You were asleep when we saw you at noon. It’s now eight thirty.”

             
“Yeah, I’m fucking tired okay. Multiple homicides mean little sleep for Mike. You didn’t call when you left. I waited for your call and fell asleep. Where are you?” He sounded annoyed.

             
“We are staying at the La Quintana on Shaw in Fresno. It’s like L.A. here just without the cool shit. We’re going to get some sleep and get started in the morning. We’ve been running through ideas and I think we have a solid one. Just gotta see if I can’t pinpoint my instincts.” I smiled proud of my detective abilities.

             
“Yeah, you do that, just be fucking careful. Did you take your gun?” I was surprised he asked that, seeing as though he hated the fact that I bought it in the first place.

             
“Yeah, right here in my bag. Don’t worry, all we’re doing is picking up some paper from a cop. How dangerous can that be?” I lied. I had brought my gun, but in no way did I plan on merely retrieving documents.

“Whatever. Don’t get into trouble or I’ll kill you myself. Call me tomorrow.” I expected him to hang up but the line remained open.

              “Okay grouch. Get some sleep. Night, Mike.”

             
“Night, babe.” The phone clicked dead at that point. I told myself he was half asleep and recalling conversations from eons ago. I didn’t believe myself either.

             
“Sleepy time.” Tatum was curling up into her bed.

             
I left the room and changed my clothes for bed. My stomach was tight with anticipation of the following events.

Just my luck we’ll leave here even more confused than we are now.

              I snuggled in my bed too, closed my eyes, and fell asleep.

             
I awoke with the knowledge that last night was the first eight hours I’d gotten in a week. I felt fantastic. Tatum and I didn’t waste any time. She and I were up and dressed in record time. I’d made the phone call to Mike’s ‘friend’, no names needed.

             
“Where is it that we’re supposed to meet that guy?” Tatum asked while applying her lipstick.

             
“He’s going to call back in a minute. He needs to make sure he can get his hands on the files I want.”

             
“Oh. So who is he? Someone super cool? Ooh, is he hot?”             

             
“Tatum, I only talked to him on the phone. How would I know? Besides, he’s not super cool; he’s a file clerk and he doesn’t work for free.” I sat on the bed and dug through my purse for all the cash I could muster. In the end, I had counted twenty-seven bucks and thirty-two cents. It would have been thirty-three cents but that last penny was mysteriously sticky. I doubt I could get anything but lunch with twenty-seven bucks. I sat pouting on the bed clutching my fives and ones when Tatum came out of the bathroom.

             
“My goodness, woman. What do you think you’re going to get with that?” she said, astounded by my lack of preparation.

             
I deepened my pout and began to wonder if I could find my bank around here. I had money in the bank. I doubted the double agent would accept debit cards.

             
“Here.” Tatum handed me a wad of cash.

             
“What is this? Where’d you get all this cash?” I was in awe. There had to have been over three hundred bucks in small bills.

             
“You know I hate banks. That’s my purse stash, kid.” Tatum flashed her best smile and made her way outside for a smoke.

             
“You think three hundred’s enough?”

             
“We’ll make it enough,” she called from the doorway.

             
Moments later, my phone rang. It was the man of the hour. He asked that we meet him at a taco shop on Blackstone. I was kind of glad because I was starving and the truck stop taco had pretty much sucked.

             
I hung up the phone and threw my shoes on. I had no idea where I was or where I was headed so I told Tatum the cross streets. We would have to depend on her GPS from here on out.                            

             
Driving through town, I began to realize that Fresno is a cluster fuck. In L.A., there are definite lines between suburbs and business sections, in the main city anyway. Here it was a mottled mess of sprawling homes with three-car garages and upscale elementary schools; clinics and law offices; ghetto two bedroom homes and brightly colored botanicas. Well, I guess it isn’t so different than L.A. - same shit, just crammed into a smaller locale.

The building that held the taco shop was a seventies orange and yellow motif. A once bright yellow sign was now dingy with age. There was graffiti scratched into the glass doors and random decorations clung to the windows. The smell, however, well that was a different story. I was very hungry and that smell was pulling me in like a tractor
beam.

             
Tatum and I posted-up on a concrete bench that sat in front of the building, and waited.

             
“Can we eat? I’m starving?” I whined.

             
“Stop whining, we’ll eat when we’re done.” She sounded like my mommy.

             
I pouted like a child and sat quietly until our new friend arrived. We hadn’t waited very long before a dark blue Honda pulled into the parking lot. The car parked quickly and a young dark skinned man stepped out of the driver’s side. The man glanced around nervously as he walked toward us. He reminded me of a dealer on the streets, and in his hand was my drug.

             
The man nodded his head toward me and said, “You Dylan?”

             
I nodded back and we all walked into the restaurant. Without ordering, we all sat in the very back; we didn’t appear suspicious at all. 

             
“I think this is what you want. They are paper copies, taking the originals on an open case would get noticed pretty quickly.” The young man spoke with a slight accent, a mix between Spanish and Californian. He handed me the thick envelope. I noticed a name tattooed on his forearm above a cross and a few roses.

             
“How much?” I asked harshly with my best poker face on.

             
“I need the money. I don’t set a price or I wouldn’t get business. All I ask is that you remember this is my job on the line, and that job doesn’t support much.”

I thought about the name on his arm and wondered if it was a child’s name. I reached into my purse and handed him the wad of money.

“You a reporter?” he asked, attempting to keep the look of surprise off his face.

“Usually, yeah.” I opened the envelope and glanced at the first photo. “What’s in here?” I shoved the papers back into the envelope to wait until I
’d eaten and prepared myself for more dead girls.

             
“ME report, photos, a few notes I found in the files. The official reports are still sitting on desks but all of this was together and floating around the precinct already. I keep my mouth shut and pretend I don’t speak English very well and I get left alone.” He smirked. 

             
“Thanks. This will help a lot.” A gave him a little smile. I was hoping he would leave soon so I could eat.

             
“Yeah, you writing a story?”

             
“Among other things.” I looked him in the eye intently for a moment. At that, he nodded and left the table. I think he got the hint. He made his way to the counter and picked up an order he must have called in earlier. He waved as he drove away in his little blue Honda.

             
“That was quick,” Tatum said getting up from the table.

             
“Yeah. Food now?” I smiled and walked toward the counter.

             
We stood together before the large yellow sign that held the menu, so many choices. Mostly your typical Mexican food, but one thing did stand out.

             
What’s a California burrito?

CHAPTER 16

              My stomach finally full and now back at the hotel, I was prepared to look through my new purchase. Tatum and I settled in on my bed and opened the envelope. I took all of the photos and laid them out on the bed. Then I matched the ME reports for each girl to their photo. This was a long process seeing as though none of the photos were labeled with name or date. Once I finally had everything laid out as I wanted it, Tatum and I began analyzing the photos.              

             
Beginning with the first victim, we scoured every pixel. The first girl seemed to have been the worst. She was a little bruised up, whereas the others weren’t. It was vaguely obvious even to us that this was the first. Sloppy and unorganized, yet there was a certain methodical practice evident that matched the others. Reading the ME report, we discovered that this girl, like the others, had been drugged and bled intravenously, via fissures through non-major veins. Even from the beginning it was obvious that the killer had some form of medical training. The ME report on the first girl stated her name was unknown. She seemed to be a prostitute and a transient. Judging by her hygiene and general appearance, she wasn’t very well taken care of.

             
The second victim wasn’t much better. She, like the first, was listed as a transient and prostitute. Unlike the first, however, this one had a name: Mary Stewart. She, like the others, was blonde, thin, and no one. She mattered to no one who mattered. She was dead and no one cared. She also had the same incisions and punctures, without the obvious bruises as the first, however. Her eyes were open. I knew her name and I could see her eyes as she lay in a dirty alley, dead.

             
I had barely mustered up the nerve to look over the third. There wasn’t any difference that we could see between the second and third. She wasn’t a natural blonde like the others, and it showed. I began to wonder if the killer stripped her down and got pissed when he saw she wasn’t a real blonde. There wasn’t any sign of aggravation in the cuts on her wrists, as I would assume there would be if he were upset with her. She had a name too: Brittney Roth, twenty-eight. She looked more like forty-eight; drugs if I had to guess. Meth is the usual suspect.

All of this seemed as though it were a job. Just another girl to kill, no passion in the kill as you might see in other serials. It looked as if the killer felt very comfortable with all but the first. Maybe he got excited for his first or hadn’t planned it out well enough, who knows. But now it seemed the act of draining a body dry was as mundane to him as going to the grocery store.

“What do you think?” Tatum’s sudden words startled me from my trance.

“I’m not sure. I see a bunch a dead hookers and I think I’ve seen too many of those as of late. I see…
,” I held the last photo up to get a last glance at it before stating my theory, “comfort.” Tatum looked at me like I was insane.

“Umm…okay
,” she said confused.

“Not my comfort, his. I see him, his routine, all of it, is his comfort zone. He’s not fumbling around or fucking things up. He gets the kill, gets his blood, and gets gone. I think the kill happens somewhere else and then the body is dumped. I
don’t think he’s drinking all of the blood, but maybe storing it somewhere for later. I mean really, how much blood can one consume before they get really sick? He can’t be gulping it all down in one sitting.”

“Well, who says he actually drinks it? All they know is it’s gone, no one knows if it’s being drank or not. Why would you assume he’s drinking it? You know there aren’t really vampires
, right? I mean, this is just some guy, a regular sun-doesn’t-kill-him kind of guy. Who just might be killing hookers and taking their blood.” Even she looked confused after that one, and it came out of her mouth.

             
“The ME report from Hanford said they found saliva on the puncture wound.” I was straight forward with it.
Real or not someone is killing people and taking their blood.

             
“Oh. Well, regardless, I don’t think one person can consume that much blood in one night. Do you know what that would do to you?”

             
“Iron makes you constipated.” I shrugged.

             
“Ouch. That’s a pretty hefty turd then.” She smiled and we continued sifting through the papers.

             
I came across the notes the file clerk had mentioned. They weren’t exactly police reports but they did have some key information. The first body was discovered by a handful of farm workers in the early morning hours on February twentieth, two months and seventeen days ago. She was discovered in a grape vineyard on Ave 12 and Highway 99. The second girl turned up around noon, two weeks later, the first of the dumpster girls, in a small alleyway near the community college in Fresno. The last of the Fresno girls was found on March twenty-fourth, not even two months ago. This was another dumpster drop. This dumpster belonged to a small apartment that housed mostly students. This guy was moving fast. At that point, it was about one girl every couple of weeks.

We’ve had two in L.A. in the last week
.

A phone number was scribbled on the last note with a name
: Shantressa.

             
“Hey you think this is a lead? Maybe?” I showed Tatum the phone number.

             
“Dude, call it. Ask for the girl and see what happens. Roll with it.” She was way too excited.

             
“Why do I say I’m calling?” I thought it was a stupid idea.

             
“Make something up,” she urged.

             
“You want to call so bad? You do it.” I shoved the paper and my phone her way.

             
“Fine.” She took the items and jumped from the bed.

             
Tatum dialed and I waited. She paced the floor as she waited for the recipient to answer. We waited in silence, for what seemed like forever, before someone finally answered.

             
“Hi, Shantressa?” She made herself sound young and dumb.

Perfect
.

             
“This is…Landra…you don’t remember?” Tatum was listening intently. “Yeah, that’s right online.” I hated only hearing one-half of the conversation. I was standing right next to Tatum by this time trying to listen in. She hates that.

             
“Tonight? Was that tonight? Of course we can make it. What will you be wearing?” She paused to listen. “Me? Well…did you see that pic I sent you with that one outfit?” Long pause. “I never sent you a pic? Sorry, I thought I had. Well I think you’ll like it. Should I bring anything?” I could hear faint muffled sounds coming from the other end. “I can do that for sure. Oh, can I bring my friend? She doesn’t really have any friends and she follows me around everywhere, but she’s cool.” Tatum really never lost the high school mentality, that’s for sure. “Fuckin’ awesome dude. We’ll see you tonight. Hey, text me the address.” More muffled sounds. “Thanks, bye.” She hung up and smiled smugly at me.

             
“So?” I asked, with the patience of a two year old.

             
“We’re going to an underground party tonight. You’re welcome.” She handed my phone back to me.

             
“What did she say? Who is she? How does she know who you are? Or, aren’t?” I was full of questions and lacking all the answers.

             
“Calm down, calm down. She doesn’t know who I am. She runs an online chat room for… wait for it…vampires. She thinks I’m someone from the chat that she invited to this shindig. She has no clue who she invited. I’m sure it was a mass invite.”

             
“Wait,” I said.

             
“What?”

             
“What are we going to wear?” I felt the sudden fear in my stomach just like high school. Only this time I was going to show up
not
dressed like a freak and look like an idiot.

             
“Don’t worry we have plenty of time. We’ll just go shopping!”

             
“Great.” I rolled my eyes.

             
“There has to be a Hot Topic around here somewhere…”

Hot Topic, the epitome of dark loser-dom. Wonderful.

              Well, four hours and two-hundred and fifty dollars later, we had our costumes. We were incognito tonight. We were no longer Dylan and Tatum, journalists from L.A. We were Landra and Charmaine, vampires from the underworld. Luckily, Tatum travels regularly with a bag full of make-up so she’d have us dolled up in no time.

             
“Do you think we’ll be okay tonight? I mean, no one is going to drink my blood or anything right?” I’ll admit I was a little nervous.

             
“No, you’ll be fine. I’m sure it’s just a bunch of stupid kids who think they are Dracula or something dancing around in their crushed velvet capes to moody music.  We’re okay. Promise.”

             
“Ugh, okay. Should I call Mike first?” I asked not really wanting to.

             
“Will he approve?” she asked, as if she didn’t know.

             
“No.”

             
“Then, no.” At that, she shut the bathroom door and turned the shower on.

             
I sat for a few moments on the edge of the bed thinking about Mike. I knew I had to do something about him and me. I didn’t know what but I knew I had to do something. I loved him; that I was sure of. Did I need him? Not really. Did I want him? Well, that’s a story for another day. I was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed. All of this was too much for my boring little life. 

             
Ex-boyfriends, dead girls, and vampires, oh my!