A Passing Curse (2011) (25 page)

“Murder?” she said, keeping her voice sweet. “But I thought you were accusing me of waving a sickle in the face of the deceased. That and a very heated argument. Murder is a big step. Murder is about a hundred miles from heated.”

“Syria,” the Chief said smugly. “Clark Milland. You remember now? Your fiance?”

“You’re right, Chief. You are not the first fat man to accuse me of murder. The other one was also sweaty, smelled bad, smoked a cigar, and spoke French. Do you speak French, Chief?”

His left eye-lid quivered.

“No? Well, this other one did and he asked me if I would suck him in French. A very diplomatic language. French is, I mean. It sounds romantic when they ask you something like that. Did you take it in school? No? Too bad. I declined, of course.”

The Chief shook his head as if he’d just woken up. “You what?”

“I declined. I said I would bite his dick off, spit it out, and then his balls. And, you know what, he believed me. I could say it in French for you. It sounds romantic in French, but since you didn’t take it in school…well, I think the effect would be lost. Nes Pa?”

His jaw quivered. He clenched his hands. “There’s no call for that kind of talk, Miss Webber. No call whatsoever. This is not a joke, I warn you.”

“Miss Webber is it? How nice. You really make me feel welcome. And I am taking you as seriously as I can, but, as I said before, Chief, you don’t have merde. See, it does sound better in French.”

The Chief stared at her. “Did you know Reese, your brand new boyfriend, was in the vampire hunting business, too? He has quite a track record.”

“Too? Reese hunts vampires?” She smiled. She might learn something, yet. “Please, Chief, do tell. I’m always interested in hearing what Reese has been up to.”

“Anaheim Vampire? Ring a bell?”

“No bells, but then I’ve been out of the country. The Anaheim Vampire? I didn’t know they had any. Please, go on. Don’t leave out the good parts.”

“I’ll capsulise: Reese tracked down a serial murder suspect. Only a suspect, mind you, and emptied his pistol into him. There was a struggle, sure, maybe the suspect even resisted arrest, at least that was the story, but a lot of people thought Reese held court in the street. Are you familiar with that expression? It’s when a policeman appoints himself judge, prosecutor, defense lawyer, jury, and executioner. Anyway, the reason Reese is here, in this town, no matter what he tells you, is because the man he killed, Richard Lamb, was really named Homer Wermels, a hometown boy. Reese is even living in his old apartment. He even thinks, I do believe, that Ajax Rasmussen is behind it all.”

“Really? And what do you believe?” At least she’d been right about Reese. He was not retired. “I see from your pictures that you and Ajax seem to have a…let’s say, an understanding? So if Ajax is behind it all, and it certainly looks like he’s behind you, where does that put you in all this, Chief?”

“What matters is I have two killings. I have a pair of killings in a formerly very quiet beach town and I have a pair of killers.”

“A pair of killers?” she said. “Reese and me? You think that we…?”

The Chief nodded.

“But didn’t you hire Reese? That means one of the killers is working for you and that doesn’t look good. Not at all, Chief.”

“I didn’t hire him.”

“Some one did. Was it Ajax? If Ajax hired him that was not very smart because I think you’re right about Reese, he doesn’t like Ajax.”

“I know about your first job for Mr. Rasmussen. Your first job in Romania turned into a pretty good mess, didn’t it? I know about the soldiers.”

“The soldiers?”

“The three dead ones.”

“I remember, now. Yes. Three soldiers. I heard their heads were missing. In Romania talk was I wanted the trophies. But the Romanians are so dramatic. It’s in their blood.”

“You want my head, Miss Webber?”

She laughed. “With all due respect, Chief. I don’t want any part of you. Especially not your head. Besides, I think you’ll need it.”

When Halloran started snipping various cords and blood vessels and removing Ramon’s viscera, Reese went outside. The late afternoon sun felt cold on his face. A mountain of fog loomed off the coast. He headed for the beach.

He touched his breast pocket and felt the fangs he’d taken from Lung Butter Bill, right next to the porcelain fangs in the plastic bag. He sat on a bus bench and compared them. The plastic teeth were cheap, but authentic looking with healthy red gums, nine or ten dollars in any party gag shop. The two teeth that Ramon had carried in his pocket were custom made and surgically implanted, grafted into the bone. Probably not teeth for a dog. Probably the teeth that Rusty claimed Ramon had knocked out of the first Indian skeleton. He should ask her if the Santa Marina Indians, way back when, had had dental surgeons.

When Reese returned, Halloran was positioning the ceiling camera over the clothed body of Cheevy. Ramon lay flat faced and blank eyed, roughly sewn up with heavy string, pulled tight, the skin puckering in on itself. Black sutures poked across the top of his scalp like plastic hair.

Halloran pulled his mask down. “Had this young man been to a masquerade ball?”

“It’s how he dressed. Vampires were his thing. Gothic.”

“He looks anemic,” Halloran said and shot off a series of pictures. The camera flashes made the body jump. With surgical shears, Halloran cut through the side of Cheevy’s jacket and shirt, cut off the sleeves, cut from the shoulders to the collar. He slid off the jacket and shirt and put them both in a large plastic bag and sealed it.

“In a real morgue I’d have a few assistants,” he complained.

Reese took the hint and held Cheevy’s shoulders while Halloran pulled off the boots. Cheevy felt stiff, like hard rubber and cold to the touch.

Cheevy wore no socks. His feet were tiny and wrinkled and very white. Halloran undid the velvet pants and stripped them over the legs like baggy gloves.

“He didn’t have any next of kin,” Halloran said. “I checked. You know anything about him? Do you know what he did for a living?”

“He owned a vampire store,” Reese said. Cheevy wore no underwear. Everything was very white and, like the feet, prune shriveled. “It looks like he just got out of a long, hot bath,” Reese added.

“It does that, sometimes, with major blood loss,” Halloran said. “The skin collapses. We are shaped by fluid. There was no blood at the scene?”

“Not a drop. He was killed somewhere else.”

Halloran looked at him but said nothing. After he swung away the camera, Halloran prodded and poked the body. “Secondary rigor has set in but not much evidence of lividity, due mainly to lack of blood.”

He brought over a box of cotton balls and rolled Cheevy on his side. “I don’t want another mess.” Halloran first inserted a rectal swab. He raised his eyebrows, removed the swab, dug a bit with his gloved index finger, and pulled out a surprisingly large purple ball.

“Some diet,” Halloran said, holding the ball to the light and rotating it until it became clear what it was. “A plastic grape?”

“Look inside.”

Halloran checked the grape for fingerprints, a quick viewing through a magnifying glass, then washed it in the sink. He pulled the needle out of the grape, along with a small package of heroin. He held it up so Reese could see.

“It’s an old junkie’s trick,” Reese said. “A junkie’s kit. The grape holds the needle, the fix, and doubles as a syringe when you squeeze it. Cheevy was probably on parole or probation. He had to keep his secrets.”

Halloran shrugged, finished with the cotton ball, put the anal swab in an evidence bag, and turned Cheevy’s arm over. He pointed to the needle marks on the inner elbow. “I’ll check for an overdose,” Halloran said, “but loss of blood is what killed him.”

Halloran flopped Cheevy on his back and examined the two small wounds beneath the ear, the wounds, Reese knew, that fit the plastic teeth. It was as if the killer had left this little clue simply as a joke. Had it been Ajax? The round bruise he’d spotted at the dumpster was barely visible.

“Insect bites,” Halloran said and kept poking around. “Look at the veins. Flattened.” He touched the gash on the forehead. “The body is remarkably free of wounds or trauma besides the blow to the head and that appears to be postmortem.”

Halloran removed his gloves. He tilted up his face shield, picked up a pen, and started to write. Reese asked, “You mind if I look?” He was still wearing gloves.

Halloran nodded and kept writing. “Where did the blood go?” he said. “The needle tracks on his arms were for injection. No holes large enough to draw that much blood through.”

Reese touched the bruise on the neck. He brought his fingers away and noticed flesh-colored cream smeared on the latex. “There’s a hole in the jugular,” he said. Halloran came over.

“I see a bruise now,” Halloran said, peering closely, spreading the hole with his fingers. “A big needle. Number eight? But clean, a very nice job. That’s where the blood went.” He caught a dab of the cream on the tip of his glove and held it up to the light. “The hole was covered with what appears to be Glickner’s Wonder Cream, a human bondo favored by embalmers. That’s why I didn’t see it earlier.”

Reese wasn’t going to argue. He had no idea how Halloran knew it was Glickner’s Wonder Cream or a number eight needle. Halloran was guessing, making up for missing the hole in the first place.

Halloran looked at him. “Not many killers go out of their way to drain the blood. The Anaheim Vampire did, but that was your case, and he’s supposed to be dead. Didn’t your killer flush the blood out with water?”

“Yeah. And he didn’t use Glickner’s. See the blue tint around the puncture wound?”

Halloran bent closer. He nodded. “Yes, barely.”

“A suction cup. Cheevy wasn’t drained. He was sucked dry. When blood is flushed with water, the water stays in the blood vessels. They don’t flatten.”

“You may be right,” Halloran said grudgingly. “Still, it’s a coincidence, especially with you showing up.”

Reese didn’t bother asking him what he meant. He was sick of explaining the Anaheim Vampire. He pulled out the vial he’d taken from Ajax’s office. “Can you test this?”

Halloran held the colorless liquid up to the light. He shook it slightly. “Toxicology? Drug scan? Is it organic? Do you want a full panel?”

“Find out what it is.”

Halloran nodded and looked around. There was a look of some amazement on his face. Like maybe he hadn’t seen everything. And if Reese was right, this case was adding up to something that no one had seen in some time. “Do you hear that?” Halloran asked.

Reese recognized the voice.

“West Side Story?”

She did not have a bad voice, Reese thought. She was really belting it out - “A Boy who kills has no heart! A Boy who kills cannot love! A boy like that will give you sorrow. You’ll find another boy tomorrow!”

17

“It’s about time you got back,” she said. Her fingers were spliced through the heavy wire mesh of a twelve-inch circular sound hole, set two inches below a glass viewing port, one-foot square, also wire meshed. He decided it was like watching her on a small TV screen.

“I told the Chief we spent the night together,” he said. He’d rushed over to the jail when he’d first heard her singing for the jailer and told her to hang on while he straightened things out. He’d only been gone an hour. She was getting out. Some people were never satisfied. “The whole night. After looking at Cheevy’s body I came to you for solace is the story, is why you’re getting out. I’m your alibi. I’m the reason you’re not shelling out a fortune for a lawyer and bail.” She didn’t seem impressed. “Murder is still a fairly serious charge,” he reminded her.

“Is that what they’re calling it now, Solace? I told the Chief I was alone all night. You’re alibi makes me look like a liar.” She smiled. “And a tramp.”

“He thought you were being discreet.” He’d just left the Chief who’d been nodding absently like he didn’t give a damn whether Rusty stayed in jail or not, like the only reason he’d thrown her in was to get everyone’s attention. The Chief had also gave him a brief report on Syria and Romania. She’d had an interesting year so far, he’d say that for her. “I also asked the Chief to prove how you dragged a three-hundred pound man over a ceiling beam when you only weigh one hundred and forty-five pounds, dripping wet.”

“One-forty.”

She was locked in a tiny padded cell removed from the main cell block. The other cells were empty except for an old man snoring and chewing on the corner of an orange jail blanket.

“Did you mention the great sex we had?” she asked. “How I started screaming higher, higher and banging the walls?”

“He didn’t want details.”

The jailer walked up swinging a ring full of keys. Like most jailers he did not seem worried about the time. He wasn’t locked up and he had nowhere special to go.

“Didn’t ask if I’m good in bed?”

The jailer, a seemingly stalwart, gloomy man, not much over five feet tall, fumbled with the keys. He glanced at Reese, winked, and said, “Ask anybody.”

“I don’t think he liked the singing,” she said to Reese.

“No, I liked it,” the jailer said. “I’m sorry I joked. You’re nothing at all like the girls we have in here. They charge money for it, you know.”

“How much?” she asked.

“Usually about…” the jailer started, then grinned. “Now your joking me. I really did like your singing.” He looked at Reese. “You?”

“I was waiting for, ‘I Feel Pretty’,” he said.

“Do you know that one?” the jailer asked her. He looked through his keys.

“It’s a favorite,” she said and touched the stuffed wall. “I think the padding gives my voice a certain…Ethel Merman quality.”

“Well,” the jailer said. “It’s something, your voice.” He eventually found the right key, fumbled it into the slot, and opened the door.

“What do you think of my boyfriend?

The jailer eyed him. “This guy?”

“We sorta hava thing.”

“I don’t know. Can he sing?”

“Can you?” she asked.

“I’m not singing,” Reese said.

“Do you think that’s fair,” she asked the jailer. “I mean, I have to admit to sleeping with him to get out of jail. He should at least sing me a tune.”