Blood Crimes: Book One (15 page)

      “If you can believe it,” he said, “before you infected me I was a vegetarian. Big cosmic joke on me, huh?”

      
M
etcalf didn’t say anything. If Bronson had looked carefully enough, he would’ve noticed a muscle twitching along
M
etcalf’s left eye. He would have also seen that
M
etcalf’s hands were clenched at his side. Bronson’s display of disgust grew more exaggerated as he emptied the pint bag into his mouth.
M
etcalf kept his stare frozen straight ahead. After some more minutes of blessed silence, Bronson had to comment about how watching what a newbie went through was the part he hated most about these trips.

      “Damn, you can already see his head changing shape. That’s gotta hurt. It gives me the willies thinking about it. Kind of like I can feel it in my balls.”

      
M
etcalf turned his dead eyes to Bronson. The other vampire wilted under his glare.

      “Not another word,”
M
etcalf breathed softly, holding up a finger for emphasis.

      Bronson nodded and looked away, his knees bouncing up and down nervously.
M
etcalf closed his eyes, waiting for dusk, but also half-hoping Bronson would say one more word.

* * * * *

      Hayes rested his forehead against the tile wall in the shower and found himself grimacing every time the hot water hit his dick. Damn, it hurt. Either Chelsea bit him down there or she scratched him up something fierce with the silver stud that she had stuck through her tongue. Aside from his dick, he felt like shit. Every square inch of him. He wished he were still in bed, but he had too much he needed to do to allow himself to sleep late. After leaving Chelsea’s apartment, he went back to his motel room and set the alarm for eight in the morning, which gave him less than three hours of sleep. Groggy, his head throbbing and his throat feeling like he swallowed a mouthful of sawdust, all he wanted to do was crawl back under the covers, but such was the life of a dedicated PI. He was too close to
Jim
to let himself slack. And, as he always liked to tell himself, things could be worse. At least she didn’t give him crabs. There was no chance of that with her being as clean as a whistle down there. He had never been with a woman with a shaved pussy before, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. It seemed kind of creepy, almost like he was a pedophile, and would’ve much preferred if she had had a nice soft red bush, but fuck it, even though he had twenty years on her, she was still several years past legal—and kinkier than any woman he had ever hooked up with. She completely wore him out. Of course, all the rum and cokes and ecstasy they mixed probably contributed more to the way he was feeling than his lack of sleep and the marathon session she put him through. With the ecstasy still cruising through his system, he had a tough time focusing his thoughts, almost as if his brain was wrapped in a wool sock. At his age, what the fuck was he thinking?

      He stepped out of the shower, moving slowly, gingerly, like an old man trying hard to keep his balance. He dried off quickly and wrapped a towel around his waist. The coffee had finished brewing. Complimentary coffee makers were a necessity these days for any motel he stayed at. He poured a cup and sipped it slowly. When he was done he refilled the mug and brought it over to a desk. He held his head in his hands for a minute until the room stopped swaying, then used his cell phone to call his office.
Ann
ie answered and asked him if he checked his email yet.

      “Why, what did you send me?”

      “Jesus, Don, you sound like shit. A late night?”

      “Yeah,” he mumbled between sips of coffee. “I was staking out a location for witnesses. Come on, what is it?”

      “Just check your email. I’ll wait.”

      From the coyness in her voice, he knew she sent him something interesting. The motel offered high-speed Internet access. He plugged in his laptop and brought up his email. It took a minute or so before his eyes could focus and he could read the report
Ann
ie sent him about a guy found dead in a Cleveland alleyway, the corpse drained of most of its blood.
Ann
ie was able to talk to one of the detectives on the case, and he had leaked to her that it looked like a sledgehammer had been used to cave in the victim’s mouth and jaw. According to the cop there was nothing left of the lower part of the dead man’s face. Some more digging by
Ann
ie found that the victim, Duane Posey, was a known drug dealer and had been suspected of half a dozen sexual assaults, but never convicted. The fact that she got all this together before seven A
M
New York time impressed the hell of out of Hayes.

      “It looks like
Jim
is in Cleveland,”
Ann
ie said.

      “
M
aybe.
M
aybe it’s just someone with a grudge. Could be a boyfriend of one of the women he assaulted. Taking a sledgehammer to someone’s face?”

      “The blood, Don, the blood. And the body left in an alley. Remember, the throat was cut also.”

      “Yeah I know, you’re right, it sounds like his signature.” Hayes stopped to try to get his brain working. Jesus, he was having trouble concentrating on the smallest things. “Here’s what I want you to do. Fax or overnight our drawing of
Jim
’s
gal pal to every low-priced fleabag motel in Cleveland and the outlying areas. Offer a reward of ten grand to anyone who helps us find her.”

      “Okay, but you realize you’re going to end up with dozens of false leads?”

      “As long as it generates one good one. How about booking me the next flight you can to Cleveland, along with a rental car and motel room?”

      “You got it, Chief. I’ll call you back.”

      
Ann
ie hung up.

      Whatever rum and ecstasy hangover Hayes had been suffering was gone. It happened so quickly, but all at once his mind felt cool, clear, the wool sock gone from his brain. He found himself tapping his foot anxiously while waiting for
Ann
ie’s return call. The more he thought about it the murder did sound like one of
Jim
’s
, and it happened just last night. From the sound of it it was a fluke that the body was found so quickly—the cops were running a prostitution sweep and were checking out alleyways known for activity.
M
ore likely than not,
Jim
and that girl were still in Cleveland, and would be for the next few days. Fuck. This was the break he’d been waiting for.

      
Ann
ie called back with his flight and rental car information. The first flight she was able to book him on wasn’t leaving for several hours. She told him she’d have a hotel reservation for him later, and would get right on sending out the mystery girl’s drawing. After she hung up, Hayes debated whether to call Serena. He’d been hoping that he would have to rush to the airport and not have any time to make the call. He just did not want to talk to her. He thought of a dozen reasons why he shouldn’t call her, but it came down to she was the client. As much as he wanted to find
Jim
, he couldn’t make it a personal matter, it had to stay business. He had to do what was right. Reluctantly he dialed Serena’s number. His hearted was thumping when she picked up.

      “I apologize for calling so early,” he told her, “but it seems likely that
Jim
is in Cleveland.”

      “Donald, darling, that is wonderful news. I don’t understand, though. You sent out that girl’s drawing so quickly? And somebody has already recognized her?”

      “Not exactly.” Hayes wiped a hand across his forehead and realized once again Serena was making him sweat. He told Serena about the dead man found in a Cleveland back alley, his voice sounding distant in his head, almost as if it were coming from an echo chamber. There was a long silence from Serena, then she coolly asked him to email her the report on the dead man and that she would call him back after she had had a chance to read it. After she hung up, Hayes forwarded
Ann
ie’s email to her, then sat dreading Serena’s return call. When she called back, she told him in the same cool voice from earlier that he should go to Cleveland. There were no longer any mention about coincidences or misunderstanding on his part.

      “I’ve already booked my flight,” he said. “I should be there in three hours.”

      “Good… And how do you plan to find
Jim
?”

      “Old fashioned shoe leather,” he said. “I’ll be checking out every fleabag motel and motor lodge in the city.”

      Serena asked him to call her later with any news. She reminded him that she still hadn’t received a fax showing a drawing of
Jim
’s girlfriend, and hung up. Hayes sat frozen for a long moment, holding the cell phone, an uneasiness working its way into the pit of his stomach. He was overwhelmed with the impulse to just say the hell with this. A little voice whispered in his brain that he should get as far away from Serena and Cleveland as he could, but fuck it, he was too damn close to
Jim
to give up. He convinced himself that his nerves being shot were just a side effect of the ecstasy. Yeah, Serena might not be happy that he confirmed his suspicions about the killings, or at least that he suspected
Jim
of being involved in them, but so what? As long as he did his job, and kept it confidential—which he would do with the absence of any solid evidence, what the fuck was she going to complain about? And even if she did, so what? He was only doing his job.

      He got up, dressed and packed his suitcase. He planned to head straight to the airport and pick up some doughnuts and more coffee once he got there. His next stop, the ‘mistake on the lake’.

      For some reason the word “mistake” stuck in his mind.

* * * * *

      Serena was thoroughly annoyed. She had already called
M
etcalf back two other times.

      “How come our connection is so shitty?” she asked.

      “I already told you, dear, I’m in the back of a van parked in a San Jose garage.”

      “
M
etcalf, darling, please watch this little snitty tone of yours. It doesn’t become you. If I heard you say that before do you think I’d be asking again? And why are you in San Jose?”

      There was some soft static which Serena realized was
M
etcalf sighing, which exasperated the hell out of her. Condescending prick. He told her it didn’t matter.

      “I think it does matter, darling, especially if you’re there to enlist a new recruit, which would be terribly sanctimonious of you given the way you make me grovel for your permission every time I’d like to add someone to my little family. Someone far less tolerant than me on hearing that would understandably do something justifiably spiteful, like cutting off all of your funding.”

      “Look, Serena, what I do is for the common good. It’s not like I’m acting like you and infecting every hot looking girl because I like the way her pussy tastes.”

      Serena’s face had colored to a pale pink. Her body shook slightly as she held the cell phone to her ear. Wilfred moved behind her to massage her shoulders, but she jerked herself free and elbowed him hard in the jaw. The blow would’ve been enough to knock a normal person’s head off. Wilfred backed away, massaging the area where he’d been hit.
Gregory
started to laugh, caught Wilfred’s angry glare, and zipped it. Zach mouthed to Serena that
M
etcalf was a dick and that she shouldn’t let him get to her. She was oblivious, a small inferno raging in her eyes.

      “Explain to me how this is for the common good.”

      
M
etcalf sighed again. “He’s a scientist. We need him to help us with the cure.”

      “I’ve got news for you,
M
etcalf, darling, not everyone gives a shit about your cure. Some of us are quite happy with the way we are…Hello?...Are you still there?”

      “Yeah, I’m still here. Serena, you’re right. I should’ve run it by you. I’m sorry. We’re getting off topic. Let’s get back to that dead guy in Cleveland. To me, it doesn’t sound like
Jim
’s work.”

      “Oh, it’s
Jim
alright.”

      “I don’t think so. He doesn’t smash in his victims’ faces like that. That’s an act of rage and hate. With
Jim
, it’s almost an act of sadness and melancholy. I bet the bleeding heart even sheds a few tears over each of his victims.”

      “You think you fucking know everything? I’ve got news for you, darling, you’re not all-knowing and all-powerful.
Jim
’s in Cleveland right now, and we have a deal!”

      “Calm down. I know we have a deal, but you don’t know
Jim
killed that guy.”