Moon Child (Vampire for Hire #4) (22 page)

“The usual story. An abusive bastard. Beat
her up often. One day he doesn’t stop punching and brings a knife
into play. A fucking butter knife that he kept near his bed.”

“Premeditative?”

“Yup. Stabbed her seventy-two times.”

Now I nearly choked on my orange juice.
“Jesus.”

“Bloodiest crime scene I’ve ever seen.”

“So why was the body exhumed?” I asked.

“There’s a paternity case going on.
Apparently, a son has appeared out of nowhere, claiming to be an
heir. I’m assuming it’s the same son who hired you.”

“An heir to what?” I asked.

“A significant fortune. The family was
loaded. The loving couple left behind boat loads to two legitimate
kids.”

“And now there’s an illegitimate kid.”

Hammer nodded as our food arrived. He
immediately shoved three fat steak fries under his mustache into
what I assumed was his mouth. His rat-like mustache twitched once,
twice, and the fries disappeared.

I ate my fries as well, but I ate them one at
a time, and I didn’t have a rat-like mustache.

Hammer nodded. “You guessed it. A legitimate
kid who wants in on the family’s money.”

“Was there a will?”

“Of course. And it did indeed name a son whom
she offered up for adoption years ago.”

“So he might the one.”

“Or not. Lots of scams out there, Spinoza.
You know that. Anyway, the kid, your client, goes through the
proper channels and next thing I hear they’re digging up mamma.
Only she’s not where she’s supposed to be.”

“Curiouser and curiouser,” I said.

“Fucking sick, if you ask me.” But not so
sick as to stop him from sinking his teeth deep into the
burger.

“Any leads?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said, chewing furiously. “But if
you see a corpse lying around, lemme know. I’m trying like hell to
pawn this case off on the robbery division, since they deal with
human trafficking, too.”

“A loophole in the LAPD divisions,” I
said.

“Yeah, but it’s not shaking out the way I’d
hoped. So far, Chief wants me in on it because I’m familiar with
the case. Like I’ve got nothing better to do then look for a stolen
fucking body.”

“A waste of your considerable talents,” I
said.

“Don’t fuck with me, Spinoza. I got two new
homicides in the last 24 hours alone. Last thing I need to be doing
is looking for a bunch of bones.”

“Sounds like you might need my help, too,” I
said.

“Not likely, but if you want to poke around,
feel free.”

“I’ll need a copy of your file,” I said.

“It’s illegal for me to give you a copy of my
file.”

“It’s never stopped you before.”

“I know,” said Hammer, polishing off the
burger. “I just needed to officially say it before I accidentally
email you a copy of the electronic file.”

I grinned. “Accidents do happen.”

Chapter Three

I was in my office when, a short while later,
Detective Hammer “accidentally” sent me an email containing the
entire contents of his investigation into the murder of Evelyn
Drake. He followed his mistake by sending me an email stating that
he had fucked up and sent the email incorrectly, and that I was, by
law, to delete it immediately.

Which I did, after I had “accidentally”
printed out the entire contents. And with my feet propped up on my
desk during a quiet afternoon, when my phone neither rang nor
clients stepped in, I read the file, glued to the pages. Hammer was
a helluva homicide detective, I give him that, although I would
never tell him in person. Actually, Hammer reminded me of another
detective I’d recently had the pleasure of working with, an
ex-football player out of Orange County. Cocky as hell, but
meticulous and driven. Like Hammer.

Anyway, Hammer had made detailed file notes
and reports, and it was all riveting stuff. From phone calls to
interviews, to eyewitness testimonies and crime scene reports, it
told a compelling story of heartbreak and murder, and I was glued
to the pages until the sun went down.

During the course of the investigation,
Hammer had had his hands full. The husband had tried his damnedest
to cover his tracks and set up a fake alibi. Through dogged
investigative work and following hunch after hunch, Hammer had
cracked the case and nailed the murderous husband, who was now
currently rotting in San Quentin, awaiting execution.

For good reason. Within these pages was a
very sad tale of an abused woman and her worthless husband. She had
spent decades being abused and tormented, only to finally find
escape in death.

She left behind two teenage children and,
according to the will, a third. Apparently, she had given up a boy
for adoption when she had been very young. No other information was
known or mentioned about the boy, just the small notation in the
will...and a sizable trust fund.

I turned in my swivel chair and looked out my
second-story window. My office sat on a small hillock above some
shabbier homes in Echo Park, a burrow of Los Angeles made famous in
movies and film.

For now the street below was quiet and the
far horizon shimmered with more beauty than Los Angeles deserved.
For all the smog that it pumped into its skies, the horizon should
have been gray and black and dead, instead alive with nearly every
color of the rainbow.

A corpse, at some point, had been dug up from
the grave and removed. I knew there were body snatches out there.
Folks who sold cadavers illegally for reasons known only to them. I
suspected for illegal research projects. But such cases were damn
rare.

But, as the pawn shop guy on TV says, “You
never know what’s going to come in through your door next.”

In this case, it had been a phone call from
an orphaned teenage boy presently seeking a DNA maternity test from
a murdered mother he’d never met.

I sat back in my chair and closed my eyes.
Behind me, through my open window, I heard a bum singing drunkenly.
Unremarkably, he was singing “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall”
except he was so drunk that he was adding bottles. He was currently
at 132 bottles of beer on the wall, although he occasionally
skipped three or four bottles ahead.

Myself, I hadn’t had anything to drink in two
years, not since the night my son lost his life.

I took in some air and didn’t fight the pain
that overcame me all over again, perhaps for the fiftieth time that
day. I let the pain run its course and when I was done weeping
again, I stood up from my desk, grabbed my light jacket off the
back of my chair, and headed out to meet the orphaned young man for
the first time.

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About the Author:

J.R. Rain is an ex-private investigator who
now writes full-time in the Pacific Northwest. He lives in a small
house on a small island with his small dog, Sadie, who has more
energy than Robin Williams. Please visit him at www.jrrain.com.