Bite Back: Raw Deal Part 11

He waved his hands. "There are buses, there are roads going everywhere. There's the path along the creek. They could have come from anywhere."

"Yeah, but why park up at the stadium, say, and walk down here to commit a murder? You wouldn't walk miles. You wouldn't take a bus or a taxi and leave a trail. Not three guys together. Gut feel says they came by car, but they didn't want to park right by the apartment."

"Okay, fair enough, but where does that get you?"

"Well, they live here, or work here, or have someplace to park that doesn't raise suspicions. Someplace private, where they're not going to be noticed or need to buy a ticket."

"Like a private garage?"

"Or a business they work at."

Knight shook his head. "They wouldn't feel safe. Some other employee might come in and see the car." He frowned. "Unless it was a small, three-man business."

He made a fair point. I nodded.

We'd gone as far as Speer Boulevard. Speer cuts diagonally northwest to southeast. It's a major road, split into north and southbound lanes by Cherry Creek and the trail. It felt like a border. Past it were school sports fields, businesses and a park. It didn't feel right, them coming that far, so I turned and drove slowly back, looking at the side roads.

One of these?

"It's all kinds of problem, this case," Knight said.

"Why especially?"

"Press. Most murders, however they get reported, people read the details and they know, or think they know, why the person was killed. They move on, they say they're not like that, it's not going to happen to them." Knight shrugged. "But this one is strange, especially when you add in the thing about the blood. If the press gets hold of that before we've caught the perps and explained it all away, they blow it up. 'Police don't even know where the murder was committed'-you know the kind of story. Things like that make people feel unsafe. It gets air time. It makes everyone look bad. The mayor gets unhappy, the chief gets it in the ear and we get it in the neck."

I snorted. I was looking down the side streets hoping for inspiration to strike.

Is this the sort of place vampires hang out?

"What makes the bra.s.s happy are murders that can be pigeonholed in one of the known categories," Knight said, counting things on his fingers. "Gangs killing each other, mugging gone bad in the wrong part of town, crime of pa.s.sion, revenge, that sort of thing. What they don't want to hear is anything that makes Joe Average feel unsafe. Psychopaths, serial killers, murders the police don't understand, and so on."

Vampires, I thought.

Knight ran his hand over his face. "Look, you did okay Friday night." He sighed. "It's kinda difficult remembering you're not a rookie like the others."

I nodded.

"Word is," he went on, "your scores are good enough for the SWAT team."

"Thanks." That wouldn't be so bad. Not one partner, but a team. Much more like the army. But I'd need to do my time on patrol first, and for that I needed a partner like Knight.

"But if you want my advice, which is free, and you get it anyway..."

I managed a sickly grin. "Hit me."

"Instructor."

"Oh, come on!"

"I have only one more thing to say about it. Something very important." He waited till he saw he had my attention. "Regular hours." He tapped the clock on the dash, and we laughed.

Then he turned serious again. "Farrell, listen to me, just this once, hey? This one is the kind of case you want to keep as far away from as you can," he said. "Don't do anything you aren't specifically told to do. Don't start spouting any theories."

Yeah. Unfortunately, not an option.

The buildings on the right, down Cheyenne Street, looked like an interesting mix, but it was one-way. Further up, near the Schumachers', I was thinking about doing the circuit and driving back up Cheyenne when I saw a group of girls on the street. They looked far too young to be out this late.

"Whoa," I said. "How old are those kids? No way their parents let them out at this time of night." I stopped the car. "And if they did, they shouldn't have." Especially if there were vampires roaming the neighborhood. I shivered at the thought of those guys on the video getting hold of a kid.

"Sneaked out, probably. Not really our problem," Knight said, but he got out with me. They were even younger up close. Young enough so that the approach of 'authority'-namely me in my scary police uniform-evaporated all the bravado of being out on the streets at night. The group was too young to know what to do or where to go. They wouldn't get into any bars. The whole purpose seemed to have been to put on makeup and hang out with their friends without their parents knowing.

Fine, but not in this neighborhood, and not this late. Not on my watch.

"Evening, girls." Knight beat me to it, sounding a little awkward. "I don't think this is an appropriate place for you to be at this time." He pointed at one in the front. "Where's your home?"

The girls had regained a little courage and were just about to start some bluffing and back-talk, when I recognized a face at the back, even with the Goth makeup.

"Emily Schumacher, isn't it?" I reached through the group and got her shoulder. Her friends eased away as if I'd just told them she had the plague.

"Err...yeah," she admitted.

Her look was mirrored on every face. Aw c.r.a.p, busted.

Immediately followed by thoughts of what their parents were going to do. It was almost funny.

Knight and I shepherded them a couple of blocks, to where the Schumachers lived. Werner came running out as we arrived. He'd just discovered Emily missing.

The Schumachers handled it well. I could see they were upset, but there was no shouting. Klara recognized the girls and had them sit in the kitchen while she started calling their parents. She was merciful enough to bring out some wipes so they could clean up before being seen. Poor Emily wouldn't have that advantage.

Werner wiped the sweat off his brow, thanked us several times and checked that there wasn't anything more going to come of it.

We a.s.sured Werner it wasn't a problem and walked back to the car.

Now, where was I? A circuit to come back up Cheyenne. But Knight had gotten bored.

"Take a left here and head up to the center," he said. "We haven't been up that end yet tonight."

We hadn't, and there just happened to be an all-night cafe with good donuts that way. I sighed. He was my partner and I was the rookie. I turned left.

We handed things over to the graveyard shift, making it feel like an early night for us. A few minutes later, and we'd have caught the radio calls about the next murder, the one that moved it all a huge step closer to me.

Chapter 14.

SUNDAY.

I spent the morning down at the station, looking at traffic footage for the cameras in the vicinity of the first murder and cross checking with the area around Club Agonia. It's not the quick and easy job they show on TV, not by a long way.

Lunch was at Mom's. It wasn't a success. Naturally, she always wanted to know what was going on in my life and there was almost nothing I could tell her. It frustrated me and it hurt her. I escaped as soon as I could and went back to trying to figure out where the vampires had come from and what cars they drove.

In the late afternoon, I took a break and stopped in at the Schumachers.

We sat in their living room. Klara brought out some little Bavarian cakes and cookies that were a regional specialty. The treats tempted Emily downstairs.

Not surprisingly, she wasn't made up today. I gathered the makeup had been restricted to pre-agreed get-togethers, and only one per week was going to be allowed, which had to be supervised. The rest of the time, she was completely grounded. She was only allowed out for school or with her parents.

It probably seemed fairer to me than it did to her.

What did surprise me was she didn't hold a grudge. She wasn't my best friend, but she didn't sit there glaring at me. I really liked that.

Klara got me to talk a little about myself, and Emily's curiosity fought against her attempt to be cool and distant. She seemed interested in the little stories I told about what I'd done in the police, and stuff from my days at South High. I left out everything from the army and all that led up to it.

Werner asked what I did on my days off, and rather than stonewalling, I said I went clubbing, making out it was my choice and not part of my duties, checking for vampires.

Stroke of genius. The real breakthrough came when I mentioned a particular dance club I'd been to a month before. The club was radical, apparently. The coolest place on earth. Emily was as deeply impressed as someone who has only experienced the club second or third hand could be. She went through a list of people she said had gone there and they were all, like, really, really cool too. I doubt she actually knew any of them.

Finally she stopped. "But you don't look..." she hesitated.

"Like a Goth?" I said. I tried to tiptoe here. Tact is not my strong suit. "Or just a person with any sense of style?"

Emily tensed up.

"Emily, some people take a style and let it define them. Well, it's a free world. The rest of us, we can take the style and use it. And then the next day, maybe we'll try a different one. There were things I wore fifteen years ago which would make you laugh. But you would have worn them, back then."

She thought about that a bit. "Do you dress up then?"

Second stroke of genius, sort of. I'd taken photos of myself in full vampire dress on my cell phone just before I'd gone off to Club Agonia. My own personal record of the things I had to do. I got out my cell, and pulled the pictures up.

Emily pounced, and before I could stop her, she had shown Klara and Werner. Fortunately, they saw the funny side.

When I left half an hour later, Emily begged me to come back next time her friends were around, and never, ever to delete those way cool photos.

Chapter 15.

At roll call for the graveyard shift, there was no sign of Knight.

The other crews were talking about yesterday's murder. I was confused about when that was by the hours I had been keeping. I thought they were talking about the body I'd found. They weren't. Finally it sank in that they were talking about a dead man that had shown up twelve hours ago, on yesterday's graveyard shift. With the same MO.

I wanted details, but we were interrupted by the duty sergeant, who read the notices and confirmed the crews. After that, the rest of them hurried off.

There was still no sign of Knight.

It wasn't that unusual to have to run a patrol single-handed when a colleague called in sick at the last minute, but nothing had been said.

I had just stuck my head around the door to ask the duty Sergeant, Bill Carver, when Knight appeared.

"Sorry, got held up," he said.

"Oh?"

I thought he wasn't going to say any more, but he did. "Homicide wanted to check some stuff about patrol."

I shrugged. I thought there were better ways to do that, but no one is interested in what the rookie has to say.

"Did you hear there was another body yesterday with the same MO?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Where was it? Have they got a name?"

Knight stopped abruptly and grabbed my arm. "Look, Farrell, I don't want to talk about it, okay? Remember what I said about the murder the other night? This qualifies too. You don't want to talk about it either." His finger stabbed out at me for emphasis. "You don't want to get involved. You don't want to be seen scanning traffic cameras on some case that is not your concern. You got that, rookie?"

Okay.

What the h.e.l.l had bitten his a.s.s? My getting in trouble for sticking my nose into a case on my own wasn't going to reflect on him.

"I understand," I said.

I had to drop it. I was supposed to be on patrol for the next four hours, not solving cases. I'd pick it up afterwards.

This was routine, so we didn't need to talk any more while I got us out of the parking lot and onto our patrol area. There are points you visit repeatedly during a patrol and I started by cruising past the closest, working our way in a zigzag to the far end of our a.s.signed precinct before starting the standard pattern.

Something was bothering me. I mentally ran down my list of things inside and outside work to check if I'd forgotten something. I came up blank. I was going to crack a joke about it being too quiet, when I realized that was exactly what was bothering me. Knight hadn't said a word since we got in. Surely it wasn't all about Friday? Maybe he had been chewed out for something I'd done.

"All okay?" I asked.

"Yeah." He lapsed back into silence, slumped down in the seat. If that was what talking with Homicide did to him, I'd advise skipping it next time.

"So, our last few graveyard shifts gets you two days off next weekend," I said. "Got any plans?"

"Ch.o.r.es. Then I'll catch the ball game," he said and sat up straighter. "I'll have some friends around, grill a few steaks, drink a few beers. What about you?"

At least that had got a couple of sentences from him. "I hadn't planned anything. Ball game sounds good."