Blood Walk Part 34

She sighed. "No, I can't. There's a woman involved, though, a woman with eyes the color of violets."

The words echoed in Garreth's head as San Francisco loomed nearer across the bridge. A violet-eyed woman, and death. He stared across the bay. Was he a fool to go there? He could still turn around on Treasure Island. But the city called to him, echoing with the past . . . Marti, Harry and Lien, good times and love, friendship. Bridges whole and strong.

He kept driving.

2

Leaving the terminating I-80 at Bryant Street and pulling into the police department parking lot was like slipping into familiar old clothes. All the months away might never have existed. His feet automatically followed the familiar path into the building and up the elevators to the Homicide section, where the faces were exactly as he remembered: Rob Cohen with half-gla.s.ses riding the end of his nose, Evelyn Kolb with her ever-present pump thermos of tea on the corner of her desk, Art Schneider. Schneider appeared to be wearing the same brown suit he had worn the day Garreth cleaned out his desk. And the room smelled the same beneath the blood scents . . . of coffee and cigarette smoke and the acid tang of human bodies sweating in frustration and anxiety.

One new face at a desk near the door looked around from talking to a red-eyed female citizen. "May I help you, sir?"

"I'm looking for Harry Takananda."

The detective glanced around the room. "Sergeant Takananda and Inspector Girimonte aren't here right now. Can someone else help you?"

Girimonte must be Harry's new partner. Garreth did not recognize the name. "Maybe. Thanks. Hi, Evelyn, Art," he called.

The double takes around the room were cla.s.sics. "Mikaelian?"

"My G.o.d." A grinning Schneider loped around his desk, with Kolb and Rob Cohen close behind. He pumped Garreth's hand.

"Harry wasn't kidding when he said we wouldn't recognize you."

Cohen slapped his shoulder. "If you're an example of Kansas cooking, remind me not to eat there."

"I think he looksgreat ," Kolb sighed. "What's the name of your diet?"

Garreth grinned back, warmth spreading through him. This was like another family reunion. And why not? The department had been his family, too, the Homicide inspectors his brothers and sisters. "You're all looking great, too."

"Well, well. The wanderer." Across the room Lieutenant Lucas Serruto had appeared in the doorway of his office, as dapper as ever and still with the dark good looks of a TV cop-hero. "Of course we all want to welcome Mikaelian, but remember that we're here to serve and protect the taxpayers of San Francisco. Let's get back to it as soon as possible. Mikaelian, grab a cup of coffee and join me when you're through saying h.e.l.lo." He disappeared into his office again.

Garreth followed in five minutes or so with a mug of Kolb's tea.

Serruto motioned him to a chair. "That Danner business was a good piece of work. I take it you're enjoying rural life?"

"Oh, yes." Garreth sank gratefully into the chair. Lord he hated daylight. "You might say cattle are in my blood now."

As Serruto's brows rose Garreth kicked himself for the wisecrack, but the lieutenant did not pursue the subject. He leaned back in his chair. "Don't think I'm being hostile, because it really is nice to see you again, but let's have something straight from the beginning, Mikaelian. Despite the understandable score you have to settle with Lane Barber, she isn't your case any longer. You don't work for this department now. You're just a guest, a ride-along. Remember when you resigned and we had a chat about how much I dislike vigilantes? I still do. So leave all action in this case to official personnel. Is that understood?"

No, the lieutenant had not changed a bit. "Understood." Garreth sipped the tea. Its heat soothed the burning in his throat. "Do you mind if I ask how you found the apartment, though?"

Serruto smiled wryly. "The way we get most of our really big breaks . . . sheer blind luck. We had a hit-and-run and when we found the vehicle and checked it against the list of cars involved in other accidents and crimes, lo and behold, the computer announced that the Vehicle Identification Number matched the one on the car you found in the Barber woman's garage. We hoped we'd get a lead backtracking the car through the used car lot where the hit-and-run driver bought it, but she sold it the day after she attacked you, using her Alexandra Pfeifer alias and the Telegraph Hill address. So that went nowhere. But when the lab examined the car for evidence on the hit-and-run, they found a section of apartment rentals from the want ads down behind the pa.s.senger seat. The yellowing indicated it had been there a while so we took a chance and checked every apartment listed."

Garreth leaned forward. "Some neighbor or leasing agent identified the Barber woman's picture?"

Serruto grinned. "Give the man a cookie. We found a guy she'd sweet-talked into carrying a box of books up the stairs for her.

She hadn't even disguised herself, just used an alias, Barbara Madell, and put her hair up under a kerchief." He paused. "That bothers me. It's like she wasn't trying to hide at all. Like she wanted to be found."

The words reverbereated in Garreth. Lanehad wanted to be found, he realized suddenly . . . only not by the police. She had known that by just tearing out Garreth Mikaelian's throat instead of breaking his neck he would become a vampire. She was expecting him to come after her, was waiting for him. By finding her he would prove his suitability to be her lover and companion.

Only she had over estimated him. He never thought to look for her car, had never found the planted apartment listings.

Garreth sipped his tea without either tasting it or feeling its warmth any longer. If he had done as she had expected, had followed the trail she laid and found her here in San Francisco while he was still frightened and confused by what he had become, and she so knowledgeable and a.s.sured, so seductive . . . how different the outcome of their confrontation might have been. A twinge of regret stirred in him. Whatever she might have made of him, he would at least not be alone now.

Belatedly, he realized that Serruto had said his name several times. "I'm sorry. What?"

An elegant dark brow rose. "That's my question. Did you fall asleep? It's impossible to tell through those gla.s.ses. I thought you'd want to know there's someone trying to attract your attention." He pointed toward the squadroom.

Harry waved wildly from the other side of the gla.s.s forming the upper half of Serruto's office walls.

Garreth leaped out of the chair for the door.

Outside it Harry enveloped him in a fierce hug. "I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow, Mik-san. What did you do, confuse the highway numbers with the speed limit?"

With the arms also came the scents of Harry's aftershave and the salty-warmth of his blood. A vein pulsed visibly in the older man's neck. Garreth broke away, covering by pretending it was to eye his old partner with mock concern. "Lien's still starving you I see, Taka-san."

Grinning, Harry slid his thumb inside his belt. "Not lately, as she would say. Oh, I'm forgetting introductions." He turned toward a woman behind him. "Old partner, meet new partner. Garreth Mikaelian, Vanessa Girimonte."

Girimonte made Garreth think of a panther . . . long, lithe, and mahogany dark with hair cropped to velvet shortness. Even her name purred.

He held out his hand. "Glad to meet you."

"Likewise." She shook the offered hand, then stepped back, dark eyes dissecting him. Reaching into the breast pocket of her slack suit jacket, she pulled out a pencil thin cigar and lit it. "I don't know, Harry. For me the lean, hungry look and mirror gla.s.ses add up to menace, not boyish charm, but I suppose you can still be right. If the old adage about cold hands holds true, he definitely has to be warm-hearted."

Garreth winced. "Harry, don't tell me you've been trying to sell her on me."

Harry grinned. "I want you two to be friends." He picked up his coat. "Come on; we'll show you the hideout."

Girimonte frowned. "Now? Harry, we-" She broke off as he raised his brows. "Go ahead. If you don't mind, though, I'll stay here to get our woman's description in circulation and see what possibles Missing Persons has."

"Sounds good." Harry headed for the door. "See you later. A fine officer," he said in the corridor, "except maybe a workaholic.

A bit like you that way, Mik-san. I think she also has ambitions of being chief some day."

"She didn't seem too happy about you leaving. What are you working on?"

Harry grimaced. "The usual a.s.sortment . . . a liquor store clerk shot during a holdup, some nut case who walked into a clinic in the Mission district Friday afternoon and opened fire with a shotgun-killed a nurse and wounded three patients-and a woman found in Stow Lake this morning."

"Then you shouldn't have to bother with me right now. I'm tired from the drive to Davis anyway. I'll find a hotel, then this evening we-"

"Hotel!" Harry interrupted. "Nothing doing. You're staying with us." He punched for the elevator b.u.t.ton.

Visions of a solicitous Lien plying him with an endless succession of the dishes he used to love ran through Garreth's head. The situation would not be like last night at home, where everyone was so busy talking that they paid no attention to anyone else's appet.i.te or lack of it. Lien would notice he ate nothing. And she would try to find out why. Panic flickered in him. "I don't want to put you to any trouble."

Harry rolled his eyes. "You're not putting us to any trouble. You'll be saving my hide, in fact, because Lien will have it if youdon't stay with us."

The argument echoed familiarly in Garreth's head. Harry had always said the same thing when dragging him home to dinner with them. He found himself reacting the same, too; mention of Lien melted away his resistance. How could he refuse anything to someone he owed so much?

He sighed as the elevator doors opened and they stepped inside. "All right. You have a guest." He would work out something .

. . perhaps hypnotize her into thinking he ate normally. "Now tell me about Lane's apartment."

3

She had gone to ground almost under their noses, just moving west of her old Telegraph Hill area apartment into the residential section of North Beach. Harry parked with his wheels turned into the curb to keep them from rolling down the steep street and pointed at a house half a block below, a two-story blue Victorian structure with bay windows and white gingerbread.

"She has the second floor."

Seeing the house gave Garreth a sharply uneasy feeling, compounded of a sense of being late for an appointment and a feeling that he stood on the edge of a trap. The knowledge that the trap could no longer be sprung somehow changed nothing. Perhaps it was still a trap. The house tugged at him.

"She hasn't been around for months but you still think you're close to catching her. Why?"

"Her downstairs neighbor, a guy named Turner, the guy who ID'd her, says there's a guy with a key who had been coming in Sunday afternoons to collect Barber's mail and check the apartment, and once a month with a cleaning woman. Then starting just before we found the apartment Turner noticed the mailbox being emptied every couple of days. It was still the guy and not Barber doing it-he knew because he met the guy at the mailbox one evening. The guy didn't say so but Turner got the feeling he was hoping to find Barber in. He must have some reason to think she might showing up."

Garreth started. Lane had a friend? Someone close enough to entrust with keeping an eye on her apartment? His pulse leaped.

Another vampire? He could not understand a vampire choosing daylight visits, but would Lane trust one of the humans she despised and preyed on? Vampire or human, though, neither jibed with her claims of loneliness when she was asking him to become her companion.

She could have lied, of course.

"Have you talked to this guy?"

"We will as soon as we find him." Harry sighed. "So far all we have is a description: fifties, five-ten, 180 to 190 pounds, gray at the temples, blue eyes, mustache and gla.s.ses. He's never given Turner his name and since we've been around Turner hasn't seen him to get a car description or license number. I was about to talk Serruto into a stakeout for him when I called you. After you said you were coming out-"

"You thought you'd let me volunteer for the job," Garreth interrupted dryly.

Harry grinned.

"You know Serruto's told me I'm only riding along on this. Period."

"So we won't tell him." His ex-partner's eyes widened with innocence. "It isn't as though you'll actually bedoing anything, just sitting here for a couple of days until you get a license number, or happen to tail the car home. Any citizen might do the same. Of course you'll pa.s.s the information on to me for action."

"Of course:" Would he? Did he dare give Harry someone who knew Lane well? "Let me trade cars with you. My red beast isn't exactly inconspicuous."

"You don't say." Harry grinned. Digging into his trousers, he produced the car keys. "We'll go back for it as soon as we've visited Armour, Hayenga, and Kriszcziokaitis."

Garreth blinked.

"Accountants," Harry said. "I started wondering how the rent and other bills are paid with Barber gone. Maybe this guy does that, too. So I contacted the landlord to find out." He started the car. "His accounting department finally called back on Friday. The rent check comes from Armour, Hayenga, and Kriszcziokaitis. I was going to talk to them then, but-"

"But a wacko walked into that Mission clinic with his shotgun and upset your schedule," Garreth finished for him.

Harry nodded. "Let's go see them before anything else interferes."

4

The accounting firm's tastefully understated offices occupied most of a skysc.r.a.per floor in the middle of San Francisco's financial district, and judging by the directory inside the double gla.s.s doors included several generations of Armours, Hayengas, and Kriszcziokaitises.

Harry eyed the sculpture and original oils around the reception area and dragged in a deep breath. "Smell the money."

The stunningly beautiful receptionist directed them down the corridor to the office of one Magrethe Kriszcziokaitis, a handsome woman in her forties, to argue out what they wanted.

Ms. Kriszcziokaitis smiled politely. "Sergeant Takananda, I understand your situation and I would like to help, but I just don't know what I can tell you. I know nothing about this Barbara Madell."Harry sent back an equally professional smile. "But your firm has been paying her rent for over a year and a half. I respect your desire to maintain the confidentiality of your clients, but I remind you that the woman is a suspect in a murder case."

Ms. Kriszcziokaitis tented her fingers. "The woman isn't our client, strictly speaking. We only pay her bills."

"Then you must know where she is. How does she give you her instructions?"

"She gives us none, sergeant. The instructions come from another party."

Harry straighted. "Someone else's money is paying her bills? Whose?"

The accountant leaned back in her chair. "I'm sorry. I'm not free to divulge that information, sergeant. Unless, of course, you come back with a court order."

Harry's expression never changed but his body language told Garreth how hopeless Harry considered that possibility. He stood. "Perhaps we will. Thank you." Leaving the office he muttered to Garreth, "Do you think it's the guy?"

"She's a beautiful woman. What do you think?" But this time Garreth knew he lied. There could be only one person paying, the person who had so much money to spend.A woman with hypnotic powers can learn a great many investment tips from the business giants she beds, Lane had told him. "d.a.m.n." He felt his pockets. "I think I dropped my notebook in there. Go on and I'll catch up with you at the elevator."

He stepped back into Kriszcziokaitis's office. As she looked up with a frown, he pulled off his gla.s.ses and caught her gaze. "A moment more of your time, please. Tell me, is a Madelaine Bieber paying Madell's bills?"

The accountant's pupils pulsated with an inner struggle. It lasted only a moment, however, before she surrendered. "Yes. She's a very old and respected client."

"How old?"

"She's been with us since 1941."

That sounded about right. "And in that time she's paid the bills for a number of young women, hasn't she?"

"Yes."

All of them Lane herself with different aliases. What a convenient solution to the problem of finances through numerous ident.i.ty changes.