Blood Walk Part 53

Irina caught Garreth's wrist. "Gently,tovarich. I am Irina Rudenko, Mr. Takananda."

"Rudenko?" Harry's eyes narrowed. "You were going to meet him at noon today."

She smiled. "No. Twelve o'clock our time, I told him. That's midnight."

Harry blinked. "What?" Then he started, staring back at Garreth. "What do you mean you don't have to open doors to go through them?"

That had taken long enough to sink in. "Harry, maybe you'd better sit down. I need to talk."

Tautly, Harry groped for a stool. Garreth smelled an acid tang beneath his old partner's blood scent. Fear Garreth was about to confess to the killings?

Garreth hurried to rea.s.sure him. "I didn't kill those men, Harry, I swear."

Harry let his breath out. "I didn't think you could, Mik-san."

"What I have to say is about me . . . why I act strange sometimes, how I left the bedroom without unbolting the door."

The almond eyes narrowed. "You went out the window."

Garreth shook his head. "Harry-"s.h.i.t. How doI say this? Maybe he should take off his gla.s.ses and- He discarded the idea in mid-thought. No, this was something Harry had to understand and accept of his own volition.

Good luck, lover,Lane's voice laughed in his head.

He groped desperately for words. "Harry . . . if you were watching a movie and the detectives had some murders to solve where the bodies had two punctures in their necks and were all drained of blood, and then one of the detectives was found dead with his throat torn out by the killer only he sat up in the morgue with his throat almost healed, and after that he stopped eating food and preferred night to daylight and he couldn't stand garlic . . . what would you say they were dealing with?"

Harry frowned. "I thought we were going to talk seriously."

"Harry, I'm deadly serious."

A pulse jumped in Harry's throat. He stared at Garreth in silence for a long time, then with face smoothed into a bland mask said in a careful, flat voice, "This isn't a movie."

"No," Garreth agreed. "I wish it were. Then we could shut off the TV and go on with normal lives. But everything that happened to me is real. I wake up from sleeping and I'm still a-still changed." The skin between Harry's brows rippled, as though he started to frown but thought better of it. He said slowly, "You know, Dr.

Masethin sees private patients, too."

Garreth's gut twisted. Masethin. The department shrink. Harry thought he had gone bananas.Well, what else did you expect, man? He kept his voice even. "Harry, I'm not crazy."

"Of course not," Harry said hastily. "But maybe-you know, the mind plays funny tricks sometimes. Chemical imbalances from starvation might-"

Garreth slapped his hand down on the counter. "I'm not anorexic either! I eat. This." He poured some of the blood from his tankard onto the counter top.

The pulse leaped visibly in Harry's throat again as he stared at the crimson puddle. After a minute he looked up with a friendly smile that sent Garreth's stomach plummeting. "All right. I'm convinced."

Like h.e.l.l,Garreth reflected in disappointment. That was Harry's let's-humor-thesubject-until-he's-off-guard-and-we-can jump- him smile.

From the faint shake of Irina's head Garreth saw she read the situation as he did.

Grandma Doyle said, "I'd be thinking of a demonstration, Garreth."

Nothing less was going to convince him, it appeared. Hopping off the stool, Garreth strode over to the hall door and closed it.

Then he leaned against it, hands above his head. "Watch, Harry. I don't touch the k.n.o.b."

Wrench.He stood in the hall. Turning, he pressed against the door again.Wrench. Would Harry be glaring in revulsion?

Not quite. Harry stared but with eyes white-rimmed in disbelief, mouth working soundlessly, face drained of blood.

Grandma Doyle eased him backward onto a stool.

Lien wrapped his fingers around a gla.s.s of brandy. "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than you or I have dreamed," she said gently.

The brandy went down in a single gulp. Garreth doubted Harry even noticed the action, much less tasted the liquor. After Lien refilled the gla.s.s and he tossed that off, too, he stared at the gla.s.s in astonishment. Then he looked at Garreth and closed his eyes.

"Tell me I didn't see that."

"You saw it," Irina said. "Speaking from experience, it is easier if you forget trying to understand what you saw; just accept it."

Lien put an arm around him. "Accept Garreth, too. Basically he's still the same person he always was."

Harry stiffened.

Garreth sucked in his breath.

But it was Lien Harry turned to frown at. "You knew about this, and you didn't tell me?"

He seemed almost relieved by the omission, Garreth noticed.

Glad to have something comprehensible to think about?

Lien said, "I learned just yesterday. Garreth tried to tell you himself then, but you were too set on believing Vanessa's diagnosis of him." She poured more brandy.

He pushed it away. "I won't be able to drive if I have any more. Or maybe I'll call in sick. I can't handle anything more today."

He picked up the gla.s.s. Garreth caught his wrist. "Harry, you have to go in! We think we know who the killer is and we need you to prove it."

"The killer." The expression in Harry's eyes wiped the past five minutes out of existence to leap at Garreth's words. "A killer I can handle. Who is it?"

Garreth told him.

Harry listened with a concentration like a drowning man clinging to a life preserver. At the end of the recitation he jumped up.

"Van hasn't been happy about that stair window as an entry point. I'll tell her Garreth mentioned not checking the storerooms because they were locked. She'll jump at checking them. After the lab processes them, we'll bring Fowler in to compare prints and fibers."

"How can you do that without warning him he's a suspect?" Irina asked.

Harry grinned. "Easy. I received an anonymous phone call from a woman saying she'd seen Fowler at Maruska's apartment. I'll say of course it's nonsense, probably some nutcase looking for publicity by accusing a celebrity, but of course we have to check it out to clear him. In the course of it, we'll be checking him against a.s.sociative evidence from Holle's attic, too." Harry kissed Lien and headed for the door. "I'll call you when I have something."

"Meanwhile," Irina said, draining her tankard, "we must keep our watcher occupied. Show yourself at livingroom window and on patio, then I think we should rest away from daylight."

9

A double thickness of blanket over the bedroom window hardly const.i.tuted blackout curtains, but it blocked a good deal of light, making the room at least comfortable. Irina knelt on the floor unrolling an air mattress she had brought in from her car. Dried earth hissed inside as she smoothed it and arranged a sheet and pillow over it.

Watching her from where he sat on the edge of the bed, Garreth felt urgency throb in him. Time was running out. He ought to be doing more than sleeping. Fowler would kill again today if they did not stop him. How, though? He could hardly have Irina hunting Fowler her way.

Irina curled up, pulling the sheet around her, and closed her eyes.

He stretched out on his own pallet on the bed. "You don't approve of bringing in Harry, do you."

Without opening her eyes she replied, "I worry what we will do when he finds proof against Fowler. Arresting the Englishman will make public his motive for murder. Then either sergeant will be ridiculed for believing such a thing and hunter turned loose, or you, I, and all of our kind will be exposed. She opened her eyes and raised up on one elbow. "Destroying hunters is only way to protect ourselves."

"There has to be a way of stopping him without killing him or betraying ourselves."

Irina smiled. The warmth of it enveloped him like a thick, soft blanket. "You are a man of honor, Garreth Mikaelian, kinder toward your enemies than I. Is too bad you could not be with me when I lived near Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy's estate at Tula. I think you would have enjoyed listening to Tolstoy philosophize on law and justice."

Garreth started. "TheTolstoy? You knew him?"

"I attended many of his parties with a friend who posed as my guardian while waiting out some trouble in St. Petersburg. Talk and debate would last all night. Tolstoy's philosophies inspired nonviolence embraced by Gandhi and your Dr. Martin Luther King, did you know that?" Mischief glinted in the violet eyes. "A Russian influenced them." Then the mischief faded. "Is too bad Mr.

Fowler has not been influenced by Tolstoy also." Stretching out, she closed her eyes again. "At which thought I leave you to solve our problem with honor, and within your law, if you can. For myself, I am tired and wish only to sleep."

Garreth turned over. He would have liked to sleep, too; his body ached from exhaustion and daylight. But the clock ticked relentlessly in him, and his mind churned with doubt. Which was more important, law, or finding Fowler? Following procedure took time. Was Irina right? Was he wrong to insist on applying human law to this situation? Would someone else die because of it? He might as well consider that he had killed those other three men. They died because he led the killer to them.

Garreth clenched his fists. Why had he not realized he was being followed? Was Fowler really that good, or had Garreth just been so preoccupied with his own interests that he had committed the sin no good cop ever should, failing to pay attention to what was happening around him?

Irina sighed in her sleep.

He eyed her. There lay another problem. After being so insistent that the only way to deal with Fowler was kill him, Irina had given in far too readily to Garreth. Was she just humoring him until they had Fowler? In her place, he might do that, and then, having found the killer of his friends and bloodkind, he would brush aside the young vampire and his precious law to act as he felt necessary to protect himself.

Garreth bit his lip. He had to prevent that. Somehow. Restraining Irina was probably impossible, which meant he had to protect Fowler. He grimaced. As a cop he had often stood between a killer and those demanding vengeance, but never before had he been forced to side with one where the price of doing his job could be the destruction of a whole people . . . his own kind.

Grandma Doyle's voice echoed in his head: Isaw you lying dying, and someone laughing like the devil's own above you.

His pulse lurched. It could also mean his own destruction.

He sat up hugging his knees. No, he refused to accept that either Fowler had to die or vampires did. Theremust be some way to protect everyone.

The clock on the nightstand read ten o'clock. Sliding out of bed, Garreth put on his dark gla.s.ses, then picked up his boots, slipped over to the bureau, and eased his billfold, gun, and keys off it. Moving just as soundlessly to the door, he pa.s.sed through without opening it, so no sound of k.n.o.b or hinges would wake Irina.

His grandmother looked up in surprise from her book as he came into the family room. "Why aren't you sleeping?"

He sat down in a chair to pull on and zip his boots. "I have an errand I have to run." He dared not look up at them for fear they would read the lie in his face. Enough lives were at risk already; he would not involve them further. "Have you heard anything from Harry?"

"He called about an hour and a half ago. They found the storeroom as we described it."

"Good." Standing, Garreth clipped his holster onto his belt.

His grandmother eyed him. "What kind of errand is it you take a gun on?"

He made himself smile at her. "Cops feel naked without a weapon. You know that from Dad, Grandma." He pulled on his corduroy coat. "I won't be using it." He hoped. But neither would he go near Fowler unarmed.

Lien frowned. "Should you go out alone? I mean, Harry knows you're innocent but others like Vanessa Girimonte don't yet and if something happens . . ."

They had to stay here, safe. He forced his smile into a confident grin. "What can happen? It's just a short trip. I'll be back before you know it." Blowing them a kiss, he headed for the front door.

10

Being in the ZX again, the wheel in his hands, the engine snarling, felt wonderful. No matter that it was daylight. Despite driving with half his attention on the rearview mirrors, the mere fact of being behind the wheel himself instead of riding along brought a sense of satisfaction and confidence, of finally being in charge again.

The question was where to let Fowler catch up. A public place would be safest, at least until he could make Fowler understand the situation with Irina; then they could find somewhere to hide the writer. The place to meet occurred to him almost immediately, a very public one he could expect to be crowded and one he knew every inch of from playing tag with officers from other black-and- whites at three and four o'clock in the morning on slow watches.

Garreth frowned at his rearview mirror. Unfortunately the writer was not driving a car as conspicuous as the Continental he had had in Baumen. The tan Colt he had rented here looked-deliberately, no doubt-like hundreds of others on the street. A tan subcompact had fallen in behind him a couple of blocks from Harry's house, but he no longer saw it. He had turned onto a busier street, though, and if he were being tailed, Fowler could be tucked out of sight several cars back.

His pulse jumped as tan appeared in his outside mirror. A moment later he let his breath out. The pa.s.sing vehicle was a station wagon. Checking the traffic directly behind again, he decided there was indeed a tan car back there. Telling any more about it was impossible. The two intervening cars prevented him from seeing the tag and the driver showed as only a silhouette.

The matter shortly became academic because the car turned another direction midway across Golden Gate Park.

With the thickening of traffic on Fulton north of the park more tan cars appeared . . . falling in behind, pa.s.sing, weaving through traffic, turning off. Which made it difficult keeping track of any particular one. That grew still more difficult as Fulton neared the Civic Center and traffic continued increasing. Garreth resisted the impulse to make a series of turns and see which cars stuck with him. He would know soon enough if Fowler were really following him.

To make it easy for any tail, both to follow and hide in traffic, he took a straight route on major thoroughfares . . . Fulton to the Civic Center, then north on Van Ness until he could turn east to the Cannery. But anyone following him was on their own finding a parking place. The best Garreth could do after locating one for himself was walk very slowly into the Cannery complex.

That was easy. The bright sunlight weighted and battered him. He felt like he moved through mola.s.ses. Oh to be taking refuge in blissful darkness. Barring that luxury, a heavy rainstorm, or better yet, a peasoup fog, would have made today more pleasant.

Then abruptly the drag of daylight became a minor matter. Glancing over his shoulder he spotted the face he had been looking for. His pulse jumped. Fowler wore a dark wig, mustache, and horn-rimmed gla.s.ses, but he was still unmistakably Julian Fowler.

Garreth sucked in a long breath. The chase was on in earnest now.

The red brick complex sprawled out like some vast Florentine palace. He kept moving through its courtyards and arcades and across its bridges, pausing to browse through a shop here and take brief refuge in the shade of a tree there, stopping to chat with an artist doing pastel portraits, then a musician playing her guitar in one of the courtyards. He asked directions to shops so Fowler would see the people pointing.

Covert checks over his shoulder via shop windows found Fowler sticking with him. The writer kept changing his appearance, putting on and removing the gla.s.ses, sometimes with, sometimes without a tweed roadster cap.

Garreth took another breath. Time for the fox to catch the hound.

He strode along an arcade and around a corner to a flight of stairs. There he quickly vaulted over the railing to drop down onto a bridge below, startling shoppers and tourists, then raced across the bridge into another arcade.

From the shadow of it he watched Fowler stop short at the top of the stairs, dismay spreading across the writer's face as he realized he had lost his quarry. Inaction lasted only seconds. Face tight with anger, Fowler plunged down the stairs and raced along the arcade, one direction then the other, and finally across the bridge. By that time Garreth had retreated into a shop.

"May I help you?" a clerk asked.