Nocturnal Urges Page 8

  Freitas knew when she was being blown off. “Be good,” she said, heading out the door.

  As she walked down the apartment building stairs, the cell phone rang. Swearing to herself, she fumbled it out of her jacket. “Freitas.”

  “Hey, Annie,” Betschart said. “I finished your vamp-kill.”

  Freitas opened the exterior door and gratefully stepped out of Osborne’s dingy apartment building onto a slightly less dingy street. “Who said it was a vamp?”

  “It’s a vamp.”

  Freitas sighed, walking briskly down the street toward her car. Fortunately, it appeared unmolested by the denizens of Osborne’s less-than-upscale neighborhood. “That’s a problem for me, Joann. I’ve got a shortage of vamp suspects.”

  “Okay, there’s one way it isn’t a vamp.”

  “Now you’re talking.” Freitas slid in behind the wheel and started the car, letting it warm up.

  “If the human had a set of false teeth made, something custom, to resemble vamp teeth, then he could do the job on Hamburger Boy.”

  “Ugh,” Freitas said. “You just ruined my lunch plans.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Where does someone get teeth like that made?” Freitas asked.

  “I see them from time to time, humans who got the shot as kids but grew up wanting to be vamps. They get the teeth made from the same companies that do custom dentures, sometimes have their own teeth pulled so they can have permanent implants,” Betschart said.

  “So they’re kooks,” Freitas said.

  “I make no judgments on other people’s lifestyles, Annie. That’s why I live such a happy, healthy life.”

  “I thought you lived a happy, healthy life because you spend your work day cutting people open,” Freitas shot back.

  “Caught me.”

  The car was warm. “As much fun as this is, I need to drive now.”

  “I’ll have a report on your desk this afternoon. Drive carelessly.” Betschart clicked off without saying goodbye. It was one of her many charms.

  Freitas rolled into traffic, heading downtown along Union Street. She knew exactly where she was going, and when she pulled into the parking garage of one of the nicest office buildings in downtown Memphis, she flashed her badge and was waved in immediately.

  She strode through the lobby to one of the few first-floor suites. VAMP was engraved on a conservative plaque outside the shuttered doors. It was the only suite where the windows were covered.

  Freitas knocked, and a tiny camera swiveled toward her face. She held up her badge to it and waited.

  A moment later, the door swung inward and she stepped through a pair of black curtains into a quiet reception area, tastefully furnished in hunter green with silk flowers on the coffee table.

  The young man working the desk rose to greet her. “Detective, how may I help you?” he asked.

  “I’m here to see Drew Sanford,” Freitas said.

  “Is he expecting you?” the flunky asked.

  “Nope.”

  The flunky stood there, a little nonplussed. He was clearly waiting for her to explain herself, but instead Freitas stood silent. “Well, I’ll go see if he’s available,” the flunky said, and disappeared through the door.

  It was strange, Freitas thought. Although the room was carefully shielded from any possible sunlight, it was not dark and moody like Nocturnal Urges. It could have been the office of an investment company or a high-powered law firm.

  “Detective,” Drew Sanford said, appearing with the flunky. “How nice of you to stop by.” He extended a hand, and Freitas shook it politely. “Follow me.”

  Sanford led Freitas back down the hallway, passing closed office doors marked with signs like RECRUITMENT, PLEDGES and OUTREACH.

  “Quite an operation you have here,” Freitas said as they reached a plush corporate office. Sanford sat down in a comfy-looking executive chair, and gestured to the guest chair across his mahogany desk. “About how many people in your organization?”

  “Thank you,” Sanford said.

  Freitas pulled out her notebook. “For what?”

  “For referring to us as people,” Sanford said, leaning forward. “There are approximately two hundred in the local VAMP chapter, who actively participate in our organization and regularly attend events.”

  “Including the protests,” Freitas said.

  Sanford nodded. “There are another nine hundred or so on our international mailing list, mostly from the internet.”

  Freitas paused a moment. “More than eleven hundred?”

  “Or so,” Sanford said, a small smile creasing his lips. “More every day, and many of them humans. They are coming to believe, as we do, that this abominable practice of selling the bite is perversion, nothing less. We are gaining influence, and we will convince your government to make it illegal.”

  “My government is your government, the last time I looked,” Freitas said.

  Sanford leaned back, eyes cool as ice chips on glass. “Of course it is,” he said. “I misspoke.”

  “It’s getting dangerous around Nocturnal Urges these days,” Freitas said.

  “Indeed,” Sanford said. “Obviously the wanton disregard for the pure nature of the bite has begun to lead both humans and vampires down the path to madness.”

  Freitas’ pen paused. “Explain that to me, if you would.”

  “The bite is meant to be shared between a single human and vampire, a most holy and sacred bond that should not be taken lightly,” Sanford said. “It is not meant to be merely food or sexual pleasure, and to demean it is to demean us all, to cast mud on the moral center of the vampire existence.”

  “How do you get your blood?” Freitas asked.

  Sanford inclined his head. “I have been with to my current for twenty-nine years, Detective,” he said.

  “Current?” Freitas said.

  “Unfortunately a vampire will outlive many spouses over the course of his existence,” Sanford said. “I have had nine wives in the course of my life, and I have been faithful to each of them.”

  “I thought the law didn’t allow you to marry,” Freitas said.

  Sanford smiled, but there was no humor in it. “It is the term we use for our life partners. Currently we are not allowed the legal protections of marriage, no. I am bound to my wife and share the bite only with her. I supplement with animal blood from the butcher, as do my less fortunate brethren.”

  “Okay,” Freitas said, scribbling. “Your current wife is…”

  “Marie,” Sanford said. “And I was home with her last night when the young man was murdered.”

  Freitas turned on the cop eyes. “I never asked you about a murder.”

  “I read the newspapers, Detective,” Sanford said.

  “You were out with the protesters a couple of weeks ago, bugged a few patrons,” Freitas said. “You’re the big cheese here. Why were you slumming on the picket lines on a Friday night?”

  Sanford steepled his fingers in an oddly religious gesture. “I find it often improves morale among our people on the front lines for me to make an appearance.”

  “Another young man was murdered that night,” Freitas said.

  Sanford did not reply.

  Freitas stared at him for a moment, and finally asked her real question. “What would you say if I suggested a vamp was killing humans?”

  “I would say you were back in the nineteenth century, when you were hunting us openly instead of using courts and harassment to keep my people on the run,” Sanford replied. “We do not kill. We survive. We prosper. And for that, we will always be punished.”

  Freitas grinned humorlessly. “So, were you doing Malcolm X or Jerry Falwell just then?”

  Sanford returned her smile, and this time his teeth showed. “Fine gentlemen. I’ve met them both.”

  * * * * *

  The protesters were gone.

  Isabel walked down the alley, drawing her coat closely around her. No one waved a sign or shoved a flyer a
t her. When she reached the door, she handed Brent her cover fee. “Why is it so quiet?” she asked.

  Brent shrugged. “Slow night,” he said. “Makes my life easier.”

  Isabel passed through the doorway into the club. Creatures of the Night was quieter tonight and the crowd was thin. It could be just a standard weeknight, Isabel thought, or maybe the news scared them off.

  She slipped into a chair and watched the crowd. The dancers were mostly slow and rhythmic, listening to the music and swaying instead of the frenetic movements she had seen before.

  It wasn’t long before Fiona showed up. “Oh no, Miss Nelson,” she said. “I happen to know you are not safe for a bite tonight.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not here for a bite,” she said. “I just thought I’d…stop by.”

  “Of course,” Fiona said, her matronly smile belying the cold wall in her eyes. “A drink then. On the house.”

  “Oh, that’s not…” Isabel’s voice trailed off as Fiona drifted over by the bar. “…necessary.”

  She watched the crowd a little longer, and couldn’t help scanning for faces she knew. Each time a male laugh reached her ears, or she caught sight of dark hair and flashing smile, her heart trilled a little beat.

  “Your drink, ma’am,” said a female voice, and Isabel looked up to see Elyse, the vampire from her first night at Nocturnal Urges.

  “Hello,” Isabel said, flushing a little. It seemed strange to be waited on by someone who had watched you make love, she thought. “How are you?”

  Elyse froze a second, and then smiled. “Ryan said you were different.”

  “He did?” Isabel said, trying for a casual tone.

  Elyse nodded, her cornsilk hair falling over a little black dress with a low neckline that emphasized her milk-white, translucent skin. “He said you talked to him like a person. That means a lot to us.” She placed the drink in front of Isabel.

  “Is he…working tonight?” Isabel asked.

  Elyse shook her head. “No, it’s his night off.”

  The disappointment must have shown in Isabel’s face, because Elyse’s eyes suddenly showed understanding. “You were looking for him?”

  “No, of course not,” Isabel said mechanically.

  “Too bad,” Elyse said, shrugging. She wrote something on the bill slip and handed it to Isabel. “Have a nice evening.”

  So much for ‘on the house’, Isabel thought, and glanced at the bill.

  It wasn’t a charge. It was an address.

  Isabel looked over at the bar, and saw Elyse returning her tray to the bartender. She tried to say thank you with her eyes, and Elyse only smiled, looking like nothing more than an innocent farm girl in a dress too grown-up for her, until the ivory-white fangs showed.

  Isabel gulped half her drink and got up. She moved in between the dancers, working her way toward the door. Brushing past a pair of laughing girls, she stumbled into a broad chest.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and looked up into Duane’s face. “Oh.”

  Duane stared down at her. “Shit,” he said. “Didn’t take long, did it?”

  Isabel’s face grew hot. “I’d talk it over with you, but you’re sure not listening,” she snapped. “Let me by.”

  Duane stepped aside with an overdramatized courtly gesture, and Isabel strode past him and out into the street.

  The address on the card was only a few blocks away, but it didn’t take long for the neighborhood to deteriorate. Broken glass and trash in the gutters, a rusty fire escape jutting from the side of old brick buildings. She walked steadily, with a purposeful stride that belied her nervousness.

  Turning down the street, she saw the apartment building up ahead. It was in sad shape, and she suddenly realized how upscale her small Midtown apartment must have seemed to him. A torn window screen was the worst damage her apartment had suffered. This building had windowpanes blocked with plywood, and someone had spray-painted VAMPS SUCK on the front door.

  Two young men were sitting on the front stoop. Glancing at them quickly, she saw they had the telltale fingernails and pallor of vampires.

  “You lost?” one of them asked. Isabel shook her head and stepped past them. She could feel their eyes boring into her as she went into the dark foyer, barely lit by a single bulb that cast strange shadows on industrial-green walls.

  The note said apartment 2B, so she climbed the stairs, tripping a little on broken floor tiles. More graffiti was spray-painted on the walls, which would have been a relief from the peeling green paint if it hadn’t been such charming homilies as DIE VAMPS DIE and GOD KNOWS WHAT YOU ARE. That last one was particularly uplifting, Isabel thought.

  When she reached the second floor, a door opened and a young girl came out. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen years old, but she was dressed in a skimpy black vinyl dress cut far too low for her small breasts and hemmed barely below her underwear line. Her red hair was teased up over a young face covered with too much makeup.

  The girl brushed past Isabel and slipped on the top step, losing her balance in stiletto-heeled knee boots. Instinctively, Isabel reached out and helped her steady herself. The girl reacted as if Isabel had shocked her with a taser gun, jerking away and nearly falling again.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Isabel said. “Are you all right?”

  The girl nodded, and Isabel saw the young vampire’s teeth when she opened her mouth as if to say something. But she must have thought the better of it, because she quickly moved past Isabel and down the stairs.

  Just down the hall was the door with 2B painted on it. Isabel stood before it for a moment and felt silly. But she knew what she had to do, and it had to be tonight, before she lost her nerve.

  She knocked on the door.

  * * * * *

  “You look deep in thought,” Betschart said, sliding onto the stool next to Freitas.

  “Drowning the job in an adult beverage,” Freitas said, sipping her whiskey.

  Betschart held up a finger to the bartender. “Vamp case?”

  “You got another series of murders broiling I don’t know about?” Freitas said. “They’re one step away from dragging in the feds and putting me back to writing parking tickets.”

  “Teeth didn’t go anywhere, huh?” Betschart asked.

  Freitas held up her fingers and started to tick them off. “I’m down to two vampires at Nocturnal Urges who were off-duty or at least not physically in the presence of a mark during each murder,” she said. “Both new in town.”

  Betschart handed the bartender some cash and downed half her drink.

  “Rough day for you too?” Freitas said.

  “Tell me the other suspects,” Betschart replied.

  Freitas shrugged. “If you ask me, Osborne’s too out-of-it to go ripping out people’s throats,” she said. “His group, if you can call it that, hates vampires like I hate interleague play in baseball. So their only reason would be to frame the vamps. I have trouble envisioning Osborne as the diabolical genius who orders custom-made teeth, stalks the marks, tears out their throats and sets it up to look like vamps did it. Call me crazy.”

  “Crazy.”

  Freitas rolled her eyes. “Smartass. Then there’s Sanford and his brownshirts.”

  “That guy gives me the creeps. You ever see his commercials?” Betschart finished her drink and signaled for another one.

  “I grew up in the Bible Belt, my dear. The difference between a tent revivalist and a snake-oil salesman has only to do with the quality of his shoes, not the pointiness of his teeth.”

  Betschart grinned at her. “Pointiness? Is that a word?”

  “Shut up.” Freitas finished her drink.

  “Besides, wouldn’t it be kind of against Sanford’s mission, protecting the rights of vamps and all that? Making it look like some vamp is eating the marks?”

  Freitas considered. “Yeah, but he thinks NU is barely above the vamp pro’s, you know? Getting NU shut down would only help his missio
n to rid the world of impure biting.”

  Betschart giggled. “Sorry, this conversation is a little surreal. So you’re back to square one.”

  “Not really,” Freitas mused. “Number one rule of detective work in multiple-case homicide—what do the victims have in common?”

  “They were all NU marks,” Betschart said immediately.

  “Yeah,” Freitas said. “But more than that.”

  Betschart grinned. “That’s a hell of a light bulb going on above your head. Gonna share with the rest of the class?”

  “See ya, Joann, I’ve got work to do,” Freitas said, tossing a dollar bill on the bar.

  “God, you’re a cheap tipper,” Betschart said, adding a dollar of her own. “Go get ‘em, Annie.”

  Freitas was already gone.

  * * * * *

  Isabel felt like a fool, standing in the dingy hallway in the fall of soft light coming from Ryan’s open door. He stood framed in the doorway, wearing an ordinary flannel shirt and a pair of jeans. His handsome, chiseled face betrayed absolute shock at seeing her in his doorway.

  “Miss Nelson,” he finally said.

  “Please call me Isabel,” she replied. “May I come in?”

  Ryan stepped back and held the door for her. She came into his small studio, and it was almost like she had stepped through a portal into some other world than the dingy hallway and siren-filled streets.

  Cracked walls had been carefully painted, the worst places covered with framed photographs of lovely natural vistas, rolling hills of green beneath azure skies. The old, splintered wood floor was softened by area rugs of deep green and blue patterns. A huge, deep couch stood before an honest-to-God fireplace, where a warm fire blazed, providing much of the light in the room. The only other light was provided by an old-fashioned gas lamp on a table next to the bed, a large brass antique covered with a wedding-ring quilt that had to be handmade.

  Everywhere there were pictures, framed and hanging on the walls or smaller shots on a table or on the mantelpiece. None of them showed people—only landscapes and views of natural beauty. She stopped to look at one, a misty shot across a lazy river toward an ancient stone building that looked like a castle.