Blood Hunt

12

The questions still churned in his head when Garreth woke. He tried pushing them aside, telling himself just to wait and see what Anna did. Meanwhile, he had a job to do, a job that deserved to be performed to the best of his ability for as long as he could.

Stepping outside and hearing distant yells from the direction of the football stadium reinforced that thought. Oh, yes, the big Homecoming game against Bellamy. Kickoff was supposed to be at, what, seven? That meant light cruise traffic downtown now…turning crazy after the game. Especially if Baumen won. Maggie and Duncan had traded shifts for tonight, Garreth remembered. He looked forward to the contrast of working with Duncan.

An ear-splitting shriek greeted him coming up the hall at the station, Sue Ann, bouncing up and down in her chair, two fists pumping the air. “Yes, yes, yes!”

Garreth stared at her. She wore a Bride of Frankenstein wig and a Timberwolf tattoo on one cheek.

Nat looked up from a typewriter with a laconic smile. “TD by Baumen, answering the one Bellamy made five minutes into the game.”

“How does she know — ” Garreth began.

Breaking off as Ed Duncan’s voice, triumphant, came over the radio. “Extra point. Seven all. One minute to go in the quarter.”

“Ed took a radio to the game with him.”

Sue Ann still danced in her chair. “I told him to, so I’d know what’s happening.”

“KBEL is broadcasting the game,” Nat said.

“KBEL!” Sue Ann blew a raspberry. “They’re all about how wonderful the Cougars are! I don’t give a damn about the Cougars…except whipping their asses! Go Timberwolves!” She threw back her head and howled.

Garreth shook his head. This was worse than home when Shane was playing. “I think you need to calm down, Sue Ann. You’re making your hair go all frizzy.”

She stopped and blinked at him, then patted the wig, giggling. “You like my new look?”

“It’s over a week to Halloween isn’t it?”

“This isn’t a costume. It’s part of my bridesmaid dress I picked up today and I thought I’d try out.”

Now Garreth blinked. “Bridesmaid dress?”

“My cousin Julie is getting married on Monday so it’s a Halloween theme wedding. Doris is switching shifts with me. We women are all Brides of Frankenstein, though Julie has even bigger hair than this, and the men are Draculas and the wedding cake is a Dracula Castle. Guests are invited to wear costumes, too. The wedding’s at seven but Communion and Mass ought to be over by eight-thirty so come by the reception at the high school gym. It’s going to be a blast!”

Nat said. “My wife Charly and I will be there with our dancing shoes on.”

“Is Julie your niece, too?” Garreth asked.

“Jason, the groom, is my nephew.” He cocked his head at Sue Ann. “What do you think…between the two of them, they’re related to a third or better of Baumen?”

She laughed. “Probably.”

A voice of sanity came over the radio. “Six Baumen. Requesting a 10–28 on local K-king, five-five-three.” Maggie, running a car registration.

Before Nat finished going over wants and warrants and the day’s activity with Garreth, the second quarter started. Garreth left with Sue Ann howling behind him as Baumen made a field goal.

He patrolled with Duncan’s game updates coming over the radio, voice grudging when Bellamy scored, exultant when Baumen scored. Radios all over Baumen blasted out KBEL’s broadcast…in the bars, in the Main Street, from cruising cars whose drivers and passengers had not gone to the game.

Despite trying to ignore it, Garreth found himself caught up in the game. Bellamy made its own field goal in the second quarter, so the half ended tied. Bellamy scored in the third quarter, to Duncan’s disgust, but Baumen answered it in the fourth, tying the game and sending it into overtime. Where both teams made field goals. In the second overtime neither team made much progress, each defense digging in and holding ground until the other side had to punt. Then Bellamy managed to fight its way to the fifteen yard line and with one minute thirty seconds left in the game, lined up for a field goal. The excited KBEL announcer reported the kick was aimed straight between the uprights.

Until Baumen’s Darrell Wiltz leaped skyward in a jump that, as Duncan described it later, matched anything by an NBA pro, and intercepted the ball. Darrell landed running, cut through the stunned Bellamy line, and with Duncan screaming into his radio, outran a Bellamy player who had shown phenomenal speed all night to score the TD. And to put a final flourish on the victory, they faked the kick for the extra point and one Benjamin Danzig ran it in for two points.

All along Kansas Avenue, wolf howls erupted from cruising cars. Garreth parked parallel to the tracks across from the Pizza Hut to monitor the traffic soon to be coming out of Poplar. Serk and Chuck George, another of their reserve officers, were directing traffic at the stadium. Maggie radioed that she would monitor 282. None of them needed clairvoyance to foresee a long, busy night.

Within minutes cars began appearing, some peeling off south onto 282 toward Bellamy, a few cutting across onto northbound 282, but most turning up Kansas…horns honking, occupants howling and waving Timberwolf flags out the windows.

About fifteen minutes into the exodus Garreth spotted a Ford F-150 with a Cougar banner stretched across the truck bed, the pole at each end of the banner stuck in the pickup’s front stake pockets. Cougar fans, came his first thought, but two teenage males illegally standing in the back wore Timberwolf sweatshirts. They howled and waved middle fingers at a big Silverado following almost on the 150's trailer hitch. A passenger in the Silverado leaned halfway out the window shouting threats at the 150. In the seconds it took Garreth to guess the situation — Cougar banner stolen and the teenage owners trying to recover it — the two pickups shot across Kansas and gunned up 282…using excessive speed in addition to the other violations.

Garreth hit his mike button and radioed descriptions of the two vehicles to Maggie.

Shortly her voice came back: “I see them. Radar says…fifty-five.”

In a forty-five zone.

“I’m lighting them up.”

He expected her next transmission to be asking Sue Ann for registration and drivers license checks. Instead, Maggie came on with her voice high and urgent. “10–48 times three, at the Co-op! I need Fire Rescue!” He had already flipped on lights and siren and started forcing his way into the traffic when she finished with: “Possible 10–40.”

Three vehicle accident with injuries and a fatality!

Once through the traffic onto 282, Garreth floored the accelerator.

The lights of Maggie’s car flashed up 282 by the Co-op. Approaching, he saw the car parked behind the Silverado, with the F-150 sitting sideways across the southbound lane looking t-boned by a third vehicle. His first thought was to cut in at Gfeller Lumber and drive around the accident to block the southbound lane, but as he arrived the driver’s doors of both pickups opened. The Silverado's driver staggered out and toward the 150, cursing, fists waving.

The 150’s driver almost fell out of his vehicle, but caught the door and stayed upright…then dragged himself around the door to grab the pickup’s hood for support, screaming, “Diane! Diane!”

“Garreth, stop him!” Maggie shouted from the far side of the 150.

First he need to stop the Silverado’s driver, whose intent seemed to be bodily harm. He leaped out of his car into a flood of human and vehicle fluid smells…caught up to the driver and spun him. “Hey. Hey! Look at me! Stop. You need to lie down. Lie…down.”

The driver’s knees buckled.

Garreth eased him to the pavement. “Stay there.”

Then he ran after the 150’s driver…reaching him as the boy round the front of the truck, still yelling the girl’s name. Beyond him, Garreth saw with dismay why Maggie wanted him restrained. A female sprawled on the hood of a Ford Fairlane with her head embedded in the windshield.

Inside the Fairlane a female passenger screamed hysterically, almost drowning the male voice trying to calm her. Maggie straightened beside the driver’s window and headed for the bed of the 150.

Sirens wailed in the distance.

As Garreth dragged the boy back and turned him, to his further dismay he spotted a second motionless figure…this one male, lying on the highway several yards ahead of the Silverado, a dark stain spreading around his head.

Two fatalities? Damn!

He jerked his focus back to the boy whose arms he held and after capturing the boy’s gaze, laid him down on grass beside the highway.

Maggie, having peered into the back of the 150, gave Garreth a thumbs up and ran for the passenger side of the Silverado.

Garreth checked the 150, too. A juvenile male lay curled in the truck bed, motionless but signaling life by whimpering, clutching the Cougar banner, which had torn loose from one pole.

“Passenger’s alive but unconscious!” Maggie called from the Silverado, raising her voice above the nearing sirens.

The sirens announced Fire Rescue’s arrival. Soon they had other assistance, too: two Bellamy SO deputies, one in uniform, the other in a Cougar sweatshirt with his badge pinned on the front, and Duncan in a Timberwolf sweatshirt, face painted blue and yellow. Duncan and a deputy set out flashing cones and diverted traffic from 282 to Kansas via cross streets north and south of accident. Sue Ann reported that Serk had moved from the stadium to handle traffic downtown.

Fire Rescue took the injured victims to St. Francis. The deputies left when the last of the injured victims were on their way to the hospital, the sweatshirted one agreeing to contact the families of the two Bellamy boys. Duncan disappeared about the same time. Leaving Garreth and Maggie photographing the fatalities — named Diane Barnes and Jonah Wiltz — so the wagon from Sterling-Weiss Funeral Home could transport the bodies to the hospital, too.

Looking after the Sterling-Weiss vehicle’s departing tail lights, Maggie visibly braced herself. “I need to go notify our parents.”

The grimmest job of the night. “Would you like me to come with you?” Garreth asked.

She hesitated only a moment before shaking her head. “I know them. You finish up here.”

So he took final photos and measurements of the scene and made a rough sketch, watched while A-1 towed the vehicles, then helped them clean up debris and fluids, so he could finally pick up the cones and re-open the road.

Maggie radioed to join her at the hospital.

Taking the photos and accident scene diagrams from him, she tallied the injuries for him: James Coffey, driver of the Fairlane, broken ankle; Arlene Coffey, his wife, possible whiplash; Matt Schaller, driver of the 150, possible whiplash; Gary Canfield, passenger in the Silverado, concussion and frontal sinus fracture; Kenny Creager, the Silverado’s driver, and Peter Barns, passenger in the 150 and brother of Diane Barns, under observation but apparently sustaining only contusions.

She had taken a statement from Mr. Coffey but was waiting until tomorrow for the rest. Mrs. Coffey, Matt, and Peter were all under sedation,and the parents of the Silverado's driver and passenger had not arrived yet. Matt and Peter’s parents were here, devastated. Mrs. Barnes, Maggie reported, sat at her son’s bedside weeping quietly but ceaselessly. Quietly forewarned about Diane’s injuries, Mr. Barnes insisted he alone identify her…which he had done by her clothes and a necklace she wore, then needed fourteen stitches in his hand after punching out a window. Mr. and Mrs. Wiltz had been there to identify Jonah but now gone home, Mrs. Wiltz with sedatives.

All people Maggie knew. This had to be hard for her. Garreth said, “How are you doing?”

Her jaw went square. “I’m fine!”

Meaning, no but damn if she would admit it. He retreated to patrol.

Meeting with Serk to thank him for the help downtown, Garreth gave him details of the accident.

Serk shook his head sadly. “I worked plenty of fatalities in the Highway Patrol but the accidents involving young people always got to me the most. And this…such appalling consequences for a prank.” He sighed. “There’s one more victim we need to remember, too, Jonah’s brother Darrell. Darrell made the football play of his life tonight, and now how can he ever enjoy the memory?”

A tragic ending for what should have been a night to celebrate.

Echoing that, Baumen settled into the silence of a graveyard. Walking Kansas, then cruising down random streets, all empty, Garreth felt like the last man on Earth.

Around two-thirty Doris radioed: “Can you come to the station?”

When he arrived, he found Maggie bent over a typewriter. He eyed her in surprise. “You haven’t gone home yet?”

“I need to finish this accident report while everything is still fresh in my mind.” Diamonds would have shattered on her voice.

Doris gestured him to her with a crooked finger and whispered, “She’s been at it since one, but keeps tearing up forms and starting over. Can you do something?”

Maybe.

He walked back to her desk. “Maggie.” He expected her to at least glance up so he could look her in the eyes. But her focus stayed on the typewriter. Might voice alone work? “You’ve been on duty over ten hours. Go…home. Finish…this…in…the…morning. Believe me, you’ll still remember every detail.”

The temperature dropped twenty degrees. “You’re in my light.”

Garreth shrugged at Doris and left. Frosted again.

So he never expected to find Maggie sitting on his stairs when he came home.

“I finished the report.” Her tone challenged him…what, to apologize for doubting she could?

He kept his own tone casual. “But you still haven’t gone home.”

“I’m not tired.” Still challenging him.

He recognized that syndrome…had been there. In fact she was probably exhausted but too wound up, too haunted, to sleep. In a bigger department she could have decompressed in a bar with a group of fellow cops. Here, now, she had only him.

He climbed past her and opened the door. “Then come in and have some tea.”

Her nose wrinkled even as she followed him. “Tea!”

Not that tea interested him, either. What if he just went ahead and had his blood. His throat burned for it. How would she know what it was?

“I don’t have anything stronger.” Blame hunger for the impulse that made him add, “I never drink…alcohol.”

She missed the Dracula reference. “Oh…recovering alcoholic?”

A reasonable assumption, he had to admit. “Alcohol allergy.” He put two mugs of water with tea bags in the microwave. “Have a seat.”

Instead, she paced. Several times she took a breath as though about to speak, then paced on. Not sure what she wanted to say….or how to start?

She needed a nudge. “You keep seeing it happen, right?”

She halted, eyed him, and dropped into a chair at the table, staring into the past. “Over and over, in slow motion. The Silverado pulling out around Matt to run from me, realizing there’s an oncoming vehicle and trying to pull back in…but too soon, impacting at Matt’s rear wheel. Matt spinning out…ejecting Jonah. Diane…” Maggie sucked in a breath. “Diane had been hanging out her window howling back at the Silverado. When the Fairlane t-boned Matt, she — ” Maggie choked…swallowed. “I heard her hit the windshield.” Her tone went defensive. “It’s wimpy, I know.”

Was that what she thought? “Wimpy?” The microwave dinged. He set a mug in front of her. “Let’s review this. You watched two kids you know die violently, but despite that you worked their accident and notified all the parents. Probably the toughest part of this job.”

“I almost lost it at the parents’. The Wiltz’ were having a party, celebrating the game and Darrell’s play. The minute I said I needed to talk to them in private Floyd jumped to the conclusion the Bellamy boys had sworn out a complaint about their banner and started ranting at me for the stupidity of arresting Jonah over a prank. I wanted to put a bullet in the ceiling to make him shut up and listen to me!” Her hands tightened around the mug as if to crush it.

He knew that feeling. “But you didn’t.”

“Because Abbie realized I wasn’t there about some stupid prank and she dragged Floyd outside!” Maggie shoved the mug away with a force that almost sent it off the table. “He wouldn’t have given you or Duncan that shit!”

“I think he would. He sounds like he’d had a few beers, and maybe something stronger. In the face of which I’m confident you maintained your professionalism…as I saw you maintain it the rest of the night. So…wimpy? Hell…you’ve got bigger balls than a lot of cops I’ve worked with.”

She stared at him as if stunned, then started to tremble. Garreth reacted as he had when reaction to a tough case at the hospital caught up with Marti. He circled the table to lift Maggie to her feet and put his arms around her.

The flood of her blood scent turned his hunger ravenous, the heat of it surging outward through him, including to his groin. Feeling himself harden, he let go and started to step back. “Shit, I’m sorry; I didn’t mean — ”

Her arms locked around him. “No, no; it’s…” She fairly lunged for his mouth, kissing him with violent, desperate urgency.

He recognized what drove her…had been there, too…using sex as an affirmation of life.

He gave her the affirmation, meeting her ferocity with his hunger goading him almost to savagery, as it had in San Francisco. Only this time he fought against biting, making the one penetration substitute for sinking his fangs into a vein.

Her convulsive release shattered all control and the tension, horror, and grief bottled up all night turned into wracking sobs. Garreth held her through the storm, and even after it spent itself and she slid into exhausted sleep. Ignoring hunger, he enjoyed the feel of a woman in his arms again.

Eventually she began shivering…with cold this time, her goosebumps told him. He lifted her to the couch from the pile of their discarded uniforms on the braided rug and tucked the afghan from the back of the couch around her. Then snatching the last bottle from the fridge, he headed to the bathroom for his robe, slugging down half the quart on the way.

Coming back shortly, to his surprise he found Maggie awake and struggling into her shirt and trousers. Minus underwear, which still lay on the rug.

“Maggie…what — ”

“I have to go.” Without looking at him she jammed the underwear into her pockets and her feet into her shoes.

Was she so embarrassed by what happened? “No, please stay. I’ll reheat the tea.”

“I need a clean uniform.” She scooped up her vest and was across the room and out the door.

He stared at the closed door. Shit. Was it something he did? Maybe going after his robe made her think he wanted to get away from her, though he had not just left her lying there on the rug. Did she think she would now be a locker room joke? Or did proving herself the equal of male officers make any softening unacceptable?

Not that the reason mattered, he reflected with a sigh. The result was probably a professional relationship back in the deep freeze for the rest of his time here.