Blood Hunt

13

Garreth woke to the smell of rain and sound of it drizzling on his balcony. No surprise; he smelled it coming during his blood run last night. Dressing for duty, he tried not to brood about Maggie. Whatever her attitude now, he would live with it. The nearing prospect of crumbling into dust after catching Lane here, or abandoning Baumen to follow Anna to Mexico, left no time to care about relationships anyway.

So it felt anticlimactic to reach the station and not see her typing up reports.

“Is Maggie still out?” he asked.

Nat looked up from going over reports. “Danzig let me send her home at six and order her to get some rest.”

“God, yes!” Sue Ann said. “Then maybe we can live with her tomorrow. She ran registrations and DL’s right and left…” Both arms waved in demonstration. “…and wrote up every blessed moving violation she caught, not cutting anyone slack. Rolling stop, pull over, buddy; jump the light, step out of the car; change lanes without signaling, your ass is grass; three miles over the speed limit, see you in court!”

Nat chuckled at Sue Anne’s vehemence.

“Even pre-menstrual she’s not that hard-nosed!”

That was harsh. “You can’t blame her for being sensitive to moving violations today.”

Sue Ann sighed. “I guess.”

“Speaking of moving violations…” Garreth turned to Nat. “…what’s the rain doing to cruising tonight?” For safety’s sake, reducing it, he hoped.

Nat tapped reports into a neat stack. “The rain isn’t a factor.”

Garreth frowned at him. “Meaning what?”

“You’ll see.”

Once on patrol, Garreth saw. Whether there were fewer vehicles than usual, he could not say…because they used a single lane. No one passed, no one honked, no one leaned out a window to call to riders in another vehicle. With lights reflecting off wet metal and rain-slicked pavement, they followed the customary circuit around and around in silent single file, moving at the speed of a funeral procession. Including Scott Dreiling’s Trans-Am. A few windows had the names Diane and Jonah painted on them.

Garreth parked on a railroad crossing to watch.

Before long, Duncan pulled up to his window. “Creepy, isn’t it. I wonder when they planned this. There are vehicles with Bellamy High parking stickers, too.”

“I don’t think anyone planned it,” Garreth said. “In ‘78, when Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated in San Francisco, somewhere between twenty-five and forty thousand people spontaneously gathered in Castro Street and walked to City Hall in a candlelight vigil. They didn’t plan; it just happened.” He eyed the slow procession. “It almost makes you believe in a universal consciousness.”

Duncan grimaced. “That sounds like California hippie mumbo-jumbo. But,” he added, “I have to say the whole damn town has been like this today. God knows how Lebekov found those violations she wrote up. Come and see 282.”

Garreth had seen plenty of these yard and streetside memorials before. Still, he followed Duncan out to the highway. And caught his breath.

The memorial stretched along both sides of the highway, in front of the Co-op, just short of blocking its entrance, and at Hammond’s across the road. Piles of flowers, photographs wrapped in plastic against the rain, the inevitable candles — doused by the rain except for several in small lanterns. Hand-painted signs with Jonah and Diane’s names established the Co-op side as Jonah’s and the Hammond side for Diane. Jonah’s side included Timberwolf flags, a basketball jersey, and several basketballs; Diane’s, photos of her sitting on a bay horse and bending around a big oil drum on the same horse, cowboy hats, plastic trophies, toy horses.

“Jonah was the Timberwolves’ star guard,” Duncan said. “My niece keeps begging my sister for a horse so she can barrel race like the Barnes girl. I guess she was good.”

As Garreth pulled away, car lights appeared in his rear view mirror and stopped for a passenger to leave yet more flowers for Jonah. When he passed the Barnes and Wiltz houses later, lights shone from all the downstairs rooms and cars lined their streets. Everyone in town coming to offer condolences it looked like. Including Martin Lebekov. Garreth recognized the Caravan outside the Wiltz house…reminding him this was the second Wiltz death in a week.

Through the evening Garreth mused that the silent cruise did reflect the town mood, as Duncan said. Even in the bars. He took not one drunk and disorderly complaint. Either the usual weekend hard drinkers were doing so quietly or had gone somewhere livelier.

A whole town in mourning. It awed him. The Moscone/Milk murders had shaken San Francisco and produced that massive walk to City Hall, and brought thousands to view the bodies lying in state at City Hall, but it had not shut down the city. Once the cruise petered out, Duncan went off duty, and the bars closed, the graveyard silence of last night enveloped Baumen. Again he seemed the only living — undead — thing walking Kansas or driving through the rest of town. And the rain drizzled gently but steadily.

Like angels weeping.

Who had he heard say that? Probably Grandma Doyle.

Maybe the mood soaked into him, too. He just knew he finished the easiest shift of his career totally exhausted. So on reaching home and finding Maggie on his steps again, this time in civilian clothes, leaning against the garage sound asleep under her slicker, his first impulse was to slip up the stairs past her.

Instead he shook her awake. “Maggie.”

She started, eyes widening and ears reddening. “Oh! Oh my god.” She jumped to her feet.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, fine! I was just walking and…” Her voice trailed off…casting for an excuse to be here?

He knew why she came…drawn by some vampire pheromone for luring prey. The reason Lane’s one-night stands came begging for more. Even Velvet wanted another go with him, and prostitutes did not enjoy sex. And of course he had strained toward Lane’s mouth in that alley, welcoming her lips, tongue, teeth.

“I mean,” Maggie said hurriedly, “I needed to tell you we’ve cancelled the waffle and sausage feed. It’s always a kind of celebration with family and friends and…I — we — just don’t feel like — Anyway, it’s off.” She started down steps. “I’ll go now.”

He blocked her with an arm. “Please don’t. Come in.”

“No!” She shoved at his arm. Her voice tightened. “I’m not looking for another pity fuck!”

Was that her assessment of it. Why did she beat up on herself? “Did you ever consider I might have needed last night as much as you did?” Maybe he did, remembering how good it felt holding her afterward.

“I didn’t need…” she began heatedly, then broke off to frown suspiciously at him. “You…?”

Could he stand ripping open the old wound for her benefit? “My wife died in a traffic accident last year. Sometimes you need to be reminded you’re alive.” More or less.

Maggie caught her breath. “Your wife… I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” Instantly sympathetic.

He nodded. “Let’s have tea.”

A hand under her elbow steered her up the steps and inside, where they hung their slickers on the coat rack. He put mugs of water in the microwave again and — oh, hell, he might as well — reached into the fridge for blood.

“What’s that?” she asked.

Of course she would ask. “A liquid protein health and energy drink.” Deal with this head on. Avoid any suggestion of furtiveness. “Try some.” He poured a little into a glass.

She swirled the glass and sniffed. “It looks like blood.”

Jump in with both feet. “It has beef blood in it.” When she wrinkled her nose he said, “There are African tribes who drink a blood and milk mixture as a regular part of their diet. But it is an acquired taste.”

She sipped, grimaced, and pushed away the glass. “It isn’t a taste I want to acquire.”

Which should make his supply safe from further curiosity on her part. She had not even asked where the beef blood came from.

He finished off the blood in the glass, to her obvious disgust, then brought her tea from the microwave and sat down with his. “Look, last night we…comforted each other. Think of it like that.” She started to speak, to protest, from her expression, and he cut her off with: “It’s a human need. I know an ex-hooker in San Francisco who made very good money in World War II meeting that need for soldiers and sailors on leave or shipping out maybe to die. So what happened doesn’t reflect weakness in you. Like I said before, you have bigger balls than many cops I’ve known. Or were you afraid I’d write your name on the restroom wall.”

She went bright red. “I…ah…I…no, I never thought anything like that.”

He smiled at her. “For a cop you’re a terrible liar. But I understand, since you don’t know me well enough to have a better opinion of me than that.”

The red deepened. “I’m sorry. I guess I should get to know you better.”

“I’d like that.”

She eyed him for several moments, then suddenly stood, with the look of someone acting before she lost her nerve, and unbuttoned her jeans. “These are wet. Can I dry them before I leave?”

Even given the vampire lure, that surprised him. Still, to be a gentleman, he should rise to the occasion, right? He stood, too. “Do you need help out of them?”

This time they unfolded the bed, and in comfort, proceeded slowly, exploring each other. Though they ended as fiercely and explosively as last night.

“Wow!” Maggie collapsed on him. “Wow!” Rolling off, she snuggled against him. “Yee-haw.”

It had to be the vampire thing. Not even Marti, unstinting in her enthusiasm, ever gave him a wow yee-haw. Nice to know unlife had one benefit.

He did not remember falling asleep, but woke near sunset to find a note by the pillow. Your energy drink certainly seems to work for you. It may not be to my taste but you are. I think, and hope I’m not misjudging you again, that we need to “comfort” each other regularly. And maybe even find a time we can go on an actual date. I tried waking you before I left for Mass, but you were dead to the world. I could hardly tell you were breathing. See you at the station. Maggie.