Code 61

ELEVEN

Sunday, October 8, 2000

08:12

I walked in the office door with a full four hours' sleep, and went directly to Dispatch. Borman was already there, looking fresh and ready to go. Ah, youth.

“Morning,” he said.

“You look fresh. Get enough sleep?”

“You betcha. More than enough.” He looked awfully happy, and well he should have. This was an opportunity for him to be one up on just about the whole department, on a big case. The pecking order in most cop shops depends a lot on who's been deemed to have a “need to know” and who hasn't. Ours was no different.

“Get anything for us?” I asked Sally.

“Some, but not a lot,” she said. She got up from her seat at the main console, and Elaine Boyce slid into her chair. Sally scooped up a bunch of papers and notes, and the three of us went to the kitchen, Borman in the lead.

The jail kitchen is right next to our dispatch center. It's our home away from home. We contract with a nursing home to provide meals for our prisoners, so the kitchen is pretty much ours to use as we need. It's just about ten yards of countertop and cabinets, with a stove, sink, refrigerator, coffeepot, and a long church basement-type table, with collapsible chrome legs, and a worn linoleum top, straight from 1950. Surrounded by steel folding chairs, with “NCSD” in black stencil on their backs. Nation County Sheriff's Department.

Sally sat and began spreading out her papers. “Get me a cup of coffee?”

“Sure.” I glanced inquiringly at Borman, and he nodded. I went to the full pot, and poured three cups.

“Make that four?” Hester's voice.

“You bet. Still take milk?”

“No, just black,” she said. “Morning, Sally.”

“Hi, Hester. I don't have much.”

“Right,” said Hester, referring to all the paper.

I sat three cups around the table, and pulled up a chair. “So… ”

“First off,” said Sally, “don't forget to call Harry over in Conception County, Carl. He called at 07:12, and says he really wants to talk to you.” She handed me that note. “Now, how about a fast background on the younger set at the Mansion? They were easy, since we know all of 'em.”

“Go for it,” I said, raising my coffee cup.

“First one is Toby Gottschalk. Son of Robert and Gwen, raised on a farm about five miles out of Freiberg. We have one beer ticket on him at age sixteen. Two moving violations, both for failure to have control at property damage accidents. Nothing major at all.”

“Go on,” said Hester.

“The next one,” said Sally, “is Melissa Corey. A bit different. She has a juvenile record I can't access, but I seem to remember that it was over simple possession, wasn't it, Carl?”

It rang a bell. “Oh, shit, sure I remember,” I said, kind of embarrassed. “She and her older sister had some weed up in their room and their mother called us, didn't she?”

“You got it,” said Sally. “Her mom is divorced, two times, maybe three, with a last name of Warrington, and Melissa's sister has a last name of Burgess, after the mom's first husband.”

“Anything else on her?” asked Hester.

“Not much. Went to school at the U of Iowa, according to Betty.” Betty was another dispatcher. “Betty also says that Melissa's a whole lot brighter than her mom.”

“Okay. Good,” I said.

“Kevin Stemmer has nothing but two moving violations, both for speeding, both under ten mph over the limit.” Sally smiled. “Mike gave him both tickets, and says that he tried to talk his way out of both of them. Took one to court, and lost his ass. Otherwise, nada. No sense of adventure.”

“Or smart enough not to get caught,” said Hester.

“True,” said Sally. “Now for Holly Finn, or Huck. I was in on an arrest involving her; they had me for a matron. I think you were on vacation, Carl. Back in '97?”

“I dunno,” I said. “I know I took vacation that year… I think.”

Sally laughed. “Trust me. Anyway, it was for assault.”

“No shit?” I was truly surprised.

“Yeah. Remember Quentin Pascoe, the guy who sexually abused that four-year-old here in Maitland?”

“Yeah,” I said. There was no way I'd ever forget Quentin Pascoe.

“Well, when he was out on bond, he must have said some lowlife thing in the Fast amp; Easy one night. Our girl Huck was in there, heard him, went over to the bar, and knocked him on his ass.”

“I never heard that,” I said. “Good for her. You guys busted her, huh?”

“We sort of had to,” said Sally. “She got him with a chair.”

“Even better,” I said. “Intelligent people tend to use tools.” My estimation of Huck went up several notches.

“Other than that, she went to school at U of Wisconsin, Madison. Was a music teacher for a year, I'm told. Then quit, and went on the boat.”

“Probably more money,” said Hester.

“Hanna Prien,” said Sally, “has absolutely no record whatsoever. Born, raised, and remains in Freiberg. Betty says that she was a bright kid, but no gumption at all. She went to school with Betty's daughter for a while.”

“Anything more?” asked Hester, gesturing at the stack of paper in front of Sally.

“Oh, sure. First, we contacted Jessica Hunley at her residence in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. She left about 6:45, and expects to be at her house here at about ten.” Sally looked at us, with a grin. “She was 'absolutely horrified.' I like that.”

“Okay… ” I took a sip of coffee. “Did she already know?”

“Yep. Still 'absolutely horrified,' though.”

“Nice to know,” said Hester.

“So, while I was at it, I got her DL,” said our favorite dispatcher. She pulled a sheet from the pile, with perfs on the sides, right off the teletype. “She's forty-three, five feet nine, green eyes, a hundred twenty-nine pounds, gives an address in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and owns two cars.”

“Okay.” I reached out and took the DL sheet.

“Wanna know what kinds of cars? Please say yes. Please?”

How could I refuse? “Sure,” I said.

“One: a silver 2000 Mercedes Benz ML55 AM6 SUV.” She looked up. “Those run over fifty grand.”

“Wow.” I guessed there really was such a thing as a wealthy dance instructor.

“Two,” continued Sally, savoring the moment, “a silver 2000 BMW Z8. Convertible, no less.”

“How much?” I had to ask.

“Well,” she said, “my sister looked it up on the net, and she says that they go for about a hundred twenty-five thousand.”

Impressive.

“This is a dance instructor?” asked Hester.

“Yep. That's what everybody says,” said Borman.

“I quit dance lessons when I was thirteen,” said Hester. “Mother always said it was a mistake.” She reached over and took the vehicle sheets from Sally. “There's got to be more to this woman than teaching dancing.”

I agreed.

“Whatever else she does,” said Sally, “she's got a clean record. TRACIS, NCIC, Wisconsin, and Iowa indicate no criminal history. Not even a traffic ticket.”

“Wow,” said Hester. “Not bad.”

I looked up.

“I mean, no traffic tickets. Wisconsin drivers are terrible.”

Sally and I smiled. “I'd be careful, too,” I said, “if I drove cars like that.” I looked across the table. “Anything else on her?”

“Nope,” said Sally, “which brings us to our Daniel Peel.”

I perked up right away.

“You told us last night,” said Sally, addressing Hester, “that Toby said he was about thirty or so, white, male, and in pretty good shape?”

“Yep.”

“Well,” said Sally, “I ran an Iowa check. Nobody, and Iowa files go three years either side of a possible date of birth. So I did an alphabetical. There was a… umm… let's see. Oh, here,” she said. “We have a Dabney, a DaMar, two Darwins, four Davids, a Dawane, a DaVere, and a DaBurl under Peel.” She sat back. “Everything but Daffy. None of these even close to thirty. Youngest is forty-three.”

“Yeah… ” There was bound to be more.

“So,” she smirked, “just on the off chance you didn't spell it right, I did a sound-alike pass, and got it spelled Peel, Pele, Peal, Pfeil, Pale… lots, let me tell you.” She shrugged. “So I did a fifty-state check, with a date of birth of 06/30/1970, and got nobody that matched.” She looked disgusted. “NCIC will check one year either side of a DOB, but you need the month and the day right. That means that we'd have to run the name three hundred and sixty-five times, and we'd only get a two year spread even if we did.”

Great.

“So, I called Gray Eyes, and explained part of this to her. Murder suspect.” She held up her hand, to forestall complaints. “I certainly didn't mention the 'V' word. Don't worry.”

“Gray Eyes” was a dispatcher buddy of Sally's who once worked for the California Highway Patrol. The two of them had met at an APCO meeting, and Gray Eyes happened to be, in Sally's estimation, just about the greatest dispatcher ever. She'd been hired away from the CHP, and was now working for NCIC in Washington. They'd kept in touch. Obviously.

She looked up. “She expanded the search, because she's allowed to actually program a search. By making him between twenty-five and fifty. DOB between 1950 and 1975. We got one dude in North Dakota, who was forty-seven, and two in Montana, for shit's sake, one twenty-five and one fifty exactly.”

“That's it?”

“Oh, no, not really. In California, there were two hundred eighty-seven, actually, and four hundred sixty-two in New York.” She indicated the papers. “Total of nearly nineteen hundred in the U.S., so far, and the Illinois, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and Arizona computers are down for routine maintenance, and can't be accessed for an expanded search at this time, and we haven't done all the ages yet.” She took a breath.

Oh.

“So,” said Hester, “what did their criminal histories say?”

Sally didn't even look up. She did raise her wrist and put up one finger, though.

“Then,” she continued, “I sort of exceeded my authority a little, and used our Deputy Houseman's name and ID, and started looking for vampires.”

“You did?” I was aghast. Not that she'd actually done it, but that she'd said so in front of Borman and Hester.

“Yep. Well, not vampires, really. But cases where there was a conspicuous blood involvement.” She looked up. “Relax. Hester and I talked about it last night,” she grinned. “After you'd gone night-night. I don't get all the credit.”

“We used your LEIN ID,” said Hester, “because mine would attract too much attention.”

“So, who am I, Carl the Obscure?”

No response.

A conspiracy. Well, so what? I know when I'm outclassed. LEIN, by the way, stands for Law Enforcement Intelligence Network. Certain officers in Iowa have been certified to operate within that system, and we all have an alphanumeric ID. The programmer in Des Moines wouldn't think much of my ID, but Hester's would signal a DCI interest.

Sally pushed a LEIN Records Search Request form over to me. “Sign here,” she said. “Just to cover my ass.”

I did. “And… ” I was really curious.

“Well,” Sally said, “I guess there really are people out there who believe they're vampires. And they get caught, when the victims either die or complain, or the neighbors do.”

She pushed over a list. “These are crimes in Iowa and Wisconsin and Minnesota involving the 'ingestion of blood from unwilling victims.' Or so they say.”

I thought the “unwilling” qualifier was interesting.

There were eighteen incidents listed, along with the investigating agency, and date of ffling. The oldest was 1993. The most recent was July 2000. I pushed the list over to Hester. Sally had underlined the '93 case in red. The investigating agency was listed as Walworth County, Wisconsin. Sally had also made the notation “is co. where lk. gen. located.”

“The county where Lake Geneva is located?” said Hester. “Really?” She passed the sheet to Borman, politely.

Sally was very pleased. “You betcha.”

“Then I guess we better talk with 'em… ”

Sally pushed another sheet of paper toward me. The phone number of the Walworth County Sheriff's Department was on it, along with the headquarters number of the Wisconsin Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

“Then… ” she said, not missing a beat, “you'd better return the call of the county attorney. He called about thirty minutes ago, wanting to know how it went last night.”

I winced. I'd forgotten about him.

“And call Lamar before you go up.”

“Any word,” asked Hester, “from the guys up there?”

“About every thirty minutes all night long,” said Sally. “They finished the search of their assigned rooms in less than an hour. Bored out of their minds the rest of the night.”

I called Harry over in Wisconsin first. I knew what was coming.

“Houseman, you rotten son of a bitch,” said Harry, laughing. “Where did you find this fuckin' Chester dude, and thanks for sending him to me, you bastard.”

“Anytime, Harry. What are friends for?”

“Right. Anyway, you turn up anything new for me, other than a dickhead vampire hunter?”

I took a breath. “Well, yeah, we did.”

“Really?” Suddenly, he was all business.

“Yep.” I told him about Toby, and the vampire business from last night.

“You gotta be shittin' me, Carl… ”

“Nope.”

There was a silence. Then, “Care to meet with me and Mr. Chester today?”

“I'll make the time, for sure,” I said. “When?”

“Dunno yet. Let me shake the motels for the little bugger, and I'll get back to ya.”

Hester was doing the call to the Walworth County Sheriff's Department and the Wisconsin BCA, so I did the county attorney and Lamar. Sally went home to get some well-earned rest. Borman washed up the coffee cups and pot. I honestly think he expected Sally to do it, until it seemed to dawn on him that he who contributed least got the crap job. That was okay. He'd contribute soon enough, I was certain. He still wouldn't be able to get Sally to do the cleanup, of course.

“Are you really serious about this vampire stuff, Carl?” Borman seemed so sincere sometimes it was almost painful.

“Yes. And your lips are sealed. Right?”

“Oh, sure. Right.”

“One slip on this can cost a job. I'm serious.”

He seemed to listen well. I hoped so. I got on the phone again.

Mike Dittman, the county attorney, was a little surprised that we'd bothered a district court judge in the wee hours of the morning, but was even more startled that we'd started the search and then gone to bed. I reassured him that we had people doing stuff on the property all night.

“Are you sure we can do that?” He was asking me.

“Yep. Judge agreed we could, said you'd probably be able to find the applicable citations before the suppression hearing.” Judge Winterman had a fine sense of humor. Well, I thought so, anyway.

Lamar just wanted me to know that he'd told his sister that it was not a suicide.

“That's fine, Lamar.”

“You know what she said?”

That had to be rhetorical, but I answered anyway. “No… ”

“She said, 'I bet it was that Finn bitch.' Just like that.”

“No shit?” Our girl Huck? Hard to believe.

“That's what she said. Anything to it?”

“Not as far as I know, Lamar, but I'll sure as hell check.”

“Oh, Carl… you just might want to think about a statement for the press. We can't expect them to stay dumb forever.”

Not even on a Sunday.

My plate, as they say, was filling up. And we hadn't even gotten back to the Mansion yet.

Hester had disappointing news. Anything regarding the incident in Walworth County was in their confidential records section, and wouldn't be available until tomorrow. Wisconsin BCA's weekend answering service was a State Radio dispatcher, who had no access to records, either. He offered to contact an agent, and have one go into their records section, but he wasn't sure he'd be able to find one with the proper credentials to get to their records on a Sunday.

“For 'credentials,' substitute keys,” said Hester. “We wouldn't be able to get them, either, unless it was really urgent. I told him to try, but not to call out the director, or anything.”

We met the lab crew as they pulled in the department's parking lot. Specialist Christopher Barnes, of blood-spatter fame, would meet us at the scene.

We arrived at the Mansion at 09:38, let the two officers who had spent the night go home, and logged ourselves in. It was to be a daunting task, as there were six rooms on the second floor, seven on the main floor, and an unknown number on the third. Not to mention the basement.

Chris Barnes was waiting for us. He was the best blood-spatter pattern analyzer in the Midwest, at least as far as we were concerned. He was also easy to work with, and eager to explain any aspect of his art.

We started in the basement. It was enormous, with vaulted ceilings and seven separate and distinct chambers. The pillars were brick, with a concrete floor, concrete walls, and plastered ceilings. It was just about the cleanest basement I'd ever seen, with just a little debris in the fruit cellar, and some empty bags of salts near the water conditioner. But even those bags were neatly folded and stacked.

The oil furnace was quite large, converted from a coal burner, complete with a big boiler and very complex piping. One of the techs started there, checking for any traces of burned materials. Borman stayed with him, to assist in recording, preserving, or photographing any evidence that was discovered.

A lab tech named Grothler and I drew the main floor by default, as Hester, Chris Barnes, and the chief lab technician were going to do the second floor. Hester had started out as a laboratory technician years ago, and since we felt the most likely area where we'd locate trace (as in blood) evidence was the second floor, the most experienced people got that job.

I hadn't been there more than a minute, it seemed, when the phone rang. It was Harry.

“You can run, Houseman, but you can't hide. How about meeting with us right now?”

“Sure, Harry. Where?”

“My office. Quieter.”

I told Hester, and she decided to remain with the search team. I got in my car, and headed over to Conception County. It was clouding up, I noticed, as I crossed the mile long bridge spans to the Wisconsin side. Cooler, too. Rain wasn't too far off. And there, I thought to myself, go the beautiful leaves.

It really was quiet in Harry's office. I mentioned it as I sat down.

“I told everybody to get the fuck out onto the streets,” said Harry.

I looked at William Chester. “Harry has great administrative skills,” I said.

He nodded, but didn't answer.

“Carl,” rumbled Harry, “you wanna tell Mr. Chester here what you told me?”

“Might as well. But, first, Mr. Chester, you have to understand something. I'm going to ask you to sign a form, promising not to reveal anything that's discussed here. Under severe penalty.” With that, I opened my attache case and withdrew one of our standard forms. I passed it over to him. “Please read that carefully.”

He took it from me, and glanced at it. “I've signed these before,” he said. He pulled a pen from his shirt pocket, and signed it with a flourish. “I'll just need a copy… ”

“No problem,” said Harry. “Machine's in the next room. I'll be right back.”

I looked at our vampire hunter. Or, rather, tracker. “Okay, this is what's happened since we last talked… ”

Five minutes later, I was through.

“I see,” said Chester. “So, then. Are you willing to concede that you're dealing with a vampire, now?”

“Not even for a second.” I wanted him to be very clear about that. “What I'm dealing with is quite possibly some poor deluded bastard who believes he's a vampire. Nothing more. Because I know vampires really don't exist.”

“As you say,” he said.

I hate it when people do that. “So, what I want from you is this. I want to know how somebody who might think he's a vampire thinks a 'real' vampire behaves. How he's going to act. To convince himself and maybe some others that he's for real.”

“In exchange for which?” asked Chester.

“In exchange for access to some, but not all, of our information. Access to all I can think of that might deal with the vampire stuff, but not with the core case data.”

“Unless I need it?”

“Let me put it this way… If I think we need you to testify as an expert, you get what we got. Fair enough? That way, if you make a significant contribution to the whole investigation, you get the material you want. But you can't talk to the press, and you're locked in as a prosecution witness first.”

He thought for a moment. “Agreed, but I can publish my data afterward? I need to do that.”

I glanced at Harry. “Okay with you?”

“Yep.”

The way he said it, I knew that Harry would renege at the drop of a hat. That was going to have to be between him and Chester.

I told him some of what I knew. He was impressed, in a satisfying sort of way.

“My God, do you realize what you have here? You have a nest. You have a vampire's nest, with a house full of Renfields and blood donors. My God.” He appeared stunned.

“Renffelds?” asked Harry.

“Renffeld was the slave of Dracula,” said Chester.

“Oh sure,” said Harry, with great aplomb. “And there are more of these than you expected?” I think he did it just to needle Chester, but the tracker didn't appear to notice.

“I've been looking for years,” he said. “Years. Never anything like this. Never.”

“Well,” I said, wanting to get back down to business, “I'm really pleased for you. Now, then, we need a little information… ” I'd been fairly careful, and didn't think it ever occurred to him that he was a suspect. I had to keep it that way, at least until he'd been ruled out. Although it was unstated between us, I knew that Harry felt the same way.

It was also sinking in that this man really, truly believed in vampires. Since he did, just how reliable could his information be? As it turned out, pretty good, if what you wanted was mostly folklore. And that was just what we wanted.

“What is this guy trying to say?” I asked, for openers. “Assuming that he has actually killed… ”

“Oh, he has, he has,” said Chester.

“Right,” said Harry. “So, what's with the throat injury bit? Post mortem and all.” “Ah,” said Chester. “Are you so certain they've been inflicted after the victim has died?”

Harry and I said, in unison, “Absolutely,” and “Bet your ass.”

“Oh.” Our expert cleared his throat. “Then, possibly, to disguise the true nature of the wound? To obliterate, say, a bite mark?”

He sounded so hopeful.

“Not a chance,” I said. “No bite mark.”

“I think he's doin' it to make people talk about neck or throat injuries,” said Harry. “How about that?”

“He could. I'm not saying that as fact, but, yes, he could.”

Chester warmed to his subject, and I spent about an hour with him and Harry. The upshot was that blood, while significant to a “vampire wannabee” as Harry called him, wasn't in any way a source of nutrition.

“Unlike true vampires, poseurs will consume, maybe, an ounce or less at a time, for the most part,” said Chester. “Daily would be too often. You'd end up with diarrhea and other things if you did more than that. Like a bleeding ulcer will do to you. Sometimes, they might overindulge. But not often.”

That was good to know, but it left me wondering what had happened to much of Edie's blood.

He also said that, at least the more sophisticated of the “poseurs” would dress the part, in a costume reminiscent of the movies.

“Just to convince their following, you know. They'd expect a Dracula, at least now and then.”

“Sure.”

“He'll try to tailor his lifestyle according to that preconception, too. Sometimes for himself, sometimes for his followers or victims.”

Renffelds apparently came in two flavors. The first was just, in his own terminology, somebody who was enthralled by a vampire. The second, according to him, was somebody who was more into the taste of blood itself. More of a participant.

“Those are the 'clinical' Renfields,” he said. “It's a disorder.”

“So,” I asked, “what are these people likely to be like? You know, how will they respond to an investigation?”

Chester laughed for the first time. “They'll not be cooperative, in any real way. They'll protect him from you. They'll tell him everything you say. They'll deny his very existence, for the most part. They'll mislead you at every turn.”

“Hostile, then,” said Harry.

“Yes.”

“What do they see in this guy?” I thought that might help.

“He protects them, for one thing. He's powerful. He avenges them, if necessary. He is deliciously evil. He's immortal. He's sometimes the source of some very intense sexual interactions. Just as often, the modern vampire's the source of some chemical substances. He's completely amoral. He has to be. After all,” he said, confidentially, “he isn't human.”

“Everything your mother warned you about,” said Harry. “Right?”

“Absolutely,” said Chester. “But you have to understand, these Renfields are quite often victims of a previous… person. Their experiences have made them depressed, or at least unhappy. Dependent, but not in an obvious way. Often happens when they're adolescents. Nothing to do with vampires, at that time. Nothing at all, until they meet him. Then he addresses, well, psychological needs.”

Just what I wanted to hear.

“So, like, why do you hunt these people?” asked Harry.

William Chester hesitated for a second or two, then said, “My sister. One of them got to her, years back. She didn't survive.”

“Ya know who it was?” asked Harry. “The one who got her?” Harry wasn't known for his delicacy, but nobody ever seemed to really mind. I could never figure that out.

“No. No, I don't.” Chester leaned forward. “But this one is closer than any I've encountered before.”

It seemed to me that he denied that a little too quickly.

Before I went back across the Mississippi to Iowa, I reiterated the “no interference” provisions to Chester. He was to confine himself to contact with either Harry or me. Period. No approaching our potential witnesses or suspects, or it was curtains.

I left secure in the knowledge that Harry was going to check out every freckle on William Chester's body before he was through. He did strike me as being sincere, but cops learn not to take people at face value. How much actual use he was going to be was another thing altogether.

I got back to the Mansion and found that it had only taken the basement team two hours to finish up. They'd found two suspicious areas that might have been places where blood had been wiped up, but obtained no positive results with leucomalachite green. Leucomalachite green is neat stuff. They mix it with water, sodium perborate, and glacial acetic acid. A drop or two on the test swab, then a couple of drops of hydrogen peroxide, and bingo. If there's blood there, it turns sort of an aqua color instantly. It's used to see if there is any reason to use other testing substances to cover an area. Neat stuff. It also saves you a lot of time if it turns out there's not any blood in your sample.

What we were looking for was, essentially, wipe marks, where somebody had mopped up, or sponged up, or any way removed traces of blood. There just about had to be some trace evidence, because, although Edie apparently hadn't been killed in the tub, she sure as hell had been killed somewhere. The murder site should have been pretty well doused. Then, to move a bloody body from some location to her second-floor bathtub was a process that would very likely leave a trail of at least some blood.

The immediate problem was, the main floor had three types of surface where blood was likely to have been deposited. First, there were large areas of rug or carpet. Second, equally large if not larger areas of polished hardwood flooring. Third, the tiled floor in the kitchen and pantry. Not to mention the wooden mop boards and the painted walls themselves. And furniture, of course, all either polished wood or fabric. Looking for possible wipe marks on surfaces where there are countless swirls and traces from constant wiping and cleaning is less than rewarding. We couldn't even eliminate the wipe marks that had left tiny trails of bubbles. Someone could have used detergent to clean up the mess. You'd have to test just about everything. We would, if necessary, or so we said, hoping that the team on the second floor would turn up something. If it did, we could follow a trail back from the tub to the point of the murder. Right.