《The Vampire Who Played Dead (Spinoza #2)》


 Page 1

    I was sitting in my vinyl swivel chair.


    The chair had no armrests. It had come with the office, along with the broken particle board desk, missing one corner and warped as hell. Someday I would find myself a swivel chair with armrests. And a desk that didn''t rock every time I leaned an elbow on it.


    Someday.


    To my left, sitting on a stainless steel counter next to a stainless steel sink, the compact coffee maker made surprisingly human-like gurgling noises, although I couldn''t remember the last time I heard a human gurgle. On my desk was a greasy white Winchell''s bag, bulging nicely with its contents.


    The day was young and full of hope. That is, for anyone other than me. For me, it was just another day filled with regret, pain, and eternal guilt.


    The donuts helped with some of that.


    And when the coffee was done, I stood up and went over to the coffee maker and filled a metal thermos, then returned to my armless vinyl swivel chair. I sipped the brew and watched the steam march up to the ceiling, voicing my pleasure with a resounding, "Ahh."


    The wind slapped rain against the window, beating a pleasant staccato. I swiveled in my chair, maximizing its full potential, and watched the rain drool down the massive pane, beyond which a low vault of swollen purple clouds meant business.


    Memories of my son playing with plastic boats in the gutters came rushing back to me, and I let the tears flow freely, unable to stop them, not wanting to stop them.


    Minutes later, I came back to the present and reached over to the donut bag. I had just selected a pink sprinkle when the phone rang.


    I glanced at my watch: 7:22 a.m. Early for a client.


    I lifted the receiver and held it against my ear and waited. I took a bite of the donut, as sprinkles cascaded down my short front like pink rain.


    In the earpiece, there was some white noise, then a shuffling sound, followed by a long scraping. I took another bite of the donut, then cradled the phone between my ear and shoulder like a pro and took a sip from the thermos. There was now some shallow breathing. Very faint. Then it came faster. Now we were getting somewhere.


    The rain paused briefly. Outside, the storm clouds were the color of brain matter. I next dug into the bag and produced a hefty buttermilk that made me feel good just looking at it. The rain returned, doubling its efforts, pounding the windowpane. Somewhere on the distant horizon, sheet lightning flashed. Thunder galloped overhead.


    "A sad tale''s best for winter," I said into the phone.


    "What?"


    A young man''s voice. Maybe fifteen or sixteen. Old enough to find me in the Yellow Pages, but not old enough to find the courage to speak.


    "Shakespeare," I said. "When in doubt, quote Shakespeare. Chicks dig it."


    "Really?"


    "Probably not, but you never know."


    Actually that was a trick of mine to help me overcome my own shyness, which had plagued me all my life. Quoting other people was far easier than making stuff up as you go.


    The young man continued saying nothing, but I could hear him breathing. The breathing, I noticed, was coming faster and faster.


    Don''t hyperventilate on me, broheim.


    I''m a patient man. In my business, you have to be patient. I also knew that it''s not easy for people to come to other people for help. Especially young people.


    While I waited, I ate. The buttermilk was greasy, but that didn''t stop me. I sat forward in my chair and listened into the phone and listened to the rain, and wondered who this young man was, but instinctively knowing that I should wait. That he should make the first move.


    "Are you Spinoza?" he finally asked. There was a slight squeak to his voice. Fourteen, maybe?


    "As ever there was."


    "What does that mean?"


    "It means yes."


    "Oh."


    More silence. Rain slanted diagonally across my window. Who has seen the wind, I thought, neither you nor I.


    "Do you find people?" he asked.


    "Yes," I said.


    "How much do you, um, charge to find someone?"


    I set the donut aside and leaned forward on my elbows.


    "Two tacos," I said.


    "Two what?"


    "Two tacos and maybe a burrito."


    He actually laughed. The sound was muffled, as if he were talking in a closet, or under covers. I figured maybe both. More likely a bathroom, though.


    "My mom was killed," he said.


    "I''m sorry to hear that."


    "She was killed two years ago."


    "I''m sorry," I said again.


    "Why do you keep saying that?"


    "Because no boy should be without his mother."


    There was a pause and I heard a choking sound on the other end. He muffled the phone so that I couldn''t hear him cry but he didn''t do a very good job of it and I heard the deep sobs and the pain and the immense heartache. As he wept I thought of my boy, but I did not cry. I would not cry with the young man on the phone. Alone, yes. But not now.


    I waited for him to get hold of himself and when he finally did, I asked him if there was anything I could do to help him. He sniffled some more, and told me his tale.


    And what a tale it was.

 Page 2

    I was at Astro''s Burgers in Silver Lake. I had just sat down and ordered an orange juice when Detective Hammer, my cop friend, stepped into the restaurant. He spotted me and came over.


    "You''re late," I said as Hammer sat.


    "I''m a homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. You''re lucky I even give you the time of day."


    "Private eyes are people, too," I said.


    "Yeah, but they ain''t real cops." He waved the waitress over and put in his order. A milkshake, fries and double cheeseburger.


    "Should I call 911 now?" I asked.


    "You better hope I don''t keel over; otherwise, you would be minus your only cop friend in Los Angeles."


    "I can always make another cop friend."


    Hammer snorted. "Not you, pal. You can barely look a waitress in the eye."


    "I''m shy. You know that."


    "I thought only teen girls were shy."


    "Think again."


    Our drinks came, although I was using the word "drink" loosely in his case. The milkshake might as well have been ice cream. In fact, Hammer quickly ditched the straw and used his spoon.


    He said, between slurps, "So how did you hear about the Evelyn case?"


    "Her son hired me to find her."


    Hammer choked on his milk shake. I could have been wrong, but I think some of it even came out of his nostrils. He covered his face and coughed some more and I handed him a napkin.


    "He does realize his mother is dead, right?"


    "Yes," I said. "He also understands that her body is missing."


    "He hired you to find a corpse?"


    "Somebody has to."


    Hammer continued shoveling in his shake. Some of it got into his cop mustache, where it was quickly absorbed. I wondered what else had been absorbed into his mustache.


    "Yeah," said Hammer. "I suppose someone''s got to." He shook his head. "My first grave robbing case. I mean, have you ever heard of such a thing?"


    "Not since Frankenstein."


    Hammer shook his head. "What the hell would anyone do with it?" He turned green and actually set aside his shake. "On second thought, I don''t want to know."


    "Who worked the initial homicide?"


    "Yours truly."


    "Full circle," I said.


    "Yeah. First we catch the killer - the husband, always the husband - and now I have to run down the fucking body. What are the chances?"


    "Slim to none," I said. "Where''s the husband now?"


    "In San Quentin. Death Row."


    "Tell me about it," I said.


    "The usual story. An abusive bastard. Beat her up often. One day he doesn''t stop punching and brings a knife into play. A fucking butter knife that he kept near his bed."


    "Premeditative?"


    "Yup. Stabbed her seventy-two times."


    Now I nearly choked on my orange juice. "Jesus."


    "Bloodiest crime scene I''ve ever seen."


    "So why was the body exhumed?" I asked.


    "There''s a paternity case going on. Apparently, a son has appeared out of nowhere, claiming to be an heir. I''m assuming it''s the same son who hired you."


    "An heir to what?" I asked.


    "A significant fortune. The family was loaded. The loving couple left behind boat loads to two legitimate kids."


    "And now there''s an illegitimate kid."


    Hammer nodded as our food arrived. He immediately shoved three fat steak fries under his mustache into what I assumed was his mouth. His rat-like mustache twitched once, twice, and the fries disappeared.


    I ate my fries as well, but I ate them one at a time, and I didn''t have a rat-like mustache.


    Hammer nodded. "You guessed it. A legitimate kid who wants in on the family''s money."


    "Was there a will?"


    "Of course. And it did indeed name a son whom she offered up for adoption years ago."


    "So he might the one."


    "Or not. Lots of scams out there, Spinoza. You know that. Anyway, the kid, your client, goes through the proper channels and next thing I hear they''re digging up mamma. Only she''s not where she''s supposed to be."


    "Curiouser and curiouser," I said.


    "Fucking sick, if you ask me." But not so sick as to stop him from sinking his teeth deep into the burger.


    "Any leads?" I asked.


    "Nope," he said, chewing furiously. "But if you see a corpse lying around, lemme know. I''m trying like hell to pawn this case off on the robbery division, since they deal with human trafficking, too."


    "A loophole in the LAPD divisions," I said.


    "Yeah, but it''s not shaking out the way I''d hoped. So far, Chief wants me in on it because I''m familiar with the case. Like I''ve got nothing better to do then look for a stolen fucking body."


    "A waste of your considerable talents," I said.


    "Don''t fuck with me, Spinoza. I got two new homicides in the last 24 hours alone. Last thing I need to be doing is looking for a bunch of bones."


    "Sounds like you might need my help, too," I said.


    "Not likely, but if you want to poke around, feel free."


    "I''ll need a copy of your file," I said.


    "It''s illegal for me to give you a copy of my file."


    "It''s never stopped you before."


    "I know," said Hammer, polishing off the burger. "I just needed to officially say it before I accidentally email you a copy of the electronic file."


    I grinned. "Accidents do happen."

 Page 3

    I was in my office when, a short while later, Detective Hammer "accidentally" sent me an email containing the entire contents of his investigation into the murder of Evelyn Drake. He followed his mistake by sending me an email stating that he had fucked up and sent the email incorrectly, and that I was, by law, to delete it immediately.


    Which I did, after I had "accidentally" printed out the entire contents. And with my feet propped up on my desk during a quiet afternoon, when my phone neither rang nor clients stepped in, I read the file, glued to the pages. Hammer was a helluva homicide detective, I give him that, although I would never tell him in person. Actually, Hammer reminded me of another detective I''d recently had the pleasure of working with, an ex-football player out of Orange County. Cocky as hell, but meticulous and driven. Like Hammer.


    Anyway, Hammer had made detailed file notes and reports, and it was all riveting stuff. From phone calls to interviews, to eyewitness testimonies and crime scene reports, it told a compelling story of heartbreak and murder, and I was glued to the pages until the sun went down.


    During the course of the investigation, Hammer had had his hands full. The husband had tried his damnedest to cover his tracks and set up a fake alibi. Through dogged investigative work and following hunch after hunch, Hammer had cracked the case and nailed the murderous husband, who was now currently rotting in San Quentin, awaiting execution.


    For good reason. Within these pages was a very sad tale of an abused woman and her worthless husband. She had spent decades being abused and tormented, only to finally find escape in death.


    She left behind two teenage children and, according to the will, a third. Apparently, she had given up a boy for adoption when she had been very young. No other information was known or mentioned about the boy, just the small notation in the will...and a sizable trust fund.


    I turned in my swivel chair and looked out my second-story window. My office sat on a small hillock above some shabbier homes in Echo Park, a burrow of Los Angeles made famous in movies and film.


    For now the street below was quiet and the far horizon shimmered with more beauty than Los Angeles deserved. For all the smog that it pumped into its skies, the horizon should have been gray and black and dead, instead alive with nearly every color of the rainbow.


    A corpse, at some point, had been dug up from the grave and removed. I knew there were body snatches out there. Folks who sold cadavers illegally for reasons known only to them. I suspected for illegal research projects. But such cases were damn rare.


    But, as the pawn shop guy on TV says, "You never know what''s going to come in through your door next."


    In this case, it had been a phone call from an orphaned teenage boy presently seeking a DNA maternity test from a murdered mother he''d never met.


    I sat back in my chair and closed my eyes. Behind me, through my open window, I heard a bum singing drunkenly. Unremarkably, he was singing "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" except he was so drunk that he was adding bottles. He was currently at 132 bottles of beer on the wall, although he occasionally skipped three or four bottles ahead.


    Myself, I hadn''t had anything to drink in two years, not since the night my son lost his life.


    I took in some air and didn''t fight the pain that overcame me all over again, perhaps for the fiftieth time that day. I let the pain run its course and when I was done weeping again, I stood up from my desk, grabbed my light jacket off the back of my chair, and headed out to meet the orphaned son for the first time.

 Page 4

    We were in Echo Park, sitting on a park bench before a man-made lake. Years ago, the lake had been filled with lotus plants - more lotus plants than I had ever seen. But the plants had slowly died off and now they were gone and it saddened the heart.


    There was a stigma about the park. Some thought it was dangerous, and maybe it was, at times. But for the most part, it was a little piece of green and blue in a city of concrete and graffiti. Joggers mixed with bums mixed with lovers mixed with God-only-knew-what-their story was. A melting pot of physical fitness, homelessness and drugs.


    And one curious private investigator and a very lost sixteen-year-old boy.


    We were sitting side by side, although his backpack was tucked between us. The evening sky was mostly clear, with only a small patch of something gauzy and amorphous high above. The trees around us rustled in the breeze. The breeze carried the smell of pond decay. Across the street, boys played basketball at a park. Most were shirtless, and most were covered in tattoos. As I watched, a fight nearly broke out, but only a few choice words seemed to be the extent of it.


    His name was David and he was shy. I was shy, too, and the two didn''t combine for a lot of random chit-chat. We had said our greetings and were now sitting quietly on the bench.


    I finally started things off. "Hot day."


    "Yeah."


    "The nights aren''t any better."


    He nodded.


    "How long have you been in L.A.?" I asked.


    "A few months now."


    "Where did you live before?"


    "San Francisco."


    I nodded. Funny how life was often serendipitous. My last major case had taken me to San Francisco.


    "What brought you down here?"


    "My birth mom."


    "Who are you staying with?"


    "My aunt and uncle."


    "Who were you living with before coming down?"


    He looked away. "My father."


    "Your adopted father?"


    "Yes."


    "What about your adopted mother?"


    "She died when I was four."


    "Do you like your adopted father?"


    "No."


    "Why?"


    "You ask a lot of questions," he said.


    "I get paid to ask a lot of questions."


    "But I''m only paying you two tacos."


    "Payment is payment."


    David looked at me, squinting against the last of the sun that was hovering somewhere over my right shoulder. David had a smattering of freckles over his nose and cheekbones. I predicted in two years the freckles would be gone. My son had freckles, too.


    Shit. I took in a lot of air. When I had some control over myself, I said, "Why don''t you like your father?"


    "Because he''s lazy and says shitty things."


    "Did he ever hit you?"


    "No."


    "But he was psychologically abusive."


    David nodded. "Yeah, that."


    "How was he lazy?"


    He shrugged. "He never worked. We usually lived with his girlfriends, until they kicked us out. He made me start working at fourteen, at a girlfriend''s cookie shop. Then he took most of the money I made."


    "He put you to work and then took your money?"


    "Basically."


    "What do you think about that?"


    "I hate him."


    I asked him some more questions and I did my best to piece together his often stunted, one-word answers. The kid had known at a young age that he was adopted. His father, apparently, liked to throw his adoption in his face. No doubt to be cruel. Apparently his father had not taken his wife''s death too well. In the years after, the man had spent much of his time drinking and man-whoring.


    David, at about age fifteen, began looking for his birth mother, until he quickly discovered that he couldn''t request birth parent records in the state of California until he, the adoptee, was twenty-one. But the kid was dogged and industrious, and soon he had the help of a sympathetic superior court judge, who happened to be the mother of a close friend. The judge stepped in and was able to convince the Department of Social Services to release David''s birth mother''s records. She cited extenuating, extraordinary circumstances, the only reason the state would release such information.


    David didn''t know what the extenuating, extraordinary circumstance were, but I suspected the judge had simply pulled a few strings.


    Now with her help, he was able to track down his mother all the way to Los Angeles, only to discover that she had been slain two years earlier. A mother who had left behind two children and a vast fortune. Those two children were being raised by grandparents; the father, of course, was currently awaiting execution at San Quentin.


    The superior court judge next got hold of the will. In the will, Evelyn Drake, his birth mother, in an extreme act of generosity, had set up a significant trust fund for him, should he ever come looking for her.


    David, who was already making arrangements to live with his adopted mother''s sister here in southern California, was set to inherit a good deal of money.


    But state law insists on a DNA test. So one was set, and when it came time to administer the test; meaning, extracting DNA from his mother''s corpse, the body had been discovered missing.


    Which is where I came in.


    "That''s a helluva story, kid," I said.


    He looked away, nodded.


    A shapely rollerblader came blading by. She was followed immediately by a stumbling bum, either drunk or high. The bum was followed, in turn, by a limping golden retriever. The retriever stayed close to the bum and I was briefly touched by the creature''s loyalty. I suspected the dog was the only thing keeping the man alive through sheer love, devotion and protection.


    There were tears in David''s eyes. It''s bad enough losing one mother, but this kid had lost two.


    The bum curled up in the fetal position on the grass near the lake, using his arm as a pillow. The golden retriever curled up next to him, ever watchful, keeping his drunken owner safe. A woman nearby immediately got up from the grass and left, shoving one of those e-reader thingies into her purse.


    "I don''t really care about the money," said David.


    I nodded. The dog lay its fuzzy muzzle across the back of the unconscious man, who was now snoring loudly.


    "I just want to know what happened to her," he said.


    I nodded again, and watched the dog close its eyes, although its ears remained ever alert.

 Page 5

    I was with my girlfriend, Roxi, at a restaurant called Fred 62.


    A weird name for a place with great food. I''m sure the restaurant had all sorts of history, too, although I didn''t know it. But I was willing to bet that guys like Cagney and Hudson and Rooney all had eaten here at one point or another. Maybe Elizabeth Taylor had gotten shit-faced drunk in a back booth. Or John Wayne had punched out some asshole for asking too many lame questions. Maybe. I didn''t know, but the place had an old Hollywood feel to it. Ancient vinyl booths. Old wood paneling. Old posters. Hip energy. And set right in the heart of Los Feliz, itself just north of bustling Hollywood.


    "I think David Schwimmer is eating behind us," said Roxi. She sounded very excited.


    "You mean Ross?"


    "Yeah, Ross. And don''t say ''Where''s Rachel?''"


    "Where''s Rachel?"


    "Dumb ass."


    But she was right. At least I think she was right. Behind a head of neatly trimmed dark hair flashed the occasional profile of the Friends'' star. He was with a beautiful woman, and they were sitting across from another beautiful couple.


    "I think you''re right," I said. "It''s all very exciting."


    "You don''t look very excited."


    "I live and work in L.A. I see stars all the time. So far, I have yet to see one of them levitate or turn water into wine."


    She pouted. "You''re such a party-pooper." But even as she said those words, I saw her brain turning. Steam practically issued from her ears.


    "Oh, no," I said, catching on. "He doesn''t want to read your screenplay."


    "But he''s a director now. This could be my big break."


    "I doubt it."


    "You don''t believe in me?"


    "Oh, I believe in you, but I doubt this is your big break."


    She pouted some more and seemed to refocus on her menu. "It''s a good screenplay."


    "I know," I said. "I read it." Which was mostly true. I had skimmed it. I found that focusing on anything for too long was nearly impossible these days. It''s hard to read words when you still hear your son screaming.


    The waiter came by and took our order. I got a big breakfast sandwich, minus the ham, even though it was after 9:00 p.m. Roxi liked the sound of it and ordered the same, plus the ham. In fact, she made the waiter put my displaced ham on her sandwich.


    He wrote everything down like it all made perfect sense, and when he left, Roxi asked me what I was working on. I told her about it, or as much as I knew.


    "Wild," she said.


    "About as wild as it gets."


    "And you''re doing it all for free?"


    "Not quite. For two tacos."


    She shook her head sadly. "You give away too much of your time. You could be doing paying work, you know." She next held up her hand, stopping me. "Wait. I already know what you''re going to say."


    "Oh, yeah?"


    "Yeah," she said. "You''re going to tell me that it''s not about the money, that it''s about helping those who can''t help themselves, about making things right in the universe."


    "That, and I want those tacos."


    "You can''t help everybody, Spinoza," she said, using my last name like most people do.


    "Nope, but I can sure as hell help some."


    "But this case is...gross. You''re looking for a corpse, for Christ''s sake."


    "And giving a young man peace of mind, and perhaps setting him up for the rest of his life."


    "Because his birth mother left him an inheritance."


    "An inheritance that is rightfully his."


    "After the DNA testing confirms it," she said.


    "Right."


    "So how does one look for a corpse?"


    "No clue," I said, as the waiter came by with our food. My breakfast sandwich looked glorious. Huge and leaning and dripping with hollandaise sauce and ripe avocado slices. Roxi''s looked even bigger, with her two fat slices of ham.


    "Do me a favor," she said, as she picked up her sandwich. "Let''s not talk about corpses while we eat."

 Page 6

    I started looking for the corpse at the only place I could think of: the cemetery where David''s birth mother, Evelyn, had been buried. Where her coffin had been exhumed. And where, later, it had been found to be empty.


    Weird shit.


    It was early the next morning when I pulled over to the side of one of those narrow cemetery roads and parked my Camry under an elm tree. I was tired but alert. I don''t sleep well these days, and if I was a betting man, I would bet that I would probably never sleep well again.


    The Forest Lawn Cemetery here in Burbank, on the other side of the infamous Griffith Park, is epic, covering an entire hillside. If I had to be buried anywhere, it would be here. Granted, I would want to be buried near my son, but I doubted he would want anything to do with me, even in the after life, and especially for all eternity.


    There were a few others here. This is greater L.A., after all, with nearly 30 million people, and so one rarely, if ever, finds themselves alone. Anywhere. About seven or eight people were presently brushing off burial plaques or standing solemnly in the early morning light. I heard the faint sound of weeping from somewhere. Most were dressed in business attire, no doubt on the way to work.


    Myself, I was here for work.


    Sipping a latte something or other from Starbucks, I made my way through the cemetery, picking my way carefully behind grave markers. I''ve never put much stock into the supernatural (well, that is, until recently...long story), but walking over somebody''s grave just seemed wrong. After all, everything they had ever done and everything they ever were was summed up into one spot of earth. The least someone could do was avoid walking over them.


    Like a good investigator, I already had Evelyn''s plot location in hand, and after studying a map of the grounds upon entering the cemetery, I had a fairly good idea where I was going.


    Fairly. This was still confusing as hell.


    My breath misted before me. Steam billowed up from that little hole in the Starbucks lid. Birds flitted overhead and the sun was rising to the east, casting my elongated shadow over the gently sloping hill. Hard to believe that within such a beautiful hillside were thousands upon thousands of corpses.


    An old poem came to mind: The ghosts of the tribe/ Crouch in the nights beside the ghost of a fire/ They try to remember the sunlight/ But light has died out of their skies.


    But not on this hillside. Here, the morning sun blazed full force, galvanizing the dead.


    I took in a lot of air and found breathing suddenly difficult. It was impossible for me to walk through any cemetery without thinking of the little boy I had condemned into one for eternity. My little boy.


    When I found my breath again, I moved on, feet crunching over the dewy grass. Soon, after a handful of false starts, I found the correct row, and five minutes after that, I was standing over a freshly turned grave.


    The casket, I knew, was gone. It was now marked evidence somewhere. Grave robbing is serious business. No one wants to think they''re loved ones may not be where they''re supposed to be. Although cranky and bitchy, I knew that Hammer was still approaching this case seriously. Except he was already overworked as it was. I wasn''t overworked. I was underworked if anything. And Roxi was right. The last thing I needed was to take on a charity case.


    Say that to my conscience.


    I got into this business to help. To give back. To heal. To stop the pain. To ease the pain.


    To be anything other than what I had been before.


    A small wind, which flapped my loose jeans at my ankles, brought with it the subtler scents of nature. But mostly I smelled the freshly turned soil at my feet.


    What the hell was going on here?


    I knelt down and looked closely at the ground around me, picturing in my mind what must have happened here. Someone, or perhaps many someones, had dug up the body and removed it from this very spot. Later, the grave had been officially exhumed and found to be empty.


    I considered the possibility that perhaps her body never made it to the grave site. Seemed a good question, and one that I would follow up on.


    For now, though, I studied the grave site, noting where a tractor had recently sat. No doubt a small crane had been used to raise coffin. No doubt the caretakers also used some sort of backhoe to dig up the site. And, for all I knew, there was some sort of machine that could do both. The Ford Gravedigger 1000 or something. Digs, lifts and buries - all in one.


    I stood and walked around the site, not sure what I was looking for, but keeping my eyes on the ground, looking for anything that stood out. Nothing stood out. No graverobbing business cards left behind. No broken-handled shovels. No deep shoe impression with, say, a rounded inside heel to indicate someone had recently walked through here with a noticeable limp.


    I stood on the hillside and soaked in the sun. A bluish light seemed to dance before me, but that was probably just an odd refraction of the sunlight, the mist and the green grass.


    The blue light was smallish, about the size of a little boy. It seemed to hover before me briefly, before I blinked and it disappeared.


    If it had been there at all.

 Page 7

    I was in a strange office.


    It was the Forest Lawn''s groundskeeper''s office, and it was a little creepy. There were exactly three open coffins lined up along the far wall. Mercifully, the coffins were empty. There was a pile of marble grave markers on one side of his desk, and a pile of bronze markers on the other side his desk. The bronze markers were empty. Meaning, they were awaiting names to be engraved. Names of those who were not yet dead. Someone, somewhere was going to die, and his name was going to appear on that bronze plaque.


    Creepy.


    The caretaker was a middle-aged man with thick glasses. Surprisingly, there wasn''t dirt under his fingernails and there weren''t clumps of it tracked in from the outside, either.


    "Are all cemetery caretakers as clean as you?" I asked.


    He asked me to repeat what I had said since I tend to talk beneath the normal hearing range. I spoke up a little louder, always a little nervous at this point in a conversation. It''s hell being shy.


    He grinned and sat back, which immediately put me at ease. "Ah, yes, the stereotypical myth of cemetery caretakers perceptually covered in clumpy graveyard soil. Actually, very few of us stick our fingers in the stuff. We have equipment for that."


    "Could you describe the day that Evelyn Drake was exhumed?"


    "You get right to it, don''t you?" he said.


    "There are graves to dig."


    "You got that right," he said. "Anyway, it was a weird day."


    "I bet. Were you there when the casket was opened?"


    "I was nearby."


    "What happened when the casket was opened?"


    "Shit hit the fan."


    "Because it was empty."


    "Yup."


    "Where''s the casket now?"


    "In the back."


    "The police didn''t confiscate it?"


    "Nope. But it''s roped off. We were told not to let anyone near it."


    I showed him Detective Hammer''s card. He took it from me and called the number. A few exchanges later and the caretaker was hanging up again. "He says you''re reliable enough."


    "He''s always thought highly of me."


    "But he said not to touch anything."


    I felt my gorge rise at the thought of touching the casket. I''m a private eye, after all, not a medical examiner. "Wouldn''t dream of it."

 Page 8

    My life is weird, I thought, as the groundskeeper led me through a rear wood shop where a guy with goggles was actually building a coffin.


    I learned that the cemetery offered these simplified boxes to those who could not afford the more expensive wooden caskets. I found the whole business of death unnerving. The coffin builder stopped working and watched us quietly as we moved through his shop. Saw dust rested lightly on his shoulder and there was a nail in his mouth. His eyes were impossibly big behind the goggles. The hair on my neck was standing on end.


    I nodded politely and pardoned myself as we moved past him. He made no sound or movement. Instead he watched us until we exited through a side door. The hair on my neck and shoulders prickled.


    "Why do I feel like I just walked onto the set of a horror movie?" I asked in the next room, shivering a little. A very discomfiting experience, to say the least.


    "Probably because Boyd is about as weird as they come," said the caretaker. And I figured that if a cemetery caretaker was telling me someone was weird, well, you could damn well take that to the bank.


    We walked through a storage room full of gardening equipment...and then I saw it. Lying flat on the ground with the lid closed was a freshly exhumed coffin. Yellow police tape encircled it and the staff themselves had placed some cones around it.


    With the steady - and disturbing - sounds of coffin-making going on behind us, I found myself slowly circling another eternal bed for the dead.


    I said, "How often does your cemetery exhume graves?"


    "Not often."


    "How much is not often?"


    "Once every other year or so."


    "Was there anything unusual about this exhumation?"


    "Other than the coffin being empty? No. It was a routine dig."


    The caretaker stood off to the side of the cones. He looked bored and a little nervous. I would be nervous, too, if a coffin showed up empty on my watch.


    "Have you ever experienced anything like this before?" I asked.


    "A missing body? No."


    "Have you heard of any recent cases of grave robbing?"


    "Not at the cemeteries, no. There were a few cadavers stolen from a research facility over at UCLA, and there were a few misplaced cadavers at a nearby crematorium, but that''s all I''ve heard."


    I nodded like this all sounded normal. Yesterday I had been sitting in my office, wondering if my phone would ring. Today I was circling an empty coffin in a creepy back room of a cemetery.


    Yeah, my life is weird.


    "Other than the corpse being missing, was there any indication of foul play?" I asked.


    "If you''re asking if the grave looked like it had been freshly turned, the answer is no. There was old-growth grass."


    "Can I see inside the coffin?"


    "The detective said not to mess with it."


    "I won''t mess with it. I''m just going to look."


    The caretaker looked long and hard at me. The back room was mostly dark, although a few open doors permitted the bright morning sun in. A single dusty, yellow bulb was on overhead. The caretaker continued staring at me behind his thick glasses. There was sweat on his brow, even though the morning was still fairly cool. If the guy wanted to pull out a nail gun and shoot me between the eyes and then bury me in an undisclosed plot in the cemetery, no one would ever know.


    "Fine," he said. "The detective seemed to know you, and I''m not the police. You fuck things up, you can answer to LAPD, not me. I''ll be in my office."


    He left the room and I went over to the casket, walking between the cones and stepping over the police tape. I didn''t know much about caskets, but it was obvious to me that this one was nice. If I had to guess, I would say the stained, polished wood was solid cherry. Presently, there were clumps of dirt embedded in the various grooves and fittings, caked especially where the poles, the long wooden handles, lay against the sides. Soil wafted up strongly from the whole thing. I thought I would smell death, too, but I didn''t. Or maybe, hanging out here all morning, I was already getting used to it.


    I stood over the casket for a good minute before I mustered the courage to open it. I took in some air, reached down, grabbed the wooden lip and lifted....


    I held my breath, holding the open lid, and could not have been more relieved to see that the coffin was clean. Not perfectly clean. There was some darkish stains that could have been soil or even make up. Or perhaps even hair dye. But all in all, I had gotten lucky. A good thing, too, since my pumpkin scone was hovering somewhere between my heart and throat. I swallowed hard, forcing it down and went to work examining the inside of the coffin.


    I wondered how thoroughly the interior of the coffin had been examined, and decided probably not too much. Once the coffin had been found to be empty there had probably been an initial investigation, and then the case was sent off to Hammer. A missing corpse, for a busy L.A. homicide detective, ranks fairly low on the to-do list.


    I found myself drawn to the cushions in the top half lid; that is, the part of the casket that would cover the face and upper torso. The material here was thickly padded silk, and I shortly discovered something odd. The padding here was compressed somehow. Smashed. I had no explanation for it, other than the mortician might have damaged it during the funeral preparation, or perhaps the body itself had bloated during the decaying process, or even the crane they used to lower the casket had swung about, shifting the body, causing pressure on the padding.


    I didn''t know. But I knew that pressure was one thing, this was another. This was smashed. By my estimation, the area in question was directly above where her chest would have been. Most of the padding here was soft, except the small area, perhaps a diameter of six inches, where it was pressed down noticeably.


    I stood straight, hands on hips, perplexed.


    Was this simply an irregularity in the design? A place where the cushion was attached to the wood behind it, perhaps? I reached down again but could not find a seam. But I did find something else.


    I reached into my jeans pocket and extracted my key chain. And from it I selected a little light, which I turned on. I aimed the light on the depressed cushion and leaned in a little closer.


    Ah. There was a tear. Very faint. And a slight discoloration to the fabric.


    I stood straight again, frowning. I considered the ramifications of what I was seeing and feeling. Had the grave robbers caused the damage? Had the body even made it into the grave? Or had it been stolen, let''s say, before the burial?


    Too many questions. Too much gorge, which I continued to fight. Damn pumpkin scone.


    A thought occurred to me. A really horrible thought that made my heart race and sweat break out on my brow. I knew what I had to do next. I had to test my theory, even if to discount it. I paced the big storage area. Hammering from the next door wood shop seemed to keep pace with my creaking footfalls.


    This is nuts, I thought.


    I continued pacing.


    Seriously nuts. I don''t get paid enough for this shit.


    Hell, I''m not getting paid at all, tacos notwithstanding.


    But a young man needed help, needed answers.


    I stopped pacing and moved over to the casket. I took in a lot of air. And I mean a lot of air.


    And then I climbed inside.

 Page 9

    Fifteen minutes later, I was still shaking as I drove my nondescript Camry out of the cemetery, and merged into traffic on Highway 134.


    I needed a drink. Bad.


    But I haven''t touched the stuff since the accident two years earlier. Nor would I, but now, in this situation, I saw the benefit of having one or two drinks. Anything to help me come to terms what had happened back in the cemetery storage room.


    Back in the casket.


    Traffic picked up a little and I applied more gas. My arms were still shaking. I took a deep, shuddering breath. On me was a smell I couldn''t shake. Soil and dirt and something else. Death.


    I needed a drink.


    The casket had been snug. Although it had clearly been built for a woman, it was surprisingly comfortable. The makers had not held back on the padding, either.


    Prior to climbing in I had examined the lid''s closing mechanism. There was nothing on it that would indicate it would lock from the inside. It seemed to swing open and shut readily enough.


    Once inside the casket, I reached up and lowered the lid slowly.


    Sealing myself in.


    Traffic was backing up as the 134 East merged with the 5 South. Someone honked. Someone answered with another honk. A car nearby was thumping the bass. I ignored them all.


    As I shut the lid, an overwhelming sense of panic overcame me and immediately pushed the lid back open, relieved beyond words that the lid had opened easily enough.


    Thank God.


    Lowering it again, I lay back on the slightly dirty pillow, my skin crawling, and certain that I was going to heave at any minute. But in the meantime, I went to work. I turned on my key chain light again, casting a powerful blue-white beam into the enclosed space.


    I was all too aware that I was lying in something that was meant to be buried six feet deep. In something that was supposed to contain the corpse of a murdered young woman. I was all too aware that this disturbingly cozy box was supposed to have gone undisturbed for perhaps all eternity.


    All of it added up to some serious goosebumps, shivers, and an inability to control my breathing.


    I was on the 5 Freeway now, moving faster, but knowing the freeway could stop at any moment - as it suddenly did now. I drummed my fingers on my steering wheel as I relived those final moments in the casket.


    With my key chain light casting an eerie blue light in a setting that didn''t need to be any more eerie, I noted there was just enough space for me to raise my right arm. Which I did.


    Aiming the small light with my left hand, I raised my right fist and placed it where it would have been most comfortable knocking on the inside of the casket.


    It landed, of course, in the same area of the depressed cushion. The area of the slight discoloration. Someone, I was certain, had been knocking from the inside of the casket.


    Breathing hard, I opened the blade to my small pocketknife. Hammer''s evidence, be damned. I cut through the fabric of the cushion above my chest, and soon spread it open, revealing the unpolished wood beneath.


    The wood behind the cushion was split and seriously damaged.


    And when I raised the lid and sat up, gasping for fresh air, I was not too surprised to see Boyd the coffin-maker standing inside the storage room doorway, watching me.

 Page 10

    Dr. Vivian Carter was recommended by a new friend of mine, an older investigator I had recently worked with on an unusual case a few weeks back.


    Aaron King, who also specialized in finding the missing, had produced her card and tucked it in my shirt pocket. He said only that she would help me, and that she was helping him, too. I hadn''t asked for help and I had been mildly offended, but who was I kidding? I was a royal mess, and an old guy like Aaron saw through my feeble charade.


    Now I was sitting across from her in a lounge chair, unable to meet her direct gaze. She was a lovely woman, older than me by perhaps five or ten years. But I wasn''t here to admire her loveliness. I was here because my life was spinning out of control.


    "How are you, Mr. Spinoza?"


    "I''ve been better."


    The light from her desk lamp reflected off her own thick glasses. Her hands were folded neatly in front of her. She was unmoving and stoic, but also so calm that I found my shyness slipping away quickly. She tilted her head slightly to the right and some of the desk lamp light caught along her slightly upturned nose.


    "Tell me about when you''ve been better."


    And so I did. Or I tried to. I told story after story of my life before the tragedies.


    Dr. Vivian listened quietly, occasionally nodding encouragingly and sometimes even writing down notes. Mostly she just watched me closely, radiating a calm intensity.


    "You keep talking about ''before the accidents''."


    I nodded, looking away.


    "Tell me about the accidents."


    And so I did that, too. I found myself going over my wife''s car accident in detail. Or as much of it as I could, since I had not been there. She had been coming home from work. It had been raining. Her car, as best as anyone could figure out, had slid out of control. I knew my wife. She was a great driver. Some asshole piece of shit had probably cut her off. I knew it. I felt it in the very marrow of my bones. He had cut her off and she had swerved and lost control and went spinning across the slippery freeway. She had hit the center divider head on, only to be hit immediately after by a tour bus cruising down the carpool lane. A tour bus that had been speeding recklessly, no doubt.


    Dr. Vivian listened to all of this calmly, compassionately, making sympathetic sounds where appropriate.


    She asked me a few more questions and I found myself explaining the hate I had felt - still felt - for everything, especially God and my wife''s alleged guardian angels and anyone responsible for her death. I hated the phantom car that cut her off, and I loathed the tour bus driver.


    In the past, I had always turned to drinking as an escape; after her death, my drinking got ten times worse. My employer, with a heavy heart, eventually fired me.


    I next described my utter neglect of my little boy, who was suddenly without his mother, and now without a father, too. My neglect for him led to more drinking. I was trying to kill myself, I knew it. I couldn''t stand the pain of living. I couldn''t stand the fact that I would never, ever see my wife again.


    "You said accidents, Mr. Spinoza," she said quietly, calmly, leading me along gently, expertly.


    I took a deep breath and plunged forward, describing the night I was to take my son to a birthday party in the Hollywood Hills. It had been the sixth month anniversary of my wife''s accident, and I had taken it pretty hard. I was so drunk that I don''t even remember driving along the twisty Mulholland Drive. My memory only begins when my car veered off the road and down into the trees several dozens of feet below. I had been ejected, but my son hadn''t been so lucky. I was so badly hurt and drunk that I was incapable of piecing together what had just happened. It was then that I felt the fire behind me...and heard the strangled cries. I remember turning around on my hands and knees, in the dirt and bushes, as blood poured from a head wound, and seeing my son through the windshield.


    Still strapped in his seatbelt.


    As the fire engulfed him.


    We were silent a long, long time. I was aware of the clock ticking behind me. It just might have been the loudest clock I''d ever heard. In fact, it was nearly driving me nuts. I forced myself to calm down as I wiped the tears away.


    Without her prompting, I went on to describe the year I had spent in jail for vehicular manslaughter. And my life these past two years, sober and alone and hurting unlike anything I thought was possible.


    It was then that Dr. Vivian came to life. She stood from her chair and walked carefully around her oversized desk and sat down in front of me in a client chair. She was a professional. That much was obvious. I saw all the degrees on her walls as proof.


    But she was also human, and she leaned forward and gave me the biggest hug I''d ever been given and the tears flowed. Hers and mine.


    Finally, she pulled back, wiping her cheeks, and said, "I''ll deny I ever did that, but if anyone ever needed a hug, Mr. Spinoza, it was you. See you next week."

 Page 11

    I was having lunch with Roxi at the Electric Lotus.


    She made me promise not to talk about any corpses, cemeteries or grave robbers. So instead I told her a little about my first therapy session, leaving out the hug. Roxi approved of anything that would help me move forward. Why she stuck it out with me, I''m still not sure. Certainly not for the laughs and giggles. One thing about shy people, we''re great listeners, and when I was done recounting my early afternoon session, Roxi launched into a long story about a pitch-meeting she was going to have with Paramount Studios. I listened and nodded in all the right places, but all I could think about was the interior of the coffin, and the compressed cushion where I was certain someone had been knocking.


    Perhaps even knocking long and hard.


    The house was immaculate.


    It was a mini-mansion, as I would describe it, with Doric columns out front and marble floors in the entry way and a winding staircase that led to the second floor. The older lady who greeted me for our appointment did not smile at me. When people don''t smile at me, I get more nervous. Words are harder to find and the sweat breaks out all over. Sometimes stammering ensues, too.


    James Bond I''m not.


    "Have a seat, Mr. Spinoza," said the woman. "Would you like something to drink?"


    I said I was fine.


    "Excuse me?" she asked.


    "No, thank you," I said in a strangled whisper.


    She frowned and sat across from me and I fought my nerves and pressed forward. I had a job to do, after all. It was my mantra. In fact that mantra - I have a job to do - had gotten me through many personal harrowing experiences. Harrowing, that is, for me.


    I have a job to do, I thought again and again.


    I raised my voice. "As you know, I''m here to talk about your daughter."


    She merely nodded. Her name was Elizabeth Perkins, and she was the mother of Evelyn Drake, whose body was presently missing. The family, I knew, was wealthy. How and why they were wealthy, I didn''t know. Perhaps old Hollywood money. An investor or a producer or something. Anyway, Mrs. Perkins was wearing white slacks and a red blouse that highlighted her trim figure. She was probably in her sixties. Her scowling face made her look older.


    "Has anyone contacted you about your daughter''s... missing remains?" I asked.


    "Other than the police, no. Only Detective Hammer and now you." Her jawline tightened. "May I ask your interest in this case, Mr. Spinoza?"


    "I''m working with the boy, her biological son."


    She made no indication that she heard me. No nod. No frown. Nothing. She said, "I was under the impression that the boy is a runaway."


    "He ran away from an abusive situation and is now in a better situation."


    I was all too aware that she was his biological grandmother. That fact did not seem to please her. "Better situation, how?"


    "He''s living with an aunt and uncle."


    She made a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat. I pressed forward, so uncomfortable I could barely think straight. "Has anyone unofficial contacted you, Mrs. Perkins?"


    "Unofficial in what way?"


    I took a deep breath, calmed myself. I have a job to do. I have a job to do. "Has anyone tried to blackmail you with your daughter''s remains?"


    "I don''t understand the question."


    Breathe, breathe. "Has anyone demanded money for the return of your daughter''s body?"


    She raised her hand to her face and looked away and the tears sprang from her eyes. The change was so sudden that I sat there, surprised. I shouldn''t have been surprised. I had just asked a mother, who''s daughter had been murdered a few years earlier, if a body snatcher had tried to ransom her daughter''s remains.


    Jesus.


    A sick world. A sick question. A question I had to ask.


    She was shaking her head and her steely facade had crumbled completely. She kept shaking her head even while I sat there, uncomfortable, regretting my decision to come, but needing answers, nonetheless.


    "No," she finally said. "I''ve heard from no one. Do people really do that?"


    "It''s possible. It happened to Charlie Chaplin''s family."


    She wept harder and covered her face and I heard movement from upstairs, although I saw no one at the time. I asked her if she had ever been contacted by the cemetery. If there had ever been any indication of a grave plot mix-up. The questions were difficult and painful for both of us, and all the while I kept hearing creaking above me. Someone was pacing up there, listening.


    Mrs. Perkins was beyond speech. She just kept shaking her head at each question and finally I decided to leave. I apologized for causing her pain and left my card on the coffee table.


    And as I turned to leave, I involuntarily gasped. From upstairs a young woman was looking down at me. Peering over the bannister from around a corner that led, I assumed, to a hallway. The woman had a strong resemblance to Evelyn Drake, but she was younger by many years. Her sister, I thought. Or perhaps a cousin. I blinked, and she blinked, and then she turned away, disappearing into the shadows.


    I let myself out.

 Page 12

    I was sitting in a Starbucks with a new friend of mine, the old detective, Aaron King.


    I had met Aaron recently through another acquaintance of mine, Jim Knighthorse, a character who worked out of Orange County. All three of us had been brought along on a case involving a missing girl, led by another Orange County detective, a young woman named Samantha Moon. Four detectives working one case, and we did eventually find the girl, with Aaron King and Samantha Moon seeing the case through to the end.


    Samantha Moon was someone I thought about often. Beautiful, perky, but shrouded in a mystery. Something haunted her. What it was, I doubt I would ever know. Aaron King and I talked a little about the case of the missing girl, and about Samantha Moon and her own possible secrets, but Aaron was keeping quiet about her. My instincts told me that he knew something he wasn''t revealing. At least, not yet.


    I switched the subject to my case at hand. I needed another investigator to bounce some ideas off of, especially now that I had recently been faxed the autopsy report. A report that had been disturbing in more ways than one. I would have picked Hammer to speak with, but Hammer was fairly closed-minded. I needed someone with an open mind.


    A very open mind.


    After all, I was beginning to think that something very, very strange was going on here.


    Aaron King seemed enigmatic himself. The old guy was good looking enough, and projected a confidence that I completely lacked. He sat across from me in a wobbly outdoor chair, drinking a hot coffee, black. No frills. I decided that Aaron King looked like someone I knew, but I couldn''t place him. Not now. And, really, I didn''t care.


    I caught him up to date on the case, keeping to the facts. And next caught him up on the autopsy report Hammer had faxed to me just that afternoon. A report that included the method of death: multiple stabbings.


    Aaron cringed as if he''s burned his tongue. "He was a bastard, for sure. They have him on Death Row?"


    "Yes."


    "Good."


    I nodded and next brought up a peculiar aspect of the slaying. "He had used a silver knife."


    King''s eyes narrowed. "A strange metal for a knife."


    "It was a silver butter knife."


    "So he grabs the first weapon he sees."


    I nodded. "Maybe. Except the knife was in the upstairs bedside drawer."


    "Helluva place to keep a butter knife."


    "Lots of people keep weapons by their beds."


    "But a butter knife?" asked King.


    "Maybe the man liked toast in bed."


    King shook his head. Glendale Boulevard was thick with cars and exhaust. The exhaust wafted over us. It was a sad testament to our city living that neither of us coughed nor waved it away. King said, "Did the husband ever give a confession?"


    "He never spoke to the police. In fact, he never spoke to anyone."


    "So we''ll never know why he kept a butter knife in his upper drawer next to his bed."


    "Probably not."


    "And yet he stabbed her...how many times?"


    "Seventy-two times."


    King whistled. "That''s rage."


    "By the time the police arrived, she had been drained of most of her blood."


    "I would think so." King shivered and looked sick. I didn''t blame him.


    "The husband then staged the scene to make it look like a break in."


    "Dumb ass."


    I nodded. "He was arrested within the week."


    King set his drink down. In fact, he even pushed it away. "So what''s your concerns, Spinoza?"


    I took a deep breath and wondered how much I should tell him. I finally decided that I needed to bounce some thoughts off of someone, some slightly disturbing thoughts, and the enigmatic old guy seemed about as good a choice as anyone.


    So I told him about my discoveries inside the casket, about the evidence that seemed to indicate someone had been knocking on it from the inside, and the seasoned detective looked at me sideways for a long time before answering.


    "You''re yanking my chain, Spinoza."


    "No."


    "And the wood was split?"


    "Directly behind the damaged padding."


    He was quiet some more and we both listened to a motorcycle rumble by. Not quite a Harley, but it sure wanted to be. When the noise maker was gone, King spoke. "Something must have been hitting it pretty hard to split the wood."


    "Hard and perhaps sustained."


    "Are you telling me that you think someone was buried alive in that thing?"


    "I''m not sure what I''m telling you."


    "Does any of this relate to the silver butter knife."


    "I don''t know," I said. "Maybe."


    "Silver, as in a werewolf?"


    "Or a vampire."


    "Silver kills both?" asked King.


    I thought back to my last big case a month ago. "I think so, yes."


    King leaned forward and there was a wild look in his eyes. Something else flashed at me, some distant memory, or recognition, but I couldn''t place it. He said, "Are you telling me that you think Evelyn Drake was a vampire or a werewolf?"


    "I''m not saying anything," I said. "The evidence speaks for itself. So how come you don''t look more surprised, King?"


    He looked away, sipping his coffee. "Let''s just say this isn''t my first vampire."

 Page 13

    I waited behind the bulletproof partition while the man in chains sat across from me. He looked at me long and hard before he reached over with his cuffed hands and picked up the receiver. His breathing sounded like something remembering something, as the great poet Stan Rice would say. And when he spoke, his voice sounded distant and hollow, too.


    "Who are you?" he asked.


    I held my business card up against the mesh glass. A cop friend recently told me that a woman had punched through a similar bulletproof glass, but you can''t believe everything you hear. Edward Drake leaned forward and read the card, and then leaned back again.


    "I always figured someone would come knocking some day," he said.


    "Why do you say that?" I asked. He asked me to speak up and I did, louder and with more force. Apparently my shyness didn''t translate too well through the glass partition.


    "You''re kind of shy, aren''t you?" he asked, grinning.


    I shrugged. I never know how to answer that. And my shyness keeps me from opening up too much about it. A catch-22 if ever there was one.


    He kept grinning and said, "Well, anyway, we both know why you''re here."


    "We do?"


    "It''s about Evelyn. My ex-wife, of course."


    "What about her?" I was holding the phone close to my ear, but not too close and not too hard. I could only imagine how often these ear pieces were cleaned.


    He said, "I presume she''s missing."


    I had been in the act of swallowing and suddenly found myself coughing nearly hysterically. While I hacked away, Edward watched me with a bemused expression.


    "Easy, ol'' boy," he said.


    "And why would you..." I coughed again, "presume that?"


    "Because I didn''t kill her correctly, you see. I realized my mistake far too late."


    "I don''t understand."


    "It''s why I stabbed her so many times."


    "Jesus, what are you talking about?"


    The bemused expression was gone now. It had been replaced with something unreadable...but cold as hell. "The knife I used, the knife I had thought was silver, wasn''t really silver. It was silver plated. An honest mistake."


    "I don''t - "


    "Oh, I think you do, ol'' boy."


    He was right, but I was having a hard time coming to terms with it, despite my recent past. "You''re saying she didn''t die because your knife wasn''t pure silver."


    "Exactly."


    "But I''ve read the autopsy report," I said. "Of course she''s dead."


    "Oh, I''m sure she appeared dead. They always appear dead, especially if they lose enough blood."


    "What the fuck are you talking about?"


    "And if they do lose enough blood, it takes them weeks, perhaps even months to recover. And even though the knife was only silver plated, there was undoubtedly enough silver in it to still inflict serious harm."


    He stopped and looked at me. I was all too aware that my mouth was hanging open. Flashbacks to events of a few months ago hit me again, and hit me hard. What the hell was going on?


    "You''re talking about a vampire," I said.


    He grinned. "Could you say that a little louder, ol'' boy?"

 Page 14

    I glanced at the wire-covered clock on the wall behind me. We had twenty minutes left. I asked Edward to tell me what he knew as quickly as he could, and he obliged.


    Edward first became aware that his wife was something more than human about a year before her death; or, as he put it, her alleged death.


    Listening to all of this in stunned silence, I could only sit back and watch the man closely, looking for any signs of instability. I found none. If anything, he seemed perfectly normal, often speaking eloquently and with touches of humor.


    His wife''s change had occurred nearly three years ago, when she had been jogging around the reservoir in Silver Lake one evening. Everyone had warned her against jogging the reservoir, which doubled as an idyllic lake; that is, if you removed the chain link fence, barbed wire and dozens of off-limits signs. But his wife had always been fearless and, really, Silver Lake was mostly considered harmless. The reservoir was nestled among some of the nicer Hollywood fringe homes, often occupied by those who had found some success in show business.


    One night, she didn''t come home. Edward had immediately gone looking for her, circling the reservoir, until he finally found what looked like a bundle of clothing in the bushes. The bundle turned out to be his wife. She was a mess, her neck torn open, her clothing ripped, blood everywhere. How she wasn''t dead, he didn''t know.


    She was rushed to the hospital where she spent many days recovering. And recovering rapidly, he added.


    "What do you mean by that?" I asked. I didn''t read many vampire books. Or watch many vampire movies. I had only a vague idea of what vampires were, and outside of some very strange events a month ago, I would have laughed at the entire notion. Would have. But not now. Indeed, I had seen something during my last case that was still haunting my dreams to this day.


    And now this....


    "It means that she healed far faster than she should have."


    "What did the doctors say?"


    "Not much, but they were stunned."


    Someone sat near me, a woman reeking of a lot of perfume. Another inmate was led into the room, shackled similarly to Edward. He sat a few seats down and picked up the phone. The woman sitting next to me immediately began weeping. Edward and I ignored them as he continued recounting his tale.


    Life rapidly turned strange in the Drake household. His wife seemed to have developed an aversion to sunlight. She was both stronger than ever before and sickly, too. At least, sickly during the day. One night she had come home from shopping. She had purchased three porterhouse steaks and had apparently torn into the packaging on the way home. The steaks were still there but he was certain she had drank the blood that pooled at the bottom of the Styrofoam trays.


    About a month later, with his wife''s midnight runs to the store continuing, coupled with her aversion to sunlight - not to mention an alarming number of missing cat posters popping up in the neighborhood - Edward had concluded that his wife had been changed into something supernatural.


    Into something that scared the hell out of him.


    We both looked at the time. Ours was running out. He fast-forwarded one year later when their marriage was crumbling. I asked why he would stay married to something that scared him. He mentioned the kids. He also mentioned something else, something that surprised me, but probably shouldn''t have.


    "I knew I had to kill her," he said. "So I was biding my time."


    "But she was your wife."


    "She had been my wife. But she had turned into something else. Something not very nice."


    "I''ve looked through the police report," I said. "There were many instances in past years of the police coming out. Claims of abuse."


    Edward shrugged. "Yeah, we fought. And we fought passionately. Did I hit her? Yes, once or twice. I was never proud of it. I sought counseling."


    "The police paint a different picture."


    "They had to. They had to explain a series of events that would otherwise be unexplainable."


    "The detective and prosecutors claimed you abused her, beat her up, accused her of cheating often, and then finally killed her in a fit of rage."


    "Some of that is correct, but not to the extreme they made it out to be. My killing her was, however, very planned."


    He had spent many months verifying his suspicions. He needed to be sure. He''d notice she quit casting a reflection. Her photos came up blurry and amorphous, as if she wasn''t there. She quickly quit taking photos altogether. He watched her avoid meals, only to come home late at night, satisfied. He watched her avoid all sunlight, claiming she now preferred the night. She slept all day and neglected the kids. Edward feared for the kids'' safety. He feared for his own safety. He feared for anyone''s safety who was in contact with his wife. He tried to talk about this to her, but she laughed it off. He tried repeatedly until one day she had thrown him against a wall, warning him to back off. She made new friends, too. Creepy friends. Evil friends. Friends he couldn''t believe she would permit around the kids.


    And she was cold to the touch. Always so cold.


    Edward had decided he needed to do something about it. He read up on how to kill a vampire. A silver stake or dagger, or anything silver and pointed through the heart.


    Edward lapsed into brief silence and I saw the tears in his eyes. After a moment, he said, "I had loved this woman. I had been crazy about her. But something happened to her. Something wicked. And she seemed to welcome it, revel in it. And she was hurting people, too. I couldn''t confirm it, but I knew she fed each and every night. On whom, I did not know. On what, I couldn''t imagine."


    He took in a lot of air. We were down to our last few minutes. Already I saw the guard watching us. He would be coming in any minute now.


    Edward continued. "More than anything, I sensed a great...evil coming through her. As if something very dark was now calling her body home. Maybe she could have fought it. I don''t know. But it was in her, and this thing didn''t give a damn about her, or anyone."


    "So you decided to kill her."


    "I had to kill her. To kill it."


    "So you used a silver butter knife?"


    "Why not? A knife is a knife. It was heavy. Had a thick handle, long blade. I thought it had been pure silver."


    So one day, with the kids in school, he had come home for lunch from work. He had walked calmly into his bedroom, where his wife lay unmovingly on the bed, the curtains tightly drawn. When she slept, she rarely moved, and, in fact, rarely breathed, if at all. She was dead to the world, and he simply walked over to his nightstand, opened the top drawer, and removed the silver butter knife.


    He had stepped to her side, where he looked down at the woman he had once loved with all his heart. He''d spent only a few seconds standing by her side, when he raised the knife, positioned it over her chest, and plunged it down as hard as he could.

 Page 15

    The drive to and from San Quentin had taken all day.


    It was late when I arrived back at Roxi''s apartment in Hollywood. She curled her naked body around me, resting her hand on my bare chest and her cheek on my shoulder. Her tan leg slid over my thighs, sending a shiver through me. I automatically curled my arm around her.


    These days I didn''t have much interest in sex. But Roxi did. Enough for both of us. And even though she was only half asleep, I knew that she was giving me an opening. I patted her hip like I would a puppy and some of her electrified energy dissipated. A moment later she was snoring lightly.


    Edward had gone on to describe some of the more gruesome details of his murder. Or attempted murder, as he put it.


    His first stab didn''t kill her. In fact, seventy-two stabs later and she was still kicking, still fighting, until most of her blood finally drained down into the bed sheets. The silver plating had done enough to incapacitate her, but not enough to kill her. Edward was certain that had he tried to stab her with anything other than a silver knife, she would have killed him.


    But she had lost enough blood to appear dead, enough to satisfy a medical examiner.


    "But that''s not why you''re here, is it, Spinoza?" he asked, as I saw a guard coming toward us. "You''re here because she''s gone missing."


    "How do you know?"


    "Call it a hunch. Be careful, Spinoza. Here be monsters."


    And that''s when the guard arrived and took him away. He went willing, but he kept his eyes on me until he was finally led out the heavy door.


    I lay in bed with my hands behind my head.


    I''ve been staying more and more at Roxi''s apartment. We''ve been dating now for about three months and, surprisingly, things were going well. Somehow, someway she put up with all my melancholy, shyness, and sometimes impotency. It''s a challenge to make love when your heart is shattered.


    But Roxi was showing me something, albeit slowly and sometimes painfully. She was showing me how to love again, and for that I was eternally grateful.


    Edward had told me something else, something he had overheard his wife say one night when she was talking to a group of her weird friends...friends, he suspected, that may or may not have been entirely human.


    He had overheard his wife mention that another woman, another mother of two, had been attacked in Orange County, no doubt by the same vampire. Edward had vowed to hunt down this mother in Orange County, as well.


    As I lay in bed, with Roxi curled up next to me, I briefly considered why a vampire would purposely turn two mothers into vampires. I decided rather quickly that I had no clue, but I made a mental note to keep an eye out for this mother of two in Orange County, whoever she was.


    Times like these, I thought, are why people drink.


    I rolled over and rested my hand on Roxi''s naked hip, smiled, and finally drifted off to sleep.

 Page 16

    I awoke with a gasp in the middle of the night, after dreaming that a creepy caretaker, the coffin maker, had been watching me from the dark shadow''s of Roxi''s room.


    At least, I hoped it was a dream.


    I looked now and we were alone. Thank God. I lay my head back down on the pillow and pulled Roxi''s wonderfully warm body to me. She came willingly, mewing slightly in sleep, and I only grudgingly fell back to sleep with my eyes fastened on the far corner of the room. That is, until I could no longer keep my eyes open....


    When I awoke in the morning, with Roxi still sleeping hard and the morning light creeping through the edges of the blinds, I knew where to go next.


    To meet the one man who, I thought, might have heard the knocking, too. The one man who could have inconspicuously dug up Evelyn''s body.


    The creepy caretaker, of course.


    The man of my recent dreams.


    I got dressed and hit Starbucks and was soon on my way to Forest Lawn just as the morning sun appeared in the east, over the Eagle Rock hills, and shining its morning glory.


    I was acutely aware that as I awakened with a reasonably fresh cup of coffee, there might be a hidden race of the undead slipping now into a very deep and dark sleep.


    Traffic was surprisingly brisk.


    Shortly, I was driving through the open gates of Forest Lawn and over to the maintenance building located on the east side of the sprawling cemetery.


    It was a Tuesday morning, and a handful of cars were parked here and there. As I parked and exited my car, a nearby Latino woman was walking slowly between the rows of grave markers with a small bouquet of flowers. She looked lost and grief-stricken.


    I knew the feeling well, and, sister, it doesn''t go away.


    The head groundsman was sitting at his desk, flipping through a thick stack of stapled papers. I caught the header of one such paper. It read "Lot 126" before he flipped to the next page. What he was going to do in Lot 126 was anybody''s guess, but I figured somebody was getting buried.


    He looked up, saw me, and nodded. I never did catch his name, and there was no placard on the door nor was there one on his desk. He was, in my mind, just the caretaker. The uncreepy caretaker, although that might be an oxymoron.


    "Still working the Case of the Missing Corpse, huh?" he asked.


    "Maybe I was a Hardy Boy in a past life."


    He chuckled. "What can I do you for?" He sounded busy and rushed, and he wanted me to know it.


    "Is Boyd around?"


    He frowned at that, then jutted a thumb toward the back room. "He''s in the shop."


    "Building more coffins?"


    "Always. But be quick. I need him outside soon."


    "Of course. Lot 126?"


    His mouth was about to drop open until he looked at the stack of papers in front of him. "You''re good, Spinoza. Anyway, don''t be long."


    "Wouldn''t dream of it."

 Page 17

    The man must have been busy.


    There were easily three or four more of the generic coffins stacked along the near wall. Boyd himself was examining a length of wood when I entered the room. He looked up, saw me, and frowned. I get that a lot. Some people are happy to see me. Others, not so much. I casually shut the door behind me.


    He leaned the long plank against a workbench and turned to face me. His overalls were covered with dirt. Where the dirt came from, I didn''t want to know. His blond hair was slightly askew and he could have been Gary Busey''s slightly more stable-looking brother. He was a big guy, with a thick chest and muscular arms. The kind of muscles one acquires from years of hammering and digging. Not all graveyard work, I suspected, was performed with backhoes.


    "We need to talk," I said.


    He kept looking at me. I decided then that he wasn''t entirely there. Maybe it was the way his left eye seemed to not look directly at me, or the way the corner of his mouth kept twitching. Something was off about the man. Then again, he worked in a graveyard, building generic coffins all day. I think off was a given.


    Since he hadn''t spoken and the twitching in his mouth seemed to only have gotten worse, I decided to continue on. As I spoke, I kept the work bench between us.


    "I know what happened," I said.


    He tilted his head slightly, like a dog catching a far-off sound. I was suddenly all-too aware of the various armaments hanging from his tool belt. Most notable was the hammer and hand saw. The Batman utility belt for psychos.


    I kept talking since he kept staring. His wandering right eye seemed to catch up, but that could have just been my imagination, or the shadows in the shop. I said, "It happened a few months ago. Or maybe even last year. You heard knocking. Perhaps you heard it in during your morning rounds. Or nightly rounds. Or anytime, really. Perhaps someone reported it. Either way, it all started with the knocking."


    He took a small step to the right, and I took one to the left, keeping the wide bench between us.


    I continued, "You did what anyone would have. Well, most anyone. Probably most people would have reported it to their bosses. But you decided to act alone. Maybe out of curiosity. Maybe out of fear. Maybe for a reason I never want to know. But one night, with the park closed and the knocking persisting, you secretly dug up the grave."


    Something was going on with Boyd the coffin maker. He wasn''t looking so intimidating. Suddenly, he looked scared. The color had drained from his face and his eyes were now resting somewhere near my navel. Or, at least, one of them was.


    I went on, "You kept digging as the knocking grew louder, as more and more earth was removed. No doubt you were terrified. I would have been, too. Anyone would have been. I would have shit my pants, truth be known. Many times over. I mean, something inside a buried fucking coffin was knocking."


    And now Boyd spoke for the first time, and his soft, timorous voice was as chilling as I expected it to be. "Do not use the Lord''s name in vain."


    "My apologies," I said. But I continued on, finishing up a tale that Boyd had yet to deny. "And so you dug up the casket, using the backhoe in the middle of the night. You were risking your job. But your sanity was more important. So you dug and dug, and the deeper you got, the louder the knocking became. Perhaps you even began hearing a woman''s voice, screaming for help. You probably didn''t need to lift the casket out. In fact, I suspect the moment most of the dirt had been removed and the weight lifted from it, the lid was thrown open and a woman sat up."


    I waited for him to laugh. I waited for him to deny it. I waited for him to wield his handsaw like a psychopathic knight.


    Instead, he sat heavily on a nearby stool - collapsing on it, actually - and covered his face with his hands.

 Page 18

    I stopped by my apartment in Los Feliz before I headed out to the mansion.


    My heart was racing. Sitting next to me was an-honest-to-God crossbow. Sitting next to it was a leather quiver containing three silver-tipped bolts. I happened to know first hand that these bolts were the real deal. Nothing silver-plated here.


    With only a few slight variations to my story, Boyd had confirmed the crazy details. He had watched in stunned silence as the woman climbed awkwardly out of the casket and up to the surface. Her clean clothing was filthy by the time she stood on shaky legs. She had stared at Boyd blankly, and then she turned and stumbled through the graveyard, looking pale and impossibly thin. By Boyd''s estimation, she had been in the grave for three months.


    It was mid-morning as I headed up Los Feliz Blvd. I considered calling Hammer, except I knew he would never believe me. I even considered calling the old man, Arron King, but I didn''t want to endanger him.


    Boyd, an expert groundskeeper as well, had shut the now-empty coffin, recovered it with the soil, and then carefully replaced the grass as well. This had happened 18 months ago, and he had never told another living soul his story.


    My heart was beating steadily, loudly. Adrenaline was flooding my blood stream. A good thing, because I suspected I was going to need all my strength.


    Traffic on Los Feliz was sick, but I knew some short cuts, and after winding my way through some back streets that bordered some truly impressive homes, I soon pulled up in front of the mansion. The same mansion I had been in just a few days earlier.


    Where I had seen a woman who had looked like Evelyn Drake''s younger sister or cousin.


    Only I was now certain she hadn''t been Evelyn''s younger sister.


    I was certain it was her.


    Evelyn Drake.


    Back from the dead.

 Page 19

    So how does one hide a crossbow in plain site?


    Very carefully. The crossbow in question was smaller than most, designed to shoot shorter bolts. It had come into my possession last month after I had dealt with an author who not only wrote about the undead, but was also one of them. Method acting, as my theater friends would call it. Method writing, perhaps?


    So I grabbed the emergency blanket I always kept folded on the back seat and wrapped it around the crossbow. At least no one would be calling the cops on the crazy guy walking up to the mansion carrying a medieval weapon.


    At the door, I took in some air, listened to the all-pervasive silence, and then rapped loudly on the frosted glass.


    I gripped the crossbow under the blanket while I waited.


    Did I come here to kill a vampire? Hell, no. Was I protecting myself in case something very strange was going on? Hell, yes. And things only seemed to be getting stranger by the minute.


    I heard footsteps well before anyone got to the door. That''s what happens when you have a massive home covered in polished marble flooring. The footsteps grew louder, appearing just behind the door, where they paused. No doubt I was being peeped at through the peep hole. I must have passed the peep test because a moment later the door clicked open.


    "Mt. Spinoza," said Mrs. Perkins. She tried to sound surprised but I knew a fake surprise when I heard one. A sort of unnatural rise in octave. Prior to life as a private eye, I had spent years investigating insurance claims - and frauds, too. I knew bullshit when I heard it. "What brings you back here?" she asked.


    "I''d like to speak with you inside," I said, "if you wouldn''t mind."


    Her eyes briefly darted up...up to where I knew a woman was hiding - and with this being daylight - no doubt sleeping. Her gaze settled back on me and she nodded reluctantly. "Okay, but please be quick about it. I have...some errands to run."


    I said I would, and she let me inside. I followed behind her, my blanketed arm behind my back. For now, she hadn''t noticed it.


    She led me deeper into the mansion.

 Page 20

    We were soon in the same wide-open living room.


    She motioned for me take a seat on the couch, with my back to the hallway. She asked if I wanted a drink and I said no. She said she wanted some hot tea and I said fine. I recalled it had been 98 degrees outside and suspected I might have been hoodwinked.


    When she left the room, I immediately switched positions to an overstuffed chair-and-a-half that gave me a good view of anything approaching from the hallway. I also felt more comfortable with my back against a wall.


    Vampires, I suspected, were sneaky.


    My heart rate increased considerably while I waited. I adjusted my grip on the crossbow, which now rested in my lap, partially hidden by the chair''s overstuffed pillow. From my position in the living room, I couldn''t see the upstairs landing.


    Mrs. Perkins returned five minutes later, carrying a steaming cup of tea.


    "Now," she said, as she sat on the couch across from me. "How can I help you, Mr. Spinoza?" She didn''t seem to notice that I had switched spots. If anything, she seemed very distracted.


    I heard movement upstairs. Something heavy fell. I looked up at the sound, but Mrs. Perkins ignored it completely. Her demeanor was different this time around. Gone was the sour old lady, replaced now by something overly friendly.


    And that''s when I noticed the white cloth wrapped around her neck; in particular, what appeared to be a splotch of blood.


    "What happened to your neck, Mrs. Perkins?" I asked.


    The question seemed to shock her. She jerked a little and sat up straighter. She reached for her neck but never quite touched it. "Oh, that?" Her strange, pleasant demeanor never wavered. "Oh, that was just a minor...thing I had removed at the doctor''s the other day."


    I motioned to her arms, both of which were wrapped up in a similar white cloth. "And you had other...things removed from your arms as well?"


    She smiled serenely. "It''s horrible getting old, Mr. Spinoza."


    "I''ll remember that."


    I found myself scanning the room...in particular, the two exits. One seemed to head off into what appeared to be a library, and the other went down the hallway. I suspected there were a few offshoots from the hallway, an opening to the kitchen, no doubt, and the stairway leading up to the second floor.


    "Who''s upstairs, Mrs. Perkins?" I asked.


    Her slender form tensed a little; her fingers clawed the arm of the couch. "What do you mean, dear?"


    "I mean, who''s that I hear walking around upstairs?"


    "Oh, I have a guest."


    "Who?"


    "Isn''t that a personal question, Mr. Spinoza?"


    "Perhaps you could tell the police then."


    "Oh, I''m sure the police would have no interest in - "


    "And you can also show them the wounds on your neck and arms - "


    "Please, Mr. Spinoza, there''s no need for that."


    And that''s when a woman''s voice resonated from somewhere down the hallway. "I would suggest," and the voice, growing louder as the speaker drew closer, "that you leave my mother alone."


    And as the last words were spoken, a very lovely, pale-faced woman stepped into the living room.


    It was, of course, Evelyn Drake.

 Page 21

    She looked sick and weak.


    My first impression was that I was looking at someone who should probably be in the hospital, or lying in bed.


    Or in a grave.


    She didn''t stand entirely straight, as if the weight of something was dragging her down. I also noticed she was supporting herself by resting a long-fingered hand on an elegant couch table sporting a vase with flowers. Dead flowers.


    She looked like the perfect candidate to be gasping for air but, as far as I could tell, she wasn''t having any problems breathing. Did vampires even breathe?


    I didn''t know. In fact, I didn''t know much about the undead at all, and I was seriously beginning to regret my decision to come here at all.


    After all, the woman in front of me was the same woman I had seen in the autopsy report. The same woman whose body had been covered in knife wounds.


    Seventy-two of them, in fact.


    Her feet were bare. She was wearing a dark robe. Silk, I think. Her hair was slightly mussed. She had been sleeping, roused, no doubt, by her mother. A little pit stop on her way to making tea.


    Evelyn Drake was pretty in an undead, goth sort of way. Her cheek bones were prominent. Her lips full, her eyes round and seemingly all-seeing. Her blondish hair was matted in places and I figured even vampires get bedhead.


    "You''re supposed to be dead," I said.


    "Now, that''s not a very nice thing to say to a woman," she said.


    She stepped into the room, feeling her way over the furniture, which supported her weight. She stumbled slightly over the spot where the carpet met the marble flooring.


    The skin showing around her robe was so white that I found myself staring. Her thighs and arms and neck...like pure alabaster. Her lips were red, but not exorbitantly so. I had an image of those lips covered in blood as she fed.


    She smiled as if she had read my thoughts.


    "How long have you been living here?" I asked, unnerved. I had read somewhere that vampires could read minds. And so I did all I could to not think of the crossbow hidden under the blanket. In fact, I imagined I was holding a puppy. It''s just a puppy. A puppy, dammit.


    She said, "Since my rather...premature burial."


    Although obviously weakened, her movements were oddly fluid. As if I were being approached by a ballerina. A very pale and hungry-looking ballerina.


    "So, you''ve been living here secretly for, what, over a year and a half?"


    "It''s no bother, really," said Mrs. Perkins nervously. "It''s such a joy to have her back. We missed her so much. She stays in her room all day, sleeping. She''s such a hard working dear. And when we go to bed at night she leaves for work. Works all night, and sometimes she''s just coming home when we awaken. Always so tired and dirty." The mother looked at her daughter with so much love in her eyes that my heart nearly broke. Evelyn was now about halfway across the room.


    "Your daughter was killed, Mrs. Perkins," I said. "An autopsy was performed on her. She was buried."


    "Ooh, we don''t talk about that," said Mrs. Perkins, clearly living in denial. "Mistakes are made."


    "Mother and I have an agreement to keep my presence a secret," said Evelyn, still approaching me. She looked weak, almost helpless, but there was something in her eye that scared the shit out of me. It was the look of a killer. A predator. A hungry predator. "In return, she gets to see her daughter."


    I looked at her mother''s wounded neck and arms. "And you get to feed."


    "Mother loves her baby girl," said Evelyn.


    My stomach turned. I tried to picture a daughter drinking blood from her own mother and it was too disturbing an image to hold for long.


    "And what of your own children?" I asked Evelyn.


    "My children have moved on, Mr. Spinoza," she said, glancing at my card that was still on the coffee table. "They think mummy is dead and we''ll just leave it like that. My kids were always...in the way. And just a little too tempting."


    "What the hell does that mean?"


    "Young blood...is particularly fresh."


    She looked at her mother who was watching this whole exchange with a frozen smile. Her cheek muscles twitched as she held the smile.


    "You kill people," I said.


    She grinned. "I kill lots of people, Mr. Spinoza. It''s kind of what I do."


    "What are you?" I asked.


    "What do you think I am?"


    "A bitch. A user. And a parasite."


    The mother looked at me sharply. "I will not have such language - "


    And that''s when Evelyn Drake lunged forward, leaping -

 Page 22

    I didn''t want to kill her.


    Especially not in front of her own mother. It was all so fucked up.


    But she didn''t give me much choice.


    Her strength was alarming, especially when she had appeared so visibly weakened. Or perhaps that had all been an act to catch me off guard.


    With her mother screaming behind her, Evelyn''s hand went straight for my throat and squeezed with such force that my neck would have snapped or been crushed within seconds.


    The angle of her body was such that I didn''t have to even adjust the crossbow. As darkness rapidly approached the corners of my vision, I fired the weapon.


    The first thing that I notice was a loosening of her grip. The next thing I noticed was the strangled sounds I heard...of course, those strangled sounds were my own feeble attempts to breathe.


    The next thing I noticed was the woman on the ground, kicking and clawing her chest. It was a site I''ll never forget. Steam hissed from between her fingers. Her screaming mother dove on her, pulling at the silver shaft that protruded from her chest.


    "My baby! My baby!" She worked the bolt with both hands as the vampire writhed and twisted and screamed.


    Gasping, I found my feet, and just as the mother pulled free the bloody crossbow bolt, which dripped blood and meat, the woman on the floor lay still.


    Mrs. Perkins threw herself on her daughter, wailing and begging her to come back to her.


    And that''s when I turned my head and heaved until my stomach was empty.

 Page 23

    I was in my office drinking a latte from Starbucks. Starbucks has a new scone, called a petite vanilla bean. Being petite, I got three of them. They were damned good.


    Too good.


    I had just finished the last of the scones when Detective Hammer and his thick cop mustache came in through my door and set a big bag of greasy donuts on my desk. He looked at my empty Starbucks package.


    "Don''t tell me you had one of those scone things."


    "A petite vanilla bean. Three of them."


    "Oh, God. Any room left for a real breakfast?"


    "You mean a real breakfast of donuts?"


    "Is there anything else?"


    "You are propagating the cop stereotype," I said. "And there''s always room for donuts."


    He placed a cup holder on my desk filled with two steaming cups of coffee. Coffee had splashed out of the little holes in the plastic lids and had stained the rims. I knocked back the last of my Starbucks, tossed the empty cup in the trash, and started on the fresh coffee Hammer gave me. We both picked our donuts, sat back in our chairs, and took a few bites before Hammer got things started.


    "You work some strange cases," he said.


    "Lately."


    "This might be the strangest."


    "Would be hard to top this one," I said.


    Hammer finished his first donut with a massive bite. He washed it down with coffee and then dug out a maple bar from the bag.


    "We made some calls," he said. "Talked to the right people. A very strange conference ensued between the prosecutors, myself and the warden at San Quentin, and ultimately the governor himself. And due to extraordinary circumstances, Edward Drake is now a free man. All charges have been dropped."


    "It''s hard to keep someone on death row," I said, "when his victim has been alive and well for a year and a half."


    "She''s dead now. At least, we think she''s dead, whatever the fuck she is." He looked at me. "What are you some kind of vampire hunter?"


    "Slayer," I said. "And, no."


    "Well, needless to say we got the DNA to confirm the boy''s status as her biological son. The kid will get his full inheritance. So you did do some good."


    I nodded, happy for the boy, but feeling so weird inside that it was hard to put a finger on how I felt about anything these days. I have now killed two vampires.


    Hell, maybe I was a vampire slayer.


    Jesus.


    I voiced a question that had been gnawing at me. "Did her DNA come back with any, I dunno, abnormalities?"


    "You mean, did she have some weird vampire DNA?"


    "Yeah."


    "No. Nothing. Looks as normal as can be."


    We were silent some more. The silence was filled with the sounds of masticating donuts. I thought of the young man who hired me. "How much does David know of his mother?"


    "Nothing. As far as he knows, his mother''s body had been recovered, a simple case of misplacement, and we acquired the DNA we needed. As far as the rest of the world knows, Evelyn Drake is dead, and has been dead, as she was supposed to have been two years ago."


    "And the father lives with the stigma of being a murderer."


    Hammer shrugged his meaty shoulders. "You can''t win them all, Spinoza. He was given a new identity. A new life. We couldn''t do anything else for him except to say thank you and sorry."


    "Thank you for trying to kill a bloodsucking killer?"


    Hammer looked a little sick. "Right. Something like that."


    "Life is weird," I said.


    "No shit." He reached in the bag, removed a peanut chocolate cake, and stood. "And now I''m going to go back to work and look for human murderers and psychopaths - and try like hell to forget this ever happened."


    "Join the club."


    "I''d rather not," he said. "Hey, did you ever collect on your tacos?"


    "No," I said. "But I''m ever hopeful."


    The End