Текст книги "Hard Spell"

Автор книги: Justin Gustainis

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  "No, he's not here," she said. "He hasn't been for days."

  "Doesn't he live here with you, ma'am?" Karl asked her.

  "Yes, of course he does, but he's got another place somewhere in town, some kind of bachelor pad, if people still say that. I was against it, but his father said a boy needs to have some privacy."

  The boy in question was twenty-seven years old.

  "Can you give us the address of this 'bachelor pad' of his?" I asked.

  "Oh, I have no idea. Somewhere in town – I don't know. He stays overnight, sometimes. I suppose he brings girls there." Mrs. Longworth looked at me. "Girls, decent girls, not... prostitutes."

  I wondered how the young women who had sucked her son's cock in his 'bachelor pad' got to be considered decent girls, but I suppose everything's relative.

  "Would your husband know where the place is, ma'am?" Karl asked.

  "Perhaps he would, I don't know. You may feel free to ask him – once he gets back from Tokyo. That will be sometime next month, I believe." The tiny smile was back in place now.

  "Can you give us a phone number where we can reach him? Or his email address?" I said.

  "Oh, I'm sure I have all that somewhere, but I can't lay my hands on it right at the moment. Why don't you leave me your card, and I'll have my secretary locate that information and call you."

  I was betting we'd hear from that secretary at about the time they opened a skating rink in Hell, but I took out one of my business cards and handed it to her. She immediately placed it on the nearby coffee table without even looking at it, as if afraid she might catch something.

  "Would it be all right if we took a look at the room your son uses when he's here, ma'am?" I asked. "There might be something to help us find him – just so we can ask him a few questions."

  "Would it be all right?" She pretended to consider it. "Well, I suppose so." The smile widened. "Just as soon as you show me your warrant, or court order, or whatever it's called. I have my doubts that any judge in the city would sign such an order – everyone but the police, apparently, knows what a fine young man Jamieson is. But in the event that you should obtain one, I'll have to have my attorney present, of course."

  Three minutes later, we were being shown out by the housekeeper. Following Karl out the door, I started to say something when I heard Mrs. Moyle's voice behind me.

  "Detective?" She held up a folded piece of paper. "I think you dropped this."

  It didn't look like anything I'd had in my pockets, and I was about to say so when I noticed the intense way Mrs. Moyle was looking at me. "I'm getting careless," I said, stepping back to the doorway. "Thank you."

  Mrs. Moyle didn't speak as she extended the hand holding the paper, but I saw her mouth form words that I'm pretty sure were "I never liked the little prick, anyway." Then she closed the door in my face.

  I waited until we were well aMrsom the house before unfolding the slip of paper. In a careful cursive hand was written "157 Spruce St # 304."

We were working a double shift, so it was just twilight when we left the Longworth place. That used to be my favorite time of day, when I was younger. The light gets softer and the world seems to quiet down a little, if only for a few minutes. But now I look at it as nothing more than the calm before the storm, and the storm comes every night.

  As we approached the car, I was scanning the street and noticed a lone figure standing on the sidewalk three or four houses down. I tensed, and said, "Karl." to let him know we might have trouble. It would be just like that prick Jamieson Longworth to set up an ambush outside his own house.

  Then I heard a woman's voice singing, an achingly clear soprano that sounded familiar. I relaxed. Nothing to worry about – except for the people living in that house.

  "It's okay, but give me a minute, will you?" I said to Karl, and walked toward the woman in the gathering gloom. I saw her watching me approach, but her voice never paused in its melody.

  If she'd been silent, I might have missed her in the near-darkness. As always, this stunningly beautiful woman was dressed in black – dress, hose, and shoes, with a black knit shawl wrapped around her thin shoulders. Seeing the outfit, along with her pallor, you might mistake her for a Goth, or maybe a vamp wannabe. Until you heard her voice.

  She wasn't singing very loud, although I knew she had the ability to rattle windows up and down the street, if she wanted to. We'd had a conversation about it some time back – that, and the screeching. She'd eventually agreed that, tradition notwithstanding, she could carry out her duty without freaking out the whole neighborhood.

  I didn't understand the words of her song, although I assumed they were Old Gaelic – very, very old. The simple melody was sad enough to get you crying without even knowing why. It didn't affect me. I'd cried myself out a long time ago.

  I knew better than to interrupt her, but after another minute or so, she let her song fade away into silence. That was only temporary; she'd stay here, singing softly, until what she was foretelling had come to pass inside the house.

  It was another big, ritzy place, and the people inside probably lived a comfortable life. But no matter how much money you have, or how nice your house is – if you belong to one of several Irish families, sooner or later you'll get a visit from this lady, or one of her sisters.

  "Hello, Siobaghn," I said quietly.

  "Sergeant," she said with a nod. "Tis a surprise seein' ye about, it not even full dark yet."

  "Putting in some overtime," I said with a shrug. A few seconds passed before I said, "Can I ask who...?" I nodded toward the house.

  "The clan Kavanagh. The youngest son, Edward, is about to hang himself in his room, over a love affair gone wrong." Her voice wasn't cold, exactly, just matter-of-fact.

  If he hadn't done it yet, maybe there was still time. But before I could start toward the house, Siobaghn laid a gentle hand on my arm.

  "No, Stanley, no. Tis already too late – else I would not be here. Ye know as much."

  She was right, of course. The banshee doesn't bring death – she just foreshadows it, and she's never wrong. There was nothing I could do.

  Nobody knows for sure why the banshee manifests for some Irish families and not others, or why it's only the Irish. I doubt Siobaghn herself could tell you. She just does as she is bidden, and she's been doing it for centuries.

p; I was about to say goodnight to Siobaghn when I heard Karl's voice shouting, "Stan! We got a ten double-zero! Come on!"

  Ten double-zero is radio code for "officer down."

  I was moving even before he'd finished, pulling the car keys from my pocket as I ran. Behind me, I heard Siobaghn take up her mournful song again.

  A few seconds later, I was behind the wheel and reaching over to unlock the passenger door for Karl.

  "Where?" I said as I started the engine.

  "It's at 1484 Stanton."

  I peeled away from the curb and hit the button that would get the siren going and start the headlights flashing red. We were halfway down the block before it occurred to me that the address Karl'd given sounded familiar, and we'd almost reached the first intersection when I realized why.

  It was Rachel Proctor's house.

I wasn't surprised by the flashing red lights that greeted us as we drew within sight of 1484 Stanton Street. Ten Double-Zero doesn't just mean "Officer Down" – it also means every available unit within a one-mile radius is expected to haul ass to the scene at once. By the look of it, five or six black-and-white units had done that already.

  Karl and I were just a block away when the radio sparked to life again: "All units, all units: be advised that the ten double-zero at 1484 Stanton has been revised to ten double-zero, Code Five. I say again, the call is now ten double-zero, Code Five."

  Magic involved.

  As if we'd been practicing for weeks, Karl and I said at exactly the same time, "Fuck!"

As we got closer, I saw two ambulances heading away from the scene. One was moving fast, lights flashing and siren screaming.

  The other ambulance wasn't using its lights or siren, and was traveling at a normal speed. Whatever that one was carrying to the hospital, there was no hurry to get it there.

  The ranking uniform on the scene was a sergeant named Milner. He looked so white, you could've mistaken him for a ghost, especially in the crazy light being thrown by all those squad cars. And this is a cop with fifteen years on the job, maybe more. He'd seen it all – or so you'd think.

  Something else I noticed right off was the silence. Get a bunch of cops together, even at a crime scene, and they're gonna talk to each other – about the job, the wife, sports, who's screwing whose ex-girlfriend, something. But there were eight cops standing around here, and not one of them was saying a word. I could hear the radio calls coming through the lowered windows of their cruisers, but otherwise – nothing.

  I had no intention of taking over command of the scene from Milner, even though I was pretty sure I had rank on him. A lieutenant was probably already on the way. Nobody had told me it was a case for Supernatural Crimes anyway, despite that Code Five on the radio.

  We walked over to where Milner was standing, looking at nothing. I expected Karl to say "What do we got here?" But he was silent, too. Maybe he had picked up on the vibe, which was more like a wake than a crime scene.

  Maybe that's what it really was.

  Milner let go of his thousand-yard stare and looked at me. Before I could ask a question he said, "Lady across the street called 911. Said she saw lights in Proctor's place. She knew it was supposed to be sealed, pending investigation. She was thinking burglars, kids, something like that. So Ludwig and Casey got the call to go check it out."

  Larry Ludwig, I knew. He'd been on the job a long time, but never tookv>  rgeant's exam. He told me once that he liked the action of being a street cop. Casey's name didn't ring a bell, which meant he was probably a rookie. Scranton PD's not so big that the cops don't get to know each other pretty quick, if only by name and face.

  "Looks as if Ludwig sent Casey around back, then went in through the front door," Milner said. "We found him... or what was..." Milner stopped for a second and cleared his throat. "We found him in the living room."

  I waited, but he didn't say anything more. Looking toward the house, I said, "Forensics hasn't been here yet."

  "No," Milner said. "I called for 'em. They'll take their sweet fuckin' time, like usual." He cleared his throat again. "SWAT was on the way, too, but I cancelled it, after we went through the place. There's nobody in there. Nobody... alive, anyway. That Proctor cunt is long gone."

  I looked at him. "Rachel Proctor's the suspect?" I wasn't sure yet what she was suspected of, but for something to get to a cop like Milner's experience, it had to be real bad. "Was there a witness?"

  "Nah, not that we know about. But it's her house, ain't it? And she's a fuckin' witch, ain't she?" He pointed toward the house as if he was aiming a gun. "What went down in there wasn't done by no fuckin' Girl Scouts."

  Arguing with Milner about what Rachel Proctor was capable of was going to be a waste of time. Anyway, in her current state, I wasn't sure what Rachel was capable of.

  "Guess we better check it out," I said. "Okay if we open the front door?"

  "Yeah, I guess," he said. "Just don't go inside and fuck up the crime scene."

  That's something every police trainee learns the first week at the academy, but I wasn't giving Milner the fight he was spoiling for. Let him take his feelings out on somebody else. His wife was in for a rough few hours, I figured. I hoped Milner wasn't a hitter.

  "Let's go," I said to Karl, and we followed a narrow, meandering sidewalk to the front door of Rachel Proctor's house.

Three creaky wooden steps led up to the front door, which was painted white, with a light blue trim. Part of the doorframe near the knob was splintered and broken. Somebody had kicked the door in – either Officer Ludwig, or whoever came before him.

  Using the back of my hand, I pushed against the door. After a moment's resistance, it came free of the frame and swung wide.

  The thick, coppery scent of blood hit me in the face as soon as the door opened. Nothing else in the world smells like that. Once you've had it in your nose, it can stay a long time – maybe your whole life.

  All the lights were on in the living room, which made it easy to see what had got Milner acting like he'd had a personal glimpse into Hell. It was hard to imagine Hell as bring much worse.

  The walls were giant abstract murals done by an insane artist who had a thing for red. And you could add the ceiling to the exhibit. Display the whole thing in the Night Gallery.

  And it wasn't just blood, either. Sticking to the walls, the ceiling, the furniture were globs of flesh that I figured had once been bodily organs. I saw what looked like a kidney wrapped around the leg of the coffee table, and flattened against one wall was a fist-sized ball of flesh that might once have been a human heart.

  Next to me I heard Karl mutter, "Dear sweet merciful Jesus." I couldn't have put it better, myself.

  The room looked like a World War II bunker that somebody had thrown a grenade into, except for one thing: the furniture.

  Apart being covered in gore and guts, Rachel Proctor's living room furniture was intact and in place. All the window glass was still there, too. Whatever kind of explosion had caused the human damage, it had left the surroundings untouched.

  How was that possible? There's only one answer, and it's the same one that had occurred to Milner, and probably to the other cops out there, too: magic. The blackest of black magic.

  Which left Rachel off the list of suspects, as far as I was concerned. Rachel didn't practice black magic – I was sure of it.

  But indications were that Rachel wasn't exactly traveling alone these days. And, judging by the books and gear we'd found in his house, George Kulick had known a few things about black magic. Enough to do this? I was hoping for the chance to ask him about it, and soon.

  "Seen enough?" I asked Karl quietly.

  "More than enough," he answered, his voice hoarse.

  We walked back to where Milner was standing. "I assume that what we saw in there was... came from Ludwig," I said.

  Milner nodded. "It was like he just... exploded from inside. They took what was left of him to the morgue. There's enough to bury, I guess." He looked at me. "Ludwig was a good cop, put in a lot of years. He didn't deserve to go out like that." Milner said it like he was expecting an argument from me, but I didn't give him one.

  "What about his partner, what's-his-name, Casey?" Karl asked.

  "We found him in back, on the ground, screaming. Know why?"

  Karl shrugged. "Because he saw what had happened to his partner?"

  "No," Milner said, "Casey was screaming because he was covered with spiders – fucking tarantulas, dozens of them."

  "I know tarantulas are poisonous," I said, "and they look gross as hell. But their bite's not fatal to humans – probably not even a bunch of bites."

  "It wasn't the poison," Milner said. "One of the other guys knows Casey, they're cousins or something. He says Casey had something-phobia. Fear of spiders."

  "Arachnophobia," Karl said.

  "Yeah, that's it. The cousin said Casey had it bad. Guess somebody else knew that, too, and covered him with the one thing he couldn't stand. He was still screaming once they got those things off him and loaded him into the ambulance."

  "Tarantulas aren't native to this part of the world," I said, just to be saying something. "They come from the tropics."

  "Yeah, I know," Milner said. "Funny how a whole bunch of them found their way to Casey, huh? Almost like magic." The bitterness could curdle milk.

  "I know you like Rachel Proctor for it, but there's something–"

  "Like her for it? She a fucking witch, and witches use magic, and it was magic that fucked up two cops, decent guys with families. It don't take fucking Einstein to connect the dots."

  "I know, but–"

  "But nothing, Markowski. I heard you was tight with that cunt, but you know what? I don't care how many times she sucked your cock, or how good she was at it. There's a BOLO out on her, and if everybody on the force doesn't know she's a cop killer, they will before end of third watch today. I guarantee it. Now get the fuck out of my sight."

  We got.

We were almost back to the car when my cell phone rang.

  "Markowski."

  "So this guy goes to a whorehouse, but he doesn't know that all the girls working there are vampires, right? He says to the madam–"

  "Lacey, I am really, really not in the mood for jokes right now."

  "Suit yourself, Stan. But I'm looking at something I think you might wanna see."

  "Which is...?"

  "Another dead vamp."

  "Shit."

  "Yeah, and it looks like the same M.O. – well, it is, but it isn't, if you know what I mean."

  "No, I don't," I said, "but it doesn't matter. Look, Lacey, I appreciate your calling, but there's shit I need to deal with here tonight. Can you just send me the reports and photos online later tonight, or tomorrow?"

  "I probably could, but it's not my case. I'm in Pittston, the most musical town in the Valley."

  "Say what?"

  "You ever drive down Main Street? Bar, space, bar, bar, space. You'd probably get the opening song from that musical Bats if you played it on the piano."

  "Lacey–"

  "Okay, okay, but that's where the vic turned up. A Statie I know gave me a call, because he knows about the dead vamp we turned up the other night."

  "A Statie?"

  "Well, Pittston doesn't exactly have a Homicide squad, you know? So they called in the Staties, and the PBI's taking over the investigation."

  "Shit."

  "If you put in a request through channels, you might get copies of all the case materials in, I dunno, a week or so. Maybe two."

  "Shit."

  "You keep saying that, Stan."

  "Well, what did you say when you found out you were going to have to drive to Pittston tonight?"

  "Me? I said motherfucker."

  "Give me your 20, and I'll see you there in a little while."

  She gave me an address along with some directions, then said, "Are you bringing that partner of yours along – the big guy?"

  "I was planning to, yeah."

  "Good. He's cute."

As I guided the car onto 81-South, I said to Karl, "Four dead vamps. Normally, I'd file that under G for "a good start", but if Vollman's right, that means Sligo, or whoever's behind this, is almost ready to do the Big Nasty."

  "Except we don't know what that is, either."

  "Or when he's gonna do it, or where, or even who this Sligo is. But other than that, I'd say we're pretty much on top of this thing."

  We'd gone about a mile down the highway when Karl said, "Stan. Listen."

  "What?"

  "If this is none of my fucking business, then just say so, but..."

  "But what? Just spit it out, Karl – I won't shoot you. Not while I'm driving, anyway."

  "Well... it's pretty obvious that you've got a real hard-on for vamps. Not for other supes, so much. I never heard you bitch about weres, or trolls, or even ghouls – and those fuckers creep me out. But you just hate vampires. And that's your business, I'm not tryin' to tell you what you oughta think. I was just wondering... how come?"

  I thought about making a joke about it and changing the subject. And I thought about telling Karl to mind his own fucking business. Then I thought about telling him the truth.

  Since he's my partner, who's saved my ass at least twice, I decided to go with door number three.

I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Okay," I said. "It's like this."

  I've been on the force fornine years, and a detective for two, and I want that Detective First Grade shield so bad I can taste it. I can't explain why it means so much to me. Maybe it had something to do with my old man, who said I'd never amount to much, or the Irish nuns, who always treated me like just another dumb Polack – it doesn't matter why. I want that promotion, and the way to get it is to make collars and clear cases. So I'm putting in a lot of overtime, and I mean a lot.

  This brings me a fair amount of grief at home, with Rita complaining about how I'm not there much and when I am all I want to do is sleep, or vegetate in front of the TV, stuff like that. But she never complains when I bring home the paycheck, which is pretty fat because of all that overtime.

  Once I make First, I'm gonna dial it back a bit, start spending more time at home with my wife and kid. That's what I tell myself, anyway.

  So I come home late one Saturday night (weekends are busy times for cops) and my daughter Christine is out with friends, and my wife is in bed, and that's all normal except when I go up there I find Rita isn't breathing.

  I call 911, then do CPR until they get there, and the ambulance guys are pretty quick, but none of it makes any difference. They pronounce her about ten minutes after we get to the hospital.

  Once I can think again, there are two questions burning in my mind: "How?" and "Why?" I start by demanding a copy of the autopsy report and I finally get one – but it's not brought to me by a doctor, but by another guy from the job. His name's Terrana and he says he works in Supernatural Crimes. In my department we used to make jokes about Supernatural Crimes.

  I've seen plenty of autopsy reports, and I try to close my feelings off and treat this one like its about somebody who doesn't matter to me. That works until I get to the part where it says "exsanguination."

  I look at Terrana. "She bled out? That's bullshit – there wasn't a fucking drop of blood on her or on the bed. Not a drop."

  "I know," Terrana says to me. He's got one of those slow, measured voices that reminds me of funeral directors. "But there's more than one way somebody can bleed to death."

  I stare at him and I think about what unit he's with and the little light comes on in my head, finally. "Vampire? You saying a vampire killed Rita?"

  He just looks at me, which is all the answer I need.

  "Wait a second," I tell him. "There were no marks on her neck. I'd have seen 'em, count on that."

  "That biting on the neck stuff is kind of a cliché spread by the movies, Stan. Sure, it happens sometimes, especially when it's involuntary, such as in cases of surprise vampire attack. But there's lots of veins and arteries all over the body that a vampire can make use of."

  "Terrana, will you talk English and stop with the riddles? Please? You're saying a vampire killed her but that she wasn't attacked? What the hell does that mean?"

  "It means it may have been consensual," he says.

  I feel my hands form into fists, seemingly of their own accord. "You're telling me she let some fucking bloodsucker...?"

  "The M.E. did find fang marks, Stan. And you're right, her neck was clean. He found the the inside of her thigh, high up, near the... uh, there's a big artery that runs through there, the femoral artery."

  "So the blood-sucking bastard raped her with his fangs, the fucking–"

  "I'm sorry, Stan, but the M.E. doesn't think there was force involved. If you read the rest of the report, you'll see that there was no evidence of other trauma, and that there was more than one set of fang marks. Some of them were... old."

  I run my hand over my face, maybe trying to wipe away the expression that I knew was stamped there. Then I have a thought. "So he snuck in, night after night, like in Dracula. He kept attacking her in her sleep until she–"

  "Stan, that book was written before we knew very much about vampires. Stoker got a lot of it right, but there were quite a few things he got wrong."

  "Like what?"

  "Vampires can't sneak into a house like cat burglars, Stan. Nobody knows why, but they have to be invited in."

A few days later, I apply for the transfer. It works its way through the system, and a week later I get approval. So I go through the special training, then start work as a detective in Supernatural Crimes. And in my time away from the job, I hunt the bloodsucker who had seduced and killed my wife.

  It takes me eight months. Eight long months of research, cultivating informants, reading old arrest reports, trading favors with other cops, intimidating and cajoling and bribing members of the local vamp community.

  Eight months. And then I find him.

  But it isn't that simple anymore, because by then, I've got a bigger problem to deal with. My need for revenge is now mixed with fear – fear for my daughter, Christine.

  Anton Kinski's got a job. Most vamps do, I'd learned. Since the undead had made themselves known, along with the rest of the supes, they were able to stop living in graveyards and the basements of abandoned houses. But rent and decent clothes cost money, so Anton has found work (night shift, of course) as a pleater at a small garment factory.

  He's a good worker, is Anton. Puts in his time, rarely misses a night (vamps don't call in sick) and pretty much keeps to himself. When he's not off seducing and murdering women, he's got a pretty boring life, or whatever it is that vamps have.

  Until the day he wakes up at sunset to find me leaning over him, the sharp point of my wooden stake resting lightly against his chest. My other hand is holding a mallet, and I make sure he sees that, too, along with the silver crucifix hanging on a chain around my neck.

  "You don't know how much I want to pound this stake clear through your body, Anton," I tell him, my voice thick and tight. "And if you so much as twitch, that's exactly what I'm gonna do."

  Nothing moves but his eyes, which search my face and see there the truth of what I'd just told him.

  His lips barely move when he finally speaks, and his voice is barely loud enough to hear. "Who – who are you?"

  "I'm the husband of Rita Markowski, the woman you killed last fall. Remember, Anton? There can't have been so many of them since then that you don't remember Rita."

  He closes his eyes for a few secs. Then he opens them and says, "I don't suppose it will matter if I tell you it was an accident – carelessness, really, on my part."

  "No difference, Anton. None at all."

  His head moves about an eighth of an inch in a nod. "So, why are we talking? You want to gloat a while before you stake me?"

  "No, Anton. It tears my guts out to say it, but I need you."

  He looks a question at me.

  "You didn't turn Rita – didn't make her... one of you."

  "Like I said – accident. Got... carried away."

  "But you know how to do it."

  "Sure, of course," Anton says. "I've done it before."

  "Is it true, what I've heard? You have to exchange blood with the victim before she dies? Is that how it's done?"

  "Yeah, pretty much." He swallows. "That it? You want... me to turn you?"

  He winces as the stake's point presses harder into his chest. "Don't push your fucking luck, Anton. I'd no more become one of you leeches than I'd volunteer to work in a concentration camp."

  "What, then?"

  "My daughter. I want... I want you to turn my daughter."

Christine's admitted to me that she'd been concealing the symptoms – the weakness, night sweats, joint pain – for as long as she could. She didn't want to be a bother, she said – meaning, I guess, that she saw I was half-crazy with grief and she didn't want to push me the rest of the way. And I guess she also thought that some of it was just her body's way of dealing with the shock of Rita's death.

  But when the lumps appeared in her armpits, she'd realized that something more serious was going on. By then, of course, it was too late.

  The docs did everything the book says – radiation, chemo, even some experimental medicines. Then one day her primary physician took me into that little room they have at the hospital, just off the intensive care unit. As soon as I sat down, I figured this was the room where doctors give you the Bad News. I was right, too.

  I'd suspended my off-hours search for Rita's killer when Christine was hospitalized. But the night they gave me the Bad News, I went back to it. If possible, I pushed even harder than before – and it paid off.

  That's how I find myself kneeling over a vampire and telling him that he's going to buy continued existence by making my only child a bloodsucking leech just like him.

  I bring Christine home a few days later, promising the hospital people that I'll arrange for twenty-four-hour nursing care. I tell them that I'll make sure she gets everything she needs.

  And then, one night, when the painkillers have pushed her to edge of unconsciousness, I tell the night nurse she can go home early. Then I get in touch with Anton Kinski again.

  He doesn't have to ask my permission to enter the house. He's been there before.

  Even now, I'm not sure if what happened next was the right thing to do, or the worst idea I ever had.

Pittston's only about twenty minutes' drive from Scranton, so I gave Karl the short version of the story, but it contained all the essentials.

  When I was done, he turned in his seat and looked at me. "Stan – Jeez – I'm sorry, man, I didn't–"

  "Forget it, Karl," I said. "You didn't know and now you do, and there's nothing else to say about it. Besides, it's time to go to work."

  We had reached the crime scene.

Pittston's a town of about nine thousand, midway between Wilkes-Barre and Scranton. It's got more hills than any other town I've ever seen. I hear San Francisco's worse, but I've got no desire to find out – they can keep their vamp mayor, as far as I'm concerned.

  The city's in Luzerne County, not Lackawanna, which explains why Lacey Brennan got the call from the State Police and I didn't. Besides, Lacey's got a much cuter ass than I do.

• • • •

We parked behind a Pittston PD cruiser that looked like it had a lot of miles on it. I could see yellow crime scene tape fencing off a white duplex with green trim. The place had seen better days. A couple of shingles were gone from the roof, and the paint was peeling in several places. As soon as we were out of the car, Lacey came strolling over, a notebook in her hand and a frown on her heartshaped face.