Part 12 (1/2)
”Fine. Gimme a coupla minutes. Go find a charger, juice up, and I'll call you back.”
”Oh, man, here we go.” The local police officer wiped the sweat from his brow as he spoke to his partner. ”I get so tired of this stupid s.h.i.+t, Dwayne, I'm about to turn in my badge.”
”Yeah, it isn't even dark and the crazies are out. What is it about s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g with mausoleums, huh, Leroy? Why desecrate the dead? That is so disgusting.” He peered in and held his nose. ”Man, the bodies ain't even in the caskets.”
”What? Don't tell me some old maggoty bones were left on the ground for stray dogs to yank all over the placea”that is so nasty!”
”Naw, man. The bodies ain't in there.”
”You think we should bother calling this in, with all the h.e.l.l that's been breaking loose here lately?”
”Do you wanna be standing in a graveyard all night on vandalism detail all because a couple of punks turned over some old-a.s.s graves and flung ashes everywhere? Because the bodies are missing, you and I both know that's a lot of paperwork for felonious acts, taking it up from just being a stupid pledge prank. So you tell me, partner, if that's what you wanna do tonight.”
”h.e.l.l to the no, partner. Put it in the report tomorrow morning ... we could say we had to respond to a more immediate situation, but we'll report it so the family can get their insurance claim. You know, tell the truth all way up till the last part... we got the anonymous tip that something was going on over here, we came, we saw, and then we had to leave to provide backup to another officer.”
He whipped out his cell phone and called their buddies in another squad car. As soon as the call picked up, he hit speaker. ”Yo, Jeff, we got us a bulls.h.i.+t detail here, wanna ask for some backup? No, not you coming to us, us coming to you. Isn't there a curfew violator that's getting a little rowdy?”
Laughter filled the cell phone and the officers pounded each other's fists.
”Cool.”
They both looked at each other as their NOPD patrol car radio squawked.
”Like I said, we had to pursue another incident of higher priority.”
Sasha tapped her foot as she waited for her phone to charge while sitting in the back of the darkened electronics store. Everything seemed to be hurry up and wait, and she was glad to at least be able to write down a list of names provided by Winters.
”Slow down, slow down, Sparky,” she said, writing the names down quickly on the back of some receipt paper she'd pilfered. ”Can you give me a sublista”like kids they went to school with from around here.” She let her breath out hard. ”I know there are hundreds of condolence notes on there. Well, if you're gonna whine, put Clarissa on the phone.”
All her old contacts were still in hiding in the sidhe, including Ethan McGregor and his family. It would have been a big help to have his wife, Margaret, a nurse from Tulane Hospital, on the scene. But who could blame the couple for going on hiatus until every evil being involved in that last big debacle was brought to justice? The McGregors had kids to worry about; in their position she'd be locked away in the sidhe, too. Then there was the little Pixie who lived in the tea-house gardens, or used to, anyway ... it would have been great to ask her if she'd experienced any more Were invasions on the grounds, but she was long gone, too.
Sasha kept walking. Most of the kids on the FB pages that Winters had hacked lived in off-campus apartments. There was a common theme, though: It seemed to be a Goth crowd, based on what he'd told her. The couple of pics he'd sent confirmed it, and she was sure if the police and FBI were diligently doing their jobs like she a.s.sumed, none of these kids would want to talk to anybody with a badge. On the other hand, after having interviewed the first five very tearful teens, even the sublist of twenty-five students to talk to seemed daunting.
She took out her cell phone again and looked at the pics. Maybe she was going about this all wrong. The FB comments from some of the friends of the victims had a decidedly Vampire-like theme. Zeroing in on the angrier responses, she studied Fanglegnd4eva. You guys were supposed to live 4evera”this sux.
Okaaaay . . . Sasha quickly called Winters back. ”Dude,” she said, beginning to jog. ”Can you get into Fanglegnd4eva's page? This guy seems really ticked about their deaths.”
”A lot of people process their grief by getting p.i.s.sed off, Trudeau. My two seconds of pop psych for the trouble.”
”Yeah, I know,” she said, listening to Winters's fingers click the keyboard. ”But he made your top twenty-five list because he kept posting and posting, asking them if they'd 'come back,' and then challenged them to not forget their friends, right?”
”Kinda freaky, kinda sada”but yeah . .. and bingo, got an address with a regular name. Dude is Lawrence DeWitt. He just posted, too, saying screw the police, tomorrow night there's gonna be a rave in honor of their friends that got suckered by suckers.”
”You're the man, Winters,” Sasha said, memorizing the location.
”My kung fu is strong,” he said, laughing, and then clicked off the call.
In and out of a shadow, she arrived under a street lamp in front of a run-down apartment building that still seemed to have flood damage stains on the crumbling outer walls. All the lights in the building were on, but in a place like this there was always a closet shadow.
Sasha stared up at the fourth floor where Lawrence DeWitt lived. There were no names on any of the doorbells, and she wasn't inclined to hang outside and ring, anyway. A hunch tugged at her gut. This guy's posts sounded like someone who had a real axe to grind . . . like a person who might have been promised one thing and then something totally screwed up happened. Plus, it was a young couple in the Goth scenea”and she wondered now if they might also have been in the Vamp rave scene. Coincidence that they both ended up dead? Not.
Boldly playing that hunch, Sasha left her fake badge in her back pocket and entered the building with ease. The hallway smelled like burnt microwave popcorn, bug spray, mold, old cheese, and weed. She made a face and took the stairs two at a time all the way to the fourth floor. Oh, yeah, the marijuana was coming from DeWitt's place. But when she got to the front door, she stopped and sniffed harder. Why in the world was garlic stinging her nose?
Listening closely through the blaring heavy metal, she could hear DeWitt moving around in his apartment. Small moves. Someone-seated moves. Sasha went to the end of the hall, entered a shadow, came out in a coat closet, and then opened the door.
”Hey, Lawrence,” she said, allowing her inner wolf to help make her eyes glow. It was the first time in her life she'd intentionally scared a human with her supernatural ability, but she needed answers, and time didn't allow for finesse.
He shrieked and leaped out of his chair, his chubby rolls jiggling as he grabbed a gallon jug of water and brandished it in front of him. ”How did you get in here! You can't cross without an invitation. I have Holy Water. Get back!”
”Wow . . .” Sasha was at a momentary loss for words. This poor kid actually did think she was a Vampire. So her little ruse had struck a nerve. Somehow she suspected that if she showed him canines, he might have a coronary. Rather than have a medical emergency, she stayed still to allow him to calm down. ”I just want to talk.”
”I didn't do it. Yeah, we were all p.i.s.sed, but we didn't do the graveyard thing. We wouldn't be that stupid.”
”Okay,” Sasha said leaning against the wall. ”Who did?”
”I don't know. A bunch of us were gonna go out there later tonight to find our mentors and ask what happened to Jim and Tanya, but when Mouse rode by there on his bike, he saw the mausoleum trashed and was like, we are so screwed, because it'll seem like we're involved when we aren't!”
”All right, all right,” Sasha said, holding up a hand. ”Relax.”
She sighed as Lawrence started crying. Huge tears rolled down his fat face; his mascara was running. Every few seconds he'd wipe his cheeks, flas.h.i.+ng her black nail polish, and she focused on the big, dime-size holes in his ears that the black steel disks made.
”Can I at least finish my joint before you rip out my heart? I know you don't believe me ... I know this is the part where you say I'm not going to hurt you but then you make me scream like a little b.i.t.c.h.”
Sasha shook her head. ”Some of my colleagues might be inclined to do that, but tonight is your lucky night. All I want to know is what happened.” She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and pushed the video b.u.t.ton. ”Tell me.”
”Oh, G.o.d, oh, G.o.d, I'm going to be in a Vamp snuff video! I mean, not oh G.o.da”I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that word. Oh, Jesus, please .. .”
”Gimme a break,” Sasha snarled. ”I'm not going to snuff youa”but I do need your version of what happened for the record so that n.o.body else decides to. Now talk!”
”Jim did everything he was supposed to do,” DeWitt said, sniffing. He clutched the plastic jug of Holy Water to his chest as though still not convinced he wouldn't die. ”He'd gotten all the way up there .. . brought plenty of donors, worked at the club as a human helper. He was even tattooed and ready to descend ... all he had to do was bring them a body and he'd get the bite.”
”And he brought them their sacrifice?”
”Yeah. A virgin. Some Asian chick in Tanya's lab.”
Sasha coolly nodded to remain in character, even though sickened to her stomach. ”So what went wrong?”
”Can I have my joint?” DeWitt looked at the smoldering roach in his ashtray.
Sasha motioned to the Marlboro reds on the kitchen counter. ”Try those, stay lucid at least while you're talking to me.”
”Oh, s.h.i.+t, oh, s.h.i.+t, I knew it... you guys don't like pollutants in the blood anda””