I pointed to my left. "Over there," I said.
Karl bent over the counter, looked at Peter Willbrand's corpse for a few seconds, then came back. "Okay, that's why Homicide's here," he said. "But why us?"
"Good questi. I was wondering, myself." I looked over at Homer, who didn't bother to conceal the fact that he'd been listening. "You know anything about that?" I asked.
"I've got no idea who called you guys, but I think I know where the impulse must've come from. Here, check this out."
Homer eased behind the counter, careful not to step in the blood pool. He produced a pair of tweezers, bent over the dead guy, and carefully pulled back the collar of his gaudy shirt.
There were three symbols carved into the corpse's nearly hairless chest.
I didn't recognize them, but the alphabet looked like something I'd seen before.
Karl and I looked at each other for a couple of seconds, then I pulled out my notepad and started carefully copying the stuff down.
When I was done, I turned to Homer. "You've got photos of this, right?"
"Course I do," he said. "I assume you want copies?"
"You assume right, Homes." Homer likes it when I call him that – makes him feel like he's hanging with the cool kids.
Homer watched as I put the notepad away, then asked, "What's that stuff on his chest say? Do you know?"
"Uh-uh," I said, shaking my head. "But I'm pretty sure I know what it means."
"Well, what?"
"Trouble."
Homer grinned with delight. "Damn, I love that kind of talk."
"I know you do," I told him. "But do me a favor, will you? Peel back the vic's upper lip for a second."
He gave me a strange look, but didn't ask any questions. Pulling out the tweezers again, he bent over the corpse, got a grip on the thin flap of flesh below the victim's nose, and lifted it up.
All three of us stared at what Homer had uncovered, but Karl was the first one to speak. "Sonofabitch. Fangs."
By the time I finally got home from the crime scene, I was able to grab only three more hours of sleep. Then it was time to get up again, shower, eat, feed Quincey (my hamster, who's named after a hero of mine), and head back to the squad for the start of my regular shift.
My email messages included one from Homer, who'd managed to do the autopsy on our vic right away. Must have been a slow day at the morgue.
Stan:
You owe me lunch, man (and not at Mickey Dee's, ei ther) – I was planning to play golf this afternoon, not cut up a dead vamp for the Supe Squad.
Okay: to the surprise of nobody, Mr Willbrand's death was caused by a single gunshot, bullet penetrating the left ventricle of the heart and lodging therein. Death was in stantaneous, or near enough as makes no difference. I got the round out, more or less intact. It's a. 38, but here's the weird thing: sucker looks like it's made of charcoal. That's right, something you'd use in your BBQ grill, except a lot smaller. I've sent it to the lab, and you'll get a chemical analysis from them, eventually. But I'll bet my next pay check that I'm right.
I've heard of silver bullets – and I bet you know more about that stuff than I would. But charcoal? What the fuck is up with that?
Love amp; kisses,
Homer
By the time I was finished, Karl was reading over my shoulder. "He asks a pretty good question there, near the end."
"Sure does." I clicked the mouse a couple of times to add a copy of Homer's message to the case file. "Sts, sure. Even gold, a couple of times. Wasn't there a guy in some old James Bond movie that was known for using gold bullets?"
"Francisco 'Pistols' Scaramanga," Karl said immediately. " The Man with the Golden Gun, 1974. Christopher Lee played him. Based on the last of the Bond novels that Ian Fleming wrote, before those other hacks started doing them. Movie was okay, but the book kind of sucked. Fleming was just going through the motions by then, rehashed a lot of stuff he'd done already. He died soon after."
Karl is the biggest James Bond nut I've ever met, or even heard of. He's got the books, the DVDs, soundtrack albums, movie posters, and even – as he once admitted, after swearing me to secrecy – the complete set of 007 action figures.
I'd only asked the James Bond question to postpone dealing with the fact that we probably had some kind of nut/wizard/serial killer operating in town, using each murder as an ingredient in some kind of elaborate spell to accomplish a goal that I couldn't even imagine.
I was about to say as much when my email pinged, announcing a new message. I checked the address, to see whether it was worth reading.
The message had come from Vollmanex@aol. com.
Son of a bitch.
I understand there has been another killing that seems relevant to our matter of mutual concern. Is my information correct?
Vollman.
"Wonder how he knew we'd be here?" Karl asked.
"The old bastard seems to know everything – except how we're gonna clear this case," I said.
I clicked "Reply," typed "You bet it is," and sent it.
Less than a minute later I was reading, Do you have AOL Instant Messenger, or something similar? If so, what is your screen name?
"Why do I feel weird about doing IM with a vampire?" I said out loud. "I mean, what would Dracula say about this shit?"
"Probably, 'I vant to haf a chaaat vith you… in real time,'" Karl said, doing a pretty fair Bela Lugosi.
I sent Vollman my AOL identification. After a few seconds, the computer made that annoying zziiiing sound, and a chat window opened.
Inside the window was " VollWiz: Are we connected? " The rest of the conversation (if you can call it that) went like this:
Supecop1: Yes, I'm here.
VollWiz: Does this latest murder bear similarities to the first one?
Supecop1: Some. There was cryptic stuff carved into the victim's chest.
VollWiz: The same as last time?