CHAPTER 3
You would think that after being away for the holidays, the first thing people would ask you when you got into work was how your family was or if you had a good time. Did my colleagues and friends do that?
Nope, no way, not the people that I work with. Actually, if they had, I probably would have suspected that they’d been kidnapped and replaced by brainwashed doubles or alien pod creatures.
I hadn’t gone more than a dozen steps out of the elevator before my best friend, Jordan, (she works over in court records) came up grinning wildly. Jordan is four inches taller than me and so rail thin that she makes me feel fat, yet she doesn’t look like she needs to gain weight. If there really were such a thing as elves, I would have to be suspicious that she just might have some elven blood somewhere in her background.
“There you are, Meggie,” she said. I have told her a hundred times that I hate that contraction of my name; Megan, or hey you, is what I prefer. Meggie sounds just too childish. The fact that it irritates me is why, I suspect, that Jordan manages to call me that at least once a day. That’s all right; I have my ways of getting even.
“Hey, Jordan, how were your days off?”
“Just fine. I tried out a new recipe for venison with that deer meat my cousin John sent me. I cooked it for my sister’s family. But I hear you had a really “fun” time when you went home to Nowata. Did they find the body?”
I just laughed. Sometimes I think the grapevine in the courthouse is faster than e-mail; you can tell somebody something and by the time they’ve typed it in an e-mail, at least six other people will be aware of it. There are ways of keeping secrets, and there are also ways of making sure that some information does get out, which is a fact true anywhere, but especially in the mini ecosystem that’s a courthouse.
“Yes, they did find Randall Willis’s body. His wife had slit his throat and had him hanging up in the garage, ready to butcher him into smaller pieces; easier to handle that way,” I said. “I just can’t figure out why she tried to get us to go there, knowing what we’d find.”
“Yuck. But, there have been a few guys I went out with in school that I don’t think I’d have objected to doing something like that to. In fact, it sounds like it might have been fun.”
Now, that surprised me. Jordan is a definite fashionista, always wearing dynamite clothes with perfect shoes and makeup, and she sometimes comes across as the sort of woman who would get upset if she broke a fingernail; a real girly-girl. She wasn’t, though. Jordan has a trust fund, but she and I have gone mountain climbing together, prowling thrift stores, even gone adventure racing. But somehow, I had never thought of her as one who held grudges. Okay, people can surprise even their friends.
“Well, just remember that if you do, then you have to fill out the paperwork, in triplicate!”
“That’s not a nice thing to say.” She grinned. “You wanna have lunch at Nathan’s?”
A big thick Nathan’s Hot Dog, now that’s something I could go for. “Of course! I’ll meet you on the plaza.”
My office, or at least what they laughingly refer to as an office, is located in what at one time was the auxiliary accident room. I share it with one other forensic sorcerer, Mike Jacobson, who was out on family medical leave. His wife had had twins right before the holiday. So I had the place to myself for up to the next six weeks, if not longer.
I barely had time to drop my backpack behind my desk and hang my coat up before two other people stopped by wanting details about my holiday case. One of them had the gall to call it an adventure. I just gave them the look and that settled things down.
It was barely nine o’clock and there were already five new files in my inbox, which didn’t surprise me in the slightest. Most of them would be requests for me to come look at crime scenes and see if there was anything that the usual Crime Scene Unit people had missed. Most of these were breaking and entering cases, which meant that there would be nothing unexpected to find. Since it was on the DA’s desk, there was a suspect, and they wanted to make sure everything was done properly.
At one point, the office had had four journeymen, two apprentices and two full master class sorcerers, but that was over a year ago and there had been cutbacks at every level of city government, so that meant our department, too. There wasn’t a lot I could do about it, just what it took to get the job done.
I was about to go through the files when my computer beeped and an IM popped onto the screen. It was a note from the assistant DA saying that I needed to go down to the police station and sit in on the interrogation of a couple of guys that the cops had picked up. I saw two words at the end of the message that made me roll my eyes and wish I had called in sick today.
Vampire hunters.
I’ve enjoyed my share of vampire movies. Hey, my mother admitted to having a crush on Christopher Lee when she was a teenager, saying that she figured he knew how to give dynamite hickeys. That’s my dear mother for you. A lot of the books were pretty good, except for that one about glittering vamps. I’d even broken down and watched a couple of those vampire hunter shows on television where they go to places, spend the night and look for vampires. Amazingly, they never seemed to find much of anything.
People want to believe vamps exist, but nobody had been able to find one. I had my serious doubts if anyone ever would.
Some of these guys called themselves urban explorers and went sneaking into all sorts of places, looking for some trace of the fanged ones; most of them were nuttier than a fruitcake.
When I first went to work for the DA’s office, they told me that the interrogation rooms ware in the basement of the courthouse. I spent a half an hour wandering around in that maze before I found out where I was really supposed to go.
Let’s just say, I got even with the person who told me that. It was one of the assistant DAs who thought it was funnier than hell to send the newbie off in the wrong directions. As tempted as I was to use magic to cause him trouble, I didn’t. That would have been too obvious. Instead, I got a hacker friend to sign him up on every spam mail and bulk mail list in existence, both at his house and at work. Karma can be a bitch, and, given the right circumstances, so can I.
The interrogation rooms are actually on the second floor of the police station, near the detective squad’s offices. They are small, about the size of a broom closet on steroids, just enough room for a table and a couple of chairs. The walls are painted an army puke green color that hasn’t been retouched in about a dozen years. I always suspected some city official had a brother-in-law or some other such relative who gave him such a deal on leftover paint.
Detective second grade Shaun Flynn had a huge Black’s Law dictionary lying on his desk. It was about as thick as a standard Webster’s unabridged, and, given the size of the desks that the city gave the detective squad to use, seemed to cover the whole thing, pushing papers and file folders perilously close to the edge. Flynn had been taking night classes at the university, and, rumor had it, was close to getting his law degree.
Flynn was in his late thirties, but his eyes had the look of someone who had seen a lot more. I think he had served in Iraq, but I had never asked and he had never volunteered the information. I know he was married, but I didn’t know much about his wife, other than that she’s a medical doctor. Her picture is on the corner of his desk.
“You know, you could download that whole thing to a tablet, and then you might actually be able find things on your desk,” I told him.
“Nice to see you, Thomas. Glad you didn’t end up in the basement again,” he said. “Hear you had fun up in Nowata.”
“Yeah, right,” I said.
“So did you bring me back some of your mother’s angel food cake?” he asked.
For the fact that he let the whole thing about the killing in Nowata drop, I went ahead and plopped the brown paper bag I was carrying on his desk. He stared at it for a moment, then at me; the look was asking if this was real or a joke.
“Are you going to eat that or just leave it sitting there all day?”
Flynn pulled out a wedge of cake wrapped in aluminum foil and carefully opened it. Most people are used to store-bought angel food cakes; my mother’s are made from scratch and have won awards. I’ve even seen people at a church fundraising auction get into fights to get the winning bid for her cake. One went for a $150; Mom promised the loser a cake if he would donate the same amount to the church. If you’re wondering, yes, he did pony up the money, and said it was worth every cent.
As soon as Flynn bit into the cake, you could see the pure joy in his eyes. I know exactly what he was going through; it’s like a wee bit of heaven. They also make great bribes, and don’t leave any evidence behind. My dear mother may be a pain in the ass sometimes, but boy does she know how to bake cakes.
Shaun finished his mid-morning snack, which he washed down with a swallow of that swill he laughingly calls coffee.
“You do know how to treat a man,” he said.
“So, where did we find our brave vampire hunters? I’m guessing they’re kids who are looking for the vamps so they can “join up”. Or somebody trying to get material for yet another reality show. Idiots who want their fifteen minutes of fame.”
If vampires were real, I figure any smart ones would stay a long way away from the Goths and the wannabes. After all, if you live on a warm liquid protein diet, you don’t want to be too obvious about it. Not to mention the fact that a real vampire would probably more resemble Edward Woodward than Tom Cruise, although, after seeing ‘Interview with the Vampire’, I do wonder about him a bit.
Flynn picked up a thin file that I could see some DD-77 forms sticking out of. Those are what arresting officers have to fill out as soon as someone is booked. Basically, they’re what any case that comes across my desk, or anyone else’s in the DA’s office, start with. I’ve looked at so many of those things I think they turn up in my dreams sometimes, or should I say nightmares.
“Sounds like somebody got up on the wrong side of the coffin this morning,” he chuckled and flipped open the file. “Actually, you get a zero on your psychic mind reading this morning, but that’s okay. It is Monday.”
“So who have we got in interrogation and why didn’t they get busted for trespassing and processed out like most of the other vampire hunters?”
Flynn laughed. He picked up a bowl full of those mini-Butterfinger candy bars and held it out for me. That slime ball knew that I loved those things, but they don’t love me in return; that’s why I try to allow myself only one or two a week.
“Try a college professor and an ex-cop. They were found in the south part of town inside the old theater there on 101st street. The only reason that anyone even knew they were there was that a drunk rear ended someone out on the street and the cops investigating the accident noticed their car. They’d hidden it back near some old rusty garbage dumpsters,” said Flynn.
The report was fairly cut and dried, straight out of just getting the facts down with no elaborations what-so-ever. That may be a class that they teach over at the police academy, though I’m sure that a lot of people slept through it.
He motioned me over to a small closed-circuit monitor that was sitting on a desk that looked like it would tip over if you looked at it wrong. He punched a couple of buttons on the remote and the screen lit up with a black and white picture of a curly-haired man with a thick mustache in his late fifties.
“I repositioned the camera a little bit the other day. This way we can actually see the suspect, rather than just the top of his head,” said Flynn. “Thomas, say hello to Casey Leonard. He’s a retired gunnery sergeant from the Marines, and also a former Tulsa homicide detective. He has a horse ranch up near Claremore, but makes a good living now as a writer, usually on war and true crime.”
Now, that surprised me; this was not the profile I would have expected for the vampire hunter that they wanted me to talk to. No, those were usually kids or people who were, shall we say, a lot off center of reality.
“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” Flynn grinned. He switched channels on the closed- circuit monitor and I found myself looking at a woman with lightish hair that she wore in a short braid. She couldn’t have been more than a few years older than me.
“His daughter?” I wanted to give Mr. Leonard a chance not to turn out to be robbing the cradle, date wise.
“Nope. My dear Inspector Megan Thomas, you are looking at DeLinda Hardeman, PhD. I looked her up on the web. To say that this woman is brilliant is to put things lightly. She’s a physicist who, apparently, has been on the short list for the Nobel a couple of times, if you can believe what you read on Wikipedia.”
I did a quick scan over the printout on Dr. Hardeman that Flynn had attached to the DD-77s. The list of the things she had done, science-wise, was impressive, and she was barely thirty. There was something about her that rang a bell with me, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it.
“So what am I doing here? Why haven’t they just been charged with trespassing and processed out?”
Unless there were outstanding warrants of some kind, or other extenuating circumstances, like staking a corpse or stalking, that’s what generally happened when the cops picked up vampire hunters.
“You obviously didn’t get the memo,” the detective said, savoring his moment of triumph. Of course, one thing about Flynn, he knew when to back off. The story of what I had done to the guy who had given me wrong directions was legendary around the courthouse.
“What memo?” I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. There was always a pile of paper memos on my desk, on everyone’s desks. In spite of a pile of politician’s promises two feet tall, the city government had never quite managed to go paperless.
“Apparently, our wonderful leaders have decided that in order to discourage escape attempts of a supernatural nature, all suspects need to be inspected for hidden spells and such by someone of at least the certified rank of apprentice sorcerer. Since the police department hasn’t cleared new sorcerer hires, it’ll be at least two more weeks, knowing how slow the paperwork is. So we have to call on other departments to assist us.”
And, since I was currently the only one in my office, the job fell to me.
Oy vey! This was one of those times I really wished I had gone corporate rather than into law enforcement. Better money, better hours, maybe not a better class of people, but money can balance that part of the job out.
“This is all I need, more work.” I picked up both file folders from the desk and headed toward the interrogation rooms.
“Oh, I didn’t tell you the kicker.” This time Flynn was scratching his head. I’m pretty good at reading body language, and I didn’t like what I was seeing right now.
“Yes?”
“The lady doctor there says she knows you. In fact, she asked if it would be possible to speak with you.”
✽✽✽
To make things more efficient, I had both of these “intrepid adventurers” moved into the larger interrogation room. Of course, larger is a matter of interpretation. They went from sitting in rooms that were little more than small closets, to now being in one that was a much larger closet. This would make my job easier, plus, it was for my comfort as well; I’m minorly claustrophobic and hated those small rooms with a purple passion.
I stopped and got a cup of coffee to take inside with me. It was meant more as a prop, someplace to put my hand if I felt I needed it. Not to mention, it would serve as a weapon should things get out of hand. Cold coffee in the face can be just as effective as hot coffee; that was one of the first lessons I learned on the job.
Officer Rory Cloud was standing outside of the room. He nodded to me and gestured over his shoulder toward the interrogation room. I’ve known Cloud for at least three years and I don’t think the man has said more than three sentences back to back on non-work-related matters. It wasn’t that he didn’t like sorcerers, from what everyone else who knew him said, he just didn’t talk all that much.
Cloud would be listening at the door, ready to step in should anything happen; that was one of the rules that the Guild had included in our last round of contract negotiations. I, for one, was glad to have him there. There are very few people I trust to watch my back; Rory Cloud is one of them.
“Good morning,” I said, pulling out the chair. Across from me Casey Leonard rose slightly from his chair, sitting back down when I took mine, and smiled at me. This was an old-fashioned gesture that you don’t see very often.
“I am Inspector Megan Thomas, a forensic sorceress investigator attached to the Tulsa County District Attorney’s office. I have my identification and certifications, should you desire to see them.” This was the standard introduction that any member of the Guild was required to use in the performance of their work.
Casey Leonard cocked his head at me one way, then another. “Didn’t I see your picture in the Tulsa Tribune a few weeks back?” he asked.
Actually, it had been an article in one of the local city magazines about urban professional women. I had not wanted to do the interview, but my union steward and my boss had suggested that it might be a good for not just me, but for the DA’s office, as well. It could help to counter some high-profile bad publicity. I did the interview; I did the photo shoot, and it turned out to not be anywhere near as painful as I had expected it to be.
“It might have been. Look, there are a couple of matters that need to be taken care of and then they can get you two taken care of. You can post bail and be out of here by noon if you’re lucky.”
I opened the file, made a show of glancing over it again, then laid out two waivers, one for each of them complete with pens to sign them.
“I presume you want us to sign these?” said DeLinda Hardeman.
“That’s the idea; it gives me permission to do a scanning spell on each of you. It’s noninvasive and only allows me to know if you’re carrying any kind of obviously illegal spell work. If you need a lawyer, that will only delay things; I can cite the necessary case law to show that this is entirely legal and above board,” I said.
“I’m sure it is, Inspector,” she said, scribbling her name on the paper without even looking at it. Leonard did the same, but refused the ball point I had left on the table, taking out his own rather elaborate fountain pen.
“You haven’t asked what we were doing there,” he said.
“Frankly, I don’t care,” I told them. “That’s for the police and the lawyers to worry about. I’m just here to make sure you don’t pose any kind of immediate threat to the people in this station or any civilian employees in this building. I just require the two of you to be silent for the next several minutes.”
The spell was simple, something a university student could do, but I could actually see the use for it. Of course, I personally knew of at least three ways to mask spells from it, so I figured that there had to be something like three times that many other ways so the same thing. My grandmother had said that true wisdom starts when you realize just how much you don’t know. So I figure, if that’s true, I must be a friggin’ genius, because I don’t even know how much I don’t know, just that it’s a hell of a lot.
I did a quick scan of the forms, not that I expected that either of them had done a switch, not right in front of me. But you never knew, and it only took a moment to make sure that the documents I slid into the file were the same ones that I had laid on the table. Once I had confirmed that, it was just a matter of reaching inside my mind and centering my thoughts.
It took me a few minutes longer than I expected. I kept getting this odd tingling on the back of my neck. More of an irritant that a problem, the kind of itch that you scratch, it goes away and then comes back again for just a moment. The sort of thing that just drives me up a wall, and if you try to describe it to someone, they just look at you like you’re out of your mind.
I took a long slow breath, held it, and then let it go as slowly as possible until I could touch that inner part of myself that is the focus of my power. This shouldn’t be that hard. As I opened my eyes, the green mist that I expected was all around me. I looked at my two subjects; they were sitting there quietly, as they had been instructed. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I reached out to them, letting my senses run over them, looking for something that shouldn’t be there or something that was too perfect in the scene in front of me.
Nothing set any of my alarms off, which was exactly what I expected; that always worried me, but not very much. I was about to let the spell dissipate when DeLinda Hardeman winked at me and followed that with a momentary seductive and challenging smile. Then she followed that with a single word “Boo.”
That was enough to push me out of my spell state. Normally I’m more on my toes, and nothing like that would happen. It was just, this was so totally out of left field that I hadn’t erected my usual safeguards.
“Dr. Hardeman? Did you say something to me?” I asked.
“As a matter of fact, I did. You were just sitting there so stoic and unmoving that I thought that a little levity might ease the tension,” she said.
That made sense, but there was something else there, a sub-text that I was apparently missing. Of course, I have been known to have the habit of over-thinking situations when the best thing is to go with the flow and just see what happens.
“Do we know each other, Dr. Hardeman?” I asked, remembering then, according to Flynn, she had asked for me by name.
“I was wondering if you would remember me?” she laughed.
“I know I don’t know your friend.” I gestured at Leonard. “So where do I know you from?”
Hardeman go that same enigmatic smile on her face that I had seen during the spell.
“A little mystery is good for things, don’t you think?” she said. “You said before we should be out of here in just a couple of hours?”
“All things being equal, provided there are no outstanding warrants or a paperwork snafu, I would say you ought to be out on the streets by noon.”
“Then why don’t you meet me over at the Riverside Café for drinks at six? Maybe I’ll tell you then. Or maybe I won’t.”
It didn’t occur to me until I was halfway back to my office that the woman was hitting on me.