The Bloody Mary Diet: The Detective Adele Series Book 1 (2 page)

The cont
rast is like putting a swan next to a morbidly obese otter with a bad comb over.  The man has hair on every part of his body except the top of his head and the bushiest mustache I have ever seen and short, stubby arms and legs.  Someday I am going to take him to the pier and throw him in with a couple of oysters just to see what happens.  Twenty to one he floats on his back and cracks those fuckers open and eats them raw.

I honestly would think that she had married him just to be mean except t
hat he fit her profile to a T. Much older, very wealthy and scared to death of her.  I do not blame them.  The woman is terrifying.  He is her fifth husband and she has never been divorced.  That’s right, widowed four times and she is barely forty.  For those of you who are bitchy enough to be doing the math and you know who you are that means I was born when she was seventeen.  Well gotcha bitch, she was sixteen.  My birthday comes first.   I am February and she is October.

I never knew my father and if my mom did she will not say.  I always
used to pretend it was David Bowie or something but mom would never do anything that interesting.  My mother is now a pillar of virtue and I am pretty sure that if it comes up mommy insists it was immaculate conception.

She also does not drink, smoke or take medication of
any kind and she never has.  She will tell you this the first time that you meet her. I will warn you in advance to her steer away from this topic.  In addition to being priggish and opinionated she is a crashing bore and exactly the type of person who could benefit from a drink and some prescription meds. At least now I have one witness who will contradict the virgin birth thing. Ha, gotcha bitch. We are not close.

Anyway, j
ust as Darth Vader is making his announcement Trevor walks in. He takes one look at my startled face and turns on the other two men. Trevor can be really scary and loud and emotional, especially for someone as old as he is. He has never actually told me his age but I do have the information on the Roanoke Colony so like I said, 450 years old give or take. That makes him very old and very powerful. I have never really had much reason to test the powerful part but I am willing to believe it today.

Trevor has been
Captain of the Odd Squad ever since anyone can remember but right now he is just a perpetually twenty something horny guy defending the current object of his dubious affections.  Me.

My alleged father and his legal representative look suitably horrified
to be the focus of a pissed off vampires rage and I find this to be completely hilarious.  Between the shock and the alcohol I can’t stop laughing as everyone crowds into my tiny office, some with their hands on their firearms.  Working for the Odd Squad is so cool.

All eyes are on Trevor as if to say
, “should we shoot them?”  Detective Michaels is looking at him more like, “can we shoot them” but he is one of the younger ones who totally lives for violence and forgets about the paperwork between times.  Long story short no one gets shot and everyone but me, Captain Trevor and my visitors leave. 

If you don’t know much about vampires let me tell you they are very territorial and very possessive. Right now I am not sure if Trevor is going to kick their asses or pee on me.  I am hoping for the first option but s
ince I showed up late and a little drunk I guess I should just let him do whatever works for him. He actually picks a third option that had not occurred to me and asks what happened.  Very mature on his part. Two points for Trevor.

This leads to the retelling of the father and
grandmas will story to which Trevor responds that I don’t have a dad and he knows damn sure that Gran would never consent to writing a will. Exactly what I said.

T
hen he notices the similarities between me and Mr. Stevens.

Trevor says he will leave us alone to sort out family business and I silently curse him for the coward that he is.  Not really.

Mr. Radly is very ready to get down to business as soon as the door closes.  I get the feeling that he doesn’t get threatened everyday and is not as used to it as the rest of us at the Odd Squad.  It is probably for the best that he doesn’t work here. 

Mr.
Radly tells me that they don’t want to take up company time but that if I am amenable we could meet for dinner after I finish work.  Since I didn’t drag in until 2:20 leaving early is probably not a good option and dinner at 11:00 pm doesn’t work for most people on a week night.  Apparently my new dad and his legal guy are the exception and they say they will pick me up as soon as I get off work.  Good thing I have my makeup.

They leave and I get to “work
”, by which I mean I find Jan, the only other woman who works here and tell her the horrific story of the telemarketer who woke up Gran BEFORE 10am to ask about a time share I don’t own leading me to show up to work slightly intoxicated and twenty minutes late. She already knows about my new dad and his legal guy.  Gossip travels really fast in such a small space.

Jan
, always the practical one, points out that if his attorney is willing to work those hours my new dad must be loaded and asks if he was wearing a ring. She is an unmated werewolf and I think it is starting to affect her brain. At least I hope it is because it would really be a shame if she had always been this strange.  I honestly did not notice the ring thing but I tell Jan she would make a great step mom and I would let her know.  She gives me a big hug and says congratulations on the new dad. She really would make a good step mom.

If you don’t know much about
werewolves I can give you the inside skinny in about three sentences. They have packs, they have lots of siblings and they are great parents. I mean obsessively awesome. If you don’t believe me go find a wolf and try to touch one of her pups. If you survive, which is unlikely, don’t tell the park ranger because wolves are endangered and what you just did is probably illegal in addition to being stupid. No one really needs two arms anyway. Stop being such damn a cry baby, you ninny.

The only bad thing about
werewolves is that they have to have an alpha. I mean it is really required for them to function. In our office Trevor is the boss and therefore he is the alpha. Anything I tell her in confidence she will immediately tell Trevor. ANYTHING. So I have to be careful or I will mention to Jan that it is “my time of the month” and Trevor will bring me a heating pad and a bunch of chocolates. No boundaries what-so-ever. Lots and lots of love but absolutely no privacy.

I stop by the
break room on the way back to my office and grab four donuts that are probably stale but definitely sugary.  A cup of coffee and I am good to go.  I keep sugar in my desk with my gun and a bunch of take out menus.  Did I mention that my job is really cool?

I go back to my office and open
the only file in my “In Box”. The file had not been there when I went to find Jan and it is not really addressed to me.  It has a label on it that says it was destined for the Boring Brigade (the regular police) but that has been crossed out.

It was actually a story that I had heard about
on the news that morning.  The file contains info on the three vics that were on the news plus a forth that had been found just before I got here this afternoon.  We may have a serial killer. And for some reason they are giving it to the Odd Squad without a fight. That never happens and is not a good sign in my opinion.

Some
of it was on the news but I read the whole file and they didn’t have half of it. This is very messed up. All four victims were female, in their early twenties, light brown hair, light blue eyes and all four lived in a three block radius of St. Agnes Episcopal University. Four girls had now been found in bed with no outward signs of trauma what so ever but very completely dead.  As in advanced deadness and a very odd blood pooling pattern.  Usually when someone dies lying down blood, being liquid, pools at the lowest parts of the deceased person’s body.  This is a pattern called dependent lividity and is often used to determine if a corpse has been moved. It sets in 12 to 24 hours post mortem and gives a very clear indication of positioning of the body in the hours following death. If, for example the deceased is on their right side, blood pools on the right.  Still inside the body but like a very large bruise. Same for front or back. All four victims had significant blood pooling in their lower legs and feet.  Extremely odd for any corpse but especially for four who had been found supposedly lying down undisturbed in their own beds. Both the timing and positioning are way off and do not support this scenario at all.

I went on line to find out what I could about the four deceased and what they might all have in common.  The age, appearance and the fact that they all attended the University seemed to be the only readily available
connection.  None of them were in the same social clubs, none in the same classes, and only two shared the same majors, nursing. St. A had been started as a nursing school for women during WWII.  It had integrated in the late seventies as a bow to the feminist movement but remained a largely female population.

The only
aberration I could find was actually a fluke.  I accidentally typed in a search for “missing from St. Agnes” instead of “murdered from St. Agnes” and came up with a fifth girl.  Christina Lynn Vail.  Disappeared in December1998, last seen on campus at the Nursing Sciences Building.  None of the other girls had been reported missing, they had all been found dead in the last three weeks.  That was really the only discrepancy.  The date and the missing status.  If I put her picture up beside the other girls they could all have been sisters.  Whoever is doing this definitely has a type. Creepy. 

I went to talk to Trevor and he filled me in on why the Odd Squad had gotten the case.  All four of the dead girls
had been up and walking less than eight hours before they were found.  Three of the four had roommates that had seen them walk to bed and the fourth had been with her boyfriend at his place. 

Not so weird except in all four cases the
coroner placed the time of death at between three and four days earlier. No FBI profiler will come up with a suspect that can kill a girl and keep her walking around for several days postmortem. That leaves us, the Odd Squad, to figure out who could do this and why.

Trevor suggested that we go
visit the county morgue and see what we could find there.  I knew what we would find, Carl, the after hours guy, and dead people. I agree to go anyway.

This is where my specia
lty at the Odd Squad comes in, my family, at least on my mom’s side, are necromancers.  We have an affinity for the dead.  In my and Gran's case we can see what the dead person saw from their point of view.  If it’s a case that has ended up with us it is never pretty and the worst thing about seeing something like that is that you can never unsee it. Watch a murder from the victim’s perspective makes you see what they saw and fell what they felt at their time of death.

That, in itself would be bad enough but in addition y
ou can never, never forget no matter how hard you try or how much you drink. It is always there.  Most people do not make it long in my line of work.  Trevor and Gran had been partners in the old days when her name had been Eleanor. I am not sure why she changed it, but anyways she retired and became Gran and Trevor stayed on and became Captain. That’s how I got interested in this job in the first place.

I meet Trevor outside the station and he is holding my door. The really old
ones are always such gentlemen and this time he is in his personal vehicle.  It is a black drop top 1963 Alfa Romeo and it is sweet.  I am not a car person but Trevor is and he bought this one new.  He has driven it ever since.  Sliding into the passenger seat I give his shoulder a squeeze and say “Thank you Trevor, for everything.”  Trevor just smiles.  I know that he knows that I am afraid to touch his hand.  Thank God men of his generation do not go in for a handshake when they meet a woman because I don’t know if I could even do a high five.

I don’t know what I would see.  Trevor is technically dead and there is a good chance that if I
touched him his strongest memories would just jump to me. There is no way to know without trying and once you see something, like I said, you can never unsee it.  I would be stuck potentially remembering the worst and best things that Trevor had ever seen or done over the last five hundred years.  Or maybe I would see nothing and we could have a wonderful life together.  I am not willing to try and Trevor will never give up.  Vampires are also very, very patient. 

Chapter 3: Meetings

When we arrive at the county morgue Carl greets us at the door.  Trevor must have called.  I would have forgotten and ended up standing outside waiting for Carl to find time to answer the office phone.  The thought of having Carl’s personal number is too horrible to contemplate because that would mean he might get mine and then it would be within the realm of possibilities that he would call me. In fact I know he would. 

Carl
is not a bad looking guy.  He is tall, relatively fit, black hair and very, very white teeth.  He smiles a lot.  He smiles because he loves his job.  I don’t mean like, I mean love.  If he could get me to stay here with him every night I think that this would be his perfect world.  I could describe in detail what had happened to every torn up mess that came through the door and Carl would no longer have to just make educated guesses. His life would be complete. In my mind I call him Creepy Carl.