The Vampire Hunters (Book 2): Vampyrnomicon (29 page)

Jim tried to speak, but instead coughed uncontrollably. The tears flowed more heavily.

“Are you all right?”

Jim nodded, then coughed again.

“Is anyone up there?”

Jim shook his head. Clasping Alison’s left arm, he tried taking a deep breath, but began hacking. After a few seconds, the spasm subsided. He took another breath, this time not as deep, and succeeded in inhaling. After a few shallow breaths, Jim could take in air without coughing. Using the backs of his wrists, Jim wiped his eyes and opened them, fluttering the lids a few times until the irritation subsided.

“What happened?” asked Alison.

Jim spoke in between shallow breaths. “I was experimenting… with the tear gas… laced with holy water.”

“It didn’t work?”

“The tear gas… works fine…. It’s the dispenser… that sucks.” Jim coughed again, though not as hard this time. “While I was reloading the canister… the dispenser nozzle went off…. Emptied the whole thing… in a single gush.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Jim climbed to his feet, using the wall as support. “The lab’s a mess, though. Tear gas everywhere.”

“Tear gas?” asked Drake as he walked across the office. Alison had not noticed him enter. “What happened?”

“One of my weapon experiments… misfired. I flooded the workshop… with tear gas.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah.”

Drake leaned over and looked up the stairs at the smoke that filled the upper level. “How long will it take to clean up?”

Jim shrugged. “An hour or so for the gas to dissipate, then a couple more to clean up.”

“Do you feel well enough to stick around?”

“I think so. Just give me a few minutes to get some fresh air.”

“Good.” Drake patted Jim’s shoulder. “Make sure you both go home early tonight and get some rest.”

“We going hunting on the Mall tomorrow night?” asked Alison.

“Yes. But not on the Mall.”

“Why’s that?”

“We’ve been cruising the Mall for over a week and haven’t run across anything. If the vampires are still out there, they’ve probably changed tactics and hunting grounds, which means we have to. We’ll be hunting for them somewhere else.”

“I don’t think I want to know where,” said Jim.

Drake smiled. “You probably don’t.”

*     *     *

Racing through the
front entrance of
The Washington Standard
building, Jessica accidentally slammed the doors on an intern on her way out. Jessica offered a hurried apology and headed on inside to the elevators. Despite being thirty-five minutes late, she couldn’t have cared less. Her plans for a quickie in the shower with Drake fell apart and turned into another double round of lovemaking in his bedroom. By the time they were finished, she had only ten minutes to make it to work. So she took a quick shower, raced out of the apartment without even applying make-up, and hailed a taxi to the office. She didn’t mind, though, because this was the best morning she had experienced since God knows when.

It did not even bother her when she ran into Philips waiting to get on the elevator as Jessica stepped off onto her floor.

“There you are,” said Philips, surprised to have run into her. Philips placed his hand on her wrist and gently pulled Jessica back into the elevator with him. “Walk with me.”

“Yes, sir.”

The elevator doors slid shut. Philips pressed the button for the top floor. As the elevator lurched up, he turned to Jessica. His eyebrows crunched in curiosity. “Didn’t you wear that same outfit yesterday?”

“No,” lied Jessica, hiding her embarrassment.

Philips shrugged and continued. “I have an assignment for you. I want you to handle the Mike Fletcher case.”

“The junior high school vice principal who was found murdered in his home?”

“Yup.”

“No problem. I’ve handled murders before.”

“This is a little different.” The elevator pinged when it reached the top floor. Philips waited until the doors opened, then he and Jessica stepped off. He lowered his voice so as not to be overheard. “Two facts about the case haven’t hit the media yet. First, they found a shitload of child porn on the bastard’s computer. Mostly teenage girls. And he didn’t download the stuff from the Internet. The police found it on several USB hard drives in his desk, so it’s practically undetectable.”

Jessica suppressed any outward display of emotion. As disgusting as all this was, she sensed a major story here. “Go on.”

“Here’s the sick part. Someone bit off Fletcher’s penis during sex.”

“
Bit
off?”

“Presumably one of his teenage girlfriends. Son of a bitch bled to death, which in my opinion is still too good for him.” The two stopped in front of the door to the publisher’s suite. “So, do you think you’re up to this?”

After what she had experienced hunting with Drake, investigating a pedophile killer would be a welcome break. Yet she could not say that to Philips. Instead, she opted for the generic, “Not a problem.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.” Philips flashed an uncharacteristic smile. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he withdrew a small, folded piece of paper and handed it to Jessica. “This is the cop who’s handling the case. I don’t know how much information you’ll get out of him, but it’s a start.”

“Where did you get this?”

“A good reporter never reveals his sources.” Philips gave her a friendly wink, then entered the suite.

Jessica headed back to her office. Once in the elevator, she opened the folded piece of paper and read the name. Juan Rodriguez. Plus his phone number at police headquarters. Holy shit. That was the same cop who kept on arresting Drake. This could turn out to be more interesting than she originally thought.

*     *     *

“I don’t like
this one damn bit,” protested Roach.

“Neither do I,” said Preston. “But what else can we do?”

Roach grunted. Partly out of frustration, but mostly because he had developed one of his mega-migraines that even a double dose of pain relievers had no effect on. There were many downsides to this job. Too many, truth be known. Having to tell families that they lost a loved one in the line of duty. Having to watch scum avoid doing well-deserved jail time because some judge threw out the case over a minor technicality, or because the judge felt a naive and misguided sympathy for the defendant. One of the more distasteful tasks, however, was having to suspend one of his cops. Especially a cop like Rodriguez, whom he had known for years.

“There’s got to be another way to handle this,” said Roach, massaging the bridge of his nose. “Rodriguez is a good cop.”

“
Was
a good cop.” Preston huffed. “Look, I agree with you. Rodriguez used to be one of the best we had. But these past few weeks…. Hell, I don’t know what happened. First, we had the incident in the sewer when he not only lied about that junkie who tried to escape, but also let Drake and the others go, despite your orders to arrest anyone leaving the row house. Now this.” Preston held up a manila folder to emphasize his point.

“I guess you’re right.”

Of course Preston’s right, Roach chastised himself. He never took pleasure in disciplining one of his officers, but occasionally it had to be done. Too many a good cop turned bad, though admittedly some had been bad seeds to begin with. Cops who became enthralled by the underworld culture that they policed and immersed themselves in it. Cops who couldn’t handle the daily depravities they witnessed and turned to alcohol or drugs to deaden the pain, or who took the law into their own hands. This seamy side of law enforcement garnered media attention. “Cop busts drugged-up speeding motorist” never made the news. “Cop busts open motorist’s skull” became the top story for days. This was why Roach needed to be especially diligent in disciplining or removing such influences if he wanted to retain the police’s credibility.

Still, that didn’t make this any easier.

Roach expanded the massaging to include his temples. “I hate suspending him for lying.”

“He’s not lying about taking a few bucks as a bribe for not writing a parking ticket. That I could excuse. He’s falsifying official records and trying to get others to falsify them. We also know of at least one instance when he violated his orders.”

“It doesn’t make sense. We’ve never had trouble with Rodriguez before. Why now?”

“It’s irrelevant.” Preston did not hide his frustration. “Rodriguez is no longer reliable. He can’t be trusted to deal with the public. It’s your duty to suspend him pending an investigation.”

“You don’t have to tell me my duty,” snapped Roach. “I know what I have to do. That doesn’t mean I have to—”

A knock interrupted the conversation. Roach’s secretary opened the door and leaned in. “Rodriguez is here to see you.”

“Send him in.”

Preston sat upright in his seat. Roach took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, simultaneously trying to calm his anger and summon up his nerve.

Rodriguez entered. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

“Yes.” Roach motioned to the empty chair in front of his desk. As Rodriguez sat down, Roach continued. “I wanted to get an update on the Fletcher investigation. Did you find anything interesting among his belongings?”

“Just his blood-stained clothes. I checked with the officers who searched his house. Fletcher was careful to cover his tracks. The only thing we found so far is an instant messaging address his wife says doesn’t belong to either a friend or colleague. VampGirl1648. I tried tracing who it belonged to. The owner set up the account a week ago using a Hotmail account and only used it at different Internet cafes throughout D.C., so there’s no way of tracing who it belongs to. Saunders is checking the cafes to see if we can get a description of the user.”

“Did you try contacting this VampGirl1648 yourself?” asked Roach.

“Yeah, but it didn’t do any good. The account went dead the night Fletcher was killed.”

“What about Fletcher’s hard drive and the USB disk?” asked Preston.

“I haven’t seen the take for those yet. The lab techs are still going through it. I should have access in a few days.”

Roach nodded his acknowledgement. “Did the funeral home find anything unusual about the body?”

“Nope.”

“Did they have any insights into the case?”

Rodriguez shook his head.

“You didn’t get much from there, did you?”

“Not really.”

Roach resigned himself. He had given Rodriguez every opportunity to tell the truth, but he refused to cooperate. Roach didn’t know why he refused to fess up, and at this point he didn’t care. Rodriguez would have to deal with the consequences. Looking over to Preston, he nodded for him to proceed.

Opening the manila folder, Preston removed several pieces of paper stapled together and passed them to Rodriguez. “Explain this.”

Rodriguez took the pages apprehensively and flipped them open, scanning the content. After a few seconds, he asked, “What’s this?”

“It’s a police report filed late last night by Anderson,” said Preston. “After you left the funeral home, Bob Hanley called and asked to speak to a detective. It seems an incident occurred at the funeral home while you were there, one that you failed to report. Hanley was not pleased with both the way you handled the situation and, as he put it, ‘the cavalier and bullying manner’ in which you treated him and Miss Hughes.”

Rodriguez continued reading through the report, never once making eye contact with Preston.

“Do you have anything to say?” demanded Preston.

“No.” Rodriguez closed the report and handed it back, again without making eye contact.

“You realize the seriousness of this?”

No response.

“Based on what Hanley told Anderson, you’re suspected of filing a false report.”

No response.

“You know what the consequences are if you’re found guilty?”

Still no response.

“Fuck him,” Preston said to Roach.

“Joel, please.” Roach leaned forward and spoke to Rodriguez in a fatherly voice. “Juan, you can’t keep up the silent treatment. Will you answer some questions?”

“If I can, sir.”

“Did you file a false report on your trip to the funeral home?”