The Vampire Hunters (Book 2): Vampyrnomicon (30 page)

“No comment.”

“Did Fletcher’s corpse spasm repeatedly during the embalming process?”

“No comment.”

“Did you cut the head off of Fletcher’s corpse?”

“No comment.”

“Did you suggest that Bob Hanley lie to the Fletcher family about what happened at the funeral home?”

“No comment.”

Roach closed his eyes, the throbbing behind his temple almost unbearable. He did not need this shit, and would not take it any longer.

“Juan Rodriguez, you’re hereby suspended from the force until further notice. Hand over your badge and your weapon.”

Without so much as a protest, Rodriguez removed his weapon from its holster, ejected the clip, and pulled back the slide into the locked position. He placed his weapon and his badge on the desk in front of Roach.

“Is there anything else, sir?”

Roach shook his head. “Just get the hell out of here.”

“May I pick up some personal belongings from my desk?”

“As long as you’re out of the building in fifteen minutes.”

Rodriguez stood and left the office. The other men watched him exit. When the door closed behind Rodriguez, Preston turned to Roach.

“What the fuck was that all about?”

Roach inhaled deeply. “Maybe it’s stress.”

“Good luck getting him to take a psych exam.” Preston laughed derisively. “If you want, I’ll have Internal Affairs open a file on Rodriguez.”

“Wait on that.”

“What for?”

“Give him a few days to sort his shit out. Then we’ll talk to him again. Maybe he’ll be more cooperative.”

Preston stared at Roach, incredulous. “Why bother?”

“Rodriguez has never caused problems before. The way he’s been acting lately doesn’t make any sense.”

“So you want to give him the opportunity to make complete assholes of us?”

“That’s enough!” Roach slammed his hand onto the top of his desk, ending any further discussion. “It’s my decision to make, and I’ve made it. Now, do we you have anything else we need to discuss?”

“No.”

“Then you’re dismissed.”

Preston sat staring at Roach for a few seconds. With a sigh and a disgruntled shake of his head, he stood and left the office. Roach felt the same level of frustration toward Preston that he knew Preston harbored toward him. Preston was a damn good special assistant, having proven himself invaluable to Roach more times than he could remember. But Preston was also a bureaucrat, not a street cop, which often meant he took a hardline, by-the-book attitude when it came to the men and women under his command. Preston often forgot that those cops who worked on the street often saw shit the desk jockeys could never imagine, and those experiences affected each cop in different ways. More than likely, Rodriguez had experienced something that affected his judgment.

With luck, things would work themselves out in the next few days.

That confirmed it,
fumed Preston as he stormed back to his office. He kicked open the outer door to his suite, scaring the hell out of his secretary. She jumped in her chair, spilling half of her tea onto her blouse and lap. She opened her mouth to protest, but wisely thought better of it. Glaring at her, Preston did not offer an apology, but instead barked, “No calls or visitors.” He shoved open the door to his private office, slamming it so hard behind him that one of the picture frames on the wall flew off of its mounting and crashed to the floor.

Preston stepped over to the window and gazed out onto the station’s main entrance, watching people come and go. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, holding it for ten seconds before exhaling. It helped calm him down, but only slightly. The human body naturally reacted to certain conditions, in his case with having to deal with timidity and gross stupidity. Both of which were epitomized by Roach.

How fucking stupid could one man be? Roach had been hired to protect the citizens of Washington, and for the most part he did, albeit within his limited abilities. Roach made a good effort, and racked up a lot of success, in keeping violence off the street, in minimizing the gang and drug problems, in cracking down on non-violent crime, and the like. While acceptable under normal circumstances, the existence of the undead presented an unprecedented threat to this city, one that demanded leadership, courage, and the will to act. Not the type of qualities you find from someone unable to think outside his extremely narrow box.

Granted, no one had ever trained for a scenario such at this at the academy. He could imagine the ridicule if he issued everyone on the force stakes and bottles of holy water. Or the look on the face of the Internal Affairs inspector when one of his cops said, “Sorry, there’s no body to conduct a police brutality investigation on because it turned to dust when we drove a stake through its heart.” Or worse, the panic that would ensue when the public realized that vampires walked amongst them. No, under the instances, the force needed to take unorthodox measures and handle the problem out of the public’s view.

Neither of which Roach was capable of doing.

For those few with access to it, enough evidence existed confirming the existence of the undead for anyone with the foresight to recognize it. The testimony of Jason Clark, the eleven-year-old boy attacked at Union Station. The incident on the Metro where Matthews pumped two full magazines of .40 caliber rounds into something powerful enough to walk away from such an attack. The disintegration of the thing that attacked Rodriguez and the others in the sewer during the raid on the row house. Hanley’s description of what happened to Fletcher during the embalming. Christ, he even had the security camera CD-ROM of the vampires who murdered Dekker and that photographer at the morgue, which had cinched it for him.

How could Roach not react to this information? Instead, he shoved his head up his ass and refused to acknowledge reality, coming up with this insipid rationale about chemicals that when mixed with narcotics created spontaneous combustion, a mantra Roach repeated so often Preston thought Roach believed it. That was the extent of his action—to explain away the situation rather than confront it. Never mind that the evidence pointed to a major threat to Washington. We’ll distort the facts or ignore them entirely. If Roach could not get over that mental block, then he sure as hell would never take the steps necessary to stop this threat. Roach merely delayed the inevitable and allowed the undead to grow stronger in the process. The vampires would eventually come out and feed in the open. By then, it would be too late to stop them. That was one clusterfuck of a train wreck Preston wanted to avoid.

Preston knew for certain that the public would eventually become aware of this. A month ago, no one knew anything about the presence of vampires in Washington. Now it had become the worst kept secret. The security personnel at the Metro and the morgue who prepared the CD-ROMs of the security tapes. The sewer worker who had been attacked. A rapidly growing number of cops on the force. And every one of their family, friends, and colleagues who they talked to. Sure, none of them had the entire story, and probably would never put all the pieces together. But if enough people started talking, the scattered bits of information would take on a life of their own. Once that happened, someone in the media would begin investigating, and at that point it wouldn’t be too difficult to unearth the truth.

Hell, Jessica Reynolds already must have figured it out, especially since they had kidnapped her. He couldn’t figure out why she hadn’t yet published her story, and assumed that either her or her editor were not yet ready to risk their careers by going public.

Right now, Drake Matthews presented the biggest threat to keeping the existence of the undead under wraps. On average, the police were arresting Matthews or a member of his group once a week, or could at least place them at the scene of an incident. God only knew how many incidents they were involved in which the police never knew about. Both Matthews and the police were interested in keeping his activities secret. Nonetheless, every time he burnt a bridge, or wrecked a tourist attraction, or engaged in a gunfight with the undead, or blew up a portion of the sewers, he attracted public attention. Preston could not figure out why more reporters like Miss Reynolds had not latched onto the story, although the likelihood of that happening seemed inevitable. As long as Matthews and his group remained free, they hastened the day that the public would become aware of the vampires terrorizing Washington, and the bedlam that would follow.

Preston took another deep breath and exhaled slowly. This time he felt much more at ease because he realized what had to be done.

Going over to his desk, Preston opened the top drawer and removed the CD-ROM containing the compilation of security camera footage from the morgue. He knew he should show it to Roach and try to convince him of the threat they faced. He would have, if he thought it would do any good. Preston felt certain, however, that Roach would concoct some rationale to explain it away. Roach was a good cop, which explained how he got to be promoted to chief of police. When it came to politics, though, he didn’t have a clue about how to act, and the chief’s job required a politician more than a cop. Roach should have thrown Matthews and the others in jail a long time ago and tossed away the key. When the mayor asked for their release, as he always did, Roach should have reminded the mayor that they worked for the citizens of Washington and not some anonymous benefactor. But to do that would have required balls, which Roach had traded in for his chief’s badge.

Preston snapped the CD-ROM in half and tossed the pieces into the wastebasket.

He would bide his time and watch how events transpired, carefully positioning himself with regards to the threat. At some point this would come to a head, and he felt confident Roach would be unable to handle the situation. When Roach stumbled, Preston would move in, take over as chief, and do what had to be done to clean out the nest.

In the meantime, Preston needed to find a way to neutralize Drake Matthews and his group, even if he had to manufacture it himself.

Less than one
hundred yards away, Rodriguez sat at his own desk, throwing its contents into the waste basket, but for different reasons. Rather than disposing of evidence, he tidied up clutter and gathered his belongings. Even though only suspended from the force, he would not be coming back.

He had considered arguing with Roach and Preston, but why bother? The two of them already had made up their minds. Neither were concerned by Hanley’s claim that the undead had come back to life on the mortician’s table, and that Rodriguez had to behead the thing to survive. They were more concerned that he had filed a false report. The same held true for the incident in the sewer during the raid on the row house. Not a word about the thing that attacked them down the tunnel, that bullets had no effect on it, or that when set on fire it crumbled into dust. They were more concerned about his not arresting Drake Matthews and the others, and in his not reporting the details.

Rodriguez could almost forgive Roach, but not quite. Maybe Roach didn’t comprehend the severity of the situation, being unable to see the danger in the forest through the bureaucratic trees. Maybe he was just being poorly advised and believed that bad drugs were causing spontaneous combustion among its users. Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter. Rodriguez knew there wasn’t anything personal in Roach’s suspending him.

Preston, on the other hand, could go fuck himself. That self-serving little prick knew damn well what they faced. Preston and Rodriguez had both watched the CD-ROM showing what took place at the morgue. Only a fool could watch it and believe otherwise, and Preston was no fool. Preston and Rodriguez were both doing the same thing—not being dumb enough to commit to the record that Washington faced a threat from the undead. The difference was that Preston would get away with it.

Fuck it. Let Preston cover his political ass and ignore the threat. Rodriguez couldn’t care less. By the time the vampires over ran the city, he and his family would be long gone. Then Preston and Roach could pull their own butts out of the fire.

Placing the last of his belongings in the empty printer paper box, Rodriguez gave his desk one final look over. He noticed the red light flashing on his phone voice mail. At first he considered ignoring it, but since he would never be back, he decided to check it out. Rodriguez picked up the receiver, pressed the MAIL button, and punched in his pass code. A few seconds passed before the message played.

“Officer Rodriguez, this is Jessica Reynolds with
The Washington Standard
. I’m working on the Michael Fletcher case and was hoping to interview you, or at least get an official statement. When you get a chance, please call me back.” Jessica left her office and cell phone numbers.

Jessica Reynolds. That name sounded familiar. Then he remembered. That was Drake Matthews’ reporter friend, the one who had been arrested for assaulting Wilson during the attack on the sewer workers. Usually he hated hearing from the media. Not this time.

Rodriguez replayed the message, this time jotting down the two phone numbers onto a notepad. He tore off the top sheet, folded it in half, and slid the piece of paper into his shirt pocket. He then deleted the message from his answering machine.

Maybe he could do something about this situation after all.

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