Are normal cases a safe thing?
Chapter 5
Sometimes you´re longing for answers, but instead of it, more questions are showing up. And instead of solutions, life gets more complicated...
More questions...
Henry covered Tony with the blanket again and brought him a large glass of orange juice.
"You gonna have to drink a lot, Tony, so you´ll get enough liquid and your blood can regenerate..."
Then he went back to his bedroom, bent over Vicki.
Thank God! She had fallen asleep. Obviously the painkillers helped a bit at least, so that she could sleep.
Steps and a foreign scent made him getting attentive. In the same moment he whirled around on his heels. His teeth were bared and he snarled, his fangs dropped and his pupils were widened and pitch black. Within seconds he was at the front door. Henry flung the door open, positioning himself in the door frame with his arms crossed. And without letting the visitor in, the less inviting him in.
A man was standing in front of him.
Dark, curly hair, young...anywhere between his mid-thirties and end-thirties. He was some 6 ft 1" tall and by this some 4" taller than him. His skin a bit pale as Henry noticed beside.
Vampire
The heartbeat and his scent revealed it to him before the stranger opened his mouth.
His instinct drove him to attack and Henry growled. His hands clenched to fists and he had to fight for control to keep himself from getting loose on the other.
Instinct was fighting with reasonable mind for the dominance.
"Good evening. Mr. Fitzroy...? Mick St. John, private detective. We´ve been on phone just before..."
"Yes. Fitzroy. Henry Fitzroy..." Henry pulled himself together.
It was him who had ordered the other vampire to meet him.
And now he was here.
"Good evening, Mr. St. John. Come in." Henry made a single step to the side, let Mick in so that he could enter the hallway.
"Sorry. I´m not all alone..."
"Shall I come back any other time?" Mick carefully asked.
"No."
"You´ve asked for help...Can we...speak openly?" Mick tested for uncertain waters.
"Yes, they are friends. Confidants you might say. You can speak openly." Henry directed with the hand to the open door of his library. Here they could have an undisturbed talk, without disturbing someone else.
His facial expression was icy.
Mick naturally noticed it. The heartbeat of his conspecific? opponent?...was almost equal to a human´s, was only vampire typically lower. He still didn´t speed up yet, when he was leading the way and led him into a room, which was filled up with antiques and bookcases. Two heavy leather chairs were arranged around a small table.
While passing by, he threw a look on the young man who was dozing on the couch under a woolen blanket.
Fast, somewhat flat pulse.
Blood loss? Had Fitzroy...?
As short as his view had been, Henry noticed it, where to St. John´s eyes had gone.
"You know him!" he confronted Mick with the tone of a verified fact, waited for the reaction, his hearing was directed to the heart of the other. When he would lie right now, his heartbeat would be speeding up unintentionally.
Mick looked at him, Henry´s eyes were black.
What the...?
"Are you up to suspect me of, that I´d him...?" Mick´s tone became definitely sharper, he felt how his facial expression started to change.
"I´ve warned you, St. John! I´ve claimed a hunting ground to you and when you should one of mine..."
Mick finally grew tired of it. His eyes turned bright and his face pulled with rage, when his own fangs dropped and he growled at Henry. Henry bared his fangs.
"I didn´t damage your property! What great deal of yourself are you even thinking, Fitzroy? Goddamn I´m in no need to poach just in your territory! The less to drink from somebody who´s your acquired property!" There were sounds coming from his throat which were between a growl and a sharp hiss, when he snarled at Fitzroy.
Henry glared at him, his hands clenched to fists. At the same time he saw that St. John´s eyes were brightening contrary to his own.
And he had only two fangs instead of four in his upper jaw.
Alas he hadn´t attacked Tony!
Henry moved back two steps, not letting his view from Mick, but his facial features relaxed a bit and he retracted his fangs, his eyes turned from black to dark cerulean. For mere seconds Henry thought what to say best yet. It was on him now as he had let pull himself to a somewhat overshooting reaction.
St. John was innocent in case of Tony.
He had no other option, than to confess this now and to excuse himself. Henry breathed deeply, then he said in a voice as calm and as firm as possible:
"I´m sorry, Mr. St John, for accusing you. It has definitely not been you...!"
"Where from now the sudden turn around of opinion?" Mick´s voice sounded cynically. He was still rather angrily, though he had switched back to his normal, human facial features.
"Your teeth."
"My...teeth?!"
"Yes. Your tooth profile. You´re having two fangs. The biting wound at the ankle of the young man here is showing four punctures." Henry admitted.
Mick gave an understanding nod.
"I´m recommending you to be somewhat more careful with hasty accusations next time, Mr. Fitzroy! I´d been coming over here, because you´re wishing help. Not to go for each other´s throat! How do you think to go on now?" Mick sighed inwardly.
That Fitzroy won´t be taken easily, this he had suggested. Alone cause of his territorial tenure. Also because he was protecting his nutrition sources, his blood donors and so his resources too. But he had no experience with vampires, who were so jealously watching over their blood donors. The word mine seemed to be burned-in in Fitzroy´s thinking. Irrespective what it came to. Which kind of tenures. Also Josef had regulars of mostly female blood donors, but he was willingly sharing too. No firmly cemented sole claim.
"As I said before, I´m sorry, Mr. St. John...when you´ll learn to know, what it´s up to...well, then you might...understand my concern. Please..." Henry directed to the chair next to him. Mick sat down and Henry took the chair opposite to him, after he had closed the door.
After nobody had said a word for some long seconds, Mick decided to start.
"When I shall help you, Mr. Fitzroy, it would be best when first of all, you would give me the details as far as possible, so I can get a picture of it..."
Henry was glad, that he could concentrate now on the factual part of their meeting. It helped him to win some distance to his former, more than overshooting reaction and to bring his thoughts in a row.
"So, the situation is as following: I have a working partnership..." to more he sadly couldn´t Vicki bring up in the moment. "...with a private detective, ex-police officer...Ms. Nelson. She has taken a case, which is obviously of higher significance, as she might have suspected first. First, an employee of the company seemed to have done some defalcations and nontransparent transactions. But there has to be much more behind it, as I suggest...because yesterday evening, when she was on her way to her mandating client, she got stabbed down by this suspect in public...!" Henry felt the rage rising in him again.
"Has she...survived the assault?"
"Yes, she has made it to me tonight, to hide in here. She´s lying in my bedroom..."
"Are you sure that nobody has been following her?"
"She´s quite certain about it! And I would nobody recommend, trying to intrude in here..." Henry´s eyes flashed black, his fangs were dropped. Just for a second, then he looked all human again.
"Is Ms. Nelson responsive? Might I ask her some questions...?"
"She´s sleeping in the moment. Fortunately. I´ve given her an analgesic, as far as it may help. She is in strong pain and is in a high fever. Probably later on she´ll be awake. I don´t want to wake her up now..."
Mick nodded. "I´m understanding."
"Ms. Nelson has remarked some data files, which she has. Obviously these are of high significance..."
"Disc? USB stick?"
"I would have to look if she has brought them in..."
"I´m having an acquaintance over there in L.A., a vampire, who´s a bit of a computer crazy guy. When I would transfer him the data, he might be able to analyze them for us. Possibly this will bring us forward...!" Sometimes Mick asked himself, if Logan wasn´t turning into the first vampire cyborg of history. For him days might have twenty eight hours.
"You mean, he...will be hacking into the company´s network?" Henry shot him a telling view.
"The last of it I didn´t hear, Mr. Fitzroy." Mick grinned tellingly. "I´m addressing him when it comes to difficult computer stuff..." What will cost me lots of his favorite, rare blood group tubes again.
"Normally I would search for the attacker myself, but Vicki needs me in here...!" Henry moved out of his seat, driven by uneasiness, and moved to the door.
"I´ll look if I will find any data carrier amidst her belongings...please wait for a moment."
Mick nodded in agreement and Henry disappeared into the bedroom.
In the light of the single nightstand lamp, Henry bent over the bed., moving his hand up to Vicki´s forehead, shoving a blonde strand to the side and he softly laid his fingers laid on her skin.
"Oh Lord, Vicki! You´re literally glowing...!" he mumbled in a low voice.
Her lids twitched and a scared sound slipped from her mouth. Her hand jerked up, moving to her abdominal wall. Henry caught her midair, before she could press her onto her belly.
Vicki groaned deeply and drawled.
"Vicki...?!" she heard a voice.
Man. Who?
The guy thrusts. Glowing pain, when the thing was driving thru her abdominal wall, ripping her flesh open. Henry! Help me, Henry!
"HENRY!"
Vicki screamed, she twitched and tried to throw herself around, obviously being caught in a dream.
"Calm! Quite calm!" Henry had to make use of his full strength to keep her calm with gentle force. She groaned and pulled her eyes open.
Vicki was staring at him, slowly letting her breath out. Her breath rate slowed down when she slowly, very slowly got it who was bending over her.
"Henry..." she weakly mumbled.
He stroked her temple, whispering:" Quite calm, Vicki...I´m here with you...all good! Come on and keep lying calmly, otherwise you´re only gonna hurt you..."
"It...so hurts...please! Help me..." her voice was weak, nearly inaudible. But Henry heard her, hearing how fast her heart was beating. Unconsciously his heartbeat was speeding up too. His view moved over her body and he was feverishly thinking of what he should or could do.
Vicki was in urgent need for a doctor.
The wound was too severe and the fever already high enough. Anywhere from he had to get a doctor for Vicki. When a hospital was out of the question, then at least a doctor who might be looking over her wound and could give her any meds against the infection, that was raging in her body... He had experience with injuries, which he had already gotten. But a mortal, who definitely didn´t possess his powers of self-healing... In his mortal past, surviving severe injuries depended on good luck. Nowadays it was different.
But, whom should he call in?
This forensic, whom he had talked to in the TMP laboratory? This woman seemed not to be close-minded to the uncommonly. That he had noticed when he had shown her Sarah´s Buttercup drawing.
´Might something like this have killed her...?´ … ´When it does exist (Pause) Does it?´
On the spur of the moment, he bent over Vicki again. Anywhere she must have the call number of this Dr. Mohadevan!
"Vicki! Vicki...I need...your...cellphone!...Do you understand? Your...cellphone!"
She looked at him as if he was from another world. Then slowly it seemed to dawn to her what he wanted from her. Her lips were moving.
"What...? Where...?"
"Ja...cket..."
"Okay, Vic..." her clothing was lying on the Victorian sofa, where he had put it down. Her shoulder bag was lying there too. Henry searched through the pocket of her parka. There wasn´t such a mess like in the depths of her bag. Her telescopic baton dropped in his hands. On the handle still some dried blood. Her blood.
For mere seconds he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and then he found her cell.
He clicked through the electronic phone book.
No entry under D like doctor. C...negative. M...negative.
Under R like Rajani he found the number.
Of course! Vicki and the coroner were not only colleagues since long years, but friends too. Good! He would call her later when St. John would have been gone. Henry put the cellphone in his pocket, then he searched thru Vicki´s bag for any data carrier. Silently cursing over the Vicki typical chaos in the bag.
A woman´s bag was a world of itself. Especially when it came to a woman being a P.I. and ex-cop. Finally his fingers found what he was searching for. Deep in the bag, hidden below the bottom lining, in the corner. Henry shot Vicki another look, who was lying calmly yet again. His eyes turned dark by sorrow.
Then he went back to his library.
Mick had his view let move over the room. Fitzroy had his closets and shelves full with old books and antiques. A collection throughout the centuries. And he asked himself how much of it were memorabilia from past lives, which he had been living under mortal eyes. Lots of books were very rare and definitely of the range of occultism: Necronomicon, The Book of Blood etc. Either it was pure passion for collecting, or Fitzroy had a definite interest in the area, he thought.
Then the door opened and Fitzroy entered the room again.
"I´ve found an USB-stick among her belongings. I´m hoping, that these data are on it...!"
"Do you have a shielded network here?"
"I´ve a laptop. Also in the graphic novels business you have to modernize. Drawing does not help all alone, when you wanna stay in the saddle..." Henry meant.
"Ah! That´s you! I´ve always asking me who´s the creator of these...very close to reality...graphic novels...That´s so close to the real events..." Mick meant with a smile.
"I´m already living since long..." Henry smirked.
"World War one and Two...you´ve been at the front...?"
"Rather more behind the front. Resistance and...investigations, just you´re understanding, St. John."
"I´ve been a medic in World War Two." Mick explained.
"A medic...? How...? I mean, all that blood..." Henry looked at him with knitted brows.
"All a question of control. One learns it."
"Yeap! All about learned control. Won´t do without it. Otherwise we would kill all of our blood donors." He consciously avoided the words drain empty; "My computer is over there, on the desk...let´s go over there..."
Henry started his computer, then he directed to the desk: "You want? I believe that you´ll have more experience with it than me..."
Mick sat down in the chair at the desk, inserted the USB stick. His fingers were flying over the keys, he tried different combinations, but was meeting the same problems like Vicki before, when in the depths of the program the access was denied by a password. Mick watched over the data which were already visible, then he meant:
"So! Up here my friend Logan has to go! But what I can already see here: These are transactions of high amounts...he seems to have all reasons to hide it... here we have lots of standard bookings, the usual business transfers, I suggest. But with these two transactions, the suspect has made very tiny mistakes, which he might have noticed, but was unable to undo them anymore..." Mick meant after he has watched at the transactions thoroughly.
"Do you believe, there´s more behind it, St. John?" Henry looked over Mick´s shoulder. He asked himself how one could could get along with it. But vampire skills allowed it to check through hundreds and thousands of data in a few minutes, for what a human would have needed hours.
Mick nodded: "When one makes such effort to hide his transactions...I guess...Yes! Your partner has obviously stirred up the famous hornet´s nest...I myself...am tracing a case which has led me from Los Angeles to Toronto and..."
Mick stopped short, called up a data file.
His fingers flew over the keys again, he frowned, searched another option and then he leaned back in his chair with a sigh.
"My goodness...That´s all I need!"
"What did you find, st. John?" Henry asked in tension. He bent deeper, following the fingertip , which directed to a position on the screen.
"This specific transfer here...our suspect has connections to Los Angeles! The case I´ve been set upon! Somebody remits amounts from L.A., which he leads on until they are running over Europe, Switzerland and back here to Canada. The same over the Bermudas...!"
"That means...Oh my Lord...!" Henry felt a cold shudder run down his spine, when he suddenly grasped the full meaning: "...YOUR case and that one, on which Vicki is working, belong together!"
Mick nodded, looked at Henry:
"Yes! They are operating internationally. Our suspect here is only one part of a network, that moves money in the billions, which are originating from drugs racketeering!"
"Drug dealing? Are you certain?" Henry looked at him with some doubts, but his rational mind told him that St. John might be fatally right with his conclusion. Eventually he was already working on that case for some time longer than Vicki.
"Unfortunately YES! I´m investigating for the district attorney of L.A. We´ve already supposed it, but we still didn´t know that the connections are reaching to Canada too! The stuff comes from South East Asia...and is distributed in the USA and Canada..."
"Heroin?"
"Synthesized amphetamines. The pure infernal stuff...The range between effect and poisoning is so narrow, that the smallest overdose is enough to cause severe brain damage and/or death. Most recently we had in L.A. an unusual high count of dead drug users, who all have consumed the same stuff. And those who don´t die..." Mick shook his head. "...are totally freaking out. Ready for the psychiatric´s confined ward...!"
"Then...Oh good Lord! Then I´m understanding, why this badass has tried to kill Vicki!" Henry sat down on the desk´s edge, when he felt as if the ground under his feet would be giving in. His fingers dug into his brown curls.
Drugs!
It couldn´t have come worse. The consumers were dying or they were getting mad.
"Do you have any clue what kinda stuff that is? Chemically, I mean. When this is distributed over here too, then there have to be dead too. That has to be seen here by the local forensic too!" Henry concluded.
"You´re knowing her? The chief coroner of Toronto?" Mick asked.
"Dr. Mohadevan. Yes! Vicki has worked together with her. Vicki had been in the homicide. I´ll ask her, later, when I´ll call her..."
"Good! Ask her please! The coroner of L.A. has said, that he can´t chemically classify that stuff anywhere to. Completely new stuff, as if somebody has build up a new substance."
To be continued
