Closure
Alone in a parking lot waiting for a stranger to meet you was usually the part in the movie where the woman got killed. Beth was not alone technically. She knew Mick would be close by watching over her as always.
Even though she worked for the Assistant DA, she could still sniff out a good story. Once a reporter, always a reporter. Besides if she could bring a family closure over their missing son, they could move on with their lives. Unfortunately, the fact that she was having to meet in a parking lot at all was not a good sign that he was still alive.
Glancing at her watch it appeared that something may have happened to her contact as well. They were late. She would give them another ten minutes and then head home. It had already been a long day and all she wanted right now was to soak in a hot bath with a glass of Merlot.
"Beth Turner?" The voice came from out of the shadows. How very serial killer.
"You're late." Beth was not in the mood for this. It reeked of someone playing a part to prove their own importance. "Do you know where Henry Chamberlain is or not?"
"So impatient." The voice taunted her. "He's not going anywhere." A figure moved closer but stayed in the shadows enough to keep their identity hidden.
Beth rolled her eyes. "So, he's dead. At least tell me where the body is so his family can bury him." Providing he had not been changed into a vampire, which was entirely possible she had discovered over the past year.
"In the city morgue." The voice sounded bored that she wasn't playing by his rules. But this wasn't a game for Henry's family. "He's logged in as a John Doe."
Pulling her cell phone out of her bag she called the morgue. She already had them on speed dial. "Hey, it's Beth. Have you got any John Does in there? Three. Great. I may be able to identify one for you." She organized with the coroner to drop by and put her cell phone away.
"What's the hurry? You'll be joining him soon enough." The voice sneered at her as it lunged for her only to find Mick St John between him and Beth. "Mick! I didn't realise she was your freshie."
She's not. She's, my girlfriend." Mick was in full vamp face. "What condition are we going to find Henry Chamberlain in?" The family were actively looking for him and yet he was a John Doe in the morgue which hinted at the body being on the unidentifiable side.
"Let's just say you'd better hope he has a tattoo or birth mark to identify him by." The vampire took a step back. It was one thing if Beth had been a snack but an entirely other thing her being Mick's girlfriend.
"What happened?" She needed to be able to tell the family something.
"He's asked the wrong people for a cure." It became obvious that neither Beth nor Mick knew what he was talking about. "He's got or rather had Parkinson's. I'm guessing his family didn't know."
"Not that they mentioned to me." Beth thought back to meeting with the family. They just seemed concerned about their son not answering his phone for the past week. Nothing about their discussion with her made Beth think they knew about any health issues. "He's not going to resurface as a vampire, is he?"
Mick shook his head. "He would have done so already if that was the case. Besides, if Guillermo even suspects that will happen, he will deal with it."
"I'm not sure what would be worse, the family seeing him in whatever state he arrived at the morgue in or finding him already cremated." She suspected the second option might be kinder to the Parents.
"Let's see what condition he's in first." Mick hadn't met the Parents as Beth had but judging by what the informant was saying it wasn't going to be something anyone's Parents should see.
"You'll let Josef know I was helpful won't you Mick?" The vampire actually looked nervous. If Mick had Rock Star status then Josef was Elvis.
"Be grateful that I won't mention you wanted my girlfriend for dinner." Mick snarled. "Josef's fond Beth. He looks on her as the sister he never had."
Nodding that he understood the vampire disappeared into the night. "Is that true." Beth had not thought Josef thought that well of her. If anything, he only seemed to tolerate her because of Mick.
"Maybe not like a sister, but definitely a close cousin." Mick led her over to his car. Mostly Josef helped anyone who would be of some benefit to him.
Beth giggled. "Somehow I get the impression that being like any member of Josef's family comes with a lot of strings attached."
"You're not wrong." Mick grinned as he started the car and headed for the morgue.
Guillermo met them as they walked in. "I've managed to narrow down the three to one. I'm guessing you're looking for the one who died from a vampire attack."
"It's looking that way. How bad is it?" Mick wanted to save Beth the horror of a grizzly corpse if he could.
"I'm not going to lie, it's not pretty." Guillermo shrugged. "Certainly, better than he came in though now that all of the snails have been removed off of the body."
"Snails?" That was a first for Beth. Maggots and worms on a dead body she had heard of, but not snails.
"They found him in a garden centre under the lettuces." Guillermo walked over to one of the drawers and pulled it out. "Looks as though he had all the markers for Parkinson's." He lifted the cover. "He's got a birth mark on his left shoulder and a tattoo of a wolf howling at the moon on his right arm."
"Animal attack?" It was the standard cause of death written down on the death certificate when a vampire was involved. Personally, Mick thought they needed to think of something new. There was going to come a day when animal control was going to wonder where all of these savage animals were hanging out.
"Not that it matters," Or that Beth would explain this to the Parents of the deceased. "But would becoming a vampire have made a difference to his Parkinson diagnosis?" In part she understood what Henry must have been thinking.
"Not at the stage he was in." Guillermo shook his head. "There's been some progress in stem cell research and some medications, but his condition was in the advanced stages. Not even becoming a vampire would have stopped it."
Shaking her head, she called Henry's parents. It was never easy telling someone their child was dead, but it had struck Beth as odd over the past year, how easily people accepted wild animal attack as a cause of death.
Mick stayed with Beth when the parents came to identify Henry's body. Even over the decades he had been a vampire trying to help people, this part of the job never got any easier. People still surprised him though.
The Chamberlains had known that Henry had Parkinson's or at least suspected it and had been looking into the research. It turned out they were trying to work out how to talk to him about it. Heart-breaking.
Later that night Beth lay her head on Mick's chest. "Why do you think Henry couldn't just talk to his Parents?"
"It's been a while since I had to think about it." Mick kissed her forehead. "Nobody who's independent wants to admit they need help. I think Henry just wanted to find the solution or cure by himself and not worry his family."
"I guess I can understand that." Beth kissed his chest. "Not everyone can have their guardian angel watching over them all of the time."
"I'm no guardian angel." Mick had a feeling that the Chamberlains would leave no stone unturned to find a cure for Parkinson's or make advance in the medical research. Perhaps their son's death could help others in the long run.
"You are to me." Beth snuggled closer and drifted off to sleep.
