Act III

There were several reports waiting for us, when Bill and I arrived in the squad room the next morning. It had been a busy night. The first report came from Homicide. An unidentified body had been found in the Pasadena parade float storage grounds. This death didn't match the profile of the other Slasher victims, but it had been forwarded to us anyway: the man had been killed by a wooden stake through his heart. The forensic reports indicated that there was an unusual powdery substance present at the scene. They had been unable to identify it, yet, but it was organic in origin. Tests were being made to see if it was some new, previously unknown, drug.

The second report was about a call from Murray Gary at the school. Tony Groater, one of the missing students, had been seen last night. He had turned up briefly at the school basketball game. He had taken part in the game for a few minutes, during which he had committed several fouls, and had then been chased from the court by Muffy Winters.

The third report indicated that Mrs. Winters had called, concerned that Muffy had not come home last night.

The fourth report was from the lab. The bottles from Muffy Winters locker had contained water, with a trace of salt added to it. There were no drugs. Someone in the lab had attached a note indicating that the level of salt was consistent with some types of holy water. I decided that Bill wasn't the only one who had vampires on the brain.

The fifth report, from the medical examiner, confirmed that the body found in the woods was Alexandra Clarke, and that she had died of exsanguination. She was another Slasher victim.

Our first call was at the school, to talk to witnesses about what had happened at last night's basketball game. Mr. Gary introduced us to the team coach.

"So, Groater showed up for the game?" I asked him.

"Yeah," said the coach. "He'd missed a lot of practices, I didn't want to let him play, but…well…he seemed psyched, you know. He really came to play, and I just couldn't leave him out."

"Was there anything unusual about him?" I asked.

"Well, he doesn't usually play nearly as well as he did last night," said the coach.

"What was different?"

"He normally isn't nearly as…aggressive. He was totally taking the ball for himself, wasn't sharing it with anyone. Scored five baskets in the first five minutes."

"Anything else?" asked Bill.

"Well, he did get five fouls called against him too, in the same time, but the other team missed some of their foul shots, so we still came out ahead."

"What happened then?" I asked.

"That was the weirdest thing," said the coach. "He was arguing with the referee, who was trying to throw him out of the game, and one of the cheerleaders, Muffy Winters, suddenly ran out onto the court. Groater ran away from her. Neither of them came back. I don't know what that was about. We could have used him for the rest of the game."

I looked at Bill. "Did you get all that?"

Bill looked up from his notebook. "Yes, Joe, I did."

"What do you think?"

"About what?"

"Groater's behaviour."

"Could be PCP," said Bill.

"Yeah," I said. "The increased aggression, and other behaviour changes are consistent with that."

"But what about Muffy Winters?" he asked.

"I don't know."

Our next stop was with the Homicide detectives who were investigating the stabbing in the parade grounds. We didn't know if it had anything to do with our case, but the Slasher had several people thinking 'vampire cult' and here we had someone killed using a traditional method for disposing of a vampire.

Detectives Sam Johnson, and Jan Keyley were waiting for us.

"What can you tell me about your victim?" I asked.

"We haven't been able to identify him yet," said Johnson.

"Do you have anything?" asked Bill.

"Male, caucasian, about five foot, ten inches, one hundred sixty pounds, about fifty years old," said Keyley. "Appeared to be in good health, well fed and clothed. Not a homeless person. The M.E. says that he has some old bruises, like he's been in some fights recently, but nothing serious. She said that the bruises were consistent with someone who practised martial arts."

"And the murder weapon?" I asked.

Johnson pulled a large plastic evidence bag out of his desk drawer. "Here it is." He handed me the bag.

I examined its contents. It was an ornate wooden cross, with an elongated bottom arm, sharpened to a point. "Any finger prints?" I asked.

"Only the victim's," said Keyley. "From their position on the cross, and the angle of the wound, it almost looks like he stabbed himself." She picked up a letter opener off her desk, and held it with its tip pointed down toward her chest. She mimed stabbing herself with it. "Like this."

Bill looked up from his notebook. "Are you saying you think this was a suicide?"

"Not saying anything, yet," said Johnson. "Not ruling it out, either. Makes more sense than the guy being killed by some sort of vampire hunter."

"What about the powder?" I asked.

"What about it?" asked Keyley.

"Has it been identified yet?"

"Yes."

"Is it a drug?"

"No." Keyley shook her head. "It's not a drug."

"What is it?"

"It's ashes."

"Ashes?" asked Bill.

"That's right."

"What sort of ashes?"

"Animal ashes," said Keyley. "Maybe human. The composition is consistent with the ash left over when a body is cremated."

There was a message waiting for us when we got back to the office. Muffy Winters had turned up at home. We quickly called the Winters home to determine if Muffy was still there. She was. We asked Mrs. Winters to keep her there, until we could arrive to speak with her.

It was 1:14 PM when we arrived at the Winters home. Mrs. Winters escorted us into the livingroom, where Muffy was waiting. Muffy was looking like she was upset about something. Her eyes were puffy, like she had been crying recently, and she didn't look like she had gotten much sleep recently. She cast an unhappy look at her mother, who wasn't looking very pleased either.

"Miss Winters, I need to ask you a few questions," I told her, after taking a seat.

"Go ahead," said Muffy. "I'm not going anywhere."

"You told us that you went to Club 5, on the night of April 30," I said.

"I guess," said Muffy. "What night was that?"

"That was the night that you were supposed to meet Alexandra Clarke to do your homework together."

"Oh yeah," said Muffy. "I went to the club instead."

"We've talked with several members of the staff, and they don't remember seeing you there." said Bill.

"Well, it's a busy club," said Muffy. "They probably just missed me."

"You said that you went with a guy?" I asked.

"Uh, yeah."

"Who was it?"

"His name's Bass," said Muffy.

"Your new boyfriend,"

"He's not my boyfriend," said Muffy. "He's just a guy I met."

"Is 'Bass' his first name, or his last name?" asked Bill.

"Don't know," said Muffy. "He's just told me 'Bass.'"

"Where could we find him?" I asked.

"I don't know. I've just seen him around."

"Around where?"

"Here and there," said Muffy.

"I don't think you appreciate the severity of the situation, young lady," I told her. "This isn't a missing person case anymore. We are investigating a homicide! 'Around' and 'here and there' don't cut it. It looks to me like you're lying to us."

"I didn't see Alexandra that night!" said Muffy. "I didn't go to the school to meet her! If I had, she might still be alive!"

I believed her, but I still felt that she knew something about this case that she wasn't telling us, and she was lying about something. I decided to switch to a different topic for a while. "You were at the basketball game, last night?" I asked.

"Yeah, I was there."

"You didn't stay there."

"No, I didn't," said Muffy. "I was a sucky game."

"We were told that you chased Mr. Groater off the court." said Bill.

"Yeah, well, he owes me twenty bucks," said Muffy flippantly.

"Muffy!" said Mrs. Winters.

"You really don't seem to understand how important this is," I told her. "Over four thousand kids your age are reported missing every year in Los Angeles. Most of them are runaways, and nearly all of them turn up again, when they learn how tough living on the streets can be, but sixty of those kids didn't disappear of their own free will, they were abducted, and many of them are never seen alive again, like what happened with Alexandra Clarke. Tony Groater had been missing from just a few days after Alexandra disappeared, and he turned up last night, until you chased him away again."

"If Groater had been abducted, or something like that, do you really think he would have chosen to show up at a basketball game, if he'd got away from whoever did it to him?" asked Muffy.

That was a very good question, but I couldn't let Miss Winters take control of the conversation. "You let us worry about that. You chased Mr. Groater away from the basketball game last night."

"More like the referee threw him out, and I followed him," said Muffy.

"Where did you follow him?" asked Bill.

"Out of the school. He got away from me after that."

"So where were you all night?"

"I ran into a friend, spent the night with him."

"Muffy!" said Mrs. Winters, clearly shocked by the idea of her daughter spending the night with a boy.

"Not like that!" said Muffy. "We're just friends. He hasn't even kissed me, yet."

"Would this friend be Mr. Bass?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"So where did you go?" asked Bill.

"He gave me a ride on his motorcycle. We went up into the hills. I wasn't really paying much attention to exactly where we were."

"You rode around on his motorcycle all night?" I asked.

"Well, we stopped at a couple of places. Looked at the view. Talked about some stuff."

"What did you talk about?"

Muffy Winters took a deep breath. She seemed to make a decision. For a second I thought that she had finally decided to tell us the truth.

"Vampires," said Muffy.

"What?" I asked.

"Vampires," said Muffy. "They prowl the night, suck the blood of the living."

"Why did you talk about vampires?" I asked.

"Come on, you must have noticed," said Muffy. "All the missing people. Bodies turning up with their throats ripped out. When some of the missing people do turn up 'alive' again, it's always at night, and they're acting weird."

"You're saying that Mr. Groater is a vampire?" asked Bill.

"Yep."

"And why did he run away?"

"Because he knew that I knew."

"So why didn't Alexandra Clarke come back to life?" I asked.

"Not life," said Muffy. "Vampires are still dead. Most of the people they take are just a meal. They only sire a few, when they need more minions."

I looked at her. She appeared to be speaking completely in earnest. I don't know what disturbed me more: that she might actually believe the line that she was feeding me, or that she could lie so well, that for a moment, I almost believed it myself. "Miss Winters, I think that you'd better come with us."

"Just a minute!" said Mrs. Winters. "Are you arresting my daughter?"

"No," I said. "We just want to take her down to the station, for more questioning."

"I've spoken with my lawyer," said Mrs. Winters. "You can't take her anywhere, without my permission, if you aren't arresting her!"

"We could arrest her, if you want us to," I told her. "Do you really want that?"

"I think that Muffy had better not say any more to you, without my lawyer present."

I paused to think. Other that a marked lack of cooperation, we didn't really have any evidence that linked Muffy Winters to this case. The paraphernalia we'd found in her locker was suggestive, but half the department was making vampire jokes. It could be dismissed as just an over-impressionable teenager, scared by the stories appearing in the press. We might be able to make an obstruction of justice charge stick, if we could prove that she lied to us, but so far, we couldn't prove it. Once Mrs. Winters requested that her lawyer be present before more questioning, we couldn't ask any more questions without him, and once the lawyer did arrive, he would no doubt tell the Winters not to answer any more questions anyway. That's what lawyers always did.

I stood up. "Very well, Mrs. Winters. In that case, I guess we're done for today."

"You're not going to arrest her," said Mrs. Winters.

"Not at this time," I told her.

Mrs. Winters escorted us to the door. "Good day, Sergeant."

"Good day, Mrs. Winters." I paused. "You know, it really would be best for Muffy to really tell us what she knows."

"She's a good girl," said Mrs. Winters. "I can't believe that she's involved in this."

"It seems that she's involved in something she doesn't want to tell you, or us about," I told her. "And I don't think it's just a new boyfriend that you won't approve of. If she won't talk to us, maybe she'll talk to you, or your husband."

"My husband is in Sacramento, on a business trip," said Mrs. Winters. "And since when did teenagers tell their parents anything?"

I shrugged, and said goodbye. Bill and I walked back toward our car, which was parked in the driveway.

Bill waited until after Mrs. Winters had closed the door. "Maybe we should have arrested her, Joe," he said. "A little time in Juvenile, might have scared some sense into her."

"If I thought she'd get that far, I would have," I said. "But her lawyer would probably have her sprung by the time we finished booking her. We really have nothing to hold her on."