Code 61 (15 page)

He didn't return the grin, but Melissa and Huck did.

“The bad news,” Hester said, “is that, if we do get the warrant, you all won't be able to remain here tonight, and can't be let back in until we're done.”

That didn't go over well.

Once we got that all straightened out, and the group had started to settle down, I dropped the bomb.

“Oh, yeah. Before we do anything else, any of you know the whereabouts of a Dan or Daniel Peel?”

You could almost hear their mouths clamp shut. They tried as hard as they could to communicate with one another without speaking, and I think they were remarkably successful. Even I could read the looks that selected Holly Finn, or Huck, as their spokesperson. Not bad at all.

“Certainly,” she said. Her mind was racing, I could tell by the clipped tones and her eyes darting upward, left, then right, then back to me. All in a split second, she appeared to have considered what she wanted me to know, what Toby might have said, Toby's precipitate flight, and the death of Edie. I know by what she said next.

“Dan comes here once in a while, just like other people do. I don't know where he lives, and I'm not even sure what he does for a living.” She glanced around, having given her instructions to the crew. She continued, “He's okay, he seems to be harmless.” She looked me straight in the eye. “I assume Toby told you he thinks he's a vampire?” She grinned, and it looked genuine.

“Peel thinks he's a vampire, or Toby thinks Peel's a vampire?” I wasn't quite clear.

“Oh,” she said, “Toby thinks he's one, all right.”

“Why's that?”

“In case you hadn't noticed,” she said, with mock confidentiality, “Toby is a little bit dorky.”

“So, you're saying that Dan Peel doesn't think he's a vampire?”

“He might,” she said. “It's hard to tell what somebody thinks.”

“Sometimes it's easier than you think.” I stared at her for a second. “You know where this Dan Peel is now?”

“I wouldn't even guess,” she said.

Huck had just established herself as leader, and written Toby off as an idiot. And, incidentally, dodged the Dan Peel question for the moment. I filed it away, and got on with the search warrant application.

I called Lamar, and he came through with the authorization for housing the displaced residents of the Mansion. Hester and I went directly to our office in Maitland. I did the search warrant application, while Hester interviewed Toby, and various reserve and off-duty officers were called out to get ready to transport the house residents to the two motels that would take the county's payment vouchers. Two of them would stay at the house, to secure it from any interference. They went north, waiting for word from us.

Hester and I went to the judge, search warrant application in hand, arriving at 01:44 on the eighth. Judge Winterman was the chief judge of the district, and was an exceptionally thorough man, with very high standards. If you got a search warrant from Winterman, you'd done a good application. Hester and I'd been absolutely accurate, naturally, and even Judge Winterman had to smile when he got to the “vampire” part. Didn't say anything, though. Didn't even guffaw. Bless him.

He did say, “Good luck to you.”

As soon as we got back in the car, we radioed the others, and set things in motion. We headed back, as well.

At 02:28, Hester and I took the lab crew into the sitting room of the now deserted house. The plan was this: They were to complete photography, and then reseal Edie's bedroom and closet for tonight, then go to a motel and get some well-deserved sleep. This would establish the true beginning of the search, for the record. Two sheriff's deputies would guard the premises, and at the same time search the music room and the main dining room, photographing thoroughly everything of interest, and recording anything of evidentiary value they discovered. Which meant nothing, we hoped, and why we'd picked two areas where we least expected to discover anything interesting.

The search warrant generally permitted us to search for “materials relevant to a criminal investigation,” but the more specific section delineated “blood, in any form, or any substance appearing to be blood, on any implement, interior or exterior surface of the house, upon any object or item within the house, or in any device that may have been used to transport blood away from the residence; or any device or instrument that may have been used to remove, or eradicate, or conceal any blood or bloodstains, whether within the principal structure or at any point in the contiguous yard,” as well as “any knife, or other cutting instrument that may have been used to inflict the wound to the person of the deceased.” Not too likely they'd find that in the music room or dining room.

We also had the office make every effort to contact Jessica Hunley, the owner of the house, and try to have her present as soon as we could. We didn't want to break the locks on the doors to the third floor if we didn't have to, for one thing.

Hester and I had a fast conference in my office, way in the back of the building. Privacy was pretty well assured. Toby had told Hester that this Dan Peel subject had visited Edie several times in the past, and that they'd sometimes gone up to the “private” third floor. Private, because it was the area of the house especially reserved for Jessica Hunley when she was visiting. Toby thought Edie had been in possession of a key to one of the two doors to Jessica Hunley's private apartment.

“No shit?” I said. I was very glad we hadn't let Toby back into the house.

Hester had also asked Toby if he knew if Edie and this Peel had been upstairs on the third floor the night before. He said he didn't know, that the Mansion was really a quiet place, and it was hard to tell where anybody was at any given time, unless you saw them.

Hester and I had both noticed how quiet it was in the Mansion, and I suspected it was the fact that many of the older homes in our area had insulated interior walls, as well as exterior ones. Especially places built before 1900. Frequently sawdust-filled, the walls were usually left intact unless there was extensive remodeling. So, Toby was probably telling the truth.

Well, at least about the quiet.

When asked if he had a key for the third floor, Toby had said “no.” When asked if he'd ever been to the third floor, he'd replied, emphatically, “No way.” Hester had asked him what he thought Edie and this Peel did up there. “Really private stuff,” he'd answered, but said he couldn't elaborate. She'd pressed, and all she'd been able to elicit was “Well, you know, intimate stuff, sex stuff and things.” Hester asked if Edie and Peel had done that sort of thing elsewhere in the house, and Toby had said that they hadn't.

That made sense, at least to me. Edie was, or had been, the building super, more or less. There was every reason to believe she'd had access to the third floor. That would mean she had her own key. With the prohibition on visiting the third floor, it would guarantee privacy for her and her lover. We had to get to the third floor, where I fully expected we'd find the murder scene. But we had to do it methodically, so unlocking it could wait until the full lab crew was ready some time tomorrow.

What Toby failed to do, or refused to do, was give Hester anything on the subject of vampires. Hester said she asked him, and he just wouldn't say anything. He just looked away and wouldn't say anything about it.

“Why?” I wondered aloud. “I mean, the little shit brought it up in the first place…. ”

“The fact he seems to wish he hadn't brought that up makes me think he gave something up he shouldn't have. And that's big,” she grinned, “because Toby tends to run on just about everything.”

“You don't actually think … ” I said.

“Oh, hell no, Houseman. Not for a second. But I think we might have some blood games in the bedroom going on. That's my take, for what it's worth. So don't be surprised if we find something like that, that's all.”

“Close enough to a vampire for my tastes,” I said. “Don't they read about blood-borne pathogens?”

Hester grinned. “When you smoked, Houseman, did you read any of the literature about lung cancer and heart disease?”

“None of your business,” I said. I smiled. “Yeah. I didn't read much of it, anyway.”

“Can't run, can't hide, Houseman.”

We got to the nitty-gritty. “Speaking of running,” I asked her, “why do you think he was really running out in the woods tonight?”

Hester smiled. “ 'Sa matter, you don't believe that he was running to warn a vampire that there were cops on his trail?”

“Nope. I don't, you don't, and he doesn't.”

“I can't tell, yet,” said Hester slowly. “He wasn't just running to get away. To avoid the entire event, I mean.”

“Yeah. You're right.” I looked at her. “Distraction? Are these people
that
good?”

She tilted her chair back on its rear legs and stared at the ceiling. “What would you say Toby's main character trait was?”

I thought for a second. “Know-it-all?”

She chuckled. “No, deeper than that, though you're right, that's a big chunk of it. I'd say 'eager to please' summed him up. Wouldn't you?”

“Well, sure,” I said. “Now that you mention it. The know-it-all comes from him just sort of falling all over himself to let you know he'd like another dog biscuit.”

“Exactly,” said Hester. “Exactly. So, he was running to please somebody. To do what somebody wanted him to do … or what he thought they'd want him to do.” Her chair came back level, and she pursed her lips. “Who would benefit from his running like that? Huck? I don't think so. We gotta find out who, Houseman. 'Who' would make the 'why' a lot easier.”

“Easy in theory,” I said. “It's in the finding out that we get to the hard part, here.”

“I'll keep at him,” she smiled. “I'll find out.”

There was no doubt in my mind.

“I hate to get all legal,” I said, “but can you think of any reason not to let Toby take off? I mean, he's talked, and there's no pending action.”

“No, not really. I think he'll stick now, and he's probably over being so scared. Especially when he can stay away from that house tonight.”

We called Magistrate Benson, who sleepily agreed to release Toby on his own recognizance. The night shift could let him out, and give him a ride to Freiberg. I walked back to the cells, and told Toby. He did seem pleased.

Before I left, Sally was given the assignment of coming up with everything possible concerning both Peel and Hunley. She was scheduled to start her dispatch shift at 04:00. She'd assured us that the vampire-induced adrenaline rush was guaranteed to keep her alert through the rest of the night.