Hard Spell (8 page)

I didn't hear back from Charlie until the next night. He called right after I came on shift.

  "So, how did she leave the ICU, Charlie? Was it under her own power, or was she taken?"

  There was a long pause before Charlie said, "We'd like to discuss that with you face-to-face, Stan. Can you drop by Mercy sometime tonight?"

  "Who's
we
?"

  "The head of security. And me."

  "All right, Charlie, I'll come over now, if the boss doesn't need me. But give me the short version now – how did she get out of there?"

  "There actually isn't a short version, Stan. That's why we'd like to discuss this with you in person."

  Arguing with him was just going to waste time I could better spend driving to Mercy Hospital. "I'll be there in twenty minutes," I said. I asked Karl to stay at the squad and call me if anything urgent came in. Then I got moving.

The head of security at Mercy was an ex-cop named Sam Rostock. He'd let himself go to seed after leaving the force, to the point where his belly now hung over the belt of his Wal-Mart grade slacks – but I guess muscle tone isn't too important when your toughest job is getting people to leave the hospital after visiting hours are over.

  I sat down after the introductions – which were unnecessary, but Charlie didn't know that. I was looking at Rostock but speaking to Charlie when I said, "So what was so important that you couldn't tell me about it over the phone?"

  "I checked the video feed from the camera that's aimed at that hallway," Rostock said. "The one outside the ICU. Checked it twice, for the period when what's-her-name, Proctor, was brought in until an hour after she was declared missing."

  I expected more, but Rostock stopped talking and just sat there, looking at me. It was impossible to read his face – he'd been a cop, after all.

  "There's nothing, Stan," Charlie said finally. "No indication that she left the ICU, either under her own power or with assistance. Nothing."

  "I don't suppose that a body was wheeled out of there, in a body bag or under a sheet, maybe," I said. "Or somebody in a wheelchair who'd suffered bad facial burns and was heavily bandaged – anything like that?"

  "Of course I checked stuff like that – you think I'm
stupid
?" Rostock said. "And it wasn't hard to do, because not one patient, living or dead, was taken out of the ICU during that period. Not
one
."

  I ran my hand through what was left of my hair a couple of times. "What about visitors? Did you check to see whether one more visitor left there than went in?"

  "My God, I never would have thought of that," Charlie said, softly.

  "Well, I did," Rostock said, but without the defensiveness in his voice. "Same time period – an hour before she was admitted, in case somebody was already in there, visiting in another room, to an hour after she was found gone. Every damn visitor that went in there is accounted for. And this is spring, so nobody's wearing hats or scarves that could hide their face. The ones who came in, went out. And only them."

  "Except for the nurses and doctors," I said.

  "Not bad," Rostock said, as if he meant it, "but I thought of them, too. Every doctor, nurse, and med tech working here is somebody I've met personally. I make a point of that. Plus, each one has a photo on file with Human Resources, the same picture that's on their ID badge. And with the computer system we have, I was able to do close-ups on the faces of everybody who passed through that door, in either direction. Nothing suspicious. Nothing even close."

  The three of us sat there for a while. "Okay, then," I said, finally. "Let me summarize the facts, such as they are." I ticked them off on my fingers as I went along.

  "One, Rachel Proctor was brought into the ICU, from the ER, at 4:18am two days ago. Two, Rachel Proctor did not leave the ICU through its only door, and getting away through the fifth-floor window is only gonna work if you're a bird. And three, Rachel Proctor is undeniably gone."

  I looked at each of them. "Accurate?"

  Their silence said it all.

  "So, what happened was impossible, except that it did," I went on. "And there's only one thing that makes the impossible happen, these days – and that's magic."

"Why would Rachel use magic to make herself disappear?" Karl asked me. "If she wanted to leave the hospital, all she had to say was,
Okay, I'm all better – release me."

  "Yeah, it makes no sense. Unless she wanted to disappear from sight for a while, you know, hide from somebody. Or something."

  "Hide from who?"

  "Maybe from me. Can't blame her for that – I'm the asshole who got her into this mess, whatever it is."

  "Don't start with that again, all right? The chick's all grown up, and everything. She knew what she was getting involved in – probably better than you did. And nobody held a gun to her head that I know of. Or a wand."

  "I know, but –
what did you say
?"

  Karl looked at me. "Just that nobody forced her to–"

  "No, about a
wand
."

  He shrugged. "I said wand cause it seemed more, like, appropriate for a witch, that's all. What's the big deal?"

  "I don't know how big a deal it is," I told him. "But you just reminded me that Rachel's not the only one in this case who can work magic."

  Karl frowned. "What are you talking about, man? Who else in this mess can…?" He let his voice trail off and his eyes went wide.

  "Exactly," I said. "George fucking Kulick, that's who."

  I started to explain to Karl the idea that had just occurred to me – but then the old man came to see us, and that changed everything.

Louise the Tease, our PA, came back to tell us that we had a visi. We call her that (not to her face) because her size 8 body is usually crammed into a size 6 dress, but she refuses to date cops – something about not wanting to take her work home with her. Louise said that someone up front was asking for whoever was working the Kulick murder.

  Karl and I looked at each other, then did a quick game of paper-rock-scissors. His paper wrapped my rock, so I stood up and headed for the small reception area. On the way, I had a brief fantasy that George Kulick's killer had walked in to confess, and we'd be able to close this case out tonight.

  Yeah, and a goblin will be the next pope.

  Whoever had the steel in his spine to do all those things to Kulick wasn't going to get all mushy and remorseful about it now. I just hoped that whoever
had
come in wasn't going to be a waste of time.

  It turned out to be an old guy, thin and pale, but not frail looking. His iron gray hair was combed straight back to form a widow's peak. The gray suit had probably been new during the Kennedy administration, and the white button-down shirt underneath it had been washed so often that it was closer to beige. He wore it buttoned to the neck, with no tie.

  "I'm Detective Sergeant Markowski," I said. "I understand you have some information about a case we're investigating."

  The old guy got to his feet smoothly. He had none of the shakiness about him that you'd expect from somebody who looked to be in his seventies. That got me wondering.

  "My name is Ernst Vollman," he said, his voice firm and clear. "If you refer to the murder of George Kulick, yes, I thought some conversation on the subject might be mutually beneficial."

  
Mutually beneficial
wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but I let it slide. Instead, as Vollman came closer, I put out my hand to shake.

  I don't usually do that with civilians – whether they're suspects, witnesses, or informants. I like to maintain a certain distance with the public, but this time I made an exception. It seemed like he might have hesitated for a moment, but then Vollman took my hand and shook it briefly.

  I noticed two things about that handshake. One was a sense of strength you wouldn't expect in an old guy. He didn't go all macho on me and try to squeeze, none of that bullshit. But suddenly I was aware that if he put his mind to it, he could break every bone in my hand without raising a sweat.

  The other thing was, his hand was cold. I know that old folks sometimes have circulation problems in their extremities, but this went way beyond that. This guy was
cold
.

  That's when I knew for sure.

  I gestured toward the squad room and followed Vollman toward the door, working hard to keep my face blank. Ernst Vollman represented something that Karl and I didn't have five minutes ago: a lead. So I was going to be very nice to this old man, for the time being. Even if he was a fucking vampire.

I told Vollman to sit in the visitor's chair next to my desk, and then Karl rolled his own chair over, placing it so that our visitor couldn't look at both of us at once. It's an old cop trick designed to keep suspects off balance.

  The old man didn't seem fazed by the seating arrangements. When I introduced Karl, Vollman looked at him for a long moment, as if planning to draw him from memory later. Or maybe have him for lunch. Then he turned his attention back to me.

  "I have been away from the city for several days," he said, "and only learned of Mr Kulick's tragic death upon my return last night."

  "Return from where?" Karl asked.

  "Oh, a number o places," Vollman said. "I travel a great deal, you see. To visit friends, relatives, old acquaintances. Sometimes they ask me for advice, or a favor, or to settle some small dispute."

  "So this isn't your job, then – travelling around," Karl said.

  "Not at all. I am long since retired. But I like to occupy my time usefully, when I can."

  "Where did you retire from, Mr Vollman?" I thought I'd join the conversation.

  Vollman made a small gesture. "I have done a great many things to support myself, over the years. Mostly, I have been self-employed."

  "Self-employed doing
what
?" Karl asked him. He was starting to get impatient with the old man's bullshit, and I didn't blame him.

  "Consulting, mostly. Some investments. Occasionally, import-export." Vollman's smile was as thin as the rest of him. He knew he was ducking our questions, and he knew we knew it, too. He also knew we couldn't do shit about it. For the moment, anyway.

  I decided to cut through the crap and see if there was anything underneath it. "What do you know about George Kulick's murder, Mr Vollman?"

  "I do not know who killed him, if that is what you are asking. But I believe I know something almost as important."

  Vollman paused, probably for effect. "I am fairly certain I know
why
he was killed."

There was a silence that lasted several seconds before I broke it. "If you're waiting for someone to feed you the next line, I'll do the honors: why was Kulick killed?"

  Vollman gave me another one of those little smiles. "I do have rather a tendency toward the dramatic, don't I? Please accept my apologies." He made the smile disappear. "I believe Mr Kulick was murdered because he was the possessor, in effect the guardian, of a certain object. An object of great value."

  Karl leaned forward, frowning. "The killer left something like forty grand behind. Even if what he came for was worth more than that, why not take the cash, too?" It was a question the two of us had been scratching our heads over ever since we saw what was in Kulick's safe. Who walks away from forty thousand bucks?

  Vollman gave Karl the kind of look that village idiots must get really tired of. "The answer, I would think, is obvious, Detective. Kulick's killer had no interest in money." He shook his head a couple of times. "There is more than one measure of value, my young friend."

  "The object, as you call it, must've had something to do with magic, then, since Kulick was a wizard," I said to Vollman.

  "Yes, that is quite true."

  "So, what's it to you?"

  The wrinkles around Vollman's eyes compressed a little. "I do not understand your meaning, Sergeant."

  "I mean, since when is the business of wizards of any interest to a vampire?"

  Vollman sat slowly back in his chair and looked at me.

  I've got good peripheral vision, and from the corner of my eye I could see Karl's hand move slowly toward the top drawer of his desk, and the crucifix he kept there. He needn't have bothered. Any vamp who wanted to cause trouble wouldn't pick a police station, especially the Supe Squad, to do it.

  Probably.

  Still, I was suddenly aware of the weight of the Beretta on my right hip, with its standard load of eight silver bullets that had been blessed by the Bishop of Scranton. Part of me wished the old vamp would give me an excuse to use it.

  "The handshake, yes?" Vollman said to me, after a moment. "It was the handshake that revealed y... true nature... to you. I wondered at your reason, since you do not, forgive me, Detective Sergeant, strike me as the friendly type."

  
Friendly?
I wanted to say.
Hey, I'm one of the friendliest guys around – except to the bloodsucking undead.

  "How I know doesn't matter, Mr Vollman," I told him. "I asked you a question: why do you care about George Kulick and what happened to him?"

  Another long look. I was about to tell Vollman that I was getting tired of his theatrics when he said, "The reason I am interested in the fate of that particular wizard..." He turned his left hand over, palm up, to reveal an old, faded, but unmistakable tattoo of a pentagram. "...is because I am a wizard myself."

Karl and I looked at each other for several seconds before we returned our attention to Vollman.

  "I've never met anyone with your particular… combination of attributes before," I said.

  "Nor have I, and I have lived far longer than either of you gentlemen. However, there is nothing, in theory, to prevent someone from living in both worlds, should he choose to. Mind you, in my case the choice was not made freely."