How to Party with a Killer Vampire (11 page)

Brad wiped his mouth. “No. But they questioned Otto last night.”

“Do they think he killed that paparazzo? And Spidey?”

Brad raised his hands. “Whoa, there! Who said anything about Spidey being murdered? His death was an accident, remember?”

I decided to keep my mouth shut and not argue the point. But I still had a hunch the deaths were related. I just hadn’t figured out the connection yet.

“Okay, then Bodie Chase. But why would Otto want to kill him? Just to get him off his property?”

“I didn’t say they’d arrested him for murder. I just said they questioned him. After giving him a chance to sober up a little.”

There I went again, jumping to conclusions. As a party planner, when I had a problem, I needed to solve it quickly; hence my tendency to make snap decisions. Apparently I made murder accusations much the same way. It was a good thing I was a party planner and not a cop.

“So, did they learn anything from him?”

Brad pointed to his upper lip, indicating I had something on mine. I licked it off with my tongue. Powdered sugar. Yummy.

“No, the guy pretty much rambled about the same stuff he said when we were there. Sounded like a bunch of superstitions to Luke. They’re keeping him on a twenty-four-hour psych hold before they release him.”

“What about the shovel? That was blood on it, right?”

“Yep. Forensics matched the blood on the shovel to Chase. He was definitely hit over the head with that shovel. And they found prints on it.”

I perked up. “Great! Whose?”

“Whose do you think?”

“Otto’s,” I answered, deflated.

“Bingo.”

“Brad, do you think Otto did it? Actually swung that shovel and whacked the guy? He doesn’t seem coherent enough.”

“I agree. And as I said, he hasn’t been officially arrested.”

I took a last sip of my latte and stood up. “I have to get dressed. I’m sure there are a million party things waiting for me at the office. You have any plans today?”

“Nothing yet. But the day is young.”

He no doubt meant that soon there would be crime scenes to clean up, and his workday would begin. He crumpled up the pastry bag and threw it into my recycling bin. “I’ll see you back at the office.”

“Thanks for the breakfast. I loved it.” I kissed him. His lips were sweet with residual sugar.

After he let himself out, I headed for the shower. As the warm water sprayed my body, I thought about poor Otto. It sounded as if he’d been through a lot. Now he might lose his freedom. And while I was glad I could stop suspecting Lucas Cruz of being a murderer, something still bothered me.

Had Spidey’s death really been accidental?

Or was Otto involved in some way?

It was the only connection I could make at the moment. But as Brad had said, the day was young.

I hopped into my red MINI Cooper and drove the short distance to Building One, which now housed my Killer Party business. My first office had been demolished when the barracks building burned down on the island, and the second barracks had been condemned. My new office was much nicer, but the rent was higher too. I’d been coerced in to hosting a party for the Treasure Island Development Agency in exchange for a discount on rent. That and the income from last night’s Vampire Wrap Party would help keep my mother and me afloat for the next few months.

The door to my office stood open as I crossed the large Art Deco Building One lobby. Delicia must have come in early, I thought, until I remembered I was coming in late. I peered in and found her sitting at her desk. My desk chair was also occupied—by a downcast Duncan Grant.

I looked at Delicia. She rolled her eyes.

“Duncan!” I said cheerily. “What are you doing here?”

The young man made no effort to get up. Instead, he pointed to my computer screen.

I leaned over to see what he wanted to show me. It was an article from the
San Francisco Chronicle
, dated six months ago.

I stopped reading and looked at Duncan.

“This guy died doing parkour?” I said, stating the obvious.

He met my eyes. “Yes, it’s possible to die doing parkour if you’re leaping and jumping around eight-story parking garages.”

“So why are you showing me this, Duncan?”

“Because, you usually
don’t
die if you’re just tracing on a bunch of headstones. Even a fall from a six-footer wouldn’t kill you.”

“Unless you hit your head wrong . . . ,” I started to say.

Duncan stood up, shoving my desk chair back with a violent kick of his foot. “That’s just it. Spidey
didn’t
fall. That was no accident. Whoever killed that guy at the cemetery last night probably killed Spidey too.”

I frowned at him, puzzled. “How did you know about the guy from last night?”

“Helloooo?” Delicia interrupted. “It’s been all over the TV news. And so is Killer Parties, by the way. Your phone has been ringing off the hook.”

Oh God. This wasn’t the type of media attention I wanted to promote my party business.

Duncan moved to the doorway, his eyes red with frustration. Or was it rage?

“Somebody killed my friend,” he said. “I’m going to find out who it was. And kill him.”

“Oh great,” I said, reopening the door and plopping into my recently vacated chair. “Now Duncan’s decided to become a vigilante.”

“Let’s hope he doesn’t get ahold of a gun,” Dee said. “With his lack of coordination, he’s apt to shoot himself in the nuts.”

“Nuts?” Brad stood in the doorway, his hands cupped protectively around his manhood.

“Yes, nuts,” Dee reiterated. “That guy may be a genius when it comes to gaming and computers, but he can’t walk five steps without bumping into something.”

I shot her a look. “Dee! Stop it. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Besides, Duncan is all talk, I’m sure.” At least, I hoped he was.

Brad entered the office and opened a folding chair that leaned against a wall. He turned it around and sat in it backward, crossing his muscled arms over the top. Every time he did that, a jolt shot up my spine.

I tried to recover. “
Uh
. . . we were talking about Duncan,” I said. “He’s upset about his friend’s death. He doesn’t think it was an accident.”

“How come?” Brad asked.

“I’m not sure. I don’t think he has any evidence. He showed me this article”—I pointed to my computer screen—“about a kid who died doing parkour. But his fall was from an eight-story building, not a five-foot headstone. He seemed to imply that Spidey wouldn’t have died by falling.”

“That’s all he has to go on?” Brad asked.

“Unless he knows something we don’t.”

“Like what?” Dee asked. “The only connections he has with the police are through you, Brad. Did you tell him anything?”

“Nope,” he said.

“Because there’s nothing to tell, right?” I said.

“Nope,” he repeated.

I stopped. “What do you mean ‘nope’? Brad Matthews, did you learn something from Detective Melvin that you haven’t told me?”

“Whoa, there, girl detective. I just found out myself.”

I leaned in, eager to hear his news. “Found out what?”

Brad raised an eyebrow in an attempt to appear mysterious.

I gave him a light slap on his arm. He probably didn’t even feel it. “Talk, mister!”

“Well, the forensics report says the official cause of Spidey’s death was blunt force trauma to the head that caused massive hemorrhaging.”

“And . . . ?”

“It doesn’t say it was caused by the piece of gravestone they found lying on the ground under his head, even though the stone was soaked with blood.”

“So what does that mean?”

“When I did the cleanup—”

“You found something!”

He grinned.

“What? Tell me!”

He shifted in the chair. “Well, if Spidey tripped and fell accidentally, then hit his head on that broken piece of gravestone, there wouldn’t be blood anywhere but on his head and on the ground where he fell, right?”

I nodded. Then it hit me like a ton of headstones. “You found blood splatter!”

“
Spatter
. It’s called spatter. But yeah, when I was cleaning up, there were streaks of blood a few feet away, on another headstone.”

“And the police missed it?”

“Like the rest of us, they assumed Spidey’s injury was caused by hitting the stone. An accident. They weren’t looking for spatter. Even when I found the blood, it was dry and I didn’t think much about it, figuring it had probably been there awhile. In fact, I only mentioned it to forensics when I remembered it a few hours later.”

I sat back, a little disappointed in his revelation. “But that could be anyone’s blood. And it could have been there a long time.”

Brad nodded. “Still, they sent out a tech to check and make sure.”

I leaned in again. “And . . .”

He shrugged. “DNA tests haven’t come back yet, but they just learned the type. It’s the same as Spidey’s—B negative—which is pretty rare. Only two percent of the population has B neg.”

My toes tingled in anticipation of the possibilities. “So if it turns out to be Spidey’s blood, and there was a blood splatter—
spatter
—only a few feet away, that could mean someone might have hit him, causing Spidey to lose his balance and fall to the ground. . . .”

“It could.”

“And send his blood flying,” I continued, thinking aloud. “Possibly with the same shovel that was used on Bodie Chase, the paparazzo.” I thought for a moment, then had an idea. “What if the shovel-wielder put that piece of headstone under Spidey’s head after he fell, to make it look like that was what caused the head injury?”

“You mean, staged the crime scene,” Brad summarized.

“Yes. The killer could have lifted Spidey’s head and smashed it down onto the stone to cover the shovel wound. . . .”

“Stop!” Dee cried, covering her ears. “You’re gonna give me nightmares!”

I looked at Brad. “Are they doing a DNA test on the paparazzo?”

Brad nodded.

“Has it come back yet?”

“Nope. But when it does, we’ll know two things: one, whether or not the blood on the shovel is the paparazzo’s blood—”

“And two,” I continued for him, “if there’s any evidence of Spidey’s blood on that shovel as well. Which would mean Duncan’s suspicions are right: that Spidey
was
murdered. Most likely by the same weapon used to kill Bodie. And probably by the same person.”

Brad stood up and refolded the chair. “Those are big ifs, Presley. These things take time, and right now there’s no solid proof. We’ll just have to wait and see what Luke finds out from the tests.”

Patience isn’t one of my strong suits. There was no way I was going to sit idly by and wait for Detective Melvin to feed us bits of information at his whim.

Besides, there was the little matter of Spidey’s pal and my sometimes employee, Duncan Grant. He didn’t seem to care about stuff like DNA. He was already convinced his friend was too talented at parkour to fall and may have been murdered.

Maybe I had better visit the cemetery and see that blood spatter myself.

 

In order to give Duncan some time to chill before I questioned him, I made a few party-related phone calls—one for a gay-rights activist group in the Castro that wanted a YMCA theme party. The fund-raiser for the GLBT—Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender—group would include having guests dress as one of the characters from the Village People. And, of course, they wanted it held at the local Y. I couldn’t wait to get started on the cowboy/police/construction worker/ biker decorations for this one.