The Origin of Dracula (35 page)

There was also another loose end that loomed on the horizon should the police connect me to Lee—a troubling one. My house had burned down on the night Drakho had murdered Lee. If the police placed us together that night, they might think the fire and the murder were connected, especially because the fire appeared to be arson. So would they think I was involved in the murder? Maybe I’d killed Lee for burning down my house. Who knew? Again, the only thing I
did
know was that the police wouldn’t have the fictional element they needed to pull it all together. They wouldn’t have Drakho.

After another week passed, I began to worry less about the police showing up. There were no more news items about the murders or the strange demolition of the ridge, but I did come across notices about both Lee’s and Harry’s funerals. I wanted to attend, but I knew I couldn’t. That would’ve been handing the police a direct connection between them and me.

A few days into the third week, Nate and I moved into a rented duplex paid for by the insurance company. This was the move I hadn’t been willing to make six months ago when I’d first realized I could no longer afford the life I’d lived with Lucy. Instead I had clung to my old life, both financially and emotionally.

It was a move that was long overdue.

I was now fully engaged in Nate’s life, focused on the present and no longer pining for the past. When Nate talked about losing the only home he’d ever known, I listened and talked about it, too. This didn’t make up for the many months when I’d avoided talking with him about losing his mom, but it did lay a strong foundation for our fresh start.

And that start was going well, until one evening, six weeks after I’d first received the letter.

The doorbell rang just before I was getting ready to cook dinner. Even before the chime fully died out, I was uneasy. The only visitor we’d had at the duplex was Jenna, and as far as I knew she hadn’t been planning on dropping in. So I wasn’t too surprised when I opened the door and found a man sporting a crew cut, a neutral smile, and a gray suit standing on my doorstep. Before he said a word, I knew why he’d come.

He flashed his badge and introduced himself as Detective Miner from the Arlington Police Department. Though I wasn’t prepared to answer his questions—I’d long since stopped planning for a visit from the police—I invited him in.

As I led him into the living room, I tried to keep my composure. At the same time, I didn’t want to act as if I’d been expecting cops to show up on my doorstep, which would have looked just as suspicious as if I freaked out.

“I hope you’re not bringing more bad news,” I said, hoping the distress in my voice hit the right level of anxiety.

“What do you mean, more bad news?” he said.

I didn’t believe that he hadn’t checked me out before heading over, but I played along. “The last time a police detective came to my door, it was to tell me my wife had died.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. He used an even tone, which gave nothing away. “My condolences.”

“Thank you.”

We sat down.

“I’m working on a homicide case from a couple of months ago, and your name came up.”

I nodded and didn’t say anything, hoping to avoid implicating myself by stupidly blurting out information. I waited for him to fill me in.

He did, but it only amounted to telling me that he was investigating Lee Bellington’s murder. Then he jumped right in to the reason for his visit—a loose end that I had only considered for a millisecond.

“Macon Bellington—Lee’s father—told us you were with Lee on the night of his murder,” he said. “Mr. Bellington said you were with Lee at Dan T.’s Firegrill in Alexandria.”

“That’s right,” I said, not wanting to act like I had something to hide. But how had Mason known who I was? Neither Lee nor I had even hinted at my identity during the brief exchange, and he certainly didn’t remember me from my childhood. We’d seen each other just a few times back in those days, and every time he’d been drunk. I had dismissed this loose end within the first few days of my return from the Shenandoah Valley.

Miner must have read that question in my expression because he answered it. “Dan T., the bar owner, said he had a conversation that night with two belligerent men, so we got to thinking, maybe it was the same two men who argued with Mr. Bellington. We took a look at the surveillance tapes in the bar, and bingo—there you were with Lee. It took a while to ID you… but here we are.”

I didn’t say anything, running through what I
should
say.

That gave Detective Miner the opportunity to press me with questions, which was exactly what he did. “How do you know Lee?”

“He was a childhood friend.”

“Childhood? As in you weren’t friends anymore?”

“Yeah—pretty much… I mean we were still friends, but I hadn’t seen him in twenty years.” I knew what he would ask next, and I was frantically trying to come with an answer.

“So did you get back in touch with him, or did he get back in touch with you?”

Off the top of my head, I could only come up with one reason we’d reconnected—a reason that made some sort of sense, especially because I’d already laid the groundwork with the first thing I’d said to the detective. “I reached out to him when I found out he’d lost his wife. As I said, I’d lost my wife, too, and I thought he might want someone to talk to. You know, someone who went through the same thing.”

Miner nodded and was appropriately solemn, but in that neutral way. I supposed he was either doing his job, which meant not getting emotionally involved, or he didn’t believe a word I was saying.

“And how long before that night at the Firegrill had you been in touch with him?” he asked.

This was going to sound bad. “It was that night—that was the first time.”

I expected him to flash an
I got you
look, but he didn’t. He just went on to the next question as if the coincidence of my barging into Lee’s life on the night of his murder meant nothing.

“And did you notice anything about his state of mind?”

“It was bad,” I said. And that was the truth. But I didn’t add that Lee’s state of mind had improved greatly when the opportunity to mete out revenge on his wife’s killer had come up.

“That was clear from the way he’d let his place go to pot,” Miner said.

“That’s why I thought we’d go out—he needed to get out of there.” For once my answer
did
make sense.

“After that, did you go back to his place or try another bar?”

“The flare-up with his dad put a damper on the night. Not that the night was going well anyway. But after that, he was ready to call it quits.”

“Around what time did you drop him off?”

“I don’t remember exactly. Probably somewhere around eleven.”

Miner leaned back, nodded, then completely changed his line of questioning. It was as if he knew I was getting too comfortable. “I understand that you lost your home in a fire that same night,” he said.

“Yeah. That’s right.” I had to be careful about what I said next. Maybe one of my neighbors had placed me there with Lee.

He stared at me, calmly, waiting me for to say more.

“It was awful…” I said. Then I added, “I mean first my wife, then my home. Like I was cursed.”
By Drakho.

“I’m sorry,” he said, then again waited for me to say more.

When I didn’t, he did. “Do you think it had anything to do with Lee’s homicide?”

“No—are you thinking it did?”

“The fire’s being investigated, but nothing’s turned up yet.” Miner glanced around the duplex, then back at me. “You’d heard about Lee’s murder before I showed up, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then why didn’t you come forward and tell us you’d been with him on that night?”

My guilt was about to betray itself on my face if I didn’t push it back down right then. I was about to become a suspect, and it wouldn’t have surprised me if Drakho had planned this all along. That he’d left breadcrumbs for the police—breadcrumbs that had led them straight to me.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, I remember thinking about it. I didn’t actually read about Lee right away—it was the week after, when I was at work. I was shocked, since I’d just seen him after all those years.” I realized I was rambling, but I had no choice but to forge ahead, to keep the guilt off my face. And wasn’t this why the detective was here? To get under my skin? To get me to ramble.

“I made the connection that it was the same night, but it just seemed like a weird coincidence,” I said. “I do remember thinking that I was one of the last people to see him—but honestly, I didn’t think of going to the police. I was dealing with the loss of my house and trying to find a new place to live and dealing with everything else that I’d lost in the fire. And I was worried about my son.”

Detective Miner nodded again and didn’t say anything. Again, it seemed like he was waiting to see if I had more to say.

I didn’t. I’d said way more than enough. I looked him in the eye.

“So why
exactly
didn’t you come to us?” he said.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. I just don’t know.” And before he could press me with another question, I followed that up with something that at first I regretted—but weeks later, I thought that maybe this remark was precisely what had taken me out of the running as a suspect. “Or maybe the truth is, I’m still upset at you guys because you don’t have any leads on who murdered my wife.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Miner said. “And I understand your frustration.” He stood up. “I’m sure we put a good man on the case, but I can take a look at it again if you’d like.”

“Sure,” I said. “Thank you.” I felt awful. Though I’d used Lucy’s unsolved murder to end the questioning, I hadn’t meant to send him on a wild goose chase. He was already wasting time trying to solve Lee’s case, and now he’d be wasting more time. Time he could use on other cases—cases that didn’t involve Drakho.

We both headed to the door, exchanging pleasantries, and just before he walked out, he let me know that we’d probably talk again, which was worrisome. I’d been connected to Lee’s death, and I was worried that Miner would eventually also connect me to Harry, my comrade in arms. Connecting me to both victims would undoubtedly make me far more of a suspect.

But as it turned out, Detective Miner visited me only one more time. He went through the same set of questions, and had a few more when it came to the argument between Lee and Macon. My impression was that Macon had become a suspect. I supposed it was because he was the link to both Lee and Harry, though Miner never brought up Harry.

In the third month after Drakho’s death, I started to think about Otranto again, mostly while at work. She was another loose end, one from the world of fiction, so I dove into fiction to see if I could uncover her true identity. I read
Dracula
again and
The Forest
again, then moved on to
The Castle of Otranto
. When those stories refused to yield up any clues, I dove into a slew of classic supernatural stories: stories by Edgar Allan Poe and M.R. James, by Ambrose Bierce and Algernon Blackwood. Then I started in on supernatural novels, from
The Picture of Dorian Gray
and
The Monk
to more modern fare like
Ghost Story
and
Carrie
, both of which featured women antagonists.

But if there was a clue to be found in one of those stories, it must have been buried deeply. So deeply that I wasn’t able to find it. It took me months of reading to finally accept that Otranto was going to remain a loose end.

And as soon as I did, it dawned on me: maybe the reason none of those stories contained a clue about Otranto’s identity was because Otranto’s story hadn’t been written yet.

And I realized what this meant.

It meant that there
was
someone I could tell my story to. I could tell it to everyone—in the form of fiction. And I could start with Otranto. For
she
would be the way into my story. My story would begin with the mysterious and beautiful Otranto, and then it would lead to Drakho, or Dracula, or the Nightman, or whatever I chose to call this creature—this cunning creature who randomly preys on some of us. My story would be fiction, just as Edna’s and Stoker’s had been, but it would be just as real, too. And if I was wrong about Drakho—if he had survived, or if there were other creatures like him out there—then my story, too, would tell you all you need to know.