vagina and the remainder in her mouth. He was then careful to put the vial and its top back into the cooler to be taken away with him.
He'd sent the authorities on the trail of a sex pervert. They'd find just what he wanted them to and nothing more, like the little surprise in her mouth and vagina.
Satisfied, the killer left. Home was far away and waiting, and yet he was home and in bed, his needs fulfilled, dreaming that he was coming and becoming… Could life be any richer? He rather doubted it.
And his dreams proved him right now… as before… and always.
He kneels on all fours like a panting animal, below her neck where she is dangling. In a frenzied, altered state of consciousness and being, he doesn't remember tying her long, loose hair back in order to have a clear path to the spigot of her throat from which her blood is about to flow, now that he has tapped into it. He has everything in place. He loosens the tourniquet with his hand held over her eyes. The blood is coming through to him in a controlled, measured flow, just as he had imagined it a thousand times. His inventiveness and imagination have not failed him.
He is in orgy at this point, and while not a religious man by anyone's standard, he knows now what fervent emotions strike like paralyzing electricity through the brain and heart of a zealot. Down on all fours, he catches the blood of her life in his mouth, swallows it warm and experiences the ethereal soul of her pass into his bowels, relinquishing to him her complete essence. Blood sacrifices… as old as time and man.
She does not bleed profusely or carelessly. He has taken careful steps not to squander the precious red fluid. He has covered the wound he has inflicted on her white throat with the spigot and surgical tape, turning the tourniquet, applying just enough pressure to slow the bleeding so as to catch it calmly in the mason jars he has brought with him. As each is filled, he sets it aside on the table, working by the light of an old oil lamp and a lantern flashlight he has set up on end. He doesn't want the light to draw any attention, although it is miles to the main road.
He knows his lust is insatiable and that the supply he's taken from Candy will not long last him. He knows even before he arrives home this night that he will crave the drink he craves for the rest of his life, not only because he likes the taste of blood-has liked it from childhood-but also because he likes the good feeling of the slaughter itself. He finds comfort in it; he finds reason and balance and beauty in his relationship with the body he feeds on, the woman that feeds him.
He is, after all, a vampire.
He has tried to tell people of his affliction, to get help, but that has gotten him nowhere. Most refuse to hear his cry. They don't believe that daylight hurts him, or that he sleeps by day, prowls at night, and feeds on the blood of others. He has no one. No one cares. No one but Candy, who dangles before him as his sustenance and his warm friend, forever in his mind, fulfilling him.
He thinks momentarily of home, and of taking a bath in Candy's blood. He thinks it an exciting idea and it grows. He is much closer to Candy than to Melanie or the others. Maybe a bathtub filled with her isn't such a crazy notion.?
FIVE
The wake-up call from Otto Boutine blared in her ears, but for a moment Jessica could not recall where she was; she certainly didn't recall any sleep. It seemed that only minutes had elapsed. She woke in her clothes, sprawled on the bed. With the phone on its third, perhaps fourth ring, she made a mad dive for the thing, knocking it to the floor and catching the receiver before it dropped. Good reflexes were a blessing, something she had always possessed.
“ Jess, it's me, Otto.”
“ What time is”-she yawned-”it?”
“ Getting on toward ten, and you said you'd like to see the body in the morgue before we head back to Virginia.”
“ So I did.”
“ Stadtler isn't exactly waiting for you with bated breath.”
“ Fish-baited breath, maybe.”
“ That's why I like you so, Jess, but let's not piss anyone else off at us before we leave, okay?”
“ Is that an order?”
“ Consider it cheap advice. You comin'?”
“ Give me ten-no-twenty minutes, Chief. I've got to shower and dress.”
“ Meet you in the lobby.”
“ Grand.”
She quickly grabbed something to wear, realizing that she'd have to let her hair dry along the way, and that lately she hadn't given a thought to her appearance. She rushed from bed to bath, and later when she slipped from the shower, she heard a knock at the door.
“ Boutine, dammit, I'm not ready.”
The knock persisted and someone was saying something on the other side, but she couldn't make it out. She threw on a robe and opened the door. A waiter stood outside holding a breakfast tray.
“ Room service, compliments of 605.”
Boutine could be thoughtful, she said to herself. “Oh, please, on the table.” She rushed ahead of him to clear away the things she'd tossed over the table. Then she fumbled for a gratuity, but the waiter told her it was taken care of, and he promptly left.
She rushed down the toast and coffee and scrambled eggs as she continued to dress. She was a half hour getting to the lobby, where she found Boutine engrossed in the Milwaukee Journal.
“ Anything about the case?”
“ Too damned much. I swear I don't understand reporters. You politely ask 'em for cooperation and they nod and say yes, sir, anything you want, sir, and then they weasel information outta some schlock deputy P.R. officer, tack on a few innuendos, and they're practically blowing whatever careful case you might make against a suspect before you've even got the bastard in custody.”
“ They got the vampire angle?” She was upset now.
“ No, not yet.”
She sighed, pursed her lips and nodded. ' 'Thank God for that much.”
“ Faxed a copy of the one good print you found to Quantico.”
“ And I take it, it's not on file, right?”
“ Right, Sherlock.”
“ Stands to reason.”
His quizzical stare lingered over her. “I didn't have much hope that it would check out either, but what made you think so?” 'Nature of the crime places this guy as one of the general population. Likely to be white, middle to upper class, blends in like a sci-fi horror alien who's taken over a human body. Possible dual, if not quadruple, personality, leads stellar life by day, model neighbor, belongs to the Rotary, relatives and friends think of him as just a regular guy who stays pretty much to himself. Lives with his mother or alone, and if he is married, he's a mouse, completely dominated by her. Away from home a lot; goes hunting for human blood by night. But we'll be lucky to find a parking ticket with his name on it, much less a record.”
“ Maybe you ought to be in psychological profiling, Doctor.”
“ Maybe. Any event, this case may be unsolvable.”
“ No one said it was going to be easy.”
“ Thanks for breakfast,” she said. “Nice gesture.”
He shrugged. “We're on expense account.”
“ Just the same-”
“ Glad you enjoyed it.”
As they went for the door, she told him, “We've got to come up with a few more details that'll stay in- house.”
