thousand.”
Impressive.
“This is a dance instructor?” asked Hester.
“Yep. That's what everybody says,” said Borman.
“I quit dance lessons when I was thirteen,” said Hester. “Mother always said it was a mistake.” She reached over and took the vehicle sheets from Sally. “There's got to be more to this woman than teaching dancing.”
I agreed.
“Whatever else she does,” said Sally, “she's got a clean record. TRACIS, NCIC, Wisconsin, and Iowa indicate no criminal history. Not even a traffic ticket.”
“Wow,” said Hester. “Not bad.”
I looked up.
“I mean, no traffic tickets. Wisconsin drivers are terrible.”
Sally and I smiled. “I'd be careful, too,” I said, “if I drove cars like that.” I looked across the table. “Anything else on her?”
“Nope,” said Sally, “which brings us to our Daniel Peel.”
I perked up right away.
“You told us last night,” said Sally, addressing Hester, “that Toby said he was about thirty or so, white, male, and in pretty good shape?”
“Yep.”
“Well,” said Sally, “I ran an Iowa check. Nobody, and Iowa files go three years either side of a possible date of birth. So I did an alphabetical. There was a… umm… let's see. Oh, here,” she said. “We have a Dabney, a DaMar, two Darwins, four Davids, a Dawane, a DaVere, and a DaBurl under Peel.” She sat back. “Everything but Daffy. None of these even close to thirty. Youngest is forty-three.”
“Yeah… ” There was bound to be more.
“So,” she smirked, “just on the off chance you didn't spell it right, I did a sound-alike pass, and got it spelled Peel, Pele, Peal, Pfeil, Pale… lots, let me tell you.” She shrugged. “So I did a fifty-state check, with a date of birth of 06/30/1970, and got nobody that matched.” She looked disgusted. “NCIC will check one year either side of a DOB, but you need the month and the day right. That means that we'd have to run the name three hundred and sixty-five times, and we'd only get a two year spread even if we did.”
Great.
“So, I called Gray Eyes, and explained part of this to her. Murder suspect.” She held up her hand, to forestall complaints. “I certainly didn't mention the 'V' word. Don't worry.”
“Gray Eyes” was a dispatcher buddy of Sally's who once worked for the California Highway Patrol. The two of them had met at an APCO meeting, and Gray Eyes happened to be, in Sally's estimation, just about the greatest dispatcher ever. She'd been hired away from the CHP, and was now working for NCIC in Washington. They'd kept in touch. Obviously.
She looked up. “She expanded the search, because she's allowed to actually program a search. By making him between twenty-five and fifty. DOB between 1950 and 1975. We got one dude in North Dakota, who was forty-seven, and two in Montana, for shit's sake, one twenty-five and one fifty exactly.”
“That's it?”
“Oh, no, not really. In California, there were two hundred eighty-seven, actually, and four hundred sixty-two in New York.” She indicated the papers. “Total of nearly nineteen hundred in the U.S., so far, and the Illinois, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and Arizona computers are down for routine maintenance, and can't be accessed for an expanded search at this time, and we haven't done all the ages yet.” She took a breath.
Oh.
“So,” said Hester, “what did their criminal histories say?”
Sally didn't even look up. She did raise her wrist and put up one finger, though.
“Then,” she continued, “I sort of exceeded my authority a little, and used our Deputy Houseman's name and ID, and started looking for vampires.”
“You did?” I was aghast. Not that she'd actually done it, but that she'd said so in front of Borman and Hester.
“Yep. Well, not vampires, really. But cases where there was a conspicuous blood involvement.” She looked up. “Relax. Hester and I talked about it last night,” she grinned. “After you'd gone night-night. I don't get all the credit.”
“We used your LEIN ID,” said Hester, “because mine would attract too much attention.”
“So, who am I, Carl the Obscure?”
No response.
A conspiracy. Well, so what? I know when I'm outclassed. LEIN, by the way, stands for Law Enforcement Intelligence Network. Certain officers in Iowa have been certified to operate within that system, and we all have an alphanumeric ID. The programmer in Des Moines wouldn't think much of my ID, but Hester's would signal a DCI interest.
Sally pushed a LEIN Records Search Request form over to me. “Sign here,” she said. “Just to cover my ass.”
I did. “And… ” I was really curious.
“Well,” Sally said, “I guess there really are people out there who believe they're vampires. And they get caught, when the victims either die or complain, or the neighbors do.”
She pushed over a list. “These are crimes in Iowa and Wisconsin and Minnesota involving the 'ingestion of blood from unwilling victims.' Or so they say.”
I thought the “unwilling” qualifier was interesting.
There were eighteen incidents listed, along with the investigating agency, and date of ffling. The oldest was 1993. The most recent was July 2000. I pushed the list over to Hester. Sally had underlined the '93 case in red. The investigating agency was listed as Walworth County, Wisconsin. Sally had also made the notation “is co. where lk. gen. located.”
“The county where Lake Geneva is located?” said Hester. “Really?” She passed the sheet to Borman, politely.
Sally was very pleased. “You betcha.”
“Then I guess we better talk with 'em… ”
Sally pushed another sheet of paper toward me. The phone number of the Walworth County Sheriff's Department was on it, along with the headquarters number of the Wisconsin Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
“Then… ” she said, not missing a beat, “you'd better return the call of the county attorney. He called about thirty minutes ago, wanting to know how it went last night.”
I winced. I'd forgotten about him.
“And call Lamar before you go up.”
“Any word,” asked Hester, “from the guys up there?”
“About every thirty minutes all night long,” said Sally. “They finished the search of their assigned rooms in less than an hour. Bored out of their minds the rest of the night.”
I called Harry over in Wisconsin first. I knew what was coming.
“Houseman, you rotten son of a bitch,” said Harry, laughing. “Where did you find this fuckin' Chester dude, and thanks for sending him to me, you bastard.”
“Anytime, Harry. What are friends for?”
“Right. Anyway, you turn up anything new for me, other than a dickhead vampire hunter?”
I took a breath. “Well, yeah, we did.”
“Really?” Suddenly, he was all business.
“Yep.” I told him about Toby, and the vampire business from last night.
“You gotta be shittin' me, Carl… ”
“Nope.”
There was a silence. Then, “Care to meet with me and Mr. Chester today?”
“I'll make the time, for sure,” I said. “When?”
“Dunno yet. Let me shake the motels for the little bugger, and I'll get back to ya.”
