for their trouble. If you plead guilty, and avoid them having to actually go to the expense of trying you, you usually get a reduced sentence as a reward. First offense, the sentence tends to get suspended. The thing's justified by the guilty party telling the judge just how sorry he really is for what he's done. Those who can maintain a straight face do best. Actual guilt, obviously, has little to do with it.
But there we had the blood involvement, again. I glanced up at Sally. I knew she'd read the sheets, even though they were officially supposed to restrict themselves to the headers. “So, what do you think?”
She lowered her coffee cup. “I think you ought to call Buffy,” she said.
As I passed through the booking room, and back into the main office, I saw Kevin and Melissa sitting quietly on the old spindle-back chairs we had for “guests.” Uncomfortable because the arms were too low and the backs too erect, they were rejects from the old County Home. All we could get with our budget. Cost our center a dollar each. We split for ten.
“Hi,” I said. “If you two want some coffee”-and I sort of gestured with the old TV tray top we used for our “service”-“just go ask a dispatcher for some.”
“No, thanks,” said Melissa.
“So, how's Hanna?” I asked, mostly to be polite.
“She'll make it,” said Kevin. “What's taking Huck so long?”
“Oh, you know how it is,” I said, pausing for a moment before I left the room. “One thing leads to another, and all the forms we have these days, it's a wonder we get done at all.” The “Aw shucks” civil servant routine isn't always convincing, but sometimes it helps.
I got to my office, and sat the coffee down, and handed Hester the criminal history data that Sally had given me. “Interesting,” I said.
She took it, but didn't look at it right away. Instead, she said, “We've been discussing just where Dan Peale got himself to when he ran out the door.”
“Ah. And?”
“If he made it to the bottom of the hill,” said Huck, “he could probably get a ride. There's quite a lot of traffic on the highway.”
Now, as a deputy for over twenty years in Nation County, I knew that wasn't altogether true. Except during leaf season, when people came from all over to drive through the area and ooh and ah over the trees, there was very little traffic on that road. And the tree colors at night just didn't attract tourists, believe it or not. But I agreed with her by nodding. She might want us to know he'd gotten down and to a ride, I thought, and just didn't want to come right out and say so. Maybe.
Time for the next step. “Okay, now how about Alicia and her boyfriend? What really happened there?”
“How do you mean?”
“Did Dan ask you to bring her to the Mansion? It's important.”
She thought about it for a few seconds before she answered me. “Not really, no.”
“Huck, if there's anything that can get somebody into trouble in a case like this,” said Hester, “it's equivocation.”
Huck sighed. “Look, I'm sure he saw her at the Mansion, but it wasn't the first time he'd seen her.”
“Really?” Hester's eyebrows went up.
“No, he'd seen her at a couple of bars. They'd talked once, I think.” She looked serious. Whether or not she was was up for grabs.
I described the suspect outside Alicia's window to her, fangs and all. “Would he have looked the same as he did behind her apartment the other night?”
She snorted. “Of course not. He was batting the other night.”
“What?”
“Batting. When he gets all costumed up, and goes out and crawls all over buildings, he calls it 'batting.' You know. For when the movie vampires turn into bats.” She looked at each of us. “They really don't, of course. Real vampires can't turn into bats.”
Coming from somebody who professed to believe in vampires, the fact allegation that they couldn't turn into bats was a bit jarring.
“So you don't buy the whole vampire thing?” asked Hester.
“Not the fantastic stuff,” said Huck.
“Back to the case,” I said. “Did he know Randy Baumhagen?”
“I think he'd met him once,” said Huck. “As far as I know.”
“So,” said Hester, “do you think he wanted to… what? Get it on? With Alicia?”
“He wanted to do it with just about every attractive woman he ever met, I think,” said Huck.
“And you knew that when you asked her up?”
“Shit, yes,” said Huck. “But, so did she.”
Hester looked at the criminal history on Peale. The Illinois Peale, since we couldn't find an English version.
“Huck,” she said, “it's illegal for me to share this with you, but this”-and she indicated the sheet I'd handed her-“really indicates that our Mr. Peale is a U.S. citizen.”
Huck just shook her head. “Boy, I dunno. I mean, he's convincing.”
“That kind of reminds me,” I said, and took a drink of coffee. “Did any of you know that Dan Peale was still up on the third floor? When we were there, I mean?”
“Oh, sure. We all did.” I got the impression that she took it for granted that we had, as well. People give us credit at the damndest times.
“Really? All of you?” That surprised me.
“Oh, yeah.” She took a sip, too, using time the way I had. “Jessica and Tatiana, too, I assume. It's his pattern. After he does his thing, you know, with the sex and the blood, and the crystal meth, and all, he takes downers. Sleeps for at least twenty-four hours. It's a psych thing, I believe.” She took another drink. “He goes for a good twenty-four hours, and then sleeps for twenty-four or more.”
“He,” I asked, incredulous, “has twenty-four-hour orgies?”
She nodded, with a little smile, again. “Oh, yeah.”
“And his partner is with him the whole time?”
“Well,” she said, demurely, “he usually has more than one. You know, an appetizer, and then a main course, sort of.”
“Brother” was all I could say.
“Assuming Edie was the 'main course,' ” said Hester, “who might the appetizer have been?”
I think we both thought we were talking to the “appetizer.” Wrong again.
“Melissa, and I think maybe Hanna, too, this time. They both disappeared, off and on, and I didn't actually miss Edie for quite a while.”
“Oh.” Hester was beginning to sound as casual about this as Huck.
“And Melissa really looked beat when she turned up. Too much E, you know? Doubling up.”
“Ecstasy?”
“That's right. That or crystal meth. And whatever else he brought. Or did.” Huck shrugged. “And E always gives Hanna a migraine. Then she can't sleep for a week.”
“Poor dear,” said Hester.
“Yeah.” Huck asked if we needed anything else tonight. “I'm a little tired. Been a day, like I said.”
“You be all right up there?” I was concerned. I felt that Peale was gone by now, but if he was still up there and knew she had been talking to us, she was taking a real chance. In my estimation, anyway.
“Sure. No problem.” She made the “thumbs up” sign again. It was a little strange, as I thought that had gone out thirty years ago. Well, it had with me. Like they say, everything old is new again.
We asked Kevin and Melissa to come back the next day. They said they would, after the funeral. We watched them leave from the outer office.
When they had gone, I looked at Hester. “You believe her?”
“What part?”
“Well, I think she's probably fairly close to the truth with her personal history. Not sure about some of the rest.”
