99 Coffins: A Historical Vampire Tale

superior finished whatever he might be working on at that moment, but instead she was just waved in.

“Trooper Caxton,” the Commissioner said, standing up from behind his desk. His office walls were lined with the antlers of twelve-point bucks, and there were antique rifles lined up behind his desk as if he wanted to be ready to shoot anyone who came through his door with bad news.

“Sir,” she said.

“Do you know why I asked you to come up here?” he inquired.

She licked her lips and began. “There’s evidence of a vampire pattern in Gettysburg,” she said. “I mean, there’s a vampire there. I’ve seen him.” She cursed herself for not having rehearsed this speech before.

She’d had plenty of time in the car. “I’d like to be assigned to special duty. If that’s alright.”

“Yes,” he said.

She wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. “Sir, I—”

“You want to be assigned special jurisdiction for this case. To be reassigned from your current duties.

I’m agreeing with you. That’s exactly what should happen now. And I’m not the only one.” His eyes twinkled. “The doughnut munchers have spoken. This morning the police chief of Gettysburg called and asked to speak with me personally. I listened to what was going on and then I promised whatever assistance Gettysburg required. Do you know what the chief asked for?”

“No, sir.”

“He asked for Laura Caxton, the famous vampire killer. The star of Teeth . They asked for you by name, Trooper.”

Her hands were shaking. Was it that easy? Could it be that easy? The Commissioner came out from behind his desk and squeezed her bicep, then started walking toward his office door. She stood still until she realized she was being dismissed, then rushed to follow him.

“Sir,” she said, “I want to thank—”

“Me? No need,” the Commissioner said, smiling widely. “Like I said, I’ve read the reports on your work on the Godwin investigation. You got yourself shot and two troopers had to risk their lives pulling you out of the action.” He smiled at her, but his eyes were already looking down at his desk. “I’d just as soon have you on special duty and away from the rest of my people.”

Caxton did then what she’d learned a long time before was the only suitable reaction to such a backhanded compliment. She put her heels together, saluted, then turned and walked out the door.

24.

We crowded into the covered wagon and found room for knees and elbows around the dial. For light we had a single candle, but he assured me that was enough. It was a few minutes past midnight and I was anxious to be unburdened of my bad news.

The telegrapher, though, took his time getting set up, and even with his machine in operation, was much delayed. Cursing and fussing, he turned the indicator back and forth on the face of his dial, which was inscribed with two rounds of letters and numbers, and some few commands such as WAIT and STOP. He could not seem to get a good signal out, for messages kept coming in. He assured me this was normal, and set back to his work, but again with little success. I produced a small bottle from inside my coat and offered it to him, and this did much for his disposition, but did not help his machine.

“It’s these new electro-magnetos, they’re s’posed to be better than an honest man’s telegraph key, but I don’t see it. No fluids or acids to burn me, no salts to keep straight, that’s fine and well.

But this type picks up too many ghosts.”

I must have raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, sure,” he said. “After every battle we get ’em. They crowd the wires, you see. Dead men breathing out their last.”

I watched in amazement as the indicator moved on the dial, of its own accord. The messages were picked out letter by letter so that even I could read them. The missives were never long or overly complex. M-O-T-H-E-R was the most common, and L-O-R-DJ-E-S-U-S, and S-A-V-E-M-Y-S-O-U-L and W-A-T-E-R. All the cries of the battlefield, tapped out in an invisible hand.

We managed to get my urgent news out, eventually, though two o’clock had come and gone. I was climbing out of the wagon, glad to be shut of that cramped and eerie conveyance, when the telegrapher called me back. “Another message, sir.”

“What now, more news from the other side?”

“No, sir, this one’s got your name on it. ‘Received in full,’ it says, and then, ‘New orders. Gum Spring forthwith.’ Where’s that, then?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” I said. It was the first I’d heard of the place.

—THE PAPERS OFWILLIAMPITTENGER

25.

Afaint misty rain was falling by the time Caxton got back to Gettysburg. The afternoon was already half over, and it would be dark before she knew it. She wheeled into the parking lot of the town’s sole police station, on High Street just south of Lincoln Square. She finished the takeout food that littered the Mazda’s passenger seat; she needed to keep her strength up, especially as lousy as she felt after the previous night’s exertions. Then she stepped out of the car and through the glass doors at the front of the cop shop. The sergeant at the front desk stood up when he saw her and pointed her through a pair of swinging doors. Beyond she found the bullpen, a dimly lit room full of cubicles, each with a PC and a couple of office chairs. Policemen in gray and black uniforms stood up all around the room as she walked in. She stopped short as every man in the room turned to face her.

They were patrolmen, not detectives. They were cops who spent every day walking the streets, keeping order. They were tall men, mostly, and most of them were a few pounds over-weight. They wore bristly mustaches and their hair was short and neat. In other words, they looked a lot like her father had in his prime. She knew enough cops to recognize the look they were giving her. Their eyes were empty, the same way they’d look while they were interviewing suspects, willing to give nothing away for free.

One of them she actually recognized. A huge guy with broad shoulders and a hunched head, as if he was afraid of banging it on the ceiling. He was one of the cops who had responded to the mortuary burglary, the one who had survived. The one who stayed with his dead partner while she raced off in his borrowed cruiser. His name tag readGLAUER, and he stepped forward to stand in front of her, his immense bulk blocking her path. She wasn’t sure what he wanted, but she was ready to defend herself if he wanted to call her out.

“Officer,” she said, by way of greeting.

“Trooper,” he said. His lips barely moved as he spoke. “Every man here was a friend of Brad Garrity.

He was the one who—”

“Who died in service last night. I remember,” Caxton said. She tried to keep her eyes as blank as his.

Was he going to puff himself up next, and tell her how much he resented her walking into this office like she could just take over? Maybe he would accuse her of being an accomplice in Garrity’s death. The vampire was to blame; everyone knew that, but she was a much more convenient target for his rage and grief. If he wanted to blow some steam at her, she supposed she could take it.

“You didn’t know him,” Glauer said. “We did. He had a wife and two kids, just little kids. He wasn’t a smart guy, but people liked him. He was honest and hardworking, and he loved the job. He loved this town. He grew up here.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, permitting herself a frown of compassion.

Glauer shook his head, though. He didn’t want her apologies. “When he died I followed procedure. I stuck with him until the ambulance arrived, even though I knew he was gone. I called it in. Afterward I came back here and filled out the paperwork. You, on the other hand, went tearing off after the perp who killed him.”

She nodded. There were rules to this game and she would follow them.

“We heard what happened to you. I saw what happened to my cruiser, when they towed it out of the Musselman Stadium parking lot. We all,” he said, glancing backward at the men standing behind him,