Bloodlinks Read online

  Garreth shook his head. “I was just — ”

  “Doing your job.” Sue Ann rolled her eyes. “Blah, blah, blah”

  Nat said, “Come on. People want heroes and Danzig never minds positive publicity for the department.”

  “Yeah.” Reaching over the communications desk, Sue Ann handed him two message forms — presumably from the reporters’ calls Gerry Weaver took — and a copy of the Telegraph, their local paper, with a headline on one side column: Local Officer Captures Nationally Wanted Fugitive. “You know what they say, if fame is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.”

  Garreth dropped the paper on a desk and stuffed the message forms into his shirt pocket.

  “The hell! How can a woman repeat that crap!”

  They all turned to stare at Duncan, standing grim-lipped in Danzig’s doorway.

  After a moment Nat cleared his throat. “Ah...she said ‘fame,’ Ed. If fame is inevitable...”

  “Oh.” Duncan’s sheepish flush startled Garreth as much as the previous vehemence.

  Sue Ann, too, it appeared. She pulled her eyebrows down from her hairline. “What made you think I said ‘rape?’”

  For a moment Garreth wondered if Duncan were going to answer. His mouth tightened again and the flush deepened. Then: “My niece got groped at school a couple of days ago and the dick-head who did it spouted that crap at her! She wouldn’t tell her mother or me who it was.”

  “Not wanting her uncle jailed for assault and battery,” Nat said.

  Duncan smiled grimly. “So I made sure the next prick who tries anything is in for a big surprise. I took her to the gym and taught her every pain point and dirty infighting trick I know.”

  Good for him.

  And good for the round of approval by the three of them diverting attention from media heroes. Garreth managed to be briefed for the shift and start patrol without the subject coming up again. Messages from the reporters crackled in his pocket but he reflected that if he stalled for a day, there might be no point returning the calls. Tomorrow the arrest would be old news, a waste of column space or air time.

  Judging by the number of people returning his customary waves with big thumbs up, or “Good work!” as he patrolled, Danzig already had his positive publicity.

  Even if not everyone had their facts straight — the wife in a domestic disturbance call yelled, “Shoot the bastard! Shoot him like you did that bank robber!”

  And heroism cut no ice with Lydia Hufnaegle after he motioned her into the Hammond Greenhouse parking lot and walked up to her window with his clip board. “Do I look like a bank robber! You can’t treat innocent citizens like criminals!”

  Garreth filled out her speeding ticket. “If you’d tape Johnny Carson like I suggested the last two times I stopped you, you wouldn’t have to worry about missing the program. You could clock out of Wal-Mart and drive home at a legal speed.”

  “I’ve tried to, but that miserable thing never works!”

  “Ask one of your grandchildren to help you set it.” He handed over her copy of the ticket. “These don’t come cheaper by the dozen, so please watch yourself, okay?”

  For a moment her frown deepened, then she sighed. “At least you’re nicer than Officer Rambo.”

  Watching her drive away, Garreth wondered if Duncan would be insulted by the comparison. Probably not.

  “Baumen, Seven, public service message for you 10-19.”

  Garreth grimaced. Another reporter calling? “Do you have a name?”

  “Takananda. He said you’d know the number.”

  Irritation turned to ice in him, Grandma Doyle’s words echoing in his head.

  He called in a break and swung by home to phone Harry from there. The time difference made it not even ten on the Coast, so he punched in Harry’s home number first. If Harry was working late, at least it would give him a chance to talk to Lien before calling Homicide.

  Her name brought a quick image...black helmet of hair streaked with grey but face still smooth as a girl’s. It brought, too, memory of the hours she had spent patiently talking at the wall of misery enclosing him after Marti died, and her willingness to accept how he changed after Lane’s attack, even without knowing the reason.

  Harry answered. “So, Mik-san, you’re still following felons into the dark, only this time it didn’t land you in the morgue.” He sounded amused...not worried...not in need.

  “This time the cop surprised the felon. How are you and Lien doing?”

  “Fine. Lien sends her love.”

  Sends her love. “She’s not there?” Disappointment ran through him.

  “No. She’s in Hawaii visiting her sister. But every day she calls with the day’s hexagram.”

  So even when away, she consulted I Ching every day, always with the same question, Garreth knew: Will my husband be safe today? When he and Harry were partners she had thrown a daily hexagram for him, too.

  “What did the sage have to say today?”

  The pause at the other end made Garreth’s neck prickle.

  “Harry?”

  “Ah...Coming to Meet. You know that one.”

  After it kept turning up in the investigation leading to Lane, he had it written in fire in his brain. The maiden is dangerous. One should not marry such a maiden. Watch out for a deadly woman. It fit Lane to a T then. Now Grandma Doyle wanted him watching out for a woman. The prickles sharpened.

  “And the thing is...Lane Barber’s back.”

  Shock rocked Garreth. What? No! “Someone thinks they’ve seen her?”

  “Not exactly...but Sunday afternoon we found the body of a man named David Knight in his bathtub...with carotid punctures, slit wrists, and broken neck. Just like her MO in the Adair murder.”

  Air stuck in Garreth’s chest. Impossible! Lane was dead. He killed her. He felt and heard again the snap of her spine as he wrenched her head around, ripping apart her spinal cord. She was dead...burned...buried under roses!

  “And we’ve found the apartment she moved into after splitting from Telegraph Hill.” Ice ran through him and the receiver creaked in the grip of his fingers. Was it somehow possible he had not destroyed her? How much did he really know about vampires? If she escaped, surely she would have come after him before going anywhere. But how much did he know, either, about how Lane’s mind worked? Maybe a murder out there was part of a plan to come after him.

  “Garreth? You still there?”

  “Yes.” It came out in a croak. Harry needed him, Grandma Doyle said. Well, he needed to see if Lane had somehow survived. And if she did not commit this latest murder, they had another murderous vampire at large. Equally deadly for human officers to approach. Only how did he justify coming out there, or expect them to let him join the investigation? No way would Lieutenant Serruto permit it. “Thanks for letting me know.” Maybe he should plead a family emergency and go out to poke around on his own.

  “Well...the thing is...Van and I were talking.”

  Vanessa Girimonte, his new partner. Garreth waited. Could Harry be about to solve the problem for him?

  “We’re thinking that maybe your presence would be helpful. Do you think you can get away from there for a few days?”

  He pumped a fist. Yes! Still...he found the invitation hard to believe. “You’ve okayed this with Serruto?”

  “Of course.”

  That would have been an interesting sell to overhear.

  “Will you come?”

  Grandma Doyle’s voice rang in his head. There’s danger and possible death, but only you can do what needs to be done.

  He sucked in a breath. “Of course. I’m practically on my way.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Contrary to Garreth’s wish for a rainy March day, morning sunlight shone bright on San Francisco as he drove up 101 from the airport in his rented Ford Escort, sunlight glaring in his eyes despite his dark glasses and Baumen Timberwolf ball cap pulled down to his brows. A feel of homecoming warred in Garreth with the drag of daylight an
d a leaden sense of foreboding from Grandma Doyle’s warnings. If the rosary he wrapped around Lane’s neck, a snapped spine, and incineration had not destroyed her...if the roses could not hold her in her grave...what weapons did he have left against her? How did he fight her this time?

  Questions he had asked himself repeatedly in the three days since Harry’s call and while arranging a week’s leave from the department — time enough, surely, to decide if Lane still lived. Questions he still could not answer by the time he left the freeway and pulled into the parking lot of the Hall of Justice on Bryant Street.

  As if he had never left, his feet automatically carried him along the terrace and through the metal detector at the rear entrance — where he showed his ID — to the elevators, up to the fourth floor, then down the corridor around to the Homicide Detail.

  John Leyva looked up from behind the counter in the outer office. “Yes, sir. Can I help you?”

  Obviously not recognizing him. And why should he? This wiry kid in cowboy boots, jeans, and a polo shirt under a windbreaker in the blue and yellow Baumen high school colors bore little resemblance to the hefty, suit-wearing Inspector Mikaelian of a year and a half ago.

  “I’m meeting Inspector Takananda.”

  “He’s out right now. May I see some ID?”

  The voice rang no bells either? Garreth opened his badge case on the counter.

  The gold oval eagle-style badge caught Leyva’s eye first. His brows rose. “Baumen, Kansas? You’re a long way from — ” He broke off as he read the ID card opposite...stared at it and the picture on it, then his gaze snapped up to Garreth’s face in astonishment and disbelief. “Mikaelian? Can’t be.”

  Garreth removed his ball cap and glasses...the light bearable here away from windows. “I’ve changed a little.”

  Leyva grinned. “Yeah, I’d say that.”

  “I wonder how many in there...” Garreth pointed at the office. “...will recognize me. Harry still have the same desk?”

  Leyva nodded, then came around the counter to follow him to the inner door.

  In the office, odors he remembered well swirled around him: coffee and cigarette smoke and the acid tang of human bodies sweating in frustration and anxiety...all threaded through with blood scents. The eyes of the three detectives present lifted from a typewriter, murder book, and telephone to watch him walk to Harry’s desk. Familiar eyes in familiar faces: Dean Centrello’s foxy one, Rob Cohen with half glasses riding the end of his nose, Art Schneider wearing the same brown suit, or an identical one, he had for as long as Garreth remembered.

  He opened his mouth to tell them who he was...and thought about the chilly silence likely to greet that news. He had left few friends here. So he held up his badge case long enough to flash the eagle, said, “I’m just waiting for Harry.” Then sat in Harry’s chair.

  They studied him for a minute, Schneider and Centrello with where-have-I-see-this-guy frowns before returning to what they were doing.

  Grinning, Leyva disappeared from the doorway.

  Garreth put back on his glasses. Even in the middle of the room, well away from the east-facing windows, daylight outside pressed down on him.

  Shortly, the door of Lieutenant Lucas Serruto’s office opened. Standing in the opening he looked, as always, like an actor playing a hero cop...and even in shirt sleeves with cuffs rolled up and tie loosened, remained natty enough to pose for a GQ ad. For a long minute he stared across at Garreth with the same disbelief Leyva had, then crooked a finger. “Mikaelian! In here!”

  Leyva must have called him from the outer office.

  Centrello, Cohen, and Schneider’s heads snapped up. Jaws dropped. Eyes widened...then narrowed, following him to the lieutenant’s office.

  Serruto closed the door behind them and moved around the desk to his chair. “Sit.”

  Garreth sat...leaning back as if at ease, rather than reveal he felt like a student called to the principal’s office.

  Serruto rested his elbows on the desk, fingers tented. “So...you’re back. Thinking Knight’s murder gives you another crack at Barber?”

  Garreth did not miss the steel under the conversational tone. “I’m just visiting.” Habit wanted to include sir. He bit it back. “You okayed it, Harry said.”

  “Against my better judgement...not only given the way Barber’s attack screwed up your head but that your presence at the arrest, if we make one, can taint it and be used against us in court.” His tone went crisp. “Since you have to be aware of that, why did you come?

  Garreth forced himself into an even more casual pose, crossing his knees and balancing his cap on them. Truth being out of the question, he went with an answer that had come to him, uncomfortably, when he asked himself why Harry invited him. “I suspect to be bait. Draw Barber out for another try at me.”

  Serruto frowned. “You really think Harry would do that to you?”

  “Not Harry, but maybe Inspector Girimonte, from what he’s told me about her.”

  Driving, ambitious, and the Origami Queen...a woman doing everything by the book...with creatively folded pages.

  “Yet you still came.”

  “If that what it takes to stop Barber.” To draw her out and fight her again. Somehow. If he had to.

  Serruto’s eyes narrowed in scepticism and suspicion. “You have your badge with you? I want to see it.”

  Garreth pulled out his badge case.

  Serruto nodded in satisfaction. “Okay.”

  Since his eagle looked nothing like their seven-pointed star and he could not pass as SFPD, Serruto meant.

  “Are you carrying?”

  “No. I never do off duty anymore.”

  That sent eyebrows up in surprise, but after a long moment they came down and Serruto said, “Then let me lay out the ground rules. You are, as you say, a visitor...nothing more. Remember that. You are merely riding along...and I don’t mean riding shotgun the way you were when Takananda got shot.”

  That stung. Garreth winced.

  “You have absolutely no official or unofficial role in the investigation.” The words snapped like a whip. “Try to involve yourself and I will boot you straight back to Kansas, or if I see active engagement, or vigilante behavior, I will charge you with obstruction and throw your ass in jail. Do I make myself clear!”

  Garreth nodded. “I am a staked goat, not a hunter.”

  Without looking entirely convinced, Serruto sat back. “All right...then I guess we’re finished here. For now. Just in time.” He pointed at his office window at Harry heading for his desk. “You think he’ll recognize you?”

  “We’ll see.” He had sent Harry and Lien photos of himself, Maggie, everyone in the department, and interesting points in Baumen.

  He stepped out into the office. “Hi, Harry.”

  Harry turned, stared for a moment, then, grinned. “Mik-san.” He loped over to pound Garreth on the back. “Even after the photos you’ve sent, I had to look twice. Hey.” He turned toward the rest of the office. “Did you keen-eyed detectives recognized Garreth here?”

  No one answered...until Cohen finally said, “We might have...if he’d bothered to say who he was.”

  From Cohen’s tone, not doing so won no redemption points. No one came over to greet him.

  Harry sighed, then shrugged...clearly not surprised by the reception. “Now it’s your turn, Garreth. Can you guess who this is?” He pointed at a woman coming into the office.

  Girimonte, obviously. She made Garreth think of a panther: long-limbed and lithe in a dark pant suit, with brandy-colored skin and hair cropped to a velvet nap. A small gold replica of the SFPD’s badge gleamed on each earlobe.

  He held out his hand. “Inspector Girimonte, I pre— ” Then sight of the tweed-jacketed man a step behind her choked away the rest of the greeting. “Fowler?”

  Julian Fowler grinned. “I dare say this is a bit of a surprise.”

  More like shock and horror. What was the man doing here? Here! Where Fowler might see
a case file report of a Madelaine Bieber’s fingerprints in Lane Barber’s apartment.

  Harry and Girimonte glanced from Fowler to Garreth. Girimonte’s eyes narrowed. “You two know each other?”

  From her appearance, Garreth expected a voice that purred. He got syllables crisp as the crease in her slacks.

  Fowler nodded. “We met in Baumen a short while ago.” He grimaced. “Where I’m afraid we got off on the wrong foot. For which I apologize most sincerely, Mikaelian. I’m often so intent on my research that— but of course it’s no excuse for insensitivity.” He glanced at Harry and Girimonte. “I was there hoping to trace...”

  The air in Garreth’s lungs froze as though he smelled garlic. He jumped in before Fowler could name Mada. “A woman you met years ago, so you could learn about her experiences during World War II for a novel you’re writing.”

  Fowler sighed. “Yes...and I reacted inappropriately to hearing she’d died. I just didn’t want to believe it. I am so terribly sorry for upsetting Anna. Will you please pass on my apologies to her...and may you and I start over?” He held out a hand.

  Reluctantly, Garreth shook it.

  Harry said, “Why didn’t you mention knowing Garreth?”

  Fowler’s brows arched. “Because I didn’t know I did. Until today you never said his full name or where he lived, only called him ‘Garreth’ or ‘my old partner’.”

  Working for a tone of mere mild curiosity, Garreth asked, “How did you end up here?” He gestured at the office.

  Fowler smiled. “More research. Not for the war book, obviously. I came to San Francisco to pursue other avenues of information for that, but as often happens when I start reading old newspapers, an unrelated article caught my eye. It inspired a plot for a crime novel...which is, frankly, more what my publisher prefers. So I put the other book on the back burner, applied to the SFPD for permission to observe your American police at work, and since Tuesday have had the pleasure of shadowing — I believe that’s the proper term? — the dynamic Inspector Girimonte.” He smiled at her.

  If Girimonte felt flattered, it never showed. “Mikaelian. Harry mentions you often. Now if we’re done with the reunion, Harry, we’ve got cases.” She turned to Garreth. “A young woman found drowned in Spreckels Lake yesterday morning with no ID, a psycho who walked into a clinic in the Mission yesterday and opened fire with a .38 — killing a nurse and wounded three patients — and, oh yes, the brutal murder of one David Knight. But as I’m sure Harry is hot to show you Barber’s lair, he might as well take you there while I conduct phone interviews with clinic witnesses.”