Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [293]
He frowned harder at me, took off his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose, put them back on, and shook his head. “I am just a simple cop, and you are making my head hurt.”
“Simple my ass. Katie told me you double majored in law enforcement and philosophy. What kind of cop has a degree in philosophy?”
He looked at me kind of sideways. “If you tell anyone else I’ll deny it, say sleeping with the undead has made you hallucinate.”
“Trust me, Zerbrowski, if I hallucinated, it wouldn’t be about you.”
“That is a low blow, Blake, I wasn’t even picking on you.” His cell phone rang. He flipped it open, still smiling about my low blow. “Zerbrow—” He never even got to finish his name, before his smile vanished. “Say again, Arnet, slower. Shit. We’re on our way. Holy items out. They’ll glow if the vamp is close.” He started to run, as he flipped the phone closed. I ran with him.
“What happened?” I asked.
We clattered onto the stairs before he answered. “Woman dead at the scene. Vamp missing. Apartment appears empty.”
“Appears?” I said.
“Vampires are tricky bastards,” he said.
I would have argued, if I could have. But since I couldn’t, I saved my breath for running and beat Zerbrowski to his car. If we hadn’t both been afraid of what we’d find when we got to the scene, I would have teased him about it.
62
THE APARTMENT WAS so much nicer than the one we’d just come from. It was clean and neat enough to have pleased even my stepmother, Judith. Well, except for the dead woman on the carpet and the blood trail leading back to the bedroom. Other than that, the apartment looked freshly scrubbed.
I know by now that murder happens in the best of neighborhoods. I know for a fact that economics, or neatness, or niceness are not barriers to violence. I know that, because I’ve seen dead bodies in some of the nicest houses. Everyone wants to believe that violence only happens in horrible places, where even the rats fear to go, but it isn’t true. I didn’t think I had any illusions left about murder and murderers, but I was wrong. Because the first thing I thought when I saw that neat-as-a-pin, well-decorated apartment with the dead woman on the carpet was, the body would have fit in Jack Benchely’s apartment better. Hell, you could have hidden her body in the coffee table debris.
The body lay so close to the door that they’d had to move her arm just to open the door enough to let Arnet and Abrahams inside. Abrahams had transferred over from sex crimes. I glanced at him across the room, standing near the neat, sparkly kitchen. He was tall and thin with dark hair and an olive complexion. Brown seemed to be his favorite color, because I’d never seen him when he wasn’t wearing it. He was talking to Zerbrowski, who was taking notes.
So far I hadn’t learned enough to need to take notes. Maybe it was because the body was right at our feet. Arnet’s and mine. Dead bodies can be a real conversation stopper. The body was on its stomach, legs slightly spread, one hand reaching out toward the door, the other arm folded back where Arnet had moved it when she opened the door.
Arnet was standing beside me, looking down at the body. She looked a little pale around the edges. Maybe it was only the lack of makeup, but I didn’t think so. She was actually wearing a little eye makeup and pale lipstick. But her eyes were a little big, and her skin pale against her short dark hair. Not like pale with contrast, but pale like I was ready to grab her elbow in case she started to faint on the body.
I wanted to ask her if she was alright, but you don’t ask cops that, so I tried to get her talking. “How did you know she was in here?” I asked.
She jumped and turned startled eyes to me. She was seriously spooked.
“Why don’t we step outside and get some air?” I said.
She shook her head, and I knew stubborn when I saw it, so I didn’t argue. “I saw blood under the door, or what I was almost certain was blood.”
“Then what?”
“I called for backup, and we kicked the door open.”
“You and Abrahams,” I said.
She nodded.
“The door bounced