Blood (13 page)

              Underwood lay there in horror, watching the blood pulse out of the wound, in time to the incessant ringing.  The dagger turned back into a phone, which continued to ring.  Underwood stared at the apparatus for a minute, then summoned the courage to pull the receiver out of the gaping hole in his chest.  As he put the phone up to his ear he realized in the back of his mind that he shouldn’t have been able to grab the phone with his hands tied.  A tinny voice reached his ears from the receiver.  “Captain?  Captain Underwood?  Hello?”

              Underwood looked down.  The pajamas he wore were spotless, without the slightest hint of a hole.  He lay in his own rumpled but clean bed, holding the receiver in his unsoiled hands.  Shaking his head to clear the cobwebs, he spoke into the phone with a raspy voice.  “Hello?”

              “Captain Underwood?”

              He cleared his throat and tried again.  “Speaking.”

              “Captain, this is Lieutenant Morris.  We need you to come to the station immediately.”

              That statement helped clear his head.  “Don’t tell me we’ve lost another prisoner.”

              “Ahh, no sir.  But we ‘re missing a patrol car.”

              The captain was wide awake now.  “You mean someone had the audacity to steal a patrol car?”

              “Well, not exactly, sir.  The car is missing, but so are the two officers in it.”

              “Tell me again all the steps we’ve taken to find that car.”  Underwood was having trouble understanding how this situation came to disturb his sleep.

              “Yes sir.”  In times like this, Morris was the perfect aide.  His attention to detail left no stone unturned when it came to a summary.  “Every available officer, on-duty and off, is conducting a citywide search.  In the eight hours since you authorized the manhunt, approximately sixty-one percent of the city has been combed without a trace of the officers.”

                “Could they have gone off duty and forgotten to check in?” 

              “I doubt it, sir.  While Beckman was a rookie, his record shows him to be extremely attentive to procedures.  He was very much a by-the-book type of officer.  Sergeant Johnson was a somewhat freer spirit, but in ten years of service he has never walked off the job without informing his superiors.  One of them might have possibly forgotten, but not both.”

              “Did they contact dispatch at any time last night?  They should’ve called in if they were leaving their post.”

              “We’ve interviewed both dispatchers on duty last night.  They report nothing unusual from either officer.  The dispatcher’s tape has been reviewed.  The last communication with Sergeant Johnson was at 9:05 when they came back on line from dinner.   They indicated no problems.  Dispatch tried to contact them at 10:10 but could get no response.  Sometime during that interval they dropped off the face of the earth.”

              “What was their dinner location?”

              The lieutenant consulted his notebook.  “According to the tape, the location was 1225 Wheaton.  That would be Michelle’s Seafood.”

              “Did the tape indicate any place they were going?”

              “No sir.  But their assigned patrol was the riverfront and Bay Street.”

              Underwood continued to dig, trying to find some deviation, some reason, some explanation for the officers to have failed to follow standard operating procedures.  “Any discrepancies in the tape?”

              The lieutenant’s eyebrows raised.  “Now that you mention it, there was a weird area on it.  It sounded as if the tape stopped turning.  You know how a tape sounds when it’s been left in the car too long and it overheats.  It seemed to drag for a few seconds.”

              “Have it sent over to the lab.  Ask them to account for the problem and see if they can figure out how long the tape system was inoperative. Tell them we need it yesterday.”

              “Yes sir.”

              As Morris scurried off to perform his tasks, Underwood’s brain tried to fathom an assassin’s role.  If he wanted to take out two trained and armed police officers, where would he do it?   Obviously the spot must be secluded.  An idea formed in his mind and he reached for the phone.  “Morris?  Find out if the South Carolina State Patrol has been notified of our search.  If they haven’t, ask them for their assistance in checking the Carolina wetlands near the river.  Tell them to look for any place where an ambush could be pulled off.  Also have Midway and Richmond Hill alerted to keep an eye out for a patrol car.  That’s right.  Thanks, Lieutenant.”

              That done, there was little else he could do for now, so Underwood pulled out his list.  The captain always kept a list of things that he needed to do so that he could fit them into his day on a ‘whenever I get a chance’ basis.  The next item on the list revealed a note to get answers to questions about the Patrick autopsy, so he put in a call to Dr. Bell.  

              “Dr. Bell’s office.”  The doctor’s secretary sounded even sweeter than normal.  But business first.

              “This is Captain Underwood.  May I speak to Dr. Bell, please?”

              “Jim!  Nice to hear from you.  My father isn’t here right now.  Can I help?”

              “Uh, hi Marie.”  So that’s why she sounded so wonderful.  “He’s got you answering his phone now?  What did you do wrong?”

              He could feel the grin in her voice, “Not me.  I’ve been a good girl this week.  I just happened to be passing by, so I answered his phone.  I don’t know where his receptionist is.  Maybe she took an early lunch.  Anyway, he’s meeting with a couple high honchos from the governor’s office.  He should be back by eleven.  What do you need?”

              “I have some questions about the Patrick case.”

              “Well, I helped him with that autopsy, so I know almost as much about that guy as he does.  What do you need to know?”

              “Actually I’m a little uncomfortable discussing it over the phone.  Why don’t we meet for lunch?”

              “Well, Dad’s secretary should be back in a few minutes.  What about the Shoney’s on Fifteenth Street in half an hour?  That’s about halfway.”

              “Sounds good.  See you then.”

              Marie put down the receiver just as Maggie returned with two other receptionists.  Apparently somebody had called a meeting that required them all to attend.

              “Maggie, tell my father I’m going out to meet Captain Underwood to discuss the Patrick case.  I’ll be back after lunch.”

              Maggie’s eyes grew wide as she nodded.  She knew the feelings that the young doctor had for the handsome policeman.  “I’ll be sure to tell him, Marie.”  The secretary held up her hand with crossed fingers.  “And good luck.”

              The shadow in the corner cursed under its breath.  Another few seconds and there would have been a double-header.  A snicker escaped at the thought.   “A double-header.  I can’t believe I said that.  I’ll have to remember that one.”  Disappointment flooded the figure, but patience was a quality that the Chosen had learned centuries before.  Better to wait until the young girl was alone.  The shadow slipped out the door without anyone the wiser.    

              The restaurant stood only fifteen minutes away, but it took ten minutes to leave the building.  No new information had turned up on the missing officers.  Underwood promised to keep his cellular phone with him, so that any developments could be acted on immediately. 

              He made a brief scan of the room, but Marie had not arrived yet.  Spotting her red Mustang pulling into the parking lot, he met her at the door.  As Marie entered the restaurant, male eyes throughout the room followed her walk.   Every contour of her body was highlighted by the Channel original that she wore so comfortably.  The waitress led them to a table and they placed their orders.

              “Now the interrogation.  You may fire when ready.”

              “Okay, first question.  What about sex?”

              A brief pause as she studied his face.  “Well, it’s a possibility, but aren’t you supposed to feed me first?”

              He thought for a minute and turned red. “Oh I’m sorry.  I meant the suspect.”

              She giggled.  “I know what you meant, but you’re so easy to tease.  You’re the only man I know that can blush over the phone.  I assume you want to know if his equipment was in operating order.  Keep in mind he was dead when I met him so we’ll never know for sure, but everything appeared to be normal for a twenty-five-year-old male.”

              “Okay, so he seemed normal.”  He consulted his list.  “Next idea is similar.  Could these beings reproduce?”

              “Good question.  I don’t know.  My father might be able to give you a more definite answer, but I doubt it.  We didn’t do a fertility test on the body.  It isn’t something that is done in a normal autopsy.  If we could determine there was sperm present, we might have been able to determine his fertility.  Keep in mind even with the body we would not be certain.  After all we have yet to examine a female specimen.

              Underwood’s hand started making ovals on the table.  “You mean that the male might be fertile and the female might not?”

              “Right.  Although if there is a problem, it’s usually it’s the other way around.  We also have no way of knowing whether the Chosen are capable of breeding with normal, unchanged humans.  We just don’t have enough information.  The only evidence we have about these creatures so far is from Patrick, his body and his statement.  Both are lost to us now but we are re-creating much of the lost data.  But even then there is so little we really know about them.  Any speculations we make now will be just that; speculations.  Without doing extensive examinations of living members of both sexes, whatever we decide about how they live will be guesswork.” 

              The captain cocked his head.  “What have we learned for sure?”

              “Well, Jim, we know that their blood is different than ours, and those changes can be detected by a doctor, providing we find one we can trust.”

              “What do you mean?”

              “These people have lived among us for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.  That’s because outwardly there is no physical difference between our, for lack of a better word, species.  But in the forties, blood typing was invented.  In fact, in this day and age blood tests are routine for many things including marriage licenses and even employment in some areas.  Most blood tests would spot the differences we are talking about.  Because there has never been an outcry, or even a published report of this phenomena, someone must be covering for these people.”

              He nodded.  “I see what you mean.  False birth certificates and other ID are easy to procure, but a complete new identity is a different story.  Think of the people that go into the witness protection system.  A complete new life has to be invented.  This can only be done at the government level.” 

              “That’s very true.  But I was thinking more of the number of times that someone is required to have a physical or a blood test, for employment.  There must be a lot of people in the medical field, both doctors and technicians, that can switch blood or find other ways of keeping people from finding out about these differences.  If the government requested these cover-ups, there would be talk, or at least whispers, in the medical community, and I’ve never heard the first word about this sort of cover-up.”

              He hadn’t thought of that.  “These people only have to change their identity every twenty-five years or more.  That might average out to only one or two per city per year.  Also, according to Patrick, the Chosen are above average intellectually.  They could get professional jobs, which usually have less stringent requirements, and the requirements are more easily circumvented.”

              A wry grin crossed her face.  “So we’re back to the main question.  What do we do now?”

              “What can we do?  We can’t tell them from normal people without a blood test, yet we can’t get a court order to test their blood without giving a reason. ‘Your honor I want a court order obtaining a sample of the suspect’s blood because we suspect that he is a vampire.’  Yeah, that would go over big in chambers.”

              Marie looked thoughtful.  “Supposing we can identify a few of them.  Then we can keep them under surveillance and see who they get in touch with.”

              The captain shook his head.  “Patrick told us that they do not congregate.  According to him, he hadn’t seen another Chosen in decades.  While I think he stretched the truth, secrecy must be the key to the Chosens’ way of life.  Most of the Chosen never meet more than a few others between changes.”

              “But there must be communication between some of them.  In order to create the new identities, someone must be controlling things.  And the higher up the ladder the more interaction must be necessary.”

              Underwood thought about the state senator.  “I see your point.  But we have found one of these higher ups, and have had her watched since Patrick’s death.  So far, nothing.  Her staff shows no signs of being of the Chosen.  And none of her other visitors so far seem likely suspects either.”