Blood (6 page)

Carlton and Beckman had been investigating a domestic disturbance.  As usual the wife had been bounced around the living room several times, but still didn’t want to press charges. They reached the patrol car.  Carlton got in and closed the car door.  “Hey, buddy.  Now that that hassle is over, let’s head back to the restaurant and get something to eat.”

              “Suits me.  I thought we’d never get out of there.” Beckman got on the radio and called in to report and told the dispatcher they’d be taking a break at the restaurant. 

              The patrol car drove down Abercorne Street heading for Victory Drive.  They had just passed 42nd Street when the radio came alive.  “Unit Seven.”

              “Oh, crap!”  Beckman grabbed the microphone.  “Unit Seven.  Go ahead.”

              “Unit Seven, meet the captain at Two Fourteen Spring Street, unknown situation.”

              Carlton thought for a moment.  “Hey, isn’t Two Fourteen Spring the address of that blood bank guy?”

              “Sounds like it.  Ready to roll?”

              The portly officer sighed deeply.  “I guess we need to.  But I swear, if I find out you’re in a conspiracy with my wife to force me to diet, you’re gonna be in big trouble.  Let’s go.”

              No matter how much the boy squirmed and twisted, he couldn’t loosen the ropes binding him to the table.  “Ohmygod!  Ohmygod!  Mister, don’t do this to me! Ohmygod!” 

              The tall man bent over the writhing figure and paused.  “Now I would like to say that this will not hurt much.”  His mouth twisted into a childish grin.  “But we both know I would be lying, now, would we not?”

              “Ohmygod!  OH MY GOOOOOOOOOD!”

              Commissioner Williams looked over at Captain Underwood.  Units Seven and Twelve were in place at the back of the house, while Unit Five continued to cover the front.   The SWAT team deployed to cover both sides of the house.  Everyone wore bulletproof vests and helmets.  The street looked like a war zone.  Captain Williams had the signed warrant in one hand and the microphone in the other, ready to give the signal to begin the operation.  Underwood looked at his watch.  All of this put together in slightly less than an hour and a half.  And half of that time had been spent tracking down the judge, who had picked tonight to forget his beeper.  Fortunately the judge had returned to his car, where his cellular phone was clamoring for its owner at the top of its lungs.

              The Commissioner gave a nod to Underwood and the Captain spoke quietly into the mike, “All units, go.”  Officers clad in black uniforms with the words SAVANNAH POLICE stenciled on the back rushed to both sides of the door.  The squad leader knocked on the door and yelled, “Police!  Open up!”  When ten seconds went by without an answer, a pair of officers grabbed the battering ram and, with one mighty blow, smashed the lock slamming the door open.  Six officers in teams of two rushed in, covering each other, checking every room on the ground floor.  Finding no one, the officers followed the strategy mapped out before the raid began, with one pair checking the upper story, one officer at each of the front and back doors, and the final pair taking the first floor.  It didn’t take long to ascertain that the downstairs was unoccupied.  It took only a minute more to discover the door to the basement.  By then more officers were entering the house.  Two officers took positions on each side of the door.   The SWAT leader reached out and open the door quickly, then both officers took positions to return fire through the door if the need arose.  When no fire came, the officers peeped in the door to find a set of stairs.  At the bottom of the steps, the officers found a small narrow hallway lined with shelves.  A collection of the usual household hardware covered the shelves; paint cans, brushes, cleaning supplies and various bug sprays.  Nothing seemed out of place or out of the ordinary.

              Further down the hall the first officers confronted a thick soundproof metal door, definitely out of place in a residential home.  Positioning themselves cautiously on both sides of the door, the SWAT leader tried the knob.  It turned and the door swung open as the policemen, two upright and two kneeling, trained their weapons into the room. 

              The tall man turned slowly toward the officers and raised his hands in submission, a look of mild surprise on his face.  He did not seem worried by the intrusion, only mildly annoyed that his work had been interrupted.  The SWAT members, accustomed as they were to violence and bloodshed, had trouble believing the scene before them.  On the bed in front of them was what used to be a young boy, but now was a mangled mess, slashed across every square inch of the body.  The tall figure standing with his hands raised high, looking like he didn’t have a care in the world, had taken nearly every drop of blood from the crimson mess on the bed and smeared it over his nude body.

              “This is an interview with a suspect named James Patrick on February seventeenth, 1998 at 8:35 a.m.”  Lieutenant Cappazoli spoke slowly and distinctly for the recorder whirring in the corner of the conference room on a small typewriter table.  That and a large, bare conference table with low back wooden chairs around it were the only furnishings.  The room was not designed for comfort.  Patrick sat at the table facing the door, while Cappazoli and another uniformed officer stood over him.  “Lieutenant Anthony Cappazoli and Sergeant Frederick West in attendance.  Mr. Patrick, we have informed you of your rights and you have voluntarily waived all of those rights.  Is that correct?”

              “That is correct.”  Patrick looked cool and calm, even amused by the proceedings.  His aura of charm impressed the onlookers in spite of themselves.  If not for the orange jumpsuit Patrick wore it would have been hard to tell which one was the suspect.  

              “You are aware, are you not, that this interview is being recorded, and anything you say can be used against you in a court of law?”

              A nod from Patrick.  “I understand and agree to these recordings.”

              “You haven’t been coerced or threatened in any way to waive your rights, and you are doing so of your own free will?”

              “That is correct.”

              “Mr. Patrick, you were taken into custody at your residence at 214 Spring Street on the night of February sixteenth at approximately 11:40 p.m.”

              “I believe that is an accurate statement.”

              “When you were arrested, you were standing over the body of a young man named Johnny Parker.”

              Patrick leaned back in his chair, a relaxed look on his face.  “I will have to take your word for the young man’s name.  We were never properly introduced.  I was, you understand, rather busy at the time.”

              Cappazoli was filled with disgust at the casual way the suspect referred to his deeds of that night.   “Ah, yeah, of course.  Well, Mr. Patrick, did you kill the boy?”

              A snort of derision.  “Of course.  That is the reason we are all here, is it not?”

              “You freely admit you caused the boy’s death.”  Sergeant West seemed at a loss to explain the suspect’s cheerfulness at the admission.

              “Certainly.  And you can rest assured that I killed the girl at the other park last night, as well.  I won’t lie to you.”

              “Of course not, Mr. Patrick.”  Cappazoli continued.  “Would you like to explain why you felt you had to murder these two people?”

              The suspect turned his hand over in an unruffled shrug.  “Why of course, my dear fellow.  I’m a vampire!”

              A stunned silence fell.  Cappazoli’s chin dropped and his mouth gaped opened as he looked over at West.  West shrugged.  He’d heard stranger stories.  Not often however.

              “A vampire?”  Sergeant West broke the lull with his question.

              The suspect raised his hands, palms upward.  “Well, not really a vampire.  We don’t have big fangs and drink the blood of our victims.  But we do have to kill.  It’s a craving, an instinct that grows stronger each day until we can’t control it anymore.”

              West and Cappazoli looked at each other.  Cappazoli spoke first.  “You say ‘
we
’.  So there are more like you?”

              “Oh certainly.  There are tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of us worldwide.  We call ourselves ‘The Chosen’.

              “And you like to kill people.  Is this some kind of cult?”

              Patrick laughed.  “Heavens, no.  We don’t
like
to kill.  We
have
to kill.  We can’t help ourselves.”  He paused for a moment in thought, and continued.  “Well, some enjoy the act of killing, but most of us abhor it.  We truly can’t help ourselves. That’s why I got caught.  I was trying to find an alternative.  If using blood from the blood bank had worked, I could have spread the word and saved many innocent people from being slaughtered.  But it didn’t work.  Apparently the blood must be fresh to act as a catalyst.  Because I waited too long to make the kill, I wasn’t in control enough.  So I got caught.”

              West scoffed.  “So you sleep all day in a coffin and only come out at night.  Do you wear capes and change into bats too?”

              Patrick turned to face the Sergeant.  “You mock me, sir.  But I assure you, every word I speak tonight is the truth.  We are not like Count Dracula and the late-night vampires you’re accustomed to seeing on television.  But my ‘kinsmen’ so to speak, are the roots of the vampire legends.  Witnesses to our attacks have spread the tales.”  He drew himself up and turned his head to look each man in the eye.  “Imagine yourself an ignorant sixteenth century peasant coming upon a brutally murdered person from your village, or even your family.  Then imagine seeing a figure covered with blood fleeing the scene.  A scene much like this created the myth as the peasant embroidered his account with exaggerations of his bravery.  Over the years there were enough sightings to keep the myth alive, and growing bigger and more frightening with each telling.  Big fangs, capes, sleeping in graveyard blood and most of the other parts of the legends were added through the years, or invented by people like Bram Stoker to sell books.”

              Still in a state of shock, Cappazoli jumped in.  “You expect us to believe that?  Is this part of a psychodrama to lay the foundation for an insanity plea?”

              “ I assure you that it is not.   Every word is the unvarnished truth.  I’m not pleading insanity.  I’m not saying I’m innocent.  I’m merely explaining my need to kill.  It gives me no joy to kill.  With me it’s a necessity.”

              West’s lip curled with disdain.  “Oh, yeah?  If you hate killing so much, how come you tortured that young man?  Why not just cut an artery and make the kill quick and easy?

              The suspect raised a hand, palm upward.  “It works better when the blood is liquid.  If it flows too fast the blood dries too quickly, and makes it hard to spread.  I really hate stretching out the bleeding, but it’s necessary.”

              Cappazoli had a thought.  “Maybe that’s so, but why not knock the kid out?  Why do it when he’s conscious?”

              West nodded.  “Yeah, if it bothers you so much, why leave him awake and screaming?  He must have been screaming at the top of his lungs.  Or at least gag him?”  He shook his head.  “It sounds like you get off on your victim’s misery and pain.”

              Patrick squirmed in his chair.  For once he had nothing to say.

              West left the room and came back with coffee for each of them.  Patrick accepted his with a quiet thanks.  He took a sip and grimaced.  The station’s coffee was legendary around the city.  Underwood swore they got most of their confessions after the suspect was subjected to the bitter brew.

              The suspect set his cup on the table.  “Next question, gentlemen.”

.              West was the first to ask, “Why the blood?  What does this bathing in blood do for you?”

              “Haven’t you guessed?  Look at me!  I’m already ten years younger than I was yesterday, and I’m getting younger by the minute.  This ‘blood bath’, as you choose to call it, is the legendary Fountain of Youth.”

              Underwood, watched through the observation glass.  His finger rubbed circles on the sill.  A worn spot where the paint had been rubbed away spoke of the many times he had observed from that room.  His thoughts revolved faster than his finger.  Did the suspect really believe this stuff?  He did appear younger this morning, but the light of day and a good night’s sleep could account for that.

              The interrogation continued.  “So you can stay young forever?”

              “Well, not young, but we can theoretically live forever.  After our, do I dare call it, ‘treatment,’ we age normally.  But as we approach old age, something changes.  Apparently something in our blood.  I don’t know what causes it.  I’m not a doctor.  But we feel a change.  Perhaps it’s our version of menopause.  Whatever it is and whatever causes it, we begin to get a craving.  Most of us fight it for a time, but it grows stronger each day, until we have to satisfy it.”

              “By feeding on human blood.”

              Patrick folded his arms to his chest. “Hardly.  I told you we are not the vampires of folklore.  They could only sustain themselves by drinking blood, and had to kill often.  The Chosen are human except for a few minor improvements. Many of us are even vegetarians.  We don’t have to satisfy our blood thirst as often as those fictitious monsters, and we don’t drink blood the way the legends claimed.  But we do have to spread human blood over our body to cause the renewing process to begin.  No one knows why.  Somehow fresh, human blood is needed as a catalyst for the change to take place.  Many of the Chosen are studying the problem, but no one has found any answers yet.

              Cappazoli jumped in.  “You say you can live forever.  Does that mean that if you get the death penalty we have to drive a stake through your heart?”

              An annoyed look came over Patrick’s face.  “Let’s not be silly.  That’s merely one of hundreds of myths about my people.  In truth, it would work, although I cannot envision your Supreme Court allowing that particular form of punishment.  Our bodies work like yours, aside from a few improvements.  A car wreck or other calamity can kill one of the Chosen.  But if it doesn’t kill him outright, his body has tremendous powers of recuperation.  From wounds that would be fatal to humans, the Chosen can usually recuperate within days.  Broken bones are repaired in hours; deep cuts in minutes.  I even saw one of my companions with his skull split open with an ax.  We removed the ax and watched the wound repair itself.   Within hours the wound was healed externally.  The man regained consciousness by the next morning.  It took several days for all the synapses to fully restore themselves, but a week later you would never know he had been injured.”

              West shook his head.  “And you expect us to swallow this story?”

              Patrick laughed.  “I truly don’t care whether you find me believable or not.  I am not trying to persuade you of anything.  Your belief or disbelief will not change the facts I am relating to you today.”

              On that note, thoroughly bewildered, the officers left the room.

              Barbara Foster was bored.  The baby woke her up three times last night and her attention span today was nil.    Usually she enjoyed her job in the Police Fingerprint Lab.  As fingerprints were received, she would enlarge them using a state of the art copy machine.  If the print was smeared, she would tape a transparency over the copy and trace the highlights of the fingerprint using a fine point marker. This would help eliminate most of the smudging, allowing the computer to concentrate on the lines and whirls.  This was a painstaking task, sometimes taking hours to complete if the fingerprint was badly blurred.  Once the tracing was done, the transparency was scanned into the computer and a copy saved.  Only then could the prints be compared to the local database, encrypted on her computer.

The local database contained fingerprints of known felons in the Savannah area.  Most crimes are local in nature, and police could get a handle on the local boys very quickly.  If a match was not found, Ellen’s computer could connect through the phone lines to the FBI’s computer in Washington.  Because of the multitude of requests, the wait for results from this source could be days, if not weeks.  Normally Ellen enjoyed the routine, but today everything seemed so dull.  And to top it off, her monthly report was due.  She was required to count and list all of the various duties she had performed over the last month, so that someone higher up could compile the results and justify their existence in some meager way.

As her hands danced over the keys she thought back to the events of the last week.  First that guy disappeared from one of the cells.  Well, that sure stirred things up around the entire department.  Then the prints had come back linked to a twenty-five year old murder.  The next day the same prints were linked to a fifty-year-old case.  Wow!  Talk about job definition.  This was the sort of thing that made the job worthwhile.

              A ‘ding’ behind her interrupted her thoughts.  Each of the five computers behind her was searching for a match for a different set of fingerprints and was set to notify her if a match was located.  Two were running prints through the local database.  Two were connected to the FBI records in Washington.  The fifth was working on a hunch.  Some of the girls had been chatting yesterday, and naturally the talk turned to the biggest story in the department for years - the missing prisoner.  Charlene had made the comment that she wondered how many other deaths could be laid at Patrick’s feet.  Margie, never one to miss a chance to join the conversation, chimed in. “Yeah, and in how many places?”  This aroused Ellen’s curiosity.  If they could link him to other crimes, maybe it would help locate the suspect.  They had tried locally and nationally.  The only arena left was international.  A call to obtain permission and the prints were sent to Interpol, an organization of law enforcement officials from 175 countries working together to promote cooperation among member police groups.  Founded in 1923, the headquarters in Lyons, France contains the largest collection of criminal records and evidence in the world.

              A twist in her chair and Ellen was facing the offending machine.  A glance at the screen told her that this machine contained the prints of James Patrick.  Why that was the name of the suspect that escaped from the jail.  Apparently another match had been found.  Ellen had been excited yesterday when Patrick’s prints had been linked to a twenty-five-year-old crime.  What she saw on the screen today thrilled her and sent her scurrying for her supervisor.

              Sergeant West sneered, “Do you believe the crap this guy is spreading?”

              The officers relaxed in the soundproof observation room next door.  The two interrogators had joined the commissioner and Captain Underwood.  FBI Agent Palmer also observed the procedures.

              Williams appeared thoughtful.  “It sounds like a fairy tale, but how else do you explain his fingerprints being on a murder weapon seven years before he was supposedly born?  And he really does appear younger than he did when we arrested him.  Of course it was dark then and…”

              West looked incredulous.  “You’re buying his story, aren’t you?”

              The commissioner shook his head.  “I’m not sure what to believe right now.  This case gets more bizarre every minute.  He threw me such a curve with this vampire thing, I haven’t even asked him about the other murders.  When we start to talk about those deaths, I halfway expect Rod Serling to come out of the woodwork and start his ‘Imagine if you will . . .’ spiel.”

              Lieutenant Morris opened the door.  “Captain Underwood, this message just came in from Interpol.”

              Underwood took a quick glance at the document.  His eyes widened and he read the paper in earnest.  “Commissioner Williams, I’ll do you one better than that.  Our little pal in there has just been linked with another set of murders.  It seems that there was a serial killer in London who killed five ladies before vanishing.  While photography was still in its infancy as far as being used at crime scenes, a photographer stumbled onto the scene of one of the crimes and managed to get a few pictures.  The police confiscated them.  One photograph shows a partial palm print on the satin blouse of one of the victims.  Well today, over a hundred years after the crime, Interpol matched that print.”

              The men all looked at each other for several moments.  Then Williams spoke as he shook his head in disbelief.  “You can’t be serious.  You mean that he . . .”

              “That’s right.”  Underwood looked grim.  “The palm print of a man supposedly born in 1951 was photographed on a body in the fall of 1888.”  He pointed through the window of the interrogation room, where the suspect sat at a table, oblivious to their confusion.   “Gentlemen, meet Jack the Ripper.”