The Bloody Mary Diet: The Detective Adele Series Book 1 Read online

  If you don’t know much about werewolves I can give you the inside skinny in about three sentences. They have packs, they have lots of siblings and they are great parents. I mean obsessively awesome. If you don’t believe me go find a wolf and try to touch one of her pups. If you survive, which is unlikely, don’t tell the park ranger because wolves are endangered and what you just did is probably illegal in addition to being stupid. No one really needs two arms anyway. Stop being such damn a cry baby, you ninny.

  The only bad thing about werewolves is that they have to have an alpha. I mean it is really required for them to function. In our office Trevor is the boss and therefore he is the alpha. Anything I tell her in confidence she will immediately tell Trevor. ANYTHING. So I have to be careful or I will mention to Jan that it is “my time of the month” and Trevor will bring me a heating pad and a bunch of chocolates. No boundaries what-so-ever. Lots and lots of love but absolutely no privacy.

  I stop by the break room on the way back to my office and grab four donuts that are probably stale but definitely sugary. A cup of coffee and I am good to go. I keep sugar in my desk with my gun and a bunch of take out menus. Did I mention that my job is really cool?

  I go back to my office and open the only file in my “In Box”. The file had not been there when I went to find Jan and it is not really addressed to me. It has a label on it that says it was destined for the Boring Brigade (the regular police) but that has been crossed out.

  It was actually a story that I had heard about on the news that morning. The file contains info on the three vics that were on the news plus a forth that had been found just before I got here this afternoon. We may have a serial killer. And for some reason they are giving it to the Odd Squad without a fight. That never happens and is not a good sign in my opinion.

  Some of it was on the news but I read the whole file and they didn’t have half of it. This is very messed up. All four victims were female, in their early twenties, light brown hair, light blue eyes and all four lived in a three block radius of St. Agnes Episcopal University. Four girls had now been found in bed with no outward signs of trauma what so ever but very completely dead. As in advanced deadness and a very odd blood pooling pattern. Usually when someone dies lying down blood, being liquid, pools at the lowest parts of the deceased person’s body. This is a pattern called dependent lividity and is often used to determine if a corpse has been moved. It sets in 12 to 24 hours post mortem and gives a very clear indication of positioning of the body in the hours following death. If, for example the deceased is on their right side, blood pools on the right. Still inside the body but like a very large bruise. Same for front or back. All four victims had significant blood pooling in their lower legs and feet. Extremely odd for any corpse but especially for four who had been found supposedly lying down undisturbed in their own beds. Both the timing and positioning are way off and do not support this scenario at all.

  I went on line to find out what I could about the four deceased and what they might all have in common. The age, appearance and the fact that they all attended the University seemed to be the only readily available connection. None of them were in the same social clubs, none in the same classes, and only two shared the same majors, nursing. St. A had been started as a nursing school for women during WWII. It had integrated in the late seventies as a bow to the feminist movement but remained a largely female population.

  The only aberration I could find was actually a fluke. I accidentally typed in a search for “missing from St. Agnes” instead of “murdered from St. Agnes” and came up with a fifth girl. Christina Lynn Vail. Disappeared in December1998, last seen on campus at the Nursing Sciences Building. None of the other girls had been reported missing, they had all been found dead in the last three weeks. That was really the only discrepancy. The date and the missing status. If I put her picture up beside the other girls they could all have been sisters. Whoever is doing this definitely has a type. Creepy.

  I went to talk to Trevor and he filled me in on why the Odd Squad had gotten the case. All four of the dead girls had been up and walking less than eight hours before they were found. Three of the four had roommates that had seen them walk to bed and the fourth had been with her boyfriend at his place.

  Not so weird except in all four cases the coroner placed the time of death at between three and four days earlier. No FBI profiler will come up with a suspect that can kill a girl and keep her walking around for several days postmortem. That leaves us, the Odd Squad, to figure out who could do this and why.

  Trevor suggested that we go visit the county morgue and see what we could find there. I knew what we would find, Carl, the after hours guy, and dead people. I agree to go anyway.

  This is where my specialty at the Odd Squad comes in, my family, at least on my mom’s side, are necromancers. We have an affinity for the dead. In my and Gran's case we can see what the dead person saw from their point of view. If it’s a case that has ended up with us it is never pretty and the worst thing about seeing something like that is that you can never unsee it. Watch a murder from the victim’s perspective makes you see what they saw and fell what they felt at their time of death.

  That, in itself would be bad enough but in addition you can never, never forget no matter how hard you try or how much you drink. It is always there. Most people do not make it long in my line of work. Trevor and Gran had been partners in the old days when her name had been Eleanor. I am not sure why she changed it, but anyways she retired and became Gran and Trevor stayed on and became Captain. That’s how I got interested in this job in the first place.

  I meet Trevor outside the station and he is holding my door. The really old ones are always such gentlemen and this time he is in his personal vehicle. It is a black drop top 1963 Alfa Romeo and it is sweet. I am not a car person but Trevor is and he bought this one new. He has driven it ever since. Sliding into the passenger seat I give his shoulder a squeeze and say “Thank you Trevor, for everything.” Trevor just smiles. I know that he knows that I am afraid to touch his hand. Thank God men of his generation do not go in for a handshake when they meet a woman because I don’t know if I could even do a high five.

  I don’t know what I would see. Trevor is technically dead and there is a good chance that if I touched him his strongest memories would just jump to me. There is no way to know without trying and once you see something, like I said, you can never unsee it. I would be stuck potentially remembering the worst and best things that Trevor had ever seen or done over the last five hundred years. Or maybe I would see nothing and we could have a wonderful life together. I am not willing to try and Trevor will never give up. Vampires are also very, very patient.

  Chapter 3: Meetings

  When we arrive at the county morgue Carl greets us at the door. Trevor must have called. I would have forgotten and ended up standing outside waiting for Carl to find time to answer the office phone. The thought of having Carl’s personal number is too horrible to contemplate because that would mean he might get mine and then it would be within the realm of possibilities that he would call me. In fact I know he would.

  Carl is not a bad looking guy. He is tall, relatively fit, black hair and very, very white teeth. He smiles a lot. He smiles because he loves his job. I don’t mean like, I mean love. If he could get me to stay here with him every night I think that this would be his perfect world. I could describe in detail what had happened to every torn up mess that came through the door and Carl would no longer have to just make educated guesses. His life would be complete. In my mind I call him Creepy Carl.

  Trevor positions himself between Carl and I, bless him, and we head back to see vic 4. I try not to put names with victims because it makes it more personal. Carl pulls out the drawer and moves back the sheet. Except for her coloring and the slightly open eyes she could be asleep. She is beautiful.

  Carl steps back and waits for me to touch her forehead. He is positively ghoulish. He also knows better than to talk to me with Tre
vor there. Three years ago he and the captain had a short talk and Carl came back even paler than usual. After that the weird questions stopped.

  I reach out and get it over with. The hardest part is starting. No, I take that back. It is all hard. My hand settles on her forehead and I brace myself. Nothing. I never get nothing. With my left hand on her forehead I put my right on her hand. Nothing. It’s like she didn’t even die. She just left. There are no memories at all. Nothing. It’s like talking to a bag of sand. This has never happened to me. The dead don’t lie and they always say something. Even if they don’t know who shot them they will tell you that they had been shot. You get a picture and the “story” of their last or strongest memories. Vic 4 gives me silence.

  Carl is confused and Trevor is looking concerned.

  I step back and say, “I got nothing…literally nothing.”

  Carl offers to get me another body and Trevor growls at him. Trevor can be a really scary person. I thank Carl for his time and offer him my biggest beauty contestant smile. We will need to be let in at night in the future and Carl does at least make it easy. The smile may have been two much but I am mommy’s girl and I know how to work it. Or at least how it works.

  When we get back to the car Trevor takes the long way back. I know he is waiting for me to explain and I would but I have no idea what just happened. Everyone has at least one memory and the newer or stronger ones are easiest to hear. Usually with a murder victim how they died is the first thing to come forward.

  Trevor breaks first, “What happened?”

  “Nothing. I heard absolutely nothing. It was like she had never lived there at all. Like she left and took everything with her. I didn’t even see a birthday. She was a blank.” I am trying to cover how shaken I am but Trevor knows me. It sucks.

  “Do you need to leave early? I can take you back to your Gran’s?”

  “No, I’m fine, and my new dad is picking me up for dinner at the station. Me, Radly and Mr. Stevens have dinner plans.”

  Trevor thinks for a minute and offers to go with me. I really should give him a chance. He is by far the nicest person I know and if he didn’t scare the holy living shit out of me he would also be the hottest. But I can’t. Not tonight anyway. Trevor looks away and tells me to make my new dad take me somewhere nice. He knows he did not have to say that. I am mommy’s girl.

  When we get back to the station I make a straight shot for my office. I really need to explain our “station”. It is not a normal police station in any since of the word. Usually a police station would be more open and only officers would have offices. A new building opened twenty five years ago and at that time old one was set for demolition. It was only then that someone realized that they had “forgotten” to build room for the Odd Squad.

  We were stuck in an old city building that had never been torn down, and I am not joking, because it had way too much asbestos. So in addition to my own very tiny office I have an increased chance of cancer and no real heating or cooling. On days like this I will take it because I need a door way more than a bunch of questions about how I am now a broken necromancer. I wonder if I will start to have performance anxiety.

  As I am sitting down I see that someone has sent me another file. This one is in a sealed envelope. I open it and it is the first three Vic’s phone records. Whoever collected them just shoved them in an envelope and sent them to us without even looking. This case was creeping someone out.

  It was then I remembered that I didn’t look at her feet. The unusual blood pooling. I should have looked at it. I know what it should look like but not what it actually did look like. I call the Boring Brigade and ask to speak to the name on the envelope. He answers on the third ring, they usually don’t answer at all. He wants to get rid of this thing bad. I ask for any postmortem photos he might have and he says he will email them right over and hangs up on me. WTF. Don’t make me go over there.

  Within three minutes I have the first three photo files and I wish I didn’t. The pictures are from the scene and the coroners reports. All three have the pooling pattern described in the report but words do not do it justice. This is not just dependent lividity, this is like they were walking upright after death. The feet are black and very badly swollen. Some even appear to have cracked. Now I am creeped out.

  The eyes are wrong too. It is not mentioned in the report but it definitely is clearly visible in the pictures. They seem way too dried out and have opacities covering the retinas. Now that I am really looking the faces are even wrong. Stained and pulled tight. Like a really bad face lift or a dehydrated corpse. All of these girls had been walky talky less than eight hours before they were found. I agree with the coroner’s report. They may have been up and walking but they were dead.

  I email the photos to Trevor just as Mr. Stevens calls me to say that they are out front when I am ready. It is already 11pm. Only thirteen hours since the telemarketer called, for some reason I feel that a lot has changed.

  Chapter 4: Daddy’s Little Girl

  Jan was right, Mr. Stevens is loaded. No ring either. I will tell her first thing when I drag in tomorrow. They are waiting in a limo outside our rundown, crappy station. It looks funny. The other buildings around ours have been renovated to period. About 1920, but our building really is period. Like no one has touched the outside since 1920. It really does stand out but I never really notice until I see someone else looking at it. It makes me laugh.

  Dinner with the boys was both interesting and very insulting. It turns out that Mr. Stevens is my biological father. His name is even on my birth certificate. The real one. Not the one mommy dearest provided me.

  Turns out that Granny Stevens was a first rate bitch who put my mom to shame. It turns out that I had not only been a “mistake” but an embarrassment to her. This could not be tolerated. They are very well known local family and Stevens was their golden boy. When I came along his mommy had him shipped off to military school. He was a junior in high school just like my mom. The late Mrs. Stevens then set up an agreement with my mother to pay handsomely for my upbringing. The only caveat being that I never know about my father and that he never now about me. I had never seen a dime of what had been sent and it was a shit ton of dimes. I am furious.

  Stevens had been told that I had been put up for adoption and that since he was a minor at the time he had no say. This was not true but by the time he figured it out his mother convinced him that it had been a closed adoption and that I was with a loving family. He needed to stay away for my sake. What a fucking bitch!!!

  At least it explained how my mom had maintained her lavish life style in the early years. I always thought it was Gran’s money.

  So in a nut shell both my parents had disappeared when I was born and left me to raise Gran and Poppi by myself. Gran had turned out relatively well considering she was an alcoholic when I got her and Poppi is, to the best of my knowledge, still a complete disaster. In my defense the first few years I was still learning not to crap my pants and hold a spoon but by the time I was four or five years old I really was a decent care giver. I just didn’t have a lot to work with. I do not blame me. I blame the system.

  I really should explain about Poppi. He was what would probably be called an Incubi. It is almost like a spiritual vampire, they feed on emotion. Specifically strong ones like love or lust or even just attraction. No one could say no to Poppi and as far as I know he never even tried to say no to anyone. I think he really did love Gran but he just couldn’t keep it in his pants and after about twenty years she couldn’t keep him in the house. As far as I know Poppi’s only majik power was getting more stray tail then the local dog catcher but he might have been able to do other things, too. I doubt I will ever know.

  Back to tonight. I am pissed. I mean really, really royally pissed. Mr. Radly wants to talk about the will and I tell him don’t want any of it. He can give it to charity, buy cocaine and hookers with it or even just waste it. I do not care.

  Then he says the amount
and that it is in a trust for me. I sit back down. That is a lot of hookers and cocaine. We could start a cartel. I never really wanted a cartel.

  I thank them for their time and tell Mr. Radly that I trust he can figure something out because I do not want it. Then just as I am standing up to leave Mr. Stevens says something I cannot ignore.

  He says, “Please, just one more thing. You have a younger brother and he is missing.” Fuck.

  I sit back down.

  Long story short military school became law school in LA became public defender in St. Louis. He married a fellow law student they had one child, a boy and when his mom was diagnosed with cancer they moved back to San Francisco. She passed, drug problem started and my brother disappeared. Fuck. Somewhere in the city where I am a cop my younger brother has been missing and I did not even know.

  The only reason I know now was because my Bitch Grandmother died and had felt guilty enough to put me in her will.

  I agree to meet my dad the following day for lunch alone. We will talk about it then but I needed to get to the station. My mom had really just gone too far. The fact that she had deprived me of a mother was one thing, it was her right and I could deal with it. But she had taken everything and she had done it for money and then acted like I was an embarrassment, like we were beneath her. I am going to show her what an embarrassment I am.

  I tell them that my car is still parked at the station and since neither of them know me they could not know I am lying, which is a bonus I guess. I don’t have a car. I have never even really driven a car. I have tried a couple of times and let’s just say it ended really badly. As soon as they drop me off I am up the stairs and into my office. Trevor is still here and I have to get in and out without him seeing. I grab my firearm and a clip out of my top drawer. I never carry my gun and I only use it to recertify so I am not the greatest shot but for what I want to do I don’t have to be.