“No,” Fitzwater said. “None.”
“We’ll need your phone number so we can contact you.”
“Ain’t got no phone. I hitchhiked to the Liquor Mart and back, used the pay phone there to call y’awl. Got no need for a phone.”
Kurt clapped his metal report book shut. “I’ll come back when things start to develop.”
It was almost scary the way Fitzwater looked at him then— a deserted, definitive gaze, like being evaluated by a statue. “I don’t care,” Fitzwater said. “You just find my Donna.”
««—»»
Four a.m. crept up with the stealth of a snake. His first twelve-hour shift in years, yet it seemed to have passed in a handful of hours. Earlier he’d processed the missing persons report through the county and state, glad that the unusual aspects of Donna Fitzwater’s disappearance would expedite the 85. The remainder of his shift had elapsed in a black lament; his mind forced thoughts of Cody Drucker, of Swaggert, of the paralyzed girl. The Fitzwater case pushed Drucker to a back burner; it was abduction, Kurt knew, not kidnapping. No one would kidnap the daughter of a man who had no money to forfeit for ransom. Kurt suspected darker motives here, motives that made him sick; the possibility was heinously typical—Donna Fitzwater would probably turn up in a few days, murdered, sexually mauled. Cheap tabloid headlines stretched across his mind: CRIPPLED GIRL FOUND DEAD IN CULVERT, or something hackishly similar. TORTURED WITH COAT HANGERS AND RAPED FOR DAYS. And of course Swaggert, more than likely lying dead somewhere in the dripping woods. Kurt couldn’t escape the sinister hint; whatever had happened to Swaggert could just as easily happen to him.
His headlights swept across the house. He pulled up and parked the Ford, expecting to find the house dark; but then he saw the familiar dull orange light filling one of the downstairs windows. So far his attempts to break Melissa of television addiction had failed utterly. He knew she was up right now, no doubt transfixed by the all-night horror movies on cable.
He used his flashlight to show him the way up the porch steps. Melissa must’ve heard him park; she opened the door and let him in before he even had his keys out. The TV muttered from the family room, throwing slants of ghostly, shifting color onto the walls.
Melissa locked the door at once. She seemed distracted by some complex worry; her face had lost the mischievous smirk he was so used to. Her long ink-black hair shivered as she turned, her thin body moving wraithlike under a dreary white nightgown. The flickering light from the other room lit points in her eyes like sparks.
“What are you doing up?” Kurt demanded, trying to sound harsh. He felt obligated to scold her with her father away. His only chance to play big brother.
Her face looked tiny in the half-light, her hair more like black silk draped over her head. “I think I figured it out,” she said, lips barely moving as though she spoke through a mask.
“Figured out what?”
“Vampires.”
Kurt stared a moment, then wearily rubbed his eyes. “Damn it, Melissa. You’ve been into your father’s liquor cabinet again, haven’t you?”
“I’m serious, Kurt. That’s how come Swaggert disappeared. Vampires got him.”
“Sure, vampires. I suppose they dug up Cody Drucker’s body, too, right? Just what every vampire needs.”
“Dummy,” she said. “They didn’t want his body; they wanted his coffin. Vampires sleep in coffins—everybody knows that. If I were you, I’d get some protection fast.” From under the top of her nightgown she slipped out a small, chained crucifix and let it swing from her fingers. “See? I got nothing to worry about, ’cause vampires can’t face the sign of the cross.”
“What did I tell you about those horror movies you watch?” he said. “They’re making you retarded.”
“You think I’m joking, but just you wait. This time tomorrow I’ll bet you have yourself a mouthful of fangs.”
He turned for the stairs, waving her away like a bad joke. “Go to bed before you become a battered child.”
“Not so fast, you have a visitor. In the den.”
At this hour? “Who?”
An impish grin suddenly darkened Melissa’s face. “That girl you have a crush on. She’s been here almost two hours, said she’d wait. She seemed kind of uptight about something.”
Kurt stood on the first step, puzzled. “It’s four in the morning. I wonder what she wants.”
“You’re never going to find out unless you ask her, putz.”
Kurt stepped for the door to the den, but Melissa grabbed his arm first, tugging him back. “Be careful,” she said.
“Why?”
Melissa lowered her voice to an exasperated whisper. “She might be one of the vampires, stupid.”
“I’ll vampire you if you don’t get your butt in bed,” he had to restrain from shouting. “And I mean now.”
In the den, dark yellow incandescence filled most of the room from a single shaded lamp in the corner. Uncle Roy’s Carpathian Elm grandfather clock ticked softly opposite. Vicky was sitting in the recliner beside the lamp, a book opened in her lap, and her head nodding forward. She was asleep.
Kurt gently prodded her shoulder, certain he would see new bruises on her face, but when she opened her eyes and looked up, he found none.
“Kurt,” she said. “I must’ve dozed off.” She winced and tried to blink the sleep from her eyes.
“Is everything all right?”
“Yes…well, no. Something…”
He took the book out of her lap and put it aside. “Lenny didn’t—”
“No, no,” she said, now finally coming awake. “It’s not Lenny. I haven’t seen him in a day and a half, thank God.”
“What then?”
“I really shouldn’t even be bothering you about something dumb,” she said, and nervously pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Never mind about bothering me. What happened?”
Vicky took a heavy breath, her eyes fixed bleakly on the window. “It must’ve happened last night… After I’d gone to bed, I heard noises in the backyard, so I got up and looked out—and I saw someone back there standing just in front of the trees. I was really scared at first, but whoever it was left a second later, and I figured it was just some kids or something.” She was tying her jacket cord into useless knots; she scarcely blinked. “Remember I told you Brutus died the other day? Well, I buried him in the backyard, about the same place I saw this person.”
“Yeah?”
“Kurt, somebody dug up my dog.”
— | — | —
CHAPTER SEVEN
By 7:00 a.m. the sun radiated as a huge orb of molten light; it nudged its way into the sky, tinting the fringes of the horizon with what seemed like layers of orange and pink liquid. Glen downshifted a gear, then took the security truck up the narrow gravel lane toward the mansion. He could feel the gearbox straining against the deceptive incline. From the bottom, the hill didn’t seem very steep, but then it was a funny hill; it reminded him of a bald spot, a vast risen clearing in the center of Belleau Wood’s surrounding forest belt. Atop, the house sat sentinel-like in the new morning light, as if put there to watch over the property.
Nearing the top, the hill’s cant leveled. Through the bug-spotted windshield, he watched the mansion grow to ominous size. It seemed to defy the morning’s calm, its front shadowed by the blaze of sun which crept up from behind. It wasn’t really a mansion—though townspeople often called it that—but an ugly oversized farmhouse with a bare wood wraparound porch, two protruding bay windows on the lower level that clashed achingly with its design, and a roof which seemed to slope unevenly. Dr. Willard’s restoration was no more impressive than a bad facelift; its oldness strained beneath new paint and trim. The house looked fake, atrophied. Glen decided that if he had Willard’s money, he’d have the whole thing knocked down and replaced with a real mansion.