Kitty's Mix-Tape Page 22

  “What’s your name?”

  “Pete. Uh . . . Pete Teller.”

  “Did you know Dora Manuel?”

  “That Mexican lady across the street? The one who got killed?”

  “Filipina, but yes.”

  “No, didn’t know the lady at all. Saw her sometimes.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “Maybe a few days ago. Yeah, like four days ago, going inside the house at dinnertime.”

  Patton’s background file said that Manuel didn’t own a car. She rode the bus to her job at a dry cleaners. Pete would have seen her walking home.

  “Did you see anyone else? Maybe anyone who looked like they didn’t belong?”

  “No, no one. Not ever. Lady kept to herself, you know?”

  Yeah, she did. She asked a few more standard witness questions, and he gave the standard answers. She gave him her card and asked him to call if he remembered anything, or if he heard anything. Asked him to tell his roommates to do the same.

  The family two doors south of Manuel was also Filipino. Hardin was guessing the tired woman who opened the door was the mother of a good-sized family. Kids were screaming in a back room. The woman was shorter than Hardin by a foot, and brown-skinned, and her black hair was tied in a ponytail. She wore a blue T-shirt and faded jeans.

  Hardin flashed her badge. “I’m Detective Hardin, Denver PD. Could I ask you a few questions?”

  “Is this about Dora Manuel?”

  This encouraged Hardin. At least someone around here had actually known the woman. “Yes. I’m assuming you heard what happened?”

  “It was in the news,” she said.

  “How well did you know her?”

  “Oh, I didn’t, not really.”

  So much for the encouragement. “Did you ever speak with her? Can you tell me the last time you saw her?”

  “I don’t think I ever talked to her. I’m friends with Betty Arcuna, who owns the house. I knew her when she lived in the neighborhood. I kept an eye on the house for her, you know, as much as I could.”

  “Then did you ever see any suspicious activity around the house? Any strangers, anyone who looked like they didn’t belong?”

  She pursed her lips and shook her head. “No, not really, not that I remember.”

  A sound, like something heavy falling from a shelf, crashed from the back of the house. The woman just sighed.

  “How many kids do you have?” Hardin asked.

  “Five,” she said, looking even more tired.

  Hardin saw movement over the mother’s shoulder. The woman looked. Behind her, leaning against the wall like she was trying to hide behind it, was a girl—a young woman, rather. Sixteen or seventeen. Wide-eyed, pretty. Give her another couple of years to fill out the curves and she’d be beautiful.

  “This is my oldest,” the woman said.

  “You mind if I ask her a few questions?”

  The young woman shook her head no, but her mother stepped aside. Hardin expected her to flee to the back of the house, but she didn’t.

  “Hi,” Hardin said, trying to sound friendly without sounding condescending. “I wondered if you could tell me anything about Ms. Manuel.”

  “I don’t know anything about her,” she said. “She didn’t like kids messing in her yard. We all stayed away.”

  “Can you remember the last time you saw her?”

  She shrugged. “A few days ago, maybe.”

  “You know anyone who had it in for her? Maybe said anything bad about her or threatened her? Sounds like the kids around here didn’t like her much.”

  “No, nothing like that,” she said.

  Hardin wasn’t going to get anything out of her, though the girl looked scared. Maybe she was just scared of whatever had killed Manuel. The mother gave Hardin a sympathetic look and shrugged, much like her daughter had.

  Hardin got the names—Julia Martinal and her daughter Teresa. She gave them a card. “If you think of anything, let me know.”

  Two houses down was an older, angry white guy.

  “It’s about time you got here and did something about those Mexicans,” he said when Hardin showed him her badge.

  “I’m sorry?” Hardin said, playing dumb, seeing how far the guy would carry this.

  “Those Mexican gang wars, they got no place here. That’s what happened, isn’t it?”

  She narrowed her gaze. “Have you seen any Mexican gangs in the area? Any unusual activity, anything you think is suspicious? Drivebys, strange people loitering?”

  “Well, I don’t get up in other people’s business. I can’t say that I saw anything. But that Mexican broad was killed, right? What else could have happened?”

  “What’s your name, sir?” Hardin said.

  He hesitated, lips drawing tight, as if he was actually considering arguing with her or refusing to tell. “Smith,” he said finally. “John Smith.”

  “Mr. Smith, did you ever see anyone at Dora Manuel’s house? Anyone you’d be able to pick out of a lineup?”

  He still looked like he’d eaten something sour. “Well, no, not like that. I’m not a spy or a snitch or anything.”

  She nodded comfortingly. “I’m sure. Oh, and Mr. Smith? Dora Manuel was Filipina, not Mexican.”

  She gave him her card, as she had with the others, and asked him to call her. Out of all the people she’d left cards with today, she bet Smith would be the one to call. And he’d have nothing useful for her.

  She didn’t get much out of any of the interviews.

  “I’m sorry, I never even knew what her name was.”

  “She kept to herself, I didn’t really know her.”

  “She wasn’t that friendly.”

  “I don’t think I was surprised to hear that she’d died.”

  In the end, rather than having any solid leads on what had killed her, Hardin walked away with an image of a lonely, maybe even ostracized woman with no friends, no connections, and no grief lost at her passing. People with that profile were usually pegged as the killers, not the victims.

  She sat in her car for a long time, letting her mind drift, wondering which lead she’d missed and what connection she’d have to make to solve this thing. The murder wasn’t random. In fact, it must have been carefully planned, considering the equipment involved. So the body had been moved, maybe. There still ought to be evidence of that at the crime scene—tire tracks, foot prints, blood. Maybe the techs had come up with something while she was out here dithering.

  The sun was setting, sparse streetlights coming on, their orange glow not doing much to illuminate past the trees. Not a lot of activity went on. A few lights on in a few windows. No cars moving.

  She stepped out of the car and started walking.

  Instead of going straight through the gate to the backyard, she went around the house and along the fence to the alley behind the houses, a narrow path mostly haunted by stray cats. She caught movement out of the corner of her eye; paused and looked, caught sight of small legs and a tail. She flushed and her heart sped up, in spite of herself. She knew it was just a cat. But her hindbrain thought of the other creatures with fur she’d seen in back alleys. The monsters.

  She came into Manuel’s yard through a back gate. The shed loomed before her, seeming to expand in size. She shook the image away. The only thing sinister about the shed was her knowledge of what had been found there. Other houses had back porch lights on. She could hear TVs playing. Not at Manuel’s house. The lights were dark, the whole property still, as if the rest of the street had vanished, and the site existed in a bubble. Hardin’s breathing suddenly seemed loud.

  She couldn’t see much of anything in the dark. No footprints, not a stray thread of cloth. She didn’t know what she was hoping to find.

  One thing she vowed she’d never do was call in a psychic to work a case. But standing in the backyard of Manuel’s residence at night, she couldn’t help wondering if she’d missed something simply because it wasn’t visib
le to the mundane eye. Could a psychic stand here and see some kind of magical aura? Maybe follow a magical trail to the person who’d committed the crime?

  The real problem was—how would she know she was hiring an actual psychic? Hardin was ready to believe just about anything, but that wouldn’t help her figure out what had happened here.

  The next day, she made a phone call. She had at least one more resource to try.

  Hardin came to the supernatural world as a complete neophyte, and she had to look for advice wherever she could, no matter how odd the source, or how distasteful. Friendly werewolves, for example. Or convicted felons.

  Cormac Bennett styled himself a bounty hunter specializing in the supernatural. He freely admitted he was a killer, though he claimed to only kill monsters—werewolves, vampires, and the like. A judge had recently agreed with him, at least about the killer part, and sentenced Bennett to four years for manslaughter. It meant that Hardin now had someone on hand who might be able to answer her questions. She’d requested the visit and asked that he not be told it was her because she didn’t want him to say no to the meeting. They’d had a couple of run-ins—truthfully, she was a little disappointed that she hadn’t been the one who got to haul him in on charges of attempted murder, at the very least.

  When he sat down and saw her through the glass partition, he muttered, “Christ.”

  “Hello,” she said, rather pleased at his reaction. “You look terrible, if you don’t mind me saying.” It wasn’t that he looked terrible; he looked like any other con, rough around the edges, tired, and seething. He had shadows under his eyes. That was a lot different than he’d looked the last time she’d seen him, poised and hunting.

  “What do you want?”

  “I have to be blunt, Mr. Bennett,” she said. “I’m here looking for advice.”

  “Not sure I can help you.”

  Maybe this had been a mistake. “You mean you’re not sure you will. Maybe you should let me know right now if I’m wasting my time. Save us both the trouble.”

  “Did Kitty tell you to talk to me?”

  As a matter of fact, Kitty Norville had suggested it. Kitty the werewolf. Hardin hadn’t believed it either, until she saw it. It was mostly Kitty’s fault Hardin had started down this path. “She said you might know things.”

  “Kitty’s got a real big mouth,” Bennett said wryly.

  “How did you two even end up friends?” Hardin said. “You wanted to kill her.”

  “It wasn’t personal.”

  “Then, what? It got personal?” Hardin never understood why Kitty had just let the incident go. She hadn’t wanted to press charges. And now they were what, best friends?

  “Kitty has a way of growing on you.”

  Hardin smiled, just a little, because she knew what he was talking about. Kitty had a big mouth, and it made her charming rather than annoying. Most of the time.

  She pulled a folder from her attaché case, drew out the eight-by-ten crime-scene photos, and held them up to the glass. “I have a body. Well, half a body. It’s pretty spectacular and it’s not in any of the books.”

  Bennett studied the photos a long time, and she waited, watching him carefully. He didn’t seem shocked or disgusted. Of course he didn’t. He was curious. Maybe even admiring? She tried not to judge. This was like Manuel’s shed; she only saw Bennett as sinister because she knew what he was capable of.

  “What the hell?” he said finally. “How are they even still standing? Are they attached to something?”

  “No,” she said. “I have a set of free-standing legs attached to a pelvis, detached cleanly above the fifth lumbar vertebra. The wound is covered with a layer of table salt that appears to have caused the flesh to scorch. Try explaining that one to my captain.”

  “No thanks,” he said. “That’s your job. I’m just the criminal reprobate.”

  “So you’ve never seen anything like this.” “Hell, no.”

  “Have you ever heard of anything like this?” She’d set the photos flat on the table. He was still studying them.

  “No. You have any leads at all?”

  “No. We’ve ID’d the body. She was Filipina, a recent immigrant. We’re still trying to find the other half of the body. There has to be another half somewhere, right?”

  He sat back, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t bet on it.”

  “You’re sure you don’t know anything? You’re not just yanking my chain out of spite?”

  “I get nothing out of yanking your chain. Not here.”

  Scowling, she put the photos back in her case. “Well, this was worth a try. Sorry for wasting your time.”

  “I’ve got nothing but time.”

  He was yanking her chain, she was sure of it. “If you think of anything, if you get any bright ideas, call me.” As the guard arrived to escort him back to his cell, she said, “And get some sleep. You look awful.”

  Hardin was at her desk, looking over the latest reports from the crime lab. Nothing. They hadn’t had rain, the ground was hard, so no footprints. No blood. No fibers. No prints on the shed. Someone wearing gloves had cut off the lock in order to stuff half the body inside—then hadn’t bothered to lock the shed again. The murderer had simply closed the door and vanished.

  The phone rang, and she answered, frustrated and surly. “Detective Hardin.”

  “Will you accept the charges from Cormac Bennett at the Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility?”

  It took her a moment to realize what that meant. She was shocked. “Yes, I will. Hello? Bennett?”

  “Manananggal,” he said. “Don’t ask me how to spell it.”

  She wrote down the word, sounding it out as best she could. The Internet would help her find the correct spelling. “Okay, but what is it?”

  “Filipino version of the vampire.”

  That made no sense. But really, did that matter? It made as much sense as anything else. It was a trail to follow. “Hot damn,” she said, suddenly almost happy. “The victim was from the Philippines. It fits. So the suspect was Filipino, too? Do Filipino vampires eat entire torsos, or what?”

  “No,” he said. “That body is the vampire, the manananggal. You’re looking for a vampire hunter.”

  Her brain stopped at that one. “Excuse me?”

  “These creatures, these vampires—they detach the top halves of their bodies to hunt. They’re killed when someone sprinkles salt on the bottom half. They can’t return to reattach to their legs, and they die at sunrise. If they’re anything like European vampires, the top half disintegrates. You’re never going to find the rest of the body.”

  Well. She still wouldn’t admit that any of this made sense, but the pieces fit. The bottom half, the salt burns. Never mind—she was still looking for a murderer here, right?

  “Detective?” Cormac said.

  “Yeah, I’m here,” she said. “This fits all the pieces we have. Looks like I have some reading to do to figure out what really happened.”

  He managed to sound grim. “Detective, you might check to see if there’ve been a higher than usual number of miscarriages in the neighborhood.”

  “Why?”

  “I used the term ‘vampire’ kind of loosely. This thing eats fetuses. Sucks them through the mother’s navel while she sleeps.”

  She almost hung up on him because it was too much. What was it Kitty sometimes said? Just when you thought you were getting a handle on the supernatural, just when you thought you’d seen it all, something even more unbelievable came along.

  “You’re kidding.” She sighed. “So, what—this may have been a revenge killing? Who’s the victim here?”

  “You’ll have to figure that one out yourself.”

  “Isn’t that always the way?” she muttered. “Hey—now that we know you really were holding out on me, what made you decide to remember?”

  “Look, I got my own shit going on and I’m not going to try to explain it to you.”

  She was pretty sure she di
dn’t really want to know. “Fine. Okay. But thanks for the tip, anyway.”

  “Maybe you could put in a good word for me,” he said.

  She supposed she owed him the favor. Maybe she would after she got the whole story of how he ended up in prison in the first place. Then again, she pretty much thought he belonged there. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  She hung up, found a phone book, and started calling hospitals.

  Hardin called every hospital in downtown Denver. Every emergency room, every ob-gyn, free clinic, and even Planned Parenthood. She had to do a lot of arguing.

  “I’m not looking for names, I’m just looking for numbers. Rates. I want to know if there’s been an increase in the number of miscarriages in the downtown Denver area over the last three years. No, I’m not from the EPA. Or from 60 Minutes. This isn’t an exposé, I’m Detective Hardin with Denver PD and I’m investigating a case. Thank you.”

  It took some of them a couple of days to get back to her. When they did, they seemed just as astonished as she was: Yes, miscarriage rates had tripled over the last three years. There had actually been a small decline in the local area’s birth rate.

  “Do I need to worry?” one doctor asked her. “Is there something in the water? What is this related to?”

  She hesitated about what to tell him. She could tell the truth—and he would never believe her. It would take too long to explain, to try to persuade him. “I’m sorry, sir, I can’t talk about it until the case is wrapped up. But there’s nothing to worry about. Whatever was causing this has passed, I think.”

  He didn’t sound particularly comforted, and neither was she. Because what else was out there? What other unbelievable crisis would strike next?

  Hardin knocked on the Martinals’ front door. Julia Martinal, the mother, answered again. On seeing the detective, her expression turned confused. “Yes?”

  “I just have one more question for you, Mrs. Martinal. Are you pregnant?”

  “No.” She sounded offended, looking Hardin up and down as if to say, how dare you?

  Hardin took a deep breath and carried on. “I’m sorry for prying into your personal business, but I have some new information. About Dora Manuel.”