An Apple for the Creature Read online

—

  They broke for lunch, served in the academy cafeteria. The intelligence officers sat away from the fifty or so basic law enforcement recruits who were also in session, and mingled only at the salad bar. The three instructors hung back a bit, as the eight from their intelligence class went through the line.

  “How ya think it’s going so far?” asked Ben as they watched the class fill their trays.

  “We got their attention,” said George.

  “You see the one I mentioned?” asked Norma.

  “The one from Iowa City?”

  “Yes. Detective Dillman. Louise Dillman. She’s the one we want,” said Norma. “Sure of it. Her chief agrees.”

  “Well, good enough, then,” said Ben. “She’s sure the right type.”

  “Really pretty,” said George.

  Norma elbowed him. “Not pertinent. Dirty old man.”

  “Not dirty,” he said, affectionately. “Pretty isn’t pertinent as a qualifier, but it’s gotta be difficult to blend those looks into the general population, though. That’s what I meant.”

  “I’ve seen her undercover,” said Ben, “and trust me, you wouldn’t recognize her.”

  “Really?” said Norma. “Then how did you know it was her?”

  “The way she nibbled my ear,” said Ben.

  “You’re both awful.”

  “Who’s got the dirty mind, here, I ask you? No, really, though. All made up, straight black hair, not blond like it is now. Fake piercings. Fake tattoos. Tank top. Boots. Wouldn’t recognize her unless she showed you her ID.”

  “Memorable, huh?” said Norma. “Working Johns undercover?”

  “Not really. Posing as an art major, working burglaries from student housing.”

  —

  The rest of Monday and all of Tuesday and Wednesday were taken up by flowcharts, relational databases, Facebook and Twitter accounts, blogs, alerting reports to be forwarded to the intelligence analysts, and the need to know and right to know criteria for this type of investigation. Dull, often repetitious, but vital to maintaining the confidentiality and restricting the dissemination of the material they would be developing in such cases. All examples, however, were taken from actual cases, and that helped alleviate the boredom.

  Ben’s closing statement at 1630 hours on Wednesday consisted of three sentences: “Tomorrow we do the media relations stuff in the morning, and then we split up and do some practical stuff in teams. Normal street dress. Have ID, but don’t display it.”

  —

  The eight students had been under a rather loose surveillance themselves, and had been dividing up into groups of three and five to go out to dinner, and then entertain themselves for the evening. The group of three tended to go to a movie, while the group of five tended to party at local bars until closing time. Detective Louise Dillman, of the Iowa City Police Department, was a prominent member of the latter group.

  —

  As the instructors gathered for their own supper and entertainment, they discussed Detective Dillman.

  “How do we want to handle breaking the news to her?” asked George.

  “We,” said Norma, “thought you should be the one to do it.”

  “Oh, nope. Not me.” George looked at his two friends. “Well, then, why me? Ben, you could do it easily. Norma, you’d be perfect for the job. I’m just an old fart with some stories.”

  “But you discovered it.”

  “You were right there, right after Ben. Hell, it couldn’t have been more than an hour or so.”

  “Yeah. But you were there first, and you’d be the best for this. Firsthand is always best.”

  George sighed. “How much do I drop on her?”

  “Just lay it out, within reason,” said Norma. “Ben and I’ll take the others on the field trip. You just get her in a quiet place, and then take her to where she can observe while you talk. That ought to do it.”

  “What if I become aware,” asked George, “as this thing goes down, that we’re wrong about this?”

  “About her, you mean?”

  “Yeah, Ben. About her. Her qualifications. That’s why you should do this.”

  “Norma and I picked her,” said Ben. “Too close to the subject. Got to be you.”

  “And if you decide she’s not the one we want, then just slow it down, or minimize it, or whatever, and get out of it gracefully,” said Norma. “That’s what I meant by within reason. But that’s not gonna happen, my boy. She’s our girl.”

  George held up his beer glass. “That’s me, old graceful.” He took a drink. “Here’s to you being right,” he said.

  “You have doubts?” asked Norma. “Seriously?”

  George leaned back, and looked at both of them. He was silent for a few moments, and then heaved a sigh. “Oh . . . no. Not really. I think we’ve got the right one. Just, you know, err on the side of caution sort of stuff.”

  “Of course.” Ben pushed the chip bowl toward George. “Have some.”

  “Remember to bring your gun?” asked Norma.

  “Always do, Mom.” George picked up a chip.

  “Don’t start the mother crap,” said Norma. “We just want you to be safe. Take her in close, but not too close. She’s got to be allowed time to think.”

  “Got a plan,” said George. “I’m gonna rely on my instincts.”

  Norma shook her head. “Not that . . . please, not that.”

  “It’ll be fine,” said George. “Not to worry.” He cleared his throat. “How about ‘Ma’?”

  “Thin ice,” said Norma.

  “Just in case, better charge up your cell phone,” said Ben. “I’ve got a walkie-talkie for you, too. Radio’s much better if things go to hell on ya.”

  “Thanks.”

  —

  Thursday, after a nutritious, if bland, academy lunch, the three instructors introduced their class to two new instructors from the DCI. With lots of hustle and bustle and by the shuffling of assignments, it was doubtful that any of the class was particularly aware that only Detective Dillman had been paired with George.

  “What we gonna do, boss?” asked Dillman.

  “Call me George. Well, we’re gonna take my car, for starters. Hop in.”

  “Where we headed?”

  “Buckle up,” he said. “You drive like I do, it’s just smart.”

  She did so. “We assigned to some really bad guys?”

  “Possibly one of the worst.”

  He stopped at the intersection with the main base road, and glanced at her to see what effect that had had. He met the gaze of large blue eyes that seemed just a bit wider than usual. She was judging him, as well.

  “You’re serious.”

  “I am.” He pulled out, and headed for the highway.

  “Cool.”

  “I hope so,” he said. “It might be very late before we get back. You have any appointments, or plans to go out, or anything?”

  “Just pizza, whenever we get back.”

  “Okay. Well,” he said, turning south toward the interstate, “it starts gettin’ late, just call whoever it is and make an excuse.”

  “Sure.”

  “You got your gun?”

  “Yep. You think I actually might need it?”

  “Never can tell,” said George.

  “Oh, cool,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong, but this classroom routine was getting to be a little . . . ah . . .”

  “Dull?”

  “Yeah.”

  “This ought to take care of that,” he said. He took the East 80 on-ramp. “Everything from now on is completely classified. Class I Confidential. No notes. Not now, not afterward. You remember it all. No report to a superior. Somebody asks you for one regarding today, you refer ’em to me or Ben or Norma. Okay?”

  “Yes.” She sounded more serious now.

  “Nobody else in this class is getting this briefing. Nobody. Understood?”

  “Yes.” Her brow wrinkled, but she didn’t say anything else.

  �
��I’m taking you all the way back to Iowa City,” he said. He turned to look at her. “Surprised?”

  “Ah, yeah.” After a pause, she said, “I mean, I got that place wired, you know? Not sure there’s anything you can show me there that I don’t already know.”

  “Wait and see,” he said. “What I’m going to show you is something behind some of the things you know, and maybe some of the things you take for granted.”

  “What if somebody from my department spots us?”

  “You’re taking me around to show me some stuff for class,” said George. “Examples of your work.”

  She half giggled. “Wish I’d known you in high school.” She scooched down in her seat as far as the belt would allow. “Okay. What’re we gonna see?”

  “For starters, I’ll show you, or prove to you, or substantiate everything I’m going to tell you.”

  “Okay.”

  He drove in silence for a moment. “What do you know about vampires?”

  The silence resumed. He glanced over at her again, and saw her brows knit, her eyes regarding him with some suspicion.

  “Anything?”

  She finally said, “Well, just what I see in the movies, I guess.”

  He could tell from the tone of her voice that she was marking time, just to see where this was going.

  “They’re real.”

  “No, they’re not.”

  “Yes,” he said. “They are.”

  “Shut up!” She paused, and he said nothing. “You’re serious?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You mean, you know, live-action role players and that shit, right?”

  “Nope. Real. Absolutely, positively real.”

  “Oh, bullshit.”

  “Nope. True. Real. I’ve seen what they do. I’ve even seen one or two. We’ve been working this case for better than three years now.”

  “Three years?”

  “They’re what you might call elusive,” he said.

  “You actually . . .” she said, and then paused. “Okay, you want me to believe there are blood-sucking demons out there?”

  “Well, they don’t suck blood,” he said. “At least, not as far as we know. Now.”

  She sat in silence for about two miles. He didn’t look over, but he could feel her eyes on him. Finally she spoke.

  “I gotta say, that, you know, if it wasn’t for your credentials, if it wasn’t for the fact that this is an official class, if it wasn’t for the fact that I know there are some investigations that most of us never hear about, if . . .”

  “Accepted. Disclaimer accepted. Really don’t expect you to buy in all the way, not all at once. Just keep an open mind today, all right? We just don’t do theoreticals, not at this level.”

  She laughed. “Oh, yeah. Right.”

  —

  After a few moments, he began to explain the history of the investigation. How it had begun with a report presented to an Iowa State Medical Examiners’ annual meeting, where it had been reported that there had been a surge in the deaths of undergraduates at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, at Iowa State University in Ames, at Loras College in Dubuque, and at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls.

  “I mean, it wasn’t like the black plague was getting started up or anything,” he said. “But there were six students among them in the first year, five in the second, and eight in the third. All undergraduate females. All discovered deaths, all unexplained circumstances, and all with an unidentified substance in the system that was discovered, they told us, pretty much by accident. Not toxic, as far as they could tell. None of the stuff like Special K, or any known narcotic or stimulant substances. Nothing on the list of controlled substances.”

  “So, what did it turn out to be? I mean, I know those lab people. They had to identify it. Or at least make it a new classification. That’s the way they work,” she said.

  “Close as they’ve come so far,” he said, “is that it’s something like sort of a narcotic, or hypnotic, or whatever effect. Apparently naturally occurring stuff.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Yeah, sorry. I didn’t do all that well in chemistry. Closest they’ve come, they say, is kind of like a very exotic mammal’s venom.”

  “What?” She had been startled, and it just kind of slipped out.

  “That’s what they say.”

  “You’ve just gotta be shittin’ me.” She paused, then said, “Really? What kind of mammal? Hell, there aren’t any venomous mammals. . . .”

  “Kind of mammal? What, you think I’m some sort of biologist? Exotic, like I said. Best I can do for you. Anyhow, that’s as close as they can come,” he said. “We know where it came from, though, that’s for sure.”

  He drove on a few seconds. He glanced over and saw she was consulting her BlackBerry.

  “Callin’ somebody?”

  “Nope, on the ’net . . . Well, damn. There are venomous mammals. Shrews, for instance. Who knew?” She lowered her BlackBerry. “Point for you.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “So, these vampires are, like, related to shrews?”

  “Could be. Maybe by marriage?” He smiled.

  “You gonna tell me or what? What they really are.”

  “Vampires.”

  She gazed at him for several seconds. “The truth.”

  “Like I said. Vampires.”

  “Okay,” she said with a laugh. “This is some kind of initiation thing, right? Next is UFOs and crop circles?”

  He shook his head. “We’d never play games with an officer who was armed. Not when you’d maybe have to use it. We’re not screwing around, and we’re not screwing with your head. I just told you that.”

  “Yeah . . . in so many words, I guess you did.”

  They drove in silence again for a bit. “Remember the case you handled, about six months back? A girl named Claire . . . uh . . . B something.”

  “Claire Bennington,” she said. “Freshman from Newton. Found in her dorm room, dead. Unattended. No apparent causes . . .”

  “They attributed her death to ‘exhaustion,’ or some medical term for that,” he said. “But absolutely not anorexia. Too short-term for that. None of the eating disorders. Right?”

  “Yeah.” Louise thought back. “The body was discovered in the victim’s dorm room, just like you said. We got called by the medical examiner’s office because it was an unattended death. In a nearly fetal position, wrapped snugly in her sheet and blanket, with her pillow on her head, and her face turned to the wall. There were no marks of any remarkable sort on the body, except some small creases in her skin where it pressed into the sheets. Her lower side was mottled purple. Postmortem lividity, it was called, and it clearly indicated that she had died in that position.” Her voice had become mechanical, as she remembered. “The kid, Claire, was eighteen, with streaked blue and red hair. Faded blue flannel pajama bottoms covered with SpongeBob SquarePants, athletic socks, and a new Hawkeye sweatshirt.” She paused again, thinking. “Totally normal kid. Toxicology came back negative. Nothing. No blood alcohol, no dope in her or in the room, no prescription drugs other than some sinus medication used by her roommate. According to her driver’s license, she had been five feet six, and weighed 133 pounds. When they weighed the corpse, she came in at 102 pounds. Emaciated. Totally skin and bones. We asked around. Her parents hadn’t seen her for three months, but got phone calls about three times a week. When they were interviewed, provided no history of any eating disorders. Neither did her local doctor. The autopsy revealed no anomalies anywhere. She was a perfectly healthy, dead eighteen-year-old. Best we had to go on was her roommate said that Claire had been listless recently. Said that she had urged Claire to go to Student Health, because it might be mononucleosis. So I checked. No record of her going to Student Health. The pathologist ruled out mono anyway.” She snorted. “Along with anything else specific. Said it was a toss-up between sudden adult death syndrome and total exhaustion. In other words, they hadn’t a clue.
”

  “Great.”

  “Yeah. I admit it, that one bothered me. My niece had the same pajama bottoms.”

  “Ah.”

  “They told us that most cases of chronic fatigue really don’t have a discoverable root cause. Ranges from depression to overworking to dope to, well, none of it was present in the workups. Not anything specific.” She looked over at him. “How’d you get interested in her?”

  “Her case was referred to us,” said George. “Well, not referred, so much as her blood, kind of, got in the hands of one of our forensic pathologists. At the request of the pathologist in Iowa City. Our folks discovered minute traces of that venomlike stuff.”

  “Why wasn’t I told about that?” asked Louise, suddenly angry.

  “You just were,” said George. “And keep it to yourself, because not even your local pathologist has been told.”

  “It was murder, then,” she said.

  “Well, sort of.”

  “You can’t sort of murder somebody!”

  “Well, as it turns out, yes, you sort of can.”

  She stared at him, waiting for an explanation.

  “Well,” he said, “the attorney general’s office thinks there may be an outside chance that this critter may not actually be doing this intentionally. You know, kisses a girl, she goes all gaga, and whatever it is thinks, gee, I’m a great kisser.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Not as far as I’m concerned, anyway. But it’s something we have to settle before we can make it a crime. Act and the intent, ya know. Whatever we’re dealing with has to know, or reasonably anticipate the effect, and then do it anyway. Then it’s murder.”

  —

  They drove on, into a sky darkening with rain clouds. A thunderstorm, coming in from the northwest, was beating them to Iowa City.

  —

  “You’re gonna keep telling me it was a vampire who did these,” said Louise. “Right?”

  “Yeah.” George looked over at her. “Because it was.”

  She stared at him. “You are fuckin’ nuts.”

  “There are times when that would be a comfort,” he said, seriously. “You’re being told this because we hope you can be instrumental in our investigations. I know it’s not easy to buy in to this, but you pretty much have to, because it’s true.”