Chapter 13

By two in the afternoon we pretty much absorbed all the preliminary information available to us in Chapel Hill. Of course we hadn’t met the vampire, but all things in their time, I thought. It was likely that it would become necessary for me to return in a few days. At that moment I was thinking more of my home and bed than I was of vampires.

Besides with a case this cold nothing was ever likely to happen, and there was certainly no time limit on it not happening. I could go back to Triboro, as I thought of my town these days, and just enjoy myself for a couple of days. Alison drove the Buick carefully home. She couldn’t seem to get comfortable in her car’s well padded seat. She squirmed some trying to find a comfortable position. She definitely did not want to discuss the morning’s sexual experience.

As for me I was fine physically. I wanted to get a picture of Caroline in my mind, but all I had was a picture, of a picture, made with Alison’s phone. It made much better pictures than my retarded phone did. She was going to email me the image when we got home. I hoped she was still willing to do that, since she seemed a little miffed at me at the moment. That was the immediate problem, I thought about it during our drive. Fortunately the drive was only an hour and a half. I say that because Alison was getting more irritated with every passing minute.

When we arrived home, she dropped me in the parking lot with hardly a word. She then refused my offer to come in for a while. She was adamant about it. After she left, I pretty much spent the time checking for answers to my new questions. I looked on the internet, before I made a list of things to research further in the field.

Since Alison didn’t call, I figured she was pissed about something. There were lots of things she could be upset about. I decided that it would be better to wait to see what she brought up. I would hate to make apologies for the wrong thing. That would only make things worse, and probably weird as well.

It was after six when I began thinking about what I could do to create the leads. My first move was to contact my local ‘geek on call’.

“So what can I do for you today chief?” he asked.

“I am never going to get used to people knowing whose calling them, before I say a word. Anyway, I need you to run a couple of names for a criminal records checks. One is just his street name, so it might take a while, The other is a two year old murder victim.”

“Is the Vic two years old, or the Murder. Is it one of the murders I ran the other day?” he asked.

“Yes, Caroline Moore or Moorehouse. She might have been involved in some minor shit before her death. The other is a drug dealer with the street name of Vampire, or The Vampire. Send me an Email.” I said. the connection with the geek was terrible because of his scrambler, and his use of twenty re-routings of the call. I didn’t understand it all, but he knew his shit, so I trusted him.

Around five I started to think about dinner. I knew I could slip into The Haven’s restaurant, but I really didn’t want to go there. I wanted to go somewhere with a slightly younger crowd. Certainly not a crowd of men and women who never ever got their hands dirty.

So my choice was the cross roads diner. Back in the days, when I was the tiny town’s chief of police, I ate lunch there a lot. The drive out of town wasn’t too far, but on the scooter, and on the early spring evening, it seemed somehow longer. I tried not to dress to draw attention to myself, so I had on only one thermal layer, and one regular layer of clothing. It clearly wasn’t enough on the scooter. The forty mile an hour wind in my face was just too fucking cold. It was times like that when I missed my Rio.

The place was quiet at 6PM and I appreciated that. The owner’s name was Slim, because he weighed at least three hundred pounds. I spoke to him when I sat at the counter.

“So slim, where is pop tonight,” I asked.

“Pop had a stoke. He is out at Greystone trying to learn to feed himself again,” he said.

“Damn, I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll try to get by to see him,” I suggested.

“Chief, if I was you, I wouldn’t. He don’t like anybody to see him like he is now. He can’t talk very well, and he gets frustrated trying to have a conversation,” Slim said.

“Okay Slim, tell your dad I wish him well,” I said.

“I will do that, so what will you have?” he asked.

“How about your beef stew, the spicy version,” I suggested.

“So when is that TV show, you and the old timers wrote, coming on?” he asked.

“Last I heard, it was the end of summer,” I replied before I began to eat.

“I hear the new chief, of the combined towns, was pissed when the novel came out. I’ll bet he will be in Greystone with my dad when the TV show gets aired,” he said.

“Well I have no hard feeling, I hope he doesn’t take it that hard,” I replied. “I proved my point when I found Eve’s killer. I didn’t need to rub the chief’s nose in it.”

The noise level went up twenty percent when a group of four teenagers came into the place. I didn’t usually bother with shit like them, but I was finally getting warm and the beef stew was nice and spicy. I really just wanted to relax and enjoy myself.

“Hey old man, give me five bucks for the juke box,” the kid said to an older man and his wife at the window table.

“Shit,” I said to slim. “You gonna back my play?” He just nodded for an answer.

“Hey kid why don’t you go back to your own table and leave the other customers alone?” I suggested. My hand was on the half inch of steel rod sticking out of the side pocket of my painter’s jeans.

“Why don’t you fucking make me,” the kid said after coming over to where I stood. He moved his face to within a few inches of mine.