An Apple for the Creature

Academy Field Trip DONALD HARSTAD

Don Harstad is a retired deputy sheriff who lives in Elkader, Iowa, with his wife of forty-eight years and two foundling beagles. Don is the author of several novels, including Eleven Days, Known Dead, The Big Thaw, Long December, and Code 61. This is Don’s first short story, as well as his first venture into the paranormal. He found both experiences to be thoroughly enjoyable.

On Monday, June 7, 2006, a special one-week course began at the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy at Camp Dodge, just north of Des Moines. The course dealt with “Intelligence Techniques for Gathering Information from Nontraditional Sources, in Relation to Unusual and Unfamiliar Criminal Activities.” The course, as with all the intelligence courses, was by invitation only. There were three instructors and eight experienced officers as students.

The three instructors were Agent Benjamin Young, Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation; Special Agent Norma Jensen, Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Deputy Sheriff George Bauerkamper of Dubuque County. All three had been involved in intelligence investigations regarding unusual crimes, and all had at least fifteen years in law enforcement.

The instructors and students assembled in a small classroom that was set some distance from the basic classes, and began precisely at 0900.

Agent Young began. “Okay, okay, hold it down.” That got a laugh, as the room had been quiet. Young leaned on the podium, and said, “Okay. I know all of you. I don’t think all of you know these two,” and he gestured toward the man and woman behind him. “Norma there is with the FBI. George here’s with the Dubuque County Sheriff’s Department. They’ve done this type of investigation. They know their shit. That’s why they’re here. George busted a funeral home that was involved in necrophilia.” That drew a couple of snickers. “Not quite what you might think,” said Young. “George . . .”

The deputy stepped to the podium. He smiled. “Thanks, Ben. This wasn’t a case of some undertaker boinking a stiff,” he said. “This guy was pimping dead folks.”

He had their attention.

“It was a joint task force, the undertaker in question being in central Iowa. I was fortunate enough,” he said, with a wry grin, “to have one of his customers living in my county. This undertaker, he’d been renting the bodies to a group of necrophiliacs. Six in all. When he’d get their preferred sort of corpse, he’d make a couple of calls to the ones whose, ah, criteria had been met by the recently departed, and get five grand for an hour. Alone. With the deceased. Specials went for upwards of twenty-five thousand dollars for a night.” He stopped, and glanced around the room. “Anybody want to guess what a special was?”

Nobody moved.

“A special meant that he’d deliver the departed to your home, and make the pickup when you were done.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” said the Cedar Rapids officer.

“Getting information on this dude was kind of interesting,” said George. “We’ll be discussing that later.” He stepped back from the podium.

“Norma . . .” said Young, indicating it was her turn.

“The one I’m going to share with you,” she said, stepping forward, “involved a man we referred to as the ‘Tour Guide,’ who scouted, obtained, and provided various resorts for the use of several cults in the Southern states, who practiced fun things like pedophilia, demonology, and cannibalism.”

“Nice,” said the woman detective from Iowa City. “Dealt with fraternities, did he?”

That got a laugh, including from Norma. “I think mostly they were the parents of the frat rats,” she said. Another laugh. “Getting intel on him was a real challenge. Not even his clientele knew who he was, and almost none of them ever saw him. Payment in cash, at a dead drop.” She smiled briefly. “No pun intended. Anyway, never the same place twice. Never even the same city. I got to travel lots and lots for that one.”

“Okay, then,” said Ben. “And to tie it in, I was involved in both investigations. So, now you’ve got an idea of what we meant by unusual. Anybody working on one of those right now?”

Nobody was.

“That’s a relief. So, then we can concentrate on these cases. Okay, first of all . . .” He handed a stack of papers to the officer at the right front. “Pass these back. It’s sort of a syllabus, but we’ve kept it pretty vague. Understandably.”

“First thing we do,” said Young, “is define the scope of the investigation. That changes a lot as you go. Then the geographical area, because of jurisdictional stuff. Then describe the offense as well as we know it, and describe any participants or other involved parties. That changes, too. Then we target the weak links, and go for them. Start the dominoes falling, until we get to the top. Just like all intel investigations. Always simple, always easy, and always successful, right?” That was the last laugh of the morning.

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.”

“Right.” She pursed her lips. “Okay, so why are we headed to IC?”

“To show you the next victims, we think. The student body has lots of, ah, susceptible people.”

“So you know who is doing this?”

“We have, ah, indications. High degree of probability. We don’t have enough to support a charge against it, or him, or whatever. Not yet. But we will.”

“Give me a minute,” she said.

A light rain began as they were passing the Williamsburg Interchange, and she spoke again. “Okay. Background.”

“Thought you’d never ask,” he said. “That whole venomlike diagnosis thing? That got it started. It was referred to CDC in Atlanta. They told us, well, what to look for.”

“It’s nationwide?”

“Not quite. But they’ve found the same evidence in seven states. They described the circumstances of all the victims, including their social activities. Turns out that this venom shit is an STD, more or less.”

“Let me get this. . . . This vampire dude, he has venom instead of semen? He screws them to death, right? Come on. That’s just gross.”

“Oh, no. Just has to be direct contact with mucous membranes. That’s how the predator—because that’s what they are, predators—that’s how the predator transmits it. A kiss . . . getting saliva in contact with a mucous membrane, that’s all it takes. The gland that secretes the venom, or whatever, seems to be located right alongside the salivary glands. They say that a normal autopsy would never discover ’em.” George attempted to lighten it up just a bit. “Hell, I suppose it can be transmitted if it spits in your eye.”

She sighed, loudly. “Just when I think I can get a grip on this, you toss something else in.”

“Think how we felt as it developed,” he said. “And it gets worse. The CDC people say that the specimen they have there, male, is just about completely sterile. And they tell me that if he was gonna mate with another like him, they’d have a . . . well the term they finally gave me was a mule.”

She just stared.

“We’ve never seen a female, but we think they exist. CDC believes they’d be the same, though. Fertility-wise. So they need to mate with humans.”

“I knew we’d get to the sex thing. I knew it.”

“Not the way you think. They need to have lots of, you know, episodes, before they can have a successful reproduction. So they just keep doing it, and that’s what gets the victims into an overdose kind of state. With the venom. And they just can’t recover.”

“That,” said Dillman, “makes no sense at all. If they were pregnant, then they’d kill them, and that would be the last thing they’d want.”

“CDC thinks pregnancy brings some kind of immunity. Fetus is immune, of course, and it transfers to the mom through the blood or something.” He glanced over at her. “Hey, that’s just what they said. Beats the shit out of me altogether.”

“So, like, it’s federal? And accidental to boot?”

“First, that does explain why Norma is at the academy this week, doesn’t it? We don’t usually rate having the FBI as a participant.” George moved into the right lane. “No accident, though. This critter, it uses people, exhausts them, burns them up for what it considers their failure. The sample at CDC said that he’d get furious after so many attempts with a gal and he’d just step up the frequency in kind of a rage. He had to know what the result would be. Sometimes in just a few months. Sometimes over a period of years, depending on its particular whim, I guess.” He swerved right to get to their exit. “I have no idea how it works. The medical folks probably do. I do know that the chronic fatigue is the most remarkable symptom. It can really be deadly without, you know, being the cause of death. Three here in Iowa we believe just zonked out when driving. Killed in the wrecks, or died shortly after. One died when, according to witnesses, she just seemed to be in a daze and stepped out into traffic without looking. The baseline here is that we find out about it when the victim dies. So far, we’ve never examined a living victim, because we just can’t know who they are.” He took Exit 244, bringing them into Iowa City on Dubuque Street. The rain had become steady, and the background sounds of the wipers were a kind of comforting accompaniment. “The Iowa victims so far have all been female, under twenty-five, attractive, eager, and more trusting than not. Look around . . . see any potential victims?”

“We have a couple thousand freshmen who that would fit, every year.”

“Exactly. Where else would you find a similar group?”

“Any university town.”

“And that’s where we find these critters. Vampires, for want of a better term. But there are those who think that it’s just exactly what they are, or at least what’s referred to in some of the legends.”

“Why Iowa?”

He snorted. “Well, ya know,” he said, confidentially, “we’re a simple folk.” Old joke. “But for real . . . not so many cops, not so many nut cases. Nut cases, we find, tend to spoil their game. You actually get nut-case vampire hunters, for one thing. Weird people. That’s why they’ve kind of migrated out from the major metro areas, and headed for flyover country.” George turned right on Church, then left on Clinton. They were passing a row of dormitories on one side of Clinton, and some fraternity houses on the left. As they reached the first dorm, they slowed. “That’s where she lived, right?”

“Currier Hall,” said Louise. “Top floor, above the entrance there.”

He glanced at his watch. They were early. “Want to see where we think she was first contacted?”

“You know that?”

“We think so,” he said. They drove on.

“So, let me get this straight, nobody has ever actually seen one of these things, right?”

“Oh, no. No, I told you, they’ve been seen, all right. Twice by me, even,” he said. “Not socially, though, if that was what you meant.”

“Screw social,” she said. “Why didn’t you arrest them?” There was very strong skepticism in her voice, and he knew they had a way to go.

“Did. One of ’em. It ain’t easy, trust me. It, or he, wasn’t very happy being found, okay?” He remembered the manlike creature. They’d cornered it in an enormous home improvement store, of all places. Just on the outskirts of Dubuque. They’d been following him at a distance for several nights, and when they saw him drive around behind the closed store and cut a hole in the wire fence, it looked like they had him in a righteous bust. What he was doing in there they had no idea, nor why he wanted to steal instead of simply buying whatever he needed. They called for backup, and got a sheriff’s car, a state patrol car, and two Dubuque PD cars, all with a single officer. They put an officer on each side of the huge place, in case he saw them coming and made a break for it. They stationed the Dubuque County deputy near the hole in the fence, and then George and his partner went in. The vampire had apparently heard them approaching, and made for the rear exit. They’d been in hot pursuit when he’d slammed out the back door and was confronted by a Dubuque police officer. All hell had broken loose, and the city cop and George’s partner had been severely injured. George had tried to hold him at gunpoint, and the creature had decided to go its own way. He’d charged George, heading toward the cornfield behind the store, and George had shot him. Eight times. “Had to shoot him.”

“Didn’t die, though. Right?” There was sarcasm in her voice.

“Oh, no. Should have died. Hit him lots of times. It was really messy, and he really fought it. But you’re right. Didn’t die, though.”

“Immortal,” said Louise.

“That’s not true. Just live a long time, and really hard to kill,” he said. “Remember the Des Moines detective, shot a guy in the chest six times, the guy strangled him while he was trying to reload? That was meth, but it’s the same sort of deal.”

“So you busted him?”

“For attempted murder and burglary. It was really strange, okay? I mean, we were having to do so many reports about shots being fired, not to mention somebody actually getting shot . . . we didn’t get to examining the store’s security tapes for three days. When we finally did, we were lookin’ for what he was actually doing in there. Found a young female employee standing back by the manager’s office. She was waiting for him. We were sure of it. I mean the store was closed, had been for hours.”

“Oh. But you got him for it?”

“Not for being a vampire. We thought about giving that a shot, but the prosecutor said we couldn’t get it to fly, and we’d just blow the investigation. The vampire just did seventy-two hours in the hospital, believe it or not. Under very close guard. Then jail, then in front of a judge, then to Security Mental Health down here in Iowa City, for his pre-placement evaluation.” He laughed. “That was a hoot! Anyway, then the Feds sort of got him on loan, all legally, and he’s the one now down at CDC in Atlanta.”

“What did his attorney have to say about that?”

“Nothing. Court-appointed. Justified, since he or it wouldn’t cough up any information regarding his finances. That would have given up his name, and he didn’t want to do that. His choice. The exam upon admission to Security Mental Health, so they can tell what institution to put him in? Well, that showed he or it wasn’t quite human, one way or another. Something extra or missing in his DNA, ya know? That’s a tough one, because we can only charge humans, okay? Everything else in the law we just turn over to animal control.” He said that with a grin. “So, anyway. We took the matter to the AG, and they took it to a judge who has a kind of confidential court. Just like the federal judges, you know? The ones who hear select terrorism cases? Like that.”

“You might need to show me a transcript of that.”

“In my briefcase, backseat. Go ahead.”

“You brought it with you?”

“It’s one of the things I would need, if I was in your position. To convince me.” He turned, and they crossed the Iowa River. “It wasn’t easy getting that out of the files,” he said, as she opened his briefcase. “Don’t lose it.”

“Yeah, right.” She began to read, and he pulled into a restaurant parking lot. She looked up. “Mondo’s? He lives here?”

“Oh, hell, no. I’m hungry, and thought we could sit in the lot while you read the file, and then go in and get something. Love their Italian sausage sandwiches. We’ve got time.”

He shut the car off, and rolled down the windows. The rain had made everything smell fresh and clean, and he liked the sound of the cars as they went by on the Coralville Strip, splashing through the puddles.

She finished the transcript in about fifteen minutes, and returned it to his briefcase.

“Redacted a lot, didn’t they?”

“You mean those black lines? Yeah. Just names and places, though.”

“I noticed the prisoner being referred to as John Doe 6822. No name?”

“Not that he’d give. We’re sure he had, well, identities. Giving them up, that might just enable us to trace activities. So he didn’t. I never said they were stupid.” He opened his car door. “Hungry?”

There weren’t many in the grill at that hour, and they got an isolated table.

“It mentions one that was killed,” she said. “The transcript.”

“Yeah. Missouri.”

“No details, though. How do you kill one?”

George chuckled. “They’re pretty straightforward down in Missouri. Blew his head off, if I remember right. Shotgun.”

“Ah.” She scanned the menu. “I’ll have whatever you’re having,” she said. “Gotta hit the restroom.”

During the meal, he asked her if there had been anything she remembered from the Claire Bennington case that, now that she knew who or what had killed her, might have been important but previously overlooked.

“Numph,” she said, her mouth full of sandwich.

“DCI labs handled the processing?”

“Most of it.”

He nodded, and cut off another section of sandwich. “You believing this, yet?”

She chewed silently, swallowed, and then said, “Beginning to.”

“Wanna see where it lives?”

“You bet. Ah, but can we keep calling it ‘he’? Easier to get my mind around, okay?”

“Sure. Whatever you want. I call it ‘he’ most of the time, myself. But they’re a lot easier to deal with if you call ’em ‘it.’ Easier to comprehend, after a while. But ‘he’ it is.”

Back in the car, she tried to lighten it up a bit. “Is there gonna be a test over this?”

“Strictly pass-fail.”

“How will I know?”

“Been thinkin’ about that,” he said, backing out of the parking place. “Not up to me alone, but I tell ya what. If I tell you I’m recommending to Ben and Norma that you be added to the task force, then you can figure you’re in.”

As they went back over the Iowa River and approached the old state capitol building up on its hill, he said, “Ever been to the Museum of Natural History, up over there?”

“Macbride?”

“Yep.”

“Only once. Unusual place. That where he lives?”

“Nope. Just making conversation.” He turned left, went straight past the Memorial Union, and into the parking ramp on the right. He took the automated ticket, and found a place fairly close to the exit. “Let’s walk from here. Just for a few minutes. We got a little time to kill, yet.”

She wanted to ask just what he was waiting for, but didn’t.

Everything near the campus of the University of Iowa seems to be uphill. George announced that, due to his advancing years, they would walk more slowly than the students, who seemed to fly up the hills with little or no effort. As effortlessly as Louise, he noticed, whose long legs seemed to prefer a faster pace. As they went up, he asked her what she’d want to be when she grew up.

“Never really intend to,” she said, smiling. “Call me later.”

He smiled back. “But when and if you do?”

“Well, back in high school, I wanted to be Indiana Jones,” she said.

“Really?”

“Yep. Hat and whip and all. No S&M crap. Just wanted to be Indy.”

“Cool.”

“Majored in history, looking for a minor in archeology. Changed to English, because it was easier and, well you know. If you’re majoring in history, you only have two choices . . . make it or teach it.”

“So they say.” They were nearing the top of the hill. The stopped at the top, ostensibly to let George get his bearings, but really to let him catch his breath. “So you’re an English major, huh?”

“No. Got interested in people again, so I changed my major to sociology. That was crap. So I got back to history, and stayed there. Kind of hiding where classes were cool until I could graduate and get on with things.”

George was beginning to like her.

“How in hell did you get into cop work?”

“Paid better than being a high school teacher,” she said. “At least this way, somebody gives you some shit, they only do it once.”

“Got that right.” They had crossed Market Street to their left, and walked a short bit on Capitol Street when he stopped. “This is a place you should be aware of.”

“What?”

“It, or he, spends a bit of time here, late at night.”

“This is the chemistry building,” she announced patiently.

“Yep. Was called Chem Dent in my day. Dentistry was here then, too. But this is the place.”

“There’s just no freakin’ way. It’s classrooms and labs.”

“Oh, there’s a reason. There’s . . . okay, you gotta stop staring at it. Let’s walk a bit farther. He’s likely not in there now, anyway. Trust me, we don’t want to corner him in there without a TAC team.”

They began walking north.

“Okay, look,” she said. “You expect me to believe that he lures freshmen girls to the chemistry building in the middle of the night, seduces them, transfers venomlike stuff as an STD thing, and then makes them his, what? Slaves? In the fuckin’ chem building? You ever smell that place?”

It must have been the way she said it, because George found himself laughing.

“This isn’t funny!”

“No, no. I know.” He drew a deep breath. “It’s just I didn’t realize how screwy it sounded. Ah. Well, anyway, no, he also has a house. But he doesn’t, well, live there. We think he lives in a subbasement area beneath the chem building.”

“How . . . ?”

“We’ve done some surveillance. Not a lot, but enough to get baseline data.”

“So who on my department worked with you?”

That was a fair question, George thought. “Nobody on Iowa City PD. Your Johnson County sheriff gave us a hand.”

She didn’t seem too happy about that. Jealous of her jurisdiction, and wanted a piece of the action. George was beginning to like her a lot.

“Let’s head back to the car,” he said.

“So how does he get to students?” she asked. “Hang around in bars?”

“Nope. He’s an artist.” He watched her face for a reaction. There was none.

“He teach it?” she asked, as they walked.

“Not as far as we know. Not for the U of I anyway. He does art stuff. Specifically, drawing people.”

“Drawings from life, or something like that. Sketching people. That’d kind of figure,” she said. “No pun intended.”

“Think back,” said George. “What was the Claire girl’s major?”

“Art,” said Louise. “She was an art major.”

“He runs an art supply store,” said George. “Has a couple of art grad students working for him there. They’re the conduit to the students, and the store is where lots of the art majors get supplies. Cheaper than some of the other stores, they tell me.”

“He’s in retail?”

“Enterprising, too,” said George. “He’s gotta eat. Walk beside me, and make like we’re, oh, buddies of some sort. Head down like we’re discussing some really academic thing.” She did. He began to tell her about the intelligence workup on this creature, in a very conversational tone, and being very watchful for anybody passing too close. He explained how they’d been investigating leads for two years.

“When you get to watching him on a regular basis, you’ll notice he doesn’t drive. No DL. Walks or bicycles just about everywhere. We think he didn’t want to get a driver’s license because, one, it makes him give an ID. Two, you get stopped for some traffic stuff, that’s getting noticed. Ninety percent of all citizens’ only contact with law enforcement is through traffic incidents. That, and you get in a wreck, you might even get hurt. Not safe to go to an ER. Last thing it wants is to be rendered unconscious in a crash. Wake up in the ER and wonder just what tests they might have run.”

They walked on.

“Got him with four bank accounts, under four different identities, with four separate banks, two accounts a year, for two years. Then we lose the trail. None of the accounts are as large as we think his main account should be. You know how that goes. Launders stuff. I’m not into that, really, but that’s just what they tell me.”

“Right.”

“Most everything you hear about vampires isn’t true. They can go out in the light. They just don’t like to, because, apparently, when the natural end gets near, diseases start popping up, okay? And, like, with everything else they have to worry about then, skin cancer erupting like acne is something they’d rather not deal with.”

“Sure.”

“They can be killed just like anything else we’d get involved with. No stakes required. Nothing like that. Crucifixes don’t mean diddly. Holy water just gets ’em wet. Garlic has no effect whatsoever, except they can smell you a mile away. They don’t change into bats, and they can’t fly or anything like it. Although the one I shot jumped pretty good.”

They were back at the car. “Look down there, to the bottom of the chem building . . . see that steel door? Near the corner.”

She did.

“That’s where he gets in. That’s where he comes out. About all we know at this point. You might want to check further into that.”

She nodded. “Sure.”

He glanced at his watch. “What say we go look at the art supply store, and then I’ll show you the house.”

The store, in an old, one-story building that looked like a corner grocery that had lost its usefulness, had “Ernesto’s Art Supply” painted in the window.

“Ernesto?” she asked. “It’s Ernesto? Hell, I drive by this place every day.”

“Ernesto Miska. That’s it. Ah, him.”

“Well . . . shit. I’ve been in that store. A theft report, a couple of years back. Shit, I’ve met him.”

“Know where he lives?” asked George as they drove by the store.

“No. No reason to. I’m sure we’ve got his address. . . .”

“Over here,” he said, turning left. “Right here . . . the light gray one.”

He indicated a normal-looking, two-story, wood frame house, with a wide porch and a gabled roof indicating an attic space. There was a small one-car garage nestled on the side, with one of those old paved driveways that consisted of two narrow, parallel concrete tracks. There were old trees throughout the neighborhood. The house did not stand out at all.

“There, huh?”

“Yep.” He drove to the end of the long residential block, and turned around. “We’ll park here. Wait for him to come home. Just to let you get a look at him in case he’s changed his appearance since the burglary case.”

“Thanks.”

He reached back onto the floor of the backseat, and produced a nylon binocular case, which he handed to her.

“Use these.”

After almost a minute’s silence, while Louise removed the binoculars, removed the lens caps, focused for the distance, and observed for a few moments, she said, “I’m gonna buy in to this. The more I think about it, the more sense this makes. Claire Bennington,” she said softly. “She really was an art major. That’s the key for me.”

“Good.”

“What do you want me to do?” she asked, still peering through the binoculars.

“Gather intelligence,” he said. She could hear the smile in his voice.

She put the binoculars in her lap. “I know that. How about something more here? A line of inquiry would be nice. Just a suggested one. To get me started.”

“We’d kind of like you to get to know him. Can you draw?”

“Not for shit,” she said. She drummed her fingers on the binoculars. “I suppose I could pose, or something. They always need a model.”

“We were thinking more along the lines of shopping in his store,” said George. Although, thinking about it, he realized Louise would make a fine model. “Getting naked for somebody is always . . . chancy.” He chuckled.

“Hey, I was ready to give my all,” she said. “Make a note of that.”

“Consider it done.” He looked directly at her. “Do not, and I mean never, try to get somebody undercover. Not with this . . . whatever he is. You or anybody else. They seem to be pretty cop aware, most of the time. You get somebody to go under for you, you write ’em off. They get that venom crap in ’em, and they’re probably just plain done.”

“Somebody inside the store, though?”

“We’ve given up on that. These things are pretty slick. Pick up on it right away, probably. Keep him at arm’s length.”

“Okay.”

“You’ll be talking pretty regularly to one of us, probably Ben. If you think you want to do something like a snitch inside, don’t do it without permission from him.”

“Sure. Okay. Yes, sir. Got it.”

He shook his head ruefully.

Two figures came around the corner at the far end of the block. Even at that distance, and with his naked eye, George could discern that one was pushing a bicycle and the other was carrying a load of some sort.

Louise put the binoculars to her eyes, and said, “It’s him. It’s Ernesto.” She paused, and then said, “And some girl. She’s a treat. Black hair with a purple streak. Tacky blue jeans with fake wear holes. Stupid black tennis shoes. Emo look, if I ever saw it. Art student, I’ll bet.”

“Let me see,” said George.

She handed him the binoculars. He looked closely. The “man” looked to be somewhere between thirty and forty, moustache, about six feet tall, with close-cropped dark hair. He, too, was wearing faded blue jeans but without the holes, tennis shoes, and a light blue, sleeveless hooded sweatshirt. “Yeah, it’s our target.” He shifted his gaze. The girl was slender, long-legged, with black and purple hair, just as Louise had described. A good five eight, she had rather dark eyes, and for a moment he thought she was wearing sunglasses. It must have been makeup, he thought. She was carrying quite a bit of stuff over her shoulder and under her left arm. A big, flat, thin, white object, which he thought might be a canvas; a backpack with one strap over her shoulder; and a contraption made of tubular steel. “Walking his bike, the girl’s carrying the load. A tripod?”

“The chrome legs, right?”

“Yep,” he said, passing the binoculars back.

“Easel, I’d think.” Louise peered through the binoculars again. As the couple got closer, she said, “Oh, no way . . . she’s carrying groceries, too. Oh, cute. Two piercings in her lower lip. Snakebites. What a slut.”

“Don’t judge,” said George, startled at the intensity of her remark.

“Don’t mind me,” said Louise, as she continued to watch. “I just get tired of bailing those idiots out when they get in trouble.”

The couple stopped in front of Ernesto’s house. “Oh no, shit,” said Louise, as the pair started up the front steps. “She’s going in with him. Easel, sketch pad and shoulder bag and all. Yep. See him let her go up the steps first? What a freaking gentleman; he’s just checking out her butt. And she knows it, I can tell you that. Shit.”

“How old you think she is?” asked George.

“Under twenty. There they go, right on in, honey. Just put your stuff down, and take off your clothes. I’ll be right with you. . . .” She looked at George as the door closed behind Ernesto and his girl. “He’s gonna do her. I can tell just by the way she went up the steps, she’s good to go.”

“You can?” That, he couldn’t help thinking, would be a very useful talent. “Maybe just, you know, she’s there for supper or something?”

“Yeah, right.”

“Tell ya what,” he said. “Let’s stick for a little while, okay? See if she comes out anytime soon.”

“Hell, let’s just kick the door in and bust his ass,” said Louise ruefully. “Just kidding. Hey, I’m sorry I got so worked up. Won’t happen again.”

“No problem,” said George, and he meant it.

They waited. From their vantage point, they had a fair view into the house through what seemed to be a large bay window in a living room, and a well-glazed area they took to be a porch or dining room. They were unable to see much in either room because the ambient light was still much brighter than the interior of the house.

“Maybe,” said Louise, “we could just call, and ask them to turn on a light?”

“Give ’em time.”

About thirty minutes later, a light came on in what they had taken for a dining room, and they saw that it was actually the kitchen.

“Great kitchen,” said George.

“Yeah.” Louise had grabbed the binoculars again. “He apparently cooks with his shirt off,” she said.

“Saves on laundry, I guess.”

“Oh, for shit’s sake,” she said. “She cooks topless, too! That asshole!”

“Can I see? Just for verification.”

She handed over the binoculars. He looked, and handed them back. “Nice.”

She grabbed the binoculars, and as she brought them to her eyes, she said, “Nice what?”

“Oh, just nice,” said George. “Like they say, wouldn’t toss her out of bed for eating crackers.”

“Yeah, right . . .”

“Check out the tattoos,” he said. “Anything you recognize?”

“On her?”

“Yeah, didn’t see any on him.”

“Just a sec . . . just a floral thing on her right arm, upper. Oh, sure. Sure. Wouldn’t you just fuckin’ know, she’s got a red rose on her left boob. How daringly unique.”

“Well, speaking personally,” said George, “I haven’t encountered all that many. . . .”

“Oh, it’s that phony art-student look. They all do stuff like that. Especially the young ones. Nobody understands them. They’re just having such deep emotions. They’re going to be different, just like all the other girls with dyed hair, and snakebites, and rose tatts on their boobs. Different just like everybody else who’s unique and misunderstood, and oh so very creative. Give me a break.”

“I take it you don’t have any tattoos,” said George.

Louise put down the binoculars, took a deep breath, and handed them to him. “Just my badge number on my ass,” she said, with a laugh. “Sorry about the rant. You just gotta work in a university town for a few years, you get that way, that’s all. Same crap, always new to them.”

George thought she’d recovered rather nicely. He put the binoculars to his eyes. “What’re they having for supper?”

“Men.” She looked around her, deliberately avoiding Ernesto’s house. She reached out and he gave her the binoculars. “Hey . . . there’s a guy over here, in this house, and he’s got binoculars, too! He’s lookin’ right into the kitchen from his second floor. . . .”

“Let me see,” said George. He looked, and then said, “Well, roses and boobs seem to attract an audience.” He grinned and handed the binoculars back to Louise.

“Disgusting,” she said, and didn’t look back at the man in the house again.

The light was fading fast. “What say we head back to Des Moines?”

Louise nodded. “Sure.”

They pulled slowly away from Ernesto’s, and as soon as they had turned the corner, George said, “Not quite hungry yet. You?”

“We just ate,” she said, deep in thought. After a moment, she asked a question.

“I’m supposed to work this alone, right?”

“For now. Low-key,” he said. “You need any assistance, you can call the task force member nearest you, and they’ll help out.”

“What if I need help in a hurry?”

“Make sure you don’t,” he said. “You’re just gathering information. But you need help really fast, call anybody you can. We can clean up the details later, if necessary. Don’t endanger yourself over this. Okay?”

She nodded, and neither of them spoke for at least ten miles.

“I better call my buds,” she said, “and tell them I’ll be late.” She pulled her cell phone from the front pocket of her blue jeans.

George glanced over while she dialed, and noticed how the blue light from the phone made her look quite young.

“Hi, it’s me,” she said. “I’m just headed back in to DM, so it’ll be a while. Yeah. No, I’ll probably catch up at Ho Jo’s.” There was a pause, then, “Oh, yeah. See you then.” She terminated the call.

“How’d you manage to choose me?” she asked.

“You were recommended.”

“Who?”

“I have no idea,” he said. “Need-to-know only. I just got tapped for the briefing part.”

“Oh.”

“Glad I did,” he said. “Nice to know you. Nice to have you on board.”

“Thanks,” she said.

Back in Des Moines, he let her off at the academy parking lot, where she’d left her car.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said.

“Yeah, okay.” As she reached her car, she turned and waved.

Still in the lot, George called Ben. “Done. Where you want to meet?”

George found Ben and Norma at the Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery, just off University Avenue in West Des Moines.

“How’d it go?” asked Ben.

“Not bad,” said George. “Couple of surprises, but not bad overall. I think she’ll do.”

“Tell her anything she didn’t already know?”

“Twice, I think. I’m pretty damned sure she didn’t know we had captured one, and shipped him alive and well to CDC in Atlanta. Had to tell her that, to substantiate what we knew and how we got it. She asked about them being immortal. I told her about the one they blew away in Missouri. I think that surprised her.”

“What about her and the target?” asked Norma. “How’d she handle that?”

“Well,” said George, “about how you’d think. I’m not sure if she had any real idea what was going on with him, with the venom and that stuff. She almost blew her cover, though, I think. Just for a second. But,” he said, with some disappointment in his voice, “she seems like just about any other addict. Either denying the facts, or thinking she’s the one to beat it through willpower. Won’t get her, any way you cut it.” He shrugged. “What with that hypnotic crap, who knows? She probably won’t ever wake up to the real danger until she’s dead.” He reached for some Doritos. “Anyway . . . We did the general stuff, the case history, all that. Then I showed her that art supply store he runs, and she managed to be surprised. Said she’d handled a theft case there, ’bout two years ago.”

“That’s what her boss told us,” said Ben.

“Yeah. Sticking to the truth always helps. So, I asked her if she knew where his house was, she said she didn’t, so we went there, too. Drove by, then up to the end of the block, and parked so we could see the approach he’d take. She did just fine there, too.”

Norma nodded, took a sip of her drink, and said, “Cool one, huh.”

George nodded. “She’s good. But then he comes walkin’ his bike home, and he’s got this sweet young thing with him. She started to misfire right about then. Covered pretty good. Then him and the gal go on into the house, and she started to sound kind of pissy.”

“Really?” Norma leaned forward. “Like, how?”

“Well, Ernesto let the gal go up the porch stairs in front of him, Louise says something about how he was just checking out her backside.”

“That’s it?” asked Ben.

“Nope. Then she said the gal was pretty much beggin’ for it.” George took a sip of his beer. “Can women really tell that sort of thing?”

“Why do you ask?” Norma had a sly smile on her face.

“Be a handy thing to learn,” said George.

“We can discuss that later. What else did she say?”

“Well, we watched the place for a while, and she was right back to normal, and then the lovebirds show up naked in the kitchen window. At least topless. I mean,” he said, “as far down as we could see without gettin’ out of the car and standing on the roof.”

“No shit?” Ben laughed.

“Yeah. She got real upset about them being naked. The gal had a rose tattooed on her left breast, and that got Louise really testy.”

Ben nodded. “Sure.”

“Then, you know the surveillance we got goin’ on Ernesto next door? Damned if she didn’t spot our man upstairs, with binoculars. Better get that to him, and get his ass out of there. Ernesto finds that out, I wouldn’t want to be there.”

“Crap, we better do that tonight,” said Ben, and took out his cell phone.

“Already called it in,” said George. “I think I covered it pretty well, but I thought we shouldn’t take chances on this dude.”

The food arrived, and the conversation changed to the weather for a minute or two.

Alone again, Norma asked, “She made three cell calls, you want to know to who and when?”

George nodded.

“Around three ten,” said Norma, consulting her BlackBerry, “she called Ernesto at his store. Said she was in Iowa City, that she had a task force member with her, and that it looked like things were going well.”

“When she was in the john at Mondo’s,” said George. “I thought it might be something like that. Hated to stop there, but we were way too early for Ernesto to go home, and I wanted her to see him.”

“Then, about eight fifteen. You were outside Iowa City then.”

“She had to call her friends back at the Academy,” said George. “Tell ’em she was gonna be late. I was right there. Who was she really talking to? Ernesto?”

“You bet. He told her he needed to see her when she got back.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Then, about the time you called Ben, she was on the phone to Ernesto again. She said, and I quote, ‘I’m in.’ Then she called him an ‘asshole’ and asked if ‘the little slut with the tattoo on her boob’ was still there.”

“Pissed, like I said.”

“So,” said Ben. “What do we think?”

“I think we got our inside snitch with Ernesto,” said George. “She just don’t know it.”

“Now, we decide how to utilize her the best way,” said Norma.

They were silent again as they ate. Each was thinking about the fate of Detective Louise Dillman.

“She must have been turned just about the time she talked to Ernesto at that theft call a couple years back,” said Ben. “So we can confirm that all his victims don’t die within eighteen months.”

“The docs think that he just, you know, gets her about every two or three weeks. They say the venom substance is persistent, but seems to wear off a little with time, so he has to hit her again every once in a while to keep her under control.” Norma winced. “Unless she gets knocked up.”

“Her department health records say she’s on the pill,” interjected Ben.

“Let’s hope she stays on ’em. She must be willing, though. To keep the relationship active.”

“Trust me,” said George. “She is. The way she reacted when she saw the other girl. . . . I was kinda gettin’ to like her,” he said. “She’s not all bad, you know?”

“Bright, ambitious, and a good cop,” said Ben. “Until Ernesto got hold of her.”

“You tell her about that coed who died in her own bed? The unexplained death she covered?”

“Yep.”

“And . . . ?”

“Well, I’m just not sure,” announced George, after a moment. “She seemed genuinely surprised, okay? But, God, she had to at least suspect, after she got involved with Ernesto. Don’t you think?”

After another silence, George asked the question that had been bothering him all the way back from Iowa City. “You think, like, she got put in some sort of rehab unit, she might, you know . . . ?”

“Completely recover?”

“Yeah, Norma. Completely.”

Norma shook her head. “They tell me that it’s progressive. Nonreversible. It can slow way down, but it’s always eating. They’re not really sure how long it takes in the absence of the vampire, but they suspect she’d go into a coma and die within five or six years.”

“And still head over heels for Ernesto?”

“Apparently so.”

George toyed absently with his food for several seconds, and then became aware he was doing so.

“Oh, sorry. It’s just a shame, though. Ya know?”

“It is,” said Norma. “She’s pretty much dead and doesn’t know it. We’ve either lost her already, or are going to lose her soon, regardless how you cut it. Not that I’m not compassionate, but look on the bright side. She’s going to be planting some false information in Ernesto’s head for us. At least we can get some use out of her this way. Before she crawls off and dies.” She looked at both men, who were silent. “There, that’s settled. Can you pass the rolls?”