Violets Are Blue Read online

  I didn’t believe in vampires.

  I believed in evil, though. I had seen it enough times to believe. The two brothers were twisted murderers. That’s all they were.

  I jumped sideways just before the pickup would have run me down. I rushed down the hillside behind the truck. I was hoping it would flip—and then it did. I felt like shouting.

  The truck bounced heavily on its side, then on its roof—then continued to roll over several times. Finally it stopped, resting on the driver’s side, teetering slightly. Black smoke coiled up from the engine. No one got out at first.

  Then the younger brother climbed out. His face was streaked with blood and soot. He didn’t speak—just glared at us, and then he roared like an animal. It seemed as if he had gone insane.

  “Don’t make us shoot you!” I shouted at him.

  He didn’t seem to hear. He was in a blind rage. Michael Alexander wore long, sharp canine fangs, and they were bloody. His own blood? His eyes were red. “You shot William! You killed my brother!” he shrieked at us. “You murdered him. He was better than all of you!”

  Then he charged—and I couldn’t bring myself to shoot. Michael Alexander was insane; he wasn’t responsible anymore. He kept growling, frothing from the mouth. His eyes were wild, rolling in their sockets. Every muscle on his body was tightly flexed. I couldn’t kill this tortured man-child. I braced myself to tackle him. I hoped I could bring him down.

  Then Kyle fired—once.

  The shot struck him where his nose had been just an instant before. A dark, bloody hole appeared at the center of his face. There was no surprise or shock—just sudden obliteration. Then he crumpled to the ground. There was no doubt he was dead.

  I had been wrong about Kyle—he could shoot. He was an expert, full of surprises. I needed to think about that, but not right now.

  Suddenly, I heard another voice. It was coming from inside the pickup. Someone was trapped. William? Was the brother alive?

  I approached the overturned vehicle slowly, gun in hand. The engine was still smoking. I was afraid the truck might blow.

  I climbed onto the teetering wreck and managed to pull open the bent door. I saw William—shot to death, his face a sorry, bloody mask.

  Then I found myself staring into the angriest, most arrogant eyes. I recognized them immediately. It was almost impossible to shock me anymore, but this was another jolt. “So you’re the one,” I said.

  “You killed them, and you will be killed,” a voice threatened. “You’ll die. You will die, Cross!”

  I was looking at Peter Westin, the vampire expert I’d met weeks before in Santa Barbara. He was cut up, injured, and bleeding. But he was in total control, even with my gun aimed at his face. He was cool and superior, so confident. I remembered sitting across from him at the Davidson Library in Santa Barbara. He had told me he was a real vampire. I guess I believed him now. I finally found the right words. “You’re the Sire.”

  Chapter 92

  I TRIED a couple of sessions with the creepy and surreal Peter Westin that night in the jail at Santa Cruz. Kyle was attempting to get him transferred to the East Coast, but I doubted he would be successful. California wanted him. Westin wore a long-sleeved black velvet shirt and black leather pants. He was as pale as paper. Thin blue veins were visible under the translucent skin of his temples. His lips were full and the pigment appeared redder than most people’s. The Sire almost didn’t seem human, and I was pretty sure that was the effect he wanted to convey.

  It was emotionally disturbing and draining to be in the same room with him. Jamilla and I had talked about it briefly, and we both felt the same thing. Westin had none of the usual qualities that we associate with humans: conscience, sociability, deep emotion, sympathy, empathy. His entire persona was that of the Sire. He was a killer, a ghoul, a real-life bloodsucker.

  “I’m not going to try and scare you with interrogation room threats,” I said in a low-key way.

  Westin appeared not to be listening. Bored? Indifferent? Smart as hell? Actually, as the Sire he was an extraordinary person to encounter: haughty, superior, intense, physically striking. He had the most piercing eyes. He’d put on an act for me in Santa Barbara—the harmless scholar with books about vampires to recommend.

  He cocked his head and stared intently into my eyes. Westin was looking for something; I couldn’t tell what. I held his gaze, and that seemed to irritate him. “Fuck off,” he snapped.

  “What is it?” I finally asked. “What’s on your mind, Peter? Is it that I’m not worthy to question you now?”

  He smiled—and there was even a hint of warmth in it. He could be charming, I knew. I’d found that out in the library in Santa Barbara.

  “If I talked to you, if I told you everything that I feel and believe, you wouldn’t understand,” he said. “You would be even more lost and confused than you are now.”

  “Try me,” I said.

  He smiled again but said nothing.

  “I know that you miss William and Michael. You don’t show it, but you loved them,” I said. “I know that much about you. I know you feel things deeply.”

  Then Peter Westin nodded, almost imperceptibly. The gesture was regal. He did miss William and Michael. I was right about that. He was sad that they were dead.

  He finally spoke again. “Yes, Detective Cross, I feel more deeply than you can begin to imagine. You have no idea. You have no clue how someone like me thinks.”

  Then he was quiet again. The Sire had nothing more to say. We mere mortals just wouldn’t understand. I left him like that.

  It was over.

  Part Five

  VIOLETS ARE BLUE

  Chapter 93

  I WAS feeling partially relieved, better anyway. The murder case seemed to be solved, at least. Peter Westin was in jail. We’d done everything we could about his cult. The pressure had been eliminated. We’d stopped the bleeding.

  Jamilla had left the previous night; we promised to keep in touch and I knew we would. I was headed up to the airport that morning to catch a flight from San Francisco to D.C. I was going home, and that felt good.

  The details were still coming in, but I feared we would never know everything about the strange, murderous cult that had sprung up in California. It was usually that way in Homicide. You never knew as much as you wanted to know. That’s the single most basic truth about being a detective, and you never see it on TV or in the movies. I guess the endings wouldn’t be as satisfying if they were closer to reality.

  Peter Westin had met Daniel and Charles when they had played in Los Angeles. Westin already had his own followers in Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara, but he feigned allegiance until he felt he was strong enough to be the Sire. Then he dispatched William and Michael Alexander to do his dirty work. Supposedly, there were followers in nearly a hundred cities, especially now that the Internet had brought us all so close together.

  Something was still bothering me. I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was, but it troubled me all the way to San Francisco. It was eating me from the inside out. Fear and dread. But about what?

  There was a forty-five-minute layover, and I got off the plane. A jumble of bad thoughts played through my brain. I felt wired, itchy.

  The original San Francisco vampire murders were still on my mind.

  And the fucking Mastermind.

  Jamilla was here in San Francisco. But that was a whole other subject.

  What was bothering me?

  Then I thought I knew what it was. Maybe I’d known all along. I called Jam at her office in the Hall of Justice. I was informed that she had the day off.

  I called her apartment, but there was no answer. Maybe she was out on one of the five-mile runs she bragged about. Or she had a date with Tim Bradley from the Examiner, as if that was any of my business.

  But maybe not.

  Where was she?

  Had something happened to her, or was I just being paranoid beyond belief? I was definitely working too har
d. I didn’t need this. I really didn’t need this.

  I couldn’t take the chance. I hurried to the American Airlines counter and cancelled my flight out of San Francisco. I called Nana and told her I had to stay in California for a few hours. I would be in later tonight.

  “Someone out here might be in trouble,” I said.

  “Yes, and that someone is you,” Nana said. “Good-bye, Alex.” She hung up on me again. She was right to want me home, but I was right in not wanting anybody else to be hurt.

  I rented a car from Budget, beginning to feel that I was completely losing it. Charles Manson’s words came to mind: Total paranoia is just total awareness. I had always thought that Manson was wrong about everything, but maybe he wasn’t; maybe he was dead-on right about paranoia.

  I had a powerful gut feeling that Jamilla Hughes could be in danger right now. I couldn’t shake it off. Couldn’t ignore it, even if I wanted to. The vibrations in my head were too strong, overwhelming. It was one of my famous feelings, and I had to go with it.

  I thought about my former partner Patsy Hampton—and her murder.

  I remembered Betsey Cavalierre—and her murder.

  And Detective Maureen Cooke in New Orleans.

  A long time ago as a homicide detective, I had just about stopped believing in coincidences. Still, I had no logical reason to believe that a psychopathic killer could be out here in California, possibly stalking Inspector Jamilla Hughes.

  I just felt it.

  Total awareness.

  The Mastermind was out here, wasn’t he? It was the sense I had. I waited for his call. I was ready to nail him once and for all. I was so ready.

  Chapter 94

  I DROVE from the airport to Jamilla’s apartment at several miles above the posted speed limit. On the way, I used my cell phone. There was still no answer at her place. I was already in a cold sweat. I had never followed a hunch quite like this one.

  I thought about what I could do right now. One possibility was to call in help from the SFPD, but I didn’t like it. Police officers are logical creatures, and coldly suspicious of gut feelings. My track record with psychopaths might buy me some credibility in Washington, but not out here in California.

  I could call the FBI—but I chose not to do it. There were a couple of reasons why. More gut feelings that I wanted to keep to myself for a while longer.

  I decided to park a block over from Texas Street, where Jamilla lived. But I took a ride up the steep Potrero Hill first. I turned onto the street about half a dozen blocks south of her place, then I toured the connecting streets. There was a mixed style of row houses: the more charming wooden ones from the early 1900s and the boxier three- and four-story ones with lots of aluminum detail. I could see the bay, the loading docks of Pier 84, and Oakland in the distance. I passed the New Potrero Market, J.J. Mac’s, the North Star Restaurant—Jamilla’s home turf. But where was Jamilla?

  The traffic was fairly heavy. I hoped my rented sedan wouldn’t be spotted easily. And that I’d see Jamilla lugging groceries, or jogging home from a nearby park where she’d worked out.

  But I didn’t see her. Damn it, where was she? Not that she didn’t have a right to a day off.

  I couldn’t imagine anything happening to her, but that was the way I had felt about Patsy Hampton, and then about Betsey Cavalierre.

  Two dead partners in two years.

  I didn’t believe in coincidences.

  Patsy Hampton had been murdered by a British diplomat named Shafer. I was almost certain of that. Betsey’s murder remained unsolved, and that was the one that worried me. I kept thinking about the Mastermind. Somehow I had become a part of his story, his fantasy world. How? Why? I had received a late phone call from him one night in the summer: “Betsey Cavalierre is dead. . . . I’m the one you call Mastermind. That’s a name I can live with. I am that good.”

  The killer had used a knife on her, everywhere, even between Betsey’s legs. He hated women. That was clear. I had encountered only one other killer who hated women so much: Casanova in North Carolina. But I was sure Casanova was dead and couldn’t have killed Betsey Cavalierre. Still . . . I felt some kind of strange link to Casanova and what had happened in North Carolina. What was the connection?

  I found a spot and parked about two blocks from Jamilla Hughes’s apartment on the hill near Eighteenth. Her building was older, a remodeled yellow Victorian with the familiar three-sided bay windows you often see in San Francisco. Very nice, very homey. There were neat little signs on the trees: “Friends of the Urban Forest.”

  I called her again on the cell. Still no answer.

  My heart was pumping fast. The cold sweat continued. I had to do something. I went to the front door of the house, rang the bell, but no one answered. Damn it. Where is she?

  “Safe Neighborhood” signs were stuck in bright green patches of grass up and down the street. I hoped the street was very safe. I prayed to God that it was as safe as it looked.

  I went back and waited in the car. Fidgeted. Grew even more nervous and impatient. I thought about who the Mastermind might be, then about Betsey’s murder again. I thought about Casanova, the Gentleman Caller, about Kate Mc Tiernan, who’d been abducted in North Carolina. Why was that on my mind now? What was the connection? I couldn’t get the lurid and devastating murder scenes out of my head.

  Not Jamilla. Don’t let this happen again. Don’t let her get hurt.

  As I sat there worrying, my phone rang. I answered immediately.

  It was him. He was playing his cruel games. He seemed so close.

  “Where are you, Dr. Cross? I thought you were heading home to kith and kin. Maybe it’s time that you did. Your work is done out here. There’s nothing more you can do. Nothing at all. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to Nana Mama and the kids, would we? That would be the worst thing, wouldn’t it? The absolute worst.”

  Chapter 95

  I IMMEDIATELY called Nana in Washington. Either she wasn’t there or she was still mad at me and wasn’t picking up the phone. Damn it. Answer the phone, Nana.

  I frantically called home again, but there was still no answer. Pick up, pick up! Damn it—pick up the phone!

  Sweat had begun to coat my neck and forehead. This was my darkest nightmare, my worst fear come true. What could I do from out here?

  I called Sampson and told him to rush over to my house, then get back to me immediately. He didn’t question me for a second.

  “I’m sending a squad car now. It will be there in minutes. I’ll be right behind it. I’ll get back to you, Alex,” he said.

  I sat in the car and anxiously waited for Sampson’s call. My head was spinning with all kinds of terrible thoughts and images. There was nothing I could do—not for Jamilla if she was in trouble, not for my own family back in Washington.

  I thought about the Mastermind and the way he’d operated in the past. There were always dramatic taunts and barbs—and then, when I least expected it, he would act, he would make a strike to the heart.

  When I least expected it.

  Action, not words.

  Horrible murders.

  He knew I hadn’t returned to Washington; did he know for sure that I was in San Francisco?

  I couldn’t focus as much as I needed to. Was it possible that he was right here on Jamilla’s street? Was the killer watching me now? He had shown that he was smart enough to follow me and not be seen. Did he want a showdown?

  The cell phone rang again. My heart jumped in my chest. I fumbled with the buttons.

  “Cross,” I said.

  “Everybody’s okay, Alex. I’m at the house with Nana and the kids. They’re safe and sound. They’re with me now.”

  I shut my eyes and sighed in relief. “Put her on,” I told Sampson. “Don’t take no for an answer from her. I need to talk to Nana about what we’re going to do next.”

  Chapter 96

  SAMPSON PROMISED to stay with Nana and the kids until I could get home. There was no one that
I trusted more, no one in the world they would be safer with. Still, I couldn’t be sure, and that was a terrible weight to carry. I didn’t feel I could leave California until I had at least located Jamilla and knew she was safe.

  Finally, I called Tim Bradley at the Examiner. He didn’t know where she was, or even that she’d taken a day off from work. Maybe she had needed to get away from town—to get away from being a homicide detective?

  I was beginning to feel that maybe I had made a mistake by stopping in San Francisco. The longer I sat on the street outside her house, the more convinced I was of it. Maybe the job was finally getting to me. The instincts go first.

  Every time I considered leaving, I remembered the night I arrived at Betsey Cavalierre’s house, saw her dead body.

  And besides, instincts had gotten me here in my career.

  Feelings, gut reactions, experiences from the past.

  Maybe just plain stubbornness.

  I stayed on surveillance, stayed at my post. I got out of the car a couple of times, walked a little up and down the block. Climbed back in the car. Waited some more. I felt more than a little ridiculous, but I wouldn’t give in to it. I checked in with Sampson again. Everything was okay at home. Another homicide detective I know, Jerome Thurman, had arrived at the house too. Double duty against the Mastermind. Was that enough protection?

  Then I saw Jamilla coming up the street in her Saab. I actually clapped my hands together. I smacked the dashboard with my palm. Yes. Thank God she was safe. There she was!

  She parked about half a block from her house on Texas Street and got out, pulling a University of San Francisco gym bag behind her. I wanted to run up and hug her, but I stayed in my car. Her hair was up in a ponytail. She was wearing a dark blue T and loose gray workout pants. She was all right; she hadn’t been hurt. Jamilla hadn’t been murdered by the Mastermind.

  I stared through the windshield, waiting to see if anyone was watching her, stalking her. Part of me wanted to leave well enough alone now, to go home to Washington. But I kept remembering what had happened to Betsey Cavalierre after we finished our case together.