“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.”