She was haltered. I saw no wagon where the stable had once been, but I was damn glad Pandora had spared me this gentle animal. It was a hint, no doubt. A prompt from the vampire who was far, far away by now, that I was to get on with my life by riding away from this vanished estate. I swung onto Dory's back and we took off down that cold, winding road once more.
It was still dark enough that I could avoid contact with anyone by approaching my office from the alley. But Redemption was sleeping in: no lights in the jailhouse, no candles in the colored windows of St. Mary's, no glow in the magistrate's back bedroom. Even Etta's Pie Shoppe was dark-at an hour when the chubby proprietress would ordinarily be baking her pastries for the day. Virgil Furmeister would be waddling over for his morning coffee any moment now, only to discover there wasn't any.
That was his problem, however-and I didn't want to become a part of it. Ducking into my office, I locked the doors and kept the shades drawn. By candlelight I chose more coordinated clothing and applied the theatrical makeup that transformed me into the attorney everyone expected to see here. It seemed like weeks since I'd carried out any real business as Alex Moore. Seemed like half a lifetime ago that Lucy Legg had died and her daddy the magistrate considered me an accessory to Billy's crime.
It was time to confront the judge. If Billy was smart-if he was alive-he'd left Redemption. I had to set the record straight and clear his name, if only for the satisfaction of proving Harold Legg a fraud, to his face. After the unsettling events I'd witnessed these past few hours, I needed the closure of completing something legal, something logical and tangible, before I could decide where life should take me next.
Intuition nudged me to open my top drawer, and I found it-that murder confession Tripplehorn had supposedly written, which I'd filched from Furmeister's desk the day those "Gypsies" visited. In my years practicing law, I'd argued so many cases…kept so many records-there! I plucked a summation from my files, written by the illustrious magistrate.
Even a blind man could see the angular handwriting was an exact match. Had I thought of this simple ploy before, I could've saved us all a lot of grief…maybe by now Billy and I would be planning our future together. Maybe he wouldn't have overstayed his welcome, or learned the ominous secrets of those Sisters of Samaria…not to mention the one about Alex being Andrea.
But gone is gone. No sense sighing away my day in a haze of hindsight.
I spent the next several hours in the comfortable familiarity of my office, amid my books and files. As I decided how best to approach Judge Legg about the touchy subject of his wife, Perfidia-and did he even know he had a daughter by her?-I occasionally peered between my curtains to observe the other people I'd known all my life.
Nothing appeared different. No one exclaimed over the empty space where the mansion once sat; no one slipped a donation for the Sisters under my door, to remain the anonymous parent of a misbegotten child. The smoke from my chimney alerted people to my presence, but no one seemed to care.
Had Alex Moore been erased from their memories when the orphanage disappeared? Would the magistrate recall who I was? Pandora should've given me more details before she left! But she probably knew I could only handle a few adjustments at a time, now that I'd witnessed the magnitude of her vampire magic.
Just after dusk I stepped out for a breath of air. The wind had died down, and Redemption had settled into its evening routine with the closing of its shops. Since I couldn't go home to eat, and no restaurants served an evening meal, I considered my options as I walked along. I could invite myself to dinner with friends, but I wasn't ready to explain my situation. And what if they didn't remember me?
As I came to Redemption Cemetery, something drew me toward the mortuary- some morbid sense that answers awaited me there. Lord, how I hoped I wouldn't find Billy laid out on that table, pale and lifeless…with puncture marks like Lucy Legg's!
The memory of Miranda Dammet's embalmed body, naked except for those galoshes, should've steered me clear of the undertaker's lair. The wind whipped my overcoat-another sign I shouldn't rush in where the quick and the dead parted ways. Yet the glimmer of light in the cellar window drew me like that proverbial moth.
I licked my lips nervously. I told myself I could ask Nat Dammet if he'd seen or heard anything unusual of late-just making polite conversation- One peek, and I forgot about conversation. What I saw in the mortician's work room was anything but polite.
Muted notes from a Victrola reached my ears, to accompany some very strange dancing. I could've gone the rest of my life without seeing the sheriff's hairy, buck-naked bulk-but to watch Virgil Furmeister swaying in the arms of the equally bare magistrate nearly turned my stomach.
Yet there they were, fuzzy bellies rubbing, fleshy thighs brushing on the downbeat of each measure as they waltzed around the mortician's work table. Dammet sat on the dais with that abomination who was once his mother, his fingers drumming against her buckles. He, too, was nude-quite a nice specimen, compared to the other two-and he was fondling that blunt nub his mama's knife had left him. When his glance went between their legs mine followed, but I looked quickly away. Those old goats sported ramrod peckers! I sensed they'd soon be at each other-and that this wasn't their first time.
Then a flicker of pink caught my eye, and I bit back a laugh. There in the dimness, where Dammet prepared the dead, a very lively vampire appeared-but only in her spirit guise. She straddled the sheriff's head, lifting her little-girl dress of pink gingham to tease Judge Legg with a look at her pussy. When she slid lower, Harry moved in to kiss her slit-and instead planted a hot one on Virgil's lips. Virgil, who appeared as entranced as the magistrate, kissed back-probably thinking he, too, was sampling the girlish vampire's assets.
Miss Pink switched quickly from one male face to the other, so fast they couldn't follow her. Her lips formed alluring words, while her lithe body undulated with the music. These men were marionettes on Pink's strings, because both old fools believed whatever she'd told them. They deserved to be dancing with each other on this cold winter night while the undertaker looked on.
I slipped through the door and closed it quietly behind me. Dammit, I had matters to discuss with the judge! And maybe I could plead my case more easily because I'd caught him in this compromising position. He and Furmeister were still kissing, but Nat Dammet spared me a glance.
"Well, well, Counselor-what brings you out on such a frigid night?" His gaze went up and down my overcoat. "I've often admired your taste in clothes and wondered if the man beneath them would have the same…taste. So to speak."
"You'll never know," came my tight reply. "Rumor has it you do unthinkable things to people who…get laid on your table, and I didn't come here to find out."
Dammet's hand stilled on his impish dick. "That, Mr. Moore, is slander. I'll see you in court if you think-"
"I think it's a pretty fair call," I asserted, my voice rising to catch the attention of the others. "I have it from a reliable source that you were screwing Lucy Legg while you prepared her body for the funeral. This same person said Lucy's neck had been broken-"
The magistrate's head swiveled away from Pink's pert little breasts.
"-and saw two very suspicious puncture wounds, perhaps made by a vampire."
Everyone froze. The candlelit sanctum got deadly quiet. Miss Pink's eyes flashed her anger-and I had to admit my enthusiasm had run amok. But then she relaxed; saw the potential for having more fun at everyone else's expense. For who would find her guilty of being a vampire and live to tell about it?
She separated the two old buzzards by climbing into the judge's arms as though it were her favorite cradle. Then she winked at me. "Proceed, Andrea," she mouthed. Gleefully anticipating how this scene would play out, Miss Pink released us all from our suspended animation.