"That does it, Moore. You're stark raving mad if you believe in vampires," Judge Legg blurted. "My dear Lucy was brutally murdered by Billy Tripplehorn, whom you then whisked out of town. That's aiding and abetting, Mr. Moore! Makes your client appear more guilty, and implicates you, as well. I'm taking you off this case!"
"Fine-because you can't try Billy for murder! Here's the proof that you falsified his confession!" I replied, pulling the two papers from my pocket. "Miss Lucy tried to trap Tripplehorn into marrying her, because she was carrying YOUR baby and saw no other way out! And when Billy escaped with me, you didn't want your dirty little secret revealed. So you wrung her neck!"
The magistrate's face went crimson, like he might keel over, while Virgil and Nat got wide-eyed and quiet. So Pink whipped things up a notch.
"I think we need a reenactment!" she crowed, materializing into a solid, sprightly little girl who jumped down from the judge's arms. "Let's pretend this table is the church-and Virgil, you can play Billy. Nat, you stay put. You and your mama can tell us if this whole nasty affair really happened."
The mortician looked peeved about being a mere witness, but when the vampire lifted her pink gingham skirts, pulled down her matching panties, and wagged her ass at the deputy, Nat Dammet's gaze became as steady as his mama's. Harold Legg stood apart, as though caught in Pink's web: I suspected all of them had been in her sway since before I'd arrived, for they now seemed oblivious to my presence…willing to perform at the wiggle of her finger.
"The way I heard it, Lucy lured Billy Tripplehorn into taking her from behind-in the alley between the church and the courthouse!" the vampire began in her little-girl voice. "And he got so excited, there in front of God and everybody, that his big ole dick lifted her off the ground! Show us how it happened, Virgil. You saw it, same as I did!"
The deputy's enthusiasm made up for his lack of acting ability: like a ram in rut he plowed into Miss Pink. While I knew the wily vampire was floating of her own accord, her impassioned whimpers made it seem realistic. As the toes of her patent leather shoes left the floor, Judge Legg stiffened in more ways than one.
"Oh Billy, Billy, please fuck me!" Pink mewed, grasping the table leg so she could pump backwards. "It's nearly five, and if Daddy sees us-"
On impulse, Nat Dammet grabbed the lid from a nearby brass canister and banged it with his palm-WHANGGGG! WHANGGGG!-to imitate the chiming of the courthouse clock.
"-he'll be so mad at his little girl, he'll beat me, Billy!" the vampire wailed. She jerked her head, signaling me. "But no! You can't leave me, Billy! Just because that lawyer-"
I caught my cue and had to obey the force that drove me into this drama once again. "Come with me, Tripplehorn!" I cried, grabbing Furmeister by the arm. "Miss Lucy wants to get caught, and she wants to catch YOU! She's nothing but trouble!"
The deputy protested. His cock made a wet, popping sound as it slipped from that pretty little slit-but like the rest of us, he was following the script Miss Pink directed.
As Dammet put his all into the fifth and final chiming of the clock, the magistrate came to life. Roaring forward, he grabbed the girlish vampire so she doubled over his arm, and began spanking her bare backside with the wrath of a daddy challenged.
"You filthy little whore!" he wheezed between slaps. "Thinking you could leave me for that piece of alley trash! I'm going to blister your butt until-"
"Not any more, you're not!" Miss Pink twisted deftly within his grasp, to face him. "I won't live with your baby growing inside-"
We gasped when the magistrate's hands encircled Miss Pink's neck. He shook her, caught up in a nasty chant, his complexion devil red. "Never knew when to quit-always sassing your daddy, until-goddammit, Lucy-"
"Harold, let her go, for chrissakes! You're killing her!"
It was Nat's voice that brought the melodrama to a halt. Miss Pink landed with a grimace against the table's edge. The judge took a step back, but he-like those Old Testament patriarchs he resembled-looked more righteous than wrong.
The shadowy room again got quiet. Virgil Furmeister looked flummoxed by the emotions that had flown around us like rabid bats-not only because of the Judge's behavior, but because the childlike redhead Legg had spanked couldn't keep her fangs back.
The mortician turned paler than one of his corpses. "Gentlemen, such information can't go beyond this room," he rasped. He was inching in my direction, his fingers flexing. "Had I known, Harry, that you-well, if Moore spreads this around town, that you killed-and that you were here tonight dancing with Virgil-my reputation will be-"
"Reputation?" I brayed. I pointed at the lifeless woman who would forever smoke that stogy wearing nothing but buckle-up boots. "Hell's bells, Dammet! We all know you offed your own mother, as revenge for when she whittled your pencil. You're not exactly as white as the snow you wrote in-and neither is Judge Legg!"
It was the wrong thing to say. I escaped by slamming the door on the slender male hand that would've grabbed my sleeve. The anguished cry that followed came not from the pain of crushed fingers, but out of mortal terror. I peeked through the window in time to watch that pigtailed vampire attach herself to the judge's jugular, and then stepped away.
I crossed town at a brisk walk, no longer hungry like I was when I'd left my office. I entered my quarters and fell back against the door, as though I could shut out the events I'd just witnessed, along with their tragic ramifications. All this because my lust for Billy Tripplehorn had gone awry- But no! Why was I not surprised that, as soon as I was seated, a demure redhead materialized to sit on the edge of my desk? She now wore a gown of rose brocade trimmed in nipple-pink fur-and she was only one of three biting reasons my life had rushed headlong beyond my control. I was homeless, I was alone, I was horribly confused. And I was not happy about how things had been manipulated lately!
"I suppose you left a mess for some poor unsuspecting soul to find, when they go looking for those three-"
"Andrea, your insensitivity appalls me!" Pink fidgeted with the rose above her ear, fighting a grin. "Actually, I told the deputy to write a glowing obituary for the magistrate, who died of heart failure. And I said Dammet should provide a funeral like no one in Redemption has ever seen. I left them too damn scared to do anything else."
"You could've staged your little play after I asked the judge about Perfidia being-"
"His wife and your mother?" Those eyes rolled with the sarcasm only an eternal adolescent can show. "Honestly, Andrea! How can you think she'd submit to a horny old goat like like Harold Legg? Falling for Billy Tripplehorn must've really scrambled those lawyer brains of yours!"
"But then," she said with added with a wistful sigh, "everything changed when Billy came…and came…and…"
That part was accurate: those vamps had become so competitive with Billy in their midst, they splintered off into separate forces, determined to outdo each other. So now the orphanage was gone, along with Pandora. And Perfidia had told me some gawdawful lies-if I could believe Miss Pink, whose appetites always got the best of her.
Who could've known what a difference a man could make? All because I'd found the one I wanted.
"I know you're wondering," she said in her high, childlike voice, "so I'll admit I killed Lucy. She was going to die a painful death at the hands of her perverted daddy anyway. But mostly, I didn't want Billy going back to her, when he ran from the mansion that first night. I wanted YOU to have him, Andrea! Because you deserve him. And because I knew you'd…share him with the rest of us."
"Well, that won't be happening," I stated, shooing her off my desk. "It was a mistake to bring him to the house, and now that he's left me again, I'm leaving well enough alone. I advise you to get on with your life, Miss Pink. Just like I am."