“Dumb as a box of rocks,” interrupted Keeley with a wry grin, “if you want to be charitable.”
“-and his defense attorney might not be the most energetic I’ve seen-“
“Lopez knows how to pick his battles,” Keeley shrugged. “He’s good at his job. Knows a shit case when he sees one. Not all those charges will stick.”
Amber paused, wondering if she should say something about being allowed to say her peace. To his credit, Keeley caught onto her understandable frustration immediately. “Sorry,” he grunted, “it’s late. Go on.”
“Like you said, not all the charges will stick,” Amber said. “I mean, he gets a full jury trial, right? You said this is done by the book, secrecy notwithstanding?”
“Well,” Keeley shrugged, “they’re entitled to a jury trial. Doesn’t mean it actually happens. Remember what we told you about the loyalty oaths? Swearing fealty when they’re given the big bite and such? Secrecy is the most important aspect. Every vampire is brought in promising to keep their existence secret, even at the cost of their lives. They enforce that on one another brutally.
“The second a vampire realizes he’s been made, he starts sweating bullets. Having to go through a trial like this is some scary shit for them, because even if they get out, their vampire buddies would be all over them to know if they slipped up even just a bit… and they wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t already slipped, right?
“A jury is twelve more people who know the truth. That’s twelve more screw-ups on the vampire’s part. So usually they waive their right and opt for a bench trial. Lopez argues that the trial isn’t legit, because it violates the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a public trial; Oswalt says the defendant just waived that right by opting for this court over a regular public courthouse, and Castillo agrees, so that settles that. And then we move to the bench trial.”
Not for the first time this month, a small part of her kicked herself for waiting until now to ask all this. It wasn’t as if Keeley or the other agents on the Kowalski case had held anything back. “And if they want a jury?”
“Then we give it to ‘em,” answered Keeley. “Twelve U.S. citizens, fluent and literate in English, with no previous connections to the case, who all hold top secret security clearance. And yes,” he added, “Lopez objects to that wrinkle, too, and points out that this creates a jury that is naturally predisposed toward the government. Castillo overrules and life goes on.”
Amber walked beside him, unsure which question to ask next. That had more or less been the story of her life for these last few weeks. “So is this how it always goes?”
“For the vampires, yeah, pretty much,” said Keeley. “We’ve had a couple curveballs, of course. In the beginning, everything seemed so crazy that there’d never be a normal. But you start to see patterns. The werewolves have their own goofy habits. And then there’re the other weirdoes,” he grunted, “but we haven’t caught enough of those other kinds to establish any baselines.”
Amber’s next question had been on her mind for some time. Amid all the cloak and dagger procedures and the grim confidence of the task force, it had seemed almost naïve, but now she had to ask. “What are you gonna do when one of these cases ends in an acquittal?”
Keeley came to another door. He paused before he opened it to look over his shoulder at the young agent. “I don’t know,” he smiled. “I’ll tell you when it happens. ‘til then, we keep moving on to the next case. And this one’s a bit of a problem.”
Amber followed him into a conference room dominated by a long table and a white projection screen opposite the door. The room’s four occupants had all gone for loosened ties and rolled-up shirtsleeves. She saw Chinese take-out boxes, bottles of soda and a good number of manila file folders. One wall of the room was covered with suspect sketches.
“You ready for us, Joe?” Keeley asked as they entered. “Arraignment’s all pretty much finished anyway.”
Standing taller than the rest was a blond man with football hero shoulders, a square jaw and something just shy of a flat-top. The sight of Keeley and the other man together immediately made Amber think, “Good cop, tackle cop.”
She met Agent Hauser briefly when she was first recruited onto the task force. He hadn’t said much at that meeting. Now, he acknowledged her with much the same grunt as then, but this time he spoke. “Agent Maddox,” he nodded, “it’s good to have you here. Congratulations on your first arrest with the task force.”
“Thank you, sir,” Amber mumbled.
“Everyone,” Hauser said to the others present, “this is Agent Amber Maddox. Received her high school diploma and her Associate’s degree at age 17 through Washington’s Running Start program. Graduated University of Washington with double honors degrees in chemistry and physics, age 20. Worked for three years in the Bureau’s Applied Sciences lab, then went to the Academy in Quantico and served in C.I.D. for a year before she signed on with the task force three weeks ago.”
Amber glanced around at the others: one woman, two men, plus Hauser and Keeley, all staring at her. “That’s a bit more of an introduction than I usually get,” she said. Five minutes from now, she’d come up with something much wittier.
“Everyone here has at least ten years on you, Amber,” Hauser explained. “I don’t want anyone wondering why you’re here, least of all you. You’ve kicked a lot of ass to be here.” He paused. “Plus I needed to see if you’d blush.”
“Did I?”
“No. Have a seat, everyone.”
Amber felt many eyes still upon her as she took up an empty chair. “I only did the honors program in chemistry,” she confessed. “Physics is hard.”
“Amber, these are Agents Doug Bridger, Matt Lanier and Colleen Nguyen,” Hauser began as the lights went down and the projector mounted in the ceiling flickered to life. “They’ve all been on the task force for several years. You’ll be working with us for the foreseeable future in your hometown of Seattle.”
Amber blinked. She knew relocation was a potential factor in this transfer, but thought that train had left the station. “I’m not staying with the LA office?”
“No,” Hauser said. “No, that was just your audition. We had to make sure you wouldn’t freak out at the first encounter with a supernatural. Some people don’t take too well to seeing those kinds of abilities.” He paused, offering up a wry smirk. “Most people don’t respond by tackling the perp to the ground.”
She felt grateful the lights had gone down. It was a pretty sure bet she’d be blushing by now. She paid attention to the map of the west coast on the screen and its red, blue and green circles here and there.
“The west coast is something of a hotbed of organized supernatural activity. We’ve got large vampire societies in LA and San Fran and a couple of distinct werewolf packs spread out across the southwest. The vampires organize themselves in a somewhat feudal structure. There’s no discernible consistency of who claims what titles, but there are chains of allegiance. Many of those chains lead to this woman, Lady Anastacia Illyana Kanatova of Seattle.”
The slide changed, offering up a detailed sketch of a thin woman of regal beauty. She was blonde, with Eastern European features and a haughty, elegant look. “We have no idea of her original name or how old she might be, but she clearly dates back centuries. As far as we can tell, she’s the best-connected vampire on the west coast, with allies across the country. She’s in charge of a group of at least sixty other vampires in the Seattle area, which is one of the largest populations we’ve identified.
“They all vanished last month. We haven’t picked up a trace of them since.”
Amber blinked. Hauser shifted to the next slide, which showed multiple views of what must have been a large house-perhaps a mansion, judging by its footprint-that had burned down to the foundation. She had to wonder how long it had been burning before the firefighters in the pictures arrived. Even much of the grass had burned within an acre of the house, maybe more.