"The mythology of the vampire goes back thousands of years," he told me. "It's present in China, Africa, South and Central America. And central Europe, of course. For a lot of people here in America it's an aesthetic fetish. It's sexual, theatrical, and very romantic. It also transcends gender, which is an attractive idea these days."
I felt it was time to stop his spiel and focus on the murders. "What about the murders — the actual violence taking place here in California and Nevada?"
A mask of pain came over his face. "I've heard Jeffrey Dahmer called a vampire-cannibal. Also, Nicolas Claux, who you may not be familiar with. Claux was a Parisian mortician who confessed to murders in the mid-nineties. Once he was captured he took great pleasure in describing eating the flesh of corpses on his mortician's slab. He became known all over Europe as the Vampire of Paris."
"You've heard of Rod Ferrell in Florida?" I asked.
"Of course. He's a dark hero for some. Very big on the Internet. He and his small cult bludgeoned to death the parents of another member. They then carved numerous occult symbols into the dead bodies. I know all about Rod Ferrell. He was supposedly obsessed with opening the gates of hell. Thought he had to kill large numbers of people, and consume their souls, to be powerful enough to open up hell. Who knows? Maybe he succeeded," Westin said.
He stared at me for a long moment. "Let me tell you something, Detective Cross. This is the absolute truth. I believe it's important for you to understand. It is no more common for a vampire to be a psychopath or a killer than it is for any random person on the street."
I shrugged. "I guess I'd have to check your research statistics on that one. In the meantime, one or more vampires, real ones or maybe just role-players, have murdered at least a dozen people," I said.
Westin looked a little sad. "Yes, Detective, I know. That's why I consented to talk with you."
I asked him one final question. "Are you a vampire?"
Peter Westin paused before he answered. "Yes. I am."
The words cut through me. The man was completely serious.
Chapter 28
THAT NIGHT in Santa Barbara, I was just a little more afraid of the dark than I had ever been before. I sat in my hotel room and read a touching novel called Waiting by Ha Jin. I was waiting as well. I called home twice that night. I wasn't sure if I was lonely, or still feeling guilty about missing Damon's concert.
Or maybe Peter Westin had frightened me with his vampire stories and books, and the haunted look in his dark eyes. At any rate, I was taking vampires more seriously now that I had met him. Westin was a strange, eerie, unforgettable man. I had the feeling that I would meet, or at least talk to him, again.
My fears didn't go away that night, and not even with the first light of morning shining brightly over the Santa Ynez Mountains. Something quite awful was happening. It involved twisted individuals or maybe an underground cult.
It probably had something to do with the vampire subculture. But maybe it didn't, and that was even more disturbing to think about. It would mean we were in a totally gray area with the investigation.
By seven-thirty in the morning, my rented sedan was easing into soupy fog and then the morning traffic. I was singing a little Muddy Waters blues, which nicely matched my mood.
I left Santa Barbara and headed toward Fresno. I had another "expert" to meet.
I drove for a couple of hours. I got on 166 at Santa Maria and continued east through the Sierra Madres until I reached Route 99. I took it north. I was seeing California for the first time and liking most of what I saw. The topography was different than back east, and so were the colors.
I fell into a comfortable driving rhythm. I listened to a Jill Scott CD. For long stretches of the road trip I thought about the way my life had been going over the past couple of years. I knew that some of my friends were starting to worry about me, even my best friend, John Sampson, and I wouldn't exactly classify him as a worrier. Sampson had told me more than once that I was putting myself in harm's way. Sampson even suggested that maybe it was time for a career change. I knew I could go with the FBI, but that didn't seem like much of a change. I could also go back into psychiatry full-time — either see patients or possibly teach, maybe at Johns Hopkins, where I'd gotten my degree and still had pretty good connections.
Then there was Nana Mama's favorite tune: I needed to find someone and settle down again; I needed somebody to love.
It wasn't as if I hadn't tried. My wife, Maria, had been killed in a drive-by shooting in D.C. that had never been solved. That happened when Damon and Jannie were little, and I guess I never really got over it. Maybe I never would. Even now, if I let myself, I could get torn up thinking about Maria and what happened to her, to us, and how goddamn senseless it had been. What a terrible waste of a human life. It had left Damon and Jannie without their mother.
I had tried hard to find someone, but maybe I just wasn't meant to be lucky twice in my lifetime. There had been Jezzie Flanagan, but that couldn't have turned out worse. And then Christine Johnson, little Alex's mother. She was a teacher and now lived out here on the West Coast. She was doing well, loved Seattle, and had "found someone." I still had terribly mixed feelings about Christine. She'd been hurt because of me. My fault, not hers. She had made it clear she couldn't live with a homicide detective. And then, not too long ago, I had started to become involved with an FBI agent named Betsey Cavalierre. Now Betsey was dead. Her murder remained unsolved. I was afraid to even have drinks with Jamilla Hughes. The past was starting to haunt me.
"Some detective," I muttered, as I spotted the overhead sign: Fresno. I had come here to see a man about some teeth.
Fangs, actually.
Chapter 29
THE TATTOO, FANG, AND CLAWS PARLOR was located on the fringe of a lower-middle-class commercial district in downtown Fresno. It was a ramshackle storefront with an old dentist's chair prominently displayed in the window. In the chair was a girl who couldn't have been more than fourteen or fifteen. She sat with her skinny, pimpled neck bowed toward her lap, wincing with each needle puncture.
On a tall stool beside her sat a young guy with a bright blue-and-yellow bandanna wrapped tightly around his head. He was applying the tattoo. He reached for a bottle of ink. The array of tattoo inks beside him reminded me of the spin-art booth at a school fair.
I watched the tattoo process from the street for the next few minutes. I couldn't help thinking about the role of physical pain in getting tattoos, but also in the murders so far.
I knew the basic tattoo process and watched as the resident artist adjusted a gooseneck lamp toward the nape of the girl's neck. The artist used two foot-operated tattoo machines: one for outlining, the other for shading and coloring. The round shader between the machines held fourteen different needles. The more needles, the more colorful the flash.
A middle-aged man with a crew cut was passing by on the street, and he paused just long enough to mutter, "That's nuts, and so are you for watching."
Everybody's a critic these days. I finally went inside and saw the tattoo master's art, a small Celtic symbol, green and gold. I asked him where I could get fangs and claws. He moved his head, his chin, actually, to indicate a hallway to his left. Never said a word.