Dracul's Revenge 01: Dracul's Blood (3 page)

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he made his way to the next two rooms, not entering or touching anything. There was no doubt from the amount of blood tossed around that the victims were dead. Bobby hoped they’d all died quickly after the first hit, because lying there while your employer drank your blood would be the worst kind of torture.

“Detective Marks, we found where the fire poker came from.” Someone yelled up from the first floor.

“Do you think he planned it?” Jablonsky ran his fingers over the ornate carvings on the banister as they went back downstairs.

“Do I think an older reclusive billionaire sat in his study plotting to bludgeon to death three of his employees before drinking their blood?” Bobby shot his partner a glance. “No, I don’t think it was pre-meditated. I think something made the poor old fool snap, and he got DRACUL’S BLOOD

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it in his head that they were out to get him or he was in danger.”

“You know, they say that blood is the elixir of life. In all the movies, the vampires need the blood to live. Maybe Thompson believed that as well.”

“Good theory, Jablonsky, but if Thompson truly believed that, why hasn’t there been even a whiff of rumour about him being a vampire?” He pushed past several people standing in the doorway of what appeared to be Thompson’s study.

Jablonsky clasped his hands behind his back before wandering over to the fireplace.

“How do we know there haven’t been any rumours? I don’t read the tabloids, and you’d pitch a fit if anyone made you read something other than the Daily Racing Form.”

“Shut up, shit head.”

He crouched down next to a chair where a glass and clay bottle rested on their sides.

The glass had a dark red residue on the side. Glancing around, he caught the eye of one of the techs.

“You get pictures of this already?”

“Yep. You can move it.”

The latex gloves made picking up anything smooth a little difficult, especially when you didn’t want to smudge any prints, but he managed to get the glass upright and held it to his nose.

“Hey, maybe you should make sure it’s not some kind of poison before you sniff shit.”

Jablonsky suggested from where he stood, holding a shovel used to remove ashes from the fireplace. “What do you think? It looks like the same set as the poker.”

“I didn’t drink the stuff. It smells like wine, yet there’s some underlying scent that I can’t place.” He set the glass back down for the evidence guys to bag. “The man took the best weapon he could find in the spur of the moment. I told you, Jablonsky, he didn’t plan this.”

Jablonsky chuckled. “Now you’re some kind of wine expert, Bobby. You haven’t drunk anything other than beer since we became partners.”

And not much of that
, Bobby added silently. It was too easy to drown the bad images his job created for him in alcohol. Oh, he drank once in a while, yet he tried not to go overboard because it wouldn’t be difficult to become a drunk.

“No. We both know I know shit about wine, but that liquid smells familiar. I just can’t figure out what. It’ll come to me.” He stood and poked the clay bottle with the toe of his boot. “Make sure this gets bagged as well. Take some really good close up pictures of it for DRACUL’S BLOOD

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me. Test what’s left in it. If it was poison, we’ll have to see if the entire bottle was tainted or if it was put into the glass.”

“What you thinking, Bobby?” Jablonsky joined him in the centre of the room.

Turning, Bobby looked everything over. “Whatever caused Thompson to wig out and kill five people is in this room. I know as surely as I know what horse is going to win the third race at Belmont this Saturday.”

“On a winning streak?” Jablonsky jabbed him in the side with his bony elbow.

“Won a thousand dollars last two races I bet on. My luck’s been good lately, and I don’t think it’ll be hard to solve this case. We just need a little time, but it’ll be wrapped up neatly and the lieutenant can take credit for it when we’re done.”

Not a word of doubt issued from Jablonsky’s mouth, though he knew his partner didn’t believe him.

“We should head home and grab a couple hours of sleep. I’ll meet you back at the precinct, and we’ll get to work on the evidence then.”

Bobby eased to one corner. “I’ll stay here and supervise. You head home. How are Wendy and the girls?”

“Wendy’s feeling better, but now Rebecca has the flu.” Jablonsky yawned. “I was up with her when I got the call.”

“Go take care of your girls. I’ll stay until the scene’s cleared. Don’t want any screw-ups. We’ll get this taken care of and all the reports written before the weekend.”

“Got a big date?” His partner winced when the question slipped from his lips.

Bobby never denied being gay. First thing he told Jablonsky when they became partners. No sense in acting ashamed about something he couldn’t help. He also didn’t flaunt his dates or encounters. Jablonsky was a good guy, kept the gay jokes to a minimum and didn’t hassle Bobby.

“Just with the horses out at the track, man.” He was going through a dry spell at the moment when it came to guys. “I’ll see you in the morning, and we’ll work out why Thompson went vampire on us.”

For all of Bobby’s bold words about finding an easy motive for the brutal murders, his gut told him the case was far from over. Something bad was coming, and Bobby had a gambler’s feeling he was caught in the middle of it.

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A folder landed with a soft splat on Bobby’s desk early the next morning. He jerked and dropped his feet to the floor from where he’d propped them on the edge. Yawning, he rubbed his eyes and sat up straight. The young man standing in jeans, dress shirt, and lab coat smiled.

“Late night, Detective?”

“You could say that. I didn’t get back to the precinct until about an hour ago. Ton of stuff to process from multiple crime scenes.” He stretched and grimaced as the vertebra in his spine popped.

“Yeah, boss downstairs said you’d want these photographs asap, which is why I brought them up here myself, instead of mailing them to you.” The guy eased a little closer to Bobby.

The tone in the lab guy’s voice made Bobby glance up at him. Interest gleamed in the techie’s eyes.
Ah, got it. Came up here to flirt with the gay cop. Knows I won’t beat his ass for it.

“Thanks, kid. Tell your boss I owe him a drink for getting the photos to me so quickly.”

“Right. Those are actually just of the perp’s study. Libby, one of the crime scene photographers, knew you would be interested in those.” The tech pushed away from the desk and wandered back towards the elevator, shooting a glance over his shoulder at Bobby.

Shaking his head to the unasked question, Bobby dropped his gaze to the folder. Even if the kid was his type, he didn’t date people he worked with. Things tended to get a little stressful if the relationship went south. Picking up the photos, he leant back in his chair and put his feet back up on his desk.

He twirled a pencil around in his fingers while he opened the folder and started to flip through the pictures. Thompson’s study screamed ‘rich’. The furniture was dark heavy wood covered in some expensive looking fabric, probably silk or something like that. He hadn’t gotten a close enough look at it. Bobby snorted softly. Like he would recognise silk if it bit him on the ass.

Leather bound books sat neatly in rows on the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and looked DRACUL’S BLOOD

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like no one ever touched them. The knick-knacks scattered around the room probably cost more than Bobby paid in rent. The oil painting cost more than Bobby’s car, which was saying something because he owned a 1969 red and black Camaro, a classic from back when they really knew how to make muscle cars.

He came to the pictures of the wine glass and the bottle. He let his feet fall to the floor and spread the photos of the wine bottle on his desk. Digging through the pile of lab reports he’d discovered on his desk, he pulled the one out about the bottle. It was clay, country of origin unknown at the moment. Samples of the clay and of the contents had been sent to the state lab for analysis and they wouldn’t be getting the results back quickly. The lab was backed up from tons of other cases and just because it was a high profile one, didn’t mean shit to the techies up there.

Bobby’s gut told him the bottle was important. Did wineries still put wine in clay bottles or had they all changed over to glass? He scribbled questions down in his notebook.

He’d have to do some research to figure out when this bottle might have been created and, if wine had been in it, when it had been made.

“Thompson collected wine.” Jablonsky flopped into the chair at the desk butted up against Bobby’s.

“Who did you talk to?” Bobby jotted that note down next to his questions.

“The lieutenant had me stop and talk to the other members of Thompson’s staff.

Seems only the three senior staff members lived at the house. The others went home every night. There’s two more that we’ll need to question, but that can wait for later.” Jablonsky shrugged out of his jacket, rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and slid a pair of glasses on.

“Thompson collected wine, explains the bottle and glass, I guess.” He traced the outline of the bottle.

“Yeah, the footman said that Thompson had attended a private auction the other night and spent a helluva lot of money on some wine. The guy didn’t know anything more except that Thompson was ‘stoked’ about getting his hands on it. It was delivered last night.”

“Explains the box on the guy’s desk.” Bobby let his head fall back as he stared at the ceiling. “What makes this wine so special?”

Jablonsky’s chair creaked as his partner settled into it. “Don’t know. Guess I should do a little investigating at the auction houses to figure out where it sold.”

“Good idea. I want to know who sold it and where it came from.” He looked at DRACUL’S BLOOD

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Jablonsky. “The wine is the key to the whole thing.”

“Your gut telling you this?”

Bobby nodded. “Yeah.”

He went back to inspecting the photographs of the wine bottle. “Do you think there’s a special reason why the bottom of the bottle is pointed or did they make them that way whenever the wine was bottled?”

“Don’t look at me. Maybe you should pick up a history on wine-making on your way home, or you could just look it up on line.” Jablonsky chuckled at Bobby’s scowl. “You’re such a throw-back, Bobby. I don’t know anyone who likes using a computer less than you.”

He flipped Jablonsky the bird while his attention was drawn to the red seal on the bottle. Shifting through the pictures, he realised there wasn’t a close-up, detailed photo of it.

He picked up his phone and called the crime lab.

“Wilmont,” the man who answer barked.

“Wilmont, this’s Detective Marks.”

An aggravated sigh echoed over the line. “What can I help you with, Marks?”

“I need one of your techs to take several very close shots of the seal on a clay bottle.”

“The one that came from the Thompson crime scene?”

Papers being rustled reached Bobby’s ear.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll have Libby do it and email them to you asap.”

“Thanks, Wilmont. I owe you.”

“Buy me a beer at the bar some night and I’ll call it even.” Wilmont hung up.

That would mean Bobby had to go to the bar, which he didn’t do very often, but he’d make a special effort to stop at some point in the next week or two. He always paid his debts.

“I’m going to interview some of the witnesses. See if I can shake some new memories free.” Jablonsky pushed to his feet, tugging on his jacket before he stepped away from the desk.

“You need me to go with you?”

“Nah. I’ll take the rookie with me. She needs some practice questioning witnesses.

You stay on the bottle, especially if your gut’s telling you that’s the key to this whole fucked-up mess.”

“Catch up with you later.” He waved a vague hand in Jablonsky’s direction.

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While Bobby waited for the lab to send him the new photos, he memorised the pictures he had. Nothing besides the bottle and glass seemed out of place or moved. That’s why Bobby’s mind wouldn’t let go of the wine, but what could have been in the liquid that caused a relatively normal man to go crazy and brutally murder five people, then drink their blood? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

His computer beeped and he brought up his email programme. Clicking on the attachment icon, he fidgeted while the pictures downloaded and began popping up on his screen. God, he loved digital photos. They were so clear, it was almost like the bottle was sitting right in front of him.

“Hmmm…what does that say?” he muttered, zooming in on the red seal at the neck of the bottle.

‘Havasalföld’ was the only words he could find on the entire clay surface. Definitely a foreign wine, or at least the bottle was. Opening his web browser, he grumbled as he typed in the word and hit enter. He printed out the new photos to add to the pile in his folder.

His old computer was taking its own sweet time finding anything on the word, so he went back to studying the seal. None of it made any sense to him. Bobby might have to call in some expert help on that. The detectives had a list of experts they could call on if they couldn’t find the information on their own.

He looked up as his screen flashed. A grimace crossed his face when he saw all the foreign language links. God, he would be here all day. Couldn’t one English person have translated some of these sites for uneducated people like him who could barely speak English without messing up?

“Havasalföld is a Hungarian word used to describe Wallachia, a historical and geographical area of Romania,” he read aloud. “Guess that means the bottle is old.”

Bobby tried to decipher more of the information on the sites, but it wasn’t working for him. He scrubbed his hand over his hair in frustration before giving up and calling Cecelia, the civilian receptionist for their precinct.