The Scene (13 page)

             
“Do you think we’re doing the right thing?” I said from my spot on the sofa.

             
“I don’t know. What I do know is that this is the strangest thing I’ve ever been a part of and I’m not leaving till the end.” She opened the door with surprising ease and walked out into the sunshine. “Besides, who else is going to save your ass from vampires?”

             
Till the end. When will that be?

CHAPTER 13

              Tatum and I stopped at a random drive-thru and grabbed some lunch before we headed to Mike’s house. Shoving our faces with food, we chatted about theories and possible suspects. If someone wasn’t aware she and I were in no way affiliated with the police department, they would’ve assumed we were detectives by listening to our conversation. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. I was a little concerned that I was just going to fuck something up and not help anyone at all. What was I going to do with the information once I got it? I have no authority to bust in a door and drag a criminal out by their hair. I didn’t even have a reason to question possible witnesses and things like that. No reason - except the book.

             
“Do you think we’re being stupid and rushing into a situation that we have no authority to control?” I said suddenly during a moment of silence.

             
“No. Why?” Tatum spit out through a mouth full of food.

             
“I don’t know. I was thinking maybe we’re just morbidly interested, overly involved, and unnecessarily invested. And in the end, we aren’t really going to help at all. I just…I kind of feel like I’m in a shitty movie. A mystery-thriller and we’re the idiotic big-tittied broads that bite the big one in the final fight scene, or earlier.”

             
“I agree with the movie-thing. I don’t think either of us will even get close enough to anyone to be included in the final fight scene, though. We would be the comic relief, I think, and they never die,” Tatum said, mouth less-full this time.

             
“Then who’s our hero?” I asked enjoying the current conversation.

             
“Mike, I guess. He is the detective…and the love interest.” She smiled slyly and stared out the window.

             
“Fuck it. I am so done dealing with penises right now.” I chuckled. “Naked dead chicks are more my thing as of late. If Mike’s the hero, and we’re the comic relief, then we’re left with the most important character. If we have a protagonist, we must have an antagonist.” We both paused for a heartbeat as I pulled the car into Mike’s driveway. “Who’s our villain?”

             
“Or
villains
,” Tatum said as she got out of the car.

             
“I was thinking the same thing. The theory has possibility and actually makes me question my earlier judgment about our trio-of-freaks.  I just don’t think those three could have actually pulled something like this off. I mean, honestly, it takes some kind of…’bad-ass-ness’ to be a cold-hearted killer. I would think so anyway.” 

             
Tatum nodded in concurrence as I knocked swiftly on the wooden door. We stood in silence for a few moments listening for the shuffle of feet to sound through the entryway. Tatum knocked this time, much more aggressively than I had previously. Finally, the soft shuffle of sock clad feet made its way nearer the two of us. The sound of fumbling locks could be heard clearly through the thick wood. Finally, the door flung open to reveal the hero of our story.

             
“Hey, sleeping beauty. Nice hair,” I said, as I pushed my way past Mike and his bed head.

             
Tatum chuckled and followed suit into the house.

             
“Come on in, girls.” Mike’s groggy voice grumbled from the doorway.

Tatum and I plunked our butts down on his big leather couch and made ourselves at home. Mike’s house was the typical suburban home you would expect from any family man; the funny thing was
, Mike didn’t have a family.  He lived all alone in this three bedroom, walk-in-closet, white picket fence, dream house. There were a few bachelor amenities: gigantic TV, super stereo system, and only beer in the fridge. It was kind of like my house, only much bigger.

             
“I haven’t been here in a long time. Hasn’t changed much,” I rambled, gazing around at his photos, some including me.

             
“Yeah, I like it that way. Here.” Mike handed me an even larger envelope than the first he’d given me.

             
“Wow, thanks. This is--”

             
“Bakersfield, Pico photos, no ME report yet.” He finished my sentence.

             
“So that’s everything but Fresno? What is with those dicks? They don’t know how to do their job?” I was expecting that was the case.

             
“They don’t care. Don’t you get it? The only reason this has become such media frenzy is because of the cause of death, not who died. Nobody cares about transients and hookers, Dylan, nobody.” Frustration seeped from every pore on Mike’s body. He plopped down between Tatum and me on the couch and let out a big sigh. “What do you want from me? Do you really think you can help anyone? You have zero training and no jurisdiction; you
are not
a cop.” He stared a hole right through me. I stared back.

             
“We have something better than that, Mike. Women’s intuition. Not to mention huge knockers. Trust me we can get anything from anyone without the slightest bit of police training. Besides, this is what we do for a living, gather information and report back. Do you lack that much faith in us, Mike?” Tatum spoke with such eloquence, even if she did say the word knockers.

             
“No, I trust you. However, I know you two; someone’s going to end up hurt.”

             
“No we…”

             
Mike cut her off. “Remember that time you ended up in a cast after the dumpster incident, Tatum? Or how about the time I had to pull a lot of strings to get you two out of jail at four a.m. on Christmas morning? I don’t even want to talk about the time Dylan was attacked and nearly raped over some stupid photos! What if…what if something happened to one of you?” He turned quickly from Tatum to me. “What if you ended up like one of these girls?”

             
“Mike, I’ll be fine. Besides, I’m short, fat, and brunette. Honestly, if anyone is in line to eat it, Tatum is. She does fit the profile.” I smiled at Mike, hoping it would calm him down.

             
“Hey!” Tatum chimed in from the end of the couch.

             
“Look, I just don’t want to see anyone get hurt here. I don’t know what I’d do if…just be careful. And check in,
a lot
.” He had given up. His persuasion would have never swayed me once I began a project and he knew it.

             
“10-4. We’ll be on our best behavior. I promise. I’ve never seen you so concerned before. Is there something you’re not telling me?” I wasn’t sure why Mike was so upset, he’s been a cop for ten years, it’s not for lack of experience.

             
“No.” I didn’t believe him.

             
“So this is only Bakersfield?” I asked, changing the subject.

             
“And the Pico girl from this morning, the photos anyway.”

             
“Let me see.” Tatum had a hand stretched out for the envelope.

             
In an instant, the contents of the envelope were strewn about the coffee table. Naked dead girls filled my vision once again. This time in back and white.  Tatum began arranging the photos as I had this morning, chronologically.  Bakersfield first, then the blonde from this morning.

             
“Where is the Hanford girl? And the Bonita Terrace one?” Tatum looked to me for answers.

             
“I didn’t bring them. It’s all still on my table at home. Sorry.”

             
“Ugh. These are ours right? We can take them?” Tatum asked Mike.

             
“Yeah, just don’t let anyone know you have them or it’s my ass.”

             
“That won’t be a problem. What’s with the paper photos?” she asked.

             
“You think the precinct is gonna fork over the money for a color photo copier? I ran off what I could, as quick as I could. You get what you get.” He rubbed the top of his head tousling his hair into a mess of dirty blonde locks resembling a pile of alfalfa.

             
Looking at the photos, I noticed the girls were also fair-haired and thin, but that is where the similarities ended. The Bakersfield girl was obviously lower class than the Hanford girl. She had many tattoos, a name on her chest next to a rose was beginning to fade away, probably a homemade job. Her hair was bottle blonde, dark roots gave that one away quickly. She had no cuts though. She wasn’t covered in slashes across her arms or a deep cut to her inner thigh.

             
“She isn’t like the others. No cuts,” I said never looking away from the photos.

             
“Yeah, she was almost overlooked until they found this.” Mike held up a close-up photo of a large bruise on her inner thigh. In the center of the bruise was a red dot and a single drip of blood.

             
“What’s that?” I asked.

             
“According to the ME, that is a puncture wound from a medical grade hollow point needle. Similar to the type they use at the blood bank. The ME report states that the victim probably struggled a little when the needle was inserted causing the bruising. Otherwise, it was a perfect tap of the vein. This could have drained the body, but it would have taken a while. I figure he must have had her in a secluded area in order to drain her slowly. The drip of blood from the wound is actually not from the bleed-out. The ME found saliva around the wound and has a theory that the perp removed the needle and used his mouth to remove blood from that point; it would have been postmortem, but barely. Good eye noticing this one had nothing in common with the others, aside from being blonde and a prostitute. A local girl actually, Marci Campbell, 23, living in a transient motel off Highway 99.” His face was forlorn and weathered.

             
“Here’s why. She probably struggled.” Tatum held up a photo of the girl’s upper body. “I’ve been thinking that, maybe, the girls were drugged because I haven’t seen or heard about any defense wounds. If this girl was drugged, it may have taken a bit more to get her down, look.” She then pointed to the rugged bumps that scattered the girls forearm.

             
“A druggy. Wow. She might have gotten away if they hadn’t been prepared.”

Maybe there is more than one murderer; someone must have held her down.

              “Of course, if they laced her drink, or used any drug containing opiates it could have taken more of the drug to affect her in a normal manner because of the tolerance she built up.” Tatum smiled proudly, like when she won the spelling bee in third grade.

             
“So far, you guys have figured out the girls were drugged, the wounds don’t all match, and the likelihood of multiple suspects is very high. You two have done more police work in twenty minutes than most of them had in the last three months. Good work boys.” It was Mike’s turn to be proud.

             
“You know, Mike, I was thinking, all of this started in Fresno, and wouldn’t it be really important to get all of the information we can from the Fresno police. I mean, we could go and…”

             
“No fucking way! There is no way you two are going into the lion’s den to retrieve some bullshit information in order to subdue some crazy fascination you have with this case.” Mike was standing over me at this point. I stood up too.

             
“So what? We just sit around here and wait until another girl pops up behind a dumpster? Maybe then you’ll have enough to bring in the bad guy. Or maybe, Tatum will be the blonde girl in the photos next time? Or me. We are safer on the road north to the beginning than we are here nosing around Hollywood vamp clubs where the killers are most likely shacking up! Either way, I’m not giving up. Yes, I know I’m only in it for the book and the fame and all that comes along with it. But, there was a girl dead this morning that I had to get six inches from to make sure she wasn’t my best friend. I was drugged, woke up in some weird guy’s apartment, whose nose was later broken by Tatum. Then I was called at two a.m. to a bar to look at video of said asshole leaving with some fucking blonde, who I then thought was dead behind a dumpster! You want to talk about safe?! I’m scared out of my mind! I pulled a knife on my best friend today because she used the key I keep for her to come into my apartment! I want to know what is going on in my town. Now. Are you in, T?” I glanced back over my shoulder to see Tatum.

             
“Where you goeth, so goeth I,” she answered regally.

             
He looked to me, then to Tatum. His eyes moved back to mine and lingered, studying my face. After a long cluster of moments, his eyes closed. He shook his head slowly side to side and let out a long sigh. “Fine. I’ll make a call. But call me before you leave and once you get there.”

I smiled and nodded over and over again.