Fiona Frost: Order of the Black Moon (51 page)

“Mr. LeMorte!
This is Detective Chase.
Do you have a minute to speak with us?” he shouted from the thresho
ld as he
gazed inside the house.

Dimitri fumbled for the remote and turned off the television.
H
e was
ill.
The room was a mess with tissues scattered about the floor,
half-
empty water bottles
everywhere
and plates of
barely
touched
food piled at the edge of the couch on the floor.

“Come in
,” he mumbled in a pseudo foreign accent through the muffled haze of his illness.

We cautiously
entered
the home
.
The house smelled rank, as stale cigarettes and aged trash.

“Mr. LeMorte, I am here to speak to Melanie Newsted.
Do you know when she’ll be home?”

“She’s at the prison.
At work,” he coughed.

“She was switched to the day shift?”

“She’s always worked
days;
don’t you do your homework, Detective
?
”
he
struggled to answer.

“
Y
ou look awful.
Would you like for us to call for medical assistance?”

“No, of course not.
A Nosfu Vampire doesn’t use conventional Western medicinal practices
.
We do not need to.
My body is only transitioning from my last expedition to the underworld,”
he s
aid in a loud whisper
, coughing
.

“
W
asn’t Melanie at work the night of the
staged
murder scene at the Arles Cave?
She had told police that she was at work that night.
At the prison.”

Dimitri narrowed his eyes and barked out a laugh, followed by a violent cou
g
hing fit.

“No, she wasn’t at work, Detective.
You should realize something else
about Mel, by the way.
She never laid a hand on Vic.
She nearly went to jail for child abuse, couldn’t get enough money for the lawyers to get
Vic
back from the
Thomas’s
.
Vic’s angry she had to be a foster kid,
still
blames Mel.”

“You’re saying that Melanie Newsted never abused Victoria yet she was charged with it?”

“That’s what I said, didn’t stutter.
That babysitter called the CPS on Mel
the day she found out Vic’s teacher at school had inquired about the bruises on her hands and Vic
said
she was beat
en
with spoons. Vic was too young, confused, didn’t tell the story right
. Perfect scenario for that
babysitter to lie and confuse the situation. That
babysitter was beating Vic
, not Mel
,”
he
said.

“Who was the babysitter?”

“Jody James.
But s
he can’t do
it to anybody again, Detective,”
he
sat up, propping himself
with
pillows.

“Thank you, Dimitri
.
Will you leave Melanie a message to contact me when she gets
home?
I’ll leave my card right here on this table,” he placed his business card on
the
black
lacquered
table by the front door.

“
I will,
”
he
cracked, adjusting
himself
on the couch and fidgeting with the remote.

Detective Chase secured the front door and as we were walking back to the car,
a
n elderly
woman
, a neighbor,
rushed over to
wards
us.

“Look at this,”
the woman
crooned
, hobbling, waving a photograph in the air.

He
accepted the picture from her,
examined it, and
handed it back to her.

“Cute.
Y
our grandkids?”
he inquired, placating her.

“
Yes, they are,” she cracked a smile. “But that isn’t why I want you to see this.
I was
real good
friends with
Jody
James’ mother before she passed away
last year
, she had a brain tumor, lost her mind the last few months
.
But
I told her I’d look out for Jody once she
was gone
.
Right
there,” she pointed to the corner of the picture with a bony finger. “The street.”

I peered over Detective Chase’s shoulder at the picture.
T
wo kids
smiling
on the sidewalk, one in a pink dress and the other in a navy sweater and khaki pants.
I
moved my eyes to the
bottom corner of the picture.
It was a rectangular dry spot on the street
, where a
car had been parked.

“When was this picture taken, ma’am?”

“Around
nine in the morning
,
a
bout
seven
hours after
poor Jody was murdered
.
I’ve been following the case in the papers and on the television, Detective
, feel so horrible about it. Jody was such a good girl
, a loving child
;
her mother loved her so. When I got my pictures of my grandkids back from Walgreens
this morning
, well, I noticed th
at
dry spot
and
thought it was weird right off the bat.
I’m in the citizen crime watch in the neighborhood, and we’ve held
meetings about this case—we know
they were suspects over there in that house. We also know
where everybody in that house said they were
the night of the murder
. The Devil lives
in that house
, Detective, you should know that. Well, looks like somebody
was spouting lies, nevertheless
.”

The detective
turne
d to face Wolfe and me.

He whispered, “If this
picture was taken
seven
hours after the murder,
t
his means
a car
had
shielded the
light rain, heavy mist,
during
the
early morning hours
—
around the time of
the murder
.
A car
had to have been
parked there in front of the Newsted house
during that time
.
You can see the back end of
Dimitri’s car
in the driveway,” he pointed to the picture
as he spoke
.
“Victoria doesn’t drive,” he added.

“Melanie
must
park in front,” Wolfe said, pointing at the street
.
“O
il stains on the pavement
. She must park
there
regularly.
Where
did she say she was the
night of the murder
?
”

“She
said she
was out of town, at
a
craft festival.
Story checked out with a gas station receipt and then with receipts from the festival.”

“Well,
a car was
there
that night
and left by
9 AM
.”

“Thank you for your help, ma’am. May we keep this picture? I will make sure it gets returned to you after we solve the case.”

“Oh, yes. Please do. Thank you, Detective,” she crowed, nodding before she hobbled away.

After we
had driven
back to my car,
Wolfe
rode with me
to my house
for
a warm batch of
Janice
c
ookies
. Once we settled in
,
we
delved
right
into
facts, sorting through the piles of evidence
.
We organized an
evidence sheet for the next afternoon’s lab meeting
,
where we would discuss the case in
detail
and try to give the police something that they could use in the investigation.
Difficult to work alongside Wolfe with stolen gazes and flirtatious remarks, I did my best to keep our attention focused on the case.

9:45 PM, my phone rang. Carden Doyle.
Cringing,
I shook my head
as
I
slid
the p
hone onto my nightstand, silencing the ringer.

“
T
his can
’
t be good
.
I guess the date with Maddie didn’t work out
,
and he
’s
calling me for advice.
The last thing I want to do is get in the middle of a new relationship.
If Maddie wants to talk, she’ll call me. Since she hasn’t called, she’s probably too mad to talk about it right now.
”

I
lunged for my window, gazing across the side yard at her house. Her lights were off;
I assumed
she
had
sulked
herself to sleep
.
I checked to see if he left a voicemail, he did, so I played it on the speaker.

“Fiona, this is Carden Doyle.
I don’t mean to bother you, but I
need
to talk about Maddie
.
I just don’t understand her.”

“Knew it!”

After
Wolfe
had
left my house
, I
planted my feet in front
of
Haley’s
door, lightly knocking
until she responded, telling me to enter.
Janice had asked me to allow her to rest for the night, but I needed to see her.
I
took slow steps inside. She was propped upright with
pillows, her eyes blackened from her
head
injur
y
.
The
television was on, volume
barely audible.
I crossed her room, kneeling by her bed, afraid to touch it in case I moved it and hurt her.

“Haley, I wanted to thank you for saving me.
Y
ou didn’t have to do
what you did.
I appreciate it.”

Her
platinum curls
, some still coated with dried blood, poked
out from
the bandage
wrapped around her head
.
She squinted her
puffy eyes and nodded.

“It’s cool, Fiona.
Y
ou’d do the same for me,” she mumbled.

At first, I wasn’t sure if that was a true statement
,
and I felt like a horrible person, rotten to my core. After reasoning the scenario, I realized I
would have done
the same
for her
, but maybe after a brief hesitation.

“So you’re not going to New Zealand now, huh?”

“No, but I’m gonna go home to New Jersey as soon as I can fly.
I hate that alternative school
.
I
know
if I keep g
ettin’ in trouble
, I’ll end up in prison.
After
lookin’
into that
dude
’s eyes, I realized
those people are
really scary
and
I’m not one of
‘
em, don’t belong there.
I’m gonna start actin’ right,”
she lamented with a r
emorseful
tone
.

“I’m glad to hear that, Haley.
I hope your head doesn’t hurt t
oo
badly
,” I said ruefully
, standing up
.

“I deserve it for what I’ve said
‘
bout your family, Fiona.
I didn’t mean any of it.
I was just tryin’ t’
get under your skin,” she said in a crackled voice.
“
I’m
sorry
.
For
everything.”

“Apology accepted.
Well, take care of yourself
,
and I know Janice will make sure you get what you need,” I said, hearing footst
eps shuffling down the hallway.

I stepped out of
her
room
,
Janice
shooting
me a cautious glare.
I had disobeyed her orders.

“G’night
, Janice
!”

“Good night, my sweet Fiona!
”
she
said
, popping into Haley’s room
with a pill bottle and a glass of water
in hand
.

I threw my pajamas on,
hurled myself into
bed
,
and the next thing I
can recall
, I was rushing around to get ready for school.

I swiped open
the
drapes
,
and
the
light rays
scattered from behind white, puffy clouds.
T
he glass of my window
had
a
slight
chill
—
the setting for
a
perfect
day.

Receiving my
daily report from Detective Chase
, I
was shocked
as I read they
had discovered a bag of bloody clothes in a field outside of the cave
, the
DNA from the
clothes
was
a
match to the staged murder
.
I called him in haste, knowing I had a limited time
before I had to get to school.

“Detective!”

“Hi Fiona, so you read the report, huh?
We had a busy night last night.”

The crime lab never slept, especially their
fearless, workaholic
leader. It seemed they worked around the clock during an active case. I realized why they were
all
addicted to caffeine.

Attempting to put the final touches on my makeup
while standing in front of
my dresser, I put the phone on speaker
.

“What is the deal with the
bloody
clothes?”

“
T
he suspect put on the clothes and positioned themselves on
the altar
in the Dracul’s Den to stage
the
copycat murder.
A second suspect poured the blood on them, most likely on the chest region as that is where the
bloodstains
are concentrated on the shirt.
The blood seeped down onto
the altar
and made the
outline
of a body
.”

“Wow, yea
h
,
makes sense.
What
was the size
of the clothes
—
men’s
or
women’s
?”

“Women’s clothing, size
eight
—
a white
button-up
shirt and jeans.
The lab
’s searching
for trace evidence
on the clothes and in the cave
.
They
made a match to some sediment in the cave in the Open
Council
Room.
T
he suspect
must have washed off the residual blood from their hands prior to removal of the clothes.
The sediment was found on the
bottom
side of the shirt
and the
jeans;
most likely, they wiped their hands on their
clothes
to dry them.”

Grabbing my blush brush, I
made a
couple of soft strokes on my cheeks
t
o add some color
before
putting my glasses back on.
I still wasn’t very good at applying makeup, so I tried to stay as minimal as possible.

“
Sediment from the cave?
”

“
Yes,
appears so.  We’ll
refer to Maddie’s analysis, as well as ours—the two reports are very similar
, by the way
.
Tell her I said good job.
It
would be nice to nail down exactly where this suspect was
standing
along the river
when they washed their hands
,
so we can fine tune where to search for additional evidence.”

“
Your
report also says
that the gloves found in the
orb room
had
blood on them, matching Jody James, correct?”

“Yes, these gloves were found during the initial investigation but due to an oversight in my lab, they were overlooked until now.
My new serology techs are a mess, one of the new hires made a mistake.
”

“Oh
, well,
we’re
all human and at least he caught his oversight.
So, it matches Jody James.
What do the gloves tell us?”

“They are a women’s medium, rigid, slender fingers.
There is no way that Emily Vance could have fit her thick, stumpy fingers into these gloves
,
so they don’t belong to her.
There was no evidence found on the gloves beside
s
the victim’s blood, but we can assume the murderer’s fingerprints are not likely to b
e on the sword if the murderer wore
these gloves,”
Detective Chase said, his voice animated.

“And it would explain, somewhat, how the victim’s blood got into the Room of Orbs, right?”

I surveyed my room, gathering my things I
needed for
school
, grabbing my backpack. I set out for the kitchen.

“
The murderer could have thrown them in there on their way out, but it doesn’t
make
much
sense that a murderer would intentionally leave evidence behind.
For some reason, the murderer might have gone into the Room of Orbs after murdering the victim.
Remember, Emily Vance was in there, knocked out with chloroform.
T
here is bound to be blood on the suspect’s clothes
from the murder
—we’re looking for another set of bloody clothes
.”

“I would think the murderer would have destroyed that evidence by now, huh
?
”
I said in a blunt tone.

“If they were smart, but possibly, they might be too scared to try to destroy it – for fear of being caught in the act
or of somebody finding it
.
I’m going to Dimitri LeMorte’s house
again this afternoon – you in?”

“Yes, of course.
I’m off to school, I’ll see you later!”

I sent a text to Maddie to invite her to come along
, but
I didn’t get an immediate response
. Checking the time,
I reasoned she
was probably
at
soccer practice.

“Good morning, Fiona!” my mother said, ambling into the kitchen and approaching me for a long hug.

“Good morning,
M
other!”
I said, countering her tiny frame with a tight embrace.

She reached up to
wards
my hair, swiping the strands from my face and placing them behind my ears.

“How are you doing?
Are you feeling
alright
after what
happened?
Dad and I
just realized you were never examined by
the paramedics after the attack.
Should we have you checked out?
I feel horrible all of our attention has been on Haley.
”

“Absolutely not!
All he did was point a gun at me, I’m a little mentally shaken, but it will heal with time.
I’m fine,
M
om.
Please don’t worry about me.
I need to
head off to school, love you!”

I lied.
I had multiple bruises where he pressed the gun
to
my chest and on my leg where it slammed against the frame of my sofa.
The worst
discoloration
was on my wrist where he grabbed me with the force of five men.
My mother didn’t need to know about these injuries, for there was nothing she could do but
stew about it. Haley needed her full attention.

“Love you, Fiona,” she said in a daze, grabbing the newspaper and removing the rubber band.

“Breakfast
!
Your favorite,
Fiona,
chocolate chip pancakes with a whipped cream face
,” Janice sang cheerfully from the hallway
, returning from
tending to Haley.
“Over there, dear.
No getting away!”

“Thank you.
I better hurry though, I was on a call with Detective Chase that made me behind a bit,” I smiled,
hurrying
to the dining room table.

I
inhaled
my favorite
breakfast
and rushed outside to the circle d
rive, searching for Agent Bronson
in the driveway before realizing what I was doing. I missed him.

before rushing off to school
.
English was
never-ending
,
h
istory was a drag, and
c
omputer
a
p
plications
class
seemed to last an eternity.
Even in the hallways, s
chool
dredged
by
ultra-slowly
.
The highlight
of the day
was
c
alculus
with Wolfe across the aisle.
I
thought
about what Maddie had
said
—I
should
accept my
feelings
,
and
that
I only lived once
, but he
was giving
me guarded smiles
.
I
realized
he was suppressing his
thoughts of
me
,
per my
unspoken
request
,
and I appreciated that
.
B
ut a
t the same time, it sad
dened me, and I was worried his thoughts of
me
would wane with time
,
and he would fall for somebody else, leaving
me
in the dust.
A viable risk.