Helens-of-Troy (27 page)

The weight of her shoulder against the
old door actually managed to break one of the decorative panels.
Helen slid her hand through the splintered wood and released the
lock from inside Helena’s room.

“Helen, noooo...” she heard Helena
scream.

“It’s okay,” Helen assured her “I’ll be
right there to help you. That bastard doesn’t know who he is
dealing with.”

She entered the room and immediately
the adrenalin in her body began to pump. Her vision quickly
adjusted to the candlelight in the room, and she saw him,
illuminated by a flicker of light on the wall. He had straddled
Helena’s body like a deranged killer about to snuff the life from
her.

“Get off her,” Helen screamed, leaping
onto his back.

Before he could turn around, she hit
him with an uppercut to the head that knocked the senses out of
him. She rolled him on to his back, ready to deliver a left to his
jaw, just to keep him from uttering any useless pleas of mercy. She
couldn’t wait to see the stunned look on that smug face of his when
he finally realized who his attacker was.

“Uh-oh,” she said, pulling back on her
follow-up punch.

“Hellsbelles!” her mother shrieked.
“What in the name of Hades did you do that for?”

“I thought it was Willie,” Helen
gasped, her hand going over her mouth.

“Willie? What would Willie be doing in
my bedroom? That’s Roy!”

“I can see that now,” Helen sighed.
“What’s he doing here...oh...oh...”

“Roy...are you all right?” Helena
asked, giving him a gentle shake. “Helen, go get me some water and
some ice. Don’t just stand there gawking at us.”

Helen sheepishly headed back towards
the bathroom. How was she to know her mother was entertaining in
the boudoir?

She took a facecloth from the towel
rack and rinsed it in cold water. What if it really had been
Willie? Did Helena stop for a minute to consider that? She had only
been trying to protect her. And speaking of consideration, did
Helena stop for a minute to consider that there was a teenaged girl
in the house? Obviously not! What if Ellie had walked in on the two
of them? Seeing your own mother with her legs apart waiting for her
man was bad enough. Imagine if it were your grandmother.

“We are sooo going to talk about this,”
Helen seethed. She reached for the plastic cup on the sink and
poured water into it before storming back down the hall. Helena
could have got him some water herself. She still had to check on
Ellie, and the two lovers had already caused her an unnecessary
delay. All the commotion probably woke Ellie up.

Helena gently lifted Roy up and cradled
him in her arms. “I am so sorry, Roy. You would have thought she’d
gotten the hint when the door was locked.”

“What hit me?” he asked.

“You were belted by one hundred and
forty pounds of Hurricane Helen.”

“Who taught her how to fight? She
should become a pro-wrestler.”

“I did,” Helena said. “But I’m not
particularly proud of her right now. We are sooo going to talk
about this,” she echoed.

Sunday...

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

It was only 5:30 in the morning, but
already people were starting to gather outside the police station.
They were waiting for Roy Cohen to show up. To show up with
answers. You couldn’t hush up the murder of a child in a small
town, particularly if it wasn’t the only one that had happened. It
now looked like Troy had a serial killer on its hands.

The jail at the police station was
minimum security at best. It had been designed as a temporary
holding station, not a permanent address. Serious offenders were
normally transported by the paddy wagon to the jail in the city.
Everyone knew that. So why was the man they had elected as Chief of
Police, keeping Ryan Lachey—pervert that Ralph Wildman had always
said he was—still within Troy’s town limits? This was hard for them
to understand.

Small towns being what they are, a good
percentage of the gathered crowd had been in the police station at
some point in their life. It didn’t take them long to remember
which side of the building the lone jail cell stood. They began to
hurl rocks at the south wall.

“Fuck,” Ryan said. He had a sleepless
night, tossing and turning and wondering if the vampire was going
to pay him another visit. “I guess it’s wake-up time.”

“You crazy bastard,” a voice outside
said loudly. “We don’t take kindly to child murders in Troy. We
don’t care if you molested them or not. We’re going to castrate
you, cut your femoral artery and hang you by your feet until you
bleed to death, you son-of-a-bitch.”

“Great,” Ryan sighed. They had said
murders, plural. That meant the vampire had been true to his words
and Kevin was dead. It also meant Stan was in serious
danger.

He sat up and reached for the box of
toaster strudel. It would have been nice if Purdy had left him a
toaster to put them in, but that hadn’t happened. Maybe it was a
safety measure or maybe Purdy was just being a prick. He wasn’t
sure. He bit into the cold blueberry pastry anyway. It was rather
dry, but the sweet filling gave him an instant sugar
rush.

The front door of the police station
opened and Ryan was somewhat relived to see Purdy standing before
him with a bag from the 24 hour convenience store.

“What are you doing back here this
early?” Ryan asked. “Don’t they ever give you any time
off?”

“Not under the circumstances,” Purdy
said, handing Ryan a hot breakfast burrito. “Here. I thought you
might like something a little more substantial.”

Ryan was puzzled by Purdy’s sudden
random act of kindness.

“Thanks,” he said, reaching for the
paper wrapped meal. “That’s decent of you, dude.”

Purdy nodded. The events of the past
twenty-four hours had not totally exonerated Ryan’s guilt in his
mind, but he had to acknowledge there was now room for a margin of
error. He might be guilty of one murder, but not two.

“Isn’t there some law against leaving
me alone in here?” Ryan asked. “What if there was a fire or
something?”

Purdy pointed at the massive sprinklers
above Ryan’s head.

“What if I had a medical
emergency?”

“Then I would have had three bodies to
contend with. It gets to the point when you start to lose count,”
Purdy snapped. “You weren’t totally on your own. I had the alarm
company monitoring you.”

“The police station has an alarm
company?”

“We live in trying times.”

“They can’t see me whiz, can
they?”

“No.”

“Where are the Dayton boys?” Ryan
asked. He hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the twin constables since he
had been confined. “Don’t they work here anymore?”

“I’ve been wondering the same thing,”
Purdy admitted, tossing Ryan a carton of juice from the same
bag.

“Cohen should fire their
asses.”

“That’s kind of hard to do right now.
We’re a little busy.”

“What happened to Betty and my
brother?” Ryan asked between bites.

“Betty’s still at the hospital. Stan
stayed on my couch last night. I woke Jacey Sumner up at the crack
of dawn and she’s watching him over at your house now. I didn’t
think that seeing you locked up was going to foster any tender
sibling moments between the two of you.”

“Dude, you can’t leave him with
Jacey.”

“Why not? Roy said she’s looked after
him before.”

“We’re talking about supermodel Jacey,
right? She’s not going to be able to help him if some nutcase tries
to grab him. She’s not going to scuff her shoes for
nobody.”

“She’s just watching him for a few
hours. I’m off at noon, whether the Dayton boys show up or not, and
I’ll take him again until your mom’s released. He’ll be safe until
then.”

“Safe?”

“He’ll be okay.”

“You said ‘safe’.”

Ryan studied Purdy’s body language. His
hands were on his hips in a stance that was too girly for the
hard-assed cop Ryan knew Purdy was. It was the same stance his
mother often took when the truth wasn’t particularly
convenient.

“Holy shit,” Ryan exclaimed. “You
believe me, don’t you?”

“No. I don’t.”

“Yeah, you do. You don’t want to
believe me, but you’re starting to. What happened after you left
here?”

“That’s classified
information.”

“Not if it involves Stan it’s not. If
my Ma’s in the hospital, I’m his next of kin.”

“You’re in jail,” Purdy reminded him.
“This isn’t a country club despite your private residence. And as
far as I know you dad is still alive. You’re not his next of
kin.”

“But my dad’s not here. I’m here,” Ryan
reminded Purdy. “Are you going to formally charge me with
something, or not? You’re going to have to let me go soon if you
don’t.”

A rock smashed through the large office
window. It had a note attached to it with string. Purdy picked it
up off the floor, unraveled it and showed Ryan the picture that had
been drawn on the back of a paper trash bag. It showed an effigy of
a football player hanging from a tree.

The artwork angered Ryan. “They got my
jersey number wrong. How could they fucking get my number wrong?
I’m the star of the team. Shit.”

Purdy forced a smile. “Understand now?
Even if we were to let you out, I’m thinking you wouldn’t get very
far. In case you haven’t heard, there’s a mob out there waiting to
kill you.”

“Well... shouldn’t you go out there and
tell them to fuck-off or something?”

“My job is to stay in here and protect
you, oddly enough.”

“You have to let me out.”

“That’s not going to
happen.”

“I have to protect my
brother.”

“I said I had it covered,” Purdy
insisted, turning on his computer and checking his email. The
logical part of his brain was still trying to process what he had
seen last night, everything from the horrific discovery of the
child’s body to the teenager who vanished into thin air.

“He was here yesterday,” Ryan blurted
out. “The dude of darkness. He said he was going after
Stan.”

That got Purdy’s attention. “What do
you mean, here?”

“In my fucking cell,” Ryan began. ”He
said he killed Kevin and he was going after Stan next.”

“Who the hell have you been talking
to?” Purdy asked. Up until that point, he assumed Ryan believed the
mob outside only wanted to lynch him for the girl’s murder. But it
was clear now that Ryan knew about both killings.

“I just fucking told you. The dude of
darkness.”

“He was here? In your cell?” Purdy
asked. “Let’s say I believe you for a nano-second. Every piece of
vampire lore I have ever read, or watched on television says you
have to invite them in. Would you have been stupid enough to do
that? Invite him into the jail?”

Ryan thought back. “Maybe.”

“Well smarten up next time. Ask him to
leave.”

Purdy checked the answering service for
messages. There were none that demanded his immediate attention. He
had hoped the Clarks would have checked in. They hadn’t been home
last night so he hadn’t been able to tell them about the death of
their son. That loomed heavily on his mind. Where the hell were
they, and why weren’t they wondering where Kevin was?

He then read through a few of the
emails that had come in overnight. “How can I have over
three-hundred messages?” he remarked. “Maybe I should just delete
the ones with your name in the header followed by variations of the
verb ‘dismember.’” He minimized the program on his computer screen
and looked pensively at his prisoner. “So, what did he look like,
this dude of darkness?”

“Skinny. My age. Long black hair. Black
jean jacket.”

Another rock came crashing through the
window, landing on the floor beside the officer’s left
foot.

“Okay. I’ve had enough of this
bullshit,” Purdy said, picking it up and removing the note attached
to it. He opened it, read it, and stood up. “You hold that
thought,” he said to Ryan, “while I go outside and find the guy who
drew me a picture of your mid-range anatomy with a grenade attached
to it.”

As he opened the front door, Purdy saw
Tom Williams trying to decide whether to come in or not.

“Can I talk to Ryan?” Tom
asked.

“Can you draw a grenade?” Purdy
asked.

“Uh, no.”

“Then go on in,” Purdy said. “But make
it a short conversation and stay by the door where I can see you. I
don’t have time to frisk you.” He surveyed the crowd. “You! Michael
McMann. Stay put. You can’t draw stick people any better now than
you could in grade one. I’d know your crappy art
anywhere.”

Tom walked in and looked at Ryan. “Is
he for real?”