How to Party with a Killer Vampire (10 page)

Brad shined his light on the man.

“What’s he saying?” I whispered to Brad.

I felt him shrug. He called out, “Hey, mister. You all right?”

Otto Gunther looked up, his face a mask of terror and pain in the beam of Brad’s flashlight.

“Leaving a grave open all night brings pestilence and death to everyone . . . everyone . . . everyone . . . ,” he mumbled.

“What are you talking about, Otto?” I asked as I took a few steps closer. As we neared him, Brad shined his light around Otto, no doubt checking for signs the old man might be hurt. I got another chill, thinking of Spidey. But Otto’s plaid shirt and overalls showed no signs of blood, nor did his face.

We stepped up the small rise that marked the front boundary of the pet cemetery and noticed a mound of dirt. Otto, I realized, was sitting at the edge of what looked like an open grave. The piled dirt looked fresh and moist in the beam of light. The hole was big enough for a large dog.

The back of my neck tingled as I peered over the edge.

Inside the freshly dug grave was a curled-up figure wearing a white mask and black cape—Dracula.

I gripped Brad’s arm, wanting to look away from unable to stop staring into the grave.

Brad glanced around the nearby grounds using his flashlight and picked up a long dry branch that had fallen from a rotting oak tree. He stuck it into the grave and slowly, carefully, hooked it under the mask. With a flick of his wrist, the mask flew off, revealing a bloodcovered head.

I gasped.

And then I recognized him—the paparazzo from TMI who’d tried to sneak into the party.

Apparently, he’d returned. Or maybe he never left.

Either way, how did he end up lying in a pet grave?

Brad and I looked at each other, then back down at the obviously dead body. No one walked away with a head wound like that. I don’t know how Brad kept his party food down, but mine was churning in my stomach like the Mad Tea Party ride at Disneyland. I held on to Brad’s arm until the spinning passed.

To distract myself, I looked at Otto. He still sat there, chanting his mantra: “Pestilence, pestilence, pestilence . . . death, death, death . . .”

Something glinted at his side—his shotgun.

Oh God. Had Otto shot the paparazzo? The guy had certainly threatened he would. Had he actually done it?

But wouldn’t we have heard the shot?

I tapped Brad to get his attention and nodded toward the gun. He caught my drift and stepped over to Otto. With a swing of his foot, he kicked the gun out of reach. I took a deep breath, switched on my iPhone flashlight app, and looked into the grave again, wondering if there were any gunshot wounds.

“Brad. Look,” I said, indicating the body.

Brad stepped over and knelt down, shining his flashlight over the dead man. After a quick examination, he focused the light on the guy’s head.

“No gunshot wounds,” he said.

He stood up and glanced around the area. I wondered what he was looking for. We’d already found Otto’s gun. Then Brad spotted something a few feet away and walked over, his flashlight leading the way. When he stopped and looked down, I followed him.

A shovel.

I remembered Otto had had a shovel with him earlier.

Brad shined the light on the back of the blade, revealing a smear of red.

Blood.

He stood up, pulled out his cell phone, and dialed 911.

 

In less than ten minutes the cemetery was once again crawling with Colma cops. One of the officers tried to question Otto, who continued to mumble incoherently. Two others interviewed Brad and me separately. I don’t know what kinds of questions he got, but mine from the female cop named Annie Wong were mostly routine:

What was I doing in the cemetery? (Having a party . . .)

Did I know the deceased? (Only that he tried to crash the party.)

Did I know the groundskeeper? (Met him last night when he told us to leave his property.)

Did I see anything unusual? (Nope.)

Did I know anyone who might have wanted the victim dead?

Lucas Cruz quickly came to mind.

There was no way I was going to give up Lucas at this point. I was certain he’d never kill anyone, especially not for just crashing a party. He channeled his anger through his visceral films.

“Not really,” I finally replied, wondering what Brad would give as an answer to that question.

Officer Wong flipped her notebook closed. “That’ll be all, Ms. Parker. We’ll call you if we need anything more.”

“Not so fast, Parker,” came an all-too-familiar voice from behind me.

“Oh great,” I mumbled, and turned around. The tall, good-looking man was dressed more for a dinner date than a crime scene investigation. That tailored suit did not come off the rack and those Italian shoes didn’t arrive via UPS from Shoe World. “Detective Melvin. What are you doing in Colma? Isn’t this a bit out of your jurisdiction?”

“Are you kidding, Parker?” Detective Luke Melvin said. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world. When I heard you were involved, I had to come. You know how much I enjoy investigating crimes when you’re the primary suspect.” He actually winked at me.

God, I really wanted to muss up his overgelled hair, but I was afraid he might arrest me for assault.

“Sorry to disappoint you, Detective, but I’m not a suspect, and I had nothing to do with this. In fact, it didn’t happen during my party.”

“If that’s true, it’ll be a first,” Melvin said, shooting his cuffs.

Brad sauntered over, and the two old friends gave each other some kind of complicated hand jive. “So they called you in?” Brad asked, avoiding my daggered stare.

“I was just telling Parker here, it’s a standing order,” Melvin said. “Anytime her name appears, I want in.” He flashed a perfect white smile at me and I wondered if he’d had his teeth sharpened as well as whitened. Well, he could just bite me.

“Look, Detective, I’m too tired to engage in witty repartee with you tonight. Arrest me or let me go home. The other officer has my statement. If you want more, call me in the morning.”

I glanced at Brad, who tucked in his chin, not wanting to get involved in the dislike-hate relationship between his cop friend and his “girlfriend.”

Physically and emotionally exhausted, I headed for the SUV to wait for Brad. I watched as the EMTs loaded the covered paparazzo’s body into the waiting ambulance. Next came Otto, in handcuffs. He was put in the back of a police unit, looking bewildered and frightened. In spite of his earlier anger and his superstitions, I suddenly felt sorry for the old man.

Brad followed a few minutes later.

“You want to crash at my place?” he said, starting the engine.

“I think I’ll just go on home, if you don’t mind,” I said. “Rain check?”

“Sure.”

He drove me to my condo in silence, both of us thinking about the evening’s events. There had been two deaths in the same cemetery in two nights. Were they related? I had no idea what a parkour kid could have in common with a paparazzo.

“Sleep tight,” Brad said after he pulled into my condo carport on Treasure Island. He leaned in and gave me a gentle kiss. “I’ll check on you tomorrow.”

I slipped out of the passenger seat, then leaned in through the window and asked Brad, “What’s going to happen to Otto?”

Brad shook his head. “We’ll see.”

I headed for my door with a nagging feeling in the back of my head.

 

Even though I was exhausted, my thoughts raced as I prepared for bed. By the time I dropped my tired body onto the mattress, I’d come to one conclusion: The deaths of Spidey the night before and the paparazzo tonight had to be related. But how?

I had to find out more about the two guys.

I knew Spidey was a friend of Duncan’s. He enjoyed doing parkour. He was an extra in Cruz’s film. He was at the cemetery the other night with two friends, Trace and Lark.

And he had supposedly fallen from a gravestone, hit his head, and died—alone.

I knew even less about Bodie Chase, the paparazzo. Lucas Cruz hated him for some reason. Chase had tried to sneak into the party, most likely to take unflattering pictures and gather embarrassing information on the film’s stars. He’d been run off the property, but apparently had returned later, in the form of Dracula. The mask had hidden his identity at the party.

And it looked as though he’d been hit over the head with Otto’s shovel and dumped into an open pet grave.

So, what did they have in common, besides being dead and having head injuries?

Could they have known each other? It was a long shot, but not impossible.

Lucas Cruz jumped to mind again. He hated Bodie Chase and had a restraining order against him. But had he hated him enough to kill him? Angelica Brayden and Jonas Jones also had a reason to get rid of him if he found out their secret. Not to mention Angelica’s husband—what was his name?

So how did any of this tie in with Spidey? None of it made sense.

Unless Lucas Cruz had a grudge against Spidey too. Cruz hired him as an extra in his movie. Maybe Spidey found out something during the filming that Cruz didn’t want made public?

Oh my God—
what was I thinking
?

Why was I trying to make a case against Lucas Cruz? While he wasn’t exactly a friend, I knew him well enough to know he wasn’t a killer.

Didn’t I?

“Enough!” I said to my cats, who had nestled onto my bed. I switched off the light, bid them good night, and closed my eyes for some much-needed sleep.

Solving a possible double homicide could wait until morning.

 

I woke the next morning to the sound of my doorbell ringing. Rolling over and covering my eyes from the sunny bedroom window, I stole a quick peek at the clock radio.

Nine!

I shot up like a rocket and double-checked the time. Nine oh one to be exact. That couldn’t be right. I never slept late. Too much to do.

Throwing a robe over my cat pajamas, I walked to the front door and peeped through the hole. Brad stood on the porch, lattes in hand, along with a white bakery bag. I started to drool just looking at that bag.

“These are getting cold!” he called through the door. I unlocked the three locks and yanked open the door.

Instead of stepping inside, Brad looked me up and down as I stood in my rumpled robe, PJs, and punk hair. He laughed, then leaned in and gave me a quick kiss.

“You’re just now getting up? No wonder you didn’t answer your phone.”

I pulled the door wide for him to enter. “Hey, I had a rough night, remember?”

He made his way to the small wooden table that divided the tiny kitchen from the tiny living area and set down the coffees. “But you never sleep this late. Are you sick?”

Hmm
. I felt my forehead. Maybe I
was
coming down with something. At least it wasn’t bloody, I thought, remembering last night’s discovery.

“Here. I brought you some medicine.” He put the white bag on the table and tore it open, revealing six fresh beignets, covered with powdered sugar.

My eyes just about popped out of my head. “Beignets! Where did you get them? Is there a secret Café du Monde hidden somewhere in the City that I don’t know about?”

I sat down, snatched one, and took a big bite—then I coughed, sending the white powder billowing into the air. In my hurry to fill my mouth with the crispy sweet confection, I had snorted a blast of powdered sugar. I must have looked like a desperate coke addict.

“Simmer down there, girl. You’re supposed to eat it, not inhale it.”

“Sorry,” I said, wiping my mouth with a napkin. “I haven’t had a real beignet since my mother hosted a Mardi Gras party years ago and flew them in from New Orleans. Where did you get them?”

“Brenda’s. On Polk. Near the Tenderloin.”

“I’ve never been there.” I took another bite, then said, “Zzs ur da di fur!” Translation: “These are to die for.”

Brad laughed at my bad manners. “You’ll have to try the chocolate ones. They’re filled with hot Ghirardelli chocolate. And the crawfish ones.”

I was about to lick my lips at the image of a chocolate-filled beignet when he said the word “crawfish.” I made a yuck face instead. “Stop talking. Let me enjoy my beignet.”

Once we’d had our fill of the donutlike treat, I brought up the subject that had been on my mind since last night.

“Did you talk to Detective Melvin? Any news about the dead guy?”