9. The Magician
Chapter 9
The Magician
Sierra Escondida Police Department—The same night
T hey’d made no progress on the station break-in. Tig skimmed the report Jayden had prepared on his comparison of the repair tech’s fingerprint card, which arrived today, and the fingerprints on the alarm cabinet. No unidentifiable prints remained. The perp had used gloves.
The station phone rang, and Tig ignored the noise. She had a stack of paperwork to get through, and the last time she saw Jayden, he was working in the squad room, so he would answer the main line. But when he knocked at her office door, she laid aside the report. “What’s up?”
“You remember Janey, the woman who assisted Petar in his magic show? She’s at the guard gate with four other vampires. Strangers. She wants to meet with you.”
“She does?” Out of habit, Tig glanced at the clock and wrote the time on a notepad. It was almost midnight. “Why? And where’s Petar?”
“Not with them. I checked the gate camera monitor and compared them to the photos in V-Trak. The guys looked like members of Petar’s cauldron, but I’m not one hundred percent sure.”
Cauldron was another word for a colony of bats and used to describe a group of children created by one vampire, whereas a nest referred to a small community that wasn’t related. Later, she’d double-check her personal file on Petar. V-Trak contained little background on him and his progeny because he hadn’t signed the North American treaty. She had a bit more information tucked away, since she employed him as a confidential informant. “Okay, why does Janey want to meet?”
“She wouldn’t say why, just that she needed to. She mumbled something about how the guards can’t hear.”
Unease gripped Tig’s stomach. “So it has to be about vampires. Fuck. Tell the guards to let them through with directions to the station. When they get here, put them in the larger interview room. While you’re waiting, phone Liza and get her over here on standby, watching through the one-way glass. I don’t want to start with her in the room, but if there’s a problem, I’ll signal for her.”
Jayden gave a sharp nod of his chin. “I’m on it.”
Once the five guests were on their side of the long table, Tig walked into the stark room and scooted past the double-drawer file credenza, which sat beneath the one-way window, and got a good gander at the group.
The twenty-something mortal appeared more emo than she had last night, with heavy, dark eyeshadow and short, spiky hair dyed a stark black, which made her white skin seem even paler. Her bare arms were cloaked in tattoos—the long-sleeve assistant’s costume she’d worn had covered them—and nose and eyebrow rings adorned her face. She was maybe five foot three, a hundred and ten pounds.
Scabbed-over bite marks were visible above the tattoo of two blood trails that ran down her neck. Why hadn’t Petar healed the bites?
Jayden entered carrying a stun gun and taking his place next to Tig. He set the stunner in view on the conference room table.
Janey thinned her lips and eyed Tig in an unfriendly manner.
The four men shifted nervously, and each of them resembled the actor Keanu Reeves in his early movies, except their black hair ranged from straight to extremely curly. They were either actual brothers, or Petar had a type.
“I’m Police Chief Tigisi Anderson. Call me Tig—everyone else does. And this is Captain Jayden Johnson. How may we help you?” She took the chair across from the group.
Janey sat opposite Tig, with the guys standing behind her. “We want, like, asylum.”
“Really?”
“What, did I, like, use the wrong word? Petar said if anything happened, ask for asylum from… That. Fucking. Bitch .” Janey emphasized the beat of each word by swinging her head from side to side. “Like, that’s why we’re here. You owe us.”
Tig ignored the intended insult. Instead, the words if anything happened captured her entire focus. “Let’s start over. Where’s Petar?”
“Are you, like, stupid?” Janey’s eyes flooded with tears. “He’s in ashes.”
“You’re saying he’s dead?”
Fat tears finally escaped, running down Janey’s cheeks, smearing her black eyeliner. “Yeah.”
How is that possible ? Tig had just seen the magician two nights ago. He couldn’t be dead. But from the way Janey’s lips trembled and her tears flowed, it had to be true. Tig reached behind her, grabbed the tissue box off the credenza, and slid it across the table. “Please. Tell me what happened. From the start.”
Janey plucked out a tissue. “Like, we found a stake through Petar’s heart in his hotel room in Mordida.”
Damn the ancestors. “What did you do with his remains?”
“I put a Do Not Disturb sign on the door and locked it.”
Fear shot through Tig. She had to get there fast, to collect Petar before maids discovered the mummified vampire corpse. But she also had to understand what she was walking into. “How do we know you didn’t kill him while he slept?”
“Ask them.” Janey hooked a thumb toward her silent associates. “I sleep in a separate room. Petar never gives me the key when we travel. They know the drill.”
Tig leaned forward, looking into the young woman’s eyes.
Janey jumped to her feet and turned around. “No, you don’t!” The four vampires closed in to surround her. “You don’t get to mesmerize me. Petar taught me what to do.”
Apparently, being angry had erased the word like from her vocabulary. “I wasn’t trying to mesmerize you.” Tig tapped her fingers on the table. “But could one of you explain why a mortal is doing your talking?”
“I’ve got this. The name’s Brucie.” This version of the Keanu Reeves knockoffs had straight hair hanging past his earlobes. He patted Janey’s shoulder. “I’m in charge, now that Petar’s dead, except everything we own is in her name. Petar designed it that way so none of us would touch her.”
“And if they, like, want any of it, they got to make sure nothin’ happens to me.”
“I see. Everyone, please sit down,” Tig said. “We’ll arrange for asylum, if not here, then in another community. Assuming your alibis prove true.”
“Petar said to trust you”—Janey pointed at Tig through the thicket of vampires—“not some other group of freaks. Course, like, see where that got him. All because of what you told him at the wedding reception.”
“We don’t know Petar’s death had anything to do with that discussion.”
“Oh yeah? Then explain this.”
Janey pushed Brucie and another vampire aside and slammed her hand flat on the table. When she lifted it, a piece of paper with a Latin inscription lay there.
Tig translated the Latin into standard English and read the message out loud. “You should have minded your own business. I’m going to expose you to the world. Prepare for the vampire hunters coming your way.”
Vampire hunters? What. The. Fuck? They hadn’t had trouble from vampire hunters in decades. Had Petar somehow brought them to the Hill’s front door?
“That’s what Brucie said it meant. Petar was, like, minding his own business until you roped him in. Then he started making phone calls after the wedding, something about a silver stake, and now, poof. Dead.”
Calls? He’d made calls specifically asking about a silver stake after Tig told him to keep his mouth shut? She expected Petar to practice better discretion. He knew the risk of loose lips. After all, the asshole ran an illegal gambling operation—and she would have strangled him if he wasn’t already dead.
But even if the note was telling Petar he should’ve minded his business about the stake, what did it mean about being exposed? Did the killer expect Petar’s body to be found? Was this a threat to expose his cauldron? His casino?
“Who was at the hotel with Petar?” Tig asked.
“Just me.” Janey sniffed. “These four were watching the casino. Petar didn’t want to lose the income closing three nights would’ve cost us.”
That made some sense. But Tig would have to figure out a way to confirm the alibis of Brucie and the three silent stooges. “Why did you stay the extra night? The wedding was two nights ago.”
Janey stared at the tabletop, her chin quivering. “There’s an amusement park in Mordida with one of the tallest roller coasters. I, um, I wanted to go. Petar took me, like, as a thank you for doing the magic assistant thing. That’s not usually my job.”
Did she blame herself for keeping him there the extra night? What a heavy burden to carry. “How late were you at the amusement park?”
“Until they closed at eleven.” Janey plucked another tissue from the box, blotted her eyes, then disposed of the pile she’d accumulated in the trash can against the wall. “We went back to Petar’s room.”
Hmm . Should they check his credit card statements for the amusement park charge or ask Janey for the e-ticket later to confirm the timeline? Tig noted the details on the yellow pad in front of her and marked the narrative for follow-up. “Did he make any more calls about the stake then?”
“Yeah. But I got bored and went to my room—”
“What time?”
“Three-ish. So I don’t know how long after that he made calls. Th-that’s the last time I saw him.”
“I’m sorry.” Tig gave Janey a moment to blow her nose before asking the next question. “If you don’t have a key, how did you get into his room tonight?”
“Um, Brucie’s name was on the reservation too. Once he got there and showed ID, the front desk gave him a key.”
“Yeah.” Brucie ran a hand through his disheveled black hair, his eyes glossy with unused tears.
Were the tears real or meant to fool her? Tig nudged the box of tissues in his direction. “I understand how hard it is to talk about Petar’s death so soon, but I need more information about what happened if I’m going to solve his murder.”
Brucie grabbed a tissue, dabbed at his eyes, then cleared his throat. “Janey called around seven, panicked. Petar hadn’t come out of his room.”
“Wait. Sunset was at six-oh-two.” Tig focused her gaze on Janey. “What were you doing until seven?”
“Petar showers and dresses each night, takes him at least thirty minutes, so I grabbed an early dinner. I was in the hotel café between five thirty and six thirty, eating. Then I took the elevator back to our floor and knocked. He didn’t answer. I knocked louder. Didn’t work. I went back to my room and phoned, and it went to voicemail. I looked out my window and saw the van still in the parking lot, so I knew he hadn’t ghosted me. That’s when I called Brucie.”
So Janey was out of her room and hadn’t witnessed the murder—assuming the killer broke in shortly before sunset and she wasn’t lying. “Did you hear anything during the day?”
“Nope. I went to the amusement park again. They closed early for a private party or something. I came back to the hotel and went straight to the café. And I didn’t hear him moving around when I knocked. That’s what scared me. No sound of water running, nothing.”
“And after she phoned us, we drove to the hotel.” More tears glistened in Brucie’s eyes, and he played with the necklace he wore, which was made of brown wooden beads with an Egyptian ankh in the center. “That’s when we found Petar’s body.”
Oh great . So Brucie had access and could have conspired with Janey to kill Petar before driving to the Hill. “Who else knew he was in Mordida?”
“Besides the people who saw him perform at the wedding?” Janey asked.
Tig cringed. Janey was right. The perp could very well be one of the wedding guests. “Yeah, besides them.”
“Ugh.” Brucie gave a shrug. “Anyone who was in the casino the night before he left.”
“Why would they know—”
“He did a practice performance on our small stage. Bragged to everyone he was performing for Henry Bautista’s wedding.”
Dammit! Tig slumped in her chair and scrubbed a hand over her face. Petar may have signed his own death warrant.